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As noted in Cliff's post yesterday (relying on a Bill Gertz report in the Washington Times), the Pentagon has sacked an authentic, influential scholar of Islam, Stephen Coughlin, who evidently refused to lie about — er, I mean, "soften his views on" — Islamic extremism (which, like it or not, is rooted in Islamic scripture) at the insistence of one Hasham Islam, Army Chief Gordon England's Islamophilic factotum (one of countless such creatures now pervading the federal government). For more on this, check out this post on the new website of Andrew Bostom, another scholar of Islam. Andy knows Coughlin...

Stephen Coughlin Update. Here is an excellent summary piece on Coughlin's firing, its implications, and what must be done next. Objective: The objective of this paper is to clarify the incidents surrounding the firing of Mr. Coughlin, and enumerate the implications of this event to U.S. National Security and the GWOT (Global War on Terror). Background: Mr. Stephen Coughlin works as a contractor on the Joint Staff, J-2 (Intelligence) for the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. The Joint Staff specifically requested him because of his knowledge of Islamic Doctrine as it applies to “Jihad” and the Strategic...

It is the conclusion of this thesis that Islamic law forms the doctrinal basis for the jihadi threat that can only be understood through an unconstrained review of the Islamic law of jihad. Answering the three research questions, it turns out that: • When the Chairman said that we have yet to read what our enemy’s have said, he confirmed that we have failed to do a doctrine-based threat assessment of the enemy; • Had the IC done so, it would have quickly found that the doctrinal basis of the jihadi threat is the law of jihad in Islamic law...

This appears to be Coughlin's paper that has caused the ruckus and got him fired by England's special assistant. (as discussed in numerous previous threads) Careful, it's long (333 pages) and a undoubtedly scholarly tome.

"...lifting that PC curtain on Islam and its jihadist tenets is precisely the effect of Stephen Coughlin's Pentagon brief. It goes against what political correctness tells us; it also goes against what Islamic advocacy groups tell us."

Eaton Agonistes, Redux? By Andrew G. Bostom January 10, 2008 Bill Gertz, Washington Times national security columnist, reported that the Pentagon has fired Stephen Coughlin, its most knowledgeable specialist on Islamic Law, and jihad terrorism. As Gertz observed aptly, the Pentagon thus ended the career of its most effective analyst attempting to prepare the military to wage ideological war against jihadism. This past September, 2007, I lectured with Mr. Coughlin, a US Army Reserves Major, at The Naval War College, and witnessed his brilliant, tour de force presentation which elucidated the reliance of contemporary jihadism on Islamic Law. Coughlin demonstrated...

DOD's Complicity in the Islamization of America by Reginald Firehammer Perhaps it should not be shocking that a highly respected U.S. military specialists on Islamist law should be fired from the Department of Defense (DOD) at the behest of a Muslim. Paul Sperry's 2005 book, Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington, alreaady documents the extent of Islamist influence and infiltration in US prisons, the military, universities, and key government agencies such as the FBI, the Pentagon, the State Department, and even the White House. We already knew that, but there is something much more frightening about this...

According to reporting by Bill Gertz, The Washington Times' intrepid national security correspondent, Stephen Coughlin, a major in the U.S. Army Reserves who has served as a civilian lawyer to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, fell "afoul of a key aide to [Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon] England, Hasham Islam." If allowed to stand, the effect of Maj. Coughlin's dismissal would be a surgical strike on a man who is arguably one of the most knowledgeable opponents of Shariah — not only in the Defense Department, but inside the entire U.S. government.

LTC Joseph C. Myers, Army Advisor to the Air Command and Staff College, speaks out about the firing of Stephen Coughlin: Stephen Coughlin is to my knowledge the only Islamic Law scholar on the Joint Staff...He is a lawyer by training and a reserve Military Intelligence Officer. His first interface with Islamic Law began in Pakistan where he was investigating and prosecuting an intellectual property rights case about 10 years ago. Reviewing Pakistani property rights law, he kept seeing footnoted references to the Quran and sharia law... I have long argued and wondered why our military from senior leaders down...

Scott noted ( here) Bill Gertz's report on the conflict inside the Defense Department between between Stephen Coughlin, a leading student of Islamic extremism, and Hasham Islam, an aide to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England who conducts Muslim outreach on behalf of DOD. Coughlin had pointed out, based in part on information that came to light in the Holy Land Foundation trial in Texas, that several of the groups participating in Mr. Islam's outreach program are front organizations for the pro-jihad Muslim Brotherhood. Gertz now (reports) that Islam won the bureaucratic battle: Coughlin has been fired from the U.S....

Stephen Coughlin, the Pentagon specialist on Islamic law and Islamist extremism, has been fired from his position on the military's Joint Staff. The action followed a report in this space last week revealing opposition to his work for the military by pro-Muslim officials within the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. Mr. Coughlin was notified this week that his contract with the Joint Staff will end in March, effectively halting the career of one of the U.S. government's most important figures in analyzing the nature of extremism and ultimately preparing to wage ideological war against it. He had run...

Father Coughlin first took to the airwaves in 1926, broadcasting weekly sermons over the radio. By the early 1930s the content of his broadcasts had shifted from theology to economics and politics. Just as the rest of the nation was obsessed by matters economic and political in the aftermath of the Depression, so too was Father Coughlin. Coughlin had a well-developed theory of what he termed "social justice," predicated on monetary "reforms." He began as an early Roosevelt supporter, coining a famous expression, that the nation's choice was between "Roosevelt or ruin." Later in the 1930s he turned against FDR...

Despite a disappointing 8-8 record and the team's uncertainty at general manager, head coach Tom Coughlin will return as the Giants' head coach next season. Coughlin, who had one year remaining on his original four-year contract, agreed to a one-year extension. One assistant coach acknowledged to ESPN.com's Len Pasquarelli on Tuesday night that the staff remains in the dark about its future. Coughlin dismissed offensive coordinator John Hufnagel before the team's final regular-season game. Quarterbacks coach Kevin Gilbride assumed the play-calling chores for that contest and Sunday's wild-card game defeat at Philadelphia. There are almost certain to be further staffing...

FORT SMITH, Arkansas (Reuters) - Tom Coughlin, the former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) vice chairman who admitted to stealing thousands of dollars from the company, was sentenced on Friday to 27 months of home confinement. Coughlin, who joined Wal-Mart in 1978 and worked closely with legendary founder Sam Walton, had faced up to 28 years in prison and $1.35 million in fines after he pleaded guilty in January to wire fraud and tax evasion. Wal-Mart had accused Coughlin of misappropriating as much as $500,000 through misuse of gift cards and bogus invoices, and said he used the money to buy...

August 08, 2006 Condi's 'New Middle East' By Patrick Buchanan "Things are as they are, and their consequences will be what they will be. Why then should we seek to be deceived?" -snip- Think back. Had Reagan done to Lebanon, when half a dozen Americans were seized as hostages, what Israel has done, when two soldiers were taken hostage, Democrats would have denounced Reagan as a war criminal. Conservatives would have begged him to ease up. Yet, almost to a man and woman, our politicians are falling all over one another to express their 100 percent support of what...

SALEM — The parents of a 4-year-old boy killed in a horrific crash caused by a drunk driver are angry that the man who killed their son will spend no more than 18 months in jail — and possibly even less time than that. "He still gets to go home in a year," a sobbing Dawna Blood said of Derek Coughlin, the 35-year-old Burlington man who on Tuesday pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide while driving drunk. "Nicky's not going to come back. It just makes no sense to me." Nicholas Drolet was killed on the evening of Oct. 7, 2004,...

December 31, 2004 -- FOR the first time in 23 years, Paul Coughlin will not be able to toast his beloved, Eleanor Hilowitz, on New Year's Eve. An arrogant and sourpuss judge, Phyllis Gangel-Jacob, has issued a temporary restraining order barring Paul from seeing Eleanor. It started when Gangel-Jacob awarded guardianship of 92-year-old Eleanor to her daughter, Janet Hilowitz. The daughter claimed her mother was incompetent to run her own affairs, and Paul, 87, was a meddling, interfering influence.

Mayor Creighton and State Senator Coughlin Say John Kerry’s Doom and Gloom Economic Message Won’t Create Jobs in Ohio(title edited for length) CANTON, OH – Today, Canton Mayor Janet Creighton and state Sen. Kevin Coughlin released the following statement as of Sen. John Kerry’s travels through Canton, Ohio: “The people of Stark County and the rest of Ohio are not interested in John Kerry talking down the Ohio economy. Preaching pessimism to voters will not create a single job in Ohio, yet John Kerry continues to relentlessly heap negativity onto an economy that is recovering and creating jobs. “Ohioans want a...

<p>New York Giants second-round draft pick Chris Snee and coach Tom Coughlin's daughter had a child last fall, the team disclosed hours after picking the Boston College guard.</p> <p>Snee and Katie Coughlin are not married, but together they are raising the boy, Dylan.</p>

  &#8220;Somebody Must be Blamed&#8221;: Father Coughlin Speaks to the Nation Father Charles Coughlin occupied both a strange and a familiar place in American politics in the 1930s. Politically radical, a passionate democrat, he nevertheless was a bigot who freely vented angry, irrational charges and assertions. A Catholic priest, he broadcast weekly radio sermons that by 1930 drew as many as forty-five million listeners. Strongly egalitarian, deeply suspicious of elites, a champion of what he saw as the ordinary person&#8217;s rights, Coughlin frequently and vigorously attacked capitalism, communism, socialism, and dictatorship By the mid-1930s, his talks took on a...