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I wrote a column this week on the kind of advice US government and military officials are receiving about “Militant Islamism, Islamism and Islam” from one prominent adviser, CDR Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, USN.
In it, I quote Muhammad Badi, supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who said last year that Muslims should strive for “a government evolving into a rightly guided caliphate and finally mastership of the world.” Badi also has said that the “change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life.”
Since then, US Ambassador to Cairo Anne Patterson has met with the group’s Supreme Guide Mohammed Badi. (Here’s a photo of Patterson shaking hands with Badi on January 18).
Badi reportedly told Patterson that Sharia law “ensures personal freedoms for all.” For her part, the ambassador said the U.S. is looking forward to cooperating with “whoever is chosen by the Egyptian people and a democratic government.” She reportedly “admitted that US administrations have committed some mistakes, adding that it was important to ‘learn from them to avoid their recurrence in the future.’”
Meanwhile, American officials are refusing to meet with the foreign minister of a neighboring democratic government that also happens to be the only reliable American ally in the region. Israeli media recently reported that US officials do not want to see Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and in particular, “we [US officials] do not want to be photographed with him.”
The U.S. Marines have a motto: “No better friends, no worse enemies.” Apparently, this slogan has not caught on in the Foreign Service.