The first paragraph of the United States Constitution states:
“We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
One of the purposes of the Union was common defence. I fear that we have forgotten our roots.
On Thursday, Andrew McCarthy reported at The Corner at National Review Online that the Obama Administration is opening formal contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Mr. McCarthy reports:
“The Brotherhood is the world’s most important Islamist organization. It is openly, unabashedly committed to the destruction of the United States and the West. In typical Obama fashion, this disastrous decision to engage America’s avowed enemies has been couched as the mere continuation of prior policy: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is reported to have confirmed that the U.S. would “resume” contacts which had “occurred in recent years.” But make no mistake about it, this is a new policy.”
This is not a good idea. Frank Gaffney at the Center for Security Policy reminds us of the Muslim Brotherhoods goals (as stated in documents submitted to the court in the Holy Land Foundation Case):
First, here’s the MB’s creed: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” (Source: Husain Haqqani and Hillel Fradkin, “Islamist Parties: Going Back to the Origins.”)
Second, here’s the Ikwhan’s mission in America:
“A kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within, sabotaging its miserable house with their [i.e., Americans’] hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” (Source: Muslim Brotherhood’s “Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goals of the Group,” entered into evidence by the Department of Justice in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-finance trial. Archived at the NEFA Foundation.)
I guess the obviousl question here is what is the world do we hope to achieve by entering into a dialogue with people who want to destroy us?
Scott Johnson at Power Line also comments on the idea of opening up a discourse with the Muslim Brotherhood:
“The Muslim Brotherhood is the largest and most important Islamist organization in the Arab world. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get a handle on what it is up to. It conceives of its mission as a grand jihad of global Islamization. Patrick Poole makes the salient point that the Brotherhood has spawned virtually every Islamic terrorist organization in the world. Hamas, for example, is a formal branch of the Brotherhood. Discover the Networks usefully summarizes its history.”
This is not only negotiating with terrorists, it is inviting them into your living room. The first responsibility of the government is to protect its people. Negotiating with terrorists never ends well, and it does not protect Americans.