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Last Night Was the Turning Point in Trump’s Campaign

August 20, 2016

Last Night Was the Turning Point in Trump’s Campaign, PJ Media, Roger Kimball, August 19, 2016

trump in ncDonald Trump in Charlotte, N.C. Thursday, Aug. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Donald Trump cleared up one thing in his speech in Charlotte, North Carolina, last night: he is running to win.

Throughout this very odd election cycle, some pundits have periodically suggested that Trump wasn’t serious in his run for the presidency. First, it was said that he got into the race simply to garner publicity, to burnish his “brand.” He himself, it was said, was surprised that he did so well in the primaries.

When it became clear that he was poised to win the nomination, the story changed slightly. Now, he was said to be playing the buffoon because he didn’t really want the job. The same line was repeated and amplified post-convention whenever Trump went off-message or waved The National Enquirer about. Anything having to do with Ted Cruz really seemed to set him off. And off he went, as his plummeting poll numbers showed.

But these last couple of weeks have shown the world a new, more disciplined Donald Trump.

His speeches on the economy, on foreign policy, on policing and race relations, and — just last night — his brilliant speech that touched on everything from national security to race relations, free trade, immigration, and Obamacare, have shown that he is deadly earnest about winning this election.

To employ a phrase that Trump himself favors: Believe me, he’s in it to win.

Last night’s speech was significant for  several reasons. Substantively, it hammered home a truth that is as uncomfortable as it necessary to acknowledge: the dreadful plight of black Americans is largely the creation of Democrats.

Aside: in a rare obeisance to political correctness, Trump consistently referred to “African-Americans.”  Perhaps that is politically expedient — but I believe it is patronizing.

As Teddy Roosevelt observed, “hyphenated-Americans” are a threat to the integrity of the country. We are not Irish-Americans or German-American or African-Americans (a term that is especially bizarre because it is applied indiscriminately to certain dark-skinned people: Jamaica, for example, is not part of Africa). We are simply Americans whose ancestors happen to be from Ireland, Germany, Kenya, or wherever.

But back to that perhaps startling claim — to the media and Democrats, anyway — about Democrats being largely responsible for the plight of black Americans. Donald Trump is quite correct:

Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party have taken African-American votes totally for granted.

Until now, anyway, the black vote has run according to the Democratic script. What is that script? Lyndon Johnson articulated it in its purest — as well as its crassest — form when in 1964 he remarked to two like-minded Democratic governors that, with his Great Society programs:

I’ll have those n*****s voting Democratic for the next 200 years.

It hasn’t been 200 years yet. But for the last 50? As patronizing Democratic programs stifled freedom and individual initiative, and erected an increasingly burdensome (and expensive) governmental cocoon around their minority charges?

The black vote has been largely in the pocket of its new plantation owners.

The “Great Society” did not abolish poverty. That was never the intention. It institutionalized poverty.

Along the way, it created an engorging bureaucracy that was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party.

As Trump pointed out in his speech in Milwaukee earlier this week, all of the nation’s failed cities — Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, Oakland, Memphis, Milwaukee itself — have been under Democratic control for decades.

Milwaukee, for example, has been Democratic since 1908. Do you suppose that there is a connection between the disasters — the poverty, the crime, the corruption — that have engulfed these cities, and the political complexion of their leadership? Or is it merely fortuitous?

To ask the question is to answer it.

Regular readers know that I have found find a lot to criticize about Donald Trump. I stand by those criticisms. But I also acknowledge a new note in Trump’s campaign.

His speeches of the last two weeks have outlined with clarity and conviction that he is serious about bringing about significant change. Not just the word “change”: the country has staggered under that ruse for nearly eight years now. No, Trump is promising to bring real change to all Americans, but especially to American cities and the materially disenfranchised denizens who have spent the last several decades suffering from the hypocritical benevolence of the corrupt Democratic bureaucracy.

Some polls crow that Trump has “zero percent” support among blacks. After his speech in Milwaukee, that changed, with at least one poll reporting a 10-point jump.

I suspect that after his speech in North Carolina, we’ll see much more movement in the polls —and not just among minorities.

Last night’s speech was notable for its focus, its discipline, and its hard-hitting criticism of Hillary Clinton. It was also notable for its humanity. There are some who say that the “J.” in Donald Trump’s name is for “Jester.” Certainly, crass braggadocio has shadowed him throughout his public career.

In a few brief sentences last night, Trump acknowledged … and apologized(!) for that:

Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that, and I regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake for us to be consumed with these issues.

I suspect that a future historian, commenting on the surprising Trump victory in the election of 2016, will settle on the quartet of speeches Trump delivered in the middle of August 2016 as the turning point in a campaign the media had already written off as moribund.

And if pressed, I suspect that a future historian will point to last night’s speech, to Trump’s candid appeal for black votes and to black self-interest, as the pivotal moment.

Beyond that, I’ll wager that our future scribe will put his finger on Trump’s admission of error and expression of regret as the humanizing moment when people said:

Well, all right then, let’s give him another look.

Doubtless, Hillary Clinton and her surrogates are even now plotting to bait him, to lure him off target and to trick him into flailing against some irrelevant charge. If he is canny, he will ignore all these distractions and concentrate like a laser beam on his main issues: the economy, immigration, national security, and social comity.

His target is not a Constitution-waving Democratic shill, but Hillary Clinton. Her ostentatious corruption and incompetence, and the failed policies she has inherited and which she has pledged to continue and exacerbate.

Trump said early on in his speech:

Our campaign is about representing the great majority of Americans — Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Conservatives and Liberals — who read the newspaper, or turn on the TV, and don’t hear anyone speaking for them. All they hear are insiders fighting for insiders.

That’s what the mainstream media hears, too, but since they are themselves on the inside, it is a song whose melody they like. If Trump continues on the tack he has taken these last couple of weeks, there is a good chance he will win.

He needs to do two things. On the positive side, he needs to stay on message, repeating his ideas for tax reform, economic revitalization, control of our borders, defeating Islamic terrorism, replacing Obamacare, and enhancing America’s position in the world.

On the polemical side, he needs to be relentless in calling attention to the prosperity-killing and freedom-blighting program that is the Democratic platform (read it: it makes the Port Huron Statement seem sane).

He also needs to call attention to Hillary’s decades-long career of pay-to-play corruption and her callous incompetence as secretary of State.

Two weeks ago, it looked as if Donald Trump’s campaign was on life support. At the moment it looks as if the patient has made a miraculous recovery.

 

Categories: 2016 elections, Black voters, Democrat Party, Donald Trump
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Donald Trump and Islamists

August 19, 2016

Donald Trump and Islamists, Dan Miller’s Blog, August 20, 2016

(The views expressed in this article are mine, and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

An “Islamist” is a Muslim who seeks to impose Islamic (Sharia) law worldwide, including in America. There are Muslims in America who do not want that to happen, yet few of them seek actively to prevent it. I refer here to those who do try, not as “moderate Muslims” — an essentially badly used and hence meaningless term — but as “Muslim reformers.”

On August 15th, Donald Trump delivered an address, generally well-received in conservative circles, on the dangers of Islamist immigration and how he intends to guard against those who intend to have Sharia law imposed and/or to engage in terrorist activities.

Here’s a video of Trump’s address:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIfTKOWAWt8

The text is available here.

Here’s a video about Trump’s plan:

According to an article at Breitbart titled Donald Trump’s Outreach to Moderate Muslim Leaders Highlights Clinton Failure in Egypt,

In his foreign policy speech on Monday, Donald Trump stated that he would “amplify the voice” of moderate Muslim reformers in the Middle East, saying, “Our Administration will be a friend to all moderate Muslim reformers in the Middle East, and will amplify their voices.”

He also said that he would work with Egypt, Jordan and Israel in combating radical Islam, saying, “As President, I will call for an international conference focused on this goal. We will work side-by-side with our friends in the Middle East, including our greatest ally, Israel. We will partner with King Abdullah of Jordan, and President Sisi of Egypt, and all others who recognize this ideology of death that must be extinguished.” [Emphasis added.]

He said that, as President, he would establish a “Commission on Radical Islam,” saying, “That is why one of my first acts as President will be to establish a Commission on Radical Islam – which will include reformist voices in the Muslim community who will hopefully work with us. We want to build bridges and erase divisions.”  [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

Under the Obama Administration, US policy has not been friendly towards our Muslim allies such as Egypt. Hillary Clinton recently said in a primary debate with Bernie Sanders that, in Egypt, you basically have an “army dictatorship”.

Egypt is one of the most catastrophic foreign policy failures of the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton’s State Department. President Obama started his outreach to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood when he delivered his 2009 Cairo speech. The US Embassy invited 10 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to attend the speech, undermining US ally Mubarak – who had rejected to previous U.S. efforts to reach out to the Brotherhood. [Emphasis added.]

Islamism

Islamism is a totalitarian vision to impose Sharia law worldwide:

Unfortunately, Obama’s “countering violent extremism” farce has chosen to ignore, if not to encourage and even adopt, Sharia law and its consequences:

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser is a Muslim reformer of the type Trump hopes to recruit for his efforts. A video of an interview with Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, an American Muslim of Syrian descent and a proponent of an Islamic reformation, is provided below. However, first it will be useful to understand the goals of Dr. Jasser and his His organization, American Islamic Forum for Democracy:

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy’s (AIFD) mission is to advocate for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state.

AIFD is the most prominent American Muslim organization directly confronting the ideologies of political Islam and openly countering the common belief that the Muslim faith is inextricably rooted to the concept of the Islamic State (Islamism). Founded by Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, AIFD looks to build the future of Islam through the concepts of liberty and freedom.

AIFD’s mission is derived from a love for America and a love of our faith of Islam. Dr. Jasser and the board of AIFD believe that Muslims can better practice Islam in an environment that protects the rights of an individual to practice their faith as they choose. The theocratic “Islamic” regimes of the Middle East and some Muslim majority nations use Islam as a way to control Muslim populations, not to glorify God as they portend. The purest practice of Islam is one in which Muslims have complete freedom to accept or reject any of the tenants or laws of the faith no different than we enjoy as Americans in this Constitutional republic.

AIFD believes that the root cause of Islamist terrorism is the ideology of political Islam and a belief in the preference for and supremacy of the Islamic state. Terrorism is but a means to that end. Most Islamist terror is driven by the desire of Islamists to drive the influence of the west (the ideas of liberty) out of the Muslim consciousness and Muslim majority societies. The underlying philosophy of Islamism is what western society should fear most. With almost a quarter of the world’s population Muslim, American security will never come without an understanding and winning out of the ideas of liberty by Muslims and an understanding of the harm of political Islam by non-Muslims.

AIFD seeks to build and establish an institution that can provide an ideological infrastructure for the ideas of liberty and freedom to Muslims and our future generations. We seek to give Muslims a powerful intellectual alternative to political Islam (Islamism) ultimately seeking the defeat of political Islam as a theo-political ideology.

Some readers will likely think that Dr. Jasser’s efforts to reform Islam would, in the unlikely event that they prove successful, create something that is not Islam. I disagree. Mohamed (and hence Islam) changed quite radically when he was driven out of Mecca and settled in Medina, where he became a warlord. In Mecca, he had been relatively peaceful and tolerant of other religions. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali states here,

In the early days of Islam, when Muhammad was going from door to door in Mecca trying to persuade the polytheists to abandon their idols of worship, he was inviting them to accept that there was no god but Allah and that he was Allah’s messenger.

After 10 years of trying this kind of persuasion, however, he and his small band of believers went to Medina, and from that moment, Muhammad’s mission took on a political dimension. Unbelievers were still invited to submit to Allah, but after Medina, they were attacked if they refused. If defeated, they were given the option to convert or to die. (Jews and Christians could retain their faith if they submitted to paying a special tax.) [Emphasis added.]

No symbol represents the soul of Islam more than the Shahada. But today there is a contest within Islam for the ownership of that symbol. Who owns the Shahada? Is it those Muslims who want to emphasize Muhammad’s years in Mecca or those who are inspired by his conquests after Medina? On this basis, I believe that we can distinguish three different groups of Muslims.

The first group is the most problematic. These are the fundamentalists who, when they say the Shahada, mean: “We must live by the strict letter of our creed.” They envision a regime based on Shariah, Islamic religious law. They argue for an Islam largely or completely unchanged from its original seventh-century version. What is more, they take it as a requirement of their faith that they impose it on everyone else.

I shall call them Medina Muslims, in that they see the forcible imposition of Shariah as their religious duty. They aim not just to obey Muhammad’s teaching but also to emulate his warlike conduct after his move to Medina. Even if they do not themselves engage in violence, they do not hesitate to condone it. [Emphasis added.]

It is Medina Muslims who call Jews and Christians “pigs and monkeys.” It is Medina Muslims who prescribe death for the crime of apostasy, death by stoning for adultery and hanging for homosexuality. It is Medina Muslims who put women in burqas and beat them if they leave their homes alone or if they are improperly veiled.

The second group—and the clear majority throughout the Muslim world—consists of Muslims who are loyal to the core creed and worship devoutly but are not inclined to practice violence. I call them Mecca Muslims. Like devout Christians or Jews who attend religious services every day and abide by religious rules in what they eat and wear, Mecca Muslims focus on religious observance. I was born in Somalia and raised as a Mecca Muslim. So were the majority of Muslims from Casablanca to Jakarta. [Emphasis added.]

Yet the Mecca Muslims have a problem: Their religious beliefs exist in an uneasy tension with modernity—the complex of economic, cultural and political innovations that not only reshaped the Western world but also dramatically transformed the developing world as the West exported it. The rational, secular and individualistic values of modernity are fundamentally corrosive of traditional societies, especially hierarchies based on gender, age and inherited status.

Trapped between two worlds of belief and experience, these Muslims are engaged in a daily struggle to adhere to Islam in the context of a society that challenges their values and beliefs at every turn. Many are able to resolve this tension only by withdrawing into self-enclosed (and increasingly self-governing) enclaves. This is called cocooning, a practice whereby Muslim immigrants attempt to wall off outside influences, permitting only an Islamic education for their children and disengaging from the wider non-Muslim community.

It is my hope to engage this second group of Muslims—those closer to Mecca than to Medina—in a dialogue about the meaning and practice of their faith. I recognize that these Muslims are not likely to heed a call for doctrinal reformation from someone they regard as an apostate and infidel. But they may reconsider if I can persuade them to think of me not as an apostate but as a heretic: one of a growing number of people born into Islam who have sought to think critically about the faith we were raised in. It is with this third group—only a few of whom have left Islam altogether—that I would now identify myself. [Emphasis added.]

These are the Muslim dissidents. A few of us have been forced by experience to conclude that we could not continue to be believers; yet we remain deeply engaged in the debate about Islam’s future. The majority of dissidents are reforming believers—among them clerics who have come to realize that their religion must change if its followers are not to be condemned to an interminable cycle of political violence.

How many Muslims belong to each group? Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations estimates that only 3% of the world’s Muslims understand Islam in the militant terms I associate with Muhammad’s time in Medina. But out of well over 1.6 billion believers, or 23% of the globe’s population, that 48 million seems to be more than enough. (I would put the number significantly higher, based on survey data on attitudes toward Shariah in Muslim countries.)

In any case, regardless of the numbers, it is the Medina Muslims who have captured the world’s attention on the airwaves, over social media, in far too many mosques and, of course, on the battlefield.

The Medina Muslims pose a threat not just to non-Muslims. They also undermine the position of those Mecca Muslims attempting to lead a quiet life in their cultural cocoons throughout the Western world. But those under the greatest threat are the dissidents and reformers within Islam, who face ostracism and rejection, who must brave all manner of insults, who must deal with the death threats—or face death itself. [Emphasis added.]

For the world at large, the only viable strategy for containing the threat posed by the Medina Muslims is to side with the dissidents and reformers and to help them to do two things: first, identify and repudiate those parts of Muhammad’s legacy that summon Muslims to intolerance and war, and second, persuade the great majority of believers—the Mecca Muslims—to accept this change. [Emphasis added.]

Islam is at a crossroads. Muslims need to make a conscious decision to confront, debate and ultimately reject the violent elements within their religion. To some extent—not least because of widespread revulsion at the atrocities of Islamic State, al Qaeda and the rest—this process has already begun. But it needs leadership from the dissidents, and they in turn stand no chance without support from the West. [Emphasis added.]

Is Dr. Jasser a Mecca Muslim, who wants Islam to revert to the religion as practiced in Mecca? So it seems to me, and that is by no means what the Council on American Islamic relations (CAIR) wants. It has labeled Dr. Jasser and his organization “Islamophobic:”

In 2013, CAIR published a major report, “Legislating Fear: Islamophobia and its Impact in the United States,” which identifies 37 organizations dedicated to promoting the type of anti-Islam prejudice that can lead to bias-motivated incidents targeting American Muslims. The Islamophobia report isavailable on Kindle.

Jasser was featured in that report as an enabler of anti-Muslim bigotry. The report noted that Jasser heads a group that “applauded” an amendment to Oklahoma’s state Constitution that would have implemented state-sponsored discrimination against Islam.

Jasser also narrated “The Third Jihad,” a propaganda film created by the Clarion Fund, which depicts Muslims as inherently violent and seeking world domination. Following revelations that the film was shown as part of training at the New York Police Department, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly called it “wacky” and “objectionable.”

Here is the “propaganda film” referred to by CAIR:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XUub1no1qw

Finally, here is Dr. Jasser’s video about Trump’s plan to evaluate the ideological views of Muslims who attempt to enter the United States with a view to keeping out those who favor Sharia law, terrorism and the Islamisation of America. Dr. Jasser favors it and also offers good advice.

If, as seems likely, President Trump replaces the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas-linked organizations such as CAIR with non-Islamist, Muslim reform organizations such Dr. Jasser’s, the focus will shift from the Department of Homeland Security’s “Countering Violent Extremism” program of demonizing “Islamophobia” to excluding Islamists from American and preventing their domestic terror activities as well as defeating their efforts directed to the Islamisation of America and the imposition of Sharia law.

Dr. Jasser and his reformist colleagues have not been shy about how they view Islam and how they want it to change. As Hirsi Ali noted in the article quoted above,

[T]hose under the greatest threat are the dissidents and reformers within Islam, who face ostracism and rejection, who must brave all manner of insults, who must deal with the death threats—or face death itself.

I submit that it up to us, not to reject them on the notion that all Muslims are dangerous, but to accept them — as Donald Trump appears to have done — and to work with them in their efforts to change not only Islam but how it functions in America.

Categories: CAIR, Donald Trump, Islam, Islam in America, Islamic immigration, Islamic jihad, Islamic reformation, Islamic terrorism, Islamist organizations, Islamists, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Sharia law, Zuhdi Jasser
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NEW: Donald Trump’s First General Election Ad, “Two Americas”. MAGA! HD

August 19, 2016

NEW: Donald Trump’s First General Election Ad, “Two Americas”. MAGA! HD, YouTube, August 19, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UqwQCB48dA

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump
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Will National Security Finally Bring Warring Republicans Together?

August 19, 2016

Will National Security Finally Bring Warring Republicans Together? PJ Media, Roger L Simon, August 18, 2016

trump_patton_banner_8-18-16-1.sized-770x415xc

Will national security finally bring warring Republicans together?

That was what was on my mind when I perused an email from Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s national policy director, describing a roundtable on defeating radical Islamic terrorism the Trump campaign held Wednesday.  It read in part:

The participants talked about improving immigration screening and standards to keep out radicals, working with moderate Muslims to foster reforms, and partnering with friendly regimes in the Middle East to stamp out ISIS. This is a stark contrast to Hillary Clinton who wants to bring in 620,000 refugees with no way to screen them…

All well and good, I thought, but nothing extraordinary there, until I scanned the list of the sixteen participants.  Besides the usual Trump spokespeople—Rudy Giuliani, Jeff Sessions, General Mike Flynn—some surprising names popped up that had been critics of Donald, often severe ones.  Among them were former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who once called a Trump presidency dangerous in that notorious January 2016 edition of the National Review when a boatload of conservative intellectuals ripped into the real estate tycoon as the Devil’s son; Congressman Peter King, who as recently as August 10 remonstrated with Donald for his “dumb remark” on the Second Amendment that allegedly encouraged gun owners to go after Hillary (King agreed that it didn’t really, but insisted Trump should choose his words better); and Andrew C. McCarthy, the former U. S. attorney famed for his successful prosecution of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman in the 1993 first bombing of the World Trade Center.

McCarthy—now a best-selling author and columnist for the National Review and PJ Media, among other venues—had this to say on NRO about Trump after his July convention speech:

On Thursday night came the harvest: The party was formally taken over by an incoherent statist whose “conservatism” is not done justice by scare quotes. Oh… and he has trouble telling the good guys from the bad guys.

Whoa. Words like that don’t usually get you invited to the subject’s roundtable, at least without some considerable advance peacemaking.  And yet there was McCarthy, sitting at Trump’s table.

Andy McCarthy has been a friend of mine for some years, so I decided to call him and pick his brain about what went down.

As it turned out, McCarthy told me, the event was not contentious at all. Bygones were apparently bygones.  In fact, Trump was so cordial to him, Andy wondered whether Donald knew who he was.  (I strongly suspect he did.  As we all know, Trump watches The Kelly File—where McCarthy appears frequently—with some devotion.)

The meeting was quite substantive from Andy’s perspective with all agreeing that we are at war not with “terror” (a tactic) but with radical Islam (a violent ideology).  A good deal of time was spent in this lawyer-rich environment on the legalisms of how to pursue that war.  Congress originally authorized the use of military force against terrorists only three days days after September 11, 2001.  Given the gravity of the current situation, would that need to be amended or reauthorized for a Trump administration? And if so, how?  (One can assume a Hillary Clinton administration would not even go near this question.  For them, fighting terror is a police problem.)

McCarthy—who said he spoke seven or eight times, quite a bit for a two-hour session—delineated three goals for the war:

  1. To strike down jihad wherever it arises.
  2. To squeeze all terror-supporting regimes (not give them millions and billions as Obama just did Iran). And:
  3. To rid ourselves of political correctness so we can oppose and destroy the evil doctrine of radical Islam.

Also in attendance were the newbie Trump campaign leaders: new-media mogul Stephen Bannon (now CEO) and pollster Kellyanne Conway (now campaign manager).  Much has been made by the MSM and, alas, by some of Trump’s more persistent Republican critics that the candidate supposedly blew it again by announcing these promotions just after he made a well-received speech on urban policy.  Of course, these same people were complaining a week before that Trump was understaffed.

So it goes in our incessantly back-biting political world where few people want to keep their eye on the ball because that ball—radical Islam—is more than a little frightening.  This roundtable group convened by the Trump campaign evidently intends to keep its eye on that ball and if Republicans have any brains they will rally around them, finally rally around Trump.  Because here’s the painfully obvious truth:  If we don’t extinguish radical Islam, if it continues to spread throughout the world, nothing else matters.  Who cares if the tax rate is 5% or 500% when you don’t have a head.

And now, in his latest speech, Trump has said “in the heat of debate” he “may have caused personal pain.”  Get that?  The long-awaited apology.  Now let’s win!

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Islamic immigration, Islamic terrorism, National secuity, Republican Party
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Trump Will Face a Huge Challenge with U.S. Intelligence If He Wins

August 18, 2016

Trump Will Face a Huge Challenge with U.S. Intelligence If He Wins, Center for Security Policy, Fred Fleitz, August 18, 2016

cia logo

Before his classified national-security briefing yesterday, Donald Trump said he didn’t trust U.S. intelligence. His comments attracted the expected condemnations and ridicule from the media pundits and foreign-policy experts. However, based on my 25 years working in U.S. intelligence, I believe Trump’s concerns are well-founded.

On Wednesday, Trump received the intelligence briefing traditionally provided by the U.S. Intelligence Community to newly nominated presidential candidates. This briefing was preceded by calls from the Clinton campaign, other Democrats, and, privately, by some intelligence officials that Trump be denied these briefings because, they claim, he can’t be trusted to protect classified information.

Harry Reid, the top Democrat in the Senate, actually asked intelligence analysts to give Trump fake briefings.

The Washington Post’s intelligence reporter Greg Miller reported on July 28 that a senior intelligence official told Miller privately that he would refuse to brief Trump because of concerns about Trump’s alleged admiration of Russian president Putin and because “he’s been so uninterested in the truth and so reckless with it when he sees it.” Reuters ran a similar story on June 2, reporting that eight senior security officials said they had concerns about briefing Trump; Reuters did not indicate how many of the officials cited were intelligence officials or Obama appointees.

These calls to deny intelligence briefings to a presidential candidate are unprecedented, but they also reflect a serious problem within the U.S. intelligence community that awaits a possible Trump administration: the politicization of American intelligence by the Left.

I saw this constantly during my 19 years as a CIA analyst. CIA officers frequently tried to undermine CIA directors Casey and Gates because they disagreed with President Reagan’s policy goal of defeating the Soviet Union. Several testified against Gates’s nomination to be CIA director in 1991 by lodging false claims that he and Casey had politicized intelligence. Former senator Warren Rudman, a moderate Republican who headed President Clinton’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, described these attacks by CIA analysts as “an attempted assassination, an assassination of [Gates’s] character . . . McCarthyism, pure and simple.”

The liberal tilt within the CIA, especially in the Directorate of Intelligence (the analysis office), grew worse during the Clinton years as personnel were hired and promoted to support Clinton-Gore policy objectives. These included wasteful initiatives such as the DCI Environmental Center, launched at the same time the CIA was dangerously downplaying counterterrorism analysis.

Unfortunately, the intensified liberal tilt at the CIA during the Clinton years was not reversed by the George W. Bush administration. Bush kept on Clinton’s CIA director, George Tenet, who had no interest in cleaning house or taking steps to ensure that CIA analysis would be balanced and not politicized. When his successor, Porter Goss, tried to clean up the agency, CIA careerists fought back aggressively by leaking to Congress and the media, eventually forcing Goss out.

As a result, intelligence careerists often paid no price for engaging in blatantly political activities to undermine the Bush administration. One officer in the CIA inspector general’s office was fired after she admitted she’d leaked classified information on Bush counterterrorism programs to aWashington Post reporter. In 2005, several intelligence officers attempted to sabotage John Bolton’s nomination to be U.N. ambassador — an act of political skullduggery for which they were never punished.

The most notorious example of partisan political activity by U.S. intelligence officers occurred just before the 2004 presidential election when Paul Pillar, the CIA’s national intelligence officer for Near East and South Asia, while giving a speech at a dinner on September 21, criticized President Bush and CIA director Tenet for ignoring critical intelligence that he claimed might have prevented the Iraq War. Incredibly, CIA management had cleared Pillar’s comments, saying that the substance of his remarks, but not the speaker or the audience, could be disclosed. The late columnist Robert Novak, who attended the dinner, sparked an uproar when he reported Pillar’s identity and the dinner anyway. Clearly, Pillar’s presentation was intended to affect the outcome of the 2004 presidential election.

The Wall Street Journal condemned such political activities by CIA officers in a scathing September 29, 2004, editorial titled “The CIA’s Insurgency”:

It’s become obvious over the past couple of years that large swaths of the CIA oppose U.S. anti-terror policy, especially toward Iraq. But rather than keep this dispute in-house, the dissenters have taken their objections to the public, albeit usually through calculated leaks that are always spun to make the agency look good and the Bush administration look bad. . . . Yet what the CIA insurgents are essentially doing here, with their leaks and insubordination, is engaging in a policy debate. Given the timing of the latest leaks so close to an election, they are now clearly trying to defeat President Bush and elect John Kerry.

Politicization of America’s intelligence agencies by the Left has grown worse during the Obama years. Recall that the CIA drafted the politicized (and later discredited) 2012 talking points on the Benghazi terrorist attacks. Additionally, the agency now uses racial, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion, socioeconomic status, and other quotas for CIA hiring and promotions.

Significant examples of politicization in other intelligence agencies since 2009 include the congressional testimony of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. During a briefing to the House Intelligence Committee in February 201, Clapper tried to downplay the Muslim Brotherhood as a radical Islamist group, saying: “The term Muslim Brotherhood is an umbrella term for a variety of movements. In the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam.”

And in 2015, as widely reported, more than 50 U.S. Central Command intelligence analysts lodged a formal complaint with the Pentagon’s inspector general. In the complaint, they alleged that their intelligence assessments were being intentionally manipulated by senior officials to downplay the threat from ISIS and the al-Nusra Front (the al-Qaeda branch in Syria) in order to support the Obama administration’s claim that the U.S. was making progress in defeating these Islamist terrorist groups. A recent congressional task force concluded this month that these complaints were valid and expressed alarm that nothing has been done to improve CENTCOM intelligence analysis in response to them.

In light of this history, it is no surprise that Democrats, intelligence officers, and the liberal media urged that Trump be denied an intelligence briefing as the GOP presidential candidate. Naturally, they did not raise similar concerns about briefing Hillary Clinton, although the FBI director determined she was “extremely careless” in handling classified information as secretary of state, even sharing classified intelligence with people who had no security clearance. Comey also stated that due to this carelessness, it’s possible hostile actors have gained access to the highly classified information that traveled through the multiple private servers Clinton used.

It’s true that intelligence briefings to presidential candidates are offered at the discretion of a sitting president. But calls to deny these briefings to Trump or to give him fake briefings are an affront to the American tradition of peaceful transfer of power and could undermine his presidential transition if he wins the election.

It is not up to Senator Reid or U.S. intelligence officers to prevent a duly elected major-party presidential candidate from receiving intelligence briefings because they don’t like him or because he is from the wrong political party. Of more concern is whether some intelligence personnel, out of political bias, would refuse to provide a President Trump with the intelligence support he would need to protect American national security.

Trump may have been too hard on U.S. intelligence agencies when he said that they got it wrong before the Iraq War; and perhaps he was unfair to lambaste Obama’s dismissal of ISIS as the “jayvee” team. Intelligence agencies must be held accountable for their work, but their analysis will never be 100 percent accurate. In addition, intelligence agencies only advisepolicymakers. They cannot force a president to use their analysis.

I was pleased to hear that Trump realizes he will have a lot of work ahead of him to fix the U.S. intelligence community if he becomes president. To get the objective, accurate, and hard-hitting intelligence support he will need if elected, Trump must name strong, decisive leaders — including good managers from the business community — to top intelligence posts. He must hire people who understand that America’s intelligence agencies do not work for themselves, for either party in Congress, or the foreign-policy establishment; they work for the president. Any U.S. intelligence officer who is not prepared to loyally provide whomever wins the presidency with his best efforts should find another job.

Categories: CIA, Donald Trump, Intelligence community, Intelligence failures, Trump intelligence briefing
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Gorka: The war is real and the war is here

August 18, 2016

Gorka: The war is real and the war is here, Fox News via YouTube, August 17, 2016

Categories: Democrats, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and immigration, Hillary Clinton and Islam, Islamic State, Islamic terror groups, National secuity, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic State
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The Trump Speech that will Win Him the Presidency*

August 18, 2016

The Trump Speech that will Win Him the Presidency*, Power Line, John Hinderaker, August 17, 2016

Yesterday in West Bend, Wisconsin, Donald Trump delivered a speech that was described as being on law and order. True enough, but it was much more than that. Trump powerfully wove together his campaign’s themes in a direct appeal for African-American votes. You can read the speech here. Of course, Trump didn’t deliver it exactly as written, but it was close, with no notable deviations that I noticed. Excerpts are below. This is the video of the speech in its entirety:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8AKmX6QtuA

This is from the law and order portion of the speech:

The violence, riots and destruction that have taken place in Milwaukee is an assault on the right of all citizens to live in security and peace.

Law and order must be restored. It must be restored for the sake of all, but most especially the sake of those living in the affected communities.

The main victims of these riots are law-abiding African-American citizens living in these neighborhoods. It is their jobs, their homes, their schools and communities which will suffer as a result.

There is no compassion in tolerating lawless conduct. Crime and violence is an attack on the poor, and will never be accepted in a Trump Administration.

The narrative that has been pushed aggressively for years now by our current Administration, and pushed by my opponent Hillary Clinton, is a false one. The problem in our poorest communities is not that there are too many police, the problem is that there are not enough police.

More law enforcement, more community engagement, more effective policing is what our country needs.

Just like Hillary Clinton is against the miners, she is against the police. You know it, and I know it. Those peddling the narrative of cops as a racist force in our society – a narrative supported with a nod by my opponent – share directly in the responsibility for the unrest in Milwaukee, and many other places within our country.

They have fostered the dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America.

Every time we rush to judgment with false facts and narratives – whether in Ferguson or in Baltimore – and foment further unrest, we do a direct disservice to poor African-American residents who are hurt by the high crime in their communities.

Those words are true, and they will be welcomed by something like 85% of voters. The Democrats’ association with Black Lives Matter, with rioters and with anti-police elements generally is deeply unpopular.

Trump appealed directly to African-American voters. These excerpts are drawn from different portions of his speech:

The war on our police is a war on all peaceful citizens who want to be able to work and live and send their kids to school in safety.

Our job is not to make life more comfortable for the rioter, the looter, the violent disruptor. Our job is to make life more comfortable for the African-American parent who wants their kids to be able to safely walk the streets. Or the senior citizen waiting for a bus. Or the young child walking home from school.
***
The Hillary Clinton agenda hurts poor people the most.

There is no compassion in allowing drug dealers, gang members, and felons to prey on innocent people. It is the first duty of government to keep the innocent safe, and when I am President I will fight for the safety of every American – and especially those Americans who have not known safety for a very, very long time.

I am asking for the vote of every African-American citizen struggling in our country today who wants a different future.

It is time for our society to address some honest and very difficult truths.

The Democratic Party has failed and betrayed the African-American community. Democratic crime policies, education policies, and economic policies have produced only more crime, more broken homes, and more poverty.

Let us look at the situation right here in Milwaukee, a city run by Democrats for decade after decade. Last year, killings in this city increased by 69 percent, plus another 634 victims of non-fatal shootings. 18-29-year-olds accounted for nearly half of the homicide victims. The poverty rate here is nearly double the national average. Almost 4 in 10 African-American men in Milwaukee between the ages of 25-54 do not have a job. Nearly four in 10 single mother households are living in poverty. 55 public schools in this city have been rated as failing to meet expectations, despite ten thousand dollars in funding per-pupil. There is only a 60% graduation rate, and it’s one of the worst public school systems in the country.

To every voter in Milwaukee, to every voter living in every inner city, or every forgotten stretch of our society, I am running to offer you a better future.

The Democratic Party has taken the votes of African-Americans for granted. They’ve just assumed they’ll get your support and done nothing in return for it. It’s time to give the Democrats some competition for these votes, and it’s time to rebuild the inner cities of America – and to reject the failed leadership of a rigged political system.
***
We reject the bigotry of Hillary Clinton which panders to and talks down to communities of color and sees them only as votes, not as individual human beings worthy of a better future. She doesn’t care at all about the hurting people of this country, or the suffering she has caused them.

The African-American community has been taken for granted for decades by the Democratic Party. It’s time to break with the failures of the past – I want to offer Americans a new future.

It is time for rule by the people, not rule by special interests.

Every insider, getting rich off of our broken system, is throwing money at Hillary Clinton. The hedge fund managers, the Wall Street investors, the professional political class.

It’s the powerful protecting the powerful. Insiders fighting for insiders. I am fighting for you.
***
The Democratic Party has run nearly every inner city in this country for 50 years, and run them into financial ruin.

They’ve ruined the schools.

They’ve driven out the jobs.

They’ve tolerated a level of crime no American should consider acceptable.

Violent crime has risen 17% in America’s 50 largest cities last year. Killings of police officers this year is up nearly 50 percent. Homicides are up more than 60% in Baltimore. They are up more than 50% in Washington, D.C.

This is the future offered by Hillary Clinton. More poverty, more crime, and more of the same. The future she offers is the most pessimistic thing I can possibly imagine.

It is time for a different future.

That is powerful stuff. The Democrats can only hope that the press doesn’t let their urban voters hear Trump’s message.

Trump wove his trademark immigration issue into the narrative:

First, on immigration. No community in this country has been hurt worse by Hillary Clinton’s immigration policies than the African-American community. Now she is proposing to print instant work permits for millions of illegal immigrants, taking jobs directly from low-income Americans. I will secure our border, protect our workers, and improve jobs and wages in your community. We will only invite people to join our country who share our tolerant values, who support our Constitution, and who love all of our people.

Trump is right on the facts, and polls indicate that his policies are extremely popular with African-American voters. Trump also came out for school choice and merit pay for teachers:

Hillary Clinton would rather deny opportunities to millions of young African-American children, just so she can curry favor with the education bureaucracy.

That’s true. And it isn’t just Hillary, it is the entire Democratic Party, at every level.

There was much more, especially on corruption. But the bottom line is that Donald Trump did exactly what conservatives have been saying for years that Republican politicians should do. He asked for African-American votes, explicitly and aggressively. He called out the Democrats for their failed policies. Urban American has been voting Democrat for a century, and how has that worked out? Badly. Democrats count on African-American votes, but their policies on public safety, immigration, education and trade (here I think Trump is mostly wrong), among others, consistently screw black Americans. Why not try something different?

If Trump keeps giving this speech, and variants on it, for the next 90 days he will win the election. He needs, above all, to maintain message discipline. Yesterday, he riffed a bit here and there, but not substantively. He stuck to his script and delivered his message powerfully. He needs to keep that up until Election Day.

One more thing about Trump’s Wisconsin speech is notable: He was introduced by Scott Walker, and Reince Preibus and Rudy Giuliani were prominently in attendance. Trump is inherently more powerful when he speaks in the context of approval by luminaries like those who showed up to support him in West Bend. It is time, I think, with all due respect to those who have resisted Trump as the Republican standard bearer, for the party to unite behind its nominee.

Finally: the title of this post ends with an asterisk. Speeches like the one Trump gave in Wisconsin will win him the presidency, but only if voters hear them or otherwise learn about them. The Democratic Party media will do everything possible to prevent that from happening.

So, for example, the liberal media led this morning not with stories about Trump’s speech, which would have damaged their preferred candidate, but rather with stories about his campaign staff shakeup. Trump needs to circumvent the liberal media in a manner that was not necessary when they largely cheered him on during the primary season. In that respect the debates, when voters will see Trump unfiltered by his enemies, likely will be critical.

Categories: 2016 elections, Black Lives Matter, Black voters, Democrats, Donald Trump, Immigration, Law enforcement, Lawlessness
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CAIR To Donald Trump: The Constitution Says Government Can’t Study or Criticize Radical Islam

August 18, 2016

CAIR To Donald Trump: The Constitution Says Government Can’t Study or Criticize Radical Islam, Breitbart, Neil Munro, August 16, 2016

(Please see also, Dr. Jasser discusses Donald Trump’s call for “extreme vetting” as part of plan to stop ISIS, — DM)

Boston-marathon-Bombing-AP-640x480

An Islamic group tied closely to jihadi terror groups is complaining that Donald Trump will violate the constitution by helping Americans better understand the nature of radical, jihad-promoting Islam.

“One of my first acts as President will be to establish a Commission on Radical Islam – which will include reformist voices in the Muslim community,” Trump declared  in a reformist foreign policy speech on Monday.

“The goal of the commission will be to identify and explain to the American public the core convictions and beliefs of Radical Islam, to identify the warning signs of radicalization, and to expose the networks in our society that support radicalization … [and] we will pursue aggressive criminal or immigration charges against anyone who lends material support to terrorism,” he said.

That promise of legal charges is a direct threat to the jihad-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has many material links to domestic and foreign groups that support Islamic war. CAIR has been declared a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates and was named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding operation. 

CAIR responded to Trump’s speech by suggesting that rhetorical and religious support (although not actions) for Islamic jihad terrorism is a constitutional right, both for Americans and for would-be immigrants who wish to introduce jihad and other Islamic ideas into the United States.

Trump’s proposal for a ‘commission’ that would identify for Americans the tenets of ‘radical Islam’ crosses the line into government interference in religious beliefs. Will a Trump administration entangle itself in interpretation of [Islamic] religious principles? Who will Trump appoint to decide what constitutes ‘radical Islam’? His current stable of Islamophobic [sic] advisers indicates that this commission would be packed with anti-Muslim bigots.

This government promotion of a state version of a particular religion would violate the First Amendment and put America on a path to a society in which those in power get to choose which beliefs are ‘correct’ and which are ‘incorrect.’

CAIR is so closely entwined with Islamists and with jihadis that court documents and news reports show that at least five of its people — either board members, employees or former employees — have been jailed or repatriated for various financial and terror-relatedoffenses.

Breitbart News has published evidence highlighted by critics showing that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Texas-based criminal effort to deliver $12 million to the Jew-hating HAMAS jihad group, was founded with $490,000 from HAMAS, and that the FBI bans top-level meetings with CAIR officials. “The FBI policy restricting a formal relationship with CAIR remains … [but] does not preclude communication regarding investigative activity or allegations of civil rights violations,” said an Oct. 2015 email from FBI spokesman Christopher Allen.

In 2009, a federal judge concluded that “the government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR… with Hamas.”

The United Arab Emirates has included CAIR on its list of Muslim Brotherhood groups. CAIR has posted its defense here.

Trump’s call for a better understanding of Islam is part of his plan to reorient U.S. foreign policy to crush and delegitimize political Islam.

That is why one of my first acts as President will be to establish a Commission on Radical Islam – which will include reformist voices in the Muslim community who will hopefully work with us. We want to build bridges and erase divisions.

The goal of the commission will be to identify and explain to the American public the core convictions and beliefs of Radical Islam, to identify the warning signs of radicalization, and to expose the networks in our society that support radicalization.

This commission will be used to develop new protocols for local police officers, federal investigators, and immigration screeners…. Finally, we will pursue aggressive criminal or immigration charges against anyone who lends material support to terrorism. Similar to the effort to take down the mafia, this will be the understood mission of every federal investigator and prosecutor in the country.

To accomplish a goal, you must state a mission: the support networks for Radical Islam in this country will be stripped out and removed one by one.

Immigration officers will also have their powers restored: those who are guests in our country that are preaching hate will be asked to return home

…. But just like we couldn’t defeat communism without acknowledging that communism exists – or explaining its evils – we can’t defeat Radical Islamic Terrorism unless we do the same.

This also means we have to promote the exceptional virtues of our own way of life – and expecting that newcomers to our society do the same.

Pride in our institutions, our history and our values should be taught by parents and teachers, and impressed upon all who join our society. Assimilation is not an act of hostility, but an expression of compassion.

Our system of government, and our American culture, is the best in the world and will produce the best outcomes for all who adopt it.

This approach will not only make us safer, but bring us closer together as a country. Renewing this spirit of Americanism will help heal the divisions in our country. It will do so by emphasizing what we have in common – not what pulls us apart.

Jihad is part of orthodox Islam, which also opposes the separation of religious law and the state. That makes it very different from Christianity, which theologically postpones the enforcement of religious law into the afterlife and so can theologically co-exist with secular governments, such as the United States government.

Islam’s twinning of  jihad with religious piety explains the relative frequency of bloody jihad violence throughout the Muslim world, especially when inflicted on non-Muslims in the United States, Paris, Germany snd many other countries.

Also, Islam’s focus on Earthly rule, says critics, means that it is a hybrid idea that combines religion (which gets the protection of the First Amendment) with a violent political movement that can be constitutionally suppressed.

For example, Islam’s politicized ‘sharia law’ endorses the murder of Islam’s critics and of ex-Muslims — repeatedly, endlessly, forcefully — and its recommendations are deemed divine commandments by numerous killers and would-be killers.

Also, the Koran — which observant Muslims say is a list of verbatim commands from their deity, Allah — tells Muslims to “Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah [penalty tax] willingly while they are humbled.”

Islamic scriptures say that Islam’s reputed founder, Muhammad, personally ordered or supported the death of many enemies, including at 10 critics and poets, who were the pre-modern equivalent of modern journalist and writers — such as the machine-gunned cartoonists at the Paris-based Charlie Hebdo magazine. Traditionalist or orthodox Muslims says Muhammad is a perfect model of behavior and should be emulated by Muslims today.

In contrast, some Western Muslims are trying to develop a modern, pacific Islam that emphasizes the long-discarded early and relatively peaceful commandments in Islam.

Categories: CAIR, Donald Trump, Islamic immigration, Islamic integration, Islamic jihad, Islamic reformation, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation, Islamists in America, Sharia law
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Dr. Jasser discusses Donald Trump’s call for “extreme vetting” as part of plan to stop ISIS

August 17, 2016

Dr. Jasser discusses Donald Trump’s call for “extreme vetting” as part of plan to stop ISIS, Fox News via YouTube, August 16, 2016

(Please see also, Donald Trump’s Outreach to Moderate Muslim Leaders Highlights Clinton Failure in Egypt. — DM)

 

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Islamic immigration, Islamic jihad, Islamic reformation, Islamic terror groups, Sharia law, Zuhdi Jasser
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Donald Trump’s Outreach to Moderate Muslim Leaders Highlights Clinton Failure in Egypt

August 17, 2016

Donald Trump’s Outreach to Moderate Muslim Leaders Highlights Clinton Failure in Egypt, Breitbart, Tera Dahl, August 17, 2016

al sisi(1)AFP

In his foreign policy speech on Monday, Donald Trump stated that he would “amplify the voice” of moderate Muslim reformers in the Middle East, saying, “Our Administration will be a friend to all moderate Muslim reformers in the Middle East, and will amplify their voices.”

He also said that he would work with Egypt, Jordan and Israel in combating radical Islam, saying, “As President, I will call for an international conference focused on this goal. We will work side-by-side with our friends in the Middle East, including our greatest ally, Israel. We will partner with King Abdullah of Jordan, and President Sisi of Egypt, and all others who recognize this ideology of death that must be extinguished.”

He said that, as President, he would establish a “Commission on Radical Islam,” saying, “That is why one of my first acts as President will be to establish a Commission on Radical Islam – which will include reformist voices in the Muslim community who will hopefully work with us. We want to build bridges and erase divisions.”

His comments about cooperating with Egypt, Israel and Jordan were highlighted in the Arab world’s media, with headlines reading “Donald Trump Announces Plan to Cooperate with Egypt, Jordan, Israel to Combat Radical Islam” and “Trump vows to work with Egypt’s Sisi to ‘stop radical Islam’ if elected.”

Under the Obama Administration, US policy has not been friendly towards our Muslim allies such as Egypt. Hillary Clinton recently said in a primary debate with Bernie Sanders that, in Egypt, you basically have an “army dictatorship”.

Egypt is one of the most catastrophic foreign policy failures of the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton’s State Department. President Obama started his outreach to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood when he delivered his 2009 Cairo speech. The US Embassy invited 10 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to attend the speech, undermining US ally Mubarak – who had rejected to previous U.S. efforts to reach out to the Brotherhood.

The Obama Administration, and Clinton’s State Department, again undermined President Mubarak in 2011 when they urged him to step down and pressured Egypt to hold elections “immediately” after the 2011 revolution. This policy favored the Muslim Brotherhood to win elections since they were the most organized at the time.

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi in Cairo offering “strong support” for the Islamist President, saying, “I have come to Cairo to reaffirm the strong support of the United States for the Egyptian people and their democratic transition… We want to be a good partner and we want to support the democracy that has been achieved by the courage and sacrifice of the Egyptian people.”

The Obama Administration embraced the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, but when millions of Egyptians took to the streets one year later, calling for early elections against the Muslim Brotherhood government, the Obama Administration did all they could to undermine their efforts.

Over 30 million Egyptians took to the streets on June 30, 2013 calling for the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood from power. After one year of being in power, the Brotherhood was taking Egypt towards an Iranian theocracy and the Egyptian people stood against political Islam. The 2011 Egyptian Constitution had no impeachment mechanism included, so the only democratic way to remove the Brotherhood was signing a petition and taking to the streets in the masses. Millions of Egyptians took to the streets again in July, supporting then Defense Minister General el-Sisi and the Egyptian military in their efforts to fight terrorism.

The Obama Administration condemned the Egyptian military and police after the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood and punished Egypt by freezing military and economic aid to Egypt. This was done while the Egyptian military had launched a major offensive to “crush terrorist activity” in the Sinai that had built up during the Muslim Brotherhood government. Egypt had to fight terrorism alone – not only without support from the US – but with pressure to succumb to the requests from the US Administration to release the Muslim Brotherhood members from prison and reconcile.

The pressure from the Obama Administration against the removal of the Morsi regime emboldened the Muslim Brotherhood and they waged an Islamist insurgency, not only in the Sinai but on the streets of Cairo. The Muslim Brotherhood specifically targeted theChristian community and burned down over 65 Christian Churches and hundreds of Christian shops.

The Obama Administration sent U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns to Egypt for “U.S. mediation efforts” and met with Khairat el-Shater, the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who was in jail at the time and sentenced for life in prison. Our State Department, under John Kerry, sent a representative to Egypt pressuring the Egyptian government to release terrorists from jail.

The Obama Administration also sent Senators McCain and Graham to Egypt to ask the Egyptian government and military to find an agreement with the Muslim Brotherhood. They asked the Egyptian government to “sit down and talk” to the Muslim Brotherhood, who had waged war on the Egyptian people.

Since being democratically elected in 2014, winning with 97% of the vote, Egyptian President al-Sisi has made history speaking out for equality between Muslims and Christians. He was the first President in Egyptian history to visit the Coptic Christian Christmas mass service in January 2015. During his speech at the Christmas mass, he emphasized the need to look at each other as “Egyptians” and not as Muslim or Christian. He said, “We will love each other for real, so that people may see.” President Sisi again visited the Coptic Christmas mass in January 2016 where he vowed to rebuild the Christian churches that were destroyed by Islamists in 2013 after the Muslim Brotherhood were removed from power.

President Sisi has called for “Islamic reform” within Islam numerous times. During a speech to Islamic scholars in 2015, marking the anniversary of Muhammad’s birth, President Sisi urged reform of Islamic discourse and called on Islamic scholars to send Christmas greetings to Christians. In the televised speech to Islamic scholars, President Sisi stated, “We talk a lot about the importance of religious discourse… In our schools, institutes and universities, do we teach and practice respect for the others? We neither teach or practice it.”

The Egyptian government has also addressed the ideology by banning thousands of radical clerics from preaching in the mosques that are not licensed.

Recently, the government of President al-Sisi introduced a textbook for Egyptian public schools that requires Egyptian pupils to memorize the provisions of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty and delineate the “advantages of peace for Egypt and the Arab states”. This is a major reform taken from the Egyptian government in normalizing and strengthening relations between Israel and Egypt.

President Sisi should be considered a key ally of America as he is leading Egypt towards democracy and also is leading the fight against global jihad, both militarily and politically, in countering radical Islamic ideology. Instead, he has yet to be invited to the United States from President Obama.

Hillary Clinton has been critical of Trump’s position towards Russia, but policies implemented under the Obama Administration have pushed Egypt towards Russia and have alienated our strongest Arab ally for over 40 years. Egypt and Russia signed a$2billion arms deal after the United States abandoned them during their fight against terrorism. Russia also is providing Egypt with $25 billion to build Egypt’s first nuclear power plant.

Donald Trump in his speech recognized the need to support our Muslim allies in the global war on terrorism. This is critical in defeating global jihad. We cannot afford another four years of a policy of alienating our allies and emboldening our enemies as we have seen under the Obama Administration.

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Egypt, Foreign policy, Hillary Clinton and Islam, Islamic reformation, Israel, Jordan, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and Egypt, Obama and Islam, Sisi
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