Back to Basics

UPI FILE

Senator John McCain consorted with al-Qaida allies — and, hence, enemies of America — during his trip to Syria over the Memorial Day weekend.

In meeting with Gen. Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), McCain met with a man who has aligned himself with Arhar al Sham, a partner of Al-Nusra Front, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization. Just last month al-Qaida in Iraq declared al-Nusra was its branch in Syria. Idris claims his group doesn’t work with Al-Nusra, but the two have fought side by side and shared arms in their battle to overthrow Bashar Assad. Together, the groups, along with the Forouq Brigades and the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (a coalition of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist groups that have vowed to create an Islamic state in Syria), form the FSA. Even The New York Times has reported that the groups that make up the FSA share Islamist ideals.

Two weeks ago, the FSA produced a video and posted it to YouTube showing Abu Sakkar eating the heart of a dead Syrian soldier. Sakkar is commander of the Farouq Brigades. Human Rights Watch recently claimed that Shakkar shelled Shia Villages — populated with women and children — in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. An FSA-produced video last year showed one of its soldiers beheading a civilian. Amnesty International has documented a number of war crimes committed by FSA soldiers and commanders.

Prior to the NATO-inspired coup attempt on the Assad regime, Christians lived in peace in Syria. But the FSA has been killing Christians and burning churches.

The passage of the National Defense Authorization Act gave the President the discretion of deciding that if Americans collaborate with terrorists, they can be indefinitely detained without the right of habeas corpus. The question is: Why isn’t McCain on his way to Guantanamo Bay wearing an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs and shackles?

Obama’s bloody recipe for more Benghazis
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2013

Gird your loins, America. President Obama intends to empty out Guantanamo Bay and send scores of suspected Muslim terror operatives back to their jihadist-coddling native countries. Goaded by anti-war activists and soft-on-terror attorneys (including those from Attorney General Eric Holder’s former private law firm), Obama announced Thursday that he’ll lift a ban on sending up to 90 Yemeni detainees home and will initiate other stalled transfers out of the compound.

This radical appeasement of Obama’s left flank is a surefire recipe for more Benghazis, more U.S.S. Coles and more innocent lives at risk.

A little more than three years ago, the White House assured Americans that it would not release Yemeni detainees back to their al-Qaida-infested land. In January 2010, international press outlets reported that at least a dozen former Guantanamo Bay prisoners had rejoined al-Qaida to fight in Yemen. Yemen was also the terror training ground of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the jihadist who attempted to bomb Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day in 2009.

Abdulmutallab reportedly told the FBI there were countless al-Qaida trainees like him in Yemen. The CIA knew of Abdulmutallab four months before his bombing attempt and was aware of him meeting with terrorists in Yemen a month before his arrest. British media also reported that counterterrorism and intelligence officers were “aware of several British nationals and British residents who had trained at camps in Yemen’s ‘ungoverned spaces.’”

From the very first days of Obama’s presidency, Americans in Yemen have been endangered. In late January 2009, the U.S. Embassy in Yemen came under gunfire. American diplomatic staff had been warned of a pending attack. That same month, two former Yemeni Gitmo detainees, Said Ali al-Shihri and Abu Hareth Muhammad al-Awfi, released a video flipping America the bird.

They publicly recommitted to “aid the religion,” “establish the rightly guided caliphate” and “fight against our enemies” after undergoing terrorism “rehab” in Saudi Arabia. Charlie Sheen’s rehab worked better than that of the Sauds.

Military review panels indicated that al-Shihri had traveled to Afghanistan two weeks after the 9/11 attacks, trained and funded jihadists outside Kabul, and coordinated travel for al-Qaida before being captured and held at Gitmo. After his release by the Bush administration, intel officials say he was involved in the deadly bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, in September 2008.

Al-Shihri has reportedly been killed in drone attacks at least three times and may or may not have met the same fate as fellow Yemeni jihad leader and drone strike victim Anwar al-Awlaki. But this much is clear: Embassy staffers in Yemen have targets on their back, Benghazi-style. The warning flags are crimson red.

Yemen also produced Jamal Ahmed Mohammad al-Badawi, the convicted mastermind of the U.S.S. Cole bombing that took the lives of 17 American sailors in October 2000. As I’ve reported previously on the Yemen jihad revolving door: Despite being sentenced to the death penalty, escaping twice from jail and being indicted in the U.S. on terrorism charges, the Yemeni government freed al-Badawi in 2007 in exchange for a promise that he renounce his old murdering ways.

Al-Badawi remains at large and is on the FBI Most Wanted fugitive terrorist list.

In 2008, candidate Obama made numerous promises that if elected president he would immediately close the prison at Guantanamo Bay:

Today, some five years later, Obama’s going to call (again) for steps that could culminate in the shuttering of the prison. Problem is, those steps involve sending some of the suspects back to one of the world’s foremost terrorism incubators:

President Obama will announce Thursday that the White House plans to lift the ban on sending detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Yemen, Fox News confirms, a move that could effectively resume efforts to close down the prison.

That effort, however, has been stymied because many countries don’t want the detainees or are unwilling or unable to guarantee that once transferred, detainees who may continue to be a threat will not be released.

There are currently about 166 prisoners at Guantanamo, and 86 have been approved for transfer as long as security restrictions are met.

Sending terror suspects to Yemen as long as security restrictions are met is like sending Michael Moore to McDonalds to lose weight as long as everybody promises not to let him near any food.

Flashback to March of last year:

(Reuters) – The proportion of militants released from detention at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay who subsequently were believed to have returned to the battlefield rose slightly over the last year, according to official figures released on Monday.

In a summary report, the office of the Director of National Intelligence said that 27.9 percent of the 599 former detainees released from Guantanamo were either confirmed or suspected of later engaging in militant activity.

The alternate title to this post could also be “Obama proposes speeding up Yemen/Gitmo revolving door.”

Last but not least, a new strategy to combat terrorism:

Nathan Wurtzel @NathanWurtzel

The man depicted in the photo above is Abu Sufian bin Qumu. I told you about him on September 20. He’s the former Gitmo detainee released in 2007 who was named as the possible lead plotter in the bloody attacks on our consulate personnel, staff, and private security contractors in Benghazi. We haven’t heard a thing about him from the commander-in-chief, who has vowed repeatedly to track down the killers and “bring them to justice.” On top of all the unanswered questions about Benghazi, there are these unasked questions — which I ask in my column today: Where exactly is Qumu? How exactly is President Obama’s little-discussed quest to hold the Benghazi murderers “accountable”? And how exactly does Eric Holder’s renewed effort to close Gitmo at a time when the bloody Gitmo recidivism rate is rising square with Obama’s empty promises to get “justice” and protect America.

No, we won’t stand down. And we must not roll over.

***

Obama’s emptiest Benghazi talking point
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2013

On Sept. 12, 2012, President Barack Obama vowed to “bring to justice” the perpetrators of the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya. On Oct. 26, 2012, Obama said his “biggest priority” was bringing the “folks” in Libya responsible for murdering four Americans to “justice.” Tick, tock, tick, tock.

While White House press secretary Jay Carney sneers at the GOP’s “obsession” with what went wrong at the besieged Libyan consulate, Obama continues to ply his emptiest talking point. On May 13, 2013, more than eight months after the bloody disaster, Obama snippily reminded reporters that he had told us all back in September that “we would find out what happened, we would make sure that it did not happen again, and we would make sure that we held accountable those who had perpetrated this terrible crime.”

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Justice delayed is justice denied.

A little more “obsession” from this administration with hunting down the jihadist killers would be a good thing. How about a little more anger directed at the perpetrators and a little less rage aimed at the conservative press? Nah. Team Obama seems more singularly focused on blaming its opponents, smearing whistleblowers and deriding those who are trying to hold the president to his words, words, words.

Perhaps with their newfound skepticism toward the lying liars of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the former lapdogs of the White House press corps will start asking questions like this: Where the hell is Sufyan Ben Qumu a.k.a. Abu Sufian bin Qumu?

Qumu, a suspected Libyan Islamic Fighting Group militant with ties to the financiers of the 9/11/01 attacks, was held at Guantanamo Bay for six years. The Bush administration foolishly handed him over to the Gadhafi regime on the promise that he would remain imprisoned. In 2010, Qumu was granted amnesty and released.

Contrary to the delusions of the International Gitmo Bleeding Hearts Fan Club, the supposedly poor and oppressed Qumu did not content himself with writing poetry or farming potatoes. A week after the 9/11/12 attack, the Ansar al-Sharia leader was named a possible chief plotter in the deadly terrorist assault on our consulate personnel, staff and private security contractors in Benghazi.

Even their own countries don’t want them back, so sure, let’s instead turn them loose in the U.S.:

In an article posted on MSNBC.com, Hayes criticized Guantanamo Bay’s continued existence in a piece entitled, “Time for radical action on Guantanamo.” Hayes, who railed against Obama’s failure to keep his promise to close the prison in Cuba, argues that:

The dozens of men who have been cleared by the United States government for release should be released immediately, should be paid restitution, and offered legal residence in the United States.

I would add one caveat to that proposal: Former Gitmo detainees can live in the U.S., but they have to stay at Chris Hayes’ house (that way he can monitor them closely to make sure Dick Cheney doesn’t waterboard them again).

Just because they’ve been “cleared” doesn’t mean we should invite them to our next party. O.J. Simpson was “cleared” in 1995 but that doesn’t mean I’d want him to move in next door, let alone give him money for a new knife.

Hayes is uncomfortable referring to fallen U.S. military members as heroes but has no problem sainting Gitmo detainees. Par for the far-lefty course.

UPI FILE

It has been four years since President Barack Obama promised to close down the military prison in Guantanamo Bay.

Once more, Barack Obama has shown himself to be a pathetic President. The latest disgrace of the vaulted liberal leader is his failure to stand by his conviction to shut down Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo).

It has been four years since Obama promised to close down the military prison. Now, he wants to provide $196 million in renovations and new construction as requested by his new Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel. Obama has decided keeping enemies of the United States comfortable is more important than meting out justice.

General John F. Kelly, the chief of the U.S. Southern Command, testified before Congress last week that repairs and upgrades are needed at Gitmo, including two new barracks and a new mess hall.

It is ironic that up to 100 “detainees” are on a hunger strike.

Rolling Stone reported: “Eight of the hunger strikers are being force-fed through a tube, a process the United Nations has previously classified as torture. Two hunger strikers have been hospitalized for dehydration.”

I am a libertarian through and through. I say if they want to starve themselves to death, let them — especially if these individuals want to inflict terror against Americans.

What does our President want? He wants to spend money America cannot afford to keep “detainees,” doublespeak for prisoners of war, more comfortable.

Regarding Gitmo, the Obama Administration is dead wrong. It is a classic case of Obama’s wanting his cake and eating it, too.

Obama should either:

• Choose a speedy trial, a basic right to defendants which would also give closure to the victims of those atrocities.
• Or deal decisively with Gitmo prisoners if they remain a clear and present danger to the United States.

Last month, The Daily Beast summed up America’s blundering President regarding Gitmo:

The Obama administration insists it’s doing everything possible to fulfill the president’s pledge. “We are absolutely still committed to closing Gitmo,” National Security Council spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said in an interview. He put the blame elsewhere, saying, “The unfortunate reality is that Congress has gone out of its way to prevent us from doing so, but we still believe closing the facility is in our national security interest.”

Yet experts say the chances of Gitmo closing, at least before Obama’s out of office in 2016, are exceptionally slim.

“Guantanamo is not going to close any time soon,” said Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a right-leaning think tank. “There are too many problems to solve. There are still Yemenis who can’t be repatriated to their home country, there are detainees too dangerous to transfer anywhere and quite a few prisoners who the administration says they cannot try in an open court.”

There is another irony about the President. Last Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that it will begin closing 149 air traffic control towers starting on April 7. The Transportation Security Administration also claimed sequester-caused airport security delays are on the horizon. That means more time at the airport and compromises safe travel.

A top al-Qaeda member and son-in-law of Osama bin Laden was charged on Thursday with conspiring to kill Americans in his position as bin Laden’s spokesman who heralded the multi-attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001.

Officials said Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a/k/a “Suleiman Abu Gayth,” who was born in Kuwait and was bin Laden’s propagandist, was captured in Jordan over the last week. He will appear Friday in U.S. federal court in New York, according to a Justice Department statement and indictment outlining the accusations against Abu Ghaith.

Efforts by Law Enforcement Examiner to learn why Abu Gayth is being held by civilian authorities instead of being detained at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military detention met with negative results.

However, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said, “Al-Qaeda leaders captured on the battlefield should not be brought to the United States to stand trial. We should treat enemy combatants like the enemy –- the U.S. court system is not the appropriate venue. The President needs to send any captured al-Qaeda members to Guantanamo.”

Rep. Peter King, D-N.Y., the former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, congratulated the CIA and FBI for capturing the al-Qaeda propagandist in Jordan within the last week.

“No amount of distance or time will weaken our resolve to bring America’s enemies to justice,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “To violent extremists who threaten the American people and seek to undermine our way of life, this arrest sends an unmistakable message: There is no corner of the world where you can escape from justice because we will do everything in our power to hold you accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

“While New York City must remain vigilant to continued terrorist threats against it, Abu Ghayth’s apprehension and prosecution promises to close another chapter in al-Qaeda’s notoriously violent history of killing Americans,” said New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

“This case also represents another success in the ongoing partnership between federal agents and NYPD detectives through the [Joint Terrorism Task Force] JTTF,” Kelly added.

“It has been 13 years since Abu Ghayth allegedly worked alongside Osama bin Laden in his campaign of terror and 13 years since he allegedly took to the public airwaves, exhorting others to embrace al-Qaeda’s cause and warning of more terrorist attacks like the mass murder of 9/11,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. “The memory of those attacks is indelibly etched on the American psyche, and today’s action is the latest example of our commitment to capturing and punishing enemies of the United States, no matter how long it takes.”

According to the Justice Department, since 1989, al Qaeda has been an international terrorist organization dedicated to opposing non-Islamic governments with force and violence. Osama bin Laden served as the leader, or “emir,” of al-Qaeda until his death on or about May 2, 2011. Members of al-Qaeda typically have pledged an oath of allegiance, called bayat, to bin Laden and to al-Qaeda.

The core purpose of al-Qaeda, as stated by bin Laden and other leaders, is to support violent attacks against property and nationals, both military and civilian, of the United States and other countries, according to the Justice Department.

During a television interview on BBC’s World Update on Friday, a former CIA officer already sentenced to 30 months in federal prison claimed he has made peace with his decision to leak a covert officer’s name to the American press and his alleged leaks to defense attorneys for terrorism suspects.

Defense attorneys argued that John Kiriakou’s actions — leaking the name of a former CIA officer alleged to have taken part in waterboarding — make him a whistleblower, not a criminal.

But whistleblower or criminal, Kiriakou is slated to begin his prison term of less that 3-years on Thursday, March 7.

“I feel oddly optimistic about the coming two years,” he said in the BBC interview. “I feel very much at peace with my decision to go public on the torture issue.”

Kiriakou pled guilty to one count of intentionally disclosing information identifying a covert agent. As part of the plea agreement, the United States and Kiriakou agreed that a sentence of 30 months in prison was the appropriate disposition of this case.

The presiding jurist, Judge Leonie Brinkema, told the media she would have given him much more time if she could.

“John Kiriakou betrayed the trust bestowed upon him by the United States, and he betrayed his colleagues whose secrecy is their only safety,” said U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride.

“In his own words to the FBI, John Kiriakou called actions such as his, ‘immoral’ and the potential damage done ‘terrifying.’ John Kiriakou put the life of a covert officer at risk; he put the officer’s family in danger; and he exposed our nation’s vital secrets. Oaths matter and today’s sentence should serve as reminder to those who are entrusted with classified information that damage done by leaks is not speculative or hypothetical—it is actual and substantial, and the Justice Department will hold them accountable,” MacBride noted.

“While I applaud the conviction, I think that less than three-year prison sentence is far from being adequate in this case. Kiriakou appears to be a hero to the political-left in this country because he leaked intelligence during the Bush Administration,” said former police detective and military intelligence officer Sid Franes.

“The news media are in the midst of one of the biggest cover-ups regarding intel leaks,” Franes added.

According to court records, the case is a result of an investigation triggered by a classified filing in January 2009 by defense counsel for high-value detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This filing contained classified information the defense had not been given through official government channels, including information about certain government employees and contractors.

The investigation revealed that on multiple occasions, one of the journalists to whom Kiriakou illegally disclosed classified information, in turn, disclosed that information to a defense team investigator. This information was reflected in the classified defense filing and enabled the defense team to take or obtain surveillance photographs of government personnel. The investigation concluded that no laws were broken by the defense team.

In his statement, Kiriakou admitted that he made illegal disclosures about two CIA employees and their involvement in classified operations to two journalists on a number occasions between 2007 and 2009.

In his fairytale pursuit of being the “kinder, gentler” president, Barack Obama has offered illogical proposals concerning the closure of GITMO and abandonment of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, in particular the practice of “water boarding,” used with great effect to find Osama bin Laden and to develop intelligence for saving American lives.

However, in Obama’s muddled, liberal-infested mind, GITMO and water boarding simply irritate terrorists and suspected terrorists and ‘tarnish’ the US brand throughout the world.

Obama thus makes his case for taking the ‘moral high ground,’ as if giving the likes of KSM full Miranda rights and trying the heathen in New York City, like any American citizen, will assuage Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s lust for blood and dead Americans!

All of which must provide Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other Islamofascists with great amusement and merriment. Unfortunately, Obama’s Muslim pipe dream has no upside for saving American lives!

Obama has decided to wage war via the Drone, which frees him from the mess associated with going through Congress and all the annoyances of the US Constitution! Besides, he can target American citizens with drones, at least according to his corrupt DOJ!

The mind boggles at the hypocrisy and idiocy of our Commander-in-Chief.

And poses this urgent question:

Which is more evil, Mr. President: Water boarding or death by drone?

John Lillpop
San Jose, California

John W. Lillpop is a recovering liberal. “Clean and sober” since 1992 when last he voted for a Democrat. Pray for John: He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where people like Nancy Pelosi are actually considered normal!.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had requested a complete study regarding the suitability of incarcerating and trying Guantanamo terrorism detainees on the U.S. mainland and switching jurisdiction for the trials from the military courts back to the civilian courts and the U.S. Justice Department, according to Fox News Channel’s top national security correspondent on Wednesday.

According to FNC’s Catherine Herridge, the study by the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress described the civilian custody and trial of Gitmo detainees “viable.”

Herridge was successful in obtaining a Government Accountability Office document which is the result of “an investigation into whether domestic facilities could house the approximately 170 detainees remaining at the controversial facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”

After the Obama administration fought tooth-and-nail to prosecute the 9/11 co-conspirators in civilian federal courts, it was decided by President Obama that the detainees would be tried by a military tribunal in order to quell the heated controversy.

“But now with his winning a second-term, Obama and Holder no longer have to worry about criticism from conservatives and moderates and they can closedown Gitmo with the blessings of the far-left,” said political strategist Mike Baker.

Prosecutors from the Department of Justice on April 4, 2011, were ordered by a visibly upset Attorney General Eric Holder to assist the chief prosecutor from the Office of Military Commissions in making the transition from civilian to military justice systems.

“The fact that the 9-11 accused terrorists will now face military tribunals is long overdue and despite the Attorney General’s flawed logic, it is the proper venue to try these accused terrorists,” Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law & Justice said in April 2011.

Navy Captain John Murphy, chief prosecutor of the Office of Military Commissions, had said that in light of the attorney general’s decision, his office still intends to swear charges against the detainees in the near future. “I intend to recommend the charges be sent to a military commission for a joint trial,” he said in a written statement.

The trials are already taking place under the Military Commissions Act of 2009, and the captain stressed that just as in civilian trials, those accused are presumed innocent until their guilt is proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

In the decision reversing Obama’s policy, Holder blamed Congress for forcing him to use military tribunals to try the terror suspects — including alleged 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — and said he was reluctantly agreeing to using military commissions in order to move the judicial process along.

“What’s unimaginable is the fact that the Attorney General still believes the federal court system is the proper venue to try accused terrorists and is blaming Congress for getting involved,” said Jordan Sekulow, Attorney and Director of International Operations of the ACLJ.

“It’s clear that many members of Congress and most Americans understand the truth — President Obama’s judicial strategy to place these terror suspects in civilian courts is seriously flawed. We have heard from more than 100,000 Americans who called for these trials to take place in military tribunals – clearly the proper venue for justice,” said Sekulow.