Tag Archive for: U.S. State Department

With U.S. Foreign Policy In a Shambles, Secretary of State Blinken Finds Something to Celebrate

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My latest in PJ Media:

Those who helped us out during our long military misadventure in Afghanistan only to be left behind in Kabul know that Joe Biden’s handlers are not the most reliable people in the world, but there is one thing they can always be counted on to be, and that is tone deaf. And so on Sunday morning, Secretary of State Antony Blinken looked out on what he had wrought. He saw China emboldened, Afghanistan lost, and Iran more aggressive than ever, and he took to Twitter to give us the perfect response to all the fires he and his colleagues have started or made rage hotter than ever. He tweeted: “Humbled to reach one million Twitter followers as Secretary of State — and especially so because it means that I can share the outstanding work of our @StateDept team with so many at home and around the world. It’s a privilege. Thank you.”

The “outstanding work” of our State Department? You have to admire the man’s chutzpah. To head the State Department during Joe Biden’s dumpster fire regency for Kamala Harris, with the Taliban enjoying billions of dollars’ worth of American military equipment, and China sending increasingly threatening signals about invading Taiwan, and the Islamic Republic of Iran growing more belligerent by the day, and to claim in the face of all that and more that the department is doing “outstanding work,” takes an oddly audacious dishonesty, or a resolute determination to deny the evidence of one’s senses, or both.

Even the fact that Blinken thinks that gaining one million Twitter followers is some kind of affirmation is ridiculous in itself and raises inevitable questions about the man’s priorities. Most of his Twitter feed gives the impression that he is simply a glorified goodwill ambassador; in another tweet on Sunday, Blinken wrote: “Such a pleasure chatting with Senegalese fashion industry icons Xalil and Milcos, who are both @StateIVLP alumni. They are doing dynamic work in Dakar and exemplify the important role artisans and entrepreneurs can play in growing their economies and increasing prosperity.” I’m sure Xalil and Milcos do wonderful work, but this is the Secretary of State of the United States; you’d think he would be embarrassed to be reduced to tweeting about something as world-historical as Senegalese fashion icons. But one of the many things that are beyond the capabilities of Biden’s handlers is embarrassment.

When Blinken does tweet about more pressing matters, he only underscores his own impotence. On November 19, he tweeted, “I condemn the Houthis’ detention of our staff and breach of the compound used by our Embassy in Sana’a prior to our 2015 suspension of operations. The Houthis must immediately release our staff unharmed and vacate the compound immediately.” This was over a week after the Houthis stormed the U.S. Embassy in Sana’a and even longer after they took hostages from among its staff. Why did it take Blinken so long to respond? What did he do beyond take to Twitter to issue this empty condemnation?

There is more. Read the rest here.

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EDITORS NOTE:  This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden’s handlers say visa applicants denied under Trump’s ‘Muslim Ban’ can now reapply

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What could possibly go wrong? Here’s a hint: Somali Muslim migrant Mohammad Barry in February 2016 stabbed multiple patrons at a restaurant owned by an Israeli Arab Christian; Ahmad Khan Rahami, an Afghan Muslim migrant, in September 2016 set off bombs in New York City and New Jersey; Arcan Cetin, a Turkish Muslim migrant, in September 2016 murdered five people in a mall in Burlington, Washington; Dahir Adan, another Somali Muslim migrant, in October 2016 stabbed mall shoppers in St. Cloud while screaming “Allahu akbar”; and Abdul Razak Artan, yet another Somali Muslim migrant, in November 2016 injured nine people with car and knife attacks at Ohio State University.

Seventy-two jihad terrorists had entered the U.S. from the countries listed in Trump’s initial immigration ban before it was instituted. But once the travel bans came into effect, suddenly we didn’t see as much of this as we had before. Yes, this was no coincidence.

There are warning signs from Europe as well. All of the jihadis who murdered 130 people in Paris in November 2015 had just entered Europe as refugees. Numerous other Muslim migrants since then have committed “lone wolf” jihad attacks on the streets of several European countries.

But to consider such matters is now officially “racist” and “Islamophobic.” The problem with virtue-signaling by our moral superiors in Washington, however, is that they never have to deal with the consequences of their actions; ordinary Americans do.

“U.S. says visa applicants denied due to Trump ‘Muslim ban’ can reapply,” Reuters, March 8, 2021:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Most U.S. visa applicants who were denied because of former President Donald Trump’s travel ban on 13 mostly Muslim-majority and African countries can seek new decisions or submit new applications, the State Department said on Monday.

President Joe Biden overturned Trump’s so-called Muslim ban on Jan. 20, his first day in office, calling it “a stain on our national conscience” in his proclamation.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said applicants who were refused visas prior to Jan. 20, 2020, must submit new applications and pay a new application fee. Those who were denied on or after Jan. 20, 2020, may seek reconsideration without re-submitting their applications and do not have to pay additional fees, Price said….

Since December 2017, after a revised version of the original travel ban was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, some 40,000 people have been barred from entering the United States under the ban, according to State Department data.

During the Trump administration some countries were added and others dropped from the list. At the end of Trump’s presidency it comprised Myanmar, Eritrea, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Nigeria, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Venezuela and Yemen.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

U.S. State Department Lets in Four Times as many Muslim Terrorists as it Keeps Out

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The solution: bring in more Syrian refugees. There will be jihadists among them, sure, but only greasy Islamophobes care about that.

malik_farook_airport

“U.S. lets in four times as many suspected terrorists as it keeps out,” by Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post, December 21, 2015:

The Obama administration insists that it is safe to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees because we have “very extensive screening procedures” in place. “It involves our intelligence community, our national counterterrorism center, extensive interviews, vetting them against all the available information,” deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes recently declared.

He left out one fact: Those screening procedures are so broken that, State Department records show, they let in more than four times as many suspected terrorists as they keep out.

The State Department admitted to Congress last week that it had revoked the visas of 9,500 individuals since 2001 who were believed to have either engaged in terrorist activities or were associated with a terrorist organization. Think about what that means: Nearly 10,000 people considered too dangerous to enter the United States because of suspected terrorist activity or association were mistakenly granted visas to lawfully enter the country. They successfully penetrated our defenses, beat our screening system and got their hands on U.S. visas.

Worse still, after officials caught their mistake and revoked the visas after the fact, they lost track of the visa holders. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, pressed Michele Thoren Bond, assistant secretary for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, to explain what had happened to the 9,500. She replied: “I don’t know.”

We don’t know where these 9,500 individuals are, or how many of them — if any — are in the United States today.

That’s bad enough. But the story gets worse.

An examination of State Department records by American Enterprise Institute researcher Justin Lang found that since 2001, the State Department had denied visas to just 2,231 individuals because the applicant was suspected of terrorist ties or activity. Yet during that same period, the State Department granted U.S. visas to 9,500 people who it later figured out posed a terrorist threat — and had to go back and retroactively revoke those individuals’ visas.

The means our screening system is so bad, it let through more than four times as many suspected terrorists as it stopped. If a National Hockey League goalie let in more than four times as many goals as he blocked, he would be fired.

And let’s be clear: Those 9,500 visa revocations are just the suspected terrorists we know about. How many more terrorists are out there who also beat our screening system but officials did not figure out their mistake and revoke the visas?

I can name at least one: Tashfeen Malik. She never had her visa revoked. We learned she was a terrorist only after she and her husband massacred 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif. She beat our screening system, got into our country and carried out a terrorist attack.

So did Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 2009 so-called underwear bomber who nearly blew up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. His father walked into a U.S. embassy and reported that his son was involved with terrorists. Yet the Wall Street Journal reports that the State Department “didn’t revoke his visa after Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father alerted U.S. officials to his son’s potential radicalization.” How many more terrorist visa holders like Tashfeen Malik and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab are out there today?…

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U.S. Embassy in Paris turned away Americans seeking safe haven during Islamic State slaughter

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“They decided to walk two miles to the U.S. Embassy, hoping they could take shelter there. But, her husband said, they were turned away.” Why? Would letting them in have been tantamount to admitting that there is a jihad threat?

“Passengers arrive at Atlanta airport safely after Paris ordeal,” by Carrie Teegardin, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 14, 2015 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

Travelers arriving in Atlanta from Paris on Saturday afternoon described extraordinary long lines in Paris to get through security.

Claudio Merloni, who lives in Paris and was arriving in Atlanta for business, said it took more than two hours to go through a security line that usually takes him 10 minutes. Merloni said there was nobody on the streets in Paris when he left for the airport today.

“It’s two attacks, both in France in the same year,” he said. “You start to feel really targeted.”

In the midst of the chaos that erupted in Paris Friday night, Rebecca Hill-Bogle started to wonder how she and her husband, Will Bogle, were going to get back home to Georgia.

They were in Paris to celebrate Will’s birthday and were having dinner when Will looked at his phone and realized something was going on. The server at their restaurant told them they were about 10 minutes away from one of the deadly explosions that occurred during Friday night’s wave of terrorist attacks in the heart of the city.

“We saw a lot of police and ambulances; they were scurrying through the streets,” Will Bogle said.

The Macon couple tried to get a cab to get back to their hotel, but all the taxis were full.

Hill-Bogle is six months pregnant and she was starting to panic. They decided to walk two miles to the U.S. Embassy, hoping they could take shelter there.

But, her husband said, they were turned away.

“I was pretty disheartened that we weren’t allowed to get in,” he said….

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Uganda: Christian Pastor Umar Mulinde’s U.S. Visa Tied up in Bureaucratic Red-tape

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In February 2012 I had the opportunity to interview the amazing Christian Pastor Umar Mulinde, from Uganda who was a former Muslim. Pastor Mulinde was in the burn unit at Sheba, the marvelous hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Mulinde was taken in by the government of Israel to be treated after being attacked by Muslims in Uganda who threw ACID into his face on Christmas eve 2011. Pastor Mulinde has been through scores of operations and made a miraculous recovery. Now he is headed to a speaking tour in California, USA.

BUT, he is having a great deal bureaucratic trouble trying to secure his U.S. Visa. 

If you are in touch with any elected officials please contact them with this letter and let’s help this wonderful man, Pastor Umar Mulinde make it to the USA! The letter from the Uganda government is not for general public distribution but for those who may be able to help Pastor Mulinde.

Here is the interview my team and I did back in 2012.

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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Foreign Policy Absurdity #1: Iran and Hezbollah no longer Foreign Terrorist Organizations!

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For the first time in 36 years, the Annual Security Assessment presented to the U.S. Senate, by previous CIA Directors and Directors of National Intelligence, has “EXCLUDED” Iran and Hezbollah from the State Department’s Bureau of Counter-terrorism List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Without any doubt, at all, the National Intelligence Agencies of over 100 nations, consider Iran the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. Iran and Hezbollah have been consistently included on the List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations for 36 years by President Jimmy Carter, President Ronald Reagan, President George H.W. Bush, President Bill Clinton, and President George W. Bush.

This reckless and very “Treacherous” action by the occupant of the Oval Office, will confuse and handcuff U.S. Intelligence Agencies, the FBI, the CIA, the DIA, NSA, the Department of Justice, the National Security Council, the U.S. Armed Forces, and the U.S. State Department. This action was authorized while the world is currently watching Iran’s armed military Quid Force flying in thousands of boots on the ground to effectively take over Iraq, militarily, under the cover of defending Iraq from ISIL Removing Iran and Hezbollah from the List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations was ordered by Obama to support his pro-Iranian and anti-Israeli reckless Middle East Foreign policy, has to date resulted in Iran taking control of Libya, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, with Afghanistan and Bahrain in Iran’s sights.

The unclassified report, issued by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper on February 26, 2015 and entitled the “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Communities”, was published by the Times of Israel amid Israeli concerns. Iran is responsible for having killed and maimed thousands of members of the U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq with Iranian manufactured IEDs delivered to al Qaeda in Iraq. Iran is still killing and maiming thousands of U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan today with IEDs manufactured in Iran and delivered to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Iran’s terrorist front group, Hezbollah, is responsible for killing over 2000 Americans and members of the U.S. Armed Forces in terrorist attacks for 36 years.

Iran:

  1. Seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 66 Americans hostage,
  2. Repeatedly kicked and brutally beat to death Navy Diver Robert Stethem on TWA FLT 847,
  3. Murdered 220 U.S. Marines, 18 U.S. Navy, 3 U.S. Army personnel, and wounded 81 U.S. Marines in the truck bombing of the U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut,
  4. Captured Colonel William R. Higgins, USMC and CIA Station Chief William F. Buckley in Beirut then castrated them, removed part of their tongues, skinned them inflicting medieval barbarous torture on them for many months before brutally murdering them,
  5. Bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut killing 23 and wounding 21 Embassy personnel, killed 19 and wounded 240 U.S. Air Force personnel in the Khobar Towers with a fuel truck bomb
  6. In Dhahran, gave sanctuary and instructional training to al Qaeda’s 9/11 terrorists who murdered 3266 Americans in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, including the passengers on 4 planes,
  7. Iranian Quid Force agents were on the ground in Benghazi Libya when terrorist attacked the U.S. Mission and killed 4 Americans,
  8. And Hezbollah has continued to commit hundreds of terrorist attacks and murders against Americans for 36 years as the authorized state controlled terrorist agents of Iran.

These Shiite Radical Islamic Terrorists are the allies Obama has been developing a relationship with for 6 years, while he is entering into a flawed and unauthorized Iranian Nuclear Arms Treaty that will threaten the very survival of Israel, and will threaten the sovereignty of the friendly allies of the United States for the last 60 years of Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates.

Obama omitted Iran and Hezbollah from the State Department’s Bureau of Counter-terrorism List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, in preparation for him to execute a dangerous flawed and unauthorized Iranian Nuclear Arms Treaty that will permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons, so Obama can say in a television address to the America people, that he signed the agreement with Iran that is no longer the most dangerous states sponsor of terrorism. Even though provisions of the U.S. Constitution requires U.S. Senate ratification of any Nuclear Arms Treaty, Obama refuses to seek Senate approval before he signs a fatally flawed Nuclear Arms Treaty with Iran.

Iran has repeatedly announced for 36 years that they fully intend to destroy Israel, and when Iran finally develops nuclear weapons as a result of Obama’s flawed Nuclear Arms Treaty they plan to put the nuclear weapons atop their ICBMs, in order to be able to threaten Israel, the friendly Sunni allies of the U.S. in the Middle East, NATO, and the United States.

Obama’s goal is to permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons in order to checkmate Israel as a nuclear armed state in the Middle East, although Pakistan has already accomplished that goal. The very dangerous members of the Muslim Brotherhood in key positions of the Obama administration have insisted upon execution of the dangerous and flawed Iranian Nuclear Arms Treaty behind the scenes.

Obama’s vision-less and reckless action will result in a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, and may very well eventually lead to WWIII.

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