Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

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Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. has been called one of the "key ideologues who are the nerve center of the Islamophobia network" and is founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, a non-profit think tank "funded mainly by U.S. defence contractors, far-right foundations, and right-wing Zionists" [1][2] Gaffney is considered to be a "neo-con" (neo-conservative).

Islamophobia

The Center for American Progress report "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America" calls Gaffney a key ideologue in the Islamophobia network "responsible for originating and manufacturing the intellectual arguments, rhetoric, and talking points" used to spread anti-Islamic falsehoods.

He wrote in January 2011 that "most of the Muslim American groups of any prominence in America are now known to be, as a matter of fact, hostile to the United States and its Constitution." [3]

Belief that Government and Society has Become "Submissive" to Islam

In February 2010, Gaffney alleged the Obama Administration had been infiltrated by Islamists and "is all about accommodating that “Islamic Republic” and its ever-more aggressive stance," based on the fact that the new logo for the Missile Defense Agency "appears ominously to reflect a morphing of the Islamic crescent and star with the Obama campaign logo."

Missile Defense Agency spokesman Rick Lehne told The Washington Post: This was a logo that was developed three years ago for our recruiting materials and our public Web site. It did not replace our official MDA logo, and of course it has no ties to any political campaign. It was done one year before the 2008 elections. So the whole thing is pretty ridiculous.

Gaffney said "Team Obama’s anti-anti-missile initiatives are not simply acts of unilateral disarmament of the sort to be expected from an Alinsky acolyte. They seem to fit an increasingly obvious and worrying pattern of official U.S. submission to Islam and the theo-political-legal program the latter’s authorities call Shariah."[4]

General David Petraeus "Submissive" for Opposing Koran Burning

In 2010, Gaffney accussed U.S. Army General David Petraeus of "submission" to Islamic Sharia law because he condemned the burning of a Koran by radical Christian pastor Terry Jones in Florida. [5] Petraeus had said the act "puts our soldiers in jeopardy" and "images from such activity could very well be used by extremists here and around the world." [6]

Conservative Movement and Grover Norquist Infiltrated by Islamists

Gaffney has also charged that the conservative Republican movement has been infiltrated. He says the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which he claims has been infiltrated by "Islamists" due to its association with Grover Norquist, the anti-tax zealot who was also central to the George W. Bush administration's outreach to Muslims, and Suhail Khan, a Muslim-American political appointee in the [George W. Bush]] administration with a 20-year record of service in the Republican Party. [7][8][9]

Opposition to "Ground Zero Mosque"

Gaffney and CSP has been at the forefront of opposition to the planned Park51 Muslim Community Center two blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks. Gaffney insists the center, deemed the "Ground Zero mosque," is "designed to be a permanent, in-our-face beachhead for Shariah, a platform for inspiring the triumphalist ambitions of the faithful.” [10]

According to the Center for American Progress, "Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, one of the project’s lead organizers, has worked with New York City, the FBI, and the State Department to combat Islamist extremism. His new center is modeled on New York’s 92nd Street Y, a Jewish community center that serves diverse groups across the city. “We want to push back against the extremists,” said Rauf, explaining his intentions behind constructing the center. The project plans detail a cultural center to house a swimming pool, a basketball court, a library, as well as a prayer space." </ref>[1]

In December 2010, Gaffney said on Fox News' the O'Reilly Factor that the Park51 community center is a "mosque that is used to promote a seditious program, which is what Sharia is . . . that is not a protected religious practice, that is in fact sedition." He accused the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of being a "stealth practioner of stealth jihad."

Gaffney's CSP founded and funded the website stop911mosque.com, to oppose the proposed Park51 Community Center. The partner organizations include "a who's who of radical right-wing leaders, organizations, and notable anti-Muslim advocates." [11][1]

According to the website, coalition members "are aware that a number of mosques have been revealed as veritable “Trojan Horses,” masquerading as places of worship when they in fact have proved to be sources of extremist activities and terror plots against America. . . In modern times, a “Trojan Horse” has come to mean a trick in which a supposed gift or peaceable action is presented with the purpose of enticing a target into allowing a mortal enemy into an otherwise secure location. The mosque and Islamic Center planned for the Ground Zero site is a prominent example of this kind of “Trojan Horse.”"

Opposition to Tennessee Mosque

In 2010, Gaffney went Tennessee to testify as an "expert on Islamic law" in a lawsuit opposing the construction of a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on grounds that its members would impose Sharia law on area residents. ("I don't hold myself out as an expert on Sharia Law," Gaffney told the court on the witness stand. "But I have talked a lot about that as a threat.")

“I’m here to warn this community of seditious acts of Sharia Law,” Gaffney told a local court. “I have not determined this is happening here, but that it is present in mosques like this.” [12]

He further testified that 80 percent of mosques in America are financed by allies of the Muslim Brotherhood, a claim that the Center for American Progress says has been readily debunked by academic experts. [13] [14]

The court disagreed, holding that "Islam is in fact a religion," and denied the proposed injunction that would block the construction.

Anders Breivik

Anders Breivik, the confessed Norway right-wing terrorist who planted a bomb in Oslo that killed eight people and shot and killed 68 people (mostly teenagers) at a youth camp in July 2011, cited Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy seven times in his 1,500 page anti-Islam manifesto. [15]

"Shariah: The Threat to America"

In 2010, Gaffney's CSP released the report "Shariah: The Threat to America," which called the Islamic religious law followed by any practicing Muslim a "totalitarian ideology" and a "legal-political-military-doctrine." [16] It asserts that every practicing Muslim engages in "taqiyya," which CSP incorrectly defines as religiously mandated lying -- in reality, taqiyya means concealing one's faith out of fear of death, defined by Oxford as a "precautionary denial of religious belief in the face of potential persecution" and is practiced by only a minority of Muslims. [17]

CSP Funded Authors of "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America"

CSP has funded research by David Gaubatz, a former federal agent in charge of special investigations for the U.S. Air Force and a U.S. State Department trained Arabic linguist who referred to President Obama as “our Muslim leader” and said he personally found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and writer Paul Sperry, the author of the 2005 book Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington. The two wrote Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America (published by right-wing conspiracy outlet World Net Daily), where they allege that Muslim spies have posed as interns and infiltrated Capitol Hill with a nefarious Islamist agenda. Rep. Sue Nernick (R- N.C.) wrote the foreward for the book, and in response, Reps. John Shadegg (AZ), Paul Broun (GA), Trent Franks (AZ) and Sue Myrick (NC) called for an investigation into whether any interns associated with the Council on American-Islamic relations were on the Hill. Gaffney writes approvingly of the book on the CSP website.

Background

Gaffney holds an MA in international studies from JOhnson Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a BS in foreign service from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. From 1983-1987 he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy under Richard N. Perle and in April 1987 became Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy. Gaffney is the former chairman of the High Level Group at NATO. He is a senior advisor at Americans for Victory Over Terrorism (AVOT). [18]

Affiliations

Resources

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References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and Faiz Shakir, "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America, Center for American Progress, August 2011.
  2. ↑ "Love Him or Hate Him, Frank Gaffney is Effective", IPS News Service, Feb 23, 2006.
  3. ↑ Frank Gaffney, “Gaffney: the Muslim Brotherhood is the enemy,” The Washington Times, January 31, 2011.
  4. ↑ Frank Gaffney, [“Can This Possibly Be True? New Obama Missile Defense Logo includes a Crescent,” http://biggovernment.com/fgaffney/2010/02/24/can-this-possibly-be-true-new-obama-missile-defense-logo-includes-a-crescent/] Big Government, February 24, 2010.
  5. ↑ Scott Keyes, Frank Gaffney Accuses General David Petraeus Of ‘Submission’ To Sharia Law, Think Progress, Apr. 28, 2011.
  6. ↑ Martha Raddatz, “general petraeus: Burn a Quran Day could ‘endanger troops,’ ” aBc news, september 7, 2010, available at http://abcnews.go.com/wn/afghanistan/burn-quran-day-sparks-protestsafghanistan-petraeus-endanger/story?id=11569820.
  7. ↑ Janet Hook and Tom Hamburger, “New York Mosque Debate Splits GOP,” The Los Angeles Times, august 17, 2010, available at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-mosque-politics-20100818,0,6370958.story.
  8. ↑ Frank gaffney Braves muslim Brotherhood infiltration to warn CPAC about grover norquist,” available at http://www.youtubecom/watch?v=lXqog36JBg4&feature=player_embedded.
  9. ↑ Brian Tashman, “right wing Boycott movement links cpac to the muslim Brotherhood,” right wing watch, January 5, 2011, available at http://www.rightwingwatch.org /content/right-wing-boycottmovement-links-cpac-muslim-brotherhood.
  10. ↑ Frank Gaffney Jr. [“Ground Zero: a Shrine to Shariah,” http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.6609/pub_detail.asp], Family security matters, June 30, 2010.
  11. ↑ Other Organizations, Stopthe911mosque.com, accessed August 31, 2011.
  12. ↑ Christian Grantham, /murfreesboro-mosqueopponents-appear-in-chancery-court-cms-24572 “murfreesboro mosque opponents appear in chancery court,” The Murfreesboro Post, September 27, 2010.
  13. ↑ Charles Kurzman, Ebrahim Moosa, and David schanzer, “anti-terror lessons of muslim americans” (Duke university and university of north carolina-chapel Hill, 2010)
  14. ↑ “Frank Gaffney of csp links local mosque leaders to sharia in murfreesboro Hearing,” available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_mq8FzXKsy
  15. ↑ Eli Clifton, “chart: oslo terrorist’s manifesto cited many islamophobic Bloggers and pundits,” Think Progress, July 25, 2011.
  16. ↑ Andrew c. Mccarthy and others, “Sharia: the Threat to America,” (Washington: The Center for Security Policy 2010).
  17. ↑ Oxford Islamic Studies Online, “taqiyah” definition, available at http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/browse?_hi=4&_start=81
  18. ↑ Center for Security Policy, Frank Gaffney bio, accessed August 31, 2011.
  19. ↑ About, Clarion Fund, accessed October 28, 2010.
  20. ↑ Eli Clifton, The Roots of the Islamophobia Network (audio), Antiwar.com, 30 August 2011. (19:10 min mark)
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