Archive for the ‘Obama administration’ category

Pentagon Denies Troop Presence on Syria Front Lines Despite Photographs

May 28, 2016

Pentagon Denies Troop Presence on Syria Front Lines Despite Photographs, Washington Free Beacon, May 27, 2016

Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers guard against Islamic State militants at a frontline base near Mosul, northern Iraq, on June 6, 2015, four days before the first anniversary of the second-largest Iraqi city's fall to the extremists. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo

Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers guard against Islamic State militants at a frontline base near Mosul, northern Iraq, on June 6, 2015, four days before the first anniversary of the second-largest Iraqi city’s fall to the extremists. (Kyodo)

The Pentagon Thursday denied the presence of U.S. troops on the front lines in Syria despite photographic evidence showing special operations troops fighting alongside Kurdish forces in an offensive to retake Raqqa from the Islamic State.

Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, maintained the Obama’s administration’s claim that ground troops in Syria are solely serving in advisory and assistance roles in the war-torn region.

“They are not on the forward line. They are providing advice and assistance,” Cook said during a testy exchange with reporters. “That mission has not changed, their role has not changed. They are not leading this fight. They are supporting those forces that are at the leading edge of this fight, and they are doing it in a very effective fashion.”

Near frontline north of the Islamic State bastion of Raqa city, in Syria an AFP photographer saw armed US soldiers http://u.afp.com/ZEZo 

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Fatisah (Syria) (AFP) – US forces on the ground in northern Syria are helping a major offensive against the Islamic State group in its stronghold of Raqa 

Cook refused to comment specifically on the photos.

“What I will say is that special operations forces when they operate in certain areas do what they can to, if you will, blend in with the community to enhance their own protection, their own security… And they might be, again, for visual purposes, might be blending in with the local community,” he said.

The AFP reported that U.S. commandos were seen climbing onto a rooftop “carrying U.S.-made anti-tank missiles.” A fighter with the Syrian Democratic forces told the outlet that U.S. troops are taking part in the group’s operation against ISIS.

The revelations contradict the Obama administration’s insistence that ground troops are in Syria solely to advise and assist local forces.

Ahead of the president’s announcement last month that he would deploy an additional 250 special operations forces to Syria, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes reiterated that U.S. troops would not be acting in a combat role

“Obviously, any special forces troops that we deploy into Iraq or Syria are going to be combat-equipped troops,” Rhodes said. “They’re not being sent there on a combat mission. They’re being sent there on a mission to be advising and assisting and supporting the forces that are fighting against ISIL on the ground.”

One reporter pressed Cook to clarify the difference between a “forward line” and a “front line.” He replied vaguely that he didn’t “have a yardstick measurement” and that the front lines of war are always “fluid.”

State Department sets new single-day record for Syrian refugee approvals

May 25, 2016

State Department sets new single-day record for Syrian refugee approvals, Washington Times

Refugees_c0-33-4544-2682_s885x516Syrian refugees arrive aboard a dinghy after crossing from Turkey to the island of Lesbos, Greece, on Sept. 10, 2015.

The State Department admitted 80 Syrian refugees on Tuesday and 225 on Monday, setting a new single-day record as President Obama surges to try to meet his target of 10,000 approvals this year — sparking renewed fears among security experts who say corners are being cut to meet a political goal.

Officials insisted they’re moving faster because they’re getting better at screening, and say they’re still running all the traps on applicants.

But the new spike in numbers is stunning, with more people accepted on Monday alone than were approved in the entire months of January or February.

“The Obama administration is on full throttle to admit as many people as possible before the time clock runs out on them,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies. “This is the classic scenario when political expediency trumps prudence, and someone slips through who shouldn’t have, and tragedy ensues.”

Powerless to stop the civil war in Syria, Mr. Obama has instead offered the U.S. as a safe haven for those fleeing the conflict, promising to accept 10,000 refugees between Oct. 1 and Sept. 30. As of Tuesday evening, he’d approved 2,540 — an average of about 10 applications a day.

To meet the 10,000 goal, that pace will have to spike to nearly 60 approvals a day.

Ten Arabic Words: Bracken’s Challenge to National Security Professionals

May 20, 2016

Ten Arabic Words: Bracken’s Challenge to National Security Professionals, Gates of Vienna, May 20, 2016

(A good, strong and highly relevant analysis of our “Global War on Terrorism.” — DM)

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Ten Arabic Words: A challenge to national security professionals engaged in the Global War On Terror

by Matthew Bracken

If you are a politically-correct bliss-ninny with a coexist bumper sticker slapped on the back of your Subaru, and you don’t have the slightest clue what the following ten words mean, then this essay is not meant for you. You are excused.

dawah, dhimmi, hijra, jizya, kafir, shaheed, shariah, takfir, taqiyya, ummah

But if you are a national security professional, senior military officer or political leader involved in any aspect of the “Global War On Terror,” AKA “Countering Violent Extremism,” these are ten words that should already be a part of your working vocabulary. If you can’t readily discuss their meaning, significance, and relationships, then you are worse than a fool, you are disgrace to your office and a danger to your country.

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If you don’t already have a firm grasp of the meaning of these words, then you are as prepared to conduct the GWOT as President Obama’s “Pajama Boy” is prepared to fight a heavyweight MMA champion in a no-quarter steel-cage death match.

If you couldn’t accurately define at least eight out of the ten directly from your personal knowledge base, then as a national security professional, you are an abject failure. You are as dangerously ignorant as a parent who would send his ten-year-old son to a NAMBLA summer camp, because a friendly self-identified “Namblan” neighbor said it was like Boy Scout Camp, but even more fun, and completely free of charge.

In effect, you sent your innocent and vulnerable young son to a summer camp run by perverts, pedophiles and predators, and you didn’t even know it, because you couldn’t be bothered to learn the actual meaning of NAMBLA independently from your helpful Namblan neighbor. Sounds insane, doesn’t it? Nobody could be that stupid, right? Wrong. That level of stupidity is official Obama administration policy when it comes to fighting the GWOT.

So, if you are an Army general or Navy admiral who, right here and now, without looking at your smart phone, cannot discuss how a kafir becomes a dhimmi, and what a dhimmi’s rights and options (if any) are under shariah, then you are as ignorant of your job as an European-theater Army general circa 1942 who did not know a panzer from a pancake, or a schutzstaffel from a schnitzel. A person as ignorant as you should be kept away from any responsibility for protecting our nation. You are incompetent, and you are a fool.

If you don’t know how to determine when a Muslim suicide bomber is ashaheed and when he is a terrorist according to the shariah, then you are as dangerous to our national safety as a North Atlantic ship captain who believes that icebergs are a fairy tale concocted by conspiracy theorists. Full speed ahead, Captain Smith!

If you don’t know takfir from taqiyya, and can’t discuss the meaning and importance of both, you are as useless as a WW2 intelligence officer who didn’t know the Kriegsmarine from the Luftwaffe, (but who thought that one of them was a private flying club, based on conversations that he overheard among his ever-helpful German cleaning staff).

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If you cannot, right now, intelligently discuss the global ummah and its relationship to the OIC in the context of the GWOT, then you should be working for the Department of Parks and Recreation, and not the Department of Homeland Security. If you don’t know what the OIC refers to in this context, put on a dunce cap, and go stand in the corner. And if you don’t know whether your office is in the Dar al Islam or the Dar al Harb, please jump out of an upper-story window, and when you hit the sidewalk, ask any immigrant who is engaged in hijra. He’ll know the answer, even if you do not.

If you don’t know how dawah relates to jihad when faithful Muslims are engaged in long-term hijra, you should turn in your official credentials and take early retirement. You are as oblivious as a WW2 U.S. Army general who thought that the Geheime Staatspolizei were German motorcycle policemen much like our American state troopers, because a helpful German passer-by told him so.

If you don’t know what the three options are for a kafir who violates the shariah when living in the dar al Islam, then please get out of the national security business. If you don’t know why a dhimmi would care about jizya, please retire, and hand your duties over to someone who has the natural curiosity and personal integrity to conduct his own study of our actual enemies and their actual strategies. But in the meantime, you must immediately stop lapping up the false narrative being spoon-fed to you by hostile foreign agents, domestic traitors, useful idiots, and cowards who know better—but who won’t make waves while their pensions are beckoning.

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If your job is national security, and you didn’t score at least an eighty on the ten-word quiz, then you have obviously swallowed the big lie that we can safely delegate the understanding of our Islamist enemies to the WW2 equivalent of “moderate Nazis.” Sounds insane, doesn’t it? But under President Obama, this is indeed our national policy for fighting the GWOT: allow a range of Muslim Brotherhood front groups to conduct America’s narrowly limited analysis of so-called “radicalized Islam,” and thereafter guide our policies toward Islam and Muslims in general.

Here is an important example straight from current events. Please tell us, oh national security professional, whom has the United Nations delegated the critical task of selecting and “screening” the Muslim “refugees” who are currently arriving in the USA at the rate of thousands per month? Any guesses? It is the same organization that the Obama administration has also optimistically granted the authority to choose our new Muslim “refugee” immigrants. If you don’t know the answer, please get out of the national security business.

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So who is it? It’s the fifty-seven-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation, headquartered in Saudi Arabia, which I referenced above. The mission of the OIC is to promote the spread of Islam across the globe until there is no moredar al harb, and all of the kafirs have either been converted to Islam, killed, or forced into submission as dhimmis. If you didn’t know, dhimmis are formally and legally subjugated second-class citizens who must pay the specialjizya tax as the price of their being allowed to live under shariah in theummah.

But this special offer is only extended to Christians and Jews: all others must choose between conversion to Islam, and the sword. That is, if their Muslim conquerors grant them the option of conversion. According to the Shariah, the defeated kafirs may also be killed or enslaved, if either of these two outcomes would be considered more beneficial to the ummah, based on local conditions and needs. (Of course, the captured women and girls may be taken as sex-slaves.) Mohammed did all of the above, and he commanded that these practices be continued in perpetuity, and they are.

The charter of the OIC puts Islamic shariah law ahead of secular law. This means, for example, that the official position of the OIC is that Muslims who leave the faith should be killed, and that any faithful Muslim who kills an apostate ex-Muslim has done no sin, but instead should be thanked and congratulated for the deed. It’s the same with adulterers: they should die, and killing an adulterer is no crime.

Yes, that really is their position, and they really do believe it, and much more than that. The OIC is made up of fifty-seven Muslim nations, united by a common belief in the supremacy of Islam, and their mutual obligation to conduct both dawah and jihad until the Dar al Islam covers the globe, and Allah’s eternal and immutable shariah has supplanted godless democracy and all manmade laws. This dawah includes the practice of using taqiyya when making arrangements or having negotiations with as-yet unsubmitted kafirs in the dar al harb.

So it’s no wonder that ninety-nine percent of the “refugees” being “screened” by the OIC and transported into the USA are Muslim, even though the Christians and other non-Muslims (who until recently made up over ten percent of the populations of Syria and Iraq) are suffering a brutal genocide and holocaust at the hands of Islamic State kidnappers, mass-rapists and mass-executioners.

The same OIC which is choosing our Muslim “refugees” is also strong-arming the European Union, the United States and the United Nations into acceptingshariah-compliant religious blasphemy laws, which will turn criticism of Islam into illegal “hate speech.” It’s worth noting that Bill and Hillary Clinton have collected millions of dollars in “speaking fees” and “donations” from OIC members, and perhaps unremarkably, Hillary Clinton also supports outlawing criticism of Islam, if the criticism leads to violence by Muslims.

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In light of this, it’s particularly sad to see disgraced former General David Petraeus heap even more shame upon himself, with his recent call for a mindless capitulation to Islamic extortion threats, extortion threats which have been ongoing against kafirs for 1,400 years. With fourteen centuries of history to examine, “Don’t make the Muslims angry, or they’ll run amok like uncontrollable sub-human savages, and kill lots of innocent people” is a wretched strategy for a former American general and intelligence agency director to espouse.

His call for the end of free speech rights anywhere and anytime that they “offend” Muslims is no different than warning a beaten wife not to anger her chronically abusive husband again, lest he give her yet another violent thrashing—which would then be entirely her fault. In fact, she should be punished again, just for provoking him after being warned not to!

This is not merely the heckler’s veto, which we are, sadly, familiar with today on the American college campus. This is the Muslim terrorist’s veto, and it means forced submission to Islam’s shariah law as the price of temporarily forestalling Muslim violence. Shame on David Petraeus for siding with the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism, and not the victims. But at least his motives are transparent: pure greed. Petraeus, who has no background in finance or economics, is making millions of dollars by hustling in Muslim nations for the multi-billion-dollar global hedge fund KKR. They want something for their money, and he gave it to them in his recent Washington Post column. (Read “Why David Petraeus really wants you to shut up about Islamism,” TheFederalist.com, May 18, 2016.)

Let me offer you another simple test that you may apply to your own national security work space and mission. If you have been ordered to purge the ten listed Arabic words (and others) from your official GWOT lexicon, and instead to hand over the task of analyzing “Islamic radicalism” to alleged “moderate Muslims,” then you are being played for a fool by our nation’s most implacable and devious enemies, both foreign and domestic.

Fifteen years after the twin towers came down, you have no excuse for such obliviousness. After the next 9-11, you will not be able to plead ignorance yet again. As a national security official, you have a duty to perform your own due diligence. You must educate yourself, and reject the politically-correct blindfold that you have been ordered to wrap around your own mind.

Sun Tzu wrote: “if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.”

Today, we are literally outsourcing our intelligence analysis in the GWOT to the OIC and various Muslim Brotherhood front groups. Simply do a search for “Holy Land Foundation, Hamas, CAIR, and FBI” to begin your overdue education. Is it any wonder that the official “Countering Violent Extremism” narrative holds that there is utterly no connection between Islamic terrorism and Islam? That the Islamic State, which quotes chapter and verse of the Koran as justification for its every decision, is not Islamic? That Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Caliph of ISIS, who holds a PhD in Islamic Studies from the Islamic University of Baghdad, knows less about Islam than President Obama and his American-trained national security staff?

In 2016, ignorance of the reality of the Islamist threat is no longer an excuse. Many resources are readily available if you are willing to look unblinkingly at the light of truth. I would suggest the online video lectures given by Stephen Coughlin and Dr. Bill Warner as starting points. Those who need or desire to read an exhaustively researched (over a thousand footnotes) academic treatise on the present Islamist threat should carefully study Coughlin’s “Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad.”

After 9-11, Mr. Coughlin was an acclaimed subject matter expert and frequent high-level lecturer at the CIA, the FBI, and the Pentagon, until 2008 when he was made persona-non-grata on federal property as an unwelcome “Islamophobe.” And who made the determination of Mr. Coughlin’s “Islamophobia?” The same Muslim Brotherhood front groups that our intelligence agencies now rely upon for their understanding of “violent extremism,” which, of course, we are assured has absolutely nothing to do with Islam.

We know this must be true, because President Obama has told us so. Unless, of course, he is practicing taqiyya on behalf of the ummah. Taqiyya is a bedrock principle of Islamic shariah, a ready tool for Muslims to use when they are dealing with kafirs. And not only radical Muslims, but ordinary, everyday, “moderate” Muslims. According to the shariah, it’s not a sin when a Muslim lies to a kafir in order to promote Islam. In that case, taqiyya is just a very clever form of dawah, helping to prepare the kafirs for the final Islamic jihad victory.

Now, go look up the Arabic words that you didn’t know, and read the article again, with fuller understanding. Then, go ask your colleagues how they did on the quiz. In the current threat environment, when mistakes are punished with passenger jets falling out of the sky, seventy is a failing grade for a trained and educated national security professional.

Please strive to do better. Your country is depending on you. Don’t let us down again. Educate yourself, and then prepare to stand firm against the prevailing winds of political correctness. Orwell said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Remember your core values, and stand tall against America’s enemies, both foreign and domestic.

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Matthew Bracken was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1957, and attended the University of Virginia, where he received a BA in Russian Studies and was commissioned as a naval officer in 1979. Later in that year he graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, and in 1983 he led a Naval Special Warfare detachment to Beirut, Lebanon. Since then he’s been a welder, boat builder, charter captain, ocean sailor, essayist and novelist. He lives in Florida. Links to his short stories and essays may be found at EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com. For his previous essays, see the Matthew Bracken Archives.

FULL: Donald Trump at Morning Joe, May 20, 2016- ‘Would you consider Sanders as your running mate?’

May 20, 2016

FULL: Donald Trump at Morning Joe, May 20, 2016- ‘Would you consider Sanders as your running mate?’ May 20, 2016

(Spoiler alert: The question about Sanders as Trump’s VP choice comes at the tail end of the interview, and Trump’s answer was that Sanders should run as an independent. The interview is wide-ranging and deals with foreign policy, China, Mexico, the Islamist threat, the terrorist attack on EgyptAir and a bunch of other stuff. — DM)

Federal Judge Orders ‘Deceptive’ DOJ Lawyers to Take Ethics Classes

May 20, 2016

Federal Judge Orders ‘Deceptive’ DOJ Lawyers to Take Ethics Classes, PJ Media, May 20, 2016

(Cf. John Kerry: Enthusiastic Proponent of a ‘Borderless World’. How about a lawless world too?– DM)

Judge-Hanen.sized-770x415xc

In a stunning rebuke to the Department of Justice Thursday, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen ordered annual ethics classes for the DOJ attorneys who were “intentionally deceptive” during the course of executive amnesty litigation. At issue was whether the DOJ intentionally misled the judge into believing that Obama’s DACA amnesty program would be halted until he made a ruling on a lawsuit brought by 26 states.

From November of 2014 until February of 2015, while the judge was still deciding the case, the Department of Homeland Security gave more than 108,000 illegal immigrants three-year reprieves. They did this after DOJ lawyers led him to believe that they would halt the program during that period. The 26 states who filed a lawsuit were thus misled into “foregoing a request for a temporary restraining order,” Hanen wrote in his blistering decision. “Such conduct is certainly not worthy of any department whose name includes the word ‘Justice.'”

Via the Washington Examiner:

The facts of the deception are not in doubt, Hanen emphasized. “[DOJ] has now admitted making statements that clearly did not match the facts,” he said in the May 19 opinion, first noted by the National Law Journal. “It has admitted that the lawyers who made these statements had knowledge of the truth when they made these misstatements … This court would be remiss if it left such unseemly and unprofessional conduct unaddressed.”

As punishment, Justice Department attorneys who wish to appear in any state or federal court within the 26 states that brought the lawsuit have to undergo annual ethics training. “At a minimum, this course (or courses) shall total at least three hours of ethics training per year,” he wrote.

In another case, such “egregious conduct” would lead him to strike the government’s pleadings, but Hanen decided not to take that step because the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in April.

“The national importance of the outcome of this litigation outweighs the benefits to be gained by implementing the ultimate sanction,” Hanen wrote. “Striking the government’s pleadings would not only be unfair to the litigants, but also unfair, and perhaps even disrespectful, to the Supreme Court as it would deprive that Court of the ability to thrash out the legal issues in this case.”

Hanen cited multiple instances in which Justice Department attorneys claimed that Department of Homeland Security directive announced in November of 2014 would not be implemented until February 18, 2015, even though they knew that DHS had begun implementing a portion of the order that pertained to the original “deferred action for childhood arrivals” policy announced in 2012.

Justice Department attorney Kathleen Hartnett told Judge Hanen during a January 2015 hearing that nothing would be happening with regard to DACA until Feb. 18, 2015. On Feb. 16, 2015, Hanen sided with the states and issued a preliminary injunction blocking Obama’s actions. Then he found out that the reprieves and work permits had been continuing all along.

That March, the exasperated judge chastised Hartnett for lying to him in January. “Like the judge, the states thought nothing was happening,” Hanen said. “Like an idiot, I believed that”:

A flustered Hartnett repeatedly apologized to Hanen for any confusion related to how the reprieves and work permits were granted.”We strive to be as candid as possible. It truly became clear to us there was confusion on this point,” she said.

Hanen seemed genuinely disappointed that he could not disbar the DOJ attorneys who lied to him, but he did ban them from practicing law in Texas:

The court does not have the power to disbar the counsel in this case, but it does have the power to revoke the pro hac vice status of out-of-state lawyers who act unethically in court. By a separate sealed order that it is simultaneously issuing, that is being done.

In the meantime, perhaps the court-ordered ethics classes will help the “confused” lawyers understand the concept of “justice” a little better.

Top Obama Aide: We are the Ventriloquists that ‘Shape the News’

May 7, 2016

Top Obama Aide: We are the Ventriloquists that ‘Shape the News’, Truth RevoltTrey Sanchez, May 6, 2016

Truth revolt

An interview in The New York Times with President Obama’s assistant and speech writer Ben Rhodes reveals chilling insight into an administration that has positioned itself as a ventriloquist to mainstream press outlets. 

Obama’s presidency happened to coincide with the dramatic shift in how people access news. As the newspaper print business began to crumble and more and more people turned to the Internet for their news, the Obama administration was in the perfect position to seize and control the content that was published. And they did so unabashedly.

Seasoned journalists lost their jobs in droves and took with them decades of knowledge and experience. Replacing them was far cheaper labor: young 20-somethings who were very eager and willing, but had no knowledge of history. The perfect puppets for the Obama show.

Rhodes explains:

“All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus. Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”

Based on the conversation with Rhodes and his assistant, Ned Price, the NYT goes on to detail just how “adept” the administration is “at ventriloquizing many people at once:”

The easiest way for the White House to shape the news, he explained, is from the briefing podiums, each of which has its own dedicated press corps. “But then there are sort of these force multipliers,” he said, adding, “We have our compadres, I will reach out to a couple people [and] I’ll say, ‘Hey, look, some people are spinning this narrative that this is a sign of American weakness’ …  and [then] I’ll give them some color, and the next thing I know, lots of these guys are in the dot-com publishing space, and have huge Twitter followings, and they’ll be putting this message out on their own.”

The NYT compared the old spin with the new:

This is something different from old-fashioned spin, which tended to be an art best practiced in person. In a world where experienced reporters competed for scoops and where carrying water for the White House was a cause for shame, no matter which party was in power, it was much harder to sustain a “narrative” over any serious period of time. Now the most effectively weaponized 140-character idea or quote will almost always carry the day, and it is very difficult for even good reporters to necessarily know where the spin is coming from or why.

Spin has always been a part of politics but this president is a master. In fact, spin is the way he started his presidency. Flashback to Obama’s former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn: she explained their press strategy leading up to Obama’s election in 2008:

“Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control…

“One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe [Obama’s chief campaign manager] videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters. We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it.”

Obama’s strategy has always been to make the press cover what he was saying. That’s why during his campaigns he preferred doing live interviews so his words couldn’t be edited.

The president’s Jedi mind trick as Hopey-One Kenobi: This isn’t the news you’re looking for. Move along.

Obama Admin Awards $270K to Controversial Islamic Charity

April 20, 2016

Obama Admin Awards $270K to Controversial Islamic Charity, Washington Free Beacon, April 20, 2016

hamasPalestinian Hamas militants take part in a rally / AP

The Obama administration has awarded $270,000 to an Islamic charity that has been outlawed by some governments for its support of the terror group Hamas and other jihadist organizations, according to grant documents.

The Department of Health and Human Services has provided a $270,000 grant to Islamic Relief Worldwide, a charity that has repeatedly been linked to terrorism financing and support for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, according to recent grant information.

The grant was awarded as part of a larger project to provide health services in Nairobi, Kenya, through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the grant.

Some terrorism experts have expressed concern that the administration is providing funds to Islamic Relief given its past ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, ties that have led some governments to outlaw the charity.

The United Arab Emirates and Israel both banned the charity in 2014 after investigations revealed that Islamic Relief had ties to Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other entities engaged in terror financing, according to reports.

An investigation by the Israeli government led to accusations that the charity was providing material support to Hamas and its operatives.

The charity “provides support and assistance to Hamas’s infrastructure,” Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs determined in 2006. “The IRW’s activities in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip are carried out by social welfare organizations controlled and staffed by Hamas operatives.”

The charity further “appears to be a hub for donations from charities accused of links to al Qaeda and other terror groups,” according to an investigation conducted by the Gatestone Institute.

The charity’s “accounts show that it has partnered with a number of organizations linked to terrorism and that some of charity’s trustees are personally affiliated with extreme Islamist groups that have connections to terror,” according to the investigation, authored by terrorism analyst Samuel Westrop.

An audit of the organization’s accounts showed that it had donated thousands of dollars to a charity established by a terrorist affiliated with al Qaeda, according to Westrop.

Israeli authorities arrested the charity’s Gaza coordinator, Ayaz Ali, in 2006 due to his alleged work on Hamas’s behalf.

“Incriminating files were found on Ali’s computer, including documents that attested to the organization’s ties with illegal Hamas funds abroad (in the UK and in Saudi Arabia) and in Nablus,” Israel’s foreign affairs ministry said at the time. “Also found were photographs of swastikas superimposed on IDF symbols, of senior Nazi German officials, of Osama Bin Laden, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as well as many photographs of Hamas military activities.”

The charity attempted to mend its image in 2014 by performing an internal audit. However, experts criticized the effort as unreliable.

“The information provided by [Islamic Relief] on its internal investigation is insufficient to assess the veracity of its claims,” the watchdog organization NGO Monitor wrote in a 2015 analysis. “NGO Monitor recommends that a fully independent, transparent, and comprehensive audit of IRW’s international activities and funding mechanisms be undertaken immediately.”

Patrick Poole, a reporter and counter-terrorism analyst for Unconstrained Analytics, noted that USAID, a taxpayer funded organization, also has donated funds to Islamic Relief.

“Time and again we see federal agencies and departments using taxpayer money to support the enemies of the United States and our allies,” Poole said. “USAID is a persistent culprit in this regard. In 2005 it took an act of Congress, led by the late Rep. Tom Lantos [D., Calif.], to stop USAID from funding Hamas institutions in Gaza. Now we see them doing the same thing, but only using a middleman.”

The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment on the grant.

Shame on the US at the UN

April 19, 2016

Shame on the US at the UN, Israel Hayom, Ruthie Blum, April 19, 2016

At an open debate on the Middle East at the United Nations Security Council in New York on Monday — as a bus was being blown up in Jerusalem — Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon told his Palestinian counterpart, Riyad Mansour, that he ought to be ashamed for not denouncing terrorism and incitement.

Danon had brought Natan and Renana Meir to the session to personify the devastation that Palestinian Authority incitement to violence against Jews continues to wreak. Natan is the widower of Dafna Meir, a 38-year-old nurse who was murdered three months ago by a Palestinian teenager at the entrance to her home in Otniel, a settlement south of Hebron. Renana is Natan’s 17-year-old daughter, who not only witnessed her mother being stabbed to death, but tried to help fend off the assailant.

The 15-year-old terrorist later told Israeli interrogators that he had been inspired to commit his heinous act from broadcasts on PA television and social media.

Mansour did not condemn any of it, of course. Instead, he berated Israel for imprisoning and killing Palestinian children. No surprise there, which is why Danon — who should be lauded for standing alone in the hornets’ nest of hypocrisy and deceit that the Security Council occupies — was wasting his breath. As Natan Meir said later in a small press conference after the event, it hurt him to hear a diplomat referring to jailed Palestinian kids as victims, when one of those “kids” had slaughtered his wife in cold blood.

Danon already knows that the PA is a lost cause in every possible respect. So his finger-pointing at Mansour was a gesture aimed elsewhere — but hopefully not at the United States, which is just as deserving of a tongue-lashing as the PA that it morally equates with Israel.

Indeed, “disgraceful” doesn’t begin to describe the statement made by David Pressman, the U.S.’s “alternative representative to the U.N. for special political affairs,” at the session in question. Condemning terrorism and settlements in the same sentence, Pressman talked about America’s “steadfast” efforts to “advance dialogue and progress,” which, he said, “will be borne from hard choices made by both leaders to advance the cause of peace over parochial politics.”

Thus, he continued: “We remain very concerned by the wave of terrorism, violence and the utter lack of progress the parties have made toward a two-state solution. It is important that both sides demonstrate, with concrete policies and actions, a genuine commitment to achieving a two-state solution to reduce tensions and restore hope in the possibility of peace. What we have seen on the ground, and what families like the Meir family present here today have experienced first-hand, is absolutely unconscionable.”

Yes, said Pressman, “acts of terrorism have taken too many lives, including Americans. The victims have included soldiers and civilians, pregnant women and mothers, Israelis and Palestinians. … Terrorism is terrorism. It is wrong. It is bloody. And it must stop. Anyone that aspires to achieve a viable and independent Palestinian state must understand that engaging in incitement to violence only serves to undermine this goal. Only a political outcome, not violence, will allow this goal to be realized.”

And here came the clincher: “We remain deeply concerned about the shooting of a Palestinian assailant on March 24 in Hebron by a member of the Israeli security forces, and are following the legal proceedings against the accused perpetrator closely. We note that just today charges of manslaughter were brought against the soldier. … In cases where anyone from any side acts outside the law, they must be held accountable.”

In other words, while Israel always holds each and every soldier accountable for the slightest whiff of wrongdoing, and the PA encourages, glorifies and funds terrorists as a matter of course and principle, “both sides” share responsibility for the violence that is causing the deaths of Israelis and Palestinians alike.

But Pressman didn’t stop there. No, he completed his comparison by reprimanding Israel for “settlement activity” that the U.S. “strongly opposes.” Such actions as “land expropriations, settlement expansions, and legalizations of outposts,” he said, “are wrong and fundamentally undermine the prospects for a two-state solution.”

Shame on him and the entire Obama administration for not realizing that the only kind of construction the U.S. should be linking to the jihad that the Palestinians are waging against Israel is that of terror tunnels, rocket launchers and lies.

The Perilous Politicization of the Military

April 18, 2016

The Perilous Politicization of the Military, American ThinkerJonathan F. Keiler, April 18, 2016

We are looking at a permanent structural change in the American armed forces that will not only weaken the nation’s ability to defend itself, but endanger constitutional principles. A year ago in an article titled “Obama’s Generals,” I described an American military increasingly politicized under the current administration.  The evidence at the time was already abundant:  the military’s refusal to identify the Fort Hood shootings as terrorism, the coddling of Bowe Bergdahl, the relief or prosecution of politically unreliable generals, and unrealistically rosy appreciations of the campaign against ISIS being the major points.  If anything, things have worsened since, most especially with the purely political decision to remove all restriction on women in combat, and as noted in a recent AT posts the mostly symbolic but still significant decisions by the Navy to issue “gender neutral” uniforms and to ignoreregulations regarding naming ships to honor Democrat politicians and leftwing social activists.  Add to this, ongoing and increasingly aggressive recruiting policies that mandate “diversity” and the situation becomes scary.

Arguably there has been some good news here and there, but even that must be taken with a large grain of salt.  Last year Congress passed legislation allowing for the soldiers wounded at Fort Hood to receive Purple Hearts, and the Army belatedly acknowledged former Major Nidal Hassan’s terrorist ties, though has yet (to my knowledge) formally remove the “workplace violence” moniker it attached to the shooting, despite the fact that Obama late last year reluctantly acknowledged the Fort Hood shooting as a terror attack.

Similarly, in the Bergdahl case, also after incredibly long delays, the Army decided to try the soldier at a General Courts Martial.  This is seen by some as the “old Army” reasserting itself in a case that reeks of liberal political influence.  Perhaps this is so.  However, the decision to try Bergdahl only came after he badly embarrassed the Army by going public with his account of his desertion and capture on NPR, practically forcing the hand of convening officer, General Robert B. Abrams.   Moreover, though the decision to try Bergdahl was made last December (four days after the first NPR appearance), the trial will not take place until August, scarcely demonstrating a hard charging prosecution in a relatively simple case.  Even assuming Bergdahl is convicted, his attorneys will argue that Bergdahl has successfully served on active duty for over two years since his release by the Taliban in May 2014, and thus deserving of leniency, undermining the contention he is a bad soldier.  This might sound ridiculous to some, but the jury will have to consider it, and it is part of the reason why military prosecutions are usually expeditious, though the Army has not demonstrated any sense of urgency in the case.

Meanwhile the low level war against ISIS goes on. The U.S. continues operate under ruinous rules of engagement which result in countless wasted strike sorties, wearing out men and equipment to no gain.  While ISIS is probably weakening under the bombardment, the campaign’s military logic is held hostage to politically correct dogmas.  The Pentagon goes along with this, hyping over-optimistic casualty reports with promises that ISIS is close to breaking.  While the Pentagon and some commentators trumpet the arrival of B-52 bombers in the region, those expecting carpet bombing will be disappointed.  The B-52s replace more capable B-1s which flew many hours but dropped only a small fraction of the munitions they are capable of throwing at the enemy.  The B-52s will do the same.  By contrast, Russia’s politically incorrect but effective Syrian intervention seems to have accomplished much more, in a much shorter time span, with inferior equipment, money and support.

I got to see some of the strain on Marine pilots, ground crew and aircraft when I visited the Beaufort Marine Air Station a few months ago.  While there I also learned a lot about recruiting, and especially political influences that are pervasive and potentially permanent. Beyond the already divisive, controversial and standard-destroying policy of allowing women in all combat billets is the military’s intensive drive to fill the ranks with as many women and other categories of “diverse” recruits as possible, at almost any cost.   Diversity is now effectively the primary goal of military recruiters, even beyond meeting basic quotas.  Recruiters that enlist too many qualified and ready applicants (read Caucasian males) that don’t meet the description of “diverse” can be sanctioned for going after easy pickings.  Recruiting goals are first defined by diversity rather than by quality, availability or cost.  In a situation in which the Marines say over 70% of young American adults are unqualified for service, and in an era in which officer quality is a serious concern, this program verges on folly.

Officers and senior enlisted who wish to progress must effectively buy into this program, and the folks they recruit and advance will too.  While diversity is not a bad thing (I live and work in very diverse environments) its empirical benefits are extremely debatable, and when adopted forcefully as a matter of policy, it is a completely political matter that reflects a strong leftist bent.  It may be desirable to have a military that reflects demographic reality in the country, but effectively favoring some categories of citizens willing to serve over others is a recipe for ineffectiveness, tension, conflict and potentially serious political turmoil.  That is not a price worth paying for a cherry-picked military selected to fit an idealized demographic template.

While to some extent the services have always been and will continue to be organizations affected by politics, among the many departments of government, the services are probably the most sensitive to political influence in terms of maintaining a free society.  The openly leftist orientation that the Obama administration continues to force on the armed forces not only damages morale and national security, but is potentially a serious long term (if not permanent) phenomenon.  Senior officers have to be sympathetic to the administration’s moves in order to advance, and junior officers are oriented politically both by selection and doctrine from the get-go.  On the other hand, mid-grade officers who do not buy in are forced out via the evaluation process or through their own disgruntlement.

While plenty of former senior officers (and Defense secretaries) have criticized the administration, and some were eventually maneuvered out, I’m not aware of any who explicitly resigned on principle, which at least might offer some encouragement for those disturbed by this process.  Whether senior officers continue to soldier on based on loyalty to the military-political system or just plain careerism is hard to say (and certainly in many cases both are true), but the practical effect of going along to get along allows this extremely dangerous politicization to snowball, a process which will only worsen if another Democrat is elected in November.

DHS Says Mexican Border “More Secure now than it has Been in Many, Many Years”

April 12, 2016

DHS Says Mexican Border “More Secure now than it has Been in Many, Many Years” Judicial Watch, April 12, 2016

Islamic terrorists and droves of illegal immigrants—mainly youths—have slipped into the United States through Mexico recently, but the deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) insists the “the border is more secure now than it has been in many, many years.” This delusional assessment brings to mind when President Obama’s first DHS secretary, Janet Napolitano, repeatedly proclaimed the border is as secure as it’s ever been amid escalating drug-cartel violence that spilled into the U.S. and a crisis of narcotics and human smuggling in the region.

Though the situation has only worsened, the administration continues to repeat the same lies even though a number of reports have confirmed that Islamic terrorists have entered the U.S. through the famously porous southern border and tens of thousands of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) keep crossing in without ever encountering federal agents before touching American soil. If anything the southern border has become a national security threat of epic proportions, illustrated by Judicial Watch’s reporting in the last few years. More on that after touching on the latest DHS distortion delivered a few days ago at a global travel and tourism summit in Dallas, Texas. Keep in mind that the event is a forum for business leaders in the travel and tourism industry and the goal is promoting travel. In fact, the forum’s motto was “travel beyond boundaries.”

Attending the event was Obama’s deputy secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. In a local newspaper report Mayorkas defended government efforts to stem the flow of illegal immigration, which is laughable considering a record number of illegal aliens have entered the U.S. in the last year. Then he said the United States is a “welcoming, embracing nation that does not operate in isolation.” This appeared to be an effort to justify the tens of thousands of illegal aliens that have crossed into the U.S. lately through Mexico, a huge chunk of them entering through Texas where the forum was held. Then came the kicker, that “the border is more secure not [Sic] than it has been in many, many years.” It was not clear in the news article if Mayorkas delivered the line with a straight face, but he proceeded to pile it on by adding that apprehensions have dropped significantly and that the U.S. works “very closely with our partners [in Mexico] to address illegal migration.” One last comment before we delve into the deputy secretary’s background. He said that the Obama administration has a “wonderful partnership with leaders in the Mexican government that are focused on security.”

Mayorkas initially served as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for the Obama administration and came under fire for reportedly abusing his power to obtain visas for shady Chinese investors in a company run by Hillary Clinton’s brother. The scandal broke after Obama picked him to be second-in-command at DHS and the media obtained documents confirming that Mayorkas was named by the DHS Inspector General’s Office as a target in a probe involving the foreign investor program, known as EB-5, run by USCIS. One of the visas sought by Hillary’s brother (Anthony Rodham) was for the vice president of a Chinese telecommunications firm that’s been investigated by Congress for its ties to China’s intelligence agencies. Nevertheless, Mayorkas got his promotion even though he has a few other skeletons in his closet.

As Bill Clinton’s U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Mayorkas resigned in shame after orchestrating the pardon of a major league drug trafficker. Mayorkas was largely responsible for freeing the drug dealer serving a 15-year prison sentence for operating sophisticated cocaine rings that stretched from California to Minnesota. The convicted drug dealer, Carlos Vignali, is the son of a wealthy political donor (Horacio Vignali) who convinced influential community leaders—mostly recipients of his generous contributions—to advocate for his son’s pardon. Mayorkas’ intervention was the most crucial and by far carried the most weight, Clinton officials later revealed. It also outraged federal prosecutors in Minneapolis, where Vignali was convicted for trying to sell 800 pounds of cocaine. After receiving numerous inquiries from Mayorkas about the case, the Minneapolis federal prosecutors wrote the Justice Department strongly opposing Vignali’s commutation but they were ignored.

This is relevant because it illustrates that Mayorkas is hardly a credible source. His recent assurances on Mexican border safety are insulting. In the last two years Judicial Watch has published a number of reports that prove the southern border is a dangerous region that has created a monstrous national security threat. In 2014 Homeland Security sources confirmed to JW that four Islamic terrorists were apprehended in 36 hours in McAllen and Pharr, Texas. Last summer, as an ongoing series on the porous southern border, JW reported that Mexican drug cartels are smuggling terrorists into the U.S. through a small Texas rural town near El Paso. The information came from sources on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border. Also last year JW reported that five young Middle Eastern men were apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol in an Arizona town situated about 30 miles from the border. Two of the men were carrying stainless steel cylinders in backpacks, according to JW’s law enforcement sources. JW also broke a story about a sophisticated narco-terror ring with connections running from El Paso to Chicago to New York City.

Earlier this year JW obtained State Department documents that show the U.S. government has known for more than a decade that “Arab extremists” are entering the country through Mexico with the assistance of smuggling network “cells.” Among them was a top Al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI, according to the records that also reveal some Mexican smuggling networks actually specialize in providing logistical support for Arab individuals attempting to enter the United States.