Monday March 26, 2007
The Ongoing Debate over the Muslim Brotherhood
Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke, the co-authors of the recent _Foreign Affairs_ piece called _The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood_ have posted this this response to my, and others, strong disagreement with their premise that U.S. policy should include a dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood, who, they contend, do not endorse _jihad_ and embrace democracy. This is, I think, one of the most important debates we can have at this time.
I think they are badly and dangerously off the mark, as I will describe below, but apologize for my initial, overly-personalized description of their work as shoddy and slipshod, and hope the ongoing debate we can stay away from personal attacks, and will do my part. I would also note that, in their response, Leiken and Brooke incorrectly state that my friend Yousef Ibrahim's _ credentials include a dismissal from the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Ibrahim had a one-year fellowship there, paid for by BP, and he returned to his post there after the fellowship ended.
Two other quick points. Leiken and Brooke critique my lack of sources on my blog. I would only point to my extensive published work on the international Muslim Brotherhood, which, on a blog, I did not have the time and could not reproduce.
I also never expressed "shock" at Zawahiri's attack on Hamas, nor "suprise" at splits brewing between the Brotherhood and the _jihadists_. I simply noted they were happening as important matters to be understood by policy makers. On matters of more substance, here is another good response to some of the issues raised by Leiken and Brooke in Front Page Magazine.
My biggest disagreement is the failure to factor in, mention or discuss the Muslim Brotherhood as a clandestine group well experienced in denial and deception tactics, honed for more than four decades. I have talked to some Brotherhood leaders and read their literature extensively.
They still proclaim, in their writings, the goal of establishing an Islamic Europe (and the United States), governed by _sharia_ law and taking as its sole source of authority the Koran. This in fact negates any ability to embrace democracy, unless, as the _Ikhwan_ do, they will embrace it until they win. Then, retreating from Allah's injunction to spread Islam would be impossible and the worst kind of heresy. This is what they share with the _jihadists_.
My work has been largely on the international Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1982 as the Tanzim al-Dawli. I do not claim expertise nor have I written on much else related to the Ikhwan. My site has all the links to the full publications for those who are interested.
Several points on the International structure,whose principals include Youssef Nada, Ghaleb Himmat, Idriss Nasreddin and Ahmed Huber. The first is that all four of these gentlemen have been designated terrorist financiers not only by the U.S. Treasury Department, but the United Nations as well as individual European countries.
This is not something that can be lightly dismissed, given the four men's role (along with al Qaradawi) in setting up a multi-billion dollar clandestine financial structure that was centered on Bank al Taqwa and Akida Bank in Nassau, Bahamas.
These banks were used to fund Hamas, and other terrorist groups, including, according to public statements by the U.S. Treasury Department, al Qaeda, Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front and Armed Group, and Tunisia’s An-Nahda. Nada, according to public U.S. and European statements on investigations, continued to help bin Laden after 9/11.
It is worth noting that Nada describes himself as the "foreign minister" of the Muslim Brotherhood and had enough prestige in the Muslim world to be given, in 2002, five nights of back-to-back, hour-long interviews on al Jazeera. Not something just anyone gets invited to do. In those interviews he describes his extensive work for the Brotherhood around the world.
The big difference between some in the international Brotherhood and the _jihadists_ is more tactical than ideological. Both share the same fundamental goals, but differ on how to get there. But the difference is not on the use of _jihad_, but on whether attacks on the West that kill women and children are acceptable "defensive jihad" tactics are less accepted "offensive jihad" tactics.
There is also little debate over Qaradawi's endorsement of suicide bombings. See, for example, Hasan Ali Daba, "Sheykh Al-Qaradawi Discusses Terrorism, Dialogue Between Islam and West, U.S. Policy," Doha al-Rayah, Oct. 26, 2002 (Translation by FBIS) where Al-Qaradawi states that those carrying out suicide attacks should be called martyrs because "calling them suicide bombers is wrong and misleading. These are heroic, martyrdom, fedayeen operations."
Alain Chouet, the former head of the French Security Intelligence Service, who monitored the international Brotherhood in Europe for more than three decades and dealt with them often, wrote when he retired last year that:
_The Brotherhood’s modern strategy was shaped by the repression it suffered, along lines it would never depart from: clandestinity, duplicity, exclusion, violence, pragmatism and opportunism._
_Taking refuge in clandestinity, the Brotherhood abandoned all more vulnerable forms of pyramidal or hierarchical organizational structures. Ideological direction emerges informally and consensually by a college of elders, while operational management is in the hands of the very decentralized secret organization tanzim as-Sirri…_
_Their actions follow no short-term, concrete tactical plan: the only requirement is that they form part of the long-term strategy of taking power by whatever means available._
To me, that is it in a nutshell.
I think they are badly and dangerously off the mark, as I will describe below, but apologize for my initial, overly-personalized description of their work as shoddy and slipshod, and hope the ongoing debate we can stay away from personal attacks, and will do my part. I would also note that, in their response, Leiken and Brooke incorrectly state that my friend Yousef Ibrahim's _ credentials include a dismissal from the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Ibrahim had a one-year fellowship there, paid for by BP, and he returned to his post there after the fellowship ended.
Two other quick points. Leiken and Brooke critique my lack of sources on my blog. I would only point to my extensive published work on the international Muslim Brotherhood, which, on a blog, I did not have the time and could not reproduce.
I also never expressed "shock" at Zawahiri's attack on Hamas, nor "suprise" at splits brewing between the Brotherhood and the _jihadists_. I simply noted they were happening as important matters to be understood by policy makers. On matters of more substance, here is another good response to some of the issues raised by Leiken and Brooke in Front Page Magazine.
My biggest disagreement is the failure to factor in, mention or discuss the Muslim Brotherhood as a clandestine group well experienced in denial and deception tactics, honed for more than four decades. I have talked to some Brotherhood leaders and read their literature extensively.
They still proclaim, in their writings, the goal of establishing an Islamic Europe (and the United States), governed by _sharia_ law and taking as its sole source of authority the Koran. This in fact negates any ability to embrace democracy, unless, as the _Ikhwan_ do, they will embrace it until they win. Then, retreating from Allah's injunction to spread Islam would be impossible and the worst kind of heresy. This is what they share with the _jihadists_.
My work has been largely on the international Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1982 as the Tanzim al-Dawli. I do not claim expertise nor have I written on much else related to the Ikhwan. My site has all the links to the full publications for those who are interested.
Several points on the International structure,whose principals include Youssef Nada, Ghaleb Himmat, Idriss Nasreddin and Ahmed Huber. The first is that all four of these gentlemen have been designated terrorist financiers not only by the U.S. Treasury Department, but the United Nations as well as individual European countries.
This is not something that can be lightly dismissed, given the four men's role (along with al Qaradawi) in setting up a multi-billion dollar clandestine financial structure that was centered on Bank al Taqwa and Akida Bank in Nassau, Bahamas.
These banks were used to fund Hamas, and other terrorist groups, including, according to public statements by the U.S. Treasury Department, al Qaeda, Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front and Armed Group, and Tunisia’s An-Nahda. Nada, according to public U.S. and European statements on investigations, continued to help bin Laden after 9/11.
It is worth noting that Nada describes himself as the "foreign minister" of the Muslim Brotherhood and had enough prestige in the Muslim world to be given, in 2002, five nights of back-to-back, hour-long interviews on al Jazeera. Not something just anyone gets invited to do. In those interviews he describes his extensive work for the Brotherhood around the world.
The big difference between some in the international Brotherhood and the _jihadists_ is more tactical than ideological. Both share the same fundamental goals, but differ on how to get there. But the difference is not on the use of _jihad_, but on whether attacks on the West that kill women and children are acceptable "defensive jihad" tactics are less accepted "offensive jihad" tactics.
There is also little debate over Qaradawi's endorsement of suicide bombings. See, for example, Hasan Ali Daba, "Sheykh Al-Qaradawi Discusses Terrorism, Dialogue Between Islam and West, U.S. Policy," Doha al-Rayah, Oct. 26, 2002 (Translation by FBIS) where Al-Qaradawi states that those carrying out suicide attacks should be called martyrs because "calling them suicide bombers is wrong and misleading. These are heroic, martyrdom, fedayeen operations."
Alain Chouet, the former head of the French Security Intelligence Service, who monitored the international Brotherhood in Europe for more than three decades and dealt with them often, wrote when he retired last year that:
_The Brotherhood’s modern strategy was shaped by the repression it suffered, along lines it would never depart from: clandestinity, duplicity, exclusion, violence, pragmatism and opportunism._
_Taking refuge in clandestinity, the Brotherhood abandoned all more vulnerable forms of pyramidal or hierarchical organizational structures. Ideological direction emerges informally and consensually by a college of elders, while operational management is in the hands of the very decentralized secret organization tanzim as-Sirri…_
_Their actions follow no short-term, concrete tactical plan: the only requirement is that they form part of the long-term strategy of taking power by whatever means available._
To me, that is it in a nutshell.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Thursday March 22, 2007
Somalia Deteriorates (Again)
The news out of Somalia is again grim. The Islamist groups, capitalizing on the incompetence and inability of the government to do anything and its unwillingness to try to give a broad swath of the population a true stake in the government, are on the rise. The government's already-weak support is evaporating.
Al Qaeda-linked groups are now working to seize the moment, reportedly naming Afghan-trained Aden Hashi Ayro as its new leader.
The fighting in Mogadishu is escalating, as the Washington Post reports. The trickle of African Union troops and the lingering presence of the Ethiopian military is unlikely to change the equation much.
The reason is simple, and has been shown in Afghanistan, northern Nigeria, Iraq, Colombia and elsewhere. The Islamists prosper by offering what others cannot or will not deliver: security and a chance to live normal lives. I witnessed this in Medellin, Colombia, where death squads of the ELN guerrillas were welcomed into neighborhoods because they were willing to execute the drug traffickers and make the streets safe.
It never lasts long, but desperation and the lack of alternatives moves people to accept the unacceptable. The Taliban, ELN and UIC in Somalia all quickly showed their true colors by imposing a rule of law that precluded independent thought and action. The cost of law and order became almost as onerous as the cost of anarchy.
But the sad inability of the government, international community, regional powers et al to help provide the same benefits as the Islamists without the same cost is the life breath of the Islamist (or Marxist or fascist) movements.
The situation in Somalia was developing for years. There was time to put together a plan for what do to immediately after the UIC was ousted. But no such plan was put together, no such resources committed. Now we pay the price.
The Islamists, with their known downside, are again being increasingly viewed as better than the alternative. That is a sad, sad comment on how, despite all the rhetoric about fighting Islamists through means other than purely military, so little has been learned.
Al Qaeda-linked groups are now working to seize the moment, reportedly naming Afghan-trained Aden Hashi Ayro as its new leader.
The fighting in Mogadishu is escalating, as the Washington Post reports. The trickle of African Union troops and the lingering presence of the Ethiopian military is unlikely to change the equation much.
The reason is simple, and has been shown in Afghanistan, northern Nigeria, Iraq, Colombia and elsewhere. The Islamists prosper by offering what others cannot or will not deliver: security and a chance to live normal lives. I witnessed this in Medellin, Colombia, where death squads of the ELN guerrillas were welcomed into neighborhoods because they were willing to execute the drug traffickers and make the streets safe.
It never lasts long, but desperation and the lack of alternatives moves people to accept the unacceptable. The Taliban, ELN and UIC in Somalia all quickly showed their true colors by imposing a rule of law that precluded independent thought and action. The cost of law and order became almost as onerous as the cost of anarchy.
But the sad inability of the government, international community, regional powers et al to help provide the same benefits as the Islamists without the same cost is the life breath of the Islamist (or Marxist or fascist) movements.
The situation in Somalia was developing for years. There was time to put together a plan for what do to immediately after the UIC was ousted. But no such plan was put together, no such resources committed. Now we pay the price.
The Islamists, with their known downside, are again being increasingly viewed as better than the alternative. That is a sad, sad comment on how, despite all the rhetoric about fighting Islamists through means other than purely military, so little has been learned.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Friday March 23, 2007
Why Geneive Abdo is Right and The Muslim Brotherhood Is Dangerous
Two disturbing writings receiving widespread circulation in recent day say a great deal about how many Muslims in the United States perceive themselves and why U.S. policy is so far, and dangerously off the mark in countering the threat of Islamists.
The first is a Washington Post op-ed" by Genieve Abdo, the keynote speaker at a recent CAIR conference. In the piece she lays out, more strongly and honestly than most of the CAIR leaders have dared to do, the true Islamist/CAIR agenda in the United States.
She essentially outlines the Muslim Brotherhood position against Islamic assimilation into the Western world and starkly states that Islamist really have no interest in such assimiliation.
"What all this means is that Western hopes for full integration by Muslims in the West are unlikely to be realized and that the future of the Islamic world will be much more Islamic than Western," she writes. This is true as long as she, CAIR and other Islamist groups continue to preach to the new generation that the more alienated one is from our culture the closer to Allah they really are.
The truth is, Abdo, CAIR and the other stalking horses for the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Salafists want to create an Islamic nation here. There is no middle ground. Chilling as Abdo's writing is, it is at least more honest than much of the "we just want to get along" paplum CAIR routinely puts out.
The second writing is in the recent article in Foreign Affairs by Robert Leiken and Steven Brookes, describing the Muslim Brotherhood as a moderate force that embraces democracy.
The article completely misses what the _Ikhwan_ are, what they stand for and the multiple ties of many of its leaders to Islamist terrorism. It is a rather shocking piece that does a great disservice to the understanding of radical Islam, its origins and its supporters.
As Youssef Ibrahim, a true scholar of Islamic affairs noted in a response in the New York Sun, "Invariably, these reports reflect an eagerness to make a finding based on logic rather than on the facts at hand. In a twisted way, they are deeply condescending of Muslim terrorists who are declared acceptable just because some say they listen to classical music or read English literature, i.e., because they resemble some of their Westerninterlocutors."
Ibrahim writes, and I couldn't say it any better, so I will quote him: "Any true Middle East scholar will readily know (the Brotherhood) spawned the entire array of Muslim radical fundamentalist organizations operating today from the Philippines to the caves of Tora Bora. During a long history of mayhem, the Brotherhood leadership over decades has authorized, glorified, and praised jihad in its official literature. Not one of its leaders has ever renounced that violence. Indeed, in the Foreign Affairs essay, Mr. Leiken and his co-author assert that such violence is authorized but only in "countries and territories occupied by a foreign power."
"This designation included killing Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Israelis in the Levant up to now, and, although the question was not asked of any of the "brothers" interviewed, Americans in Iraq.
"There was no need to ask the question. One of the most eminent leaders of the Ikhwan movement, who appears weekly on Al-Jazeera's "Sharia and Life" program, is an Egyptian-born, Qatar-resident grand priest, Sheik Yusuf Al-Qardawi. He has specifically ruled that Americans in Iraq and Israelis everywhere should be targeted by suicide bombers, who will be considered martyrs and heroes. Sheik Qardawi was not interviewed for the article in question, even though he ranks among the top 10 leaders of the Ikhwan's International ruling councils."
Pretending the enemy is not the enemy is no way to come to terms with reality. One could reasonably conclude that one should talk to the Brotherhood based on what they really are, but not based on a completely ahistoric understanding of what they are or where they come from.
Sadly, this type of desire to Westernize and trivialize the Brotherhood and the _jihadist_ world in general has led to the hesitancy and inability to decide whether we are at war or not, and if so, with whom. And so we are losing.
The first is a Washington Post op-ed" by Genieve Abdo, the keynote speaker at a recent CAIR conference. In the piece she lays out, more strongly and honestly than most of the CAIR leaders have dared to do, the true Islamist/CAIR agenda in the United States.
She essentially outlines the Muslim Brotherhood position against Islamic assimilation into the Western world and starkly states that Islamist really have no interest in such assimiliation.
"What all this means is that Western hopes for full integration by Muslims in the West are unlikely to be realized and that the future of the Islamic world will be much more Islamic than Western," she writes. This is true as long as she, CAIR and other Islamist groups continue to preach to the new generation that the more alienated one is from our culture the closer to Allah they really are.
The truth is, Abdo, CAIR and the other stalking horses for the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Salafists want to create an Islamic nation here. There is no middle ground. Chilling as Abdo's writing is, it is at least more honest than much of the "we just want to get along" paplum CAIR routinely puts out.
The second writing is in the recent article in Foreign Affairs by Robert Leiken and Steven Brookes, describing the Muslim Brotherhood as a moderate force that embraces democracy.
The article completely misses what the _Ikhwan_ are, what they stand for and the multiple ties of many of its leaders to Islamist terrorism. It is a rather shocking piece that does a great disservice to the understanding of radical Islam, its origins and its supporters.
As Youssef Ibrahim, a true scholar of Islamic affairs noted in a response in the New York Sun, "Invariably, these reports reflect an eagerness to make a finding based on logic rather than on the facts at hand. In a twisted way, they are deeply condescending of Muslim terrorists who are declared acceptable just because some say they listen to classical music or read English literature, i.e., because they resemble some of their Westerninterlocutors."
Ibrahim writes, and I couldn't say it any better, so I will quote him: "Any true Middle East scholar will readily know (the Brotherhood) spawned the entire array of Muslim radical fundamentalist organizations operating today from the Philippines to the caves of Tora Bora. During a long history of mayhem, the Brotherhood leadership over decades has authorized, glorified, and praised jihad in its official literature. Not one of its leaders has ever renounced that violence. Indeed, in the Foreign Affairs essay, Mr. Leiken and his co-author assert that such violence is authorized but only in "countries and territories occupied by a foreign power."
"This designation included killing Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Israelis in the Levant up to now, and, although the question was not asked of any of the "brothers" interviewed, Americans in Iraq.
"There was no need to ask the question. One of the most eminent leaders of the Ikhwan movement, who appears weekly on Al-Jazeera's "Sharia and Life" program, is an Egyptian-born, Qatar-resident grand priest, Sheik Yusuf Al-Qardawi. He has specifically ruled that Americans in Iraq and Israelis everywhere should be targeted by suicide bombers, who will be considered martyrs and heroes. Sheik Qardawi was not interviewed for the article in question, even though he ranks among the top 10 leaders of the Ikhwan's International ruling councils."
Pretending the enemy is not the enemy is no way to come to terms with reality. One could reasonably conclude that one should talk to the Brotherhood based on what they really are, but not based on a completely ahistoric understanding of what they are or where they come from.
Sadly, this type of desire to Westernize and trivialize the Brotherhood and the _jihadist_ world in general has led to the hesitancy and inability to decide whether we are at war or not, and if so, with whom. And so we are losing.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Thursday March 15, 2007
Iran Appeals Interpol Red Notices in Argentina Bombing Case
Iran says it will appeal Interpol's formal finding that there is enough evidence to issue "red noticies" for five senior Iranian officials and one Lebanese in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires.
Today's announcement by Interpol, formalizing the finding I erroneously described earlier as final, is a sharp blow to Iran and it's Hezbollah allies. The judicial committee had made the decision, but not the Interpol executive committee as a formal decision when I last wrote.
At a time when there is a fragile consensus on moving against Iran for its defiance on nuclear issues, further enlightening their status as a rogue nation cannot be helpful.
The evidence I have seen from the Argentine prosecutors is persuasive, although the case has been marred by allegations of corruption and other difficulties. That is what a trial can determine, whether it was rogue elements or a government decision by Iran to aid and abet the terrorist attack.
Iran's decision to appeal, however, puts the issuing of red notices (official international requests that those named be apprehended wherever they are and turned over for extradition to stand trial for the crimes they are accused of) on hold. It can likely be dragged out for a significant period of time.
This is one of the primary weaknesses of the international law enforcement system. It cannot act quickly and decisively. Indeed, Interpol said it would issue the red notices on March 31. That already would have given those named more than two weeks to prepare (disappear?) and does seem to eliminate the element of surprise.
Not unlike the 2002 gambit with Viktor Bout, when Interpol issued a red notice and Interpol-Russia announced he was certainly not in Russian territory. At the very moment the head of Russia's Interpol was saying that, Bout was giving a live radio interview a few blocks away in Moscow. The interview lasted two hours. Interpol did not seem to be able to find its way to the large radio studio where he held forth.
Still, I believe there is value in the name and shame campaigns, as with finding the government of Sudan liable for the USS Cole attacks. When these regimes fall, and they do, the record established is useful.
But that is far different from achieving justice, and should not be confused with that.
Today's announcement by Interpol, formalizing the finding I erroneously described earlier as final, is a sharp blow to Iran and it's Hezbollah allies. The judicial committee had made the decision, but not the Interpol executive committee as a formal decision when I last wrote.
At a time when there is a fragile consensus on moving against Iran for its defiance on nuclear issues, further enlightening their status as a rogue nation cannot be helpful.
The evidence I have seen from the Argentine prosecutors is persuasive, although the case has been marred by allegations of corruption and other difficulties. That is what a trial can determine, whether it was rogue elements or a government decision by Iran to aid and abet the terrorist attack.
Iran's decision to appeal, however, puts the issuing of red notices (official international requests that those named be apprehended wherever they are and turned over for extradition to stand trial for the crimes they are accused of) on hold. It can likely be dragged out for a significant period of time.
This is one of the primary weaknesses of the international law enforcement system. It cannot act quickly and decisively. Indeed, Interpol said it would issue the red notices on March 31. That already would have given those named more than two weeks to prepare (disappear?) and does seem to eliminate the element of surprise.
Not unlike the 2002 gambit with Viktor Bout, when Interpol issued a red notice and Interpol-Russia announced he was certainly not in Russian territory. At the very moment the head of Russia's Interpol was saying that, Bout was giving a live radio interview a few blocks away in Moscow. The interview lasted two hours. Interpol did not seem to be able to find its way to the large radio studio where he held forth.
Still, I believe there is value in the name and shame campaigns, as with finding the government of Sudan liable for the USS Cole attacks. When these regimes fall, and they do, the record established is useful.
But that is far different from achieving justice, and should not be confused with that.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Wednesday March 14, 2007
Sudan Found Liable in Terrorism Trial in the Bombing of the USS Cole
A federal judge in Norfolk, Virginia today found the government of Sudan liable of terrorism for the Oct. 12, 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen.
"There is substantial evidence in this case presented by the expert testimony that the government of Sudan induced the particular bombing of the Cole by virtue of prior actions of the government of Sudan," U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar said.
(Full disclosure: I gave a deposition as an expert witness supporting the victims' charge in the Sudan case).
This was a little noticed but important trial for the issue of material support for terrorism. The families of the 17 people killed in the al Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole sued the government of Sudan for offering the support that made the attack possible.
It is extremely important, in the ongoing battle with Islamists, to establish clear legal culpability, and the families in the Cole case did that. The judge's decision, not expected for several days, seems to bear out how overwhelming the evidence was.
Another indication is that, unlike the trial for Sudan's responsibility in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa, the government of Sudan, run by hardcore Islamists who gave al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden shelter and support, did not take, according to its attorneys, any position on the material facts of the case.
This case is important because, rather than simply isolating an individual act of terrorism, these cases attempt to go to the broader Islamist structure that underpins these attacks and makes them possible. The same is true for the 9/11 victims' lawsuit mired down in the legal system in New York.
It also eventually wears away the legal technicalities and smokescreens these groups continue to throw up to hide their true agenda of recreating the _caliphate_ and imposing Islam on the world.
Sudan has played, and likely continues to play, a crucial role in the support network that makes Islamist terrorism possible.
This includes many of the Islamist banks that allow money to flow through them, businesses that run by _jihadists_ and all the other components that make possible the river of money flowing to the spread of _wahhabist_ theology.
Ultimately, until that river of funds that passes from Saudi Arabia through Sudan and elsewhere, is cut off, the enemy has an uninterrupted supply line to replenish and arm itself.
It only asked that the case be dismissed because it was filed too late, a motion the judge summarily dismissed.
The ability to inflict monetary damages on state sponsors of terror is significant, if very difficult to achieve because the states are usually able to move most of their assets beyond the reach of the law.
But what is more significant is to hold these states (and non-state groups) publicly accountable, to use the discovery process to better understand the systems they so desperately try to obscure, and to build an clearer understanding of the scope of the Islamist groups that want to kill us.
Sudan has been utterly ruthless in its support not just of bin Laden but of the _janjaweed_ and their unspeakable atrocities in Darfur. Those responsible in that case are starting to be named and shamed by the slow process of the International Criminal Court.
The Cole case is one more piece in the accountability puzzle. I hope the families get the money they deserve, as nothing can replace the lives of those lost.
Beyond that, I hope the standard of proof of culpability for Sudan's infamy will serve as a catalyst to take a broader look at those who aid and abet groups whose basic understanding of their religion is that we all must die.
"There is substantial evidence in this case presented by the expert testimony that the government of Sudan induced the particular bombing of the Cole by virtue of prior actions of the government of Sudan," U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar said.
(Full disclosure: I gave a deposition as an expert witness supporting the victims' charge in the Sudan case).
This was a little noticed but important trial for the issue of material support for terrorism. The families of the 17 people killed in the al Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole sued the government of Sudan for offering the support that made the attack possible.
It is extremely important, in the ongoing battle with Islamists, to establish clear legal culpability, and the families in the Cole case did that. The judge's decision, not expected for several days, seems to bear out how overwhelming the evidence was.
Another indication is that, unlike the trial for Sudan's responsibility in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa, the government of Sudan, run by hardcore Islamists who gave al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden shelter and support, did not take, according to its attorneys, any position on the material facts of the case.
This case is important because, rather than simply isolating an individual act of terrorism, these cases attempt to go to the broader Islamist structure that underpins these attacks and makes them possible. The same is true for the 9/11 victims' lawsuit mired down in the legal system in New York.
It also eventually wears away the legal technicalities and smokescreens these groups continue to throw up to hide their true agenda of recreating the _caliphate_ and imposing Islam on the world.
Sudan has played, and likely continues to play, a crucial role in the support network that makes Islamist terrorism possible.
This includes many of the Islamist banks that allow money to flow through them, businesses that run by _jihadists_ and all the other components that make possible the river of money flowing to the spread of _wahhabist_ theology.
Ultimately, until that river of funds that passes from Saudi Arabia through Sudan and elsewhere, is cut off, the enemy has an uninterrupted supply line to replenish and arm itself.
It only asked that the case be dismissed because it was filed too late, a motion the judge summarily dismissed.
The ability to inflict monetary damages on state sponsors of terror is significant, if very difficult to achieve because the states are usually able to move most of their assets beyond the reach of the law.
But what is more significant is to hold these states (and non-state groups) publicly accountable, to use the discovery process to better understand the systems they so desperately try to obscure, and to build an clearer understanding of the scope of the Islamist groups that want to kill us.
Sudan has been utterly ruthless in its support not just of bin Laden but of the _janjaweed_ and their unspeakable atrocities in Darfur. Those responsible in that case are starting to be named and shamed by the slow process of the International Criminal Court.
The Cole case is one more piece in the accountability puzzle. I hope the families get the money they deserve, as nothing can replace the lives of those lost.
Beyond that, I hope the standard of proof of culpability for Sudan's infamy will serve as a catalyst to take a broader look at those who aid and abet groups whose basic understanding of their religion is that we all must die.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH