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Story Number: NNS090523-06 Release Date: 5/23/2009 10:46:00 AM By Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Erin Oberholtzer, USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) Public Affairs. NEWPORT NEWS (NNS) -- A USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) officer has broken stereotypes in the Navy across all ranks during the past 22 years. Cmdr. Muhammad Khan, Air Department's Head of Department emigrated from Karachi, Pakistan in 1981, to earn a bachelor's degree in Computer Science at North Texas State University. Later, fascinated with Naval Aviation after watching the movie Top Gun, he enlisted in the Navy in 1987. "He is a great guy and a...

A former FBI special agent told law enforcement and Homeland Security personnel that a network of Islamic organizations are working to incrementally implement Islamic law in the United States. During a presentation at the Bedford County Emergency Management Agency, former FBI agent John Guandolo briefed members about groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which he claims is working with other Islamic groups to slowly implement Shariah, also known as Islamic law, which encompasses all areas of life. Guandolo worked in the FBI since 1996, including nine years as a member of its SWAT team. After 9/11, he worked in the...

WASHINGTON, March 19, 2008 – Americans must be as committed to defeating the terrorist enemy as that enemy is to defeating the United States and all that for which the nation stands, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England said today at the Navy League’s Sea, Air, Space Expo here. The deputy secretary spoke before an overflow crowd at the Expo on the fifth anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He said the war on terror will be a long war more analogous to the Cold War than a war with a definite beginning and end. He cited similarities between...

Hesham Islam's 'resume didn't add up,' official says In a stunning turn of events, a high-level Muslim military aide blamed for costing an intelligence contractor his job will step down from his own Pentagon post, WND has learned. Meanwhile, his rival, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, a leading authority on Islamic war doctrine, may stay in the Pentagon, moving from the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the office of the secretary of defense. However, sources say a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey is trying to block his new contract. The top Pentagon aide, Egyptian-born Hesham H....

Islam probed: Heshem that is February 1, 2008comment by Jerry Gordon What is that careworn expression: "oh what a tangled web we weave, when we first begin to deceive". That is what eventuated after the journalistic endeavors of former Wall Street journalist and now resident sleuth at the Foundation for the Defense of democracy in Washington, Claudia Rosset pressed the Pentagon on inconsistencies in Defense Muslim outreach aide, Heshem Islam's resume. As we posted on this rapidly developing story, the DoD puff piece on Heshem Islam, the Muslim outreach aide to Deputy Defense Secretary England, who accused Pentagon Islamic...

Federal authorities say a high-level Muslim Pentagon aide, who led a campaign to silence a Pentagon intelligence analyst for taking a hard line against Islam, is running an "influence operation" on behalf of U.S. Muslim groups fronting for the radical Muslim Brotherhood. Hesham H. Islam (left), Muslim aide to the deputy secretary of defense, with Muslim military chaplain Abuhena M. Saifulislam (right) Hesham H. Islam, a special assistant to deputy Defense secretary Gordon England, recently criticized Maj. Stephen Coughlin, one of the military's leading authorities on Islamic war doctrine, for making the connection between the religion of Islam and terrorism....

Published: February 15, 2008 For the Record: Hesham Islam's Friend in Low PlacesSteven EmersonLouay Safi, executive director of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Leadership Development Center, is lamenting the scrutiny on Hesham Islam, the apparently outgoing special assistant to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England.Islam became embroiled in controversy for allegedly referring to Army Reserve Maj. Stephen Coughlin as a "Christian zealot with a pen" in response to some of Coughlin's research into radical Islamist Jihadi ideology. Coughlin, whose Pentagon contract originally was to expire next month, now will continue his research for the Secretary of Defense. Reports indicate...

Embattled Muslim aide to leave Pentagon job Hesham Islam's 'resume didn't add up,' official says WorldNetDaily February 11, 2008In a stunning turn of events, a high-level Muslim military aide blamed for costing an intelligence contractor his job will step down from his own Pentagon post, WND has learned. Meanwhile, his rival, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, a leading authority on Islamic war doctrine, may stay in the Pentagon, moving from the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the office of the secretary of defense. However, sources say a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey is trying to block...

Published: February 6, 2008 Pentagon Aide's Invitations Contradicted U.S. PolicySteven EmersonAt the urging of a subordinate, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England scheduled at least two meetings with foreign emissaries in direct contradiction of U.S. policy at the time. The meetings date back to 2005. They involved a Lebanese ambassador considered a proxy for the Syrian government and a leading member of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood.U.S. policy at the time was not to engage in talks with either man, because they represent groups with whom the United States was not to communicate. The meetings were organized by England's special assistant for...

, It is now well-established in Washington that any scandal, no matter how seemingly innocuous, soon is given the suffix "-gate," establishing a lineal connection to the mother of all scandals, Watergate. Well, let me be the first to suggest that a recent scandal in the Pentagon be known hereafter as "Front-gate" in recognition of the central role played in the drama by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an organization designated by the Justice Department as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan). With the House and Senate both back in business this week, Front-gate should be subjected...

The Defense Department has officially notified Congress that the department will begin the furlough process for civilian employees of the Army, the Marine Corps and the combatant commands. Congressional leaders have released a letter from Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England dated Dec. 7. In it, England gave legislators the required 45-day notice before beginning furloughs. The furloughs will become necessary if Congress does not pass a global war on terror spending bill. “Without GWOT funding, only operations and maintenance funds in the base budget are available to cover war-related costs,” England said in the letter. “O&M funds also cover salary...

President George W. Bush on Wednesday bypassed the Senate during the congressional recess and appointed Gordon England to be deputy defense secretary. Bush had nominated England when he was Navy Secretary to the No. 2 Defense Department post to succeed Paul Wolfowitz in March, but the nomination stalled in the Senate amid concern among some lawmakers. England has been acting deputy defense secretary and was performing most of those duties. Bush also did a recess appointment for Dorrance Smith as head of the Pentagon's public affairs department after the nomination ran into resistance among some Democrats on the Senate Armed...

Navy Secretary Gordon England-- who has also been serving as the acting deputy defense secretary-- gave up his Navy post Thursday, clearing the way for a new naval leader. The move will allow Donald Winter to be sworn in as Navy secretary next week. Congressional roadblocks have prevented Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld from filling key leadership positions in his department for months. But legal maneuvering by the White House, which formally designated acting deputy England as Rumsfeld's second in command last week, allowed England to relinquish the Navy job. Two senators have blocked England's confirmation as deputy defense secretary,...

When then-House Republican backbencher Dick Armey came up with the concept of an independent base-closing commission in the mid-1980s, the idea was to make it easier for the political system to do the right thing... As we're seeing in the current round of base closings, even the Armey method is having a hard time surviving the ability of Members to sabotage the process.... The Pentagon has proposed closing a record 62 major bases and 775 small installations to save $48.8 billion over 20 years and reposition the armed forces to face current threats.... Before the Brac Commission was even in...

Thursday, August 4, 2005 'Hold' attributed to Snowe By CLARKE CANFIELD, Associated Press ©Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. E-mail this story to a friend SOUTH PORTLAND - Sen. Olympia Snowe on Wednesday declined to confirm reports that she has blocked the nomination of Gordon England to the No. 2 Pentagon job because she is frustrated over the Pentagon's base closure recommendations. The Wall Street Journal and Defense Daily reported that Snowe, R-Maine, has put a "hold" on England's nomination to serve as deputy secretary of defense. President Bush in May designated England to be acting deputy secretary even...

President Bush opted again yesterday for a functioning government. Faced with an endless Senate stall, he used his recess-appointment power to install Peter Flory as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy.... [L]et us suggest that he pick up his pen to fill two even more senior positions at the Pentagon -- Gordon England to succeed Paul Wolfowitz as Deputy Secretary and Eric Edelman to replace Douglas Feith as Undersecretary for Policy, the department's No. 3. Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner called Monday for Mr. Bush to do just that -- which we take as an admission he's...

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Thursday that he has chosen Navy Secretary Gordon England for the No. 2 civilian job at the Pentagon. Bush's nomination of England to serve as deputy secretary of defense requires Senate confirmation. He would succeed Paul Wolfowitz, who is leaving to head the World Bank. England is seen as less ideological than Wolfowitz, who is regarded as a key architect of the Iraq invasion. England started as Navy secretary in May 2001, then switched to the Homeland Security Department's No. 2 spot in January 2003, only to return to the Navy post nine months later...