The Political Warfare Campaign Against U.S. Counter-Terrorism Experts
13th June 2016
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has laid out a strategy for preventing reference to terrorism in association with Islam. They are targeting training and education for the military and law enforcement, and pursueing their strategy by working through NGOs, think tanks and international organizations to label as Islamophobes those counter-terrorism trainers who were not approved by specific front-organizations. This article looks at the most recent initiative in this campaign of political warfare: a report by the Muslim Public Affairs Council entitled Not Qualified: Exposing the Deception Behind America’s Top 25 Pseudo Experts on Islam.
As Sun Tzu pointed out, the greatest warrior is one who can win without having to fight. Political warfare—operations designed to influence the perceptions or beliefs of one’s adversary—is thus an invaluable tool because it is a way of winning a conflict without having to use force. The Soviets knew this well, as did numerous other totalitarian regimes, and the OIC is now using this form of attack to shut down crucial counter-terrorism experts and training in the United States. This meets both a theological and a strategic imperative for the OIC. Theologically, the campaign of psychological warfare against CT experts helps to shut down criticism of Muhammad and of Islam, which is deemed forbidden, based upon several different verses of the Koran. Strategically, it is an advantageous approach because it neutralizes those who have become most knowledgeable on the Islamist threat, thus allowing even greater impunity for agents working to undermine U.S. national security.