Controversy has been growing over the Pentagon’s decision not to renew the contract of Stephen Coughlin, who made it his mission to take an unblinkered look at the roots of jihad, and the ways and means — both violent and nonviolent — of the spread of Islamic extremism. While most of the mainstream press has not yet picked up on the Coughlin story, it has touched off a firestorm in the blogosphere. One name that keeps turning up in this tale is that of a top aide to the number two man at Defense, Deputy Secretary Gordon England. That aide is Hesham Islam, a retired U.S. Navy commander with 20 years service under his belt, born in Cairo, schooled in Iraq and an influential special assistant to Gordon England. The Pentagon denies he had anything to do with the cashiering of Coughlin. Bill Gertz, national security correspondent for the Washington Times, says otherwise.
Either way, for whatever it tells us about the Pentagon’s take on strategy and advice regarding Islamic extremism, Stephen Coughlin is on his way out, and Hesham Islam has the ear of Gordon England — who has described him as “my personal close confidante,” and says: “I take his advice, and I listen to him all the time.”
Last October, the Armed Forces Press Service featured a glowing profile of Hesham Islam, describing among other things his experiences as a youth, huddling in terror of Israeli bombs, surviving the sinking of a cargo ship torpedoed by the Iranians… But did it happen this way? I am still looking for straightforward corroborating details, which the Pentagon for whatever reason — after more than a week of promising to “look into it,” just can’t seem to come up with. Who’s running this show? Here’s a link to my article today on NRO: “Questions for the Pentagon: Who Is Hesham Islam?”
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1. Will Chane:Pencil-pusher or Takfiri?
Several things jumped up at me vis-a-vis Mr. Islam’s military service and his Curriculum Vitae.
Perhaps someone with a real military background could expand.
The first (chronologically in the article) is his military rank (Grade)—Commander (O-5). To reach that rank in less than 15 years is unusual.
But wait! To become an officer one must be a U.S. citizen.
OK, he is “smitten” and marries an American becoming, thereby, eligible for citizenship, but the process of nationalization in those types of cases is neither immediate nor automatic.
To become an officer one must also have a college education, which he presumably earned at the naval academy his father established.
So the “smitten”, college-educated immigrant has married and is so “desperate” that he must enlist at the poorly-paid rank of E-1 at age 26 to provide for his family after having worked in the “food services” industry .
Now, it is possible that his education could have provided him with an electronics background sufficiently advanced to have allowed him to do electronics work in the food services industry.
But the narrative suggests that work must have been so low-paying that he felt the need to step up to E-1 to provide sufficiently for his family.
It is possible that the navy at that time was paying bonuses to qualified people to enter at an advanced rank in critical specialties, but, still, one does not “enlist” as an “electronics technician in the submarine service.”
At the very minimum he would have had to attend “boot” camp, then “A” School, and then Submarine School to become an EM-3 (Electrician’s Mate Third Class—E-4) with “Dolphins” (Submariner’s Pin).
Admittedly, advanced entrance could have given him a higher rank—up to First Class (E-5), but the position still would not have been highly remunerative.
It would seem to me that going thru this process would have taken up about 3 years of his service.
Before going further in the progression thru the ranks, a look at the second point is in order—the process of obtaining a security clearance.
I’m not an expert in this field, but having stayed once at a Holiday Inn Express and having served as a civilian in Vietnam in ‘70-’71 with a minimal security clearance I know a little bit about the process.
To get the minimal clearance he would have had to have listed every address at which he lived and every employer he ever had.
Additionally, to get a high enough clearance to work on electronics on a submarine let alone entering Officer Candidate School (OCS)—to which I shall return soon—much more information would have had to have been provided.
So, for the Pentagon to hedge on the details of his CV is more than disingenuous.
Back to OCS. Getting in requires some time in service as an enlisted person. Then some time must be spent in school before one graduates as an Ensign (O-1). Furthermore, it would probably be as a Reserve Officer. Augmentation to Regular Officer is, again, neither immediate nor automatic.
He would then have had to have had perfect or near-perfect Fitness Reports in each grade (O-1 thru O-4) and, probably early- or deep-selection for each successive grade to have become a Commander and to retire at that grade with 20 years of service.
Again, I would hope that a real military expert would look at this, to me, highly-unlikely scenario.
Which brings me to my lead sentence and final point—Is this the career path of a mid-level bureaucrat or of a Takfiri—an adherent of al-Takfir wa al-Hijra?
Jan 27, 2008 - 11:48 am