In connection with our reporting on Rashad Hussain, the new Obama administration envoy who has a history of participation in events connected with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, Media Matters for America (MMA) has recycled old charges directed against the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report made in 2008 by a single blog. According to the MMA report:
In an August 2008 post, Foreign Policy’s Joshua Keating wrote: “The Report employs a fairly loose definition of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates that includes fairly mainstream organizations such as the Islamic Society of North America and the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR].”
This charge of “loose definitions” was addressed in a post from 2008 which explained the methodology used by GMBDW to identify entities comprising the global Muslim Brotherhood. With respect to ISNA and CAIR, as that post explained, both organizations have been identified in federal court documents as part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. Since that time, a Hudson Institute has published an extensive report on the history of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood based on internal U.S. Brotherhood documents that identifies both ISNA and CAIR as U.S. Brotherhood organizations.
The other charge against the GMBDW concerns the use of the term “Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers”:
Keating further wrote of Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report: Amusingly, recent FP contributors Graham Fuller and Marc Lynch are also described as Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers. As Passport readers know, Lynch has indeed met with senior Brotherhood leaders in Cairo, but they hardly see eye to eye. Fuller’s supposed ties are of the six-degrees-of-Mahdi Akef variety. By the standards of this site, you are not only a fellow traveler of the Muslim Brotherhood if you have defended them or recommended dialogue with them, you need only have been loosely associated with people who held those views.
For the record, the GMBDW has never once use the term “Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer” nor called anybody a “fellow traveler of the Muslim Brotherhood” ” as any search of the site will confirm. We have described Dr. Lynch as “sympathetic toward the Brotherhood” but explained this characterization in an extensive post and doubt that even Dr. Lynch, who once allowed himself to be photographed smiling and shaking hands with the Brotherhood Supreme Guide, would disagree. As for Graham Fuller, the GMBDW once described him as a “supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood”, a characterization which would seem to be justified given his role as a member of the Advisory Board of the Conflict Forum, whose leader has published glowing tributes to Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as the Advisory Board of the journal published by the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), a part of the Palestine Committee of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.
The same MMA article offers a defense of Hussain’s participation in U.S. Muslim Brotherhood events by pointing out that prominent conservatives and Bush administration officials, including President Bush himself, have appeared at events either sponsored by the same U.S. Brotherhood groups or attended by them. The problem with this comparison is that Rashad Hussain did not simply appear at U.S. Brotherhood events but rather was a full participant/speaker at these events indicating a much greater degree of engagement and ideological affiliation than simple attendance. We might also point out that the GMBDW has been monitoring U.S. Government engagement with the global Muslim Brotherhood since our first post on June 15, 2007. Since that time, and while President Bush was still in office, we posted on extensively on such engagement including a post from February 13 2008 which covered the National Prayer Breakfast addressed by Bush.
We make these observations because the MMA, reported by the New York Times to have been established by former journalist David Brock “with more than $2 million in donations from wealthy liberals”, describes itself on its web site as “a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” We simply wish to clarify that the GMBDW has no political or ideological affiliations and does not target or conduct campaigns against any individual or organization. Our mandate is to keep a daily account of the activities of the global Muslim Brotherhood and we will continue to do so regardless of which political party or President holds office in the U.S.