MOSLEM NAZIS AND OBAMA

Everything that was important to know about him was laid out in his memoir/manifesto: his virulent racism; his contempt for Christianity, democracy and all things Western; his murderous hatred of the Jews.

Adolf Hitler dictated Mein Kampf (My Fight) to Rudolph Hess while in Landsberg prison in 1923.  After Hitler became chancellor (prime minister) in 1933, a second edition, published in English and French as well as German, sold more than a million copies.

Within a month of assuming office, Hitler began converting Germany into a dictatorship  — just as he’d said he would in Mein Kampf.  

He would seize land for Lebensraum (living space) in the Slavic countries to the east, Russia especially, Hitler said in his manifesto. But when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Edouard Daladier met with Hitler in Munich in September of 1938, they chose to believe the Sudetenland represented the end of his territorial ambitions.  By sacrificing their ally Czechoslovakia, they could secure "peace in our time."

Chamberlain and Daladier chose to believe this because it would have been uncomfortable politically for them to acknowledge the truth.  Liberals today delude themselves about the Moslem Brotherhood, for the same reason.  But pretending a man-eating tiger is a pussycat doesn’t make it so.

The Moslem Brotherhood (Ikhwan) was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, an Egyptian schoolteacher.  He sought a world wide caliphate governed by Islamic law (Sharia).  "Allah is our objective," says the Ikhwan’s motto.  "The Prophet is our leader.  Jihad is our way.  Dying in the way of Allah is our greatest hope."

Al Banna admired Hitler.  He had Mein Kampf translated into Arabic.  The Nazis subsidized the Moslem Brotherhood.  The ranks of the SS Handjar Division were filled mostly by the Ikhwan.

The Moslem Brotherhood is today the world’s largest and best financed Islamist organization.  It’s in 70 countries, including ours.

The Ikhwan’s goals haven’t changed, the current supreme leader said Dec. 29.

"The Brotherhood is getting closer to achieving its greatest goal as envisioned by its founder, Imam Hassan al-Banna," said Dr. Muhammad Badi. "A government evolving into a rightly guided caliphate and mastership of the world." 

Mein Kampf is still, after the Koran, the Ikhwan’s favorite book.  "This stuff we now see in the Islamic world looks like Nazism because it comes from the Nazis," said journalist Claire Berlinski.

In a 2009 sermon, Yusuf al Qaradawi, the Moslem Brotherhood’s leading jurist, said: "Thoughout history, Allah has imposed upon (the Jews) people who would punish them for their corruption.  The last punishment was carried out by Adolf Hitler… Oh Allah, count their numbers and kill them, down to the very last one."

The Moslem Brotherhood supports terrorism against Israel, Americans, the Shia in Iraq.  But because it plans to get power the way Hitler did, many liberals view the Ikhwan as benign.

"The Moslem Brotherhood is legitimate, authentic, progressive," New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said Jan. 9.

President Barack Hussein Obama has appointed people affiliated with the Ikhwan to posts in his administration, including the Department of Homeland Security.  He chose Mr. Qaradawi to mediate peace talks with the Taliban.

In elections Jan. 8, the Moslem Brotherhood won the most seats in the lower house of the Egyptian parliament.  Islamist parties won nearly two thirds of the seats.  The new Speaker they chose is a member of the Ikhwan.

Elections for the upper house begin in late January.  The presidential elections are in June.  If the Moslem Brotherhood wins control of the government, it plans to impose Sharia, and hold a referendum to abrogate the peace treaty with Israel. 

The Ikhwan are likely also to dominate the new government in Libya, where the regime of secular dictator Muammar Gaddafi was felled by NATO bombs, and in Syria, should secular dictator Bashar al Assad fall there.

Against all evidence, President Jimmy Carter in 1970 told himself the mullahs in Iran were moderate reformers.  Against even more evidence, Mr. Obama regards the Moslem Brotherhood pretty much the same way.  We’re paying still a heavy price for Mr. Carter’s egregious misjudgment.  A greater miscalculation, with more profound consequences, looms.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.