ISLAM Builds Mosques on Sacred Sites of Defeated Enemies a Symbol of Conquest. It has been their dirty game through the centuries!
READ AND UNDERSTAND THE TACTICS OF THE NASTY IDEOLOGY THAT PARADES AROUND PRETENDING TO BE A RELIGION! They have killed over 270 Million people. Yet they are not counted among the mass murderers of History!
Islam's most sacred site, al-Kaaba, in Mecca was a pagan
shrine that predated Islam by hundreds of years. Mohammed himself, after
his army's conquest of Mecca in 630, destroyed hundreds of idols,
proclaiming the truth of his new religion, and, since, it has become the
hub of the annual Muslim pilgrimage, hajj, and a core pillar of
Islam.
Following the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem, the Ummayad Caliphate
proceeded to build the Dome of the Rock, the Masjid Qubat al-Sakhra,
on top of the Jewish Temple Mount in 689. Inscribed on the inner walls
of the shrine are clear warnings to Christianity, professing Islamic
supremacy. Sprawled on the inner octagonal arcade, flowing
counterclockwise, the dedication warns Christians and Jews to "not
exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning God save the
truth" and threatens the Christian Trinity by insisting that "The
Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a Messenger of God, and His Word
which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in God
and His messengers, and say not 'Three' - Cease! (it is) better for you!
- God is only One God."[1]
Whoever believes that God had a son, "whoso disbelieveth the
revelations of God (will find that) lo! God is swift at reckoning!"[2]
Having defeated their Christian enemies, the Umayyads built a grand
mosque on top of Judaism's most sacred site that contained a clear
declaration of Muslim supremacy over their brother Abrahamic religions. https://www.islamic-awareness.org/history/islam/inscriptions/dotr
Similar conversions were ordered as the Muslim conquests expanded
across Africa and Europe. The Grand Mosque of Damascus, also known as
the Umayyad Mosque, was converted from a church dedicated to John the
Baptist in 705. The world-renown Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was a thousand
year-old Christian church before being transformed into a mosque
following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. It was only
converted into a museum in 1935 by ultra-secularist and Turkish founding
father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Over the long history of Muslim
territorial advance, thousands of mosques, from Spain to India, were
built on sites of important religious or political value to their
defeated foes.The Conversion of non-Muslim places of worship into mosques occurred
primarily during the life of Muhammad and continued during
subsequent Islamic conquests and under historical Muslim rule. As a
result, numerous Hindu temples, churches, synagogues, the Parthenon andZoroastrian temples were converted into mosques.
Several such mosques in Muslim or ex-Muslim lands have since reverted or
become museums, such as the Hagia Sophia in Turkey and numerous mosques
in Spain and Israel. Hagia
Sophia, an Eastern Orthodox church converted into a mosque after the
Fall of Constantinople; since 1943 it has been converted into a museum. Cathedral–Mosque
of Córdoba, Built over a pagan worship place, then converted into
church and then, the Umayyad Moors built a mosque half of the site,
which was then turned into a Christian cathedral Ka'aba: Mecca, Saudi Arabia In Islamic teaching, the Ka'aba was built by Ibrahim (Abraham) and his son. Before the rise of Islam the Ka'aba was revered as a sacred sanctuary
and was a site of pilgrimage.". At the time of Muhammad (AD 570–632),
his tribe the Quraysh was in charge of the Kaaba, which was at that time
a shrine containing hundreds of idols representing Arabian tribal
godsand other religious figures. Muhammad earned the enmity of his tribe
by claiming the shrine for the new religion of Islam that he preached.
He wanted the Kaaba to be dedicated to the worship of the one God alone,
and all the idols were evicted. The Black Stone (al-Hajar-ul-Aswad),
still present at the Kaaba was a special object of veneration at the
site. According to tradition the text of seven especially honored
poems were suspended around the Ka'aba. Martin Lings' biography of
Muhammad claims that even an image of the Virgin Mary had been displayed
in the pagan shrine. According to Islam, Muhammad's actions were not strictly a conversion
but rather a restoration of the mosque established on that site
byAbraham, who is considered to be a prophet in Islam. Howerver, outside
of Islamic scriptures, there is no historical or archaeological
evidence that suggests that Mecca or Ka'aba existed before the 4th
century A.D., when immigrants from Yemen settled the area. The Ka'aba
thus became known as the Masjid al-Haram, or Sacred Mosque, the holiest
site in Islam. Biblical holy sites Mosques were regularly established on the places of Jewish or
Christian sanctuaries associated with Biblical personalities who were
also recognized by Islam. This practice was particularly common in
Palestine. The Caliph Umar initially built a small prayer house, which
laid the foundation for the later construction of the Al-Aqsa mosque on
the Temple Mount, the most sacred site in Judaism, possibly by
the Umayyads. The Dome of the Rock, another Muslim mosque, was also
built on the Temple Mount which was an abandoned and disused area. Upon
the capture of Jerusalem, it is commonly reported that Umar refused to
pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. for fear that later Muslims
would then convert it into a mosque in spite of a treaty guaranteeing
its safety. The mosque of Job in Ash Shaykh Sa'd, Syria, was previously a church
of Job. The Herodian shrine of Cave of the Patriarchs, the second most
holy site in Judaism, was converted into a church during the Crusades
before being turned into a mosque in 1266 and henceforth banned to Jews
and Christians. Part of it was restored as a synagogue after 1967 by
Israel. This
post I want ot specifically take a detailed look at the HINDU temples
In India Temples were desecrated by ISLAM. The Indian Hindus are our
natural allies in our fight against ISLAM.
REACH OUT TO THEM WHERE EVER YOU CAN. OBAMA IS THEIR ENEMY AND THEY SHOULD KNOW IT IF THE ARE HINDU OR CHRISTIAN OR SIKH..
Hindu, Jain and Buddhist temples: The destruction of Hindu temples in India during the Islamic conquest
of India occurred from the beginning of Muslim conquest until the end
the Mughal Empire throughout the Indian subcontinent. In his controversial book "Hindu Temples - What Happened to Them",
Sita Ram Goel produced a politically contentious list of 2000 mosques
that it is claimed were built on Hindu temples. The second volume of the
book excerpts from medieval histories and chronicles and from
inscriptions concerning the destruction of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist
temples. In Indonesia, where popular conversion from Hinduism to Islam was
more widespread, it is believed that the minaret of the Menara Kudus
Mosque, in Java, was originally part of a Hindu temple. Ram Janmabhoomi: Ram Janmabhoomi refers to a tract of land in the North Indian city of
Ayodhya which is claimed to be the birthplace of Lord Rama.
Archeological Survey of India (ASI), after conducting excavations at the
site reported that prior to 1528, filed a report that stated that a
temple stood at this site before the arrival of Mughals who
constructed Babri Mosque at its present site.[6] Critics of the report
claim that the "presence of animal bones throughout as well as of the
use of 'surkhi' and lime mortar" that was found by ASI are all
characteristic of Muslim presence, which they claim "rule out the
possibility of a Hindu temple having been there beneath the mosque". A view of the "Janmasthan (Birthplace) Mosque"/ Babri Mosque, 1528-1992 The Sangh Parivaar, along with VHP and the main Indian opposition
party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, sought to erect a temple dedicated to
Lord Rama at this site. Nobel Laureate novelist V. S. Naipaul has
praised Hindu nationalists for "reclaiming India's Hindu heritage".
Naipaul added that the destruction of Babri structure was an act of
historical balancing and the reclaiming of the Ramjanmabhoomi was a
"welcome sign that Hindu pride was re-asserting itself". The 1986 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica stated that "Rama’s
birthplace is marked by a mosque, erected by the Moghul emperor Babar in
1528 on the site claimed of an earlier temple". Archaeological excavations at the site by the Archeological Survey of
India reported the existence of a 10th century temple. " The report
stated that scientific dating indicated human activity at the site as
far back to the 17th century BC. On 30 September 2010, Allahabad High Court ruled that the 2.7 acres
disputed land in Ayodhya, on which the Babri Masjid stood before it was
demolished on December 6, 1992, will be divided into three parts: the
site of the Ramlala idol to Lord Ram, Nirmohi Akhara gets Sita Rasoi and
Ram Chabutara, Sunni Wakf Board gets a third. Krishna Janmabhoomi (Mathura): The great temple of Keshava Rai at Mathura was built by Bir Singh Deo
Bundela during Jahangir’s time at a cost of thirty-three lakhs of
rupees. The Dehra of Keshava Rai was one of the most magnificent temples
ever built in India and enjoyed veneration of the Hindus throughout the
land. Alberuni also states that this temple was approximately 20 times
large than the largest mosque he ever saw in his life. Prince Dara
Shukoh, who was looked upon by the masses as the future Emperor, had
presented a carved stone railing to the temple which was installed in
front of the deity at some distance; the devotees stood outside this
railing to have ‘darshan’ of Keshava Rai. The railing was removed on
Aurangzeb’s orders in October 1666. The Dehra of Keshava Rai was demolished in the month of Ramzan, 1080
A.H. (13 January – 11 February 1670) by Aurangzeb’s order. “In a short
time, by the great exertion of the officers, the destruction of this
strong foundation of infidelity was accomplished and on its site a lofty
mosque was built at the expenditure of a large sum”. To the author of
Maasir-i-‘Alamigiri, the accomplishment of this “seemingly impossible
work was an “instance of the strength of the Emperor’s faith”. Somnath Temple: A century later the third temple was constructed in red sandstone by the Pratihara king, Nagabhata II. Soon the temple regained its old glory and wealth, the descriptions
of which were carried to the Middle East. In particular, the accounts of
the Arab Al Biruni impressed Mahmud of Ghazni. In AD 1025, Ghazni
destroyed and looted the temple, killing over 50,000 people who tried to
defend it. The defenders included the 90-year-old clan leader Ghogha
Rana. Ghazni personally broke the gilded lingam to pieces. He took them
back to his homeland and placed them in the steps leading to the newly
built Jamiah Masjid, so that they would be stepped upon by those going
to the mosque to pray. It is also known that Mahmud of Ghazni slipped on
those very stones and died there when he was going to enter the mosque. Work on the fourth temple was started immediately by the Paramara
King Bhoj of Malwa and the Solanki king Bhima of Patan and the temple
was ready by AD 1042. This temple was destroyed in AD 1300. At that time
Allaudin Khilji occupied the throne of Delhi and he sent his general,
Alaf Khan, to pillage Somnath. The fifth temple was built by King
Mahipala of the Chudasama dynasty. Somnath temple ("today"; as reclaimed by Hindus), Somnath, India Somnath was repeatedly attacked in the succeeding centuries. The last
of these attacks was by the Mughal emperor Aurangazeb in AD 1701. A
mosque was built at the site of the temple. In AD 1783 queen Ahilyabhai Holkar built the sixth temple at an
adjacent site. The temple still stands and worship is carried out there.
After independence, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel pledged on November 13,
1947, that the seventh temple would be reconstructed. According to
prescribed Hindu rituals, pledges are made by taking holy water in one’s
fist. Leaders like Morarji Desai, Dr. Rajendra Prasad (the first
President) and Kanhaiyalal Munshi joined in and the work was entrusted
to the Sompura Shilpakars, whose ancestors rebuilt each new temple
through the ages. The mosque built by Aurangazeb was not destroyed but
carefully relocated. In 1951 Dr. Rajendra Prasad performed the
consecration ceremony with the words “The Somnath Temple signifies that
the power of creation is always greater than the power of destruction.” The temple construction was completed on December 1, 1995, long after
the demise of Sardar Patel. The then President of India, Dr. Shankar
Dayal Sharma, dedicated it to the nation. Converted structure at the site of Somnath temple, 1869 Kashi Viswanath (Benaras/Varanasi) : Kashi or Varanasi is the most sacred site in Hinduism and the worship
of Lord Shiva as Vishveshvara goes back to ancient times. According to
the Puranas, every step taken in Kashi Kshetra has the sanctity of
making a pilgrimage to a tirtha. Lord Vishvanath is regarded as the
protector of Kashi and the belief is that one earns great religious
merit by having a vision of the deity after having bathed in
the Ganges.The temple was demolished several times by Muslim invaders,
and was reconstructed again and again by Hindu kings. After destruction
of the original temple on the orders of Mughal emperorAurangzeb's
orders, a mosque was built which still stands. The Gyanvapi Mosque built by Aurangzeb on the original site of the Kashi Vishwanath temple. Kuragala Cave Temple: Kuragala Cave Temple is an ancient Buddhist holy site in the
Sabaragamuwa province of Sri Lanka which has roots in the preChristian
era and declared at the beginning of 20th century as a protected place
by the department of archeology of the country. There is small mosque and a shrine at the place used by Dafthar
Jailany for prayer. The mosque and the temple have co-existed since 10th
century AD. Other references: An inscription at the Quwwat Al-Islam Mosque adjacent to Qutb
Minar in Delhi states: "This Jamii Masjid built in the months of the
year 587 (hijri) by the Amir, the great, the glorious commander of the
Army, Qutb-ud-daula wad-din, the Amir-ul-umara Aibeg, the slave of the
Sultan, may God strengthen his helpers! The materials of 27 idol
temples, on each of which 2,000,000 Deliwal coins had been spent were
used in the (construction of) this mosque".However as the inscription
depicts, the mosque was built from the material remnants of Hindu
temples which was destroyed by Muslims. During the reign of Aurangzeb, tens of thousands of temples were
desecrated: their facades and interiors were defaced and their murtis
(divine images) looted. In many cases, temples were destroyed entirely;
in numerous instances mosques were built on their foundations, sometimes
using the same stones. Among the temples Aurangzeb destroyed were two
that are most sacred to Hindus, in Varanasi and Mathura. In both cases,
he had large mosques built on the sites. Alberuni in his India writes about the famous temple of Multan: A famous idol of theirs was that of Multan, dedicated to the sun, ..
When Muhammad Ibn Alkasim Ibn Almunabbih, conquered Multan, he inquired
how the town had become so very flourishing and so many treasures had
there been accumulated, and then he found out that this idol was the
cause, for there came pilgrims from all sides to visit it. Therefore he
thought to build a mosque at the same place where the temple once stood.
When then the Karmatians occupied Multan, Jalam Ibn Shaiban, the
usurper, broke the idol into pieces and killed its priests. .. When
afterwards the blessed Prince Mahmud swept away their rule from those
countries, he made again the old mosque the place of the Friday-worship. An inscription of 1462 A.D.at Jami Masjid at Malan, in Banaskantha
District of Gujarat states: The Jami Masjid was built by Khan-I-Azam
Ulugh Khan, who suppressed the wretched infidels. He eradicated the
idolatrous houses and mine of infidelity, along with the idols with the
edge of the sword, and made ready this edifice. He made its walls and
doors out of the idols; the back of every stone became the place for
prostration of the believer. Mughal Emperor Jahangir wrote in his Tujuk-i-Jahangiri: "I am here led to relate that at the city of Banaras a temple had
been erected by Rajah Maun Sing, which cost him the sum of nearly
thirty-six laks of five methkaly ashrefies. ...I made it my plea for
throwing down the temple which was the scene of this imposture; and on
the spot, with the very same materials, I erected the great mosque,
because the very name of Islam was proscribed at Banaras, and with God’s
blessing it is my design, if I live, to fill it full with true
believers". Zoroastrian temples: After the Islamic conquest of Persia, Zoroastrian fire temples, with
their four axial arch openings, were usually turned into mosques simply
by setting a mihrab (prayer niche) on the place of the arch nearest to qibla (the
direction of Mecca). This practice is described by numerous Muslim
sources; however, the archeological evidence confirming it is still
scarce. Zoroastrian temples converted into mosques in such a manner
could be found in Bukhara, as well as in and near Istakhr and other
Iranian cities. Synagogues: Intricate stone carvings on the cloister columns at Quwwat ul-Islam Mosque, Qutb complex, Delhi The ancient synagogue of Katzrin was converted to a mosque in the Mamluk period. It is now a museum in the state of Israel. After the expulsion of all Jews from Algeria, the Great Synagogue of Oran was confiscated for use as a mosque. The practice today: The conversion of non-Islamic places of worship into mosques has
abated since no major territorial acquisitions have been made by Islam
in recent times. However, some of the Greek Orthodox churches
inTurkey that were left behind by expelled Greeks in 1923 were converted
into mosques, and a number of synagogues were confiscated and converted
to mosques after the expulsions of the Jews from Arab lands during the
1950s and 60's. A relatively significant surge in church-mosque conversion followed
the 1974 Turkish Invasion of Cyprus. Many of the Orthodox churches
in Northern Cyprus have been converted, and many are still in the
process of becoming mosques.This practice has sparked considerable
contempt in the Greek Cypriotcommunity, and is likely to complicate
reconciliation with the Turkish Cypriots. In Iran, all holy places of the Bahá'í religion have been demolished.
The House of the Báb in Shiraz was turned to rubble in 1979, soon after
the Islamic Revolution, and a mosque dedicated to the Imam Mahdi was
built on the site. The defunct Hagia Sophia Church in İznik (ancient Nicaea) was
re-converted into a mosque on the Eid al-Adha of 2011. The prayer
session was attended by the ruling AK Parti deputies as well as an
immense Muslim congregation. The Great Synagogue of Oran in Algeria was confiscated and turned into a mosque. Churches and synagogues in non-Islamic countries re-arranged as mosques: In areas that have experienced Islamic immigration, such as parts of
Europe and North America, some church buildings, and those of other
religious congregations, that have fallen into disuse have been
converted into mosques following a sale of the property. In London, the Brick Lane Mosque has previously served as a French Protestant chapel and a synagogue. The Aksa mosque in The Hague, Netherlands, was formerly a synagogue. Churches of Istanbul: Hagia Sophia: Interior view of the Hagia Sophia, showing Islamic elements on the top of the main dome. (from the Greek: Ἁγία Σοφία, "Holy Wisdom"; Latin: Sancta Sophia or Sancta Sapientia; Turkish: Ayasofya)
is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a
museum in Istanbul, Turkey. From the date of its dedication in 360 until
1453, it served as the Greek Patriarchal cathedral of Constantinople,
except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted to a Roman Catholic
cathedral under the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople of the Western
Crusader established Latin Empire. The building was a mosque from 29 May
1453 until 1931, when it was secularized. It was opened as a museum on 1
February 1935. In 1453 Sultan Mehmed laid siege to Constantinople, driven in part by
a desire to convert the city to Islam, Constantinople was conquered by
the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed II, who subsequently ordered the
building converted into a mosque. The bells, altar, iconostasis, and
sacrificial vessels were removed and many of themosaics were plastered
over. Islamic features – such as the mihrab, minbar, and four minarets –
were added while in the possession of the Ottomans. It remained a
mosque until 1931 when it was closed to the public for four years. It
was re-opened in 1935 as a museum by the Republic of Turkey. Hagia Irene: Hagia Irene or Hagia Eirene (Greek: Ἁγία Εἰρήνη, "Holy Peace", Turkish: Aya İrini), often erroneously rendered in English as St Irene, is a former Eastern Orthodoxchurch located in the outer courtyard of Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, Turkey. Today, the Church serves mainly as a concert hall for classical
music performances, due to its extraordinary acoustic characteristics
and impressive atmosphere. Many of the concerts of the Istanbul
International Music Festival have been held here every summer since
1980. Hagia Eirene in 2007
Jerusalem and the Temple Mount
Pre-Islam
The Dome of the Rock is situated in the center of the Temple Mount, the site where once the Jewish Second Temple had stood. The Temple was destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans, who built a temple to Jupiter on the site.[citation needed] During the Byzantine
era, Jerusalem was primarily Christian, and pilgrims came by the tens
of thousands to experience the first church of Christianity and places
where Jesus walked
Jewish reverence for the Temple Mount (Har HaBayit) long predates the building of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque in the 7th century CE, and even predates the construction of the first Jewish Temple (Beit HaMikdash) by King Solomon almost 2000 years earlier in 954 BCE and which was destroyed in 587 BCE.
The Beit HaMikdash was built, according to Jewish tradition, on the Even Hashtiya,
the foundation stone upon which the world was created. This is
considered the epicenter of Judaism, where the Divine Presence (Shechina)
rests, where the biblical Isaac was brought for sacrifice, where the
Holy of Holies and Ark of the Covenant housing the Ten Commandments once
stood, and where the Temple was again rebuilt in 515 BCE before being
destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The Temple Mount is also known as
Mount Moriah (Har HaMoriah), mentioned frequently in the Torah.
Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest city, is mentioned hundreds times in the Tanakh. It
was the capital city of ancient Israeli kingdoms and home to Judaism’s
holiest Temple. Jews from all over the ancient world would make
pilgrimages to the Beit HaMikdash three times a year to participate in
worship and festivities, as commanded in the Torah. Jerusalem and the
Beit HaMikdash have remained the focus of Jewish longing, aspiration,
and prayers. Daily prayers (said while facing Jerusalem and the Temple
Mount) and grace after meals include multiple supplications for the
restoration of Jerusalem and the Beit HaMikdash. Jews still maintain the
9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, the date on which both the First and
Second Temples were destroyed, as a day of mourning. The Jewish wedding
ceremony concludes with the chanting of the biblical phrase, “If I
forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning,” and the
breaking of a glass by the groom to commemorate the destruction of the
Temples. And Yom Kippur services and the Passover Seder conclude each
year with the phrase “Next Year in Jerusalem.”
The Western Wall (Kotel Hama’aravi, known simply as the Wall or Kotel) is
the remnant of the outer retaining wall built by Herod to level the
ground and expand the area housing the Second Jewish Temple. Its
holiness derives from its proximity to the Temple site and specifically
its proximity to the Western Wall of the Temple’s Holy of Holies (Kodesh Hakodashim---the inner sanctuary that housed the Ark of the Covenant–Aron HaBrit–and wherethe High Priest–Kohen Gadol--
alone was permitted to enter on Yom Kippur). According to Midrashic
sources, the Divine Presence never departed from the Western wall of the
Temple’s Holy of Holies.
THE TALIBAN WERE VANQUISHED BUT BEFORE THEY WERE THEY DESTROYED EVERY NON ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS ARTIFACT THEY COULD IN AFGHANISTAN!
After 1,700 years, The Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan fall to Taliban dynamite
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The
2001 destruction of the two giant Buddhas in Bamiyan is, by far, the
most spectacular attack against the historical and cultural heritage of
Afghanistan committed during the country’s recent period of turmoil. On February 26, 2001, and after having consulted a college of ‘ulama’,
Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Taliban, issued a decree
ordering the elimination of all non-Islamic statues and sanctuaries in
Afghanistan. A kind of jihad was launched against the two
Buddhas — the one to the east 38 meters high, and the other to the west,
55 meters high — hewn into the cliff of Bamiyan. “Our soldiers are
working hard; they are using all available arms against them,” said the
Taliban’s spokesman.[1]
Rockets and tank shells were brought in to help, and the destruction
was completed with dynamite. On March 14, the Taliban issued a public
announcement that the giant figures had been destroyed. Mullah
Omar’s decree had prompted many attempts by Western countries and
moderate Muslim clerics and heads of state from among Afghanistan’s
neighbors to convince the Taliban to call off their plans. The need to
preserve a cultural heritage and to respect religious tolerance was at
the core of this general protest. UNESCO emissaries pleaded in vain that
a necessary distinction should be made between idolatry and exemplarity
— between a secular admiration and an idolatrous veneration. Others
insisted on the exemplarity of piety, the “lesson of faith,” that these
statues could offer to the believers of all religions. In fact, the
Taliban’s argument gave these ambassadors of culture no chance of
success: “If the statues were objects of cult for an Afghan minority, we
would have to respect their belief and its objects, but we don’t have a
single Buddhist in Afghanistan,” said the Mullah, “so why preserve
false [sic] idols? And if they have no religious character, why get so
upset? It is just a question of breaking stones.”[2]
Besides the steps taken by UNESCO to save the statues, the MET (New
York), as well as some Buddhist states, such as Thailand, Sri Lanka, and
even Iran, offered to “buy” the Buddhas. Yet, the victory over
the Buddhas could only be won if there were witnesses. This is why
journalists were flown to Bamiyan on March 26 to see with their own eyes
the gaping openness of the niches, deep into the cliff, where the
statues had stood. Prior to that, on March 19, the Taliban had agreed
for this one occasion to let Al-Jazeera cameramen witness the final
phase of the demolition. Such an extraordinary attack on religious
and cultural emblems led many to speculate about the real intentions of
the Mullah. Two kinds of explanation of the Mullah’s astounding
decision are possible. The first, based on his and his close
collaborators’ explicit argumentation, highlights the Taliban clerics’
conception of Islamic law. The second, a more contextual explanation,
takes into account the position of the Taliban regime on the
international scene. This point of view is supported by the
contradictory statements made by the Taliban since they came to power.
In July 1999, three years after the entry of the Mullah’s forces into
Kabul, the Taliban Minister of Culture spoke about the respect due to
pre-Islamic antiquities and also mentioned the risk of retaliation
against mosques in Buddhist countries. He made clear that, though there
were no Buddhist believers in Afghanistan, “Bamiyan would not be
destroyed but, on the contrary, protected.”[3] The famous February 26 decree appears as a real volte-face
since it maintains that “these statues were and are sanctuary for
unbelievers” — hence the religious obligation to destroy them. The
assault against the Buddhas seems thus to be an answer to a changing
political context, a kind of reprisal against the sanctions imposed by
the UN Security Council on the Taliban regime and the refusal of most UN
members to recognize the Taliban Emirate.
THE world's two largest standing Buddhas - one of them 165ft high - were blown up by the Taliban in Afghanistan
A Buddha of Bamiyan statue
stands over 150 feet high above a small town situated at the foot of the
Hindu Kush mountains of central Afghanistan, prior to its destruction
After failing to destroy the 1,700-year-old sandstone statues of Buddha with anti-aircraft and tank fire,
the Taliban brought a lorryload of dynamite from Kabul. A Western
observer said: "They drilled holes into the torsos of the two statues
and then placed dynamite charges inside the holes to blow them up."
The
operation to wreck the statues carved into a cliff in the Bamiyan
Valley in the Hindu Kush mountains of central Afghanistan was supervised
by Mullah Obaidullah, the Taliban defence minister. There has been an international outcry
since Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader, issued a special edict
on Feb 26 ordering the destruction of all non-Islamic statues.
Kofi
Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, had pleaded with the
Taliban's foreign minister, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, in Islamabad
yesterday to save Afghanistan's cultural heritage. He was told that all
other "moveable statues" - including more than a dozen smaller Buddha
statues in the Kabul Museum - had also been destroyed.
It was not the first time these statues have been attacked. Around 1221,
the statues were assaulted at the behest of the Mongol ruler Genghis
Khan, and in the 18th century, the Persian King Nader Afshar also fired
heavy artillery at them. The face of the larger statue was destroyed by
Afghan King Abdur Rahman Khan as an answer to the Shia Hazara rebellion.
ISIS HAS BEEN VANQUISHED BY DONALD TRUMP.. BUT DURING THEIR REIGN OF TERROR WITH OBAMA LOOKING THE OTHER WAY... THEY ALSO TOOK PART IN DESTROYING HISTORY.
One of the many tragedies that have unfolded in the wake of the
Islamic State (IS) is their smashing of statues and the destruction of
ancient archaeological sites. Indeed, the rapid and terrifying advance
of the IS has proved fatal for much invaluable heritage. They toppled priceless statues at the Mosul Museum in northern Iraq.
They used sledgehammers and power tools to deface giant winged-bull
statues at Nineveh on the outskirts of Mosul. At Nimrud, IS detonated
explosives, turning the site into a giant, brown, mushroom cloud. They
used assault rifles and pickaxes to destroy invaluable carvings at
Hatra; and at Palmyra in Syria they blew up the 2,000-year-old temples
dedicated to the pagan gods Baal Shamin and Bel.
A damaged artefact at the Mosul
museum, where Islamic State militants filmed themselves destroying
priceless statues and sculptures in 2015.Thaier Al-Sudani /ReutersIt’s difficult to interpret the unprecedented scale of this heritage
destruction. The global media and politicians have tended to frame these
events as random casualties of wanton terror or as moments of
unrestrained barbarism. UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Director General Irina Bokova, for instance, reacted to the destruction
of Nimrud by arguing that such attacks were underpinned by “propaganda and hatred”. There is, she said, “absolutely no political or religious justification for the destruction of humanity’s cultural heritage”. However, in an article published recently in the International Journal of Heritage Studies,
we argue that the acts of heritage destruction undertaken by IS are
much more than mere moments of propaganda devoid of political or
religious justification. We analysed two key IS media outlets: Dabiq, their glossy periodical
online magazine, which is part manifesto, part call to arms, and part
grisly newsletter; and the various slick propaganda films released by
Al-Hayat. We found that the heritage destruction wrought by IS was not only
very deliberate and carefully staged, but underpinned by three specific
and clearly articulated frameworks.
Theological
Firstly, the IS have gone to great theological (if selective) lengths
to justify their iconoclasm. For example, an Al-Hayat film documenting
the destruction at the Mosul Museum and Nineveh starts:
Oh Muslims, the remains that you see behind me are the idols of
peoples of previous centuries, which were worshipped instead of Allah.
The Assyrians, Akkadians, and others took for themselves gods of rain,
of agriculture, and of war, and worshipped them along with Allah, and
tried to appease them with all kinds of sacrifices… Since Allah
commanded us to shatter and destroy these statues, idols, and remains,
it is easy for us to obey, and we do not care [what people think], even
if they are worth billions of dollars.
Jounalists walk near the remains of the Monumental Arch in the historic Syrian city of Palmyra in April last year.Omar Sanadiki/ReutersThe destruction at Palmyra features in a double-page spread with 14
colour photographs in Dabiq. In the French edition, Dar-al-Islam, the
text states:
Baal is a false divinity for which people sacrificed their children
as indicated in the book of Jeremiah (Old Testament). But by the Grace
of Allah, soldiers of the Caliphate destroyed it.
Historical
Secondly, the IS make frequent reference to key historical figures to
justify their iconoclasm. These include the Prophet Abraham’s
destruction of idols and the Prophet Muhammad’s iconoclasm at the Ka’ba,
the centrepiece of Mecca’s mosque.
Palmyra’s Monumental Arch in 2010.Sandra Auger/ReutersIn an Al-Hayat film documenting the destruction at the Mosul Museum and Nineveh, one militant states:
The Prophet Muhammad shattered the idols with his own honourable
hands when he conquered Mecca. The Prophet Muhammad commanded us to
shatter and destroy statues. This is what his companions did later on,
when they conquered lands.
Similar homage is also paid throughout the magazine Dabiq to other,
more contemporary, moments of iconoclasm perpetrated by Islamic
fundamentalists. These include the destruction of untold numbers of
heritage sites by the Wahhabi sect across the Arabian peninsula from the mid-18th century; the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001; and the destruction of the al-‘Askari mosque by al-Qa’eda in Iraq in 2006.
Political
Finally, and often overlooked, the IS have used political reasoning to justify the destruction. One Dabiq article states:
The kuffār [unbelievers] had unearthed these statues and ruins in
recent generations and attempted to portray them as part of a cultural
heritage and identity that the Muslims of Iraq should embrace and be
proud of. Yet this opposes the guidance of Allah and His Messenger and
only serves a nationalist agenda.
We can see two dimensions of the IS’s political iconoclasm here.
First, it is an attack on “the kuffār”. These are presumably Westerners
who, as part of the colonial period, drew the modern borders and
created the contemporary states of the Middle East. They also excavated
Mesopotamian archaeological sites and placed relics in public museums to
be admired. Second, the attacks on sites inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage List
(such as Hatra and Palmyra) are also an attack on the values such
institutions promote: secular, liberal, humanist values that promote a
recognition of the shared heritage of human civilization. This is in
stark contrast to the IS who seek to create religious, historical and
political homogeneity under the rule of a strict caliphate. In March 2015 UNESCO’s Bokova issued a statement referring to the destruction of heritage sites at the hands of the IS as a “war crime”.
Hatra in 2002, before the carnage.Suhaib Salem/ReutersKnowing that UNESCO was powerless to stop them, the following month
the IS released an Al-Hayat video filmed at the ancient city of Hatra.
The film shows militants using sledgehammers and assault rifles to
destroy priceless reliefs engraved into the walls of the fortress city.
It also features a bold repost to Bokova:
Some of the infidel organisations say the destruction of these
alleged artefacts is a war crime. We will destroy your artefacts and
idols anywhere and Islamic State will rule your lands.
Such brash assertions made by IS clearly demonstrate that their
heritage destruction cannot be dismissed as being simple propaganda. Instead, as we have shown, the heritage destruction undertaken by the
IS are not only very carefully planned and executed, but also couched
within a broader religious, historical and political framework that
seeks to justify their violent iconoclasm. Understanding the complex layers that drive such iconoclasm are a
step towards developing better responses to the destruction of our
shared cultural heritage.
OBAMA LOOKED THE OTHER WAY!
YES MY FRIENDS ITS ALL THERE TO SEE..Islam has subjugated civilizations for 1,400 years!
These figures are a rough estimate of the death of non-Muslims by the political act of jihad. Africa
Thomas Sowell [Thomas Sowell, Race and Culture, BasicBooks,
1994, p. 188] estimates that 11 million slaves were shipped across the
Atlantic and 14 million were sent to the Islamic nations of North Africa
and the Middle East. For every slave captured many others died.
Estimates of this collateral damage vary. The renowned missionary David
Livingstone estimated that for every slave who reached a plantation,
five others were killed in the initial raid or died of illness and
privation on the forced march.[Woman’s Presbyterian Board of Missions, David Livingstone,
p. 62, 1888] Those who were left behind were the very young, the weak,
the sick and the old. These soon died since the main providers had been
killed or enslaved. So, for 25 million slaves delivered to the market,
we have an estimated death of about 120 million people. Islam ran the
wholesale slave trade in Africa.120 million Africans Christians
The number of Christians martyred by Islam is 9 million [David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-10] . A rough estimate by Raphael Moore in History of Asia Minor is that another 50 million died in wars by jihad. So counting the million African Christians killed in the 20th century we have:60 million Christians Hindus
Koenard Elst in Negationism in India gives an estimate of 80 million
Hindus killed in the total jihad against India. [Koenard Elst, Negationism in India,
Voice of India, New Delhi, 2002, pg. 34.] The country of India today is
only half the size of ancient India, due to jihad. The mountains near
India are called the Hindu Kush, meaning the “funeral pyre of the
Hindus.”80 million Hindus Buddhists
Buddhists do not keep up with the history of war. Keep in mind that in
jihad only Christians and Jews were allowed to survive as dhimmis
(servants to Islam) everyone else had to convert or die. Jihad killed
the Buddhists in Turkey, Afghanistan, along the Silk Route, and in
India. The total is roughly 10 million. [David B. Barrett, Todd M.
Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-1.]
10 million Buddhists Jews
Oddly enough there were not enough Jews killed in jihad to significantly
affect the totals of the Great Annihilation. The jihad in Arabia was
100 percent effective, but the numbers were in the thousands, not
millions. After that, the Jews submitted and became the dhimmis
(servants and second class citizens) of Islam and did not have
geographic political power. This gives a rough estimate of 270 million killed by jihad.
EXPOSED! THE REASON WHY HILLARY TOOK DOWN Gadhafi with Obama's Approval! #followthemoney
Why do you think.. The entire Obama Cabal is fighting to bring down Trump? They are all culpable. They all pocketed money. Everyone was paid off in some form. Its all about the Hundreds and hundred of millions of dollars that was spread around. From the top to the bottom.
If anyone truly believes that Obama and his spy ring had no knowledge of any thing that was going on.. YOU ARE A FUCKING MORON OR A LEFTY IDEOLOGUE WHO KNOWS BUT WANTS YOUR GANG TO SUCCEED SO YOU LOOK THE OTHER WAY! EITHER WAY THE CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE IS OVERWHELMING! My Blog is filled with posts about each crook and the circumstantial evidence about the Thievery! www.john-gaultier.blogspot.com
Records recently posted online by the FBI indicate that it looked the other way regarding allegations from reliable inside private sources about a scheme in which Sydney Bluemthal the hatchet man for the Clintons along with Comey and Mueller and Strzok and other 7th Floor Justice Department Cabinet members and John Brennan and Clapper and Eric Holder and other associates of Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton exploited their connection to her to profit from
the turmoil in Libya in 2011.
#followthemoney.
Look Hillary had a private server and all these crooked individuals were on it.
Obama used an undisclosed pseudonym to communicate with then Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton on her private email server – shocking her top
aide Huma Abedin when she learned of it.
The FBI received the documents in June 2016, around the same
time it launched an exhaustive, three-year investigation of the Trump
campaign’s ties to Russia based, in part, on information from private
sources connected to Democrats that in the main would prove to be false –
the Steele dossier. The bureau’s different responses to these documents also came
during the same period when FBI Director James B. Comey controversially
cleared Clinton, in his first of two exonerations, of criminal
wrongdoing in the bureau’s probe of her unauthorized and insecure email
setup.
Sidney Blumenthal: A cut of Gadhafi's
billions? Top photo: Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a C-17
military plane departing Malta for Libya in October 2011.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File
Top: AP Photo
The documents, quietly released as part of the FBI’s case files
for the “Midyear Exam,” its code name for the Clinton email
investigation, revive a lingering mystery from Clinton’s tenure as the
nation’s chief diplomat: Why did Sidney Blumenthal, the former
journalist and Bill Clinton White House aide, send her a series of
detailed memos and reports about Libya beginning in 2011? The documents offer an answer. They allege that Blumenthal sent
the emails as a "quid pro quo" to free up classified State Department
financial intelligence to help Libya recover as much as $66 billion
spirited offshore by slain strongman Moammar Gadhafi. Out of that, Blumenthal and associates stood to gain a brokers' cut of perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars. The private Libya inquiry leaves important issues unsettled.
The documents do not include emails or other original source material to
support the allegations within. While claiming to possess evidence that
Blumenthal and his associates had contracts and offshore accounts to
repatriate the money, the documents say "no concrete evidence" was found
suggesting Clinton acted to support the effort.
the files might shed light on why Clinton kept her emails, tens
of thousands of which have gone missing, out of normal government
communication channels.
They do offer tantalizing connections between the Libya and
Trump-Russia affairs. Previous reporting from multiple outlets has
established Blumenthal worked on Libya with Cody Shearer, another
longtime Clinton operative. Shearer would later join Blumenthal in
passing anti-Trump claims similar to those in the Steele dossier on to
the State Department and across the federal government. The
FBI's acquisition of the Libya files made it freshly aware of
Blumenthal's possible past motives - including personal financial gain -
as he spurred an investigation meant to help defeat Donald Trump and
elect Clinton. In addition, one FBI agent played an especially pivotal role in the bureau’s response to both sets of allegations: Peter Strzok, who would eventually be fired by the bureau because of his anti-Trump bias. The new material certainly adds twists to an already tangled web of intrigue. Birth of an Inquiry The heavily redacted files are part of a 428-page FBI document dump posted on FBI.gov in June, which can be downloaded here
(relevant pages: 318-380). The documents are labeled by the FBI as
having been received on June 6, 2016 – a month before the first of
Comey’s two exonerations of Clinton and roughly seven weeks before the
FBI opened its counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign, relying
on the Steele dossier. They are watermarked as having been declassified
in December 2016, after the presidential election.
Peter Strzok: FBI hot potatoes on his plate were apparently handled differently.
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
Describing the genesis of the Libya inquiry, FBI notes say its
methodology was conceived by private entities with data recovery
expertise and that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich referred them to
the watchdog group Judicial Watch for financial support. Gingrich, a
Republican, did not reply to a request for comment from
RealClearInvestigations. Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, confirmed that his
organization funded the freelance investigative project, including
research on the encrypted “dark web,” after the work was already
underway -- “and then we found a key Libya-linked document suggesting
Mrs. Clinton’s server was hacked by the Russians.” He said his group passed the probe’s information on to the FBI team
led by Strzok, the agent in charge of the Clinton email inquiry. The FBI files do not indicate how, or if, the allegations in the
documents were pursued. The only hint is a few handwritten notes of an
FBI interview with someone apparently involved in the private probe,
with the names redacted. Fitton said he does not know why the alleged Libyan
asset-repatriation plan had not been publicized earlier. He would not
identify the private investigator or elaborate further on the
investigation. The FBI and Justice and State departments declined to comment for
this article. Spokesmen for Clinton did not respond to requests for
comment. Shearer could not be reached. After an earlier version of this article was published, Blumenthal
contacted RealClearInvestigations objecting that its contents were
"false and defamatory." He said that, contrary to the article's earlier
assertion that he did not respond to a reporter's inquiry, he had
received no inquiry from the reporter seeking his comment or
perspective. Blumenthal continued: “At no time did I seek to obtain classified
information from the State Department. It is completely false that I
ever sought to recover any of Gadhafi’s assets. It is completely false
that I stood to gain a broker’s cut as a result as falsely stated in the
article.” 'We Came, We Saw, He Died' The turmoil in the oil-rich North African nation of Libya and its
troubled aftermath created a fraught period in Obama-era foreign policy,
marked by the phrase “leading from behind” to describe the
administration’s backstage role in the allied-backed ouster of Gadhafi,
and Secretary Clinton’s awkwardly triumphal comment afterward, “We came,
we saw, he died.” During that period, Clinton heard often from Blumenthal – a controversial infighter, dubbed “Sid Vicious” by detractors, whom the Obama administration
prevented from joining her at State. He emailed the secretary on a
range of foreign policy issues, some of which he had financial interests
in. He began regularly emailing Clinton about Libyan affairs at the
start of that country’s civil war in 2011, the year before the infamous
attack on the American consulate in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador
Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
Tyler Drumheller: Called part of a "secret spy ring" to funnel information to Clinton.
MSNBC/YouTube screen grab
Reporting by ProPublica and Gawker in 2015 established that Blumenthal was working with Shearer and former CIA officer Tyler Drumheller, who died in 2015, as part of what the publications called a “secret spy ring” to funnel information to Clinton. Over the next few years, Blumenthal sent her intelligence reports
prepared by Drumheller, a former chief of the CIA’s clandestine service
in Europe who left the agency in 2005. Emails between Blumenthal and
Drumheller suggest that Shearer may have been in contact with the Libyan
authorities. The group’s interest in Libya came to light after Marcel Lazăr Lehel,
the notorious Romanian hacker who goes by the name “Guccifer,” stole
Blumenthal’s emails in 2013 and published his correspondence with
Clinton online. The hack also revealed that Clinton was conducting
sensitive State Department business on a personal email account, though
her email practices didn’t become a high-profile controversy until 2015,
during the congressional investigation into the Benghazi attack. A 2015 New York Times article on the hack reported that “[m]uch of
the Libya intelligence that Mr. Blumenthal passed on to Mrs. Clinton
appears to have come from a group of business associates he was advising
as they sought to win contracts from the Libyan transitional
government.” Nevertheless, the Times reported that Clinton passed Blumenthal’s
memos on to other State Department officials, though a Clinton aide
would obscure the source of the information, saying “they had come from
an anonymous ‘contact’ of Mrs. Clinton.” A Lucrative Opportunity The documents recently released by the FBI purport to spell out the
exact nature of business Blumenthal and company were pursuing:
“Our evidence shows that Mr. Blumenthal was involved with a group of
intelligence professionals seeking to repatriate asset[s] which were
plundered and then exfiltrated by the [Gadhafi] family and hidden in
various offshore localities.”
The documents continue with an apparent reference to the Mossack Fonseca law firm in Panama, which was implicated in the 2016 Panama Papers media exposé on shady offshore finance:
“One of the devices used by [Blumenthal’s] lawyers and advisors was
the infamous Panama papers law firm that has recently been referenced in
the news. This program is better known as Rogue National Judgment Recovery Litigation, for which we have much experience, sources, and knowledge generally.”
The findings continue:
“However, in order for Mr. Blumenthal and his associates to be
successful with this program, they needed high quality FINCEN [Financial
Crimes Enforcement Network] intelligence analysts that formerly worked
as liaisons with the CIA; he needed complete access to the Libyan
Central Bank to do the financial traces; and most important of all,
needed access to the State Department Intelligence Bureau file regarding
the Libyan Frozen Assets Fund, which consisted of about $30 billion in
frozen and recovered assets.”
It’s estimated that Gadhafi and his family may have squirrelled away
some $66 billion in assets around the globe. Recovering that money was
likely to be extremely lucrative, the private inquiry stated.
“As an illustration of how profitable this program could be, since
the Blumenthal group had a contingency contract with the coalition
government [in Libya], if they found just $1 billion in assets and the
contingency fee was 10% of the funds recovered (which is extremely
conservative and considerably below industry standards), it would mean
the group would earn a windfall of $100 million gross. Assuming expenses
of 10% of the gross, which would be extremely generous, the net to the
group would be nearly $90 million. The only obstacle separating Mr.
Blumenthal and the money was the State Department intelligence; and the
key to getting it was Mrs. Clinton, his longtime patron.”
The private inquiry asserts that the “constant Libya memos”
Blumenthal and his associates were passing on to Clinton were meant as
“bait to entice the State Department to release the data” and an
“official example of quid pro quo.” The documents released do not include evidence regarding this and
other claims, though one person connected to the private inquiry told
RCI supporting material was provided to the FBI. The investigation
further mentions that another person whose name is redacted began
contacting senior intelligence analysts about recovering Libyan assets
in January 2012, nine months after the March 2011 American military
intervention in Libya. This person, described as having a “rather
controversial history within the U.S. intelligence community,” also
claimed that he had contacts in the Libyan coalition government and was
dealing with “high-level political types in the U.S." in the State
Department. The documents published by the FBI claim Blumenthal and his
associates were working on the Libya “scheme” as late as December 2015.
The documents assert that they got as far as obtaining a draft agreement
for asset recovery with Libya’s coalition government and setting up an
“offshore corporate vehicle” – with the help of Mossack Fonseca, the
Panama Papers firm. But the findings of the private investigation state
that “what we do not know is whether the team was actually
operationalized or if the attendant publicity surrounding [Clinton’s]
email server” — which ramped up throughout 2015 — “effectively shut down
the Blumenthal team’s efforts.” Still, the private inquiry’s broader assessment is confidently
stated: “For these reasons, we assess that the true motivation behind
Mr. Blumenthal’s willingness to move mountains of data about Libya to
Mrs. Clinton was all about the money and to get access to or actually
obtain the State Department intelligence file, notwithstanding the fact
it would be highly illegal for the file to be released to a private
citizen.” To date, these claims are unverified. Still, the FBI’s subdued
handling of the matter appears to contrast with its all-hands-on-deck
response to another set of unconfirmed memos that it also received in
mid-2016 – the Steele dossier – and the fact that Blumenthal and Shearer
were deeply involved in the effort to tie Trump to Russia. The Second ‘Dossier’ During the 2016 presidential campaign, Blumenthal and Shearer were
actively preparing opposition research on behalf of Hillary Clinton. Two
memos prepared by Shearer claimed, as did the Steele dossier, that
Donald Trump had been compromised by the Russians.
Jonathan Winer: State Department official dealt with his "old friend" Sidney Blumenthal.
One of the people they used to pass on these false allegations to the
FBI was Jonathan Winer, then a U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state
for international law enforcement and former special envoy for Libya. Winer declined to comment for this article, but in a Washington Post op-ed
in February of last year, he explained his meeting with his “old
friend” Blumenthal. When the two met in September 2016, Winer had
already met with Steele and was familiar with the contents of Steele’s
dossier on Trump. “What struck me was how some of [Shearer’s] material
echoed Steele’s but appeared to involve different sources,” Winer wrote.
For instance, both reports contain unproven allegations that Trump was
filmed during sexual acts at a hotel in Moscow. After the Blumenthal meeting, Winer passed Shearer’s material on to
Steele. “[Steele] told me it was potentially ‘collateral’ information. I
asked him what that meant. He said that it was similar but separate
from the information he had gathered from his sources. I agreed to let
him keep a copy of the Shearer notes,” Winer recounts. He further
states: “I did not mention or share his notes with anyone at the State
Department. I did not expect them to be shared with anyone in the U.S.
government. But I learned later that Steele did share them — with the
FBI, after the FBI asked him to provide everything he had on allegations
relating to Trump, his campaign and Russian interference in U.S.
elections.”
Cody Shearer: compiled separate Trump dossier.
YouTube screen grab
In a previous RealClearInvestigations report
by Lee Smith detailing the contents and genesis of Shearer’s dossier,
former CIA agent Robert Baer said that he spoke to Shearer about his
work collecting dirt on Trump in “March or April” of 2016, which would
roughly coincide with the time that the Democratic National Committee
was hiring the Fusion GPS research firm to employ Steele and create the
primary dossier. Given Blumenthal and Shearer’s close ties to Clinton
and their previous work doing opposition research for the Clintons,
there’s a possibility that one or both men could have been aware of the
Steele dossier and its findings as the work was ongoing — and that
perhaps Shearer’s dossier was not an independent corroboration but part
of a larger operation to manufacture credibility for the Steele dossier. A memo released by the Senate Judiciary Committee last year appears
to reference Steele’s use of the Blumenthal-Shearer Trump dossier to
corroborate his own:
"One memorandum by Mr. Steele that was not published by BuzzFeed is
dated October 19, 2016. Mr. Steele’s memorandum states that his company
‘received this report from [REDACTED] US State Department,’ that the
report was second in a series, and that the report was information that
came from a foreign sub-source who ‘is in touch with [REDACTED], a
contact of [REDACTED], a friend of the Clintons, who passed it to
[REDACTED].’ It is troubling enough that the Clinton campaign funded Mr.
Steele’s work, but that these Clinton associates were contemporaneously
feeding Mr. Steele allegations raises additional concerns about his
credibility."
As Smith’s RCI article notes, it is also significant that Steele
provided the FBI with only the second of Shearer’s opposition research
reports on Trump. The first identified a Democratic funder: Shearer
relates that Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch of Fusion GPS had been
hired by the DNC to “rack [sic] down Trump compromised story.” Did Steele obtain both Shearer reports? Winer is vague in his
Washington Post op-ed on the exact nature of the “notes” Blumenthal
passed on to him. But if Winer provided both reports to Steele, that
suggests that Steele would have been aware of who was funding his
efforts, and that he withheld that information from the FBI by not
sharing the first report. The FBI’s FISA warrant application to surveil
the Trump campaign includes no mention that Steele knew of the dossier's
politically motivated funders, the DNC and the Clinton campaign.
Instead, citing the Steele dossier, the application states that Simpson
“never advised Source No. 1 [Steele] as to the motivation behind the
research into candidate’s #1 [Trump’s] ties to Russia.” The newly posted material says Blumenthal and Shearer’s efforts to
recover Gadhafi’s pilfered funds involved reaching out to many people in
Washington familiar with Libyan affairs. Winer was a State Department envoy to Libya and an expert in
international organized crime. As such, he was well-positioned to know
that Blumenthal was actively engaged in passing on Libyan intelligence
to the State Department and whether he had tried to obtain State
Department information in order to profit off recovering Libyan assets.
If Winer knew what Blumenthal was working on regarding Libya, then he
had to be aware that Blumenthal might have a large financial interest in
seeing Hillary Clinton become president. Similarly, if the FBI had been made aware in mid-2016 that Blumenthal
and Shearer might have had financial motives tied to presidential
candidate Clinton, Steele’s decision to pass on information obtained by
Shearer later that year should have been a red flag about the
reliability of Steele’s information. The FBI cited Steele’s dossier in
its first application for a FISA warrant to surveil former Trump
campaign aide Carter Page in October — months after the bureau received
the Libya documents. In May of this year, former Rep. Trey Gowdy, who chaired the House Oversight and Benghazi panels, told Fox News
that he had seen Blumenthal’s name on an FBI spreadsheet that attempted
to list independent corroboration for specific factual assertions in
the Steele dossier. Apparently referring to Blumenthal’s reputation for
pro-Clinton political machinations, the Republican said the operative’s
past should have concerned the FBI. “When the name Sidney Blumenthal is
included as part of your corroboration, and when you’re the world’s
leading law-enforcement agency, you have a problem,” Gowdy said.
US Defense Department under Obama bought Russian helicopters for Afghan military with US TAX PAYER DOLLARS!
WHO IS Rosoboronexport.. http://roe.ru/eng/ they are the dealers who arranged the Obama Deal. They refuse anyone to look at their books in 2011. Follow the money people.
I FOUND THIS FROM 2013. Follow the money! Every Deal that Obama and his gang of thugs made had a "Kick Back" Component. 30% going to his Coffers. That is why the Cabal is determined to get Trump and his investigators out before all this is exposed!
I Remember when Obama said this ... ?
The Pentagon bypassed US helicopter makers, choosing to spend more
than $1 billion on dozens of Russian Mi-17 helicopters. A study shows
the Chinook built by Boeing is a better fit.
To
outfit Afghanistan's security forces with new
helicopters, the Pentagon bypassed U.S. companies and turned instead to Moscow
for dozens of Russian Mi-17 rotorcraft at a cost of more than $1 billion.
Senior
Pentagon officials assured skeptical members of Congress that the Defense
Department had made the right call. They repeatedly cited a top-secret 2010
study they said named the Mi-17 as the superior choice.
Turns
out the study told a very different story, according to unclassified excerpts
obtained by The Associated Press.
An
American-made helicopter, the U.S. Army's workhorse Chinook built by Boeing in Pennsylvania, was found to be
"the most cost-effective single platform type fleet for the Afghan Air
Force over a twenty year" period, according to the excerpts.
Lawmakers
who closely had followed the copter deal were stunned.
Sen.
John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate's No. 2 GOP leader and one of the most vocal
critics of the contract, said the Department of Defense "repeatedly and
disingenuously" used the study to prove the necessity of buying Mi-17s.
More
than two years since the Mi-17 contract was signed, a veil of secrecy still
obscures the pact despite its high-dollar value, the potential for fraud and
waste, and accusations the Pentagon muffled important information. The
unprecedented arms deal also serves as a reminder to a war-weary American
public that Afghanistan will remain heavily dependent on U.S. financial support
even after its combat troops depart.
"So
why are we buying Russian helicopters when there are American manufacturers
that can meet that very same requirement?" Cornyn asked. "Makes no
sense whatsoever and the Department of Defense has steadfastly refused to
cooperate with reasonable inquiries into why in the world they continue to
persist along this pathway."
As
recently as September, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter cited the study
in a letter to House members defending the decision. Carter left his job this
past week.
Last
year, Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's top acquisition official, and policy chief
James Miller pointed to the study in a written response to questions posed by
Cornyn.
Just
a few weeks after the secret study was completed, Army Secretary John McHugh
wrote in a 2011 memo "that the Mi-17 stands apart" when compared with
other helicopters.
The
"Pentagon" denies it misled Congress.
Who in the Pentagon.. find the people and check their tax returns and you will
find payments.
A
senior department official said the study was focused on long-term requirements
and not the immediate needs of the Afghan military, which were best met by the
Mi-17. Also, U.S. commanders in Afghanistan wanted the Mi-17 because it is
durable, easy-to-operate and the Afghan forces had experience flying it,
according to the official, who was not authorized to be identified as the
source of the information.
The
war in Afghanistan, now in its 13th year, has been full of paradoxes.
What
was once President Barack Obama's "war of necessity" has become a
race for the exits. Hopes of eradicating the Taliban and transforming
Afghanistan into a viable state have been dialed down. U.S. combat forces are
scheduled to depart by the end of next year, leaving the Afghans responsible
for ensuring the country doesn't collapse into the pre-Sept. 11 chaos that made
it a terrorist haven.
There's
no dispute that heavy-duty helicopters capable of quickly moving Afghan troops
and supplies are essential to accomplishing that mission. But the decision to
acquire them from Russia has achieved the rare feat in a deeply divided
Congress of finding common ground among Republicans and Democrats.
Why,
lawmakers from both political parties have demanded, is the U.S. purchasing
military gear from Russia?
After
all, Russia has sold advanced weapons to repressive government in Syria
and Iran,
sheltered NSA leaker Edward Snowden, and been criticized by the State Department for adopting laws
that restrict human rights.
On
top of all that, corruption is rampant in Russia's defense industry,
heightening concerns that crooked government officials and contractors are
lining their pockets with American money.
"We're
not dealing with a corrupt system. Corruption is the system," said Stephen
Blank, a Russia expert at the American Foreign Policy Council, a Washington
think tank. "This is not a world we're familiar with."
Overall,
63 Mi-17s are being acquired through the 2011 contract. It was awarded without
competition to Russia's arms export agency, Rosoboronexport, even
though the Pentagon condemned the agency after Syrian President Bashar Assad's
forces used Russian weapons to "murder Syrian civilians."
Rep.
Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, a high-ranking Democrat on the House
Appropriations Committee, said the arrangement has put American taxpayers in
the intolerable position of subsidizing a company complicit in the atrocities
occurring in Syria.
"The
lack of straightforward information from the Pentagon on the ability of
American-made helicopters to meet the mission in Afghanistan is but another
factor severely undermining their credibility and justification for pursuing
this sorely misguided procurement," DeLauro said.
No
Pentagon official was made available to speak on the record for this story.
The
AP also requested in late October that the department release unclassified
portions of the 2010 study and other records supporting the decision to buy
Mi-17s instead of Chinooks or other helicopters. The department provided only a
one-page summary of a report that provided no new information.
Afghanistan's
mountainous terrain demands a helicopter capable of operating in the most
rugged conditions at altitudes well in excess of 15,000 feet. The Mi-17 met all
these requirements, Carter and other U.S. military officials told lawmakers in
correspondence and in testimony.
But
so could the heavyweight Chinook. The Boeing helicopter is larger than its
Russian counterpart, carries up to a 26,000 pound payload, which is twice as
much as the Mi-17, and can operate at nearly the same high altitude.
The
armed Mi-17s being purchased for Afghanistan from Rosoboronexport will replace
older and less capable Mi-17s that the U.S. and other countries had purchased
from brokers and contractors through the open market and then donated or loaned
to the Afghans.
The
fact that the Afghan forces had years of experience flying the Mi-17 figured
prominently in the Pentagon's decision.
Carter
and other U.S. defense official contended that adding the Boeing helicopter to
the mix would unnecessarily burden the Afghans with having to learn how to
operate and maintain an unfamiliar helicopter.
The
2010 study "specifically analyzed the opportunity for DOD to provide a
U.S. alternative to the Mi-17 for Afghanistan," according to the excerpts.
It
outlined a transitional approach in which Chinooks being retired from the U.S.
military's fleet would be available in late 2013 to be refurbished and then
replace older Mi-17s in the Afghan fleet, according to the excerpts. A
combination of Mi-17s and renovated Chinooks, known in the Army's nomenclature
as the CH-47D, could work as well.
The
2010 study advised proceeding cautiously. Shifting too quickly away from the
Mi-17s already in use could undermine progress made in training the Afghan air
force, the excerpts said. But it recommended a plan for converting the Afghan
forces from a "pure" Mi-17 fleet to one that uses US helicopters.
The
Chinook option never materialized.
An
extensive analysis of both helicopters concluded that a refurbished Chinook
would cost about 40 percent more overall to buy and maintain than the Mi-17,
said the senior defense official.
That's
hard to fathom.
Boeing
executives informed congressional staff during a meeting held in late September
that the cost of a refurbished CH-47D would be in the $12 million to $14
million range, according to a person knowledgeable about the discussion but not
authorized to be identified as the source of the information.
That
would make an overhauled Chinook $4 million to $6 million less than what the
department is currently paying for Mi-17s, according to figures compiled by the
Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell, the Pentagon office that fills urgent requests
for equipment from battlefield commanders.
Boeing
spokesman Andrew Lee referred questions about Chinook costs to the Defense
Department
The
figures also show the average cost of each new Mi-17 has increased with each
successive order — from $16.4 million to $18.2 million. The Pentagon has
assured Congress that the prices were "fair and reasonable," and in
line with what other countries have paid.
But
an internal Defense Contract Audit Agency document shows that the department
could not conduct a comprehensive cost comparison because Rosoboronexport
wouldn't allow U.S. auditors to look at its books.
Army
negotiators omitted a provision standard in government contracts that permits
pricing reviews. In examining the contract, the audit agency noted that
Rosoboronexport "is arguably an agent or instrumentality of a foreign
government, and is therefore exempt from most cost accounting standards."
Rosoboronexport's
director general, Anatoly Isaykin, said in statement late last month that his
agency was "completely transparent" in negotiating Mi-17 prices with
the U.S. He provided no details on costs or any examples of transparency.
"In
our opinion this contract is most acceptable to the U.S. Department of Defense in
terms of quality/price ratio," Isaykin said.
The
roots of Rosoboronexport's involvement reach back to 2010 when the U.S. and
Russia were engaged in high-stakes diplomacy aimed at fulfilling Obama's goal
to reset relations between the two former Cold War foes.
Dmitry
Medvedev was Russia's president, not Vladimir Putin, and the talks resulted in
agreements to expand cooperation on global security issues and strengthen
economic ties.
Among
the breakthroughs: The U.S. terminated penalties against Rosoboronexport that
the Bush White House had imposed in 2006 after the State Department determined
the export agency had provided Iran and Syria sensitive military technology.
The sanctions had barred the U.S. government from entering into any contracts
with Rosoboronexport. Russia agreed to support a U.N. resolution to punish Iran
over its nuclear program.
Headquartered
in Moscow, Rosoboronexport is the only Russian agency authorized to export and
import military hardware. The agency is controlled in turn by Russian
Technologies, a state holding company that includes the country's top arms
manufacturers. The chief executive of Russian Technologies is Sergei Chemezov,
a longtime confidant of Putin, who returned to the Russian presidency last
year.
U.S.
officials long have known corruption in Russia's defense industry is
widespread.
William
Burns, then the U.S. ambassador to Russia, wrote in a 2007 classified cable
later published by the Wikileaks website that "it is an open secret that
the Russian defense industry is an important trough at which senior officials
feed, and weapons sales continue to enrich many."
Nothing
has changed, but figuring out who is personally profiting is nearly impossible,
said Russia expert Clifford Gaddy.
Only
a small circle of investigators close to the Kremlin know who is involved in
various schemes.
"Since
the information they have is one of the most powerful instruments Putin has to
control the individuals who run Russia on a day-to-day basis, they protect that
information," said Gaddy, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and
co-author of "Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin."
With
the penalties lifted against Rosoboronexport, Russia's ministry of foreign
affairs wasted little time informing U.S. officials that new Mi-17s could be
purchased only through the arms export agency because the helicopters were
military gear intended for another country's armed forces.
After
lengthy deliberations, the U.S. agreed. Pentagon officials no longer would
permit third parties to acquire Mi-17s. They would deal with Rosoboronexport
directly.
Last
month, the Pentagon changed its mind. After re-evaluating, officials decided to
cut 15 copters out of the 78 they had planned to buy from Moscow. Isaykin,
Rosoboronexport's director general, said the decision won't hurt the export
agency's bottom line.
"Rosoboronexport's
order book is sufficient to ensure the steady utilization of Russian defense
industrial complex's production capacities, especially in the helicopter
sector, for the next three-four years," he said.
The Democ-Rats are out to try and get Rudy before he brings their house of corruption down. They are going through his old divorce case and anything they can dig up hoping to black mail him into stopping the exposure.
FOLKS WHY DO YOU THINK THEY ARE AFTER DONALD TRUMP SO FEROCIOUSLY? ITS BECAUSE FORM GEORGE SOROS AND OBAMA DOWN TO THE FOOT SOLDIERS LIKE MCCABE AND STRZOK.. THEY ALL GREASED THEY ALL TOOK KICKS BACKS AND OTHERS HAD THEIR PALMS GREASED TO LOOK THE OTHER WAY!
U.S. District Court • Southern District of New York
THE DEMOCRAT STRONGHOLD ...THE US DISTRICT COURT.,.SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK (PORTRAYED SO WELL AS TO HOW CROOKED THEY ARE IN THE SHOWTIME SERIES "BILLIONS" ) IS TRYING TO BLOCK RUDY GIULIANI FROM EXPOSING THE DEEP DEEP CORRUPTIONS THAT EXISTS IN THE DEMOCRAT PARTY. THE WHOLE PARTY APPARATUS IS SET UP FOR "PAY TO PLAY"
SO NOW..the FAKE NEWS mainstream media (MSM) are parading around “Two
business associates" of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani shown being
arrested on campaign finance charges” as if this a something burger.
It’s a nothing burger and obviously a trap they walked right into it.
According to the indictment, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman have been
under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. The MSM
is making sure that you know that these two men are associates of
attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani who happens to be their lawyer (in other
matters – not this), and who also is President Trump’s personal
attorney. They were arrested on charges that they conspired to funnel foreign
money to U.S. politicians in a bid, while attempting to launch a
marijuana business across four different states with a foreign investor
(like most large ventures do), according to a newly unsealed indictment.
In summary here is what the indictment claims:
They deal in multi-million dollar real estate deals and other businesses. (How dare they make money?)
They wanted to cash in on recreational marijuana but needed investors. (How dare they raise money for a business venture?)
They met with foreign investors over dinner and drinks to discuss the recreational marijuana business (Unheard of)
They never donated money to a campaign except for Donald J. Trump (So did half of America)
They
got $1 MIL from the foreign investor for a multi-state recreational
marijuana business (They don’t need proof they just know)
These two Americans are of Ukrainian and Belarus decent! (Every Syrian is now a suspect? Racist Much?)
There is a lot more intricate language like: One donated on behalf of
another and it was such an insane amount – $10,000 he donated weeks
after meeting with a Russian.
They made a lot of money from
selling property in Miami. Multi-million dollar properties to foreigners
and then after successfully making a ton of money, they donated to a
PAC for Trump. The money was from foreigners!
I guess these foreign born or linked guys should be looked into as well. HGTV: Million Dollar Listing
IF IT’S A NOTHING BURGER WHY THE INDICTMENT?
You can get a ham sandwich indicted because the grand jury only hears
your side of the story. In court this will all be dismissed. After all,
these men now have time to prepare and get discovery! All of that will
be under seal, which means that Adam Schiff is having a bad day.
Pencil Neck Full O’ Schiff
Adam Schiff loves closed-door testimony because he doesn’t have to
release the transcript and he can say whatever he wants to the media and
they take it as gospel. MSM aren’t reporting news. The MSM is the PR
arm for the Dishonest Democrats.
Adam Schiff subpoenaed Parnas and Fruman to testify and turn over
documents and communications related to their donations today. Is it
because they care about the ongoing private civil suit going on in
Florida? No, it’s because the “RUSSIA HOAX” is dead and they are looking
to revive it.
Resurrecting the RUSSIA HOAX and UKRAINE/RUSSIA HOAX
What’s funny is, is that they didn’t know they were arrested late
last night. It’s almost as if Leaky Schiff’s office is in the dark about
many things. The Delinquent Democrats are so terrified that they will
be held accountable for their crimes they have committed against the
people of the United States (not to mention the ACT OF WAR of
weaponizing migrants by funding caravans) that they will do anything to
remove President Trump. Apparently Paul Pelosi Jr. found out that when Joe Biden was NOT
officially a candidate for the Presidential race, Giuliani was talking
to the Ukrainians. In fact, Parnas told the Post that Giuliani
is his lawyer. He set up a call via Skype for his lawyer with Viktor
Shokin and coordinated (because he speaks Ukrainian) the face to face
meeting Yuri Lutsenko had with Giuliani in New York. Viktor Shokin was
the guy Biden bragged about getting fired.
Since they are so insanely vicious they can’t see, they walked right into it. Parnas said he and Fruman helped set up a Skype call for Giuliani in
late 2018 with Viktor Shokin, who was Ukraine’s prosecutor general from
2015 to 2016, and an in-person meeting in New York in January 2019 with
Yuri Lutsenko, then Ukraine’s prosecutor general.
NY Attorney General Leticia ran her campaign foaming at the mouth
about President Trump, so when SDNY announced that they might have
something linking President Trump or his attorney to Ukraine, they
immediately went after it! They didn’t consult with Adam Schiff, who was
waiting to subpoena them today to testify behind closed doors. OOPS!
Below are the subpoenas Schiff sent off this morning demanding them
to appear. Unfortunately, they were arrested last night. Will they offer
them a “deal”? They walked right into it. It’s a criminal investigation
that means they can’t attend his “pony show”.
On page 4, Schiff made it clear that as private citizens they HAVE to
testify, but now that they are arrested they can’t. Everything they
asked them to produce is under attorney client privilege in an ongoing
criminal investigation. That means that all the Ukraine details about Biden, Pelosi, Romney,
and many many more will be part of PUBLIC RECORD, not behind closed
doors. The timing of the subpoena is very suspect. Regardless, if I
were Adam Schiff, I would be worried about the UKRAINIAN that donated
TONS of cash to his campaign. Which Ukrainian? Igor Pasternack.
According to Scott Adams,
Pasternack received $15.5 MIL of government funding for development
work – not to provide an actual product just research and development.
Apparently BLIMPS are “incognito and great for covert surveillance.
Everyone who signed off on the $15.5 MIL allocation to AEROS (that
includes SCHIFF) got big campaign donations from the company itself. THAT'S PAY TO PLAY
Looks like this SHELL COMPANY who has 5 employees got tons of money
from Californian Democrats. Funny thing is, AEROS got a fancy patent (HERE)
for their surveillance blimp granting them exclusivity in 2015! In
2015, Schiff and the other Democrats that got campaign donations from
AEROS raised MORE money for the shell blimp company.
WILLIAM BARR AND THE SENATE REPUBLICANS WITH BALLS... NEED TO OPEN UP AN INQUIRY TO GET THE TAX RETURNS OF PELOSI, SCHIFF AND OTHER CRIMINALS!
Democrats “invest” in incognito Ukrainian surveillance blimps No wonder Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, and almost all the Democrats are
working overtime with their partner, the MSM to overthrow the
government.
No, We’re Not Selling Out the Syrian Kurds. But We Should Mediate Their Conflict With Turkey. DO NOT BELIEVE THE LEFTY FAKE MEDIA!
You've probably been hearing hearing from the Democrats and the Lefty Fake News Media how terrible President Trump is for abandoning "our
allies," the stateless Kurds.
The fact is, he pulled 50 US troops out of
harm's way and redeployed 250 others.
And by the way...all in a war created by President Obama
WHO NEVER SOUGHT NOR RECEIVED CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL AS REQUIRED BY THE U.S.
CONSTITUTION.
Caught up in a conflict between long-standing NATO ally Turkey and a
recently engaged Kurdish tactical partner in Syria, the Trump
administration has accommodated the legitimate security interests of
Turkey by staging a partial pullback of U.S. special operations forces
in northeastern Syria.
It did so to get out of the way of a Turkish intervention launched Wednesday.
Although critics of the Trump administration have rushed to denounce
the decision as a “sellout” of the Syrian Kurds, that’s not true.
Washington received no payoff from Ankara for stepping aside, and is not
“abandoning the Kurds,” as many critics contend. Washington’s ad hoc partnership with
Syrian Kurds never included a commitment to help them fight Turkey,
only to fight the Islamic State, the terrorist army also known as ISIS. The United States still supports Syrian Kurds against ISIS, just as
it supports Iraqi Kurds and the Iraqi government against ISIS. But
Washington has remained neutral with regard to Turkey’s complaints about
the threats Syrian Kurds pose to Turkey.
To be more specific, the Pentagon continues to support the
Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces against ISIS. It has declined,
however, to work with the largest Kurdish armed faction within the those
forces, the People’s Protection Units (YPG in its Kurdish acronym) to
resist the Turkish intervention. In geopolitical terms, that’s a logical and necessary decision. Trump Warns Turkey’s President Turkey is a long-term strategic ally that exercises major influence
in the Middle East. The YPG is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK in its Kurdish acronym), a U.S.-designated terrorist group
that has waged war against Turkey off and on since 1984 in a bloody
separatist insurrection that has claimed more than 40,000 lives. Although the Obama and Trump administrations accepted the YPG as a
newfound tactical ally in the war against ISIS, neither administration
embraced the YPG/PKK agenda regarding Turkey. Both administrations stressed U.S. cooperation with the Syrian
Democratic Forces, an ad hoc anti-ISIS coalition in which the YPG
influence was diluted by the participation of Arab factions opposed to
ISIS. President Donald Trump on Oct. 7 warned Turkey
against going “off limits” in Syria, and has threatened to apply
economic sanctions if Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ignores the
warning. The president doubled down on the sanctions threat Friday by authorizing the Treasury Department to prepare “significant sanctions” against Turkey, if necessary. That’s a far cry from giving Ankara a “green light,” as some critics contend. Washington also stands ready to act as an intermediary between its
Syrian Kurdish partners and Ankara. After Turkey has secured its border,
a possibility exists that the United States can broker an understanding
that could mitigate friction between the two. Nor is the Trump administration removing all U.S. troops from Syria
at this time. The Pentagon has pulled back about 50 special operations
troops from the Turkish-Syrian border, and up to 230 U.S. troops—out of
the roughly 1,000 deployed in Syria—have been redeployed to the south, but remain in eastern Syria. Disagreements Over Buffer Zone The United States had been negotiating with Turkey on creating a
buffer zone in northeastern Syria, in part to avert a unilateral Turkish
intervention, which Ankara long had threatened. But Erdogan, apparently frustrated over the failure of Washington to
accede to his demand for a zone 20 miles deep and 300 miles long along
Turkey’s border, pulled the plug on the negotiations. Things came to a head Oct. 6, when Erdogan told Trump in a phone call
that Turkey was determined to cross the border. After Erdogan stated
that he would unilaterally establish the zone by force, Trump acquiesced
and pulled U.S. troops out of harm’s way. If that order had not been given, there was a significant risk that
U.S. troops would have been caught up in the fighting or even drawn into
a military clash with Turkey. Although there has been much handwringing over the administration’s
failure to support the Kurds against Turkey, it’s difficult to see how
battling a NATO ally would have preserved American credibility as an
ally. Pentagon officials on Tuesday denied breathless press reports that
defense officials had been blindsided by the president’s action,
revealing that Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Army Gen. Mark
Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, actually had participated
in the president’s phone call with Erdogan. What some U.S. officials may have been surprised by was Trump’s tweet
about a total U.S. withdrawal from Syria to end what he called “endless
wars.” They know that the enemy gets a vote in ending any war, and ISIS
by no means has given up fighting. Holding ISIS at Bay U.S. vigilance will be necessary to block the terror group’s
comeback. Trump must listen to his national security team and avoid
declaring a premature end to war against ISIS. ISIS has returned to its underground roots, but remains a potent threat to
regional security and a long-term threat to U.S. security if it can
regroup. The Islamist extremist forces that morphed into ISIS already
made a disastrous comeback in Iraq in 2014 and could do so again in
Syria. The underlying political conditions that facilitated the rise of ISIS
remain in Syria—anarchy, dysfunctional government, and the systematic
repression meted out by the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad. Washington
must be careful not to contribute to a power vacuum that would make an
ISIS resurgence easier. The inspector general for the coalition to defeat ISIS warned in
a report in August that ISIS has established “resurgent cells” in Syria
and launched bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, and suicide attacks
in areas liberated by the Syrian Democratic Forces. Turkey is not in a position to guarantee that ISIS will not return.
It would have to fight its way through the Kurds to get at ISIS. Erdogan, who has turned a blind eye to the infiltration of foreign
Islamist extremists into Syria through Turkey, always has viewed the
Kurds as a bigger threat to Turkey than ISIS.
For better or worse, the Syrian Democratic Forces are a necessary
partner in the struggle against ISIS. Not only does it have skilled and
motivated fighters on the ground, but it controls more than 20 prisons
and camps that hold about 12,000 ISIS fighters and 58,000 of their
family members and supporters.
Q I just have a question about Turkey. Are you — how serious are you about being a mediator between the Kurds and the Turks?
THE
PRESIDENT: So, Turkey and the Kurds have been fighting for hundreds of
years. We are out of there. But we have a tremendous financial
strength, which I’ve helped a lot with, because our country has become
much stronger since I’ve been President, by many trillions of dollars.
And if Turkey does something that they shouldn’t be doing, we will put
on sanctions the likes of which very few countries have ever seen
before. Press question to President Donald Trump October 12, 2019
Bottom Line: Diplomacy Needed The United States will have to withdraw from Syria eventually. The real issue is
whether Washington has made arrangements to adequately protect U.S.
interests; namely, preventing an ISIS resurgence, blocking expansion of
Iranian influence, and reaching a political settlement in Syria that
eases the humanitarian situation and allows the return of refugees. The Turkish intervention complicates efforts to attain those goals, but does not make them impossible to achieve. It’s not too late to salvage an acceptable situation in eastern Syria
if the administration can tamp down the fighting between Turkey and the
People’s Protection Units and maintain counterterrorism ties with the
Syrian Democratic Forces. Washington should push for a cease-fire in northeastern Syria and
reach a clear understanding with Ankara about the size and purpose of
Turkey’s new buffer zone. The long-term goal should be to broker a sustainable understanding
between Ankara and the Syrian Kurds, similar to the understanding that
it brokered between Ankara and Iraqi Kurds. Without such an understanding, Turkey’s intervention will push the
Syrian Kurds into the arms of Russia and the Assad regime. Such an
outcome would undermine U.S. national security interests in the region,
while promoting those of Iran and ISIS.
A view of the "Janmasthan (Birthplace) Mosque"/ Babri Mosque, 1528-1992
Somnath temple ("today"; as reclaimed by Hindus), Somnath, India
Converted structure at the site of Somnath temple, 1869
The Gyanvapi Mosque built by Aurangzeb on the original site of the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
The Great Synagogue of Oran in Algeria was confiscated and turned into a mosque.-Jerusalem-Temple_Mount-Dome_of_the_Rock_(SE_exposure).jpg)
