Tag Archives: U.S. foreign policy

There’s a Lot of ‘There’ There

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20121029_LIBYA_obama_hillary_Clinton

 

Here’s the thing:  America must not allow Benghazi or Boston or the next Jihadi obscenity to be about “getting” Hillary Clinton or Obama or any other American. Such self-defeating rot is a goal right out of the Islamists’ playbook.  Benghazi showcases, more than anything else, the inefficacy of our present national security effort.

 

by CAPT. GARY HARRINGTON, US NAVY (RET.)

President Obama, at a May 13, 2013 press conference, explained there’s no “there” there in defending his administration regarding the events surrounding four American deaths in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.  Without a “there” there, that would signal to Congress that their criticism is groundless. But the evidence shows…not so fast, President Obama. Not only was there a “there” there, I propose the “there” was born of an unholy Immaculate Conception.

“You’d better not go into the woods” has been the administration’s refrain in the Benghazi narrative. This theme, from a popular child’s song, is apt since, “If you do, you’re sure of a big surprise because that’s where Teddy Bears have their picnics.”  The Benghazi Jihadi terrorists, not stuffed animals, have long planned “beneath the trees where nobody sees.”  In fact, their plans have influenced our government immensely, having caused this administration to fall for the Jihadi strategy. This is best seen in our recent purge of Islamist words – amazingly – from our own government’s military training materials. This prevailing correctness about language fosters deception, and this lies at the core of the Benghazi story.   “They hide and seek as long as they please…”

Toxic ideological picnics began with medieval Wahhabi and Salafi ideas that aren’t well studied, known or discussed in polite society or in press conferences, which makes them easy to obfuscate.  So to avoid a “big surprise” on the ideological origins of Benghazi, high government officials conceived a not-so-Immaculate Conception:  the You Tube video cover story.  The sperm was Salafi jihad.  The egg was a transnational progressive idea gone bad on the eve of a national election: the “normalization” of Benghazi.  A politically inconvenient truth about a Jihadi attack was deliberately blurred to protect a setback to a State Department pet project.

A forest and tree cliché is helpful to better conceive the Immaculate Conception. Benghazi is but one tree in the mature, mutating Jihadi forest.  We noticed the Bomb-the-U.S.-Homeland tree at the Boston marathon finish line, as we did earlier the other U.S. Homeland trees of Ft. Hood and Times Square.  In the heart of the forest lie the remains of older trees, some U.S Homeland and some international: the 9/11 tree, the original World Trade Towers tree, the USS Cole, the Marine Barracks and so on. The ghosts of Danny Pearl, Theo Van Gogh, Boston’s little Martin Richard, Ambassador Stevens, Colonel Higgins, Navy Diver Stethem, and so many others, wander “there.”  Aisha’s missing nose is buried “there.”  “There” is a transnational Jihadi forest that makes it hard for some political leaders to see – or even want to see – the trees that comprise it.

Weeds flourish on untended ground and they distract from the clear picture of the forest. They include the variegated flora of parsed talking points (such as “sideshows”), jailed patsy blasphemers, denied State Department Forward Emergency Support Teams (FEST), fired and demoted officials (some innocent of any wrongdoing), FBI, ICE and State Foot Draggers, AP definitions reset, and other troublesome mutants. The lexicon of the forest does not take rocket science to fathom.  We must explore and study it precisely because “tired little teddy bears” in high office have refused to define Islamist strategies and their undergrowth of motivating medieval ideas for decades.  We need to do it for ourselves.

Once the forest clears, you begin to recognize the patterns of the trees in daily headlines, and “catch them unaware” on Oped pages.  Author Dr. Walid Phares has defined these patterns as six distinct Jihadi strategies: Economic, Ideological, Political, Intelligence, Subversive, and Diplomatic.

Read more: Family Security Matters 

The Obama Administration’s Disgraceful Muslim Brotherhood Policy

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aap_3281_MAR04_egyptker2_800x6001-450x337By :

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s Islamist Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government, which has the support of the Obama administration, has just issued arrest warrants for five activists on false charges that they allegedly used social media to incite violence against the Muslim Brotherhood.  These activists include a blogger who played a key role in the 2011 revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.

Morsi was following through on his threat to the National Salvation Front and other opposition groups, which he issued last Sunday in the wake of clashes between protesters and the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo: “There is a president of the republic and there are emergency measures if any of them makes even the smallest of moves that undermines Egypt or the Egyptians. Their lives are worthless when it comes to the interests of Egypt and Egyptians. I am a president after a revolution, meaning that we can sacrifice a few so the country can move forward. It is absolutely no problem.”

In addition, the Muslim Brotherhood itself filed complaints against 169 opposition figures, which included a former presidential candidate who now works in television.

At the same time, sexual assaults against women have skyrocketed during the Morsi regime’s rule. And the Islamists who have been elevated into power blame the women for the violence against them. For example, an Islamist police general and lawmaker was quoted by the New York Times as proclaiming that “a girl contributes 100 percent to her own raping when she puts herself in these conditions.”

Read more at Front Page

 

The Secret Document That Set Obama’s Middle East Policy

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propheciesslide9by Barry Rubin:

“… we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms. … America is not — and never will be — at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security — because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as president to protect the American people.”  – President Barack Obama, Cairo, June 2009

“The United States is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise. … Resistance is the only solution. [Today the United States] is withdrawing from Iraq, defeated and wounded, and it is also on the verge of withdrawing from Afghanistan. [All] its warplanes, missiles, and modern military technology were defeated by the will of the peoples, as long as [these peoples] insisted on resistance.”  – Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad al-Badri, Cairo, September 2010

What did the president know, and when did he know it? That’s a question made classic by the Watergate scandal. Now, it is possible to trace precisely what Obama knew and when he knew it. And it proves that the installment of power of the Muslim Brotherhood was a conscious and deliberate strategy of the Obama administration, developed before the “Arab Spring” began.

In February 2011, the New York Times ran an extremely complimentary article on President Obama by Mark Landler, who some observers say is the biggest apologist for Obama on the newspaper. That’s quite an achievement. Landler praised Obama for having tremendous foresight, in effect predicting the “Arab Spring.” According to Landler:

President Obama ordered his advisers last August [2010] to produce a secret report on unrest in the Arab world, which concluded that without sweeping political changes, countries from Bahrain to Yemen were ripe for popular revolt, administration officials said Wednesday.

Which advisors? The then counter-terrorism advisor and now designated CIA chief John Brennan? National Security Council senior staffer Samantha Power? If it was done by Obama’s own staff, rather than State and Defense, it’s likely that these people were the key authors. Or at least one of them was.

So should U.S. policy help allies avoid such sweeping change by standing firm or by helping them make adjustments? No, explained the report, it should get on the side of history and wield a broom to do the sweeping. The article continued:

Mr. Obama’s order, known as a Presidential Study Directive, identified likely flashpoints, most notably Egypt, and solicited proposals for how the administration could push for political change in countries with autocratic rulers who are also valuable allies of the United States, [emphasis added] these officials said.

The 18-page classified report, they said, grapples with a problem that has bedeviled the White House’s approach toward Egypt and other countries in recent days: how to balance American strategic interests and the desire to avert broader instability against the democratic demands of the protesters.

As I noted, the article was quite explicitly complimentary (and that’s an understatement) about how Obama knew what was likely to happen and was well prepared for it.

But that’s precisely the problem. It wasn’t trying to deal with change, but was pushing for it; it wasn’t asserting U.S. interests but balancing them off against other factors. In the process, U.S. interests were forgotten.

If Landler was right, then Obama did have a sense of what was going to happen, and prepared. It cannot be said that he was caught unaware. This view would suggest, then, that he thought American strategic interests could be protected, and broader instability avoided by overthrowing U.S. allies as fast as possible and by showing the oppositions that he was on their side. Presumably the paper pointed out the strength of Islamist forces and the Muslim Brotherhood factor, and then discounted any dangers from this quarter.

Read more at PJ Media

Also see:

Democracy Is Not the Answer (frontpagemag.com)

Our Old Grand Fantasies About Radical Islam

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"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last" Winston Churchill

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last” Winston Churchill

By Victor Davis Hanson

Most things that we read in the popular media about radical Islam are fantasies. They are promulgated in the mistaken belief that such dogmas will appease terrorists, or at least direct their ire elsewhere. But given the recent news — murdering in Algeria, war in Mali, the Syrian mess, and Libyan chaos — let us reexamine some of these more common heresies. Such a review is especially timely, given that Mr. Brennan believed [1] that jihad is largely a personal quest for spiritual perfection; Mr. Kerry believed [2] that Bashar Assad was a potentially moderating reformer; and Mr. Hagel believed [3] that Iran was not worthy of sanctions, Hezbollah was not deserving of ostracism, and Israel is equally culpable for the Middle East mess.

1. Contact with the West Moderates Radical Muslims

In theory, residence in the West could instruct young Muslim immigrants on the advantages of free markets, constitutional government, and legally protected freedoms. But as we saw with many of the 9/11 hijackers, for a large subset of Muslim expatriates, a strange schizophrenia ensues: they enjoy — indeed, seek out — the material bounty of the West. But in the abstract, far too many either despise what wealth and affluence do to the citizenry (e.g., gay marriage, feminism, religious tolerance, secularism, etc.) or try to dream up conspiracy theories to explain why their adopted home is better off than the native one that they abandoned.

Finally, foreign students, journalists, and religious expatriates tend to congregate around American campuses and in liberal big cities. There, they are more often nursed on [4] American race/class/gender critiques of America, and so apparently believe that their own anti-Americanism must naturally be shared by millions of Americans from Bakersfield to Nashville. Take Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s new theocratic president. He should appreciate the U.S. It gave him refuge from persecution in Egypt. It allowed unfettered expression of his radical anti-American views. It schooled him in meritocratic fashion and offered him secure employment at the CSU system, despite his foreign national status. It gave citizenship to two of his daughters (apparently retained). But the result is that Mr. Morsi is an abject anti-Semite (“apes and pigs” [5]) and anti-American. He does not believe [6] terrorists caused 9/11. He wants the imprisoned, murderous blind sheik, who was the architect of the first World Trade Center bombing, sent home to Egypt. And he is pushing Egypt into a Sunni version of Iran.

2. The West Must Atone for Its Past Behavior

I have noted elsewhere [7] both the fantasies found in Barack Obama’s Cairo speech [8] and their general irrelevance to the Muslim world. Polls from Pakistan to Palestine — both recipients of massive U.S. aid — show that the U.S. is as unpopular under Obama as it was under Bush. All small nations have writs against large ones, especially the globally ubiquitous U.S. But America must be seen in comparison to … what? Russia’s artillery and missile barrage that leveled Muslim Grozny (which the UN declared the most destroyed city in the world)? China, which outlaws free expression of Islam and persecutes Muslim minorities? Both are largely left alone by al-Qaeda, due to their unapologetic attitudes, possible unpredictable response, and inability to offer attackers a globalized media forum.

In contrast, no single nation lets in more Muslim immigrants than does the U.S. No non-Muslim nation gives more foreign aid than does the U.S. to the Muslim world — Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, and Palestine. No nation has so sought to save Muslims from dictatorial violence — whether bombing European Christians to save Muslims in the Balkans; jawboning Kuwaitis to spare Palestinian turncoats in 1991; trying to feed starving Somalis; aiding Muslims fighting Russians in Afghanistan; freeing Kuwaitis from Saddam; rebuilding Iraq; rebuilding Afghanistan from Taliban terror; trying to free Libyans from Gadhafi; and on and on.

The sources of radical Islam rage are thus not past U.S. actions. Read The Al Qaeda Reader [9] to chart all the bizarre excuses that bin Laden and Dr. Zawahiri alleged were the roots of their anger at the U.S. So why exactly does radical Islam hate us? Mostly because of the age-old wages [10] of insecurity, envy, and a sense of inferiority — and the hunch that such gripes win apologies, attention, and sometimes money. In a globalized world, Muslims see daily that everyone from South Koreans to North Americans are better off. Why? In their view, not because of market economies, meritocracies, gender equality, religious pluralism, consensual government, and the Western menu of personal freedom. To draw that conclusion would mean to reject tribalism, gender apartheid, religious intolerance, anti-Semitism, statism, authoritarianism, and conspiracy theory — and to admit indigenous rather than foreign causation. Instead, it is far easier to blame “them” for turning the majestic Islamic empire of old into the chaos of modern Islam — as well as to fault Arab secularists whose lack of religious zealotry allowed the West to move ahead. All antidotes to these deductive beliefs — foreign aid, democratization, outreach, better communications — have so far proved ambiguous at best.

3. Israel Is the Source of Muslim Rage

Note two facts about the current mass killing in the Muslim world, in Afghanistan, Algeria, Libya, Mali, Syria, and Yemen. First, it has nothing to do with Israel. Second, the Muslim world is largely silent about the carnage that dwarfs the toll of an Israeli response to missiles from Gaza. The Muslim world cannot do anything about Muslim-on-Muslim violence, but apparently thinks others can do a great deal about Israeli-on-Muslim violence, which is sporadic at best.

Why, then, do Westerners so often scapegoat Israel? A number of very human considerations, apart from the most obvious of anti-Semitism, the Arab world’s oil wealth, and the vast demographic fact of 1 billion persons versus 7 million. We have influence with Westernized and liberal Israel, none with Mr. Morsi or the Libyan assassins or the Algerian hostage-killers. Symbolic pressure is a psychological mechanism to excuse factual impotence. The Arab world is so complex and so torn by tribalism, religious schisms, and embedded pathologies that the Western mind seeks a simple sword stroke to Israel to cut such a complex Gordian knot. For now the problem is supposed to be Mr. Netanyahu, who in appearance and speech seems like an easily demonized American neocon. Yet every writ against Israel is elsewhere in the world commonplace and mostly ignored: our drone killings trump their targeted assassinations; a divided Nicosia trumps Jerusalem; occupied islands off Japan or Tibet trump the West Bank; a million ethnically cleansed Jews from Arab capitals or 13 million Germans cleansed from Eastern Europe trump the Arab flight from Palestine. For a displaced German now to speak of a right of return to “Danzig” is creepy; for a Palestinian to demand residence in Haifa after a similar seven decades of absence is appropriate.

4. The U.S. Can Solve the Muslim World’s Problems.

I supported the war in Iraq as a way of getting rid of a long-term enemy of the U.S., Saddam Hussein, in accordance with the 23 writs of action approved by the U.S. Congress. We did that, ended the 12-year containment and no-fly-zones, and defeated a huge Islamist coalition that flocked to Iraq to wage jihad. That said, Iraq is more stable than Syria or Libya largely because a U.S. presence baby-sat democratic change. To the degree that Iraq will revert to the usual Arab paradigm is probably contingent on the fact that the U.S. refused to leave even a small garrison and simply pulled out lock, stock, and barrel.

Elsewhere, I don’t think the Western intervention in Libya led to much of an improvement over Gadhafi’s nightmarish dictatorship. Morsi may make the kleptocratic Mubarak look good in another year. Take your pick in Syria: the murderous security of the Assad secret police or the murderous chaos of Islamist gangs. I am sure that there are Google execs among all the dissidents, but I am also sure that none will come to power — and most will soon flee their respective countries. No one now is pressuring 8th century Saudi Arabia to become a 21st century “democratic” Egypt. Eastern Europe — warped by a half-century of Soviet-imposed communism, torn by past wars between Russia and Europe, with a baleful legacy of Ottoman occupation in the southeast, and distant from the Renaissance, Reformation, and New World exploration — was saved by its Western heritage and its incorporation into Europe, at least for now. As far as the Muslim world, I see no such heritage or possible likeminded interventions from the West. Perhaps some day globalization or Westernized oil-fed elites in the manner of a Dubai may make a difference — or perhaps not.

In this regard, the Obama administration’s therapeutic approach [11] — jihad is a personal journey; Major Hasan committed workplace violence and endangered the Army’s diversity program; terrorism is a man-caused disaster; anti-terrorism is an overseas contingency operation; there is no war on Islamic terror; trying KSM in a civilian court; loud talk of shutting down Guantanamo; reading Miranda rights to terrorist suspects; loudly inventing underappreciated Islamic discoveries and inventions — is not just silly and embarrassing, but dangerous. The therapeutic approach sends the message to the young terrorist that we are in some way culpable for the violence that he intends to commit, that there may not be dangerous repercussions to his terrorist acts, or that we do not believe in the values of our culture as much as he does in his own.

Read more at PJ Media

Noxious Nominations: The Four Horsemen of the American Foreign Policy Apocalypse

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imagesCATT3GCQBy Barry Rubin

Excerpt:

Brennan is no less than the father of the pro-Islamist policy. What Obama is saying is this: My policy of backing Islamists has worked so well, including in Egypt, that we need to do even more! All those analogies to 1930s appeasement are an understatement. Nobody in the British leadership said, “I have a great idea. Let’s help fascist regimes take power and then they’ll be our friends and become more moderate!” That’s the equivalent of what Brennan does.

********

Brennan’s only life accomplishment has been to propose backing radical Islamists. As a reward, he isn’t just being made head of intelligence for the Middle East but for the whole world! Has Brennan any proven administrative skill? Any knowledge of other parts of the world? No. All he has is a proximity to Obama and a very bad policy concept. What’s especially ironic here is that by now, the Islamist policy has clearly failed and a lot of people are having second thoughts.

With Brennan running the CIA, though, do you think there will be critical intelligence evaluations of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizballah, or even Hamas? Is the CIA going to warn U.S. leaders about the repression against women, Christians, and moderates? Will there be warnings that Islamists are taking over Syria or reports on Islamist involvement in killing Americans in Benghazi?  Can we have confidence about U.S. policy toward Iran?

To get some insight into his thinking, consider the incident in which a left-wing reporter, forgetting there were people listening, reminded Brennan that in an earlier private conversation he admitted favoring engagement not only with the Lebanese terrorist group Hizballah, but also the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Ask yourself this question: when an American intelligence chief told Congress that the Muslim Brotherhood was a moderate, secular group, who approved that line of argument?

Kerry, of course, was the most energetic backer of sponsoring Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad before the revolt began. Now he will be the most energetic backer of putting the Muslim Brotherhood into power in Syria. Here is a man who once generalized about American soldiers in Vietnam as being baby-killers and torturers (such things certainly happened but Kerry, made the blame collective, except for himself of course).

As for Hagel, suffice it to say that the embarrassing quotes and actions from him in the past — including his opposition to sanctions against Iran — fueled a response to his proposed nomination so strong that the administration had to back down for a while.

What would have happened if President Harry Truman turned over American defense, diplomacy, and intelligence in 1946 to those who said that Stalin wanted peace and that Communist rule in Central Europe was a good thing?

Obama has been president of the United States for four years. Yet in foreign policy, having some decent and competent people in high positions mitigated the damage. Well, the reins are now loosed; the muzzle is off.

I apologize for being so pessimistic, but look at the cast of characters. When it comes to Obama administration foreign policy’s damage on the world and on U.S. interests, one can only say, like the great singer Al Jolson, folks, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

To get a sense of his thinking, check out Brennan’s article, “The Conundrum of Iran: Strengthening Moderates without Acquiescing to Belligerence,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 618, Terrorism: What the Next President Will Face (Jul., 2008), pp. 168-179. Here’s the conclusion:

If the United States actually demonstrates that it will work to help advance rather than thwart Iranian interests, the course of Iranian politics as well as the future of U.S.-Iranian relations could be forever altered.

The Obama administration followed this advice during its first two years with the result being total failure. The theme of the 2008 article carries over to his view of the Muslim Brotherhood. If the United States shows it is friendly, helpful, and does not oppose their taking power, then revolutionary Islamists will become moderate.

For example, he also proposes a U.S. policy “to tolerate, and even to encourage, greater assimilation of Hezbollah into Lebanon’s political system….” This step, he suggests, will reduce “the influence of violent extremists in the organization.”

Of course, Hizballah does not need to stage terrorist attacks if it holds state power! Terrorism is only a tactic to seize control of countries. If you give revolutionaries their goal, then why do they need to continue using such a tactic? Yet putting them in power does not increase stability, improve the lives of people, or benefit U.S. interests. If al-Qaeda, for example, overthrew the Iraqi or Saudi government, you would see a sharp decline in terrorist attacks! If the Muslim Brotherhood rules Egypt, Tunisia, or Syria, it doesn’t need to send suicide bombers into the marketplaces.

The same, by the way, would apply to anywhere else in the world. If Communist rebels took power in Latin American or Asian countries, you wouldn’t find them hanging out in the jungles raiding isolated villages.

In Brennan’s terms, that means the problem would be solved. Instead, the correct response is parallel to Winston Churchill’s point in his 1946 Fulton, Missouri, speech: “I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.”

This is what Brennan — and the Obama administration — fails to understand regarding this point. The danger is not terrorism but a dangerous revolutionary movement that becomes even more dangerous if it controls entire states, their resources, and their military forces.

Read it all at PJ Media

 

Appeasement’s Deadly Consequences

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By Justin O. Smith:

Our U.S. Embassies are attacked by islamofascists in a planned coordinated assault and our State Department issues an apology for the “hurt feelings” that a movie depicting Islam unfavorably has caused Muslims. From President Obama’s anti-Israel/ pro-Muslim stance and his Qaddafi misadventure to enabling “democratic” frameworks during the Arab Winter and his reluctance to help the rebellion in Iran or now in Syria, Obama is sending  clear signals that the U.S is weak and no longer a force to be considered and respected. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma attributes the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt and the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya on 9-11-2012 to “President Obama’s failure to lead and his failed foreign policy of appeasement and
apology.”

The portents for trouble in these two hot-spots were readily apparent to anyone paying attention, and if State Dept spokeswoman Victoria Nuland really believes that “the security at Benghazi was appropriate for what we knew” then she did not know much and needs to be removed. Fathi Baja, a Libyan politician, described Ambassador Stevens’ four man security team as “sorely inadequate” in a country “still in transition” with extremists everywhere. And common sense alone suggested that islamofascists might see the 9/11 Anniversary as a prime opportunity for more terrorist acts.

While administration officials deny any forewarning had occurred, “The Independent” reported (9-13) that senior diplomatic sources stated that the U.S. State Dept had warnings 48 hours prior to these attacks that American missions would come under attack, but no further plans for increased security developed. Some forewarning evidently reached our Cairo U.S. Embassy, since the staff had long been evacuated prior to the “protester’s” attack and Egyptian security forces were conspicuously absent (the same security forces that swarmed protesters during the Tahrir Square uprising), as these anti-American islamofascists scaled the Embassy walls and replaced the U.S. Flag with the Al Qaeda flag… and then they tore and burned Our American Flag! One must wonder if a similar warning compelled Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens to speed to the Consulate in Benghazi that day, in an effort to save his staff.

How hard it must have been for our Marines to suffer the insult against America and not be able to repel these despicable and contemptible Sons of Allah, because one: they were restrained by bollixed rules of engagement, and two: they had no live ammunition.

With full understanding that chaos and upheaval in these two countries was far from over, why wasn’t better security and more Marines provided for the Cairo U.S. Embassy and why didn’t Ambassador Stevens have any Marines for his protection detail? Why weren’t multiple intelligence briefings, analysis and assessments undertaken by the Joint Chief of Staff and the NSA concerning the risk factors to these facilities in conjunction with the approaching 9/11 Anniversary?

These actions were not taken because America has a feckless President, Barry Soetoro…Barack Hussein Obama, at the helm of leadership in the White House these days; Obama attended only 43% of his intelligence briefings over the past 1200 days of his term, and, on the day before these attacks, Obama was absent from that briefing too. But he can damn sure get in his rounds of golf and scurry off to Las Vegas and Aurora for campaign appearances, before Ambassador Stevens’ body is even cold and in the kground!

Ambassador Chris Stevens was a highly praised career diplomat, who spoke fluent French and Arabic, and he started out with te Peace Corp as a young man; during his Libya posting, he worked with Qaddafi, but he became the main interlocutor to the rebels in Benghazi for the Obama administration.

The fact that some 200-300 armed “militants”/islamofascists with AK-47s and RPG grenade launchers surrounded the Libyan U.S. Consulate, that tey were there ready for action, suggests more than a “spontaneous protest.” The “insulting movie” was nothing more than a ploy, and if it hadn’t been this, they would have fabricated another excuse for mobilization. All the evidence now points to a planned assault on the U.S. Consulate and murder of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens by Al Qaeda/ Islamic Maghreb!

Ambassador Stevens had just returned to Libya from Europe and his location was confidential, which now illuminates a security breach between Libya’s National Transition Council and the U.S. State Dept; sensitive documents are now known to be missing too. as the battle was met at the Consulate, some Libyans died fighting the murderous Sons of Allah, while other Libyan “security forces” removed Ambassador Stevens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, terrence Woods (ex-Navy SEAL) and Glenn Doherty  (ex-Navy SEAL) to a safe house. Shortly upon arriving, this so-called “safe house” came under mortar fire, and then came the final betrayal, as the Libyan “security” handed them over to their murderers. They died horribly but bravely!

“How could this sort of attack occur in a country we helped liberate… in a city
(Benghazi) we helped save?” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked this after
the reported deaths of these American patriots. It happened because Obama is out of his depth and has thrown in his lot with enemies of the United States. Does anyone really believe that Libya’s National Transition Council isn’t full of Al Qaeda, Islamic Maghreb and Muslim Brothers? It happened because they hate us and the brainwashing and indoctrination through Islam makes many Muslims view killing infidels no more serious than slaughtering a cow, thus the term “kafir”. As a whole the Islamic ummah has a pathological psychology and loves death…especially that of non-believers and Americans!

President Obama’s and Secretary of State Clinton’s Neville Chamberlain brand of diplomacy through appeasement and apologies set the stage for the Cairo and Benghazi attacks and this new rash of Embassy attacks in Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco and Sudan… no matter that a later sterner condemnation of the attacks was released. Nation after nation is falling to this grotesque, debasing ideology of Islam… Our sovereign territory was attacked! Our American Flag was burned! American lives were taken… destroyed! I don’t give a good tinker’s damn if Muslims have hurt feelings when they regularly murder with impunity in the name of their bastard god Allah! Plans at the highest levels must be made for swift, fierce retaliation and retribution in the harshest of terms… with overwhelming and extreme prejudice! Where is Obama’s outrage over these heinous murders? And now, Obama pontificates on cooperating with te islamofascist Libyan government in order to ”bring the terrorists to justice”, as he assuages his conscience… But the blood of these four Americans is on his hands…Hillary’s hands! May God Rest Their Souls.

Reality Check – Should Obama go to prison for supporting Al-Qaeda?

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Reality Check: Is Al-Qaeda An Enemy Or Not?

Ben Swan is Primetime anchor at WXIX Fox 19 in Cincinnati as well as the writer, host and producer of Reality Check. Check out his facebook page

Obama’s Spectacular Failure

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By Caroline Glick,

(emphasis added)

Two weeks ago, in an unofficial inauguration ceremony at Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt’s new Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Mursi took off his mask of moderation. Before a crowd of scores of thousands, Mursi pledged to work for the release from US federal prison of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman.

According to The New York Times’ account of his speech, Mursi said, “I see signs [being held by members of the crowd] for Omar Abdel-Rahman and detainees’ pictures. It is my duty and I will make all efforts to have them free, including Omar Abdel-Rahman.”

Otherwise known as the blind sheikh, Abdel Rahman was the mastermind of the jihadist cell in New Jersey that perpetrated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. His cell also murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York in 1990. They plotted the assassination of then-president Hosni Mubarak. They intended to bomb New York landmarks including the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the UN headquarters.

Rahman was the leader of Gama’a al-Islamia - the Islamic Group, responsible, among other things for the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. A renowned Sunni religious authority, Rahman wrote the fatwa, or Islamic ruling, permitting Sadat’s murder in retribution for his signing the peace treaty with Israel. The Islamic group is listed by the State Department as a specially designated terrorist organization.

After his conviction in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Abdel-Rahman issued another fatwa calling for jihad against the US. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, Osama bin Laden cited Abdel-Rahman’s fatwa as the religious justification for them.

By calling for Abdel-Rahman’s release, Mursi has aligned himself and his government with the US’s worst enemies. By calling for Abdel-Rahman’s release during his unofficial inauguration ceremony, Mursi signaled that he cares more about winning the acclaim of the most violent, America-hating jihadists in the world than with cultivating good relations with America.

And in response to Mursi’s supreme act of unfriendliness, US President Barack Obama invited Mursi to visit him at the White House.

Mursi is not the only Abdel Rahman supporter to enjoy the warm hospitality of the White House.

His personal terror organization has also been the recipient of administration largesse. Despite the fact that federal law makes it a felony to assist members of specially designated terrorist organizations, last month the State Department invited group member Hani Nour Eldin, a newly elected member of the Islamist-dominated Egyptian parliament, to visit the US and meet with senior US officials at the White House and the State Department, as part of a delegation of Egyptian parliamentarians.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland refused to provide any explanation for the administration’s decision to break federal law in order to host Eldin in Washington. Nuland simply claimed, “We have an interest in engaging a broad cross-section of Egyptians who are seeking to peacefully shape Egypt’s future. The goal of this delegation… was to have consultations both with think tanks but also with government folks, with a broad spectrum representing all the colors of Egyptian politics.”

MURSI IS not the only Arab leader who embraces terrorists only to be embraced by the US government. In a seemingly unrelated matter, this week it was reported that in an attempt to satisfy the Obama administration’s urgent desire to renew negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, and to satisfy the Palestinians’ insatiable desire to celebrate terrorists, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu offered to release 124 Palestinian terrorist murderers from Israeli prisons in exchange for a meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas.

Alas, Abbas refused. He didn’t think Netanyahu’s offer was generous enough.

And how did the Obama administration respond to Abbas’s demand for the mass release of terrorists and his continued refusal to resume negotiations with Israel?

By attacking Israel.

The proximate cause of the Obama administration’s most recent assault on Israel is the publication of the legal opinion of a panel of expert Israeli jurists regarding the legality of Israeli communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines. Netanyahu commissioned the panel, led by retired Supreme Court justice Edmond Levy, to investigate the international legal status of these towns and villages and to provide the government with guidance relating to future construction of Israeli communities beyond the armistice lines.

The committee’s findings, published this week, concluded that under international law, these communities are completely legal.

There is nothing remotely revolutionary about this finding. This has been Israel’s position since 1967, and arguably since 1922.

The international legal basis for the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948 was the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. That document gave the Jewish people the legal right to sovereignty over Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, as well as all the land Israel took control over during the 1948- 49 War of Independence.

Not only did the Mandate give the Jewish people the legal right to the areas, it enjoined the British Mandatory authorities to “facilitate… close settlement by Jews on the land, including state lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.”

So not only was Jewish settlement not prohibited. It was required.

Although this has been Israel’s position all along, Netanyahu apparently felt the need to have its legitimacy renewed in light of the all-out assault against Israel’s legal rights led by the Palestinians, and joined enthusiastically by the Obama administration.

In a previous attempt to appease Obama’s rapacious appetite for Israeli concessions, Netanyahu temporarily abrogated Israel’s legal rights by banning Jews from exercising their property rights in Judea and Samaria for 10 months in 2010. All the legal opinion published this week does is restate what Israel’s position has always been.

Whereas the Obama administration opted to embrace Mursi even as he embraces Abdel-Rahman, the Obama administration vociferously condemned Israel for having the nerve to ask a panel of senior jurists to opine about its rights. In a press briefing, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell banged the rhetorical hammer.

As he put it, “The US position on settlements is clear. Obviously, we’ve seen the reports that an Israeli government-appointed panel has recommended legalizing dozens of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but we do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, and we oppose any effort to legalize settlement outposts.”

In short then, for the Obama administration, it is all well and fine for the newly elected president of what was until two years ago the US’s most important Arab ally to embrace a terror mastermind indirectly responsible for the murder of nearly 3,000 Americans. It is okay to invite members of jihadist terror groups to come to Washington and meet with senior US officials in a US taxpayer- funded trip. It is even okay for the head of a would-be-state that the US is trying to create to embrace every single Palestinian terrorist, including those who have murdered Americans. But for Israel’s elected government to ask an expert panel to determine whether Israel is acting in accordance with international law in permitting Jews to live on land the Palestinians insist must be Jew-free is an affront.

THE DISPARITY between the administration’s treatment of the Mursi government on the one hand and the Netanyahu government on the other places the nature of its Middle East policy in stark relief.

Obama came into office with a theory on which he based his Middle East policy. His theory was that jihadists hate America because the US supports Israel. By placing what Obama referred to as “daylight” between the US and Israel, he believed he would convince the jihadists to put aside their hatred of America.

Obama has implemented this policy for three and a half years. And its record of spectacular failure is unbroken.

Obama’s failure is exposed in all its dangerous consequence by a simple fact. Since he entered office, the Americans have dispensed with far fewer jihadists than they have empowered.

Since January 2009, the Muslim world has become vastly more radicalized. No Islamist government in power in 2009 has been overthrown. But several key states – first and foremost Egypt – that were led by pro-Western, US-allied governments when Obama entered office are now ruled by Islamists.

Read the rest at Town Hall

The Left’s Seven Tragic Terror Lies

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by RALPH PETERS at FSM:

If they did not put our troops, our citizens and our country at risk, the Left’s fantastic lies about terror and terrorists would be hilarious.  The Left’s self-righteous nonsense in this sphere has no grounding in empirical or historical reality, but, then, reality has long been a greater threat to the Left than Islamist fanatics (the last thing any Leftie wants to do is to face the vast human wastage generated by the addictive, enervating and morally debilitating hook-the-poor social programs of the last five decades). 

So, when it comes to addressing the real and deadly terrorist threat, the American left responds in the best Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-Chavista and community-organizer traditions: When the facts aren’t palatable, make up new “facts.”  And political correctness has worked its poisonous tentacles so deeply into the American body politic that not even our generals challenge the ludicrous claims the Left hurls at us in its neo-Bolshevik bullying mode of shouting down every last unwelcome truth.

Of course, the left’s lies are countless, but the hard left has mastered the art of reducing the most complex human challenges to bumper-sticker slogans as nonsensical as they are reassuring to the herd (the wildly counter-factual prize probably goes to a leftie favorite, “War never changes anything.”  On the contrary, war has always changed a great deal, which is why we have wars).  These happy-face mantras never rise above intellectual flatulence, but the massed sheep on the Left enjoy the aroma (“Yes, we can!”).

The problem, of course, is that many of our national leaders have been brainwashed with the same slogans.  The Left has mastered another technique dictators forged long ago: Repeat a lie often enough and it will be taken as truth.    And, of course, our media play along.

So let’s give the slogan-hucksters a brief time-out and dissect just seven of their favorite lines:

One:  Killing terrorists only turns them into martyrs.  Nope.  Killing terrorists turns them into dead terrorists.  Of all the terrorists we’ve killed since 9/11, how many are celebrated as martyrs in the Muslim world today?  Remember the Butcher of Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?  The Left solemnly warned us that killing him would turn him into a martyr and mobilize the Muslim world against us.  Didn’t happen.  Instead, his fellow Arabs spit upon his grave.  And what about the big lad, Comrade Osama?  We heard no end of grave pronunciamentos from “public intellectuals”and other fellow travelers that killing him would not only make him a martyr, but lead to an explosion of Muslim fury.  Well, check it out: Not a single serious demonstration marked the one-year anniversary of his death (by the way, I’m growing confused: Were any SEALs actually in bin Laden’s compound, or did President Obama take down Osama alone, with his bare hands?  That seems to be the White House position of late).

Killing terrorists doesn’t create problems.  It eliminates specific problems and reduces others.  What creates problems is capturing terrorists.  That’s when they become martyrs, inspiring kidnappings and other attacks to free them, and leading Leftists to champion them as “prisoners of conscience” and victims of vile American oppression.  Witness the recent courtroom circus at Guantanamo, where monstrous terrorists (men who should have been dead at least eight years ago) have been granted a global platform for their cause.

As a former intelligence officer, I sympathize with those who believe we need more interrogations, but I’m still for killing every terrorist we can find right on the spot-until a grown-up president revives serious clandestine operations in which the CIA can capture, strenuously interrogate then execute known terrorists without it ever becoming public knowledge.  The only problem with waterboarding is that somebody told.

Two:  We can’t kill our way out of this.  Actually, we’ve been killing our way out of “this” with great success.  In fact, killing terrorists has been the only thing that has worked.  And one thing Obama-terrified of a terror attack on his watch-has gotten right has been to increase the number of lethal attacks on terrorists and to favor killing them over capturing them (Obama did learn the real lesson of Guantanamo-kill, don’t capture–although he isn’t going to inform his base).  Had Bush killed as many terrorists with drone strikes and special ops as Obama has, the Left would have cried out for him to be tried as a war criminal.  And what do you think Obama’s base would have had to say if Bush had authorized killing Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen?  (Just to be clear, I’m glad Awlaki’s dead.)

Leftists (see Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, etc.) don’t really object to war and violence.  They just want to be in charge of it.  For the left, it’s rarely about what’s done, but about who’s doing it: The left’s moral compass realigns on command.

We have 2,000 years of documented history of insurgencies led by religious fanatics (in every religion, by the way).  In those two millennia, there is not a single example of a faith-fueled rebellion or terrorist movement that did not require extensive bloodshed to defeat it.  Not one example in 2,000 years.  And, indeed, resolute powers proved very, very good at killing their way out of it.

Three:  Terrorists have rights.  Sorry, that isn’t true, either.  Legally, an insurgent who does not wear a distinguishing uniform, emblem or badge is an “unlawful combatant” under the much-cited, but rarely read, Laws of Land Warfare, including the Geneva and Hague Conventions.  An unlawful combatant may be executed on the spot or, if you want to put a coat of wax on the paint job, after a quick tribunal in the field.  We have invented rights for terrorists.  And government and even military lawyers have been only too glad to go along, some because of ambition, others because they are cowed by the commissars of political correctness who now dominate our legal system at every level below the Supreme Court.

As for “human rights for terrorists,” that’s a judgment call.  And my call is “No effing way, dude.”  When a human being chooses to become a terrorist and massacres the innocent, he or she exits the human race.

Four:  Formal trials will show them the superiority of our system of justice.  You are a no-go at this station, as the drill sergeants used to say.  Take yet another look at the Gitmo fiasco: You think those prisoners respect our system of justice?  They’re gaming it brilliantly, turning it into an international mockery.  Or are we to think that our judicial system, military or civilian, will so impress other terrorists that they’ll abandon their zealotry and head for the nearest Burger King?  Perhaps we’re supposed to believe that these terror trials (when we finally get around to them) will somehow deter hardened terrorists, striking fear into their black little hearts?  Tell me how it deters a hardcore fanatic to find out that, if the Americans capture him, he’ll get the first dental care of his entire life, medical care better than that provided to many law-abiding U.S. taxpayers, special halal (religiously correct) meals, free legal representation, endless appeals, plentiful recreation, and communal incarceration with his fellow perverts on a tropical beach?  That’s supposed to be Club Dread?  U.S.-citizen convicts in our Federal prisons get far fewer privileges than terrorists who murdered 3,000 Americans.  And the Left still complains about their treatment (not so much now that Obama’s president, though-although he was going to close Gitmo in one year).  Our legal system has about as much deterrent value against fanatical terrorists as a Hershey Bar.

And did I mention the tens of millions of taxpayer dollars devoted to incarcerating these mass-murderers every year?  We’re not a shining example of justice.  We’re a laughingstock.

Five:  The only path to peace is negotiations.  I was bewildered, yet again, when our president, in his recent re-election-campaign speech at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan said, first, that we would never allow the return of the Taliban to power, then, minutes later, that we secretly have been negotiating with the Taliban to bring them into the Afghan government.  Even in Vietnam, we displayed more decency than that.  But let me clarify: My bewilderment did not stem from our president’s shameless duplicity (for political reasons, he launched his disastrous surge, now, for other political reasons, he’s ending his surge and “fixing” the problem he himself created-Obama has the integrity of an offshore telemarketer selling timeshares).  No, my bewilderment stemmed from the media’s utter failure to call the president on this blatant contradiction.  But, then, our president can stop the sun in its course, walk on water and heal the sick all at once, as far the media are concerned.so he surely can perform the miracle of simultaneously keeping the Taliban out of Kabul and welcoming them back to Kabul.  Much easier than turning water into a nice little unoaked chardonnay.

Negotiations are the opium of the diplomats.  Again, in 2,000 years of factual history of religion-fueled insurgencies, not one has been quelled through negotiations.  The basic problem is that fanatics on a mission from their god do not feel obligated to keep promises to unbelievers-even if they are cornered into making promises for tactical reasons or just to buy time.  In political and even some ethnic insurgencies, negotiations may have a place.  But in religion-driven uprisings and terror movements, negotiations are one hundred per cent worthless.  You have to kill the buggers.

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Obama Funds the Egyptian Government

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Andrew C. McCarthy at FSM:

In October 2010, on the eve of the Islamic revolution that the media fancies as “the Arab Spring,” the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood called for jihad against the United States.
You might think that this all but unnoticed bombshell would be of some importance to policymakers in Washington. It was not. It is not. This week, the Obama administration quietly released $1.5 billion in foreign aid to the new Egyptian government, now dominated by a Brotherhood-led coalition in parliament — soon to be joined by an Ikhwan (i.e., Brotherhood) luminary as president.
It is not easy to find the announcement. With the legacy media having joined the Obama reelection campaign, we must turn for such news to outlets like the Kuwait News Agency. There, we learn that, having dug our nation into a $16 trillion debt hole, President Obama has nevertheless decided to borrow more money from unfriendly powers like China so he can give it to an outfit that views the United States as an enemy to be destroyed.
This pot of gold for Islamic supremacists is the spoils of a Brotherhood charm offensive. Given the organization’s unabashed goals and hostility towards the West, it was U.S. policy, until recently, to avoid formal contacts with the Brotherhood — although agents of the intelligence community and the State Department have long engaged in off-line communications with individual MB members. By contrast, the Obama administration from its first days has embraced the Ikhwan — both the mothership, whose leaders were invited to attend Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo despite its then-status as a banned organization under Egyptian law, and the Brotherhood’s American satellites, which have been invited to advise administration policymakers despite their notorious record of championing violent jihadists and repressive sharia.
Obama has overlooked the MB’s intimate ties to Hamas, which self-identifies as the Ikhwan’s Palestinian branch and is formally designated a terrorist organization under American law. Administration officials have absurdly portrayed the Brothers as “secular” and “moderate,” although the organization, from its founding in the 1920s, has never retreated an inch from its professed mission to establish Islam’s global hegemony.