We see a logical link between the appalling murder of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, and the infiltration of the Obama administration by the Muslim Brotherhood.* 

There can be little doubt that diplomatic secrets – the Ambassador’s whereabouts, and the location of the “safe-house” belonging to the consulate – were betrayed from inside the legation. (How else would a “safe-house” become known?) Also, that there was a policy of trusting local Arab security personnel to guard America’s representatives and their staff. How could it come about that legations in that part of the world, recently emerged from violent uprisings and still in a state of instability and internal strife, should be exposed to such obvious risk? Why were those Marines – too few of them – who were nominally on guard at the Cairo embassy not issued with ammunition? These policy decisions issued from the State Department. The head of the State Department is Hillary Clinton, and her closest adviser, Huma Abedin, is intricately  and intimatetly involved with the Muslim Brotherhood, the  jihadist organization that has come to power in Egypt.**

But, you might point out, Ambassador Stevens was killed by al-Qaeda, not the Muslim Brotherhood. (See our post The Gitmo alumnus, September 28, 2012.) Yes, but observe  that the imam who preached protest in Cairo against the “anti-Muhammad” movie deliberately shown to Egyptian audiences for that very purpose is  the brother of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri. (For a full account of this, see our post Al-Qaeda incited the Islamic world to riot, burn and kill, September 16, 2012.) Does that not suggest that al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood are co-operating with each other?***

Are we alone in finding it irresistible to “connect the dots” and see a picture emerging of the worst betrayal of America in all its history?

The administration has become tangled in a web of deceit in trying to cover up what really happened in Benghazi. The motive for the cover-up is ascribed to President Obama’s wish to claim that the “War on Terror” is over; that with the killing of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda was defeated – while in fact al Qaeda is bigger, stronger, and operating lethally in many more countries than it was before bin Laden’s death.

The estimable Rep. Peter King puts this argument forward in this video:

It may be, however, that the really terrible secret Obama and his henchmen are trying to cover up is that the betrayal stems not just locally from the inside of the US legation in Libya, but from Foggy Bottom and the White House.

*A thoroughly researched study of this, The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration by Frank Gaffney, is published by the David Horowitz Freedom Center and is available from them.

**Huma Abedin’s close connections to the Muslim Brotherhood are documented in Frank Gaffney’s study.

*** Go here to read about every al-Qaeda leader’s membership of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The American Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, will be held this year February 10-12 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. About 10,000 conservatives are expected to attend.

It’s a grand annual event. Lots of stimulating ideas are aired and discussed.

There is something, however, about it that troubles us. CPAC’s umbrella organization, the American Conservative Union (ACU), has on its governing board one Suhail Khan, who is expected to speak at this year’s conference.

Like us, Roger Kimball, writing at PajamasMedia, wants to know why:

He presents himself as a conservative Republican who can speak for “moderate Muslims.” In fact … Suhail Khan is a smooth-talking apologist for the Muslim Brotherhood … a radical Islamist group whose credo is: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

Suhail Khan made his way into the U.S. government during the Bush administration. He has defended “Ground Zero mosque” Imam Feisal Rauf as a “moderate.” … In June 2001, Khan personally accepted an award from the now-notorious Abdurahman Alamoudi, then head of the American Muslim Council. …

Sen. Arlen Specter of the Judiciary Committee … cited a New York Post report documenting how Alamoudi had supported terrorists and “declared an interest in destroying America.”… [In October 2004, the “very supportive” Alamoudi was sentenced to 23 years in federal prison “on charges related to his activities in the United States and abroad with nations and organizations that have ties to terrorism.“]

In September 2001, four days before the 9/11 attacks, Khan spoke at the Islamic Society of North America’s [ISNA] convention. Introducing him was Jamal Barzinji, whose offices and home were raided by federal agents after 9/11. “Barzinji is not only closely associated with PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad], but also with Hamas,” according to the search-warrant affidavit. At the event, Khan shared his experiences from “inside” the White House, and praised his late father, Mahboob Khan, for helping found ISNA — which the government now says is a front for the radical Muslim Brotherhood and has raised money for jihad. The founding documents of the Brotherhood’s operation in America (recently seized by the FBI) reveal that it is in this country to “destroy” the Constitution and replace it with Islamic law.

An alarming prospect: a widespread movement bent on destroying the Constitution and replacing it with Islamic law. Is that overstated? On the contrary, that’s what the Muslim Brotherhood is all about. Here, for example, is a key passage from the 1991 “Explanatory Memorandum” on the Brotherhood’s “strategic goals” for North America. It was written by Mohamed Akram, then a central Muslim Brotherhood leader in the U.S.:

[T]heir work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. …

What happens to “people like” Suhail Khan? They get appointments to influential jobs in the White House, then the Hill. In addition to sitting on the board of the ACU, Khan is currently a spokesman for the Congressional Muslim Staff Association …

While you’re being sexually assaulted at airports in the name of national security, because you might be an Islamic jihadist intent on blowing up a plane, an Islamic jihadist, the open enemy of your country, is being paid to tell the government how to be nice to Muslims dedicated to pursuing the jihad so as to help advance their cause. (See Note below.)

What excuse can the ACU possibly have for allowing this treacherous man anywhere near its governing board?

The American Conservative Union, founded in 1964 with the blessing of folks like William F. Buckley Jr., declares itself on the side of individual rights and “strictly limiting the power of government.” The Muslim Brotherhood and other activist Islamic groups work overtime to subordinate the individual to the will of Allah and recognize no distinction between state and religious authority. They represent as thoroughgoing a totalitarian force as the world has ever seen. Suhail Khan is a prominent spokesman for that anti-democratic species of tyranny. Why does he sit on the board of the ACU? … To my mind, the fact that the ACU’s board of directors includes apologists for the Muslim Brotherhood is the sort of thing that ought to worry our fellow conservatives. He is the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing…

Does he even bother to put on the sheepskin? We can see his slavering wolf-jaws when he speaks.

Suhail Khan is not the only member of the ACU’s governing board whose heart is on the side of America’s active enemy Islam. Another is Grover Norquist.

This is from The Jawa Report.

[Suhail Khan] is a protege of GOP activist Grover Norquist, who … co-founded the Islamic Institute with top Al-Qaeda fundraiser Abdurahman Alamoudi. …

Messrs. Norquist and Khan [have had] troubling involvement for over a decade in causes profoundly at odds with U.S. security and national interests. In particular, Grover Norquist helped found and operate a Muslim organization with seed money and staffing from the man who was, at the time, the preeminent MB/al Qaeda financier. …

It is devoutly to be hoped that they [Norquist and Khan], among many other aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood’s determined bid to insinuate shariah into the United States, will also receive close scrutiny in the course of the potentially momentous hearings into “radical Islam” that incoming House Homeland Security Committee chairman Rep. Pete King has pledged to convene in the weeks ahead.

*

Note: See Frank Gaffney’s important article on Suhail Khan, A Jihadist in the Heart of the Conservative Movement, at Front Page here, in which he writes:

… Suhail Khan spent the rest of the Bush administration in the Department of Transportation, ultimately serving as the Assistant to the Secretary for Policy. In that capacity … he had access to classified information. Given the Department’s portfolio and his responsibilities, that would presumably have included secrets concerning: the policies and operations governing the Transportation Security Administration, port, rail, waterway and highway security, the movement of nuclear weapons and other hazardous materials, etc.

(See also an older article by Frank Gaffney on Suhail Khan’s candidacy for the ACU board of directors in 2007 here.)

*

We ourselves cannot be at the conference as we exist only in the ether. But if any of our readers, existing in what we are told is now called “meat space”, should go to it  – and talk about atheist conservatism however unofficially – would he or she please send us a report?

Go here for information about the speakers and panels, and a link to register.

The would-be builders of the mosque and community-center next to Ground Zero do not own all of the site they want to develop.

Half of it is owned by Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. (“Con Ed”), a company that provides electric, gas, and steam service in New York City.

Apparently neither Community Board 1, which approved the plans for the mosque, nor the Muslim developers themselves knew this.

From the New York Post:

“We never heard anything about Con Ed whatsoever,” said a stunned Julie Menin, the chairwoman of Community Board 1, which passed a May resolution supporting the mosque.

Daisy Khan, one of the mosque’s organizers [and wife of its imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf], told The Post last week that both buildings on Park Place are needed to house the worship and cultural center. But she claimed ignorance about the Con Ed ownership of 49-51 Park Place and referred questions to Soho Properties, which bought the building at 45-47 Park Place in 2009.

Rep. Peter King, who opposes the mosque, said the developers seemed to be “operating under false pretenses.”

“I wonder what else they are hiding,” said King (R-LI). “If we can’t have the full truth on this, what can we believe?”

Any hope that Con Ed will refuse to sell – a refusal that could scuttle the offensive project – would be misplaced. Their site, 49-51 Park Place, “is being appraised for a possible sale to Soho Properties, the developer behind the controversial mosque.”

However, the Public Service Commission would have to approve the sale. It’s a five-member board, controlled by Governor Paterson.

Governor Paterson seems to be more aware than Mayor Bloomberg that a huge mosque built on the edge of Ground Zero will offend millions of Americans. He has offered state help for the Muslim project if the developers will consent to building their mosque and community-center elsewhere:

“It does seem to ignite an immense amount of anxiety among the citizens of New York and people everywhere, and I think not without cause,” Paterson said in a news conference in Manhattan.

But the offer left the developers and Mayor Bloomberg cold:

The developers declined to comment. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who last week made an impassioned defense of the project planned for lower Manhattan, declined to comment through a spokesman.

So it seems that the important thing for the Muslim developers is to build on the site next to Ground Zero.

Why is Mayor Bloomberg so keen that the mosque projects should go ahead?

Kathy Barkulis at Front Page suggests why:

Mayor Bloomberg’s strident support of building a mosque at Ground Zero made me think that he had to make nice with the Saudi’s for monetary purposes. In my mind there could be no other reason for Bloomberg to take such a stand as the Mayor of New York City. …

I don’t know what’s in Mayor Bloomberg’s heart, but I’ll take an educated guess. His vast empire depends on current and future financial dealings with Saudi Arabia. It is in his best interest to make nice with them. … Bloomberg can score big personally by staying in favor with the Saudis.

So the plan to build the mosque, plainly motivated to start with by nothing better than sheer malice, will almost certainly be carried out.

It is widely reported today  – here, for instance –  that the Imam who plans to build that mosque next to Ground Zero is touring several rich Arab states as an official representative of the US, sent by the State Department at tax-payers’ expense.

P.J.Crowley (formerly of the George Soros funded Center for American Progress), speaking for the State Department, said:

“We have a long-term relationship with him. His work on tolerance and religious diversity is well-known and he brings a moderate perspective to foreign audiences on what it’s like to be a practicing Muslim in the United States.”

Two leading Republican members of Congress, Reps. Ilean Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Peter King of New York, called government sponsorship of Rauf’s trip “unacceptable” in a joint statement. They said he had suggested in at least one interview that the United States was to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks …

“The State Department’s selection of Feisal Abdul Rauf to represent the American people through this program further calls into question the administration’s policy and funding priorities,” Ros-Lehtinen and King, who are the ranking members of the Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security committees, said in their statement.

Crowley said that during the trip Rauf will not be allowed to raise funds for the proposed Islamic Center and mosque near ground zero … [and that] the Obama administration has no position on Rauf’s plans, which he termed a local zoning matter for New York. But he acknowledged that the State Department had posted a transcript of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Aug. 3 speech defending the project on a website that it runs for foreign audiences.

“We posted it because we thought it was useful for people overseas to understand perspectives on this issue,” Crowley said. “We certainly support what the mayor was underscoring, which is the history of religious diversity and religious tolerance in his city.”

In addition to the original English language version of Bloomberg’s speech, the department has posted Arabic and Farsi translations of the remarks in which the mayor adamantly rejected opposition to the mosque.

Apparently, in their passionate quest for tolerance and religious diversity, the State Department is actually giving tax-payers’ money to Muslims all over the world to build mosques and Islamic community centers.

This is from American Thinker:

Newsweek, the Washington Post’s former progressive stepchild, published an op-ed by Fareed Zakaria, the in-house lapdog for the Administration, extolling the virtues of building the Ground Zero Mosque. A couple of sentences demand a great deal more explanation. …

“Washington has funded mosques, schools, institutes, and community centers that are trying to modernize* Islam around the world. We should be encouraging groups like the one behind this project, not demonizing them. Were this mosque being built in a foreign city, chances are that the U.S. government would be funding it.”

Perhaps we all missed the memo where US taxpayers are gleefully funding Islamic “mosques, schools, institutes, and community centers” around the globe. Of course, US troops have restored hundreds of schools and community centers in Iraq and Afghanistan, but mosques and Islamic institutes? This seems very difficult to believe.

So, as an enraged and curious taxpaying citizen, I have a few questions for Mr. Zakaria, our Congress and this Administration. What are the locations, costs, and dates of construction of these US taxpayer-funded mosques and Islamic institutes? … What particular piece of Congressional legislation authorized US taxpayer dollars to be spent on these mosques and Islamic institutes? …

The Constitution states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” I’m damn sure spending US taxpayer dollars on constructing mosques was not envisioned by the Founding Fathers nor by the overwhelming majority of American citizens.

*Daniel Greenfied, at Canada Free Press, writes on the question Is Islam’s Problem a Lack of Modernity? and demonstrates that it is not: Islam makes use of all the amenities of our time. Muslims cannot invent them, but they can and do exploit them.

What Islam lacks is intellectual enlightenment, which could bring it to tolerance and acceptance of religious diversity – in other words, to so complete a transformation that it would no longer be Islam.