Tag Archive for: Iraq

Putin to those who supported the “Arab Spring”: “Do you realize what you have done?”

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“Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster — and nobody cares a bit about human rights, including the right to life. I cannot help asking those who have forced that situation: Do you realize what you have done?”

No, they don’t realize what they have done, and they’re poised to do more of it. And those of us who warned at the time that the “Arab Spring” would not lead to “the triumph of democracy and progress,” but to “violence, poverty and social disaster,” were dismissed and derided as racist, bigoted “Islamophobes.” And no matter how often the establishment analysts get things wrong, and disastrously, fatally so, they never get called to account, and keep applying the same failed solutions over and over again.

“Putin: ‘Do you realize what you have done?,’” by Everett Rosenfeld, CNBC, September 28, 2015:

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday admonished those who supported democratic revolutions in the Middle East, telling the United Nations they led to the rise of a globally ambitious Islamic State.

“Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster — and nobody cares a bit about human rights, including the right to life,” Putin said through a translator. “I cannot help asking those who have forced that situation: Do you realize what you have done?”

The Russian president added that the power vacuum following these revolutions led to the rise of terrorist groups in the region — including the Islamic State group.

He told the General Assembly it would be an “enormous mistake” not to cooperate with the Syrian government to combat the extremist group.

“No one but President (Bashar) Assad’s armed forces and Kurdish militia are truly fighting the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in Syria,” he said.

In an earlier speech at the U.N. , President Barack Obama said it would be a mistake to think that Syria could be stable under Assad.

Acknowledging some of the criticism lobbed at Russia’s proposal, Putin said his country is only proposing to help save the world from terrorism.

“I must note that such an honest and frank approach from Russia has been recently used as a pretext to accuse it of its growing ambitions — as if those who say it has no ambitions at all. However, it’s not about Russia’s ambitions, dear colleagues, but about the recognition of the fact that we can no longer tolerate the current state of affairs in the world,” he said.

He proposed a “generally broad international coalition against terrorism,” likening the suggestion to the anti-Hitler coalition that brought together disparate interests to battle fascism in Europe.

Putin warned that international policy toward the region has led to an Islamic State with plans that “go further” than simply dominating the Middle East. And citing recent data about failures in successfully recruiting “moderate” Syrian opposition, Putin said countries opposed to Assad are simply worsening the situation.

“We believe that any attempts to play games with terrorists, let alone to arm them, are not just short-sighted, but hazardous. This may result in the global terrorist threat increasing dramatically and engulfing new regions,” the Russian leader said….

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Pressure on Obama grows to declare war against Christians a genocide

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“Christianity in the Middle East is shattered,” Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, Nebraska Republican, told the IDC [In Defense of Christians] conference on Sept. 9. “The ancient faith tradition lies beaten, broken and dying. Yet Christians in Iraq and Syria are hanging on in the face of the Islamic State’s barbarous onslaught. This is genocide.”

Yes. And as the Islamic State itself tells the world, it is the direct result of devout Muslims following the commands in the Qur’an, imitating Muhammad’s example as extolled in the ahadith and the Sira, and applying the doctrines of Islamic jurisprudence. Islam itself is the direct cause of the first genocide of the 21st century.
“Pressure Grows to Declare War Against Christians a Genocide,” By Douglas Burton, Washington Times via AINA, September 23, 2015:

Memorial to victims of 2010 church bombing; Baghdad, Iraq.

Human rights activists see it. Foreign leaders see it. And more than 80 members of the U.S. Congress see it. Together, they are pressuring the leader of the free world to declare there is a Christian genocide going on in the Middle East.

Their campaign — which was discussed at a Capitol Hill conference earlier this month hosted by the two-year-old In Defense of Christians nonprofit — has an influential ally on its side.

Pope Francis, making his first visit to the United States on Wednesday, has noted the number of Christians being martyred today exceeds the number martyred during the days of the Roman Empire.

In fact, the sheer numbers of Christians murdered and tortured every year in a dozen countries in the developing world is only getting worse, thanks to the relentless campaign of the ISIS and al-Qaeda terror groups.

For example, in 2014, 2,000 Christians were murdered in Iraq alone, which is the number cited by historian Edward Gibbon as the total number of Christian martyrs in the first three centuries of Christianity.

In Iraq, where Christian churches were planted 1,800 years ago, Christianity has been wiped out except for 200,000 refugees sheltering in Kurdistan and a few in Baghdad. Their language, Aramaic; their homeland, the Nineveh Plain; and their calamity are Biblical in scale. Hundreds have been publicly tortured and executed in Mosul while women and children have suffered severe levels of sexual violence since the Islamic State took control in 2014.

“Christianity in the Middle East is shattered,” Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, Nebraska Republican, told the IDC conference on Sept. 9. “The ancient faith tradition lies beaten, broken and dying. Yet Christians in Iraq and Syria are hanging on in the face of the Islamic State’s barbarous onslaught. This is genocide.”

A year after Congress authorized a special envoy to expedite the humanitarian relief of persecuted minorities in Iraq, the Obama administration has finally chosen a person to fill the spot. Knox Thames has been named the State Department’s special adviser for religious minorities in the Near East (NEA) and South and Central Asia (SCA). His appointment was announced Sept. 16 by Ambassador David Saperstein, ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. The Christian refugees in Irbil hope that Mr. Thames hits the ground running.

“The appointment represents a positive step toward strengthening the U.S. response to religious persecution in the Middle East,” says Delia Kashat, who works for the Nineveh Council of America, a newly established office that raises awareness on the plight of threatened Iraqi minorities, including the Yazidis.

“History is repeating itself,” she says of the latest crisis that reminds many refugees of the massacre of 3,000 Assyrian Christians in August 1933 and the Armenian genocide of 1915 that also claimed the lives of many Assyrian Christians.

“Having suffered multiple genocides over time, the true natives of Iraq and Syria serve as the equilibrium and peacemakers of the country,” she says. Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians in all provinces have suffered kidnappings, torture and brutal attacks, and massive exodus has followed the ascendance of the Islamic State.

Ms. Kashat grew up in the Detroit metro area, home to around 150,000 Chaldean Christian immigrants, but her parents were born in the Nineveh Plain and fled Iraq in 1973. “They came to this country because this is where is they could freely live and practice their faith,” she says.

Whether they call themselves Assyrian or Chaldean, Catholic or Orthodox, Iraqi Christians belong to a common ethnicity and claim descent from the ancient peoples who established Assyria 4,500 years ago.

Currently there are 14 Christian parties seeking seats in the Kurdish regional parliament, and each is tied to a particular church, according to Louay Mikhael, a Chaldean Christian rom Dohuk, who arrived in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and child only in April.

Mr. Mikhael represents the Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council of the Kurdish Regional Government (CSA Popular Council), which will open its lobbying office in Washington in the coming weeks. Both Ms. Kashat and Mr. Mikhael are working in Washington to raise awareness on the issues affecting ethnic-religious minority populations.

After the surge of the Islamic State in the summer of 2014 approximately 130,000 people — virtually the entire population of Christians remaining in the Nineveh Plain near Mosul — have either fled the country or taken shelter in Kurdish cities.

“On Aug. 6 when ISIS attacked Qaroquosh, approximately 55 miles from Irbil, we had 60,000 people arriving in one day,” said Rev. Douglas Bezi, the Chaldean Catholic priest who manages a refugee center in the Christian suburb of Ainkawa.

The city of Irbil and its suburbs have nearly 100,000 Chaldean Catholic refugees sheltering in rented apartments, unfinished buildings or steel shipping containers. “When they arrived, I divided them into two groups, those who wanted to return in one group and those who wanted to leave the country,” Father Bezi said. “But after a year, no one wants to return to the Nineveh Plain. More than 60 percent of my people are traumatized, and wake up every day demoralized.”

Iraqi Christian advocates are united in their priorities for the United States: They want direct humanitarian assistance and international condemnation of the abuses these vulnerable groups face.

A Congressional resolution introduced Sept. 9 by Mr. Fortenberry and Rep. Anna Eshoo, California Democrat, calls on signers of the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, signed in 1948, to be “reminded of their legal obligations” under the agreement.

It also says those who have forced the migration of religious communities from their ancestral homelands — especially the Nineveh Plain, the historic home of Yazidis — be “tracked, sanctioned, arrested, prosecuted and punished.”

“Christianity is running the risk of becoming extinct in the region it was born. What is happening to the Christian community in Iraq will happen to all of Christianity in the Middle East if we don’t take action,” Ms. Kashat said.

Douglas Burton, a former U.S. State Department official in Kirkuk, Iraq, is a former opinion editor of Insight on the News.

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GOP Debate: Winners and Losers on National Security by Ryan Mauro

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American voters’ concern about Islamist extremism is at the highest level since 2002, with 66% of Republicans, 56% of Independents and 48% of Democrats describing it as a “critical threat.” National security is a major issue that received significant attention at last night’s Republican presidential debate.

The following is Clarion Project National Security Analyst Ryan Mauro’s compilation of the candidates’ expressed stances on fighting Islamist extremism at the debate and his personal assessment of the contest’s winners and losers among national security voters.

Winners

Businesswoman Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina is widely considered the biggest winner of the debate overall. Her performance included details on national security policy.

She criticized rivals who oppose the nuclear deal with Iran without presenting a broader strategy. She said she’d inform Iran that the regime would be prevented from moving money through the global financial system until it agrees to anytime-anywhere inspections.

Fiorina said the U.S. should not negotiate with Russia because it is on the side of Iran. She said she’d provide intelligence to Egypt and armaments to Jordan to fight the Islamic State, in addition to arming the Kurds.

She advocated a military buildup that includes increasing the 6thFleet, military exercises in the Baltic States, installing anti-ballistic missile systems in Poland, modernizing all three legs of the nuclear triad, increasing the Navy to 300-350 ships and adding 50 Army brigades and 36 Marine battalions.

Fiorina is currently in 8th place in an average of national polls with 3 percent. She is in 6th place in Iowa (5%), 4th place in New Hampshire (8%) and 6th place in South Carolina (4%).

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham

Graham is the winner of the undercard debate that featured the bottom four candidates and virtually every answer of his related to national security. Of all the candidates, he was the most impressive on dealing with the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL). He explicitly said he is running for president to “destroy radical Islam.” Graham said he would “rip the caliphate up by its roots” and “will kill every one of these [ISIS] bastards we can find.”

Graham’s standout moment was challenging every candidate to state whether they support increasing troop levels in Iraq from 3,500 to 10,000 to fight the Islamic State, asserting that anyone who refuses to do so lacks the seriousness to be commander-in-chief. Graham’s overall plan calls for increasing U.S. troop levels to 20,000, split between Iraq and Syria.

He argued that the Islamic State grew in Syria and then propelled into Iraq because the Obama Administration rejected his recommendation that the U.S. military establish a no-fly zone in Syria and support the Free Syrian Army rebel force before it became too late.

Graham said there is no one left to train inside Syria, so the only option is a U.S.-backed regional army that includes Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and others. He said the only solution to the refugee crisis is the removal of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

He pointed out that he’s the only candidate who has served in the military (he was in the Air Force for 33 years). Graham has spent 140 days on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan over the course of 35 trips to those countries.

Graham is currently in 14th place nationally (0.3%). He is in 14thplace in Iowa (0.3%); 12th place in New Hampshire (0.8%) and 7thplace in South Carolina (4%).

Florida Senator Marco Rubio

Rubio gave the most detailed and articulate answers about foreign policy during the debate. He argued for a more interventionist U.S. policy that includes supporting democratic activists, such as by meeting with opponents of Putin in Russia.

He argued that the Syrian revolution began as a popular uprising and the Islamist terrorist presence could have been minimized if the U.S. had armed moderate rebels in the beginning of the conflict.

Rubio said that the Russian military movement into Syria is part of an overall strategy to “destroy NATO,” save the Syrian dictatorship and convince countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia to ditch the U.S. for Russia.

He is currently in 5th place nationally (5%). He is in 5th place in Iowa (5%); 8th place in New Hampshire (3%) and 5th place in South Carolina (4%).

Rubio explained that he opposed giving President Obama authority to launch airstrikes on the Syrian regime after it used chemical weapons because the plan involved “pinprick” airstrikes. He said that he would only support military action that has victory as an objective.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

Christie struck a chord when he spoke about his experience on 9/11 and prosecuting terrorists after the attack when he was the U.S. Attorney for the state of New Jersey. He defended the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks when Carson’s opposition was brought up. He also pledged not to have deals with or meet with leaders like those in Iran who chant “Death to America.”

He is currently in 11th place nationally (2%). He is in 11th place in Iowa (2%), 9th place in New Hampshire (3%) and 12th place in South Carolina (2%).

Losers

Businessman Donald Trump

Trump failed to show any grasp on foreign policy or to outline a strategy towards Islamist extremists when pressed. When he was asked about an embarrassing interview where he appeared not to know what the Iran-linked Al-Quds Force are and the names of prominent terrorist leaders, he simply stated that he’d hire a strong team that would keep him informed on national security.

He boasted of opposing the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. He said the U.S. should stay out of the Syrian civil war and criticized President Obama for declaring that the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons would be an intolerable “red line.” Trump said that Rubio, Paul and Cruz should have supported President Obama’s request for authority to militarily enforce the “red line.”

Trump also expressed confidence that he could work well with Russian President Putin. Fiorina, on the other hand, said the U.S. should not negotiate with Russia.

He is currently in 1st place nationally (31%). He is in 1st place in Iowa (28%), 1st place in New Hampshire (30%) and 1st place in South Carolina (34%).

Dr. Ben Carson

Carson did not display an impressive knowledge of foreign affairs and national security. Serious damage may have been done when the moderator asked about his opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. Carson explained that he told President Bush to focus instead on energy independence, which Christie politely took him to task for.

Carson also made sure to point out that he opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

He is currently in 2nd place nationally (20%). He is in 2nd place in Iowa (23%), 2nd place in New Hampshire (15%) and 2nd place in South Carolina (19%).

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul

Paul repeatedly stated his anti-interventionist view and said that U.S. military operations often backfire. A new poll shows that 69% of Republicans, 67% of Democrats and 57% of Independents favor having America active abroad.

Paul boasted that he “made a career” out of opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and argued that the U.S. should not topple secular dictators because they are replaced by radical Islamic forces. Paul and Trump were the only candidates to express opposition to a policy of overthrowing Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. He also said that U.S. backing of Syrian rebels would mean arming enemies of America.

He said it is “absurd” to immediately scrap the nuclear deal with Iran unless the regime violates it. He spoke in favor of continued diplomacy with Iran and Russia, pointing out that President Reagan met with the leaders of the Soviet Union.

Paul also said he opposes using U.S. ground forces in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State, but supports continued airstrikes and arming Kurds.

He is currently in 7th place nationally (3%). He is in 9th place in Iowa (4%), 7th place in New Hampshire (5%) and 11th place in South Carolina (2%).

Ohio Governor John Kasich

Kasich damaged his chances by refusing to say that he’d scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. He argued that the U.S. should move in coordination with allies and not withdraw from the agreement unilaterally. He said that the U.S. should sanction Iran if they violate the deal or sponsor terrorism. Rand Paul likewise said maintenance of the agreement would depend upon Iranian compliance.

He was also twice criticized by Graham during the undercard debate for supporting the closure of some U.S. military bases. Graham countered that he’d increase the number of bases.

He is currently in 10th place nationally (3%). He is in 10th place in Iowa (3%), 3rd place in New Hampshire (10%) and 8th place in South Carolina (4%).

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush

Bush criticized rivals who focused on their pledges to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. He would not commit to doing so and said that the discussion needs to be about an Iran strategy rather than a strategy to tear up the deal.

Bush encouraged viewers to review his 9-point plan for fighting the Islamic State and the Syrian regime.

He is currently in 3rd place nationally (8%). He is in 4th place in Iowa (5%), 5th place in New Hampshire (8%) and 3rd place in South Carolina (7%).

Other Candidates

Texas Senator Ted Cruz

Cruz’s standout moment was when he promised to “rip to shreds” the “catastrophic” nuclear deal with Iran.

Cruz said that he opposed giving President Obama authority for airstrikes on the Syrian regime in response to its use of chemical weapons because vital national security interests were not at stake. He said that the administration could not answer his questions about how Syrian weapons of mass destruction would be prevented from falling into the hands of the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.

He is currently in 4th place nationally (7%). He is in 3rd place in Iowa (8%), 6th place in New Hampshire (6%) and 4th place in South Carolina (6%).

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee

Huckabee spoke passionately against the nuclear deal with Iran and said every candidate should announce that, if elected, he or she will not honor it and, as president, will “destroy” it.

He is currently in 6th place nationally (5%). He is in 8th place in Iowa (4%), 11th place in New Hampshire (1%) and 10th place in South Carolina (3%).

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal

Jindal’s standout moment was when he said that Muslim leaders must move beyond generic condemnations of terrorism and condemn terrorists by name. He called on Muslim leaders to preach that these terrorists do not qualify as “martyrs” and are destined for hell.

Jindal said that U.S. policy should be to force Syrian dictator Bashar Assad out of power.

He is currently in 13th place nationally (1%). He is in 11th place in Iowa (3%), 14th place in New Hampshire (0.3%) and 13th place in South Carolina (1%).

Former New York Governor George Pataki

Pataki said he would immediately scrap the nuclear deal with Iran and provide Israel with Massive Ordinance Penetrators (MOPs). However, he may have damaged himself by refusing to endorse Santorum’s call to target Iranian nuclear scientists. He also gave a vague answer about how he’d fight the Islamic State and expressed disagreement with Graham’s plan for a ground offensive with U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.

He is currently in 15th place nationally with less than a single percent of support. He is in 15th place in Iowa with less than one percent, 13th place in New Hampshire (0.3%) and in 15th place in South Carolina with less than one percent.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum

Santorum boasted that he authored legislation to sanction Iran and Syria when he was in the Senate. The moderator mentioned his past declaration that the U.S. should target Iranian nuclear scientists, which George Pataki refused to endorse.

He described the Iranian regime as an “apocalyptic death cult” and claimed that two-thirds of Iraqi and Iranian Shiites believe that the end of the world will happen in their lifetime. Santorum was making the point that the Iranian regime exports its radical ideology.

Santorum said he supports increasing U.S. troop levels in Iraq to 10,000 to fight against the Islamic State and that he’d support Lindsey Graham’s proposal for 20,000 troops if necessary. He stated that the legitimacy of the caliphate is based on its holding of territory.

He is currently in 12th place nationally (1%). He is in 12th place in Iowa (2%) and in 15th place in both New Hampshire and South Carolina with less than one percent.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

Walker’s comments on foreign policy focused on criticizing the nuclear deal with Iran, which he promised to scrap during his first day in office.

He is currently in 9th place nationally (3%). He is in 7th place in Iowa (4%), 10th place in New Hampshire (3%) and 9th place in South Carolina (3%).

Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore

Gilmore failed to make the cut for the debate because he scores less than 1% in national polls. He registers less than a single percent in each of the three early states.

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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Saudi Arabia: Has Taken Zero Refugees but has Air Conditioned Empty Tents for 3 Million People

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Paul Joseph Watson from InfoWars.com reports:

While European countries are being lectured about their failure to take in enough refugees, Saudi Arabia – which has taken in precisely zero migrants – has 100,000 air conditioned tents that can house over 3 million people sitting empty.

The sprawling network of high quality tents are located in the city of Mina, spreading across a 20 square km valley, and are only used for 5 days of the year by Hajj pilgrims. As the website Amusing Planet reports, “For the rest of the year, Mina remains pretty much deserted.”

The tents, which measure 8 meters by 8 meters, were permanently constructed by the Saudi government in the 1990’s and were upgraded in 1997 to be fire proof. They are divided into camps which include kitchen and bathroom facilities.

The tents could provide shelter for almost all of the 4 million Syrian refugees that have been displaced by the country’s civil war, which was partly exacerbated by Saudi Arabia’s role in funding and arming jihadist groups.

However, as the Washington Post reports, wealthy Gulf Arab nations like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and others have taken in precisely zero Syrian refugees. Although Saudi Arabia claims it has taken in 500,000 Syrians since 2011, rights groups point out that these people are not allowed to register as migrants. Many of them are also legal immigrants who moved there for work. In comparison, Lebanon has accepted 1.3 million refugees – more than a quarter of its population.

While it refuses to take in any more refugees, Saudi Arabia has offered to build 200 mosques for the 500,000 migrants a year expected to pour into Germany.

Read more.

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Senator Jeff Sessions: 90% of Middle Eastern refugees get some form of welfare

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Yesterday we told you about the Center for Immigration Studies analysis of data indicating that legal immigrants (which include refugees) are using our social safety net at a higher rate than native born Americans, now we learn that Middle Eastern refugees are using welfare assistance at an even higher level than other legal immigrants.

Sessions and Trump at Alabama rally August 21

Senator Jeff Sessions with 2016 Presidential hopeful Donald Trump at August 21st rally in Alabama.

From Breitbart (presumably these numbers include all Middle Eastern refugees no matter which religion they practice) Hat tip: Joanne.

The numbers are much more shocking than those we had previously obtained!

More than 90 percent of recent refugees from Middle Eastern nations are on food stamps and nearly 70 percent receive cash assistance, according to government data.

According to Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) data highlighted by the immigration subcommittee staff of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest — in FY 2013, 91.4 percent of Middle Eastern refugees (accepted to the U.S. between 2008-2013) received food stamps, 73.1 percent were on Medicaid or Refugee Medical Assistance and 68.3 percent were on cash welfare.

Middle Eastern refugees used a number of other assistance programs at slightly lower rates. For example, 36.7 percent received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), 32.1 percent received Supplemental Security Income (SSI), 19.7 percent lived in public housing, 17.3 percent were on General Assistance (GA), and 10.9 percent received Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA).

The high welfare rates among Middle Eastern refugees comes as the Obama administration considers increasing the number of refugees — who are immediately eligible for public benefits — to the U.S., particularly Syrian refugees.

ORR defines refugees and asylees from the “Middle East” as being from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.   [Hah! And these figures don’t include the Somali welfare usage numbers!—ed]

More here….

Shortly after a meeting with Sessions on Capitol Hill, saying we need to take care of our own problems, Trump expressed reservations about plans to resettle Syrian refugees in the US.

Addendum: Senator Jeff Sessions was the leader of the opposition to the Gang of Eight’s amnesty bill and here in 2013 called out “meatpackers” as among the big industry lobbyists pushing for a greater supply of cheap immigrant labor.  Long time readers here know the large role the meatpackers are playing in changing small town America by encouraging the resettlement of refugees.

RELATED ARTICLE: If you want to save Syrian Christians, do not take refugees from UN camps!

Pentagon Not Targeting Islamic State Training Camps

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“If we know the location of these camps, and the president wants to destroy ISIS, why are the camps still functioning?” Excellent question. And no answer was forthcoming. Why not? Is it because there could be no possible explanation for this that makes sense in terms of American national security and that of the free world?

“Pentagon Not Targeting Islamic State Training Camps,” by Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon, August 28, 2015:

The Pentagon has not conducted airstrikes against an estimated 60 Islamic State (IS) training camps that are supplying thousands of fighters each month to the terror group, according to defense and intelligence officials.

The camps are spread throughout Islamic State-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria and are off limits in the U.S.-led international bombing campaign because of concerns about collateral damage, said officials familiar with planning and execution of the yearlong bombing campaign.

Additionally, the IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) camps have been so successful that Islamic State leaders are considering expanding the camps to Libya and Yemen. Both states have become largely ungoverned areas in recent years.

The failure to target the training camps with U.S. and allied airstrikes is raising questions among some defense and intelligence officials about the commitment of President Obama and his senior aides to the current anti-IS strategy of degrading and ultimately destroying the terror group.

“If we know the location of these camps, and the president wants to destroy ISIS, why are the camps still functioning?” one official critical of the policy asked.

The camps are regarded by U.S. intelligence analysts as a key element in the terror group’s successes in holding and taking new territory. The main benefit of the training camps is that they are providing a continuous supply of new fighters.

An additional worry of intelligence analysts is that some of the foreign fighters being trained in the camps will eventually return to their home countries in Europe and North America to carry out terror attacks.

A White House spokesman declined to comment on the failure to bomb the terror camps and referred questions to the Pentagon.

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Roger M. Cabiness declined to say why no training camps have been bombed. “I am not going to be able to go into detail about our targeting process,” he said.

Cabiness said the U.S.-led coalition has “hit ISIL [an alternative abbreviation for the Islamic State] with more than 6,000 airstrikes.”

“The coalition has also taken out thousands of fighting positions, tanks, vehicles, bomb factories, and training camps,” he said. “We have also stuck their leadership, including most recently on Aug. 18 when a U.S. military airstrike removed Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, also known as Hajji Mutazz, the second in command of the terrorist group, from the battlefield.”

Efforts also are being taken to disrupt IS finances and “make it more difficult for the group to attract new foreign fighters,” Cabiness said in an email.

A Central Command spokesman also declined to provide details of what he said were “operational engagements” against IS training camps.

“Once a target is identified as performing a hostile act, or is part of an obvious hostile force, a training camp for example, we prosecute that target in accordance with the coalition rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict,” the spokesman said.

According to the defense and intelligence officials, one reason the training camps have been off limits is that political leaders in the White House and Pentagon fear hitting them will cause collateral damage. Some of the camps are located near civilian facilities and there are concerns that casualties will inspire more jihadists to join the group.

However, military officials have argued that unless the training camps are knocked out, IS will continue to gain ground and recruit and train more fighters for its operations.

Disclosure that the IS training camps are effectively off limits to the bombing campaign comes as intelligence officials in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of the conflict, have alleged that senior U.S. officials skewed intelligence reports indicating the U.S. strategy against IS is not working or has been less effective than officials have claimed in public.

The Islamic State controls large parts of Syria and Iraq and has attracted tens of thousands of jihadists in both countries and from abroad. The exact number of fighters is not known but intelligence estimates have indicated the numbers have increased over the past year.

The military campaign, known as Operation Inherent Resolve, appears to be floundering despite a yearlong campaign of airstrikes and military training programs aimed to bolstering Iraqi military forces.

A review of Central Command reports on airstrikes since last year reveals that no attacks were carried out against training camps.

Targets instead included Islamic State vehicles, buildings, tactical units, arms caches, fighting positions, snipers, excavators, mortar and machine gun positions, bunkers, and bomb factories.

The risk-averse nature of the airstrike campaign was highlighted last month by Brig. Gen. Thomas Weidley, chief of staff for what the military calls Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.

“The coalition continues to use air power responsibly,” Weidley said July 1. “Highly precise deliveries, detailed weaponeering, in-depth target development, collateral damage mitigation, and maximized effects on Daesh, are characteristics of coalition airstrike operation in Iraq and Syria.”

Daesh is another name for the Islamic State.

“The coalition targeting process minimizes collateral damage and maximizes precise effects on Daesh,” Weidley said earlier. “Air crews are making smart decisions and applying tactical patience every day.”

Other coalition spokesman have indicated that targeting has been limited to reaction strikes against operational groups of IS fighters. “When Daesh terrorists expose themselves and their equipment, we will strike them,” Col. Wayne Marotto said May 27.

The military website Long War Journal published a map showing 52 IS training camps and noted that some may no longer be operating because of the U.S.-led bombing campaign.

IS-training-camps

Islamic State training camps in Iraq and Syria. Source: Long War Journal.

According the map, among the locations in Iraq and Syria where IS is operating training camps are Mosul, Raqqah, Nenewa, Kobane, Aleppo, Fallujah, and Baiji.

The group MEMRI obtained a video of an IS training camp in Nenewa Province, Iraq, dated Oct. 1, 2014.

The video shows a desert outpost with tan tents and around 100 fighters who take part in hand-to-hand combat exercises, weapons training, and religious indoctrination….

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The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS: #1 Bestseller in Radical Political Thought

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The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISISMy latest book, The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS, has zoomed to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list in the “Radical Political Thought” category, topping none other than Saul Alinsky, whose perennial guide to Leftist subversion and character assassination, Radicals, comes in at #2.

The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS is available at any self-respecting bookstore, as well as at Amazon.com in paperback (order here) and on Kindle (order here). Here are a few more advance reviews:

“Robert Spencer has been telling, and warning, us of the activities of the jihadists since 2003. Every single day for twelve years he has kept a vigilant eye on all the barbarisms of the Islamic terrorists and is surely the best informed and almost the only truly qualified expert capable of analyzing the emergence, development, and ideology of the monstrous death cult known as ISIS. Spencer also offers ways to com- bat this group, a group that President Obama refuses to recognize as posing any threat to American security and interests. On so many sad occasions when he was not taken seriously enough, Spencer was forced to remind us, ‘I told you so.’ It is time to listen to Robert Spencer.” — Ibn Warraq, author of Why I Am Not a Muslim and Defending the West

“Robert Spencer has given us a series of immensely informative and accurate books, enlarging our knowledge on vital current issues. This latest one adds a potent analysis of ISIS, the most pressing danger of our time, which Spencer knows to its core. This essential book pro- vides us with the intellectual tools that are indispensable for success- fully overcoming this threat to our civilization, and should be widely read. It is an urgent necessity.” — Bat Ye’or, author of Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis and Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide

“Here is everything you need to know about the gravest threat to the U.S. and the free world today. Spencer goes way beyond the superficial cable headlines and the misleading conventional news reports into the deepest levels of ISIS that no other analyst has ever gone before. It is an eye opening masterpiece that will leave you absolutely shocked. Robert Spencer is truly amazing in how he breaks through the fog of denial and peels away layer upon layer of misinformation surrounding ISIS; how he shows the unparalleled savagery of ISIS and why Western leaders are living in lala land when they ludicrously assert that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam; and discards and destroys the political correctness in Washington that has masked the existential danger to our society by the continued growth of ISIS and the continued charade that it is merely a ‘death cult.’ If you want to know the truth and full story, you have to read Spencer’s book. If you want to blind yourself to reality and the true danger to your family and friends, then ignore this book at your peril. I have been investigating Islamic terrorism for nearly twenty-five years and I can honestly state that this book is one of the most important books on terrorism I have ever read. Buy copies for your family members, for your friends, and last but not least for your elected political leaders.” — Steven Emerson, author of American Jihad and Jihad Incorporated

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Germany: Violent Protests Erupt over Muslim Refugees

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More ‘Invasion of Europe’ news…..

From the UK Independent:

Asylum-Seekers-in-Germany-01

This chart gives some idea of what Germany is faced with as the government tries to find relocation sites for tens of thousands of refugees.

Up to 1,000 protesters have clashed with police in eastern Germany in riots reportedly sparked by the arrival of 250 migrants.

Police said protesters shouting “foreigners out” and carrying banners against the “asylum flood” threw bottles and stones at busloads of asylum seekers arriving in Heidenau, near Dresden.

At least 31 officers were hurt in violent scuffles as police used tear gas to disperse crowds.

Peaceful demonstrations began after news spread that the town was welcoming a large number of refugees who are set to be housed in an empty building. (then they turned violent)

[….]

Chancellor Angela Merkel has said the influx of asylum seekers is the biggest problem Europe currently faces. Germany, which has relatively liberal asylum laws, is taking in more refugees than any other European country, many from war-torn countries like Syria and Iraq.

There is also another bit of news from the UK.  It seems that immigration has surpassed concern for the economy as the number one issue on peoples’ minds there.

More ‘Invasion of Europe’ news here.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of riots in Dresden, Germany is courtesy of the Associated Press.

Islamic State links its origins to the killing of Osama bin Laden and U.S. withdrawal from Iraq

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Obama’s most significant legacy is the Islamic State. Its rise is the most important accomplishment of his Administration.

“Islamic State Links Its Origins To Killing Of Bin Laden,” Investor’s Business Daily, August 17, 2015 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

Killing Osama bin Laden may have won President Obama re-election in 2012, but the price was the rise of the Islamic State. At least according to IS itself.

The secret 32-page IS manifesto and strategy plan, written in Urdu and just uncovered from remote Pakistan by the American Media Institute, is titled “The Caliphate According to the Prophet.”

Beyond its headline-grabbing reference to Obama as “Mule of the Jews,” the IS dossier blames the president for the organization’s rise to power in a whole new way.

Obviously, Obama’s cut and run of U.S. troops from Iraq left the welcome mat out. But the manifesto boasts that IS ruler Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in avenging the killing of Osama bin Laden, engineered car bomb and IED attacks in cities across Iraq.

“The losses inflicted upon Americans, apostates and heretics were unprecedented,” the IS document stated. “This state of affairs forced Mule of the Jews, U.S. President Obama, to announce an exit plan.”

There is a chilling irony here. When Obama, interviewed by the New Yorker a year and a half ago, dismissed IS as just “a jayvee team,” in the same breath he downplayed their importance because IS lacked “the capacity and reach of a bin Laden.”

The IS strategy document reveals that the new caliphate is already taking steps to unite Pakistani and Afghan Taliban factions, then launch a war on India. And then finally confront America….

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Government report: U.S. fight against Islamic State disorganized, incoherent

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Wow. What was their first clue? “Government Report: U.S. Fight Against Islamic State Disorganized, Incoherent,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, August 17, 2015 3:35 pm

The U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State (IS) suffers “from a lack of coherence” and is often operated in a disorganized fashion, harming efforts to effectively combat the terrorist force, according to a new report by the government.

As the United States and 21 other nations attempt to push back IS forces operating in Iraq, the new report warns that the war effort is being undercut by a lack of coordination and, in some cases, efforts that “contradict” one another, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service that was not made public but was released by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

The report comes amid numerous reports IS is making gains and solidifying its control key Iraq cities and even expanding outside of the war torn country’s borders.

CRS concluded in its analysis that the effort, dubbed Operation Inherent Resolve, is being led in a haphazard manner that leads to inefficient military action by the countries involved.

“Without a single authority responsible for prioritizing and adjudicating between different multinational civilian and military lines of effort, different actors often work at cross-purposes without intending to do so,” the report states.

Exact financial contributions by countries remains fuzzy, making it difficult to track exactly what each nations if funding and for what reason.

“Each nation is contributing to the coalition in a manner commensurate with its national interests and comparative advantage, although reporting on nonmilitary contributions tends to be sporadic,” the report found.

Recent military campaigns provide evidence of the incoherent strategy, according to CRS.

“These coalition coordination challenges were demonstrated in recent military campaigns (and particularly in Afghanistan),” it states. “Exacerbating matters, other actors in the region—some of whom are coalition partners—have different, and often conflicting, longer-term regional geopolitical interests from those of the United States or other coalition members.”

“This, in turn, may lead nations participating in the coalition to advance their goals and objectives in ways that might contradict each other,” the report found.

These flaws are impacting the success of the joint military campaign against IS, which has cost the United States $3.21 billion as of July 15….

RELATED ARTICLE: Nigeria: Up to 150 drowned, shot dead fleeing the Islamic State

Greece in Chaos: 50,000 Muslim Refugees Arrived in July Alone

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Invasion of Europe news…..

From Malta Today:

The Greek islands of Kos, Chios and Lesbos are in “total chaos” due to a heavy influx of refugees, the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR have warned.

The organisation said that around 50,000 migrants arrived in Greece in July alone, more arrivals than in the whole of 2014. The majority of them are refugees fleeing the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

UNHCR European Director, Vincent Cochetel said that refugee facilities on the Greek islands are “totally inadequate” and called on the EU to do more to ease Greece off its burden.

“On most of the islands there is no reception capacity, people are not sleeping under any form of roof, so it’s total chaos on the islands,” he said. “After a couple of days they are transferred to Athens, there is nothing waiting for them in Athens.”

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras admitted that his country was unable to cope and that Greece’s economic problems meant it was facing a humanitarian “crisis within a crisis”.

Meanwhile in the US, the border flood is apparently underway again as July numbers reveal, here.

Go here for our ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive.

What do you think? Could there be some planning in this invasion?

U.S. Spends Billions on Bombing Campaign, but the Islamic State Still Stands Strong!

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“The assessments by the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and others appear to contradict the optimistic line taken by the Obama administration’s special envoy, retired Gen. John Allen, who told a forum in Aspen, Colorado, last week that “ISIS is losing” in Iraq and Syria.” As long as the denial and willful ignorance about the reason for the Islamic State’s appeal continue, and no one is willing to commit ground troops to destroying the Islamic State, the U.S. and its allies will not make significant headway against the Islamic State. After the last Iraq misadventure, no one is going to commit ground troops, and even if anyone did, they would no doubt be hamstrung by impossible Rules of Engagement and politically correct nation-building efforts that would only strengthen Sharia forces — just like last time.

“Despite Bombing, Islamic State Is No Weaker Than a Year Ago,” by Ken Dilanian, Zeina Karam, and Bassem Mroue, Associated Press, July 31, 2015:

After billions of dollars spent and more than 10,000 extremist fighters killed, the Islamic State group is fundamentally no weaker than it was when the U.S.-led bombing campaign began a year ago, American intelligence agencies have concluded.

U.S. military commanders on the ground aren’t disputing the assessment, but they point to an upcoming effort to clear the important Sunni city of Ramadi, which fell to the militants in May, as a crucial milestone.

The battle for Ramadi, expected over the next few months, “promises to test the mettle” of Iraq’s security forces, Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Killea, who is helping run the U.S.-led coalition effort in Iraq, told reporters at the Pentagon in a video briefing from the region.

The U.S.-led military campaign has put the Islamic State group on defense, Killea said, adding, “There is progress.” Witnesses on the ground say the airstrikes and Kurdish ground actions are squeezing the militants in northern Syria, particularly in their self-proclaimed capital in Raqqa.

But U.S. intelligence agencies see the overall situation as a strategic stalemate: The Islamic State remains a well-funded extremist army able to replenish its ranks with foreign jihadis as quickly as the U.S. can eliminate them. Meanwhile, the group has expanded to other countries, including Libya, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Afghanistan.

The assessments by the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and others appear to contradict the optimistic line taken by the Obama administration’s special envoy, retired Gen. John Allen, who told a forum in Aspen, Colorado, last week that “ISIS is losing” in Iraq and Syria. The intelligence was described by officials who would not be named because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

“We’ve seen no meaningful degradation in their numbers,” a defense official said, citing intelligence estimates that put the group’s total strength at between 20,000 and 30,000, the same estimate as last August, when the airstrikes began.

The Islamic State’s staying power raises questions about the administration’s approach to the threat that the group poses to the U.S. and its allies. Although officials do not believe it is planning complex attacks on the West from its territory, the group’s call to Western Muslims to kill at home has become a serious problem, FBI Director James Comey and other officials say.

Yet under the Obama administration’s campaign of bombing and training, which prohibits American troops from accompanying fighters into combat or directing airstrikes from the ground, it could take a decade or more to drive the Islamic State from its safe havens, analysts say. The administration is adamant that it will commit no U.S. ground troops to the fight despite calls from some in Congress to do so.

The U.S.-led coalition and its Syrian and Kurdish allies have made some inroads. The Islamic State has lost 9.4 percent of its territory in the first six months of 2015, according to an analysis by the conflict monitoring group IHS….

Was that anything like this map, that conveniently left out the territory it had gained?

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Stormy U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on Iran Nuke Deal

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The Administration rolled out its “A Team” of witnesses at the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on July 29th, chaired by Chairman Arizona Republican Senator John McCain. The Hearing addressed national security issues arising from the Iran nuclear pact scheduled by a Congressional vote on or before September 17th under the term of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. Yesterday’s hearing was the last in a series of House and Senate sessions prior to the summer recess  adjournment starting Thursday, July 31st. Congress reconvenes following the Labor Day holiday giving less than 10 days for additional hearings before the vote to either accept or reject the Iran nuclear pact. Public opinion poll taken during the current series of Congressional shows a majority of Americans tilting towards asking Congress to reject the pact. The issue is how many of the undecided 13 Democratic Senators and over 30 Democratic Representatives will decide if a negative vote will be veto proof, given a threat by President Obama.

The panel of witnesses included, Secretary of State John Kerry, Energy Secretary Earnest Moniz, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey. While questions naturally arose about the credibility of maintaining a military option, there was a tough grilling of Secretary Kerry and Secretary Moniz by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton on the secret side deals between the UN nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the Islamic Republic of Iran over prior military developments.

DefenseNews reported  the comments of Secretary Carter and Gen. Dempsey on military capabilities:

“It’s important that we have an agreement and it be verifiable, and that we keep doing what we need to do: Defend our friends and allies, remain strong in the Gulf — frequent navigation, ballistic missile defense, all the things that we’re doing, and the agreement doesn’t limit us in any way,” Carter said.

Indeed, “military options remain,” Dempsey said, though a negotiated settlement provides a more “durable” solution, as well as time to work with local partner nations to address Iran’s activities. Dempsey said there are a series of initiatives with Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Council to that effect.

Exercising airstrikes to take out Iran’s nuclear capability would disrupt its program by several years, Dempsey said. However analysis suggests it would also provoke Iran to “counter our presence in the region at every opportunity and use these other malign activities they have.”

That led to exchanges with Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Joni Ernst (R-NE). Ernst like Senate panel colleague Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) is a former combat veteran who served in Iraq:

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., characterized Dempsey’s brief opening statement, as a “tepid endorsement” of the accord and “damning disagreement with faint praise,” which Dempsey disputed, saying he agreed with the deal.

His statement was neither “tepid nor enthusiastic, but pragmatic,” Dempsey said. His input in the deal was sought “episodically,” his final recommendation given weeks before negotiations concluded. At least in part, his recommendation was to keep pressure on Iran relative to ballistic missiles and arms trafficking for as long as possible.

Challenged by Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, over the president’s assertion that the US faces a choice between an Iran deal or a resolution by force — which Ernst characterized as “war” — Dempsey said he had not said anything to that effect to the president.

“We have a range of options, and I hope to present them,” Dempsey said. “As long as we agree, military strikes on a sovereign nation are an act of war, but there are things between here and there.”

Sen. Cotton was on top of his game engaging in the most withering  Q&A  with  Secretary Kerry and  Energy Secretary Moniz  about their knowledge or the lack thereof  concerning the so-called secret IAEA side deals on prior  military nuclear developments (PMD).  Late he engaged Gen. Dempsey during a discussion of exhibits to corroborate the lethality of Iranian IEDS used to kill American service personnel in Iraq. Dempsey lent the impression he was less inclined to be a booster of the Iran nuke deal. Cotton is both a veteran of combat in Iraq as a former U.S. Army officer and a Harvard Law School graduate and admitted lawyer

Cotton, like any good prosecutor, secured the facts that bolstered his line of questioning to elicit a response he was seeking for the Committee record. Prior to this Armed Services Hearing, Cotton and Kansas Republican Congressman Mike Pompeo had flown to Vienna to confer with IAEA officials uncovering the alleged secret side deals on investigation of Iranian compliance with prior military developments in their nuclear program (PMD).

schultz i know nothingKerry and Moniz, when queried about whether they had either knowledge of or read the IAEA secret side deals on PMD, adopted what in TV land is the fabled Sergeant Schultz defense from the 1960’s TV WWII Nazi prison camp comedy series, “Hogan’s Heroes” – “I know nothing” They simply fobbed it off saying that someone like Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman may have glanced through these documents. Just indicates that the Administration either elected not to conduct due diligence or used the ploy that those agreements were confidential between the IAEA and Iran, that as Cotton pointed out “the Ayatollah read”.

Former IAEA deputy director Olli Heinonen, who is now a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, provided the answers in a report by Armin Rosen of Business Insider.  Heinonen in an email said:

“According to the IAEA rules and practices such documents could be made available to the members of the IAEA Board”. Heinonen said the IAEA secretariat could not divulge these side agreements to other member states on its own initiative. But there are two ways US diplomats could access them. In one scenario, Iran would agree to divulge the documents: “Iran can make it available by asking to distribute it as an [Information Circular] document to all IAEA member states as they did with the 2007 Work Plan,” Heinonen said, referring to a publicly available agreement between the IAEA and Iran on nuclear safeguards.

US diplomats could also view these side agreements if a member state of the IAEA’s 35-member Board of Governors requests their distribution.

Such a move would stand a decent chance of success: “If a board member asks it and others resist the distribution … this can be overcome by a vote,” Heinonen said. “Simple majority is enough, and no vetoes exist in the IAEA system. The board can also request the whole document to be made public. Such a request could be best done by a country which is not part of the JCPOA process; my favorite is Canada.”

Cotton showed   the witness panel two exhibits graphically portraying the effects of an Iranian developed shaped charge IED that were used to kill 500 American service personnel in Iraq. Gen. Dempsey acknowledged what they were and the devastating effects on Humvees, their occupants and other vehicles. Cotton then asks Kerry for his reaction. While, expressing appropriate sorrow for the loss of American lives, Kerry   told the Senate panel that Quds force commander Qasem Soleimani who developed the shaped charge IEDs would not have sanctions removed.  Reports by both ABC news and the Iranian FARS news agency  have confirmed  that Gen.Soleimani has been confirmed among a list   of Iranian persons and institutions included in an annex to the JCPOA who will have both travel bans and asset restrictions lifted.

Watch this YouTube video of Senator Cotton’s Q&A at the Senate Armed Services Committee:

Senator Tom Cotton’s grilling of Kerry and Moniz revealed their lax conduct of due diligence on the IAEA side deals. They spent too much time being hounded with repeated demands for concessions by Javad Zarif in negotiations in Vienna. Instead, they should have sent aides over to the IAEA headquarters to ask about the side deals to provide a road map on prior military developments of Iran nuclear program. Senator Cotton and Rep. Pompeo did just that. Instead Kerry and the negotiating tea m basically said in so many words, we already know what Iran did, let’s move on and get with the program by approving the Iran nuclear pact. The video of Senator Cotton  Senate  Armed Services Committee Q&A should be widely shared  on social media  to inform  undecided  Congressional Democrats about why the Iran nuclear pact  should be rejected.

Hearing by hearing testimony by the Administration “A Team” on the Iranian nuclear pact demonstrates how bad a deal Kerry and the Obama negotiating team crafted with the experts in playing multi-dimensional chess, the Islamic Regime in Tehran.

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

Grimly, History Repeats Itself

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In a recent story by BBC reporter Jane Corbin, she describes the plight of Christians living in Muslim nations of the Middle East.  After a visit to an ancient monastery in Iraq, she writes,

“As I climbed the steep mountain path above the plain of Nineveh, Iraq, the sound of monks chanting and the smell of incense drifted out of the 4th Century monastery of St. Matthew.  Once, 7,000 monks worshipped here when Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire.  Almost the whole population was Christian then.  Their numbers have dwindled and now there are only six monks – and no pilgrims dare to visit.”

Describing the rise of ISIS, she writes, “They swept across the plain of Nineveh last year, forcing tens of thousands of Christians to flee from Mosul, Iraq’s second city…  A million people, two-thirds of Iraq’s Christians, fled in the decade following the fall of Saddam.  The same story is being repeated in country after country across the Middle East where the Arab Spring unleashed forces that turned against Christians and the authoritarian leaders who once protected them.”

In a radio interview on April 12, 2015, Samy Gemayel, a Phalangist Party member of the Lebanese Parliament, predicted that, “If the U.S. and international community do not intervene, Christians may be driven out of the Middle Eastern Arab countries within two years.”  Other experts predict that, in the absence of western intervention, Christian churches will be razed to the ground and the faithful either killed by radical Islamists or driven from their homes.

After centuries of brutal conquest, the Ottoman Turk empire extended across Southeast Europe, Western Asia, the Caucasus, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa.  Their most significant minority, the Armenian Christians, were treated like second class citizens, denied such basic protections as property rights and personal security.  As non-Muslims, they were forced to pay discriminatory taxes and denied participation in the affairs of government.

However, by 1914, having lost virtually all of their territories in Europe and Africa, the Ottoman Turks experienced enormous internal pressures, both political and economic.  And when the Armenian minority pressed demands for representation and participation in government, ethnic tensions were intensified.  Demands by Armenian political leaders for administrative reforms, especially in provinces where Armenians represented a clear majority, invited further repression.

The Armenians were not unaware of the dangers represented by challenging the authority of their Muslim rulers.  For example, a series of massacres carried out during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II between the years 1894-96 were still fresh in their minds.  Those massacres cost the lives of as many as three hundred thousand Armenians.

Just over 100 years ago the Armenian Christian population of the Ottoman Empire numbered some two million people.  However, beginning on April 15, 1915, the Turks accelerated their campaign to cleanse their country of their Armenian minority, ordering the entire Armenian population deported.  Tens of thousands… men, women, and children… were forced to walk hundreds of miles toward the Syrian frontier.

The Turks made no arrangements for food and water, and while a great many of all ages died of starvation or dehydration, or from attacks by criminal Muslim bands, physical exhaustion took the lives of many of the elderly and the infirm.  Straggling south under the scorching desert sun, the denial of food and water was intended only to hasten the death of the Armenians.  By 1918, some one million Armenians had been systematically murdered, and by 1923 virtually the entire Armenian Christian population had disappeared from Turkey.

It is estimated that, in the eight year period between 1915 and 1923, as many as 1.5 million Armenians perished at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.  Those Armenians who survived the genocide owed their lives to the humanitarian efforts of the United States.  Under a plan devised by Henry Morgenthau, U.S. Ambassador to Constantinople, the U.S. Congress established a relief program called “Near East Relief,” and tens of thousands of Armenian lives were saved.

But now, exactly a century later, we find that history is repeating itself, but on a much broader and more brutal scale.  What happened to the Armenian Christians in the early 20th century is now happening to Christians all across Africa and the Middle East in the early 21st century.  And while western political leaders, most notably Barack Obama, the reluctant “leader” of the free world, stand transfixed in fear, not knowing what to do or how to respond, American and European Christians are attacked and murdered in the streets of their own cities.

The March 24, 2015 edition of Globe Newswire asks,

“Who is courageous enough to brave the possibility of being beheaded, burned alive, or crucified to bring the world the voices of those Christians whom Muslim extremists have been hunting off the face of the Earth?”  We are, after all, at war with a worldwide religious sect that thinks nothing of kidnapping hundreds of young girls at a time and selling them into slavery, of raping and crucifying children, of beheading their captives in order to strike terror into the hearts of non-Muslims, of setting caged captives on fire in a public square, of drowning captives by placing them in a cage and submerging them in tanks of water, or of gathering up all the Christians from among hundreds of refugees and throwing them overboard in mid-ocean as they attempt to escape the poverty and the Muslim-inspired brutality of their homelands.

So who is to stand up to such barbarism… whether in Europe, Asia, Africa, or here at home?  What do you do when all those guys dressed in black, wielding machetes and flying a black flag, come after you with guns blazing, offering to slice off your head at the shoulders and to rape your wife and your children?

Some of the 450 new troops that Obama is sending to Iraq to face 30,000 or 40,000 ISIS butchers will be embedded with forward units of the Iraqi military as advisors and air controllers.  If those U.S. troops begin to take casualties, especially fatalities, how will Obama explain that?  But worse, if radical Islamists step up their attacks on our own soil, how will Obama react to that?

On February 26, 1993, radical Islamists detonated a truck packed with explosives under the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York, killing six and injuring 1,042 others.  Seven Islamic terrorists, under the leadership of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), were tracked down, captured, and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.  KSM now resides in a cell at Guantanamo Bay while Barack Obama searches for a politically expedient way to free him.

Under “enhanced” interrogation, KSM admitted to masterminding both attacks on the New York World Trade Center, as well as the attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.  In that attack, carried out by nineteen radical Islamists, nearly 3,000 people were murdered.

Since the second World Trade Center attack, radical Islamists have staged some 73 separate attacks on U.S. soil in which 93 people have been killed and 333 seriously wounded.  The last such attack occurred on July 16, 2015, when 24-year-old Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, born in Kuwait, opened fire on an armed forces recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, before driving seven miles to a naval reserve center where he was shot to death by police.  Five unarmed American servicemen, four Marines and a Sailor, were killed in the surprise attack.

In a July 17 article in FrontPageMag, titled “Terror Immigration to America Must Stop,” writer Daniel Greenfield writes that, “As the government began filling it with immigrants from terror zones, Tennessee, the Volunteer State, fought back because it hadn’t volunteered for this.  In 2008, it pulled out of the Federal refugee resettlement program, but the resettlement continued.”  Clearly, when Democrats are determined to swell the ranks of reliable Democratic voters, they are not easily dissuaded.

Greenfield tells us that three days before the Chattanooga terror attack, Muslims in Chattanooga protested in support of Islamberg, an exclusively Muslim New York community established by Mubarak Ali Gilani, who has said, ‘We are fighting to destroy the enemy.  We are dealing with evil at its roots and its roots are America.’  These are the people that Barack Obama is importing to live next door to you and me.

Greenfield explains that, “Every time the citizens of Tennessee attempted to stand up to terror immigration and the Murfreesboro Mega-Mosque , they were shouted down, smeared and lied about by the media.  A day from now, the media will have shifted the focus of the story from the murdered Marines to local Muslims whining about the backlash…”

Greenfield warns that it is not just the people who send checks to terrorist groups who deserve to be called terrorist supporters.  Those who support the importation of terrorists into this country, including Barack Obama and others in his administration, are the biggest terrorist supporters because without them most of the attacks we have suffered would not have been possible.

One wonders what would happen if fundamentalist Christians began attacking and killing Muslims in the same numbers and with the same frequency as Muslim fundamentalists attack and kill Christians, at home and abroad.  Would liberals, Democrats, and the mainstream media insist that we import more radicalized Christians?  Probably not.  As Greenfield says, “The war keeps coming home because we have filled our home with the enemy.  It’s time we clean house.”  But, short of draconian “house-cleaning” measures, we must ask ourselves this question: if there is no Morgenthau plan when the world’s non-Muslim population faces almost certain extinction, who will be there to save us?  Who will we look to?

Islamic State biggest threat to U.S. today

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A rare true statement from the Secretary of State. And of course the threat of the Islamic State is increased by the fact that Kerry and his cohorts refuse to acknowledge the ideology, beliefs, motives and goals of the Islamic State, and instead pretend that they are all other than what they really are. This denial will only lead to disaster.

“John Kerry: Daesh biggest threat to US, not Russia,” Middle East Monitor, July 11, 2015 (thanks to Bradamante):

The top U.S. diplomat doesn’t agree that Russia poses the greatest threat to the U.S., a State Department spokesman said Friday.

“Certainly, we have disagreements with Russia and its activities along or within the region, but we don’t view it as an existential threat,” said Mark Toner.

“Secretary [John Kerry] doesn’t agree with the assessment that Russia is an existential threat to the United States, nor China, quite frankly.”

Toner’s comments were in response remarks by Joseph Dunford, nominee to become the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said during his confirmation hearings that Russia presents the greatest threat to U.S. national security.

“What the secretary does consider an existential threat is the rapid growth of extremist groups like Daesh, particularly in ungoverned spaces,” Toner said.

The analysis of Russia comes amid one of the worst periods in Russian-U.S. relations since the Cold War concluded in 1991, prompted in large part by Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Daesh and al Qaeda’s “ability to attract foreign fighters” present “real and tangible threats” to the U.S., Toner said….

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