Posted on 05/04/2008 5:00:17 AM PDT by Yosemitest
Rush Interviews Andrew McCarthy
May 2, 2008
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, as you know, folks, we don't do too many interviews here. We're not on the author circuit. Friends of mine, however, do write books; and I try to have them on, especially in this most recent example. Andrew McCarthy has written a book entitled Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad. Its timing is beautiful, because we have been so successful in thwarting another attack, terrorist attack on our country, that it is easy for people to assume the threat has subsided when it really hasn't.
I welcome to the program, Andy McCarthy, good friend, how are you sir?
MCCARTHY: Is this the C-in-C USOC?
RUSH: This is C-in-C USOC: Commander-in-Chief US, Operation Chaos.
MCCARTHY: Happy to talk to you, sir.
RUSH: It's great to have you here. Now, let's get started with this, because there's a lot to discuss with you.
There are three themes in Andy's book, folks.
MCCARTHY: Well, I knew nothing more about radical Islam, Rush, in 1993 when I got brought into this than, you know, anyone who's had a fairly good education in the United States;
RUSH: All right. So what are the numbers?
Through the Clinton years and even prior to that, we sought to deal with this threat via the courts, indictments.
How successful have we been?
MCCARTHY: Well, if your point of reference is national security, it's an abysmal failure.
Most of the time when I talked about this it turns out to be at law schools, where what they're interested in is due process, and they look at it and say,
RUSH: We indicted Bin Laden, right, in 1998?
This was before all the embassy bombings and the millennium plot, the USS Cole and 9/11.
We indicted Bin Laden, and yet, we don't have Bin Laden.
So tell me something:
MCCARTHY: Well, I think it's a variety of different explanations for it, but I think the predominant one is mainly a human nature-type element,
: RUSH: Explain something to me, if you would.
MCCARTHY: Right. RUSH: Presume everybody that comes to court is innocent in our domestic legal system.
MCCARTHY: They can't
RUSH: Yeah?
MCCARTHY: -- is that it is important in terms of not only our self-esteem,
RUSH: Right.
MCCARTHY: You hear a lot about,
RUSH: Yeah, but they wouldn't be convicted.
MCCARTHY: (laughing) No, right.
RUSH: By the time you let the defense bar at these guys --
MCCARTHY: Oh, that. (laughing)
RUSH: -- they wouldn't be convicted.
That's the whole point, and, you know,
some people are of the opinion that there is a group of people in this country
that would love to have the enemy win, by hook or by crook.
MCCARTHY: Yeah, it's hard to argue with that because that's exactly what we're seeing.
And as you pointed out a second ago, Bin Laden himself is case in point
RUSH: I'll bet he was quaking in his boots, too.
MCCARTHY: Yeah, well, it hasn't seemed to do much to him.
We actually indicted him even before the embassy bombings and there's probably about six weeks time between the time we indicted him and the time the embassies were taken out.
So, look, if you are trying to do is stop this enemy from having an ability to project power on the scale of a nation;
you're never, ever, going to do it by indicting him in the criminal justice system.
It just can't work.
RUSH: Talking to Andrew McCarthy, author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad. We'll continue right after this.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We're talking with a good friend of mine, Andrew McCarthy, author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad.
Andy, let's explain to people your direct involvement with this. You were at the US attorney's office SDNY, for those of you in the know, Southern District New York. You prepared for trial; you're on the prosecution team I think with Pat Fitzgerald, correct?
MCCARTHY: That's right. Actually we like to say he was with me, back then.
RUSH: Yeah, well, I like the way that sounds.
MCCARTHY: (laughing)
RUSH: So who were the suspects, who were the defendants in this case?
MCCARTHY: Well, the World Trade Center had been bombed when I got brought into the case. There was already four people under arrest for that, and the trial was being prepared by another group of prosecutors,
but what we found right after the Trade Center bombing was that this same organization was plotting something that was even more ambitious and horrifying,
Regrettably, he had infiltrated it before the Trade Center bombing,
but in a dispute with the FBI he left the investigation and then was brought back in after the Trade Center bombing.
So we managed to stop that attack, I was brought in at the investigative stage. I think the interesting thing about that is not so much my participation in it as the fact that there really is no substitute for human intelligence. It's really the only terrorism attack that we stopped by anything other than dumb luck, which I think is sort of a lesson we should have learned by now.
But I was brought in basically to run that investigation and then try to bring in indictments that was going to target the organization that had carried out not only the Trade Center attack, but this other attack, and really kind of bring it back to where it first began here in America.
RUSH: And this is where you first came into contact in a legal sense with Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman.
He was the mastermind, the leader, the guru of this gang?
MCCARTHY: Yes. And he actually had a considerable history before he ever got here.
He has taken credit for it, and I think credibly, having issued the fatwa for the murder of President Anwar Sadat in 1981, the Egyptian president who committed the great crime of making peace with Israel. He was murdered, and the murder was carried out by Egyptian terrorist organizations.
Abdel Rahman, the Blind Sheik, was a major mover and shaker in those circles, and then he gets himself basically to Afghanistan, where he hooks up with people like Bin Laden and Zawahiri and, you know, the other names that were not household names like he was back then, but have become that way for us and ultimately came to America in 1990.
And the way he got here basically is an unfortunate comedy of errors which seems to be a running theme in my book, but, you know, basically we didn't put him on the terrorist watch list when we should have.
RUSH: But we knew he was a terrorist when we let him in?
MCCARTHY: Correct.
RUSH: Did he come in through JFK and ask for asylum, did he use that method?
MCCARTHY: No, he came in a variety of different ways, and he didn't have to ask for asylum until the end because we just let him in.
It really was awful. I mean, he was on the list, but we didn't read the list and then when he got here it turned out that, you know, one office is investigating him and the other is giving him a green card as a religious instructor, you know, not our finest hour, but unfortunately a sort of a steady theme of all this.
You know, if we look back at the 1993 attack, we had very good reason to know that it was coming.
RUSH: Well, there you go, the legal situation again,
the legal circumstance seems to be present in this in misjudging the way to actually go about this and assessing the threat.
But I can't help but go back to say you only learned all this because you had an informant.
It's beyond dumb luck, but human intel is how you learned about all this.
MCCARTHY: Yes.
RUSH: And that, of course, helped you prepare your case.
What was your role in the trial against the Blind Sheik?
MCCARTHY: Well, I was the lead prosecutor,
and that informant turned out to be the main witness in the case,
and he was my witness, so I spent, you know, quite a bit of time studying what he had done
and also, you know, having to do the other odds and ends that you do when you do a case like this,
one of which was to try to get prepared in the event the Blind Sheik decided to testify,
which, you know, ultimately he didn't do
but that didn't mean we didn't have to prepare for it.
And that was an eye-opener.
In fact, the whole experience in watching the dynamic of him and other people in the Muslim community throughout the trial was a real eye-opener for me. I wanted to believe in 1993 the stuff that we were putting out, you know, that he basically perverted who was otherwise a peaceful doctrine. But what I found was going through all of his thousands of pages of transcripts and statements, was that when he cited scripture to justify acts of terrorism, to the extent he was quoting scripture or referring to it, he did it accurately, which shouldn't be a surprise.
RUSH: So you went in thinking this guy might be a fringe little kooky and perverting Islam,
and you were stunned to find out that everything he said or proclaimed had a root basis?
MCCARTHY: That's correct.
There's no other way of putting it.
And it shouldn't have been a surprise.
I mean, he was a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence, graduated from Al-Azhar University in Egypt.
Why in the world I would have thought that I or the Justice Department would know more about Islam than he would is beyond me now that I look back on it, but back then I was pretty confident that we must have been right when we said that he was basically perverting the doctrine.
RUSH: Look, I've got less than 45 seconds here, and I want to spend a little time on the second theme.
We've jumped from one to number three here.
The second theme, we touched on it a little bit,
MCCARTHY: I'd be delighted.
RUSH: All right, we'll be back and continue after this.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: And we resume our conversation with Andrew McCarthy; author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad.
If you just missed it, we just finished a discussion of Andy being the lead prosecutor on the conviction of the Blind Sheik -- 1993 World Trade Center
-- and I want to repeat this point because I think it's crucial.
MCCARTHY: We're taking it less seriously.
I think there was a time right after 9/11, probably I put it at about 18 months
RUSH: Wait.
Wait, wait, wait!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Who's getting what?
Guidance?
Who in the government is sending this out to who?
MCCARTHY: Well, the reporting that's come out since
RUSH: So what are we supposed to call 'em?
MCCARTHY: Well, I'm down to thinking
RUSH: Are the leaders of this movement people of wealth?
We know Bin Laden's a man of great wealth; his family was.
I don't know about Zawahiri, but he was a doctor in Egypt.
What about Rahman?
Are the leaders of this movement who are getting hold of these young kids at very impressionable ages and turning them into little hate missiles, are they wealthy people?
I mean, so many people in this country believe that it is our usurpation and actual stealing of the world's resources leading these poor people, these nomads with nothing, and they just hate us for that reason?
MCCARTHY: You know, that's a great point.
The ideology that we're talking about here is 14 centuries old. It existed and thrived before there was a United States.
It has commanded the allegiance of the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the educated and uneducated
RUSH: We live in the United States of America, and the people who live here, many of them have not traveled abroad;
MCCARTHY: You know, Rush, that's exactly right.
It actually brings me to another memory of the dynamic between the Blind Sheik and the community, which was an eye-opener and a frightening one to me.
RUSH: Meaning Rahman.
MCCARTHY: This was the homicidal maniac sitting in the corner of my courtroom.
What it flagged for me was even though these people were very moderate and peaceful people
RUSH: We're in the middle of a presidential campaign,
and the sum total of discussion on this focuses on distorting McCain's statement
MCCARTHY: Well, I hope it doesn't take another attack,
but it's probably going to take at least a sense that we could be attacked that certainly isn't present for us now
RUSH: Andy McCarthy, thanks so much for your time.
This is a book that
MCCARTHY: Rush, thank you. I appreciate it.
RUSH: You bet. Andrew McCarthy.
END TRANSCRIPT
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Check out Andrew McCarthy on McCain Mirage. It's worth your time.
MCCARTHY: That's correct. There's no other way of putting it.
And that's the crux of the biscuit...
Great read, thanks for posting.
Anyone who doubts this should read the koran and hadith.
Sura (2:191-193) - "And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution of Muslims is worse than slaughter of non-believers...and fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah."
Sura (5:33) - "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement"
Sura (8:12) - "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them"
Bukhari (52:177) - Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."
Tabari 7:97 The morning after the murder of Ashraf, the Prophet declared,"Kill any Jew who falls under your power."
Ibn Ishaq: 327 - Allah said, A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land. Muhammad, you craved the desires of this world, its goods and the ransom captives would bring. But Allah desires killing them to manifest the religion.
No wonder the Muslims like Obama.
Since McCain is the only candidate that wants to fight them in Iraq and win, why is Rush doing his level best to defeat him?
Rush is part of the vast right wing conspiracy bent on taking out McCain but saving the conservative movement. The country will go down the tubes with Hillbama but the conservative movement will be strong.
I suspect we'll wake up again after the next 9/11 - for a time.
And if to save the conservative movement it's necessary to take out MacCain, I say "AMEN". The country can survive four years of Hillbama. It cannot survive without becoming Mexico North or Canada South without a genuine conservative movement.
I can't agree with that senitment my friend. Besides the fact that too much is at stake concerning the WOT(McCain is committed to fighting the terrorists whilest Obama and Hitlery are not), I believe the Democrates have more to lose by losing this election than the Republicans. I think the Democrates power will wilt if they lose this election and that will give more power to the conservatives in the Republican party.
Didn't you learn anything in 1992-1994?
McCain is simply UNACCEPTABLE, and it's time that backstabbing RINO got the boot.
If he likes illegal aliens so much, he should move to their country and become their citizen.
In case you haven't noticed, the primaries are over. If you always right crowd wanted a conservative candidate, why didn't you vote for one? The Republican primaries had very low turnouts. It's you guy's fault your guy didn't win.
That being said, if McCain is unacceptable, Obama is acceptable? Is this your thinking, because that is the effect of your action not to vote Republican. You should take a lesson from our hero Reagan. Reagan never said anything negative about another Republican. Why do you think that was? Did he agree with everything every Republican ever did? No. Reagan realized something you people are far from understanding. Reagan realized without the GOP the conservative movement would have no power and so significance. When you always right people fail to do your part and vote you make yourselves irrelevant as if you don't exist. Your vote is your voice. When you don't vote you only hurt your own cause.
McCain is not as bad as Obama. McCain will fight the WOT, Obama will not. McCain will at least put a fence up, Obama will not. McCain will not raise taxes or promote socialist policy to the extent Obama will. McCain has never vote for an earmark, Obama is the most liberal Senator is US history. So you want to elect the most socialist figure in American politics? Haven't you learned anything from history at all? You sir are a supporter of socialism.
I just bought the book ...also recommended on http://www.jihadwatch.org
I will NEVER support McCain. I will always OPPOSE him.
Reagan would NEVER put up with that Democrat McCain, only oppose him.
Bob Barr is who I support today.
But, ... I would vote against McCain
bump
You might as well vote for Obama, because McLame is the only one who can beat him. You say McLame is so so bad, but you ignore how bad Obama is. Is Obama better than McLame to you?
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