Pete Hoekstra to Newsmax: Terrorism Growing 'By Leaps and Bounds' Under Obama

The Obama administration's confused and weak foreign policy is paving the way for terrorism to flourish, according to Pete Hoekstra, former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

"We now are seeing a resurgent al-Qaida, a resurgent Islamist movement. They see America as weak. They are training and people are participating in Syria, other parts of the world," Hoekstra told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"They're participants; they're fighting with al-Qaida and radical jihadists. They're from the West, they're from Europe, they're from Canada, and, yes, they're from the United States. They're going to come back and we are growing this problem.

"This problem is not diminishing under this president. It is growing by leaps and bounds."

He said Americans should be outraged by the "mess" being created by the White House on the world scene.

"Our friends no longer trust us, we've lost Egypt, Israel is beside itself – they're alone. It appears their only ally now in the Middle East is Saudi Arabia. How does this happen?" he said.

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Hoekstra said the United States is perceived as no longer knowing who its friends and enemies are.

Via: Newsmax

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New columnist for New York Times is anti-Israel conspiracist

In addition to your daily dose of liberal invective, you will now get a monthly infusion of anti-Israel conspiracy on the New York Times opinion page.

Earlier this month, the New York Times announced that it had hired Egyptian novelist Alaa Al-Aswany to write a monthly column for the paper. But according to Egypt scholar Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Al-Aswany buys into the conspiratorial notion that a cabal of Jews controls American leaders.

Writing in the New Republic, Trager explains that Al-Aswany has been able to cultivate an image of himself in the West as an enlightened liberal who ardently opposed the dictatorial regime of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. But his more nefarious views have largely been hidden from the West’s view because Al-Aswany most often expresses them in Arabic, says Trager.

For instance, notes Trager, Al-Aswany declared earlier this year on Egyptian television that President Obama is prevented from “go[ing] against Israel’s desire” by a “massive Zionist organization” that “rules America.”

Al-Aswany also holds the bizarre conspiratorial view that the United States supported the virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Israel Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in order to help Israel.

“[T]he United States supports the Muslim Brotherhood to reassure Israel,” Al-Aswany said on Egyptian television earlier this year, Trager reports.

“The Zionist John McCain, one of the biggest defenders of Israel, threatens Egypt if it does not release [Brotherhood leader] Shater immediately. The only explanation is that Brotherhood rule is in the interest of Israel,” Al-Aswany tweeted, according to Trager’s translation.

Though Al-Aswany himself supported Muslim Brotherhood-backed candidate Mohammed Morsi in the 2012 Egyptian presidential election, he has become a vocal supporter of the military-backed regime that took power as result of last summer’s coup.

Via: Daily Caller

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Egypt police clash with students at al-Azhar University

There were no immediate reports of casualties at the al-Azhar protest

Egyptian police have fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of students staging an anti-military protest at Cairo's al-Azhar University, reports say.

Students had blocked the main road leading to the campus and threw rocks as security forces drew near.

Clashes at the country's top Islamic institution erupted when students tried to take their protest off the campus.

Supporters of former President Mohammed Morsi have staged regular anti-army protests since he was ousted on 3 July.

There were no immediate reports of casualties at the al-Azhar protest.

The campus is close to Rabaa Square where Islamists set up a huge protest camp that security forces raided in August, leaving hundreds dead and sparking days of unrest.

A Reuters witness said some of the students were trying to reach the square, when they were cut off by the security forces.

There were also reports of scuffles at a demonstration at Cairo University between supporters and opponents of Mr Morsi.

Hundreds of people demanding his reinstatement - mostly Muslim Brotherhood supporters - have been killed in clashes with security forces since his ousting.

Mr Morsi and other senior Brotherhood figures have been imprisoned and face trial next month.

Via: BBC

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Morsi Trial destined to lay bare Obama’s Muslim Brotherhood connections

If America is really fighting terrorism as it claims, shouldn’t it be standing next to Egypt at this crucial time?

Cairo, Egypt—Seems like President Barack Obama is taking on the role of Samson in the famous biblical story, bringing the temple down on everyone’s head after the collapse of his popularity and the exposure of his schemes to enable the extremists in Egypt.

After Obama’s defeat at the hands of Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the Egyptians—which he still refuses to admit—Obama continues to punish Egypt and its army. 

In Obama’s failure to avoid an economic crisis in America, how is it he has time for War Games in Egypt?

Obama should be truly worried about how the trail of ousted President Mohammad Morsi will lead to the truth coming out on his relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and their common goals.

In fact, Obama’s latest reckless and non-calculated step could lose him a lot of friends and allies for America in the Middle East. He may not only lose Arab support but Israel’s as well, thanks to the announcement that the U.S. is freezing military and financial aid to Egypt.

U.S. aid to Egypt is not a gift or donation on a voluntary basis, but it’s a part of the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, which was signed in 1979, and which stipulates that America gives to Egypt similar aid given to Israel, whether financially or militarily, and to maintain the military balance between the two countries, ensuring the continued commitment to that treaty. The Obama administration is now in breach of those essential terms. Egypt now has the right to retreat from the Convention, which could raise a lot of anger in Israel for Obama’s position, which stands against the interests of Israel and does not benefit the interests of either Egypt or America itself.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Obama Just Made a Terrible Mistake on Egypt

In a certain sense, the Obama administration’s decision to withhold much of the $1.3 billion in annual aid given to Egypt isn’t surprising. U.S. law mandates cutting off aid to countries in which a coup has taken place, and the Egyptian military’s ouster of President Mohamed Morsi this summer was, analytically speaking, exactly that. Moreover, the Egyptian military’s behavior during the three months since Morsi’s removal has made Egypt’s slide towards enhanced autocracy impossible to ignore: Over 1,000 people have been killed in the military-backed government’s crackdown on pro-Morsi protests; journalists who criticize the military have been prosecuted in military courts; and the new constitution will likely further shield the military from any kind of civilian oversight.

Indeed, the generals are not democrats, and never have been. They are bureaucratic actors who selfishly guard their bureaucratic privileges, which include autonomy over their internal affairs and control over vast economic assets (for example, among other consumer products, the Egyptian military produces bottled water), and they know that true democracy could cost them these perquisites. But cutting off aid won’t make the military democratic, and it will come at a substantial cost: namely, the ability to encourage the military in a more progressive direction down the road, when the environment might be riper for a more assertively pro-democratic U.S. policy in Egypt.

he calls to cut off military aid in the aftermath of Morsi’s ouster reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of what transpired in Egypt this past summer. To say, as is frequently said, that the military removed a democratically elected president from office is to overlook a very basic reality: that by the time unprecedentedly mass protests against the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule commenced on June 30, Mohamed Morsi was a president in name only. Morsi’s November 2012 constitutional declaration, which put his own edicts above judicial scrutiny, and his subsequent ramming of an Islamist constitution through to ratification, severely undercut his popular legitimacy, and shrunk his support in a country of 85 million people down to the Brotherhood’s base of approximately 500,000 members. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood’s decision to dispatch its cadres to brutally attack and torture protesters outside the presidential palace on December 5 led many Egyptians to view the Brotherhood—an organization that they had elected only months earlier—as an emerging fascist regime. From that point forward, protests against Morsi’s rule became so frequent and destabilizing that by late January, the military—at Morsi's request—assumed control over the three major Suez Canal cities.  

Via: New Republic

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Egyptian Islamist groups seek truce

CAIRO (AP) — Two of Egypt's former militant groups are offering an initiative to halt the country's political violence, in which supporters of the ousted Islamist president will stop street protests if the military-backed government stops its crackdown on them, the groups' leaders said Monday.

The initiative led by Egypt's Gamaa Islamiya and Islamic Jihad movements, which waged an insurgency in the 1990s, aims to bring dialogue between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood, from which toppled President Mohammed Morsi hails. Morsi was overthrown by the military on July 3 after millions took to the street demanding that he step down.

Morsi's allies had previously insisted that he be restored to power as starting point for any talks, but Islamic Jihad leader Mohammed Abu Samra told The Associated Press that negotiations had no "red lines."

The groups do not speak for the Brotherhood, but the initiative is a new sign of flexibility from the pro-Morsi alliance of mostly Islamist groups. It comes as the Islamists' protest campaign wanes and numbers at their formerly massive rallies dwindle. Hundreds of Brotherhood leaders and organizers have been arrested in the crackdown.

Egypt's worst bout of violence in its 2 ½ years of turmoil was set off when security forces backed by snipers and armored vehicles moved in to break up two sprawling pro-Morsi protest camps on Aug. 14. More than 1,000 people were killed in the raids and other violence over the next several days, mostly Morsi supporters.

"We are paving the way for talks," Abu Samra said over the phone. "We can't hold talks while we are at the points of swords in the midst of killings and crackdowns." He said the groups were "extending their hands" to avoid a bloodier confrontation with the military.

He said that the Islamists will stop demonstrations so long as the military halts its crackdown and stops defaming the Brotherhood in mosques and in the media. Asked if Islamist groups would accept talks without demanding Morsi's reinstatement, he said, "Blood is more valuable than the seat of power."

Via: Yahoo News

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Ravaged churches reveal sectarian split feeding Egypt’s violence

Obama Admin On Church Attacks In Egypt: “We Have Seen Zero Indication The Muslim Brotherhood Is Organizing These Attacks”…

BENI MAZAR, Egypt — The fire burned all night long. It was only after desperate town residents borrowed the keys to a firetruck that they were able to quell the blaze. By then, the evangelical church was all but destroyed.

It was one of more than 60 churches that have been attacked, vandalized and in many cases set aflame across Egypt in a surge of violence against Christians that has followed thebloody Aug. 14 raid by Egyptian security forces on two Islamist protest camps in Cairo.

The attacks, most of them in Egypt’s Nile Valley, have lent legitimacy to the military-backed government’s claims that it is fighting a war against terrorism.

But one week after the attacks, the Egyptian government has yet to investigate any of the incidents or provide any additional security to most churches, Christian activists and church officials said.

Visits to flame-ravaged churches and interviews with activists and Western officials also cast doubt on whether the Muslim Brotherhood, blamed by the government for carrying out the violence, was actively involved.

“We have seen zero indication that the Muslim Brotherhood as an organization is organizing these attacks,” said a high-ranking Western official who was not authorized to speak on the record. The official said the blame more likely rested with Islamist vigilantes rather than Brotherhood members acting on orders.

Via: Washington Post

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