Frank Gaffney is another insane conspiracy theorist who hallucinates about a massive magnitude of militant Islamists that are ready to seize control of the United States and impose a violent, backwards theocracy on all the good Christians. He's infiltrating the highest levels of the Department of Defense to contort their Constitutionally-mandated, secular devotion to the First Amendment and the Constitution into a ghoulish fantasy of a fundamentalist Christian mercenary group, purging from within through wretched intimidation and hatred of "the other".
His "Center for Security Policy" has foisted a deliberate, disgraceful takeover of these ideals with the ironically deemed "asymmetric threats" gathering in Virginia, 10/17/18, a glorified Klan rally masquerading as a sober, intellectual discussion of the threat of Islamist extremism.
The projection in their charge is as obvious as it is loathsome. Hypocrisy is the defining, and indeed the essential component of this bigoted new order, amplified by their dictatorial and seditious rhetoric. Gaffney and the "Center for Security Policy" denigrate Muslims to the status of vermin, a parasite to be eradicated (sound familiar?) while taking on the very characteristics of the brutal, inhuman horde they pretend to be against. Denigration and loathing of outsiders are the false clarion calls of these vicious deceivers, who always scapegoat and project their own hideousness onto a fictitious enemy.
What makes this assemblage of racist haters so particularly heinous? Well, how about this; four active duty Lieutenant Generals (Three-Star Generals) were present at this gathering of lunatic bigots, gleefully serving up a dangerous endorsement of Gaffney’s hateful Islamophobic ideology, in stark contrast with the strict mandates of equal opportunity and nondiscrimination that the armed services are sworn to uphold. As noted in the Intercept, "In 2015, Gaffney had prominent white nationalist Jared Taylor on his radio show, 'Secure Freedom Radio.' Gaffney praised Taylor’s website, American Renaissance, as “wonderful.” White supremacist Jared Taylor, one may recall, was a fellow-traveler with the torch-wielding Neo-Nazi group that murdered Heather Heyer in Charlottesville last year, and was subsequently praised by the coward Donald Trump as "very fine people". Turns out Trump and his minions and sycophants haven't given up the scapegoating of American Muslims in the armed services to promote their own hideous white supremacist, fundamentalist Christian agenda. (Gaffney served as an informal advisor to the Trump campaign.)
Not only are these Lieutenant Generals failing to uphold their own sacred, sworn oaths; but, they are actively participating in the ignominious perversion, subversion, and destruction of the same. These Lt. Generals, and all who supported their participation in this charade of shame hosted by Gaffney, MUST be visibly and expeditiously punished. Their projection is merely the smokescreen for Gaffney and his lackeys to justify their long-running atrocities; their silence on genuine concerns for human rights is deafening. Theirs is not a nuanced and substantive criticism of Jihad or Wahhabism - it's an ugly, broad-brush, and insipidly petulant whine for racial "purity" for its own sake. Why? Because, tragically, these Lt. Generals clearly do not fundamentally disagree with the tactics of these extremist perversions of Gaffney and his repellant ilk of Islamophobes. Indeed, their highly visible and official participation in his we hate all Muslims orgy abomination of just forty-eight hours ago reeks of full Pentagon endorsement and delight to provide universal succor and assistance to such filth.
That we have even gotten to this precarious point is a dire reminder of the fallibility of our own institutions. Laws and procedure are only as strong as our conviction and willingness to uphold the rule of law and western liberal democracy. How sadly ironic then that these violent thugs portray themselves as some sort of defenders of Western Civilization when they are the ones most likely eager, and willing to destroy it and retrograde humanity back to a primal, primitive and violent medieval horror. The cancer isn't coming from overseas; it is ingrown as the result of too much acquiescence and acceptance of such demented regressiveness. Much like the asinine, bigoted policy of discrimination of transgender soldiers pursued by David Duke's preferred president, this atrocious stunt is but the latest example of the gradual surrender of the rule of law to the same extremists that the military's equal opportunity manuals are designed to prevent from infiltrating and sabotaging the armed forces.
I am the Founder and President of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), the nonprofit civil rights organization solely dedicated to ensuring that all members of the United States Armed Forces fully receive the Constitutional guarantee of both freedom of religion and freedom from religion, to which they and all Americans are entitled. MRFF stands on the front line against this egregious encroachment of civil liberties, with well over 59,000 clients (and counting). MRFF represents many Muslim American U.S. military members.
Intolerance and fanatical Christian religious extremism only serve to denigrate our country’s national security and spit in the face of every honorable person who signed up to serve this country of every sex, race, orientation, national origin, faith, or lack thereof.