What We Know Now and Will Know on Benghazi

Posted on October 18, 2015October 18, 2015 by Denise Simon

Hillary testifies on Thursday, October 22 in an open hearing. We may not get real answers, but by virtue of the questions asked, listen carefully, those questions will be a clue to what the Gowdy Committee has in evidence and testimony.

Coming this week will be questions about Ambassador Steven’s own emails, for instance:

The chairman of the panel investigating the deadly 2012 Benghazi attacks said Sunday that new information reveals a “total disconnect” between the security needs of U.S. personnel on the ground and the political priorities of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department staff in Washington. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., described emails from Ambassador Chris Stevens to the State Department requesting more security almost from the moment he arrived in Libya. The request virtually crossed paths with one Clinton’s staff sent to Stevens, asking the new ambassador to read and respond to an email from a Clinton confidant, according to Gowdy. At another point, Clinton aide Victoria Nuland asked Stevens for advice on “public messaging” on the increasingly dangerous situation in the region, Gowdy said. “He didn’t need help with (public relations), and he was asking for more security,” Gowdy said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Gowdy refused to release the emails on Sunday. But he said they point to “the total disconnect between what was happening in Libya with the escalation in violence — that we were a soft target, that there was an increase in anti-Western sentiment … while Washington is asking him to read and react to a Sidney Blumenthal email and help on how to message the violence.”

Even NBC got some details right…as noted in their online post.

Documents Obtained by Judicial Watch Reveal Top Hillary Clinton Advisers Knew Immediately that Assault on Benghazi was Armed Attack

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

946 First “[email protected]” email at 4:07 PM on September 11, 2012, reports, “… diplomatic mission is under attack … 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well … Stevens in the compound safe haven”

Email at 6:06 PM September 11, 2012, states terrorist group, “Ansar al Sharia Claims Responsibility.”

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that on February 11, 2015, it uncovered documents from the U.S. Department of State revealing that top aides for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, including her then-chief of staff Cheryl Mills, knew from the outset that the Benghazi mission compound was under attack by armed assailants tied to a terrorist group. The documents were produced as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State ((No. 1:14-cv-01511). The documents make no reference to a spontaneous demonstration or Internet video, except in an official statement issued by Hillary Clinton.

Judicial Watch lawsuit focused on Mrs. Clinton’s involvement in the Benghazi scandal:

Any and all records concerning, regarding, or related to notes, updates, or reports created in response to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S, Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This request includes but is not limited to, notes, taken by then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or employees of the Office of the Secretary of State during the attack and its immediate aftermath.

The chain of internal emails tracks the events surrounding the terrorist attack in real time beginning immediately upon its inception.

On September 11, 2012, at 4:07 PM, Maria Sand (who was then a Special Assistant to Mrs. Clinton) forwarded an email from the State Department’s Operations Center entitled “U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi is Under Attack (SBU) [Sensitive But Unclassified]” to Cheryl Mills (then-Chief of Staff), Jacob Sullivan (then-Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy), Joseph McManus (then-Hillary Clinton’s Executive Assistant), and a list of other Special Assistants in the Secretary’s office:

The Regional Security Officer reports the diplomatic mission is under attack. Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well. Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four COM [Chief of Mission] personnel are in the compound safe haven. The 17^th of February militia is providing security support.

On September 11, 2012, 4:38 PM, State Department Foreign Service Officer Lawrence Randolph forwarded Mills, Sullivan and McManus an email from Scott Bultrowicz, who was the former director of the Diplomatic Security Service (ousted following review of the attack), with the subject line, “Attack on Benghazi 09112012”:

DSCC received a phone call from [REDACTED] in Benghazi, Libya initially stating that 15 armed individuals were attacking the compound and trying to gain entrance. The Ambassador is present in Benghazi and currently is barricaded within the compound. There are no injuries at this time and it is unknown what the intent of the attackers is. At approximately 1600 DSCC received word from Benghazi that individuals had entered the compound. At 1614 RSO advised the Libyans had set fire to various buildings in the area, possibly the building that houses the Ambassador [REDACTED] is responding and taking fire.

Nearly seven hours later, at 12:04 am, on September 12, Randolph sends an email with the subject line “FW: Update 3: Benghazi Shelter Location Also Under Attack” to Mills, Sullivan, and McManus that has several updates about the Benghazi attack:

I just called Ops and they said the DS command center is reporting that the compound is under attack again. I am about to reach out to the DS Command Center.

This email also contains a chain of other, earlier email updates:

September 11, 2012 11:57 PM email: “(SBU) DS Command reports the current shelter location for COM personnel in Benghazi is under mortar fire. There are reports of injuries to COM staff.”

September 11, 2012 6:06 PM (Subject: “Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack (SBU): “(SBU) Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and call for an attack on Embassy Tripoli”

September 11, 2012, 4:54 PM: “Embassy Tripoli reports the firing at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi has stopped and the compound has been cleared. A response team is on site to locate COM personnel.”

The DOS emails reveal the first official confirmation of the death of Ambassador Stevens. On September 12, 2012, 3:22 AM, Senior Watch Officer Andrew Veprek forwarded an email to numerous State Department officials, which was later forwarded to Cheryl Mills and Joseph McManus, with the subject line “Death of Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi”:

Embassy Tripoli confirms the death of Ambassador John C. (Chris) Stevens in Benghazi. His body has been recovered and is at the airport in Benghazi.

Two hours later, Joseph McManus forwards the news about Ambassador Stevens’ death to officials in the State Department Legislative Affairs office with instructions not to “forward to anyone at this point.”

Despite her three top staff members being informed that a terrorist group had claimed credit for the attack, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, issued an official statement, also produced to Judicial Watch, claiming the assault may have been in “a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.”

Cheryl Mills asks that the State Department stop answering press inquiries at 12:11 am on September 12, despite the ongoing questions about “Chris’ whereabouts.” In an email to State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland, Jacob Kennedy, and Phillipe Reines (then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Strategic Communications and Senior Communications Advisor), Mills writes:

Can we stop answering emails for the night Toria b/c now the first one [Hillary Clinton’s “inflammatory material posted on the Internet” statement] is hanging out there.

Earlier in the chain of emails, Nuland told Mills, Sullivan, and Patrick Kennedy (Under Secretary of State for Management) that she “ignored” a question about Ambassador Steven’s status and whereabouts from a CBS News Reporter.

Another top State Department official is eager to promote a statement from Rabbi David Saperstein, then-Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, a liberal group. The September 2012 statement condemns “the video that apparently spurred these incidents. It was clearly crafted to provoke, offend, and to evoke outrage.” Michael Posner, then-Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, forwarded the statement on September 12, 2012, to Wendy Sherman, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and Jacob Sherman with the note:

This is an excellent statement – our goal should be to get the Conference of Presidents, the ADL etc. to follow suit and use similar language.

(President Obama nominated Rabbi Saperstein to be Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom in July 2014. The U.S. Senate confirmed him in December 2014.)

Also included in the documents are foreign press reports establishing the cause of Ambassador Chris Steven’s death as being from asphyxiation. According to the reports, doctors attending Stevens said he could have been saved had he arrived at the hospital earlier.

The Obama administration has blacked out reactions from White House and top State Department officials to news stories published on September 14, 2012. One of the stories quoted a visitor who criticized the lack of security at the Benghazi Special Mission Compound and another headlined, “America ‘was warned of attack and did nothing.’”

Other emails list well over 20 invited participants in a “SVTC” (secure video teleconference). The invited participants for the September 14, 2012, early morning call include senior White House, CIA, and State Department political appointees.

“These emails leave no doubt that Hillary Clinton’s closest advisers knew the truth about the Benghazi attack from almost the moment it happened,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And it is inescapable that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knowingly lied when she planted the false story about ‘inflammatory material being posted on the Internet.’ The contempt for the public’s right to know is evidenced not only in these documents but also in the fact that we had to file a lawsuit in federal court to obtain them. The Obama gang’s cover-up continues to unravel, despite its unlawful secrecy and continued slow-rolling of information. Congress, if it ever decides to do its job, cannot act soon enough to put Hillary Clinton, Cheryl Mills, and every other official in these emails under oath.”

Islamic terrorists connected to al Qaeda attacked the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi on the evening of September 11, 2012. U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith were both killed. Just a few hours later, a second terrorist strike targeted a different compound about one mile away. Two CIA contractors, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, were killed and 10 others were injured in the second attack.

Secret Memo, Blair-Bush WMD Iraq

Posted on October 18, 2015October 18, 2015 by Denise Simon

Even the New York Times did an investigative piece in October of 2014 noting the American soldiers who were victims of WMD.

All three men recall an awkward pause. Then Sergeant Duling gave an order: “Get the hell out.”
Five years after President George W. Bush sent troops into Iraq, these soldiers had entered an expansive but largely secret chapter of America’s long and bitter involvement in Iraq.
From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule.
In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence.

A hit piece on UK’s Prime Minister Tony Blair and former President George W. Bush on the matter of removing Saddam Hussein over WMD. Okay, there is an argument to be had for sure, yet it should be further asked or published in this article, all the causes and evidence and players in the WMD debate in Iraq. Click here for the once secret memos now located on Hillary’s server.

Smoking gun emails reveal Blair’s ‘deal in blood’ with George Bush over Iraq war was forged a YEAR before the invasion had even started

Leaked White House memo shows former Prime Minister’s support for war at summit with U.S. President in 2002
Bombshell document shows Blair preparing to act as spin doctor for Bush, who was told ‘the UK will follow our lead’
Publicly, Blair still claimed to be looking for diplomatic solution – in direct contrast to email revelations
New light was shed on Bush-Blair relations by material disclosed by Hillary Clinton at the order of the U.S. courts

***MAIL ONLINE – IF RUN FULL DOCUMENTPLEASE SUN SIDE BY SIDE AND MAKE FONTS LOOK SAME SIZE ***
For Tony Blair story for Mail on Sunday Politics page
Email from Colin Powell
Image vis Glen Owen MOS political reporter

Full story here.

Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction
Introduction
On November 8, 2002, the United Nations Security Council gave Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council” with the adoption of Resolution 1441. Iraq formally accepted the resolution and inspectors began their work in Iraq on November 27. On December 7, Iraq provided a 12,000-page declaration of its WMD programs and capabilities, which largely recycled old declarations and maintained that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction (WMD). On December 19th, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC),1 the two organizations charged with inspecting Iraq, reported that the declaration was incomplete. UNMOVIC and the IAEA told the U.N. Security Council that Baghdad “missed an opportunity” to come clean about its arms programs.
Between November 2002 and mid-March 2003, UNMOVIC and IAEA inspectors conducted 750 inspections at 550 sites. They conducted unannounced inspections, interviewed Iraqi personnel, taken samples, and collected documents. Although Iraq initially objected to reconnaissance flights (by U-2, Mirage 4 and Russian Antonov aircraft) and reportedly actively discouraged scientists from being interviewed in private, by mid-February Iraq acquiesced to these rights of the inspectorate. Both UNMOVIC Executive Chairman Hans Blix and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei generally characterized Iraqi cooperation as good on process and lacking on substance.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 states that “the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations” (emphasis added). Although four years had lapsed in inspections since 1998, President Bush’s September 12, 2002 speech to the United Nations and Congress’ authorization of the use of force against Iraq (P.L. 107-243) in October 2002 lent urgency to the inspections.2 In retrospect, a key question is: What purpose did inspections serve? Were they a trip-wire for military action to disarm Saddam Hussein, or were they part of an ongoing inspection and disarmament process that will continue at some point in the future?
Few doubt the difficulty of establishing confidence that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction. On the one hand, inspections in Iraq have the logically impossible task of proving a negative – that Iraq is not trying to acquire WMD. For those who believe that inspections cannot provide such assurances, obstruction of those inspections hints at (or to some, proves) the concealment of some WMD- related activities.4 In this view, even cooperation in the process of inspections provides few assurances of the absence of WMD programs, and the failure of inspections to turn up evidence of WMD-related activities would, in this view, not confer innocence, but illustrate the shortcomings of inspections.
For some observers who are opposed to inspections, a key assumption is that the task of disarming Iraq is insurmountable without genuine Iraqi cooperation, which requires the leadership in Iraq to give up its WMD aspirations. The Bush Administration in January 2003 cited South Africa, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan as models of cooperative disarmament and contrasted Iraq’s actions with those of the three models.5 The former deputy executive chairman of UNSCOM (U.N. Special Commission), Charles Duelfer, compared inspections in Iraq with those conducted in Germany between World War I and World War II, which were ultimately unsuccessful.6 Duelfer argued that this kind of coercive disarmament by an international organization is doomed to failure. CIA Director George Tenet remarked in a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on February 11, 2003, that “unless he [Saddam Hussein] provides the data to build on, provides the access, provides the unfettered access that he’s supposed to, provides us with surveillance capability, there’s little chance you are going to find weapons of mass destruction under the rubric he’s created inside the country.”7
Other observers point to the knowledge gained from 1991 to 1998 by inspectors about the extent of Iraq’s WMD programs, even in the face of strong Iraqi resistance and deception, to the uncertainties of waging war against an opponent that may have and be inclined to use WMD, and to the value in an approach that has broad international support. Some questioned the ability of intelligence agencies alone to detect WMD programs, citing reports of the CIA’s lack of knowledge about Iraq’s WMD programs prior to 1991 and the evident surprise about the 1998 Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests.8 In the nonproliferation community, most agree that treaties and agreements ultimately cannot stop a country that is determined to acquire WMD, but rather make the process more difficult and costly, thereby buying time for political change. In the case of Iraq, four years without inspections elapsed with relatively little public debate, but the tragedies of September 11, 2001 seem to have convinced many observers that delay in disarming Iraq could increase the threat to international security. A relatively new concern in the debate on Iraq’s disarmament is the alleged support Iraq might provide to terrorists. Some observers say there appears to be little evidence linking Iraq to Al Qaeda, but some posit that Iraq might have incentives to provide WMD materials or weapons to terrorists, which would call for quick disarmament of Iraq. (footnotes from the above text comes from the 2003 Congressional Research Service document found here)

Obama Stands with Palestinian Violence

Posted on October 18, 2015October 18, 2015 by Denise Simon

Words Have Consequences: Palestinian Authority Incitement to Violence

WITNESSES: Mr. Elliott Abrams

Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies

Council on Foreign Relations

Jonathan Schanzer, Ph.D.

Vice President for Research

Foundation for the Defense of Democracies

Mr. David Makovsky

Ziegler Distinguished Fellow

Director

Project on the Middle East Peace Process

Irwin Levy Family Program on the U.S.-Israel Strategic Relationship

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

October 22 is going to be a busy day on Capitol Hill. First Hillary testifies again before the Gowdy Benghazi Committee, but in other room, there will be testimony on the Palestinian Authority inciting the violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The Obama Intifada

Column: How coddling Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas led to terrorism in Israel

FreeBeacon: More than 30 dead in Israel as Palestinians armed with knives attack innocents. What’s responsible? A campaign of incitement, which slanderously accuses Jews of intruding on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and murdering Arab children in cold blood.

And who is legitimizing this campaign? None other than Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, whom President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have long held up as a peacemaker. “I think nobody would dispute that whatever disagreements you may have with him, he has proven himself to be somebody who has committed to nonviolence and diplomatic efforts to resolve this issue,” Obama told writer Jeffrey Goldberg in 2014.

That’s a strange view of commitment. This is the same Abbas, remember, who rejected then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s absurdly generous 2008 peace offer. The same Abbas who resisted negotiations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the 10-month settlement freeze in 2010, which Obama demanded explicitly on the grounds that it would give Abbas the cover he needed to begin talks. Abbas finally relented to Saudi pressure, and attended a few meetings with Netanyahu that September. But under no definition of what the word “negotiation” actually means were these meetings for real: The freeze was about to expire, the get togethers were perfunctory, and nothing of significance was discussed. The farce ended soon after.

It is a lie to say that Mahmoud Abbas is committed to a diplomatic resolution. Just as it was a lie when, the other day at Harvard, Secretary Kerry attributed the bloodshed to “a frustration that is growing” because of the “massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years.” As Elliott Abrams points out, there has been an increase in the population of the settlements, but not in their size. As if the settlements have any connection to what’s happening in the first place: The terror gripping Israel is the result of a Palestinian leadership so adrift and corrupt, so aggrieved and conspiratorial, that it encourages the radicalization of its youth and promotes an atmosphere of hatred and murder. More here.

***

Yeah, Obama was financially funding the enemy of Israel too!

Congress Looks to Cut U.S. Aid to Palestinians Amid Terror Campaign

Resolution would cut $5 billion in aid as a result of violence

FreeBeacon: Momentum is building on Capitol Hill for a new congressional resolution that would cut more than $5 billion in U.S. aid to the Palestinians as a result of an increase in violence that has claimed the lives of at least eight Israelis and wounded many more, according to a copy of the measure viewed by the Free Beacon.

The bill comes amid criticism from lawmakers about the Obama administration’s response to the terrorism and efforts to blame Israel for the violence.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Tex.), among others, has demanded that Secretary of State John Kerry resign his post in light of accusations by the administration that Israel has fostered the violence as a result of its policies to combat Palestinian terrorism.

Rep. Martha McSally (R., Ariz.), a retired Air Force colonel, is now seeking to hold the Palestinian Authority directly responsible for the terrorist acts by cutting off U.S. taxpayer aid to the governing body, officials of which have called for more violence against Jewish people in recent days.

The resolution, a copy of which was obtained by the Free Beacon, calls on the Obama administration to more strongly condemn the Palestinian violence and seeks to condition continued U.S. aid on the Palestinian government’s acceptance of a Jewish state.

The measure “demands, as a condition of continued United States aid … that the President re-certify that the Palestinian Authority (PA) government, including all ministers, has publicly accepted” Israel’s right to exist.

McSally’s measure would “freeze all United States funding to the Palestinian Authority until their leaders openly increase efforts to end their incitement of violence.”

The resolution also expresses concern about the Obama administration’s continued use of executive authority to continue paying the Palestinians despite the government’s support for terrorism against Israel.

It expresses concern “about the use of national security waivers to continue supplying aid to the Palestinian Authority,” according to the text.

The measure also suggests that no U.S. aid should be given to a joint government that includes Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules over the Gaza Strip.

The Obama administration has come under fire from the pro-Israel community in recent days due to its statements blaming Israel for the violence.

Kerry, for instance, inaccurately stated that so-called Israeli “settlement” growth, the construction of Jewish homes in Jewish neighborhoods of Israel, is to blame for Palestinian violence.

“There’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years,” Kerry said. “Now you have this violence because there’s a frustration that is growing, and a frustration among Israelis who don’t see any movement.”

John Kirby, a spokesman for the State Department, similarly accused Israelis of committing “terrorism.”

“Individuals on both sides of this divide are—have proven capable of, and in our view, are guilty of acts of terrorism,” Kirby told reporters earlier this week following questions about the spike in violence.

Kirby also noted that the administration has seen “credible reports of excessive use of force” by the Israelis against Palestinian “civilians,” several of whom have attempted to murder Jews in recent days.

“We routinely raise our concerns about that” with the Israeli government, Kirby said.

Cruz has demanded that Kerry resign over these comments.

“Once again Secretary Kerry and his staff have proven themselves utterly unfit for the positions they hold,” Cruz said late Thursday. “Mr. Kirby should immediately retract his offensive assertion that Israel is ‘guilty of acts of terror’ or resign, and Secretary Kerry should immediately disavow these remarks or resign.”

Obama Teams with Silicon on Syrian Refugees

Posted on October 18, 2015October 18, 2015 by Denise Simon

In part from HuffPo:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has responded to a petition calling on the U.S. to resettle tens of thousands of Syrian refugees within its borders, inviting the man who started the petition to the White House for a meeting.

George Batah, 23, came from Syria in 2013 and now lives in Chicago. He said he started the petition in late August because he felt the United States has a moral obligation to continue being “the leader in refugee resettlement.”

His petition asked the White House to accept at least 65,000 Syrian refugees by 2016. The administration did not commit to that number in its response Thursday, instead reiterating that it intends to bring at least 10,000.

“Under President Obama, the U.S. is the world’s largest donor of humanitarian aid, having contributed $4 billion in aid to date to help meet urgent needs in the most effective way,” the administration wrote. “The President has also directed his Administration to scale up the number of Syrian refugees we will bring to the U.S. next year to at least 10,000.”

How the White House Got Silicon Valley to Take On the Refugee Crisis
After the president’s request, Silicon Valley code writers went to work at record pace.
White House and Silicon Valley Take On Syria Crisis

Bloomberg: Even Jason Goldman, a former senior technology executive at

companies including Twitter, Medium, and Google, was surprised by how quickly some of his former Silicon Valley colleagues were able to answer the call.
Goldman, now sitting in Washington as the first-ever White House chief digital officer, and his colleague Joshua Miller, a former Facebook employee overseeing the Obama administration’s digital products, had gone to work lining up allies for a push to aid the waves of Syrian refugees flooding out of the country a little over a week prior. Now they were staring at donation platforms, crafted from scratch, that were ready to roll out.
“That’s a pretty fast turnaround time to actually build and ship code out into the wild,” Goldman says.
“That’s a pretty fast turnaround time to actually build and ship code out into the wild.”
Jason Goldman, White House chief digital officer
The response—and the equivalent of millions of dollars in donations that resulted—from Kickstarter, Twitter, Airbnb, and Instacart marked a new approach to address what many in the U.S. government view as an intractable crisis. Nearly 12 million Syrians have been displaced by the civil war raging in their country, according to the UN Refugee Agency. Thousands per day are flooding into European nations unequipped to handle the surge.
The White House has directed more than $4.5 billion to aid refugees, and pledged last month to allow and additional 10,000 into the U.S. next year. Still, the metastasizing crisis has up to this point far outweighed the global response. The U.N. Refugee Agency estimates the awareness level in the U.S. sits at 4 percent.

“We don’t have refugees in our backyard, we don’t have camps, we don’t have refugee camps on our soil so a lot of the American public doesn’t have a full understanding of what is going on,” says Jennifer Patterson, USA for UNHCR, the UN non-profit arm tasked with raising money and awareness for refugees. “The scope is really enormous right now.”
That was part of the calculation behind a few lines in President Barack Obama’s September speech to the United Nations General Assembly—a call not just to world leaders to address the crisis, but also private industry. Goldman and his team were looped into the call by National Security Council staff in the lead up to the remarks and went to work.
Within a week of Obama’s speech, Kickstarter had partnered with UNHCR to launch a first-of-its-kind non-profit campaign on the platform. Obama and Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, kicked in videos to help. More than $1 million was raised in less than 24 hours. Instacart linked up with UNHCR to create an option for its online shoppers to also purchase meals for refugee families. Airbnb pledged housing credits to aid workers in the region and matched any donations from its online community. Twitter launched its donation product early to ease the fundraising process on the platform for non-governmental organizations.
White House officials acknowledge that the start-up driven campaigns are far from the, or even a major piece of the, solution to the crisis. But along with driving donations and awareness, there are plans to make the idea a permanent model going forward. Other companies are preparing to launch similar initiatives, Patterson says.
“Really what we were doing here was just using the White House convening power to say, look, this is a real problem out in the world,” Goldman says. “Here’s how to think about it, here’s organizations you can work with, find the right fit for your product and you and your users and really step up and be involved.”

Finally Arrest Warrants Issued on Hezbollah

Posted on October 18, 2015October 18, 2015 by Denise Simon

Argentine court seeks arrest of Hezbollah man for ’92 bombing Hussein Suleiman wanted by country’s Supreme Court for attack on Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 22

TimesofIsrael: Argentina’s Supreme Court of Justice issued an international arrest warrant against Hussein Mohamad Ibrahim Suleiman, a Hezbollah member who is being investigated for his involvement in the 1992 attack against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires.
The attack, which came two years before the bombing of Jewish organization AMIA in Buenos Aires, killed 22 people and injured more than 200. The court on Thursday also reiterated the warrant to arrest Jose Salman El Reda Reda, also as a suspect in the deadly attack.

Suleiman was arrested in Jordan in 2001 and confessed that in 1991 he traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil, later transporting to Buenos Aires the explosives used in the deadly blast.
The ruling from Argentina’s highest court said, “Since 2005, this Court has been investigating Hussein Mohamad Ibrahim Suleiman as an operative agent of the Hezbollah terrorist organization and a member of the Islamic Jihad.”
The ruling added that: “Recently, in September, 2015, the Israel Embassy in Buenos Aires, through the Foreign Affairs Ministry, confirmed the information and thus the international arrest warrant was issued on the named.”
On Friday, Israeli officials welcomed the ruling and confirmed its role in the investigation.
A statement issued by the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires said: “Israel sees with satisfaction all the advances in the search for truth and justice in the cause against our embassy in Buenos Aires.”

Perspective, two years later:

19 Years Since AMIA Argentina Bombing and Hezbollah Terror Threat Growing

From the Israeli Defense Force: On this date in 1994, the Lebanese terrorist organization attacked a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 and wounding hundreds. Today, Hezbollah has an extensive terror network around the globe, making it one of the largest and most violent terrorist organizations in the world.

Nineteen years ago today – at 9:53 a.m. on July 18, 1994 – a shock wave ripped through the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. A Hezbollah terrorist had detonated a car bomb with more than 400 kg of explosives outside the building of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA, a Jewish community center and headquarters of the Jewish community of Argentina). The vast amount of explosives caused the building to collapse, killing 85 people and wounding more than 300.

This was one of Hezbollah’s bloodiest acts of terror. The attack was perpetrated in the heart of Buenos Aires and caused damage to surrounding buildings, including a school. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, had been quoted in the Al-Watan al-Arabi newspaper a month before the attack, saying: “One thousand suicide commandos are ready to strike Israel across the entire globe.”

Khader Tleis, a member of the Lebanese parliament on behalf of Hezbollah, said that Israel knew that the terrorist organization could “do a lot even outside Lebanon,” and threatened that Israel would be hit “in and outside of Lebanon.” These public expressions reflect the clear objectives of the terrorist organization: to eradicate Israel and to impose radical Islamist Shiite theology.

The Iran-Hezbollah Connection

“Diplomats at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires who collaborated with the planners of the attack knew that the explosion would injure and kill many Argentines. Iranians knew, Hezbollah terrorists knew, those who assisted in the attack knew – knew and planned,” former Israeli Minister of Public Security Avi Dichter later stated. “Diplomats, neighbors and passersby who just went out there at the wrong time were executed.”

At a press conference on October 25, 2006, Argentine prosecutors Dr. Alberto Nisman and Marcelo Martínez Burgos revealed the primary findings of the Argentine investigation into the attack. Among their main points: The investigation unequivocally determined that the decision to bomb the AMIA building had been made by the leadership of the Iranian regime and carried out by Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy for implementing its policies.

In light of the report, the Argentine prosecution asked Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral to issue international arrest warrants for seven high-ranking members of the Iranian regime and one senior Hezbollah terrorist operative, all involved in the terrorist attack. One of the seven was Ahmad Vahidi, who currently serves as the Iranian minister of defense and was commander of the Iranian regime’s Quds Force at the time of the 1994 attack.