WASHINGTON — Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed once ripped into former President Barack Obama’s drone strike against a US citizen believed to be an al-Qaeda leader and had a dramatic warning for the Muslim Brotherhood, resurfaced articles show.
In a 2011 HuffPost piece trashing potential budget cuts, El-Sayed complained lawmakers seemed to be working harder to prevent cuts to the Pentagon than on social programs, while highlighting concerns about the wars in the Middle East.
“Beyond the decade-long slog that’s claimed hundreds of thousands of lives — Afghan and American — in Afghanistan, our military carries out daily drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, he wrote in the piece.
“Most recently, in fact, one of these drone strikes perpetrated the extrajudicial assassination of an American citizen. Soon after, another was ordered to murder his son, 16, also an American. Not to mention our misguided, unfounded, and tremendously damaging war in Iraq.”
Earlier that year, Obama had authorized a drone strike to kill Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki, a key organizer for al-Qaeda, who had dual citizenship with Yemen and the US. He was the first US citizen deliberately killed in a drone strike by the government.
In another resurfaced piece, El-Sayed fretted that the Muslim Brotherhood and another Islamist party that took power after the 2011 Egyptian revolution might embrace radical socialist policies.
Following the resignation of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011, El-Sayed penned multiple opinion pieces backing the protesters who swept the country and strategizing on how Egypt could retain democracy.
In a February 2012 Al Jazeera article co-authored with then-Harvard University economics PhD student Jisung Park, he warned that Egypt’s future would depend on its economic choices.
“Impressive showings at the polls by both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Al-Nour Salafist party – both of Egypt’s Islamic parties – was likely more a product of their domestic platforms and their histories of social justice than voter resonance with Islamic ideologies,” the pair wrote.
Around the time, the Brotherhood bloc got roughly 47% of seats in Egypt’s parliament, and the hardline Islamist Salafist Al-Nour bloc notched 24%.
Ironically, El-Sayed, known for his lefty views during his Senate bid, joined Park in warning Egypt against pursuing radical redistributionist economic policies. Both El-Sayed and Park drew comparisons between how North and South Korea chose to develop.
“In light of the business corruption that has [characterized] Egypt’s economy throughout the Mubarak years, it may be tempting for these parties to enact radical redistribution policies from the get-go,” the two acknowledged.
“But the ruling coalition must resist the temptation to close off the Egyptian economy and redistribute its shrinking spoils by [nationalizing] private industries or raising tariff barriers.”
The pair underscored that while North Korea’s centralized economy “led to faster economic growth in the short-run (during the early 1950s),” Pyongyang eventually “stagnated.”
The article was unearthed by journalist Eitan Fischberger, who also dug up a 2011 piece in the Guardian in which El-Sayed urged Obama to back the protesters in Egypt.
“As an American, I ask you to support these freedom fighters because not only is it in our American self-interest to promote democracy in the Middle East, but this is the only avenue our ideals will allow us,” he argued in the piece.
“As an Egyptian, I ask you to support them because I know, firsthand, the injustice that the Mubarak regime has inflicted.”
El-Sayed faced scrutiny during his Michigan Senate bid over his thoughts on the Muslim Brotherhood, to which he denied having ties.
The Brotherhood is notorious for its radical offshoots such as Hamas, and is designated as a terrorist organization in multiple Middle Eastern countries — though not in the US.
Around the time of the 2011 Egyptian revolution, El-Sayed’s half-sister claimed his family was very supportive of the Brotherhood. El-Sayed also had relatives work for groups tied to the Brotherhood.
At one point, he signed a letter urging then- newly minted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, to “purge” the media and police. Morsi later mounted an infamous crackdown on journalists and protesters, which led to a coup against him.
The incoming senator now insists he disavows the Brotherhood and has mocked the scrutiny he received during the campaign.
“I have a brother. He’s Muslim. He and I have a Muslim brotherhood,” he joked during Crooked Con late last week.
