reflectivepundit

Questions about Support for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood

By Brigitte L. Nacos

While in Egypt with his colleague Senator John McCain, Lindsey Graham said, “The people who are in charge were not elected. The people who were elected are in jail. The status quo is not acceptable.” The two Republicans criticized the military’s coup to remove the democratically elected government with an Islamic agenda and replace it with a secular one. The mere fact that the two Senators spoke out in support of the fundamentalist group with a long history of Islamist extremism is astounding. McCain and Graham have strange bedfellows at the New York Times, though. The other day, the newspaper editorialized against the Egyptian military and the secular government it installed and in support of the Islamists in the name of democratic rules of the game. “The Brotherhood, having been tossed out in a coup, must wonder whether the democratic process can ever be trusted,” the editorial stated.

One doesn’t have to be in favor of military coups in most cases to question these concerns about the Muslim Brotherhood’s future trust in and commitment to the democratic process. Along with such a commitment would come the willingness to accept the legitimacy of oppositional parties and critical voices.  On these counts, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, and his Brotherhood government failed and contributed mightily to the current Egyptian conflict.

If democratically conducted elections were the litmus test of legitimacy, why didn’t McCain and Graham and the New York Times and other supporters of Morsi and the Brotherhood speak out in favor of Hamas when the organization won the Palestinian elections in early 2006 handily and thereby the right to govern the territories? The reason for rejecting Hamas’s rule was a non-brainer: Hamas, a creature of the Muslim Brotherhood, was unacceptable as legitimate political actor because of its terrorist activities against Israeli civilians and non-combatants. With the same rationale, Hezbollah’s successes in Lebanon’s democratic elections did not legitimize the political arm of the organizations—because of the Iran-sponsored organization’s deadly record of terrorism against Israel, the United States and other Western countrieWhile imprisoned and politically tamed by Mubarak and predecessors, the Brotherhood’s leadership changed from a violent agenda to non-violence even while helping to establish extremist affiliates and/or spreading extremist jihadist thought and calls-to-arms in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Unlike conservatives like McCain and Graham or liberals like those on the editorial board of the Times, I can’t get worked up about the Muslim Brotherhood possibly losing trust in democracy.

Who says that such trust has existed in the first place?

 

 

 

 

Terrorists Know That Threats are Nearly as Effective as Attacks

By Brigitte L. Nacos

As I noted repeatedly in my blogs and in my previous post, when public officials overreact in their public statements to terrorist threats and plot warnings and the media hype these alarts, they  play into the hands of terrorists. After all, these utterly weak actors want to be perceived as powerful players who scare the most powerful nation in the world.

Precisely that happened in the wake of the recent terrorist plot warnings and the closings of more than a dozen U.S. missions abroad. These are the opening lines from an article in today's New York Times:

"The gloating among jihadists and their sympathizers began last week, right after the United States shut down almost two dozen diplomatic posts across the Middle East in response to a terrorist threat.

'God is great! America is in a condition of terror and fear from Al Qaeda,' wrote one jihadist in an online forum. Another one rejoiced: 'The mobilization and security precautions are costing them billions of dollars. We hope to hear more of such psychological warfare, even if there are no actual jihadi operations on the ground.'”

Yes, these guys are well aware that they do not need to strike to engage and score points in their psychological warfare.

Washington's political class and the intelligence community should take this basic fact of the terrorist calculus into consideration when they go public with terrorism related information. And the mass media should as well. Inform the public, for sure. But do not overreact in words and deeds. And do not over-cover.

The Boston Bomber’s Rolling Stone Cover: Why So Much Indignation?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Although banned from their shelves by several large chain stores like Shop & Stop and CVS, the Rolling Stone issue depicting the surviving Boston Marathon Bomber Dzokhar Tsarrnaev on its cover has been a hit with retail sales elsewhere jumping by more than 100%. The sales jump was certainly more the result of the highly publicized protests against the alleged glorification of a terrorist by Rolling Stone than many thousands of Americans becoming fans of the young Tsarnaev.

There is no doubt that literally all terrorists strive for publicity and the opportunity to spread fear in their target societies. Every word spoken or printed, every image published about their violent deeds, their grievances, their objectives further terrorists’ media-centered objectives. And on that count terrorists have proven very successful.

But why single out Rolling Stone? The print press, television, media, blogs, and social media publicized many reports and many pictures about the brazen attack in Boston—including images of the perpetrators and their victims. For days, the Boston Marathon Bombing provided “breaking news” here and abroad for many days—even when there were no new developments at all.  Compared to this publicity bonanza for the Boston Bombers, the Rolling Stone cover would have been a minor score without the various protests and boycotts.

In the ten weeks following the 9/11 attacks, TIME magazine depicted Osama bin Laden three times and Newsweek showed the Al Qaeda boss twice on its cover. In that time period, bin Laden was more often mentioned than President George W. Bush and other legitimate heads of governments in news stories aired by the leading American TV-networks. Although this media attention cast bin Laden in the role of a premier geopolitical player, there were no public outcries or business boycotts.

What we should be concerned with is the prominent and extensive coverage that the media devotes day-in and day-out to Al Qaeda and its affiliates around the globe. There is no doubt that the killing of bin Laden and a number of other important figures in Al Qaeda Central did not weaken the global network of Al Qaeda affiliates. On the contrary, several groups have strengthened and become more bellicose--especially in North Africa and the Middle East. But by attributing all violence by non-state actors in those regions to Al Qaeda, Washington officials and the news media play into the hands of whatever is left of Al Qaeda Central and those autonomous organizations that hope to benefit from alleged allegiance to the original bin Laden group.

It may well be that the intelligence community has evidence of terrorist plots and that there is reason to close diplomatic missions and warn Americans abroad. But by returning to the much publicized terror threat alert patterns of the Bush administration, present officials in the administration and congress provide the suspected terrorist groups with the attention they want to demonstrate how much they are feared.  

This is not to say that American s should not be alerted to possible threats abroad and at home. The problem is the portrayal of Al Qaeda as a larger than life power, an existential threat to our national security that it is not.

One doesn’t have to be a cynic to suspect that the recent uproar over the National Security Agency’s data mining overreach played a role in the current terror alert. After all, who would not applaud the intelligence community, if such data reveal planned attacks and helps in their prevention?