Sue Myrick has thrown herself into the flap over the firing of a Pentagon contractor who clashed with a Muslim aide to a top Defense Department official. CNSNews.com explains:
Earlier this month, the Pentagon Joint Staff told Stephen Coughlin, a specialist on Islamic law at the Pentagon, that his contract would not be renewed in March. The firing apparently resulted from pressure by pro-Muslim officials working in the Department of Defense, according to numerous news reports.
Meanwhile, members of Congress have not had much success in getting answers from the Pentagon either, said Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), co-chair of the bi-partisan House Anti-Terrorism Caucus.
“We want to get to the bottom of this,” Myrick told Cybercast News Service Tuesday. “We are contacting everyone to see who we can talk to.”
Coughlin — who supporters say had one of the most important jobs in analyzing how Jihadists think — crossed Hasham Islam, an aide to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, according The Washington Times.
In a nutshell, Coughlin has spent years studying Islamic law with an eye toward how it might ordain or justify extremist acts, including Jihad. In doing so he has noted that secular law is routinely held to be secondary to Islamic law in many countries in the Middle East and as such cannot be seen as an “extreme” view by American policy-makers.
Coughlin also zeroed in on Muslim teachings which abrogate now invalid faiths like Judaism and Christianity. Religious tolerance is not compatible with this view, which holds that everything would be fine if everyone would just convert to Islam.
This why when Osama bin Laden pops up on a grainy tape and offers Americans an end to his jihad if they would convert, it is a mistake to dismiss this as a megalomaniacal stunt. Bin Laden comes off as a pretty fair dude to large chunks of the Muslim community world-wide. Coughlin was arguing that we are doomed to failure if we do not understand who we are fighting.
Which now evidently includes the upper reaches of the Pentagon.
