Posted tagged ‘Obama and Islamic State’

Trump’s History-Changing Vow To Eradicate ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’

January 23, 2017

Trump’s History-Changing Vow To Eradicate ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’, PJ mediaRobert Spencer, January 23, 2017

trumpandisisPresident Donald Trump after he was sworn in by Justice John Roberts during the Presidential Inauguration ceremony for Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States held at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC on January 20, 2017. (Photo by Anthony Behar) (Sipa via AP Images)

It is welcome to have that kind of moral clarity back in the White House. President Trump clearly hopes to emulate Reagan by destroying the Islamic State just as Reagan’s actions led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

That collapse didn’t end Communism, which is alive and well in the Democratic Party and on U.S. university campuses, but it did deal it a significant blow. If Trump ends the Islamic State, it won’t end Islamic jihad, but it will deal it a significant blow. After so many years of ignoring, enabling, explaining away, and blaming itself for jihad, the United States is finally getting back on track.

And not a moment too soon.

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President Trump first said it during his Inaugural Address:

We will … unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth.

The establishment media has been too involved with comparing crowd sizes to take any significant notice, but Trump’s words heralded a change that was momentous — and could make all the difference in our civilizational struggle against the global jihad.

One principal reason why the threat of Islamic jihad that confronts Trump is so large is because his predecessor ignored it, denied its motivating ideology, and allowed it to proliferate. A pivotal yet overlooked action of the Obama administration was its purge of all mention of Islam and jihad from law enforcement counter-terror training materials in 2011 to heed the demand of U.S. Muslim groups and their allies. Since then, the U.S. has failed to identify, confront, and oppose the ideology that has enabled jihadis to behave more boldly and aggressively then ever.

That ideology has spread unchecked in the U.S. in large part because Barack Obama didn’t want law enforcement officials learning about it: that would have been “Islamophobic.”

It is an adage as old as warfare itself: one cannot defeat an enemy that one does not understand. It could be added that one certainly has no chance whatsoever of defeating an enemy that one refuses to understand. Yet Obama’s “Countering Violent Extremism” program pointedly and ostentatiously avoided all mention of Islam and jihad in connection with terrorism. He did this in accord with the claim that investigating and speaking honestly about the beliefs and goals of jihadis would so mortally offend moderate Muslims that they would become “radicalized” and join the jihad themselves.

The whole construct was absurd. Those who advanced the claim, and they were many, never explained why these “moderates” who supposedly rejected violence in the name of Islam as “un-Islamic” would be so enraged by discussion of how others committed violence in the name of Islam that they would be moved to … violence in the name of Islam.

But now the Absurd Administration is gone. A new age of realism is dawning.

Trump has vowed to “eradicate” what he calls “radical Islamic terrorism” “completely from the face of the Earth.” He reiterated this the day after his inauguration, when speaking to the CIA:

We have to get rid of ISIS. We have no choice. Radical Islamic terrorism, and I said it yesterday, has to be eradicated, just off the face of the Earth. This is evil. This is evil … This is a level of evil that we haven’t seen. And you’re going to go do it and you’re going to do a phenomenal job, but we’re going to end it. It’s time. It’s time right now to end it.

Strictly speaking, it isn’t possible within four years, or eight, to eradicate “radical Islamic terrorism” — which is actually orthodox and mainstream in Islam — as long as there are people who believe the Qur’an is the perfect and eternal word of Allah.

There will always be some believers who get the idea that they can please Allah by killing and being killed for him (cf. Qur’an 9:111). However, Trump’s declaration, while hyperbolic, was a welcome indication of his apparent determination to speak honestly about the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat, and to combat it and roll it back.

And to call it “evil,” after eight years of the Obama administration’s moral equivocation and obfuscation, is as refreshing as Ronald Reagan calling the Soviet Union an “evil empire” in the midst of a similar period of equivocation and cowardice.

It is welcome to have that kind of moral clarity back in the White House. President Trump clearly hopes to emulate Reagan by destroying the Islamic State just as Reagan’s actions led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

That collapse didn’t end Communism, which is alive and well in the Democratic Party and on U.S. university campuses, but it did deal it a significant blow. If Trump ends the Islamic State, it won’t end Islamic jihad, but it will deal it a significant blow. After so many years of ignoring, enabling, explaining away, and blaming itself for jihad, the United States is finally getting back on track.

And not a moment too soon.

Congratulations, President Trump! Now what? Reversing the ostrich complex

January 21, 2017

Congratulations, President Trump! Now what? Reversing the ostrich complex, Jihad Watch

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

trump-oval-office

We, as military officers, have failed to treat linguistics – the war of words – with the level of importance to which it deserves. As summarized in Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech:

“The war against Islamism is as much a war of ideas as it is a physical battle, and therefore the dissemination of information in the free world is paramount. The manipulation of Western court systems, the use of Western “hate speech laws” and other products of political correctness to destroy the very principles that democracies stand for, must be countered.

Unfortunately Islamist lawfare is beginning to limit and control public discussion of Islam, particularly as it pertains to comprehending the threat posed by Islamic terrorist entities. As such, the Islamist lawfare challenge presents a direct and real threat not only to our constitutional rights, but also to our national security.”[184]

Can you imagine a scenario where, during World War II, if Nazis complained to us about our analyzing Mein Kampf or the Enigma machine, we would have stopped?[117] Or where we would have appointed Nazi party members or open supporters and advocates to senior leadership positions within the Executive Branch departments or as special assistants to the President?[118][119] [120] It would have been insane to fight a war that way.

And yet that is exactly what we are doing now with this policy and this administration. Islamic doctrine, as codified in the Qur’an, Hadith, Sira and sharia law, is the Enigma machine with which we can decode the actions and intentions of the threat. But Islamic law prohibits non-Muslims from even purchasing the Qur’an.[121]

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“ISIL [The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] is not ‘Islamic.’” – President Barack Obama[1]

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” – Joseph Goebbels[2]

Why does our government recoil “at the notion that we might actually want to scrutinize an ideology that fuels anti-American militarism”?[3] The purge of “Islam,” “jihad,” “sharia,” and other related words from our National Security documents, counter-terrorism training, and intelligence analysis is eerily reminiscent of the warning George Orwell described in his seminal work – 1984.[4] “The purpose of Newspeak was…to make all other modes of thought impossible…by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meaning”[5] This policy is the “Ostrich Complex,” a synonym for Jihad Denial Syndrome (JDS).[6] [7]

Both the Bush and Obama administrations have effectively ascribed to a “see no evil” policy when it comes to Islam.[8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] The problem is that “words convey reality,” and it is our duty as military officers to be connected to reality.[20] Our oath requires us to “…support and defend the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”.[21] Yet this administration has tasked us to focus on the euphemistic “violent extremists”, which aside from being woefully ambiguous, ignores those who may not meet the narrow definition of violent extremists – yet still meet the broader threshold of being enemies.[*][22]

In 2004, The 9/11 Commission Report identified the enemy as “twofold: al Qaeda, a stateless network of terrorists that struck us on 9/11; and a radical ideological movement in the Islamic world, inspired in part by al Qaeda, which has spawned terrorist groups and violence across the globe.”[23] It went on to note that “ Islamists consider Islam to be as much a religion as an ‘ideology.’”[24] In spite of this, President Obama “and his subordinates, in consultation with advisors from Islamist organizations [like the Muslim Brotherhood], have purged training materials used to instruct national security agents of information deemed to be unflattering of Islam.”[25]

In December 2014 , the Commanding General of a key organization leading the fight against the Islamic State – Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) – admitted, “We do not understand the movement, and until we do, we are not going to defeat it. We have not defeated the idea. We do not even understand the idea.”[26] Major General Nagata was speaking of the Islamic State, the rebranded name for al Qaeda in Iraq – an offshoot of what is now called “core al Qaeda.”[27] Regardless, almost a decade and a half after the slaughter of almost 3,000 Americans, this is inexcusable.

Although there are multiple, competing interpretations of Islam, it is beyond the scope of this white paper to attempt to broker the differences, but rather to ensure we are able to address the aggressive, supremacist ideology that constitutes a continuing national security threat based on our enemies own statements claiming legal and theological accuracy and justification for their actions.[28]

“Does concern for multicultural or religious sensibilities justify relinquishing free speech in public discourse and scholarly endeavors?”[29] This report argues in the negative…and that, in fact, such an order to subordinate national security interests and intelligence analysis to anything less than a full and factual analysis constitutes dereliction of duty on behalf of the practitioner and an illegal order on behalf of the party responsible for issuing the order, policy or regulation.[30] [31]

The Problem

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana[32]

“Today there are two great threats facing the survival of the modern liberal West. The first is its exaggerated confidence in the power of reason;the second is its profound underestimation of the forces of fanaticism.” – Lee Harris, The Suicide of Reason[33]

We have faced a totalitarian, supremacist ideology bent on world domination before.[34] Adolf Hitler told us what his goal was in Mein Kampf when it was published in 1926.[35] [36] The problem was, almost no one believed him. And people could not imagine the depths of evil of which the Nazi regime was capable. In fact, the word “genocide” was not invented until 1944.[37] Hitler said to the German people, “‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flung itself at his feet.”[38] Effectively, so too did Muhammad – by his words and actions.[39][40]

Some will find the comparison of Nazi ideology to Islamic ideology offensive. This warrants further exploration. Dr. Bill Warner, Center for Study of Political Islam, has analyzed the anti-Semitism in Mein Kampf (7%), the Meccan Koran (1%), the Medinan Koran (16.9%), Sahih al-Bukhari (8.9%) and the Sira (12%).[41] Overall, the trilogy of Islamic texts averages 9.3% anti-Semitic content – clearly more anti-Semitic than Mein Kampf – especially when total word count is considered. [42] With respect to violence, only 5.6% of the Hebrew Bible is dedicated to violence.[43] By comparison, 9% of the Koran, 21% of the Hadith of Bukhari, and 67% of the Sira are dedicated to violent jihad. [44] The complete Islamic trilogy is 31% dedicated to political violence. [45]

And it’s not just a matter of an academic analysis of the doctrine. Words and declarations precede actions. We effectively ignored al Qaeda’s fatwa that constituted a declaration of war – despite the first World Trade Center Bombing in 1993, the attacks on our embassies in Africa and the deadly attack on the USS Cole – until 9/11.[46]

According to Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, “The caliph (o25) makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians…until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax.” It is beyond the scope of this paper to explain the concept of progressive revelation with respect to the Qur’an, but suffice it to say that Qur’an 4:89 “Slay them wherever you find them” remains a commandment from Allah that is fully in effect and applies to all Muslims for all times (as does Qur’an 9:29, and 9:5’s “Sword Verse” for that matter).[47]

“Militant Islam may actually pose an existential threat to the United States. At a minimum, it constitutes a formidable strategic threat.”[48] Despite the onslaught of Islamic inspired terrorism, the Ostrich Complex manifested itself visibly just last week, when the Obama Administration released its final National Security Strategy.[49] The only mention of Islam is to “reject the lie that we are at war with Islam.” [50] There was no mention of the doctrine of jihad or sharia law. Yet a study of Islamic doctrine and the proclamations of the jihadists attacking us, makes it clear that Islam is the justification for those attacks.[51] In the jihadists’ minds, it is clear that they are at war with us.

The problem is: how can you defeat an enemy you cannot name? How can you know and understand an enemy you are prohibited from analyzing? This prohibition subverts the intelligence analysis process and leaves us strategically blind to the enemy.[52]

In 2009, during one of his first major foreign policy speeches overseas, President Obama declared “And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”[53] A review of the U.S. Constitution reveals no such duty.[54] But the President had set the tone and effectively the policy for his administration with respect to Islam when he said those words in 2009. And so doing, we see that “the abuse of political power is fundamentally connected with the sophistic abuse of the word.”[55]

As Josef Pieper warned, “the general public is being reduced to a state where people not only are unable to find out about the truth but also become unable even to search for the truth because they are satisfied with deception and trickery that have determined their convictions, satisfied with a fictitious reality created by design through the abuse of language.”[56] So too is our National Security apparatus is being subverted by this policy.

The problem is partially rooted in a misunderstanding of our own Constitution, which affords religious protections under the First Amendment.[†] This is understandable because “Many people confuse politics and religion.”[57] However, Islam is not just a religion – it is a complete civilizational alternative that includes a legal, political, economic, social and military doctrine known as shariah law.[58] As comprehensively explained in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Explanatory Memorandum, [59] the strategy for subverting the US Constitution to comport with shariah law is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” which calls for “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”[60] This makes it clear that although the Muslim Brotherhood varies in ways and means from al Qaeda and the Islamic State, their ends – the end state – remain the same.

Although religion is only a portion of Islam, shariah makes it is impossible to separate Mosque and State in Islam.[61] “The religion of Islam is what a Muslim does to go to paradise and avoid hell. Political Islam determines the treatment of unbelievers and the governance of Muslims.”[62] It is the political focus on non-believers that raises the national security interests. Were the religious and the political not inseparable in Islam, we would remain unconcerned with what we would deem to be the strictly religious aspects of Islam. The scope of the problem is exacerbated by the fact that 61% of the Qur’an, 75% of the Sira and 20% of the Hadith is dedicated to the political. [63] This is why David Yerushalmi argued that “the active and purposeful pursuit of Shariah in the U.S. has implications for the federal criminal law of sedition (notably Title 18, Section 2385 of the U.S. Code),” where Jewish law, Christian dogmas and Catholic canon do not.”[64]

Background

Perhaps the most high profile case of Islamic suppression of free speech (before the attack on Charlie Hebdo)[65] was the fatwa[‡] that constituted a death sentence against Salman Rushdie as a result of his publishing The Satanic Verses.[66] [67] 25 years after the original fatwa was issued calling for his death, it was renewed.[68]

But the Islamic war on free speech dates back to the time of Muhammad himself when in 624 he first started ordering the assassination of poets who mocked him (Al-Nadr bin al-Harith,[69] Uqba bin Abu Muayt,[70] Asma bint Marwan,[71] Abu Afak,[72] Kab bin al-Ashraf,[73] [74] Ibn Sunayna,[75] a one-eyed Bedouin,[76] and one of Abdullah bin Katal’s two singing-girls. [77] [78])[79] For those unfamiliar with Islamic jurisprudence, it warrants pointing out that the first source is the Qur’an, the second is the example of Muhammad – who the Qur’an cites is the model for Muslims to emulate. Hence the significance of these events.

In addition to physical threats of violence, Islam also employs jihad of the pen. As an example, much of the academic aversion to discuss Islam honestly can be attributed to the aggressive tone of Edward Said’s Orientalism that amounts to intellectual terrorism as a result of “spraying charges of racism, imperialism and Eurocentrism from a moral high ground.”[80] [81] If only Ibn Warraq’s seminal Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism were as well read in academic circles.[82]

On October 19th, 2011, in order to advance their efforts to silence critical examination of Islam in relation to the threat, a number of Muslim groups sent an open letter to John Brennan, who was then serving as Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism and Deputy National Security Advisor.[83] In it, they accused “the federal government’s use of biased, false and highly offensive training materials about Muslims and Islam” and demanded a purge of the offensive training materials from the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security and the DoD.[84]

That same month, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Homeland Defense Strategy and Force Planning Jose Mayorga formally requested that the Director of the Joint Staff task the “Combatant Commands, Services, National Guard Bureau and Component Commands” to determine the criteria for instructors on “countering violent Islamic extremism.”[85] After that tasking did not have a sufficiently chilling effect on “offensive” counterterrorism training, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey himself signed a letter further reiterating his concern about “ideas, beliefs, and actions that are…disrespectful of the Islamic religion.” And that the review should ensure that programs exhibit “cultural sensitivity, respect for religion and intellectual balance…”[86] [87]

In so doing, Chairman Dempsey violated his own duty to the American Public when he silenced those who would honestly analyze the threat.[88] His actions placed the ideology of multiculturalism over his responsibilities as an officer in the US Military who has sworn an oath of office,[89] despite his duties as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.[90] It appears as if his primary concern was not with American values and security, but rather with not offending the Muslim world. [91]

It is a shame General Dempsey has failed to heed the advice of his predecessor, General Pete Pace, who warned:

“I say you need to get out and read what our enemies have said. Remember Hitler. Remember he wrote Mein Kampf. He said in writing exactly what his plan was, and we collectively ignored that to our great detriment. Now, our enemies have said publicly on film, on the Internet, their goal is to destroy our way of life. No equivocation on their part.”[92] [93]

Or for that matter, General George Washington, who prognosticated, “If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”[94]

Bad Actors

Two of the organizations leading the efforts to subvert our ability to even discuss Islam in the context of National Security are the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The United Arab Emirates (UAE) named both the Muslim Brotherhood and the CAIR as designated terrorist organizations.[95] [96] Additionally, CAIR has been extensively linked with Hamas – a U.S. designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).[97] [98] [99]

The Muslim Brotherhood has been extensively documented as a terrorist organization,[100] [101] and was banned in Egypt in 1948, and is now once again outlawed in Egypt.[102] Additionally, the Muslim Brotherhood has been designated as a terrorist organization by Egypt,[103] [104] Russia, [105] [106] Syria,[107] Saudi Arabia[108] and the United Arab Emirates.[109] [110][111] The 9/11 Commission Report recognized the Muslim Brotherhood as a principle ideological inspiration for al Qaeda.[112]

The actions of these two organizations (Muslim Brotherhood & their front group – CAIR) in particular, I will argue – as Andrew McCarthy did in his conviction against Omar Abdel Rahman (the “Blind Sheik”) – constitutes seditious conspiracy,[§] that is “a confederation to wage war against the United States.”[113] [114]

A Judicial Watch Special Report titled “U.S. Government Purges of Law Enforcement Training Material Deemed ‘Offensive’ to Muslims” extensively documents the history of the purge within the Department of Justice.[115] Which begs the questions as to why the Pentagon is listening to Hamas-linked and designated terrorist organizations?[116]

Can you imagine a scenario where, during World War II, if Nazis complained to us about our analyzing Mein Kampf or the Enigma machine, we would have stopped?[117] Or where we would have appointed Nazi party members or open supporters and advocates to senior leadership positions within the Executive Branch departments or as special assistants to the President?[118][119] [120] It would have been insane to fight a war that way.

And yet that is exactly what we are doing now with this policy and this administration. Islamic doctrine, as codified in the Qur’an, Hadith, Sira and sharia law, is the Enigma machine with which we can decode the actions and intentions of the threat. But Islamic law prohibits non-Muslims from even purchasing the Qur’an.[121]

The reality that Islam currently has over a billion adherents creates a tremendous apprehension about the possibility that these adherents follow an ideology that is rooted in an aggressive, totalitarian, supremacist doctrine bent on world domination. Even if President Obama is correct when he states that “99.9% of Muslims” reject that interpretation of Islam, that still leaves over a million jihadists committed to global Islamic reign.[122] And polls show that number is actually much higher than what the President is portraying.[123] It is that fear [of the possibility that there are over a million people that ascribe to a violent ideology] that allows the lie – of Islam as a religion of peace – to live. As David Horowitz said, “A lie grounded in human desire is too powerful for reason to kill.”[124]

In fact, the size of Islam’s followership is one of the arguments used by Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers simultaneously as both evidence of Islam’s validity and an implied threat.[125] But behind that argument is a logical fallacy – the bandwagon –that holds that an ideology has credence because many people ascribe to it.[126] And more importantly, the size of Islam’s adherents exponentially increases the severity of the danger from the ideology spreading.

As Thomas Paine said, “I prefer peace. But, if there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”[127] The problem is, “It is simply delusional to think there is no correlation between what a person believes and how they are likely to act – as delusional as it is to think there is no correlation between Islam’s doctrinal summons to violence and Islamic terrorism.”[128]

Recommendations

“In political warfare, the weapons are words.” – David Horowitz[129]

Ideally, the U.S. Government would reverse the policy to ban the examination of the same Islamic doctrine that our declared enemy says they follow. Recognizing that this administration will not reverse this policy leaves national security professional with a tremendous ethical dilemma. If we are obsessed with political correctness, policies, and promotions, we are negligent in our highest duty: to support and defend American lives.[130]

As Gary Hull discussed in Mohammad: The Banned Images:

“In the battle between open discourse and terrorist intimidation, the immediate philosophic issue is: how does one settle competing claims? Such claims cannot be avoided and are inherent in living in a social setting. … Fundamentally, there are only two methods by which to settle such claims: by reference to persuasion, debate, arguments – i.e. by appealing to reason – or by knives, guns, and bombs – i.e., by reference to the threat or actual initiation of physical force.”[131]

Right now, our options are limited to challenging the status quo or violating our professional oaths, not to mention professional canons. We should continue to conduct personal professional development through extensive reading of both primary Islamic source material, e.g. the Qur’an,[132] Sahih al-Bukhari (specifically Volume 4, Book 56[133] and Volume 9, Appendix III[134]), the Sira,[135] the Reliance of the Traveller,[136] War and Peace in the Law of Islam,[137] The Quranic Concept of War[138] and Freedom of Expression in Islam[139]; secondary source material that predate political correctness, like Moslems: Their Beliefs, Practices, and Politics[140] or shun political correctness, like The Suicide of Reason[141]; books by counter jihadists like Raymond Ibrahim,[142] Robert Spencer,[143] [144] Stephen Coughlin,[145] [146] Frank Gaffney,[147] the Team B2,[148] Walid Phares,[149] and Brigitte Gabriel,[150]; as well as books written by apostates like Ibn Warraq,[151] [152] [153] [154], Ayaan Hirsi Ali,[155] [156] [157] Nonie Darwish,[158] [159][160] and Wafa Sultan.[161]

Others outside the Executive Branch, specifically the Legislative Branch and the press, can continue to press the Administration for information about the actions they are taking and to expose the ill-advised and ill-guided policies being forced on the Executive Branch. In this respect, articles exposing Administration, supported by information gained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and lawsuits can assist in righting this ship.

Once Chairman Dempsey leaves this summer, we can work towards educating the new Chairman about the nature of the threat – both foreign and domestic – and push to have him rescind or supersede Chairman Dempsey’s purge letter. [162] [163] We can encourage the new Chairman to update professional reading lists to include primary Islamic source materials as well as the politically incorrect books that nonetheless accurately identify, assess, and diagnose the threat. Additionally, we should review and update our policies and training in accordance with the recommendations of the US Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee in accordance with their special report A Ticking Time Bomb[164] regarding the Fort Hood attack, rather than the politically correct report produced for the Federal Bureau of Investigation[165] and the Department of Defense’s report, which only mentions Islam once, and that reference was buried in a footnote.[166] Despite Secretary Gates’ guidance, this has not been done.[167]

Regardless of the results of the Presidential election in 2016, we must push the new administration to designate both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. During the Holy Land Foundation trial, Judge Solis directly associated CAIR with a designated terrorist organization.[168] As previously mentioned, this has already been done by Egypt,[169] [170] Russia, [171] [172] Syria,[173] Saudi Arabia[174] and the United Arab Emirates[175] [176] [177] – and we should follow their leads in this case. This may be no easy task depending on who wins the White House, given that CAIR has already started attempting to manipulate the 2016 Republican Presidential candidates publically.[178] [179]

One of the ways to eliminate political correctness from intelligence analysis would be to hold National Security professionals and Intelligence Analysis products to a legal standard. As Andrew McCarthy explains in his book, Willful Blindness:

“Trials have been a priceless elucidation of alarming truths. A trial is a crucible like no other. Political correctness and sloganeering melt away. … [Jurors] have to be told a story that comports with reality, or they won’t convict the person whose fate lies in their hands. A trial is not an exercise in rhetoric or spin. You don’t get to make blithe pronouncements – that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, that jihadists are a bare fringe distorting the true faith, or that terrorists acted because of poverty, alienation or, needless to say, Israel. You actually have to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt. You have to depict the world as it is, not as we wish it were.”[180]

Finally, we can determine if my political heresy has been the result of some blend of xenophobia and conspiracy theories, or if it is the result of an honest intellectual development that can be replicated and shared throughout the National Security apparatus, and if so, how.[181]

Conclusion

“War is a mere continuation of policy by other means.” – Clausewitz[182]

“Politics is war conducted by other means.” – David Horowitz[183]

We, as military officers, have failed to treat linguistics – the war of words – with the level of importance to which it deserves. As summarized in Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech:

“The war against Islamism is as much a war of ideas as it is a physical battle, and therefore the dissemination of information in the free world is paramount. The manipulation of Western court systems, the use of Western “hate speech laws” and other products of political correctness to destroy the very principles that democracies stand for, must be countered.

Unfortunately Islamist lawfare is beginning to limit and control public discussion of Islam, particularly as it pertains to comprehending the threat posed by Islamic terrorist entities. As such, the Islamist lawfare challenge presents a direct and real threat not only to our constitutional rights, but also to our national security.”[184]

Paraphrasing from Muhammad: the Banned Images:

“We need to re-examine our commitment to free expression. When an institution such as the Executive Branch needs to suppress scholarly work and legitimate intelligence analysis because of the theoretical possibility of violence or the offended feelings of a select group, it grants legitimacy to censorship and casts serious doubts on our commitment to freedom of expression, and more importantly – our commitment to winning this trans-generational war. The failure to defend our right to examine threat doctrine, as promulgated by the enemy, emboldens those who would attack us and undermines our national security. It is time for the Chairman, the President and the Congress to exercise moral and intellectual leadership.”[185]

“The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” [186] Just as “Mein Kampf’s existence denied the free world the excuse of ignorance”,[187] so too does the Qur’an,[188] Sahih al-Bukhari,[189] [190] the Sira[191] and Islamic law[192] itself deny us the excuse of ignorance about the trans-national, trans-generational, totalitarian, supremacist, genocidal threat we face from Islam today.

If we do not study the threat, we won’t be able to accurately distinguish friend from foe and hence, ultimately lose the ability to defeat the enemy. The challenge is finding a way to understand the evil that motivates totalitarians like al Qaeda, the Islamic State, the Muslim Brotherhood and their ilk, while still being able to leverage those Muslim leaders, nations and populations who actively support the United States in this war against supremacist, totalitarian jihadism – from King Abdullah II of Jordan,[193] and President al-Sisi of Egypt,[194] to Malala.[195]

“Mundus vult decipi”[196]

Notes

[*] enemy. (13c) 1. One who opposes or inflicts injury on another; an antagonist. 2. A opposing military force. 3. A state with which another state is at war. — Also termed public enemy. 4. A person possessing the nationality of the state with which one is at war. — Also termed enemy subject. 5. A foreign state that is openly hostile to another whose position is being considered.

Source: Black’s Law Dictionary (9th Ed.)

hostility. (15c) 1. A state of enmity between individuals or nations. 2. An act or series of acts displaying antagonism. 3. (usu. pl.) Acts of war. Source: Joint Publication 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

enemy combatant — In general, a person engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners during an armed conflict.  Also called EC.  Source: DoD Directive 2310.01E

[†] “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Source: U.S. Constitution.

[‡]The author of The Satanic Verses, a text written, edited, and published against Islam, against the Prophet of Islam, and against the Koran, along with all the editors and publishers aware of its contents, are condemned to capital punishment. I call on all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world to execute this sentence without delay, so that no one henceforth will dare insult the sacred beliefs of the Muslims.” – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Source: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~owend/I/islam/fatwa.html

[§] Seditious Conspiracy: If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384

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ISIS will survive Mosul and Raqqa

November 2, 2016

ISIS will survive Mosul and Raqqa, Israel Hayom, Dr. Ori Goldberg, November 2, 2016

The American administration recently announced that it is planning an offensive to take the city of Raqqa, the Syrian “capital” of Islamic State. The American announcement illustrates the overarching logic behind the current campaign against Islamic State. According to this logic, Islamic State is, in fact, a state. And one state defeats another if it conquers its capital. Such a conquest forces the enemy’s administrative institutions to crumble, along with its remaining forces and defenses, while the conquering country can effectively “take control” of the vanquished country.

Reality, however, does not necessarily abide logic, as we will see when Raqqa is taken, because Islamic State is not a state. Even its expected defeat in Mosul, along with the future downfall of Raqqa, cannot dissolve the “Islamic State,” because it is just one expression, or one phase, of an ongoing struggle. The purpose of this struggle is to prepare the world for the day of judgment, and a ready world is a world that realizes the weakness and fallacy inherent to the human political order.

The state of Islamic State is a mirror intended to demonstrate to the entire world the tenuous nature of the “Arab” states in the Middle East. The role of this state is to rise, and after it has risen to make a laughing stock of the countries around it. It melts away borders and nullifies national identity; it rejects the laws of the state and the international community, and scorns such ideas as “human rights.”

ISIS, however, does not portend to be a complete or sufficient alternative to the Western model or to any other model. The Islamic State is part of a path whose ending is already known — judgment day will come, the final battle will be decided and the Muslims will win. Therefore, when Raqqa falls Islamic State will not simply vanish into thin air. If the tangible Islamic State can no longer fulfil its grand purpose, another means of fulfilling it will be found. When the physical state finally collapses, after much blood is spilled, the citizens who lived under its boot will surely breathe a sigh of relief. The soldiers of the Islamic State will disperse; some will join any of the numerous terrorist groups out there, others will go back home to their worried parents, from Tunisia to Kosovo. The idea of Islamic State, however, will not dissipate in the slightest. Quite the opposite, it can be expected to grow stronger.

The creation of the Islamic State marked a significant escalation for global jihad. Many talked about a caliphate while waging jihad over the years, from the mid-1980s in Afghanistan until today, but no one felt secure enough to implement the idea. Islamic State took the step and was successful, specifically because it never believed that having a state was the end all and be all.

The memory of the Islamic State will encourage new believers, in groups or on their own, to continue undermining the stability and unity in their host countries. Violence will continue to be, to an even higher degree, the most readily accessible and effective way to expand Islamic State’s jihadi doctrine and religious struggle. There is no reason to necessarily expect grandiose terrorist attacks in the style of al-Qaida.

The purpose of Islamic State does not lie in the spectacle, the widespread destruction or in the unfathomable number of casualties. We can, however, expect a dogged response unrestrained by time or distance. The current and soon-to-be martyrdom in Mosul and Raqqa is not the result of loyalty to the state, rather a devotion to the unceasing advance forward, toward the assured end.

Islamic State, a new and deadlier enemy

September 27, 2016

Islamic State, a new and deadlier enemy, The Gorka BriefingSebastian Gorka, PhD, September 26, 2016

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An analysis/opinion piece that my wife Katharine and I wrote that was published in the Washington Times:

On the evening of May 2, 2011, America had a chance at closure.

We had lost thousands of our fellow Americans nine years earlier on that beautifully sunny September morning, and thousands more of our citizen-soldiers on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq.

But now President Obama gave the word: The master jihadi is dead.

In an audacious operation deep within Pakistan, Osama bin Laden had been located. And killed. Al Qaeda would soon be described by the commander in chief, as “on the ropes,” condemned to ever-increasing irrelevance. But this was not the end. There would be no closure for our nation.

A new, deadlier enemy has since emerged. A foe responsible for the carnage of San Bernardino and Orlando, and scores of attacks around the world. Now we are at war with the Islamic State — a threat group that has already claimed responsibility for one of the recent attacks — and its new caliph, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. Al Qaeda may no longer frighten us, but the Islamic State has dethroned it and is on the march.

We may be in the final stages of a presidential campaign which has polarized opinion on all matters, mundane and significant, but the facts speak for themselves.

According to the National Counterterrorism Center, part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Islamic State currently has “fully operational” affiliates in 18 nations around the world. Two years ago, the number was seven. Some of these branches are far from Iraq and Syria, including Afghanistan, where numerous Taliban commanders have sworn allegiance to Abu Bakr, and Nigeria, where Boko Haram — one of the deadliest jihadi groups active today — has changed its name to the West Africa Province of the Islamic State. According to the analysts of the SITE Intelligence Group, the totalitarian message of jihadism is so popular around the world that since June 2, outside the war zones of Iraq and Syria, there has been a jihadi attack somewhere around the world every 84 hours.

But does this mean that Americans are in greater danger today than on Sept. 10, 2001? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding yes, and the empirical data is merciless in its incontrovertibility.

In its latest report titled “Muslim-American Involvement with Violent Extremism,” the University of North Carolina has compiled all the metadata on jihadi plots on U.S. soil since 2001. The trend they describe is an exponential one. The number of successful and intercepted terrorist attacks has grown every year (with an inordinate spike in 2009), and most disturbingly, with 2015 witnessing the greatest number of jihadi plots in America since the Sept. 11 attacks 15 years ago. Jihadism has not been weakened. Not abroad. Not in the States. With the attacks in California, Florida, and now apparently Minnesota, and potentially New York and New Jersey, ISIS has displaced al Qaeda, and it has done so here in America, too, not just in the Middle East or Africa.

In our report “ISIS: The Threat to the United States,” we answer the same question for the Islamic State that the University of North Carolina answered for all jihadists secreted within America.

The facts prove than our new enemy is more prevalent than al Qaeda ever was, with federal and state law enforcement arresting three times as many ISIS supports per month than the average for al Qaeda arrests since 2001. Here are the numbers: Since Abu Bakr declared the new caliphate from the pulpit of the Grand Mosque of Mosul at the end of June 2014, we have killed or interdicted 110 terrorists linked to ISIS, (the last one being two weeks ago in Roanoke, Va). And when one looks at what they were actually doing the picture is grimmest of all.

Just over 40 percent had sworn allegiance to ISIS and were set on leaving the United States to fight for jihad in Iraq and Syria. Just under 20 percent were management-level terrorists, the talent-spotters and recruiters who were facilitating the foreign passage of the “travelers,” as the FBI euphemistically calls them. But a full third of the ISIS suspects, like the San Bernardino killers, and Omar Mateen, the Orlando jihadi, had already decided that they could best serve the new Islamic State not by leaving but by killing infidels here on U.S. soil. This is the reality of life in the West today. Whether it is in California or Florida, or in Brussels, Paris or Nice.

As we start the 16th year of what has turned into our longest war ever, we must radically reassess our strategy for victory. The Islamic State has displaced al Qaeda and it is richer, better at propaganda, and has more fighters than bin Laden ever had.

November represents not only a choice of who the new commander in chief should be, but also what our new strategy to defeat ISIS and the global jihadi movement should be. We owe at least this to the memories of those lost on the beautifully sunny morning 15 years ago.

DHS Provides the Security Islamists Need and Want

September 24, 2016

DHS Provides the Security Islamists Need and Want, Dan Miller’s Blog, September 23, 2016

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM) 

However, the Department of Homeland Security does not provide the security the rest of us need and want; instead, it does its level best to diminish it. Providing a reasonable level of security would contradict Obama’s view of Islam, Life, the Universe and Everything.

Refugee Fraud

On September 22nd, members of the U.S. Congress made public an internal Department of Homeland Security memo in which it was acknowledged that Refugee fraud is easy to commit and much tougher to detect:

The U.S. has relaxed requirements for refugees to prove they are who they say they are, and at times may rely solely on testimony. That makes it easier for bogus applicants to conspire to get approved, according to the department memo, which was obtained by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees. [Emphasis added.]

“Refugee fraud is easy to commit, yet not easy to investigate,” the undated memo says.

 The memo said there are clear instances where “bad actors … have exploited this program,” gaining a foothold in the U.S. through bogus refugee claims.

The revelation comes just a week after the administration said it was boosting the number of refugees it wants to accept next year to 110,000, up from 85,000 this year. Officials also said they’ll take more Syrians than the 12,000 they’ve accepted so far this year — and they are on pace to resettle as many as 30,000 in 2017. [Emphasis added.]

The President’s decision to increase overall refugee resettlement – and specifically that of Syrian refugees – ignores warnings from his own national security officials that Syrians cannot be adequately vetted to ensure terrorists are not admitted. Revelations about fraud, security gaps, and lack of oversight have demonstrated that the program is creating national security risks,” Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Bob Goodlatte said in a letter to Homeland Security on Thursday. [Emphasis added.]

The Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged that she had never seen the internal DHS memo. Why not? Isn’t ICE in charge of enforcing “our” immigration laws?

Countering Violent Extremism

The video provided above explains how CVE has been implemented thus far.

The head of DHS’s “countering violent extremism” program acknowledged on the same day, September 22nd, that its thus far year-long-in-the-brewing “strategic plan” for “combatting violent extremism” has not yet been completed.

George Selim, director of the Office of Community Partnerships at DHS, was repeatedly asked by members of the House Homeland Security Thursday why he could not provide a document outlining the organization’s $10 million plans for countering the spread of terrorism.

. . . .

Selim finally admitted the plan is not finished, stating that a finalized version is “nearly ready.”

He added that he didn’t want to give the impression that the organization is without any strategy after being up and running for a year, and stressed that he takes the use of taxpayer dollars seriously.

Congress appropriated $10 million in funding to the Countering Violent Extremism initiative, which can issue grants to nonprofit organizations working in local communities to prevent radicalization. [Emphasis added.]

But when asked by Rep. Barry Loudermilk R-Ga., to provide evidence that the program was not a “black hole” for taxpayers, Selim could only answer that he has seen positive changes “anecodally” and could not provide any metrics for success.

“I can’t sit hear before you today and definitively say that person was going to commit an act of terrorism with a pressure cooker bomb, but we’re developing that prevention framework in a range of cities across the country,” said Selim.

When asked whether any of the funding provided to DHS for its “countering violent extremism” was being given to terror-linked groups, Mr. Selim responded that

there is no blacklist of non-governmental organizations prohibited from applying for federal funding in the government. He did not say whether their current vetting process has ever mistakenly funded groups that jeopardize national security when questioned, but argued there is always room for improvement when a program is in its infancy. [Emphasis added.]

Mr. Selim’s reply was not responsive; there may be no Federal blacklist, but that an NGO is not on one should not authorize DHS to fund it. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is, of course, one of the principal Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamist organizations upon which the “countering violent extremism” farce relies. Secretary Johnson recently delivered an address to the Islamic Society of North America, which is similarly linked. The countering violent extremism farce focuses, not on root problem of preventing Islamist terrorism, but on rooting out “Islamophobia.”

Here’s a video of Dr. Zuhid Jasser’s testimony before Congress on September 22nd

on Identifying the Enemy: Radical Islamist Terror. This hearing examines the threat of radical Islamist terrorism, the importance of identifying the threat for what it is, and ways to defeat it.

A transcript of Dr. Jasser’s testimony is available here

Former Congressman Pete Hoekstra also testified:

According to the blurb beneath the video,

Former Congressman and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Pete Hoekstra at the Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency of the House Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. Congress. Congress must ask the Obama administration about PSD-11, which made official the US Government’s outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups. [emphasis added.]

In His efforts to push the narrative that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam, Obama has (a) shared His erroneous perception of the Islamic State and (b) tried to suggest that the Islamic State is the only entity which diverges from “true” Islam. His argument as to (a)

is a strawman argument: the real question isn’t whether ISIS “represents” Islam, but whether ISIS is a byproduct of Islam.  And this question can easily be answered by looking not to ISIS but Islam.  One can point to Islamic doctrines that unequivocally justify ISIS behavior; one can point to the whole of Islamic history, nearly 14 centuries of ISIS precedents.

Or, if these two options are deemed too abstract, one can simply point to the fact that everyday Muslims all around the world are behaving just like ISIS. [Emphasis added.]

For example, Muslims—of all races, nationalities, languages, and socio-political and economic circumstances, in Arab, African, Central and East Asian nations—claim the lions’ share of Christian persecution; 41 of the 50 worst nations to be Christian in are Islamic.  In these countries, Muslim individuals, mobs, clerics, politicians, police, soldiers, judges, even family members—none of whom are affiliated with ISIS (other than by religion)—abuse and sometimes slaughter Christians, abduct, enslave and rape their women and children, ban or bomb churches, and kill blasphemers and apostates.

. . . .

Or consider a Pew poll which found that, in 11 countries alone, at least 63 million and as many as 287 million Muslims support ISIS.  Similarly, 81% of respondents to an Arabic language Al Jazeera poll supported the Islamic State. [Emphasis added.]

Do all these hundreds of millions of Muslims support the Islamic State because they’ve been suckered into its “narrative”—or even more silly, because we have—or do they support ISIS because it reflects the same supremacist Islam that they know and practice, one that preaches hate and violence for all infidels, as America’s good friends and allies, the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar—not ISIS—are on record proclaiming? [Emphasis added.]

It is this phenomenon, that Muslims the world over—and not just this or that terrorist group that “has nothing to do with Islam”—are exhibiting hostility for and terrorizing non-Muslims that the Obama administration and its mainstream media allies are committed to suppressing.  Otherwise the unthinkable could happen: people might connect the dots and understand that ISIS isn’t mangling Islam but rather Islam is mangling the minds of Muslims all over the world. [Emphasis added.]

Hence why White House spokesman Josh Earnest can adamantly dismiss 14 centuries of Islamic history, doctrine, and behavior that mirrors ISIS: “That is mythology. That is falsehood. That is not true.” Hence why U.S. media coverage for one dead gorilla was six times greater than media coverage for 21 Christians whose heads were carved off for refusing to recant their faith.

As to (b),

The powers-that-be prefer that the debate—the “narrative”—be restricted to ISIS, so that the group appears as an aberration to Islam.  Acknowledging that untold millions of Muslims are engaged in similar behavior leads to a much more troubling narrative with vast implications. [Emphasis added.]

Conclusions

obamaatun

Obama has what one might wish were a unique world view. However, as Obama has not yet discovered, wishing that something were true does not make it true. He elucidated His world view in His recent address to the United Nations.

U.S. President Barack Obama sang his swan song this week at the United Nations, and seemed baffled by the stubborn refusal of the world to reform itself in his image and on his say-so. [Emphasis added.]

How can there still be “deep fault lines in the international order,” Obama wondered aloud, with “societies filled with uncertainty and unease and strife?”

Shouldn’t his identity as a man “made up of flesh and blood and traditions and cultures and faiths from a lot of different parts of the world” have served as a shining and irresistible example of blended global peace? How can it be that, after eight years of his visionary leadership, peoples everywhere aren’t marching to his tune of self-declared superior “moral imagination”? [Emphasis added.]

It is indeed a “paradox,” Obama declared.

In his preachy, philosophical and snooty address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, Obama expressed deep disappointment with the world. Alas, it seems peoples and nations are just not sophisticated enough to comprehend his sage sermonizing, smart enough to follow his enlightened example, or deep enough to understand his perfect policies. [Emphasis added.]

Why does the world not snap to order as he imperiously wishes and drool in his presence?

. . . .

The words “enemy, “threat” or “adversary” do not appear even once in Obama’s 5,600-word address. They are not part of his lexicon, nor are concepts like “victory” for the West or “beating” the bad guys. He won’t even names foes, such as “radical Islam” or “Islamist terror.”

All this high-minded intellectualizing, self-doubt and equivocation leave the U.S. with little ability to actually drive towards a more ordered world and provide a modicum of global security.

Instead, we have only Obama’s “belief” that Russia’s imperialist moves in Ukraine and Syria, China’s power grabs in Asia, and Iran’s hegemonic trouble-making in the Middle East (and by inference, Israel’s settlement policies in Judea and Samaria) will “ultimately backfire.”

Obama has many such unsubstantiated and illusory “beliefs.” It is very important for him to tell us what he “believes,” and he does so repeatedly. Clearly, he believes in the overwhelming potency of his own beliefs, despite the global security collapse. In fact, the U.N. speech reads like chapter one of the expected Obama memoirs, which surely will be filled with more inane “beliefs” and other ostentation. [Emphasis added.]

Fortunately, Obama will soon leave the presidency.

It falls to Congress and the next president to redirect U.S. policy and hopefully base it less on whimsical, wayward beliefs and more on a hard-nosed, forceful reassertion of Western interests.

Unfortunately, Hillary shares many of not most of Obama’s delusions.

Fortunately, Trump does not and seems to have a pretty good chance of becoming our President.

Gorka: The war is real and the war is here

August 18, 2016

Gorka: The war is real and the war is here, Fox News via YouTube, August 17, 2016

House Task Force: ISIS Intel Reports Altered to Skew Success of U.S.-Led Campaign

August 10, 2016

House Task Force: ISIS Intel Reports Altered to Skew Success of U.S.-Led Campaign, Washington Free Beacon, August 10, 2016

FILE - In this Monday, June 17, 2013 file photo, U.S. special operations forces watch a rehearsal by special operations forces from Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon as part of Eager Lion, a multinational military exercise in Zarqa, Jordan. The government-owned Al-Rai newspaper says a Jordanian policeman opened fire on American contractors at a police training center, killing two and injuring three. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)

FILE – In this Monday, June 17, 2013 file photo, U.S. special operations forces watch a rehearsal by special operations forces from Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon as part of Eager Lion, a multinational military exercise in Zarqa, Jordan.

The U.S. military’s Central Command distorted intelligence reports to make the American-led campaign against the Islamic State and al Qaeda appear more successful than it actually was, a House Republican task force found.

Officials familiar with the task force’s findings told the Daily Beast that the roughly 10-page report, which is expected to be publicly released by the end of next week, will confirm earlier complaints from lower level analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency that Centcom higher-ups had doctored intelligence.

Leaders of Centcom’s intelligence directorate also pressured their subordinates to downplay the threat of ISIS in military reports, the officials said.

The task force, which included members of the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees and the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, was formed after more than 50 intelligence analysts filed a formal complaint accusing senior Centcom officials of inappropriately altering their reports on ISIS and al Qaeda’s branch in Syria.

The complaint, sent to the Pentagon’s inspector general, said senior officials had created a “Stalinist” work environment where subordinates felt “bullied” into drawing conclusions unsubstantiated by facts.

President Obama unwittingly repeated some of the altered intelligence during briefings, the Daily Beast reported. When the initial Centcom complaint came to light last year, Defense Secretary Ash Carter demanded that military officials provide “unvarnished intelligence.”

The report does not contain decisive evidence that senior Obama administration officials had ordered alterations to the ISIS and al Qaeda intelligence.

One official familiar with the House task force’s findings said that while the investigation was “ongoing,” the report “substantiates” claims from lower-level Centcom employees.

Russian anti-ISIS war from Syria to Caucasus

July 12, 2016

Russian anti-ISIS war from Syria to Caucasus, DEBKAfile, July 12, 2016

Alexander-Dvornikov-C-in-C-Russian-Syrian-Task-Force

Unimpressed by President Barack Obama’s optimistic assertions about ISIS’ loss of territory and weakening state, the Kremlin judges the counter-terror war to be just beginning. Russian intelligence has found the group to be in full fighting mode and setting up an army of suicide bombers, each team numbering some 20-15 terrorists, ready for strikes in Europe, including Russia, and the Middle East.

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In a supreme effort to prevent ISIS suicide units from reaching Russia from Syria, Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s
Defense Minister, has promoted the Russian commander in Syria, Colonel-General Alexander Dvornikov. to an expanded command as head of the South Russia military district. This district covers Russian forces including naval units in the Black and Caspian Seas, the Fourth Air Force Defense Army and Russian bases in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Armenia.  Gen. Dvornikov will also command tens of ground force divisions, including paratroopers, marines and special coastal defense units.

The fact that the Russian Defense Ministry emphasizes in its announcement that “The decision about the appointment of a new commander of the Syrian operation is pending,” indicates that General Dvornikov will remain in charge of Russian forces in Syria from his new Black Sea HQ. His deputy, Gen.-Lt. Alexander Zhuravlyev, will continue to serve under him in the Syrian arena.

Moscow’s realignment of its military command is taken by DEBKAfile’s military and counter terrorism sources as a step towards becoming the first world power outside the Middle East to recognize and address the trans-frontier, global character of the Islamic peril, a lesson drawn from ISIS suicide attacks in Paris, Brussels, the US, Tunisia Egypt and Turkey

Unimpressed by President Barack Obama’s optimistic assertions about ISIS’ loss of territory and weakening state, the Kremlin judges the counter-terror war to be just beginning. Russian intelligence has found the group to be in full fighting mode and setting up an army of suicide bombers, each team numbering some 20-15 terrorists, ready for strikes in Europe, including Russia, and the Middle East.

This is borne out by the information released in Ankara by Turkish intelligence sources on July 11, showing that since the bombing in Istanbul airport, on June 28, in which 42 people were killed, ISIS has discontinued its passageway through Turkey for suicide terrorists trained in Syria to reach Europe. They are now smuggling terrorists across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Cyprus.

This Turkish announcement has serious implications:

First, that the ISIS’ use of Azerbaijan and Georgia as way stations for its suicide squads points to its presence on the Black Sea coast right up to Russia’s frontier. This region has now passed to the command of  Gen. Dvornikov..

Second, that Turkish intelligence can confirm Russian information about large squads of suicide terrorists gearing up for multiple attacks, some of which are already on-site of their targets, with back-up teams in case the first misses out.

The impending massive invasion of suicide terrorists to Europe and the Middle East was, according to DEBKAfile’s sources, an important item on the agenda of the recent meeting between Yossi Cohen, head of the Israeli Mossad, and Mikhail Yefimovich Fradkov, head of the Russian SVR, that took place on July 1, at the Russian organization’s Yasenevo HQ outside Moscow.

No letup seen in ISIS terror for US, Western cities

June 15, 2016

No letup seen in ISIS terror for US, Western cities, DEBKAfile, June 15, 2016

obama_al_baghdadi_6.16

US President Barack Obama offers no clear strategy for destroying ISIS other than predicting a long, hard road for his too-little, too-late military interventions overseas. That was evident from his latest speech Tuesday, June 14. Realizing this, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi still does not feel threatened by military defeat, and whenever his forces are pushed back on one front, he promptly opens a new one.

And so, when earlier this year, US and Russian-backed local forces aided by air strikes began forcing ISIS out of territory it had occupied since 2014 in Syria and Iraq. ISIS shifted a large part of its forces to Libya and opened a third front there.

The 5,000 Islamist fighters were quietly moved from Iraq to southern Jordan, from there to the Sinai Peninsula and from Egypt to Libya. How come that neither the Americans nor anyone else in the West acted to thwart this large-scale military movement?

In Libya, the Islamists partly made up for the shortfall in revenue caused by the financial and military measures which President Obama described at length Tuesday when he outlined his war in ISIS. After the US bombed the Syrian oil wells and refineries captured by ISIS, Al-Baghdadi found new sources of income by seizing Libyan oil facilities, smuggling migrants out of Africa and flogging arms on Middle East black markets.

Only after ISIS had got itself well organized in Libya, some 200km from Europe, did the Americans and Europeans step in to launch a limited military strike.

ISIS also boosted another important front by launching and sponsoring terrorist assaults in American and European cities.

President Obama described the war on the terror organization from a one-sided perspective, as though only his side was making progress on the battlefield. However, DEBKAfile military and counter terrorism sources say this account is skewed. Like any other tough war still in progress, both contestants have good days of achievements and bad days of failures.

The Orlando terror attack on June 12, when 49 Americans were murdered by a young Muslim man who swore allegiance to al-Baghdadi was one of the bad days, on which America suffered an agonizing blow.

In his speech, Obama bent all his rhetoric skill and intelligence to drawing a thick line between 29-year-old Omar Mateen and “one of the world’s great religions” by dismissing him as a “disturbed individual” notwithstanding the mass-murderer’s oath of allegiance to the ISIS leader.

Obviously, any young Muslim ready to die in the service of ISIS for a terrorist attack on harmless civilians is “disturbed.”

This label is not a strategy and it will endure in the very short term only up to the next attack by an Islamic terrorist. Neither can such language be simplistically applied for thwarting terrorism, such as the jihadist killing sprees at San Bernardino, Paris and Brussels, the blowing-up of Russian and Egyptians airliners, the murderous assaults in Amman, Jordan and the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv – and now, Orlando, which capping a run of disasters that spread like a malignant plague in under a year.

Obama’s words will not reassure worried and suffering Americans that the plague is over. His tactic, used also by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, to urge restricting the purchase of guns as the main root of the evil, is no more than a distraction from the main cause. Denying Muslim terrorists free access to assault rifles will not stop them from getting hold of these guns and other weapons of death from illicit sources.

The same goes for Obama’s lengthy defense against critics who accuse him of deliberately avoiding using the term “radical Islam” in relation to terror.

“What exactly would using this label accomplish?” he asked rhetorically. “What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to try and kill Americans?”

The truth is that a clear and precise definition of the enemy is vital to any nation and army fighting a war. When this definition is fuzzy or imprecise, the war is liable to continue to limp along as it does today against an enemy whose main advantage is relentless, undivided resolve.

Even if Obama is correct in calling ISIS a perversion of Islam that is not shared by a billion Muslims worldwide, it will continue to spread, in the absence of a practical strategy for stemming Islamic terror, and  American and European cities will continue to live under its dark cloud.

Iran’s Chess Board

June 3, 2016

Iran’s Chess Board, Front Page MagazineCaroline Glick, June 3, 2016

official_photo_of_hassan_rouhani_7th_president_of_iran_august_2013

Even if Obama’s successor disavows his actions, by the time Obama leaves office, America’s options will be more limited than ever before. Without war, his successor will likely be unable to stem Iran’s rise on the ruins of the Arab state system.

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Reprinted from jpost.com.

Strategic thinking has always been Israel’s Achilles’ heel. As a small state bereft of regional ambitions, so long as regional realities remained more or less static, Israel had little reason to be concerned about the great game of the Middle East.

But the ground is shifting in the lands around us. The Arab state system, which ensured the strategic status quo for decades, has collapsed.

So for the first time in four generations, strategy is again the dominant force shaping events that will impact Israel for generations to come.

To understand why, consider two events of the past week.

Early this week it was reported that after a two-year hiatus, Iran is restoring its financial support for Islamic Jihad. Iran will give the group, which is largely a creation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, $70 million.

On Wednesday Iranian media were the first to report on the arrest of a “reporter” for Iran’s Al-Alam news service. Bassam Safadi was arrested by Israel police in his home in Majdal Shams, the Druse village closest to the border with Syria on the Golan Heights. Safadi is suspected of inciting terrorism.

That is, he is suspected of being an Iranian agent.

There is nothing new about Iranian efforts to raise and run fronts against Israel within its territory and along its borders. Iran poses a strategic threat to Israel through its Hezbollah surrogate in Lebanon, which now reportedly controls the Lebanese Armed Forces.

In Gaza, Iran controls a vast assortment of terrorist groups, including Hamas.

In Judea and Samaria, seemingly on a weekly basis we hear about another Iranian cell whose members were arrested by the Shin Bet or the IDF.

But while we are well aware of the efforts Iran is making along our borders and even within them to threaten Israel, we have not connected these efforts to Iran’s actions in Iraq and Syria. Only when we connect Iran’s actions here with its actions in those theaters do we understand what is now happening, and how it will influence Israel’s long-term strategic environment.

The big question today is what will replace the Arab state system.

Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Libya no longer exist. On their detritus we see the fight whose results will likely determine the fates of the surviving Arab states, as well as of much of Europe and the rest of the world.

Israel’s strategic environment will be determined in great part by the results of Iran’s actions in Iraq and Syria. While Israel can do little to affect the shape of events in these areas, it must understand what they mean for us. Only by doing so, will we be able to develop the tools to secure our future in this new strategic arena.

Until 2003, Saddam Hussein was the chief obstacle to Iran’s rise as the regional hegemon.

US forces in Iraq replaced Hussein until they left the country in 2011. In the meantime, by installing a Shi’ite government in Baghdad, the US set the conditions for the rise of Islamic State in the Sunni heartland of Anbar province on the one hand, and for Iran’s control over Iraq’s Shi’ite-controlled government and armed forces on the other.

Today, ISIS is the only thing checking Iran’s westward advance. Ironically, the monstrous group also facilitates it. ISIS is so demonic that for Americans and other Westerners, empowering Iranian-controlled forces that fight ISIS seems a small price to pay to rid the world of the fanatical scourge.

As former US naval intelligence analyst J.E. Dyer explained this week in an alarming analysis of Iran’s recent moves in Iraq published on the Liberty Unyielding website, once Iranian- controlled forces defeat ISIS in Anbar province, they will be well placed to threaten Jordan and Israel from the east. This is particularly the case given that ISIS is serving inadvertently as an advance guard for Iran.

In Syria, Iran already controls wide swaths of the country directly and through its surrogates, the Syrian army, Hezbollah and Shi’ite militias it has fielded in the country.

Since the start of the war in Syria, Israel has repeatedly taken action to block those forces from gaining and holding control over the border zone on the Golan Heights.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s surprising recent announcement that Israel will never relinquish control over the Golan came in response to his concern that in exchange for a cease-fire in Syria, the US would place that control on the international diplomatic chopping block.

A week and a half ago, Iran began its move on Anbar province.

On May 22, Iraqi forces trained by the US military led Iraq’s offensive to wrest control over Fallujah and Mosul from ISIS, which has controlled the Sunni cities since 2014. Despite the fact that the lead forces are US-trained, the main forces involved in the offensive are trained, equipped and directed by Iran.

As Iraqi forces surrounded Fallujah in the weeks before the offensive began, Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds forces, paid a public visit to the troops to demonstrate Iran’s dominant role.

The battle for Fallujah is a clear indication that Iran, rather than the US, is calling the shots in Iraq. According to media reports, the Pentagon wanted and expected for the forces to be concentrated in Mosul. But at the last minute, due to Soleimani’s intervention, the Iraqi government decided to make Fallujah the offensive’s center of gravity.

The Americans had no choice but to go along with the Iranian plan because, as Dyer noted, Iran is increasingly outflanking the US in Iraq. If things follow their current course, in the near future, Iran is liable to be in a position to force the US to choose between going to war or ceasing all air operations in Iraq.

On May 7, Asharq al-Awsat reported that the Revolutionary Guards is building a missile base in Suleimaniyah province, in Iraqi Kurdistan.

A senior IRGC general has made repeated visits to the area in recent weeks, signaling that the regime views this as an important project. The report further stated that Iran is renewing tunnel networks in the region, built during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

Dyer warned that depending on the type of missiles Iran deploys – or has deployed – to the base, it may threaten all US air operations in Iraq. And the US has no easy means to block Iran’s actions.

To date, commentators have more or less agreed that US operations in Iraq and Syria make no sense. They are significant enough to endanger US forces, but they aren’t significant enough to determine the outcome of the war in either territory.

But there may be logic to this seemingly irrational deployment that is concealed from view. A close reading of David Samuels’s profile of President Barack Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes published last month in The New York Times, points to such a conclusion.

Samuels described Rhodes as second only to Obama in his influence over US foreign and defense policy. Rhodes boasted to Samuels that Obama’s moves toward Iran were determined by a strategic course he embraced before he entered office.

A fiction writer by training, Rhodes’s first “national security” job was as the chief note taker for the Iraq Study Group.

Then-president George W. Bush appointed the group, jointly chaired by former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton, in 2006, to advise him on how to extricate the US from the war in Iraq.

In late 2006, the ISG published its recommendations.

Among other things, the ISG recommended withdrawing US forces from Iraq as quickly as possible. The retreat was to be enacted in cooperation with Iran and Syria – the principle sponsors of the insurgency.

The ISG argued that if given the proper incentives, Syria and Iran would fight al-Qaida in Iraq in place of the US. For such action, the ISG recommended that the US end its attempts to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

Responsibility for handling the threat, the ISG recommended, should be transferred to the US Security Council.

So, too, the ISG recommended that Bush pressure Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights, Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria in the framework of a “peace process.”

Such action too would serve to convince Iran and Syria that they could trust the US and agree to serve as its heirs in Iraq.

Bush of course, rejected the ISG’s recommendations.

He decided instead to sue for victory in Iraq. Bush announced the surge in US forces shortly after the ISG published its report.

But now we see, that through Rhodes the Iraq Study Group’s recommendation became the blueprint for a new US strategy of retreat and Iranian ascendance in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.

The chief components of that strategy have already been implemented. The US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 left Iran as the new power broker in the country. The nuclear pact with Iran facilitated Iran’s transformation into the regional hegemon.

Against this strategic shift, the US’s minimalist campaigns in Iraq and Syria against ISIS make sense.

The US forces aren’t there to defeat ISIS, but to conceal Iran’s rise.

When ISIS is defeated in Anbar and in Raqqa in Syria, its forces are liable to turn west, to Jordan.

The US is currently helping Jordan to complete a border fence along its border with Iraq. But then ISIS is already active in Jordan.

And if events in Iraq and Syria are any guide, where ISIS leads, Iran will follow.

Iran’s strategic game, as well as America’s, requires Israel to become a strategic player.

We must recognize that what is happening in Iraq is connected to what is happening here.

We need to understand the implications of the working alliance Obama has built with Iran.

Even if Obama’s successor disavows his actions, by the time Obama leaves office, America’s options will be more limited than ever before. Without war, his successor will likely be unable to stem Iran’s rise on the ruins of the Arab state system.

In this new strategic environment, Israel must stop viewing Gaza, Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights and Lebanon as standalone battlefields. We must not be taken in by “regional peace plans” that would curtail our maneuver room. And we must bear in mind these new conditions as we negotiate a new US military assistance package.

The name of the game today is chess. The entire Middle East is one great board. When a pawn moves in Gaza, it affects the queen in Tehran.

And when a knight moves in Fallujah, it threatens the queen in Jerusalem.