Muslim Brotherhood

Matthew Yglesias blogged While Mitt Romney impressed me and most other reporters with his presentation, it would be good for some to observe that he also put forward a completely insane policy idea on the leading issue of the day:

We’ll move everything to get him. But I don’t want to buy into the Democratic pitch, that this is all about one person, Osama bin Laden. Because after we get him, there’s going to be another and another. This is about Shi’a and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate.

To put it bluntly, the trouble here is that the Muslim Brotherhood just isn't a violent terrorist organization, and certainly doesn't commit acts of violence against the United States.

It may officially say it is a nonviolent organization, but it's objective is establishing a worldwide Caliphate, and it assassinated the Egyptian Prime Minister on December 28, 1948, attempted to assassinate Gamal Abdel Nasser, and it currently advocates suicide bombing attacks on civilians to fight Zionism, and its Palestinian wing Hamas targets both civilians and the military in Israel. Wikipedia is usually noted for being more left wing than right, and it says

Its official position of non-violence has at times caused disputes within the movement and led to the formation of more radical, violent groups such as the Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (The Islamic Group) and Al Takfir Wal Hijra (Excommunication and Migration). While studying at university Osama bin Laden, was influenced by the religious and political ideas of several professors with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, although bin Laden now differs significantly with the MB in creed (Aqeeda), theology and methods and has been repudiated by the MB.... The Brotherhood's position on violence to achieve its ends is a matter of controversy. The Muslim Brotherhood officially opposes attacks against civilians, and has officially condemned the 9/11 attacks. However some have claimed the Brotherhood's non-violent stance is part of a "chameleon-like adaptation is tactical moderation with the ultimate objective of complete Islamization of society.

and MEForum said

Since the early 1960s, Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathizers have moved to Europe and slowly but steadily established a wide and well-organized network of mosques, charities, and Islamic organizations. Unlike the larger Islamic community, the Muslim Brotherhood's ultimate goal may not be simply "to help Muslims be the best citizens they can be," but rather to extend Islamic law throughout Europe and the United States.

This is not exactly what you would expect from a nonviolent organization.

It's an extremely traditionalist multinational civil society organization. It's true that a lot of violent types used to be in the Brotherhood and now they're in terrorist groups, but used to be is the key phrase here, they left the Brotherhood because the Brotherhood wouldn't sign on for their agenda. In one clause, Romney's just gone and broadened the war to include a huge new category of people who have no intention of waging war against the United States or even against Israel.

Note that even without the Muslim Brotherhood bit, this is a terrible idea. If you liked Iraq, you're going to love trying to root Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon and Hamas out of the West Bank.

Would you rather leave that to Israel by itself?

Check out Spencer's remarks on this as well. He notes that "it's hardly remarkable that Romney doesn't know what he's talking about." It isn't surprising, but then again this point needs to be driven home again and again -- Mitt Romney displayed zero understanding of political Islam or global terrorism,

I think he knows a lot more about it than most Dems.

none of his Republican opponents called him on it,

Because he was right.

and as far as I know, nobody in the press (the same press, you'll recall, that's concerned with the Pursuit of Truth above all else) bothered to notice.

Riehl World View blogged via the Washington Post:

The Brotherhood -- or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, as it is known in Arabic -- is a sprawling and secretive society with followers in more than 70 countries. It is dedicated to creating an Islamic civilization that harks back to the caliphates of the 7th and 8th centuries, one that would segregate women from public life and scorn nonbelievers.

In some nations -- Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Sudan -- the Brotherhood has fomented Islamic revolution. In the Palestinian territories, the Brotherhood created the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which has become known for its suicide bombings of Israelis. Yet it is also a sophisticated and diverse organization that appeals to many Muslims worldwide and sometimes advocates peaceful persuasion, not violent revolt. Some of its supporters went on to help found al Qaeda, while others launched one of the largest college student groups in the United States.

Or read this take by an informed American Muslim:

The case for choosing from the lesser of two evils as the authors note in their reckless comparison of Qaradawi’s Islamism to Zawahri’s radical jihadism is certainly easy to make but sure folly. Zawahiri and Al Qaeda are a military threat with a militant Islamist ideology which speaks to only the fringe and most radical Islamists in the Muslim community. Qaradawi and the Brotherhood are actually far more dangerous ideologically to the West. Their similarly Islamist message may, in fact, resonate with a far greater number of Muslims in the West and the East as evidenced by the millions of western Muslims engaged almost daily by satellite watching al-Qaradawi. He and the Brotherhood at times speak of “justice”, “a middle ground” (wasatiya), democratic principles (voting and parliaments), and of women’s rights, among other attractive principles.

Qaradawi, is moreover for the record, clearly no moderate. He has defended the barbarity of female circumcision and terrorism in Israel and Iraq. His duplicity on such issues demonstrates the inherent pathology of political Islam which will often even among supposed moderates sacrifice principle for the ends of Islamism. Yet, the attraction of Qaradawi and his so-called ‘moderate Islamism’, is built upon a societal and governmental formula which is incompatible with American governance and Jeffersonian democracy as we know it.

The Muslim Brotherhood is based upon a strictly Islamist approach to governance and law. At the very core of their approach to the branches of government is a toxic mixture of politics and theology. The toxicity of this mixture was foreseen by our forefathers who escaped religious persecution by the Church of England and sought to prevent it after 1789 years of the absence of liberty in the West. No matter how “moderate” or “democratic” Islamists report their processes to be, it is still under the mandate and intellectual control of Islamic scholars of sharia law also known as the ulemaa.

Romney isn't advocating killing all Shi'a and Sunni simply because he mentioned them and his mention of a worldwide movement to undermine moderate governments is spot on. One's left to ponder, who better to protect America, with her laws, traditions and values, Romney and like-minded others, who seem to have a reasonable appreciation for the threat posed by radical Islam and are willing to speak out against it, or Liberal Democrats so obsessed with the fear of throwing the baby out with the bath water, we'd all be washing our feet before we pray in fifty years?

The liberals and Democrat's inability to comprehend the threat to American culture from even only a truly political form of radical Islam is the best reason there is to not trust them with the Executive Branch. Political power is the very tool radicals with no regard for Western values seek to exploit to bring our American form of republic down.