The C.I.A. & The Muslim BrotherhoodHow the CIA set the stage for Sept11

[seemslikeadream]

Reverend Franklin Graham, the pugnacious preacher who delivered the prayer at President George W. Bush's 2001 inauguration, might have a bone to pick with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). When Franklin branded Islam "a very evil and wicked religion" after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he had no idea that American spies were once eager to promote a Muslim leader in the Middle East modeled after his own father, the famous evangelist Billy Graham.

The CIA often works in mysterious ways - and so it was with this little-known cloak-and-dagger caper that set the stage for extensive collaboration between US intelligence and Islamic extremists. The genesis of this ill-starred alliance dates back to Egypt in the mid-1950s, when the CIA made discrete overtures to the Muslim Brotherhood, the influential Sunni fundamentalist movement that fostered Islamic militancy throughout the Middle East. What started as a quiet American flirtation with political Islam became a Cold War love affair on the sly - an affair that would turn out disastrously for the United States. Nearly all of today's radical Islamic groups, including al-Qaeda, trace their lineage to the Brotherhood.

.............

To understand what happened on that fateful day when terrorist strikes leveled the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, one must revisit the turbulent changes that took place a half century earlier in the land of the sphinx. After seizing power in a 1952 military coup Egyptian Col. Gamal Abdul Nasser quickly threw prominent Communists in jail. This raised eyebrows among US cloak-and-dagger operatives who were eager to oblige when Nasser requested help in upgrading Egypt's ineffectual secret service. But the US government "found it highly impolitic to help him directly," the late CIA agent Miles Copeland acknowledged in his memoirs, The Game of Nations , so the CIA subcontracted more than a hundred German Third Reich vets, who specialized in Nazi security and interrogation techniques, to do the job.

..............

Copeland was off and running. He visited several Egyptian mosques in search of an Islamic preacher who could sway the Arab masses in a manner most congenial to US interests. Although Copeland never found the CIA's messiah, his furtive machinations were not without impact. While on the prowl for a Muslim Billy Graham, Copeland reached out to leaders of the religious revival movement known as the Ikhwan, or Muslim Brotherhood, which sought to build an Islamic society from the bottom up. The seeds of a clandestine relationship between the CIA and the Ikhwan were planted by Copeland, who surmised that the Muslim Brothers, by virtue of their strong antipathy to Arab nationalism as well as Communism, might be a viable counterweight to Nasser in the years ahead, US intelligence would become a defacto partner of the Brotherhood as it evolved from a mass-based social reform organization into the wellspring of Islamic terrorism.
more
http://www.razormagazine.com/feature0804c.php

[seventhson]

1. Sting's Miles Copeland??? Wonder Wha...???

I'll be Watching You

[hang a left]

2. You should have at least been moved to GD.

I would go ahead and post this over there. Hardly anyone is gonna see this here. Now I am off to read.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Thanks liberalnproud

I don't think you can access the rest of the article. I'll post more of it later this evening, I have the print version but have dinner to make. I'll probably post it later in GD also

:hi:

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

4. Wish I could get a copy of the mag!

Martin Lee is an excellent journalist.

For further reading may I recommend "Dollars for Terror" by Richard Labeviere.

[seemslikeadream]

7. Banking on Baghdad:

Thanks Monkey see Monkey Do I'm going to look for Labeviere.
This book comes out in September, it really looks good.

Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit, and Conflict


"Every hour spent reading Banking on Baghdad will be well rewarded. The historical detail is fascinating; Edwin Black’s mastery of it reads like a detective story and thriller combined, and the relevance of the past has seldom been so graphically portrayed. This is a gripping expos´e of historic follies, fantasies, and ferocity, taking place in a region that is today still a focus and storm center as it has so often been. Oil forms a twisting thread of wealth, corruption, and greed. The cast of characters and their bizarre behavior could come out of a novel; but this is fact not fiction, more endlessly intriguing and absorbing than any novel could be."

PART ONE: FROM CRADLE TO CROSSROADS.

1. Have a Good Day.
2. The Cradle of Commerce.
3. Robbing the Cradle.
4. Three Ottoman Provinces.
5. The Sick Man.

PART TWO: FUMES.
6. Oil.
7. Racing for Monopoly.
8. Mr. Five Percent.
9. Fuel and Fuse.

PART THREE: WAR AND PETROPOLITICS.
10. Invasion.
11. The Proclamation.
12. Chaos and Conquest.
13. The Undeclared Country.
14. Jihad Against Britain.
15. The Red Line.

PART FOUR: THE CONTINUING CONFLICT.
16. The Nazi Intersection.
17. The Price of Prejudice.
18. The Three Gulfs.

[Citizen Daryl]

5. That was Stewart Copeland. Miles was his brother ...

... and founder of IRS Records.

[seemslikeadream]

6. A little more from the article

"Any contact Miles had with the Muslim Brotherhood was not official policy," insists retired CIA officer Raymond Close, a colleague of Copeland in the Middle East. "It was strictly solo work on his part. There were an awful lot of things that Miles did that were totally off the board."

Whether Copeland's efforts were "off the board" or otherwise, the Muslim Brotherhood was certainly a force to be reckoned with. Since its inception in 1928, the Society of the Muslim Brothers sought to restore Islamic law and values in the face of growing Western influence. Launched as a social welfare association, it became a focal point of resistance to British colonial rule. The Special Order Group, a secret paramilitary wing set up by the Brotherhood, carried out guerrilla raids in Egypt during the 1940's, bombing British installations and killing British soldiers and civilians. By the time Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna was assassinated in 1949, the fast-growing Ikhwan, with its distinctive green flag crossed with white swords and a red Koran, had a half million Egyptian members and affiliates in several other countries.

...........

American intelligence formed a three-way tryst with the Saudis and the Muslim Brothers, according to Robert Baer, the former case officer in the CIA's Directorate of Operations. With the CIA's implicit approval, the Saudi royals channeled funds to the Brothers who joined a US-backed, anti-Nasser insurgency in Yemen in 1962. "Like any other truly effective covert action, this one was strictly off the books," explains Baer. "There was no CIA funding, no memorandum of notification to Congress. Not a penny came out of the Treasury to fund it. All the White House had to do was give a wink and a nod to countries harboring the Muslim Brothers."

Yemen was just a warm up. To give a boost to Islamic proselytizing the Saudis with CIA encouragement, founded the Muslim World League in 1962. Underwritten initially by several donors including the Saudi-based Aramco oil consortium (then a CIA collaboration, the League established a formidable international presence with representatives in 120 countries. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood occupied key staff positions at the League while it disseminated anti-communist religious propaganda and sponsored the construction of mosques and Islamic center's around the world.

[H2O Man]

8. It's extremely important information......

and should help people to understand the progression that occured between 1980 and 2001 in the American-Saudi-Muslim Brotherhood. If a person wants to understand 9-11, they need to appreciate all sides of the equation.

I'd like to see this on GD, also.

[seemslikeadream]

9. Ya'll move so fast over there Waterman

I'm :scared:

but I'll post it, thanks for askin'

[joecockandbull]

10. just testing account

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Octafish]

12. Most interesting stuff, seemslikeadream!

Wish that I could access the entire article. I go to their website and all I get are these photos of Kelly Carlson. Now that I think about it...

[seemslikeadream]

13. Now get back here!

You have work to do

I've posted more here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2268109
and here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2272207