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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Who is teaching Chertoff and the DHS about jihad?

May 4, 2008 6:33 am By Robert Spencer

Here is a passage from the DHS memo “Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims,” which rules out use of terms like “jihadist” to refer to, well, jihadists. (Background here.)

On May 8, 2007, Secretary Chertoff met with a group of influential Muslim Americans to discuss ways the Department can work with their communities to protect the country, promote civic engagement, and prevent violent radicalization from taking root in the United States. Part of the discussion involved the terminology U.S. Government (USG) officials use to describe terrorists who invoke Islamic theology in planning, carrying out, and justifying their attacks.

While there was a broad consensus that the terminology the USG uses impacts both national security and the ability to win hearts and minds. this discussion did not yield any specific recommendations. Secretary Chertoff requested that these leaders continue to reflect on the words and terms that, in their opinion, DHS and the broader USG should use. Based on this request, CRCL [the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties] has consulted with some of the leading U.S.-based scholars and commentators on Islam to discuss the best terminology to use when describing the terrorist threat.

Those “leading U.S.-based scholars” are not named, but the blogger zTruth has found out whom Chertoff met with on May 8, 2007 to start the whole process. The meeting was written up in the San Francisco Chronicle by Matthai Chakko Kuruvila on June 5, 2007, in an article entitled “Security agency enlisting Muslims to rebut radicals,” which you can now read also on AltMuslim.com. In fact, the editor of AltMuslim.com, Shahed Amanullah. The others who met with Chertoff on May 8, 2007 were the Islamic scholar Akbar Ahmed of American University; M.J. Khan, a Houston city councilman; and Reza Aslan, author of the popular book No God but God. Says the Chronicle:

The four leaders Chertoff called on — a former ambassador from Pakistan, a Santa Monica author who grew up in San Jose, a Houston city councilman and an Austin, Texas, blogger — suggest increasing youth services, working with bloggers to fight extremist ideology on the Web and even changing the terminology the government uses to describe terrorists.

The blogger zTruth has some good information on Amanullah, Ahmed, and Aslan: Amanullah praising Edward Said, whose influential book Orientalism stigmatized as racist and imperialist virtually any critical examination by a Westerner of the Islamic world; Ahmed claiming fantastically that “Bush’s aides have offered a fatally flawed stereotype of Islam as monolithic and violent”; and Reza Aslan, in debate Sam Harris, obfuscating and misleading the audience about Islamic jihad.

Here is some more:

1. AltMuslim.com criticizing the documentary Islam: What the West Needs to Know by heaping contempt on it, without raising a single substantive point against it.

2. AltMuslim.com claiming in my Blogging the Qur’an series that I was misinterpreting the Qur’an, and dismissing my evidence (from Islamic sources) that I wasn’t with an ad hominem attack.

Those two manifest a disheartening unwillingness to engage critics substantively, and don’t speak well of AltMuslim’s commitment to any genuine “dialogue,” if such a thing even exists.

3. Akbar Ahmed on C-Span, denying, dodging, and obfuscating about the elements of Islam that give rise to violence.

[…]

5. Reza Aslan also presents a shallow and distorted picture of Islamic doctrine and history.

Has the DHS been sold a bill of goods? Of course it has. It has listened to men who devote their time to denying or minimizing the existence of the elements of Islam that jihadists use today to justify violence and supremacism. Instead of calling for sober, realistic study of those elements, so as to devise the most effective ways to counter them, these men have sold Chertoff and the DHS on the idea that if we just ignore these aspects of Islam, somehow they will go away. And they’ll certainly go away from Washington. The only people discussing them will be the jihadists themselves, as they continue to make recruits among peaceful Muslims, while DHS, locked into a PC fantasy world, refuses to notice.

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