‘Siege’ of civilization

It is unlikely to win the Golden Palm at Cannes or the Oscar from Hollywood, but Herb Meyer’s new video documentary, “The Siege of Western Civilization,” is being hailed as the conservative answer to Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Mr. Meyer, who lives in Washington state, served as special assistant to the director of central intelligence and vice chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council during the Reagan administration. His new video (available on digital video disc at www.stormkingpress.com) has been chosen for screening Saturday at the American Film Renaissance festival in Dallas.

The following are excerpts of an interview with Mr. Meyer:

Question: What inspired you to make this video?

Answer: In 2002, I was a candidate for the Republican nomination for Congress in my district in Washington. I had no intention of ever running for anything, but after September 11, I was back in action. …

When the campaign started, I went out and talked to people — Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, church groups. … What I found is that people really want to talk about the issues that confront us.

After [being defeated in] the primary, I was sort of sitting home licking my wounds, and I got an invitation to speak at the annual convention of Washington State Republican Women. … I pulled everything together and gave a speech I called “The Siege of Western Civilization.”

The response was extraordinary. I got invitations from all over the country, and I kept giving this talk everywhere. The reaction was always the same, people coming up afterwards and asking, “Where can I get a copy for my son or my wife?” …

I own a publishing company. … We decided to produce our first-ever video.

Americans are starving to be talked to seriously about the issues that confront us. … Most people will not read the highfalutin intellectual magazines, and when they watch TV or listen to the radio, they’re being shouted at, and it’s all sound bites. …

Q: In the video, you cite three main threats to Western civilization: The terrorist threat from radical Islam, an internal cultural conflict you compare to a civil war, and demographic decline. Could you briefly explain these?

A: The “war on terror” is a catchphrase for what is really the third attack in history on Western civilization by radical Islam. The first attack was in the seventh century, the second was in the 16th and 17th century, and this is the third attack.

The second threat is what I call a second civil war — this is beyond politics. This is not about whether the tax rate should be 24 or 26 percent. This is a fundamental struggle within the United States to change the relationship between the individual and the state.

We have a Judeo-Christian culture, and the radicals are trying to turn this into a secular culture, which is not the same thing as the separation of church and state. … It’s an anti-religious culture. These radicals are trying to make groups more important than individuals; they’re trying to make rights more important than responsibilities. Finally, they’re trying to make the state, rather than the family, the basic unit of society. …

That’s why politics is so partisan and nasty now — it’s not politics, it’s civil war. And we need to face that.

In Western civilization we have stopped breeding. … In virtually every [industrialized] country now, birthrates are below replacement level. Europe and Japan are literally dying. In 30 years, there will be 60 [million] to 70 million fewer Europeans than are alive today, and in Japan, the birthrate is so low that in 30 years there will be between 50 [million] and 60 million fewer Japanese alive than are alive today.

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