AUTHOR FAQ – “CITIZEN SOLDIER HANDBOOK”


Why did you write this book?
Americans are people who take action.  But right now the fight against Radical Islam is not well-defined for people to do so.    There are, of course, our brave men and women in the Armed Forces and the countless people supporting them.     But the majority of people who believe that this is an important fight want to take action but are not sure what can help in the fight.

And what do tell Americans to do?
First of all, I have the fight broken down into five sections.  Morale – know what you’re fighting for, or you won’t want to fight.  Intel which is to gain an understanding of Radical Islam as an enemy.   Brief sections on Physical and Mental Training.  And then the final section on “Action” which is the main focus of the book anyway.  Action takes a vast array of interests and skills.   You can use media skills to publicize the threat of Radical Islam.    You can prepare for Emergency Situations.  You can learn simple First Aid.  You can setup websites to promote democracy in countries with dictatorships – that helps too.   There's a lot more than 101 ways actually because sometimes each 'way' has two, three, four or five subsections.

What projects in media are you referring to?
I did some volunteer projects for a group called Children for Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Los Angeles.  Videos mostly which highlighted the threat against Israel and America.  I worked with Doris Montrose, the leader of that group, to push AB221, a bill which passed in California.  That bill prohibits the investment of pension funds in companies doing business with Iran.  In effect, it stops the investment of our own money with countries that sponsors terrorist groups that want to kill us.  I also did videos for Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy and his Divest.org site which is similar.     I also line produced a video for David Zucker, the director of the ‘Scary Movie’ series as well as ‘Airplane’ and ‘An American Carol’.   The video was called the Iraq Study Group and was viewed by over a million people.

You’ve been saying Radical Islam but isn’t that characterizing all Muslims in a negative way?
No, not at all.   There are Muslims who respect and want a society in which religion does not dictate everything.  A secular and democratic society.   Then there are those who believe in Radical Islam, called Islamists, who believe that the Koran should dictate every facet of one’s life – family, courts, finance, marriage, rights and more.   I have travled to Egypt and Dubai.  In Egypt, I had many conversations with people – Muslims – who do not want the religious model for their government.    In Egypt, many admire America.   The challenge is not one’s personal religion but whether or not the religion becomes one’s government.  The Radical Islamists believe that it does.

Is Radical Islam a genuine threat or is it overblown by the media?
Radical Islam is a genuine threat.   The power of the individual to make weapons and create destruction has increased enormously over the last few decades with computer power.  The power to have increased control over metallurgy and other processes for nuclear weapons, bio or chemical warfare.   My first Mac powerbook had more computer power than the first space shuttle. That’s a lot of power in an individual’s hands – or a terrorist group working with advanced communications and technology.       The threat of Radical Islam is both immediate and long-term.   Immediate in the sense that they are bent on murdering innocent men, women and children everywhere.  Mumbai, 9/11, Spain and more every day.

In Spain, their bombing campaign at the train stations swayed their electorate to choose a government that would pull out of the fight against Radical Islam.  The terrorists learned that bombs can change the foreign policy of a nation.  Bombs in an operation that cost a hundred thousand dollars when all was said and done for transportation, materials, false papers, travel, and more.

But you said ‘Long Term’?
Indeed, they are thinking long-term.  Very long term.  There was a story that I was told about two Arab farmers, in their eighties, who had farms right next to each other.  One day, one farmer goes over to the other and hits him in the head with a shovel and kills him.  When asked why he did this, the farmer replied that the dead man insulted him sixty five years ago.   The questioner simply asked, ‘why are you so impatient?’  They are thinking long term.  They are patient. They invented or certainly played chess for a long time in this part of the world.

In the long term sense, you have a cultural invasion.  This means that anything said about Radical Islam  - even if it’s the truth – is an insult to Islam.  That means death.  That means that we no longer have genuine Free Speech because we are self-censoring.   So there’s a cultural invasion based on using our own Western sensitivies – some overly politically correct – about race and religion.  And then there’s the simple long term demographic.  Western socities birth rates, particularly Europe, Russia and Japan, are imploding while the birth rate of Muslims soars.  In two generations, there will be 25% of the Spaniards that there are today.  

What is your objective with the book?
I wanted Americans to realize that this war against Radical Islam, or what is also called War against Islamic Totalitarianism, is also a war that they could fight against.  In World War II, we relied a great deal on the production of war materials.   The fighting men were supported by the factories, the Rosie the Riveters, of which my wife’s grandmother was one.  She made bomb racks in Long Beach.  But this war is a war of culture, ideas and information.   This information affects how we even approach the problem.  You see, in a free democracy, anybody can influence their elected representative.  That includes people who are citizens of the United States who believe in its overthrow by violent means to institute a Sharia based government.   So everyone, no matter their age, resources or station, can fight with Information.  

What was your inspiration for the book?
The inspiration took some time to materialize.  While I had been following national security events for a long time – I know history, weapons, geography and warfare – the real events started with World Trade Center One, in 1993.    At that time, the Clinton administration moved forward with this even as a law enforcement matter.  It was as if a bunch of thugs were bombing the building with extortion or some other criminal motive.   But their motive was terrorism – to kill as many innocent people as possible to make a political statement with their violence.   I thought that the Clintonistas were completely ignorant as to the development of Fatah, the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups who had far greater aims.    I think that America lost eight years with the Clinton approach in terms of fighting terrorism earlier than later.   But Clinton was ultimately naïve on this subject.

My motivation acclerated after our troops went into Iraq so I just kept lists of things that I was doing and sending them to people so that they might spot an action that they’d like to take.   Gradually, those lists got bigger and bigger until I thought that I had something bigger here, like a book.