The Grand Jihad: Andy McCarthy Impresses in Stoughton, Massachusetts

Andrew C. McCarthy, best-selling author of the The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America spoke at my synagogue, Temple Ahavath Torah in Stoughton, Massachusetts on April 11th. McCarthy is the former U.S. Attorney and federal prosecutor of the blind Sheikh Abdul Rahman, perpetrator of the 1993 bombing of what was the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. He is a well regarded and frequent commentator on Islamic terrorism and the stealth Jihad strategy of Muslim Brotherhood fronts in America that seek to supplant our Constitution with Shariah – strict Islamic law. McCarthy is also a co-author of Shariah: The Threat To America: An Exercise In Competitive Analysis (Report of Team B II) He was the latest guest at a venue that some have taken to call a Freemont Forum for free thinkers.

Watch MCarthy’s presentation on You Tube part 1, here, and part 2, here.

Why do I do this?

My only thought was to break the bonds of a stultifying view which demanded philosophical orthodoxy within synagogues vis a vis guest speakers. Why not bring speakers who maintained different perspectives from those normally associated with the organized Jewish community and relevant institutions? A Fremont Forum type of venue to challenge the attendee to a panoply of perspectives, shake the listener from his/her ideological comfort zone, upon the possibly of new vistas of consideration to the issues of the day. As a result, several national and international thinkers, political leaders and activists have graced our venue including Geert Wilders, Bat Ye’or and David Littman, Mark Steyn, Erick Stakelback, Esther Levens, Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, Dr. Wafa Sultan, Frank Gaffney (this list is illustrative).

As a consequence of the quality and reputation of the guests and our vision, it was no surprise that a capacity audience traversed the highways and by-ways of greater Boston to come to Ahavath Torah Congregation in order to greet former US Attorney Andrew McCarthy. Andy is a cogent and sentient thinker, prolific author, and one of the most persuasive persons regarding national security issues. He is also one of the leading voices in the movement to battle the imposition of shariah in the United States. He is especially knowledgeable about the application of the law and Constitutional principles to the fight against Islamic fascism. Mr. McCarthy’s second book, The Grand Jihad, traces the history of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States and explains the strategy that the Muslim Brotherhood is using to infiltrate and sabotage the United States from within with the long-term goal of replacing the Constitution and U.S. law with shariah, an act of sedition according to the U.S. Constitution.

The Obama Administration has failed to define correctly the enemy, their program, the basis for their ideology and their methods even though they declared war against the United States decades ago. Mr. McCarthy explained that Islam is not like Judaism or Christianity, which recognizes a secular sphere. Islam is an all-encompassing ideology that encompasses man, Allah and the government. No separation of mosque or church and state is recognized. Indeed, the termjihad means the ongoing war to tear down all non-Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate under the Koran.

Critical to understanding what we must do is an accurate definition of what a moderate Muslim is. At present, we define a terrorist as anextremist, a person who kills indiscriminately with the purpose of causing fear and anxiety, and every Muslim who does not espouse acts of terror as a moderate. In fact, that is a false distinction. There is no difference between the goals of Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. Both seek the establishment of worldwide sharia. The difference is one of tactics. Al Qaeda prefers a speedier movement toward the adoption of its Islamist vision and uses the instrument of military or paramilitary terrorist actions. The Muslim Brotherhood wants to achieve the same goal by patient stealth and subterfuge. President Obama’s security chief Mr. Brennan has it very wrong.

Mr. McCarthy traced the history in the U.S. of the main Muslim Brotherhood organizations; the Muslim Students Association (MSA), theNorth American Islamic Trust (NAIT), the Council for Ametrican Islamic Relations (CAIR). As an example of how deeply these organizations have insinuated themselves into America, McCarthy informed attendees that even though CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case, it is still treated by the media as a spokesman and a “civil rights organization”. Valerie Jarrett subsequently spoke at the annual ISNA convention this past year following the Holy Land Foundation case which found CAIR to have aided terrorist organizations.

It is clear that the first step in making an existential difference for the United States and the Jewish community is to develop the intellectual framework for the battles that lay ahead. Education is the key and several books are essential:

America Alo ne: The End of The World As we Know it , Mark Steyn;

The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America , Andrew McCarthy,

Shariah: The Threat To America: An Exercise In Competitive Analysis (Report of Team B II).

For those who want to study shariah,Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law Umdat Al-Salik , is the basic Islamic text dealing with shariah, approved by al-Azhar University, the seat of Sunni Islam.

Only then, can one begin to understand the magnitude of the effort needed to battle for Western civilization’s survival