Here is an interview with FrontPage mag editor, talk show host, and amiable raconteur Jamie Glazov about his boffo new book, High Noon for America: “Showdown With Islamists,” by Ryan Mauro at FrontPage, October 29:
…Mauro: To be fair, in his speech at the U.N., President Obama did rule out placing restrictions on criticism of religion. He said, “Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs.”
Glazov: When Obama announces to the world that, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” it contradicts and cancels out anything else he says that seems to be in defense of free speech. When Obama oversees Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the filmmaker behind the controversial movie “Innocence of Muslims,” being dragged out of his house on U.S. territory by law enforcement for some kind of parole violation, it sends the message to the Islamic world: You are right, and we are carrying out your blasphemy laws for you. When you ponder these realities, you have to ask yourself: Is it a coincidence that Obama has also facilitated the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power throughout the Middle East and, as Frank Gaffney has meticulously documented, its penetration of the U.S. government?
Mauro: What does this “concrete stand” you talk about in your book look like?
Glazov: We simply — and urgently “” need to defend our principles and values “” freedom of speech, equal rights for all, the freedom to change religions or have no religion at all, etc. Our response to a violent, expansionist Islam must be as hard and durable as concrete. The key to the Islamists” success is their persistence. They hope to wear you down and make you so tired and fed up that you will quit. They do not give up. That is the key to their success. Therefore, our stand against this strategy must be just as solid as theirs. Hardness and toughness in response to their aggression is the only language and action they understand and respect.
Mauro: Your book consists of dialogues with top experts in national security. What is the consensus view about what is ahead in the near future?
Glazov: The consensus is that Obama’s foreign policy is a catastrophe. The consensus is that if we are not able and willing to admit that our jihadist enemy is at war with us and to label the jihadist enemy for whom and what he is, we are heading for a catastrophe.
Mauro: Why is it important to identify the enemy as “jihadist?” What do you say in response to the argument that the term gives religious legitimacy to terrorists and/or makes it sound like we”re waging war on Islam as a whole?
Glazov: Well, the fact is that it is the jihadists who identify themselves as such. It is not up to us to confer legitimacy upon them. Muslims don’t recognize non-Muslims as religious authorities. It is, however, up to us to define the threat we face accurately. If we ignore the enemy”s motives and goals, we will never be able to counter that enemy effectively.
It is crucial to maintain the religious component when identifying jihadists because religion is what they themselves say is the basis of their aggression. They are the ones who quote the Koran to justify murdering infidels. It is Islam, they say, that legitimizes their barbaric actions, so it is not us giving them religious legitimacy. And we are not waging war against Islam; it is these Islamist storm troopers who are waging war against us. That is a crucial distinction.
The bottom line is that we have to properly identify the enemy before we can fight him or develop a strategy to do so. Otherwise we are going to see more 9/11″s and Fort Hood’s on a much larger and terrifying scale….