Under Obama terrorism is gaining ground
In the last couple of days Gary Bauer writing at Campaign for Working Families and Alan Caruba writing at his Facts Not Fantasy blog site have effectively hit on the results and implications of the Obama administration’s foreign policy. The recent release of five jehadist terrorists in exchange for an American soldier who probably deserted to them triggered more encompassing observations. We liberally excerpt their commentaries below with grateful appreciation for the permission. Their articles are always worth reading in their entirety.
The exchange for terrorists has also been characterized by political analyst Dick Morris as the equivalent of America’s Founding Father’s trading five British generals so we could get Benedict Arnold back! Morris maintains the reason Obama did it is that he desperately wants to fulfill his campaign promise to empty the Guantanamo bay detention /prison site for terrorists and wanted some political cover for proceeding to do so, Congressional desires notwithstanding.
Military veteran condemnation of the exchange is predominantly negative. Former seven year prisoner of war (Vietnam) now Congressman Sam Johnson of Texas castigated Obama’s actions yesterday terming them “ill-advised, inappropriate and immature actions . . . This leaves innocent Americans and our brave men and women in harm’s way to bear the consequences of such failure.”
When we reviewed an article about whether there was any pattern to Obama’s foreign policy as regards Shiite vs Sunni branches of the Muslim religion, it caused us to wonder if the prisoner exchange matter did fit into the choices behind the exchange. Apparently there is suspicion in the Sunni Muslim world about a bias toward Shiite by Obama. The Taliban is Sunni and of and to whom the terrorist prisoners were released. Perhaps a stretch but could a sop to Sunni’s also have figured into the matter? Regardless . . .
From Gary Bauer writing at Campaign for Working Families:
Obama Frees War Criminals
The outrages that come from this president are so frequent they tend to desensitize us. I pray that does not happen with Obama’s release of the “Taliban Dream Team” from Guantanamo Bay.
In a moment of unusual candor, Obama conceded that they could “absolutely” go back to the battlefield and threaten the lives of Americans. But Obama assured us that their release “was conditioned on the Qataris keeping eyes on them… We will be keeping eyes on them.”
Obama can’t keep his eye on the IRS or the VA, but we’re supposed to trust him to keep an eye on these thugs?
One of the Taliban 5 has already vowed to return to Afghanistan to wage jihad against us. On CNN yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry dismissed concerns that these terrorists might rejoin the fight. “I honestly think that’s just a lot of baloney,” Kerry said. Feel safer now?
There is a growing chorus of Obama apologists at left-wing think tanks and in the media arguing that the released detainees pose no serious risk because they are aging and out-of-shape.
That completely misses the point. The Taliban 5 were not fighters — they were leaders and government ministers. If the Taliban had a Pentagon, these would be their four-star generals! *
This deal has demoralized our rank-and-file soldiers. Worse, it has encouraged our enemies. The Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Omar called the deal “a great victory.” It feeds the impression that America is in full retreat in the battle against radical Islam.
But news of this deal has also sent shock waves of fear and anger throughout many Afghan villages. Two of the Taliban 5 — Mohammed Fazl and Norullah Noori — are wanted by the U.N. for war crimes involving the massacres of thousands of Afghan civilians.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Fazl led a “scorched-earth offensive” in 1999 that “systematically demolished entire villages, blowing up houses, burning fields and seeding the land with mines.” According to some estimates, 300,000 people were forced to flee for their lives. Noori is accused of massacring 8,000 Afghan Shiites in the Balkh province in 1998.
Obama just let these war criminals escape justice in exchange for a likely deserter.
Also from Gary Bauer (bold emphasis ours):
Al Qaeda On The Rise
In 2008 Barack Obama won the White House promising hope and change. A big part of his victory was due to his pledge to improve America’s standing in the world. Obama promised to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he won reelection boasting that Al Qaeda had been decimated and was on the run.
Tell that to the people of Mosul, Iraq. The Wall Street Journal reports that Iraq’s second-largest city fell to Al Qaeda jihadists today. Fallujah — less than 40 miles from Baghdad — fell in January.
Look around the Middle East, my friends. Libya. Syria. Iraq.
Obama is on the run. Al Qaeda is on the rise and on the verge of taking Iraq. Into this cauldron of chaos, we have just released five jihadi generals, including two wanted war criminals. . . .
Islamists Or Congress?
Whom do you trust more — radical Islamists or members of Congress? This really isn’t a bad joke. That was exactly the question facing the Obama White House in the Bergdahl/Taliban prisoner deal . . .
So, the Taliban detainees likely knew they were being set free. The Qataris obviously knew days in advance that the Taliban 5 were being set free.
Who didn’t know? Members of Congress.
The Obama White House chose to trust radical Islamists and hardline regimes, but did not trust the people’s elected representatives. Adding insult to injury, officials briefing members of Congress last night admitted that roughly 80 to 90 members of the administration also had advance knowledge of this deal . . .
The Deception Continues
As the Obama White House shifts from its Rose Garden victory lap to damage control mode, its explanations are shifting too.
First, Susan Rice told us that Bergdahl had to be rescued because of his declining health. That story unraveled when the Taliban released video showing Bergdahl walking on his own and appearing to be relatively healthy.
Then administration officials told Congress that they had to break the law and move quickly because Bergdahl’s life was in danger. But Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, disputes that, saying, “I don’t think there was a credible threat [against Bergdahl’s life.] I have no information that there was.”
Friday, President Obama defended his decision to swap Bergdahl for the Taliban 5. He told NBC News, “I make no apologies for it. This is something that I would do again and I will continue to do wherever I have an opportunity…”
So it was Obama’s decision and he stands by it. Well, maybe not so much.
At the closed-door briefing last night, members of Congress asked who signed off on the final order to release the Taliban 5. They were told that it wasn’t Barack Obama but instead Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel who was to blame, . . .
Alan Caruba posted this insightful article Sunday, largely excerpted here, bold emphasis ours:
No, Obama is Not Above the Law
It was hard enough trying to keep up with the revelations of various scandals that have been the product of the Obama administration, but now into the second year of his second term, the news of its actions—some of which are illegal, some of which ignore Congress’s authority, and some of which seemed determined to destroy our economy and attack our constitutional freedoms–all keep assaulting our comprehension.
Like many Americans I have fears of losing our freedoms as set forth in the Bill of Rights. I have doubts about an almost invisible “recovery” of the economy when 92,009,000 are still not in the labor force. I look at the Obama presidency and see one that seems increasingly lawless and witless in so many ways.
The latest assault was the exchange of five Taliban detainees, top field commanders, for an American soldier who administration spokeswoman, Susan Rice, said had served with “honor and distinction.” Like her lies about the Benghazi attack, this too was a lie. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl had, we swiftly learned, walked away from his post in Afghanistan. That makes him a deserter, something the administration must surely have known. Giving up the Taliban leaders, done without the required thirty days’ notice to Congress, looks more like Obama’s intention to empty Guantanamo then the claim of retrieving an alleged POW . . .
This comes at a time when a report by the think tank, the Rand Corporation, spells out a 58% increase from 2010 to 2013 of jihadist groups worldwide, from 31 to 49, and a doubling of the number of jihadist fighters to an estimated 100,000. In addition, the report notes the number of attacks by al Qaeda affiliates had increased to roughly 1,000 from 392. As Seth G. Jones, the author of the report, says, “The current trends suggest that the struggle against extremism is likely to be a generational one, much like the Cold War.”
Not exactly the “end of a war” that Obama keeps talking about.
At the same time Obama turned five Taliban commanders loose, his Attorney General, Eric Holder, announced the creation of a special task force within the Justice Department to combat what he characterized as “escalating danger” from “homegrown” terrorists within the U.S. Given the fact that we have a huge Department of Homeland Security, created after 9/11, one wonders why such a task force is necessary, but we are told it will be composed of members of the FBI and the Department’s National Security Division.
The Obama administration is the same one in which the Internal Revenue Service targeted Tea Party and patriot groups seeking non-profit status. A pattern of using the government against them reflects an agenda to target any American who disagrees and speaks up against the abuse or neglect of constitutional rights . . .
. . . Largely unknown to most Americans is the National Defense Authorization Act which empowers the U.S. military, under presidential authority, to arrest, kidnap, detain without trial, and hold indefinitely American citizens thought to “represent an enduring security threat to the United States.”
Reportedly, a study funded by the Department of Homeland Security characterized Americans who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority,” and “reverent of individual liberty” as “extreme right-wing” terrorists.” Does that include members of the Tea Party movement? Members of the National Rifle Association and of veterans organizations? Opponents of abortion? All have been described as potential domestic terrorists by elements of the Obama administration
A friend-of-the-court brief in a case opposing the Act, stated: “The central question now before the court is whether the federal judiciary will stand idly by while Congress and the president establish the legal framework for the establishment of a police state and the subjugation of the American citizenry through the threat of indefinite military arrest and detention, without the right to counsel, the right to confront one’s accusers, or the right to trial.” . . .
While Obama is releasing declared enemies of the nation to return to the battlefield, he and his Attorney General are expressing concerns about homegrown terrorists and the mere accusation of being sympathetic to terrorism will be enough to get a lot of people detained without any Bill of Rights protections.
Caruba goes on to decry Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency edicts which will have the effect of subjugating the citizenry, concluding:
Taken together these and other actions put at risk the future and the freedoms Americans have enjoyed since the U.S. Constitution became effective on June 21, 1788. We are watching this 226-year-old republic being put at great risk of survival.
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2014/06/no-obama-is-not-above-law.html
