CIA director Brennan:ISIS was decimated under Bush, grew 4,400% under Obama
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
CIA Director John Brennan has admitted that ISIS was decimated under George W. Bush, but has grown by 4,400% under Obama.
In a speech
at the Center for Strategic and International Studies yesterday, CIA
director John Brennan made a startling admission: The Islamic State was
“decimated” under George W. Bush and had just “700-or-so adherents left”
following the surge in Iraq. Said Brennan:
[ISIS]
was, you know, pretty much decimated when US forces were there in Iraq.
It had maybe 700-or-so adherents left. And then it grew quite a bit in
the last several years, when it split then from al-Qaida in Syria, and
set up its own organization.
[ISIS]
can muster between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria …
This new total reflects an increase in members because of stronger
recruitment since June following battlefield successes and the
declaration of a caliphate, greater battlefield activity, and additional
intelligence.
This means that, by the CIA’s own
estimate, ISIS has grown on President Obama’s watch from just 700
fighters to between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters.
That is an increase of between 2,700 and 4,400 %.
Moreover,
Brennan tacitly acknowledged that the Obama administration had
underestimated the ISIS threat. At CSIS, Brennan declared that:
Not
content to limiting its killing fields to Iraqi and Syrian lands, and
to setting up local franchises in other countries of the Middle East,
South Asia and Africa, ISIL has developed an external operations agenda
that is now implementing … with lethal effect.
That
now obvious assessment directly contradicts the assessment of ISIS’
intent and capabilities delivered by Obama administration officials just
one year ago.
In August 11 2014, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes wrote in a White House blog post:
While
both [al-Qaeda and the Islamic State] are terrorist forces, they have
different ambitions. Al-Qaeda’s principal ambition is to launch attacks
against the west and US homeland…Right now, ISIL’s primary focus is
consolidating territory in the Middle East region to establish their own
Islamic State. So they’re different organizations with different
objectives.
But President Hussein Obama said in Turkey on Friday that the US is pursuing the 'right strategy' against ISIS. Maybe if he's trying to help ISIS get stronger....
Of course, given that Brennan has been in charge of the 'battle' against ISIS, this 'success' is not surprising. John Brennan is the guy who looks for moderates in Hezbullah (also here between 6:14 and 9:15), speaks lovingly of 'al-Quds,' and refers to jihad as a 'legitimate tenet of Islam.' Brennan was also the architect of the Obama administration's policy of removing
'jihad' and 'Islam' and 'terrorism' from the discourse of law
enforcement agencies (a policy on which he was opposed by outgoing CIA
director David Petraeus), and has charged that Americans don't have sufficient sensitivity to the Muslim world.
Brennan’s visit to Israel last Thursday had been planned long ahead
of time. However, it came at a sensitive diplomatic juncture, about a
month before the date set for a comprehensive agreement between Iran and
the six world powers on Iran’s nuclear program. It is unclear whether
Brennan conveyed a message about the agreement to Netanyahu from
President Barack Obama.
Israel and the U.S. are deeply divided over the
emerging agreement; Netanyahu has said publicly that he opposes it and
that he will try to stop it. Obama routinely rejects Netanyahu’s
criticism, including in an interview two weeks ago with Channel 2, in
which he said that the agreement was the best option to stop Iran from
attaining nuclear weapons.
In addition to the agreement with Iran, talks with
Brennan dealt with Iranian activities in the region in general.
Netanyahu has been warning in recent weeks of deepening Iranian
involvement in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, as well as the increasing amount
of weapons Tehran is providing to Hezbollah. Netanyahu has also warned
of attempted Iranian terror attacks against Israeli targets abroad.
A few days before his secret visit to Israel,
Brennan told the CBS program Face the Nation that the diplomatic and
political tensions between Obama and Netanyahu are not harming
cooperation between the intelligence organizations of the two countries.
And Brennan is not the only guest.
On Monday, a few days after Brennan’s visit, the chairman of the U.S.
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, landed in Israel. Dempsey,
who is the guest of Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot,
will also meet with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. Like
Brennan’s visit, Dempsey’s is expected to deal mainly with the Iranian
issue.
There must be real fear in Washington that Israel can somehow stop this deal or blow it up by attacking Iran. Otherwise, you can bet that the Obama administration, which is in the fourth quarter of its existence, would not be going out of its way to placate Israel. Given that the US fears something Israel could do stop this deal, maybe we should stop talking and just do it?
“This is a decision that could come only from Obama,” a diplomat said.
“[T]his reflects his dismay over the Israeli operations, which the
president believes could result in a regional war.”
...
The diplomats said Israel has protested the U.S. leaks, which increased
tension with Damascus. They said the purported CIA leaks have strained
relations with Israel’s intelligence community, particularly the Mossad.
The CIA director is John Brennan, regarded as a confidant of Obama.
“The Israelis have also been going to their friends in Congress to stop
the leaks,” the diplomat said.
That would be John al-Quds Brennan, who views jihad as a 'legitimate tenet' of Islam.
“The leaks will continue because there is a lot of resentment within the
U.S. intelligence community over Israeli assessments regarding such
countries as Egypt, Iran and Syria,” the diplomat said.
Maybe Obama wants us to go to war with Syria and Iran... because he thinks we'd lose (God forbid).
The Senate confirmed John 'al-Quds' Brennan as director of the CIA on Thursday afternoon. The vote was 63-34.
The Senate voted
63-34 in favor of Brennan, overcoming Republican Senator Rand Paul's
attempt to slow the White House counter-terrorism advisor from becoming
the next head of the CIA.
Paul, who spent nearly 13 hours
speaking on the Senate floor on Wednesday, was irate about the
reluctance of President Barack Obama's administration to declare that
"targeted killings" of American citizens on US soil were
unconstitutional.
Attorney General Eric Holder then clarified the
administration's policy on Thursday and said that Obama would not use
his authority to order a drone to kill an American on US soil who was
"not engaged in combat."
With the man in charge of removing references to Islamic terrorism from all government manuals in charge of the CIA, what could go wrong?
Senator Rand Paul filibustering John 'al-Quds' Brennan
John 'al-Quds' Brennan's nomination to be director of the CIA quietly passed the Senate Intelligence Committee the day before yesterday. But to actually get the job, he's going to have to stop Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) from talking. Paul is doing a filibuster the old-fashioned way: He's speaking. And he says he won't stop until Brennan's nomination is defeated or withdrawn (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
This one actually has nothing to do with Israel.
At first the filibuster, staged by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), was greeted
with skepticism. For the first three hours, he railed alone against
Obama’s refusal to rule out drone strikes on American soil.
“I’m here to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination to be director of
CIA,” Paul announced, later vowing: “I will speak for as long as it
takes.”
But as the day went on, one Republican senator after
another pledged support to Paul’s cause and made their way down to the
Senate floor.
“Americans have every reason to be concerned any
time the government wants to intrude on life, liberty or prosperity,”
said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who was the first Republican to join Paul’s
filibuster. “We’re talking here about the sanctity of human life.”
Maybe they don't trust Obama to only go after terrorists? Hmmm.
UPDATE 10:15 AM
Paul ended his filibuster at 12:40 am on Thursday - when the Senate adjourned. The nomination did not come to a vote of the full Senate.
National security experts urge rejecting John 'al-Quds' Brennan
The Senate Intelligence Committee is scheduled to vote on Thursday on the nomination of John Brennan to head the Central Intelligence Agency. This video includes several national security experts - household names - speaking out against the Brennan nomination.
14 GOP Senators urge Obama to withdraw Hagel nomination
14 Republican Senators, led by Senate minority whip John Cornyn (Tx), have sent a letter to President Obama urging him to withdraw Chuck Hagel's nomination to be Secretary of Defense.
While Senator Hagel’s erratic record and myriad
conversions on key national security issues are troubling enough, his
statements regarding Iran were disconcerting. More than once during the
hearing, he proclaimed the legitimacy of the current regime in Tehran,
which has violently repressed its own citizens, rigged recent elections,
provided material support for terrorism, and denied the Holocaust.
Regarding U.S. policy on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, Senator
Hagel displayed a seeming ambivalence about whether containment or
prevention is the best approach, which gives us great concern. Any
sound strategy on Iran must be underpinned by the highly credible threat
of U.S. military force, and there is broad bipartisan agreement on that
point. If Senator Hagel becomes Secretary of Defense, the military
option will have near zero credibility. This sends a dangerous message
to the regime in Tehran, as it seeks to obtain the means necessary to
harm both the United States and Israel.
The senators also focus on what a divisive figure Hagel has become and how little support he has:
It would be unprecedented for a Secretary of Defense to
take office without the broad base of bipartisan support and confidence
needed to serve effectively in this critical position. Over the last
half-century, no Secretary of Defense has been confirmed and taken
office with more than three Senators voting against him. Further, in
the history of this position, none has ever been confirmed with more
than 11 opposing votes. The occupant of this critical office should be
someone whose candidacy is neither controversial nor divisive.
In contrast, in 2011, you nominated Leon Panetta, who was confirmed
by the Senate with unanimous support. His Pentagon tenure has been a
huge success, due in part to the high degree of trust and confidence
that Senators on both sides of the aisle have placed in him.
The idea that Hagel is no worse or better than other candidates is
preposterous when one considers the records of former and current
officials such as Michele Flournoy and Ash Carter.
The senators argue,
“The next Secretary of Defense should have a similar level of
broad-based bipartisan support and confidence in order to succeed at a
time when the Department of Defense faces monumental challenges,
including Iran’s relentless drive to obtain nuclear weapons, a
heightened threat of nuclear attack from North Korea, potentially deep
budget cuts, a strategic pivot to the Asia-Pacific region, military
operations in Afghanistan, the ongoing Global War on Terror, the
continued slaughter of Syrian civilians at the hands of their own
government, and other aftermath of the Arab Spring.”
Cornyn’s stature as not only a respected senior senator but also the
Republican whip suggests that opposition to Hagel is not lifting. The
names of those willing to sign onto the letter underscores that point:
Jim Inhofe (Okla.), the ranking Republican on the Armed Services
Committee; committee members Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Roger Wicker
(R-Miss.), David Vitter (R-La.), Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Mike Lee
(R-Utah); Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Dan Coats (R-Ind.),
Ron Johnson (R – Wis.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mike Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Tom
Coburn (R-Okla.), and Tim Scott (R-S.C.). A source close to the
drafting process tells me not to “read too much” into who didn’t sign
the letter as many senators are on the road and could not get access to
the letter.
Yesterday, Graham sent a letter to Hagel demanding to know if he made
the reported comments that Israel was approaching “apartheid” and the
Israeli prime minister was a “radical.” Moderate Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.)
also spoke out against Hagel yesterday.
Hmmm. I wonder if there is any chance at arousing similar opposition to John 'al-Quds' Brennan's nomination to be director of the CIA.
Here's a video of a 2010 question and answer session with CIA director designate John Brennan at NYU Law School. The session was entitled "A Dialogue on Our Nation's Security." This
public forum was co-hosted by the White House Office of Public
Engagement and the Islamic Center at NYU on February 13, 2010.
Let's go to the videotape (it's rather long) and I will add some highlights after the video, which you can follow along as you watch the video. The highlights come from Walid Shoebat (Hat Tip: MFS - The Other News).
2:57 – The second questioner identifies himself as Omar Shahin, Public Relations Director for Islamic Relief and the chairman of the North American Imam’s Federation.
This was the same Omar Shahin who was one of the six imams in the
“flying imams” case in Minneapolis back in 2006. He was the spokesman
for the group. During that incident,
a concerned passenger handed a note to a flight attendant after
observing suspicious behavior. Based on Shahin’s associations, that
passenger was rightly concerned. CAIR quickly came to Shahin’s defense.
In fact, some might remember that the incident took place two weeks
after the 2006 midterm elections, during which it became apparent that
the very Muslim-friendly Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) would become the
chairman of the House Judiciary. Suspicions were raised that the entire
incident was to make profiling a top issue during Conyers’ tenure as chairman.
...
5:45 – “I was very concerned after the attack in Fort Hood as
well as the December 25th attack, that all of a sudden there were people
who went back into this fearful position, that lashed out, not thinking
through what was reasonable and appropriate.”
Gee, It’s been well over three years since that attack and Nidal
Malik Hasan has waged jihad successfully from his prison cell while
still not being convicted despite countless witnesses who saw him murder
14 and injure 32 as he shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’. That sounds like a case
for Islamophobia.
29:20 – “I consider myself a citizen of the world.”
38:30 – A man in the audience begins his question by saying
that he has a twenty one year-old son and that “every time he passes
through an airport security line, he’s pulled aside and frisked.”
Really? Every time your son goes through an airport, he’s frisked? Why hasn’t CAIR filed a lawsuit about this?
48:00 – “The world is not black and white, it’s not divided into good and evil.”
Interesting theory, considering his company that day.
58:38 – “I’m exceeding my welcome here but I could do this all
day.” – Brennan commenting about going past his time allotment. Again,
can anyone see the Tea Party getting this much time with Brennan?
Shortly thereafter, Brennan calls on a man who identifies himself as
Assad Aktar (sp?), president of the Congressional Muslim Staff
Association (CMSA). Mr. Aktar bemoans the “Unindicted co-conspirator”
label. This is an obvious reference to the Holy Land Foundation trial and the label that has been subsequently applied to groups like CAIR and ISNA successfully.
Video: John Brennan on gun-running to the Muslim Brotherhood
Obama's next pick for CIA Director John Brennan, a recently exposed
covert Muslim, is behind a heavy weapons (MANPADS) and gun running
operation to the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. Tom Trento discusses this illegal
covert operation in the blockbuster book "Benghazi, the Definitive
Story."
Obama's travel plans and the EU's Hezbullah problem
Latma's Tribal Update presents a behind the scenes look at how Obama's
national security team decided to send him to Israel. We also feature an
interview with EU representative Johann Phlegmat discussing the EU's
Hezbollah problem, and take an in-depth look at the allegations of
pedophilia in Modiin Illit
Is John 'al-Quds' Brennan a Muslim or does he 'just' sympathize with them? Caroline Glick provides the answer to this all-important question (Hat Tip: Dan F).
But I think the question of whether or not he is actually a Muslim
or just an Islamophile is just as unimportant as his hippy days learning
to love Islam. And by the same token, I think that it is unimportant if
Obama is or isn't a Muslim. I don't care whom they pray to.
The
question is whether their world view, and their policies would be any
different if they were Muslims. And I think the answer to that is no.
And since it is their policies, not their beliefs that matter to the
world, they should be judged for that.
Aside
from his hippy past, and his horrible, obsequious Arabic, the thing that
made me most uncomfortable about Brennan's whole paean to Islam is the
fact that he said "Palestine" twice and never said Israel, and when he
finally felt compelled to say Jerusalem, after saying "Al Quds" twice he
sounded like he was either going to spit or apologize for mentioning
the word Jerusalem in the presence of his audience. So does it matter if
this man is a Muslim or not? Not in the least. He's just as dangerous
either way.
I wonder if Obama will bring him
along for the visit. Can't wait to welcome him to JERUSALEM,
YERUSHALAYIM, the capital of the JEWISH people for the past 3,000 years.
Oh, and his advisers should probably mention to John Brennan that the
name of our country is Israel. There is no such country as Palestine.
And there has never been a country named Palestine. Perhaps one of the
senators could mention that to him during his confirmation hearing.
Indeed.
But I'd love to see a picture of the crew-cut Brennan with long hair and an earring.....
Benghazigate was plot to bring down David Petraeus gone bad?
Were CIA director David Petraeus and Ambassador Chris Stevens in the dark over the Benghazi consulate attack because the same CIA agents who exposed his affair with Paula Broadwell were trying to bring him down? That's the claim in a shocking new book(Hat Tip: Zvi S).
Senior CIA officers targeted Petraeus
because they didn't like the way he was running the agency - focusing
more on paramilitary operations than intelligence analysis. They used
their political clout and their connections to force an FBI
investigation of his affair with Paul Broadwell and make it public,
according to 'Benghazi: The Definitive Report.'
'It was high-level career officers on the CIA who got the ball rolling on
the investigation. It was basically a palace coupe to get Petraeus out
of there,' Jack Murphy, one of the authors, told MailOnline.
Murphy and co-author Brandon Webb also revealed that the September 11 Benghazi terrorist attack that killed
four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, was retaliation by
Islamist militants who had been targeted by covert U.S. military
operations.
The book claims that neither Stevens nor even Petraeus knew about the raids by American
special operations troops, which had 'kicked a hornet's nest' among the
heavily-armed fighters after the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar
Gaddafi.
John Brennan, President Barack Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser, had been
authorizing 'unilateral operations in North Africa outside of the
traditional command structure,' according to the e-book. Brennan is
Obama's pick to replace Petraeus as head of the CIA.
Video: Former FBI agent confirms Brennan converted to Islam
Here's what should be another nail in the coffin of John Brennan's nomination to be director of the CIA. A former FBI agent is confirming that Brennan converted to Islamwhile he was the CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia.
Hagel and Brennan nominations on hold, will Hagel withdraw?
Foreign Policy assesses that the odds are now 50-50 that Chuck Hagel (right) will withdraw from consideration as Secretary of Defense and 'getting worse by the day.'
He has the votes, but
not much else. His big problem is that no one much wants him running the
Pentagon. Congressional Republicans consider him a traitor. Congressional
Democrats see him as anti-gay and anti-abortion, undercutting their support for
him. And Northeastern Democrats (and some others) worry about his stance on
Israel. Democratic support in the Senate appears more dutiful than passionate.
That said, I don't
think that a Hagel exit would hurt President Obama much. SecDef nominees have
blown up on the launch pad before: Remember John Tower (picked by the first
President Bush) and Bobby Inman (picked by President Clinton to replace Les
Aspin)? Interestingly, both were succeeded as nominees by men who went on to be
very successful stewards of the military establishment: Dick Cheney and William
Perry. Calling Michèle Flournoy?
The prospect of a
Hagel regime at DOD is a real problem now because the next SecDef will need to
do two things: Work with Congress to reduce the defense budget thoughtfully,
and work with the military to re-shape the military to make it relevant to
future conflict. At the moment, Hagel appears to lack the political capital to
do the former, as well as the intellectual appetite to do the latter.
Bottom line: Every
business day that the Senate Armed Services
Committee doesn't vote to send the nomination to the
full Senate, I think the likelihood of Hagel becoming defense secretary
declines by about 2 percent.
If that's the case, there's more bad news for Hagel this Sunday and for John Brennan (pictured, top left) as well: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is placing a hold on all Obama administration national security nominees until the Senate gets some answers about Benghazigate (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). This is a transcript of Graham's appearance a short while ago on CBS' Face the Nation.
BOB SCHIEFFER (HOST): I’m not sure I understand. What do you plan to do if they don’t give you an answer? Are you going to put a hold on these two nominations?
GRAHAM: Yes…How could Susan Rice come on to your
show and say there’s no evidence of a terrorist attack when the
Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said they knew
that night? I think that was a misleading narrative three weeks before
our election.
SCHIEFFER: Let me just make sure, because you’re about to make some
news here, I think. You are saying that you are going to block the
nominations — you’re going to block them from coming to a vote until you
get an answer to this? Now, John McCain has already said he doesn’t
think the Republicans ought to filibuster this. What will you do? You’re
just going to put a hold on it? [...]
GRAHAM: I want to know who changed the talking points. Who
took the references to Al Qaeda out of the talking points given to Susan
Rice? We still don’t know…. I want to know what our president did. What
did he do as commander in chief? Did he ever pick up the phone and call
anybody? I think this is the stuff the country needs to know.
According to the Leftist Media Matters site, the Republicans have (with much evidence) accused President Obama of going AWOL on the night of the attack.
Maybe that second term isn't going to go so easily after all.
Andrew McCarthy has a lengthy piece on why John 'al-Quds' Brennan should not be confirmed as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I urge you to read the whole thing. Here's some of it.
Brennan’s agenda is the antithesis of the intelligence mission. His
goal has been to portray our enemies as a small, unthreatening fringe of
charlatan “violent extremists,” who kill wantonly and are unconnected
to any “legitimate” Islam. Thus, he maintains
for example that the only “legitimate” interpretation of the “tenet of
Islam” known as jihad is: a “holy struggle … to purify oneself or one’s
community.”
Even taken at face value, Brennan’s assertion is absurd. There is
between Islam and the West no common understanding of the good, and thus
no consensus about “purity.” In Islam, to “purify” something means to
make it more compliant with sharia, Islam’s legal code and societal
framework. Sharia is anti-freedom and anti-equality, so to purify
oneself in an Islamic sense would necessarily mean something very
different from what we in the West would think of as struggling to
become a better person.
But there is an even more fundamental reason not to take Brennan’s
remarks at face value: they run afoul of what mainstream Islam itself
says about jihad. Have a look at Reliance of the Traveller,
the popular sharia manual (it is available on Amazon). It is quite
straightforward on the matter: “Jihad means to war against non-Muslims.”
Reliance, you should know, has been expressly endorsed by al-Azhar University in Egypt (Islam’s center of learning since the tenth century) and the International Institute of Islamic Thought
(the Brotherhood’s America-based Islamist think-tank). It is a lot more
authoritative than John Brennan’s wishful meanderings. Maybe the
president actually thinks Brennan knows more about Islam than do these
scholars who have spent their lives steeped in Islamic doctrine and
jurisprudence. I have my doubts … and, judging from the profound
influence of these scholars, so do many millions of Muslims.
In Brennan’s world we’re to believe that holy war is not much
different from the struggle to remember to brush after every meal. In
Brennan’s world, there is also no need to fret over anti-American
terrorists who return to the jihad with alarming regularity once they
are released from Guantanamo Bay. After all, Brennan observes, common
criminals have high recidivism rates, too. Mass-murderers, pick-pockets …
as they say in the administration, “What difference does it make?”
And then there’s the skill of offending our friends while enabling our enemies. Brennan refers
to Jerusalem, the Israeli capital, as “al-Quds.” That is the name used
by Islamists who reject the Jewish state’s right to exist, who claim
Jerusalem and the rest of Israel as their own. In fact, as Brennan
undoubtedly knows, it was Ayatollah Khomeini who denominated Iran’s
annual ritual of anti-Israeli protest as “al-Quds Day.” Moreover, the
Islamic Republic, which has repeatedly vowed to wipe Israel off the map,
calls its most lethal terrorist operatives the “al-Quds” forces.
Brennan’s sense of outrage, unnoticeable in response to slights against a faithful U.S. ally, is instead reserved
for the “ignorant feelings” of Americans riled by jihadist attacks
against our country. For Brennan, Americans’ anger at Islamists, our
perception that the ideology that breeds terrorists is just as much a
problem as the terrorists themselves, is “Islamophobia” – a smear
cleverly concocted by Islamists to deflect examination. Brennan claims
to have seen Islamophobia rear its racist head in the public reaction to
the Fort Hood attack – the worst jihadist mass-murder in America since
9/11, but one the Obama administration prefers to think of as “workplace
violence.”
Brennan claims
that Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanese terror militia, is a “very interesting
organization,” whose “moderate elements” have evolved it from “purely a
terrorist organization” into a political party whose members now serve
in the Lebanese government. This, again, is rose-tinted nonsense,
bespeaking breathtaking ignorance about the history and operations of
jihadists who, until 9/11, had killed more Americans than any other
terror network. Hezbollah has never been “purely a terrorist
organization.” Like the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Brennan-influenced
Obama administration similarly sees as “moderate” (even “largely secular”),
Hezbollah has always seen terrorism as one item in a varied menu. For
three decades, it has also specialized in media campaigns, social
welfare work, lawfare, infiltration of academe, and political activism.
Its objective – again, like the Brotherhood’s – is to advance the
Islamic revolution at the expense of non-Muslims by any method that
shows promise under the circumstances.
Hezbollah is part of the Islamist vanguard waging a global campaign
against liberty. But with their Brennan blinders on, the Obama
administration chooses not to see it. They see “moderates” committed to
participating in a “political process.” This same thinking has led the
administration to issue a visa
to an admitted member of the Blind Sheikh’s terrorist organization (the
Islamic Group) so he could come to the White House with other newly
minted Egyptian “parliamentarians” to discuss U.S. policy in the Middle
East. This mindset also explains why the administration negotiates with the Taliban, just as it negotiated with the terrorists who murdered American troops in Karbala – ultimately releasing the ringleader, Ali Mussa Daqduq.
There may be a place in government, even in the intelligence
community, for discrediting our enemies – for conducting operations that
highlight their excesses and making them appear illegitimate in the
eyes of those whose allegiance they seek to win. There is no place,
however, for deceiving the American people by politicizing intelligence.
That Brennan specialty, an exhaustive effort to miniaturize the threats
against our nation and appease the president’s Islamist allies, is the
antithesis of what we have a CIA for.
...
Chuck Hagel’s confirmation hearing last week only bolstered concerns
that he is utterly unfit to serve as secretary of defense. Yet, some
Republicans have announced that they will vote for him anyway, and some
others who purport to oppose him have signaled that they have no
intention of mounting a filibuster, the only procedure that could derail
him. Consequently, they’ve ensured that he will be confirmed. So let’s
not kid ourselves: Senate Republicans who will let Hagel take control of
the Defense Department, and who just joined Democrats in a 94-3
landslide confirmation of John Kerry – a devotee of Obama’s Muslim
Brotherhood empowerment strategy – are not going to put up a fight over
Brennan.
Some Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Mark Udall of Colorado and Ron Wyden of Oregon, were miffed that John Brennan
had not read the 300-page executive summary of a Senate report on the
CIA's interrogation program before meeting with them recently.
"Not only was he not prepared to
discuss the important findings, but he hadn't reviewed the report at
all," Udall said in a statement last week, adding that he was "deeply
disappointed." The senator said he wanted Brennan
to arrive Thursday prepared to answer questions about the report.
Brennan will, National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said
Monday.
Republicans
plan to grill Brennan about leaks of classified information and the
administration's characterization of the intelligence surrounding
September's attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that
left four Americans dead.
...
"There's no indication of any trouble" for Brennan's confirmation, Vietor said.
John Brennan, President Obama's nominee to be the director of the CIA, argued for government censorship in his graduate school thesis, claiming 'too much freedom is possible' in a discussion of Egypt in 1980 under Anwar Sadat.
“Since the press can play such an influential role in determining the
perceptions of the masses, I am in favor of some degree of government
censorship,” Brennan wrote. “Inflamatory [sic] articles can provoke mass opposition and possible violence, especially in developing political systems.”
...
Brennan ultimately concluded that human rights do not exist because they cannot be “classified as universal.”
“The United States should be expected to pass a more strict human
rights test [than Egypt] because its environment is more conducive to
the realization of those rights,” Brennan concluded. “An economic
comparison between Egypt and one of its wealthy Arab neighbors such as
Saudi Arabia or Kuwait would be equally unfair due to the wealth of
those countries.”
“[T]he stage of economic development and political development have a
direct impact on human rights,” he wrote. “The former enables a
political system to offer its citizens welfare (e.g. health services)
and security (e.g. military defense).”
...
“The fact that absolute human rights do not exist (with the probable
exception of freedom from torture) makes the [human rights] analysis
subject to innumerable conditional criticisms,” he wrote. “The exact
definition of human rights and possible justifications for violations is
determined by a particular perspective. A change in perspective causes a
drastic change in the analysis.”
“Human rights, therefore, does [sic] not take precedence
over all other political goals,” Brennan concluded. “Since absolute
rights do not exist, any attempt by a nation to apply a human rights
test to another nation (e. g. Carter administration human rights policy)
is extremely difficult. Such a policy would be full of inconsistencies
and therefore its implementation would be onerous.”
In other words, Brennan favors double standards. By comparison, here's what the US Declaration of Independence has to say about human rights:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is
the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
Safety and Happiness.
By the way, here's a video of Brennan talking about Hezbullah in 2006. Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Daily Caller).
President Obama has definitely found his ideological soulmates in John FN Kerry (who was confirmed on Tuesday), Chuck Hagel and John Brennan.
The Zionist Organization of America has put together a list of quotes by John 'al-Quds' Brennan, President Hussein Obama's candidate to lead the CIA. These quotes show why Brennan should be as big a concern to supporters of Israel as is Chuck Hagel.
May 2009: Brennan offered a public apologia for the Obama
Administration’s policy of discarding basic, factual terms like ‘radical
Islam,’ ‘Islamism,’ and ‘jihad’ in reference to the war being waged
against America and its allies by Muslim extremists. Addressing
the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Brennan said
that “describing our enemy in religious terms would lend credence to
the lie propagated by al Qaeda and its affiliates to justify terrorism,
that the United States is somehow at war against Islam. The reality, of
course, is that we have never been and will never be at war with Islam.
After all, Islam, like so many faiths, is part of America … Nor do we
describe our enemy as jihadists or Islamists because jihad is holy
struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam meaning to purify oneself of one’s
community” (Rowan Scarborough, ‘Obama at odds with Petraeus doctrine on
“Islam,”’ Washington Times, July 11, 2010).
In August 2009, Brennan again addressing the CSIS, said the Lebanese
terrorist group Hizballah, “started out as purely a terrorist
organization back in the early ’80s and has evolved significantly over
time. And now it has members of parliament, in the cabinet; there are
lawyers, doctors, others who are part of the Hezbollah organization …
Hamas, on the other hand … developed an extremist and terrorist element
to it that, I think, has unfortunately delegitimized it in the eyes of
many.” The Nation contributing editor Robert Dreyfuss also disclosed
that, before assuming his current position as President Obama’s top
counter-terrorist adviser, Brennan told him that talking to Hamas and
Hezbollah is the right thing to do (Robert Dreyfuss, ‘White House
Opening to Hezbollah, Hamas?’ The Nation, August 10, 2009).
December 2009: When would-be underwear bomber Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab nearly brought down a U.S.-bound Northwest Airlines flight
on Christmas Day 2009, Brennan was criticized because British
intelligence authorities had notified their U.S. counterparts of an
“Umar Farouk” meeting with al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, and
Abdulmutallab’s father had warned of his son’s increasing extremism to
CIA officials at the U.S. embassy in Nigeria. However, Abdulmutallab was
never added to the U.S. no-fly list, nor was his U.S. visa revoked.
This led by the House and Senate Intelligence oversight committees to
call for Brennan’s resignation (Patrick Poole, ‘The unprecedented power
has even Obama administration officials worried,’ PJ Media, June 6,
2012).
February 2010, Brennan defended the policy of treating Abdulmutallab
as a criminal by having his rights read to him upon arrest and trying
him in civilian court, rather than transferring the would-be bomber to
military custody as an enemy combatant, claiming during a speech at New
York University’s Law School, that he supported the administration’s
highly unpopular move to try al-Qaeda operations chief Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed in federal court (Joel Gerstein, ‘Brennan, unruffled, talks
terror at NYU,’ Politico, February 28, 2010). In the same speech, he
also referred to Jerusalem by its Arabic name, Al-Quds, saying, “In all
my travels the city I have come to love most is al-Quds, Jerusalem”
(‘Counterterror Adviser Defends Jihad as ‘Legitimate Tenet of Islam,’
Fox News, May 27, 2010).
May 2010, in a speech to the CSIS, Brennan called jihad a “legitimate
tenet of Islam,” arguing that the term “jihadists” should not be used
to describe America’s enemies.” He described violent extremists as
victims of “political, economic and social forces” but said that those
plotting attacks on the U.S. should not be described in “religious
terms” (‘Counterterror Adviser Defends Jihad as ‘Legitimate Tenet of
Islam, Fox News, May 27, 2010).
September 2010: On Brennan’s watch, a top U.S. Hamas official, Kifah
Mustafa, was permitted to tour of the top-secret National
Counterterrorism Center, FBI headquarters in Washington D.C., and the
FBI training academy at Quantico. Mustafa had already been named in 2007
and 2008 as an unindicted coconspirator as a registered agent for Holy
Land Foundation, a Hamas fund-raising front closed by the Bush
administration after the largest terrorism financing prosecution in
American history. Evidence produced in court showed Mustafa to have
participated in a fundraising troupe singing “‘I am a member of Hamas’
as well as other songs glorifying violence and inciting the murder of
Jews” (Patrick Poole, ’10 Failures of the U.S. Government on the
Domestic Terrorism Threat,’ Center for Security Policy, 2010). Following
this, several former top intelligence and defense officials again
called for his resignation (‘National Security Hawks Call for Brennan’s
Resignation,’ Fox News, September 28, 2010).
May 2012: Brennan was implicated in a serious intelligence breach
detailing an ongoing counterterrorism operation led by British and Saudi
intelligence agencies that had placed an operative inside the al-Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) organization. The White House leak
forced the termination of the operation and the immediate withdrawal of
the double agent (‘Exclusive: Did White House “spin” tip a covert op?,’
Reuters, May 18, 2012).
With Brennan as director of the CIA, what could go wrong?
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
