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Trump’s Afghan Choice He may repeat Obama’s Iraq blunder by overruling his generals.

Posted By on August 3rd, 2017

The Russia election probe aside, President Trump has so far avoided any major foreign-policy mistakes. But he will commit an Obama -sized blunder if he overrules the advice of his generals who want a modest surge of forces and a new strategy in Afghanistan.

Mr. Trump had by all accounts agreed weeks ago to the Pentagon’s request for an additional 3,000-5,000 troops plus more aggressive use of air power and other assets. But he’s having second thoughts as he indulges his isolationist instincts fanned by aide Stephen Bannon. Mr. Trump’s decision will determine whether he’ll repeat Mr. Obama’s catastrophic 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, and it will echo among allies and adversaries for the rest of his Presidency.

Mr. Trump—like all Americans—is understandably frustrated that the Afghan war still isn’t won after 16 years and 2,400 American lives lost. Barack Obama undermined his own 2009 surge of troops with a fixed exit date, and then tried to time the departure of all U.S. troops to his own White House exit.

This told the Taliban to wait the U.S. out, and the insurgents have since regained much ground they lost during the surge. Mr. Obama recognized his mistake enough to keep 8,400 troops in the country, but he limited their duties mainly to training and pursuing Islamic State enclaves. We’re told there are only about a dozen F-16s in the country, and the Afghan military lacks crucial close-air support during Taliban engagements.

Mr. Trump has given his field commanders more freedom, and they can now pursue Taliban fighters. But the Afghan forces are still losing ground in much of the country and need more support. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s plan would inject U.S. advisers with Afghan battalions to assist on the battlefield.

The U.S. could also deploy some Apache attack helicopters to blunt Taliban advances, and close-air support and air evacuation assistance would give Afghan forces a dose of confidence. They’re certainly willing to fight, having lost 2,531 soldiers through May 8 this year alone, with 4,238 wounded. The U.S. has lost 10 soldiers in Afghanistan this year.

Mr. Mattis also needs a strategy for Pakistan, which provides a refuge for the Taliban and lethal Haqqani network. This may require cross-border U.S. military raids, ideally with Pakistani cooperation, but alone if necessary. Mr. Trump could help by naming an ambassador to Islamabad, and perhaps a special envoy like former General David Petraeus to all of the main regional players.

Mr. Trump is fond of saying around the White House that Afghanistan is “the graveyard of empires,” which might be relevant if the U.S. were running an empire. The U.S. is there at the request of a legitimate elected government and a population that doesn’t like the Taliban. A Trump troop mini-surge would be a crucial political signal to the Afghan government and regional players that we aren’t bugging out.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

MY SAY: RE-EDUCATION CAMPUS

Posted By on August 3rd, 2017

In China The Cultural Revolution, that took place from 1966 until 1976 had a stated goal : to purge capitalism and traditional culture from Chinese society. They instituted brutal labor re-education camps.

In America anxious seniors are now worried about SAT scores, interviews and essays that have to demonstrate their passions for justice and human rights and a green planet and diversity. The chief question they ask is not about the price of tuition and room and board or the required courses. They want to know if they will be happy.

In late summer of 2018 they will take their trunks with their Che Guevara T shirts, torn designer jeans and grungy sneakers and ingrained ignorance off to campus. And once settled into their cushy dorms, their re-education will commence.

Unless they major only in science, they will learn to despise capitalism, national cultural norms, shed all gender pronouns and identity, atone for their privileges by joining all the inviting “anti” groups that rail, riot and demand recognition, avoid reading old white authors, approach every aggression and barbarism with moral relativity, read alt-history, especially about the Middle East and Palestine.

All this for an average of $50,000 a year…..rsk
P.S. They will also learn that Mao Zedong of the aforementioned re-education labor camps was a progressive.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Rights are Rights, and Military Service Isn’t One The progressive theory of rights has blurred the lines between privilege, opportunity, discrimination, and rights. By Philip H. DeVoe

Posted By on August 3rd, 2017

When Donald Trump announced his plan to ban transgendered people from military service, #TransRightsAreHumanRights quickly began trending on Twitter. While tweets including the hashtag ranged from support for the LGBT community to attacks on Trump, they all carried with them the assumption that trans — and all — people have a “right” to serve in the military. Whether you support President Trump’s policy or not, Americans must reconsider the claim that everyone has a right to military service.

The political theory of the social compact — under which the Founders built America — says natural rights, i.e., true rights, are synonymous with personhood and belong to you simply because you exist. In a word, they are unalienable.

That military service is alienable, through restrictions on membership necessary for our military to fulfill its purpose, automatically rules it out as a right. In other words, the military blocking a 16-year-old’s ability to enlist does not divorce him from or even endanger his personhood. Children under the age of 17 or the mentally and physically disabled, for example, are excluded because their lack of mental maturity or physical capacity threatens combat readiness and effectiveness.

The justifying condition of exclusion for the sake of the group’s ability to perform and survive as a whole classifies military service as an opportunity, at most. Thus, should the Department of Defense and the president determine that 16-year-olds are fit for effective combat service, they wouldn’t be granting a right but opening an opportunity.

That being the case, when the Obama administration’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, and defense secretary, Leon Panetta, opened more than 14,000 military positions to women, they did so based on new qualifications of combat readiness not on women having an inherent “right” to service:

We are fully committed to removing as many barriers as possible to joining, advancing, and succeeding in the U.S. Armed Forces. Success in our military based solely on ability, qualifications, and performance is consistent with our values and enhances military readiness.

When Ashton Carter, Obama’s fourth defense secretary and the only one without military service, opened all military positions to women, he did so for the same reason:

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Lt. Gen. McMaster Removes Respected Mid-East Adviser From NSC Jim-Kouri

Posted By on August 3rd, 2017

During a week that witnessed the departure of several prominent members of President Donald Trump’s White House staff, his current National Security Adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, removed former U.S. Army Col. Derek Harvey, the top Middle East advisor on the National Security Council (NSC), from his post.

The Trump White House openly confirmed the decision, but stopped short of explaining the circumstances behind the firing of yet another staff member who worked under Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn who was canned after he allegedly lied to the Vice President.

In fact, critics of McMaster claim his goal is to remove any of the holdovers from Flynn’s days at NSC.

The McMaster and Harvey date their relationship back to their time in the Army serving in Iraq. Both men were reputed to have been loyal followers of retired Gen. David Petraeus, but they’ve also had some disputes while serving in the Trump administration.

For example, Harvey was known for being a “hawk” on Iran and had been pushing proposals to expand the U.S. military mission in Syria to go after Iranian proxy forces more aggressively. But other national security voices such as Defense Secretary James Mattis pushed back on such proposals, as did McMaster.

Harvey was selected for his NSC post by Gen. Flynn. After Trump sadly had to let Flynn go in February, some of Flynn’s loyalists left with him. However, Harvey and several others remained in their jobs.

According to Harvey’s personal bio, he’s a retired Army colonel who was credited with recognizing — before anyone spoke about it — that the Bush43 administration had a full-blown insurgency on its hands in Iraq following the swift U.S. invasion in 2003, the ouster of Saddam Hussein, and the disbanding of the Iraqi military forces.

In May, Bloomberg Radio reported that Harvey had come up with memo that described what he called “Obama holdovers” at the NSC whom he suspected were leaking to the anti-Trump news media. When chief strategist Stephen Bannon and President Trump urged McMaster to fire them, he simply refused.

In an interview with Al-Monitor, Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA official, said Harvey was handpicked by Petraeus, the former U.S. commander in Iraq and later CIA director, to devise the surge strategy for overcoming the insurgency in Iraq and stabilizing that war-torn country.

Several sources have told Conservative Base that the Trump team must purge the “swamp” within the White House since there’s a good chance most of the leaks are emanating from those surrounding Trump and his inner-circle. “Trump has his work cut out for him: he must endure attacks from the Democratic Party, some Republican Party members, most of the denizens of the news industry and even members of the White House staff,” said former military intelligence officer and police commanding officer Michael Snipes.

“Once the ‘right’ people are purged from the White House, Trump can begin draining the swamp in earnest,” Snipes advised.

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The Problem of Competitive Victimhood Divisive identity politics are fading in favor of a shared American identity. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on August 3rd, 2017

The startling 2016 presidential election weakened the notion of tribal identity rather than a shared American identity. And it may have begun a return to the old idea of unhyphenated Americans.

Many working-class voters left the Democratic party and voted for a billionaire reality-TV star in 2016 because he promised jobs and economic growth first, a new sense of united Americanism second, and an end to politically correct ethnic tribalism third.

In the 19th century, huge influxes of Irish and German immigrants warred for influence and power against the existing American coastal establishment that traced its ancestry to England. Despite their ethnic chauvinism, these immigrant activist groups eventually became indistinguishable from their hosts.

Then and now, the forces of assimilation, integration, and intermarriage make it hard to retain an ethnic cachet beyond two generations — at least without constant inflows of new and often poor fellow immigrants.

The strained effort to champion the victimized tribe can turn comical. In the 1960s, my family still tried to buy Swedish-made Volvo automobiles and Electrolux vacuum cleaners. But it proved hopeless to cling to a fading Swedish heritage.

For all the trendy talk of the salad bowl and the careerist rewards of hyping a multicultural ancestry, America still remains a melting pot of diverse races, ethnicities, and agendas.

The alternative of adjudicating which particular group is more victimized and in greater need of government reparations is a hopeless task in a multiracial society — one that inevitably results in internecine strife among identity-politics groups.

Recent scholarly studies, here and abroad, have found that the aggressive effort to win government preferences for particular ethnic and religious minorities descends into “competitive victimhood.” In other words, such groups battle each other even more than they battle the majority.

After all, who can calibrate necessary government set-asides and reparations for a century and a half of slavery, for ill treatment of Native Americans, and for descendants of victims of the Asian immigration exclusionary laws, of segregation, of the unconstitutional repression of German citizens during World War I and of Japanese-American internment during World War II?

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Trump vs. MS-13 Leave the poor misunderstood gangsters alone, cries the Left. Matthew Vadum

Posted By on August 3rd, 2017

President Trump’s intensifying crackdown on transnational crime gang MS-13 is being met with fierce resistance by the Left.

Understanding the leftist mind is an inexact science but the complaints seem to center around the idea that in the Trump era trying to eliminate an ethno-culturally non-diverse criminal organization is somehow racist, no matter how horrifying and brutal the group’s crimes against innocent Americans may be. The Left habitually sides with antisocial causes, putting partisanship over the interests of the American people. Left-wingers promote so-called sanctuary cities which are magnets for illegal aliens and the crime that accompanies them. They don’t care about the damage such policies do to American society.

Although it may sound like hyperbole to some, leftists hate Donald Trump and everything he stands for, so if Trump comes out against rapists and serial killers, for example, the Left will defiantly take a stand in favor of rapists and serial killers.

Racist left-wing journalist Jamelle Bouie of Slate argues that MS-13 is nothing to be afraid of. It’s all hype. He writes that the president’s speeches on MS-13 and illegal aliens employ words to “make white people afraid.”

“Trump wasn’t just connecting immigrants with violent crime,” according to the in-your-face Black Lives Matter supporter. “He was using an outright racist trope: that of the violent, sadistic black or brown criminal, preying on innocent (usually white) women.”

The massive pile of corpses generated by MS-13 suggests otherwise.

Trump’s clampdown on MS-13 is “emboldening them, because this gives them the opportunity to tell immigrants, ‘What are you gonna do? Are you going to report us? They’re deporting other innocent people … [so] they’re going to associate you with us by you coming forward,'” says Walter Barrientos, Long Island coordinator for the far-left Make the Road, which CNN describes as an immigrant advocacy group.

“‘So what are you going to do? Who’s going to protect you?’ And that’s what really strikes many of us.”

Make the Road is heavily funded by George Soros’s philanthropies, National Council of La Raza, as well as by other left-wing funders, including the Tides Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund Inc., Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Surdna Foundation, and the Robin Hood Foundation.

What on earth could generate such apoplexy among left-wingers?

MEDIA Comments turned off

Chris Matthews Gets Thrill Up His Leg Over Republican Book Criticizing Trump Thrill up his leg Mark Tapson

Posted By on August 3rd, 2017

Republican Senator Jeff Flake (Arizona) appeared on Tuesday’s Hardball to promote his new book Conscience of a Conservative, and host Chris Matthews felt that familiar thrill up his leg at the thought that Flake’s book hits the GOP and President Trump hard, according to Newsbusters.

Matthews introduced the interview by referring to Flake as “the most outspoken Republican critic of president Donald Trump. And he makes it clear he blames his own party for enabling Trump’s rise to power. Well, with the title borrowed from former Senator Barry Goldwater, the book is called Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle.”

Flake played up the comparison to Goldwater:

Barry Goldwater in 1960 thought that the conservative party, the Republican Party had been compromised by the New Deal. And so he wrote Conscience of a Conservative. I think today we’ve been compromised by other forces. Protectionism, you know, populism, and I don’t think those bode well in the long term. That’s not a government policy.

Matthews gushed that he’s “fascinated with how tough you are on Donald Trump”:

Very hard hitting on Trump. “Demagoguery” is the word you used. Populism, protectionism, you used all the tough words and you don’t like them. You don’t think this President is good for the country, do you?

Flake conceded that he thinks Trump has made “great…cabinet picks” yet “where I think that he’s profoundly unconservative is on things like free trade.” He went on to tell an eager Matthews that Trump is not a conservative. “Conservative foreign policy ought to be measured and deliberate and sober and that’s not what we have today.”

Matthews waxed enthusiastic about the book. “I think it is a tough, well-written book and I just want to keep you to it. Anyway, a portion of your book focuses on conservative conspiracy theories and the recent spread of fake news. Most notably, you criticized those who pushed the false notion that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the U.S.”

“To me, the original sin was saying Barack Obama was born in Kenya or whatever and denying he was a legitimate President, calling him sort of a con-artist. That was, to me, racist in its nature, to claim the guy’s not a true American when he was clearly, to make fun of his documentation to say he was sort of an illegal immigrant. I think you’re dead right on that. I don’t understand why your party went along with it,” an appreciative Matthews added.

Matthews went on to read two excerpts from the book, then declared that Flake’s book contained the “same principles” as Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative. He also predicted that “everybody’s going to talk about this book” seeing as how “it’s a tough, hard-hitting book” and “very compelling.”

Thanks but no thanks, Chris. We think conservatives should spend more time combatting the left than undermining a Republican President, so we’ll pass on Flake’s unhelpful book.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

U.S. Military Infiltrated By Alien Recruits? Pentagon investigators discover fatal flaws in vetting process. Michael Cutler

Posted By on August 3rd, 2017

On August 1, 2017, Fox News reported the worrying headline, “Pentagon investigators find ‘security risks’ in government’s immigrant recruitment program, ‘infiltration’ feared.”

Military bases are among the most sensitive facilities to be found in the United States. Classified materials, weapons and, of course, our members of the armed forces, can all be found on every military base. Time and again, we have seen terrorists in the Middle East carry out “Insider Attacks” by joining the military or police and then, when the opportunity presents itself, turn their weapons on their trainers and other soldiers.

Military training is highly prized and sought after by terrorists and criminals. Many terrorists travel around the world to attend terror training camps. Undoubtedly, the training our military recruits receive is a quantum leap above anything that terror training camps provide. Additionally, our soldiers learn the “playbook” employed by our military forces on the battlefield.

The thought that foreign terrorists may have successfully infiltrated our military and gained access to all of the above is highly disturbing, to put it mildly. One recruitment program, known as MAVNI (Military Accessions Vital to National Interest), has especially raised serious concerns in this context. Under this program, according to the Defense Department:

The Secretary of Defense authorized the military services to recruit certain legal aliens whose skills are considered to be vital to the national interest. Those holding critical skills – physicians, nurses, and certain experts in language with associated cultural backgrounds – would be eligible. To determine its value in enhancing military readiness, the limited pilot program will recruit up to 5,200 people in Fiscal Year 2016, and will continue through September 30, 2016.

The Fox News report on MAVNI began with this excerpt:

EXCLUSIVE: Defense Department investigators have discovered “potential security risks” in a Pentagon program that has enrolled more than 10,000 foreign-born individuals into the U.S. armed forces since 2009, Fox News has learned exclusively, with sources on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon expressing alarm over “foreign infiltration” and enrollees now unaccounted for.

After more than a year of investigation, the Pentagon’s inspector general recently issued a report – its contents still classified but its existence disclosed here for the first time – identifying serious problems with Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI), a DOD program that provides immigrants and non-immigrant aliens with an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for military service.

Defense Department officials said the program is still active but acknowledged that new applications have been suspended.

First of all, it is extremely important to not forget the honorable and dedicated service of many foreign nationals who have served in our nation’s military. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice to safeguard America and Americans, while others have suffered grievous injuries. Those are facts that we must never lose sight of.

However, I ask that you stop and take notice that none of the aliens who participated in MAVNI were illegal aliens. All of the aliens in this program — among whom are those who have apparently gone missing and may have used this program to infiltrate the United States and gain access to military bases and military training — were, as a requirement, legally present in the United States.

Nevertheless, even as you read this, Congress is considering the creation of a similar program for illegal aliens under the auspices of the ENLIST Act (H.R. 60) The term “ENLIST” is an acronym for: “Encourage New Legalized Immigrant to to Start Training.” This dangerous and wrong-headed program would provide illegal aliens who, in the parlance of the open borders/immigration anarchists, entered the United States “Undocumented.”

The cold, hard, irrefutable truth is that these are illegal aliens who entered the United States surreptitiously, without inspection. In other words, they are undocumented. And you cannot tell a “good guy” from a “bad guy” without a scorecard. Undocumented aliens have no scorecards.

If there is a serious problem in vetting aliens who entered the United States with passports and visas, how in the world could our officials begin to vet aliens who evaded the inspections process conducted at ports of entry to prevent the entry of criminals, fugitives and terrorists?

Of course my question is not a really a question in search of an answer, but a rhetorical question. The answer should be self-evident. There is no easy or effective means of vetting such aliens.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Third Lebanon War: Not A Matter Of ‘If,’ But ‘When’ Israel reflects on history and weighs its options. Ari Lieberman

Posted By on August 3rd, 2017

In the weeks preceding the Six-Day War, Israel was faced with ever increasing existential challenges which warranted resolute action. Israel’s generals correctly argued to the political echelon that with each passing day, Israel’s strategic position became more compromised. The situation was particularly acute on Israel’s southern border with Egypt where the Egyptian army deployed seven divisions including three armored divisions. Official Arab government pronouncements, with ever increasing shrill and belligerence, made clear that the intention was to wipe Israel off the map.

On June 5th 1967, Israel launched a preemptive strike aimed at destroying the Arab armies before they could launch their own attack (some historians have argued that the Arabs fired the first salvo by closing the Tiran Straits). Codenamed Operation Focus, the Israeli Air Force implemented its well-rehearsed plan of action and struck first, catching most of the Arab air forces on the ground and destroying the bulk of them. Contemporaneous with the air assault, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sprang into action, quickly routing the Arab armies in a matter of days.

It was a complete and decisive Israeli victory with few parallels in military history. Israel’s success in the Six Day War was attributed to many factors but chief among them was the fact that Israel had robbed the enemy of the initiative. Had the Arab’s attacked first, Israel would have still emerged triumphant but at a much higher cost in terms of men and material.

The doctrine of preemption is one that is ingrained in Israel’s military thinking. Israel is a small country with little strategic depth and a vulnerable civilian population. Preemption, the concept of striking the enemy first when there is a clear, present and imminent danger coupled with intent to injure, is a strategically sound doctrine and this is especially true in Israel’s case given its unique vulnerabilities, regional challenges and genocidal enemies.

In addition to exercising its right of military preemption, Israel has also acted preventative manner. Conceptually, this doctrine differs slightly from preemption as the threat while real, is not necessarily imminent. In 1981 and 2007, Israel destroyed the nuclear facilities of Iraq and Syria – both implacable foes – after intelligence confirmed that those facilities were capable of manufacturing atomic bombs. Israel has also struck Sudan and Syria dozens of times in efforts to thwart weapons transfers to Hamas and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah is currently mired in Syria’s civil war with 1/3 of its forces actively engaged in Syria to prop up Assad. In light of this, most Israeli experts agree that the probability of war breaking out in the near future is low. The last thing Hezbollah needs now is a two-front war. Nevertheless, Hezbollah’s raison d’être is to serve the Islamic Republic’s interests and do battle with Israel. A showdown with the terror group is therefore inevitable. The only question is “when,” not “if.”

Confluences of several factors make the probability of war more likely in the intermediate term. First, thanks to Iranian, Russian and Hezbollah assistance, Assad’s grip on power is the strongest it’s been since the beginning of the civil war while rebel groups opposing Assad are divided and often battle each other. This development will enable Hezbollah to shift its emphasis and resources toward Israel.

Second, though Hezbollah has suffered substantial casualties since it began its military entanglement in Syria – at least 2,000 of its members have been killed – the group has emerged militarily stronger. It has been lavishly equipped by Iran with modern weapons, including T-72 tanks, weaponized drones, Konkurs anti-tank missiles and Yakhont anti-ship cruise missiles, and thanks to the Russians, improved its electronic warfare and special operations capabilities.

Third, in 2006, Hezbollah was believed to have possessed 11,000 rockets and missile of various calibers and guidance systems. Today, Hezbollah is believed to possess between 100,000 and 150,000 missiles and rockets. To place things in proper perspective, that figure is more than the combined arsenal of all NATO countries, with the exception of the United States. Moreover, with Iran’s assistance, the terror group has managed to build subterranean factories buried 50 meters below ground. These factories are capable of producing everything from small arms to Fateh-110/M-600 surface-to-surface missiles, making Hezbollah partially self-sufficient in arms, a capability that it lacked in 2006. If Iranian claims are to be believed, the Fateh-110 has a range of 300km and carries a payload of 500kg. The missile is believed to possess an accuracy level of 100 m CEP, which means that there’s a 50/50 chance that the missile will fall within 100 meters of its intended target. Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah has made clear on numerous occasions that his missiles would target a vulnerable ammonia plant in Haifa, Israel’s nuclear research facility in Dimona and other critical civilian infrastructure in any war with Israel.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

State Department Officials Quitting Over “Complete and Utter Disdain for our Expertise” Break out the champagne. Robert Spencer

Posted By on August 3rd, 2017

The New York Times reported last Friday that “an exodus is underway” in the State Department. The Times didn’t think this was good news; it gave space to one career diplomat who lamented that there was “complete and utter disdain for our expertise.”

This could be the best news to come out of Washington since the Trump administration took office.

We can only hope that with the departure of these failed State Department officials, their failed policies will be swept out along with them. Chief among these is the almost universally held idea that poverty causes terrorism. The United States has wasted uncounted (literally, because a great deal of it was in untraceable bags full of cash) billions of dollars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, and other countries in the wrongheaded assumption that Muslims turn to jihad because they lack economic opportunities and education. American officials built schools and hospitals, thinking that they were winning over the hearts and minds of the locals.

Fifteen years, thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars later, no significant number of hearts and minds have been won. This is partly because the premise is wrong. The New York Times reported in March that “not long after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001…Alan B. Krueger, the Princeton economist, tested the widespread assumption that poverty was a key factor in the making of a terrorist. Mr. Krueger’s analysis of economic figures, polls, and data on suicide bombers and hate groups found no link between economic distress and terrorism.”

CNS News noted in September 2013 that “according to a Rand Corporation report on counterterrorism, prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2009, ‘Terrorists are not particularly impoverished, uneducated, or afflicted by mental disease. Demographically, their most important characteristic is normalcy (within their environment). Terrorist leaders actually tend to come from relatively privileged backgrounds.’ One of the authors of the RAND report, Darcy Noricks, also found that according to a number of academic studies, ‘Terrorists turn out to be more rather than less educated than the general population.’”

Yet the analysis that poverty causes terrorism has been applied and reapplied and reapplied again. The swamp is in dire need of draining, and in other ways as well. From 2011 on, it was official Obama administration policy to deny any connection between Islam and terrorism. This came as a result of an October 19, 2011 letter from Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates to John Brennan, who was then the Assistant to the President on National Security for Homeland Security and Counter Terrorism, and later served in the Obama administration as head of the CIA. The letter was signed not just by Khera, but by the leaders of virtually all the significant Islamic groups in the United States: 57 Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizations, many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Relief USA; and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).