Using the Veil Religion to Advance Tyranny

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Using the Veil Religion to Advance Tyranny

We are in a war in which our enemies use the veil of religion to seize power. Few understand this war in which past losses resulted in hundreds of millions of innocents being murdered, tortured, imprisoned or living for decades to centuries under tyranny. The use of religion to seize power is ancient in concept – and often uses one of two approaches. One is to attack or vilify a religion to advance tyranny. The other, to use the veil of religion to hide insidious efforts to advance tyranny. The genius (and danger) in using religion, in this perpetual cognitive war, is its subtlety. There are no tanks in the streets. Rather, memes, sermons, rhetoric, and false narratives and manufactured victims are employed using our cognitive biases (e.g., emotion, moral outrage) that erode shared reality over time.

Understanding this, the KGB during the Cold War, conducted varied operations to compromise religious and other leaders to advance their power and control under the guise of humanity and helping the poor. The World Peace Council, Christian Peace Conference, and the Berlin Conference of European Catholics were some of the organizations used in this manner. The radical left is applying similar tactics and techniques today in Europe and the United States.

In Europe, the migration of Muslims is linked to increased promotion of Sharia Law, denunciation of western cultures, labeling of opposition as racist or Islamophobic, with Muslim voters often backing left-leaning parties (e.g., Labour in the UK, Social Democrats in Germany) for their anti-racism rhetoric and generous welfare policies. It should be noted, the immigrants come from Muslim countries which are seventy plus percent dictatorships (e.g., Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia).

In the United States, we see a similar strategy used by the leftist Democrats who ignored our laws and funded “religious” or “humanitarian” non-governmental organizations to funnel a massive invasion of illegals. A majority, including about 70-80% of Muslim Americans, support the generous Democrat policies providing free education, healthcare, and housing. Most of these immigrants also come from countries that can be classified as authoritarian, dictatorships, or a flawed democracy (e.g., Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Eritrea, Somalia, Mexico) whether Christian or Muslim.

The radical left also uses the veil of religion to create organizations that facilitate tyranny. Multiple Islamic charities have been accused by governments of operating under the guise of humanitarian aid to funnel money to designated terrorist organizations like Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Hezbollah. Similarly, charities and affiliates using the veil of Catholic religion, received several billion dollars in federal grants, are accused by lawmakers and whistleblowers in using that money for human trafficking for forced labor or sex. This includes hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied illegal children. The US government funded multiple Muslim and Catholic NGOs to the tune of hundreds of millions to several billion dollars under the Biden administration. Much of which has now been significantly reduced or eliminated.

In the US we are witnessing the use of religion in the form of anti-Christian or anti-Jewish rhetoric to subvert free speech, our culture, enable fraud, and undermine law enforcement. Muslims like Zohran Mamdani, Ilhan Omar, and Rashid Tlaib, and Jewish or Catholic congressional representatives like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) use or attack religion to advance radical left policies. Those opposing such efforts are labeled racist, bigot, Islamophobic, etc.

During a recent congressional hearing, AOC blasted Christian beliefs, stating Christians are twisting scripture to justify bigotry. Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer mimicked giving the Catholic Eucharist in the form of a Dorito to a podcaster. In 2025 left-wing activists stormed a Catholic church lecturing children on white privilege. Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood or Council on American-Islamic Relations blend anti-imperialist rhetoric with calls for governance reforms to advance theocratic control. Groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center have been accused of trying to silence Christians by labeling their efforts as “hate speech.”

Islam and Christianity are both rooted in the belief of God. Leftist European and US politicians champion ideologies such as Marxism, socialism, and communism which have no god but government. The Quran calls for the execution of nonbelievers. So how can Zohran Mamdani be both a communist and a Muslim? How can AOC be both a communist and a Catholic? The point being deception. Any effective veil, not just religion, will be used to hide the left’s true dystopian intentions.

Most Americans remain unaware, unprepared, and unarmed to win this war. To do so we must ensure broader public awareness of the tactics used, arm our citizens with an understanding and knowledge on how to both stop and impede such efforts, and create the necessary long-term strategy, capabilities, and capacity to fight and win this cognitive war.

• Edward Haugland is the author of “The Cognitive War” and a leading national expert in this field. He is an award-winning CIA analyst and retired Defense Department intelligence executive, as well as a U.S. Air Force veteran, with more than four decades of service in national security across multiple executive branch departments and agencies.

Edward L. Haugland, © 2026, all rights reserved.

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