Tag Archives: Secretary of State Antony Blinken

Looking For The Root Causes

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On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted the following headline:

Biden Admin Still Working On ‘Root Causes’ Of Immigration Crisis As Border Crossings Remain At Record High

Is O.J. Simpson still looking for his wife’s killer?

The article reports:

Top officials from the Biden administration and the Mexican government met Thursday to discuss their work on border security, as illegal border crossings and cross-border drug trafficking remain at historically high levels.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard and Mexican Security Secretary Rosa Rodriguez held a press conference after meeting in Washington on Thursday to tout their progress on reining in drug trafficking, human smuggling and illegal arms sales across the southern border.

The Biden administration has continued to stress that it is focused on addressing the “root causes” of the border crisis, but the fruit of that labor isn’t evident to Americans yet.

Has it occurred to the Biden administration that one of the root causes of the border crisis might be that fact that there is no border wall to make crossing the border more difficult?

The article concludes:

Further complicating matters, the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico isn’t entirely copasetic. One journalist asked Blinken and Ebrard about recent comments from Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blaming President Joe Biden for a “lack of control” at the southern border and criticizing the West for shipping arms to Ukraine.

Mexico has also blamed the U.S. for cartel gun smuggling. Blinken said the comments and actions gave him no doubts about the strength of the U.S. relationship with Mexico and the two countries’ ability to continue working together. But as the administration continues to stress the long game, polls show that Americans’ immigration concerns aren’t fading.

The cartels are currently controlling America’s southern border. That is not good for either Mexico or America. If the Biden administration were to come up with a workable plan to control the border, I suspect that Mexico would be willing to cooperate with that plan.

Does This Make Sense To Anyone?

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President Biden’s energy policies have been a disaster for America and for the world. We are no longer exporting enough fuel to Europe to counter the influence of the Russian oil and natural gas sales. We are no longer a net exporter of natural gas and oil, which impacts our economy. The closing of the Keystone XL Pipeline put a lot of people out of work and shifted the transport of oil to methods that are not as environmentally safe as a pipeline. The unscientific focus on climate change has destroyed the American economy and made the world less safe. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has chosen to double down on their energy policy rather than make the necessary course correction.

On Thursday, Breitbart posted an article illustrating the problem.

The article reports:

On Thursday’s broadcast of “CBS Evening News,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken responded to a question on whether the United States will cut off purchases of oil and gas from Russia over its invasion of Ukraine by stating that we’re trying to ensure “that we inflict maximum pain on Russia” while at the same time, “minimizing any of the pain to us.”

Host Norah O’Donnell asked, “Russia’s economy’s fueled by gas, and the U.S. is a consumer. So, would the U.S. consider cutting off oil and gas purchases from Russia?”

Blinken responded, “Well, what we’re doing, Norah, across the board, is making sure that we inflict maximum pain on Russia for what President Putin has done, while minimizing any of the pain to us.”

What Secretary of State Blinken did not say (for obvious political reasons) was that because America has stopped utilizing its own energy sources, we are financing the Russian attack on Ukraine. That is a disgrace.

A Puzzling Move

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On Saturday, The American Spectator reported that last month Secretary of State Antony Blinken removed Nigeria from the State Department’s list of countries hostile to religious freedom. In April, the U.S. government’s own Commission on International Religious Freedom had urged Secretary of State Blinken to keep Nigeria on the list.

The articled reports:

In 2020, the Trump administration designated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) on religious freedom. In a letter, the Family Research Council and host of other organizations committed to religious freedom have asked Biden: “How can it be, less than a year after that significant designation, that Nigeria’s CPC designation has been dropped without a public explanation?”

The groups note in the letter that anti-Christian persecution in the country has grown even more intense since 2020: “The ongoing violence, killing, and displacement against Christians and others have only increased. In fact, during 2021, massacres happen almost nightly, while by day, young boys are killed in the fields. Pregnant women are brutally dismembered, their babies mutilated before their eyes. And now, an entire church congregation has been abducted and held captive.”

Armed Islamic terrorists and radicals “have become even more brazen, torching entire villages and farms, ambushing, and killing innocent people in gory, unspeakable ways,” they write. “Mass killings—the kind that used to be sporadic—are now a national emergency. Catholic News Agency reported in July, ‘an estimated 3,462 Christians have been killed in Nigeria in the first 200 days of 2021, according to a new study. This equates to 17 Christians being murdered every day in Africa’s most populous country.”

The article concludes:

Biden has declared the promotion of transgenderism abroad a “priority” of American foreign policy. That apparently stands at the apex of his hierarchy of rights.  “[The State] Department has committed to increasing U.S. engagement on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) human rights issues abroad,” says Blinken. “As we do so, we work with partners around the world who bring to bear expertise on their unique challenges and innovative solutions. We recognize that, through these partnerships, we will be able to build a safer, more inclusive global society for all LGBTQI+ persons.”

This is what preoccupied Blinken in the months preceding the collapse of Afghanistan. Then after it fell, he told Congress that he was “focused on” the plight of the “LGBTQI+ in Afghanistan” under the Taliban.

Talk about an “unbalanced” agenda. Blinken can strain at the gnat and swallow the camel. As he trivializes human rights abuses, monstrous ones are occurring in a country that he claims is no longer a foe of religious freedom. Never mind that an organization called Genocide Watch says “Nigeria has become a killing field of defenseless Christians.” The group says that “between 11,500 and 12,000 Christians have been massacred since June 2015 when the Buhari Government of Nigeria came to power. These statistics are based on careful records kept by church groups that include the names of victims and dates of their murders.”

That Biden can overlook this while prattling on about the supposed glories of transgenderism and chastising Russia for its insufficient enlightenment (Blinken said that Biden rebuked Putin at their summer meeting for not supporting the LGBTQ agenda) reveals much about this administration’s bankrupt agenda. Only a president that prizes religious freedom at home will care about its loss abroad.

I believe that our President has mixed up his priorities.

Who Is In Charge?

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse reported that Secretary of State Blinken has signed an agreement stating that Qatar will formally represent U.S. interests in Afghanistan. Interesting choice.

The article reports:

It is appropriate, given the severity and urgency of the issues we face, that we not mince words. Qatar is the formal Middle East government that supports political Islam through the organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood, aka “the brotherhood.”

The Muslim Brotherhood is the fabric covering the umbrella of political Islam. The umbrella ribs are the different factions of Islam reflecting varying degrees of extremism or authenticity. As a result, all of the various factions of Islamic extremism, al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban, ISIS-k etc., are given legitimacy through the political front of The Muslim Brotherood which faces the aggregate west.

The nation state of Qatar is the primary financing agent for The Brotherhood, and all nations who engage with Qatar on a geopolitical level are essentially engaging with The Brotherhood. Conversely, if a nation state wants to engage with any of the various Islamic groups -each containing various levels of authenticity (ie. extremism)- they can do so through Qatar which acts as an official government intermediary on behalf of The Muslim Brotherhood.

EXAMPLES: •When President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi expelled the radical leaders of The Brotherhood from Egypt, they went to Qatar.  •When President Donald Trump asked the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to confront radical Islamic extremism, the Arab nations confronted Qatar.  •When Qatar was forced to expel the five most radical leaders of The Brotherhood they went to Turkey.  [Turkish President Recep Erdogan is aligned in common principle with The Brotherhood.]  •When the U.S. released captured Islamic extremists from Gitmo (al-Qaeda in Afghanistan), they were transferred to Qatar.  •When the the Taliban took back control over Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda leaders from Qatar went back to Afghanistan.

These examples showcase the fulcrum of Qatar as it relates to supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which is -by extension- the political face of extremist/authentic Islam.  Another example would be Hillary Clinton (Sec of State) and Leon Panetta (CIA) using Qatar as the financial center and transport hub for covert U.S. missile shipments into Libya (Operation Zero Footprint), that lead to the attack in Benghazi after the U.S. politics shifted due to al-Qaeda giving the missiles to their Brotherhood allies in Afghanistan and Syria to attack U.S. troops.

The article concludes:

While this sounds purposefully opaque, which it is, to those who do not know the geopolitical background, such an agreement makes buckets of sense.  Barack Obama has always supported the Muslim Brotherhood, and Barack Obama’s network is currently in charge of the administration represented by the face of Joe Biden.

Other ideological supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood/Qatar include: John Kerry, John McCain, Adam Kinzinger, Samantha Power, Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice, Liz Cheney, the CIA, Evan McMullin, Huma Abedin, Mike Morrell, Hillary Clinton, John Bolton, the U.S. State Department, the Brookings Institute (Lawfare, etc.), the government of China, the government of Turkey, and The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In return, Qatar funds the Democrats and Republicans who operate within all of the ideological DC institutions (ie. Clinton Global Initiative) that support the Muslim Brotherhood either directly or through the process of willful blindness that Islam calls taqiya.

The Biden administration is paving the way for more worldwide terrorism. Under President Biden, America is not acting as a purveyor of peace in the world, but an enabler of terrorism.

 

This Book Is Worth Reading

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On October 1, The Center for Security Policy posted a brief book review of The Arab Spring Ruse: How the Muslim Brotherhood Duped Washington in Libya and Syria, by investigative journalist John Rossomando.

The book review includes the following:

The new book, The Arab Spring Ruse: How the Muslim Brotherhood Duped Washington in Libya and Syria, by investigative journalist John Rossomando and published by the Center for Security Policy offers a definitive account ̶ derived from interviews with Syrian and Libyan opposition figures and a top Obama administration official, Hillary Clinton’s emails, social media posts, Arabic-language news accounts, and never before reported documents ̶ of the foreign policy disaster in Syria and Libya that placed the U.S. government on the same side as al-Qaida-aligned jihadists. Those countries have never recovered from these policies that led to the rise of ISIS and still on-going civil wars.

Now-familiar names, such as Antony Blinken, William Burns, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and Lloyd Austin, make appearances as Rossomando details how the Obama administration opened the door to Muslim Brotherhood propagandists secretly aligned themselves with pro al-Qaida jihadists in Syria and Libya.

“With the unfortunate collapse of Afghanistan, this book could not be timelier,” said Kyle Shideler, the Center’s Director of Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, “The Biden administration’s reliance on cooperation with the Taliban, falsely characterized as growing in moderation, is a mirror image of the failed Libya and Syria policies that John extensively documents.”

The Arab Spring Ruse details how liberal Arab opposition figures were snubbed in favor of the hardcore pro-jihadist figures, who allied with al-Qaida and ISIS, while being sold to Washington as “moderates.”

Emails to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from Sidney Blumenthal highlight how the Obama-Biden Administration knew about links between Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Libya and Egypt and al-Qaida figures during the so-called Arab Spring, but chose to support jihadist rebels anyway.

The book also details the role of U.S.-based Muslim Brotherhood-aligned leaders in influencing U.S. policy towards Syria and Libya. Operating out of a Northern Virginia mosque famous for being led by Al Qaida cleric Anwar Awlaki and hosting two of the 9/11 hijackers, Islamist leaders created lobby groups that targeted Libya and Syria and served as a conduit to deceptively pass jihadists off as moderate supporters of democracy and human rights.

The Biden administration is simply the third term of the Obama administration and includes and will amplify all of the failures of the Obama administration. We can expect to see massive government overreach and a loss of many of the freedoms we take for granted over the next three years.

Showering Terrorists With Cash

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The Daily Caller reported yesterday that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will be sending $64 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan to address the “compounding effects of insecurity, conflict, recurring natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic.” That makes my head hurt. How about sending $64 million in aid to America to house our homeless veterans and improve healthcare for our veterans?

The article reports:

The funding will come from USAID and the State Department, and will be distributed through the United Nations and independent aid groups, the agency said in a press release. The humanitarian aid will help provide vulnerable Afghans with “critically needed food, health care, nutrition, medical supplies, protection, hygiene supplies and other urgently needed relief.”

USAID also said it has created a Disaster Assistance Response Team to lead the U.S. government’s humanitarian response in Afghanistan and work with partners on the ground to provide assistance.

Does anyone actually believe that the money will be used for humanitarian purposes and not to arm terrorists in the Middle East?

The article concludes:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday urged Afghanistan’s neighbors to keep their borders open to refugees and promised to ensure the Taliban does not block humanitarian assistance, particularly to groups such as women and girls.

“The United States will also work with the international community to help ensure that the Taliban follow through on its commitments and advance unhindered humanitarian access, freedom of movement for aid workers of all genders, safety and security of humanitarian staff, and safe passage for all those who wish to leave Afghanistan,”  he said in a statement.

I think it’s time to remove the State Department from our government. They obviously do not work for us.

 

I Wish They Would At Least Get Their Stories Straight

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One of the various methods police use to catch criminals is to separate the people apprehended at a crime scene and have them tell their stories separately without being able to hear each other. Generally the truth will be found somewhere in the contradictions. Right now we seem to be getting a number of contradicting stories from the Biden administration on Afghanistan.

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about one of those contradictions. In this case, the story and the contradiction both came from the same person.

The article reports:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed Sunday that the United States had not given lists of American citizens and allies to the Taliban.

Blinken joined “Meet the Press” with NBC’s Chuck Todd and disputed the accuracy of reports indicating U.S. officials had handed over lists of people the Taliban should allow through checkpoints and into the airport in Kabul. Just moments later, however, Blinken appeared to concede that U.S. officials had handed over passenger manifests for busloads of Afghan allies who were supposed to be allowed through security.

…“Chuck, it’s simply not the case. The idea that we’ve done anything to put at further risk those that were trying to help leave the country is simply wrong. And the idea that we shared lists of Americans or others with the Taliban is simply wrong,” Blinken immediately pushed back.

“What was shared?” Todd pressed.

Blinken went on to detail the lists of people U.S. officials had given to the Taliban in order to ensure their safe passage.

“When you’re trying to get a bus or a group of people through and you need to show a manifest to do that — particularly in cases where people don’t have the necessary credentials on them or documents on them — then you’ll share names of the lists of people on the bus so they can be assured those are the people we’re looking to bring in. By definition, that’s exactly what’s happened,” Blinken said.

“We’ve gotten 5,500 American citizens out of Afghanistan,” Blinken continued, saying again that the U.S. had provided passenger manifests or verified the names of individuals — especially those who might not have proper documentation on them.

“But the idea that we put anyone in any further jeopardy is simply wrong,” he concluded.

If you were dealing with humane, rational people who are willing to help you evacuate Americans and friendly Afghans from Afghanistan, that might be a reasonable course of action. However, if you are dealing with people who routinely cut people’s heads off for any minor slight or infraction, you might want to reconsider giving them a list of  your allies. I really can’t believe that the people in our State Department are that naive. Unfortunately if they are not that naive, this is being done on purpose. That thought is even more scary.

Harsh Words, But True

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The Federalist posted an article today by Fred Fleitz, who is currently president and CEO of the Center for Security Policy. He served in 2018 as deputy assistant to the president and chief of staff of the National Security Council. Fleitz held national security jobs for 25 years with the CIA, DIA, Department of State, and the House Intelligence Committee staff. He believes that the only way back to some sort of credibility for America after the Afghanistan fiasco is to replace President Biden’s top national security advisers with experts who have the experience, principles, and gravitas to reverse the damage Biden is doing to our national security and will stand up to future unsound and dangerous decisions by this president.

The article reports:

In a perfect world, Biden would immediately resign, be impeached, or be removed from office under the 25th Amendment for this unprecedented incompetence and dereliction of duty.

To remove the president under the 25th Amendment, the vice president and the majority of the cabinet would need to determine that Biden is unfit for office. Congress would then need to approve that process by a two-thirds vote in both chambers. It is hard to see how a majority of Biden’s cabinet or two-thirds of the Democrat-controlled Congress would agree to such action.

Impeachment would require passage of articles of impeachment by a majority of the House and conviction and removal by a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Democrats will not permit this now, but it might be possible in early 2023 if Republicans take control of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections.

The article notes that removing President Biden from office is probably not possible right now. When you talk about removing President Biden from office, you need to remember that he will be replaced by Vice-President Kamala Harris. At that point, the Democrats lose their 51st tie-breaking vote in the Senate. That fact may partially explain why Joe Biden has not already been removed.

The article reports:

It is pointless now for National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley to claim or leak to the press that they opposed Biden’s decision to rapidly withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. They knew this decision was wrong and dangerous. They were duty-bound to resign and report Biden’s reckless decision to Congress.

Making this worse, most of Biden’s senior national security advisers are unqualified yes-men. Putting aside buffoonish Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan are third-stringers out of their league. And Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin apparently has so little influence with Biden that the president forgot his name at a press conference.

The article concludes:

Biden’s senseless Afghanistan policy and unmistakable signs of his mental decline strongly suggest he is not capable of serving as commander-in-chief. Democrats almost certainly will not agree to remove him, so their Republican colleagues must pressure them to pursue the next best option: surrounding Biden with highly qualified and principled national security experts who will not tolerate more irrational national security decisions.

To safeguard America’s national security and global leadership, we need bipartisan action now to compel President Biden to take this action.

Our country’s security is in danger as long as Joe Biden is President.

 

This Would Be Funny If It Were Not Tragic

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Townhall is reporting today that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has asked the United Nations not to give the $75 million in aid America is giving them for aid in the Gaza Strip to Hamas. Where does he think the money to build the terror tunnels into Israel came from? Some of it came from Iran, but much of it came from international humanitarian aid that was never used to help the people of Gaza.

The article reports:

“There’s a recognition we need to continue to discuss and have conversations with our key partners in the region, who played an instrumental role in getting to the point we reached last Thursday, and also to discuss the path forward on rebuilding Gaza,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki recently said. “And as you noted, Mike, we know that won’t be easy, in part because we want to prevent funding from going to Hamas.”

While the West lines up to write “relief” checks, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is boasting about endless support from Iran.

“We have our own funds. We have our own income. We don’t need to take any of the money from the fundings that come for reconstruction. In this case I’d also like to say we need to thank the Islamic Republic of Iran which also has not stopped at any point of assisting Hamas and other Palestinian factions with money and arms, with experience and support,” Sinwar said during a press conference this week in Gaza. “They were with us. Really although they weren’t present in person, they were with us. Through that capability that they gave us, we were able to hit the enemy and terrorize the enemy.”

Is Secretary of State Blinken really naive enough to think that the humanitarian aid will actually be used for humanitarian purposes?

I Guess He Didn’t Read The Memo

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The Washington Examiner reported the following today:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken claims that he hasn’t been shown evidence to justify Israel’s airstrike of the building in Gaza, which housed the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera offices.

“Shortly after the strike we did request additional details regarding the justification for it,” Blinken said at a news conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, choosing not to address specifics, adding that he “will leave it to others to characterize if any information has been shared and our assessment that information,” according to the Associated Press.

“I have not seen any information provided,” he continued.

Why hasn’t he seen the information provided? Is this another example of ‘plausible deniability”?

Meanwhile, Breitbart reported the following yesterday:

Israel reportedly showed U.S. officials “smoking gun” intelligence Sunday indicating that the Palestinian Hamas terrorist organization was using the Jala Tower in Gaza, which also housed the Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and other international news outlets.

On Saturday, Israel destroyed the tower, after warning the occupants to allow them to leave. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tweeted that the building contained “Hamas military intelligence assets” and that the media had been used as “human shields.”

In deciding which story to believe, it’s important to look at the entire event and the history of both sides. Hamas has a history of using ‘human shields’. It places rocket launchers in hospitals and homes. Israel has a history of bending over backwards to avoid civilian casualties–to the point of sending ‘knock-knock’ bombs to warn civilians to evacuate.

The article at Breitbart concludes:

But on Sunday, according to the Jerusalem Post, Israel shared its evidence that the building had been used by Hamas:

Israel shared intelligence with the US showing how Hamas operated inside the same building with the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera in Gaza, officials in Jerusalem said on Sunday.

Officials in more than one government office confirmed that US President Joe Biden’s phone call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday was, in part, about the bombing of the building, and that Israel showed Biden and American officials the intelligence behind the action.

“We showed them the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building,” a source close to Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said. “I understand they found the explanation satisfactory.”

Hamas continued firing rockets at Israeli communities on Sunday, even as its officials claimed that they wanted a ceasefire.

If the Secretary of State hasn’t been shown the evidence of Hamas headquarters in the same building as the media, maybe he need to ask why.