RUSH: Now, I mentioned at the beginning of the program that Andrew McCarthy has a piece at PJMedia.com. Andy’s a new columnist there, having moved over from National Review. Now, to refresh your memory, Andy McCarthy was the man who, along with Patrick Fitzgerald, incidentally, prosecuted Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheik, who was the first guy to engineer the first blowing up of the World Trade Center, 1993. The blind sheik and his buddies had massive plans to blow up bridges and tunnels, and many of Obama’s precious roads in Manhattan and New Jersey.
McCarthy prosecuted Omar Abdel Rahman and won the conviction. In the process, he boned up on Islam, became an expert on Islam and Sharia law. And he loves to tell the story how he started out believing that Rahman and his acolytes were fringe kook derivatives of Islam. And the more he studied it, the more he found that they were not kooks and they were not fringe; they were mainstream. That Omar Abdel Rahman and his acolytes who believe in Sharia law everywhere, anytime everywhere, are academics. They are trained and educated at the leading universities in Egypt on the subject.
Far from being kooks, they are the defining elites on the subject. He tried to find evidence in the Koran that these guys were making it up, that it wasn’t really there. He found just the opposite. So Andy’s become an expert in this. It’s become one of his passions in terms of what he speaks of and writes about. Well, recently Michele Bachmann and other Republicans sent a letter to the State Department expressing concern — and I’m really summarizing this part of it — expressing concern over the presence of Huma Abedin, so close to the powers that be in our government. She’s Hillary Clinton’s whatever top-level aide, Huma Abedin, also married to Weiner.
Her name was Huma Weiner, really, married to Anthony Weiner, the disgraced sex-crazed congressman from New York. So her real name is Huma Weiner. But Huma’s mother is best friends with the wife of the new Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt, and there is essentially a Muslim sisterhood that she’s a member of, and Huma’s father was also likewise involved. So Michele Bachmann and others have written a letter to the State Department wanting some clarification and wanting an investigation because the Muslim Brotherhood is not what they are portrayed to be. The Muslim Brotherhood is not the — what’s the best way to put this? They’re not the good Mafia. The Muslim Brotherhood’s being portrayed as a bunch of secularist, mainstream, nonradical, and Andy says, no, they’re not, they are right down the middle as radical as anybody else in jihad. So it’s a legitimate request from Michele Bachmann.
Well, McCain took to the floor of the Senate last week to have at Bachmann and these other Republicans. So Andy has written a piece here chronicling 1995 to the present of how our government has changed in its view of the terrorists who seek to wipe us out. Here are the salient facts as he writes them in his piece. And, by the way, he’s written a book about this, too. Willful Blindness. It’s his memoir about the start of our confrontation with Islamic supremacism as a domestic threat. Back in the early nineties, when he led the prosecution of blind sheik’s New York jihadist cell, they carried out the ’93 World Trade Center bombing, and now he’s got a column: “The Wages of Willful Blindness: Is It Time for Defenders of Liberty to Abandon the GOP?” His point here is that the GOP mainstream is no different than the Democrats on this, in terms of refusing to see the enemy as the enemy.
Now, “Here are two salient facts,” Andy writes, “and once you grasp them you’ll know everything you need to know to understand the rest of the dispute: (a) Not all Islamic supremacists (or ‘Islamists’) are violent, but the goal of all Islamic supremacists is the same: to coerce the acceptance of Sharia. The methods of pursuing that goal vary: sometimes terrorism is used, sometimes non-violent avenues are exploited — meaning, Islamic supremacists co-opt legal processes, the media, educational institutions, and/or government agencies. But regardless of what methods an Islamic supremacist uses, his goal never changes: He aims to implement Sharia. In Islamic supremacist ideology, Sharia is regarded as the mandatory, non-negotiable foundation that must be laid before a society can be Islamized. Sharia is not ‘moderate’; therefore, you are not a ‘moderate’ if you want it, no matter what method you use to implement it. For example, if you are an Islamic supremacist and you want to repeal the First Amendment in order to prohibit speech that casts Islam in a negative light, you are not a ‘moderate’ — even if you wouldnÂ’t blow up buildings to press your point. (b) Islamic supremacism is not a fringe interpretation of Islam. It is probably still the minority interpretation in North America. Nevertheless, it is the predominant interpretation of Islam in the Middle East. Poll after poll shows us that upwards of two-thirds of Muslims in countries like Egypt and Pakistan want their governments to adopt and strictly enforce Sharia. This is why the Islamic supremacist parties in the ‘Arab Spring’ countries are currently enjoying such success in elections.
“With that as background, understand that in the aforementioned 1995 trial, we proved that the reason the Blind Sheikh was able to run a terrorist organization … was his globally renowned mastery of Islamic law. Omar Abdel Rahman is not a nut suffering from a psychological disorder. He has a doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence, earned by graduating with distinction from al-Azhar University in Cairo, the legendary seat of Sharia scholarship since the Tenth Century.”
Now, we seemed to understand all this 20 years ago. “The government would have you to believe Barack Obama or George Bush or Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Condi Rice or Janet Reno knows more about Islam and its Sharia than Omar Abdel Rahman does.” In other words, they say he’s a kook, he’s a fringe nutcase. He’s not. Well, now observe the measure of how far off-course we’ve drifted.
“In 1995, we demonstrated that (i) the Blind Sheikh was attempting to impose Sharia.” This was all demonstrated in court, by the way. “(ii) that he drew directly and accurately from Islamic scripture … (iii) his Muslim followers were animated by these instructions to push for the imposition of Sharia standards. … For proving this in federal court, the Clinton Justice Department honored me and my colleagues with the Attorney GeneralÂ’s highest award.
“Today, by contrast, for doing exactly the same thing — namely, for arguing that an authoritative interpretation of Islam directs adherents to impose Sharia, by violence if necessary, in order to lay the groundwork for changing a non-Islamic society into an Islamic society — I am routinely accused of promoting hatred and ‘Islamophobia.’ Such accusations, applied to assertions of what used to be seen as fact, do not come only from the Obama Left … The smears are echoed, and in many cases led, by prominent members of the Republican establishment.
“I havenÂ’t changed. The threat against us hasnÂ’t changed. The government has changed. The Obama administration and the Republican establishment would have us live a lie — a lie that endangers our liberties and our security. The lie is this: There is a difference between mainstream Islamic ideology and what they call ‘violent extremism.'” This is what he learned in prepping for the trial against the blind sheik. There is no difference. It’s all the same. Omar Abdel Rahman is mainstream. Osama Bin Laden, mainstream. Al-Zawahiri, mainstream. All of these are mainstream. They’re not the kooks.
“The vogue term ‘violent extremism’ is chosen very deliberately. To be sure, weÂ’ve always bent over backwards to be politically correct. Until Obama came to power, we used to use terms like ‘violent jihadism’ or ‘Islamic extremism’ in order to make sure everyone knew that we were not condemning all of Islam, that we were distinguishing Muslim terrorists from other Muslims. (In a more sensible time, we did not say ‘German Nazis’ — we said ‘Germans’ or ‘Nazis’ and put the burden on non-Nazi Germans, rather than on ourselves, to separate themselves from the aggressors.)”
Anyway, he says here at the end, “When Senator McCain and his lemmings rebuke House conservatives for purportedly attacking Huma AbedinÂ’s ‘patriotism,’ there are two things at work. First, when the facts are against you — as they usually are against Sen. McCain — demagoguery and character assassination are the most effective response: The compliant, Islamophilic media will help intimidate your opponents into silence. We all are very familiar with this tactic. But we often miss the second tactic, which is more important because it goes directly to our conception of ‘patriotism.’
“That second tactic is this: the Obama Left and the Republican establishment would have you accept the following premise: anti-American Islamic supremacists are not an ideological threat but a mere political movement; therefore, American government officials who want to treat them as a mere political movement — to negotiate with them and accommodate them — are not endangering America; they are strengthening America. Consequently, if you dare suggest that this is a lunatic way of looking at things, you are a McCarthyite demagogue.”
Anyway, he goes on to defend what Bachmann and the Republicans in the House are asking. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a harmless little offshoot here. They’re not the mainstream where the others are the kooks. They’re all together. Bachmann’s inquiry is justified, and there’s no reason to tar and feather her. It’s a legitimate question to want to know if one of Hillary Clinton’s top aides poses a national security threat because of her parents’ close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. That’s all they’re asking. And McCain and the Republican establishment and the Senate went to the floor to trash Bachmann. And I’ll just add, I think there’s an effort by the Republican establishment to take Bachmann out. I think they’re lining up to campaign against her in her reelection effort. But that’s another subject. Anyway, I mentioned this at the top of the program, and I wanted to make sure that I had this mentioned. I think Andy’s gonna be on Hannity’s TV show tonight, if this interests you and you want to see and hear more about it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, folks, one other thing here. Michele Bachmann… Louie Gohmert is one of the other Republicans. They wrote private letters to select individuals asking questions about the security clearance process, and they used Huma Weiner as an illustration. It was not Michele Bachmann who decided to go public with the letters. Now, isn’t this what congressmen on the Intelligence Committee ought to be asking if there are national security violations or problems involved in the security clearance with somebody with such close ties to avowed enemies?
By the way, the new Egypt president, this Morsi guy, one of the first things he did upon being elected was demand the release of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Blind Sheik! No doubt he wants to bring him home to honor him. It wasn’t Bachmann who went public with this. She’s doing her constitutional duties. She’s on the Intelligence Committee, along with Louie Gohmert and the others. It’s McCain that took this public. And now the Democrats are in Minnesota seeing if Bachmann is vulnerable because of what McCain has done.
It’s not good.