Tag Archives: National Security

A review of Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy record of achievements

Hillary Clinton look bored about the deaths of 4 Americans who asked for her help
Hillary Clinton look bored about the deaths of 4 Americans who asked for her help

This article is from the Washington Examiner.

Excerpt:

Iraq:

[…][W]hen the [Iraq] war was at a tipping point in 2007 and General David Petraeus advocated for a surge of U.S. forces to regain lost momentum, she voted against it.

As secretary of state she failed to negotiate a residual force that would have prevented Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from creating sectarian strife. The ensuing strife led to the creation of an irregular war between Sunni and Shia with the Islamic State growing from that turmoil.

Libya:

Clinton considers the 2011 overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya to be one of her finest hours as secretary of state. President Obama considers it one of his worst failures. As secretary of state, she pushed for U.S. and NATO involvement against Gaddafi. When he was overthrown, there was no plan for follow-up governance. The result was instability, a huge refugee flow into southern Europe and the Islamic State gaining a foothold in Libya.

Worse was the eventual loss of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens in the Benghazi terrorist attack. It was the first killing of a U.S. ambassador in the line of duty since 1979. The response from our secretary of state? She claimed his killing was the result of an anti-Islamic video.

Russia:

As secretary of state she proudly pushed the “reset” button on U.S.-Russia relations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in 2009. She couldn’t even get the translation on the button correct: The Russian word emblazoned on the button actually meant “overload.”

How prescient. The ensuing result was Cold War 2.0. After her reset, Russia took Crimea, invaded Ukraine, strongly supported Syrian President Bashar Assad, conducted airstrikes against civilians in Aleppo, Syria and significantly increased their military and political presence in the Middle East.

Syria:

In Syria, while secretary of state, Clinton watched as United Nations resolution after U.N. resolution failed. She accomplished nothing except to repeat the refrain “Assad must go.” She said in 2012 that opposition to Assad was the first step towards a better future for the people of Syria.

Tell that to the 500,000 Syrian dead or the 3 million refugees. When Obama drew a red line in 2012 against chemical weapons-use against civilians, Clinton stood by and did nothing as the Syrian regime used sarin nerve gas against civilians.

Egypt:

In 2009, Clinton called Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his wife “friends of the family.” Some friends. In January of 2011 they were gone, overthrown by an Arab Spring uprising Clinton openly supported. Even greater turmoil followed under the Muslim Brotherhood until a popular uprising resulted in their overthrow.

The new, popularly-elected President Abdel el-Sisi is considered by Clinton to be governing through what is “basically an army dictatorship.” Egypt has always been critical to the stability of the Middle East pertaining to Israel. We need them with us for continued efforts to maintain peace in the region. Clinton’s position denigrates a key ally in the Middle East.

The article does not mention the disastrous Iran deal, which gave Iran $1.7 billion to help them fund terrorist attacks and develop nuclear weapons for use against Israel. But Hillary Clinton supported that deal, too – according to the far left New York Times.

This article by Victor Davis Hanson in National Review recalls her lack of concern for national security:

Had anyone else in government set up a private e-mail server, sent and received classified information on it, deleted over 30,000 e-mails, ordered subordinates to circumvent court and congressional orders to produce documents, and serially and publicly lied to the American people about the scandal, that person would surely be in jail. The Clinton Foundation is like no other president-sponsored nonprofit enterprise in recent memory — offering a clearing house for Clinton-family jet travel and sinecures for Clintonite operatives between Clinton elections. Hillary Clinton allotted chunks of her time as secretary of state to the largest Clinton Foundation donors. Almost every assistant whom she has suborned has taken the Fifth Amendment, in Lois Lerner fashion.

Being “present” when decisions were made doesn’t give someone a resume that is worth offering them a job. What matters is that they were present and made the right decisions. Hillary Clinton has no accomplishments. Unless you are one of America’s enemies, there is no reason to expect her to be a good President. We know this from her record of failure. She just doesn’t have the ability and the skill needed to exercise good judgment on foreign policy and national security.

The smoking gun: State Department pressured FBI to unclassify Clinton e-mails

 

Hillary Clinton look bored about the deaths of 4 Americans who asked for her help
Hillary Clinton look bored about the deaths of 4 Americans who asked for her help

The far left Washington Post reports:

FBI official Brian McCauley had been trying for weeks to get his contact at the State Department to approve his request to put two bureau employees back in Baghdad.

Around May 2015, Patrick Kennedy finally called back.

“He said: ‘Brian. Pat Kennedy. I need a favor,’ ” McCauley recalled in an interview Tuesday. “I said: ‘Good, I need a favor. I need our people back in Baghdad.’ ”

Then Kennedy, a longtime State Department official, explained what he wanted: “There’s an email. I don’t believe it has to be classified.”

The email was from Hillary Clinton’s private server, and Kennedy wanted the FBI to change its determination that it contained classified information.

[…]The purported “quid pro quo” between McCauley and Kennedy was first reported over the weekend by Fox News and the Weekly Standard and confirmed Monday when the FBI released dozens of interview summaries from its criminal investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

The interview summaries showed that Kennedy lobbied multiple bureau officials to change their minds about ­classifying one email on Clinton’s server. At the time, the State Department was reviewing ­Clinton’s emails for release under the Freedom of Information Act and had sent several to the FBI for review.

Fox News and the Weekly Standard first reported on the story because they are not in the tank for Hillary Clinton.

Fox News notes that the FBI dragged their feet on releasing the e-mails showing the quid pro quo proposal:

“Left to their own devices the FBI would never have provided these [records] to Congress and waited until the last minute. This is the third batch because [the FBI] didn’t think they were relevant,” Chaffetz said.

And the Weekly Standard had all the details:

The FBI official spoke with Kennedy and Kennedy raised the possibility of keeping at least one Clinton email from public disclosure by obtaining a “B9” exemption under the Freedom of Information Act, a rarely used exemption that refers to “geological and geophysical information and data.” One email in particular concerned Kennedy and, according to the FBI summary, providing a B9 exemption “would allow him to archive the document in the basement of the department of state never to be seen again.” The FBI official told Kennedy that he would look into the email if Kennedy would authorize a pending request for additional FBI personnel in Iraq.

A summary of an interview with the section chief of the FBI records management division provides further evidence of Kennedy’s attempts to have the classification of some sensitive emails changed. The FBI records official, whose job includes making determinations on classification, told investigators that he was approached by his colleague in international operations after the initial discussion with Kennedy. The FBI records official says that his colleague “pressured” him to declassify an email “in exchange for a quid pro quo,” according to the interview summary. “In exchange for making the email unclassified State would reciprocate by allowing the FBI to place more agents in countries where they are presently forbidden.” The request was denied.

The Weekly Standard outlines a few more cases where Kennedy pressured the FBI to mark e-mails as not classified.

More:

Kennedy has been a central figure in the Benghazi and email controversies. He was involved in the controversial decisions not to bolster security at the Benghazi diplomatic outpost despite repeated requests for addition security. And although Kennedy is responsible for ensuring State Department compliance with federal records requirements, he communicated regularly with Clinton using her private email. In a sworn deposition in connection with Freedom of Information Act litigation brought by Judicial Watch, Kennedy testified that he exchanged dozens of emails with Clinton and never thought to ask how the private emails would be archived in a manner consistent with federal law. “It’s not something that I ever focused on,” Kennedy testified.

He never thought to ask. It was not something that he ever focused on.

Of course, this is the same FBI that declined to prosecute Clinton for actions that would have been prosecuted if anyone else had committed them – and others have indeed been prosecuted.

DHS whistleblower: Obama administration not serious about Islamic terrorist threat

Is Barack Obama focused on protecting the American people?
Is Barack Obama focused on protecting the American people?

This PJ Media article is by Debra Heine.

Excerpt:

Philip Haney, the Homeland Security whistleblower whose investigation into Islamic infiltration of the U.S. might have prevented the San Bernardino attack, has written an important op-ed for The Hill, warning of President Obama’s misplaced priorities when it comes to national security. In brief, says Haney, “the Obama administration is more concerned with the rights of non-citizens in known Islamist groups than with the safety and security of the American people.”

There are terrorists in our midst and they arrived here using legal means right under the noses of the federal law enforcement agencies whose mission is to stop them. That is not due to malfeasance or lack of effort on the part of these officers; it is due to the restrictions placed on them by the Obama administration.

Not only did the Obama administration shut down an important investigation that could have connected enough dots to prevent the San Bernardino terrorist attack, they went back and erased the dots Haney was “diligently connecting.” Worse yet, when he complained to the DHS inspector general, the DHS and the Department of Justice subjected him “to a series of investigations and adverse actions, including one by that same inspector general.”

None of them showed any wrongdoing; they seemed aimed at stopping me from blowing the whistle on this problem.

Debra links to Gates of Vienna and quotes them about that:

The “behavioral indicators” listed to help DHS agents identify potential domestic terrorists include carrying around a copy of the Constitution, promoting First and Second Amendment rights, having a Gadsden flag sticker on one’s car, and advocating for a minimal federal government.

[The Obama administration’s approach] is thus designed to serve a dual purpose: (1) to protect Muslim Brotherhood organizations and their operatives who have penetrated federal, state, and local governments, and (2) to help the Obama administration crack down on its real enemies, domestic conservatives who want to re-establish constitutional governance.

Debra wrote a couple of prior articles on this DHS whistleblower, one from 12/14 and one from 12/11.

So is it really true that the Obama administration – in their mad rush to let in hundreds of thousands of immigrants from countries that don’t like Western civilization very much – is not serious about keeping terrorists out?

Remember the recent San Bernadino attack?

CBS News reported that 5 different Obama administration agencies failed to detect one of the San Bernadino terrorists:

Tashfeen Malik arrived in the United States with her fiance Syed Farook in July 2014. Just two months earlier, her U.S. government background check found no suspected ties to terrorism.

She was granted a K-1 visa, even though the FBI now believes she was radicalized before she met Farook.

The State Department says Malik was thoroughly questioned during an interview at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan.

[…]Five U.S. agencies also vetted her, checking her fingerprints against two databases. Neither her name nor image showed up on a U.S. terror watch list.

It seems to me our national security agencies have been indoctrinated by their Democrat leaders to target conservative taxpayers instead of radicalized Islamists. And in fact we have evidence of that, reported in the Washington Times way back in 2009:

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity,” saying the economic recession, the election of America’s first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” the warning says.

[…]The nine-page document was sent to police and sheriff’s departments across the United States on April 7 under the headline, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”

It says the federal government “will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months” to gather information on “rightwing extremist activity in the United States.”

The joint federal-state activities will have “a particular emphasis” on the causes of “rightwing extremist radicalization.”

The attacks by radical Islamic terrorists are happening because the Obama administration has taken their eyes off the threat from radical Islam, and has instead focused on YOU – the Christian conservative taxpayer who disagrees with abortion and gay marriage and big government socialism. You are the enemy they are watching. That’s why the attacks that actually happen catch them by surprise.

We have terrorist attacks like San Bernadino and Orlando because the government we elected is led by moral relativists – secularist leftists who deny the reality of objective morality.  Their primary objective is not to protect the taxpayers who pay their salaries and pensions. Their primary objective is to praise moral evil, and shame moral goodness. That’s why they have nothing to say about the danger of radical Islam, and instead prefer to talk about expressing peaceful disagreement to their desire to redefine marriage. We are being governed by atheistic sociopaths who cannot reason about morality. And we elected them.

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