Archive for the ‘Islamic State’ category

Kerry to say Islamic State engaged in genocide

March 17, 2016

Kerry to say Islamic State engaged in genocide, Washington ExaminerPete Kasperowicz, March 17, 2016

Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to announce Thursday morning that he believes the Islamic State is committing genocide against Christians and others in Iraq and Syria, according to the Associated Press.

Kerry was set to deliver remarks at 9 a.m. from the State Department.

His remarks are a quick turnaround from Wednesday, when the State Department said it would miss today’s deadline under federal law for determining whether the terror group’s actions should be deemed genocide.

State: Kerry Needs More Evidence to Determine Genocide by ISIS and Assad

March 16, 2016

State: Kerry Needs More Evidence to Determine Genocide by ISIS and Assad, Washington Free Beacon, March 16, 2016

(Kerry is big on evidence. Just look at the Iran scam and nuke inspections. — DM)

 

 

State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said Wednesday that his boss, Secretary of State John Kerry, needs more evidence to determine if the Islamic State has committed genocide with its slaughter of thousands of innocents throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Congress had set Kerry a deadline of March 17 to officially determine whether atrocities committed by ISIS constitute genocide, but Toner told reporters during the State Department’s daily press briefing that the department will not have a decision by that date.

“Determining these kinds of legal definitions, such as genocide and crimes against humanity, require a very detailed, rigorous legal analysis,” Toner said. “[Kerry] is a lawyer, and, of course, that’s going to weigh into [how he makes his decision].”

“There are a lot of lawyers on [Captiol] Hill, too,” Associated Press reporter Matt Lee said in response, referring to the House of Representatives unanimously voting 393-0 on Monday to pass a resolution labeling the barbarity ISIS has perpetrated against Christians and other religious minority groups in the Middle East as “genocide.”

Toner clarified that his “only point is that he [Kerry] wants to base his decision on the best evidence available, and he has requested additional evidence, information, in order to [do so].”

“It just seems like there is a lot of evidence already out there,” Lee said in response.

The international community has decried ISIS’ slaughter and enslavement of anyone who does not submit to its uncompromising brand of Sunni Islam, killing Muslims as well as other religious and ethnic groups.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum determined last year in a report that ISIS is guilty of carrying out genocide against the Yazidi religious minority in northern Iraq, a term the museum rarely uses.

“We believe Islamic State has been and is perpetrating genocide against the Yazidi people,” the report says. “Islamic State’s stated intent and patterns of violence against Shia Shabak and Shia Turkmen also raise concerns about the commission and risk of genocide against these groups.”

The jihadist group has also carried out brutal violence against Christians and other groups, with Muslims making up the highest number of its victims.

The European Parliament voted last month to describe ISIS’ atrocities in Iraq and Syria as genocide.

There has been some debate as to whether using the term “genocide” with ISIS in an official capacity would legally obligate the U.S. to take further action against the jihadist group, which some people have argued is why the Obama administration is reluctant to do so.

Toner made clear at Monday’s press briefing that no legal requirement comes with using the term, but he stressed the international community has an obligation under the United Nations to stop crimes against humanity and other such atrocities like the ones being committed by ISIS.

In addition to the resolution on genocide passed Monday, the House also voted 392-3 to pass a measure calling for the creation of an international tribunal to try the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad for war crimes.

Assad triggered the Syrian civil war in 2011 by slaughtering his own people for peacefully protesting his authoritarian rule. He has since waged a war against the Syrian people who formed an opposition in response, resulting thus far in about 400,000 deaths and the displacement of millions of others.

Assad has received help from Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Russia to stay in power.

Building Resilient Cash

March 13, 2016

Building Resilient Cash, Power Line, Scott Johnson, March 13, 2016

Minnesota’s extremely large (and largely Muslim) Somali community presents challenges in a number of respects. It is a high-volume consumer of welfare and social services. It raises the threat of terrorism and support for terrorism. Support for law enforcement to root out the terrorist threat is conspicuous by its absence. Efforts to root out the terrorist threat from within the community, ditto. Somali Minnesotans charged with terrorism related offenses are treated like favorite sons.

“Minnesota men” seeking to join ISIS were prominently featured in headlines around the country last year when terrorism charges against ten defendants were unveiled over the course of the year. A wealth of mind-boggling details is featured in the criminal complaints and related proceedings against these men, yet much of it has gone unnoticed in the media.

What is to be done? Well, if you’re a brain-dead Minnesota Democrat seeking means of support for a core constituency, money must be the answer. Thus the program that bears the mind-numbing Obama era euphemism Building Community Resilience. Under the nominal auspices of the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota, the program has been handed off by the United States Attorney to a Minnesota nonprofit called Youthprise. As NPR noted in its story on the program, Luger handed the program off to Youthprise when the local branch of CAIR complained. You can’t be too sensitive.

Funded by United States taxpayers and Minnesota foundations, the program is to funnel as much as $1 million to support Minnesota’s Somali community. The memorandum of understanding between Luger and Minnesota Somali leaders reflects the wariness of Somali-Minnesotans. Read it here. It stipulates that the program will not be used for surveillance purposes by any law enforcement agency or by any person working for or on behalf of any law enforcement agency. My view is that we would be better off without Building Community Resilience.

Here let me note that shortage of cash and opportunity does not appear to be a problem hampering Minnesota’s Somalis. The six young Somali men charged in April 2015 attended local schools and/or had jobs. Indeed, one of the men told an FBI informant in a recorded conversation “that as long as he had a job, no one [would] suspect him of anything.” ISIS recruiter Abdi Nur attended a local community college and spoke of becoming a lawyer. (“Then he started visiting a new mosque and dressing in more traditional garb,” the New York Times reported in a profile of Nur by Scott Shane.)

In the case against the six, cash also flows to fund their big travel plans. One of the underlying FBI affidavits demonstrates the Somalis’ fine-grained knowledge of the multifarious financial resources available to them. The affidavit reveals that one of the men charged withdrew $5,000 in cash from his federal financial aid debit card in the weeks leading up to his attempted departure to join ISIS. Your taxpayer dollars at work.

The AP now provides this summary of the initial one-year grants just announced by Youthprise:

• Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota received $100,000 to enhance employment and educational opportunities for young Somalis. The program partners with a local mosque, the city and public school systems.

• Somali American Parent Association received $85,000 to partner with the youth group Ka Joog to implement a program that will engage young people, parents and families.

• Shanta Link received $35,000 to partner with African Immigration Community Services to address the stigma of mental illness among refugees.

• Ummah Project and its partner received $30,000 to train Somali-Americans ages 18 to 25 to work as mediators and restorative justice facilitators.

• Africa Reconciliation and Development Organization Inc. received $25,000 to prevent conflict in African diasporas. Funding will be directed to reconciliation programs, soccer and Somali arts classes for male students, ages 13 to 18.

• West Bank Athletic Club received $25,000 to conduct youth sports activities and hold communication sessions with parents.

Midnight basketball can’t be far behind.

The AP also notes the efforts to keep the money flowing:

Last month, U.S. Attorney Andy Luger said he was working on additional funding, both federal and private. He pointed to a bill President Barack Obama signed into law in December that includes $50 million for efforts that combat terrorism as a possible source. Luger noted that $10 million of that appropriation is specifically for states’ efforts to prevent violent extremism, though it’s not yet known how much of that money will flow to Minnesota.

In a parallel effort, Minnesota lawmakers have also allocated $250,000 to programs designed to combat terror recruiting. The Department of Public Safety announced last month that it will soon start the process of awarding grants, with priority given to programs that will lead to long-term investment in communities most at risk. Meanwhile, House Democrats have also announced that they’ll push for another $2 million to dedicate to combatting terrorism in Minnesota.

Among my few printable thoughts this morning is the one captured by Junie B. Jones: Boom! Do the math.

 

ISIS Now Possesses Anti-Aircraft Missiles; Can Reach Europe

March 13, 2016

ISIS Now Possesses Anti-Aircraft Missiles; Can Reach Europe, Clarion Project, March 13, 2016

Islamic-State-10-IP_1An Islamic-State fighter with a shoulder-held missile. (Photo: Islamic-State video screenshot)

The U.S. and U.N. have confirmed the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Libya now possesses shoulder-held missiles capable of downing civilian or military aircraft.

The admission puts planes in North and West Africa as well as all of Europe in danger.

The Islamic State’s stock of MANPADs (man portable air defense systems) originated from the stockpiles of weapons looted after Libya’s dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown by rebels in 2011.

Gaddafi was believed to have possessed 20,000 MANPADs (Russian-made SA-7 and SA-16 models) by the time of his demise. An American team, acting in Libya after the coup, managed to locate and destroy 5,000 of the missiles.

The team leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity told The Independent, “There’s a large number still there in Libya, where some of the larger militia groups still maintain the stocks that they originally took control of back in 2011.” He acknowledged that others have been smuggled to extremist groups fighting in the Sinai, Syria, Nigeria and Mali.

“We might never know where they went,” he added.

After the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, which also housed a secret CIA post, intelligence sources — crucial to tracking these weapons – were lost. Two years later, the team pulled out of Libya entirely, as the deteriorating security situation turned into a full-fledged civil war and made operating there too dangerous.

This video (Courtesy: Dutch Safety Board) shows how an advanced surface-to-air missile hit Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014. This is a different launch system but shows the potency of such missiles.

(Video at the link — DM)

Analysts question why the weapons, which are clearly in the hands of terrorists have not been used to date, save for one confirmed instance in January 2014, when (according to Egyptian and Israeli officials) Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis used the weapon to shoot down an Egyptian military helicopter in the Sinai, killing five soldiers.

However, in February, the Islamic State in Libya claimed to have shot down a Libyan government MiG-23 fighter jet west of Benghazi while it was bombing an Islamist militia. While the Libyan government claims the plane went down due to “technical problems,” an analysis of a subsequent ISIS video of the incident by U.S. intelligence officials proved the Islamic State’s claim was most likely correct. The Islamic State also claims to have downed two other planes that the Libyan government said crashed since January because of technical problems.

In Libya, other warring factions each have good reason not to use the weapon, which would certainly stop flights in and out of the country and mean lack of supplies for each side. Arms smugglers also have reason to want the airports left open, with each missile selling for $12,000 on the black market.

But the real wildcat in this conflict is the Islamic State, which now controls a 150-mile swath of territory on Libya’s Mediterranean  coast, including the city of Sirte, a perfect place for the terror organization to regroup if defeated in Syria and Iraq and a base from which to expand into Europe, North and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Trump and Jihad

March 13, 2016

Trump and Jihad, American ThinkerJames Lewis, March 13, 2016

Donald Trump just broke another PC taboo by telling the truth, and he put it in just a few words: “I think Islam hate us.”  

By now American Thinker readers are familiar with the overwhelming evidence on that point, while the American victims of the One Party Media still have their heads buried under camel droppings.

(“But what about the children? What about the children? What about the children?” said Cokie Roberts three times, talking with Trump about waves and waves of illegal and hostile Obamaesque immigrants, including Sinaloa gang killers who recently took 30,000 lives in Northern Mexico, using long guns and ammo from Obama’s Federales.

My respect for Roberts instantly dropped way below the Rio Grande, heading south. What about our children, Cokie? The real goal of bringing in vast numbers of illegals is to manufacture more lifelong Leftists, guided by La Raza, in collusion with MS-13 and Sinaloa (the biggest drug gang in Chicago). But Cokie only “cares” about the children… While in fact ensuring horrors for those very same children.

Well, do you really think those teenage thugs massing at the border, along their much younger would-be victims, are heading for a better life? They are being used and abused by the Obama Left, in collusion with radical Islam and Mexican gangs. Maybe some will be better off. But many are in immediate danger of becoming victims of abuse in our inner cities.

Nobody seems to know where the incoming flood have ended up going. In the world of the Charlie Chaplin’s Great Dictator we understand why the media are not interested in telling us. Or do you really think that most of those children will be adopted by nice, wealthy moms in DC, like Cokie Roberts? Have you ever heard of child slavery in the Third World, which we are importing en masse at this very moment?

Which brings me to Trump and Islam.

I don’t know how many individual Muslims hate us, but we know that from day one, 14 centuries ago, Islam has preached Holy War (Jihad) against those who don’t bow to its primitive dictates. From ISIS’ point of view, they are agents of Allah’s compassion. They will cheerfully kill, abuse, exploit, enslave, torture, threaten, beat and terrorize children, women and men with real pride in a job well done. You can see it on ISIS snuff videos on YouTube. Which Cokie has apparently never watched.

ISIS follows Saudi (Wahhabi) orthodox war doctrine. The Wahhabi priesthood has acknowledged the Qur’anic correctness of ISIS sadism, a perverted example of the very worst that humans can do to each other — not in self-defense but as a deliberate act of unprovoked aggression. And yes, they are constantly promising to do the same thing to us.

On the Shi’ite side of the Gulf, the mullahs follow exactly the same war theology. They don’t mind killing the wrong person, because in Heaven or Hell Allah will know his own. It doesn’t really matter whom you kill.

This is elementary information about Jihad, the kind of thing Western children used to learn in their history lessons. Cokie Roberts, propaganda peddler for the Left, has never bothered to learn the truth.

So Trump was right that Islamic doctrine is all about killing us, and by telling the truth Trump freaks out all the good liberals who are actually colluding with a genocidal war theology. The Cokies are no different from Nazi or Stalinist collaborators. Literally. They may be useful self-deluded idiots, but at some point, willful idiocy becomes a moral choice. Or do you think Nazi and North Korean collaborators bear no responsibility for crimes against humanity?

Jihad theology preaches the destruction of high, creative, and tolerant civilizations; it has always done so, and the Jihadist destruction of Persian, Egyptian, Byzantine, Indian, and other admirable pre-Muslim civilizations is well-known, even in Muslim countries.

The Taliban’s theological decision to blow up world-renowned Buddha statues in Afghanistan is the norm in Jihad warfare, not the exception. The Saudis have also blown up precious archeological artifacts from pre-Muslim times in Arabia, because, like the Soviets, they must erase history at all costs.

ISIS is a deliberate throwback to the very worst behavior in human history. Its parallel with Stalinism is amazing. Muslim crimes against humanity are rationalized by the ultimate goal of Paradise on Earth under Allah’s mercy.

Utopian ideologies are a dime a dozen in history. The Nazis were utopians, promising peace and love after all the inferior peoples were dead.

Jihad has always been single-minded, war-mongering, rape celebrating and fanatical, starting in the Arabian desert more than a thousand years ago. Jihad is not some weird historical anomaly. It is a calculated doctrinal strategy, representing a consensus in the radical ‘ulema, the priestly hierarchy. Nothing about Jihad is happenstance.

And yet — much of the nominally Muslim world today is deeply torn between its non-Muslim history versus centuries of Shari’ah dominance. Because orthodox Islam threatens all Muslims with death for apostasy, many have learned to live double lives, one for the local imam and his enforcers, and one for their private truths. That is important, because it means that every Muslim country also has a Fifth Column — all those who secretly reject the warmongering priesthood.

Iranians take justified pride in the high civilization of the Persian Empire, before Jihad stomped out the intellectual diversity that fuels innovation. Fanatical ideologies kill off the freedom to think. We can watch it in North Korea under its atheist dynasty, just as we can see it in Saudi Arabia in the grip of Wahhabi fanatics. They are all brain-locked war cults. Only the hats and banners change, but all war cults stir up mass murder as part of their divine mission.

In Northern India, where Buddhism first emerged, the monasteries and their peaceful monks were murdered en masse in 1200 by the Ghurid Jihadis. The Buddhist genocide was much celebrated by Muslim historians. After Jihad conquered the Byzantine Empire — the Christian Roman Empire of North Africa and Anatolia — another civilization was frozen into silence.

Much of the nominally Muslim world lives a double life. That is a basic strategic fact in the Jihad War. It means that millions of people secretly yearn for better lives.

Just as in the USSR, ordinary people learn to mouth the Party Line, until the day when the whole fabric of lies falls apart.

One key to victory against Jihad is very fast-spreading shale oil technology. The OPEC monopoly is losing its most powerful weapon against the West. There are serious predictions that the Saudis and Iranian mullahs will not survive another crash in the international price of energy.

In Lebanon, ordinary people remember better days, before Hizb’allah took over on behalf of its Iranian masters. Pakistanis celebrate Urdu love poetry, with its ancient pre-Muslim roots. Iraqis take pride in centuries of high Mesopotamian civilizations. Egyptians remember three thousand years of pharaonic Egypt, long before Jihad made free thinking punishable by death. In Turkey, people in the cities remember half a century of modernist politics, before Obama’s good friend Recip Erdogan brought back Ottoman corruption and misrule.

It is only sane for the civilized world to defeat aggressive Jihad, the deadliest threat in the world today. Trump may not be your cup of tea, but he has just broken decades of PC taboo against telling the truth about Jihad. I believe that every GOP candidate must finally talk openly about what every sane person already knows in the privacy of their minds.

In a time of war, you may have to pick Ulysses S. Grant for president, even if he is a drunkard. Sometimes, in the face of worse, you have to make tough choices.

That is where we are today. This election could be a turning point for the better, but only if millions of Americans follow their honest convictions. PC is a Leftist intimidation game, and we have to have the courage of our convictions. The media constantly play mind tricks on us, like the Wizard of Oz. This PC intimidation campaign will go up in a puff of toxic smoke, if we stand up to it.

Donald Trump keeps challenging the fear of PC. He is therapeutic for millions of Americans who have been silenced for decades; he has beaten the mind games of the One Party media. So far, he has the cult of the Islamo-Left on the run, which is a very good thing. But they see politics as war, and it ain’t over ‘till it’s over. Expect a vicious election season, and if we win this one, expect more years of Islamo-Lefto-fascist struggle. They are an absolutist cult, and any means are acceptable for their goals

The Clintons and Obamas refuse to even name Islamofascist aggression, because they have forged a close alliance with oil-rich Gulf regimes, who constantly push fundamentalist invasions of the West. The Saudis just promised to double the number of mosques in Europe, with the obvious goal of controlling millions of Muslim “refugees” wherever they may end up living. This is all standard Jihadist tactics. Mass infiltration by “peaceful” Jihad is called Hejira, after Mohammed’s journey to Mecca with the secret intention of committing genocide against the infidels.

None of that war strategy could happen in the West without the active collusion of the Left. We see the same corrupt bargain in Europe and over here.

Oil money and power are the reasons why Obama and Hillary will never call Jihad the enemy. Obama has consistently misused American power and resources to curry favor with Jihad-preaching regimes — maybe because he’s buying UN votes from the “57 Muslim states” that might elect him as Secretary General. If Hillary or Sanders win, they could nominate Obama for the position. The Party Media would never oppose it. With 57 Muslim votes in the General Assembly, Obama’s has already planted the seeds.

Obama’s ego is ungovernable, and in his mind there’s only one future to fill that everlasting hole in his soul. The news now tells us that the Obamas will stay in Washington DC, “to keep their children in the schools.” Funny thing is that it also keeps them in personal contact with the levers of power they’ve planted in the U.S. government. If Americans ever bothered to study history they would see how the same kinds of people have done the same thing before.

Needless to say, Obama as President of the UN Socialist World would enormously empower Jihad and the hard Left. Imagine Obama and Hillary in charge of both the UN and the U.S. It’s their lifelong wet dream.

As for Hillary, we now know she was behind the invasion of Libya, which brought down a stable Muslim regime, leading to another endless, bloody civil war that is still going on. I would hate to have that cruel blunder on my conscience. Invading Libya was unprovoked aggression — a genuine crime against humanity. Hillary’s idiotic slogan for that war was “We came, we saw, he died.” (Meaning Gadaffi, who was killed by anal impalement.) This is unmitigated evil, and a GOP challenger should use Hillary’s sadistic quote to expose her inner killer. Gadaffi posed no threat; in his later decades he was a source of stability. But at least Hillary’s War revealed her inner self to the world.

Apparently, in the Reign of the One, American foreign policy has lost any moral basis whatsoever. This is inexcusable.

Some reports suggest that Hillary stoked up the Libyan intervention to give herself a “foreign policy accomplishment” in time for the 2016 election.  If that is true, Hillary and Obama have knowingly blundered into Nuremberg Trial territory. It certainly seems that she has no conscience, and Bernie’s unrepentant Stalinist past shows he has none either. If Bernie had a Nazi past, he would never have been elected, even in New Hampshire.

Like it or not, those are the choices we face today.

Jihad is a strategic threat, and it demands a strategic response. A GOP president could lead that response. The Democrats are far too corrupt and brainwashed to do it.

The United States led the Cold War against Soviet imperialism because Europe was utterly incapable of self-defense, as we can see again today. Angela Merkel may be hunkering down after the rapefugee betrayal of Europe, hoping the Amis will come to the rescue again. But she is a Eurosocialist above all, and her goals are the same as the official EU Machine.

For sixty years Pax Americana protected the world without the suicidal danger of nuclear war. In their heart of hearts, millions of Europeans are looking again to the United States to pull their cookies out of the fire. The EU ruling class has simply brought one “yuge” disaster after another, but the unelected rulers are never blamed. Even the controlled Euromedia are starting to get it, but they still obey orders from the top. Merkel ordered the German media not to criticize her mad decision to bring in the rapefugees, and they followed orders: Jawohl, Frau Commandant!

Like Obama, Merkel represents the smiling face of a ruthless cult.

Today there is not a single leader of moral stature in Europe, because all decisions are made via group-think in EU committees. The EU is a political hierarchy, like the Soviet nomenklatura. Bureaucrats are taught to obey orders. EU governing committees are another version of the old Soviets (councils), which ultimately brought down the Soviet Empire.

Since the return of Jihad with OPEC, Jimmy Carter and Obama have dismantled the defensive alliances that contained global aggression in the Cold War. There certainly were painful proxy wars in Korea and Vietnam in the Cold War, but strategically we learned how to contain aggression without appeasement. The Democrats are not as ignorant as they pretend to be. They have knowingly sabotaged our successful Cold War strategy, constantly evading the obvious parallels between Soviet imperialism and Jihad.

Oddly enough, under Putin the Russians have switched sides, because of the greater threat posed by Jihad. Vladimir Putin is not our friend, but he thinks rationally.

Around the world our rejected allies must be thinking about a renewed alliance, to push a chaotic world back from the brink. Putin has suggested making common cause against Jihad, on the model of Soviet-American resistance to the Nazis. With real leadership, the civilized world could come together and beat oil-fed Jihad. In the Muslim Middle East, Egypt’s President El-Sisi would be a powerful ally, with major credibility among other Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia. El-Sisi rescued Egypt from a Muslim Brotherhood (Jihadist) takeover, and he is now fighting a hot domestic war against the Nazi-era Broederbund.

Jihad is a global threat, and a worldwide defensive alliance has worked well since World War II.  India, Japan, the UK, Australia, the saner half of Europe, and many others share our strategic interests.

We know it can be done. What’s missing is leadership.

An entente cordiale with Russia can work, because Putin rose to power in response to Jihadist terror attacks in Moscow and Beslan. Like it or not, Putin wiped out the Chechnyan Jihadist rebellion in his usual ruthless way. Russia has a long, long history of coping with Jihad. But now Russia is the only major nation that is prepared to fight for strategic goals. Fantasy pacifism has gripped Europe, which is why Angela Merkel surrendered to the rape Jihad that is still victimizing women and children in Europe.

What we need today is an administration with a strategic vision, instead of a gaggle of delusional radicals and their Jihadist collaborators.

This is not hard. It takes common sense, something Americans have always been blessed with.

At least until now.

The election will show if we still have what it takes.

 

Libya Being Taken Over by ISIS was Everyone’s Fault Except Obama’s

March 11, 2016

Libya Being Taken Over by ISIS was Everyone’s Fault Except Obama’s, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, March 11, 2016

crying-barry-obama

Nothing is ever Obama’s fault. Ever. Even when he did it.

Like the time he illegally invaded Libya by lying to everyone from the UN to Americans, leading to the killing of an American ambassador and Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS taking over large parts of the country… as had been predicted. But it’s not his fault. Really.

But Obama says today of the intervention, “It didn’t work.” The U.S., he believes, planned the Libya operation carefully—and yet the country is still a disaster.

We did a good job… and yet we failed. It must be someone’s fault.

“The social order in Libya has broken down,” Obama said, explaining his thinking at the time. “You have massive protests against Qaddafi. You’ve got tribal divisions inside of Libya…. We worked with our defense teams to ensure that we could execute a strategy without putting boots on the ground and without a long-term military commitment in Libya.”

Who could have predicted that regime change in a country where the order had broken down, without putting boots on the ground, would lead to complete chaos? No one could have predicted it. No one.

“So we actually executed this plan as well as I could have expected: We got a UN mandate, we built a coalition, it cost us $1 billion—which, when it comes to military operations, is very cheap. We averted large-scale civilian casualties, we prevented what almost surely would have been a prolonged and bloody civil conflict. And despite all that, Libya is a mess.”

I poured gasoline on the haystacks. Then I started shooting off firecrackers. I tied torches to pigs and sent them running around the barn. And despite all that, the barn is on fire.

It was a great plan Obama had.

1. Lie to the UN

2. Build a coalition of countries willing to sign their names without doing anything

3. Spend $1 billion to let Islamic terrorists take over the country

4. Somehow the “prolonged and bloody civil conflict” you claimed to be trying to prevent is still going on and on…

And it’s not Obama’s fault. No way.

Mess is the president’s diplomatic term; privately, he calls Libya a “shit show,” in part because it’s subsequently become an isis haven—one that he has already targeted with air strikes. It became a shit show, Obama believes, for reasons that had less to do with American incompetence than with the passivity of America’s allies and with the obdurate power of tribalism.

“I’m not competent. All my allies suck. Also the tribal country we bombed is all tribal and stuff and who could have predicted that?”

“When I go back and I ask myself what went wrong,” Obama said, “there’s room for criticism, because I had more faith in the Europeans, given Libya’s proximity, being invested in the follow-up,” he said.

Yes, the only thing that Obama blames himself for… is passing the blame to Europe.

Our ISIS Problem is also our Saudi Arabia Problem

March 9, 2016

Our ISIS Problem is also our Saudi Arabia Problem, WNDWilliam Murray, March 8, 2016

H/t The Counter Jihad Report

ISIL, or ISIS, now calling itself the Islamic State, is part of a continuing Sunni Muslim problem. Here is some real history to counter current media perceptions paid for by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

Ask the media or any Democratic or Republican senator, and they will tell you that Shiite Muslims (or Shia) are the greatest threat faced by Western civilization today. Besides Sen. John McCain, current presidential candidates Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have referred to the Shiite threat in virtually every stump speech, often citing the “Shia Crescent” that runs from Iran through Iraq and Syria and ending in Lebanon. Rubio constantly refers to “our Sunni allies such as Saudi Arabia” and has suggested the creation of a Sunni state in Syria. Apparently, the senator is, as is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, unaware that there is already a Sunni state in northern Syria, and it is run by the Islamic State, otherwise known as ISIS or ISIL.

The Sunni Islamic State does have a competitor in Syria, al-Nusra, which is part of al-Qaida and also a Sunni terror organization. The Army of Islam operating in Syria is also a Sunni terror organization supported by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. During battles between al-Nusra and the Islamic State, American-led coalition aircraft have supported Sunni al-Nusra, which is al-Qaida. Which Sunni group to back in the Syrian civil war is always a question for the White House.

In 2015 most of the 17,000 civilians killed in Iraq died at the hands of Sunni terrorists. That is 10 times the number killed in the Sunni terror attack on 9/11. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were conducted by al-Qaida, a Sunni terror organization. The first terror attack on the Trade Center in 1993 was financed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Sunni cleric also associated with the Sunni terror group al-Qaida.

The 9/11 attack was planned by al-Qaida from Afghanistan, which at the time was controlled by the Taliban, a Sunni Muslim group dedicated to the elimination of Shiites and Christians.

Sunni groups, many funded by interests inside Saudi Arabia and Qatar, declared responsibility for the 2004 Madrid train bombings killing 191 and wounding over 1,800. A Sunni group took responsibility for the 2005 London bus bombings killing 52 and wounding 700. Sunni terror groups were responsible for the massacre of 334 people including 186 children during the 2004 attack on a school in Beslan, Russia, and also the Moscow theater attack in 2002. The various Paris attacks, including the 2015 Charlie Hebdo magazine and Jewish deli attacks over three days and a later attack in November on a theater and restaurants that killed 130, were conducted by the Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim organizations.

The Fort Hood terror attack in 2009 killing 13 plus an unborn child was conducted by Maj. Nidal Hasan, a Sunni Muslim connected to a “vetted” Sunni imam, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was allowed to speak at the Pentagon and Congress. Al-Awlaki and his son, both U.S. citizens, were killed by a drone strike though a death warrant issued by President Obama to shut him up lest he embarrass those at the Pentagon who had “vetted” him. He had been the imam at the Virginia mosque attended by some of the 9/11 hijackers.

There have been numerous “minor” terror attacks against Western targets, such as the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that killed “only” three and wounded 264. The bombers were brothers from a family of Sunni Muslims who had immigrated legally to the United States from Chechnya, Russia. Other “small” attacks by Sunni Muslims in the United States include the following: A Sunni Muslim convert killed one at a Little Rock military recruiting center in 2009, and four Marines were killed by a Sunni Muslim immigrant in Chattanooga in 2015. Other attacks such as against a 2002 El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport have been downplayed as only three died.

Most recently in the United States was the 2015 San Bernardino massacre, which was carried out by a Sunni Muslim couple connected to Saudi Sunni extremists and influenced by the Islamic State. A total of 14 were killed and 22 wounded.

In Asia the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 mostly Australian tourists was orchestrated Jemaah Islamiyah, a Sunni Muslim organization seeking Shariah law in that nation. Sunni groups have bombed numerous churches in the Philippians, and Thailand suffers almost daily deaths by Sunni Muslim separatist organizations that want a breakaway state under Shariah law. China suffers numerous attacks from Sunni groups every year.

The most noted attack in India by Sunni Muslims from Pakistan was in 2008 when 10 members of Lashkar -e-Taiba, conducted 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks over four days, killing 164 people and wounding 308. A landmark hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace, was nearly completely destroyed.

The mass beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya that outraged the press in the United States for a few days in 2015 were conducted by a Sunni terror group. All of the slaughter in this Hillary Clinton established “democracy” is being conducted by three Sunni Muslim factions.

Back to the “Shia threat” alluded to by Hillary Clinton, McCain, Cruz and Rubio as well as Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. The last large scale Shia attack against the West was in 1983 against a military target in Lebanon at the U.S. military barracks, killing 299 American and French servicemen.

I have left Israel out of this analysis because it faces a Sunni threat from the south in Gaza and a Shia threat to the north. In line with the theology of the two groups, Sunni-oriented Hamas normally attacks civilian targets while Shia Hezbollah usually attacks military targets.

With this history, why does the Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, as well as both liberal and conservative members of Congress and virtually all presidential candidates, say the greatest threat is from Shia Muslims?

The simple answer is that Saudi Arabia is Sunni Muslim, and most of the financing for Sunni extremist groups has come from Saudi Arabia, which is “our ally.” The initial funding for the revolt in Syria, which handed us the Islamic State problem, came from Saudi Arabia. Over $2 billion in arms were moved into Syria from Turkey and prepositioned before the initial Sunni uprising that to this day Obama and McCain insist was a secular revolt.

Some contend that only private elements within Saudi Arabia supported ISIS and never the Saudi government. Although Saudi Arabia may not directly support or fund ISIS, Saudi Arabia gives legitimacy to ISIS extremist ideology. Saudi textbooks are used in the ISIS-controlled schools in Syria and Iraq.

If we want to cut off the real head of the snake, the Islamic ideology that threatens the world through al-Qaida and the Islamic State today, we must shut down the educational funding source – and that is Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia runs a close second to North Korea on human rights abuses and should be treated to the same sanctions and boycotts. All Saudi-printed literature and all funding of mosques and schools in the United States and Europe should be banned at once.

To stop ISIS, which is actually the second generation of al-Qaida, we must dig out the root which is Saudi Arabia.

Note: The preceding were William J. Murray’s prepared remarks for The Awakening, Orlando, Florida, March 5, 2016.

Hamas Supplying ISIS w/Bombs, Guns and Communications

March 3, 2016

Hamas Supplying ISIS w/Bombs, Guns and Communications, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, March 3, 2016

isis_revised_map_of-world_caliphate

There have been plenty of protests that Israel is “strangling” Gaza with its blockade. That Gaza is an “open air prison” or even a “concentration camp”. The truth is that Hamas is facing restrictions because it’s a terrorist organization that keeps trying to kill people.

The following letter published by Memri also reveals that it’s allied with ISIS in the Sinai is supplying guns and bombs to ISIS.

Anyone who calls for ending restrictions on Gaza is calling for more weapons to be transferred to ISIS. They are a traitor and a terrorist supporter in every possible sense of the word.

On February 24, 2016, a letter from an Islamic State (ISIS) fighter to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was posted on social media. In it, the fighter strongly protests the close ties and cooperation between ISIS’s Sinai province and Hamas, particularly Hamas’s military wing.

The letter lays out a variety of Islamic objections to the problem that Hamas has not sworn allegiance to the Caliph of the Islamic State, making them apostates, but Hamas and ISIS in the Sinai nevertheless maintain a close working cooperation. It also lists some of the details of the cooperation between ISIS in the Sinai and Hamas.

“1. Sinai province is smuggling weapons for Hamas in Gaza, because of the province’s fighters’ expert knowledge of the [smuggling] routes from Libya, Sudan, and Egypt.

“2. Sinai province depends very much on Hamas and Al-Qassam for weapons and for explosives and ammunition. There are direct and continuous supply routes from Hamas to Sinai province. The Al-Qassam factories operate assembly lines for manufacturing explosive devices and bombs for the Sinai province, but do not stamp the Al-Qassam logo on them, as they usually do.

The Al-Qassam factories produce most particularly the rather famous Kassam rockets, but other weapons as well. So Hamas is supplying bombs for ISIS attacks on Egyptian forces (so you can see why Egypt has been cracking down so hard on Hamas), but it’s possible that some Hamas weapons filter beyond ISIS in Egypt to core ISIS as well. Certainly to ISIS in Libya.

This is a serious problem that merits investigation, much like the IEDs that Iran supplied to Jihadis in Iraq which killed so many American soldiers.

It also makes it clear that Gaza effectively functions as ISIS’ base in Israel.

“3. Sinai province leaders are regularly visiting the Gaza Strip, and holding cordial meetings with Hamas and Al-Qassam leaders, even [Hamas] government [representatives]. Animals are slaughtered for them, feasts are held, and they are embraced in Gaza.

“4. Hamas and Al-Qassam are accepting all wounded Sinai province [fighters], and they are treated in Gaza Strip hospitals under Al-Qassam’s direct protection.

“5. Hamas is providing wireless communication hubs for Sinai province, because of the difficulty of operating them in Sinai and because they are vulnerable to swift destruction by the Egyptian army.

So Hamas is providing medical care, weapons, communications, supplies and other military support functions to ISIS. It even supplies uniforms to ISIS

“Hamas manufactures the military uniforms for Sinai province – the uniforms we see, and over which we rejoice, in videos are from Hamas, oh our Sheikh Abu Bakr.”

This means that ISIS in Egypt becomes hard to beat without defeating Hamas.

And it means Obama engaged in back channel negotiations with an ISIS ally and that the man responsible for those negotiations, Robert Malley, is now Obama’s anti-ISIS czar.

 

ISIS Wages Brutal War in Egyptian Sinai

March 2, 2016

ISIS Wages Brutal War in Egyptian Sinai, Clarion Project, March 2, 2016

Islamic-State-Sinai-CheeringHPIslamic-State terrorist in the Sinai (Photo: Video screenshot from an Islamic State propaganda video)

The people of el-Arish were stunned this week when a caravan of SUVs drove up to the central square in the Egyptian Sinai town. Masked men emerged from the vehicles, shooting wildly into the air to make their presence known. Leading two captives, cowering under the terrorists, they immediately threw one of them on the ground, slaughtering him with a knife and then beheaded him.

The other captive was summarily shot in the head.

Civilians, shocked and terrified, began screaming. Blood was everywhere. But the Egyptian army and police – whose stations are located close by — were nowhere to be found.

The gunmen drove off, disappearing to an unknown location as quickly as they arrived. Eyewitness said many bystanders called the army and police during the event through an emergency hotline, but the only reply they received was from the hospital ambulance services, who said they were not allowed to take the bodies from the streets because they had not received instructions from the police.

The corpses remained in the square until 6 am the next morning at which time, the people took them themselves to the hospital morgue. Chaos ensued when the hospital refused to take possession as the bodies had not arrive in an ambulance.

Only after the gathering crowd threatened to ransack the hospital did they relent.

The victims were identified as Radi el-Bareeki, 43, a builder and contractor who was beheaded, and his son Suleiman, 17. The Bareekis were from the village of Charisa in the central Sinai. They had taken refuge in el-Arish after they were threatened by the Islamic State in Sinai (Wilyat-Sinai) for spying on the group for the Egyptian security forces.

Ten days earlier, the terror group published on social media the executions of two civilians also accused of spying for the security forces.

In the terror-laden Sinai, el-Arish was known as a safe haven which, until this latest event, had escaped the clutches of the brutal group.

“The Islamic State Sinai is one of the most brutal insurgent, terrorist and extremist groups. Considering their intentions to expand into Africa, IS Sinai presents an unprecedented threat not only to the security and stability of the Middle East but to Africa as well,” Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al Qaeda and international terrorism expert told Clarion Project.

“With its far reaching expertise, IS Sinai will build its capabilities among like-minded groups both in North Africa and in the Sahel. Before IS Sinai’s influence and capabilities spread further, they should be contained, isolated and eliminated. Otherwise, IS Sinai will destabilize Egypt, the pivotal state linking Africa and the Middle East,” he added.

This video shows images of ISIS reportedly aiming rockets at el-Arish airport:

French nuke carrier for sea-air drill with Egypt ahead of Libya offensive

February 29, 2016

French nuke carrier for sea-air drill with Egypt ahead of Libya offensive, DEBKAfile, February 29, 2016

Tahya_MisrFrench-built Egyptian frigate “Tahya Misr”

[T]he joint French-Egyptian naval-air force drill about to take place is the most substantial sign that a real operation to confront ISIS in Libya may finally be about to go forward.

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The French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is steaming through the Red Sea on its way to the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal for joint maneuvers with the Egyptian navy in preparation for a reduced coalition offensive against Islamic State’s deepening grip on Libya. DEBKAfile’s military sources, reporting this, say it will be the Egyptian navy’s first joint exercise with a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier; and also the first drill to be conducted by the new Egyptian missile frigate Tahya Misr (Long Live Egypt!),  which underwent a series of exercises after it was delivered by the French DCNS naval shipbuilders last June.

The Charles de Gaulle departed the Persian Gulf Monday, Feb. 22 and is due to reach the eastern Mediterranean in the first week of March. The Egyptian frigate’s weapons systems can shoot down planes and ballistic missiles as well as striking naval or ground targets. Its weapons systems can shoot down planes and ballistic missiles as well as striking naval or ground targets. But the vessel has been stripped of its regular electronic warfare and satellite communications systems for the exercise – apparently after a quiet understanding between France, Egypt and Israel.

The Egyptian frigate was originally designed to secure the Suez Canal against potential terrorist attacks from the Islamic State networks in the Sinai Peninsula and their offshoots in the Canal cities of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez. The warship was moved into the Mediterranean after President Francois Hollande and Egyptian President Abdul-Fatteh El-Sisi moved forward on plans for a joint assault with Italy to root out ISIS positions in Libya.

The three powers have agreed to launch this offensive in late April or May, DEBKAfile’s military and counterterrorism sources report.

The joint naval exercise will meanwhile drill coordination between the French and Egyptian navies and air forces in readiness for the combat operation. They will practice landing fighter-bombers taking off from the Charles de Gaulle decks at air bases in Egypt’s western desert near the Libyan border, for refueling, reloading munitions or emergency landings, when damaged by enemy fire.

They will also rehearse joint marine landings from French and Egyptian warships.

Our sources report that the trilateral assault plan has undergone repeated revisions in recent weeks, mainly because President Barack Obama has had second thoughts about his initial scheme for the United States to lead the operation in Libya – this time from the front.

His first plan was for a large marine contingent to land on the Libyan coast under heavy air cover. But lately, he can’t decide whether to deploy any US troops at all and inclines towards leaving the main onus of the anti-ISIS campaign in Libya to European and Middle East armies.

A final decision is expected by our Washington sources to substantially scale down the original plan. The dithering in Washington has led to delays in Paris, Cairo, Rome and London on drawing up a final list of ISIS targets to be hit and the size of the invasion forces, although the operation is just weeks away and time is pressing.

Islamic State commanders, viewing this lack of resolve, are beginning to feel safe in their Libyan strongholds, after drawing confidence from the recent downsizing of coalition strikes against its forces and bases in Iraq and Syria.

Since a small coalition vanguard for the main offensive landed in Libya last year, nothing much as happened to hold back ISIS advances in Libya,  except for US drone strikes.

The White House spokesman Josh Earnest said this week that President Obama planned to address the terrorist organization’s advances in Libya with top military officials.

Also this week, Libyan military officials reported that 15 French Special Operations experts had been in Benghazi for the past two months, assisting Libyan national troops in fighting the extremists. According to another report, a “small number” of British advisers has joined US military operatives who are giving local militias “tactical training in Misrata.

However, the joint French-Egyptian naval-air force drill about to take place is the most substantial sign that a real operation to confront ISIS in Libya may finally be about to go forward.