i'm proud to be in front of an audience has has both republicans and lawyers in its title. at least i'm assured that i'm speaking to people who when they hear somebody talk about the importance of preserving and defending this country, about it being a country defined by itself constitution and about doing so based on neutral legal principles, mutually applied rather than principles applied in the service of politics. they don't start to look uncomfortable and shift in their seats and begin to look as if they're experiencing cognitive disdense. i've delivered many lunch speeches, i am neater -- i would be very upset if all of a sudden the room fell silent and felt

that people were staring longingly at their desserts. your qualifications with i just referred to -- those who are charged with responding with that really have their minds fully into it. and is on disflay even now as i speak, out in the eastern district of new york. where some folks who were plotting to blow up the new york city subways are on trial. >> this threat poses a question that's been with us since long

before 911, before all this seemed to have started that defines the constitution on the government's relationship with religion can con front a totalitarian ideology that claims a basis in that religion. and regards the whole idea of self-governance as a sack ledge. in a since, we are

constitutionally ill equipped to do it. and here i mean constitutionally in the sense of that word. both in our written institution and our national dna. in article 6, bars in religious test as a qualification for any public office. and then there's the establishment klaus of the first amendment. >> we tend to think about religion if we think about it at all, so in a sense it's r heavy

political component but that is where the attack is coming from and 911 is certainly not the beginning. actually as a matter of history, islamism insofar as it holds this country in a weird combination of awe and contempt has been incubating as long as we he founded the muse lirm brotherhood as a reak shction.

>> and it had to be lapels because he wanted men wearing suits not robes. the principle disciple was also an educator. a bureaucrat in the egyptian government who caused enough trouble in egypt to get him awarded a traveling fellowship in 1948, which was the year that a albana. that had the benign effect of getting him out of the country for a while. what he called the an,like fixing of the sexes even in the

church. his conclusion was that americans were as he put it, numb to faith in art, faith in religion and faith of spiritual values all together. he went back to egypt, quit the civil service and joined the muslim brotherhood. he was arrested and torture but he continued to advocate against western civilization generally, particularly against jews. he was released for a time, but eventually was rearrested, tried for conspiracy against the government and hanged in 1956.

at that time any members of the brotherhood fled to saudi arabia. his brother was among those who fled and taught the doctrine saudi arabia. that history did not come to these shores on december 11 of 2001 or even in february 26 of 1983 when a bomb went off in the world trade center causing millions of dollars of damage and eventually began to become known as the first world trade center bombings.

>> with is agents approach, they were accused of what we now call racial profiling and backed off. in november of 1990, one of these men who had been participating in that target practice could assassinate a right wing israeli politician after he gave a speech. the case was treated by the manhattan da as the lone act of a lone gunman.

they saw that that material included documents that caused the destruction of western civilization, morning other ways by toppling tall buildings, the man who served a the advisor and who initiated the fatwa the blind sheik would -- he and nine others were tried along with several others and convicted for participating in the conspiracy to conduct a war of urban terror of this country that, included the kahana murder, a plot to blow up other landmarks around

new york. and on and on and on. the list of unindicted co-conspirators in the case, that islamic rich kid that st. y all of this was treated as a series of crimes, unconventional crimes maybe, but -- osama bin laden that he and his cohorts were at war with the united states. and again, the criminal law was invoked. this time in an item that was absolutely actually collude with barack obama. because in 2000, his group, al qaeda, bombed the uss "cole"

killing 16 u.s. navel -- the barge carrying the explosives was overloaded and sank. and then became september 11, 2001 and we were told that we were at war. about 15 years after islamists had made it clear that they were training here for war with us and five years after osama bin laden had made it official with the declaration of war. now if islamism were simply about folks who wanted to blow things -- blow up things and people, that would be bad enough, but it might be something that we could deal with, after all we have an intelligence network that sometimes, although not always -- but violence is not the ultimate end, it's simply a means to that end.

an end is the comprehensive frame work that has spiritual aspects to be sure, but is supposed to regulate all behavior, economic, social, legal, military and political, because it is all encompassing and lar and lays claim -- either themselves or through elected representatives as and an them, which is to say, sharia is totalitarian and profoundly anti-democratic. hints of this comprehensive frame work competing through even in the episodes of violence and support for violence that have been the subject of prosecutions in the criminal courts of this country. so in the terrorism trial over which i presided in which the defendants were -- bombing various landmarks in new york city, a conspiracy that was infiltrated by an informant so that we had tape recorded

discussions among the participants. there was one recorded conversation between the inform affect -- the defendant commented that the society in this country was one in which anything was available. and in the belief that such a society was rotten to the core and would collapse easily under pressure. and in the terrorist financing trial in an entity called the holy land foundation in 2008. there was introduced a document entitled explanatory memorandum. the phrase the group apparently refers to the muslim brotherhood in america. the document was written in 1991, when a senior hamas leader

in the united states explained that the islamist movement is a settlement process. so per sue a, quote, civilization jihadist mission led by the muslim brotherhood. but the author robert spence sir as -- the document itself describes what it calls a civilization jihadist process as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by the their and, therefore it is sharia is the law of the land in what is referred to us as a home or realm of islam. and so some neighborhoods in

european cities where muslims exercise control, notably in france, somewhat in england and somewhat in sweden, sharia is practiced and enforced in -- with the results that some of those neighborhoods have become no go zones. and spain is regularly referred to as a place to be reclaimed. interestingly, the proposed mosque near ground zero in new york was to be named cordoba house. the implementation of sharia is not fully mentioned is the goal of jihad. all of this is regularly accessible, among other places in reliance of the traveler, which is actually endorsed by its accuracy.

a seat of learning founded in 975 ad that gave us the cleric tried before me who's the spiritual authority behind the sadat and gahanna assassinations and the 9/11 attack. sharia itself has the -- jihad the obligatory on every movement and it is not simply a personal struggle for self-improvement, it is the obligatory struggle to -- truces and treaties as simply temporary -- it her mitts indeed surges the assembly for the sake of islam, the times square bomber was challenged at his sentencing by the judge when he professed hatred for in up sigsz to the united states.

he asked didn't you take an oath when you became a citizen of this country? his answer was yes, but i didn't mean it. are there no muslims who are willing to live in peace with their neighbors? of course there are, and many of them resides in the united states as loyal americans. and millions more reside around the world. there are many places where they are in power, notably -- but a brave view are actually struggling to create within the religion a thheads an organizatn called the american islamic forum for democracy and is about to publish a book that is called the -- and i hope you will all

buy when it's published. at princeton's name madison's program, who recently delivered a lecture, arguing that there are ways in which -- so as to oppose the classical sharia, the election is published in the november 2000 issue. the regrettable part of this story is that i'm sure as many people in this room know, first thing as a catholic, not a muslim publication, but make no mistake, as numerous as they may be, among those who pronounce doctrine, the moderates are the distinct and weaker majority. the majority is -- lightly prominent on the world stage. he said that the term nod rat islam is as he put it ugly or offensive.

he said there is no moderate islam, islam is islam, that's it. that politician is the primary of the increasingly power and infl infi indiai influenceable. >> we north dakota in the united states have lots of cover rooj of how the driving revolution arrived in twitter and facebook. and even less coverage of the emerge negligence of the sinai peninsula -- there was, i think virtually no coverage at all of the return to egypt of the sheikh who delivered a triumphant sermon in tahrir square.

who has among other things stood up for women's rights. and so he has. even to the point of issuing a fatwa, that authorizes women to participate in suicide bombings. in tunisia, islamists are in control, their leader, recently returned from exile to lead his party, barely five years ago, he called for the public hanging of -- urged that she be joined on the gal lows. but even the wall street editorial journalist staff assured us that he's a new breed of islamist with a sense of irony and of humor. he even ensureded the journal editor that he would even seek not to consume alcohol because alcohol is to be consumed privately and he recalled that the united states had an

unpleasant experience when it tried that experiment several decades ago. apparently the spiritual successor ofa parade back in the 1970s, who one after another, as each of them took power, must be muslims of peace because they drank scotch and listened to jazz. how has the threat been met by those who now have the responsibility for protecting us? not very well, i would suggest. and from the signing of the famous executive orders on the second day of the administration. that directed the closing of guantanamo. it goes back before that during the 2008 campaign, the attorney general said the previous administration authorized the use of torture, secretly deta

detained americans citizens without due process of law, denied habeas corpus he added that, quote, we owe the american people a reckoning. that reckoning started on the second a the ceremony the president announced that through these orders we were gaining what they called the moral high ground. afarntly he felt and for all i know still feels that the struggle is not stuff to claim the moral high ground. the public release of what had up until them classified the department of justice memorandum. analyzing the legality of the cia's interrogation procedures

that were adopted at 9/11, that disclosure was apparently designed to stir a wind of outrage. when it camed to do so, because the memos have been clear. the lengths to which the cia had gone to avoid violating the law, the attorney general announced that he was reopening investigations of cia personnel involved in interrogations. cases that have been closed after diligent investigations by career department of justice prosecutors were prepared to-stunningly the be attorney general deafed that he had not bothered the reread the memos before opening the cases. in november of 2009, the attorney general announced that he was terminating the military commission trial. a proceeding in which ksm has already announced that he

intended to plead guilty and proceed to the sentencing stage so he could achieve martyrdom. we would bring him to new york to be tried in a civilian court which would show the world that we were p dead indicated to upholding the law and we were not afraid. apparently the military commission act was not among the laws that needed upholding at that time. kwhn congress forced his hand and with held funds for transferri transferring guantanamo to the united states. at a press conference that remarkable.

the evidence from the holy land foundation case established that care is a hamas front. al aszar university, the de -- was the venue chosen by the president to deliver his famous

outreach speech in cairo in 2009 to which he invited members of the muslim brotherhood. when our secretary of state was recently in tunisia, at its town hall meeting, she was asked the following question, we snoetsed here in tunisia that most of the candidates from both sides run towards the zionist lobbies to get the support of the states and afterwards i they come to show their support for countries like tunisia and egypt, for a common tunisia or a common egyptian how would you gain his trust given that once you were supporting his enemy at the same time. when asked what her husband would say about a particular subject, too immediate imgaraum

that she was not there to channel her husband. there are comments made that certainly don't reflect the united states, don't reflect our foreign policy, don't reflect who we are as a people. she advised her questioner to quote, watch what president obama says and does, he's our president, he represents all of the united states and he will be re-elected president so i think there will be a very clear signal to the entire world as to who our values are and what our president believes. now i would certainly conceive that the administration in which i served was not entirely a -- we all recall that we were told immediately after 9/11 that islam is a religion of peace. the secretary of state went so far as to say it was a religion of love and peace that had been kidnapped by extremists. there are reasons for that, like

such converse -- during world war ii which we did not and do not want to repeat and the relatively recent phenomenon of political correctness. but understanding how far we have come, imagine for a moment how president roosevelt had been perceived if he had gotten up an december 28, 1941 and side that the -- we have gone a whole lot further in that direction in the last three years, the term war on terror is out, in fact terrorism itself is out in favor of man caused disaster. in august of 2011. the white house issued a strategy paper for dealing with what we used to call terrorism, it doesn't use the word athleticism in it's title. it's called empowering local partners to prevent violent extremism in the united states, unquote. what it's wrong with that? what's wrong with it is every single part of it. it's not only or even

principally violence. the same could hardly be called extremism when the motivating doctrines -- empowering local partners if the local partners are organizations like care and islam is more likely to worsen than to improve our situation. the paper opens by identifying the challenge as nothing new and tells us that quote throughout history violent extremists, individuals who support or commit ideologically supportive environments -- the response is supposed to be a quote, community-based approach, unquote, without outreach to local stake holders. to the extend a villain is identified, it's al qaeda that comes off like some sort of motorcycle gang. to the state laum -- princefully as -- why al qaeda would want to focus its attention on muslim