Jihad returns to Fort Hood

Andy McCarthy, in a disturbing reports, tells us that, according to his sources, the Defense Department has brought a top official of the Islamic Society of America (ISNA) to Fort Hood to lecture our troops about Islam before they deploy to Afghanistan. The ISNA official, Louay Safi, has also served as research director at the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).
According to McCarthy, ISNA is the Muslim Brotherhood’s umbrella entity for Islamist organizations in the United States. It was established in 1981 to enable Muslims in North America “to adopt Islam as a complete way of life” — i.e., to further the Brotherhood’s strategy of establishing enclaves in the West that are governed by sharia. During the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financial conspiracy trial, ISNA was identified by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator. The defendants were convicted of funding Hamas to the tune of millions of dollars.
For its part, again according to McCarthy, the IIIT is a Saudi funded think-tank dedicated to the “Islamicization of knowledge.” Years ago, the Saudis convinced the United States that the IIIT should be the military’s go-to authority on Islam. One result was the placement of Abdurrahman Alamoudi to select Muslim chaplains for the armed forces. Alamoudi has since been convicted of terrorism and sentenced to 23 years in federal prison.
Safi’s background suggests that history could repeat itself. In 1995, Safi was caught on a FBI wiretap of Sami al-Arian, a former leader in the murderous Palestinian Islamic Jihad. McCarthy says that the topic of the discussion between Safi and al-Arian was Safi’s concern that President Clinton’s executive order prohibiting financial transactions with terrorist organizations would negatively affect al-Arian. More recently, al-Arian has been convicted of conspiring to provide material support to terrorism.
In a 2003 publication, Safi advocated a case-by-case approach to deciding whether Muslims should wage jihad through violence or through more peaceful means: “It is up to the Muslim leadership to assess the situation and weigh the circumstances as well as the capacity of the Muslim community before deciding the appropriate type of jihad. At one stage, Muslims may find that jihad, through persuasion or peaceful resistance, is the best and most effective method to achieve just peace.”
Safi apparently has assessed that in this country, where the leaders are fools and a bizarre culture of political correctness allows a suspected jihadist to provide psychological counseling to its soldiers, jihad is best pursued by accepting invitations from the military to indoctrinate the troops.
I’d say he’s made a good call.