‘Fifth Column’ within the US armed forces

It’s no surprise, sadly, that the US Army sergeant who allegedly tried to wipe out the entire brigade command of his 101st Airborne Division unit in Kuwait just happened to be a convert to Islam.

Not a convert to normal Islam, but obviously a radical mutation of the faith. For Sgt. Asan Akbar’s attitude problem, as the army calls his motive, means he no longer views himself as an American, and that his own buddies in the 101st are the enemy. “You guys are coming into our countries and you’re going to rape our women and kill our children,” Akbar reportedly said after the attack, which murdered one and wounded a dozen others.

“You guys.” “Our countries.” “Rape our women and kill our children.” He’s no longer “with us,” as the president would say. An attitude problem, indeed.

The murderous insider attack in the 101st could be the precursor for a far larger and more dangerous problem, both for the military and for American society more generally. That problem is the “fifth column” that is developing inside the United States and its institutions.

Radical Muslim sects and organizations distinguished from peaceable, nonviolent and law-abiding adherents to Islam by the term “Islamists” have been making steady progress over the past four decades in establishing a presence in the United States (as elsewhere around the world) and dominating their co-religionists and, in due course, others they consider to be “non-believers.”

Saudi-funded fronts and cutouts have spent a fortune on Wahhabi agitprop within American universities, in the hijacking of mosques, and inside the armed forces. One of the Center for Security Policy’s big concerns is how extremists and those who front for them have penetrated the US military. As of June 2002, nine of the armed forces’ 14 Muslim chaplains received their religious training from another Saudi-supported entity, the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (GSISS) in Leesburg, Va. In March of that year, the multi-agency Operation Greenquest raided the offices of GSISS, along with 23 other Muslim organizations.

Agents also raided the homes of Iqbal Unus, the dean of students at GSISS, and Taha Al-Alwani, the school’s president. According to search warrants issued at the time, these groups were raided for “potential money laundering and tax evasion activities and their ties to terrorist groups such as … al Qaeda as well as individual terrorists . . . [including] Osama bin Laden.”

It may be that last Sunday’s attack turns out to be an isolated event. It should, nonetheless, serve as a wake-up call to the Bush administration and all who love this country that there are among us some who do not. They, and organizations that may be fomenting their hatred toward the United States, must be recognized as such and dealt with accordingly.

Update: Traitor Akbar claims another life: Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone, 40, of Idaho