Friday November 30, 2007
Hamas, Teddy Bears in Sudan and the Muslim Brotherhood
There are two places where the Muslim Brotherhood exercises governmental power-Sudan and the Palestinian territories. That is, where it controls the levers of the state. It seems to me it is worth looking at these states to see how the Brotherhood would govern if given the chance, and to see the real agenda of the organization that claims to represent moderate, modernizing and tolerant interpretations of Islam.
For an excellent summary of why the Muslim Brotherhood is such an important topic, see this new paper by Hillel Fradkin of the Hudson Institute.
To give the core arguement:
The Brotherhood was founded in 1928 and, as such, is the oldest formal and organized expression of Islamism or Salafism. It is certainly the oldest mass and ultimately worldwide Islamist movement. In accordance with that conception, it is today an impressively widespread movement, having at this point many, many branches in both Muslim countries and Muslim minority communities in other countries. Its accumulated experience forms by far the greatest part of the history of Islamism, and it remains the Islamist organization with the greatest general impact on Muslims overall. This alone would suffice to render it an important subject of study.
But this does not suffice to exhaust its centrality. For because of its long history, it has by now had a substantial impact on almost all other Islamist organizations in a variety of ways. Many have been inspired by it—Jamaat-e-Islami of South Asia founded by Maulana Maududi, for example. Some, like Saudi Wahhabism, have collaborated with it and been profoundly influenced by that association. Others have grown out of it, led by defectors who ultimately rejected its approach and set a new and frequently violent course of their own. This includes al-Qaeda, the Brotherhood being one of Osama’s first intellectual influences. Indeed, for many Muslims who eventually wind up in the most radical terrain, the Brotherhood and its sister organizations serve as an entry point. Few Islamists have remained unaffected by its existence, therefore, whether in a positive or negative sense—and sometimes in both.
In short, since its founding the Brotherhood has constituted the broad and essential base of the Islamist movement, which in itself is a remarkable achievement. For reasons to be mentioned later, it has also provided the essential framework of the movement.
But lest I be misunderstood, let me immediately say and stress what I just implied—that the Islamist movement today and broadly understood embraces a wide variety of viewpoints, tendencies and organizations that are sometimes at odds with one another. We will have many opportunities to discuss and do justice to these divisions later. But here I want to note the commonalities. All Islamists are joined together by at least three factors: the desire to purify and thus revive Islamic life; the desire to restore the worldly fortunes of Islam; and the conviction that both can be achieved only by reappropriating the model of Islam’s seventh-century founders, the Salaf or virtuous ancestors, which include Mohammed and his closest companions or followers.
The first, now in the news, is Sudan, where a middle-aged British teacher has been sentenced to 15 days in prison for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Mohamad." Angry crowds of thousands are in the streets of Khartoum, demanding her death. She was found guilty of inciting religious hatred.
So, an Islamist regime that claims it cannot stop genocide in its national territory and where not one person has been tried for the crimes of Darfur, is able to pounce on this heinous offense involving a teddy bear and a lack of cultural awareness. Not only pounce, but try and sentence the perpetrator in less than 48 hours. Justice can be swift when the government decides to move.
As I wrote recently, the regime in Sudan (faced with an absolute and stunning silence by the rest of the Arab world and a weak and ineffective response by the rest of the world), is still allowing the genocide to flourish while blocking the deployment of an effective UN peacekeeping mission.
Genocide and an intolerance for teddy bear names is not how I would define a commitment to tolerance, peace and democratic rule.
Hamas, defined in its own charter as part of the Muslim Brotherhood, also has given a pretty clear indication of how it interprets the _Ikhwan's_ definition of tolerance. Among the first things the Hamas government has sought to do is impose sharia law.
Hamas has, in the area it controls, waged a Taliban-like crusade against all things deemed un-Muslim. This includes the narrowest interpretation of Islamic teaching.
Again, hardly the recommendation that would lead one to believe that their actions are consistent with their words, at least the words they say in English, directed at the infidels, and not at their home base.
What is depressing is that people like Leiken and others who continually advocate for engagement with the international Brotherhood refuse to look at the most powerful evidence in hand-the actual behavior of the _Ikhwan_ when given true power. I think that is a good place to start.
For an excellent summary of why the Muslim Brotherhood is such an important topic, see this new paper by Hillel Fradkin of the Hudson Institute.
To give the core arguement:
The Brotherhood was founded in 1928 and, as such, is the oldest formal and organized expression of Islamism or Salafism. It is certainly the oldest mass and ultimately worldwide Islamist movement. In accordance with that conception, it is today an impressively widespread movement, having at this point many, many branches in both Muslim countries and Muslim minority communities in other countries. Its accumulated experience forms by far the greatest part of the history of Islamism, and it remains the Islamist organization with the greatest general impact on Muslims overall. This alone would suffice to render it an important subject of study.
But this does not suffice to exhaust its centrality. For because of its long history, it has by now had a substantial impact on almost all other Islamist organizations in a variety of ways. Many have been inspired by it—Jamaat-e-Islami of South Asia founded by Maulana Maududi, for example. Some, like Saudi Wahhabism, have collaborated with it and been profoundly influenced by that association. Others have grown out of it, led by defectors who ultimately rejected its approach and set a new and frequently violent course of their own. This includes al-Qaeda, the Brotherhood being one of Osama’s first intellectual influences. Indeed, for many Muslims who eventually wind up in the most radical terrain, the Brotherhood and its sister organizations serve as an entry point. Few Islamists have remained unaffected by its existence, therefore, whether in a positive or negative sense—and sometimes in both.
In short, since its founding the Brotherhood has constituted the broad and essential base of the Islamist movement, which in itself is a remarkable achievement. For reasons to be mentioned later, it has also provided the essential framework of the movement.
But lest I be misunderstood, let me immediately say and stress what I just implied—that the Islamist movement today and broadly understood embraces a wide variety of viewpoints, tendencies and organizations that are sometimes at odds with one another. We will have many opportunities to discuss and do justice to these divisions later. But here I want to note the commonalities. All Islamists are joined together by at least three factors: the desire to purify and thus revive Islamic life; the desire to restore the worldly fortunes of Islam; and the conviction that both can be achieved only by reappropriating the model of Islam’s seventh-century founders, the Salaf or virtuous ancestors, which include Mohammed and his closest companions or followers.
The first, now in the news, is Sudan, where a middle-aged British teacher has been sentenced to 15 days in prison for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Mohamad." Angry crowds of thousands are in the streets of Khartoum, demanding her death. She was found guilty of inciting religious hatred.
So, an Islamist regime that claims it cannot stop genocide in its national territory and where not one person has been tried for the crimes of Darfur, is able to pounce on this heinous offense involving a teddy bear and a lack of cultural awareness. Not only pounce, but try and sentence the perpetrator in less than 48 hours. Justice can be swift when the government decides to move.
As I wrote recently, the regime in Sudan (faced with an absolute and stunning silence by the rest of the Arab world and a weak and ineffective response by the rest of the world), is still allowing the genocide to flourish while blocking the deployment of an effective UN peacekeeping mission.
Genocide and an intolerance for teddy bear names is not how I would define a commitment to tolerance, peace and democratic rule.
Hamas, defined in its own charter as part of the Muslim Brotherhood, also has given a pretty clear indication of how it interprets the _Ikhwan's_ definition of tolerance. Among the first things the Hamas government has sought to do is impose sharia law.
Hamas has, in the area it controls, waged a Taliban-like crusade against all things deemed un-Muslim. This includes the narrowest interpretation of Islamic teaching.
Again, hardly the recommendation that would lead one to believe that their actions are consistent with their words, at least the words they say in English, directed at the infidels, and not at their home base.
What is depressing is that people like Leiken and others who continually advocate for engagement with the international Brotherhood refuse to look at the most powerful evidence in hand-the actual behavior of the _Ikhwan_ when given true power. I think that is a good place to start.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Wednesday November 28, 2007
Darfur (Again)
To the surprise of no one, the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government of Sudan is making it impossible to deploy the promised peacekeeping mission in Darfur, a senior UN official says.
Jean-Marie Guehenno told the United Nations Security Council that excessive demands from Khartoum "would make it impossible for the mission to operate".
Among other demands, Sudan wants advance notice of troop movements and to be able to shut down communications.
That is handy, to be able to shut down communications and know where troops are, especially when those responsible for the vast bulk of the genocide are operating under government protection.
The UN knows, and has reported on, the growing presence of al Qaeda in training camps in the Darfur region, something that my Western intelligence sources tell me is a growing problem.
The camps, some dating to the time Osama bin Laden was an honored guest of the regime, are small, but expanding. Al Qaeda has publicly stated its ambition to return to Sudan and expand in the Horn of Africa. The regime of Omar Bashir and his thugs are quite accommodating.
For an interesting look at who Sudan plays the outside world like a fiddle, see this Le Monde Diplomatique piece.
The author notes Bashir objections to a real peacekeeping for force are "astonishing. He accuses the UN of wanting to re-colonise the Sudan, and claims that the force is merely a cover for the West to enable it to get hold of Sudanese oil. He also says the international forces have "peddled Aids" and he has threatened to use special Iraq-type suicide units against the peace troops."
Now, there is a man who wants peace!
This is a combination of terrorist and humanitarian issues that have completely baffled the outside world. It is a test that every major constituent group that should, on humanitarian and counter-terrorism grounds, be working to halt the genocide, has failed, and failed miserably. The human cost of the failure has been staggering, and the political/strategic costs will not be known for several more years.
No one, from the fundamentalist Islamist regimes in the region who share Sudan's radical beliefs, to other African nations who defined Darfur as an "African problem" to be solved by Africans, to the West to China and its oil interests, has made much difference.
It is utterly inconceivable to me that, more than two years after President Bush declared Darfur a genocide that we are still dithering with this radical Islamist regime that has reneged on every promise it has ever made in relation to the mass murder. The administration, if you can believe it, is still piddling around the edges of further economic sanctions, freezes and half measures. They have allowed it to drop off the public agenda.
Equally appalling is that no Islamic nation has provided any moral leadership at all on the issue. Islamist regimes must hang together, or they will surely all crumble together, but one would think that condemning genocide would be within the theological writ of some of these leaders.
Africa? Thabo Mbeki, as he has with Zimbabwe, has been utterly unwilling to use his influence and moral authority to create a better world, the kind he and Nelson Mandela fought for for so many years. Imagine if it were a white regime in full genocide mode. The reaction would (and should) be withering.
What is the result? The UN's Guehenno outlines the likely outcome of any deployment under the current Sudanese regime:
"Do we move ahead with the deployment of a force that will not make a difference, that will not have the capability to defend itself, and that carries the risk of humiliation of the Security Council and the United Nations, and tragic failure for the people of Darfur?"
The tragic failure has already occurred. The question is how long we will tolerate this failure.
Jean-Marie Guehenno told the United Nations Security Council that excessive demands from Khartoum "would make it impossible for the mission to operate".
Among other demands, Sudan wants advance notice of troop movements and to be able to shut down communications.
That is handy, to be able to shut down communications and know where troops are, especially when those responsible for the vast bulk of the genocide are operating under government protection.
The UN knows, and has reported on, the growing presence of al Qaeda in training camps in the Darfur region, something that my Western intelligence sources tell me is a growing problem.
The camps, some dating to the time Osama bin Laden was an honored guest of the regime, are small, but expanding. Al Qaeda has publicly stated its ambition to return to Sudan and expand in the Horn of Africa. The regime of Omar Bashir and his thugs are quite accommodating.
For an interesting look at who Sudan plays the outside world like a fiddle, see this Le Monde Diplomatique piece.
The author notes Bashir objections to a real peacekeeping for force are "astonishing. He accuses the UN of wanting to re-colonise the Sudan, and claims that the force is merely a cover for the West to enable it to get hold of Sudanese oil. He also says the international forces have "peddled Aids" and he has threatened to use special Iraq-type suicide units against the peace troops."
Now, there is a man who wants peace!
This is a combination of terrorist and humanitarian issues that have completely baffled the outside world. It is a test that every major constituent group that should, on humanitarian and counter-terrorism grounds, be working to halt the genocide, has failed, and failed miserably. The human cost of the failure has been staggering, and the political/strategic costs will not be known for several more years.
No one, from the fundamentalist Islamist regimes in the region who share Sudan's radical beliefs, to other African nations who defined Darfur as an "African problem" to be solved by Africans, to the West to China and its oil interests, has made much difference.
It is utterly inconceivable to me that, more than two years after President Bush declared Darfur a genocide that we are still dithering with this radical Islamist regime that has reneged on every promise it has ever made in relation to the mass murder. The administration, if you can believe it, is still piddling around the edges of further economic sanctions, freezes and half measures. They have allowed it to drop off the public agenda.
Equally appalling is that no Islamic nation has provided any moral leadership at all on the issue. Islamist regimes must hang together, or they will surely all crumble together, but one would think that condemning genocide would be within the theological writ of some of these leaders.
Africa? Thabo Mbeki, as he has with Zimbabwe, has been utterly unwilling to use his influence and moral authority to create a better world, the kind he and Nelson Mandela fought for for so many years. Imagine if it were a white regime in full genocide mode. The reaction would (and should) be withering.
What is the result? The UN's Guehenno outlines the likely outcome of any deployment under the current Sudanese regime:
"Do we move ahead with the deployment of a force that will not make a difference, that will not have the capability to defend itself, and that carries the risk of humiliation of the Security Council and the United Nations, and tragic failure for the people of Darfur?"
The tragic failure has already occurred. The question is how long we will tolerate this failure.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Monday November 26, 2007
Afghanistan and the Disturbing Lack of Stategic Thinking
The Washington Post on Sunday carried a disturbing piece on Afghanistan, where the problems cited are part of a broader pattern of the same mistakes across the spectrum in the war with radical Islamists.
After summing up the litany of problems, from a weak and failing government to the fact that the _jihadists_ seem to be able to easily replace the large number of combatants being killed, Karen DeYoung writes that:
But others said the problem is not Pakistan or a lack of military or financial resources in Afghanistan. It is the absence, they say, of a strategic plan that melds the U.S. military effort with a comprehensive blueprint for development and governance throughout the country.
"There are plenty of dollars and a hell of a lot more troops there, by a factor of two, from when I was there," the former commander said. The question, he said, is "who owns the overarching campaign for Afghanistan, and what is it?"
The absence of an overarching strategic plan stretches across the board, to dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood to defining the agenda at the upcoming Annapolis meeting.
There is a constant division over who owns the strategic plan, and how to get the government to move in unison on it.
What is truly dismaying is that this lack of strategic thinking prevails six years after a successful military campaign in Afghanistan, one that many felt could not be won quickly and with little loss of life.
In fact, the campaign actually turned out to be, in many ways, one of the great successes. That Osama bin Laden and his main cadre escaped has cast a shadow on the campaign, but even so, it was quicker and less costly, in terms of blood and treasure, tha most people thought possible.
Gen. Patreus seems to have finally created a strategy for the United States efforts in Iraq, although the Iraqi political leadership has yet to buy in. Afghanistan is complicated by the multiple interests of multiple nations providing troops.
The danger, of course, is that defeat can be snatched from the jaws of victory. My colleague at the NEFA Foundation recently wrote a paper on the Taliban's success in moving toward Kabul, something that was relatively unthinkable a year or two ago.
It is hard to imagine a more stinging, and costly, indictment of our lack of ability on the civilian leadership side-on both sides of the Atlantic-than the lack of unified vision and strategy in Afghanistan. If we lose there, and we may, we will pay for it dearly.
After summing up the litany of problems, from a weak and failing government to the fact that the _jihadists_ seem to be able to easily replace the large number of combatants being killed, Karen DeYoung writes that:
But others said the problem is not Pakistan or a lack of military or financial resources in Afghanistan. It is the absence, they say, of a strategic plan that melds the U.S. military effort with a comprehensive blueprint for development and governance throughout the country.
"There are plenty of dollars and a hell of a lot more troops there, by a factor of two, from when I was there," the former commander said. The question, he said, is "who owns the overarching campaign for Afghanistan, and what is it?"
The absence of an overarching strategic plan stretches across the board, to dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood to defining the agenda at the upcoming Annapolis meeting.
There is a constant division over who owns the strategic plan, and how to get the government to move in unison on it.
What is truly dismaying is that this lack of strategic thinking prevails six years after a successful military campaign in Afghanistan, one that many felt could not be won quickly and with little loss of life.
In fact, the campaign actually turned out to be, in many ways, one of the great successes. That Osama bin Laden and his main cadre escaped has cast a shadow on the campaign, but even so, it was quicker and less costly, in terms of blood and treasure, tha most people thought possible.
Gen. Patreus seems to have finally created a strategy for the United States efforts in Iraq, although the Iraqi political leadership has yet to buy in. Afghanistan is complicated by the multiple interests of multiple nations providing troops.
The danger, of course, is that defeat can be snatched from the jaws of victory. My colleague at the NEFA Foundation recently wrote a paper on the Taliban's success in moving toward Kabul, something that was relatively unthinkable a year or two ago.
It is hard to imagine a more stinging, and costly, indictment of our lack of ability on the civilian leadership side-on both sides of the Atlantic-than the lack of unified vision and strategy in Afghanistan. If we lose there, and we may, we will pay for it dearly.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Wednesday November 21, 2007
In Some Ways, the Crux of the Matter
The Middle East Quarterly, in an article called "Should Muslims Integrate into the West?" goes to much of my thinking on the crux of the issues between political Islam, espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations-some overtly violent and some not-and the traditional immigration model that the United States and Europe have dealt with for many decades.
Certainly not all Muslims, and perhaps not even most, in this country, subscribe to the theology/ideology of political Islam. By this I mean the espousing the oneness of religion and political life. That is, that _sharia_ law and Muslim precepts are not something that regulates the behavior between an individual and Allah, but something to be imposed by divine writ on all humanity.
One must understand the fundamental principle of political Islam in order to understand its goals. This is often not well articulated, but this article does a good job in laying out the issues.
It is because of these fundamental and irreconcilable differences that the Muslim Brotherhood, its legacy groups in the United States and Europe, and other Islamists, pose a threat to liberal democracies and why they cannot do other than try to destroy the current structures.
The fundamental difference, it seems to me, is well articulated in the article. For the Muslim Brotherhood groups and those allied with them , the article notes, the rules of engagement in the West are as follows:
Regardless of sect, legal school, nationality, or political status, Muslim jurists from Arab countries have reached similar conclusions as to the proper status and role of Muslim emigrants to the West. To ban or ignore mass Muslim migration to the West would only alienate immigrants, they found. Muslim jurists concentrated instead on constructing a legal-religious framework to maintain emigrants' Muslim identities while using the diaspora in the service of Islam.
Their judgment called upon Muslim immigrants in the West to place religious identity above national and ethnic identities and to promote the interests of a global Muslim nation.
The jurists' consensus involved five points: First, a greater Islamic nation exists of which Muslims are members wherever they live. Second, while living in a non-Muslim society is undesirable, it might be legal on an individual basis if the immigrant acts as a model Muslim. Third, it is the duty of a Muslim in the West to reaffirm his religious identity and to distance himself from anything contrary to Islam. Hence, he should help establish and patronize mosques, Muslim schools, cultural centers, and shops. Fourth, Muslims in the West should champion the cause of the Muslim nation in the political as well as the religious sphere, for there should be no distinction between the two. Lastly, Muslims in the West should spread Islam in the declining, spiritual void of Western societies.
It is this concept of a global, super-state of Islam to which one owes one's primary allegiance is radically different from the concept that most immigrant communities. Most came to seek a new life, jobs, opportunity and chance at the American dream The goal was not to remain separate, but to assimilate.
When one of my grandfathers migrated from Syria and the other from Sicily a century ago, they wanted to be an American, and viewed themselves as such.
One did not view himself as a papal emissary with a divine mandate to recreate the Vatican and impose the Holy Roman Empire here. The other did not view himself as responsible for creating anything other than a new life in a new land. Neither viewed themselves as separate from the society to which they chose to migrate.
Contrast this to the Islamist position:
Reaffirmation of Muslim identity involves three duties: First, it mandates unity among Muslims. In his book Islam Behind its Boundaries, Muhammad al-Ghazali, a renowned Egyptian jurist who was in charge of da'wa for Egypt's ministry of awkaf (religious endowments), wrote that "loyalty [should be] to Islam, not to race. The brotherhood of Muslims is the first connection, even if places and times have distanced."
Rather than looking for a new life, the Islamist migration, as articulated by _Ikhwan_ leader Sayyid Qutb, is to send a group of pioneers out into the world, in order to prepare from afar the restitution of true Islamic reign, both in Muslim lands and then the rest of the world. The legacy of this thought is seen by the Muslim Brotherhood organizations in this country and Europe.
That is concept articulated by Qutb is somewhat different from wanting to better one's life and that of one's children.
Until we understand this fundamental difference of purpose, logic and goals, we will have little hope of tackling political Islam in the political arena.
Certainly not all Muslims, and perhaps not even most, in this country, subscribe to the theology/ideology of political Islam. By this I mean the espousing the oneness of religion and political life. That is, that _sharia_ law and Muslim precepts are not something that regulates the behavior between an individual and Allah, but something to be imposed by divine writ on all humanity.
One must understand the fundamental principle of political Islam in order to understand its goals. This is often not well articulated, but this article does a good job in laying out the issues.
It is because of these fundamental and irreconcilable differences that the Muslim Brotherhood, its legacy groups in the United States and Europe, and other Islamists, pose a threat to liberal democracies and why they cannot do other than try to destroy the current structures.
The fundamental difference, it seems to me, is well articulated in the article. For the Muslim Brotherhood groups and those allied with them , the article notes, the rules of engagement in the West are as follows:
Regardless of sect, legal school, nationality, or political status, Muslim jurists from Arab countries have reached similar conclusions as to the proper status and role of Muslim emigrants to the West. To ban or ignore mass Muslim migration to the West would only alienate immigrants, they found. Muslim jurists concentrated instead on constructing a legal-religious framework to maintain emigrants' Muslim identities while using the diaspora in the service of Islam.
Their judgment called upon Muslim immigrants in the West to place religious identity above national and ethnic identities and to promote the interests of a global Muslim nation.
The jurists' consensus involved five points: First, a greater Islamic nation exists of which Muslims are members wherever they live. Second, while living in a non-Muslim society is undesirable, it might be legal on an individual basis if the immigrant acts as a model Muslim. Third, it is the duty of a Muslim in the West to reaffirm his religious identity and to distance himself from anything contrary to Islam. Hence, he should help establish and patronize mosques, Muslim schools, cultural centers, and shops. Fourth, Muslims in the West should champion the cause of the Muslim nation in the political as well as the religious sphere, for there should be no distinction between the two. Lastly, Muslims in the West should spread Islam in the declining, spiritual void of Western societies.
It is this concept of a global, super-state of Islam to which one owes one's primary allegiance is radically different from the concept that most immigrant communities. Most came to seek a new life, jobs, opportunity and chance at the American dream The goal was not to remain separate, but to assimilate.
When one of my grandfathers migrated from Syria and the other from Sicily a century ago, they wanted to be an American, and viewed themselves as such.
One did not view himself as a papal emissary with a divine mandate to recreate the Vatican and impose the Holy Roman Empire here. The other did not view himself as responsible for creating anything other than a new life in a new land. Neither viewed themselves as separate from the society to which they chose to migrate.
Contrast this to the Islamist position:
Reaffirmation of Muslim identity involves three duties: First, it mandates unity among Muslims. In his book Islam Behind its Boundaries, Muhammad al-Ghazali, a renowned Egyptian jurist who was in charge of da'wa for Egypt's ministry of awkaf (religious endowments), wrote that "loyalty [should be] to Islam, not to race. The brotherhood of Muslims is the first connection, even if places and times have distanced."
Rather than looking for a new life, the Islamist migration, as articulated by _Ikhwan_ leader Sayyid Qutb, is to send a group of pioneers out into the world, in order to prepare from afar the restitution of true Islamic reign, both in Muslim lands and then the rest of the world. The legacy of this thought is seen by the Muslim Brotherhood organizations in this country and Europe.
That is concept articulated by Qutb is somewhat different from wanting to better one's life and that of one's children.
Until we understand this fundamental difference of purpose, logic and goals, we will have little hope of tackling political Islam in the political arena.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Monday November 19, 2007
USAID Money Could be Helping Terrorists
The Chicago Tribune today brings word that USAID, purveyor of billions of dollars in aid around the world, cannot insure the money does not go to terrorist organizations.
It is hard to believe that six years after 9/11, with the amply-documented propensity for terrorist groups to use charities to fund their activities, that the agency:
_cannot "reasonably ensure" that its money does not wind up in terrorist hands, an internal audit has concluded._
The review found that AID had, in fact, funded terrorist-affiliated groups on two occasions, and that, despite operating in countries where terrorism is a major concern, "USAID has not developed or instituted a worldwide anti-terrorism program."
_USAID risks providing funding or other material support and resources to terrorists or terrorist organizations."_
It does seem incredible to me that this was not a high-priority issue over the past six years. The 9/11 report and countless others have identified the ability of radical Islamists to use aid money to further their own ends.
This is not to say that aid should be cut off. I am a firm believer that the right kind of foreign aid, properly channeled, can be a huge help, both on humanitarian grounds and to help combat radical Islam and other ideological threats.
But the grants are not just grants, and that is why they must be taken seriously, and seriously vetted.
Not only is this money our tax dollars, but those receiving them are legitimized by the process. And the grantees are often then on a fast track for visas and access to other U.S.-funded programs.
The audit found that USAID in 1999 started to set up a more comprehensive vetting process, but staff departures and turnovers kept the process from being completed.
The audit was requested following a Washington Times story in March that USAID had supported the Hamas-linked Islamic University, where Palestinian security forces had recently arrested five Iranians who were allegedly making rockets and explosives. The aid was given in spite of what a State Department spokesman called a "careful vetting process."
Two other cases of funding terrorists are outlined in the story.
There is often a tendency to believe that identifying the problem (CIFIUS, visa control, border control etc.) is somehow the same as taking corrective action. The notion in government seems to often be that if we can talk about the problem, then the problem has been solved or at least mitigated.
Unfortunately, that is not true. And the longer we fail to take serious steps, the more serious the damage will be.
It is hard to believe that six years after 9/11, with the amply-documented propensity for terrorist groups to use charities to fund their activities, that the agency:
_cannot "reasonably ensure" that its money does not wind up in terrorist hands, an internal audit has concluded._
The review found that AID had, in fact, funded terrorist-affiliated groups on two occasions, and that, despite operating in countries where terrorism is a major concern, "USAID has not developed or instituted a worldwide anti-terrorism program."
_USAID risks providing funding or other material support and resources to terrorists or terrorist organizations."_
It does seem incredible to me that this was not a high-priority issue over the past six years. The 9/11 report and countless others have identified the ability of radical Islamists to use aid money to further their own ends.
This is not to say that aid should be cut off. I am a firm believer that the right kind of foreign aid, properly channeled, can be a huge help, both on humanitarian grounds and to help combat radical Islam and other ideological threats.
But the grants are not just grants, and that is why they must be taken seriously, and seriously vetted.
Not only is this money our tax dollars, but those receiving them are legitimized by the process. And the grantees are often then on a fast track for visas and access to other U.S.-funded programs.
The audit found that USAID in 1999 started to set up a more comprehensive vetting process, but staff departures and turnovers kept the process from being completed.
The audit was requested following a Washington Times story in March that USAID had supported the Hamas-linked Islamic University, where Palestinian security forces had recently arrested five Iranians who were allegedly making rockets and explosives. The aid was given in spite of what a State Department spokesman called a "careful vetting process."
Two other cases of funding terrorists are outlined in the story.
There is often a tendency to believe that identifying the problem (CIFIUS, visa control, border control etc.) is somehow the same as taking corrective action. The notion in government seems to often be that if we can talk about the problem, then the problem has been solved or at least mitigated.
Unfortunately, that is not true. And the longer we fail to take serious steps, the more serious the damage will be.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH