Allen West：Threats to America and the Minority Power

Hi, welcome to Focus Talk. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West is a combat veteran and a former member of the U.S. Congress. He gave the closing remark at the Conservative Minority Conference at Dallas in September. I sat down with Colonel West to discuss the importance of having the minority community's voices be heard, the situation in Afghanistan, and the CCP's threat to America. So, Colonel, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. It's always a pleasure to be with you, and welcome to Texas. Thank you. Now, this is a minority conservative conference. So, could you tell us first, why are you here? Because I'm a minority and I'm a conservative. Good answer. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think it's very important that we reconnect the conservative message into the minority communities, because what you have seen happen in the black community, which was a very strong conservative community, the policies of the left have decimated that community. It's destroyed our families. It's destroyed business and economic opportunities. It's destroyed education opportunities. What do you see happening in all of the major urban population centers that are controlled by Democrats for the past 60, maybe 70 years? You see the high crime rates. You see the violence. You see the gang activity. You see despair, and you see despondency. Why? Because they really promote people to be victims instead of victors. I think it's so important that we bring all of these minority communities together to say to the Hispanic community, to say to the Asian community, this progressive socialism, this leftism, this Marxism, it's not what you believe in, especially when you look at countries like China, or you look at some of the countries down in South America. So, I think it's a great thing that we can all come together and hear these thoughts and perspectives. Yesterday and the day before, a lot of people talked about CRT, things like those kind of ideology. I know you were born and raised in Atlanta. Yes, ma'am. The same neighborhood where Dr. King once preached. So, he has this famous saying that he hoped one day his children were leaving the nation. They're judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, and how incredible that we are going backwards and we're looking at people based upon the color of their skin. We're looking at people to say that if you have a certain skin color, you're evil, you're an oppressor, and if you have another different type of skin color, you're a victim, and you're oppressed. I spent 22 years in the United States military, and to have that cultural Marxism even making its way into the military, how can you have a cohesive fighting force if you're telling one group that they're bad and you're telling the other group that you can never be anything because they're bad? How did we get here? How did the country get here? We stopped paying attention. We got apathetic. We got complacent and leftism, progressivism. Chairman Mao once said, it's the long, slow march. So, it's that system of incrementalism that a little bit here, a little bit there, and the next thing you know, here we are 50, 60, 70 years later. So, that's what has happened. You were introduced as a constitutional conservative on the website. So, America is in essence a constitutional republic, right? Not really a democratic. No, it's not. I mean, when people say that America is a democracy, I kind of want to slap them around a little bit. We're a constitutional republic, which means that we're based upon two things, the rule of law and individual rights, freedoms, and liberty. Now, we have a representative democracy, which is the means by which we elect those individuals to go and be our voices in the halls of government, being at the federal level, state level, or the local level. But we need to get back to understanding our history, our founding documents. And one of the things that you see with this cultural race theory is that America wasn't established on July the 4th of 1776. It's 1619 when the first slave ship arrived. How insidious is that? Or we don't teach civics, and so we don't understand our three branches of government, the checks and balances that are there, the separation of powers. So now all of a sudden, someone can stand up like we just saw Joe Biden do and say that everyone's going to have to get a jab in the arm or private companies, you can start firing them. You don't have that enumerated power to do that. But yet we don't understand that mandates, edicts, orders, and decrees are not the same as law. Law is something that's gone through the legislative branch, and then the executive signs it into action, into law, and he enforces that law, and the judicial branch interprets that law. So we've got to go back to ground zero. See, yeah, that's why I think a lot of people don't realize that, the difference in terms of the role of the state and the role of the federal government. Yeah, they don't. Who has what right, and the constitutional value, the basic founding principles. So is this something that actually should be taught to people more? Absolutely, and that's what should be in our schools, and that's why it's a great opportunity to have a conference like this so we can discuss those things. When you look at the Declaration of Independence, it says free and independent states created these United States of America. When you look at the Constitution and the 10th Amendment, where it says all of those powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states and to the people. We've got to understand that system of federalism. The true strength in the United States of America is at the state level. But what do we see happening? We see almost authoritarian, dictatorial rule coming out of Washington, D.C. and the federal government, not through a legislative process, but just through executive order. A lot of people don't seem to realize the danger, I guess, the country is facing, or the situation that we're in. For example, they may not think that socialism is bad, or it's good that we should get more equal. What do you think we should do? You bring up a great point, because that word equal has two different meanings. I was born in 1961 in a blacks-only hospital in Georgia. Now, according to the other side, I should not be sitting here with you. I should not be a retired lieutenant colonel from the United States Army. I should not have been a former member of the House of Representatives, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, the largest state Republican party, and now running for governor of Texas. But America is based upon equality of opportunity. It says no matter where you're born, you can achieve whatever dreams, goals, and aspirations you want, as long as you have that in your heart, that determination. What the left believes in is equality of outcomes. Completely different. That's where you hear this talk about equity. The left is all about social egalitarianism. Everyone's going to be a C student. No A's and B's students, and the D and F students, we're going to bring them up to C level. We're going to take it from the A and B students so everyone's at the same C level. That's not what we want. We don't want to just have a country full of a bunch of average Joes. We want people to be able to determine that I want to excel. I want something great. I want to open up a business. I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to shoot for the stars. But that's not what the left wants. The left wants to be able to determine who gets to shoot for the stars. They want to pick the winners and the losers. That's what progressivism, socialism, Marxism, communism, statism is all about. I think that we're getting that message out there now. Yeah. I was talking to the Virginia mom, Shivan Threat, who spoke up against CRT at this Loudoun County school board meeting. She talks about this equal opportunity versus equal outcome kind of mindset. Yes, that's the same thing. She said the only way that you can have an equal outcome is to do it by force. Yes. Otherwise, there's no way you can do it. And that's how socialism advances itself. Communism is by deceit, it's by coercion, intimidation, threat, and ultimately violence. And that's exactly what we see happening here in America. That's what we've seen throughout the 20th century with Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, Stalin and communism. We see it in North Korea. We see it in China. We've seen it in Cuba. We've seen it in Venezuela. And so there's a saying that in the book of Ecclesiastes from Solomon, there's nothing new under the sun. There is no, yeah, nothing new. And it seems like right now, the left, like you were referring to, and the traditional ideology, they're fighting for people. They are. The two sides are dragging, right? They're fighting for the minds. Fighting for the minds, for the people. What's your thought in terms of getting more people realize this fight and realize the truth and realize the value of the traditional? Well, I will tell you, I'm very encouraged when all of a sudden we're starting to see people show up at school board meetings. Two years ago, most people didn't even know who their school board member was. But now you see people paying attention and you see people actually running for those races. So I think it's so important. The most important elected position is school board in the United States of America. Now we have people that are interested, people are paying attention. So that's a good thing. When you have conferences like this and meetings like this, it's so important because it gives us an opportunity to inform, to educate before we go out and we get activated. So I see a great awakening happening here in the United States of America. And it's sad that certain things have to happen to shake people out of that state of complacency and apathy. But when you start to look at how your freedoms and liberties are being usurped and taken away from you, now people are waking up. Now they have a sense of urgency. They do. So let's talk a little bit about CCP, the Chinese Communist Party. They suck. I mean, you hear what I just said? Xi Jinping, you suck. So how big of a threat do you think it is? It's a huge threat. It's our number one geopolitical foe. We have seen what happened with the Wuhan virus. China understood something, that we did not defeat the Soviet Union militarily. We defeated the Soviet Union economically. And what China had as a goal was how do we inject ourselves into the global economy and to use capitalism, but still retain our communist way, our ideology, our dictatorial authoritarian manner. And that's exactly what they have done. And sadly, we have people in Western economies, they want the cheap goods, they want things that are easy, and they have allowed China to come in and become like a tick. It has implanted itself in and is gorging itself and getting bigger and bigger. And somehow we've got to extract that tick out of our world. But is it too late to do it? No, it's not too late. I don't think it's too late. I think that right now with this Biden administration coming in, and I have to say, I think that Joe Biden and his family is compromised when it comes to communist China, and especially when we see what just happened in Afghanistan, where now the Taliban is developing a status of forces agreement with China, so they can come in and take Bagram Air Base. And what else do the Chinese want? The CCP, what do they want? They want the raw materials and the minerals that are there in Afghanistan, especially lithium, which is so important, electric vehicles, batteries, and things of that nature. So when I look at Texas, I mean, here in Texas, we have an issue with a former member of the People's Liberation Army that has bought up a huge tract of land down by Del Rio, Texas, close to the border, also near one of our preeminent Air Force bases, Laughlin Air Base. But then we also have headquarters with ZTE and Huawei right here in North Texas. Oh, right here? Right here. One is in Richardson, Texas, which is probably the second largest tech hub here in the state of Texas, and another in Plano. And so we are seeing these infiltrations happen, and that's one of the things that I think we've got to make sure that if you have connections to the CCP, you can't be doing business here in the state of Texas. You shouldn't be doing business here in the United States of America. So what kind of legislation could prevent that? Well, they just passed something called the Texas Infrastructure Protection Act in this last legislative session. But the point is that you've got to enforce it. So you can put something on the books, but if you're not doing anything about it, who cares? So I think that you have to enforce that legislation to look at this person and say, I don't know who the real estate agent who sold you this, but you're not going to be able to do what you want to put an airstrip there, put wind turbines up, 700 feet high wind turbines. What's the purpose of that? Especially when you're on the flight path of a major training facility for United States Air Force pilots. Well, I don't know if you have heard of this. There's a recent report developed by FireEye. I think it's an intelligence group or organization. They studied the information war by the CCP, and they said that there's this influence campaign since like the June of 2019, and it now expands to like dozens of social media platform and websites in at least seven languages. So they promote this kind of narrative. They're using the racism and the origin of the virus. So they're saying, oh, the virus originally came from US, and they even try to mobilize protesters in New York to go on the street and to protest so-called racism in America. What's your thought on this kind of information campaign? How dangerous could it be? Well, there are four elements to a nation's power, and it's called the dime theory. That's something we learned in the military. It's diplomatic, informational, military, and economic. When you look at the information operations that the CCP is using against the United States of America, being at the cyber aspect of it or getting out there on social media, vomiting, different types of dissension and what have you, it was very interesting that early on in Alaska, when the Biden administration sat down with the Chinese government, the CCP's administration, they started to condemn America about its racism and everything like that. They're very manipulative, and so that's why one of the best books I can recommend to people is to read Sun Tzu's Art of War. That was mandatory reading for me as a young lieutenant back in 1982, and I think that if I could have said one thing to Donald Trump, I would have said, don't worry about the art of the deal. You should be reading The Art of War, because you need to understand all of those aspects, the strategic, operational, and tactical level, all of those means by which you can get into your opposition's decision cycle, get into their mind. The thing that Sun Tzu talked about, the artful strategist wins the battle before the first shot is even fired. That's what I think you see happening with the CCP. They're trying to set the conditions to when they fight before there's even the first bullet fired. I think there's another famous saying in the book that says, if you know yourself... Know yourself, know your enemy, and know the environment, in countless amounts of battles, you will always be successful. But if you know only yourself and you don't know your enemy, for every battle that you win, you will lose a battle. Well, I think you really... How many times you've read the book? Oh, about four times. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's highlighted, and it's there in my home. I have two different copies of it. Wow. Okay, so I wanted to ask you this thing. I don't know if it's too sensitive, but this is the hottest news since yesterday. General Milley, right? Oh, no, that's not too sensitive. If this does pan out to be true, this is a major issue for the United States military because you have the senior military officer in the United States of America, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, colluding with our number one geopolitical foe. And not just that, but also having discussions about he would undermine the power of the commander-in-chief. He would have to step down and resign. Yeah, but if you read the way some media talks about it, or the headline, to the uneducated, it seems like, oh, that may happen under some circumstance, but it's not. No, that should not happen under any circumstances. And when you have General Milley, who was saying that he was more so concerned about white rage, and cultural Marxism, and critical race theory being taught in the military, when you look at the debacle that just happened in Afghanistan, and now China's going to be able to come in there and take over Bagram Air Base, you start to connect dots, and that's very disconcerting. So why do you think it's happening? Are they too afraid to open fire with the CCP military? I think that what the American people are starting to see is that, and we know in the military, once you get past the one-star level—Brigadier General, Rear Admiral, all the other promotions, two-star, three-star, four-star—are political appointments. And we now have a politicized military at the upper echelons. And that's very troubling, because you're supposed to be focused on your oath you took to the Constitution, and the welfare of the men and women that you're called to serve. And so I think that right now, we have to ask ourselves the preparedness of our military. When you start to say that you want to force this shot on all the members of the military, which is unethical, unlawful, and immoral order, you're going to see a lot of young men and young women in the military saying, I'm out of here, because you don't have that right to be able to do that. And that's going to affect our military readiness. Ronald Reagan talked about peace through strength. And I think that during the Trump administration, you had that, you saw that. But the other side just waited us out, because they really believe that the American people are as fickle as we can be and as nonsensical as we can be sometimes in selecting our elected leadership. That's exactly what happened. We elected a person to be president of the United States of America that should probably just be sitting in a retirement home. So what do you think people should do if they're concerned about the future of America? Get involved, get activated, and you've got to make sure you elect the right people from the local level all the way up to the federal level that will protect your life, your liberty, your property, and your pursuit of happiness. Those are your inalienable rights. Those are your natural rights that come from the Creator God. But how much confidence do people still have on the election? We just saw that the California recall election failed. Well, that's one of the things that we have to fight here in Texas to get election integrity laws passed. You saw that in Georgia. You saw it in Arizona. So again, it comes down to states having strong state leadership and strong state legislatures to get these things passed. You just mentioned Afghanistan. I spent two and a half years there. Wow. My most highly respect to our military and our servicemen. So now that the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban took over, many are worried that terrorism risk will increase. It is going to increase. We have a big concern here in Texas. We have a 1,254-mile border that's completely unsecured. The federal government has said they're not doing anything about it. We have a governor here in the state of Texas not doing anything about it. On August the 29th, we had a young man by the name of Imran Ali Rashid who called up a Lyft driver over in the city that I live in, Garland, Texas. The Lyft driver, her name was Isabella Lewis, came to pick him up. He shot and killed her. Then he took her vehicle and drove over to the police station in Plano, Texas, and opened fire in the police station. The FBI recovered a letter in his home that said he attributed his actions to being inspired by foreign Islamic terrorist organizations. Like I said, this was just three Sundays ago, so we're already seeing it happen. We have apprehended five individuals in the El Paso sector here that were on the terrorist watch list from Yemen and also from Syria. So the cartels are terrorist organizations within themselves. They're already working with Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. If you don't think that the Taliban, ISIS, and al-Qaeda are going to work with those cartels who will take money from anybody and get people into the United States of America through Texas, then you're delusional. We are at a greater national security threat than we were 20 years ago. Now we have taken the Taliban, the exact same people that we removed from power that Barack Obama released from Gitmo, and now they're back in power. By the way, they have the 30th largest air force in the world. They have more Black Hawk helicopters than Australia. They have 6,000 night vision devices and all the other equipment that we left there. We made them a more powerful military force in 20 years. Now they're talking to the CCP. So what's the biggest threat that you see facing America nowadays? Is it everything? Terrorism? It is the whole thing. It is a new axis of evil, which will be China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Islamic terrorism. What you have now actually created is an incredible land bridge of Islamic terrorism that extends from Afghanistan, through Iran, through Iraq, to Syria, to Lebanon. It goes all the way over to the Mediterranean. If you are Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel, you need to be very nervous. Since you mentioned Taiwan, I have to ask you, because people said that strategically, it is right for the U.S. to withdraw from Afghanistan because then the U.S. can divert their attention on the Indo-Pacific area. No, you got to be able to walk and chew gum strategically. For us to have had 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and providing the air cover and intelligence so that we could keep the Taliban, al-Qaeda, ISIS, whoever, from having a sanctuary, that's worth it strategically. We can also focus assets over in the Pacific to make sure that we protect Taiwan. I don't think that this administration is going to go into a strong status of forces agreement with Taiwan, and that's why you see all of the saber-rattling coming out of China right now. This is a very dangerous situation for the world. Anything on the bright side, more positive side? The bright side is that, as Winston Churchill once said, you can always count on Americans to eventually do what is right when they have tried everything else. Okay, so let's count on that. I think a lot of people are working toward that. I'm one of them. Yeah, great. Thank you so much, Colonel. Always a pleasure. All the best with your future endeavors. Thank you. Come on back to see us here in Texas. Sure, definitely.