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Center for Security Policy

Coordinates: 38°54′1.5″N 77°2′43.8″W / 38.900417°N 77.045500°W / 38.900417; -77.045500
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For the think tank based in Geneva, Switzerland, see Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

Center for Security Policy
AbbreviationCSP
Formation1988 (37 years ago) (1988)
FounderFrank J. Gaffney, Jr.[1][2]
Typenonprofit
52-1601976
Legal status501(c)(3)[3]
Purposedefense policy think tank
Headquarters
President
Tommy Waller[a]
Chairman
E. Miles Prentice III
Revenue$1,831,582[4] (2021)
Expenses$4,700,851[4] (2021)
Websitecenterforsecuritypolicy.org
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The Center for Security Policy (CSP) is a US far-right,[5][6] anti-Muslim,[7][8] Washington, D.C.–based think tank. The founder and former president of the organization was Frank J. Gaffney Jr. (now Executive Chairman). The current president since January 1, 2023, is Tommy Waller, a former US Marine.[9] CSP sometimes operates under its DBA[b] name Secure Freedom.[c][4] The organization also operates a public counter-jihad campaign and the website counterjihad.com.[10]

History and programs

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In April 1987, Frank Gaffney, Jr. was nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs during the Reagan Administration, having served in that role for seven months until being removed in November of that same year.[11] In a meeting with former Department of Defense officials after Gaffney's ouster, Richard Perle, for whom Gaffney had previously served as a top deputy,[11] said, "What we need is the Domino’s Pizza of the policy business. ... If you don’t get your policy analysis in 30 minutes, you get your money back."[12] Gaffney founded the CSP a year later in 1988.[13] One of the center's annual reports later echoed Perle's words calling the CSP "the Domino's Pizza of the policy business."[14]

In 2010, there were 19 co-authors of the CSP "Team B II" report Shariah: The Threat To America that claimed sharia law was a major threat to the national security of the United States.[15][16] In 2012, Gaffney released a 50-page document titled, "The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration".[15] The document questioned the Obama administration’s approach to the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East.[17] The CSP has since accused a number of US officials of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, including Huma Abedin[18] and Grover Norquist.[19]

In 2013, CSP received donations from Boeing ($25,000); General Dynamics ($15,000); Lockheed Martin ($15,000); Northrop Grumman ($5,000); Raytheon ($20,000); and General Electric ($5,000).[20] The group has also received $1.4 million from the Bradley Foundation.[21]

The CSP helped to organize a rally on Capitol Hill on September 9, 2015, against the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal.[22] Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump spoke at the rally.[23] In a separate report about Iran, the CSP declared that Susan Rice, Richard Haass, and Dennis Ross were being secretly controlled by a covert "Iran lobby".[18]

On March 16, 2016, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said he would appoint Gaffney to be his National Security Advisor. Cruz also said his foreign policy team would also include three other employees of Gaffney's think tank: Fred Fleitz, Clare Lopez, and Jim Hanson.[24] During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump cited a CSP poll in support of his restrictions on travel from several Muslim countries.[25][16]

Trump administration

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Since 2017 several people with ties to the CSP have joined the Trump administration, including Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway in 2017, chief of staff for the National Security Council Fred Fleitz in 2018,[26] and Deputy National Security Advisor Charles Kupperman in 2019.[27] Kupperman served on the board of directors for CSP between 2001 and 2010.[27]

The Trump administration used reports released by the CSP when it proposed to ban all Muslims from entering the United States.[28]

Controversy

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The Center and Gaffney have been criticized for propagating conspiracy theories by Dana Milbank of The Washington Post,[29] Simon Maloy of Salon,[30] CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen,[15] Grover Norquist,[31] Jonathan Kay,[32] Georgetown University's Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim–Christian Understanding,[33] Center for American Progress,[34] Media Matters for America,[35] the Southern Poverty Law Center,[18] The Intercept,[36] the Anti-Defamation League,[37] and the Institute for Southern Studies,[38] among others. Gaffney has been described as an influential member of the counter-jihad movement,[39] and the CPS has been described as "arguably the most important" counter-jihad advocacy group.[40]

In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) labeled the CSP as a hate group and a "conspiracy-oriented mouthpiece for the growing anti-Muslim movement",[41][42][43] a characterization disputed by the CSP.[44] SPLC representatives have characterized the CSP as "an extremist think tank" and suggested that it is led by an "anti-muslim conspiracy theorist."[45][25] The SPLC further criticizes CSP's "investigative reports", saying that they are designed "to reinforce [Frank] Gaffney's delusions".[18]

One of the CSP's "Occasional Papers" accused Huma Abedin, then Hillary Clinton's aide, of being an undercover spy for the Muslim Brotherhood.[18] On June 13, 2012, Republican members of Congress Michele Bachmann, Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Thomas Rooney and Lynn Westmoreland, sent a letter to the State Department Inspector General including accusations against Abedin cited to the CSP. The letter and the CSP's accusation were widely denounced as a smear, and achieved "near-universal condemnation", including from several prominent Republicans such as John McCain, John Boehner, Scott Brown, and Marco Rubio.[32][38][46]

Writing in Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner described the organization as "a far-right think tank whose president, Frank Gaffney, was banned from the CPAC [Conservative Political Action Conference] ... because its organizers believed him to be a 'crazy bigot'".[47] The Center for Democratic Values at Queens College, City University of New York has said the center is among the "key players in the Sharīʿah cottage industry", which it describes as a "conspiracy theory" that claims the existence of "secretive power elite groups that conspire to replace sovereign nation-states in order to eventually rule the world".[48]

In March 1995, William M. Arkin, a reporter and commentator on military affairs, criticized the CSP's Gaffney as a "maestro of bumper-sticker policy" who "specializes in intensely personal attacks" and who has "never met a flag-waving, pro-defense, anti-Democratic idea he didn't like."[14] Gaffney has also generated controversy for writing in 2010 that the logo of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency "appears ominously to reflect a morphing of the Islamic crescent and star with the Obama campaign logo" and was part of a "worrying pattern of official U.S. submission to Islam".[20][49]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ president since 1 January 2023
  2. ^ DBA - abbreviation for Doing-Business-As
  3. ^ as shown on IRS Form-990 (example yr2021)

References

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  1. ^ Archived from the original on November 19, 2019. Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  2. ^ Archived from the original on May 30, 2020. Retrieved July 8, 2020.
  3. ^ Archived from the original on February 11, 2017. Retrieved February 7, 2017. 3 star rating (83.57)
  4. ^ a b c "Nonprofit Explorer - Center for Security Policy - IRS Form-990 yr2021". ProPublica. August 3, 2022. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
  5. ^ Bertrand, Natasha (August 4, 2017). Archived from the original on January 31, 2018. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
  6. ^ O’Donnell, S. Jonathon (December 19, 2017). 10.1080/0031322X.2017.1414473.
  7. ^ Zaveri, Mihir (October 17, 2019). Archived from the original on September 2, 2024. Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  8. ^ Archived from the original on September 2, 2024. Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  9. ^ Archived from the original on April 21, 2024. Retrieved April 11, 2024.
  10. ^ Pertwee, Ed (2020). 218843237.
  11. ^ a b Blumenthal, Sidney (November 23, 1987). Archived from the original on February 15, 2017. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
  12. ^ Ken Silverstein; Daniel Burton-Rose (2000). Private Warriors. Verso. p. 244. ISBN 978-1-85984-325-3.
  13. ^ Archived from the original on September 25, 2015. Retrieved September 26, 2015.
  14. ^ a b Arkin, William M. (March 1995). 10.1080/00963402.1995.11658058.
  15. ^ a b c Bergen, Peter (September 21, 2015). Archived from the original on September 29, 2015. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
  16. ^ a b Hauslohner, Abigail (November 5, 2016). Archived from the original on May 18, 2018. Retrieved March 2, 2018.
  17. ^ Gertz, Bill (June 3, 2015). Archived from the original on February 8, 2018. Retrieved February 5, 2018.
  18. ^ a b c d e Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on September 8, 2015. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
  19. ^ Terkel, Amanda (March 5, 2014). Archived from the original on August 5, 2015. Retrieved July 26, 2015.
  20. ^ a b Clifton, Eli (October 1, 2014). Archived from the original on July 25, 2015. Retrieved October 1, 2014.
  21. ^ Archived from the original on January 21, 2016. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
  22. ^ Keating, Joshua (September 9, 2015). Archived from the original on February 7, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  23. ^ Archived from the original on March 1, 2018. Retrieved March 1, 2018.
  24. ^ Archived from the original on March 18, 2016. Retrieved March 19, 2016.
  25. ^ a b Joel Gunter (December 8, 2015). Archived from the original on December 12, 2015. Retrieved December 10, 2015.
  26. ^ Uddin, Asma (2019). When Islam is Not a Religion. Pegasus Books. p. 93. ISBN 9781643131740.
  27. ^ a b Archived from the original on January 18, 2019. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  28. ^ Archived from the original on December 28, 2022. Retrieved May 25, 2020.
  29. ^ Milbank, Dana (September 21, 2015). Archived from the original on October 3, 2015. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
  30. ^ Maloy, Simon (August 28, 2015). Archived from the original on December 27, 2015. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
  31. ^ David Weigel (March 16, 2015). Archived from the original on April 26, 2017. Retrieved March 6, 2017.
  32. ^ a b Kay, Jonathan (July 23, 2012). Archived from the original on July 11, 2015. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
  33. ^ The Bridge Initiative Team (July 20, 2015). the original on July 26, 2015. Retrieved July 24, 2015.
  34. ^ Wajahat Ali; et al. (August 26, 2015). Archived from the original on November 6, 2015. Retrieved July 24, 2015.
  35. ^ Johnson, Timothy (April 9, 2015). Archived from the original on July 25, 2015. Retrieved July 24, 2015.
  36. ^ Lee, Fang (September 18, 2015). Archived from the original on September 26, 2015. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
  37. ^ Anti-Defamation League (March 2011) Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  38. ^ a b Sturgis, Sue (July 20, 2012). the original on September 12, 2015. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
  39. ^ Beauchamp, Zack (February 13, 2017). Archived from the original on June 8, 2017. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  40. ^ Perwee, Ed (2020). 218843237.
  41. ^ Archived from the original on April 11, 2016. Retrieved March 30, 2016.
  42. ^ Archived from the original on June 19, 2018. Retrieved June 22, 2018.
  43. ^ Chokshi, Niraj (February 17, 2016). Archived from the original on June 19, 2018. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  44. ^ Fleitz, Fred (February 19, 2016). Archived from the original on March 4, 2017. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  45. ^ Johnson, Terri A.; Cohen, J. Richard (September 3, 2015). Archived from the original on October 6, 2015. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
  46. ^ Jennifer Bendery; Terkel, Amanda (July 19, 2012). Archived from the original on July 25, 2015. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  47. ^ Posner, Sarah (April 17, 2012). Archived from the original on September 28, 2015. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
  48. ^ The Michael Harrington Center for Democratic Values and Social Action Archived September 8, 2015, at the Wayback Machine (April 2011)
  49. ^ Archived from the original on May 22, 2017. Retrieved February 28, 2017.
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38°54′1.5″N 77°2′43.8″W / 38.900417°N 77.045500°W / 38.900417; -77.045500

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