Egyptian Blinders
Washington,
Aug 14 -
Generals pushed out, an intelligence chief sacked, airstrikes in the Sinai – Egypt is rather tense these days. Analysts are watching every event to forecast where this key country is headed.
One nugget I weigh is Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s speech a few weeks ago. Taking the oath, the Muslim Brotherhood leader told the world he would work to have Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, aka "the Blind Sheik," released from U.S. prison.
Abdel-Rahman is revered among radicals for providing the religious authorization to assassinate Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. He was spewing radicalism before "fatwas" were in. He made his way to Afghanistan in the late ‘80s…you know the story. While in Sudan in 1990, the U.S. consulate granted him a visa, even though his name was on a watch list.
Operating in the New York City area, Abdel-Rahman helped inspire the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. He was eventually convicted for plotting to bomb the Lincoln Tunnel, the Holland Tunnel, the George Washington Bridge, the United Nations and the FBI’s NY office. One al-Qaeda expert has called Omar Abdel-Rahman the "ideological architect or the spiritual guide of 9/11." This guy earned his life sentence behind bars.
An Obama Administration official says – on background - that there is "zero chance" of his transfer happening. Secretary Clinton says the Blind Sheik didn’t come up when she recently met with Morsi, who himself has expressed doubts about the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, most dismiss his free the Blind Sheik call as empty rhetoric to win points on the Egyptian street.
But if the Muslim Brotherhood rejects violence and is a moderate force, why is the Blind Sheik a martyr? For the United States, why not let this new leader know that 9/11 conspiracy talk and calls to free committed terrorists just doesn’t cut it? Those seeing such talk as political posturing may be the blind ones in the end.
