Al-Bagdadi’s Death Does Not Mean War Against ISIS Is Over

The US raid that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi over the weekend was a victory in the War on Terror, but winning the battle should not be confused with winning the war. Both ISIS and al Qaeda are still active threats and the victory should not be taken as an opportunity to leave the Middle East on a high note.

One person who is concerned that the US will declare victory and leave in the aftermath of the raid is Iraqi President Barham Salih. Salih, a pro-American leader, spoke with Axios last week, six days prior to the al-Bagdadi raid, and was already sounding the alarm.

"The staying power of the United States is being questioned in a very, very serious way," Salih said. "And allies of the United States are worried about the dependability of the United States."

“I'm worried about ethnic cleansing,” President Salih, who is an Iraqi Kurd, said, “And this has been the history, tragic history of the Kurdish people and this [is] dangerous and tragic. The humanitarian cost is just awful.”

Although President Salih was not aware of al-Bagdadi’s impending departure from life, he was well aware of President Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds and equivocations on whether to keep American soldiers in Syria at all. The Iraqis must be quite plausibly wondering if the American commitment to their country will be discarded as quickly as our commitment to the Kurds.

They have good reason to wonder since America has already abandoned Iraq once. In 2011, the Obama Administration failed to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement to maintain a small security force there. Three years later, the US had to send troops back to help the Iraqis beat back ISIS. It’s entirely possible that President Trump may be about to make a similar mistake.

Several reports have indicated that the timing of the al-Bagdadi raid was influenced by President Trump’s decision to leave northern Syria. Rukmini Callimachi, a Middle East correspondent for the New York Times, reported that al-Bagdadi’s location was determined “back in the summer” but the raid was deemed too risky because it was in Syrian and Russian airspace. With the US pullout looming, commanders decided to rush the raid. Their gamble paid off.

https://twitter.com/rcallimachi/status/1188514608056811530?s=20

There is also the irony that the raid would not have been possible, or at least would have been much more difficult, if President Trump’s policies had been seen through to fruition. Axios also reported that the raid was based at least partially on intelligence received from Syrian Kurds and depended on having American forces in the region to carry out the attack. Jimmy Carter’s Desert One debacle from 1980 is an example of how long-range missions are far more complex and risky than raids that can be staged locally.

President Salih stressed that, despite the concerns of some Americans about “endless wars,” the US should not leave while ISIS and al-Qaeda are still threats, saying, “The military defeat of ISIS is an important victory, but not incomplete [sic] and precarious too as well. It can easily unravel. And this is what I'm worried about.”

“Five years of blood, treasure, effort — a lot of human misery went into defeating ISIS,” Salih added. “This victory was [not] easy, and for anyone to become complacent about it is terrible, reckless, dangerous, tragic.”

The Iraqi president also cautioned Americans about Iraq’s role in a possible war with Iran. “The United States is an important ally, partner. … We want this to continue and we definitely don't want our territory to be used,” he said. “We should try and stop it because Iraq cannot sustain it, cannot survive it.”

Salih’s misgivings about the US using bases in Iraq to attack Iran goes back to the question of whether America would stand by its ally. Iraq is undoubtedly concerned that the US would launch its limited number of airstrikes and then go home, leaving Iraq to deal with the fallout from Iran. Americans may not remember, but Salih definitely does, that Iran and Iraq fought a decade-long war in the 1980s. The Iraqi president does not want to repeat that experience.

President Trump’s decision to authorize the raid to kill al-Bagdadi was a good one and it led to a great triumph. The big question is what course Mr. Trump will take next. Will he follow President Obama’s example and bring the troops home prematurely or will he stick it out until they win?

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump Cuts And Runs

A week after President Trump ordered US troops in northern Syria to pull back and allow Turkish forces to attack America’s Kurdish allies, the president has now ordered the approximately 1,000 American soldiers in the region to leave northern Syria altogether.  The president’s decision to cut and run comes after numerous reports of Turkish atrocities against Kurdish fighters and civilians, the escape of hundreds of ISIS prisoners detained by the Kurds, and a Turkish artillery strike near a US Special Forces camp that was apparently targeted intentionally to intimidate the president.

On “Face The Nation” today, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said, “We have American forces likely caught between two opposing, advancing armies and it's a very untenable situation. I spoke with the President last night, after discussions with the rest of the national security team, and he directed that we begin a deliberate withdrawal of forces from northern Syria, which is where most of our forces are.”

Esper also said that reports that the Kurds were making a deal with the Russians were a factor in the president’s decision. Yesterday, CNN reported that Kurdish leaders were reacting to their abandonment by the United States by seeking protection from Russia.

"You have given up on us. You are leaving us to be slaughtered," Kurdish Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi told Deputy Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, William Roebuck, on Thursday. "You are not willing to protect the people, but you do not want another force to come and protect us. You have sold us. This is immoral.”

"I need to know if you are capable of protecting my people, of stopping these bombs falling on us or not. I need to know, because if you're not, I need to make a deal with Russia and the regime now and invite their planes to protect this region," Mazloum said.

Esper and other members of the Trump Administration say that the US has not abandoned the Kurds and that Turkey would have invaded even without Mr. Trump’s retreat earlier this week.

"We are not abandoning our Kurdish partner forces and US troops remain with them in other parts of Syria," Esper told reporters at the Pentagon. "We remain in close coordination with the Syrian Democratic Forces who helped us destroy the physical caliphate of ISIS, but I will not place American service members in the middle of a longstanding conflict between the Turks and the Kurds, this is not why we are in Syria.” A week ago, there was no conflict between the Turks and Kurds in Syria.

President Trump tweeted this morning that the Administration was working with Congress to implement sanctions on Turkey, but the president has not made ending the war that his actions started a high priority. Mr. Trump played golf on both Saturday and Sunday.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1183376270731763714?s=20

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) tweeted on Sunday that the Trump Administration had not contacted him nor had he been notified of a congressional briefing regarding the “the unfolding events in Syria / Turkey / Saudi Arabia.”

https://twitter.com/chiproytx/status/1183375494374408192?s=20

Roy’s mention of Saudi Arabia refers to President Trump’s stated intention to deploy American forces to the Middle Eastern kingdom to help defend against another Iranian attack. At about the same time that the president was defending his abandonment of the Kurds in Syria by tweeting “The Endless Wars Must End,” he was also authorizing American entry into the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran with an additional 3,000 troops, more than twice as many as were deployed to Syria.

It isn’t clear why the president felt the need to abruptly remove American forces from the Syrian frontier, but it is clear that a situation that was stable and relatively peaceful last week has quickly become another “endless war.” It was not the deployment of American soldiers that caused the fighting to erupt in northern Syria, it was Trump’s decision to remove them.

While American soldiers in Syria kept the peace between Turkey and the Kurds, that was not their primary mission. The Americans were there to destroy ISIS. So, how is that going? Not too good. Mr. Trump’s foreign policy blunder directly threatens America as ISIS gets a “second lease on life” according to a US official.

https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1183428032587018240?s=20

It is also unclear why deploying Americans to Saudi Arabia is not fueling more “endless wars” but keeping them is Syria was. Maybe it’s because the Saudis have the money to pay for America’s friendship and aid and the Kurds don’t. Maybe it’s because the president’s friendships with dictators Erdogan and Putin trumped America’s alliance with the Kurds. Who really knows what has gone through the president’s mind over the past few weeks?

The only certainty is that Mr. Trump’s actions have destabilized the region and are directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Many of those casualties are innocent people and many more of them trusted American honor and loyalty. It is difficult to see Donald Trump’s actions as anything other than a cynical betrayal resulting from a massively incompetent and incoherent foreign policy.

While his supporters champion Trump as a fighter, on the foreign policy front, he is anything but. The president’s record on international relations is one of appeasing dictators and betraying allies. His actions have handed Syria to the unholy trinity of Turkey, Russia, and ISIS.

An American Special Forces soldier summed up the entire situation on Wednesday, saying, “I am ashamed for the first time in my career. Turkey is not doing what it agreed to. It's horrible.”

Donald Trump’s actions have made America ashamed again.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump’s Isolationist Tendencies Are Showing On Syria

In a surprise decision, the United States announced yesterday that it would abandon its Kurdish allies in northern Syria. The Kurds, who have been staunch allies of the US in the wars against ISIS and Saddam Hussein, are an ethnic minority whose homeland encompasses parts of Iraq and Turkey as well as Syria.

The US withdrawal paves the way for an expected invasion of northern Syria by Turkish dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. PBS reports that the unusual late Sunday announcement by the White House followed a telephone call between Presidents Trump and Erdogan. It is not known whether the phone call involved former Vice President Joe Biden or his son, Hunter, who have been frequent topics of conversation for President Trump recently.

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said that U.S. troops “will not support or be involved in the operation” and “will no longer be in the immediate area.” The fate of America’s Kurdish allies was not mentioned in the statement.

This is not the first time that Trump has considered abandoning the Kurds to their neighbors. Last year, Trump’s announcement that he planned to withdraw American troops from Syria spurred the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis. In an interview with CBS last month, Mattis said that he resigned to protest what he saw as a serious strategic error, comparing the proposed Syria withdrawal to Barack Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq. Obama’s decision led directly to the rise of ISIS.

“We need to maintain enough influence there that we don’t see the same thing that happened when we withdrew from Iraq,” Mattis said. “This is how I saw the strength of America — that we keep our alliances together, and keep them tight.”

Sadly, Trump’s premature evacuation of Syria follows a recent American tradition of abandoning our allies. The Kurds will be added to a long list that includes South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Iraq as well as Central American governments. Other US allies such as Afghanistan, Ukraine, Georgia, Taiwan, and even our NATO partners must be wondering how committed the Trump Administration is to them.

The unsettling feeling that even written treaty commitments are not ironclad is likely very common this morning given President Trump’s tendency to renegotiate treaties at the drop of a tweet. Trump foreign policy calls to mind the Darth Vader’s words from The Empire Strikes Back: “I am altering the deal, pray I don’t alter it any further. “

Even loyal Trump apologist Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had sharp words for the president. On Twitter, Graham called Trump’s reversal on Syria ” disaster in the making,” noting that it would aid ISIS, push the Kurds into Iran’s orbit, hurt US relations with Turkey, and “be a stain on America’s honor.”

Lindsey Graham

✔@LindseyGrahamSC

 · 2h

I don’t know all the details regarding President Trump’s decision in northern Syria. In process of setting up phone call with Secretary Pompeo.

If press reports are accurate this is a disaster in the making.

Lindsey Graham

✔@LindseyGrahamSC

* Ensures ISIS comeback.
* Forces Kurds to align with Assad and Iran.
* Destroys Turkey’s relationship with U.S. Congress.
* Will be a stain on America’s honor for abandoning the Kurds.

6,027

8:17 AM - Oct 7, 2019

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In reality, Donald Trump’s abandonment of our Kurdish allies is nothing new. The president opposed intervention in Syria going back at least to President Obama’s aborted 2013 plan to retaliate for Syria’s use of chemical weapons. During the 2016 campaign, Trump criticized Hillary Clinton’s plan for a no-fly zone and advocated having the US leave the fighting to the Russians and Syrians. Foreign Policy warned that such a plan would “end up empowering extremists and causing chaos across the Middle East.”

The new policy of retreat would seem difficult to square with Trump’s reputation as a fighter, but that reputation has always been more directed at domestic political opponents than at foreign powers. Trump’s “America first” philosophy has almost always been one of accommodation and appeasement. Like Obama, Trump’s focus has been on bringing the troops home regardless of the cost.

In the case of Syria, the cost is likely to be paid in Kurdish blood. Since the blood spilled will not be that of Americans, many will be fine with that. But there is a greater cost to America as well. Our allies will be less trustful of our commitments and our adversaries will know that they just need to bide their time.

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Originally published on The Resurgent

General: Trump's Cut-And-Run From Syria Is A 'Serious Strategic Mistake'

President Trump’s surprising decision to cut and run from Syria is being panned by military analysts as “a serious strategic mistake” that ranks with such errors as President Obama’s decision to withdraw from Iraq and the abandonment of South Vietnam. Trump’s decision to retreat from Syria reportedly went against the advice of Defense Secretary James Mattis and other top generals.

“We have defeated ISIS in Syria,” Trump said in a tweet justifying his unilateral decision to withdraw American troops from the embattled Middle Eastern country.

But other analysts, such as Jack Keane, a retired four-star general and army vice chief of staff, disagree. Keane, now a military analyst for Fox News, lashed out at the president, calling the move “a serious strategic mistake” with “dire consequences.”

Keane, who has generally supported Trump’s foreign policy, told Trish Regan on Fox Business that, “It’s a decision that the president will come to regret.”

“The obvious analogy is a simple one,” Keane said. “How you end a conflict is more important than how you start one and history will tell you that. When we stayed in post-World War II Germany, Italy and Japan, we helped to stabilize those countries. We did the same thing in Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

However, he added, “When we prematurely withdraw forces because we’re tired or it or we’re frustrated by the time it took – Vietnam, Iraq, and now Syria – the consequences are usually unfavorable and quite dire.”

“It is not speculation that ISIS will indeed reemerge,” Keane said. “Our intelligence services have already forecasted that. The reality is they will come back. They are conducting terrorist operations around Raqqa right now on a low level.”

Keane said that ISIS leaders around Raqqa had been telling people there that the Americans had not followed through with their promises to rebuild schools, power plants, and other infrastructure destroyed in the war against the terror group. ISIS will use the unkept promises and withdrawal of American troops to recruit and gain influence.

“The Iranians, which are a much greater threat than ISIS, will now own all of Syria,” Keane said. “That is a fact. They will encroach on the sovereignty and security of Israel.”

Keane also warned that the withdrawal would have implications beyond the Middle East. “Russia and our adversaries will look at this, not as a victory for the United States,” he said. “They will look at this as weakness. It will impact North Korea in terms of the stalemate we have with them right now. It impacts Russia in terms of our ability and willingness to confront them and have some impact on them. And certainly, it’s going to impact also with China…. It’s going to encourage them and embolden them. All these things are related to one another.”

Keane acknowledged Trump’s concern for casualties and the fact that ISIS was temporarily on the run in Syria, but said, “The one thing I think history has also told us is the Middle East is a breeding ground for radical Islam and it’s also the place Iran wants to dominate and control.”

Keane said that Trump’s withdrawal is already encouraging ISIS to reemerge. Noting that the president said he was willing to redeploy forces to Syria if ISIS returns, Keane asked, “Why? If you’re willing to do that let’s finish it. Let’s stay the course and finish this thing once and for all.”

The Trump withdrawal closely mirrors Barack Obama’s premature withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. Against the advice of military leaders, Obama removed the US military and the resulting power vacuum allowed ISIS to flourish and gain control over large swaths of both Iraq and Syria. The expansion of ISIS required the US to recommit troops to the region and gave Russia a pretext for sending a large military force to Syria in 2015. Additionally, the Syrian unrest created a refugee crisis that led to a wave of terrorist attacks in Europe.

The Trump policy threatens to undo progress made on those fronts. American forces in Syria have subdued but not destroyed the ISIS threat and provided a counterbalance to Russian and Iranian influence in the region. An American withdrawal that allows ISIS to reform would also likely create new waves of refugees fleeing to Europe.

Another big winner from Trump’s isolationist policy is Iran. USA Today points out that the US-controlled eastern portion of Syria had posed an obstacle that prevented the Iranians from being able to move by land from Iran all the way to Lebanon, home base of their ally Hezbollah. Without American forces in the way, Iran can ship heavy weapons all the way to the Israeli borders with Syria and Lebanon. Where Barack Obama gave Iran billions of dollars, President Trump just gave the mullahs something much more strategically valuable.

 Originally published on The Resurgent

FBI Director: Terrorist Drones Are 'Imminent' Threat

On Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that terrorist attacks in the United States by groups using drones were an “imminent” threat. Such attacks could be launched against soft targets using the small unmanned aircraft armed with chemical weapons or small explosives.

“We do know that terrorist organizations have an interest in using drones; we've seen that overseas already with some growing frequency and I think the expectation is it's coming here imminently,” Wray testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee as reported by the Washington Free Beacon. “I think they are relatively easy to acquire, relatively easy to operate, and I think quite difficult to disrupt and monitor.”

ISIS has been known to use drones in both a surveillance and an attack role. Last April, Fox News reported that ISIS had posted online videos with instructions for arming commercially-available drones.

“Two years ago, this was not a problem,” said Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center. “One year ago, this was an emerging problem. Now it's a real problem, and so we are quickly trying to up our game.”

Rasmussen said that counterterrorism agencies are working to understand and defend against the threat of drones. In Iraq, drones have been used by ISIS to drop bombs on Iraqi government troops, but merely flying an unarmed drone in the vicinity of a busy airport could bring down a commercial airliner. Last week, an army helicopter collided with a small drone over New York, but was able to land safely. The operator of the drone has not been identified.

Several private companies are working on anti-drone projects as well. Droneshield provides devices to detect drones as well as the “dronegun” that jams the remotely controlled aircraft and forces them to land. The company’s products have been used by law enforcement and military organizations in the field. Another company, Department 13, has developed software that allows operators to take control of threatening drones.

Current federal law complicates the ability of local law enforcement and private companies to defend against drone attacks. The federal government considers drones to be aircraft and it is a federal crime to shoot at any aircraft. Popular Mechanics points out that state laws that allow police to target threatening drones are in conflict with federal law.

Drone technology is advancing at a rapid clip and terrorists have proven adept at altering new technology to their purposes. Drone aircraft are cheap, plentiful, anonymous and can adopted to perform a variety of roles. This makes them attractive to terrorists and difficult to defend against. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Manchester bombing shows danger of homegrown terror

The terrorist bombing of the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester has intruded on the discussion of walls and travel bans in the United States. The unpleasant truth about terrorists is that it is too late to keep them out. They are already here.

The Manchester bomber was reported to be Salman Abedi, 22. According to The Telegraph, Abedi was born in Manchester to parents who immigrated from Libya. He was a British citizen who was educated locally in British schools and had only become radicalized recently.

The problem is the same in the United States. Many of the terrorist attacks carried out against Americans over the past few years were committed by American citizens. One of the first instances of homegrown terrorism was the 2009 Fort Hood massacre in which Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan, a native of Virginia, murdered 13 people and wounded 32 others. Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the San Bernadino terrorists, was a natural born US citizen. His wife was a Pakistani national who had entered the country legally. Omar Mateen, the terrorist who attacked Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, was born in California. Many other terrorist attacks were also carried out by self-radicalized Muslims who were native-born US citizens.

A common denominator in many attacks is that the terrorist was the son of immigrant parents, but this is not true in all cases. For example, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who shot up a army recruiting office in Little Rock in 2009, was born Carlos Bledsoe to a family of Tennessee Baptists. Likewise, Zale Thompson, who attacked NYPD officers with a hatchet in 2014, was a convert to Islam.

Building a border wall or enforcing a travel ban will not protect Americans from terrorists who are also Americans. In the age of the internet, sermons of radical clerics like Anwar al-Awlaki and terrorist propaganda from groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda are easily accessible online. Potential terrorists can become indoctrinated and plan attacks from the comfort of their own homes without training or direction from group leaders in the Middle East.

If citizenship is an “unreliable” indicator of terrorism, as a Department of Homeland Security report said last February, how can authorities identify and stop terrorists without simply waiting for them to strike? Security forces have several good options at their disposal to find and stop terrorists before they have a chance to kill.

First, jihadi websites provide a means for radical preachers and recruiters to cross borders easily. They should be monitored and/or shut down. Terrorist websites that attempt to incite terrorism or show propaganda videos of terrorist killings should be fair game for cyberattacks to take them offline. When jihadi websites are up and running, valuable intelligence might be gained if counterterrorism officials can determine who they are talking to. When prospective terrorists in the United States can be identified, they can be singled out for additional scrutiny.

There are valid civil liberty concerns about government surveillance, but constitutional freedoms don’t apply to foreign nationals broadcasting messages from outside the United States. Freedom of religion and freedom of speech don’t include the right to incite violence.

It is also necessary to develop a network of friendly Muslims to report radicals who use American mosques as recruiting centers. Some radical mosques have been hotbeds of terrorism in both Europe and the United States. For example, Fort Hood terrorist, Nidal Hasan had attended the same mosque in Falls Church, Va. as two of the September 11 hijackers. The imam was Anwar al-Awlaki, a New Mexico-born al Qaeda spokesman, who was killed by a drone strike in Yemen in 2011. Religious freedom should be respected, but a balance needs to be struck between tolerance for Muslims and disregarding dangerous and violent teachings.

Rather than a travel ban, authorities should closely monitor people who travel to terrorist hotspots. For example, the Tsarnaev brothers, the Boston Marathon bombers, traveled to Dagestan, a Russian republic riddled with Islamic terrorism, but the FBI and counterterror agents never pieced together the available information to identify the men as a threat. Dagestan, formerly called Chechnya, is not on the list of countries subject to the travel ban. As American citizens, the Tsarnaevs would not have been prevented from reentering the US even if it had been.

An additional method for preventing terrorism is the use of sting operations. FBI stings, in which agents play the role of terror group handlers for prospective terrorists, have led to numerous arrests in recent years. The targets of the stings are often homegrown, lone wolf radicals whose posts on social media have caused concern. Some critics argue that the stings are entrapment, but the tactic is an important one for rooting out radicals who might otherwise be invisible until too late.

Finally, the immigration system should be reformed to tackle the problem of people who enter the country legally and then overstay their visa. Far more illegal immigrants overstay their visas than cross the Mexican border. According to the Department of Homeland Security, hundreds of thousands of visitors to the US stay illegally and there is currently no effective system to track and deport them. No one knows how many might be radicals.

The face of Islamic terrorism has changed since September 11. Attacks by foreign operatives who infiltrate into a country to carry out hijackings or bombings is increasingly rare due to heightened security at airports and borders. The next step is to address the threat of US citizens who have joined the radicals. Finding and stopping homegrown radicals is difficult, but it isn’t impossible.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Few lasting achievements from Trump's 100 days

As the Trump Administration passes its 100-day mark, the most striking thing is how ineffective the new president has been thus far. In spite of a plethora of Executive Orders that undoubtedly please most on the right, President Trump has put few lasting marks on the country at this early point in his presidency.

Even though President Trump has signed many bills in his tenure as president, most have not been laws that have lasting significance. For conservatives, passing laws is not an end unto itself. Laws should roll back government and make it smaller and less intrusive on the American people. Politifact notes that several of the bills that Trump has signed are business-as-usual type laws that designate memorials and name buildings, for example.

Not all of Trump’s new laws have been trivial, however. About half of the 28 bills signed by Trump so far were passed under the Congressional Review Act. This law allows Congress to review and rescind last-minute Obama-era rules by federal agencies. The law provides for a 60-day window to review bureaucratic rules that begins when Congress is notified that a rule has been finalized. The Daily Signal has a list of Obama-era rules that run the gamut from gun control to environment to education that have been rescinded by President Trump and the new Congress. Nevertheless, the laws merely preserve the status quo and do not break new ground in shrinking government or rolling back Obama’s legislation. Additionally, the window is now closed to rescind other rules from the Obama Administration.

The most notable legislative story of Trump’s 100 days is the failure to advance a bill repealing or reforming Obamacare. For seven years, Republicans have railed against President Obama’s trademark health entitlement yet, under President Trump’s leadership, Republicans in Congress have failed to advance even a watered-down version of bill reforming Obamacare.

President Trump’s answer was to pivot from health care to tax reform, but he is likely to have the same result and for the same reasons. The Trump coattails left Republicans with tiny majorities in both houses of Congress. The Republican Senate majority cannot defeat a Democrat filibuster and the House Republicans are too divided between Tuesday Group moderates and Freedom Caucus conservatives to pass a health reform bill. Tax reform is likely to be no different.

In order to avert a government shutdown, President Trump even had to give in and omit funding for construction of his wall and crackdown on sanctuary cities from the spending bill that will carry the government through the end of the fiscal year in September. Trump said repeatedly that Mexico would pay for the wall before asking for taxpayer funds.

Trump has done better with Executive Orders. The president has issued many orders that will slow the growth of government and streamline government regulations. An early Trump Executive Order reinstated President Reagan’s Mexico City policy that banned federal funds from international groups that promote abortion. President Obama had rescinded the policy in 2009. Other Executive Orders, such as the travel ban, seem poorly conceived from the beginning.

Good or bad, Executive Orders are limited. The president cannot legislate from the Oval Office with an Executive Order in place of Congress. Executive Orders may also last only as long as the president who signed them. An incoming president could sign Executive Orders rescinding Trump’s orders as easily as Trump reversed Obama’s.

On foreign policy, President Trump, whose views in the campaign ranged from promising a plan to destroy ISIS within his first month to neo-isolationism in other regions, launched what is largely considered to be an ineffective attack on a Syrian airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack before turning his attention to North Korea.

For several weeks, Trump suggested that he would make trade concessions to China in exchange for help in dealing with North Korea. As recently as April 30, Trump suggested on CBS News that he was open to dealing with China on trade, saying, “Trade is very important. But massive warfare with millions, potentially millions of people being killed? That, as we would say, trumps trade.”

Today that has changed. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross seemed to walk back weeks of diplomatic overtures in an interview with CBS, saying, “I don't think he [Trump] meant to indicate at all that he intends to trade away American jobs just for help on North Korea.”

One hundred days into Trump’s presidency, there is also still no detailed plan to defeat ISIS.

To date, the Trump presidency can be described as lurching from one crisis to another. Some of these crises have been self-inflicted, such as the president’s tweets about wiretapping by the Obama Administration. Others, such as North Korean missile tests and Syrian chemical warfare, have been outside the president’s control. Still others, such as the division among congressional Republicans, reflect a lack of leadership from President Trump.

The one unqualified success that President Trump has had is with the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Gorsuch seems to be as solid a conservative jurist as anyone could possibly have picked. Nevertheless, the confirmation came at the cost of the filibuster. This was necessary due to unreasonable Democratic obstructionism, but may haunt Republicans in the future.

To have a lasting and positive impact, President Trump is going to have to develop a cogent and consistent worldview on both domestic and foreign policy. So far, the president has been inconsistent on numerous issues in both realms. He needs to make up his mind as to what his goals are and concentrate on those items.

The president also needs to learn to work with Congress. Donald Trump was elected partly on claims that he is a world-class dealmaker. His deal-making skills are sorely needed in hammering out compromises on Obamacare and tax reform, but so far President Trump seems to have little interest in the details of policymaking. The president should realize that the qualities that made him the Republican nominee and that enabled him to win the election don’t necessarily make him a natural leader and statesman.

None of this means that he will have a failed presidency, however. President Trump has assembled a very qualified and capable team. With a few exceptions, the Trump cabinet can truly be called a “conservative dream team.” President Trump should listen to their advice and consider it carefully.

As someone who was a Never Trump conservative and a third-party voter during the election, I must admit that Trump, with all his foibles, has not been the worst-case scenario that I feared. So far, he has undoubtedly been better than President Hillary (shudder) would have been. Neither has he been a valiant, steely-eyed, conservative leader. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

So far President Trump has been erratic and ineffective, but he has trended toward the right. In some cases, such as backing away from his plans to terminate NAFTA, his flip-flops have even be reassuring. In other cases, such as his saber-rattling against North Korea, his actions are downright scary.

After 100 days, the jury is still out. 

Originally published by The Resurgent

Iraqi suicide bomber was Gitmo detainee

Ronald Fiddler blew himself up at an Iraqi army base near Mosul this week. Fiddler, a British citizen who changed his name to Jamal al-Harith after converting to Islam in the 1990s, was also a former detainee at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

According to the report in the Times of London and USA Today, al-Harith was captured by Coalition Forces in a Taliban prison in Afghanistan in 2001. When it was discovered that he had links to Osama bin Laden, he served two years in the Gitmo facility until being released in 2004 at the request of the government of Tony Blair. He was later paid compensation of 1 million pounds, about $1.25 million, for his detention.

In a statement, Blair, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, said, “It is correct that Jamal al-Harith was released from Guantanamo Bay at the request of the British Government in 2004. He was not paid compensation by my Government. The compensation was agreed in 2010 by the Conservative Government [of David Cameron].”

Blair continued, “The fact is that this was always a very difficult situation where any Government would have to balance proper concern for civil liberties with desire to protect our security, and we were likely to be attacked whatever course we took.”

Al-Harith was not the first Gitmo detainee to return to terror after being released. According to Military.com, a report released last year showed that, of 161 prisoners released by the Obama Administration, at least nine were confirmed to be “directly involved in terrorist or insurgent activities.” The Bush Administration released 532 Gitmo prisoners and 113 of these were reported to have rejoined terrorist groups.

Al-Harith, who was 50, traveled to Syria to join ISIS is 2014 where he went by the name Abu-Zakariya al-Britani. It is not known whether al-Harith gave the compensation received from the British government to ISIS.

ISIS announced al-Harith as a suicide bomber and released a picture of him, apparently taken just before his death, sitting in a four-wheel-drive truck with a big smile on his face. The terrorist group claimed that his attack caused multiple casualties, but the exact number is not known.

“It is him, I can tell by his smile,” al-Harith’s brother, Leon Jameson, told the Times. “If it is true then I’ve lost a brother, so another family [member is] gone.” Jameson added that his brother had “wasted his life.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

How September 11 gave us Obama, Clinton and Trump

(Michael Foran/Wikimedia)

The memory of September 11, 2001 is burned indelibly into the minds of anyone who was old enough to remember it. In the space of a few hours, the course of American history changed and the country was set on a new course that diverted drastically from where we saw ourselves going as a nation. Everyone knows that the September 11 attacks started the War on Terror, a conflict that is still going on today, but they did much more than that.

The fall of 2001 saw America at peace and prosperous. Both soon changed. An often forgotten result of the attacks was the crash of the stock market on September 17 after markets reopened. At the time, this was the largest single-day stock market crash in U.S. history. The response of the Federal Reserve to the impending recession was to lower interest rates to stimulate the economy. Prosperity soon returned amid the fighting in Afghanistan and, two years later, Iraq.

One segment of the economy that was aided by the low interest rates was real estate. Together with government policies that encouraged subprime mortgage lending, the low interest rates fed a housing bubble. The bubble burst in 2008 and led to the Great Recession. Almost seven years to the day, two more stock market crashes displaced the 2001 crash as the largest in American history.

As the economy sputtered to a halt, a relatively unknown senator surged forward in the polls. Barack Obama emerged from the stock market crash as a beacon of hope for the country. Although he started as an antiwar candidate, without the economic crisis and John McCain’s missteps in responding to it, it seems unlikely that the radical and inexperienced Obama would have been elected president.

Obama’s presidency fundamentally transformed America. His Supreme Court nominees redefined marriage and overturned thousands of years of tradition. His government takeover of the health insurance industry caused healthcare prices to skyrocket. His regulation of business strangled the economic recovery and left millions without jobs. Obama added more to the national debt than all other presidents combined.

His foreign policy was felt around the world. His withdrawal from Iraq allowed ISIS to flourish. His failure to intervene in Syria allowed that civil war to fester and become a humanitarian and security crisis. Under Obama’s watch, Vladimir Putin set out to recapture the Soviet sphere of influence from the Cold War and invaded Ukraine, an American and NATO ally. Likewise, China expanded into the South China Sea with manmade islands to serve as military bases. Iran continued on the course to become a nuclear power.

In the middle of Obama’s first-term foreign policy was Hillary Clinton, the new secretary of state, who he had bested for the Democratic nomination in 2008. The truce between the two rivals established Hillary as the almost certain successor to Obama as the Democratic standard bearer in 2016.

If Obama’s administration led to problems around the world, it also caused the crackup of the Republican Party at home. Without a majority in Congress that could override the presidential veto or overcome a Democratic filibuster, Republicans were powerless to stop the president’s abuse of executive power. Republicans were able to block new legislation, but unable to roll back laws that the Democratic Congress had passed early in Obama’s first term.

The impotence of the Republican opposition led to anger from the conservative grassroots. First, Ted Cruz rose to prominence as a first-term senator who made a name for himself by dividing the party against the “establishment” that he claimed was in a league with the Democrats. When Cruz’s strategy of a shutdown failed in 2013, he only became more popular by using the Republican leadership as a scapegoat. As the 2016 presidential race formed, Cruz was an early favorite. He was trumped by another outsider candidate, however.

Businessman Donald J. Trump emerged from nowhere to seize the mantle of the anti-establishment candidate. To many Republicans, it didn’t matter that Trump was a New York liberal who had supported Hillary Clinton up until he decided to become a Republican candidate. Trump capitalized on voter anger at both Obama and the Republicans.

Without Osama bin Laden and the September 11 attacks, U.S. history would be very different. Obama would not have risen to prominence without the war. Without the attacks, the housing correction might never have become the Great Recession. John McCain might have been elected in 2008. Without eight years of Obama, America would not be faced with the choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, the two most unpopular and unqualified candidates in history.

In 2001, we could scarcely see how destructive the legacy of attacks would be or how long their consequences would impact the country. War, recession, bad leadership and national division all stemmed from the actions of 19 hijackers.

The country has not been the same since September 11 and never will be.

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Evan McMullin in his own words

EvanMcMullin.com

Evan McMullin’s campaign is gaining steam, but a big question for many voters is “Where does Evan McMullin stand on the issues?” As McMullin gains ballot access in a growing number of states, the question of who Evan McMullin is and exactly what he stands for remains. We have combed interviews to find Evan McMullin in his own words.

On why he’s running: “One of the biggest threats this country faces is Islamist terrorism. I am the only credible candidate who has any experience whatsoever, firsthand, fighting terrorists,” McMullin said to Bloomberg. “I know exactly what needs to be done to defeat ISIS and other such groups. On day one, I can start that process.”

He further stated on Fox News, “Donald Trump is already losing this election. I entered the race six days ago when he was down ten points at the national level. State polls in critical states over the past couple of days show that he’s even further down in them. Donald Trump has no chance of winning this election. He has alienated too wide a swath of the American population. He continues to put his foot in his mouth. He will not win. He’s weak and I think he’s melting down…. He is ensuring that Hillary Clinton is our next president.”

McMullin told Heat Street, “I am the only conservative in this race. Donald Trump is not a conservative. He has pretended to be at times and not at other times. I have been a conservative my entire life. I believe firmly that I am the only one that can carry that mantle. And I am committed to uniting this country and I believe that under these [conservative] principles… that the country can be united again. It's been divided for too long and both of these candidates, Clinton and Trump, in their own individual ways, are further dividing us. We need a new generation of leadership.”

McMullin agreed that getting down ticket Republicans elected was very important and called encouraging disaffected conservatives “a positive element of what we’re doing. We’re giving the American people someone to vote for, not just against.”

On Donald Trump: “Donald Trump is no conservative,” he told ABC News. He won the nomination “through misrepresenting himself and exploiting vulnerabilities that the American people have…. I do believe he’s a fraud and a con man. That’s not something I say lightly. That is my professional opinion.”

McMullin told National Review, “I believe Donald Trump is a bona fide authoritarian. I am deeply concerned that if he were president of the United States he would act accordingly.”

On Hillary Clinton: “Hillary Clinton has proven that she doesn’t believe she’s accountable to the American people,” he said to ABC News. The email server issue, a lot of people talk about how classified information was compromised and how lives and sensitive operations were compromised as well… Part of the story that didn’t come out that is even more important is that she believes that she is unaccountable to the American people. She went to great lengths to move her work, her email traffic, off the State Department system. She does not believe that she’s accountable to the American people.”

“So we’re in a time now where Americans, hardworking Americans, don’t feel like they’re being listened to. They don’t feel like their government thinks it’s accountable to them. Are we really going to elect a president who personifies that? I think we shouldn’t.”

On whether Hillary is worse than Trump: “I think they would both be absolutely terrible for the country,” McMullin told ABC News. “I think neither of them understand what makes this country special. Neither of them envision a government that is accountable to the people. Neither of them respect our system of checks and balances.”

“I don’t want either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton to become president. Neither of them is acceptable to Americans.”

On trade: On Fox News, McMullin said, “I’m for [the Trans Pacific Partnership]. We need the trade. Ninety-five percent of the world’s consumers are outside our borders and we need access to them. Right now, as it is, we are limited in so many ways in so many countries…. We have got to get to yes on this….”

“On trade, I’ll just mention that there are people who are genuinely suffering as a result of displaced industries and jobs. Automation is another part of that. It isn’t only trade. We do need to hear their concerns. We do need to help them transition more. I believe that and that’s a message conservatives need to promote more, but we can’t stop trading and broadening our trade opportunities. We have to do that.”

On immigration: “I think we need to secure our border first and foremost,” McMullin told the Fox News panel. “It’s a basic part of being a country. It’s a basic piece of national security. We must do that.”

“As far as a wall is concerned,” he continued, “the experts actually say that in some places a wall is necessary, in some places a double wall is necessary and in other places a wall wouldn’t help. I’m for whatever it takes to secure our border with Mexico. We’ve got to do it.”

“I’m for enforcing our laws, but not for deporting 11 million people. I think it’s ridiculous. It would cause so much trouble, economically and in other ways. It’s a ridiculous idea. I oppose that. I think that what we need to do is for those here illegally, who are not criminals and want to stay, there should be a path towards a legal presence in the United States.”

On Heat Street, McMullin said specifically that the pathway would be towards “legal residency and, in some cases, citizenship.”

When asked about Syrian refugees, McMullin said, “If you’re a terrorist and you want to come to the United States, the worse possible way to do it is as a refugee. You go through a year-and-a-half to two years of vetting. If you want to come to the United States and you’re a terrorist, you’re much better off just coming through on the visa waiver program from Europe or just walking across the border from Mexico, so I think there is a lot of hysteria and unjustified hysteria around the refugee situation. I think we need to be more careful and thoughtful and accurate with the way we talk about that issue because it has implications for a variety of other interests that we have overseas.

McMullin told ABC News, “I don’t think we should ban people based on their religion. I don’t think we should call an ethnic group racist.”

On ISIS: “The problem is the pace of what we’ve been doing. President Obama has articulated a containment strategy that sort of has a slow road to defeating ISIS. The problem is for an Islamist organization to have a safe haven the size of the one ISIS has, you buy them time to plot and plan the kinds of attacks that happened in Europe, the United States and elsewhere over the last year, so the pace needs to pick up. This isn’t something that we can sort of get around to casually and that’s my objection to what President Obama is doing.”

When a Fox panelist asked if ISIS should be destroyed, McMullin replied, “absolutely.”

The same panelist then followed up with a question about whether American ground forces should be used. “I don’t think we should take anything off the table,” McMullin answered, “but there are a lot of great options… for us before we put troops on the ground. We need to use CIA operations; we need to use our Special Forces. I’ve been there, done that. We are very good at this. We need to train indigenous forces. There are countries in the region who have volunteered to put up their own troops. We need to exhaust some of these things before we go ahead and put traditional troops on the ground. I don’t think it’s necessary. I think we can defeat ISIS through other means….”

On the prisoners at Gitmo: “I don’t think Gitmo should be closed. These are enemy combatants and 

they deserve to stay where they are until hostilities are completed…. These are people who want to kill Americans en masse. I’ve dealt with these people face-to-face. They are intelligent, many of them, they’re well-traveled, they’re well-studied. These are very motivated people who eat, sleep and drink destroying America and the idea that they shouldn’t be locked up and held…. We need to put ourselves on a war footing and remember that’s what we’re involved in….”

On Russia: “I’m no friend of any authoritarian,” McMullin told ABC. “Donald Trump is an authoritarian and the leaders around the world, in history and currently, that he admires, that he aspires to be in one way or another, are all authoritarians. It’s very interesting that that’s the case. He speaks very openly about it. I think we all need to be concerned with that.”

“I’m no beginner to this game, but Donald Trump is. He sees Putin as a friend. But Putin sees him as a big, fat target.”

In the Washington Post, McMullin called Donald Trump’s pro-Russian advisors “Moscow’s most successful intelligence operation. They must be beside themselves to have co-opted either willingly or unwillingly someone on the doorstep” of the presidency.

-To be continued

Read this on Conservative Firing Line

Why isn't Trump attacking Hillary?

This week was perhaps the most damaging week of Hillary Clinton’s career. FBI Director James Comey’s decision to recommend that she not be charged for mishandling classified information was overshadowed by the facts that he laid out. Comey called her “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information and judged that her account, as well as email accounts that she was in contact with, were likely compromised by “hostile actors” that could threaten the security of the United States. How has Trump responded to the FBI assault on the basic competence of his opponent? He spent several days embroiled in a controversy over an allegedly anti-Semitic tweet and then came out of in favor of Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi. Why isn’t Trump attacking Hillary?

To be sure, Donald Trump did accuse Clinton of offering a “bribe” to Attorney-General Loretta Lynch by floating the possibility that Lynch might keep her job in a Clinton Administration. The Washington Post noted that Clinton has never publicly stated that Lynch might be welcome in her White House, but that the New York Times had attributed the idea to Democrats close to Clinton.

NBC News also reported that Trump had criticized Director Comey’s decision at a rally in North Carolina on Tuesday, July 5, the day of the FBI announcement. Trump used his pet name for Clinton, “Crooked Hillary,” and told the audience, “You didn't have to be careless. You didn't even have to really know that what you were doing was wrong, and you're guilty. The laws are very explicit. Stupidity is not a reason that you're going to be innocent, OK? It's not a reason.”

At that point, Trump seemed to veer off message. He became distracted by a controversy about a Trump campaign tweet that featured a six-pointed star that some associated with a Star of David. The tweet featured Hillary Clinton in front of a pile of cash and carried the logo, “History made: Most corrupt candidate ever.” The phrase, “most corrupt candidate ever” was inside a six pointed star that has been variously described as a “Star of David” and a “sheriff’s star.” CNN notes that the meme originally appeared “on an anti-Semitic, white supremacist message board.”

Trump said in a tweet that his campaign should not have removed the controversial meme and defended the star on Wednesday, July 6. CNN commented, “Trump's comments on Wednesday revived a controversy that appeared to be quickly fading under the weight of the news that Hillary Clinton's private emails included classified information, and that she will not face charges. On a day when Clinton's controversies dominated the airwaves, Trump resurrected his own.”

By Wednesday night, Trump was totally off message. Rather than spending time attacking Clinton’s judgement, Trump told a North Carolina crowd that Saddam Hussein was a great anti-terrorist.

“He was a bad guy -- really bad guy. But you know what? He did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were terrorists. Over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism,” Trump said.CNN points out that Trump supported the Iraq War in 2003.

Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a state supporter of terrorism. The “9/11 Commission Report” stated that “Baghdad actively sponsored terrorist groups” and “Saddam used foreign terrorist groups as an instrument of foreign policy.”

Donald Trump not only is wrong about history, his comments further focused attention on himself and distracted attention from Hillary Clinton’s disastrous week. This is not the first time that Trump has gone easy on Clinton.

On June 2, Clinton sharply mocked Donald Trump on foreign policy. “Donald Trump's ideas are not just different, they are dangerously incoherent,” she said in Reuters. “They're not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies.” She went on to speculate that Trump might start a nuclear war if elected to the White House simply because “somebody got under his very thin skin.”

One might expect a broadside against the Secretary of State who presided over the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq and the rise of ISIS, the bungling of the Arab Spring and the Iranian uprising, the implosion of Syria, the failed Russian reset, and, of course, the debacle at Benghazi. One would be wrong.

Rather than challenging Hillary on the substance of her speech or attacking her own record, Trump responded with tweets as Hillary predicted he would do during her speech. The first gave a general challenge to Clinton’s credibility while the second criticized her poise.

“Bad performance by Crooked Hillary Clinton!” Trump tweeted. “Reading poorly from the teleprompter [sic]! She doesn't even look presidential!”

In fact, Trump’s attacks on Hillary seem very restrained. Compare his criticism of Clinton to his concerted attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the judge assigned to his Trump University fraud case. Trump spent weeks and devoted large amounts of air time to attacking Judge Curiel’s Mexican heritage just after becoming the presumptive Republican nominee. The time might have been better spent unifying the Republican Party or launching attacks on Hillary Clinton, who had yet to secure her own nomination.

The Wall Street Journal reported that, after clinching the Democratic nomination, Clinton ran 20,000 ads to get her message out to potential voters. For the same period, Trump ran none. Zero. Not a single commercial. This total shutout in advertising is almost certainly what allows Hillary to maintain a lead over Trump in spite of her seriously damaged campaign.

While Trump may be attacking Hillary at his campaign rallies, his criticisms are overshadowed by his own outlandish and rambling comments. Time and time again, Trump’s antics have distracted the news cycle from Hillary’s troubles. Whatever his strategy or motive, his anti-Hillary message is not getting out to voters. Trump is destroying his own campaign.

Read it on Conservative Firing Line