WHO IS JOHN BRENNAN AND WHY WE SHOULD WORRY

by Steve Kramer

You may not have heard of President Obama's anti-terrorism czar, John O. Brennan. According to the Washington Post site, www.whorunsgov.com, Brennan has been the  Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism since May 2009. His previous jobs since 2001: Analysis Corp, (2005 to 2008) a private company that provides support to the government's counter-terrorism efforts; National Counter-Terrorism Center, Chair (2004 to 2005) ; CIA deputy executive director (2001 to 2003).

In 1980, Brennan joined the CIA as an intelligence director and held a series of positions at the agency in America and abroad. He also worked in Saudi Arabia and in Washington on Near Eastern and South Asian analyses. In the 1990s, he led counter-terrorism efforts for a variety of programs and worked closely with CIA Director George Tenet, who appointed him as his chief of staff in 1999.

With this background, one would expect a hard-nosed lawman who would laser in on the Islamic terror organizations, which are responsible for 99% of the world's terrorism. Instead, America has a anti-terrorism czar who sees, for example, moderate elements in Hizbullah, a potential peace partner.

"Consider, for instance, the recent statements of the White House's counterterrorism czar, John Brennan, who sees in Hizbullah a terrorist organization that, because its members are doctors and lawyers and parliamentarians, really wants to become a partner for Middle East peace. Hizbullah's hardliners, Brennan said this week at a Washington conference, "are truly a concern to us, what they're doing. What we need to do is to find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements."

(Newsweek, "Outside Looking In," May 21, 2010)
Brennan, who must know better, ignores the fact that physicians have founded many terrorist organizations, not to mention lawyers and parliamentarians. (See www.aina.org/news/2007079124647.htm for an extensive list of Muslim physician-terrorists.)

Brennan recently revealed a new White House rhetorical policy regarding terrorism: detach all references made to Islam including any statement that makes mention of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or any other group. The purpose of the removal of these terms is to send a message to Muslim nations that America does not view them through the eyes of terrorism.

The majority of Muslims do prefer non-violent methods to terrorist ones, according to a Pew Research Center from December 2009. Most U.S. Muslims reject such attacks. Nevertheless, 22% of young American Muslims believe, to some extent, that suicide bombings can be justified to defend Islam. Similarly, support of some degree for suicide bombings among young European Muslims ranged from 22% in Germany, to 31 % in Spain, 30 % in Britain and 36% in France. In Israel, 45% of Israeli-Palestinians condone suicide bombing in some circumstances, as well as 44% in Jordan, 48% in Egypt, and 83% (!) in the Palestinian territories. (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1445/little-support-for-terrorism-among-muslim-americans?src=prc-latest&proj=hispanic)

Extrapolating from these figures, I'm not as optimistic about the world's Muslims as are the American president, the Homeland Security secretary, and most importantly, the anti-terrorism czar. We know that Muslims constitute a quarter of the world population, about 1.6-1.8 billion. Keeping in mind the large percentage of Muslims who don't approve of terrorism, let's estimate that only one-tenth of one percent would actually commit terrorist acts. That means that there are 170,000 Muslims who are ready to slaughter civilians for the Islamic cause.

The Iran proxy, Hizbullah, now effectively runs Lebanon and has scores of thousands of rockets and missiles aimed at Israel. The titular head of government, Prime Minister Saad Hariri, has been so emasculated that he takes orders from Hizbullah/Syria/Iran, one or all of whom are probably responsible for murdering Hariri's father, the former prime minister, Rafic Hariri.

From the Hizbullah Charter, published in Beirut, February 16, 1985:

    The Necessity for the Destruction of Israel
    We see in Israel the vanguard of the United States in our Islamic world. It is the hated enemy that must be fought until the hated ones get what they deserve. This enemy is the greatest danger to our future generations and to the destiny of our lands, particularly as it glorifies the ideas of settlement and expansion, initiated in Palestine, and yearning outward to the extension of the Great Israel, from the Euphrates to the Nile.

    Our primary assumption in our fight against Israel states that the Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception, and built on lands wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of the Muslim people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated.

    We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel, and regard all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation is nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.
(www.zionism-israel.com/hdoc/Hezbollah_Charter.htm)

It's impossible to read and understand the above charter and to believe that "moderates" (doctors and lawyers and parliamentarians) are members of Hizbullah. John Brennan, the czar of the American anti-terrorism effort, is typical of the universalist, multiculturalist, politically-correct leadership that is guiding America's foreign policy under the present administration. Frankly, I think the results of President Obama's ingratiating himself to Muslim dictators prove that his is the wrong approach to containing Islamic jihadism. The American public will express its opinion in the November midterm elections.

Stephen Kramer, Author
"Encountering Israel – Geography, History, Culture"

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.