Tag Archives: Andrew C. McCarthy

The Insurance Policy

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Andrew McCarthy posted an article at The National Review today titled, “Was the Steele Dossier the FBI’s ‘Insurance Policy’?” It is a rather lengthy article, and I strongly suggest that you follow the link and read the entire article. However, there are two sections of the article that I think tell the whole story.

The article states:

The Obama-era FBI and Justice Department had great faith in Steele because he had previously collaborated with the bureau on a big case. Plus, Steele was working on the Trump-Russia project with the wife of a top Obama Justice Department official, who was personally briefed by Steele. The upper ranks of the FBI and DOJ strongly preferred Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, to the point of overlooking significant evidence of her felony misconduct, even as they turned up the heat on Trump. In sum, the FBI and DOJ were predisposed to believe the allegations in Steele’s dossier. Because of their confidence in Steele, because they were predisposed to believe his scandalous claims about Donald Trump, they made grossly inadequate efforts to verify his claims. Contrary to what I hoped would be the case, I’ve come to believe Steele’s claims were used to obtain FISA surveillance authority for an investigation of Trump.

There were layers of insulation between the Clinton campaign and Steele — the campaign and the Democratic party retained a law firm, which contracted with Fusion GPS, which in turn hired the former spy. At some point, though, perhaps early on, the FBI and DOJ learned that the dossier was actually a partisan opposition-research product. By then, they were dug in. No one, after all, would be any the wiser: Hillary would coast to victory, so Democrats would continue running the government; FISA materials are highly classified, so they’d be kept under wraps. Just as it had been with the Obama-era’s Fast and Furious and IRS scandals, any malfeasance would remain hidden.

The best laid schemes . . . gang aft agley.

I honestly don’t know if President Trump is going to be able to drain the swamp, but the above statement makes it obvious that had Hillary Clinton become President, the swamp would only have gotten bigger.

The article concludes:

In conclusion, while there is a dearth of evidence to date that the Trump campaign colluded in Russia’s cyberespionage attack on the 2016 election, there is abundant evidence that the Obama administration colluded with the Clinton campaign to use the Steele dossier as a vehicle for court-authorized monitoring of the Trump campaign — and to fuel a pre-election media narrative that U.S. intelligence agencies believed Trump was scheming with Russia to lift sanctions if he were elected president. Congress should continue pressing for answers, and President Trump should order the Justice Department and FBI to cooperate rather than — what’s the word? — resist.

Our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves.

 

 

Don’t Get Lost In The False Narrative

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As I sit here writing this post, I am listening to the news. The news is telling me that a number of Democrats will not attend the inauguration of President Trump because they feel that he is an illegitimate President. Hopefully most Americans realize how ridiculous this charge is. However, there is a full-blown effort by the media and the political left to undermine Donald Trump before he is even sworn in as President.

Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review yesterday detailing one aspect of the attack on soon-to-be President Trump. The article deals with the strategy behind the Justice Department Inspector General’s review of some aspects of the Justice Department’s handing of the Hillary Clinton email scandal. Mr. McCarthy explains how the parameters of this investigation will make sure the investigation determines exactly what the political left wants the investigation to determine. It is important to note that the investigation will not look into the meeting between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch on the tarmac in Arizona during the Justice Department investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private server. They will not look into immunity granted to witnesses and evidence destroyed during the original investigation. They will not look at ways in which Mrs. Clinton‘s private server compromised national security. So what is going on here?

The article explains:

The aim is obvious: If Comey’s statements were against protocol, then they will be portrayed as violations that caused Clinton to lose — the argument will be that Trump’s victory was as razor thin as it gets, Clinton decisively won the popular vote, so surely Comey’s impropriety is what swung the few thousand votes Clinton would have needed in key states to win in the Electoral College. Therefore, the narrative goes: Trump’s victory, and thus his presidency, is illegitimate.

…The Democrats erase your first argument by reducing the whole election down to the e-mails investigation, such that Mrs. Clinton’s many other flaws as a candidate do not matter. The Democrats erase your second argument by making sure the IG investigation focuses on James Comey, not on Hillary Clinton’s crimes and the Justice Department’s outrageous machinations to make sure she was not prosecuted for those crimes.
There you have it. The public’s perception of Trump’s legitimacy may hinge on the public’s understanding of the Justice Department inspector-general’s probe. The Democrats fully grasp this and are lining things up so that they’ll win before Republicans even realize the game is on.

I hope most Americans will see through this dog and pony show. It is really sad that the political left is doing everything it can to damage the Presidency of Donald Trump even before he is sworn in. If Donald Trump is such a horrible person with such bad ideas, why not just sit back and wait for him to fail? It is disheartening to hear politicians on the left repeating charges that have no proof behind them as if they were fact. Unfortunately I think this is going to get worse. The only cure for the lying media is for Americans to stop listening to the mainstream media and their lies. Maybe at that point, the mainstream media will realize that it is in their best interests (and the interests of America) to report the truth.

A Religion Of Peace?

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The February issue of Imprimis (a publication of Hillsdale College) features an article by Andrew C. McCarthy. Mr. McCarthy was Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, and from 1993-95. He led the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. Following the 9/11 attacks, he supervised the Justice Department’s command post near Ground Zero.

These are a few highlights from the article:

…when I was assigned to lead the prosecution of a terrorist cell that had bombed the World Trade Center and was plotting an even more devastating strike—simultaneous attacks on the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the United Nations complex on the East River, and the FBI’s lower Manhattan headquarters—I had no trouble believing what our government was saying: that we should read nothing into the fact that all the men in this terrorist cell were Muslims; that their actions were not representative of any religion or belief system; and that to the extent they were explaining their atrocities by citing Islamic scripture, they were twisting and perverting one of the world’s great religions, a religion that encourages peace.

Unlike commentators and government press secretaries, I had to examine these claims. Prosecutors don’t get to base their cases on assertions. They have to prove things to commonsense Americans who must be satisfied about not only what happened but why it happened before they will convict people of serious crimes. And in examining the claims, I found them false.

Mr. McCarthy goes on to explain that although Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman was severely physically handicapped, he was the unquestioned leader of the terror cell that bombed the World Trade Center and was planning a number of attacks in the New York City area. The Blind Sheik (as he was known) freely quoted Islamic scripture to justify his actions. When peaceful Muslims were asked about these scriptures, they replied that they were not competent to interpret them. In other words, the Blind Sheik, whose goal was the killing infidels, was considered the standard for Islamic interpretation.

The article concludes:

The dangerous flipside to our government’s insistence on making up its own version of Islam is that anyone who is publicly associated with Islam must be deemed peaceful. This is how we fall into the trap of allowing the Muslim Brotherhood, the world’s most influential Islamic supremacist organization, to infiltrate policy-making organs of the U.S. government, not to mention our schools, our prisons, and other institutions. The federal government, particularly under the Obama administration, acknowledges the Brotherhood as an Islamic organization—notwithstanding the ham-handed attempt by the intelligence community a few years back to rebrand it as “largely secular”—thereby giving it a clean bill of health. This despite the fact that Hamas is the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch, that the Brotherhood has a long history of terrorist violence, and that major Brotherhood figures have gone on to play leading roles in terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda.

To quote Churchill again:  “Facts are better than dreams.” In the real world, we must deal with the facts of Islamic supremacism, because its jihadist legions have every intention of dealing with us. But we can only defeat them if we resolve to see them for what they are.

Our government has chosen to ignore the threat of radical Islam.  In doing this, the government risks the safety of all Americans. It is time to tell the truth about a group of people who want to kill us. They do not belong in our government, and we need to admit who they are and what their goals are. To do otherwise is to commit national suicide.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is very enlightening.

Hiring The Best Talent

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Newsmax reported yesterday that Presidential candidate Ted Cruz has chosen his national security team. The team includes former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, former Missouri Sen. Jim Talent and former U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy.

The article lists other members of the team:

  • Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Health and Human Serves and general counsel of the National Security Agency.
  • Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council.
  • Retired Army Lt. General William Boykin, executive vice president of the Family Research Council.
  • Fred Fleitz, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst.
  • Randy Fort, who has served in senior intelligence positions in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations.
  • Frank Gaffney Jr., president and CEO of the Center for Security Policy.
  • Nile Gardiner, a former aide to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
  • Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
  • Katharine Gorka, president of the Council on Global Security.
  • Steven Groves, a senior research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
  • Mary Habeck, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
  • Kristofer Harrison, a co-founder of the China Beige Book who once served in the George W. Bush White House.
  • Jerry Hendrix, a retired Navy captain.
  • Michael Ledeen, an author who serves at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
  • Clare Lopez, a vice president at the Center for Security Policy.
  • Robert O’Brien, a partner at the Larson O’Brien LLP law firm in Los Angeles.
  • Michael Pillsbury, who was a Reagan campaign advisor in 1980.
  • Charles Stimson, the senior legal fellow and manager of National Security Law Program at the Heritage Foundation.
  • Daniel Vajdich, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
  • Christian Whiton, a former State Department senior advisor in the Bush administration.

There are a few of these team members I have personally met, and I am totally impressed by this team. I am impressed by the fact that this team is knowledgeable and pro-Israel. The relationship between America and Israel has been strained under President Obama, and I believe this team will work to repair that relationship. I am also impressed with the inclusion of Frank Gaffney, Jr., Clare Lopez, and Retired Army Lt. General William Boykin in this team. All of them are well-versed on the Middle East and the threat of radical Islam. This national security team would do an excellent job of handling threats to America. They are all amazing people.

When We Ignore The Words Of Those Who Know…

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PJ Media posted an article by Andrew McCarthy today about last night’s events in Paris. Mr. McCarthy references an article he wrote after the Charlie Hebdo attacks called Islam and Free Speech which is part of a series published by Encounter Books.

The following is from that article:

How did we get to this historical anomaly in France where, as the estimable scholar Daniel Pipes observes, “a majority population accepts the customs and even the criminality of a poorer and weaker community”? It is the result of a conquest ideology taking the measure of a civilization that no longer values its heritage, no longer regards itself as worthy of defense.

France’s population of 66 million is now approximately 10 percent Islamic. Estimates are sketchy because, in a vestige of its vanishing secularist tradition, France does not collect census data about religious affiliation. Still, between 6 and 7 million Muslims are reasonably believed to be resident in the country (Pew put the total at 4.7 million back in 2010 – other analysts peg it higher today). To many in France, the number seems higher, due to both the outsize influence of Islamist activists on the political class and the dense Muslim communities in and around Paris – approximating 15 percent of the local population. An online poll conducted by Ipsos Mosi in 2014 found that the average French citizen believes Muslims make up about a third of the country’s population.

When refugees assimilate, there is no problem. When refugees refuse to assimilate, there is a problem.

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, A Qatar-based Egyptian octogenarian, is a Muslim Brotherhood icon. He is considered the world’s most influential sharia jurist. He has stated:

Were we to convince Western leaders and decision-makers of our right to live according to our faith — ideologically, legislatively, and ethically — without imposing our views or inflicting harm upon them, we would have traversed an immense barrier in our quest for an Islamic state.

The article at PJ Media states:

The key to the conquest strategy is to coerce the West into accepting a Muslim right to resist assimilation, to regard sharia as superseding Western law and custom when the two conflict. For precisely this reason, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation – a bloc of 56 Muslim countries (plus the Palestinian Authority) – has decreed that “Muslims should not be marginalized or attempted to be assimilated, but should be accommodated.” Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Islamist president of Turkey who has systematically dismantled that country’s secular, pro-Western system, similarly pronounces that pressuring Muslims to assimilate in the West “is a crime against humanity.”

Free expression is the gateway to assimilation. Consequently, radical Islam cannot tolerate it.

France has had “no go zones” for years–places where non-Muslims are not welcome. These zones are places where jihadist activity can flourish without restraint.

The article concludes:

Some of these zones inevitably evolve into hotbeds of jihadist activity. As the Gatestone Institute’s Soeren Kern notes, there has been no shortage of Internet traffic suggesting, for example, “the killing of France’s ambassadors, just as the manly Libyan fighters killed the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi.” In a low-intensity jihadist thrum stretching back several years, the torching of automobiles has become a commonplace – as many as 40,000 cars burned annually. Perhaps most alarmingly, over a thousand French Muslims, more than from any other Western country, are estimated to have traveled to Syria to fight for ISIS – meaning many will return to the country as trained, battle-hardened jihadists. Beyond the direct ISIS participants, moreover, the Washington Post has reported that a recent poll found 16 percent of French citizens expressing some degree of support for ISIS – an organization whose rule over the vast territory it has seized is best known for decapitations, rapine, the execution of homosexuals, mass graves, and the enslavement of non-Muslim communities.

Once one grasps the voluntary apartheid strategy, it becomes obvious why radical Islam’s inroads in France, and elsewhere in Europe, seamlessly translate into demands for the enforcement of sharia’s curbs on speech and artistic expression. What is not so obvious is just how profound a challenge to the West this constitutes.

Western civilization is in a war for its survival. The question is whether or not we will fight that war. Whether we fight that war or not, the jihadists will fight it.

We need to pray for France, but we also need to pray for western civilization. That is what is on the line.

The Threat

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Andrew McCarthy posted an article in National Review yesterday about the shootings in Texas at the Draw Mohammed event.

The conclusion of the article is the most important point:

You may not like the provocateurs’ methods. Personally, I am not a fan of gratuitous insult, which can antagonize pro-Western Muslims we want on our side. But let’s not make too much of that. Muslims who really are pro-Western already know, as Americans overwhelmingly know, that being offended is a small price to pay to live in a free society. We can bristle at an offense and still grasp that we do not want the offense criminalized.
It would be easy, in our preening gentility, to look down our noses at a Mohammed cartoon contest. But we’d better understand the scope of the threat the contest was meant to raise our attention to — a threat triggered by ideology, not cartoons. There is in our midst an Islamist movement that wants to suppress not only insults to Islam but all critical examination of Islam. That movement is delighted to leverage the atmosphere of intimidation created by violent jihadists, and it counts the current United States government among its allies.

The First Amendment does not give you the right not to be offended. It is almost guaranteed that if the First Amendment is followed you will be offended at some point. That is not the point. The point is that in a free society, everyone has the same right of free speech. If the Muslims who live in America cannot accept free speech, they need to return to a place where it is not honored. If we cave into the threat of violence, then we are in danger of losing our First Amendment rights.

A Voice Of Wisdom Crying In The Darkness

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According to the website AndrewCMcCarthy.com:

Andy is a former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York, best known for leading the prosecution against the Blind Sheik (Omar Abdel Rahman) and eleven other jihadists for waging a terrorist war against the United States – including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. After the 9/11 attacks, he supervised the U.S. attorney’s command-post near Ground Zero. He later served as an advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of hearing Mr. McCarthy speak in Massachusetts. At that time he explained his approach to prosecuting the Blind Sheik. He explained that his staff began to look at the writings of Islamic scholars in an effort to provide that the Blind Sheik was acting outside of the tenets of Islam. Unfortunately, as the investigation of those tenets progressed, the evidence pointed to the fact that the Blind Sheik was actually following the tenets of Islam.

In a National Review Online article written today, Mr. McCarthy again explains how Islam is in agreement with the recent attack in Paris. He explains that the attack was not the result of extremism–it was in keeping with the basic tenets of Islam.

The article begins:

There are now at least twelve confirmed dead in the terrorist attack carried out by at least three jihadist gunmen against the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo. While it practices equal-opportunity satire, lampooning Islam has proved lethal for the magazine, just as it has for so many others who dare to exercise the bedrock Western liberty of free expression. Charlie Hebdo’s offices were firebombed in 2011 over a caricature of Mohammed that depicted him saying, “100 lashes if you don’t die from laughter.”

The cartoon was obviously referring to sharia, Islam’s legal code and totalitarian framework. Don’t take my word for it. Just flip through Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, the authoritative sharia manual. You will find a number of offenses for which flagellation is the prescribed penalty.

The article explains that Reliance of the Traveller is a renowned explication of sharia’s provisions and their undeniable roots in Muslim scripture.

The article states:

In the English translation, before you get to chapter and verse, there are formal endorsements, including one from the International Institute of Islamic Thought — a U.S.-based Muslim Brotherhood think tank begun in the early Eighties (and to which American administrations of both parties have resorted as an exemplar of “moderation”). Perhaps more significantly, there is also an endorsement from the Islamic Research Academy at al Azhar University, the ancient seat of Sunni learning to which President Obama famously turned to co-sponsor his cloyingly deceptive 2009 speech on relations between Islam and the West.

In their endorsement, the al-Azhar scholars wrote:

We certify that the . . . translation corresponds to the Arabic original and conforms to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni Community. . . . There is no objection to printing it and circulating it. . . . May Allah give you success in serving Sacred Knowledge and the religion.

There could be no more coveted stamp of scholarly approval in Islam.

Reliance of the Traveller is the definitive interpretation of Islamic scripture. So what does Reliance of the Traveller say about the kind of attack that occurred in Paris?

The article quotes Reliance of the Traveller:

Apostasy from Islam is “the ugliest form of unbelief” for which the penalty is death (“When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed”). (Reliance o8.0 & ff.)

Apostasy occurs not only when a Muslim renounces Islam but also, among other things, when a Muslim appears to worship an idol, when he is heard “to speak words that imply unbelief,” when he makes statements that appear to deny or revile Allah or the prophet Mohammed, when he is heard “to deny the obligatory character of something which by consensus of Muslims is part of Islam,” and when he is heard “to be sarcastic about any ruling of the Sacred Law.” (Reliance o8.7; see also p9.0 & ff.)

Please follow the link to the article at National Review Online to see what other teachings are part of basic Islamic law. According to the laws of Islam, terrorism is not extreme–it is a basic tenet of Islam.

The terrorists were doing exactly what Reliance of the Traveller told them to do to punish apostasy. Whether the western world chooses to believe that or not, it is a fact. We had better accept that fact quickly or we will either lose the right to free speech or deal with similar attacks in the near future. The choice is ours.

 

This Isn’t Going Away

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This is a copy of a letter posted at the Center for Security Policy. The letter was written to Representative Trey Gowdy, Chairman House Select Committee on Benghazi and signed by a group of American leaders seeking the truth about the attack on the CIA Annex in Benghazi.

This is the letter:

October 10, 2014

Hon. Trey Gowdy
Chairman
House Select Committee on Benghazi
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Mr. Chairman:

As you are well aware, on May 8, 2014, the House of Representatives adopted H. Res. 567 “Providing for the Establishment of the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi, Libya”. With the publication this week of former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s book, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leaders in War and Peace, the need for such an inquiry has become both indisputable and even more urgent.

In particular, it is clear that there is more – and likely much more – that has yet to be established about the murderous September 11, 2012 jihadist attack on American facilities in Benghazi and those assigned to them. Indeed, former Secretary Panetta is providing an account of the Benghazi attacks that differs dramatically from what President Obama and his spokesmen presented in the hours, days and weeks after the attack.

For example, when shown a video clip of the former security contractors who defended the CIA Annex, who described how they were told to stand down that night by their superiors, Mr. Panetta agreed that Congress needed to investigate their story. Secretary Panetta has claimed that he set in motion a number of military units that night. Why was none of them directed to actually reach Benghazi? Who gave the ultimate order to U.S. military forces not to come to the rescue of our people in Benghazi that night? Was it the Secretary of State? The President? Or someone else? If so, on whose authority?

In addition, Mr. Panetta is saying in the course of his book tour that he disagreed with the assessment of CIA Director David Petraeus that the attacks were a demonstration turned violent. But what was the source of Gen. Petraeus’ assessment, since we know from other congressional committees that the CIA station chief in Tripoli was emailing the Director’s deputy, Mike Morell, within 48 hours of the attacks, telling him emphatically there had been no demonstration in Benghazi that night?

The need for full accountability for what really happened in Benghazi – and to establish how to prevent such murderous attacks on our foreign missions in the future – has taken on even greater urgency in light of recent developments with ominous implications for American diplomats, military personnel and security contractors overseas. These include:

  • This summer, we had to evacuate our embassy in Tripoli, Libya because of threatening jihadist operations there.
  • This week, our embassy in Sanaa, Yemen has come under attack – reportedly putting another 80 Americans at risk from jihadists who are openly boasting of their plans to kill Americans.
  • Should Baghdad fall to the Islamic State in coming weeks or, more likely, the Green Zone come under enemy fire, some1000 of our countrymen and women could be at risk.

Has our government learned the lessons of Benghazi? Does it have actionable plans in place that will provide for the defense of our embassies and people in Sanaa or Baghdad?

We believe that Congress has a responsibility to get to the bottom of such questions as a matter of the utmost urgency. Otherwise, more American lives may be on the line and needlessly lost.

Clearly, the fact that the House of Representatives is in recess is not an impediment to holding hearings in the immediate future as you and other Members of Congress have been returning to Washington in recent days to hold high-profile hearings concerning a Secret Service scandal and the spread of Ebola. It strains credulity that Congress cannot find time for hearings about an act of war in which four Americans – including our ambassador – were killed, with many others seriously wounded as sovereign American territory was attacked by terrorist enemies determined to murder more of us. We know for a fact that the Islamic State, al Qaeda, Iran and a growing universe of jihadists are busy plotting to create more Benghazis, here and elsewhere.

What is the select congressional committee doing to prevent that?

We respectfully request that you make plain to the American people, who are seeking the truth and anxious to avoid any repetition of Benghazi that might arise from its continued suppression, that you will promptly secure the testimony under oath of Secretary Panetta and the other principals and key subordinates who have first-hand knowledge of the events that took place on the night of the 11th of September. In light of the stakes, hearings for this purpose should be held this month, not weeks and weeks from now.

Sincerely (signatories as of 4:15 PM DST – 10/10/14),

  • Andrew C. McCarthy, Chairman, Benghazi Accountability Coalition
  • Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President & CEO, Center for Security Policy
  • Charles Woods, Father of Ty Woods, victim of 9/11/2012 terror attack in Benghazi
  • Michael Ingmire, Musician, Writer, Activist, Uncle of Sean Smith, victim of 9/11/2012 terror attack in Benghazi
  • Allen Roth, President, Secure America Now
  • Sandy Rios,  Director of Governmental Affairs for AFA
  • Paul Caprio, Director of Family Pac Federal
  • Kenneth Blackwell, former U.S. ambassador, UN Human Rights Commission
  • Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com
  • Dick Brauer, Colonel, US Air Force (Retired), Co-Founder of Special Operations Speaks and member, Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • Ken Benway, Lieutenant Colonel, US Army (Retired), Co-Founder of Special Operations Speaks
  • Dennis B. Haney, Lietenant Colonel, US Air Force (Retired), Special Operations Speaks
  • Daniel W. (Jake) Jacobowitz, Political-Military Consultant
  • Andrea Lafferty, President, Traditional Values Coalition
  • Rev. Lou Sheldon, Chairman & Founder, Traditional Values Coalition
  • Thomas McInerney, Lieutenant General, USAF (Retired), Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • Wayne V. Morris, Colonel, US Marine Corps, (Retired), Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • Kevin M. Shipp, Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • Charles Jones, Brigadier General, US Air Force (Retired), Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • John A. Shaw, Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • Clare Lopez, Vice President, Center for Security Policy
  • Joseph E. Schmitz, Former Inspector General of the Department of Defense
  • Tera Dahl, Executive Director, Council on Global Security
  • Brigitte Gabriel, Founder & CEO, ACT for America
  • Anita MonCrief, Advisory Board Member , Black Conservatives Fund 
  • Elaine Donnelly, President, Center for Military Readiness
  • Allen B. West, Lieutenant Colonel, US Army (Retired)
  • Fred Fleitz, Former CIA analyst and Senior Fellow, Center for Security Policy
  • Roger Noriega, former US Assistant Secretary of State and Ambassador to the OAS
  • Henry F. Cooper, Ambassador and former Chief U.S. Negotiator at the Defense and Space Talks and former Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative
  • Paul E Vallely, Major General, US Army (Retired), Chairman, Stand Up America
  • Roger Aronoff, Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • William G. “Jerry” Boykin, Lt. General, US Army Special Forces Command (Retired)
  • James A. “Ace” Lyons, Admiral, US Navy (Retired), President/CEO, LION Associates, LLC
  • Dr. Ron Crews, CH, Colonel, US Army (Retired), Executive Director, Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty
  • C. Preston Noell III, President, Tradition, Family, Property, Inc.
  • Kenneth R. Timmerman, Author, Dark Forces:  The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi
  • David N. Bossie, President, Citizens United
  • Ginni Thomas, President, Liberty Consulting, LLC
  • John Fonte, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute

The list of people who have signed this letter is an indication of the concern about the seeming cover-up of the events in Benghazi. It is time for the truth to come out.

 

Leadership Comes From The Top

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Andrew C. McCarthy posted a very interesting article at National Review today about the investigations into the attack in Benghazi. Mr. McCarthy is the former federal prosecutor who prosecuted the Blind Sheik after the World Trade Center bombing. He is one of the most authoritative writers anywhere on the dangers of Jihad. During the time he was building the case against the Blind Sheik, he did extensive research on the teachings on Islam and is a very reliable source on terrorism.

Mr. McCarthy has a rather unique take on the investigation surrounding Benghazi:

All of that being the case, I am puzzled why so little attention has been paid to the Obama-Clinton phone call at 10 p.m. on the night of September 11.

Mr. McCarthy reports:

We have heard almost nothing about what Obama was doing that night. Back in February, though, CNS News did manage to pry one grudging disclosure out of White House mendacity mogul Jay Carney: “At about 10 p.m., the president called Secretary Clinton to get an update on the situation.”

Obviously, it is not a detail Carney was anxious to share. Indeed, it contradicted an earlier White House account that claimed the president had not spoken with Clinton or other top administration officials that night.

The article reminds us of the timing of that call and the subsequent statements regarding the source and cause of the attack:

We do not have a recording of this call, and neither Clinton nor the White House has described it beyond noting that it happened. But we do know that, just a few minutes after Obama called Clinton, the Washington press began reporting that the State Department had issued a statement by Clinton regarding the Benghazi attack. In it, she asserted:

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation.

Gee, what do you suppose Obama and Clinton talked about in that 10 p.m. call?

Mr. McCarthy notes that CNS News asked Jay Carney if Mrs. Clinton’s statement was discussed during the call, and Jay Carney declined to answer.

It seems as if the 10 pm phone call would be the ‘smoking gun’ everyone seems to have successfully avoided finding.

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Form 86

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Andrew C. McCarthy posted an article today at The Corner at the National Review about the confirmation hearing for Chuck Hagel. The mainstream media is doing a pretty consistent job of criticizing Senator Ted Cruz for his questioning of Senator Hagel–even going so far as to call up their favorite slander–McCarthyism.

The article reports:

Cruz made much of the fact that, in connection with his nomination to be secretary of defense, Hagel refused to disclose to the committee all compensation he has received in excess of $5,000 over the last five years, the point being to probe Hagel’s connections to foreign governments and their agents — Hagel already being known to have troublesome ties to outfits like the National Iranian American Council, which is the Islamo-fascist Iranian regime’s pom-pom squad.

The article goes on to report that Form 86, a lengthy questionnaire candidates for any governmental national security position have to fill out, has to be filled out for much less important jobs than Secretary of Defense.

The article reports:

Have a look at the form (here), and in particular at pages 59–83. It is a searching inquiry into every conceivable aspect of the candidate’s connections to and financial entanglements with foreign countries and their agents — and that’s only after similarly exacting questions earlier in the form about the candidate’s family connections to foreign countries and their agents (a topic we discussed back when Democrats, as well as some leading Republicans like Senator John McCain, were making similarly ridiculous “McCarthyism” allegations about inquiries into the Islamist connections of Huma Abedin, top adviser to former Secretary of State Clinton).

The Senate’s job is to advise and consent. They are supposed to ask the hard questions. Unfortunately, they rarely do, that’s why Ted Cruz is being accused of everything except murder (give them time!).

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Some Sanity In An Insane World

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Andrew McCarthy posted an article today at National Review Online today about the recent events in Afghanistan following the accidental burning of some Korans.

The article points out:

The facts are that the Korans were seized at a jail because jihadists imprisoned there were using them not for prayer but to communicate incendiary messages. The soldiers dispatched to burn refuse from the jail were not the officials who had seized the books, had no idea they were burning Korans, and tried desperately to retrieve the books when the situation was brought to their attention.

Mr. McCarthy also reminds us:

Also understand this: In sharia societies, non-Muslim religious articles are confiscated and destroyed every single day as a matter of policy. In Saudi Arabia, where sharia is the law of the land, where Mecca and Medina are closed to non-Muslims, government guidelines prohibit Jews and Christians from bringing Bibles, crucifixes, Stars of David, and similar artifacts emblematic of their faith into the country. When that prohibition is violated, the offending items are seized and burned or otherwise destroyed. Moreover, though Saudis deny having an official policy that bans Jews from entering the country at all, reports are rampant of travelers’ being denied visas either because they are Jewish or because their passports bear stamps indicative of prior travel to Israel.

The riots and killings that followed the burning incident were not justified. They should not be acceptable in a civilized society. Apologizing for them simply makes them appear justified. Where is the apology for the Americans killed?

The riots and killings are a part of Sharia Law. When we apologize for someone else’s bad behavior, we are honoring Sharia Law. Since Sharia Law is in direct contradiction to a free society and human rights, that is not something we actually want to do.

Mr. McCarthy concludes:

At the very least, our immigration laws should exclude entry from Muslim-majority countries unless and until those countries expressly repeal repressive sharia laws (e.g., the death penalty for apostates) and adopt American standards of non-discrimination against, tolerance of, and protection for religious minorities.

If you really want to promote freedom in Islamic countries, an immigration policy based on civil-rights reciprocity would be a lot more effective, and a lot less expensive, than dispatching tens of thousands of troops to build sharia “democracies.” It would also protect Americans from people whose countries and cultures have not prepared them for the obligations of citizenship in a free society.

Andrew McCarthy led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others. The defendants were convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and planning a series of attacks against New York City landmarks.He also contributed to the prosecutions of terrorists who bombed US embassies in  Kenya and Tanzania. In prosecuting the case in the World Trade Center bombing, he studied closely the teachings of Islam to determine if terrorism was an aberration of the religion or an integral part of it. He concluded that the concept of jihad encouraged terrorism.

He knows what he is talking about.

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