The agreement is expected to significantly stem the tide of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan seeking asylum in other countries who are hesitant to let them in their borders. (AP Photo)
Turkey will contain more Middle Eastern refugees within its owns borders so fewer of them flee to other European countries, under a deal it reached Sunday with the European Union.
In return for tightening its border control, Turkey will get several billion dollars from the EU and assistance in its efforts to join the coalition of 28 countries. The agreement is expected to significantly stem the tide of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan seeking asylum in other countries who are hesitant to let them in their borders.
The U.S. has admitted fewer than 2,000 Syrian refugees since 2012, yet the flood of migrants in Europe has incited a fierce political debate over whether they are sufficiently screened before entering the country.
President Obama wants to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees next year, saying that a robust vetting process will be in place. Refugees currently have to wait an average of 18-24 months before entering the U.S., as they’re screened by several different government agencies.
But many Republicans running for president have said they should be blocked until stricter screening measures are put in place and some GOP governors have tried to prohibit them from entering their own states. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has suggested only refugees who prove they are Christian should be admitted to the U.S., reiterated that position on Sunday, saying on CNN’s “State of the Union” that refugees should be screened for their religion.
And Ben Carson, who is currently polling second in the GOP primary battle, said Middle Eastern countries that are closer geographically to refugees’ home countries should get more financial assistance to help them. Carson spoke with CNN from Jordan, where he has visited Syrian refugee camps.
Carson said instead of focusing on how to let more refugees into the U.S., which is much more difficult for them to travel to, policymakers should figure out how to allow more to settle in countries at closer proximity where they wouldn’t have to experience as big a change in culture. Jordan, for example, should get more money to admit more refugees, Carson said.
“It seems like everybody in the international community is spending more time saying how can we bring refugees here rather than support a facility that is already in place that the refugees are finding perfectly fine — when it’s fully funded,” Carson said.
(The views expressed in this article may, or may not, be mine. They do not necessarily reflect those of any sane person or entity. — DM)
Our most prestigious universities now require diversity training for everyone coddled by un-Islamic aberrations based on Christian, Jewish, sexist and white privilege. Obama, bravely leading as always from the front, will follow them to combat Islamophobic speech and thought which He recently decreed to be felonies.
This Thanksgiving, President Obama is calling for Americans to lend a helping hand to another group of pilgrims fleeing persecution.
“Nearly four centuries after the Mayflower set sail, the world is still full of pilgrims – men and women who want nothing more than the chance for a safer, better future for themselves and their families,” Obama said in his weekly address Thursday. “What makes America America is that we offer that chance.”
Note: Although much of the following is true, parts are not. For example, even in Obama’s America Islamophobic thought is not yet a felony and the tale about Sally Snookums related toward the end remains the stuff of fantasy. In Muslim and incipient Muslim countries reality is different, so we need to emulate them. That will be change that we Obama can believe in.
With their campuses rocked by social justice protests, anxious Ivy League presidents are trying to appease campus radicals with huge payouts to left-wing identity programs. Peter Salovey, the president of Yale, apologized to protesters (“we failed you”) and wrote a campus-wide letter promising to create a new “university center” for the study of “race ethnicity, and other aspects of social identity.” He also pledged to double the budget for the African American, Native American, Asian American, and Hispanic cultural centers, and to devote new resources to “educating our community about race, ethnicity, diversity, and inclusion.”
Not to be outdone, Brown University President Christina Paxson has answered protests by unveiling a $100 million program for creating “a just and inclusive campus community.” Among the budget items: “expand mentoring resources for students of color, LGBTQ+ students, and first generation college students”; create “workshops” to “foster greater awareness and sensitivity on issues of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity and expression”; and “promote university-wide research and academic programming on Power, Privilege, Identity and Structural Racism.”
The rest of Obama’s America
Since academia is only part of the problem, the wise humanitarian outreach programs undertaken there (with the exception of those to comfort LGBTQ+ students which Muslims consider offensive) must be expanded to reach all problem people and areas. Doing so is Obama’s principal duty as America’s Commander in Chief and Supreme Leader. I have altered the excerpt from the article at The American Interest quoted above to reflect what Obama and His friends would probably try to do if they thought they could get away with it:
With many states rocked by Islamophobia and demands that widows and three year old orphans be banned, President Obama is increasing payouts to such anti-discrimination groups as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Muslim-identity programs. Allegedly “radical” mosques such as those shown below will also be given badly needed infusions of Federal funds.
Obama has (again) apologized to Islamists (“we failed you”) and promised to create new state centers for the study of religious ethnicity and other aspects of social identity. He has also pledged to at least double the budgets for Islamic cultural centers, including those at the mosques indicated above, and to devote new resources to educating our community about religious and racial ethnicity, diversity, and inclusion.
He has also unveiled state-wide programs for creating just and inclusive communities.Among the budget items: expand mosques to provide increased mentoring resources for Muslim youth; create diversity workshops with mandatory attendance by all deemed to be on paths to becoming Islamophobic felons, to foster greater awareness and sensitivity on issues of religion, peace, ethnicity and expression; and to promote state-wide research and academic programming on Power, Privilege, Religious Identity and other types of Structural Racism.
These (along with His historic nuke deal with The Islamic State Republic of Iran) will be His most enduring legacies.
There is also hope in Obama’s America for the few refugees who may be neither widows nor three year old orphans.
Adorable, cuddly Syrian refugees to a good home. Attention liberal millionaires. Do you want your very own gang of Syrian Refugees (TM) to loiter around your home, throw things at you and beat you up?
Here are a whole bunch for you to take home. Yes, I’m looking at you, J.K. Rowling. Or Isaac Herzog. There’s so many that every passionately outraged leftist bigwig can have his own bunch. You just better be ready to cook for them and bring them everything while they throw it in your face.
You’ll notice the shortage of actual women and kids. The media makes a point of focusing on those, but the majority are young men. Just like Obama’s “unaccompanied children” border rush. But those are facts and we don’t need facts. Just outrage and lots of love.
So take them in. Step up for the cause. The Hungarian police will happily ship a dozen angry Syrian refugees to your home. What you do with them or what they do with you, is up to you.
The influx of more than one million asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East is placing unprecedented strain on Germany’s healthcare system.
Hospitals, clinics and emergency rooms across Germany are being filled to capacity with migrants suffering maladies of all kinds, and medical personnel, including thousands of volunteers, are increasingly complaining of burnout.
Diseases are also reappearing that have not been seen in Germany for years. German public health officials are now on the lookout for Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever, diphtheria, Ebola, hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, malaria, measles, meningitis, mumps, polio, scabies, tetanus, tuberculosis, typhus and whooping cough. As refugee shelters fill to overflowing, doctors are also on high alert for mass outbreaks of influenza and Norovirus. [Emphasis added.]
Compounding the challenge, tens of thousands of migrants arriving in Germany — particularly migrant children — have not been immunized, and German doctors are finding that needed vaccines are not readily available due to a lack of supply. Some German parents are panicking that there are not enough vaccines to immunize their own children.
. . . .
German hospitals are also being forced to hire a virtual army of interpreters so that doctors can communicate with asylum seekers, who speak dozens of languages, dialects and variants.
At the same time, German hospitals are increasing security to protect doctors and nurses from violent attacks by migrants who are unhappy with the medical treatment they are receiving.
Sweeden, also a haven of happiness for Muslim refugees, has the right idea. Sadly, some object. The Public Service Director of Sweeden’s public television has responded to their Islamophobic nastiness:
The Public Service director, Safa Safiyari, who recently introduced Dirawi to a large press gathering, came to Sweden at the age of 14. In newspaper articles, he has spoken about how he does not feel “fancy” enough for the Swedish archipelago; and how, in 2001, when he got to do current affairs shows for young people about “all the injustices in Sweden,” it felt as if it were revenge for all the injustices he said he has experienced in Sweden and that still characterize his life.
The announcement that a person such as Dirawi, who professes to be of the Islamic faith and who according to Islamic scholars must believe that the celebration of the birth of Christ is a heathen tradition, will be Christmas Host, sparked widespread expressions of anger and disappointment on social media. Comments were posted on Twitter, such as: “Public Television has declared war on Christian Sweden by choosing Muslim Gina Dirawi as Christmas Host! It is shameful!” And, “If things continue down this road, by next Christmas, Christmas ham will be banned.”
Safa Safiyari told the daily Göteborgs-Posten, that Swedish Public Television had been prepared for all kinds of reactions: “We have chosen Gina Dirawi as Christmas Host based on her competence, her comedic talents and experience in large television broadcasts. When we hire our Christmas Hosts, religious belief is not something we inquire about.” [Emphasis added.]
In order to take full advantage of the great opportunities coming to our shores, we need to help Islamophobes by jailing and reeducating them to make them understand that Islam is the true religion of peace; all others just pretend to be and are therefore fake.
Progress is already being made
In Obama’s America, Yes We Can and We Can’t Wait! Here’s just one small but hopeful example of what we have already done and will do again: a young Islamophobe named Sally Snookums was successfully reeducated and learned to apologize for her Islamophobic expressions of displeasure at having been raped by a Muslim. Here are pictures of Sally before and after her reeducation:
Before
After
Just as Sally has been cured of Islamophobia and no longer goes about demanding to be raped, there is hope for all who wish to be true feminists. Don’t forget: Muslims are kind and generous, asking nothing for themselves. They only want to guide and help us to reclaim and restore the best of what has sadly become a decadent civilization.
The future of Obama’s America is bright
Once Obama’s sacred mission has been accomplished, there will be no more talk of “Islamic invasions” and “riots.” We are completely safe and have nothing to fear but fear itself and the Islamophobic FBI.
The FBI has roughly 1,000 active Islamic State probes inside the U.S. and new reports have revealed that at least 48 of those suspects are considered so high-risk that the bureau has deployed elite surveillance teams to track them.
The squads, known as mobile surveillance teams or MST are following the men and women, who are believed to be radicalized, 24 hours a day in case they plan to commit any acts of terrorism, Fox News reported.
With the help of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation — “whose founding charter seeks to propagate ‘legitimate jihad’ and ‘the norms of Islamic Shari’ah,'” our vetting processwill prove to be just as successful and unnecessary as it has been in Europe; all peaceful Muslim widows, their three year old orphans and everyone else will be greeted, not spurned.
Conclusions
Since in Obama’s America the security threats posed by Islamophobia are also well on their way to resolution, we will soon succeed in our quest for the happiness of Eurabia. What a blessing it will be!
Nevertheless, much still remains for Obama’s America to accomplish. We must continue to devote our undivided attention to the perils of climate change — what a powerful rebuke that will be to such perpetrators of senseless, random workplace violence as the Non Islamic State!
We must also continue our putsch push for common sense gun control, while focusing on women’s health as required by Sharia Law and the Holy Quran upon which it is divinely based. Then, and only then, can we be truly proud of our country.
Finally, here is Grandpa Jones’ well deserved tribute to Obama:
An Islamic State victory parade (Photo: Video screenshot)
The downing of a Russian fighter jet on its way back from an Islamic State bombing mission has put Turkey in the crosshairs of scrutiny regarding their role in facilitating the success of the Islamic State.
Turkey’s arms transfers to Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist jihadis in Syria has been long-documented and largely ignored by the Western media. Similarly, the fact the Turkey has been the top financial sponsor of Hamas since 2012, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arranging for the transfer of $250-300 million to the terrorist group annually, is another inconvenient fact that has been studiously ignored.
This summer, a major raid by the U.S. on an Islamic State safe house in Syria this summer gleaned large amounts of intelligence linking Turkey to the Islamic State. In the words of one senior Western official, the connection is now “undeniable.”
As investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed writes, “In a rare insight into this brazen state-sponsorship of ISIS, a year agoNewsweekreported the testimony of a former ISIS communications technician, who had travelled to Syria to fight the regime of Bashir al-Assad.
“The former ISIS fighter told Newsweek that Turkey was allowing ISIS trucks from Raqqa to cross the ‘border, through Turkey and then back across the border to attack Syrian Kurds in the city of Serekaniye in northern Syria in February.’ ISIS militants would freely travel ‘through Turkey in a convoy of trucks,’ and stop ‘at safehouses along the way.’
“The former ISIS communication technician also admitted that he would routinely ‘connect ISIS field captains and commanders from Syria with people in Turkey on innumerable occasions,’ adding that ‘the people they talked to were Turkish officials… ISIS commanders told us to fear nothing at all because there was full cooperation with the Turks.’”
Trucks, arms and fighters are not the only commodities that are flowing freely between Turkey and the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The life-blood of the Islamic State, crude oil, which serves to finance the terror group’s operation, is being sold in Turkey. Estimates of ISIS oil sales in Turkey to date are as high as $1 billion.
Senior Iraqi politician Mowaffak Baqer al-Rubaie announced yesterday that the Islamic State is selling oil through Turkish black-market channels at $20 per barrel, less than half the current market price.
Rubaie also pointedly commented that Turkey is the recruitment hub for all new Islamic State fighters – both foreign and Arab. “The new recruits meet with ISIS officials in Istanbul and are then transferred over the Turkish borders with Iraq, to Mosul, and over the border with Syria to Raqqa,” he said.
Rubaie also blamed Turkish security forces for “studiously ignoring the transfer of ISIS terrorists from Turkey to north Iraq and Syria. [In addition,] the wounded of the ISIS gangs … are getting treatment and medical care in the hospitals of Turkey.”
Besides their ideological similarities, Erdogan and his ruling AK Islamist party view the Islamic State as an easy ticket to smashing their nemesis, the Kurds, an ethnic group vying for independence from Turkey. As one AK party member said, “They are like us, fighting against seven great powers in the War of Independence.” Another senior party member said, “Rather than the PKK [Kurdistan Working Party] on the other side, I would rather have ISIL as a neighbor.”
Hundreds of flash drives and documents were seized in the summer raid on the Islamic State safe house in Syria last summer. At the time, a senior Western official predicted that “the links [between Turkey and ISIS] are already so clear that they could end up having profound policy implications for the relationship between us and Ankara.”
Yet, this has clearly not been the case. Turkey, a member of NATO, has been flaunting its support of the Islamic State under Western leaders’ noses. After finally agreeing to get involved in the fight between coalition forces and the Islamic State (after years of sitting out the fight militarily), Turkish planes have mainly used the bombing raids to attack Kurdish forces in Syria, Iraq and Turkey.
And the oil keeps flowing, filling Turkey’s coffers. As Professor David Graeber of the London School of Economics notes, “Had Turkey placed the same kind of absolute blockade on ISIS territories as they did on Kurdish-held parts of Syria… that blood-stained ‘caliphate’ would long since have collapsed — and arguably, the Paris attacks may never have happened. And if Turkey were to do the same today, ISIS would probably collapse in a matter of months. Yet, has a single western leader called on Erdoğan to do this?”
While all of the 2016 candidates declare their strategies for victory against ISIS, President Obama’s leading from behind has now entered the Middle East and the West into a free-for-all that cannot end any way but poorly.
The best way to understand the situation in Syria is to look at the situation and motivation of the various players. All of them have varying agendas; all of them have different preferred outcomes. Few of them are on anything approaching the same page. And Barack Obama’s failure of leadership means that there is no global power around which to center.
ISIS. ISIS has gained tremendous strength since Barack Obama’s entry to power and pullout from Iraq. They currently control northern Syria, bordering Turkey, as well as large portions of northern Iraq. Their goal: to consolidate their territorial stranglehold, and to demonstrate to their followers that they, and not other competing terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, represent the new Islamic wave. They have little interest in toppling Syrian dictator Bashar Assad for the moment. They do serve as a regional counterweight to the increasingly powerful Iranians – increasingly powerful because of President Obama’s big nuclear deal, as well as his complete abdication of responsibility in Iraq.
Iran. Iran wants to maximize its regional power. The rise of ISIS has allowed it to masquerade as a benevolent force in Iraq and Syria, even as it supports Assad’s now-routine use of chemical weapons against his adversaries, including the remnants of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Iran has already expanded its horizons beyond Iraq and Syria and Lebanon; now it wants to make moves into heretofore non-friendly regions like Afghanistan. Their goal in Syria: keep Bashar Assad in power. Their goal in Iraq: pushing ISIS out of any resource-rich territories, but not finishing ISIS off, because that would then get rid of the global villain against which they fight.
Assad. The growth of ISIS has allowed Assad to play the wronged victim. While the FSA could provide a possible replacement for him, ISIS can’t credibly do so on the international stage. Assad knows that, and thus has little interest in completely ousting them. His main interest is in continuing to devastate the remaining FSA while pretending to fight ISIS.
Egypt/Saudi Arabia/Jordan. As you can see, ISIS, Iran, and Assad all have one shared interest: the continued existence of ISIS. The same is not true with regard to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, all of whom fear the rise of radical Sunni terrorist groups in their home countries. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place, however, because openly destroying ISIS on behalf of Alaouite Assad, they embolden the Shia, their enemies. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan would all join an anti-ISIS coalition in the same way they did against Saddam Hussein in 1991, but just like Hussein in 1991, they won’t do it if there are no Sunni alternatives available. Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan are the top three sources of foreign fighters for ISIS.
Turkey. The Turks have several goals: to stop the Syrian exodus across their borders, to prevent the rise of the Iranians, and to stop the rise of the Kurds. None of these goals involves the destruction of ISIS. Turkey is Sunni; so is ISIS. ISIS provides a regional counterweight against Iran, so long as it remains viable. It also keeps the Kurds occupied in northern Iraq, preventing any threat of Kurdish consolidation across the Iraq-Turkey border. They will accept Syrian refugees so long as those other two goals remain primary – and they’ll certainly do it if they can ship a hefty portion of those refugees into Europe and off their hands.
Russia. Russia wants to consolidate its power in the Middle East. It has done so by wooing all the players to fight against one another. Russia’s involvement in the Middle East now looks a good deal like American involvement circa the Iran-Iraq War: they’re playing both sides. Russia is building nuclear reactors in Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Iran. They’re Bashar Assad’s air force against both the FSA and ISIS. Russia’s Vladimir Putin doesn’t have a problem with destroying ISIS so long as doing so achieves his other goal: putting everyone else in his debt. He has a secondary goal he thought he could chiefly pursue in Eastern Europe, and attempted with Ukraine: he wants to split apart the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which he rightly sees as a counterbalance to check Russian aggression. Thanks to today’s Turkish attack on a Russian plane, and thanks to the West’s hands-off policy with regard to the conflict, Putin could theoretically use his war against ISIS as cover to bombard Turkish military targets, daring the West to get involved against him. Were he to do so, he’d set the precedent that NATO is no longer functional. Two birds, one war.
Israel. Israel’s position is the same it has always been: Israel is surrounded by radical Islamic enemies on every side. Whether Iranian-backed Hezbollah or Sunni Hamas and ISIS, Israel is the focus of hate for all of these groups. Ironically, the rise of Iran has unified Israel with its neighbors in Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. All three of those countries, however, can’t stand firmly against ISIS.
All of which means that the only country capable of filling the vacuum would be the United States. Just as in 1991, a major Sunni power is on the move against American interests – but unlike in 1991, no viable option existed for leaving the current regime in power. And the US’ insistence upon the help of ground allies is far too vague. Who should those allies be, occupying ISIS-free ISISland?
The Kurds have no interest in a Syrian incursion. Turkish troops movements into ISIS-land will prompt Iranian intervention. Iranian intervention into ISIS-land would prompt higher levels of support for Sunni resistance. ISIS-land without ISIS is like Iraq without Saddam Hussein: in the absence of solidifying force, chaos breaks out. From that chaos, the most organized force takes power. Russia hopes that should it destroy ISIS, Assad will simply retain power; that may be the simplest solution, although it certainly will not end the war within the country. There are no good answers.
Barack Obama’s dithering for years led to this. Had he lent his support in any strong way to one side, a solution might be possible. Now, it’s not.
Earlier today, the Islamic State’s so-called Sinai “province” attacked a hotel where a number of judges were staying as they oversaw elections. According to initial casualty reports, four people were killed.
Two “martyrdom” operatives were responsible for the assault. One of the two drove a vehicle laden with explosives into the security forces protecting the hotel. The second, armed with an assault weapon and a suicide belt, then followed.
The Islamic State’s Sinai “province,” which officially joined the “caliphate” in November 2014, quickly posted a statement on social media claiming responsibility. The message, seen on the right, is formatted in the same fashion as most other claims of responsibility issued by the Islamic State’s “provinces,” with white text, a blue body, and a red header. A watermark in the upper right hand corner makes it clear that the statement is on behalf of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s global organization.
The statement was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.
Interestingly, the group attempts to justify the attack using the same rationale as pro-al Qaeda jihadist groups in Egypt. “This operation comes as a response to the arrest by the apostate Egyptian army of the Muslim women and the insulting of them at the checkpoints of the apostate army,” the claim of responsibility reads, according to SITE’s translation.
This is essentially the same rationale offered by Ajnad Misr (“Soldiers of Egypt”) for some of its terrorist attacks in Cairo and elsewhere. In November 2014, for instance, Ajnad Misr said that it bombed policemen near a university in Cairo after supposedly witnessing female students being harassed and dragged off by security forces.
Ajnad Misr was once part of Ansar Bayt al Maqdis (ABM), which evolved into the Islamic State’s Sinai “province.” But Ajnad Misr did not go along with ABM’s defection to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s camp and refused to swear allegiance to the Islamic State. Ajnad Misr has claimed only a few operations inside Egypt this year.
The Islamic State’s Sinai “province” remains a prolific jihadist force. And its operations further illustrate that there is no firm dividing line between the jihadists’ insurgencies and their ability to carry out high-profile terrorist attacks.
The Islamic State’s branch has repeatedly claimed responsibility for the downing of a Russian airliner on October 31. The first claim of responsibility was issued just hours after the airplane crashed, killing all 224 passengers and crew on board. On several occasions since then, both the Sinai “province” and other parts of the Islamic State’s international network have issued statements and videos saying the “caliphate’s” soldiers were responsible. The latest issue of the English-language Dabiq magazine includes a photo of the bomb that allegedly ripped the plane’s fuselage apart midair.
On November 19, the Sinai “province” released a video tallying the results of its insurgency operations against the Egyptian government. The video was also translated by SITE. The group claimed to have destroyed more than 25 Egyptian military and security vehicles, killed more than 100 members of Egypt’s security forces and taken various spoils between October 14 and November 13. These operations were in addition to the bombing of the Russian airliner.
The figures cited could not be independently verified. Even if the jihadists are exaggerating, however, there is no doubt that the Sinai “province” continues to wage a systematic campaign against Egyptian forces. Dozens of jihadists representing the “caliphate” launched a coordinated assault across the Sinai in early July. The Islamic State arm has launched rockets at Israel, struck an Egyptian naval vessel off of the coast of the Sinai, and hit targets inside Cairo as well.
Since the Islamic State attacks in Paris on November 13, we have seen the development of a new, and strange justification for the Obama administration’s insistent refusal to jettison its manifestly failed strategy of contending with IS specifically and with Islamic terrorism generally.
In broad terms, Obama’s strategy for dealing with radical Islamic terrorism and jihadist movements is to ignore their motivating ideologies, take minimal action to combat them, criticize other governments for failing to destroy IS and its jihadist brethren on their own, and attack Republicans for criticizing Obama’s strategy for defeating radical Islamic terrorism.
The new justification for Obama’s refusal to revise his strategy was first uttered by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton at the Democratic presidential debate on November 14. Five days later, the Democratic National Committee produced an ad attacking Republican presidential candidates based on this new rhetorical theme.
Obama himself resonated the new message during his press conference in Malaysia on Sunday.
According to the new talking points, Republicans have no right to criticize Obama, or Clinton, for their failure to contend with the nature of the enemy because in ignoring the enemy’s doctrine, ideology and strategic goals, they are merely following in president George W. Bush’s footsteps.
During the Democratic presidential debate, Clinton argued that refusing to identify the radical Islamic nature of the enemy that attacked the US on September 11 and in the months and years that followed “was one of the real contributions – despite all the other problems – that George W. Bush made after 9/11, when he basically said – after going to a mosque in Washington – we are not at war with Islam or Muslims.”
In its new ad, the DNC attacks five Republican presidential candidates that have stated in recent days that radical Islam is the force that is warring against the US and its allies.
To prove that the candidates are “unpresidential,” for naming the enemy, the DNC ad includes a clip of Bush’s speeches in praise of Islam as “a religion of peace,” which he delivered in the days immediately following the September 11 attacks.
The Democrats’ invocation of Bush as their counterterrorism authority and as a means to justify their refusal to use the term “radical Islam” is more than a bit ironic, of course, since they have spent the past 14 years pillorying Bush’s counterterrorism policies.
But it is also extremely helpful. By aligning with Bush to justify their refusal to discuss the radical Islamic foundations of the terrorist scourge facing the free world and devouring large swaths of the Middle East, the Democrats have given us the opportunity to consider what that refusal has meant for the US’s ability to lead the free world in its war against the forces of radical Islam.
At the time of the September 11 attacks, and for the first five years of Bush’s war on terrorism that followed them, Michael Gerson served as Bush’s chief speechwriter.
Gerson authored Bush’s statements about Islam being a religion of peace.
In November 2014, Gerson participated in a debate vabout the nature of Islam and the war on terror. Gerson explained that Bush’s decision to ignore the nature of the enemy emanated from a strategic calculation.
Bush believed that radical Islam was but a marginal force in the Muslim world. By embracing Islam as a whole, and insisting that the terrorists from al-Qaida and other groups did not reflect the authentic nature of Islam, Bush hoped to draw the non-radical Muslims to America’s side against the jihadists.
In Gerson’s words, “Every religious tradition has forces of tribalism and violence in its history, background and theology; and, every religious tradition has sources of respect for the other. And you emphasize, as a political leader, one at the expense of the other in the cause of democracy.”
Gerson continued, “That is a great American tradition that we have done with every religious tradition that comes to the United States – include them as part of a natural enterprise and praise them for their strongly held religious views, and emphasize those portions that are most compatible with those ideals.”
The flaws in this reasoning began surfacing immediately.
When Bush made his remarks about Islam after the September 11 attacks, he was flanked by Muslim leaders who were in short order exposed as terrorism apologists and financiers.
On the battlefield, by failing to acknowledge, let alone discredit the enemy’s world view, Bush made it all but impossible for Muslims who oppose radical Islam to stand up against it. After all, if the Americans didn’t think it was a problem, why would they? Since the Americans refused to admit the existence of radical Islam, the US refused to favor non-radical forces over radical ones. And so, in the 2005 Iraqi elections, while Iran spent a fortune financing the campaigns of its supporters, the US did nothing to support the Iraqi forces that shared the US’s goal of transforming Iraq into a multi-denominational, pluralistic democracy.
The results were preordained. The elected government took its cues from Iran, and as soon as US forces withdrew from Iraq, all of America’s hard won gains were squandered. The Iraqi government became an Iranian puppet. And in areas where Iran didn’t care to assert its control, al-Qaida-aligned forces that now comprise Islamic State rose once again.
Obama’s refusal to discuss radical Islam stems from a different source than Bush’s refusal to do so. Unlike Bush’s position, Obama’s insistence that IS, al-Qaida, Hamas, Boko Haram and their brethren have nothing to do with Islam does not owe to a strategic calculation on how to win a war. Rather, it stems from an ideological conviction that the US and the rest of the Western world have no right to cast aspersions on jihadists.
As Obama sees things, the problems in the Middle East, and the Middle Eastern terrorism plaguing the rest of the world, are the result of past Western imperialism and chauvinism. All anti-Western movements – including jihadist movements – are legitimate responses to what Obama perceives as the crime of Western power.
Obama’s peevish response to the massacre in Paris and his assaults on Republicans who argue that the religious convictions of Syrians requesting asylum in the US are relevant for determining whether or not to let them in have brought his refusal to identify the enemy to the forefront of the US debate on how to defeat IS.
This debate is clearly uncomfortable for liberal US media outlets. So they have sought to change the subject.
As the Democratic Party adopted Bush as its new counterterrorism guru, the liberal media sought to end discussion of radical Islam by castigating as bigots Republicans who speak of it. The media attempt over the weekend to claim falsely that Republican frontrunner Donald Trump called for requiring American Muslims to be registered in a national Muslim database marked such an attempt to change the subject.
The common denominator between Bush’s strategic decision to lie about the nature of the enemy, Obama’s apologetics for IS and the media’s attempt to claim that Republicans are anti-Islamic racists is that in all cases, an attempt is being made to assert that there is no pluralism in Islam – it’s either entirely good or entirely evil.
This absolutist position is counterproductive for two reasons. First, it gets you nowhere good in the war against radical Islam. The fact is that Islam per se is none of the US president’s business. His business is to defeat those who attack the US and to stand with America’s allies against their common foes.
Radical Islam may be a small component of Islam or a large one. But it certainly is a component of Islam. Its adherents believe they are good Muslims and they base their actions on their Islamic beliefs.
American politicians, warfighters and policymakers need to identify that form of Islam, study it and base their strategies for fighting the radical Islamic forces on its teachings.
Bush was wrong to lie about the Islamic roots of radical Islam. And his mistake had devastating strategic consequences for the world as a whole. It is fortuitous that the Clinton and the Democratic Party have embraced Bush’s failed strategy of ignoring the enemy for justifying their even more extreme position. Now that they have, they have given a green light to Republicans as well as Democrats who are appalled by Obama’s apologetics for radical Islam to learn from Bush’s mistakes and craft an honest and effective strategic approach to the challenge of radical Islam.
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Phobia is an abnormal, irrational fear. As now defined, however, Islamophobia is merely “prejudice against, hatred towards, or fear of the religion of Islam or Muslims.” Rational “Prejudice,” “hatred” and “fear” of Islam are, therefore, now Islamophobic.
Obama often proclaims that there is no reason to fear Islam — the religion of truth and love — and that He welcomes it in His America. It is permissible, indeed even patriotic, to fear and oppose the Non-Islamic Islamic State, but to fear and to oppose Islam runs counter to American values and is, therefore, worse than merely vile.
By virtue of His constitutional obligation under Article II to do whatever He damn well pleases, He has determined that anyone who criticises Islam is guilty of felony hate speech, which has long been recognized not to be entitled to protections under the First Amendment. To think Islamophobic thoughts leads to hate speech and must also be criminalised as hate thought.
Once again, Obama shows that He is a great leader — not a mere follower — in America’s quest finally to become a great nation of which He can finally be proud. An article by Jonathan Turley is titled Forty Percent of Millennials Favor Censorship of Offensive Speech By Government. Turley, a liberal in the old-fashioned sense of the word and among the few “liberals” to remain strong defenders of free speech, notes that
I have long argued that the West appears to have fallen out of love with free speech, which is more often viewed as a rising scourge rather than a defining value in some countries. A recent poll of the Pew Research Center shows just how many people we have lost to those calling for greater censorship and criminalization of speech. It is not surprisingly more prevalent with younger age groups, though Democrats are almost twice as likely favor censorship than Republicans. The largest (and most alarming) group is the millennials — 40% of whom favor government censorship of speech offensive to minority groups. [Emphasis added.]
Clearly, Obama is — as always — on the right side of history, leading from the front.
Here is the text of Obama’s address to the nation, to be delivered on Thanksgiving Day.
My fellow, blessedly multicultural, Americans, Thanksgiving is the day we all now understand was forced upon us to commemorate the vile treatment of Native Americans by settlers — just as Israeli settlers now abuse native Palestinians. To treat Muslims as we treated Native Americans, as Israel treats peaceful Palestinians — and indeed as Christian Crusaders just a short time ago treated peaceful Muslims — is the worst type of anti-American prejudice I can imagine. Therefore, under the powers vested in Me under the U.S. Constitution, I hereby decree that anyone — no matter who or where and even in the halls of Congress — criticises the Religion of Peace and Love shall be tried and summarily convicted of felony Hate speech.
Some may say — falsely — that this is a drastic and unwarranted measure. It is neither. Islamophobia is intensely harmful to Muslims fleeing persecution by Christians and Jews abroad. It may even deter Muslims from coming to My America to enjoy the benefits of liberty and freedom as ordaned under the Constitution. They all desire to be assimilated into America and to live here with peace and honour killings in accord with our traditions of freedom and justice; traditions which are envied by those fleeing persecution and which they yearn to enjoy in My America. To persecute innocent Muslims here, as they are persecuted abroad is a disgrace; as long as I am your President I shall not permit it.
The spectre of hate thought also now darkens America and leads to hate speech against Muslims everywhere — even those in The Islamic State Republic of Iran, with which I successfully negotiated an historic deal to eliminate the spectre of nuclear weapons in, and to bring peace to, most of the Middle East.
Just as I have decreed that hate speech against Muslims shall be punished, so must hate thought. Accordingly, all candidates for public office in My America will now be required to answer questions seeking to probe their deepest unspoken, but dreadful, anti-Islamic thoughts. The Council on Islamic-American Relations will prepare the questions and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation will ask them. Those found to harbour anti-Islamic — and therefore un-American — thoughts will be declared unfit for, and disqualified from holding, public office. The First Amendment, of course, provides no protection for freedom of thought; even if it did, it would provide no protection for hate thought. This is necessary if My America is, once again, to lead the free world.
(Wait for vigorous applause.)
Thank you. Now, for your Thanksgiving pleasure, here is a tribute to Me by my favorite vocal group, the Muslim Brotherhood Chorus.
If U.S. law enforcement agents are no longer able to question individuals who are already known to have terror affiliations about their ideological views or the organizations with which they associate, how much more pressure will there be to avoid pertinent questions to Syrian refugees, a hot-button issue upon which the Obama administration has taken a strong public position?
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The Obama administration appears to have taken yet another terrorism-fighting tool away from U.S. law enforcement trying to screen Syrian refugees.
U.S. law enforcement officials involved in screening Syrian refugees are forbidden from asking key questions about individuals’ religious affiliations or beliefs based on policy guidance created by the Obama administration, according to a recent report published at The Daily Caller.
The piece notes that both Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) policies have increasingly restricted the ability of law enforcement to query individuals about their religious behaviors or associations.
“These gradual but severe restrictions were coupled with a simultaneous reduction in accurate, fact-based training to address the nature of the threat we face, leaving us inadequately prepared for the challenges we face today,” The Daily Caller cites a “government source familiar with national security” as saying.
That means DHS officers screening for Syrian refugees are likely prohibited from asking questions like, “Are you a member or supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood or Tablighi Jamaat?”
These Are Dangerous Buddies to Have
The Muslim Brotherhood is the oldest global Islamist group in the world. Muslim Brotherhood thinkers formed the core ideology of al-Qaeda, and former FBI Director Robert Mueller testified in 2011 that “elements of the Muslim Brotherhood both here and overseas have supported terrorism.” Tablighi Jamaat is an Islamic proselyting group that al-Qaeda has used as a cover to facilitate moving across borders, and which U.S. intelligence has described as “willingly supporting terrorists.”
A 2005 report on the Pakistan-based group noted:
Tablighi Jamaat has also facilitated other terrorists’ missions. The group has provided logistical support and helped procure travel documents. Many take advantage of Tablighi Jamaat’s benign reputation. Moroccan authorities say that leaflets circulated by the terrorist group Al-Salafiyah al-Jihadiyah urged their members to join Islamic organizations that operate openly, such as Tablighi Jamaat, in order ‘to hide their identity on the one hand and influence these groups and their policies on the other.’
It would also prohibit law enforcement from asking key questions about how an individual views jihadist ideologues, such as Anwar Awlaki, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, or Yusuf al Qaradawi. That’s vital when such jihadi scholars have played roles in influencing terror attacks.
Yet during an investigation into Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan before his attack, the FBI described email correspondence from Hassan to Awlaki as “not pertinent” to the investigation.
Islamist Sympathizers Place Pressure
In 2011, the Civil Rights Civil Liberties division of DHS launched an investigation into multiple Customs and Border Protection agents, because of complaints by groups like Hamas-linked Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) that agents were asking individuals questions about their affiliation with Islamic organizations (including those linked to the Muslim Brotherhood), or attendance at conferences where pro-jihadist ideologues are known to have spoken.
According to DHS authorities, one officer was being investigated because he had asked for an individual’s view of Anwar al-Awlaki. In another, FBI agents referenced the underwear bombing plot. Even that much was considered offensive.
The CRCL investigation was motivated by pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union, CAIR, and Muslim Advocates, a group closely linked with U.S. Muslim Brotherhood groups and with a long history of opposing U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
In response to lawsuits related to the issue of questioning by CBP officers, the DHS established a “hands-off” list of known individuals with terror ties,which included Muslim Brotherhood leader Jamal Badawi, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas finance trial. These individuals were given a green light to enter the country, and were not to be referred to secondary questioning. Sen. Chuck Grassley investigated the matter in 2014, calling it “disturbing.”
If U.S. law enforcement agents are no longer able to question individuals who are already known to have terror affiliations about their ideological views or the organizations with which they associate, how much more pressure will there be to avoid pertinent questions to Syrian refugees, a hot-button issue upon which the Obama administration has taken a strong public position?
Western secularism has rendered us incapable of understanding passionate religious beliefs. The banishment of faith from public life is nearly complete in Europe, and we Americans are on the same trajectory.
In contrast, most Muslims are intensely religious to a degree most Westerners can hardly imagine. Religion suffuses their lives, most noticeably in the muezzin’s daily five calls to prayer, and the commands of Allah and the words and deeds of Mohammed are a living presence in every aspect of a devout Muslim’s life. Nor is this religiosity a private affair kept away from the public square, and compartmentalized in people’s lives apart from politics, economics, or foreign policy.
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The murder of 27 hotel guests in Mali’s capital city by Boko Haram, now an al Qaeda franchisee, highlights yet again the delusional futility of asserting that, as Hillary Clinton put it in a tweet, “Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.” Like Obama, Hillary also vigorously condemns the use of a phrase like “Islamist radicalism.”
These evasions are contrary to the history and doctrines of Islam consistent over 14 centuries, and contradict the professed motives for the continuing violence perpetrated across the globe––27,295 deadly attacks just since 9/11–– by Islamic terrorist groups who emulate the Prophet and take seriously his injunction to “slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in every ambush” (9.5), one of 109 verses––the direct commands of Allah–– that order war against infidels.
Moreover, that most Muslims do not engage directly in such violence, or may even condemn it, does not change the fundamental doctrines that justify it, no more than the millions of Catholic women who use birth control invalidate the church’s doctrine against contraception. The doctrine of jihad has been part of Islam from its beginning, enjoined by the Koran and Hadith, and confirmed and celebrated by the most eminent Islamic historians, jurisprudents, and theologians. One of the most famous, the late-14th century writer Ibn Khaldun, wrote in the Muqaddimah, “In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” When we see Muslims in the 21st century killing and dying in service to this traditional religious imperative created in the 7th century, it is perverse blindness to claim that there is no connection between Islam and Islamic terrorism.
The more important question is why anyone would assert something that would have struck our Western ancestors––for a thousand years the victims of Muslim invasion, occupation, enslavement, and slaughter–– as a dangerous fantasy. One rationale appeared in the months after 9/11, when George W. Bush distinguished al Qaeda from the larger Muslim community and engaged in outreach to the latter, inviting imams to the White House and proclaiming Islam the “religion of peace.” The idea was that alienating millions of Muslims would make it harder to fight the jihadists, and even aid in their recruitment. This tactic, of course, has been an obvious failure for over a decade, as there is no evidence that being nice to Muslims––for example, rescuing Afghan and Iraqi Muslims from murderous autocrats––changed traditional Muslim attitudes toward infidels, and predisposed them to turn on their fellow Muslims.
The better answer lies in several bad ideas spawned by modernity. Western secularism has rendered us incapable of understanding passionate religious beliefs. The banishment of faith from public life is nearly complete in Europe, and we Americans are on the same trajectory. What remains of religion is reduced to a private life-style choice, commercialized holiday traditions, and a vague comforting “spiritualism” that makes few demands on its adherents. Secularists relentlessly patrol the public square to attack any sign that religious belief is stepping outside its private ghetto. And any recognition that the Judeo-Christian tradition contributed to the foundational beliefs of the West––equality, unalienable rights, and freedom––is attacked as spiritual colonization and “fundamentalist” bigotry. Hence Obama calls “shameful” the suggestions that Christian Syrians, currently suffering a genocidal persecution, be prioritized over the mostly economic Syrian refugees.
In contrast, most Muslims are intensely religious to a degree most Westerners can hardly imagine. Religion suffuses their lives, most noticeably in the muezzin’s daily five calls to prayer, and the commands of Allah and the words and deeds of Mohammed are a living presence in every aspect of a devout Muslim’s life. Nor is this religiosity a private affair kept away from the public square, and compartmentalized in people’s lives apart from politics, economics, or foreign policy. As Bernard Lewis writes,
In most Islamic countries, religion remains a major political factor, for most Muslim countries are still profoundly Muslim in a way and in a sense that most Christian countries are no longer Christian . . . in no Christian country at the present time can religious leaders count on the degree of belief and participation that remains normal in the Muslim lands . . . Christian clergy do not exercise or even claim the kind of public authority that is still normal and acceptable in mot Muslim countries.
Lacking the constant public presence of spiritual reality in our own lives, we find it hard to accept that religious doctrines advocating violence against the unbeliever, or basing all social, economic, judicial, and political order on a code of law formulated over a thousand years ago, can be real enough to compel violence against innocents. This failure of imagination has been a powerful enabler of our feckless strategies.
So too has been our ignorance of history. Worse yet, what history we do rely on is false or ideologically warped. Few politicians in charge of our foreign policy seem to be aware of the long, violent assault of Islam against the West, the chronicle of massacre, slaving, kidnapping, occupation, and exploitation, all in service to the commands of Allah and the practices of Mohammed. At the same time, our president invents the mythic “golden age” of enlightenment and tolerance in Muslim Cordoba, harps on the Crusades and the Inquisition, excoriates Israel for defending itself against the progeny of invaders, colonizers, and immigrants to the ancient Jewish homeland of Judea and Samaria, and apologizes for imperialism and colonialism. Meanwhile Muslim Turkey is in its fifth decade of the occupation of northern Cyprus that followed an invasion accompanied by ethnic cleansing, population transfers from Turkey, and the destruction or vandalizing of 300 churches.
A good example of this bizarre historical ignorance is the demonic role assigned to the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement. An ISIS billboard in Iraq reads, “We are the ones who determine our borders, not Sykes-Picot.” In this false history borrowed from self-loathing Westerners, the imperialist French and English divided up the Ottoman Empire in an act of stealth colonialism. This history is false, and strangely diminishes the region’s Muslims, making them the mere passive pawns of external manipulators. But as Efraim Karsh points out in his indispensable new bookThe Tail Wags the Dog, the region’s leaders “have been active and enterprising free agents doggedly pursuing their national interests and swaying the region pretty much in their desired direction, often in disregard of great-power wishes.” The true history of the region shows that the disorder today has two main sources: the doctrines of Islam that keep the region mired in a premodern, tribal mentality; and the disastrous decision of the Ottoman sultan to join the Central powers in World War I, against the advice of the British, who wanted not colonies, but an Arab empire to replace the Ottomans’.
Such distorted history, in which the West is to blame for dysfunctions created by Muslims themselves, justifies an apologetic tone like that of Obama’s Cairo speech, and rationalizes Muslim violence as an understandable reaction to historical injustice––just as John Kerry did in his despicable comments that the Charlie Hebdo murders had a “rationale that you could attach yourself to.”
Finally, multiculturalism, which is an expression of this false history that makes the West the global villains deserving of payback from the oppressed dark-skinned “other,” compromises a robust and muscular response to Islamic violence. The lexicon of political correctness, predicated on the commandment never to blame the victim “of color,” leads to the sort of duplicitous evasions mentioned earlier, in which traditional Islamic doctrine disappears as motivating force, and effort is wasted on pursuing remedies––economic development, flattering outreach, or democracy promotion––that will not solve the problem of metastasizing jihadism. Moreover, like the British sympathizers with Germany in the 20s and 30s, the charges of racism and neo-imperialist oppression thrown around by the multiculturalists foster a spirit of appeasement and accommodation, sapping our morale and inhibiting our response.
The denial of Islam’s sanctified violence, confessional intolerance, and global ambitions is the biggest impediment to our destroying the enemy. The solution is simple, and memorably expressed in the New Testament: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
President Obama recently lashed out against the idea of giving preference to Christian refugees, describing it as “shameful.” “That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion,” loftily added the American president.
Accordingly, the administration is still determined to accept 10,000 more Syrian refugees, almost all of whom will be Muslim, despite the fact that some are ISIS operatives, while many share the ISIS worldview (as explained below).
Yet right as Obama was grandstanding about “who we are,” statistics were released indicating that “the current [refugee] system overwhelmingly favors Muslim refugees. Of the 2,184 Syrian refugees admitted to the United States so far, only 53 are Christians while 2,098 are Muslim.”
Aside from the obvious – or, to use Obama’s own word, “shameful” – pro-Muslim, anti-Christian bias evident in these statistics, there are a number of other troubling factors.
For starters, the overwhelming majority of “refugees” being brought into the United States are not just Muslim, but Sunnis – the one Muslim sect that the Islamic State is not persecuting and displacing. After all, ISIS – and most Islamic terrorist groups (Boko Haram, al-Qaeda, Al Shabaab, Hamas, et al.) – are all Sunnis. Even Obama was arguably raised a Sunni.
In this context, how are Sunnis “refugees”? Whom are they fleeing? Considering that the Obama administration defines refugees as people “persecuted by their government,” most of those coming into the U.S. either aided or at least sympathized with the jihad against Assad (even if they revealed their true colors only when the time was right).
As for those who are being raped, slaughtered, and enslaved based on their non-Sunni religious identity – not by Assad, but by so-called “rebel” forces (aka jihadis) – many of them are being denied refuge in America.
Thus, although Christians were approximately 10 percent of Syria’s population in 2011, only one percent has been granted refuge in America. This despite the fact that, from a strictly humanitarian point of view – and humanitarianism (Obama’s “compassion”) is the chief reason being cited in accepting refugees – Christians should receive priority simply because they are the most persecuted group in the Middle East.
ISIS has committed no such atrocities against fellow Sunnis, they who are being accepted into the U.S. in droves. Nor does Assad enslave, behead, or crucify people based on their religious identity (despite Jeb Bush’s recent, and absurd, assertions).
Obama should further prioritize Christian refugees simply because his own policies in the Middle East have directly exacerbated their plight. Christians and other religions minorities did not flee from Bashar Assad’s Syria, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, or Moammar Gaddafi’s Libya. Their systematic persecution began only after the U.S. interfered in those nations in the name of “democracy,” succeeding only in uncorking the jihadi terrorists whom the dictators had long kept suppressed.
Incidentally, prioritizing Christian refugees would not merely be an altruistic gesture or the U.S. government’s way of righting its wrongs: rather, it brings many benefits to America’s security. (Unlike Muslims or even Yazidis, Christians are easily assimilated into Western nations due to the shared Christian heritage, and they bring trustworthy language and cultural skills that are beneficial to the “war on terror.”)
Finally, no one should be shocked by these recent revelations of the Obama administration’s pro-Muslim and anti-Christian policies. They fit a clear and established pattern of religious bias within his administration. For example:
When a few persecuted Iraqi Christians crossed the border into the U.S., they were thrown in prison for several months and then sent back to the lion’s den to be enslaved, raped, or murdered.
When persecuted Coptic Christians planned on joining Egypt’s anti-Muslim Brotherhood revolution of 2013, the U.S. said no.
When persecuted Iraqi and Syrian Christians asked for arms to join the opposition fighting ISIS, D.C. refused.
When the U.N. Security Council held a meeting to discuss the genocide against Christians and other minorities, although “many high level delegations from UN member states addressed the Security Council meeting, some at the Foreign Minister level, the United States failed to send … a high ranking member of the State Department.”
Most recently, as the White House works on releasing a statement accusing ISIS of committing genocide against religious minorities such as Yazidis – who are named and recognized in the statement – Obama officials are arguing that Christians “do not appear to meet the high bar set out in the genocide treaty” and thus likely will not be mentioned.
In short, and to use the president’s own words, it is the Obama administration’s own foreign and domestic policies that are “shameful,” that are “not American,” and that do not represent “who we are.”
Yet the question remains: will Americans take notice and do anything about their leader’s policies – which welcome Islamic jihadis while ignoring their victims – or will their indifference continue until they too become victims of the jihad, in a repeat of Paris or worse?
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1 Even before the new “caliphate” was established, Christians were and continue to be targeted by Muslims – Muslim mobs, Muslim individuals, Muslim regimes, and Muslim terrorists, from Muslim countries of all races (Arab, African, Asian, etc.) – and for the same reason: Christians are infidel number one. See Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians for hundreds of anecdotes before the rise of ISIS as well as the Muslim doctrines that create such hate and contempt for Christians who are especially deserving of refugee status.
The agreement is expected to significantly stem the tide of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan seeking asylum in other countries who are hesitant to let them in their borders. (AP Photo)
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