HH: Mr. Wright, back to the situation at hand. In the United States, how, how deep is the penetration of al Qaeda into the American Muslim community?
LW: Oh, we are so fortunate, Hugh, by comparison with the situation in Europe. And people are always asking me, you know, what makes us safe? Are we safer? And what makes us safe is not the contact lens solution they might take away from you at the airport. What makes us safer is the fact that the average American Muslim makes a higher wage than the average American, is twice as likely to go to college, is much less likely to go to prison. Compare that with the situation in France, where you have about 10% of the population is Muslim, 50% of the prisoners are. The degree of alienation and marginalization that is felt in the Islamic communities in Europe is so stark by comparison with the integration of American Muslims into our society. That is just…it’s a profound difference. And there are radicals in America, plenty of them. But I remember one night in Birmingham, England. I was having Iftar with a group of radical Islamists, and one of them, this was maybe 2004, and one of them was talking about how he approved of the kidnapping and beheading of aid workers in Iraq. And as he was saying that, I thought you know, this guy is dangerous, and I know there are guys like him in the U.S. But I looked around the room, and there were these other people nodding their heads in agreement. And I thought it’s those nodding heads that are really dangerous, because they surround him with an approving community that allows him to conspire, and allows him to think these wicked thoughts. And that’s the difference, I think, between the Europe situation and the American. We don’t have the nodding heads. We might one day, but that’s the thing that makes it so difficult for sleeper cells and that kind of thing to organize in this country, because they don’t have the approving community they do in Europe.
HH: Do you, from your conversations with American intelligence analysts and police officers, do you believe that the cooperation with American authorities within the American Muslim community is to such an extent that we can spot and prevent jihadi attacks, as opposed to London where they say it’s a matter of time before they get hit again?