Tag: muslim brotherhood
Trump Ally Roger Stone Promotes Double Agent Smears Against Deceased Capt. Khan And His Family

Trump Ally Roger Stone Promotes Double Agent Smears Against Deceased Capt. Khan And His Family

Published with permission from Media Matters for America.

Roger Stone, a longtime Trump ally and adviser, is promoting smears against fallen U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan and his family. Stone is claiming that Khizr Khan, Capt. Kahn’s father, is a “Muslim Brotherhood agent” and is promoting an article suggesting Humayun Khan was a double agent working for Al-Qaeda.

Khizr Khan gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention honoring his son, who was killed in 2004 in Iraq. Republican nominee Donald Trump responded to Khan’s speech by stating that Khizr Khan’s wife Ghazala “had nothing to say” at the convention and “maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say.” She responded to Trump’s accusations in a Washington Post op-ed, writing that her “husband asked me if I wanted to speak, but I told him I could not” because she was in too much pain.

Stone has been friends with Trump for “almost 40 years.” He worked for his campaign last year and now heads a pro-Trump super PAC. Stone says he regularly talks with Trump and his senior campaign staff. Stone is a discredited researcher and conspiracy theorist who has a decades-long history of employing political dirty tricks.

Stone is now employing dirty tricks against the Khan family. He tweeted on July 31 that Khan is “more than an aggrieved father of a Muslim son- he’s Muslim Brotherhood agent helping Hillary” and Khizr Khan is “traced to the same radical Muslim group as @HumaAbedin.”

Stone’s purported evidence comes from a piece by Theodore Shoebat and Walid Shoebat, who claim that Khizr Khan “is a Muslim Brotherhood agent.” The piece also suggests that Humayun Khan was a double agent for Al-Qaeda:

In regards to his son, many were the ‘Muslim martyrs’ who joined the US military. Ali Abdul Saoud Mohamed, for example, enlisted in the Special Forces of the US Army; he was a double working for the US and Al-Qaeda. There is also the example of Hasan K Akbar, a Muslim American soldier who murdered and injured fifteen soldiers. There was Bowe Bergdahl, an American Muslim soldier who deserted his men to join the Taliban, a desertion which led to six American being ambushed and killed while they were on the search looking for him. And of course the example Nidal Malik Hassan, who murdered fourteen Americans in cold blood in Fort Hood.

[…]

I can go on and on. Is it likely that Khan’s son was killed before his Islamist mission was accomplished? Only another type of investigation will determine that.  Do they ever mention how many soldiers have died because of Muslim traitors? Do they ever bring up how many Christians in the US military were killed? Yet the modernists and homosexuals continue to attack Christians. But soon everything we need to know will be uncovered.

Stone repeatedlydefendedthe accuracy of the article on Twitter.

Walid Shoebat is a discredited anti-Muslim writer who reportedly fabricated his biography. The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that Shoebat is “a Muslim convert to Christianity who claims to be a former Palestine Liberation Organization terrorist” and he “has declared that ‘Islam is not the religion of God — Islam is the devil’ and, in 2008, said, ‘Every single … Islamic terror organization in the world supports Barack Hussein Obama. … No one is called Hussein unless he is Muslim.’”

CNN reported in 2011 that Shoebat claims he’s “a former Palestinian terrorist who once bombed an Israeli bank” but “CNN reporters in the United States, Israel and the Palestinian territories found no evidence that would support that biography. Neither Shoebat nor his business partner provided any proof of Shoebat’s involvement in terrorism, despite repeated requests.”

Stone also appeared on the show of conspiracy theorist and Trump supporter Alex Jones and attacked the Khans. Stone said Trump was right to criticize the family because “Islam is a culture that does not respect, indeed abuses women.” He added that “mother probably wasn’t allowed to speak ‘cause it’s not allowed in their culture.”

Fox Business host Lou Dobbs responded to Stone’s Muslim Brotherhood claim about Khan by writing, “Need to Check This Out.”

Endorse This: Ted Cruz’s Own Joseph McCarthy

Endorse This: Ted Cruz’s Own Joseph McCarthy

Have an idea for our next Endorse This? Tweet @nationalmemo with the hashtag #EndorseThis and we may use it in our next newsletter!

Yesterday, Ted Cruz reminded the political world that, in any other election year, he would be the subject of myriad editorials by sensible people running around with their hair on fire. Yesterday, Ted Cruz released the names of his foreign policy advisors.

Trump’s free media advantage has diverted some well-deserved scrutiny away from Cruz this election cycle. On everything from reproductive rights to foreign policy, Cruz represents the type of insurgent, fundamentalist Tea Partier that relishes government dysfunction as a matter of federal policy, and intrusive moralism at the state and local level.

When it comes to Cruz’s worldview, one confidant in particular stands out as an especially egregious source of advice: Frank Gaffney.

The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Gaffney “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes.” Donald Trump cited an extremely shady poll from Gaffney’s anti-Islam think tank, the Center for Security Policy, to support his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States.

Gaffney was behind allegations that Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s family had “extensive personal and family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.” In fact, Gaffney’s been making similar claims — that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the United States government — for years. Call it his own brand of McCarthyism.

This video a bit of a throwback for #EndorseThis, but Cruz’s endorsement of Gaffney’s ideology deserves a deep historical treatment. Here’s Gaffney in 2011, alongside CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and Suhail A. Khan, a conservative American Muslim on whom Gaffney proceeds to unload his Muslim Brootherhood Infiltration schtick.

To those waiting for a brokered convention in hopes that Ted Cruz will prevent Donald Trump from winning the Republican nomination, Gaffney should complicate things. Donald Trump is an oaf. But judging from his choice in foreign policy advisors, Ted Cruz isn’t much better.

Two Police Brass Killed Trying To Defuse Bombs Near Egyptian Palace

Two Police Brass Killed Trying To Defuse Bombs Near Egyptian Palace

By Laura King and Amro Hassan, Los Angeles Times

CAIRO — A series of bomb blasts near Egypt’s presidential palace killed two senior police officials and injured 10 other people on Monday, officials and media reports said, two days after another deadly explosion struck the capital.

The three bombings occurred on a tensely symbolic day: the first anniversary of the start of massive protests that culminated in the Egyptian army removing Islamist President Mohamed Morsi from office.

After the bombs went off, authorities sealed off streets surrounding the palace in Cairo’s affluent Heliopolis district. Security forces also closed Tahrir Square, the site of many of last summer’s demonstrations, to sweep for explosives in advance of celebrations on Monday evening.

The government — now led by President Abdel Fattah Sisi, the then-army general who orchestrated Morsi’s ouster — calls the protests that broke out a year ago the “June 30 revolution.” Egyptian officials bristle at any characterization of the deposing of Morsi, the country’s first freely elected president, as a coup.

In a speech marking the anniversary, Sisi, who has presided over a wide-ranging crackdown on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, signaled that his government would continue to deal harshly with opponents, particularly any who engage in violence.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday’s bombings. The Islamist group Ajnad Misr, or Soldiers of Egypt, had claimed last week that it had planted homemade explosive devices close to the presidential palace, intending to target police.

The group also said it had penetrated palace security earlier this month and managed to smuggle a bomb inside, a claim that authorities have denied.

The two police officials who were killed Monday, one a colonel and another a lieutenant colonel, died trying to defuse two of the bombs. One other devise was disposed of safely, Egyptian media reports said.

Authorities have warned against any anniversary demonstrations this week by supporters of Morsi, who is now on trial for an array of capital crimes. Thousands of his followers are behind bars, and more than 1,400 have been killed over the last year in clashes with security forces, according to human rights groups.

AFP Photo/Khales Desouki

Egypt Presidential Candidate Sisi Says Muslim Brotherhood ‘Finished’

Egypt Presidential Candidate Sisi Says Muslim Brotherhood ‘Finished’

By Laura King, Los Angeles Times

CAIRO — The Muslim Brotherhood can look for no handouts from Abdel Fattah Sisi, the man expected to be Egypt’s next president. Nor, apparently, can secular opponents of the government.

In the first televised question-and-answer session of his campaign, which aired Monday night with another segment to follow on Tuesday evening, the former field marshal took questions from generally friendly and non-confrontational interviewers from two Egyptian broadcasters.

Sisi, the former defense minister who has been Egypt’s de facto leader for the past 10 months, said it would not be possible for the Brotherhood, once Egypt’s largest political movement, to re-enter political life. The group has been formally branded a terrorist organization, and thousands of its followers are in jail. More than 1,000 of them have been killed in clashes with security forces.

The retired military man, who wore a suit and light-blue tie for his TV appearance, declared that the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July was not at the military’s behest, but that of the Egyptian people. And Sisi said the subsequent sweeping crackdown against Morsi’s movement marked the implementation of a popular mandate.

“It’s not me who finished the Muslim Brotherhood — the Egyptian people have,” he said, adding that other militant groups that have emerged in recent months were merely “camouflage” for the Brotherhood. The movement has publicly renounced violence, but the government blames it for a wave of violent attacks.

Sisi’s forceful rejection of any public role for the Islamist group seemingly flies in the face of calls for political inclusiveness from the Obama administration and other Western governments. It also appeared to set the stage for a long-term confrontation with adherents of the Brotherhood, the region’s oldest Islamist group and one that has deep roots in Egypt.

Over many decades, successive Egyptian leaders sought to contain and curb the movement, but never entirely succeeded.

The highly orchestrated interview appeared to set the stage for the remaining three weeks of the campaign before the presidential vote. Rather than a live question-and-answer session with possibly unpredictable results, the former field marshal sat for the tightly scripted interview on Sunday, and it was carefully vetted by his campaign before its release over two days.

Sisi shot to immense popularity after the coup against Morsi, and he is still heavily favored to win the election, although some cracks have emerged in his support. The Brotherhood is boycotting the vote, and young people also largely stayed away from the polls in a constitutional referendum in January.

But many Egyptians equate a series of repressive measures by the interim government as guarantors of security — despite a sharp rise in violence under the military-backed administration. The last 10 months have been punctuated by bombings, and the army is battling an active Islamist insurgency in the Sinai peninsula.

In the interview, the 59-year-old Sisi also expressed support for Egypt’s harsh and much-criticized protest law, which effectively criminalizes spontaneous street demonstrations. It has been used as a tool not only against backers of the Brotherhood, but secular opponents as well. Sisi said the protest law, enacted last November, was a means of countering “chaos.”

“This law is to regulate protests and not ban them,” he said. “I’m talking about a country. People have to understand this and support us on this, and anyone believing otherwise wants to sabotage Egypt.”

Sisi’s sole competitor in the presidential race, Hamdeen Sabahi, had previously announced that he would abolish the protest law and pardon all those imprisoned under the law if he wins the election. The vote is set for May 26-27.

Jonathan Rashad via Flickr