I am serious. If it's too late for '08 than 2012 (if it's not too late by then.) This is the kind of leadership we need in DC. North Carolina Congresswoman Sue Myrick is the deputy Republican whip, and she has also founded the House Anti-Terrorism/Jihad Caucus.
Meet Rep. Sue Myrick, Founder of the Anti-Terrorism/Jihad Caucus
Family Security Matters, Pam Weiser hat tip Wolf
PM: Okay, I have a few questions for you. Please give us the who, what, when, where and why about the Anti-Terrorism/Jihad Caucus. What exactly do you hope to accomplish?
MYRICK: Well, we’ve got 120 members, four co-chairs, two Dems and two Republicans. We really want to accomplish educating the members so they can intelligently talk about the issues when they go home to their districts, and then start a national dialogue. We meet twice a month here on the Hill…and the why, I guess, is really that members, even if you’re on a committee of jurisdiction, sometimes then you don’t really have everything you need to know to make an informed decision. So, we have had excellent response; we’ve had really good people come talk to us, and it’s bipartisan, so it’s been very encouraging to me.
PM: Noted Islamic expert Robert Spencer has called the term war on terror "a misnomer." Would you agree with this assessment? Why or why not?
MYRICK: Well, sure I agree. We aren’t fighting terror, we’re fighting ideology. And, I describe it as Ismamofascism because it’s authoritarian, and it’s a very political ideology, and it considers an individual and other society interests are subordinate to the interests of the state. It really concerns me because, you know, we’ve always lived under freedoms in the Western world, and the ideology they are supporting will take away those freedoms, and that is very scary.
PM: Would you say that the mainstream press reporting accurately on the threat posed by Islamism and Jihad?
MYRICK: Are they even reporting it? (Editor’s note: Rep. Myrick created this bipartisan caucus back in January 2007. The fact that this is only now getting notice does not reflect well on how much attention this topic is receiving in the mainstream press.)
PM: I guess that answers my question! All right, how has political correctness and multiculturalism hampered our efforts in fighting Jihad?
MYRICK: Where do I start? Well first of all, it prevents us from talking about the enemy, and that’s why we use words like “war on terror” because, you know, we aren’t allowed from political correctness to say Islamofascists or radical Islamist Jihadists; those words aren’t supposed to be used. So it’s very frustrating to me because you can’t fight something if you can’t identify it.
PM: Right. Why do you think moderate Muslims in America and elsewhere are not as outspoken against Islamism as they might be, and what can be done to encourage them to speak out?
MYRICK: Well you know, part of the problem is because there are a lot of radical Islamists in this country and around the world, very frankly, that do prevent moderate Muslims from having a voice out of fear. I mean, they literally threaten them like they threaten everybody else, and so that’s one side of it. And then most of the moderate Muslims that I meet with, people…who have organizations, individuals who are concerned about this, they literally don’t have the resources that they need to build their groups. And the third part of this is our government does not seek them out for advice. Now some time ago, [Rep.] Frank Wolf and myself sent a letter over to the State Department, Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes, you know, saying “why don’t you meet with moderate leaders, because everybody you’re meeting with is a representative of a radical group.” And so we got a call back saying, “well, we will meet with them,” but to my knowledge it hasn’t happened yet; at least the people I know have not had the opportunity to be involved.
Condi and co. are so ............... September 10th
PM: Do you think there is a real danger of Islamist terrorists taking advantage of our broken border security system to sneak into our country?
MYRICK: Oh sure, I mean it’s happening. There was a recent case in Arizona. I’m not sure how you pronounce it, but it’s Fort Huachuca, it’s an intelligence center, and they train military interrogators for Guantanamo Bay and other detention centers that are targeted by the Islamists. And they do get across the border from Mexico, we are told, and so very definitely there’s an effort going on.
PM: How much of a danger is "homegrown Jihad" and what can we do to thwart it?
MYRICK: It’s enormous. It really is one of my biggest concerns. Homegrown Jihad is complicated because potential recruits can self-indoctrinate on the Internet or through videos. You know, some of the people that we have captured with al Qaeda, they live on in infamy in videos and on the Internet because the tapes that they did about how you build bombs and how you fight in the training videos that they did from Pakistan, Afghanistan, wherever, they’re still on the Internet today. So anybody who is interested can very easily train themselves. And so this is really tough to resolve. But it scares me because those are the people I’m afraid of. You know, the homegrown Jihadist is the person who will go out and do something stupid, in effect, where a lot of the organized effort, they don’t want another bombing or something to call attention to themselves because they’re doing such a good job [of] infiltrating us in this country underground that they don’t want any attention [drawn] to them.
There is so much more. Go.
