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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
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Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review January 23, 2008 / 16 Shevat 5768

FRONT-GATE

By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It is now a well-established tradition in Washington that any scandal, no matter how seemingly innocuous, soon is given the suffix "-gate," establishing a lineal connection to the mother of all scandals, Watergate.


Well, let me be the first to suggest that a recent scandal in the Pentagon be known hereafter as "Front-gate" in recognition of the central role played in the drama by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an organization designated by the Justice Department as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan). With the House and Senate both back in business this week, Front-gate should be subjected to close congressional scrutiny since it may involve the most strategically ominous case of official misconduct since the Clinton Administration's China-gate.


The Front-gate saga began with the firing last month of Stephen Coughlin, a Major in the Army Reserves who was working as a civilian contractor for the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he ran afoul of one Hashem Islam. Islam is Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England's point-man for the Pentagon outreach to the Muslim community.


Hashem Islam is also evidently an admirer of ISNA. He arranged for Secretary England to address one of the group's meetings last year — a huge help to an organization reeling from its designation by the Bush Department of Justice not only as a Brotherhood front but as an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism-financing conspiracy.



According to reporting by the Washington Times' National Security Correspondent, Bill Gertz, the sacking of Major Coughlin was precipitated by a sharp disagreement with Mr. Islam over ISNA. The former had made a serious study of this and other Islamist organizations as part of a 333-page thesis titled "To Our Great Detriment: Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad" prepared for, and recently accepted by, the National Defense Intelligence College.


Based on his analysis of the Islamofascist roots and agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood, Stephen Coughlin was given to warning his military audiences that it was no "moderate" organization. For example, he notes that one of the Ikhwan's most prominent leaders, Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, has declared: "The abduction and killing of Americans in Iraq is an obligation so as to cause them to leave Iraq immediately."


Coughlin has also studied the evidence submitted by the government in the Holy Land Foundation trial, including this chilling passage from a 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum about its mission: "The Ikwan['s]...work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions."


Mr. Islam reportedly told the Joint Staff's Coughlin to soften his criticism of the Brotherhood's ISNA and, when the latter refused, defamed him as "a Christian zealot with a pen." Some accounts add that it was a "poison" pen. Since Mr. Coughlin is not giving his side of the story to the press, it may require a congressional subpoena to get it properly told.


What is known, however, is that shortly after this exchange, the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not renew Mr. Coughlin's contract, which will expire at the end of March. Mr. Gertz reports that the Chiefs deemed it "too hot" to retain the services of a man widely believed to be the military's most knowledgeable expert on the Islamist ideology of our enemies.


Unfortunately, the sacking of Stephen Coughlin is not only a scandal in its own right. It is a window into a variety of actions that cry out for congressional investigations. These include:

  • The true nature, agenda and sources of funding of Muslim Brotherhood front organizations like the Islamic Society of North America and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Senator Jon Kyl convened a most informative Judiciary Committee hearing on the latter several years ago; it is time for an updated and more comprehensive review of the subject.

  • The judgment, if not the loyalties, of those in government who promote such organizations — especially those officials who insist that Brotherhood fronts be the "go-to" groups for Muslim outreach, to the exclusion of anti-Islamist Muslims.

  • The extent of Islamist penetration of the U.S. government. Such an evaluation should examine, among other things: Muslim military chaplains recruited and credentialed by Abdurahman Alamoudi, a convicted felon now serving 23 years in federal prison for terrorism-associated crimes; Saudi-sponsored travel and indoctrination of armed forces personnel; any Islamist ties to mosques on military bases like the Marine Corps' Quantico facility; and "sensitivity" training for FBI agents by CAIR.

  • The larger, seditious political-religious-legal agenda the Islamists call Shariah and its newest, alarming manifestation: "Shariah Finance" (also doing business around the world as "Islamic banking," "ethical finance" or "structured finance"). To his credit, a freshman representative from Georgia, Republican Paul Broun, last week convened the first Capitol Hill briefing for House members and staff concerning this deeply worrisome Trojan horse in Western capital markets, drawing on research developed by and for the Center for Security Policy.


The needed congressional investigations into Front-gate and related matters should result not only in a full airing of the Coughlin-Islam affair. They should ensure that the military is not denied in time of war the services of so able a student of our enemy, its motivations and doctrine as Major Coughlin. If anything, as part of a comprehensive effort to counter the influence operations and penetration activities of Muslim Brotherhood front organizations, patriots like Steve Coughlin should be entrusted with even greater responsibilities — by Congress, if not the executive branch.


Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. heads the Center for Security Policy. Comments by clicking here.

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