Tag Archive for: Adam Kredo

Bernie trounced Hillary in NH Primary despite his Israel Hating Advisers

Bernie Sanders may have trounced Hillary Clinton in yesterday’s New Hampshire primary by a significant double digit margin with his Wall Street bashing and Swedish-style entitlement giveaways trolling for millennials and the economically disaffected.  However little known are his foreign policy advisers who are notoriously anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian. Among them are Jim Zogby of the Arab American Institute, former Defense official Larry Korb and, of course, the Soros-funded operatives of J Street.

Adam Credo’s article in yesterday’s Washington Free Beacon article noted the views of these ‘foreign policy’ advisers, “Meet Bernie Sanders’ Israel Hating Advisers.”   You thought his stint in a left Socialist Hashomer Hatzair Israeli kibbutz in his 20’s would make him a lifelong Zionist defender of the Jewish State. As my mythic cousin Vinny from Brooklyn would say, FERGEDABOTIT. Just look at his brother who lives in the UK, a supporter of the anti-Israel pro-Palestinian Labor Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn.  Bernie congratulations Corbyn on his victory winning the Labor Party leadership. The UK Daily Mail article  noted his email to Corbyn saying:

The Democrat presidential hopeful said he is ‘delighted’ to support a leader who ‘tells the billionaire class that they cannot have it all’.

‘At a time of mass income and wealth inequality throughout the world, I am delighted to see that the British Labor Party has elected Jeremy Corbyn as its new leader,’ he said in an email to Daily Mail Online.

‘We need economies that work for working families, not just the people on top.’

His words come after then Argentina’s President  Cristina Kirchner, since ousted by conservative successor Mauricio Macri, gushed that ‘hope has triumphed’ and that Corbyn ‘stands with Argentina’ in their anti-American stance.

Bernie also has a close friendship with notorious left wing anti-Israel advocate Noam Chomsky who endorsed him for President. They both share an Israeli kibbutz experience that in Chomsky’s case bolstered his Israel hating obsessions.

Watch this You Tube video of Chomsky’s endorsement of Bernie for President:

Note these comments from Noah Pollak, executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel, Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and Yehudit Barsky, fellow at Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy in Kredo’s Washington Free Beacon article:

Sanders, who is Jewish and had family members slaughtered during the Holocaust, recently disclosed that his top foreign policy advisers include J Street, a dovish Middle East advocacy group that backs some of Congress’ most vocal critics of Israel, former assistant Secretary of Defense Larry Korb, and James Zogby, an Israel detractor who heads the Arab American Institute.

The inclusion of these advisers in the Sanders’ campaign, which has already come under fire for ignoring prominent Jewish-American political organizations, has prompted speculation from some that the presidential hopeful will pursue anti-Israel foreign policy priorities.

“Bernie seems to care very little about foreign policy, and so his views are shaped inordinately by advisers,” said Noah Pollak, executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel, an advocacy organization. “And now we know who those advisers are. Two of them—Zogby and J Street—are leading anti-Israel apologists for terrorism. By his association with these extremist groups, Bernie fails the commander-in-chief test.”

“If advisers are a crystal ball to the future of foreign policy, then Sanders seeks a policy which doubles down on many of the failed assumptions that have undercut Obama’s policies,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser and terrorism analyst. “America’s adversaries are real and are motivated by ideology rather than grievance. To rest American national security on the good will of anti-American despots and Islamists is never a good gamble.”

Zogby has accused the Jewish state of committing a “Holocaust” against the Palestinians and has referred to Israelis as “Nazis.” He has also described sitting members of Congress as “Israel firsters,” an anti-Semitic trope that implies dual loyalty to the Jewish state.
Zogby also has come under fire for exploiting the memory of the Holocaust for political purposes.

Zogby claimed in a 2010 blog post for the Huffington Post that “the plight of Palestinians is to the Arabs, what the Holocaust is to Jews world-wide.”
His comparison immediately drew outrage, with researchers from the UK Media Watch organization describing it as “grievously insulting.”
“Nothing that I could say to highlight his words would make them any more insulting or horrid than they are on their own,” a representative of that group wrote at the time.

“Zogby has two goals: to make Arab Americans more powerful than Jewish Americans and to be their preeminent leader,” Yehudit Barsky, a fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy, wrote in a profile about Zogby’s anti-Israel attitudes.

J Street has faced similar criticism for its efforts to pressure Israel into making security concessions to the Palestinians that could endanger its survival.

J Street accused the Jewish state of “fanning growing flames of anti-Semitism” due to its efforts to stop daily attacks on civilians during Israel’s 2014 battle against Hamas terrorists.

The group’s leaders also have accused leading Israeli politicians of being racists.

We’ll see how Bernie Sanders fares in the upcoming Democratic primaries.  Given his radical background there was a reason why the media took to calling the city he was elected to serve the People’s Republic of Burlington.  With the FBI released a letter yesterday that Hillary is under investigation because of alleged confidential intelligence abuses using her private email server, you never know what can happen next in the 2016 Democrat Presidential nomination race.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Obama Denying Restitution for Victims of Iranian Terrorism

Thursday, October 1, 2015, Congress is scheduled to vote on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2016. However, President Obama has threatened to veto the NDAA because one of the provisions would bar him from lifting Iranian sanctions under the JCPOA.  Among several amendments incorporated in the NDAA that the President objects to  is the Justice for Victims of Iranian Terrorism  H.R.3457  sponsored by Rep. Pat Meeham (R-PA) as HR  and in the Senate by Senators Pat Toomey  (R-PA) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill) , S 2086.  As Ken Timmerman noted in his Threat Blog, the Act would:

Require the Islamic Republic of Iran to pay an estimated $43 billion to victims of terrorism before the U.S. government would unfreeze Iranian government assets under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal.”

Adam Kredo in a Washington Free Beacon article on the legislation noted the background and comments of Senator Kirk:

The $43 billion in damages to American terror victims were assessed as a result of some 50 U.S. court cases in recent years, according to official government estimates.

[…]

Iranian-backed terrorist groups, for example, have killed more than 700 Americans, including at least 290 in Lebanon over the past several decades. This accounts for the 241 U.S. service members murdered during the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, which Iran sponsored.

Kirk said in the statement on the legislation:

Iran-sponsored terrorists have killed more Americans than the Islamic State. Families of Americans killed by Iranian-backed terrorism have used U.S. laws to take Iran to court and lawfully win approximately $43.5 billion in unsatisfied damages, so if the United States fails to ensure Iran fully pays these judgments before Iranian terror financiers get over $100 billion in sanctions relief, we risk emboldening Iran and other state sponsors of terror to continue targeting and killing more Americans.

One of those Americans was US Navy diver Chief Petty Officer Robert Stethem, was murdered by Hezbollah terrorist mastermind Imad Mughniyah during the 1985 hijacking of Trans World Airlines Flight 847. Another was  teenager Danny Wultz of Weston, Florida  who was mortally wounded in a suicide bombing  by an operative of Iranian – sponsored  terror group, Palestine Islamic Jihad at  a Tel Aviv outdoor café in 2006 while vacationing with his father,Tuly,  who survived the blast.

Stethem’s brother Kenneth, a former Navy SEAL joined Rep. Meeham and other Members of Congress Wednesday to draw attention to tomorrow’s vote on the NDAA incorporating the Iran Victims Terror Act.  The Washington Free Beacon cited  Kenneth Stethem’s comments:

Terrorism has become something more and more frequent because we haven’t developed an effective policy against it and we need to do that. I really believe this bill is the first step in doing that. He added that the passage of the legislation would offer “closure” for families of terror victims. My brother can never be brought back, but the people who perpetrated these acts on my brother and hundreds of other victims can and should be held accountable.

Watch this You Tube video that Rep. Meehan used to introduce the Justice for Iran Victims Act in the House:

Note what Meehan said:

We’re putting our victims to the side if we enable these dollars to be returned to Iran without any attachment to them.

Look, these are Marines who died protecting our barracks, these are American citizens who were sitting in cafes in Israel, and these are people who were hijacked in planes and murdered in cold blood after being tortured. It’s some small measure of accountability that [Iran] should be required to pay [these families] before the very money we now have some influence over is returned.

Rep. Meeham is running a Twitter campaign in support of the legislation using the hashtag, #NotOneCent.

Timmerman drew attention to the statement issued by the President’s Office of Management and Budget threatening a veto:

The Office of Management and Budget today issued a statement that it “strongly opposes” making Iran pay the terrorism claims, arguing that “obstructing implementation of the JCPOA would greatly undermine our national security interests.

President Obama will veto the bill if it makes it through to his desk, the OMB promised.

In the midst of Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s Pentagon press conference over the controversial Russian bombing of Syrian targets, a thoughtful reporter, why the Administration would veto the NDAA incorporating the Justice for Victims of Iranian Terrorism ActWatch this C-Span video excerpt of Secretary Carter’s response:

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of American victims of Iranian terrorism. Screenshot, U.S. Rep. Meeham Facebook, September 29, 2015.

Iranian Court Fines the U.S. $50 Billion!

FLE - In this file photo taken Monday, Sept. 22, 2014, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani briefs media prior to departing Mehrabad airport to attend the United Nations General Assembly, in Tehran, Iran. Rouhani said Sunday, Jan. 4, 2015, that ongoing nuclear negotiations with world powers are a matter of "heart," not just centrifuges ahead of talks next week in Geneva. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

Iranian President Rouhani.

Just prior to the announcement of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna on July 14th, an Iranian court announced a fine of $50 billion against the U.S. It was ostensibly for the U.S. complicity in fostering the deaths and damages inflicted on Iran during the nearly decade long war between the Ba’athist regime of the late Saddam Hussein of Iraq and the Islamic Regime and its revolutionary Supreme leader, founding Ayatollah Khomenei. That was the cover story. It was only following the unanimous endorsement by the UN Security Council of the JCPOA on July 22nd and the attention brought by the series of Congressional hearings in both the Senate and House, that the real purpose was revealed: the denial of nearly equivalent claims awarded in U.S. courts to the victims of Iranian sponsored terrorism committed by proxies.

There are more than 100 cases with awards made in U.S. federal courts. They involved the bombings in Beirut of the U.S. embassy and destruction of the Marine Barracks resulted in over 304 American dead, the Khobar Towers bombing in 1995 in Saudi Arabia where 23 USAF personnel were killed and others were maimed and injured and the deaths of 12 Americans in the 1998 East African bombings in 1998 in Kenya and Tanzania, and the victims in the Iran 9/11 links case. These were acts of state sponsored terrorism by the Iranian Islamic Republic that killed hundreds if not thousands of Americans adjudicated in U.S. courts under the provisions of the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.

Adam Kredo in a July 13, Washington Free Beacon, wrote about the coincidental Iranian Fars news agency announcement of the ‘fine’ issued by the Iranian court:

An Iranian court on Monday issued a ruling fining the United States $50 billion for purported damages against the Islamic Republic and its citizens, according to an announcement by Iran’s Judiciary.

Iran claims that the United States is guilty of inflicting “heavy loss and damage” on the country, as well as “killing the Iranian nationals by assisting their enemies,” such as former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, according to Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency.

The ruling charges “the U.S. administration with the payment of a total 50-billion-dollar fine for the losses it has incurred on real and legal entities,” according to Fars.

A spokesman for Iran’s Judiciary was quoted as saying during a press conference in Tehran that “those who had filed a lawsuit against the U.S., their complaints have been processed.”

Specific names of those leveling these charges were not released.

Following a supposed court hearing and judicial review, “the Iranian courts have issued verdicts against the U.S. administration that charge Washington to pay a total $50bln to compensate for a part of the losses it has inflicted on Iranian legal entities and real persons,” Fars reported.

The report goes on to accuse the United States of aiding “different terrorist groups against Tehran.”

Yesterday, the answer as to why Iran chose the occasion of the JCPOA announcement to announce this claim against the US was  revealed in a Wall Street Journal  article on the languishing status of claims of the families of US victims of Iranian sponsored terrorism adjudicated in New York federal courts, “Terror Victims Eye Thawing with Iran”:

Over the past two decades, terrorism victims have filed about 100 lawsuits against Iran in U.S. courts, accusing the government of sponsoring attacks around the world, including the Sept. 11, 2001, attack. Federal judges have awarded victims a total of approximately $45 billion, including $21.6 billion in compensatory damages, according to calculations by Crowell & Moring LLP. Iran has refused to pay.

A State Department official said there were no discussions of terrorism victims during the nuclear talks, but the U.S. remains committed to looking for ways for victims to seek compensation. Victims’ lawyers are hoping that a thawing of relations with Iran could pave the way for an eventual resolution of the terrorism claims.

“To really have a rapprochement with Iran, the terrorism sanctions and judgments have to be dealt with one way or another,” said Stuart Newberger, a partner at Crowell & Moring who represents terrorism victims, including the Americans who were killed in U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Lebanon.

Terror victims and their families have limited options to seek compensation through the legal system. New laws passed in recent decades, such as the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, have allowed victims to sue countries like Iran in U.S. courts for monetary damages. Enforcing the judgments is an entirely separate challenge.

Victims’ lawyers have scoured the globe for Iranian assets and sought out creative solutions to get paid. They have gone after Iranian central bank funds deposited at Citibank, a case that is awaiting potential review by the U.S. Supreme Court. They are among the parties trying to win the proceeds generated by the potential forfeiture and sale of a 36-story office building in New York City, which a federal court found to be owned by the Iranian government. That case is currently on appeal with the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Victims are also trying to win a portion of the approximate $9 billion penalty paid by French bank BNP Paribas SA to the U.S. government last year for facilitating illegal transactions for Iran and other sanctioned countries.

The agreement reached three weeks ago pertains strictly to nuclear sanctions, leaving the sanctions related to terrorism and human rights intact for now. However, even lifting just the nuclear sanctions could free up billions of Iranian assets in Europe and elsewhere that victims may attempt to seize as part of their judgments, victims’ lawyers say.

“If [the nuclear deal] goes through, resolving terror cases inevitably comes up next,” said James Kreindler, who specializes in terrorism litigation at Kreindler & Kreindler LLP and represents the 9/11 victims, among others. “Iran doesn’t want to see sanctions lifted and lawyers for hundreds of plaintiffs attaching their bank funds all around the world.”

[…]

Among the dozens of plaintiffs’ groups with judgments against Iran, the biggest judgments have been the $6.1 billion awarded to victims of 9/11 and the $9 billion awarded to victims of the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut. Lynn Smith Derbyshire, whose brother was killed in the Beirut attack, says many victims are closely following the Iran deal to see if it will help their cause. “It’s a constantly open wound,” said Ms. Derbyshire, who is the national spokeswoman for the Beirut families. “You don’t really get to close the book and move on because you’re constantly being reminded of it.”

These unsatisfied federal court awards against Iran for state sponsored terrorism that resulted in the deaths and injuries to hundreds if not thousands of Americans would block the release of frozen assets and sanctions penalties against Iran. To obviate paying these claims  the Islamic regime came up with a Court ruling with an equivalent amount that would be used to deny  paying damage awards.

Outrageous, you bet. But then the tawdry spectacle of our government succumbing to concessions  in the Iran nuclear pact by the Iranian negotiating  team set the stage for this calumny.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Teheran Formula

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

UN IAEA: Iran Violated Nuclear Deal Before it is Even Inked

Amidst frenetic Administration efforts to spin a possible Iran deal comes evidence that it has already been violated given an IAEA Report and analysis by Washington, DC –nuclear watchdog, the Institute for Science and International Security.   Adam Kredo in today’s Washington Free Beacon  reported these last minute developments, Iran Violates Past Nuclear Promises on Eve of Deal”:

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) disclosed yesterday that Iran has failed to meet its commitments under the interim Joint Plan of Action to convert recently enriched uranium gas to powder.

While Iran has reduced the amount of enriched uranium gas in its stockpiles, it has failed to dispose of these materials in a way that satisfies the requirements of the nuclear accord struck with the United States and other powers in 2013.

Wednesday’s disclosure by the IAEA sent the State Department rushing to downplay the Iranian violation.

Obama administration officials insisted that despite Iran’s failure to meet its obligations, negotiations were still on track and that Tehran would face no repercussions.

One U.S. official who spoke with the Associated Press on Wednesday said that instead of converting its uranium gas into uranium dioxide powder as required, Iran had transformed it into another substance. The IAEA found that Iran had converted just 9 percent of the relevant stockpile into uranium dioxide.

The official went on to downplay concerns about Iran’s violation, claiming that Tehran was only having some “technical problems.”

The “technical problems by Iran had slowed the process but the United States was satisfied that Iran had met its commitments,” the AP reported the official as saying.

“Violations by Iran would complicate the Obama administration’s battle to persuade congressional opponents and other skeptics,” the AP continued.

David Albright, a nuclear expert and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), warned that the United States is weakening its requirements on Tehran as a final deal gets closer.

“The choosing of a weaker condition that must be met is not a good precedent for interpreting more important provisions in a final deal,” Albright wrote in an analysis published late Wednesday.

While Iran was not in compliance with the oxidation requirement, the IAEA found that it did get rid of uranium gas that surpassed a self-imposed benchmark of 7,650 kg.

The IAEA’s disclosures are in contrast to comments made by Kerry last summer when he assured observers that Iran would live up to the interim agreement.

“Iran has committed to take further nuclear-related steps in the next four months” and “these include a continued cap on the amount of 5 percent enriched uranium hexafluoride and a commitment to convert any material over that amount into oxide,” Kerry said.

The Israel Project (TIP), which has sent officials to Vienna to track the deal, wrote in an email to reporters that the administration looked like it was “playing Tehran’s lawyer” in a bid to defuse potential fallout from the IAEA’s report.

This is not the first time that Iran has been caught by the IAEA cheating on past nuclear arrangements.

As negotiations between the sides slip past their June 30 deadline and stretch into July, Iranian officials have become more insistent that the United States consent to demands on a range of sticking points.

President Hassan Rouhani also threatened to fully restart Iran’s nuclear program if negotiators fail to live up to any final agreement.

One Western source present in Vienna said the administration is scrambling to ensure that nothing interferes with a final deal.

“Once again, the White House will go to any length needed to preserve the Obama-Iran deal, even if it means covering up Iran’s failure to convert all of the nuclear material as promised,” said the source.

“If they had admitted Iran failed to live up to the letter of the JPOA—as is the case—this one-week extension period of the JPOA would be totally invalidated and the talks would be over,” the source added. “Like they have for months, the administration continues to hide violations and is acting more like Iran’s advocate than the honest broker the American people deserve. “

Will these IAEA/ISIS revelations upend the P5+1 Iran deliberations in Vienna?  We bet the Obama State Department and White House spokespersons will continue the charade of “don’t believe your lying eyes”. All while Iran ‘s Supreme Ruler stiff arms the talks in Vienna with new ‘red lines” trusting that greed by the P5+1 over billions of trade and development deals  will  lift $150 billion in sanctions relief upon inking a deal.  Both Israel and the US Congress are increasing wary of this deal that will provide a nuclear breakthrough by Iran. If achieved the deal  will vault Iran’s  state sponsorship of terrorism.  Iran could develop one bomb to wipe Israel off the map of the world and an ICBM to detonate an EMP over the US fulfilling their Mahdist apocalyptic dream and both Israel’s and our nightmares.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of U.S. Energy Secertary Moniz, Secretary of State Kerry and Undersecretary Wendy Sherman taken in Vienna, July 1, 2015. Source: Reuters.

Obama Administration supports Radical Islam: State Department Hosts Pro-Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian Contingent

Waleed Sharaby, is a secretary-general of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council   State Department  1-1-27-15

Waleed Sharaby, Secretary  General of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council, who flashes the Rabia Muslim Brotherhood resistance sign. U.S. State Department 1-27-15, Source: screenshot.

Tuesday evening in Washington, D.C., we had more evidence of the Administration’s policy of appeasing Muslim Brotherhood opponents of the Al-Sisi government in Cairo, the latter seeking to reform radical Islamic doctrine espousing Salafist Jihad.  Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon reported this latest example of outreach to Radical Islamist groups in the Ummah, “Muslim Brotherhood-Aligned Leaders Hosted at State Department:”

One member of the delegation, a Brotherhood-aligned judge in Egypt, posed for a picture while at Foggy Bottom in which he held up the Islamic group’s notorious four-finger Rabia symbol, according to his Facebook page.

That delegation member, Waleed Sharaby, is a secretary-general of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council and a spokesman for Judges for Egypt, a group reported to have close ties to the Brotherhood.

The delegation also includes Gamal Heshmat, a leading member of the Brotherhood, and Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardery, a Brotherhood member who served as a parliamentarian from Luxor.

Sharaby, the Brotherhood-aligned judge, flashed the Islamist group’s popular symbol in his picture at the State Department and wrote in a caption: “Now in the U.S. State Department. Your steadfastness impresses everyone,” according to an independent translation of the Arabic.

Another member of the delegation, Maha Azzam, confirmed during an event hosted Tuesday by the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID)—another group accused of having close ties to the Brotherhood—that the delegation had “fruitful” talks with the State Department.

Note this comment of Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:

Maha Azzam confirms that ‘anti-coup’ delegation, which includes 2 top [Muslim Brothers], had ‘fruitful’ conversations at State Dept,” Egypt expert Eric Trager tweeted.

“The State Department continues to speak with Muslim Brothers on the assumption that Egyptian politics are unpredictable, and the Brotherhood still has some support in Egypt,” he said. “But when pro-Brotherhood delegations then post photos of themselves making pro-Brotherhood gestures in front of the State Department logo, it creates an embarrassment for the State Department.”

Sam Tadros, Egypt expert at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom in Washington, DC commented:

“I think the Muslim Brotherhood visit serves two goals,” Tadros said. “First, organizing the pro Muslim Brotherhood movement in the U.S. among the Egyptian and other Arab and Muslim communities.”

“Secondly, reaching out to administration and the policy community in D.C.,” Tadros said. “The delegation’s composition includes several non-official Muslim Brotherhood members to portray an image of a united Islamist and non-Islamist revolutionary camp against the regime.”

Counter terrorism expert, Patrick Poole said:

What this shows is that the widespread rejection of the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East, particularly the largest protests in recorded human history in Egypt on June 30, 2013, that led to Morsi’s ouster, is not recognized by the State Department and the Obama administration,” Poole said.

“This is a direct insult to our Egyptian allies, who are in an existential struggle against the Muslim Brotherhood, all in the pursuit of the mythical ‘moderate Islamists’ who the D.C. foreign policy elite still believe will bring democracy to the Middle East,” Poole said.

It is beyond time for the GOP-controlled Congress to investigate why the Administration deigns to provide auspices to invite Egyptian and other foreign Muslim Brotherhood leaders to meet publicly with White House National Security and State Department officials in Washington. This latest example continues the impression that the Obama Administration supports Radical Islamic doctrine.  It is a further example of how far the Administration has gone in fostering infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood domestic and foreign groups in the U.S. enabling their  “messaging”.  All while this Administration persists in deracinating the vestiges of Jihad threat doctrine training for our military, homeland security and national law enforcement agencies.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

U.S. State Department Promotes Extremist Cleric

Sheik Abdullah bin Bayyah of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

Adam Kredo in a Washington Free Beacon article this weekend, reported on the State Department  Counter Terrorism  (CT) Bureau promotion  of Sheik Abdullah Bin Bayyah  head of International Union of Muslim Scholars  (IUMS) and  the deputy to anti-Semitic, anti-American Muslim Brotherhood preacher, Yusuf al Qaradawi.,“State Dept Promotes Muslim Cleric Who Backed Fatwa on ‘Killing of U.S. Soldiers’”.

As noted by Kredo, the CT Bureau tweeted last Friday  a press release by Bin Bayyah’s group condemning the kidnapping of the 276 largely Christian Nigerian girls  by  extremist Jihadist  fighters Boko Haram.  We wonder why the State Department didn’t pick up on the other news release, “IUMS condemns assault on Al-Aqsa by Israeli army and Zionist settlers, reminds nation of its duties”.

Just prior to the coup ousting Muslim Brotherhood leader and Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi, Bin Bayyah had been invited by former National Security Adviser Tom Donilon to discuss supposed new messages to combat al Qaeda.  We wrote  at the time:

The Obama Administration had reached out to Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt and on June 13, 2013 had invited Sheik Abdullah Bin Bayyah, the deputy to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the banned anti-Semitic, Anti-American Muslim Brotherhood preacher. He met with outgoing National Security Council Advisor, Tom Donilon and others on President Obama’s staff. Posters in English in Tahrir Square accused President Obama and Amb. Anne Patterson of fostering Muslim Brotherhood terrorism. Meanwhile the Obama White House issued statements following the Egyptian military on July 3, 2013 expressing “deep concern” of the decision to remove Morsi and urged the military to avoid “any arbitrary arrests” of the president and his supporters. The President “directed relevant departments and agencies to review the implications under U.S. law for our assistance to the government of Egypt.”
Fox News noted.

Later in a November 2013 review of Erick Stakelbeck’s book, The Brotherhood: America’s Next Great Enemy, we spotlighted the Obama Administration’s outreach to Muslim Brotherhood leaders:

Members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood have been invited to the Obama White House. Hani Nour Eldin, a former terrorist member of the Egyptian Ikhwan was part of a delegation that met with White House staff. Eldin lobbied for the release of the blind Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman who organized the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing. In mid June 2013, just weeks before the ouster of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, Obama National Security staffers met with Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. He is a colleague of Egyptian Ikhwan preacher Yusuf al Qaradawi. According to a Fox News report, Sheik Ben Bayyah “has urged the U.N. to criminalize blasphemy.” His group has spoken out in favor of Hamas and in 2009 issued a fatwa barring “all forms of normalization with Israel.”

Ironically, the title of review of Stakelbeck’s book tells the story in a tweet headline, “Willful Blindness to the global Muslim Brotherhood Threat”.

Kredo backs up these comments with further evidence:

Bin Bayyah is reported to have been one of several clerics who endorsed a 2004 fatwa that endorsed resistance against Americans fighting in Iraq, PJ Media reported in 2013, when Bin Bayyah met with Obama’s National Security Council staff at the White House.

Bin Bayyah has “urged the U.N. to criminalize blasphemy,” according to reports, and spoke “out in favor of Hamas,” the terror group that rules over the West Bank.

The cleric also issued a fatwa in 2009 “barring ‘all forms of normalization’ with Israel,” according to Fox.

The 2004 fatwa on Iraq stated that “resisting occupation troops” is a “duty” for all Muslims, according to reports.

Yusuf Qaradawi, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader who founded the IUMS—where Bin Bayyah served as vice president—has been called a “theologian of terror” by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Bin Bayyah himself has advocated for the criminalization of “the denigration of religious symbols,” which critics call an infringement on free speech.

He cites counter terrorism expert Patrick Poole’s concerns about this latest State Department episode:

“This administration is continuing to push extremist clerics like Bin Bayyah as part of a fantasy foreign policy that somehow they are somehow a counter to al Qaeda,” Poole said. “But in Bin Bayyah’s case, it was his organization that issued the fatwa allowing for the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and said it was a duty for Muslims all over the world to support the Iraqi ‘resistance’ against the United States that gave religious justification for al Qaeda’s terrorism.

“And [Bin Bayyah] said nothing as his pal Qaradawi issued fatwas authorizing the use of suicide bombings and publicly defended terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” Poole added. “If anything, clerics like Bin Bayyah and [Yusuf] Qaradawi have actively aided al Qaeda.”

This State Department CT Bureau tweet about Sheik Bin Bayyah is evidence of the delusion fostered by the Obama White House that has lost all credibility with a policy directed at engaging Muslim Brotherhood theocrats and Shiite Ayatollah fostering Global Islamic terrorism.  Professor Richard L. Rubenstein commented in a June 2009 NER  You Tube video interview that Obama was “the most radical US President ever”.  This latest State Department action shows how prescient was Rubenstein’s observation.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/CNlaQEYw0q4[/youtube]

 

UPDATE: State Department Apologizes for its Tweet Promoting MB Sheik Bin Bayyah

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.

Al Qaeda Looted Syria’s Bio-Warfare Laboratories?

unnamed

Dr. Jill Bellamy van Allst , NATO Bio-warfare Expert.

There is a  troubling briefing  by the UK-based Henry Jackson Society (HJS), co-authored by  Dr. Jill Bellamy van Allst, NATO Bio-warfare Expert and Oliver Guitta , Director of Research , reported by Adam Kredo  in the Washington Free Beacon ,  “Al Qaeda-Aligned Groups in Syria May Have Access to Biological Pathogens”.  Our New English Review interview  with Dr. Bellamy Van Aalst on Syria’s  Bio-warfare program  in 2007 was reprised to heightened interest in 2013, “The Dangers of Syria’s Bio-Warfare Complex Should Assad Fall”.  More recent concerns have emerged  about the possible use of drones  by terrorist group Hezbollah as a delivery platform for possible BW attacks against Israel.

The Washington Free Beacon cited  this warning by HJS authors Dr. Bellamy Van Aaalst and Guitta:

 The problem with bio-weapons, unlike chemical or nuclear, is the quality and weaponization for dispersal that counts, not the quantity. You do not need a stockpile and you do not need sophisticated delivery methods, in fact, that is no longer optimal. Bio-weapons are silent, and determining that an attack has occurred can be challenging.

The HJS authors found:

  • Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, Al Nusrah, may have acquired access to biological pathogens or weaponized agents, either of which would pose a threat to the international community.
  • The Syrian civil war has left sections of the bio-pharmaceutical infrastructure destroyed, and looting of labs has been observed, which could indicate that Assad is losing command and control over one of the most dangerous classes of weapons remaining in his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) arsenal.
  • Should al Qaeda acquire sections of Assad’s BW program, it has the competence and expertise to weaponize and deploy agents.
  • Documents found in Afghanistan, in 2001, ostensibly revealed that al-Qaeda was doing research on using botulinum toxin to kill 2,000 people.
  • On January 6, 2009 a number of terrorists died of plague in an  al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) training camps in Tizi Ouzou. Reportedly, 50 terrorists had been diagnosed with the plague, 40 of whom  died.
  • Intelligence sources suggest that in several countries, notably Morocco, Algeria, Sudan and Mauritania, AQ is training operatives in biological and chemical weapons and has successfully inserted terrorists into Europe through application processes for refugee status.

The Washington Free Beacon noted:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is believed to have ample biological weapons stores in addition to the chemical weapons currently being confiscated by Western nations. These caches likely include various neurotoxins and deadly viruses, according to U.S. intelligence estimates and other experts.

“A very credible source has confirmed he saw, near Aleppo, a looted pharmaceutical laboratory, which was probably a cover for a biological weapons production site,” Guitta and van Aalst revealed in a research brief published by the Henry Jackson Society.

“Syria’s biological warfare programs are latent, highly compartmentalized, and dual use, run under both legitimate and clandestine programs, laboratories, institutes, and facilities,” the report states. “The fact that this looting took place in the Aleppo area where the rebellion—and in particular Al Nusrah—is very strong tends to confirm that AQ may potentially be in possession of biological agents.”

Al Qaeda’s interest in acquiring biological weapons is cited by the HJS authors:

Recent reports from Syria suggest that al Qaeda’s top leaders have taken an interest in Assad’s bio-weapons research facilities.

Al Qaeda’s primary biological weapon expert, Yazid Sufaat, was arrested in Malaysia. “His arrest is all the more concerning given that the [United Nations] has allowed the Assad regime to maintain its [bio-weapons] program,” according to the report.

Suffaat is a graduate of California State University, Sacramento, where he received a degree in biology, according to Guitta and van Aalst.

“In 1993, Sufaat established Green Laboratory Medicine, a pathology lab where he tried to weaponize anthrax on behalf of al Qaeda,” according to the report. “Sufaat had direct ties to Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Al Mihdhar, both of whom were on Flight AA 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.”

Note these comments from Texas Senator John Cornyn and National Intelligence Director Clapper:

Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) warned last month that Syria’s unsecured bio-weapons pose a great threat to the region.

U.S. intelligence agencies have reported that Assad possesses various biological weapons and has an active research program underway.

“Based on the duration of Syria’s longstanding biological warfare (BW) program, we judge that some elements of the program may have advanced beyond the research and development stage and may be capable of limited agent production,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote in an unclassified April 2013 report.

“Syria is not known to have successfully weaponized biological agents in an effective delivery system, but it possesses conventional and chemical weapon systems that could be modified for biological agent delivery,” Clapper concluded.

Question is will the  Obama National Security Council brief the President on this compelling threat? Given the array of problems in Eastern Europe and the Middle East would this credible threat get the attention it deserves? Perhaps, it is the Israelis who have been keeping a watch on Syrian terror weapons. They may already be on the case regarding bio-weapons filtering into the hands of  Terrorist groups, whether al Qaeda, Hezbollah or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

RELATED STORY: Al Qaeda Magazine Calls For Car Bombings In U.S., New York – CBS New York

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.