CLEVELAND – As national security took center stage at the Republican Convention on opening night Monday, WND spoke to a member of Congress, a Trump adviser and two campaign surrogates who believe a first step toward "making America safe" and reforming what they regard as a badly compromised counter-terrorism effort hamstrung by political correctness is to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
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Muslim countries such as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates already have done it, pointed out Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who is promoting a bill in the U.S. House along with Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas. A similar measure has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Organizations spawned by the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. include the prominent Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America, which were both named as unindicted co-conspirators by the Justice Department in a plot to fund Hamas.
“When the Egyptians and the Israelis both agree that the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization, when they’re fighting ISIS in the Sinai every day together, we should look at two allies – two allies that often have been at odds with each other, that are working together, and ask why we’re not supporting them,” Issa told WND.
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He pointed out that when Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohamed Morsi came to power in Egypt in 2012, President Obama “effectively congratulated them, went out of his way,” while practically not even acknowledging the election of his successor, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
“So, clearly you have an administration who sided with the Muslim Brotherhood, and even when the evidence is that they are a terrorist organization, and their leadership … showed how bad they would be for Egypt, this president still continues to prefer them over President el-Sisi, who was legally elected,” the lawmaker said.
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Issa said that “with a President Trump,” the bill designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group can pass.
“You know, it’s not just what you call something, it’s what you do about it,” he said. “The president has agreed that ISIS is a terrorist organization, but he’s left the battle to others, and in many cases, particularly in Iraq and in Syria, he’s left it to no one to fight it.”
Joseph E. Schmitz, a former Pentagon inspector general who serves as a foreign-policy adviser to Trump, commended Cruz for introducing the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act in the Senate.
Noting the House bill has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 17-10 vote, he said, referring to Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., “It's time for the speaker to show some leadership.”
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“I believe that President Trump will push that bill, but there’s no reason to wait for President Trump,” he said. “It’s been introduced in both houses, and we have Republican leadership in both houses. Why wait?”
Schmitz said that regarding defense, the Republican platform passed Monday by the delegates is consistent with Trump’s approach of beginning with a strong economy.
“And the next point is you have to call the enemy out for who the enemy is,” he said. “You know, you get past the fog of political correctness, which is even worse than a fog – it’s actually a nefarious influence operation that we have succumbed to – and there’s just no way to win a war if you can’t call the enemy who the enemy is,” said Schmitz, who represented whistleblower Philip Haney when the DHS Islam subject-matter expert was investigated by his agency and the Justice Department.
“I mean, Sun Tzu said that. Most intelligent military strategist know that. To win a war you have to know yourself and your enemy,” he said.
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Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who claims he was fired him as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 after three decades in the military because he named the enemy radical Islam, spoke during prime time Monday night. Flynn was floated as a vice-presidential pick before Trump chose Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
Flynn took aim at political correctness and its impact on debates about war and transgender bathrooms.
"My God, war is not about bathrooms. War is not about political correctness or words that are meaningless. War is about winning," he said.
"My message to you is very clear: Wake up, America! There is no substitute for American leadership and exceptionalism.
Cold War lesson
Michael Del Rosso, a Trump surrogate at the convention and a technology expert with extensive experience as a consultant for the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security and U.S. Special Operations Command, had the same concern and drew a comparison with the Cold War era.
Michael Del Rosso
Some 15 years after the Cold War began, he said, there were “thousands of professionals at all levels of national security and intelligence that knew everything of Marxist-Leninist doctrine.”
“They spoke Russian, they understood the tactics. You could study Russian at the war college or the Naval postgraduate school,” said Del Rosso, who was a candidate this spring for Congress in Virginia.
“We knew who the enemy was. We knew their doctrines, we knew their objectives and we learned it inside out to defeat them,” he said.
“We’re 15 years after 9/11. What do we know? Nothing. There’s only a couple of dozen of us that actually get it,” Del Rosso said. “And you have complete heads of intelligence agencies, bless their heart. You have generals and flag officers, bless their heart, that are actually guilty of professional malpractice at a minimum, because they have no idea who the enemy is.”
He said here’s “a complete strategic incomprehension at all levels of the national security apparatus, and that’s why we not only lost this war, but we literally have changed sides as a matter of national policy and have been backing our enemies to help consolidate their victories throughout the Middle East and elsewhere.”
With it’s support of jihadist groups against regimes in places such as Syria and Libya, the administration effectively has armed al-Qaida, he said.
He pointed out that in Libya, Abdelhakim Belhaj, who had been in prison until January 2011, was for three years “our point guy,” receiving arms, battlefield intelligence and other support. And it wasn’t just Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who supported him, he said, but Republicans such as Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida and Mark Kirk of Illinois..
Then, in March 2015, Belhaj announced he was the head of ISIS in Libya.
“That’s the culmination of the wisdom of these people in both parties. And that’s what the American people are rejecting for Donald Trump,” Del Rosso said.
“Donald Trump says, ‘Wait a second. I’m going to say the emperor has no clothes.’
“He said immigration is a problem, we’re not safe. The American people need security. The American people should be first. He goes up 25 percent in the polls. There have been more than 25,000 jihadi attacks in the past 15 years, and he says, ‘You know what? There’s a problem with Muslims.’ And it might not have been as artful as he could have said it, but there’s a problem with Muslims, and we’re going to have a three-year moratorium while we figure this out.
“In military terms, that’s an operational cause,” he said. “What are we getting wrong that we end up with Boston Marathon, Fort Hood, Orlando, San Bernardino? All preventable.”
Counter-terrorism takeover
Rich Higgins
Rich Higgins, who ran the irregular warfare support section of the Combatting Terrorism Technical Support Office for the Pentagon for 10 years, told WND that what’s going on inside the FBI right now “makes what’s happening in DHS look like nothing.”
Groups such as CAIR, he said, “have taken over our counter-terrorism response.”
“I cannot overstate how serious the situation is,” said Higgins.
“The Muslim Brotherhood bill is a step in the right direction,” he said. “But the problem is the infiltration that’s already taken place.
"There are agents and actual officers of the Brotherhood that are inside our system. They’re in the White House, they’re in in the national security apparatus, they’re in our war colleges. They’re already in place.”
