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Leiken's naivete and willful ignorance win the day. For now. From the World Tribune (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has been quietly engaging the Muslim Brotherhood movement.Officials said the State Department has approved a policy that would enable U.S. diplomats to meet and coordinate with Brotherhood leaders in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and other Arab states. They said the program would first be restricted to elected officials from the Brotherhood and eventually be extended to their political chiefs.
"The region is going Islam," an official said. "We see this in nearly every country in the Middle East. We either understand it and engage with it or find ourselves completely out of the picture."
The Brotherhood has been regarded as the inspiration for Muslim movements throughout the Arab world. The organization, founded in Egypt, spread through Saudi financing and has served as the inspiration for Al Qaida.
Many Arab countries have banned the Brotherhood. But in Egypt, a party composed of Brotherhood members has won 20 percent of the seats in the National Assembly and plays a major role in domestic policy.
[...]
The State Department has been discussing the new policy with the U.S. intelligence community. On June 20, the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research convened a meeting with members of the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency to expand dialogue with the Brotherhood.
The proposal was based on a study by Robert Leiken, a researcher at the Nixon Center. The study, commissioned by the National Intelligence Council, urged the United States to open a formal channel to the Islamic movement.
Such a channel would include formal meetings with Brotherhood leaders throughout the Arab and Islamic world and invite members to study or work in the United States. Officials said the law enforcement community, particularly the FBI, opposes the proposal, concerned that this would facilitate Al Qaida plots to attack the United States.
At the State Department forum, Leiken was opposed by Hillel Fradin, an Islamic expert from the Hudson Institute. Fradkin was said to have argued that engaging the rigidly ideological Brotherhood would dash any hope for reform within political Islam.
"You make them partners," Zeyno Baran, Fradkin's colleague at Hudson, told the New York Sun. "They might Islamize the Muslims, but it's okay because they can think or do what they want as long as they are not violent. That is the misunderstanding and mistake."
Posted by Robert at June 28, 2007 12:59 PM
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The Rolling Stones ‘Sympathy with the Devil” says it all:
Please allow me to introduce myself
Im a man of wealth and taste
Ive been around for a long, long year
Stole many a mans soul and faith
And I was round when jesus christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But whats puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
I stuck around st. petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain
I rode a tank
Held a generals rank
When the blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, whats puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah
I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the gods they made
I shouted out,
Who killed the kennedys?
When after all
It was you and me
Let me please introduce myself
Im a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached bombay
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But whats puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah, get down, baby
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But whats confusing you
Is just the nature of my game
Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me lucifer
cause Im in need of some restraint
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or Ill lay your soul to waste, um yeah
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, um yeah
But whats puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, um mean it, get down
Woo, who
Oh yeah, get on down
Oh yeah
Oh yeah!
Tell me baby, whats my name
Tell me honey, can ya guess my name
Tell me baby, whats my name
I tell you one time, youre to blame
Ooo, who
Ooo, who
Ooo, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Oh, yeah
Whats me name
Tell me, baby, whats my name
Tell me, sweetie, whats my name
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Oh, yeah
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at June 28, 2007 1:12 PM
Read the child porn, murder manual, bandit handbook known as the koran Mr.Prez and you'll have the goals of the islamists spelled out to you.. They intend to exterminate us, plain and simple.
Posted by: Armalite at June 28, 2007 1:35 PM
Greetings:
"The region is going Islam," an official said.
You see the difference between the State Department and the Boy Scouts is that the Boy Scouts have adult supervision.
Posted by: 11B40 at June 28, 2007 1:51 PM
Insanity, pure insanity...
If that is the deadend course they are going to take, for goodness sakes get all the Christians out immediatly!
Posted by: adobe at June 28, 2007 3:23 PM
"Either you're with us or you're against us."
President Bush
Sir, you are against us.
at June 28, 2007 3:28 PM
Our government and State Department needs to meddle in every little thing, just because they can. Why should the West even care if the M.E. is turning more Islamic? And why must our government jump on this Islamification bandwagon, just to APPEAR that we are in control of M.E. developments? After all, our government's endgame (democracy) is just a means to an end for most Islamic groups (their goal, Islam and Sharia dominates the world). So at best this would would be a temporary alliance that would quickly burn the West, like the mujihadeen in Afghanistan. I guess that is the problem with bureaucracy, they always want more influence, more to do, and our incapable of non-interference.
If and when Hamas knocks out Fatah, how many Palestinian refugees is the West going to take in just to remain "friends" with the House of Saud, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc? After all, the West and the US in particular will be taking in tens of thousands of Iraqi's many of whom supported attacks on our forces.
Stop Muslim immigration, get out of Iraq, and remove any semblance of business as usual with our so-called allies (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan). Don't get involved in the M.E. except to protect Israel, and depending on the situation, Lebanon and Kurdistan.
That's it, politically. Economically, begin the Manhattan Energy Project.
at June 28, 2007 3:32 PM
I was just wondering if the Chinese have an Embassy in Israel, if so they should tart preparing themselves for a repeat of 7 May 1999
When anther brain damaged US president got cuddly with the moslems.
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2007/05/on-this-day-may-7.html
Posted by: shiva
at June 28, 2007 3:48 PM
This is equivalent to the US, during WWII, meeting with the Gestapo to overthrow Germany!
Posted by: Monkeywho at June 28, 2007 6:00 PM
"Leiken's naivete and willful ignorance win the day."
-- from the comment to the article above
Google "Become an instant Middle East expert" and "Barry Rubin" for more.
Posted by: Hugh at June 28, 2007 8:10 PM
Newsflash for the State Department. Countries with a significant Islamic presence, in the absence of a dictator, become a series of ever more pure Islamic states. When a Country gets to a certain level of purity, it can’t sustain itself and either takes something from a neighbor, or falls apart back into dictatorship.
When you took our the dictator, going Islamic happens next. As a matter of fact, they are probably just getting warmed up. Stop feeding these dependent societies and you will quickly find out that the ‘Region is no longer going Islamic.’
If you keep sending Karen Hughes around the world telling Muslims how great it is to live in the United States, we’ll get to play the same games here.
Posted by: pez at June 28, 2007 8:59 PM
Why not follow up with the next logical step, and schmooze with al Qaeda?
Posted by: Infidel Pride at June 29, 2007 2:22 AM
Umm. Hasn't State always been "Arabist" in its orientation?
Posted by: waterdragon52 at June 29, 2007 12:00 PM
An analogy: My neighborhood is turning into a collection of crack houses run by a bunch of ganstas. We have methamphetamine labs being set up in several of them as well.
I suppose it's time to become friends with the gangsters and criminals running these operations since the whole neighborhood's going bad. Maybe I can get a job for one of my kids too.
Posted by: A_Plague_on_Both_Houses at June 29, 2007 12:09 PM
"You make them partners," Zeyno Baran, Fradkin's colleague at Hudson, told the New York Sun. "They might Islamize the Muslims, but it's okay because they can think or do what they want as long as they are not violent. That is the misunderstanding and mistake."
Ah, so as long as you're not violent, you can say and do whatever the hell you want?
By that logic, it is perfectly okay to be a Nazi and openly deny the Holocaust, openly say that the world is better off without Jews (without directly advocating genocide), and openly adhere the doctrine that there are "Übermenschen" and "Untermenschen"...
In fact - some people are rather convinced that Mohammed is best described in therms like 'peadophile', 'shithead' and/or 'cocksucker', and by this logic, this should be perfectly legal, as long as the people who actually say it don't intend to step into the nearest mosque and shoot all people that are present there.
However, this is simply not the case.
You can't just say and believe whatever you want, even if you are non-violent, and there are laws againest adhering certain ideologies and saying certain things.
And in many cases, I'd say that that's a good thing.
..
Now, I would like to point out that I am not conservative or something like that.
In fact, I am a genuine Dutch libertarian, and I truly believe in liberties, freedom of speech and beliefs and getting rid of unneccesary and restrictive rules and laws.
I really believe that people should be free to do and believe whatever the hell they want.
However, as Nazism has proven in the past, and as radical islam is proving right now, some ideologies are just plain poison, and no good can possibly come from them.
And the fundamentalist ideology that is espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood is such an ideology.
We should never tolerate ideologies that have proven themselves to be a danger to us, our liberal laws, and our very way of life, let alone cooperate with organisations that follow such ideologies.
Posted by: Dae Rolf at June 30, 2007 11:14 AM
“"The region is going Islam," an official said”
Where does this leave Israel? If I were an Israeli, statements like this, by an official, would lead me to wonder whether the U.S. was quietly preparing to abandon my country.
at June 30, 2007 12:19 PM
"The Bush administration has been quietly engaging the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Officials said the State Department has approved a policy that would enable U.S. diplomats to meet and coordinate with Brotherhood leaders in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and other Arab states. They said the program would first be restricted to elected officials from the Brotherhood and eventually be extended to their political chiefs"
My, what a long suicide note.
Why doesn't Bush just stop pussying around with "engaging" , "coordinating" and just admit that he wants to date Bin Laden. He's as close as doing that already.
Once a drug taking hippy coward always a drug taking hippy coward.
at June 30, 2007 10:30 PM
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