By Emily Medeiros | The Daily Signal
A group with special operations and intelligence skills and filmmaker Chris Burgard teamed up on Saturday to teach pastors in East Texas how to respond to the rise of Islam in the Lone Star State.
The Allied Special Intelligence Group is an organization that uses its knowledge of special operations military skills, counterintelligence, and human intelligence to educate and train citizens on how to “legally and lawfully, delay, disrupt, dismantle, and remove Communists/Marxists and Terrorists networks from our communities in order to restore and protect our Constitutional Republic.”
Two of the group’s operatives, John Bennett, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and former Oklahoma state representative, and Matt Shea, who served as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army and is a conservative lawyer, pastor, and politician who served in the Washington House of Representatives from 2009 to 2021, took up the task of educating the Texas pastors about the threat of Islamification.
Bennett and Shea, both of whom have previously been deployed in the Middle East, were there at the invitation of Pine Baptist Church Pastor Ben Warrick. Warrick told the Daily Signal that he organized the training at his church because he wanted others in his community to be informed.
“Although we don’t have any mosques in Pittsburg or in Camp County, we have some in Mount Pleasant, that’s really close,” Warrick said. “And honestly, Dallas-Fort Worth, Plano, that area, that’s not far.”
“I want to be prepared,” Warrick told the Daily Signal.
“I think we’re in a war. It’s a battleground and I would like to be the tip of the spear and be able to do that strategically, but I’m more of a blunt force, so I’ve got some learning to do,” Warrick added.
The training began with a showing of Burgard’s film “Remember the Alamo: Don’t Sharia My Texas.” (see trailer below)
The film argues that there is a coordinated effort to introduce Sharia law into American society, with Texas serving as the primary target. The film was used to introduce the pastors to what Islam is and why it is a threat to the state and the country.
Bennett and Shea’s presentation claimed that Islamists seek the destruction of Western civilization and that Sharia law is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution, including the First, Second, Fourth, Eighth, 13th, and 14th Amendments.
The pair said the threat is especially palpable in Texas because their research claims to have identified at least 314 mosques operating in Texas.
Bennett and Shea drew attention to a 1991 memorandum by the Muslim Brotherhood that uses the term “civilization jihad” to describe a strategy for advancing Islamist goals in the West.
The memorandum says this jihad has political, social, and religious dimensions and aims to infiltrate civic groups and other institutions like law enforcement.
Bennett and Shea said the church is the main target of Islamists.
“I think it’s really important to understand that the church has been the main target forever. It’s been the main target for 100 years for the communist movement, the last 50 for the Islamic movement,” Shea told the Daily Signal in an interview after the event.
“The church is what conserves the values that have made this country great, and that’s why they want to attack it.”
Shea said the way they attack the church is to “undermine the Word of God, denigrate the supernatural aspect of Christianity, and then convince people that it was morally right to stay out of politics and not be involved in the political sphere.”
“They all say they deserve First Amendment rights, but what they follow is antithetical to our U.S. Constitution,” Bennett told the Daily Signal. “It literally violates our own Constitution.”
“A lot of Americans are confused. They think, ‘Well, the First Amendment is the freedom of religion,’ which it is, but they don’t understand what it really means,” Bennett continued. “If you go all the way back to our founding documents, George Mason, who is one of our Founding Fathers, argued and said, as they were crafting the First Amendment, we need freedom of religion, but he was only talking about the Christian religion, the different sects of Christian religion.”
During the presentation, Bennett pulled examples from key pre-Revolution documents, including excerpts from the Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies, the Mayflower Compact, and statements made by former elected officials in the 1600s.
He also referenced George Washington’s general orders at Valley Forge from 1778.
“While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion,” Washington wrote. “To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.”
“One of the biggest questions I get all the time is, is Islam a religion,” Bennett told the Daily Signal in an interview following the presentation. “Islam itself says that it’s not a religion, it’s a complete way of life—social, military, political.”
This totalizing aspect of Islam, according to Bennett and Shea, is what has formed the “Red-Green Axis,” a term used by some political commentators to describe what they characterize as an alliance between communist or far-left groups, represented by “red,” and Islamist groups, represented by “green.” They claim this axis is opposed to national sovereignty and individual freedoms.
According to Shea, there are multiple radical groups operating within the Red-Green Axis, including the John Brown Gun Club, Antifa, Unity of Fields, Sunrise Movement, No Kings, and the Democratic Socialists of America.
The John Brown Gun Club, Antifa, Unity of Fields, Sunrise Movement, No Kings, and the Democratic Socialists of America did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Retired Army Lt. Col. and former Republican candidate for Texas governor Pete “Doc” Chambers attended the East Texas event.
Chambers said the Islamic and Sharia problem is a “caliphate problem.”
“We have a system that’s coming into Texas, coming into the United States, that is trying to take over the governance of the United States,” Chambers said.
Chambers said he attended the event because he wants to know how to stop Islamism from taking over the state and the country.
“The main thing is that we need to see our leaders lead, and the lesser magistrates, our local level magistrates, follow,” Chambers said. “But if our magistrates, and if our upper level leaders don’t do it, it’s up to us.”
Chambers, who said he has worked in the intelligence field in Texas, said there are about 400 mosques in Texas, which he referred to as “lily pads.” He said most people view them as “benign.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time downrange. I know what those places were, and those were forward operating bases for a lot of bad stuff, just to keep it simple,” Chambers explained.
Chambers reiterated that Texas is the number one enemy to the Islamic caliphate.
“A caliphate means to take over the world, but they’re doing it in Texas, and Texas is the number one enemy to them; the number one target for the caliphate,” Chambers said. “Because if you take down Texas, the rest of the country goes.”
First published on The Daily Signal
STARRS Board of Advisors member Lt. Col. Allen West, USA ret, is in this film. Watch trailer:
New Film Highlights Concerns Over Sharia Law, Islamic Expansion in Texas
By Emily Medeiros, The Daily Signal
On July 4, a documentary titled “Remember the Alamo: Don’t Sharia My Texas” was released, drawing attention from supporters and critics alike over its information on Islam.
The film, created by Chris Burgard, argues that there is a coordinated effort to introduce Sharia law into American society, with Texas serving as the primary target. Throughout the documentary, speakers claim that Dallas has become the “Mecca of the West.”
The documentary opens by recounting the Battle of the Alamo during the Texas Revolution in 1836 before shifting to the new threat Burgard says the state now faces in the threat of Islam.
Burgard interviews several individuals throughout the film, including former U.S. Rep. Allen West, former FBI Special Agent and counterterrorism expert John Guandolo, investigative journalist Lara Logan, and retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
STARRS Town Hall: “The Threat of the Red-Green Axis” with speaker John Guandolo
According to the documentary, Islamic leaders are working to expand Islam’s influence in Texas. The film includes clips of Islamic scholars and imams discussing their religious beliefs and goals, as well as segments examining terrorist attacks carried out on U.S. soil. Burgard also argues that Islamic organizations have increasingly used litigation, or “lawfare,” to advance their objectives.
The documentary features an interview with Aziz Budri, Muslim scholar and founder of the Muslim Association of America, discussing his views on Islam and its practice.
Another portion of the film focuses on Nigeria, where Burgard shows how tens of thousands of Christians in the region have been killed by Islamic groups. The documentary includes an interview with a Nigerian journalist who explains how Muslims are systematically executing jihad in the country.
Logan also recounts her experience covering the 2011 protests in Egypt, during which she was beaten and sexually assaulted for almost 40 minutes. Her testimony, along with comments from her husband, is used in the documentary to illustrate the dangers women face in Muslim-majority countries.
Burgard told the Daily Signal he made this film to warn Americans about the growing threat.
“We made this movie to protect Texas and America from Sharia law,” Burgard said. “I made this movie so that we could avoid the violence.”
Burgard also described the strategies Islamic leaders are using to expand their influence in the United States.
“As we say in the movie, when you see all these military-aged men closing down a street and praying, it’s not because they don’t have room in the mosque—they’re claiming that territory,” Burgard said. “Those images are going out to the rest of the Islamic world, and they’re saying, ‘We claim this territory.’”
He added that, in 1991, “the Muslim Brotherhood adopted this mission to take down the United States from the inside.”
“They would destroy America and the North American Western Civilization from the inside,” Burgard said.
The documentary was released as several Islamic development projects have drawn public attention in North Texas. Among other developments, a former Korean church is being converted into a mosque and Islamic academy in Richardson, and plans are underway for a proposed mosque expansion in McKinney.
Earlier this month, the San Antonio Current published a film review by Julianna Plewes describing Burgard as a “far-right filmmaker.”
Plewes wrote that the documentary “weaves in both fact and fiction, often with narrative glue heavy on unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.”
In an unpublished rebuttal provided to the Daily Signal, Burgard said Plewes never contacted him or the film’s producer, Tim Lowry, for comment before publishing the article.
“That’s lazy journalism at best. … I will let those who watch the film at RememberTheAlamomovie.com decide for themselves,” Burgard wrote.
The documentary is available for purchase for $19.99. Burgard is also hosting screenings across Texas. Information on the film and screenings are posted on the movie’s website.
First published on The Daily Signal
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