DEI top dogs warn intelligence officials to avoid using words such as ‘jihadist’ and even ‘Radical Islamists’

On October 19, 2011, Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates, who had complained for years about supposed Muslim profiling and entrapment, sent a letter to John Brennan, who was then the Assistant to the President on National Security for Homeland Security and Counter Terrorism. The letter was signed not just by Khera, but by the leaders of virtually all the significant Islamic groups in the United States: 57 Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizations, many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, including CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim American Society, the Islamic Circle of North America, Islamic Relief USA; and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

The letter denounced what it characterized as U.S. government agencies’ “use of biased, false and highly offensive training materials about Muslims and Islam.” It criticized “the FBI’s use of biased experts and training materials.” Khera complained that my books could be found in “the FBI’s library at the FBI training academy in Quantico, Virginia”; that a reading list accompanying a powerpoint presentation by the FBI’s Law Enforcement Communications Unit recommended my book The Truth About Muhammad; and that in July 2010 I “presented a two-hour seminar on ‘the belief system of Islamic jihadists’ to the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Tidewater, Virginia,” and “presented a similar lecture to the U.S. Attorney’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council, which is co-hosted by the FBI’s Norfolk Field Office.” She demanded that I be fired as a trainer for the FBI and military groups.

These were supposed to be terrible things because I was bigoted and hateful. But many of the examples Khera adduced of “bigoted and distorted materials” involved statements that were not actually bigoted and distorted at all, but simply accurate. What was distorted was Khera’s representation of them. For instance, Khera stated,

A 2006 FBI intelligence report stating that individuals who convert to Islam are on the path to becoming “Homegrown Islamic Extremists,” if they exhibit any of the following behavior:

• “Wearing traditional Muslim attire”
• “Growing facial hair”
• “Frequent attendance at a mosque or a prayer group”
• “Travel to a Muslim country”
• “Increased activity in a pro-Muslim social group or political cause”

This was all presented as self-evidently inaccurate, but the inaccuracy was all on Khera’s part. The FBI intelligence report Khera purported to be describing didn’t actually say that converts to Islam were necessarily “on the path” to becoming “extremists” if they wore traditional Muslim attire, grew facial hair, and frequently attended a mosque; it simply included these behaviors among a list of fourteen indicators to “identify an individual going through the radicalization process.” Others included “travel without obvious source of funds’; “suspicious purchases of bomb making paraphernalia or weapons”; “large transfer of funds, from or to overseas”; and “formation of operational cells.” Khera selectively quoted and misrepresented the list to give the impression that the FBI was saying that devout observance of Islam led inevitably and in every case to “extremism.”

Despite the factual accuracy of the material about which they were complaining, the Muslim groups signing the letter demanded that the task force “purge all federal government training materials of biased materials”; “implement a mandatory re-training program for FBI agents, U.S. Army officers, and all federal, state and local law enforcement who have been subjected to biased training”; and more — to ensure that all that law enforcement officials would learn about Islam and jihad would be what the signatories wanted them to learn.

Brennan immediately complied. In a November 3, 2011, letter to Khera, that — significantly — was written on White House stationery, Brennan promised that the government would “ensure that federal officials and state, local and tribal partners receive accurate, evidence-based information in these crucial areas.”

Numerous books and presentations that gave a perfectly accurate view of Islam and jihad were purged. The situation has only worsened since then.

“Internal Docs Show Entire Intelligence Community Warned To Avoid ‘Problematic Phrases’ On Islamic Terrorism,” by Spencer Lindquist, Daily Wire, March 21, 2024:

An internal newsletter sent by diversity, equity, and inclusion officials in the Biden administration’s top intelligence agency warns personnel not to use “problematic phrases” when discussing Islamic terrorism and foreign adversaries such as China, an internal document obtained by The Daily Wire reveals.

The unclassified newsletter from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, called “The Dive” and exclusively obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by The Daily Wire, argues in its cover story that the intelligence community needs to focus on “changing terminology related to counterterrorism,” because “words matter.”

“This article is about one of our goals: disentangling Islam from words and phrases used to discuss terrorism and extremist violence,” writes the author of the article, whose name was redacted from the document released to The Daily Wire. The article declares that it’s trying to remove “certain phrases to identify international terrorism threats that are hurtful to Muslim-Americans.”

“Some of the problematic phrases include, but are not limited to: ‘Salafi-Jihadist,’ ‘Jihadist,’ ‘Islamic-Extremist,’ ‘Sunni/Shia-Extremism,’ and ‘Radical Islamists.’”

The article is part of the newsletter created by ODNI’s Intelligence Community Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Office and sent out to personnel throughout the Intelligence Community, which includes the country’s most powerful executive agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Justice (DOJ), as well as intelligence components within each branch of the military….