Did John Brennan's actions play a role in Benghazi attacks?

When coupled with the shocking claim by John Guandolo, that Barack Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, converted to Islam while a station chief in Saudi Arabia in the 1990's, some of the details released from a new book written by a retired Green Beret and a Navy SEAL may take on added significance. Among other things in the book, Brennan's orders while operating from the White House are identified as the motivation for the 9/11 attacks in Benghazi.

Brennan is Obama's nominee to replace David Petraeus as CIA Director.

But first, take a look at some other relevant information taken from the book, starting with power players at the CIA who wanted Petraeus gone as CIA Director.

Via The Daily Mail:

Media reports indicate that the FBI began investigating Petraeus' affair with Broadwell after Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, a friend of Petraeus and his wife Holly, reported that she had received threatening emails from the mistress warning her to stay away from Petraeus.

The authors say that Kelley's report may have started in the FBI investigation - but CIA officers pressured the Justice Department to keep the inquiry open.

Webb said his sources in the FBI told him federal agents wanted to close down their investigation when they learned that nothing illegal had happened, but they were told to keep digging. The FBI investigators, Webb says, never wanted to out Petraeus' affair.

The FBI reports to the Department of Justice, which is headed by Attorney General Eric Holder. Surely, something as big as investigating the CIA Director had to be something Holder was aware of. Based on the fact that the subject of the investigation was someone like Petraeus, Holder almost necessarily had to have approved pushing it forward, but to what end?

Was it - at least in part - to open the door for Brennan to head the CIA? Early indications are that authors Brandon Webb and Jack Murphy don't appear to go that far but they certainly piece together the groundwork for such a scenario.

Again, via the Daily Mail:

Murphy and co-author Brandon Webb also revealed that the September 11 Benghazi terrorist attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, was retaliation by Islamist militants who had been targeted by covert U.S. military operations.

The book claims that neither Stevens nor even Petraeus knew about the raids by American special operations troops, which had 'kicked a hornet's nest' among the heavily-armed fighters after the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser, had been authorizing 'unilateral operations in North Africa outside of the traditional command structure,' according to the e-book. Brennan is Obama's pick to replace Petraeus as head of the CIA.

If this is true, it would mean that Obama himself could be directly accountable for the attacks in Benghazi because Brennan was ordering these raids from the White House. As such, he was a direct arm of the Obama administration. These raids weren't just carried out on orders of the administration. They apparently weren't made known to the people who would ultimately face what could be identified as their consequences.

Petraeus was furious, they say, because he was kept in the dark about the raids being conducted without his knowledge by the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) across Libya and North Africa.

Webb and Murphy claim that the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate and a CIA outpost in Benghazi proved to Petraeus that he was an outsider in the Obama administration and that he would remain marginalized as long as he was at the CIA.

The central premise of 'Benghazi: The Definitive Report' is that the attacks were precipitated by secret raids JSOC had performed in Libya. An attack on the Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia days before September 11 may have been the final straw.

According to what Webb and Murphy are saying here, Petraeus was forced out and Brennan's orders to raid Islamist strongholds led to the Benghazi attacks on an unsuspecting consulate and CIA Annex. At least calling that last part into partial question is the fact that U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and Sean Smith both seemed more than just a little concerned about coming under attack. Stevens sent cables to the State Department requesting more security and Smith made reference to losing his life while gaming from the consulate / Special Missions Compound (SMC) on the day of the attacks. That said, it's still possible that a growing threat was felt but not fully understood.

Check out this particularly explosive excerpt from the book. It seems to add credence to the concerns of Senator Rand Paul, raised during his questioning of Hillary Clinton last month:

John Brennan also ran a highly compartmentalized program out of the White House in regard to weapons transfers, and Stevens would not have been trusted with that type of information. Stevens likely helped consolidate as many weapons as possible after the war to safeguard them, at which point Brennan exported them overseas to start another conflict.

Ostensibly, that "exported them overseas" part is a reference to weapons sent from Libya (the annex?) to the Syrian rebels (via Turkey?).

If Petraeus and Stevens were kept in the dark relative to Brennan's raids and those raids served as the motivation for the attacks on the consulate and annex, that places blood directly on the hands of those behind Brennan's orders and secretiveness with respect to them. Under such a scenario, it would appear that Brennan is less qualified to be CIA Director than Petraeus was after the affair became public.

Also, if the claims of Webb and Murphy are true, Obama must certainly know that truth. If so, why would he be nominating Brennan to replace Petraeus unless he was fully behind what Brennan was allegedly doing?

That leads us directly to a covert, pro-Muslim Brotherhood strategy coming directly from the Obama White House, which brings us back to the claim made by Guandolo, that Brennan secretly converted to Islam while in Saudi Arabia and that he was turned by the Muslim Brotherhood specifically.

People might point to Brennan's orders to raid Islamist locations in Libya as evidence that he did NOT convert to Islam because his new religion would forbid him from attacking his own. In reality, the concept of Muruna, espoused by none other than the Brotherhood's most senior spiritual adviser - Yusuf al-Qaradawi - sanctions the killing of Muslims if doing so furthers the cause of Islam.

Again, just operating under the premise that Guandolo has already put forth...

If Brennan's objective was to raid Islamist strongholds for the purpose of confiscating weapons that could then be sent to the Syrian rebels in the latter's fight to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, such a thing would be perceived by the Brotherhood as a greater good.

The bottom line, however, is this: If Brennan was the guy behind operations that both left the consulate and the Annex unprepared to defend against attacks caused by White House policy AND if Brennan was the guy behind secretly ordering weapons be sent to Syrian rebels, all of that is made much worse by Obama's decision to nominate him for CIA Director in the first place.

That would tie Obama directly to gun-running from Libya to Syria and THAT would make Fast and Furious look like child's play by comparison.

The cherry on top would be this administration's attempt at gun control in the U.S. while arming al-Qaeda.

Christian Science Monitor Validates Shoebat's take on Egyptian elections

Earlier this month, Walid Shoebat and I reported on the eligibility issues that seemed destined to mire the presidential election process in Egypt. We reported that Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Khairat al-Shater and Salafist candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail were both ineligible according to the letter of the law. Al-Shater was ineligible because of his multiple imprisonments and Ismail because his mother was a United States citizen. The Christian Science Monitor is now validating those claims.

Via CSM:

Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, the Salafi, was disqualified because his mother held US citizenship, the state news agency reported, confirming previous reports fiercely denied by the Islamist, who says he is the victim of a plot.

Abu Ismail's lawyer, Nizar Ghorab, told Reuters he expected "a major crisis" in the next few hours.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Khairat al-Shater was also among those disqualified on Saturday. His spokesman said he would challenge the decision.

Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's intelligence chief and vice president in his last days in power, would also appeal, his spokesman said.

The elimination of three of the top candidates in what is being billed a Egypt's first real presidential vote would redraw the electoral map just a few weeks before the vote gets under way in May. The election is expected to go to a June runoff between the top two candidates.

There had been talk that Ismail might run as al-Shater's running mate, a move not prohibited by the citizenship of Ismail's mother. Shoebat informed me that such a ticket would be very formidable against  former Mubarak Egyptian foreign minister under Mubarak and former Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdul Moneim Abol Fotouh.

In what could be a case of Kabuki theater, Fotouh was expelled from the Muslim Brotherhood last year for announcing his intention to run for the presidency. Despite this, top Brotherhood scholar - Yusuf al-Qaradawi - has endorsed Fotouh. How convenient. The Brotherhood pledged not to run a candidate but the top Muslim Brotherhood guy has endorsed a former Brotherhood member.

Other front-runners include Amr Moussa, a former Arab League secretary-general and Egyptian foreign minister, and Abdul Moneim Abol Fotouh, who was expelled from the Brotherhood last year when he decided to mount his own presidential campaign.

Abu Ismail is the most hard-line of the Islamists running for the post. On Friday, his supporters besieged the headquarters of the election commission, forcing it to evacuate the premises and suspend its work. The building was guarded by security forces with riot shields.

If Ismail running as al-Shater's VP choice made that ticket much stronger, the absence of both men would likely make Fotouh more stronger against amr Moussa.

Additionally, these new developments seem to point to Qaradawi practicing Muruna.

h/t Free Republic 

Shoebat Exclusive: Egyptian Presidential candidate practicing Muruna

Former Muslim Brotherhood member Walid Shoebat has done it again. This time, he has unearthed video evidence that Egyptian presidential candidate Abol Futuh is practicing Muruna, a very deceptive practice sanctioned by Muslim Brotherhood cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi that allows Muslims to engage in any and all prohibitions - if doing so furthers a larger agenda.

Remember, the Muslim Brotherhood promised not to field a presidential candidate. Futuh was allegedly "expelled" from the Brotherhood and is now running for president of Egypt.

Via Shoebat:

Interestingly, Muruna would theoretically allow Futuh to be jettisoned from the Brotherhood for a higher calling, namely, running for president.

It would also allow a woman named Huma Abedin to marry a Jew (Anthony Weiner) and become the Deputy Chief of Staff for Hillary Clinton (Huma's mother is a member of the Brotherhood's Muslim Sisterhood arm).

Video: Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman on Arming Syrian Rebels

File this one in the "Someone at the top is making some sense," category. General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that the United States should not rush into a decision to arm the Syrian rebels. Though such a position might cause John McCain to get red in the face and Lindsey Graham to stomp and stammer, it's an extremely wise position.

Via CNN:

The United States is not interested in providing weapons to opposition forces in Syria until it has a better picture of what those forces are, the top U.S. military officer said in an interview aired Sunday.

"I think it's premature to take a decision to arm the opposition movement in Syria, because I would challenge anyone to clearly identify for me the opposition movement in Syria at this point," Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS."

More than 50 prominent U.S. conservatives signed an open letter last week urging the Obama administration to "take immediate action" against the Syrian regime, including "self-defense aid" to an armed opposition led by defected government troops. Among the signatories were some of the leading voices in support of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as well as the former head of the U.S.-led occupation government there. 

And Sen. Joe Lieberman told CNN last week that a "coalition of the willing" should assist Syria's opposition forces since Syrian allies Russia and China vetoed action at the United Nations. Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent who was also a leading Iraq hawk, said the United States and its allies could provide the rebels with medical aid, communications and ultimately, weapons.

It is simply AMAZING that supposedly intelligent people are so completely oblivious to what is going on with the Muslim Brotherhood. McCain, Graham, and Lieberman cannot possibly be this clueless, can they? In every instance so far where there has been the removal of a dictator during the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood is filling the void. Why on earth would these people advocate for such a scenario in Syria? Perhaps it's because muruna is working.



h/t Hot Air

Newly Revealed Islamic Tactic: Muruna

The Muslim Brotherhood's Yusuf al-Qaradawi has been elevated by the Obama administration of late. Recently, he was named as a key mediator between the United States and the Taliban. Not only is that a big mistake but thanks to the translation of Qaradawi's own words, it's been learned that a strategy known as muruna is being used against the West. Think of it as taqiyya on steroids.

In my latest collaborative effort with Walid Shoebat, we explore this tactic. It is definitely one that westerners need to know.

Via Pajamas Media:

Muruna: Violating Sharia to Fool the West
The Sunni doctrine of muruna takes taqiyya a step further.

Walid Shoebat and Ben Barrack

Westerners who understand Islamic deception often refer to “taqiyya” as being the tactic of lying in order to guard the faith. Sunni Muslim apologists counter that taqiyya is a Shiite doctrine, while accusing Shiites of being rabblerousers who sanction “mut’a” (pleasure marriage), which is nothing more than prostitution.

Shiites can easily find equivalents to taqiyya and mut’a in the Sunni Muslim world. They are called “misyar” and “muruna.”

While Westerners cringe at the thought of religiously sanctioned prostitution like mut’a, they are less familiar with the Sunni-sanctioned misyar, which literally means “the traveler’s marriage.” It was established to assist with the sexual needs of travelers — a Sunni Muslim male may enter into a contract with a woman in order to gain sexual gratification without the financial obligation necessary to maintain a wife.

As a consequence, the sin of adultery never takes place because the sex contract is an official marriage license. An abundance of misyar “middlemen” can seal these interim deals. For internet savvy travelers, there are countless websites like Mesiaronline [1] that allow men to arrange these marriages globally, including in the United States, from the comfort of their hotel rooms.

Misyar was first made legal in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Sunnis who approve of misyar may condemn the Shiite practice of mut’a, which does not require two witnesses as misyar does. Shiites argue that Allah and the Qur’an are the only two witnesses they need.

Arabic translations reveal that Sunnis and Shiites have much more in common than just sanctioned prostitution. Few Westerners are familiar with the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood revival of the doctrine of muruna, which literally means “stealth” or “flexibility.” It is far worse than taqiyya, since it sanctions all prohibitions that block Muslim interests, even blasphemous ones.

Muruna allows Muslims to sow division and confusion in the Western world. In a recent sermon, this doctrine was exercised by General Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Muhammad Badei, who laid out [2] his vision for the post-revolutionary era while revealing aspects of a strategy followers should use to deal with secularism in the meantime:

Do not fight the ways of the world because they are overpowering but try to overcome and use them, change their course, and pit some of them against others.

When Badei says to “overcome and use” the “ways of the world”, he is instructing Muslims worldwide on how to overcome Western secularism. It was precisely this purpose for which muruna was prescribed by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the main Muslim Brotherhood intellect who initiated it in December 1989 while in the United States during the annual conference of the Association of Muslim Youth Forums. He was with Mohammed Hamadi, a leading rebel in Libya who participated heavily in the “Arab Spring.” Hamadi is also the head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Mauritania.

This doctrine and long-term plan should be of great interest to Westerners. In what the forum termed “The Priorities of The Islamic Movement in The Next Three Decades” (from 1990 to 2020), they planned to attain what they described as “the goals of the Islamic Movement.” The plan confirms Badei’s utopian hope for the “establishment of an Islamic state, governed according to Qur’anic law — first in Egypt and eventually in the entire world.” Accordingly, muruna calls for “organized, popular work to return to Islam in order to lead society, all of society … to bring back the caliphate … to announce Jihad either by arms, by pen, or by heart.”

Muruna was designed to catapult and advance Sharia by using Western means. If one thinks that Sharia, with its harsh code, is problematic enough, how about the elimination of the kinder, gentler laws? Muruna is literally accomplished by permitting behavior normally so eschewed by Sharia that Westerners logically assume a more moderate version of Islam when such prohibitions are suddenly permitted. Westerners’ eyes are, in fact, deceiving them. Muruna is about going to great lengths to gain interests through a much deeper level of deception while simultaneously lowering the guard and gaining the support of the...

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