Displaying posts published in

July 2017

Jerusalem’s Security Visionary The Temple Mount crisis obscures Major General Yoram Halevy’s cutting-edge counterterror tactics and his impressive results. Judith Miller

On July 14, for the first time in decades, Israel closed the Temple Mount, a site holy to Jews, Muslims, and Christians, on a Friday—Islam’s holy day. The move was made after three Arab Israelis opened fire at the site, killing two Israeli policemen. The Muslim terrorists, Israeli citizens who had used automatic weapons that they apparently carried in a knapsack to the Temple Mount and hid at the holy site prior to the attack, were tracked down and killed by Israeli police. By Sunday, July 16, the Temple Mount had reopened, with temporary metal detectors and cameras in place to screen worshipers.

While Israelis initially considered the installation of magnometers and cameras a non-controversial step aimed at boosting security for all who pray at the site, others—Palestinian, Jordanian, and Muslim— condemned what they called Israel’s effort to change the site’s political status and consolidate control. The ensuing protests have left six dead in Israel— three Palestinian protesters and three Israeli settlers who were stabbed to death in their homes. On Monday evening, Israelis and Arab officials edged closer to a deal to resolve the crisis.

The recent spate of violence is a grim reminder of age-old tensions—and yet, in Israel, an increasingly rare one. In a region beset by war and political turmoil, Israel—and its capital—have remained relatively calm. That’s thanks in part to radical changes in counterterrorism policing led by Major General Yoram Halevy, 54, commander of the Israeli Police’s Jerusalem district. One of the force’s most experienced officers, Halevy has for the past 17 months overseen the police’s counterterrorism mission in Jerusalem, including the roughly 5,000 members of the Israeli Police and Border Police operating in the city.

In an interview only days before the Temple Mount attack, he discussed some of his reforms publicly for the first time and explained why he thinks they are reducing both violence and civilian tolerance of it.

The numbers are impressive. In 2015, there were 33 stabbings in the city; this year, until the latest violence, there have been just six. In 2015, Jerusalem reported six deaths due to deliberate car-rammings; this year, one person has died in such incidents. While 43 terrorist attacks occurred in the city in 2015, only eight so far have taken place in 2017. Within the past year, stone-throwing incidents have dropped by 15 percent. Despite the Temple Mount attack, “these are dramatic reductions,” Halevy said.

Such a record under the most challenging of circumstances holds potentially valuable lessons for other cities targeted by terror. “Anyone can chase down and arrest terrorists. That’s the easy part,” said Halevy, the Jerusalem-born son of Iraqi Jews who speaks fluent Arabic and worked undercover for the police in the Palestinian community for several years. “Denying terrorists the civilian support they crave and need to operate is a far tougher challenge.”

The most effective way of defusing Palestinian hatred of the Israelis who, in their view, occupy their capital and country is to “empower the silent civilian majority which is sick and tired of the violence, but afraid to say so.” This, Halevy told me through a translator, though he speaks some English, is his overarching goal.

Few cities are as tempting a terrorist target as Jerusalem. Fought over for centuries, destroyed at least twice, besieged some 23 times, and recaptured 44 times, Jerusalem is the heart of the modern struggle between two peoples who claim the same land. The city remains demographically divided between Israelis concentrated in the west and Palestinians in the east. But it has not been physically split since the 1967 war, when Israel wrested control of East Jerusalem from Jordan, which still helps administer sensitive holy sites like the Temple Mount. As such, Jerusalem has been the scene of persistent protests, strikes, and terrorist attacks—even as 10 million tourists visit each year.

Palestinians: Abbas’s Security Doubletalk by Bassam Tawil

So, who is taking Abbas’s threats to suspend security cooperation with Israel seriously? Not Israel, not the Americans, and certainly not many Palestinians. Abbas is caught between two bad places — both of his very own making. On the one hand, he knows that security cooperation with Israel is his only insurance policy to remain in power and alive. On the other hand, Abbas is acutely aware of his status among many Palestinians, who would be more than happy to replace him with someone more… to their taste.

Palestinian intelligence chief Majed Faraj’s message was directed to the Israeli public with the goal of pressuring the Israeli government and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to cave in to Palestinian threats and remove the metal detectors. This is why Faraj chose an Israeli journalist who is known to be sympathetic to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership. Faraj and his boss — Abbas — wanted to scare the Israeli public and turn them against Netanyahu by telling them that Palestinians will stop security coordination with Israel unless the metal detectors were removed.

Abbas is still playing his old game. Out of one side of his mouth he claimed a desire for a peaceful solution to the metal detectors crisis, and out of the other side, he egged his people on to murder more and more Israelis. As it turns out, whether security coordination is “sacred” or “suspended,” Abbas is in it for one person only: himself.

The conflicting reports emerging from Ramallah concerning security coordination with Israel serve as yet another reminder of the Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders’ astounding hypocrisy.

Israel, for its part, has brushed aside reports about a suspension of the security coordination with the Palestinian Authority as yet another Abbas gimmick.

It is far from lost on Mahmoud Abbas and his PA that such security coordination is what stands between a very hungry Hamas and Abbas served up on toast for breakfast.

In the past, Abbas has rightly and reasonably described security coordination with Israel as “sacred,” saying he will never succumb to pressure from Hamas and many Palestinians to stop working with Israel in the West Bank.

“I wish to say this openly – security coordination (with Israel) is sacred and will continue regardless of our political differences,” Abbas declared in 2014.

Abbas’s statement came amid reports that Israeli intelligence had thwarted a Hamas assassination plot against him in 2014.

Security coordination is indeed sacred for the Palestinian Authority president — not to mention his family members and senior officials, who without such cooperation would also be dead, imprisoned or forced into exile. Abbas has yet to recover from the nightmare of 2007, when Hamas brought about the collapse of his Palestinian Authority and violently seized control over the Gaza Strip. The last thing Abbas wants is a recurrence of that horrific scenario; thousands of his police officers and Fatah loyalists were severely humiliated, and many either lynched in public, thrown off the high floors of buildings, imprisoned, or forced either to surrender or flee to Israel and Egypt.

The latest fiasco pertaining to the issue of security coordination with Israel began on July 21, when Abbas announced his decision to “freeze contacts with the occupation state (Israel) on all levels.” Abbas’s announcement came during a meeting of Palestinian leaders in Ramallah to discuss the crisis surrounding Israel’s decision to install metal detectors at the entrance to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This decision came in response to a shooting attack on July 14 carried out by three Arab Israelis that resulted in the murder of two Israeli police officers.

Norway’s Political Elites Cheer for Islam by Fjordman

If current levels of immigration continue, native Norwegians will be a minority in their own country within a few decades. In some parts of inner city Oslo, they are already a minority.

Ethnic Norwegians living in these areas are called “infidel whore.” Many feel as if they are strangers in what once was their own country. Yet the politicians and mass media are not interested. The ruling elites are far more interested in cases of alleged “Islamophobia” or “white racism.”

A report commissioned by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) suggested in early 2017 that the Muslim Brotherhood is secretly leading Islamic groups in building a parallel society in Sweden by infiltrating organizations and political parties in the country.

Ramadan is supposed to be an Islamic holy month of fasting. In reality, as one is thought to be doubly rewarded in paradise for deeds “fighting corruption” during Ramadan, it is a month of “jihad and victories.”

It therefore nearly always leads to an increase in jihad violence in different parts of the world.

Breitbart News counted at least 1,620 people killed by militant Muslims during Ramadan in 2017. Most of these were killed in Muslim-majority countries. However, deadly Islamic terrorist attacks also hit Western cities such as London.

When dealing with Muslim terror, it can be useful to separate it into two different, categories: Big Terror and Little Terror. Big Terror includes mass casualty attacks such as suicide bombings. Little Terror includes other forms of violence and harassment, such as torching cars, that have a negative impact on daily life. Both forms of terror are intended to spread fear.

France suffers from tens of thousands of car fires every year. Sweden, which has the highest number of Muslim immigrants in Scandinavia, also has the highest number of car fires. In the Muslim-dominated Swedish city of Malmö, cars are now torched on a nearly daily basis.

In June 2017 during Ramadan, dozens of instances of wheel-tampering were reported in different police districts in Denmark. In all cases, the lug nuts that secure the wheels of a car had been loosened. One motorist was driving along when he heard an odd noise. Shortly afterward, his left front wheel appeared in front of the car and rolled off into a field. The car ended up in a ditch; the man, in a hospital. The police have so far been unable to find the perpetrators. They have been advising all motorists thoroughly to check their lug nuts before starting their car.

In June 2017, Oslo, Norway, experienced a significant number of car fires within a few weeks. Officially, the police claimed they could see no connection between these fires, which spiked during Ramadan and mainly took place in Muslim-dominated areas. Anonymous sources claimed that a group of young immigrant men – who had apparently been complicit in the burnings — had shouted: “We’re going to make Malmö!”

If current levels of immigration continue, native Norwegians will be a minority in their own country within a few decades. In some parts of inner-city Oslo, they are already a minority. The author Halvor Fosli, in 2015, published a book in which he interviewed ethnic Norwegians living in those areas. They are called “infidel whore.” Many feel as if they are strangers in what once was their own country. Yet the politicians and mass media are not interested. The ruling elites are far more interested in cases of alleged “Islamophobia” or “white racism.”

Jared Kushner Rebuts Fake News Accounts of his Contacts with Russians Detailed public statement contrasts with sketchy news reports based on anonymous sources. Joseph Klein

Innuendos and wild speculation passing as “objective” reporting, based on leaks from anonymous sources, have become the stock in trade of the fake media. Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, has been one of the principal targets of the media campaign to discredit the Trump administration. Silent for months in the face of mounting speculation of his possible role in alleged collusion of the Trump campaign with Russia, Kushner has finally sought to set the record straight. This week he is meeting with congressional staffers and lawmakers to discuss in detail his activities during the campaign and transition periods, particularly his contacts with Russian officials.

In a statement issued ahead of his closed-door interview with Senate intelligence committee staffers, Kushner said, “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector.” He provided details on several contacts he had with Russians during his father-in-law’s campaign and transition, none of which he deemed to be improper.

Kushner’s statement provides valuable context to the meetings in which he participated. He pointed out that during the course of the campaign, he had contacts with people from approximately 15 countries, noting that he “must have received thousands of calls, letters and emails from people looking to talk or meet on a variety of issues and topics, including hundreds from outside the United States.” Russia was one of those countries.

Kushner recalled his first contact with Russia’s ambassador to the United States as having occurred at the Washington, D.C. Mayflower Hotel in April 2016. His father-in-law, then-candidate Donald Trump, was giving a major foreign policy speech.

Some in the media have sought to portray Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ own brief encounter with the Russian ambassador to the United States at the Mayflower Hotel as something more sinister than it really was. NBC breathlessly reported last month that Kushner too was involved in the encounter, along with then-candidate Donald Trump. Citing “multiple” anonymous sources, NBC said they were part of “a small gathering with Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak and other diplomats at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel.” NBC further characterized this gathering as “some sort of private encounter.”

Western Values Are Superior The idea of the sacredness of the individual is rare in human history — and worth defending. Walter Williams

Here’s part of President Donald Trump’s speech in Poland: “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”

After this speech, which was warmly received by Poles, the president encountered predictable criticism. Most of the criticism reflected gross ignorance and dishonesty.

One example of that ignorance was penned in the Atlantic magazine by Peter Beinart, a contributing editor and associate professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York. Beinart said, “Donald Trump referred 10 times to ‘the West’ and five times to ‘our civilization.’ His white nationalist supporters will understand exactly what he means.” He added, “The West is a racial and religious term. To be considered Western, a country must be largely Christian (preferably Protestant or Catholic) and largely white.”

Intellectual elites argue that different cultures and their values are morally equivalent. That’s ludicrous. Western culture and values are superior to all others. I have a few questions for those who’d claim that such a statement is untrue or smacks of racism and Eurocentrism. Is forcible female genital mutilation, as practiced in nearly 30 sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern countries, a morally equivalent cultural value? Slavery is practiced in Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan; is it morally equivalent? In most of the Middle East, there are numerous limitations placed on women, such as prohibitions on driving, employment and education. Under Islamic law, in some countries, female adulterers face death by stoning. Thieves face the punishment of having their hands severed. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death in some countries. Are these cultural values morally equivalent, superior or inferior to Western values?

During his speech, Trump asked several vital questions. “Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?” There’s no question that the West has the military might to protect itself. The question is whether we have the intelligence to recognize the attack and the will to defend ourselves from annihilation.

Much of the Muslim world is at war with Western civilization. Islamists’ use multiculturalism as a foot in the door to attack Western and Christian values from the inside. Much of that attack has its roots on college campuses among the intellectual elite who indoctrinate our youth. Multiculturalism has not yet done the damage in the U.S. that it has in Western European countries — such as England, France and Germany — but it’s on its way.

My colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell reveals some of the problem. He says, “Those in the Islamic world have for centuries been taught to regard themselves as far superior to the ‘infidels’ of the West, while everything they see with their own eyes now tells them otherwise.” Sowell adds, “Nowhere have whole peoples seen their situation reversed more visibly or more painfully than the peoples of the Islamic world.” Few people, such as Persians and Arabs, once at the top of civilization, accept their reversals of fortune gracefully. Moreover, they don’t blame themselves and their culture. They blame the West.

By the way, one need not be a Westerner to hold Western values. One just has to accept the sanctity of the individual above all else.

U.S. Support for Palestinian Terrorists Must End A hefty reward awaits the murderer of an Israeli family — courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. July 25, 2017 Caroline Glick

The Solomon family was massacred Friday night as they celebrated Shabbat and the birth of their newest grandson in their home. They were massacred by a 19 year old jihadist who posted an explanation of his imminent act of barbarous murder against his Jewish neighbors on Facebook less that two hours before he stormed their home in Neve Tzuf.

The murderer used the same language as his”moderate” “pro-peace” “legitimate” leader, PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas who said that Jews pollute the Temple Mount with our “filthy feet.”

Ironically and appallingly, just last week the US State Department published a report blaming Israel for Palestinian terrorism and claiming that the PLO-led, and US-funded Palestinian Authority doesn’t incite terrorism and violence and hatred.

The State Department also opposes the Taylor Force bill which if passed — along the lines passed in the House of Representatives, (the Senate bill is an insult to our intelligence), would end US taxpayer subsidization of Palestinian terrorism to the tune of more than half a billion dollars a year.

The State Department — Tillerson included, apparently, doesn’t see anything wrong with the fact that the PA uses more than $300 million every year to pay people like the murderer who butchered the Solomons and their families.

Having murdered the Solomons in their home, this terrorist is guaranteed a lifetime salary and pension for his family that ensure them all an upper middle class economic status — courtesy of US taxpayers via the “moderate” PA, PLO, Abbas, terror machine.

I just gave my final speech in Australia and will be heading on to the US for a month from here.

It is my intention to use my time in the US to convince the Washington types that this appalling, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish policy of supporting people committed to our annihilation in the name of fake peace must end.

Enough is enough. This simply cannot continue. Jewish life is sacred, not worthless. It is time for the US to accept and base its policy on this basic, self-evident fact.

The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies) Robert Spencer delivers another indispensable book. Bruce Bawer

What would we do without Robert Spencer? In over a dozen definitive books, and on his invaluable Jihad Watch website, he has served as a one-man truth squad on the subject of Islam, providing readers with lucid, cogent accounts of the belief system itself, of the Koran, of jihad, and of the life of Muhammed. In Stealth Jihad (2008), he described the ways in which Islamic law is being forced upon America, subverting the nation’s constitutional freedoms in aggressive but peaceful and even, at times, seemingly reasonable ways. Now, in The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies), he looks at the same phenomenon from the other side – providing a compendious if not comprehensive history of the ways in which Western governments, media, and others in positions of authority have enabled stealth jihad and punished its critics.

Needless to say, it’s a depressing story. In my 2009 book Surrender, I told it up to that point – the Salman Rushdie fatwa, the murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, the Danish cartoons. As it happens, Spencer kicks off his account with the cartoons, reminding us that the good guys (notably Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who refused to discuss freedom of speech with Muslim ambassadors) were outnumbered by the bad guys (the UN’s Louise Arbour and Doudou Diène, the EU’s Javier Solana, and – surprise! – Bill Clinton, all of whom condemned the cartoons). Spencer then takes a long leap back – not to Rushdie, but all the way back to Muhammed, who himself, Spencer points out, initiated the time-honored Islamic practice of eliminating critics tout de suite. After each of several poets – among them Ka’b bin a’l-Ashraf, Abu Afak, and Asma bint Marwan – publicly mocked Islam, Muhammed, prefiguring Henry II, asked aloud, “Who will rid me of [insert poet’s name here]?” Each of these versifiers was promptly dispatched by one of his faithful followers. And a beloved Islamic custom was born.

Spencer doesn’t just focus on Islam. By way of demonstrating to American readers that they shouldn’t put too much faith in the indelible, rock-solid nature of the First Amendment, he harks back to the 1798 Sedition Act – under which several individuals were imprisoned for mocking then-President John Adams – and the 1917 Espionage Act, under which Socialist Party leaders were jailed for opposing the draft. History, warns Spencer, “shows that First Amendment protections of free speech are most likely to be curtailed in a time of serious and imminent threats to the nation.” Have we reached that point now? After all, look at the procedural encumbrances that have been placed on the Second Amendment in many jurisdictions. Who’s to say that the same can’t happen to the First?

It’s not as if it such limitations haven’t been entertained at the highest levels. Spencer reminds us of a failed 2015 House resolution that decried “violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims”; of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 statement that “every constitutional right and amendment can be tailored in an appropriate way without breaching the Constitution”; of Hillary’s promise, in a 2011 Istanbul speech, to use “old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming” to silence Islam’s critics; of President Obama’s support for a UN Human Rights Council motion calling for the criminalization of “negative racial and religious stereotyping”; and of an Assistant Attorney General’s refusal “to affirm that the Obama Justice Department would not attempt to criminalize criticism of Islam.”

And of course Spencer revisits the Benghazi killings, every aspect of which, we’re reminded, was pure evil – Hillary’s mendacious attribution of the killings to an anti-Islam video; her promise to a victim’s father that its producer, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, would be “arrested and prosecuted”; Nakoula’s actual arrest and year-long (!) imprisonment (allegedly for a minor violation of probation); the cruelly cynical condemnations of the video by Obama himself as well as by innumerable administration flunkies, such as UN Ambassador Susan Rice. Every one of these actions, of course, was a betrayal not only of the First Amendment but of the dead in Benghazi, of the American people, and of the truth itself. Spencer quotes the estimable Kenneth Timmerman (whose 2016 book Deception: The Making of the YouTube Video Hillary and Obama Blamed for Benghazi I don’t think I’ve even heard of before) as calling Nakoula “the first victim of Islamic Sharia blasphemy laws in the United States.” During the presidential campaign, Democrats complained endlessly about conservatives’ supposed harping on Benghazi; in fact Hillary’s heinous conduct in this matter – forget everything else she’s ever done – should have been more than enough reason for a decent-minded electorate to repudiate her entirely. And to think that this wretch dared to call half of America deplorable!

Chinese Fighter Forces U.S. Plane to Take Evasive Maneuvers J-10 jet fighter came within 300 feet of Navy reconnaissance plane over East China Sea By Dion Nissenbaum

WASHINGTON—A U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane was forced to take evasive action to avoid a possible mid-air collision after a Chinese jet fighter came within 300 feet of the American aircraft over the East China Sea, U.S. officials said Monday.

Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said a Chinese J-10 jet fighter rapidly approached under the U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance plane, slowed down and then flew in front of the American pilot, triggering the plane’s collision alarm system and forcing it to take evasive action.

The Chinese plane came within 300 feet of the U.S. plane, which was flying in international airspace, according to another defense official.

Capt. Davis said the incident was “uncharacteristic” of the Chinese military, calling it an exception, not the rule, for interactions between pilots in the area.

The incident is the latest in series of incidents between the U.S. and Chinese militaries as tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula.

In May, Chinese planes were involved in two similar incidents criticized by the Pentagon.

Israel Removes Metal Detectors at Jerusalem Holy Site Dismantling of devices comes amid flurry of diplomacy by U.S. and Western officials after a weekend of violence By Rory Jones

TEL AVIV—Israel on Tuesday began removing metal detectors from one of Jerusalem’s holiest sites, aiming to defuse tensions after their installation triggered widespread anger and protests among Palestinians and across the wider Arab world.

The detectors were installed earlier this month after Arab gunmen shot dead two Israeli policeman at the site known to Jews as the Temple Mount compound and Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Their dismantling comes amid a flurry of diplomacy by U.S. and Western officials after a weekend of violence left three Israelis and at least three Palestinians dead.

Israel said it would replace the detectors with sophisticated technology. The plan will be implemented in the coming months and include greater police presence around the entrance to the central Jerusalem site.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the dismantling would satisfy Waqf, the Jordanian authority that administers the site and which called on Muslims to pray outside the compound in protest until the detectors were removed.

Israel on Sunday also installed cameras at the site, a move that was rejected by the religious body.

The Temple Mount plaza in Jerusalem’s Old City is sacred to both Muslims and Jews. It is home to the Al Aqsa mosque and the site of an ancient Jewish temple whose Western Wall is still visible and holy for Jews.

Only Muslims are allowed to pray on the plaza, but Jewish groups have been lobbying for that right. Jews can visit, but aren’t permitted to pray.

Some Muslims claim that Israel is attempting to control the site with the detectors, a charge that Israel denies. It has said the detectors and cameras are a security measure.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned the installation of the cameras and said he would cut ties with Israel until they’re removed, although his office hasn’t detailed the specifics of the suspension. A spokesperson for the authority wasn’t immediately available to comment on the removal of the detectors. CONTINUE AT SITE

Trump Shuts Down CIA Support for Syrian ‘Rebels’ After Years of Chronic Failure By Patrick Poole

The announcement last week that the Trump administration was shutting down the “covert” CIA program of arming Syrian “rebel” groups could not have come too soon.

As I’ve reported here in more than three dozen articles over the past three years, the CIA support program had suffered chronic failures, including defections of groups “vetted” by the CIA to al-Qaeda and ISIS, and leakage of weapons provided by the CIA into the hands of those same terror groups.

The pinnacle of this failure came in Obama’s last few hours in the White House in January. He ordered the bombing of a terror training camp that also hosted fighters from a CIA-“vetted” group embedded with al-Qaeda; that same group officially partnered with al-Qaeda a few days later.

Another defining moment of the debacle came last year, when CIA-backed groups fought against other CIA-backed groups:The Washington Post announced the cancellation of the CIA support program last week, claiming — without evidence — that the move was made to placate Russia:

Predictably, the “rebel” groups began flocking to al-Qaeda as soon as the CIA pipeline began to slow.

In response to the cancellation announcement, cheerleaders of the “vetted moderate rebels” complained that the U.S. hadn’t supported the groups enough. But that talking point was rebutted by Obama nearly three years ago. In an August 2014 interview with Tom Friedman in the New York Times, Obama dismissed the notion that more weapons would have given the “rebels” any kind of edge, and he expressed frustration at the inability to find enough “moderates”:

With “respect to Syria,” said the president, the notion that arming the rebels would have made a difference has “always been a fantasy. This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards.”

Even now, the president said, the administration has difficulty finding, training and arming a sufficient cadre of secular Syrian rebels: “There’s not as much capacity as you would hope.”

And yet, just a month later the GOP congressional leadership passed $500 million in additional funds for an eventual U.S.-backed, Pentagon-trained army of 15,000 “vetted moderates” to combat ISIS. In less than a year, that half-billion dollar boondoggle approved by Congress turned into a disaster. By July 2015, fewer than 60 fighters had been successfully vetted and trained — costing taxpayers nearly $4 million for each fighter: CONTINUE AT SITE