Islamist sources to media & government

The credibility of Jihadist sources came into popular doubt recently with Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad's televised denial at NY's Columbia University of the existence of homosexual people in Iran. This should have put the Islamist-revisionist history of the Israel-Palestine conflict into the same category of the Islamist world's Holocaust denial campaign.

But this week, Hamas created a false humanitarian crisis for the global media which it blamed on Israel and painted itself as the victim. And in Washington it was revealed that the firing of an counter-Islamist educator, Major Stephen Coughlin, at the behest of the Arab-Muslim, Defense Department advisor, Mr. Hesham Islam, exposed the extent to which both this Administration employs commercial oil and military industry-bred executives in policy roles, as well as the pro-Islamist/anti-Israel nature of their advisors on Islamic-related matters.

Claudia Rosett of the Center for the Defense of Democracies exposes (in National Review Online) an example of journalist Paul Sperry's allegations in his 2005 book, Infiltration, of the extent to which Washington is trusting the untrustworthy.

..."According to his Pentagon biography, (Egyptian-born and Iraqi-educated) Hesham Islam went on to serve on a number of (US Navy) ships, in largely technical and operational posts, before hooking up with Gordon England and finally arriving at his current job in the Pentagon. So, what qualifies Islam to serve as an adviser to whom Gordon England listens all the time, and whose advice England takes? According to Kevin Wensing, England’s pubic-affairs aide: “Mr. Islam brings 20 years of experience in the U.S. Navy and international relations to his current assignment.”

This includes an M.A. in national-security affairs, awarded in 1992 at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. For this degree, Islam wrote a 139-page thesis about the Middle East, entitled “Roots of Regional Ambition.” In it, he devoted dozens of pages to lambasting Israel, and the influence of American Jews on U.S. politics. He deplored “Israeli activities which have detrimentally affected U.S. objectives but which have continued with impunity.” He argued that U.S. support for Israel “has negatively affected the attainment of U.S. objectives in the Middle East.” He blamed the influence of American Jews on U.S. policy for a host of ills, ranging from Arab “retaliation” against Americans, to jobs lost overseas, to hampering sales of “defensive arms to friendly Arab states.”

Whether Gordon England (or Defense Secretary Robert Gates, for that matter) considers such views a relevant qualification for Islam’s current duties is unclear. But what’s emerging at the Pentagon is a landscape in which Stephen Coughlin’s insistence on crafting doctrine based not on politically correct assumptions, but on facts, is apparently deemed a bridge too far. Meanwhile, from the office of Deputy Secretary England, Hesham Islam continues his bridge building. The question isn’t just whom to believe, but who’s running this show?"

An interesting primer explaining Islamic culturally-sanctioned deception is posted on Jihad Watch.

Jeffrey Breinholt has an excellent primer on the Coughlin Affair in "Coughlin for Beginners" published in the Counterterrorism Blog.