Worldnetdaily.com reports:
In a stunning turn of events, a high-level Muslim military aide blamed for costing an intelligence contractor his job will step down from his own Pentagon post, WND has learned.
Meanwhile, his rival, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, a leading authority on Islamic war doctrine, may stay in the Pentagon, moving from the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the office of the secretary of defense. However, sources say a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey is trying to block his new contract.
The "high-level Muslim military aide," of course, is Hesham Islam. I heard something similar over the weekend--namely, that HI would "step down" in such a way as to avoid linkage between his departure and his efforts to silence Stephen Coughlin's legal teachings that highlight the failure of the Pentagon to assess, acknowledge or even examine the links between Islamic law and the so-called war on terror. Sounds as if a sweeping-under-the-rug action may be underway, which is not good.
But (bad) news to me is the emergence of yet another obstacle to the U.S. military making a frank appraisal of Islamic law in its strategic deliberations. That obstacle is reported to be former U.S. ambassador to Turkey Eric S. Edelman.
In other words, assuming HI--whom one FBI agent quoted in the WND story labels a "Muslim brother" (as in Muslim Brotherhood)--is out of the way (still not clear), it now seems the truth about jihad is threatened by a Bush administration surge-till-they-merge enthusiast whose idea of strategy is supporting "moderate Muslims" in rejecting "violent extremism."
Oh, brother. It's called "jihadism," and it plays an institutional role in Islam, which makes it difficult for Muslims, "moderate" or otherwise, to out-and-out reject it. If Edleman understood that the "extremism" he opaquely refers to has its taproot in mainstream Islam--the lesson taught by studying jihad doctrine--I think that he, along with his administration compadres, would experience a worldview meltdown.
No wonder he wants Coughlin and his unsettling Islamic law brief out of the Pentagon.
To be continued.