The War We Are Afraid To Fight

... the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution late last year condemning the defamation of religions – but the only religion mentioned in the resolution was Islam ...

We are fighting a two-front war against the Islamists. The violence-prone jihadists, who consider the West the “far enemy” that must be destroyed in order to save the Islamic Ummah, are using all the technological tools they can muster to kill us en masse. This would include nuclear weapons as soon as they get their hands on them, which makes the fragile situation in Pakistan today so dangerous. The Cold War deterrence strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction does not work with an ideology that exalts death over life.

We are also facing a subversive war of ideas in which more moderate-seeming Islamists exploit the vocabulary of Western values in order to undermine those values slowly but surely from within.

We must fight back on both fronts by staying on offense and by using our technological superiority to render their source of wealth for funding terrorism and their propaganda obsolete. The development of alternative fuels to completely end our sole reliance on Middle Eastern oil should be an urgent priority for our next president immediately upon taking office.

We must also find better ways to expose the moral bankruptcy and ultimate futility of Islamic ideology to the masses drinking the Kool-Aid served to them by the Islamist extremists. Since there is no viable movement of true Muslim moderates willing to stand up for reconciling Islam and democracy, we have to stop pretending that Islam as it is practiced in its predominant form today is a moderate, peaceful religion. It is not.

Unless responsible leaders of a Muslim reformation come forward and lead a counter-charge against the extremists, we must completely destroy the radical Islamic infrastructure that forms the basis for indoctrination and intimidation.

Finally, we cannot compromise on our own core beliefs such as separation of church (or mosque) and state, equality, and freedom of expression. This means no appeasement of Islamic “sensibilities” in the name of multiculturalism. It means rejecting insidious ideas such as legislating against “defamation” of religions. It means refusing to subsidize the UN’s embrace of the radical Islamists’ agenda in whatever forum it appears.

As long as Islamists do not respect other peoples’ beliefs, we should not demean ourselves by coddling theirs to our own detriment.

Political Correctness at the Joint Chiefs of Staff

The Implications of the Dismissal of Stephen Coughlin, Joint Staff, Pentagon

Why We Will Never Win the G.W.O.T. with Leaders Like This!

Stephen Coughlin Update.

Here is an excellent summary piece on Coughlin's firing, its implications, and what must be done next.

Objective: The objective of this paper is to clarify the incidents surrounding the firing of Mr. Coughlin, and enumerate the implications of this event to U.S. National Security and the GWOT (Global War on Terror).

Background: Mr. Stephen Coughlin works as a contractor on the Joint Staff, J-2 (Intelligence) for the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. The Joint Staff specifically requested him because of his knowledge of Islamic Doctrine as it applies to “Jihad” and the Strategic objectives of our enemy. He is, by many accounts, the leading expert on Islamic Doctrinal drivers of Jihad within the U.S. Government, and likely, in the United States. His thesis, “To Our Great Detriment: Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad,” was recently accepted by the National Defense Intelligence College, and deals specifically with Islamic Doctrine dealing with doctrinal drivers of jihad, and the failure of the United States leadership to learn and understand this doctrine. He has a background in Law and international business. Mr. Coughlin is also a Major in the U.S. Army Reserves, and was activated after 9/11 to serve as a Strategic Targeting Officer for the U.S. forces. He has taught, lectured, and briefed senior members of DoD, members of Congress, senior U.S. Government officials, and many law enforcement and intelligence officers in the United States. He is a regular briefer at the Information/Operations course at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the Joint Forces Staff College. He has briefed at the Navy War College and the Marine Corps War College, and recently briefed the General Officers of I MEF, United States Marine Corps.

Event: Via a campaign undertaken by Hesham Islam, the senior advisor for International Affairs to Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, on Thursday, January 3, 2008 Mr. Coughlin was told by his employers that his contract would not be renewed due to the fact his message, and therefore he himself, had become too “politically hot.” In a meeting between Mr. Coughlin and a member of Mr. England’s staff, at which Hesham Islam unexpectedly attended, Mr. Islam asked Mr. Coughlin to “soften his message” regarding Islamic Doctrine. Mr. Coughlin refused. Islam was heard referring to Coughlin as a “Christian zealot with a poison pen.” Despite the fact that no one in his chain of command has disputed the veracity, accuracy, and balance for his thesis, lectures, or briefings, Coughlin’s employment is being terminated for speaking the truth to the Department of Defense.

Analysis: This event on its own reveals that a senior U.S. advisor is being removed from his direct and critical role in the current war in which we are engaged solely because his message was defined as “extreme” by an advisor who caters to Islamist organizations in the U.S., not because it was factually incorrect. This alone seems significantly problematic given the current war in which we are engaged. Additionally, some of the details suggest Mr. Coughlin’s civil rights, to include his First and Forth Amendment rights, as well as federal law, may have been violated, which suggests an inquiry is required. The effort to silence Mr. Coughlin came from a senior advisor to a senior U.S. official under official cover – a violation of law. Most disturbing is that Mr. Islam is associated with groups and organizations which have been designated as Muslim Brotherhood organizations within the United States. If this is in fact true, the implications are devastating.

Implications: If it is determined that Mr. Islam (whose clearances to be handling such high level issues are unsubstantiated) was acting directly or indirectly on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood or any other non-state sponsor or nation, it would indicate a direct effort to thwart the U.S. effort in fighting the war in which we are engaged by an outside entity. This is, therefore, a penetration of our government at the most senior levels. In this case we are obligated to undertake actions to determine, who is Mr. Islam, why was he hired, what are his true intentions, and are there others in our government at this level who have penetrated other U.S. government agencies.

Actions: It is recommended that the following actions be taken immediately:

1) It is imperative that an investigation be open to determine the facts of this matter. If the investigation determines the facts of the matter to be true, provide the extent of the penetration within DoD, an assessment of the damage, potential violations of federal law, and recommended changes to Department policy and procedures to prevent a recurrence.

2) Conduct closed Congressional Hearings to provide oversight of Federal Departments and Agencies, specifically DoD, DNI, FBI, CIA and DHS to determine if there has been (1) a significant penetration of US Government Departments and/or Agencies by non-state actors hostile to the United States, and (2) the ability and structure of the U.S. counterintelligence efforts to identify and prevent penetration by subversive movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

Supporting Terrorism Within Our Borders - The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — A federal appeals court overturned a $156 million award Friday against U.S.-based Muslim activists for their involvement in the terrorist death of an American teenager in the West Bank more than a decade ago.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the judge in the case had failed to require the parents of 17-year-old David Boim to properly show a link between the boy's death and the fundraising activities of the charities.

Because of that error, it sent the case back for a possible new trial.

Nathan Lewin, an attorney for the parents, Stanley and Joyce Boim, said an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is possible.

"This court of appeals decision is wrong, very wrong," Lewin said. "It amounts to encouragement of financial contributions to terrorist organizations."

The Boims had sued the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development; the American Muslim Society, also known as the Islamic Association for Palestine; the Quranic Literacy Institute of suburban Oak Lawn; and an alleged Hamas fundraiser, Muhammed Salah.

Their son, a yeshiva student, was gunned down in 1996 while waiting with other students at a
bus stop in Beit El, on the West Bank.

All the defendants denied financing terrorism.

The 'Spiral' Continues - Not By Bread Alone "T"!

Ivory-tower decay - America’s colleges and universities have become, and have been for some decades, the most closed-minded and intellectually dishonest institutions in our society

Michael Barone

I am old enough to remember when America’s colleges and universities seemed to be the most open-minded and intellectually rigorous institutions in our society. Today, something very much like the opposite is true: America’s colleges and universities have become, and have been for some decades, the most closed-minded and intellectually dishonest institutions in our society.

Colleges and universities today almost universally have speech codes, which prohibit speech deemed hurtful by others, particularly those who are deemed to be minorities (including women, who are a majority on most campuses these days).

They are enforced unequally, so that no one gets punished when students take copies of conservative alternative campus newspapers left for free distribution and dump them in the trash. But should a conservative student call some female students “water buffaloes,” he is sentenced to take sensitivity training — the campus version of communist reeducation camps. The message comes through loud and clear. Some kinds of speech are protected, while others are punished.

Where did speech codes come from? There certainly weren’t many when I was in college or law school. So far as I can tell, they originated after college and university administrators began using racial quotas and preferences to admit students — starting with blacks, now including Hispanics and perhaps others — who did not meet ordinary standards. They were instituted, it seems, to prevent those students from feeling insulted and to free administrators from criticism for preferential treatment — treatment that arguably violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (although Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the swing vote in the 2003 Supreme Court case on the subject, said they could continue another 25 years).

Racial quotas and preferences continue to be employed, as a recent article on UCLA makes clear, in spite of state laws forbidding them, and university administrators seem to derive much of their psychic income from their supposed generosity in employing them. This, even though evidence compiled by UCLA Professor Richard Sander suggests they produce worse educational outcomes for their intended beneficiaries and even though Justice Clarence Thomas makes a persuasive case in his book My Grandfather’s Son that they cast a stigma of inferiority on them.

Of course, college and university administrators insist they aren’t actually using quotas when in fact they are, as O’Connor’s decisive opinion in 2003 invited them to do. The result is that one indispensable requirement for being a college or university administrator is intellectual dishonesty. You have to be willing to lie about what you consider one of your most important duties. So much for open inquiry and intellectual rigor.