Tag Archive for: Syria

41 Muslims from the U.S. have tried to join the Islamic State in 2015

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And it’s only May. But not to worry: all the learned analysts tell us that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam. “While D.C. Downplays Risk, U.S. Sees Shocking Rise in Terror Arrests This Year,” by Patrick Poole, PJ Media, May 27, 2015:

The arrest of two southern California men last week who were planning to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State brings the number of U.S.-based individuals involved in international terror-related cases this year to 40. (UPDATE: with the arrest of Houston-area Asher Abid Khan late Monday for supporting ISIS, the tally is now 41.)

This number highlights the metastasizing Islamic terror threat in the American homeland. At the current pace, by the end of June — halfway through 2015 — the number of cases will exceed the number from the past two years combined (48).

The Islamic State, as well as al-Qaeda affiliates and other Islamic terror groups, have repeatedly called for supporters to conduct attacks inside the American homeland:

Recent evidence gives cause for concern. As I noted here at PJ Media, FBI Director Comey downplayed the number of Americans who had traveled to Syria to fight with ISIS and other terror groups before the midterm elections. He stated on 60 Minutes that “roughly a dozen” were fighting in Syria. But in February, senior officials corrected that number. They admitted that 180 had traveled to Syria. They also admitted that 40 had returned to the U.S. and posed a potential threat. FBI Director Comey then said they were investigating ISIS suspects in all 50 states.

Underscoring the failure to alert the public regarding the threat, concerned citizens have not been able to find a list of the 40 individuals arrested this year. Until now, a public list simply didn’t exist.

Here they are: the 40 U.S.-based individuals charged in Islamic terror-related cases in 2015….

Read the list here.

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Iraq warns jihad terror ‘spillover’ will affect entire world

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This is why Hillary Clinton is wrong when she says, “This has to be fought by and won by the Iraqis.” This is not an Iraqi civil war. It is a much larger conflict than that — but that is something that the likes of Hillary Clinton are not disposed to admit.

Al Mutlaq is obviously correct when he says, “Terrorism is not plaguing Iraq alone but is spilling over. If it does, it will affect the stability and security of the whole world.” But in the West, our governments are pretending that the ever-increasing number of Muslims plotting jihad attacks in accord with calls from the Islamic State, and the also increasing number of Muslims trying to join the Islamic State, do not collectively constitute any manner of challenge that need be met with anything other than “outreach” and assurances that they’re aware that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam.

“Iraq warns terror ‘spillover’ will affect entire world,” by Dan Perry, Times of Israel, May 24, 2015:

SOUTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan (AP) — Mideast-weary though it may be, the international community has a duty and an interest in helping the countries of the region both rebuff violent extremists and fix the refugee crisis that in part has resulted from the fight with them — that was the message coming from the regional World Economic Forum Saturday.

“In Iraq and the region as a whole, the biggest challenge we face is extremism and terrorism, but this has repercussions at the international level,” said Iraqi Vice President Ayad Allawi.

“Terrorism is not plaguing Iraq alone but is spilling over,” agreed Saleh Muhammed Al Mutlaq, Iraq’s deputy prime minister. “If it does, it will affect the stability and security of the whole world. We cannot expect that any Arab country can fight terrorism without the help of the international community.”…

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Obama’s Policies to Empower ISIS Exposed by Raymond Ibrahim

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For months, many Western observers have been closely following the minute-by-minute developments concerning the battle between Islamic State and coalition forces in the hopes that such data will help them discern what the future may hold.

Yet knowledge of the end game has been available for anyone viewing the Obama administration with the eyes of a hedgehog, not a fox.

In an article published over seven months ago, I anticipated the main developments to have taken place since U.S. President Obama declared war (i.e., “airstrikes”) on the Islamic State in September, 2014.  Titled “Does Obama Need ‘Time to Defeat or Forget ISIS?”  I made the following predictions, all of which have come true, and in the same sequence:

Obama’s “it will take time” [to defeat IS] assertion prompts the following prediction: U.S. airstrikes on IS targets will continue to be just enough to pacify those calling for action against the caliphate (“we’re doing what we can”).  The official [U.S. government’s] narrative will be that the Islamic State is gradually being weakened, that victory is a matter of time (remember, “It will take time”)….

[W]e will hear about the occasional victory against IS—this or that leader killed or captured…

Then, just as they “suddenly” appeared in Iraq, we will “suddenly” again hear—probably first from IS itself—that the Islamic State has made some major comeback, winning over some new piece of territory, as the caliphate continues to grow and get stronger.

Now consider how the Obama administration’s actions have fulfilled these predictions, and often in the same sequence.

The official [U.S. government’s] narrative will be that the Islamic State is gradually being weakened, that victory is a matter of time…

Last February, key Obama administration figures—including Secretary of State John Kerry and retired General John Allen, the president’s special coordinator for the coalition against the Islamic State—triumphantly asserted that, thanks to U.S. airstrikes, “half the group’s [IS] leaders in Iraq had been killed.”

Not long thereafter, an investigative report demonstrated that such claims were utterly false and hardly representative of reality.

[W]e will hear about the occasional victory against IS…

In April, the Pentagon announced that, thanks to U.S. airstrikes and the Iraqi army, “ISIL [Islamic State] is no longer the dominant force in roughly 25 to 30% of the populated areas of Iraqi territory where it once had complete freedom of movement.”  The Pentagon even released a map showing which territories the Islamic State had lost.

Soon, however, it became evident that the Pentagon’s claim and map were misleading and incomplete.  Among other irregularities, the map, while showing territories that IS once held and territories it had since lost, failed to indicate the new territories IS had gained since the coalition effort began—making the 25%-30% claim totally misleading.

[W]e will hear about … this or that leader killed or captured…

Nor was Obama administration grandstanding concerning the killing of “key” IS figures wanting.  Most recently, on May 16, U.S. special forces managed to kill Abu Sayyaf.  Although only a mid-ranking leader, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said his killing “represents another significant blow to Isis.” (Read here for an idea of how many times U.S. officials have made the “significant blow” assertion whenever this or that jihadi dies, only for the jihad to spread and conquer more lands.)

Even the New York Times observed that “Abu Sayyaf is a midlevel leader in the organization — one terrorism analyst compared him to Al Capone’s accountant — and likely is replaceable in fairly short order.”

Then, just as they “suddenly” appeared in Iraq, we will “suddenly” again hear—probably first from IS itself—that the Islamic State has made some major comeback, winning over some new piece of territory, as the caliphate continues to grow and get stronger.

Finally, after the Obama administration had claimed that it had killed half of IS leadership, that it had pushed IS out of 25%-30% previously held territory, that its killing of an IS midlevel leader was a “significant blow”—right on cue, the Islamic State just announced its takeover of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, one of Iraq’s most strategic provinces.  According to a May 17 Reuters report:

Islamic State militants said they had taken full control of the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on Sunday in the biggest defeat for the Baghdad government since last summer…. Keep reading

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Islamic State approaches Israel

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Prediction: If the Islamic State gets into a position to threaten Israel in any serious way, we will start seeing the mainstream media grow markedly sympathetic to it, with a spate of articles hailing the new “maturity” and “moderation” of the Islamic State.

“ISIS Approaches Israel: Islamic State Loyalists Thwarted By Syrian Rebels Along Golan Heights Border,” by Morgan Winsor, International Business Times, May 20, 2015:

Islamic State loyalists in Syria have made attempts in recent weeks to expand the extremist group’s territory near the border with Israel, but have been twice thwarted by Syrian rebels along the Golan Heights. Israel has not yet responded to the incidents, even as mortar shells from the battles with ISIS fighters landed across the border into Israeli territory, Israeli news site Ynetnews said.

In the past, Israel has increased its forces in the Golan Heights near the Syrian border when shells fired by the Syrian army spilled over into Israeli territory, the Jerusalem Post said. However, Israel has remained quiet during the past two weeks as rebel fighters from Syria repelled militants loyal to the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

The ISIS-loyalists have so far failed to gain foothold on the Golan Heights border, which would allow the Islamic State to set up a base for operations against Israel, Ynetnews said. Their attacks have been thwarted by the Free Syrian Army, which reportedly receives Israeli humanitarian aid, in cooperation with the Nusra Front, a Sunni Muslim branch of al Qaeda operating in Syria and Lebanon….

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Irish Bishop: 11 Christians are murdered every hour

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Bishop [John] McAreavey is an exception to the rule. Most of his brother bishops would be scandalized that he even dared to speak of this. But of course he did not identify the perpetrator. The Church is in full denial and appeasement mode. In other words, most bishops are betraying the Christians of the present and the future, and leaving them prey to savages. Apparently most bishops are indeed in the line of apostolic succession. They’re the successors of Judas.

“Talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims.” — Robert McManus, Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, Massachusetts, February 8, 2013.

“‘Eleven Christians Killed Every Hour,’ Says Irish Bishop,” by Thomas D. Williams, Breitbart, May 19,2015:

According to Bishop John McAreavey, the Chair of the Council for Justice & Peace of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, statistics show that the situation of Christian persecution in the world is far more dire than most people understand.

The bishop called the breadth and scale of the suffering of Christians “unprecedented.”

At least 100,000 Christians are killed every year because of their faith, which amounts to 273 per day, or eleven every hour, McAreavey said, without mentioning those who are “being tortured, imprisoned, exiled, threatened, excluded, attacked and discriminated against on a widespread scale.”

In a sobering presentation before the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade this past week, McAreavey said that Christianity is the most oppressed religion in the world, and the followers of Jesus are actively persecuted in some 110 countries.

More striking still, he contended, according to the International Society for Human Rights, a non-religious organization, “80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed against Christians.”

The bishop recalled how the former Chief Rabbi of Britain, Jonathan Sacks, recently described this suffering of Christians in the Middle East as “one of the crimes against humanity of our time,” comparing it to the Jewish pogroms in Europe and saying he was “appalled at the lack of protest it has evoked.”

The barbaric actions against Christians, particularly in the Middle East, he said, call out for an urgent, coordinated and determined response from the international community. They are “a threat to our common humanity and to the religious and cultural patrimony of the world” as well as putting at risk “the peace and stability of the entire planet.”

The bishop noted with dismay what he called “a reluctance, including on the part of Christian based international aid agencies, to give direct support to minority religious communities, including to the Christian Churches.”

McAreavey also had strong words for the leaders of Western nations that refuse to commit to assisting Christians in the Middle East, or even to acknowledge the gravity of their plight.

“Perhaps because of a fear of being seen as less than aggressively secular in their own country,” he said, “many Governments of majority Christian countries in the west seem reluctant to give direct aid to Churches and religious minorities.”

The West also runs the risk of losing its own understanding of the importance of faith and of religion for a healthy society, he said, which can endanger religious liberty even in democratic nations.

As Catholics, he said, we appeal “to all governments and societies to affirm the vital importance of respecting the right to religious freedom and conscience as a fundamental principle of genuine pluralism in a tolerant society.”…

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Presentation to the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade by the Council for Justice & Peace of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference on ‘The ongoing Persecution of Christians’

Bishop John McAreavey, Bishop of Dromore and chair of the Council for Justice & Peace of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, today presented to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, on the subject of ‘The ongoing Persecution of Christians’. Bishop McAreavey’s delegation included:

Father Timothy Bartlett, an advisor to the Bishops’ Council for Justice & Peace and a priest of the Diocese of Down & Connor, and,
Mrs Áine O’Reilly, a member of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a Catholic charitable organisation that provides solidarity and financial support to the Christian communities of the Holy Land.
Before its presentation, the Church delegation circulated a letter to the Joint Committee from the Patriarch of Bagdad appealing for greater solidarity and support for Christians being displaced, persecuted and killed in Iraq. Please see full presentation below:

Presentation

Thank you, Chairman.

My name is Bishop John McAreavey. I am here today as Chair of the Council for Justice and Peace of the Irish Bishops’ Conference. I am joined by Mrs Áine O’Reilly, a member of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. This is a Catholic charitable organization that provides solidarity and financial support to the Christian communities of the Holy Land. It has over two hundred members in Ireland and more than thirty thousand members worldwide. I am also joined by Father Timothy Bartlett, an advisor to the Council.

I thank the Committee for the invitation to be here this morning with Trócaire, Open Doors and Church in Chains. The ongoing persecution of Christians is an issue that unites all Christians. Pope Francis has called it the ‘ecumenism of suffering’. The breath and scale of this suffering is unprecedented. The Centre for the Study of Global Christianity in the United States estimates that 100,000 Christians are being killed every year because of their faith. That is eleven every hour. Others are being tortured, imprisoned, exiled, threatened, excluded, attacked and discriminated against on a widespread scale. The Pew Research Centre says that Christianity is now the world’s most oppressed religious group, with persecution against them reported in 110 countries. Many of these countries have significant trade links with Ireland. Persecution is increasing in China. In North Korea a quarter of the country’s Christians live in forced labour camps. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the Maldives all feature in the 10 worst places to be Christian. According to the International Society for Human Rights, a non-religious organization, 80 per cent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed against Christians.

As the other groups will explain in more detail, the situation for Christians in the Middle East is particularly acute and shocking. The rise of ISIS has accelerated a brutal religious genocide against Christians and other religious minorities that has been on-going for well over a decade. The former Chief Rabbi of Britain, Jonathan Sacks, recently described this suffering of Christians in the Middle East as ‘one of the crimes against humanity of our time’. He compared it with Jewish pogroms in Europe and said he was ‘appalled at the lack of protest it has evoked.’ I believe many Christians in Ireland, of all denominations, too are appalled at the relative lack of attention being given in the Irish media, in political discourse and in Irish Government policy and action to the urgent plight of persecuted Christians in the Middle East at this time. Children, women and men being beheaded. Young men brutalized and left to die on make-shift crosses in town squares in the part of the world that was once described as the cradle of Christianity and of civilisation itself. Ancient Churches and religious monuments from various traditions being destroyed.

Such barbaric actions call out for an urgent, coordinated and determined response from the international community. They are a threat to our common humanity and to the religious and cultural patrimony of the world for future generations. They put at risk the peace and stability of the entire planet. Any response will require an honest and comprehensive effort to address the sources of violent conflict that converge on this region and have wider political and religious implications across the world. Yet so many remain silent and inactive.

I have spoken to senior representatives of the Christian community in Iraq in recent days, whom I will not name to protect their security. They simply cannot understand why so many in the international community turn a blind eye to their plight. Many governments, including the Irish Government are supplying modest amounts of emergency aid. This is welcome and helps to address some immediate humanitarian needs. However there is a reluctance, including on the part of Christian based international aid agencies, to give direct support to minority religious communities, including to the Christian Churches. Yet if their presence is to remain, if they are to draw strength from one another and continue their own religious, educational and charitable activities in the places where they live and work, where they have contributed for millennia to the shared educational, economic and cultural patrimony of their countries, then they need direct aid. They have a right to be supported in rebuilding their bombed-out Churches, schools, hospitals and halls that are availed of by the whole community. They have a right to receive support in building bomb proof walls and security around these buildings and their own homes. They are also best placed to ensure humanitarian support gets to those who need it most in the villages, towns and refugees camps where the local Church continues to be present. Yet, perhaps because of a fear of being seen as less than aggressively secular in their own country, many Governments of majority Christian countries in the west seem reluctant to give direct aid to Churches and religious minorities.

The starting point for the Catholic response to this issue is our commitment to the inherent dignity and priceless value of every person before God, without distinction. Our concern is for all humanity. We utterly condemn the grotesque targeting and brutal murder of those with same-sex attraction by ISIS. We stand in solidarity and support with the Yazidi and other religious communities who face a similar extermination, displacement and lack of respect for their right to religious freedom and conscience as their Christian neighbours.

We appeal to all governments and societies to affirm the vital importance of respecting the right to religious freedom and conscience as a fundamental principle of genuine pluralism in a tolerant society. As Saint Pope John Paul II never tired of reminding the world, where this pivotal right to freedom of conscience and religion is denied, diluted or culturally suppressed other human rights abuses follow in its wake. The denial of religious freedom can run from subtle cultural exclusion of the religious voice from the public square and refusal to accommodate reasonable differences of conscience to active discrimination, forced displacement, exploitation and loss of life. Denial of religious freedom is a continuum along which many countries that pride themselves on being free, tolerant and diverse have already begun to travel.

I now hand over to Áine, who will conclude our presentation.

In commending the Committee for taking up this theme of the ongoing persecution of Christians, I would like to say that as a proud citizen of this country I believe many Irish citizens, Christian and others would like to see our political representatives and our Government give much greater attention to this issue. In particular, we ask you today:

To provide direct aid to the Christian Churches in the Middle East, and to other persecuted religious groups so that they can rebuild their communities and infrastructure and protect that which has not been destroyed. If they are to survive, they have urgent and particular needs which they alone are best placed to provide. They are also best placed to identify to provide humanitarian assistance in the most difficult to reach areas experiencing immediate violence and oppression;

We also ask you to assist the various Irish aid agencies in providing direct financial support to Christian and other religious communities in the Middle East without fear of being accused at home of being sectarian or giving offence to secularity in a predominantly Christian country. This is a real concern among Christian aid agencies which you can help to address;

We ask you to use your political influence to raise awareness of this issue where possible. In commending your own decision to hold this hearing, we encourage you to recommend a full Dáil debate on the ongoing persecution of Christians and respect for religious freedom and the particular plight of persecuted Christians across the world;

We ask you to encourage the Government and Irish MEPs to use their influence in the European Institutions to give greater political priority to addressing this issue at a European and international level. This includes the need to address the complex of issues in international relations that contribute to the ongoing conflict and instability across the region of the Middle East;

Finally, in keeping with its Christian roots and founding ideals, we appeal to you and through you to Europe to open wide the doors of our nations to the numerous refugees fleeing religious persecution in the Middle East. Many of them wish to return to their homeland at the earliest possible opportunity. Just as we did some decades ago for the Vietnamese boat people, let us open our shores, our homes and our vacant buildings in a welcoming and reassuring embrace to those fleeing the most brutal attacks by introducing special temporary immigrant schemes focused on responding to this issue.

In conclusion, I am reminded that the links between the Christian community in Ireland and the Christian community in the Middle East go back to the early Celtic Church. They continue today in the heroic work of many Irish missionaries who work in solidarity with persecuted Christian communities in the Middle East even at risk to their own lives. This continuing link is perhaps most poignantly symbolized by the new mosaic in the apse of the recently restored chapel of the Irish College in Rome. There in the midst of our national patron Saints Patrick, Brigid, Columcille and others, is the image of a young Iraqi priest. His name is Father Ragheed Ganni. He studied for several years in the Irish College. He worked in the pilgrimage site of Lough Derg and in various parishes around the country during his post-graduate studies. He loved the Irish people and they loved him. He radiated joy, gentleness and a true Christian spirit of service to all who knew him. Yet his heart was set on returning to bring comfort, strength and support to his suffering people in Iraq. The Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul in which he ministering was subject to regular bombings and attack. On the feast of the Holy Trinity in 2007, as he finished the celebration of Mass, Father Ragheed and three subdeacons were brutally murdered. The vehicle in which they had been killed was surrounded by explosives by those who had killed them so that no-one dare approach to offer comfort, prayers or help. Just a week before, Father Ragheed had written:

“In a sectarian and confessional Iraq, will there be any space for Christians? We have no support, no group who fights for our cause; we are abandoned in the midst of the disaster.”

It is with this painful, prophetic cry of a young man who knew, loved and appreciated the Irish people so much that we thank you again for giving time to the plight of persecuted Christians in our world today and appeal to you to consider positively the recommendations we have made.

Thank you for listening.

ENDS

Obama knew jihadis were planning Benghazi attack 10 days in advance

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This makes his blaming of the freedom of speech — his attribution of the attack to a spontaneous reaction to a YouTube video — frankly insidious. What anti-free speech initiative was he hoping to implement in the wake of the attack?

“JW: Obama Admin Knew About Benghazi Before It Happened,” Judicial Watch, May 18, 2015:

Administration knew three months before the November 2012 presidential election of ISIS plans to establish a caliphate in Iraq 

Administration knew of arms being shipped from Benghazi to Syria

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it obtained more than 100 pages of previously classified “Secret” documents from the Department of Defense (DOD)and the Department of State revealing that DOD almost immediately reported that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was committed by the al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood-linked “Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman” (BCOAR), and had been planned at least 10 days in advance. Rahman is known as the Blind Sheikh, and is serving life in prison for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist acts.  The new documents also provide the first official confirmation that shows the U.S. government was aware of arms shipments from Benghazi to Syria.  The documents also include an August 2012 analysis warning of the rise of ISIS and the predicted failure of the Obama policy of regime change in Syria.

The documents were released in response to a court order in accordance with a May 15, 2014, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against both the DOD and State Department seeking communications between the two agencies and congressional leaders “on matters related to the activities of any agency or department of the U.S. government at the Special Mission Compound and/or classified annex in Benghazi.”

Spelling and punctuation is duplicated in this release without corrections.

A Defense Department document from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), dated September 12, 2012, the day after the Benghazi attack, details that the attack on the compound had been carefully planned by the BOCAR terrorist group “to kill as many Americans as possible.”  The document was sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Obama White House National Security Council.  The heavily redacted Defense Department “information report” says that the attack on the Benghazi facility “was planned and executed by The Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman (BCOAR).”  The group subscribes to “AQ ideologies:”

The attack was planned ten or more days prior on approximately 01 September 2012. The intention was to attack the consulate and to kill as many Americans as possible to seek revenge for U.S. killing of Aboyahiye ((ALALIBY)) in Pakistan and in memorial of the 11 September 2001 atacks on the World Trade Center buildings.

“A violent radical,” the DIA report says, is “the leader of BCOAR is Abdul Baset ((AZUZ)), AZUZ was sent by ((ZAWARI)) to set up Al Qaeda (AQ) bases in Libya.”  The group’s headquarters was set up with the approval of a “member of the Muslim brother hood movement…where they have large caches of weapons.  Some of these caches are disguised by feeding troughs for livestock.  They have SA-7 and SA-23/4 MANPADS…they train almost every day focusing on religious lessons and scriptures including three lessons a day of jihadist ideology.”

The Defense Department reported the group maintained written documents, in “a small rectangular room, approximately 12 meters by 6 meters…that contain information on all of the AQ activity in Libya.”

(Azuz is again blamed for the Benghazi attack in an October 2012 DIA document.)

The DOD documents also contain the first official documentation that the Obama administration knew that weapons were being shipped from the Port of Benghazi to rebel troops in Syria. An October 2012 report confirms:

Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s, and 125 mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.

During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo.

The DIA document further details:

The weapons shipped from Syria during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s and 125mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.  The numbers for each weapon were estimated to be: 500 Sniper rifles, 100 RPG launchers with 300 total rounds, and approximately 400 howitzers missiles [200 ea – 125mm and 200ea – 155 mm.]

The heavily redacted document does not disclose who was shipping the weapons.

Another DIA report, written in August 2012 (the same time period the U.S. was monitoring weapons flows from Libya to Syria), said that the opposition in Syria was driven by al Qaeda and other extremist Muslim groups: “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” The growing sectarian direction of the war was predicted to have dire consequences for Iraq, which included the “grave danger” of the rise of ISIS:

The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and are as follows:

This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI [al Qaeda Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters. ISI could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.

Some of the “dire consequences” are blacked out but the DIA presciently warned one such consequence would be the “renewing facilitation of terrorist elements from all over the Arab world entering into Iraqi Arena.”…

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Obama’s Middle East Debacle

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Saudi Arabia's King SalmanI had to laugh when I heard that the new King of Saudi Arabia, Salmon, told the White House he wasn’t going to attend Thursday’s photo-op get together of Arab leaders. Some lesser Saudi officials will attend. The message is clear enough, so long as Obama continues to make nice with Iran, the center of the problems in the Middle East, the Saudis and the others are going to be wary of any proposal that comes out of the White House.

As far as the Middle East is concerned, Obama seems to have no idea of the history or the dynamics that affect all the actions there. His Secretary of State, Kerry, is no better. He met with Arab officials last Friday and they told him they want a defense treaty in the event they were attacked by “external forces”, something that the Congress will not approve so long as Obama is in the White House.

One would think that any President at this point would have concluded that the Palestinians have no intention of signing onto a peace treaty with the Israelis.

Writing in The New York Times on May 8, Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, put it bluntly, “It doesn’t matter what these politicians think now or have said in in the past. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not happening in the next two years.” That’s how long we all have to wait until Obama leaves office.

David P.Goldman, a Senior Fellow of the Middle East Forum, writing in Asia Times Online on May 10, spelled it out. “It is inconvenient for diplomats to say so, but the Palestinian Authority collapsed quite some time ago,” noting that “President Mahmoud Abbas’ term in office began in 2005 and ended six years ago, and he has not called new elections for the simple reason that Hamas—the Palestinian branch of the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood—would win those elections.” These days the Egyptians label Hamas a terrorist organization and have taken steps to eliminate the Brotherhood. At least they know who the enemy is.

Obama has been antagonistic to Israel from before he was elected and has made little effort to hide it. Consider this, as Goldman notes, “Hamas fired over 4,000 rockets at Israel in 2014, prompting Israeli counterstrikes during the summer.” Its declared intention and the reason for its existence is to eliminate the State of Israel. Why are we surprised to hear that Obama wants to take the statehood issue to the United Nations, a hotbed of anti-Semitism, and has little to say of the Palestinian Authority’s assertion that it wants to drag Israel in front of the International Criminal Court for having defended itself against the attacks by Hamas!

Not only has the Saudi King sent Obama a message, but so did the Israelis when they overwhelmingly reelected Benjamin Netanyahu as their Prime Minister. “The Israelis look around the Middle East and see nothing but conflict, carnage, instability and danger,” said Schanzer. “The Obama doctrine—which includes a deliberate contraction of American power in the Middle East—has undeniably made Israel less safe.”

It has made the U.S. and the world less safe too.

One of the most obscene aspects of the Obama obsession with Iran is that, in return for any deal—which Iran would ignore and cheat—they are ready “to provide as much as $120 billion in sanctions relief to satisfy the narrow technical parameters of a nuclear deal, which would legitimize Iran as a threshold nuclear state. These funds,” said Schanzer, “will flow to Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Iran terror proxies dedicated to Israel’s demise.”

To put all this in perspective, as Goldman reminds us, “From Israel’s standpoint, the Palestinian Authority was offered 95% of Judea and Samaria in return for a final peace agreement, and both times (at Camp David in 1999 under Ehud Barack and in 2008 under Ehud Olmert) the offer was rejected.”

“The U.N. Security Council,” said Goldman, “will punish Israel for the failure of negotiations that were meaningless to begin with, and establish a Hamas-controlled state within nine miles of the Mediterranean coast. Iran has already promised to arm West Bank Arabs, just as it armed Hezbollah and Hamas.”

Israel which has enjoyed the support of the United States since it declared its independence in 1948 is now put at risk by the first administration to deliberately turn its back on it in preference for a deal with the leading terror-sponsor, Iran, in the Middle East.

You cannot make a greater mess of the mess that already exists in the Middle East, but Obama is doing his best to add to it. What else should we expect from a President who refuses to utter words like “Islamic terrorism”?

© Alan Caruba, 2015

Syrian Archbishop: “We expect Christians in the West to help us. They do not”

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Why don’t the Christians in the West help them? Because it might harm the dialogue: “Talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims.” —Robert McManus, Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, Massachusetts, February 8, 2013

“Syrian Archbishop: ‘We expect Christians in the West to help us. They do not,’” by David Gibson, Religion News Service, May 4, 2015:

NEW YORK (RNS) Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart of Aleppo is returning to the front line of the real war on Christians, which he calls home — that is, Aleppo in war-torn Syria, where his ancient church faces the threat of extinction.

I wrote here about Jeanbart, who was in the U.S. last week in an effort to raise awareness about the plight of Christians in Syria — they include his Eastern-rite Melkite Catholics as well or Eastern Orthodox and other churches — and to raise money for their survival.

The archbishop is a remarkable figure, facing the personal danger while trying to protect an entire community and tradition and way of life. He had controversial things to say (at least in the U.S. political context) about supporting Syrian president Assad; when faced with ISIS as the alternative, you understand his “devil-you-know” choice.

But Assad may be at risk of falling. Americans are not likely to shed a tear for him, and many have been pushing the administration to aid the Islamist rebels, who could wind up slaughtering what’s left of the Christians in Aleppo and elsewhere.

And American Christians know so little about their fellow believers in the region, or even that such Christians exist, that Middle East church leaders like Jeanbart face an uphill battle:

“We expect Christians in the West to help us. They do not,” as Jeanbart told Cardinal Timothy Dolan during the New York archbishop’s weekly radio show.

I couldn’t include all of the interview in the first version, so wanted to pick it up here with the question:
What does Archbishop Jeanbart want?

In short, he thinks the West, led by the U.S., should work to stop the flow of arms into the country. He does not want Western military intervention in terms of boots on the ground – just a ceasefire so that Syrians themselves have a chance to work out their problems in a way that respects each community. That’s how it was for centuries, and he says that’s how it can be again.

Most immediately, he wants material support for Syrian Christians.

A chief problem, church officials say, is that Christians who are among the nearly 8 million internally displaced people in Syria are afraid to go to refugee camps that receive the bulk of international humanitarian aid because they would have to register to enter and could then be pegged as Christians – and would be targets all over again.

So Christians wind up trying to stay put in war zones, or seek refuge in churches, Catholic hospitals or schools, or the homes of relatives. (Aid to the Church in Need has pledged $2.8 in emergency aid for Christians in Syria.)

“The church will support us in a way, morally and spiritually. But the church has very little material means,” Jeanbart said. “It doesn’t have armies. It doesn’t have budgets to help. Nobody has ever taken care of us.”

“We expect Christians in the West to help us. They do not,” Jeanbart, his voice rising in frustration, told Cardinal Timothy Dolan during the New York archbishop’s weekly radio show.

Jeanbart said that on the other hand, his Muslim neighbors and religious leaders in the city have often offered him a place to live or hold services….

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ISIS: The Threat to America — an interview with Erick Stakelbeck

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51u4HXtekULWhen we reviewed Erick Stakelbeck’s latest book, ISIS Exposed: Beheadings, Slavery and the Hellish Realities of Radical Islam, we wrote:

Tens of thousands of young Muslims across the ummah from Minneapolis in the U.S., the UK, France, Germany, Russia and even China have been drawn like bees to the holy beehive of the self-declared Caliphate which espouses Islamic purification through ethnic and religious cleansing.

Stakelbeck addressed an important question about why the large unassimilated Somali émigré community in Minneapolis has become the U.S. hub for Al Qaeda and now ISIS recruitment. The shift of Somali émigré young men from traveling to Somali to join Al Shabaab to join ISIS occurred in the last two years facilitated by the ease of travel to Turkey to enter Syria and the attraction of building a Caliphate based on pure Islam.

On April 20, 2015 six Somali émigré young men in their late teens and early 20’s were arrested and indicted by the U.S. Attorney in Minneapolis for material support to the Islamic State or ISIS. According to the WSJ report:

All six charged Monday had been arrested Sunday. Four appeared in Federal Court in St. Paul, Minnesota—Adnan Farah, Zacharia Yusuf Abdurahman, Hanad Mustafe Musse and Guled Ali Omar—with their court appointed lawyers. Two others appeared in a San Diego court—Mr. Daud and Mohamed Abdihamid Farah—where they were arrested after driving from Minneapolis. They were ordered held pending a detention hearing.

A seventh Abdi Nur was separately charged as a recruiter as he successfully traveled to Syria to join and fight for ISIS. It is believed that email exchanges and calls with Abdi Nur, who successfully traveled in May 2014 to Syria may have provided the evidence for the charges in the indictment of material support for terrorism. The FBI was able to connect Nur who were indicted, Daud and Yusuf, because of a police report of an accident involving the vehicle driven by Yusuf.

Somali émigré Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud from the second largest Somali community in the U.S., Columbus, Ohio was indicted on federal terrorist charges following his return from Al Qaeda training in Syria. The indictments announced by the US Attorney in Minneapolis capped a 10 month investigation. The Wall Street Journal report on this latest development, illustrated the resourcefulness of those indicted. Some used student loans to purchase airline tickets to travel to Turkey to enter Syria and join ISIS. The two detained in San Diego were caught trying to enter Mexico from which they intended to travel to Turkey and hence to Syria. Two had traveled by bus from Minneapolis only to be arrested at New York’s JFK Airport.

This is the latest story of how the U.S. humanitarian refugee program, controlled by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, flooded this major Midwestern community with 100,000 East Africa Muslims. Many of them failed to assimilate into American culture with radical Mosques recruiting dozens of native born jihadists to fight and die for first al Shabaab in Somalia and now for ISIS in Syria. We have written about this repeatedly since 2008. Somali refugees came to the Twin cities with the assistance of voluntary agencies  paid by the State Department and Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement to process them, provide cash assistance, Medicaid and receive a green card  leading to eventual citizenship. All while many of these Muslim émigrés rejected American values, instead seeking to impose their Sharia law on the host non-Muslim community.

Erick Stakelbeck aired his version of this story, March 17, 2015 on CBN’s The Watchman, “Minneapolis- the U.S. Capital of ISIS.” Stakelbeck knows the Somali émigré terror recruit story and how our humanitarian refugee program played a major role in creating the radical Muslim environment in these communities that indoctrinated and recruited these youths. He visited the areas that have the look and feel of Mogadishu in Minnesota. He spoke with frustrated Somali community and former law enforcement officials about the futility of trying to divert these youths from a likely dead end that have befallen dozens who preceded them. He delved  into what attracts these young American Somali and other Muslim émigrés and converts to follow this delusional self destructive jihadist cause.

There have been Mexican and U.S. intelligence reports of possible ISIS presence in Mexico adjacent to the West Texas and New Mexico borders. Late in April 2015 there was a general intelligence alert by the Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Safety Administration. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, issued a statement saying the Obama administration “is far behind the curve in scaling up programs to counter domestic radicalization, and it has struggled to explain to Congress whether it has a strategy to combat terrorist travel.” He went on to say:

The potential for ISIS infiltration into the U.S. is great, especially from Europe, which U.S. extremists are using as a transit hub to join ISIS and al-Qaida.

Against this background we invited Erick Stakelbeck for an interview about the ISIS threat to America:

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Mike Bates

Mike Bates: Erick Stakelbeck, welcome to Your Turn.

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Erick Stakelbeck

Stakelbeck:  Thanks Mike. Great to be with you.

Bates:  And joining me is Jerry Gordon, senior editor of The New English Review and his blog The Iconoclast.  Welcome, Jerry.

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Jerry Gordon

Jerry Gordon:  Glad to be back, Mike.

Bates:   Erick, what is the difference between ISIS, ISIL, and the Islamic state?

Stakelbeck:   You know, Mike that is a great question. When I was writing this book, ISIS Exposed, my wife actually said, “Hey, include a distinction in there, because I’m confused about it.” Here’s how to break it down. ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Most people use ISIS.  President Obama, interestingly enough, uses the term ISIL, which means the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Now, Mike, here’s the significance. When you call it ISIS, you’re just giving it Iraq and Syria. That’s bad enough. But when you include ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the Levant is a huge area.  It’s not just Iraq and Syria. It’s Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and, yes, Israel. So when you call ISIS, ISIL, you’re actually empowering them and giving them more territory than they actually hold. So it’s a head-scratcher why President Obama would use the term ISIL.

Bates:  Well, I don’t have to scratch my head. I think I know. It’s because he’s not a friend of Israel and he wants Israel to be ultimately controlled by ISIL. Speaking of President Obama, most of the world first learned of the Islamic State in 2014. When did the President first learn of it?

Stakelbeck:  Mike, at least he knew in late 2012, early 2013, the stirrings were there. ISIS was gaining territory by a lot of victories in Syria, number one, and building their ranks, number two. Foreign fighters from around the world were flocking to Syria to join up with this group. At, the end of the day, in December 2011, President Obama, against the advice of all of his top generals, withdrew every last US soldiers from Iraq. Mike, once he did that, you had Al-Qaeda in Iraq expanding, despite being crushed by the troop.

Soon as the US troops left, Al-Qaeda in Iraq rose from the ashes, and began a wave of suicide bombings and assassinations of Iraqi leaders. All of a sudden, they were strong again in Iraq. They spread their tentacles next door into Syria. Now you have the monster that we have today, ISIS. President Obama gets intelligence reports across his desk every day. He knew. But in my book, I document how people on both sides of the political aisle were warning him. Former diplomats, military leaders were warning him, “Look, this group, ISIS, it’s gaining in strength.  We need to do something.”

Then in January 2014, ISIS roars into Fallujah, where our troops expended so much blood and treasure in the battles there. Shortly thereafter, President Obama went on national TV and called ISIS the “JV team of terrorism.” So a lot of responsibility for this lies squarely with him.

Gordon:  Erick, tens of thousands of foreign Muslim young men and women have been attracted and left their countries, including the US, UK, and other around the globe, to join ISIS. What is so compelling about the Islamic State?

Stakelbeck:  This is a great point. I think, number one, it is the ideology. ISIS has a well-defined jihadist ideology behind the success they’ve had. They now control 35,000 square miles of territory in the heart of the Middle East. That is an area the size of Great Britain. Not only that, they’ve declared a caliphate, a global Islamic State.  That is what every Islamist has wanted for the past century. Now ISIS is doing it in a bold and audacious way.

So success breeds attraction, number one. Number two the ideological message, jihad, caliphate also breeds attractions. Number three, ISIS is a different beast because of their use of social media and propaganda:  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. ISIS and its supporters around the world send out 90 tweets per minute. That’s astounding. Their propaganda and their social media arms are controlled by Westerners who were born and raised there who know our culture and know exactly how to connect to an English-speaking audience. Not only that, ISIS spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on these slickly produced propaganda videos that look like a Hollywood action flick.

The days of Osama bin Laden in a cave in front of a green screen droning on in Arabic for an hour are long gone. ISIS is on the cutting edge. They’re very savvy. And on Twitter they use Hollywood movie references, hip-hop music references, anything to connect with young people here in the West. And they’re doing it to great effect. At least 180 US citizens have traveled overseas to join the caliphate, and up to 5,000 Western Europeans, Brits, French, Germans, have left to go join ISIS. And the fear is, obviously that one day, they will return home.

Bates:  Where does ISIS get its funding? This is not a cheap operation.

Stakelbeck:  No. This is the richest terrorist movement in history, Mike, and they get their funding in a few ways.  Number one, just old-fashioned conquest. Look, when they conquered Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq back in June 2014, they seized the Mosul Central Bank, with over $400 million in assets. And, again, when they seize a town, a city, a village, they demand tribute from the conquered people. That’s an Islamic tradition. They demand tribute. That’s another way.

Then you have the illicit oil trade where ISIS is very active in the oil black markets in Turkey, Iran, and Lebanon. They’re making up to $2 million, maybe even $3 million a day with this black market oil. Remember, ISIS has seized oil fields in Syria and Iraq. Another way they’re doing it is by seizing antiquities in places like Nineveh. Now they destroy these ancient biblical sites, but they also take some of the antiquities, and they sell them on the black market as well.

Last way they’re doing it, there is something called the golden chain in the Persian Gulf region. That is where these wealthy folks in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, and the Emirates fund jihad around the world. And these individual donors are pouring money into ISIS as well.

Gordon:  Erick, in your book, you draw attention to US folks who depart for the Islamic State. You call Minneapolis “the hub” attracting those individuals. Recently, we had like seven Somali émigré young men who were indicted in places like Columbus, Ohio, San Diego, and Minneapolis. Why is that the case?

Stakelbeck:  I think, number one, Jerry, the main reason that’s the case is because Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Twin Cities in Minnesota are a nice place to live. They have the largest Somali Muslim population in all of North America. Some 100,000 Somali Muslims live in Minneapolis and St. Paul. That will probably shock a lot of people. The problem is they’re not assimilating. They are not integrating. I spoke to Somali community leaders there who said, “Look, we have a big problem because they’re not becoming part of the American fabric.” This has been the fear when you’re letting, mass numbers of immigrants into the country and they’re not assimilating, you have a big problem. We see this in Western Europe where we have many more Muslim immigrants coming to Germany, France, Britain, they’re not assimilating. They’re setting up almost self-segregating enclaves – I’ve been in these neighborhoods – where they don’t feel British.

They don’t feel French or German, and I fear we have a similar situation going on right now in the Somali communities in the United States. You have a pipeline going from these communities in Minnesota to Iraq and Syria.  You’ve had dozens of young people – US citizens – traveling overseas to join the jihad out of Minnesota. If they return home, you have battle hardened and battle-tested, radicalized, fanatics in your midst.

The Mall of America, the largest shopping mall in the United States is right outside of Minneapolis. So you have the potential for some real damage. When you mentioned the seven Somali young men arrested recently, an Obama administration official said, “We have a terror recruitment problem –” I’m paraphrasing – “in the Twin Cities.”

Bates:  Erick, is the US government doing anything to prevent the return of these jihadis to the United States after fighting with Islamic state? Are we doing anything to stop this threat from entering the US at either the Southern or Northern borders?

Stakelbeck:  Mike, nothing on the southern border. As to what the government is doing anything to prevent it is unclear.  Jeh Johnson, the Department of Homeland Security chief, said recently that we already had about 40 US citizens return who were fighting with ISIS overseas. They’re back.

He said, “Look, we’re trying to monitor them, but you can’t know what everyone’s doing.” This is the Department of Homeland Security chief. So, can people slip through the cracks? Absolutely. Think back to Paris in January 2015 where two brothers had trained with Al-Qaeda in Yemen. They returned to France and they carried out a horrific terror attack there. That can also happen here.

Our system is not foolproof, and people can come back and slip through the cracks. What I would do if I knew someone left to join ISIS – and our government knows who’s going in many cases – is revoke their citizenship and do not allow them back into the United States. It’s as simple as that. “You are no longer a US citizen.  You’re not welcome in this country. And if you do try to enter this country, you’ll be thrown in jail.” That is the logical solution.

Bates:  Isn’t that a constitutional matter? I realize  that ISIS, isn’t a nation, but if they take up arms for another nation, we can revoke their citizenship legally.

Stakelbeck:  ISIS is declared a state, so in their eyes they’re a nation. As to your point about the border, Mike, one of the most chilling passages in my book was a conversation I had with a former CIA clandestine service officer. He told me, “Erick, the thing that keeps me up at night is the possibility of an ISIS jihadist carrying a, a biological or a chemical weapon over our southern border, or our northern border for that matter, and setting it off in a US city.”

You know, it’s been 13-1/2 years since 9/11, and that southern border in particular is more wide open than ever before. And you can’t sustain yourself long term as a nation state if you refuse to secure your borders.

Gordon:  Erick, we’ve had recent intelligence reports indicating that ISIS camps may have been established in Mexico near the US border in Texas and New Mexico. How much of a threat is that?

Stakelbeck:  I’m trying to verify those reports.  I talked to one source who was kind of skeptical. He said, “Look, if the Mexican government knows that there are ISIS camps in their country, what are they doing about it, or why hasn’t anything been done about it yet? This is obviously an imminent threat if these camps exist.” That is an interesting take on it.

It has been a little tough to verify. You know we had one report from Judicial Watch, with a lot of unnamed sources. A lot of times you use unnamed government sources. But unnamed, Mexican officials? That is the kind of report where absolutely like you; it raised my eyebrow big time because the southern border is a massive concern over possible ISIS infiltration. But that kind of report is one I would double and triple check, verify and footnote extensively because that is a serious allegation. Would I doubt it? No. The southern border is so porous and you have these drug cartels that control the Mexican side who have no allegiance to anyone other than the almighty dollar.

Would they work with Islamic terror groups? Absolutely. Have they worked with Islamic terror groups? Probably. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. And eventually, God forbid, if terrorists enter through the southern border, our government will have some tough questions to answer from the American people to say the least.

Gordon:  The other folks who have had experience on the southern border are the Iranians. A few years ago, we had the story about a drug cartel hooking up with an Iranian American in Texas involved with an attempted assassination of the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

Stakelbeck:  The Iranians, Jerry, this is another facet. If I look at the two-headed monster that we’re confronting right now in the Middle East, ISIS and Iran, to me, Iran is the bigger threat long term and possibly short term, depending on when they acquire the bomb, a nuclear weapon.

The Iranians, through Hezbollah in particular, have an extensive network throughout Latin America in our hemisphere. Now in terms of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, why should every American care? Right now Iran is not only developing nuclear weapons, they’re developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, ICBMs, that could reach the United States.

You only develop ICBMs for one reason, to mount them with a nuclear warhead. Now why would Iran do that?  Why would Iran be developing missiles that can reach the United States? It’s simple, because they still consider us, although the Obama administration’s tripping over itself to embrace them and work with them – the Iranian regime considers America the great Satan. Just two weeks ago, the Supreme Ruler of Iran led chants of “Death to America,” in a rally in Tehran.

If we think Iran has changed its spots, we’re kidding ourselves. We have a bull’s eye on our back coming out of Tehran.

 Bates:  Why didn’t the Obama administration stop ISIS when they left Syria and went into Iraq when they were on the open roads and could have easily been taken out? And combined with that, do you advocate the United States military putting troops on the ground to stop ISIS from advancing?

Stakelbeck:  Why did  the Obama administration do nothing? Because he’s a do-nothing guy, in general. He’s  watched as the Middle East has burned. If you dig deeper with President Obama, he’s more focused on domestic things. He wants to fundamentally transform America in his words. Sadly, he seems to be succeeding in at least some ways. It’s almost like an operation of chaos around the world over the past six and a half years. However, I don’t think he’s naïve.

The Middle East is on fire, and he sees America and Israel as forces not for good, but for bad in Middle East.  We have been imperialist occupying powers that have oppressed Muslims around the world, and now we’re getting our just deserts. We are trying to level the playing field, and he seems content to hand over the Middle East and North Africa to radical Islamists. I think that’s pretty clear. Whether it is the Muslim Brotherhood or the Iranian regime.

And all that will happen is for him to manage the ISIS problem until he leaves office. To answer your second question, we don’t need a heavy footprint on the ground, but we do need some ground presence. Think back to 2001 in Afghanistan where we had US Special Forces, the CIA, on the ground working with the Northern Alliance. They routed the Taliban.

We can do the same thing today in Iraq and Syria. We don’t need tens of thousands of American troops. What we need are our elite forces on the ground leading the way. We have the Kurds who are fierce fighters, who are pro-American, who want to get in the fight. We have  Syrian Christians. We have some Iraqi tribes that don’t like ISIS. All of them are begging for leadership from the leader of the free world, and we’re MIA.

Again, it doesn’t take a heavy footprint. We could lead the fight. They’re not – they can’t do it themselves. But we need some kind of US ground presence. You can’t do it through limited air strikes alone. If you’re intention is truly to crush this group – and make no mistake, we need to crush ISIS like the German and Japanese war machines were crushed during World War II before this movement metastasizes any further. It is already spreading throughout the region and it is here in the west.

If we really wanted to crush ISIS, if we’re serious, we need to do it now. I don’t think we’re serious. I don’t think the West is serious. I think we’re going to be in for some serious trouble down the road and, God forbid, maybe in the short term because of our lack of will. This is a Winston Churchill moment. The only man, in my view, who is answering the call, is the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet the West, instead of embracing him, siding with him, is shunning him.

Bates:  Yes, that is a shame. Many more questions, not enough time to ask them. The name of the book is ISIS Exposed: Beheadings, Slavery, and the Hellish Reality of Radical Islam. It’s written by Erick Stakelbeck.  You can learn more at www.ErickStakelbeck.com. Erick Stakelbeck, thank you for joining us. Jerry Gordon and I will continue the conversation.

Stakelbeck:  Thank you for having me.

Bates:  Erick Stakelbeck touched on a large growing émigré Muslim population in the United States. Why is the Obama administration admitting such a large number of Muslim refugees?

Gordon:  When the congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980, they gave the keys to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees who establishes allotments for providing asylum. The State Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services administers it with the consent and approval of Congress. These humanitarian refuges may receive an eventual US citizenship. So we’re put in the quandary when émigré Somali Muslim young men are caught and arrested for joining ISIS.  They are US citizens and received all kinds of benefits under the Refugee Act. The total program cost for the US refugee program at both the federal and the state levels is staggering.  It is estimated at more than $12  to $20 billion a year. And remember there are more refugees on the way from Syria.

Bates:  Man, talk about a Trojan horse.

Gordon:  Absolutely.

Bates:  The enemy is being allowed in the gates. Thanks so much for joining us. If you want to find Jerry Gordon online, he’s the senior editor of The New English Review and his blog The Iconoclast. You can find him online at www.newenglishreview.org. The name of that book that we were discussing earlier, ISIS Exposed: Beheadings, Slavery, and the Hellish Reality of Radical Islam by Erick Stakelbeck.

Listen to the 1130 am WEBY interview with Erick Stakelbeck of CBN’s “The Watchman,” here and here.

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

NEW VIDEO: Visit an IDF Army Base and Kibbutz Misgav Am on the Lebanese Border

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Join Tom Trento and The United West on a unique tour into the most northern reaches of Israel along the Lebanese and Israeli border.

In this video you will visit an Israeli Defense Forces Army base. Next we visit the Kibbutz Misgav Am literally a stones throw from the Lebanese border overlooking a Hezbollah controlled village.

Misgav Am (Hebrew: מִשְׂגַּב עָם, lit. Fortress of the People) is a kibbutz in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel. Located close to the border with Lebanon near the town of Kiryat Shmona, it falls under the jurisdiction of Upper Galilee Regional Council.

Misgav Am was founded in 1945. One of its founders was Dr. Reuven Moskovitz. He was born 1928 in Romania, survived the Holocaust and immigrated to Israel. He founded several organisations, including Neve Shalom, where he has lived since 1972.

On 7 April 1980, five terrorists from the Iraqi-backed Arab Liberation Front penetrated Misgav Am in the night and entered the nursery. They killed the kibbutz secretary and an infant boy. They held the rest of the children hostage, demanding the release of about 50 terrorists held in Israeli prisons. The first raid of an IDF infantry unit was unsuccessful, but a second attempt, a few hours later, succeeded, and all the terrorists were killed. Two kibbutz members and one soldier were killed, four children and 11 soldiers were wounded.

And a special thanks to Dr. Bob – OOZ – and CVC for your support of TUW.

God Bless America and God Bless Our Troops.

Israel – Sanity in an Insane Middle East

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Is there any serious thinking person who still believes that Islam is a “religion of peace?”

If there is, they cannot be watching any news reports anywhere. Islam, in particular a pure doctrinal Islam as practiced by the Islamic State, is reaping global death and destruction in the perfect model of their leader, Mohammed. As a result, the Middle East is on fire and the fire is just starting. Today, I and The United West team begin a week-long presentation of their recent national security mission in Israel and how that tiny nation is a civilized oasis in the midst of Islamic incivility.

Moreover, against this chaos, Iran through a New York Times editorial is positioning themselves as the world leader in establishing Middle East peace against the warmongering America and Israel.

WOW, watch our show for a wild ride!

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Genocide of Christians in Kenya, Syria and Iraq ‘Intensifying’

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We wish all participants and observers of this Holy Season a Happy Good Friday, a Happy Easter, and a Happy Passover.

Today’s treatment of Christians in a great many nations is disturbingly and reminiscent of the brutal persecution and genocide of the early followers of Jesus Christ; it is a current day “Crime Against Humanity.” Christian Americans are frustrated by the indifference displayed by the U.S. Government’s in its refusal to join in with world leaders to condemn the persecution, torture, and genocide of helpless Syrian and Assyrian Christians by Radical Islamic Terrorists members of Islamic State and Al Q’ieda as the genocide intensifies from week to week. We are now also observing the religious persecution of conscientious and believing Christians in the United States, led by the left of center liberal media establishment, because of their refusal to participate in or provide support for religious ceremonies that their well held religious beliefs don’t agree with.

The Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Royal Family in England, the UK Prime Minister, the King of Jordan, the President of Egypt, the President of Kurdistan, the Prime Minister of Japan, the Prime Minister of Australian, President George W. Bush, Reverend Billy Graham, the Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Prime Ministers of NATO nations, the Prime Minister of Israel, Christian Religious Leaders of every denomination from throughout the world, the current crop of candidates seeking to run for President of the United States, Christians worldwide, and the Secretary General of the United Nations have all raised their voices in unison to demand that the bloody genocide of Christians in Africa, Syria, and on the Plains of Nineveh in Iraq stop.

Unfortunately for three years, the occupant of the Oval Office has not joined in with other world leaders in their condemnation of the genocide of Christians by Radical Islamic Terrorists members of the Islamic State and Al Q’ieda in this current Jihad against Christians—that silence from the Oval Office for the last three years has been deafening!

Inside ISIS’ Shocking Persecution of Assyrian Christians on the Plains of Ninveh in Iraq

Assyrian Christianity started in the Plains of Nineveh with first-century Apostles in churches the Disciples founded, and Assyrian Christians still speak Aramaic, the language that Christ spoke. For over 2000 years, they endured and survived the Roman persecution of Christians, sieges by Saladin, conquests by the Persians, persecution by the Ottoman Empire, oppression by the Mongols, the survived Turkish genocide at the turn of the century, WWI, WWII, Iraq’s long war with Iran, the US led coalition Iraqi War with Saddam Hussein.,

But in just 10 months of control, Islamic State and Al Q’ieda, the members of Radical Islamic Jihadists perpetrating worldwide Jihad, have forced hundreds of thousands of Assyrian Christians into exile. At one time, 4 million Assyrian Christians made the Plains of Ninveh, in what was once Mesopotamia (Iraq today), their traditional home for over 2000 years. By clicking on the below listed link you can view the 60 Minutes segment that will take you inside Iraq today and will describe the life and death struggle that the Assyrian Christians, trying to survive, are involved in with Radical Islamic Jihadists.

Assyrian Christians are being crucified, beheaded, being forced to kneel to be shot, thrown off buildings to their deaths, being buried alive, being burned alive, whose children are being cut in half, and whose female children & women are being raped then killed for refusing to deny that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior. For the last 3 years the Obama administration has refused to provide logistic support and small arms to the Assyrian Christians; in the last 10 months the Assyrian Christian Militia has been training, employing the paucity of funds donated to their cause by American citizens. The newly constituted Assyrian Christian Militia has been trying to protect the Assyrian Christians who have migrate toward the Kurdish lines on the eastern end of the Plains of Ninveh Although 51 US Congressmen have petitioned the Obama administration to simply provide logistics and defensive small arms for the Assyrian Christian Militia engaged with ISIL, their requests have been ignored, yet US military air support and logistic aide is being provided to Iraq and their ally, the Iranian Quid’s Force, with boots on the ground in Iraq who are also engaged with ISIL.

Seyfo Center Organization Mission Statement and 100 Years Anniversary Of Assyrian Genocide.

​​New York Times

ISIS Onslaught Engulfs Assyrian Christians as Militants Destroy Ancient Art

By ANNE BARNARD

ISTANBUL — The reports are horrifying, something out of a distant era of ancient conquests: entire villages emptied, with hundreds taken prisoner, others kept as slaves; the destruction of irreplaceable works of art; a tax on religious minorities, payable in gold.

A rampage reminiscent of Tamerlane or Genghis Khan, perhaps, but in reality, according to reports by residents, activist groups and the assailants themselves, a description of the modus operandi of the Islamic State’s self-declared Islamic caliphate this week as it prosecuted a relentless campaign in Iraq and Syria against what have historically been religiously and ethnically diverse areas with traces of civilizations dating to ancient Mesopotamia.

The latest to face the militants’ onslaught are the Assyrian Christians of northeastern Syria, one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, some speaking a modern version of Aramaic, the language of Jesus.

Assyrian leaders have stated hundreds Assyrian Christians men, women, and children have been taken captive, along with civilian men and fighters from Assyrian Christian Militias, said Dawoud Dawoud, an Assyrian political activist who had just toured the area, in the vicinity of the Syrian city of Qamishli. Thirty villages had been emptied, he said.

The Syriac Military Council, a local Assyrian militia, put the number of those taken in the hundreds.

Reached in Qamishli, Adul Ahad Nissan, 48, an accountant and music composer who fled his village before the brunt of the fighting, said a close friend and his wife had been captured.

“I used to call them every other day. Now their mobile is off,” he said. “I tried and tried. It’s so painful not to see your friends again.”
Members of the Assyrian diaspora have called for international intervention, and on Thursday, warplanes of the United States-led coalition struck targets in the area, suggesting that the threat to a minority enclave had galvanized a reaction, as a similar threat did in the Kurdish city of Kobani last year.

The assault on the Assyrian communities comes amid battles for a key crossroads in the area. But to residents, it also seems to be part of the latest effort by the Islamic State militants to eradicate or subordinate anyone and anything that does not comport with their vision of Islamic rule — whether a minority sect that has survived centuries of conquerors and massacres or, as the world was reminded on Thursday, the archaeological traces of pre-Islamic antiquity.

An Islamic State video distributed on the worldwide Internet shows Radical Islamic Terrorists smashing statues with sledgehammers inside the Mosul Museum, in northern Iraq, that showcases recent archaeological finds from the ancient Assyrian empire. The relics include items from the palace of King Sennacherib, who in the Byron poem “came down like the wolf on the fold” to destroy his enemies.

“A tragedy and catastrophic loss for Iraqi history and archaeology beyond comprehension,” Amr al-Azm, the Syrian anthropologist and historian, called the destruction on his Facebook page.

“These are some of the most wonderful examples of Assyrian art, and they’re part of the great history of Iraq, and of Mesopotamia,” he said in an interview. “The whole world has lost this.”

Islamic State militants seized the museum — which had not yet opened to the public — when they took over Mosul in June and have repeatedly threatened to destroy its collection.

In the video, put out by the Islamic State’s media office for Nineveh Province — named for an ancient Assyrian city — a man explains, “The monuments that you can see behind me are but statues and idols of people from previous centuries, which they used to worship instead of God.”

A message flashing on the screen read: “Those statues and idols weren’t there at the time of the Prophet nor his companions. They have been excavated by Satanists.”

The men, some bearded and in traditional Islamic dress, others clean-shaven in jeans and T-shirts, were filmed toppling and destroying artifacts. One is using a power tool to deface a winged lion much like a pair on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has presented itself as a modern-day equivalent of the conquering invaders of Sennacherib’s day, or as Islamic zealots smashing relics out of religious conviction.

Yet in the past, the militants have veered between ideology and pragmatism in their relationship to antiquity — destroying historic mosques, tombs and artifacts that they consider forms of idolatry, but also selling more portable objects to fill their coffers.

The latest eye-catching destruction could have a more strategic aim, said Mr. Azm, who closely follows the Syrian conflict and opposes both the Islamic State and the government.

“It’s all a provocation,” he said, aimed at accelerating a planned effort, led by Iraqi forces and backed by United States warplanes, to take back Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.

“They want a fight with the West because that’s how they gain credibility and recruits,” Mr. Azm said. “They want boots on the ground. They want another Falluja,” a reference to the 2004 battle in which United States Marines, in the largest ground engagement since Vietnam, took that Iraqi city from Qaeda-linked insurgents whose organization would eventually give birth to the Islamic State.

The Islamic State has been ecumenical in its violence against the modern diversity of Iraq and Syria. It considers Shiite Muslims apostates, and has destroyed Shiite shrines and massacred more than 1,000 Shiite Iraqi soldiers. It has demanded that Christians living in its territories pay the jizya, a tax on religious minorities dating to early Islamic rule.

Islamic State militants have also slaughtered fellow Sunni Muslims who reject their rule, killing hundreds of members of the Shueitat tribe in eastern Syria in one clash alone. They have also massacred and enslaved members of the Yazidi sect in Iraq.

Read more.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘PERSECUTED FOR HIS NAME’: The Pope Recites Emotional Prayer For The Slain Students in Kenya

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Combat Veterans for Congress website.

The Islamic State Caliphate is Pure Islam

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In the March New English Review (NER) we wrote about the failure of the Countering Violent Extremism Summit of President Obama.

On Wednesday, February 18, 2014 at a White House Summit, President Obama presented his views on countering “violent extremism.” He suggested that Islamic terrorists misappropriate Islamic doctrine, exploit disaffected youths in communities across the US and globally throughout the Ummah – the community of Muslim believers. He suggested that youths prone to radicalization outside the US may be victimized by poverty, without job opportunities and oppressed by corrupt regimes. Countering violent extremism he suggests is a multi-pronged approach involving economic programs, political reform and community involvement to halt radicalization. His focus in the US was on creating community partnerships and pilot projects in several American cities, endeavoring to integrate Muslims in America, preserving and protecting their civil rights under our constitution against untoward surveillance. The President gathered Muslim and other religious clerics from the U.S. and abroad, community leaders, law enforcement, homeland security officials, and high tech entrepreneurs seeking means of stopping radicalization of youths. These youths are attracted by the “successes” of the Islamic State blasted around the world via the internet, tens of thousands of tweets, high production videos and on-line webzines in a number of languages including English.

Nowhere in his remarks did the President explain what the Islamic doctrine is that has attracted tens of thousands of foreign fighters, Americans among them, to be recruited to the cause of this self-styled Caliphate, the Islamic State (IS). What he has called ISIL, the Islam State in the Levant (ISIL) is a reference to the broad geographic area that stretches from the eastern Mediterranean coast to the Persian Gulf. Those “successes” include videos of the savagery perpetrated against the hated Kuffars, meaning infidels, including Christians, Jews, ancient religious minorities and apostate Muslims. Those videos show barbaric beheadings, burnings, crucifixions, mass shootings and enslavement. The President mentioned recent incidents in Paris, Copenhagen, Ottawa and Sydney of attacks on victims without naming the victims; leftists, free thinkers, Christians and Jews. Neither did he identify the perpetrators.

Just prior to the mid-February White House Summit, The Atlantic Magazine published an article by Graeme Wood, What ISIS Really Wants which stated:

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse.

Russian historian at Connecticut Central State University, Professor Jay Bergman, wrote, “I read it. Superb. The [President] should read it. But of course…he won’t.”

According to Wood, IS bases all of its power and authority on a strict adherence to a Salafi literal interpretation of Islam and Sharia law, with almost a total focus on the doctrine of Tawhid. Tawhid calls for strict adherence to the laws of Allah as revealed by the Prophet Mohammed. Further, that all man-made laws and systems must be rejected. IS considers any Muslim who doesn’t adhere to the doctrine of Tawhid an infidel, including “core Al Qaeda” and other Salafists who object to IS public displays of savagery.

We concluded:

Countering violent extremism as propounded by President Obama evaded his responsibility to identify the radical Islamic doctrine of IS. He engaged in the delusion that by campaigning for community organization, jobs and faith based programs we might prevent radicalization of Muslim youths. Instead he should listen to the wise counsel of former DIA chief, Army Gen. Michael Flynn, who in media interviews and testimony before the House Armed Services Committee called for a global war against IS. Flynn suggested the first cornerstone of a strategy to “degrade” and “defeat” IS is to define the ideology behind radical Islamic extremism. The fact that liberal publications like The Atlantic have exposed the barbarity of strict adherence to Tawhid in Islam clearly communicates that destroying IS through the exercise of American and allied military power should be the first order of business.

The President’s “violent extremism” Conference in Washington demonstrated that soft power is trumped by raw Islamic Jihad every time. That is embodied in failure to recognize the Qur’anic doctrine behind the rise of IS.  To paraphrase a State Department anti-ISIS message, “Think Again, Turn Away” from Taqiyya – lying for Allah.

On March 16th, 2015, Forensic Psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner, Chairman of The Forensic Panel, was interviewed on Bill Bennett’s Morning America program about what attracts Western and other foreign Muslims, to join the barbaric cause of the Islamic State. Welner provided insights as to what attracts Islamic State recruits that raise serious questions about the social media messaging initiatives of the Obama Administration. Dr. Welner explains the root of ISIS’s appeal and why people continue to join its cause.

In the face of the rise of the Islamic State and its ability to attract Muslims to Syria and Iraq from all over the world, syndicated radio host Bill Bennett welcomed Michael Welner, M.D. back to his program to discuss the apparent popularity of ISIS. Dr. Welner, known to NER readers, as one of America’s most highly-regarded forensic psychiatrists. He is routinely consulted on the most complex forensic cases across the United States, such as the ongoing New York trial of the accused kidnapper of young Etan Patz.  He is known to our readers for his work on the Omar Khadr Guantanamo case and in pioneering research an evidence-based standard of the worst of crimes, the Depravity Standard.

In response to Bennett’s invitation, Dr. Welner confronted the apparent paradox of ISIS recruitment successes in the face of its disturbing beheadings. As he explained to Bennett, Dr. Welner noted that non-Muslims do not appreciate the significance of the Caliphate declared by ISIS leader al-Baghdadi. ISIS is attracting followers of a utopian and unadulterated Islam abandoned over 1000 years ago, of a faith of strict dogmatic adherence to the Qu’ran. These Caliphate ideals prompt an obligation among the devout to serve the Caliphate in whatever capacity needed, and involve a plan of nation building based on the idealized Muslim society on land the Caliphate controls. Beheadings (and enslavement and immolation) are prescribed by the Qu’ran for cleansing those Muslims deemed to be apostate. Followers allow for these methods as necessary measures in the building of a messianic ideal, reminiscent of the “cleansing” of Pol Pot’s Cambodia. ISIS exploits these punitive options to inspire fear of the consequences of resistance among its local opponents. At the same time, ISIS inspires quiet among Muslims generally because to contest its methods would be to contest the Qu’ran. This psychological control, explains Dr. Welner, is an adaptation of political correctness, Muslim style.

The Western media and ruling classes muddle through by looking away from how ISIS is laying waste to all religions in the Arab world. That is consistent with the intelligentsia’s uselessness in genocide historically, Dr. Welner lays out an approach for how America should confront the ISIS threat militarily and in its public information in a segment Bennett termed “masterful.” Readers of the NER will be familiar with how American exceptionalism is key to the solution from our interview with Dr. Welner in the aftermath of the (Oklahoma Beheading NER interview).

The National Review On-line rated the Bennett-Welner discussion the best of the Week of March 16 to 20, 2015 on this topic. Clare Lopez, former CIA Operations officer and Senior Fellow at the Washington, DC-based Center for Security Policy commented:

Great interview with Dr. Michael Welner….he understands appeal of IS better than the entire USG put together right now. I must say it was fascinating to listen to someone from completely outside the political realm nail it like that. Meanwhile all the so-called counterterrorism ‘experts,’ and Islam ‘experts’ are so far off base we know the bad guys are laughing at us all.

Against this background, here is an edited version of the Bennett-Welner interview.

Bill Bennett

William J. Bennett:  It is morning in America. Good morning, welcome back everybody. Sorry I’m tripping on my words. I’m going to get out of the way and let our guest speak. In any case Dr. Michael Welner, Forensic Psychiatrist, Chairman of The Forensic Panel and this morning I want to emphasize his work as the Architect of The Depravity Scale, Dr. Welner’s practice is in New York and surrounding areas.  Good morning Dr. Welner.

Dr. Michael Welner

Dr. Michael Welner:  Good morning Bill. Very nice to be back with you and hope you have been doing well these days. We have all been busy but I miss you.

Bennett:  I missed you too and that’s why we called you because it was time to talk to you so thank you very much. I want to talk about ISIS and related phenomena, two, really two questions. One is, we have been witnessing on TV, video and the internet a level of depravity, a word you know best better than most. We don’t usually see the beheading of people, children burying people alive, and crucifixions. I have two questions. One, the second one really frightens me, but the first one is does this kind of thing go on a lot all the time? We just don’t see it and ISIS likes to publicize it for whatever odd reasons it has. The second question is does this have appeal to people?  Aristotle says man seeks the good. Is this a recruiting tool in some bizarre, depraved way?

Welner:  There are a number of very important things for us all to get oriented in to understand this that may be beyond our view where we sit here in America. It illustrates the complexity of the problem not only from behavioral standpoint how we react to it but how others in the Muslim world react to it and also those who are recruited. First of all, we have to get away from the notion that the idea of Islamist, Islamofascism and political Islam means the same thing to every movement. ISIS is very different from the fascism of Iran and their key difference explains ISIS’s success. What ISIS has tapped into is the notion of the Islamic Caliphate. For those who are devout Muslims, they are very vulnerable, very sensitive to the idea that a Caliphate is required in order for a Muslim to adequately observe one’s faith. It is the equivalent of what we have seen in other faiths of false messiahs. The notion of a messiah — if you can carry it off — is so powerful that it gives the movement, for those who subscribe to it, the entitlement to say come and join and be part of what gives the Caliphate the opportunity to declare itself: that it has land, and that’s what has always distinguished ISIS from Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda may have some of the same ideological orientation. However, it isn’t just about the idea of “Come and behead people,” it’s “We have land, we want to establish a Caliphate.” It’s the equivalent of saying, “We’re building Mecca or we’re building something holy. Come and fight for it.” Thus, people are fighting for a cause and that’s why they are joining. They are not joining because of You Tube; they are not joining because of social media. Social media only enable them to be reached, to be energized, to go beyond themselves and to get caught up in something messianic.

Bennett:  Let’s go back to my first question, is this sort of thing we have seen and I have described, beheading, burying children alive, etc., etc., does this kind of thing go on all of the time in the world, we just don’t see it or is this pretty unusual?

Welner:  Well the reality is that it does. There are far more people who are beheaded by governments, for example, like Saudi Arabia and other countries that nominally adhere to Muslim teachings. The idea of beheadings and stonings and even setting people on fire is totally consistent with Muslim teaching, which is one of the problems within the Muslim world. We think we are the only ones who are politically correct? The political correctness that exists within the Muslim world is such that while these kinds of actions when they are broadcast to the world in an obnoxious way, in an outrageous way, in a provocative way, may be embarrassing to Muslims who are secularized. At the same time they recognize that because it is in line with the Qur’an and not at all inconsistent with ISIS’s claim that it is a purified strain of Islam, they can’t criticize it. That is their political correctness. The pushback against ISIS from within the Muslim world isn’t just because there is death and destruction of Muslims killing Muslims it’s because the leaders themselves are threatened. It’s because Jordan recognizes that the Kingdom is in peril. When the Saudis recognize that their reign is threatened, it isn’t beheadings, because they do beheadings. ISIS can claim the high road because they say: “We are following the Qur’an to the letter. Come and join us.” That freezes devout Muslims who say “Well, you know they really are devout Muslims.”

Bennett:  I think it’s important to bring up in this context talking about ISIS. It’s important to remind people about King Abdullah and even Egyptian President Al-Sisi are going to fight back against this. However, as you have said Dr. Welner, the task here is to be a good Muslim and thus to establish the Caliphate. Then these beheadings and burying people alive just an unpleasant means to the end that we just sort of look past them or is there an appeal per se in these things to the young unhinged or even not unhinged young male?

Welner:  The beheadings, the stonings and the killings that are going on regularly are essentially reflecting an ethnic cleansing that is going on right now in the Arab world. Salafist Muslims who feel that they are a pure example of Islam are essentially doing what Pol Pot was doing in Cambodia to get rid of a segment of the population in order to create the kind of population, the kind of Muslims that they want. The shocking nature of it, the broadcast of it, intimidates people into not fighting. It intimidates the West into not fighting. It is designed to do that. It is propaganda by design. It is done in accordance with law. However, the way it is done is in order to send a message and to get people to freeze and be afraid to fight.

Bennett:  Let me come at this another way. We saw the news story Dr. Welner of the three young Muslim women, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, leaving from London going off to Istanbul and then from there into Syria, Iraq and to join up with ISIS. The only thing that would make sense to a lot of Americans and a lot of commentators was they don’t know what they are getting into. They are so young and naive. My fear was that they knew exactly what they were getting into.

Welner:  You’re right because we are not seeing the whole picture. All we are seeing of ISIS is the beheadings. What these young Muslim women are seeing of ISIS is essentially nation building saying, come, help us build a nation. We need doctors, we need engineers. We need people who want to live in this pure messianic society where you will achieve your spiritual purification by serving the Caliphate. That is why they are going. They are going as any nationalist and identified people would go to start something ideal and that is what’s being tapped into. They are not watching beheading videos and running there saying I want to go behead someone. We are only getting a part of the picture and that’s why it’s working for them.

Bennett:  I take it, that it doesn’t make them pause. That is, to go to establish the Caliphate and you watch these things, you see what they do. A lot of people you know I think would say and would think, I think I’m going to pause on this. You know I was going to join because I really would like to see a Caliphate. But wait a minute. I don’t want to be part of a group that does this.

Welner:  Those people were not inspired to join; the alternative view is I am devout. I want to be part of a pure Islam; one that we haven’t had for a thousand years. Therefore purification by getting rid of infidels and unbelievers is a necessary evil prescribed by the Qur’an. So by going to the Islamic State – the declared Caliphate, I will be living the Qur’an. I don’t expect myself to behead someone but I’m going to live by the law and I shouldn’t have any problems under the circumstances. Don’t forget they are offering free health care, jobs, from a social welfare standpoint. That also gets caught up with the idea of nation building being ignored in the West. This is far more than the idea of Al Qaeda even though it is outside of its influence and viewed as so outlandish in the use some of its methods.

Bennett:  I was going to make fun of the Administration proposed jobs program. That is the notion that they are joining because they want job security. I fear it’s something worse than that but I may be missing something very important here. I want to come back to ISIS, the Caliphate and the slaughters etc. So the dream of the Caliphate which is part of the faith here, the true believer means that you look the other way? You say well the end justifies the means? I’m not really for beheadings, but you know this is the way we get there. I think of that stupid old joke I learned when I was a kid about the kamikaze pilots, you know the guys announces to all the future kamikaze pilots, you go up in your plane, you are loaded with explosives, you aim your plane toward the American ship and it blows up and you die for the glory of Japan. Any questions?  The guy says, what you are out of your mind? I mean if someone promises me the Caliphate and says when we get there the gates of paradise all you have to do is cut people’s heads off, crucify them, rape the women, have total disregard for human life I’m going to pause aren’t I? Aren’t I going to pause and say wait a minute! That isn’t any way to build a Caliphate that is worthy.

Welner:  I think those of us who are not as familiar with Islam as others may be have to realize that the idea of a Caliphate runs to the core of the idealized version of Islam and its revival. There has not been a Caliphate for a thousand years. Al-Baghdadi, who declared himself to be the Caliph is actually from the appropriate family line of Muhammed and so there is a certain credibility that he has had among some in declaring himself to be a Caliph and the head of the Caliphate. The significance of that is within Islam if you fulfill your obligations as a Muslim to the Caliphate. That means going to the Caliphate and serving it. Then you will have fulfilled your obligations to the most pure degree. Otherwise you will die ignorant. For someone who is extremely devout — if that is they believe in — what al-Baghdadi is pitching is something messianic, hoping they are going to buy into it. Now, of course there are those who do not believe in him and yet at the same time they respect the Caliphate and what it means. They just say he’s not the one and these are not the circumstances under which it will happen. That is very similar to those who may have read Erich Fromm’s The True Believer and in appreciating fascism and how Hitler and other fascist leaders are able to mobilize people to just great intensity for the cause. When you throw into the mix an idealized form of religion that so many people share, all bets are off.

Bennett:  How do we combat this? What is the first and most obvious way?

Welner:  There are ways that we can combat it among our own citizens. However, I don’t see that we can’t combat this unless we are militarily involved, because it’s not going away. People do things in the name of the Muslim faith and in a way that gathers momentum, for example, Boko Haram and others, declaring allegiance to ISIS and gathering more land, they are not going away. What we don’t recognize is that they are going after Muslims first. That is their first target so we have a lead time and we have been through this before as a country. You have to deal with the problem when it’s small or you have to deal with the problem when it is much bigger.

Bennett:  Shouldn’t we be in a warmer embrace of Egyptian President Al- Sisi and King Abdullah and those who want to take on ISIS in military and in terms of their own religion?

Welner:  I think that President al-Sisi is a very important man of his generation, who is very clear-eyed about the ISIS threat. We have the wherewithal to support the coalition of the willing. However, there is an Iraqi military that cannot fight. There have not been alliances in Syria that can coalesce. The Jordanian military is really just ineffectual. The Egyptian military is extremely powerful. They are American armed. There is a traditional alliance that goes a long way. As far as I’m concerned and I say this as a very proud supporter of Israel I see President al-Sisi as a man of peace. He is not a troublemaker. He’s not looking like late President Nasser before him to establish his own hegemony and he is naturally aligned with the United States. Egypt didn’t kill 243 U.S. Marine servicemen as Iran’s proxy in Beirut did in 1983. Egypt didn’t take American hostages, Iran did. Egypt isn’t taking over Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon and Iraq, as has Iran with its own Shia version of a Caliphate, the Imamate. Astonishing to me that with Egypt so willing and so experienced in having to eradicate its own destabilizing force of Islamism, the Muslim Brotherhood and now Salafists and that the United States is sort of slow on the ball. Unfortunately because al-Sisi is a man of action he’s just going have to do it without us. President Obama is going to be left once again following from behind. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a man who can make a difference in a vacuum.

Listen to the Bill Bennett Morning in America interview with Dr. Michael Welner, Chairman of the Forensic Panel:

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

Hard to grasp the Middle East situation?

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A UK friend emailed me about the mess in the Middle East, saying that the tribal differences make it hard to grasp the situation there. Yes, from the standpoint of the inhabitants of the region, the situation is labyrinthine. But from the U.S. standpoint there is nothing complex about it at all. It is a secret hidden in the open, IF you know about the petrodollar agreement signed in 1973. You can truly call it blood money. Of course, in one way, the motivation of the U.S. policy is still hard to grasp, namely, how it could be so utterly and irredeemably EVIL?

Here is my response:

Dear X,

The key to ALL our Middle East wars in recent decades is the petrodollar agreement with the Saudis. It is not at all hard to grasp.

From the U.S. standpoint, the wars (and support for revolutions) are disarmingly easy to understand. Here is a digest explaining exactly why the U.S. has been fighting in the Middle East: http://www.americandailyherald.com/pundits/donald-hank/item/how-the-petrodollar-perpetuates-Islamic-terror

It all boils down to the petrodollar agreement signed between Nixon and King Faisal in 1973. Under this agreement, the Saudis agreed to demand payment for oil in dollars in exchange for “protection” of the Saudi royals and their oil fields. But in reality, the Saudis were not only interested in protection. Their aim was to have the US wage proxy wars against their religious opponents, mostly Shiites but also secularists.

In reality, every single war in the Middle East was fought by the U.S. as a proxy for the Saudis, essentially in defense of Saudi Wahhabism (radical fundamentalist SUNNI sect) against two groups:

  1. Secularists like Qaddafi and Saddam.
  2. Shiites like Iran and Syria (Shiites are in fact the less violent and radical of the two groups. You see why the ME has exploded, with the U.S. supporting the radical SUNNI Wahhabi sect and their minions — al-Qaeda, Taliban, ISIS? — Incidentally, Afghanistan and the Taliban are a somewhat complicated case. The Saudis turned against them because they were refusing to bow to the Saudis and were making bad publicity for Saudi Arabia)

That is just about all you need to know about U.S. motivation. In a word, money.

Young men from a “Christian” country dying for radical Muslims and their religion, and Christian churches standing with our contemptible government in support of these proxy wars. Easy to grasp the mechanics. Almost impossible to grasp the evil behind it.

Best,

Don

P.S.: Consider how IRAN is one of the countries having religious differences with the Saudis and how Christians have supported confrontation with that country without understanding what is behind it and without making a rational comparison of Iran with other Muslim countries (which would show Iran, with its 600 churches, to be significantly more Christian-friendly than Saudi Arabia, which bans all churches). Jesus commanded us to be gentle as doves and wise as serpents. You can’t have wisdom without any knowledge. Most American Christians are guilty of the sin of willful ignorance, something God hates as much as any other sin. He says My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge – Hosea 4:6.

Judging by the way Europe and even our allies in Asia have been turning away from the US-dominated World Bank and becoming founding members of the Chinese AIIB, we are truly being destroyed by our obstinate refusal to know the truth. Instead we prefer hokus-pokus, signs like blood moons and other nonsense. Please read the following article on the AIIB vs World Bank and leave a comment.

The Betrayal Papers: A New Genocide

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Part I of The Betrayal Papers explained the history and context of the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence in the American government.

Part II looked at the associations of seven Obama officials with Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in the United States.

Part III traced the Muslim Brotherhood’s and the State of Qatar’s influence on domestic policy and Obama administration scandals.

Part IV will examine foreign policy under Obama.  It will explain how the Obama administration and U.S. Department of State have used the American military and standing in the world as tools to kick start the creation of a new Islamic Caliphate.  Obama’s unconscionable enabling of and silence regarding a new genocide will be revealed.  Finally, this article will offer a cursory reassessment of America’s allies, and which countries we have lost as friends.

“The transformation of America has been in the full swing ever since 2008.  President Obama’s no-show in Paris was an embarrassment for all Americans.  But it also was a signal to the Islamic jihadis.  It’s one of the many signals he’s sent over the years while he’s in office.  Now there’s no question: We got a hell of a job ahead of us…  with the Muslim Brotherhood penetration in every one of our national security agencies, including all our intelligence agencies.” –  Admiral James ‘Ace’ Lyons, speaking at the Center for Security Policy

Is Obama a Muslim?

This is the question that many Americans and people around the globe are asking themselves lately.  From his refusal to label the Islamic State “Islamic,” to his lecture about the Crusades at the National Prayer breakfast, what once was taboo is now starting to be verbalized.

Yet this may be the slightly wrong question to ask.  The ruling establishment of Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, is rightly considered an authoritative voice of Islam.  In case you missed it, the Saudis have emerged as some of Obama’s biggest critics.

In doing so, the Saudis also revealed the truth regarding the Arab Spring.

Writing in the Saudi daily Al-Jazirah, columnist Dr. Ahmad Al-Faraj, while supporting Israeli’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, not only called Obama “one of the worst U.S. presidents;” he also exposed the nature of so-called “democratic revolutions” in the region.  Stated al-Faraj:

“Since Obama is the godfather of the prefabricated revolutions in the Arab world, and since he is the ally of political Islam, [which is] the caring mother of [all] the terrorist organizations, and since he is working to sign an agreement with Iran that will come at the expense of the U.S.’s longtime allies in the Gulf, I am very glad of Netanyahu’s firm stance and [his decision] to speak against the nuclear agreement at the American Congress despite the Obama administration’s anger and fury.”

Translation: Obama served as a mouthpiece for, and armed,the Muslim Brotherhood (i.e., “political Islam”) revolutionaries in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Syria.  He was aided in this incredibly destructive policy of jihad by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton until her resignation in 2013, and has been further aided by her successor, John Kerry.

The original Muslim Brotherhood, the Ikhwan, was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1927.  The conservative Wahhabi Saudi royals have traditionally had little use for exporting jihad, and indeed are one of the United States’ oldest strategic allies in the region.  Despite Americans’ revulsion at Saudi Arabia’s application of barbaric sharia (i.e., Islamic) law in their own country, outside the Kingdom Saudis have every reason to maintain the status quo with neighbors, including Israel, Jordan, and Egypt.  That means keeping the Muslim Brotherhood out of power.

The pertinent question is not whether Obama is secretly a Muslim, per se, but rather if Obama is a secret Muslim Brother.  That is the real question.

The Words of Obama, Dalia, and Rashad

If we take the Saudis, the most influential Gulf country, seriously, then it follows that Obama and his administration must have had a plan for the Arab Spring that goes back several years, i.e. 2008.

Part II of The Betrayal Papers identified seven Obama administration officials who had/have associations with several Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in the United States (CAIR, ISNA, MSA, etc.).  It also tracked their associations with Georgetown University and the Brookings Institution, both recipients of significant amounts of money from the State of Qatar, the home of many prominent Muslim Brothers.

One of those officials is Rashad Hussain, who is Obama’s Special Envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.  In August 2008, Hussain co-authored a paper for the Brookings Institution called Reformulating the Battle of Ideas: Understanding the Role of Islam in Counterterrorism Policy.  The paper, which calls Islam the “strongest ally” in the “global effort to end terrorism,” explicitly calls for the American government not to reject political Islam, but to utilize Islamic scholars and Islamic “policymaking” to reject “terrorism.”  It also recommends that “policymakers should reject the use of language that provides a religious legitimization of terrorism such as ‘Islamic terrorism’ and ‘Islamic extremist.’”

Is it any wonder now why Obama says that the Islamic State “is not Islamic?”  This is the deceptive language of the Muslim Brotherhood, recently welcomed to the White House.

Let’s now turn our attention at a report co-authored by Dalia Mogahed, who was a member of Obama’s Advisory Council of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and influential in writing Obama’s nefarious 2009 speech in Cairo.  Additionally, Mogahed is currently listed as a member of Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs.

Mogahed was part of the Leadership Group on U.S.-Muslim Engagement.  Other members of the group were former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (of World Trade Center Mosque notoriety), and Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Ahmed Younis.  The report issued by the group called for engagement and cooperation with political Islam, and specifically with the Muslim Brotherhood:

“The U.S. must also consider when and how to talk with political movements that have substantial public support and have renounced violence, but are outlawed or restricted by authoritarian governments allied to the U.S. The Muslim Brotherhood parties in Egypt and Jordan are arguably in this category. In general, the Leadership Group supports engagement with groups that have clearly demonstrated a commitment to nonviolent participation in politics.”

Indications of a plan to work with the Muslim Brotherhood were evident as early as June 2009, when the President went to Cairo’s Al-Azhar University to address the Muslim World.  The audience included prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood that Obama insisted on having seated in the front row.  Said Obama, “[The] partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t.  And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

With the statements of the Saudi journalist, Hussain, Mogahed, and Obama himself in mind, presented below is a thumbnail sketch of the Arab Spring and its consequences, and the intersection between the Obama administration and the Muslim Brotherhood.  This is only a fraction of the evidence that proves Obama has worked hand-in-hand with the Muslim Brotherhood to transform the Middle East.

Tunisia

In Tunisia in 2011, the government of Ben Ali fell after a man self-immolated, sparking a wave of protests.  Subsequently, Tunisia elected the Muslim Brotherhood Ennahda party, with a plurality of 37% of the vote.  In October 2014, Tunisia elected a secular government.

Libya

Libya exemplifies the essence of the so-called Arab Spring, an anarchic Muslim Brotherhood revolution that thrives on violence and chaos.

In such ungovernable disarray are significant parts of Libya today, that it is actually being used as a staging ground by ISIS for an invasion of Europe.

Despite repeated warnings and advice by the United States military to leave Muammar Gaddafi in power, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama launched a disastrous war against the Gaddafi regime, leaving a power vacuum for Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood to fill.

Practically, Libya served as armaments bazaar for the Muslim Brotherhood and all associated terrorist groups.  Libyan weapons have ended up in the hands of jihadis across North Africa, potentially contributing to the stockpile of arms of Boko Haram.  These weapons were also sent to Syrian rebels, including groups who are now part of ISIS.

Currently, an ongoing proxy war rages in Libya.  The anti-Muslim Brotherhood countries of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates battle Qatar and Turkey (close allies of the Obama administration) and the local Islamic terrorists.

Benghazi

Benghazi and all the mystery that surrounds it can mostly be dispelled in a few short paragraphs.  A few facts will inform the reader, and then the attack that killed four Americans on September 11, 2012 can be then put in the larger context of a Muslim Brotherhood-guided American agenda.

First, the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, aka Ansar al-Sharia, was hired to guard the compound by the American government.  In a word, they are a jihadi militia.

Second, the compound in Benghazi was crawling with CIA agents.  According to CNN’s Jake Tapper, there were “dozens” of CIA personnel present the night of the attack, and the Obama administration has gone to “great lengths” to obscure their activities.  Many speculate that Ambassador Stevens was a CIA asset in the State Department.

Third, only hours before the attack, Stevens met with a Turkish ambassador at the compound.  Turkey, it should be recalled, was a transshipment point for some Libyan weapons that were shipped out of the country to jihadis elsewhere.

Fourth, the Muslim Brotherhood Morsi government of Egypt was involved with the attack.  In fact, some of the terrorists were caught on video saying “Don’t shoot!  Dr. Morsi sent us!”

These facts beg the question: If Ambassador Stevens was in fact overseeing a gun running operation to Islamic/jihadi/Muslim Brotherhood militias, why would the same people kill him?

Given the above evidence, the prominent theory that Stevens was going to be a trade for the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, seems a plausible explanation.  (Morsi was dedicated to the release of Rahman.)  And this theory is endorsed by no less an authority than retired four star Admiral James Lyons.

Once this plan went spectacularly wrong, a number of other things occurred, which again, fit into the larger picture of a Muslim Brotherhood-control Obama administration.

In an alarming breach of protocol and duty, Obama’s Special Advisor, Valerie Jarrett, issued the order to the military “stand down.”  In other words, she ordered that Stevens and the other Americans be left to fend for themselves against a well-armed jihadi militia.

Regarding the now infamous Talking Points scandal involving Susan Rice, et. al., that blamed the attack on obscure and poorly produced movie, an MSA member from George Washington University was copied on the email sent by Ben Rhodes (who, recall, wrote Obama’s 2009 Cairo Speech).

Finally, George Soros is also connected to this scandal.  The Obama-appointed lead investigator for the attack was Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who has ties to CAIR, a well-known Muslim Brotherhood front group in the United States.  At the time of the investigation, Pickering was the co-chair of the Soros’ International Crisis Group.  He is still a trustee.

Egypt

So much has been written about Obama’s decision to force the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, and the subsequent election of Mohamed Morsi to the Egyptian Presidency, that the space here will be used only to reinforce some key and lesser known points.

  • Mubarak was the lynchpin of regional stability, the president of the most populous Arab country who maintained not only peace but a strong relationship with Israel and the United States.
  • Mohamed Morsi likely joined the Muslim Brotherhood through the Muslim Students Association in America, while he was a student at University of Southern California.
  • The wife of Mohamed Morsi was a long-time friend of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
  • When Morsi came to power and began to implement sharia law, Obama promised the Morsi government $8 billion in exchange for land in the Sinai for Palestinians (Hamas).  Once Morsi was removed, following a brief, murderous, and highly destructive reign of power, Obama immediately withheld military aid to Egypt.
  • Through 2013, the Clinton Foundation received between $1 million and $5 million from Qatar.
  • It appears likely that close Obama friends, the domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and wife Bernadine Dohrn, played a significant role in fomenting the protests which led to the resignation of Mubarak.  Terrorist birds of feather flock together.

In case you were wondering, Obama advisor Dalia Mogahed considered the ouster of Morsi a “coup,” and CAIR and ISNA were likewise critical of the restoration of secular law in Egypt, which no doubt has prevented the slaughter of countless Coptic Christian lives.

Syria, Iraq, and ISIS – A Lost War, a Genocide, and a Rape of Humanity

Say what you will about Bashar al-Assad, he and his father Hafez have always strongly opposed the Muslim Brotherhood.  Indeed, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, aka Abu Musab al-Suri, a lieutenant of Osama bin Laden and architect of the Madrid train bombings, spent most of his life trying to overthrow the Assads and implement sharia law.  (Not only is Nasar Syrian, his nom de guerre “Al-Suri” means “the Syrian.”)  As late as 2008, none other than Nancy Pelosi was hobnobbing with the secularly minded Assads.  John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry also dined with and were entertained lavishly by the Assads in 2009.

What Obama has unleashed in Syria by supporting jihadi rebels is an apocalyptic force of total depravity that specializes in genocide and cultural annihilation.  There are few words that do justice to the evil, inhumanity, and unbelievable cruelty that define ISIS and their end-of-times approach to warfare.

Not only do they set people on fire, but they also behead and torture children.  Americans are bombarded with these images regularly.  Equally as atrocious and appalling, they openly and gleefully destroy everything pre-Islamic.  Much like the Buddhas in Afghanistan that the Taliban dynamited, ISIS believes in the Islamic concept of Jahiliyyah, which demands that all traces of civilization before the time of Mohammed the Prophet be erased.

ISIS is literally rampaging across the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia, laying waste to some of humanity’s oldest faith communities, artifacts, and landmarks.  Simultaneous to the modern day Holocaust that is happening to ancient Christian communities in the occupied regions, ISIS trumps even the art-hoarding Nazis in their total disregard for all things that make us human.

In the face of this unspeakable crime against humanity, Obama has not once mentioned the ongoing genocide, much less the irreplaceable loss of culture and tangible history.  The airstrikes ordered by Obama and his advisor Valerie Jarret against ISIS have been described as “pin-pricks.”  This shows that they are either lackadaisical in the face of the genocide, or more likely do not wish to be bothered.  So committed is Obama to America’s defeat in the Middle East that he has appointed the above-mentioned Rashad Hussain, a documented supporter of political Islam, as a social media “warrior” to lead the cyber charge against these subhuman savages.

In time, the enormity of this crime will be examined through a historical lens.  A few decades from now people will wonder how the liberty-loving United States elected a hollow, morally insipid man named Barack Hussein Obama, who armed and trained a jihadi army that destroyed our common human heritage and murdered entire tribes by the thousands.

Of great concern, domestically the soulless ISIS is now operational in all 50 states (according to the FBI), and ISIS training camps have been discovered in various states.  A not-so-unexpected consequence of Obama’s open borders policy, indeed.

Regarding Iraq, it is no surprise and it is not hyperbole to simply state the obvious: Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood surrendered Iraq to the enemy, willingly and consciously.  Into this void steps an emboldened and rejuvenated Iran.

Afghanistan

Much like Iraq, Afghanistan is in the process of being surrendered to the Taliban.  Not only has the administration and (Afghan President) Karzai negotiated with the Taliban, they also idly watched as the same terrorists who hosted Osama bin Laden set up an embassy in Doha, Qatar.  A national intelligence estimate as early as December 2013 predicted that all progress would be lost once a military draw down began.

True to form, seven months after this estimate was released Obama swapped one American deserter, Bowe Bergdahl, for five high ranking Taliban commanders released from Guantanamo Bay, and a significant sum of money.

Following Obama’s policies, all the American blood and treasure spent liberating Afghanistan will be sacrificed by Obama, to the absolute benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood.

As a postscript, it will be noted that a primary source of Taliban funding, poppies for opium, have seen record Afghan crop yields in 2013 and 2014.

Nigeria

While #BringBackOurGirls may have been a temporary PR win for the Obama administration, it obscured the fact that the administration has been consistently enabling the growth of the jihadi army of Boko Haram by downplaying them as a threat.  As if on cue, last week Boko Haram pledged allegiance (bayah) to the Islamic State.

According to one report that rings true, Boko Haram began with a $3 million grant from Osama bin Laden.  One senior U.S. intelligence official stated, regarding the matter, “There were channels between bin Laden and Boko Haram leadership… He gave some strategic direction at times.”  This connection evidently does not phase the Obama administration and U.S. Department of State.

As Andrew McCarthy wrote regarding the Clinton State Department’s position on Boko Haram:

“Instead, ignoring what Boko Haram pronounces its goals to be, the Obama administration portrayed it as a diffuse organization with no clear agenda that was ascendant due to the policies of the Nigerian government (which is under Christian leadership).”

Hillary Clinton’s successor at State, John Kerry, sings the same tune, while thousands of Nigerians are massacred.  Following air strikes by the Nigerian government, Kerry urged restraint, warning Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan “to respect human rights and not harm civilians.”

Meanwhile, this African scourge has amassed a “massive army” that is reportedly stronger than the Nigerian Army.  Defeating Boko Haram will likely take the coordinated efforts of Nigeria and neighboring Cameroon, which has close ties to a very sympathetic Israel.  The French Army is right now operating out of Mali in Nigeria, contributing to the fight against the jihadis.

Israel

There is so much in the news regarding Obama’s falling-out with Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu that little needs to be added here.  The likely breaking point in the relationship was Obama’s and Kerry’s siding with Qatar and Hamas during the war last summer; and, more recently, with the obvious intention of Obama to permit Iran to develop their nuclear arms capacities.  This week, it is reported that Obama has appointed another Hamas-connected advisor, Robert Malley, to coordinate Middle East policy for the White House.

The deplorable disrespect and insults hurled at Netanyahu by the Democrats during his visit are the mirror image of an America whose college campuses have been overtaken with a virulent anti-Semitism.

Still, this chapter would not be complete without mentioning the integral part that Obama’s friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, terrorists themselves, played in launching the diplomatically catastrophic “Peace Flotilla” – boats from Turkey, filled with military supplies and other goodies, for Hamas.

Iran

Into the grand void, the power vacuum, created by the Arab Spring, steps a nation largely unaffected by the Arab Spring: Iran.  In fact, when Iran nearly embraced modernity and secular government with its so-called “Green Movement,” Obama and the Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett stood conspicuously on the sidelines.  Years in the making, the protestors and activists who challenged the Iranian mullahs paid dearly for their attempt at overthrowing the Islamic Republic while Obama’s administration remained silent and watched them get smashed.

An historic moment was totally squandered.

Whether it is in Yemen or in Iraq, Iran is the beneficiary, net-net, of the Arab Spring.  Even as their Supreme Leader openly calls for the destruction of Israel, the Obama administration proceeds undaunted with negotiations that would give them nuclear capabilities and the means to strike the Middle East, Europe, and the United States with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Conclusion

The Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi put it this way: Obama “switched sides in the War on Terror.”  The evidence presented above is but a glimpse into the preponderance of open source, published information that supports the Commission’s conclusion.

We are now faced with a totally new geopolitical situation: geographically, politically, and militarily.

With the body count growing by the day, and with a far larger war looming on the horizon, one would think that the responsible parties still left in government would pause, reflect, and begin to reverse course before it is too late.  Yet as recently as December, NATO hailed its partnership with terrorist financier extraordinaire, the Gulf State of Qatar.  This is tantamount to openly declaring allegiance to the Muslim Brotherhood, a totalitarian and genocidal movement whose actions we see manifested daily.

The ultimate fallout from this historic, awful change in American policy may very well be a war of untold destruction.  In the meantime, it is observed that some of America’s former allies have already decided that we, as agents of jihad, can no longer be trusted.  Egypt is forming a closer relationship with Putin’s Russia, as is Saudi Arabia.  India, which had moved closer to the United States under George W. Bush, has also turned toward Russia.  France, with the rise of the National Front party, may very well be next to look east to Moscow.  And Israel is openly courting new strategic alliances.

Truly, there have been few times in American history when our national commitment to morality, decency, and humanity has been so genuinely questionable.  If the majority of the American people understood what has already been risked by this president and his Muslim Brotherhood-aligned administration, they would demand immediate resignation and a full investigation of the government agencies which are in league with, and give aid and comfort to, the enemy.