Where Is the Nation Building at Home?

Mona Charen / Townhall Columnist

 

The clearest expression of a foreign policy doctrine President Obama has articulated came in 2012 when he announced that the "tide of war in Afghanistan" had "turned" and that this was lucky because it was "now time to focus on nation building here at home."

Al-Qaida, defined so narrowly as to exclude everyone save Osama bin Laden and his closest friends, was declared "defeated," and a satisfied commander in chief confidently turned to domestic matters.

Obama's assumption that a vigorous foreign policy and a successful domestic agenda are in conflict is wrong. The U.S. experienced high rates of economic growth and development (with occasional recessions) throughout the post-World War II period while also maintaining the world's largest military. In the 19th century, Great Britain's citizens enjoyed among the best living standards in the world even as the nation maintained an empire and ensured freedom of navigation for all. Though many Americans now recoil from the role for themselves, the British served for most of the 19th century as the "world's policeman."

In his West Point speech, Obama mocked his predecessor for believing that "every problem" has a military solution. What he fails to see, even now, is that while there are risks in action, there are also risks in inaction. The choice to refrain from intervening in Syria was not safe or "smart." It wasn't like voting present in the Illinois senate. By declining to support the less radical factions opposing Bashar al-Assad, he permitted the most savage actors to dominate, and now they've spilled over Syria's borders into Iraq and created a threat that even Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel says is "beyond anything we've ever seen."

The unifying theme in global events over the past several years is not, as Obama claims, "that the world has always been messy," but that aggressors smell weakness. "Weakness," President Reagan used to say, "is provocative." China is asserting territorial claims in the South China Sea and elsewhere and bullying Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and the U.S. Russia, having swallowed Crimea in one bite, is now chewing on the eastern half of Ukraine, providing sanctuary to Edward Snowden and protecting Assad. Iran is asserting its "inalienable right" to enrich uranium and jeering that "America cannot do a damned thing." And ISIS is raping, thieving, crucifying and beheading its way to regional dominance, while promising to make America suffer on the home front.

So where is the nation building at home that this global retreat was designed to enable?

Though we are technically in a recovery, our anemic growth rate of 1.9 percent has left half of America believing that we are still in a recession. Unemployment remains at 6.2 percent and would be more than 10 percent if the labor participation rate had returned to 2009 levels. For blacks, the unemployment rate is 17 percent. Wage growth has been very sluggish, and new business start-ups -- the source of about 70 percent of new jobs -- have been weak. The number of Americans receiving food assistance has spiked since 2008, from 28.2 million to 47.6 million.

The president has called income inequality the "defining challenge of our time." Yet on his watch, the gap between rich and poor has increased. For the first time since the 1960s, the poverty rate has stayed above 15 percent for three straight years, while median household income has declined.

Government debt continues at record levels, and student loans have outpaced all other consumer debt except mortgages. The world's highest corporate taxes encourage American companies to locate abroad. Seventy-six percent of American adults do not believe that their children will have as good of a life as they do, and 60 percent believe the country is in decline.

One of the aphorisms attributed to Lenin to excuse the massive crimes he committed on the way to building a socialist paradise was: "In order to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs." Human rights activist Vladimir Bukovsky noted with bitterness that while he had seen many broken eggs, "I have not met anyone who tasted the omelet."

Obama has turned his back on an explosive world to focus on nation building here at home. Where's the omelet?

Where in the World Is Jihad Pilot Adnan Shukrijumah?

Michelle Malkin / Townhall Columnist

 

Black caliphate flags flap in the open air. Islamic head-choppers wreak bloody havoc around the world. Nearly a dozen commercial airliners disappear in Libya. And America's immigration and entrance systems remain in shambles.

 

Now is a good time to ask a question I first posed 10 summers ago:

Where is Adnan Shukrijumah? A decade later, the question is still unanswered. The FBI has yet to track down this homicidal plotter. Have you forgotten?

Saudi-born Shukrijumah, billed as the "next Mohammed Atta," has been a fugitive since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. His father, Gulshair, was a Wahabi cleric funded by the Saudi government. The elder Shukrijumah headed mosques in New York and Miami, consorted with Israel-bashing black Muslim agitators, and also served as one-time interpreter for convicted 1993 World Trade Center mastermind Omar Abdel Rahman (the Blind Sheik). The radical Muslim apple didn't fall far from the tree.

The younger Shukrijumah has been tied to al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan and reportedly met convicted Muslim convert "dirty bomb" plotter Jose Padilla overseas. Gitmo detainee and jihad overlord Khalid Sheikh Mohammed identified Shukrijumah as a fledgling new cell leader. He allegedly trained under alleged terror financier Ramzi bin al-Shibh.

In September 2003, the feds put a $5 million bounty on Shukrijumah's head. The FBI "Most Wanted Terrorists" bulletin warns he is "armed and dangerous." Aliases: "Adnan G. El Shukri Jumah, Abu Arif, Ja'far al-Tayar, Jaffar al-Tayyar, Jafar Tayar, Jaafar al-Tayyar, Hamad." The translation of Ja'far al-Tayar, Jaffar al-Tayyar, Jafar Tayar and Jaafar al-Tayyar? "Jafar the Pilot."

One of these aliases linked the enigmatic man to the same Oklahoma flight school attended by convicted "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui. Shukrijumah reportedly undertook flight training in the late 1990s or early 2000 in Florida and secured a flying license for light aircrafts. He is rumored to have acquired bomb-making expertise, as well. Somehow and somewhere along the way, Shukrijumah obtained a legal U.S. green card.

Among the nightmare activities Shukrijumah has reportedly coordinated, according to the FBI:

"Conspiracy to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction; Providing Material Support to a Foreign Terrorist Organization; Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to a Foreign Terrorist Organization; Receiving Military-Type Training From a Foreign Terrorist Organization; Conspiracy to Commit an Act of Terrorism Transcending National Boundaries; Attempt to Commit an Act of Terrorism Transcending National Boundaries; Use of Destructive Device."

In 2007, Shukrijumah's name surfaced in wiretaps related to a busted New York City subway bombing plot. (Colorado jihadist Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty to terrorism charges related to the "martyrdom operation" in 2010.)

In 2010, Shukrijumah was indicted in the Eastern District of New York for his alleged role in a terrorist plot to attack targets in the United States and the United Kingdom. According to the charges, senior al-Qaida leadership in Pakistan oversaw the conspiracy and a larger scheme by al-Qaida in Pakistan to use Western operatives to attack a target in the United States.

Law enforcement sources have placed Shukrijumah on the southern border, in Guyana, at a Trinidad jihadi compound, and at a meeting of Latin American gangs. Shukrijumah reportedly joined high-level jihad planners in Pakistan's outlaw Waziristan province in 2004, which experts likened to the pivotal planning session in Kuala Lumpur that preceded the 9/11 attacks. "This was a meeting of a bunch of cold-blooded killers who are very skilled at what they do and have an intense desire to inflict an awful lot of pain and suffering on America," a source told Time magazine at the time.

"He speaks English and has the ability to fit in and look innocuous," an FBI agent noted. "He could certainly come back here, and nobody would know it." The magazine added that "U.S. authorities have put his name on domestic and international watch lists but fear he will travel to Mexico or Canada on phony documents and then sneak across the border into the U.S."

Bin Laden may be dead. But jihad lives. Our borders are wide open. Our fraud-riddled visa programs continue to be exploited. Tens of millions of visa overstayers, deportation fugitives and border-crossers go unpunished, undetected and unmonitored. And political correctness reigns. God help America the Unsecure.

Al-Qaida announces India wing, renews loyalty to Taliban chief
 Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

And the global jihad grows. Al Qaeda announces the formation of a jihad army in India, while renewing al Qaeda’s loyalty to Taliban. And allies of the Taliban (Hezb-e-Islami) are joining the Islamic State. But Obama say, the Islamic State “has already failed.”

“Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri declared Wednesday in a video message that the global Islamist extremist movement has launched a new branch to lead its struggle in the Indian sub-continent.”

“This entity was not established today but is the fruit of a blessed effort of more than two years to gather the mujahedeen in the Indian sub-continent into a single entity,” he said.

Al-Qaida announces India wing, renews loyalty to Taliban chief, The Telegraph, September 3, 2014

DUBAI: Al-Qaida leader Ayman al Zawahri on Wednesday announced the formation of an Indian branch of his militant group he said would spread Islamic rule and “raise the flag of jihad” across the subcontinent.

In a 55-minute video posted online, Zawahri also renewed a longstanding vow of loyalty to Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar, in an apparent snub to the Islamic State armed group challenging al-Qaida for leadership of transnational Islamist militancy.

Zawahri described the formation of “al-Qaida in the Indian subcontinent” as a glad tidings for Muslims “in Burma, Bangladesh, Assam, Gujurat, Ahmedabad, and Kashmir” and said the new wing would rescue Muslims there from...

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‘Frustration and confusion’ among US troops over mixed message on Islamic State

Robert Spencer  / Jihad Watch

 

“Chase them to the Gates of Hell? How the [f---] are we going to do that when we can’t even leave the front gate of our base!?” Indeed.

And how are we going to do that when we continue to pretend that they are not what they are, and that they do not and cannot make recruits in the way that they’re obviously making recruits, and that their motives and goals are not their motives and goals, and that their own justification for their actions is not their own justification for their actions.

“‘Frustration and confusion’ among US troops over mixed message on ISIS,” FoxNews.com, September 4, 2014 (thanks to Kenneth):

America’s GI “boots on the ground” in Iraq are so frustrated with the White House message about their mission against the Islamic State — which Vice President Biden vowed Wednesday to chase “to the gates of Hell” — that they’re wondering how they’ll accomplish the goal “when we can’t even leave the front gate of our base.”

Biden on Wednesday delivered what was probably the toughest statement to date from the administration, declaring, after another U.S. journalist was beheaded by the Islamic State, “we will follow them to the gates of Hell until they are brought to justice.”

But his tough talk was at odds with a message delivered earlier in the day by President Obama, who said that while his administration’s goal is to “destroy” ISIS — it also is to “shrink” it to a “manageable problem.”

Amid the mixed messages, a source in contact with special operators in Iraq told Fox News that “frustration and confusion reign” among Americans on the ground there.

The source relayed the complaint of an unnamed special operator: “Chase them to the Gates of Hell? How the [f---] are we going to do that when we can’t even leave the front gate of our base!?”

Ostensibly, U.S. personnel on the ground in Iraq are there to defend U.S. facilities. The president earlier this week deployed an additional 350 personnel to Baghdad to provide security at the U.S. Embassy and related facilities.

The decision brings the additional U.S. diplomatic security contingent to 820.

Defense officials say that when the additional Marines arrive, they will bring the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq to 1,213.

U.S. military personnel also are engaged in airstrikes against the Islamic State in northern Iraq and helping with humanitarian missions to aid ethnic minorities who have been besieged by the militant group.

But it remains an open question how aggressively the U.S. would expand the fight against ISIS, and whether military in Baghdad would be pulled into that effort.

In a statement earlier this week announcing the additional diplomatic security contingent, the Defense Department said: “The Department of Defense will continue to plan and prepare further military options should they become necessary, and we will remain ready to protect our diplomats, our citizens, and our interests in Iraq, while we continue to work with the Iraqi government to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.”

A strategy for addressing the Islamic State in Iraq, and perhaps Syria, could become clearer in the coming days as Obama meets with British Prime Minister David Cameron and other European allies at a NATO summit in Wales. Secretary of State John Kerry is also heading to the Middle East to meet with allies there. All efforts are aimed at building a coalition to battle the Islamic State.

But the mixed messages about how far the U.S. is willing to go have sowed confusion on Capitol Hill, as well as in the field.

“It’s very confusing,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told Fox News. “The president seems to be a definite maybe.”

Reacting to Obama’s comment about making ISIS “manageable,” he said: “That’s when you are closing a lane on the freeway and you have got to go down the freeway with three lanes instead of four, then you manage it. But this is ISIS. They want death and destruction to the United States of America.”

Ex-NSA Official: ISIS Uses Snowden Leaks to Avoid US Detection

By Todd Beamon / Newsmax

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The Islamic State (ISIS) is able to evade U.S. intelligence and is harder to catch because the terrorist group has "clearly" capitalized on the huge leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, a former top NSA official said Thursday.

"Snowden's original pretext that we were violating the law or that we were doing things that were simply inappropriate — the spirit or the letter of the law — has not been borne out," Chris Inglis, who was the NSA's deputy director when the many secrets became public last year, told The Washington Times.

Much of the information Snowden leaked disclosed how the NSA eavesdrops, Inglis said. This included spying on Internet communications as well as on social media.

Some of the data he provided to The Guardian in London and to The Washington Post, for instance, provided precise details on how the U.S. tracks al-Qaida, according to the Times.

ISIS relies heavily on the Internet for its internal communications and to publicize its propaganda. The terrorist group, also known as ISIL, posted videos of the beheadings of two American journalists, James Foley, 40, of Rochester, N.H., and Steven Sotloff, 31, of Miami.

Snowden "went way beyond disclosing things that bore on privacy concerns," Inglis told the Times. "'Sources and methods' is what we say inside the intelligence community, the means and methods we use to hold our adversaries at risk — and ISIL is clearly one of those [adversaries]."

Inglis, who retired in January, continued: "Having disclosed all of those methods, or at least some degree of those methods, it would be impossible to imagine that, as intelligent as they are in the use of technology, in the employment of communications for their own purposes, it's impossible to imagine that they wouldn't understand how they might be at risk to intelligence services around the world, not the least of which is the U.S."

"They necessarily do what they think is in their best interest to defend themselves," Inglis said.

Snowden, 31, downloaded 1.7 million intelligence files, the largest theft of secrets in U.S. history. He had smuggled the top-secret information to a portable USB drive that had been banned by the NSA for at least five years.

Lawmakers have said Snowden's breach could put military personnel in harm's way around the world. Snowden is currently living in Russia under temporary political asylum. He has been charged with espionage and other crimes by U.S. authorities.

Other national security experts also told the Times that Snowden's leaks have helped ISIS avoid U.S. surveillance.

"The changed communications practices and patterns of terrorist groups following the Snowden revelations have impacted our ability to track and monitor these groups," said former NSA and FBI Director Michael Hayden.

Hayden, a retired Air Force general, was NSA director on 9/11.

Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, concurred. He is a former NSA general counsel.

"Following the disclosure of the stolen NSA documents, terrorists are changing how they communicate to avoid surveillance," Olsen told the Times. "They are moving to more secure communications platforms, using encryption and avoiding electronic communications altogether.

"This is a problem for us in many areas where we have limited human collection and depend on intercepted communications to identify and disrupt plots," Olsen said.

Free Andrew...NOW!

Op-ed:
Peaceful with Dignity...the Antithesis of Islam
By: Diane Sori

“The real face of Islam is a peaceful religion based on the dignity of all human beings.” 

So said Secretary of State John 'Swiftboat' Kerry when he spoke at the State Department earlier this week. Meeting to officially introduce Shaarik Zafar, the State Department's new “special representative for muslim communities,” Kerry simply does NOT get the fact that first, 'We the People' do NOT need or want a special representative to anything muslim, and second, the words dignity and islam are polar opposites in meaning and should NEVER appear or be said in the same sentence together.

To have, show, or bestow dignity is to live with the moral and ethical concept that conveys that a person has an innate right to be valued and receive ethical treatment...and in NO way does islam...NOT today or throughout its violent history...afford dignity to anyone within its fold let alone to any of those who are NOT muslim.

And this point cannot be made any clearer than in how islamic jihadists...like ISIS...use taqiyya even on themselves...killing each other as well as killing we infidels...which goes against the words of their very own qur'an. “Muhammad is the apostle of Allah. Those who follow him are merciful to one another, but harsh to the unbelievers” qur'an (48:29). These words themselves give credence...give proof...to the fact that we who live in the 'civilized world' are fighting against 'savages' who are anything but civilized...savages out to kill us all. And know that in this battle the enemy is indeed islam yet the fight itself is NOT really about islam per se but is about control...total and complete control coupled with outright conquest and ensuing subjugation...barbarism personified and everyone everywhere is dead center of islam's target.

And this makes Kerry's statement delivered even after it became known that two American journalists were beheaded shows blatant insensitivity to the families of James Foley and Steven Sotloff, but what do you expect from a member of an administration that cares more about the enemy than our brave troops who fight them. And this becomes obvious in the Obama policy for war...a policy that ties the hands of our troops so as to win the hearts and minds of the enemy alone...a policy that does NOT allow our troops to win the war if winning the war means the death of too many of his brethren.

The enemy...but even before Kerry spewed his recent words Barack HUSSEIN Obama said this past July that 'the enemy' shares our “values of peace." But what does this man know of peace for after George W. Bush had won the Iraq war he and he alone allowed the peace to be lost...and losing the peace allowed ISIS to be born...to fester and grow strong...to kill any and all who opposed them. And Obama's response to ISIS...initiate 'limited bombings'...bombings which might slow them down for a bit but will NOT be enough to stop them for the only way to stop a well organized killing machine like ISIS...a machine NOT unlike a shark on a feeding frenzy...a machine running solely but steadily on blood lust...is to literally blow them back to the 7th century from whence they came...and 'collateral damage' be damned.

And even though some in our country still refuse to see it...and even though some still refuse to accept it as fact...this is a battle of 'them' vs. 'us'...and in order for our children and grandchildren to have a future the victor damn well better be 'us.' But Obama's pussy-footing around with his weak policies of war that in reality protect and aid the enemy...as in treason...we all know or should know by now that having 'us' the victors is NOT something on the Obama agenda.

Remember again that while Obama spews that islam shares “the values of peace” with other religions and cultures, he knows full-well that NOTHING could be further from the truth for islam is NOT and will NEVER be about peace as its actions prove what words might NOT. Case in point...almost all acts of terrorism since 9/11 have been committed by followers of islam...the cult of death...committed with the words "alahu akbar" spewing from the 'savages' lips as they commit one atrocity after another...atrocities always committed in the name of allah...always committed in the name of islam.

And to add to the absurdity and calculated deception of it all, please note that Obama recently said that "The Islamic State has already failed.” Failed...I don't think so as heads continue to roll as ISIS moves NOT only east but west into Jordan as well. Failed...I don't think so for how can they be failures when the President of the United States bows to their cause when at times he calls them 'The Islamic State' while at other times he calls them ISIL. Always refusing to call them ISIS for to do so would show the world...would show his brethren...that he recognizes Israel's right to exist. And that we know is one thing his brethren will NEVER allow nor will they ever accept, especially coming from the mouth of the man who is one of 'them'...from the man most assuredly NOT one of 'us'.

So as ISIS continues to conquer whole swaths of the Middle East, they throw in our faces that they are doing so with both seized and stolen American military equipment and weapons...doing so with more monies and more arms than even al-Qaeda has...doing so with the fact that as of today ISIS quite possibly has enough uranium to build a small but powerful radioactive dirty bomb. And as they now march east into Pakistan they will most assuredly soon have control over Pakistan's nuclear arms...and if that's NOT enough to force Obama's hand...to force his hand to take action that might actually help stop them dead in their tracks...than I don't know what will.

So by his lack of true definitive actions regarding ISIS the Obama agenda of fundamentally changing America has indeed been put in motion...fast forwarded if you will...and we better "hope" that the "change" he is striving for can be stopped in time or his words said back in July will become the mantra that we all will be forced to repeat over and over again whether we like it or NOT...be forced to repeat if we want to keep our heads that is.