Sinai and Libya models for the Islamic State’s expansion

Posted on February 16, 2015February 16, 2015 by Denise Simon

This post is part of the “Islamist Politics in the Shadow of the Islamic State” symposium.

The Islamic State announced several months ago that it was “annexing” territory in Algeria (Wilayat al-Jazair), Libya (Wilayat al-Barqah, Wilayat al-Tarabulus and Wilayat al-Fizan), Sinai (Wilayat Sinai), Saudi Arabia (Wilayat al-Haramayn) and Yemen (Wilayat al-Yaman). It is likely that the Islamic State plans to pursue a similar approach in Afghanistan and Pakistan following its announcement of accepting pledges of allegiance from former members of the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban to also try and “annex” territory there under the framework of a new wilayah called “Wilayat Khorasan.” On its face, this bold declaration of an expanding number of wilayat (provinces) resembles the announcements by al-Qaeda of creating numerous franchises in the mid-2000s. The Islamic State’s “wilayat” strategy differs in significant ways from al-Qaeda’s “franchise” strategy, however.

The academic literature has shed great light on the al-Qaeda franchising strategy. In a recent article Daniel Byman highlights a number of key factors within the al-Qaeda network regarding motivations for affiliation and franchising. Typically, affiliates joined up with al-Qaeda as a result of failure. Affiliation helped with financial support; offered a potential haven that could be exploited, along with access to new training, recruiting, publicity and military expertise; gave branding and publicity; and opened up personal networks from past foreign fighter mobilizations. It in turn helps al-Qaeda with mission fulfillment, remaining relevant, providing access to new logistics networks, and building a new group of hardened fighters.

But, Byman argues, those franchises often became as much a burden as an asset as local interests and views diverged with those of the parent organization. Leah Farrall argues that al-Qaeda increasingly came to view franchising “warily” in part due to its inability to always control its new partners such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda in Iraq as well as because of backlash from unsuccessful cooptation of organizations such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group or Egyptian Islamic Jihad. This is one of the reasons why, prior to Osama bin Laden’s death, the Somali jihadi group Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahideen was not given franchise status. Bin Laden had apprehensions about the group’s utility due to past clan infighting and lack of unity. Following the death of bin Laden though, his replacement, Ayman al-Zawahiri, brought Shabab into the fold, but the results have been quite disastrous; Shabab has declined and also was in an internal feud between its foreign and local members. Will the Islamic State’s wilayat pose a similar burden?

There is one key difference between al-Qaeda’s and the Islamic State’s model for expansion. Al-Qaeda wanted to use its new franchises in service of its main priority: attacking Western countries to force them to stop supporting “apostate” Arab regimes, which without the support of Western countries would then be ripe for the taking. This has only truly worked out with its Yemeni branch, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). On the other hand, while the Islamic State does not have an issue with its supporters or grassroots activists attacking Western countries, its main priority is building out its caliphate, which is evident in its famous slogan baqiya wa tatamaddad (remaining and expanding). As a result, it has had a relatively clear agenda and model: fighting locally, instituting limited governance and conducting outreach. This differs from al-Qaeda’s more muddled approach – it hoped a local franchise would conduct external operations, but many times franchises would instead focus on local battles or attempts at governance without a clear plan, as bin Laden had warned. Moreover, the Islamic State has had a simple media strategy for telegraphing what it is doing on the ground to show its supporters, potential recruits and enemies that it is in fact doing something. This accomplishes more, even if it appears that the Islamic State is doing more than it actually is, in comparison with al-Qaeda’s practice of waiting for a successful external operation to succeed and then claiming responsibility after the fact.

How is this strategy working? So far, Libya and the Sinai appear to be the locations with the most promise, though the Islamic State’s presence in these areas should not be overstated. It certainly does not command the amount of territorial control as its base in Mesopotamia. That said, the Islamic State’s wilayat in Libya and the Sinai are following the same methodology on the ground and in the media as the Islamic State’s wilayat have in Iraq and Syria.

By contrast, its wilayat in Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen have yet to show any signs of activity. It is certainly possible that the Islamic State is playing a long game and preparing its soldiers and bureaucrats for future jihad, governance and dawa (propagation of Islam), but there are reasons to be skeptical as well. Following Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s announcement of the expansion of the Islamic State in mid-November, its media apparatus took over the media departments of all the local wilayat outside of Mesopotamia. This highlights that, at least on the media level, the Islamic State is in full command and control.

In Algeria, there were some signs of action that have since petered off. The leader of Wilayat al-Jazair, Abd al-Malik Guri (Khalid Abu Sulayman) was killed by the Algerian military on Dec. 22. Further, while northern Algerian-based jihadis have certainly conducted attacks over the years, they have had a difficult time operating or conducting sustainable campaigns that have resulted in gaining territory. Moreover, there have been no signs that Wilayat al-Jazair has conducted any military operations since it beheaded the French tourist Hervé Gourdel on Sept. 24, which was prior to the Islamic State accepting the group into the fold. It has also not been involved in any type of governance or dawa activities.

There have also not been any formal military or governance activities carried out by the Islamic State’s wilayat in Saudi Arabia or Yemen. The Saudi government claims the Islamic State was involved in an attack that killed several Shiites in al-Ahsa on Nov. 3 and Islamic State supporters claimed responsibility for an attempted assassination of a Danish businessman through a drive-by shooting on a highway in Riyadh on Nov. 22. The Saudis have a history of dealing with insurgency against al-Qaeda on its territory from 2002-06 so are ready for any fight if the Islamic State attempts to start a campaign there.

As for Yemen, AQAP is the strongest jihadi presence and took major issue with Baghdadi’s announcement of creating a wilayah in Yemen. On Nov. 19, AQAP’s top sharia official, Harith al-Nazari, released a video rejecting the Islamic State’s claims and calling for the dissolution of all groups so as to pledge baya (religiously binding oath of allegiance), stating: “We reject the call to split the ranks of the mujahid groups” and “export[ing] the fighting and discord [in Syria] to other fronts.” As a result, although there are indeed some supporters of the Islamic State in Yemen, they have yet to show any sign of activity. It is possible that the jihadi dynamics in Yemen might change after the Houthi coup, but unless the Islamic State is able to take the reins of the AQAP apparatus from the inside, it has an uphill battle due to AQAP’s roots going back a decade. Therefore, it is unclear how the Islamic State hopes and plans to operate in those environments.

This leaves the Sinai and Libya as the primary models for the Islamic State’s expansion. In the first six weeks since Baghdadi’s announcement, it appeared that the Islamic State in Sinai was continuing to operate in a similar manner to how its predecessor in name Jamaat Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis was acting by conducting attacks against the Egyptian military as well as gas pipelines. Since the beginning of 2015, there have been small signs of an expanded program including elements of Islamic State governance present elsewhere. For example, on Jan. 2, Wilayat Sinai burned marijuana after detaining drug traffickers and on Jan. 7 it distributed funds to residents of Rafah after the Egyptian military demolished their homes to create a buffer zone near the border with Gaza.

On top of these inchoate steps, similar to the promotion of Syria and Iraq as lands of opportunity for locals and locations for foreign fighters, the Islamic State has pushed similar narratives regarding the Sinai. When Baghdadi made his November announcement he stated that “we ask every individual amongst them to join the closest wilayah to him, and to hear and obey the wali [governor] appointed by us for it.” This further push illustrates the seriousness of this endeavor for the Islamic State. First, on Dec. 1, its semi-official media agencies al-Battar and al-Jabhah al-Ialamiyyah released the pamphlet “Come to the Sinai to Elevate the Foundations of Your State,” by Abu Musab al-Gharib, which echoes Baghdadi’s call. Further, on Jan. 16 the Islamic State’s official anashid (religiously-sanctioned a capella music) and Quranic recitation outlet Ajnad released a nashid titled “The Land of Sinai,” exhorting fighters and wannabe recruits to go forth. The Islamic State also has highlighted how it has scuttled gas deals, killed spies and built a foundation for tawhid(pure monotheism). Most recently, on Jan. 21, it released an ideological video, but it was not a stern lecture like those posted by al-Qaeda-styled groups. The video showed individuals in Wilayat Sinai hanging out together around a campfire, showing the life of a mujahid and the camaraderie involved, imbuing a particular ascetic for future members who join up.

Moving west, the Islamic State’s activities and operations are even more sophisticated and closer to how it operates in Syria and Iraq, though on a smaller scale. Libya has the most potential to replicate the Islamic State’s model in Mesopotamia if things go right for it. Majlis Shura Shabab al-Islam, based in Derna and the named used prior to the Islamic State’s formal acceptance of its baya, was already involved in a variety of military, governance and dawa activities. Though in reality it only truly controls some neighborhoods in Derna, the activities have only increased and the Islamic State now also operates in Benghazi, Sirte, and Tripoli, and has created the self-styled Wilayat al-Barqah in the east, Wilayat al-Tarabulus in the west, and Wilayat al-Fizan in the south. There are also some signs that the Islamic State has siphoned off some of Ansar al-Sharia in Libya’s members, which could help accelerate its rise similar to how the Islamic State absorbed defecting Jabhat al-Nusra members in Syria.

Beyond the military fighting the Islamic State is doing in Derna and Benghazi, as well as its military parades in Sirte and an attack in Wilayat al-Fizan, it has also claimed to have executed two Tunisian journalists (though this has since been disputed by Tunisia’s ambassador in Libya), kidnapped 21 Christian Egyptians, and conducted an attack on the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli. In terms of governance types of activities, the Islamic State in Libya has primarily only focused on cultural symbolism. For example, it has conducted a number of hisbah (accountability) patrols in markets in Derna and Sirte making sure they are sharia-compliant and are not selling rotten or spoiled food, taking away stores selling hookahs since they view smoking tobacco as against Islam, and telling stores to stop selling their products when it is time for daily prayers. The Islamic State in Libya has also conducted some dawa activities, the largest was the forum “The Caliphate Upon the Manhaj [methodology] of the Prophet” on Nov. 25. It has also provided aid to the poor and needy and given gifts and sweets to children in Benghazi. The Islamic State now is attempting to impose regulations on locals within the health industry, specifically those in pharmacies.

On top of this, unlike the other wilayat there are clear signs that there is a foreign fighter presence in Libya. This is not to the same extent as in Syria or Iraq, but the fact that there are foreigners there illustrates the theaters appeal. Although the Islamic State’s official presence in Libya did not begin until November, jihadi foreign fighters have been coming into Libya since 2012 when Algerians from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb began to make it another base of operations and a safe haven. There have also been a number of foreigners that have been members of Ansar al-Sharia in Libya in part due to the relationship and connections with its sister organization in Tunisia as well as its training for individuals to go fight abroad in Syria.

Most confirmed foreign fighters have come from surrounding countries to Libya, such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Sudan. Though there have also been cases of Saudi and Yemeni foreign fighters, as well as rumors of Palestinians and Syrians. It is difficult to know the total number of foreign fighters since some have left for other fights in Syria or the Sinai after receiving training or returned home to carry out attacks in Egypt or Tunisia. It is believed though that Tunisians make up the highest percentage of foreign fighters in Libya and that up to 20 percent of the jihadi fighters in Libya are of foreign origin.

Another sign of the importance and emphasis the Islamic State is placing on foreign fighter involvement in Libya is that its official media apparatus is beginning to announce martyrdom notices, as it has done in Iraq and Syria. Since it began two weeks ago, it has announced 10 cases, including six Tunisians, two Egyptians, one Saudi and one Sudanese all who died in the battles of Benghazi. Further, to encourage more emigration, the Islamic State released a story about how one Saudi fighter, Abd al-Hamid al-Qasimi, traveled to Libya to embark on the building of the “caliphate” in Wilayat Tarabulus. More importantly, and in line with the Islamic State’s media methodologies in Mesopotamia, it released a video message on Jan. 20 from two ethnic-Tuareg members of the Islamic State in Wilayat Tarbulus calling for individuals and jihadis in Azawad (a term used by some locals as a name for northern Mali) to pledge baya to Baghdadi and make hijrah (emigration) to the Islamic State in Libya. One of the men, Abu Umar al-Tawrigi, stated: “I call my Tuareg brothers to migrate to the Islamic State and that they give baya to emir al-muminin [leader of the faithful] Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi.” Dozens of similar videos have come from the Islamic State’s foreign fighters based in Syria, from Bosnians to Canadians to French to Indonesians to Moldovans, among others that have produced videos in a similar vein.

The Islamic State does therefore seem to be attempting to follow the same tactics and strategies on the ground in Libya (and to a lesser extent in the Sinai) as it has already done in Iraq and Syria. There is still a long way to go before either is consolidated in terms of territorial control or full monopoly on governance and security. Libya has the highest likelihood of success since there is no state, though there are limitations too since there is a multi-polar devolution of a variety of armed actors. The Islamic State will likely have more problems in the Sinai since the actors are stuck between two strong military states in Egypt and Israel as well as a Hamas-led Gaza government that fears the jihadis’ threat to its legitimacy. That said, if the Egyptian government continues to operate in a brazen manner militarily it will create new local recruits that could sustain the Islamic State in north Sinai. How this all ends is impossible to predict, but as of now, the Islamic State has indeed set itself up on a limited base in the Sinai and has established a growing movement in Libya more than two months following the announcement of its expansion.

Aaron Y. Zelin is a PhD candidate at King’s College London. He is the Richard Borow Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Rena and Sami David Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence.

The White Helmets, also known as the Syrian Civil Defense

Posted on February 16, 2015February 16, 2015 by Denise Simon

While most of the citizens of the West think that Syrians are jihadist, now is the time to rethink that. Syria had and in some cases still has It was just a few months ago, that Syrian Christians were begging the West to help Syria such that they could stay in their country and not flee as refugees. Their pleas have fallen on ears of the West that refuse to hear and it must be noted that the recent White House proposal of Authorization of Use for Military Force does not even mention Syria such that Assad would be removed from power. While the turmoil and the civil war continues there remains some good people in Syria.

Unpaid, Unarmed Lifesavers in Syria

WHO would have thought there could be an uplifting story from Syria?

Yet side by side with the worst of humanity, you often see the best. In Syria, that’s a group of volunteers called the White Helmets. Its members rush to each bombing and claw survivors from the rubble.

There are more than 2,200 volunteers in the White Helmets, mostly men but a growing number of women as well. The White Helmets are unpaid and unarmed, and they risk their lives to save others. More than 80 have been killed in the line of duty, the group says, largely because Syrian military aircraft often return for a “double-tap” — dropping bombs on the rescuers.

Wearing simple white construction helmets as feeble protection from those “double-tap” bombings, the White Helmets are strictly humanitarian. They even have rescued some of the officers of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad who are bombing them.

Since the White Helmets began in 2013, its members have saved more than 12,500 lives by its count.

One video taken by the group shows White Helmets frantically pulling aside rubble as a baby wails beneath. Finally, a rescuer is able to reach with his arm deep into a crevice and pull out an infant, crying lustily but not obviously injured.

A reputation for nonpolitical humanitarianism has allowed the White Helmets to work across lines of rival militias, including the Islamic State. In a land short of heroes and long on violence, many rally round the White Helmets. Syria may be notorious today for cruelty and suffering, but these men and women are a reminder of the human capacity for courage, strength and resilience.

“They have been doing extraordinary work in a terrible situation,” notes Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

“They are the real deal,” says Lina Sergie Attar, a Syrian-American architect engaged in humanitarian aid in Syria.

One of the leaders of the White Helmets is Farouq al-Habib, 33, an English-speaking former banker with a doctorate in business. When the Syrian revolution began peacefully in 2011, he emerged as a leader of the movement in the city of Homs, thinking that, within a few months, the Assad regime would be overthrown.

It didn’t work out that way, and Habib was imprisoned and tortured in 2012. Friends bribed the authorities to limit the torture and eventually free him, but the experience seared him. “Every day there were dead bodies from torture” in the prison, he said.

Now Habib helps manage the White Helmets, who survive on modest financing from the United States, Britain and private donors. Women were incorporated into the White Helmets last year, partly because some conservative Syrians didn’t want men digging through rubble to find women who might not be fully dressed.

The White Helmets, also known as the Syrian Civil Defense, are campaigning to pressure President Assad to stop dropping so-called barrel bombs, which are full of shrapnel and take a tremendous toll on civilians. They argue that the West is so focused on the Islamic State that it is ignoring the far greater killing by Assad.

“We can only ease the suffering of our people,” says Raed Saleh, the chief of the White Helmets. “Only you in the international community can end it.”

President Obama’s greatest foreign policy failing has been Syria. It’s not clear that other approaches would have succeeded, but his policy and the world’s have manifestly failed.

“When we started the revolution, we thought we shared the same values as the West,” Habib said. “But I’m ashamed to say our friends failed us. We should have had friends like China, Russia, Iran, because they were credible.”

Now Obama and other leaders are focused on military solutions in Syria. The problem is that there may not be one. Arming rebels might have worked in 2012, but it may be too late now. Sadly, there are more problems in international relations than there are solutions.

But what we can do is provide more support for the White Helmets and, above all, do far more to help Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. The majority of Syrian refugee children are not attending school, according to the United Nations, and an entire generation of young Syrians is growing up impoverished, uneducated and, in some cases, radicalized.

“They’re going to be like the Palestinians, floating around the Middle East for decades,” Landis warns.

The United States is withdrawing troops from the Ebola fight in West Africa — a very successful deployment, for which Obama deserves credit — so how about now dispatching them on a temporary mission to Jordan to build schools for Syrian refugees?

Every day there are scores of bombings or missile strikes across Syria — for months, the beautiful ancient city of Aleppo was enduring 50 attacks a day — and, each time, these are the crews that extinguish the fires and help the injured.

Obama Approves Minsk Agreement, Great for Putin

Posted on February 15, 2015February 15, 2015 by Denise Simon

The new Minsk ceasefire agreement empowers Russia-backed separatists with a number of leverages over Ukraine. If implemented, the agreement could provide a functioning framework for a mutually acceptable political settlement. In the event of non-implementation, a re-eruption of hostilities is highly likely.

In Minsk on 12th February, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande managed to reach an agreement on the ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine, and the outlines of a conflict settlement.

Formally, the document was signed not by the heads of state, but by the Trilateral Contact Group (composed of representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE) as well as the leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk separatists. This indirect scheme allowed Kyiv to reach an agreement with the separatists without formally recognizing them as legitimate partners.

The document, composed of thirteen points, refers to the separatist entities as “particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts”, using the same wording as the September 2014 Minsk agreement. Hence, neither their self-proclaimed names, Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, nor the Russian term Novorossiya are used, which is a strong signal that none of the parties questions that these regions belong to Ukraine.

*** So what else needs to be known? Who is still supporting Putin and why….

The segments of the Russian population that, arguably, have the best chance to dissuade President Vladimir Putin from his actions in Ukraine are business leaders and the rich. But despite having lost millions of dollars because of sanctions against Russia , the falling ruble and low oil prices, they still rally behind their leader-both privately and publicly.

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Despite a cease-fire announced Thursday , Western sanctions on Russia over its support of insurgents in neighboring Ukraine have already pushed Russia’s borrowing costs higher and crushed its currency (Exchange: RUBUSD=). The problems have been made worse by the price of oil, whose fall since September has further undercut the petro-state’s ability to fund itself. Yet Putin still enjoys broad domestic support, and experts tell CNBC that the country’s monied class is no exception. Timothy Ash, who heads emerging markets research at Standard Bank (Johannesburg Stock Exchange: SBK-ZA), summarizes the phenomenon in a few words: “Nationalism plays very well with many people,” he told CNBC

Alexander Kliment, director of Russia research at Eurasia Group, said the sanctions have actually strengthened elite support for Putin because they have bolstered the government’s position as a last-resort lender for them. “Also, sanctions have inflamed patriotic sentiment and been a convenient scapegoat for economic woes,” Kilment told CNBC.

“If you are an oligarch, it’s bad to suffer sanctions from the West,” he said, “but you’re still pretty well-off as part of the Russian system. It’s an awfully big leap to turn your back on that, which would risk literally everything you have.” Read More Total CEO: US will not become energy independent Edward Mermelstein, a New York-based attorney who works with Russian business clients, told CNBC that Putin’s popularity is no longer dependent on finance as much as the might of Russia.

“As long as the country is perceived as strong, he will continue to dominate domestically. The Russian citizen can withstand famine, but they cannot withstand the appearance of weakness,” he said.

While some companies are getting hit hard by what Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has acknowledged is an economy in “dire straits,” others are finding ways to benefit.

*** Now comes the alternate banking system. Almost 91 domestic credit institutions have been incorporated into the new Russian financial system, the analogous of SWIFT, an international banking network.The new service, will allow Russian banks to communicate seamlessly through the Central Bank of Russia. It should be noted that Russia’s Central Bank initiated the development of the country’s own messaging system in response to repeated threats voiced by Moscow’s Western partners to disconnect Russia from SWIFT.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev meeting with miniters

SWIFT (The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) is a Belgium-based international organization that provides services and a standardized environment for global banking communicating that allows financial institutions to send and receive messages about their transactions. Earlier this month Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov expressed confidence that Russia would not be disconnected from SWIFT. In her turn, Russian Central Bank First Deputy Chair Ksenia Yudaeva called upon Russian civilians and financial institutions not to dramatize the current situation.Russian experts point to the fact that Western businesses would face severe losses if they expelled Russia from the international SWIFT system. On the other hand, the alternative system launched by Russia might reduce the negative impacts caused by measures imposed by the West, including possible disconnection from SWIFT, and diminish Western financial dominance over Russia.

It’s Your Money and the Democrats Don’t Care

Posted on February 14, 2015February 14, 2015 by Denise Simon

Do you know how legislative bills begin and then what happens? Do you know what they may cost the taxpayers?

Sponsors of 700 bills in Congress didn’t put price tags on their proposals

Almost half of the bills introduced in the last Congress authorized spending tax dollars, but not specifically how many dollars. Instead, the proposals simply provided that “such sums as necessary” should be spent.All 20 congressmen who most frequently used the “such sums as necessary” formulation are liberals and among the most ardent proponents of expanding the federal government. House Republicans were advised by their leaders not to use the phrase, but some of them ignored the advice.Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed “Democratic socialist,” led the list as the sponsor of 19 such bills.

His 10 Million Solar Roofs Act of 2014, for example, would require “the Department of Energy (DOE) to establish a program to provide rebates for the purchase and installation of photovoltaic systems with the goal to install 10 million systems.”

The Sanders bill provided specific instructions for what the government would need to do, and the cost of the solar panels would be known to his staff. The goal of the bill — increasing alternative energy sources — has significant public support. But Sanders didn’t include how much his proposal would cost, thus depriving his congressional colleagues and taxpayers of the means to weigh benefits versus costs.Nowhere in the bill is there a cost figure. It simply says “there are authorized to be appropriated such sums as are necessary to carry out this Act.”Florida Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson’s Fiscal Sanity Act for Appropriations bill is another whose cost is simply as much “as necessary.”

“It shows they aren’t serious fiscal stewards — they aren’t concerned with how much it costs, often-times. If they were, they could write in offsets saying ‘this fund over here will be decreased by the amount necessary,’” said Demian Brady, who tracks individual congressmen’s spending propensities for the National Taxpayers Union.

“It could also be a way to avoid accountability. If they did say $20 million for a gun buyback program, media and everyone would say she wants to spend $20 million. If you leave it blank, it’s a shield you can hide behind, even if they know how much it’s going to cost,” he said. Some were token efforts that sponsors never expected to go anywhere — they were introduced only so their sponsors could tell campaign backers that they tried. But occasionally those proposals wind up becoming policy anyway.“They say, ‘we didn’t bother to get an estimate because we didn’t expect it to go anywhere,’ but then soon we’ll find it as part of bigger legislation,” Brady said.When Rep. Maxine Waters wanted a “minority diabetes initiative,” the California Democrat didn’t care how much it cost, and didn’t attempt to measure it, craft a budget estimate or find a way to fund it. Instead, she asked colleagues to essentially vote for a blank check.

Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey’s Caregiver Corps Act of 2014 would require the Department of Health and Human Services to “contract with a nonprofit” and “[a]llows the Secretary to award grants for the operation of local Corps programs.”Yet there is no mention of cost anywhere. At the very end of the description of the proposed program, it says simply, “There is authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section, such sums as may be necessary.”“It’s very bad practice to put these things in place because they also lead to bloated appropriations. The authorizers have kind of punted,” said a senior Senate Republican aide. “We’d like to have all the authorizers be more accountable to things.”

Congress must first pass a bill “authorizing” money to be spent, and then another, separate appropriation bill officially funds it — generally one of a few major bills passed by the appropriations committee.

The handful of powerful congressional “appropriators” who meet in back rooms and until recently were able to dole out earmarks as favors have been the subject of significant ire as poster children for what is wrong with Washington.

But when lawmakers write bills that “authorize” funding without specifying amounts, they are ceding authority to the appropriations committees, who will have to fill in an amount, even though they’re much less acquainted with the purpose.

The Examiner analyzed legislation from the two-year congressional session that ended last month. Dollar amounts — or lack thereof — were extracted from the bill text by the Cato Institute as part of the libertarian think tank’s Deepbills project.

One reason for the Democratic dominance of the “such sums as necessary” list is that Democrats introduce more bills in general than Republicans. But another is that House Republican leadership cautioned its members not to use “such sums as necessary” at the beginning of last Congress, as one of nine “legislative protocols.” “Any bill or joint resolution authorizing discretionary appropriations shall specify the actual amount of funds being authorized,” the protocol says. “This protocol is designed to improve transparency and accountability in the authorization of discretionary programs.”

But it only discourages, not forbids, House Republicans from using the technique. The House Select Committee on Benghazi, formed to investigate Hillary Clinton’s State Department, was funded by “such sums as necessary,” leading Democrats opposed to the investigation to protest that it is irresponsible to allocate open-ended amounts of money with no end date.

And it doesn’t bind senators, who lead the list in bills introduced.

Sanders and Sen. Bob Menendez, D-NJ. the most frequent users, didn’t respond to the Examiner’s requests for comment.

WRITING THE MOST BLANK CHECKS

Name Bills
Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-VT) 19
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) 14
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) 13
Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) 13
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) 11
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) 10
Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) 10
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) 10
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) 9
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR)

But Barack Obama does not care either. His budget was presented last week and has zero chance of advancing with good reason. Obama’s Budget Hikes Taxes by $1.6 Trillion In his budget, Obama also proposes that over the next 10 years, tax cuts of $349 billion be accompanied by tax increases of $1.9 trillion, for a net 10-year tax increase of $1.6 trillion.

The president’s budget would repeal, let expire or limit:

the Lifetime Learning Credit;
the student loan interest deduction (for new borrowers);
Coverdell accounts; and
529 education savings plans.

The president’s budget would:

triple the maximum Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC);
expand the American Opportunity Tax Credit;
create an auto-enroll IRA for workers without an employer-based retirement plans (with an option to opt out);
create a new second earner credit of up to $500 for families where both spouses work; and
expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for workers without children and for non-custodial parents.

The president’s budget would raise taxes in many ways. For example, it would:

increase the capital gains and dividend tax rate to 28 percent (inclusive of the net investment income tax);
end stepped-up basis by treating bequests and gifts as realization events that would trigger tax liability for capital gains;
raise estate and gift taxes;
limit the value of itemized deductions to 28 percent;
create an additional alternative minimum tax designed to ensure certain high income taxpayer pay at least 30 percent of income —after charitable contributions—in taxes;
impose a 19 percent on the foreign earnings of U.S. companies;
raise tobacco taxes; and
impose a tax on the debt of financial institutions.

In addition, Obama’s budget increases the corporate welfare provided through the tax code, with substantially higher subsidies for alternative energy and politically favored infrastructure.

The budget does contain a constructive provision that would permanently extend section 179 expensing allowing small business to deduct up to $1 million of capital expenses.

White House Invited Muslim Brotherhood Policy

Posted on February 12, 2015February 13, 2015 by Denise Simon

A ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION WITH “THE STOP QATAR NOW COALITION”

Who Are the Muslim Brotherhood-Linked Leaders Obama Met?

US President Barack Obama, privately met with 14 Muslim leaders, including several leaders of Muslim Brotherhood front groups with ties to Hamas.

Imam Mohamed Magid, President of the Islamic Society of North America and the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center.

The White House has released the names of senior American Muslim leaders that President Obama met with personally last week. The list of names was included on the transcript of the White House daily press briefing on Thursday, despite journalists having requested the information much sooner. Prior to that, the White House had refused to name the leaders.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with the President meeting with representatives from any faith community and with the Muslim community in particular. Yet some of the individuals who met with the President have alarming links to the Muslim Brotherhood

and organizations that have funded terrorism.

Azhar Azeez represented the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in the talks with Obama. Declassified FBI documents show that ISNA was identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front group as early as 1987 and its past leaders include Abdurrahman Alamoudi, who was convicted on terrorism related charges in 2004.

In 2007, ISNA was designated as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity shut down by the U.S. government for financing Hamas. The U.S. Department of Justice listed ISNA as one of the “individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.”

Mr. Azeez is also the senior National Director of Islamic Relief USA, the American branch of Islamic Relief worldwide. The United Arab Emirates lists Islamic Relief Worldwide as a terrorist organization. Israel also banned Islamic Relief from operating in the disputed territories it administers, accusing it of funding Hamas.

According to the Israeli Ministry for Foreign Affairs “The IRW provides support and assistance to Hamas’s infrastructure. The IRW’s activities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip are carried out by social welfare organizations controlled and staffed by Hamas operatives. The intensive activities of these associations are designed to further Hamas’s ideology among the Palestinian population.”

Five senior members of Islamic Relief USA were named in a list of 30 Muslim Brotherhood operatives in America by the leading Egyptian newspaper El-Watan. Azeez’s bio also says he is a founder and past president of the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator. CAIR is also listed as a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates.

Imam

Mohamed Magid is the President of the Islamic Society of North America and head of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society ( ADAMS) Center, in which capacity he met with the President. The ADAMS Center was investigated by the FBI for connections to terrorism funding and was raided in 2004 by federal agents.

Mohamed Magid signed a letter in September 2014 alongside other Islamist leaders which condemned the Islamic State while asserting the need for an Islamic Caliphate

and supporting the hudud

punishments of sharia

law, which include amputation, flogging and the execution of apostates. The letter said that a person could only be regarded as an apostate if the person “openly declares disbelief.”

Azhar Azeez also signed the aforementioned letter. Among the other signatories to that letter was terrorist supporting Sheikh

Abdullah bin Bayyah, who in the past endorsed a fatwa

that authorized the killing of US soldiers. He also said that giving donations to jihadists who fight Israel count as zakat

and said as recently as 2013 that Muslim leaders should give Hamas financial and military assistance to fight Israel. Bin Bayyah was cited by Obama in an address to the UN in September 2014 as a Muslim leader who supports peace.

Hoda Hawa is National Policy Advisor of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). MPAC was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of which, Mather Hathout, served jail time in Egypt for his membership in the group.

In 2001 the then President of MPAC said that Israel should be included on the suspect list of those who might have perpetrated 9/11. MPAC cooperated with other Muslim-Brotherhood aligned groups to oppose the appointment of Muslim anti-Islamist activist Dr. Zudhi Jasser to the U.S. Commission on International Freedom.

MPAC co-founder Mather Hathout has also made statements in the past in support of Lebanese Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah.

They also have a very limited following. A 2011 Gallup poll found that only 6% of Muslim-American males and 1% of females chose MPAC as the organization that most represents their interests, even though MPAC has large resources and has been around since 1988.

Also present was Rahat Hussain, president of the Universal Muslim Association of America (UMAA) . The UMAA received thousands of dollars from the Alavi Foundation, an Iranian propaganda front group, from 2005 onwards. Clarion Project discovered that they received at least $138,000 from the Alavi Foundation between 2005 and 2012. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office investigations chief, Adam Kaufmann, said “We found evidence that the government of Iran really controlled everything about the foundation.”

The British Government is set this week to launch a major clampdown on Muslim Brotherhood front groups and the funding of terrorism after lengthy investigations found multiple Muslim Brotherhood entities operating within the country.

Yet in America the State Department received a delegation from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The meetings were described as “fruitful” by one of the delegates. The State Department, after facing criticism for the meeting, then doubled down on their decision to do so in a later press briefing.

This is while Brotherhood representatives in Turkey are calling for violence on the streets in Egypt, saying “we are now in the retaliation phase.” At the same time, a Brotherhood TV station based in Turkey broadcast a threat to all foreigners in Egypt that they must flee the country or face being targeted by terrorist attacks, while another Muslim Brotherhood figure said “It is time to begin armed insurrection.”

Given that these American Muslim leaders have highly problematic connections to Muslim Brotherhood front groups, why are they being given access to meet the President personally, especially when one takes into account the presence of genuine anti-Islamist Muslim leaders like Dr. Zudhi Jasser who are denied such opportunities?

The Stop Qatar Now Coalition of good Patriots have spent weeks gathering evidence, documents and performed interviews to bring to publication the facts on the Muslim Brotherhood penetration into the American culture against the will and knowledge of Americans and the U.S. Constitution…

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