Michele Bachmann links Muslim Brotherhood to 9/11, backs Egypt's bloody crackdown Bachmann praises Egyptian military coup US Republican Michele Bachmann thanks the Egyptian military for cracking down on the 'common enemy', referring to the Muslim Brotherhood. PT2M54S http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/action/externalEmbeddedPlayer?id=d-2tffx 620 349 September 9, 2013 - 2:48PM Cairo: Two months after the military ousted Egypt's first elected president and began a bloody crackdown on his supporters, a delegation of US Republicans visited Cairo over the weekend to tell the new government to keep up the good work. "We are here as members of Congress to say, 'We are with you, and we encourage you,' " Michele Bachmann said in a news conference broadcast over a pro-government satellite network. Egypt's interim government has described its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood as a battle against terrorism, and Mrs Bachmann supported that reading, wrongly implying a link between the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Brotherhood. "We stand against this great evil," she said, adding: "We remember who caused 9/11. We remember who it was that killed 3000 brave Americans. The United States and Egypt "have that common enemy, the terrorists who have shown themselves so recently in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood," she continued. "We don't have a choice," she continued. They must be defeated. Congressmen Louie Gohmert and Steve King, appearing with her, compared coup leader and military chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to George Washington. Mr Gohmert overlooked the interim government's mass shootings of hundreds of mostly unarmed protesters, its round-up of thousands of political opponents and its suspension of all legal protection against arbitrary arrest; instead, he commended General al-Sisi and the appointed civilian leaders for creating a government where the rule of law was "king." All three representatives vowed to defend the $US1.3 billion in American military aid to Egypt. US President Barack Obama has threatened to cut Egypt's military aid if the new government does not take swift steps toward a credible, inclusive democracy, including lifting its boot off the Brotherhood. But the ill-informed comments in Cairo suggested that the outsize fears of Islamist extremism among some in Congress may be undermining the administration's efforts. "We have a confluence of interests among the coup leaders in Egypt and Islamophobes in the Congress," said Samer Shehata, a political scientist at the University of Oklahoma who studies Egypt. He called the three politicians' statements "utterly absurd" and compared the conference to "a Saturday Night Live skit - unbelievable, ludicrous, almost comic if it wasn't so painful." Shadi Hamid, research director of the Brookings Doha Center, said it was especially "concerning" that members of Congress appeared "so unaware of the basic facts of 9/11." All three are outspoken social conservatives who previously raised alarms about alleged infiltration of the US government by the Muslim Brotherhood as well. Ms Bachmann has a particular reputation for attention-grabbing statements, for instance attributing the attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed an American ambassador last year to God's judgment. Brotherhood leaders say the group has denounced the use of violence as a political tool in Egypt for a half-century. The Muslim Brotherhood condemned the September 11 terrorist attacks, which were, in fact, carried out by al-Qaeda. The Brotherhood has explicitly opposed the theology and tactics of violent Islamist groups like al-Qaeda for decades, and al-Qaeda scorns the Brotherhood for its commitment to nonviolence and elections.