01/13/17

Our Warmonger President and the Lapdog Press

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

President Obama has moved the nation toward war with Russia, up to 500,000 are dead in Syria, Libya is a disaster, and Germany is welcoming a Muslim invasion of Europe that threatens the collapse of the European Union and NATO. Two million refugees are leaving the Middle East, some of them destined for the U.S.

Yet, Department of Defense News, an official Pentagon public relations outfit, released a story announcing that “Defense leaders hailed the commitment and accomplishments of departing commander in chief President Barack Obama in a formal military ceremony as he closes out his presidency.”

We were told that “During the ceremony, the president reviewed the troops from the five military branches, and received from [Defense Secretary Ashton] Carter the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. The event featured a 21-gun salute, and music from the U.S. Army Band ‘Pershing’s Own’ and the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps.”

If we had anything approaching an honest and objective news media, Obama would not even have attempted such a spectacle, out of fear that he would become a laughingstock. He has presided over a humanitarian disaster in Syria, where American troops are now dying, and his no-win war on the Islamic State has never been approved by Congress.

The CIA and the Terrorists

PBS Newshour ran an interview with Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, in which he said regarding Syria: “If we had a chance to do it over again, would there have been some adjustments and changes? I can’t speak for policy-makers. I’m not a policy-maker. But when I look back, in light of the way things evolved, I think that there could have been some adjustments to some of the policies, not just by the United States, but by other countries, in order to address this question earlier or, and not allow the ISILs and the Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaidas to gain momentum and steam and taking advantage of the destruction of that country.” Brennan went on to say, “…I think the way that the situation unfolded was—is regrettable.”

How does Obama’s CIA director get away with simply saying that the human misery and suffering in Syria spilling over into Europe are “regrettable?” Where is the accountability for this debacle? And on what legal and constitutional basis is America at war in Syria anyway?

Welcome to the world of what can be called media malpractice. Our media have fallen and they can’t get up. These matters of war and peace, life and death, are not significant enough to rise to the level of sustained media interest. After all, they might interfere with Obama’s approval ratings and tarnish his legacy.

It’s not as if the media don’t understand what Obama’s CIA has been doing. The Washington Post reported that a secret CIA operation to train and arm rebels in Syria had cost $1 billion by the middle of 2015. The Post said the program the CIA program set up in 2013 was “to bolster moderate forces.”

But according to Brennan on PBS, more radical groups joined the fight, leading to a “regrettable” situation.

If we had journalists trained in objective news reporting, we would have a media demanding accountability from the Obama administration over a “regrettable” policy that has spun out of control, leading to a human disaster of astounding proportions throughout the Middle East and Europe. Some are calling the Russian/Iranian/Syrian counterattack “genocide.”

On the left, fortunately, the media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has taken note of the fiasco, highlighting the fact that The Washington Post ran a column by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) insisting that the U.S. had “done nothing” in Syria. That’s nothing to the tune of $1 billion by the middle of 2015. FAIR wondered, as did I, whether the editors of the Post considered attaching a note to the McCain column stating that “the CIA has spent up to $1 billion a year on the Syrian opposition, or roughly $1 out of every $15 dollars the agency spends.”

Our Warnings

Back in 2013, this columnist warned that Obama’s Syria policy, which was supported by McCain, threatened to embolden al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Syria. That is precisely what happened.

When Brian Kilmeade of Fox News objected to “moderate” Syrian rebels yelling “Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar,” McCain shot back: “Would you have a problem with an American or Christians saying ‘Thank God, Thank God?’ That’s what they’re saying. Come on! Of course they’re Muslims, but they’re moderates and I guarantee you they are moderates.”

“Jihad Watch” director Robert Spencer commented that “Allahu akbar” does not mean “Thank God.” Rather, he said, “It is a war cry which means ‘Allah is greater,’” and “is essentially a proclamation of superiority.” Spencer notes that it is the same cry that Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members shout as they kill Christians and destroy Christian churches.

At the time, however, many different publications, including Politico, The Huffington Post, Business Insider and Mediaite, ran stories about the exchange which claimed that McCain had somehow “shamed” Brian Kilmeade and Fox News, as if McCain knew what he was talking about and that Kilmeade had been exposed as an ignoramus.

Spencer wrote, “McCain’s appalling ignorance and Obama’s ongoing enthusiasm for all things Muslim Brotherhood, including the Syrian opposition, are leading the U.S. into disaster.”

That disaster has come to pass, not because the U.S. did “nothing,” as claimed by McCain, but because the U.S. did “something” to the tune of $1 billion and still failed. Now, McCain wants strong sanctions against Russia, over what he calls a hacking operation that constituted an “act of war” against the United States.

Using dubious “intelligence” reports, including one from the same CIA that engineered the Syrian disaster, Obama has announced sanctions against Russia and expulsions of Russian officials from the U.S.

No Declaration of War

Needless to say, Congress never declared war on Syria, in order to justify CIA funding of the “rebels” there. The Congress has also not declared war on the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, and yet we are at war in the Middle East against them, and American troops are dying on the battlefield.

In a matter-of-fact manner, The Washington Post recently reported, “In his first floor speech since he and Hillary Clinton lost the election, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) revived one of his signature issues Wednesday: urging Congress to authorize military force against the Islamic State terrorist group.”

That “signature issue” happens to involve the constitutional requirement that Congress alone can declare war. The term “signature” suggests that Kaine has made it into his own unique cause, and that other members don’t share his enthusiasm. The media certainly don’t care for what he is doing. After all, his analysis undermines the legal and constitutional basis of much of what Obama has been doing in the Middle East.

Is this not an issue about which the media, left and right, can agree: that the Obama administration and Congress should be held accountable when wars are conducted without proper authority? Does a Commander-in-Chief deserve the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service and a 21-gun salute for going to war without the advice and consent of Congress?

In a speech paying tribute to Senior Chief Petty Officer Scott C. Dayton of Woodbridge, Virginia, who was killed in combat in Syria, Kaine highlighted “the costs of two and a half years of war against ISIL.” Kaine said, “I continue to believe, and I will say this in a very personal way as a military dad, that the troops we have deployed overseas deserve to know that Congress is behind this mission. As this war has expanded into two-plus years…more and more of our troops are risking and losing their lives far from home, I am concerned and raise again something I’ve raised often on this floor—that there is a tacit agreement to avoid debating this war in the one place it ought to be debated: in the halls of Congress.”

It has been reported that there are approximately 300 American troops on the ground inside Syria. Senior Chief Petty Officer Scott C. Dayton, 42, was killed in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in November near Ayn Issa, Syria.

Department of Defense News reported his death in a tiny story which carried the headline, “Department of Defense Identifies Navy Casualty.” He lost his life on Thanksgiving Day, November 24.

Senator Kaine is Right

The war against ISIS is based on the Congressional passage of the authorization for use of military force in September of 2001 to go after al-Qaeda for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America. “We see that that authorization has been stretched way beyond what it was intended to do,” Kaine noted.

Demonstrating that he was not willing to get Obama off the hook, Kaine went on to say, “President Obama recently announced that the authorization is now going to be expanded to allow use of military action against al-Shabab, the African terrorist group—a dangerous terrorist group to be sure—but al-Shabab did not begin until 2007. So an original authorization that was very specific by this body to allow action against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks is now being used all over the globe against organizations that didn’t even exist when the 9/11 attack occurred.”

The New York Times reported Obama’s move in a matter-of-fact way under the headline, “Obama Expands War With Al Qaeda to Include Shabab in Somalia.” The Times explained, “The administration has decided to deem the Shabab, the Islamist militant group in Somalia, to be part of the armed conflict that Congress authorized against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to senior American officials.”

The paper acknowledged this “stretching of the 2001 war authorization against the original Al Qaeda to cover other Islamist groups in countries far from Afghanistan—even ones, like the Shabab, that did not exist at the time—has prompted recurring objections from some legal and foreign policy experts.” The Times added, “Under the 2001 authorization, the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with a specific organization, not every Islamist militant in the world. But that authority has proved elastic.”

So the Constitution is being disregarded in favor of the “stretching” of an old resolution that has proven to be “elastic.” How can weasel words like these be reported in a paper that is supposed to hold the government accountable?

Senator Kaine noted, “When the new Congress is sworn in in early January, I think 80 percent of the members of Congress were not here when the September 14, 2001 authorization was passed. So the 80 percent of us that were not here in 2001 have never had a meaningful debate or vote upon this war against ISIL.”

Kaine pointed out that when Obama spoke about “the need to go on offense against ISIL” in September of 2014, “it took him six months from the start of hostilities to even deliver to Congress a proposed authorization.”

Congress never acted on it and Obama continued the war anyway. Kaine added, “As my President knows, who not only is a Senator but a historian, the founding documents of this country are so unusual still today in making the initiation of war a legislative rather than an executive function.”

He went on to say that “…it seems to me to be almost the height of public immorality to force people to risk and give their lives in support for a mission we’re unwilling to discuss.”

Obama’s lawless and unconstitutional actions had actually begun earlier, when he waged a war on Libya that ultimately produced the Benghazi massacre of four Americans. My June 2, 2011, column had noted, “In the Senate, McCain, who has turned into an advocate for Al-Jazeera, has been an enthusiastic supporter of the war, conducted with the approval of the Arab League and the United Nations but not Congress. Al-Jazeera, committed to the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region, openly backs the ‘pro-democracy fighters’ in Libya, playing down their links to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.”

Syria was a virtual replay of the Benghazi debacle, only on a much larger scale.

What was happening in Libya, as Accuracy in Media’s (AIM) Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi had documented, was that the U.S. under Obama had “switched sides” in the war on terror in favor of the terrorists.

The war in Libya was not only immoral but illegal and unconstitutional. But the media failed to acknowledge the facts. Under the War Powers Act, a president can go to war on his own only if there is an imminent threat to the U.S., and there is a 60-day deadline for the withdrawal of forces. Obama violated both provisions of the law. There was no direct or immediate threat to the U.S. from Libya, and Obama ignored the 60-day deadline for approval from Congress.

Yet in 2007 then-Senator Obama had loudly declared that “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

Trump’s Challenges

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s detractors claim he is entering the presidency in the midst of a constitutional crisis stemming from alleged Russian hacking into the email systems of Democratic Party politicians.

But we are already in a constitutional crisis caused by Obama’s illegal and unconstitutional actions. The failure of the media to hold Obama accountable for the wars which take the lives of members of the Armed Forces is a dramatic indication of how “media malpractice” goes beyond false facts and fake news.

The facts are not in dispute in regard to Obama’s actions that committed the U.S. to wars in the Middle East without the approval of Congress. The issue is clear-cut.

Obama, the alleged historian and legal scholar, doesn’t want to talk about that. Instead, at the military ceremony in his honor, he said, “Service members can now serve the country they love without hiding who they are or who they love.” In fact, Defense Secretary Carter has opened up the military, under Obama’s direction, even to the transgendered, with the Pentagon paying for their sex change operations.

This is what it has been all about for Obama—social experimentation and diversity, not fighting or winning wars. But his wars have not been without cost—in lives and refugees and more global terrorism.

Senator Kaine has been willing to go beyond political partisanship to demand that the Constitution be obeyed. Let’s hope that he finds a sympathetic ear in President Trump. It would be a way to move forward on a bipartisan basis to confront foreign dangers and threats.

The media’s dereliction of duty in matters of war and peace would then be exposed for all to see.

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

08/1/16

YEAH, IT’S ABOUT “JUDGMENT”: Al Qaeda Financier Frequented the Clinton White House

By: Bruce Cornibe | Doug Ross @ Journal

Islamists pose a particular security risk to our U.S. government. They want to slowly introduce Sharia law into our system of government and take away our most cherished freedoms. Islamists such as Muslim Brotherhood affiliated groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) not only strive to take away our fundamental freedoms, but they oftentimes also lobby against our government’s ability to crackdown on Islamic terrorism.

For example, Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates wrote a letter in 2011 to the U.S. Department of Justice telling it the FBI needs to purge “highly offensive counterterrorism training materials about Muslims and Islam used to train its agents and law enforcement.”

Some Islamists, even after empowering radical Islam in the policy arena, will go so far as to support terrorist groups like Hamas (more often done privately) or receive funding from such groups. Islamists operate so effectively in U.S. politics because of politicians that enable them. Bill and Hillary Clinton are those type of politicians – having a political past mired with Islamist ties.

One of those Islamists happens to be Abdurahman Alamoudi, a man sentenced to twenty-three years in prison because of “his activities in the United States and abroad with nations and organizations that have ties to terrorism[.]” Alamoudi has been involved in a number of malicious activities such as a “Libyan intelligence/al-Qaeda assassinationplot to kill the Saudi crown prince” and being “an Al-Qaeda fundraiser who had operated inside the United States.” So, what’s his connection with the Clintons?

An affidavit by Dr. John Esposito, a Georgetown professor with numerous Islamist ties, reveals that in 1996, Hillary asked Alamoudi to help with an Iftar reception at the White House:

…when Hilary Clinton decided to host the first ever White House reception to celebrate the end of Ramadan (called the Iftar), Mrs. Clinton asked Mr. Alamoudi to prepare the guest list.

Patrick Poole with PJ Media reports, “Under the Clinton administration, Alamoudi was tasked with founding and developing the Defense Department’s first-ever Muslim chaplain program. Alamoudi himself handpicked the Pentagon’s Muslim chaplain corps.”

Furthermore, it’s not shocking that Al Qaeda’s Anwar al-Awlaki (inspired several 9/11 hijackers) at one point trained U.S. military chaplains. It’s disturbing to know that we have subversive radical Islamists training and advising our leaders in government who want to see the destruction of the America that we all know and love. Besides receiving trips funded on the backs of taxpayers, it was also discovered that Alamoudi was helping out Osama bin Laden, PJ Media reports:

After the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the speechwriter for the “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman told the FBI that Alamoudi had been funneling $5000 payments from Osama bin Laden to Rahman. Rahman is currently serving a life sentence on terror charges for his role in the “Day of Terror” plot targeting New York landmarks.

In this video, allegedly taken outside of the White House in 2000, Alamoudi publicly displays his support for Hamas and Hezbollah in front of an enthusiastic crowd.

Alamoudi isn’t the only Islamist with connections with the Clintons. In 2010, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton allowed a professor that is a known Islamist, Tariq Ramadan, re-entry into the U.S. (in 2004, the U.S. rescinded Ramadan’s visa).

The Investigative Project on Terrorism reports that Ramadan gave financial support to a French charity called “Comite de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens” (CBSP) that’s affiliated with Hamas.

Besides these individual cases and many others, one of the most disturbing things about Hillary’s judgement is her optimistic view of the Muslim Brotherhood. In a 2011 speech, then Secretary of State Clinton exposes her naiveté about the Egyptian Brotherhood – showing a willingness to engage the group, stating:

“We believe, given the changing political landscape in Egypt, that it is in the interests of the United States to engage with all parties that are peaceful and committed to nonviolence, that intend to compete for the parliament and the presidency,” she told reporters in Budapest, Hungary. “And we welcome, therefore, dialogue with those Muslim Brotherhood members who wish to talk with us.”

But, she added, any such contacts “will continue to emphasize the importance of and support for democratic principles, and especially a commitment to nonviolence, respect for minority rights, and the full inclusion of women in any democracy. You cannot leave out half the population and claim that you are committed to democracy.”

Of course, the Brotherhood says they are committed to non-violence and the democratic process but only as far as it allows Islamists to come to power and change the system to fit their Sharia ideology.

We witnessed this in Egypt when Muslim Brotherhood leader Morsi democratically came to power and began to transform Egypt into an Islamic state, some examples include: approving a Sharia influenced constitution, presscensorship, failure to protect religious minorities (ex. Coptic Christians), and many more. In addition, the Brotherhood has had a violent past and there is no reason to believe they would not revert back to their old tendencies.

As we have seen, the Clintons not only have a propensity for tolerating individual Islamists, but they also buy into the diplomatic language of the Muslim Brotherhood. Furthermore, Hillary continues to provide a mouthpiece for an ‘Islamophobia’ campaign that seeks to silence the critics of Islamism. This ignorance of the Muslim Brotherhood strategy is a major liability for our country, especially since Hillary Clinton is one election away from occupying the most powerful position in the U.S. government.

Read more at CounterJihad.

06/20/16

Media Mislead About Mateen’s Motives

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

The mainstream media are desperate to distract from the facts of the Orlando shootings, choosing instead to blame Republicans and conservatives for the deaths of 49 individuals at a gay bar called Pulse. In reality, the attacks were perpetrated by an American-born Islamic jihadist who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State during the attack, and had in the past “boasted of ties to the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Al Qaeda.”

Instead of discussing the ramifications of terror worldwide and in our midst, the liberal media have reignited their quest for new gun control legislation and have sought to blame this attack on Republicans in general, and presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump in particular.

Omar Mateen’s “bullets and the blood he left behind that early morning were a reminder that in many corners of the country, gay and transgender people are still regarded as sinners and second-class citizens who should be scorned,” wrote The New York Times editorial board in a scathing piece aimed squarely at Republicans. They write that the “precise motivation for [Mateen’s] rampage remains unclear.”

“So far this year, more than 200 anti-L.G.B.T. bills have been introduced in 34 states,” writes the Times editorial board, focusing on the politics of Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). “The 49 people killed in Orlando were victims of a terrorist attack. But they also need to be remembered as casualties of a society where hate has deep roots.”

As Bernard Goldberg notes, this editorial is completely ridiculous. “If the killer were Christian the Times would have connected the dots and concluded he was driven by his religion,” he writes. Yet the Times failed to mention Islam or ISIS when discussing an Islam-inspired attack on U.S. soil.

“So, he [Mateen] was a gay Muslim Democrat,” notes Jim Treacher for The Daily Caller. “He hit the trifecta of victimhood.” Mateen belonged to too many minority groups, so many that liberals claim at all costs that he cannot be blamed for his own actions. “That means it has to be the gun’s fault, and the NRA’s fault, and the GOP’s fault, and Christians’ fault, and white people’s fault,” writes Treacher.

The Times editorial is not a reflection of the paper’s denial of jihadist terror. Rather, it is a deliberate attempt to deflect blame from the very ideology that repeatedly spawns this sort of activity, and the Times has to know that.

From Nidal Hasan, to the Boston Bombers, the Underwear bomber, the San Bernardinoshooting, and now Orlando, the perpetrators of these attacks have drunk from the same poisonous well of sharia-compliant jihadist ideology demanding death to the infidels. Many warnings were ignored or overlooked in these cases. It doesn’t matter whether these were lone wolf terrorists or ISIS-inspired: all of these attacks were carried out in the name of Islam. Obviously, the overwhelming majority of Muslims would never consider committing such an act, and are opposed to such actions.

But it is ludicrous to claim that these attacks have little or nothing to do with Islam, or come from a bastardization of that faith. After all, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has a Ph.D. in Koranic studies from Iraq’s Saddam University for Islamic Studies. These attacks clearly originated from a jihadist interpretation of Islam.

The media should be asking how the Obama administration, once again, has failed to protect Americans from another Islamic attack. According to the Daily Beast, Mateen was placed on two FBI watch lists, but the FBI’s 10-month investigation into his activities was closed after no terror ties or plans were discovered. In fact, Mateen was the subject of three different FBI investigations from 2013 to 2015, and they always came up empty.

Clarice Feldman, writing for American Thinker, pointed out that “Internal operating instructions of the FBI limited the amount of time they could keep watch on him and both the local and federal authorities were paralyzed by fear of being dubbed Islamophobic. So chilling accounts by his fellow workers were discounted as the result of prejudice, and a report by a local gun shop that he’d tried without success to purchase ‘body armor and bulk ammunition from the store’ was ignored.”

Also, the security company, G4S, that Mateen worked for from 2007 until the night of his terrorist rampage, should be called before Congress for its actions regarding how it handled concerns about his fitness for the job as an armed security guard. G4S is a British-based company that has contracts with the U.S. government to guard airports, most of our nuclear facilities, and to transport illegal aliens to sanctuary cities and other locations, once they have crossed over into the U.S.

According to NBC News, FBI Director James Comey said that “colleagues said Mateen claimed to have family connections to terror groups al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and that he hoped law enforcement would raid his home ‘so he could martyr himself.’” Yet as a result, his employer simply moved him to a less sensitive job. They didn’t take away his company-issued service weapon, a .38 handgun, nor did they fire him. In fact, while the company filed a psych evaluation form with the State of Florida to pass Mateen for firearm clearance, the doctor whose name was on the form says he was never evaluated, certainly not by her. The company now claims it was done by a different, unnamed doctor.

President Obama’s lack of passion over the victims was striking when he first discussed the attack. But when he was criticized by Trump, Obama became passionate and angry, and explained why using the term “radical Islam” was nothing but a talking point—which is why he doesn’t use it.

“So there is no magic to the phrase of radical Islam. It is a political talking point. It is not a strategy,” said Obama. “And the reason I am careful about how I describe this threat has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with actually defeating extremism.”

However, as National Review’s Andy McCarthy writes, the point of using the term “radical Islam” is not to convince or deter Islamic radicals—it is to understand our own mindset and identify “whether we understand what we are fighting.”

“Sharia supremacists have their own civilization and cultural norms by which they judge themselves,” argues McCarthy. “They couldn’t care less what we think.”

Al-Baghdadi is convincing to Muslims around the globe because he understands the Koran and preaches an ideology derived from the Muslim faith. Yet the Obama administration has worked to cleanse the FBI counter-terrorism analytic lexicon of words such as “Muslim, Islam, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and sharia.”

Obama administration officials continue to blindly ignore the ongoing threat of jihadists. “One month after the San Bernardino terrorist attack that left 14 innocent people dead, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told advisorsthat right wing extremists pose just as much of a threat to the country as Islamic extremists.”

And just days before the Orlando attack, the Homeland Security Advisory Council cautioned the Department of Homeland Security that it should avoid terms such as “jihad,” “sharia,” and “takfir.”

Political correctness, whether by the media or by administration officials, is not going to protect American citizens from future terrorists. Both the NRA and the ACLU believe further reforms to the terrorist watch list, such as a way to redress inclusion on the list, are still necessary. But the discussion about gun rights—and using the list to prevent potential terrorists from accessing guns—is a distraction from the greater threat of Islamic terror.

Future terrorists will find a way to access guns regardless of the law. The Obama administration is well on its way to issuing green cards to over one million immigrants from majority-Muslim countries before he leaves office. Is anyone confident in the vetting process for all of these people? If the Obama administration and the complicit media continue to deny the real cause of terror, many more Americans will fall victim to terrorists like Omar Mateen.

Roger Aronoff

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi. He can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff.

11/20/15

Politico Exonerates, Blames Snowden for Paris

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Some of our media, including the publication Politico, seem totally confused about the role of NSA defector Edward Snowden in the crimes of the terrorists who murdered and maimed hundreds of people in the Paris attacks. The verdict is in: he has bloody hands.

In a November 16 story, “Blaming Snowden for Paris,” David Perera of Politico insisted that no evidence had surfaced that the “revelations” of NSA defector Edward Snowden had “made a difference” in the case of the Paris terrorist attacks, and there was no evidence the perpetrators had “used encrypted communications to conceal their activities.”

Once again, the publication had gotten ahead of the facts in this story, prejudging the case in order to get Snowden off the hook for facilitating the activities of the Islamic State, or ISIS.

Politico is the same publication that alleged that GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson had admitted fabricating an offer of a West Point scholarship, only to reverse course and drop the claim in a rewritten version of the same story.

Only 24 hours later, after exonerating Snowden, the publication again reversed itself, running an interview with Michael Morell, the former acting head of the CIA, who said the Snowden revelations not only helped the Islamic State but probably contributed to the Paris attacks.

Morell stated, “First, ISIS went to school on how we were collecting intelligence on terrorist organizations by using telecommunications technologies. And when they learned that from the Snowden disclosures, they were able to adapt to it and essentially go silent…And so, part of their rise was understanding what our capabilities were, adjusting to them so we couldn’t see them. No doubt in my mind. And the people who say otherwise are just trying to defend Edward Snowden.”

As embarrassing as this was, the original Politico story had referred to “journalist Glenn Greenwald” as “a Snowden ally” who was arguing “that U.S. officials had complained of difficulty tracking terrorist communications long before the NSA whistleblower emerged.”

It’s true that the terrorists had been evading the NSA before Snowden went to Russia, but that was beside the point. What Morell and others were pointing out is that Snowden had made it easier for the terrorists to plot to kill Europeans and Americans.

Rather than being a “journalist,” Greenwald is a political extremist who speaks before Islamist, Marxist and libertarian groups. He has, for example, been afeatured speaker at conferences sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Cato Institute and the International Socialist Organization. At one of these conferences he declared that al Qaeda’s 9/11 terrorist attacks on America were “very minimal in scope compared to the level of deaths that the United States has been bringing to the world for decades—from Vietnam to illegal wars in Central America…”

He is more than a “Snowden ally.” He is a mouthpiece for Snowden’s illegal disclosures and an accomplice in his alleged espionage activities.

A former gay pornography executive, Greenwald was the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award, named in honor of the left-wing journalist identified as an agent of influence for Soviet intelligence. At the awards ceremony, Greenwald said that Soviet agent Stone “pioneered what modern journalism ought to be.”

Snowden is supposedly a “whistleblower,” but that is a false designation considering that he illegally leaked classified information and fled to Russia rather than face up to the authorities and take his punishment. He is specifically charged with espionage.

Despite the claim about encrypted communications not playing a role in the attacks, Politico had itself reported on November 16 in a separate article that “Terrorists linked to the so-called Islamic State are employing encrypted Internet services—including a new generation of mobile messaging apps—that the authorities do not have the technological capability to break, according to intelligence sources, public comments by senior officials, and evidence disclosed in recent criminal trials.”

By November 18, Cory Bennett of The Hill newspaper had identified and cited a 34-page ISIS manual on how to conceal communications from the NSA and other intelligence agencies. Bennett noted that the Arabic document was translated and released by analysts at the Combating Terrorism Center, an independent research group at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

“It includes warnings to avoid Instagram because it is owned by Facebook, and Dropbox because former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sits on its board of investors. Famous government leaker Edward Snowden has also criticized Dropbox over its privacy, the document notes,” added Bennett.

In other words, the Islamic State is taking Snowden’s advice and openly citing the NSA defector’s expertise on planning terrorism against the West. The reference to Snowden is clear in the translation.

This means that no honest journalist can claim that Snowden’s activities have not helped the terrorists who want to kill us.

Bennett wrote a separate story noting evidence first developed by NBC News that ISIS had set up a 24-hour “help desk” to advise terrorists about encrypting their communications in order to evade authorities.

In the NBC News story, Josh Meyer quoted counterterrorism analysts affiliated with the U.S. Army as saying that the ISIS help desk is “manned by a half-dozen senior operatives around the clock” for the specific purpose of “helping would-be jihadists use encryption and other secure communications in order to evade detection by law enforcement and intelligence authorities.”

Now that it has been definitively proven that Snowden’s disclosures have aided ISIS in planning acts of terror, it is time for the media to start examining the Snowden network that AIM has been exposing for several years now. All of his apologists, including such figures as Fox News contributor Andrew Napolitano, should apologize to the world for rushing to the defense of this despicable character, who now clearly has blood on his hands.

It was Napolitano who had declared, “I would describe this man [Snowden] an American hero, as a person willing to risk life, limb and liberty in order to expose to the American people one of the most extraordinary violations of the American principles, value judgments and the Constitution itself in all of our history.”

The evil genius of Snowden’s collaborators was to frame his defection in terms of alleging that he was a “whistleblower.”

He didn’t risk his life or limb but has given up his liberty in return for KGB protection in Moscow.

Citizens of France and possibly the United States, however, will be giving up their lives and limbs so that Snowden can be honored as a hero by Napolitano and his ilk.

11/17/15

Obama Has a Different Strategy… Bowing to Iran

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Obama’s speech yesterday was an utter embarrassment to America. I have never seen a more foppish or weak leader on the geopolitical scene. It was hands down the worst moment of his presidency and that’s saying something.

Obama has no strategy in the Middle East unless you count supporting Iran and not attacking ISIS. He’s quite willing to let Russia, France or anyone else go after them as long as it is not us. This is not how you fight a war. Any real military leader will tell you that.

Walid Phares gets it. He is a National Defense University professor and teaches Global Strategies there. Phares is a longtime commentator on Fox News. He is an analyst on issues in the Middle East and no one is better at it. I have long admired him. Jon Scott, the cohost at Fox News said, “Walid, why can’t we take these people out? We know where they are. We’ve got people willing if we would just arm, the Kurds, we’ve got people willing to take them out.” Phares was exceedingly blunt in his answer and right on the money:

Actually we can and actually we should, but the president has a different strategy. He’s getting a lot of pressure by the Iranians. Otherwise he should have long time ago allied himself, partnered with Arab moderate forces such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, UAE, they are fighting terrorism very much and very well in Yemen, in Sinai, in Libya, elsewhere, but the reason that he’s not going to these moderate Arab forces and asking them on the ground to be boots on the ground is because the Iranians are pressuring him because the Syrian Regime is pressuring him. They don’t want those areas, those Sunni areas to be liberated by Sunni moderates because they won’t have access to them. That’s the bottom line of it.

It benefits Iran to keep chaos stirred up indefinitely in Syria and the rest of the Middle East. They want to control the region and I believe Obama has promised them just that. Obama never did answer the questions posed to him on ISIS and terrorism yesterday. He danced around them and deflected at every chance he got. He can’t tell the truth because he knows that Americans would have his head. He doesn’t take ISIS out simply because Iran does not want him to. Neither do the Syrians.

Everything Obama has done with the Iranians has been one deep bow. The Iranian nuclear deal is a farce. It gifts everything to the Iranians they want and we get nothing in return. Nothing at all. How is that a deal?

There are indeed a number of Middle Eastern nations fighting ISIS and al Qaeda for their own reasons. Reasons having to do with different factions of Islam, geographical power and money. But even though we share a common enemy with the Saudis, Jordanians, Egyptians and the UAE, you won’t ever see Obama truly go after ISIS. From the beginning, his bombings have been token ones. He bombs empty, deserted facilities. He bombs at night. Virtually everyone gets away. When we take someone down, it is more because we need a photo-op than due to taking out the bad guys. This is make believe war and is all for show.

In reality, Obama is now answering to Iran. In some ways, he has them running the entire show. He has definitely aligned himself with the Mullahs. Iran and Syria are putting tremendous pressure on Obama to keep out of the fray and not put boots on the ground. Obama chose sides long ago.

Wherever there is sectarian violence involving Islam is exactly where you won’t find Obama. He’s not going to get involved, which should show you exactly where his true loyalties lie. We show up in places that will have little to no effect in stopping ISIS. But Obama can point to the action and say he is leading and fighting for America and the world. It’s all a monstrous lie. I contend that in many ways Obama in fact supports ISIS. He definitely condones the Caliphate.

In the end as this all goes south and Iran grabs more and more power, Obama will blame it all on George W. Bush. He’s already starting to, saying that ISIS is a result of Bush moving into Iraq. That’s another lie. ISIS is a direct result of us pulling troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. They are also a result of the Libyan mess that Obama and Clinton created intentionally. They gave rise to ISIS, not Bush.

Obama looked incompetent yesterday at the G-20 Summit. But that wasn’t incompetence. That was him covering his ass and not wanting to tell the truth. He knows how all this will end. It is by design. But he doesn’t want to be blamed and have his legacy destroyed for all time, so he has to have a scapegoat. That’s all Bush has ever been for this Marxist. We won in Iraq under Bush. Our forces had it fairly safe and secure. Life was returning to as normal as it could be and elections were returning. Then Obama came in and removed our troops, knowing full well that radical Islam would sweep in and fill the void. Obama is the worst leader our nation has ever known and the ‘change’ he has brought has been nothing but destructive.

Obama hates America. He thinks we’re not worthy of being a world power. He believes our character is defective and we have not earned any of the accolades that America has been given over time. He sees us as international bullies who have inserted themselves across the globe, instead of peace keepers and saviors of those that are victims to Jihadists, dictators and communists. Obama feels we never had the right to intercede on any other country’s behalf, or hell, even our own. He firmly believes that Islam has a right and an obligation to insert itself across the globe and control people for their own good. Allah is his way and his light and the violence that ensues along with death and destruction is simply what must be done.

We have become the French. That is depressing. Not by choice, but by design on the part of Obama and his minions. I never thought I would see the day that the French would look and act stronger than America. But in the wake of the bloody Paris terrorist attacks where at least 132 were slaughtered and over 350 were wounded, Hollande is at least acting sort of like a leader. Now given, he only dropped 20 bombs – he took out one control center, one munitions dump and one training camp in Raqqah. That is not what I would label an intense response. He did it with Intel we supplied him by the way and he used our smart bombs. So, if we have the Intel, then why don’t we do it? Simple. Because Obama is not going to tick off the Iranians. He’s in their pocket all the way.

Shi’a Iran wants the Sunni regions of the Middle East destabilized and they want ISIS to continue to operate and clear the area. As ISIS destabilizes, the Iranians will move in. That will ultimately help Iran take over the entire region in the future. They have $150 billion to play with thanks to Obama. They get to build nukes to their evil heart’s desire per the Iran deal. So, they are going to be THE regional power first. And that is everything in this global game of RISK. Obama has chosen Iran to be the dominant force in the Middle East and they are working hand and glove with the Russians, the Chinese and the North Koreans.

It’s obvious that this is occurring. It explains everything and it is what I have predicted and have been saying for years. The sanctions are gone and can’t be put back the way they were. Iran has been unleashed thanks to Obama. By the time we get a conservative leader in office, the world will be engulfed in a blue apocalyptic fire flamed by Iran.

In the meantime, many, many people will die around the world including in America. Christians will be hunted down and slaughtered. The beheadings, crucifixions, hangings, stonings, etc. will continue and increase while Obama does nothing. He claims that ISIS is contained. Anyone with any sense at all can see that is a lie. Even if you contained them in Syria, which they won’t, they are across the planet now. It’s like containing cockroaches – it’s not going to happen unless you exterminate them with a vengeance.

Obama rejected the idea that a large-scale deployment of American troops in Syria is the answer after the Paris terror attacks. At one point, the president called Friday’s attacks a “setback” but touted the current strategy that is in place to combat ISIS in Syria. “There will be an intensification of the strategy that we put forward. But the strategy that we put forward is the strategy that is going to work. It’s going to take time,” he said. I agree with Bill Hemmer of Fox News who stated that those who were hoping for an “it’s them or us” type of speech, did not hear it. You never will from Barack Hussein Obama.

10/14/15

Putin’s Paid and Unpaid Liars

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The Dutch Safety Board has issued a report indicating that a Russian BUK missile destroyed Malaysian flight MH17, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board, in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine. The only question is whether the missile was fired by Russian troops or terrorists under Russian control. In any case, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered an invasion of eastern Ukraine, has blood on his hands.

The Dutch took the lead because most of the dead were from the Netherlands.

The results were not surprising, since circumstantial evidence already pointed to the Russians as the culprits. Russia refused to cooperate with the investigation (led by the Netherlands, Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia and Belgium) and vetoed a U.N. tribunal established to try those responsible.

At the time of the mass murder, Kremlin-financed Russia Today (RT) television tried to obscure the truth about Russian terrorists bringing down the Malaysian plane, even though the facts known at the time implicated the terrorists in eastern Ukraine in the mass murder of nearly 300 people.

RT is carried by such giant media companies as Comcast. But in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the channel is not carried with disclaimers identifying the material as foreign propaganda. President Obama’s Justice Department is refusing to enforce the law.

As part of the disinformation campaign to divert attention away from Moscow’s bloody hands, RT released a “documentary” entitled “MH-17: the untold story,” claiming that a BUK missile did not hit the MH-17 plane. Instead, it was suggested that the plane went down because of cannon fire from a Ukrainian jet.

The lies were too much to take for Sara Firth, who had worked at Russia Today for five years. She told The Guardian that the channel’s coverage suggesting Ukraine was to blame for the crash was the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” She quit, saying, “It was the most shockingly obvious misinformation and it got to the point where I couldn’t defend it anymore.”

A variation of the Putin propaganda held that Ukraine downed the plane, thinking Putin was on it. Hence, it was an assassination attempt. We noted at the time, “This bizarre piece of disinformation surfaced on RT…[and] was linked to by the popular Drudge Report, used by many conservatives as their homepage, and then picked up by the Alex Jones’ Infowars.com site, a reliable outlet for pro-Russian propaganda.”

We reported in 2010 that RT has been eager to publicize Alex Jones and his various anti-American conspiracies because “they divert attention from the increasingly totalitarian nature of the Russian regime and the military threat that Russia still poses to American interests.” Jones was a regular guest on the RT propaganda channel, and defended Moscow’s invasion of its former Soviet republic of Georgia in 2008.

Matt Drudge, who made his name by posting the story about the stained dress, implicating President Bill Clinton in adultery, is considered a major player in the conservative media but has been living as a virtual hermit and rarely makes public appearances. However, he recently gave an interview to Jones and his Infowars.com show. Drudge, who didn’t allow his face to be seen, raised rumors about Hillary Clinton’s sex life and talked at length about the control of the flow of information, wondering if his website would be shut down. He was concerned that copyright laws could close down his popular site because he links to the work of others. “I had a Supreme Court Justice tell me it’s over for me,” said Drudge. “They’ve got the votes now to enforce copyright law, you’re out of there. They’re going to make it so you can’t even use headlines.”

In one interesting foreign policy exchange in the conversation that lasted about 45 minutes, Jones wondered if Putin was looking good in the Middle East, by claiming to target Islamic terrorists. This time, Drudge didn’t take the bait, and he moved on to other topics. Tina Trent, a commentator who has written about the impact of the Drudge Report, says it appears that Drudge is “dialing back” on his use of pro-Putin material supplied by Jones and other sources like Russia Today. “Maybe he’s travelled the world a bit and understands more about totalitarianism now,” she said.

Picking up the slack, another player in the Putin disinformation network is Don Hank, who claims to be a Christian conservative activist and runs a website. He distributed material claiming that the name of the Oregon killer had been included on a list of 87,000 “known/suspected” Islamic terrorists that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) had “refused last month to accept from Russia.”

Hank told his followers that Putin “was concerned enough about you and me to take time out of his busy day to warn us of a real and present danger!” But the U.S. government, he said, wanted us to die and ignored the warning.

The source of the information was said to be the Russian secret police, the FSB, making the whole thing suspect to begin with. However, the embedded link was to a different story on the FSB website that had nothing to do with the Oregon massacre.

Hank, who lives in Panama, said that the story had appeared in a “filthy rag” known as the European Union Times, and that he should have known better.

When the Dutch Safety Board pointed fingers at a Russian missile for the destruction of MH 17, Hank was up to his old tricks, telling his email list that the government of Ukraine brought down the plane, not the Russian terrorists. His source for this claim was the Moscow-funded RT channel.

The use of dubious sources like RT is what threatens the credibility and viability of legitimate websites that are truly independent and offering real facts and information.

10/7/15

Putin’s “Moral Clarity” Disguises Evil Intent

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

We as a nation are discussing ways to isolate and treat mental illness in society. How do we identify those who are mentally ill and get them help? These questions are also relevant on the world stage, as Russian President Vladimir Putin poses as the savior of the world.

You know that moral confusion is taking hold in society when a conservative website hails Vladimir Putin for his “moral clarity” in the War on Terror, and compares him to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet, Dr. Robin McFee, who generally focuses on Weapons of Mass Destruction preparedness as well as medical matters, writes that Putin, who has invaded Ukraine and is now backing the Assad dictatorship in Syria with troops and weapons, “has emerged as the go to global statesmen [sic] on the world stage” because he gave a U.N. speech describing chaos in the Middle East resulting from President Obama’s policies.

Both Obama and Putin have created instability in the Middle East, but that doesn’t mean that one is a statesman and the other is not. It may mean that they are both working in tandem to reduce American influence in the region, just as they partnered on behalf of a nuclear deal with Iran.

Regarding their U.N. speeches, McFee wrote, “Both Netanyahu and Putin shared a refreshing moral clarity, presenting an unvarnished snapshot of the world as it is, the threats awaiting us, and gave an unfiltered insight into the challenges they face, as well as approaches each will take in the protection of their respective nation’s interests and sovereignty.”

The idea that Putin is a leader we should admire is a notion that is nonsensical on its face. He gave asylum to NSA defector Edward Snowden, who still lives in Russia. In a recent edition of The Intelligencer, the journal of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), Peter Oleson writes about how Snowden’s disclosures have facilitated the activities of the Islamic State—a group that Putin claims he opposes—along with other American enemies and adversaries.

Oleson, a former assistant director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) who served as senior intelligence policy advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense Policy, writes, “The damage to US intelligence has been extensive. Snowden leaked the identities of over 1,000 targets of US intelligence and 31,000 files revealing what US policymakers want intelligence to provide (i.e., a list revealing what the US doesn’t know). His releases contain sufficient detail to identify US and allied intelligence officers. He revealed previously secret details of the US intelligence budget.”

He goes on, “Perhaps even more significant is the exposure of specific sources and methods and techniques US intelligence uses. Snowden has exposed how the US tracks terrorists via e-mails, social media, and cell phones.”

These are some of the same terrorists running wild in the Middle East that Putin says he opposes.

Indeed, Oleson notes that “The MI-5 head warned that the Snowden leaks undermined British security as concerns grow over British Islamists fighting in Syria. He also revealed the hacking techniques of NSA’s Tailored Access Office, the group that focuses on difficult electronic targets. Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has altered his communications to avoid detection. Electronic eavesdropping techniques used against Al Qaeda in Iraq no longer work.”

Summarizing the damage Snowden has done, Oleson concludes that Snowden is a traitor to the United States and quite possibly a spy.

There are other reasons to categorically reject the notion that Putin is a statesman who sees the world like Israel’s Netanyahu. The Russians created the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to destroy Israel. Israel has been terrorized by Soviet/Russian trained terrorists for decades.

But Putin, a former KGB colonel, wanted the world to forget this record of backing international terrorism when he spoke to the U.N.

McFee approvingly quotes Putin as saying in his U.N. speech, “We believe that any attempts to play games with terrorists, let alone to arm them, are not just short-sighted. This may result in the global terrorist threat increasing dramatically and engulfing new regions, especially given that Islamic State camps train militants from many countries, including the European countries.”

She then adds, “Beyond a few glaringly obvious issues, like Russian influence in Iran, and criminal money laundering, nevertheless, Putin highlights important facts.”

“Russian influence in Iran?” Is that how Russian sponsorship of the Iranian regime and its nuclear weapons program is best described?

Relegating “Russian influence in Iran” to a throwaway line ignores the terrorism this alliance has meant for the Middle East and the world. It is the Iranian relationship with Syria and Russia that Putin is determined to support in the Middle East. Iranian-supported terrorist groups are just as lethal as the Islamic State, and Netanyahu knows it. That’s why he has pleaded with Putin, to no avail, to look the other way when Israel bombs Syrian and Iranian supply lines for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The fact that Putin invaded Ukraine, and that his separatist forces brought down a civilian airliner over areas they control, should also disabuse us of any notion that he is a moral statesman on the world stage. Of course, Putin also kills journalists and opposition figures. But particularly gruesome ways of killing, such as the poisoning of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, are reserved for those who spill secrets about Putin and his KGB comrades. Litvinenko disclosed Russian training of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

McFee’s praise for Putin’s “moral clarity on radical Islam at the U.N.” ignores the evidence that the Russians have their fingerprints all over the activities of the Islamic State, not only through facilitating Snowden’s disclosures but through the provision of actual manpower.

The Homeland Security Committee’s recent report on foreign fighters in the Islamic State lists Russia as number four among the top 10 countries of origin. Russia has supplied 1,700 fighters. The United States isn’t even in the top 10. Russia has done little to stop this flow of people to the Islamic State, suggesting that some are leaving under the watchful eye of Putin’s intelligence services. One Islamic State military commander is, in fact, considered a Russian plant.

Russia may not control every faction of the Islamic State, but it’s a sure bet that Putin’s intelligence operatives are in charge of at least some of them. It is significant that initial Russian airstrikes were determined to be hitting opponents of Assad, not Islamic State fighters.

As we have seen by the intervention in Syria, the Islamic State serves Russian interests by giving Putin the opportunity to act decisively on behalf of the Syrian regime, which also benefits Iran. Putin comes out on top no matter which side wins and looks like a statesman in the process. At least he looks that way to some.

It’s time to face reality: Putin is a bloodthirsty killer whose only concern is building up Russian power and damaging the interests of the United States. Disgust for Obama should not blind people to that fact.

It’s time to identify Putin as not only mentally unstable, but so bloodthirsty that he constitutes a threat to the Middle East, America and the world. Putin’s nuclear weapons buildup is so alarming that our top generals have called Russia an “existential threat” to the United States.

We’ve identified the problem. So who among the presidential candidates has a plan to rid the world of this lunatic before thousands, or even millions, of Americans die?