According to Reuters, a “factional” debate is under way within the Trump administration over adding the Muslim Brotherhood to the State Department and Treasury lists of foreign terrorist organizations.
This is a measure often called for by such critics of the Brotherhood as Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney, who once again recommended an official terrorist designation on Wednesday’s edition of Breitbart News Daily.
A source in the Trump transition team told Reuters the effort to so designate the Muslim Brotherhood is led by National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The source was personally in agreement with Flynn.
In Congress, a bill to add the Muslim Brotherhood to the official terrorist list was introduced this month by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL). Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson denounced the MB as an “agent of radical Islam” during his confirmation hearings, but he has not made public statements regarding adding them to the foreign terrorist organization list.
However, other Trump advisers, and members of the intelligence and law-enforcement communities, argue the Brotherhood has “evolved peacefully in some countries,” Reuters claims.
They also expressed the pragmatic concern that going hard on the Muslim Brotherhood could complicate diplomatic relations with nations such as Turkey. It would unquestionably, however, please such U.S. allies as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, although there have been signs the Saudis might be softening on the Brotherhood as they search for allies against ISIS and Iran.
One official familiar with the State Department’s deliberations conceded that the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology has influenced such terrorist groups as Hamas, but since it is a large, loose organization spread over several nations, it could be legally difficult to apply the terrorist designation. Allied nations such as Britain have also expressed suspicions about the Brotherhood’s influence, while stopping short of a formal terrorist designation.
Haaretz cites Muslim-American groups who worry that a terrorist designation for the Muslim Brotherhood could be used as a pretext for investigations or punitive actions against them. Unsurprisingly, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is quoted to that effect. CAIR itself has been declared a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates and was named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding operation.
Also expressing concerns to Haaretz are diplomats and strategists who note there are significant legal consequences to an FTO designation, and since the Brotherhood has a large membership across several Middle Eastern countries, the number of useful diplomatic and security contacts for the United States would be dramatically reduced.
Dr. Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy called the Muslim Brotherhood a “totalitarian cult that seeks to implement its highly politicized interpretation of Islam, with the ultimate goal of establishing a global Islamic state that will challenge the West,” and told Haaretz the Obama Administration had alienated key partners in the Middle East by engaging with it.
Then again, even with this stern criticism on the table, Trager said a terrorist designation for the MB should be considered carefully, because it would limit America’s options for dealing with important groups in the Brotherhood’s orbit. He offered the Ennahda Party of Tunisia as an example.
The Lawfare blog posted an extensive review of the relevant statutes and argued that designating the Brotherhood in its entirety as a FTO would be illegal, because it is “too diffuse and diverse to characterize,” and not all of its elements are demonstrably interested in terrorist activity.
Crucially, this analysis contends that the economic ties between various chapters of the Brotherhood are not strong enough to make a legal case that the more acceptable segments of the MB are providing material support to the terrorist groups. This would make it difficult to prove that the Brotherhood as a whole supports terrorism.
#1: rlk To: cranky (#0)
An insightful act of sanity. The next step is to designate CAIR along with it.
rlk posted on 2017-01-29 12:32:40 Reply Private Reply
#2: Tooconservative To: cranky (#0)
It would also be the basis for raising surveillance of Brotherhood operatives and organizations here in the States.
Tooconservative posted on 2017-01-29 12:33:46 Reply Private Reply
#3: Vicomte13 To: cranky (#0)
The best ally there is against ISIS is Russia.
Vicomte13 posted on 2017-01-29 15:41:46 Reply Private Reply
#4: BorisY To: Vicomte13 (#3)
satanic
brotherood
the
moth
... zombies
to
the
... flame
their
light
law
constitution
is
mobocracy
the
jungle
love
boris
BorisY posted on 2017-01-29 16:25:04 Reply Private Reply
#5: GrandIsland To: cranky (#0)
GrandIsland posted on 2017-01-29 16:41:31 Reply Private Reply
#6: Vicomte13 To: BorisY (#4)
I like diversity, actually.
I don't like the politics of forced diversity, or the politics of selectively privileging different pieces of the salad.
Vicomte13 posted on 2017-01-29 17:24:53 Reply Private Reply
#7: BorisY To: Vicomte13 (#6)
what
we
were
founded
upon
was
religious
liberty
which
was
pluralism
a
level
open
playing
field
barbed
wired
land
mined
by
atheists
fascist
nazis
love
boris
ps
tank
trapped
shooting
towers
search
lights
too
BorisY posted on 2017-01-29 17:34:42 Reply Private Reply
#8: Vicomte13 To: BorisY (#7)
Or with the Declaration of Independence?
Or the Constitution?
Our founding was very diverse, and each element of it was predicated on a different set of motives.
Vicomte13 posted on 2017-01-29 17:49:28 Reply Private Reply
#9: BorisY To: Vicomte13 (#8)
generic
Judeo
Christian
God
is
not
sectarian
religion
a
false
totalitarian
religion
is
atheist
Marxist
evolution
that
is
a
false
fake
god
that
has
turned
into
an
illegal
monopoly
you
are
blind
obedient
to
love
boris
BorisY posted on 2017-01-29 18:11:27 Reply Private Reply
#10: Vicomte13 To: BorisY (#9)
I am?
Whatever.
Vicomte13 posted on 2017-01-29 19:43:03 Reply Private Reply
#11: paraclete To: cranky (#0)
about time and he should designate all those other muslim organisations that harbour terrorists like mosques, maddrassas, etc until the last jihadist is dead
paraclete posted on 2017-01-29 20:00:21 Reply Private Reply
#12: cranky To: Vicomte13 (#3)
I agree with that.
cranky posted on 2017-01-29 20:08:25 Reply Private Reply
#13: rlk To: Vicomte13 (#3)
The point is well taken. Russia, at the present time, is more adult and trustworthy than our own government has been for the last 25 years.
rlk posted on 2017-01-29 20:15:11 Reply Private Reply
#14: Tooconservative To: Vicomte13 (#3)
In real life, the enemy of your enemy is not your friend. It is dumb way to try to evaluate these relationships.
Putin runs Russia on a "Russia First" policy, much as Trump wants to run America. While there may be a few area(s) where cooperation can be of mutual benefit, the fundamentals of these leaders' priorities dictates that they are not going to be real allies. The history of tsarist/Soviet/Russian relations with America and Europe tells us this over and over. We have no reason to think this has or will change in any meaningful way.
There's no point in pretending that we can have a relationship with Russia like the ones we have with NATO allies. Or even France. It isn't realistic and nothing in modern history indicates that it is likely to happen.
Real countries don't operate according to these simplistic dumbass slogans.
Tooconservative posted on 2017-01-30 01:29:25 Reply Private Reply
#15: Vicomte13 To: Tooconservative (#14)
Russia was friendly with the United States during the Civil War, and is the primary foreign policy reason that England, which was aggressively pro- Confederacy at the start of the war, did not dare enter into it.
Vicomte13 posted on 2017-01-30 11:26:29 Reply Private Reply
#16: Vicomte13 To: Tooconservative (#14)
Russia's interests and ours barely touch. There is no reason we cannot have as good a relationship with them as we have had with, say, China during all of these years. Now, China's aggression is upsetting the applecart, but we're still falling over backwards to not have a conflict with them.
Russia doesn't threaten anything vital to the US. We PRETEND that the Ukraine is important, so we can keep having a stupid Cold War, so that defense contractors can be important, and careerist intelligence hacks who have spent their whole life obsessed with the Russians can continue to feel relevant.
Well, they just SPECTACULARLY blew the 2016 election, and it's time to clean out the dull old crew and replace them with modern realists.
Vicomte13 posted on 2017-01-30 11:29:58 Reply Private Reply
#17: Tooconservative To: Vicomte13 (#16)
Exactly. They don't have a world-conquering ideology as they had with Marxist dogma. And they don't have tech or military or economy to otherwise influence world events outside some backwaters like Ukraine or Syria.
We got along better back when we considered each other more nuke-worthy and divvied up the globe between us into the usual Great Power spheres of influence along with all our assorted Mini-Me's.
Tooconservative posted on 2017-01-30 23:48:12 Reply Private Reply
#18: redleghunter To: cranky (#0)
redleghunter posted on 2017-01-31 00:59:09 Reply Private Reply
#19: redleghunter To: Vicomte13 (#3)
Egypt a close third after Jordan.
redleghunter posted on 2017-01-31 01:00:34 Reply Private Reply
#20: Vicomte13 To: Tooconservative (#17)
Make peace with them, and you can draw down forces in Europe substantially...and send them to the Southern border, or to the areas around China.
The Russians do not have the same qualms about mass devastation and killing people that we do. We cannot root out the Muslim terrorists in Syria, because we cannot level cities in order to kill the enemy. We see the collateral damage as too great. Russians don't. They don't care. Having them as the clenched, mailed fist, whaling away on the terrorists - this is the way to clean out a bunch of rat's nests without getting blood on our hands.
Vicomte13 posted on 2017-01-31 08:22:01 Reply Private Reply