Securing America with Frank Gaffney Podcast

Cliff May

CLIFF MAY, President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies:

Segment One:

• The role played by the idea of a caliphate in the split between Al Qaeda and the Islamic State
• Differences and similarities between various Islamic terror groups
• Religious underpinnings of jihadists' beliefs
• Finding allies with Middle Eastern Muslims who disagree with radical Islamists

Segment Two:

• The need for a broad-ranging bill of congressional approval for the use of military force, against jihadist groups
• Will Afghanistan follow the same route as Iraq?
• Will Israel’s agreement into a ceasefire allow Hamas to fight another day?

Segment Three:

• Hamas' tactics in its recent conflict with Israel
• How reporting in Gaza and other Middle Eastern conflict zones is shaped by threats from terror groups
• Concerns that the Ayatollah of Iran feels increasing pressure to swiftly develop nuclear weapons because of his advancing age

Segment Four:

• Putin’s grand vision for a greater Russia
• China’s growing confidence in challenging American Pacific Hegemony
• The uncertain state of the Republican Party and its values

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Elliott Abrams, Yleem Poblete, Mark Krikorian

Rep. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Chaiman Emeritus of the House Foreign Affairs Committee:

• The world's failure to combat the Islamic State's hateful ideology
• Dangers of the “false security” the Administration provides when fighting global jihad
• President Obama's pursuit--via an executive agreement— of a new climate change treaty

ELLIOTT ABRAMS, former senior director on the National Security Council for Near East and North African affairs under Pres. George W. Bush:

• The viability of the current Israeli-Hamas ceasefire
• What is the potential for the US to expand its anti-Islamic State bombing campaign into Syria?
• Qatar and Turkey’s questionable ideological allies

Dr. YLEEM POBLETE, former Chief of Staff of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs:

• Evidence of the global jihadist threat in the Western Hemisphere
• Transforming US policy towards Latin America from a law enforcement to an international security fight
• Problems with the "Sept. 10” model of protecting America that is being applied to the border crisis

MARK KRIKORIAN, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies:

• National security threats associated with current U.S. immigration policy
• Rumors about a possible upcoming executive order granting amnesty to up to five million illegal aliens
• Implications of a lawsuit settlement between the Department of Homeland Security and the ACLU of San Diego on behalf of nine deported illegal immigrants
• Steps that prominent Republican politicians can take to change immigration policy

Clare Lopez, Jim Hanson, Diana West, Fred Fleitz

CLARE LOPEZ, former CIA operations officer:

• The importance of emphasizing the threat posed by Islamic jihad and shariah, and not simply individual terrorist groups
• Risks from the ease with which Westerners waging jihad overseas can reenter their countries of origin
• Saudi King Abdullah's warning against “Inter-Islamic Civil Strife,” which failed to address radical Islam

JIM HANSON, Former U.S. Special Operations Technical Weapons Sergeant:

• Should Task Force Black be turned loose against ISIS?
• A call for the U.S. to declare war on all practitioners of violent jihad and extremism
• Official government statements about a botched special-ops mission to rescue American journalist, James Foley

DIANA WEST, author of “American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on our Nation’s Character”:

• What is the core issue in addressing the proliferation of radical Islam?
• Evidence that there is an erosion of Western values and institutions taking place
• A look back at Soviet-Nazi collaboration and aggression in WWII

FRED FLEITZ, Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy:

• The capture of several Russian soldiers within Ukraine
• Prospects for peace after the latest Gaza-Israel ceasefire
• Presidential circumvention of congressional oversight to push a climate change agenda
• Appropriate measures for effectively containing the Islamic State

Lt Gen. Jerry Boykin, Erick Stakelbeck, Andy McCarthy, David Satter

Lt. Gen JERRY BOYKIN (retired), former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence:

• How threatening is the Islamic State to the United States?
• Appropriate ways to intervene in Iraq
• Evidence that the border crisis is enabling jihadist infiltration of the U.S.

ERICK STAKELBECK, Terrorism Analyst for CBN News

• The Muslim Brotherhood’s connection to global jihad
• Strained relations between the United States and Israel
• An intervention against Islamist targets in Libya launched by an Arab coalition

ANDY MCCARTHY, author of “Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment”:

• Problems with the media imagining ideological differences between groups such as Al Qaeda, the Al-Nusra Front, and ISIS
• Does President Obama’s approach to counterterrorism resemble the U.S.’s pre-9/11 strategy?
• Eric Holder and the Justice Department’s showcase of domestic policy in Ferguson, Missouri

DAVID SATTER, former Moscow correspondent and Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute:

• Purported Russian humanitarian aid bound for Eastern Ukraine
• Is Putin’s potential land grab in Ukraine to be used as a pretense for domestic repression?
• A summit meeting between Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and Kazak and Belorussian leaders
• Likelihood that Russia would dare use force against a NATO-member state

Gordon Chang, Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, Amb. Eric Edelman, and Roger Noriega

GORDON CHANG, author of "The Coming Collapse of China":

• Erratic behavior from Chinese pilots leading to close encounters with U.S. military aircraft
• President Xi Jinping's "Chinese Dream"
• Evidence that North Korea is developing a long-range nuclear missile

RALPH PETERS, Army Lt. Col (retired) and Fox News Analyst:

• The scope and intensity of the U.S. air campaign against the Islamic State
• Ways to address conflict hotspots that serve as strategic vacuums for jihadist campaigns
• Understanding the wider dimension of malfeasance in the Middle East giving rise to extremists

Amb. ERIC EDELMAN, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Finland:

• The nature of the Turkish relationship with the Islamic State
• Uncertainty about Turkey's future standing as a NATO member and a trusted U.S. ally
• Recent findings of the National Defense Panel's review of the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, in regards to U.S. military preparedness

ROGER NORIEGA, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs:

• Political abuse of the national security crisis at the U.S.'s southern border
• President Obama's rhetoric and the "pull-factor" bringing illegal migrants into the country
• Sale of petroleum company Citgo by a financially desperate Venezuelan government
• Brazil's upcoming presidential elections

Michael Widlanski

MICHAEL WIDLANSKI, author of “Battle For Our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat”

Segment One:

• American foreign policy’s history of disbelieving the promises of enemies because they seem so outlandish—Nazism, Communism, and now Islamism
• Dangers from the competing brands of radical Islam that have no regard for other religions or people they deem “less Muslim” or the “wrong type” of Muslim

Segment Two:

• Israel’s history of success when ignoring advice to leave Islamist terror groups alone
• What is Hezbollah?
• Information campaigns promoting the watered-down teaching of Arabic and Islamist history in many of the top US universities

Segment Three:

• Trouble for the Saudi state as it confronts jihad closer to home
• Dangers of the Obama Administration believing that the Muslim Brotherhood is the key to stopping Al Qaeda
• Attempts by Saudi Arabia and Qatar to focus the Muslim Brotherhood’s jihad aspirations away from those countries by bankrolling it

Segment Four:

• Obama’s historical severe treatment of Israel, and close relationship with Turkish Prime Minister (and now President-elect) Erdogan
• Israeli perspectives on where the US-Israel relationship stands
• Israeli and Jewish-American thoughts on Israel’s security and right to self-defense

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry

PETER PRY, Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security:

Segment One:

• Details of the EMP threat: what it is, where it could come from, and why recovering from a widespread blackout would be devastatingly slow

Segment Two:

• Lessons learned from a highly organized and well-equipped assault on a California electric transformer last year
• How cyber hacking can cause the physical destruction of power grid components
• Natural occurring threats to the grid

Segment Three

• Looking at the societal and infrastructural breakdown after Hurricane Katrina as a microcosm of what would happen if the grid went down long-term

Segment Four

• North Korea’s EMP dry-run over the DC-NYC air corridor
• US Military’s success in protecting its grid infrastructure
• Problems with Congress and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation holding up efforts to protect America’s grid
• Success stories in enacting legislative change

Bill Roggio

BILL ROGGIO, managing editor of the Long War Journal:

Segment One:

• Why the divide between Al Qaeda and the Islamic State?
• Policy reasons behind the Obama Administration’s hesitancy to see ISIS in the role it sees itself in

Segment Two:

• A battle of strength between the Islamic State, the Iraqi Army, and the Peshmerga
• Where is the Islamic State most likely to spread to next?

Segment Three:

• Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s roles in the global jihadist movement
• Iranian support for and cooperation with both Shia and Sunni jihadist terror groups
• Jihadist connections in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria

Segment Four:

• Hezbollah and Hamas’ reach into the Western Hemisphere
• Civilization jihad in the US

Ryan Mauro, Michael Auslin, John Schindler, Paul Roderick Gregory

RYAN MAURO, National Security Analyst at the Clarion Project:

• Discrepancies in public perception of Hamas and the Islamic State, despite their similar goal
• Declining public approval of Hamas in Palestine

MICHAEL AUSLIN, Director of Japan Studies at the American Enterprise Institute:

• China's continued assertion of its hard power, making it the dominant player in East Asia
• The inherent need for the U.S. to provide support to and ally with smaller Asian nations
• The U.S. stance towards China: a difficult balance of security and economics

JOHN SCHINDLER, Former NSA Intelligence Analyst:

• Revelations that Germany has been spying on allied nations
• Edward Snowden and Julian Assange's questionable use to their host countries

PAUL RODERICK GREGORY, Fellow at the Hoover Institution:

• Russia's purported humanitarian aid convoy to Eastern Ukraine
• Putin’s miscalculating and dangerous Ukrainian policy
• Did Russia intend to shoot down an Aeroflot as a pretext for invading Ukraine?

Claudia Rosett, Maria Werlau, Gordon Chang, Bing West

CLAUDIA ROSETT, Journalist in Residence at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies:

• Is the UNWRA program encouraging malicious Hamas behavior?
• The enormous U.N. relief effort essentially being transformed into an overly-generous entitlement program
• Concerns that Hamas is using the cover of UNWRA facilities to launch rockets

MARIA WERLAU, Director of Cuba Archive:

• The rekindling of the strategic relationship between Cuba and Russia
• The future of the Castro totalitarian regime after the deaths of Fidel and Raul
• Can Cuba still be accurately described as a communist country?
• Thoughts on the reports of a recent USAID covert operation in Cuba

GORDON CHANG, author of "The Coming Collapse of China":

• Pope Francis' attempts to have an open dialogue with the Chinese communist government
• Is the Chinese regime creating its own state-based sect of Christianity?
• Security concerns over Apple's move of its cloud-based data to servers in China

BING WEST, author of the upcoming book, "One Million Steps":

• In Iraq, the war won by boots on the ground and the peace lost by politicians
• America's fatal mistake of enabling Nouri al-Maliki's rise to power
• Chances that CIA operators and U.S. Special Forces Advisors are covertly re-inserted into the Anbar Province