Florida: Three Muslims Charged with Conspiring and Providing Material Support to the Islamic State

The United States Department of Justice reports:

Three Palm Beach County, Florida, residents were charged with conspiring and attempting to support the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin, U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida, Special Agent in Charge George L. Piro of the FBI’s Miami Field Office and members of the South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) made the announcement.

gregory hubbardGregory Hubbard, aka Jibreel, 52, of West Palm Beach, Florida; Darren Arness Jackson, aka Daoud, 50, also of West Palm Beach; and Dayne Atani Christian, aka Shakur, 31, of Lake Park, Florida, were charged by a criminal complaint with knowingly conspiring and attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIL.  Christian was also charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm.  The detention hearing will take place on July 27, 2016, and the defendants will be arraigned on Aug. 5, 2016.

“According to the complaint, these defendants conspired and attempted to provide material support to ISIL and one of the defendants was arrested attempting to travel overseas to join and fight for the deadly terrorist organization,” said Assistant Attorney General Carlin.  “The National Security Division’s highest priority is countering terrorist threats, and we will continue to work to stem the flow of foreign fighters abroad and bring to justice those who conspire and attempt to provide material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations.”

“Individuals seeking to travel and take up arms with ISIL pose a threat to the United States and humanity across the globe,” said U.S. Attorney Ferrer.  “The U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force continue to work proactively in order to stifle and disrupt any potential danger posed by the terrorist organizations and their supporters.”

“Terrorism-related arrests such as this serve to remind us of the importance of being vigilant,” said Special Agent in Charge Piro.  “When you see something that doesn’t seem right, report it to law enforcement.  Fighting terrorism is the FBI’s number one priority.  Any information that can put us on the trail of individuals intent on terrorist acts is valuable.”

According to the allegations contained in the complaint, Hubbard expressed support for ISIL and told an FBI confidential human source (CHS) that he wanted to travel to Syria and join ISIL for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad.  Hubbard introduced the CHS to Christian and Jackson, both of whom provided weapons and firearms instruction to Hubbard and the CHS, whom they understood were preparing to travel overseas to join and fight for ISIL.

The complaint further alleges that Jackson and Christian also expressed a desire to join ISIL.  Hubbard purchased an airplane ticket to Germany, where he planned to board a train to Turkey and then head to Syria.  Hubbard was arrested on July 21, 2016, at Miami International Airport prior to the first leg of his overseas trip.  Jackson, who had driven Hubbard to the airport, was arrested after he left the airport premises.  Christian was arrested at his place of work.

A criminal complaint is merely an allegation, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

If convicted, the defendants face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the material support charge.  Christian faces a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted on the charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.  The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes.  If convicted of any offense, the sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the court based on the advisory Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The FBI and JTTF investigated the case with assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Transportation Security Administration; Miami International Airport Police Department; Boca Raton, Florida, Police Department; Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office; and City of West Palm Beach Police Department.  This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Karen E. Gilbert, Brian K. Frazier and Edward C. Nucci and Trial Attorneys Larry Schneider and David Cora of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.

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Benghazi Lives Matter

Donald Trump during his acceptance speech talked about Hillary Clinton and her record while U.S. Secretary of State. Trump said:

America is far less safe and the world is far less stable than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy. I am certain it is a decision he truly regrets.

Her bad instincts and her bad judgment, something pointed out by Bernie Sanders are what caused the disasters unfolding today. Let’s review the record.

In 2009, pre-Hillary, ISIS was not even on the map. Libya was stable. Egypt was peaceful. Iraq had seen a big reduction in violence. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Syria was somewhat under control.

After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have? ISIS has spread across the region and the entire world. Libya is in ruins, and our ambassador and his staff were left helpless to die at the hands of savage killers. Egypt was turned over to the radical Muslim Brotherhood, forcing the military to retake control. Iraq is in chaos. Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil war and a refugee crisis that now threatens the West. After 15 years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before.

This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: Death, destruction and terrorism and weakness. [Emphasis added]

President Obama and Hillary Clinton blame YouTube video for Benghazi Terrorist attack as the coffins of Ambassador Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and two CIA operatives, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, both former Navy SEALs arrive from Benghazi:

In a Washington Times op-ed titled “When the power of condescension fades: The old order fades and the minions of the media can’t figure it out” notes:

Some of the Democrats in the media and without seem to be all heart. They’re worried that the Republicans are ruining their convention in Cleveland. They say so at every opportunity.

Chris Matthews of MSNBC, afflicted with tingling-leg disease — he apparently caught it watching Barack Obama spin his magic from the stump — was particularly upset from listening to a mother’s tale of pain and woe over losing her son Sean at Benghazi.

Patricia Smith, the heartbroken mother, stunned the audience in the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland Monday night with her indictment of Hillary Clinton for her reckless endangerment of diplomats in her charge as secretary of State.

“For all of this loss, for all of this grief, for all the cynicism the tragedy in Benghazi has brought upon America,” she said, with tears streaming down her face, “I blame Hillary Clinton. I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son.”

This was in fact tough stuff, the most dramatic moment so far in the week’s proceedings. Poor Chris was left beside himself with wrath and woe, all but blistering his microphone with high dudgeon. He excoriated Mrs. Smith for voicing “this accusation that somehow Hillary Clinton had anything to do with the deaths of [Ambassador] Chris Stevens and the three other victims.

“I don’t understand why the Republicans would choose to put this on primetime television when they have such wonderful stories of American heroism to speak to the American people. I think it was wrong. I don’t care what ‘that woman’ up there, the mother, has felt. Her emotions are her own.” [Emphasis added]

Read more.

Trump went on to say:

But Hillary Clinton’s legacy does not have to be America’s legacy. The problems we face now — poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad — will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them. A change in leadership is required to produce a change in outcomes.

Perhaps what Chris Mathews is missing that the American people are looking for a change in leadership who will produce a change in outcomes.

During his acceptance speech Donald Trump draws 61 lines in the sand

Donald Trump “humbly and gratefully” accepted the Republican Party nomination for the presidency of the United States on July 21st, 2016.

The theme of Mr. Trump’s acceptance speech was to show the differences between him, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party’s platform. Trump summed it up by saying:

My opponent asks her supporters to recite a three-word loyalty pledge. It reads: “I’m with her.” I choose to recite a different pledge. My pledge reads: “I’m with you the American people.”

During his acceptance speech Mr. Trump drew clear domestic and national security policy lines in the sand. Here are the lines in the sand from Mr. Trump’s acceptance speech:

  1. [W]e will lead our country back to safety, prosperity, and peace.
  2. We will be a country of generosity and warmth.
  3. [W]e will also be a country of law and order.
  4. The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon — and I mean very soon come to an end.
  5. We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore.
  6. The problems we face now — poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad — will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them. A change in leadership is required to produce a change in outcomes.
  7. [O]ur plan will put America first.Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo.
  8. The American people will come first once again.
  9. My message is that things have to change and they have to change right now.
  10. I have no patience for injustice. No tolerance for government incompetence.
  11. I know that corruption has reached a level like never ever before in our country.
  12. I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves.
  13. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. I have seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders.
  14. [W]e are going to fix the system so it works fairly and justly for each and every American.
  15. We will bring the same economic success to America that [Governor and Vice President nominee] Mike brought Indiana.Hi
  16. The first task for our new administration will be to liberate our citizens from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens their — our communities.
  17. When I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country.
  18. I am the law and order candidate.
  19. I will work to ensure that all of our kids are treated equally, and protected equally.
  20. We are going to defeat the barbarians of ISIS. And we are going to defeat them bad.
  21. I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign [Islamic] ideology.
  22. We must have the best, absolutely the best, gathering of intelligence anywhere in the world.
  23. We must abandon the failed policy of nation- building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, in Egypt, and Syria.
  24. we must work with all of our allies who share our goal of destroying ISIS and stamping out Islamic terrorism and doing it now, doing it quickly.
  25. We’re going to win. We’re going to win fast. This includes working with our greatest ally in the region, the state of Israel.
  26. [W]e must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place. We don’t want them in our country.
  27. I only want to admit individuals into our country who will support our values and love our people. Anyone who endorses violence, hatred or oppression is not welcome in our country and never ever will be.
  28. We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people.
  29. We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities.
  30. By ending catch-and-release on the border, we will stop the cycle of human smuggling and violence.
  31. Peace will be restored by enforcing the rules for the millions who overstay their visas, our laws will finally receive the respect they deserve.
  32. We are going to be considerate and compassionate to everyone. But my greatest compassion will be for our own struggling citizens.
  33. I have a different vision for our workers. It begins with a new, fair trade policy that protects our jobs and stands up to countries that cheat — of which there are many.
  34. I’m going to make our country rich again. Using the greatest business people of the world, I’m going to turn our bad trade agreements into great trade agreements.
  35. I am going to bring our jobs back our jobs to Ohio and Pennsylvania and New York and Michigan and all of America and I am not going to let companies move to other countries, firing their employees along the way, without consequences.
  36. I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers, or that diminishes our freedom and Independence. We will never ever sign bad trade deals. America first again. American first.
  37. I will make individual deals with individual countries. No longer will we enter into these massive transactions with many countries that are thousands of pages long and which no one from our country even reads or understands.
  38. We are going to enforce all trade violations against any country that cheats. This includes stopping China’s outrageous theft of intellectual property, along with their illegal product dumping, and their devastating currency manipulation.
  39. I have proposed the largest tax reduction of any candidate who has run for president this year, Democrat or Republican. Middle-income Americans will experience profound relief, and taxes will be greatly simplified for everyone. I mean everyone.
  40. Excessive regulation is costing our country as much as $2 trillion a year, and we will end and it very quickly.
  41. We are going to lift the restrictions on the production of American energy.
  42. We will build the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, and the railways of our tomorrow.
  43. We will rescue kids from failing schools by helping their parents send them to a safe school of their choice.
  44. We will repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare. You will be able to choose your own doctor again.
  45. [W]e will fix TSA at the airports, which is a total disaster.
  46. We are going to work with all of our students who are drowning in debt to take the pressure off these young people just starting out in their adult lives.
  47. We will completely rebuild our depleted military.
  48. [T]he countries that we protecting at a massive cost to us will be asked to pay their fair share.
  49. We will take care of our great veterans like they have never been taken care of before.
  50. We will guarantee those who serve this country will be able to visit the doctor or hospital of their choice without waiting five days in a line and dying.
  51. We are going to ask every department head and government to provide a list of wasteful spending projects that we can eliminate in my first 100 days.
  52. We are also going to appoint justices to the United States Supreme Court who will uphold our laws and our constitution.
  53. My opponent wants to essentially abolish the 2nd Amendment. I, on the other hand, received the early and strong endorsement of the National Rifle Association. And will protect the right of all Americans to keep their families safe.
  54. An amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson, many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views. Their voice has been taken away. I will work hard to repeal that language and to protect free speech for all Americans.
  55. [M]y sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country, to go to work for you. It is time to deliver a victory for the American people. We don’t win anymore, but we are going to start winning again. But to do that, we must break free from the petty politics of the past.
  56. I will be a champion.Your champion.
  57. I am your voice. So to every parent who dreams for their child, and every child who dreams for their future, I say these words to you tonight: I’m with you, and I will fight for you, and I will win for you
  58. We will make America strong again.
  59. We will make America proud again.
  60. We will make America safe again.
  61. And we will make America great again!

Here is the video of Donald Trump’s acceptance speech:

Erdogan’s Faux Coup — The rise of a Sunni Islamist Caliphate?

When first televised pictures burst out on July 15, 2015 on international media about an alleged coup by the Turkish Army they were peculiar. The soldiers stationed at airports, in tanks on the Bosporus Bridges looked timid and frankly lost. The flyovers and explosions by low flying Turkish Air Force jets and attack helicopters may have been threatening, but in reality they were for show. August 1st was the date for appointments to Turkey’s Supreme Military Command. What better time to unleash a long planned staged coup that unfolded on flickering TV screens across the globe. Normally, in the four prior coups by Turkish military, the President and cabinet were immediately sequestered, official media communications were seized and the reigning government toppled before Turkish citizens knew what had occurred. Not this time. Erdogan was ensconced on vacation in his resort palace in Mamaris, while military units were seizing news offices, rolling out tanks on Bosporus bridges and soldiers were blocking entrances to Istanbul International Airport. Then, as if on cue, hordes of men jammed the streets in Istanbul and Ankara. This was triggered by an Facetime video message from Erdogan that he was returning to Istanbul in his Gulfstream 5 executive aircraft. He declared that he was seizing back control and summarily ordered the arrest of members of the country’s judiciary, officers in the country’s military and then Erdogan supporters began conducting summary executions. It is alleged that the country’s military intelligence, the MIT, had fomented the “coup,” which may have a partial ring of truth, as they had executed previous false flag operations at the behest of Erdogan.

Erdogan wants to clean out all remaining opposition so that he assumes dictatorial Presidential powers equivalent to a Sunni Islamist Caliph. The paranoia has swelled so badly that a senior Turkish official accused the US of being involved in the coup. That allegedly brought a rebuke from Secretary Kerry. Erdogan’s bullying is nothing but persistent. This time even the waning Obama Administration that had previously considered him the “good Islamist” is sitting up and taking notice of how volatile and dangerous he is. Erdogan is using the playbook of the late Saddam Hussein in Iraq; reminiscent of Stalin’s purge of the 1930’s mired in paranoia. Moreover, there were precursors that this staged coup might be Erodgan’s Sunni extremist equivalent of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Way past time that this country and others in the Atlantic alliance seriously consider requesting that Turkey be removed as a NATO member, but then he might even opt to join a mutual defense pact with Putin.

Chaos arising from this alleged failed coup in Turkey makes it an unreliable dangerous member of NATO and an even less than cooperative member of the US led coalition fighting ISIS in Syria. The Kurds end up as the only reliable and effective boots on the ground in both Syria and Iraq fighting the Islamic State. At the same time the coup was occurring and being crushed  there was an air drop of the long awaited weaponry from the US led coalition resupplying the Kurdish led Syrian Democratic Forces. Now, they are free to finally close the Manbij gap along the Turkish frontier that provided unhindered access by the Islamic State.

Turkey’s President at Funerals for Coup victims. Source: BBC.com

The Toll of the Failed Turkish Coup

When initial news came of the coup, this writer was attending a candidate forum in Pensacola, Florida, sponsored by the Tiger Bay Club for the Congressional seat vacated by retiring incumbent, US Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Ist CD). A question was posed on the effect of this possible coup by the Turkish military: Would our government support our ally Israel against Islamic terrorism in the Middle East region? With the exception of the lone Democratic contender, who was virulently anti-Israel, the majority of the six Republican contenders expressed the view that we would. Five of the six were veterans, one was an Explosives Ordnance technician and naval officer, James Zumwalt grandson of former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt. Another candidate, Cris Dosev, a former Marine aviator veteran explained to the audience that the Turkish Constitution provides the authority for the country’s military to defend its secular democratic institutions. During the 93 years of the Turkish Republic founded by Mustapha Kemal Ataturk there were four virtually bloodless military coups in 1960, 1971, 1980 and the last occurring in 1997. The current one, which failed to unseat President Erdogan would mark the fifth. It is turning out to be bloody.

The toll in the purge in Turkey after the alleged failed coup reported by the BBC included 290 killed, 100 coup plotters among them, nearly 1,500 injured and 16,000 detained, including a military aide to Erdogan, and senior Army and Air Force commanders. The regime arrested 11 Turkish Air Force officers and the commander of the important Incirlik air base from which US coalition air strikes have been launched against ISIS. Chillingly, Incirlik has stored nuclear bombs in its revetments.

Michael Rubin, American Enterprise Institute, Resident Scholar

Michael Rubin’s Prescient Prediction

Michael Rubin, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute made this prescient prediction about a possible Turkish coup in March 2016. It was  republished as a “Notable and Quotable” in the Weekend Edition of the July 16-17, 2016 Wall Street Journal:

From policy analyst Michael Rubin’s “Could there be a coup in Turkey?” for the American Enterprise Institute’s AEIdeas, March 21, 2016:

The situation in Turkey is bad and getting worse. It’s not just the deterioration in security amidst a wave of terrorism. Public debt might be stable, but private debt is out-of-control, the tourism sector is in free-fall, and the decline in the currency has impacted every citizen’s buying power. There is a broad sense, election results notwithstanding, that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is out-of-control. He is imprisoning opponents, seizing newspapers left and right, and building palaces at the rate of a mad sultan or aspiring caliph. In recent weeks, he has once again threatened to dissolve the constitutional court. Corruption is rife. . . .

Erdogan long ago sought to kneecap the Turkish military. For the first decade of his rule, both the US government and European Union cheered him on. But that was before even Erdogan’s most ardent foreign apologists recognized the depth of his descent into madness and autocracy. So if the Turkish military moves to oust Erdogan and place his inner circle behind bars, could they get away with it?”

Any secularists inside the military lost out in what may turn out to be, Erdogan’s faux coup.

Erdogan at Ataturk Airport Memorial. Source: Reuters

Erdogan’s Dangerous Striving for a Neo-Islamic Turkish Caliphate

Erdogan, backed by his AKP cohorts in the Ankara Parliament were shocked in June 2015, when they didn’t obtain a super majority enabling him to pass a referendum converting the ceremonial post of President into an executive one, modeled, as he frequently has said, on that of Hitler as elected Chancellor of Nazi Germany. He was prevented by a surge in votes of secular minority parties and the Kurdish – led Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). He declared an internal war against the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), designated terrorists, to create a tumult to return to a working majority in a September 2015 Presidential race.

He initially appointed his former Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davatoglu. But Erdogan nudged his former ally aside in May 2016, in an apparent power struggle for control of the AKP and the Ankara parliament. That power play was set against the backdrop of a series of suspicious bombings in Ankara and Istanbul, allegedly credited to the PKK and the Islamic State. Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952, but has played a quixotic and questionable role in the turmoil next door in Syria wracked by six years of civil war and the emergence of the Islamic State, the self declared Caliphate. He alternatively made threatening noises about dislodging his former regional ally across the border, Bashir Assad while also threatening to fight the Syrian Kurdish PYD/YPG affiliate of the PKK. The Syrian Kurds are the only fighting force partnered with the US and abetted by Russia trying to dislodge the Islamic State. An Islamic State to which he facilitated the transit of foreign fighters, weapons, contraband oil, and purloined antiquities the sale of which line the family’s pockets.

He shot down a Russian jet last fall across the border in Syria; a provocation unacceptable to Russian President Putin, who replied by cutting off agricultural trade and employment of Turkish construction workers for projects in Russia. He fostered the influx of more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees and migrants from across the Muslim Ummah in what can only be considered a Dar al Hijrah immigration strategy threatening Europe with Islamization. Among those throngs were Islamic State operatives headed to strike terror in the fall of 2015 with a spectacular massacre in Paris and in dual suicide bombings at Brussels airport and subway in March 2016.  Some of these young male migrants spawned a host of instances of sexual rapine in welcoming countries like Germany and Sweden. Erdogan drove a hard bargain with the cowering EU receiving promises of  billions in Euros to fund the misery of Syrian refugee camps in Turkey.  He also had the chutzpah to up the ante demanding Visa free transit for 79 million Turkish citizens.

In late June 2016 an ISIS suicide team hit the Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul with dozens killed and well over a hundred injured. About the same time, Erdogan feeling isolation pinching his economy apologized to Russian President Putin for the shoot down of the Russian jet in Syria. He finalized a deal to renew relations with Israel after suspending it for five years over the Mavi Marmara Gaza blockade incident in May 2010. Then, on the eve of the July 15, 2016 staged coup, he turned turtle and now backed Assad endeavoring to punish rebel opposition, especially the Al Nusrah Front he had previously backed. To top that off, it was reported that he had reached a deal with the US-led coalition to enable the Kurdish –led Syrian Democratic Force to close the Manbij gap cutting off ISIS access to the Turkish Frontier.

Is Turkey poised for an Islamist Revolution?

Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion article, “Turkey Faces its 1979 Moment,” a reference to the Islamic Revolution in Iran.  Cagaptay zeroed in on what may be the real objective of Erdogan’s staged coup: conversion of Turkey to a Sunni Islamist state akin to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. As baseball great Yogi Berra might say: “looks like deja vu all over again.” Cagaptay noted the intensity of Islamist fervor triggered by the July 15th staged coup as Erdogan’s message calling for Sharia supplanting the secularist traditions of Turkish Constitution emblematic of founder of the Republic Mustapha Kemal Ataturk.

As the coup plot was unfolding on Friday night, Mr. Erdogan appealed to religious sentiments in the country, rallying his supporters to launch a counter-coup. On his orders, calls for prayer were issued from Turkey’s over 80,000 mosques at 1:15 a.m.—not a time when people are supposed to be praying. The strategy worked, the call to prayer acted as a call to political action, and religious Turks took to the streets in defiance of the secularist military. Together with pro-government police forces, they overpowered the military’s botched effort.

[…]

Erdogan [promoted] efforts to impose religion: In December 2014, Turkey’s Higher Education Council, a government-regulated body, issued a policy recommendation that mandatory courses on Sunni Islam be taught in publicly funded schools to all students, even ones as young as age 6.

Enter a second, quicker path to power: Islamist revolution. Erdogan supporters—who took to the streets to defy the coup, and who have continued to rally throughout the country since then—are not the garden-variety conservative AKP supporters, but rather Islamists, and even jihadists. Over the weekend, pro-Erdogan mobs captured and beat soldiers who had supported the coup. Images were reportedly posted online, in the Islamic State style, of a soldier who had been beheaded.

Jihadist sentiments in Turkey have become increasingly noticeable lately, in no small part due to Mr. Erdogan’s education policy, as well as his Syria policy, which has allowed Islamist radicals to use Turkey as a staging ground. According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, 27% of Turks don’t view Islamic State unfavorably. Mr. Erdogan can now harness these forces to usher in an Islamist revolution.

Cagaptay concludes: “most Turks of other political outlooks are scared to leave their homes.”

Erdogan versus Gulen

Erdogan Seeks Extradition of Former Ally Fethullah Gulen

The objective of Erdogan was to pin the blame of the coup on a reclusive Sufi Sheikh multi-millionaire living in a fortified compound in the Pocono Mountains of Eastern Pennsylvania, Fethullah Gulen.

Gulen is the founder of the Hizmat or service movement with global followers and a network of more than 1000 schools in 100 countries. These so-called academies of math and science are in reality centers for promoting Islamic and Turkish culture. US Charter Schools, founded by Gulen Movement adherents and funded by US tax dollars, are staffed by Turkish administrators and teachers admitted under the H1B Visa program. There are more than 135 Gulen sponsored Charter schools across the US. Perhaps the most significant are the 46 Harmony Schools in Texas funded at over $135 million annually.

Gulen and Erdogan were once allies. The Sheikh supported the election of Erdogan in the beginning only to fall away as he began to close Gulen Movement news media, root out prosecutors and ultimately close down the Gulen private school network in Turkey. We considered Gulen the long term radical Islamist, while Erdogan with his Muslim Brotherhood affinities had aspirations to bring back a conservative Islam. In the process he hoped to become the neo-Sultan of a family run corrupt empire. We have written about the falling out of the two former allies and the collapse of Turkish democracy under Erdogan for the past nearly four years.

Erdogan and protesters outside the Saylorville, Pennsylvania compound of 75 year old Sheik Fethullah Gulen of the global Hizmat movement want him extradited. He successfully survived a 2008 hearing over an earlier 1998 coup indictment by a previous secular government. Outside of his Saylorville Compound in the Poconos in Eastern Pennsylvania were supporters of Turkish President Erdogan protesting Sheik Fethullah Gulen as the instigator of the failed coup. Inside his small prayer room, Gulen was expressing to a gathering of reporters the view this was a coup staged by Erdogan. In this case there are indications that this may be so. The two former Islamist allies have been bitter enemies since 2013.

Watch this Guardian video interview with Sheik Fethullah Gulen at his compound in Saylorvile, Pennsylvania.

In the midst of the failed coup Erdogan sent off a demand for the extradition of his former ally Gulen to President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry. The Administration was caught unawares by these developments and simply said in return; show us the evidence, so that we might deliberate on what to do. Gulen may have protection under US law. In May 2016, we wrote in a NatSecDailyBrief article about Erdogan’s filing a complaint in Texas against the Gulen Movement sponsored Harmony Charter School network.

The Wall Street Journal reported on May 25, 2016 that the Turkish government under President Erdogan retained the Washington, DC law firm of Amsterdam and Partners to file a complaint before the Texas Education Agency. The complaint was against a network of 46 Harmony Charter Schools founded by adherents of his one-time Islamist ally, Sheik Fethullah Gulen. The complaint alleges discrimination in hiring practices; a reference to hiring Turkish staff and instructors under H1B visas with little to no experience, rather than qualified US instructors.

Gulen had important US friends vouching for him, including the Clintons, who provided testimony in a 2008 extradition hearing that went in his favor. The Erdogan government had also been endeavoring to seek Sheik Gulen’s extradition for prosecution of suspected involvement in a coup against the AKP government. This fracas arose over alleged Gulenist prosecutors and affiliated news media in Turkey accusing the autocratic President of corruption and muzzling a free press. The AKP government purged prosecutors and made major Gulen affiliated news media subject to government editorial control.

The Ergenekon Trial Verdicts Overturned

In 2007, Turkish prosecutors launched a series of trials against senior military alleged to be part of a secret terrorist organization, Ergenekon, that purportedly had planned a 2003 coup. The trials ended with 275 convictions reached in 2013, many top generals among them. In April, 2016, those convictions were overturned because of procedural rules and evidence there was no such group. The Wall Street Journal noted who sought the original convictions:

Judges in Ankara said the trial of retired Gen. Ilker Basbug—the former chief of Turkey’s armed forces—and others convicted in August 2013 was flawed by procedural errors that prevented a fair hearing, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency. The verdict paves the way for a retrial that could lead to acquittals.

Prosecutors had described a mass conspiracy by an ultranationalist terrorist organization called Ergenekon, named for a Turkish legend, but the court ruled there were no grounds to prove its existence.

The Court’s decision effectively marks the unraveling of a case that divided the country, pitting backers of the secular-leaning military against Islamist conservatives who backed then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The trial helped bolster Mr. Erdogan’s power and blunted the influence of the once almighty military—the second largest force after the U.S. in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The case was sparked by a 2007 investigation that found more than two dozen grenades in an Istanbul shantytown and eventually led to the prosecution of military officers, journalists, academics and politicians.

Defendants in the case have denied the allegations. They argue that false evidence was planted by supporters in the judiciary and the police of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Turkish imam who was at one time one of Mr. Erdogan’s strongest backers.

They say the prominent cleric sought to push secularists from the military and bureaucracy in an effort to transfer power to Islamists.

Conclusion

My how the worm has turned. Now Erdogan is seeking to extradite the very man who helped him crush the secularists in Turkey’s military, Fethullah Gulen.

This would make great copy for a contemporary Turkish Game of Thrones series. The tragedy is that once secular Turkey has been destroyed by the two radical Islamists, former allies, now at each other’s throats. One of them, President Erdogan is challenging the US once more to extradite Sheik Gulen, accusing him of staging a faux coup that Erdogan executed without his former ally’s knowledge. It all appears as the devolution into a Sunni Sharia Caliphate with autocrat Erdogan as the neo-Sultan overthrowing the secular Constitution of the Turkish Republic, founded by Mustapha Kemal Ataturk.

RELATED ARTICLE: Turkey: Islamists Attack Churches in Coup Frenzy

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. Also see Jerry Gordon’s collection of interviews, The West Speaks.

‘It’s the Immigration Problem, Stupid’

Secure borders are synonymous with safety and that’s what Americans want in 2016.

“Making America Safe Again” was the focus of the first day of the Republican National Convention.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani addressed the convention and unequivocally linked immigration to that vital goal, especially where the threat of terrorism is concerned.

Kent Terry — brother of Brian Terry, a Border Patrol agent who was killed on duty by illegal aliens — also spoke at the convention, as did two mothers and one father of children were slain by illegal aliens, saying that victims of criminal aliens needs to be addressed.

This means that there are about 10 percent as many ICE agent protecting the entire United States of America as there are cops protecting “The Big Apple.”

Early in his quest for the presidency, Donald Trump ignited a firestorm when he made the need for securing America’s borders a key issue for his candidacy, promising the build a wall to separate the United States from Mexico and getting the Mexican government to pay for that wall.

Many politicians were aghast at Trump’s candor. They had come to depend on the campaign contributions of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other organizations and deep-pocketed contributors that have been feeding at the super-lucrative trough of immigration, seeing in that massive influx of foreign workers (both illegal and legal with work visas such as the H-1B visa) a way of greatly reducing labor costs by importing a cheap labor force that would drive down wages and even supplant American workers with far more compliant foreign workers.

However, the failures of our government to effectively secure our borders and effectively enforce our immigration laws to create a cheap labor force comes with a high price tag — the lives of innocent victims killed by criminal aliens and those killed by terrorists.

Sen. Sessions also talked about how flooding America with more foreign workers than the number of new jobs that have been created has caused wages to decline, especially for middle-class workers, thrusting millions of Americans into poverty and also resulting in tens of millions of Americans leaving the labor force.

The 9/11 Commission, to which I provided testimony, made it clear that the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 (as well as other terror attacks) could not have been carried out if the terrorists had not been able to enter the United States in the first place and then been able to embed themselves (hide in plain sight) by acquiring multiple false identities and lawful immigration status by committing not only visa fraud but immigration benefit fraud.

Immigration is indeed inextricably linked to national security and public safety. We cannot protect ourselves from international terrorists and transnational criminals if we don’t prevent them from entering our country and then do nothing to seek them out if they succeed in entering the United States by one means or another.

While the U.S./Mexican border must be made secure, simply securing that porous border would not end the immigration crisis that undermines national security, public safety, and the economy of the United States. It is estimated that nearly half of all illegal aliens did not run that border but were admitted into the United States through ports of entry. None of the 9/11 terrorists ran our borders either.

The RNC leadership needs to hang a different sign on their walls: “It’s the Immigration Problem, Stupid!”

Securing America’s southwestern border, while absolutely essential, is only one component of the dysfunctional immigration system that must be quickly addressed.

The United States has 50 “Border States.” Any state that lies along our northern border as well as our southern border are border states, as are those states that have access to America’s 95,000 miles of meandering coastline. Any state that has an international airport is also a border state.

There is certainly no shortage of ways for aliens to enter the United States by evading the inspections process or by entering through a port of entry and then simply disappearing. The key to our immigration crisis is to also effectively enforce our immigration laws from the interior of the United States. This can only be done by having many more ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) special agents to enforce the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.

Today there are only about 7,000 ICE agents for the entire United States. It is believed that fewer than half of them are actually assigned to enforcing the immigration laws while other agents are assigned to investigating violations of customs laws.

To put this in perspective, CBP (Customs and Border Protection) has more than 60,000 employees who work for the U.S. Border Patrol — which has well over 20,000 agents patrolling our nation’s borders and well over 20,000 inspectors conducting inspections of arriving cargo and people seeking entry into the United States at some 325 ports of entry across the United States.

TSA has more than 45,000 employees.

The NYPD has more than 35,000 police officers just to protect New York City. This means that there are about 20 percent as many ICE agents protecting the entire United States of America as there are cops protecting “The Big Apple.”

Furthermore, the notion that enforcing our immigration laws would, forgive the expression, “alienate” so-called “Latino Voters” is a massive lie perpetrated on America by those who are determined to erase America’s borders and end immigration law enforcement. Our immigration laws are utterly and completely blind as to race, religion, and ethnicity. As an INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) agent, many of the aliens I investigated and arrested were not citizens of Latin American countries but came from countries from all over the globe — including Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Canada, and elsewhere.

America’s immigration laws were enacted to protect national security and the well-being and lives and livelihoods of Americans. The section of our immigration laws that defines the categories of aliens to be excluded from the United States is found under Title 8 U.S. Code § 1182: (Inadmissible Aliens) and includes aliens who suffer dangerous communicable diseases or severe mental illness, aliens who are fugitives from justice, aliens who are convicted felons, spies, terrorists, war criminals, human rights violators, and others whose presence would undermine national security and/or public safety.

This section of law also addresses the issue of protecting the jobs, wages, and working conditions of American workers. In point of fact, prior to World War II, the primary responsibility and authority for enforcing and administering our immigration laws was vested in the Labor Department. America’s political leaders who were part of America’s “Greatest Generation” understood that for America to do well, Americans had to do well.

The long-term viability of America depends on the well-being of our citizens. Effectively enforcing and administering our immigration laws to protect American lives and American jobs would strengthen our nation, help reduce poverty and enable America to once again provide the leadership that the safety and stability of the world desperately need.

When Bill Clinton first ran for the presidency, his campaign staffers posted signs on their office walls that said, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Republican leadership needs to hang a different sign on their walls: “It’s the Immigration Problem, Stupid!”

The TSA Descends from Incompetence to Inhumanity by Becky Akers

As Americans celebrated their freedom this Fourth of July, headlines graphically proved how diminished that liberty is. Hannah Cohen, 18 years old and severely disabled from a brain tumor, sued the TSA and local cops for beating her bloody. Hannah’s “crime”? She had neither understood nor complied with their orders when trying to board a flight the year before.

The TSA is diminishing our liberty.In June 2015, Hannah and her mother, Shirley, were returning home from St Jude’s Medical Center. Hannah’s tumor and the radiation treating it have left her “partially deaf, blind in one eye, paralyzed, and easily confused…” Not surprisingly, such “substantial limitation[s are] obvious on sight.” No one could have mistaken Hannah for a healthy passenger as the Cohens approached the Transportation Security Administration’s checkpoint in Memphis, TN.

Hannah wore a shirt with sequins on it. Those metallic bits triggered the TSA’s scanner. “‘You could see on the screen what it was pointing out,’ Shirley said. …Agents told Hannah they needed to take her to a ‘sterile area’ where they could search her further. She was afraid, Shirley said, and offered to take off the sequined shirt as she was wearing another underneath, but a female agent laughed at her. … Shirley … [explained to] a supervisor standing nearby. ‘She is a St Jude’s patient, and she can get confused…’” In response, the TSA summoned “’armed guards.’”

Those “guards” grabbed Hannah’s arms, further scaring her. “’I tried to push away,’she said. ‘I tried to get away.’”

But “…in the next instant,” Shirley recalled, “one of them had her down on the ground and hit her head on the floor. There was blood everywhere…” The heartrending picture Mrs. Cohen snapped of her daughter documents the bloody scene as well as Hannah’s terror and anguish.

Not Isolated

Tragically, this incident was neither isolated nor a misunderstanding. Far too many sick, elderly, and otherwise vulnerable victims have endured similar horrors at American airports. Worse, not all of them have lived to tell about it.

In 2005, the TSA’s air marshals killed a 44-year-old Christian missionary suffering from manic depression. Rigoberto Alpizar, jittery and upset, had tried to disembark from a flight preparing to leave Miami, FL. Two marshals followed him off the plane and shot him in the jetway. They claimed he was shouting about a bomb. Other passengers denied that, insisting they heard the word “bomb” only from the police who later questioned them.

To be fair, most of the TSA’s prey doesn’t wind up bloodied or dead. They deal instead with crushing and very public humiliation. Just ask Thomas Sawyer. A bout with cancer of the bladder pushed him into the TSA’s hands—literally. “’Evidently the scanner picked up on my urostomy bag, because I was chosen for a pat-down procedure. … [E]very time I tried to tell them about my medical condition, they said they didn’t need to know … One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal … but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.’” No wonder Mr. Sawyer was so “absolutely humiliated” he “couldn’t even speak … They never apologized. They never offered to help …”

Comply Or Else

The TSA’s ferocity extends even to children, including sick or disabled ones. Four-year-old Ryan Thomas was “born 16 weeks prematurely. His ankles are malformed and his legs have low muscle tone.” He required braces to walk. When his parents tried to fly with him, the TSA insisted that they not only remove his braces after the metal detector beeped but that he walk through the machine without them. Nor did his father’s protests avail (“I told [the TSA’s supervisor], ‘This is overkill. He’s 4 years old. I don’t think he’s a terrorist'”).

What has happened to Americans that we tolerate such savagery against the weakest among us?Little girls fare no better. Lucy Forck’s parents hoped to introduce their 3-year-old daughter to Mickey Mouse. But Lucy’s spina bifida confines her to a wheelchair. That allowed the TSA to traumatize her until, “weeping uncontrollably,” she finally screamed, “I don’t want to go to Disney World!” Adding insult to injury, the TSA also “confiscated Lucy’s stuffed toy, ‘Lamby’ … ‘She was crying for her stuffed animal which they wouldn’t let her have for the longest time,’ [Lucy’s father] said. ‘It’s only about a half foot long … but she loves it.’”

What has happened to Americans that we tolerate such savagery against the weakest among us? Does terrorism so menace aviation that children in wheelchairs must forfeit Lamby while manic-depressive passengers are gunned down in jetways?

The officials responsible for the TSA continually assure us that it does; other sources dispute that. But even if the threat were as perilous as self-interested bureaucrats contend, does that excuse the TSA’s mortification of patients with urostomy bags and its brutalizing half-blind, half-deaf teens? Does fear of terrorism—or of anything else—justify gross inhumanity?

The Pat Down

The TSA’s cruelty towards sick, injured or elderly passengers is only one of its sins; its ordinary policies and practices are every bit as immoral. Consider the agency’s notorious “pat downs.”

If we haven’t abolished the TSA for its incompetence, let’s do so for its immorality.As the TSA itself admits that it “has used pat downs since … 2002.” But it never concedes that they are indistinguishable from sexual assault, though neither the TSA’s employees nor passengers can tell the difference. Last year, when “two … screeners at Denver International Airport … were discovered manipulating passenger screening systems to allow a male TSA employee to fondle the genital areas of attractive male passengers,” the District Attorney couldn’t pursue charges because none of the eleven victims had complained.

Test after test demonstrates that the TSA can’t find the weapons and explosives on passengers that supposedly justify its existence. And independent experts in security condemn not only “pat downs” but the agency’s entire rigmarole as hopelessly ineffective: “Most of the layers of security are little more than illusions reinforced by a government agency that feeds off the paranoia and fear of the masses. Doing away with them would make America’s transportation systems no less safe.”

And far more humane. If we haven’t abolished the TSA for its incompetence, let’s do so for its immorality.

ABOUT BECK AKERS

How Pence Complements Trump by Phyllis Schlafly

When Donald Trump introduced Indiana Governor Mike Pence as the vice presidential nominee, the media had a field day unearthing Pence’s past tweets and votes that appeared to disagree with his future running mate’s positions. On issues such as free trade agreements, some of Pence’s past views seemed closer to those of his former colleague, House Speaker Paul Ryan, than his new running mate.

But on one of Trump’s signature issues — his opposition to the resettlement of Muslim refugees from Syria — the Indiana governor took Trump-style executive action even before Trump. Way back on November 16, Governor Pence directed his state agencies to suspend payments to the agencies that profit by redistributing tax money to people from Syria.

Pence took that prompt and decisive action after it was revealed that at least one of the Muslim terrorists who massacred 130 people in Paris, France on November 13 had slipped into that country by posing as a Syrian refugee. Pence also relied on the October 21 testimony of FBI Director James Comey before the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Comey told Congress that it’s simply not possible to vet Syrian refugees adequately because there are no reliable documents or databases for those people. “We can query our database until the cows come home, but there will be nothing show up because we have no record of them.”

For Pence’s swift action to protect American citizens against the demands of foreigners, he was sued by one of the agencies that spends our tax money to resettle refugees. On February 29, an Obama-appointed federal judge named Tanya Walton Pratt blocked Pence’s order on the absurd basis that he was discriminating against Syrian refugees on the basis of their national origin.

Governor Pence appealed the Obama judge’s decision on April 11. Contrary to the claim that our government spends two years vetting Muslim refugees for terrorist sympathies before letting them in, Pence’s brief quoted an April 7 story by the Associated Press reporting “While the resettlement process usually takes 18 to 24 months, the surge operation will reduce the time to three months.”

Pence has tweeted his opposition to a complete Muslim ban, but he may change his mind by checking the polls. A series of recent polls proves that most Americans strongly or somewhat support temporarily banning all Muslims from entering our country.

In just the last month, a Reuters/Ipsos poll, an NBC News-SurveyMonkey poll, a Morning Consult poll, and a Fox News poll all found that Americans support Donald Trump’s proposal even if they don’t support him. These polls show that substantial numbers of Democrats, African-Americans, and people who voted for Obama in 2012 support a temporary ban on Muslims or people from Muslim-majority countries.

Those polls were completed before the most recent terrorist horror in Nice, France, which resulted in the mass murder of 84 and the injury of 200 more, when Mohamed Bouhlel intentionally ran over them with his truck. The terrorist’s apparent targeting of women, children, and families as he drove his truck in zigzag fashion to kill them has horrified millions.

The threat of terrorism is not the only reason to stop the refugees, who are bringing tuberculosis (TB) in both its active and latent varieties. TB is one of six “comeback” diseases that had been virtually wiped out in our country but are returning with refugees; the others are measles, mumps, whooping cough, scarlet fever, and bubonic plague.

The same judge ruled against another of Pence’s most important initiatives. On June 30, she issued a preliminary injunction against an Indiana law signed by Governor Pence that bans abortion solely for the reason of the child’s sex, race or disability (including but not limited to Down syndrome).

In India and China, abortion of baby girls based on their gender results in a disproportionate number of births to baby boys. This provides an additional reason to oppose immigration from these countries, because we do not want any immigrant groups that have far more men than women.

The same judge who blocked Pence’s proper actions concerning refugees and abortion also ruled in 2011 that Indiana could not stop tax money going to Planned Parenthood. How does it happen that a single Obama-appointed judge can block the enforcement of a state legislature and governor?

Trump recently experienced firsthand the overreaching by federal judges when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lashed out against Trump in comments that she has since expressed regret for saying. Apologies aside, Justice Ginsburg’s comments illustrated how politicized the federal judiciary has become, and both Pence and Trump are on the same page in opposing the runaway federal judiciary.

Declassified Pages Link Muslim Brotherhood to 9/11 Network

FireShot-capture-702-Muslim-Brotherhood-Wikipedia-the-free-encyclopedia-en_wikipedia_org_wiki_Muslim_BrotherhoodMuslim Brotherhood — including Hamas — were part of the Saudi-linked Islamist network in America that assisted the 9/11 hijackers.

The recently-declassified 28 pages from the official U.S. report on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks implicates the Muslim Brotherhood — including Hamas — as being part of the Saudi-linked Islamist network in America that assisted the 9/11 hijackers and Al-Qaeda in general.

On page 7, the report discusses how a suspected Saudi intelligence officer, Omar Al-Bayoumi, may have assisted two 9/11 hijackers and had links to Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. It then states:

“In addition, the FBI determined that al-Bayoumi was in contact with several individuals under investigation and with the Holy Land Foundation, which has been under investigation as a fundraising front for Hamas.”

The Holy Land Foundation was later successfully prosecuted and identified as a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood’s wing in the United States. It was set up to finance Hamas, the Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing, which is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department.

(The Brotherhood more broadly is not designated as such, but over 80 members of Congress have endorsed recently-proposed legislation to change that.)

During the course of the Holy Land trial, numerous Brotherhood entities and members were identified. The Justice Department put together a long list of unidentified co-conspirators. The list specifically named Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) as Brotherhood “entities.”

On page 8, a second suspected Saudi intelligence officer, Osama Bassnan, a known supporter of Osama Bin Laden, is mentioned. Bassnan admitted to an FBI asset that he assisted the 9/11 hijackers more than Omar Al-Bayoumi did. Multiple people from the Muslim-American community warned the U.S. government that they believed Bassnan was a secret Saudi agent.

The report states that the FBI had linked Bassnan to the “Blind Sheikh,” Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Muslim Brotherhood-linked terrorist who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Abdel-Rahman is currently serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison. His release is a top objective of the Muslim Brotherhood.  When Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist and member of the Brotherhood, was president of Egypt, he demanded Abdel-Rahman’s release.

When you connect the dots, you’ll see the error of the West’s distinguishing between violent and (ostensibly) non-violent Islamist groups. They use the same international network and are often inseparable operationally, linking back to the same addresses, fronts, preachers, financiers, state sponsors, etc.

The information in the declassified pages should teach us the only workable policy is one that broadly targets the Islamist ideological movement  — including its state sponsors.

ABOUT RYAN MAURO

Ryan Mauro is ClarionProject.org’s national security analyst, a fellow with Clarion Project and an adjunct professor of homeland security. Mauro is frequently interviewed on top-tier television and radio. Read more, contact or arrange a speaking engagement.

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Giuliani at RNC: ‘We Must Not Be Afraid to Define Our Enemy’

Failure to call Islamist terror by name, he said, is ‘why our enemies see us as weak and vulnerable’ and ‘maligns decent Muslims around the world.’

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was one of the kick-off speakers at the Republican convention which began Monday in Cleveland.

Following the theme of the first night of the convention, “Make America Safe Again,” Giuliani gave a passionate speech that included the pressing topic of Islamist terror and how to defeat it.

“In the last seven months, there have been five major Islamic extremist terrorist attacks on us and our allies. We must not be afraid to define our enemy,” Giuliani said, referring to U.S. President Barack Obama’s policy of referring to Islamist terror as violent extremism without mentioning its connection to Islam.

Giuliani continued, “It is Islamic extremist terrorism. I did not say all of Islam. I said Islamic extremist terrorism.”

He explained why the current administration’s decision to leave Islamist terrorism unnamed is damaging.

“Failing to identify them properly maligns decent Muslims around the world,” Giuliani said. “It also sets up a fear of being politically incorrect that can have serious consequences. And it has.”

The former mayor was most likely referring to reports that came out after the San Bernardino massacre that neighbors of the terrorists had noticed their suspicious activity but decided not to alert law enforcement for fear of being branded racists.

Failure to call Islamist terror by name puts America in an untenable position, Giuliani continued. “This is why our enemies see us as weak and vulnerable.

“To defeat Islamic extremist terrorism we must put them on defense. If they are at war against us—which they have declared—we must commit ourselves to unconditional victory against them.”

Giuliani specifically called out the nuclear agreement that the U.S. and other world powers made with Iran last summer (“one of the worst deals America ever made”) and said that it needs to be undone.

He said the agreement allows Iran to eventually become a nuclear power and that it “put billions of dollars back into a country that is the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism.”

Giuliani pledged that the Republican Party’s candidate Donald Trump “will make sure that any agreement with Iran meets the original goals of the U.N and our allies: a non-nuclear Iran.”

The man who is credited with turning around New York city from one of the most crime-ridden metropolises in America to a city that has the lowest crime rate of any major city in the country pilloried Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, for her role in the Benghazi attack and the overthrow of Libya’s leader Qaddafi.

See Rudy Giuliani’s speech here

That move is credited with plunging Libya into chaos and facilitating the rise of the Islamic State and other Islamist terror groups — not only in Libya but across the entire North African region.

Giuliani further questioned the character of Clinton, who – for political purposes — lied about the reason behind the Benghazi attack in which four Americans were killed, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

He expressed his outrage over a now-famous answer Clinton gave while testifying about the incident to Congress when, referring to the American deaths, she asked, “What difference at this point does it make?”

Giuliani also called out Clinton for being in favor of accepting refugees from Syria after the Islamic State explicitly said that they would embed terrorists within the refugees to carry out attacks in the U.S.

He concluded, “We can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. Hillary Clinton’s experience is the basis for her campaign. Well, Hillary Clinton’s experience is exactly the reason she should not be our president.”

RELATED VIDEO: German Axe Attacker Pledges Allegiance to the Islamic State. A video has surfaced of the 17-year-old who injured four people with an axe on a train in Germany pledging allegiance to the Islamic State. Speaking about the attack the bishop of Würzburg, Friedhelm Hofmann, said, ‘One is speechless at such a moment. This fact can not be understood.’

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U.S. Backed Syrian Rebel Group Beheads Child

Syrian rebel fighters from the US-backed rebel group Nour-al-din el-Zanki have beheaded a child thought to be 11-13 in a shocking video.

Harakat_Nour_al-Din_al-Zenki_Logo

Nour-al-din el-Zanki logo.

US-backed Syrian rebels, screaming “Allahu Akbar,”  brutally beheaded a child named Abdullah Issa. The shocking clip shows fighters from Nour-al-din el-Zanki telling the camera, “These are the prisoners from Liwa al-Quds (Jerusalem Brigade – a Palestinian militia group). He [Assad] can’t stoop any lower. He sent us children today, are you sending us children?”

America funds Nour-al-din el-Zanki, which fights against the Assad regime.

Liwa al-Quds (The Jerusalem Brigade) is a pro-Assad Palestinian paramilitary group. The rebel group accused the boy of being a spy.

Referring to the prisoner, one jihadi says, “These are the dogs of Assad. These are your people Bashar.” Another says, “We shall not leave anyone in Handarat,” the Palestinian refugee camp where a battle between regime and rebel forces is currently taking place.

To shouts of “Takbir” and “Allahu Akbar,” a fighter from the group saws through the neck of Abdullah Issa. In a grisly scene, he then holds the head aloft and exclaims “Allahu Akbar” several more times.

Reports of Issa’s age vary between 11 and 13. Some say he was an 11-year old Palestinian from Handarat; others say he is a Syrian from the city of Homs.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights manager Rami Abdel Rahman told France Press, “The child is no more than 13-years old. He was arrested today in the area of Handarat, but the slaughtering happened in el-Mashab neighborhood.

“This is one of the most terrible execution acts that I have seen since the revolution began in Syria,” he added.

Activists affiliated with the group which killed the boy claimed he was actually 19, and that the video makes him look a lot younger than he really is.

The beheading video was published in the early hours of Tuesday morning on social media networks, according to BBC Arabic.

The rebel group condemned the beheading and said it was perpetrated by individuals who do not represent the group. “All of the people who carried out this violation have been arrested and brought before a disciplinary tribunal,” the group said in a statement.

“The movement of Nour al-Din el-Zanki condemns the inhuman violation, since they believe in the principles and the targets of the revolution and the principle of human rights and the international agreements and the sharia. This violation doesn’t reflect us and a one-time mistake does not reflect the general policy of the movement,” the statement read.

The group also used the statement to blame international actors, saying the group “holds the international community fully responsible for keeping silent about the crimes regime forces are perpetrating which represent the lowest level of barbaric crimes committed under the ears and the eyes of the world and are represented by a killing machine which slaughters thousands of citizens.”

Liwa al-Quds denied any connection with the child. A spokesman for the group said, “We don’t recruit children, and all of our fighters wear military uniforms not civilian clothes. We are trying to locate the family of the child and find out his story and the place where he was kidnapped from.”

WARNING: Extremely Graphic Video:

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EDITORS NOTE: Nour al-Din al-Zenki was formed in late 2011 by Shaykh Tawfiq Shahabuddin in the Shaykh Salman area north-west of Aleppo. It was formed when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. The featured image is of Syrian rebels with their prisoner shortly before they beheaded him. Photo: Screenshot

Truck Jihad Strikes Nice

The 14 juillet National Holiday fireworks were over, the horror began in Nice. A 19-ton semi-trailer truck went around the barrier and barreled down the famous beachfront Promenade des Anglais. The monster truck drove 2 kilometers, zigzagging to make direct hits, deliberately picking off babies in their strollers, before the driver was stopped in a shootout with police. At this writing the toll stands at 84 dead; 50, including 10 children, with life threatening injuries; and 150, including 54 children, less seriously injured. The mass murderer has been identified as a 31 year-old Tunisian, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, living in Nice on a residence permit, recently licensed to drive big trucks, father of three, separated from his wife since 2014. Bouhlel’s criminal record, including assault and battery, theft, and domestic violence, dates back to 2010, one year after he was granted a 10-year residence permit. He is under a restraining order obtained by his wife who has sued for divorce. He is described by several of his neighbors as a mean loner, with the exception of one who found him to be a nice guy, not at all religious, didn’t say his prayers, liked to dance the salsa and go out with the chicks.

On March 24th, Bouhlel was given a six-month suspended sentence for assaulting a motorist who had asked him to move his truck that was blocking traffic. The victim, Jean-Baptiste Ximenes, posted on Facebook his indignation that the man who had violently beaten him with a baseball bat, was left free…to commit mass murder.

An irascible young Tunisian armed with a 19-ton truck killed more than 80 civilians and the toll is expected to rise. In the truck he rented on July 11th –and was supposed to return on the 13th— Bouhlel was carrying two fake machine guns, a pierced grenade, a fake handgun and a real one that he used in the final shootout with the police. The death toll of the November 13th jihad attacks at the Bataclan, sidewalk cafés, and stadium in Paris is 130. That operation, masterminded from Syria, involved dozens of fighters trained in the caliphate or handling logistics in Europe. They traveled by complicated routes, some joined the “refugees” in Greece and snaked up to Belgium with them, probably recruiting a few shahids in the lot. They had safe houses, false passports, money, weapons, ammunition, explosive vests … Vastly disproportionate weapons and planning, give ghastly similar results Eighty-four dead, fifty maimed for life, the blue waters of the Côte d’Azur trembling with horror and outrage; 130 dead, countless maimed and marked for life, Parisian joie de vivre stunned….

But all of that may be nothing compared to what is coming next. Only the other day Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve warned that the “terrorists” might switch from “suicide” attacks to other methods like truck bombs and IEDS. The root motivation that inspires these mass killings passes through myriad disparate channels and achieves significant results. The focus on anecdotal details obscures that single source and delays our understanding of the war waged on the free world. It must be granted that the Hollande government, ineffectual as it may be, did not call for stricter control of semi-trailer truck rentals in the wake of the Nice attack. The investigation was handed over to Paris Prosecutor François Molins, and classified as a terrorist attack committed in collusion with a terrorist organization. In his first public declaration Molins explained: whether or not Bouhlel was in direct contact with Daesh, his heinous act responds to instructions given by the organization. Subsequently PM Manuel Valls maintained that Bouhlel was in fact connected to a radical Islamic movement.

Mournful ceremonials of sincere flowers & candles and solidarity light-shows in the colors of the afflicted nation after each mass killing give the illusion of exceptional incidents that can somehow be contained in a time frame, with a beginning a middle and an end. They are not appropriate to the reality of all-out war with no borders, no outlined battlefields, no predictable indicators except that the perpetrators will be Muslim, native born or converts. The most graphic illustration of this ceremonial confusion is the current state of la Place de la République in Paris. The national focal point of dignified grieving has been turned into a pigpen. Flowers, candles, and peace & love messages on the pedestal of the Marianne statue, symbol of the République, have been replaced by disgraceful graffiti left by the false hopes Nuit Debout movement. [http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/up-all-nightmare]

Unless and until democratic citizens have a comprehensive picture of jihad conquest they cannot be mobilized to defend their freedom and their lives. However dramatic, these mass killings have to be understood in their totality and accurately. We need determined leadership that will show the way to mobilization, not closure.

Background

In a climate of national unity after the November attacks, President Hollande solemnly promised to take vigorous measures to protect the population from terrorism. Prime Minister Valls named it Radical Islam. Among these measures was the controversial proposal to strip the citizenship of dual nationals involved in supporting, planning or perpetrating these attacks. Under pressure from his Socialist majority President Hollande abandoned most of the promises. The other day, in his July 14th message to the nation, the president announced that the state of emergency declared in the wake of the attacks and repeatedly extended for three-month periods would not be renewed when it expires on July 26th. As if the very real danger hanging over French civilians could be dissipated by a governmental decision. He reversed this decision on the 15th.

And that’s the least of the miscalculations. Since March 31st and despite its own state of emergency declaration, the government has allowed countless protest demonstrations against a labor reform law, even though every single march ended up with vicious attacks against the police. Hundreds of policemen were injured, some seriously. And all were humiliated. At least half a million euros worth of damage to public and private property was committed. On May 18th a policeman and woman narrowly escaped death when their patrol car was smashed and torched. The policeman was beaten as he fled the flames. On June 15th, seven two-story plate glass windows of the Necker Children’s Hospital were smashed, teargas seeped into the building, health care personnel were unable to reach the hospital, and young patients were terrified. The Nuit Debout movement occupied la Place de la République for months, damaging property, generating attacks on the police, preaching anarchy and sedition. The mass occupation of the public square made a mockery of the state of emergency, which was high on the movement’s list of sins against the people. “Down with the state of emergency, down with the state!” By allowing the Nuit Deboutniks to congregate, agitate, firebomb the police and deface the monument of the Republic the government displayed its lack of resolve. PM Valls had said we are at war. The atmosphere was bread and circuses.

Let the children play. Let the protestors march and holler. Let the smashers destroy. Unpleasant to be sure, but the very nastiness of that familiar violence was a way of saying we have things in hand. These are normal problems that can’t really be solved, they just fade away. The labor reform bill was watered down and pushed through (the government engaged its responsibility instead of letting the Parliament debate and vote). Strong measures were taken to protect the Euro 2016 soccer championship that went off almost without a hitch. Then came the fireworks!

Lagging behind reality

Just a short time ago there was debate on what should be done with the thousands of “S-flagged” individuals  marked as terror suspects and vaguely watched over until they slip under the radar and emerge with Kalashnikovs or turn to other occupations. Shouldn’t they be more closely followed, fitted with electronic bracelets, or even held in retention centers? What of jihadis sentenced to prison? Are they properly isolated from other prisoners? The top dog in this department, Salah Abdeslam, responsible for the logistics of the November 13 attacks, is held in solitary confinement with 24-hour video surveillance. He actually sued the government for violation of his privacy. His complaint was rejected. Meanwhile it was revealed that he has a three-cell complex, including a well-equipped workout room. This is justified by European human rights rules. Abdeslam has never given the slightest shred of information to investigators. Occasionally he promises he will talk, then backs down. He isn’t feeling good, doesn’t feel like talking, won’t talk until his detention conditions improve. He is defended by a court-appointed lawyer at public expense.

Then there are the futile de-radicalization programs. All part of a massive denial of reality. As if the genocidal Islamic rage that inspires lesser and greater mass murderers were some kind of misunderstanding that could be cleared up by heart to heart talking. Another example of focusing on things that can’t be done-like persuading jihadis to turn to basket weaving or making it impossible for 19-ton trucks to smash through barriers or Kalashnikov-armed killers to mow down under-armed security guards-instead of finally putting our countries on the appropriate war (that is, jihad conquest) footing.

Georges Fenech, president of the bipartisan Parliamentary Commission that published its investigation of the November 13th attacks last week, regrets the lack of interest from the Hollande administration in the Commission’s concrete recommendations. “Our country is not armed against Islamic terrorism.” One of the findings of the extensive report is that police forces preparing to intervene to stop the massacre at the Bataclan only had handguns. They begged the soldiers to either come with them or lend them their Famas assault weapons. The soldiers could do neither. They didn’t have orders. According to an official of the SCPN [Police Commissioners’ Union] the forces that finally stopped the killer truck in Nice did not have proper weapons. They fired repeatedly into the windshield but Bouhlel was able to continue 300 meters before they finally neutralized him. Christian Estrosi, former mayor of Nice and currently president of the PACA [Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur] region had alerted President Hollande, on July 13th, to the lack of proper protection for the July 14th fireworks display in Nice. The central government alone can mobilize national police forces, better armed and trained than the municipal agents.

Nice, for all its nostalgic elegance and beautiful beaches, is a jihad hotspot. An attack against the Carnival of Nice was foiled a few months ago. An assailant stabbed three soldiers guarding a Jewish Community Center in Nice.  One of the most vicious jihadi cells discovered in recent years, the “Torcy cell” based in Nice, was involved in the 2012 grenade attack against the Naouri kosher grocery store in Sarcelles, subsequently torched and burned to the ground in the summer of 2014.

Israel as a model

Though the Israeli connection may be brushed off as too hot to handle, Israel is more frequently and frankly mentioned in French debates as a model for dealing with the full range of jihad attacks: citizens are armed and have combat experience, intelligence services are exceptionally efficient, the society has learned to live fully and remain fully conscious of the danger. Olivier Rafowicz, IDF Reserves colonel, says he recently accompanied an Israeli delegation to Nice for security consultations. Private Israeli security agencies are quietly hired by French private and public companies.

The West will improve its defenses when Israel is recognized as the rampart in our defense against jihad conquest, standing for our values in the middle of a vast expanse of genocidal hatred. Israel has always lived in awareness of its perilous surroundings. Now the rest of the free world is in the same neighborhood. I remember the snide voices of French commentators in the early years of the jihad-intifada, spitting on “Israel’s sacrosanct concern for security.” This constant demonization of Israel is a rot that jams our weapons, weakens our military, and destabilizes our societies in Europe and, yes, even in the United States.

Daesh like a wireless mouse

It was reasonable to suppose that the French prime minister would not have forthrightly claimed a direct connection between Mohamed Bouhlel and a terrorist organization if he did not have evidence drawn from electronic devices seized after the Nice massacre. Did Bouhlel, like the Orlando killer, declare his allegiance to the caliphate just before going on the rampage? Saturday morning Daesh took responsibility for the brave operation conducted by its soldier in Nice. Some French media are reporting that this is a codified designation that follows strict rules and necessarily implies a pledge of allegiance. Several of the five people detained for questioning confirm Bouhlel’s “recent radicalization.” We will learn more in the coming days or weeks about the nature of that connection. Even if there is not a single incriminating document, conversation, or contact, it is essential to understand that Daesh operates like a wireless mouse: the message goes out from the higher echelons via communicators into the evil hearts of the masses of potential genocidal killers.

A telling personal experience

Saturday afternoon, after spending hours collecting information on the Nice attack from every available source, I took a walk to the post office, stopping on the way at a tobacconist’s shop to buy a book of métro tickets. I’ve been there at least five times in the past six months. Exchanges with the “buraliste” (proprietor or employee, one can’t be sure which) have always been cordial. I was reaching for my money, when the gentleman announced the price: 14.10 euros. “14.10,” I exclaimed! Had the price gone up again, or did I forget what I paid the last time?

“Don’t you ever take the métro?” he scolded. And got nastier as he went along, accusing me of accusing him of being a thief, telling me to go and buy my tickets at the métro station and never come to his shop again. I truly think that he could have reached out to slap me if I hadn’t been so calm and sunny.

“If I accused anyone it was the RATP [transport company] but that’s ok, I won’t come back anymore.” I said “au revoir,” revised it to “adieu,” and walked out.

I mention this because of the visible origins of the “buraliste.”  Apparently feeling unjustly suspected, for his however distant shared origins with the truck-killer, he found nothing better to do than to lash out at me!

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in Family Security Matters. Republished under Creative Commons License: Attribution.

Hillary’s Imam

In Front Page today, I reveal the Democratic nominee’s close ties to “the Turkish Khomeini.”
Gulen

The Daily Caller on Wednesday revealed numerous ties between Hillary Clinton and members of the shadowy network surrounding Fethullah Gulen, the controversial Muslim cleric who has been called “the Turkish Khomeini,” and whom the Erdogan regime is accusing of instigating the coup that nearly toppled it on Friday.

According to the Caller, the Gulen camp has been one of Hillary’s numerous sources of cash, in exchange for which she gave access to the President: “a Gulen follower named Gokhan Ozkok asked Clinton deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin for help in connecting one of his allies to President Obama….Ozkok served as national finance co-chair of the pro-Clinton Ready PAC. He gave $10,000 to the committee in 2014 and $2,700 to Clinton’s campaign last year. He is also listed on the Turkish Cultural Center’s website as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, one of the non-profit arms of the Clinton Foundation. He’s given between $25,000 and $50,000 to the Clinton charity.”

Ozkok wrote to Huma Abedin in 2009: “Please tell Madam Secretary that it would be great if President Obama can include a 15 minutes [sic] meeting with Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary-General of the Organization of of [sic] the Islamic Conference (OIC), in his trip to Turkey.”

Obama did meet with Ihsanoglu, and later invited him to the White House. Ihsanoglu is a longtime foe of the freedom of speech; he once went so far as to liken the Danish cartoons of Muhammad to 9/11: “The Islamic world took the satirical drawings as a different version of the September 11 attacks against them.” He claimed that Muslims were “being targeted by a campaign of defamation, denigration, stereotyping, intolerance and discrimination,” and urged European legislators to criminalize “Islamophobia.”

In March 2011, Ihsanoglu gave a speech to the UN Council on Human Rights, calling upon it to set up “an Observatory at the Office of the High Commissioner to monitor acts of defamation of all religions . . . as a first step toward concerted action at the international level.” Then on April 12, 2011, the UN Council on Human Rights passedResolution 16/18, with full support from the Obama Administration. This resolution calls upon member states to impose laws against “discriminatory” speech, or speech involving “defamation of religion.” In June 2011, Ihsanoglu said that such laws were “a matter of extreme priority” for the OIC.

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton affirmed the Obama Administration’s support for this campaign on July 15, 2011, when she gave an address on the freedom of speech at an OIC conference on Combating Religious Intolerance. “Together,” she said, “we have begun to overcome the false divide that pits religious sensitivities against freedom of expression and we are pursuing a new approach.”

But how could both be protected? Ihsanoglu offered the answer: criminalizing what he considered to be hatred and incitement to violence. “We cannot and must not ignore the implications of hate speech and incitement of discrimination and violence.” But in restricting the freedom of speech, Clinton had a First Amendment to deal with, and so in place of legal restrictions on criticizing Islam, she suggested “old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming, so that people don’t feel that they have the support to do what we abhor.” She held a lengthy closed-door meeting with Ihsanoglu in December 2011 to facilitate the adoption of measures that would advance the OIC’s anti-free speech agenda, which amounted to an attempt to impose Sharia blasphemy laws upon the West. But what agreements she and Ihsanoglu made, if any, have never been disclosed. Hillary’s contact with Ihsanoglu was initiated by Gulen’s associate Ozkok.

That’s bad enough, but there is much more. According to the Daily Caller, “a Gulen-aligned group called the Alliance for Shared Values hired the Clinton-connected Podesta Group to lobby Congress on its behalf.” The executive director of the Alliance for Shared Values was also a Clinton donor. In fact, “numerous Gulen followers have donated to Clinton’s various political campaigns and to her family charity. One Gulen movement leader, Recep Ozkan, donated between $500,000 and $1 million to the Clinton Foundation.”

The Caller states that Gulen’s teachings are “relatively moderate and pro-Western,” but there are numerous reasons to approach such claims with skepticism. Turkey’s National Security Council condemned Gulen in 1998 for “trying to undermine the country’s secular institutions, concealing his methods behind a democratic and moderate image.”

Asia News reported in 2009 that Gulen had been “criticised by a large number of secularists who believe that underneath a veneer of humanist philosophy, Gulen plans to turn Turkey’s secular state into a theocracy. Secular Kemalists have compared him to Khomeini and fear that his return to Turkey might turn Ankara into another Tehran. The governments of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are also weary [sic] and suspicious of his ‘Turkish schools promoted by Islamic missionaries.’ At the basis of Gulen’s teachings is the notion that state and religion should be reconnected as they were in Ottoman times.”

Gulen and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are former associates who are now bitter enemies, after Gulen backed a 2013 corruption probe targeting Erdogan’s regime. And so even though Erdogan has frequently been accused of wanting to destroy Turkish secularism and restore Islamic rule, his regime has leveled the same charge against Gulen, who now lives in a secluded compound in Pennsylvania. Referring to that corruption probe, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ last January echoed the “Turkish Khomeini” charge and said that it ended up exposing Gulen’s sinister agenda:

“If there had been no Dec. 17 [corruption probe], or if it had been delayed and the Turkish people had failed to realize the power of this structure within Turkey, then Fethullah Gülen would have returned from Pennsylvania to Turkey just like Khomeini returned to Iran. Looking from this perspective, Dec. 17 was the day when Turkey said ‘no’ to such a transformation. The state and all its institutions have taken positions accordingly as they realized the danger.”

Gulen’s response to the Khomeini comparison was oddly pedantic and revealed more in what it did not say than in what it did. He noted that he was not a Shi’ite and that Turkey was not Iran, but never addressed the question of whether he, like Khomeini, would like to return to his home country and establish the rule of Islamic law (Sharia) there.

Erdogan is now accusing Gulen of fomenting the coup attempt against him. This is, however, unlikely, as the coup was apparently an attempt to stop Erdogan’s efforts to restore Islamic rule in Turkey, and much as Gulen and Erdogan hate each other, they both apparently share the view that “state and religion should be reconnected as they were in Ottoman times.”

Should Hillary Clinton ever have accepted money from organizations connected with Gulen – much less exchanged influence for it? If she becomes our next President, she is unlikely to end such unsavory associations. Those who are contemplating voting for her should consider carefully the likelihood that a vote for Hillary is a vote for…Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish Khomeini.

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Islamophobia campaigns like Georgetown University’s can intimidate people to restrain their communications that might otherwise save lives.  Proponents of Islamophobia campaigns must share some of the blame for the Islamic terror attacks that killed 49 people in Orlando and 14 people in San Bernardino.  These campaigns can cause people not to report suspicious actions by Muslims because they fear being branded a racist or Islamophobe.

ABC News reported on December 13, 2005:  “A Saudi prince has donated $20 million each to Harvard University and Georgetown University to advance Islamic studies and further understanding of the Muslim world.  At Georgetown, the money will allow the university to expand its Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which will be renamed “The HRH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.” The center describes itself as the only program of its kind “to build stronger bridges between the Muslim world and the West.” 

The Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding – Institute for Social Policy and Understanding held a conference on November 12, 2014 at Georgetown University Lohrfink Auditorium inside the Rafik B. Hariri Building to unite African-American, American Muslim, and Workers’ Rights communities in a political war against conservative, patriotic Americans using Sharia law and Islamophobia as their banner.  The promotion for the event is posted in part below and online here:

Canaries in a Coal Mine: How Islamophobia Threatens Us All

On November 12, 2014 the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) co-hosted an event with the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU) to discuss Islamophobia in the context of an increasingly diverse America. The event highlighted ISPU’s latest research on anti-Muslim prejudice and its connection to bigotry targeting other communities. The event featured four panelists who are experts and advocates on issues affecting African-American, American Muslim, and Workers’ Rights communities.

The Canaries in a Coal Mine panelists included:  

  • Saeed Khan, ISPU Fellow,  Author of Sharia Law, Islamophobia and the U.S. Constitution: New Tectonic Plates of the Culture Wars, 12 U. Md. L.J. Race Relig. Gender & Class 123 (2012), Middle East History professor at Wayne State University, Detroit, MI
  • Ajenai Clemmons, Policy Director at the National Black Caucus of State Legislators
  • Dr. Joe McCartin, Executive Director, Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor; Board Member, Interfaith Worker Justice
  • Madihha Ahussein, Staff Attorney at MuslimAdvocates.org
  • Dalia Mogahed, ISPU Director of Research, Chairman and CEO of Mogahed Consulting which offers clients in-depth social analysis and consulting on the Middle East and Muslim communities around the world, Co-author of Who Speaks Islam?

It appears that the name Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding is likely a misnomer since there are NO Christian representatives involved EXCEPT for the fact that “Georgetown is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institute of higher learning in the United States.”

The Georgetown University Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) is an independent and nonpartisan research think tank, focusing on issues of US foreign policy, security, economics, and public health. Founded in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, ISPU is also known for its extensive work and resources on American and European Muslims and Muslim communities. The organization seeks to educate journalists and policymakers about Muslim attitudes, institutions, and practices in order to assist in providing perspective and analysis. ISPU was awarded a grant by the Henry Luce Foundation in 2011 to fund a two-day policy roundtable and planning retreat.

The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding has developed an online tool which categorizes legislators from all fifty states as an Islamophobe based upon certain criteria.  The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding describes their an online tool as follows:

This tool is important for two reasons.

First, it’s an important conversation starter with other communities and allies. Unfortunately, Islamophobia is too often thought of, by American Muslims and the broader society alike, as a unique problem directed at only one community – Muslims. ISPU’s research shows that Islamophobia is a threat to all.

Our map provides a “big picture” narrative, grounded in hard-data gathered from over 1200+ bills across all 50 U.S. states, which shows anti-Muslim bigotry is not an isolated phenomenon; it frequently overlaps with prejudices directed toward other communities. In other words, anti-Muslim prejudice isn’t a “Muslim” problem, it’s everyone’s problem. Or as Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Second, it’s a practical tool that provides you with the “value added” information for potential partners. Faced with a lawmaker who recently put out an anti-sharia bill and now your community is looking to build or strengthen partnerships with other communities? Moral arguments may be persuasive to some, but many others will only take notice if you can show how “your interests” and “their interests” are the same. Our data, made publicly available through this tool, shows how the same lawmakers that target Muslims also happen to often support laws that disproportionately harm other communities of color, national origin/ethnicity, civic association, gender, or sexual identity. It also contains legislative information on 850+ state lawmakers from 2011 to 2013 across six different issue areas, including anti-Sharia legislation.

Labeling people or groups as Islamophobes is intended to influence them to stop criticizing Islam.   Suppression of free speech is antithetical to the rights afforded under the United States Constitution and impairs public safety.  Suppressing criticism of Islam is honoring Sharia.  Sharia is Islam and Islam is Sharia.  Encyclopedia Britannica states:   Sharia, the fundamental religious concept of Islam, namely its law,…   

Florida Family Association has prepared an email for you to express concern to Georgetown University and Catholic officials about their open alliance with Sharia activists who want to kill the free speech of people who are critical of Islam.

RELATED ARTICLE: Germany: Afghan ‘unaccompanied minor’ attacks travelers with axe

EDITORS NOTE: To send your email, please click the following link, enter your name and email address then click the “Send Your Message” button. You may also edit the subject or message text if you wish.

Click here to send your email to express concern to Georgetown University and Catholic officials.

Immigration and the Terrorist Threat: How our leaders are spawning catastrophe

The most recent horrific terror attack, this time in Nice, France on Bastille Day, is the latest of a string of attacks overseas as well as inside the United States.  It has shaken people around the world, causing them to question what their governments need to do to protect them.

Our leaders are forever reacting to the latest attack, placing us on an elevated defensive posture, whenever and wherever it may occur.  Often news reports are aired that show video clips of heavily armed police officers patrolling our airports and other venues in response to the latest attack no matter where the attack was carried out, to create the illusion of protecting us.

This perspective can most generously be called folly.  The terror threats we face do not go up and down like the stock market.  While it makes sense to marshal snow plow drivers and those that drive the trucks that spread salt on highways when a blizzard is forecast for the region, in preparation for the impending storm to quickly clear the roads, terrorism presents a constant threat.

The only questions are how, when, where, and how many will be killed or injured.  We are in this battle for the long haul and failure is not only not an option but would spell the catastrophic demise of our nation.

While some have simplistically said that our military alone, combating ISIS overseas can protect, the reality is that we must fight this war on two fronts- overseas and within our borders.  Domestically this battle must be waged by many elements of the law enforcement apparatus- including, especially, immigration law enforcement authorities.

This was my focus in my recent article, “Fighting The War On Terror Here, There and Everywhere.”

The 9/11 Commission was created to determine how terrorists were able to carry out deadly attacks in the United States to make certain that it would never happen again.  This is comparable to the way that the NTSB and the FAA investigate plane crashes to make the appropriate fixes.

The preface of the official report, “9/11 and  Terrorist TravelStaff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States” begins with this paragraph:

“It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.”

That report was a companion document to the The 9/11 Commission Report which also discussed how failures of border security and the lack of routine immigration law enforcement, including the identification of immigration fraud and visa fraud, enabled terrorists to enter the United States and embed themselves in communities throughout the United States.

However, at the behest of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Visa Waiver Program which should have been terminated on September 12, 2001, has been continually expanded.  On September 11, 2001 26 countries participated in this program.  Today their are 38 member countries even though, as I wrote in a recent article, GAO Revelations: Our Open Door For TerroristsThe deadly failures of the visa waiver program, more than one-third of these countries fail to provide us with vital information about terrorists.

It should be clear that our borders and our immigration laws are our first and last lines of defense against international terrorists entering our country- yet our borders have become little more than speed bumps to those who smuggle drugs and illegal aliens.

The massive quantity of heroin and other illegal and dangerous drugs that pour across our borders 24/7 show how porous our borders are.  Those drugs are not only smuggled across the U.S./Mexican border but across our northern border and along our 95,000 miles of coastline and through our international aiports located in states across our nation.

Page 61 contained this passage:

Exploring the Link between Human Smugglers and Terrorists

In July 2001, the CIA warned of a possible link between human smugglers and terrorist groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Egyptian Islamic Jihad.149   Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that since 1999 human smugglers have facilitated the travel of terrorists associated with more than a dozen extremist groups.150  With their global reach and connections to fraudulent document vendors and corrupt government officials, human smugglers clearly have the “credentials” necessary to aid terrorist travel.

Furthermore most of the terrorists who have thus far been identified, including the 9/11 hijackers, were admitted into the United States through ports of entry.  Some terrorists succeeded in being granted political asylum, lawful immigrant status and even, in several cases, United States citizenship before they carried out terror attacks.

Meanwhile the administration continues to admit thousands of refugees from Syria even though they cannot be screened, an issue made abundantly clear by sworn testimony of James Comey, the Director of the FBI and other high-ranking officials, as I noted in my article, “Syrian ‘Refugees’ and Immigration Roulette .”

Politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties have insisted that since we cannot deport 11 million illegal aliens- the number they frequently cite, we should simply give them lawful status and somehow this would magically enable us to identify who they are.  They also claim that this would get these heretofore illegal aliens “out of the shadows.”

The only question this raises is are these proponents for such a massive legalization program ignorant or are they so driven to placate their super-wealthy campaign contributors that they are willing to lead our nation down the path to our own destruction?

Here is what you need to consider.  First of all, there are likely two or three times as many illegal aliens as they claim- this means at the very least 30 million illegal aliens would participate in any such massive program.

With numbers that humongous, there would be no way to conduct any face-to-face interviews let alone any field investigations to determine if they provided false information in their applications.  This would include their true identities- including even their actual countries of citizenship, providing terrorists with the opportunity to game this process to acquire lawful status under false identities that would enable them to embed themselves in the United States and travel freely around the United States and even overseas where they could threaten our safety and the safety of our allies.

There would be absolutely no way to determine when they actually arrived in the United States.  Therefore it would be meaningless for politicians to establish a cutoff date of entry for aliens applying for amnesty.  Illegal aliens would simply claim to have been present in the United States prior to that date and there would be no way for our adjudications officer to deny their claims.

Additionally, terrorists and wanted criminals who know that they could be identified by their bio-metrics would simply continue to hide in the “shadows.”  There would be no resources to track them down and arrest them.  The amnesty program would require all of the resources (money and personnel) allocated to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and other immigration-related components of the DHS be devoted to the amnesty program.

If we are to truly harness the immigration system for the best interest of America and Americans we need to have a much larger number of ICE agents to enforce our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.

What is generally not known by most Americans is that while the second largest contingent of law enforcement personnel assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force are ICE agents.  Most international terrorists commit immigration law violations including visa fraud and/or immigration benefit fraud.

Yet we have precious few agents assigned to ICE- no more than 7,000 for our entire country.  More than half of those agents are assigned to pursuing customs investigations that have nothing to do with immigration.  To put this number into perspective, the Border Patrol has well over 20,000 agents, there are more than 20,000 CBP (Customs and Border Protection) inspectors at our 325 ports of entry and roughly 45,000 employees at TSA.  The NYPD has more than 35,000 police officers to protect the City of New York.  We need to have many more ICE agents.

For roughly half of my 30 year career with the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), the agency that was sliced into several agencies when the DHS was created, I was assigned to the Drug Task Force and to DEA Intelligence.  I frequently assisted other law enforcement agencies including the FBI, DEA and many other federal as well as state and local police agencies in cultivating alien informants who were part of various ethnic immigrant communities who were eager to assist us.

As an INS agent, one of the biggest incentives I could offer to any illegal alien who was able to help us was to provide him/her with temporary employment authorization and, if the assistance was of particular importance and/or long term, we could provide such aliens with lawful immigrant status and even bring their family members to the United States.

In many instances, these informants were central to our ability to perfect criminal cases against major drug trafficking organizations and other such entities.  Such techniques could also be used to great advantage to pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding Middle Eastern communities involving aliens who may be involved in supporting and plotting terror attacks.

Illegal aliens who have no criminal histories should never be ignored. Most terrorists, like most spies, understand that to embed themselves they must keep an extrmely low profile to not call attention to themselves.  Consider what the 9/11 Commission Staff Report noted:

“Once terrorists had entered the United States, their next challenge was to find a way to remain here. Their primary method was immigration fraud. For example, Yousef and Ajaj concocted bogus political asylum stories when they arrived in the United States. Mahmoud Abouhalima, involved in both the World Trade Center and landmarks plots, received temporary residence under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAW) program, after falsely claiming that he picked beans in Florida.” Mohammed Salameh, who rented the truck used in the bombing, overstayed his tourist visa. He then applied for permanent residency under the agricultural workers program, but was rejected. Eyad Mahmoud Ismail, who drove the van containing the bomb, took English-language classes at Wichita State University in Kansas on a student visa; after he dropped out, he remained in the United States out of status.

On November 20, 2013 ABC News reported, “Exclusive: US May Have Let ‘Dozens’ of Terrorists Into Country As Refugees.  This is not a new problem, on July 13, 2011 the Washington Times published a truly disturbing article, Visas reviewed to find those who overstayed / Aim is to find any would-be terrorists.”

Consider that on September 2, 2014 ABC News reported, “Lost in America: Visa Program Struggles to “Track Missing Foreign Students.”

Here is how this report began:

The Department of Homeland Security has lost track of more than 6,000 foreign nationals who entered the United States on student visas, overstayed their welcome, and essentially vanished — exploiting a security gap that was supposed to be fixed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

“My greatest concern is that they could be doing anything,” said Peter Edge, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who oversees investigations into visa violators. “Some of them could be here to do us harm.”

Homeland Security officials disclosed the breadth of the student visa problem in response to ABC News questions submitted as part of an investigation into persistent complaints about the nation’s entry program for students.

ABC News found that immigration officials have struggled to keep track of the rapidly increasing numbers of foreign students coming to the U.S. — now in excess of one million each year. The immigration agency’s own figures show that 58,000 students overstayed their visas in the past year. Of those, 6,000 were referred to agents for follow-up because they were determined to be of heightened concern.

“They just disappear,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. “They get the visas and they disappear.”

Coburn said since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, 26 student visa holders have been arrested in the U.S. on terror-related charges.

The failures of the administration to enforce our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States hobbles our efforts to protect America and Americans.

Indeed, page 54 of The 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel contained this excerpt under the title “3.2 Terrorist Travel Tactics by Plot.”

Although there is evidence that some land and sea border entries (of terrorists) without inspection occurred, these conspirators mainly subverted the legal entry system by entering at airports.

In doing so, they relied on a wide variety of fraudulent documents, on aliases, and on government corruption. Because terrorist operations were not suicide missions in the early to mid-1990s, once in the United States terrorists and their supporters tried to get legal immigration status that would permit them to remain here, primarily by committing serial, or repeated, immigration fraud, by claiming political asylum, and by marrying Americans. Many of these tactics would remain largely unchanged and undetected throughout the 1990s and up to the 9/11 attack.

Thus, abuse of the immigration system and a lack of interior immigration enforcement were unwittingly working together to support terrorist activity. It would remain largely unknown, since no agency of the United States government analyzed terrorist travel patterns until after 9/11. This lack of attention meant that critical opportunities to disrupt terrorist travel and, therefore, deadly terrorist operations were missed.

The threats America and Americans face are real.  Our government and our leaders must finally take the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 commission seriously.  Our very survival hangs in the balance.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in Front Page Magazine.

Idaho hospital refuses to release medical records of 5-year-old raped by Muslim migrants

The more that comes out about this appalling story, the worse it gets. Authorities appear desperate to protect Muslim migrant criminals at all costs, lest the public get a negative view of the migrant influx. This article contains a good summary of the chain of events.

Twin-Falls-apartment-complex

“Exclusive — Pamela Geller: Hospital Refuses to Release Medical Records of Five-Year-Old Idaho Victim Raped By Muslim Migrants,” by Pamela Geller, Breitbart, July 16, 2016:

A five-year-old girl was raped and urinated upon by three Muslim migrant boys in Twin Falls, Idaho; one of them, a 14-year-old, videotaped the attack. After the attack, instead of getting justice, the victim’s family has been abused and targeted by law enforcement and medical authorities as if they were the criminals. The mother cannot get copies of the medical records of her own child, or transcripts of 9-1-1 calls made on the day of the attack.

In examining notes taken of their conversations with the victim’s mother, I was taken aback by how contemptuous they are of her. They talk down to her, as if she were the perpetrator, not the mother of the victim of this monstrous attack.

It is outrageous. And it gets worse. The supposedly seven-year-old rapist who put his penis in the girl’s mouth, urinated on her and in her mouth, and who reportedly owned the blue pocket knife that he used to threaten her, was never even removed from his home. That family still lives next door to the victim. For the longest time, the attacker wasn’t even limited in his access to the community’s children; now he must be supervised by someone 14 years old or older. When they stipulated this, the court had to have been aware that the boy who videotaped the rape was 14. This a gross insult against this victimized family — and a direct result of a judge’s decision.

Meanwhile, the neighbor of the family who caught the perpetrators in the act, an elderly woman known to all as “Grandma Jo,” has been living in constant terror since she first happened upon the grisly scene. She has been stalked by the Iraqi family of the seven-year-old attacker. Her apartment is back-to-back with theirs; they peer into her windows and pace back and forth in front of her apartment in a clearly menacing manner.

The victim’s family has received no assistance — no financial aid from federal or state programs to help them relocate. It is almost impossible to find a place to rent because of the housing shortage due to the sudden crush of refugees. Rents have gone way up as well. The five-year-old rape victim is still living next door to the ringleader of the Muslim mob that raped her. She is terrified and won’t leave the house, as the attacker’s family members walk by the victim’s family’s windows and taunt them.

The poor girl desperately does want to play outside, but it isn’t safe to do so without parental supervision. Recently a carload of Muslim males pulled up in front of mother and daughter. The car stopped and its occupants stared them down. The mother witnessed one of the males run into the house and get something that appeared cylinder-like: at the time she was afraid it was a gun. Moments later, their house was being struck by bottle rockets. This isn’t an isolated case in Twin Falls, as there have been other reports of American homeowners having their homes struck by bottle rockets. And let’s be serious: these people are not celebrating the Fourth of July or Americanism.

The prosecuting attorney has gone out of his way to imply that this rape was false information. His interviews have led the media and public officials to deny clear facts of the case. The U.S. Attorney for Idaho even vowed to charge anyone who made false statements about the perps. The Hamas-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has whined that the case has become “a lightning rod for anti-Muslim, and anti-refugee sentiments.”

A source close to this horrifying case has struck back against the disinformation being propagated in the case, and sent me a complete time line of events. So here at last is what really happened, straight from someone who was deeply involved the whole time.

On Thursday, June 2, 2016, the little girl was assaulted by Muslim migrant boys: two Sudanese boys aged around 10 and 14, one Iraqi boy around seven years old. The girl said that they used a knife and dragged her to an apartment laundry room at Fawnbrook apartments in Twin Falls. They were caught in the act by a neighbor — Grandma Jo. According to Grandma Jo, when she opened the laundry room door, she saw two boys standing over the naked victim, urinating on her and “pulling” themselves. She told the attackers to get dressed. Then she helped the victim get dressed (in her urine-soaked clothing). A neighbor arrived to help, and the victim was taken to her family apartment. Her maternal grandmother arrived, the girl was washed and dressed, and the family called 911 three times.

Before the police arrived, the 14-year-old attacker disappeared. Eventually, Twin Falls County Sheriff personnel arrived, as well as police. They took statements. The two attackers who could be found were “scolded” and told to obey Grandma Jo. The police warned them to be good or they would come get them in a large school bus and take them to jail; they were told to obey Grandma Jo in order to avoid this.

That evening, the little girl was taken to the Emergency Room at Saint Luke’s Hospital, where she was examined for rape and blood work was taken. The girl’s parents say that at Children at Risk Evaluation Services (CARES), she was examined by a Dr. Reese. She was told to go for second evaluation on June 6 with CARES doctors. It is unclear if at this or any other time the assailants were frisked, examined, or subjected to blood or urine tests. They were not restrained or removed from their homes.

The next day, two police detectives interviewed Grandma Jo in her home. A police detective, J. R. Paredez, brought the victim a stuffed toy.

On Monday, June 6, CARES interviewed the little girl while Detective Paredez and two counselors watched. Photographic evidence was taken of what was taken at the time by the girl’s parents and a doctor to be a cut on her neck, as well as of her private area. Days later, however, the girl’s mother called CARES for an update and was told that the neck cut was actually just a scratch, and that this was determined by “blood vessel” appearance – an evaluation based on examination of a photo, not a reexamination of the victim.

The family put the victim in a day-care center in order to remove her from proximity to the perpetrators, who continued to run unrestrained in the complex. The victim’s family is poor; their sister-in-law paid the center’s $500 bill.

On June 7, KMVT, a local TV news station, published a Facebook news story on possible sexual assault at Fawnbrook.    

Six days later, on June 13, citizens address the Twin Falls City Council during “public input” to question them about the rape of the child. The next day, a collection was taken up for the girl’s family; they were presented with the money on June 15.

On June 16, the Prosecuting Attorney’s office called the family while the supporter who had taken up the collection for them was visiting their home. Both parents spoke to Janice Kroeger, the Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, and told her that they wanted the attackers prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The next day, a detective called the family at 11:45 a.m. to say that warrants would be issued for the arrest of the attackers, but time was needed to process them. The family was fearful of backlash from the families of the perpetrators. Several individuals began video surveillance of the area.

On Saturday, June 18, two of the perpetrators, both Sudanese Muslim migrants, were arrested. Kroeger called the victim’s family from the Prosecuting Attorney’s office to tell them that the arraignment would be Monday, June 20, at 1:00 p.m. The father of the victim told Kroeger that the family insisted on being involved in all the hearings. Curiously, Kroeger questioned his interest in the case.

At the Sudanese boys’ arraignment hearing that Monday, the family of the victim and a “nonprofessional” support person were in the courtroom. Notably, Angela “Angie” Beeson, the Director of Victim Services, was not present.

Outside of the courtroom, the parents of the victim and several of their supporters, along with Jeff Rolig, an attorney for Fawnbrook apartments, the apartment manager, Detective Paredez, and a Sergeant Wright of the Twin Falls police had a conversation about the knife that the victim (and others) said was used by the perpetrators. (The fourteen-year-old attacker had cut an eight-year-old girl two weeks before this attack; the boy used his blue pocket knife. The mother of this child had entered a complaint against him at the time of the rape, but later dropped it for fear of retaliation.)

On June 20, the family met with Grant P. Loebs, the prosecuting attorney, and Janice Kroegar at the Prosecuting Attorney’s office. Loebs rambled through a “victim’s services package list” and stated that Angela Beeson would be the victim’s advocate for the family. The parents requested a restraining order, but Loebs and Kroegar appeared uncertain if a seven-year-old could have such an order filed against him. Loebs said that he had given three interviews in order to “clear up” the confusion and “set the facts straight.” Loebs stated that “the system” was “not prepared” to deal with a seven-year-old.

Later that day, Twin Falls Police Chief Craig Kingsbury made a public statementpraising the police department, CARES, and the City Council. He called the rape “lewd and lascivious” and said it was a case of “boys acting out.”

During the next week, a supporter of the family, Julie Ruf, took dictation from Grandma Jo for her sworn affidavit. Ruf typed it up as it was spoken to her. Grandma Jo reviewed the affidavit and then took it to her bank, signed it and had it notarized. She then gave it to the victim’s parents so they could give it to their attorney.

On June 21, the Twin Falls Police Department sent an officer to search the Fawnbrook apartment complex for the knife. The officer spoke to a friend of the family who informed him that the knife was known to be a blue pocket knife that the perpetrators hid in a Russian olive tree on an empty lot nearby. Officer confirmed that the area around the tree appeared to have someone “hang out there often.” Then pictures were taken with him and kids in his police car.

On June 23, the Sudanese boys were arraigned for a second time. They were released to their parents and a second Sudanese family. Angie Beeson discussed court procedure with the parents of the victim. A supporter of the family warned Beeson that if the boys were released, they may be a flight risk; Angie answered that they would just need to be arrested again if they fled. Papers were signed by victim’s parents, but it is uncertain what they were. An observer in courtroom indicated that Janice Kroeger didn’t appear confident and was apparently reading from a book; at one point, Kroeger actually asked the judge if she was doing okay (in reference to her actions in the proceedings).

On the same day, Fawnbrook apartments issued an eviction notice to both the Sudanese and Iraqi families that were involved in the rape. The Sudanese immediately began to move out, and were gone by Monday the 27th.

The next day, Wendy J. Olson, U.S. Attorney for Idaho, issued her notorious statementwarning that giving out “false information” about the perpetrators could violate federal law. 

On June 24, a No-Contact order was issued, as per the parents of the victim’s request, against all three assailants. Sergeant Wright stated that it would not be entered into the Police Department’s record until days later.

On June 27, the mother of victim called 911 offices in Twin Falls to request a copy of her public record 911 transcripts. The woman on the phone told her that she wasn’t sure that the victim’s mother would be “allowed” to have those, and that she would need to contact the prosecutor’s office. The prosecuting attorney’s office called back with the answer that no documents would be handed over until the case was closed, because it was a sealed case.

That afternoon at a meeting of the Twin Falls City Council meeting, Twin Falls Mayor Shawn Barigar gave a soliloquy absolving the City Council of responsibility and telling the community to calm down. Julie Ruf told the council that the Iraqi child was still running free in the complex and playing among the other children. The victim and her family, consequently, were shut away in their home to protect themselves. From this evening on, the Iraqi boy remained mostly in his apartment, as did his mother or grandmother (it was difficult to determine which she was).

Also on June 27, Nevada Assemblywomen Michele Fiore and Shelly Shelton were traveling through Twin Falls on the way home, and stopped at Fawnbrook to offer aid and comfort to the victim and her family. Fiore called Detective Paredez to ask him for the case number (which the parents did not have), and was treated disrespectfully by him.

On June 28, Olson issued a second statement to clarify her inflammatory and authoritarian June 24 statement.

That day, the parents met at Jaker’s restaurant in Twin Falls with attorney Bruce Skaug. The parents requested that Julie Ruf remain with them during this meeting, but Skaug insisted otherwise, and Ruf left. The parents then signed a contract with Skaug — under duress, due to their vulnerable emotional condition. They gave Skaug Grandma Jo’s affidavit. Despite their subsequent requests that he return it, he has not done so.

In Jaker’s restaurant, Julie Ruf saw, at another table with the private investigator for Bruce Skaug, another attorney, Jeff Rolig. He was seated in a booth that placed him shoulder-to-shoulder with Skaug, with a glass and pony wall divider between them.

On June 29, the parents of the victim told Skaug to cease work on the case and to send them a copy of their contract and his billable hours.

The mother of the victim went with her neighbor to the Twin Falls Police Department: the neighbor intended to drop charges against same Iraqi boy who knifed her daughter two weeks before the rape. While she was there, Detective Paredez, Sergeant Wright, and another officer asked to speak with the victim’s mother. They escorted her behind two locked security doors and proceeded to grill and intimidate her until she was crying. Paredez specifically mentioned Assemblywoman Michele Fiore’s phone call. 

The victim’s mother had called Julie Ruf, but Ruf arrived after the police had escorted her to a back room. Ruf asked to be taken to her since she had requested it, but no officer was sent to unlock the double security doors.

Upon returning to lobby, the victim’s mother was visibly shaken, but proceeded in the lobby with a written request for her 911 transcripts. She passed the written request through the deposit drawer in the lobby. No proof of the request, or denial of it, was given to her.

On July 6, the parents called Skaug and left him a message, again to dismiss him as their lawyer. They asked him for a copy of their signed contract and billable hours, and asked him to return their paperwork.

That same day, the mother called CARES for a copy of her daughter’s medical records. A CARES employee told her that CARES does not release records and transferred her call to a second CARES employee, identified as Sarah. There followed a discussion about counseling for the victim. Sarah said that CARES did not print out medical records and told the victim’s mother that Paredez had the paperwork, and that it may already have been submitted to the prosecuting attorney.

The mother of the victim then called Paredez, using the police department’s general number). She asked him for the CARES medical records. Paredez responded that they were in the case file, and told that mother that she would need to fill out another public record request for the release of the CARES medical records.

The mother then called Angie Beeson for help with the release of the public records and medical records. Beeson told her that the case was sealed, that the parents may need to be witnesses if the case went to trial, and that “everything needs to be from your own mind.” She told the mother: “You as a mother can’t be denied medical records, but CARES may not release the records,” and that the prosecuting attorney couldn’t release anything until the case was over. The mother of victim offered to file a written request for the records; Beeson said that she would need to ask Grant Loebs, but that she shouldn’t need to put it in writing, that her word should be good enough.

The next day, July 7, Grant Loebs called the mother of victim to tell her that he had received notice from Bruce Skaug that he had been dismissed. Loebs directly asked the mother of victim why the family had dismissed Skaug; they did not give him an answer.

On July 8, there was an Admit or Deny hearing for the seven-year-old Iraqi attacker, with Judge Thomas Borreson presiding. The boy pleaded not guilty. The Protection Order against the boy was altered from 300 yards to 100 feet, and included the supervision of someone 14 and older. He remains in his home with his “mother” and unidentified adult males.

On July 9 at 11:00PM, the mother of the victim called Julie Ruf; she had been frightened by a carload of male Muslims who stopped in front of her apartment building and stared at her. She had allowed her daughter to play late after the other children went in — sunset was at about 9:30PM. She saw one male go into an apartment and get something before she went into her own home. As far as she could see, what he got appeared to be a firearm.

By 11:30PM, the family was hearing loud noises. The mother texted and then called Ruf again. Something began hitting their house. Ruf advised them to call the Twin Falls Police Department. The police arrived quickly and told the family that they believed that what had been hitting the house were bottle rockets being fired by teens nearby. The family had a terrified and sleepless night.

On July 12, Angie Beeson called father of the victim to inform him that she would no longer be acting as their advocate. She said they should contact Grant Loebs as their advocate, and also said that she would be mailing them something. Loebs later called the victim’s mother, but she did not answer. When he called again, she did answer, and Loebs talked for a very long time. He informed her that he would be their advocate now, and that they were not to contact Beeson. Loebs suggested that Beeson may have been threatened, but didn’t say so directly.

On July 13, Susan Tully of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) met with people in Twin Falls, after which she was invited to meet the victims. She apparently called Angie Beeson to attempt to resolve the victim’s issues. It is unclear whether or not she reached Beeson, but the victim’s mother was notified later that day that Tully had spoken to the prosecutor, who made sure that Tully understood that the victim’s parents could go see the paperwork (including the 911 transcripts and medical report), but could not have or make copies. 

That night, at the Twin Falls County Precinct committee meeting, Loebs spoke to the Republican members (about 35 to 40 people). An eyewitness said that Loebs referred to “the alleged raping,” claimed that there was a “quick response of the police department,” and said that the media was making things seem much worse than they were, as the incident had been “blown out of proportion.” He said that “two of the three suspects were arrested and held for four days.”

Loebs also said: “The victim’s family is confused; I spoke to them for twenty minutes the day before.” He added, “Twin Falls is not a corrupt place, it’s safe,” and said, that the case was not significant, as there were other rape cases.

This travesty of justice is ongoing. It must end. Contact these people and demand justice for this poor little girl and her family:

Grant P. Loebs (Prosecuting Attorney) 208-736-4020

Janice L. Kroeger (Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney) jkroeger@co.twin-falls.id.us(208) 733-7899

Angela “Angie” Beeson (Director of Victim Services) angela-b@co.twin-falls.id.us  (208) 736-4164

Jeff Rolig (local attorney for Fawnbrook Apartments) http://www.jroliglaw.com/   (208) 733-0075

Jeff Passadore (Head attorney for Fawnbrook Apartments)   (503) 702-0535

Bruce Skaug (208) 466-0030 Meridian, Idaho attorney

Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore http://votefiore.com/  (702) 985-8142

Nevada Assemblywoman Shelly Shelton http://www.shellysheltonnevada.com/ 

Wendy J. Olson, U.S. Attorney for Idaho  https://www.justice.gov/usao-id/meet-us-attorney

We will not be letting this case go. Watch my future articles and my websitePamelaGeller.com for updates.

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