Tag Archives: John O. Brennan

Ignoring The Statements Of Those Who Want To Harm Us

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Yesterday the Washington Times posted an article about a statement CIA Director nominee John Brennan. Mr. Brennen stated, “Jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community, and there’s nothing holy, legitimate, or Islamic about murdering innocent men and women….Nor do we describe our enemy as jihadists or Islamists.”

The article points out that Mr. Brennan’s statement is at odds with the statements made by those who lead the jihadists.

The article reports:

Osama bin Laden described his war against the United States as a jihad as early as March 1997, when he told CNN that “we have declared jihad against the U.S., because in our religion it is our duty to make jihad so that God’s word is the one exalted to the heights.”

The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, wrote in a pamphlet titled “Jihad” that “Many Muslims today mistakenly believe that fighting the enemy is jihad asghar (a lesser jihad) and that fighting one’s ego is jihad akbar (a greater jihad).” The present spiritual adviser of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, writes in his book, “Fiqh of Jihad,” that Muslims may engage in violent jihad against Israel.

If your next door neighbor continually threatens you, do you ignore the threats or do you pay attention and at least take defensive action? It seems that Mr. Brennan would choose to ignore the threats.

Sun Tzu is quoted as saying, “Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.” That is one of the basic rules of war. Whether we like it or not, we are at war. The Islamists have made that clear. We can put someone in charge of the CIA who is in touch with  reality or we can put someone in charge who will ignore reality.

I believe that John Brennan’s statements, as well as some of his past military actions outside the chain of command (see rightwinggranny.com) should disqualify him for the position of Director of the CIA. Unfortunately I believe he will be confirmed and his appointment will put America at risk.

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Some Interesting Information About Benghazi

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The U. K. Daily Mail reported today:

‘Benghazi: The Definitive Report,’ published by William Morrow and Company, is due out in e-book on Tuesday. The authors, Webb and Murphy, are editors of SOFREP.com, a site devoted to news and stories written by current and former special operations commandos.

The book makes a lot of interesting charges about the fall from grace of General David Petraeus and exactly who orchestrated that fall, but it makes some even more interesting charges against CIA Director nominee John Brennan.

The article reports:

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.

This is disturbing. The idea that there were ‘unilateral operations in North Africa outside of the traditional command structure’ is highly questionable. I don’t have a problem with the concept of secrecy, but the President is not entitled to run his own private army operations outside the structure of command. This is clearly unconstitutional. Not to inform the people who would be ultimately impacted by these operations is unthinkable.

The article further reports:

Webb and Murphy said they wrote the book to reveal ‘the truth’ behind the attack. They say news accounts of the incident have often been inaccurate because journalists have not had inside access to the people who were on the ground at the time.

The authors have been frustrated, they say, by politicians who have attempted to twist the facts of the case to suit their own ends. Conservatives sought to use the attack as an election issue and place the blame on Obama.

Democrats and the Obama administration have worked to deflect responsibility and downplay the warning signs that were present before the consulate was raided.

Webb and Murphy claim that the ‘inside’ story of the attack – as told by their connections in the CIA and special operations units of the military – show that Brennan never warned the CIA or Stevens about ongoing U.S. military operations in the country.

Had the State Department and the intelligence community known about what was happening, they would have stepped up security in Benghazi and could have prevented the tragedy.

The entire article makes me wonder about the fitness of John Brennan to be Secretary of Defense.

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Changes In The American Drone Policy

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Last week Kimberly Dozier, an Associated Press intelligence writer, posted an article at Google.com about recent changes in the American drone policy. The changes alter the process of targeting terrorist leaders for drone attacks that had been in effect since 2009. The changes swap the old military-run review process for a new process which involves consulting the State Department, the Pentagon, and other agencies when compiling a list of drone targets. White House counter-terror chief John Brennan‘s staff oversees the process.

The article reports:

Previously, targets were first discussed in meetings run by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen at the time, with Brennan being just one of the voices in the debate.

The new Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey, has been more focused on shrinking the U.S. military as the Afghan war winds down and less on the covert wars overseas.

With Dempsey less involved, Brennan believed there was an even greater need to draw together different agencies’ viewpoints, showing the American public that al-Qaida targets are chosen only after painstaking and exhaustive debate, the senior administration official said.

But some of the officials carrying out the policy are equally leery of “how easy it has become to kill someone,” one said. The U.S. is targeting al-Qaida operatives for reasons such as being heard in an intercepted conversation plotting to attack a U.S. ambassador overseas, the official said. Stateside, that conversation could trigger an investigation by the Secret Service or FBI.

Defense Department spokesman George Little said the department was “entirely comfortable with the process by which American counterterrorism operations are managed.

The CIA did not respond to a request for comment.

I am not particularly comfortable with the new arrangement. The State Department has different goals than the military, and in the past they have not hesitated to work against the interests of a President they disagreed with philosophically. I also don’t like the idea of putting an unelected, unaccountable civilian person in charge of a military program. We need to remember that the drone program is a targeted assassination program–it is being used to kill terrorists. It also eliminates the possibility of capturing terrorists and gathering intelligence from them.

 

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