March 21, 2017

TRANSCRIPTION OF RADIO BROADCAST

Stand in the Gap Today
(audio link)

Hosted by Sam Rohr, American Pastors Network, aired March 21, 2017

Sam Rohr, Gary Dahl and David Kissler speak with John Guandolo, former FBI agent, and President Understanding The Threat

{Introduction} Welcome to Stand in the Gap Today with Sam Rohr, Gary Dahl and David Kissler of the American Pastors Network. Addressing the most critical issues impacting our culture from a Biblical and constitutional perspective. Learn more about the work of the American Pastors Network at American Pastors Network.net

{Sam Rohr} Well according to one well known wannabe Muslim reformer, now listen to this, those who oppose Jihadi Islam, believing that the reform of Islam is not possible, ok? Those who oppose Jihadi Islam because they say reform of Islam is not possible, due to the very dictates of the Koran itself, these people, now this wannabe reformer is saying, you guys are now alt-Jihadists, alt-jihadists. That’s right, if you speak out against Jihadi Islam too much, according to one Islamic wannabe reformer, you are yourself worse than the Jihadist. Now imagine that. One of the persons singled out by name is our guest today on Stand in the Gap Today, his name is John Guandolo, and he has been on with us before. He is the president of Understanding the Threat, and you can find that understanding the threat.com. He is a former FBI agent and he is author of the FBI’s counter intelligence and training manual on Jihadi Islam in America. So there is nobody better to be speaking with us about this issue. So call or text your friends right now and invite them to listen to today’s program, as I believe it will be extraordinarily insightful and particularly on this issue, other folks are talking about it, but I don’t think you are going to be  hearing it quite from the perspective we are dealing with it today. Is it possible, and this is the question when posed, is it possible that we are witnessing, right now, in America, a new Islamic strategy to demonize those who speak the truth about Islam with the goal of dividing and conquering? We are going to talk about that in segments II and III particularly in this program today. And with that I welcome you to Stand in the Gap today, I’m Sam Rhor, I will be joined by David Kissler and Gary Dahl and of course, our special guest John Guandolo, president of  Understanding the Threat. But before we get into this enormously important subject, I wanted to highlight one piece of headline news that caught my attention last night. And it was this, the headline said four of five Oklahoma City, Oklahoma students can’t read the face of a clock. And this was just the first few lines from the article, it said this “they may miss that hour of sleep, but as we turn our clocks ahead, chances our kids won’t be changing their watches, that’s because the vast majority don’t have a watch.”  A new study shows that only 1 in 10 Oklahoma City kids, ages 6-12 own a watch, and only 1 in 5 know how to read it.  That means they don’t know how to read a face of a clock or watch.

So Dave, let me go to your first on this, when I read this my first reaction was  Oh, man another example of failed public education, but I thought about it a few seconds more and I thought well, no I’m not so sure in this case. You know, in reality we have moved from actual clocks to looking at the time on our cell phone. Is it a wonder that only 1 in 10 children can read the face of a clock?  And in the end, does it really make any difference?

{David Kissler} Well, you know Sam, I think it does. I think one of the things that technology is doing to us is dumbing down our culture. I can remember Sam when I was the manager of a fast food restaurant during my college days, how many of the young people that we hired who could not count change back to a customer unless on the face of the cash register it said, you know, you need to give back a dollar and twenty seven cents, they could do that if they were told that, but if it did not tell them that, they could not count back change. So in the process of all the advancement technologically, I think we are losing something. I think we are dumbing down our culture, the younger generation and I think this story, which is very, very interesting. I would have gone the same direction you did. Uh oh, another example of poor public education, but when you look at it a little bit deeper, I think it’s because now with the I-Watch and all these other things looking to get the time on our cell phone, kids just don’t know how to do and they’re not being taught by their parents to do the basic things like even reading the face of a clock or a watch.

{Sam Rohr} Just yesterday an article written by Robert Spencer, it was a well written article, he writes a lot of articles, he is a bold voice for exposing Islamic Jihadism.  He, in an article identified a very troubling statement by a self-proclaimed Muslim who proclaims himself to be a moderate.  This fellows name is Zuhdi Jasser, who named several people in this article, including our guest today, John Guandolo, as an alt Jihadist. And I’m going to read, this is exactly what he said, he said “…and I’m going to call it alt-Jihadism”, he said he was defining a new term to identify people who are opposing Jihadist Islam and he says, “I’m going to call it alt-Jihadism”. Going forward in the article it says the alt-Jihad is exploiting the idea of Jihad in order to become powerful and in order to marginalize any solutions within the house of Islam. Indeed he goes on by saying, “Indeed there are no greater Jihadists than the alt-Jihadists when it comes to living in the land of freedom”, and I’m assuming he is meaning living in America.  And with that I’m going to welcome in John Guandolo, he is the president of Understanding the Threat.Com.  And he is a former FBI agent and he is the author of the FBI training manual on Jihadi Islam in America.  With that I welcome you back to the program today John, glad to be with us.

{John Guandolo} Well thanks again for having me I really appreciate it.

{Sam Rohr} Well, John, you were specifically mentioned in this article.  It’s really a rather bizarre article frankly, and some of the statements.  But I want to ask you a first question here.  The accusation by Zuhdi Jasser, who a lot of people see him, because he’s on Fox News, he’s a lot of places.  He is a self-proclaimed Islamic Moderate.  But when he comes out and he says that you, and by that I’m saying probably us, are worse than actual real life hate filled Islamic Jihadists in America, that’s an amazing thing.  From that perspective, what triggered this rage in him and this condemnation of you and others that he listed in his TV program the other day?  What caused him to go off in this vain?

{John Guandolo} Well, that, that is the crux of what I think we should talk about. Isn’t the timing interesting? Because one of the things that we speak about very frequently and we have spoken about on this show before is that this war is more war of counter intelligence and espionage than it is on terrorism matters.  Much more.  And when we talk about these things and when we look at things that we have talked about on this show that happen, and people take it for granted that they are just random things happening.  When we unpack it and actually dig deep, you see, many of the things that we have watched in the last 6 months that have happened, quite frankly since 9-11, are happening because there are forces behind it driving it.  So I would ask the question back, just for your listeners to chew on, why is it that it was just on last Friday that he does this hour long radio show on the Blaze where he literally spends the whole show, which was entitled “Reform This” and he attacks myself, Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Claire Lopez, Andy Bostom, Steve Kirby, who is in ACT for America chapter leader. But essentially, besides Steve Kirby, who is doing great work at the ground level, the rest of us are nationally known for speaking truth about the Islamic threat. Why then, why just now?  So let me answer that question first and then unpack this whole thing. Well, this comes on the heels of the presidents counter terrorism advisor Sebastian Gorka, on a panel with Zuhdi Jasser, defending him, specifically saying, Gorka did, that there is this internal battle in Islam where there are people who want, who are fighting for the “soul of Islam” you know these peace loving Muslims waging war against these nasty Jihadi’s and as they call them Islamists, a made up term that doesn’t exist in Islam. And that somehow there is this war going on in Islam. Well, first of all that’s a lie. That is a made up lie, and so let’s start that that happens at CPAC they are on a panel together and less than a week later, Zuhdi is on his Blaze radio show, which I have no idea how many listeners, he is condemning us as being, as you said, as bad as Jihadists, as bad as Isis Jihadists because we speak factual truth about Islam and if you listen, and I have the full transcript, which we can make available, so you can put out for your listeners, an initial rough transcript, but it is very close, and literally when you break down, and I listened to this thing and I went through the transcript, he contradicts himself over and over. But the one thing he says that is consistent is that what I am saying and what my colleagues are saying and what my organization, understanding the threat is saying about Islam is consistent with what Islamic schools are teaching and what the highest authority in Islam says, which is Al-Azhar in Egypt. Now his contention is that there is a mafia, it’s like the mafia that has taken over Islam. Except all the authorities in Islam agree, which is why we teach it, we teach what Islam is based on what Islam says it is, based on a consistent scholarly understanding of Islam since the time of the prophet Mohammad. And the psychotic disconnect from reality that we are dealing with is that today on the Glenn Beck show, when he was being interviewed by Glenn Beck, and again, lashed  out and named me and my organization by name, what you have is, he literally said that we can call what he is saying whatever we want including mythology. But he has to give his children some version of Islam that offers hope. Now I want you to imagine that that is the thing that Sebastian Gorka wants to make the foothold upon which we build a national security strategy to defeat our enemy, on mythology so Zuhdi can give his children hope in Islam.  The problem is, Islam doesn’t offer that. Islam is, what Islam is.  It is what the Koran is.  He literally said he is teaching his children things about Mohammad that Islam doesn’t teach. Do you understand that means he is making stuff up for the sake of his children and the advisor to the president of the United States is grasping onto that to use it for national security. This is why we are talking about it, because this is dangerous. It’s why we are losing this war.

{Sam Rohr} John, it’s beyond dangerous and one of the things we appreciate about you is that you do speak the truth and anyone that has studied the 1400 years of Islamic expansion across the globe understands that what Zuhdi Jasser is communicating and tragically, tragically, and in fact I’m shocked that Sebastian Gorka is in agreement with Zuhdi Jasser what he is now communicating is absolutely contrary to the truth.  So let me understand something, Robert Spencer, of course, in his article believes that the reform of Islam is not possible.  Zuhdi Jasser is communicating that it is possible.  From your study John, do you believe that Spencer is right, or is Zuhdi Jasser right and you maybe have already answered the question, but I would love for you to underscore it once again.

{John Guandolo} Well first of all, Zuhdi himself says that there’s no country in the world where this can take place. So he’s trying to breathe life into something that is not possible. So, but let’s start there, I don’t think I need to say I agree with Zuhdi or I agree with Robert.  When we talk about Islam, when understanding the threat teaches national security advisors or senior government officials or local police about Islam, we use the doctrine that they teach their children, and the doctrine that is taught at Al-Azhar and the doctrine that is 100% agreed upon by the scholars because it’s what’s in the Koran and you have to understand, remember the two big things about the Koran that the Koran says and 100% of Islamic scholars have always agreed, what comes chronologically last in the Koran rules and the tafseer legally defines every verse in the Koran.  So when Zuhdi says, as he did today on Glennn Beck, “my Islam, my version of Islam”, he’s talking about a fantasy, he’s talking about a pink unicorn that doesn’t exist. It may exist in his home and that is awesome, if he’s teaching his children to love others, but to then tell the world that that means Islam can reform, is to ensure that our national security apparatus takes its focus off the real threat to another threat, I believe he is doing it intentionally and to the detriment of national security in the United States. There is a chance I’m wrong on that. He might just be so deluded he believes what he is saying, but in either case the fact that Sebastian Gorka is latching onto it is dangerous. So, no, there is no possibility of a reformation in Islam. The term reformation is a term that doesn’t exist in Islam.

{Sam Rohr} John Guandolo, understanding the threat.com, you have laid out some good, good information here and we have a lot more questions to deal with on this issue and the implications of this issue. Now it really bothers me that guys like Sebatsian Gorka is supporting, it’s really bothering me that this philosophy is getting out there. But we are going to talk about, ladies and gentleman, in the next segment, about how this fits into the broader strategy, perhaps with the Muslim brotherhood itself on this whole issue of counter intelligence that we are really involved in here.  We are going to talk about that with John Guandolo when we come back after this news.

BREAK

{Sam Rohr} Ladies and gentleman if you are just joining us today on Stand in the Gap today, our special guest is John Guandolo, he is the president of Understanding the Threat.com and we are discussing an article that was released today where an individual Zuhdi Jasser, who is a Muslim, and a proclaimed moderate and what he believes to be the ability to reform Islam, has attacked John and others, by calling them actually to be worse than Jihadists themselves by speaking out against Jihadi Islam. And John, before we go a little bit deeper into this, I want you to restate what you said in the last segment.  You were framing the fight in which we are in and saying that it was more of a disinformation or propaganda battle that we are in. Rephrase that thought if you can for us as we begin this segment.

{John Guandolo} Well, this is much more a counter intelligence and espionage issue then it is a terrorism matter. So that involves political warfare propaganda, information operations. And what we are seeing in my professional opinion is a significant information operation, which has morphed since 9-11, because the American public has become more sophisticated in understanding that Islam is the problem. And it’s one of the reasons I believed this president was elected, because Americans realized there are real threats that both republican and democrat establishment people are not dealing with. But the reality is the information campaign on the other side, on the bad guys side has gotten a little more refined. And in this case, I know many people, I’m having to explain, and I’m probably going to have to write about it, for instance regarding Sebastian Gorka, they think because he uses the word Jihad, his, what he’s saying sounds right.  But what he’s saying is the same thing that has been said for the last 15 years and it’s why we have lost wars, which is Islam itself is not the problem. That the problem is that there’s this war going on, you know in his book he says Islam is not the problem, but the problem is takfiri  Islam or takfiri Jihadism, which is just unbelievable. It’s so convoluted. But again, what is the purpose of it? The purpose of it is to take us off the mark. So long as we do what President Clinton and President Bush and President Obama and their national security staffs, and all the generals at the Pentagon said, which is this problem has nothing to do with Islam, we will lose here in the United States, just like we lost in Afghanistan and Iraq, despite the fact that militarily we crush the enemy.  And the problem…

{Sam Rohr} That brings me to the next question here, John, because you have laid that out, let’s go into this, Islam uses stealth or civilization Jihad, as they call it, it’s multifaceted, I’m going to use the word, it’s demonically deceptive, you are describing that. And I would like to ask you this specific question here. Is this reform Islamic reform hope that is put out there, that fellows like Zuhdi is pursing and others, and is that a calculated strategy, for instance by the Muslim brotherhood, and is it being received by people who actually believe it or people who perhaps don’t have the courage to stand up and actually speak what the truth is? In other words you are laying out a scenario there, when you talk about generals in the Pentagon, when you talk about individuals throughout the various past administrations buying into this philosophy are they people who are weak or ignorant, who just don’t want to know the truth, or are these people, John, who are actually more than that? Are they sympathizers, real sympathizers with the brotherhood and the Jihadist movement? What are we talking about here?

{John Guandolo} Well I think you have some of that. But I think when you talk about a lot of these people, like the generals, you have to understand, when I say information warfare, I mean down to the ground level.  Go into the, let’s just talk about the military for 1 second, go into the war colleges for the Army, the Marine Core University in Quantico, the joint forces staff college and where, go to the command in staff college for the United States Marine Core, 9 months where they have majors and lieutenant cornels in there. Nine months, not 1 word of Jihad. Are you kidding me? And you’re not even allowed to talk about it. So, you want to know why our generals are free of any clue, because it’s career limiting.  And because it’s been beaten into their head that this has nothing to do, by Islamic professors and Islamic advisors who we can identify unanimously as being part of the Muslim Brotherhoods movement. Most of them are Muslim Brotherhood leaders, some are just ideologically aligned. That’s a matter of fact.  And so of course, that’s going to produce 3 and 4 start generals and admirals that are thick as a cinder block when it comes to this issue. And they might be great men, they might be courageous men, they might be great warriors, but you will never win a war against an enemy that you don’t know. It might accidentally happen, but we lost in Afghanistan and Iraq. And there are still military people arguing we didn’t.  I mean, that, how disconnected from reality. So when we talk about it, look, Zuhdi Jasser himself has said he thinks there are parts of the Muslim Brotherhood like overseas organizations that are okay. That is frightening. He himself says that he is creating a version of Islam for his family that is essentially make believe. So, is that the guy you want to base your national security strategy on and rely on him? That, these are the questions. If Zuhdi Jasser were doing this on his own and he were trying to do this and, you know, but he’s not. He’s attacking people who are speaking truthfully about Islam, number 1, he’s saying that Islamic organizations that are Muslim Brotherhood overseas might be okay. He is literally speaking at the largest conservative get together CPAC, articulating these and is enjoined by the CT advisor of the President of the United States. That’s when you have to say stop. This needs to be shredded. This argument needs to be shredded factually and shown for the dangerous ideology it is.

{Sam Rohr} You know John this is, it’s important that we bring this up, and I appreciate you bringing it to our attention. Of course this idea of Islam trying to paint a picture, a pretty picture a peaceful picture of what they really are not, is not new. I mean it’s been going on for a long, long time and I’ve been involved with it myself in the times past, and I will get into that now, but they do try to deceive people into thinking that they are something that they are not. But, 2 questions that I have, 1). Do you think there’s a possibility that Jasser and Gorka are plants by the Jihadists? 2.) To what degree is this new Trump administration under threats from the Muslim Brotherhood these days?

{John Guandolo} So those are 2.

{Sam Rohr} Two questions #1….

{John Guandolo} Right, the first one, I think there are 2 parts to it, because I think Zuhdi Jasser is shown, especially with some of his relationships with people that work around him that have direct ties and the fact that he is, as much as he has spoken out against the Muslim Brotherhood, he is also on the other hand defended some of their organizations. So it’s more likely that whether he is working directly with the brotherhood or some other part of the movement, what he is doing, I don’t see how it’s not intentional. It’s intentionally destructive, this seems like an intentional operation based on my experience of understanding the modus operandi of this enemy and so, whether it’s a part of the brotherhoods movement for whatever reason, it’s definitely directly supporting their efforts. So there is a likelihood, yes, that he is doing that.  #2, as I said earlier, there is also the possibility that he is so mentally deluded that he actually thinks he is doing a good thing in defending himself. But the fact of the timing, the fact that it comes on the heels of him working with Sebastian Gorka, who has his own very significant national security problematic issues and that the people he comes after by name, are essentially the only people in the country minus Bill Warner, who was not mentioned, who are speaking very factually and really drilling down into the threat.  So that’s the first piece. Now with Sebastian Gorka, I think there are deeper issues.  I don’t think it’s out of the realm that there are deeper national security problems with him. And I would love to see a deep analysis of his background and a deep analysis of exactly what’s behind what he is doing.  I think that your question opens up the door for more questions.  Because I find, he’s either the most narcissistic person, which could be, to be in that position and simply disregard every other fact that is being fire hosed in his face to the detriment of our national security, because he wants to be the guy in the White House in charge, well there is something deeper there, and I think that needs to be investigated. There are a lot of questions about his background.

{Sam Rohr} Yeah, and the reason that I agree with you that it needs to be investigated is because he apparently has, looks like the good guy on Trump staff, does he not to most people across the country?

{John Guandolo} Right, because people who have been dying to hear somebody utter the word Jihad, it sounds good, but this is why information operations and propaganda work. They know how to do it.

{Sam Rohr} Ladies and gentleman, you are listening to Stand in the Gap today, Sam Rohr, David Kissler and Gary Dahl today and our special guest John Gundalo, president of Understanding the Threat.com and ladies and gentleman I hope you have been listening carefully today. You can get this program on archives Stand in the Gap Radio.com. Now stay with us, when we come back after the break we are going to go back to this whole issue of reading a clock face, and we are going to tie it into understanding the times and particularly on this issue we are talking about today.

BREAK

{Sam Rohr} We began this program, ladies and gentleman, talking about kids not being able to read the face of a clock.  We said that’s not necessarily the issue, but if they don’t know what time it is, if they can’t understand the times by looking at the things around them, and concluding and coming to right conclusions at the right time, then that’s a problem.  And really on this program today we’ve been talking to some extent about this theme all the way through.  And John, let me go to you right off here, in this last segment, because I want to ask a follow up question that Dave and Gary and I were talking about off line here during the break.  And that is the matter of the White House. We have been very supportive of the administration. We have been sanctioned individuals.  We are very glad for the direction that the administration is going in so many areas, but this one area, is one for which we are very concerned.  I would like to know from you, what level of knowledge does the White House have, the fact that Gorka is there as you are saying, and laying it out to be, is not a good sign.  What is happening and if I could just put it in this sense, who is winning the fight right now in the White House, the battle for freedom? Or the battle as waged by the Muslim Brotherhood? Who’s winning?

{John Guandolo} Well, I would answer that by saying that I don’t think we are winning. I don’t think Liberty is winning right not, but Liberty is trying to get on the, you know, like we say, trying to put freedom back on the offensive where it belongs. I think the President gets it. I get the sense that the President is extremely savvy on this and I don’t think he realizes and I think he is probably beginning to realize the depth of the battle he is in.  That a lot of the people he is battling are within the Republican Party first. I think there are people around him who are republicans who are working against him. I think there are certainly the democrat party has demonstrated that they are battling alongside of the hard left Marxist  which is on the side of the Jihad’s.  You’ve got the media that nearly, certainly, what we’ve come to call the mainstream media ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and to some extent FOX News, none of them are speaking truth about this, but in the case of CNN and ABC, NBC, CBS, The Associated Press, they are all, you know, coming to bat for the terrorists, clearly, based on every day in the paper and that the people that are attacked in the media are people like Understanding the Threat, Robert Spencer, Bill Warner,  anybody who speaks truth about this is attacked in the mainstream media.  And yet we are never attacked on the facts, which should be noteworthy. So, who’s winning on the inside? Not the good guys right now. I feel, you know, my professional take is the president got a handful of people in his cabinet in the White House that realize the depth of this or are close to realizing the depth, but even they, it just appears to me there is not an understanding of the battle they are in. Although I think if anybody understands it, he seems to be the one that does.

{Sam Rohr} Well, that’s a good thing and a bad thing to understand.  We’re glad, we believe that’s what we understand that the president really does gets it, but there is a fight going on. Gary, let me just go to you, because we talk on this program about the constitution, the civil side, also the Biblical side. Give us just a couple of minutes worth of theology if you could, what the scripture says about the importance of understanding the times and what that means in this regard, applied even to this if we don’t understand really what is going on.

{Gary Dahl} Well, it’s important that we, and of course, talking about we, everybody under the sound of our voices this afternoon including Christians, we must understand the times.  We must be like the sons of Issachar back in 1st Chronicles 12:32 where is said that they were those who understood the times and knew how to lead Israel.  That’s what we need today.  We need for people to not just take everything that they hear for granted but do research and study into these things on their own.  I’m glad that we talked about Islam to the degree that we do right here on Stand in the Gap today because we hear things here, we have things here that we share with people that no other radio program does across this nation with the guests that we have received, with the guests that we have.  You know in Romans chapter 13 verse 11 it says “and that knowing the time, that it is now, high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed”. I think that so many times we find that people in the United States of America, including the Church, we are asleep.  We have been lured to sleep. You know as well as I do, you remember that back in 2002 I was almost lured into going over to Morocco to talk about various things and the minister of religion from Morocco and the ambassador from Morocco was talking to me and others about how nice and how loving it and how peaceful Islam is.  This is a message that’s out there and unfortunately many Christians are picking it up. Many pastors are picking it up because they do not know.  Listen, they don’t know what their Koran says. We just need to read the Koran. It’s high time ladies and gentleman that we wake out of the sleep, we do our own research, understand what the truth is and then order our lives accordingly.

{Sam Rohr} Gary, good and well stated. John, I want to go back to you.  We close the program in prayer. I’m going to ask Dave to close, so I want you to take just about a minute and a half more John, no more if you could. And on this idea of understanding the times, if you were to sum up the need for people listening to this program, the people in America right now, relative to what is occurring, what would you state is the biggest issue, the problem and what do we need to do about it?

{John Guandolo} Well, I’ve said before I think the biggest problem is us. Not the Jihadis, not the hard left marxist the problem is us.  We need to, so that’s the problem and what do I mean by that?  We have forgotten our foundation. Even people that I’ve talked to who are patriots will say things like we need to get back to the constitution, or somewhere around that and I remind them that the ideal in our federal code  there are 4 documents listed that are organic to U.S. Law and of those 4 the declaration is one and that is the ideal.  The ideal, and the foundation for our entire legal and governmental system is the law of nature and nature’s God, legally defined in Blackstone’s commentary the law book used in the United States for the first 150 years of the republic, which defines the law of nature’s God as Holy Scripture.  Which is why the founders had the Bible taught in school so that there was a moral principle to go with the constitutional republic because the constitutional republic as the founder said would collapse without a moral standard.  We need to not only know it, we need to hold each other accountable to it and Blackstone’s commentary said you cannot create a law that contradicts the law of nature and nature’s God.  We as citizens of the Sovereign, we have to step in and hold our leaders accountable.

{Sam Rohr} There you go John.  That is well, well stated. Dave let me go to you right now, we have a lot to pray about. If you could take this matter before us to the Lord in prayer, we need wisdom, we need God’s help in this matter….