KSM, Muslim Brotherhood Kuwait and 9/11

Posted on February 10, 2016February 10, 2016 by Denise Simon

CTC: Nasir al-Wahayshi, AQAP’s Leader
Nasir al-Wahayshi is a tiny wisp of a man with a jutting beard and soft-spoken manner. Known by the kunya Abu Basir, he was born in 1976 in the region of Mukayras in what was then Abyan.[3] Redistricting in 1998 put Mukayras in al-Bayda and that same year al-Wahayshi left Yemen for Afghanistan.[4] He had just graduated from one of Yemen’s private religious institutes, which had been established in the 1970s and 1980s as a way to convince Yemeni tribesmen that a republican form of government was compatible with Islam. Staffed by Egyptian exiles and Saudi teachers, many of these institutes eventually gravitated toward the more radical works of Islamic theology.

Al-Wahayshi arrived in Afghanistan in the months after Usama bin Ladin’s 1998 fatwa, declaring war on the United States and Israel, and he soon joined al-Qa`ida. Bin Laden made the young Yemeni his personal secretary, and for the next four years the two were nearly inseparable.[5] Al-Wahayshi spent all of his time with Bin Ladin, watching as the older man built and ran an international organization. He sat in on councils and helped with correspondence.

After the 9/11 attacks and the confused aftermath of the Battle of Tora Bora in late 2001, al-Wahayshi was separated from the al-Qa`ida commander. Bin Laden escaped into Pakistan, while al-Wahayshi moved south toward Iran, where he was eventually arrested and held for nearly two years.[6] In late 2003, al-Wahayshi was extradited back to Yemen. Apparently unaware of his close connections to Bin Ladin, Yemeni intelligence held him in the general prison population at a maximum-security facility in Sana`a.

AQAP publishes insider’s account of 9/11 plot

TLWJ: Sometime before his death in a US drone strike in June 2015, Nasir al Wuhayshi recorded an insider’s account of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. As the aide-de-camp to Osama bin Laden prior to the hijackings, Wuhayshi was well-placed to know such details. And al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which Wuhayshi led until his demise, has now published a version of his “untold story.”

A transcript of Wuhayshi’s discussion of the 9/11 plot was included in two editions of AQAP’s Al Masra newsletter. The first part was posted online on Jan. 31 and the second on Feb. 9. The summary below is based on the first half of Wuhayshi’s account.

Wuhayshi began by explaining al Qaeda’s rationale for attacking America. Prior to 9/11, the jihadists’ cause was not supported by the Muslim people, because the mujahideen’s “goals” were not widely understood. The jihadists were divided into many groups and fought “tit-for-tat” conflicts “with the tyrants.” (The “tyrants” were the dictators who ruled over many Muslim-majority countries.)

While the mujahideen had some successes, according to Wuhayshi, they were “besieged” by the tyrants until they found some breathing room in Afghanistan. The “sheikhs” studied this situation in meetings held in Kabul and Kandahar, because they wanted to understand why the jihadists were not victorious. And bin Laden concluded they should fight “the more manifest infidel enemy rather than the crueler infidel enemy,” according to a translation obtained by The Long War Journal. Wuhayshi explained that the former was the “Crusader-Zionist movement” and the latter were the “apostates” ruling over Muslims.

While waging war against the “apostate” rulers was not likely to engender widespread support, no “two people” would “disagree” with the necessity of fighting “the Jews and Christians.” If you fight the “apostate governments in your land,” Wuhayshi elaborated, then everyone – the Muslim people, Islamic movements, and even jihadists – would be against you because they all have their own “priorities.” Divisions within the jihadists’ ranks only exacerbated the crisis, as even the mujahideen in their home countries could refuse to fight.

Wuhayshi then cited Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi, a prominent pro-al Qaeda ideologue, who warned that the “capability” to wage “combat” in Muslim-majority countries did “not yet exist.” So, for instance, if al Qaeda launched a “jihad against the House of Saud,” then “many jihadist movements” would oppose this decision. Al Qaeda’s fellow travelers would protest that they were “incapable” of defeating the Saudi government. And these jihadists would complain they did not want to “wage the battle prematurely,” or become entangled “in a difficult situation.”

For these reasons and more, according to Wuhayshi, bin Laden decided to “battle the more manifest enemy,” because “the people” would agree that the US “is an enemy” and this approach would not sow “discord and suspicion among the people.” Bin Laden believed that the “Islamic movement” would stand with al Qaeda “against the infidels.”

Wuhayshi’s explanation of bin Laden’s reasoning confirms that attacking the US was not al Qaeda’s end goal. It was a tactic, or a step, that bin Laden believed could unite the jihadists behind a common purpose and garner more popular support from “the people.”

Not all jihadists agreed with bin Laden’s strategy. In February 1998, bin Laden launched a “Global Islamic Front for Waging Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders.” Wuhayshi claimed that a “majority of the groups agreed to” the initiative, but some, like the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), opposed it. (However, some senior LIFG members were folded into al Qaeda.)

Gamaa Islamiya (IG), an Egyptian group, initially agreed to join the venture, but ultimately rejected it. As did other groups in the Arab Magreb, according to Wuhayshi. (Some senior IG leaders remained close to al Qaeda and eventually joined the organization.)

Although Wuhayshi claimed that a “majority” of jihadist organizations agreed with bin Laden’s proposal, only three ideologues joined bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri in signing the front’s infamous first fatwa.

In August 1998, just months after the “Global Islamic Front” was established, al Qaeda struck the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. According to Wuhayshi, bin Laden held a series of meetings around this time, as he sought to convince as many people as possible that attacking America was the right course. Some jihadists objected, believing it would ensnare them in a trap. But bin Laden pressed forward, telling those who didn’t agree that they wanted to fight “lackeys” without confronting “the father of the lackeys.” Al Qaeda’s path “will lead to a welcome conclusion,” Wuhayshi quoted bin Laden as saying.

The “initiative against the Crusaders continued” after the US Embassy bombings, Wuhayshi said, and the number of people who supported it increased “dramatically.” During this period, the “Global Islamic Front” launched operations against the “Crusaders” on the ground and at sea, but the idea to strike “from the air with planes” had not yet been conceived.

The origins of the 9/11 plot

Wuhayshi traced the genesis of the 9/11 plot to both Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who would come to be known as the “mastermind” of the operation.

But he also credited Abdullah Azzam for popularizing the concept of martyrdom in the first place. Azzam was killed in 1989, but is still revered as the godfather of modern jihadism. After the mujahideen had defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan, they considered “hitting the Americans,” Wuhayshi claimed. Azzam “spoke harshly about the Western military camp.” Azzam also “introduced” the jihadists to a “new tactic.” Wuhayshi recommended that people listen to Azzam’s “final speech,” in which he reportedly said: “God gave me life in order to transform you into bombs.”

Years later, on Oct. 31, 1999, bin Laden watched as the co-pilot of EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed the jet into the Atlantic Ocean, killing more than 200 people on board. Bin Laden, according to Wuhayshi, wondered why the co-pilot didn’t fly the plane into buildings. After this, Wuhayshi claimed, the basic idea for 9/11 had been planted in bin Laden’s mind.

In reality, the EgyptAir crash came after the outline of the 9/11 plot had been already sketched. For instance, the 9/11 Commission found that KSM “presented a proposal for an operation that would involve training pilots who would crash planes into buildings in the United States” as early as 1996. “This proposal eventually would become the 9/11 operation.” In March or April 1999, according to the Commission’s final report, bin Laden “summoned KSM to Kandahar…to tell him that al Qaeda would support his proposal,” which was referred to as the “planes operation.”

Indeed, Wuhayshi recounted how KSM and his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, plotted to attack multiple airliners in the mid-1990s. In the so-called Bojinka plot, KSM and Yousef even conceived a plan to blow up as many as one dozen airliners. Wuhayshi recalled how Yousef placed a bomb on board one jet as part of a test run. Their plot failed and Yousef was later captured in Pakistan. Yousef has been incarcerated for two decades after being convicted by an American court for his role in Bojinka and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Wuhayshi prayed for his release.

Wuhayshi told a story that, if true, means KSM had dreamed of attacking the US since his youth. When he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait, KSM wrote a play in which a character “ponders how to down an American aircraft.” Wuhayshi claimed to have searched for this play online, but he and another “brother” failed to find it.

Still, Wuhayshi insisted that KSM wrote the play, showing he was already thinking of ways to strike America as a young man.

Syria, now Uncontrollable

Posted on February 10, 2016February 10, 2016 by Denise Simon

Opposition Leader: U.S. Diplomacy Costs Syrian Lives

Bloomberg: In the days since the collapse of the Syria peace talks championed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the humanitarian catastrophe in northern Syria has grown, tens of thousands of new refugees were created, and the Russian- and Iranian-backed killing of civilians has increased. These are all consequences of the flawed U.S. strategy, according to the lead negotiator for the Syrian opposition.

Riyad Hijab was prime minister of Syria in 2012 under the dictator Bashar al-Assad; he became the highest-ranking defector from the regime when he switched sides and joined the rebels. He is now the leader of the High Negotiating Committee that represented the Syrian opposition at last week’s meetings in Geneva, which collapsed after two days. Kerry had pressured the Syrian opposition leaders to attend, even warning they could lose their U.S. funding if they boycotted. Hijab says that Kerry’s approach — to try to persuade Assad and Russia to negotiate while the offensive continues — has actually made things much worse.

“The administration is saying it is testing the good faith of the other side,” Hijab told me in a phone interview on Monday. “But when you are testing these things and it fails, the price that is being paid is horrendous death and the expansion of extremism and terrorism on the ground.”

Syrian forces backed by Russian air power are pressing an offensive against rebel groups in and around Aleppo, the nation’s largest city, that began before the scheduled peace talks. Kerry said Friday, “This has to stop.” He said he would know if the other parties, such as Russia, were “serious” about upholding United Nations Security Council resolutions on protecting civilians after a meeting later this week in Munich of the international group of countries supporting proxies in the Syrian civil war.

In the eyes of the Syrian opposition, Russia and Iran are making a mockery of the peace process, and Kerry’s reluctance to acknowledge this is putting them in deadly harm. It also creates more problems for America’s regional allies, aids the Islamic State and dims the prospects for future peace talks. “The failures of the negotiations end up lowering the credibility of the moderate opposition in front of the Syrian people,” said Hijab. “United States credibility is plummeting within the population of Syria but also in the region as a whole.”

This week, it is Syrians near Aleppo who are paying the price. Regime forces, with Russian support, are advancing toward the Turkish border, threatening to cut off opposition groups and civilians from their source of aid. At least 35,000 people have joined the flood of refugees since the collapse of the talks, ahead of what many anticipate will be another in a long line of starvation sieges the regime is perpetrating on cities. Hijab said there are now 18 cities under siege, three more than when the talks began. More here.

Syria, already a catastrophe, seems on the verge of an uncontrollable disaster

WaPo: Suddenly, after four years of brutal civil war, Syria this week became even more of an uncontrollable military, diplomatic and humanitarian disaster.

“We are not blind to what is happening,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Tuesday, as he prepared for a meeting in Munich of stakeholders from outside Syria. “We are all very, very aware of how critical this moment is.”

The Thursday gathering could well be the last gasp of a three-month, Kerry-orchestrated effort to bring together powerful countries on all sides of the conflict — from Russia and Iran on behalf of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to the United States and its partners on the opposition side — to try and forge a political solution that would allow them all to focus their efforts on defeating the Islamic State.

What seemed possible even two weeks ago, however, now seems all but hopeless. Failure of planned peace negotiations could lead President Obama finally to a decision he has long resisted — whether to more fully arm and back rebel groups whose cohesion and commitment to a democratic and secular Syria he mistrusts.

In recent days, Russian bombardment of opposition forces north of Aleppo, a rebel stronghold, has severed opposition supply lines and threatens to allow government-aligned forces to encircle the city. In a letter sent to the Obama administration this week, Russia proposed to stop the bombing on March 1, allowing it to continue for another three weeks

The Russian blitz has allowed pro-government ground forces, mostly composed of Iranian-trained militias from Iraq, Iran and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah, to push north to with 20 miles of the Turkish border. This is the same area where the United States and Turkey have planned to carve out an opposition-held zone to combat Islamic State forces approaching it from the east.

Tens of thousands of new refugees have fled Aleppo and its environs to the recently closed Turkish border. Mercy Corps, one of the few aid agencies in a position to help them, said Tuesday that its supplies will soon run out. For those who haven’t fled, the encirclement of Aleppo “would leave up to 300,000 people, still residing in the city, cut off from humanitarian aid unless cross-line access could be negotiated,” the United Nations said.

In Europe, where a flood of nearly a million migrants and refugees from the region, most of them Syrians, have already arrived, political and social tensions are threatening the foundation of European unity constructed over the past 70 years.

“There are fault lines emerging that we thought we had overcome,” said Peter Wittig, Germany’s ambassador to the United States, who described the situation as an existential threat to Europe.

“The United States has been slow to recognize this is a much bigger thing than anything else we’ve experienced since the beginning of the European Union,” Wittig said. “We didn’t see it earlier, we were totally unprepared. . . . We’re not blaming the United States. It takes time for this country to realize that it’s really that serious.”

Germany has taken in the bulk of the migrants and refugees, while some Eastern European members of the E.U. have closed their borders to them.

Negotiation track derided

U.S. ties have become strained with partners closer to the conflict. These allies fear the Obama administration has been blinded to the threat from Russia and Iran by its desire to believe they can be swayed by diplomatic reason and appeals to shared worries about expansion of the Islamic State.

One senior official from a close partner nation described the negotiation track as a farce. The official said that it was unrealistic to expect the opposition to come to the table when its forces are being decimated on the ground and civilians are being starved by Russian bombing and the government gains it has enabled, in violation of United Nations resolutions that Moscow agreed to in order to get the talks started. The official, who said that U.S. leadership is still essential if the war is to end, did not want to be identified by name or nationality in order to speak candidly.

Frontline Turkey, a NATO ally and member of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State, has dithered over its priorities, concerned that a U.S. alliance with Syrian Kurds fighting against the militants will give advantage to Turkish Kurds who seek independence. Even as pro-government forces expand north from Aleppo, Kurdish fighters in Syria’s northwest corner are pushing into the same area.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has demanded that the United States choose between Turkey and the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party. After State Department spokesman John Kirby said this week that the United States does not consider the Syrian Kurds to be terrorists while recognizing that Turkey does, the Ankara government called in U.S. Ambassador John R. Bass on Tuesday for a dressing-down.

Talks between the Syrian government and opposition were suspended before they began this month after rebel representatives said they would not sit at the table until the government provided humanitarian access to besieged areas and released women and children it is holding prisoner. The Munich meeting, originally scheduled to monitor progress in the negotiations, became a final effort to get them started.

Scorched-earth policy

Kerry has long sought a more muscular U.S. policy than Obama has allowed. But he also firmly believes that if negotiations can begin, Assad will eventually be forced from power, with Russian acquiescence in the face of the inevitable.

For the moment, Moscow seems more interested in adjusting the balance of power on the ground — where just months ago, the rebels were on the ascendant — to strengthen Assad’s position before entering talks about his future.

Near the Turkey-Syria border Tuesday, rebels said they fear they are being betrayed by the countries they thought were their allies — most notably the United States. Without significant new injections of arms and ammunition, they said, they will not survive the combined onslaught of intense Russian airstrikes and advances by pro-government ground forces.

“Russia is the second superpower in the world, and Russia is using all of its power against the rebels,” said Mohammed Adib, a political officer with Jabhat Shamiya, the main rebel group fighting in northern Aleppo province. “They’re using a scorched-earth policy, and they don’t care what the international community says.”

“The problem is the friends of the regime are really good friends and give lots of support, whereas our friends sometimes give support and sometimes not,” he said.

While they don’t expect they will receive anti-aircraft missiles, which would have a major impact on the balance of power, rebels said they still hope to receive upgraded weapons, including new-generation models of the TOW missiles that have proved effective at taking out the Syrian government’s aging battle tanks, though these are no match for newly supplied Russian T-90 tanks.

If the rebel fighters cannot rebound, Adib and other rebel spokesmen said, there is a risk that opposition fighters will join more radical organizations, including the Islamic State. “People will not surrender to [Assad] under any circumstances,” said Khaled Shihabeddine, a political adviser to the Noureddin al-Zinki rebel group. “If things stay as they are, with no support and no one stopping Russia, the rebels will be pushed into a corner and . . . all possibilities will be open.”

Possibly up to 30 Accounts on Hillary’s Server?

Posted on February 10, 2016February 10, 2016 by Denise Simon

Official: Top Clinton aides also handled ‘top secret’ intel on server

FNC: EXCLUSIVE: At least a dozen email accounts handled the “top secret” intelligence that was found on Hillary Clinton’s server and recently deemed too damaging for national security to release, a U.S. government official close to the review told Fox News.

The official said the accounts include not only Clinton’s but those of top aides – including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines – as well as State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy and others.

A second source not authorized to speak on the record said the number of accounts involved could be as high as 30 and reflects how the intelligence was broadly shared, replied to, and copied to individuals using the unsecured server.

The State Department recently confirmed that the messages in question include the most sensitive kind of intelligence. On Jan. 29, Fox News first reported that some emails on Clinton’s server were too damaging to release in any form. The State Department subsequently announced that 22 “top secret” emails were being withheld in full; these were the messages being handled by more than a dozen accounts.

Kennedy recently told the House Benghazi Select Committee that he knew about Clinton’s personal email account from the beginning, but did not understand the “scope,” thinking it was for reaching husband Bill Clinton and their daughter Chelsea — and not for the exclusive handling of State Department business. Kennedy’s testimony appears to conflict with emails released through the Freedom of Information Act that show he routinely sent and received government business from the Clinton account.

Fox News has asked the State Department to comment on the email accounts that shared the highly classified information, and how it was that Kennedy did not understand the “scope” of Clinton’s personal email being used for government business.

A spokesman for the intelligence community inspector general, which has been reviewing the classification of the Clinton server emails, had no comment.

*** From ABC and the White House last year:

President Obama Knew Hillary Clinton’s Private Email Address, But Not Details of Server

President Obama exchanged emails with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at her private address — @clintonemail.com — but did not know the details of her account or how she would comply with administration policy and federal records law, the White House said today.

“Yes, he was aware of her email address. He traded emails with her,” Obama spokesman Josh Earnest told ABC’s Jonathan Karl. “But he was not aware of her personal email server or that she was using it exclusively for all her business.”

Asked how often Obama and Clinton emailed, Earnest said he “would not describe the number as large.”

In an interview Saturday, Obama said he learned of his secretary of state’s private email address use through recent news reports, “the same time everybody else learned it.”

Earnest explained that the president was referring to details of her email system and the fact that she had not been in compliance with State Department policy for nearly six years after failing to submit the records for transfer to government computers.

Clinton has called for the public release of 55,000 emails turned over to the State Department for archiving. Her team handpicked the messages off her private server that pertained to official business; Clinton’s camp said roughly 10 percent were of a personal nature and not handed over.

“I’m glad that Hillary [has] instructed that those emails about official business need to be disclosed,” Obama said Saturday.

Earnest said an independent, third-party review of Clinton’s private server should not be required, but suggested that the White House would not oppose one if she elected to do so.

The former Secretary of State has remained mum on the email controversy. She has yet to explain why she exclusively used private email through a server built inside her New York home while Secretary of State, or why it took six years to submit the records as required under the department policy she oversaw.

*** Some emails being withheld could have Obama’s communication exchanges included:

“We can confirm that later today, as part of our monthly [Freedom of Information Act] productions of former secretary Clinton’s emails, the State Department will be denying in full seven email chains”, he said.

In the past few months, Clinton had been facing issues of trustworthiness during surveys as a result of evidence of the existence of top secret material in her private email server.

Clinton has encouraged the State Department to release her email as quickly as possible and, when delays have occurred, her campaign has been quick to point out that they do not control the schedule, which was set by the court and government bureaucrats.

Officials in the State Department have asked for additional time to vet the messages because of the recent snowstorm that hit Washington.

“This seems to be over-categorization run amok”, it said in statement.

So far, officials haven’t really described what’s in the emails or even if Clinton sent them.

The presidential hopeful has acknowledged that her choice to make use of a personal email server at her Nyc house was a blunder. We feel no differently today. But as is often the case with the Democratic presidential candidate, she dodged the question and gave an inconsistent answer.

The State Department is separately withholding 18 e-mails comprised of eight e-mail chains between Clinton and President Barack Obama, Kirby said. Such operations are widely discussed publicly, including by top USA officials, and State Department officials debated McCullough’s claim.

The AP reported last August that one focused on a forwarded news article about the classified US drone program run by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Hillary has no Message, then this Memo

Posted on February 10, 2016February 10, 2016 by Denise Simon

FreeBeacon: MSNBC reporter Andrea Mitchell slammed Hillary Clinton’s campaign for its “pretty shocking” memo that it “defensively” released in anticipation of losing to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) in New Hampshire.

Sanders, as predicted by the polls, defeated Clinton there Tuesday night, with networks making the calls just moments after the final polls closed.

PBS reported on the memo:

Hours before official New Hampshire results appeared Tuesday, Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook conceded to staffers, supporters and some reporters that the Granite State race was lost, in a memo obtained by PBS NewsHour that urged the Clinton team to focus past February and on March.

“The first four states represent just 4% of the delegates needed to secure the nomination,” Mook wrote, “The 28 states that vote (or caucus) in March will award 56% of the delegates needed to win.”

The Democratic Party is “completely splintered,” Mitchell said.

“Hillary Clinton had the Democratic Party establishment,” Mitchell said. “She still has their endorsements, but he has out-raised her in January. He now will have a ton of money on those online contributions in February, and the Clinton team anticipated this with this three-page memo.”

Host Rachel Maddow interrupted to say that the memo “shocked” her.

“Is this normal?” Maddow asked.

“No, this is pretty shocking because it is a three-page memo from the campaign manager defensively explaining how they can come back and win the nomination in March with the delegate-rich first 15 days in March,” Mitchell said, her voice hardened.

Mitchell added she’d had it for a half-hour, showing the campaign pre-emotively wrote it in anticipation of losing to Sanders.

“Embargoed until 8:00,” Maddow said. “They knew they were going to lose.”

***

The gaping hole at the heart of Hillary Clinton’s campaign

WaPo: There are many stories one could tell about Bernie Sanders’ defeat of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. One is that Sanders has captured the prevailing sentiment among Democrats, a fervent desire for political revolution to unmake a corrupt system, and he will ride this desire all the way to the nomination. Another is that yesterday’s result was a function of some idiosyncratic features of that primary, particularly New Hampshire’s demographic homogeneity and the fact that independents are allowed to vote in the party primary; now that the race moves to states that better represent the Democratic Party, Clinton’s strength among Latinos and African-Americans will move her back into command for good.

Either of those stories might be true. But right now, the Clinton campaign has a much bigger problem than the story it wants to tell about New Hampshire. That problem is this: the campaign has no story to tell the voters about Hillary Clinton and why she should be president.

Having a good story doesn’t guarantee you victory, but nobody becomes president without one. The story has to contain three simple elements. First, it explains what the problem is. Second, it explains what the solution is. And third, it explains why this candidate, and only this candidate, is the person who can bring the country from where it is now to where it ought to be.

As Greg discussed this morning, both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have very simple messages that are resonating with substantial parts of the base voters in each one’s party. Trump says that America is being played for chumps, and only a fantastic, luxurious individual like him can make us win again. Sanders says that the political system is corrupted by the influence of the wealthy and corporations, and a revolution delivered by an unsullied figure like him is necessary to break their stranglehold on our politics. Anyone who has paid attention to the campaign for five minutes understands what those messages are, whether you agree with either one of them or not.

Now tell me: what’s Hillary Clinton’s message?

She doesn’t have one. She doesn’t have a clear diagnosis of the problem the country faces, nor does she have an explanation of what the solution is, nor can she say why only she can bring about the better future voters are hoping for.

Of course, Clinton can make a persuasive argument for her preferred solution on any policy area you can name. She also has a strong argument for why Sanders is being unrealistic about much of what he wants to do, an argument I basically agree with. And if you asked, she could tell you all about her ample qualifications for the presidency. But it doesn’t add up to a coherent story.

What’s remarkable about this gaping hole in her candidacy is that she faced exactly the same problem eight years ago, and lost in part because she never solved it. Barack Obama told voters that our politics was being constrained by partisan bickering and small thinking, and only he, a new, inspiring figure, could forge consensus and bring the kind of change our future demanded. You might not think he succeeded in that, but at the time it was exactly what voters believed we needed. Far more than Obama’s specific policy ideas — which barely differed from Clinton’s at all — that vision and the way he embodied it was what drew first Democrats and then general election voters to him.

I’m a little reluctant to make this critique, because reporters and pundits are often too eager to play political consultant and tell candidates and operatives how to do their jobs, when there are more important things we could be talking about. And candidates don’t need more encouragement to oversimplify things and reduce all the complexities of policy and politics to bumper sticker-ready slogans.

Nevertheless, the fact is that human beings understand the world through stories, which help bring coherence to complex situations. And there’s no reason a campaign can’t offer voters both lengthy policy plans and a simple, broad structure that organizes them into an understandable whole.

Clinton’s campaign would argue that she has such a story to tell. In her speech in New Hampshire last night, she listed many of the problems she wants to solve and explained how she can solve them through commitment and hard work. Sources near to her tell Politico that now she will “push a new focus on systematic racism, criminal justice reform, voting rights and gun violence that will mitigate concerns about her lack of an inspirational message.” That’s directed primarily at African-Americans, the Democratic Party’s largest and most loyal constituency group, and the one no Democrat can win the nomination without. If Clinton can hold those voters, she can probably turn back Sanders’ challenge.

But that’s far from guaranteed, and it’s a message that only addresses some of the problems the country faces. In contrast to broad ideas like Sanders’ call for revolution or even Trump’s claim that we’re a country of losers, it can’t be easily and logically applied to any problem a voter might see as urgent. And it doesn’t tell you much about Hillary Clinton in particular, other than the fact that this is something she cares about.

There’s another successful presidential candidate we can remember who knew that being smart and experienced and having popular policy ideas wasn’t enough. His name was Bill Clinton, and he told the country that as an innovative thinker hailing from a place called Hope, this representative of a new generation could carry America out of its doldrums. He may have been more of a natural politician than his wife, but he also had a story to tell, one the voters found compelling. Hillary Clinton hasn’t told the country a story that connects their worries with her potential as a president. But she’d better find one soon.

Have you Met Taylor Johnson?

Posted on February 10, 2016February 10, 2016 by Denise Simon

Imagine a government doing this to an employee, when an employee is bound by law to do so. Ah, Harry Reid, of course.

EXCLUSIVE: ICE Whistleblower Fired After Refusing DHS Hush Money

DailyCaller: The Department of Homeland Security on Thursday dismissed an ICE whistleblower it was secretly smearing to reporters after she testified before Congress about her troubles with the agency.

Special Agent Taylor Johnson — who had a storied career until she irked Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid by objecting to a visa program for foreign investors tied to the senator’s son — says she declined to take a $100,000 severance package because it included a non-disclosure agreement.

Gee, what a great use of taxpayer money that would have been. Pay a woman not to talk about what already got nationwide coverage when she talked about it before Congress.

DHS Acting Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Todd Breasseale did not respond to multiple inquiries about the reason for Johnson’s dismissal and why they tried to buy her silence.

Despite all the media coverage of her case, including a Washington Gadfly report that the ICE press secretary with the approval of Breasseale was peddling confidential information to discredit her in violation of the Privacy Act, Taylor is not surprised she got the boot.

“My entire chain of command was appointed by Obama,” she remarked. “They can do anything they want.”

In testimony last June to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Johnson said she was stripped of her gun and badge, without explanation, after discovering fraud and abuse.

“Some of the violations investigated surrounding the project included bank and wire fraud, and I discovered ties to organized crime and high-ranking politicians and they received promotions that appeared to facilitate the program,” Johnson testified.

She said that during her investigation in 2013, she “discovered that EB-5 applicants from China, Russia, Pakistan, Malaysia had been approved in as little as 16 days” and that case files “lacked the basic and necessary law enforcement queries.”

At ICE, Johnson had amassed many awards and never had any disciplinary problems. But everything changed abruptly in 2013 when she invoked the ire of Senator Reid by holding up a visas for a foreigner investor in a Las Vegas casino represented by his son, attorney Cory Reid.

The Senator’s office complained to Johnson’s Special Agent in Charge. She was then placed on administrative leave, without explanation, on October 13, 2013.

Under pressure from Senate Democratic staffers Johnson did not mention in her testimony the role Reid’s office played in her ouster. But the DHS Inspector General concluded in a report last March that U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) director Alejandro Mayorkas intervened in “an unprecedented matter” to approve EB-5 visas for the Las Vegas casino investors after pressure from Reid’s office.

The report essentially vindicated complaints by Johnson and other DHS employees about the program.

DHS has never given any public explanation for the disciplinary action it took against Johnson. After the hearing a DHS spokeswoman said they do not talk about personnel matters.

But this past December, ICE press secretary Gillian Christensen, citing confidential information from Johnson’s file, tried to convince this reporter off the record that she was a dishonest and a problem employee.

That argument is going to be even harder to peddle now that the Department would have allowed Johnson to leave with a clean work record and $100,000 in spending money if she promised to keep her mouth shut.

Johnson is soliciting donations on gofundme.com to cover legal fees for a possible federal lawsuit.