Sixty Minutes On Behghazi

Sixty Minutes has done an expose on Benghazi - interviewing one of the participants on the ground that night. It might lead one to think that there might be something more to the Benghazi "scandal" than simple partisanship:



There are three legs to the Benghazi scandal - the Sixty Minutes episode dwells on the first and only alludes to the other two. Just as a reminder, those three legs are:

1) The refusal over months to provide increased security in the face of an open and obvious threat, was criminally reckless. There is some evidence that this was part of a deliberate policy to go forward with a light footprint in Libya for political reasons - though the author of that policy has never been identified. Moreover, this failure to provide adequate security shows an administration that completely misunderstands the threat we face from radical Wahhabi Islamists, and indeed, whitewashes Wahabbi Islam to the point of portraying it as benign.

2) The Obama administration refused to send any military assets to rescue our people once the attack started. Our people were left to die - my suspicion, because of domestic political considerations. No assets were scrambled, irrespective of whether they would have been there in time.

3) The complete whitewash and cover-up in the wake of Benghazi. One element of this was Obama and Clinton blaming the attack on a rogue movie review. A second element was an "official investigation" that did not include any interviews of high ranking State Dept. officials, including Clinton herself. The third element is that no one has been held accountable for any of this. Even the four mid-level staffers at the State Dept. who were identified anonymously as the people who had made the security decisions that led to the Benghazi slaughter still have their jobs at the State Dept.

Bastards.

Tweet

Read More...

Summary only...

Benghazi Matters

Finally, 8 months after the murder of four Americans in Benghazi and six months after the election, the media is grudgingly becoming interested at least one leg of the Benghazi scandal - whether the administration lied to the nation in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack. The Obama administration succeeded in their number one priority, running out the clock on Benghazi prior to the election, and since has taken the dual positions that this is all a "political witch hunt" and, in the case of Hillary, that their potential misdeeds or stunning incompetence do not "matter." Reason's Nick Gillespie does a very good short response listing the reasons why it matters:

That is a good summary, but in at least one respect, it provides nowhere near enough emphasis. The worst thing our government has done, under Bush and now exponentially more so under Obama, is to obfuscate the dangerous problems with Islam, and in particular, the dogma and tenets of Wahhabi Islam - the most radical, xenophobic, triumphalist and retrograde force in the world today. It is not that al Qaeda or the brothers Tsarnaev and their ilk are following a perversion of Islam, it is that they are true believers in all the dogma of Wahhabi Islam. Obama - and indeed, most on the left, want to pretend that radical Islam is a rare outlier rather than the single most dominant form of Islam today. I've pontificated on this til I am blue in the face, but suffice it to say, until the problem is addressed honestly and openly, it will not go away, far more Americans will die, and Wahhabi Islam will continue to metastasize throughout the world.

Within that rubric, the causes of the attack in Benghazi, as well as the criminal refusal to provide security commensurate to the threat, matter very much indeed. It goes to the heart of the national security issue of our time - the threat to our nation and our lives from radical Islamists. If Benghazi was merely a rogue movie review conducted with violence that could not be predicted, then the administration really cannot be faulted. If, however, Benghazi represents a failure to accurately see and gauge the threat, than the Benghazi attack is the canary in the coal mine - the warning that, over a decade on from 9-11, we are still not on the track. And that is the most important reason Benghazi matters.

Tweet

Read More...

Summary only...

The Benghazi Hearing - More Questions Than Answers

The three legs of the Benghazi scandal:

1. The criminally reckless refusal to increase security at Benghazi despite full knowledge of the increasing threat.

2. The failure to respond to the terrorist attack in Benghazi with any military assets.

3. The post attack actions of the Obama administration, from lying about the nature of the attacks to stonewalling and witness intimidation.

Today's hearing on Benghazi before the House Committee On Oversight and Government Reform informed on all of these legs, but brought to light more questions than answers.

Hicks Testimony Contradicts The Accountability Review Board

As regards the refusal to increase security at Benghazi, Gregory Hicks, former top deputy to Ambassador Christopher Stevens, said that Ambassador went to Benghazi on Sep. 11 because Sec. of State Clinton was going to convert the Benghazi mission to a permanent constituent post. Yet the Accountability Review Board, in their whitewash of Clinton and the State Dept., justified the failure to increase security in Benghazi on the grounds that it was a "temporary" post whose future was "uncertain." Those assertions are in direct contradiction - one that might have been answered if the Accountability Review Board had actually interviewed Secretary of State Clinton. It raises yet more questions as why increased security was refused. If you will recall, there are indications that it was done in respect to a policy decision referenced in certain e-mails.

Military Assets & FEST Were Denied Permission To Repond

As regards the lack of any military response, Hicks testified that a four man special ops detachment was twice denied clearance to travel from Tripoli to Benghazi to respond to the attack. No justification was given, and Hicks speculated that the stand down order came from AFRICOM.

Mark Thompson, the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism at the State Department, on duty when the first reports of the terrorist attack reached Washington, testified that he immediately sought White House approval to activate FEST, described by the State Dept. as an:

. . . on-call, short-notice team poised to respond to terrorist incidents worldwide. Led and trained by the Operations Directorate of the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, it assists U.S. missions and host governments in responding quickly and effectively to terrorist attacks. The FEST, which has deployed to over 20 countries since its inception in 1986, leaves for an incident site within four hours of notification, providing the fastest assistance possible.

The FEST provides round-the-clock advice and assistance to Ambassadors and foreign governments facing crisis. The Team is comprised of seasoned experts from the Department of State, FBI, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and the Intelligence Community. Once on the scene, FEST members help Ambassadors assess the emergency, advise on how best to respond, and assist in managing consequent operations. . . .

Thompson testified that the request was denied by the White House with no justification given. Hicks further testified that the defense attache said that jets from Italy could've been there in 2-3 hours, but there were no tankers to refuel them. To add, an F22 has a range of about 1,800 miles. Using back of an envelope calculations, a flight from the air base in Italy to Benghazi would have eaten up about half or more of the fuel, so refueling would be an issue. That said, where were the tankers and what would there response time have been?

The testimony as to FEST is indeed significant, but on the larger issue of a lack of military response, it is little more than walking around the margins. The day of the attack was Sept. 11. Hours earlier there had already been a potential incident at the Embassy in Cairo. I spent too long in the military as an infantry officer, including doing plans and operations in Korea, to believe anything other than that AFRICOM, responsible for military operations in Egypt and Libya, would have had contingency plans operational and soldiers suited up and on alert for just such an attack as occurred in Benghazi. Knowing what I know, anything else is inconceivable. The one person we have yet to hear from is General Ham, the Commander of AFRICOM on Sep. 11, 2012. He has not been heard from since Sept. 11, 2012, but he was relieved of his command early, a little more than a month after the attack. Get him in front of a hearing and we will get full and honest answers to why there was a complete lack of military response, leaving our State Dept. and CIA personnel in Benghazi to fight and die wholly on their own.

On a related note, the Hill is running a story today that Obama's Pentagon is refusing to comply with a request from the House to provide "access to documents on last year’s terrorist attack in Benghazi."

Post Attack Cover-up

Lastly, on the issue of the post attack actions by the White House and Sec. of State, Hicks testified that no one from the State Dept. mission in Libya ever characterized the attack as anything other than a terrorist attack. There was never even a suggestion that it was a movie review gone rogue. This from PJM:

Hicks testified to a pattern of behavior that leads to the reasonable conclusion that many officials within the State Department wanted him to remain silent after the Benghazi attack. He said that on the night of the attack he was personally commended both by Secretary Clinton and President Barack Obama. But he later questioned why Ambassador Rice blamed the YouTube movie, and from that point on his superior, Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones, questioned his “management style” and told him directly that no one in State should want him on their team in the field again. He was eventually demoted to a desk job after having been deputy to Ambassador Stevens, and remains in that post. Hick also testified that the Accountability Review Board, convened by Clinton last fall allegedly to determine the facts of the attack, never had stenographers in the room during his tw0-hour interview. Nordstrom concurred. Thompson was not even allowed to testify to the ARB despite having direct knowledge of the attacks due to his position on the U.S. Foreign Emergency Support Team. Thompson testified that the FEST was designed to go from zero to wheels up very quickly but was not deployed at all. He wanted to tell his story to the ARB, but was not allowed to. Hicks also testified that for the first time in his career, the State Department assigned a lawyer/minder to attend witness interviews with the ARB. He also testified that Jones told him not to be personally interviewed by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Republican House member who was investigating the attack on behalf of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee. It all adds up to a pattern of witness control and intimidation.

Questions Raised Or Left Unanswered

In sum, as regards the three legs of this scandal, this hearing scratched a bit below the surface, but left more questions than answers on each of the issues. We still don't know anything approaching the full story behind the criminally reckless refusals to increase security, only now we know that the ostensible reason for the refusal given by the Accountability Review Board is likely false.

We now know that some military assets were withheld and we now know that someone in the White House made a decision to sideline the FEST team. Who and why remain unanswered. Further, as to all available military assets, we need to hear directly from Gen. Ham. Lastly, never addressed during the hearing - but still out there - is Obama's role in the non-response. I can guarantee that if he said deploy to Benghazi and deploy now, the military would have had assets on the ground long before the last two Americans died some seven hours after hostilities began.

As to the post attack cover-up, there seems to be no question that we were lied to by the Sec. of State and the President in the days and weeks following the attack. There is a real question as to whether the Accountability Review Board report, issued in Dec., was a whitewash. I will add that it seems obvious that it was.

Likely Scenario

Finally, let me speculate on what I think happened as to the three legs of this scandal. The refusals to provide additional security despite the dangerously increasing threat were the result of a policy approved by or at least known to Clinton, if not Obama. Do remember the e-mails discussing a decision made to "normalize" our security posture in Libya. As to the second leg, when the attack came, Obama did precisely as I forecast he or Clinton would do in such a situation in a post I wrote in 2008 - he made a purely political decision not to deploy assets and risk a major embarrassment prior to the election. Lastly, the charges of a cover up really go beyond speculation at this point. Obama will stonewall this for as long as possible, and every left wing media outlet in the nation has already circled the wagons around Hillary. The reality is that their cover-up may work - or at least it will until the House gets Gen. Ham under oath. Then I will be proven wrong or the dam will break.

Tweet

Read More...

Summary only...

Rand Paul To Hillary Clinton: You Should Have Been Fired Over Benghazi

Hillary Clinton is finally appearing before Congress to answer questions on Benghazi. This in the wake of a State Dept. "investigation" that was an utter whitewash, finding that no one in the State Dept., from Hillary on down, bore culpability for the criminally reckless decisions that led to the death of our Ambassador in Libya and three other Americans. Clinton, in her opening statement, is magnanimously taking "full responsibility" for the Benghazi scandal, but defending against any culpability on the grounds that she had no idea what was going on. Kudo's to Rand Paul for hitting the nail on the head in his response to Clinton's testimony:



Tweet

Read More...

Summary only...

Benghazi: Secret Cable Shows The State Dept. Knew Of The Precise Danger To Our Consulate

The worst scandal in living memory - the slaughter of four Americans in Benghazi by al Qaeda and related groups - just got worse yet again, this time via the leak of a Secret cable showing that our people in Benghazi specifically saw such a coordinated attack as possible and assessed that it would succeed. This from Fox News:

The U.S. Mission in Benghazi convened an “emergency meeting” less than a month before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, because Al Qaeda had training camps in Benghazi and the consulate could not defend against a “coordinated attack,” according to a classified cable reviewed by Fox News.

Summarizing an Aug. 15 emergency meeting convened by the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Aug. 16 cable marked “SECRET” said that the State Department’s senior security officer, also known as the RSO, did not believe the consulate could be protected.

“RSO (Regional Security Officer) expressed concerns with the ability to defend Post in the event of a coordinated attack due to limited manpower, security measures, weapons capabilities, host nation support, and the overall size of the compound,” the cable said.

That cable was addressed to "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Emergency Action Committee." That this is being embargoed by the MSM is an obscenity. I am waiting again to hear Hillary pawn off responsibility for security decisions in the run up to the 9-11 attacks. Obama refused to answer who denied requests for more security in Benghazi and why. The reason virtually has to be because of a policy decision by either Clinton or Obama. We need those answers before Nov. 6. - as well as the answers to the other equally serious legs of this scandal. Who denied military support to the consulate during the seven hour attack, and why did the Obama government claim for weeks that the attack was the spontaneous reaction to a youtube video?

Tweet

Read More...

Summary only...

Iran 6/16 - The Fire Still Burning; An Incendiary Letter From Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, State Dept. Intercedes With Twitter & Obama Speaks Softly

Much is happening in Iran:

- Despite the theocracy's promise to do a selective recount of votes and despite Mousavi asking his followers not to protest today, Iran's electorate is not mollified. They are marching in the tens of thousands in Tehran and likely elsewhere. Reports are that today's protests are actually larger than Monday's.

- The theocracy has now cut off the visas of all foreign journalists, perhaps setting up for an attempt at a brutal repression.

- Throwing fuel on the fire - the model of Iraq and the words of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, once the successor to Iran's revolutionary founder, Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. Montazeri has written a letter calling the election a fraud, calling the supression of speech a relgious failing, and warning Iran's security forces that they will be judged by God and, therefore, should not repress the protests by force regardless of what they might be ordered to do.

- The State Dept. reportedly asked Twitter, now the prime engine of organization of this rebellion, not to go offline to do a planned upgrade.

- Obama's response yesterday to the ongoing protests in Iran was as strong as he could make it. Let's hope his covert response is far more robust.
__________________________________________________________

The New York Times is reporting that large scale demonstrations continue in Iran despite Mousavi's call for his supporters to refrain from demonstrating today. The BBC is reporting that "[w]itnesses on the ground in northern Tehran are telling the BBC that a rally even larger than Monday's is currently taking place." And as the BBC's reporter in Tehran, Jon Leyne puts it: "This has gone way beyond disputed elections." What started as a protest over the Presidency is now on the cusp, if not already, a revolt of the people against the totality of a deeply corrupt and repressive theocratic regime. Thus it is not surprising that Mousavi's calls should not stop the protests. This from the NYT:

Tens of thousands of Iranians gathered in the streets here on Tuesday for a second day of mass demonstrations protesting the official results of Friday’s presidential election, unsatisfied by a top government panel’s agreement to conduct a partial recount.

As the political tumult grew, the Iranian government instituted tough restrictions on foreign journalists, formally shutting down their ability to report on the unrest on the streets. Press credentials of journalists temporarily in the country to cover the election were revoked; journalists stationed in Iran were required to get explicit permission to report beyond the confines of their offices.

Reporters Without Borders said that security services had moved into some newspaper offices to censor content and that four pro-reform newspapers have been closed or prevented from criticizing the official election results.

The result was a dearth of initial photographs and video of Tuesday’s enormous opposition protest, which began on Valiasr Street, a major thoroughfare, and headed north. The tens of thousands of marchers — perhaps more — gathered without the help of text messaging or cell phone service, relying on word of mouth and internet social media platforms such as Twitter.

A senior cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, used the Internet to issue a public letter supporting the peaceful demonstrations and excoriating the government for “declaring results that no one in their right mind can believe.” . . .

That last bit about Montazeri weighing in could become critical. Let me explain why. The theocracy imposed on Iran under Khomeini's theory of the velyat-e-faqi violates over a millenia of Shia apolitical tradition. That tradition holds that there should be separation between mosque and state. Moreover, the theocracy is widely viewed as wholly corrupt, with the wealthiest people in Iran today being clerics. All of this is brought into stark relief by the secular democracy next door in Iraq. And lastly, the Supreme Guide, Grand Ayatollah Khameini lacks religious legitimacy. He isn't a real Grand Ayatollah. He was a mid-level cleric appointed to that rank as an honorarium so that he could become Supreme Guide of Iran after Khomeini died. A 2007 article from the Boston Globe elaborates on many of these points:

Iran's ruling clerics have long prided themselves on running the world's only Shi'ite Muslim state -- a state that imposes religion, dictating what imams can preach, what the media can report, and what people can wear.

So some Iranians are intrigued by the more freewheeling experiment in Shi'ite empowerment taking place across the border in Iraq, where -- Iraq's myriad problems aside -- imams can say whatever they want in political Friday sermons, newspapers and satellite channels regularly slam the government, and religious observance is respected and encouraged but not required.

In Tehran's storied central bazaar, an increasing number of merchants are sending their religious donations, a 20 percent tithe expected from all who can spare it, to Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric -- rather than to clerics closer to Iran's state power structure, said Jawad al-Ghaie, 48, a wholesaler of false eyelashes and nail extensions and a respected lay donor.

Speaking carefully to avoid directly challenging the Iranian government, he and several fellow merchants suggested that Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani holds more spiritual sway because of his lifelong commitment to quietism. That is the school of thought that says Shi'ite leaders should stay out of government, and Sistani has stuck to it despite the great temptation to wade into the chaos of Iraqi politics.

Haamed Hussein Warraqi, another merchant, contrasted the different ways in which Sistani and the Iranian religious authorities deal with overly exuberant revelers on Arbayeen, an important Shi'ite holiday. In Iran, he said, riot police line the streets to rein in men who cut their scalps with knives -- a show of mourning that the Iranian government and some religious scholars deem Islamically incorrect.

In contrast, "Sistani uses the authority of his word," said Warraqi, 27. "The domain of Sistani is in religion, and he is obeyed by the people. Here they want to rule according to politics. That's why they have to use the riot police."

"Any time religion is imposed by the government," Ghaie added, "there is a bad reaction."

. . . But ever since US-sponsored elections brought the Shi'ite majority to power, Iraq's imperfect liberation has quietly influenced the debate among religious Shi'ites about the role of religion in government .

After Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini founded a state that rests on his concept of velayat e faqi, or guardianship of the jurist. There are elections and parliamentary debates, but ultimate authority rests with a supreme leader who is appointed by a council of clerics.

Traditionally, Shi'ites have believed that clerics should stay out of politics until the return of the Mahdi, the last of the revered early Shi'ite imams, who disappeared in the ninth century. Shi'ites believe he went into hiding and will someday reveal himself.

Only he can establish a perfect Islamic state, according to traditional believers -- including some in the Tehran bazaar, whose influential religious merchant class backed the revolution but has since grown more skeptical of the ruling clerics.

"Only the Mahdi is the genuine leader," said Ghaie's brother Mohammad, 45, whose family, like many Iranian merchants, has lived in both Iran and Iraq over generations.

Expressing such opinions is dangerous: Several prominent religious scholars -- chief among them Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri -- are under house arrest or other official sanctions for opposing clerical rule or proposing limits on it. . . .

Iraq's importance to what is happening today in Iran is being ignored, but it is of great importance. But that aside, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri carries a great deal of legitimacy. Montazeri is one of just a handful of Shia clerics who have earned the rank of Grand Ayatollah. He was in fact slated as successor to Khomeini, but fell out of favor because he supported quietism, not the autocratic theocracy Khomeini and now Khameini have created. Montazeri has been under house arrest since the death of Khomeini. Here is his letter spreading across Iran today. He offers full support of the protestors and a bald warning to those who would repress them by force:

In the name of God

People of Iran

These last days, we have witnessed the lively efforts of you brothers and sisters, old and young alike, from any social category, for the 10th presidential elections.

Our youth, hoping to see their rightful will fulfilled, came on the scene and waited patiently. This was the greatest occasion for the government’s officials to bond with their people.

But unfortunately, they used it in the worst way possible. Declaring results that no one in their right mind can believe, and despite all the evidence of crafted results, and to counter people protestations, in front of the eyes of the same nation who carried the weight of a revolution and 8 years of war, in front of the eyes of local and foreign reporters, attacked the children of the people with astonishing violence. And now they are attempting a purge, arresting intellectuals, political opponents and Scientifics.

Now, based on my religious duties, I will remind you :

1- A legitimate state must respect all points of view. It may not oppress all critical views. I fear that this lead to the lost of people’s faith in Islam.

2- Given the current circumstances, I expect the government to take all measures to restore people’s confidence. Otherwise, as I have already said, a government not respecting people’s vote has no religious or political legitimacy.

3- I invite everyone, specially the youth, to continue reclaiming their dues in calm, and not let those who want to associate this movement with chaos succeed.

4- I ask the police and army personals not to “sell their religion”, and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before god. Recognize the protesting youth as your children. Today censor and cutting telecommunication lines can not hide the truth.

I pray for the greatness of the Iranian people.

That last warning to military and police could prove absoloutely critical as this protest goes forward. The protests are too widespread throughout Iran and too large for the riot police and the thug basij militia to put down. This is quickly headed towards the point where the theocracy will be tempted to repress the protests with massive military force. As I wrote several days ago, what the military opts to do, whether they follow orders to shoot, whether they remain neutral, or whether they defend the protestors could well become the deciding factor in all of this. Grand Ayatollah Montazeri's warning to the military and police that, whatever their orders, they will be judged by God could not be more important, nor more timely.

Elsewhere, the Telegraph is reporting that "Twitter, the social networking website, postponed a scheduled maintenance shutdown after a US State Department request that it keep publishing during the Iran election protests." With the theocracy trying to shut all communications in Iran, Twitter has proven invaluable. Thumbs up to the State Dept. for recognizing this and interceding with Twitter. And indeed, the Twitter site #iranelection is receiving about 1,000 twits every five to ten minutes.

And lastly, there is the question of U.S. response to this nascent revolution in Iran. Beyond doubt, the overriding goal of the U.S. - and indeed, the entire free world - should be to see an end the brutal, bloody, hyperaggressive, and soon to be nuclear armed theocracy in Iran. The goal should be to see a true democracy put in its place, both for our self defense and for the good of the Iranian people. The only restraint on that goal should be that none of our overt actions provide a pretext for the regime to claim that the grass roots resistance to the theocracy is actually a foreign plot - a replay of the 1953 CIA led Mossadeq coup. And do not underestimate Iran's fixation on that coup. It is central to the theocrat's historical narrative. Anything that smacks of U.S. invovlement in Iran's internal politics is cast through the lens of that coup.

With that in mind, as to Obama's speech yesterday, many seem upset by his lack of robust support for the protestors. For example, Gateway Pundit is pointing out that Sarkozy has denounced the Iranian election as fraudulent and taking Obama to task for not doing the same. Hot Air has similar criticism for Obama.

My own belief is that Obama went as far as he could reasonably go in his speech. We are not at the point where there is massive repression and tanks in the street. It would be very easy, therefore, for anything Obama says to cross the "Mossadeq" line and allow the regime to justify such acts of repression. In this case, Obama's failure to robustly promote democracy and stand foresquare with the protestors was probably for the best. That said, I am concerned about two things.

One, Obama's continued statements regarding his intent to go forward with unconditional talks is absolutely wrong headed. It sends the message that whoever occupies the Presidency in Iran will be sufficiently legitimate for the U.S. and, conversely, that the protests do not matter in that regards. Those are the polar opposite of the messages we should be sending.

Two, I am concerned that Obama may not be pursuing regime change in Iran, particularly given his statment on unconditional talks. Iran has been an intelligence nightmare for thirty years because it is so closed and repressive. But with the border between Iran and Iraq now open, and with thousands of Iranians and Iraqis crossing it every day, Obama has a golden opportunity for gathering intelligence and as a means to quietly support the protest movement. I hope that is what he is doing, but everything that I know about Obama - his apologetics for America, his refusal to actively promote democracy, etc. - suggests that we are not. Time will tell. Obama's promise to hold unconditional talks with Iran is naive and counterproductive. But a failure to exploit this golden opportunity for intelligence and to support regime change in Iran would be far worse. It would be criminal negligence.

Prior Posts

Breaking News: Vote Recount In Iran, Too Little, Too Late
The Fog Of War - & Twitter
Chants Of Deat To Khameini
Iran Buys Time, Obama Votes Present, Iraq's Status Is Recognized
Heating Up In Iran
Tehran Is Burning; What Will The Iranian Army Do? (Updated)
The Mad Mullah's Man Wins Again - For Now
The Next Moves In An Existential Chess Match (Background On Iran's Theocracy)

Read More...

Summary only...

Speechless

We are in an existential struggle against salafi and khomeinist Islamists. We rely on our government to defend us. Yet today, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff has instituted an insane policy change based on advice that could only come from radical Islamists organizations in America. Their goal is to allow radical Islam to metasticize in the dark while the West is kept clueless, and they have spent billions of dollars in America and the West towards that end. Chertoff has just handed these enemies of Western civilization a major victory. He is ordering that we no longer tie Islam and jihadism to terrorism. At the bottom of this post is the contact information for Rep. Sue Myrick, head of the Anti-Jihad caucus in Congress. E-mails should be sent to her demanding the head of the incredibly misguided Sec. Chertoff.

____________________________________________________

No problem is solved by pretending it does not exist. And it is suicidal to hide the nature of an existential problem. Yet that today is what our Sec. of Homeland Security has embraced. I have posted on this issue extensively in the past, warning that the first duty of our government is to fully educate the populace about the nature, goals and tenets of the jihadists and their origins. We need to know what constitutes radical Islam as the very first step in combating it as a nation. And indeed, the strongest power our nation has is a population that is knowledgable and motivated. For example, see:

What You Don't Know About Salafi Islam Could Kill You

Another UN Obscenity

Orwell's Britain is Halal Toast

From an autobiographical sketch by former terrorist Tawfiq Hamid, "The civilized world ought to recognized the immense danger Salafi Islam poses"

Fjordman's Essay On The Muslim Brotherhood

And there are others. The report of Chertoff's actions comes from Steven Emerson, writing at the Investigative Project on Terrorism":

DHS and the State Department's Counterterrorism Communications Center each issued reports urging government employees to avoid words like "jihad," "mujahedeen" or any reference to Islam or Muslims, especially in relation to Al Qaeda. The Investigative Project on Terrorism is making the documents available for the first time here and here.

As we reported last week, the memos say a change in language from the U.S. government is needed to win the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims and avoid glamorizing terrorists motivated by religious ideology. "Moderate" is also frowned upon in the memos, though, with "mainstream" or "traditional" suggested as replacements.

Among the recommendations not reported previously:

- "The experts we consulted debated the word ‘liberty,' but rejected it because many around the world would discount the term as a buzzword for American hegemony."

- "The fact is that Islam and secular democracy are fully compatible – in fact, they can make each other stronger. Senior officials should emphasize that fact."

- The USG [U.S. government] should draw the conflict lines not between Islam and the West, but between a dangerous, cult-like network of terrorists and everyone who is in support of global security and progress.

So America, after serving for more than two centuries the sanctuary for huddled masses yearning to breathe free, is being asked to minimize liberty against fanatics bent on a global religious state. The memo doesn't offer examples to show where Islam and secular democracy have reinforced each other, or explain how Shariah law, the imposition of religion into state affairs, is "fully compatible" with secular democracy.

Read the entire article. It is hard to underestimate both the significance and jaw-dropping stupidity of Sec. Chertoff's decision. It is a decision that we fail to contest at our own peril. I recommend you e-mail the head of the Anti-Jihad Caucus, Rep. Sue Myrick at sue@suemyrick.com and ask that she do whatever is possible to have this horrendous decision overturned. A copy of my e-mail is below if you would like a template:

Subject: DHS Action Adversely Effecting the War On Terror

Dear Representative Myrick:

Thank you for your work in the Anti-Jihad Caucus. I am writing to you because of my concern over a recent decision of DHS Sec. Chertoff and the State Dept. ordering government employees to avoid words like "jihad," "mujahedeen" or any reference to Islam or Muslims, especially in relation to Al Qaeda. See here and here. This is an incredibly counterproductive decision that appears to have been taken upon the advice of jihadi facilitating organizations in the U.S.

We cannot mobilize as a nation against the existential threat posed by the jihadists and by their facilitating organizations in the West if our government deliberately hides the identity, nature, origins and goals of those organizations from the public. This allows these enemies of civilization to metastasize in the West while true champions of moderate Islam, such as Zhudi Jasser and AIFD, are wholly undercut in their efforts to win against this scourge in the battlefield of ideas.

I would ask that you do what you can to have this utterly insane policy either changed or be made subject to public hearings if that is within your power. This truly represents a major step backwards in our war on terror and a major victory for the enemies of civilization.

Thank you for your consideration.

Read More...

Summary only...