I've been asked by several people what we should do about the Muslim Brotherhood, if it's as big a threat to the US as I think it is -- which is to say, if that "general strategy" memo recovered in an FBI raid and introduced into evidence at the Holy Land Foundation trial is still valid.
My first response is simply this: we need to have a full public investigation of the Brotherhood and its operations in the United States. Congress should get involved. Let's not depend on fragments of evidence, and denials by Muslim leaders. Let's bring the heads of organizations identified by the Department of Justice as connected with the Muslim Brotherhood -- including CAIR, MAS and ISNA, among others -- and have them testify under oath in Congressional hearings about their connections to the Brotherhood and its "civilizational-jihadist" philosophy. Let's bring in FBI counterterrorism experts in to testify, and academic experts. We need a full airing of this issue. If these organizations are clean, then they will benefit by the public exoneration. But if they aren't, then it is absolutely vital that the American public understand what we're dealing with -- and take proper measures to combat it, within constitutional guidelines.
Joseph Myers, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, offers a more detailed set of recommendations. Excerpt:
The Muslim Brotherhood by virtue of its activities constitutes a current and continuing "threat to public safety." Law enforcement intelligence is a distinct category from national security intelligence. Law enforcement intelligence requires a "criminal predicate" or expectation of a violation of domestic laws commensurate with the protection of civil liberties. The Muslim Brotherhood as a latent insurgency, as part of the global jihad espousing the ideology of jihadism to destroy American civilization, with objectives overlapping al-Qaida's and a history of material support to terrorism, should be presumed to be a current and continuing criminal racketeering activity. They should be targeted just like the mafia.
RICO, anyone?
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While it sounds like the Smith Act that MI points out
http colon slashslash en dot wikipedia dot org backslash wiki backslash Smith_Act
is more what Rod is seeking in the way of a legal knight in shining armor than RICO, Yates
http colon slashslash en dot wikipedia dot org backslash wiki backslash Yates_v. _United_States
would seem to make it problematic unless there was evidence, for example, audio/video recordings and/or undercover witnesses that could substantiate a compelling case that the sort of jihad rhetorically advocated in the MB documents in the HLF trial was actually being promulgated to others as a practical planning strategy, say in a mosque or residence or elsewhere. Even then, it would seem likely a defense would be attempted on grounds of selective enforcement if MB members were prosecuted on the basis of advocating jihad while, for example, devotees of UTA Professor Jose Angel Gutierrez
http colon slashslash www dot youtube dot com backslash watch?v=aSmNEupHWjs
and others who advocate systematic reconquista, violently or non-violently, were not.
Ironically, while as DU says
We're not dealing with a mechanized army or or a nation-state per se, so using the military like we have been doing all over the world is the wrong tool for the job. Treating criminal rings for what they are and not as a wildly inflated "existential threats" sounds like a wise way to fight them.
which I agree with and have repeatedly tried to painstakingly differentiate hereabouts from incipient and actual religious bigotry toward Islam as a religion, of three randomly to-be-compared candidates for prosecution under RICO, while the Catholic Church might actually qualify legally (although an obvious non-starter for political reasons) for its sexual abuse cases to the extent that criminal convictions rather than civil actions for sexual abuse did or might still obtain; and while, say, MALDEF, many U.S. businesses, and even the U.S. government itself remain in flagrant multiple violation of 8 USC:
http colon slashslash www4 dot law dot cornell dot edu backslash uscode backslash html backslash uscode08 backslash usc_sec_08_00001324----000- dot html
the MB with all the potential problems ascribed to it doesn't yet rise to the RICO test.
In sum, we, having slacked on enforcing our own laws repeatedly, may have a contemporary backlog of legal precedent to lay down elsewhere before we have a solid enough legal footing to proceed against the MB in the way Rod advocates.
"Invoking McCarthyism promiscuously doesn't make the threat, if there is a threat, go away, and it shouldn't silence criticism."
And similarly, invoking the specter of violent jihad with the discovery of every bellicose policy paper will not make the threat - if there is one - go away. I agree that McCarthy went too far. You seem to be taking your style tips from him. If it should come to congressional hearings on the MB, Islam, jihad, etc. let's strive to acheive some sort of balance, and at least acknowledge the role that the Israel Lobby, the ongoing occupation of Palestine and sloppy US foreign policy plays.
Rod, I'm still interested in what further light you might be able to shed on the Bryant complaint, from having fully or partially covered the trial as Myers suggested, or otherwise.
In all fairness, I was only interested (still am) in the Bryant complaint, and in any event Rod's career as a pundit is one charged with providing opinion and perspective, not that of a journalist charged with consistently reporting facts in pursuit of objective truth.
Vulgar, but the best strategy is kill them all
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