Firing of Islam Expert Decried

Another point of view on the egregious firing of Stephen Coughlin.
“We want to get to the bottom of this,” Myrick said. “This sounds like another example of someone protecting national security and being told to shut up,” she told Cybercast news service. “If we don’t get over being politically correct, we won’t be here as a country.” Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C.,
FROM NEWSMAX.COM:
Firing of Islam Expert Decried
By: Kenneth R. Timmerman

The firing of the Pentagon’s only resident expert on Islamic law, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, has begun to attract the attention of key members of Congress and the White House, which has launched a “fact-finding” mission into the case, Newsmax has learned.
Coughlin, of the U.S. Army Reserves, was on contract to the Joint Chiefs of Staff to brief U.S. commanders en route to Iraq, as well as officers at various staff colleges around the country, on the role of Islamic teachings in the mind of America’s enemies.
His contract was terminated several weeks ago after an encounter with a top aide to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, who dismissed his findings and called him a “Christian zealot with a pen.”
The aide, Hesham Islam, is an Egyptian-born former U.S. Navy officer, who joined England’s staff while he was secretary of the Navy in 2001 and moved with him when England was promoted to the Pentagon’s No. 2 slot.
Heshem Islam encouraged England to address the annual conference of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) last fall, even though federal prosecutors had named the group as an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terrorism funding case last year.
Coughlin aroused the ire of Mr. Islam and others in September by authoring an analysis of a Muslim Brotherhood document entered into evidence in the Justice Department’s case against the Holy Land Foundation.
In addition to naming ISNA and other “mainstream” Muslim organizations as members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s network in the United States, the Muslim Brotherhood document stated that its members “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within… It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes.”
Coughlin also took issue with an effort underway by intelligence community analysts to declare al Qaeda terrorists and insurgents in Iraq as “false Muslims,” whose version of jihad conflicted with “true” Islamic teachings.
Over the past two weeks, the White House has launched its own investigation into the Coughlin affair, and has conducted at least one interview with Coughlin himself, sources knowledgeable of the probe told Newsmax.
However, Coughlin would appear to hold out little hope of a White House “rescue.”
As he pointed out in his 333-page thesis, "To Our Great Detriment: Ignoring what Extremists say about Jihad," President Bush’s statements downplaying the role of Islam in the terrorist attacks on America have “exerted a chilling effect on those tasked to define the enemy’s doctrine by effectively placing a policy bar” on examining the role of jihadist teachings.
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