There is a menace eating away at the West from within, cloaking its political agenda in religious language to confuse liberal democracies, the United Nations, and — most important, says Rep. Sue Myrick — the American public.

If Americans only knew that Muslim chaplains who minister to U.S. forces and prison inmates were being approved by a convicted terrorism supporter, or that Islamist front groups posing as advocacy organizations are now invited into U.S. government agencies to conduct “sensitivity training,” or that there have been plans afoot to welcome thousands of young Saudi Arabian men — men who, far from being inculcated in political correctness, are taught by official Saudi textbooks to feel hatred for non-Muslims — into the United States as part of a student visa program, then U.S. citizens might “wake up” to the fact that Islamism, like Communism in the 1950s and ’60s, is a growing domestic problem, she said.

To help Americans understand the immediacy of the issue, Myrick, R-N.C., unveiled her “wake up America” anti-terrorism agenda Friday — a list of bills and congressional actions, some of them controversial, that she hopes will help lawmakers and the public understand the Islamist threat here at home.

The plans call for:

• A government investigation of all U.S. military and prison chaplains who were approved by Abdurahman Alamoudi, a naturalized U.S. citizen and convicted supporter of terrorism who was executive director of the American Muslim Council, American Muslim Foundation, and an influential member of other Islamic political and charitable organizations.

• A Government Accountability Office investigation of the process used by the FBI and Defense Department to select Arabic translators.

• An IRS investigation of the nonprofit status of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a status that restricts lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.

• The introduction of legislation to make the preaching, publication or distribution of materials that call for the death of American citizens, attacks on the U.S. government or military, or the financing of the means to do so, acts of sedition or solicitation of treason.

• A GAO audit of the total sovereign wealth fund investment in the United States.

• Cancellation of a scholarship-student visa program with Saudi Arabia until they alter their textbooks.

• The introduction of a bill to restrict R-1/R-2 religious visas for imams who come from countries that do not allow reciprocal visits by non-Muslim clergy.

• The introduction of legislation to cancel contracts to train Saudi police and other security forces in U.S. counterterrorism tactics until the Saudis certify the prosecution of al Qaeda financiers such as Yasin al-Kadi and the detention of Guantanamo inmates who have been repatriated into the general population after being rehabilitated.

• The introduction of a bill to block sales to Saudi Arabia of sensitive military munitions, especially “Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMS, which aid the precision of offensive missiles.

Some items, such as the legislation dealing with acts of treason, will certainly face court challenges, Myrick acknowledged. Even so, she said, the legislative agenda is just the beginning — an approachable action plan that will serve the dual purpose of educating Congress and the public while hopefully getting something done.

“These are areas that say to the American people, yes, there are things going on,” she said.

Myrick founded the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus to further this legislative and educational end. The bipartisan caucus, with more than 120 members and headed by Myrick and Reps. Robert E. “Bud Cramer, D-Ala., and Jane Harman, D-Calif., was formed to allow members to meet with terrorism experts and become educated about the dangers radical Islamists pose to the United States, then take that information in turn back to their districts to educate constituents.

Individual members of the caucus will take up the bills Myrick laid out Friday.

An adviser to the caucus, Walid Phares, is a professor of Middle Eastern studies and author of several books on terrorism, including “The Confrontation: Winning the War Against Future Jihad.” Phares said Islamic jihadists take advantage of democratic sensibilities by defining their political ideology as a religion, enabling their representatives in the West to argue it is off limits to discussion, as it is — legally — in many Middle Eastern nations. It is important, therefore, Phares continued, for those concerned about Islamism to identify this tactic and bring it out into the open.

Phares also discussed another jihadists’ tactic involving the establishment of sharia, or Islamic law, as a secondary authority within democratic communities by arguing it is needed for matters involving family arbitration — divorces, adoptions, etc. Once accepted, sharia may become more established, as it has in Canada and Great Britain. The French, Phares said, stand out as having resisted the trend.

In the legal realm, Phares said, Islamists try to file lawsuits arguing that the expression of anti-Islamist views amounts to hate speech, and thus may incite violence against Muslims — an attempt, he said, to “unnerve” critics and perceived enemies. He said this has already happened in Great Britain and elsewhere, “and it will come here when the balance of power changes.”

But, he added, the tactic can be countered by defining the verbal space before the jihadists do; that is, by making the definition of radical Islamism and jihadism understood as themselves hateful and discriminatory against non-Muslims — and that can be accomplished by educating policymakers, the media, and the public.

Matt Korade can be reached at mkorade@cq.com