The Brookings – Qatari
- U.S. Connection
The
U.S. - although maybe unknowingly, or’, because of willful ignorance – has been
supporting terrorism and Islamic jihad for decades.
By de Andréa, Opinion Editorialist
for ‘THE BOTTOM LINE’:
for ‘THE BOTTOM LINE’:
Published April, 2015
A
yearlong in-depth investigative research project on America’s involvement in
terrorism, has revealed a cover-up that I have been working on and reporting
for years.
In spite
of the criticism I continued, and finally began to connect the dots on an
indirect U.S. connection and support of Islamic Jihad and terrorism through the
country of Qatar and the long time trusted Brookings Institution.
In case
you wonder why Western civilization is not making any progress in the fight
against the international spread of terrorism and Islamic Jihad, then this my
friend, may just be the flicker of light you need to see what is in store for
you down the road.
This may
generate yet another FBI harassment against me but I have survived it before,
and I will again.
This
report will show the U.S. governments’ indirect ties through the Jihadist government
of Qatar, to conspiracies and support of terrorist groups such as Jabhat
al-Nusra, al-Qaida, ISIS, Hamas, Taliban, Ahfad al-Rasoul and scores
of so-called Muslim Charities, some of them operating right here in the U.S. as
government protected 5013c’s that support the agenda of Islamic Jihad and worldwide
terrorism starting back as early as the late 1980’s.
*******************************
The
Brookings Institution is one of Washington's oldest and most well respected and
influential think tanks in the world. But now
because of its dependence on donations from Islamic terrorist countries and organizations,
it just may have lost its glitter as a shining star.
Brookings
conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics,
metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global economy and
development. And the most important discovery
of all is that the U.S. Government completely depends on it for recommendations
in international issues and involvements.
The Washington Post hints at
foreign donors in “Who Funds Brookings ?”
According To Wikipedia the Brookings Institution
stated mission is to "provide innovative and
practical recommendations that advance three broad goals: strengthen American
democracy; foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of
all Americans; and secure a more open, safe,
prosperous, and cooperative international system".
Brookings states that its
scholars "represent diverse points of view" and describes
itself as non-partisan, while the media most frequently describe Brookings as
"liberal-centrist" or "centrist". An academic analysis of
Congressional records from 1993 to 2002 found that Brookings was referenced by
conservative politicians almost as frequently as liberal politicians, earning a
score of 53 on a 1-100 scale with 100 representing the most liberal score. The
same study found Brookings to be the most frequently cited think tank by the
U.S. media and politicians.
The Brookings
Institution bills itself as "the most influential, most quoted and
most trusted think tank in the world," but is it really? The real truth about the dependence on Brookings
Islamic influence might reveal some answers as to why America is soon headed straight into
the burning fires of Hell!
Note: A reminder that Qatar is touted as a trusted U.S. Middle Eastern
Ally and Brookings is Washington's oldest most well respected and influential think tank.
Brookings', as
is true of the U.S. government, has had a long-term relationship with the
Qatari government – who has also been a long time notorious supporter of terror in the Middle East – this casts
a very dark cloud over Brookings lofty claim to credibility, and might explain
the ongoing support of Americas College and Universities by Islamic terrorist
groups as well.
A September New York Times exposé revealed Qatar's
status as the single largest foreign donor to the Brookings Institution. Qatar gave Brookings
$14.8 million in 2013, $100,000 in 2012 and $2.9 million in 2011. In 2002,
Qatar started subsidizing the Brookings outreach program to the Muslim World
which has continues today. Between 2002 and 2010, Brookings never disclosed the
annual amount of funds provided by the Government of Qatar. And since 2002 Brookings has had a satellite
center in Qatar called the Brookings
Doha Center in Doha the capital of Qatar.
Side Note: Doha in Arabic: الدوحة, or al-Da’wah or al-Dōḥa is another word for: Da‘wah (transliterated daawa(h); Arabic: دعوة literally means "invitation")
the proselytizing or preaching of conversion to Islam. Islam in Arabic: الإسلام, al-ʾIslām, itself means “Subjugation
to Allah”.
Sources of funding should not necessarily discredit an organization, but
in this case, critical facts and claims about Brookings should be examined in
light of them, starting with a harsh indictment by a former Brookings scholar.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism has revealed a dozen
Brookings-based programs that were linked to the Qatari financed outreach to
the Muslim world; and analyzed 27 papers sponsored and issued by the Brookings
Institution and scholars based in Washington and at the Brookings Doha Center in
Qatar since 2002.
This review finds that the Brookings institute is an organization that
routinely hosts Islamists who justify terrorist attacks against Israeli
civilians and American troops, who advocate blasphemy laws of beheading which
would criminalize criticism of Islam, and which never scrutinizes or criticizes
the government of Qatar, its largest benefactor. Moreover along with more than a dozen Islamic
terrorist’s organizations in the U.S. is a 501 c3 nonprofit tax-free corporation
no different in that respect, than a Christian Church.
“There is a
no-go zone when it comes to criticizing the Qatari government," Saleem Ali,
who served as a visiting fellow at the Brookings
Doha Center in Qatar in 2009, told the New York Times. "If a member of Congress is using the
Brookings reports, they should be aware — they are not getting the full
story. They may not even be getting the true story." Ali noted
that he had been told during his job interview that taking positions critical
of the Qatari government in papers would not be allowed, a claim Brookings vigorously denies.
"Our
scholars, in Doha and elsewhere, have a long record of objective, independent
analysis of regional affairs, including critical analysis of the policies of
Qatar and other governments in the region," Brookings
President Strobe Talbott said in response to
the Times story.
Unfortunately
for Talbott, Qatar's own Ministry of Foreign Affairs openly acknowledges
that the partnership gives Qatar exactly what it wants: a public-relations
outlet that projects "the bright image of Qatar in the
international media, especially the American ones," a statement announcing a 2012 memorandum of understanding with
Brookings said.
Indeed, their close collaboration
stretches back more than a decade.
Ambassador Martin Indyk, who headed the Saban Center, and other
Brookings leaders noted their desire to "build strong bridges of
friendship" to avoid a "clash of civilizations."
Indyk took a
leave of absence from Brookings in 2013 and the first half of 2014 to serve as
President Obama's envoy for the so-called Israeli-Palestinian peace
negotiations. Indyk of course placed excessive blame on Israel for their
failure. It is difficult to grasp what
he meant by failure!
At an April
2013 Brookings forum in Washington, Indyk mentioned that he and then Qatari
Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, a key
player in Qatar's engagement with Brookings, had remained friends for "two
decades." This relationship dates to when Indyk served as special assistant to
President Clinton and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at
the National Security Council.
Indyk noted
that he approached the sheik after the 9/11 attacks, informing him that
Brookings planned to launch a project focused on American engagement with the
Islamic world. "And he said immediately, 'I
will support it, but you have to do the conference in Doha.' And I said, 'Doha,
well that sounds like an interesting idea,'" Indyk said at the 2013 forum. "Three years into that, he
suddenly then told me we want to have a Brookings in Doha. And I
said, 'Well, okay, we'll have a Brookings in Doha, too,' and we ended up with
the Brookings Doha Center" (BDC), in 2008."
Brookings' Qatar-based scholars ignorantly see their host country with
rosy spectacles, ignoring the emirate's numerous Jihadi terrorist ties.
Sultan
Barakat, research director at the Brookings
Doha Center (BDC), portrayed Qatar as an emerging peacemaker in the Muslim
world and as a force for good in a 2012 report titled, "The Qatari Spring: Qatar's
Emerging Role In Peacemaking."
"… During
the Arab Spring, Qatar has emerged as a 'reformer'; that is, as a vocal and
progressive leader of modern Arab nations, with the willingness and the
capacity to utilize a broad range of both hard- and soft-power initiatives to
achieve its foreign policy goals," Barakat wrote.
Highlighting Qatar as a regional peacemaker seems strange in the light
of its longstanding support for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and
allegations that its leaders aided al-Qaida in the past.
Cables released by Wikileaks and other U.S. government secret documents
demonstrate these connections proved disturbing to some American policymakers.
"Qatar's
overall level of [counter-terrorism] cooperation with the U.S. is considered
the worst in the region," a top level U.S. State Department
official wrote in a secret Dec. 30, 2009 State Department cable. "Al-Qaida,
the Taliban, UN-1267 listed LeT (Pakistan's Lakshar- e-Taiba), and other
terrorist groups exploit Qatar as a fundraising locale."
The official
also noted that Qatar's security services fail to act against known terrorists
because the Gulf state feared terrorist reprisals "out of concern for
appearing to be aligned with the U.S." Another 2008 State
Department cable noted that Qatar's government "has
often been unwilling to cooperate on designations of certain terrorist
financiers."
Qatar’s connection to the (9/11) attack
on the U.S.
Qatar's
royal family has a long history of harboring terrorists. Former Minister of
Islamic Affairs Sheikh Abdallah bin Khalid bin Hamad al-Thani, a member of the
royal family, personally invited 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to
relocate his family from Pakistan to the emirate during the 1990s, according to
the 9/11 Commission Report. Mohammed accepted a position as
project engineer with the Qatari Ministry of Electricity and Water which he
held until 1996, when he fled back to Pakistan to evade capture by the United
States.
Mohammed
dedicated much of his considerable travel while working for the ministry to terrorist
activity.
Note: All Muslim charities are money
laundering terrorist organizations.
Qatar
Charity, formerly the Qatar Charitable Society and currently headed by Hamad bin Nasser al-Thani, a member of Qatari
royal family, demonstrates a lingering link between Qatar and terror financing.
Russia's
interior minister accused Qatar Charitable Society of funneling money to
Chechen jihadist groups in 1999. Al-Thani responded to the accusation (response since removed)
in a 1999 interview with Al-Jazeera, saying his government would not interfere
with the funding because the Russian actions in Chechnya were "painful for
us as Qatari, Arab, or Muslim citizens."
Qatar
Charitable Society played a key role in
financing the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,
according to the U.S. government.
Recent
reports suggest the charity's connection
with al-Qaida persists. Maliweb,(written in French) a U.S.-based independent
news source, accused Qatar Charity of significantly financing "the
terrorists in northern Mali operations." French military intelligence
reports accused Qatar of funding Ansar Dine – a group that works closely with
al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb – and MUJAO in Mali at the time of France's
January 2013 intervention.
U.S. court documents (click
the pdf file in the lower left of the page) notes additional ties between Qatar
Charity and al-Qaida U.S. conspiracies dating back to the 1990s. Osama bin
Laden complained
to an al-Qaida member following a failed 1995
assassination attempt against former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that the
then-Qatar Charitable Society funds had been spent in the operation.
Consequently, the terror mastermind became concerned that his ability to
exploit charities for al-Qaida's ends would be compromised.
Qatar also
funded the Ahfad al-Rasoul Brigade in Syria, which engaged in
joint operations with Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate.
Qatar played
a similar role in Libya where it has openly funded and armed jihadists. IHS Jane's Defence Weekly found that Qatar sent a
C-17 cargo plane to provide arms to a militia loyal to Abdelhakim Belhadj, a
Libyan warlord who fought alongside Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora in 2001 and
was in touch with the leader of the 2004 Madrid train bombing.
Brookings
scholar Bruce Reidel openly acknowledged in a Dec. 3, 2012 piece
published in The Daily Beast that Syria's al-Qaida branch
benefitted from arms supplied by Qatar.
In a
separate Aug. 28, 2013 column in Foreign Policy magazine
titled, "The Qatar problem," Brookings scholar Jeremy
Shapiro observed that Qatar had undermined "U.S. efforts to isolate and
delegitimize Hamas." Shapiro laid blame for Qatar's misbehavior at
the feet of American policymakers. Yet he argued that the U.S. should not "oppose
Qatar at every turn" and that it should "thus seek to get the best
deal on every transaction" with the emirate, which he classed as
neither a friend nor a foe of the United States.
However, such observations have not translated into public criticism of
Qatar or recommendations that the emirate alter its stances by Indyk, Talbott
or other top people who have been involved in managing Brookings' partnership
with Qatar. They also have not brought about any public talk of reassessing
Brookings relationship with the emirate.
The think tank denies that Qatari money and the involvement of a senior
member of the emirate's royal family in its BDC translates into subservience to
Qatar's foreign policy objectives.
"Brookings
is an independent research institution, none of whose funders are able to
determine its research projects," Indyk said after the New York Times story. "I hope nobody really believes that I
cashed a check for $14.8 million dollars, which is what's going around in
right-wing Jewish circles. We should all take a deep breath about some of these
lurid, scandalous stories."
The figure
Indyk cites stems from Brookings Foreign Government Disclosure. The nearby United Arab Emirates ranked a distant second among
foreign government donors with a $3 million donation in 2010 and another $3
million in 2012.
Qatari involvement in Brookings goes
beyond conventional donor relations, evidenced by Sheik Hamad
bin Jassim bin Jabr Thani's appointment as chairman of the BDC's board of
advisers.
Even if Qatar exerts no overt control over Brookings' activities and
policy positions, partnering with Qatar to discuss bridge-building with the
Islamic world following 9/11 appears peculiar considering the oil-rich
emirate's established ties with Islamic extremist groups and individuals at the
time of the attacks.
Heritage Foundation scholar James Phillips slammed Brookings'
cooperation with Qatar in comments to the Investigative Project on Terrorism.
"Qatar finances foreign entities for a reason: to advance its own
foreign policy goals, which entail working closely with Islamist ideologues to
empower Sunni Arab movements, including Hamas," Phillips said. "By
accepting Qatar's money, Brookings risks appearing to be a tool of Qatar and
unfortunately could help to legitimize such Islamist groups in the West.
"The implicit quid pro quo inherent in accepting money from foreign
governments is one reason that the Heritage Foundation does not accept funding
from foreign governments, which often attach strings to their donations, or
even from the U.S. government."
Despite
denials from both Talbott and Indyk, numerous examples illustrate how
Brookings' pro-Qatar bias manifests itself, not always in what its Qatar-based
scholars say, but in what they omit. A review of Brookings studies mentioning
Qatar finds a consistent description of the emirate as a force for peace; complimenting its commitment to democracy and human rights; and
education.
Even worse, Brookings reports gloss over the harsh realities of jihad
terror and Islamism, instead recommending that the U.S. reach out to and
cooperate with Islamist and jihadist groups.
Brookings
calls for U.S. rapprochement with al-Qaida-linked group
In a
January Foreign Policy magazine
piece, Brookings scholars Will McCants, Michael Doran and Clint Watts
urged the Obama administration against classifying Ahrar al-Sham, an
organization backed by Turkey and Qatar and linked to al-Qaida, as a terror
organization. Ahrar al-Sham founder Mohamed Bahiaiah, aka Abu Khalid al-Suri,
was a senior al-Qaida operative, and the group routinely fights alongside Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), both of which
were affiliated with al-Qaida at the time.
Al-Qaida
leaders mourned the Islamic State's killing of Ahrar
al-Sham's top leadership in September on their Twitter accounts.
'"The
al Qaeda of yesterday is gone. What is left is a collection of many different
splinter organizations, some of which have their own – and profoundly local –
agendas. The U.S. response to each should be, as Obama put it, 'defined and
specific enough that it doesn't lead us to think that any horrible actions that
take place around the world that are motivated in part by an extremist Islamic
ideology are a direct threat to us or something that we have to wade
into,'" the Brookings scholars wrote.
They argued that U.S. policymakers required "flexibility" in
dealing with Ahrar al-Sham because it stood as a lesser of two evils when
compared to the greater threat posed by ISIS.
"The Islamic Front, including Ahrar al-Sham, represents the best
hope in Syria for defeating ISIS," the article said. "[D]esignating
Ahrar al-Sham as a terrorist group would destroy what little chance the United
States has of building relationships with the other militias in the Islamic
Front."
Thus far, the Obama administration has not designated Ahrar al-Sham as a
terrorist group despite its intimate ties to al-Qaida.
An October
2013 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Ahrar al-Sham of war crimes.
Brookings'
support for the Muslim Brotherhood
Peter W.
Singer, co-coordinator of the 2002 conference, wrote in the conference's proceedings that
"moderate," e.g. non-violent, Islamist parties needed inclusion in
the political systems of majority Muslim countries.
"In
dealing with burgeoning democracies, a general finding is that outside parties
should support integration of Islamist parties into [the] political system
rather than exclusion," Singer wrote. "The key is that inclusion helps
moderates moderate, rather than forcing them outside the power structures, into
possible violence."
Recent
experience in Egypt discredits the theory. Egypt's MB pursued an authoritarian course during its year in power and
supported its Palestinian sibling, Hamas, despite its access to Egypt's political process.
Even some liberals conceded Egypt's Brotherhood proved itself incapable of
adapting to democratic norms during its tenure.
Yet
Brookings scholars continued to advocate including the MB in Egypt's political
process in the wake of its defeat, even while conceding its authoritarian tendencies.
Whitewashing
conditions inside Qatar
The
Brookings Doha Center "also works to contribute to the local
society, supporting the National Vision's goals of human and social development
in Qatar," Director Salman Shaikh wrote in an April opinion piece. "At
the same time, the Center's publications and public events foster Qatar's
'knowledge economy' by promoting a culture of informed citizenship."
Such studies
read like propaganda designed to encourage foreign investment in the emirate
rather than provide complete and unvarnished truth.
Reality in
Qatar is quite different from the picture Brookings paints. Human Rights Watch notes that only 10 percent
of Qatar's population of 2 million are citizens. Most are foreign migrants who
live under conditions that HRW describes as those of "exploitation" and
"forced labor." Shaikh makes no mention of this.
The January HRW report also finds that "[d]omestic migrant workers,
almost all women, are especially vulnerable to abuse," and that Qatar's
standards fall well short of international labor norms.
"Qatar's
record on freedom of expression causes concern. In February, an appeals court
affirmed the conviction of a Qatari poet for incitement to overthrow the government
over poems critical of Qatar's then-emir," HRW wrote.
None of these independent observations appear in any Brookings reports
published by its Doha-based scholars.
Building
one-way bridges
Brookings engaged with Qatar 12 years ago, seeking to build bridges with
the Muslim world, but that bridge seems to steer traffic in one direction. As
subsequent stories in this series will show, Muslim participants in its Doha
conferences remain unflinching in their support for Hamas and other Palestinian
terror factions. Brookings scholars, similar to their Islamist partners, now
unequivocally classify al-Qaida and similar groups as terrorists while attaching
caveats to describing Hamas in the same vein.
Such a shift marks a clear victory for Qatar.
Thanks for listening – de Andréa
If you agree, please pass on this article to everyone on
your email list. It may be the only
chance for your friends to hear the truth.
Copyright © 2014 by Bottom
Line Publishing, All Rights Reserved - Permission to reprint in whole or
in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
Disclaimer - The writer of
this blog is not responsible for the language used in links to referenced
articles as source materials. Thank you – de Andréa
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