The Endowment for Middle East Truth invites you to attend an evening of Cocktails and Conversation on the Lessons from 9/11.

RSVP to dheffernan@emetonline.org

        Subject line: ‘9/11 Seminar’

On the thirteenth anniversary of the horrific events of September 11, 2001, the United States and the Western world face the same threat by genocidal Islamic terrorists that were responsible for the death of 3,000 Americans on U.S. soil.

The so called Islamic State, or ISIS, has brutally murdered thousands of innocent civilians, and has extended its reach deep into western and northern Iraq and across Syria. The so called Islamic State’s beheading of American journalist James Wright Foley prompted limited US airstrikes in Iraq.  ISIS leader Al-Baghdadi recently said in a video interview “We will humiliate them [U.S. soldiers] everywhere, God willing, and we will raise the flag of Allah in the White House.”  At the same time, the threat of homegrown terrorism is on the rise; more than 100 Americans have traveled to Syria to join Al Qaeda-inspired terror groups, and two Americans who have joined ISIS have already been killed. In the past few months, terrorism charges have been filed against several Americans to prevent homegrown terrorists.

What are the critical lessons that the U.S. should take from the 9/11 attacks? What should the United States do to safeguard our homeland and prevent future attacks on U.S. soil? How can the U.S. stop the rise of homegrown terrorism?

Please join us as we hear from national security and counterterrorism experts on these issues, and more.  EMET is privileged to host author and scholar Dr. Walid Phares; co-founder of the Reform Party of Syria Farid Ghadry; Muslim Brotherhood expert Kyle Shideler; and Founder and President of the Endowment for Middle East Truth, Sarah Stern.

 

Dr. Walid Phares serves as an Advisor to the Anti-Terrorism Caucus in the US House of Representatives and is a Co-Secretary General of the Transatlantic Legislative Group on Counter Terrorism, a Euro-American Caucus, since 2009. Dr Phares briefs and testify to the US Congress, the European Parliament and the United Nations Security Council on matters related to international security and Middle East conflict.  He has served on the Advisory Board of the Task Force on Future Terrorism of the Department of Homeland Security and the Advisory Task force on Nuclear Terrorism. Dr Phares teaches Global Strategies at the National Defense University. He has published several books in English, Arabic and French including the latest three post-9/11 volumes: Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against the West; The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy and The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad.

Farid Ghadry is a native Syrian and elected leader of the Reform Party of Syria, and has dedicated his life to reforms in the Arab world.  At the age of 17, Mr. Ghadry was arrested by the Syrian intelligence in Zabadani, outside Damascus and imprisoned for civil disobedience. To this day, he is still pursued by the Syrian intelligence from this incident in 1971. Mr. Ghadry has testified in the US Congress on extremism and freedom. He also spoke at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Johns Hopkins University (SAIS), Harvard University, University of Virginia, the European Parliament, the French Parliament, and the Belgian Senate. Dr. Ghadry has also been invited by the Israeli Knesset to address the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, making him the first Syrian dissident to speak at the Knesset (Assad revoked his Syrian citizenship in 2007 as a result of that visit). He is a member of the Committee on the Present Danger (www.fightingterror.org). Mr. Ghadry has written articles and essays on Syria and the politics in the Levant.

Kyle Shideler is the Director of the Threat Information Office (TIO) at the Center for Security Policy. Kyle has previously served as the Director of Research and Communications for the Endowment for Middle East Truth, as well as a Senior Researcher, and Public Information Officer for several organizations in the field of Middle East and terrorism policy since 2006. He is a contributing author to “Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamic Terrorist Network: America and the West’s Fatal Embrace,” and has written for numerous publications as well as briefed legislative aides, intelligence and law enforcement officials and the general public on national security issues.

Sarah Stern is Founder and President of the Endowment for Middle East Truth, (EMET). EMET educates members of Congress and their staffers through monthly seminars about the Middle East. Sarah has more than 30 years of experience on Capitol Hill, and has helped to draft and pass many pieces of legislation, speeches and congressional resolution including the Koby Mandell Act, which resulted in the opening of an office in the Department of Justice entitled the Office for Justice of Victims of Overseas Terrorism which is supposed to be an advocacy group within the Department of Justice for Americans who have been killed and wounded abroad; the Syria Accountability Act; and a Resolution in support of Israel’s right to build a security fence and defend her citizens the way they deem appropriate. Her work has appeared in The New Republic, The Middle East Quarterly, Israel Today, Frontpagemag.com, Breitbart, InFocus, The American Thinker, The Jerusalem Post and the Washington Jewish Week. She has appeared on television and radio, and has spoken throughout the country, in Israel and on Al Hurrah which is carried throughout the Middle East, on topics including the Middle East, terrorism, Post Zionism, Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and related issues. Sarah is also the author of “Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamic Terrorist Network: America and the West’s Fatal Embrace,” (Palgrave Macmillan).