Call Out Our Enemies in Any War Powers Resolution

“President who vowed to end war, now seeks sweeping power to expand it.” So reads the headline on the front page of  yesterday's Washington Times.

The problem is that the president, as explained in a prior article, knows not our enemies.

Knowing our enemies is essential to Congress exercising its constitutional powers, “To declare War” and “To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces” (Art. I, Sec. 9).

Among today’s challenges facing Congress is political correctness. In spite of this challenge, any grant of war powers by Congress to the president should define our enemies, and those enemies should include both the Islamic State, aka ISIS or ISIL, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Constitution requires that all federal legislative, executive, and judicial officers “shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution” (Art. VI). In accordance with this constitutional requirement, Congress has prescribed an oath of office for all civil service and uniformed military officers to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” (5 U.S.C. §3331).

Who are our “enemies, foreign and domestic” justifying President Obama’s request, according to Secretary of State John Kerry’s congressional testimony yesterday, for a “new Authorization to Use Military Force against the terrorist group known as ISIL and affiliated groups”?

According to one published report, “Secretary of State John F. Kerry told Congress Tuesday that President Obama wants expansive war powers to pursue the Islamic State terrorists wherever and however he deems necessary.”

In addition to Islamic State terrorists, any consideration of war powers granted by Congress should also acknowledge the other enemies who have announced their intent to levy war against the United States. These other enemies include the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the fall of 2010, the Supreme Guide of the International Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie, declared publicly that it is the duty of all Muslims to engage in jihad against the United States and Israel, explaining the need for “raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life . . . the U.S. is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading toward its demise.” Badie’s declaration foreshadowed the so-called “Arab Spring” of 2011.

Why is it that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have in the meantime declared the Muslim Brotherhood a "terrorist group," yet the United States has not?

Perhaps it is because the Muslim Brotherhood is engaging in what it calls "civilization jihad" in North America. Perhaps it is because this civilization jihad could also be tied to what a recent Washington Post Op-Ed titled “Why is the Islamic State so intent on provoking the West?,” identified as a 2005 letter from al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, explaining “that we are in a battle, and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.”

We know about the non-kinetic warfare tactics of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America because we discovered the Muslim Brotherhood's own "Explanatory Memorandum" during an FBI raid in 2004 in Northern Virginia — not far from our nation's capital. Our U.S. Department of Justice introduced this memorandum into evidence in the largest terrorism finance and Hamas trial ever successfully prosecuted in U.S. history — United States v. Holy Land Foundation, in Dallas, Texas, in 2008.

Based on its own writings, the Muslim Brotherhood, just like al-Qaida, has effectively declared war — which it calls “civilization jihad” — against the United States of America.

The problem is the Obama Administration will likely never acknowledge the Muslim Brotherhood as our enemy, because it has made a formal decision to back the Muslim Brotherhood as a moderate Islamic political movements.

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act and a June 18, 2014, Gulf News article, we now know that "The President personally issued Presidential Study Directive 11 (PSD-11) in 2010, ordering an assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood and other 'political Islamist’ movements, including the ruling AKP in Turkey, ultimately concluding that the United States should shift from its longstanding policy of supporting ‘stability’ in the Middle East and North Africa (that is, support for ‘stable regimes’ even if they were authoritarian), to a policy of backing ‘moderate’ Islamic political movements.”

The same Gulf News article indicated that, “To this day, PSD-11 remains classified, in part because it reveals an embarrassingly naïve and uninformed view of trends in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region."

The good news is that the Constitution empowers Congress, not the president, to declare war. The leaders in Congress should reject political correctness and, if and whenever Congress grants further war powers to the current president, Congress should identify not only the Islamic State terrorists, but also the Muslim Brotherhood as among our enemies, foreign and domestic.

Joseph E. Schmitz served as inspector general of the Dept. of Defense from 2002-2005 and is a Partner in the law firm of Schmitz & Socarras LLP. Read more reports from Joseph E. Schmitz — Click Here Now.