Andy McCarthy on the Threat posed to the USA by Shariah

Shariah Threat Report Annoying All the Right People
September 16, 2010

By Andy McCarthy

One of the members of our “Team B” on the aforementioned report on the sharia threat is Patrick Poole, one of the country’s most informed authorities on the Muslim Brotherhood. He has an article at Human Events this morning about ruffled feathers at the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association.

What is the CMSA? As Patrick explains, it’s an internal Hill group organized to assure bipartisan congressional leadership that sharia and Islamist ideology are nothing to fret about. And why shouldn’t our top lawmakers listen to them? After all, CMSA is best known for its Friday services at the Capitol, for which the group brought in to lead prayers none other than Anwar al-Awlaki — the al Qaeda recruiter who ministered to the 9/11 hijackers, inspired the Fort Hood massacre, and may well have had a hand in the attempted Christmas bombing of a airplane in Detroit.

In one video clip of Awlaki leading prayers (the clip was unearthed by Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism), Patrick notes that we see Nihad Awad, a founder of CAIR (the infamous Muslim Brotherhood off-shoot identified by the Justice Department as an unindicted coconspirator in the recent Hamas financing case); Randall “Ismail” Royer, a CAIR official now serving a 20-year sentence after his terrorism conviction; and CMSA founder Jameel Alim Johnson, a one-time chief-of-staff to Rep. Gregory Meeks (D., NY). (Johnson tried in 2007 to arrange an Islamic conference on the Hill that was cancelled by Congress’s sergeant-at-arms when it was determined that some of the Islamists on Johnson’s dance card were known to be on terrorist watch lists.)

The influence of the CMSA raises nary an eyebrow in the halls of government, yet a report suggesting that we might want to take a harder look at the ideology that fuels the threat against our nation is thought controversial. All the more reason why we need the report.


Sharia Report Press Conference
September 16, 2010

By Andy McCarthy

A YouTube of my opening remarks at yesterday’s press conference is posted here.


More on the Sharia Report
September 16, 2010

By Andy McCarthy

Family Security Matters has posted a very thorough synopsis of the “Team B” report on sharia, here.


Religion of Peace Alert: FBI Advises ‘Draw Muhammad’ Cartoonist to Disappear
September 16, 2010

By Andy McCarthy

Fox News reports that, at the urging of the FBI, Molly Norris, the “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” cartoonist from Seattle, has gone into hiding and changed her name after being threatened with death for insulting Islam. Maybe he can hide at Justice Breyer’s house.

As I mentioned in Tuesday’s column, the Obama administration last year co-sponsored a UN resolution to encourage countries to enact laws that would make it illegal to criticize Islam. The president was on the “Repeal the First Amendment” bandwagon before the justice hopped aboard. But if top levels of government are going to signal that Islam should get special immunity, and states like New Jersey are going to follow suit by firing people from state jobs for criticizing Islam, the FBI better be prepared to reassign a few thousand agents to the new “We Can’t Protect You” division.


That Sharia Report
September 16, 2010

By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Pete Hoekstra just issued a press release encouraging people to read it:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that a report released by the Center for Security Policy on Shariah provides a timely and important look at the seldom-covered threat posed by Shariah and radical Islam.

“The center’s ‘Team B II’ report provides a strong and detailed look at aspects of Shariah and the Caliphate and how radical jihadists are using violence as a means to achieve them,” Hoekstra said. “So many years after 9/11, there is still a lack of critical understanding of the motivating force behind radical Islam and the terrorists that attacked our nation that day. This lack of clarity begins at the top with the Obama administration that seems conflicted over whether we are engaged with a real threat to national security or dealing with a legal issue.”

The CSP report takes a close look at the Muslim Brotherhood and its ties to radical Islamist organizations abroad and in the United States, including CAIR, the Muslim Student’s Association, and the Holyland Foundation. The report also looks at how U.S. administrations have mishandled the threat from Shariah and radical Islam and makes clear that the federal government must take steps to address Shariah more urgently.

“I encourage my colleagues in Congress and citizens interested in learning more about Shariah to read this important report,” Hoekstra said. “Shariah runs counter to our longstanding American principles of freedom and liberty. The recent spate of terrorist attacks in our homeland, the increased persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Central Asia, and the growing number of threats against individuals and property in response to perceived slights stem from a radical interpretation of Shariah and should be a cause for concern for all Americans.

“Our nation continues to sacrifice but fails to identify the threat as clearly as those countries closest to the source of the problem. They call it radical Islam, and we should learn to understand and speak as clearly about the problem. The ‘Team B II’ report is an excellent place to begin building that knowledge.”

CLICK HERE for a link to the report.


‘Shariah: The Threat to America’
September 16, 2010 7:21 A.M.

By Andy McCarthy

That’s the name of a report I’ve been working on for several months, along with a team of national security experts led by Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy (CSP), former CIA Director Jim Woolsey, Generals Jerry Boykin and Ed Soyster, Claremont’s Brian Kennedy, and serveral other notables. The idea was to try to replicate the “Team B” of a generation ago, which questioned U.S. policy regarding the Soviet Union (particularly detente). It’s far from a perfect analogy — for one thing, we were not invited by the government to render a second opinion and consequently were not given access to classified information. But that’s not much of a hurdle. As I’ve argued in The Grand Jihad and Willful Blindness, the information Americans need to know is ready to hand — the problem is that people in the ruling class choose not to deal with it.

The report is now available at the CSP website, here. It’s about 180 pages long, but it starts with an executive summary, prefaced by an introduction I wrote with Director Woolsey and Gen. Soyster. (We turned the intro into an essay, published Wednesday by the Washington Times – as noted in the NRO web briefing). The ”Team B – II” report is also being published in segments at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Peace site. Frank just did his radio show (“Secure Freedom Radio”) on the report, featuring interviews with Gen. Boykin, me, and a couple of other members of the team, my friends Diana West and Steve Coughlin.

At a press conference on Capitol Hill yesterday afternoon, we presented the report to three members of the House who have been stalwarts on the challenge posed by Islamist ideology, Trent Franks (R., AZ), Pete Hoekstra (R., MI) and Michele Bachmann (R., MN). You can find coverage at Fox, CBN, and by Connie Hair at Human Events.