Archive for June 2015

Iraq Residents: ‘We Know America is Providing ISIS with Weapons & Food’

June 27, 2015

Iraq Residents: ‘We Know America is Providing ISIS with Weapons & Food’

“We now think ISIS is being used as a tool by America to divide and weaken Iraq”

via » Iraq Residents: ‘We Know America is Providing ISIS with Weapons & Food’ Alex Jones’ Infowars: There’s a war on for your mind!.

Wall Street Journal

 

The people of Iraq are increasingly blaming the United States for the spread of ISIS in their country, a Wall Street Journal report reveals.

While interviewing Iraqi refugees in a tent city in Baghdad, journalist Yaroslav Trofimov discovered that a growing number of residents believe ISIS is receiving direct support from the American government.

“We all know that America is providing ISIS with weapons and food, and that it is because of American backing that they have become so strong,” said Abbas Hashem, a 50-year-old who recently fled Ramadi.

Others, such as prominent lawmaker Alia Nusseif, made equally striking comments, accusing the US of using ISIS as a proxy army to split up the country.

“We don’t have any trust in Americans anymore,” Nusseif said. “We now think ISIS is being used as a tool by America to divide and weaken Iraq.”

Sabah Karhout, chairman of the Anbar Provincial Council, stated that America’s shockingly “shy” role towards ISIS has been disastrous for opposition groups.

“If you want to help someone, do it with strength to achieve results, not with drip-drip-drip as if you expect them to die anyway,” said Karhout. “The Americans are playing a very shy role—and if this American support had not been so shy, the Sunni tribes would not have gone over to the side of ISIS.”

In response to the comments, the Wall Street Journal alleged that “such conspiracy theories about America’s support for Islamic State are outlandish, no doubt,” a statement that ignores key points regarding the continued rise of ISIS.

Declassified Pentagon documents recently obtained by political watchdog Judicial Watch revealed that the US has deliberately supported al-Qaeda and other radical groups in an attempt to destabilize Syria.

As noted by Insurge Intelligence writer Nafeez Ahmed, the US went forward with the policy despite admittedly knowing it would lead to the rise of ISIS and the fall of Iraq.

“According to the newly declassified US document, the Pentagon foresaw the likely rise of the ‘Islamic State’ as a direct consequence of this strategy, and warned that it could destabilize Iraq,” Ahmed wrote. “Despite anticipating that Western, Gulf state and Turkish support for the ‘Syrian opposition’ — which included al-Qaeda in Iraq — could lead to the emergence of an ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the document provides no indication of any decision to reverse the policy of support to the Syrian rebels.”

Since the secret 2012 report was written, the Obama administration has continued its support of so-called “rebel” groups despite their admitted ties with ISIS.

Just last September, a commander with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a group deemed “moderate” by the President, admitted to cooperating with multiple terrorist groups including ISIS.

“We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in… Qalamoun,” Bassel Idriss, an FSA commander, told the Daily Star.

In July of 2014, “several factions within the FSA” openly gave their US-supplied weapons to ISIS shortly after pledging allegiance to the group.

An ISIS fighter speaking with Al-Jazeera the year prior confirmed that the FSA would regularly donate or sell their weapons after reciving shipments from the US, a well-known issue ignored by the Obama administration and supporters of the Syrian war.

“We are buying weapons from the FSA,” Abu Atheer said. “We bought 200 anti-aircraft missiles and Koncourse anti tank weapons. We have good relations with our brothers in the FSA.”

One of the most troubling aspects for Iraqis has also been the repeated US weapons airdrops to ISIS fighters, a continuous mistake according to US officials.

The Obama administration’s transparent support of radical extremists in the region, a move aimed solely at toppling the Assad government, has even lead to a drop in ISIS’ recruitment numbers, causing ISIS leaders to demand potential jihadists ignore “sinful” conspiracies.

US troops also protested the arming of terror groups in 2013 by posting photos of themselves online holding up signs stating they would not fight on the same side as terrorists in Syria.

Unsurprisingly, this endlessly-documented issue is mainly deemed conspiratorial by mainstream news outlets, ISIS recruiters and corrupt elements of Western intelligence.

The Danger of a New Arms Race in Europe versus Russia

June 27, 2015

Cold War Resurgent: US Nukes Could Soon Return to Europe

Washington is once again talking about stationing nuclear warheads in Europe. Russia, too, is turning up the rhetoric. Europeans are concerned about becoming caught in the middle of a new Cold War. By SPIEGEL Staff

via The Danger of a New Arms Race in Europe versus Russia – SPIEGEL ONLINE.

 

It’s been more than three decades since the vast peace protests took over Bonn’s Hofgarten meadow in the early 1980s. Back then, about half a million protesters pushed their way into the city center, a kilometer-long mass of people moving through the streets. It was the biggest rally in the history of the German Federal Republic.

Today, the situation isn’t quite that fraught, but it seems feasible that a similar scene may soon play out in front of the Chancellery in Berlin. For some time now, the Americans have once again been thinking about upgrading Europe’s nuclear arsenal, and in the past week, a rhetorical arms race has begun that is reminiscent of the coldest periods of the Cold War.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned of an “accelerating spiral of escalating words and then of actions.” He described them as “the old reflexes of the Cold War.”

Berlin is concerned that Europe could once again become the setting of a new East-West confrontation — and that Germany might once again become a deployment zone. A source in the Defense Ministry suggested that “more (military) equipment may once again be stockpiled in Germany.” Washington plans to station tanks, weapons and heavy equipment for 5,000 soldiers in Germany and the eastern NATO countries. US President Barack Obama hopes that doing so will soothe the fears of the Baltic States and countries in Eastern Europe, which, since the Ukraine crisis, are once again fearful of Russian aggression. He also hopes to quiet his critics in US Congress.

For German Chancellor Angela Merkel, this prospect is not a pleasant one. She shies away from publicly criticizing her American allies, but Merkel is loathe to do anything that might heat up the conflict with Moscow. Furthermore, a new debate on rearmament would hardly be winnable on a domestic front. The chancellor would potentially look like a puppet of the United States, one who not only allows herself to be spied on, but who also stands by as her carefully established link to Putin is damaged.

Avoiding Open Disagreement

Moscow sees the American plans as a further proof that Washington intends to expand its military sphere of influence in Europe. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s spokesman has said that “Washington and its partners are clearly aiming for the final break-up of the NATO-Russia Founding Act.”

Berlin, however, does not want to abandon the treaty. Consistent with the treaty, the German government has fundamentally ruled out the “substantial” or “permanent” stationing of NATO troops in the former Eastern Bloc. That wording was chosen to assuage Russian concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion.

The US plans appear designed with an eye toward avoiding an open disagreement. That is why Washington only intends to send a few companies to the border nations, say sources at NATO headquarters in Brussels. The larger part of the brigade will be initially stationed in Grafenwöhr, in the German region of Upper Palatinate. The same is apparently true of the heavy weaponry. The Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces, estimates that it will include approximately 100 battle tanks. The German Defense Ministry believes that US Defense Minister Ashton Carter will be discussing the details with German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen during his visit on Monday.

Still, many NATO member states are critical of the plans, particularly in Western Europe. Internally, some are warning against escalating the conflict with Russia. Stationing weapons in Europe is not characteristic of “an exit strategy,” said Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel on Tuesday during a visit to Berlin.

The new US plans are only the latest step in an overall period of rearmament, a dangerous development that had already started before the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis. Washington and Moscow have cancelled or undermined one disarmament treaty after another. The end of the Cold War saw the signing of a number of far-reaching agreements pertaining to conventional and nuclear disarmament, from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. But now, the agreements, some of which took decades to hammer out, are losing their value. “Moscow no longer believes the West and the West doesn’t believe Moscow. That’s terrible,” declared Mikhail Gorbachev told SPIEGEL in January. “If one side loses its nerves in this inflamed atmosphere, then we won’t survive the coming years,” he said.

Wild Threats

At issue are longer just conventional weapons, but also nuclear arms as well. Moscow is working on modernizing its nuclear arsenal, and has issued some wild threats. A high-ranking official in the Russian Foreign Ministry spoke in March about possibly stationing nuclear weapons in Crimea. And the Americans, too, are considering expanding their nuclear arsenal in Europe. For some time now, Washington has been thinking about positioning nuclear-equipped cruise missiles in Europe, as it did in 1979 during the NATO Double-Track decision that led the trans-Atlantic alliance into the worst crisis in its history.

The American logic is as follows: For some time now, Washington has been accusing Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). The legendary agreement, which was signed by US President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, signaled the end of the Cold War. In the agreement, both superpowers agreed to scrap all land-based intermediate-range atomic weapons and to renounce them in the future. Now Washington believes this treaty has been violated, and is threatening to react. NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Philip Breedlove has already announced that the introduction of a weapon that violates the INF Treaty “can’t go unanswered.”

“We would like Russia, and our Allies, to know that our patience is not unlimited,” said Frank Rose, who is in charge of arms control at the State Department, a few weeks ago. And Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon Brian Mckeon announced that Washington would develop a response to safeguard the security interests of the United States and its allies and that such a response would involve the stationing of land-based cruise missiles in Europe.

In Europe, these considerations are being viewed critically. When the Americans placed the subject on the agenda of the NATO defense ministers meeting in February, the Germans and the French spoke out against NATO retaliatory measures, not least because there was only shaky proof of what weapons the Russians had actually tested.

The allies are having trouble evaluating whether Moscow actually has violated the INF Treaty, which the Russians vehemently deny. Although none of the European intelligence services have better surveillance capabilities than the Americans, nobody wants to rely purely on US findings. It has become known that Washington is particularly concerned about the R-500 cruise missile, with an estimated range of 500 kilometers, and the RS-26 ballistic missile, which could threaten the entire NATO territory. The US believes that both have been tested in a manner that violates the INF Treaty.

Casting Doubt

The Europeans don’t think that’s necessarily the case. Members of NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group concluded during the last ministers meeting that the refurbishment planned by Moscow does not violate any treaty. Weapons expert Oliver Meier, from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin, also doubts the US claims: “The RS-26 definitely does not violate the INF Treaty,” he says.

But President Obama is under enormous pressure from Congress, wiht lawmakers accusing Obama of being far too willing to give in to Putin. During a hearing several months ago, a number of representatives repeatedly interrupted Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller.

But Moscow too is increasly casting doubt on the INF Treaty. “It is only a scrap of paper,” says military expert Victor Murachovski. “If NATO planes can now already reach Saint Petersburg in five minutes from Estonia, and NATO warships are cruising around the Baltic Sea and Black Sea, then this agreement is worthless for Russia.”

In German military circles, though, people are interpreting the Russian saber-rattling as a sign of weakness. Unlike during the Cold War, the Russians do not have as many conventional weapons as NATO. In response, Moscow — like the West during the Cold War — intends to rely on nuclear deterrence.

The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, currently does “not see any substantial change to the danger” posed by Russia. The nuclear threats by Moscow — Putin announced his intention to acquire 40 intercontinental missiles — were described by BND Vice-President Guido Müller, in a secret meeting in front of select lawmakers, as little more than a “propaganda show.”

According to Müller, the refurbishment plans are well known. Since a speech by Putin at the end of 2014, the upgrade has been seen as a fait accompli by the German intelligence agency. But analysts at the BND believe the chances of success are not high: Purely from a technical standpoint, the modernization of the 40 nuclear warheads in such a short period of time is hardly possible, the BND vice-president said. Russia experts at the BND describe it as “passive aggressive behavior.” What’s important to Putin is its effect on his opponent, not the degree to which his statements are true.

‘A Great Deal of Concern’

For the German government, the prospect of nuclear rearmament would be a nightmare. In the early 1980s, millions of people in Germany, as well as in Italy and the Netherlands, took to the streets because they feared a nuclear war in Europe. As an answer to the Soviet SS-20 nuclear missiles, the Western allies had provided Moscow with a proposal: They were prepared to negotiate about the disarmament of these types of systems, but if the Soviet side wasn’t prepared to compromise, the West would station about 600 nuclear missiles on its side. And that’s exactly what happened.

For the German government, even the discussion about intermediate-range missiles is touchy. A huge majority of Germans don’t want new American nuclear weapons in Europe. On the contrary, they would prefer to see the last American B-61 atomic bombs stored near Büchel, in western Germany, removed.

The Social Democrats in particular remember the Nato Double-Track Decision with horror. It indirectly cost Chancellor Helmut Schmidt his office in 1982, and led the SPD to the precipice of division. It also contributed significantly to the rise of the Green Party. A new rearmament would test the party’s ability to stay together, and also erase all chance of a new coalition with the Green Party for the foreseeable future. Rolf Mützenich, deputy floor leader of the SPD in German parliament, is watching developments with “a great deal of concern.”

At the end of the 1970s, NATO’s armament plans were tied to an offer of dialogue. Today too, the West is emphasizing the need to remain in talks with Putin, but the venues that existed for such dialogue before Ukraine crisis, like the G-8 and the Nato-Russia Council, have all been put on ice. For this reason, Green politician Jürgen Trittin is pushing the German government to immediately begin an initiative to revive the Nato-Russia Council. “We are experiencing a dynamic that can quickly lead to a real arms race,” the senior Green Party member warns. Measures need to be put into place, he believes, to interrupt the “tit-for-tat” spiral. For this, the Nato-Russia Council would once again need to become a “site of dialogue.” What’s needed at the moment, he argues, is “talking instead of arming.”

Reported by Florian Gathmann, Matthias Gebauer, Christiane Hoffmann, Gordon Repinski, Matthias Schepp, Christoph Schult and Klaus Wiegrefe

Poking the Bear

June 26, 2015

Pentagon accuses Russia of ‘playing with fire’ over nuclear threats towards Nato

By Doug Bolton Friday 26 June 2015 Via The Independent


The US Deputy Secretary of Defence said that Russia’s attempts to intimidate Nato countries had not worked. [Photo Credit: Unknown]

(‘Violent statements and threats cannot provide a solution to the problem. They can only exacerbate feeling and make a clash of forces inevitable.’ – LS)

A senior Pentagon official has warned that Russia is “playing with fire” by suggesting it would threaten the use of nuclear weapons in international disputes, and added that Russia is attempting an intimidation campaign against Nato.

Robert Work, the US Deputy Secretary of Defence, told a House Armed Services subcommittee that Russia was trying to control the escalation of tensions by invoking the threat of nuclear weapons.

He said: “Anyone who thinks they can control escalation through the use of nuclear weapons is literally playing with fire.”

“Escalation is escalation, and nuclear use would be the ultimate escalation.”

The Kremlin has not made any direct nuclear threats, and Work did not specify and particular comments. However, numerous references to Russia’s nuclear arsenal in the last few months by Russian officials have increased tensions between East and West.

In April, leaked notes from a meeting between US officials and Russian generals revealed that Russia mentioned “a spectrum of responses from nuclear to non-military” if Nato moved more forces into the Baltic states.

In a documentary about the annexation of Crimea aired on Russian TV, President Vladimir Putin was asked by the interviewer if he was prepared to put Russia’s nuclear forces on alert. He said: “We were ready to do it.”

In March, the Russian ambassador to Denmark warned that “Danish warships would be targets for Russia’s nuclear weapons” if the country joined Nato’s missile defence programme.

Threats and posturing aside, Russia has taken steps to beef up its nuclear arsenal – speaking at a military expo earlier this month, Putin announced the development of 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles, that would be able to overcome “even the most technically advanced anti-missile defence systems”.

A Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of delivering multiple nuclear weapons, is paraded through Moscow’s Red Square in the 2009 Victory Day parade The new missiles are not themselves nuclear weapons, but are nuclear-capable, as they will allow Russia to more easily deliver their stockpile of around 3,000 warheads.

In his speech, Work was defiant in the face of the Russian nuclear arsenal.

He said: “Senior Russian officials continue to make irresponsible statements regarding its nuclear forces, and we assess that they are doing it to intimidate our allies and us.”

“These have failed. If anything, they have really strengthened the Nato alliance solidarity.”

Nato has accused Russia of ‘sabre rattling’ in recent months, but the alliance have themselves been increasing their military presence in Eastern Europe.

Read more: Britain remains vital to the success of Nato
Russia begins huge air force drill as Nato exercises begin
Russia warns Sweden not to join Nato

On Tuesday, Nato announced that heavy weapons would be deployed across Europe in an effort to stand up to Russia.

Tanks, artillery, fighting vehicles and thousands of soldiers will be stationed in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland, in a show of military strength.

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter told the press: “While we do not seek a cold, let alone a hot war with Russia, we will defend our allies.”

Earlier this month, a large Nato military exercise took place in the Baltic Sea, with forces from across the alliance practicing amphibious landings and naval maneouvres.

Nato tests its high-readiness attack forces in Western Poland during a recent exercise Some of these exercises took place just a couple of hundred miles from Russia’s naval base in Kaliningrad.

As part of the larger exercise, Exercise Noble Jump took place in Poland from 9 June, in a test of Nato’s high readiness task force, that is designed to respond to urgent situations.

And yesterday, The Guardian reported that sources and Nato claimed that the alliance was preparing to discuss its own strategy on using nuclear weapons at a meeting in Brussels.

Up for discussion were Russia’s threats – with Nato ministers asking whether they should be taken seriously, or whether they are simply rhetoric.

As tensions increase, tit-for-tat exchanges of military force look set to continue.

 

Where’s the Pope’s Encyclical on Christian Persecution?

June 26, 2015

Where’s the Pope’s Encyclical on Christian Persecution? Front Page Magazine, June 26, 2015

(Please see also, The Scorpion, The Frog and The Pope. How about an encyclical on Islamic persecution of Christians and Jews? Others as well.– DM)

pope-francis1-450x281

Where is Pope Francis’ encyclical concerning the rampant persecution that Christians—including many Catholics—are experiencing around the world in general, the Islamic world in particular?

****************

Pope Francis recently released a new encyclical. Portions of it deal with environmentalism, global warming, and climate change. Naturally, this has prompted controversy.

It’s noteworthy that Francis didn’t merely opine on global warming during this or that sermon, but that he issued a papal encyclical on the matter. Encyclicals are much more formal and significant that passing comments made during mass. They are letters written by a pope and sent to bishops all around the world. In turn, the bishops are meant to disseminate the encyclical’s ideas to all the priests and churches in their jurisdiction, so that the pope’s teaching reaches every church-attending Catholic.

All this leads to the following question: Where is Pope Francis’ encyclical concerning the rampant persecution that Christians—including many Catholics—are experiencing around the world in general, the Islamic world in particular?

To be sure, the pope has acknowledged it. On April 21, during mass held at Casa Santa Marta, Francis said that today’s church is a “church of martyrs.” He even referenced several of the recent attacks on Christians by Muslims (without of course mentioned the latter’s religious identity).

Said Pope Francis:

In these days how many Stephens [early Christian martyred in Book of Acts] there are in the world! Let us think of our brothers whose throats were slit on the beach in Libya [by the Islamic State]; let’s think of the young boy who was burnt alive by his [Pakistani Muslim] companions because he was a Christian; let us think of those migrants thrown from their boat into the open sea by other [African Muslim] migrants because they were Christians; let us think – just the day before yesterday – of those Ethiopians assassinated because they were Christians… and of many others. Many others of whom we do not even know and who are suffering in jails because they are Christians… The Church today is a Church of martyrs: they suffer, they give their lives and we receive the blessing of God for their witness. [Note: words not uttered by the Pope are in brackets. –DM)

The pope is obviously well acquainted with the reality of Christian persecution around the world. So why isn’t he issuing an encyclical about it? Such an encyclical would be very useful.

The pope could instruct bishops to acknowledge the truth about Christian persecution and to have this news spread to every Catholic church. Perhaps a weekly prayer for the persecuted church could be institutionalized—keeping the plight of those hapless Christians in the spotlight, so Western Catholics and others always remember them, talk about them, and, perhaps most importantly, understand why they are being persecuted.

Once enough people are acquainted with the reality of Christian persecution, they could influence U.S. policymakers—at least to drop those policies that directly exacerbate the sufferings of Christian minorities in the Middle East.

Whatever the effects of such an encyclical—and one can only surmise positive ones—at the very least, the pope would be addressing a topic entrusted to his care and requiring his attention.

In 1958, Pope Pius XII issued an encyclical that addressed the persecution of Christians. A portion follows:

We are aware—to the great sorrow of Our fatherly heart—that the Catholic Church, in both its Latin and Oriental rites, is beset in many lands by such persecutions that the clergy and faithful … are confronted with this dilemma: to give up public profession and propagation of their faith, or to suffer penalties, even very serious ones.

[…]

Missionaries who have left their homes and dear native lands and suffered many serious discomforts in order to bring the light and the strength of the gospel to others, have been driven from many regions as menaces and evil-doers…

Note that Pius does not mention the burning and bombing of churches, or the abduction, rape, enslavement, and slaughter of Christians. The reason is that Christians living outside the West in 1958 rarely experienced such persecution. In other words, today’s global persecution of Christians is exponentially worse than in 1958. Pius complained about how Christianity was being contained, not allowed to spread and win over converts.

Today, indigenous Christians who’ve been in the Middle East before Islam was conceived are being slaughtered, their churches burned to the ground, their women and children, enslaved, raped, and forced to convert. “ISIS” is the tip of the iceberg.

Even in the West, statistics indicate that Islam is set to supersede Christianity,at least in numbers.

Yet no encyclical from Pope Francis on any of this. Instead, Francis deems it more fit to issue a proclamation addressing the environment and climate change.

Whatever position one holds concerning these topics, it is telling that the pope—the one man in the world best placed and most expected to speak up for millions of persecuted Christians and Catholics around the world—is more interested in speaking up for “the world” itself.

Bear in mind, the Christian worldview is not about “saving the earth”—“where moth and rust do corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal”—but in saving souls, both in the now and hereafter. The Lord questioned Saul of Tarsus as to why he was persecuting his flock, not about the environment.

Yet here we are: if even the Catholic Pope does not deem the ongoing, systematic assault on Christianity and Christians a priority issue in need of its own encyclical, what can be expected from the average secular/atheistic politician in the West?

The answer is before us: brutal persecution and slaughter of Christians on the one hand, and absolute indifference from the West on the other.

A Belief System in Need of Reform

June 26, 2015

(Some may have issues with the source, but I find this video quite compelling. – LS)

 

 

Barack Obama’s Unholy Alliance: A Romance With Islamism

June 26, 2015

Barack Obama’s Unholy Alliance: A Romance With Islamism, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 26, 2015

(But Obama can make everything right by restraining carbon dioxide emissions but not The Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear weaponization. Right? DM)

Toward the end of September 2012, Barack Obama finally came to New York City after skipping it during the 9/11 anniversary. He had made it out to the city the previous week for a celebrity fundraiser and an appearance on Letterman[1] and then back again for a taping of The View while turning down a meeting with Netanyahu who did not have a talk show or an envelope filled with money.[2]

The next day, while at least one of the Americans killed in Benghazi had yet to be buried,[3] he declared at the UN General Assembly, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”[4]

That statement also encompassed the agenda of the Benghazi killers, the terrorists who would attack Charlie Hebdo and the “Draw the Prophet” contest in Texas along with all the murderous censors of Mohammed determined that the future should not belong to those who slander their holy warlord.

It was Obama’s only mention of “Islam” in a speech addressing the brutal murder of four Americans by Islamic terrorists in a terror campaign targeting American diplomatic facilities on the anniversary of the original 9/11 attacks in Benghazi. The 9/11 attacks, like so many others, had begun with a cry of “Allahu Akbar.”[5]

When the killing in Benghazi was done, the Jihadists left behind the slogan “Allahu Akbar” or “Allah is Greater” scrawled on the walls of the American compound.[6] These were the same words that Obama had recited “with a first-rate accent” for the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof. Obama had called it “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth.”[7] On that too, the murderers of four Americans agreed with him.

Those who disagreed and were to be denied a future included Mark Basseley Youssef, a Coptic Christian, whose YouTube trailer for a movie critical of Islam was blamed by the administration for the attacks.

Two days after Obama’s UN speech, Youssef was arrested and held without bail. The order for his arrest came from the top. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had told Charles Woods, the father of murdered SEAL Tyrone Woods, “We’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video.”[8]

The ACLU, which had developed deep Islamist connections,[9] sent a letter to Hillary Clinton thanking her for her support of freedom of speech.[10]

The Supreme Court’s “Miracle Decision”[11] had thrown out a blasphemy ban for movies, but Obama’s new unofficial blasphemy ban targeted only those movies that offended Islam. The government had joined the terrorists in seeking to deny such movies and their creators a future.

At the United Nations, Obama had compared the filmmaker to the terrorists. He had used a Gandhi quote to assert that, “Intolerance is itself a form of violence.”[12] Americans who criticized Islam’s violent tendencies could be considered as bad as Muslim terrorists and if intolerance of Islam was a form of violence, then it could be criminalized and suppressed. That became the administration’s priority.

It took the administration years to make its first arrest of a Benghazi perpetrator,[13] but only days to urge Google to take down the Innocence of Muslims video[14] and weeks to arrest the man behind it.

In a little over a week, there was already a State Department apology video airing in Pakistan.[15] It took until the next month for the United States to even get access to the Benghazi compound.[16] Instead of going on the offensive against the attackers, Obama went on the offensive against critics of Islam.

His administration not only blamed a YouTube video to distract from its failures in Benghazi, but to exploit the crisis in order to suppress the truth about Islamic terrorism.

Obama had illegally fought a war to aid Islamic terrorists and was covering up his role in the Islamization of Libya by the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda[17] and eventually even ISIS.[18] He exploited a terrorist attack against Americans caused by his Islamization of Libya to advance the Islamization of America.

The new Islamized Libya, where Christians were beheaded and churches were bombed,[19] was what a nation that denied the future to those who did not accept the prophet of Islam really looked like.

Obama’s Islamist regime change had denied the Christians and non-Muslims of Libya a future. Among those non-Muslims who lost their future in Libya were four murdered Americans.

At the National Prayer Breakfast, Obama attacked Christianity for the Crusades in the presence of the foreign minister of Sudan, a genocidal government whose Muslim Brotherhood leader had massacred so many Christians and others that he had been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.[20] [21] And he told Christians that they were obligated to condemn insults to Islam.[22]

Some persecuted Christians could flee to America, but where would they flee to when Obama began denying a future to those who did not accept the moral and religious authority of the prophet of Islam?

Benghazi was not the first Islamic terror attack against Americans, but it was the first time that our government responded in the Islamic fashion by locking up a Christian for blaspheming against Islam.

Blaming the video turned a public relations disaster into a policy win. The blame was shifted from Obama’s backing for Islamist regime change in Libya to critics of Islam. Not only was the cause of the attack covered up, but Obama’s ideological agenda was advanced by an attack he had helped cause.

Stand With the Muslims

Our current conflict with Islamic terrorists is not caused by joblessness, poverty, the climate, dictators or any of the other familiar excuses. Instead it’s caused by the unholy alliance between Islam and the left.

Obama embodied that unholy alliance as no other occupant of the Oval Office since Carter had.

When discussing Muslim complaints about FBI counterterrorism operations, Obama believed that they needed assurances that, “I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”[23] Counterterrorism with its emphasis on exposing plots and potential terrorists singled out Muslims. His preferred form of counterterrorism empowered Islamists while shifting the blame to Americans.

Muslims did not need to change who they were to reject terrorism. Americans instead had to Islamize. The source of tension was not Muslim terrorism, but American ignorance and prejudice toward Islam.

Obama insisted that Americans needed to educate themselves on Islam because their country was “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” Not only was his claim false,[24] but it implied that America needed to be defined by Islam and that Americans needed to integrate Islam into their own identity.

As he put it in Cairo, “Islam has always been a part of America’s story.”[25]

The Obama model did not require that Americans become Muslims, but that they make Islam a part of their culture so that, like him,   they would be able to quote the Koran or recite the Islamic call to prayer.

Obama rejected the secular common ground championed by European republics. Secularism had been used in America to limit the presence of Christianity and Judaism in public life, but the left did not accept its logic of neutral spaces when it came to Islam. Islam was treated as a culture rather than a religion. Excluding Christianity excluded a belief. Excluding Islam, unacceptably excluded a culture and a race. The new diverse American identity being constructed by the left would not be truly diverse without Islam.

If France insisted on being a secular republic, America would at least partially become a Muslim country.

After the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Obama’s failure to attend the Unity March put Islamist feelings ahead of freedom of speech. Instead his administration tried to shift attention to a Countering Violent Extremism summit stacked with Islamists[26] [27] as its preferred response to Islamic terrorism.

The White House had previously been critical of Hebdo’s Mohammed cartoons.[28] While it still paid lip service to freedom of speech, in Paris, Benghazi and Garland[29] Islam came ahead of universal freedoms.

During the Cairo speech, Obama had explicitly rejected the French secular formula, stating, “It is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit — for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear.”

“Likewise, we can’t disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretense of liberalism,” he added.[30]

Christians, whose ability to practice their religion has been unprecedentedly attacked under his administration, might have found that statement disingenuous, but it was an exemption exclusively extended to Muslims. His administration might repress Christianity, but never Islam. While it accused Christians of discrimination, it fought for the Islamic right to discriminate against women.

Obama did not acknowledge the Islamic violence and repression against women that was the true basis for France’s Burqa ban. One survey had found that 77 percent of girls in France who wore the Hijab did so because of threats from Islamist groups.[31] He also ignored the growing problem of Muslim honor killings[32] and female genital mutilation (FGM) in the United States. The half-million girls and women in this country at risk for FGM[33]mattered less than enforcing Islamist standards for covering up women.

While his administration vigorously targeted any employer or school that interfered with the wearing of the Hijab,[34] [35] it showed no similar dedication in any campaign against FGM or honor killings of women.

Like the Saudi religious police who wanted to let teenage girls burn rather than allow them to escape without proper Islamic covering,[36] Obama placed the Hijab above the lives of Muslim women and girls.

The administration had made the decision to protect Islamic sexism, rather than Muslim women.

While the administration cracked down on nuns, it was suing towns over zoning ordinances that interfered with building mega-mosques.[37] [38] [39]Even though the regulations did not single out mosques or Islam, the administration stepped in specifically when Islamists wanted to bully Americans.

If the French still clung to the idea of a secular republic, Obama had chosen to Islamize America. Those who resisted were faced with huge fines and even prison. America might not be one of the world’s biggest Muslim countries, but under Obama it was beginning to act more like Saudi Arabia or Iran.

In Cairo, Obama had declared that, “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”[40]

He had committed to waging a constant campaign against those who spoke out against Islam.

By the time that the Benghazi attacks took place, the pattern of promoting Islam, denying Islamic terrorism and silencing critics had become the administration’s twisted version of counterterrorism.

This brand of counterterrorism insisted that the biggest threat was not the terrorists, but the truth. Identifying Islamic terrorists as such would increase Muslim alienation and terrorist recruitment. There was nothing violent about Islam and yet videos and cartoons offensive to Islam could not be tolerated because they would lead to violence; a violence whose Islamic nature would be fervently denied.

Muslim terrorist groups, from ISIS on down, were deemed un-Islamic. Lone wolf attackers were characterized as ignorant of Islam. To disagree was to aid the terrorists, as Obama’s aides suggested.[41] Counterterrorism came to mean lying about Islam. Anyone who defined the problem could, like the “Draw the Prophet” cartoonists in Texas or Mark Basseley Youssef, be accused of having caused it.

The lie could not be challenged or the bombs would go off. Tell the truth and the terrorists win.

Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), the administration’s alternative to European integration, outsourced domestic counterterrorism policy to the Muslim Brotherhood’s front groups and transformed pandering to them into the core of our domestic counterterrorism strategy.[42]

Violent extremism was a vague and undefined term. Countering it was an even more vague and undefined policy that had far less to do with phoning tips to the FBI, an act that CAIR, a leading administration Muslim Brotherhood ally, had come out against,[43] than with promoting Islam.

Since Islamic terrorism was un-Islamic, promoting Islam was the best means of fighting Islamic radicalization. The terrorists had “perverted” Islam and had to be countered with authentic Islam.[44] Radicalization was caused by Muslim alienation and the only cure for it was Islamizing America.

CVE could Islamize unlikely agencies of the United States government by redirecting their priorities. When Obama told the NASA Administrator that one of his top priorities had to be making Muslims “feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering” that was CVE in action.[45]

A CVE conference held the day after Benghazi promoted touring Muslim rappers associated with a Muslim Brotherhood front group who were sponsored by the State Department.[46] [47] [48] [49] Money that should have been used to secure Americans at risk in Benghazi was wasted on Islamist self-promotion.

It was speculated that possibly hundreds of millions of dollars were being thrown at CVE activities.[50] And CVE had not only failed in its mission, but invariably mainstreamed the worst elements in Islam.

By the post-Hebdo CVE conference, the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications had been turned over[51] to Rashad Hussain, a Muslim Brotherhood linked official,[52] and before long its “Think Again Turn Away” Twitter account was promoting everything from anti-Semitism to Al Qaeda.[53] [54] [55]

Meanwhile, echoing Obama’s mandate to “educate ourselves more effectively on Islam,”[56] the educational system was being bent to promote the practice of Islam to American children.[57]

Parents across the country discovered that schools were taking their children to mosques where they were being taught to participate in Islamic worship.[58] After American soldiers had fought to liberate Afghan women, American girls in this country were being dressed in burqas.[59]

Obama had told a Cairo audience, which included the Muslim Brotherhood, that he was rejecting the French model of protecting women from Islamic coercion. Instead the United States had adopted the Brotherhood’s model of urging American women to adopt Islamist practices.

His idea of standing with the Muslims was transforming counterterrorism into a tool of Islamization.

The Brotherhood Administration

In August 2013, Al-Wafd, a paper linked to one of Egypt’s more liberal parties which supports equal rights for women and Christians, accused Obama of having close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. [60]

A year earlier, Rose El-Youssef magazine, founded by an early Egyptian feminist, had compiled a list of six Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the administration.[61] [62]

Beyond Huma Abedin, Hillary’s close confidante and aide, the list included; Arif Alikhan, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Policy Development; Mohammed Elibiary, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council; Rashad Hussain, formerly the U.S. Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference and currently the Coordinator for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications; Salam al-Marayati, co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC); Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and Eboo Patel, a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships.

These were the types of accusations that the media tended to dismissively associate with the right, but both Egyptian publications were on the other side of the spectrum.

Egyptian liberals were the ones brandishing placards of a bearded Kerry in Taliban clothes or a photoshopped Obama with a Salafist beard. The protesters Obama had supposedly sought to support by calling for Mubarak to step down were crowding the streets accusing him of backing terrorists.

What made the Egyptian liberals who had seen America as their ally in pursuing reform come to view it as an enemy? The angry Egyptian protesters were accusing Obama of supporting a dictator; the original sin of American foreign policy that his Cairo Speech and the Arab Spring had been built on rejecting.

The progressive critiques of American foreign policy insisted that we were hated for supporting dictators. Now their own man was actually hated for supporting a Muslim Brotherhood dictator.

By 2014, 85% of Egyptians disliked America. Only 10% still rated America favorably.[63] It was a shift from the heady days of the Arab Spring when America had slid into positive numbers for the first time.[64]

Obama had run for office promising to repair our image abroad. As a candidate, he had claimed that other countries believed that “America is part of what has gone wrong in our world.” And yet the true wrongness was present in that same speech when he urged, “a new dawn in the Middle East.”[65]

That dawn came with the light of burning churches at the hands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Under Obama, America really did become part of what had gone wrong by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. It is a crime that Obama will not admit to and that the media will not report on.

The Muslim Brotherhood was born out of Egypt and yet Egyptian views of it are dismissed by the media. Despite the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s final orgy of brutality as President Mohammed Morsi clung to power, despite the burning churches and tortured protesters, it is still described as “moderate.”

Morsi, who had called on Egyptians to nurse their children on hatred of the Jews,[66] was a moderate. Sheikh Rachid al-Ghannouchi, the leader of Ennahda, the Tunisian flavor of the Muslim Brotherhood, who had called for the extermination of the Jews “male, female and children,”[67] was also a “moderate.” Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, went one better with a fatwa approving even the murder of unborn Jews.[68] Qaradawi was another moderate.[69]

The only Muslim Brotherhood leader who hasn’t been described as a moderate is Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted by the ICC for genocide and crimes against humanity.[70]

But if the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t a moderate organization, if it is indeed violent and bigoted, why did Obama alienate Egyptians and others across the region by supporting it? The angry Egyptians in the street had an explanation, but they had failed to understand how deeply the infiltration truly went.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s front groups, such as the MSA and CAIR, had become so entangled with the left that it was impossible for the latter to wash its hands of the former. Not only the administration, but its political allies on the left, such as the Center for American Progress[71] and the ACLU[72], had been infiltrated by Islamists. The administration’s infiltration was a symptom of the problem, not its cause.

Obama sits at the center of a web of intertwined progressive organizations. This web has infiltrated the government and it in turn has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Consider the case of Faiz Shakir, who went from the Harvard Islamic Society where he helped fundraise for a Muslim Brotherhood front group funneling money to Hamas, the local Muslim Brotherhood franchise, to Editor-in-Chief and Vice President at the Center for American Progress, heading up the nerve center of the left’s messaging apparatus, to a Senior Adviser to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and then Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.[73] The next step after that is the White House.

Time magazine described the Center for American Progress as Obama’s idea factory, crediting it with forming his talking points and his government.[74] In an administration powered by leftist activists, the integration between the Muslim Brotherhood and the left resulted in a pro-Brotherhood policy.

Egyptian liberals had expected that the administration’s withdrawal of support for Mubarak would benefit them, but the American left had become far closer to the Muslim Brotherhood than to them. Instead of aiding the left, it aided the Brotherhood. The Egyptian liberals were a world away while the Brotherhood’s activists sat in the left’s offices and spoke in the name of all the Muslims in America.

The left had made common cause with the worst elements in the Muslim world. It formed alliances with Muslim Brotherhood groups, accepting them as the only valid representatives of Muslim communities while denouncing their critics, both Muslim and non-Muslim, as Islamophobes.

The Arab Spring disaster, from the Muslim Brotherhood brutality in Egypt and Tunisia, the bloody civil war in Libya to the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, was the fruit of this tainted red-green alliance.

The four Americans murdered in Benghazi, the American hostages beheaded by ISIS along with the countless Christians, Yazidis and others butchered, raped and enslaved had fallen victim to the left’s support for the Brotherhood’s political ambitions, tyrannies and holy wars.

The Brotherhood Spring

“What we are witnessing these days of consecutive revolutions is a great and glorious event, and it is most probable, according to reality and history, that it will encompass the majority of the Islamic world with the will of Allah, and thanks to Allah things are strongly heading towards the exit of Muslims from being under the control of America,” Osama bin Laden wrote of the Arab Spring.[75]

“The fall of the remaining tyrants in the region became a must with the will of Allah, and it was the beginning of a new era for the whole nation,” he added.[76]

What was happening though had less to do with the will of Allah and more to do with the will of Obama.

Allah had not come down to Cairo to cut Arab allies loose, nor did he reserve seats for the Muslim Brotherhood or force regime change.[77] Osama credited Allah, but he really should have thanked Obama.

Both Obama and Osama agreed on the need to remove the current leaders of allied Arab governments and both men saw the Arab Spring as a vindication of their visions for the future. But the wave of new Islamist governments friendly to terrorists that swept across the region vindicated Osama, not Obama.

In Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, Sheikh Rashid al-Ghannouchi , the leader of the Islamist Ennahda party, who had once declared that “Crusader America” was the “enemy of Islam”[78] had come into his own. In the past he had been denied a visa to enter the United States,[79] but in the age of Obama he was feted at an event attended by, among others, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State.[80]

Only a few years earlier, he had stated that the Arab Spring would “threaten the extinction of Israel.”[81]

“The Arab region will get rid of the bacillus of Israel. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of Hamas, said that Israel will disappear by the year 2027. I say that this date may be too far away, and Israel may disappear before this. “[82]

The Sheikh had already called for the mass murder of Jews, stating that, “There are no civilians in Israel. The population—males, females and children—are the army reserve soldiers, and thus can be killed.”[83]

Once in power, Ennahda chose to turn a blind eye to Islamist violence.[84] On September 11, 2012, as the Jihadist attacks on American embassies and diplomatic missions swept around the Muslim world, the embassy in Tunis came under attack. And help didn’t come from the Ennahda government.

Instead Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was forced to place an urgent phone call to the secular president, a ceremonial position in Tunisia, who dispatched his own presidential guard to protect the embassy.[85] An ungrateful Hillary then delivered a speech praising the Islamists and thanking the Islamist government, rather than the president, who had risked his own safety to protect the embassy.[86]

The attack and the response by Tunisia’s Islamist government should have been anticipated.

In the past, Sheikh Rashid al-Ghannouchi had urged, “We must wage unceasing war against the Americans until they leave the land of Islam, or we will burn and destroy all their interests across the entire Islamic world.”[87]

That was exactly what the Jihadists had attempted to do on September 11, 2012 in Tunis and across the region with the complicity of the new Arab Spring governments Obama had helped bring to power.

A similar pattern of complicity emerged in Egypt where the attackers were allowed to scale the walls of the American Embassy in Cairo.[88] While the worst attack of that day took place in Benghazi, where Jihadists were in control of the city, in Tunis and Cairo a different breed of Jihadists had become the government and they had little interest in defending American lives or property.

While much of the controversy over the murder of four Americans in Benghazi has centered around the failure by the State Department to secure the diplomatic mission, that attack and many of the others came out of a volatile environment created by the empowerment of Islamists through the Arab Spring.

Nowhere was there more at stake for Obama’s “New Beginning” with the Islamists than in Cairo, but by reaching out to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, he was coming dangerously close to Al Qaeda.

The State Department’s 2008 strategic assessment stated that, “Although Usama bin Ladin remained the group’s ideological figurehead, Zawahiri has emerged as AQ’s strategic and operational planner.”[89] Even Osama bin Laden had been a Muslim Brotherhood member,[90] but after his death the organization’s leadership would become a more purely Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood affair.

Saif al Adel, the interim Emir of Al Qaeda, and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current Al Qaeda leader, were products of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its splinter group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The brother of the Al Qaeda chief, Mohammed al-Zawahiri, helped organize the attack on the American embassy in Cairo[91] and allegedly engaged in discussions with Mohammed Morsi over an alliance with Al Qaeda.[92]

The Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a Muslim Brotherhood splinter group which merged with Al Qaeda, later reemerged under different leadership as the Islamic Party while the terrorist group Gamaa Islamiya or the Islamic Group formed the Building and Development Party and allied with Morsi.

Morsi pardoned Mostafa Hamza[93] who had ordered Gamaa Islamiya’s Luxor Massacre in which terrorists mutilated and disemboweled European and Japanese visitors. The massacre was reportedly arranged by Ayman al-Zawahiri and funded by Osama bin Laden.[94] Morsi’s alliance with the terror group even led him to attempt to appoint a Gamaa Islamiya member as Governor of Luxor.[95]

Even though Gamaa Islamiya was still listed as a terrorist group, one of its lawmakers, Hani Nour Eldin, received a visa to enter the United States and met with senior Obama administration officials including then Deputy National Security Adviser and current White House Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough.[96]

The terrorist asked McDonough about releasing Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the infamous Blind Sheikh who was the leader of Gamaa Islamiya, serving a life sentence for plotting attacks across New York City, after his followers bombed the World Trade Center.[97] Shortly thereafter, Morsi told a cheering crowd that he would work to free Rahman. The State Department was reportedly considering the deal.[98]

The thin firewall between the supposed extremists and moderates, between the political Islamists and the terrorists, between the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, had worn so thin that it barely existed. Instead members of terrorist groups were running Egypt and openly petitioning the United States to free the figure most closely associated with the World Trade Center bombing in the minds of Americans.

And yet despite the Muslim Brotherhood’s torture and killing of protesters, its alignment with its fellow Hamas terrorists in Gaza and its flirtation with Al Qaeda and Iran, Obama continued to support it.

After videos surfaced of Morsi calling for the destruction of Israel and urging hatred of Jews as a form of worship of Allah, Secretary of State John Kerry defended the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to his regime.

“Not everything lends itself to a simple classification, black or white,” Kerry said. “We have critical interests with Egypt.[99]

Statements like “Resistance is the correct and only way to free the land from the filth of the Jews”[100] should have been easy to classify, but instead the Muslim Brotherhood’s anti-Semitism became a matter of ambiguity and nuance for an administration determined to continue aiding the terror group.

“President Morsi has issued two statements,” Kerry said, “to clarify those comments and we had a group of senators who met with him the other day who spent a good part of the conversation in relatively heated discussion with him about it.”[101]

Kerry neglected to mention that during the “heated discussion,” Morsi had suggested that the criticism was only taking place because the American media was under the control of the Jews.[102]

While Kerry had insisted at the time that the weapons transfers were necessary to safeguard American interests in Egypt and even help Israel, when another popular uprising toppled Morsi and replaced him with a new non-Islamist government, delivery of the jets was put on hold.[103] [104] This move made it clear that Obama and Kerry had not sought to supply the jets to Egypt, but to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Arab Spring had been intended as a vehicle for bringing the Muslim Brotherhood and its allied Islamists to power, not only in Tunisia and Egypt, but across the region.

Backing for Gaddafi’s overthrow had been bought by the shift of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group from Al Qaeda to the Muslim Brotherhood under the auspices of the Brotherhood’s Sheikh Qaradawi.[105] [106] When the mission in Benghazi needed protection, the task was handed to the Brotherhood’s February 17 Martyrs Brigade[107] [108] which had been employed by the National Transitional Council.[109]

Closely interrelated with Ansar Al-Sharia,[110] the Jihadists that launched the attack against the mission in Benghazi, the February 17 Martyrs Brigade has been accused of complicity in their attack.[111]

The NTC had been Obama’s choice for regime change[112] and its draft constitution stated that Sharia law would be Libya’s law.[113] The Benghazi attack was an early warning of a larger conflict that would see the Muslim Brotherhood and its Jihadist allies take control of Libya’s capital.[114] It was a battle in a larger war.

Across the Middle East, the Brotherhood reaped the political harvest of the Arab Spring.

In Morocco, the Arab Spring brought the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Justice and Development Party (PJD) to power.[115] Abdelilah Benkirane, its Head of Government, was a former member of Chabiba Islamia; an Islamist group working to create an Islamic State, some of whose members would go on to join the Al Qaeda interlinked Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group.

Like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Tunisia’s Ennahda, PJD was depicted as a moderate Islamist group. Little mention was made of its close ties to Hamas.[116] Benkirane had described Israel as a “hostile state”, praised Hamas and stated that Moroccans want to wage Jihad alongside the genocidal terrorists.[117]

The PJD’s 2007 platform had called for imposing Islamic law on Morocco and the destruction of Israel.[118] Even after coming to power, PJD continued to maintain close ties with Hamas. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal attended its first conference[119] and met with Benkirane.[120]

Such relationships between Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood governments were natural and inevitable. Hamas was a fellow Muslim Brotherhood embryonic government. By aiding the rise of Muslim Brotherhood governments, Obama was creating state supporters for the anti-Semitic terror group.

In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh was ousted from power. Elections made the Brotherhood’s Al-Islah into the country’s second largest party.[121] A key figure in Al-Islah was Sheikh Zindani, an Osama bin Laden mentor listed by the US as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” who had played a role in the terrorist attack on the USS Cole and Yemen’s local September 11, 2012 attack on the US embassy. [122] [123]

The Arab Spring led to Muslim Brotherhood political victories putting the group’s various arms on a path to controlling much of the Middle East. However, they fared poorly when the political conflicts grew violent, losing to popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, to the Houthis in Yemen and to ISIS in Syria.

These conflicts often flared up when the Muslim Brotherhood showed its true colors. The Brotherhood, despite its violent rhetoric and roots, produced better manipulators than warriors. It was adept at convincing American officials, the leftist opposition, tribal leaders and freelance Jihadists to follow its agenda, but sooner or later its partners realized that it sought absolute power and could not be trusted.

Obama never realized that about the Muslim Brotherhood or perhaps he chose not to realize it.

American Guilt

Beyond the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama sought to cultivate ties with the worst elements in the region.

The common element that attracted him to the Muslim Brotherhood and the mullahs of Iran, despite their being on opposite sides of the Syrian Civil War, was their mutual enmity toward America.

While the foreign policy of the right attempts to secure national interests, the foreign policy of the left seeks to atone for national crimes. It was not strategy that drove his outreach to enemies of our country, but guilt. To the left, both the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran were victims of our foreign policy.

The Muslim Brotherhood had suffered because of our backing for Sadat and Mubarak. Iran’s clerical tyrants resented us because of our support for the Shah.

Obama had taken up the Muslim Brotherhood’s cause as far back as the 2002 anti-war speech in which he had demanded that Bush stop Mubarak from “suppressing dissent.”[124] He told his Iran negotiators to understand that the Islamic terrorist state feels “vulnerable” because of the way that America “meddled in first their democracy and then in supporting the Shah and then in supporting Iraq and Saddam during that extremely brutal war.”[125] Iran and the Brotherhood were not our enemies; they were our victims.

Any Islamic enemy of America could count on the left’s sympathy and support for its victimhood.

President Bush’s denunciation of the Axis of Evil had drawn Democrats to rally around Axis members. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi visited Bashar Assad at a time when the Bush administration was seeking to pressure the Syrian dictator to shut down the flow of Al Qaeda suicide bombers murdering American soldiers.[126] And John Kerry became even more notorious for his serial pandering to Assad.[127]

But the left’s best efforts were reserved for the worst Islamic member of the Axis of Evil.

The Tehran Trio of three key administration foreign policy figures, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Sec-retary Chuck Hagel had become notorious for their pro-Iran advocacy before joining the admin-istration.[128] [129] The Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated the White House, but so had the Iran Lobby in the form of the American-Iranian Council.

Animated by American guilt, the left’s foreign policy demanded a constant search for enemies to empower. This disastrous policy was less pro-Muslim than it was anti-American. The alliances that it made did not follow the consistent line of Islamic theology, but the inconsistent line of appeasement.

Every enemy of America, no matter how evil, had a part to play in dismantling our national security.

Out of Gitmo

In his first election, Obama had many endorsements, but in his second election only one name counted.

During the second presidential debate, he was asked what he had done about rising prices. Obama replied that, “Osama bin Laden is dead.” When challenged on Benghazi, he again brought up bin Laden. During the first debate, he brought out bin Laden in response to a question about partisan gridlock.[130]

By the third debate, he was so drunk on secondhand heroism that he boasted that, “I said, if I got bin Laden in our sights, I would take that shot.”[131] Obama was all but starring in his own imaginary action movie. Voters were left with the impression that he had ordered the execution of the terrorist leader.

But Obama’s real plans for Osama had actually been very different. He had not intended to use him to dismantle Al Qaeda, but to dismantle Guantanamo Bay and the military commission trials of terrorists.

If Obama’s plan had succeeded, Osama’s capture would have dealt a death blow to the War on Terror.

Despite playing patriot at the debate, Obama had told the liberal readers of Vanity Fair the real story. According to the journalist who interviewed him, “Obama saw an opportunity to resurrect the idea of a criminal trial, which Attorney General Eric Holder had planned for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.”[132]

Trying a top terrorist in a civilian court had been too controversial, but capturing Osama bin Laden would have been a public relations coup that would have drowned out the protests and the criticism.

Instead of killing Osama, the goal was to bring him back and “put him on trial in a federal court.”

“I would be in a pretty strong position, politically, here, to argue that displaying due process and rule of law would be our best weapon against al-Qaeda,” Obama boasted.[133]

If Osama bin Laden had been tried in a civilian court, it would have become impossible to argue that any lesser terrorist should be kept in the Article III system. And that would have dismantled a fundamental distinction between terrorists and criminals that defined the War on Terror and infuriated Obama.

The real target of Operation Neptune Spear wasn’t bin Laden; it was Guantanamo Bay.

When the SEALs killed the Al Qaeda leader, they sabotaged Obama’s plan to try him in a civilian court and shut down military commissions trials. But Obama recovered from that setback by exploiting bin Laden’s death to secure a second term and provide political cover for his disastrous foreign policy.

Most importantly, it diverted attention from the real target, the terrorists of Guantanamo Bay.

Gitmo had been Obama’s priority from the start. During his first days in office, three out of his first five executive orders involved the Islamic terrorists locked up at Gitmo.[134] His third executive order outlawed enhanced interrogations of terrorists “to promote the safe, lawful, and humane treatment of individuals in United States custody.”[135] His fourth and fifth sought to close the prison and free its terrorists.[136] [137]

It took Obama a month to set up the Economic Recovery Advisory Board. It took him two days to set up a Special Interagency Task Force on Detainee Disposition to free Gitmo terrorists. His priority was not the economy, or even gay rights, amnesty and abortion; it was aiding Islamic terrorists.

The departure of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel made it clear just how much of a priority freeing Gitmo terrorists was for Obama. The former senator, an anti-war politician, shared Obama’s views on Iraq and Iran. But he was unwilling to free dangerous terrorists at the rapid rate that Obama wanted.

White House officials complained that “his concerns about the security risks posed by the release of detainees” had “thwarted” Obama’s plans for closing Guantanamo Bay. National Security Advisor Susan Rice was reportedly angry because Hagel had not wanted to rush through releases.[138] Hagel admitted to CNN that the White House had indeed pressured him to speed up terrorist releases.[139]

The White House had fought hard for Hagel, but when he tried to slow down the release of dangerous terrorists, he was shown the door. Obama’s highest priority for his Secretary of Defense did not involve freeing Afghans and Iraqis from the Taliban and ISIS, but freeing their Islamic terrorist allies from Gitmo.

The five Taliban commanders freed by Obama in exchange for a deserter made headlines because of the splashy White House photo op, but the administration had been quietly releasing even more dangerous men. These included Mohammed Zahir, the Secretary General of the Taliban’s Intelligence Directorate, who had been caught with nuclear materials while reportedly preparing to build an atom bomb.[140]

Even while America was trying to stop ISIS from taking over Syria and Iraq, terrorists from the Syrian Group, which had been run by the uncle of the former leader of ISIS back when it was known as Al Qaeda in Iraq, were being released. The freed terrorists had received training in everything from suicide bombing to forging documents. Some had links to terrorist attacks against Americans and America.[141]

Among those freed was Mohammed Abis Ourgy, a bomb maker who may have known ahead of time about September 11.[142]

At least two of the terrorists released by Obama had threatened to assassinate President Bush.

Adel Al-Hakeemy, a military advisor to Osama bin Laden, had threatened revenge against America and stated that he would kill President Bush if given the chance. Muhammed Ali Husayn had dispatched letters to Congress and the White House warning that they would “be destroyed, suffer and lose.”[143]

Obama was forcing the release of terrorists rated as high risk who had made specific threats against the United States. He even insisted on freeing terrorists from conflict zones such as Yemen and Syria.

His administration had freed five Yemeni terrorists, releasing four of them to neighboring Oman, which had been used as a gateway by the Charlie Hebdo attackers operating under orders from Al Qaeda in Yemen.[144] The four included an Al Qaeda veteran of the Yemeni military who was suspected of serving as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden[145] and an Al Qaeda terrorist who had received IED training.[146]

No responsible government would have released such terrorists in the vicinity of an active war zone.

But Obama had made freeing the Jihadists of Gitmo into his highest priority. He executed his plans at the expense of our national security, our allies and the members of his own administration.

Even his greatest unintended triumph against Al Qaeda, the death of Osama bin Laden, had never been anything other than a warped attempt at freeing more Islamic terrorists from Guantanamo Bay.

A Stolen Future

Every president is the custodian of a nation and its future.

When Obama declared to the UN that the future must not belong to those who criticize Islam’s brutality, bigotry and abuse of women, he was also defining whom it must belong to. If the future must not belong to those who slander Mohammed, it will instead belong to his followers and those who respect his moral authority enough to view him as being above criticism in image, video or word.

With these words, Obama betrayed America’s heritage of freedom and announced the theft of its future. The treason of his unholy alliance with Islam not only betrays the Americans of the present, but deprives their descendants of the freedom to speak, write and believe according to their conscience.

Obama has placed the full weight of the government’s resources behind Islam. He has suppressed domestic dissent against Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood while aiding their international goals.

And by doing so, he has aided the foreign and domestic enemies of this country.

The president is more than the sum of his office. He is the man who believes most strongly in the promise of an American future. His speeches reflect the faith that we have in ourselves.

Obama is the first occupant of the White House to openly deny American Exceptionalism. Every president before him has chosen an American future. Obama chose an Islamic future instead.

It remains up to Americans to reclaim their future by exposing and breaking Obama’s unholy alliance.

Notes:

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-W38

[2] http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/24/obama-comes-to-new-york-for-barbara-walters-and-sorta-the-united-nations/

[3] http://www.kcra.com/news/local-news/news-sierra/Slain-U-S-Ambassador-Chris-Stevens-buried-in-Grass-Valley/17556470

[4] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/25/remarks-president-un-general-assembly

[5] http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/saudi-official-western-politicians-and-media-linked-islam-to-911-thereby-driving-muslims-to-become-terrorists

[6] http://tinyurl.com/ka9jj7q

[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/opinion/06kristof.html

[8] http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/oct/25/picket-audio-father-killed-navy-seal-hillary-told-/

[9] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/aclu%E2%80%99s-islamist-friends

[10]https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/state_department_letter_on_innocence_of_muslims.pdf

[11] http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/11/why-the-us-should-oppose-defamation-of-religions-resolutions-at-the-united-nations

[12] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/25/remarks-president-un-general-assembly

[13] http://fox40.com/2014/06/17/captured-key-benghazi-suspect-will-face-u-s-criminal-courts/

[14] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/14/white-house-asks-youtube-to-review-anti-islam-film/

[15] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/20/state-department-spending-70g-on-pakistan-ads-denouncing-anti-islam-film/

[16] http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/FBI-Benghazi-investigation/2012/10/04/id/458761/

[17] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/23/jihadists-now-control-secretive-u-s-base-in-libya.html

[18] http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/18/world/isis-libya/

[19] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/raymond-ibrahim/libyas-unleashed-hatred-for-christianity/

[20] http://freebeacon.com/national-security/obama-attends-prayer-breakfast-with-sudanese-official-accused-of-genocide/

[21] http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2012/10/27/how-will-the-muslim-brotherhood-govern-egypt-look-to-sudan

[22] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/05/remarks-president-national-prayer-breakfast

[23] The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006

[24] http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/06/us_is_one_of_the_largest_musli.html

[25] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09

[26] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/islamists-featured-countering-violent-extremism-summit

[27] http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/414064/find-countering-violent-extremism-summit-intersection-islamists-and-leftists-andrew-c

[28] http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/01/07/white-house-questioned-french-magazines-judgment-in-2012-for-publishing-naked-muhammad-cartoon/

[29] http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Pamela-Geller-Draw-the-Prophet-ISIS-threat-FBI/2015/05/07/id/643160/

[30] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09

[31] http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2010/03/02/opinion-why-france-is-right-about-the-burqa/

[32] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-11-29-honor-killings-in-the-US_N.htm

[33] http://www.newsweek.com/fgm-rates-have-doubled-us-2004-304773

[34] http://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2004/May/04_crt_343.htm

[35] http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/abercrombie-fitch-supreme-court-hijab-wearing-job-applicant-115498.html

[36]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/1387874/15-girls-die-as-zealots-drive-them-into-blaze.html

[37] http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/07/justice-department-sues-on-behalf-of-murfreesboro-mega-mosque-federal-judge-orders-it-to-open

[38] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/cry-islamophobia-and-win

[39] http://www.wnd.com/2014/12/obama-doj-forces-city-to-pay-muslims-7-75-million/

[40] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09

[41] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/us/politics/faulted-for-avoiding-islamic-labels-white-house-cites-a-strategic-logic.html

[42] http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/414064/find-countering-violent-extremism-summit-intersection-islamists-and-leftists-andrew-c

[43] http://www.investigativeproject.org/2515/cair-deceptive-spin-on-fbi-support

[44] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/18/remarks-president-closing-summit-countering-violent-extremism

[45] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/7875584/Barack-Obama-Nasa-must-try-to-make-Muslims-feel-good.html

[46] http://www.wired.com/2012/10/cve/

[47] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/obamas-national-security-priority-moderate-muslim-rappers/

[48] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Deen#cite_note-rap-1

[49] http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6705

[50] http://www.wired.com/2012/10/cve/

[51] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/obama-appoints-terrorist-supporter-to-head-up-counterterrorism-messaging/

[52] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ryan-mauro/rashad-hussains-troubling-ties/

[53] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/is-the-state-depts-new-muslim-run-office-promoting-anti-semitism/

[54] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/obamas-counterterrorism-messaging-promotes-islamic-takeover-of-uk/

[55] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/state-department-counters-violent-extremism-by-supporting-al-qaeda/

[56] http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/06/us_is_one_of_the_largest_musli.html

[57]http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/12/allah_in_our_schools.html#.VKAAL7AwpNk.twitter

[58] http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/17/school-apologizes-students-pray-allah-field-trip-mosque/

[59] http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/students-made-to-wear-burqas-in-u-s-state/

[60] http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/03/egyptian-newspapers-explosive-allegation-president-obama-is-a-secret-muslim-brotherhood-member

[61] http://www.investigativeproject.org/3869/egyptian-magazine-muslim-brotherhood-infiltrates

[62] http://www.investigativeproject.org/3868/a-man-and-6-of-the-brotherhood-in-the-white-house

[63] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/which-countries-dont-like-america-and-which-do/

[64] http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/poll-egyptian-publics-views-toward-united-states-are-much-improved/

[65] http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/24/obama.words/

[66]http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164282#.VSXffl1g8rk

[67] http://www.clarionproject.org/news/what-isna-doesnt-publicize-about-its-convention-speakers

[68] http://www.meforum.org/700/arab-liberals-prosecute-clerics-who-promote-murder

[69] http://www.investigativeproject.org/2315/moderate-qaradawi-defends-hitler-and-nuclear

[70] http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/situations%20and%20cases/situations/situation%20icc%200205/related%20cases/icc02050109/Pages/icc02050109.aspx

[71] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-center-for-american-progress-and-islamist-influences-over-the-white-house/

[72] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/aclu%E2%80%99s-islamist-friends

[73] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/nancy-pelosi-hires-former-terrorist-fundraiser/

[74] http://content.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1861305,00.html

[75] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/75873_Page3.html

[76] https://archive.org/stream/354027-how-bin-laden-planned-to-capitalize-on-the-arab/354027-how-bin-laden-planned-to-capitalize-on-the-arab_djvu.txt

[77] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/06/-brotherhood-invited-to-obama-speech-by-us/18693/

[78] http://freebeacon.com/national-security/yale-to-host-radical-terror-sheikh-who-advocated-killing-of-u-s-soldiers/

[79] http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/reader/archives/a-u-s-visa-for-rachid-ghannouchi/

[80] http://www.globalmbwatch.com/2014/03/21/officials-dine-tunisian-muslim-brotherhood-leader-event-honor/

[81] http://www.investigativeproject.org/3262/media-whitewash-ghannouchi-radical-islamist-views#

[82] Ibid.

[83] http://www.meforum.org/700/arab-liberals-prosecute-clerics-who-promote-murder

[84] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-tunisia-rights-islamistsbre89e138-20121015,0,5425588.story

[85] http://world.time.com/2012/09/16/political-battles-in-tunisia-shade-attacks-on-u-s-embassy/

[86]http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2012/10/199102.htm

[87] http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/reader/archives/a-u-s-visa-for-rachid-ghannouchi/

[88] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/the-hosts-responsibilities/2012/09/12/4eb1edf2-fd1b-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_blog.html

[89] http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2007/103704.htm

[90] http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/09/27/Bin-Laden-was-once-in-Muslim-Brotherhood/UPI-15591348771820/

[91] http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/10/al_qaeda-linked_jiha.php

[92] http://blogs.cbn.com/ibrahim/archive/2014/02/04/exposed-muslim-brotherhood-al-qaeda-connection.aspx

[93] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/muslim-brotherhood-pres-frees-monster-in-brutal-luxor-massacre/

[94] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/343207.stm

[95] http://www.clarionproject.org/news/morsi-appoints-luxor-terror-group-member-gov-luxor

[96] http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/22/us/egypt-lawmaker-visa/

[97] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/21/member-of-egyptian-terror-group-goes-to-washington.html

[98] http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/09/28/egypts-morsi-i-will-do-everything-in-my-power-to-secure-freedom-for-the-blind-sheikh/

[99] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/kerry-defends-tank-and-jet-giveaway-to-muslim-brotherhood-terror-regime-video/

[100] http://haam.org/2013/01/29/morsi-obama-and-bibi-which-of-these-is-not-like-the-others/

[101] Ibid.

[102] http://www.timesofisrael.com/morsi-jewish-controlled-media-distorted-apes-and-pigs-remark/

[103] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-f-16s-to-muslim-brotherhood-yes-f-16s-to-egyptian-military-no/

[104] http://tinyurl.com/lwqvn27

[105] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/04/libyan-islamist-fighters-reject-violence

[106]http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2012/5/02%20libya%20ashour/omar%20ashour%20policy%20briefing%20english.pd

[107] http://cnsnews.com/news/article/testimony-elements-militia-state-dept-hired-station-members-inside-benghazi-compound

[108] http://jcpa.org/article/the-libyan-quagmire/

[109] http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/30/ozatp-libya-idAFJOE76T02P20110730

[110] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/benghazi-power-libya-militia-eyed-attack

[111] http://cnsnews.com/news/article/testimony-elements-militia-state-dept-hired-station-members-inside-benghazi-compound

[112] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/19/libya-rebels-will-receive-25-million-from-us/?page=all

[113] http://tinyurl.com/nuuzwrw

[114] http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/alarabiya-studies/2014/08/25/Libyan-Dawn-Map-of-allies-and-enemies.html

[115] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/morocco-pm-claims-he-isnt-muslim-brotherhood-muslim-brotherhood-says-he-is/

[116] http://cables.mrkva.eu/cable.php?id=71622

[117] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Moroccan-wolf-in-sheeps-clothing

[118] http://www.memri.org/report/en/print2368.htm

[119] http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/07/14/226341.html

[120] http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/42-48638884/moroccos-pm-benkirane-and-hamas-leader-meshaal

[121]https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2015/04/07/muslim-brotherhood-involvement-complicates-yemen-conflict/

[122] http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4057#.VVVwIPyrRhF

[123] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/world/middleeast/mideast-turmoil-spreads-to-us-embassy-in-yemen.html?ref=middleeast

[124] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99591469

[125] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/obama-blames-america-for-iran-feeling-defensive-and-vulnerable/

[126] http://www.nationalreview.com/article/415443/why-pelosis-syria-visit-remains-indefensible-tom-rogan

[127] http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kerry-frequent-visitor-syrian-dictator-bashar-al-assad_690885.html

[128] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/obamas-treason-is-the-new-patriotism/

[129] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/25/AR2008082502337.html

[130] http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/10/17/barack-obamas-awkward-debate-references-to-osama-bin-laden/

[131] http://www.npr.org/2012/10/22/163436694/transcript-3rd-obama-romney-presidential-debate

[132] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/10/obama-put-osama-bin-laden-on-trial

[133] Ibid.

[134] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/does-obama-love-america-or-islam/

[135] https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2009/01/27/E9-1885/ensuring-lawful-interrogations

[136] http://tinyurl.com/kkh7wug

[137] https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2009/01/27/E9-1895/review-of-detention-policy-options

[138] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/hagel-said-to-be-stepping-down-as-defense-chief-under-pressure.html?referrer=

[139] http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/30/politics/hagel-guantanamo-bay-transfers-white-house-friction/

[140] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obama-frees-a-nuclear-terrorist/

[141] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamas-christmas-gift-to-isis-and-al-qaeda/

[142] Ibid.

[143] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/is-obama-trying-to-kill-president-bush/

[144] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/16/obama-takes-heat-for-terror-approach-as-threat-spreads/

[145] http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/34-al-khadr-abdallah-muhammed-al-yafi

[146] http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/689-mohammed-ahmed-salam

Cartoon of the day

June 26, 2015

H/t Freedom is just another word

quiz1

 

Behind the French “Peace Initiative”

June 26, 2015

Behind the French “Peace Initiative,” The Gatestone InstituteBassam Tawil, June 26, 2015

  • It is a desperate attempt by the French government to buy a few more days of quiet from its Muslim community, especially from the members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist organizations to which it gave birth — all waiting for the order to run riot through the streets of France.
  • If it succeeds, may Allah prevent it, it will lead to an ISIS and Hamas takeover of every inch of Palestinian soil from which Israel withdraws if coerced by the initiative.

  • It is evidently too frustrating and unrewarding just to sit in the U.N. and not think of some project supposedly to spread beneficence that could make your country look important to the other 190 members — even if this beneficence is lethal to its recipient.

  • When the Byzantium fell to the Ottoman Empire, the churches, including the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, were turned into mosques; that is the dream of the Islamists today, to turn the Vatican into a mosque.

  • Currently, Qatar is currently investing millions to overthrow the Egyptian regime. It is investing millions to finance incitement among Muslims around the globe by means of its Islamist network and da’wah, the cunning preaching of the Muslim Brotherhood’s variety of Islam.

  • The Arabs always secretly believed that anyone who hated their mutual enemies, the Jews, as deeply as the Europeans did, and who actually tried to achieve their total physical destruction during the Second World War, would be their ally and help to expel them from occupied Palestine.

  • Apparently, the commonly-held hatred between the Europeans and the Arabs was not enough to halt the Jews, so now the Arabs pay huge sums to bribe the leaders of Europe to help them get rid of the Jews now.

The latest missile to split the skies over the Middle East is not a rocket; it is the French “peace” initiative.

No one in the Middle East has the slightest doubt that whatever its objective may be, it will not promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It is a desperate attempt by the French government to buy a few more days of quiet from its Muslim community, especially from the members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist organizations to which it gave birth — all waiting for the order to run riot through the streets of France.

We, the Palestinians, have suffered, and continue to suffer, from the creation of the Islamist terrorist organizations within the Palestinian Authority territory; it is they who keep us from reaching a peace agreement with the Jews.

One has to be deaf, dumb and blind — or genuinely desperate, which is more likely — to present a unilateral peace agreement like the French one. If it succeeds, may Allah prevent it, it will lead to an ISIS and Hamas takeover of every inch of Palestinian soil from which Israel withdraws if coerced by the initiative.

One also has to be simply ignorant not to understand that the Middle East is going up in flames and that the Arab states are disintegrating. There is no logical reason, therefore, to construct a new state, which will be both unstable and prey to local and regional subversion. It will also be subject to a quick takeover, and the first people who will suffer will be the Palestinians in the occupied territories.

The Israelis know how to look out for themselves, but we will be left to the tender mercies of Hamas and ISIS mujahedeen. Just as they have done in Iraq and Syria, they will slaughter us without thinking twice, on the grounds that as we did not all become shaheeds [“martyrs” for Islam] trying to kill the Zionists, and even tried to reach a peace agreement with them, we are not sufficiently Muslim.

The French initiative is not a benevolent gesture meant to help the Palestinians. Without a doubt, the French government and its intelligence services know full well that the secret of the Palestinian Authority’s existence today — and its ability to function as a sovereign entity, demilitarized and de facto recognizing the State of Israel — is its security collaboration with the Israelis. It serves the interests of both sides. When, therefore, a Palestinian state is declared unilaterally, as the French propose, Israel will stop collaborating with it and the state, not even fully formed, will almost instantly fall prey to Islamist extremists. That is obvious to us: even our institutions of higher learning are ruled by Hamas today, as can be seen by Hamas’s landslide victory in the recent student elections in Bir Zeit University.

The recent visit of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham to Israel helped the Palestinians understand even more thoroughly that behind the French initiative is an attempt, as with many members of the U.N., to “be a player.” It is evidently too frustrating and unrewarding just to sit in the U.N. and not think of some project supposedly to spread beneficence that could make your country look important to the other 190 members — even if this beneficence is lethal to its recipient. One way of doing spreading such beneficence is to take over the peace process through the Security Council, force both sides into a unilateral solution, and not even to feign dismay when its first victims are the Palestinians.

Senator Graham referred to the drastic nature of the initiative and stressed that the United States supported the solution of two states for two peoples, according to the vision of Israel’s current Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. It favors a demilitarized Palestinian state that would recognize Israel as a Jewish state and make it possible for everyone, both Jews and Palestinians, to live with self-respect and independence.

Graham threatened the UN, saying that if promotes the French initiative, he would bid to halt American funding for the UN — nearly a quarter of its budget.

Today, the UN’s funds are twisted into sending peacekeepers, who have diplomatic immunity and therefore cannot be sued, out to Africa to demand sex, often from children, in exchange for food or other necessities; and to passing resolutions aimed at harming Israel, while the organization callously ignores floggings in Saudi Arabia, slavery in Mauritania; escalating executions, calls for genocide and violations of nuclear treaties in Iran, just for a start.

The situation is grotesque. They are basically accusing Israel of “terrorism” for defending itself against by rockets fired from Hamas, in a confrontation where Gazan children were hurt because Hamas used them as human shields — while ignoring the real terrorism against the children of Africa committed by the U.N.’s own peacekeepers, Boko Haram, Iran and Sudan. When they so twist logic as to accuse Israel of “terrorism,” while turning their back on the horrendous abuses by other states, they are essentially giving paedophile UN “peacekeepers,” Iran’s torturers, executioners, and nuclear weapons factories a green light.

Graham was very clear about the American point of view. He said that any country that tried to bring Israel to the International Criminal Court in The Hague would have sanctions imposed on it by the United States.

The parade of the grotesque is the direct result of the Western surrender to Islamic terrorism. Now, sadly, the Vatican has also joined France. The assumption that the Islamists can be pandered to and propitiated by harming the Jews is yet another prevalent misconception. Every gesture to the Islamists, even if it is aimed at “helping” the Palestinians, sends a message of weakness and vulnerability, and increases the Islamists’ aggression against Christians and other non-Muslim minorities.

In the Middle East, anyone who “turns the other cheek,” such as the Pope saying that the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, could be “an angel of peace,” will find his neck under the sword. When Byzantium fell to the Ottoman Empire, its churches, including the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, were turned into mosques; that is the dream of the Islamists today, to turn the Vatican into a mosque.

The dangerous European surrender to radical Islam is not only an attempt to hold off its threat to the free society of Europe just a little longer. It is also the result of the economic distress of the Western world, which is seeking to keep afloat by selling itself, literally, for petro-dollars. The Vatican is in desperate financial straits — there are fewer practicing Catholics and therefore fewer donating Catholics. It is hard not to feel that the anti-Israel manipulations of the Vatican administration are motivated not by a genuine desire to help the Palestinians or to save Christians in the Middle East, but by a genuine desire to extricate itself from its financial straits.

Judas sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver; Boko Haram sells girls for the price of a pack of cigarettes, and Europe is selling itself and the Israelis to Qatar.

Europe is in the same situation as the Vatican; and so are many American universities, which are selling radical Islamist education for petro-dollars from the Persian Gulf. This enables the Islamists to rewrite history and endanger the open way of life in the gullible West.

There is already a Muslim Brotherhood lobby in the United States, a syndicate trying to force the administration to undermine the current Egyptian president, who is an enemy of the murderous Muslim Brotherhood. Their aim is to restore to power the Islamist dictator Mohamed Morsi (who is also a member of the Muslim Brotherhood), and to sabotage the measures Egypt is currently taking to rehabilitate itself.

The ease with which Qatar, the petro-dollar heavyweight, manipulates terrorist organizations in the Middle East is unnerving. The country both hosts and finances senior Muslim Brotherhood figures such as Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and others responsible for spreading the doctrine of radical Islamism and terrorism around the world.

Qatar finances a wide range of subversive Islamist terrorist organizations, among them ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and various other global jihad organizations operating under the aegis of the Arab-Muslim regimes. Qatar also seeks to carve out enclaves in Africa and the West, and to turn the West’s pluralistic melting pot into a seething cauldron of terrorist operatives who will, when given the signal, bludgeon Europe and America to the ground.

The petro-dollars of the Qatari feudal lords, totalitarians who dictate their whims to a population with no rights, direct a global network of propaganda and incitement, through vehicles such as Al-Jazeera TV in Arabic, light years more toxic than Al Jazeera in English. It crowns kings and topples regimes throughout the Middle East, as it did by endlessly replaying the self-immolation of the young Tunisian fruit vendor who could not get a license, until it whipped up the Tunisians and Egyptians to start the “Arab Spring.” Currently, Qatar is investing millions to overthrow the Egyptian regime. It is investing millions to finance incitement among Muslims around the globe by means of its Islamist network and da’wah, the cunning preaching of the Muslim Brotherhood’s variety of Islam.

The Arabs always felt that the Europeans had a soft spot in their hearts for them. They always secretly believed that anyone who hated their mutual enemies, the Jews, as deeply as the Europeans did, and who actually tried to achieve their total physical destruction during the Second World War, would be their ally and help to expel them from occupied Palestine. Apparently, the commonly-held hatred between the Europeans and the Arabs was not enough to halt the Jews, so now the Arabs pay huge sums to bribe the leaders of Europe to help them get rid of the Jews now.

Just look at the extensive corruption of the heads of FIFA, bought and paid-for by Qatar. All it took was $100 million, and Qatar could host the World Cup. It makes one wonder what Qatar would be willing to pay for other projects, doesn’t it?

1130Now where did that envelope of cash go…?
Joseph “Sepp” Blatter (R), then president of FIFA, is pictured patting his jacket pocket a moment after awarding the hosting of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (L), on December 2, 2010. (Image source: PBS Newshour video screenshot)

 

 

Dozens dead as wave of Islamist terrorism hits Tunisia, Kuwait, France

June 26, 2015

Dozens dead as wave of Islamist terrorism hits Tunisia, Kuwait, France | The Times of Israel.

Extremists stage series of murderous attacks in Europe, Middle East

June 26, 2015, 4:03 pm
  • Kuwaiti men react at the site of a suicide bombing that targeted the Shiite Al-Imam al-Sadeq mosque during Friday prayers on JunKuwaiti men react at the site of a suicide bombing that targeted the Shiite Al-Imam al-Sadeq mosque during Friday prayers on June 26, 2015, in Kuwait City. (AFP PHOTO / YASSER AL-ZAYYAT)e 26, 2015, in Kuwait City. (AFP PHOTO / YASSER AL-ZAYYAT)

Scene of suspected terror attack in Grenoble, France, June 26, 2015 (Sky News Screenshot)

Scene of suspected terror attack in Grenoble, France, June 26, 2015 (Sky News Screenshot)

 

 

 

 

The Times of Israel is liveblogging Friday’s events as they unfold.

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Death toll from IS attack on Kuwait mosque rises to 16

The death toll from a suicide blast claimed by the Islamic State at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait rises to 16 and is expected to go up further, according to the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya.

According to an IS statement posted to social media and cited by the channel, the terror group targeted a “temple of the rejectionists,” and identified the bomber as Abu Suleiman al-Muwahed.

This video shows the aftermath of the deadly blast.

Kuwait bomber struck during Friday prayers

In Kuwait, the suicide bomber attacked a Shiite mosque during the main weekly prayers, killing and wounding dozens. The attack has been claimed by the Islamic State.

The blast hit Al-Imam al-Sadeq mosque in Kuwait City, security officials and witnesses said. Medics said at least 13 people were killed in the blast.

Mohammed al-Faili, 32, told The Associated Press that his 70-year-old father was among the dead. Two of his brothers were also wounded by the explosion.

French gas factory says all workers accounted for after beheading

Air Products says all its employees are accounted for after an attack on a factory in southwestern France late Friday morning. It has not confirmed whether its staff were among the two people reported injured and one dead. The company says in a statement that all employees have been evacuated from the site, which is secure.

It says “our crisis and emergency response teams have been activated and are working closely with all relevant authorities.”

A car rammed the gate and plowed into gas canisters, touching off an explosion, at the factory near Lyon on Friday morning. A decapitated body and flags with Arabic writing were found at the scene.

Scene of suspected terror attack in Grenoble, France, June 26, 2015 (Sky News Screenshot)

Air Products, which is based in the US, makes gases used by a wide range of industries, including food production, medicine and the oil and gas. It has more than 20,000 employees in 50 countries, mostly in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

— AP

27 killed in Tunisia mostly German, British tourists — local radio

Tunisia’s Interior Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Aroui tells the state news agency that the victims killed in the terror attacks in Sousse were mostly tourists but does not give any nationalities.

Local radio says the dead are mostly German and British.

— AP contributed

Terror attacks in France, Kuwait, Tunisia

PREAMBLE: A series of terror attacks have hit Europe and the Middle East today. The first was in Paris, the second in Kuwait, and the third in Tunisia.

At least 27 people have been killed in the Tunisia attack, which is still unfolding.

Thirteen or more are dead in the bombing of a Kuwaiti mosque — an attack claimed by Islamic State.

A man was beheaded in a late morning attack near Grenoble, which President Francois Hollande has confirmed was an act of terrorism.

Islamofascists Welcome Vacationing Foreign Tourists

June 26, 2015

At least 27 dead in terror attack at Tunisia hotel, state news agency says

By Yousuf Basil and Greg Botelho, Via CNN Updated 9:11 AM ET, Fri June 26, 2015


Touble in paradise. [Photo Credit: Screenshot]

(While the West is preoccupied with avoiding collateral damage, these animals use it to their advantage. –  LS)

(CNN)Terrorists killed at least 27 people in an attack Friday on a beachfront Tunisian hotel, Tunisian officials said, according to the state-run TAP news agency.

Tunisia’s interior minister reported 27 dead — at least some of whom were guests at the Hotel Riu Imperial Marhaba in Sousse, TAP reported.

Still, those figures are preliminary. In fact, an operation was still underway Friday afternoon after Tunisian security forces exchanged gunfire with the attackers.

On its website, Hotel Riu Imperial Marhaba is described as an all-inclusive hotel with views of Port El Kantaoui. It contains indoor and outdoor pools, including one for children, as well as buffet-style and theme restaurants.

“This all creates the ideal environment for relaxing holidays away from the hustle and bustle of the city,” the website says.

Attacks in France, Kuwait

The bloodshed comes the same day as at least two deadly terrorist attack in other countries.

One person was beheaded and two injured at a gas factory near Lyon in southeastern France, according to French President Francois Hollande. And ISIS has claimed responsibility for an apparent bomb blast at the Shiite-affiliated Al-Sadiq mosque in Kuwait‘s capital during Friday prayers, leading to a number of death and injuries.

Friday’s beachfront hotel attack is not new for Tunisia, which has been hailed as a success story of the Arab Spring but has not been immune to terrorist violence that’s plagued many around the region, including its neighbor Libya.

It’s also the latest to apparently targeting tourists in the North African, which has attracted visitors for its culture and Mediterranean Sea beaches.

In March, at least 23 people died when gunmen stormed the landmark Bardo Museum in Tunis. In a subsequent audio statement, ISIS identified two men — Abu Zakariya al-Tunisi and Abu Anas al-Tunisi — who it said used “automatic weapons and hand grenades” to kill and injure what it called “crusaders and apostates”