Intercept: "U.S. Military White Paper Describes Wearing Hijab as 'Passive Terrorism'"

[Mufaddal]

A POLICY PAPER issued by the Air Force Research Laboratory, titled Countering Violent Extremism: Scientific Methods & Strategies, includes a chapter setting forth controversial and unsubstantiated theories of radicalization, including the idea that support for militant groups is driven by “sexual deprivation” and that headscarves worn by Muslim women represent a form of “passive terrorism.”

Many of the articles contained in the document have scholarly merit and are written by academics and researchers in the field of counterterrorism. But a chapter titled “A Strategic Plan to Defeat Radical Islam,” written by Dr. Tawfik Hamid, a self-described former Islamic extremist and fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, contains a number of bizarre prescriptions for how to defeat terrorism, few of which appear to be supported by empirical evidence

Among Hamid’s claims are that support for militancy is primarily a product of sexual deprivation and that terrorism bears relation to religious dress. His ideas for combating terrorism thus include “addressing the factors underlying [sexual] deprivation” among young men, as well as “weakening the hijab phenomenon.” Hamid further claims that, along with fundamentalist ideology, the “hijab contribute[s] to the idea of passive terrorism” and represents an implicit refusal to “speak against or actively resist terrorism.” They always cast themselves as either truth-talking ex-Muslims, or as self-appointed "Islamic reformers."

Hamid does not make clear how he reaches these conclusions. On his personal website, he describes himself as “an Islamic thinker and reformer” and says he has a medical degree in internal medicine from Cairo University and a master’s degree in cognitive psychology and educational techniques from the University of Auckland.

Full article: https://theintercept.com/2016/02/23/department-of-defense-white-paper-describes-wearing-hijab-as-passive-terrorism/

This is the latest in a string of bad actors with shady backgrounds being hired or commissioned to do counter-terrorism "education" programs over the last decade. It's incredible that even the highest levels of government are unable to properly vet their "experts." They are overwhelming self-described "former extremists" who often turn out to have fabricated much of their personal histories in order to cash in on both the lucrative counter-terrorism field as well as the growing wave of Islamophobia.