Sometimes, under the right light, the least obvious can become the most revealing. With all the national attention to health care policy, as if there were not enough organizations weighing in on the health care debate, recently the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) sent out a position statement admonishing the American public and their Muslim members that the, "Health care debate impeded by intimidation and the politics of fear."
What is remarkable and at issue here, is certainly not the right of MPAC's leadership to have a personal opinion on health care policy. But what is most telling is how these Islamist organizations have a way of finding a way to worm themselves and their Islamization agenda into every political issue related to government under the name of Islam and Muslims. As is typical of Islamists, they exploit Muslim faith based organizations and their often unsuspecting supporters and members for their own very specific domestic and foreign policy agenda of the day. This agenda clearly and malignantly crosses the line of mosque and state in an aim to impose the Islamization of every topic related to the domain of government and public policy upon the Muslim community and ultimately the greater American community.
Does this ring a bell? It's the modus operandi of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). They are a well known political party in Egypt with a specific political platform that has now metastasized around the world into hundreds of splinter groups with a headquarters also in London. Ultimately that political platform is Islamism (a.k.a. Political Islam). Islamism is specifically the desire to somehow put shar'iah law (Islamic jurisprudence) into place in government through a legal system not based in reason but rather based in clerical exegesis of Islamic jurisprudence. The Brotherhood is the predominant global face or front of that movement.
When it comes to domestic policy stances, one can usually pick out MB politics from a mile away. On economic issues, the Islamist (MB) platform is heavily socialist based in government entitlement programs. They thus will see common cause on economic issues with the left in the United States. On social issues, the Islamist platform is focused on their own version of family values and they will try and seek common cause with the right in the U.S. on those issues. Just in these two examples it begins to become more clear that Islamists are neither Democrat nor Republican. On foreign policy their stances are also easily identifiable. They have their own political platform—Islamism. They advocate for Western isolationism in order to allow for unimpeded advancement of Islamist movements globally. Forget any advocacy for liberty. They are doves as minorities from within the West so that their brothers can be hawks from within Muslim majority nations so they can impose and spread Islamism abroad. In domestic and foreign policy politics they will support whichever party stands less of a threat to the advocacy of the transnational Islamist agenda.
Thus, while members of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) front groups in the United States will certainly not be carrying cards identifying themselves as Ikhwan, their ideologies can be easily identified. What is particularly identifiable is not only their ideas but the way that they use the banner of Islam or "Muslims" to advocate for any and all domestic or foreign policies within the Islamist agenda. It is sad that to this day it remains rare to find active leading American Muslims who take these organizations like CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) , MPAC (Muslim Public Affairs Council), MAS (Muslim American Society), or ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) to task for their "grand deception". The deception is that the majority of Muslims agree with any of their stances that identify their comprehensive Islamist political platform under the banner of our faith of Islam. Regardless of their denials, they cannot avoid the fact that their use of the terms "Islamic" or "Muslim" in their organizations is exploitative when they weigh in on non-faith based policy debates and are advancing the agenda of political Islam.
Today, our country continues to face the steady threat of radical Islam. Just in the past few months we have seen jihadists arrested in North Carolina and New York. While media and government are understandably focused on the economy and health care, we cannot turn our attention completely away from the threat of radical Islam and its unending string of terror threats upon our citizenry. The root cause of radical Islam is political Islam and its statist mission. Without a deconstruction of political Islam, we will continue to see the unending regeneration of radical Islamist cells. This solution can only come from within the House of Islam. As American Islamist organizations squander their resources in their victimization agenda and the platform of political Islam, radical Islam will continue to threaten us.
Islamist groups will eventually always reveal their true colors and find a way to get their Islamist platform advanced whether or not some or even only a few Muslims actually agree with them. The Islamist political universe simply revolves around an Islamization agenda-- full stop. They seek to collectivize all Muslims under the banner of Islam for every topic. The recent MPAC missive on health care was probably ignored by most, but it could not be more revealing about the real agenda of MPAC and its fellow Muslim brethren. Here is an excerpt from their demagogic commentary on health care sent under the title of "Heath care debate impeded by intimidation and the politics of fear":
One of the Obama administration's goals is to provide some type of public option healthcare insurance to all Americans as well as implement prohibitions for insurers that withhold coverage from people based on pre-existing conditions. In contrast, Republicans fear that the Obama administration's healthcare plan will be costly and would lower quality of care. Furthermore, they fear that employers would opt for the government-sponsored healthcare rather than private insurance companies, which would automatically undercut the industry. An elementary analysis of the current public discourse on healthcare illustrates a lack of substantive discussion on the topic even at a basic level as described above. The current upheaval, which is being exacerbated through the use of verbal manipulation as well as intimidation, has imposed a negative veil over an endeavor that is intended to fix our broken healthcare system.
Congressional town hall meetings have historically been a forum for discourse and information sharing and have served as a place for civil discourse between elected officials and their constituents. Recently, these forums have turned into mob style melees where blatantly false accusations and fear inducing tactics have been used to attempt to coerce elected officials. Comparing public officials to Nazis, brandishing firearms at presidential town halls, and scaring seniors into believing that "death-panels" are part of a real plan is not discourse that is beneficial for Americans.
Set aside how familiar this may sound to certain political pundits with regards to the health care issue in the United States today from one side of the debate. What is key here is to note that this is coming from the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)- an organization which deflects any association of their ideology to the Muslim Brotherhood. MPAC is proving here that they are all about an Islamist platform -full stop. Never mind Mr. Marayati's recent protestations at the Huffington Post which fall suspiciously short of discussing any need to separate mosque and state or any need for reform of "shar'iah." Groups like MPAC exploit their position as a "Muslim" organization in order to promote an Islamist agenda. Specifically with regards to health care, they fall right in line with Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt which are also all about increasing the power of government through entitlement programs, increased taxation, and restricting free markets whenever and wherever possible for government control. Seems like the same agenda to me. They try to infiltrate every topic in America in the name of Islam and then they claim as Marayati tried to state that those who claim they have an Islamist agenda are "a forgery." You make the call.
What they fail to realize, is not only are they crossing the line of mosque and state, but they are alienating a large segment of the Muslim community who are not looking to our faith-based organizations to weigh in on issues like health care policy. Thus, MPAC, for example, now ends up only representing those Muslims who agree with HR 3200, or only those Muslims who want the public option, or only those Muslims who believe that health care should be reformed through further reaching oppressive government programs and entitlements. MPAC thus does not and never could represent Muslims who believe in free markets and liberalization of the health care insurance and provider market. This is not the place for a debate on health care, but suffice it to say that this window into the mindset of MPAC leadership should be a wake-up call to government leadership, homeland security, and media who view MPAC as a religious organization that speaks for all Muslims and separates mosque and state. They in fact do no such thing. They are a part of the same old agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood and are more akin to an Islamist lobby. They demagogue issues like health care whenever they can to advance the ideas of Islamization and political Islam at the expense of the Muslim community - - not to our benefit.
There are many venues in America for them to get involved in the health care debate, they choose to use their own "Muslim" one. Unfortunately, until other Muslim leaders can lead a movement to truly separate mosque from state, this Brotherhood agenda will dominate the discourse of the organized Muslim community by default.
Make no mistake, many of us are very involved in the health care debate. As a recent President of the Arizona Medical Association, I have been very personally involved in this debate in Arizona and nationally. However, I would never think of bringing our American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) into this political struggle between conservatives and liberals in America. My approach to the health care debate is focused on reason, principle, and small government. My faith has nothing to do with health care policy other than guiding me with regards to the personal compassion with which I treat my patients on a daily basis. And even with that, I do not wear my faith on my sleeve or in a banner across the waiting room. I and others at AIFD may be engaged personally in the health care debate, but certainly not in our role with AIFD under the banner of our Islamic organization which is dedicated to the separation of mosque and state and the contest of ideas against political Islam.
Islamists through their perversion of the Establishment clause and in their glory of ultimately striving to impose their interpretation of shar'iah use their Muslim collectivist groups to advocate for every political platform. Health care is just one more example of how MPAC and other Islamist groups weighing in on issues which seem as innocuous as health care truly reveal their Islamist colors and long term agenda in America.