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Following in the footsteps of our Founding
Fathers
by Guy Rodgers, Exec.
Director
Would you do me the favor of taking a few minutes to read this email all
the way to the end?
Yesterday we received an email in response to the email I sent out on
Wednesday entitled “What now?”
The person emailing us expressed concern that the three fact statements in
my Wednesday email regarding the Obama administration were “polarizing.”
The person sending it urged that, instead of criticizing the Obama
administration, we work with the administration to resolve these issues.
Without a doubt the person who emailed us was sincere and heartfelt, which
I can understand, given how combative the presidential campaign was. It is
a worthy aspiration to hope that somehow people can come together and work
toward a mutually satisfactory resolution.
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Unfortunately,
for nearly four years, the Obama administration, in virtually every way
possible, has made it clear that it has a perspective and position on
radical Islam that it is unwilling to modify, even in the slightest.
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Here are just a
few examples:
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1)
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Attorney
General Eric Holder’s exchange with House Judiciary Chairman Lamar
Smith. Rep. Smith asked Holder repeatedly if “radical Islam” COULD have
been a motive for many of the homegrown terrorists we had arrested.
Holder literally tied himself in rhetorical knots trying to avoid
answering.
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2)
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John Brennan, President Obama’s top
counterterrorism advisor, has repeatedly dismissed any notion that
“jihad” refers to violence against non-Muslims or that Muslims, who refer
to themselves as “jihadists,” should be characterized that way. Brennan’s
position is that jihad only refers to a personal striving to be a
good Muslim. This may be appealing to Western sensibilities but it’s not
the way jihad is characterized in the vast majority of passages in the
Qur’an and the most authoritative hadith.
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3)
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In the 9/11 commission report, the terms
“jihadist,” “jihad,” “Muslim,” and “Islam,” appeared a total of 625
times. In the Obama administration’s 2009 “National Intelligence
Strategy” report, those terms did not appear once. They were completely
stripped out of our intelligence assessment.
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4)
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The Pentagon report that examined the
Ft. Hood massacre did not include a single reference to jihad, radical
Islam, or any other related term in the body of the report. Instead, it
characterized the attack as “workplace violence.” This in spite of the
fact that Nidal Hasan’s behavior and words in the years leading up to the
attack, as well as his shouting “Allahu Akbar” during the attack, leave
no doubt he saw himself as a jihadist. To this day the Obama
administration refuses to characterize this attack as a terrorist act.
The stubborn refusal by the Obama administration to acknowledge what the
vast majority of Americans know to be true is, frankly, breathtaking.
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5)
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Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley was publicly
reprimanded by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after Muslim
organizations, several of which are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood,
complained about a course Lt. Col. Dooley taught at the Joint Forces
Staff College.
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6)
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has
been actively leading the State Department support of UN Resolution
16/18, the latest effort by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to
get the UN to support a ban on any speech deemed critical of Islam. This
resolution is a direct assault on our first amendment right of free speech.
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7)
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As I stated in
my Wednesday email, the Obama White House has opened its doors to
numerous Muslims who are leaders of or connected to Muslim Brotherhood
affiliated organizations.
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I could provide
many other examples, the most recent of which would be the Obama
administration’s demonstrably false claim that an obscure film on YouTube
triggered the assault on our embassy in Cairo and our consulate in
Benghazi.
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The course set
by this administration regarding radical Islam could not be clearer. It
is a dangerous course that is compromising our national security and
chilling American free speech. What’s more, the administration has
rebuffed every effort to persuade it to change that course.
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I wish this were
not the case, but all the wishing in the world won’t change the reality.
What, then, should ACT! for America do? Should we be silent so as not to
appear “polarizing?”
I can assure you of this. If a Republican administration had charted this
course, and had shown no willingness to modify its course, we would be
exposing it just as we are doing now with respect to the Obama
administration.
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The reason is
that this is not a matter of political parties, Republican or Democrat.
The intent is not to be “polarizing.” As Brigitte Gabriel says so often,
national security is not a “Republican” issue or a “Democratic” issue,
it’s an “American issue.”
Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to report the facts and the truth.
America must become aware of what the Obama administration is
doing to compromise our national security and our right to free speech.
If we fail to expose this agenda, we are derelict in our duty as
Americans and we are compromising the ACT! for America mission. What’s
more, we would not be keeping faith with the countless Americans who have
served and sacrificed in our Armed Forces so we could enjoy the blessings
of safety and freedom.
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We welcome
Americans of all political stripes into ACT! for America. I can tell you
that this is the most diverse coalition of people working for a common
cause I’ve ever seen in my 25+ years in politics. For example, I have been
in ACT! for America meetings where a lesbian and an evangelical Christian
both spoke up about how they were supporting the ACT! for America effort.
How often does that happen in the world of politics?
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Having said
that, if it’s “polarizing” to expose a truth as obvious and as dangerous
as the Obama administration’s position on radical Islam, then we will
choose to tell the truth. We will choose to follow in the footsteps of
courageous founding fathers like John Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas
Jefferson, and Sam Adams, whose words and deeds in the cause of liberty
were criticized by some as “polarizing.”
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The stakes are too
high, and the American landscape is too littered with political
correctness, for us to choose any other path.
Yours for a safe and free America,
Guy Rodgers
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