For my last article on Countering Violent Extremism and the
Heritage Foundation I sought out the comments of national security experts.
People who have far more knowledge on the CVE program than I do and have had
access information that enables them to truly know what is happening regarding
terrorism.
Ryan Mauro, is a National Security Expert with the
Clarion Project and a FOX News commentator on national security issues. Ryan
was one of the first persons to encourage my writing and research. Because of
this I value his input. Below you will
find his answers to my questions. I highlighted some of his words because they
should be of special importance today.
Q: As a federal
program, is the Countering Violent Extremism salvageable as it currently
stands?
Ryan Mauro: The current CVE program is not salvageable without a major
restructuring and refocusing. If you
want to minimally ruffle feathers, you could keep a broad theme and terminology
of "countering violent extremism" but add a specific focus on
Islamism, Political Islam, jihadism or whatever term you prefer. The main
issue is that the central plank has to identify a problematic Islam-centric
ideology. This is something that Muslim allies should embrace, because it puts
the problem in their ballpark and elevates their importance. If the "violent extremist" threat
has nothing to do with Islam, then there's no reason to give special attention
to potential Muslim partners above anyone else.
It is
equally important that any program targeting the Islamist ideology have
personnel who are unhindered by political correctness, support the necessity of
focusing on Islamism and understand it. Those who see the Muslim Brotherhood as
a partner or, even worse, have links to them, are not compatible with that
program's objective. They will inevitably do their best to influence any
initiative like that, through political pressure and demands for
inclusion.
Q: Do you have a comment about Conservative groups backing CVE when
information exists exposing the actual usage of it to promote the Muslim
Brotherhood Islamist narrative?
Ryan Mauro:
This isn't an issue about conservatism versus progressivism. Either American
political philosophy collides with Islamism and the Muslim Brotherhood. It's common sense that if the U.S.
government identifies an organization or individual as being part of the Muslim
Brotherhood, then that entity shouldn't be a trusted source on CVE. It's like
having Hillary Clinton as an adviser on email security.
The largest terrorism-financing trial in U.S.
history targeted the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas and involved designating
their affiliates in America as unindicted co-conspirators. The last thing a counter-terrorism program should do is take the
unindicted co-conspirator/Muslim Brotherhood affiliate list and use it as a job
application for homeland security.
Ryan Mauro’s answers have special importance because they
refer to a Muslim Brotherhood influence that has infiltrated our national
security, which in many ways has been disabling all of our safety measures. A simple review of
who is on the Visitor Logs at the White House reveals a stream of influential members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Some even
find private audiences with President Obama and his wife in the Rose Garden. (To
learn more buy Civilization Jihad and the Myth of Moderate Islam.)
Some of the Muslim Brotherhood were appointed to positions
of national security by President Obama. Amongst them, Mohamed Elibiary, who
was appointed to the Department of Homeland Security. Elibiary had no
difficulty sharing his affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood. One of the
responsibilities of the committee Elibiary served on was to determine if the
Muslim Brotherhood was a terrorist entity. It comes as no surprise that the White House later declared that Muslim Brotherhood is a “non-violent group” even though Hamas, which is a
terrorist entity identified by the United States, is but a chapter of the
Muslim Brotherhood. 
Other presidential appointees with Muslim Brotherhood
connections have occupied various postings which you would think would have
nothing to do with national security. But look at Asma Mirza’s appointment to
the Office of Management and Budget in 2010, whom President Obama tells his
cabinet to confer with regarding matters of their budget. At the same time she
joined the staff she became a member of the Shura Council of the Islamic
Society of North America, which is basically a Board of Directors. She was 23
at the time and earned her appointment by being the daughter of Yacob Mirza, a
former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.
Jamal Barzinji, is the former Vice President of the
International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and whom David Gaubatz,
author of The Muslim Mafia, referred to as the Masul of the Muslim Mafia in 2009. This was in reference to his leadership
of the Muslim Brotherhood in
North America. I spoke with Mr. Gaubatz about his conclusions that Barzinji was the actual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America because I also had come to that conclusion from using publicly available information. Mr. Gaubatz’s son, Chris had gone undercover to attain some of the information. Jamal Barzinji is now deceased. But his grandson, Zaki Barzinji now works in the White House! According to his White House bio he now serves as the “Associate Director of Public Engagement and serves as the White House liaison to Muslim-American communities and other faiths, including Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, and others.” Anyone notice what faiths are missing? JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY! (To learn about more infiltrators see here, here and, here.)
Gadi Adelman, a National Security Expert has a show on Blog
Talk Radio’s Radio Jihad Network called America Akbar. Gadi is someone I trust and recommend his show to everyone. On June
30, 2016 he had Dr. James Carafano, the Vice President of the Heritage
Foundation on.
Dr. Carafano is no stranger to issues of national security.
He served in the army for 25 years reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During
his service he served as the executive
director of Joint Force Quarterly, the Defense Department's military journal. Dr.
Carafano’s extensive knowledge has been recognized repeatedly by continual
requests to testify before Congressional Committees on national security
matters.
Gadi asked Dr. Carafano, a question I proposed in his chat room asking for him to comment on the relationship
of the Heritage Foundation and the Countering Violent Extremism program. Dr.
Carafano began by describing the current CVE program and went into great
detail. It seems Dr. Carafano and I agree about the dangers of the current CVE
program. Below I have transcribed his response to the question, I added the
emphasis to highlight what I thought stood out..
Somebody
took a good idea and made it into something really stupid. Like
they said, “let’s remake Ghost Busters
or the Magnificent Seven.” This
actually started in the Bush administration as an effort to interdict the precursor
activities that lead to violent terrorism, material support for terrorist
activities, funding foreign fighters, recruiting people for terrorist
activities, funding money for terrorist activities and the Obama administration
came in and took this program over and they turned it into mush. So, they came up with this stupid name,
which disguised it, [Countering Violent Extremism], what does that mean?...
They made it so big and obtuse that literally it turned into a bunch of grant
money that anybody could get for anything they want. So they turned it into
basically a community outreach program and not only that they so broadened it they created huge opportunities for abuse
and misuse to this program where literally if you wanted too you could go
out after your political opponents as opposed to going after terrorists. So what we have said is look, there is a
place for enabling law enforcement, helping them to get at precursor activities
which could lead to violent acts, and that makes sense. Basically enabling law
enforcement and intelligence to penetrate communities to find out problems and
stop them before they get some where, to facilitate things that are common
practice like community policing and intelligence by policing.
With that said there are a couple
of caveats there. First of all, the
federal government shouldn’t be involved in any of this unless it is a national
security problem, and the only violent extremist threat that rises to the level
of a national security problem is Islamist terrorism. And therefore we
ought to be really clear in saying that these are programs to go after
transnational Islamist terrorists whether those are based in the United States
or connected from overseas that doesn’t matter. These are for a national
security matter, they are going after an Islamist terrorist and they ought to
be programmed, that again are designed to enable law enforcement to get at
these pre-cursor activities. And they need to have vigorous oversight and they
need to be [continually] vetted so that they are not abused. So, NO I am not a big fan of the way the
government is doing this. Which is basically calling it ‘blah blah’ and then
Congress gives it like 45 million dollars so that people can do whatever they
damn well please. So should we battling violent extremist acts and trying to
stop them before somebody goes down to the club and shoots people? Yeah! You
bet! But that needs to be done responsibly.
Dr. Carafano and I agree on everything on this! I hope he
can set the Heritage Foundation on the straight narrow and get them out of
endorsing this Ghost Buster solution!
The Department of Homeland Security now has an official
budget for CVE and operates from the DHS Office for Community Partnerships. I
filed a FOIA for the budget and in response I received a copy of the Department of Homeland Security: Countering
Violent Extremism Programs and Initiatives, June 14, 2016.
In support of what
Dr. Carafano said, this budget does little to actually stop violent extremism
and demonstrates a lack of respect to the tax payers of this great nation. Part
of the problem is the initiative goals presented by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson
to build community partnerships for the purpose of countering violent
extremism. By not naming the actual enemy, Islamist terrorists, these funds as
Dr. Carafano have quickly abused.
Of the $13,074,000 appointed for the budget, $3,108,000 was
provided for the newly created Office of Partnerships and Engagement (OPE).
This implies a HUGE staff etc., currently under the new Director George Selim.
GEORGE SELIM, DHS Director of Office of Partnerships and
Engagements
Before getting into the budget, a little background on
George Selim is needed. According to the Washington
Post, Selim is one of the persons behind the National Security Internship (NSI), an intensive
nine-week summer program in 2008 while
he was a policy advisor at the DHS
Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The stated reason for the development
of NSI? The Washington Post records that it was “a response to two issues that
arose after the 9/11 attacks: discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans,
and the need to create a new generation of well-rounded public servants who can
engage those communities.”
Not stated here is that it was
Muslims who attacked America. They were not the victims! They were in fact the
attackers. This was under President George W. Bush, who should have known who
were the attackers. The claim of discrimination against Muslims was minimal
compared to what happened to Germans and Japanese during World War II!
That discrimination continued
to be so minimal that Anti-Semitic actions that were determined to be actual
crimes soared far above the “discrimination” against Muslims which were reportable
crimes.
George Selim, spoke at The
Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard in 2009. This is a
Saudi funded Wahhabi Islamist school. Osama Bin Laden was a Wahhabist Muslim!
Selim was also noted by the Daily Caller and the Jewish Press to have met with
CAIR officials, whose organization according to federal courts is tied to the terrorist
organization Hamas. Selim stated he knew of “hundreds of examples of departments
and agencies that meet with CAIR on a range of issues.” This speaks of
numerous likely treasonous occurrences! Since Hamas is a recognized terrorist
entity!
It pays to notice who gives Selim
accolades. Hady Amr, the Director of the Brookings Doha Center, a Qatar
funded facility, which has long supported the Muslim Brotherhood and its
Hamas chapter said, “Like Barak Obama, George is as American as Apple Pie, but
his parentage includes recent immigrants to America, which enabled him to see
how others view America.”
This comment should have sent
shock waves through the national security community! The implication here is
that George Selim is also born to a Muslim family. Interestingly, no other
comments or references are made to Selim’s heritage or religious beliefs.
CVE BUDGET ISSUES
As stated previously the largest issue is that funds to
counter violent extremism are NOT BEING USED FOR THAT PURPOSE! The 2016 budget
shows that:
Office
|
CVE
Budget Allocated
|
Percentage
of Budget
|
Office
of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
|
$217,265
|
1.09%
|
Office
of Community Partnerships (OCP)
|
$3,108,000
|
15.53%
|
Federal
Law Enforcement Training Center
|
$57,641
|
0.29%
|
Science
and Technology Directorate
|
$4,333,577
|
21.66%
|
FEMA
|
$1,550,467
|
7.75%
|
Section
543 Grants
|
$10,000,000
|
49.97%
|
Office
of Partnerships and engagement (OPE)
|
$89,412
|
0.45%
|
Analysis
& Operations
|
$654,431
|
3.27%
|
TOTAL:
|
$20,010,793.00
|
Note that the budget is $7 million
higher than it has been budgeted! This office starts with using more money than
it has been allocated and this is fiscally responsible? Also, nearly 50% of the
budget is allocated for grants according to the Department
of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2016 (Public Law 114-113). Sec 543 are for the purpose of
"a countering violent extremism (CVE) initiative
to help states and local communities prepare for, prevent, and respond to
emergent threats from violent extremism." It is especially important to
note how easily dispensable these funds are to any organization because:
Congress further instructed that "…all funds under the CVE
initiative shall be provided on a competitive basis directly to states, local
governments, tribal governments, nonprofit organizations, or institutions of
higher education. Eligible activities for the CVE initiative shall include, but
not be limited to, planning, developing, implementing, or expanding educational
outreach, community engagement, social service programs, training, and
exercises, as well as other activities as the Secretary [of Homeland Security]
determines appropriate."
This insanity needs to stop! The Countering Violent Extremism
program has become little more than a shell game to give taxpayer funds away for
reasons that have nothing to do with stopping terrorism! Keep in mind that the persons in charge of
funds to stop “violent extremism” is most likely akin to President Obama and
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, in that George Selim can not use the two words “Islamic
terrorism.” If that is true, how can any of the funds allocated stop or halt
violent extremism??
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