Yglesias, Ackerman: Romney Versus The Muslim Brotherhood

Updated to clarify Y's link to Hot For TNR - my bad.

Let's remain objective here and only use mainstream sources, not Right-side blogs on the Muslim Brotherhood. Romney said this below at last night's debate:

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.

Matthew Yglesias attacks Romney and Republicans who allowed the comment to go unchallenged. He also responds with a defense of the Muslim Brotherhood and links to THFTNR calling Romney the Real Child of Hell:

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'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.

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.

In light of the, many would argue, more than fair WaPo analysis of the MB, re-visit what Romney said:

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.

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.

Comments

[Nikolay]

"This is one of my main gripes with the left. In order to maintain your anti-war posture, you have to invent wholly illogical, completely unbelievable theories regarding human motivation."
Judith Miller went into jail to protect Scooter Libby. She's not a raging lefty.
I'm not saying that it was wrong to go into Afghanistan, only that it's exactly what OBL wanted. Sometimes it's right to do what your enemy wants you to do, but it's important to remember that your actions are not going to be a surprise for him.
All this talk about Clinton that had his head in the sand is pure BS. When he bombed Afghanistan in 1998, freepers wrote that he just turned US into a terrorist nation. Seriously. It was McCain that called for unconditional cut and run from Somalia. It was Hannity that said that Bill would have blood of every soldier that died fighting Milosevic on his hands. _Of course_ Clinton would go into Afghanistan after 9/11. No way he could do that before 9/11 without being eaten alive by your side.

"The very idea that the leaders of Al Qaeda were just aching to give up their opulent life as honored guests of the Taliban so they could live out their years in caves next to piles of their feces, waking up from night terrors every time a camel backfires, and almost completely neutered from meaingfully advancing their grand schemes of world conquest in the name of their death god, is just outright ridiculous."
Next thing you would say that suicide bombers are not suicidal.
Whatever plans for world conquest Al Qaeda had, it was never going to succeed in them. One thing you have to understand, they are really inhuman. More than Hamas, certainly more than Iran's mullahs or Hezbollah. They are like that scorpion that stung the frog that was carrying him across the river -- he drowned himself because he couldn't help his nature.
They feel great wherever there's chaos, but they can't survive peace. To believe that they have a chance in hell for "world domination" is to fall for their delusional propaganda.

Anyway, speaking about Soviet war in Afghanistan, which is a perfect comparison, USSR didn't really _lose_ there. It just spent there ten years with "we'll succeed unless we'll quit" attitude and then decided that it's just not worth it. BTW, USSR begged USA to help broker some kind of honorable withdrawal, but USA's position (voiced by Richard Perle) was "you lost, now just kiss our mujahad friends' asses and go away".

As long as AQ can exploit legitimate grievances of Iraqis to have American army stuck in Iraq, it is happy. If you care about your country, it's important not to make it happy. Given the fact that the major part of political factions in Iraq see timetable for withdrawal as a prerequisite for the beginning of real political healing, it makes a lot of sense to consider that option.

[Nikolay]

"Islam has been a malignant cancer in the Middle East for about 1500 years. To the extent that Middle Easterners are oppressed, it's by internal actors deflecting blame externally. The United States, Israel, and all the other convenient boogeymen trotted out by the Religion of Perpetual Grievance (I wonder what the Hindus did to deserve such a fate?) are not responsible for their ills. They have adopted a twisted supremacist ideology crippled by a "divine" sense of self-entitlement and a degree of envy that drives them to extreme levels of hatred and violence. Their problems are the result of their own pathologies, not "oppression" by the West."

I didn't talk about oppression by the West, although there's certainly _some_ degree of blame to go there.
Take Saddam Hussein, a secular dictator. All the opposition to him was Islamist. There's probably a simple technical explanation for this -- dictatorships _always_ suppresses freedom of the press, but it rarely suppresses freedom of religion. This turns mosque into the the most viable social instrument for opposition. Of course, the fact that something is opposition doesn't mean it can't be ugly, but you have what you have.

[circleA]

"To believe that they have a chance in hell for "world domination" is to fall for their delusional propaganda."

It would be as if back in the 90s we took the Aryan Nations desire to overthrow the US Government seriously and therefore bombed the entire state of Idaho in response.

Or along the same lines the fact that I might WANT to be a trillionaire who sleeps with a different gorgeous model every night doesn't mean I will.

For such self-described strong manly Churchillian men you sure do act like a bunch of bedwetting pussies.

[Brett]

I find it hilarious that some of the commenters have lost a year since 9/11/01.

[VJay]

"It would be as if back in the 90s we took the Aryan Nations desire to overthrow the US Government seriously and therefore bombed the entire state of Idaho in response."

Or it wouldn't, because this is an idiotic comparison. Let me know when the Aryan Nation gets a hold of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons that can wipe out hundreds of thousands of people. Let me know when their twisted ideology accumulates a few hundred million adherents worldwide, and they acquire the tacit or often direct support of governments sitting on trillions of dollars worth of oil revenues.

For people so obsessed with "giving terrorists what they want" (which, apparently to you, includes slaughtering them by the thousands), you sure seem completely uninterested in the fact that it is THEY that believe that they can establish a worldwide caliphate. I think the notion is ridiculous, but, then again, their entire cult is psychotic. And, of course, they have throngs of liberals that give them hope for success every day.

"Or along the same lines the fact that I might WANT to be a trillionaire who sleeps with a different gorgeous model every night doesn't mean I will."

Sorry -- I should've saved my "idiotic comparison" label for this bit of unseriousness. Now I'm all out.

"For such self-described strong manly Churchillian men you sure do act like a bunch of bedwetting pussies."

Yeah, you're right. We should instead be focused on REAL threats like cyclical temperature increases of one degree Fahrenheit over the next century. Courage, brave liberal warrior -- this time we're gonna beat that flaming ball of fire in the sky!

Liberals: always tilting at windmills so they don't have to bother their fragile little minds with the real threats in the world.

Pussy.

[VJay]

"I'm not saying that it was wrong to go into Afghanistan, only that it's exactly what OBL wanted. Sometimes it's right to do what your enemy wants you to do, but it's important to remember that your actions are not going to be a surprise for him. "

And, like I said, to whatever extent he wanted us there, it's because the arrogant psychopath thought he could win. I guarantee on the basis of common sense and human nature that, as he's stuck playing dead hands of Texas hold'em with Pol Pot down in Hades, he has a serious case of buyer's remorse because his band of butchers got their asses handed to them.

"All this talk about Clinton that had his head in the sand is pure BS. When he bombed Afghanistan in 1998, freepers wrote that he just turned US into a terrorist nation. Seriously. It was McCain that called for unconditional cut and run from Somalia. It was Hannity that said that Bill would have blood of every soldier that died fighting Milosevic on his hands. _Of course_ Clinton would go into Afghanistan after 9/11. No way he could do that before 9/11 without being eaten alive by your side."

No, it's not. Being President means doing what's right regardless of the political cost. This is the major area where Bush excels and Clinton fails. The idea that Bill Clinton had to allow repeated terrorist attacks against us without meaningful response (and the thwarting of the Millenium bombing was nothing more than pure dumb luck) because the Freepers or Sean freaking Hannity would be critical of him otherwise shows what an insecure, narcissistic buffoon Clinton was. I've no doubt that Clinton would have invaded Afghanistan post 9/11 and that he would have been savaged by his political opponents had he done so earlier. But he did NOTHING to fight a growing and obvious threat to us, including turning down an offered-on-a-silver-platter Bin Laden three times because his American-burning, Cuban child-deporting Justice Department didn't think they could prosecute him like he was some kind of common shoplifter. A man who treats Yassir Arafat as anything other than the blood-soaked butcher he was is not a man serious about fighting terrorism.

And, as an aside, his campaign in Kosovo, which continues to this day (why no pullout from there?), was a hideous decision because (a) we had zero national interests in intervening there, and (b) we wound up enabling another throng of Muslim savages.

"Whatever plans for world conquest Al Qaeda had, it was never going to succeed in them."

Like I said in the previous post, this is wholly irrelevant. The costs they can easily impose on is in their dooomed-to-fail endeavor are not acceptable.

"One thing you have to understand, they are really inhuman. More than Hamas, certainly more than Iran's mullahs or Hezbollah. They are like that scorpion that stung the frog that was carrying him across the river -- he drowned himself because he couldn't help his nature.
They feel great wherever there's chaos, but they can't survive peace."

You continue to draw these fine-line distinctions between Monster A and Monster B. Hezbollah, Hamas, Assad -- all of them just as evil as Al Qaeda and all just as worthy of extermination. I don't do the whole "yeah, they do evil things, but they have grievances and it's really more complicated than that" nonsense and neither should anyone else. Anyone that seeks to advance his ideological or political goals through the murder of innocents is a piece of subhuman filth, and it's a good day on planet Earth when that dog gets put down.

For you to pretend that Assad, for example -- someone who assassinates his political opponents and who coordinates the logistics for a genocidal terrorist group -- is really just a "poor schmuck" caught in the middle of a game of delicate realpolitik shows that it's not my moral compass that needs to be calibrated.

"As long as AQ can exploit legitimate grievances of Iraqis to have American army stuck in Iraq, it is happy."

They can do the same thing in Afghanistan. Remember the poll of four "moderate" Muslim nations I cited earlier? Our foreign policy should not be dictated by the emotional reactions to it by our insane adversaries. And, given that Al Qaeda is in a much, much weaker position than it was six years ago (losing thousands of your foot soldiers and your primary base of operations tends to affect that outcome), I don't share your hard-to-swallow belief that they are just giddy with the way things are going for them.

"If you care about your country, it's important not to make it happy."

Not nearly as important as it is to massacre its adherents in as efficient a manner as possible. That's happening now. It wasn't happening before. If you talk to dead terrorists, I think you'll find that, almost to a man, they preferred being alive.

"the fact that the major part of political factions in Iraq see timetable for withdrawal as a prerequisite for the beginning of real political healing, it makes a lot of sense to consider that option."

It never makes sense to put a timetable on withdrawl, and next to no one with any military experience (that cowardly baboon Murtha aside) would argue otherwise. That "political healing", in the words of your own side, is tantamount to becoming a client state of Iran, so screw that. And I find it amazing that the "get out now" crowd ignores the incontrovertible fact that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people are going to die if we follow your advice. Not to mention the fact that Al Qaeda will have new digs much nicer than the ones we just drove them out of, and your side, I've been assured, is super-serious about fighting Al Qaeda. Except, of course, in Iraq... where they are.

"There's probably a simple technical explanation for this -- dictatorships _always_ suppresses freedom of the press, but it rarely suppresses freedom of religion. This turns mosque into the the most viable social instrument for opposition. Of course, the fact that something is opposition doesn't mean it can't be ugly, but you have what you have."

This is an intriguing observation. It doesn't change my mind about anything I've said, but it really is thought-provoking. I hadn't considered the virulence of Islamism in those terms before.

[Nikolay]

"Being President means doing what's right regardless of the political cost. This is the major area where Bush excels and Clinton fails."
Really? Whatever Bush did in fighting terrorism, he always did it with politics in mind. If he would withdraw now, it would destroy him politically even worse than staying.

"A man who treats Yassir Arafat as anything other than the blood-soaked butcher he was is not a man serious about fighting terrorism."
Hey, that's funny, you defend Bush supporting Maliki and Abbas because they are legitimate, and yet Clinton who merely did what Israel asked him to do, try to broker peace between Israel and Abbas' predecessor, deserves derision in your book. This is a major and childish inconsistency. BTW, I think I heard Bush saying something about "terrorists that fight against our moderate friends in Fatah". I don't believe that Clinton, for all the misguided hopes in Arafat's spiritual transformation, ever said anything that awkward.

"And, as an aside, his campaign in Kosovo, which continues to this day (why no pullout from there?), was a hideous decision because (a) we had zero national interests in intervening there, and (b) we wound up enabling another throng of Muslim savages."
As opposed to Iraq?
And this is really twisted logic. Muslim -- bad, Christian -- good, right? Believe me, Orthodox Christianity is a very nasty religion. In Russia where I live, it's now almost as bad Communism was.

"You continue to draw these fine-line distinctions between Monster A and Monster B. Hezbollah, Hamas, Assad -- all of them just as evil as Al Qaeda and all just as worthy of extermination. I don't do the whole "yeah, they do evil things, but they have grievances and it's really more complicated than that" nonsense and neither should anyone else. Anyone that seeks to advance his ideological or political goals through the murder of innocents is a piece of subhuman filth, and it's a good day on planet Earth when that dog gets put down."
This "no distinction" approach is totally wrong. For example, most of the Sunni tribes fighting Al-Qaeda in Anbar province are both Islamists and insurgents. You have to either forget about all the successes there or recognize that there are, indeed, significant differences between various groups. When an insurgent in Iraq attacks American soldier, he's your enemy, for sure, but no way can you argue that his attack is illegitimate. A terrorist blowing up civilians is a totally different matter, and if you don't distinguish them, no way will you ever solve the situation.
Every group has its own ideology, goals and rules of engagement and recognizing their differences is key to success and doesn't, in fact, have anything to do with moral judgment.

"For you to pretend that Assad, for example -- someone who assassinates his political opponents and who coordinates the logistics for a genocidal terrorist group -- is really just a "poor schmuck" caught in the middle of a game of delicate realpolitik shows that it's not my moral compass that needs to be calibrated."
Hey, I know that all this is an accepted knowledge, but where is the evidence? It is only _alleged_ so far that he was behind assassination of Hariri. And what terrorist group are you talking about? Al-Qaeda's associates that want him overthrown, and from whom Syrians saved American embassy last autumn? Or Hamas? Do you remember Black September in Jordan? I'm not talking about "delicate realpolitik", I'm talking about murderous environment, but he's probably about as bad as average Middle Eastern ruler, and there's no doubt at all that kicking him out and "democratization" of Syria would make matters _way worse_.

"It never makes sense to put a timetable on withdrawl, and next to no one with any military experience (that cowardly baboon Murtha aside) would argue otherwise. That "political healing", in the words of your own side, is tantamount to becoming a client state of Iran, so screw that."

It's actually anti-Iranian Sunnies that argue for the timetable. As long as they don't know that US will leave at all, they can't convince non-Al-Qaeda insurgents to lay down weapons.
Just read a conversation with Iraqi VP:
http://www.cfr.org/publication/12304/conversation_with_tariq_alhashimi_rush_transcript_federal_news_service.html
'The problems is the timetable withdrawal. If you declare that tomorrow, the tension is going to be mitigated not only in the Sunni side, the Shi'a side as well, because everybody cautious, in fact, about the future. The American administration left it vague. They didn't say clearly, in fact. What is the ultimate mission that they are going to fulfill? Nobody knows. How long they are going to stay in Iraq, (for instance ?)? As an Iraqi -- I am also vice president -- I would like very much to see that Iraq is free tomorrow, and to assist all those families waiting their sons to receive them back as soon as possible, in fact, and to stop and to put an end for this -- for the tragedy. I be very much on the same side and the same time I would like to see my own national armed force, in fact, to shoulder responsibilities and secure the situation in Iraq.'

"And I find it amazing that the "get out now" crowd ignores the incontrovertible fact that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people are going to die if we follow your advice. Not to mention the fact that Al Qaeda will have new digs much nicer than the ones we just drove them out of, and your side, I've been assured, is super-serious about fighting Al Qaeda. Except, of course, in Iraq... where they are."

I didn't talk about "get out now". Timetables=/="get out now". But as long as it's status quo situation and Shia just continue screwing Sunnies, the chances for eventual more or less peaceful resolution grow smaller and smaller. The government is on the verge of total breakdown, the political dynamic is bad, the oil law is just behind the corner as it was 1/2 a year ago. Americans can't defeat Al-Qaeda in Iraq, it can only be done by Iraqis themselves. As long as those Iraqis perceive Americans as occupiers allied with murderous oppressors, they won't be very effective fighting Al-Qaeda.