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Dec. 22, 2016 - Sean Hannity Show
01:38:35
An Insider's View - 12.21
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Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory.
They call their policy accommodation.
And they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us.
All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers.
They say we offer simple answers to complex problems.
Well, perhaps there is a simple answer.
Not an easy answer, but simple.
If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.
We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb.
By committing an immorality so great, as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the iron curtain, give up your dreams of freedom.
Because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters.
Alexander Hamilton said a nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one.
Now let's set the record straight.
But there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace, and you can have it in the next second.
Surrender.
Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement.
And this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face.
That their policy of accommodation is appeasement.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Sean Hannity Radio Show.
Guest hosting today, this is Rich Higgins, high above New York City.
I'm in studio here with my Navy SEAL buddy John I. We are here twenty-nine days, eight hours and fifty-one minutes away from the departure of President Obama.
I know all of you have that clicking down on your counter.
I know I do.
It has been eight long years.
And uh we're here today.
Linda's asked me to give you an inside perspective of the war on terrorism, what it means, what we see going on in Berlin and then in Kara, and to give you a take on how the guys that I go to, my trusted allies inside the system are looking at things.
We have some incredible guests coming on today, the best in the world at this stuff.
And uh I think everybody's sitting back and discussing, you know, the hacking, the Russians, the Chinese, all this stuff.
I think we want to take a look today at the war on terrorism, free of fear, free of intimidation, free of distraction.
We're gonna put aside the hyperbole, we're gonna go down to the facts, we're gonna get a brass tax look at things.
We see what's happened in Berlin in the past couple past couple days, really over the past couple years on uh Angela Merkel's um suicidal decisions in terms of her immigration policies.
And we really have to ask ourselves, is that the future we want?
And I think the American public has already answered that question.
They answered it on November 8th.
We need to make sure our leaders in Washington understand that that is what we expect of them.
We see an attack right now on the mandate that Trump has.
And I believe Trump has a real mandate.
If you exclude California and New York, he won the election by over three million votes.
You know, so those other 48 states have given him a real mandate, one that if he comes in there and pushes forward with his agenda, the American people are going to back him.
They're going to back him for real.
So as we look at things moving forward, you know, when I kicked in today with the Reagan speech, I think it's a timeless discussion because it really drives it the essence of what we're dealing with today.
Again, no fear, no intimidation, no distraction.
When you go to the truth of what we're dealing with, and when you really look at how decisions are being made inside the National Security Policy Establishment, we are fixated on narratives.
We're fixated on adhering to some sort of politically correct contrived version of reality.
And we hear often said we're going to have a return to truth and we're going to have a return to reason, but it's going to be harder to do.
I guess one of the things I wanted to accomplish today, and as somebody who was a Trump surrogate and out there advocating for him, is he's got a real mission ahead of him.
Just because he comes into office, he's he's got a lot of work to do.
Uh, not only for the past eight years really, but for the past 15 years.
We took our eye off the ball.
Um, Europe took its eye off the ball.
They're probably 15 or 20 years ahead of us in terms of what they're actually dealing with.
But the guys I talked to over there, their security forces are completely overwhelmed.
Uh networks running all over the world, there are bad guys ferreting back and forth, and it's a matter of time before we see a true uh conflagration, a two a true conflict break out into the open.
We're seeing the beginning edges of that right now, but I really think we have to spend some time looking at it.
So drilling down on the incident in Berlin, we look at that, and again, uh a guy that the security services knew.
Uh, they'd known about him for months.
Uh, he had been arrested, traveling with false documents.
What is it that we refuse to accept in the West that this enemy is who they say they are, not who we want them to be, not who we wish they were, not who they think they're going to become.
They are who they say they are today, now, and decisions can be made when you're not operating out of fear, when you're not operating out of intimidation, that we can set policies in place, we can set security apparatus in place, we can formulate national security positions that accept the reality of the nature of the fight that we're in.
Now, I know a lot of the people that Donald Trump is bringing in to his administration.
Um, my time in the Pentagon, I knew General Mattis, General Kelly, General Flynn.
These are excellent leaders.
And they're gonna require staffs that are gonna support what they're trying to accomplish.
When you think about these leaders, they're gonna need your support.
You're they're gonna need your public support for what they're attempting to accomplish.
And the way you're gonna be able to do that is you're gonna support them by doing your part in the war effort.
Now I'm not saying run outside and buy a gun or anything like that, but when you see political decisions being made at your local school board regarding your the content of your textbooks, local legal structures that are being put in place, you have to act on your own at that local level.
And I think when we look at the war on terrorism, guys who've been inside the system fighting the war, and John's smiling at me going, yeah, exactly.
If we accept that we have this subversive movement, and it is a movement operating inside the United States today, that has deformed and polluted our deliberate decision-making process, then we are going to have to first extract ourselves from this false reality, from this narrative-driven decision-making, in order to begin to formulate foreign policy that actually makes sense.
You can do that by beginning to recruit people in your own circle of friends, in your own family.
I think one of the things that concerns me is we're so divided right now as a nation, you can't discuss this subject.
And with Christmas coming up, and you're gonna see your families again, I'd encourage you to reach out to people with facts about this issue.
No drama, don't get angry, don't no rhetoric, just facts.
And you don't have to provide those facts.
Just encourage them to go find their own facts.
John, you get a comment?
Yeah, and you know, Richard, it's um Thanks for having me on.
Uh first off, but you know, every single one of us now seems to have a military member we know or can call that is gonna be asked about at the dinner table.
I know it was with my family as well.
And you know, I think that as we enter this new change on a on a global level, I think our families, we can ask those people that are serving right now, what is it like over there?
What are you seeing?
Get the grassroots facts from family and loved ones to make your own determination as opposed to just watching what every other media outlet's putting out.
Exactly.
I think, you know, I I always I always tell people, every every public anybody who's ever seen me speak publicly, I always tell them our grandfathers were smarter than us.
And you know, I think back to that.
I mean, when I when I listen to President Elect Trump, I'm often reminded, you know, he's he's brusque, he's brash, he speaks with you know, speaks with passion, he speaks sometimes too bluntly for people to take.
But the reality is 99 out of a hundred times, maybe a hundred, he's right.
We just don't like the message.
And so as we we look at this, I think we we we the people now have taken back the government.
And you, as a listener, and somebody who's informed on this issue, you need to start recruiting people in your little sphere of influence to get them to understand this.
Not to bring them over to make them a conservative, not to bring them up, but to for them to understand that what's at threat here is not a political issue, it is an American issue.
As I look at things right now, you see here, you know, it's been reported on Fox.
I mean, Obama's set to release 22 more detainees from Gitmo.
It's insanity.
It's insanity.
I actually received phone calls from friends in the Middle East saying we don't want them.
Don't send them here.
And yet here we are, we're gonna we're gonna release them.
Um they'll be back on the battlefield.
You know, John and I's buddies will be downrange, shooting them again here soon.
It's crazy.
And, you know, you see Berlin and um this guy Omri, again, arrested with forged documents, traveling through the refugee flows, and still we're pushing to have ref more refugees brought unvetted, uncleared, we don't know who they are, and we're gonna bring more of them here.
We have a mayor down in Texas, I think is in Austin, who's basically trying to end run his own governor to bring these people into his city.
That's insane.
It's insane.
So that's where we are in the in the country today.
I think from a from a national security perspective, I have a lot of hope, but I'm a realist.
And I understand when when Mr. Trump or when President Elect Trump hits the ground in Washington, he is coming in to a uh, you know, he's he's coming in on an LST to Omaha Beach.
The establishment, in many cases, is gonna be up against them.
If they're not overtly hostile, they'll be passively hostile because this isn't an easy easy issue to get your hands around.
And when we get our guys moving in the right direction at the state and local level, the police already are starting to understand.
The intelligence and military guys have been fighting the war for 15 years, they understand.
We need the citizens, the citizen army has to take on this issue and has to make it personal and make it your job to inform others about this.
We've got a great array of guests here today.
We have former FBI counterterrorism training lead.
We have the former advisor to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff on Islamic threat doctrines.
We have Pat Poole, who is just in he's he's irreplaceable.
We have Mike Waller, political warfare guy.
We will be back About five minutes, we'll be back here.
We uh we're gonna give you we're gonna give you a little taste for what's coming in the next four years.
Probably eight.
God bless you're listening to Sean Hannity.
Following numbers 1800-941-7326-800-941.
on.
God bless.
The biggest stories of the day with solutions to help move America forward.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
Folks, welcome back.
You're listening to Sean Hannity Radio.
This is Rich Higgins.
I'm guest hosting for Sean while he's away on Christmas break.
Joining me here in studio is former Navy SEAL John Iodonese, president of Viscense.
You want to say hi, John?
Hey, everybody, thanks for having me on, Rich.
Appreciate it.
Hey, uh, you know, we've been talking a little bit here in the intro on, you know, what what is the Trump administration mandate?
And you know, when I think about it, I really think he was elected on five core things.
And you know, those five core things were economy, immigration, Islamic terrorism, border security, and then you know, the overarching theme of America first versus globalism.
And I I'm I'm interested to know, John, you know, as somebody who's fought in the war, uh, you know, Purple Heart, wounded in Iraq, you know, what where do you what are your thoughts on the election of Donald Trump and what it means for national security?
I think this is one of the first times in history that we actually get to reset everything.
I mean, reset our ex our expectations and actually instill this notion of hope for the country to make America first.
It's not a crime to be patriotic, and I don't understand why you get demonized if you want to make America first.
We really have to ask ourselves as citizens, do you want to be number one still or not?
And that's I think what you saw on on the election day was the outpouring of Americans at every level from every local town and city saying we want to make America first.
I think uh, you know, looking back over the past several years, um, we've seen this sort of um static inertia where there's there's there's very little movement in terms of new thinking and the national security establishment, just introducing a new idea.
I know this is near and dear to your heart uh somebody who's been uh fighting the digital war against ISIS, you know, for the past several years.
Any thoughts on what innovation and what innovation in national security is gonna look like under a Trump administration?
Yeah, I think I think the innovation and and not just the figurehead, but also the the vision, the driving vision behind them is General Flynn.
I mean, I think Mike Flynn brings with him a vision to say, we are going to change the way things are because they're broken.
We are going to be more agile.
We are going to decentralize decision making to people that actually have expertise and aren't just policy experts.
Yeah, General Flynn's an army guy.
I was an army guy, you know, and I I think people generally say And I'm a Navy guy, and I just said that.
Yeah, yeah, we'll we'll give you your points later.
People generally think of the Marines as kind of the guys who follow the orders, right?
But I can tell you as somebody who was on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan with those guys.
They are the most innovative and creative guys.
And to see General Flynn surrounding himself and surrounding Donald Trump with guys like General Kelly and General Mattis, I I'm just convinced these guys are t they're ready to take it to the next level.
And and furthermore, bringing in somebody as brilliant as Monica Crowley.
I mean, she brings this whole other dimension that Mike Flynn knows is necessary to be number one.
Right.
I think as as things move forward here, it's gonna be critical that we get the guys inside the system.
So all you folks who are out there inside the system right now, all those guys in the Pentagon up at the agency who are working listening to us on your stream right now, you know, these guys are on our side.
You know, national security is making a comeback.
We're going back to reality.
Again, no fear, no intimidation, no distraction.
Theme of the day is our grandfathers were smarter than us.
This is Rich Higgins in for Sean Hannity.
I am a former defense department official.
Linda told me to say that, and uh, God bless.
Be back in a minute.
We'll be right back.
the one thing you can always count on.
Sean Hannity is back on the radio.
Welcome back, folks.
This is Rich Higgins in for Sean Hannity, former Defense Department official in studio with me, John I. Donnasey.
John, you want to say hi?
Hey.
John is a former Navy SEAL combat wounded in Iraq in 2005.
He and I have known each other for 10 years, so if we go Boston on you and start using words you don't know, like wicked car and stuff like that, don't worry about it.
We'll try and avoid it.
Linda has a choke collar on me to make sure I don't do it, but we're gonna go there.
I guarantee it.
We've got some guests coming up in this next section here.
Um I know both of these guys pretty well.
Um, for me to read their they gave me this bio sheet on them.
And I uh I've just got to tell you this this bio sheet is ridiculous, Linda.
Um Kim Jensen, he is the hands-down best counter-terrorism officer to come out of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that I've ever met.
Period.
Um says here, former FBI counter-terrorism center instructor, legal attache to several countries in the Middle East, subject matter expert on Islamic extremism, and that doesn't give you the full picture.
Kim was involved in almost every FBI major terrorism investigation you can think of, uh going back for the past 25 years.
A true expert, a gentleman, and a scholar.
Uh, Kim, are you on the line?
I am.
Hey, sir.
It's great to talk to you again.
And uh let me let me introduce our other guest here.
I just I just wanted to I just wanted to make sure you were there and and to say hello because everybody knows Steve Coglin, our next guest.
Uh he is the founder of Unconstrained Analytics Incorporated.
And again, his his bio's even smaller than yours, Kim.
Um the reality is Steve was the Islamic legal advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was eventually uh due to a run-in with some bad guys inside the system, uh chased out of the system and uh literally chased bureaucratically chased out of Washington by the Obama administration.
Uh and Steve, are you there?
I'm here.
And he's here joining us today.
He's taking a taking a uh dive back into work.
I know you're on Christmas break.
I appreciate you joining us today, Steve.
Both of you guys.
So let's let's dive right in.
Um, thoughts on what's happening in Europe right now?
Well, what's happening in Europe right now is basically being an extension of what's been happening since about 2001-2002.
I mean, it's a it is a steady strain, uh, a torrent that uh that uh is going to uh grow in depth and in strength.
Uh the the longer we go down this path.
Uh it will not stop.
It will continue until uh someone has the hut's butt to uh put a stop to some of it.
I don't think we're gonna be able to stop all of it, but we can certainly defeat a lot of it.
Now, my my observation is as somebody who's touched in various aspects of this, you are far more on the operational tactical side of things than I was.
What's your sense inside the community right now across the counter-terrorism community?
Do the operational and is is there a sense of frustration that the operational and tactical guys feel with what's going on?
I mean, what what does the incoming administration need to do to give the operators the space they need to be successful?
Well, my my opinion on this is based on my experience for for 30 years.
Uh and I just retired six months ago.
So my in my opinion, uh, I feel that there is a great deal of frustration on the part of people that are actually involved hands-on uh at the at the base level in dealing with uh extremism and extremists.
And that basically is a result of being hampered by the current administration.
I personally have suffered some blows at the hands of this current administration.
All of my material was deemed inappropriate, and all of it was actually banished at one time.
About 750 pages of material that I used to give specific instruction on how to confront extremism and how to deal with extremists and how to be successful in operational manners and dealing with extremists and extremism.
I think that continues until today.
Hopefully, with the new administration, I think, and I'm hopeful, that the constraints will be lifted on the operators and the individuals that are dealing directly with extremists.
So, Kim, what you're telling me, okay, is, you know, I hosted this show once about six months ago with a guy named Phil Haney, and he tells me that his content, his material, his training material, his analytical materials were purged because he'd speak in a factual way about the threat doctrine of our enemy and be concerned.
because some of that was derived from Islam the administration and inheritance of some politically correct naivete basically shut you down.
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah that's exactly what I'm saying.
Okay.
And Steve Steve, I know I I mean I I was I saw what happened to you Steve, but again let's go back what what does the incoming administration need to do to start to fix this well I think the first thing they need to do is understand you know following up with what uh Kim was saying is there was an actual purge there was a purge of people and work product that um identified the nature of the terrorist threatened factual manner.
You know the very language that we've constructed in the national security community to deal with terrorism keeps you from ever being able to talk about it.
And I and I think the greatest threat we face is allowing the leadership to come in picking people maybe from the establishment side or whatever that will impose the same narrative that overwrites the facts on the ground.
So so Steve let me interject let me interject there for a second.
So what you're telling me is your fear is rather than doing the full reset you know meaning going back all the way to pre-9 eleven and then getting a fact based you're thinking we're going to go back to how it was during the Bush years which you're saying wasn't correct either yes I am saying exactly that I I'm saying that hostile narratives have been imposed on analytical processes that ensure that you will not get to the fact of the matter when you're analyzing it and that that is at some point um intentional.
You know w one of the things we miss is that we think of war and then we think or terrorism we think of violence but there's political warfare and political warfare operates on the idea that sometimes you have the violent reinforced nonviolent actions for example subversion.
One of the things we find or I have found is that the way we talked about the war is a form of reality dislocation.
So long as you're talking about violent extremism so long as you're talking about leaderless jihads you're not talking about the people we're actually engaged in and you transfer responsibility for fighting the war on terror from the FBI special agents or the general officers and the ops people to professors who come up with these weird scientific ideas.
So yeah you had to throw you had to throw the professors under the bus.
I I I appreciate you doing that.
I I agree I mean I I can say as somebody who's worked inside the defense department for a long time we have uh there's an academic nature to threat analysis and that is what Steve is talking about folks.
When you use your own words to define the enemy you're wrong.
You have to understand the enemy as the enemy understands himself.
When the enemy says he fights you because he doesn't like your iPhone, believe him.
When the enemy says he fights you because you watch the wrong TV show, believe him we have created these mental models that get us off of doing that and it's perverted our entire national security process.
What I'm hearing from both of you guys though and tell me if I'm right that what it's actually happening is these these models that have been created are now being forced down onto the operators and the tacticians and they're having to to do these mental backflips to be able to even explain the events that they're seeing in front of their face.
Is that correct?
Well I think it's only correct.
You know, uh Sun Tzu had a phrase, tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
And that's the idea that so long as you don't have a strategy to fight your war, you can't win it.
And we had General Magada just a year or so back say this was a a special operations general say we do not understand the movement and until we do we are not going to defeat it.
We have not defeated the idea.
We don't even understand the idea.
Well when you're fighting a war and in the information battle space your leaders don't even know who they're fighting 15 years into a war and it's said publicly don't you think our enemies understand that we are lost they've created a a a a situation of complete strategic incomprehension.
Kim when you when you hear these stories and and when I I guess I guess my question is who who can who can the guys inside the system that are still dealing with this stuff are are are they prepared to come forward with uh the alternative you know the the the truthful the fact based the real way forward when the when the Trump administration comes in.
I mean I I guess I'm trying to manage expectations.
How long is it going to take us to fix this to get the training to get the analysis correct?
Because we're not going to turn out guys like you and Steve in a day I think it's going to take a couple months after a transition takes place and you know what Steve was talking about is precisely what got me in trouble.
The reason why all my material was purged back in 2011 was because I attempted to define the ideology of extremism in precise and specific terms without paying attention to what's politically correct.
And identifying them in precise and specific terms, calling them what they are, basically the major groups are Salafi jihadi groups.
And by using that term Salafi jihadi groups, somehow that undermined the...
the administration's um ability to deal with extremism and so for using the word for example Salafi jihadism all of my material was purged and I was ordered to eliminate everything that had to do with Salafi jihadism.
Now the problem with that is that groups like Al Qaeda, Dawul Islamia, which is the Islamic State, Boko Haram al Shabaab, al Mohajirun, Ansar al Sharia, Ansar al Islam, Laj Karitaiba, all those groups and etc, etc, etc, are all without exception, Salafi jihadi groups.
So if you are m mandated to look away from the commonality or the the common core of that that that group, how can you undermine or defeat that group without understanding who they are it's impossible.
It's impossible to fight a cloud.
It's impossible to to fight a a a theory you can't do it.
You have to be able to define them in specific terms.
Sorry to interrupt this is John just so everybody understands can you kind of unpack just the term Salafi jihadi and and help our listeners understand what that is comprised of and and why possibly was it banned from your vocabulary yes that's a great question.
The is the Islamic community is divided basically into two distinct and two separate groups one of them is the Shia and the other one is the Sunni.
Now, 70% of the Islamic community is Sunni.
But within that Sunni group, there are many, many, many, many, many subgroups, just like in Christianity.
You know, we're divided in half of a Catholic, half of a Protestant, but there are many Protestant groups.
And the same is true with the Islamic groups.
There are many, many different Islamic groups within the Sunni realm.
However, one of the very small segments within the Sunni realm is the Salafi ideology.
and all those groups that I just mentioned to you Al Qaeda all the way to Laj Karitaiba every group that I mentioned to you on that list they all subscribe to one particular methodology which is called the Salafi methodology but it it's a little bit confusing because the Salafi methodology there is a fundamentalist component and an extremist component the terrorist groups that I mentioned To you before, all subscribe to the terrorist component of the Salafi ideology.
And there are no exceptions.
That is why it is paramount to understand the underpinnings of that ideology so that you can identify those individuals and that you can penetrate them and you can stop or disrupt any of the plans that they have.
If you do not understand those that ideology, it's almost impossible to identify who the enemy is and disrupt their activities.
Is the larger is the larger uh Sunni population easily able to identify this ultra small sect that you just described?
I mean, are they policing their own, if you will?
Very, very easy.
They are divided.
Uh the Sunni, the Sun the larger part of Sunni Islam, which is 70% of all Muslims, are divided into two major groups.
One of them is the Salafi group, which is the minority, and the overwhelming majority are the or the Sufi group.
And in the Sufi component is where you find the Taliban the Haqqani network.
Those are Sufi extremist groups, and they do not like each other at all.
The Sufi extremists hate the fellow the extremists, and uh as well the Salafi extremists hate the Sufi extremists.
Steve, hey Steve, you uh I I want to ask you a quick question, Steve, and we we can kind of wrap this up.
You you're somebody who worked up at the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff level.
You've advised you know very senior political officials.
What what what needs to be done going forward?
You know, the two or three key actions that we could take immediately in the in the new Trump administration.
I think the first thing we need is a campaign plan to fight the war that starts afresh and a s and and recognizes that what got us to this point has failed.
And I think we have to be clear, sure that we don't re re bring back in the same people who brought us here.
I'm not saying that everybody who was fighting the war before is bad, but I do think they come in with narratives, and the question becomes are they willing to have a fresh break?
And I think that the the line over which we people can reasonably disagree over, but that they but so long as they orient on it is that facts dominate.
Get people in Steve that's on the NPA second.
Steve, that is a great point to close on.
Facts dominate.
Again, no fear, no intimidation, no distraction.
Guys, thank you both for joining us today.
Great little segment there.
I know you could have gone on all day.
This is Rich Higgins sitting in for Sean Hannity, former Defense Department official, Bostonian, and it's wicked cool to be here with you.
We'll see you on the other side of the break.
Welcome back, folks.
This is Rich Higgins sitting in for Sean Hannity, former Defense Department official, wicked tough guy out of Boston, as Linda likes to keep telling me.
I'm in here by another wicked tough guy from Boston, John I. Donnasey, former Navy SEAL, Purple Heart.
John, say hi to the folks.
Hey everybody.
Hey uh we're we're in here today and we're talking about national security, terrorism, subversion, political warfare, all the cool stuff.
We're having a little fun.
It's Christmas for us today.
This is our Christmas present.
Um, you know, the theme that we're going with, I think is we're gonna be fact-based, and our grandfathers were smarter than us.
It's amazing.
You know, they they at the time I was a kid here.
My grandfather was a World War II vet.
You know, he fought uh in Europe.
Uh he was actually a medical collection company guy for those Medevac folks out there.
That's those are the guys that drove the ambulances back and forth to the front, ferrying the wounded out.
And you I'm sure all the listeners out there have a have a father or a grandfather like that, right?
And he wouldn't talk about the war.
And I mean, he would not talk about the war as a kid, eight, nine, ten years old, I'd ask him, tell me about it.
Never talk about it.
Those guys were strong.
They were real men, and we need to get the real men, the alpha men, the alpha males, back into our culture and to stand up on a wall.
John, you're looking at me, you got something to say, buddy?
Yeah, no, I mean, I I can share the same with members from my family, and and I think that you know, there was a a sense of not talking about it because they deeply admired their service, but they also faced a lot of a lot of horrors and uh probably didn't want to relive those.
Now I'm glad that with our generation, people are actually reaching out for help and to combat those things so they can have a little bit of joy in their life.
Because that I mean, after all, that's the point, right?
Rich joy.
There you go.
Uh, you know, I think when I look at the election of 2016, I see it as an accountability election.
Uh the left was accountable.
The establishment has been held accountable, and now President Elect Trump has a lot of work to do to bring back some accountability into the system.
We have a couple guests coming up here with us today, Patrick Poole and Terry Strata, uh, that they're gonna talk about accountability, you know, accountability for one's actions, uh, through something called the Justice Against the Sponsors of Terrorism Act.
And uh we're gonna talk about a little bit of the the background behind it.
So I'll give you a little background.
Pat Poole is familiar to the audience, national security correspondent for PJ Media.
Uh somebody new to me today and haven't met her before is Terry Strata.
She's the national chair of the nine eleven families and survivors united for justice against terrorism.
And uh she's she's at the vanguard of this fight for justice of the victims for the victims of the nine eleven attacks.
Uh are you guys both there?
Patrick, Terry?
Yes, thanks for having us.
Yep, I'm here too.
Hey, Terry, it's great to meet you.
I know I I've known Patrick for a number of years.
It's great to meet you now, Terry too.
And uh so Terry, this this is really um I I know you're you're a leader um, you know, supporting this act, trying to get Congress to do the right thing.
If you if you don't mind, would would you give the listeners a kind of a JOST a one-oh one overview?
What what you're attempting to accomplish, what the goal is.
Right.
Okay, so we had to enact legislation to help uh the victims' families hold any nation accountable that finances a terrorist attack on U.S. soil that injures or kills American citizens.
Uh I lost my husband on September eleventh, and we hit roadblocks in the courts, and so we enacted legislation or we introduced it uh called JASTA, and it took four years of my work.
I think the bill was actually introduced nearly seven years ago, but once the families got involved and started to really engage with Congress, uh, this bipartisan bill became law on September twenty-eighth.
And I understand the Obama administration did what when the bill hit the White House?
He vetoed it.
He did not like it one bit.
Um and he sent out false arguments uh regarding the bill.
His veto message did not reflect the language of the bill or the actual work that had been done in the Senate prior to the bill being passed out of the Senate.
So they had actually addressed the concerns that the White House had, but he kind of just ignored everything and went ahead and vetoed it.
We came back, the families back down to Washington and met with our sponsors and our co-sponsors and our supporters, and you know, worked hard and came back with a ninety-seven to one vote in the Senate and three hundred and forty-eight to seventy-seven in the House to override his first one and only veto.
Okay.
Well, here here's here's the question I have, and Patrick, maybe you can jump in here with this.
What why why did they veto it?
And who are these people that aren't supporting it on Capitol Hill and why?
Well, Rich, uh first off, hats off to Terry and the 911 families and survivors for their yeoman's work in getting this JASTA bill through.
Uh and and what we're seeing here now that the bill is passed, is this massive lobbying effort by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Um they're pouring in one point three million dollars of lobbying through fourteen different lobbying firms uh every month trying to gut this bill.
And um uh uh we see uh the predictable the usual suspects, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, who are kind of uh leading the push uh to gut this bill.
Um and you know, at at the as a result of this Saudi pressure, and um you know, I I think the media really haven't stepped up to ask, you know, what exactly is this?
Because as Terry pointed out, the very things that uh whether it was the White House or John McKean and Lindsay Graham now uh are are complaining about the bill, um uh those elements are already in the bill.
Um so the you know, it it's a complete mystery except for all this massive Saudi lobbying effort.
Why they want to get the bill now.
Terry uh Terry, uh are you are you as you're talking to people on Capitol Hill, Terry, what what do you sense from them in your discussions with them?
I mean, is is there an is there a hidden hand here?
Do you feel that do you feel that hidden influence as you're talking to them?
I mean, what what is going on there?
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Uh I wouldn't say so much that Congress tells us that other than the families in our discussions amongst ourselves we're seeing that.
You know, it's it's evident that some of them are caving to the pressure of the Saudis.
You know, they they go into these offices and they threaten economic warfare, they threaten to stop in their assisting us in the fight with ISIS.
And I think they do a lot of economic uh threatening to companies as well.
So you'll see some people you know kind of giving in to that a little bit and saying, you know, well let's take pause here.
Maybe uh we should be listening to the Saudis over the American people.
It's absolutely insane.
It really doesn't make any sense to us.
So they they they throw out all of these misconceptions about the bill and say that it will harm our military, which it cannot do because JASTA only deals with nations that have funded a terrorist attack or given material support to a a designated and actually knowingly to a designated terrorist organization.
So like Patrick just said, that's already in the bill.
That was the one thing Matt McCain and Graham went on the floor and said, you know, we want knowingly in there.
Well knowingly is in the bill.
And Senator Graham has been on this bill for the last seven years.
He was one of the original co sponsors seven years ago.
He actually put a hold on the bill before it came out of the Senate to make sure that every single thing in the bill was you know okay and all the issues had been worked out.
So it's really is a mystery to us why now after he voted yes again, you know, to to pass it in the Senate and then override the President Vito he voted yes.
Why after the Saudis come back again with this onslaught would he you know want to choose to you know give them what they want as opposed to sticking with so Terry um this is John you know that that's just amazing to me.
I'm a little bit flawed.
Let me back up so two basic questions to you.
Number one, what is the prevailing narrative from Senator McCain or Senator Graham's office as to the opposition on this bill question one.
And two why are the Saudis lobbying and spending one point five million a month against this bill.
Well clearly the reason the Saudis are lobbying against it is they don't want to face us in a courtroom and that's what we got it so it's money.
It's money.
Okay.
And it's culpability.
They do not want to admit to the world that they had any role in the nine eleven attacks.
But didn't the Commission already illustrate that?
Like we're fighting over something that's already been proven factually right?
Not really because the commission didn't have enough resources or enough time to fully investigate the Saudis.
And that that's really the conclusion.
Okay, what about the second question relative to the offices?
Sorry, can you repeat the first question then what was Yeah no the the first question was to the lobbying efforts and the resources applied thereof.
The second question is which you answer the second question is what are the what is the primary opposing narrative that is echoed by Senator McCain and Senator Graham's office against this bill.
They'll tell us that they don't want to see uh reciprocal laws like JASTA passed in other countries.
But a reciprocal law is perfectly fine.
We do not finance designated terrorist organizations to go out and carry terrorist attacks.
They want to put in discretionary function into the language of the bill and that would then allow the Saudis to say well yeah it was our at our discretion to give to Al Qaeda you know to to keep them from attacking us but what they did with the money isn't our responsibility which you can't give to a terrorist organization knowing that they have a fat law out and uh and um a jihad you know to to kill Americans,
you know Osama Bin Laden made that claim twice and say, well we didn't know if we actually gave them the money that they would actually do it.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Pat, let me jump in here.
This is Rich.
Pat when you're when you're observing this I mean what are what are the what are the things you I mean as I'm listening to Terry teller's story of trying to move this through I'm I'm hearing political warfare influence operations.
What what what's your take on what's going on here?
Well I think what Terry just talked about about this discretionary state function which basically uh allows uh the Saudis or any of these countries including color who were s you know uh both in both cases were selling billions of dollars of weapons to uh that they say look you know um funding these terrorist organizations is part of our foreign policy and national security so therefore we should be immune.
But the situation is right now we're almost right back to where we are globally before 9-11, where we're seeing that the Saudis continue to pour money, men, all kinds of various instruments to be able to prop up Wahhabism around the world.
In fact, there was just here last week a leaked German intelligence report that fingered Saudi Arabia.
Arabia and Qatar for funding extremism in Germany, uh talking about tens of thousands of adherents, they're funding extremist mosques, uh um madrasas in these countries, uh sending in Wahhabi preachers and Dawah groups.
We um and and and this is this is the atmosphere in which terrorism, domestic terrorism jumps out of.
You know, we're we're looking at this incident uh just a couple days ago in the wind.
Hey Patrice just don't come out of nowhere.
Hey Pat, it's Rich.
Hey, we're coming up on a break here, but I wanted to thank you and Terry for coming on here today and illuminating this.
This is the part of the war most people don't see.
It's the war that's going on on Capitol Hill.
Uh it's the war that we're frankly getting slaughtered in uh from an influence perspective.
And uh you can do your part out there, you listeners.
You let your congressman know what you think of Jasta.
You let your congressman know what you think of these influence operations that these foreign states are running uh on on we the people's house.
Again, fact-based, no fear, no intimidation, no distraction.
This is Rich Higgins in studio here with John I. Donnasey going to break.
See you on the other side.
Sean's got more behind the scenes information, more contacts than anybody.
More friends behind the curtain.
Sean Hannity is on.
Sean Hannity is on.
Higgins in for Sean Hannity, former Department of Defense official, wicked Bostonian in studio with John Iodonasi, former Navy SEAL.
Say hi, John.
Hey.
Well, we're here talking today about a world without narratives and uh fact-based assessments of threat doctrines.
Uh so we're gonna we're gonna dig in a little bit on, you know, we talked about influence operations.
Uh and we talked a little bit about how countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar use their ability, their financial resources to influence our political decision makers.
And I think it's an area that most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about.
But when you see groups like the Council for American Islamic relations is headquartered on Capitol Hill, you know, founded in nineteen ninety-three as the Islamic Islamic Association of Palestine became care.
We know they're founded by Hamas, and the reason we know that is because the FBI recorded the entire meeting.
Now they are up on Capitol Hill having hundreds of meetings with your elected representatives.
How is that possible?
Now, do you think your grandfather would let that happen, John?
Absolutely not.
So maybe maybe it's a Boston thing.
Maybe the rest of the country allows this type of stuff to happen.
But I I I just I look at this, I look at this and I just say, are we clinically insane?
You need to ask.
This is this is something the listeners can do.
You need to ask your political leadership, okay, your congressman, your senator, have you met with care and when?
And if they tell you they're meeting with them, you have a problem.
Okay?
That's the benchmark.
That's the metric.
It's that simple.
You know, Rich, I think this is about the American first narrative that we started.
America First transcends local, state, and government boundaries.
Your neighborhood or your home, your neighborhood, your town, your state, your country.
And we need to make sure that we're vigilant to protect each one of those families against people that want to do away with us.
So as we look at this, and you know, and uh I think the challenge that the challenge that guys have, you know, I mean, and I am a creature of DC now, I admit it, is explaining to the voters, explaining to the listening audience how these policy decisions are made.
We hear that, you know, interests of governments like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and their economic influence that they have.
Trumps are, you know, our survivors from another 9-11 attack.
And, you know, we we have to step back and really, you know, as the Trump administration comes in, reassess our priorities.
When everything's important and nothing's important.
And we need to understand, you know, are we making the decisions, like Ronald Reagan would say, are we making the decisions under a moral framework that is just and right under the American political philosophy?
Or are we simply agreeing with appeasement and willing and not willing to challenge the very principles by which we were founded.
I mean, that's what it comes down to.
Well, I think, you know, we're about halfway through the show today, guys, and uh we've got some great stuff coming up for you.
We have IN Hersia Ali, for those of you who read her book, now they call me Infidel.
We got Dr. J. Michael Waller coming on board.
This is Rich Higgins in for Sean Hannity.
We'll see you on the other side of the break.
We'll see you on the other side.
Stay in touch with the Hannity Faithful.
Join the message board at Hannity.com.
Hey folks, this is Rich Higgins.
Welcome back to the Sean Hannity Radio Show.
Rich Higgins guest hosting here in studio with me, John I. Donnassy, a couple of wicked smart Boston guys.
Linda tells me we're wicked tough, but we're not really.
So we're talking today about our grandfathers were smarter than us.
And I think they weren't necessarily smarter.
I just think they knew a fact when they saw one.
They knew to tell the truth.
They didn't live in the world of spin and narratives and metadata.
John?
Well, I and I think it's also something that Steve said earlier.
They didn't have a complex theory for there's a bad guy that wants to kill me.
Right.
I mean, it was that simple.
Right.
They didn't they didn't question Hitler's psychoanalytical profile.
Right, or uh social disorganization theory as it relates to the increase of violence outside of city.
Well, you know, uh, I think the only person in the world who's happy that uh Adolf Hitler happened is probably Angela Merkel right now because you know she's the second worst German leader ever.
Uh it's just amazing to watch what's happening in Europe.
Um known by German intel.
I mean, that's the latest, right?
Well, you know, it's I I I swear, you know, it's it's another truck, another known jihadi, another attack on the citizens of a sovereign state.
Previously identified.
And the leadership of that state is put the policies in place to let it happen.
It's insane.
I mean, it's critically insane.
It's absolutely unbelievable.
So, theme here today is no fear, no intimidation, no distraction.
And uh, you know, I asked John to come up here with me today.
Uh, you know, he and I have known each other for a number of years.
John's an expert on digital warfare, digital warcraft, uh, cyber influence.
And joining us on the phone today is uh Dr. J. Michael Waller, who is a senior fellow for information operations at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC.
And Dr. Waller is also on the editorial board of NATO's Defense Strategic Communications Journal.
Um Mike, are you there?
Yeah, hey Rich.
Hey, how's it going?
Good.
Good.
You're from Boston too.
Yeah, yeah.
We're sticking with the theme today.
Uh Linda didn't know that.
Uh you blew our cover.
Uh she's she's she's coming.
Oh no, okay, she's staying in.
She's staying in the staying in the back engineering room there.
Okay, I thought she was gonna come in and grab me.
So, you know, and and pulling the show together, um, I wanted to talk a little bit about uh the information age, political warfare, and subversion.
And you know, John I. Donnassy, you know, he's an expert on the digital side of it.
You and you know, and my interface with you has been in understanding subversion as a concept.
And, you know, with the Russian hacks going on and uh, you know, the OPM hack and you know the total digital compromise of all of our intelligence information and data on you know DOD and government officials.
I I just I'm gonna kind of turn it over to you guys and have a little I'd I'd like to see and have the audience See you guys have a little dialogue about what you you know, what are you guys thinking about as experts in this space?
So John, go for it.
Yeah, I want to okay.
You know, I look at the space and Mike, I know you're gonna sort of unpack and simplify for us all the theories, but I see a a collection of facts.
And beyond that, I see that there's three fundamental informational elements that uh comprise uh news as we know it, right?
And a good friend of mine, John Gallagher came up with these, I think they're great.
They're facts, context, and characterization.
If you manipulate context, which is easy to do, or characterization, the entire story is now sent down a different road with different conclusions.
The digital age allows us to not only manipulate context and characterization, but also facts themselves.
I mean, we can actually create fact now based on a false premise of millions of stories going on seven different newspapers online in a matter of minutes, and now we can distort facts as we know it.
So what this means to somebody like me who's sitting over here listening to you is that it we have a very hard time even recognizing the truth when we do hear it.
That's right, because what are you actually hearing?
Okay.
Well, Mike, I know I know you're real uh you're really an expert on the Russian and Soviet use of political warfare.
I mean, what what are you seeing going on right now?
And you know, and it's and here it is in the headlines, you know, it's like we're back in nineteen eighty-four.
What what are what are your what are your thoughts?
What are the what are the big things that keep you up at night?
Well, it's pretty simple, and it's so simple that it's amazing that we can't deal with it.
Because really, Vladimir Putin's in a weak spot.
So what do you do when you're in a weak spot?
You mess with somebody's head.
And so this whole idea of political warfare is if you can't fight your enemy head on, or if it's not a smart thing to do, then you mess with his head and mess with his policy.
So in this case, Putin's not trying to persuade us of anything like the Soviets did with their communist ideological propaganda.
They're not trying to change our behavior.
They're just trying to make us lose confidence in ourselves and in our institutions and in our leaders and just mess things up for us and mess things up with our allies and cause us to question ourselves, and therefore we're we're empowering Putin every time we overreact.
Mike, let me ask you, so from that context, would you say that really the objective is to drive a wedge between the American populace and where the country in in patriotism?
I mean, is really that what he's trying to do is to turn us against each other and in doing so we weaken?
Yeah.
And and weaken our leadership.
For example, since when has Hillary Clinton or any of her friends ever cared about Russian propaganda and subversion and all this other stuff.
You know, since when has has she ever been concerned about somebody being Putin's puppet?
You know, certainly not when her, she and her group were were making money from the Putin regime.
They they would never tolerate this.
They'd call us a bunch of McCarthyites if we dared uh make these allegations.
But she literally called Donald Trump Putin's puppet.
And she literally said there's Russian subversion going on that we have to investigate.
And you know what?
I agree.
There is.
So let's investigate it.
And I think if we do a thorough investigation, we're going to see how deeply this has been rooted for decades in American politics.
But the politicians who are most inclined to have been part of Russian subversion uh are not conservatives.
Right.
And here's my concern with that.
I agree with that.
Here's the danger, though.
This subject is being discussed in the context of Donald Trump getting elected, which is really the troubling aspect.
So that in itself is subversive.
Do you not agree?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And and if they mess with us, let's investigate it.
We should investigate it.
We should investigate every last aspect of it.
But once look where they have us now.
They have American society wondering is the next president of the United States, Donald Trump Putin's tool.
Right.
And and beyond that, I think they also have Americans wondering, is it morally right for us to put America first?
I mean, isn't that the question that they're positing in the youth of today and many other people?
Like, it's like the trophy generation, right?
Like, hey, Bobby, everybody's going to get a prize today.
And here we have nobody can be the winner because somebody's feelings might get hurt.
I mean, is that wrong for us as Americans to want to be first?
And is this not a subversive tactic to totally dismantle that?
Exactly.
It's to make us lose confidence in ourselves.
It's like giving the number one prize to the worst kid on the team to make him feel better.
better.
What incentive does that give the best guys on the team I'll tell you what it does from my perspective those guys didn't do too well when they were under heavy automatic weapon fire because they were so used to getting trophies anyways.
That's not the type of people that that I can tell you right now the military wants to deal with is everybody gets a trophy.
Yeah.
So now we have people questioning Trump and if you look at Trump's the people around Trump who he's a he's appointing on his national security side they're pretty hardcore counterintelligence people warriors and so forth they're they're no tools of anybody and and but for people to even be discussing this in itself is absurd.
But from the Putin political worker perspective it doesn't matter if it's true or not it just matters that we fight each other.
And you notice what what the Clinton camp has done it got us we're no longer talking about what Fedesta's emails said or how Hillary Clinton was exactly right changed the subject to sabotage it.
So let's cast all the blame on Trump and then let Elizabeth Warren and and Bernie Sanders and everybody else rebuild the rebuild their party from within but all the attention has been drawn away from the contents of what's been in those leaked emails to oh it's all Trump's fault.
And and questioning the very basis of the legitimacy of the emails I know Sean had Julian Assange on a couple of days ago and they really dug into this but um I think it's fascinating I think it's planned I think it's deliberate and I think that the the subversion tactics to destabilize and chip away at the foundations of our country is something that is persistent ongoing and if unchecked may in fact win.
Rich?
Yeah.
Well Mike here here's here's a question I have for you and and this is because you you know you're one of the you're one of the few guys in the national security circles that I run and that understands subversion.
And I think for the audience who may not be familiar with the concept can you can you unpack that a little bit at kind of the you know the the one oh one level so Bobby the trophy kid whoever he is uh can unstand understand it sure it's subversion is really simple and it happens all around us.
It's simply rather than attacking something head on frontally and visible visibly you go in and you infiltrate and you decay from within so subversion is kind of like rust on steel where if you don't take care of it right away that that little bit of water and oxidization is going to destroy an entire structure.
And so so subversion eats away gradually from within it causes us to change our policies from within without even realizing that we're changing or why we're changing our minds and our policies it causes us to stop believing those things that were so important to us it causes us to stop identifying with who we are and what we stand for.
So, Mike, here's a quick question for you.
Earlier in the show, we had Steve Coghlan on, we had Kim Jensen on, and they were talking about the 2011 purge of material and the fact-based training intelligence analysis.
Is that an example of a hostile, subversive act?
Absolutely, and I was there, too, for that.
It started really in 2006, where I was training the U.S. military, pre-deployment training for our...
our uh mid-level officers uh prior to going to Iraq and Afghanistan and they were being taught things in there about how to view Islam that were simply not true.
You know you're going into a Muslim country here's what you need to know.
Well the people they had as instructors were from the Muslim Brotherhood.
Perfect and they were giving a line about Islam that was simply pure propaganda but it was distorting our officers entire orientation to understand what Islam is about because they trusted the instructor because the instructor was there through the army.
I mean brilliant strategy.
I mean brilliant strategy on their side.
Yeah.
So now when when um I had testified against this one instructor in Senate testimony in 2003.
And I find here he is sitting next to me.
This is at Fort Hood three weeks after the shooting.
And so I I I filed a complaint about him saying he's a he's a danger to the program, danger to the soldiers, and I was then removed from the program.
So this is really widespread.
It's going on in the FBI, it's going on in the CIA, Department of Homeland Security, and it's warping our very views about the enemy that we're fighting.
That is a really pernicious kind of subversion when you're subverting the actual worldview of our of our security people and our military and our police.
So here's a question for so I get questions a lot and I'm sure there's going to be I can see our phone calls ringing off here but how do you combat um Mike the the person that says hey Mike so you're telling me like this is a giant master plan.
I mean this is a giant can how how do you defend against being called a conspiracy theorist and saying that you know pretty soon we're going to have Roswell being involved is a generation of the subversion materials.
I mean how how do you defend against that?
Well it first you have to prove that it's a fact and not a theory and that's easy to prove you just have to show the evidence and it's it's it's like any political campaign that's what political warfare is all about.
Some of them are centrally planned some of them are planned from the grassroots some of them are just networks of like minded people who get together and they they get together and then they do whatever messaging and actions that they do once they start identifying with each other and build a network or a movement.
And all subversion is as well.
Yeah and and I'll tell you one of the things that I see uh I I deal with an uh uh influencers every day and and I run a company that we handle millions of influences around the world and one thing I see is you can actually now organize create and manage those movements digitally and this is totally changing the game.
Ten years ago it might have been a whole you know collection of people to do this but now one person can be multiple identities doing exactly what you said.
So um right right out of your kitchen.
Exactly but Bobby sorry we bothered you today but uh b bottom line is it sounds like we need to pull together uh a counter subversion effort and it sounds to me based upon the scale of what you know Kim and Steve and you Mike have brought forward today the scale of this it's gonna have to be directed by the incoming administration.
This is a this is a White House down level uh counter subversion counterintelligence effort to get things back on the right path.
Is that that a good assumption Yeah all you need is leadership because we have some wonderful people already there in the system but they feel like they're not free to move or act.
Once they have great leadership coming from the top you're gonna see some big changes.
Roger that Mike well thanks for joining us today.
Uh we are with you guys all right take care thanks Mike.
So sticking with the theme our grandfathers were smarter than us you know and and oh with all apologies to Bobby back there in Boston.
Um get a trophy though he got a trophy then we're back to reality and truth we'll talk to you on the other side of the break.
This is Rich Higgins in for Sean Hannity.
Welcome back to Sean Hannity Radio Show.
This is Rich Higgins former Department of Defense official counterterrorism a regular warfare call in number today 800 nine four one Sean 800941 Sean we are going to be taking some phone calls today so you guys who've been on for a while hanging there.
And we've been talking about a return to reality and truth as the basis for decision making in government.
I mean, when did telling the truth become so controversial?
No fear, no intimidation, no distraction.
Trump's administrative mandate from the American people, I think, is fix the economy, stop the nonsensical immigration policies before we look like Germany.
Islamic terrorism, deal with it factually, border security, and then an America first foreign policy position.
We have a guest on with us now and um she is you know one of the the true experts on the threats posed by Islamic terrorism.
She's been a victim of it herself she is a true scholar and a patriot and a truth speaker.
And I understand and the AHA found the AHA Foundation is the leading organization working to end honor violence that shames hurts or kills women and girls thousands of them including in the U.S. each year, and puts millions more at risk.
And her foundation was built on the belief that there is no culture, tradition, or religion that justifies systematically violence against women.
And uh Ian, can you hear me?
I can hear you.
Hi, Ian.
It's great to hear you again.
So earlier in the show we talked about uh subversion, political warfare, Islamic threat doctrine.
And uh, you know, I know you and I have had conversations over the years about these things, but you you've introduced me to some concepts recently that I think I'll let you elaborate on for our listening audience.
And in studio with me here is uh former Navy SEAL John I. He may jump in with a question or two as we go forward with the conversation, okay?
All right.
So go ahead.
Yeah, Rich, you and I we've we've talked a lot.
Um I just want to take a listeners back to the opening of my book Heretic, which is we open with uh the Paris atrocities against Charlie Ebdo and the Jewish Delhi.
And then I have a laundry list of Muslims invoking their religion and killing people all across the globe, and I think the latest incident now is the one in Berlin, but also in Jordan in Yemen and in Switzerland.
And the one thing that I wish that Americans and other people in the West would take away from all of this is it's not just enough to condemn the terrorist act itself or to neutralize those who are connecting the act.
It's very important to look at what it is that is put in the heads of these people and who is doing it.
So this has its foundation in Islam.
There's an infrastructure that is called the Dawah.
It is financed by countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait.
They have mosques that they finance here on US soil all over the West.
The content and the amount that spread it, they come from there, and that infrastructure it has to be dismantled, but it can't be dismantled if we want to delink Islam from the atrocities that's committed in its name.
So Ayan, you you are yourself a former politician.
And uh how how come I mean just you know, your opinion.
Why do you think it's so difficult for American political leadership to speak factually about this threat?
Well, I've had many reasons.
I've had that Americans accept religion and tolerate religion, um, but the misunderstanding here is that religion only is part of Islam is religion.
The other part is politics, and we're talking about warfare right now.
But a key element within the DNA of Islam is jihad.
That is the conversion of infidels, those who those who are not Muslim, to invite them to Islam and if they refuse to wage war against them.
This is in the Quran.
And so I think there's part of the there's that misunderstanding.
And then there is I also hear the uh the argument that it's you know, we can't we're not at war with all Muslims.
Sure, it's true, we are of course not at war with all Muslims, but to go after those who are at war with us, we do have to talk about Islam, and we do have to talk about the Muslim community and why they allow those guys who believe in practice jihad to hide amongst them.
So one of the one of the concepts you threw out there a m a moment or two ago is this concept that you and I have talked about in the past called Dawah.
Can you can you unpack that for the listening audience?
What what it is and how it interacts with jihad.
How does jihad further Dawah?
Jihad is part of Dawah.
It's the natural outcome of Dawah.
You invite people to come to Islam and they refuse.
And the fact that they refuse makes you believe as a Muslim that then you have to resort to jihad.
But before you do that, you have to build a following made up of Muslims.
And so the first dawah effort is a whole system of information and imams and books and there are nation states involved, there are non governmental organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, the one that's well known here in the US and of course individuals.
And if you want to stop terrorism, which is jihad, you have to go to the root of this.
You have to dismantle their system of Dawah.
This is this whole system of indoctrination first of Muslims and then with the intention of bringing along non Muslims.
It's it's asymmetric warfare.
It is like uh penetrating a society and eroding institu it's institutions from within and then taking over.
That is Dawah.
So so one of the questions that I get asked often is, you know, we all we Americans we want to put a number on everything.
We want to quantify things.
Uh my my question for you is why why does the why does the Muslim community the United States not take it of their own initiative to to push back on this?
Can you unpack that for the citizens?
I think many Muslims just hate to be confronted with the truth that their religion is in fact a weapon of violence and misogyny and subjugation.
But for the ones who are uh promoting Dawah and eventually engage in jihad uh I I think they're silent for a reason.
They're patient, they're gradually waiting until Islam expands to a place where you get to a tipping point.
And if you think I'm exaggerating, please take a look at some of the communities in France and now in Germany, in the Netherlands where I lived and worked uh in Scandinavian countries, but also in a country like Somalia.
I mean I grew up in Somalia and it was people were Muslims but they were not radical.
And it is through this process of Dawah that large waves of the population were radicalized and even though the others were protesting against radical Islam, you know, they get defeated.
I and sorry.
No that's okay.
This is John thank you for for coming on.
I I've got a question so we know that senior people of the administration you know are listening to this program what message do you have for the incoming Trump administration?
How do they tackle this without immediately being labeled as hateful towards Muslims?
I mean what's the message you give them?
What's your guidance well I want to say first it is a happening uh to me that the administration has started calling things by their name.
They're talking about radical Islamic ideology.
And I think there lies the answer and this is a very long war.
Unlike the previous administrations we should not focus only on the violence element but on the ideology element of it.
And that then involves of course nation states, the countries that pay for this infrastructural DAO, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, in the past the UAE, I don't know if the UAE is doing this anymore or not these countries have never been held to account for the fact that they have destroyed or nearly destroyed many, many societies.
And I think it is linking the ideology to the violence that comes out of it and calling things by their name.
This is embedded in Islam.
Islam needs a reformation it's not the job of the United States of America to reform Islam but for us to protect ourselves from what is within Islam, jihad, sharia law, Dawa, we need to acknowledge and fight it so Ayan I think that's a great point you're making there a the acknowledgement of it.
Here's a question for you.
In terms of priorities, I mean you know General Flynn, General Kelly, General Mattis, uh the president elect they're gonna have a million things coming at them.
How important do you feel it is in this you know huge array of issues that are coming at them.
How important do you think this is in terms of um you know is this the most important and pressing national security issue that's facing the United States right now it is in a way the most important and pressing issue because the people who are engaged in this asymmetric warfare have no respect for human life.
And I think it's key uh I think this week President elect Trump said he was going to annihilate ISIS.
But ISIS is just one entity.
You need to go after the ideology and that is a long long term war.
And I think for them for the administration, this administration and the next administration and all the other Western administrations, it is important that we don't get distracted from this uh with you know the day to day events.
Yeah.
Otherwise we're going to have to do what some of the people within the Obama administration were saying, which was we just have to learn to live with terror.
And I think that's the wrong approach.
Couldn't agree more.
I think you know what when I when I think about this subject in my personal experiences and trying to even discuss it inside the national security community were um, you know, examples of you know being shot down on specific terrorism cases that you know we were making, whether they be informing our foreign policy decisions, informing our intelligence collection.
Uh I think, you know, as I look at this, I I remain concerned by what you just said.
And uh General Myers, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2001 until 2005, says in his book, you know, the tyranny of the urgent trumped the need to actually develop a strategy.
And I think what you're talking about is forming a strategy, and Steve Cogman spoke about this earlier today, the need for a campaign plan, a strategy that's transcendent and and cuts across the entire national security community.
What what role do you and and folks like you, experts on this subject matter, lived it?
Uh you're out.
What what role do you see for yourself and how how can we better empower people like you to help us educate the public on this issue?
Well, honestly, I would say listen to us.
Just as I was coming on the program, your producer said that I was her hero.
And I said, you know, I was saying this for 15 years, and people you don't listen to people like me.
I grew up a Muslim, I know what I am being taught, I know how people are brainwashed, I know through what channels.
Listen to people like us.
And uh again, I am not saying this is easy, this is going to take a long time, but uh you know, let's have an honest discourse about what this problem is and who is responsible, let's hold them accountable, these countries, and let's take let's show them that we are capable of developing a working strategy to stop them on our soil and everywhere where we have an interest, which is the world.
Ian, from your perspective, who who are the key figures in the United States that aside from yourself that could actually carry this message and have a united representation from from the Muslim side?
Well, I have been in touch lately, and I hate to list the names of the case.
Yeah, that's okay.
Yeah, organizations.
But I think uh your your listeners are probably familiar with Ashra Normani, they're familiar with Zuri Jasr.
These are individuals who identify as Muslim, but who have come out of themselves to say this is what's going on within our communities and it is within scripture, it is within our imams.
We need to face this.
And these people were marginalized completely by the last two administrations.
And I think it's time that we now switch alliances with real and make and work together with the true allies.
These are people who love the American constitution more than they love the Quran.
And they're risking their lives for that.
There is a uh Middle East country, uh, one of the members of the royal family of which actually said to me uh about a year and a half ago, you Americans don't know who your friends are anymore in the Middle East.
And I think I think that that applies on this issue.
Um, you know, I I guess as I sit and I look at things, our theme for today, IN has been back to reality and truth.
Uh no fear, no intimidation, no distraction.
And I think, you know, when Lyndard, the producer was commenting here, is is you are somebody who has stood up to these guys and you know, not backed down.
Uh you weren't a trophy kid.
You know, b Bob's out there, he's envious of you.
And I think as we as we look at this, what are what are the last two or three points that you'd want to tell the ad, you know, this is the security mom who's at home with a couple of kids, the school teachers, you know, the the people out at the universities, what what are those last two or three nuggets that you want to leave them with?
Well, first of all, I want to ask the administration, what is in in our relationship with Saudi Arabia, with Kuwait, with Qatar, what is it that makes them so indispensable to us that they can come here and finance this mind poison this radical Islamic ideology on our soil.
And then number two, why is it so important to us that we maintain the Muslim Brotherhood and all it's possible to carry on at its gas in the United States of America?
And I know that with everything that is a trade-off.
It is a trade-off, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, etc.
But these organizations and these countries are using our freedom to destroy our freedom.
I am that is a great I am.
That is a great note.
Using our freedom to destroy our freedom.
That's a great note to end on.
Thank you so much for calling in today, taking time off your break.
This is Rich Higgins, in for Sean Hannity.
We'll see you on the other side of the break.
We'll see you on the other side of the break.
The Sean Hannity Show, home for true conservatives.
And we only ask for three hours a day.
Isn't that right, President Obama?
This is the right thing to do for the American people.
I I didn't I didn't ask for an argument.
It is the right thing to do.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
Welcome back.
This is Rich Higgins and Sean Hannity, former Department of Defense official in studio with me, John I. Donnassy, former Navy SEAL, Purple Heart.
Say hi, John.
Hey, thanks for having me, Rich.
Hey, we're hitting the theme today of back to reality and truth.
And no fear, no intimidation, no distraction.
Is Ion Hersia Ali, the personification of that.
She is great.
She's a hero of mine too, Linda.
We'll see you on the other side of the break.
We'll see you on the other side of the break.
Breaking news straight from the source.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory.
They call their policy accommodation.
And they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us.
All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers.
They say we offer simple answers to complex problems.
Well, perhaps there is a simple answer.
Not an easy answer, but simple.
If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right, we cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb.
By committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, give up your dreams of freedom, Because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters.
Alexander Hamilton said a nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one.
Now let's set the record straight.
But there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace, and you can have it in the next second.
Surrender.
Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement.
And this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face.
That their policy of accommodation is appeasement.
Welcome back.
This is Rich Higgins filling in for Sean Hannity.
And we're spending a little time today going over what is reality, getting back to reality in the national security space.
Ground rules, no fear, no intimidation, no distractions.
Joining me in studio today is John I. Donnassy, Navy SEAL Combat Vet Purple Heart, Wounded in Ramadi, 2005.
And um we've been discussing during the break, um, you know, what we went through today in terms of our experiences, and we decided we're gonna open up this last little segment to some callers.
And uh we have some really interesting callers on the screen.
Yeah I don't know what Linda did, but she's got some really interesting callers today.
If we we can go to Yuri calling from Sparta in Spartan, New Jersey.
Yuri, you there Yuri, you on your line on your line?
Yes I am.
So how are you doing today, Yuri?
What's on your mind?
Just as good as you are doing.
I love Trump.
I'm very happy, relieved in many years.
But what is on my mind is very simple.
Two things one I had this I talked to Russians.
I'm from Russia.
I came here forty years ago, found the Soviet Union.
I s lived there born and lived there 35, 34 years.
Five of them in uh communist labor camp.
I know Russia, I know Russia Russians.
Never went there because I just don't feel like but uh I talked to them on the phone some of my old friends are m text members of the government.
Some are very educated, literate people and their common opinion of Hillary Clinton is that she is crazy.
After this this first incident when she tried to lure Sirge Lavrov into uh conversation with that stupid red button Russians never heard of reset button.
They have different technologies.
I talk to engineers Russian engineers, they never heard of it and two Sergei Lovrov is a career diplomat.
His parents were diplomats.
He sees through her he's a serious he's a serious man.
We understand indeed and uh maybe just maybe they want to make amends with us.
Maybe they want to talk to us which might be controversial but indeed they I'm quite sure and they like I say I talk to Russians and they like Trump.
So you so you believe you believe that President elect Trump is going to actually sit down and negotiate from a basis of mutual respect.
Is that what you're saying?
Putin will talk to him and seriously no nonsense.
With Hillary they would never talk.
Why Yuri, this is John why why may say an A word on the radio she has too big an S for someone to talk to because Russians have an idea of a diplomat yeah their first diplomat was uh Sophia Kalantai she was beautiful woman and she they believed that a woman
can be a very good diplomat and they would talk to her but they would never talk to an ugly Hillary because she really you you have to admit she's really an ugly woman no one man wants to talk to her that is one point.
to what we should be aware of now.
And you can only talk about ignoring radicals.
They'll never stop.
They very seldom mention how Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union, ended his life.
He was shot by radical progress.
Yuri, we're running out of time with you, Yuri, but Bar, bottom line is you believe that the president elect is going to be taken seriously because he's a serious man and the Russians want to deal with serious people.
Is that what you're saying?
Bottom line uh Lenin was shot by this woman Fanny Kaplan who believed that he was not doing Yuri hey Yuri we gotta we gotta go we've got to take some other callers have it have a good one thanks for the call can we go to uh Sophia in Tennessee Sophia are you there?
Yes I am so you I'm I'm the way that works here is Linda tells me that uh you are yourself a persecuted Christian Um and and that your Sophia is actually not your true name.
What what what do you want to share with us?
Well, I want to say um uh uh speaking about Islam, Islam is like um uh like an octopus with uh one creature with multiple arms and this is how the uh and Sikhs w uh the total destruction of the uh communities or a country when they inv um start to go to into a country they seek the
total destruction.
Jihad is a total destruction.
The meaning of jihad is a total destruction, hatred, envy, animosity toward the non Muslim.
That's a meaning one of the meaning of the jihads.
Sophia, do you have confidence that the incoming administration is going to be able to deal with this factually, under s understanding what you're discussing?
I have uh uh hopes in this administration, uh and uh Well Ma well Michelle Obama says there's no cause for hope.
I mean, is Michelle Obama just full of it there?
You're saying that sh that the Trump administration does give you some hope.
Yes, definitely, definitely.
But the s the the thing also we need to understand Islam is not just individuals.
Uh Islam is there is countries behind that system.
Uh that support that system, and it does not come to you in one form.
It does not come to you that the killing uh of the infidel, this is the least of it.
The there's more than one way to do uh they use to destroy uh a country, and it's not only uh killing uh Exact Sophia, you are you are uh you're singing our song here.
I mean what we wanted to do today with the show is really talk about the fact that not all the oh not all the violence is violent per se, that the subversion, the nonviolent actions, the things that they've done to to pollute the way we think about the problem are actually more dangerous than the the the attacks themselves are.
Thanks for your call.
We're gonna go to Evan in Long Island.
Evan, you there?
Hi, how you doing?
Thanks for taking my call.
Um just want to say uh uh after hearing your uh your speaker before uh talk about the pernicious nature of the subversion going on, um I wanted to call and use Miss uh Hersia Ali, who's a great hero of mine as an example, and um much to my amazement and delight, she was an actual guest on your show, so thank you so much for having her on.
And I just wanted to point out, um, just as an example, you know, your guest had said that, you know, in order to uh to uh to establish that this is uh not a theory or a conspiracy, but uh a fact.
You just have to look at the evidence.
You know, uh a piece of evidence that exists that I don't hear talked about much is uh the Egyptian born imam, um his name's Fuad El Bailey, he called for Mrs. uh Ali's death in a fatwa after she was so outspoken um, you know, uh in her in her position.
He he he's an extremist and he was hired by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to do what?
To teach Islam to prisoners in our government on our tax dime.
So I've gotta wonder what's going on in those federal prisons during these Islam teaching classes that they'd have such a guy be the one to teach the lessons I mean, there's a perfect example of it's you know, right in our faces.
Fascinating, Evan, fascinating.
W one question I have for you on that.
So what do you do?
I mean what do you do if he's currently the sitting uh director of instruction in these prison systems?
You know, I'm not sure that he is the current instructor right now.
Hypothetically is you hold your elected officials accountable for these appointments and you make it clear that you're not going to abide by these administrative decisions that they're making that are clearly undermining our democracy and teaching uh prisoners in our federal prisons um an extremist version of Islam that is inemical to our democracy and freedom.
And I I I think what you deal is is basically what nearly American people did largely uh on November eighth.
You go to the polls and you you make it clear to them that if they're gonna pursue these types of enemical policies that are harmful to the United States and subvert our democracy, we're gonna vote them out.
Hey, Evan, I've got a tip for you.
Are you living out in Long Island, New York?
I am.
Well, there was a gentleman who lived out there in the nineteen eighties, his name was Shamim Sidi, And he was at the Islamic Center of Long Island, and he wrote a book called The Methodology of Dawah Laha.
And in that book, it specifically says that we are going to go after the prison system.
We are going to subvert it.
We are going to target particularly African American converts for the purpose of bringing them into the jihad mission.
I'd encourage for all of you listeners out there looking for something to read, pick up a copy of methodology of Dawah.
You can get it online.
It's free.
And you can see exactly what they're doing.
Let's go to another caller now.
Uh let's go to Robert in Denver.
And uh he's been on the line for a long time.
You still there, Robert?
I'm still here.
Can you hear me?
You sure can.
So what what's on your mind, Robert?
Well, I've been listening for a while, and I appreciate a lot of your comments, and I would consider myself more of a liberal, more s uh socially liberal and financially conservative.
And I've had a lot of discussions with people about the election and the debates and Hillary and Trump and all that stuff and Bernie, whatever.
And the most common thing that I ran into, whether people were conservative or liberal or whatever, is most of us believe in the same common core uh human decency towards others, and this whole debate you guys talking about bringing over uh the people from um oh god, now I'm losing my train of thought.
Uh refugees and stuff.
It's like I my my argument to them is we're not even taking care of our own people.
We have homeless veterans, we have a huge homeless population in Denver, and we're not taking care of our own people, but yet we're gonna consider bringing in people from other countries that we know nothing about.
So if you just think it through logically, then you can kind of have a logical discussion with people that people get caught up in the name calling and the you know the different types of labels, and that doesn't do any of us any good.
Um Robert Robert Robert, you're giving us great advice, and I think this is this goes to what we asked to the listeners to do.
This this Christmas dinner, I know nobody wants to talk about the election.
Do me a favor, talk about this.
You don't have to sell anybody.
Suggest a book, Heretic by Ian Hersy Ali.
Just an example.
Get people to open their eyes to this.
This is a very real problem that we have, and your Europe is the canary in the coal mine for us.
Pay attention to what's happening over there in the next two or three years.
Let's go to another caller now.
Let's take Pam in Hampton, Virginia.
Pam, you there?
Oh, wait.
All right, Pam, what's going on?
Well, I was when you all were talking about subversion later, it just seems like uh Obama has been the king of subversion for the past eight years.
He keeps the the race baiting and the warmongering and things going on big in the nation, and meanwhile, he's either a vacationing or he's signing all of these executive orders, and before you know it, things are happening, and it's oh well, it's an executive order.
We passed it three weeks ago.
It's you know, it's happening.
And he has kept the right hand busy while the left hand has been backhandedly doing things.
And to me, that is like the hugest form of subversion in the United States over the last eight or twelve or fifty years, actually.
Yeah, there's a rider truck full of executive orders backing up to the White House right now.
I mean, it's it's look, I as a a person who works in Washington, it will blow your mind to see what's going on down there.
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