America, according to Friedman and the Israel Lobby professors should also ignore Israeli concerns and push forward with a nuclear deal with Iran. A successful negotiation, even one which leaves Iran with nuclear breakout capability in a few months, is certain to change Iran’s pattern of international behavior, as it becomes a regular member of the “community of nations” and gets back to enjoying more robust economic relations with many other nations. Iranian aid to Hezbollah, Hamas, Assad in Syria, Yemeni Shiite rebel groups, Iraqi Shiites, all of these aggressive efforts will soften or go away once Iran becomes America’s latest and greatest strategic partner.
Friedman has been one of the great lap dogs for the Obama administration, and his loyalty cost the president very little.
A touch of realism would be welcome in the White House at this point. But it won’t happen because the self-styled realists are wearing the blinkers, and think they know all there is to know.
*********************
Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago like to call themselves foreign policy realists. Realists are, in their minds, people who can assess international situations without any ideological blinders or bias. Walt and Mearsheimer co-authored “The Israel Lobby,” originally as a lengthy article in the London Review of Books in 2006, and then as a much longer book version in 2007. In both the article and book, the professors argued that America’s very tight relationship with Israel was strategically unsound for the United States. The authors claimed that the closeness between the two countries was a product of the behavior of the Congress of the United States, which they believe had been unduly influenced by the political power of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other supporters of the Jewish state, such as evangelical Christians.
In less academic, and blunter terms, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman welcomed Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his address to a joint session of Congress in 2011, writing that the applause for Netanyahu reflected the fact that the Congress was “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”
Of course, Friedman had been out ahead of Walt and Mearsheimer, with a similar themed comment in a column in The New York Times in February 5, 2004:
”Israel’s prime minister has had George Bush under house arrest in the Oval Office. Mr. Sharon has Mr. Arafat surrounded by tanks, and Mr. Bush surrounded by Jewish and Christian pro-Israel lobbyists, by a vice president, Dick Cheney, who’s ready to do whatever Mr. Sharon dictates, and by political handlers telling the president not to put any pressure on Israel in an election year all conspiring to make sure the president does nothing.”
Friedman styles himself as an “eminence grise,” sitting high up in New York Times land, a platform from where he can speak as an equal with the likes of academic intellectuals such as Mearsheimer and Walt, but also foreign leaders too numerous to name, and American presidents, all of whom understand the significance of receiving a favorable column from Tom Friedman. As a presumably great strategic thinker and realist like Walt and Mearsheimer, Friedman has come to the same conclusions as the professors on where America’s strategic interests lie in the Middle East. America must challenge Israel and force a two-state solution with the Palestinians. This is in Israel’s interests as well, of course, since the absence of peace creates so much ill will for both Israel and its ally America among other nations in the region and around the world. Friedman always claims he has Israel’s real interests at heart, while their elected government digs deeper holes. Clearly, if Israel were only to be more forthcoming, the deal with the Palestinians could finally get done this time (next time, some time, whenever…).
America, according to Friedman and the Israel Lobby professors should also ignore Israeli concerns and push forward with a nuclear deal with Iran. A successful negotiation, even one which leaves Iran with nuclear breakout capability in a few months, is certain to change Iran’s pattern of international behavior, as it becomes a regular member of the “community of nations” and gets back to enjoying more robust economic relations with many other nations. Iranian aid to Hezbollah, Hamas, Assad in Syria, Yemeni Shiite rebel groups, Iraqi Shiites, all of these aggressive efforts will soften or go away once Iran becomes America’s latest and greatest strategic partner.
Friedman has been one of the great lap dogs for the Obama administration, and his loyalty cost the president very little. In his case, the president revealed that he reads Friedman’s columns, and then followed it up by inviting Friedman into the Oval Office to offer up his invaluable insights. With all that respect and notoriety, nothing could possibly stop the love coming from the Times columnist for everything Obama. Friedman’s latest service to President Barack Obama was to trash the critics of the president’s Iran policy:
”Never have I seen Israel and America’s core Arab allies working more in concert to stymie a major foreign policy initiative of a sitting U.S. president, and never have I seen more lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans — more willing to take Israel’s side against their own president’s. I’m certain this comes less from any careful consideration of the facts and more from a growing tendency by many American lawmakers to do whatever the Israel lobby asks them to do in order to garner Jewish votes and campaign donations. “
Friedman and Walt and Mearsheimer are locked into an old and predictable thesis that America’s real strategic interest in the region is securing its oil supplies, and cozying up with the oil-rich nations of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. Improving relations with Iran fosters a new climate where American is not so isolated as a result of its support for Israel. And if Israel and the Palestinians make peace, there will be a warm glow everywhere, improving the atmospherics to address other regional issues.
There is however a new realism which has overtaken some of those countries who have been patronized by the American realists for decades. For years, many oil rich nations subsidized the efforts of Islamists in schools, universities, mosques, and in politics. They believed they had bought them off to a large extent in their own countries, but could tip the scales against Israel by aiding Hamas and could satisfy the aggressive demands for Islamist expansion in other places.
The new realism, demonstrated most prominently by Egypt, but also by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, all Sunni Arab states, is that Iran, in particular a nuclear Iran, will become more assertive, not less, and represents the biggest threat to their own regimes. Sunni Islamists are also a threat to stability — witness Iraq, Libya, Syria, the Sinai in Egypt. Increasingly, Turkey and Qatar are now grouped with Iran as advancing an agenda that is unhelpful to the Saudis, Egypt, and the UAE. Saudi Arabia and Egypt will not vote with Israel at the United Nations, and they will continue to sign onto the usual collection of resolutions condemning Israeli human rights violations against the Palestinians. But it is Egypt that has gone to war with jihadists in Sinai, and effectively shut its border with Gaza. Egyptian soldiers and civilians are being murdered by Hamas and other allies of the Muslim Brotherhood. Defeating this threat is as important to Egypt, as defeating Hamas is for Israel.
”But the alliance that emerged this summer between Israel and Egypt, with the participation of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, is also a highly significant strategic development. For the first time, a major regional power is basing its strategic posture on its understanding that the threats against itself and against Israel stem from the same sources and as a consequence, that the war against Israel is a war against it.
“Israelis have argued this case for years to their Arab neighbors as well as to the Americans and other Western states. But for multiple reasons, no one has ever been willing to accept this basic, obvious reality.
“As a consequence, everyone from the Americans to the Europeans to the Saudis long supported policies that empower jihadist forces against Israel.
“[Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah] Sissi is the first major leader to break with this consensus, as a result of actions Hamas took before and since his rise to power. He has brought Saudi Arabia and the UAE along on his intellectual journey.
“Sissi’s reassessment of the relationship between the war against Israel and the war against Egypt has had a profound impact on regional realities generally and on Israel’s strategic posture specifically.
”From Israel’s perspective, this is a watershed event.
“The government must take every possible action, in economic and military spheres, to ensure that Sissi benefits from his actions.”
Of course, the Obama administration seemed enthralled with the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, and both threatened and for a time carried out an aid suspension when Sissi and his supporters engineered the overthrow. There have been rumors, denied of course, that the White House has entertained similar notions for Israel due to its ”unconstructive” policy on settlement construction. More likely, the administration may be trying to intervene in a none too subtle fashion with the upcoming Israeli elections, to signal how much better relations would be between Israel and America if only Netanyahu were gone. If that is the White House strategy, it is not, to use a word, realistic. Most Israelis expect nothing but the back of the hand from Obama at this point, and Obama’s blessing will not enhance the candidates of the Left in the election.
A touch of realism would be welcome in the White House at this point. But it won’t happen because the self-styled realists are wearing the blinkers, and think they know all there is to know.
From the point of view of Obama, the more pressure on Israel, the better. Europe agrees. The European parliaments, one after another, have favoured the recognition of Palestine in non-binding resolutions.
***************
The world is totally committed to the two-statesolution. European country after country is passing non-binding resolutions to recognize Palestine in principle. The parameters of the deal which have been set in stone, notwithstanding that all issues are to be decided by negotiations, are the ’67 lines plus swaps and the division of Jerusalem.
Never mind that such a deal is not good enough for the Arabs. Hamas rejects it outright. Mahmoud Abbas, as President of the PA, is still clamoring for the so called right of return and is unwilling to recognize Israel as the home of the Jews while at the same time insisting that “Palestine” be yudenrein.
The EU has already put a boycott on goods from Judea and Samaria and is drafting legislation imposing sanctions on Israel. It is even rumored that the US is contemplating doing the same. That’s ironic considering that both want to ease sanctions on Iran.
Israel, for its part is going along to get along, at least that is, to a degree. Netanyahu has agreed to negotiate the two-state solution subject to three pillars, “One, genuine mutual recognition; two, an end to all claims, including the right of return; and three, a long-term Israeli security presence.” This is according to his remarks to the Saban Conference. He did not mention borders. Would he accept ’67 lines plus swaps? He didn’t say but I think it is implied. Even so, there are no takers.
The Palestine Authority (PA) has turned its back on negotiations which would require it to accept these pillars and instead is getting ready to ask the UN Security Council to recognize the state of Palestine and to call for Israel to evacuate the territories calling for a full Israeli withdraw to the pre-1967 lines by November 2016.
The Obama administrations is working to prevent this but at the same time is considering the implications of not vetoing it. From the point of view of Obama, the more pressure on Israel, the better. Europe agrees. The European parliaments, one after another, have favoured the recognition of Palestine in non-binding resolutions.
Congress, on the other hand, in their spending bill, provides as follows, according to the Washington Post, “The bill stops assistance to the Palestinian Authority if it becomes a member of the United Nations or UN agencies without an agreement with Israel. It also prohibits funds for Hamas.” and provides “$3.1 billion in total aid for the country (Israel) plus $619.8 million in defense aid”. It has yet to pass.
Meanwhile the PA continues its incitement and lies. A recent poll of Palestinians showed that 80 percent supported individual attacks by Palestinians who have stabbed Israelis or rammed cars into crowded train stations and 59.6 percent supporting rocket fire at Israel. Is this a partner for peace? This poll may have been intended to promote the resistance.
At long last Israel is mounting certain responses. 1) Greater police presence in Jerusalem with fewer restrictions on them, 2) Greater penalties, like longer sentences, for any violent rioters and 3) Enacting zero tolerance laws prohibiting incitement. The Bill, not yet passed into law, states, “A call to an act of violence or terror deserves condemnation in the criminal realm as well, even if it is insufficient to lead to violence or terror. It does not deserve to be protected by the principle of freedom of expression.”
Wednesday, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon attributed the building freeze in Judea and Samaria to pressure from the Obama administration and suggested Israel has to wait him out.
Speaking to reporters in Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that objection to “settlements” was longstanding and would not change after President Barack Obama leaves office in 2017 and said “Our policy has been consistent for quite some time,”
I am not so sure. Besides, she misses the point. While all administrations, from President Reagan on have considered settlements, while not illegal, to be an “obstacle to peace”, none of them forced Israel to freeze construction and even planning for construction and certainly not in Jerusalem.
The US and the EU continually allege that ‘settlements’ are an obstacle to peace. Have you ever heard them claim the same about PA incitement, or its support of terror or its refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state or its unwillingness to forego the “right of return”? Maybe, a little bit in passing, but they have done nothing to change their position and hardly condemned them.
Furthermore, Obama’s decision to back negotiations based on borders along the ’67 lines plus swaps was a big mistake. Doing so was contrary to his often stated position that any settlement must come through direct negotiations. He has forever repeated the mantra that neither side should take any unilateral moves which pre-determine the outcome. He himself, by predetermining the borders, is pre-determining the outcome.
Had he not pre-determined the borders of the final settlement, then Israel would have been entitled to build everywhere at its peril, meaning that when borders are agreed upon, if ever, the housing on Israel’s side would remain and the housing on the Palestinian side would have to be vacated if the PA insists on the Nazi doctrine of making the land yuden frie (Jew free) and the West supports such a doctrine.
The only unilateral moves proscribed by the Oslo Accords and all subsequent agreements, are those which change the status of the land. By this is meant, claiming sovereignty. So Israel can’t annex the land andthe PA can’t go to the UN and ask them for sovereignty, not so long as the Oslo Accords have not been formally abrogated. The construction of housing by Israel in no way changes the status of the land. And neither does land use planning.
And if you think that Israel will agree to divide Jerusalem, their eternal capital, think again. Nir Barkat, the Mayor of Jerusalem, when addressing the JPOST Diplomatic Conference attended by over three hundred of diplomats, gave a very upbeat assessment of the transformation of Jerusalem that is taking place and will continue to take place. He stressed the commitment by him and the government to maintain the status quo between all religions. He ended by disabusing the audience of any thoughts they might have about dividing Jerusalem. It will never happen, he said, and I believe him.
Israel is consumed with the issue of whether to pass the nation-state bill which essentially declares that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people. To do so, claims the left in Israel, is to diminish it as a democratic state. But there is no evidence to support this.
Eugene Kontorovich wrote a two part article in the Washington Post onThe legitimacy of Israel’s nation-state bill in which he said the bill was unremarkable when compared to many European constitutions with similar, and stronger, national homeland provisions.
He also argued that:
“The proposed measure must also be understood in the context of Israel’s diplomatic situation. Israel’s biggest diplomatic issue is the status of Jerusalem and the West Bank, and international pressure to create a new Arab state there and in Gaza. The major argument by proponents of territorial withdrawal (including President Obama and Sec. Kerry) is that despite the serious security risks, Israel must retreat in order to maintain a “Jewish state.” Indeed, even foreign leaders, like President Obama and Secretary Kerry have both justified their pressure on Israel by invoking the preservation of the Israel’s Jewish identity.”
And went further:
“Thus supporters of Israel leaving the West Bank believe having a Jewish state is worth security risks, surrendering historical homeland and religious sites, and expelling over 100,000 Jews. That suggests a Jewish state is not merely a legitimate thing, but one that is worth a great deal. Yet the same voices calling for Israel to undertake dangerous diplomatic concessions in the name of preserving the state’s Jewish identity balk at legislation declaring that the state in fact is what they claim they want it to remain.”
According to a Israel Democracy Institute recent Poll, 75% of Israeli Jews see no contradiction between Israel being Jewish and being dermcratic.
MEMRI, the NGO that for years has translated the Arab media to document what the Arabs including the PA say among themselves as opposed to what they say in English to the West, prefaced their latest report with this:
“Preacher At Al-Aqsa Mosque In Jerusalem Tells Jews: ‘We Shall Slaughter You Without Mercy’ and ‘I Say To [You] Loud And Clear: The Time For Your Slaughter Has Come’; Says Koran Depicted Jews ‘In The Most Abominable Images,’ Allah Turned The Jews ‘Into Apes And Pigs’; Calls To ‘Hasten The Establishment Of The State Of The Islamic Caliphate’”
(Mainstream media reports in the United States, and reports elsewhere reliant upon them, seem to affect perceptions in Israel and elsewhere of Israel, Islam, Iran and the Iran Scam. Here’s a question. To what extent do Israeli media mimic the U.S. mainstream media? — DM)
All the news that fits the desired narrative, and none other, shall be reported by the legitimate “news” media.
On February 11, 2013 Vice President Biden said that he and Obama are “counting on…legitimate news media” to help in their gun control efforts.
He said he knew people would continue to “misrepresent” the positions taken by himself and Obama, but that “legitimate news media” would cover them in a way that’s helpful to the administration.
In this post, I use the term “legitimate ‘news’ media” in the same sense that Biden apparently did.
I have been reading Sharyl Attkisson’s November 2014 book Stonewalled. Its thesis is that favored businesses, Government agencies and politicians set the agenda of the legitimate “news” media, which defer to them in what they report and how they report it.
Since Obama’s 2008 nomination and subsequent election, the legitimate “news” media have embraced Him by reporting (or creating) good news for Him and His administration while ignoring or disparaging any reports that they consider inconsistent with their pro- Obama ideological talking points. In doing so, they have relied excessively on administration spokespersons without verifying, independently, what they have been told.
On December 11th, The Washington Times published an article by Monica Crowley titled How do we protect Barack Obama today? It relates to the ideological perspective of the media as related by a broadcast journalist shortly before the 2012 presidential elections.
When I asked her for an example, she replied, “Every morning, we hold a meeting about how to build that evening’s broadcast. We’ve been doing this for decades. Everybody talks about which stories we’re going to air, what the line-up looks like, and which reporters we’ll have live in the field and which ones will be filing taped pieces. In the past, the left-wing bias was always left unspoken. People just ‘got it,’ because they all thought the same. [Emphasis added.]
“Once Obama pulled ahead of Hillary and certainly once he became president,” she said, “the bias came out of the closet. Now, every morning when we meet to discuss that night’s show, they literally say — out loud — ‘How do we protect Barack Obama today?’” [Emphasis added.]
Shocking? No more shocking than any other common but unpleasant reality. And it is congruent with Ms. Attkisson’s multiple accounts in Stonewalled. Less than half way through her book, I have learned more than I had previously understood about what, how and why the media reported — and did not report — on the green scam, the Benghazi scam, the Fast and Furious scam, the IRS scam and others. It’s disgusting but neither shocking nor surprising.
We have a “free press” in the legitimate “news” media. They are free to lie, to accept officially authorized “news” and to reject as not newsworthy or wrong anything which disputes, or is even merely inconsistent with, the prevailing narrative based on the official line.
Here are two interviews with Ms. Attkisson:
Many viewers and readers of the legitimate “news” media seem to be catching on. Perhaps that explains the decline in their numbers of viewers and readers. Do the legitimate “news” media care? They must, because it impacts their bottom lines. Will they continue their march into oblivion by running ever more bland pap while hoping for change they can believe in? Or will they, eventually, begin to report hard news, regardless of whom it might distress?
Please read Stonewalled. Depending on where you live, it may (or may not) be available at your local public library.
Obama does not want Americans to be free — to think for ourselves, to have our First and Second Amendment and other constitutional rights or to reject any aspect of His radical transformation of our country and others into nations of which He, in His twisted way, can be proud. Part II of this multipart series deals with Obama’s foreign policy.
When el Presidente Chávez took office in 1999, he began only slowly to implement his “reforms.” To a casual observer, few changes were apparent in Venezuela between 1997 when my wife and I first arrived and late 2001 when we left, probably never to return. We had a few concerns about the future of the country under Chávez but they were low on our list of reasons not to buy land and build our home in the state of Merida, up in the Andes. Mainly, we wanted to continue sailing and Merida is inconveniently far from an ocean.
Chávez’ initiatives increased dramatically in number and in magnitude only when he was well into his seemingly endless terms in office. Maybe he had heard the story of the frog put into a pleasantly warm but slowly heating pot of water. The frog failed to realize until too late that he was being boiled for dinner. By then the frog had become unable to jump out of the pot.
President Obama, flush with victory and perhaps not having heard the frog story, turned up the heat quickly at first. As a result, starting in January of last year, President Obama’s dinner was delayed by an uncooperative House of Representatives. The frog survived for a while longer. If reelected and given a compliant Congress, he seems likely to turn up the heat. We are the frog.
The situation has worsened since I wrote that article in January of 2012, not the least in Obama’s foreign policies. His then already rapid pace has accelerated and the consequences of His actions have become more “transformational.” In no particular order, He has done His utmost to enhance racial divisions, to conduct His own “war on women,” to engorge the welfare state, to import many illegal aliens, to punish His enemies and reward His friends and to conceal His intentions and actions and otherwise to deceive the public. He has also continued to militarize Federal, State and local law enforcement entities and others well beyond their legitimate needs to the detriment of those who obey the law. His transformational depredations have also infested His foreign policies and actions. In particular, He has tried to punish His, rather than America’s, enemies and to reward His, rather than America’s, friends. Despite all of this He remains — although decreasingly — popular with His admirers.
The United States has slashed its defense budget to historic lows. It sends the message abroad that friendship with America brings few rewards while hostility toward the U.S. has even fewer consequences. The bedrock American relationships with staunch allies such as Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan and Israel are fading. Instead, we court new belligerents that don’t like the United States, such as Turkey and Iran. ]Emphasis added.]
Radical Islam is spreading in the same sort of way that postwar communism once swamped postcolonial Asia, Africa and Latin America. But this time there are only weak responses from the democratic, free-market West. Westerners despair over which is worse — theocratic Iran, the Islamic State or Bashar Assad’s Syria — and seem paralyzed over where exactly the violence will spread next and when it will reach them. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
In the late 1930s, it was pathetic that countries with strong militaries such as France and Britain appeased fascist leader Benito Mussolini and allowed his far weaker Italian forces to do as they pleased by invading Ethiopia. Similarly, Iranian negotiators are attempting to dictate terms of a weak Iran to a strong United States in talks about Iran’s supposedly inherent right to produce weapons-grade uranium — a process that Iran had earlier bragged would lead to the production of a bomb. [Emphasis added.]
The ancient ingredients of war are all on the horizon. An old postwar order crumbles amid American indifference. Hopes for true democracy in post-Soviet Russia, newly capitalist China or ascendant Turkey long ago were dashed. Tribalism, fundamentalism and terrorism are the norms in the Middle East as the nation-state disappears. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
What is scary in these unstable times is that a powerful United States either thinks that it is weak or believes that its past oversight of the postwar order was either wrong or too costly — or that after Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, America is no longer a force for positive change. [Emphasis added.]
A large war is looming, one that will be far more costly than the preventative vigilance that might have stopped it.
Islam
Islam is on the march for greater power and against other religions, including Christianity and Judaism. In the Islamic view, Allah is the only true God and Mohamed is His messenger. According to Wikipedia,
Islam teaches that everyone is Muslim at birth[30][31] because every child that is born has a natural inclination to goodness and to worship the one true God alone. . . . [Emphasis added.]
Muhammad commanded: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). This is still the position of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shi’ite. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, has stated: “The Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-`ashriyyah, Al-Ja`fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.” There is only disagreement over whether the law applies only to men, or to women also – some authorities hold that apostate women should not be killed, but only imprisoned in their houses until death.
In some but not all cases, it may be possible to escape death by paying, in perpetuity, substantial fines which many simply cannot afford.
Here is a video of Ayan Hirsi Ali‘s September 15, 2014 remarks at a Yale Buckley Foundation symposium. They deal with the clash of civilizations. If you want to skip the introductory formalities, go directly to 03:45. Her remarks begin at 10:33.
Obama, like Ayan Hirsi Ali, was raised as a Muslim child. As she matured and began to think for herself, she found the realities of Islam increasingly hateful. Obama continues to find Islam good and to consider it the “religion of peace. Why?
At a dinner in Washington, Biden attempted to correct her perspective on relationship between the Islamic State and Islam, saying, “ISIS had nothing to do with Islam.” When she pushed back, Biden said, “Let me tell you one or two things about Islam…” [Emphasis added.]
“I politely left the conversation at that,” Hirsi Ali said. “I wasn’t used to arguing with vice presidents.”
Consistently, Obama’s “solution” and that of many other multiculturalists: declare the Islamic State, et al, (but not Islam itself, of course) non-Islamic.
Why Uruguay? It’s one of several South American countries run by Marxist terrorists.
Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, a former Marxist terrorist, already offered to take in Syrian refugees and a number of the freed Gitmo Jihadists are Syrians who trained under the future leader of what would become ISIS. If they stay on in Uruguay, they can try to finish the job of killing the Syrian refugees resettled there. If they don’t, they can just join ISIS and kill Christian and Yazidi refugees back in Syria.
It’s a win-win situation for ISIS and Marxist terrorists; less so for their victims.
Most of the Guantanamo detainees freed by Obama were rated as presenting a high risk to America and our allies. They include a bomb maker, a trained suicide bomber, a document forger and a terrorist who had received training in everything up to RPGs and mortars.
Outgoing Uruguayan President José Mujica has made clear that Uruguay would not hold or restrict the six Guantanamo detainees who were recently resettled in his country.
“The first day that they want to leave, they can leave,” said Mujica in a Spanish-language interview with state television TNU. [Emphasis added.]
Please see also this article at The Long War Journal for additional information on the released terrorists. It also observes that
In its final recommendations, issued in January 2010, President Obama’s Guantanamo Review Task Force recommended that all six be transferred “to a country outside the United States that will implement appropriate security measures.” [Emphasis added.]
Right. Was it an humanitarian gesture from Obama? An early Christmas present for the Islamic state and related peace loving Islamic terrorists?
Iran and Nukes
The Israel versus Iran context provides glaring examples of Obama’s predilection for punishing His, rather than America’s, enemies while rewarding His, rather than America’s, friends. As I observed here, Iran is well known as a major sponsor of Islamic terrorism. It is also remarkable for its failure to provide even the most basic human rights.
It has been reported that Iran executed more than four hundred people during the first half of 2014. That’s more than two per day.
Despite Iran’s state anti-Semitism, the recent arrest of U.S. journalists, and the continued oppression of women, the Obama administration has been attempting a rapprochement with the Iranian regime. Fending off Iran hawks in Congress and the D.C. punditocracy, the administration has argued for a policy of constructive engagement, pursuing diplomacy over military action to halt Iran’s nuclear program. The execution of two gay men, while it may not be surprising, certainly doesn’t make that “engagement” any easier.
Iran’s abysmal human rights record and support for Islamic terrorism appear to be of little if any relevance to Obama and the P5+1 negotiators as they pursue a deal with Iran. As noted here, Iran is already at least a nascent nuclear power and, due to Obama’s twisted world view and His desire for a legacy consistent with it, the P5+1 nuclear negotiations gave, and will likely continue to give, Iran substantial advantages. Iran continues to use those advantages, as P5+1 continues to give Iran all that it demands while receiving little if anything in return. The recent seven month extension highlights this strategy.
[W]hat is clear is that the Islamic Republic, particularly the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior cadre of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have gained considerable amount of geopolitical, geostrategic and economic advantages from this offer by the Obama administration. The Supreme Leader’s strategies to buy time, regain full recovery in the economy, pursue his regional hegemonic and ideological ambitions, and reinitiate his government’s nuclear program have been fulfilled. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
[T]he extension of nuclear talks offered to the Islamic Republic is not going to alter Iran’s stand on its nuclear program. Iran will continue holding the position that their demands for the following issues to be met: maintaining a specific number (tens of thousands of) fast-spinning centrifuge machines, Tehran should have the capacity to produce nuclear fuel in the future, and maintain specific level of enriching uranium. In the next few months, the Islamic Republic is not going to give up its capacity to produce plutonium which can be utilized for weapons at its heavy water reactor in the city of Arak. Iran is less likely to provide more evidence proving that it did not carry out secret tests on the development of atomic weapons in Parchin or other military complexes. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency recently pointed out that the Islamic Republic continues to deny the IAEA access to sensitive military site which are suspected to be used for nuclear activities. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
After the extension of the nuclear talks, President Rouhani pointed out on state television that “I promise the Iranian nation that those centrifuges will never stop working.” The extension not only will not alter the Islamic Republic’s position on its nuclear program, but will give the ruling clerics the opportunity to be further empowered, making them more determined to pursue their regional hegemonic ambitions. [Emphasis added.]
Alireza Forghani, a former provincial governor (and pro-nuclear radical) who now serves as strategist at a think tank aligned with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in his blog that Iran is pursuing a tactic of “elongation” in the talks, which “never are supposed to be brought to a successful conclusion.” He backs a policy of nuclear weapons being the Islamic Republic’s “definite right” and looks forward to a time when the United States faces “a nuclear Iran who not only has nuclear power, but also is equipped with nuclear weapons.” [Emphasis added.]
In a previous post headlined “Iran Needs a War,” Forghani cautioned that “American politicians should know that their next war with the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the war which guarantees Iranian Muslims survival, will be an utter destruction.” He also denounced “the childish behavior of Obama” regarding the negotiations and said that “nuclear weapons capabilities are essential in order to prevent U.S. freedom of action” and that Iran needed the capability to mount a “rapid response at the level of the atom bomb.” [ Emphasis added.]
The Obama administration is trying to portray the failure to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran as just part of the ebb and flow of the diplomatic process. But the signals coming from Tehran indicate that arms control negotiations are just another tool in Iran’s drive to achieve nuclear capability. [Emphasis added.]
Iran contends that the Obama Administration continues to lie about Iranian concessions, which Iran denies having made. Due to the overall credibility deficit of the Obama administration, I consider Iran more credible on the matter.
Iran over the weekend pushed back against key claims made by the administration to lawmakers and the press about further concessions agreed to by Iran following the last round of talk in Vienna regarding the country’s contested nuclear program.
In talking points disseminated to congressional offices since the extension in talks was announced, the administration has claimed that the terms of the agreement—which will prolong talks through July 2015—included “significant concessions” by Tehran, according to the Associated Press. [Emphasis added.]
However, Iran says that this is a lie and that no new concessions have been agreed upon.
Islam and Israel
Islam, the Religion of Peace Death and Subjugation, is not the root of all evil, but it engages in and promotes far more than its fair share of the worst types. Obama assists it in its depredations. Here’s a video of a Muslim preacher at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem speaking with great warmth heat about Jews.
The words of that “preacher-teacher,” as Ayan Hirsi Ali would probably characterize him, and those of like-minded Islamists, have gained many devout followers among Palestinians. According to this article,
An overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs support the recent spate of terrorist attacks against Israelis, an opinion poll released Tuesday finds, according to The Associated Press (AP).
. . . .
The poll found 86 percent of respondents believe the Al-Aqsa mosque is in “grave danger” from Israel. It said 80 percent supported individual attacks by Arabs who have stabbed Israelis or rammed cars into crowded train stations. [Emphasis added.]
Islamists have been regularly clashing with Israeli police on the Temple Mount and escalated a campaign of harassment against Jewish visitors, who are already under severe restrictions due to Muslim pressure. The violence reached a peak with the recent attempted murder of prominent Jewish Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick.
Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has blamed Israel for the ongoing tensions in Jerusalem.
The Iranian regime has launched a nationwide social media campaign called, “We Love Fighting Israel,” which encourages Iranian children, teens, and Internet users to photograph themselves alongside messages of hate for the Jewish state.
. . . .
Thousands of Iranians are reported to have already joined the electronic movement following comments by Khamenei’s outlining Iran’s goal of destroying the Jewish state.
“Our people love fighting against the Zionists and the Islamic Republic has proved this as well,” [Supreme Leader] Khamenei was quoted as saying in a recent speech by the country’s state-run media. “By Allah’s Favor and Grace, we have passed through the barrier of denominational discord.” [Emphasis and bracketed insert added.]
. . . .
The anti-Israel campaign now “has gone viral on the web,” according to Iran’s state-controlled Mehr News Agency, “getting more and more boost from individuals who post photos reading similar sentences, [and] sharing the #Fightingthezionists hash tag.”
In 1975, after repeated attempts to kick Israel out of the U.N., the General Assembly succumbed to the pressure exerted by the Arab countries and determined that Zionism is racism. The decision was the cornerstone of the institutionalized factory of discrimination against Israel at the United Nations. The U.N. waited 16 long years before retracting its “Zionism is racism” decision. The protocols have been updated, but even with no official reminder, the stain remains on the walls of the general assembly hall and the stench is still in the U.N.’s corridors today. [Emphasis added.]
Of the 193 states that belong to the U.N., only 87 are democracies — less than half. The countries that are taking advantage of the democratic process at the United Nations are the same ones that suppress any spark of democracy within their borders. Although the U.N. uses a parliamentary mechanism, many of the hands raised to vote are the hands of brutal dictators. [Emphasis added.]
The U.N. has gone from being a stage for courageous statecraft to a theater of the absurd: The General Assembly allows wild Palestinian incitement, the Security Council has Venezuela and Malaysia managing peacekeeping forces, and then there is the Human Rights Council, in which the guardians of humanity are regimes without a shred of humanity, regimes that invent blood libels against Israel while in Syria, a tyrant slaughters hundreds of thousands of his own people. [Emphasis added.]
The UN created a unique organization, UNRWA, to handle refugees from Palestine/Israel while every other global refugee is managed in an under-funded, undermanned separate agency. The UN compounds the abuse by only allowing descendants of UNRWA to receive aid, while denying descendants of the rest of the world’s refugees any support.
. . . .
The UN only condemned the nationalist movement of Israelis as “racism” while ignoring nationalism of other countries
The UN censured Israel when the Israeli Prime Minister visited the holiest spot for Jews during regular visiting hours, but didn’t say a word while some countries were slaughtering thousands of people.
Unlike the UN believer in the cartoon, Obama remains unwilling to learn about the bases of, let alone to consider, other perceptions.
A senior official of the United Nation Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), also known to some as the United Nations Rocket Warehousing Agency), recently called for a boycott of the Jerusalem Post for publishing an editorial
by Palestinian human rights activist Bassam Eid that called for an audit of all allocated funds to UNRWA and the dismissal of its Hamas-affiliated employees. (“Proud Palestinians must lead the fight to reform UNRWA,” Dec. 1, 2014.)
And Obama often relies on the U.N. to tell Him how and where to “lead.”
For Obama and European leaders, Israel is reducible to the peace process. And the Israeli left depends on the support of foreign governments for its network of foreign funded non-profit organizations. The Israeli left can’t let go of its exploding version of ObamaCare [the peace process] because the left is becoming a foreign organization with limited domestic support. Its electorate isn’t in Israel; it’s in Brussels. [Emphasis and bracketed insert added.]
The Israeli left is short on ideas, both foreign and domestic, and its last remaining card is Obama.
Escalating a crisis in relations has been the traditional way for US administrations to force Israeli governments out of office. Bill Clinton did it to Netanyahu and as Israeli elections appear on the horizon Obama would love to do it all over again.
There’s only one problem.
The United States is popular in Israel, but Obama isn’t. Obama’s spats with Netanyahu ended up making the Israeli leader more popular. The plan was for Obama to gaslight Israelis by maintaining a positive image in Israel while lashing out at the Jewish State so that the blame would fall on Netanyahu. [Emphasis added.]
Obama considers Prime Minister Netanyahu the principal impediment to realization of His fantasy of Palestinian peace through creation of a Palestinian state. “Peace” with the Palestinians will not bring peace to Israel — aside from Islamic peace through death. Yet it seems that Obama is meddling in Israeli politics to get Prime Minister Netanyahu removed from office. Obama recently met with Netanyahu’s Israeli opponents:
The White House is still working on a detailed plan of action, but has lost no time in setting up appointments for the president to receive heads of the parties sworn to overthrow Netanyahu – among others, ex-minister Lapid, opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog of Labor and Tzipi Livni (The Movement), who was fired this week as Justice Minister along with Lapid. [Emphasis added.]
They will be accorded attractive photo-ops with Obama and joint communiqués designed to signify to the Israeli voter that the US president would favor their election to the future government and the country as a whole would gain tangibly from a different government to the incumbent one. [Emphasis added.]
This White House campaign would be accompanied by leaks from Washington for putting Netanyahu and his policies in a derogatory light. Messages to this effect were transmitted to a number of serving political figures as an incentive to jump the Likud-led ship to opposition ranks. The US administration has begun hinting that it may emulate the Europeans by turning the screws on Israel as punishment for the prime minister’s signature policy of developing West Bank and Jerusalem development construction. [Emphasis added.]
Conclusions
Should we, who claim to be civilized and therefore to support democracy with freedom — including freedom of religion but not freedom to engage in genocidal religious wars — respect and emphasize with the Islamic views of the “preacher-teacher” in the video embedded above and of Iran’s Supreme Leader that the Jews who infest the Earth must be hated and killed? Does Hillary Clinton’s sympathy and empathy meme apply only to our enemies? Does she consider the preacher-teacher, the Supreme Leader and their ilk to be our friends or enemies?
Rather than be troubled by the nature of Islam, Obama heartily approves of it. As far as the Middle East is concerned, He is troubled principally by Israel’s refusal to commit national suicide by bowing to His every demand which, in His apparent view, should bring peace to the entire region. If Israel fails to do as He demands, it must suffer the fate of a rabid dog so that its infection cannot spread.
Obama has been a disaster as a world leader and, when He has actually tried to lead He has done so, often in conjunction with the U.N., to deprive many of their freedoms while enhancing the abilities of others, particularly devotees of Islam, to trash even more of those freedoms. If, as seems increasingly likely, the P5+1 negotiations as eventually concluded permit Iran to get (or keep) nukes and the means to use them, the world will be a much less safe place for all.
If Obama succeeds, Iran will see to it that Israel is not the only nation to suffer the consequences of His actions.
[T]he president has also indicated, with extra emphasis, that he intends to play an especially active foreign policy role, even in the twilight of his presidency, and will seek to forge a new diplomatic horizon on the Palestinian front after Israel holds its elections.
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Despite unequivocal promises issued publicly by the U.S. administration just a few days ago, to refrain from intervening in the Israeli general elections campaign, it appeared the dam had already been breached on Tuesday during a speech at Bar-Ilan University by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro.
Even though the message he delivered underwent a few cosmetic tweaks and was embedded in rhetoric of pleasantries and appeasement, the cellophane packaging and pastel colors were unable to blur the fundamental underlying significance. Indeed, underneath the heartwarming coating the ambassador time-traveled backward, straight to the beginning of the Obama era, a time when all the president’s men emphasized their belief in the linkage between diplomatic progress in the Israeli-Palestinian arena to the American superpower’s general array of diplomatic and strategic goals in the region.
And while the Arab spring shattered this conception on the jagged rocks of reality, the president has reverted — through his ambassador to Israel — to championing this idea; and at a politically sensitive time no less.
In essence, Obama is expanding and empowering the linkage principle, and is doing so while formulating an equation in which he has positioned the improvement of America’s status and clout as a superpower as a derivative of Israeli policies, and the extent to which those take into account American interests and goals, as opposed to strictly reflecting Israel’s immediate security needs and constraints.
By doing so the president has also indicated, with extra emphasis, that he intends to play an especially active foreign policy role, even in the twilight of his presidency, and will seek to forge a new diplomatic horizon on the Palestinian front after Israel holds its elections.
The goal of this message is obvious — the administration is looking squarely toward March 17 (the date of Israeli elections), and is clearly signaling that the political conditions it wants created as a result will ensure the continuation of the American-Israeli alliance with all the benefits and support associated with it.
From this perspective, the carrot of benefits is being waved alongside the whip of warnings and threats, functioning as a type of “guide for the Israeli voter,” who values this partnership with the American patron. This was indeed the opening salvo of the administration’s interventionism in the current political campaign.
(If Mr. Carter fails to change his views on Iran, or at least stop talking about them, how long will he last as Obama’s Secretary of Defense? — DM)
Ashton Carter / AP
President Barack Obama’s nominee for secretary of defense Ashton Carter has a very strong position on nuclear non-proliferation issues, the Tower reports.
Some of those positions stand in contrast with those of the Obama administration.
Politico on Tuesday described him as a “leading member of a clique of defense intellectuals long concerned with the possibility of a nuclear terrorist attack” and suggested he “could be more consequential when it comes to Obama’s plans for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program.”
Two months before President Obama’s 2008 election, Carter argued, in a paper coauthored with diplomatic heavyweights including former Special Middle East Coordinator Dennis Ross and Nonproliferation Policy Education Center Executive Director Henry Sokolski, that “Iran’s nuclear development may pose the most significant strategic threat to the United States during the next Administration.” The Times of Israel covered Carter’s nomination, noting that he was a “vocal proponent of stronger action to stymie nuclear proliferation.” Carter had visited the Jewish state in 2013, and was quoted as telling a group of Israeli soldiers that “protecting America means protecting Israel, and that’s why we’re here in the first place.”
The Jerusalem Post reported on Friday that as part of the Pentagon’s Defense Advisory Acquisition Group, Carter played an “instrumental” role in the transfer of F-35 fighter jets from the U.S. to Israel. Israel recently placed a preliminary order to purchase 25 more of the state of the art fighters. Speaking Friday to reporters at the State Department press briefing about U.S.-Israel ties, Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf reaffirmed the closeness of the relationship, calling ties between the countries “incredibly close, essential” and “unshakable” and noting that it is “arguably the closest military-to-military relationship” the countries have ever had.
[T]he State Department never conducts lessons-learned exercises to determine why previous episodes of diplomacy have failed.
Kerry is like a gambler who has lost everything, but figures if only he is given one more round at the craps table, he can win big. American national security, however, is nothing with which to gamble. Especially when a gambler is desperate, the house will always win. In this case, however, the house is not Washington, but rather Tehran.
**********
As Jonathan Tobin notes, Colum Lynch’s Foreign Policy bombshell report about Iran’s covert efforts to buy equipment for its Arak plant, a facility which could produce plutonium for a nuclear bomb, raises questions about the logic of the Obama administration, and the recent comments by both Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry with regard to the wisdom of extending nuclear talks with Iran.
If Lynch’s report is true—and it appears very much to be so—then there are two possibilities as to what happened vis-à-vis American diplomacy. The first is that Iranian diplomats were always insincere in pursuit of a nuclear resolution, and lied outright to Kerry, Undersecretary Wendy Sherman, Clinton, Biden-aide Jake Sullivan, and other officials who have championed the drive for nuclear talks with the current Iranian administration. That possibility is troubling enough, but the second scenario is as troubling, and that is that Iranian diplomats were perfectly sincere, but that the regime simply couldn’t care less what its diplomats said and pursued its own goals irrespective of any commitments they made.
A key theme of my recent book exploring the history of U.S. diplomacy with rogue regimes (of which Iran is the marquee example) is that the State Department never conducts lessons-learned exercises to determine why previous episodes of diplomacy have failed. One example they might consider is the pre-Iraq War negotiations with Iran: Immediately prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, National Security Council official Zalmay Khalilzad along with Ambassador Ryan Crocker met with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s UN ambassador (and its current foreign minister) in secret talks in Geneva. Almost simultaneously, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw met with Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi. Both talks solicited the same Iranian pledge: Iranian officials would not interfere with coalition forces in Iraq, and Iran would not insert its own personnel or militias into Iraq.
In hindsight, the Iranians there, too, lied. Soon after Saddam’s fall, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) infiltrated 2,000 fighters, militiamen, and Qods Force personnel into Iraq replete with radio transmitters, money, pamphlets, and supplies. The source for that statement? Iranian journalists. Those most enthusiastic for rapprochement, however, are now placing their hopes in the same Mr. Zarif, the man who a decade ago either lied shamelessly or bluffed about the power he did have to control the behavior of the IRGC and influence the supreme leader. Then again, there is a reason why, before he became vice president, Joe Biden was Tehran’s favorite senator.
Kerry is like a gambler who has lost everything, but figures if only he is given one more round at the craps table, he can win big. American national security, however, is nothing with which to gamble. Especially when a gambler is desperate, the house will always win. In this case, however, the house is not Washington, but rather Tehran.
(But the humanitarian, peace-loving Islamic Republic of Iran, where sanity, good will toward all and freedom flourish, needs nukes to take its rightful place in our multicultural International Community. Right? — DM)
Ali Khamenei / AP
The Iranian regime has launched a nationwide social media campaign called, “We Love Fighting Israel,” which encourages Iranian children, teens, and Internet users to photograph themselves alongside messages of hate for the Jewish state.
The movement has sprouted online in the last few days across social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms as a result of a recent call by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rallying the nation to take on Israel.
The campaign drew outrage from opponents of Iran’s hardline regime and calls for sites such as Instagram to shut it down for violating policies against hate speech.
Thousands of Iranians are reported to have already joined the electronic movement following comments by Khamenei’s outlining Iran’s goal of destroying the Jewish state.
“Our people love fighting against the Zionists and the Islamic Republic has proved this as well,” Khamenei was quoted as saying in a recent speech by the country’s state-run media. “By Allah’s Favor and Grace, we have passed through the barrier of denominational discord.”
These remarks inspired Iranian social media users to take to the Internet and launch the “We Love Fighting Israel” movement. The campaign even has spawned its own hashtag on Twitter, “#FightingtheZionists.”
The anti-Israel campaign now “has gone viral on the web,” according to Iran’s state-controlled Mehr News Agency, “getting more and more boost from individuals who post photos reading similar sentences, [and] sharing the #Fightingthezionists hash tag.”
More than 300 pictures have already been posted to an Instagram account titled, “FightingTheZionists.” The account, which had some 3,000 followers as of Tuesday evening, links to Khamenei’s personal Instagram account.
Users post pictures with messages declaring, “We love fighting against Israel,” “I love to fight Israel,” “We are lovers of fighting Israel,” and “I love fighting against Zionists,” among other similar messages.
One picture in particular has caught the eye of Iran critics on the web and prompted a harsh response to the anti-Israel campaign.
The photo shows a young child decked out in military gear and holding a sign that translates from Farsi as, “I love fighting against Zionists.”
Captioned alongside the photo is an English language message that reads: “Our people love fighting against the Zionists and the Islamic Republic has proved this as well, Ayatollah Khamenei.”
It is not the only photo to depict young children as participating in the campaign to fight Israel.
The photos posted on the Instagram page depict “several groups of people including war veterans, students, journalists, and people from all walks of life joining the campaign,” according to Mehr News.
The American nonprofit group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), which works to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, expressed disgust at the campaign on its Twitter account.
UANI lashed out at the Iranian regime for promoting “vile hate” and the “indoctrination of hate children.”
Additionally, Matan Shamir, UANI’s director of research, called on social media sites to immediately take steps to remove the Iranian campaign.
“The Iranian regime’s brazen exploitation and indoctrination of innocent children to hate and commit violence is utterly deplorable,” Shamir said. “Instagram and its parent company Facebook must enforce their own guidelines prohibiting hate speech and incitement to violence, and remove such propaganda immediately.”
Shamir went on to criticize Iran for its own domestic human rights abuses, such as preventing average citizens from accessing the Internet.
“It is intolerable that while the regime blocks its own citizens from accessing many popular social media platforms, it uses them to advance its own crude and hateful ideology,” he said.
(His views must, if we are to credit Obama and many others, not be Islamic. Nor, of course, could they represent the views of Hamas or the “moderate” Palestinian Authority, as to which Israel is told to show restraint. — DM)
Outgoing Uruguayan President José Mujica has made clear that Uruguay would not hold or restrict the six Guantanamo detainees who were recently resettled in his country.
“The first day that they want to leave, they can leave,” said Mujica in a Spanish-language interview with state television TNU.
— DM)
Everyone likes presents; even murderous Muslim terrorists.
That must be why Obama decided to give ISIS, Hamas and Al Qaeda an early Christmas present by freeing their followers from Guantanamo Bay and dispatching them to Uruguay.
Why Uruguay? It’s one of several South American countries run by Marxist terrorists.
Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, a former Marxist terrorist, already offered to take in Syrian refugees and a number of the freed Gitmo Jihadists are Syrians who trained under the future leader of what would become ISIS. If they stay on in Uruguay, they can try to finish the job of killing the Syrian refugees resettled there. If they don’t, they can just join ISIS and kill Christian and Yazidi refugees back in Syria.
It’s a win-win situation for ISIS and Marxist terrorists; less so for their victims.
Most of the Guantanamo detainees freed by Obama were rated as presenting a high risk to America and our allies. They include a bomb maker, a trained suicide bomber, a document forger and a terrorist who had received training in everything up to RPGs and mortars.
The only thing Obama left out was the partridge in the pear tree. It probably wasn’t Halal.
These terrorists aren’t about to settle down in a country best known for its agricultural sector. There is no major demand for bomb makers to herd sheep or suicide bombers to milk cows.
Obama’s Christmas gift to Islamic terrorists includes Mohammed Tahanmatan, a Hamas terrorist who told American personnel at Gitmo that he “hates all enemies of Islam, including Americans, Jews, Christians and Muslims who do not think as he does.”
Uruguay is filled with these enemies of Islam, but so is the rest of the world. There’s no telling where Mohammed Tahanmatan will take his Jihad against Americans, Christians and Jews; he might go back to Israel or head over to Syria. Or he might just go back to Afghanistan and Pakistan to kill the American soldiers still left there.
Either way the blood of his victims will be on Obama’s hands.
And yet Mohammed Tahanmatan is the least dangerous of the terrorists freed by Barack Obama.
Ahmed Adnan Ahjam, Abd al Hadi Omar Mahmoud Faraj, Ali Husain Shaabaan and Jihad Ahmed Diyab were members of the Syrian Group which left an Assad crackdown to join Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The Syrian Group was headed by Abu Musab al-Suri, a key ideological figure in international Jihadist circles, who was linked to multiple bombings in Europe, including one that wounded American soldiers.
The Damascus Cell of the Syrian Group was run by the uncle of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi who also sat on AQIQ’s advisory council. Al Qaeda in Iraq is known today as ISIS.
Even while Obama bombs ISIS in Syria and Iraq, he releases experienced ISIS recruits from Gitmo.
Ahmed Adnan Ahjam was listed as receiving advanced training from Al Qaeda in the use of a wide range of battlefield weapons up to artillery. He will be invaluable to ISIS in its campaign in Kobani.
Obama’s present of Ahjam to ISIS will aid in genocide against the Kurds of Kobani. Ahjam was rated a “high risk” and should never have been released.
Abd al Hadi Omar Mahmoud Faraj received training at a camp run by Zarqawi providing him with an even more direct link to ISIS. He is a trained suicide bomber. ISIS will make use of him to train suicide bombers including its growing army of brainwashed and abused child soldiers.
Faraj was rated “high risk”. He should never have been released.
Ali Husain Shaabaan also trained at a Zarqawi camp. He was listed as “high risk”. Like Farj and Ahjam, there is little doubt that he will be in Syria before too long.
Jihad Ahmed Diyab is a document forger who provided documents to the Jihadist network of Abu Zubaydah linked to the bombing plot against Los Angeles International Airport, he worked with Zarqawi and associated with 9/11 terrorist recruiter Mohammed Zammar.
Jihad Diyab was not only listed as being “high risk”, but also as being of high intelligence value. He has connections to multiple Islamic terrorist groups around the world. That makes Jihad potentially the most valuable member of the Syrian Group to be released by Obama in his Christmas gift to ISIS.
ISIS will find Jihad Diyab useful for providing forged documents to smuggle its fighters into Syria and also to potentially move terrorists into Europe and America.
And yet giving this gift of Jihad to ISIS may pale next to Abdul Bin Mohammed Abis Ourgy, the final Gitmo Jihadist, who not only has many links to Muslim terrorist groups, but is a bomb maker who also trained terrorists in his explosive arts. The United States suspected that he may have even known beforehand about 9/11.
Ourgy is likely to head for North Africa and his ability to move money around will help strengthen the operations of Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda linked groups in the area. His bomb making skills will be used to train the next generation of terrorists. The blood of those they kill will be on Obama’s hands.
It goes without saying that Ourgy was listed as “high risk” and that releasing a bomb maker who will train other terrorists to build bombs is about as irresponsible as it gets.
Obama didn’t just free six more Gitmo detainees. He dumped “high risk” Jihadists with skills that make them extremely useful to ISIS and extremely dangerous to us into a country run by a former terrorist.
These terrorists are not just Al Qaeda, but the majority of them have personal links to Syria and to the network of what has become ISIS.
“We’ve offered our hospitality for human beings who have suffered a terrible kidnapping in Guantanamo,” President Jose Mujica has said, making it clear once again where his sympathies lie.
The former Marxist terrorist predictably sympathizes with the terrorists, not the terrorized. Obama might as well have given the new ISIS recruits a plane ticket directly to Istanbul. The only difference between doing that and doing what he did is plausible deniability.
As soon as the money gets wired to them from Saudi Arabia or Qatar, they’ll be at Carrasco International Airport. After a plane trip from there to Buenos Aires to Istanbul, the rest will be a jaunt across the border with a wink and a nod from friendly Turkish border guards happy that ISIS is committing the genocide that their prospective position in the European Union won’t allow them to openly carry out.
Of the terrorists released from Gitmo, 100 were confirmed as having returned to terrorism. Thanks to Obama’s Christmas present to Hamas, Al Qaeda and ISIS, that number is about to go up.
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