The Redhunter

As of this writing there's nothing on his campaign website about the issue, but in the "National Security" section of his issues page there are three he uses the term; "Islamist extremism" once and "violent Islamic extremists" twice.

Good for McCain. I would actually prefer that he use the term "jihad", as this is what our enemies use, I'll take what I can get. This is a lot better than virtually any Democrat, none of whom to my knowledge even use "Islam" or "Islamic" in their descriptions.

Senator Barack Obama doesn't even have list "national security" or "terrorism" (or related) in the pull-down issues menu on his website. The closest we get is "foreign policy" and "homeland security". However, there is absolutely nothing about terrorism, let alone Islamic extremism, in either of those two sections.

Senator Hillary Clinton isn't any better. We find nothing about terrorism or national security on the pull down website either. If you dig you will eventually find a window with the headline "Hillary's Plans", and if you click on "Security and Opportunity: Hillary's Foreign Policy Vision" it takes you to the website of the Council on Foreign Relations, and from there to an article on terrorism that she wrote that appeared in their Nov/Dec 2007 print edition. If the word "Islam" appears in it I couldn't find it.

For a pair that claims to want to fight the "real" war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan, they've got precious little to say about it. Maybe that's because they know their followers really couldn't care less.

The Islamic Society of Northern America

The The Islamic Society of Northern America seems to be an umbrella group who's membership consists of at least 8 groups as listed on their website:

* The Muslim Students Association of the US & Canada (MSA) * North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) * Islamic Medical Association of North America (IMANA) * Association of Muslim Scientists & Engineers (AMSE) * Canadian Islamic Trust Fund (CITF) * Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA) * Council of Islamic Schools of North America (CISNA) * Islamic Media Foundation (IMF)

Their mission statement and strategic goals:

ISNA is an association of Muslim organizations and individuals that provides a common platform for presenting Islam, supporting Muslim communities, developing educational, social and outreach programs and fostering good relations with other religious communities, and civic and service organizations.

Strategic Goals

* Imam Training and Leadership Development
* Involvement of Youth
* Sound Financial Base
* Public Image
* Interfaith and Coalition Building
* Community Development

I don't have time to check out the websites of each group listed above, but the ISNA site is pretty bland. However, David Horowitz' DiscoverTheNetworks has this to say about them:

Established in 1981 by the by the Saudi-funded Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) calls itself the largest Muslim organization on the continent. ISNA was created by MSA with the help of one of Palestinian Islamic Jihad's founding students, Sami Al-Arian.

Today ISNA's annual conventions draw more attendees -- usually over 30,000 -- than any other Muslim gathering in the Western Hemisphere. ISNA's mission is to function as "an association of Muslim organizations and individuals that provides a common platform for presenting Islam, supporting Muslim communities, developing educational, social and outreach programs and fostering good relations with other religious communities, and civic and service organizations."

ISNA focuses heavily on providing Wahhabi theological indoctrination materials to a large percentage of the mosques in North America. Many of these mosques were recently built with Saudi money and are required, by their Saudi benefactors, to strictly follow the dictates of Wahhabi imams -- an edict that affects the tone and content of the sermons given in the mosques, the selection of books and periodicals that may be read in mosque libraries or sold in mosque bookshops, and the policies governing the exclusion or suppression of dissenters from the congregations.

Now it becomes clear. The ISNA is part of the Wahhabist lobby described by Dr Walid Phares in The War of Ideas.

Stephen Schwartz, director, Islam and Democracy Program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, had this to say about them in testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security on June 26, 2003:

The main organizations that have carried out this campaign (of Wahhabi control over mosques) are the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which originated in the Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA), and CAIR....

Both ISNA and CAIR, in particular, maintain open and close relations with the Saudi government -- a unique situation, in that no other foreign government directly uses religion as a cover for its political activities in the U.S. For example, notwithstanding support by the American Jewish community for the state of Israel, the government of Israel does not intervene in synagogue life or the activities of rabbinical or related religious bodies in America.

How big is the problem of Saudi/Wahhabist influence in U.S. mosques? Schwartz says that

At the present time, Shia and other non-Wahhabi Muslim community leaders estimate that 80 percent of American mosques are under Wahhabi control. This does not mean 80 percent of American Muslims support Wahhabism...

So the Islamic Society of North America has no business telling anyone what to call anything, because they're part of the problem. To be sure, they're not a terrorist group. But they are spreading the hateful ideology of Wahabbism, which is one of three parts of the Islamic jihad that is trying to destroy the West.

That John McCain "gets it" means that he gets my vote this time around.