Buried in Dana Priest and William Arkin's latest article on the American national security state is the disturbing revelation that the government hires conservative ideologues committed to the idea that a majority of American Muslims are radicals seeking to subvert the U.S. government to speak to law enforcement agencies. These are people who are doctrinally committed to the idea that Islam and Muslims constitute an existential threat to the United States.
Like Montijo, Walid Shoebat, a onetime Muslim who converted to Christianity, also lectures to local police. He too believes that most Muslims seek to impose sharia law in the United States. To prevent this, he said in an interview, he warns officers that "you need to look at the entire pool of Muslims in a community."
When Shoebat spoke to the first annual South Dakota Fusion Center Conference in Sioux Falls this June, he told them to monitor Muslim student groups and local mosques and, if possible, tap their phones. "You can find out a lot of information that way," he said.
This would be the same Walid Shoebat who believes that President Barack Obama is part of the same "stealth jihad" conspiracy, once telling a gathering of conservatives that "The enemy has his Trojan horse in the White House." Other "experts" include Retired Army Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, who has said "there is no greater threat to America than Islam." Not terrorism, not extremism, Islam.
These "experts" have ties to Frank Gaffney's Center for Security policy, which just last year presented a report on domestic radicalization to Reps. Pete Hoekstra and Michelle Bachmann, citing the "expertise" of David Yerushalmi, a man who wanted to make it a felony to " knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the, adherence to Islam." Bachmann and Hoekstra will be serving on the intelligence committee in the next Congress. Gaffney of course, is known for parsing the logo of the Missile Defense Agency for evidence of "submission to Shariah." He's also a birther who has suggested Obama wasn't born in the United States. These are not "experts," and the objective here is ideological: Mainstreaming their view that the U.S. is in a clash of civilizations with Islam.
Arkin and Priest quote a DHS official saying that they're developing guidelines that will make sure that law enforcement agencies are soliciting the services of actual experts. But it's shocking enough that these people have been able to pass off their Islamophobic hysteria as expertise up till now. Paranoid conspiracy theorists have no business training law enforcement. You might as well have Pat Buchanan teach community policing in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
