David Cameron is coming around–ALMOST

Terror Trends Bulletin, by Christopher Holton, Oct. 1, 2015:

Over the past couple of days Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom has stood in sharp contrast to President Barack Obama of the United States in terms of both his messaging with regard to Islamic jihad and his country’s stance against global jihad.

But that doesn’t mean he “gets it,” at least not yet anyway.

It’s easy to look strong when you’re compared to Barack Obama, especially when it comes to fighting against jihad.

This week at the UN, not exactly the den of strength, Cameron appeared to confront Obama on his messaging on terrorism.

British Prime Minister David Cameron challenged President Obama with some blunt talk on Islamist extremism Tuesday during a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations to develop an international strategy for defeating the Islamic State and other terrorist groups.

Well aware that Mr. Obama shuns the term “Islamist extremists,” the Conservative British prime minister reacted strongly at the meeting when the president, who chaired the session, advised the assembled foreign leaders to avoid profiling Muslims because “violent extremism is not unique to any one faith.”

“Barack, you said it and you’re right — every religion has its extremists,” Mr. Cameron said. “But we have to be frank that the biggest problem we have today is the Islamist extremist violence that has given birth to ISIL, to al-Shabab, to al-Nusra, al Qaeda and so many other groups.”

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The thin-skinned Obama does not take kindly to being confronted with disagreement so we can probably count on some form of retaliation from the Obama administration for this perceived slight–something ranging from a breaking of protocol down the road to leaked criticism of Cameron with the lapdog media in the US.

While we welcome Cameron’s admonishment of Obama, we must point out that his messaging still leaves a great deal to be desired and has since he became Prime Minister.

As regular readers of TTB no doubt know, we are not at all fond of making up names for our enemies. Just as “violent extremist” is a meaningless term coined by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Left in America, the term “Islamist extremist” is inadequate to say the least. We draw attention to our previous essay on the subject:

It is true that you can’t defeat an enemy you don’t identify.

These calls are invariably followed up by naming the enemy. Only the names assigned to our enemies seem to always be wrong. A few of the wrong names:

• Radical Islam

• Islamic extremism

• Radical Islamic extremism

• Islamist extremism

• Radical Islamist extremism

The problem with all these names is that they are names that we in the West have made up to describe our enemies. They don’t use any of them. No member of the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, HAMAS, Hezbollah, Lashkar e Taiba, the Taliban, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab or Abu Sayyef ever refers to himself as “radical” or “extremist.” No where in their communications will you see the modifiers “radical” or “extremist.”

They don’t subscribe to radical Islam or Islamist extremism.

Read the entire posting here:

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In addition to confronting President Obama on the issue of jihad, Cameron also announced this week that the UK would be sending British troops into Somalia to support efforts to battle Al Shabaab. This announcement has been overshadowed by other news this week, but it represents a step toward confronting the threat of global jihad head on. Now, if only Cameron would do the same in the British Isles themselves…

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‘For the Record’: How U.S. Leaders Fail to Understand, ‘It’s About the Ideology’ 

In fiery speech, Netanyahu challenges UN on moral grounds

Jerusalem Post, By MICHAEL WILNER \10/01/2015:

PM rails against the UN in his speech to the General Assembly, slamming support for the Iran deal and anti-Israel bias on Palestinian issue.

New York – Armed with unfilltered criticism for the United Nations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an aggressive speech to the international body’s annual gathering in New York on Thursday, charging its members with hypocrisy in its treatment of Israel and with failure to contain extremism across the wider Middle East.

With defensive rhetoric, he targeted the assembly for passing more resolutions against Israel for its handling of the Palestinians last year than against the government of Syria, which has presided over a war claiming the lives of over 300,000 people. He criticized member states for “encouraging Palestinian rejectionism” instead of direct negotiations between the parties without preconditions, one day after a Palestinian flag was raised at UN headquarters.

And yet the most poignant moment of the speech involved no remarks at all, as Netanyahu, in his seventh UN General Assembly address, asked the body if it had forgotten the lessons of the Holocaust just seventy years since its founding.

He quoted from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, from its president and its military commanders, all reiterating a familiar pledge: Israel, a state where six million Jews reside, must be annihilated, sooner rather than later.

“Seventy years after the murder of six million Jews, Iran’s rulers promise to destroy my country, murder my people,” Netanyahu said. “And the response from this body— the response from nearly every one of the governments represented here— has been absolutely nothing. Utter silence. Deafening silence.”

Silence followed the charge as the prime minister surveyed the room with a stoic stare. None spoke or moved in the audience as Netanyahu, at the lectern, remained quiet for nearly a minute.

“As someone who knows that history, I refuse to be silent,” he finally said to applause from the hall. Repeating a line he has delivered in Washington, he added: “The days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies— those days are over.”

The speech was Netanyahu’s first major address since the Iran nuclear deal survived a debate over its merits in the US Congress. Its architects from the United States, Europe, Russia and China met to discuss implementation of the deal earlier in the week.

“Ladies and gentlemen, check your enthusiasm at the door,” he said of the deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “It makes war more likely.​”

He warned that international investors were preparing to flood a “radical theocracy with weapons and cash” and warned that, “when bad behavior is rewarded, it only gets worse.” The deal, he said, amounts to a marriage between radical Islam and nuclear power.

“Under this deal, If Iran doesn’t change its behavior— in fact, if it becomes even more dangerous in the years to come— the most important constraints will still be automatically lifted by year 10 and by year 15. That would place a militant Islamic terror regime weeks away from having the fissile material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs,” he said. “That just doesn’t make any sense.”

And the JCPOA, he continued, has already led Iran to rapidly expand its network of terrorist proxies worldwide and spend “billions of dollars on weapons and satellites.” As an example of that network, Netanyahu detailed a well-armed cell of Hezbollah that has been identified in Cyprus, and warned that the organization— listed by the United States and European Union as a terrorist organization— was setting up similar cells in the Western hemisphere.

“We will continue to act to stop the transfer of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Syrian territory,” he said. Israel has periodically struck convoys traversing Syrian territory, but future missions have been complicated by a growing presence of Russian forces in the region.

While acknowledging that the deal is proceeding toward implementation— he asked the UN to enforce the JCPOA with “more rigor” than the six past Security Council resolutions on the nuclear issue that Iran had “systematically violated”— Netanyahu retained Israel’s option to defend itself against Iranian aggression.

“We have, we are and we will” defend ourselves, Netanyahu said, once again earning some applause.

Netanyahu personally engaged in a bruising battle on Capitol Hill over the deal, pitted against US President Barack Obama, who lobbied for its survival. The support of only one third of one house in Congress was required to preserve the agreement, and 42 senators ultimately chose to endorse it.

In Thursday’s address, he thanked Congress for debating the deal on its merits and characterized the rift with Obama as a “disagreement within the family.” And he underscored that, in spite of the public battle, the US remains Israel’s most valuable ally.

Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the White House next month.

After spending the majority of his speech condemning Iran and the deal over its nuclear work, he turned to the Palestinian issue, responding largely to a speech delivered the day before by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In that address, Abbas appeared to disavow commitments made between Israel and the Palestinian Authority since the Oslo Accords were first signed in 1993.

“I am prepared to immediately resume direct negotiations with the Palestinian Authority without any preconditions whatsoever,” Netanyahu said. “Unfortunately, President Abbas said yesterday that he is not prepared to do this. I hope he changes his mind.”

Abbas, in his speech, said the international community should treat Palestine as an independent state occupied by a foreign power.

“Israel has destroyed the foundations upon which the political and security agreements are based,” Abbas said. “We therefore declare that we cannot continue to be bound by these agreements and that Israel must assume all its responsibilities as an occupying power.”

Shortly after Abbas’ speech, the Quartet on the Middle East— comprised of the UN, EU, US and Russia— released a statement reiterating its goals: A negotiated two-state outcome “that meets Israeli security needs and Palestinian aspirations for Statehood and sovereignty, ends the occupation that began in 1967 and resolves all permanent status issues in order to end the conflict.”

The group warned that a continuation of the status quo may imperil the viability of a two-state plan.

The UN has adopted twenty resolutions condemning Israel in the past year— far more than on any other issue or against any other nation, including Syria, which has been the subject of one resolution. Netanyahu cited the figure as an example of the body’s “obsessive bashing of Israel.”

In his call for direct negotiations, Netanyahu said: “We owe it to our peoples to try.” Both he and Abbas were directly involved in a nine-month negotiations process brokered by US Secretary of State John Kerry which, in July 2014, collapsed without results.

“President Abbas, here’s a good place to begin: Stop spreading lies about Israel’s alleged intentions on the Temple Mount. Israel is fully committed to maintaining the status quo there,” he said. Both the Quartet and UN’s secretary-general Ban Ki-moon have condemned incitements to violence on the holy site in recent days.

“Don’t use the Palestinian state as a stepping stone to another Islamist dictatorship in the Middle East, but make its something real,” Netanyahu added. “We can do remarkable things.”

But the PA responded on Thursday evening by rejecting the premise of the prime minister’s argument: Netanyahu, PLO secretary general Saeb Erekat said, has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of genuine interest in peace.

“Members of his camp have continually sabotaged every attempt at a meaningful peace process.  The Palestinians have never placed conditions on peace,” said Erekat. “Palestinians have demanded that Israel abide by the obligations it has already made to the Palestinians, which Israel has yet to fulfill.”

“As Mr. Netanyahu tells the world he wants to negotiate for two-states, he has built the largest illegal settlement enterprise seen in modern history,” he continued.

Debate over Israeli-Palestinian peace has been a consistent topic in the UN’s annual debate, and this year has been no exception: Speeches by leaders from France to Lesotho have called for a settlement, using their precious time on the international stage.

One leader who avoided the issue was the president of the United States. In his Monday address, Obama did not mention either Israel or the Palestinians once.

For his part, on the issues of Palestine, Iran and the role of the international community, Netanyahu’s message had a common theme: Israel remains a democracy, with values consistent with the liberal tenets of the United Nations’ founding charter.

Both in silence and with fiery rhetoric, he called on fellow members to celebrate that tradition.

“Stand with Israel because Israel is not just defending itself,” he concluded. “More than ever, Israel is defending you.”

Germany’s Sharia Refugee Shelters – “Bulk of Migrants Cannot Be Integrated”

Muslim asylum seekers are enforcing Islamic Sharia law in German refugee shelters, according to police, who warn that Christians, Kurds and Yazidis in the shelters are being attacked by Muslims with increasing frequency and ferocity.

Muslim migrants from different sects, clans, ethnicities and nationalities are also attacking each other. Violent brawls — sometimes involving hundreds of migrants — are now a daily occurrence.

Police say the shelters, where thousands of migrants are housed together in cramped spaces for months at a time, are seething cauldrons ready to explode. The police are urgently calling for migrants of different faiths to be housed in separate facilities.

Some politicians counter that such segregation would go against Germany’s multicultural values, while others say that separating hundreds of thousands of migrants by religion and nationality would be a logistical impossibility.

As the consequences of unrestrained migration become apparent, the tide of public opinion is turning against the government’s open-door policy. Observers say that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the so-called most powerful woman in the world, may have met her Waterloo.

A report published by the newspaper Die Welt on September 27 sheds light on the targeting of Christians by Muslims in German refugee shelters. The paper interviewed an Iranian convert to Christianity who said:

“In Iran, the Revolutionary Guards arrested my brother in a house church. I fled from the Iranian secret service because I thought that in Germany I could finally live my faith without persecution. But in the refugee shelter, I cannot admit that I am a Christian, or I would face threats.

“Muslims wake me before the crack of dawn during Ramadan and say that I should eat before sunrise. When I decline, they call me a kuffar, an unbeliever. They spit at me. They treat me like an animal. They threaten to kill me.”

At a refugee shelter in Hemer, a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, 10 Algerian asylum seekers attacked a Christian couple from Eritrea with glass bottles. The Muslims said they were angry that the man was wearing a cross. They ripped the cross from his neck and stole his money and cellphone.

Die Welt also interviewed an Iraqi Christian family from Mosul who were living at a refugee shelter in the Bavarian town of Freising. The father said that threats by Islamists were a daily fact of life. “They shouted at my wife and hit my child,” he said. “They say: ‘We will kill you and drink your blood.'” Life in the shelter, he said, was as if in a prison.

According to the director of the Munich-based Central Committee for Oriental Christians, Simon Jacob, these incidents are only “the tip of the iceberg.” “The actual number of attacks is very high,” he said. “We have to expect further conflict, which the migrants bring to Germany from their homelands. Between Christians and Muslims. Between Shiites and Sunnis. Between Kurds and extremists. Between Yazidis and extremists.”

Max Klingberg, the director of the Frankfurt-based International Society for Human Rights (Internationale Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte, IGFM), says that much of the aggression is being perpetrated by Afghans and Pakistanis, who are “even more Islamic than some Syrians and Iraqis.” He warns that conflict in the refugee shelters will only become worse:

“We have to dispense with the illusion that all of those who are coming here are human rights activists. Among those who are arriving here now, a substantial number are at least as religiously intense as the Muslim Brotherhood.

“We are getting reports of threats of aggression, including threats of beheading, by Sunnis against Shiites, but Yazidis and Christians are the most impacted. Those Christian converts who do not hide their faith stand a 100% probability of being attacked and mobbed.”

In a September 29 interview with the newspaper Passauer Neue Presse, the head of the German police union (Deutschen Polizeigewerkschaft, DPolG), Rainer Wendt, warned that “brutal criminal structures” have taken over the refugee shelters and that police are overwhelmed and unable to guarantee safety and security. He called for Christians and Muslims to be separated before someone gets killed:

“We have been witnessing this violence for weeks and months. Groups based on ethnicity, religion or clan structures go after each other with knives and homemade weapons. When these groups fight each other at night, all those German citizens who welcomed the migrants with open arms at the Munich train station are fast asleep, but the police remain awake and are left standing in the middle…

“We can only estimate the true extent of violence because women and children are often afraid to file a complaint. Since it is also about sexual abuse and rape…

“Sunnis are fighting Shiites, there are Salafists from competing groups. They are trying to impose their rules in the shelters. Christians are being massively oppressed and the Sharia is being enforced. Women are forced to cover up. Men are forced to pray. Islamists want to introduce their values and order at the shelters.

Wendt gave the interview days after 300 Albanian migrants clashed with 70 Pakistani migrants at a refugee shelter in Calden, a town in the state of Hesse, on September 27. More than a dozen people, including three police officers, were injured in the melee, which erupted after two migrants got into a fight while waiting in line at the canteen. It took 50 police officers several hours to restore order at the shelter, which is home to 1,500 migrants from 20 different countries.

More than 60 migrants, including ten children, were injured after Pakistanis and Syrians clashedat the same shelter on September 13. The fight broke out just after midnight, when someone sprayed mace into a tent filled with sleeping migrants. Police did not inform the public about the fight for more than a week, apparently to prevent fueling anti-immigrant sentiments.

Violent brawls are becoming commonplace at German refugee shelters across the country.

In the past two months alone, dozens of violent brawls and riots between different groups of migrants have erupted in Germany’s refugee shelters.

On September 30, migrants went on a rampage at a refugee center in Braunschweig, a city in Lower Saxony. On September 29, Syrian migrants clashed at a refugee shelter in Gerolzhofen, a small town in Bavaria. Also on September 29, migrants from Algeria and Mali clashed at a refugee center in Engelskirchen, a town in North Rhine-Westphalia.

On September 28, more than 150 Syrians and Pakistanis clashed at a refugee shelter on Nöthnitzer Straße in Dresden. The migrants attacked each other with wooden planks and metal bars. Two dozen police officers were needed to restore order. More than 30 Syrians and Pakistanis clashed at the same shelter on August 10.

Also on September 28, between 100 and 150 migrants of different nationalities clashed at a refugee shelter in Donaueschingen, a town in the Black Forest. The trouble started over a dispute about who should be able to use the shower facilities first. On September 22, more than 400 migrants marched through town to protest conditions at the same facility. On September 15, a male migrant was attacked by another migrant for using a female bathroom at the shelter.

On September 24, around 100 Syrians and Afghans clashed at a refugee shelter in Leipzig, the largest city in Saxony. The fight broke out after a 17-year-old Afghan pulled a knife on an 11-year-old Syrian girl at the shelter, which houses 1,800 migrants. On September 23, migrantsclashed at a refugee shelter for unaccompanied minors in Nuremberg.

On September 3, Syrian migrants attacked security guards at a refugee shelter in the Moabit district of Berlin. Also on September 3, Iraqi migrants attacked security guards at a refugee shelter in Heidelberg. A total of 21 squad cars were dispatched to restore order. On September 2, Algerian and Tunisian migrants clashed at the same shelter. A dozen police cars were deployed to restore order.

On September 3, migrants clashed at a refugee shelter in Hövelhof, a town in North Rhine-Westphalia. On September 2, migrants clashed at a refugee facility in Wolgast, a town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Also on September 2, migrants clashed at a refugee center inGütersloh, a town in North Rhine-Westphalia.

On September 1, migrants clashed at a refugee shelter in Delitzsch, a town in Saxony. A 27-year-old Tunisian migrant was killed after being stabbed by a 27-year-old migrant from Morocco. Also on September 1, a 15-year-old Somali migrant stabbed a 15-year-old Egyptian migrant with a scissors at a refugee center in the Groß Borstel district of Hamburg.

On September 1, Somali, Syrian and Albanian migrants clashed at a refugee center inTegernsee, a small town in Bavaria. Also on September 1, migrants clashed at a refugee shelter in Heidelberg.

On August 31, Libyan and Tunisian migrants clashed at a refugee shelter in Hoyerswerda, a town in Saxony. Also on August 31, migrants clashed with each other and with security guards at a refugee shelter in Heidelberg. On August 30, a 25-year-old Sudanese migrant was arrested for going on a rampage at a refugee shelter in Jesteburg, a small town in Lower Saxony.

On August 29, a 17-year-old Algerian migrant was arrested for robbing the cellphones of other migrants at a refugee center in Elzach, a town in Baden-Württemberg. On August 25, 60 migrants went on a rampage at a refugee shelter in Karlsruhe.

On August 24, a migrant from Montenegro was stabbed by a migrant from Algeria at a refugee shelter in Seevetal, a town in Lower Saxony.

On August 22, Afghan migrants clashed at a refugee shelter in Rotenburg, a town in Hesse. Also on August 22, at least 20 migrants went on a rampage at a refugee center in Grafing, a town near Munich.

On August 21, migrants clashed at a refugee facility in Schwetzingen, also in Baden-Württemberg. Also on August 21, migrants clashed at a refugee center in the Marienthal district of Hamburg.

On August 16, 50 migrants attacked each other with broken tree branches, umbrellas and trash cans at a refugee center in Friedland, a town in Lower Saxony. The facility, which has a capacity of 700, is home to 2,400 migrants.

On August 19, at least 20 Syrian migrants staying at an overcrowded refugee shelter in the eastern German town of Suhl tried to lynch an Afghan migrant after he tore pages from a Koran and threw them in a toilet. More than 100 police officers intervened; they were attacked with stones and concrete blocks. Seventeen people were injured in the melee, including 11 refugees and six police officers. The Afghan is now under police protection. The president of the German state of Thuringia, Bodo Ramelow, said that to avoid similar violence in the future, Muslims of different nationalities must be separated.

On August 10, 40 migrants clashed at a refugee shelter on Bremer Straße in Dresden.

On August 1, 50 Syrians and Afghans clashed at the same shelter. More than 80 police officers were needed to restore order.

According to Jörg Radek, the vice chairman of Germany’s police union, (Gewerkschaft der Polizei, GdP), police have reached the “absolute breaking point,” and Christian and Muslim migrants should be housed separately. In a September 28 interview with the newspaper Die Welt, Radek said:

“Our officers are increasingly being called to respond to confrontations in refugee shelters. When there are 4,000 people in a shelter which only has space for 750, this leads to aggression where even something as insignificant as a walk to the restroom can lead to fisticuffs.

“We must do everything we can to prevent further outbreaks of violence. I think it makes perfect sense to separate migrants according to their religion.”

Not everyone agrees. In an interview with N24 television, the former mayor of the Neukölln district of Berlin, Heinz Buschkowsky, warned that if migrants are separated by religion and nationality, Germany risks the permanent establishment of parallel societies throughout the country.

Buschkowsky said the first lesson migrants must learn when they arrive in Western countries is tolerance, and if they refuse to accept people of other faiths, their asylum applications should be rejected. He expressed pessimism about the possibility of integrating the current wave of migrants into German society: “The bulk of the migrants who are arriving here cannot be integrated.”

Meanwhile, the head of German intelligence, Hans-Georg Maaßen, was warned that radical Muslims in Germany are canvassing the refugee shelters looking for new recruits. He said:

“Many of the asylum seekers have a Sunni religious background. In Germany there is a Salafist scene that sees this as a breeding ground. We are observing that Salafists are appearing at the shelters disguised as volunteers and helpers, deliberately seeking contact with refugees to invite them to their mosques to recruit them to their cause.”

The editor of the newspaper Neue Westfälische, Ansgar Mönter, reports that Salafists in Bielefeld, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, have already infiltrated refugee centers in the area by bringing toys, fruits and vegetables for the migrants.

Mönter says “naïve” politicians are contributing to the radicalization of refugees by are asking Muslim umbrella groups in the country to reach out to the migrants.

Mönter points out that the main Muslim groups in Germany all adhere to fundamentalist interpretations of Islam and are anti-Western in outlook. Some groups have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood while others want to implement Sharia law in Germany. According to Mönter, politicians should not be encouraging these groups to establish contact with the new migrants.

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him onFacebook and onTwitter. His first book,Global Fire, will be out in early 2016.

Also see:

Obama surrenders the Middle East to Russia, and it matters

Family Security Matters, by Dr. Robin McFee, Sep. 29, 2015:

Putin asserts it is difficult to defeat ISIS without the current Syrian government. Whether that government is a puppet of Iran and Russia, is currently irrelevant. Putin is correct. Syria could act as a magnet to draw in ISIS fighters, and a kill box within which to defeat them, or at least eliminate a not insignificant number of their fighters.

Putin has doubled down on Syria in recent days. No news there. He has had bases in that beleaguered nation for years. He is in a good position to weaken ISIS in the process – to a far greater degree than the US has been willing to do.

Speaking of which, Obama, not having learned anything from his many foreign policy misadventures in the region, has decided to invest in Syrian “rebels” who somehow have become virtuous patriots – instead of merely another assemblage of Jihadists, former mujahideen, current members of the various Al Qaeda franchises, and to be clear, NOT friends of democracy or freedom fighters. Obama just doesn’t get it. There are no freedom fighters or prodemocracy plays in that region. It is a war of the roses based upon religion, anti-West sensibilities, adherence to Sharia, tribal power skirmishes, and territorial control. The old saw ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ is both tired, misrepresentative of the landscape, and a dangerous game for amateurs to play.

Syria is an important place – geographically and geopolitically. Putin knows this. More importantly, Assad is his ally. Putin – spy master, politician, businessman, diplomat, quasi-dictator, martial artist, energy expert, possible assassin, and global force to be reckoned with – recognizes the importance of supporting your allies. We could learn something from him, as we continue to abandon our friends, and give benefits to our enemies. Reputations matter. Consider this….If you had to select a second for a street fight, would you pick Putin or Obama? A sad reality, but who does the world trust more? Not who does the world use more, or misuse more, or abuse more, but trust or fear more.

Like Assad or not, he has created a vortex within which ISIS is being drawn in. Al Qaeda is in play there as well. We ought to think of it as an opportunity to let savages kill each other, and their teams become severely degraded. Instead we are arming, at ridiculous expense, a handful (think meaningless) of jokers to represent our interests over there.

Yes Assad is an unsavory fellow, using chemical weapons. He isn’t alone. And to his credit – even bad guys have their good points – he has protected Christians far more than any other dictator in the region.  Putin is supporting Assad. And?

As an aside, think Christians have had any political patronage in Iraq lately? Or Iran? How are Christians faring in other Moslem nations with few exceptions, like Morocco? A bit closer to home, how are Christians treated in the US? While Obama is yammering about human rights, and taking in refugees from the Middle East (let us not forget much of this mess is his fault), he is about to deport Christian refugees, and has been hesitant to allow Christians under siege in Iraq to enter the US. Double standard anyone?

Like it or not, the world is one big Stratego ® or Risk ® game board. It is winner take all. The good guys can choose to be benevolent victors, and good trade partners, even good neighbors, but at the end of the day it is all about which team controls the natural resources, the transit routes, influences decisions, trade deals, and leads globally with manufacturing and distribution infrastructure that wins the game.

We are losing the game, and badly. This is not to be gloom and doom, but to remind that our future, and that of our children depends upon the economic and security future we create and pass along. The two are inextricably intertwined. One cannot separate the economy, energy, immigration, and security issues. Within that construct, the Middle East matters to our economy and security – unfortunately.

We blew Iraq – which has been and remains an extremely important nation in the history of the Arab and Middle Eastern world. Located in a strategic crossroads, and a former ally we misread (thank you Barack Obama), and abandoned a vital piece of real estate. Not to mention our feckless behavior has emboldened the behaviors of radical Islamists, including ISIS.

As for ISIS or Assad or Libya or…There are no consequences that our enemies face when doing barbaric acts against Americans or our interests. Obama’s laughable lines in the sand, and threats aimed at ISIS, ISIL, Russia, Assad or fill in the blanks, they are as fragile as a sand castle near the ocean during a tropical storm.  And as meaningless!

Could you, would you trust Obama if your life depended on it? Ask Pastor Saeed, who languishes in Iran, when he and 3 other Americans could easily have been ransomed for, say $150 billion dollars?! That is what BHO is giving Iran. Ask the Iraqis who risked their lives to provide intelligence to our military, and are now isolated, hunted, alone. Ask the Christians who are being butchered by ISIS and other Islamists in the region. Where is Obama? Where is the United States? Russia has provided more moral clarity on the issue than we have. Wow, the world is upside down, when that can be said!

The vacuum created when Obama placed politics over patriotism and popularity over leadership by removing our military from Iraq, and then added stupidity to idiocy, by reaching out to Iran to help us fight ISIS (tacitly giving Tehran the political cover to enter, and likely capture much of Iraq), and capped it off with a moronic two year diplomacy play that has been a major financial and political coup for Tehran, and completed the process of colossal foreign policy failures by mishandling Syria, betraying Israel, ignoring Egypt as well as Morocco, the Kurds, and screwing up North Africa, has set the stage for a new sheriff to emerge…Putin.

All small entities need a big brother. Whether it is Israel, or Bahrain, or the Kurds (Putin supports), Libya or Syria or the Falklands, most countries recognize it is a dangerous world with unsavory neighbors. Even the vaunted Israeli military recognizes it cannot control the region alone. It needs an ally. It used to be the United States without question. Now Israel has to play Oliver asking for more soup every time it needs something from Obama’s United States. Putin recognizes this, and has reached out to most of the countries in the Middle East, and starting with North Africa, establishing or reestablishing affiliations and alliances. Consider for a moment how Putin treats Netanyahu and Israel with more concern, and respect than POTUS; a deft, radical departure from prior Russian/Soviet strategy. And Vladimir has, in at least small ways, used his powerful influence to stem some of the attacks from Iran’s proxies.

Make no mistake about it – Iran, Syria, Turkey are all critical to Russia’s energy, security, and geopolitical strategy. Poking the US in the eye in the process is just a bonus for Putin. Israel offers potential for Russia, too. Keep a watch on that.

Obama has surrendered leadership of the Middle East to Russia. Pure and simple!  And we should not blame Putin for that. He is doing what the leader of Russia is supposed to do – look out for the interests of his nation.

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What now? How to deal with the utter collapse of Obama’s Syria-Iraq strategy

Center for Security Policy, by Fred Fleitz, Oct 1, 2015:

A year ago, in response to the growing strength of ISIS and outrage over internet videos of ISIS beheadings, President Obama announced a strategy on Sept. 10, 2014 to “degrade and destroy” ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

The president’s four-step plan included: a systemic campaign of airstrikes in Iraq and Syria; increased support to forces fighting ISIS on the ground in Iraq and Syria, including training and arming moderate Syrian rebels; expanded counterterrorism efforts to weaken ISIS and cut off its resources; and continued support to humanitarian assistance to civilians displaced by ISIS.

Twelve months later this strategy is in ruins. Russia has sent troops into Syria and began bombing ISIS targets Wednesday.  [Author’s note: There are some reports that Russia actually bombed non-ISIS Syrian rebels, including some rebels backed by the U.S.]

Also on Wednesday, the Russian government told the United States to stay out of Syrian airspace and remove American warplanes.

Iran has increased its presence in Iraq; Moscow has strengthened its relationship with the Iraqi government.

On Sept. 27, Russian officials announced a new anti-ISIS pact between Russia, Iraq, Iran and Syrian that will include intelligence sharing.

President Obama’s Iraq-Syria strategy collapsed so quickly because, as I wrote here for Fox News Opinion last May, it was really a non-strategy to do as little as possible about this crisis for the rest of his presidency so he can hand this mess to a future president.

Pinprick airstrikes in Syria under Obama’s policy did not stop ISIS from making gains on the ground.

In Iraq, ISIS took the city of Ramadi last May despite being outnumbered 10-1 by the Iraqi army.  Iraqi officials said they would retake the city “in days.”

Four months later, there is little prospect of this or an assault to retake Mosul which was supposed to occur last spring. This is due to the weakness of Iraq’s army and President Obama’s refusal to allow U.S. military advisers or special forces leave their bases and accompany Iraqi forces into the field.

The Obama administration recently admitted its $500 million plan to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels has been a disaster.  The program spent $42 million to train its first group of 54 recruits who entered Syria from Turkey last July.  The recruits were quickly attacked by the al-Nusra Front (the al-Qaeda franchise in Syria) and forced to surrender trucks and ammunition to this terrorist group.  Most of these rebels returned to Turkey; a U.S. general told Congress only “four or five” are still fighting in Syria despite a goal of training 5,400 per year.

The fighting in Syria has caused a huge flood of refugees to seek refuge in Europe.  At the same time, more than 7,000 foreign fighters – including 250 Americans – joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq over the last year according to a new bipartisan congressional report.

Obama officials responded to the rapid collapse of its Syria-Iraq strategy with spin to exaggerate the effectiveness of the president’s policy and dismissing ISIS gains.  50 Department of Defense intelligence analysts recently filed complaints with the Pentagon IG that their work was doctored to support the Obama administration’s claim that its anti-ISIS strategy is succeeding.

The failure of President Obama’s Iraq-Syria policy is now so obvious that his advisers can no longer spin it away.

Mr. Obama’s policy created a power vacuum in the Middle East that Russian President Vladimir Putin has filled.  By seizing the initiative in the fight against IS, Putin is trying to create a new Russian-led regional axis that will counter American influence and portray Russia as a more reliable partner.  This gambit could have major benefits for Putin, including possibly by convincing Europe to drop its sanctions against Russia due to its intervention in Ukraine by promising to stop the flow of refugees to Europe from Syria.

The Obama administration is scrambling to respond to these developments.  Obama chided Putin’s Syria moves in his speech to the UN General Assembly this week, called for the removal of Syrian President Assad but also expressed willingness to work with Putin in the battle against ISIS.  Putin dismissed Obama’s demands by blaming the United States for the civil war in Syria, called for working with the Assad regime and criticized America’s efforts to train and equip Syrian rebels.

The president’s Iraq-Syria policy continues to be incoherent and dangerous.  There’s no chance of removing Syrian president Assad due to Russia’s increased support.  In his UN General Assembly speech, President Obama expressed his willingness to work with Iran to fight ISIS and end the civil war in Syria even though increasing Iran’s role in Iraq and Syria will expand Iranian influence and exacerbate Sunni-Shia tensions in Iraq.

Given that this situation is the result of seven years of incompetent policy by this administration and the president’s continuing refusal to take decisive action in Iraq or Syria, it is hard to see what the Obama administration can do to reverse it.  But there are several guidelines Mr. Obama should consider employing to dig out of the hole his policy has created:

• Recognize that Russia and Iran are the problem, not the solution.  The United States needs to maintain dialogue with Russia but stop talking about working with Russia and Iran to fight ISIS since their goals are counter to American interests and regional security. Mr Obama needs to realize that an expanded and entrenched Russian/Iranian presence in the Middle East will have dire long term consequences for America and the region.
• Work with our European and regional states to form a better military alliance to combat ISIS and to counter Russian and Iranian influence.  This should include creating a safe haven protected zone in northern Syria and intensified air strikes against ISIS targets.  The refugee crisis probably has made Europe more willing to participate in such an alliance.  France conducted its firs airstrikes in Syria last week.
• End the limitations on fighting ISIS in Iraq.  Let U.S. troops leave their bases so they can operate behind the lines in Iraq and support Iraqi security forces.  Provide better weapons to the Iraqi Kurds or let our allies arm them.  Incredibly, the Obama administration blocked Gulf states from sending heavy weapons to the Iraqi Kurds in July.
• President Obama must stop making demands he has no intention of enforcing.  The world correctly sees Mr Obama’s demands that Assad leave office and Russia stop its military aid to the Assad government as idle threats.  Every time the president makes such demands, he further undermines American credibility and emboldens U.S. enemies and adversaries.  The word of the leader of the world’s superpower must be enough to change international events and not viewed as chatter that can be safely ignored.

Given his record to date, I doubt President Obama will adopt any of these guidelines.  I expect his administration will continue its non-policy policy to leave this crisis for the next administration to solve.  As a result, American interests and regional security are likely to suffer for the rest of this presidency as Russia and Iran increase their influence.

The presidential candidates need to watch this situation closely since the Middle East disaster they will inherit from Mr. Obama likely will be much worse than the current crisis

Concealing The Facts On Refugee Resettlement

Frontpage, by Michael Cutler, Oct. 1, 2015:

As ISIS, the Nusra Front (an al Qaeda affiliate operating in Syria) and other terror organizations continue spreading death and violence in Syria, increasing numbers of Syrians are literally running for their lives.

Europe has witnessed a tsunami of refugees and Secretary of State John Kerry has promised to increase the number of refugees that the United States will admit.

Communities that have already been accepting refugees, and not just from Syria, are questioning the wisdom of this effort and the way that refugees are being vetted. One such community is to be found in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

It is important to note that the member of the House of Representatives who represents Spartanburg in Congress is none other than Representative Trey Gowdy who also chairs the House Subcommittee on Immigration.  He has also voiced serious concerns about the way that the refugee program is being administered and has been unhappy with the lack of information being provided — even to him as the chairman of the subcommittee that is constitutionally mandated to provide oversight over our entire immigration system.  He has been quoted as describing responses to his questions about the resettlement of refugees in Spartanburg as being “sorely inadequate.”

On June 4, 2015 the local newspaper, Spartanburg Herald Tribune (GoUpstate.com) published a report, “First refugees arrive in Spartanburg despite questions raised by Gowdy.”

As questions continued to go unanswered, I was invited to be the keynote speaker at a public forum in Spartanburg, South Carolina on the issue of the vetting process being used to screen refugees on September 20, 2015.

Among those in attendance at the town hall meeting were newspaper reporters, including one from the New York Times, Richard Fausset.

Fausset’s report appeared in the September 25, 2015 edition of the New York Times under the title, “Refugee Crisis in Syria Raises Fears in South Carolina.”  Incredibly, Fausset omitted the fact that I was a participant in this town hall meeting.  I am making this point, not because I want my name to appear in the New York Times (or anywhere else for that matter), but because Fausset clearly came to the meeting with an agenda — not to objectively report on the facts but to create misleading impressions.

There were other speakers who addressed the large audience, however, the flyer distributed before and during the meeting announced that I would be the keynote speaker and included a brief version of my bio.  The flyer also noted the national security concerns that would be discussed during the town hall meeting that was billed as a “Refugee Resettlement Informational Summit.”

This made it clear that the primary reason for the meeting was to provide information about the vulnerabilities of the vetting process in the immigration system, which have on numerous occasions enabled terrorists to enter the United States and embed themselves.  These concerns, in fact, were prominently discussed by the 9/11 Commission in the 9/11 Commission Report and in the report issued by the 9/11 Commission staff.  I was one of many experts, in fact, who provided testimony to the 9/11 Commission — a fact that was noted in the flyer.

There was no mention of the 9/11 Commission Report in the New York Times article, either.

It is time that, in the interest of accuracy, that the New York Times finally change its slogan, “All the news that’s fit to print,” to something more fitting.  I would suggest that their new slogan should be: “You’ll have a fit from what we print.”

In addition to the New York Times reporter, the local newspaper, the Spartanburg Herald Journal (GoUpstate.com) also covered the event.  On September 20, 2015 that newspaper published the article “Speakers criticize refugee resettlement program.”  It noted I was the keynote speaker but then quoted me as saying that the “immigration system is broken.”   As I recall how I explained my concerns, I said that where the immigration system is concerned, the only thing “broken” was the lack of resources and political will to actually enforce our laws.  The phrase, “broken immigration system” is generally used by advocates for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. I am adamantly opposed to such a massive amnesty program and have written many articles about my opposition to such an approach and have similarly voice my concerns at a number of congressional hearings.

It is disconcerting and disappointing that this reporter also neglected to report on my discussion about the nexus between immigration and national security and the numerous examples I provided during my lengthy talk about immigration. To make the point as clear as possible, I provided quotes from the 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel.

The residents of Spartanburg also arranged for me to address the County Council the following day, to provide the council with my perspectives and concerns about the shortcomings and inadequacy of the vetting process being used to screen refugees who are being resettled in the United States.  This is a major area of concern for them, which was recently exacerbated by the disturbing news reports that many of the refugees who have been seeking asylum in Europe claiming to be from Syria were actually from other countries.  It has been additionally reported terrorists affiliated with ISIS and other terrorist organization have been embedded within the huge numbers of refugees flooding into Europe.

A reporter from the local CBS-affiliated television station WSPA-TV interviewed me before the council meeting and reported on the issues in an article they posted on their website the following day: “Spartanburg CO Citizens Upset As Refugees Resettle in Upstate.”

In the interest of fairness, I have to point out that the folks at WSPA-TV did something unusual.  While my segment on the video that was broadcast on that station only lasted a few seconds, the print version of the report included a link to my personal website so that anyone interested in my perspectives and concerns could easily find my articles and other materials.  I have to commend the reporter Christine Scarpelli and her superiors for providing that link to my website in their report.  Televised news reports don’t provide enough information, so providing the link to my website was certainly a pleasant surprise.

Prior to the County Council hearing members of the community reached out to the council and asked that, inasmuch as only 30 minutes are provided for an opportunity for members of the community to speak about issues and that each person is limited to three minutes, that anyone who had signed up to address the council should be able to yield their time to me so that I could provide some in-depth information about the vetting process and concerns about how this process is largely ineffective under the circumstances that currently exist in Syria.

It was believed that this was going to be permitted and I prepared my remarks for the meeting accordingly.  However, once the council was called into session and the issue of the refugee resettlement program came up, the first member of the community who was called immediately said that he wanted to yield his time to me.  The chairman of the council, Jeffrey Horton, glared at the member of the community and said curtly, “If you want to yield your time you may sit down, but your time will not go to Mr. Cutler.”  He went on to say that I would only get three minutes.  When other members of the community objected, saying that they had been told I would be given their time to speak, Horton became downright nasty, glared at his fellow citizens and said that he would end the proceedings if everyone did not sit down and keep quiet.

What a wonderful demonstration of representative government!

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Heads up from Ann Corcoran at Refugee Resettlement Watch:

‘Muslims are fleeing in droves’: ISIS suddenly has a caliphate problem

 

A militant Islamist fighter filming his fellow fighters taking part in a military parade along the streets of Syria’s northern Raqqa province in 2014.

Business Insider, by Pamela Engel, Sep. 22, 2015:

The Islamic State militant group has recently released a barrage of propaganda videos targeting refugees and telling them to come join the “caliphate” instead of fleeing to “xenophobic” Europe.

The videos seek to reinforce the image of the caliphate — the territory ISIS controls in Iraq and Syria — as an Islamic utopia and capitalize on the dangers refugees face as they flee to European countries.

And these videos aren’t the first propaganda messages ISIS has released about the refugee crisis — earlier this month, in its English-language magazine Dabiq, the extremist group published an article warning against leaving the caliphate for Western countries.

The articles said leaving for Western nations was “a dangerous major sin” that was “a gate towards one’s children and grandchildren abandoning Islam for Christianity, atheism, or liberalism.”

This propaganda effort could be a sign of panic in the ranks of ISIS leadership as Iraqis and Syrians flee their home countries in large numbers.

“They claim to create this Islamic utopia, and Muslims are fleeing in droves,” Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider.

“A legitimate caliphate … is supposed to be able to provide services to its citizens.”

ISIS relies on residents in the territory it controls for revenue — it makes most of its money from taxation — and for services that give ISIS-held territories the appearance of being ruled by a functioning government.

“Taxation certainly would [be] an issue with people fleeing,” Gartenstein-Ross said. “Another significant problem is brain drain … The people who have highly desirable skill sets like doctors are fleeing.”

A map from August showing oil wells under ISIS control.

Oil is another major source of funding for ISIS, which brought in an estimated $100 million in 2014 from selling crude on the black market.

“The oil industry … is another area where they haven’t preserved the level of talent that they need,” Gartenstein-Ross added.

Aside from a possible brain drain and loss of revenue if there are fewer people to tax as ISIS continues its attempt to seize territory across Iraq and Syria, the refugee exodus from the Middle East could call ISIS’ legitimacy into question, Gartenstein-Ross said.

And ISIS has a strategy to keep people from leaving the caliphate. The International Institute for Strategic Studies reported recently: “It is in ISIS’s interest to prevent a mass exodus by residents living in territory it controls, because this would undermine its image of a cohesive state-building project. The group has accordingly placed IEDs around entrances to cities it controls, such as Fallujah and Ramadi, to prevent escape, which simultaneously serve the larger purpose of preventing the [Iraqi Security Forces] from advancing.”

The strategic security firm The Soufan Group noted last week that “more people are visibly fleeing [ISIS] and the areas it controls than are flocking to join it.”

“In an attempt to change the minds of people who would rather risk drowning than live in the Islamic State, the group has ramped up its propaganda efforts,” The Soufan Group said. “The scatter-shot nature of the Islamic State’s recent messages — at times angry and denouncing refugees, at other times proclaiming the wisdom of staying in what the group sees as an Earthly paradise — shows the desperation of a group that resembles a pyramid scheme more than a government.”

Some experts, however, disagree with the characterization of ISIS’ media blitz as a sign of desperation or panic.

“I wouldn’t see it as a desperate call for the refugees … because they need people [in their caliphate] but more as a sophisticated move by the Islamic State to take advantage of the huge debate on the refugee movement in Europe,” Pieter Nanninga, an assistant professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, told Business Insider.

His research focuses on jihadist violence and media use, and he viewed the new videos ISIS posted about the refugee crisis.

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