senator inhoff and he will tell you that i came a long way on that point. but we do have to protect taxpayers here. so i think for me i want to make sure i'm protecting taxpayers. so just keep that in mind, that we have to find that sweet spot and that sweet spot may look different to you than it does through my eyes but we are going to work together on this. governors, thank you. i know how hard it is to get here and to take you away from your states. governor bentley, i was so interested in your alabama transportation rehabilitation improvement program, because it's a billion dollar program. am i right on that point? >> yes. >> a billion dollar program. and the reason you can do it is you're counting on future federal dollars so you have the is garvey bonds. is that a correct explanation of how it works? >> yes, it is. >> yes. and so i just guess, because i think your point about certainty

is so key, i would like you in your very eloquent way explain to us why certainty is so critical. and if you didn't have the certainty of this federal bill, how it could impact you back home. again, i know it's repetitious, but it's important. that's the message i would like to see go out of this hearing. >> again, let me say, i think certainty is the most important thing that we have to deal with. and over the last five or six years, we have not had that certainty obviously. and so we need it to plan. i mean if we don't have -- we need five six, ten years -- whatever the number of years that you decide, we just need to know what those are and we need to plan accordingly. and, this program that i have put in place and was able to actually put in place without legislation because the people of alabama had allowed us to

borrow the garvey bonds. so we're using future federal dollars. and so the certainty is so important for me because i signed a billion dollars in bonds and i want to make sure we pay it back. and we can pay it back in two ways. number one is if the federal government will help continue to give us some certainty about what they're going to give the states. plus the fact that we can do it better because in alabama we have such a great bond rating. we have a better bond rating than the federal government. and so we are able to borrow this money at such a low rate. certainly lower than inflation rate for delaying the repairs on these roads and bridges. so certainty is essential to us. >> thank you, governor. i know you speak for both governors here. my last question to you is, it's interesting to learn about the i-10 bridge project.

and you noted there are some projects of national and regional significance that are too large to be funded without specific federal assistance. do you believe a federal program to allow these types of projects to compete against one another in addition to core highway formula funding would be popular among the states? these projects of national significance. >> well, i'd remember have them to compete than not have it automatic allat all. >> i hear you. >> because i think that competition is always good. i think that as a federal government -- ima he not'm not speaking for the federal government because i run the state of alabama. but i do think that you have to look at what is the most important for our security for our economy for our safety. all of those things you have to look at when you look at these types of projects outside of the normal funding stream. >> thank you so much. >> thank you senator boxer.

senator boseman? >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you all for being here. in relation to this can you tell us the impact of the two-year bill versus the five-year bill? what that does as far as certainty, the necessity of the longer bill versus the two-year bill. the other thing i'd like for you to think about, along with that, is one of the frustrations we have is you mention that we were number one in infrastructure. i think if you look back when we were number one, probably the percentage of what the states were doing was more than it is now as opposed to what the feds are doing. i think one of the frustrations we have is that as we put money into the states with the fiscal constraints with prisons medicaid and things like that, states have a tendency to sometimes shrink back and things

stay the same as opposed to increasing. you mentioned about your small state. arkansas is a small state. to our credit, we passed a half-cent sales tax to try and overcome the problems that you have. i wish coming across the 14th street bridge every day that we could give you some of our traffic. that would make my life and many other commuters a lot easier. but come in on the two versus the five-year bill. then also the problems how do we ensure that as we try and do the very best that we can do to get money into the states that that's actually an improvement versus the states shrinking back. >> so in terms of the two to five, the more certainty you can give us. obviously five is better than two. i got to say, governor bentley and i have both served in an environment where we would love to have two because we have been working month to month since we've been governor. we've both been governors for for years. so needless to say the longer

certainty, the happier all governors will be. dealing with garvey bonds gofrer bentley said to wall street we've got an ongoing funding source from the feds so i can turn to the folks of alabama and say we've got certainty, we're going to be all right. but we need it too, because obviously we make similar decisions. i think all governors do. >> so the two versus the five actually drives the cost up? not only is it a certainty issue -- >> you got it. it is a financial -- >> -- driving up the cost of the construction projects also. >> absolutely, senator. the second piece is in terms of the partnership. my experience has been that we've had to increase our state contribution just to keep up with our federal match. what i mean by that is, unfortunately, the gas tax is a dwindling tax. not so unfortunately.

it's good reasons. people are driving less miles and they're driving more efficient vehicles. but we all know that in the long run, we're going to have to figure out another way to drive revenue both nationally and in the states. we'll have to go to miles traveled or some other way of doing this. there is no reason why an electric car shouldn't be paying for the roads, too. having said that, in my state as an example, we could not keep up with our federal match because of dwindling gas prices -- or i should say taxes without asking for more from vermonters just to meet what we'd already gotten in the past. in other words, i was about to give up $40 million in federal funding which for me an average transportation budget of $400 million, that's 10% of that. we're talking real money. having to cancel projects that are critically important as our bridges and roads crumble. so what i did was -- i don't like raising taxes but we raised it from 20 cents to 26 cents. we triggered half of it towards volume and half of it towards sales so that we would be able

to play the prices that go up and down without obviously in a period we're in right now where gas prices have been cut in half. we would have been totally demoralized if it wasn't at least based on volume. but vermonters are making a big effort from a stackstax standpoint to make that match than we were in the past. i don't know if vermont is unique but i can tell you we are not backing off on our residents' commitment to rebuild roads and bridges. we're asking for more from them and i think a lot of governors have. >> you know one of the challenges with the two-year to the five-year program is due to the length of time it takes to deliver any project of any size once we have that security of having a two-year program, by the time we can start planning to deliver the project, the program is on the foreshadow of over and we're back to a short-term situation like we're unfortunately accustomed to dealing with.

i agree with the governor's comments too, on some of the negative impact of the short-term month to month type of business that we're doing now is resulting in not ses narlnecessarily doing optimal treatment to our roads, just doing what we can in a short period of time that's often a band-aid-type fix that may not be the financially best thing to do but the only thing that can be done at the time. >> very good. thank you, mr. chair. >> senator? >> these are be governor oriented questions. in rhode island let me say what we're seeing and if this sounds familiar to the governors, let me know. we are seeing the federal formula highway funds increasingly subscribed over time. and we're seeing static revenue from that. we're not seeing big federal

increases that are funding growth in the highway program. we are also seeing maintenance costs for existing infrastructure climbing and that eats into the static federal revenues. and we are seeing debt service on our garby bonds eat up a chunk of what would otherwise be going out into roads and to bridges. and we are seeing uncertainty in the out years about whether that federal funding is really going to be there. and what we get from all of that is a distinction between little projects that you know you can fund, that can run for a year or two, you can get it done. and that you can fit into that shrinking, remaining available portion of our highway budget. and the big projects that our transportation officials know

are out there, know we've got to grapple with some day but there's no slug of money big enough to take them on, and if you're going to spread them out over many, many, many years that raises the cost in many cases and it also takes you beyond your comfort level of whether the federal funding is really going to be there given the uncertainty that's been created by all the fiscal and budget hi-jinks that have gone on here in washington. so what that leaves us with are some big projects that we really have no way to get into our highway program responsibly. does any of that sound familiar to the governors? i see both heads nodding. let the record reflect. so, what i want to make sure that we do -- this emco-schoes a little bit the ranking member's questions -- is that there be a pool of funding for projects that are big and significant, and instead of giving them out -- because i know a lot of

people don't like earmarks -- it would be a competitive grant program but it would at least provide a vehicle for those big projects to be brought online before a big calamity happens a very expensive bridge, a major highway overpass or intersection things like that, things that strain small state budgets. does that seem like a big notion to you, for these specialized projects there with be a source of funds that you could compete for that can't be handled through your ordinary funds inging? >> i personally believe that what you said is exactly what i said in my testimony. this is -- there lass tohas to be a different stream of funding for those type projects and they should be competitive. >> absolutely. >> and we need to decide their national significance. we need to decide the safety of

the area. for instance i mentioned the bridge over the bay in mobile. we have all the highways come into one tunnel. we have hazardous material that's transported through that. and so there's so many things that you have to look at. and competition is good. i think that you shouldn't have a bridge to nowhere. i personally am against earmarking just for the sake of earmarking for political reasons. i believe that the earmarking should be done for what you're talking about, and i believe that i'm talking about, which is national and regional significance. and you do have to compete in order to get those funds. >> mr. chairman, if i could make one final remark. one of the flaws in the stimulus

program that we put together and passed in the depths of the recession was that our rush for shovel-ready projects meant that the only ones we could get into the pipe were the ones that were already on the books of our transportation organizations. and so those big ones that are waiting out there, which would have been a great opportunity we missed. and so that's another reason i think that we need to make sure we do this projects of national and regional significance and i thank at chairman for his courtesy. >> mr. chairman, i'll yield and just say it is refreshing to have governors come in and give that good dose of common sense. we appreciate it. >> at this time we will excuse you, governor bentley. i know you have a scheduling program. then i want to -- thank you very much. governor, i didn't mean to be

discourteous to you when you were first talking but you had four points you were going to end up with which i did not hear since i did not give you time to express. >> i think we covered them actually. thanks for that opportunity. i would just like to respond to the question of competing for large projects. just add that i think that senator whitehouse is on target. a program like that makes sense. i do want to point out that the small rural states who have 80% of the highway roads and bridges to maintain often have a tough time competing with big state projects. so if you're going to do that, some kind of set-aside to recognize the difference in scale is important, because while we have bigger -- more miles covered and more bridges on those miles we don't necessarily have the huge individual projects that a large -- that, frankly a heavy populated state would have. >> governor, that's something we're all going to be working on. because it is very meaningful. let me just make one comment

about when they're talking about the earmarks. there is a great misunderstanding here. this is my observation. one of the few things that really does work well with the federal government is the way highway trust fund is set up in response back to the needs of the state. i think not many people knew that when we did our last -- particularly the 2005 bill we made an effort to listen to the states recognizing that they know more of what's good for them, whether it is alaska or anywhere else, than our infinite wisdom here in washington. so i think it's something that has worked well. the problem was if they'd use another word when they're messing around with this thing, then we wouldn't be having the problems that we're having now, because there is a big difference between earmarks as most people think of earmarks and earmarks as they come from

the states from the departments of transportation. an that's why i think it's a great -- and hopefully we can address this and take care of these problems that we're talking about right now. that would be kind of fine-tuning it. the big problem is we got all those issues out there and we got to do it. i know a lot of people forget, it always sounds good when you say, let's just keep all of our money in the state. that's fine if you're in a position to do that. but if you're from wimyoming or south dakota or north dakota, they got lots of roads and no people. so we're going to address this and we're going to try to do this one right. you have covered your four points? okay. >> i have. >> that's good. all right. sfloert senator whitehouse.

>> >> i'm not a fan of earmarks. we don't need to have a fight to have a good projects of national and regional significance portion of this bill but i am with the chairman on that fight and particularly as it applies to these transportation issues. i think my questions have been adequately answered. i just put on the record that we got a full answer from governor bentley under the chairman's request. governor shumlin was nodding vigorously throughout did you but didn't have a chance to say anything. i'd just offer him if he had any comments to make on this in addition. but otherwise, i think the record is clear that the governors before us were in accord on this subject. >> i think we are in your court. the only point that i'd make that hasn't been made in terms of this conversation generally is, when we talk about

re-invigorating the trust fund which we all know was created in 1958, has served us well. that was a time when we were building infrastructure for the first time in america. it's what made this country great. it's what made us the most powerful economy in the wrorldorld. we couldn't have done it without that trust fund. >> the first covered bridges you're talking about. >> first covered bridges. you got it. and the challenge we face now from just -- big picture for a second because sometimes we get into the weeds on how we should allocate the money. and i suspect that all 50 governors would agree on this one is that we have two things facing us. the first is obviously the aging infrastructure. the fact that what we built so effectively in the early late '50s early '60s across the nation is now crumbling. but the other challenge i'm facing, i can tell you -- and i bet other governors face it too -- is the weather challenges have made the transportation infrastructure more vulnerable

than i believe it was when we built the infrastructure. i can tell you as a governor who's served for four years now i have managed three really devastating storms the toughest storms that vermont has ever seen in our history. we lost a teeny little state of vermont, we lost hundreds of miles of roads. we lost 34 bridges. we saw infrastructure destroyed, not only in irene but in two separate significant storms. this was created by just the kind of rain that we've never seen in vermont where you suddenly get these what i call costa rican style deluges of 10 12 inches of rain dumped on our little state in a matter of hours. just didn't used to happen that way. so we have to remember that we've got a crumbling infrastructure, we've got a climate that is really putting additional pressure on all the assumptions we made about where we put roads, where we put bridges. suddenly we have flooding challenges in places that we

never had them before. >> governorky can i jump in on that? >> sure. >> there is an interesting statistic that i think comes out of the national property casualty insurance industry. if you look at the number of billion dollar storm and weather disasters that the country has had in recent decades in the 1980s, every year those billion dollar disasters numbered zero to five. it was the range in the 1980s. you got none or maybe you got as many as five. but that was the range. by the 1990s, the range was $3 billion to $9 billion disasters every year. minimum $3 billion, maximum $9 billion. by in the 2010 decade so far it's $6 billion to $16 billion. so the point that the governor is making about what he's seen in vermont is one we're seeing all across the country. we've seen it in rhode island with hundred-year storms

appearing one after another certainly not a hundred years apart. i yield back my time. >> you hit it on the head. >> thank you mr. chairman. i agree with the senator from rhode island when it comes to the issue of who should be making the decisions and i like the idea of providing ample opportunity for the states, local governments to make those decisions about where the dollars should be spent. i think we should be very liberal when it comes to allowing the states, recognizing their ability to make good decisions for their citizens about infrastructure development. i was going to go to secretary berquist for a moment and talk about some of the common sense things states would do or would like to be able to do if provided the opportunity. i think when we go back to taxpayers when we talk about additional revenue sources and so forth, one thing they want us to do is deliver as efficiently as possible those needed infrastructures. or those needed bridges roads

and everything that comes with it. part of that means making good decisions about how we spend the dollars. sometimes i think good advice coming from the feds is just that -- it's advice but it shouldn't necessarily be requirements and there should be ample opportunity for states, departments of transportation to make good choices about what they want that infrastructure to look like. i'm just wondering if the secretary could share a little bit about some of the efficiencies that might be able to found if some of the red tape was eliminated or at least some restrictions on the use of those funds could be examined? would you care to comment on that a little bit is it. >> sure, if i may, mr. chairman. i guess two immediate things come to mind, senator. one, i found with interest your dialogue with secretary foxx earlier on the need to further streamline the review prosect that goes in to projects and as secretary foxx had indicated, there was certainly improvements that were made as part of map

21. i would welcome the opportunity to continue to work with federal highway administration on further refining that process. i think there are still additional enhancements that can be made to that to shorten that time period so that we don't have the problem the projects take so long to deliver that we can't actually start construction, whether it is a two-year or five-year bill, that bill is over. so i think that's one of the areas of the opportunity. the other area that i see as an opportunity and i touched on an example of that earlier in my statement is the balance between the funds and resources that you invest in collecting data and reporting and those type of things things, versus what actually goes into asphalt and contreat and concrete and bridges. i mentioned the potential requirement, all the data on our

gravel and dirt roads which i are very familiar with. i'm not sure that's the best use of those funds when in south dakota we have over 1,000 bridges that need to be replaceded. that that money may be better spent there.. that money may be better spent there. >> i think senator your question on efficiency and how we can all work together to spend our transportation dollars better is right on. i know that i, for example, have been successful doing a couple things that really made a difference for how we spend our dollars in vermont our limited dollars. one, when i became governor, i found there was, frankly a riflely or-- or lack of communication between my natural resources folks and my transportation folks. my transportation folks get ready to go and build a bridge, and everybody was fighting and carrying on and they would let the blueprints just pile up in

the office. i said we got to end this. my state offices got gloodflooded in irene. all the state offices were wiped out and destroyed. i used that as an opportunity when we organized them to put them in the same office building. they have to eat lunch together in the same cafeteria. and guess what? they found out they like each other and they're working much more effectively together to get the job done. so now they all go out on the ground together and make decisions that used to take a year, now it takes three days. the other piece is technology. residents are willing to spend their tax dollars and be more patient. i'm give you an example. we have cut the cost of our building bridges significantly by saying to citizens wherever we can instead of building a detour bridge which you got to go through permitting, takes

forever, huge cost. i bet you anything secretary berquist is doing the same thing. my secretary can speak more eloquently about there. but we literally say to residents, if you let us close that bridge for 6 to 8 to 12 weeks, we can rebuild that bridge in that period of time. we use technology that can do it for literally a quarter or half the price in much less time. we are all interested in finding ways to be more efficient, cut red tape. states can do it. the feds can do it. together we could use our dollars more effectively. >> mr. chairman, following up on that, the committee worked really hard under senator boxer, senator inwho've leadership in trying to identify things to cut through red tape. the problem is that some of those things don't come under our jurisdiction and so we can cut red tape here, but i'd

really like you and your comrades to do is really come up with the things you mentioned the state problems that we have sometimes. and then also other federal problems that aren't under the jurisdiction of the committee so that we can work with those committees in the next reauthorization which hopefully will happen very soon. and then again make sure that we do that. we've talked about the challenges of getting more money into the system. this is a way to save tremendous amounts of money. we've got examples. i've got to go visit the bridge that fell down in milwaukee. that thing was rebuilt in a year. that would be a 10 or 20-year project probably. but again because of the necessity, the agencies worked together we didn't have the gotcha attitude. it was how can we help you get

this thing done. so we have great models. but we really would appreciate your input. i really believe very strongly that the input needs to come from you all. you all are on the ground fighting the battle. nobody can tell us better from your experiences. so i guess that's -- if you do some homework, giving you a little responsibility in that regard, that would be very very helpful to the committee. i hope, mr. chairman, that again we can work with other committees that have some jurisdiction in that area and with other states and try to figure out how to move the projects forward. >> senator boseman and i had a similar situation right across your border and into oklahoma when the guards ran in. you might remember that. we actually rebuilt that thing in one-half the time it normally would have taken. and we've been making a steady case out of that ever since also. so necessity is the father of virtue or something like that.

hopefully that will work. i just want to make one further comment so i know there's misunderstanding here when we talk about the way this system works but there is a reason that we do it the way we do it. all the states don't do it exactly the same. in my state of oklahoma as those people behind you can tell you we will list a number of projects. we'll have people going out with eight transportation districts in my state of oklahoma make their own priorities so that really my job isn't so much to see what needs to be done in the state of oklahoma. it's where those priorities come from the state. people just overlook that. so that's one of the systems that does seem to work well. and hopefully we're going to be able to do a really good job with this bill. so any further comments you want to make in the closing comments is it. >> mr. chair, i just want to thank you and the committee members. you've got a tough job and it is an incredibly important job. i just want to say that the governors, all 50 of us on a

bipartisan basis, will partner with you in any way that can be useful to get predictability, get the trust fund reauthorized and give us certainty because i think it's in all our interests. >> within your states. i think that's so important that we do that. >> absolutely. >> i think there is another thing you can do too. that is apply the pressure necessary to our own elected people to let them know what their number one priority is. if you run out of things to say, i'll give you an idea. to use the constitution argument, article 1, section 8. that's what we're supposed to be doing here. and so i think i've heard it said many times before when people were trying to make comments about how conservative they are or something like that, it gets right down to transportation. i've heard them say, oh i wasn't talking about transportation. so it's something we're going to deal with and it is something that does -- what i wouldn't like to see is have the system

change where you take the states out of the system because you're the ones who know where the priorities are, what needs to be done, and you know where your members -- your elected officials live. so that would be very helpful. all right. senator rounds, do you have any further comment to make? >> no, mr. chairman. just i echo what you are suggesting, sir. thank you. >> thank you both so much for being here. appreciate it. we're adjourned.

here are some of our featured programs for this weekend on the c-span networks. on c-span2's book tv saturday night at 10:00, on after words, april ryan on her more than 25 years in journalism and her coverage of three presidential administrations. sunday at noon on in-depth, our three-hour conversation with walter isaacson whose biographies include ben franklin albert einstein and the international best seller on steve jobs. and on american history tv on c-span3, saturday at:00 p.m. eastern, on the civil war. boston college history professor heather cox-richardson on how the cowboy during reconstruction became symbolic of a newly unified america. and sunday evening at 6:00 on american artifacts we'll tour the house that was the headquarters of the american red cross and learn about the life of its founder clara barton.

find our complete television schedule at c-span.org. let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. call us at 202-626-3400. e-mail us at comments pennsylvania@c-span.org. or send us a tweet at c-span#comments. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. keep track of the republican-led congress and follow its new members through its first session. new congress, best access on c-span. c-span2, c-span radio and c-span.org. panelists at the center for security policy discuss a strategy for combating terrorism following recent attacks in australia, nigeria and canada. they also talk about sharia law and doctrine.

good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. thank you very much for joining us for what i hope will be very memorable, as well as consequential conversation about the world we're in and what we're going to need to prevail in it. my name is frank gaffney. i am president for center for security policy which is sponsoring this event and is very, very proud to have sponsored the production of a new study, i guess is one way of describing it, that is a prescription for waging and winning what we've come to call the war for the free world. we use that term because it seems best to describe what's at

stake which is truly nothing less than our lives, our liberties and those of others who share our values. they are under assault by an enemy that we have for most of the part 14 years, for sure, and arguably going back to 1979, refused pretty much to name. certainly to name in a consistent and authoritative way, and more to the point to understand what animates it and therefore, what it will take to defeat it. so that is the purpose of this new product. we call it the secure freedom strategy. it has been put together by a remarkable group of people, a number of whom you will be seeing and interacting with in the course of this program. it has been my pleasure to get

to know and work with them over many years, in most cases. and to see in them something that was really needed to help generate such a strategy, such a winning program for this war for the free world. because they bring to it unique and necessary skill sets. we think of it as kind of a tiger team, a term that has been made of course famous by the special forces over the years that has, as their concept of operations, pulling together as needed. people with the relevant skill sets to do a particular mission. in this case we wanted warriors, people who had been at the pointy end of the spear, particularly in some of the more unconventional and asymmetric ways because that is, of course, part of the enemy threat we confront and it is part of what it will take us to mount to

defeat it. we wanted people with extensive and varying expertise in national security, policy and practice. some of it having to do with the high order policy, some of it having to do with technology, some of it having to do with the law and the like. and then we also wanted people with specializations in particularly important skill sets -- economic warfare for example, influence and information operations, counter idealogical programs, because at the end of the day that is what this is about. we confront -- to put it simply -- a global jihad movement. it has, of course, varying forms and organizational structures

ranging from nation states to proto nation states to organizations, to groups, to individuals. but all of them are doing one thing. they are waging jihad. and they wage it in varying ways which we will talk about in the course of this program. violent, and not so much non-violented a priest-violent. and they've waged it largely against us, as i say, going back to at least 1979 when with the help of then-carter administration the government of iran was overtaken by these jihadists. underlying this jihad, animating it, demanding it, and making it particularly toxic, is the ideology that its adherence called sharia.

we make clear at several points in the strategy, we are not talking about muslims who think of their practice of islam in a personal pie tus personal piotistic non-threatening fashion when we discuss this term sharia. instead we are using it as it non-threatening fashion when we discuss this term sharia. instead we are using it as it has become to be known, practiced and imposed by not just radicals, as we are endlessly told, not just extremists or fundamentalists, but by the authorities of islam. our purpose today is to help inform a debate that has to begin, as to how we're going to counter this jihad as it is not only happening in the far reaches of the world but increasingly in our allied capitals as we saw last week and

indeed as was narrowly avoided apparently in our own. i'm very pleased to be able to present, ufrl, it'ss unfortunately, it's kinds ever a cecil b. demille production here. . we have eight or nine contributors to this 16-member tiger team with us. i've asked each of them to make brief marks because we want to expose you to pieces of this comprehensive strategy in which they have particularly contributed. but because there is a comprehensive strategy there are a lot of those pieces. i'm hoping general jerry boykin can join us. he has some conflicts, but if he does we'll just fit him in where we can. but i would like to start with the map you see on the screen via skype.

one of the world's most preeminent litigators especially on behalf of freedom. he is the co-founder and one of the driving forces behind a very important public interest law firm, the american freedom law center. i'm proud to say he is general counsel for our center for policy and an extraordinary authority on sharia and what kinds of steps this country can take to counter it. i'm very pleased to have him with us. david, if you'll take a couple of minutes to describe the enemy threat doctrine and why it is so important for us to understand it as part of being able to address it. >> thank you, frank. and thank you all for being here. we begin with the fundamentals that we can only see the. >> guest: he who had

we begin with the amendment that we can only defeat the jihad if we understand their doctrine and their strategic goals f. we listen to them, the jihadist, whether they're speaking arabic farsi, russian, chinese or english, for that matter they are merely carrying out the dictate of sharia or islamic law. we choose to orient on that threat to understand the enemy's strategy, strategic end-game, and even his tactical methodology. and what is sharia? it is a sophisticating and institutional jurisprudent and legal system that developed from effectively the death of mohammed and continues today. it is practiced by empires, tribes, informal communities and families and individuals and nation states all differently over the years and in varying degrees of adherence. from early juristprudence, it

has a constitutional core. fundamental principals set out in the koran. the koran is the text of islam and the sunna are handed down from the traditions driven down from the time of mohammed. and they were written down and graded in terms of authenticity and reliability providing a basis to the legal scholars to rule that some sunfa traditions were sacred. both explained scripture and modifying it. finally, there is the jurisprudence of the authoritative legal scholars who typically operated within recognized legal school so at the end of the day you have a legal system that has a constitutional core, a canonized

or authoritative sunna none of which, according to the scholars, can be changed. however, lost under the consistent tugs constitution, or like any legal system, you have hundreds of years years. like any interpret tative body they must play by the rules they themselves have set down. and one rule that exists in every legal system ever created is the rule of conservatism. that is to say, no legal system could exist, at least not for very long, if it could be amended or altered constantly and by fiat. if any individual could come forward an change core constitutional principles and long standing jurisprudential rules, you would have an narky. that is why --

[ sin [ inaudible ] >> david i'm afraid we're having quality control problem with the skype at the moment. if you might suspend, i'm afraid some of that was being garbled. but i think the key piece that you expressed was, this is not something that is a product of some people hijacking a religion. this is central to and developed over a great period of time by, as i said, the authorities of the faith. would you just make a concluding statement so we can see if we can capture that. >> okay. so the fundamental difference though between a sharia system and any other legal system is that theed aed a heernts understan sharia to be fundamentally device and when you have a legal system fundamentally devine, it creates two problems, one, men cannot change the defined word,

so the fundamental core principles of sharia establishment of a goeblglobal caliphate, jihad these cannot be modified by men. and the second problem is that it has a recruitment base not based on patriotism, but just religious zealotry and martyrdom. and the fact that a system can't be change if it is the devine word of god and, two, that its adherants are motivated by something other than a secular patriotism for their country creates two critical problems in dealing with the threat from sharia. >> david, thank you very much. this is important context. and just to emphasize again, we believe this is the faultline between muslims who are a problem and those who are not.

there are many who will espouse sharia as this code david has described, the objectives and the purposes but may not be personally prepared to go engage in the jihad to impose it on others. but they may well be prepared to support in material or other fashions that effort. so we've focused on sharia, that ideology and the need to counter it as the center piece for this secure freedom strategy. let me call next on my colleague clair lopez. now a senior vice president with the center for security policy responsible for our research and analysis activities. she was instrumental to helping herd these many cats in getting this tiger team's work together and i am very grateful to you for that. she brings to the tiger team and the work more generally she does extraordinary deep knowledge on

matters involving intelligence, it's tradecraft, as well as its purposes. i was hoping she would share with us some of her insights into how the various parts of this uma, as it calls itself interact and are prepared to overlook differences they may have on points of theology and ethnic other considerations in furtherance of this agenda. >> well, thank you, frank. thanks to all of you being here today. really appreciate that you've come to join us as we roll out this new strategy. i'll take just a couple of minutes perhaps then to discuss why we're calling this a global jihad movement. as frank alluded to it we are talking about a movement that is worldwide and it has various different aspects that define it

as worldwide, as global. number one, because of the way that david just described the sharia, the law of islam that the sharia, therefore are compelled, impelled to pursue jihad. they are obligated to do that every bit as christians and jews are obligated follow the ten commandments. whether all do so or not is another question. so you have this unifying ideology that makes it global. and indeed, as david also said, those who are our enemies on the field of battle, every one of the groups that we name so openly, like al qaeda and the islamic state and when they make

their videos and publish online magazines, inspire in case of al qaeda and deb eek in the case of the islamic state and they make clear what they do is in obedience to the sharia. they don't mince words on that. and neither do the imams, jim chowder is one that comes to mind that talks about this. but they are unified by this ideology. so it is a unified ideology that we face. secondly, because muslims work at the world -- those faithful to sharia look at the world as having products, the dar al islam. that is where sharia is enforced. dar el harb are the places where it is not. therefore under the law, muslims who follow the jihad are

obligated to try to conquer the part of the world not under islamic law and bring it forcibly or by stealth or guile under the unified law. and that means that enemy,s, we sometimes perceive as discrete and separate, the sunnis and the shiites, for example, on this issue rand at the rack row level can -- at the macro level can be unified. they do work together. and iran, a jihadist rate by its own constitution was instrumental in assisting al qaeda in at packs of 9/11. so was hezbollah, the iran shiite terrorist proxy. and so we see the shiites and the sunnis coming together even though they have differences that are particular within the sharia, they come together at

the macro level when it is a question of opposing nonmuslims and working together to force them under the rubric of islamic law. so that is the sunni shiite. and now groups as well as the lowest revel, al qaeda works with hezbollah. hezbollah is at least a tsait -- tacit and kind of shiite and sunni and they work together because she share the same ideology of jihad. and i wanted to mention very quickly in terms of our per exception of the global jihad movement. that while this alliance is sometimes formalized and sometimes looser or opportunistic, it is consistent and has been over centuries, 1300 plus years since we are told the death of mohammed occurred. so they may not in every case or

battlefield be working together and in places we see like in syria and iraq, they fight one another at a certain level. but at a macro level, they will work together against the west and all of those who believe in individual liberty and the things that we hold dear in this country. and finally, i want to mention there is a brouder alliance not just as terrorist organizations but it goes down to the individual jihad level too. there are many individuals, unfortunately, in places like the united states included, but western countries, australia, canada, western europe where individuals who may have not belonged to any military, ever trained with al qaeda or the

islamic state or perhaps they did receive some training of them but are not members of the organizes properly speaking and yet as anti-nolan in moore, oklahoma, a muslim concert converted to islam in prison that had never been in a battle or participated in a military, but he saw himself as a member of the umma. the international global community. he felt more allegiance to that than to a citizen and allegiance to the united states and the constitution. and he attacked and killed two women at his food processing plant in oklahoma and behead one of them before he was killed. and so there are people apr the world that answer the call to jihad or sharia whether or not

they are identified as a member of a group or organization. and we have those that aren't affiliated with islam and we address these in the paper too who are perhaps within certain functional spheres. you may call them the financial spheres, the cyber world is something we pay attention, the cyber car aspect which is brand new. so there are functional members of this who alie themselves with the international global jihad who might not even be muslim but some and many of them are. so the macro level and the jihad level and then this broader global level. these are the threats we face and that we are addressing in the paper. and thank you very much. >> thank you, clair. i neglected to mention, she is a clandestine officer and served

in the central intelligence agency and brings an excellent point. and whether these are self-radicalizing or lone wolves is what you have dispatched. these people have embraced this fundamental sharia document and acting on the call to jihad. and next we have on skype and i hopefully with a better connection and i apologize, tommy waller. a army recon veteran, now reservist. very, very pleased to say he is a new addition to the security policies team as director of our state outreach efforts. tommy has some insights as a man who has been not only at the

pointy end of the spear but very recently confronting this problem we've been discussing. the last of clarity about the threat, the enemy and dallas doctrine. tommy waller. glad to have you with us. >> thank you, frank. ladies and gentlemen, the first thing i have to tell you is i'm addressing you as tommy waller, an employee of the center for security, and not as major waller, part of the marine corp. why do i have to make that distinction? well it saddens me to say if i were in currently an active duty status, i would have to refrain about speaking about factual information about ideology, sharia, that threatens our way of life because my words would be offensive. ladies and gentlemen, i took an

oath to the united states to defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and when those who take an oath cannot be taught about the threat to our constitution, which is both foreign and domestic, our nation is in grave peril. now i've deployed as an active duty marine to numerous theaters of operation. i've faced the global jihad movement on their turf. and yet i was never taught what animated those jihadists. still to this day, if you attend a formal military school, you'll find there is never mention of the ideology that animates our enemies. we speak in terms like violent extremist an imafts and we never stamp down, or as clair says, the ideology. i received a school for a year long for officers at the field-grade level. and in 10-months we covered

field operations for less than an hour and our case study was the community insurgency and how we conducted propaganda operations against it in vietnam. i mean, it is mind boggling to me how our enemies maintain absolutely information dominance, but it makes sense if that is the curriculum we have in the military formal schools. i've been, up until this point, shocked and saddened and al

qaeda bewildered about the absolute void in the factual analysis of our enemy, on behalf of the national security community and what we face today is tantamount to the military or the cold war from being prevented from studying communism or the ideology they face on a battlefield. so it is a sincere hope that my generation and those that follow it can recover the courage that our previous generation had to study the ideology of the enemy. and like i said, i've been sad -- shocked and bewildered and i have to say the secure freedom strategy gives me home and i think it gives us a major course direction and on behalf of the men and women who have given the ultimate sacrifice in defense of that constitution, my request is that we embrace this strategy. because we owe it to the generations that went before us and those that will follow us.

>> tommy, thank you. that was very moving. and deeply appreciated as is your service to the country in your uniform capacity and to the center. i want to turn -- speaking of some of the points that tommy has just made to one of the people that i think is truly a national resource on questions of ideology, information operations, the influence activities of our enemies, particularly in the domestic sphere and also overseas. dr. jame michael waller. at the information center for security policy and deeply knowledgeable from a period going back to the reagan years about counter ideology warfare and how they are hostile toward us and how we can do a needed

job of countering them. mike waller, do you want to come up to the mic. >> thank you for joining us. >> thank you. this is a fight that we are going to lose until we hit the ideology at its core. just like we would not win the cold war against the receive -- the soviets left the ideology and that happened when yakko ved lost complete confidence in their ideology and proved to be our -- one of our most important allies in the cold war victory. we could not and would not if we had not on our side had a commitment to fight this on a strategic level because he needed to know his nation and government was being pushed from

the outside and was going to loose unless they admired their advent which is [ inaudible ]. which as perfect as they were, it ended up essentially doing with the moscow-sponsored communist sub version going on. you can trau a draw a similar parallel to things today. and here you do have idealology, saudi arabia and iran the qatar and the al thany family who have a huge global apparatus and causes us not to believe what we believe in ourselves and give moral support to the enemy. you have various bankers and members of royal families of

other gulf states and so forth that continue to be the command and control of their union jihad worldwide. we don't want to look at it that way. we don't want to tackling it. we have a big military presence in qatar and they are our friends so we look at it that way. but other gulf states are seeing the organizations they funded or sympathized with, are realizing these jihad groups are threatening to them and their material westbound and that their heads are going roll soon. and you had the current king of saudi arabia recently fired and the whole ideological leadership of jihad in the saad government. these ministers has been in place since the 1990s many of them. of where this will go, we don't know. but we do see something happening within the heart of aspects of the global jihad movement. you have a lot of hostility

between saudi arabia and the uae against the family in qatar and whose side is the united states really generally on? we're there seen as the military commanders of the control of sunni jihad and the kah for a. else, and he's been arrested and imprisoned and the whole legion and hundreds and those that took advantage of the allegiance against mubarak, so what kind of encouragement is the united states giving people like this? zero. and he two weeks ago went to a university and told the leaders and trapers of the global jihad university knock it off. you are creating a worldwide

backlash against us all. you are making the whole world fear and hate us muslims. knock it off and start reversing it. we'll see how it goes. but he's essentially marked his whole family for death with this kind of activity. and we don't have the support here and we don't have the trained and motivated in the state or intelligence community or dd.o.d. or anywhere else because ideological warfare is something we're uncomfortable with. it is a high-impact army and it shouldn't belong in army cyber-on and many are motivated that way because they trained themselves in learning about the ideology. so you have some sleltal intellectual ferment within the army. but not at the national strategic level and certainly we don't have muslim leadership in

this country like the mayor of rod rod roder roderdam who has been defensive about freedoms for efforts and people in secural or christian or protestant countries like the netherlands. we still have the people alive who designed the program against the soviet union who know how to do it and some folks against the operational level like in the nazis against world war ii. and there is a strong support base as well as a lot of alliances to make tactical or strategic in the muslim world we've simply been ignoring. >> i failed to mention that michael is a professor by training and he could have gone all day and very usefully so, i'm sorry to keep it short. can i just make one point on the basis of what he said?

when the president of egypt wanted to disavow and suppress those who are creating in the world the image of islam as a jihadist enterprise seeking the destruction of everybody else, he did not go to seek out radicals in various groups that we hear so much about. he went to al asar university. some call it the vatican of islam. because the authorities of islam are those who embrace this sharia program and are promoting it and it is they who must be countered unless and until they heed his admonitions and hopefully change course. and we have another combat veteran for the staff for american senior policy and another senior fellow is jim

hansen hansen, a former technical weapon sergeant in the special forces. he has many attributes that have been brought to bear on behalf of this policy. i wanted to speak to him about piece through strength, which was a hallmark of president reagan's strategy in the national security decision direct of '75 but also as a center piece of part of what we are proposing as part of the security freedom strategy. jim hansen. >> hello, everyone. as frank introduced me and as my background might, i am a strong proponent of killing terrorists anyplace we can find them anywhere on the planet. no apologies made. and i think we're not doing a good enough job of it. i think anyone who flies the

black flag and kills innocence to further an ideology or political cause should be labeled enemies of all mankind. having said that and done a happy dance every time a terrorist gets return to their component molecules, that is a tactic, not a strategy. that is not enough. they need to know we're going to do it. and they need to know in no uncertain terms that if you decide your religion compels you to kill innocents and force them to submit and live under your law, we will oppose you. and that is fundamental piece that we can bring to the puzzle. but it is just a piece. everyone else at this table and the rest of the co-authors of this have brought what is absolutely necessary and that is a recognition that we cannot simply kill our way to victory. we need to counter ideas.

it is a war of ideas. it is a war for the free world. and we need to stand up and say their ideology is wrong and ours is right. freedom, liberty, the fundamental principles that the united states was founded on, the reason we are the exceptional nation. we need to stand up and say that, and unfortunately, as tommy mentioned and as we fought the cold war, and i did under ronald reagan. we studied communism. we knew how to oppose them. we knew why our system was better than theirs. and the difference for reagan to tell gorbachov to tear down the wall and saying that the islamic state is not islamic, could not be more stark. the first thing you have to do, in every 12-step program, admit you have a problem. we have a problem. it is radical islam.

they have declared war on us and until we do the same thing we need to fight their ideology and we need to fight their foot soldiers. until we do that, we accomplice nothing. that's why we have a strategy. killing terrorists is a tactic and this is a strategy. we have the right mind, economicñdt islamic state has right now. so we have a plan.

pay attention. >> next, we have a man who can speak to a part of this strategy that i think is every bit as important as the ones we've discussed so far. it certainly proved to be in president reagan's national security decision direct of '75 and its execution the economic warfare element. kevin is a war analyst and great background and skill sets in the business of finance. understoods the economy better than just about anybody i know. and certainly understands the extent to which our economy is being subjected to today and in the past has been subjected to economic warfare by among others, these focus adhering to sharia. kevin is the author of two best-selling books.

"secret weapon how economic terrorism attacked the u.s. stock market, and why it can happen again." and "game plan how do protect yourself from the coming cyber economic attack." i commend both of them to you and i'm delighted to have kevin as a senior fellow for the policy and the founder of the new national consultants institute. kevin, welcome and thank you for your effort. >> thank you, frank. i'm happy to be here. we are in the midst of a global economic war. everything described so far at this conference is accurate and it goes beyond that. our economy is under direct assault and in five different ways. gem economic disruption, currency, oil, cyber and market manipulation and all five of those areas have been named and targeted by radical jihadists. jihad is involved in resurgence

magazine published in october of this year -- or last year and describes specifically the intent to target western infrastructure and to target our oil industry and our economy. it is a direct assault. and 9/11 was nothing more than an economic attack. it killed 3000 people but they were selected because of the importance to the economy. currency. al qaeda has called for revoking the dollar as the global reserve currency. they've made efforts, including in the 2005 time line given to hussein that outlined all of the things they wanted to do. one of them was to start the restraint and shortly after they wanted to hit the american dollar and do electronic attacks against our infrastructure. so we are in the midst of a economic war from a currency standpoint.

the oil standpoint, we're also. if you pick up the papers from the saudi arabian oil industry that said we must break the united states oil making. opec has conducted embargoes. he used this as a tool against the soviet union and it is being used against russia and iran and the shale community. isis has plans to either capture and control or burn the arab oil fields. and the fourth area is cyber. it is beyond cyber graffiti. graffiti like when cent-com had the hacker and it shows the isis capabilities and they used it for recruiting and mayhem and forced us to think that we haven't taken this as serious as we should. and if you think capturing the twitter account is meaningless.

just look back a year ago when the syrian electronic army captured the syrian feed. they captured the a.p. twitter feed and they sent out a tweet that the white house had been hit and the stock market lost $100 million in the matter of a minute. the fifth is market manipulation and that is an our yeah that i specialized. there are cyber, and sharia complaint finance which is trouble some because people are giving money to a sharia scholar and they have no idea how they are in vesting that money or what they are doing that money because it is a big black box. this is not me saying this. this is complaints about the international sharia community. there is $1.6 trillion in sharia financed today. if they were to use that money to attack our markets which i

believe some of that took place in 2008 and was patriotrt of the explanation for the stock market crash we had. so we need a response outlined in the record. we realize talz the global economic war. we mobilized resources and created -- which includes repatriating task earnings from american corpses and simplifying the tax code and all of those things that would enhance the economic and develop ongoing offense capabilities. and among those we need to do meetings like this to the social media to google and to the major banks, bottom line we're in a global economic war and it is the components of a jihadist war against us and it is time we got into the war and recognized the economic side of it. >> kevin, thanks so much. and i just want to say thanks for your efforts to help us snip

this through and the energy piece most especially. i think some of the recommends here that talk about countering the saudi's ongoing explicit war against our energy sector are important as far as where they line up and what we need to do to assure our security part and parcel of the secure freedom strategy. next up is fred flights. you may have seen him on bill o'reilly last night and heard about the press conference as a result of him being there. fred is another of our very esteemed colleagues, another career intelligence professional with 20 years of service in the central intelligence agency as an analyst, worked for then undersecretary of state ambassador john bolton. and then served as a member of the professional staff of the house intelligence committee under former chairman pete hoekstra. fred has been instrumental in

the piece of this that is the intelligence part, very important aspect of president reagan's strategy back in 1983. and very much a part of what we need to be doing to counter the global jihad movement and sharia doctrine. >> this strategy we have here is based on nsdd 75, signed by president reagan in 1982, to help us to feed it a totalitarian threat, a threat from the soviet union. it was a strategy that engaged all elements of the united states government, state department, pentagon. we had economic strategy. and we had intelligence. and i just want to talk briefly about the intelligence arm of this and why it is important. i was on the house intelligence committee for five years. and i remember a very strange briefing by the director of

national intelligence in 2010. when james clapper, an open hearing and probably heard of this, james clapper came to the hearing and said that the muslim brotherhood was not a serious threat to the united states and was mostly a social welfare organization. the members were stunned. the members were stunned in a bipartisan basis. now, we need to engage all elements of the u.s. intelligence community to fight the global jihad movement. now, this just doesn't mean better analysis and collection. of course it does. it also means reversing the damage done to our government, specifically to the intelligence community. we have an annual report issued by the intelligence community on worldwide thoughts, issued every february. big, unclassified press conference, the director of national intelligence, cia director, other officials come, big deal in front of several congressional committees. read that report, try to find the term home grown terrorist. you won't find it.

because we now use the politically correct term, home grown radical extremist. now, this type of perversion of terms is affecting the ability of the intelligence community to identify the threat and make recommendations an how to counter the threat. the intelligence community doesn't recognize the muslim brotherhood as a threat, if it won't be honest about home grown terrorism, we could go on whether there really is such a thing, whether they're being directed by radical islam abroad, they're not going to provide the information that the president needs to defeat this threat. we need objective analysis. analysts to call it like they see it. that's how i was trained to be an analyst when i joined the central intelligence agency under the directorship of william casey. and finally, we have to look at intelligence collection methods and how we can step them up to gather better intelligence and

jihadist enemy. leaks hurt us severely because when a key intelligence system is leaked, we may not be able to repair, we may be able to replace, but in many cases it may never be replaced. we have to assess the damage done by leaks, especially since this administration came into office. we also have to take a -- an honest look at the surveillance methods that were leaked by edward snowden. i know that these methods have saved lives and stopped terrorist attacks. and i think that there is much less interest in rolling back most of those programs because of what has happened in france and because of what has happened in iraq and syria over the last few months. but there is still a struggle to gain the confidence in the american people in these methods, but also maintain them

so they can continue to keep us safe against the radical jihadist movement. we have a lot of work ahead of us. this program has a lot of recommendations on how we can fix the intelligence side of things and let's hope we make some progress. >> i am trying to establish whether general boykin will be able to make it. if he can't, our last presenter will be a distinguished military officer of great renown. former four star navy admiral james ace lions. admiral lions has been the chairman of the committee for five or six years now, i think it is, and i never cease to be amazed at his industry, his energy, his clarity of thought. and particularly how he understands in part on the basis

of hard experience nature of this challenge we face today, and the kinds of things laid out with his help in this strategy that need to be undertaken to address it. i've asked him to sort of be the cleanup batter for this set of presentations. i appreciate everyone's brevity and hopefully that will give you time for questions before we have to break. i did just want to say he has been there, truly, going toe to toe with these jihadists, way back from the beginning of this phase of the -- free world and i asked him to illuminate some of that as well. admiral lions, thank you, sir, thank you for being here. >> okay. thank you. well, first, i want to thank you

all for being here today. i got to tell you, never in my lifetime did i believe i would be witness to this great country being taken down and withdrawn from our world leadership position by our own administration. the transformation of america has been in the full swing ever president obama's no-show in paris was an embarrassment for all americans. but it also was a signal to the islamic jihadis, it is one of many signals he sent over the

years, while he's in office. now, there's no question we got a hell of a job ahead of us. with the muslim brotherhood, penetration in every one of our national security agencies, including all our intelligence agencies, and as has been reported by sun, our lead intelligence agency headed by a muslim convert, this is not going to be an easy task. now we had many opportunities over the years to change the course of history. and as frank had mentioned starting with jimmy carter, when the iranians took over our

embassy, we could have cut off islamic fundamentalism, but we did not act. he rejected what could have been a very dramatic action with minimum involvement and it would have been dead. we had other opportunities, such as the marine barracks bombing, everybody wondered why we never responded. you know, i won't go into all those details, in the interest of brevity and frank is shaking his head, he's getting ready to give me the hook, but i have to tell you, we could have changed the course of history then. it became osama bin laden's rallying cry.

so here we are today. political correctness has neutralized all our military leadership. you know, i don't know how many of you saw the article yesterday, any of you see it, he called for the entire firing of the entire executive branch of government, unheard of, including valerie jarrett because he left one person out. the one man who really determines the policy. now, we have a new congress. they were elected to stop the transformation of america, not to see how they could work with the president.

this is pure nonsense. you know, we have been saying people describe the threat -- the threat is islam. let's make no mistake. there is no such thing as radical islam because -- i like somebody to give me a definition of moderate islam. there ain't any. i think it was erdogan of turkey who said it best:"islam is islam kwd. there are no modifiers. we have looked for a leader to

come stand up and try to modify islam. and previously mentioned here, on new year's day, president al al see sisi. standing before all the leading sunni clerics called for a refirmation of islam. monumental. he then went to celebrate christmas mass at a coptic church and pledged to rebuild all the churches. clearly, he better bring his insurance policies up to date. but this is momentum. and the administration didn't even give it the tip of the hat. absolutely no acknowledgement. so it certainly tells you where their sympathies lie. it is up to this congress, they have been given the mantle, we

are giving them the game plan on how to proceed and prevent the transformation of this great country. thanks very much. >> let me just say, for myself, and i think perhaps for others on our tiger team, the formulation that i personally prefer over characterizing all of islam as one thing or another is that it is this sharia program within islam that is the heart of the problem. because we certainly know of people who believe they're practicing their faith in a manner that is consistent with the teachings of islam, that don't follow sharia. so i personally am inclined to e eschew the idea that it is all of zam. but it is important to say as i indicated earlier and david may wish to join in if we still got it and the sound is

okay, it is the authorities of islam, like those that were just mentioned who are insistent that sharia is islam. so fault to be found on this count, i would earth that the mirror be held up to them. with that, we'll pause and further remarks by us and take any questions you may have. if you would be so kind to introduce yourselves and the organizational affiliation you have, that may help us. if you wish to direct the question to one of us, that would be welcomed. if not, we'll just see who has the best answer. yes, sir. standby for the mic if you would please. >> pat span, just myself. i was wondering what what the

opinion of the panel is i see once their donors are threatened backed down on having the call to prayer at 1:00, amazing how that works with colleges. i'm curious, is that viewed as a -- some islamic phobic victory. how do you view that? is that a positive thing for our cause or is that a negative? >> claire is grabbing a mike. we'll start with you. >> thank you for the question. that refers to as you may have heard the decision earlier by duke university to allow muslim students on campus to chant the muslim call to prayer today, friday, juma prayers, from the bell tower of the chapel, the christian chapel on campus at duke.

and then after the bell cry and a statement from frank graham, franklin gram, and in a lot of other public opinion was negative about that. it is really important that they did not allow that to happen and here's why. when a muslim prayer, the friday prayers, are said, are chanted, are spoken, on the grounds of another faith's place of worship, in this case, a christian chapel, in the mind of islam, in the doctrine and the certainly the history of islam, that claims that place, that church, that temple, that synagogue, whatever it may be, for islam. you may have recalled a couple of months, the friday prayers were said at the national cathedral in downtown washington, d.c. clearly the leadership of that

cathedral thought they were being open and inviting and tolerant. what that did, though, was allow islamic icic player, which by the way in the friday prayers are spoken line sthass that distinctly criticize those who have angered allah and those who prayers spoken in that place like that. traditionally, this goes back for centuries, upon centuries, claims that place for islam. it didn't happen at duke and that's a good thing. >> may i make one point on this. i don't think in what we said today, we adequately addressed it. there is an addition to this violent jihad aimed at imposing upon us sharia blasphemy laws or

more broadly the second class status come to be known popularly as dimitude. one other facet of what is afoot here, notably as a prime purpose of muslim brotherhood, inside our country, dating back to 1963 when they started the first front organization here, the muslim students association, but also this organization, the organization of islamic cooperation, is to impose through stealth or a civilization jihad as the brotherhood calls it this broader sharia agenda. my view is that this campaign, duke is just being the most recent example, the national cathedral being another, to penetrate and subvert under the rubric of interfaith dialogue

and bridge-building with non-muslim communities of faith is part and parcel of the larger program the admiral touched on subverting all of our civil society institutions as well as our governing agencies. we are rolling now our civilization jihad reader series. the first series was on the court system, something that david has been instrumental in helping us understand and counter with. the piece of legislation he helped devise called american laws for american courts, to counter the effort to subvert us from within by bringing sharia into american courts as we see in britain, where there are 87 sharia law courts operating side

by side with british exoncommon law ones. i wanted to make this point, anytime we see people learning about and pushing back against this effort, very skillfully, very seditiously to penetrate and subvert us from within. they say in their own doctrinal -- well their strategic plan, their mission in america is to destroy western civilization from within, by our hands, and the hands of the believers. david, did you want to add anything to this point? >> am i on? >> you're on and clear. >> is that there is --

subtlety -- and that is underlying -- >> david, the sound is just terrible, i'm sorry to say. we'll -- we could read your lips but not very well. so i think we'll just let it go at that. anybody else on the panel who wanted to add anything? if not, to next question. yes, ma'am, if you would identify yourself. >> penny star, cns news. i have two questions. one is we heard a lot of terms. jihad and terrorist and islam. >> and sharia. >> and sharia. i want to know, to defeat the enemy you have to know you're going to be. what do we call the enemy specifically. and the second quick question is there is a lot of talk about terror cells and i wonder if you can could address that, thank you. >> mike, would you like to take that? >> yeah it is not something our whole group is agreed on. so i'm speaking for myself.

but for me, you have to find where your allies will go along with something you can all agree on. in this case you have senior islamic leaders who finally are calling this enemies jihadists. i think we can at least agree on that. and force these others to put on the offensive. but as long as we beat around the bush we're not going to -- >> terrorist is a tactic. and if it is jihad they're about, calling them that rather than terror cells is to clarify and enable you to do something about it. admiral did you? bring the mic closer. >> islam is a religion of peace. that would be a great first step. i mean as the totalitarian ideology for world conquest under one religion.

it is a political movement masquerading as a religion. and until you come to grips with that, you're not going to defeat the enemy. >> anyone else? >> one thing i would like to add, there's been a lot of attacks recently by lone wolves. better known as known wolves. the bottom line is it doesn't matter what flag they fly. it is not like al qaeda is handing out union cards. if they fly the bag flag of jihad, they're bad guys. if we call them jihadi, i don't care. but they are all working for the same thing. let's quit pretending they have popped up out of nowhere. they have a motivational force. they say it out loud. let's take them at their word. >> emphasis, they are working towards the same thing being basically two prime goals, the

imposition of sharia worldwide. and the creation of some kind of governing entity best known by the sunni term caliphate, to rule the world according to sharia. whether it is question or the islamic state or the al nusra front or islamiyah or the muslim brotherhood. that's the shared purpose and that's what makes this a toxic threat and must be addressed. >> most of the speakers spoke about political correctness as the problem.

i know it is a broad question. is there anything that can be done about political correctness? >> we get to vote every four years, that's helpful. >> that's a political corrective. >> well yeah the one thing you can do is make our military leadership live up to their oath of office. that's a good first step. and of course facing this -- we didn't really touch on it. but the unilateral disarmament of our military just didn't happen by chance. the economic meltdown that kevin talked about, you know, really was the perfect storm for obama to implement the unilateral disarmament of our military. and that's what's been going on. all this faculty lounge crap about how we're going to handle

future disputes through negotiations they forgot one important element. the only thing that makes diplomatic negotiations work is a strong military. because they know if they don't conform we're going to hammer them. right now we've been put on the defensive of that. all of that has to be turned around by this congress. the social engineering, undercutting morale and the win -- the fundamental will to win. this has to change. i'll stop there. >> thank you. claire? >> best way to counselor -- to counter political correctness is to simply refuse to abide by it. and thanks to all those here, by using the proper language by identifying the enemy as all

forces of islamic jihad and sharia and those who support them are refusing to use the terms like violent extremists, and instead saying these are islamic jihadis. all of us can help defeat and counterpolitical correctness. >> can i mention something, i have a radio program that we do as a product for the center for security policy each week. and i had the privilege of interview just today for tonight program neil monroe, highly regarded journalist. with the national journalists for the daily caller. i was interviewing him about a piece he had written earlier

this week about the white house press operations' stated determination to prevent reporters from cover stories in a way that might give offense to well the jihadists. and it was such a palpable example of what we might try to dress up as political correctness and in fact john ernst, the president's spokesman tried to dress it up further by saying he was doing it for the troops so ato protect them against the jihadists. in the wake of what happened in the past seven or eight days. let's be clear. this isn't political correctness. this is not multiculturalism.

it is not being sensitive to diversity. in the eyes of the enemy, as the very at least this is submission. submission means specifically to sharia blaspheme laws. and under the meteorologist that is animating the energy, or submit to indefinitely under horrific circumstances. we cannot let them think we're submitting because sharia tells them the appropriate response to that is to redouble the effort to make us feel subdued. that's koranic language for more jihad, more violence, more horrors.

the question of whether we political this political correctness is to see if we persist in a self-destructive course of action that will result in for of us being killed, more of us being subed. subdued, more of us being enslaved. tommy, did you want to say something? >> i did, frank. i think what i'd like to do for the audience is just ask everybody to bring it back to the basics. and in this environment where we have so many things to have to decide upon for the future of our nation, we need to remember that our constitution was not founded on accident. we need to remember when christopher columbus was commissioned to sail west it was after 781 years of struggle by the spaniards to rid that peninsula of jihadists.

when the marines land the at tripoli, it was against not pirates. it was against jihadists. so we have to remember that the very establishment of this nation the discovery of this nation was in a way, caused by that same movement. we think about that and our constitution how it was founded. if we root ourselves with the love of that document and the flag that stands for it, we'll figure out how to defeat the enemy. the last thing i'd ask, for everybody in the room that we take a moment to think about that flag, the one that's behind me in this room was deployed with me on every deployment, and i only unfolded it in combat environments. it's been flown over the

mountains of afghanistan, over the city of fallujah on september 11th 2005 over palaces that saddam once inhabited. and i never unfolded it on my deployments that were not combat. and i've learned something in the last year, that the fight is here. like frank said, civilization jihad is here. that's why that flag is unfurled. i would ask that everybody in the room take the opportunity to pledge allegiance to the flag in that room and remember it says we're here in defense of the constitution that protects us from this hostile ideology. that's all i have to say. thank you. >> thank you. >> we may close with that, that gesture. i think it is a good idea. i do want to make sure there aren't any other questions. yes, sir. >> michael goldstein.

30-year naval intelligence retiree and utility attorney now working in the nuclear energy space. firstly, i want to tell you what i heard on the news last night which is although the amplified call to prayer is not going to occur, the prayer service still it. anyway, i'm going to want to talk to kevin about this off line at some point. but our foundation is creating a new technology not so new created in the 1960s, but it's american technology which hasn't been developed which will create enough process heat to turn our tremendous coalfields into liquid transportation fields, gasoline and diesel, enough to satiate world demand and make middle east oil irrelevant. i think that's very important for the team. >> thank you very much. you're talking about thorium. >> molten salt reactors. >> molten salt reactors in

general. yes, ma'am. stand by, stand by microphone, please. >> jacqueline rose. i heard the same thing this morning and i believe they said that they would amplify it, but not from the big tower at a certain volume where the whole region heard it. it would be amplified at a lower volume within the quadrangle et cetera by mechanical means where people around that area would hear it. >> yes, that is true, but the important thing is the physical occupation of the christian chapel for those prayers will not happen. that's what's important. >> there seems to be some debate about this, but the point is whether it's in this instance or not, you can take it to the bank, that unless people of other faiths understand that what they're being duped by is a deliberate strategy of

subversion from within is this notion that bridge building and their participation in it is a sort of ecumenicalism and solidarity in defense of the first amendment, specifically real estate freedom right, is actual a cynical act on the part of those -- that they're interacting with. we're reminded of a passage from one of the most influential jihadist ideologues in modern times. his book milestones is required reading. they often find it on the battlefield, i believe, as a guidance. one thing he says about bridge building -- this is a close paraphrase -- is the chasm

between islam and the unbelievers is so vast, that no bridge can be built to span it except for the purpose of bringing the unbeliever to islam. in other words, this is a one way bridge every pastor, every chaplain, every priest every rabbi, what have you, who is being subjected to this kind of well, i think come hither why don't we say, is actual being victimized. i want to close this by bringing to the podium as a special and totally unexpected pleasure a man that i've come to know -- i got to give you one accolade. the man fighting to come to the microphone is the former 29th commandant of the united states marine corps a friend of the center for security policy the recipient in 2014 of our freedom shield award and one of the greatest americans i've ever had the privilege of know and

the perfect cap stone to this program, general algrave. >> i want to give my personal thanks to the panel and to really the entire group for a tremendous idea, a tremendous effort. and juan that we have to make work, we have to make it operate, we have to win this one. all of the people here that talk to us stress directly and indirectly the need for a total government effort. all the elements of national power and influence, be it economic, societal, political, technology, military, whatever, all of it has to be pulled together in a super interagency human effort for this to work. as ace pointed out, clearly we must have a congress on our side. we must have an administration that understands what is going

on and must have a judiciary capability that understands it as well. this is going to be a mammoth undertaking and mammoth educational undertaking. for all americans. and for all of those in the free world, that aspire to remain free. so one idea i would throw out to you, you got to make this not just u.s. if you'll recall, president reagan had nato and he was a strong believer in nato and he also had other treaty alliances and organizations in the pacific where ace was and so on. it has got to be a free world effort. and it does not have to hinge only on democracy. that's just a part of it. a lot of people are not interested in democracy. they're interested in security first and foremost. and we have to remember that. we don't want to go to areas and promote democracy when that's not the issue. the issue is for us to survive

as a nation, to continue to lead the free world in a totality of elements of national capability. i think our intelligence community has been wounded severely by the traitorous attack of snowden. we need to restore that and we need to restore that very, very quickly. the men and women who make up the intelligence community are -- be they military or civilian are super american people. they have a few that do things wrong once in a while, but generally speaking, you can take them to the bank and we need to reinforce that kind of capability with our intelligence community. we're ne-yo fights in the world of opposition, and we're losing the information war idea right now. what professor wilder said and others we've got to regain

that, what we had with the voice of europe and the freedom of america. we don't do that very well. how do we educate the american people and the free world as we know it? let's look at younger people. they're learning differently. they learn by different means. we've got to have an education program second to none. it's not just the old-fashioned idea of giving a lecture at a university and that kind of thing. it's got to be a broad-based effort that attacks the problem. we have to be very clear on how we define certain things. i think radical jihadists is the right approach there. not just jihad in total, because of what it means. as you all know the koran has been interpreted and reinterpreted several times and there are many similarities in all the great religions so we