When it comes to the Middle East, alarms have been raised in some corners over Romney’s decision to appoint as his top adviser on the region, Walid Phares, (what the left calls Mitt’s ‘scary’ Middle East advisor) a leading figure in right-wing Christian militias during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 Civil War.
Daily Star Critics have also focused on Phares’ subsequent roles in the United States, where he has served as a terrorism expert for Fox News, CNN, and other networks as well as a terrorism advisor to the U.S. House of Representatives. During these shows, he has warned that jihadists are the enemy, and that the U.S. must act preemptively to defeat them.
“An adviser on the Middle East should be more sensitive and neutral. Walid Phares is very extreme. He leans toward being an Islamo-phobe,” Warren David, president of the Arab-American civil rights group, the Anti-Discrimination Committee told The Daily Star. “I would think that most Lebanese Christians don’t agree with his viewpoints.” (And how wrong you would be)
Phares has reportedly declared that Lebanese Christians were ethnically distinct from Arabs, and during the Civil War he “lectured militiamen, telling them they were part of a civilizational holy war,” according to an October investigative report by the U.S. magazine Mother Jones.
Since his arrival in the U.S. in 1990, he has reportedly been featured as a Middle East expert by the David Project, Israel’s college campus coalition; and the anti-jihadist groups Jihad Watch and Middle East Forum; he is also an associate with Israel’s Ariel Center for Policy Research and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an organization established after 9/11, which advocates U.S. military intervention in Muslim-majority countries.
“Anyone comfortable with those associations should not be advising the president,” says Corey Saylor, National Legislative Director at the (Muslim Brotherhood front group) Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who has been researching Phares’ background for about a year, ever since his appointment last February as a witness at hearings by the House Committee on Homeland Security entitled “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and That Community’s Response.”
And according to CAIR’s research, in 1999 the World Lebanese Organization, founded by Phares, included among its “leading members” both “Col. Sharbel Baraket, former deputy commander of the [South Lebanese Army], and Etienne Sakr, head of the radical Guardians of the Cedars group.”
The Guardians of the Cedars’ mission statement includes restoring Lebanon’s alphabet “to its Phoenician origins after liberating it from the defacement that was caused by the Arabic language” and “cutting down the number of foreigners in Lebanon…” The South Lebanese Army were allied with Israel during the 1975-1990 Civil War.
CAIR’s Saylor believes that Romney’s selection of Phares shows the Republican candidate’s growing conservative leaning. He believes that the relatively extreme views being put forth might be a case of politicians playing to their bases to win the primary before the general election, noting that in the past some candidates have said they would move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a promise never fulfilled when they reach power.
“Once the process plays out, then we’ll see the real rhetoric,” he says. Still, the thought Phares having a key advisory position, even at this stage, doesn’t sit well with some.
Jim Abourezk, a former Democratic senator from South Dakota, whose family hails from south Lebanon, told The Daily Star that although he believes Romney is unlikely to reach the presidency, “A right-wing Lebanese (advisor) would be a disaster for Romney and a disaster for the country. (It’s probably one of the main reasons he could win)
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In fact since Jihadist CAIR is going nuts about Phares, there should be an agreement between all Republican candidates that any one among them wins, he should appoint Dr Walid Phares as a National Security Advisor. Then the Jihadists will start tembling, because he is a scholar who knows them and understands their strategies. CAIR is now mobilizing all its agents -and Hezbollah is joining too- to attack Phares. Too late, his books are out, and the Jihadists are exposed. The more they attack him the more the public is paying attention. The Petrodollars consultants are failing. They don’t know how to handle this matter. They have only nine more months…
I will vote for a genuine Conservative, I will not vote for Mitt Romney. I heard what he said about Islam in ’07, and, for me, that is dispositive. I don’t give a damn who advises him, I will not knowingly vote for a RINO or CINO.
This is an excellent choice that Romney has made. I have not picked Romney as my candidate but this such great news that it makes me more favorable to Romney. We do not want the Islamic terrorists- who have 35 terrorists camps in America right now- to take over America and that is their plan. I listen to Phares on “Nothing But Truth” on AFR talk.
Wow! This is really earth-shattering. Romney must have a couple more I.Q. points than I gave him credit for.
Really, really good news. I don’t care for Romney, but if he gets elected it sounds like we have got a real Ace in the deck!
Goodbye CAIR! Have a nice trip to prison or back to the mud hut from which you came….deport more terrorist CAIR members!
Actually, Tom, isn’t it one more year: not until the new president is inaugurated (assuming Obama is voted out), around January 20, will we REALLY be free of the risk of Obama and company declaring some fictitious emergency and invoking martial law!!
God Forbid it come to this (or, worse yet, that he be re-elected); however, we should know better than to trust either Commies or Muztards…
However, I like the sound of this Walid Phares – God Protect him (and he should be careful about where he eats and enough other stuff, likely the Islâmists will try to harm him sooner or later…)!!
Walid Phares for Vice-President.
Stop the jihad now.
Ban cousin marriage immediately.
Cair knows that easy times are coming to a close.
BNI you have instrumental in this awaking.
What the government does not want you to see – CAIR – Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas
2009 VIRGINIA TERRORISM THREAT ASSESSMENT – http://wlstorage.net/file/virgina-threat-assessment-2009.pdf
Yeah, Romney is starting to look like he could very well be the next US President…..The a**hole libs AND asslifters managed to run Herman off, now they are faced with a couple of opposing candidates who are capable of making rational decisions that show they have the cojones to face down the asslifters and tell them HELL NO, we will never submit to your Sharia horses***!!!
Another check plus for Romney.
Mitt Romney for president?