THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 41, February 14, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
CODDLING ISLAMISTS
By Winfield Myers
AIDING & ABETTING ENEMIES OF THE U.S.A. DURING TIME OF WAR: THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENTS OF STATE
& DEFENSE EMPLOYING ADHERENTS OF ISLAMIST IDEOLOGY, BILLING THEM AS SPECIALISTS IN MIDDLE EAST STUDIES, &
ENTRUSTING THEM WITH HUGE SUMS OF MONEY TO BRING SAUDIS AND EGYPTIANS TO AMERICA TO DISSEMINATE
ISLAMIST PROPAGANDA -- TWO U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ENTRUSTED WITH PROTECTING AMERICA FROM ISLAMISTS
ARE, IN FACT, HIRING & EMPOWERING THEM
FULL STORY:
The U.S. Department of State has awarded a grant worth $494,368 to University of Delaware Political Scientist, Brookings
Institution Fellow, and Pentagon consultant Muqtedar Khan, who, last Fall, objected to serving on a panel with a veteran
of the Israeli Defense Forces. According to a University of Delaware press release, the grant is to be used, "to initiate a
dialogue on religion and politics between key members of religious and community organizations in the Middle East and
the United States."
The press release continued:
"Under the grant, participants from Egypt and Saudi Arabia
will be on campus this Summer for a brief period before
traveling to other locations, including New York City,
Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Later a group
of American scholars will travel to Egypt and Saudi Arabia
to take part in similar activities in those countries. A
documentary film is planned of the visit to the U.S."
The choice of Khan to oversee a program dedicated to expanding dialogue between religious communities is beyond parody,
as Khan himself has a record of thwarting dialogue, at least with Israeli veterans. Moreover, his award is part of a larger
pattern of coddling Islamists within the bureaucracies of the State Department and Pentagon.
Last October 23, Khan objected to the presence of IDF veteran and Campus Watch Associate Fellow Asaf Romirowsky on
an academic panel at the University of Delaware. Organized by students to discuss "Anti-Americanism in the Middle East,"
the panel was set to go
when Khan — writing from Washington, DC, where he had delivered a workshop at the Pentagon — sent the following email
to undergraduate Lara Rausch, one of the key organizers of the event:
"Laura, I have to speak at the Pentagon tomorrow. My
workshop is from 12-4. I hope to catch the 5 pm Acela from
DC and will be back in town by 7 pm. I will come directly,
but may be late. I am also not sure how I feel about being
on the same panel with an Israeli soldier who was stationed
in West Bank. Some people see IDF as an occupying force
in the West Bank. I am not sure that I will be comfortable
occupying the same space with him. It is not fair to spring
this surprise on me at the last moment."
Romirowsky, contacted via email, was asked what he thought of the State Department's action of singling out Khan for a
substantial award to encourage dialogue, was taken aback. Romirowsky replied:
"I seriously question the type of dialogue this will promote,
given the fact that he wouldn't share space with me on an
academic panel."
"Dialogue is good, if you have something to dialogue about
— starting with accepting the others' right to exist. Yet, by
not sitting on a panel with me, due to my IDF service, he
basically questioned Israel's right to exist within safe and
secure borders."
"That itself should throw into question the integrity of any
dialogue he might initiate."
In the two months following the story's October debut, Khan offered no fewer than three additional explanations for why
he acted as he did. I documented these in December, 2007, and concluded that the reasons he gave in the October 23 email
above rang truest: IDF vets are off-limits on panels in which he participates. The other excuses were little more than a
smokescreen, set off in a vain attempt to reduce the embarrassment his intolerance had brought to himself and the
University of Delaware.
Khan's large grant from the State Department, coupled with his role as a Pentagon advisor, further exposes a troubling
trend within those federal departments of coddling Islamists and turning a blind eye toward intolerance. Hesham Islam,
Special Assistant for International Affairs in the Office of Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, has made news
lately for allegedly calling Joint Chief Analyst on Counterterrorism Major Stephen Coughlin, who also reported to England,
a "Christian zealot with a pen" and pressing for his removal.
Coughlin is widely celebrated as one of a small number of Pentagon analysts who are consistently tough on Islamism — a
stance that has made enemies within the Defense bureaucracy. His thesis from the National Defense Intelligence College,
titled "To Our Great Detriment": Ignoring What Extremists Say about Jihad, is celebrated by terrorism experts as a
clear-sighted warning that too few in Washington care to heed.
Although the Pentagon took Hesham Islam's biography off its web site, stories of his fate, along with that of Coughlin, are
mixed. U.S. Representative Sue Myrick (R-NC), who investigated the matter, wrote on February 5, that Coughlin told her
there was never a conspiracy to remove him from his job. Some reports claim that Islam himself is on his way out, but
Claudia Rosette, who investigated the matter closely, says on her blog that a call to the Pentagon produced a denial of that
story. Steven Emerson has detailed Islam's past relationships with Islamists.
One thing, however, is certain: by entrusting Middle East studies specialists such as Muqtedar Khan with huge grants to
bring Saudis and Egyptians to America, the State Department and Pentagon are remaining true to form. From former
Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes's stated fondness for the works of Wahhabi apologist John
Esposito — a man who shares Hesham Islam's predilection for Christian-bashing — to Khan's previous work for the
Pentagon, our federal departments entrusted with protecting America from Islamists are in fact employing them.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
The Fifth Column -- America's Internal Enemies:
Disloyalty, Subversion, Sedition, & Treason
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Winfield Myers is Director of Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.
The foregoing article by Winfield Myers was originally published in Front Page Magazine, February 14, 2008, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/1853 )
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
February 14, 2008
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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