Huma Abedin’s Muslim Brotherhood Ties
http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...rew-c-mccarthy
                                                  by                                                                           
Andrew C. McCarthy                                                 July 25, 2012 4:00 AM                                                  
                                                                          Michele Bachmann has every right to ask questions.                                                                                                     Despite 
mounting evidence of  close ties between the Muslim Brotherhood and Huma Abedin, Secretary of  State Clinton’s close aide, Republican congressional leaders —  particularly Senator John McCain and House Speaker John Boehner —  continue to target their ire not at the State Department but at  Representative Michele Bachmann.
 Representative Bachmann is one of five House conservatives who have  raised concerns about Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of our government.  Glenn Beck 
reported Tuesday  that GOP leadership is trying to extort an apology out of Bachmann by  threatening to boot her from the House Intelligence Committee if she  fails to submit.
 That got me to wondering: Any chance Speaker Boehner might take just a  couple of minutes out of his busy jihad against Bachmann to focus on  how the State Department — during Ms. Abedin’s tenure — has cozied up to  
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s chief sharia jurist?
             
Sheikh Qaradawi is a promoter of jihadist terror. His fatwas  endorse terrorist attacks against American personnel in Iraq as well as  suicide bombing — by both men and women — against Israel. He is a  leading supporter of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch.  He also runs an umbrella organization called the Union for Good  (sometimes referred to as the “Union of Good”), which is formally  designated a terrorist organization under American law. The Union for  Good was behind the “
Peace Flotilla”  that attempted to break our ally Israel’s blockade of the terrorist  organization Hamas (the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch) in  2010.
 That’s rather interesting — at least to me, though apparently not to  Speaker Boehner — because Huma Abedin’s mother, Saleha, who is a member  of the Muslim Brotherhood’s female division (the “Muslim Sisterhood”),  is a major figure in not one but two Union for Good components. The  first is the 
International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief (IICDR).  It is banned in Israel for supporting Hamas under the auspices of the  Union for Good. Then there’s the International Islamic Committee for  Woman and Child (IICWC) — an organization that Dr. Saleha Abedin has  long headed. Dr. Abedin’s IICWC describes itself as part of the IICDR.  And wouldn’t you know it, the IICWC charter was 
written by none other than . . . Sheikh Qaradawi, in conjunction with several self-proclaimed members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
 In McCainWorld, these are what are known as “
a few unspecified and unsubstantiated associations.”  But I digress. Clearly, these significant Muslim Brotherhood  connections are of scant interest to Speaker Boehner, who has decided  the problem is not the Brotherhood connections but the people who are  shedding light on the Brotherhood connections. Nevertheless, since  Boehner purports to be all about cracking down on wasteful government  spending, at least when he’s not 
signing off on  deals to extend President Obama’s credit card by another trillion or  three, I thought I might ask whether the State Department’s Fulbright  Scholar Program aroused his curiosity ever so slightly.
Fulbright, 
by its own account,  is “the government’s flagship program in international educational  exchange,” promoting “mutual understanding” between the U.S. and other  countries. In the 2010–2011 academic year — the year of the Union for  Good’s “Freedom Flotilla,” if you need a time marker — one Fulbright  scholarship was 
awarded to  a lucky chemistry student from Qatar. Her name is Siham al-Qaradawi,  and she just happens to be the daughter of Sheikh Qaradawi.
 Now, besides despising America and having lots of global academic  connections (at least in countries where he’s not banned), the sheikh  happens to be a very wealthy man — the sharia-advisory business can be  very profitable. And while the sheikh’s daughter is said to be an  exceptional chemist, the world is full of exceptional chemists. How is  it that Qaradawi’s daughter gets the State Department prize? I’m just  wondering, and wondering if Speaker Boehner is wondering.
 Oh, one last thing. Obviously, Huma Abedin does not make  Obama-administration or State Department policy. Policy is made by  President Obama and Secretary Clinton, and they hardly needed Ms. Abedin  in order to have pro-Islamist leanings.
 Nevertheless, since Secretary Clinton’s tenure began, with Huma  Abedin serving as a top adviser, the United States has aligned itself  with the Muslim Brotherhood in myriad ways. To name just a few (the list  is by no means exhaustive): Our government reversed the policy against  formal contacts with the Brotherhood; funded Hamas; continued funding  Egypt even after the Brotherhood won the elections; dropped an  investigation of Brotherhood organizations in the U.S. that were  previously identified as co-conspirators in the case of the Holy Land  Foundation financing Hamas; hosted Brotherhood delegations in the United  States; issued a visa to a member of the Islamic Group (a designated  terrorist organization) and hosted him in Washington because he is part  of the Brotherhood’s parliamentary coalition in Egypt; announced that  Israel should go back to its indefensible 1967 borders; excluded Israel,  the world’s leading target of terrorism, from a counterterrorism forum  in which the State Department sought to “partner” with Islamist  governments that do not regard attacks on Israel as terrorism; and  pressured Egypt’s pro-American military government to surrender power to  the anti-American Muslim Brotherhood parliament and president just  elected by Egypt’s predominantly anti-American population.
 So I was hoping maybe the speaker could explain to us: Hypothetically, if Huma Abedin 
did have a bias in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood, and if she were 
actually acting on that bias to try to tilt American policy in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood, 
what exactly would the State Department be doing differently?
 — Andrew C. McCarthy is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.
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