I recently attended a private briefing by a former FBI counter-terrorism agent who retired early after being marginalized on the job because his concerns about radical Islam were deemed politically incorrect. We'll call him Don Doe. He now works for an outside group, advising leaders at the federal level and seeking to alert local law enforcement about domestic subversion. Doe's partner is a former expert on such issues for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was also fired from his position for being too insensitive. He had run afoul of a key DOD aide, Hasham Islam, who accused him of being a Christian zealot or "extremist with a pen," according to defense officials.
Doe's presentation to my group was based on years of intelligence work as well as strategic documents which they obtained during an FBI raid from a hidden sub-basement in the Washington-area home of a Muslim leader -- many excerpts of which he showed us. The latter became official court records in last year's Dallas terrorism trial. Much of Doe's information actually comes from published newspaper and TV stories, though these tend to be ignored by the dominant media and high officials. He argued six main conclusions:
(1) Islam in general is a much bigger threat than commonly accepted.
(2) Through its unchangeable holy book, the Koran, Islam mandates, in unqualified terms, active efforts to convert non-Islamic people or to subjugate them and gain submission to Allah.
(3) Religion and politics are so fundamentally tied together in Islam that Muslims cannot peacefully co-exist with other people under a different legal system.
(4) Consequently there are no "moderate" true Muslims.
(5) There is a very well organized movement in America to install Islam and Sharia law.
(6) The Muslims are winning the propaganda war and have positioned their leaders very well and gained tremendous positions and influence in our popular culture while distorting the public perception of their intent while our leadership grossly underestimates the threats.
Don Doe's major points in support of these conclusions were as follows:
The Koran and the Muslim "religion" is more than a religion, it is a complete way of life and the Koran dictates a legal, political, religious and social system that is completely intertwined. One cannot be a true Muslim without believing in Sharia law, and only Sharia. Separation of church and state is not possible in the Muslim world. Islam has had an essentially political character from its very foundation to the present day. An intimate association between religion and politics, between power and cult, marks a principal distinction between Islam and other religions. In traditional Islam and therefore also in resurgent fundamentalist Islam, God is the sole source of sovereignty. God is the head of the state. The state is God's state. The army is God's army. The treasury is God's treasury, and the enemy, of course, is God's enemy.
The clear, expressed, fundamental goal of Islam is world domination. "Jihad" only means "struggle" in propaganda to the West -- in the Koran, it clearly means "Holy War".
Despite propaganda and popular media and liberal advocacy, there are not many interpretations of the Koran -- it is taken by Muslims as Allah's direct words (like the Ten Commandments given directly by God -- word for word). It is quite clear that killing infidels is encouraged and being devious or deceptive in pursuit of Jihad is holy work. There are translations of the Koran devised for Western consumption that distort true provisions and make it appear much more peaceful. There are inconsistencies in the Koran but there is a clear method of interpretation called "abrogation" which means that the provisions which were set out later in time (as Mohammed made his way from Mecca to Medina) completely overrule prior passages. The peaceful passages all came earlier in time, the later, and controlling provisions, are very hostile. Many people who try to understand the Koran and Islam do not understand the timeline of its creation and the fact that the passages are sequenced by length of writing, not chronologically, so they can't easily decipher the controlling passages and see it as inconsistent and subject to many interpretations. There is one university in Egypt that is the recognized ultimate world wide authority on the Koran and Sharia law and it's interpretations and translations are not questioned by the 85% of the World's Muslims who are Sunni disciples.
Virtually every Muslim organization in the US traces its leadership to the Muslim Brotherhood which is working towards world domination (I know, this sounds like a wild "conspiracy theory" -- but the evidence and facts Doe laid out were compelling).
The Muslims are winning the propaganda war and imposing their standards on the West and we, in our spirit of tolerance, are falling right in line -- from trivial things like foot-baths in public places to allowing Muslims to wear full headdresses in banks and through airport security (in an essential disguise that would not be tolerated if worn by anyone else) to allowing Muslim combat training compounds in the US. The Danish cartoon controversy (over which people died) is another example as is the hysteria that accompanies anyone who defaces the Koran or a picture of Mohammed.
The Saudis contribute over $4 billion per year to Islamic expansion (for both violent terrorism and less violent training, indoctrination and insertion). This is four times what the USSR spent on similar efforts at the height of the Cold War.
These terrorist groups often describe their actions as Islamic jihad. Self-proclaimed sentences of punishment or death issued publicly as threats often come in the form of fatwas (Islamic legal judgments). Both Muslims and non-Muslims have been among the targets and victims, but threats against Muslims are often issued as takfir (a declaration that a person, group or institution that describes itself as Muslim has in fact left Islam and thus is a traitor). This is an implicit death threat as the punishment for apostasy (conversion away from Islam) is swift death under Sharia law.
Federal leadership is reluctant to act against these Islamic organizations due to political correctness concerns and the threats of lawsuits by CAIR and others. Doe said that Muslim groups will demand concessions on matters by saying, "You have to do this; you have to do this or I will be offended." The group CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which protests and sues every chance they get to enforce acceptance of Islamic laws and value (such as colleges forced to have separate swimming times for Islamic men and women so not to offend Muslims), is actually a front for the terror group Hamas.
"They're having great success of implementing Shariah law, I could give you a thousand examples," the former FBI agent said.
He also said to watch what is happening in Great Britain, where Islamic radicalism has taken root. He noted that a member of the Dutch Parliament was recently denied entry into the United Kingdom for fear that it would offend Muslims. "They denied him access while at the same time, Islamic law is being instituted on the streets of Great Britain."
In this country, Doe gave the example of Grover Norquist as a prominent conservative activist, married to a Palestinian woman, who has gotten many prominent Muslim leaders into close relationships with high ranking US officials, including Clinton and Bush.
"If you are looking to DHS, the FBI and Congress to solve this," the briefer said, "you're going to be woefully disappointed." FBI agents in the field "are working good cases," but the FBI leadership "is unwilling to do what the agents are asking them to do, which is to pony up and use some courage and start stepping on these people."
We were told of a terror group is called Jamaat ul-Fuqra, known here as Muslims of America, which is a front organization for Pakistani Islamic cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani.
Muslims of America has several training compounds, one is near Dover, Tennessee. They cite a Justice Department document from 2006 that exposed 35 compounds in the U.S., which the group alleges are used for terrorist training. The document was marked "Dissemination Restricted to Law Enforcement" and was not supposed to be released to the public.
There are claims that all copies of Sheik Muburak Gilani's terrorist training video, "Soldiers of Allah," had been confiscated and sealed except for one copy. In the documentary, Gilani is shown saying "We are fighting to destroy the enemy. We are dealing with evil at its roots and its roots are America." The training video also shows men taught how to use AK-47s, rocket launchers, and machine guns, as well as how to kidnap and kill Americans, how to conduct sabotage and subversive operations, and instructions on the use mortars and explosives. They want to have Jamaat ul-Fuqra placed on the State Department's Foreign Terrorist Organization Watch List, which would shut down the camps.
Don Doe said that "cowardice" has prevented officials from taking action about the camps scattered across the country.
"We see at the local and state level, a lot of anger towards the federal government, and that anger is well placed."
"We can't ignore it, it's not going to go away," concluded the former FBI agent.
The author is a businessman and investor who studies national security issues. His pen name honors the Gallic leader who saved Europe from Muslim conquest 1300 years ago.