Founded in 2013 as an alternative forum for conservative politicians, pundits and scholars who had been turned away from the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington D.C., the National Security Action Summit truly came into its own this year, hosting a full day of panel discussions and appearances by top Republican leaders. Indeed, a significant portion of those in attendance bore name badges indicating that they had stepped away from CPAC specifically to hear from the “uninvited.”
The Summit was co-sponsored by Breitbart News and EMPact America, an NGO established to raise public awareness of the threat posed by electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons to America’s domestic energy infrastructure. Serving as moderator was Frank Gaffney, founder and president of conservative think tank the Center for Security Policy. Held just days after this year’s AIPAC Policy Conference, the National Security Action Summit might be mistaken for an offshoot of the same, given the profusion of kippot and the presence of some of Israel’s staunchest defenders on the American political scene today. (Indeed, Dr. Joseph Frager of Queens, New York—an activist perhaps best known for his work organizing the annual Israel Day Concert & Rally in Central Park—was among those working behind the scenes to ensure the success of the National Security Action Summit.) A key distinction, of course, could be found in the wide range of issues discussed at the national security conference, which included but were not limited to immigration reform, the future of the U.S. military, the crisis in Ukraine, and the threat posed by Radical Islam at home and abroad.
The Islamist Agenda
Throughout the Summit, the Obama administration was called to task repeatedly for its many failings. The mood was an urgent one, as subject matter experts lambasting the president and other high-ranking officials from political, economic, intelligence, and military perspectives. In the morning’s first panel, entitled “The Muslim Brotherhood, ‘Civilization Jihad,’ and its Enablers,” panelists like former FBI Agent John Guandolo alleged that numerous front groups for Egypt’s fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood are already hard at work within the United States, and exerting an influence on the federal government. Writer and activist Deborah Weiss, Esq., spoke of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation – which she denounced as “an Islamist supremacist group” posing as moderates – and their efforts to curb any and all free speech deemed blasphemous according to Islam. Perhaps most informative of all was the presentation by Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, who appeared via video.
Dr. Jasser described himself and his organization as being “at the head of the spear in fighting not only Radical Islam, but Political Islam, and all the offshoots of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and its legacy groups in the West.”
“There is hope,” declared Jasser, “but we can only do this together. A big part of the solution will come from within the House of Islam.”
Jasser went on to tell how in his book “The Battle for the Soul of Islam,” he explains that people like himself “did not come out of thin air,” but rather “families like mine came to America escaping the two evils in the Middle East of Political Islam and the [Muslim] Brotherhood and its theocracy, and also Arab fascism and its autocracy. The ‘Putins’ of the Middle East, if you will.”
Unfortunately, says Dr. Jasser, anti-Islamist, pro-democratic Muslims are at a disadvantage, relative to the better-funded, better-connected, and more widely publicized Islamist groups. Advocating for the “separation of mosque and state,” he called upon those at the National Security Action Summit to support his fight not only against violent acts of terrorism, but against the extremist ideologies that spawn them.