Understanding the Threat of Islam: Interview with John Guandolo
LS: A lot of Americans are not aware of the struggles America is having with Islam or they tend to be naive. They think it’s a global issue. Would you say the global Islamic movement also threatens us?
JG: It does, and I think there are a number of misconceptions: Number one, people say, “It’s not that bad because I’m not aware of it.” Of course, ignorance of the situation has never been indicative that something is not going on, but the other piece is that currently the global economic movement is not focused on us. They’re focused on the Islamic world and overthrowing governments that aren’t imposing Sharia fully. As soon as they’re done doing that, they’re going to turn their sights on the West completely—they will be focused on western governments as they have in the past century; then we’re going to see western governments start falling violently as the Islamic armies march in. By then it will be too late, at least for Europe. The United States—they’re looking to take us down in different ways; certainly financially, culturally, socially. They call it “civilization jihad” because that’s what it is here.
LS: It’s been reported that Merim Ibrihim’s father left the family when she was six years old which left her to be raised by her Christian mother. She never studied or accepted the Islamic faith and has said she has always been a Christian. It is my understanding, if your father is a Muslim, then you’re a Muslim.
JG: That’s interesting because actually Islamic Law says the two legal requirements for being an apostate are reaching puberty or being sane. Another one would be that if she was older than six, they would have to make the legal argument that she had reached puberty which is not based on age, but on physical development, so they would legally argue she had reached puberty and say, therefore, she was apostatized from Islam.
As a practical matter, about five years ago there was a Muslim in Afghanistan who converted to Christianity, as an adult. It became a national incident because one of the big networks got a hold of it. They were going to kill the guy and Hamid Karzai declared him insane. Nobody in the U.S. intelligence network had any clue why he did that. Of course, all of the Jihadis stopped worrying about it because under Islamic Law, if you’re not sane, they can’t kill you for being an apostate. So you see, it drives everything they do, and we don’t even get it when it comes out at the social level.
So in the Ibrihim case, there is actually not a legal basis if those facts are as they are. My understanding is that she was a little older, but if it’s true he left when she was six, and she left Islam before puberty, she’s technically not an apostate under Islamic Law.
LS: Obama seems to be coming down on the side of the Muslims, including putting them in key positions in his administration. Any idea why he’s doing this when they are apparently a threat to the western world?
