9/11/13 Jihadis gain ground in Syrian rebel movement as moderates grow desperate

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Source: NBC news

By Richard Engel, Chief Foreign Correspondent, NBC News

ANTAKYA, Turkey — Syrian opposition activists tell NBC News that Bashar Assad is getting away with having used chemical weapons to massacre hundreds of civilians, and that giving the regime a pass will only benefit al-Qaeda extremists.

“If there is no action, everyone will be desperate. We are already desperate. We are dying. Many will join al-Qaeda. Even the educated will join them, because no one else is helping,” a Syrian rebel said.

There is a battle underway within the Syrian revolt — a war within the war — between the generally moderate, US-backed Free Syrian Army and Islamic extremist groups.

The Free Syrian Army put its faith in Washington, which promised action, but so far hasn’t delivered. The moderates say they have lost hope and face. Islamists, on the other hand, always doubted Washington would act, and instead of attending meetings, they are putting bullets in their guns; and they are sending men.

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8/6/13 Army won’t suspend contracts with Al Qaeda-tied companies, citing ‘due process rights’

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Source: Fox News

The U.S. Army is refusing to suspend contracts with dozens of companies and individuals tied to Al Qaeda and other extremist groups out of concern for their “due process rights,” despite repeated pleas from the chief watchdog for Afghanistan reconstruction.

In a scathing passage of his latest report to Congress, Special Inspector General John Sopko said his office has urged the Army to suspend or debar 43 contractors over concerns about ties to the Afghanistan insurgency, “including supporters of the Taliban, the Haqqani network and al Qaeda.”

Sopko wrote that the Army “rejected” every single case.
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House Hearing on Religious Minorities in Syria

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Wednesday, June 26, 2013, 8:56 AM

Yesterday, the US House of Representatives held a joint subcommittee hearing on the situation of religious minorities in Syria, Religious Minorities in Syria: Caught in the Middle. Co-sponsored by the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations and the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, the hearing heard from four witnesses, including USCIRF Commissioner Zuhdi Jasser. The hearing extensively addressed the plight of Syria’s Christians.

The whole hearing is worthwhile, but the testimony of the Hudson Institute’s Nina Shea is particularly useful. Shea concedes that “no religious community has been spared suffering” in Syria’s civil war. But “Syria’s ancient Christian minority” faces an existential threat:

Christians, however, are not simply caught in the middle, as collateral damage. They are the targets of a more focused shadow war, one that is taking place alongside the larger conflict between the Shiite-backed Baathist Assad regime and the largely Sunni rebel militias. Christians are the targets of an ethno-religious cleansing by Islamist militants and courts. In addition, they have lost the protection of the Assad government, making them easy prey for criminals and fighters, whose affiliations are not always clear.

Shea documents anti-Christian incidents, some of them quite harrowing. She recommends, among other things, that the US Government direct aid to institutions caring for Christian refugees (who often fear going to refugee camps); expedite immigration applications from Syrian Christians; and ensure that none of its assistance to the Syrian opposition finds its way into the hands of Islamist groups responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Christians.

 

Read more at First Things

Obama Administration Arms our Enemies

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Statement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Obama Administration Arms our Enemies

Military equipment transfer underscores lack of understanding of Brotherhood’s ideology

 PHOENIX (January 25, 2013) – Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and author of “A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith” issued the following statement on behalf of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy on the Obama Administration’s decision to allow the transfer of 16 F-16 fighter jets and 200 Abrams tanks to Egypt which is now controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood:

“The decision of the Obama Administration to allow the transfer of sophisticated military technology to Egypt underscores its dangerous foreign policy position of “normalization” with regards to the Muslim Brotherhood.  This administration has at every step of the way facilitated the ascension of a political party in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, which lives and breathes anti-westernism and anti-freedom policies.

The Muslim Brotherhood is founded on an ideological belief in Islamist supremacy. The Egyptian state Constitution just ratified in Egypt and drafted by members of the Brotherhood is Islamist and included radical salafist positions that denies other faiths equality, calls for shar’iah as the law of the land and empowers the Islamist Al Azhar University to serve as morality police just to name a few problems of this supremacist document.

Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi, leader of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party is on record numerous times supporting the terrorist organization Hamas and has recently come under scrutiny for comments he made in 2010 where he called Jews “the descendants of apes and pigs.”

Yet this is the man that the Obama Administration relied on to bring a negotiated settlement between Hamas and Israel.  He is the man that the administration believes can be a responsible owner of 16 F-16 fighter jets and 200 Abrams tanks.

The White House mistakenly views the election of Morsi as a victory for the democratic process, completely ignoring the fact that the Brotherhood was simply the most organized political entity in the country and in no way represented the vast number of liberty minded protestors who had brought down the reign of Hosni Mubarak.

Islamists movements like those epitomized in the Muslim Brotherhood will never be genuine allies with the West or any free secular societies based in liberty.  Even the most basic understanding of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists reveals that their world view is incompatible with nations based in liberty and freedom. Would our government ever have found it appropriate during the Cold War or even since to transfer arms to “non-Soviet” communist regimes? Never, because the worldview of the communist ideology in nations like China, Cuba, and others is inherently incompatible with ours.

Call it ignorance, wishful thinking, or willful blindness, anyone who justifies sending arms to the Muslim Brotherhood ignores the central fact that Islamist ideology is both completely incompatible with secular societies based in reason and liberty and also sworn to the defeat of free secular societies. Just like with Iran in 1979, we are now destined to ultimately be in conflict with the MB led Egyptian government run by Islamists. We cannot and should not engage a government like the MB of Egypt without understanding their Islamist ideology. The MB is guided by a theocratic mindset which seeks a global evangelism of their political platforms. Their political oxygen is vis-à-vis the empowerment domestically and abroad of the Islamic state(s). Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood have long openly preached hatred of the west, hatred of Israel and Jews, and outright misogyny. When they do not, they are often just giving their critics “what they want to hear”.

No sane American who values our national security would think twice about sending F-16s or any of our military technology to Islamist nations because of their inherently anti-Western ideologies and behaviors. This is disastrous for our national security.

The fact that this transfer is happening in the wake of a now obvious ascent of radical Islamist groups in North Africa with Al Qaeda attacks in Algeria and the radical Islamist offensives in Mali is simply astonishing.  37 western hostages were killed by Islamists who essentially emanate from the same ideology as the Brotherhood. Even Secretary Clinton in her Benghazi testimony yesterday stated that “the jihadist ideology is rising rampantly in the region and needs to be countered.” How does one say that and then send arms to the Islamists?”

About the American Islamic Forum for Democracy

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AIFD’s mission advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/.

 

MEDIA CONTACTS:         Gregg Edgar

Gordon C. James Public Relations

gedgar@gcjpr.com

602-690-7977

####

9/11/13 The Reason Syria is vital to U.S. national security

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Statement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

An American Muslim of Syrian descent makes the case that President Obama failed to do

PHOENIX (August 20, 2013) – Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, author of “A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith” released the following statement on behalf of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) regarding why the United States needs to engage in Syria.

“The use of American military power should never be taken lightly.  It is the highest duty that any Commander-in-chief can undertake.  It deserves thoughtful and full deliberation that delivers a strategy that is in the best interest of America’s national security.

The conflict in Syria has at long last sparked debate about Syria’s import to the security of the United States.  Unfortunately that debate has taken place after over 110,000 Syrians were killed by their genocidal leader and his military.  It has also been mired in a false narrative that the choice in Syria is a binary decision between the secular fascist Bashar Assad and the theocratic fascists of Al Qaeda. That narrative ignores the fact that there are more than 22 million Syrians who simply long for freedom.

What is the case for action? This isn’t about 1,400 people being killed by a chemical attack. This isn’t even about the 110,000 killed over 30 months – though those both should be enough. The stakes in Syria are about the direct threat to the United States from a rogue puppet nation of the Iranians that is directly tied to terrorism from Hizballah.  It is about the United States standing on principle and for the right of all people across the world to declare freedom from tyranny.  It is about the fact that Syria sits at the crossroads of the Middle East. The defense of liberty in Syria is for the hope of a secular, democratic Syria that recognizes that its power is derived from the consent of its people which could rewrite the destiny of the Middle East as much as the converse- a Syria that is allowed to be folded completely under the wing of an emboldened Iran that has chemical and nuclear capability.

While we may be war weary in the United States, we are not ready to write-off the next generation as being post-American.

There is no doubt that for 30 months President Obama and his Administration have mostly ignored if not mishandled Syria.  There is no doubt that they still have yet to create a national strategy for regime change despite explicitly calling for it in August 2011.  Instead, now the narrative has changed from regime change to punishment for chemical weapons to now the hope of a diplomatic and political solution brokered by Assad’s pal Putin. Congress should now turn around and direct our President to take back the lead and call the Russians on their lies over the past 30 months in Syria while telling rather than asking the psychopathic dictator of Syria how he is going to end his regime.

The world cannot stand by and allow chemical weapons to be used.  We cannot stand by while another 100,000 are killed and millions more are driven from their homes. The U.S. cannot stand by and let Iran develop hegemony over the region and spread their anti-Americanism for generations to come. We cannot stand by and leave a void against Iran, Hizballah, and Assad that is filled by Jihadists supported by Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Assad like his father is a tyrant and a pathological liar who will do anything to maintain power.  His continued presence as the President of Syria will mean that tens of thousands more will die.  We have already seen that inaction by this White House has bred the radicalization of the Syrian people and turned Syria into the world’s biggest factory of jihadists.  It has created a vacuum that Al Qaeda and the Islamists in Turkey, Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are more than happy to fill.

The President has finally woken up from his slumber over Syria. The speech he should have given in August 2011, he gave on September 10, 2013. Now can Congress keep its attention on Syria long enough to demand that our Commander-in-chief formulate and then lead with a coherent strategy rather than a reflexive short-sighted muddle?

We may be witnessing the end of America’s influence in the world as a superpower. That also means the end of any potent advocate or protectors of those who seek freedom in the world. Syria is not only about freedom for Syrian citizens, it is about regional security from Iran, Hizballah, Al Qaeda, and Jihadists and the protection of our ally, Israel.”

 

About the American Islamic Forum for Democracy

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AIFD’s mission advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/.

MEDIA CONTACTS:         Gregg Edgar,  Gordon C. James Public Relations,  gedgar@gcjpr.com,  602-690-7977