Author Archives: Denise Simon

Clinton Tells Morocco: Democracy is a lot of trouble

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The Clinton State Department became cozy with Morocco as did the whole Clinton family. Could this relationship also have led to other covert decisions on uranium and Iran? In part, a particular Wikileaks cable among the 4200 leaked reads as such:

From the Iranian perspective, phosphate, a product
used extensively to produce fertilizer for the country’s
agriculture sector, is a highly valued commodity.  Morocco
exports about 12 percent of its phosphoric acid and about 5
percent of its rock phosphate to Iran, making Tehran one of
Morocco’s largest phosphate customers.  In 2009, the value
of Morocco’s phosphate-related exports to Iran totaled
close to 100 million.  (Note: Morocco holds about
three-quarters of the world’s reserve of phosphates and is
the largest exporter of phosphate rock and phosphate
derivatives, with about 38 percent of the overall world
market in those products.  End Note.)
 
¶4.  (SBU)The International Atomic Energy Agency places the
theoretically obtainable uranium resources in Morocco’s
phosphate deposits at around six million tons, roughly
twice the world’s conventional uranium resources.  Although
phosphate exported to Iran reportedly is exclusively used
for agricultural use, it could conceivably also be a source
of natural uranium.  Iran’s Department of Atomic Energy has
facilities that can recover uranium from phosphate rock and
phosphoric acid, a technically mature but economically
unfavorable method for obtaining uranium.  However, our
Moroccan contacts in the phosphate sector told us they have
no reason to believe that Iran is extracting or planning to
extract uranium from Moroccan phosphate imports.

Morocco is very pro Hillary and misses her as their exclusive diplomatic source, far and above that of John Kerry.

Inside Morocco’s Campaign To Influence Hillary Clinton and Other U.S. Leaders

Morocco’s team of American lobbyists regularly communicated with State Department officials during Hillary Rodham Clinton’s four-year tenure and several are supporting her candidacy for the 2016 presidential election, according to disclosures filed with the Justice Department.

Meanwhile, a controversial cache of what appear to be Moroccan diplomatic documents show how the Moroccan government courted Clinton, built a cooperative relationship with the Secretary of State, and orchestrated the use of consultants, think tanks and other “third-party validators” to advance the North African nation’s goals within elite U.S. political circles.

The DOJ filings and Moroccan leaks help flesh out the story of how a strategically important Arab nation — one that’s been widely denounced for holding one of the last remaining colonial territories in the world — has sought to influence U.S. politics in general and Clinton in particular. Clinton, who has called Morocco “a leader and a model,” saw her and her family’s relationship with the nation burst into the national consciousness earlier this month when Politico reported that the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation would accept more than $1 million in funding from a company controlled by Moroccan King Mohammed VI to host a foundation event in Marrakech on May 5-7. Other foreign contributions to the foundation have also generated controversy, but none as intensely as the Morocco gift.

Documents suggest that the Moroccan government has long sought to influence the Clinton family over U.S.-Morocco relations. Mandatory disclosures filed by Morocco’s many American lobbyists provide one window into these efforts. Another side of the story can be seen through the cache of apparent Moroccan diplomatic documents believed to have been hacked by critics of the government. The diplomatic cables began to appear online seven months ago but are receiving fresh scrutiny given news of the donation to the foundation.

Paid by Morocco — and pushing hard for Hillary 2016

U.S.-based lobbyists for Morocco communicated frequently with State Department officials during Clinton’s tenure, according to disclosures filed with the Justice Department. The filings also show Morocco’s lobbyists are positioned to support Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for the 2016 presidential election. In February of last year, Morocco retained Justin Gray, a board member to Priorities USA Action, the pro-Clinton Super PAC, as a lobbyist on retainer for $25,000 per month, an amount that now represents about a third of his firm’s revenue.

Toby Moffett, a longtime lobbyist for the Moroccan government, penned an op-ed last month decrying the “left-right tag team” of pundits in the media criticizing Clinton’s bid for the presidency. Records show that on December 24, 2014, Moffett held a conference call with Dwight Bush, the U.S. ambassador to Morocco, concerning the Clinton Global Initiative event in Marrakech next month.

Gray and two other lobbyists employed by his firm Gray Global Advisors on retainer for the Kingdom of Morocco, Ed Towns and Ralph Nurmberger, gave donations totaling $16,500 to the Super PAC Ready for Hillary, which rebranded recently as Ready PAC.

Gray Global Advisors declined to comment. Asked about the Clinton Foundation event, Moffett emailed to say he knows “absolutely zero about it.”

“Marocleaks” show a friendly Clinton-Moroccan relationship

Though the Foreign Agents Registration Act requires representatives of foreign governments to disclose certain lobbying contacts, Morocco’s reliance on lobbyists for influence over American foreign policy is spelled out in greater detail in more than 700 documents that began appearing on the web late last year. The cache of diplomatic documents detail efforts to court Hillary Clinton during her tenure at the State Department, the Kingdom’s preference for Clinton over Secretary of State John Kerry, as well attempts to use American think tanks and other supportive U.S. entities to advance Morocco’s goals.

The diplomatic cables, known as the “Marocleaks” in French and North African news outlets, began appearing online on October 3 of last year through various social media accounts. The cables are reportedly the result of a hacking campaign and although many of the accounts leaking the documents were shut down, new leaks of Moroccan government cables appeared as recently as March of this year. The source of the stolen documents is unknown, though social media postings make clear that those involved are critical of the Moroccan government.

Moroccan government officials have not denied the authenticity of the documents, but some have dismissed them as part of a campaign by “pro-Polisario elements,” referring to the armed insurgent group that has battled government forces in Western Sahara, a territory occupied by Morocco. Speaking at a press conference last December, a Moroccan official denounced what he called “a rabid campaign” against his country.

I contacted an American filmmaker mentioned in the diplomatic cables and was able to confirm the authenticity of some of the files. The names and identifying information about American lobbyists on retainer for the Kingdom of Morocco are accurately reflected in the documents. And events described in the documents correspond with contemporaneous public information about those events. The Moroccan Embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Still, questions persist about the origin and other aspects of the cache. One journalist in France raised questions about the leaks, suggesting one of the media accounts disseminating the cables blended “authentic and manipulated documents.” Brian Whitaker, the former Middle East editor of the Guardian, has reported on a small batch of the documents, believing them to be authentic, but noted that the cache has “mostly gone unnoticed outside Morocco, perhaps because the leaks have so far revealed little that was not already known, or at least suspected.”

The documents collectively portray the relationship between former Secretary Clinton and the Moroccan government as cooperative. Minutes of meetings conducted by then-Foreign Minister Saad-Eddine El Othmani on March 15 and 16 of 2012 describe a meeting with Clinton in which she requests support from Morocco on the Syrian civil war, asking them to ask the Arab League to prevent Arabic satellite networks from rebroadcasting Syrian state television, “to put a stop to false images and propaganda.” She also wanted the Arab League to require inspections of Iranian aircraft flying to Syria to prevent the transit of weapons via Iraqi airspace.

The foreign minister added that according to President Obama’s adviser Dennis McDonough in a recent meeting with the president, “Clinton had highlighted the many democratic reforms initiated by His Majesty King Mohammed VI,” and called the country a model for the region.

The upbeat mood was echoed in similar memos circulated throughout 2012, Clinton’s last year in office. “In recent years,” declared a December 2012 memo from the Moroccan Embassy in Washington, D.C., there had been “significant progress in defending the ultimate interests of Morocco.” The relationship between the U.S. and Morocco, the memo stated, was “marked by friendship and mutual respect,” and the country enjoyed support from U.S. policymakers including those in the State Department.

The tone shifts in early 2013 as Clinton left office and was replaced by John Kerry. A dossier prepared by embassy officials features career highlights from Kerry while lamenting the loss of Clinton. “It is clear that with the departure of Ms. Clinton, Morocco loses an ally who will be difficult to replace.” Kerry, the dossier noted, once signed a letter reaffirming the United Nations-backed call for a referendum allowing the people of Western Sahara a vote on independence.

Other memos written by Moroccan government sources express similar regret at the retirement of Clinton. One memo states, “changes in the American administration, notably the departure of former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, an important ally of the Kingdom in the Obama administration, and the appointment of John Kerry, who has never visited Morocco and on occasion held positions not always favorable to our country, has had some impact on the development of bilateral relations.”

Leaked: Moroccan strategy for pulling U.S. strings

Morocco’s attempts to sway policymakers relate to a host of contentious issues. Since 1975, Morocco has occupied Western Sahara, one of the last remaining colonies in the world, a conflict that has provoked fighting with the Polisario Front, a guerrilla army of indigenous Sahrawi people that draws support from the Algerian government. Morocco has also used its lobbying roster to mitigate stories that portray it as an authoritarian state that violently crushes dissent, suppresses the media and engages in child labor.

The United Nations since 1991 has called for a referendum in Western Sahara to allow local residents to choose between independence and integration with Morocco. The referendum option is bitterly opposed by the Moroccan government. King Mohammed VI has only supported an autonomy plan that would maintain Moroccan control over the region. He recently said, “Morocco will remain in its Sahara, and the Sahara will remain part of Morocco, until the end of time.”

In June 2009, President Obama wrote to King Mohammed VI and expressed support for the U.N.-led negotiations for a settlement to the dispute. Some observers interpreted the letter as a reversal of the Bush administration’s position supporting the Moroccan government’s plan.

Later that year, however, Secretary Clinton stood firmly behind Morocco, saying there had been “no change” in policy on Western Sahara. The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment. In 2011, Clinton appeared with the Moroccan Foreign Minister and referenced Morocco’s plan as “serious, realistic, and credible — a potential approach to satisfy the aspirations of the people in the Western Sahara to run their own affairs in peace and dignity.”

In joint statements released by the State Department and the White House in October 2012, November 2013, and April 2014, the phrase “serious, realistic, and credible” was used to describe Morocco’s plan.

“There was somewhat of a reversal” by Clinton of the administration’s position, says Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, who noted that Clinton appeared to walk back the Obama administration’s brief support of a referendum. “It was certainly a disappointment to those who had hoped President Obama would join the majority of the international community in supporting self-determination.”

The donation to the Clinton Foundation will be made by Office Chérifien des Phosphates, a company known as OCP, controlled by King Mohammed VI. OCP, the world’s leading phosphate producer, relates directly to Morocco’s continued quest for control over Western Sahara. Brou Craa mine in the occupied Western Sahara territory is managed by OCP and is “today Morocco’s biggest source of income in Western Sahara,” according to Western Sahara Resource Watch, an NGO based in Brussels. Phosphorus from the mine is exported to fertilizer companies throughout the world.

Last month, the African Union Peace and Security Council voted to recommend a “global boycott of products of companies involved in the illegal exploitation of the natural resources of Western Sahara.” Critics have said OCP’s activities in the Western Sahara are illegal because they arise from an unlawful occupation, because they do not sufficiently benefit the local population, and because insufficient efforts have been made to obtain permission from the local population for the extraction of natural resources.

As Morocco attempted to lobby Clinton and other U.S. government officials, the diplomatic cables show a regime continually fine-turning their influence strategy.

The use of think tanks, business associations, other “third party validators … with unquestionable credibility,” one cable said, relates to the “peculiarity of the American political system.” Think tanks, the cable continued, “have considerable influence” on government officials, especially because so many former officials move in and out of think tank work. Mentioning the State Department as one agency that could be swayed through think tank advocacy, the memo goes on to state, “our work focuses on the most influential think tanks … across the political spectrum.” The memo lists several think tanks such as the Atlantic Council, the Heritage Foundation and the Hudson Institute.

One undated cable describes the relative advantages of the various lobbying firms on retainer for the Moroccan government. In the section on the Moffett Group, a company founded by Toby Moffett, a former Democratic congressman, the cable touts a “professional and personal relationship” between Moffett’s daughter and Tony Blinken, deputy secretary of state and former deputy national security advisor to President Obama. (The Moffet Group ended its relationship with Morocco last year, though Moffett is still retained individually through the law firm Mayer Brown, where he works as a senior advisor.)

The cable suggests other lobbyists were hired to help broaden Morocco’s appeal. For Ralph Nurnberger, another consultant mentioned in the lobbyist profile cable, his experience as a “former lobbyist for AIPAC, the largest Jewish lobby in the U.S.,” is mentioned as an asset. Joseph Grieboski, a social justice activist and founder of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, was hired briefly on a $120,000 a year plus expenses contract for Morocco. Grieboski’s “credibility and authority” on human rights and religious freedom “could make the difference among US policymakers,” the cable observed.

In an email to The Intercept, Grieboski said, “We worked as an advisor to the Embassy of Morocco on human rights issues. I believe we were hired because of the firm’s reputation for human rights expertise and our long understanding of issues in North Africa and the Islamic World.”

In one of the cables describing Morocco’s lobbying strategy, the country’s success in achieving its foreign policy goals stems from its efforts to take the “offensive to counter the enemies of our national cause.” Isolating supporters of Western Sahara and the Polisario Front through Morocco’s congressional allies appears to be a critical element of this approach. Lobbyists for the Kingdom have previously been tied to efforts to cast the Polisario Front as supporters of terrorism. The cable makes clear that one of the goals of outreach should be to “Drain US investment in the provinces of South, particularly in terms of oil and gas exploration.”

In late November 2012, the Kingdom of Morocco’s Ministry of the Interior partnered with the Wilson Center to host an event for the Women in Public Service Project, an initiative founded by Hillary Clinton in 2011, which “empowers the next generation of women around the world and mobilizes them on issues of critical importance in public service.” The following year, Rachad Bouhlal, the Moroccan ambassador, sent a cable to remind his government of the project’s association with Clinton and to encourage continued support. Bouhlal attached a brochure for the project to the cable.

Old friend Bill Clinton tells Morocco, “We love this country … Democracy is a lot of a trouble.”

Support for Clinton family nonprofits by Morocco date back over a decade.

In 2004, the New York Sun reported that King Mohammed VI of Morocco gave between $100,000 and $500,000 to Bill Clinton’s presidential library in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 2007, the New York Times reported that Mohammed VI was among several world leaders who “made contributions of unknown amounts to the Clinton Foundation.”

Both Clintons have praised the Kingdom.

“My family and I, my wife, her late mother, our daughter, we love this country,” Bill Clinton said during a 2013 event in Casablanca sponsored by Laureate International Universities, a for-profit college company that employs the former president as its Honorary Chancellor. “I like the idea that the country is becoming more democratic and more empowering.” He continued with a chuckle, “Democracy is a lot of trouble by the way, we’ve been at it a long time and we still have a lot of trouble with it.”

“In many ways, the United States looks to Morocco to be a leader and a model,” said Secretary Clinton during an appearance with Morocco’s foreign minister in 2012.

But watchdog groups say little has changed in the Kingdom, even though democratic reforms were promised during the Arab Spring, and that Morocco’s image as a modernizing state is shaped more by lobbying than by the facts on the ground.

“Overall, progress has stagnated,” says Eric Goldstein, deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa at the international advocacy group Human Rights Watch. Goldstein explained that while Morocco has implemented some positive reforms, in many ways the country’s human rights situation has deteriorated amid crackdowns on reporters and activists.

Goldstein said he reviewed many of the hacked diplomatic cables, noting that they appear to correspond closely with what is publicly known about Morocco’s lobbying efforts.

“Reading the documents, one gets a sense that this country, Morocco, which does not have a large economy, spends huge amounts of energy and resources on influence, particularly to assert its claim to Western Sahara.”

Clinton, General Electric, Algeria and Money

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As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton boast about being the most traveled of any U.S. diplomat, landing her plane in 112 countries. Hillary held 1700 meetings with world leaders and had 755 meetings at the White House. Her travels included dancing in none other than Columbia, Malawi and South Africa.

In October of 2012, Hillary traveled to Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, Croatia and Algeria. Perhaps it was quite telling as of this writing, interesting deals were made in Algeria, a country full of corruption led by President Bouteflika.

It should be noted that on October 19 of 2012, meetings were held in Washington DC where the topics were bilateral and regional concerns as well as economic and security cooperation under the title of U.S.-Algeria Strategic Dialogue. There was also a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing West African States to perform a military intervention to remove the Islamist rebels from North Mali.

Two years earlier, The Clinton Foundation received $500,000 from Algeria without approval from the State Department ethic office or legal counsel. Algeria alleges the money was earmarked for the relief efforts in Haiti. At the same time, Hillary tells the public relations team her objectives with Algeria was to address human rights issues as well as to nurture the relationships between the United States and Algeria.

Of particular note, in 2010, Algeria also spent more than $400,000 in lobbying the U.S. government officials as specified by records under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, while sending representatives more than a dozen times to the United States to visit top political and diplomatic operatives.

Reports have been often published where the U.S. State Department have found that Algeria lacks any transparency, has a history of random killings and widespread corruption. Hillary even notes the facts of Algeria being a failed state in her book, “Hard Choices”.

Algerian security forces also benefit from U.S. cooperation programs. Obama Administration officials have stated a desire to deepen and broaden bilateral ties, including in the aftermath of a four-day terrorist hostage seizure at a natural gas compound in southeastern Algeria in January 2013, in which three Americans were killed. The attack highlighted the challenges the United States faces in advancing and protecting its interests in an increasingly volatile region.

The terrorist group that seized the hostages is a breakaway faction of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a regional network and U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization with roots in Algeria’s 1990s civil conflict. Given Algeria’s large military and available financial resources, U.S. officials have expressed support for Algerian efforts to marshal a regional response to terrorist threats. Yet Algeria’s relations with neighboring states are complex and sometimes distrustful, at times hindering cooperation. Meanwhile, any U.S. unilateral action in response to regional security threats could present significant risks and opportunity costs. Algeria’s macroeconomic position is strong due to high global oil and gas prices, which have allowed it to amass large foreign reserves. Yet wealth has not necessarily trickled down, and the pressures of unemployment, high food prices, and housing shortages weigh on many families. Public unrest over political and economic grievances has at times been evident, though other factors may have dampened enthusiasm for dramatic political change.

Algeria’s foreign policy has often conflicted with that of the United States. Strains in ties with neighboring Morocco continue, due to the unresolved status of the Western Sahara and a rivalry for regional influence. The legacy of Algeria’s anti-colonial struggle contributes to Algerian leaders’ desire to prevent direct foreign intervention, their residual skepticism of French and NATO intentions, and their positions on regional affairs, including a non-interventionist stance toward the uprising in Syria and an ambivalent approach to external military intervention in neighboring Mali.

 

When it comes to Algeria’s economic status, both the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization have assumed unusual positive forecasts on Algeria. The U.S, State Department in 2012 declared that Algeria has stabilized and all efforts were underway to enhanced the U.S./Algeria Trade Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA). This bring to light a company called Sonatrach, which exploits hydrocarbons for global consumption under research and development.

From the State Department’s website, Algeria concluded commercial agreements with several U.S. companies including Northrup Grumman and General Electric. The number of foreign trade missions to Algeria reportedly grew from 30 in 2010 to 60 in 2012, illustrating the increased focus and competition in the local market. In 2012, Algeria concluded commercial agreements with several Arab and European nations. U.S. firms, such as Northrop Grumman and General Electric won multi-million dollar tenders. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika appointed former Minister of Water Resources, Abdelmalek Sellal, as the new Prime Minister. Sellal is trusted by the political elite and viewed as a pragmatic politician who seeks new economic partnerships to tackle long-standing issues, such as housing shortages and unemployment. Algerian leadership remains focused on building domestic production capacity and reducing imports and seeks U.S. expertise and partnership. Minister of Commerce Mustapha Benbada visited the United States in December 2012 for discussions with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative related to Algeria’s World Trade Organization (WTO) accession and cooperation under the U.S.-Algeria Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA).

 

General Electric continues to court Algeria in partnerships and joint ventures in 2015. Sonatrach is a company rocked by constant scandal including fraud suspicions and prison terms, in fact the country itself is ranked 105th out of 176 in fraud.  The national hydrocarbon group Sonatrach and the American company General Electric (GE) signed Thursday in Algiers a memorandum of understanding on the creation of a joint company for the manufacturing of equipment used in oil and gas industry. This new unit, of which Sonatrach will hold 51% stake through the oil services holding (SPP) while 49% will be held by GE, will be set up in the form of a joint stock company. This unit will manufacture and develop, among others, equipment of drilling and production, equipment for measurement and supervision as well as provision for services and trainings relating to oil fields.

General Electric CEO, Jeffrey Immelt stated on April 22, 2015, he refused to turn over emails between himself and Hillary Clinton or those exchanged with the State Department. Immelt was also brought into the Obama administration as the ‘Job Czar’ and tendered his support for Obamacare while transferring his GE X-ray division to China to avoid the Obamacare taxes applied to medical devices. Immelt does need to provide evidence of the collusion especially when he authorized GE to contribute up to $1.0 million dollars to the Clinton Health Access Initiative.

Numerous sources, including the Wall Street Journal and the New Yorker, have recently reported that, while Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton lobbied foreign governments on behalf of companies including General Electric at a time when those companies were making donations to the Clinton Foundation. In late 2012, for example, Clinton urged the Algerian government to award a power plant contract to GE. GE contributed to the Clinton Foundation. Then in 2013, Algeria awarded the power plant contract to GE.

By donating to the Clinton Foundation while receiving a huge favor from the Secretary of State, did we not expose our company to the risk of being charged with honest services fraud? I am not accusing the company of any wrongdoing. But you have to admit that the optics suggest a quid pro quo could have occurred, and a public official pushing a foreign government to buy a company’s products while that company makes a generous donation to that public official’s family- run foundation appears to fit even the more limited definitions.

Since Mrs. Clinton had control of her business emails during this time and has said she deleted many of them, GE presumably is the only entity with evidence that everything was above board. To prevent the company from being the focus of any media or public investigation, would you consider making public all the Company’s written communications with the State Department during the relevant period?

The Denise Simon Experience Radio Show Archive: 04/23/15

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Tonight, Denise hosted a round table with Joel Arends, a 21 year active and reserve duty Iraq veteran, accomplished lawyer and Chairman of Veterans for a Strong America.

Topics covered the devastation of sequestration of the military having major implications in the near future where America cannot keep pace with global adversaries like Russia and China.

And in hour 2, Kyle Orton, a Counter-terrorism expert from the United Kingdom spoke to conditions in the Middle East, the threat matrix and estimates for what may come in the near future with regard to hostilities around the globe.

BROADCAST LIVE WORLDWIDE:  THURSDAYS – 9:00PM (eastern) / 6:00pm (pacific) on the following networks:

WDFP – Restoring America Radio
Red State Talk Radio
Nightside Radio Studios
TalkStreamLive
The Leading Edge Radio Network
Talk 92.1 WDDQ
American Agenda Radio
UNIR1 Radio
TuneIn Radio
Stand Up America US Radio
Streema Radio

An American Among the Dead in the U.S. CT Operation

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An American and an Italian held hostage by Al Qaeda were accidentally killed in a U.S. counterterrorism operation earlier this year, the White House said Thursday, in a stunning and tragic admission.

The White House also revealed that two American terror operatives were killed, but the revelation that hostages died — in an apparent drone strike — is leading to what President Obama called a “full review.”

Obama, speaking from the White House, expressed “grief and condolences” for the deaths of the hostages, American development expert Warren Weinstein and Italian national Giovanni Lo Porto.    

“As president and commander-in-chief, I take full responsibility for all our counterterrorism operations — including the one that inadvertently took the lives of Warren and Giovanni,” Obama said. “”I profoundly regret what happened. On behalf of the United States government offer our deepest apologies to the families.”

The White House said both men were “accidentally killed” in the operation in January. A senior defense official told Fox News the hostages were killed in a drone strike.

“No words can fully express our regret over this terrible tragedy,” the White House said in a statement.

“The operation targeted an Al Qaeda-associated compound, where we had no reason to believe either hostage was present, located in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the White House said.

The White House revealed that two Americans working with Al Qaeda were killed, as well. Ahmed Farouq, an American Al Qaeda leader, was killed in the same operation in which the hostages died. American-born Al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn was killed in January in a separate incident, according to the White House.

The White House says Farouq and Gadahn were not targeted in the operations, and the U.S. did not have specific information indicating their presence at the sites.   

Weinstein, 73, was an American contractor working in Lahore, Pakistan, when he was snatched outside his home on Aug. 13, 2011, by Al Qaeda operatives. The Maryland resident and professor at State University of New York at Oswego was later seen in four “proof-of-life” videos, the most recent of which was released in December 2013. In that video, Weinstein appeared in a tan track suit with a wool cap and pleaded with the U.S. to come to his aid.

“And now, when I need my government, it seems that I have been totally abandoned and forgotten,” Weinstein says, apparently reading from a script. “I again appeal to you … to negotiate my release,” he said on the tape.

In a written statement, Weinstein’s wife, Elaine Weinstein, said “there are no words to do justice to the disappointment and heartbreak we are going through.”

“We do not yet fully understand all of the facts surrounding Warren’s death, but we do understand that the U.S. government will be conducting an independent investigation of the circumstances. We look forward to the results of that investigation,” she said. “But those who took Warren captive over three years ago bear ultimate responsibility. I can assure you that he would still be alive and well if they had allowed him to return home after his time abroad working to help the people of Pakistan.”

Gadahn, 36, the first widely known American to join Al Qaeda, grew up in Orange County, Calif., in a family with Christian and Jewish roots. He converted to Islam at age 17, and began studying Islam at the Islamic Society of Orange County. Gadahn reportedly moved to Pakistan in 1998, where he married an Afghan refugee and later joined Al Qaeda.

In 2001, he cut off contact with his family in California, and in the years following the 9/11 attacks, became a prominent spokesman for the terrorist group, appearing under the name “Azzam Al-Amriki” with Al Qaeda founder and 9/11 mastermind Usama bin Laden in videos justifying and threatening further attacks.

In 2006, Gadahn was placed on the Bureau of Diplomatic Security Rewards for Justice Program list of wanted criminals and indicted by a California federal grand jury on charges of treason.

In a 2007 Internet video called “Al Qaeda Video Warning to U.S. by American Adam Gadahn,” the homegrown radical imposed a list of demands on America, including an end to all support for the “bastard state of Israel.”

“Your failure to heed our demands and the demands of reason means that you and your people will – Allah willing – experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11, Afghanistan and Iraq.”

More details that began in 2011.

 

Warren Weinstein Begged Obama to Save Him Four Years Before U.S. Drone Killed Him

It was before dawn the morning of Aug. 13, 2011, when a group of men armed with assault rifles knocked on Warren Weinstein’s front gate in the Lahore suburb of Model Town, an upscale neighborhood where Benazir Bhutto is said to have had a house. Weinstein was working as country director for J.E. Austin Associates, a consulting firm based in Arlington, Va., that contracts with the Pakistani government. The 70-year-old was helping to create small businesses in tumultuous regions in conjunction with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

It was the beginning of more than two years in captivity for Weinstein, who was accidently killed by a U.S. drone strike in January, the Obama administration announced Thursday.

Shortly after he was taken captive, Weinstein appeared in a video and directly addressed President Obama.

“My life is in your hands,” he told Obama. “If you accept the demands, I live; if you don’t accept the demands, I die,” Weinstein said, referring to a list of demands made by al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri last year that included an end to American strikes in Pakistan and the release of al Qaeda and Taliban militants detained at Guantánamo Bay.

The day he was captured, three men arrived at the front of Weinstein’s house in Pakistan and offered his security guards gifts of food, a common practice among Muslims during Ramadan. At the same time, five men forced their way into the house from the back, overpowering Weinstein’s guards and gagging them. The assailants then made their way to Weinstein’s room, where they pistol-whipped him before taking him to a getaway car.

Weinstein was reportedly in the final hours of his time in Lahore and had packed his bags to leave Pakistan for good.

Weinstein had a house in Rockville, Maryland where he had lived with his wife and daughter for 35 years. Over the course of the five or six years he was working in Pakistan, Weinstein is said to have traveled back and forth to Maryland from time to time.

“We are devastated by this news and the knowledge that my husband will never safely return home,” Elaine Weinstein, his wife said in a statement. “We were so hopeful that those in the U.S. and Pakistani governments with the power to take action and secure his release would have done everything possible to do so and there are no words to do justice to the disappointment and heartbreak we are going through.”

Mrs. Weinstein criticized the administration that ended up killing her husband.

“Unfortunately, the assistance we received from other elements of the U.S. government was inconsistent and disappointing over the course of three and a half years. We hope that my husband’s death and the others who have faced similar tragedies in recent months will finally prompt the U.S. government to take its responsibilities seriously and establish a coordinated and consistent approach to supporting hostages and their families.”

Nevertheless, Mrs. Weinstein put the blame for her husband’s death on Al Qaeda.

“But those who took Warren captive over three years ago bear ultimate responsibility. I can assure you that he would still be alive and well if they had allowed him to return home after his time abroad working to help the people of Pakistan. The cowardly actions of those who took Warren captive and ultimately to the place and time of his death are not in keeping with Islam and they will have to face their God to answer for their actions.”

After Weinstein’s abductors made their escape from Lahore, they are thought to have transported their captive from safe house to safe house across Pakistan over a period of months. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the kidnapping after Weinstein’s August disappearance, and Pakistani officials found themselves without a real lead for months.

In late August, Lahore police chief Malik Ahmed Raza Tahir made a hasty announcement that Pakistani police had found and freed Weinstein in the city of Khushab, but only hours later said that his statement had been incorrect. Responding to Tahir’s mistake, the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad tweeted at the time that “we have no information that would confirm recovery of Warren Weinstein, but we are hoping for a positive outcome.”
Al Qaeda finally declared itself responsible for the attack on Weinstein, and sources within the Taliban told reporters that over the intervening months the Pakistani branch of Al Qaeda had cooperated with Al Qaeda to secret Weinstein away to a tribal area of the country near the Afghan border. The Taliban commanders told reporters that they had kept quiet to improve their hand, a strategy that warded off pressure from Pakistani authorities and kept American officials at bay.

“Al Qaeda won’t kill Weinstein,” Mohammed Imran, a Pakistani security analyst said several years ago based on updates from militants. “It will keep him as healthy as possible in the circumstances.”

In the video, Weinstein assured his wife that he was in good health. “I’m getting all my medications, I’m being taken care of.”

Hillary Clinton Foundation and Uranium

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Primer:

The Russian reset via Hillary appears to be uranium and Putin’s control of the same. Reminder, Russia sells uranium to ahem….Iran.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rA-vSIIyz9I#t=51

Sheesh, almost by the hour news breaks on the Clinton Foundations(s) where fraud and collusion are bubbling to the surface.

Last week Newsweek broke a story about InterPipe owned by Victor Pinchuk of Ukraine whose financial worth is estimated at $4.2 billion. He is quite close to the Clintons and generous with his money to their Foundations in exchange for policy decisions at the State Department. As an aside, Pinchuk is tied to Tony Blair, Paul Krugman, Shimon Perez, Dominique Strauss Khan, Larry Summers and well yes, even Elton John.

When it comes to Hillary’s run for the Oval Office, these actions may be coming out too soon given election day in November of 2016, but this could all be a good thing as money going into her campaign may slow to a crawl. It should also be noted that the Gowdy Benghazi Commission reports are not slated to be published either until the height of the election season in 2016.

Now let us move on to uranium and Hillary.

Gifts to Hillary Clinton’s Family Charity Are Scrutinized in Wake of Book

State Department sat on panel that approved sale of mine involving contributor to foundation

Hillary Clinton’s State Department was part of a panel that approved the sale of one of America’s largest uranium mines at the same time a foundation controlled by the seller’s chairman was making donations to a Clinton family charity, records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show.

The $610 million sale of 51% of Uranium One to a unit of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear agency, was approved in 2010 by a U.S. federal committee that assesses the security implications of foreign investments. The State Department, which Mrs. Clinton then ran, is one of its members.

Between 2008 and 2012, the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, a project of the Clinton Foundation, received $2.35 million from the Fernwood Foundation, a family charity run by Ian Telfer, chairman of Uranium One before its sale, according to Canada Revenue Agency records.

The donations were first reported in “Clinton Cash,” a new book by Peter Schweizer, an editor-at-large at a conservative news website, about the financial dealings of Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton. A copy of the book, set to be released next month, was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The book is to be published by HarperCollins, a division of News Corp. NWSA 0.23 % , which also publishes the Journal.

The book adds fresh details to previous reporting by the Journal and others about potential conflicts between Mrs. Clinton’s private charitable work and her public activities as secretary of state. The Journal reported in February that at least 60 companies that lobbied the State Department during her tenure donated a total of more than $26 million to the Clinton Foundation.

Josh Schwerin, a campaign spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, the front-runner for Democratic presidential nomination, said the Uranium One sale “went through the usual process, and the official responsible for managing CFIUS reviews has stated that the secretary did not intervene with him. This book is twisting previously known facts into absurd conspiracy theories.”

The campaign on Wednesday also provided a comment from Jose Fernandez, a former assistant secretary of state who served as the department’s principal representative on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, which reviewed the sale. “Secretary Clinton never intervened with me on any CFIUS matter,” Mr. Fernandez said.

In response to past questions about possible conflicts, Mrs. Clinton has said she is proud of the foundation’s work. Earlier this week, she called the book a distraction from real campaign issues.

Mr. Telfer, in an interview Wednesday, said he made the contributions not for the sake of the Clintons, but to support his longtime business partner, Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining executive and longtime Clinton friend who co-founded the program to spur development in poor countries.

“The donations started before there was any idea of this takeover,” Mr. Telfer said. “And I can’t imagine Hillary Clinton would have been aware of this donation to this growth initiative,” he added.

The Fernwood contributions don’t appear on the Clinton Foundation website, as was required under an agreement between the foundation and the Obama administration. A Clinton Foundation spokesman referred questions to the Clinton-Giustra program spokeswoman in Canada, who didn’t respond.

Under the terms of the sale, the company said it wouldn’t seek an export license to send uranium out of the country, and that executives at the U.S.-based unit would control the mine, according to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report. Uranium One, now a fully owned subsidiary of the Russian nuclear agency, owns a 300,000-acre mine in Wyoming and could produce up to half of the U.S. output of uranium this year. Some members of Congress at the time wrote to the committee calling on it to block the sale.

The Journal confirmed some other instances detailed in the book about Mrs. Clinton’s official activities and her family charity.

In June 2009, the Clinton Giustra initiative received two million shares in Polo Resources, POL 1.33 % a mining investment company headed by Stephen Dattels, a Canadian businessman, according to a Polo Resources news release. About two months later, the U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh pushed the energy adviser to that nation’s prime minister to allow “open pit mining,” including in Phulbari Mines, where Polo Resources has a stake, according to a State Department cable released by WikiLeaks. The company seeking to develop the mine is still waiting for government approval, according to the firm’s website.

It isn’t known whether the Clinton-Giustra program still owns the shares. Neither Mr. Dattels nor his foundation nor Polo Resources are listed as donors by the Clinton Foundation website. Mr. Dattels, who retired in 2013, and representatives for Polo Resources couldn’t be reached for comment.

Irish billionaire Denis O’Brien, who heads a mobile-phone network provider called Digicel, won a $2.5 million award in 2011 from a program run by the State Department’s U.S. Agency for International Development to offer mobile money services in post-earthquake Haiti. The firm won subsequent awards. Funds for the awards were provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, while USAID administered the program, with a top Clinton aide directly overseeing earthquake aid.

Mr. O’Brien has given between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation since its launch. It is unclear whether Mr. O’Brien gave while Mrs. Clinton was at the State Department because of the way the foundation discloses its donations.

A USAID spokesman said the company met the criteria laid out in the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative. A spokesman for Mr. O’Brien said he couldn’t be reached and declined to comment. The Clinton campaign didn’t respond to request for comment on Polo Resources or Mr. O’Brien.

Write to Rebecca Ballhaus at [email protected] and Peter Nicholas at [email protected]