Real reason D.C. embraces Muslim Brotherhood

A former lead prosecutor of the terrorists behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center says he finds it "very troubling" that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's close aide worked under a "known terrorist sponsor" and that Washington's bipartisan ruling class is coming to accept the Muslim Brotherhood.

Andrew McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York who is now with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told WND's Greg Corombos in a radio interview, "I think it's all very troubling."

He said the family of Clinton aide Huma Abedin has been involved in the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, or IMMA, since the late 1970s.

"That outfit was started, it looks like, with the sponsorship of a guy named Abdullah Omar Naseef, who is connected to al-Qaida, who has been connected to financing of al-Qaida," he explained. "He ran not only the Muslim World League, which is the front of Muslim Brotherhood ideology, but also something called the Rabita Trust, which not only is a designated terrorist organization under American law, but it was actually run for a time by one of the guys who's a founder of al-Qaida."

McCarthy noted that the IMMA has published a journal for several years, and Abedin worked in a top position for that publication.

"I go through that history because, on the very journal that Ms. Abedin herself was affiliated with as an assistant editor – from 1996 almost up until the time when she joined the State Department in 2009 – this fellow, Naseef, was an adviser on the board of that very publication," he said. "We actually have her working in the same institution at the same place as a known terrorist sponsor. So this isn't just like a casual '6 degrees of separation' thing from some obscure Muslim Brotherhood figure."

McCarthy recently wrote an in-depth analysis of Abedin's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood published on PJ Media.

Likewise, WND senior staff reporter Aaron Klein has detailed Abedin's ties to the Saudi-financed Islamic think tank alongside Naseef.

However, McCarthy was quick to note: "Nobody who's questioning the influence of Ms. Abedin – and, particularly, the propriety of her getting a security clearance under the circumstances – is claiming that she's the policy maker. The policy in the administration is made by President [Obama] and his top Cabinet people and his top advisers and Secretary Clinton. I don't think anyone is saying that Huma Abedin is responsible for a big shift in American policy."

Rather, McCarthy argued, Washington's elite – members of both political parties – is responsible for increasing acceptance of the Muslim Brotherhood as a purportedly peaceful secular organization.

"The Bush administration, particularly in the second term, had become overly friendly and sympathetic to Islamist movements, in terms of trying to push ahead with what I've always regarded as well-intentioned, but not well-conceived, Islamic democracy projects," he said. "I think what Obama has done, as he has done in many different instances, is capitalize or metastasize a mistake that Bush made. I think Obama and a lot of people in his administration, including Secretary Clinton, had pretty pro-Islamist leanings in the first place."

However, McCarthy said Americans should not be fooled by the presentation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a peaceful organization because it is just as radical and just as much of a terrorist organization as ever.

"I think what's really going on is the Muslim Brotherhood hasn't changed a whit," he said. "If anything, they're more efficient than they were decades ago. But their goals have never changed. Their ideology has never changed.

"Every time they say they don't have anything to do with terrorism, remember that Hamas, which is a terrorist organization, is the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian branch. Also remember that, when they see the killings of non-Muslims by Muslims – particularly in places like Israel, which they regard as an interloper and illegitimate power, etc. – they don't regard that as terrorism. They call that 'resistance.' So they can be all for bombings in Israel and look you straight in the eye and tell you they're anti-terrorism – and mean it – because, in their minds, they don't see it as terrorism anyway.

"So the Brotherhood hasn't changed. What I think has changed is that it's obvious that American policy, not just in this administration but going back a number of administrations, has been in many ways enabling of the Muslim Brotherhood. I think Obama has really turned up the speed on that.

"But they're now left with an outcome where the Muslim Brotherhood is actually going to take over the governments of a number of the countries in the region. I've always felt when they say the Brotherhood is secular, it's just a political organization, etc., when it's clear that the Brotherhood hasn't changed at all, what you have are American leaders who are preparing the political ground for failure. They're going to be stuck with the fait accompli that the Muslim Brotherhood is going to be in charge and, therefore, in a situation where either people are going to blame them for something very bad that has happened, or they have to try to make people see it a different way. So they've opted for the latter."

Democrats and GOP lawmakers have recently rebuked the five House Republicans – Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., Trent Franks, R-Ariz., Thomas Rooney, R-Fla., Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., and Louie Gohmert, R-Texas – for their public denunciation of the Obama administration's acceptance of the Muslim Brotherhood and questioning the ties of some administration figures to the radical organization.

McCarthy explained why the reaction to the five House members has been so severe on both sides of the aisle.

"This is not just an Obama administration regard for the Muslim Brotherhood," he said. "This is a bipartisan, ruling-class in Washington perception of the Muslim Brotherhood.

"Some of it has to do with preparing the ground for failure. Some of it has to do with the fact that you have a lot of people in the Republican establishment who have married themselves to this idea of democratizing the Middle East. It's that idea that has brought these Islamist organizations into power in the first place. They, too, have an interest in the way people see that. I see it as a catastrophe. They want to see it as an evolving democratic process, at least that's how they want people to see it. What's happening is, the five Republican conservative members of the House who raised these questions are basically holding up the mirror to the disaster that's happening before our very eyes."