Muslims in our Government: Rashad Hussain
IT’S WORTH CONSIDERING
This is the fourth post in a series informing you about some of the Muslims who now hold key positions in our government.

The son of Indian-born U.S. citizens, Rashad Hussain was born and raised in the United States. His official political career began in the summer of 2000 when he served as an intern in the office of Democratic congressman Richard Gephardt. Later that year, he spoke at a conference sponsored by the Association of Muslim Social Scientists and Georgetown University’s Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. In June 2002, Hussain participated in a Congressional Staffers panel at the American Muslim Council‘s (AMC) 11th annual convention. At that time, AMC was headed by the Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was later convicted and imprisoned on terrorism charges. In 2003 Hussain was a recipient of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, which was founded by, and named after, George Soros’s older brother and sister-in-law.

After completing law school, Hussain served as a legislative assistant for the House Judiciary Committee, then as a trial attorney at the Justice Department. Soon, he received the position as a law clerk to Judge Damon Keith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Detroit, Michigan. In 2004 he first expressed his true anti-American sentiments when he wrote a major article in the Yale Law Journal stating that it was “difficult to assess” whether the U.S. government’s post-9/11 counterterrorism initiatives “encroach upon” Americans’ civil liberties, and “whether such initiatives enhance or undermine security.”

AS I SEE IT
That article should have raised a few eyebrows, but it didn’t. By then, political correctness regarding Muslims was so well-entrenched that no one dared to point a finger. For four years, he continued making inroads and offering his services to those in national security positions. In August 2008, he published a paper (for the Brookings Institution) titled “Reformulating the Battle of ideas: Understanding the Role of Islam in Counterterrorism Policy.” Anyone who was paying attention could have seen where these ideas came from. Many of his recommendations came right from the stated goals and policies of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. For example:
•    “Policymakers should reject the use of language that provides a religious legitimization of terrorism such as ‘Islamic terrorism’ and ‘Islamic extremist.’ They should replace such terminology with more specific and descriptive terms such as ‘Al-Qaeda terrorism.'”
•    “The United States should welcome and encourage the further development of mainstream Muslim organizations and moderate institutions.” (Specifically, Hussain’s paper references the work of the Fiqh Council of North America, which is tied to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.)
•    “The primary cause of broad-based anger and anti-Americanism is not a clash of civilizations but the perceived effect of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world.”

In January 2009, Hussain was named deputy associate counsel to President Obama. In that position, Hussain focused on issues involving national security, new media, and outreach to the Muslim community. His influence can easily be seen as Obama prepared for his June 2009 trip to Cairo. Hussain helped the President’s principal foreign-policy speechwriter draft the infamous Cairo speech that Obama delivered at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University.

On February 13, 2010, President Obama appointed Hussain as a special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. This, too, should have raise eyebrows, to say the least, considering that the OIC is a 57-country coalition seeking to outlaw any and all criticism of Islamic people, practices, legal codes, and governments. “Islamophobia” was a product of this group as they set out to brand any criticism of anything Islamic in a way that lovers of political correctness would quickly embrace.

If you’ve been shocked at the government’s new kinder, gentler approach to all things Islam, you can thank Rashad Hussain and Barack Obama’s willingness to incorporate most, if not all of his recommendations into official U.S. policy.

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