Syrian uprising "has been overwhelmed by a carefully programmed Islamist upsurge that is led by the Muslim Brotherhood"

I tried to tell you. "Arab spring could become an Islamist winter," by Prem Shankar Jha in Tehelka, June 26:

[...] But what is most important is that there is an abundance of evidence that while the Assad regime is authoritarian and rife with cronyism, it is not unpopular. The Bush administration was the first to learn this. In January 2005, President George Bush withdrew the US ambassador from Damascus, imposed a number of unilateral sanctions and started a $5 million programme to activate opposition groups within Syria. But a year later, the US embassy was forced to report, in a cable posted by WikiLeaks this year, that it had found no “legitimate groups” within Syria that were prepared to take the money.
Undeterred, it shifted money to exile groups outside Syria. In 2007, the State Department gave $6.3 million through a series of dummy foundations to a London-based expatriate Syrian organisation called the Movement for Justice and Development (MJD). This, in turn, set up a TV station called Barada TV (after Damascus’ fabled river), which began beaming anti-Assad programmes to Syria in April 2009, and is now a principal source of ‘information’ on the current uprising.

What the Bush administration chose to overlook was that few of these exiles were externed democrats. According to a US embassy cable hacked by WikiLeaks, they were “moderate members of the Muslim Brotherhood”. To Indians, the wording should have a familiar ring, for it is identical to that used by the State Department to justify military aid to Pakistan.

The US continued to fund the MJD and Barada TV even after Barack Obama was elected and reversed Bush’s policy towards Syria. In all, it has spent an estimated $30 million on the project. This is the money and moral support that the Muslim Brotherhood uses in its attempt to stage a comeback in Syria.

IS THE uprising in Syria a Salafi plot? Or are the bearded Muslim men and hijab-covered women visible in the cell phone videos being aired by YouTube and other websites part of a much more broad-based protest against autocratic rule? A day-by-day analysis of the Syrian uprising suggests that while a demand for democratic reform is still embedded within the protests, it has been overwhelmed by a carefully programmed Islamist upsurge that is led by the Muslim Brotherhood, but almost certainly includes Salafi elements. Indeed their hand is visible in the uprising from its earliest sprouting.

First, Anas al-Abdeh, the head of the MJD, and many of its directors, are what a State Department cable called “liberal, moderate Islamists who are former members of the Muslim Brotherhood”. Second, Malik, the news director of Barada TV, is Anas’ brother and presumably also a sympathiser, if not supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. Third, the administrator of the Facebook site, The Syrian Revolution 2011, which is the undisputed leader of the Internet campaign against Assad, is the head of the Swedish chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood.

With the onset of the Arab Spring at the end of January, it would have been surprising if these and other Islamists had not concluded that their moment had at last arrived. As in Egypt, the Islamists hid their agenda behind the veil of democracy. They felt that with five droughts in succession, rampant youth unemployment and a 100 percent rise in the price of wheat in the previous year, conditions in Syria were no different from those in Egypt. Therefore, they gave their first online call for a protest demonstration in Damascus before the Parliament building in mid-February.

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Zulu | June 27, 2011 8:23 AM | Reply

Terrorists chalk out plan to target Ahmedis

LAHORE: Terrorists have chalked out a plan regarding target killings of prominent members of the Ahmedi community in the country, starting from Faisalabad, which is the second biggest industrial hub of the province and hometown of Punjab Law Minister, Rana Sanaullah.

Sources in the local law enforcement agencies also revealed that different terrorist organisations have joined together in the mission and they have initiated the campaign through distribution of pamphlets and organising conferences in local seminaries against the Ahmedis.

They also issued a list of prominent Ahmedi businessmen living in Faisalabad and surrounding areas by mentioning their names and addresses, saying that the Ahmedi citizens of the country were involved in conspiracies against Islam and Pakistan.

The pamphlets, containing hit-list of locals who have been working and living in the areas since generations, also state that the act of killing an Ahmedi made an individual a holy warrior and the person who would do so would also be blessed by the Holy Prophet (PBUH) on the Day of Judgment.

“O Muslim brothers. There are some people among us who are misguiding us and their punishment is death,” one of the pamphlets read, further asking if there was anybody who had the courage to teach the Ahmedis a lesson.

The distributed hate material urges people to wake up, become fearless holy warriors and start killing Ahmedis.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011%5C06%5C14%5Cstory_14-6-2011_pg13_1

buraq_is_dead | June 27, 2011 8:58 AM | Reply

Watch out for islamspeak. Any Mohammedan party or movement calling itself anything with "justice" (= sharia), "development" (= towards an islamic state) or "innovation" (= towards an islamic order of society and business) can not be trusted. They always have a pure, islamic intention as dictated per islamic doctrine.

Syria/London: MJD - "Movement for Justice and Development"
Erdogan: AKP - "Justice and Development Party"
Germany: BIG Party - "Alliance for Innovation and Justice" (a turkish AKP-offshot)
Marocco: DMG, "Party for justice and development" (hizb al-adala wa-t-tanmiya.

Kepha | June 27, 2011 9:06 AM | Reply

"moderate members of the Muslim Brotherhood"...sounds as if some employee of the State Department has a very bad case of what they call "client-itis". i speak as a former FSO.

katharina | June 27, 2011 9:24 AM | Reply

The Islamic Nazi Muslim Brotherhood is the real evil MASTERMIND of global terrorism (their most dangerous agent I suspect is Caliph Hussein Obama), both violent and psychological - through education propaganda like how the German Nazis did; especially through infiltrating University al-Azhar and indoctrinating global religious teachers especially from non-Arab oil-rich Islamic ruled/populated countries, and Islamic Students associations in universities especially in the West. The Muslim Brotherhood should never be legitimized especially by greedy universities and politicians, especially in the free West, and for the sake of the Jews and Israel. See the Muslim Brotherhood continuous Nazi-link from its foundation by Hitler's main collaborator or adviser, Hassan al-banna and until today, particularly through its (and Islam) main spiritual adviser, Yusuf al-Qaradawi who made this evil call to mass murder the Jews, recently: at – http://europenews.dk/en ; In - http://www.investigativeproject.org/2315/moderate-qaradawi-defends-hitler-and-nuclear

“Moderate” Qaradawi Defends Hitler and Nuclear Terror
IPT News
November 9, 2010

….According to excerpts of a speech that aired on Al-Jazeera in January 2009, Qaradawi called on Muslims to put Jews in “their place” as Hitler had done, in revenge for Israeli military operations in Gaza several weeks earlier. “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption,” he said. “The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers.” At a January 2009 “Gaza Victory Rally” in Doha, Qatar, Qaradawi prayed for the opportunity to kill a Jew before his death. “The only thing that I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of Jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah’s enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom. Praise be to Allah.”……

flarov222 | June 27, 2011 10:34 AM | Reply

" I tried to tell you"

Actually no, this was your analysis of the situation in Syria:

"And that's the key to understanding why Obama is not being inconsistent. The Assad regime in Syria has for years been essentially a client state of Iran, and Hamas and Hizballah have headquarters in Damascus. So here we see the golden thread. Obama has favored the protesters where what would follow would be an Islamic state, but has been much less enthusiastic when the protesters are acting against the interests of an Islamic state; specifically, the Islamic Republic of Iran."

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/04/libya-and-syria-is-barack-obama-inconsistent.html

So logically, Obama should now be supporting the protesters since what they want is an Islamic state

DP111 | June 27, 2011 10:58 AM | Reply

Syria is the one remaining country where Christians can be Christians without fear. It is also the country where hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians (estimates upto 1.5m), have found asylum and shelter without the Syrian government raising a hue and cry over it.

The Muslim Brotherhood is underground in Syria as the old Assad put them there. They are just waiting for an opportunity - if they ever usurp power, either through their own application or NATO intervention ( we are good at enabling Islamic fanatics), that will be the end of minorities in Syria, and ME Christianity's few remaining footholds in the ME will vanish.

gravenimage replied to comment from DP111 | June 27, 2011 2:56 PM | Reply

DP111 wrote:

All true, DP111. Syria has certainly been a mixed bag—a protector (of sorts) of Christians, both because they are recognized as no threat, and because of the rulers' status as minority Alawites.

On the other hand, Assad has been a great enabler of Hizb'allah, and has done a great deal to undermine Lebanon-which was at one time the closest thing after Israel to a genuine haven for Christians in the region.

So—what do we have in Syria? A bad situation, likely followed by one very much worse if the Muslim Brotherhood or their fellow Islamists gain the upper hand.

"flarov222" wrote:

" I tried to tell you"

Actually no, this was your analysis of the situation in Syria...
...........................

You've heard the term "whistling past the graveyard"? What "flarov222" and so many of his fellow Muslim apologists seem to do is *sneer their way past the graveyard*, so to speak.

They seem to equate the idea that any inconsistency—real or imagined—on the part of Anti-Jihadists means that there is no Jihad threat at all.

Right now, Jihad is on the march and much of the Middle East is on fire. But "flarov222' would rather ignore these facts, and instead play "gotcha" with those sounding the warnings.

Perhaps he should comb back through Winston Churchill's old speeches and see if he can find any "inconsistencies", as well. If he did, I'm sure he convince himself that all that fuss about a Fascist threat was off the mark as well...sarc/off

ebonystone | June 27, 2011 6:01 PM | Reply

Americans are blinded by the happy outcome of their own Revolution, and thus all too often look at any development that calls itself a "revolution" as a Good Thing. But the American result was a rare anomaly; history shows that most revolutions do not turn out well. None of the early 19th c. revolutions in Latin America did. The English Revolution led to Cromwell's dictatorship. The French Revolution, partly inspired by the American example, led to the Reign of Terror and Bonaparte. The Russian Revolution led to Lenin and Bolshevik totalitarianism. And the Iranian Revolution led to the Ayatollah and sponsorship of international terrorism. That's just the short list.
Our State Department is supposed to be staffed by educated people, but it seems to be lacking anyone who has learned anything from history.
As for the present revolts in Libya, Yemen, Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Moslem world, I'll be very surprised if any of them (if successful) lead to a regime better than the one they're trying to overthrow.

Cao Moo | June 28, 2011 5:30 AM | Reply

Arab spring = Islamic winter = a nuclear one if they had thier way.

Joe | June 28, 2011 8:48 AM | Reply

Some of the comments on this site lately have been unfortunately very disappointing ... Like this very funny comment:

"Syria is the one remaining country where Christians can be Christians without fear."

In Syria there are Christians, yes they dont blow them up (yet), however, Syrian Christians are the worst Dhimmis of the entire region, they have to choose either to be killed by Islamists, or live the life of "cattle" under Assad, where they wont be killed for their religion (since the Alawites need them for propaganda), however they have no freedom what so ever, and without Freedom, life has no meaning whatsoever! And this is why Syria's population was about 30% christian at the turn of the last century, and now its barley 9%.

Meanwhile, when dealing with FREE christians, the Assad regime killed 100,000 lebanese Christians, destroyed their democracy (the oldest in the region 1926), destroyed their country, jailed the head of the christian resistance Samir Geagea for 11 years in Solitary confinement, and during their 30 years of occupation in Lebanon, Syrians tried to clone the lebanese system into becoming like theirs, attempting to transform the Maronite Christians of Lebanon into another Dhimmi sect, where they would live, procreate and hail the fact that no one is blowing them up...

Needless to remind everyone here, that Syria is the number one exported of terrorism in that region, mainly to Iraq and Lebanon, Syria sent 50,000 rockets to Hezbollah since 2006, syria was building nuclear facilities, and Syria was totally destroying America's sole allies in Lebanon the March 14 coalition, after assassinating their ministers/mps/journalists...

Now, all of this is accomplished without wearing turbans and screaming allah akbar... so I wonder, who is worst? Bin Laden style camel riders, or those who wear a western suite but have the same goal...?

Shameless Sharia | June 28, 2011 11:18 AM | Reply

Just wanted to alert everyone:

From http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com

Judge Rules Nonprofit Can Sue Ex-Intern Accused of Document Theft

– The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations Action Network can move ahead with a lawsuit against a former intern accused of stealing more than 12,000 internal documents, a Washington federal court judge ruled on Friday.

The group is suing the former intern, Chris Gaubatz, and his father, author and self-described counterterrorism researcher Paul Gaubatz. The Washington-based Muslim advocacy nonprofit claims Chris Gaubtz posed as a Muslim college student as a ruse to secure an internship, and then stole the documents and e-mails for his father.

That Chris Gaubatz obtained the internal documents and gave them to his father is undisputed; in Paul Gaubatz’s 2009 book, “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America,” he describes the plan at-length. The two sides dispute whether the documents were taken unlawfully and also whether the publication of the documents constitutes protected speech.

You might want to get your copy of Muslim Mafia now, in case the judge decides to ban it forever.

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