Frank Gaffney

For the American soldier, see Frank Gaffney (Medal of Honor).
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
Born April 5, 1953
Residence United States
Occupation President of Center for Security Policy
Organization Center for Security Policy

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. (born April 5, 1953) is the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, columnist at The Washington Times, Big Peace, and Townhall, and radio host on Secure Freedom Radio.

Early life

Gaffney was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1975, Gaffney graduated from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University.[1] He received his graduate degree from Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.[2]

Career

Gaffney began his public service career in the 1970s, working as an aide in the office of Democratic Senator Henry M. Jackson, under Richard Perle. From August 1983 until November 1987, Gaffney held the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy in the Reagan Administration, again serving under Perle. In April 1987, Gaffney was nominated to the position of US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy. He served as the acting Assistant Secretary for seven months,[3] though his confirmation was ultimately blocked by the United States Senate. In 1988, Gaffney established the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a neoconservative national security and defense policy organization.

Gaffney appeared on FahrenHYPE 9/11, the conservative documentary that was a rebuttal to Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11.[4]

Gaffney was an executive producer for the documentary Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center. The documentary was created to air as part of the America at a Crossroads series on PBS, but it has not been shown. PBS claimed that the film failed "to meet their standards, " but Gaffney called the decision "censorship."[5]

He is a founding member of the Set America Free Coalition to reduce dependence on foreign oil and is part of the current iteration of the Committee on the Present Danger.[6]

In November 1992, Gaffney's Center for Security Policy organization released a report detailing voter fraud in Angola's presidential election. Election officials stopped registering voters 40 days before the election. Polling stations had identical voting results. The MPLA retained a monopoly on television election-coverage. CSP also found widespread vote buying by the MPLA, the discarding of as many as 25% of cast ballots, and electricity blackouts during voter counting. United Nations special envoy Margaret Anstee said she "had never witnessed a more unfair election, even in Latin America."[7]

Along with a number of figures who later assumed leading positions in the George W. Bush administration, Gaffney was one of 25 signatories[8] of the June 3, 1997 "Statement of Principles" from the controversial Project for the New American Century,[9] an educational and political advocacy organization whose stated goal was "to promote American global leadership."[10]

Dispute with Grover Norquist

In February 2003, Gaffney and David Horowitz criticized Grover Norquist, an anti-tax activist and prominent Republican strategist, for alleged ties to Abdurahman Alamoudi, Khaled Saffuri, and Sami al-Arian, all of whom had attempted to influence the Bush Administration.[11]

Gaffney said a press release by the American Muslim Council credited Ali Tulbah, a Bush-White House aide, for getting them access to the administration. Norquist banned Gaffney from the weekly "Wednesday Meeting" of the Leave Us Alone Coalition that Norquist hosted. Norquist later wrote an open letter, implying that Gaffney's account amounted to "racial prejudice, religious bigotry [and] ethnic hatred." In 2011, Gaffney accused Norquist of "helping the Muslim Brotherhood spread its influence" in the U.S. government.[12] David Keene, President of the American Conservative Union, later commented on the Gaffney-Norquist dispute, saying, "I, for one, don't see it. If you read the transcript [of the panel], you can see if Frank was right or wrong, but there was nothing racist or bigoted about it."[13]

In a front-page story in The Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove dismissed Gaffney's assertions regarding Bush, stating "there's no there there."[14] In an article appearing in the January 2007 edition of Vanity Fair about neoconservatives who pushed for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Gaffney said of Bush, "He doesn't in fact seem to be a man of principle who's steadfastly pursuing what he thinks is the right course. He talks about it, but the policy doesn't track with the rhetoric, and that's what creates the incoherence that causes us problems around the world and at home."[15]

Iraq War

In 2003, Gaffney called on the United States military to "take out" Al Jazeera news network for inciting violence against the Western world by showcasing Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein's "calls-to-arms."[16]

On March 12, 2009, Gaffney appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and accused former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of being involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Oklahoma City bombing, "There is also circumstantial evidence, not proven by any means, but nonetheless some pretty compelling circumstantial evidence of Saddam Hussein's Iraq being involved with the people who perpetrated both the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and even the Oklahoma City bombing."[17]

Criticism of Barack Obama

In October 2008, Gaffney questioned whether then Illinois Senator Barack Obama was a "natural born citizen of the United States" and his legal eligibility to be the President of the United States.[18] In a series of Washington Times articles from February to June 2009, Gaffney discussed the Obama administration's dangerous plan of effectively adopting the Muslim Brotherhood's plan for the Middle East; Sharia law.[19][20][21]

In a February 24, 2010 column on Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment, when Gaffney addressed the administration's disarmament of the missile defense program as "US submission to Islam" from "an Alinsky acolyte", citing the redesigned logo of the Missile Defense Agency as evidence.[22]

"Team Obama’s anti-anti-missile initiatives are not simply acts of unilateral disarmament of the sort to be expected from an Alinsky acolyte. They seem to fit an increasingly obvious and worrying pattern of official U.S. submission to Islam and the theo-political-legal program the latter's authorities call Shariah.
"What could be code-breaking evidence of the latter explanation is to be found in the newly-disclosed redesign of the Missile Defense Agency logo.... As Logan helpfully shows, the new MDA shield appears ominously to reflect a morphing of the Islamic crescent and star with the Obama campaign logo."

Recent activities

Gaffney is a frequent contributor to the media site Newsmax, writing opinion pieces on topics such as politics, terrorism, and international affairs in a column titled "Security Watch."[23]

He also continually hosts a radio show called Secure Freedom Radio, a nationally-syndicated radio program heard weeknights throughout the country. Featured guests have included Newt Gingrich, John Bolton, Donald Rumsfeld and many current and former policymakers and elected officials.

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ "Frank Gaffney". TownHall. Retrieved 2012-11-23.
  2. ↑ Ruppert, Michael C. (2004). Crossing the Rubicon. p. 531.
  3. ↑ "Frank Gaffney Biography". Center for Security Policy. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  4. ↑ "Fahrenhype 911". YouTube. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  5. ↑ "Frank Gaffney; Filmmaker, "Islam vs Islamists"". C-SPAN. Retrieved 2014-11-30.
  6. ↑ "Who We Are". Set America Free Coalition. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  7. ↑ James P. Lucier (2002-04-29). "Chevron oil and the Savimbi problem". CBS. Retrieved 2009-06-26.
  8. ↑ Loo, Dennis; Howard Zinn and Peter Phillips. Impeach the President, the case against Bush and Cheney. p. 259.
  9. ↑ "Statement of Principles". Project for the New American Century. 1997-06-03. Retrieved 2007-07-12.
  10. ↑ "About PNAC". Project for the New American Century. Retrieved 2007-07-12.
  11. ↑ "A Troubling Influence". FrontPageMag. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  12. ↑ "The CPAC War: Getting Weirder". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  13. ↑ "Fight on the Right". National Review Online. March 19, 2003. Retrieved 2007-07-12.
  14. ↑ Hamburger, Tom; Simpson, Glenn R. (June 11, 2003). "In Difficult Times, Muslims Count On Unlikely Advocate". The Wall Street Journal.
  15. ↑ Rose, David (January 2007). "Neo Culpa". Vanity Fair.
  16. ↑ Gaffney, Frank (2003-09-29). "Take Out Al Jazeera". Fox News. Retrieved 2009-06-26.
  17. ↑ Benen, Steve. "It never ends". Washington Monthly. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  18. ↑ Gaffney, Frank (2008-10-14). "GAFFNEY: The jihadist vote". The Washington Times. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  19. ↑ Gaffney, Frank (2008-02-17). "GAFFNEY: Embracing of Shariah?". The Washington Times. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  20. ↑ "Frank 'I'm A Member Of Dick Cheney's Fan Club' Gaffney: Obama's 'Respect' For Muslims Is Code For Submission". ThinkProgress. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  21. ↑ Gaffney, Frank (2009-06-09). "America's first Muslim president?". The Washington Times. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  22. ↑ "Can This Possibly Be True? New Obama Missile Defense Logo Includes A Crescent". Breitbart.org. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  23. ↑ Gaffney, Frank. "Frank Gaffney - Security Watch". Newsmax. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
  24. ↑ "War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World". The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 2012-08-23.

External links