Last week in Washington, there were private and public hearings, and a brilliant C-SPAN presentation this weekend on the 800 pound elephant in the living room, “Political Islam”. Two of these forums, the private Hill forum on the issue of “Judiciary; Defamation of Religions Resolutions at the United Nations” sponsored by the Congressional Task Force for International Religious Freedom (TIRF) and the C-SPAN video presentation at the Hudson Institute originally filmed in late May by Dr. Andrew Bostom, author of “The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism” provides the glints of ‘truth’. Unfortunately, a public hearing by the US Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs is wrapped in the fog of obfuscation on ‘the roots of violent extremism’. Although the later surfaces in one witness testimony, the infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood fronts into our national law enforcement and counter intelligence agencies under the guise of ’sensitivity training’ on Islam and Muslims.

The TIRF briefing featured Canadians David Harris and Ezra Levant. Harris is head of Democracy House in Ottawa, an affiliate of Canadian Council for Democracies. He is also a syndicated columnist for the Ottawa Citizen and a former CSIS intelligence officer. Ezra Levant is the embattled publisher and editor of the Western Standard who courageously published those controversial Danish Cartoons and was promptly attacked by Political Islamists in Canada for violation of ‘racial hate laws in the Dominion. We have posted on Levant’s fight to overcome these charges before a hearing of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Harris, we later heard on Friday afternoon during a Victory Coalition conference call addressing the saga of Muslim law students and the head of the Canadian Islamic Council filing complaints against MacLeans Weekly and columnist and author of “America Alone, Mark Steyn. These actions in Canada would not have been brought here in the US because of First Amendment guarantees of free speech, except for the fact that MB fronts here like CAIR, ISNA, MPAC and others have regularly filed civil complaints in our courts alleging ‘racial and religious profiling’. Those threats of civil actons by CAIR and others that have intimidated both federal and local law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies. This TIRF discussion was in the context of ‘blasphemy and Islamophobia’ resolutions enacted by the UN General Assembly sponsored by the Organization of Islamic Conference and the UN Human Rights Commission in furtherance of Islamic shari’a law.

The second glint was Dr. Andrew Bostom’s presentation at the Hudson Institute, originally taped on May 21st with Hillel Fradkin of the Institute as moderator. The Hudson Institution presentation by Bostom was broadcast on C-SPAN on Sunday.

Bostom’s articulation from his latest book, “The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism” of the historiographic analysis of Islamic Jew hatred from its origins in the cockpit of 7th Century Arabia to the present based on the Canon of Islam, sacral texts, juridical rulings and expert commentary was profound and deep. During the Q+A former Pentagon Joint staff analyst of Islamic law war doctrine, Steve Coughlin and Professor John Lewis of Duke University raised questions about the core ideology of Political Islam and the Japanese US occupation experience post-WWII that reined in “orthodox’ militarist Shintoism further enhanced the presentation and seminal discussion. We saw glimpses of both Nina Shea and Paul Marshall of the Center for Religious Freedom of the Institute in the audience. You may watch the video presentation shown on C-SPAN 2 on this link.

Last Thursday, Senator Lieberman’s Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee held the seventh in a series of hearings on Muslim Extremism in America. This Hearing was on the topic of “The Roots of Violent Islamist Extremism and Efforts to Counter It.” Click here to view archived hearing (Real Player format) A panel was convened that included the following witnesses - see below.

Witnesses Testimony

Panel 1

Maajid Nawaz , Director , Quilliam Foundation

Peter P. Mandaville, Ph.D. , Associate Professor of Government and Politics , George Mason University

Zeyno Baran , Senior Fellow , Hudson Institute

Fathali M. Moghaddam, Ph.D. , Professor, Department of Psychology , Georgetown University

Panel 2

Michael E. Leiter, Director , National Counterterrorism Center

Maajid Nawaz is a former leader in the U.K. of the notorious radical extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) and executive director of the Quillam Foundation. Nawaz, drew the analogy between the doctrine of HT and the Ihkwan (Muslim Brotherhood) and International Communism vis as vis Political Islamism. Nawaz also gave a presentation on “The Way back from Islamism,” at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, look here. Nawaz gave a necessary evisceration of HT but nothing about the Islamic origins that created the extreme views.

I found the testimony of Ms. Zeyno Baran of the Hudson Institute, in the words of Senator Lieberman, to be ’straight talk’, up to a point. She clearly and fearlessly discussed the MB takeover of Muslim advocacy groups here in the US to further the aims of front groups like CAIR, ISNA, MPAC and the MSA. She found dangerous the use of CAIR to provide ’sensitivity training’ to FBI and local police and counter terrorism agencies such as those at the DHS. Professor Peter Mandaville of George Mason U. author of “Global Political Islam” on transnational Islamist networks, who from his witness testimony appears to be an acolyte at the ‘Leaderless Jihad’ paradigm of ex-CIA forensic psychiatrist Dr. Marc Sagerman and Georgetown U. Psychology Professor Fathali M. Moghaddam demurred. Mandaville suggested that on the one hand , ’some MB front leaders’ may be problematic, while the Muslim advocacy organizations may not be. Moghaddam suggested that many of the FBI agents he’s ‘trained’ could distinguish Political Islamists from Muslims. Senators Lieberman and Collins asked Ms. Baran asked alternative Muslim advocacy groups could be created to counter the MB ones, Baran suggested that fostering empowerment of Muslim women in the US might be one means. Given the leadership of the ISNA by Dr. Ingrid Mattson, an avowed Wahhabist, one wonders. Perhaps Baran was referring to secularized or apostate Muslims,both men and women.The low point in this hearing occurred after Sens. Lieberman and Collins had to leave for a Senate vote and it was left to Sen. Voinovich (R-OH) to preside and ask a question about Islam, itself, holding up a copy of John Esposito’s “What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam” and whether this was a useful book for the uninitiated. Professor Moghaddam of Georgetown U., chimed in and said he ‘highly recommended it”. Esposito, perhaps the arch dhimmi in America largely funded by Wahhabi Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin-Talal Christian Muslim Understanding Center at Georgetown doubtless must have rung up his publicist to grab the video clip and send it to the book sellers. I may suggest that the Committee needs to hear from a panel consisting of Spencer, Bostom, Coughlin, Phares, Tawfik, Warner, Warriq, and Bat Ye’or to gain a real perspective on the underpinnings of the Canon of islam that fostered the return to normative Islam of the 7th Century through the ideology of the Ihkwan, HT and the Salafists in Sunni Islam. Until that epiphany occurs, both the Committee and most Americans will remain in the dark. Curious though, as our founding fathers,Presidents John Adams and son Quncy, and Jefferson had a firm grasp of Political Islam from their bruising encounter with Tripolitarian ‘diplomats’ in London in 1786 and later in combat with Beys in the Barbary “states” in 1805 over two hundred years ago. A point that both Bostom made during the Hudson Institute and figures prominently in Brad Thor’s latest best selling thriller, “The Last Patriot”, about an Islamic ‘da Vinci code’ scenario and Jihadis who want to destroy it. It is no wonder that Thor, hopefully his nom de guerre, may have received alleged death fatwas. Having read this page turner, with fictional characters dramatically close to real life public figures, hopefully it will educate millions of Americans about the real and present danger of Political Islam.

As I said, some glints among the impenetrable fog of Political Islam, but the politicians are beguiled by the psycho babble and the patent taqiyyah of ‘reformed’ Muslim extremists, alleged psychologists and political analysts. They should follow the prescient advices of President John Quincy Adams who wrote the following observation based on years of diplomatic experience in The Middle east in the 19th Century:

“As the essential principle of his [Muhammad’s] faith is the subjugation of others by the sword; it is only by force, that his false doctrines can be dispelled, and his power annihilated.”