Category Archives: Iran Israel

Militant Islam, Obama Admin Forbidden Terms

Posted on by

A distinction needs to be made. Radical extremists are for the force multipliers, those like Anwar al Awlaki. The militants like Mohammed Emwazi are born from the radicals and they are the deadly enforcers of the Islamic doctrine and Sharia.

Don’t blame the FBI for failures, with particular regard to the worst terror attack in American by a gunman, Orlando. Blame the White House. All the Q&A sessions, congressional testimony and press briefings by FBI Director James Comey have had an underlying message, a cry for help, attention and support.

Don’t blame the intelligence community including CENTCOM and the Pentagon for battlefield or rules of engagement failures. That belongs to the entire White House national security team. The Office of National Intelligence has also been affected.

This is not political correctness at all, it is a Barak Obama edict, sensitivity to Islam across our homeland and across the globe. Obama has had a strident mission since he assumed the Oval Office to create a Muslim protective shield. This is beyond dispute.

While not in any chronological order, there are some very key decisions that were made and continue to be made by the Obama administration that affect our national security and this generational war titled the Overseas Contingency Operation.

In April of 2009, Barak Obama delivered ‘The New Beginnings’ speech. In this presentation he spelled out his full agenda in what was to become the long-term mission to elevate Muslims and their organizations at home and globally. The White House objectives have been successful and consequential.

With the new beginning announced, Obama extended his same purpose throughout government agencies, law enforcement and policies as a mandatory doctrine.

‘Just before that Christmas Day attack, in early November 2009, I was ordered by my superiors at the Department of Homeland Security to delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS). These types of records are the basis for any ability to “connect dots.”  Every day, DHS Customs and Border Protection officers watch entering and exiting many individuals associated with known terrorist affiliations, then look for patterns. Enforcing a political scrubbing of records of Muslims greatly affected our ability to do that. Even worse, going forward, my colleagues and I were prohibited from entering pertinent information into the database.’ Philip Haney, The Hill.

Directly after the 9/11 attack, the Bush administration did reach out to the Muslim communities to determine who was with peace and national security and who perhaps gave clues of a larger and hidden condition that could be festering that would prove clues to more domestic security challenges.

Then came the Holyland Foundation trial in 2007/2008. The material facts and conditions of the domestic threat, people, money, collaboration and global consequence all converged in a courtroom in Texas.

During the Holy Land trial, FBI Agent Lara Burns testified in court that CAIR was a front for HAMAS. One trial exhibit submitted by federal prosecutors – and stipulated to by the defense in the case – explained that these organizations were dedicated to a “civilizational-jihadist process” to destroy America from within and replace the Constitution with sharia (Islamic law):

The Ikhwah [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions. (p. 21)

Federal prosecutors specifically cited this internal Muslim Brotherhood planning document as the strategic goal of these U.S.-based Islamic groups – the very same group advising the Obama Administration. The federal judge in the Holy Foundation case agreed with the case presented by the federal prosecutors had made regarding these organizations, stating in one ruling that “the Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations with CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF…and with HAMAS.” (p. 14-15) More important details here from the CounterjihadReport.

The Department of Justice under Eric Holder was included in the full protection of the terror networks and associated people. Congressman Gohmert of Texas challenged AG Holder to no avail in a chilling exchange.

Here is where the ‘words matter’ material documentation began. The Obama administration took this agenda to new standard.

In 2009, DHS published via the Office of Intelligence and Analysis Assessment a ‘Rightwing Extremism’ document, pinpointing those that may challenge the Obama Muslim doctrine. Additionally, DHS posted The Department of Homeland Security launched a ‘Do’s and Dont’s bulletin.

The entire complexion of the Department of Homeland Security began to change with new personnel and outreach under Secretary Janet Napolitano. The outreach extended to law enforcement agencies of which LAPD demonstrates.

The order to purge documents, training materials and database was made. The proof is here.

Barak Obama was not finished. In 2015, the White House introduced a strategy for CVE, Counter Violent Extremism.

Then comes the foreign policy of Obama. All deference to Iran began before Obama assumed the White House in 2009 and continues today. Secret back channels to Iran using Ambassador Burns began in 2008. Further, there is Iraq and Syria with Islamic State. Documents here on ISIS prove the intelligence and forecasts were known, available and delivered.

This would not be complete without mentioning China, Russia or North Korea where policies are non-existent.

The Paris attack was a slaughter and Obama found it wise to snub the solidarity march with other world leaders.

Obama touted Yemen as one of his successes but the country collapsed. Finally, the Obama policy doctrine crumbled and the cause was fully explained here. Obama wilfully recoiled as he and Hillary did on Benghazi.

It really no longer matters that Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton or John Kerry refuse to use key terms to describe militant Islam, the entire well verse and informed world have defined it for them. What does matter beyond the words are the policies and refusals of missions, strategies and conditions to keep America, her interests and allies safe.

It is no wonder there is no global respect for the Obama administration and there is much less to fear from her.

In summary, Obama owns this terror, owns this jihad and owns the death as well as the genocide. This is his legacy, he owns it as his own scarlet letter.

 

 

When and How do Preezy Candidates Get Briefings?

Posted on by
MICHAEL MORELL
FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, CIA
Once the Democratic and Republican parties officially nominate their Presidential candidates at their political conventions this summer, the nominees will be offered intelligence briefings before the general election.  We asked Michael Morell, the former Deputy Director and twice Acting Director of the CIA, to explain how these briefings work.
The Cipher Brief:  Can you tell us why the sitting President offers those briefings to the nominee from each party?
Michael Morell: There is a great deal of confusion about these briefings in the media.  After a candidate has been formally nominated by her/his national convention, she/he is offered a one-time intelligence briefing (sometimes over multiple days if there are time constraints or if a candidate wants to go deeper on a particular topic).  They do not receive a daily briefing.  They do not receive regular update briefings during the campaign.  They do not receive the President’s Daily Briefing.  Those only come for the president-elect, after the election in November.
There is also confusion in the media as to why every post-war president has offered these one-time, post-convention briefings to the candidates.  The objective is not to start preparing the candidate to deal with the myriad national security issues that they will face six months down the road, if they win the election.  The objective is to protect national security during the campaign by giving the candidates a deep sense of the national security landscape.  Let me explain:  both our adversaries and our allies and partners will be listening closely, extremely closely, to what the candidates say about the issues during the campaign, and saying the wrong thing could damage our national security.  The briefings are meant to help prevent that.
Let me be clear, though:  during the initial, one-time briefing, the candidates are not advised on what to say or what not to say about national security issues on the campaign trail.  The hope is that by simply giving them an objective, unbiased understanding of the issues, the dialogue on those issues during the campaign will be carried out in a way that does not undermine U.S. interests.
TCB:  Who is actually involved in the briefings?
MM:  On the government side, the briefing teams are usually composed of senior leaders from the analytic arms of the Intelligence Community agencies, along with senior analysts who, on a day-to-day basis, cover the issues to be discussed.  I played the former role in a number of briefings for candidates over the years.
On the candidate’s side, they are permitted to bring their closest national security aides.  In my experience, that has ranged from just one person to two-to-three people.  But there is no just showing up.  The IC (Intelligence Community) must approve in advance all of the attendees.
TCB:  Are there any limits to what the nominees can be told?  For instance, will they be provided with classified information or details of ongoing operations?  Are the candidates in essence given security clearances?
MM:  Absolutely, there are limits on what candidates are told.  The briefings are classified Top Secret, but the candidates are only provided the analytic judgments of the IC and the information used to support those judgments.  They are not provided with the details of how that information was collected-what the IC calls sources and methods.  They are not provided with any information on any ongoing covert actions programs related to the issue being discussed.  They are not provided with any operational information.  Those only come after a candidate wins the election.
TCB:  How does the IC prepare for the briefings?  Will the briefings be the same for each candidate?  What issues would you emphasize in the briefings?
MM:  The leadership of the IC, most likely the DNI (Director of National Intelligence), will decide on the topics, perhaps to be approved by the White House.  If I were putting the list together, I would include the threat to the U.S. Homeland and to U.S. interests abroad posed by ISIS and al Qaeda; the threat posed by a variety of actors in cyber space; the political and military situation in Iraq and Syria; the situation in Afghanistan; as well as national security issues related to Iran, Russia, North Korea, and China.
The briefing team will go into the room with the goal of providing the same analytic judgments to both candidates, but I would expect the two briefings to be very different.  I would expect the briefing for Secretary Hillary Clinton (the presumptive Democratic nominee) to delve into issues more deeply and to be more of a dialogue than the briefing for Donald Trump (the presumptive Republican nominee), which I would expect to be more of a tutorial, more of a first cut at the issues, with the need to provide the history and background on issues.  This is simply because the Secretary is starting at much greater level of understanding based on her experience working these issues, her experience working with the IC, and her knowledge of the IC judgments (she was a daily and engaged consumer of both IC collection and analysis).  Trump, most likely, will be starting at square one.  No value judgments here; just the reality of the situation.
TCB:  Any personal observations about a nominee’s response to a briefing you provided?  Without getting into names, has a nominee seemed surprised by the information?  Has it altered a position on an issue or impacted how the nominee publically presented a view?
MM:  In general, candidates who have not been involved in national security are surprised by the number of threats facing the U.S., by the seriousness of those threats, by the complexity of the threats, and by just how difficult they are to mitigate.  They quickly realize that there are not simple solutions.  They quickly realize that their sound bites on the campaign simply don’t fit realty.  And, they quickly realize just how important intelligence is going to be keeping the country safe.
Not surprisingly, the briefing team will get a sense of a candidate.  Does the candidate know what they don’t know, are they trying to understand the issue, do they want to learn, are they open-minded, are they able to grasp complexity, do they ask good questions?  Or do they try to convince the analysts of their point of view, are they just trying to find facts to fit their world view or their policy views, do they look at the issues through the lens of national security or through the lens of politics?
The IC knows the Secretary well, and its expectation will be that she will fall into the first category because that is what she demonstrated as Secretary of State.  I’m sure the analysts will be very interested to see where Donald Trump falls – largely because they will want to know what he would be like if he were to become their “First Customer,” as some analysts at CIA like to call the president.  And they will be interested simply because of the nature of the campaign so far, the nature of the candidate so far.

Obama Concession to Iran: Russian Arms?

Posted on by

Obama Admin Considers Permitting Advanced Russian Arms Sales to Iran

White House might not invoke laws triggering new sanctions
FreeBeacon: The Obama administration has the power to sanction key Russian arms sales to Iran, but has so far abstained from exercising this right under U.S. law, prompting some in Congress to question whether the administration is “acquiescing” to the arms sales in order to appease Iran, according to conversations with sources and recent congressional correspondence to the White House exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

President Barack Obama has the authority under U.S. law to designate as illegal Russia’s contested sale to Iran of the S-300 missile system, an advanced long-range weapon that would boost the Islamic Republic’s regional military might.

However, the administration has declined for weeks to clarify its stance on new sanctions, despite expressing opposition to the sale. Administration officials have further declined to answer questions from the Free Beacon and other outlets about whether the president will consider taking action in the future.

The administration’s hesitance to act has prompted a new congressional inquiry, the Free Beacon has learned, and has sparked accusations that the White House is not exercising its sanction authority in order to prevent Iran from walking away from last summer’s nuclear deal.

Rep. Steve Chabot (R., Ohio) sent an inquiry to the White House about the matter more than a month ago. The White House has not responded.

“Given the series implications for the United States and our allies in the region, I respectfully request that you quickly determine that Russia’s transfer of S-300 surface-to-air missile systems advance Iran’s efforts to acquire ‘destabilizing numbers and types of advances conventional weapons’ and impose the necessary U.S. sanctions once the Russian delivery takes place,” Chabot wrote to the White House on April 7, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Free Beacon.

Chabot outlined concern “that without such a determination the United States may be viewed as acquiescing to this transfer” of a major defensive weapons system to Iran.

Chabot told the Free Beacon on Thursday the administration has not responded to multiple inquiries about the potential designation.

“Despite multiple inquires to the U.S. Department of State, I still have not received a response on Russia’s S300 surface-to-air missile system transfer to Iran,” Chabot said. “This apparent dismissal leaves me wondering what exactly the Administration is hiding. I am really asking a simple question – is the introduction of a sophisticated weapon system into Iran, that has not been there previously, going to illicit the appropriate U.S. sanctions response? I am not sure why the Administration has found it so hard to come to a determination. The S300 is one of the most advanced anti-aircraft missile system’s in the world and significantly bolsters Iran’s offensive capabilities and stands as a serious hurdle to our efforts to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear armed state. This is absolutely a destabilizing conventional weapon system.”

When contacted for comment, a State Department official told the Free Beacon that the administration has not made a final determination about whether the S-300 sale would trigger additional U.S. sanctions.

“We’re continuing to closely follow reports concerning the delivery of the S-300 defensive missile system from Russia to Iran‎,” the official said. “We have not made a determination as to whether this delivery, if and when complete, would trigger any actions under U.S. authorities.”

“These systems would significantly bolster Iran’s offensive capabilities and introduce new obstacles to our efforts to eliminate the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon. I believe existing U.S. sanctions should be used to deter Russia from transferring this or other dangerous weapons systems to Iran,” Chabot said.

The sale is technically permitted under current United Nations resolutions governing weapons sales. However, the Obama administration has the right to veto the sale at the U.N. Security Council. The administration has not committed to doing so.

U.S. law also grants the president the right to designate such sales as illicit and therefore open to sanctions.

The Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act of 1992 grants the president authority to sanction the sale of “advanced conventional weapons” to Iran by any nation.

“U.S. law provides your administration with the authority to apply U.S. sanctions in response” to the sale, Chabot explains in his letter. “For example, the Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act and the Iran Sanctions Act provide authority for you to sanction individuals or countries that you determine are aiding Iran’s efforts to acquire or develop ‘destabilizing numbers and types of advanced conventional weapons.’”

Sanctions would kick in if the president decides that such a sale would destabilize the Middle East and shift regional balance.

“Iran’s acquisition of these systems would embolden Tehran to adopt a more threatening regional posture and to pursue offensive activities detrimental to regional stability in the belief that the systems would deter retaliation,” according to Chabot.

Reporters as well as lawmakers have attempted for weeks to get an answer from the administration about whether the president would make such a determination.

One foreign policy adviser who works closely with Congress on the Iran issue told the Free Beacon that the administration can no longer waffle on the issue.

“The administration tried to look the other way, but got called out for it by Congress. Then they spent a month and a half hoping that the whole thing would go away,” the source said. “Now I don’t know what they’re going to do, since it’s obvious that they’re letting Iran import advanced weapons in violation of U.S. law just to preserve the nuclear deal.”

Really, They are Working for Bernie’s Campaign?

Posted on by

Another Radical Islamist in the Sanders Camp

IPT: As Democratic Party leaders struggle to end their increasingly vitriolic presidential primary campaign, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is winning concessions in hopes he’ll tone down the rhetoric.

Earlier this week, Sanders secured five seats on the party’s platform committee, with one immediately going to James Zogby, a staunch Palestinian advocate and critic of Israel.

Last month, we focused on Sanders’ reliance on Linda Sarsour as a campaign surrogate. Sarsour also is a Palestinian activist with a history of vitriolic anti-Israel statements. “Nothing is creepier than Zionism,” she wrote on Twitter about the idea that Jews can return to their ancestral homeland as a refuge from global anti-Semitism. To Sarsour, that ideal is racist.

Memorial Day weekend’s approach brings to mind another prominent Sanders supporter, Zahra Billoo, who has repeatedly expressed discomfort with the holiday. “Many of our troops are engaged in terrorism,” she wrote in June 2012.

Billoo heads the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) San Francisco office. CAIR has roots in a Hamas-support network created by the Muslim Brotherhood in American, internal documents and eyewitness accounts show.

Two weeks ago, Billoo made it clear her views about American troops have not changed, questioning the holiday’s value: “You think we should honor people who commit war crimes?” she asked an incredulous questioner. She “proudly stands by” her opinion, she also wrote.

Despite these extreme views, or perhaps because of them, Billoo appears to be playing a significant role in the Sanders campaign. Her social media accounts are filled with pro-Sanders messages – including repeated reminders about the registration deadline to be eligible for June 7 California primary. She was granted backstage access to a Sanders rally last week in San Jose where she was photographed with the candidate.

Billoo also has argued that American citizens who move to Israel and join the army are no different from those who join ISIS. “Is one genocidal group different than the other?” she asked last year.

Billoo’s extremism applies to domestic policy, too. She casts FBI counter-terror investigations as illegitimate and even corrupt. She blasted the conviction of five former officials from the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation after records showed they illegally routed millions of dollars to Hamas. And, in the wake of a Portland man’s arrest for plotting to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony crowded with children, she suggested to a reporter that the FBI hyped the threat.

“The question is, are we looking to stop radicalization and stop extremism before it becomes a problem or do we want a sensational story?” Billoo asked. “And I’d really argue here that the FBI was looking for a sensational story.”

The suspect, Mohamed Mohamud, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Among the evidence against him was a recording in which he said, “I want whoever is attending that event to be, to leave either dead or injured.”

Billoo’s opinions hold steady regardless of the facts. Maybe that’s why she’s comfortable being involved in campaign politics.

Zahra Billoo is at Sanders’ left, dressed in purple.

 

 

With Money Infusion, Iran Funds PIJ

Posted on by

Iran resumes funding for Palestinian Islamic Jihad 

BTN: Iran recently decided to resume regular financial assistance to the Palestinian terrorist organization known as Islamic Jihad, Arabic-language newspaper Asharq al-Aswat reported on Wednesday.

The decision to transfer an annual sum of $70 million out of the Revolutionary Guards budget reportedly followed a visit by an Islamic Jihad delegation in Tehran last month – the first such visit in two years.

The talks resulted in an agreement to renew operations by Islamic Jihad’s military wing, the Quds Brigades. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force, reportedly decided to appoint Khaled Mansour, considered loyal to Iran, as commander of the Quds Brigades in the Gaza Strip.

Iran’s funding resumed in March, Asharq al-Aswat reported, and Islamic Jihad has thus been able to pay two months’ worth of salaries to members after months of financial straits.

Reports in January said that Iran had ended its funding of Islamic Jihad, according to Israeli news site Walla News.

Despite being a Sunni organization, Islamic Jihad has remained on the side of the Iranian-led Shi’ite axis in the regional power struggle with Saudi-backed elements, and members have fought alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in that country’s civil war.

Islamic Jihad Secretary General Ramadan Shalah said recently in a public statement that no Arab countries has supposed “the popular uprising in Palestine”, and that only Iran “helps the martyrs’ families.”

****

The entire Obama administration confirms this:

WASHINGTON/JP — Despite facing costly obstacles from the Syrian civil war, Iran continued its arming and funding of terror proxies targeting Israel throughout 2014 largely unabated, the US government found in a report released on Friday.

The State Department report— an annual accounting of organized terrorism worldwide— asserts that Iran has continued, if not expanded, its operations beyond its historical focus on Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, to a limited number of operations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, as well as to “various groups throughout the Middle East.”

“Iran has historically provided weapons, training, and funding to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, including Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC),” the report reads. “These Palestinian terrorist groups have been behind a number of deaths from attacks originating in Gaza and the West Bank.”

 

Much of Iran’s efforts throughout 2014 focused on maintaining its “resistance front” in Syria and Iraq, the report says, through its support for Shia governments and militias. The report notes of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC) presence on the ground in both countries.

The report notes of an Israeli naval raid that took place in March of that year on a cargo ship traversing the Red Sea, the Klos C, off the coast of Sudan, which was found bearing 40 M-302 rockets, 180 mortars, and approximately 400,000 rounds of ammunition hidden within crates of cement labeled “Made in Iran.”

“Although Hamas’s ties to Tehran have been strained due to the Syrian civil war, in a November 25 speech, Supreme Leader Khamenei highlighted Iran’s military support to ‘Palestinian brothers’ in Gaza and called for the West Bank to be similarly armed,” the report continues. “In December, Hamas Deputy Leader Moussa Abu Marzouk announced bilateral relations with Iran and Hamas were ‘back on track.'”

In the North, Iran continues providing Hezbollah— active in the fight in Syria as well as against the Jewish state from Lebanon— with “hundreds of millions of dollars. And the report claims Tehran is training “thousands of its fighters at camps in Iran.”

“General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the IRGC Aerospace Force, stated in November that ‘the IRGC and Hezbollah are a single apparatus jointed together,’ and Lebanese Hizballah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem boasted that Iran had provided his organization with missiles that had ‘pinpoint accuracy’ in separate November public remarks,” it states.

The State Department asserts that, in admitting its arming of Hezbollah, Iran is in open violation of UN Security Council Resolutions 1701 and 1747.

The report praises Israel’s response to terror threats throughout the year, which saw war with Hamas in Gaza over fifty days that summer.

“Israel was hit by a record volume of rocket and mortar fire from Gaza and the Sinai in 2014, according to the Israeli government, with more than 4,660 projectiles launched, most during the July-August conflict, at Israeli territory compared to 74 launchings in 2013 and 2,557 in 2012,” it says, referring to Israel as a “committed counterterrorism partner.”

“Militants from Gaza also infiltrated Israeli territory using tunnels in six separate attacks and, for the first time, by a sea-borne operation,” it continued. The report also praises Egypt for taking aggressive counterterrorism measures against Hamas and its tunnel operations in the Sinai.

It notes, briefly, that Iranian proliferation of nuclear weapons remains a concern.