Debating the Muslim Brotherhood in America Part V: US Policy

on October 18, 2013

The Center for Security Policy Occasional Paper Series

DEBATING THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IN AMERICA

An Interview with DHS Advisor Mohamed Elibiary

Ryan Mauro,  The Clarion Project

Made possible through the Institute for Religion & Democracy

 Part V: US Policy

The core disagreement presented here is about whether Islamists are adversaries of the West or suitable allies. If one believes that Islamists and their ideology is not a problem, then one will be dismissive of any facts about the influence of the US Muslim Brotherhood. For this camp, the threat is from irreconcilable violent Islamists like al-Qaeda and the solution is from reconciliation with supposedly non-violent Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood. This camp feels that the root cause of terrorism and Islamic extremism is not the Islamist ideology, but legitimate gripes against Western policy.

In our opinion, it is better to look to the public words of Islamists, like those shown in our documentaries, and the declaration of the 1991 US Muslim Brotherhood memo that its “work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.”

Mauro: Why don’t you support the marginalization of the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliated groups?

Elibiary: President Obama has certainly expressed publicly the importance of strategic engagement for our national interest in multiple speeches, and to a lesser extent, so has Senator McCain, whom I endorsed on FOX News early in the 2008 election as a Texas Republican state convention delegate. So this is an area where I think our government’s policy is ahead of where the national political discourse is in the conservative media.

Having served for more than a decade in various Republican Party of Texas positions, as well as with Dallas-based roots in the conservative movement going back two decades, I clearly see that Christian social conservatives as well as Jewish conservatives concerned about Israel’s future are simply fearful to the point of psychological paranoia on how to deal with the rising Islamic movements across the globe.

It’s my hope that interviews like this will help address concerns and help elevate our national political discourse around these topics to catch up with national realities.

The most important part of this section is Mr. Elibiary’s influence as a Republican Party official and member of the Secretary’s Homeland Security Advisory Council. This is why we felt it was important to publish a comprehensive dialogue with him. Elibiary states that he was a Texas Republican state convention delegate in 2008 and has served the Republican Party of Texas for over a decade in various capacities. The Dept. of Homeland Security Council that he serves on has made over 100 recommendations and, by his estimate, about 90% have been implemented or are being implemented.

Mauro: As a member of the DHS Secretary’s Homeland Security Advisory Council, what recommendations have you made?

Elibiary (cont’d): The Secretary’s Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) has approved over 100 official recommendations during the past four years and about 90% have either been already implemented or are in the process of implementation by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As a member of the HSAC, I voted along with my colleagues to pass on all those recommendations to Secretary Napolitano for consideration. The Secretary then signs off on what she agrees with and orders its implementation.

Those recommendations cover many areas that DHS works in from counter-terrorism to cyber-security, from immigration enforcement by ICE to disaster resiliency by FEMA, from border enforcement by CBP to Infrastructure Protection by NPPD. An example of a direct recommendation the HSAC offered and the Secretary approved was the cancellation of the post-9/11 color-coded terrorism alert system we used to see everywhere and its replacement with a more effective National Terrorism Advisory System.

Elibiary’s influence is apparent in the Countering Violent Extremism training guidelines issued by the Dept. of Homeland Security. The Clarion Project published an analysis of those guidelines in May, pointing out how the guidelines warn against training related to the US Muslim Brotherhood and non-violent Islamist tactics. The guidelines were apparently crafted under the guidance of Elibiary, the President of the Islamic Society of North America, and other supporters of the US Muslim Brotherhood network.

To summarize, the Dept. of Homeland Security basically relied upon Islamist-friendly advisors to draft training guidelines and these guidelines inevitably ended up Islamist-friendly. Remarkably, the President of ISNA had a hand in developing standards that would leave counter-terrorism personnel ignorant of his own organization’s Brotherhood origins.

Elibiary (cont’d): The area that has earned me the most amount of anti-Islamist media criticism has been my role assisting DHS and the broader administration craft a framework and later a strategy for Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). I helped write parts of the initial HSAC-CVE document President Barack Hussein Obama was briefed on in the Oval Office, and some in the anti-Islamist media were upset with the approach we took.

Honestly speaking, these CVE recommendations have enjoyed mainstream professional support across the law enforcement and intelligence communities, not least because they enhance homeland security’s effectiveness in a constitutionally-compliant manner as I explained in my post-Boston marathon attack op-ed in the Washington Post. While there is still more work to do across the Homeland Security Enterprise to improve CVE coordination, like many practitioners in the field, I am happy with the progress achieved thus far.

Mauro: Do you have any concluding statements?

Elibiary (cont’d): Rising to become the youngest American to ever serve on a prestigious body like the Secretary’s Homeland Security Advisory Council is frankly a testament to the strength and resilience of our nation’s meritocracy. With too many luminaries and nationally prominent policymakers to list here, including Governor Mitt Romney himself, having served or continuing to serve on the Council; I’m naturally humbled at having been given the opportunity to serve and interact with some of our nation’s top national security officials the past few years.

Personally I hold no hatred towards any conservative, anti-Islamist or pro-Israel activists who’ve attacked me over the past few years as somehow a subversive threat to our country’s national security. I’ve generously given hundreds of media interviews, testified before Congress and met with many national security officials from both the Bush and Obama Administrations. So at this point I’m about as security and bi-partisan politically vetted as anyone can become.

I’ve often hoped that a day would come when an honest and frank conversation can begin between conservatives concerned about Islamism/Political Islam and Muslims concerned about anti-Muslim bigotry (i.e. Islamophobia). It is my sincere hope that this interview helps conservatives concerned about these issues reciprocate by opening the door for a civil dialog with mainstream American Muslims to move our country forward and close the door on the HLF related past.

Focusing on the behavioral indicators of ideologically-motivated violent extremism, as I have advocated, is an opportunity for the conservative movement to broaden its base, safeguard the US Constitution, advance effective national security policy and counter the scourge of bigotry. Now that it is clear to all those who have monitored the HLF-related investigations and trials, that the issue of the unindicted co-conspirators is now a CLOSED matter and there will NOT be an HLF 2.0 trial, perhaps now is the time for us, especially conservatives, to consider launching that long-delayed constructive public dialogue about where our nation goes from here in 2013.

The question readers must ask themselves is this: Is it appropriate for the DHS to have a pro-Muslim Brotherhood official who has close ties to identified US Muslim Brotherhood entities?

In this series, he stands by his opposition to the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation, a US Muslim Brotherhood entity that was led by his long-time friend. Furthermore, he admits to having helped “safeguard” these US Muslim Brotherhood entities. During Elibiary’s tenture at DHS, the Department has issued training guidelines that protect these entities from scrutiny and eliminate education about the non-violent, legal tactics they use to promote their Islamist agenda. The counter-terrorism personnel instructed under these guidelines will often serve for decades.

On a broader level, this series isn’t just about Elibiary. It’s about the wisdom of embracing the Muslim Brotherhood as a “moderate” partner overseas or the US Muslim Brotherhood at home as expert advisors.

I want to thank Mr. Elibiary for the great deal of time and effort he put into this dialogue. In today’s news environment, it is a rarity to find such a truly substantive discussion of a contentious topic. Now, with both sides presented, it is up to the reader to decide the validity of our opposing views.

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