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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Libya</title>
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	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
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		<title>Countries that Overthrew Gaddafi Say There&#8217;s No Military Solution to Terrorist Takeover of Libya</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/countries-that-overthrew-gaddafi-say-theres-no-military-solution-to-terrorist-takeover-of-libya/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=countries-that-overthrew-gaddafi-say-theres-no-military-solution-to-terrorist-takeover-of-libya</link>
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		<pubDate>Sat, 01 Nov 2014 19:43:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=243285</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sanction yourselves. Sanction yourselves extra hard.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/barack-obama-david-camero-447906.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-243286" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/barack-obama-david-camero-447906-450x266.jpg" alt="barack-obama-david-camero-447906" width="450" height="266" /></a></p>
<p>Some of the countries that violently overthrow Gaddafi have a message for everyone in Libya. Violence is not the answer.</p>
<p>You could make this sort of thing up, but why bother. The same geniuses claiming that the only way to stop ISIS is by making Israel surrender to terrorists are hard at work again.</p>
<p>After months of civil war in Libya between Islamist militias and an Egyptian backed general fighting for Benghazi during which there have been multiple governments in the fallen capital of Tripoli, some of the countries responsible for this mess <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/10/233137.htm">have issued a statement</a> in which they condemn everyone and claim that violence isn&#8217;t the answer.</p>
<blockquote><p>The governments of France, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States strongly condemn the ongoing violence in Libya and call for an immediate cessation of hostilities.</p>
<p>We condemn the crimes of Ansar al-Sharia entities, and the ongoing violence in communities across Libya, including Tripoli and its environs. Libya’s hard fought freedom is at risk if Libyan and international terrorist groups are allowed to use Libya as a safe haven.</p></blockquote>
<p>That freedom was won by Libyan and international terrorist groups. Or did you people think that Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was a secular democratic movement like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Free Syrian Army?</p>
<blockquote><p>We are also concerned by Khalifa Hifter’s attacks in Benghazi. We consider that Libya’s security challenges and the fight against terrorist organizations can only be sustainably addressed by regular armed forces under the control of a central authority which is accountable to a democratic and inclusive parliament.</p></blockquote>
<p>You condemn Ansar Al-Sharia&#8230; and General Hifter who is the only one fighting them. You guys have really covered all your bases here.</p>
<p>And that works out well since Ansar Al-Sharia was responsible for Benghazi. So you&#8217;ve condemned the only guy who is doing the terrorist killing that you aren&#8217;t doing.</p>
<blockquote><p>We fully support the work of UN SRSG Leon and urge all parties to cooperate with his efforts. After the Ghadames and Tripoli meetings, negotiations should be pursued with goodwill and adopting inclusive policies, with the aim of finding an agreement on the location of the House of Representatives elected last June 25th and laying the foundations for a Government of National Unity.</p></blockquote>
<p>Yes that should be the main priority there. Once everyone agrees on the location of the House of Representatives, they will find it much easier to take over at gunpoint.</p>
<blockquote><p>We stand ready to use individual sanctions in accordance with UNSCR 2174 against those who threaten the peace, stability or security of Libya or obstruct or undermine the political process.</p></blockquote>
<p>That would be everybody in Libya. Just sanction the whole country. Also sanction Egypt, which is backing Hifter, and Qatar, which is backing the terrorists.</p>
<p>And then sanction yourselves for turning Libya into a disaster area by illegally overthrowing its government. Sanction yourselves extra hard.</p>
<blockquote><p>We agree that there is no military solution to the Libyan crisis.</p></blockquote>
<p>Then why did you bomb Libya in the first place?</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>ISIS: Obama&#8217;s &#8216;Al-Qaeda on the Run&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/isis-obamas-al-qaeda-on-the-run/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=isis-obamas-al-qaeda-on-the-run</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/isis-obamas-al-qaeda-on-the-run/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2014 04:17:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[on the run]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240473</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Al Qaeda isn’t on the run, Obama is.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/o3.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240475" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/o3-333x350.jpg" alt="President Obama Makes Statement On The Sequestration" width="230" height="242" /></a>Obama often boasted that Al Qaeda was on the run. However it was Obama who had been running away from Al Qaeda ever since he took the job.</p>
<p>The botched surge in Afghanistan, where his own intelligence people had told him there were barely a 100 Al Qaeda fighters left, had been an attempt to escape Al Qaeda.</p>
<p>Not the terrorists themselves, but the issues they raised.</p>
<p>September 11 had disrupted the multicultural consensus by raising serious questions about immigration and Islam. It had also thrown away the consensus that the collapse of the USSR had made American military power obsolete. Obama had come to revive these consensuses and as recently as the last election dismissed Romney as a reactionary warmonger who didn’t understand the new world order.</p>
<p>Obama had declared victory over an undefeated enemy. He had passed off a strategic withdrawal as a victory. His wars, victories and withdrawals were a series of blatant lies that are catching up with him.</p>
<p>His administration tried to blame the takeover of Libya by Islamist militias after his disastrous regime change intervention on a YouTube video. But there isn’t a YouTube video big enough to blame ISIS on.</p>
<p>Obama was determined to go on pretending that ISIS didn’t exist. Even while drones were hitting Al Qaeda leaders in Yemen and Pakistan, Al Qaeda in Iraq’s Caliph got a free pass from our drones and our custody. When ISIS took Fallujah, he dismissed it as a JV team. Now he’s trying to build a coalition, but his air strikes are a belated response to a threat that he should have been on top of all along.</p>
<p>Even without boots on the ground, the United States could have continued suppression operations against Al Qaeda in Iraq after the withdrawal. Drones would have ruled out the problem of Americans being tried in Iraq, the supposed reason for the total withdrawal.</p>
<p>A responsible administration wouldn’t have had to scramble for a strategy at the last minute because it would have been on top of the problem all along. But Obama cared more about being able to check the Iraq box and the Al Qaeda box in the election than about stopping the rise of Al Qaeda.</p>
<p>Despite claims of bad intelligence, Obama did know what was happening. Last year Iraq <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/iraq-may-be-prepping-for-chemical-weapons-civil-war/">had already been preparing</a> for WMD attacks by ISIS by buying some expensive gear from us. Meanwhile Obama was acting as if the real issue was how much aid to provide to ISIS’ Free Syrian Army allies.</p>
<p>In 2006, John Kerry told students that if they weren’t smart, they would “get stuck in Iraq”. Now he and his boss, two veteran anti-war activists, are stuck in a war in Iraq that they desperately tried to avoid. They are stuck cobbling together a coalition of the willing for a war and trying to stabilize Iraq. History is repeating itself a second time as farce as the two politicians who were Bush’s biggest critics are stuck doing his job.</p>
<p>Their only comfort is blaming Bush, but this isn’t Bush’s war. It’s their war.</p>
<p>George W. Bush left behind a far more stable Iraq in which Al Qaeda had been pushed to the side. Bush had made his mistakes, but unlike Obama, he had not been a prisoner of a rigid ideology.</p>
<p>In the Senate, Obama had insisted that the surge in Iraq couldn’t possibly work. He went on denying it past the point of absurdity. In Iraq and everywhere else, Obama had put his ideology ahead of reality. Senator Obama had believed firmly that Sunnis and Shiites were only quarreling because of the American “occupation”. Once the United States left, they would stop fighting among themselves.</p>
<p>Out of its opposition to the Iraq War, the Democratic Party evolved the claim that Al Qaeda had never existed in Iraq until we invaded it. As an implicit corollary, it would stop existing if we left Iraq.</p>
<p>Problem solved.</p>
<p>Like Carter, Obama didn’t just have a different strategy, he had a different worldview. On the surface, Obama continued many of Bush’s existing War on Terror policies. The real gap was in his worldview.</p>
<p>The maligned Axis of Evil line had localized the problem of Islamic terrorism in state sponsorship by enemy states. It was a flawed and incomplete explanation, but far preferable to the liberal foreign policy assessment which viewed such terrorism as a reaction to American foreign policy in the Middle East.</p>
<p>To Bush, Al Qaeda was an active force that had to be confronted or it would attack us. To Obama, Al Qaeda was a reactive force that was responding to something that we did, whether it was supporting Mubarak or making YouTube videos.</p>
<p>The fault was not in the Jihadists; it was in ourselves.</p>
<p>The Arab Spring was Obama’s equivalent of regime change in Iraq. It was a big grandiose program for changing the Middle East by changing its governments, but where Bush had sought regime change for enemy terror states, Obama wanted regime change for American allies.</p>
<p>In 2002, Obama had delivered a speech in which he called on Bush to stay out of Iraq and instead “Fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people and suppressing dissent.”</p>
<p>Once in office, Obama pursued that program. Regimes fell and chaos spread. Terrorist groups became armies taking over entire countries. The Middle East began to burn.</p>
<p>Al Qaeda in Iraq had been a murderous band of suicide bombers before the Arab Spring. Like the Jihadist forces in Libya that now hold Benghazi and Tripoli, the Arab Spring made it an army.</p>
<p>Al Qaeda in Iraq was a vicious sociopathic JV team before the Arab Spring. Now it’s an Islamic State.</p>
<p>The media which was complicit in the celebration of the Arab Spring won’t tell the truth about what went wrong. Obama certainly won’t.</p>
<p>Until a few months ago, he was pretending that there wasn’t a problem in Iraq. It’s anyone’s guess how long he’ll go on pretending that there isn’t a problem in Libya. The Yazidis forced him to turn to air strikes and he’ll keep them up long enough for everyone to forget about Iraq. At least that’s the plan.</p>
<p>The problem with the plan is that ISIS has no intention of letting him forget.</p>
<p>What the left has persistently refused to understand is that it only takes one side to make a war. And that side isn’t the United States. Chris Hedges’ facile “War is a force that gives us meaning” isn’t true of America, but it is true of ISIS. It’s true of all the Jihadists.</p>
<p>The Islamic world is seeking to reclaim its identity through a Jihad against the West. This Jihad is the force that gives it meaning. Ignoring it is not an option. Blaming American foreign policy is as foolish as the dog that tries to bite its own tail.</p>
<p>Obama has been running away from Al Qaeda and now it has caught him. He imagines that he can escape with a few air strikes, a few speeches and a pivot to something else, but it won’t be that simple. This is a war that cannot be escaped or avoided, speechified or shrugged off.</p>
<p>Saturday Night Live routines won’t deter the Jihad. It can be killed, but it can’t be ignored.</p>
<p>As Churchill famously said of Munich, &#8220;You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.&#8221;</p>
<p>Obama chose appeasement. He chose denial. He chose the Arab Spring. He chose the golf course. He chose to ignore the problem.</p>
<p>Now he has a war on his hands.</p>
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		<slash:comments>26</slash:comments>
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		<title>Libyan Jihadists Have a Bunch of Jetliners They Might Fly into Buildings</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/libyan-jihadists-have-a-bunch-of-jetliners-they-might-fly-into-buildings/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=libyan-jihadists-have-a-bunch-of-jetliners-they-might-fly-into-buildings</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/libyan-jihadists-have-a-bunch-of-jetliners-they-might-fly-into-buildings/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Sep 2014 00:54:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240103</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama's regime change operation in Libya worked out really well. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/obama-mission-accomplished.jpg"><img src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/obama-mission-accomplished-450x307.jpg" alt="obama-mission-accomplished" width="450" height="307" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-240104" /></a></p>
<p>Obama&#8217;s regime change operation in Libya worked out really well. </p>
<p>1. There are now at least two governments in Libya</p>
<p>2. Most of the major cities are controlled by Jihadist groups, including the one that was responsible for Benghazi</p>
<p>3. Some of those groups have jetliners that they might be planning to use for terrorist attacks</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t know<a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/missing-libyan-jetliners-raise-fears-of-suicide-airliner-attacks-on-911/"> how this could get any better</a>. Maybe they could get their hands on some nuclear weapons. Or make a YouTube video about Mohammed.</p>
<blockquote><p>
Islamist militias in Libya took control of nearly a dozen commercial jetliners last month, and western intelligence agencies recently issued a warning that the jets could be used in terrorist attacks across North Africa.</p>
<p>Intelligence reports of the stolen jetliners were distributed within the U.S. government over the past two weeks and included a warning that one or more of the aircraft could be used in an attack later this month on the date marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, said U.S. officials familiar with the reports.</p>
<p>“There are a number of commercial airliners in Libya that are missing,” said one official. “We found out on September 11 what can happen with hijacked planes.”</p></blockquote>
<p>And we found out in 2008 what can happen with a hijacked country. But unless those planes slam into a golf course, there&#8217;s probably nothing to worry about.</p>
<blockquote><p>Libya remains an oil-rich state and if the country is taken over completely by Islamist extremists, U.S. counterterrorism officials believe it will become another terrorist safe haven in the region.</p></blockquote>
<p>There are already Al Qaeda training camps in Libya and weapons and fighters from Libya helped make the disaster in Syria/Iraq possible. So that bird has flown the coop.</p>
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		<title>State Dept: US Embassy in Libya Held by Jihadists is &#8220;Secure&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/state-dept-us-embassy-in-libya-held-by-jihadists-is-secure/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=state-dept-us-embassy-in-libya-held-by-jihadists-is-secure</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/state-dept-us-embassy-in-libya-held-by-jihadists-is-secure/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Sep 2014 14:22:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[benghazi libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TRIPOLI]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=239972</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Benghazi was also secure.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1409496965749_wps_2_An_Islamist_allied_militi.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-239913" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1409496965749_wps_2_An_Islamist_allied_militi-450x286.jpg" alt="1409496965749_wps_2_An_Islamist_allied_militi" width="450" height="286" /></a></p>
<p>This seems to be some <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-believes-embassy-tripoli-libya-remains-secure-official-n192956">usage of the word &#8220;Secure&#8221; that</a> I was <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/islamic-militias-behind-benghazi-attack-seize-us-embassy-in-tripoli/">not familiar with</a>. Neither was Ambassador Stevens who was assured that the Benghazi facility was secure.</p>
<blockquote><p>A senior State Department official said Sunday that the U.S. Embassy in Libya&#8217;s capital is believed to be secure after reports that an Islamist-allied militia group took over the compound.</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve seen the reports and videos and are seeking additional details,&#8221; said the official. &#8220;At this point, we believe the Embassy compound itself remains secure but we continue to monitor the situation on the ground, which remains very fluid.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Considering that the Libya Dawn, a coalition that includes Ansar al-Sharia, responsible for the Benghazi attack, and Feb 17, which was meant to be providing security, holds the residential compound, not to mention the Libyan government, what basis is there for believing it&#8217;s secure?</p>
<p>But then again admitting what is really going on would damage Obama&#8217;s image and so everyone immediately goes into cover up mode.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s what happened in Benghazi and with virtually every event in Libya. Considering that Obama implemented regime change and that the whole thing badly fell apart, the country is a black hole of media coverage.</p>
<p>Now Jihadists are swimming in the pool of the residential compound of the &#8220;secure&#8221; US Embassy.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Islamic Militias Behind Benghazi Attack Seize US Embassy in Tripoli</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/islamic-militias-behind-benghazi-attack-seize-us-embassy-in-tripoli/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islamic-militias-behind-benghazi-attack-seize-us-embassy-in-tripoli</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/islamic-militias-behind-benghazi-attack-seize-us-embassy-in-tripoli/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 31 Aug 2014 16:29:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ansar Al-Sharia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=239911</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Mission accomplished?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1409498508889_wps_19_An_Islamist_allied_militi.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-239912" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1409498508889_wps_19_An_Islamist_allied_militi-450x271.jpg" alt="1409498508889_wps_19_An_Islamist_allied_militi" width="450" height="271" /></a></p>
<p>The strategy is in the mail. The strategy is coming next Thursday. The<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2739064/Militia-says-secured-US-compound-Libya.html"> dog ate the strategy</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>An Islamist-allied militia group says it has &#8216;secured&#8217; a U.S. Embassy compound in Libya&#8217;s capital, more than a month after American personnel evacuated from the country over ongoing fighting.</p>
<p>An Associated Press journalist walked through the compound Sunday after the Dawn of Libya, an umbrella group for Islamist militias, invited onlookers inside.</p>
<p>Windows at the compound had been broken, but it appeared most of the equipment there remained untouched.</p>
<p>A commander for the Dawn of Libya group said his forces had entered and been in control of the compound since last week. A video posted online showed men playing in a pool at the compound.</p></blockquote>
<p>At least this time the diplomats and US personnel were evacuated first. But we&#8217;ve got nothing to worry about.</p>
<blockquote><p>
U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones said the video appeared to have been shot in at the embassy&#8217;s residential annex.</p>
<p>She also said it appeared the compound was being &#8220;safeguarded&#8221; and was not &#8220;ransacked.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Sure &#8220;secured&#8221;. Just like the guys posing for selfies with the corpse of Ambassador Stevens were &#8220;helping&#8221; get him to a hospital run by Ansar Al-Sharia, the group behind the attack.</p>
<p>Speaking of Ansar Al-Sharia, it&#8217;<a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/2014/08/libya-tripoli-control-hifter-tribal-forces.html#">s part of the Libya Dawn coalition</a>. So is Feb 17, the group that Hillary&#8217;s people thought it was a good idea to hire to protect the Benghazi compound.</p>
<p>Then they forgot to pay them.</p>
<p>Libya Dawn is overall dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood which has had trouble winning elections in Libya, but has no trouble shooting opponents.</p>
<p>That coalition is currently in control of Benghazi and Tripoli and has appointed its own government which no one recognizes.</p>
<p>Mission accomplished?</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1409496965749_wps_2_An_Islamist_allied_militi.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-239913" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1409496965749_wps_2_An_Islamist_allied_militi-450x286.jpg" alt="1409496965749_wps_2_An_Islamist_allied_militi" width="450" height="286" /></a></p>
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		<title>Libya Under Siege</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/libya-under-siege/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=libya-under-siege</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2014 04:55:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[airport]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jihadist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[militia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seize]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TRIPOLI]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Egypt and the United Arab Emirates respond to a jihadist takeover -- while the U.S. stands in their way. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/libya-tripoli-airport-seized-by-islamist-militias.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-239555" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/libya-tripoli-airport-seized-by-islamist-militias-421x350.jpg" alt="libya-tripoli-airport-seized-by-islamist-militias" width="328" height="273" /></a>While media attention has focused of late on the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), which has seized large swaths of territory in Syria and northern Iraq, jihadists are also on the march in Libya. A coalition of jihadists, operating under the name Dawn of Libya, has claimed to have taken control of Libya’s main international airport in its capital city Tripoli as well as some other locations in the capital city itself. Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, is already in the hands of other jihadists including Ansar al-Shariah, some of whom may have participated in the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans nearly two years ago.</p>
<p>“We will not accept the project of democracy, secular parties, nor the parties that falsely claim the Islamic cause,” a statement issued last week by an alliance of Benghazi-based jihadists, including Ansar al-Shariah, declared.</p>
<p>Whatever excuses the Obama administration may try to make with regards to the chaos brought about by ISIS in Iraq, including continued finger-pointing at the Bush administration, the mess in Libya has happened entirely on President Obama’s watch. It stems from President Obama’s decision to back the rebels in forcibly removing Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from power without any thought about the destabilizing consequences for Libya, North Africa and the entire Middle East region. Obama himself admitted that there were lessons to be learned from the Libya regime change operation. “Do we have an answer [for] the day after?’” Obama said to New York Times op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman on Aug. 8<sup>th</sup>.</p>
<p>Qaddafi was of no strategic threat to the United States. Indeed, one of the positive byproducts of the Iraq war launched in 2003 was the fear Qaddafi had of a similar invasion that led to his decision to give up entirely his nuclear arms program. But Obama got sucked into a military conflict in Libya that morphed from a limited humanitarian rescue operation into a war to bring about regime change. Obama yielded to pressure from France, the United Kingdom and the Arab League to expand the objectives of the operation. Members of his own administration characterized his role as “leading from behind.”</p>
<p>Removing Qaddafi left a huge vacuum for the jihadists to fill. Libya lacks any real central government today. Instead, two rival parliaments appear to be emerging, the original one controlled by the jihadists and a newly elected one more closely aligned with anti-jihadists.  Weapons from Qaddafi’s stockpiles have been dispersed to militias within Libya as well as to North Africa and Syria, some falling into the jihadists’ hands. Militias in support of the jihadists and opposing the jihadists are fighting each other in Libya, with the jihadists appearing to have gained the upper hand. With the country on the brink of civil war, and a possible replication in Libya of the self-declared caliphate that ISIS has established in parts of Iraq and Syria, U.S. and other Western nations have pulled out their diplomats from Tripoli. The United Nations has reduced its presence to a bare minimum.</p>
<p>Obama’s response to all this has followed his usual pattern of dithering and indecision. But it is even worse than that. The Obama administration appears to be trying to impede Egypt and the United Arab Emirates from proceeding on their own to protect their countries from the rising tide of jihad across the Middle East, including right on Egypt’s doorstep in neighboring Libya.</p>
<p>According to an August 25<sup>th</sup> report by the New York Times, four senior American officials said that the United States was caught by surprise upon learning that “Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have secretly teamed up to launch airstrikes against Islamist-allied militias battling for control of Tripoli, Libya.”</p>
<p>Egypt reportedly provided the bases from which to launch the attacks, which occurred in the vicinity of Tripoli. The United Arab Emirates, which has one of the more proficient air forces in the region, reportedly furnished the pilots and planes to carry out the strikes.</p>
<p>Egyptian officials denied any involvement in the airstrikes in their discussions with Obama State Department diplomats. The United Arab Emirates has been cagier in its remarks on the subject.</p>
<p>According to the New York Times report, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have cooperated previously in special force operations inside Libya, targeting jihadists.</p>
<p>Instead of welcoming the operation to thwart jihadists who already have American blood on their hands, the Obama administration reacted angrily. “We don’t see this as constructive at all,” one senior American official was quoted by the New York Times as saying.</p>
<p>This foolish remark ignores the simple truth that the jihadists fighting to take over Libya are of the same ideological bent as the ISIS jihadists who beheaded Jim Foley and whom we are now fighting directly. In fact, Libya&#8217;s <a href="http://www.veooz.com/photos/RG_FLYV.html"><span style="color: #0463c1;">al-Battar brigade is working with ISIS</span></a> and has returned from fighting in Syria to join Ansar al-Shariah. It issued a statement last June warning that heads would be cut off, stomachs slit and Libya filled with graves to revenge the shooting of one of its jihadists who had fought in Syria.</p>
<p>Ramzi Yousef, a member of Ansar al-Shariah said, &#8220;The group of al-Battar, the word refers to one of the names of the sword an affiliate of Ansar al-Sharia. It was founded in Syria and all its members are from Libya. They are the fiercest because they do not negotiate but just act.&#8221;</p>
<p>Expressions of support have also been exchanged between ISIS and Libyan jihadists.</p>
<p>The Obama administration is fully aware that Qatar – the same country that is helping to bankroll Hamas and the jihadists fighting in Syria – is providing support to the Libyan-based jihadists. Just as Secretary of State John Kerry tried to push Israel into accepting a Qatari-brokered ceasefire with Hamas on largely Hamas’s terms instead of the ceasefire terms supported by Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the Obama administration is favoring Qatar’s interests over those of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. And this means it is effectively coming out on the side of the jihadists in Libya, as the Obama administration did in Egypt itself when it helped install, and then tried to keep in power, the Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p>Against any common sense reckoning of U.S. interests in the region, the Obama administration criticized the two Arab countries trying to fend off the jihadist threat in Libya on their own -before the threat in Libya metastasizes into something much larger on the model of ISIS. Rather than fume and pressure Egypt and the United Arab Emirates to stand down, the Obama administration should welcome regional coalitions like this to fight the jihadist scourge wherever it pops up. Instead of leading from behind, President Obama should just get out of the way.</p>
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		<title>How Long Until Obama is Forced to Bomb Libya&#8230; Again?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/how-long-until-obama-is-forced-to-bomb-libya-again/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-long-until-obama-is-forced-to-bomb-libya-again</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2014 03:12:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Tripoli is under the control of Islamist militias. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Gaddafi-the-Jewish-leader-of-Libya-meets-President-Hussein-Obama-the-Muslim-rais-of-America.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-239541" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Gaddafi-the-Jewish-leader-of-Libya-meets-President-Hussein-Obama-the-Muslim-rais-of-America-450x337.jpg" alt="Gaddafi, the Jewish leader of Libya meets, President Hussein Obama, the Muslim rais of America" width="450" height="337" /></a></p>
<p>While the world&#8217;s attention is on Syria and Iraq, Tripoli is allegedly under the control of Islamist militias. Meanwhile fighting still continues in Benghazi. With Obama golfing, Egypt and the UAE took it upon themselves to carry out some bombings of their own.</p>
<p>Egypt denied the bombings when asked, but at this point tweaking the US has become a national sport there.</p>
<p>(Of course the White House already knows that all this was caused by a YouTube video.)</p>
<p>Libya hasn&#8217;t really had anything resembling a functioning government in a while even though much of the media and the diplomats were willing to play along until it became impossible to go on pretending. In 2012, I warned that the elections were a farce <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/the-election-farce-in-libya/2/">and that the war wasn&#8217;t over.</a></p>
<blockquote><p>The central purpose of the Libyan election is to maintain the illusion of stability even as the fighting goes on. Benghazi, the “cradle of the revolution,” whose clashes with Gaddafi’s forces were used by Obama to justify the bombing of Libya, is still at war. The Libyan provisional government has already threatened that it will use force to suppress the Cyrenaica National Council, which seeks autonomy for Eastern Libya.</p>
<p>Before long the fighting in Benghazi will force the new Libyan government to engage in a crackdown similar to the one that was carried out by Gaddafi. There are reports that this may be happening in parts of Libya already. But don’t look for Obama to run to the UN Security Council for another No Fly Zone, when it’s the NFA and the Brotherhood killing Benghazi civilians.</p>
<p>Benghazi may be bad, but Tripoli isn’t that much better. There is still gunfire in the Libyan capital and rogue militias are out there looting and raiding.</p></blockquote>
<p>Things have only gotten worse since then. Any central authority in Libya is even more non-existent than in Iraq which is why the Islamist militias have had little trouble rolling over it.</p>
<p>Nor is there any real sign that the fighting will end. The odds are good that militias allied to Al Qaeda will end up holding key parts of the country and if that happens, we&#8217;re going back into Libya sooner or later.</p>
<p>For now Obama ignored the persecution of Africans and Christians in Libya. There hasn&#8217;t been a big enough united force or a Yazidi moment to change things. But the moment is likely to come before his term is up forcing him to bomb the country that he shouldn&#8217;t have bombed in the first place.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Secret Directive Supporting Global Islamism</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/obamas-secret-directive-supporting-global-islamism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-secret-directive-supporting-global-islamism</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jul 2014 04:55:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Moderate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mubarak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Buried in documents, the facts are all there.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/obama-is-a-terrorist-.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-235576" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/obama-is-a-terrorist-.jpg" alt="obama-is-a-terrorist-" width="270" height="237" /></a>A <a href="http://gulfnews.com/news/region/libya/us-document-reveals-cooperation-between-washington-and-brotherhood-1.1349207"><span style="color: #0433ff;">recent Gulf News report</span></a> sheds some light on how and why the United States helped bring the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies to power, followed by all the subsequent chaos and atrocities in the Mideast region.</p>
<p>Large portions of the report follow with my commentary interspersed for added context:</p>
<blockquote><p>Dubai: For the past decade, two successive US administrations have maintained close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and Libya, to name just the most prominent cases.</p>
<p>The Obama administration conducted an assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2010 and 2011, beginning even before the events known as the “Arab Spring” erupted in Tunisia and in Egypt. The President personally issued Presidential Study Directive 11 (PSD-11) in 2010, ordering an assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood and other “political Islamist” movements, including the ruling AKP in Turkey, ultimately concluding that <i>the United States should shift from its longstanding policy of supporting “stability” in the Middle East and North Africa (that is, support for “stable regimes” even if they were authoritarian), to a policy of backing “moderate” Islamic political movements </i>(italics added for emphasis throughout).</p></blockquote>
<p>And we have certainly witnessed this shift.  Chaos and the Islamic ascendancy in the Middle East and North Africa never flourished as under the Obama administration—and precisely because the administration shifted from supporting stability under secular-minded autocrats.</p>
<p>The most significant example of this is how the Obama administration threw Hosni Mubarak—a U.S. ally for three decades—under the bus in order to support the Islamists, most specifically the Muslim Brotherhood.  And we saw how that ended—with another revolution, hailed as the largest revolution in human history, with the average Egyptian accusing Obama of being a terrorist supporter.</p>
<blockquote><p>To this day, PSD-11 remains classified, in part because it reveals <i>an embarrassingly naïve and uninformed view of trends in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>“Embarrassingly naïve and uninformed view” is synonymous with the “orthodox and mainstream view pushed forth by Mideast studies professors and academics,” especially those with political influence, such as the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies of Georgetown University, in Washington D.C.  Such programs, which I’m only too well acquainted with, begin with false—that is, “embarrassingly naïve and uninformed”—premises, namely: that the source of all the region’s woes are (formerly) U.S.-propped autocrats (reality is that dictators don’t create such societies but rather are the natural outcome of Islamic societies and are the ones most prone to keeping law and order—compare Iraq under Saddam and Iraq now, as a “democracy,” with “ISIS” proclaiming a caliphate).  Mideast academics have also long spearheaded the idea that there are “moderate” Islamists and “radical” Islamists, and that the U.S. should work with the former (in reality they are all radical—to be an Islamist is to be radical—the only difference is that the “moderate” Islamists don’t wear their radicalism on their sleeves, even as they work toward the same goals that the more open “radicals” work for, namely, a Sharia-enforcing caliphate).</p>
<blockquote><p>The revelations were made by Al Hewar centre in Washington, DC, which obtained the documents in question.</p></blockquote>
<p>This too is significant. As Daniel Greenfield writes: “Al-Hewar, which actually got hold of the documents, is linked to the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6180"><span style="color: #0433ff;">International Institute of Islamic Thought</span></a>… which is a Muslim Brotherhood front group.  Figures in the Muslim Brotherhood had threatened to leak understandings with Obama Inc. This is the next best thing. It warns Obama that if he tries to forget about them, they can prove that the relationship was official policy.”</p>
<p>To be sure, after the ousting of the Brotherhood in Egypt, several Brotherhood members made, sometimes not so veiled, threats to the Obama administration if it turned its back on them, including top ranking Brotherhood member, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcD3DyrbkPw"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Khairat al-Shatter’s son</span></a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Through an ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, thousands of pages of documentation of the US State Department’s dealings with the Muslim Brotherhood are in the process of being declassified and released to the public.</p></blockquote>
<p>If and when these thousands of pages are released, they should be combed through, as no doubt answers to many of the Obama administration’s hitherto inexplicable policies in the Middle East will be found—to wit:</p>
<blockquote><p>US State Department documents obtained under the FOIA <i>confirm that the Obama administration maintained frequent contact and ties with the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood</i>. At one point, in April 2012, US officials arranged for the public relations director of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammad Gaair, to come to Washington to speak at a conference on “Islamists in Power” hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.</p></blockquote>
<p>Indeed, despite the administration’s later insistence that it did not favor the Islamists over other parties, anecdotes implying otherwise were constantly on display.  In Egypt alone, U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson, due to her close ties not just to President Morsi, but the Muslim Brotherhood in general, became <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/u-s-ambassador-to-egypt-muslim-brotherhoods-lackey/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">such a hated figure</span></a> in the months before last year’s anti-Brotherhood revolution.</p>
<blockquote><p>A State Department Cable classified “Confidential” report says the following: “Benghazi Meeting With Libyan Muslim Brotherhood: On April 2 [2012] Mission Benghazi met with a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood steering committee, who will speak at the April 5 Carnegie Endowment ‘Islamist in Power’ conference in Washington, D.C. He described the Muslim Brotherhood’s decision to form a political party as both an opportunity and an obligation in post-revolution Libya after years of operating underground.</p></blockquote>
<p>These documents on the Obama administration’s connections with the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya are especially disturbing in the context of <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/behind-benghazi-muslim-brotherhood-and-obama-administration/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">earlier revelations</span></a> made in Arabic media, including that the Brotherhood’s Libyan wing was very much involved in the 9/11 Benghazi U.S. consulate attack.</p>
<blockquote><p>Another State Department paper marked “Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU)” contained talking points for Deputy Secretary of State William Burns’ scheduled July 14, 2012 meeting with Mohammad Sawan, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who was also head of the Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party. The document is heavily redacted, but <i>nevertheless provides clear indication of Washington’s sympathies for the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood as a major political force in the post-Gaddafi Libya.</i><b> </b>The talking points recommended that Secretary Burns tell Sawan that<b> </b>the US government entities “share your party’s concerns in ensuring that a comprehensive transitional justice process is undertaken <i>to address past violations so that they do not spark new discontent</i>.”</p></blockquote>
<p>“To address past violations so that they do not spark new discontent” is another way of stating another popular position among Mideast professors, namely that whenever Islamists engage in violence or terrorism, that is proof positive that they have a legitimate grievance, hence the US must “appease” lest it “spark new discontent” (perhaps the true backdrop of Benghazi).</p>
<blockquote><p>The Burns paper described the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood: “Prior to last year’s revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood <i>was banned for over three decades and its members were fiercely pursued by the Gaddafi regime</i>.</p></blockquote>
<p>In light of all the chaos the Islamists have been responsible for in Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, et al—is it now obvious why Arab autocrats like Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, and currently Bashar Assad have always “banned” and “fiercely pursued” the Brotherhood and its affiliates?</p>
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		<title>Terrorist Groups Rise 58% Since 2010</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/terrorist-groups-rise-58-since-2010/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=terrorist-groups-rise-58-since-2010</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Jun 2014 04:43:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rand]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rise]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[A new report destroys the Obama administration's claim that terrorism is “on the run."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/130221_terrorists.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-233367" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/130221_terrorists-450x306.jpg" alt="130221_terrorists" width="321" height="218" /></a>One of the principal <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-touts-al-qaeda-s-demise-32-times-benghazi-attack-0"><span style="color: #4587ff;">narratives</span></a> of the 2012 Obama re-election campaign &#8212; as in al Qaeda has been “decimated” and put on a “on the path to defeat” &#8212; has itself been decimated. According to a <a href="http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR637.html"><span style="color: #4587ff;">study</span></a> released yesterday by the RAND Corporation, there has been a <a href="http://www.rand.org/news/press/2014/06/04.html">58 percent increase</a> in the number of jihadist groups over the last four years. Even more troubling, the number of jihadist fighters has doubled, and the number of worldwide attacks has tripled. The report further notes that terrorist groups operating in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan pose the greatest threat to the United States.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">“Based on these threats, the United States cannot afford to withdraw or remain disengaged from key parts of North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia,” <a href="http://www.rand.org/news/press/2014/06/04.html"><span style="color: #4587ff;">states</span></a> Seth G. Jones, author of the study and associate director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at RAND. “After more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, it may be tempting for the U.S. to turn its attention elsewhere and scale back on counterterrorism efforts. But this research indicates that the struggle is far from over.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The raw numbers are stark. The number of groups have increased from 31 to 49, the number of fighters to a high estimate of 100,000 and the number of attacks from 392 to approximately 1000.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In an <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/seth-jones-the-accelerating-spread-of-terrorism-1401837824"><span style="color: #4587ff;">article</span></a> for the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>, Jones points out that America also faces significant threats in addition to Islamic jihadism, including the invasion of Ukraine by Russia that threatens our NATO alliance; China’s flexing of its economic, military and cyber muscles in East Asia; and the instability of North Korea. He also puts Iran and their dedicated pursuit of nuclear-weapons in this category.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Jones&#8217;s analysis pokes a giant hole in the leftist ideology that posits America’s forays into Iraq and Afghanistan caused an increase in jihadist activity. In fact it is quite the opposite. As America has retreated from the Middle East &#8211; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/world/middleeast/last-convoy-of-american-troops-leaves-iraq.html?pagewanted=all"><span style="color: #4587ff;">completely</span></a> from Iraq in December of 2011, combined with a highly-publicized schedule of winding down combat operations in Afghanistan at the end of this year &#8212; terrorism is surging.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">According to Jones the epicenter of that surge is Syria. The ongoing civil war there has <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/jihadist-groups-threat-to-u-s-grows-report-says-1401852049-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwNDEwNDQyWj"><span style="color: #4587ff;">produced</span></a> the largest increases in both the number of groups and the number of terrorists, and they now comprise more than half the number of groups worldwide who are al Qaeda sympathizers. &#8220;It&#8217;s become a breeding ground for jihadist activity,” he explains. He also notes there were substantial gains in North Africa in general, and Libya in particular.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The study further reveals that terrorist leadership has become more decentralized. It is</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">diffused among four tiers: (1) core al Qa&#8217;ida in Pakistan, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri; (2) formal affiliates that have sworn allegiance to core al Qa&#8217;ida, located in Syria, Somalia, Yemen, and North Africa; (3) a panoply of Salafi-jihadist groups that have not sworn allegiance to al Qa&#8217;ida but are committed to establishing an extremist Islamic emirate; and (4) inspired individuals and networks.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">The terror groups themselves are divided into three categories. &#8220;Category one,&#8221; and the top priority for U.S. counter-terror efforts according to the author, should be groups with both the “interest and ability” to perpetrate attacks in the United States. They include al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula based in Yemen, al Qaeda’s core elements along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, homegrown jihadists such as the Boston Marathon-bombing Tsarnaev brothers, and the growing number of radicalized Americans fighting the Assad regime in Syria.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">“Second category” terror groups are those incapable of mounting a domestic terrorist attack, but who remain committed to attacking U.S. and other Western targets abroad. They emanate from countries such as Somalia, Iraq, Libya and Nigeria, and include al-Shabaab and Boko Haram. “Third category” terrorist groups are those with little interest or capacity to target America or American interests overseas. Jones cites the East Turkestan Islamic Movement in China, and &#8220;numerous others with parochial interests across Africa, the Middle East and Asia.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Different military strategies are offered for coping with each category. Groups in the first category should be subjected to &#8220;clandestine special operations, intelligence, diplomatic and other capabilities to target al Qa&#8217;ida groups and their financial, logistical and political support networks.” The U.S. should also assist local governments with training, advice and assistance in attacking terror’s root causes, which he claims range from incompetent security forces to collapsing economies. (The latter root cause is a largely specious assumption, as this <a href="http://spectator.org/articles/40295/poverty-does-not-cause-terrorism"><span style="color: #4587ff;">list</span></a> of middle class and wealthy high-level terrorist indicates).</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Jones posits that groups in the second category should engender U.S. support for local governments, but no direct action on our part. For the third category, he suggests an approach that relies on counter-terror operations by allies and local governments while keeping American air, naval and rapidly deployable ground forces assets in close proximity “offshore.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Unfortunately for an Obama administration seemingly determined to squander painfully bought gains in the Middle East, Jones offers a most inconvenient assessment of reality. &#8220;Al Qa&#8217;ida was born along the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier in the late 1980s, and it will not disappear just because U.S. forces leave,” he insists, adding that our imminent departure from Afghanistan &#8220;will most likely be a boost for insurgent and terrorist groups dedicated to overthrowing the Kabul government, establishing an extreme Islamic emirate, and allowing al Qa&#8217;ida and other groups to establish a sanctuary.” He further warns that just as in Iraq, the withdrawal of U.S. troops “does not make the terrorism problem go away,” but has rather allowed al Qaeda and other groups “breathing space to expand their attacks and spread to neighboring countries like Syria.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The most inconvenient reality of all? The current trends outlined in the study suggest that &#8220;the struggle against extremism is likely to be a generational one, much like the Cold War.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In other words, no matter how desperately the American left, the isolationist factions on both sides of the political divide, and those Americans unduly influenced by the Democrats&#8217; odious anti-war presidential campaign of 2004 want the war on terror to end, the terrorists themselves have other ideas. To believe otherwise is a fool’s errand based on the same kind of fatuous, faculty-lounge thinking engaged in by an Obama administration that precipitates such follies as the easing of sanctions on Iran, the latest <a href="http://nypost.com/2014/06/03/america-embraces-hamas-terrorists/"><span style="color: #4587ff;">announcement</span></a> by the State Department that they will work with a Palestinian “unity&#8221; government that includes terrorist-designated Hamas, and the release of five high-level terrorist thugs from Guantanamo Bay.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">On the last page of the report, Jones cites a poem entitled &#8220;Mujahid’s Wish.” It was published in the Spring 2013 issue of al Qaeda’s<i> </i><a href="https://archive.org/stream/INSPIRE_MAG_201311/INSPIRE%2520ISSUE%252010%25202013%2520SPRING_djvu.txt"><span style="color: #4587ff;"><i>Inspire</i></span></a> magazine, and as Jones rightly explains, reveals the mindset of those who consider the U.S. “a bitter enemy.&#8221; The last four lines are more than enough to understand what we are really up against:</p>
<p style="color: #232323;"><i>Brother residing in the West, grab you (sic) chance and </i></p>
<p style="color: #232323;"><i>Walk steadfastly towards your goal.</i></p>
<p style="color: #232323;"><i>As for me here in Yemen, whenever I move around with </i></p>
<p style="color: #232323;"><i>Explosives around my waist, I wish I am in America.</i></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
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		<title>Libyan General Promises War on Jihadists, Arrest of Muslim Brotherhood Leaders</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/libyan-general-promises-war-on-jihadists-arrest-of-muslim-brotherhood-leaders/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=libyan-general-promises-war-on-jihadists-arrest-of-muslim-brotherhood-leaders</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 25 May 2014 14:08:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[libyan civil war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226211</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["We pledge not to abandon this mission until Libya is purged of terrorists."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/gh34.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-225948" alt="Khalifa Hifter" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/gh34-450x331.jpg" width="450" height="331" /></a></p>
<p>&#8220;We pledge not to abandon this mission until Libya is purged of terrorists.&#8221;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s the kind of quote you expect to hear from the President of the United States. And you might have before 2008. But instead that&#8217;s a quote from the <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/102116/World/Region/Libya-exgeneral-says-people-mandated-him-to-crush-.aspx">man who might end up running Libya</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Renegade ex-general Khalifa Haftar said Saturday the Libyan people have given him a &#8220;mandate&#8221; to crush jihadist militants in the country, a day after thousands rallied in his support in Benghazi and Tripoli.<br />
Haftar&#8217;s campaign has won growing support amid frustration at the lawlessness in Libya three years after the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi.</p>
<p>&#8220;We have accepted the mandate of the people,&#8221; Haftar said in a statement.</p>
<p>&#8220;The (people) have given their instructions &#8230; We pledge not to abandon this mission until Libya is purged of terrorists and extremists and all those who back them,&#8221; he added.</p>
<p>The statement was released by Haftar&#8217;s self-declared &#8220;supreme military council&#8221; in the Benina region near the eastern city of Benghazi, where the rogue general launched his campaign this month.</p>
<p>Thousands of demonstrators rallied in support of Haftar on Friday in the capital Tripoli and in Benghazi, the cradle of the 2011 uprising against Gaddafi and hotbed of an Islamist militancy since.</p>
<p>The demonstrations were some of the largest seen in Libya since Gaddafi was toppled and killed in 2011.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, Haftar warned that Libya has become a &#8220;terrorist hub&#8221; and called for the formation of an emergency cabinet and legislative elections to be held.</p></blockquote>
<p>I <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/will-a-rogue-general-undo-obamas-regime-change-in-libya/">wrote that Hifter</a> (at some point the spelling will be normalized) was probably backed by Egypt. The <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/0/102021/World/0/Libyas-Haftar-vows-hand-over-of-Brotherhood-leader.aspx">signals have gotten a lot stronger</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Promising to exercise security cooperation with Egypt, Libya&#8217;s General Khalifa Haftar asserted his country&#8217;s right to build a strong army and support its neighbours</p>
<p>Haftar, who leads what he calls the &#8220;National Army&#8221; that began to use force against Libya&#8217;s Islamist militants early last week, promised to hand over to Egypt leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood currently based in Libya.</p>
<p>The general praised the reaction of Egypt&#8217;s ex-military chief and presidential candidate Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi towards the 30 June protests which led to the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.</p></blockquote>
<p>It&#8217;s not clear if he&#8217;s talking about Egyptian members of the Brotherhood in Libya, or the Libyan members, some of whom are trying to run the country, but either way it&#8217;s bad news for the Brotherhood.</p>
<blockquote><p>The Egyptian foreign ministry on Monday announced its rejection of foreign intervention in Libya, calling on the neighbouring country&#8217;s domestic parties to &#8220;end divisions and cease bloodshed.&#8221;</p>
<p>Cairo condemned &#8220;attempts from inside and outside&#8221; Libya to push Egypt into the conflict and regarded the situation as an internal Libyan matter.</p></blockquote>
<p>Internal Libyan matter is diplomatic code for, we support the people who are most likely to be the targets of foreign intervention. In this case that&#8217;s General Hifter.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;He is kind of a &#8216;fumpy&#8217; guy,&#8221; said one of the former US officials. &#8220;They tend to underestimate him. He&#8217;s a pretty tough old guy and he could win, whatever winning in Libya means.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Hifter is duplicating what Al-Sisi did, rebuilding a Libyan military command that would run the country.</p>
<blockquote><p>Heftar, like Sisi, is said to have the enthusiastic backing of the fiercely anti-Islamist United Arab Emirates, as does his ally, the former prime minister Mahmoud Jibril. Heftar even created a Supreme Council of the Armed Forces – the same name used by the Egyptian military.</p>
<p>Heftar&#8217;s momentum could change that. His Operation Karama (&#8220;dignity&#8221;) has blazed across Libya with army units, tribes and the largest non-Islamist party, the National Forces Alliance, all declaring their allegiance.</p>
<p>Attitudes on Capitol Hill may change if Heftar succeeds in defeating Libya&#8217;s Islamists. The US will be monitoring events closely – though for the moment its embassy in Tripoli is working to keep channels open to the Muslim Brotherhood.</p></blockquote>
<p>Predictably enough. If Hifter has any US backing, it <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0b4a3e30-e0f8-11e3-875f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz32hYOYAoG">comes from outside </a>the administration and its diplomats. The UAE may be backing him, but the Saudis seem to be opposed. Their media outlets are running attacks against him.</p>
<blockquote><p>“I do not seek power,” Mr Haftar said in an interview published on Tuesday by Asharq al-Awsat, the London-based pan-Arab newspaper. “However . . . if the people want this through the ballot boxes, if the masses ask for me, I will not hesitate in responding to their request.”</p>
<p>Even critics say the sombre, unsmiling Mr Haftar, a 71-year-old member of the respected eastern Libyan Farjani clan (useful at a time when tribal politics are coming to the fore), is considered a hard- headed, skilful commander. He studied war in Russia and Egypt, and took part in Gaddafi’s 1969 coup against the monarchy. Four years later, he was one of the first to enter Israeli-occupied Sinai with Egyptian troops.</p>
<p>Supporters believe this descendant of warriors – his father fought bravely against Italian occupiers in the early 1920s – may have what it takes to stamp out the militias wreaking havoc. “He’s probably the most qualified general to lead and unite the armed forces,” says one who interviewed Mr Haftar during his failed bid to become defence minister in 2012. “He has experience in the Libyan military. He knows it inside and out,” continues the Libyan, who does not wish to be named.</p>
<p>In televised appearances, he has a habit of conflating the Islamist militias with members of parliament and the government who belong to the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood, and with al-Qaeda.</p>
<p>“Libya has become, according to the reports of international organisations, a state sponsoring terrorism, and a den for the terrorists who controlled the joints of the state and dominated its revenues and fortunes and decision-making powers,” Mr Haftar said in an appearance on Wednesday.</p></blockquote>
<p>Maybe he knows something that the Western media doesn&#8217;t. Or refuses to know.</p>
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		<title>Gaddafi Didn&#8217;t Destroy Benghazi, but a Garbage Strike Might</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/gaddafi-didnt-destroy-benghazi-but-a-garbage-strike-might/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=gaddafi-didnt-destroy-benghazi-but-a-garbage-strike-might</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/gaddafi-didnt-destroy-benghazi-but-a-garbage-strike-might/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 25 May 2014 03:14:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226205</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The garbage is causing traffic jams where it blocking the roads. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/IMG_4958.jpeg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-226206" alt="IMG_4958" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/IMG_4958-450x337.jpeg" width="450" height="337" /></a></p>
<p>In the spring of &#8217;11, Obama claimed that he had to intervene in Libya because &#8220;if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.&#8221;</p>
<p>As usual, Obama was lying. No such massacre had taken place in any city captured by Gaddafi. (The same couldn&#8217;t be said for Obama&#8217;s rebel pals). Nor was such a massacre going to take place in Benghazi.</p>
<p>Obama&#8217;s illegal Libyan War did however ensure that a massacre of Americans in Benghazi would take place that would stain his conscience&#8230; if he had one.</p>
<p>But while Gaddafi didn&#8217;t destroy Benghazi<a href="http://www.libyaherald.com/2014/05/24/trash-mountains-pile-up-in-benghazi/#axzz32h2IrABS">, a garbage strike might</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Huge piles of rubbish continue to grow in Benghazi following a garbage collectors’ strike. The sheer volume of refuse now poses a health risk as the temperature increases in the already beleaguered eastern city.</p>
<p>The massive piles of rubbish are starting to have an effect far beyond just their noxious stench. The garbage is attracting animals and mosquitoes. It is causing traffic jams where it blocking the roads. More than this, as a breeding ground for illnesses, the elderly and the young are put particularly at risk by the trash.</p>
<p>Residents have taken to burning the rubbish in their efforts to reduce it. However, they are unaware of the health implications even this may have as they breath in the fumes.</p>
<p>Chairman of the Board of Directors for Public Services in Benghazi Salem Shoui told the Libya Herald that rubbish collectors began striking in May over delayed pay, better facilities at headquarters and the provision of health insurance. He said many of the public services company’s  5,400 employees had not received their salaries for at least three months.</p></blockquote>
<p>Maybe we can get SEIU to fly in and organize them.</p>
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		<title>Will a Rogue General Undo Obama&#8217;s Regime Change in Libya?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/will-a-rogue-general-undo-obamas-regime-change-in-libya/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=will-a-rogue-general-undo-obamas-regime-change-in-libya</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/will-a-rogue-general-undo-obamas-regime-change-in-libya/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 May 2014 04:34:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arab Spring]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=225943</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Say goodbye to the last of the Arab Spring.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/gh34.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-225948" alt="Khalifa Hifter" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/gh34.jpg" width="343" height="253" /></a>It didn&#8217;t take Egypt very long to revert back to a military oligarchy. The Arab Spring was trumpeted as a new era in the history of the Middle East. But the Middle East is better at undoing history than the media is at writing it.</p>
<p>In Egypt, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi brushed away the Arab Spring. Now in Libya, General Khalifa Hifter is set to undo Obama&#8217;s military intervention which put the Muslim Brotherhood on the road to taking over Libya.</p>
<p>Forty-five years ago a group of officers led by Colonel Gaddafi seized control of Libya. Gaddafi enjoyed support from the military and Federalist opponents of a central government.</p>
<p>Now General Khalifa Hifter is leading another military coup while vowing to free Libya of chaos, instability and corruption. His forces pounded Islamic militias in Benghazi, including those responsible for the murder of four Americans, and seized the parliament in Tripoli.</p>
<p>Hifter, who has spent a long time living in the United States, claims to have American support, but his real support probably comes from the east.</p>
<p>Like Gaddafi, Hifter is supported by the military and the Federalists. However he isn&#8217;t fighting a weak monarchy, but the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and other Islamist militias. But like Gaddafi, his takeover was probably inspired by Egypt and possibly even planned out by Egypt.</p>
<p>Egypt&#8217;s new government, which overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood, can&#8217;t risk allowing the group to control a bordering country and one of the largest oil reserves in Africa. Gaddafi used Libya&#8217;s oil wealth to fuel his insanity and fund terrorism. The Muslim Brotherhood would funnel it into pursuing its program of regional and global takeovers and the Islamic militias that control much of Libya would become a problem for Egypt.</p>
<p>Egypt&#8217;s immediate security agenda is to control border instability fed by the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza and Sinai. It would only be natural for Egypt&#8217;s new rulers to turn their attention to their country’s large western border with Libya.</p>
<p>When he released a video calling for a change of power, General Hifter appeared marginalized and isolated. Now he has powerful financial, military and tribal allies. And many ordinary Libyans see him as a possible alternative to the unstable brutality of militia rule, of which the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans was just one example, the collapsing governments and the threat that the simmering civil war which never really ended might heat up until the bloodshed becomes as extreme as anything in Syria.</p>
<p>The Syrian Civil War is also Hifter’s best asset and greatest threat. The conflict called away many Jihadis who had originally fought in Libya, but if that unholy war collapses and there isn&#8217;t a more appealing conflict waiting in the wings, they may drift back to Libya to fight its military. Al Qaeda has training camps in Libya and the Islamic militias are doing well, but they may not have the numbers to take on General Hifter’s forces. And with Syria and Egypt consuming the energy and attention span of Jihadis worldwide, this may be Libya&#8217;s only chance to beat them.</p>
<p>Even though Hifter is stepping into the slot occupied by Gaddafi, it doesn&#8217;t mean that he is another Gaddafi.</p>
<p>General Hifter had close links to the United States and the CIA. In the Middle East that doesn&#8217;t mean much, but he is less likely to share Gaddafi&#8217;s resentment of the UK or his demented flavor of Socialism. Gaddafi had the same relationship to Egypt as Kim Jong Il did to the People&#8217;s Republic of China. Like China, Egypt thought it was getting a smaller version of its own rulers; instead it got an insane maniac who couldn’t be controlled by anyone including his backers.</p>
<p>This time Egypt may actually get what it wants; a stable Libya under military officers who, like their Egyptian counterparts, are less interested in revolution and more interested in the good life. In the best case scenario, the generals may stabilize Libya. If they don&#8217;t, Libya will wait for a strongman to finally get the job done.</p>
<p>The question is whether General Hifter can get the job done.</p>
<p>The Muslim Brotherhood&#8217;s roots in Libya have always been weak. Unlike Egypt, it hasn&#8217;t done too well at straight elections and has been forced to resort to political machinations. It got the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group to switch its orientation from Al Qaeda to the Brotherhood long enough for Gaddafi to set them loose and for them to help overthrow him. But that left the Brotherhood dependent on Islamic militias with unstable allegiances and a hunger for power.</p>
<p>That hasn&#8217;t worked too well for the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria where its influence has been swamped by Al Qaeda. The Brotherhood is a parasite that depends on a facsimile of civilization even as it works to destroy it. Post-Gaddafi Libya is closer to Syria than to Egypt, its tribal links are more powerful than political slogans and even religion.</p>
<p>If Libya&#8217;s generals can win quickly, the Muslim Brotherhood&#8217;s hopes of getting its greasy hands on the country&#8217;s oil wealth will go the way of its brief time ruling Egypt. If they can&#8217;t, then Libya may go the way of Syria. The Libyan military was known as a joke under Gaddafi and its performance during the Libyan Civil War didn&#8217;t do much to impress anyone.</p>
<p>And then there is the Obama card.</p>
<p>General Hifter claims American support, but it&#8217;s doubtful that he has anything except maybe a few leftover contacts in the CIA. The Arab Spring was never about democracy, it was about convincing Islamists to pursue their Caliphate dreams through political elections, instead of suicide bombings. Hifter, like Al-Sisi, is upsetting that particular apple cart and the vendors of its sour fruit in Washington and Brussels won&#8217;t thank him for it.</p>
<p>But Al-Sisi also demonstrated that Obama is too weak to be worth fearing. Despite his support for the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama was forced to accept a new Egypt. And, after kicking and screaming, even provide it with military aid. Hifter is gambling that Obama won&#8217;t turn to a second unpopular military intervention in the Middle East and will accept a fait accompli.</p>
<p>Especially if it turns out to have been backed by Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>Egypt was meant to be a model for the revolutions of the Arab Spring, but instead it became a counterrevolutionary model. Even if Egypt isn&#8217;t behind Hifter, the general obviously drew inspiration from what the Egyptian military did to a much more powerful Muslim Brotherhood regime. And he also drew inspiration from Obama&#8217;s inability to meaningfully respond to it.</p>
<p>Like Obama, the pundits and talking heads will learn little humility from the swiftness with which the Middle East erased their new era of history from history. They thought that their plans for the region were set in stone. Instead they were writing on sand. The wind has blown across the desert and their plans have blown away with it.</p>
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		<title>Libya Detains UN Observer for &#8220;Sorcery&#8221; and &#8220;Black Magic&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/libya-detains-un-observer-for-sorcery-and-black-magic/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=libya-detains-un-observer-for-sorcery-and-black-magic</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/libya-detains-un-observer-for-sorcery-and-black-magic/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 18 May 2014 03:35:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=225706</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Muslims in the US often complain about "witch hunts". ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/fantasia1.gif"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-225707" alt="fantasia1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/fantasia1-450x281.gif" width="450" height="281" /></a></p>
<p>There&#8217;s<a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1512153/un-observer-gaddafi-sons-tripoli-trial-accused-black-magic"> nothing modern about the Muslim world</a>. It may have skyscrapers and smartphones imported from modern countries, but it is a fundamentally medieval place.</p>
<blockquote><p>A United Nations observer at the trial of two of Muammar Gaddafi&#8217;s sons in Libya has been detained on suspicion of &#8220;black magic&#8221;.</p>
<p>Ahmed Ghanem, one of a three-strong UN team monitoring the case, was detained by security units on suspicion of occult practices.</p>
<p>A source at the prison said Ghanem, an Egyptian, was detained upon arrival to monitor the case after written material was found indicating possible &#8220;sorcery&#8221; or improper communications, and was later released.</p>
<p>A UN spokesman said it was seeking an explanation from the Libyan authorities.</p></blockquote>
<p>Arrests for black magic are commonplace enough in places like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. The usual targets are Ethiopian maids and the occasional Egyptian. Sometimes these arrests, like blasphemy arrests, are just harassment. Other times they&#8217;re attempts to suppress a non-Muslim religion. In this case it&#8217;s probably the former.</p>
<p>Muslims in the US often complain about &#8220;witch hunts&#8221;. And yet they&#8217;re the ones who actually hunt for witches.</p>
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		<title>State Department Admits Libya has Become a Terrorist Safe Haven</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/state-department-admits-libya-has-become-a-terrorist-safe-haven/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=state-department-admits-libya-has-become-a-terrorist-safe-haven</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/state-department-admits-libya-has-become-a-terrorist-safe-haven/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 04 May 2014 15:22:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=224704</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I wonder whose fault that was. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/libya-rebels10-550x366.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-224705" alt="libya-rebels10-550x366" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/libya-rebels10-550x366-450x299.jpg" width="450" height="299" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/state-department-libya-has-become-terrorist-safe-haven">I wonder whose fault that was</a>. Must be the guy who kept boasting how he had beaten Al Qaeda and saved Detroit.</p>
<blockquote><p>The State Department&#8217;s latest report on global terrorism, released Wednesday, lists Libya as a terrorist safe-haven for the second year in a row.</p></blockquote>
<p>Two years? It&#8217;s like something happened very recently to turn Libya into a terrorist safe haven. Can&#8217;t be anything Bush did. He was painting dogs at the time.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;With a weak government possessing very few tools to exert control throughout its territory, Libya has become a terrorist safe haven and its transit routes are used by various terrorist groups, notably in the southwest and northeast,&#8221; says the 2013 Country Reports on Terrorism, released on Wednesday, April 30.</p>
<p>Three years ago, on March 19, 2011, President Obama unilaterally &#8220;authorized&#8221; the U.S. military to &#8220;begin a limited military action in Libya&#8221; to &#8220;protect Libyan civilians.&#8221; He said by intervening in Libya&#8217;s civil war, he was acting &#8220;in the interests of the United States and the world.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>The only time Obama has ever acted in the interests of the United States was when he resigned from the Senate.</p>
<p>Unfortunately he then took a step that was drastically against the interests of the United States by occupying the White House instead.</p>
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		<title>Al Qaeda Takes Over US Base in Libya</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/al-qaeda-takes-over-us-base-in-libya/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=al-qaeda-takes-over-us-base-in-libya</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/al-qaeda-takes-over-us-base-in-libya/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Apr 2014 14:29:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=224073</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Al Qaeda isn't on the run. Detroit is bankrupt.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/1398251093300.cached.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-224074" alt="1398251093300.cached" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/1398251093300.cached-450x299.jpg" width="450" height="299" /></a></p>
<p>That time Obama decided to overthrow Gaddafi in favor of a bunch of militias aligned with terrorists? It&#8217;s <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/23/jihadists-now-control-secretive-u-s-base-in-libya.html">working out about as expected</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>A key jihadist leader and longtime member of al Qaeda has taken control of a secretive training facility set up by U.S. special operations forces on the Libyan coastline to help hunt down Islamic militants, according to local media reports, Jihadist web forums, and U.S. officials.</p>
<p>Last week, the Libyan press reported that the camp (named “27” for the kilometer marker on the road between Tripoli and Tunis) was now under the command of Ibrahim Ali Abu Bakr Tantoush, a veteran associate of Osama bin Laden who was first designated as part of al Qaeda’s support network in 2002 by the United States and the United Nations. The report said he was heading a group of Salifist fighters from the former Libyan base.</p>
<p>In other words, Tantoush is now the chief of a training camp the U.S. and Libyan governments had hoped would train Libyan special operations forces to catch militants like Tantoush.</p>
<p>This is particularly true for Libya. Since the 9/11 anniversary attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, jihadist groups and al Qaeda’s regional affiliates have been gaining territory throughout Libya. News that a veteran like Tantoush is now in charge of a military base only 27 kilometers from Libya’s capital shows just how much the security in Libya has deteriorated.</p>
<p>According to one U.S. official who is read into the training program, the camp today is considered a “denied area,” or a place where U.S. forces would have to fight their way in to gain access.</p></blockquote>
<p>We could just take them out from the air, but Obama Inc. has a strict policy about that. Just ask two dead ex-Navy SEALS.</p>
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		<title>The False Iraq-Crimea Analogy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/the-false-iraq-crimea-analogy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-false-iraq-crimea-analogy</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/the-false-iraq-crimea-analogy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Apr 2014 04:55:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bush]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[crimea]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[invasion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ukraine]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=222287</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Who's playbook is Putin really following? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/140303155802-ukraine-military-armed-men-story-top.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-222289" alt="&gt; on March 3, 2014 in Perevalne, Ukraine." src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/140303155802-ukraine-military-armed-men-story-top-442x350.jpg" width="309" height="245" /></a>Of all the strained analyses offered by the Left on the Crimea crisis, none is quite so ludicrous as the comparison of Putin&#8217;s invasion of the former Soviet territory to the 2003 Iraq War. As the Atlantic&#8217;s Peter Beinart </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/vladimir-putin-russian-neocon/284602/">put it</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Putin is just like &#8220;the American hawks who hate him most</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.&#8221;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> This sentiment was vocally </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/24/opinion/confronting-putins-russia.html?_r=1">seconded</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> by Michael McFaul, a former Obama administration official who served as a special assistant to the president at the National Security Council and as ambassador to the Russian Federation. &#8220;As ambassador, I found it difficult to defend our commitment to sovereignty and international law when asked by Russians, &#8216;What about Iraq?&#8217;” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Defending America&#8217;s commitment to sovereignty and international law vis-à-vis Iraq isn&#8217;t difficult at all, if one chooses to examine the facts, as opposed to the American left&#8217;s historical revisionism. To begin with, President Bush asked for and </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002-10-10-house-iraq_x.htm">received</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> authorization for the use of force in Iraq from Congress. Both chambers approved the measure with overwhelming majorities. On Oct. 10, 2002 the House voted 296-133 in favor, followed by the Democratic-led Senate&#8217;s vote of 77-23 a day later. &#8220;I believe it is important for America to speak with one voice,&#8221; said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) at the time. &#8220;It is neither a Democratic resolution nor a Republican resolution. It is now a statement of American resolve and values.&#8221; That sentiment was echoed by then-Senator Hillary Clinton, who called her vote &#8220;the hardest decision I&#8217;ve ever had to make, but I cast it with conviction. I want this president, or any future president, to be in the strongest possible position to lead our country, at the United Nations or at war.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The resolution authorized the president to defend America against the threat posed by Iraq and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs). It also required that all diplomatic efforts be exhausted prior to the use of force and that reports to Congress be made every 60 days once action was undertaken.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The key element here is the authorization to enforce the relevant UNSCRs. Beginning in the late 1990s, Saddam Hussein </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/State/state-iraqres-032003.htm">began</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> serially dismissing UNSCRs, ignoring more than 17 of them and remaining in material breach of Iraq&#8217;s disarmament obligations. The last one in that regard, Resolution 1441, authorized on November 8, 2002, gave Iraq a &#8220;final opportunity to comply.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Bush also established a </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100233454/barack-obama-is-proving-an-embarrassing-amateur-on-the-world-stage-compared-to-george-w-bush/">coalition</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> of 40 nations to depose Hussein, including Great Britain, Australia, Spain, Italy, Poland, 16 members of the NATO alliance, Japan, South Korea, and a total 12 of 25 EU nations. France and Germany sat on the sidelines, as did Russia, but the &#8220;nobility&#8221; of their position was </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/2005/10/28/over-2000-companies-paid-oil-for-food-bribes/">belied</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> by the oil-for-food scandal, in which a U.N investigation revealed that the three nations had paid a total of $1.8 billion in kickbacks and illicit surcharges to the Iraqi strongman.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Another inconvenient reality is that, left-wing mythology not withstanding, WMD possession was not sole premise of the Iraq War. While WMDs were one concern, many other activities of the Hussein regime posed extreme threats to international security, as </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.rightwingnews.com/column-2/what-about-the-weapons-of-mass-destruction-2/">articulated</a> <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">by Bush in his Sept 12, 2002 speech to the U.N</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. Aside from WMDs, Bush made clear that if Hussein wanted to avoid war he must &#8220;immediately end all support for terrorism,&#8221; &#8220;cease persecution of its civilian population,&#8221; &#8220;account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown,&#8221; and &#8220;immediately end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Yet the comparison between Putin&#8217;s seizure of Crimea and Bush&#8217;s liberation of Iraq ultimately falls apart based on the simplest of realities. America invaded Iraq, disposed of a bloodthirsty dictator, did our best to establish a provisional and democratic government, and </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">withdrew</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. Nor did we seek anything in the way of reparations: China has </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.rte.ie/blogs/business/2012/12/04/how-china-won-the-iraq-war/">become</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the largest recipient of Iraqi oil, with India coming in second. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Putin, however, is not at all interested in global security or bringing an internally recognized criminal to justice. Since 2008, Putin has engaged in invasions of two countries &#8212; Georgia and Ukraine &#8212; and many of Russia&#8217;s neighbors are now fearing the same fate awaits them. That fear is driven by the reality that Putin has </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050426/news_1n26russia.html">characterized</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the breakup of the Soviet Union as &#8220;the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,&#8221; and is </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/us-ukraine-crisis-centralasia-idUSBREA2Q0BP20140327">eyeing</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> other conquests in his determination to build a Eurasian Union of former Soviet states. Fear of Russian expansionism is further exacerbated by Obama&#8217;s killing of the missile defense systems that were to be installed in Poland and the Czech Republic in 2009, which were aborted in exchange for a &#8220;reset&#8221; in bilateral relations between the U.S. and Russia.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Rather than Iraq, a far better comparison to Crimea is a more recent war, which the left was hypocritically silent to: Libya. From the very beginning, Putin has used appeals to humanitarianism as the pretext for his invasion of Crimea. He has </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/19/world/europe/ukraine.html">cast</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> himself as the &#8220;guardian&#8221; of the Russian-speaking people, even those residing in neighboring countries, such as Ukraine. For example, citing threats of violence toward the Russian-speaking citizens in the Ukraine, Putin said, &#8220;[I]f we see such uncontrolled crime spreading to the eastern regions of the country, and if the people ask us for help, while we already have the official request from the legitimate president, we retain the right to use all available means to protect those people. We believe this would be absolutely legitimate.”</span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In 2011, Obama used similar justifications for the U.S.-led NATO intervention in Libya, which at the time was in the midst of a chaotic civil conflict, not unlike that of Ukraine. &#8220;I have&#8230; stated that it is U.S. policy that Qaddafi needs to go,&#8221; Obama </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-qaddafi-must-go-but-current-libya-mission-focused-on-humanitarian-efforts/">said</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> of the situation. &#8220;But when it comes to our military action, we are doing so in support of U.N. Security resolution 1973. That specifically talks about humanitarian efforts, and we are going to make sure that we stick to that mandate.&#8221; </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The mission began as a no-fly zone over Libya, for the purpose of protecting civilian populations, but quickly escalated into </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/joseph-klein/nato-aims-to-kill-qaddafi/">unauthorized</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> targeted air strikes and a manhunt for Qaddafi. While </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Obama and NATO were carrying out these </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">strikes, which destroyed schools and non-governmental buildings such as the Libyan Down&#8217;s Syndrome Society, the president steadfastly maintained that intervention was </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">necessary</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to pre-empt an imminent massacre by the Libyan regime. </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Notably, the intervention in Libya proceeded without the permission of the U.S. Congress in violation of the War Powers Act. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In the background of the Libyan war was a philosophy that is currently in vogue in the left-wing foreign policy establishment &#8212; and in the Obama administration in particular. The </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.globalr2p.org/about_r2p">responsibility to protect doctrine</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, known as R2P, is a pet doctrine of UN Ambassador and Samantha Power and National Security Advisor Susan Rice. The philosophy of R2P codifies the justification of military intervention on the basis of humanitarian reasons and rejects absolute rights of sovereignty. It sanctions &#8220;appropriate collective action, in a timely and decisive manner&#8221; with regard to nations that fail to protect its populations from &#8220;genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.&#8221; Power even once envisaged </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/israeli-newspaper-focuses-on-samantha-powers-remarks-in-2002/">invading</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> Israel based on this principle.</span></p>
<p><span><span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">What Power, Rice and Obama are no doubt learning from the Crimea episode is that rejection of the premise of absolute </span>sovereignty<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> and using humanitarian reasons for </span>the bases of invasion and war is a double-edged sword. There will always be malignant state actors who will exploit the &#8220;responsibility to protect&#8221; for their own purposes. Indeed, Putin appears to have taken a page out of the Obama administration&#8217;s playbook &#8212; not George W. Bush&#8217;s. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><br />
</span></span></span></p>
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		<title>John Kerry: Misguided Zealot</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/john-kerry-a-misguided-zealot/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=john-kerry-a-misguided-zealot</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Feb 2014 05:30:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ari Lieberman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Assad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[foreign policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Kerry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=217999</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A review of the secretary of state's history sheds light on his missteps today.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/shrug-Kerry-AP.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-218000" alt="shrug-Kerry-AP" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/shrug-Kerry-AP-450x337.jpg" width="270" height="202" /></a>To fully understand John Kerry, one must examine </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" title="" href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/29/wikileaked-john-kerry-calls-for-israel-to-cede-golan-heights-and-east-jerusalem/" target="_blank">comments</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> he made back in 2010 when he showered Bashar al-Assad of Syria with accolades, absurdly referring to him as “a man who wants change” and advocated Israeli territorial concessions that included ceding the strategic Golan Heights to the Syrian dictator as well as Israel’s ancestral capital to Palestinian Arabs. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Of course had Israel heeded Kerry’s request, al-Qaida as well as other global jihadist elements would now be perched along the banks of the Sea of Galilee. One of Israel’s quietest borders would have been instantly transformed into a hotbed of radicalism and volatility.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In 2009 Kerry </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" title="" href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/11/13/report-2009-john-kerry-letter-backed-anti-israel-gaza-flotilla-activists/" target="_blank">authored</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> a letter which backed anti-Israel flotilla activists who were cooperating with the Turkish IHH terrorist organization. In it, he expressed “strong support” for their activities and referred to them as a “humanitarian delegation.” Apparently, Kerry is unable to distinguish between genuine humanitarians and those with nefarious, genocidal aims. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The comments with respect to both Syria and the flotilla activists are demonstrative of a man shallow in thought and superficial in understanding with a penchant for misreading the region’s prevailing machinations. Little has changed in Kerry since that period and if anything, his tone has become more extreme.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Displaying what can only be described as the ramblings of a delusional zealot, Kerry </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" title="" href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/kerry-gains-arab-backing-for-framework-peace-plan/" target="_blank">recently noted</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that Israel could “instantaneously have peace” with 22 Arab countries if peace is achieved between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Which Arab countries is Kerry referring to? Syria, where over 130,000 people have been killed in internecine blood-letting? Or perhaps he was referring to Libya, which has no functioning government and is currently run by tribal gangs and militias. Or maybe he was referring to Lebanon, a nation a hair’s breadth away from imploding and currently under the thumb of Iran’s extremist Shiite proxy, Hezbollah.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The sad fact is that the Arab world, enmeshed in its own ethnic hatred and rivalries could care less about the so-called plight of the Palestinian Arabs. To them, the Palestinian issue represents nothing more than a spigot to turn on and off when the political climate dictates.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But in Kerry’s myopic view, all rises and falls with the Palestinians. Upheaval in the Arab world and all the misery that it entails plays second and even third fiddle to his goal of making Israel miniscule and ripping out half of its ancestral heartland.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In March 2012 during a discussion about U.S.-NATO missile defense, President Obama, while under the impression that he was off microphone, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" title="" href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/president-obama-asks-medvedev-for-space-on-missile-defense-after-my-election-i-have-more-flexibility/" target="_blank">informed</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> his Russian counterpart, President Medvedev, that he needed some “space” and would have more “flexibility” after the 2012 presidential election when presumably he would have a freer hand to act, unburdened by political restraints. Former Bush Press Secretary and media consultant Ari Fleischer </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" title="" href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/03/28/Obama-offer-Israel-enemies" target="_blank">speculated</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that this “flexibility” doctrine extended to the Mideast where perhaps some deal had been arranged with Arab parties whereby Israel would be pressured into making suicidal territorial concessions. Considering the unprecedented level of pressure being brought to bear on Israel by Obama’s point man these days, it seems more likely than not that Fleischer’s conjecture was prophetic.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>American Who Was &#8220;Libya&#8217;s Best Friend&#8221; Killed in Benghazi</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/american-who-was-libyas-best-friend-killed-in-benghazi/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=american-who-was-libyas-best-friend-killed-in-benghazi</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Dec 2013 17:27:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=212420</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The victim was jogging near the U.S. Consulate ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Ron-twit-copy.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-212458" alt="Ron-twit-copy" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Ron-twit-copy-295x350.jpg" width="295" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>When<a href="http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/05/21770272-very-much-loved-american-teacher-ronnie-smith-slain-in-benghazi"> will Western liberals learn that going to dangerous</a> Muslim countries for humanitarian reasons is not an adventure that ends well?</p>
<blockquote><p>A beloved American teacher was shot dead in the Libyan city of Benghazi on Thursday, just days before he was supposed to return to the U.S. for the holidays, the school&#8217;s principal said.</p>
<p>Ronnie Smith, 33, had been teaching chemistry at the International School Benghazi for about 18 months and was &#8220;very much loved,&#8221; principal Peter Hodge told NBC News.</p>
<p>“He was going back home to see his mom and his family where he hadn’t been for some time. He was supposed to leave this week but he said he would stay around for our midterms and sent his family. He was going to join them.”</p>
<p>Adel Mansour, a former principal at the school who is currently head of its board of governors, described Smith as a &#8220;great guy.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;He loved being in Benghazi and he loved Libya and the kindness of its people,” Mansour told NBC News. &#8220;He was looking forward to going back and being with his family [to the U.S. for Christmas] but unfortunately now that&#8217;s not going to happen.&#8221;</p>
<p>Security official Ibrahim al-Sharaa told The Associated Press that the victim was jogging near the U.S. Consulate at the time of the shooting. NBC News was unable to independently confirm that account.</p></blockquote>
<p>A Canadian teacher died in Benghazi last month of natural causes. There are apparently a whole lot of foreigners still in Benghazi even though there&#8217;s no law and order and the place is run by Islamic militias.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/ISBchem">Ronald Smith&#8217;s Twitter feed </a>was last updated 20 hours ago. He describes himself as &#8220;Libya&#8217;s Best Friend&#8221;. His Twitter feed repeatedly mentions him enjoying bacon and joking about picking up the local girls. And seemed to be having fun in general.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>I enjoy when people try to convert me to Islam, especially when their reasoning sounds something like this: &#8220;أنتا غبي&#8221;</p>
<p>— Mr. Smith (@ISBchem) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISBchem/statuses/398712200464187392">November 8, 2013</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Why do the Saudis spend so much energy keeping women from driving? Is it even possible to be that much worse than an Arab dude?</p>
<p>— Mr. Smith (@ISBchem) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISBchem/statuses/394093382446096384">October 26, 2013</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Went out for an errand. Big mistake. Streets packed with sheep and Libyans, and quite frankly I had difficulty telling them apart.</p>
<p>— Mr. Smith (@ISBchem) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISBchem/statuses/389088608977952769">October 12, 2013</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Why kill the sheep yourself for Eid? This is Benghazi. Leave it at an embassy for a couple days and let the Beards blow it up.</p>
<p>— Mr. Smith (@ISBchem) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISBchem/statuses/389030024801943552">October 12, 2013</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" data-conversation="none"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/JamelaElfeitori">@JamelaElfeitori</a> you&#8217;re right. I forgot you&#8217;re a chick. Not used to talking to chicks&#8230;you know, it being haram and all.</p>
<p>— Mr. Smith (@ISBchem) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISBchem/statuses/406837892590608384">November 30, 2013</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>People always say &#8220;everyone in Benghazi is related.&#8221; I&#8217;m starting to see confirmation from the test scores. <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23inbreeding&amp;src=hash">#inbreeding</a></p>
<p>— Mr. Smith (@ISBchem) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISBchem/statuses/388361788485824513">October 10, 2013</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Sure win for Arabs Got Talent: man walks on stage with empty Rani can and sandwich. Places it in a trash can. Walks off. Game over</p>
<p>— Mr. Smith (@ISBchem) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISBchem/statuses/384041554048204800">September 28, 2013</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Arabs got talent. Sounds like an oxymoron to me. Snap!</p>
<p>— Mr. Smith (@ISBchem) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISBchem/statuses/384034136895553536">September 28, 2013</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Random white guy question: do the niqab sizes S, M, L, XL refer to the garment or the size of the eye openings?</p>
<p>— Mr. Smith (@ISBchem) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISBchem/statuses/378830242926055424">September 14, 2013</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Someone asked &#8220;how could we make benghazi better?&#8221; My first thought: fewer Libyans.</p>
<p>— Mr. Smith (@ISBchem) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISBchem/statuses/382931120972906496">September 25, 2013</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/ronnie.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-212457" alt="ronnie" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/ronnie-450x253.jpg" width="450" height="253" /></a></p>
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		<title>Obama Inc. Wants Libyans to Come to US, Work in &#8220;Aviation Maintenance&#8221; and &#8220;Nuclear Fields&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-inc-wants-libyans-to-come-to-us-work-in-aviation-maintenance-and-nuclear-fields/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-inc-wants-libyans-to-come-to-us-work-in-aviation-maintenance-and-nuclear-fields</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Nov 2013 14:43:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Homeland Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=208716</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I can't think of a single possible thing that could go wrong with this plan. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Libyan_Gernade.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-208717" alt="Libyan_Gernade" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Libyan_Gernade-450x240.jpg" width="450" height="240" /></a></p>
<p>I can&#8217;t think of a <a href="http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=209847">single possible thing that could go wrong with this plan</a>. I only wish there was some way to get the Saudis, Iranians and Pakistanis involved to<a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/24/gop-lawmakers-internal-doc-reveals-obama-administration-seeks-to-lift-20-year-libyan-ban/"> really improve our national security</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee have obtained an internal Department of Homeland Security draft final regulation that would lift a 20 year ban on Libyans coming to the US to work in sensitive fields.</p>
<p>The document — highlighted Thursday by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia and Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz — shows that DHS is working to amend its regulations to eliminate the restrictions on Libyan nationals and foreign nationals acting on behalf of Libyan entities from coming to the United States to work in aviation maintenance, flight operations, or to study nuclear-related fields.</p>
<p>“It is shocking that the Obama Administration is turning a blind eye to real terrorist threats that exist in Libya today,” Goodlatte said in a statement. “Just over a year ago, four Americans were killed in the pre-planned terrorist attacks on the American Consulate in Benghazi.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Libya is basically run by terrorists after we helped the terrorists overthrow their government. The country is in the middle on an ongoing civil war fought by militias. Central authority is a myth.</p>
<p>So this is the perfect time to find us some Libyans to study nuclear fields and work in aviation maintenance. It couldn&#8217;t be more perfect.</p>
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		<title>Libyan Uranium Guarded by Terrified Ex-Human Trafficker</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/libyan-uranium-guarded-by-terrified-ex-human-trafficker/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=libyan-uranium-guarded-by-terrified-ex-human-trafficker</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/libyan-uranium-guarded-by-terrified-ex-human-trafficker/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Oct 2013 00:02:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libyan War]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[uranium]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=208243</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[No action was taken to remove the uranium, which after processing could become weapons grade]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/us-import-radioactive-waste.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-208246" alt="97717028.dat" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/us-import-radioactive-waste-450x319.jpg" width="450" height="319" /></a></p>
<p>The Democrats repeatedly blasted Bush for not planning the aftermath of Saddam&#8217;s defeat better. <a href="http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2013/10/islamists-going-after-libyas-weapons.html">This is how well Obama</a> planned out the overthrow of Gaddafi.</p>
<p>And it&#8217;s an open question whether Obama&#8217;s Libyan War will lead to countless American deaths, beyond the Benghazi four.</p>
<blockquote><p>An unstable country on the brink of civil war is not all former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi left behind after his death last year. A vast collection of weapons remains in an abandoned desert warehouse in southern Libya, The Times reported on Tuesday.</p>
<p>The arsenal reportedly includes 4,000 surface-to-air missiles, each capable of downing a passenger jet, and thousands of barrels of uranium yellowcake. An inventory collected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) accounted for 6,400 yellowcake barrels.</p>
<p>Bharuddin Midhoun Arifi, a former human trafficker and now commander of 2,000 fighters in the city of Sabha, was one of the main inheritors of the regime’s abandoned weapon reserves.</p>
<p>“Sometimes I’m afraid that al-Qaeda will get me. Other times I fear that the Americans or French or British will fire missiles from the sea to destroy all I control.” Arifi told the Times. He claims that al-Qaeda had most recently offered 1 million dollars for some of the weapons, an offer which Arifi says he turned down. “I told them…this belonged to my government.”</p>
<p>Rows of the mortars and rockets stacked in crates, however, suggest some of the weapons have been shipped to Syria, along with hundreds of Libyans who have joined the rebel forces fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad&#8217;s regime.</p>
<p>No actions were taken to remove the uranium, which after intensive processing could become weapons grade, despite the U.N. mission in Libya suggesting its removal. Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammad Abdul Aziz echoed similar sentiments but with no avail.</p></blockquote>
<p>Say what you will about Bush, but I doubt the uranium would still have been sitting there after all this time. But Bush had national security priorities. Obama has a bizarre melange of Green Energy, Islam outreach and gay rights priorities.</p>
<p>Uranium, like Benghazi security, isn&#8217;t his problem.</p>
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