"more difficult for law enforcement or the intelligence community to detect and disrupt plots." Zeyno Baran, senior fellow and director of the Center for Eurasian Policy at the American conservative think-tank Hudson Institute, argues that a more appropriate term is Islamist extremism to distinguish the Islamic religion from the political ideology that leads to extremism: Islam, the religion, deals with piety, ethics, and beliefs, and can be compatible with secular liberal democracy and basic civil liberties. Islamists, however, believe Islam is the only basis for the legal and political system that governs the world's economic, social, and judicial mechanisms. Islamic law, or sharia, must shape all aspects of human society, from politics and education to history, science, the arts, and more. It is diametrically opposed to liberal democracy. With the value placed on freedom of religion in the United States, religious extremism is a difficult and divisive topic. Zuhdi Jasser, president and founder of the American Muslim think-tank American Islamic Forum for Democracy, testified before Congress in March 2010 that the United States is "polarized on its perceptions of Muslims and the radicalization that occurs within our communities... One camp refuses to believe any Muslim could be radicalized living in blind multiculturalism, apologetics, and denial, and the other camp believes all devout Muslims and the faith of Islam are radicalized." In between the two polarities is a respect for the religion of Islam coupled with an awareness of the danger "of a dangerous internal theo-political domestic and global ideology that must be confronted – Islamism." Some U.S. extremists are actively recruited and trained by foreign Islamic terrorist organizations, while others are known as "lone wolves" that radicalize on their own. The Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, is a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent. He communicated via email with Anwar al-Awlaki, but had no direct ties to al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda propaganda uses Hasan to promote the idea of "be al-Qaeda by not being al-Qaeda". Carlos Leon Bledsoe, a U.S.-born citizen who converted to Islam as a young adult in 2004 and changed his name to Abdulhakim Muhammad, shot a U.S. military recruiter in Little Rock, Arkansas in June 2009, after spending time in Yemen. Faisal Shahzad is a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan and received bomb training from the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan; his plot to detonate a bomb in New York's Times Square was discovered only after the bomb failed. Zachary Chesser