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Obama’s Parting Shot At Hillary: Admits Collusion Between Clinton Foundation and Obama state Department

January 22, 2017

Obama’s Parting Shot At Hillary: Admits Collusion Between Clinton Foundation and Obama state Department, Investment Watch, Pamela Williams, January 22, 2017

(All bold print is from the original article.  Please see also, Guess who was left unpardoned! — DM)

Obama takes a parting shot at Hillary Clinton during his last night as President.  He admits to the American Center of Law and Justice that his State Department worked with the Clinton Foundation to secure a position as a “favor.” I guess Obama truly wanted to do the right thing before he left office.  Many thought he would pardon Clinton, but he chose not to do that.  Further, he chose to reveal this information of collusion between his State Department and the Clinton Foundation.  We all knew it was happening, but now we have the outgoing President of the United States coming clean to the American Center of Law and Justice.
In case you are not familiar with the ACLJ here is the following:  Led by Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), focusing on constitutional law, is based in Washington, D.C. and is online at www.aclj.org.  We thank them for their excellent work for the American people.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which has filed a number of federal lawsuits against the Obama Administration to obtain information through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, said today it has received a response from the Obama State Department – on the eve of President Obama’s final day in office – revealing the name of a person who received a top position in the Obama Administration after the Clinton Foundation urged then Secretary of State Clinton’s aides to do a “favor” for a person who ended up getting a top job in the State Department.

In the fall of 2016, Judicial Watch received hundreds of pages of documents from the State Department – including an email exchange between Clinton Foundation Executive Doug Band and top aides to then Secretary Clinton – Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills – urging them to do a “favor” noting it was “important to take care of [name redacted]” – an individual whose name was redacted by the State Department.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aclj-obama-administrations-parting-shot-admits-state-department-worked-with-clinton-foundation-to-secure-position-as-favor-300394251.html

We are seeing those old familiar names appearing again, as we discover a new revelation from President Obama.  We, also, are able to view the documents in question.  The following documents give the individual’s name and reveal he was given a top position in the State Department on the closure of the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GITMO).  

http://media.aclj.org/pdf/ACLJ-(Records)-Production-001_2-For-Release.pdf

Brock Johnson was the appointee, who received the “favor.” I am sure this is one favor Obama regrets giving.  According to documents provided by the State Department, the person who received the “favor” is Brock Johnson, identified in news reports as a former Obama campaign operative.  According to the State Department, Johnson was hired in May 2009 – two weeks after the Clinton Foundation email asking for a “favor” – as “Special Assistant to the Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure.”  The job description states that he was to help the Special Envoy “in furtherance of President Obama’s order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.”

We see an old name pop up from Clinton’s campaign, Cheryl Mills, who was Johnson’s supervisor.  His job was classified as “critical sensitive” at the State Department.

“This is exactly the kind of collusion between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department that is totally inappropriate,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. “We suspected that this type of behavior was taking place and now we have proof.  It’s both troubling and unfortunate that the Obama State Department – under the direction of then Secretary Clinton – engaged in such activity and worse yet that both Secretary Clinton and the State Department went to great lengths to conceal this inappropriate action.”

In addition to the ongoing litigation involving collusion with the Clinton Foundation, the ACLJ continues its ongoing litigation against President Obama’s continuing legacy – the out-of-control bureaucracy – over the Iran lie, inaction on genocide, and the secret meeting between Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aclj-obama-administrations-parting-shot-admits-state-department-worked-with-clinton-foundation-to-secure-position-as-favor-300394251.html

In conclusion, this is a win for we the people, and I thank the ACLJ for all their persistence and hard work.  This should also help Rep. Jason Chaffetz of the House Oversight Committee, as he performs his investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

I, also, would like to thank President Obama for not pardoning Hillary Clinton, and revealing the collusion between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation.

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

 

FROM VIDEO:

Published on Jan 16, 2017

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Based on the testimony of Jeff Sessions, Trump’s pick for Attorney General of the United States, an investigation of Hillary’s emails and/or the Clinton Foundation could result in an indictment. If this happens, MANY OTHER PEOPLE/ENTITIES could be implicated, including Barack Obama himself, in Hillary’s crimes.

Hillary is guilty, already, of numerous crimes including harboring classified information on an undesignated, non-governmental server. Several brave military men in the U.S. have been convicted with FAR LESS evidence, and some of these people are facing lengthy prison sentences. James Comey of the FBI, however, decided to ignore Hillary’s obvious crimes and not indict. This was purely political and will tarnish his reputation.

We know that Comey was influenced by a rogue operative in the state department named Patrick Kennedy, who has worked in the department since the 1970s. Based on reports in the media and confirmed now by the FBI report that was declassified, Patrick Kennedy engaged in a quid pro quo with Comey’s FBI in order to keep Hillary safe from an indictment. He got what he wanted, Comey dismissed the opportunity to press charges on at least two occasions, despite testifying before Congress that Hillary Clinton did, indeed, store classified intelligence on her server.

Categories: Clinton corruption, Clinton Foundation, Clinton pardons, Department of State, GITMO, Obama and GITMO
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Trump’s Election Was a Win in the Fight to Keep Gitmo Open

January 5, 2017

Trump’s Election Was a Win in the Fight to Keep Gitmo Open, Center for Security Policy, Ben Lerner, January 4, 2017

gitmonow

Source: National Review

President Obama recently signed the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act into law. Like numerous others before it, this NDAA is a densely packed, important piece of legislation, and it contains a provision extending the prohibition on spending federal funds to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States for any reason through December 31, 2017.

Implementing this provision before the end of the calendar year was crucial. The comparable prohibition in the FY 2016 NDAA was set to expire on December 31, 2016, so failing to extend it beyond that date technically would have left the Obama with three weeks to transfer Gitmo detainees to U.S. prisons between December 31 and January 20, his last day in office. The president and his team have expressed frustration that it is now impossible for them to fulfill his 2008 campaign pledge to close detainee operations at Gitmo, which he backed with one of the very first executive orders he signed upon taking office.

The road to this point was long and uncertain. Just months after Obama’s January 2009 executive order was issued, the administration announced that it intended to prosecute 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 co-conspirators in federal court in Manhattan. Bipartisan opposition to this plan was swift and sustained, and the president was forced to abandon it. The administration had also undertaken a parallel initiative to transfer other detainees to a prison facility in Standish, Michigan, but again had to drop those plans in the face of intense opposition from the local community. A similar effort to transfer detainees to a prison facility in Thomson, Illinois was also stymied when then-attorney general Eric Holder, again facing widespread objections from those with security concerns, pledged under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Thomson facility would not be used to house Gitmo detainees.

Not long after Democrats lost their lock on the House and Senate as a result of the 2010 midterm elections, Congress passed the FY 2011 NDAA, prohibiting transfers of Gitmo detainees to the United States for any reason. Congress would pass, and the President would sign into law with objection, similar bans in subsequent NDAAs and related appropriations legislation for the next several years. Over the last two years, Obama seemed to signal a willingness to defy these bans by sending delegations to survey and report on three more possible sites for domestic transfers: Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; ADX Florence, the supermax prison in Colorado that houses the most dangerous federal inmates; and the Navy Brig in South Carolina. But these possibilities, too, were met with strong opposition from state and local authorities, and they have yet to be acted upon further.

One would have to assume that a significant reason why such domestic transfers have failed to happen since Obama first looked at the Kansas, Colorado, and South Carolina sites is that U.S. military leadership has stated publicly that the military will play no part in facilitating such transfers under current law. In November of 2015, 16 Members of Congress sent a letter to the Joint Chiefs of Staff encouraging them to seek legal counsel, in light of current bans on transferring Gitmo detainees to the United States, before implementing any orders from President Obama to the contrary. The Joint Chiefs responded to that letter in February of 2016, stating that they would not take any actions that violated the transfer ban. This was a watershed moment in the debate: Since Gitmo is a military facility, it is hard to envision a transfer of detainees to the U.S. without the cooperation of the military.

The fact that Democrats and Republicans within and outside Congress held the line for the past eight years, thwarting the president’s highly misguided plans to transfer detainees stateside, is a testament to the resonance of the arguments against those plans: It remains just as true today as it was eight years ago that bringing detainees here would pose unacceptable security and legal risks for the American people, and would do nothing to abate the jihadist threat against the United States.

That said, there are two things to keep in mind until January 20th, 2017.

First, President Obama is deeply committed to his view that Gitmo has been detrimental to America’s global reputation and has maintained that “under certain circumstances” the domestic-transfer restrictions might be unconstitutional. His signing of the last NDAA of his presidency into law, and the Joint Chiefs’ previous statement regarding military participation in any such detainee transfer, severely limit his options. But it would be a mistake to consider the matter closed until President-elect Trump, who thankfully has so far adopted a very different perspective on Gitmo, assumes office.

Second, Obama has indicated that he will continue trying to transfer remaining detainees to other countries, as he has done already with several very dangerous terrorist suspects. There is less that Congress can do to stop these transfers since they fall squarely within the executive branch’s prerogative as the primary conductor of foreign policy. The recidivism rate for former Gitmo detainees released under both presidents Bush and Obama is 30 percent. So while it remains unlikely that Obama can fulfill his desire to transfer remaining detainees to the U.S. for trial before he leaves office, he can still do grave damage to America’s national security in the few weeks he has left.

With this in mind, President-elect Trump would be well-advised to minimize such damage by 1) reiterating that in his administration, Gitmo will be kept open for detainee operations involving those still there and those who may be captured or re-captured on the battlefield; and 2) announcing that countries who accept detainees for transfer between now and January 20th would be guaranteed an extremely poor start to relations with the new administration.

Categories: GITMO prisoner releases, Obama and GITMO, Trump and GITMO
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How Trump Can Stop Obama from Closing Gitmo

November 18, 2016

How Trump Can Stop Obama from Closing Gitmo, American Thinker, Ed Lasky, November 18, 2016

Donald Trump can stop Barack Obama from continuing to free terrorists, and the sooner he acts, the better.

Barack Obama is a lame-duck president and, empowered by his pen and a phone (the only weapons he has ever held, no doubt) is determined to continue to carve out a dubious legacy for himself. He had promised to close Guantanamo prison during his first presidential campaign and on the second day in office he issued one of his numerous executive orders to come, this one directing that the prison be closed within one year.

Terrorists were big supporters of Barack Obama. At Gitmo they were chanting “Obama! Obama! Obama!” during election night and when he won started chanting to their guards and prosecutors the refrain “Hey, hey…goodbye”

President Obama was stymied in his efforts to transfer many of them to American prisons when Republicans led an effort (joined by many Democrats) to pass a law that forbade prisoners from being moved into American prisons.  But Barack Obama has found another way to release these terrorists (or “detainees” as liberals call them) by working to depict them as less of a threat than they are and then releasing them into the custody of foreign governments.

As Stephen Hayes has written in a Weekly Standard column, “Lying About Gitmo,” Obama and his team have been lying about the backgrounds and records of these terrorists to downgrade their threats to Americans and others around the world:

Let’s begin with the conclusion: Barack Obama is releasing dangerous terrorists against the recommendations of military and intelligence professionals, he’s doing so at a time when the threat level from radical Islamists is elevated, and he is lying about it. He is lying about how many jihadists he has released and lying about their backgrounds, all part of his effort to empty the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay.

Hayes assembles quite the collection of examples of anti-American jihadists that Obama has given a get out of jail card. Included among them are the so-called Taliban Five, terror masterminds released in return for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. All five had worked for Al Qaeda before 9/11.

Hayes writes:

Obama has also downplayed the threats from released Guantánamo prisoners in other ways. He describes the detainees as “embittered,” as if the hatred that inspires them grows from their time in Guantánamo rather than their devotion to a murderous cause. Instead of rejoining the war, the recidivists are merely “trying to link up with their old organizations.” Perhaps most bizarre is his description of the process he’s using to determine which detainees can be transferred or set free. “The judgment that we’re continually making is: Are there individuals who are significantly more dangerous than the people who are already out there who are fighting? What do they add? Do they have special skills? Do they have special knowledge that ends up making a significant threat to the United States?”

Those are the criteria? Detainees can be released if the White House determines that they are no more dangerous than, say, the leaders of ISIS, AQAP, Boko Haram, Jabhat al Nusra, the Haqqani network, the Khorasan group? If this is actually the way the administration evaluates potential releases, it would explain why so many veteran jihadists have been freed. It’s a process that prioritizes emptying the facility over the security of the country.

Obama has been dishonest about his policy and has downplayed threats from Islamic terrorism from the first day of his presidency to the (thankfully) last days to come. Pentagon and other national security experts have decried this minimizing of threats to America. His actions have been condemned by Congressman such as Edward Royce, the Republican head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who accused the White House of “doubling down on policies that put American lives at risk” and “recklessness.”

Climate change is a greater threat in Obama’s mind.

Barack Obama seems laser-focused on closing Gitmo as part of his legacy. This would cause irreparable harm to the security of America: released terrorists have a very high recidivism rate (killing is what they live for, and released “detainees” have been implicated in subsequent attacks on Americans) and Gitmo has a very unique legal status that makes it absolutely crucial in our battle against terrorism. If Obama succeeds in closing Gitmo and, perhaps, turning it over to the Castro brothers (who no doubt will be glad to have more prison space for their political prisoners), it will never again be an American asset in our fight against Islamic terrorism.

Obama has justified his actions by being able to claim formally that these terrorists are not being freed; instead he has been transferring them to other nations who supposedly will monitor them to prevent their return to terrorism. In practice, this monitoring has been a farce as the various nations, some but not all of them of them Muslim nations, have looked the other way as the terrorists “go back to work.” Detainees have vanished; they have gone off the radar screen and found their ways back to join their fellow terrorists.

What can be done in the next two months to stop Obama?

Donald Trump has vowed to keep the prison open, and to “load it up with some bad dudes.” But he can’t keep his promise if Obama empties the prison and fulfills his promise to close Gitmo.

President-elect Donald Trump and a Republican Congress can put foreign nations on notice that change is coming to Washington and America in January and that nations that cooperate with Barack Obama in his terrorist release program will be scrutinized in the years to come when it comes to foreign aid, trade pacts, security cooperation and a range of other measures. Some of the nations that have taken the terrorists are oil-rich Middle Eastern nations, but others are less wealthy South American nations. Would Uruguay be willing to take any more terrorists if faced with warnings from the incoming administration that moves to take them will be “looked at with disfavor” (to be diplomatic) in the years to come? Even Arab nations, who certainly have no reason to seek to please Barack Obama, might be reluctant to displease a President Trump who they will have to engage with the next four years.

President-elect Donald Trump has a chance to do a great deal to help defend America even before he becomes Commander-in-Chief.

 

Categories: Obama and GITMO, President Elect Trump, Trump and GITMO
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Obama Admin Secretly Scouted U.S. Cities to Move Gitmo Terrorists

October 3, 2016

Obama Admin Secretly Scouted U.S. Cities to Move Gitmo Terrorists, Washington Free Beacon, , October 3, 2016

The entrance to Camp 5 and Camp 6 at the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay detention center, which President Barack Obama has pledged to close amid opposition in Congress, at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, Saturday, June 7, 2014. The U.S. currently holds 149 men at Guantanamo. They include five prisoners charged with planning and aiding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack who face trial by military commission, as well as a handful of others being prosecuted. Most have been held without charge since the government began taking prisoners suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban at the Navy base on the southeastern edge of Cuba in January 2002. (AP Photo/Ben Fox)

The entrance to Camp 5 and Camp 6 at the U.S. military’s Guantanamo Bay detention center (AP Photo/Ben Fox)

The Obama administration secretly used taxpayer money to fund an official inspection of several U.S. cities as possible locations to move terrorist inmates held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in violation of federal law, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

The Obama administration ordered the Pentagon to spend U.S. taxpayer funds for a domestic search of “possible Guantanamo detainee relocation” sites, according to documents obtained by the Free Beacon. United States law bars the administration from spending taxpayer money on its effort to move Gitmo inmates onto American soil.

The disclosure has prompted a congressional inquiry to determine who in the Obama administration ordered the relocation search and how taxpayer funds were authorized for that purpose, according to a formal letter sent by lawmakers to the Defense Department on Monday and obtained by the Free Beacon.

The disclosure of this activity by the Obama administration has renewed concerns on Capitol Hill that the White House will make a last-minute effort to shutter the Gitmo prison and ship the remaining inmates to the United States, despite laws prohibiting the transfers.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt informed lawmakers in a letter late last month that he had discovered documentation showing the Obama administration spent more than $25,000 to scout potential relocation sites in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Charleston, South Carolina, and Florence, Colorado.

Schmidt obtained this information from the Pentagon only after threatening to sue the administration for its refusal to produce documentation on the matter.

“While the amount of money is relatively small—a total of$25,909.53, of which $7,687.20 was spent on the site survey for Fort Leavenworth—the admission raises the concern that the Department of Defense violated the law by knowingly expending these funds while federal law enacted by Congress expressly prohibited the agency from doing so,” Schmidt informed lawmakers in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Free Beacon.

The administration’s behavior has raised concerns in Congress that it is secretly planning to relocate detainees to United States cities without informing local officials and residents.

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kansas) told the Free Beacon that Americans should not have the most “hardened terrorists” secretly transferred to their towns by the Obama administration.

“Americans, and particularly Kansans, understand that President Obama’s desire to bring hardened terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. would make our country less safe,” Pompeo said. “In completing these site surveys, the Department of Defense followed neither the letter, nor the spirit of American law. I am proud to stand with my colleagues in condemning this illegal action and encouraging all states to pursue appropriate legal action.”

Pompeo, along with fellow Kansas Republican Reps. Lynn Jenkins and Kevin Yoder, are demanding the Pentagon explain its intentions and why it violated U.S. law in its effort to bring Gitmo inmates to America, according to the Monday letter obtained by the Free Beacon.

“Rather than spending zero dollars on site surveys, as mandated by U.S. law, the Department of Defense has spent over $25,000,” the lawmakers wrote. “This is following neither the letter, nor the spirit of the law.”

The lawmakers seek to determine who in the Pentagon authorized the site surveys, when they took place, and how the taxpayer funds were spent, according to the inquiry. The letter also demanded the names of Obama administration officials and outside contractors who participated in the Gitmo relocation sites surveys.

“We stand with our Senate colleagues in condemning this illegal action and encouraging all states to pursue the appropriate legal action in response,” the lawmakers concluded.

Guantanamo Bay inmates who have been released continue to reengage in terrorism. At least two former inmates have participated in terror operations against U.S. forces since January.

The Obama administration continues to pursue an aggressive effort to free as many inmates as possible before leaving office.

Categories: GITMO closing, GITMO prisoner releases, Obama and GITMO, Obama and GITMO terrorists
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Obama’s Latest GITMO Dump

August 18, 2016

Obama’s Latest GITMO Dump, Front Page Magazine, Ari Lieberman, August 18, 2016

GITMO(1)

In his mad rush to shut down the Guantanamo detention facility, housing America’s most notorious Islamist criminals, President Obama has engaged in yet another Gitmo dump. In the latest outrage, Obama released fifteen detainees – 3 Afghans and 12 Yemini nationals – and transferred them to the UAE where they will enjoy their new found freedom and in all likelihood, return to their violent jihadi pasts.

Obama has made the closure of Guantanamo the cornerstone of his failed policies of appeasement and has done all that is within his power to shut the facility. Congressional legislation prevents him from closing the facility outright and he doesn’t have the votes to overturn that legislation so he’s doing the next best thing and is freeing the detainees, emptying the facility of its violent, hardcore inhabitants.

Throughout his tenure, Obama has released or transferred over 150 detainees from Guantanamo. Some of those transfers were conducted in a blatantly illegal fashion such as when 5 terrorists – the so-called Taliban 5 – were released in exchange for U.S. army deserter, Bowe Bergdahl. In that exchange, Obama demonstrated his utter contempt for Congress and the constitutional process by violating legislation requiring him to provide Congress with 30 days’ notice before releasing detainees.

Those supportive of Obama’s deleterious policies have claimed that the recidivist rate is low. The figure of 5 percent is usually thrown out by the president’s shills but that figure is an outright fabrication and number is alarmingly higher. In fact, in March 2015, reports surfaced that at least three members of the Taliban 5 were attempting to communicate or otherwise reconnect with known terrorist networks. Anyone with a scintilla of foresight knows and understands that radical Muslim terrorists, steeped in hatred of the West will revert to their old ways if given the opportunity. Moreover, many of Guantanamo’s detainees are not only imbibed with hatred, they possess skills of the terror trade that make them manifestly more dangerous.

Obama has offered a number of reasons for closure of the Guantanamo facility but they all fall flat. He has argued that Guantanamo serves as a propaganda tool for terrorists but that tired line is pure drivel. The 1983 marine barracks and U.S. embassy bombings, the 1993 WTC bombing, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, the 2,000 USS Cole bombing and the 9-11 attacks, among many other outrages, all preceded Guantanamo. Muslim terrorists don’t need an excuse to hate and attack America. America is an anathema to everything they stand for and Guantanamo is just a side show.

He has also argued that the facility is expensive to run and drains resources. This is an almost comical excuse considering the source. The tax and spend Socialist in Chief has never met a wasteful project he didn’t like. Billions have been spent on Obamacare, an extravagant, failed socialist experiment that has visited disaster on the American economy. Nearly $1 billion was spent propping up the failing Solyndra solar power company and team Obama spent $500 million training four or fiveSyrian rebels.

He claims that continued maintenance of Guantanamo harms partnerships with U.S. allies and that the issue of Guantanamo continuously arises in talks with world leaders who express disquiet over its existence. Obama is of course careful to avoid specifying which leaders have expressed disapproval. Perhaps it was his good buddy Erdogan, Turkey’s unhinged Islamist thug whose abysmal human rights record makes Vladimir Putin look like Mother Theresa by comparison. The U.S. government should pay no heed to sanctimonious lecturing from third-world despots.

Lastly, Obama has argued that the existence of Guantanamo “runs contrary to our moral values,” and “is viewed as a stain on our broader record of upholding the highest standards of the rule of law (emphasis added).” Viewed by whom? He does not say. Nor does he explain how the existence of the facility “runs contrary to our moral values.” The detainees at Guantanamo are fed and clothed and accommodations are made for their “religious” requirements.

Let us not forget for one second the nature of the people we are dealing with. They are zealots who have committed bestial acts in the name of their religion and have declared Jihad on Western civilization and there is virtually no hope for their rehabilitation. Consequently, they need to be kept separate and apart from civilization. Moreover, Guantanamo has proven to be an effective tool for intelligence gathering and vital information obtained from detainees has saved lives.

This however, does not matter to Obama who seems fixated on closing the facility. He suffers from an acute case of myopic tunnel vision and is incapable of entertaining any argument that runs counter to the narrative he wishes to present. He has already fired one secretary of defense for failing to act fast enough on his transfer demands and demonstrated a disturbing willingness to trample on the U.S. Constitution to further his goals. For Obama, in his twilight months in office, Guantanamo’s closure is a race against time.

Categories: GITMO prisoner releases, Obama and GITMO, Obama and Islamic terrorism
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Obama Freed High RIsk Terrorist Named “Jihad” From GITMO, Now He’s on the Run

June 19, 2016

Obama Freed High RIsk Terrorist Named “Jihad” From GITMO, Now He’s on the Run, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 19, 2016

Jihad

Another reminder of how little Obama values the safety and security of Americans.

Obama freed Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Dhiab from Gitmo despite a security evaluation that he posed a high risk to Americans. He was even listed as an associate of September 11 recruiter Muhammad Zammar.

Despite that he was freed and you can guess what happened next.

Law enforcement officials in Uruguay are scrambling after a former Guantanamo Bay detainee seemingly vanished into thin air.

Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Dhiab, a Syrian national who was released from Gitmo to Uruguay in 2014, is believed to have disappeared across the border to Brazil.

It is not known if Dhiab, who was supposed to be under strict surveillance by the Uruguayan government, crossed into Brazil with the appropriate legal documents.

“We are coordinating with officials in Brazil and Uruguay to determine his whereabouts,” an unnamed U.S. official told The Washington Post.

Do you know a good way to have determined Jihad’s whereabouts? By keeping him in Gitmo.

In December 2014, Dhiab and five other prisoners of Middle Eastern and North African origin were transferred to Uruguay, as part of a deal between the U.S. and Uruguay to resettle detainees seen as posing little threat.

But, surprisingly, a top terrorist had little interest in being resettled in Uruguay.

Categories: GITMO, Islamic terrorism, Obama and GITMO, Obama and Islamic terrorism
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Analysis: Iran has supported the Taliban’s insurgency since late 2001

May 29, 2016

Analysis: Iran has supported the Taliban’s insurgency since late 2001, Long War Journal, , May 29, 2016

Joint Task Force – Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), which oversees the detention facility, deemed Khairkhwa a “high” risk to the U.S. and its allies, in part, because of his dealings with the Iranians. Despite JTF-GTMO’s assessment, and the DC court’s rejection of his habeas petition, Khairkhwa was transferred to Qatar in 2014. He was one of the five Taliban commanders exchanged for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

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On May 21, an American drone strike ended Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour’s reign as the Taliban’s leader. As The Wall Street Journal first reported, US intelligence officials tracked Mansour to Iran, where he was visiting his family, and then targeted his car as he crossed back over the border into Pakistan. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Hossein Jaber Ansari, quickly denied this version of events, claiming that his country “welcomes any measure in line with bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan.”

However, Zabihullah Mujahid (the Taliban’s chief spokesman) has conceded that Mansour was indeed inside Iran. Dawn quotes Mujahid as saying the Taliban chief crossed the border because of “ongoing battle obligations,” adding that Mansour made multiple “unofficial trips” to Iran.

While many of the details concerning Mansour’s travels remain murky, his presence inside Iranian territory shortly before his death isn’t surprising. Iran has a long history of backing the Taliban’s insurgency against US and allied forces in Afghanistan. Indeed, the relationship between the two former foes is one of the most misunderstood and oft-overlooked aspects of the 9/11 wars.

Iran and the Taliban nearly went to war in 1998 after senior Taliban commanders slaughtered Iranian diplomats and other Shiites in Mazar-i-Sharif. But by late 2001, as the Americans prepared to topple the Taliban’s government, the situation changed dramatically. Outwardly, the Iranians acted as if they just wanted to help rebuild Afghanistan. Western diplomats have praised Iran for its role in the Dec. 2001 meetings in Bonn, Germany, where a post-Taliban government was established. But there is much more to this story. Just before the American-led invasion of Afghanistan two months earlier, the Iranians cut a secret deal with Mullah Omar’s representatives.

One of Omar’s most trusted lieutenants, Khairullah Khairkhwa, helped broker an agreement with the Iranians in Oct. 2001. We know this because Khairkhwa was captured in Pakistan in early 2002, transferred to Guantanamo and then told American officials all about it.

A district court in Washington, DC denied Khairkhwa’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus in 2011. The court found that Khairkhwa “repeatedly admitted” that after the 9/11 attacks “he served as a member of a Taliban envoy that met clandestinely with senior Iranian officials to discuss Iran’s offer to provide the Taliban with weapons and other military support in anticipation of imminent hostilities with U.S. coalition forces.” [SeeLWJ report, DC district court denies former Taliban governor’s habeas petition.]

According to the court, the Iranians told Khairkhwa and his Taliban delegation that they could provide shoulder-fired missiles (SAM-7’s) and “track all movements by the United States.” In addition, the Iranians “offered to open their border to Arabs entering Afghanistan.” Iran did just that, allowing some al Qaeda members and others to escape the American onslaught.

Joint Task Force – Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), which oversees the detention facility, deemed Khairkhwa a “high” risk to the U.S. and its allies, in part, because of his dealings with the Iranians. Despite JTF-GTMO’s assessment, and the DC court’s rejection of his habeas petition, Khairkhwa was transferred to Qatar in 2014. He was one of the five Taliban commanders exchanged for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

During the twelve years Khairkhwa was detained in Cuba, Iran continued to collude with the Taliban. The Defense, State and Treasury Departments have all documented the relationship.

In its “Annual Report on [the] Military Power of Iran,” which was delivered to Congress in 2012, the Department of Defense explained that Iran’s support for the Taliban was part of its “grand strategy” to challenge “US influence.” Although there was “historic enmity” between the two sides, the Pentagon said, support for the Taliban “complements Iran’s strategy of backing many groups to maximize its influence while also undermining US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) objectives by fomenting violence.”

“Since 2006,” the State Department noted in its Country Reports on Terrorism for 2012, “Iran has arranged arms shipments to select Taliban members, including small arms and associated ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, 107mm rockets, and plastic explosives.” In 2012, the Iranians “shipped a large number of weapons to Kandahar, Afghanistan, aiming to increase its influence in this key province.”

Foggy Bottom added that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force (IRGC-QF) “trained Taliban elements on small unit tactics, small arms, explosives, and indirect fire weapons, such as mortars, artillery, and rockets.”

A series of Treasury Department terror designations illuminate the relationship between the IRGC-QF and the Taliban.

In August 2010, Treasury designated two IRGC-QF commanders as terrorists for providing “financial and material support to the Taliban.” A special unit in the IRGC-QF known as the Ansar Corps is responsible for orchestrating attacks in Afghanistan. Nearly two years later, in Mar. 2012, Treasury identified IRGC-QF General Gholamreza Baghbani as a narcotics trafficker. At the time, Baghbani was based in Zahedan, Iran, which is near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. From this strategically situated crossroads, Baghbani allegedly oversaw an operation that “moved weapons to the Taliban,” while smuggling “heroin precursor chemicals through the Iranian border” and facilitating “shipments of opium into Iran.” This guns-for-drugs scheme directly fueled the Taliban’s insurgency, according to Treasury.

Treasury wasn’t finished. In February 2014, three other IRGC-QF officials and one of their associates were designated for plotting terrorist acts in Afghanistan and also using “intelligence operations as tools of influence against” the Afghan government. Iran’s duplicitous scheme meant that the IRGC-QF was “currying favor” with some Afghan politicians while targeting other officials for assassination.

In the weeks immediately following 9/11, the Iranian regime and the Taliban met in the shadows. In the 14-plus years since, their relationship has become overt. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2012 that the Taliban has set up an office in Zahedan, which is also a well-known al Qaeda hub. Taliban officials have repeatedly and openly attended meetings in Tehran. And other sources confirm that Iran has often provided the Taliban with arms and training.

Contrary to what Ansari claims, the Iranians don’t want “peace and stability” in Afghanistan – at least not at the expense of achieving their other objectives. They want to force the US out and expand their influence. Given Iran’s enduring partnership with the Taliban, forged in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Mansour’s trips to Iran may have been “unofficial,” but they are definitely unsurprising.

Categories: Bergdahl, GITMO, Iranian proxies, Obama and GITMO, Obama and Iran, Taliban
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Importing Terror

May 6, 2016

Importing Terror, Front Page Magazine, Joseph Klein, May 6, 2016

Obama with Syrians

President Obama is willing to gamble with the lives of American citizens. He is intent on emptying Guantanamo of as many of the detainees as possible, even as some of the released jihadists have returned to the battlefield to fight against our soldiers. Now the Obama administration is reportedly planning to accelerate the screening process for Syrians claiming refugee status, so that they can be rapidly resettled in communities across the United States.

The Washington Free Beacon has reported that, according to its sources, “The Obama administration has committed to bring at least 10,000 Syrian refugees onto American soil in fiscal year 2016 by accelerating security screening procedures from 18-24 months to around three months.”

The current resettlement vetting process for self-proclaimed refugees begins with an initial screening by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).  The applications of some who make it through this preliminary UN screen are referred to United States authorities for further consideration and possible resettlement. UNCHR’s role in the front end of the vetting process should be reason enough for alarm.

The United Nations has called for more open borders to accommodate the millions of “refugees” and other migrants whom have left the Middle East and North Africa. To this end, UNCHR is said to be looking for alternative avenues to admit Syrian refugees that are faster than the current refugee “resettlement” vetting process. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi suggested a number of such alternatives last March, at a high-level meeting held in Geneva to discuss “global responsibility sharing through pathways for admission of Syrian refugees.”

Among the alternative “pathways” listed by the UNCHR High Commissioner for Refugees were “labour mobility schemes, student visa and scholarships, as well as visa for medical reasons.” He added, “Resettlement needs vastly outstrip the places that have been made available so far… But humanitarian and student visa, job permits and family reunification would represent safe avenues of admission for many other refugees as well.”

The net effect of expanding the grounds for admitting Syrian refugees to include job and student related visas could be to bump American citizens from jobs and scholarships that are given to the refugees instead.

Apparently, the Obama administration is onboard with looking for alternatives to the current refugee resettlement system that depends on cooperation with the states. Perhaps it is reacting to the fact that numerous states have recently elected to opt out of refugee resettlement programs, including New Jersey.

“The United States joins UNHCR in calling for new ways nations, civil society, the private sector, and individuals can together address the global refugee challenge,” the State Department wrote in a Media Note following the Geneva conference. The State Department added that it has “created a program to allow U.S. citizens and permanent residents to file refugee applications for their Syrian family members.”

Who are such “family members?” Would they include siblings and cousins of fighting age? Do we really want to add more loopholes to the existing visa system, which was already breached by the female jihadist who took part in the San Bernardino massacre after being admitted to the United States on a “fiancé” visa? Apparently so, if the Obama administration gets its way. Speeding up the “refugee” admission process and avoiding state roadblocks in the current refugee resettlement pathway appear to have become its top priority.

Meanwhile, Obama administration officials tell us not to worry. They assure us they have a “robust” screening process in place to vet Syrians claiming to be refugees. Don’t believe them. They are deliberately turning a blind eye to the warnings of experts such as FBI Director James Comey, who said last year, during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing, that the federal government lacked the data to adequately vet “refugees” seeking entry to the U.S.

“We can only query against that which we have collected,” Comey told the committee. “So if someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interest reflected in our database, we can query our database until the cows come home, but there will be nothing show up because we have no record of them.”

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned earlier this year that he considered ISIS and its branches to be the number 1 terrorist threat. Clapper pointed to ISIS’s success in “taking advantage of the torrent of migrants to insert operatives into that flow.”

Even those “refugees” who enter the United States without pre-existing ties to ISIS are vulnerable to indoctrination by jihadists already in this country. Somali “refugees” are a prime example. As Andrew Liepman, who was serving as deputy director for intelligence at the National Counterterrorism Center until he retired from government service in 2012, said during the first year of Obama’s presidency: “Despite significant efforts to facilitate their settlement into American communities, many Somali immigrants face isolation.”

Jihadists have been busy “recruiting and radicalizing young people,” Liepman added.

Nevertheless, seven years later, the Obama administration continues to send as many as 700 Somali “refugees” per month to cities across the United States, with the largest number settling in Minnesota where large concentrations of Somalis already live.

Barack Obama has said that it is wrong to “start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism.” He refuses to associate Islam or jihad with acts of terrorism or with what he calls violent extremism. He rails against “negative stereotypes of Islam” and “those who slander the prophet of Islam.” But telling the truth about the violent and supremacist strains in Islamic ideology, rooted in the Koran and the sayings of Prophet Muhammad, is neither stereotyping nor slander. It is identifying the enemy we are fighting. And wanting to make sure that we have a foolproof vetting system in place before admitting more Muslims from the sectarian conflict-ravaged areas in the Middle East or North Africa is neither fear-mongering nor discrimination. It is common sense defense of the American people from undue risk of attacks in our homeland, which is the primary duty of every U.S. president as commander-in-chief including Barack Obama.

Categories: Homeland Security, Islam and human rights, Islam and terrorism, Islam in America, Islamic immigration, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamists in America, Obama and GITMO, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic terrorism, Obama's America 2016, UNCHR
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The GITMO Exodus

April 13, 2016

The GITMO Exodus, Front Page Magazine, Matthew Vadum, April 13, 2016

gitmo_libyans_0

Despite warnings that Muslim terrorists remain a grave threat to the United States, President Obama gave two dangerous veteran jihadists at Guantanamo Bay get-out-of-jail-free cards earlier this month.

Emptying out Guantanamo is a longtime goal of Obama. Shuttering the terrorist detention facility located on U.S.-held territory in Cuba has been a goal of President Obama, going back at least to the campaign trail in 2008. He wants to close the prison camp and unleash the worst of the worst among Islamic terrorists, allowing them to wreak havoc and kill more Americans. Violent Muslim militants are merely misunderstood people from a foreign culture, in Obama’s view, and setting them free is just the right thing to do as he sees it.

Obama doesn’t give a farthing’s cuss about the prospect of these hardened terrorists returning to the glories of jihad-fighting after leaving Gitmo. Terrorists, freedom fighters — why quibble? They’re all more or less the same to the president.

The first newly freed detainee, Salem Abdul Salem Ghereby (also known as Rafdat Muhammad Faqi Aljj Saqqaf, Falen Gherebi, and Salim Gherebi), a 55-year-old Libyan national, was transferred to Senegal on April 3.

Senegal, a French-speaking country on Africa’s western coast, also accepted Ghereby’s comrade-in-jihad, Omar Khalifa Mohammed Abu Bakr (also known as Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker Mahjoub, Omar Mohammed Khalifh, and Omar Mohamad Khalifah), another Libyan national who is thought to be 43 or 44 years old.

Why Senegal? Perhaps because about 95 percent of Senegal’s up to 14 million inhabitants are Muslims.

Although Senegal “has shown no signs of jihadist terrorism” and its government has cracked down on terrorist financing and money laundering in the region, it is bordered by Islamist violence-plagued Mali and Mauritania. According to the American Foreign Policy Council, there are concerns that Senegal “presents a potential ‘backdoor’ for radical, jihadist Islam, which already exhibits a major presence in rapidly-changing North Africa.”

According to a 2008 Department of Defense report, Ghereby was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) also known as Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya, which is reportedly tied to al-Qaeda.

Ghereby had been an “explosives trainer and a veteran jihad fighter” who participated in hostilities against U.S. and coalition forces in Osama bin Laden’s Tora Bora Mountain complex in eastern Afghanistan. He was deemed to be only a “medium threat from a detention perspective” and of “medium intelligence value,” but was considered to be “high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies[.]”

Like Ghereby, Bakr was deemed to present a “high risk” to U.S. interests but unlike Ghereby he was deemed “a high threat from a detention perspective” and is “of high intelligence value.”

“If released without rehabilitation, close supervision, and means to successfully reintegrate into his society as a law abiding citizen, it is assessed detainee would immediately seek out prior associates and reengage in hostilities and extremist support activities,” according to the DoD. Bakr mostly behaved himself in custody but he “has threatened to kill US personnel on several occasions.”

Bakr, who has “extensive explosives knowledge” according to the Pentagon, admits to being a member of LIFG and was identified as “commander of a militant training camp and acknowledged serving as trainer.” He was also identified as an “arms dealer who provided support to [Osama bin Laden] in Sudan” and was determined to have been active in a cell that planned improvised explosive device (IED) attacks against U.S. and coalition forces.

Three months ago Obama released admitted al-Qaeda member and IED maker Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed Al Sawah, a Bosnian, who was shipped off to Bosnia. “These IEDs included the limpet mine to sink US naval vessels and the prototype for the shoe bomb used in a failed attack on a civilian transatlantic flight,” the DoD reported.

Another bomb maker, Abd al-Aziz Abduh Abdallah Ali al-Suwaydi, a Yemeni, was transferred to Montenegro.

Obama, who will return to private life in nine months blithely told Yahoo! News in December that “only a handful” of Gitmo detainees had returned to the battlefield. Actually, the number was 196 as of July 2015, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The 196 figure represents 30 percent of the 653 detainees removed from Gitmo who were confirmed or suspected of returning to the battlefield.

President Obama continues to delude himself, claiming that Gitmo’s continuing existence is the jihadist equivalent of waving a red cape at a bull.

“I am absolutely persuaded, as are my top intelligence and military advisers, that Guantanamo is used as a recruitment tool for organizations like ISIS, and if we want to fight ’em, then we can’t give ’em these kinds of excuses.”

But whose excuses is Obama talking about?

He is the one serially lying and making up excuses to justify releasing his jihadi soulmates. As the Weekly Standard notes, “Guantanamo rarely appears in jihadist propaganda, whether ISIS or al Qaeda, and reviews of recent propaganda materials from ISIS and al Qaeda – online videos and audio recordings, glossy magazines, etc. – found very few mentions of the facility.”

None of this should shock Obama-watchers. He doesn’t like letting facts get in the way of the radical left-wing narrative.

Categories: GITMO, Islam and terrorism, Obama and GITMO, Obama and Islamic terrorism
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