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« on: March 29, 2016, 07:05:14 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 3-29-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
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Mid-Day Digest
Mar. 29, 2016
THE FOUNDATION
“As peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.” —James Madison (1816)
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
Bad Policing Before and After Brussels1
Could the Brussels attack have been prevented if Belgian law enforcement realized sooner the extent of the Islamist threat? At least in hindsight, the signs were glaringly obvious, and though the realization would have come at the eleventh hour, it might have been enough to prevent three jihadists from wheeling bomb-laden bags into the Brussels airport. When Belgian authorities arrested suspected Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam2, they ignored the weapons and detonators investigators discovered in the safe house where they found Abdeslam’s fingerprints. They read him their version of the Miranda rights, waited for him to recover a bit from surgery, and never asked Abdeslam for details about a forthcoming attack.
“Abdeslam’s questioning is a textbook example of why the law enforcement model for interrogating terrorists is a disaster,” wrote3 Marc Thiessen, a counterterrorism research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “As we saw in Brussels, law enforcement officials are in no hurry to extract answers from a detainee, because they are questioning terrorists after an attack has occurred. Their goal is to extract a confession in order to secure a conviction. In such circumstances, patience is a virtue.”
For years, Belgian law enforcement lived in an alternate reality. It placed politically correct policing4 above national security. That allowed the festering of neighborhoods of jihadist sympathizers5 that helped shelter the Paris and Belgium attackers. The assumption was that the Islamic State didn’t have a network established in the country, and that Abdeslam was an anomaly from a threat still beheading people in the Syrian desert hundreds of miles away.
But as The New York Times makes painfully clear6, the Islamic State was miles ahead of the Belgian police. Even before the group declared itself a caliphate, the Islamic State was sending jihadists to Europe with general directions and deadlines for small-scale attacks so that the network was obscured. Predictably, “enlightened” European leaders dismissed those attacks as isolated incidents perpetrated by mentally unstable lone wolves. Islam is the Religion of Peace™, after all. But the Islamic State was probing — hitting singles instead of swinging for the jihadist version of a homerun. Who knows how many cells are still in Europe, or how many are in the United States, waiting, planning?
Obama Preparing to Placate Iran. Again.7
A new report8 in The Washington Free Beacon suggests that pretty soon we could be adding another broken promise to the Obama legacy: “Leading foreign policy voices in Congress say they are preparing to fight against an Obama administration effort to provide Iran unprecedented access to U.S. financial resources as part of an expanded package meant to address new demands from the Islamic Republic’s for greater economic concessions. … The Obama administration is currently exploring new options to grant Iran more sanctions relief than promised under the comprehensive nuclear agreement reached last year, just days after Iran’s Supreme Leader gave a speech accusing the United States of interfering with Iranian banking.”
As Mark Dubowitz and Jonathan Schanzer note9 in The Wall Street Journal, “The Obama administration vowed that the Islamic Republic would never get the ultimate prize: access to the U.S. financial system or dollar transactions. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew was adamant during a congressional grilling last July. ‘Iranian banks will not be able to clear U.S. dollars through New York,’ he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or ‘hold correspondent account relationships with U.S. financial institutions, or enter into financing arrangements with U.S. banks.’ Yet as Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.) noted in a March 22 letter to the White House, Mr. Lew, during a Financial Services Committee hearing earlier that day, ‘appeared to leave the door open’ to Iran getting access to the U.S. financial system.”
Remember, Iran already received a $100-150 billion10 windfall when sanctions were lifted, all of which apparently has already been spent. (Can’t imagine on what.) Rep. Mike Pompeo quips, “As if a windfall of over $100 billion in sanctions relief was too small, and the massive cash influx into Iran from new business deals too paltry, President Obama appears to be looking for ways to make further concessions to Iran. This would be comical if it wasn’t so dangerous.” In his final year, the only thing Obama’s asking is: What’s one more broken promise? The sum of all lies11 is growing by the day.
Is NATO Obsolete?12
“NATO is costing us a fortune, and yes, we’re protecting Europe with NATO, but we’re spending a lot of money,” said Donald Trump last week. “I think NATO as a concept is good, but it’s not as good as it was when it first evolved.” He stood by the assessment this week — indeed, he went even further, calling NATO “obsolete” as well as “disproportionately” and “extremely” expensive for the U.S. “We should readjust NATO,” he said. “And it’s going to have to be either readjusted to take care of terrorism, or we’re going to have to set up a new coalition, a new group of the countries to handle terrorism, because terrorism is out of control.”
Trump may be relying on a national security team of one13, so maybe he doesn’t realize NATO spent a decade fighting terrorism with the U.S. in Afghanistan. But that doesn’t mean he’s totally off the reservation. Dwight Eisenhower, who became supreme commander of NATO in 1951, once said, “If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project [NATO] will have failed.” And an even greater American general-turned-president, George Washington, warned in his Farewell Address, “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world.”
In other words, as with immigration, trade and other issues, the concerns Trump raises are not unfounded. But his prescription depends on what he means by “readjusted.” In another interview, Trump gave some indication: “We are getting ripped off by every other country in NATO. They pay almost nothing.” It’s certainly fair to call on other NATO countries to carry their weight with defense. Far too many simply rely on the U.S. to do all the heavy lifting — besides the U.S., only Great Britain, Estonia, Greece and Poland spend more than 2% of GDP on defense, while 23 other NATO nations do not. But it’s also an exaggeration to say other nations — again, our allies — do nothing. Barack Obama has spent the last seven-plus years generally insulting our allies. Is it wise to pass the reins to someone seemingly so ready to continue that tradition? National security is a primary responsibility of a commander in chief. Half-right gut instincts aren’t going to cut it.
Don’t Miss Patriot Humor
Check out Obama Goes to Cuba14.
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BEST OF RIGHT OPINION
Thomas Sowell: Supreme Hypocrisy16
David Limbaugh: Obama’s Unacceptable Love Affair With Communism17
Stephen Moore: The Free-Trade Paradox18
For more, visit Right Opinion19.
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Vetoing Religious Liberty20
By Paul Albaugh
On Monday, religious liberty took another hit when Georgia Republican Governor Nathan Deal vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature earlier this month. We have long warned that the path to same-sex marriage was a slippery slope because the Rainbow Mafia won’t stop their bullying until they get total acceptance of their way. And it’s made worse when proper protections can’t be put in place.
Deal apparently caved to the pressure of big business and chose to side with economic interests over Liberty and common sense. For a governor who has a reasonably conservative track record, this compromise on the principles of Liberty comes as a double blow. But it also demonstrates how the homosexual lobby along with big businesses that support that agenda won’t even tolerate the mildest form of protection for those who cherish religious freedom. |
