Blue Collar Muse

UPDATED and PROMOTED to TOP: Good News! Steve Coughlin will be reinstated and may get a promotion of sorts out of the deal. 1389 Blog reports on an Atlas post about an Andrew Bostom piece on the matter.

1389 blog alerted me to an article which needs to be read by everyone.

It outlines the story of a man named Hesham Islam, currently serving as a senior advisor and confidant of Gordon England, the man in Paul Wolfowitz’s old post, the #2 position at the Defense Department, Deputy Secretary. England describes Islam as

“my personal close confidante,” “my interlocutor,” a man who “represents me to the international community,” and “assists me in my own outreach efforts.” Photos taken on the Washington’s diplomatic reception circuit show England and Islam side-by-side, chatting up contacts. Last October, England described Islam to a Pentagon in-house reporter as a man with “wonderful friendships and relationships” which allow Islam to “give me extraordinarily good advice in dealing with countries and people.” England added, “I take his advice, and I listen to him all the time.”

All that would be fine and well if Islam’s story checks out and if he could be demonstrated to be on the side of the United States in its current struggle with Islamo-fascism. However, the article at NRO by Claudia Rossett outlines some very disturbing facts about Hesham Islam. After Stephen Coughlin, the Pentagon’s “top expert on Islamist doctrine” called attention to potential problems with Hesham Islam, it is alleged that Coughlin earned Islam’s ire. Not only is Islam possibly working to cashier Coughlin, Islam’s credentials for such a post are unraveling under mild scrutiny.

Many of the details of his bio posted at the DoD website are either incorrect or unverifiable. Since 1980 we have the details of his life here in the US. It is his life before arriving here that are cloudy but by Islam’s admission include time spent in Egypt and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. But nothing can be nailed down, The qualifications of Hesham Islam for his current post are restricted to his life from 1985 to 2005 and these are as follows:

In 1980, according to the profile, Islam immigrated to the U.S. to get married, being suddenly love-smitten after receiving a photo of an American pen pal with whom he had been corresponding sight-unseen for more than three years. For the next five years he worked in what the spokesman describes as the “food services” industry. In 1985 he joined the Navy as an electronics technician in the submarine service. According to his Pentagon biography, he went on to serve on a number of ships, in largely technical and operational posts, before hooking up with Gordon England and finally arriving at his current job in the Pentagon.

So, what qualifies Islam to serve as an adviser to whom Gordon England listens all the time, and whose advice England takes? According to Kevin Wensing, England’s public-affairs aide: “Mr. Islam brings 20 years of experience in the U.S. Navy and international relations to his current assignment.”

This includes an M.A. in national-security affairs, awarded in 1992 at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. For this degree, Islam wrote a 139-page thesis about the Middle East, entitled “Roots of Regional Ambition.” In it, he devoted dozens of pages to lambasting Israel, and the influence of American Jews on U.S. politics. He deplored “Israeli activities which have detrimentally affected U.S. objectives but which have continued with impunity.” He argued that U.S. support for Israel “has negatively affected the attainment of U.S. objectives in the Middle East.” He blamed the influence of American Jews on U.S. policy for a host of ills, ranging from Arab “retaliation” against Americans, to jobs lost overseas, to hampering sales of “defensive arms to friendly Arab states.”

It is entirely possible that Hesham Islam is exactly who he says he is and that there is nothing ulterior going on. It seems, however, that there needs to be some more investigation of the man holding the spot of senior advisor and close confidant to the #2 man at the Defense Department.

Remembering that the oath people take when joining up includes something about domestic enemies …

Blue

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Blogroll, Censorship, Muslim, Politics, US Military, War on Terror. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.