Amerabia

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Even Americans knowledgeable about Europe's growing accommodation to the totalitarian ideology known alternatively as Islamism, jihadism or Islamofascism tend smugly to believe the same thing can't happen here. Think again.

Every day, new evidence appears of similar acts of submission — the Islamists call it "dhimmitude" — on the part of the U.S. government, judges, the press and leading corporations. Eurabia, meet the United States of Amerabia.

On May 4, an ominous alarm was sounded in a Pajamas Media column by Youssef Ibrahim, a former New York Times reporter. Mr. Ibrahim is an astute critic of the Islamists' steady, tireless and increasingly effective efforts to impose — on Muslims and non-Muslims alike — the repressive theo-political-legal agenda they call Shariah law. He warned that "In the very real war on terror, a noisy squabble over 'fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here' clouds a simple truth: namely, that 'they' are here already. Indeed, Islamists are busy constructing a wing of jihad in America's backyard."

Among the most worrisome of the "they" now operating inside the U.S. are various front organizations systematically established by the Islamist organization known as the Ikhwan, or Muslim Brotherhood. During last year's federal trial of the Holy Land Foundation on terrorism-financing charges, the government introduced into evidence the names of many scores of such Ikhwan fronts. Identified also as unindicted co-conspirators were virtually every one of the most prominent Muslim-American organizations, including notably the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).

Prosecutors also presented what amounts to a mission statement. According to a memorandum by the group in 1991: "The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a "Civilization-Jihadist" process, with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers."

To be clear, this is not the agenda of all Muslims, certainly not all American Muslims. Yet, we cannot safely ignore the fact that Muslim Brotherhood followers are among those who do have such a goal — let alone allow our "hands" to contribute to its realization.

Writing about this Brotherhood manifesto in the Dallas Morning News last September, columnist Rod Dreher observed: "The entire 18-page platform outlines a plan for the long haul. It prescribes the Muslim Brotherhood's comprehensive plan to set down roots in civil society. It begins by both founding and taking control of American Muslim organizations, for the sake of unifying and educating the U.S. Muslim community — this to prepare it for the establishment of a global Islamic state governed by Shariah."

Unfortunately, in the last 17 years, the Ikhwan has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams. Groups like CAIR, ISNA and MPAC made great strides in what Mr. Ibrahim calls "the common task [of] instill[ing] the notion among Arab-Americans or European immigrant communities of Muslim countries that they are not part of secular multicultural societies." Brotherhood fronts have also penetrated and exercised enormous influence over U.S. government agencies responsible for understanding and countering the Islamist threat.

Space limitations preclude more than a handful of examples: The FBI allows CAIR to provide "sensitivity training" for its agents. U.S. intelligence actively recruits at ISNA and other Ikhwan front conferences. One of ISNA's highly placed admirers, Pentagon deputy chief Gordon England's consigliere Hisham Islam, was allowed to purge the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Islamist expert, Steven Coughlin, for warning against such practices.

Most recently, two key federal agencies — the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security — encouraged American officials to eschew, when describing our enemies, use of such terms as jihadist, mujahideen, Islamic terrorist, Islamist, holy warrior and Islamofascism. According to an Associated Press report, the government is supposed instead to "use the terms 'violent extremist' or 'terrorist.' Both are widely understood terms that define our enemies appropriately and simultaneously deny them any level of legitimacy."(Evidently, President Bush has not gotten the word as he used what Andy McCarthy calls the "J-word" in his press conference last week.)

This astounding act of dhimmitude confirms Steve Coughlin's thesis: The enemy has so thoroughly gotten inside our decision-making as to preclude us from understanding his true nature and threat doctrine. By affording the Ikhwan such an opportunity, we have rendered this country, as a practical matter, incapable of countering our Islamist foes abroad — let alone here at home.

Fortunately, a courageous legislator, Rep. Sue Myrick, North Carolina, has come forward to challenge the emerging Amerabia. She has unveiled a 10-point program that calls for, among other things: investigations of Ikhwan penetrations of our prison and military chaplain corps; an inquiry into the legitimacy of CAIR's tax-exempt status; corrective actions with respect to numerous ill-advised policies vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia; and addressing the seditious nature of Islamist threats to our government and people.

For her exemplary leadership and determination to resist national dhimmitude, this column recognizes Mrs. Myrick with its coveted "Horatius (or, for the first time Horatia) at the Bridge" award, for her willingness — like the legendary Roman — to take on singlehandedly the enemy hordes and try to save her country.

We hope she will add others to her list, and secure the broadest possible support for her efforts.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times.