Kevin Hulbert is the Founder and President of XK Group, LLC. Prior to that, Mr. Hulbert held a variety of high-level jobs in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), becoming an expert on counterterrorism, counter proliferation, non-traditional operations, and covert action. He finished his career as Senior Advisor for Counterterrorism at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). As an accomplished senior leader in the Directorate of Operations at the CIA, he served around the world and worked with many foreign liaison partners, leading some of the most complex counterterrorism operations abroad. He holds an MBA degree from Georgetown University.
E. Tavares: Kevin, thank you for being with us today. It is difficult to discuss terrorism these days without talking about Islam, or better put, how it is being used for certain political purposes. This has become a hot topic in the West, even featuring in US immigration and presidential debates.
We recently watched a video clip from 1958 of Gamal Abdel Nasser, then President of Egypt, laughing with a large audience at the idea of forcing women to wear the hijab. In the decades that followed, this has become common practice in many Middle Eastern countries as stricter Muslim leaders rose to power. The once secular societies of Afghanistan and Iran have become just a footnote of history. In fact the more extreme versions of Islam now constitute its mainstream orthodox ideology.
We in the West believe that the march towards secularism and freedom is inevitable, and yet for the most part the Muslim world is going the other way. What do you make of this?
K. Hulbert: I think you are right, the march towards secularism and freedom is not inevitable. In fact, it’s problematic because we have a situation where every year the West becomes more secular, open, tolerant and liberal while many parts of the Muslim world, as you say, are going the other way. So it would seem that we might be moving towards a head-on collision of some sort.
As to what I make of it, in most Muslim countries the majority of people are tolerant. They want to live in a more inclusive society and have a more liberal religious doctrine. The problem is that Islam seems to have been hijacked by a vocal minority of people who are prepared to use violence to advance their very intolerant and conservative version of Islam.