Archive for January, 2017

Syrians Quietly Investigated During the Great Immigration Panic of 2017

This originally appeared in Townhall.com: “President Trump’s executive order to halt immigration from several Middle East countries comes at the same time Americans are learning of Syrians who may have slipped through the cracks.

The Los Angeles Times reports the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are reinvestigating several dozen Syrian refugees who have already resettled in the United States after derogatory information surfaced that may have disqualified them from entering the country. This development should come as no surprise since the government never had the capacity to handle such a task. President Obama admitted 15,479 Syrian refugees last year alone, an increase of over 600 percent from 2015. And the U.S. government has accepted more than 18,000 Syrians seeking asylum since the civil war began in their home country.

Those on the front lines should be commended for having to execute such a momentous and ultimately impossible order at the behest of an administration oddly intent on forcing through an inordinate amount of people from an area teeming with militant Islamists. The composition of the refugee population raises additional questions since nearly 99 percent of those admitted in 2016 were Muslim, out of a country where Christians make up approximately 10 percent of the population. All of this as jihadists repeatedly proclaimed their intent to embed fighters in refugee populations.

It’s hard to tune out conspiracy theorists while watching this unfold. But let’s give the former administration the benefit of the doubt. At best, this strategy told the American public that their safety came in second to that of the refugees, and that the Obama administration had determined, internally, some acceptable level of risk.

In essence, the administration and its supporters cannot deny the potential danger so they instead favored charity in light of the threat. They determined that welcoming of thousands in need of a better life outweighed the potential for American deaths. But how did they quantify that? Was there a minimal threshold of casualties? France had favorable risk probabilities. But now, 1,071 people have died or were injured between 2015 and 2016, partly due to its immigration policies.

The last gasp of justification I heard before the transition between administrations came from a misguided soul who pointed out that the Statue of Liberty says to “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…” I gently reminded her that Lady Liberty and the words inscribed on the bronze plaque adorning her base have no constitutional authority. I then recalled for her the irony that the statue was a gift from France ?? the very country that faces a crisis in security as a result of its immigration policies.

Enter President Trump. He has temporarily suspended new immigration from the predominantly Muslim countries of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. But the Heritage Foundation published an interactive list of 93 terrorist plots and attacks in the United States since 9-11 back in September 2015 and a majority of those suspects were Pakistani. Several were even Uzbeks and Afghans. That trend has continued. If the objective was to stop the massive Syria influx, then do that. If the objective was immigration threats in general, the president should have modified the list to reflect the threat. Instead, we have mass panic from those who were silent about the same issue for eight years (no surprise) and a negligible improvement to American security.

Nevertheless, the two reactions explain two different realities – the United States was expected to endure the threat from militant Islam under former President Obama. The United States is expected to prevail under President Trump. That’s at least a good start.”

Jan 29, 2017 | Leave a Comment | by

Why Are We Ignoring Jihadists in Latin America

This originally appeared in Townhall: “Famed Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz said Obama will go down in history as the worst foreign policy president of all time, after the U.S. chose to abstain in the U.N. Security Council vote on the resolution condemning the construction of Israeli settlements. Cataloging the president’s foreign policy blunders and their consequences will keep scholars busy for some time. But his inability to craft a meaningful strategy for combating Islamic terrorism in Latin America with U.S. partners may be the most significant for U.S. national security. The American public will face the deadly consequences of Obama’s failure there unless Trump changes course.

The presence of Islamic terrorists in Latin America can be traced back decades to the Iranian-sponsored bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) headquarters in 1994 – together the attacks killed and injured over 650 people. The international community was reminded of those heinous events when, on January 18, 2015, Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found murdered the day before he was to present evidence to the Argentine Congress that showed then-president Cristina Kirchner and other Argentine officials had conspired with the Iranian government to cover-up Iran’s involvement in the AMIA attack. Joseph Humire, an expert on Iran’s influence in Latin America, called it the “most important political assassination in Latin America of the 21st century.”

Eight hundred miles to the north, Hezbollah and Hamas maintain a robust presence in the virtually lawless tri-border region of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. This largely ungoverned locale is considered a breeding ground for terrorism and is known as a busy transit point for the sale and smuggling of contraband, which generates billions of dollars annually for groups like Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Author and senior Pentagon consultant Edward Luttwak describes the area as the most important base for Hezbollah outside of Lebanon. North Carolina-based Hezbollah cells involved in cigarette smuggling during the 1990s relied on assets in the tri-border area.

Infiltration by international terrorists of a region known for transnational organized crime has resulted in marriages of convenience. A report from Spain’s Defense Ministry in December 2016 outlined how Islamic terrorists have teamed up with drug trafficking organizations like El clan Barakat in Paraguay and Joumaa in Colombia to launder cash used to support terrorist activities. In fact, law enforcement officials in the southwest United States reported a significant increase in Hezbollah tattoos and imagery among imprisoned gang members.

Immigration stories naturally dovetail. A source for the U.S. State Department revealed in 2010 that Mexican drug cartels were likely smuggling known Arab extremists across the border into Texas. A lesser known story involves Hezbollah operative Muhammad Ghaleb Hamdar, who was arrested in Peru in October 2014 for planning a terrorist attack. He used an actual “marriage of convenience” to one Carmen Carrión Vela as part of his cover. She was arrested in November 2015 for material support to terrorism. The truly frightening detail of this episode: The convicted wife was a dual-citizen of Peru and the United States, and had twice traveled to the U.S. before Hamdar was arrested in Lima.

The Islamic State is now in the mix. The aforementioned Spanish report found that rapidly expanding Muslim communities have given rise to recruitment where as many as 100 Latin Americans have joined ISIS — 70 alone allegedly came from Trinidad and Tobago. That island nation says today’s radical Islamic elements operate like the local Jamaat al Muslimeen group that tried to overthrow the government in 1990.

These stories only gloss over a much bigger problem that also involves nation-state collaboration between the likes of Venezuela and Iran, nuclear technology in Argentina and the spread of Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi Islam in Latin America.

Despite all of this, the president shies away from confronting radical Islam. Despite all of this, the president helped enrich Iran to the tune of $10 billion. “Often considered a foreign policy backwater for the United States,” Joseph Humire writes, “Latin America has become a top foreign policy priority for the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Others like ISIS and Al Qaeda are not far behind.

Trump must reverse course and team up with Latin American partners to fight this war. Failure here will pale in comparison to failures elsewhere.”

Jan 05, 2017 | Leave a Comment | by