No sooner had Hillary Clinton announced the start of her U.S. presidential campaign than several skeletons popped out of her closet.
The Clinton Foundation skeleton, at worst, gave foreign contributors a “pay to play” influence at the U.S. State Department, or, at best, the appearance of such. If the former, the Clintons have taken Harry Truman’s motto, “the buck stops here,” to mean millions of them.
Another skeleton is Hillary’s unauthorized use of a private email server along with her erasure of those communications while announcing her candidacy.
A third skeleton, Benghazi, is being examined by Chairman Trey Gowdy of the House Select Committee which is investigating the matter.
These three skeletons demand, and are receiving, close scrutiny. However, a fourth and much more damning skeleton—Hillary’s Muslim Brotherhood connection—still escapes scrutiny. Interestingly, in connection with the Benghazi investigation, three Hillary aides have been subpoenaed by Gowdy to produce emails. The one who has yet to do so completely is the one with the closest ties to the Brotherhood—Huma Abedin.
The subpoena stems from Gowdy’s efforts to track what communications were made by Hillary and her staff concerning Ambassador Chris Stevens movements prior to the Benghazi attack. Of interest also will be why efforts were undertaken after the attack to minimize involvement by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Some background about the Brotherhood is needed to understand its driving force and why, under Hillary’s leadership as Secretary of State, a decision would have been made to embrace an organization determined to eliminate America and her allies.
Because our Middle East allies understand this background, they have outlawed the group.
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 as a Sunni Islamist religious, political and social movement. Founder Hassan al-Banna’s fundamental goal was Islam’s global domination. That effort quickly turned violent. As its influence grew, its tentacles spread to 80 other nations, laying the groundwork for an envisioned global caliphate.
An early influential Brotherhood member, Sayyid Qutb, wrote of the need to cleanse the world of Western influence by imposing sharia. Years later, his work became Osama bin Laden’s and Ayman al-Zawahri’s “bible.” But, feeling the Brotherhood was not moving fast enough to achieve global Islam, they created an offshoot group—al-Qaeda—to quicken the pace.
At various times, as the Brotherhood gained influence causing domestic instability, nations cracked down on it. To survive, it renounced violence—birthing numerous splinter groups to do its violent bidding.
In 1981, one such group assassinated a Middle East peace apostle—Egyptian President Anwar Sadat—for his peace treaty with Israel. Hamas was another terrorist splinter group.
Viewing America as an obstacle to Islam’s global dominance, the Brotherhood—to this day—seeks to destroy America, informing followers to be “patient” as it so plots to do so.
In the 1990s, Brotherhood leaders mapped out a secret war plan to accomplish this—one discovered completely by accident in 2004. Despite this discovery and our knowledge about what is in the plan (such as using Muslim Brotherhood front companies within the U.S. and making claims of Islamophobia whenever Islam is criticized), the Brotherhood openly continues implementing that plan today. Meanwhile, under Obama’s tutelage, the federal agencies responsible for protecting us from such a threat fail to do so.
Just like Osama bin Laden’s 1997 declaration of war against America received little media attention, so too did the Brotherhood’s 2010 war declaration against America by its Supreme Guide, Muhammad Badi.
Badi called for jihad against “the Muslim’s real enemies, not only Israel but also the United States. Waging jihad against both of these infidels is a commandment of Allah that cannot be disregarded.”
The Brotherhood’s long running anti-American platform properly inhibited U.S. recognition of the group. But, incredibly, under the Obama/Clinton team, that changed overnight.
Failing to support our long-time ally, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Obama welcomed the Brotherhood with open arms in June 2011—without even demanding it withdraw its war declaration or otherwise renounce its anti-American platform.
The skeleton in Hillary’s closet now in need of close scrutiny is how the Muslim Brotherhood instantly converted—in the Administration’s eyes but not those of the Brotherhood itself—from foe to friend.
Of note in all this is that the family of Hillary’s now longest serving assistant, Huma Abedin, has enjoyed an intensely close relationship with the Brotherhood for decades. Her father, Zyed Abedin, served as editor of an anti-Semitic journal funded by an Islamist; her mother, Saleha Mahmood Abedin, replaced him as editor in 1993 when he died. As editor, Saleha has promoted the Muslim Brotherhood (she is a member of its female division), violent jihad and the “right” of women to be repressed under sharia.
Despite this connection and despite the fact Abedin was working for a Muslim Brotherhood journal at the time, Clinton’s request Abedin’s security clearance be expedited was honored. Yet, astonishingly to this day, the Abedin skeleton receives little media scrutiny.
The extent of the media’s focus on Abedin has been extremely limited. National security issues seem to be of no concern as it only placed Abedin in the spotlight as the wife of U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner. He was the one who gave the Oscar Mayer weiner song new meaning after exposing himself on Twitter.
If lines were drawn from opposite ends of an influence graph, one depicting the Muslim Brotherhood under President Obama and the other Abedin under Secretary Clinton, convergence occurs as America embraces a group still committed to our destruction.
Despite continuous Brotherhood terrorist activity since receiving Obama’s embrace—including the destruction of 52 churches in Egypt within a 24-hour period on August 13, 2013 and the arrests in Cairo earlier this month of thirteen members seeking to plant explosives to disrupt Suez Canal maritime traffic, Obama regularly welcomes Brotherhood representatives at the White House. He also continues his Muslim outreach programs granting access to Brotherhood agents at the highest levels of our government despite convictions in U.S. courts of some for terrorist funding activities.
In other words, the Muslim Brotherhood continues to implement its war plan against America with the help of our own President.
Obama’s unbending commitment to a Muslim Brotherhood that, both in his eyes and Hillary’s, can do no wrong, is detailed in a secret directive known as “Presidential Study Directive-11.” It borders on treason this policy continues in place based on the Brotherhood’s aggressive anti-U.S activities both before and after its issuance.
Whether due to political correctness or naiveté, the media has failed to pull the Muslim Brotherhood’s skeleton out of Hillary’s closet. It needs to do so—thoroughly examining it to determine how a group so committed to America’s destruction remains so warmly embraced by those responsible for protecting us from it.
Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (Ret.), is a retired Marine infantry officer who served in the Vietnam war, the U.S. invasion of Panama and the first Gulf war. He is the author of “Bare Feet, Iron Will–Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam’s Battlefields,” “Living the Juche Lie: North Korea’s Kim Dynasty” and “Doomsday: Iran–The Clock is Ticking.” He frequently writes on foreign policy and defense issues.