Tracking the Sources of Recent Changes to Counter-terrorism Training
Katharine C. Gorka, the Westminster Institute
and
J. Michael Waller, PhD, Institute of World Politics
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
6:00 – 8:00 pm
At The Westminster Institute
6731 Curran Street, McLean, VA 22101
Katharine Gorka will show the strategy laid out by the OIC (Organization for Islamic Cooperation) to work through the UN and think tanks in order to shut down criticism of Islam and prevent law enforcement from connecting Islam with terrorism, and how that strategy has been implemented. Michael Waller will show that individuals who have since been jailed or suspected of having ties to terrorism helped put in place U.S. counter-terrorism policies that are still in place today.
Katharine Cornell Gorka is the Executive Director of The Westminster Institute. Katharine spent nearly two decades working in Central Europe. She was the regional head of the USAID-funded Democracy Network program, run by the National Forum Foundation, covering the countries of Central Europe and the Balkans. Katharine later co-founded with her husband, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, the Institute for Transitional Democracy and International Security (ITDIS), which focused on issues of economic reform and the problems associated with former communists and secret police in post-communist democracies. In her current position as head of the Westminster Institute, Katharine is responsible for helping to define the threat posed by Islamic terrorism and subversion in the United States. She works closely with US government agencies, law enforcement and the intelligence community. Most recently she authored “Sharia Finance and the U.S.Constitution,” and she is co-editor of the volume, Fighting the Ideological War: Winning Strategies from Communism to Islamism.
Dr. J. Michael Waller serves as the Annenberg Professor of International Communication and teaches courses on foreign propaganda, political and psychological warfare, information warfare and public diplomacy at the Institute of World Politics, a graduate school of national security and international affairs. He is faculty member of the Army’s LDESP leadership program at the Naval Postgraduate School. He was a field operator in support of a successful US-backed insurgency and infiltrated and disrupted international Soviet front organizations in support of the White House Active Measures Working Group in the 1980s, and subsequently worked on various political warfare campaigns to affect change in areas of US interest. He has been a consultant to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the USIA, USAID, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the US Army. In 2006 he received a citation from the Director of the FBI for “exceptional service in the public interest.” He has written for the Los Angeles Times, Reader’s Digest, USA Today, the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Relevant Resources:
- Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference. Fletcher Schoen and Dr. Christopher J. Lamb. National Defense University – Institute for National Strategic Studies, Center for Strategic Research – Strategic Perspectives #11. National Defense University Press, June 2012.
- Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Islamophobia Observatory – Monthly Bulletins & Yearly Reports
- Letters from Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s Office to the Inspector General of the Department of State, Defense, Justice, Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Security
- University of Exeter, European Muslim Research Center- Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hate Crime: A London Case Study. Dr. Jonathan Githens-Mazer and Dr. Robert Lambert Mbe.
- Center for American Progress Report. Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America. Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and Faiz Shakir. August 2011
The Westminster Institute
6729 Curran Street
McLean, VA 22101
Tel. 1-703-288-2885
www.westminster-institute.org
Katharine Cornell Gorka, Executive Director
kcg@westminster-institute.org