Category Archives: Russia

Islamic State Using Effective Vintage War Tactics

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According to the BBC, the Islamic State has started using a terrifying tactic against soldiers in Iraq. This technique has rarely seen use since the European battlefields of World War I (1914-1918).

ISIS is packing crude roadside bombs with deadly chlorine gas.

Iraqi officials showed BBC News a video of security forces detonating one of these bombs, releasing into the air a recognizable and deadly orange cloud. ISIS has occasionally used chlorine gas before, but not with the frequency being seen now.

Iraqi security forces explained that these new attacks are meant to scare soldiers and civilians, rather than kill them. It is a new form of psychological warfare ISIS is using to try and turn the tide of the war in their favor.

The BBC interviewed Haider Taher, a member of an Iraqi bomb disposal squad, who unknowingly detonated one of these chlorine-filled roadside bombs:

Our throats were blocked, we couldn’t breath. My ears felt enormous pressure… we were lucky a military ambulance was there to treat us.

Chemical warfare has been used extensively in neighboring Syria. Bashar al-Assad’s forces have been notorious for their use of gas attacks on civilians and opposition alike, a tactic that has been condemned by the UN and the United States.

Although there’s been some use of chemical weapons by ISIS, there is little information on how much of these chemicals they possess.

The BBC has been shown footage of bright yellow gas rising up from a roadside bomb explosion that the Iraqis say is chlorine, as well as film of the Tikrit explosion.

Jennifer Cole, Senior Research Fellow at defence thinktank Royal United Services Institute, told MailOnline that although chlorine can be lethal, it does appear that it’s being used to spread fear by Isis.

She said: ‘Chlorine is easily available from a number of industrial sources and is very hazardous – causing breathing difficulties in particular and in extreme cases prolonged exposure can kill.

‘Used in roadside bombs such as this, in the open air, it disperses reasonably quickly and so appears to be intended to cause panic rather than serious harm.’

She added: ‘There is no doubt that public perception often sees chemical weapons such as this as more dangerous than conventional weapons such as explosives, even though it may not be the case that a chlorine bomb could cause more harm. In fact, the most damage is likely to be done by the explosion created to disperse it.’

Chlorine was used by the British in the First World War, but it proved to be unreliable. In one attack in 1915 the gas blew back into British trenches after canisters of the chemical were fired from heavy guns at the Germans.

Chlorine is not a prohibited chemical and has been used often in Syria.

* Opposition says chlorine used in three areas this month

* Chlorine not declared by Syria to chemical weapons watchdog

* Canisters likely delivered by air-dropped barrel bombs

* Deadline for removal of chemical weapons is April 27

By Oliver Holmes

BEIRUT, April 22 (Reuters) – Chlorine gas attacks in Syria this month, if proven, expose a major loophole in an international deal which promised to remove chemical weapons from Syria and suggest chemical warfare could persist after the removal operation has finished.

President Bashar al-Assad agreed with the United States and Russia to dispose of his chemical weapons – an arsenal which Damascus had never previously formally acknowledged – after hundreds of people were killed in a sarin gas attack on the outskirts of the capital last August.

Washington and its Western allies said it was Assad’s forces who unleashed the nerve agent, in the world’s worst chemical attack in a quarter-century. The government blamed the rebel side in Syria’s civil war, which is now in its fourth year.

Syria has vowed to hand over or destroy its entire arsenal by the end of this week, but still has roughly 20 percent of the chemicals it declared to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

In addition, chlorine gas that was never included on the list submitted to the OPCW is now allegedly being used on the battlefield, leading some countries to consider requesting an investigation, possibly through the United Nations.

Attacks this month in several areas of the country share characteristics that have led analysts to believe that there is a coordinated chlorine campaign, with growing evidence that it is the government side dropping the bombs.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Monday that Washington had indications that chlorine was probably used by government forces in Syria.

“We are examining allegations that the government was responsible,” she said. “Obviously there needs to be an investigation of what’s happened here.”

YELLOW CANISTERS

In the rebel-held village of Kfar Zeita in the central province of Hama, 125 miles (200 km) north of Damascus, opposition activists uploaded video of people choking and being fed oxygen following what they said were bombs dropped from helicopters on April 11 and 12.

Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the videos and activists regularly make similar claims, but further footage of canisters provided an indication of what had happened.

One of the canisters had only partially exploded and the marking CL2 was written along its side. CL2 is the symbol for chlorine gas. Also visible was “Norinco” – China’s biggest arms maker.

Repeated calls to China North Industries Group Corporation, or Norinco, went unanswered.

Canisters pictured in three separate areas were all painted yellow – complying with international standards on industrial gas colour codes indicating chlorine.

Since April 11, there have been repeated attacks on Kfar Zeita and also on the town of Al-Tamana’a in north west Idlib on Friday which shared the same characteristics.

Activists said helicopters dropped improvised barrel bombs with a chlorine canister enclosed, which led to casualties.

If inhaled, chlorine gas – a deadly agent widely used in World War One – turns to hydrochloric acid in the lungs, which can lead to internal burning and drowning through a reactionary release of water in the lungs.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, head of British-based chemical biological radiological and nuclear consultancy firm Secure Bio, said he is “reasonably satisfied that chlorine has been used”.

“The evidence is pretty compelling,” he said.

DOMESTIC CHEMICAL INDUSTRY

Amy Smithson, a leading American chemical weapons expert at the Monterey Institute, said that unless tests are run, it is not certain that chlorine was used or some similar agent.

“Once the Syrian government gets the remainder of the declared chemicals out, pressure should mount for Syria to revise its declaration again, to cough up the remainder of their offensive chemical programme,” she said, questioning whether Syria had weaponised its domestic chemical industry.

Chlorine, a so-called dual-use chemical which has industrial uses, is not on the list of chemical weapons submitted to the OPCW but was produced in Syria before the war. It should have been declared if the government has it, an OPCW spokesman said.

On Monday, opposition groups reported a further attack, this time 20 miles (30 km) northeast of Kfar Zeita in the town of Telminnes. Video footage was posted on YouTube by several opposition groups of men, women and children being treated in a field hospital.

Many appeared to have trouble breathing and medics held them down. One boy who looked less than 10 years old shook as a medic poured a liquid on his eyes and in his mouth.

A Reuters photograph of another young boy who had been transferred to a hospital closer to the Turkish border showed him lying dead on a stretcher with blood around his mouth. Medics said he had been exposed to chlorine gas at Telminnes.

Videos from the site of Monday’s bombing showed the same yellow canisters, this time twisted from an explosion.

Eliot Higgins, a British-based researcher who trawls daily through online videos of Syria’s civil war to verify weapons in them, said that these “chlorine bombs” have similar features to improvised barrel bombs the army has used in the war.

He said one bomb from Kafr Zeita shows metal rods, consistent with other large government barrel bomb designs, to hold the impact fuse plate in place.

Another video of an exploded barrel bomb shows a canister inside the barrel, which has fins on the back and what appear to be explosives around the top of the canister with a detonation cord.

“The interesting thing about these new videos is that there’s the same blue det cord you see in other DIY barrel bombs,” Higgins said.

Hundreds of videos confirm barrel bombs have been dropped from helicopters. Rebels have access to large rockets and missiles but there has never been a case reported of the opposition using air-dropped munitions nor commandeering a helicopter.

GREY AREA

A United Nations inquiry found in December that chemical weapons were likely used in five attacks in 2013, although it did not apportion blame. The nerve agent sarin was likely used in four of the five attacks, the inquiry found.

The OPCW mission to extract Assad’s chemicals has been mired by delays and inconsistencies. On Thursday, Reuters reported that Syria had submitted a “more specific” list of its chemical weapons to the OPCW after discrepancies were reported by inspectors on the ground, officials said.

Although it not public, officials have said the list includes more than 500 tonnes of highly toxic chemical weapons, such as sulphur mustard and precursors for the poisonous gas sarin, as well as more than 700 tonnes of bulk industrial chemicals.

The OPCW, which is overseeing the destruction with the United Nations, has taken an inventory of the chemicals and facilities Syria reported to the joint mission, but has not looked into whether the list may have been incomplete.

“Chlorine has a host of commercial uses. Actually, it’s not very toxic. Sarin is probably 2,000 to 3,000 times more toxic. You and I can buy chlorine in a shop,” chemical weapons specialist De Bretton-Gordon said.

This makes it a grey area, he said, as industrial-use chlorine in canisters – which is what these bombs appear to be – is not strictly a chemical weapon until it is used as one.

Nevertheless, he says, “the OPCW and others have been frankly naive.” (Additional reporting by Anthony Deutsch in The Hague, Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations and Reuters TV; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Obama, the Muslim Brother: A New Genocide

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The Betrayal Papers,

Part IV of V: A New Genocide

 

Part I of The Betrayal Papers explained the history and context of the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence in the American government.

Part II looked at the associations of seven Obama officials with Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in the United States.

Part III traced the Muslim Brotherhood’s and the State of Qatar’s influence on domestic policy and Obama administration scandals.

Part IV will examine foreign policy under Obama. It will explain how the Obama administration and U.S. Department of State have used the American military and standing in the world as tools to kick start the creation of a new Islamic Caliphate. Obama’s unconscionable enabling of and silence regarding a new genocide will be revealed. Finally, this article will offer a cursory reassessment of America’s allies, and which countries we have lost as friends.

“The transformation of America has been in the full swing ever since 2008. President Obama’s no-show in Paris was an embarrassment for all Americans. But it also was a signal to the Islamic jihadis. It’s one of the many signals he’s sent over the years while he’s in office. Now there’s no question: We got a hell of a job ahead of us… with the Muslim Brotherhood penetration in every one of our national security agencies, including all our intelligence agencies.“

–          Admiral James ‘Ace’ Lyons, speaking at the Center for Security Policy

Is Obama a Muslim?

This is the question that many Americans and people around the globe are asking themselves lately. From his refusal to label the Islamic State “Islamic,” to his lecture about the Crusades at the National Prayer breakfast, what once was taboo is now starting to be verbalized.

Yet this may be the slightly wrong question to ask. The ruling establishment of Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, is rightly considered an authoritative voice of Islam. In case you missed it, the Saudis have emerged as some of Obama’s biggest critics.

In doing so, the Saudis also revealed the truth regarding the Arab Spring.

Writing in the Saudi daily Al-Jazirah, columnist Dr. Ahmad Al-Faraj, while supporting Israeli’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, not only called Obama “one of the worst U.S. presidents;” he also exposed the nature of so-called “democratic revolutions” in the region. Stated al-Faraj:

“Since Obama is the godfather of the prefabricated revolutions in the Arab world, and since he is the ally of political Islam, [which is] the caring mother of [all] the terrorist organizations, and since he is working to sign an agreement with Iran that will come at the expense of the U.S.’s longtime allies in the Gulf, I am very glad of Netanyahu’s firm stance and [his decision] to speak against the nuclear agreement at the American Congress despite the Obama administration’s anger and fury.”

Translation: Obama served as a mouthpiece for, and armed, the Muslim Brotherhood (i.e., “political Islam”) revolutionaries in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Syria. He was aided in this incredibly destructive policy of jihad by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton until her resignation in 2013, and has been further aided by her successor, John Kerry.

The original Muslim Brotherhood, the Ikhwan, was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1927. The conservative Wahhabi Saudi royals have traditionally had little use for exporting jihad, and indeed are one of the United States’ oldest strategic allies in the region. Despite Americans’ revulsion at Saudi Arabia’s application of barbaric sharia (i.e., Islamic) law in their own country, outside the Kingdom Saudis have every reason to maintain the status quo with neighbors, including Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. That means keeping the Muslim Brotherhood out of power.

The pertinent question is not whether Obama is secretly a Muslim, per se, but rather if Obama is a secret Muslim Brother. That is the real question.

The Words of Obama, Dalia, and Rashad

If we take the Saudis, the most influential Gulf country, seriously, then it follows that Obama and his administration must have had a plan for the Arab Spring that goes back several years, i.e. 2008.

Part II of The Betrayal Papers identified seven Obama administration officials who had/have associations with several Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in the United States (CAIR, ISNA, MSA, etc.). It also tracked their associations with Georgetown University and the Brookings Institution, both recipients of significant amounts of money from the State of Qatar, the home of many prominent Muslim Brothers.

One of those officials is Rashad Hussain, who is Obama’s Special Envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. In August 2008, Hussain co-authored a paper for the Brookings Institution called Reformulating the Battle of Ideas: Understanding the Role of Islam in Counterterrorism Policy. The paper, which calls Islam the “strongest ally” in the “global effort to end terrorism,” explicitly calls for the American government not to reject political Islam, but to utilize Islamic scholars and Islamic “policymaking” to reject “terrorism.” It also recommends that “policymakers should reject the use of language that provides a religious legitimization of terrorism such as ‘Islamic terrorism’ and ‘Islamic extremist.’”

Is it any wonder now why Obama says that the Islamic State “is not Islamic?” This is the deceptive language of the Muslim Brotherhood, recently welcomed to the White House.

Let’s now turn our attention at a report co-authored by Dalia Mogahed, who was a member of Obama’s Advisory Council of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and influential in writing Obama’s nefarious 2009 speech in Cairo. Additionally, Mogahed is currently listed as a member of Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs.

Mogahed was part of the Leadership Group on U.S.-Muslim Engagement. Other members of the group were former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (of World Trade Center Mosque notoriety), and Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Ahmed Younis. The report issued by the group called for engagement and cooperation with political Islam, and specifically with the Muslim Brotherhood:

“The U.S. must also consider when and how to talk with political movements that have substantial public support and have renounced violence, but are outlawed or restricted by authoritarian governments allied to the U.S. The Muslim Brotherhood parties in Egypt and Jordan are arguably in this category. In general, the Leadership Group supports engagement with groups that have clearly demonstrated a commitment to nonviolent participation in politics.”

Indications of a plan to work with the Muslim Brotherhood were evident as early as June 2009, when the President went to Cairo’s Al-Azhar University to address the Muslim World. The audience included prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood that Obama insisted on having seated in the front row.   Said Obama, “[The] partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t.  And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

With the statements of the Saudi journalist, Hussain, Mogahed, and Obama himself in mind, presented below is a thumbnail sketch of the Arab Spring and its consequences, and the intersection between the Obama administration and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is only a fraction of the evidence that proves Obama has worked hand-in-hand with the Muslim Brotherhood to transform the Middle East.

Tunisia

In Tunisia in 2011, the government of Ben Ali fell after a man self-immolated, sparking a wave of protests. Subsequently, Tunisia elected the Muslim Brotherhood Ennahda party, with a plurality of 37% of the vote. In October 2014, Tunisia elected a secular government.

Libya

Libya exemplifies the essence of the so-called Arab Spring, an anarchic Muslim Brotherhood revolution that thrives on violence and chaos.

In such ungovernable disarray are significant parts of Libya today, that it is actually being used as a staging ground by ISIS for an invasion of Europe.

Despite repeated warnings and advice by the United States military to leave Muammar Gaddafi in power, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama launched a disastrous war against the Gaddafi regime, leaving a power vacuum for Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood to fill.

Practically, Libya served as armaments bazaar for the Muslim Brotherhood and all associated terrorist groups. Libyan weapons have ended up in the hands of jihadis across North Africa, potentially contributing to the stockpile of arms of Boko Haram. These weapons were also sent to Syrian rebels, including groups who are now part of ISIS.

Currently, an ongoing proxy war rages in Libya. The anti-Muslim Brotherhood countries of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates battle Qatar and Turkey (close allies of the Obama administration) and the local Islamic terrorists.

Benghazi

Benghazi and all the mystery that surrounds it can mostly be dispelled in a few short paragraphs. A few facts will inform the reader, and then the attack that killed four Americans on September 11, 2012 can be then put in the larger context of a Muslim Brotherhood-guided American agenda.

First, the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, aka Ansar al-Sharia, was hired to guard the compound by the American government. In a word, they are a jihadi militia.

Second, the compound in Benghazi was crawling with CIA agents. According to CNN’s Jake Tapper, there were “dozens” of CIA personnel present the night of the attack, and the Obama administration has gone to “great lengths” to obscure their activities. Many speculate that Ambassador Stevens was a CIA asset in the State Department.

Third, only hours before the attack, Stevens met with a Turkish ambassador at the compound. Turkey, it should be recalled, was a transshipment point for some Libyan weapons that were shipped out of the country to jihadis elsewhere.

Fourth, the Muslim Brotherhood Morsi government of Egypt was involved with the attack. In fact, some of the terrorists were caught on video saying “Don’t shoot! Dr. Morsi sent us!”

These facts beg the question: If Ambassador Stevens was in fact overseeing a gun running operation to Islamic/jihadi/Muslim Brotherhood militias, why would the same people kill him?

Given the above evidence, the prominent theory that Stevens was going to be a trade for the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, seems a plausible explanation. (Morsi was dedicated to the release of Rahman.) And this theory is endorsed by no less an authority than retired four star Admiral James Lyons.

Once this plan went spectacularly wrong, a number of other things occurred, which again, fit into the larger picture of a Muslim Brotherhood-control Obama administration.

In an alarming breach of protocol and duty, Obama’s Special Advisor, Valerie Jarrett, issued the order to the military “stand down.” In other words, she ordered that Stevens and the other Americans be left to fend for themselves against a well-armed jihadi militia.

Regarding the now infamous Talking Points scandal involving Susan Rice, et. al., that blamed the attack on obscure and poorly produced movie, an MSA member from George Washington University was copied on the email sent by Ben Rhodes (who, recall, wrote Obama’s 2009 Cairo Speech).

Finally, George Soros is also connected to this scandal. The Obama-appointed lead investigator for the attack was Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who has ties to CAIR, a well-known Muslim Brotherhood front group in the United States. At the time of the investigation, Pickering was the co-chair of the Soros’ International Crisis Group. He is still a trustee.

Egypt

So much has been written about Obama’s decision to force the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, and the subsequent election of Mohamed Morsi to the Egyptian Presidency, that the space here will be used only to reinforce some key and lesser known points.

  • Mubarak was the lynchpin of regional stability, the president of the most populous Arab country who maintained not only peace but a strong relationship with Israel and the United States.
  • Mohamed Morsi likely joined the Muslim Brotherhood through the Muslim Students Association in America, while he was a student at University of Southern California.
  • The wife of Mohamed Morsi was a long-time friend of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
  • When Morsi came to power and began to implement sharia law, Obama promised the Morsi government $8 billion in exchange for land in the Sinai for Palestinians (Hamas). Once Morsi was removed, following a brief, murderous, and highly destructive reign of power, Obama immediately withheld military aid to Egypt.
  • Through 2013, the Clinton Foundation received between $1 million and $5 million from Qatar.
  • It appears likely that close Obama friends, the domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and wife Bernadine Dohrn, played a significant role in fomenting the protests which led to the resignation of Mubarak. Terrorist birds of feather flock together.

In case you were wondering, Obama advisor Dalia Mogahed considered the ouster of Morsi a “coup,” and CAIR and ISNA were likewise critical of the restoration of secular law in Egypt, which no doubt has prevented the slaughter of countless Coptic Christian lives.

Syria, Iraq, and ISIS – A Lost War, a Genocide, and a Rape of Humanity

Say what you will about Bashar al-Assad, he and his father Hafez have always strongly opposed the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, aka Abu Musab al-Suri, a lieutenant of Osama bin Laden and architect of the Madrid train bombings, spent most of his life trying to overthrow the Assads and implement sharia law. (Not only is Nasar Syrian, his nom de guerre “Al-Suri” means “the Syrian.”) As late as 2008, none other than Nancy Pelosi was hobnobbing with the secularly minded Assads. John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry also dined with and were entertained lavishly by the Assads in 2009.

What Obama has unleashed in Syria by supporting jihadi rebels is an apocalyptic force of total depravity that specializes in genocide and cultural annihilation. There are few words that do justice to the evil, inhumanity, and unbelievable cruelty that define ISIS and their end-of-times approach to warfare.

Not only do they set people on fire, but they also behead and torture children. Americans are bombarded with these images regularly. Equally as atrocious and appalling, they openly and gleefully destroy everything pre-Islamic. Much like the Buddhas in Afghanistan that the Taliban dynamited, ISIS believes in the Islamic concept of Jahiliyyah, which demands that all traces of civilization before the time of Mohammed the Prophet be erased.

ISIS is literally rampaging across the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia, laying waste to some of humanity’s oldest faith communities, artifacts, and landmarks. Simultaneous to the modern day Holocaust that is happening to ancient Christian communities in the occupied regions, ISIS trumps even the art-hoarding Nazis in their total disregard for all things that make us human.

In the face of this unspeakable crime against humanity, Obama has not once mentioned the ongoing genocide, much less the irreplaceable loss of culture and tangible history. The airstrikes ordered by Obama and his advisor Valerie Jarret against ISIS have been described as “pin-pricks.” This shows that they are either lackadaisical in the face of the genocide, or more likely do not wish to be bothered. So committed is Obama to America’s defeat in the Middle East that he has appointed the above-mentioned Rashad Hussain, a documented supporter of political Islam, as a social media “warrior” to lead the cyber charge against these subhuman savages.

In time, the enormity of this crime will be examined through a historical lens. A few decades from now people will wonder how the liberty-loving United States elected a hollow, morally insipid man named Barack Hussein Obama, who armed and trained a jihadi army that destroyed our common human heritage and murdered entire tribes by the thousands.

Of great concern, domestically the soulless ISIS is now operational in all 50 states (according to the FBI), and ISIS training camps have been discovered in various states. A not-so-unexpected consequence of Obama’s open borders policy, indeed.

Regarding Iraq, it is no surprise and it is not hyperbole to simply state the obvious: Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood surrendered Iraq to the enemy, willingly and consciously. Into this void steps an emboldened and rejuvenated Iran.

Afghanistan

Much like Iraq, Afghanistan is in the process of being surrendered to the Taliban. Not only has the administration and (Afghan President) Karzai negotiated with the Taliban, they also idly watched as the same terrorists who hosted Osama bin Laden set up an embassy in Doha, Qatar. A national intelligence estimate as early as December 2013 predicted that all progress would be lost once a military drawdown began.

True to form, seven months after this estimate was released Obama swapped one American deserter, Bowe Bergdahl, for five high ranking Taliban commanders released from Guantanamo Bay, and a significant sum of money.

Following Obama’s policies, all the American blood and treasure spent liberating Afghanistan will be sacrificed by Obama, to the absolute benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood.

As a postscript, it will be noted that a primary source of Taliban funding, poppies for opium, have seen record Afghan crop yields in 2013 and 2014.

Nigeria

While #BringBackOurGirls may have been a temporary PR win for the Obama administration, it obscured the fact that the administration has been consistently enabling the growth of the jihadi army of Boko Haram by downplaying them as a threat. As if on cue, last week Boko Haram pledged allegiance (bayah) to the Islamic State.

According to one report that rings true, Boko Haram began with a $3 million grant from Osama bin Laden. One senior U.S. intelligence official stated, regarding the matter, “There were channels between bin Laden and Boko Haram leadership… He gave some strategic direction at times.” This connection evidently does not phase the Obama administration and U.S. Department of State.

As Andrew McCarthy wrote regarding the Clinton State Department’s position on Boko Haram:

“Instead, ignoring what Boko Haram pronounces its goals to be, the Obama administration portrayed it as a diffuse organization with no clear agenda that was ascendant due to the policies of the Nigerian government (which is under Christian leadership).”

Hillary Clinton’s successor at State, John Kerry, sings the same tune, while thousands of Nigerians are massacred. Following air strikes by the Nigerian government, Kerry urged restraint, warning Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan “to respect human rights and not harm civilians.”

Meanwhile, this African scourge has amassed a “massive army” that is reportedly stronger than the Nigerian Army. Defeating Boko Haram will likely take the coordinated efforts of Nigeria and neighboring Cameroon, which has close ties to a very sympathetic Israel. The French Army is right now operating out of Mali in Nigeria, contributing to the fight against the jihadis.

Israel

There is so much in the news regarding Obama’s falling-out with Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu that little needs to be added here. The likely breaking point in the relationship was Obama’s and Kerry’s siding with Qatar and Hamas during the war last summer; and, more recently, with the obvious intention of Obama to permit Iran to develop their nuclear arms capacities. This week, it is reported that Obama has appointed another Hamas-connected advisor, Robert Malley, to coordinate Middle East policy for the White House.

The deplorable disrespect and insults hurled at Netanyahu by the Democrats during his visit are the mirror image of an America whose college campuses have been overtaken with a virulent anti-Semitism.

Still, this chapter would not be complete without mentioning the integral part that Obama’s friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, terrorists themselves, played in launching the diplomatically catastrophic “Peace Flotilla” – boats from Turkey, filled with military supplies and other goodies, for Hamas.

Iran

Into the grand void, the power vacuum, created by the Arab Spring, steps a nation largely unaffected by the Arab Spring: Iran. In fact, when Iran nearly embraced modernity and secular government with its so-called “Green Movement,” Obama and the Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett stood conspicuously on the sidelines. Years in the making, the protestors and activists who challenged the Iranian mullahs paid dearly for their attempt at overthrowing the Islamic Republic while Obama’s administration remained silent and watched them get smashed.

An historic moment was totally squandered.

Whether it is in Yemen or in Iraq, Iran is the beneficiary, net-net, of the Arab Spring. Even as their Supreme Leader openly calls for the destruction of Israel, the Obama administration proceeds undaunted with negotiations that would give them nuclear capabilities and the means to strike the Middle East, Europe, and the United States with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Conclusion

The Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi put it this way: Obama “switched sides in the War on Terror.” The evidence presented above is but a glimpse into the preponderance of open source, published information that supports the Commission’s conclusion.

We are now faced with a totally new geopolitical situation: geographically, politically, and militarily.

With the body count growing by the day, and with a far larger war looming on the horizon, one would think that the responsible parties still left in government would pause, reflect, and begin to reverse course before it is too late. Yet as recently as December, NATO hailed its partnership with terrorist financier extraordinaire, the Gulf State of Qatar. This is tantamount to openly declaring allegiance to the Muslim Brotherhood, a totalitarian and genocidal movement whose actions we see manifested daily.

The ultimate fallout from this historic, awful change in American policy may very well be a war of untold destruction. In the meantime, it is observed that some of America’s former allies have already decided that we, as agents of jihad, can no longer be trusted. Egypt is forming a closer relationship with Putin’s Russia, as is Saudi Arabia. India, which had moved closer to the United States under George W. Bush, has also turned toward Russia. France, with the rise of the National Front party, may very well be next to look east to Moscow. And Israel is openly courting new strategic alliances.

Truly, there have been few times in American history when our national commitment to morality, decency, and humanity has been so genuinely questionable. If the majority of the American people understood what has already been risked by this president and his Muslim Brotherhood-aligned administration, they would demand immediate resignation and a full investigation of the government agencies which are in league with, and give aid and comfort to, the enemy.

 

 

The Betrayal Papers is a collaborative effort by the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, which includes: Andrea Shea King, Dr. Ashraf Ramelah, Benjamin Smith, Bethany Blankley, Brent Parrish, Charles Ortel, Chris Nethery, Denise Simon, Dick Manasseri, Gary Kubiak, Gates of Vienna, IQ al Rassooli, Right Side News, Leslie Burt, Marcus Kohan, Mary Fanning, General Paul E. Vallely, Regina Thomson, Scott Smith, Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, Colonel Thomas Snodgrass, Trevor Loudon, Wallace Bruschweiler, and William Palumbo.

 

Ooops, Now Failed Policy on Venezuela

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When the Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez died, Barack Obama dispatched a delegation to the funeral as his representatives. 22 heads of state from 54 countries attended the funeral in Caracas. Yet there was more going on before the death of Chavez.

In March, before the death of Chavez:  The administration tried last year to cultivate Chavez’s designated heir, Vice President Nicolas Maduro, holding several phone calls and meetings with him and other top Venezuelans. But at a time when Chavez’s illness was paralyzing the government in Caracas, the Americans stopped getting any response to their inquiries, the U.S. official said.

“We had not gotten very far and were not sure that the government of Venezuela wanted to continue down that road, when [Chavez’s death] occurred,” the official said.

Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington, said he believed Maduro — considered by many to be the front-runner in the coming presidential election — may be open to a limited thaw in the relationship.

Maduro may, for example, agree to establishing regular communication between the two governments and exchanging ambassadors, Shifter said. He also may be open to cooperation on energy, because Venezuela’s oil industry, which is the source of most of its national income, needs technical help and new investment.

But Shifter noted that the next leader would not want to go too far in a thaw because “if he’s seen as embracing the U.S., it would be fatal with some sectors of Chavism.”]

Things did not work out well for the White House and their outreach plan with Venezuela. Seems Venezuela has turned their loyalty to China.

China has been generously co-signing financial transactions with the Venezuelan government including the borrowing of billions of dollars in exchange for future trade advantages. Since 2007, China has loaned Venezuela a total of $48 billion USD. But China’s help does not stop there. China’s generosity has reinforced the movement towards Latin America integration, fortified regional promotion of a multi-polar world, and it also has diminished somewhat the economic leverage of the United States in the region.

In January 2015, after a trip to Beijing and a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that Venezuela will receive $20 billion USD in Chinese investments. Maduro also announced that this investment will be used on housing, technology, energy, and infrastructure projects. However the President did not provide further details on whether or not Venezuela will use this investment to import goods or pay old debts.2 Beijing’s financial help has been arousing controversies in the United States and the European Union, since Venezuela has been routinely accused of wanton human rights violations by corporation-funded but heavily biased western media.

The questions raised by western media have mainly focused on the alleged irrationality behind China’s loans to Venezuela. At times they expressed concern that Venezuela will not be able to pay back the nearly $50 billion USD due to falling global oil prices. The reality is that Venezuela already has paid back $24 billion USD, making the Chinese government confident that Caracas will pay back its debt. Due to the country’s heavy dependence on its oil production, when international oil prices plunged last summer, Venezuela’s economy suffered a serious setback. According to OPEC’s statistics, last September’s oil basket prices first dropped below $100, and then continued on a downward slope. As of January, 2015 oil WTI prices have plunged to $44.38. It was not until February, 2015 that oil basket prices first saw a minor recovery.3Real wages in Venezuela also are dropping along with oil production, while inflation rates skyrocket across the country. To add on to Venezuela’s economic misery, its oil production rate is also losing ground. Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.(PDVSA), state-owned oil company of Venezuela, is now pumping 2.7 million barrels of crude oil per day, 4 compared to 2006 when Venezuela was producing 3.2 million barrels per day.5

Statement by the Press Secretary on Venezuela

Today President Obama issued a new Executive Order to implement and expand upon the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014.  Venezuelan officials past and present who violate the human rights of Venezuelan citizens and engage in acts of public corruption will not be welcome here, and we now have the tools to block their assets and their use of U.S. financial systems.

We are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government’s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents.  Venezuela’s problems cannot be solved by criminalizing dissent.  We have consistently called on the Venezuelan government to release those it has unjustly jailed as well as to improve the climate of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, such as the freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly.  These are essential to a functioning democracy, and the Venezuelan government has an obligation to protect these fundamental freedoms.  The Venezuelan government should release all political prisoners, including dozens of students, opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez and Mayors Daniel Ceballos and Antonio Ledezma.

The only way to solve Venezuela’s problems is through real dialogue – not detaining opponents and attempting to silence critics.  The Venezuelan people deserve a government that lives up to its commitment to democracy, as articulated in the OAS Charter, the Inter American Democratic Charter, and other fundamental instruments related to democracy and human rights.

We’ve seen many times that the Venezuelan government tries to distract from its own actions by blaming the United States or other members of the international community for events inside Venezuela.  These efforts reflect a lack of seriousness on the part of the Venezuelan government to deal with the grave situation it faces.

It is unfortunate that during a time when we have opened up engagement with every nation in the Americas, Venezuela has opted to go in the opposite direction.  Despite the difficulties in our official relationship, the United States remains committed to maintaining our strong and lasting ties with the people of Venezuela and is open to improving our relationship with the Venezuelan government.

2006, GW Bush Spoke About the Coming Caliphate

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Before the Military Officers Association, President GW Bush introduced the word ‘caliphate’ in reference to Osama bin Ladin’s terror plans. It was a clarion call to the immediate future. Already war weary and due to the cost of war and unpredictable conditions with a growing enemy, opponents of the Bush Doctrine on the war on terror were fiercely removing support for continued military aggressions.

In the five years since our nation was attacked, we’ve also learned a great deal about the enemy we face in this war. We’ve learned about them through videos and audio recordings and letters and statements they’ve posted on Web sites. We’ve learned about them from captured enemy documents that the terrorists have never meant for us to see.

Together, these documents and statements have given us clear insight into the mind of our enemies, their ideology, their ambitions and their strategy to defeat us.

BUSH: We know what the terrorists intend to do because they’ve told us. And we need to take their words seriously. So today I’m going to describe in the terrorist’s own words what they believe, what they hope to accomplish, and how they intend to accomplish it.

I’ll discuss how the enemy has adapted in the wake of our sustained offensive against them and the threat posed by different strains of violent Islamic radicalism.

Bush had it right yet who is carrying the baton now as that militant future is here upon the Middle East and the West. I’ll explain the strategy we’re pursuing to protect America by defeating the terrorists on the battlefield and defeating their hateful ideology in the battle of ideas.

The terrorists who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001, are men without conscience, but they’re not madmen. They kill in the name of a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs that are evil but not insane.

These Al Qaida terrorists and those who share their ideology are violent Sunni extremists. They are driven by a radical and perverted vision of Islam that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women and children in the pursuit of political power.

They hope to establish a violent political utopia across the Middle East, which they call caliphate, where all would be ruled according to their hateful ideology.

Osama bin Laden has called the 9/11 attacks, in his words, “a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the righteous caliphate.”

BUSH: This caliphate would be a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

We know this because Al Qaida has told us.

About two months ago, the terrorist Zawahiri — he’s Al Qaida’s second in command — declared that Al Qaida intends to impose its rule in every land that was a home for Islam, from Spain to Iraq. He went on to say, “The whole world is an open field for us.”

We know what this radical empire would look like in practice, because we saw how the radicals imposed their ideology on the people of Afghanistan.

Under the rule of the Taliban and Al Qaida, Afghanistan was a totalitarian nightmare, a land where women were imprisoned in their homes, men were beaten for missing prayer meetings, girls could not go to school, and children were forbidden the smallest pleasures, like flying kites.

Religious police roamed the streets, beating and detaining civilians for perceived offenses. Women were publicly whipped. Summary executions were held in Kabul’s soccer stadium in front of cheering mobs. And Afghanistan was turned into a launching pad for horrific attacks against America and other parts of the civilized world, including many Muslim nations.

BUSH: The goal of these Sunni extremists is to remake the entire Muslim world in their radical image. In pursuit of their imperial aims these extremists say there can be no compromise or dialogue with those they call infidels, a category that includes America, the world’s free nations, Jews, and all Muslims who reject their extreme vision of Islam. They reject the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the free world.

Again, here are the words of Osama bin Laden earlier this year: “Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers among us.”

So, going forward to May of 2011, the raid and killing of Osama bin Ladin at his Abbottabad compound in Pakistan, over 1 million documents were seized speaking to exactly the continued terror plans of al Qaeda. Only 17 documents have been released publically, which begs the question why? Barack Obama took the war on terror to a new lie, al Qaeda has been decimated and is on the run. Just in recent weeks, this has proven to be false. Obama’s tame war strategy has led to leaders falling from power, countries being seized by al Qaeda and other sympathetic factions and death and destruction of epic proportions. Not to be ignored either at this time, Iran had and still does major operations in Afghanistan and continues to have the same in Iraq.
Barack Obama and his inner circle was and is so bent on terminating military actions globally, his team chose to keep bin Ladin’s cache of operations from the very teams that needed and demanded it. An example is this: One of bin Ladin’s top commanders, al Rahman, wrote a letter to bin Ladin asking for permission to order the Libya Islamic Fighting Group whose members had just been released from prison to take advantage of the Arab Spring and being terror operations in Libya, Syria and Yemen. Permission was granted by Osama bin Ladin.
The Weekly Standard below spells it out.

The United States had gotten its hands on al Qaeda’s playbook—its recent history, its current operations, its future plans. An interagency team led by the Central Intelligence Agency got the first look at the cache. They performed a hasty scrub—a “triage”—on a small sliver of the document collection, looking for actionable intelligence. According to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, the team produced more than 400 separate reports based on information in the documents.

But it is what happened next that is truly stunning: nothing. The analysis of the materials—the “document exploitation,” in the parlance of intelligence professionals—came to an abrupt stop. According to five senior U.S. intelligence officials, the documents sat largely untouched for months—perhaps as long as a year.

In spring 2012, a year after the raid that killed bin Laden and six months before the 2012 presidential election, the Obama administration launched a concerted campaign to persuade the American people that the long war with al Qaeda was ending. In a speech commemorating the anniversary of the raid, John Brennan , Mr. Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser and later his CIA director, predicted the imminent demise of al Qaeda. The next day, on May 1, 2012, Mr. Obama made a bold claim: “The goal that I set—to defeat al Qaeda and deny it a chance to rebuild—is now within our reach.”

The White House provided 17 handpicked documents to the Combatting Terror Center at the West Point military academy, where a team of analysts reached the conclusion the Obama administration wanted. Bin Laden, they found, had been isolated and relatively powerless, a sad and lonely man sitting atop a crumbling terror network.

It was a reassuring portrayal. It was also wrong. And those responsible for winning the war—as opposed to an election—couldn’t afford to engage in such dangerous self-delusion.

“The leadership down at Central Command wanted to know what were we learning from these documents,” says Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the transcript of an interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier for a coming Fox News Reporting special. “We were still facing a growing al Qaeda threat. And it was not just Pakistan and Afghanistan and Iraq. But we saw it growing in Yemen. We clearly saw it growing still in East Africa.” The threat “wasn’t going away,” he adds, “and we wanted to know: What can we learn from these documents?”

After a pitched bureaucratic battle, a small team of analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency and Centcom was given time-limited, read-only access to the documents. The DIA team began producing analyses reflecting what they were seeing in the documents.

At precisely the time Mr. Obama was campaigning on the imminent death of al Qaeda, those with access to the bin Laden documents were seeing, in bin Laden’s own words, that the opposite was true. Says Lt. Gen. Flynn: “By that time, they probably had grown by about—I’d say close to doubling by that time. And we knew that.”

This wasn’t what the Obama White House wanted to hear. So the administration cut off DIA access to the documents and instructed DIA officials to stop producing analyses based on them.

Even this limited glimpse into the broader set of documents revealed the problems with the administration’s claims about al Qaeda. Bin Laden had clear control of al Qaeda and was intimately involved in day-to-day management. More important, given the dramatic growth of the terror threat in the years since, the documents showed that bin Laden had expansion plans. Lt. Gen. Flynn says bin Laden was giving direction to “members of the wider al Qaeda leadership team, if you will, that went all the way to places like West Africa where we see a problem today with Boko Haram and [al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb], all the way back into the things that were going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Bin Laden advised them on everything from specific operations in Europe to the types of crops his minions should plant in East Africa.

To date, the public has seen only two dozen of the 1.5 million documents captured in Abbottabad. “It’s a thimble-full,” says Derek Harvey, a senior intelligence official who helped lead the DIA analysis of the bin Laden collection.

And while it is impossible to paint a complete picture of al Qaeda based on the small set of documents available to the public, documents we are able to read, including those released last week in a Brooklyn terror trial, reveal stunning new details.

According to one letter, dated July 2010, the brother of Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s current prime minister, sought to strike a peace deal with the jihadists. Bin Laden was informed that Shahbaz Sharif, who was then the chief minister of Punjab, wanted to cut a deal with the Pakistani Taliban, whose leadership was close to bin Laden. The government “was ready to reestablish normal relations as long as [the Pakistani Taliban] do not conduct operations in Punjab,” according to the letter from Atiyah Abd al Rahman, one of bin Laden’s top deputies. Attacks elsewhere in Pakistan were apparently acceptable under the terms of the alleged proposal. Al Qaeda intended to guide the Pakistani Taliban throughout the negotiations. The same letter reveals how al Qaeda and its allies used the threat of terrorist attacks as a negotiating tactic in its talks with the Pakistani military.

The letter also shows that Pakistani intelligence was willing to negotiate with al Qaeda. Al Qaeda “leaked” word to the press that “big, earth shaking operations” were planned in Pakistan, the letter says, but bin Laden’s men and their allies would back off if the Pakistani army eased up on its offensive against the jihadists in the north: “In the aftermath” of the al Qaeda leak, “the intelligence people . . . started reaching out to us through some of the Pakistani ‘jihadist’ groups, the ones they approve of.” One of the Pakistani intelligence service’s emissaries was Fazl-ur-Rahman Khalil, a longtime bin Laden ally who leads the Harakat-ul-Mujahideen. Khalil was an early booster of bin Laden’s war against the West, having signed the al Qaeda master’s infamous 1998 fatwa declaring jihad “against the Jews and the Crusaders.” Another government intermediary was Hamid Gul, the one-time head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Al Qaeda’s network in Iran is also described in bin Laden’s letters. The Iranian regime held some senior al Qaeda leaders, eventually releasing them. This led to disagreements between the two sides. But the mullahs have also allowed al Qaeda to use Iranian soil as a key transit hub, shuttling fighters and cash to and from South Asia. One letter recounts a plan, devised by Yunis al Mauritani, one of bin Laden’s senior lieutenants, to relocate to Iran. Once there, Mauritani would dispatch terrorists to take part in operations around the world.

Mauritani was tasked by bin Laden with planning Mumbai-style shootings in Europe in 2010. The plot was fortunately thwarted. But all of the terrorists selected to take part transited Iran, according to court proceedings in Germany, taking advantage of the Iranian regime’s agreement with al Qaeda.

During the Arab uprisings in 2011, Obama administration officials argued that al Qaeda had been “sidelined” by the peaceful protests. Just weeks before he was killed, however, bin Laden’s men dispatched operatives to Libya and elsewhere to take advantage of the upheaval. “There has been an active Jihadist Islamic renaissance under way in Eastern Libya (Benghazi, Derna, Bayda and that area) for some time, just waiting for this kind of opportunity,” Atiyah Abd al Rahman wrote in early April 2011. Rahman thought there was much “good” in the so-called Arab Spring. And bin Laden believed that the upheaval presented al Qaeda with “unprecedented opportunities” to spread its radical ideology.

The fight over the bin Laden documents continues. Mr. Harvey, the senior DIA official, believes that the documents should be declassified and released to the public as soon as possible, after taking precautions to avoid compromising sources or methods. Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, inserted language in the 2014 intelligence authorization bill requiring just that.

Making the documents public is long overdue. The information in them is directly relevant to many of the challenges we face today—from a nuclear deal with an Iranian regime that supports al Qaeda to the rise of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Islamic State in Iraq and Syria; from confidence-building measures meant to please the Afghan Taliban to the trustworthiness of senior Pakistani officials.

Choosing ignorance shouldn’t be an option.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, ISNA/CAIR

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Check EVERY lawmaker in Washington DC, no one is exempt when it comes to the funds they receive much less the events they attend. But let us take a deeper look at one, Congresswoman, Sheila Jackson-Lee. Jackson-Lee is in the court of the Muslim Brotherhood, a terror organization listed by Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Back as recently as in August of 2012, Congresswoman, Sheila Jackson Lee was a willing speaker at an ISNA event on the topic of ‘Forming a More Perfect Union’. ISNA has a motto: ‘One Nation Under God: Striving for the Common Good’. The Congresswoman was at this large event with 2 other significant Islamists, Nihad Awad, a Palestinian and has proven ties to Hamas, a terror organization listed by the U.S. Treasury Department. Awad is the Executive Director and Founder of Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The second Islamist joined by Congresswoman Jackson-Lee was Suhail Khan. Khan blocked the opposition to the Ground Zero mosque and he facilitated the meeting of the Bush White House and Sami al Arian, now deported for terrorism. Khan also delivered a speech in 1999 full of hostility toward Federal law enforcement and demonstrated sympathy to terror suspects. Khan is also the first born son of Mahboob Khan, a founding father of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.

Then in 2011, Sheila Jackson Lee went on a full blown rant at a hearing held by Congressman Pete King’s committee hearing on terrorism. Moving towards 2013, Congresswoman Jackson-Lee was campaigning to replace Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Jackson-Lee gained the full support of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Jackson-Lee’s outrageous remarks over the years — including her comment that welfare entitlements are “earned,” and famously asking where she could find photos of our flag planted on Mars — have made her a laughingstock.

Still, the letter asserts, “Rep. Jackson-Lee would serve as an effective DHS secretary because she understands the importance of increasing border security and maintaining homeland security.”

Yes, Jackson-Lee currently serves on a homeland security subcommittee. But she’s never run any organization, certainly not one as big and critical as DHS.

And Jackson-Lee actually voted against the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which created the DHS.

More concerning is Jackson-Lee’s free association with people DHS is supposed to protect us from. She’s in the pocket of Islamist groups who support terrorism.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, she is among the top 10 recipients of Arab-Muslim cash and has helped unindicted terrorist co-conspirators raise cash.

At one annual fundraiser for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, she presented the terror-tied group with a congressional recognition award — even though the FBI has banned the group from outreach meetings.

“How proud I am to have been associated with CAIR’s legislative work,” she said at a 2007 CAIR event. “We need CAIR and we need all of you supporting CAIR.”

That same year, she placed at least one CAIR worker in her office, according to “Muslim Mafia.”

It does not end here, there is more. A Turkish cleric named Fethullah Gulen has been a force when it comes to schools in America, when several have actually been raided by the FBI. Sheila Jackson-Lee has bee up to her chin in the schools too as have many others including some Republicans.

Here in the United States, meanwhile, Gülen’s allies have been stepping up their involvement in U.S. politics, emerging as a force in districts from South Texas to South Brooklyn. Liberal Democrats like Yvette Clarke, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Al Green, and conservative Republicans like Ted Poe and Pete Olson have all benefitted from donors affiliated with Gülen in one way or another.
Leaders in the movement deny that there is any top-down organization of the donations (or, indeed, that the Gülen movement has any organization at all), but the patterns of giving suggest some level of coordination in a community beginning to flex its political muscle. Gülen himself reportedly told followers in 2010 that they could only visit him in the Poconos if they donated to their local congressman, according to the Wall Street Journal, though Gülen has denied the comment.
The donations, taken together, comprise significant totals for some U.S. House members in relatively safe seats. For instance, people connected to the Gülen-inspired charter schools donated $23,000 to Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in October 2013 — a large sum considering Jackson Lee has raised just more than $130,000 this cycle in individual contributions, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The state of Texas is home to Harmony Public Schools, the Gülen-inspired network of charter schools that have inspired some controversy; the Harmony schools, and other Gülen-related educational institutions around the country, have been accused of abusing foreign worker visas and of using taxpayer money to favor Turkish businesses over others. And Houston and its southwest suburbs are a hub for the movement in the U.S. Many Turkish immigrants who live there work for Harmony or for other organizations with ties to the Gülen movement, such as the Texas Gulf Foundation, the Raindrop Foundation, or North American University, a relatively new STEM-focused school that sits on the side of a desolate highway in north Houston. Other Houstonites affiliated with Gülen groups gave to Rep. Henry Cuellar, Rep. Pete Olson, Rep. Ted Poe, Oklahoma Rep. Jim Bridenstine, and others.

Though bundling political donations is common, Gülen-affiliated Houstonites said there was no top-down coordination of the donations.

For instance, Metin Ekren, a Harmony educator who gave $2,000 to Sheila Jackson Lee in 2012 and $1,500 to her in 2013, said that Harmony did not tell its employees to donate. Ekren said he and “friends in the office” discuss such things, but that “usually Sheila Jackson Lee has a kind of donation meeting” and that’s how he had donated. He said he gives to other Democrats as well, though records show he has mostly given to Republicans, including Poe, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker.

Erdal Caglar, Harmony’s chief financial officer, gave $1,500 to Jackson Lee in October 2013 at a fundraiser, he said.

“She has been always a supporter of our schools,” Caglar said. “She has attended all major events that Harmony organized. And she expressed — you know, Harmony’s STEM, and she’s supporting STEM education.”

Don’t go away yet, there is still more.

You see when it comes to events even in Washington DC….lil miss Sheila is there too, along with Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Amy Goodman, who runs the operation titled Democracy Now. Democracy Now protested the 2008 Republican National Convention and were detained by police. Not to be omitted, Democracy Now was the recipient of $100 million from George Soros, the Ford Foundation and the Tides Foundation.