by Raymond Ibrahim*

Things are looking good for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the grandfather of all Islamist groups. Despite the organization’s hegemonic aspirations — which include “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization … so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions” — the Obama administration recently announced that it “welcomes dialogue” with the Brotherhood; so did the European Union. And under Egypt’s military regime, the Islamist organization just “became a legal political party for the first time since President Gamal Abdel Nasser banned it more than half-a-century ago.”

Why Nasser banned the Brotherhood — and tried to decimate it — is instructive.

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by Daniel Pipes*

How should Western governments deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which Washington labels “the most active state sponsor of terrorism”?

Iranian aggression began in 1979, with the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and the holding of some of its staff as hostages for 444 days. Major subsequent attacks included two bombings in Beirut in 1983: at the U.S. embassy, killing 63, and at a U.S. Marine barracks, killing 241.

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by Sterling Jensen*

The Middle East political storm of early 2011 has had an interesting impact on Iraq. Though the government was confronted with almost daily demonstrations, which led to a number of high profile resignations and the use of force to suppress political dissent, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki felt sufficiently confident to boast that “Iraq has become the most stable country in the region.”[1] While this may seem a bold claim given the recent past, Maliki is not alone in showing confidence in Iraq’s prospects. The Sadrists, Kurds, and leaders of the primarily Sunni Iraqiya bloc have been equally upbeat about the country’s prospects while many Iraqi insiders believe that their battle-torn country will not only weather the instability but will also serve as a model for democracy.

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We live in ominous times. Our government embraces false “allies” while betraying true ones; our right to be armed is threatened; our religious freedoms are threatened by unethical political dogmas and nefarious foreign funding; our entertainment is dominated by a depraved group of money-hungry, unethical anthopomorphs; our primary and secondary schools are poisoned with political correctness that teaches that no one is responsible for his/her own actions; our academia is dominated by anti-Semitic, Islamo-philic bigots; and, our government is filled with self-serving, lying, unethical thieves. It is time to remember the sacred words penned by this great nation’s Founding Fathers, the American Declaration of Independence:

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By Jerry Kammer, CIS.org

For at least two years now, Arizona journalist Leo W. Banks has been writing and speaking about the strange silence of the federal government on the connection between forest fires in southern Arizona and the smugglers of drugs and human beings.

Banks has contrasted the widespread public belief that the fires are caused by the smugglers — either accidentally or in an effort to distract the Border Patrol — with the refusal of federal officials to address the issue.

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By David North, CIS.org

You have heard all about sanctuary cities, and some states’ refusal to cooperate with the Secure Communities program, and state-sanctioned tuition breaks and driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, but there is a new wrinkle in state-sabotage of immigration enforcement.

It comes to us from Washington State, one of three states that still issue driver’s licenses to illegals.

I find it devious; others may find it creative.

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By Fern Sidman

“Our mood is not one of celebration. Our mood is one of caution and concern. Unease sits heavily on our shoulders”, declared US Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) at the 2011 AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, DC. Expressing concern about the security of Israel he said, “At no time in Israel’s history has her future faced such tension and such serious tests. Uncertainty awaits us on many fronts.”

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By Barry Rubin

Remember when we were told that the Muslim Brotherhood was moderate and weak? Why it was so benign that the Brotherhood had even promised only to contest one-third of the seats. And a revolutionary Islamist, antisemitic and genocide-oriented, anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Christian organization would never lie to us, right?

I mean you can call for all of the Jews in the world to be wiped out; demand a jihad against America; and work day and night for decades to bring to power a totalitarian Islamist state that would chop off limbs, stone people, and murder anyone who didn’t want to be a Muslim any more. But you would never, ever deceive an American reporter!

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By David North, CIS.org

I suppose it is progress when one of the State Department’s alien worker programs decides that foreign college students can no longer be used as rickshaw operators, or in their words: “as pedicab or rolling chair drivers”.

It certainly is a refreshing bit of transparency when the department admits that its Summer Work Travel program had sometimes been used to staff “money laundering, money mule schemes and Medicare fraud”, though no details are provided.

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by Daniel Pipes*

As Egypt lurches into a new era, a look at its complexities and subtleties helps to understand the country’s likely course. Some thoughts on key issues:

The spirit of Tahrir Square is real and alive but exceedingly remote from the halls of power. Revolutionary ideas – that government should serve the people, not the reverse; that rulers should be chosen by the people; and that individuals have inherent dignity and rights – have finally penetrated a substantial portion of the country, and especially the young. In the long term, these ideas can work wonders. But for now, they are dissident ideas, firmly excluded from any operational role.

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By Jerry Kammer, CIS.org

Fox News recently made an exclusive report confirming that Border Patrol and Homeland Security officials are manipulating apprehension figures.

That is, border security agencies are forcing Border Patrol officers not to apprehend aliens attempting to cross the Mexican border illegally. You read that right: Let them go, never touch them.

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By Andrew Whitehead

On April 18, The House Committee on Homeland Security issued a press release detailing Rep. King’s call for answers from the Department Of Justice regarding non-prosecution of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad in the notorious Holy Land Foundation trial.

Specifically, Rep. King wants to know why the DOJ has given CAIR, founder Omar Ahmad, and other unindicted co-conspirators such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), among others, a “free pass” considering the ample evidence against them presented at the Holy Land trial.

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By David North, CIS.org

The Board of Immigration Appeals did the right thing on April 8 – and I hope governmental publicists let the Muslim world know about it.

They probably won’t, partially because the Congress may be shutting down the government, and partially because foreign policy writers rarely pay attention to immigration issues, both unfortunate situations.

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By David North, CIS.org

The Department of Labor can bar companies from participating in foreign-worker programs due to misconduct. While the total number of such debarments is small, many of the individual cases are fascinating and grim stories of corporate greed and worker abuse. A state-by-state listing of violators is attached at the end of this report. It should be a tempting menu for investigative reporters seeking good stories and/or for graduate students looking for research topics.

While there are large numbers of employers participating in the various foreign-worker programs run by the U.S. Department of Labor, all starting with the visa letter H, DoL rarely finds one of them violating the rules seriously enough to even temporarily suspend their participation. We have, using various federal sources, compiled an annotated list of the misbehaving companies that have been debarred by DoL: in many cases the nature of the abuse is both fascinating and depressing.

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By Jon Feere, CIS.org

Citing building code violations, police and city inspectors in the city of San Gabriel — a Los Angeles suburb — recently closed three townhouses which had been converted to operate as a maternity center for birth tourists. (See video here.) According to city officials who spoke with the Chinese and Taiwanese temporary aliens, they traveled to the United States for the specific purpose of adding a U.S. passport-holder to their families. The effort had apparently become a lucrative business according to the observations of one neighbor who claims to have seen “groups of women in the advanced stages of pregnancy taking walks in the neighborhood and a lot of cars in the middle of the night.” He explained, “I knew something from the get-go was going on. There was a lot of coming and going.” Officials reportedly found 10 newborns and 12 immigrants inside the home.

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