Why is Heritage Foundation Promoting Countering Violent Extremism (CVE)? (Part 1 of 3)

The Heritage Foundation, one of the most prominent  Conservative think tanks today, which generally does good work has taken upon itself the task of promoting President Obama’s Countering Violent Extremism program. This small series of articles will examine the persons involved and expose those with known connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. It will also expose the incredible joke that CVE in truth is and why its lack of success is not a sign of failure to it, but rather a testimony of its success in deceit.

Background

David Inserra of the Heritage Foundation wrote “Revisiting Efforts to Counter Violent Extremism:  Leadership Needed” in 2015. The article calls out federal agencies for not stepping up and taking the lead. This article attempts to explain why the FBI is not a good fit to lead since they are in law enforcement. Inserra proposes that the Department for Homeland Security (DHS) take the lead. This article is not just a corrective suggestion it is an endorsement for President Obama's Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program.

So what is the mission of the CVE program? 
According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the CVE program "consists of various prevention and intervention approaches."

1. to increase the resilience of communities to violent extremist recruitment narratives,
2. provide non-violent avenues for expressing grievances, educate communities about the threat of online recruitment and radicalization to violence, and other innovative community-based approaches. (https://www.dhs.gov/countering-violent-extremism)

CVE has an additional mission, “Training should be sensitive to Constitutional values.”[1]This is code for: “We will not say Islamic extremist” and, “We will not teach why Muslims believe in jihad.”

By avoiding naming an enemy, you can then avoid creating a winning strategy. Sun-Tzu wrote about the importance of knowing your enemy. He would say those who created CVE doom us to losing not only a battle but, the entire war.

One fascinating fact about the CVE program as a whole is that it works closely with groups documented by the FBI as having relations with the Muslim Brotherhood. The goal/mission of CVE stated above was found on a sheet that also directs its readers to the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, MPAC as it is more popularly known. MPAC has documented ties  as part of the Muslim Brotherhood.

While MPAC is listed as an authority on CVE, MPAC also has persons writing against it. Ahmad Shaikh writing reviews of CVE blasting it as the latest policy to target Muslims, while claiming he has developed a toolkit to make mosques wary of what to watch for in regards to potential terrorists. Humorously those who read Shaikh’s work How To Spot A Future Terrorist At Fajr: A Review of MPAC’s New “Safe Spaces” left comments such as:

I suggest this piece might be better titled. Something like “How Not to Spot a Terrorist at Fajr:…” with italicized emphasis on “not”.~M. Banville

Promoting the idea that the mosques can somehow counter terrorism, even if just for the sake of showing that the mosques are doing something, is counterproductive. It may get short-term notoriety or government funding but it will not have any real long term effect.~Manzer [emphasis added]

The purpose of working with the government and at the same time working against is synonymous with serving Allah since he is “the best of deceivers.”[2] It also fits the directive of the Muslim Brotherhood to destroy the government from within found in the Explanatory Memorandum of the North American Muslim Brotherhood.

SERIOUS QUESTIONS ABOUT THE EFFICACY OF CVE 

In order to establish that there is indeed an extremist ideology, there first must be identified a pattern of behaviors, choice of verbiage, etc. that could be shared openly in order to alert those concerned about the person in question. This would easily allow NSA to locate those involved in extremist discussions.

But what happens IF there is nothing to differentiate Islamic terrorists from general Islamic ideology? This would make the entire CVE program a bust based on an inability to identify and differentiate those with extremist ideologies. What IF there were no socio-economic indicators or social mannerisms that would indicate a person or group of persons was likely to become a terrorist? This would indicate that no matter how much you spend in time and finances nothing could be targeted and measured as successfully countering violent extremism.

These are important questions. Consider when cults were the big issue in the late 70s and early 80s, what did the federal government and media do? They immediately published established patterns of behaviors of those that were susceptible to cults that were shared via mass media through TV books public speeches and more. On top of this patterns of behavior on cult recruiters was published. Today they are almost a non-issue. 

So, what has been shared regarding violent extremists? Were they all poor? Wealthy? Did they have anything in common outside of Islam? We know that there are no socio-economic status (SES) indicators because those captured or dead have been from a broad variety of SES backgrounds.Maybe they all read the same book? The answer agains is there is no indicator that differentiates them. So, what is the CVE program targeting? What do they believe demonstrates a possible future terrorist?

CVE Promotes Islamists

Islamists are those who want to live under Sharia and have the entire world submit to what they believe is the supremacy of Islam.

Last year(2015) Ryan Mauro of the Clarion Project gave an expose of how President Obama’s pet program – CVE was actually being used to spread Islamic terrorism instead of countering. Mauro rightly pointed out and named individuals and groups that were given a platform to spread the very ideas that CVE is supposed to be against! Mauro listed the following who were given a platform at Countering Violent Extremism events:

1. Sheikh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi – “Yaqoubi preached in support of violent jihad against U.S. forces overseas. He said, ‘Wherever the American troops are, wherever they are, they are going to be defeated.’”[3]

2. Islamic Society of Boston – founded by a professed member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Abdurrahman Alamoudi, who was convicted on charges related to terrorism-financing. He also vocally supported Hamas and Hezbollah.[4]

3. Islamic Society of Greater Lowell – lists Wagdy Ghoneim as one its famous preachers. He was arrested in the U.S. due to evidence that he was financing Hamas. Ghoneim announced his support for ISIS in its fight against the “Crusader alliance” and said “America is the largest terrorist state.” [5]

4. Nabeel Khudairi (Islamic Council of New England) – Ryan Mauro wrote of them: Americans for Peace and Tolerance recalls that it was Khudairi who masterminded a lawsuit against the Islamic Society of Boston’s critics that was dropped once the process of discovery proved the mosque’s extremism. An email he sent explicitly said the objective of the lawsuit was that “they will be prevented from reporting on the story while the case is in court.”[6]

5. Jihad Turk – President of the Claremont Islamic School where Imam Suhaib Webb, the former leader of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center connected to Islamic Society of Boston mentioned above. Webb says that Muslims should refuse to work with the FBI unless the FBI restores its relationship with CAIR, a federally recognized entity of Hamas. Jihad Turk was an Iman at the mosque the founder of MPAC attended.[7]

6. Salam Al-Marayati – The president of MPAC a Muslim Brotherhood entity in the USA. According to one of its founders, MPAC was founded for the express purpose of spreading the Islamist narrative of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2003, MPAC criticized the designations of Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups, suggesting that it was done “based on political considerations.[8]

7. Michael Downing -- Downing is the Deputy Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau. In this position he has given oral support of CAIR and Muslim Brotherhood activities.[9]

CVE WA$TE$ TAXPAYER DOLLAR$

According to USAspending.gov, the federal government has spent $13.5 million on CVE! Some of these funds were directed to provide Muslims with religious training. In one case $654,688 was used to finance education for Pakistan Muslims. Some funds paid for Muslim Brotherhood members such as Eboo Patel, to attend functions of CVE outside of America.

Amongst the $13.5 million in spending, the State Department took American taxpayers funds and financed a technology camp targeted at Muslims in Niger by giving them $100,000[10]. The exchange rate according to Moneyconverter.com is $1 = 570.04 CFA. This equated to giving Niger 57,003,802.00 CFA. A furnished one bedroom apartment in Niger outside of a city costs an average of 250,000 CFA which comes out to renting an apartment for that amount for 19 years!                          

More on the wasteful spending for the CVE program to come in future articles.

Heritage Foundation continues to back CVE

With all this said, the Heritage Foundation still somehow finds it important to back President Obama’s CVE program and its apparent purposeful promulgation of Islamic extremism despite its name. In April of 2016 Heritage Foundation's Daily Signal printed two stories by Josh Seigel in support of CVE: Houston’s Muslim-Led Plan to Protect the Homeland and How These Texas Muslims Help Lead the Fight Against Terror and promoted a mosque tied to the “Violent Extremist” speech.

The research I have provided proves that both of Mr. Josh Seigel’s articles are examples of rushed journalism and a lack of desire to get the ENTIRE truth out. These articles promote the Islamic Society of Greater Houston and Mustafa as having made great strides against “violent extremism.” But there is more.

Is the Islamic Society of Greater Houston­ (ISGH) to be trusted?
What Mr. Josh Seigel and the Heritage Foundation neglected to inform its readers about the Islamic Society of Greater Houston is tantamount to promoting a story of falsehoods.

The Islamic Society of Greater Houston­  (ISGH) is publicly recognized as owned by the North Atlantic Islamic Trust (NAIT). NAIT is a federally recognized part of the Muslim Brotherhood in the USA. Ryan Mauro of the Clarion Project documented federal recognition of NAIT’s role as a financier of mosques in America in his article written January 6, 2015, Muslim Brotherhood Founded 50% of the Mosques in the West. Ignoring this article when promoting the good deeds of a mosque in the conservative community is simply poor journalism. Mauro provided copies of documents linking ISGH to NAIT and to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

In one document NAIT is clearly the owner of the property, as shown below

According to the By-Laws of this mosque, paying your “dues” is in this mosque also makes you a member of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) which is recognized as part of the Muslim Brotherhood by their own documents! ACT for America points out that by extension this means that all dues paying members of ISGH are also members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent of the following: Al-Qaeda, ISIS and Hamas is one of its active chapters. Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates has declared the Muslim Brotherhood to be terrorists. ISGH claims the Cypress Islamic Center (CIC) as an extension of itself also. This means that a person “paying dues in the CIC also becomes a member ISNA and also becomes a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

--------------------- CONCLUSION------------------

The Heritage Foundation owns its continual endorsement of "Countering Violent Extremism." I am not the only writer warning them about what CVE is truly about. I may be the only one calling out their poorly researched articles written by recent college graduates suddenly elevated to titles like Analyst, who know little to nothing about the topic. 

Will HF wake up and smell the coffee? One can only hope. I for one am willing to volunteer my time teaching them about Civilization Jihad. All they need to do is ask.

The next article in this series will expose the lackadaisical work of the Heritage Foundation in promoting CVE by examining Building a Resilient Community to Counter Violent Extremism, the document at the center of two articles by Josh Seigel, which proves beyond a doubt that these articles were written rushed and with ignorance. 
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[1]  DHS. "Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Training Guidance & Best Practices." Department of Homeland Security. 2011. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/cve-training- guidance.pdf (accessed April 25, 2016).

[2] Quran 3:54

[3] Mauro, Ryan. "Islamists Featured at Countering Violent Extremism Summit." The Clarion Project. February 24, 2015. http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/islamists-featured-countering-violent-extremism-summit  (accessed April 28, 2016).

[4] ibid

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7] ibid

[8] ibid

[9] ibid

[10] Federal Award ID: SNG60015GR060, National Youth Council , Conseil National de la Jeunesse, Niamey, Obligation Action Date: 9/29/2015, Ending Date: 3/30/2016.