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Europeans Abolished Slavery; Africans/Muslims Still Practice it

August 4, 2016

Europeans Abolished Slavery; Africans/Muslims Still Practice it, Front Page Magazine, Ilana Mercer, August 4, 2016

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First he exposed the History Channel’s miniseries “Roots” as root-and-brunch fiction. Now, the courageous epistolary warrior Kunta (Jack) Kerwick has turned his attention to correcting lies about slavery, promulgated in media and scholarly circles.

A point forcefully made by Kerwick is that although a vibrant, indigenous slave trade was conducted well into the nineteenth century in the interior of West Africa, slavery has become the White Man’s cross to bear.

Also omitted, in the course of the “honest” conversation about race directed by our political masters, is that credit for the demise of the slave trade in Africa belongs to Europeans. In his compact study, The Slave Trade, British historian Jeremy Black (London, 2006), highlights the “leading role Britain played in the abolition of slavery [as]… an example of an ethical foreign policy.” Britain agonized over this repugnant institution, failed to reconcile it with the Christian faith, and consequently abolished it.

Professor Black condemns the exclusive focus on the Atlantic—or transatlantic—slave trade to the exclusion of the robust slave trade conducted by Arabs across the Sahara Desert. Or, across the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to markets in the Middle East. This exclusive focus on westerners as slave owners and traders, notes Black, “fits with the [political] narrative of Western exploitation” of underdeveloped countries and their people.

The greatest development economist to live was Lord P.T. Bauer. As The Economist quipped, Bauer was to foreign aid what Friedrich Hayek was to socialism: a slayer. In his Dissent on Development (London, 1971), Bauer bolstered Black’s point well before the latter made it: “The slave trade between Africa and the Middle East antedated the Atlantic slave trade by centuries, and far outlasted it. Tens of millions of Africans were carried away—north through the Sahara, and from East Africa, by Arab and Muslim slave traders, well before Europeans took up the trade from West Africa.”

Arab affinity for slavery, ethnic prejudice and purges lives on today in the treatment, for example, of blacks in Darfur and Yazidi Kurds in Iraq.

Considering Europeans were not alone in the slave trade, Black, in particular, questions “the commonplace identification of slavery with racism,” given that, like serfdom, slavery was a device (albeit an inefficient one) “to ensure labor availability and control.”

At its most savage, child slavery still thrives in Haiti in the form of the “Restavec system.” Children are kept in grinding poverty and worked to the bone. In the Anglo-American and European worlds this would be considered perverse in the extreme; in Haiti owning a Restavec is a status symbol. (Haiti, incidentally, is another spot on the globe that “Hillary Clinton’s State Department” “helped ruin,” by ensconcing an illegitimate and corrupt leader, with a preference for corrupt NGOs such as … The Clinton Foundation.)

The savagery of the indigenous slave trade in the interior of West Africa owed a lot to the rivalries and relationships between Africans powers. By Black’s telling, “Both Arabs and Europeans worked in collaboration with native polities that provided the slaves through raids and war carried out against their neighbors.”

For the Atlantic slave trade, contemporary Americans and Britons have been expiating at every turn. But more than engendering a cult of apology, the Atlantic slave trade has been instrumental in the effort to control and define the past as an “aspect of current politics,” not least in shaping the historical treatment of the Civil War, the South, and the American Founding Fathers.

Jeremy Black rejects these ritual apologies as empty ploys, which “all too often conform to fatuous arguments about ‘closure,’ resolution, and being unable to move on until we acknowledge the past.” In reality, this bowing-and-scraping, by obsequious Anglo-Americans, to their black political overlords, entails the opposite of all these, and, instead, involves the reiteration and institutionalization of racial grievance.

The cult of apology that has gripped America and Britain is uniquely Western. What other people would agonize over events they had no part in, personally, for damages they did not inflict?

Grievance is leveled at a collective, all whites, for infractions it did not commit: Africans who were not enslaved are seen as having an ineffable claim against Europeans who did not enslave them.

At its core, the argument against racism, at least as it works to further black interests, is an argument against collectivism. You’re meant to avoid judging an entire people based on the color of their epidermis or the conduct of a statistically significant number of them.

It is, however, deemed perfectly acceptable to malign and milk Europeans for all they’re worth, based on the lack of pigment in their skin and their overall better socio-economic performance.

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Adapted from Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011) by ILANA Mercer.

Categories: Africa, America, Black Lives Matter, Britain, Europe, History, Human rights, Islam and slavery, Slavery
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Right Angle: Spin Cycle

August 4, 2016

Right Angle: Spin Cycle, Bill Whittle Channel via YouTube, August 4, 2016

Blurb beneath the video:

DNC email leaks a problem? It must have been the Russians! Trump benefits! TRUMP MUST BE A RUSSIAN SPY!!

Categories: 2016 elections, Bernie Sanders, Democrat National Committee, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Russia
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State Dept. Says Program to Dissuade Jihadis Failed. So They TRIPLE Its Budget

August 4, 2016

State Dept. Says Program to Dissuade Jihadis Failed. So They TRIPLE Its Budget, PJ Media, Robert Spencer, August 4, 2016

(How about pamphlets showing that Islamic terrorism causes global warming? And free ham sandwiches? — DM)

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No matter how much money they pour into it, this program will fail on the drawing board until the State Department drops its willful ignorance about the ideology that fuels and motivates the jihad.

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Even in its final months, the Obama administration continues to pour taxpayer money into its disastrous projects designed to “counter violent extremism.” The projects have failed, and were foredoomed to fail because of the administration’s policy of denying and ignoring the enemy’s motivating ideology.

The New York Times reported Thursday:

[T]he Obama administration has revamped a program designed to lure foreign fighters away from extremist groups like the Islamic State, focusing on a series of new advertisements and social media posts that seek to appeal to emotion rather than logic.

Emotion, logic, whatever. No such approach can work as long as the administration refuses to admit what inspires Muslims to join jihad groups in the first place.

This latest bout of wishful thinking and fantasy-based policymaking comes at a high cost to the taxpayer:

Money for the program, which is managed by the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, tripled this year, to $16 million, after administration officials concluded that past efforts that had attempted to scare potential militants away from the extremist groups were not working.

At least the government correctly concluded that, indeed, the programs were not working:

[M]ultiple reboots have shown how hard it has been for these programs to find traction. … [R]ecent attacks in Turkey, Iraq, France and Bangladesh seemed to show extremism has been spreading.

But this time, the Times assures us, it’s going to be different:

The new initiatives have been tailored to keep the United States government’s involvement as low-key — and in some cases, as secretive — as possible, because overt American backing for some projects had turned off the exact group of disaffected young men that the campaign is trying to reach.

So the State Department finally realized that Muslims who hate America will not be dissuaded via appeals from … America?

Baby steps! Still — not going to work. The Times reports:

“[T]hese new efforts include using Facebook videos, Instagram ads and other social media that have been designed to convince young men and women that joining the militants’ fight means breaking their mothers’ hearts, tearing apart their families and leaving their loved ones to lives of emptiness.”

So the latest plan from the Obama administration rests on this assumption: A young man who thinks he is serving Allah in a cause commanded by the supreme being — and who thinks that being killed will secure a place in Paradise for himself and (in accord with statements attributed to Muhammad) for his family — will be dissuaded by realizing his mother might miss him.

The State Department is forbidden, as a matter of policy, from studying or understanding the jihadi worldview. They instead operate under the assumption that Muslims aspiring to jihad have the same basic values and priorities of modern secular Westerners. This assumption is, at best, unproven.

This Keystone Kops myopia is longstanding. The Times writes:

[P]ast efforts from the administration had sought to frighten potential jihadists with warnings that waging war against the West would get them killed, but officials concluded that the warnings actually served the opposite purpose of glorifying militancy.

The willful blindness necessary to believe that jihadis — who repeatedly avow that they “love death” — could be dissuaded from jihad in any significant numbers by fear of death is breathtaking. It epitomizes how wrongheaded the administration’s approach has been from the beginning.

Even the Times acknowledges this about the initiative, while citing unnamed “critics”:

 [The initiative] was unlikely to have done anything to dissuade young people from joining either Al Qaeda or the Islamic State.

However, while the New York Times admits that the administration’s program to dissuade jihadis has thus far been completely ineffective, it has no idea why.

In reality, all possible versions of this program are doomed to failure because they manifest no understanding whatsoever of the jihadis’ worldview, beliefs, assumptions, motives, and goals. None of this is surprising, since the Obama administration has forbidden the examination and discussion of all of that.

Take, for example, one image that the State Department published on Twitter. It says:

Women under ISIS are enslaved, battered, beaten, humiliated, flogged.

Obviously this would deter someone from becoming a jihadi only if he already thought it was terrible for women to be enslaved, battered, beaten, humiliated, and flogged.

The State Department wonks who came up with this weren’t allowed to learn from the Qur’an. So they obviously don’t know that the Qur’an mandates the enslavement of infidel women(4:3; 4:24; 23:1-6; 33:50; 70:30) and the beating of disobedient women (4:34).

A Muslim who knows that is unlikely to be troubled by the prospect of the Islamic State beating or enslaving women.

The Times adds:

On Sept. 11, 2014, for example, an Al Qaeda leader posted on Twitter that ‘on this day, in 2001, the USA’s largest economic shrine, the idol of capitalism was brought to the ground.’ The State Department quickly responded on Twitter by posting a photo of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State leader, wearing a Rolex watch: “Nobody’s a bigger fan of the fruits of capitalism than so-called #ISIS Caliph.”

This, too, was myopic: from an Islamic standpoint, the Rolex was not a sign of hypocrisy, since Islam does not have the reverence for asceticism that Christianity has. Rather, it was a sign that Allah had blessed the caliph, since blessings are promised to the pious in both this world and the next – and those blessings specifically include the spoils of war against non-Muslims.

The caliph could have been signaling to his followers: “Kill an infidel, take his Rolex.”

No matter how much money they pour into it, this program will fail on the drawing board until the State Department drops its willful ignorance about the ideology that fuels and motivates the jihad.

Categories: Countering violent extremism, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, Islamic terrorism
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Terror strikes London 11 years after July bombings

August 4, 2016

Terror strikes London 11 years after July bombings, DEBKAfile, August 4, 2016

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A woman in her 60s was knifed to death Wednesday night, July 3, in a rampage in London’s Russell Square by a 19-year old man, who injured another six people before police brought him down with a Taser electric shock gun. The site near London University and the British Museum, not far from Oxford Street, was close to the scenes of the July 7 attacks eleven years ago, when Islamist bombers murdered 52 people and injured more than 700 on the London underground rail and a bus.

“Early indications suggest that mental health is a significant factor in this case and that is one major line of inquiry,” London Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley told reporters. “But of course… terrorism as a motivation remains but one line of inquiry for us to explore,” said Rowley, who is Britain’s most senior anti-terrorism officer.

That it is a major line of inquiry was demonstrated by police action Thursday morning to cordon off Russell Square and much of London’s West End.

The killer, described by witnesses as wearing a motorbike helmet and attacking people at random,struck less than 24 hours after the Metropolitan London police announcement of an extra 600 armed marksmen for the streets of London against a terror threat. They attack may well be read as a warning that such precautions would be of no avail in preventing a jihadist attack on the British capital.

While holding back the killer’s identity, British anti-terror squads are no doubt searching his residence and other locations connected to his family and friends.

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Tuesday night, shortly before the attack, DEBKAfile carried this report.

Armed police prepare to deploy from Hyde Park, central London, after Scotland Yard announced Wednesday, Aug. 3 that the biggest police force in Britain is to put its first 600 additional armed officers on public patrols on the main streets and landmarks of London, as part of its anti-terrorism plans.

Metropolitan Police chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said that, following the terror attacks in Europe, more marksmen were trained and operationally ready for public patrol up to a total of 1,500 firearms officers.

Although British cops are proud of traditionally not carrying firearms, the Met chief said “I think people understand that where you are going to have people as enemies who’ve got guns, we’ve got to have guns.”

Already, he added, “They pass through airports where we have armed officers, they pass through railway stations where they see firearms, and in some of our big iconic locations, we’ve already got armed patrols – if you look at Parliament, Downing Street – so it’s not entirely new.”

DEBKAfile’s exclusive counterterrorism sources can name the men behind the upsurge of Islamic terror violence in West Europe last month: the Nice attack on July 14, which left 84 dead; the suicide bombing in Ansbach in Bavaria, Germany, on July 24, which left 15 people injured, and the murder of a French priest at a suburban church in Normandy on July 26.

They are two Frenchmen: Amn al-Kharji (ISIS codename: Abu Sulayman al-Faransi), who is head of the Islamic State’s secretive external operations wing and, under his command, Fabien Clain (ISIS codename: Salim Benghalem), a convert to Islam who heads European terror operations.

It was Benghalem who picked the targets of the Paris raids last November 2015, which left 132 people dead and hundreds wounded, and the Nice truck bombing, which murdered 84 victims on July 14, Bastille Day.

This week, he orchestrated the first known jihadist attack on a Christian place of prayer in Europe after instigating the first ISIS attacks in Germany.

Up until recently, Western intelligence services used ISIS as the generic term for any jihadist attacks in a European city, be it Brussels, Istanbul, Nice, Munich, Wurzburg or Ansbach. But no high-profile ISIS executives were ever named, for fear of impairing their efforts to plant agents or informers inside the murderous organization’s operational ranks in Europe and the Middle East.

These efforts have so far got nowhere. These two top maser-terrorists have been agile enough to stay a step or two ahead of Western counterterrorism agencies. The weeks and months ahead are therefore likely to see more terror outrages at unknown locations, executed with assorted weaponry by unforeseen methods.

Europe is therefore on high terror alert, braced for more jihadist attacks. And the streets of London will see armed cops on patrol.

Categories: Britain, Europe, Islamic terrorism, London
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General Allen’s Service to Al Qaeda’s Paymasters

August 4, 2016

General Allen’s Service to Al Qaeda’s Paymasters, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, August 4, 2016

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After two American soldiers were murdered by an Islamic terrorist in Afghanistan while a crowd of protesters shouted “Death to Americans” and “Death to Infidels”, General Allen visited his men. 

“There will be moments like this when you’re searching for the meaning of this loss. There will be moments like this when your emotions are governed by anger and a desire to strike back,” Allen pleaded. “Now is not the time for revenge, now is not the time for vengeance.”

General Allen had already apologized to the killers for the “desecration” of the Koran by American soldiers who had been destroying copies of the hateful document being used by Taliban prisoners to send notes to each other. “I offer my sincere apologies for any offence this may have caused, to the president of Afghanistan, the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and most importantly, to the noble people of Afghanistan,” he had whined.

The “noble people” of Afghanistan were the ones chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Infidels”.

Meanwhile General Allen was telling the American soldiers grieving the loss of their own that the real tragedy was the destruction of the terrorist books. “Now is how we show the Afghan people that as bad as that act was in Bagram, it was unintentional and Americans and ISAF soldiers do not stand for this.”

Then Allen said that he was “proud” to call General Sher Mohammad Karimi “my brother”. Karimi, was the Afghan military strongman who had defended previous attacks on NATO troops and demanded that the American soldiers be put on trial.

“We admit our mistake,” General Allen cringingly continued. “We ask for our forgiveness.”

Then he praised the “Holy Koran”. Six American military personnel faced administrative punishments for doing their duty in order to appease the murderous Islamic mob in all its nobility in Afghanistan.

This was typical of General Allen’s disgraceful tenure. It is also typical of his post-military career which has included a prominent spot at Brookings and a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention. After his enthusiastic endorsement of Hillary and attacks on Trump, Hillary has insisted that anyone who criticizes Allen is not fit to be president because Allen is a “hero and a patriot”.

If there’s anyone who is an expert on heroism and patriotism, it’s Hillary.

Allen’s heroic post-military career brought him to Brookings. The road from the think tank runs to Qatar which donated nearly $15 million to promote its agenda. That agenda took General Allen to its US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar.

Allen praised the “magnificent institutions” of Qatar. He endorsed the mobilization of the Jihadist terror groups known as Popular Mobilization Forces, some of whom have American blood on their hands and are owned and operated by Iran. Allen insisted that “many PMF fighters are not Shia-hardliners but Iraqis who volunteered last summer, answering Grand Ayatolah Ali Sistanti’s fatwa to defend Iraq.”

Then Allen sank to a new unimaginable low by urging compassion toward ISIS Jihadists from abroad.

“We must strive to be a Coalition of compassionate states,” Allen insisted. “There is no denying that many societies find the idea of rehabilitating foreign fighters objectionable. And indeed, those who have broken the laws of our lands must be held accountable. But long-term detention cannot be the sole means of dealing with returning foreign fighters.”

Then he touted “deradicalization” and “reintegration” programs by Muslim countries for Jihadists.

Allen claimed that seeing the “Muslim faith practiced and lived” in Afghanistan had made him a “better Christian”. But his messaging wasn’t surprising considering his employment and his location.

Qatar was a key international state sponsor of terror.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, had been tipped off by a member of the Qatari royal family. The same Qatari royal family whose shindig Allen had shown up to perform at. Their terrorist media outlet, Al Jazeera, had been Al Qaeda’s media drop outlet of choice.

Qatar is a strong backer of Hamas. It has been accused of funding Al Qaeda. More recently it’s been linked to backing Al Qaeda’s local platform in Syria, the Al Nusra Front. The Taliban opened an office in Qatar. Even an early ISIS leader got his start with patronage from Qatar’s royal family.

A strong backer of the Arab Spring, Qatar exploited the chaos by aggressively smuggling weapons to Jihadists in the region. Two years ago, a bipartisan majority on the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and its Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade had called for an investigation of Qatar’s links to terrorist funding.

General Allen’s visit to Qatar was shameful. He was praising and pressing the flesh of the paymasters of Islamic terrorists whose hands were and are covered in American blood. Allen had betrayed the soldiers fighting against Islamic terrorists. He had betrayed his country and his cause. He is a traitor to both.

Allen’s disgusting DNC performance was the climax of a series of betrayals. It is not the worst speech he has ever given. Nor is it the most dishonest or the most despicable.

General Allen has gone from serving his country to serving the enemies of his country. That is the man whose endorsement Hillary Clinton is proudly waving around as if it is a badge of honor instead of a badge of shame.

Allen is neither a hero nor a patriot. He is a man who has sold his soul to the highest bidder. Hillary Clinton has won this latest bid for Allen’s shopworn soul, alongside the tyrants of Qatar who trade in human slaves on a global scale. It is likely worth about as much as Hillary’s own soul. Whatever tattered spiritual scraps are left of it.

The mass deaths of American soldiers in Afghanistan under Obama still remains a largely untold story. It is the story of how Obama and his collaborators among the military elite sold out our soldiers and left them to die on the battlefield without allowing them to defend themselves so as not to offend the “noble people” of Afghanistan and their fine religious traditions.

74.5% of American deaths in Afghanistan occurred under Obama. Countless more came home, crippled and scarred. While General Allen hobnobs at parties with Al Qaeda bosses, the men he betrayed come back in body bags.

They are heroes. Allen is a traitor.

Categories: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Democrat National Convention, Donald Trump, General Allen, Hillary Clinton, Qatar, Rules of engagement, Taliban, U.S. Military
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Obama’s Ransom Payment (4)

August 4, 2016

Obama’s Ransom Payment (4), Power Line,  Scott Johnson, August 4, 2016

As in all matters related to the Obama administration’s dealing with Iran, the abasement of the United States is complete, the humiliation thorough, the lying pervasive, the damage devastating, the scandal hiding in plain sight.

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The United States purchased $400 million of cash in European currencies from European central banks; the cash was purchased with American dollars. The United States then delivered the $400 million in cash to the Iranian regime in an unmarked cargo plane on the day that four Americans held by the Iranian regime were released. The transaction was kept secret from the American people. Among other things, the Obama administration sought to conceal the obvious.

Jay Solomon and Carol Lee reported the transaction in a page-one Wall Street Journal story earlier this week. The Journal’s Devlin Barrett has now followed up with a story on the Department of Justice’s objections to the transaction.

Solomon and Lee explain the indirection in the cash payment: “The $400 million was paid in foreign currency because any transaction with Iran in U.S. dollars is illegal under U.S. law.” This is the kind of workaround that would land lesser mortals in prison.

Solomon and Lee somewhat cruelly note: “Since the cash shipment, the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-Americans. Tehran has also detained dual-nationals from France, Canada and the U.K. in recent months.”

In following developments related to the nuclear deal with Iran, I have frequently found the Iranian press and Iranian authorities to be a more reliable source of information on their dealing with the Obama administration than the administration itself. I believe that is the case here as well. Solomon and Lee add: “Iranian press reports have quoted senior Iranian defense officials describing the cash as a ransom payment. The Iranian foreign ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.”

Obama administration spokesman Josh Earnest is not so shy. He was asked about Solomon and Lee’s story at his daily press conference yesterday. C-SPAN has posted the video here. The White House has posted the transcript here.

Earnest was in a tough spot. He defends the indefensible. He denies the undeniable. He castigates those who have observed that Emperor Obama wears no clothes. According to Earnest, they are liars and worse. It is truly a disgusting performance.

I have gone through the transcript to extract questions and excerpt answers of interest. I can only say that it is worth reading. What he says is as interesting as what he doesn’t say.

Has any of the cash gone to support Iran’s terrorist activities? Earnest responds at various points:

[T]he Iranian government has spent the money largely in the way that we expected that they would.

The analysis that we’ve done confirms what we predicted — is that, largely, that money was spent to address the dire economic condition of the nation of Iran.

The President was quite forward-leaning, in advance of the nuclear deal even being completed, in acknowledging that we know that Iran supports terrorism. We know that Iran supports Hezbollah and the Assad regime. And it certainly is possible that some of the money that Iran has is being used for those purposes too.

I think, Ron, the point is right now that we do know how Iran has spent a lot of that money. And the amount of money that Iran has received is far less than what critics predicted. So they were either wrong or lying. You can go ask them.

I trust you can translate the double-talk and disparagement on your own. It sets the pattern here.

Why are we only learning about this particular transaction now? Drawing on the classic scandal playbook, Earnest asserts that this is old news. This is almost laughable:

I guess the point that I’m trying to make, Margaret, is we could not possibly have been more transparent about this arrangement than to have the President of the United States announce it to all of you on live national television on the day that the agreement was reached.

What about the timing of the cash payment coincident with the release of the American prisoners? Analyze this:

Q This financial dispute you mentioned has been going on for 35 years. Why was it necessary to airlift in the pallets of cash on the very weekend that the American prisoners were released?

MR. EARNEST: Again, Scott, the reason is simple. The United States does not have a banking relationship with Iran. So —

Q That explains that it was cash, but it doesn’t explain the timing.

MR. EARNEST: Because we reached the agreement and Iran wanted their money back. So, again —

Q They waited 35 years.

MR. EARNEST: Right, so you might expect that they would be eager for them to get their money back. Again, this all stems from a payment that Iran had made into a U.S. account related to a military sale that didn’t actually go through. The military equipment wasn’t provided. So, again, you could understand why they’re quite eager for the money.

You also would understand that they’re quite eager for the money when you consider that the value of their currency has plummeted, that they haven’t been able to invest in infrastructure, that they’ve got debts that need to be paid, and that they’re in the middle of a recession. So at the time, they were eager to try to address the legitimate concerns of the Iranian people about the state of the Iranian economy.

Q And why was the U.S. government so eager to pay —

MR. EARNEST: I’m sorry?

Q Why was the U.S. eager to deliver the money so quickly?

MR. EARNEST: Well, again, I would not describe the United States as eager — I would describe the Iranians as eager. I think what the United States is, is we’re a country that lives up to the commitments that we make. And that’s exactly what we did.

Another reporter takes a whack:

Q So it’s been called a ransom payment by Iran. That’s not exactly surprising. But would those prisoners have been released had this payment not been made at the time that it was? And so it isn’t essentially a ransom payment then, even if the U.S. does not view it that way?

MR. EARNEST: No. It is not a ransom payment. The United States does not view it that way, and it’s not accurate to describe it that way.

Q So would those prisoners have been released then if this money hadn’t been paid then?

MR. EARNEST: Well, again, I think what is true is that there were a team of negotiators — let me just start from the beginning. What I know is true is there were a team of negotiators in the United States that were interacting with Iranian officials to secure the release of five Americans who were unjustly detained in Iran. That negotiating work was successful and those Americans are at home….

Hmmmm. He really doesn’t want to answer the question. He seems to be taking a long way around avoiding the answer. Then another reporter pursues the point and Earnest resorts to the ad hominem attacks that should be a red flag to sentient observer:

Q I think a lot more people find this interesting than just people who are opposed to it. But, again, would those prisoners have been released then if this money had not been paid then?

MR. EARNEST: What I can tell you is that our negotiators who were talking with the Iranians about what was necessary to secure the release of American citizens in Iran succeeded. That was different than the group of negotiators who were involved in The Hague negotiating with their Iranian counterparts to settle these longstanding financial claims.

Q So because U.S. policy is opposed to ransom payments, even if it were only for the appearance of this not being a ransom payment, why would you not have made Iran wait even a week longer? I mean, why would Iran’s eagerness to get their hands on their money be more important than making sure that this was not a quid pro quo that was based on the exact timing being right?

MR. EARNEST: Well, I think the answer to that is pretty obvious, which is that even a week delay would not have prevented Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio from falsely claiming that they’re a ransom. Because, Michelle, come on, I saw you sigh. If we announced this financial settlement on the same day that the prisoners were released, that’s fodder to our Republican critics. I get that.

After other questions a reporter comes back to the question of ransom:

Q Thanks, Josh. If I can circle back to Iran briefly. Is it your contention that it is not a ransom payment because there was no quid pro quo or because it was Iranian money that was flown in?

MR. EARNEST: It is our contention that there was no ransom paid to secure the release of U.S. citizens who were being unjustly detained in Iran because, A, it’s against the policy of the U.S. government to pay ransoms. And that’s something that we told the Iranians that we would not do. We would not — we have not, we will not pay a ransom to secure the release of U.S. citizens. That’s a fact. That is our policy and that is one that we have assiduously followed.

You don’t have to be a student of logic to observe that there is a certain circularity in Earnest’s answer.

As in all matters related to the Obama administration’s dealing with Iran, the abasement of the United States is complete, the humiliation thorough, the lying pervasive, the damage devastating, the scandal hiding in plain sight.

Categories: Iran - hostages, Iran - prisoner release, Iran - ransom payments, Iran - sanctions relief, Iran and terror, Iran scam, Obama and Iran
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EXCLUSIVE: Bill Clinton Got Millions From World’s Biggest Sharia Law Education Firm

August 4, 2016

EXCLUSIVE: Bill Clinton Got Millions From World’s Biggest Sharia Law Education Firm, Daily Caller. Richard Pollock, August 3, 2016

Former President Bill Clinton collected $5.6 million in fees from GEMS Education, a Dubai-based company that teaches Sharia Law through its network of more than 100 schools in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.

The company’s finances strictly adhere to “Sharia Finance,” which includes giving “zakat,” a religious tax of which one-eighth of the proceeds is dedicated to funding Islamic jihad.

The company also contributed millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation.

The former president served as honorary chairman for GEMS Education from 2011 to 2014, according to federal tax returns he filed with his wife, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

His biggest paycheck from the closely-held company — which is incorporated in the Cayman Islands — was in 2014 when he pocketed $2.1 million. It is unclear if Bill received income from the Middle Eastern firm in 2015, since Hillary has not yet released her tax return for that year.

Sharia law is the Islamic religious legal system that many in the West see as intolerant of human rights and other religions, as well as violating the rights of women and gays. Sharia law is considered by Muslims to be superior to all secular authorities. Islamic jihadis regularly call for the imposition of Sharia law and want to impose it on the West.

GEMS boasted in a 2013 bond prospectus that it is the “only foreign group approved for educational services in Saudi Arabia.” The GEMS facilities in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, taught 1,600 students in 2013.

Saudi Arabia is where Wahabism, the strictest form of Sharia, is observed. The Middle Eastern kingdom bars women from driving cars, requires women to wear the strictest form of the hijab, which covers everything but the eyes and hands. Gay men and women are persecuted in Saudi Arabia.

GEMS distributed a job notice in 2014 for a director of “Islamic and Cultural Studies” for its campuses in the Saudi Kingdom. The skills for the position included proficiency in Sharia to help develop a curriculum. The company also acts as an educational consultant in Egypt, Jordan, and Libya.

Clinton’s relationship with the Sharia-oriented education firm drew critical reviews from anti-terrorism experts.

“Why would Bill Clinton be participating in programs that teach Sharia in foreign countries where that is the specific objective of the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and al-Qaeda,” asked counter-terror analyst Stephen Coughlin in an interview with TheDCNF.

GEMS is one of the most dominant educational programs in the Middle East, with 51 separate schools operating in the region. Globally, the for-profit company claims that 250,000 students are learning under its program in 170 countries.

Outside of the Middle East and North Africa, GEMS operates schools in Kenya, Uganda, Southeast Asia, and the United Kingdom.

GEMS even has two “international” schools in Chicago.

At the GEMS Jumeirah Primary School in Abu Dhabi, the website promotes Islam as a central tenet of its curriculum. “Our aim is teach all Muslim students the pillars of Islam, Islamic faith and morals, enabling them to efficiently apply them to their lives. To increase the knowledge of Islam we share with the children, the stories of prophets, manners of living a Muslim’s life, the five pillars of Islam.”

The Dubai firm has donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to the foundation website. GEMS was an official sponsor of the 2013 and 2014 Clinton Global Initiative. Its Indian-born CEO Sunny Varkey attended both years.

And the Varkey Foundation, named after the CEO, contributed $250,000 to $500,000 to the foundation.

Varkey publicly claimed Bill was the “honorary chairman” of his foundation. But Bill and Hillary report in their joint federal tax returns the annual payments came from the for-profit GEMS Education company.

The company has raised funds through bonds and has openly broadcast its commitment to Sharia finance. In 2013, the company issued a $200 million bond prospectus and assured potential investors it relied on “Fatwa and Sharia” advisers to assure it was “compliant” with Sharia finance.

Coughlin said Sharia law on finance also includes money for “zakat,” a religious tax. “And if you read the law of zakat, one-eighth of that money goes to fund Jihad,” he says. “There are eight categories of zakat you must pay every year. And one of them is Jihad.”

Two of the banks — Emirates NB and Noor Bank — provided critical loans to GEMS in August, 2015, and were also accused of conducting illicit banking deals with Iran.

In a June 9, 2009, diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks, U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Richard G. Olson slammed one of the lenders, Emirates NB Bank.

Olson told the Department of State that Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey “pointed out that Dubai-based Emirates NBD appears to remain out-of-step with other major international financial with respect to its sizable Iranian exposure.”

Olson reported the Emirates NBD Chairman “Ahmed al Tayer erratically dismissed Under Secretary Levey’s concerns about doing business for Iran with a mix of hostility, remorse and assurances of submission.”

Noor Bank, another bank which provided GEMS with financing, helped Iran process foreign currency receipts. MarketWatch reported that in 2012 “Dubai’s Noor Islamic Bank had been a primary conduit for returning foreign-currency oil receipts to Iran.”

GEMS is owned exclusively by billionaire Varkey and his family. Four of the five directors are Varkey family members.

The Varkey Group Ltd, the parent company of GEMS, and its shares are held “in a trust by a private trust company for the benefit of the members of the Varkey family,” according to the 2013 bond prospectus. Varkey’s net worth is estimated at $2.1 billion.

All of the Varkey group’s activities appear to be transacted by MaplesFS, the largest law firm in the Cayman Islands.

As stated by GEMS in its prospectus, “Under existing Cayman Islands laws will not be subject to taxation in the Cayman Islands.” It also tells potential investors, “The Cayman Islands currently have no income, corporation or capital gains tax and no estate duty, inheritance or gift tax.”

Bill has been a frequent visitor to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the trips often deal with money. As previously reported by TheDCNF, shortly after leaving the White House, Bill pocketed $15 million in an investment deal with the Dubai Investment Group that included as his business partner, the country’s authoritarian ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin-Rashid al-Marktoum.

Bill also collected $500,000 for a single speech he delivered in Abu Dhabi in 2011. He was paid by the UAE’s royal family. The United Arab Emirates is a monarchy where no elections are held and human rights abuses, especially of foreign laborers, are rampant.

TheDCNF contacted the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation about the GEMS Education relationship, but received no response.

TheDCNF also reached out to GEMS in Dubai but there was no reply by press time.

 

Categories: Bill Clinton, Clinton Foundation, Funding terrorism, Sharia law, United Arab Emirates
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Paul Sperry: Khzir Khan Is a ‘World-Renowned Expert on Sharia, Not the Constitution’

August 4, 2016

Paul Sperry: Khan Is a ‘World-Renowned Expert on Sharia, Not the Constitution’ Breitbart, John Hayward, August 3, 2016

(Here is a video of the CNN interview mentioned toward the end of the article in which Khan seems to contend that there is no such thing as Sharia law.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb9-LFErHXY

Kahn’s apparent denial that Sharia law exists comes at about 4:46 into the video. A sample of Kahn’s writings on Sharia (Islamic) law is available here.– DM)

Khizr-Khan-DNC-Getty-640x480

New York Post columnist and former Hoover Institution media fellow Paul Sperry appeared on Wednesday’s Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon to discuss his column for Breitbart News, “Khizr Khan Believes the Constitution ‘Must Always Be Subordinated to the Sharia.’”

“It turns out that we were conned by Khan,” Perry quipped. “His past Islamic writings reveal his support for sharia, and extreme sharia enforcers, which totally contradicts his support for the Constitution he waved in all our faces at the Democratic convention.”

“Specifically, in a book review I unearthed from the ’80s, Khan praises a Pakistani mullah — of course, Khan is an immigrant from Pakistan — he praises this Pakistani mullah who advocates for the enforcement of barbaric sharia punishments, like floggings, amputations, and beheadings, for those who violate Islamic laws,” Sperry said.

“In another paper he wrote, ‘Defining Sharia Law,’ Khan gratefully cites the notorious Muslim Brotherhood radicals who called for installing Islamic regimes in the West through ‘civilization jihad,’ which is what you’re talking about in terms of the infiltration of this fifth column that the Muslim Brotherhood has built up with their infrastructure in the United States, this terrorist support network too,” Sperry continued.

“If I can just say, it was an absolute mistake, the more we learn about Khan, to assume that the father was just as patriotic as his war-hero son,” he argued. “And Republicans were stupid to create a no-fire zone around him. I mean, this guy is not the champion of the Constitution and Western principles we were told he was. It turns out he’s not an expert on the Constitution, he’s an expert on sharia law, which makes an absolute mockery of the Constitution.”

Bannon noted that some Republicans, even previously dedicated Trump supporters like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, insist that Khan should be given unlimited deference as a Gold Star father.

“I don’t honor anybody higher than Gold Star mothers and fathers, people that have lost their sons and daughters in combat, in defense of their country,” Bannon said. “I haven’t heard any question at all that the son was an absolute hero, in fact walked toward the danger, in protection of his men, and gave his life for his country and his men. His son’s an absolute hero.”

‘However, Chris Christie’s just dead wrong,” Bannon continued. “It doesn’t give you a free shot on goal to say anything.”

Sperry agreed, and also supported Bannon’s characterization of Khizr Khan as “one of the biggest proponents in this country of sharia law.”

“He’s got dozens of citations in Islamic law journals, and syllabi, teaching sharia law. He is a world-renowned expert on sharia, not the Constitution,” Sperry said. “He’s a devout Muslim, this is what he believes in. I think you’re right – you have to separate both the son and the mother from the scrutiny, but the father deserves a lot of scrutiny. He’s clearly got an agenda. He’s an angry political activist up there, in a non-stop parade on the cable networks, haranguing and wagging his finger at Trump and all of us, lecturing us.”

“Speaking of the mother, I think it was Monday night, on Don Lemon of CNN, he hectored Trump for having, quote, ‘no respect of women.’ And then last night, on Anderson Cooper, Khan said, wagging that finger at Trump, quote, ‘You have disrespected women.’ Yet, this is the same guy who admires, from his writings — and this goes back to the ’80s – he admires a Pakistani mullah who says it’s the right of men to beat their wives,” Sperry said.

He also mentioned the sharia standards for women to prove charges of sexual assault against men, noting that “she’ll get charged, because she’s not good enough, as a witness” unless she has multiple male witnesses to back up her claims.

“That’s doctrinal,” Sperry noted. “That’s not something anybody is making up. That’s doctrinal. But this is what this Khan evidently believes as well. I mean, he’s praising the guy who blatantly said, you know, this is a right for men to have.”

Bannon pointed out that during his Anderson Cooper interview, Khan claimed, “I do not stand for any sharia law, because there is no such thing.”

Sperry said that was a “howling lie.”

“I mean, you go through all his writings, he clearly goes into great detail about what sharia is, and is a strong proponent of it,” he pointed out.

“Did he lie on national TV?” Bannon asked.

“It appears that way,” Sperry replied. “The bloom is really coming off the rose here on this guy.”

He further questioned the veracity of some of the claims in Khzir Khan’s bio: “In his background, there’s some serious questions, so I’m digging into that. There’s probably going to be a lot more coming out on this guy, as he continues wagging his finger.”

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Khzir Khan, Sharia law, Taqiyya, U.S. Constitution
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Senior aid worker said to funnel ‘tens of millions’ to Hamas

August 4, 2016

Senior aid worker said to funnel ‘tens of millions’ to Hamas World Vision denies its Gaza chief diverted 60% of his budget to the terror group, which allegedly used the cash to finance weapons, tunnels

By Judah Ari Gross

August 4, 2016, 3:13 pm

Source: Senior aid worker said to funnel ‘tens of millions’ to Hamas | The Times of Israel

Over the course of several years, the Hamas terrorist organization siphoned off “tens of millions of dollars” from the US-based World Vision charity for its military wing, the Shin Bet security service said Thursday.

Muhammad Halabi, a Hamas member and manager of operations for World Vision in Gaza, was indicted in a Beersheba court on Thursday for his role in the alleged scheme. He was arrested in a joint Shin Bet-IDF-Israel Police operation at the Erez Crossing on June 15 as he tried to return to the Strip, the Shin Bet said.

Halabi, a member of Hamas from a young age, was handpicked to infiltrate the international charity in 2005 in order to steal money for the terrorist organization, according to the investigation.

“This was a meaningful and important investigation that showed — above all — the cynical and crude way in which Hamas takes advantage of funds and resources from international humanitarian aid organizations,” the Shin Bet said in a statement.

Muhammad Halabi, a member of Hamas and manager of the World Vision charity's operations in the Gaza Strip, was indicted on August 4, 2016, for diverting the charity's funds to the terrorist organization. (Shin Bet)

Muhammad Halabi, a member of Hamas and manager of the World Vision charity’s operations in the Gaza Strip, was indicted on August 4, 2016, for diverting the charity’s funds to the terrorist organization. (Shin Bet)

In a statement released following the indictment, World Vision defended Halabi and denied the allegations against him.

“Based on the information available to us at this time, we have no reason to believe that the allegations are true. We will carefully review any evidence presented to us and will take appropriate actions based on that evidence,” the group wrote.

After rising through the ranks of World Vision, Halabi became the manager of World Vision’s activities in the Gaza Strip. “In that capacity he controlled the budget, equipment and humanitarian aid packages worth tens of millions of dollars,” the Shin Bet said.

There he was able to funnel approximately “60 percent of World Vision’s annual budget for the Gaza Strip to Hamas,” according to his testimony, which amounted to approximately $7.2 million every year.

This was mostly commonly done by Halabi offering fake tenders for work. “The ‘winning’ company was aware that 60% of the project’s funds were bound for Hamas,” the Shin Bet said.

Approximately 40 percent of World Vision’s funds for civilian projects — $1.5 million a year — was also given to Hamas battalions in cash, according to the Shin Bet, along with approximately $4 million a year that was designated for helping the needy.

A Palestinian boy looks from his family's destroyed house at workers rebuilding a house which was destroyed during last summer's war between Israel and Hamas, as the long-awaited reconstruction began in the Shejaiya neighborhood of eastern Gaza City on Thursday, July 23, 2015. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

A Palestinian boy looks from his family’s destroyed house at workers rebuilding a house which was destroyed during last summer’s war between Israel and Hamas, as the long-awaited reconstruction began in the Shejaiya neighborhood of eastern Gaza City on Thursday, July 23, 2015. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

According to investigators, some of those “fictitious” humanitarian projects included the construction of greenhouses, rejuvenation of agricultural fields, mental and physical health projects, an initiative to assist fishermen, a center for treating the mentally and physically handicapped, and the creation of agricultural organizations.

“These were all used as a pipeline to transfer money to Hamas,” the Shin Bet said.

In those fake programs, the terrorist organization was able to inflate the budgets, claim Hamas operatives as employees and launder money through World Vision, the security service added.

For instance, Halabi would list a parcel of land as costing $1,000 when it in fact cost $700 in order to pocket the extra funds and transfer them to the terrorist group, according to his testimony.

Still from an August 2015 Hamas video purporting to show a Gaza tunnel dug under the Israeli border. (Ynet screenshot)

Still from an August 2015 Hamas video purporting to show a Gaza tunnel dug under the Israeli border. (Ynet screenshot)

According to Halabi’s testimony, the funds that were transferred to Hamas were “earmarked for building up the military wing [of Hamas],” including digging tunnels, purchasing weaponry and building defensive outposts.

Some of the stolen funds were also used to pay the salaries of Hamas operatives. In some cases large sums of money were taken by senior members of the terrorist organization for their “personal needs,” the Shin Bet said.

Through such initiatives, Hamas was also able to purchase otherwise forbidden gear and take advantage of the “logistical assistance” given to the organization.

A Border Crossing Authority inspector discovers a wet suit, believed to be en route to Hamas, hidden in a shipment of sporting goods to the Gaza Strip on June 20, 2016. (screen capture: Defense Ministry)

A Border Crossing Authority inspector discovers a wet suit, believed to be en route to Hamas, hidden in a shipment of sporting goods to the Gaza Strip on June 20, 2016. (screen capture: Defense Ministry)

For instance, the greenhouse construction project allowed the group to scope out suitable digging sites for tunnels, while the nonexistent fishermen assistance program was used to purchase motorboats for smuggling and wetsuits that could be used by Hamas frogmen in attacks against Israel, the Shin Bet said.

In addition to funds and opportunities, Halabi also allegedly stole equipment that had been purchased by World Vision to assist farmers. Instead, the iron, digging tools, pipes and construction materials were used by Hamas for its own purposes.

Some 2,500 cartons of food and 3,300 cartons of cleaning supplies were also stolen from World Vision and given to Hamas fighters, according to the Shin Bet.

Money designated for children injured in conflicts with Israel was instead taken by families of Hamas members who falsely registered their children in the program, the security service said.

Palestinian workers rebuilding a house as reconstruction begins in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, July 23, 2015. (AP/Khalil Hamra)

Palestinian workers rebuilding a house as reconstruction begins in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, July 23, 2015. (AP/Khalil Hamra)

According to Halabi’s testimony, the humanitarian aid reserved by World Vision for residents of the Gaza Strip was given “almost entirely” to Hamas operatives and their families.

“This, it must be said, is against the official regulations of humanitarian aid organizations operating in the Gaza Strip,” the Shin Bet said in a statement.

Following the indictment, Israel’s Coordinator of the Government’s Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai released a statement in Arabic to the people of Gaza, telling them of Halabi’s actions.

“I’m speaking to you today about the Hamas terror organization, which is stealing your money to advance terror. Following a long investigation, we found that Hamas consistently uses funds that Western countries give to international organizations, like the World Vision organization in Gaza,” Mordechai said.

“Millions of dollars that were meant to build projects, support residents financially — even food packages for the needy — were given over to the military wing of Hamas for building bases, for salary bonuses and for digging death tunnels that will bring demolition and destruction upon you and the Gaza Strip,” he told residents of the coastal enclave.

While the general cast the blame on Hamas, Emmanuel Nahshon, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, accused World Vision of being “negligent” in its indirect funding of terrorism.

“World vision int. financed ‘unwittingly’ Hamas terror tunnels. How negligent can you be?! Money for kids used for terror,” Nahshon tweeted after the case was revealed.

Halabi supplied Israeli investigators with additional information about a large number of individuals in the Gaza Strip who take advantage of their work for aid organizations and the United Nations to assist Hamas, the Shin Bet said.

For example, Halabi’s father, Halil, served as head of the United Nation’s school system in the Gaza Strip for years. He too is a member of Hamas and, according to Halabi’s testimony, uses his position to help the terrorist organization.

Goods and medical supplies being transferred to the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom Crossing, July 19, 2014. (IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

Goods and medical supplies being transferred to the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom Crossing, July 19, 2014. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)

World Vision is an Evangelical Christian charity created in 1950 that operates in nearly 100 countries worldwide. Today it is one of the largest relief organizations based in the United States, with a budget of approximately $2.6 billion and nearly 50,000 employees. It has operated in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza since the 1970s.

When Halabi was first arrested in June, before charges were brought against him, the charity defended him in a statement.

“[Halabi] is a widely respected and well regarded humanitarian, field manager and trusted colleague of over a decade. He has displayed compassionate leadership on behalf of the children and communities of Gaza through difficult and challenging times, and has always worked diligently and professionally in fulfilling his duties,” the organization said in June.

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Julian Assange says “1,700 emails in Hillary Clinton’s collection” proves she sold weapons to ISIS in Syria [Video]

August 4, 2016

Julian Assange says “1,700 emails in Hillary Clinton’s collection” proves she sold weapons to ISIS in Syria [Video]

Alex Christoforou

3 days ago

Source: Julian Assange says “1,700 emails in Hillary Clinton’s collection” proves she sold weapons to ISIS in Syria [Video] – The Duran

Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew that the US was sending arms from Libya to Syria in 2011, a year before the Benghazi attacks.

The Iran-Contra scandal almost brought down Reagan’s second term. Essentially Oliver North and other senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo.

The Reagan administration officials hoped to secure the release of several U.S. hostages, and then take proceeds from the arms sales to Iran, to fund the Contras in Nicaragua.

Sounds familiar?

In Obama’s second term, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton authorized the shipment of American-made arms to Qatar, a country beholden to the Muslim Brotherhood, and friendly to the Libyan rebels, in an effort to topple the Libyan/Gaddafi government, and then ship those arms to Syria in order to fund Al Qaeda, and topple Assad in Syria.

Clinton took the lead role in organizing the so-called “Friends of Syria” (aka Al Qaeda/ISIS) to back the CIA-led insurgency for regime change in Syria.

Under oath Hillary Clinton denied she knew about the weapons shipments during public testimony in early 2013 after the Benghazi terrorist attack.

In an interview with Democracy Now, Wikileaks’ Julian Assange is now stating that 1,700 emails contained in the Clinton cache directly connect Hillary to Libya to Syria, and directly to Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Here is the transcript and the revelation by Assange…

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Julian, I want to mention something else. In March, you launched a searchable archive for over 30,000 emails and email attachments sent to and from Hillary Clinton’s private email server while she was secretary of state. The 50,547 pages of documents span the time from June 2010 to August 2014; 7,500 of the documents were sent by Hillary Clinton herself. The emails were made available in the form of thousands of PDFs by the U.S. State Department as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request. Why did you do this, and what’s the importance, from your perspective, of being able to create a searchable base?

JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, WikiLeaks has become the rebel library of Alexandria. It is the single most significant collection of information that doesn’t exist elsewhere, in a searchable, accessible, citable form, about how modern institutions actually behave. And it’s gone on to set people free from prison, where documents have been used in their court cases; hold the CIA accountable for renditions programs; feed into election cycles, which have resulted in the termination of, in some case—or contributed to the termination of governments, in some cases, taken the heads of intelligence agencies, ministers of defense and so on. So, you know, our civilizations can only be as good as our knowledge of what our civilisation is. We can’t possibly hope to reform that which we do not understand.

So, those Hillary Clinton emails, they connect together with the cables that we have published of Hillary Clinton, creating a rich picture of how Hillary Clinton performs in office, but, more broadly, how the U.S. Department of State operates. So, for example, the disastrous, absolutely disastrous intervention in Libya, the destruction of the Gaddafi government, which led to the occupation of ISIS of large segments of that country, weapons flows going over to Syria, being pushed by Hillary Clinton, into jihadists within Syria, including ISIS, that’s there in those emails. There’s more than 1,700 emails in Hillary Clinton’s collection, that we have released, just about Libya alone.

Via: http://www.democracynow.org/2016/7/25/assange_why_i_created_wikileaks_searchable

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