We’ve already noted how WorldNetDaily attempted to discredit Walid Shoebat for exposing holes in his past as a self-proclaimed former terrorist while giving presentations to law enforcement groups as a so-called expert on Islamic terrorism who engages in little more than Muslim-bashing. Now another dubious terrorism “expert” has WND ties as well.
Wired’s Danger Room blog details how an FBI intelligence analyst named William Gawthrop has created Muslim-bashing research used in counterterrorism briefings for law enforcement. Before he joined the FBI, a 2006 WND article reported how Gawthrop said that the Pentagon has never conducted “a ‘systematic study’ of Muhammad’s military doctrine” since “Muhammad’s mindset is a source for terrorism,” and that”hitting “soft spots” in the Islamic faith that, once exploited, “may induce a deteriorating cascade effect upon the target.” But first, according to WND, Gawthrop said that “officials must first overcome the political taboo of linking Islamic violence to the religion of Islam.”
Wired notes that such simplistic elevating of cherry-picked Quran verses is as useful a guide to terrorist behavior as “diving into the rite of exorcism” is to understanding Catholicism.