THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 21, January 18, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE NATIONAL PRAYER SERVICE & THE WAHHABI LOBBY
By Winfield Myers
INGRID MATTSON, THE ISLAMIC SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA, & THE DISSEMINATION OF ISLAMIST PROPAGANDA IN THE
U.S.A.: WAHHABI APOLOGIST MATTSON'S ASSOCIATION WITH BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA & THE DEMOCRATIC
PARTY -- MATTSON'S PARTICIPATION IN PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA'S INAUGURAL FESTIVITIES -- THE INCOMING OBAMA
ADMINISTRATION'S INTENT TO IGNORE MATTSON'S LONG HISTORY OF SHILLING FOR RADICAL ISLAM & TO LEND THE
ADMINISTRATION'S IMPRIMATUR TO THE ISNA, THEREBY OPENING THE DOORS OF POWER TO WAHHABI APOLOGISTS
FULL STORY:
Ingrid Mattson, President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), will deliver a prayer at the National Cathedral
during the National Prayer Service on January 21, 2009. The event is part of the festivities for the inauguration of Barack
Obama, which occurs January 20. A convert to Islam, Mattson directs the Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and
Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary.
ISNA has close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist group, and was named an un-indicted
co-conspirator in United States v. Holy Land Foundation (2006), a case that uncovered covert financing of the
terrorist group Hamas. Since her election as ISNA President in 2006, Mattson's apologias for the radical Wahhabi sect of
Islam have gained a much wider audience.
Daniel Pipes has written that, under Mattson's leadership, ISNA is "a key component of the Wahhabi lobby."
In a "Meet Ingrid Mattson," Campus Watch Adjunct Scholar Jonathan Schanzer offered specific examples of Mattson's
denials and deceits regarding radical Islam's threat to the U.S.A. Among them:
Wahhabism is simply a "reform movement" that "really
was analogous to the European Protestant Reformation";
Contrary to statements by Director of National Intelligence,
Admiral Michael McConnell, that "there are sleeper cells in
the U.S," Mattson claims that, in fact, "there aren't any
sleeper cells";
The President's use of the term "Islamic" when speaking of
terrorist attacks on the West is "not only inaccurate, but
unhelpful."
Additional examples of Mattson's dissembling abound. During a 2001 CNN chatroom interview, asked at what point in
history the Muslim world "turn[ed] from a philosophical and educated state comparable to the Greeks to the now Third
World state it is in," Mattson emulated other members of the Middle East Studies establishment and employed
postcolonial theory to blame the West:
Well, the decline began with the colonization of the Muslim world by European powers. One of the first things the
colonialists did was to dismantle the institutions of what we could call civil society. The Muslim world has, until now,
not recovered from that dismemberment of its society.
In a move hardly in keeping with the ecumenical nature of a National Prayer Service, Mattson sought to sow division
between religious groups when, in 2007, she advised American Jews not to trust Conservative Christians:
Rightwing Christians are very risky allies for American Jews because they are really anti-Semitic. They do not like Jews.
Next Wednesday's event won't mark Mattson's first appearance at a significant Obama event. Last August, she
participated in an interfaith meeting at the opening of the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Nor will it be the first time Mattson benefits from an obsequiousness Washington political class more fearful of giving
offense than of facing down apologists for radical Islam. Former Undersecretaries of State Karen Hughes and Nick
Burns and Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England went to great lengths to legitimize ISNA. Hughes addressed
ISNA's annual convention in 2005, and England attended the following year.
At the State Department's 2006 annual Iftaar dinner, Hughes singled out Mattson for praise, calling her:
A thoughtful scholar, a teacher ... I think we owe Ingrid a
round of applause.... She's doing a wonderful job and is
a wonderful leader and role model for many, many people.
Mattson's participation in President-elect Obama's Inaugural festivities heralds the incoming administration's intent to
follow the Bush administration's practice of ignoring her long history of shilling for radical Islam. In lending its
imprimatur to ISNA, the Obama White House proves that opening the doors of power to Wahhabi apologists is the
kind of bi-partisan undertaking we'd all be better off without.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Fifth Column -- America's Internal Enemies:
Disloyalty, Subversion, Sedition, & Treason
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Winfield Myers is Director of Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.
The foregoing article by Myers was originally published in the American Thinker, January 17, 2009, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/2051)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
January 18, 2009
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