By: ICLA Admin
ICLA

ICLA’s Chris Knowles in the European Parliament

The following article was originally published on Aeneas Lavinium, the personal website of ICLA’s Chris Knowles. Is there a shadowy ‘old boy’ network violating human rights in the public sector in the United Kingdom? Should the British Government or even international agencies be investigating Common Purpose? Does Common Purpose support or oppose increased sharia compliance in the public sector in the United Kingdom? Perhaps identifying the downside of sharia should be part of the curriculum in Common Purpose’s famous ‘training courses’?

In the aftermath of the politically motivated discrimination by Rotherham Council of UKIP supporting foster parents there has been much speculation about a shadowy organisation called Common Purpose. Richard Pendlebury asked some important questions about that organisation in a recent article in the Daily Mail. If what has been said about Common Purpose on a great many websites is true then it would certainly explain some of the things that happened to me.

Back in December 2011 Leeds City Council stated that the reason for my suspension from my job was as follows:

“…the council has received allegations that you may have engaged in political activities, which could be viewed as improper activities for an employee of the council to be engaging in, and contrary to the councils values and equal opportunities policies.”

Leeds City Council has never provided me with evidence that this was indeed the case. Perhaps “which could be viewed” just meant that the political activities that I was accused of engaging in were based on views that senior managers did not agree with. Of course if senior managers are allowed to determine the political views of their subordinates then democracy is rendered obsolete. Perhaps this is what Common Purpose means when it refers to a ‘Post Democratic’ society?

After 7 months of investigating my case all they could come up with was the following as a reason for sacking me:

“The council has concluded that your behviours and values are so different from the council’s values, that this is a fundamental breach of your employment contract.

The council strongly believes in its values and exists to serve the citizens of Leeds, your own beliefs and behaviours are in opposition to what the council stands for and because of this, the council has chosen to dismiss you without notice and without right of appeal.”

In other words you are sacked because we say so – is this what is meant by the common purpose phrase “Leading Outside Authority”. In terms of the values referred to, who decides what they are – Common Purpose? I certainly do not remember my local Council asking the public what the Council’s values should be! In any event, Leeds City Council did not even tell me which specific values were so different to their own. Perhaps if they had, many Council Tax payers in Leeds would have spoken out in my favour. Could it be that Council values are developed behind closed doors by a group of people who are both anonymous and unaccountable? If values are kept secret or not clearly defined then they are certainly not open to public scrutiny. Perhaps such values allow for open discrimination of people who are members of political parties such as UKIP or campaign against sharia on the basis of human rights!

The equivalent position in the private sector would be for the owner of a company to sack people for belonging to a trade union or socialist political party. It could be argued that the values of both are at odds with the values of the capitalist system on which the private sector is based. Of course there would rightly be an outcry if this sort of logic was applied and people were prevented from earning a living as a result. Should private sector employers be free to bully their workers into sharing their political views? Should employees of such companies be forced to become Conservatives?

Common Purpose does not seem to like Conservative ideas. What if a group of people who did not like socialism decided to set up a work based network designed to develop future leaders? What if members of such a group worked together to ensure that anyone who challenged their world view was made to fear for their livelihood, liberty, or ability to play a full and active party in society? What if people were sacked from their jobs for being unpatriotic? People would rightly call such a regime a tyranny and demand immediate change.

When I turned up for the meeting at which I would eventually be dismissed a Police Chief Inspector was present and intending to be present at the meeting even though it was an internal meeting. Did this police officer and the Council officer meet as part of the Common Purpose ‘old boy’ network. Unfortunately the Chatham House rules that Common Purpose applies means that I will probably never find out.

Thankfully I turned up to this meeting with a lawyer and it was acknowledged that the police officer had no right to be in the meeting. I can only assume that the police officer was there to intimidate me, or to use a phrase that they often use themselves – to cause alarm and distress. As it turned out the sole purpose of the meeting was to dismiss me and only lasted a few minutes – goodness knows what had actually been planned prior to my lawyer changing the game!

Fear seems to be something that public bodies increasingly use against the people they are supposed to serve. The aims of those responsible for the Rotherham scandal undoubtedly wanted frighten those who were naturally opposed to their agenda and did not anticipate such a vociferous reaction. Their approach is a classic scenario involving the demonization of ‘the other’.

The application of fear was applied in my case, not just to me but to any other person who wanted to oppose sharia yet at the same time work for a local authority. The message sent out was clear – if you work in the public sector and oppose sharia then you will be sacked. Why local authorities want to encourage something like sharia is beyond me – perhaps it is a case of high officials not bothering to do due diligence about what sharia actually is! It is clearly not something that promotes equality of opportunity. In Rotherham the intended message was also clear. If you are a member of UKIP, which we do not like, then you cannot be foster parents! There are certainly parallels in both cases with the anti-communist ‘witch hunts’ organised Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s against those deemed ‘unpatriotic’.

Of course it is very easy to dismiss justifiable concerns by labeling people ‘conspiracy theorists’. There seems to be a lot of such labeling going on in relation to Richard Pendlebury’s Daily Mail article.

However, if everything is a conspiracy theory then how can actual conspiracies that are working against the public interest be revealed? How can the powerful be held to account when bad behaviour is explained away as a mere conspiracy theory? If there is a shadowy network operating behind the scenes how can we be sure that inquiries into matters of public concern are anything other than cover-ups? The Rotherham scandal is probably not an isolated case, but the inevitable cover up is probably more likely than solving the problem of politically motivated discrimination across the public sector. Common Purpose does appear to be an organisation that should be subject to an independent inquiry, but is such an inquiry even possible if key positions are occupied by Common Purpose ‘graduates’?

It seems that if you don’t share the political views of senior managers you have no right to work for or even benefit fully from the public sector organisations that they control. Those who hold high official positions may claim to represent the whole community but clearly many of them do not. There definitely seems to be a politicised agenda at work in the public sector in the UK. This is an irrefutable abuse of power and is quite sinister.

When it comes down to it, as the Rotherham issue demonstrates, it is the senior officials themselves who cannot leave their politics at the office door. They are the ones with the power to sack their subordinates, even without a proper hearing! Indeed it seems that they are in fact employed specifically for their politics. These are people who can and dosignificantly influence decisions and determine what services people receive – unlike lowly administrators like me. Yet the senior officers get away with such abuses of power and these abuses actually seem to be official policy. When the furore over the Rotherham scandal dissipates after the forthcoming by-election then things will probably settle back down to business as usual in which modern day Torquemadas can do their work.

Arlene from Israel

Today is the 65th anniversary of the UN General Assembly vote on the recommendation that Palestine be partitioned into a Jewish and an Arab state. This followed the surrender by Britain of the Mandate for Palestine, under which the British were supposed to work for the establishment of a Jewish homeland from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The British found themselves unwilling, finally, to cope with Arab violence and resistance to the Mandate and threw up their hands.

It was this vote that led, the following May, to Israel’s declaration of independence as a state. In solidly rejecting this recommendation, the Arabs rendered the portion of Palestine that could have been an Arab state unclaimed Mandate land.

Since 1977, the UN has been observing this same day as “International Solidarity Day with the Palestinian People.” It should be noted that the UN observes no other day as a time of solidarity with any other people. For example, there is no official solidarity observed for the Kurds, a legitimate people, residing in portions of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran, who clamor for the independence of Kurdistan.

Since 2005, the UN “Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” has been charged with organizing for this day an exhibit on the rights of the Palestinians or a cultural exhibit.

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No surprise then that Mahmoud Abbas has chosen this day for bringing a petition to the UN General Assembly regarding a Palestinian state. Abbas is most commonly referred to as president of the Palestinian Authority, but in fact his term expired in January 2009; more accurately, he comes as Chair of the PLO.

(The PLO is formally the representative of the “Palestinian people” and the party with which negotations are held, while the PA is an interim administrative entity established by the Oslo Accords, as agreed to by Israel and the PLO. In practice, and in media reports, this distinction is often blurred.)

The goings-on at the UN, including a scheduled speech by Abbas, will likely take place too late in the day, with the seven hour time difference between NY and Jerusalem, for me to wait until it’s all over and then begin writing. It is considered exceedingly likely, if not certain, that Abbas will secure the vote he is seeking. And so I will address the issues here. If there is need for additional reporting, or comment on his speech, I will do a follow-up (although it is questionable as to whether that will be tomorrow, as Shabbat is early).

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Last year, Abbas attempted to secure recognition as a state via the UN Security Council, but was rebuffed by a US veto. There is no veto process in the General Assembly and sufficient support to pass what Abbas seeks is already insured.

The US has lobbied with enormous energy to stop Abbas from proceeding. Without success. Neither have the Americans or the Israelis successfully prevailed upon European countries en masse to vote against this. It was felt that even if the motion passed (Western states being a minority in the UN), if a substantial bloc of Western democracies voted against this, it would undercut the power or legitimacy of the vote. But in recent days there have been European states that have declared they will vote with Abbas, most notably France, and also Spain, Switzerland and just possibly, Britain.

A couple of these nations have sought to qualify their support, saying they will vote for the motion, provided that Abbas agrees that he will not do this or will do that.

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We need to take a closer look, however, at what Abbas is actually seeking. The UN cannot create a state. Abbas wishes to create the impression that they can, and the Palestinian Arabs will celebrate as if this were the case. But this is illusion: PR, which is a good part of what this is all about.

What Abbas wants is an upgrade in PLO status in the UN. Instead of having non-state observer status, a Palestinian non-member state with observer status would be recognized. Only the Security Council can recommend that a state become a member of the UN, and this is not going to happen.

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What Abbas wants is recognition that this state of “Palestine” has as its border with Israel the ’67 armistice line, or Green Line — regularly but erroreously referred to as Israel’s legitimate “border” — and that it includes eastern Jerusalem. Specifically, he is asking the UN to recognize the “right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to independence in their State of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.”

But this is nonsense.

There are international criteria for the recognition of an entity as a sovereign state:

[1] The entity must exercise effective and independent governmental control.
[2] The entity must possess a defined territory over which it exercises such control.
[3] The entity must have the capacity to freely engage in foreign relations.
[4] There must be effective and independent governmental control over a permanent population.

In all likelihood the PA does not meet any of these criteria. What kind of government has a president whose term expired almost four years ago and hasn’t held elections as scheduled? But note, especially, number 2. Most obviously, the PA does not control all the land from the Jordan River to the Green Line in any terms, never mind exercising effective governmental control over it. The UN declaring a “state” on this line means zilch.

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Other than a PR coup, there are a couple of other things the PA/PLO hopes to gain from this exercise. The PLO, once assigned the status of “state” within the UN, will have access to certain agencies and committees directly affiliated with the UN.

Then there is the question of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, which is not an organ of the UN, but which the PLO hopes now to utilize for pressing charges of crimes against humanity against Israeli leaders. This is a dubious proposition (see below), but cannot be totally dismissed.

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In an effort to deflect criticism, Abbas has made statements regarding the fact that he will be willing to pursue negotiations with Israel after the vote, and that, in fact, it will strengthen the PA in a way that gives it further confidence in negotiating successfully.

What can I say about this? Piffle. He does not want to be seen as having pursued a path that destroys the potential for negotiations. This, after all, is what so alarms the US. And so, he is murmuring, “Don’t worry…” But while he issues these reassurances, there are reports that again the PA is saying it will not come to the table unless all settlement construction is frozen, etc., etc.

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Israel’s original position was that this action constituted an abrogation of the Oslo Accords — which require that there be no change in status of the situation except via negotiations — and that we will be free after the UN vote to pursue matters as we choose.

In recent days there has been a turnabout in the Israeli government’s position on this, with a determination to keep a low, wait-and-see, profile.

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It is difficult not to see the fingerprints of international pressure here. Obama is particularly concerned that Israel not take an action that would further interfere with the possibility of resuming negotiations.

The way Israel is presenting the situation is this: Were Israel to react now with a retalitatory measure, such as applying civil law to communities in Judea and Samaria, world focus would be on this. The onus for putting a roadblock in the way of “peace” would be placed on Israel.

And so the Israeli government has decided to sit tight and see what Abbas does next, taking its cues from this.

There is tremendous frustration on the right with this position. What we seem to be doing once again is determining our policy with our eyes cast over our shoulders — concerned with what the world will think, instead of behaving forcefully to assert Israel’s interests.

In this instance, however, I have concluded that going it slowly, and low key, might be the far better option. (With the proviso that if we later determine a stronger response is required, we will have the inner strength to act.

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Gabriela Shalev, a law professor and former Israeli ambassador to the UN, believes that some Israeli politicians have over-reacted to Abbas’s declared intentions:

“Our reaction was certainly exaggerated,” she said, referring to the PLO bid that was likely going to be “largely symbolic.”

When we react strongly, we run the risk of giving this ploy more credence than it deserves.

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In his response to my query, Alan Baker — international lawyer, former advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, former ambassador to Canada, and Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs — had this to say on the subject (emphasis added):

“Following the General Assembly vote there will be no state of Palestine. The UN does not have the power to establish states, and any general assembly resolution is nothing more than a recommendation. It has no mandatory powers. It merely constitutes the opinion of the states voting for it, nothing more.

Practically speaking, for purposes of the UN only, “Palestine” will be considered to be a non-member state, and will be moved from the observers seats to sit among the states, between Oman and Panama.

It will have no voting rights, and the only practical consequence that I can foresee will be a series of similar upgrades in the various UN specialized agencies that are obligated to follow the UN. That does not necessarily include the International Criminal Court which is not a UN specialized Agency but an independent judicial organ.

However, since even the states party to the ICC Statute, and its Prosecutor are nevertheless driven in their actions by international political considerations, the Palestinians well doubtless attempt to push themselves to be accepted as a state in order to be able to institute proceedings against Israel’s leadership.

I doubt if they will succeed because, as determined a year ago by the prosecutor, they still cannot prove that they have the components of statehood, and there would be considerable opposition within the enlightened elements of the international community.

You are correct in your observation as to this being an extra-judicial exercise. This is a classical PR exercise by Abu Mazen [Abbas] without any legal significance. After a failed career without any real achievement of peace or anything else, he needs to go down in history with something, and this will be it. He”ll get two days of glory and then nothing.

Regrettably the Israel government, rather than publicly dismissing this as a cheap PR exercise, is attributing to this exercise more credibility and importance than it merits, and thereby playing into the hands of Abu Mazen.

As to whether Israel wishes to act on this or not, and whether this initiative abrogates Oslo or not, it depends how we interpret it. If we consider it as an attempt to alter the status of the West Bank territories then it is a violation, entitling israel to declare the agreements invalid and carry out its own unilateral measures, whether this be to annex parts of the territory or take less far-reaching measures.

If, on the other hand, we choose to dismiss it as insignificant since, practically, there will be no change in the territory, then logically we shouldn’t react and we should merely dismiss it as a regrettable abuse of the international community.

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For those interested in further information, in a separate piece for the JCPA on the PA, “The Palestinians at the UN and the International Criminal Court,” Ambassador Baker wrote (emphasis added):

“The 1998 Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) enables only states – genuine states that are party to the Statute – to refer complaints to the court (in addition to the Security Council and the ICC Prosecutor). In the same way Palestinians failed in 2011 to prove statehood when they attempted to attain membership in the UN, in light of the clear lack of national unity and capability of governance and inability to fulfill international obligations of a state, so now in 2012 it would be highly unlikely, even after an upgrade-resolution, that they will be able to prove to the ICC that they are a genuine state entitled to initiate complaints against Israeli officials and officers.

“In 2011, after conducting an in-depth examination and consulting with experts, the Prosecutor rejected the Palestinian attempt to instigate complaints against Israeli officials and officers, and referred their request to the Assembly of States Party to the ICC Statute and to the UN Secretary-General”

http://jcpa.org/the-palestinian-attempt-to-upgrade-their-un-status/

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Said Mark Regev, spokesman for the prime minister, very recently:

“Ultimately, what we will see at the United Nations is diplomatic theater. It will in no way affect the realities on the ground.”

In Spite Of The Media’s Apathy, There Are Vital National Security Issues At Stake

By Col. Tom Snodgrass (Ret.), Right Side News

A List Of The National Security Issues Involved In Obama’s Benghazigate Cover-up:

1. The failure of President Obama’s Arab Spring-Foreign Policy.
2. The fallacious foundation of Obama’s national security policy toward Islam, concealing the true aggressive, imperialistic character of Islam.
3. The blatant, dishonest effort to mislead the American people about the cause of the Benghazi Islamic terrorist attack and the death of four Americans.
4. The Obama regime’s continuing effort to stifle honest discussion of the U.S. national security implications of the Islamic Quran’s and Sharia’s clearly hostile contents.
5. The State Department’s security planning failures preceding the Benghazi attack.
6. The failure of the Obama regime to react to the seven-hour attack to protect U.S. Government personnel.
7. The Obama regime’s continuing dishonesty in deceiving the American people about what actually occurred at Benghazi and why.

Analysis Of The Issues

1. The failure of President Obama’s Arab Spring-Foreign Policy.

The Benghazi Islamic terrorist attack exposes the failure of Obama’s Arab Spring-Foreign Policy that includes his unauthorized war of intervention to depose Gaddafi, a U.S. ally. Obama’s ill-conceived policy has enabled Islamic jihadist groups that are al-Qaeda-affiliated, like Ansar al-Sharia, to completely control the jihadist safe-haven in Eastern Libya. But this Arab Spring-Foreign Policy failure spreads far beyond Libya to include the Muslim Brotherhood’s dictatorial take-over of Egypt, the green light to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Hamas jihadists to conduct missile terror attacks on Israel, the unimpeded progress of the Iranian mullahs to acquire nuclear weapons, the Iranian domination of Iraq following Obama’s precipitous withdrawal of U.S. troops, the impending take-over of Syria by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the imminent defeat of U.S. forces in Afghanistan at the hands of Taliban/al-Qaeda forces.

2. The fallacious foundation of Obama’s national security policy toward Islam, concealing the true aggressive, imperialistic character of Islam.

The following Obama quotes attempt to vindicate Islam and distance the religion from its almost 1400-year history of hate, violence, aggression, and barbarity:

• “Islam has always been part of America.”
• “We will encourage more Americans to study in Muslim communities.”
• “These rituals remind us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings.”
• “America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”
• “So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.”
• “Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality”
• “As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.”
• “I look forward to hosting an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan here at the White House later this week, and wish you a blessed month.”
• “That experience guides my conviction that 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.”
• “I also know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story.”

Except for the above expressions of Obama’s personal feelings, it doesn’t get any more dishonest than this. To borrow Mary McCarthy’s pithy description of a rival’s work, “every word . . . is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.” When the above Obama quotes about Islam are combined with Obama’s words at the UN, which were, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” it becomes an inescapable but to conclude that Obama is actually attempting to get the West to adopt the Islamic Sharia’s blasphemy law against any criticism of Islam. In view of Obama’s many pronouncements, it is impossible to dismiss Obama’s unnatural mania for Islam. To say that Obama is a pandering Islamophile does not begin to adequately describe Obama’s obsession.

3. The blatant, dishonest effort to mislead the American people about the cause of the Benghazi Islamic terrorist attack and the death of four Americans.

The failed Arab Spring-Foreign Policy of the Obama regime is constructed on a brazen deception that conceals Sharia-mandated Islamic jihad; therefore, every jihadist attack must be made to appear to have been provoked by non-Muslims, hence the Obama regime manufactured the false narrative that an unknown video was the cause of the Benghazi attack.

The American people have been subjected to a transparently conspiratorial attempt at blaming a fictional, spontaneous mob reaction to some obscure Internet video, which mocked Muhammad, for the Benghazi Islamic terrorist attack and death of four Americans. This deception is an integral part of the Obama regime’s national security fabrication to conceal the existence and adversarial nature of Islamic Sharia-mandated jihad. Consequently, the entire Team Obama has engaged in manic attempts to deceive the American people about the attack-causal role of the Internet video, including when the president shamefully lied to the world before the UN in alleging that the anti-Muhammad video motivated the U.S. ambassador’s murder by an outraged Muslim flash mob! Obama clearly put the blame on video-attack-causation with these words:

That is what we saw play out the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.

This bold-faced lie was foisted on a global audience two weeks after it was “self-evident” that the Benghazi attack was conducted by terrorists, according to Obama’s own public relations flack, Jay Carney. But Obama’s video-attack-causation lie to the UN is apparently exposed as mendacity by Obama himself in the second presidential debate with Mitt Romney on October 16th when he asserted:

Obama: “The day after the attack, governor, I stood in the Rose Garden and I told the American people in the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened — that this was an act of terror — and I also said that we’re going to hunt down those who committed this crime.”

Romney: “I think interesting the president just said something, which is that on the day after the attack he went into the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror.”

Obama: “That’s what I said.”

Romney: “You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack, it was an act of terror. It was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you’re saying?”

Obama: “Please proceed, governor.”

Romney: “I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.”

Obama: “Get the transcript.”

There is no reconciling Obama’s claim that he said it was a “terror attack” in a speech to the nation on September 12th with his asserting the pernicious video-attack-causation lie to the UN on September 25th! So, was Obama lying on the 12th or on the 25th! Actually he was lying on both dates as well as on October 16th at the second presidential debate! When one takes Obama’s instruction and gets the September 12th Rose Garden transcript, one finds these words from Obama, “I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans… While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others…” In Obama’s statement that, “While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others,” it is obvious that he is propounding the video-attack-causation lie which lays the blame on an anti-Islamic, provocative action committed by an American, and he is not referring Islamic terror.

But the UN debacle was not the only international calumny committed by Obama. Again, after it was indisputably clear to U.S. Intelligence that the Internet video played no part in inspiring the Benghazi attack, Obama and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, disgracefully paid U.S. taxpayer dollars to appear on Pakistani television to perpetuate the video-attack-causation lie, unnecessarily provoking even more hostility in the Islamic world against the U.S. in the commission of this mendacity!

And then, five days after the Benghazi attack when the preplanned terrorist involvement was beyond question, there were the ludicrous TV performances of the U.S. UN Ambassador, Susan Rice. Obama called on Rice to robotically repeat the mindless video-attack-causation lie on five different Sunday morning TV talk shows, disgracing herself, her office, the Obama regime, and the United States in the process!

4. The Obama regime’s continuing effort to stifle honest discussion of the U.S. national security implications of the Islamic Quran’s and Sharia’s clearly hostile contents.

The following is an account of how far Obama and his regime have gone to flush the fact of Islamic jihadist imperialism down the “Orwellian Memory Hole”:

“… in order to continue on the irresponsible course of being ‘Islam-ignorant,’ the Obama National Security Council removed terms like ‘militant Islamic radicalism’ from the 2010 National Security Strategy and substituted ‘violent extremism’ and (undefined) ‘terrorism’ in an effort to deny and conceal the cause of the on-going war against America, and that cause is, the ‘theo-political-military imperialist doctrine’ laid out in the Quran and Islamic Sharia. From there the Obama administration’s obstructive effort becomes even more serious when Islamist and militant Arabic groups, representing the jihadist Hamas and Hezbollah terror organizations, demanded that the FBI purge its training materials of all information which the Islamists found offensive to their ‘religious sensibilities.’ To his ever-lasting disgrace, FBI Director Mueller complied with these Islamic demands, undoubtedly carrying out with his superiors’ policy.

“But it is at this point that the U.S. national security establishment descends to its all-time nadir when President Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, acquiesced to the stipulations in a October 19, 2011 letter to the White House, signed by 57 Muslim organizations, demanding that all training materials not meeting their approval be “purged” from the curricula of U.S. military schools and that instructors ‘guilty’ of teaching the Islamic Sharia to U.S. military officers be ‘effectively disciplined.’ Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley, Joint Forces Staff College instructor, was selected as the ‘guilty’ scapegoat to meet the Islamists’ punishment demand. Here is where it gets beyond outrageous. General Martin Dempsey proved himself to be the U.S. lackey-equivalent of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of Staff of the German Armed Forces High Command under Fuhrer Adolph Hitler, when he ‘personally attacked’ Lt. Col. Dooley on C-Span television, May 10, 2012, during a Pentagon News Conference. Obviously Dempsey was subserviently executing ‘his leader’s’ orders to suppress the truth about Islam. Lt. Col. Dooley’s ‘crime’ in Obama’s and Dempsey’s eyes was to present Islam in an accurate way that displeased Islamists in his Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism course. When America’s top ranking military officer publically rebukes a much junior officer on live television, which is absolutely unprecedented, it sends the unmistakable message to all officers in every military service that to be a truth-teller about Islam is a career-ending offense in the Obama military.”

5. The State Department’s security planning failures preceding the Benghazi attack.

In the months prior to the September 11th attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, the U.S. facility was physically attacked twice with explosives, the British diplomatic mission and Red Cross were both attacked and consequently closed their operations in Benghazi, several firefights raged through the streets of Benghazi, there were approximately ten Islamist militias and al-Qaeda training camps within Benghazi surrounding the U.S. facility, on August 8th the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, signed a two-page cable that he titled “The Guns of August: Security in Eastern Libya.” In it, Stevens noted a dangerous “security vacuum” had developed in and around Benghazi.

Additionally, an August 16th cable to the office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the embassy in Libya reported that the State Department’s senior security officer “expressed concerns with the ability to defend post in the event of a coordinated attack due to limited manpower, security measures, weapons capabilities, host nation support and the overall size of the compound.” It is almost incomprehensible that Obama and Clinton could have left the U.S. mission in Benghazi so ill-prepared after Stevens had communicated to Washington on June 25th, “Until the GOL (Government of Libya) is able to effectively deal with these key issues, the violence is likely to continue and worsen” and on September 4th Stevens’ aides also notified Washington that there was a “strong Revolutionary and Islamist sentiment” in Benghazi!

All of these precursors to the September 11th attack make understanding why the State Department denied repeated requests from Libya for more diplomatic security resources in Benghazi all but impossible! Vice President Joe Biden’s statement, “We weren’t told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security,” just strains credulity to breaking. It is either a monumental lie, or an admission of breathtaking incompetence.

6. The failure of the Obama regime to react to the seven-hour attack to protect U.S. Government personnel.

The failure to send a rescue force and then apparently lying about it to the American people are both counts of malfeasance that are impeachable offenses, in the opinion of former top federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy. In a local Denver television interview Obama was asked:

Question: “Were they [the Americans in Benghazi] denied requests for help during the attack?”

Answer: “Well, we are finding out exactly what happened. I can tell you, as I’ve said over the last couple of months since this happened, the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives.

“Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. Number two, we’re going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn’t happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice. And I guarantee you that everyone in the State Department, our military, the CIA, you name it, had number one priority making sure that [our] people were safe.”

Obama has never identified when exactly the “minute” was that he found out what was happening in Benghazi, nor has he specified whom he ordered at that minute to make sure that we were securing our personnel in Benghazi? Two more very pertinent questions that Obama has thus far successfully avoided is who carried out President Obama’s order to secure our personnel, and what exactly did they do to accomplish his order?

Obama’s actions in this tragedy will have to be accounted for in detail to the American people before this matter can be laid to rest.

7. The Obama regime’s continuing dishonesty in deceiving the American people about what actually occurred at Benghazi and why.

Unfortunately, it is this last issue that has pushed onto stage center and captured the majority of the media’s scrutiny and coverage. The unfortunate aspect in this otherwise beneficial media coverage is that the Obama’s regime’s dishonesty is so wide-ranging that subjects of secondary importance have the potential to distract attention from the core of Obama’s foreign policy duplicity.

The subjects of lesser importance being publicized by the media include the extramarital affair between CIA Director David Petraeus and his biographer Paula Broadwell, the strange liaison between U.S. commander of forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, and the Tampa socialite, Jill Kelley, the changing Intelligence Community-produced “Talking Points” given to Susan Rice to deceive the U.S. public on Sunday talk shows, the apparent lie by Petraeus about his changing judgments about the cause of the Benghazi attack to buttress the Obama regime’s video-attack-causation lie, and Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, changing his story to provide cover for the White House’s denial of complicity in the video-attack-causation lie contained in the bogus Intelligence Talking Points. (In the interest full disclosure, James Clapper and I were schoolmates as lieutenants in Air Force Signals Intelligence training.)

For me as a retired military officer, I am extremely disappointed by Petraeus’ changing his story from the video-attack-causation motivation in a congressional appearance one month to knowing all along that it was jihadist terrorism in a second congressional appearance the next month. I am equally troubled by Clapper’s denial of knowledge of the perpetrator of the Talking Points changes one week to volunteering to take the fall for the Obama White House as the culprit the next week. Both of these officers occupy positions of the greatest importance to U.S. national security, and it is vital that they have total credibility, not only for the president, but also for the American people’s congressional representatives. After their widely conflicting testimonies to congress, that credibility is entirely destroyed.

Conclusions

First, the most plausible explanation as to why the U.S. mission in Benghazi was denied the level of protection that the threat situation mandated is that increasing physical security in Libya would run counter to Obama’s false Arab Spring-Foreign Policy mantra. Obama has sold the foreign policy fiction to the U.S. public that all is well in “Islamdom” with democracy and freedom taking root as a result of Obama’s wise “leading from behind” strategy. Admitting that there was a deteriorating security situation, especially in Libya, would give the lie to Obama’s deceitful narrative. Furthermore, downplaying the Islamic jihadist threat overseas, as well as in the U.S., supports Obama’s fundamental foreign policy premise that Islam constitutes no threat to national security. Moreover, it is a travesty that the nation’s two top intelligence officials, Clapper and Petraeus, signed on to such a dangerous subterfuge.

Second, the important point to remember when the media floods the information market place with all of the secondary subjects is not to lose sight of the two most important issues in Benghazigate: 1) Obama has constructed U.S. national security policy vis-à-vis Islam on extremely bowdlerized, false versions of the Islamic Quran and Sharia that have no basis in fact, and 2) Obama’s behavior during the Benghazi crisis has raised potential regime-changing questions that demand answers.

Col. Thomas Snodgrass, USAF (retired), was stationed in Peshawar, Pakistan, working daily with Pakistani military personnel for more than a year; additionally, he was an Intelligence Officer and an International Politico-Military Affairs Officer serving in six more foreign countries during a thirty-year military career.