Dose of Truth: The U.S. Governments Counter-Terrorism Policy Summed Up 7 Words

“He’s Not Supposed to Be Doing That” 

“Well, Senator, he’s not supposed to be doing that. And there are consequences for that, and there will be.” Really? What are they, and how will they be administered? Will Ibrahim al Qosi be recaptured? Will there be a military expedition to Yemen to do so? Will the Saudis help? Or is John Kerry just banking on the forgetfulness of the news cycle to get this whole thing shoved under the rug and Gitmo closed?

 

“Kerry on Gitmo Detainee Who Returned to Terrorism: ‘He’s Not Supposed to Be Doing That,’” by Aaron Kliegman, Washington Free Beacon, February 24, 2016 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Secretary of State John Kerry lamented Wednesday that a terrorist who the Obama administration released from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay subsequently returned to fight for al Qaeda, telling lawmakers “he’s not supposed to be doing that.”

Appearing before the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Kerry made the statement while testifying about the State Department’s budget request for the fiscal year 2017.

During the hearing, Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) asked Kerry for his thoughts on Ibrahim al Qosi, the former Guantanamo detainee who is now a prominent al Qaeda leader, and had staffers hold up a picture of the terrorist for Kerry to see.

“Let me just ask one question,” Kirk said to Kerry. “I want to show you a picture of Ibrahim al Qosi, who was recently released by the administration to the Sudanese, and he appeared on some al Qaeda videos recruiting people for AQAP [al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula].”

Kirk went on to say, “Now that he’s out, I would hope we would end the policy of issuing terrorists to terrorist nations, and where they can get out.”

Sudan, where al Qosi was released, has a long history of terrorist activity with Sunni jihadist groups and individuals like al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden as well as with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Sudanese government has also been internationallyaccused of committing genocide in Darfur.

Kerry paused for a moment before saying to Kirk, “Well, Senator, he’s not supposed to be doing that. And there are consequences for that, and there will be. But apart from that, the fact is that we’ve got people who’ve been held without charges for 13 years, 14 years in some cases. That’s not American, that’s not how we operate.”

Al Qosi was an aide to Osama bin Laden when he was taken to Guantanamo in 2002. He was released 10 years later after pleading guilty to war crimes in 2010 and was sent to his native Sudan. Upon the terrorist’s release, his lawyer, Paul Reichler, said al Qosi was looking forward to a quiet life of freedom, but the two never had contact after al Qosi left Guantanamo.

Al Qosi remerged this month as a prominent figure in AQAP propaganda videos calling for the takeover of Saudi Arabia and an end to the U.S.-Saudi alliance.

This recent development came shortly before President Obama announced his plan on Tuesday to close Guantanamo by releasing many of the remaining 91 detainees to foreign countries and transferring the rest to a prison on U.S. soil.

While it is currently illegal to move any of the detainees to the United States, Obama is hoping Congress will change the law so he can implement the policy, although majorities in both houses of Congress oppose the move….

Opponents of the president also point to the fact that the recidivism rate for released detainees who return to the battlefield is 30 percent, citing al Qosi as just one example of many.

Read the Original Article at Jihad Watch

When Appeasement is in Season

A refreshing read with no bias and no bullshit. You can tell this guy is not a politician. -SF

Last week was especially bad for the American military, already drained by sequestration and segregated from a society where “affluenza” has become our signature epidemic. A panel of Federal judges in San Francisco – probably none of whom had ever served in uniform – decided that “stolen valor” medals are trumped by “free speech.” Because the “affluenza society” routinely fights our wars by putting Other People’s Kids in harm’s way, medals for gallantry are understood as being mere fashion accessories.

President Obama, whose military experience was limited to “community organizer” before becoming our generalissimo, said that appeasing Iran is merely evidence of his “smart diplomacy.” His designated spokesman similarly saw nothing wrong with our soldiers surrendering at gunpoint before apologizing abjectly to their captors. Sorry, sonny, but those “soldiers” were actually U.S. Navy sailors drilled since basic training in the Code of Conduct. Their core ideal: “Never give up the ship.” John Kerry, who once served with valor in that same service, visited my alma mater, National Defense University (NDU), the esteemed Secretary of State providing our future military leaders with context for these brave new ideas. Above all: refuting the obsolete 19th century ideal that their highest purpose is merely to win the nation’s wars. Twenty-first century appeasement is much trickier, requiring real leaders to be feminized, socialized and self-effacing. Martial role-models have changed too, not so much General Patton or Admiral Nimitz as Neville Chamberlain or Debbie Wasserman Schulz.

After such a week, I was in no mood to catch the Democratic debate last night or even to watch “Madam Secretary,” – same themes but with better drama and more appealing star-power. Instead, I crowded into a packed movie theater to watch Michael Bay’s new thriller, Thirteen Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. While the movie is far from flawless, it is action-packed and compelling, especially when compared to those tedious congressional hearings. Straight answers in those endless proceedings were as rare as an endangered species, especially Hillary Clinton’s notorious non-answer, “What difference does it make?” While her name is left scrupulously unmentioned, the movie provides a stark eye-witness account of what happened when American fighting men left were left marooned and unreachable even as their enemies massed. The main culprit: A deeply complacent, and even delusional, State Department bureaucracy. Given Hollywood’s usual cheerleading for Democratic leaders and agendas, the wonder is that such cinematic truth-telling was even allowed; but maybe after American Sniper broke box office records last year, studio executives decided that business was, after all, just business.

If so, then they complicated Hillary Clinton’s current efforts to live down her past, trying to substitute her husband’s name and reputation to repair her own. Although her arguments often seem forced and self-serving, watching Thirteen Hours, I saw something else. To me, Benghazi closely resembled Mogadishu, Secretary Clinton’s bungled response in Libya closely rivaling President Clinton’s debacle in Somalia. In case you have forgotten, in Mogadishu on October, 3, 1993, 18 American Rangers were killed and 75 others seriously wounded on what was supposed to be a “peacekeeping operation.”

Shortly thereafter, I led a Joint Chiefs study that analyzed classified after-action reports to determine what had gone wrong. NDU Press published it in 1994 as Somalia Operations: Lessons Learned, a poor man’s version of Mark Bowden’s Blackhawk Down (and, sadly, without his royalties). But in uniformed circles it was considered controversial because I criticized the chain of command for ignoring fundamental principles while embracing the new-normal of peacekeeping. Shortly before the disaster, one of my sources (himself a general) had even witnessed a flash-mob of heavily armed Somalis swarming around – and very nearly overwhelming – an elite US infantry battalion. Yet when the American on-scene commander requested the same tanks and armored vehicles that had recently brought victory in Operation Desert Storm, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin refused. Why risk admitting to the American people that a peacekeeping expedition was rapidly going south?

Substitute “Arab spring” for “peacekeeping expedition” and you have precisely the same arrogance and delusions that, twenty-odd years apart, link Benghazi with Mogadishu. While there are more similarities than differences between Secretary Clinton and President Clinton, at least one of those differences remains important. While the secret soldiers of Benghazi were ignored, short-changed and even pressured into signing non-disclosure statements, the boys of Mogadishu received this well-earned tribute from President Clinton in March, 1994:

“If there are any debates still to be had about our mission in Somalia, let people have those debates with me. But let there be no debate about how you carried out your mission…Your nation is grateful and your president is terribly, terribly proud of you.”

Sometimes even a little candor from the boss means a whole lot.

A former draftee, Kenneth Allard is a retired Army Colonel who served as Dean of the National War College and NBC News military analyst. Living in San Antonio, TX, he is a regular contributor to the Washington Times, and columnist for Real Clear Defense.

Read the Original Article at Real Clear Defense