Muslim Brotherhood does not “eschew violence”

Muslim Brotherhood does not “eschew violence”

James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, spoke to a congressional hearing on Thursday February 10, 2011.

He said “The term Muslim Brotherhood is an umbrella term for a variety of movements. In the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam.”

Later, Director of Public Affairs Jamie Smith “clarified” Clapper’s statement: “To clarify Director Clapper’s point – in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood makes efforts to work through a political system that has been, under Mubarak’s rule, one that is largely secular in its orientation – he is well aware that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a secular organization.”

According to my handy MS Word synonym finder, “eschew” means: avoid, shun, have nothing to do with, turn your back on, steer clear of, disdain, abstain from and give up.

You may remember Siraj Wahajj.  He is associated with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and was the person driving the New York campaign to present Islam in a positive way to the New York area.

Nothing is particularly bad about his public relations campaign until you find out he was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 WTC bombing.

A while back, I went to the English version of the Muslim Brotherhood web site and the Brotherhood looks like a great organization.  Their web presence gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling about them.

Then I asked an acquaintance of mine to go to the Muslim Brotherhood’s web site and compare it to the real web site, which I cannot read.  He got back to me in a few weeks since he was working on a project somewhere overseas.

“Fred,” he said, “you would only get ‘warm and fuzzy’ feelings from this web site if you wanted to see all Christians, Jews, Buddhists and other religious people slaughtered…. Their only goal is to transform the entire world into an Islamic caliphate and they will use violent jihad to accomplish that goal.”

For someone who learned his foreign language skills down in beautiful Monterey, California, he should be spot on in his translation.

In light of this, I was surprised with Clapper’s statement and I hope he was not under oath when he testified before congress.

Either Director Clapper is totally misinformed or he is trying to lure Congress and the American Public into eventually accepting the MB’s American presence.  Being the Director of National Intelligence, he has plenty of his own people who learned their foreign language skills down in beautiful Monterey, California.

Hopefully the reports of the Muslim Brotherhood being a influence in the current Egyptian crisis are exaggerated.