While the Transportation Security Administration has become notorious around the world for abusing air travelers and infringing on the unalienable rights of Americans — many critics even compare TSA tactics to “sexual molestation” and “assault” — members of at least one group were spared the humiliating Homeland Security “theater” humiliation by orders from unnamed Obama administration officials. No, it was not young children, grandmothers, or even nuns.
Instead, newly released documents confirm that the radical Muslim Brotherhood got VIP treatment from federal bureaucrats at U.S. airports. Of course, the radical Islamist outfit, admittedly dedicated to a establishing a global Muslim caliphate, has myriad connections to terrorism and jihad that have been documented by multiple governments — and even the U.S. government itself. It also has multiple connections to the Obama administration, which has become one of its chief global defenders and enablers.
According to records in a document obtained via Freedom of Information Act request by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, the special treatment for Muslim Brotherhood operatives was orchestrated by the U.S. State Department, at the time under the leadership of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Anonymous bureaucrats ordered the controversial Department of Homeland Security to have the TSA “escort” members of the delegation through security at multiple airports.
“MB [Muslim Brotherhood] delegate departure: In response to a request from the MB, the desk worked with the office of Foreign Missions to arrange for TSA to escort the last member of the visiting MB delegation, Abdul Mawgoud Dardery, through security at Minneapolis Airport and JFK Airport on April 15,” noted one of the entries on the document. “We did not hear anything further from the MB, so we assume the departure went smoothly. In the coming days, we’re going to write down a list of procedures for dealing with MB visits to the United States.”
The Brotherhood operatives also managed to avoid standard inspection procedures by U.S. Customs and Border Protection when entering the country on an April 2012 visit — a privilege normally reserved for senior foreign dignitaries and government officials. Referring to the Islamic outfit’s Egyptian political wing, the so-called Freedom and Justice Party, another entry on the document describes the “port of entry courtesies” offered to members of the delegation.
“Please let the desk know over the weekend if you’d like our help submitting to DHS the ‘Special Alerts,’ which are used to request that travelers not be pulled into secondary [inspection] upon arrival at a point of entry,” states the note, referring to standard security procedures. Another entry adds: “Many thanks to [U.S.] Embassy Cairo for quickly processing this visa and alerting DHS about the need for port courtesies.” All of the records were labeled “sensitive but unclassified.”
It was not clear who wrote the entries, who received them, or under whose orders the Muslim Brotherhood operatives were granted the wide array of special privileges that even taxpaying Americans are not afforded. The controversial developments, however, were originally reported by the Investigative Project on Terrorism in 2012, with the latest release of documents mostly confirming the organization’s previous reports. At the time, one U.S. official described the security protocol exemptions for the Brotherhood as “extraordinary.”
By the time of the visit to the United States, the Brotherhood’s “Freedom and Justice Party” had secured some electoral victories in parliamentary elections following the Obama administration-backed overthrow of former U.S. ally and Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak. However, the visit came before now-deposed Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi became president and began implementing hardline Islamist rule in Egypt. The organization has now been declared a terrorist group by Egyptian authorities following bombings.
The VIP treatment for the Egyptian branch of the Islamist outfit was especially alarming to analysts considering the Muslim Brotherhood’s controversial history — support for jihad and an Islamic caliphate, alliances with terrorist groups such as Hamas, public and vitriolic condemnation of the West, and much more. Even today, Brotherhood operatives spout the same rhetoric about eventually erecting an Islamist super-state.
“Concerning the Islamic caliphate, this is our dream, and we hope to achieve it, even after centuries,” Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghuzlan was quoted as saying in a widely cited 2012 interview just before the U.S. trip. “It is the right of the Brotherhood that this is one of the pillars of its strategy. We are not concerned about the renaissance of the group only. Rather our first goal is the renaissance of Egypt, then the Arab world and then the Islamic world. This will come gradually.”
The movement’s leaders have also served as an inspiration to terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda, as documented even by the establishment press. Indeed, reports suggest that current al-Qaeda boss Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian, was once a member, as was Osama bin Laden. As The New American’s Christian Gomez highlighted in an in-depth 2011 investigation about the carefully orchestrated uprisings in the Middle East, the Brotherhood’s myriad links with communist and socialist forces in anti-Western machinations also cannot be overlooked.
Meanwhile, at least one of the Brotherhood delegates afforded special privileges at U.S. airports had been linked to a child-pornography investigation in the United States. “Under normal circumstances, he likely would have been subjected to extra scrutiny,” explained Steven Emerson in an article about the documents for the Investigative Project on Terrorism.
Of course, U.S. government officials have known about the Brotherhood and its goals — and its myriad connections to terrorism — for decades. In a 1991 document introduced as evidence by federal prosecutors in two trials, for example, the movement’s leadership even called for an Islamic regime in America. The goal: “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
Almost 30 organizations pushing the Brotherhood’s Islamist agenda in the United States were mentioned in the document, including student groups and well-known “civil rights” outfits. Numerous lawmakers and U.S. officials have tried to draw attention to the issues. Despite what analysts say is the Brotherhood’s troubling history, however, the Obama administration has emerged as an ardent supporter of the movement — even installing multiple Brotherhood operatives in senior U.S. government posts and offering massive taxpayer handouts to its functionaries in Egypt and beyond.
Criticism of the VIP treatment afforded to high-ranking Egyptian delegates representing the movement promptly exploded online and in the alternative media following the release of the documents. “No airplanes were hijacked. This time,” observed analyst Daniel Greenfield, who focuses on radical Islam at FrontPage magazine.
Paul Joseph Watson at Infowars, meanwhile, blasted the fact that completely innocent Americans continue to suffer from “invasive grope down procedures” and “no-fly lists” while “members of a group with direct links to terrorism were given VIP treatment by the State Department, the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security.” Thomas Lifson at American Thinker, emphasizing the Brotherhood’s self-declared goal of a global caliphate, said turning a blind eye and extending VIP treatment reserved for foreign dignitaries to Brotherhood operatives “is an outrage.”
As The New American has documented extensively, the U.S. government has made it abundantly clear that, despite being marketed as security for Americans from Islamic terrorism, the terror war is aimed primarily at citizens whose views it disagrees with. Among other categories of Americans identified in official documents as “extremists” and even “potential terrorists”: pro-life activists, Christians, gun-rights supporters, states’ rights advocates, veterans, conservatives, libertarians, Ron Paul supporters, liberty lovers, and more. As everyday Americans remain in government crosshairs, Muslim Brotherhood operatives get VIP treatment, illustrating the terror-war fraud perfectly.
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at [email protected].
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