Long Wars Journal publishes a very personal defense of Rashad Hussain, Obama’s newly-announced envoy to the OIC, written by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross.
Before I address the various controversies that have surrounded Rashad, I’d like to make clear that I have known him for a considerable length of time, since 1998. Those familiar with my own biography will realize that I was a practicing Muslim back then. So I have known him as a co-religionist; and know him now as someone who worships a different God than I do, but whose religious practice I respect.
….I think the dozen years in which I have known Rashad and had the opportunity to assess his beliefs and character provide important context for this defense. Many of the attacks on him are the proverbial view from 50,000 feet: and it is sometimes easy to misunderstand what you see from that distance.
I’m surprised to see this coming from Gartenstein-Ross, who (according to his Wikipedia bio) has worked for Smearcaster Steven Emerson (also one of the media persecutors of Sami al-Arian) and who wrote a book, “My Year Inside Radical Islam: A Memoir” that the Wiki bio says has been called the American version of Ed Hussain’s “The Islamist.” Here’s the first sentence:
Before I was an FBI informant, an apostate, and a blasphemer, I was a devout believer in radical Islam who worked for a Saudi-funded charity that sent money to al-Qaeda.
Here, he offers an insight into Rashad’s remarks about al-Arian:
Rashad’s concerns about the al-Arian prosecution, and other prosecutions that he discussed in that context, stemmed not from an Islamist ideology but rather from a civil-libertarian ideology. It is clear from his 2004 speech that Rashad is a Kerry-supporting Democrat rather than a bin Laden-supporting jihadist.
