Amb. Hill and General Mattis Roundtable Discussion, Iran and America

Posted on July 30, 2015July 30, 2015 by Denise Simon

The last half of the video is better than the first half, but in totality, it must been viewed.

Recorded on July 16, 2015 – Hoover fellows Charles Hill and James Mattis discuss the Iran deal and the state of the world on Uncommon Knowledge with Hoover fellow Peter Robinson. In their view the United States has handed over its leading role to Iran and provided a dowry along with it. Iran will become the leading power in the region as the United States pulls back; as the sanctions are lifted Iran will start making a lot of money. No matter what Congress does at this point, the sanctions are gone. Furthermore, the president will veto anything Congress comes up with to move the deal forward. This de facto treaty circumvents the Constitution.

If we want better deals and a stronger presence in the international community, then the United States needs to compromise, and listen to one another other, and encourage other points of view, especially from the three branches of government. If the United States pulls back from the international community, we will need to relearn the lessons we learned after World War I. But if we engage more with the world and use solid strategies to protect and encourage democracy and freedom at home and abroad, then our military interventions will be fewer. The United States and the world will be in a better position to handle problems such as ISIS.

Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Dead Again?

Posted on July 29, 2015July 29, 2015 by Denise Simon

One or more of the Taliban 5 that Obama traded out from Gitmo for Bowe Bergdahl is likely taken control and replaced Mullah Omar, even from the feeble detention in Qatar.

Directly after the attacks of 9/11, the CIA contacted Mullah Omar and said turn over Usama bin Ladin and the United States will not invade Afghanistan, Omar refused, so the war began against the Taliban. (factoid).

As ISIS, Islamic State has moved into Afghanistan and has declared the region a target, Taliban fighters have defected to ISIS. Meanwhile, no one has seen Mullah Omar in at least two years, yet some Afghanistan officials have made some declarations that he is dead. The Taliban has recently made some aggressive and deadly advances in designated Afghanistan territory while there is chatter that the terror group could merge with ISIS.

Given this possibility, it is curious that Mullah Omar has been declared dead, again.

Taliban splinter group claims Mullah Omar was killed 2 yrs ago

In part:

The Afghanistan Islamic Movement Fidai Mahaz’s spokesperson Qari Hamza, said the reclusive Omar was killed by commanders Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansoor and Gull Agha in July 2013.

Hamza said his group has evidence to prove its claims, Khaama Press reported on Thursday.

Afghanistan’s spy agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), had said in November last year that Omar had possibly died. There are also reports that the Afghan Taliban has split into three factions.

NDS spokesperson Hasib Sediqi told the media in November last year that the two Taliban factions are led by Mullah Qayum Zakir and Mullah Agha, while the third comprises “neutral” militant leaders.

Reports last year had also suggested that Omar had given his old friend and deputy, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, the authority to make decisions on his behalf regarding the peace process with the government.

Some officials in the presidential palace have claimed Omar is in custody of Pakistani security forces in the port city of Karachi.

Aimal Faizi, spokesperson for former president Hamid Karzai, said this information was shared by US secretary of state John Kerry. More of the story here.

Meanwhile, a document has been located, written in Urdu that spells out the plan ISIS has for targets in Afghanistan and even India. ISIS plans an end of the world operation.

Reported by Sara Carter via USAToday: The document was reviewed by three U.S. intelligence officials, who said they believe the document is authentic based on its unique markings and the fact that language used to describe leaders, the writing style and religious wording match other documents from the Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS. They asked to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The undated document, titled “A Brief History of the Islamic State Caliphate (ISC), The Caliphate According to the Prophet,” seeks to unite dozens of factions of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban into a single army of terror. It includes a never-before-seen history of the Islamic State, details chilling future battle plans, urges al-Qaeda to join the group and says the Islamic State’s leader should be recognized as the sole ruler of the world’s 1 billion Muslims under a religious empire called a “caliphate.”

“Accept the fact that this caliphate will survive and prosper until it takes over the entire world and beheads every last person that rebels against Allah,” it proclaims. “This is the bitter truth, swallow it.”

By Graeme Wood: Bin Laden viewed his terrorism as a prologue to a caliphate he did not expect to see in his lifetime. His organization was flexible, operating as a geographically diffuse network of autonomous cells. The Islamic State, by contrast, requires territory to remain legitimate, and a top-down structure to rule it. (Its bureaucracy is divided into civil and military arms, and its territory into provinces.) Much more detail here.

Published by WaPo in part: The Afghan Taliban recently published a 5,000-word biography hailing its leader, whose whereabouts remain largely unknown. It maintains that Mullah Omar, who has a $10 million American bounty on his head, is alive, well, and in charge.

According to SITE Intelligence group, the lengthy paean comes at a conspicuous moment, given both the political efforts being made to curtail the Taliban’s Afghan insurgency as well as the growing antagonism between the Taliban and the Islamic State, the leading extremist Islamist militants of the moment.

As an aside, negotiations by the new Afghan leadership is still in some peace talks with the Taliban.

NYT: An Afghan government delegation met with Taliban officials in the Pakistani capital for the first time on Tuesday, in a significant effort to open formal peace negotiations, according to Afghan, Pakistani and Western officials.

The Islamabad meeting, brokered by Pakistani officials after months of intense effort by President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan to get them more centrally involved in the peace process, was the most promising contact between the two warring sides in years. And it followed a series of less formal encounters between various Afghan officials and Taliban representatives in other countries in recent months.

13 Hours of Benghazi, Hat Tip to the Heroes RIP to the Heroes

Posted on July 28, 2015July 28, 2015 by Denise Simon

Hello Tanto, thanks buddy and to you Col. Wood, we honor you. Hugs to Oz, Mark, and Tig.

WSJ: Michael Bay is notorious for mounting massive-scaled blockbusters crammed wall to wall with explosions, twisted metal, swaggering heroes and supermodels.

The director’s next movie, however, is shaping up to be a lot more serious because the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, is anything but the stuff of pure entertainment.

“13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” is based on Mitchell Zuckoff’s nonfiction book “13 Hours,” which tells the story of the efforts of six members of a security crew who seek to protect the U.S. compound during the chaos that claimed the lives of four Americans.

The trailer for the film is still packed with plenty of Bay trademarks, such as action and pyrotechnic virtuosity, not to mention men of action and duty, but the tone is dead serious in a way that even Bay’s previous war film based around true events, “Pearl Harbor,” wasn’t. It’s like “Argo” meets “Zero Dark Thirty,” but filmed with Bay’s kinetic, flashy style.

Chuck Hogan, co-creator of FX’s “The Strain” and a novelist, wrote the screenplay for “13 Hours.” The film stars James Badge Dale, John Krasinski and Pablo Schreiber, and it is due to hit theaters Jan. 15.

WSJ App users can watch the trailer here.

Immigrants Globally a Boon to Mafia and Gangs

Posted on July 27, 2015July 27, 2015 by Denise Simon

Given civil wars, drug cartels, failed states, lawlessness and financial crises, refugees, asylum seekers and those fleeing their home countries for countless reasons are falling prey to gangs and organized crime operations like the Mafia.

This is a building phenomenon not only globally but here in the United States. Consider Libya, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Yemen, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico are noted to be failed states.

Every action has a reaction and the Obama administration is not facing any conditions or consequences here at home.

Italy’s Mafia is Profiting From the Immigration Crisis
The Mafia in Italy have demonstrated devious ingenuity in everything from drug trafficking to counterfeiting. Now they’re exploiting the immigration crisis.

The care and feeding of such migrants may end up costing the Italian government as much as €800m per year, with it offering private individuals, companies and non-profit organisations up to €35 a day per person to host them. That includes a daily pocket money allowance of €2.50 that hosts are supposed to pay directly to the refugees.

Those funds have proven irresistible to the Mafia, according to Italian prosecutors and watchdog groups, who say criminal groups have succeeded at rigging the awarding of the contracts for the management of migrant reception centres in several high-profile cases.

Then here at home, let us look no farther than Long Island.

Gangs on LI trying to recruit newly arrived Central American children

Latino street gangs led by MS-13 have tried to lure Long Island’s newest child immigrants into their ranks, police said, causing concern among local investigators as well as immigrant advocacy groups.

The violent, drug-dealing gangs have been vying for new members among the more than 3,000 children younger than 18 who resettled in Nassau and Suffolk counties between September 2013 and September 2014.

MS-13 has gone international as their syndicate is appearing in Australia.

FreeBeacon: Vice President of the National Border Patrol Council Shawn Moran told Fox News that the violent MS-13 gang is exploiting the chaos on the U.S. border to recruit new juvenile members.

“We know the cartels were exploiting this and continue to exploit this crisis in south Texas, it makes sense that MS-13 and other gangs would do the same,” said Moran.

According to Moran, the gang has been using a Red Cross phone bank on the border, originally intended for unaccompanied minors to use to contact relatives: “These phones are being utilized by gang members to recruit, to enlist, to pressure people, other juveniles into joining the MS-13 gang.”

And, Moran explained, border security is unable to isolate these gang members because they are juveniles, and they are required to treat all juveniles a certain way. “We’re being told we have to look the other way. If we see gang tattoos, we’re not allowed to treat them any differently than anybody else applying to be allowed to stay here or to apply for asylum.”

“It’s a security issue that we feel could really snowball out of control and it would put agents at risk. It puts the other detainees at risk,” Moran said.

Moran described MS-13 as “one of the biggest threats we face on our southern border. They do not hesitate to use extreme violence if necessary. They are considered one of the top threats to border patrol agents.”

History Lesson, Important Today, Muslim Brotherhood in America

Posted on July 26, 2015July 26, 2015 by Denise Simon

The violent and militant aggressions against the United States today has a cause and the same goes for the White House policy towards Islam, which is they are a designated and protected class.

It should also be noted that a petition was placed on the White House website last year to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terror organization, after the required number of signatures forcing the White House to respond, they did and said NO.

If there is any debate, simply go to the Barack Obama 2009 Cairo speech, found here. The speech is titled ‘New Beginning’ and was written by Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of the Cordova Initiative which was behind the plan to build the mosque at ground zero in New York, the site of the 9/11 bombing. Further, Cairo at the time was the known headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now for the history lesson.

You may download the .pdf of the Muslim Brotherhood memorandum here.

From the Center for Security Policy:

In August of 2004, an alert Maryland Transportation Authority Police officer observed a woman wearing traditional Islamic garb videotaping the support structures of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and conducted a traffic stop. The driver was Ismail Elbarasse and detained on an outstanding material witness warrant issued in Chicago in connection with fundraising for Hamas.

The FBI’s Washington Field Office subsequently executed a search warrant on Elbarasse’s residence in Annandale, Virginia. In the basement of his home, a hidden sub-basement was found; it revealed over 80 banker boxes of the archives of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America. One of the most important of these documents made public to date was entered into evidence during the Holy Land Foundation trial. It amounted to the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategic plan for the United States and was entitled, “An Explanatory Memorandum: On the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.”

The Explanatory Memorandum was written in 1991 by a member of the Board of Directors for the Muslim Brotherhood in North America and senior Hamas leader named Mohammed Akram. It had been approved by the Brotherhood’s Shura Council and Organizational Conference and was meant for internal review by the Brothers’ leadership in Egypt. It was certainly not intended for public consumption, particularly in the targeted society: the United States. For these reasons, the memo constitutes a Rosetta stone for the Muslim Brotherhood, its goals, modus operandi and infrastructure in America. It is arguably the single most important vehicle for understanding a secretive organization and should, therefore, be considered required reading for policy-makers and the public, alike.

Another extraordinarily important element of the Memorandum is its attachment. Under the heading “ A List of Our Organizations and Organizations of Our Friends,” Akram helpfully identified 29 groups as Muslim Brotherhood fronts. Many of them are even now, some twenty-two years later, still among the most prominent Muslim- American organizations in the United States.

Worryingly, the senior representatives of these groups are routinely identified by U.S. officials as “leaders” of the Muslim community in this country, to be treated as “partners” in “countering violent extremism” and other outreach initiatives. Obviously, this list suggests such treatment translates into vehicles for deep penetration of the American government and civil society.

We urge the readers of this pamphlet to share it with others— family members, friends, business associates and most especially those in a position to help adopt policies that will secure our country against the threat posed by shariah and its most effective and aggressive promoters, the Muslim Brotherhood.

More about the Explanatory Memorandum (from Shariah: The Threat to America):

The following Muslim Brotherhood document was entered into evidence in the U.S. v Holy Land Foundation trial, and is a primary source threat document that provides new insights into global jihad organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood. These documents (covered extensively in chapter four) define the structure and outline of domestic jihad threat entities, associated non-governmental organizations and potential terrorist or insurgent support systems. The Memorandum also describes aspects of the global jihad’s strategic information warfare campaign and indications of its structure, reach and activities. It met evidentiary standards to be admissible as evidence in a Federal Court of law .

In the original document, the first 16 pages are in the original Arabic and the second are English translations of the same. It is dated May 22, 1991 and titled “ An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America” (Memorandum). The document includes an Attachment 1 that contains “a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends.”

The Memorandum expressly recognizes the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) as the controlling element of these organizations and expressly identifies the Muslim Brotherhood as the leadership element in implementing the strategic goals. The Memorandum is reproduced here in its official Federal Court translation, as Government Exhibit 003-0085 3:04-CR-240-G in U.S. v Holy Land Foundation, et al. with punctuation, line spacing and spelling intact.

From the Explanatory Memorandum— the Muslim Brotherhood in America in its own words:

“The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan [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 is made victorious over all other religions.”