Turkish president Tayyip Recep Erdogan has raised another large obstacle on the road to Turkish-Israeli reconciliation and normal ties. Saudi King Salman, who is visiting Cairo, confided to his host Egyptian president Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi that Erdogan had made it clear that he would not finally repair Ankara’s ties with Israel until Sisi came forward to shake his hand, stopped being hostile and turned a new page in their relations.
This is revealed exclusively by DEBKAfile’s Middle East and Cairo sources.
The king sad that by burying the hatchet with Erdogan, Sisi would pave the way to an accord between Ankara and Jerusalem, on which progress has been made in bilateral negotiations. Members of the royal Saudi entourage in Cairo confirmed the threat from Ankara, that if the Egyptian president continues to disapprove of the Turkish ruler and give him a hard time, Ankara would retaliate by raising more impediments to a rapprochement with Israel.
In this regard, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Sunday cabinet meeting on April 10, “Peace with Egypt is stronger than ever before, standing firm against very tough challenges to both nations.” He went on to say, “The ties between Egypt and Israel provide an important buttress for the national security of both nations.”
Netanyahu did not itemize those “challenges,” but DEBKAfile’s sources were informed that he was beaming a message to the Saudi king and Turkish president, that Israel had every confidence in its strategic pact with President El-Sisi holding up against attempts by Erdogan to drive a wedge between Cairo and Jerusalem.
His comments were also meant to encourage the Egyptian leader to withstand undue pressure coming from King Salman and extortions by the Turkish president.
On one of the issues clouding relations between Cairo and Riyadh, the king denied wholehearted Saudi support for the El-Sisi’s archenemy, the Muslim Brotherhood, ousted from power three years ago in a military coup.
The Israeli question came up in relation to the Egyptian presidential decree ceding ownership to Saudi Arabia of the disputed Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir. These islands are of high strategic value because they control shipping traffic through the Gulf of Aqaba to and from the Israeli port of Eilat and the Jordanian port of Aqaba.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters Sunday night, April 10, that his government would not hold negotiations with Israel on those islands. The Kingdom’s commitment included accepting the presence of international forces on the islands under the peace treaty of Egypt and Israel, he said.
He was referring to the Multinational Force Observers – mostly Americans – which have maintained a presence on Tiran to monitor Egypt’s commitment to the freedom of Israeli shipping through the Strait of Tiran under their 1979 peace accords.
By this commitment to the international force’s presence “under the peace treaty of Israel and Egypt,” Saudi Arabia publicly extended implicit endorsement for Israel’s first peace treaty with an Arab state 37 years ago.
Last Friday, April 1, President Reccep Tayyip Erdogan had his first encounter with a group of American Jewish leaders, at his request. The full details of its contents were hard to sort out because the Turkish translator censored his master’s words with a heavy hand to make them more acceptable to his audience. But Erdogan’s bottom line, DEBKAfile’s New York sources report, was a request for help in explaining to the Obama administration in Washington and the Netanyahu government in Jerusalem why they must on no account extend support to the Syrian Kurdish PYD and its YPG militia or recognize their bid for a separate state in northern Syria.
The Turkish president did not spell out his response to this step, but indicated that a Turkish invasion to confront the Kurdish separatists was under serious consideration in Ankara. His meaning was clear: He would go to war against the Kurds, even if this meant flying in the face of President Barack Obama’s expectation that Turkey would fight the Islamic State.
Relations between the Turkish and US presidents have slipped back another notch in the last two weeks. When he visited Washington for the nuclear summit, Erdogan was pointedly not invited to the White House and his request for a tete a tete with Obama was ruled out. The US president even refused to join Erdogan in ceremonially honoring a new mosque built outside Washington with Turkish government funding.
At odds between them is not just the Kurdish question, but Erdogan’s furious opposition to Obama’s collaboration with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Syrian conflict, and the two presidents’ tacit accord to leave Bashar Assad in power indefinitely until a handover becomes manageable.
On Feb. 7, on his return for a Latin American tour, the Turkish president warned Obama that he must choose between Ankara and the Kurds, whom he called “terrorists.” By last week, the US president’s choice was clear. It was the Kurds.
When Erdogan arrived home from Washington last week, he discovered that the roughly four million Syrian Kurds dwelling in three enclaves touching on the Turkish border had taken important steps to advance their goal for self-rule: They were drafting a plan for establishing a “Federal Democratic System” in their three enclaves – Hassakeh-Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin – and had announced the amalgamation of their respective militias under the heading the “Syrian Democratic Forces”.
Cold-shouldered in Washington as well as Moscow (since Turkish jets shot down a Russian fighter last November), Erdogan found himself let down by the Jewish leaders whom he tried to woo. They refused to support him or his policy on the Kurdish question for three reasons:
1. Ankara had for years consistently promoted the radical Palestinian Hamas organization. To this, Erdogan replied by denying he had backed Hamas only acted to improve the lives of the Gaza population. And, anyway, he said he had reacyed understandings with Israel on this issue..
2. His hostility towards Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi. Erdogan’s response to this was a diatribe slamming the Egyptian ruler.
3. No clear reply had been forthcoming from Jerusalem by that time on Israel’s relations with Turkey or its policy towards the Kurds, despite the Turkish leader’s positive presentation of mended fences.
The current state of the relationship is laid out by DEBKAfile’s sources:
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is caught on the horns of multiple dilemmas: While reluctant to respond to Ankara’s suit for warm relations with a leader who is shunned by Obama and Putin alike, Turkey is nonetheless offering to be Israel’s best client for its offshore gas.
Israel’s friendship with the Kurdish people goes back many years. The rise of an independent or autonomous state in Syria and its potential link-up with the semiautonomous Kurdish region of Iraq would create an important new state of 40 million people in the heart of the Middle East.
Israel has no wish to make enemies of its longstanding friends by disowning them in favor of Turkey.
Already, Israel’s evolving ties with the Syrian Kurds have given Israel’s strategic position in Syria a new positive spin, upgrading it versus the Assad regime in Damascus and its Hizballah and Iranian allies, who are avowed enemies of the Jewish state. Those ties offer Israel its first foothold in northern Syria.
And finally, Erdogan is not the only opponent of Kurdish separatism; so too are important Sunni Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. By promoting the Kurds, Israel risks jeopardizing its rapidly developing ties with those governments.
Saudi Arabia UN Ambassador Abdallah al-Mouallimi has finally resolved the rather glaring inconsistency of the Kingdom demanding elections in Syria while denying full elections to Saudi Arabians. The reason is simple according to Al-Mouallimi: Saudi citizens are the happiest in the world and would not want a democratic choice.
Al-Mouallimi insists that it is entirely unnecessary to given Saudi citizens democratic rights because they are happier “than almost any other country in the world.” Well, perhaps not those religious minorities who are denied a place to worship or those women who must get permission from younger brothers or husbands to travel (and cannot drive) or those girls denied basic opportunities and educational advancement. Then there are those political dissidents who are arrested for questioning the system or the royal family.
In an interview for Al Jazeera by British journalist Mehdi Hasan, Al-Mouallimi insisted that “Elections are not the panacea for everything. Just because there are elections in Syria doesn’t mean there have to be elections in Saudi.”
He added “The key question is: Is the population content and happy and satisfied with the form of government they have and I would like to claim if you went to Saudi Arabia and conducted a survey… you will find a high degree of support for the system.”
This happiness is based on a “mutual acceptance,” which of course does not apply to those political opponents arrested for criticizing the government. Putting aside all those who disagree with the government, Al-Mouallimi explained “I can tell you that mutual acceptance is much higher in Saudi Arabia than almost any other country in the world.”
Political parties remain banned in the Kingdom and questioning the monarchy is illegal.
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Fascists want to take away our freedom of speech. So do the delicate little snowflakes infesting our institutions of “higher learning.” How much worse will it get over the next few years? Substantially worse, I fear.
In the above video, Bill Whittle recounts numerous Fascist attempts to shut down those with different ideas. I’ll not repeat what he says. Instead, I’ll point out a few other Fascist efforts.
Islamist Fascists
In line with its “misconception” that Islam is the religion of peace and tolerance, the Obama administration has consistently courted the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliate, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) — which do everything they can to shut down all discussion of whether Islam is peaceful and tolerant and whether it should change. The Obama administration, following its lead, has ignored Muslim voices for reform.
What does Hillary Clinton think? Apparently that Islam is fine the way it is.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a different view.
As I noted here, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a former Muslim. She had been scheduled to receive an honorary degree from Brandeis University in April of 2014. However,
Brandeis University in Massachusetts announced Tuesday that it had withdrawn the planned awarding of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a staunch critic of Islam and its treatment of women, after protests from students and faculty.
The university said in a statement posted online that the decision had been made after a discussion between Ali and university President Frederick Lawrence.
“She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women’s rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world,” said the university’s statement. “That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.” [Emphasis added.]
Ali, a member of the Dutch Parliament from 2003 to 2006, has been quoted as making comments critical of Islam. That includes a 2007 interview with Reason Magazine in which she said of the religion, “Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace. I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars.”
Ali was raised in a strict Muslim family, but after surviving a civil war, genital mutilation, beatings and an arranged marriage, she renounced the faith in her 30s. She has not commented publicly on the issue of the honorary degree.
. . . .
More than 85 of about 350 faculty members at Brandeis signed a letter asking for Ali to be removed from the list of honorary degree recipients. And an online petition created Monday by students at the school of 5,800 had gathered thousands of signatures from inside and outside the university as of Tuesday afternoon.
“This is a real slap in the face to Muslim students,” said senior Sarah Fahmy, a member of the Muslim Student Association who created the petition said before the university withdrew the honor.
“But it’s not just the Muslim community that is upset but students and faculty of all religious beliefs,” she said. “A university that prides itself on social justice and equality should not hold up someone who is an outright Islamophobic.” [Emphasis added.]
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also got into the act:
“It is unconscionable that such a prestigious university would honor someone with such openly hateful views.”
The organization sent a letter to university President Frederick Lawrence on Tuesday requesting that it drop plans to honor Ali.
“This makes Muslim students feel very uneasy,” Joseph Lumbard, chairman of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, said in an interview. “They feel unwelcome here.” [Emphasis added.]
Following the public announcement, the Muslim Students Association at Yale went through its usual routine, first seeking to have Ms. Hirsi Ali disinvited (though it disputes this), then to limit the subject matter of her speech, then to impose conditions on her speech that would stigmatize her. In the spirit of WFB himself, Lizardo stood firm.
The MSA routine worked at Brandeis; at Yale, not so much. Not this time.
Poor delicate little snowflakes. Isn’t it a shame that they might be exposed to new ideas that are alien to them? That they were not required to attend and listen to those ideas is, apparently, inconsequential. They did not anyone to listen to them.
Here’s a video of her remarks. The introductions are a trifle long and add little value. The questions she was asked at the end and her answers are, however, interesting. They begin at 55 minutes into the video.
She seemed to be speaking less to the “choir” and more to a broader audience which she was trying to convince. To that end, she was as conciliatory as she could be without abandoning her thesis that Islam is the religion of repression, submission and death, not peace; that it is highly dangerous to Western civilization, including our concepts of freedom and democracy. “Radical” Islam is rising, becoming even worse and it must be defeated.
Even to try to defeat Islam, we need to defeat the increasing efforts to eliminate freedom of speech at home in favor of speech that is politically and multiculturally correct and therefore not free. [Emphasis added.]
On April 7, 2015, Hirsi Ali spoke at the National Press Club. Here’s a video of her remarks on the Clash of Civilizations, largely based on her book Heretic, which I later reviewed here. There, she writes optimistically of the possibility (but not the probability) of an Islamic revolution, someday.
There is a clash of civilizations. Muslims in Western countries generally refuse to help the police prevent Islamic terror attacks, such as recently occurred in Brussels.
There is a reason why Israel razes the homes of terrorists. It is because Israelis know that a terrorist cannot plot and carry out an attack without the knowledge and help of his or her immediate relatives, and further, the entire community. Punitive home demolition is meant to serve as a deterrent, the idea being that a would-be terrorist’s family will fear losing their home and thus persuade him or her against the attack.
In fact, knowing that it “takes a village” to aid and abet a terrorist is precisely why the terrorists responsible for the Paris and recent Brussels bombings could operate “right under the noses” of their victims. And it is why some are calling for heightened scrutiny of Muslim communities across the West, and right here in the U.S., despite cries of Islamophobia.
The MailOnlinereports that police in Molenbeek — a district known for spawning jihadis like the France and Brussels attackers — have pleaded with local Muslims for help in finding the terror suspects only to have their pleas rebuffed.
Western nations which welcome and care for them are spit upon. “See something, say something” did not work before the San Bernardino Islamic attack. Perhaps those who saw something but said nothing remained silent because they feared being characterized as Islamophobes.
Here is a recent video of an interview with a teenage Yazidi girl who escaped the Islamic State. Is Islam the religion of peace and respect for females? For people of other religions?
In the unlikely event that any delicate little snowflakes watch it, will they be offended by its presence on You Tube, by the “lies” told by the Yazidi girl or by the truth of her statements?
Multicultural Fascists
Europe has many multicultural Fascists and Obama’s America has fewer. However, those who propagate the multicultural fantasy are winning. In the past, we sought immigrants who brought with them cultures compatible with ours. Now, Obama demands that we accept immigrants whose cultures of violence, drugs, gangs, crime and the like are not compatible. We have sanctuary cities where gang, other violence and drug smuggling and use are endemic. Although state efforts to enforce Federal immigration laws which the Obama administration refuses to enforce have been struck down by the judiciary, the Obama administration somewhat impotently challenged the sanctuary cities this year, only following pressure from the Congress.
Here is a video of remarks made by Victor Davis Hanson about one year ago on the travesty of “illiberal illegal immigration.” Illegal immigration breeds illegality across the board.
A transcript of his remarks is available here. Here’s just a short snippet:
[I]t’s a controversial topic. If I had said to you 20 years ago, 10 years ago, we’re going to get in a situation in the United States where 160,000 people are going to arrive at the border and break immigration law and we’re going to let them all in at once without any prior check, medical histories, you would think I was a right-wing conspiracist. If I had said to you, we’re going to have a president who is going to not only nullify existing federal immigration law, but on 22 occasions prior to that nullification warn us that he couldn’t nullify it, or, if I had said, he’s not only going to nullify federal immigration law, which he said would be unconstitutional, but that he is going to punish members of ICE, the border patrol, who follow existing law rather than his own unlawful existing order, I could go on, but you’d all think this was surreal, Orwellian, it couldn’t happen. Yet that’s the status quo as we look at it today.
Our borders are worse than porous; they are open and little effort is being made to keep criminals, drug dealers, gang members and other violent people out. While Obama has many “top” priorities, doing that is not among them.
Cultures are either consciously abandoned, or consciously enforced. The theory of multiculturalism has always been a tonic for simpletons, since it celebrates the perpetuation and imposition of an incompatible culture, still being practiced by those who carry it, upon a host culture with which it is mutually exclusive. Multiculturalism is entirely subversive. It is intended to force one or more cultures upon the hosts who do not want or need them. Since both cultures cannot successfully coexist within the host, which has its own successful working culture, the purpose of the exercise has always been fraudulent. The “melting pot” concept worked not because of the concept of multiculturalism, but as testament against it. Those who came here in our parents’ and grandparents’ generation consciously chose to abandon the cultures they left in favor of the American culture. They became Americans, embracing one culture.
If one was being less generous than to call multiculturalism a tonic for simpletons, it would be more accurate to say that modern leftist multiculturalism is actually a weapon. Its purpose is not to enhance the host, but to consume it. If the host’s culture is peaceful, it has no use for malcontents who insist upon the dominance of their native culture. Malcontents, in the form of angry and entitled guests, foment chaos and disorder. And yet, the leftists insist that we demonstrate our cultural superiority by abandoning the superiority of our own culture and importing incompatible languages, traditions, practices, and morals.
Here’s a snapshot of our current Southern border by Sharyl Attkisson:
Conclusions
The delicate little snowflakes who demand safe spaces from reality in what were once institutions of higher learning seem to be increasing in number. They are our next generation and will soon begin to elect those with whose milquetoast views they agree. It will be a sad day for America when our nation mirrors those “educational” institutions. Solutions? I have none to offer, other than the development of backbones by their university administrators and teachers; perhaps even by their own parents. Perhaps some little snowflakes will be told, “If you don’t want to be exposed to views inconsistent with those you already hold, don’t come here.”
Living in America should be an honor not granted those who despise and abuse her by coming illegally, by illegally bringing crime and violence or by supporting those who do. Falsely characterizing Islam as the religion of peace and tolerance should not be “who we are” as Obama claims. Most of us are not deluded fools, I hope.
Oh well. Somehow we got Obama as the Commander in Chief. Twice.
This message was posted just eight days before the recent Islamic attack in Brussels, Belgium:
Authorities need look no further than Angela Merkel as the prime suspect for the latest carnage in Brussels.
More than anyone, it was Merkel who opened the floodgates to the migrants — armies of men without women posing as refugees from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan found trampling throughout Europe. When they are caught misbehaving, they smirk and say, “I am here as a guest of Angela Merkel,” and they are correct and nearly untouchable.
Merkel stands by her open borders policy, the safety of her people be damned.
Over the past 12 months, more then a million of them have already crossed into Germany alone; 300,000 have been given asylum.
Of Brussels at this hour, all Western Europe leadership is guilty with Merkel sharing the largest part of the blame. These are her pets.
“Don’t go out unless you have to” is the hot new message circulating throughout Europe now that the “refugees” have arrived. You could get raped.
You could also get killed, and that’s what happened when the citizens of Brussels dared to go out Tuesday morning during rush hour. Scores were slain and wounded from yet another Islamic terror attack and people all over want to know how to make this stop.
Stop the influx. How’s that for an idea that needs no Einstein? Deport them instead. Maybe starting with Merkel, who invited the stampede.
The Saudis and the princes from the other Gulf States have it neatly figured out.
(So does Trump who wants to stop it and saw it coming as did this must-read thriller.)
Those titled Arabs don’t want that crowd within 100 miles even though they are fellow Muslims. But they do not want that type entering their borders, bringing with them their license to rape, their rivalries and tribal feuds, hell no, so why not Europe, and Europe says, sure, why not? Bring them on!
How clueless!
This is how. Only a few days ago, there they sat around a big table in Brussels, the smooth rulers of the EU, congratulating themselves on the capture of the final “mastermind” behind the November attack in Paris that killed 130. The French president was there, the Belgium prime minister was there and all the rest together expressed joy to the world that Salah Abdeslam had been caught.
Merkel sent in her gratitude for the superb police work.
At the moment they were hi-fiving the one success, 10,000 more “refugees” streamed in, plenty of them likewise “masterminds.”
Can no one do the math?
We pass the point of absurdity when “open borders” imperils us all throughout the world. There is no stopping the mad dash across continents.
Nor can we stop the madness that afflicts the world’s leaders.
Merkel and the rest of you clueless rulers of Europe, your misguided liberal sympathies and migrant leniencies are killing us.
Hence, Obama has chimed in his condolences for the pain in Brussels. “The entire world must unite,” he said. Yeah, sure, thanks. Will do.
Now back to the game, Mr. President.
Employing European wisdom, he wants to bring more of them into the United States. Thanks again.
Likewise Hillary and Trudeau. First the condolences followed by “we must resist Islamophobia” and keep the influx coming.
Hillary demands that we bring in 65,000 of them. Trudeau is ahead of her. He’s already got them in Canada.
It takes no prophet to know what’s coming for Canada and what’s next for the United States.
Don’t blame the terrorists, only. They are murderers but they know what they are doing.
The same cannot be said for the men and women who run our world.
Huma Abedin with husband Anthony Weiner. / Photo credit: Zennie Abraham
The watchdog group Judicial Watch on Tuesday filed a plan for “narrowly tailored discovery” into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email matter with a federal court. Judicial Watch’s discovery plan seeks the testimony of eight current and former State Department officials, including Clinton’s two top aides at the State Department Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills. Others on the list are top State Department official Patrick Kennedy, and former State IT expert Bryan Pagliano.
Judicial Watch’s plan says that “based on information learned during discovery, the deposition of Mrs. Clinton may be necessary” but would only occur with permission by the Court.
During a court hearing on February 23, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan granted Judicial Watch’s motion for discovery into whether the State Department and Clinton deliberately thwarted the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for six years. The discovery arises in a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit that seeks records about the controversial employment status of Huma Abedin, former Deputy Chief of Staff to Clinton. The lawsuit was reopened because of revelations about the clintonemail.com system.
Huma Abedin was Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff and a senior adviser throughout her four years as Secretary of State and also had an email account on clintonemail.com. Abedin, who now serves as vice chairwoman of Clinton’s 2016 campaign for President, is married to Anthony Weiner, the former Congressman from New York who resigned in disgrace. Abedin was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, but at the age of two moved with her family to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she was raised and lived until returning to the United States at age 18.
ISIL, or ISIS, now calling itself the Islamic State, is part of a continuing Sunni Muslim problem. Here is some real history to counter current media perceptions paid for by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
Ask the media or any Democratic or Republican senator, and they will tell you that Shiite Muslims (or Shia) are the greatest threat faced by Western civilization today. Besides Sen. John McCain, current presidential candidates Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have referred to the Shiite threat in virtually every stump speech, often citing the “Shia Crescent” that runs from Iran through Iraq and Syria and ending in Lebanon. Rubio constantly refers to “our Sunni allies such as Saudi Arabia” and has suggested the creation of a Sunni state in Syria. Apparently, the senator is, as is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, unaware that there is already a Sunni state in northern Syria, and it is run by the Islamic State, otherwise known as ISIS or ISIL.
The Sunni Islamic State does have a competitor in Syria, al-Nusra, which is part of al-Qaida and also a Sunni terror organization. The Army of Islam operating in Syria is also a Sunni terror organization supported by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. During battles between al-Nusra and the Islamic State, American-led coalition aircraft have supported Sunni al-Nusra, which is al-Qaida. Which Sunni group to back in the Syrian civil war is always a question for the White House.
In 2015 most of the 17,000 civilians killed in Iraq died at the hands of Sunni terrorists. That is 10 times the number killed in the Sunni terror attack on 9/11. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were conducted by al-Qaida, a Sunni terror organization. The first terror attack on the Trade Center in 1993 was financed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Sunni cleric also associated with the Sunni terror group al-Qaida.
The 9/11 attack was planned by al-Qaida from Afghanistan, which at the time was controlled by the Taliban, a Sunni Muslim group dedicated to the elimination of Shiites and Christians.
Sunni groups, many funded by interests inside Saudi Arabia and Qatar, declared responsibility for the 2004 Madrid train bombings killing 191 and wounding over 1,800. A Sunni group took responsibility for the 2005 London bus bombings killing 52 and wounding 700. Sunni terror groups were responsible for the massacre of 334 people including 186 children during the 2004 attack on a school in Beslan, Russia, and also the Moscow theater attack in 2002. The various Paris attacks, including the 2015 Charlie Hebdo magazine and Jewish deli attacks over three days and a later attack in November on a theater and restaurants that killed 130, were conducted by the Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim organizations.
The Fort Hood terror attack in 2009 killing 13 plus an unborn child was conducted by Maj. Nidal Hasan, a Sunni Muslim connected to a “vetted” Sunni imam, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was allowed to speak at the Pentagon and Congress. Al-Awlaki and his son, both U.S. citizens, were killed by a drone strike though a death warrant issued by President Obama to shut him up lest he embarrass those at the Pentagon who had “vetted” him. He had been the imam at the Virginia mosque attended by some of the 9/11 hijackers.
There have been numerous “minor” terror attacks against Western targets, such as the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that killed “only” three and wounded 264. The bombers were brothers from a family of Sunni Muslims who had immigrated legally to the United States from Chechnya, Russia. Other “small” attacks by Sunni Muslims in the United States include the following: A Sunni Muslim convert killed one at a Little Rock military recruiting center in 2009, and four Marines were killed by a Sunni Muslim immigrant in Chattanooga in 2015. Other attacks such as against a 2002 El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport have been downplayed as only three died.
Most recently in the United States was the 2015 San Bernardino massacre, which was carried out by a Sunni Muslim couple connected to Saudi Sunni extremists and influenced by the Islamic State. A total of 14 were killed and 22 wounded.
In Asia the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 mostly Australian tourists was orchestrated Jemaah Islamiyah, a Sunni Muslim organization seeking Shariah law in that nation. Sunni groups have bombed numerous churches in the Philippians, and Thailand suffers almost daily deaths by Sunni Muslim separatist organizations that want a breakaway state under Shariah law. China suffers numerous attacks from Sunni groups every year.
The most noted attack in India by Sunni Muslims from Pakistan was in 2008 when 10 members of Lashkar -e-Taiba, conducted 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks over four days, killing 164 people and wounding 308. A landmark hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace, was nearly completely destroyed.
The mass beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya that outraged the press in the United States for a few days in 2015 were conducted by a Sunni terror group. All of the slaughter in this Hillary Clinton established “democracy” is being conducted by three Sunni Muslim factions.
Back to the “Shia threat” alluded to by Hillary Clinton, McCain, Cruz and Rubio as well as Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. The last large scale Shia attack against the West was in 1983 against a military target in Lebanon at the U.S. military barracks, killing 299 American and French servicemen.
I have left Israel out of this analysis because it faces a Sunni threat from the south in Gaza and a Shia threat to the north. In line with the theology of the two groups, Sunni-oriented Hamas normally attacks civilian targets while Shia Hezbollah usually attacks military targets.
With this history, why does the Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, as well as both liberal and conservative members of Congress and virtually all presidential candidates, say the greatest threat is from Shia Muslims?
The simple answer is that Saudi Arabia is Sunni Muslim, and most of the financing for Sunni extremist groups has come from Saudi Arabia, which is “our ally.” The initial funding for the revolt in Syria, which handed us the Islamic State problem, came from Saudi Arabia. Over $2 billion in arms were moved into Syria from Turkey and prepositioned before the initial Sunni uprising that to this day Obama and McCain insist was a secular revolt.
Some contend that only private elements within Saudi Arabia supported ISIS and never the Saudi government. Although Saudi Arabia may not directly support or fund ISIS, Saudi Arabia gives legitimacy to ISIS extremist ideology. Saudi textbooks are used in the ISIS-controlled schools in Syria and Iraq.
If we want to cut off the real head of the snake, the Islamic ideology that threatens the world through al-Qaida and the Islamic State today, we must shut down the educational funding source – and that is Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia runs a close second to North Korea on human rights abuses and should be treated to the same sanctions and boycotts. All Saudi-printed literature and all funding of mosques and schools in the United States and Europe should be banned at once.
To stop ISIS, which is actually the second generation of al-Qaida, we must dig out the root which is Saudi Arabia.
Note: The preceding were William J. Murray’s prepared remarks for The Awakening, Orlando, Florida, March 5, 2016.
Headline of last issue of Turkey’s Zaman before government takeover
Turkey and Saudi Arabia have taken separate steps to break free from Washington’s dictates on the Syrian issue and show their resistance to Russia’s highhanded intervention in Syria. They are moving on separate tracks to signal their defiance and frustration with the exclusive pact between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin which ostracizes Riyadh and Ankara on the Syrian question.
Turkey in particular, saddled with three million Syrian refugees (Jordan hosts another 1.4 million), resents Washington’s deaf ear to its demand for no-fly zones in northern and southern Syria as shelters against Russian and Syrian air raids.
Last year, President Reccep Erdogan tried in desperation to partially open the door for a mass exit of Syrian refugees to Europe. He was aghast when he found that most of the million asylum-seekers reaching Europe were not Syrians, but Muslims from Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan, in search of a better life in the West. Most of the Syrians stayed put in the camps housing them in southern Turkey.
Even the Turkish intelligence agency MIT was hard put to explain this setback. According to one partial explanation, organized crime gangs of Middle East dope and arms smugglers, in which ISIS is heavily represented, seized control of the refugee traffic heading to Europe from Libya, Iraq and Syria.
This human traffic netted the gangs an estimated $1 billion.
Turkey was left high and dry with millions of Syrian refugees on its hands and insufficient international aid to supply their needs. No less painful, Bashar Assad was still sitting pretty in Damascus.
Finding Assad firmly entrenched in Damascus is no less an affront for Saudi Arabia. Added to this, the Syrian rebel groups supported by Riyadh are melting away under continuing Russian-backed government assaults enabled by the Obama-Putin “ceasefire” deal’
The oil kingdom’s rulers find it particularly hard to stomach the sight of Iran and Hizballah going from strength to strength both in Syria and Lebanon.
The Turks threatened to strike back, but confined themselves to artillery shelling of Syrian areas close to the border. While appearing to be targeting the Kurdish YPD-YPG militia moving into these areas, the Turkish guns were in fact pounding open spaces with no Kurdish presence. Their purpose was to draw a line around the territory which they have marked out for a northern no-fly or security zone.
Saturday, March 5, President Erdogan proposed building a “new city” of 4,500 square kilometers on northern Syrian soil, to shelter the millions of war refugees. He again tried putting the idea to President Obama.
The Saudi Defense Minister, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman put together a more high-risk and comprehensive scheme. Its dual purpose is to hit pro-Iranian Hizballah from the rear and forcied [Sic] the two big powers to treat Riyadh seriously as a player for resolving the Syrian imbroglio.
The scheme hinged in the cancellation of a $4 billion Saudi pledge of military aid to the Lebanese army, thereby denying Hizballah, which is a state within the state and also dominates the government, access to Saudi funding. But it also pulled the rug from under Lebanon’s hopes for combating ISIS and Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, which have grabbed a strip of Lebanese territory in the northern Beqaa Valley.
The Saudi action, by weakening the Lebanese military and its ability to shore up central government in Beirut, risks tipping Lebanon over into another civil war.
The London Economist commented that this Saudi step against Lebanon seems “amateurish.” Under the young prince (30), “Saudi Arabia sometimes acts with bombast and violence that makes it look like the Donald Trump of the Arab World,” in the view of the magazine.
But the Saudi step had a third less obvious motive, a poke in the eye for President Obama for espousing Iran’s claim to Middle East hegemony. Resentment on this score is common to the Saudi royal house and the Erdogan government.
As a crude provocation for Washington, the Turkish president ordered police Friday, March 4, to raid Turkey’s largest newspaper Zaman, after an Istanbul court ruling placed it under government control.
The newspaper released its final edition ahead of the raid declaring the takeover a “shameful day for free press” in the country. A group of protesters outside the building was dispersed with tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons.
Zaman is owned by the exiled Muslim cleric Felhullah Gulen, who heads the powerful Hizmet movement, which strongly contests Erdogan government policies. A former ally of the president, the two fell out years ago. In 1999, after he was accused of conspiring to overthrow the government in Ankara, Gulen fled to the United States.
Today, the exiled cleric runs the Hizmet campaign against the Turkish president from his home in Pennsylvania, for which he has been declared a terrorist and many of his supporters arrested.
The takeover of Zaman was intended both as a blow by Ankara against Muslim circles opposed to the Erdogan regime and as an act of retaliation against the United States, for harboring its opponents and sidelining Turkey from Obama administration plans for Syria.
Oddly enough, the Turkish president finds himself in a position analogous to Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi, who is at war with the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement which enjoys Obama’s support.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has his own dilemmas. Struggling to keep his balance while walking a tight rope on the Syrian situation between Israel’s longstanding ties with Washington and handling the Russian tiger lurking next door, he is in no hurry to welcome Erdogan’s determined overtures for the resumption of normal relations.
Turkey is in trouble with both major world powers and, after living for five years under hostile abuse from Ankara, Israel does not owe Erdogan a helping had for pulling him out of the mess.
For the first time in the five-year Syrian conflict, Saudi Arabia is preparing to supply Syrian rebel groups with anti-air and anti-tank missiles in an attempt to stall Russia’s military efforts to extend Bashar Assad’s days in power. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the defense minister, is choreographing this escalated Saudi intervention in the Syrian war. He plans to arm Syrian rebels militias with missiles capable of striking the new Russian T-90 tanks, which DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources disclose were shipped directly to the Syrian army’s armed divisions in the last two weeks from the Russian Black Sea base of Novorossiysk.
The big Russian landing craft Novocherkassk, which unloaded a further supply of tanks at Tartus port on Thursday, Thursday, March 3, also delivered a consignment of MLRS rocket launchers.
A second Russian vessel is heading for Syria with more hardware.
This is in line with Moscow’s decision to upgrade the Syrian army’s armaments and rebuild the units severely ravaged by five years of combat. For Riyadh, this is tantamount to the indefinite and unacceptable prolongation of Assad’s days in power.
Most Western and Middle East observers think the Saudis may be bluffing about their plan to arm Syrian rebels with missiles, as a ploy to get Washington and Moscow to treat them seriously as a player on the Syrian stage and take their interests into account. Ideally, Riyadh would hope to break up American cooperation with Iran in Iraq and Russian cooperation with Iran in Syria.
The Saudis have so far pitched into this endlessly complex scenario with two tangible steps:
1. The deployment last week of four Saudi Air Force F-15 bomber fighters at the Turkish base of Incirlik near the Syrian border, to be followed by a contingent of ground troops for operations in Syria.
2. A direct challenge to Iran’s fighting arm in Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah, by cancelling the $4 billion defense package Riyadh had pledged for the rehabilitation of Lebanon’s armed forces. The Lebanese high command is collaborating increasingly with Hizballah and a large slice of Saudi assistance funds would most certainly have reached its hands.
According to a high-ranking Saudi source, the decision to arm Syrian rebels with missiles is final. He said, “The Syrian opposition might soon acquire surface-to-air missiles, which will raise the wrath of Russia and Iran.” He added:: “No Saudi official will own up to these consignments but, just as 30 years ago, Saudi Arabia was not deterred from intervening in Afghanistan against the Russian army – and we came out the winners” – we will not hesitate to take on the Russian army in Syria too.
DEBKAfile’s military sources point out that in the Afghan war, the Saudis acted with the full support of the United States, whereas in Syria, the Americans are solidly opposed to any Saudi intervention. That is a huge difference between the two cases.
The introduction of Saudi missiles in support of the anti-Assad opposition would create a new situation in the Syrian conflict, whereby Riyadh also has a say – not just Washington, Moscow and Tehran. And that is exactly what Defense Minister Mohammed was after. Saudi willingness to give the rebels missiles takes the oil kingdom’s intervention in the Syrian conflict a lot farther than Israel, the Gulf emirates, Jordan or Turkey have been ready to go until now.
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