40 years ago, the Democrats made the same mistake

Obama and his advisors and supporters in Congress did the same thing to the Iraq agreement set up by the Bush administration with forces to stay and protect after 2011 (revised by Obama to so small a force that the Iraqis rejected it) that the Democrats did to the Paris Peace Accord in Vietnam (wouldn't provide funds to protect after our troop withdrawal). Same result. http://hnn.us/article/31400

He can't blame Bush for this: "Since 2010, there has been a 58 percent increase in the number of jihadist groups, a doubling of jihadist fighters and a tripling of attacks by al Qaeda affiliates. The most significant threat to the United States, the [RAND Corporation] report concludes, comes from terrorist groups operating in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan." http://www.rand.org/news/press/2014/06/04.html

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR637.html

Wasn’t al-Qaeda defeated? Another Obama mistake.

“Over the past several days, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq, has taken control of large sections of two western Iraqi cities that were once bastions for the terror group.”

http://counterjihadreport.com/2014/01/03/al-qaeda-seizes-partial-control-of-2-cities-in-western-iraq/

Officials from the Iraqi Interior Ministry acknowledged that parts of Fallujah and Ramadi are under al Qaeda control.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/01/al_qaeda_seizes_cont.php

Top Republican senators on Saturday blamed the Obama administration for Al Qaeda-affiliates purportedly over-running parts of Iraq, including the city of Fallujah that the United States secured before President Obama removed all U.S. forces from that country in 2011. . .

“The administration's narrative that Iraq's political leadership objected to U.S. forces remaining in Iraq after 2011 is patently false,” said McCain and Graham, military hawks with an active interest in Middle East affairs. “We know firsthand that Iraq's main political blocs were supportive and that the administration rejected sound military advice and squandered the opportunity to conclude a security agreement with Iraq."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/01/04/mccain-graham-blame-obama-for-al-qaeda-related-takeover-fallujah-call-situation/

Obama is confused about al-qaeda

So Obama is expressing our national grief and concern about al-qaeda Somalis killing Christians and others in a Kenyan Mall (some of them possibly Somali-Americans), while at the same time arming al-qaeda linked rebels in Syria who are killing Christians and others. Does this make any sense?

http://news.yahoo.com/somalias-shebab-claims-responsibility-nairobi-mall-attack-182747786.html

Kenyatta, who called for patience, said he had received "numerous offers of assistance from friendly countries" but that for now it remained a Kenyan operation.

However, a Kenyan security source confirmed that Israelis "are rescuing the hostages and the injured". The Israeli foreign ministry refused to confirm or deny its agents were involved.

Why is it a good idea to arm these guys?

These are the rebels Obama wants to arm.

"The video shows the teenagers shooting handguns at a large photo of Syrian leader Bashar al-Asad. It also shows them stating that their leader is Abu Bakr al Baghdadi (the head of al Qaeda in Iraq), and then singing joyfully of their desire to overthrow both Asad and his sister Bushra, of the valor of al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri and of al Qaeda’s success in blowing up the World Trade Center towers. "We destroyed America with a civilian airplane,” the young Syrian rebels sing. “The World Trade Center was turned into rubble. The World Trade Center was turned into rubble. -

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/syrian-rebel-teens-sing-al-qaeda-camp-we-destroyed-america-civilian-airplane

Obama, Clinton, Panetta—listen up

Let's bring all military home and stop supplying arms to Muslim fundamentalists. This whole Arab Spring Obama joy ride is a crock, and just the flip side of "nation building," only there's no plan for democracy. Let them battle it out and we'll drill for oil at home. Our Commander in Chief, our Secretary of State and our Defense Secretary are complete ______ (fill in the blank), and not one more life should be lost to their bungling.

It's one thing for a President (Bush) to say, all peoples deserve to have democracy and we'll help. It was naive, but made a lot more sense than trying to pick the winners and losers in a civil war amongst Muslim tribes, Muslim sects and Muslim dictators. Obama has been a complete failure in picking winners, whether it is green energy companies or the Muslim Brotherhood, aka Peace and Justice Party.

If an Obama supporter reads the tragic account of the last hours of the Americans in Benghazi just reported today when all those who could've helped were told to "stand down," and doesn't change her mind, she's hopelessly lost. The Seals were CIA operatives there to track down our lost arms—lost in Obama’s attempt to take sides in civil wars and he armed the wrong guys.  They are the ones who left their compound and came to the aid of the ambassador, and lost their own lives.

I know a lot of Conservatives think the economy is the critical issue, but I can't get it out of my head that the Commander in Chief of The United States Armed Forces left his men behind. No, not only left them, but made a conscious decision not to save them. Just disgusting. And shame on Colin Powell for supporting him.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say/

And on September 12 Obama continued partying

“About a half-hour after militants overran the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last month [that would be September 11, 2012 a date everyone should have been prepared for], the State Department notified officials at the White House and elsewhere that the compound was “under attack” by about 20 armed assailants, e-mails obtained by The Washington Post on Wednesday show.”

Washington Post

“But in the following days, [Jay] Carney maintained there was no evidence suggesting the attack was "planned or imminent."

The administration also suggested that an anti-Muslim video produced in the United States likely fueled a spontaneous demonstration in Benghazi as it had in Cairo, where the U.S. Embassy also was attacked.” [It didn’t just suggest it—it trumpeted it inflaming emotions in Muslim countries, and arrested the film maker who is still in jail.]

CNN

The White House is doing everything it can to make it look like they were in control, that they knew, but that information/intelligence was mixed.  Not so.  They watched in real time—someone had to send the drone that filmed it.

It’s a huge cover-up, not just a cover-up of how little control they have there, but the cover-up of the pipeline of arms from Syria to al-Qaeda.  Our guns.  Another Fast and Furious.  The U.S. government is a gun runner, and our own people are being killed due to the incompetence of this administration.

The Benghazi cover up and why

Why did the White House persist with the phony story of a protest against a video being the cause of Ambassador Stevens' death, when they had to know there was no protest?

The most plausible explanation is that the truth -- we were being hit with the worst terror attack since 9/11 in a city we saved -- would have exposed Obama's boasting about his Libya triumph and al-Qaida being "on the run" and "on the path to defeat" as absurd propaganda.

Al-Qaida is now in Libya, Mali, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Pakistan.

And the epidemic of anti-American riots across the Muslim world, with Arab Spring elections bringing to power Islamist regimes, testify to the real truth. After four years of Obama, it is America that is on the run in the Middle East.

But we can't let folks find that out until after Nov. 6.

Hence the Benghazi cover-up.

Read full essay with time line here.

Tough on Republicans, soft on terrorists

He lied about his support for “the Bush wars” (voted for them) and he lied about the HHS Mandate (there is no allowance or agreement that Catholic Bishops have approved) and lied about who knew what when about Benghazi attacks (facts were known within 24 hours and for 2 weeks Obama, Clinton and Rice lied) and he waffled on abortion (he’s a cafeteria catholic).  Good old, foot-in-mouth Joe  is truth-challenged, and too confused about his own values and the administration’s policies to be a heart beat away from the presidency. 

Was an American citizen deprived of due process?

According to government reports and news sources from around the world, the well-known American-born radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in Yemen on Friday, September 30, 2011, along with American jihadi propagandist Samir Khan. This report is designed to provide background on al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the organization al-Awlaki headed, and the influence he and Khan had on global terrorism. The report includes information on:

-Terrorist activity by al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Qa'ida in Yemen;
-Terrorism by the larger al-Qa'ida network;
-Anwar al-Awlaki's involvement with terrorists targeting the United States; and
-al-Awlaki's rise as an English-language jihadi propagandist.

Anwar al-Awlaki was a leader of the al-Qa’ida (AQ)-affiliated group based in Yemen, known as AQAP. Samir Khan was the editor of AQAP’s English-language publication, Inspire.

Read more here.

Threats against trains in the U.S.

I'm a little surprised that the threats against trains by al-qaeda haven't been taken more seriously. I haven't been on Amtrack since 2003, but because they come into the central city of every major metropolitan area, and there was nothing in the way of security checks that I could see in Chicago or LA, at least not like the airports, it would seem to be prudent to heed their warnings. Maybe things have changed in 7 years.

Evidence collected from Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan indicates that Al Qaeda considered launching a terrorist strike against America's rail system, U.S. officials said Thursday, though there was no sign of concrete plans to carry out an attack.

The plot was "aspirational," said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information.

Al Qaeda plot: Osama bin Laden raid reveals evidence of terrorist plot against U.S. rail system - Los Angeles Times

Ohio Alerted Of al-Qaeda Railroad Threat | WBNS-10TV, Central Ohio News

The Obama Doctrine: Kill don't capture?

Without the ground work of the Bush years, there would have been no Navy Seal operation taking out Osama on May 1, however, John Yoo's point in the WSJ is interesting, isn't it? Osama bin Laden could have easily been taken alive. But if you kill the opponent, then you don't have to mess with those pesky ethical issues of interogation and imprisonment--those things about which Obama so vehemently criticized President Bush.

"Over the past two years, congressional pressure and the demands of the real world have forced Mr. Obama to give up his law-enforcement approach to terrorism. Thanks to congressional funding riders, Gitmo remains open and terrorist detainees there cannot be brought to the United States. Attorney General Holder has finally dropped his ill-conceived plan to prosecute al Qaeda leaders in Manhattan, and he has now restarted the military commissions devised by the Bush administration.

The repatriation of Gitmo detainees has also ceased, again due to congressional pressure. Mr. Obama's advisers have even publicly reaffirmed his authority to capture or kill terrorists as enemy combatants. Drone attacks have more than tripled.

Mr. Obama's policies now differ from their Bush counterparts mainly on the issue of interrogation. As Sunday's operation put so vividly on display, Mr. Obama would rather kill al Qaeda leaders—whether by drones or special ops teams—than wade through the difficult questions raised by their detention. This may have dissuaded Mr. Obama from sending a more robust force to attempt a capture."

John Yoo: From Guantanamo to Abbottabad - WSJ.com

Al-Qaeda background report from Global Terrorism Database

"Al-Qa’ida’s operations were especially deadly even in comparison to other notorious, long term terrorist organizations:

ETA, the Basque nationalist terrorist group in Spain, has been responsible for approximately 820 deaths from 1972 to 2008.

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was responsible for 1829 fatalities dating back to 1970—less than half of the number of people killed by al-Qa’ida.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has been responsible for 4,835 terrorism fatalities in its history. While FARC has imposed this bloodshed over the course of more than 30 years, Al-Qa’ida’s 4,299 deaths were concentrated in just a 10-year period.

Since 1998, there have been 408 incidents of mass-casualty terrorism—single events in which more than 25 people were killed. Al-Qa’ida was responsible for 16 mass-casualty terrorism attacks—more than any other group during this same period.

Al-Qa’ida has also become a crucial “node” of a network of deadly terrorist organizations—some created in the hopes of replicating al-Qa’ida, others aligning with al-Qa’ida for ideological or practical reasons. Research by Victor Asal and R. Karl Rethemeyer at the University of Albany (SUNY) has identified 33 different terrorist organizations with direct links and alliances to al-Qa’ida."

START background report, May 2011

The attack on Westergaard cows media and academics

"The attack on [Kurt] Westergaard is a textbook application of terror. Even the weapons chosen — an axe for example — contributed to instilling fear. Although Westergaard himself escaped unharmed, every European writer knows that the next victim may not be so lucky. And that next writer may be himself. The Somali also demonstrated the second object lesson of terrorist pedagogy. They reminded the world that they never forget. Salman Rushdie is still on the run. Westergaard will have to be guarded until the day that he dies. There is no statute of limitations on al-Qaeda’s anger. Blasphemy is forever.

And it works. By slow degrees the intellectuals are being cowed into silence. . ." Belmont club

But it's only a suggestion

Washington Post, again late to the party, says: "Arrests suggest U.S. Muslims, like those in Europe, can be radicalized abroad." Link. Actually, they can be radicalized at home too, as the Ft. Hood terrorist has proven, and other examples from the WaPo article. A-3 of yesterday's WSJ had a full page (2 stories) on young American Muslims radicalized right here in the good old US of A. Products of American schools and parents. David Headley (changed his Pakistani Muslim name) who is fair skinned due to an American mother is charged with helping the 2008 deadly Mumbai attacks. Then five American Muslims have been arrested by Pakistani anti-terrorism authorities. They had been reported missing by their DC area families. I wonder if they'll be treated as well as the Gitmo detainees by the Pakistanis?

Over a week ago (Dec. 4), the story in the WSJ about the al-Qaeda bombing of a graduation ceremony in Somalia brought ears to my eyes--and a lot of anger. Even the liberal WSJ seemed at a loss for appropriate "explaining away" the horrible images of a graduation blown up by fellow Muslims--why? For accepting aid and assistance from the U.S. so Somalia can drag itself out of the middle ages. Did Obama even mention it? No, he can personally and ignorantly condemn the Boston police on a moment's notice, but for 19 dead Muslims blown to pieces, a message from the State Department will have to do. It's not like there wasn't warning--an April WaPo story said the administration was "mulling" over the evidence. In that story it was reported 20 Somali-Americans were training in Somalia. Mulling. Is that another word for dithering--as in Afghanistan troop requests? He's the one with all the warm fuzzies, who thinks the power of himself will quell all this violence and evil. Oh wait. No, that was before his Afghanistan speech. Our just-fell-off-the-turnip-truck President must be a delight for the Muslim terrorists. Or maybe the Somali Muslims didn't get that message that he now knows there is good AND evil. Maybe they know he has no intention of stopping them. The account of Abdinasir Mohamed's of doctors, engineers, professors and government officials being left in a pile of mangled bodies is something all jihad-deniers need to read.

Suspected al-Qaeda financier arrested by Yemenis

Hassan Hussein bin Alwan provided money for attacks in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, according to recent reports. His arrest "will be instrumental in understanding the system for global terrorism financing" the Yemeni Embassy annouced, boldly using the T-word American journalists have black listed.

Let's hope Obama, Pelosi and Reid don't get to decide the interrogation techniques. This guy would probably love to be on Gitmo about now.

A Brit observes President Pantywaist and asks why?

Gerald Warner at Telegraph.co.uk writes and wonders as do many of us on this side of the pond--why does Obama hate America so much?

If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter.

Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.

That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on waterboarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley, Virginia, to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda.

"Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks," he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed.

So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradiated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers. . .

President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cozying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they realized, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?

I really wish there were evidence to refute this.

Counter Terrorism at the liberal Aspen Institute

On April 9, 2009, Michael Leiter, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, a holdover from Bush in the new Obama administration, addressed members of government, industry, media, and the public policy community convened by the Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Program at the Institute’s Washington offices. I'm sure he would have preferred being invited to Aspen in the summer, but oh well. . .

Director Leiter discussed the current state of Al Qaeda. According the the Aspen Institute website . . . "he argued that efforts to kill or capture senior leadership in the last year or so have succeeded in significantly diminishing Al Qaeda’s ability to strike the homeland. Still, the group continues to be a major security threat, and defeating it must remain a top priority for policymakers, notwithstanding the economic crisis and the many other domestic and foreign crises that now vie for our leaders’ attention."

During Q & A (very hard to hear the quetions) he sets the record straight--it's no accident that the U.S. wasn't attacked during the Bush years. But if we are attacked during the Obama years, it doesn't mean we have failed. "Intelligence is an imperfect business . . . " It's called CYA.

I sensed the host was trying to trip him up a bit, but he really is covering his bases here. This was before Napolitano's Tea Party fiasco. This is not the most scintillating talk I've ever heard, but these kinds of things are going to become less and less available, unless a non-government, non-Aspen site is archiving them (unlikely). I'm guessing that Mr. Leiter will soon be among the unemployed and that the NCTC will either disappear or quietly be folded into something else, and never be heard from again. After all, our current President believes his personal charm will protect us.

Accuracy in Media noted in 2006 that "the Aspen Institute is the number one sponsor of privately funded travel for members of Congress, having spent $3.4 million on Congress from 2000-2005. Aspen is one vehicle whereby left-wing billionaires like George Soros work to influence politicians on Capitol Hill by bringing them to luxurious places, hotels and resorts, and listening to mostly liberal and left-wing speakers."

The closing of Gitmo

Oh, weren't they jubilant yesterday. The War on Terror is over--with a stroke of the pen. Now we're safe again--the rest of the Muslim world will fall at the feet of a convert to Christianity. Let them build high security prisons in the districts of Murtha and Pelosi, Pennsylvania and California, and park the terrorists there. Wait, make that just California. Western Pennsylvania is too close to Ohio. They shouldn't be put in U.S. prisons, military or general population, because they are so dangerous, both to the prison staff and the other prisoners. Plus, do you really want them recruiting among the prison population? Well, sure, some of you do, but what about the nearly 48% who didn't vote for Obama or only voted for his color and not his policies?

We used to visit prisoners in the old Ohio Penitentiary in downtown Columbus (now torn down). Even good old boys from southern Ohio can make weapons out of anything. Imagine what an al-Qaeda boy could do.

Louis Pepe is sounding the alarm because his attacker used the same type of container to blind him with a mixture of Tabasco sauce and pepper before plunging a sharpened comb through his eye into his brain.

"I thought for sure, after what happened to me, they wouldn't allow them to have the same things," Pepe said from a wheelchair in his Brooklyn apartment.

Michelle Malkin says: "King of Pork John Murtha, the 19-term Democratic congressman from western Pennsylvania, now wants to welcome a flood of Guantanamo Bay jihadis into his district. I don’t want to hear a single word of protestation from the constituents who put this money-grubbing, security-undermining fool back into office. As you vote, so shall you reap." Link

3902

What he saw in Iraq

In the WSJ yesterday (6-15-07) Joe Lieberman tells "What I saw in Iraq." You remember that Joe was abandoned by his party when he chose to support Bush on the war, but he won reelection anyway. I'm not sure what happened to his committee status. But I think he reports things we won't see in the regular news sources. It helps to have been there, I suppose, rather than sit in air conditioned studios and opine or read what someone else wrote.

90% of suicide bombings are the work of non-Iraqi, al-Qaeda terrorists

al-Qaeda's leaders say Iraq is the central front of their global war against the U.S.

al-Qaeda wants to use the Sunni-Shia bloodshed to collapse the Iraqi government and radicalize the region (it has certainly worked with the American leftists)

Iran is doing everything in its power to drive us out of the region

al-Qaeda has shifted its focus because the surge is successful, not because it isn't. Democrats have it backwards.

Why do Democrats and some wimp-Republicans want a failed state in the middle east brought down by al-Qaeda and Iran?