Is CIA Director Nominee John Brennan a Muslim?

This week’s JihadWatch chat on Canada’s SunTV was mostly taken up discussing the torture-murder of 15-year-old Kriss Donald [1] by a Muslim gang in Scotland in 2004. The case came up because one of the killers was severely beaten up in prison [2].

A more important subject regarding American national security politics is Robert Spencer’s comment about whether John Brennan [3], the nominee for Director of CIA, might be a Muslim convert.

That allegation may sound far-fetched, but Brennan speaks Arabic, was CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia and has made remarks that only a Muslim would say, like stating that “Jihad is a holy struggle.”

Remarks by Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan at CSIS [4], WhiteHouse.gov, May 26, 2010

“The President’s strategy is absolutely clear about the threat we face. Our enemy is not “terrorism” because terrorism is but a tactic. Our enemy is not “terror” because terror is a state of mind and as Americans we refuse to live in fear. Nor do we describe our enemy as “jihadists” or “Islamists” because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenant of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children.”

That’s a pretty ripe rationalization of Islam’s strategy in its 1400-year war on Western civilization.

More recently, John Guandolo, an FBI agent with knowledge of the jihadist threat, said that Brennan had been converted to Islam while working in Saudi Arabia [5].

Of course, the Senate hearing for Brennan’s confirmation as Director of the CIA had no questions about his curiously Islam-friendly remarks or association with dicey groups [6], like the Islamic Society of North America which represents the Muslim Brotherhood.

Another speech [7] made by Brennan is of concern:

Here are a few troubling sentences from that talk (although much was in Arabic and was not translated):

“For more than three decades, I have also had the tremendous fortune to travel the world, and as part of that experience, to learn about the goodness and beauty of Islam,” Brennan says. “In Saudi Arabia, I saw how our Saudi partners fulfilled their duties as custodians of the two holy Mosques of Mecca and Medina. I marveled at the majesty of the Hajj, and the devotion of those who fulfill their duty as Muslims by making that pilgrimage. And in all my travels, the city I have come to love most is Al Quds — Jerusalem — where three great faiths come together.”

The part of Michael Coren’s interview with Robert Spencer about Brennan starts at 6:24 in the video below [8], where Spencer observes, “Certainly John Brennan has been an incredible enabler of Muslim Brotherhood influence at the highest levels of government, and so Mr. Guandolo’s allegations don’t surprise me in the least.”