UPDATE: There is more reaction to this story. A commenter below suggests that Coughlan does not speak Arabic. I wonder how he knows ? This piece by Claudia Rosett on the story suggests it is Islam who is lacking credentials. I’m sure we’ll hear more as time goes by and the troops on each side rally to their standard. Mine is our national safety. I don’t know what Islam’s is. Or his accolyte defending him in the comments. By the way, I am a veteran.
There have been a number of books about the trend toward accommodation with militant Islam in Europe. Melanie Phillips’ Londonstan is one of them. Another is Eurabia. Mark Steyn addressed this concern in America Alone. What none of these authors seem to have addressed is the fact that we have our own little beachhead of militant Islam right in the Pentagon.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England seems to be conducting a new and little understood foreign policy all by himself. I don’t see anything in his biography to suggest that he is unduly influenced by Muslim pressure. His career in the defense industry has certainly exposed him to the various midde eastern potentates. My brother-in-law spent quite a bit of time in Saudi Arabia (Where, among other experences he once shared a sauna with Idi Amin), but that experience left him with little love for the Muslim fanatics. He had dropped some bombs on them earlier as a Marine pilot in the Gulf War. No, there must be other reasons why England is siding with potential enemies of his country.
Hasham Islam seems to be the key figure in England’s office. Not everyone is happy wth that. Who is Islam ? He has been advocating outreach to American Muslim groups. The trouble is that some of the groups he wants to engage, have been busy with other concerns. Is this really the role of the Defense Department ? Are these people the ones we should be reaching out to ?
Also, does the firing of an official who is an expert on Islamic law because he is a Christian sound right ?
There are plenty of people upset, but what do you do about it ? Banging your head on the desk won’t do it. I thought we had a Republican president who was fighting a war on terrorsm. Who knew his advice was coming from folks like these?
Tags: department of defense, Gordon England, Hasham Islam, Holy Land Foundation., terrorism
Islam is a retired U.S. Navy Commander with 20 years’ service. Are you?
You assume Coughlin knows something because you’ve been told. But unless he reads Arabic, he knows almost nothing about Islamic law, because very few texts have been translated.
The wiki on Enlgand…”England was a controversial choice for Secretary of the Navy due to his lack of any military service experience and his long career in the defense industry including his most recent appointment as Executive Vice President of General Dynamics Corporation. Critics such as William D. Hartung, Head of the Arms Trade Resource Center, felt that it was inappropriate to appoint businessmen whose companies would be the prime benefactor of any increase in defense spending. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld however had decided to make corporate experience one of the key requirements in his appointees as was reported in the Washington Times…”
Corporate people generally shy away from anything resembling controversial. His forte is with efficiency and weapons planning. And corporate people have had PC drilled into them for a least the last decade via their legal departments contending with innumerable lawsuits. This action regarding Coughlin could be viewed in a similar light as an out of court settlement, in that, any facts of the case are sealed and unavailable to the public.
England, therefore, would logically love to have this all disappear quickly. And that will happen, of course, since how many can remember all the outrages from even a month ago? They just keep coming. It will be…”oh, who was that guy in the Pentagon that got fired awhile back for being a Christian zealot? I can’t recall the details, but it wasn’t right.”
that is, ‘sealed and unavailable’ in a figurative sense…
Whoda thunk it would be the Pentagon showing us the way to submission. Unbelievable.
“I don’t see anything in his biography to suggest that he is unduly influenced by Muslim pressure.”
(allan) “Corporate people generally shy away from anything resembling controversy”
It looks to me like he has been a nice, go along type of guy in his corporate career. But why the need to get along with Islam? Maybe it’s like the women I’ve known who stay with the violent, ex-con type of boyfriend. Besides the emotional juice that comes with such a relationship, there is a sense of safety that one gets when they are “behind the gun”, or with the strong clan, ’cause the violence then is meted out to others, not you.
Of course it doesn’t work this way, but that is the emotion.
metrico, Coughlan is a major on active duty. Last time I checked, that was the same rank and presumably, Coughlan will rise higher in 20 years. Unless Islam began as an enlisted man, LT Commander in 20 years is not much of a career.