obama frees more terrorists

[dmagicglock]

yay +1 iranian terrorists, americans 0

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjY0MjkwOWVkYTNlYzE2ZjM1N2E5M2M0MTdiYTI3MzM=

"Obama Frees Iranian Terror Masters

The release of the Irbil Five is a continuation of a shameful policy.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

July 11, 2009 7:00 AM

There are a few things you need to know about President Obama’s shameful release on Thursday of the “Irbil Five” — Quds Force commanders from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who were coordinating terrorist attacks in Iraq that have killed hundreds — yes, hundreds — of American soldiers and Marines.

First, of the 4,322 Americans killed in combat in Iraq since 2003, 10 percent of them (i.e., more than 400) have been murdered by a single type of weapon alone, a weapon that is supplied by Iran for the singular purpose of murdering Americans. As Steve Schippert explains at NRO’s military blog, the Tank, the weapon is “the EFP (Explosively Formed Penetrator), designed by Iran’s IRGC specifically to penetrate the armor of the M1 Abrams main battle tank and, consequently, everything else deployed in the field.” Understand: This does not mean Iran has killed only 400 Americans in Iraq. The number killed and wounded at the mullahs’ direction is far higher than that — likely multiples of that — when factoring in the IRGC’s other tactics, such as the mustering of Hezbollah-style Shiite terror cells.

Second, President Bush and our armed forces steadfastly refused demands by Iran and Iraq’s Maliki government for the release of the Irbil Five because Iran was continuing to coordinate terrorist operations against American forces in Iraq (and to aid Taliban operations against American forces in Afghanistan). Freeing the Quds operatives obviously would return the most effective, dedicated terrorist trainers to their grisly business.

Third, Obama’s decision to release the five terror-masters comes while the Iranian regime (a) is still conducting operations against Americans in Iraq, even as we are in the process of withdrawing, and (b) is clearly working to replicate its Lebanon model in Iraq: establishing a Shiite terror network, loyal to Iran, as added pressure on the pliant Maliki to understand who is boss once the Americans leave. As the New York Times reports, Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, put it this way less than two weeks ago:

Iran is still supporting, funding, training surrogates who operate inside of Iraq — flat out. . . . They have not stopped. And I don’t think they will stop. I think they will continue to do that because they are also concerned, in my opinion, [about] where Iraq is headed. They want to try to gain influence here, and they will continue to do that. I think many of the attacks in Baghdad are from individuals that have been, in fact, funded or trained by the Iranians.

Fourth, President Obama’s release of the Quds terrorists is a natural continuation of his administration’s stunningly irresponsible policy of bartering terrorist prisoners for hostages. As I detailed here on June 24, Obama has already released a leader of the Iran-backed Asaib al-Haq terror network in Iraq, a jihadist who is among those responsible for the 2007 murders of five American troops in Karbala. While the release was ludicrously portrayed as an effort to further “Iraqi reconciliation” (as if that would be a valid reason to spring a terrorist who had killed Americans), it was in actuality a naïve attempt to secure the reciprocal release of five British hostages — and a predictably disastrous one: The terror network released only the corpses of two of the hostages, threatening to kill the remaining three (and who knows whether they still are alive?) unless other terror leaders were released.

Michael Ledeen has reported that the release of the Irbil Five is part of the price Iran has demanded for its release in May of the freelance journalist Roxana Saberi. Again, that’s only part of the price: Iran also has demanded the release of hundreds of its other terror facilitators in our custody. Expect to see Obama accommodate this demand, too, in the weeks ahead.

Finally, when it comes to Iran, it has become increasingly apparent that President Obama wants the mullahs to win. What you need to know is that Barack Obama is a wolf in “pragmatist” clothing: Beneath the easy smile and above-it-all manner — the “neutral” doing his best to weigh competing claims — is a radical leftist wedded to a Manichean vision that depicts American imperialism as the primary evil in the world.

You may not have wanted to addle your brain over his tutelage in Hawaii by the Communist Frank Marshall Davis, nor his tracing of Davis’s career steps to Chicago, where he seamlessly eased into the orbit of Arafat apologist Rashid Khalidi, anti-American terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, and Maoist “educator” Michael Klonsky — all while imbibing 20 years’ worth of Jeremiah Wright’s Marxist “black liberation theology.” But this neo-Communist well from which Obama drew holds that the world order is a maze of injustice, racism, and repression. Its unified theory for navigating the maze is: “United States = culprit.” Its default position is that tyrants are preferable as long as they are anti-American, and that while terrorist methods may be regrettable, their root cause is always American provocation — that is, the terrorists have a point.

In Iran, it is no longer enough for a rickety regime, whose anti-American vitriol is its only vital sign, to rig the “democratic” process. This time, blatant electoral fraud was also required to mulct victory for the mullahs’ candidate. The chicanery ignited a popular revolt. But the brutal regime guessed right: The new American president would be supportive. So sympathetic is Obama to the mullahs’ grievances — so hostile to what he, like the regime, sees as America’s arrogant militarism — that he could be depended on to go as far as politics allowed to help the regime ride out the storm.

And so he has. Right now, politics will allow quite a lot: With unemployment creeping toward 10 percent, the auto industry nationalized, the stimulus revealed as history’s biggest redistribution racket (so far), and Democrats bent on heaping ruinous carbon taxes and socialized medicine atop an economy already crushed by tens of trillions in unfunded welfare-state liabilities, Iran is barely on anyone’s radar screen.

So Obama is pouring it on while his trusty media idles. When they are not looking the other way from the carnage in Iran’s streets, they are dutifully reporting — as the AP did — that the Irbil Five are mere “diplomats.” Obama frees a terrorist with the blood of American troops on his hands, and the press yawns. Senators Jeff Sessions and Jon Kyl press for answers about the release of the terrorist and Obama’s abandonment of a decades-old American policy against trading terrorists for hostages, and the silence is deafening.

Except in Tehran, where the mullahs are hearing exactly what they’ve banked on hearing.

— National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and the author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad (Encounter Books, 2008)."

[John]

national review lol

[John]

McCarthy writes that the five were "Quds Force commanders from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who were coordinating terrorist attacks in Iraq that have killed hundreds — yes, hundreds — of American soldiers and Marines" using Iranian-designed Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP) devices."

The trouble is, every single word of that allegation is almost certainly false.

For a start, the Irbil Five are claimed to be Quds Force commanders solely on the say so of Mujahedeen e-Kalq informers who fingered them for the U.S. The MeK, a proscribed terrorist organisation with an Islamist/Marxist ideology and a long history of lying about Iran's allegedly hostile activities who believe they should be the autocratic rulers of Iran, have long been the neocons favorite terrorists and a neocon journalist, Ken Timmerman, even reported that MeK interpreters had led the interrogation of the Irbil Five. Everyone else says they were diplomats, in Iraq at the express invite of Kurdish and Iraqi leaders. They'd met with the Iraqi President, Prime Minister and National Security Advisor, openly and with televised soundbites.

Secondly, the claim that EFP's are exclusively the property of Iran is just stupid. These same weapons were first used by the IRA and spread to Columbia's FARC and Spain's ETA as well as Hizboullah and other terror groups worldwide years before the US-led invasion of Iraq. They are easy to make in any minimally equipped machine shop and at least three manufactories for EFP's have been found inside Iraq itself. When the US tried to prove that Iran was responsible for these weapons, the whole world laughed. Not a single EFP has ever been intercepted crossing the Iran-Iraq border, even though one entire regiment of British troops spent months actively looking. And the Pentagon's ever-evolving explanations of contrary evidence have descended to fairy tales that contravene the laws of physics. Even General Pace and Admiral Fallon refused to get onboard the neocon warmongering train - which later cost both their jobs.

To date, the only positive evidence for Iranian involvement in and leadership of EFP attacks in Iraq are: confessions delivered by MeK and Iraqi Army interrogators under conditions of extreme duress; explosives that the US military says it knows are Iranian because they're in fake US wrappers and scoring marks on EFP discs caused by the manufacture process which the US military says must be Iranian because they say the Iraqis can't machine discs on their own (despite there being plenty of machine shops in Iraq and the formulas used being widely spread by the IRA in the 90's); other weapons that the US military knows are Iranian because they have serial numbers on (and they never think that maybe that means rogue elements redirecting arms exports, since the Iranian government are clever enough at black ops to take the serial numbers off). That's it.

The same story has been tried in Afghanistan, but despite repeated claims by neoconservative pundits and Bush administration officials that Iran was arming the Taliban in Afghanistan with EFP bombs, neither the US Army's own bomb expert in theatre, NATO allies nor the commanding US general agreed with that assessment.

Thirdly, there's the "responsible for ten percent of US casualties" charge. The actual figures are 8% of fatalities and 4% of woundings attributable to EFPs, most of which are certainly made inside Iraq with open-source design details. These attacks were never the difference between success and failure in Iraq. Even without them, Iraq would have been a quagmire. And readers might note that no-one ever gives statistics on the number of deaths attributable to weapons smuggled from Saudi, the UAE, Syria or even Pakistan. Maybe those are big problems, bigger than the EFP one, but who can tell? Without something to compare EFP casualties to, it's smoke and mirrors. In fact, common or garden truck and car bombs are the biggest source of US deaths in Iraq and always have been.

Lastly, there's the whole notion that Obama releasing these most-probably innocent diplomats who have close ties to Iraq's President, Prime Minister and bi-partisan leadership is "stunningly irresponsible". McCarthy, naturally, doesn't mention the fact that the Bush administration released over 500 detainees from Gitmo without any kind of trial or due process and that even the Bush administration admitted that a percentage of those became terrorist threats thereafter. It's "stunningly irresponsible" when Obama does it but when Bush did, IOKIYAR.

[dmagicglock]

here's a bbc article with similar info

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8141974.stm

a little more straight forward without an Op-ed piece. I guess what I was getting at, is they shouldn't have been released. Whether it was this president, or the last, I don't think its good for U.S. Security and we shouldn't be worried about appeasing Iran.

I find it interesting that you're saying the Quds are innocent and didn't provide support overtly or covertly to Shiites in Iran. I guess they were innocently in Iraq in the middle of a war. Its pretty well documented aside from being covert forces that they're open supporters of Shiite militias in Iraq.

[John]

how come we held them for years with no charges? if we had something on them, why not use it?

[John]

we shouldn't be worried about appeasing Iran.

well, from that BBC article

The US state department said the release was not part of a deal with Tehran, but was necessary under a US-Iraqi security pact.

so is that really appeasing iran?

[dmagicglock]

well, from that BBC article

so is that really appeasing iran?

well as my ol' college prof Dr. Lowry would always say, "In my uniformed opinion..." yes. haha I'd have to see what part of the "security pact" is that benefits with us. What did we receive in exchange for letting them go? I know they said it wasn't part of a deal, but pact = deal.

I know this might seem like nails on a chalkboard, but I really don't think you should or can "negotiate with terrorists." It's like trying to rationalize with a criminal. It's one of the greatest mistakes you can make, to assume they think rationally or logically like you. When you do things like that, you end up becoming a victim. Not to get too off tangent tho', you bring up a good point about the security pact, I'd really have to see what that entailed on our end as well to see how this could possibly translate into a good decision.

[John]

yeah, its a complex situation (as are most things in life) and there really is no black and white answer. when someone sets off some bombs, and then you agree to bring them to the table, you have a) set a precedent that violence will get you what you want and b) you give legitimacy to their organization. it can undermine all the work that has been done to accomplish a "peaceful" resolution.

on the other hand (and it really does depend on the group you are dealing with) many of these groups did not start out violent, but turned that way after they felt that they were not being dealt with fairly in the political process or when they see violence as another option to further their cause. for groups like this, bringing them to the table could be beneficial.

just as an example, the IRA. In the 80s, they realized that their campaign no longer furthered their goals, and they began to explore alternatives. they did not abandon their goal of a united ireland, just changed how they were trying to do it.

the other part is if the leaders can actually control the rank and file or not. the IRA was much more of a structured organization than, say al-qaeda, where their "leaders" dont really control every little detail of every operation. they are more of a network of like minded people than a structured organization. the IRA's counterpart, the UDF had this problem. the leaders would agree to something, but they couldnt really control the members.

the other thing is that, while governments will SAY "we wont negotiate with terrorists", in practice, they DO. the brits maintained secret contact with the IRA, even after they launched a mortar attack on downing street. spain sat down with ETA after they blew up a grocery store. even israel secretly negotiated with the PLO (oslo accords).

hell, even the USA will negotiate with terrorists in secret. carter and reagan negotiated with the iranians during the hostage crisis. also, iran-contra. one could maybe argue noriega as well... additionally, the US army has worked very closely with the MeK as well, which is on the list of terrorist organizations. any american found giving support to a group on the list is guilty of a crime, yet the US army would escort MeK members to and from their camp.

i guess the hardest part of the entire situation is answering the question "what defines a terrorist". its such a broad and all-encompassing term, and its so politically charged too.

edward peck wrote:

In 1985, when I was the Deputy Director of the Reagan White House Task Force on Terrorism, they asked us — this is a Cabinet Task Force on Terrorism; I was the Deputy Director of the working group — they asked us to come up with a definition of terrorism that could be used throughout the government. We produced about six, and each and every case, they were rejected, because careful reading would indicate that our own country had been involved in some of those activities. […] After the task force concluded its work, Congress got into it, and you can google into U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2331, and read the US definition of terrorism. And one of them in here says — one of the terms, “international terrorism,” means “activities that,” I quote, “appear to be intended to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.” […] Yes, well, certainly, you can think of a number of countries that have been involved in such activities. Ours is one of them. Israel is another. And so, the terrorist, of course, is in the eye of the beholder