Tag Archives: Al Qaeda

Flynn is Right, Ideology is The Problem

LT. General Michael Flynn, outgoing head of the Defense Intelligence Agency recently told an audience at the Aspen Institute that the ideology of Al Qaeda was “expanding,” and that Al Qaeda was not “on the run” as the Obama Administration had repeatedly insisted during the 2012 election. Flynn said, “It’s not on the run, and that ideology is actually, it’s sadly, it feels like it’s exponentially growing,”

Flynn went on to point out that “the core” of Al Qaeda was not in fact a geographic designation, but instead a belief, “We use the term ‘core al Qaeda,’ and I have been going against these guys for a long time,” The Free Beacon reports Flynn as saying, “The core is the core belief that these individuals have.”

While Flynn does not go so far as to name the ideology which Al Qaeda acts in furtherance of (namely Shariah), he is clear that one can not solely counter an ideological threat kinetically.

Under Flynn, the DIA has been one of the few intelligence agencies to hold the line against the Obama Administration’s popular, if delusional, reimagining of the threat.  As Eli Lake noted in a Daily Beast article discussing the connections between Al Qaeda and Boko Haram:

The dispute inside the intelligence community falls along familiar lines about al Qaeda. The White House has emphasized the distinctions between al Qaeda’s core and its affiliates and other aspiring jihadists, who the White House sees as operating almost entirely independent of the central group.

However, another faction inside the U.S. intelligence community—one that comprises the current leadership of the Defense Intelligence Agency and others working in the military—see al Qaeda as a flatter organization that coordinates between nodes and operates through consensus in the model of an Islamic Shura council.

The idea that DIA should need to wage an rearguard action around a concept as basic as the fact that Al Qaeda is organized along shariah-prescribed lines, is itself an example of how badly we have failed to understand the enemy’s stated threat doctrine.

While Flynn does not say so, the reason the ideology of Al Qaeda has expanded is we have failed to directly combat it. We have failed in combating the ideology, as the direct result of influence operations waged against U.S. policy making by affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has resulted in the purge of U.S. trainers who understood the enemy doctrine, leaving U.S policymakers, and law enforcement and intelligence officials unprepared.

One quibble however. LTG Flynn warns that Hamas ought not to be destroyed, as there is a risk that the Islamist groups that would replace it would some how be “worse.” There is not any substantial difference in ideological doctrine between the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham. they are all based upon the Shariah. Saying that Hamas must survive because ISIS is worse is the same kind of mistaken thinking that permitted some to argue that we could work with the Muslim Brotherhood to serve as a bulwark against Al Qaeda. There is no major doctrinal disagreement between Hamas and Al Qaeda, or ISIS. Hamas hailed Osama bin Laden as a “holy warrior” when he was killed by U.S. forces. The Muslim Brotherhood also recognized Bin Laden’s role as a legitimate jihadist.   The godfather of both Al Qaeda and Hamas was Muslim Brother and Islamic Jurist named  Abdullah Azzam.

But even this mistaken view of Hamas is itself evidence thats proves Flynn’s point. Without understanding the nature of the enemy’s threat doctrine and its primary thinkers (Like Azzam), we will not be successful in defeating it.

U.S. Rail Security and Terrorist Track Records

In response to renewed security concerns that al Qaeda is plotting to smuggle and detonate cell phone explosives on passenger aircraft bound for the United States, the Transportation Security Administration recently announcedthat passengers flying into the U.S. from overseas will have to power up their laptops and cellphones before boarding, and that those whose devices won’t turn on will not be allowed to board.

Amidst the attention this threat to aviation is receiving in the media, it is perhaps not surprising that a significant anniversary marking major attacks on other forms of passenger transport has gone largely unnoticed.  Nine years ago this week, al Qaeda jihadists detonated bombs in London on three subway trains and one double-decker bus, killing dozens of people and wounding hundreds.

Some analysts are warning that ground transportation systems in European cities may yet again be targeted as al Qaeda vies for primacy over its ISIS-rivals.  As Jamie Dettmer at the Daily Beast reports:

A senior European security official told The Daily Beast there are fears as well that jihadists recently returned from fighting in Syria with al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra are conspiring to detonate bombs on railways and buses in major European capitals such as London and Paris…

…[Washington Institute for Near East Policy scholar Aaron] Zelin says the most likely model for assaults on European transport systems would be the March 2004 Madrid train bombings and the coordinated suicide attacks in July 2005 in central London that targeted civilians using the London Underground and buses. The London bombings killed 52 civilians and wounded more than 700, while in Madrid the bombings of commuter trains killed 191 people and injured 1,800.

As some have observed, the volume of rail passengers entering trains from multiple locations, coupled with the challenge of monitoring disbursed infrastructure like tracks and tunnels, create significant challenges for preventing terrorist attacks on rail transport.  But as events in London nine years ago should remind us, we need to guard against attacks on the rails as vigorously as we are attempting to in our skies, if not more so.

Don’t Call It A Caliphate, Yet: ISIS May Run Afoul of Islamic Law

The news over the weekend that the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) had declared as Caliph of the universal Muslim Ummah its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has shaken the Middle East (and the wider Muslim world).

In classic ISIS form, the jihadist insurgent army issued a communiqué, in multiple languages, including English, to explain their decision to make the announcement that Al-Baghdadi was now Caliph Ibrahim, and ISIS was now simply, “The Islamic State.”

According to the communiqué, Al-Baghdadi was invested with the position of Caliph through the oath of loyalty sworn to him by ISIS’s people of authority (ahl al-hall wa al-‘aqd). The communiqué notes:

…the Islamic State – represented by ahlul-hall-wal-‘aqd (its people of authority), consisting of its senior figures, leaders, and the shura council – resolved to announce the establishment of the Islamic khilafah, the appointment of a khalifah for the Muslims, and the pledge of allegiance to the shaykh (sheikh), the mujahid, the scholar who practices what he preaches, the worshipper, the leader, the warrior, the reviver, descendent from the family of the Prophet, the slave of Allah, Ibrahim Ibn ‘Awwad Ibn Ibrahim Ibn ‘Ali Ibn Muhammad al-Badri al-Hashimi al-Husayni al-Qurashi by lineage, as-Samurra’i by birth and upbringing, al-Baghdadi by residence and scholarship. And he has accepted the bayat (pledge of allegiance). Thus, he is the imam and khalifah for the Muslims everywhere.

Compare to Minhaj al-talibin written by Imam Nawawi, a shafi’i jurist of the 13th century, as cited in the Reliance of the Traveller (Book O. Justice, O.25.4):

The Caliphate may be legally effected by an oath of fealty, which, according to the soundest positions, is the oath of those with discretionary power to enact or dissolve a pact (ahl al-hall wa al-‘aqd) of the scholars, leaders and notables able to attend.

Other legal options for investiture as a Caliph would be appointment as a successor by the previous Caliph, or to seize the position of Caliph by force of arms, but both would seem to require a pre-existing caliph from whom to take power.

So the question of whether, under Islamic law as understood, Al-Baghdadi may be legitimately recognized as Caliph rests on whether or not the ISIS “people of authority” meet the legitimate definition for that position.

While there is a range of opinion of exactly what constitutes the “ahl al-hall wa al-‘aqd,” for this purpose, the commentary on Minhaj al-talibin included in Reliance notes that while the ruling is expected to be made by all people of authority able to attend, there is no such thing as a “quorum” and the presence or lack of any particular number of individuals is irrelevant.

A commentary by Muhammed Shirbini Khatib explains,

“…if the discretionary power to enact or dissolve a pact exists in a single individual, who is obeyed, his oath of fealty is sufficient.”

It’s unclear whether ISIS has at its disposal such a worthy dignitary. The quality of scholars supporting ISIS has always been a problem for the otherwise meteoric rise of the group once referred to as Al Qaeda in Iraq. While eminent Jihadi scholar Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi wasonce a major supporter of founder Al-Zarqawi, the most notable scholars, including al-Maqdisi, sided against ISIS, in its dispute with Al Qaeda emir Ayman Al Zawahiri. If the “people of authority” are deemed to be those scholars most esteemed within the jihadi world, then ISIS’s appointment of a Caliphate lacks authenticity and legal backing. And that does not even consider the wider world of Shariah authorities, whether operating from within the Muslim Brotherhood’s orbit such as Yusuf Al Qaradawi’s International Union of Muslim Scholars (which has formally denounced the declaration), or in traditional venues like Al-Azhar University.

Despite a dearth of scholarship, ISIS can count on the fact that nothing succeeds like success. Two things are necessary for ISIS to win it’s gambit in declaring the Caliphate reestablished. The first is that it must continue to win. Continued territorial expansion fulfills its argument that ISIS is the implementer of the Shariah law over the largest and most historically relevant real estate.

Second, ISIS must succeed in winning the oath of loyalty of key elements of the global jihad. While ISIS has succeeded in gaining popular support among online jihadi communities, individual young mujahids are of no real consequence, except in as much as they serve as recruits to further conquest. What ISIS needs, ideologically, is the support of the emirs of major jihadi groups or the support of prominent scholars. So far this has not happened, although individual members have supported the call. Victory on the battlefield may lead to such oaths, as other jihadi groups look to take advantage of the boost in recruiting and fundraising that ISIS is receiving.

Still, it would be strategically useful to avoid unwittingly consecrating Al-Baghdadi’s claim to the position of Caliph while that issue remains open to (possibly bloody) debate in jihadist circles. ISIS is exceedingly conscious of media and particularly western media, and carefully formulates its message in terms most likely to terrorize, and appeal to media coverage (the logic of distributing both mass executions and crucifixion videos, and a jihad fighters holding cats Twitter account for example). They respond quickly to exploit opportunities that seem to affirm their caliphate status, as when ISIS supporters began to retweet a statement by DHS senior advisor Mohammed Elibiary that the Caliphate was “inevitable,” following ISIS’ success in Iraq. ISIS has capitalized on media coverage about their exploits, and claim in their communiqué that even the west recognizes their new status,

“They [referring to those Muslim groups with whom ISIS disputes] never recognized the Islamic State to begin with, although America, Britain and France acknowledge its existence.”

Given that ISIS is looking for legitimacy where it can find it, let’s not present ISIS’ declaration of Caliphate as a fait accompli. Instead to the degree the facts permit it, it would be advantageous to continue to point out that even within the legal context of shariah, ISIS is on shaky ground, that they are a relative newcomer, that in the grand scheme of the Islamic world they hold limited territory, and that they do not have the respect of key scholars or jihadi emirs. At the same time, we shouldn’t delude ourselves into thinking that these things may not change, especially if ISIS continues its winning streak. But for the meantime, ISIS is not a Caliphate… yet.

Originally appeared at Breitbart.com 

More Wrong-Headed Criticism of the Targeted Killing of Anwar al-Awlaki

On September 30, 2011, Anwar al-Awlaki, a senior official of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen. Yesterday, the Obama administration released a Justice Department memo justifying this drone strike in response to a lawsuit by the ACLU and New York Times.

Many on the left and a few on the right, such as Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) have objected to the killing of Awlaki since he was a Yemeni-American born in the United States.

The New York Times disputes that Awlaki was planning “imminent” attacks and claims that “the memo says only that Mr. Awlaki had joined Al Qaeda and was planning attacks on Americans, but that the government did not know when these attacks would occur.”

Such muddleheaded thinking on national security is breathtaking. How much evidence will it take to convince the Times that Awlaki was a serious threat?

After post-9/11 Bush administration counterterrorism programs and increased security put al-Qaeda on the run and made terrorist attacks on the United States much more difficult, Awlaki became the leading al-Qaeda leader of its Yemen franchise Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) by recruiting terrorists within the U.S. using the internet. Some in the U.S. intelligence community referred to him as an “e-iman” because of his internet savvy and ability to use other forms of electronic communications to spread his message and recruit followers.

Awlaki successfully inspired many home-grown radical Islamist terrorists in the UK and the United States. Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra said in a 2009 op-ed:

“Al-Awlaki’s sermons have influenced would-be homegrown terrorists in the United States and the terrorists who launched the deadly 2005 London subway bombings. Mr. al-Awlaki, who was born in the U.S. and speaks perfect English, has been using his own Web page, social-networking sites such as Facebook, and e-mail to preach a message of violence to English speaking Muslims around the world.”

The men who planned to attack Fort Dix in 2007 had recorded copies of Awlaki’s sermons as did the Toronto-18 group that was arrested in 2006 for planning to attack the Canadian parliament and assassinate Canada’s prime minister. Army Major Nidal Hassan, who carried out a November 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas which resulted in 13 killed and over 30 wounded, communicated with Awlaki over the internet. 2009 Christmas Day underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab almost certainly met Awlaki during a 2009 trip to Yemen and may have been recruited by him. Awlaki also may have inspired Faisal Shahzad’s May 1, 2010 attempt to set off a car bomb in Times Square and Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19-year old Somali-American who tried to bomb a Christmas tree lighting in Oregon in December 2010.

Awlaki also is believed to have inspired five American Muslims from the Washington, DC area who were arrested after arriving in Pakistan in December 2010 for terrorist training and Zachary Chesser who was arrested in New York in July 2010 before boarding a plane to travel to Somalia where he planned to join the al Shabaab Islamist terrorist group.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who with his brother Tamerlan staged the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, said he and his brother were influenced by Awlaki’s internet sermons. Tsarnaev also told the FBI that he and his brother learned how to the build the pressure cooker bombs they used to attack the marathon from AQAP’s English language internet magazine, Inspire, which promoted radical Islamist ideology and encouraged its readers to conduct terrorist attacks against the West. Inspire was founded by Awlaki and featured his sermons. It was edited by Pakistani-American Samir Khan who was killed by the same drone strike that killed Awlaki.

Add to all of this the fact that three 9/11 hijackers attended services in Awlaki’s Falls Church, Virginia mosque.

The Times, the ACLU and Senator Paul have asserted that the targeted killing of Awlaki violated the U.S. Constitution, specifically his due process rights as an American citizen, and required an independent review prior to the attack.

I agree with former CIA Director Michael Hayden who said in 2011 that Awlaki should not have been protected by his American citizenship from a targeted killing because he voluntarily became part of an enemy force.

Moreover, there was outside review of the proposal to kill Awlaki with a drone strike because the Presidential Finding approving the strike was briefed to Congress in advance and Congressional leaders were fully on board. That’s why no members of the intelligence committees or senior congressional leaders objected to the Awalki killing after it occurred.

The Obama administration was right about the Awlaki drone strike. By helping run the AQAP terrorist group in Yemen and recruiting terrorists to attack the U.S. homeland, Awalki should not have been protected from a targeted killing because he was an American citizen. Moreover, the Obama administration took the proper steps to obtain the necessary legal and political backing for this attack by a careful review by the Justice Department and by convincing Congressional leaders and the intelligence committees to support the drone strike because Awlaki was an active participant in an armed enemy force.

The drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki is a rare example of the President and Congress working together to defend American national security. Rather than lodge dubious complaints that this attack violated the law, the New York Times, the ACLU , and Senator Paul should press the White House to engage in advance consultations with Congress on similar threats in the future.

ISIS-Not “Mafia Tactics”- Jihad

An article in yesterday’s Foreign Policy discusses the self-funding tactics of the ISIS, as it continues to wage its brutal assault in Iraq. Author Yochi Dreazen begins his piece by stating:

When fighters from the Islamic State of Syria and al-Sham (ISIS) stole tens of millions of dollars from a bank in Mosul earlier this year, it wasn’t simply a startling symbol of the collapse of Baghdad’s control over Iraq’s second-largest city. The brazen theft was instead a stark illustration of one of the most alarming aspects of ISIS’s rise: the group’s growing ability to fund its own operations through bank heists, extortion, kidnappings, and other tactics more commonly associated with the mob than with violent Islamist extremists.

Unfortunately, far from being unassociated with “Islamic extremists”, the “mafia” practices of ISIS can be construed as in line with Shariah adherent practices regarding Jihad.

There is ample jurisprudence regarding the disposition of the spoils of war. For example, Reliance of the Traveller by Ahmad ibn Naqib Al-Misri, which includes legal rulings for both the personal booty of fighters who have slain an enemy and may take what he possessed for themselves (Book O. Justice, O.10.2) and for the collective use of spoils of war in order to pay for items of importance for the cause of the Islamic state such as, “fortify[ing] defense on the frontiers, salaries for Islamic judges, muezzins, and the like:” (Book 0. Justice 0.10.3)

Likewise, the apparent surprise shown by some experts of “violent extremism” when ISIS does indeed spend substantial money and manpower on just these sorts of governance projects is a result of the general failure to comprehend how jihadist groups abide by Shariah obligations.

Returning to “Mafia” tactics, is kidnapping for ransom is absolutely permitted under the Shariah during jihad. Al-Misri notes (Book 0 Justice O.9.14),

“When an adult male is taken captive, the caliph considers the interests and decides between the prisoner’s death, slavery, release without paying anything or ransoming himself in exchange for money or for a Muslim captive held by the enemy.” (Emphasis added.)

There are likewise legal rulings that would support what could be viewed as the extortion of money, especially from Non-Muslims in the form of the mandatory jizya tax. Even extortion of funds from Muslims may be justified by ISIS, since money to support fighters of Jihad is a legitimate allocation for Zakat (mandatory tithing). Given that ISIS purports to be the legitimate Islamic rulers of the territory they hold, their collecting these funds would reasonably be expected. Obviously, for those who do not uphold ISIS’s status as a legitimate Islamic state, these demands would be seen as little more then theft.

Nor is extortion from other Muslims  to fund terrorist activities rare, or limited solely to Sunni Islamists. Hezbollah is well known for engaging in extortion of Lebanese Shia abroad in order to finance its efforts.

Far from being divorced from the belief system which ISIS seeks to impose, such acts as bank robbery, kidnapping and extortion can be legal justified in the furtherance of their jihad.

Obama’s Elephants in the Bergdahl Debate Living Room

The twin elephants in the living room of the ongoing debate over Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl are President Obama’s release of five Taliban “commanders” while the Taliban is still waging war against us, and the President lying to the American People.

Sgt. Bergdahl’s status, whatever it is adjudged to be, is only tangential to the main event:  a commander -in-chief who repeatedly aids and abets our enemies, disregards our laws, and lies to the American people.

As a former inspector general, I am well aware of the meaning of the word “lie,” which I use throughout this article with prudence, care, and clinical dispassion rather than as a polemic or demagogic instrument.

For example, one can repeat a falsehood without knowing that it is false without lying. But when one knows something is false and still repeats it, that is a lie. Our president and his national security advisor have unambiguously lied to us, once again.

Our Constitution is doomed unless “we the people” hold our commander in chief accountable for negotiating the release of Sgt. Bergdahl with terrorists in violation of the explicit statutory requirement of 30-days advance notice to Congress in the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, §1028(d), and then misleading both Congress and the American people.

For the past 12 years, the Taliban has been an acknowledged enemy of the United States. Last week, according to ABC News, “White House National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden noted that the Taliban was added to the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) by executive order in July 2002, even if it is not listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the State Department.”

On news of President Obama’s Taliban prisoner swap, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA),  Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and according to NPR “a strong supporter of the Obama White House, lamented that the president ignored the law requiring that Congress be notified of the prisoner release from Guantanamo.”

Likewise, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), announced:  “This is a complete change of our national security strategy of not negotiating with terrorists. …  I think it sends a terrible national security message – not just to Afghanistan, but to the rest of the world.”

If this were the first time President Obama had negotiated with terrorists, things might be different.  But this Commander in Chief in March 2011 authorized negotiations with Libyan terrorists, and then, with the help of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, agreed to arm Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) “rebels” whom they both knew were affiliated with operating under the cover of the Muslim Brotherhood. The LIFG has been on the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations List since December 17, 2004.

Eighteen months after President Obama authorized support for the Muslim Brotherhood (since acknowledged as a terrorist group by the governments of both Egypt and Saudi Arabia) and the arming of LIFG-associated “rebels,” terrorists attacked our Special Mission Compound and CIA Annex in Benghazi and killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Although we do know that the terrorists behind the Benghazi attack were affiliated with Ansar al-Shariah and Al Qaeda, to this day we still do not know for certain whether or not the Benghazi terrorists who killed four Americans on September 11, 2012, were affiliated with the same “rebels” previously supported by our commander in chief and, reportedly, to whom the commander in chief authorized the covert shipment of weapons in coordination with Qatar – the same country that authorized the Taliban to open a representational political office in 2013.

According to Bloomberg, in March 2014 “Saudi Arabia and two Arab allies recalled their envoys from Qatar, accusing the state that hosts Al-Jazeera television of undermining regional security … Qatar’s backing for the Muslim Brotherhood, especially in Egypt, has drawn criticism from other Gulf nations that have cracked down on the Islamist organization.”

The pattern is apparent – and Sgt. Bergdahl’s alleged desertion is but one important component of the latest manifestation of this pattern: negotiate with terrorists, disregard the law, and then lie about it.

As shameful as it may have been, Sgt. Bergdahl’s apparent desertion during his unit’s operations against the enemy in Afghanistan is not, however, the main event.  By repeatedly negotiating with terrorists, our president has placed Americans around the world at greater risk.

Of course, the American people are willing to allow Sgt. Bergdahl what the U.S. Supreme Court recently referred to as the “essential constitutional promises” of procedural due process. That due process will likely come in the form of a court martial, where Sgt. Bergdahl will be allowed to present his defense, if any, for desertion (UCMJ Article 85) and/or Absent Without Leave, aka AWOL (UCMJ Article 86).

His own actions, and the outrage of his fellow soldiers, will be carefully considered before an appropriate judgment is rendered.

On the other hand, President Obama has yet to be held accountable for misleading the American People in his speech about a video disparaging Muhammed at the United Nations on September 25, 2012, almost two weeks after the CIA had formally disavowed any causal nexus between that video and the September 11, 2012, Benghazi attack.

President Obama should also be held accountable for dispatching Ambassador Susan Rice to mislead the public about that same fallacious nexus the day after the CIA had disavowed it. He should also be held accountable for Ambassador Rice’s more recent outrageously false public announcement that Sgt. Bergdahl “served the United States with honor and distinction.”

In 1798, President John Adams wrote that, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

More recently, former President Theodore Roosevelt reminded us of the profound role of personal integrity in the leadership of our nation in his 1910 “Man in the Arena” speech: “The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher.”

Our Constitution is doomed unless our current president is held accountable to what Theodore Roosevelt referred to as a “very much higher standard,” one way or another, for his unapologetic negotiating with terrorists, disregarding his constitutional duty faithfully to execute the laws enacted by Congress, and lying to the American people.

How Barack Obama Ends Wars

In discussing last week his decision to eliminate essentially all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by the time his term of office ends, Mr. Obama declared: “This is how wars end in the 21st Century – not through signing ceremonies but through decisive blows against our adversaries, transitions to elected governments, security forces who are trained to take the lead and ultimately full responsibility.”

Actually, how Barack Obama ends wars is by what amounts to surrendering to our undefeated adversaries, undermining elected governments by emboldening those determined to destroy them and abandoning local security forces who lack the capability to prevail.

The President’s exchange this weekend of “prisoner of war” Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five of the world’s most dangerous jihadists is a microcosm of his way of waging – and losing – wars. Consider the following features of this odious act of appeasement and its roll-out.

  • The exchange was unbalanced: We purchased at exceedingly high cost the freedom of an American described by his comrades as a deserter. It appears that by abandoning his sentinel’s post in the dark of night, he not only jeopardized their lives. He set in train searches and tactical situations that cost the lives of numerous other servicemen.

Treating Bergdahl as some sort of heroic figure because of his five years in self-induced captivity is a further assault on the principles of integrity, discipline and honor that have been central to the character and culture of the U.S. military for generations. This is not an accident. Destroying that culture happens to be a well-established feature of Team Obama’s social engineering of the armed forces.

  • The price paid to achieve Bergdahl’s freedom was to release no fewer than five of the Taliban’s senior commanders to the custody of Qatar. Let’s take what’s wrong with this picture, piece by piece:

First, the Qatari government is on the other side in the War for the Free World. It is a bankroller of al Qaeda in Syria (and perhaps elsewhere): the enabler of the Muslim Brotherhood, the underwriter of the enemy’s propaganda arm, al Jazeera, etc. Trusting the Qataris to be helpful to us with regard to anything having to do with jihad is worse than willful blindness; it is national security malfeasance.

Second, the best case is that these guys will be out of the fight for one more year. Since the administration won’t say what restrictions will be imposed on them in the interim, however, it is a safe bet they will be doing whatever they can to contribute to their terrorist organization’s return to power as soon as possible. But even if that were not the case, in the long war the United States is abandoning, a year is nothing for those determined to defeat us.

  • To complete this exchange, President Obama violated the law, something he has done relentlessly in the course of his presidency. (To appreciate just how often, see Andrew C. McCarthy’s splendid new book, Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment.) The fact that Eric Holder’s Justice Department gave Chuck Hagel’s Defense Department a fig-leaf for doing so by claiming extenuating circumstances – namely, concerns about Bergdahl’s deteriorating health – does not alter the reality that Obama and Company did not conform to the statute requiring a 30-day pre-notification to Congress.
  • Adding insult to injury is the fact that Bergdahl does not seem to be ill, let alone near death’s door. National Security Advisor Susan Rice said on Sunday the he is “in good health” and he has reportedly been released from the hospital in Germany where his medical condition was assessed post-release. Of course, he may have lingering psychological problems, but then that may have been the case before he deserted. Either way, there is no justification there for the President ignoring the law.
  • Speaking of Susan Rice, her interviews on two Sunday talk shows this weekend vividly called to mind the notorious, serial appearances she turned in on five such programs in September 2012. Now, as then, she was the dutiful – almost robotic – spinner, relentlessly sticking to her misleading, if not patently fraudulent talking points.

Two years ago, Rice engaged in what amounted to lying about the murderous attacks in Benghazi, by insisting they were the result of a video, not jihadist attacks. This meme, we recently learned, was manufactured by a man who is now her Deputy National Security Advisor, Ben Rhodes. It was explicitly designed by him to deflect politically problematic attention in the run-up to the 2012 election from questions about the President’s claims that al Qaeda was on the path to defeat, and other national security frauds.

This weekend, Rice reprised her role as untrustworthy flack by relentless insisting we have a “sacred duty not to leave anyone behind” – a duty that neither she nor any other senior Obama administration official seemed to feel while the Benghazi attacks were underway. All the while, she deflected questions that would have illuminated the reality of the Bergdahl exchange – the exorbitant price we paid, how the exchange was conducted under false pretenses, the dire implications with respect to strengthening our enemies and the lack of real justification for violating the law.

With the Bergdahl exchange, Americans are on notice: Unless this episode proves to be a very costly one for Team Obama, the President is on a trajectory not only to lose Afghanistan, as we previously lost Iraq. He will also ignore statutory inhibitions on releasing the rest of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay and close that facility, foreclosing its use by a successor. The upshot of all this will be to establish that the way Barack Obama “ends wars in the 21st Century” is going to get a lot more of us killed.

 

Not only did it violate the law: administration spokesmen claimed that the President had to ignore a requirement for giving up five

“Al Qaeda-Inspired Rhetoric”

In the case against the surviving Boston bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the defense has motioned to suppress information gathered early on in his  interrogation. In their response, federal prosecutors point out (rightly in my view) that they had every reason to believe that the Tsarnaevs were not acting alone and that other acts of terror may be imminent, thus necessitating the urgency. Citing their evidence for this conclusion, they point out key factors such as the type and manufacture of the explosives, as well as the tactics, techniques and procedures illustrated by Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups in previous attacks. This is an entirely logical.

Then, interestingly enough, they cite the content of Tsarnaev’s bloody writings, found inside the boat where the bomber was found hiding, which they describe as containing, “the hallmarks of Al Qaeda inspired rhetoric”:

I’m jealous of my brother who ha[s] [re]ceived the reward of jannutul Firdaus (inshallah) before me. I do not mourn because his soul is very much alive. God has a plan for each person. Mine was to hide in this boat and shed some light on our actions. I ask Allah to make me a shahied (iA) to allow me to return to him and be among all the righteous people in the highest levels of heaven. He who Allah guides no one can misguide. A[llah Ak]bar!

The US Government is killing our innocent civilians but most of you already know that. As a [UI] I can’t stand to see such evil go unpunished, we Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all. Well at least that’s how muhhammad (pbuh) wanted it to be [for]ever, the ummah is beginning to rise/[UI] has awoken the mujahideen, know you are fighting men who look into the barrel of your gun and see heaven, now how can you compete with that. We are promised  victory and we will surely get it. Now I don’t like killing innocent  people it is forbidden in Islam but due to said [UI] it is allowed. All credit goes [UI].

Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop.

Of course the reality is that Tsarnaev is not citing Zawahiri, Awlaki or Bin Laden here. There is nothing which makes these statements inherently “Al Qaeda-esque”. Tsarnaev is making classic Islamic references about the Ummah, jihad and martyrdom.

Consider the statement, “We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all.” Here Tsarnaev is referencing a traditional hadith (saying of Mohammed), regarding the brotherhood of Muslims as believers, and as members of a world-spanning collective body, the ummah. The same hadith is in fact, also implied in the scrolling pictorial, on the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, comprised of groups with well documented Muslim Brotherhood affiliations.

The FBI notes Tsarnaev’s use of we, to say the:

“fact that Tsarnaev used the word “we” (i.e. “We are promised victory and we shall surely get it. . . . Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop.) suggested that others might be poised to commit similar attacks and that Tsarnaev was urging them on.”

The FBI concludes that Tsarnaev’s use of this “Al Qaeda inspired rhetoric” indicated that “that others might have radicalized them…” 

Not coincidentally , the Tsarnaev brothers attended a local area mosque, The Islamic Society of Boston, which has deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and founded by Muslim Brother and convicted Al Qaeda financier Abdurrahman Almoudi. Former mosque trustee Jamal Badawi, a known Muslim Brotherhood leader and supporter of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was recently in the news, after being named the individual referenced in the alleged “DHS Hands Off List” documents currently being investigated by Sen. Grassley and the DHS Inspector General. Other alumni of the mosque included Tarek Mehanna and Afia Siddique (aka Lady Al Qaeda).

Do the Feds genuinely believe that Tsarnaev’s language can only possibly be the product of “Al Qaeda”?  Or is the phrase “Al Qaeda inspired rhetoric” merely a euphemism to allow them to introduce statements which they know full well are relevant, but which they would be prohibited by DOJ regulations from introducing if they made clear they were mainstream Islamic references used to justify terror?

 

They Reject your Motivations, and Substitute Their Own

Congress continues to struggle with Obama Administration officials, from all branches, in an effort to force them in matters of oversight, to merely assert facts that are already well known to everyone.  A good example of this was the recent success of Rep. John Cornyn who was able to get recently appointed FBI Director James Comey to admit that Fort Hood Shooter Nidal Hassan was in fact motivated by Al Qaeda.

This should not have been news at all, since Hassan, a self-declared “Soldier of Allah”, was in direct correspondence with Al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a fact known to the U.S. counterterrorism officials prior to his attack. Yet the administration has continued to insist the matter was one of “work place violence”, not Islamic terrorism.

Yet even going on six years of an administration which introduced the world to the phrase “man-caused disasters,” we’ve not seen as tasteless a display of reality rejection as the one put on by Assistant Secretary Sarah Sewall at House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Terrorism Nonproliferation and Trade hearing on Boko Haram.

Asked by Rep. Jeff Duncan whether Boko Haram discriminates against Christians, Sewall uttered the jaw-dropping reply:

“I wish there was such discrimination in Boko Haram attacks. Boko Haram attacks everyone who is Nigerian. Boko Haram is an equal-opportunity threat for all Nigerian citizens.” (Emphasis added)

This statement, which combines a basic falsehood with disturbing callousness, earned rightful derision by the subcommittee, who pressed forward with additional inquiries, citing facts, including the 25:1 ratio in attacks against churches as opposed to mosques. Sewall began to backpedal:

The question that I was asked was whether there was an official State Department position on the motivations of Boko Haram, which I simply don’t have with me.

It seemed Assistant Secretary Sewall had misplaced her copy of the current truth as issued by the State Department, thus explaining her flailing answer.

While less grating than the tone-deaf reply, it is perhaps more appalling from a policy standpoint that Ms. Sewall thinks it appropriate that the State Department even have an “official position on the motivations of Boko Haram.” The only “position on the motivations of Boko Haram” that matters is Boko Haram’s, based on what they say and do. And they have not been shy on making their feelings known.

Boko Haram leader AbuBakr Shekhau has said, “Nobody can stop us and live in peace, except if you accept Islam and live by sharia law.” A simple statement that is pregnant with meaning. Instead, the State Department’s position is that economic deprivation, corruption, and bad governance by the Nigerian government motivate Boko Haram.

Sadly no. That’s what motivates the State Department’s interactions with the Nigerian government. State  has used every new outrage by Boko Haram to rhetorically flog the Nigerian government for their failings on these issues. And they may be issues on which the Nigerian goverment deserves criticism, but they are irrelevant to the current conflict with Boko Haram, which is a jihadist terrorist organization motivated to impose shariah law.

This administration continues to insist on protecting us from the threats they they wished we faced, and solving problems they wish we had, instead of addressing the threats and problems this nation actually faces.

Unfortunately such distortions of reality will always come crashing down, violently, and at great cost.

Ramping Down the War on Terror? The Enemy Gets a Vote

National security officials are making known that they do not concur with the Obama Administration’s assessment that the “War on Terror” is ramping down.

First was FBI Director James Comey, who admitted to the New York Times that,

“I didn’t have anywhere near the appreciation I got after I came into this job just how virulent those affiliates had become,” Mr. Comey said, referring to offshoots of Al Qaeda in Africa and in the Middle East during an interview in his sprawling office on the seventh floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. “There are both many more than I appreciated, and they are stronger than I appreciated.”

That sentiment has been echoed by NSA director Keith Alexander, who warned the New Yorker, “But I do think people need to know that we’re at greater risk, and there’s a lot more coming my way.”

Likewise The Daily Beast’s Eli Lake speaks to senior intelligence officials, who paint a picture of an Intelligence Community in metaphorical open revolt against an Administration that they insist is downplaying and dismissing vital threats:

One senior U.S. intelligence official told The Daily Beast the frustration was that there is pressure from the White House to downplay the threat from some al Qaeda affiliates. “It comes from the top, it’s the message that al Qaeda is all these small franchise groups and they are not coordinated and threatening,” this official said. “It’s the whole idea of getting us out to place resources against something that they don’t think is a problem. It’s not their war, it’s not our conflict.”

Unfortunately the hundred or so American passport-holding jihadists who have flocked to battlefields like Syria  do not agree. For the enemy it will never be “just a local conflict.”

Likewise, in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Terrorism, Al Qaeda’s “Shadow Army” waits in the wings for our withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Washington Times notes:

Several lawmakers and former senior intelligence officials have raised concerns that the al Qaeda movement today controls more territory around the world than it did when it was based in Afghanistan under bin Laden before Sept. 11. Concern that Afghanistan may again become a haven for the terrorist network has added another twist to the debate over the extent of the al Qaeda threat facing the United States.

That we are fighting a battle over the nature and size of the threat, so long after 9/11 is a sad indictment of the fact that this country never established clear knowledge of the enemy threat doctrine. Instead we’ve allowed socioeconomic theories to drive our response, as seen most notably in the State Department’s refrain of “economic deprivation” when referring to Boko Haram’s jihad against Christian Nigerians and those they consider apostates.

The reality is that our enemies are self-declared mujahideen, fighting jihad fisabilillah (Jihad in the cause of Allah), in order to establish shariah everywhere, whether it is in Afghanistan, Syria, Nigeria, or in America. We have failed to understand the goal of the jihadists is not to establish territory under their rule in order to facilitate attacks on America, but to attack America in order to weaken us enough that they can safely establish territory where they can apply shariah. Using that standard, the spread of so-called “affiliates” across the global is not a dispersion of Al Qaeda, but the unchecked growth of jihad, regardless of whether a particular group is in direct communication with senior leaders of Al Qaeda or not.

Only by studying the enemy threat doctrine can we draw an accurate determination of whether the enemy is stronger or weaker, achieving his objectives or falling short.

As the Senate considers revoking or scaling down the authorization for use of military force (AUMF) against Al Qaeda, they should recall the military maxim that “the enemy gets a vote.”