According to its website, the Homeland Security Advisory Council “leverages the experience, expertise, and national and global connections of the HSAC membership to provide the Secretary real-time, real-world, sensing and independent advice to support decision-making across the spectrum of homeland security operations.”
That sounds like a heady responsibility. One might question whether a 25-year-old has the experience and expertise to sit on the council. But Laila Alawa’s tender age is the least of the traits that call into question the suitability to sit on the council’s Subcommittee on Countering Violent Extremism.
Rather, it’s her views on America, her adoptive homeland, and Syria, which she has called her real homeland. Last November, she wrote at The Tempest, a website that she founded as a voice for “diverse millennial women”:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
My Syria was always my family. Losing part of my Syria meant losing part of me.
But I will always be Syrian. I will always be from Syria. I will always be of Syria.
It gets worse. In 2014, she tweeted this:
The year Alawa was tapped to serve on subcommittee was 2015, the same year she became an American citizen. Last week, the committee submitted a report to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson recommending that Muslim terminology, like sharia and jihad be avoided when discussing terrorism.
Her mission to control speech cuts both ways. Last year, she tweeted this obscenity:
The apple of course doesn’t fall far from the tree. Just yesterday, Barack Obama petulantly defended his refusal to use the phrase radical Islam because it “wouldn’t accomplish anything.” Here’s a news flash for the president: If his goal is genuinely to eradicate violent extremism, hiring self-avowed enemies of the state like Laila Alawa won’t accomplish anything, either.
