In the aftermath of the Orlando attack, the House passed a bill Thursday to give another $40 million to an Obama administration program that critics say is a politically correct-driven effort that has hamstrung the government’s ability to investigate potential terrorist threats.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson
The Countering Terrorist Radicalization Act grows the infrastructure of the administration’s Countering Violent Extremism program, which is based on the premise that there is no particular ideology behind the terrorist threat the nation faces. The policy is reflected in Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson’srecently reported remark that right-wingers are as much of a threat as Islamic extremists.
A former DHS counter-terrorism expert whose efforts to investigate terrorists were shut down because of the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) policy told WND the Republican-led House’s action will only make it more difficult to stop attacks such as the massacre Sunday of 49 people in Orlando.
“We were already handcuffed before. They are tightening the handcuffs now,” said Haney.
Haney not only witnessed many of CVE’s controversial implementations – including the purging of FBI training material regarded as hurtful to Muslims – he also suffered punishment, because the policy conflicted with his efforts to track down terrorists. He recounts many of his confrontations with the administration in his new blockbuster book, “See Something, Say Nothing.”
‘Highly offensive training material’
Haney was a subject-matter expert on the global Islamic movement as a Customs and Border Protection officer and a member of an advanced unit of the National Targeting Center when in October 2011, 57 Muslim organizations wrote a letter to CIA director John Brennan, complaining of “the federal government’s use of biased, false and highly offensive training materials about Muslims and Islam.”
CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, left, and Executive Producer Nihad Awad, center (Courtesy Daily Caller)
Among the groups that signed the letter were unindicted co-conspirators in the largest terrorist-financing prosecution in U.S. history, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America.
Their objection to the training material is exemplified in a Countering Violent Extremism report submitted June 9 to Secretary Johnson by the Homeland Security Advisory Council, the Daily Caller reported,
The DHS report states the agency should be “using American English instead of religious, legal and cultural terms like ‘jihad,’ ‘sharia,’ ‘takfir’ or ‘umma.’”
“They are making it even more difficult to discuss the strategic and tactical terms of the global Islamic movement,” Haney said.
“Who on earth is going to be offended if we use the word Shariah law?
“That obviously was put in there to counter people like me who are beginning to focus more emphatically on Shariah law and how it conflicts with the U.S. Constitution,” he said.
“They’re going to call me a violent extremist.”
Haney said the policy chills the efforts of law enforcement and counter-terrorism investigators by opening the door to discrimination lawsuits against people based on the DHS guidelines.
“It puts the American public in legal peril, not to mention the peril of potential terrorist attacks, because law enforcement is not allowed to build cases up to a level of probable cause, because they can’t even use the terms that our own adversaries use.”
As WND reported, Haney discovered that a case he developed might have prevented the San Bernardino attack if it had not been shut down by the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Hillary Clinton’s State Department out of concern for the civil liberties of Muslims, including foreigners. On Sunday he discovered that the mosque where Orlando killer Omar Mir Siddique Mateen worshiped several times a week also has a tie to that case.
The CVE bill was part of a package of three bills that passed by a 402-15 vote.
Defining the enemy
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas – who regards Haney as a “hero” and says he benefited from the DHS officer’s counter-terrorism intelligence – voted against the bill, charging it allows the president to continue a failed policy.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas
He told Breitbart News it only gives “more and more credibility to this ridiculous term ‘CVE’ instead of describing the killers that were behind 9/11, the Boston bombings, the San Bernardino attack, the Orlando shooting, the bomber in Times Square … all these people who are trying to kill us in America.”
“We’re doing the same thing as the president … we’re not identifying radical Islam” as the enemy which nurtures and motivates attackers, said Gohmert. “There is going to be more and more killings of Americans … until we can train our people to recognize radical Islam.”
On his nationally syndicated radio show Thursday, Rush Limbaugh commented extensively on the Countering Violent Extremism policy, asking rhetorically why Obama can’t use the term Islam in relationship to terrorism.
“Obama, why won’t you say militant Islamic terrorism, extremist Islamic terrorism? Why won’t you say it? Precisely because of this! It doesn’t exist, in his world.”
Limbaugh said Countering Violent Extremism “imagines movies being shot up by wacko members of the tea party.”
“Of course, the things they imagine right-wingers doing … don’t happen,” he said.
“‘Violent extremism’ didn’t produce the Orlando shootings. … Violent extremism did not cause the San Bernardino massacre,” said Limbaugh.
“Islamic terrorism did it. Islamic militant whatever you want to call it. Militant Islamic extremism, militant Islamic terrorism, Islamic extremist terrorists – that’s who is responsible for Orlando and San Bernardino, not “violent extremism.”
Limbaugh said the use of the term “violent extremism” is specifically meant to omit Islam.
“And, in fact, that’s the practical application. Muslim communities are ignored as investigators try to find the answers to violent extremism. Well, you can’t find the answer when you not allowed to go look at the cause. The cause is Islamist terrorism.”
Note: Media wishing to interview the authors of “See Something, Say Nothing” can contact them here.
See a trailer for “See Something, Say Nothing”:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.