Category Archives: Iran Israel

West Point Speech and Why

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Barack Obama has hidden his concern for terror threats and most often he has re-labeled it as an ‘overseas contingency operation’.

Then only recently did he give a speech at West Point explaining his foreign policy which he was forced to do for at least two reasons, the recent kidnappings and deaths at the hands of Boko Harem and the immediate release only a few days after the speech of the Taliban 5 from Guantanamo.

Okay, so where does that leave America for the next several years as Barack Obama has forced the shrinking of the United States footprint globally? Well, Barack Obama’s lack of policy and leadership with allies point to the very real possibility of NATO crumbling itself. This leaves China and Russia and especially the entire Shiite and Sunni world in a race for the top slots of globally power rankings.

In context, the lack of will and the aversion to colonialism at the hands of Barack Obama, simply removed the United States from the short list of the keepers of peace globally in six short years, something that experts predict will take at least fifteen years to ever begin to reverse, others predict as much as forty years and that is only if there is a collection of Reagan prodigies on the horizon. Not much hope so far.

One of the topic intelligence analyst with a real and candid background for saying what must be said is Michael Vickers. Here he is in his own assessment. Take it for your deep consideration.

global map

 

WASHINGTON: If you want to understand why President Obama spoke so much about terrorism in his widely panned West Point speech, the head of Pentagon intelligence explained it pretty well today.

Click here to see the video of Vicker’s message.

Terrorism is and remains the top threat to the United States, Defense Undersecretary for Intelligence Mike Vickers said this morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The most interesting, and some would say anomalous, threat assessment he offered: China comes in at number seven after Al Qaeda and its affiliates, the Syrian civil war, Russian “revanchism,” Iran, North Korea and what he called the “persistent volatility” across South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa.

That’s right, China appears to come seventh when the Intelligence Community is planning and advising President Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. It makes sense when you consider the long-range goals China appears to have set itself and the absence of a direct confrontation — so far — between the two powers.

Now folks in the Intelligence Community may well tut tut and profess that they examine each situation as it occurs, but budgeting requires prioritization and here it is.

What does all this mean in aggregate to the Intelligence Community and the Pentagon? Vickers said, “[as] senior intelligence officials, we haven’t seen this range of challenges on an administration’s plate in our careers.” Not only is the range of threats geographically enormous and conceptually varied, they are, as Vickers noted, “these are highly asymmetric challenges.” In Pentagon parlance that means the United States military isn’t necessarily well prepared to cope with them. And there are a lot of them.

Is Mike Vickers arguing that the Intelligence Community needs to remain very well financed, even in this age of declining defense budgets? Sounds like!

 

War to Luxury to War

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The Afghan villagers remember Bergdahl quite well mostly for the reason he was purposely heading into Taliban territory on a mission. While that State Department spokesperson is minimizing the words of the soldiers in Bergdahl’s unit, the State Department cannot ignore the words of the Afghanis.

“It was very confusing to us. Why would he leave the base?” said Jamal, an elder in the village of Yusef Khel, about a half-mile from the American military installation. (Like many Afghans, he goes by only one name). “The people thought it was a covert agenda – maybe he was sent to the village by the U.S.”

Locals remember Bergdahl walking through the village in a haze. They later told Afghan investigators that they had warned the American that he was heading into a dangerous area.

“They tried to tell him not to go there, that it is dangerous. But he kept going over the mountain. The villagers tried to give him water and bread, but he didn’t take it,” said Ibrahim Manikhel, the district’s intelligence chief.

So, let us turn to the home that the Taliban 5 left behind at Gitmo. Air conditioning, video games and recliners, soccer fields, first rate medical care and visitors were all part of the perks that the Gitmo detainees enjoyed. The Taliban 5 left this behind anxious to return to their jihad and Barack Obama aggressively and willingly delivered renewed inspiration and power to the enemy.

Military officials at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility are attempting to make force-feeding a little more fun for detainees. Some longterm hunger strikers can now kick back in a plush recliner — well, not literally, since their ankles are restrained by shackles — and play video games or watch TV while being tube fed a liquid nutritional supplement.

Detainees can choose from hundreds of video games and movies, said Milton, the Guantanamo librarian who doesn’t give out his last name. They can watch Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland or play Portal 2. But, say, Call of Duty: Ghosts isn’t available — Milton said the library doesn’t carry violent video games or movies.

The Taliban specifically asked several years ago for these 5 Gitmo detainees as they were to lead the U.S. paid Taliban headquarters location in Doha. At first even those on the ‘Afghan Good Enough’ team pushed back. The office later closed and now it has a new home in Qatar under the support and approval of al Thani and Barack Obama.

On the Taleban side, it was, significantly, their (officially closed, but apparently still active) political bureau in Qatar that played the key role in negotiations, as the Taleban’s official statement acknowledged. An interview (in Pashto) with office member, Nek Muhammad, highlighted the role of the head of the office, Tayyeb Agha, as chief negotiator in the talks. (1) He said they had originally intended to negotiate directly with the Americans, but then decided it was better to go through Qatar given the complexity of the issues. (This also allowed the White House to say it “doesn’t talk to terrorists.”) One other interesting detail in Nek Muhammad’s interview is his hint that Na’im Kuchi played a role in the handover. Kuchi, a former senior mujahedin and Taleban commander, was detained in Guantanamo, but ‘reconciled’ on his release in 2004 and is now a member of the High Peace Council, although not a particularly active one. Nek Muhammad said Bergdahl had been transferred to the Americans at 6.30 in the evening on Saturday 31 May in the Bati area of Alisher district of Khost province, “near the home of Sardar Na’im Kuchi.” If Kuchi did play a role in the transfer, it looks most likely to have been in his personal capacity and kept secret from the High Peace Council (as news of the deal did not leak).

In one sweeping week under Barack Obama, the American military and the coalition forces of our allies has been dismissed, the blood and treasure spent is regarded with full disdain by the Commander-in-Chief.

While there have been countless scandals during the Obama administration, the Taliban being granted a new ‘win’ in the war on terror by the White House, the real tragedy is Obama’s misplaced loyalty to the Muslim Brotherhood where he clearly loves something else rather than the very America who put him in office only to betray and violate us all.

Andy McCarthy supports the sentiment, Barack Obama crossed over and makes the case on why. No signing statement, where Barack Obama decidedly took excessive power to finesse the law that he signed will or should give him the protection he thinks he built.

 

15-6, the Bergdahl Investigation

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It is important to understand the timeline and who was where, when.  The Taliban talks and the Afghanistan exit strategy began in earnest several years ago, which places Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, David Patraeus, John Brennan and Bob Gates back in their respective jobs when the ‘Afgan Good Enough’ team was created headed by the now dead Richard Holbrooke was leading the charge to make nice with the Taliban and close Gitmo.

Richard Holbrooke died and he was replaced by Marc Grossman, Hillary’s choice. As the negotiations continued, they often broke down mostly due to leaks and the profound demand of the Taliban for the exceptional choice of the top 5 Taliban prisoner be released. These 5 are so bad that a DC Judge ruled at least two could never be released. A Judge even ruled on what an ‘enemy combatant’ is such that it was a declaration on who is the enemy that America and her allies are fighting in Afghanistan and beyond. Barack Obama ignored both. Barack Obama ignored telling anyone of his actions including the Congress and he ignored getting any of the intelligence files from all of the 16 intelligence agencies that had the goods on the Taliban Dream Team or Bowe Bergdahl himself.

The charges of oath violations are mounting and are at a tipping point at the hands of Barack Obama and his White House Staff.

In case you need more, the New York Daily news summarizes this misguided mission of Barack Obama as ‘Surrender without Honor’. This a short must read.

Not one person in Barack Obama’s inner circle has ever worn the uniform, not one understands the code of the military, yet Barack Obama as Commander-in-Chief seems to ignore the military culture most of all. There are two cases of desertion here, one by Bowe Bergdahl yet the most egregious is by Barack Obama himself.  This is spelled out well by Col. Ralph Peters himself.

http://www.nationalreview.com/ article/379481/why-team-obama- was-blindsided-bergdahl- backlash-ralph-peters.

By Ralph Peters

 

Congratulations, Mr. President! And identical congrats to your sorcerer’s apprentice, National Security Adviser Susan Rice. By trying to sell him as an American hero, you’ve turned a deserter already despised by soldiers in the know into quite possibly the most-hated individual soldier in the history of our military.

I have never witnessed such outrage from our troops.

Exhibit A: Ms. Rice. In one of the most tone-deaf statements in White House history (we’re making a lot of history here), the national-security advisor, on a Sunday talk show, described Bergdahl as having served “with honor and distinction.” Those serving in uniform and those of us who served previously were already stirred up, but that jaw-dropper drove us into jihad mode.

But pity Ms. Rice. Like the president she serves, she’s a victim of her class. Nobody in the inner circle of Team Obama has served in uniform. It shows. That bit about serving with “honor and distinction” is the sort of perfunctory catch-phrase politicians briefly don as electoral armor. (“At this point in your speech, ma’am, devote one sentence to how much you honor the troops.”)

I actually believe that Ms. Rice was kind of sincere, in her spectacularly oblivious way. In the best Manchurian Candidate manner, she said what she had been programmed to say by her political culture, then she was blindsided by the firestorm she ignited by scratching two flinty words together. At least she didn’t blame Bergdahl’s desertion on a video.

The president, too, appears stunned. He has so little understanding of (or interest in) the values and traditions of our troops that he and his advisers really believed that those in uniform would erupt into public joy at the news of Bergdahl’s release – as D.C. frat kids did when Osama bin Laden’s death was trumpeted.

Both President Obama and Ms. Rice seem to think that the crime of desertion in wartime is kind of like skipping class. They have no idea of how great a sin desertion in the face of the enemy is to those in our military. The only worse sin is to side actively with the enemy and kill your brothers in arms. This is not sleeping in on Monday morning and ducking Gender Studies 101.

But compassion, please! The president and all the president’s men and women are not alone. Our media elite – where it’s a rare bird who bothered to serve in uniform – instantly became experts on military justice. Of earnest mien and blithe assumption, one talking head after another announced that “we always try to rescue our troops, even deserters.”

Uh, no. “Save the deserter” is a recent battle cry of the politically indoctrinated brass. For much of our history, we did make some efforts to track down deserters in wartime. Then we shot or hanged them. Or, if we were in good spirits, we merely used a branding iron to burn a large D into their cheeks or foreheads. Even as we grew more enlightened, desertion brought serious time in a military prison. At hard labor.

This is a fundamental culture clash. Team Obama and its base cannot comprehend the values still cherished by those young Americans “so dumb” they joined the Army instead of going to prep school and then to Harvard. Values such as duty, honor, country, physical courage, and loyalty to your brothers and sisters in arms have no place in Obama World. (Military people don’t necessarily all like each other, but they know they can depend on each other in battle – the sacred trust Bergdahl violated.)

President Obama did this to himself (and to Bergdahl). This beautifully educated man, who never tires of letting us know how much smarter he is than the rest of us, never stopped to consider that our troops and their families might have been offended by their commander-in-chief staging a love-fest at the White House to celebrate trading five top terrorists for one deserter and featuring not the families of those soldiers (at least six of them) who died in the efforts to find and free Bergdahl, but, instead, giving a starring role on the international stage to Pa Taliban, parent of a deserter and a creature of dubious sympathies (that beard on pops ain’t a tribute to ZZ Top). How do you say “outrageous insult to our vets” in Pashto?

Nor, during the recent VA scandal, had the president troubled himself to host the families of survivors of those vets who died awaiting care. No, the warmest attention our president has ever paid to a “military family” was to Mr. and Mrs. Bergdahl.

(I will refrain from criticism of the bumptious attempts to cool the flames of this political conflagration by Secretary Hagel: I never pick on the weak.)

What is to be done? Behind the outrage triggered by Team Obama’s combination of cynicism and obliviousness (Bergdahl was so ill we had to set those terrorists free immediately, without notifying Congress, but now he’s chugging power shakes in a military hospital . . . and all this just happened to come at the peak of the VA scandal . . . ), military members don’t really want to lynch Bergdahl. But they want justice.

Our military leaders need to rediscover their moral courage and honor our traditions, our regulations, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. We need a fresh, unprejudiced 15-6 investigation (the military equivalent of a grand jury). We already know, as the military has known since the first 24 hours after Bergdahl abandoned his post, that sufficient evidence exists for a court-martial, but it’s important to do this by the numbers.

It’s hard to believe that the resulting court-martial would not find Bergdahl guilty of desertion (although there will be heavy White House pressure to reduce the charge to Absent Without Leave, or AWOL, status, a lesser offense). If he is convicted, I for one do not want him to go to prison. I’m sure he’s paid and paid for betraying his comrades, quite possibly suffering brutal sexual violence. But if he is found guilty, he needs to be formally reduced to the rank of private, stripped of all privileges and entitlements (the taxpayer should not pay for a deserter’s lifelong health care – Bergdahl’s book and film deals can cover that), and he should be given the appropriate prison sentence, which would then be commuted by the president. Thereafter, let Mr. Bergdahl go home and live with himself.

As for President Obama, how about just one word of thanks to the families of those fallen soldiers you sent out to find Bowe Bergdahl?

– Fox News Strategic Analyst Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer and former enlisted man.

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In case you need more, here is the video released by the Taliban turning over Bergdahl.

Europe has big worries with their security threats when the joy the Taliban embraces this generous gift by Obama, here is the Taliban winning strategy. It is now time for America, her allies and the military to relook at the battlefield, this IS in fact going to be a very long slogging war where the battlefield has expanded and spent blood and treasure was dismissed by the Commander-in-Chief.

The 15-6 needs to be ordered on Barack Obama himself and those that are part of this dishonor, who are part of aiding the enemy, those who have surrendered with no honor.

 

 

 

Next, Pardon a Traitor?

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The list of traitors to America is growing and the list includes many within the Obama administration. Remember, traitors are in violation of their oath and traitors joining forces with the declared enemy fall to treason.

Reminder: during the Obama administration we have had three attacks, Ft. Hood, Boston Bombing and Benghazi.

Several months ago, Saudi Arabia announced they were disgusted with the Obama administration over the matters in Syria and Iran. Saudi Arabia part of the Gulf States declared along with Egypt that Turkey and Qatar were no longer going to be part of a new coalition to fight the war on terror given Qatar especially has aligned and allowed Hamas and AQAP a supportive foothold in the Middle East.  Sadly, the United States continues to recognize Qatar as an ally, knowing full well we are sleeping with the enemy.

For three years hence,  U.S. State Department and the White House through Qatar has been negotiating with Haqqani and the Taliban for a misguided truce of sorts such that the United States paid through USAID for the Taliban to have a headquarters office in Qatar. Once that was exposed it fell apart. However, in March of 2012, during the negotiations with the Taliban, those leaders made a major demand of the release of 5 Gitmo detainees and May 31, 2014, the deed was done, Barack Obama fulfilled that request at the peril of future kidnappings, beheadings or worse.

For a real summary review of who the Taliban are historically, click here.

Yesterday, we learned that a covert operation occurred that Barack Obama used a U.S. citizen, once a PVT, but promoted to Sgt during his defection to the Taliban was at the core of a prisoner swap releasing the top 5 Taliban leadership from Guantanamo to Qatar.  These Taliban had direct action in killing Americans and they were flown by America leaving Gitmo at 2 PM, Saturday, 5/31/14 for Qatar. The al Thani family in leadership in Qatar worked this deal and will keep the released Gitmo detainees under house arrest for a year. Barack Obama rewarded the Taliban and then brought home a defector, the moral equivalence of high crimes and misdemeanors.

There is NO higher proof that Bergdahl was a deserter when even the FBI was brought in to investigate the case. In 2010, the military deemed Bergdahl a deserter. The Obama administration has known for years that Bergdahl defected and Barack Obama used this traitor who left his unit and uniform behind to advance the Taliban, now successfully so.

The happiest man globally is Mullah Omar, and this site is a follower of Robert Bergdahl on twitter, while the father of Beau follows this site. Here is the joy expressed by Mullah Omar. Robert Bergdahl is in full solidarity with the Taliban and continues to work to free all Taliban prisoners.  We can only assume and cautiously so the Robert Bergdahl has been given full immunity for his covert work supporting the Taliban while showing no remorse for the release of 5 Taliban personnel from Gitmo that are directly responsible for American deaths and those deaths of innocent women and children on a battlefield they created.

Beau Bergdahl left his Afghanistan post on purpose, unarmed except for a few knives and water seeking his Taliban friends.  Radio chatter began that the military picked up and so the saga began. Bergdahl did not report for 9 am muster the next morning and the search began for weeks that included drones, exfil teams, search teams and roving land teams. The IED’s went off, the ambushes began and the false leads led to injuries and death of American soldiers all for a traitor.

Prisoner swap

Bergdahl wrote home more than once that he no longer wanted to be an American, he was sick of a country full of lies, so his parents knew he defected. Robert Bergdahl even boasted about working to release all the Gitmo detainees for the sake of the innocent that America had killed prosecuting the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The timing of this swap is more than suspect given the fact the veterans and active military have come forward to expose the malfeasance and corruption within the Veterans Administration and Barack Obama  did nothing for six years. Firing Shinseki was required and larger aggressive measures could have happened under his watch and that of Barack Obama to cure the corrupt VA least of which could have been at the signature of Barack Obama by Executive Order. Now, how is it that the parents of Bergdahl just happened to be in Washington DC over this weekend, the very moment that the son is rescued? This plot was exposed on national TV filmed from the Rose Garden?

Now, Barack Obama says the al Qaeda leadership has been destroyed and the measures to defeat the Taliban is within the grasp of Afghani forces. Given the 5 Taliban senior leadership that Barack Obama released, tomorrow the war on terror will be at least as bad as it was on 9-12-01. The blood and treasure spent in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond has been for nothing now and al Qaeda is on its way to expand and fulfill their mission, defeat America and NATO forces.

The White House knew Bergdahl was a deserter, the State Department knew he was a deserter the military knew he was a deserter, the proof is there given all the cables from 2009, the emails from Bergdahl and the radio transmissions.

There is no single betrayal that is bigger than what Barack Obama approved, releasing top Taliban leadership to get a deserter returned all for regaining political capital.

National Security just went into a crisis DEFCON condition. The Senate was not advised of this covert White House action which is a violation of law. No higher price has America ever paid yet on the war on terror than this single reprehensible mission of Barack Obama.

In case there is any question on why this swap transaction is dangerous beyond definition, one only need to understand a previous Gitmo detainee Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir. The Department of Defense has graded Guantanamo prisoners with regard to future threat assessments. Zakir was ranked medium risk and sadly that proved to be wrong.

The matter of being attacked on 9-11-01 has been dismissed by Barack Obama and his conscripts.

Stop With the al Qaeda Core Crap

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Just because Usama bin Ladin is dead does not translate to al Qaeda being decimated, in fact nothing is farther from the truth.

It should make one wonder why the CTC (Counter Terrorism Center) has only released 17 of the documents from the trove of evidence taken from the bin Ladin Pakistan compound. It also should be the question on why drone strikes have suddenly stopped in Pakistan and moved to other locations such as Yemen.

On the heels of the Barack Obama West Point speech yesterday on the foreign policy doctrine, both the White House and the State Department announced a $5 billion global counter-terrorism fund. Ah, why now? Why was there at least a two year delay in placing Boko Harem on the FTO by Hillary Clinton? Why was there a major delay in placing Ansar al Sharia on the FTO, which was not done until January of this year given the proof of their attack on our two locations in Benghazi?

 

aq map

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A Map of All the Countries That Now Have Al-Qaeda Affiliated Terrorist Groups

The United Nations decided late last week to add Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram to its list of terrorist organizations formally recognized as being associated with al Qaeda.

The UN said in its statement that Boko Haram—whose name loosely translates to “Western education is a sin”—has “maintained a relationship with the Organization of Al-Qaida [sic] in the Islamic Maghreb for training and material support purposes.”

Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan has been referring to the group as a terrorist organization since last year and arresting members accordingly. But his country’s battles with Islamism have been launched onto the international stage since Boko Haram abducted hundreds of schoolgirls last month. This has put Nigeria on the map in a way Jonathan would have done best to avoid.

It has also put Nigeria on this particular map of countries with recognized al-Qaeda affiliates.

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Obama’s $5 Billion Counterterrorism Fund Already in Trouble in Congress

by Josh Rogin

President Obama’s Wednesday announcement that he wants $5 billion more next year to fight terrorism came as a complete surprise to the congressmen who will have to give him the money, and they reacted Wednesday with confusion and skepticism.

The new fund, if Congress goes along, would be added to the administration’s Pentagon budget request for the upcoming fiscal year, inside what’s known as the Overseas Contingency Operations fund. (That’s the cash that’s supposed to be used to help fight America’s wars, and is not considered part of the Defense Department’s core budget.) Experts and former officials warned that unless the administration comes to Congress with detailed plans of how the money will be spent and why those tasks can’t be completed inside the Pentagon’s already-huge budget, lawmakers are not likely to sign off on the idea. The total lack of administration outreach to Congress so far is not a good start.

At West Point, Obama said he was “calling on Congress to support a new Counter-Terrorism Partnerships Fund of up to $5 billion, which will allow us to train, build capacity, and facilitate partner countries on the front lines”—from Yemen to Libya to Syria to Mali.

Read more here.