Andy McCarthy's new book, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, is getting a lot of attention and rightly so. Here's an excerpt from Diana West's recent column:
Q: Why are Islam and the Left, as you demonstrate in "The Grand Jihad," not such strange bedfellows?
A: "For all their disagreements on matters like women's rights, gay rights and abortion, Islam and the Left are in harmony on big-picture matters: They are authoritarian, totalitarian in the sense of wanting to control all aspects of human existence, virulently anti-capitalist, and regard the individual as existing merely to serve the collective. Consequently, they have the same obstacle in common: our freedom culture - i.e., Western liberalism, U.S. constitutional republicanism, and their foundation, individual liberty. Historically, Islam and the Left ally when there is a common enemy. But I'd stress that what I am talking about here is an alliance, not a merger. I am not claiming, as someone ridiculously suggested to me the day the book came out, that Barack Obama wants to impose Sharia."
McCarthy contends that "our policy-makers obsess over 'one tactic, terrorism' while
ignoring terrorism's goal: Islamization through the implementation of
Sharia (Islamic law)."
West asked him to explain.
"From the beginning of my involvement in counterterrorism in the early nineties, I've been struck by the government's portrayal of terrorists as beasts who kill for no better reason than to kill - as if the fact that they are brutal means that they are insane. Government does this as part of its narrative that terrorists couldn't possibly be accurately representing a well-grounded interpretation of Islam, and therefore must be `perverting' or `hijacking' Islam, or must be traitors against the `true Islam.'
"There is a logic to terrorism. It is jihad, the purpose of which is to implement, spread, defend or vindicate Sharia, the Muslim legal code. Sharia is deemed in Islamist ideology to be the necessary precondition to Islamicizing a society. Once you realize that, you
quickly realize that the same Sharia-driven campaign can be waged, and is being waged, by non-violent means, and that the violent and non-violent methods are inextricably linked."
Diana West has a more extensive interview posted here. It simply can't be overstated how important McCarthy's material is. America and the West don't have a clue. McCarthy is completely reliable in his facts and interpretation. (See bio below)
Jamie Glazov of Frontpagemag interviewed McCarthy here.
McCarthy appeared a few days ago on C-Span. The 30 minute video can be viewed here.
The Washington Examiner ran a series of three excerpts from McCarthy's book here, here, and here.
Big Journalism asked 10 Questions of McCarthy.
Ruth King (of RuthfullyYours) wrote a great review for the Mideast Outpost.
National Review ran an internet and mp3 interview here.
Imprimis posts McCarthy's bio as follows:
ANDREW C. MCCARTHY is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. For 18 years, he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the South District of New York, and from 1993-95 he led the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. Following the 9/11 attacks, he supervised the Justice Department’s command post near Ground Zero. He has also served as a Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and an adjunct professor at Fordham University’s School of Law and New York Law School. Mr. McCarthy writes widely for newspapers and journals including National Review, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and is the author of the book Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad.