International law enforcement and intelligence bodies are only as effective and useful as the people in them and the political will of various countries. Open source information is only as useful as the willingness to look for it and use it.

But the truth is that some of these international groups produce very useful data that the U.S. and European communities could use effectively. If we are to maximize the chances of finding the needles in the haystacks of data that could be useful, some of these walls have to come down.

I am not arguing for a complete globalization of intelligence sharing, but we do need to recognize that, despite the deep unpopularity of the Bush administration in most of the world, we have many allies who are in as serious danger of attacks by radical Islamists as we are. Maximizing the access to information across these lines will give us information we would never obtain alone, and offer useful help to our allies.

For example, Interpol in Europe has a significant data base of 7 million stolen passports that is unused by British and U.S. services. What more useful database could there be as we hear new warnings that al Qaeda has cells here or is sending them to attack us this summer?

As the director of Interpol, Ronald Noble, noted, there "is a clear link between stolen passports and al Qaeda-linked terrorist activity." The United States and Europe are members of Interpol. The Islamists (as well as multiple criminal groups) are constantly looking for good, stolen documents to use to travel without attracting suspicion. It would seem like a simple and easy step to take.

Interpol can do little with the data except collect it, because member nations have to request the information from them. Interpol itself has no independent enforcement power. It is the same with a host of other data bases that contain useful information that is not accessed.

For example, the United Nations Panels of Experts reports from Liberia, DRC, Angola, Sudan and Somalia describe in great detail different arms trafficking networks, organized criminal structures, the creation of al Qaeda training facilities in Sudan and the arming and training of Islamist radicals in Somalia. The work is largely done on the ground, the reports are published and easily available.

Yet hardly anyone in the U.S. intelligence community, and (I would bet my house) no one in the law enforcement community except for a few hardy souls in the Treasury Department) even know these public documents exist, much less uses them.

A huge part of the problem in using publicly available information, whether from the press, the United Nations or elsewhere-and information from other services, even ones we sit in on-is the distain in the community for unclassified information or information that is not self-generated.

I would argue that perhaps one of the single most useful tool for monitoring events abroad, other than human intelligence and interaction, is the CIA-run FBIS program that monitors and translates the local media. All open source.

The UN, World Bank, Interpol and other groups have vast arrays of information on everything from terrorist financing to weapons shipments to illegal immigration and organized crime that are useful, and most cannot be replicated by the community, already overwhelmed with the need to keep up with current data.

But tasking some folks to cull the public record and study ways to maximize the use of international groups and data bases would be a force multiplier that would be well worth the effort.

Thanks to my colleague Jeff Breinholt's new post we have new insights into the long-standing, clandestine nature of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States. A 1959 court case, a public record that had remained unexamined for decades, reprints the Muslim Brotherhood's constitution, found in a prison locker.

The rare document of the Ikhwan in the United States, sitting in musty but public court records since 1959, explains much about the Brotherhood and much about some of the enigmas that, to my mind, still surround the Northern Virginia Safa case and other issues.

It is important, but often forgotten, that the Brotherhood arrived here decades ago, contemporaneously with the efforts to spread Islam in Western Europe. While their activities have been successfully traced to the early 1960s, with the formation of numerous Islamist groups here at that time, this document pushes the launch date of the efforts back by several years, especially as an organized political/religious movement embedded here.

The document bears a striking resemblance to the Marxist literature of the day, defining the Brotherhood as the "vigorous, intellectual vanguard" of the global struggle to unite Islam.

It also bears a striking resemblance to the documents founding al Qaeda, with calls for the unity of Muslims and the specific design for replicating clandestine cells across the country and the world.

While Leiken and others press for a policy that focuses on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, it is the international Muslim Brotherhood that should be of most concern here and in Europe. It is a separate, identifiable body that seeks the spread of Islam and the _caliphate_ around the world. The individual national branches are important in their individual countries, but it is the international financing, training and religious movements that pose a challenge to us on our own territory, as it does across Europe.

The deep emphasis on following the orders of the Brotherhood, without questioning why, is a key precept that, to my mind, helps explain things such as the bizarre movement of money through the Safa Group organizations in Northern Virginia, the creation and usefulness of Bank al Taqwa, and other Brotherhood milestones.

The _Ikhawan_ structures are particularly useful because those in the organization simply do as they are told, as most members of most clandestine groups do. This makes it possible to have many individuals involved in a moving money having no idea of the ultimate purpose.

Bank al Taqwa derived its usefulness not by offering great financial advise or investment opportunities, but from creating a large pot of money that the international Brotherhood could move as needed, with no outside accountability or oversight. Hence the money movements to Hamas and al Qaeda, perhaps Brotherhood members who did as they were told, no questions asked, knowing they were serving greater body than their own individual interests.

And that, to me, is precisely what makes the Brotherhood dangerous. On an international level, it has, for more than four decades, perfected its use of clandestine methods while building a cadre of well-educated, smart and dedicated individuals who view the Brotherhood goals as the highest calling of Allah.

They have learned to blend in, penetrate the power structure at key points, wield political power, wage their war under the guise of civil rights and speak our language.

What is most disturbing is that, almost 50 years after the penetration program began, we remain, on a policy level, almost completely oblivious to it. Worse, as has often been pointed out here and elsewhere, our policy makers embrace the very groups who wish to impose _sharia_ law on us and make this a Muslim nation.

The idea seems preposterous, but, looking back, so did thinking they could do what they have done the past five decades.

An interesting brouhaha developed over the July 4 holiday when Cal Thomas chose to speak out on WTOP on CAIR and the other Muslim Brotherhood groups operating in the United States. CAIR cried foul, as it is wont to do, and demanded listener reactions.

A source at WTOP reports that they have moved beyond the brief tempest after determining that email generated in response to CAIR's caviling demands for an attack campaign ran 10-to-1 in favor of Cal Thomas. Perhaps CAIR underestimated Americans' commitment to free speech, or they overestimated the willingness of listeners to pay much attention to a group now formally named as an un-indicted co-conspirator in yet another Federal terrorism trial and a U.S. body of the Muslim Brotherhood. Or both.

In any event, NY Times columnist Tom Friedman and 3-time Pulitzer winner, writing on July 4th, made some of the same points and used the same "cancer" metaphor.

1) As CAIR is the initiator of the complaint against Cal Thomas, it deserves first mention.

CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a current ongoing Federal terrorism trial ("United States v. Holy Land Foundation"). CAIR has had several of its founders, directors, officials and staff indicted, arrested, convicted or listed as unindicted co-conspirators in a number of terror trials over the past decade-plus. CAIR's paid staff, nationwide numbers in the dozens, (they claim 70 on their website) consequently, the number of its persons in the federal criminal system, even before the present trial, is remarkable, both as a percentage and as an absolute figure. It has attacked these cases and defended the charged, and subsequently convicted, terrorists as victims of "Islamophobia" "Jewish" judges, and the failed U.S. justice system (beginning with the World Trade Center 1993 bombing leader, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, aka "the Blind Sheikh").

Moreover, CAIR is designated by the U.S. Department of Justice in its indictment as a U.S. member of the Muslim Brotherhood. (See my previous post here.
The Brotherhood is the founding leader of modern Islamist extremism and the precursor group for today’s violent Islamist groups, notably Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, etc.The Brotherhood, or Ikhwan, has as its ultimate goal the establishment of a global caliphate, starting with the formerly claimed Muslim lands stretching from Spain to Indonesia, and thence beyond.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s credo is: "God is our objective, the Quran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, struggle is our way, and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations." This credo is incorporated as Article 8 in the Hamas Covenant. CAIR Executive Director and co-founder, Nihad Awad is on record in support of Hamas, whose political director (deported by the U.S.), and leading U.S. foundation (Holy Land Foundation), helped initiate and fund CAIR and its precursor group, Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP). Hamas is a U.S. designated terrorist group, and a "national" group of the Muslim Brotherhood..

So, in sum, CAIR’s highest goal is jihad in service of the Caliphate and its obeisance is to the Koran – as Constitution -- not to the U.S. Constitution, which Americans celebrate, particularly on July 4. This raises directly questions not only about CAIR’s commitment to violence (or claims of rejection of same), but indeed about its very commitment to civil order in the United States.

CAIR is largely foreign-funded-primarily, but not exclusively, by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, along with other Gulf dictatorships. CAIR’s foreign funding, activism and nexus to criminal and terrorist activity has been the subject of Congressional hearings, and indeed CAIR has been denounced as extremist, unusual in its rhetoric and affiliations with extremists and as simply "dangerous" by Senators from both parties (to include Sens. Schumer, Kyl, Durbin and Boxer.

CAIR, to expand the public space available for its purposes and cause, dons a "democratic mask" to make highly effective use of our civil rights mores and constitutional protections -- two concepts both itself and its foreign funders would not, and do not, countenance in their own governance (civil or religio-political, which are in the main, in fact, coterminous).

CAIR has a longstanding practice of employing hate speech and bigotry. Common examples include calling Jews descendants of pigs and monkeys, and castigating Christians, Shia’s, Sufi’s, apostate Muslims, and homosexuals, kaffirs who should be crucified, stoned, and otherwise condemned or killed. Such incitement is de rigueur in the annual and regular events of CAIR and its collaborating Muslim groups in the US. [ISNA, and NAIT, all also unindicted co-conspirators, and U.S. members of the Muslim Brotherhood; these groups collectively dominate Islam in the U.S.]. Such speech is documented to the late 1980’s (earliest Internet records available], and is intended to raise membership and money to be used for activism and terrorism support here and abroad.

Additionally, many leaders of U.S. Muslim groups, supported by CAIR, make similar and more extreme statements abroad, particularly in the UK, as shown recently by Channel Four’s mosques expose in Britain. This activity and speech is faithfully reflected, indeed fundamental to, the literature and teaching materials distributed in U.S. mosques and related schools and centers – the majority of which are funded by the same Saudi and foreign funders as support CAIR. This has been well-documented by Freedom House and also has been the subject of Congressional hearings. Perhaps even the most cynical moral relativist could begin to see why informed persons find CAIR’s allegations of "hate speech" and "Islamophobia" rather self-serving and hypocritical, to say the least.

It nearly impossible to think of any group in the U.S. with such a history and level of involvement with terrorism (or any other, less critical and violent felony or criminal activity) – which yet continues to be accorded such access and legitimacy by the media and in the civic debate. A most curious circumstance, itself worthy of considerably more commentary and analysis.

2) Cal Thomas

Here is the relevant portion of what Cal Thomas said: "How much longer should we allow people from certain lands, with certain beliefs to come to Britain and America and build their mosques, teach hate, and plot to kill us?" Thomas asked. "Okay, let’s have the required disclaimer: Not all Muslims from the Middle East and southeast Asia want to kill us, but those who do blend in with those who don't. Would anyone tolerate a slow-spreading cancer because it wasn't fast-spreading? Probably not. You'd want it removed."

So, those Muslims who want to kill us are limned as "a slow-moving cancer" (n.b. this is pointedly not the same as saying that all Muslims are, which is how CAIR has formulated the remarks to incite its audience). Upon hearing these remarks I recalled the following as directly relevant and as confirming::

A) There has been, and continues to be, a growing rate of Islamist-related terrorist attacks over the last 4 decades and particularly since 9/11. This is not in question; the number of such attacks is in the thousands, and comprises the vast majority of all terrorist incidents.

B) Opinion polls among Muslims since 9/11 have consistently shown that there exists, in the Islamic global community, quite substantial support for the basic goals, statements, and terrorist acts of Al Qaeda and similar Islamists groups. This includes the 9/11 attacks, 7/7 (London) bombings, the Beslan school massacre (Russia), the Bali bombings (Indonesia), the Madrid bombings, or other plots and efforts, such as the plot to behead the Canadian Prime Minister (this list leaves aside the issue of quotidian attacks on Israel, or attacks in situ in the Middle East, Sudan, Afghanistan, Philippines, etc.).

This is true in the U.S. (Pew Survey, "Muslim Americans" 2007), Canada and Western Europe, and in the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere among the Arab and Muslim-majority countries. It is also true irrespective of the poll sponsor in terms of state/non-state and the perceived ideology of the news or academic organization or the survey company itself. These are all scientific polls (Pew, ICM, Sunday Times, YouGo, Populus, Pew Global, Public Agenda/Yankelovich, et al, 2004-7).

Muslim support for terrorists’ motivations and activities is broad and often quite deep.

In the U.S. case, 26% of young Muslims told Pew that homicide bombings can be "justified" in some manner. For the UK the figure is 26%-37% (the latter if the target is UK Jews). Further, up to 18-25% of under-30 Muslims in the U.K. would not report to the authorities any knowledge they have of terrorists or terror planners in their midst.

Only 58% of U.S. Muslims stated they have a "very unfavorable" view of Al-Qaeda; 27% refused to answer. 16% of UK Muslims say they would be "indifferent" about a family member joining Al Qaeda. Only 40% of Muslims in the West evidence any concern about "Islamic extremism" (61% of U.S. Muslims). Only 40% of Muslims in America believe that Arabs were behind the 9/11 attacks (a modest uptick to 55% among degree-holders).

Very high numbers of Muslims self-identify as "Muslims first" as opposed to as citizens of their host or adoptive country (of which many are native) -- 47% in the U.S. and 60% of those under 30 say they are "Muslim first"; the overall number in the UK is 80+%. Between 32 - 47% of Muslims in Western countries state that being Muslim conflicts with living in a "modern society". Roughly 30% of UK Muslims want shari’a law as the law of the land (not only for their communities, a much higher figure 40-61%). Shari’a law, whether ‘community-based’ or national, is in contravention of the Constitution of every Western country, certainly the United States, where separation of church and state is a well-established even if ever-present issue.

Consistently, there is a notable and troubling spike in support for Islamists extremist and their ideas and actions among the under-30 age cohorts in the U.S. and western countries, to include among 2nd and even 3rd generation Muslims, and particularly among those who arrived since 1990.

To summarize, a baseline average threshold of 25-30% are in broad sympathy with the views held and espoused by the actual terrorists, as measured across the widest array of pertinent issues. This equates to 350-420 million Muslims, greater than the population of either the U.S. and nearly that of the E.U. Clearly there exists a broadly hospitable and effectively supportive operating environment in the world Islamic community, or ummah, for the activities of the Islamists terrorists and their front groups to plan, fund, recruit, train and implement their jihadi activities. All indications we have are that they are doing so apace and with growing vigor. It may become more or less difficult to identify the explosive tip of this bloody spear, as factors such as its Muslim support worldwide, Saudi state sponsorship (roughly $4-5 Billion per year since 1975), its successes and failures, and our own willful ignorance wax and wane. As the IRA famously told Margaret Thatcher, the terrorist only has to be lucky once, the rest of us have to be lucky every day. It is not clear that we are improving on those very long odds.

So, pace Cal Thomas’s commentary: there are more Islamists terror attacks, they are spreading at an increasing rate, and there is consistent and growing support for them among Muslim publics globally amounting to several hundred million adherents.

Given these facts, I for one, am not willing to adopt a "wait and see" attitude whilst such groups and their adherents, here and abroad, and in their seamless connections, plot our destruction, regularly attempt it -- and in the process seek to alter our lives, demoralize our society, and curtail our rights and freedoms. Much more can and must be done to frame our analysis and expand and accelerate our planning based on deeper and broader examination of the threat posed, on all levels, by Islamist extremists. Particularly on the violent and subversive aspects that are most threatening at present.

How we do so while balancing civil liberties and the concerns of all matter of groups remains to be determined. As Winston Churchill said, when the West confronted another existential and fascist threat, "As between the fire and the fire brigade, I refuse to be impartial." I would imagine that a rather substantial percentage of our fellow citizens would share this view given the facts, and will increasingly come to support a more rapid calculus in favor of protection, echoing Justice Jackson’s observation that "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."

I am sure most Americans share the commitment to the constitutionally-guaranteed right of free speech -- of Cal Thomas and the rest of us – embodying as it does the fundamental empowerment of our freedom – and not as a merely an expedient to the advancement of a foreign-funded challenge to that very freedom, in the CAIR manner.

In the face of intense propaganda and terrorist activities by al Qaeda and its affiliated groups, it is sometimes useful to step back and remind ourselves that, despite the swirl of activity, the enemy is fallible, fails more often than succeeds and is composed of fallible people in fallible networks.

This does not mean we can grow complacent, let down our guard or take the enemy to anything less than deadly serious. The _jihadists_ want to kill us, and will do so by any means at their disposal. But that desire does not mean their advance is inevitable or even remotely likely.

It means we have to become better at detecting the recruits and potential recruits. It means that, if we are prepared, they will make as many or more mistakes than we do. It means they are vulnerable, as we are.

The recent long lecture by Zawahiri to the Muslim faithful threatens more attacks, but also acknowledges shortcomings and mistakes by the _jihadist_ groups, particularly in Iraq.

All is not well elsewhere, although Zawahiri does his best to paint the picture of a triumphant caliphate toppling the old world order.

In Iraq, the Islamist groups are running into the buzzsaw of not only U.S. military efforts but the willingness of local tribes to fight against their radical agenda. Like most of the armed groups that meet with some success, the groups appear to have over-reached and it is costing them.

In Somalia, the Islamists have not regained power nor inflicted a serious defeat on the Ethiopian troops or the weak and unpopular transitional government. In Afghanistan the Taliban were unable to launch its much-heralded spring offensive and has taken some serious hits.

And in Great Britain, the bombs failed, not because of good police work but because of the incompetence of the bombers, demonstrated multiple times.

Yes, the attacks would have been serious, and the fact the plot was able to advance to the phase of execution demonstrates how little the police and intelligence services know of these networks.

But the failure has revealed a great deal about how the _jihadists_ are recruiting and moving people. And it reveals much about the _jihadists_ themselves.

The willingness of highly-educated professionals to fill the ranks is another blow to those who continue to believe and say that the _jihadists_ are driven by poverty, disaffection and the identity crisis of second-generation youth. None of that is true of this group. All are professionals, with good jobs, good careers and a short time in the UK.

What does that tell us? That there are push factors such as poverty and alienation, but also strong push factors, including teachings in radical mosques, hate speech, hate literature and the _jihadi_ websites. It is in the first two that the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, and particularly Britain, play such a crucial role.

I am often discouraged looking over the global landscape and the progress of the _salafi_ groups. But they make mistakes, they have poor operational security, they are not divinely protected or ordained.

As I said, this does not mean we can stop, relax and pat ourselves on the back. But we are up against people, many of them smart and dedicated, but also angry, careless and given to internal quarrels. It is good to remind ourselves of that once in a while.

The recent shift in al Qaeda's stance on Hamas is perhaps the best reality check for the relationship between groups that seek political power through strictly violent methods and those who dip their toes in the political arena.

In March, Zawahiri, for the al Qaeda old guard, blasted Hamas for entering into the political process with Fatah, charging that Hamas had "finally joined the surrender train of [former Egyptian president Anwar] Sadat for humiliation and capitulation. . . . Hamas went to a picnic with the U.S. Satan and his Saudi agent."

Now that Hamas has broken with Fatah and abandoned the electoral process, Zawahiri is doing a complete about-face, calling on all Muslims to join Hamas in their jihad.

"We tell our brothers, the Hamas mujahedin, that we and the entire Muslim nation stand alongside you, but you must redress your [political] path. . . . Muslims must join Hamas ranks . . . and we will back them by facilitating the passage of weapons and supplies from neighboring countries," Zawahiri said.

It is worth remembering that Hamas is the armed branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to its own charter. It represents the Muslim Brotherhood's tactics of combining political action with military action, using whichever is deemed more expedient at the moment. The tactical flirtation with the political sphere, not the overall strategy of re-creating the caliphate, is the root of the intense disagreements that arise between the two groups.

The discussion of this tension over tactics and alliance between Hamas and al Qaeda was one of the most interesting parts of a recent conference on the Muslim Brotherhood sponsored by the NEFA Foundation in Florence, Italy.

Experts who monitor Hamas and al Qaeda websites predicted there that, if Hamas were to abandon the political process, the relationship between the two groups would return to its more traditional state of tension but tolerance for each other.

The conference also looked at the history of Hamas and the Brotherhood, the use of the Internet to facilitate conversations among Hamas and other jihadist groups, and other topics that helped draw the large contours of the Brotherhood's global presence.

The relationship has a long history of tumult and acrimonious debate, but ultimately Hamas, al Qaeda old guard and the new jihadist groups from Iraq to Somalia share a single goal, and that unites more than divides them. This is one of the great failings in the analysis of Robert Leiken and others like him who continually try to paint the Brotherhood as a moderate organization.

Moderate in terms of not relying solely on violence, perhaps, but not moderate in its goals, whether achieved militarily or politically.

As one Hamas leader responded to Zawahiri's criticism: "Hamas develops and adopts a balanced and flexible response, but this response is based on a specific path and vision and not on illusions. . . . We are not sensitive to the accusations you [al-Zawahiri] have mentioned. . . . There is no problem if one is reassured about his own ideas, especially Hamas."

That is perhaps the fundamental difference between the jihadists who rely strictly on waging war and the Brotherhood: a balanced and flexible response based on a more realistic assessment of the political reality one faces.

If the endgame is still our submission to sharia law, the recreation of the Caliphate and the supremacy of Islam over everything and everyone else, it is still not a moderate game plan.