October 20, 2012
By Richard Butrick
The general position of the Obama administration toward the Muslim Brotherhood is that, despite the fears of alarmists regarding the radical pronouncements and mission statement of the Brotherhood, once the organization is faced with the realities of governance and working within the community of nations, they will govern as any pragmatic, problem-solving nation must to provide economic and political security for their people.
Let me quote from an account of how Hindenburg, president of Weimar Germany, was persuaded to co-opt Hitler and his Nazi movement by bringing Hitler into his administration.
We all know how that turned out. Actually, the Obama/Clinton approach to the Muslim Brotherhood is even more Newmanesque. They seem to be doubling down on the belief that tension between the Muslim and non-Muslim world has nothing to do with Islam. At least Hindenburg and company knew that Nazism -- the belief system -- was indeed at the core of the Hitler problem. The Obama/Clinton team seems to think that the Muslim Brotherhood is not bound by core Islamic mandates. The Coptic Christians and secular forces in Egypt know better. Unfortunately, they know what is in store for them. When Secretary of State Clinton visited Egypt after the election of Mohamed Morsi, Clinton's motorcade encountered a crowd estimated to be up to a half a million. They pelted her motorcade with tomatoes and shoes. Here is the account from the Toronto Sun:
As Clinton met with Egypt's new Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohamed Morsi, demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to protest America's uncritical support for the new Islamist regime in Cairo. Protesters held signs reading "Message to Hillary: Egypt will never be Pakistan," and "If you like the Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood], take them with you!"
Empowering the Muslim brotherhood -- they will be so grateful! -- is a natural consequence of the Obama Doctrine spelled out back in a 2008 interview with Fareed Zakaria:
In the above, we see that Obama is coupling the tiny-fraction meme with the Islam-is-not-the-issue meme. It is a lethal cocktail. The "tiny fraction" comment is more revealing than one might at first realize. It means that Islam -- the ideology -- does not mandate jihad against the non-Muslim world and that the tiny fraction of militant jihadists do not represent or lead the Muslim world.
Here is an account of how the tiny-fraction-peaceful-majority delusion played out according to a Holocaust survivor. The source of this account is problematic, but, real or spurious, it hits the mark. The survivor was asked how many German people were true Nazis
.
The tiny-fraction-peaceful-majority delusion is a death trap. Throughout history, from Hitler to Mao to Stalin, the peaceful majority get sucked into the world of dedicated ideologues -- monomaniacal, messianic leaders out to dominate what they see as their rightful world. It is the mullahs and the ayatollahs who command the minds of Muslims, and they are unwaveringly, maniacally sharia-minded Islamic supremacists.
That they are somehow to be discounted because most Muslims just want peace and to be able to go about their daily lives without the threat of war and terrorism is totally naïve, ignorant of history, and in the end possibly suicidal. The peaceful majority start off as being fellow travelers and end up being co-opted by true believers.
One would think that even a casual knowledge of the history of Islamic plundering and persecution of non-Islamic cultures would disabuse the Obama/Clinton team of their fatal attraction to the it-is-not-Islam meme. Over the last 1,400 years, 270 million non-believers were murdered by Muslim jihadists. Islam destroyed the Christian Middle East and Christian North Africa. It is estimated that upwards of 60 million Christians were slaughtered during this conquest. Also, half the Hindu civilization was annihilated and 80 million Hindus murdered. Islamic jihad also destroyed over 10 million Buddhists. But evidently the 1,400 years of Islamic persecution does not make a dent in the idée fixe.
Reaction to recent events in Benghazi as well as other attacks on American consulates serve only to bear out the Obama/Clinton fatal attraction to the meme that Islam-is-not-the-issue.
Just recently we were assured by Susan Rice, Obama's ambassador to the U.N., that despite what happened in Libya, the majority of peace-loving Muslims in Libya really like and respect Americans. Rice is convinced that it is all just acting out over an offensive film and that when they chant "Death to America," they really don't mean it. In fact, the U.S. is really "extremely popular."
When signs in the Arab street say "Death to America" or "To hell with Freedom" or "Islam will dominate the world", they don't really mean that. Not according to Susan Rice. The ambassador is so far gone into the imaginary world of the religion of peace that when Islamists shout "Death to America," she hears "Hail to America."
The Obama administration has doubled down on Islam-is-not-the-issue meme. Even after the events in Libya and Egypt, Obama can't bring himself to say "Muslim fanatics" or "Islamic terrorists." You can't say "Muslim fanatics" because not all Muslims are fanatics. You can't say "Islamic terrorists" because not all Islamic peoples are terrorists (you can't say Russian astronauts because not all Russians are astronauts?) In fact, most are peace-loving, etc., etc. As long as the Islamic world is engaged with "deference" instead of "vilified," all will be peace and harmony. The Obama administration has overlaid the Islam-is-not-the-issue meme with the peaceful-majority delusion. It is the delusion that lures them into the belief that the Muslim Brotherhood can be co-opted.
Time to crawl out from under the Islam-is-not-the-issue-peaceful-majority-delusion. Time to concentrate on the fanatical sharia-heads who lead the "peaceful majority" by the nose. Time for a war on mullahs. The first step would be to kick out the Saudi-sponsored Wahhabi mullahs spewing anti-Enlightenment venom from mosques across the U.S. The next step would be to declare war on monomanical mullahs across the Middle East, starting with Iran. Forget the peaceful majority. It's the mullahs, stupid. The Muslim Brotherhood is the bowdlerized front for Islamic supremacism -- and it is the Obama/Clinton team that has been co-opted, and not vice-versa.
By Richard Butrick
The general position of the Obama administration toward the Muslim Brotherhood is that, despite the fears of alarmists regarding the radical pronouncements and mission statement of the Brotherhood, once the organization is faced with the realities of governance and working within the community of nations, they will govern as any pragmatic, problem-solving nation must to provide economic and political security for their people.
Let me quote from an account of how Hindenburg, president of Weimar Germany, was persuaded to co-opt Hitler and his Nazi movement by bringing Hitler into his administration.
In
the later years of his presidency, Hindenburg was heavily influenced by
those who surrounded him -- especially his son. Hindenburg showed more
and more signs of senility and was open to their suggestions. Though he
disliked Hitler because he did not come from the right social class and
had only been a corporal in the war, he was persuaded to appoint him
chancellor in January 1933. The constitution gave him the power to do
this. Hindenburg had been persuaded by his son and Franz von Papen, that
Hitler could be controlled and that if anything went wrong, then Hitler
and the Nazis would get the blame thus damaging their political
standing in Germany. Von Papen hoped that he would set the political
agenda and that Hitler would simply agree to this.
We all know how that turned out. Actually, the Obama/Clinton approach to the Muslim Brotherhood is even more Newmanesque. They seem to be doubling down on the belief that tension between the Muslim and non-Muslim world has nothing to do with Islam. At least Hindenburg and company knew that Nazism -- the belief system -- was indeed at the core of the Hitler problem. The Obama/Clinton team seems to think that the Muslim Brotherhood is not bound by core Islamic mandates. The Coptic Christians and secular forces in Egypt know better. Unfortunately, they know what is in store for them. When Secretary of State Clinton visited Egypt after the election of Mohamed Morsi, Clinton's motorcade encountered a crowd estimated to be up to a half a million. They pelted her motorcade with tomatoes and shoes. Here is the account from the Toronto Sun:
Instead,
what she received was a barrage of tomatoes and shoes thrown at her by
an angry Egyptian crowd who were clearly convinced the Americans had
facilitated the takeover of Egypt by the radical Islamist Muslim
Brotherhood.
As Clinton met with Egypt's new Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohamed Morsi, demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to protest America's uncritical support for the new Islamist regime in Cairo. Protesters held signs reading "Message to Hillary: Egypt will never be Pakistan," and "If you like the Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood], take them with you!"
Empowering the Muslim brotherhood -- they will be so grateful! -- is a natural consequence of the Obama Doctrine spelled out back in a 2008 interview with Fareed Zakaria:
But what we also want to do is to shrink the pool
of potential recruits. And that involves engaging the Islamic world
rather than vilifying it, and making sure that we understand that not
only are those in Islam who would resort to violence a tiny fraction of
the Islamic world, but that also, the Islamic world itself is diverse.
In the above, we see that Obama is coupling the tiny-fraction meme with the Islam-is-not-the-issue meme. It is a lethal cocktail. The "tiny fraction" comment is more revealing than one might at first realize. It means that Islam -- the ideology -- does not mandate jihad against the non-Muslim world and that the tiny fraction of militant jihadists do not represent or lead the Muslim world.
Here is an account of how the tiny-fraction-peaceful-majority delusion played out according to a Holocaust survivor. The source of this account is problematic, but, real or spurious, it hits the mark. The survivor was asked how many German people were true Nazis
.
Very
few people were true Nazis but many enjoyed the return of German pride,
and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just
thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back
and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we
had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost
everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed
my factories.
The tiny-fraction-peaceful-majority delusion is a death trap. Throughout history, from Hitler to Mao to Stalin, the peaceful majority get sucked into the world of dedicated ideologues -- monomaniacal, messianic leaders out to dominate what they see as their rightful world. It is the mullahs and the ayatollahs who command the minds of Muslims, and they are unwaveringly, maniacally sharia-minded Islamic supremacists.
That they are somehow to be discounted because most Muslims just want peace and to be able to go about their daily lives without the threat of war and terrorism is totally naïve, ignorant of history, and in the end possibly suicidal. The peaceful majority start off as being fellow travelers and end up being co-opted by true believers.
One would think that even a casual knowledge of the history of Islamic plundering and persecution of non-Islamic cultures would disabuse the Obama/Clinton team of their fatal attraction to the it-is-not-Islam meme. Over the last 1,400 years, 270 million non-believers were murdered by Muslim jihadists. Islam destroyed the Christian Middle East and Christian North Africa. It is estimated that upwards of 60 million Christians were slaughtered during this conquest. Also, half the Hindu civilization was annihilated and 80 million Hindus murdered. Islamic jihad also destroyed over 10 million Buddhists. But evidently the 1,400 years of Islamic persecution does not make a dent in the idée fixe.
Reaction to recent events in Benghazi as well as other attacks on American consulates serve only to bear out the Obama/Clinton fatal attraction to the meme that Islam-is-not-the-issue.
Just recently we were assured by Susan Rice, Obama's ambassador to the U.N., that despite what happened in Libya, the majority of peace-loving Muslims in Libya really like and respect Americans. Rice is convinced that it is all just acting out over an offensive film and that when they chant "Death to America," they really don't mean it. In fact, the U.S. is really "extremely popular."
When signs in the Arab street say "Death to America" or "To hell with Freedom" or "Islam will dominate the world", they don't really mean that. Not according to Susan Rice. The ambassador is so far gone into the imaginary world of the religion of peace that when Islamists shout "Death to America," she hears "Hail to America."
The Obama administration has doubled down on Islam-is-not-the-issue meme. Even after the events in Libya and Egypt, Obama can't bring himself to say "Muslim fanatics" or "Islamic terrorists." You can't say "Muslim fanatics" because not all Muslims are fanatics. You can't say "Islamic terrorists" because not all Islamic peoples are terrorists (you can't say Russian astronauts because not all Russians are astronauts?) In fact, most are peace-loving, etc., etc. As long as the Islamic world is engaged with "deference" instead of "vilified," all will be peace and harmony. The Obama administration has overlaid the Islam-is-not-the-issue meme with the peaceful-majority delusion. It is the delusion that lures them into the belief that the Muslim Brotherhood can be co-opted.
Time to crawl out from under the Islam-is-not-the-issue-peaceful-majority-delusion. Time to concentrate on the fanatical sharia-heads who lead the "peaceful majority" by the nose. Time for a war on mullahs. The first step would be to kick out the Saudi-sponsored Wahhabi mullahs spewing anti-Enlightenment venom from mosques across the U.S. The next step would be to declare war on monomanical mullahs across the Middle East, starting with Iran. Forget the peaceful majority. It's the mullahs, stupid. The Muslim Brotherhood is the bowdlerized front for Islamic supremacism -- and it is the Obama/Clinton team that has been co-opted, and not vice-versa.
American Thinker
