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Blake, our six month old chunky swinger!
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Another educational True Perspective meeting as The SIRC goes technologically contemporary!. This one by Skype, on Immigration.
Building an Immigration System Worthy of American Values
The Skidaway Island Republican Club will be presenting a True Perspectives seminar on “Immigration” September 23 at 4:45 PM in the newly renovated Ballroom of the Plantation Club. This will be our first live Skype presentation and will enable us to expand our speakers for future events.
Our guest speaker is MICHAEL CUTLER who is a frequent guest on CNN, CSPAN, and FOX. He is a national immigration expert and former Senior Agent of the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service). He has provided testimony to the 9/11 Commission and over a dozen Congressional hearings both in the Senate and the House.
Sustaining members are free, regular members are $5.00 per person, and non -members are $10.00 per person. Light refreshments will be served, plus a member’s bar will be available.
Please make your reservations by calling Russ Peterson at 598-9845 or russp16@aol.com as soon as possible.
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This is a recap of a previous Tue Perspective information meeting on Sharia Law:
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Obama feels cozier with his own - Muslims - than with Israelis.
Obama is an ineffective leader and thus, it appears to me, seeks to build sympathy for his case by always having a straw person, or circumstance that is making life difficulty. First, it was GW, then racist bible thumping Americans with Guns, then fat cats, then Wall Streeters, then anti-greens, then pro energy groups, then The NRA, then Governors in Arizona and Texas then Republicans in general, then border protection advocates, then FOX News and now Israelis but GW and Netanyahu are always kept in reserve.
Everything Obama does he learned from his radical friends, living in one of the the most corrupt large cities in America, Chicago, and so everything he does has a nasty, snarly political tone and aspect.
Bill Whittle sends a harsh message. (See 1 below.)
My advice to Obama - get a life, look in the mirror and see if you find a president worthy of the word?
What I see is Mr Cheap Shot! (See 1a and 1b below.)
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Do what works and they do! (See 2 below.)
Don't be surprised when it hits the fan. (See 2a below.)
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When you bring Arabs together for a unity meeting you generally create disunity. This time is no different. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)Bill Whittle: President Coward
He delayed the mission to rescue James Foley and other ISIS hostages because he didn't want to be "Carterized." He sent the men in the rescue helicopters back to their bunks as he watched our people die in real time at Benghazi. And he delayed the Osama bin Laden raid for MONTHS out of fear of what a failed attempt would do to his re-election chances. In his latest FIREWALL, Bill Whittle shows how President Coward always puts his personal image ahead of the lives of American citizens.
TRANSCRIPT:
PRESIDENT COWARD
Hi everybody. I’m Bill Whittle and this is the Firewall.
For those of us who were not familiar with ISIS – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – the savage beheading of American journalist James Foley – certainly made the introduction.
Speaking after the brutal execution, President Obama had this to say about his ISIS murderers:
No just god would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day.
God may not stand for it, but the most powerful man on the Earth – Barack Obama – certainly did.
Today, the American people will all say a prayer for those who loved Jim. All of us feel the ache of his absence. All of us morn his loss. We keep in our prayers those other Americans who are separated from their families. And we will do everything that we can to protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for.
And we will do everything that we can to protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for.* Asterisk. See below…
Because what President Obama neglected to tell the American people that day – before returning to the golf course – was that there is in fact an unread condition attached to his statement that he will “protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for.” What he meant to say was he will “protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for…” so long as there is no risk of adversely affecting his poll numbers.
Because a month and a half before James Foley had his head sawed off, a team of Special Forces operatives were flying through the darkness on a mission to rescue Foley and other western hostages. And it wasn’t just any evening. It was just after midnight on the Fourth of July.
For thirty days President Obama delayed this mission. Thirty Days. It was June when US Intelligence had solid intelligence of the location of Foley and other captives, but it was also well understood that ISIS, like all terrorist organizations, constantly moves hostages in order to prevent raids like the one that was finally launched after four weeks of hesitation.
Why the delay? Well, President Coward was worried that a failed mission would leave him, in the words of his advisors, “Carterized” – recalling the catastrophic failure to rescue the Iranian hostages in 1980. And so Barack Obama, with actionable intelligence on the location of James Foley and the full understanding that such information is fleeting, dithered and vacillated and golfed and weighed the pros and cons and golfed and delayed and asked more questions and golfed and considered the political fallout from a failed mission as he golfed.
Finally he gave the go-head, on the condition that the raid take place on the Fourth of July so that, if successful, he could make the announcement to major fanfare on the nation’s birthday.
Delta and SEAL team operators leapt out of their specially modified, low radar cross-section Blackhawk helicopters. Up to 15 ISIS fighters emerged from the building to meet them, and their wish to die for Allah was granted by an orbiting AC130 gunship. As US warriors secured the compound, lead elements breached the doors to where the captives – including James Foley – were being held. The room was empty. Foley, his murderers, and other hostages had been moved.
Recently.
And this wasn’t the first time President Coward left people to die because of fear of what a failed attempt might to his poll numbers and personal glory.
On the evening of September 11th, 2012, at about 4pm Eastern time, reports began to come in of an attack on the Consulate in Benghazi. By 5:10pm, an unmanned surveillance drone was providing real-time video of the ongoing firefight at the compound. And yet, almost immediately, the White House issued a direct order to FEST – the Foreign Emergency Support Team, a highly-trained, well-armed extraction squad standing by at various locations around the world for this exact contingency – to stand down.
We need to be crystal clear on this. It’s not that President Obama failed to give the order for these men to get into their helicopters and go and try to rescue Ambassador Chris Stevens and the rest of “our people and the timeless values they stand for.” Those men were in the helicopters. They were, unlike the president, mentally and operationally prepared and ready to go and defend American civilians from these murderers and savages. President Coward told them to shut down the engines and sent these warriors back to their bunks, because he was afraid of what a botched attempt might do his image. He had an election coming up, and priorities are priorities, after all. So he watched, on TV, in real time, as former SEALS Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods ran from safety towards the sound of gunfire and fought off scores of heavily armed enemy fighters for six hours, their laser target designators on the enemy mortar position that eventually killed them, looking up to the sky not only to a just God but awaiting help from a President who was watching them die. And they did die, of course, at which point President Coward joined the FEST operators in retiring for the evening, getting a good nights sleep for the next day’s fundraiser in Vegas. Reports are that the men who were in the helicopters, ready, and as it turned out, able to save Doherty and Woods did not sleep quite as well.
Oh, and one more thing. The signature Obama success in the war on Terror – the raid that killed Osama bin Laden – was delayed for what appears to be about 100 days, as President Coward weighed the consequences of the failure of such a raid. He was, according to several independent accounts, essentially overruled by the Secretaries of Defense and State who insisted that somebody took action before Bin Laden was tipped off and vanished once again. That’s why Obama is sitting in the back of the room like the Pizza delivery boy in the iconic shot of the Operation. He just popped in from the golf course to see how things were coming along.
Put aside – if you are able – the monumental narcissism, selfishness and moral cowardice of this man, and focus for a moment on just how disconnected he really is from the people that elected him. All we want is a leader – a leader, not a self-obsessed moral coward – who will use the most powerful and capable military in the history of the world “to protect our people and the timeless values they represent” without that ever-present asterisk of “so long as there is no chance of making me look bad.”
We’re kind of past that point now, Mr. President -- don’t you think?
1a) Obama Has No Right to Punish Israel
Posted By Ronn Torossian
A recent report in The Wall Street Journal noted that American-Israel relations are at their lowest point. Without doubt, Obama has chosen the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas over Israel, America’s closest ally in the Middle East. Obama blocked a shipment of missiles to Israel in late July and tightened additional weapons shipments to the country. Did he want Israel not to be able to retaliate against Hamas? Thankfully, Israel relies on military-to-military ties.
America and Israel have disagreed before, but there is no question Obama is the most hostile President Israel has faced in modern times. Meanwhile, America still recognizes Hamas as an illegal terrorist organization. Israel should be commended for opposing terrorists by a normal American President – not condemned.
This is not the first time in recent history that America and Israel have had strong disagreements. Today, Israel is being criticized for supposedly killing too many people, and for strongly responding to Hamas. In 1981, Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor “Osirak” near Baghdad. America was “outraged.”
Israel’s Prime Minister then released a letter — which verbatim Obama should remember:
“Three times during the past six months, the U.S. government has ‘punished’ Israel.On June 7 we destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor “Osirak” near Baghdad. I don’t want to mention to you today from whom we received the final information that this reactor was going to produce atomic bombs. We had no doubt about that: Therefore our action was an act of salvation, an act of national self-defense in the most lofty sense of the concept. We saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, including tens of thousands of children.
Nonetheless, you announced that you were punishing us — and you left unfilled a signed and sealed contract that included specific dates for the supply of (war) planes. Not long after, in a defensive act — after a slaughter was committed against our people leaving three dead (including an Auschwitz survivor) and 29 were injured we bombed the PLO headquarters in Beirut.
You have no moral right to preach to us about civilian casualties. We have read the history of World War II and we know what happened to civilians when you took action against an enemy. We have also read the history of the Vietnam War and your phrase ‘body count.’
We always make efforts to avoid hitting civilian populations, but sometimes it is unavoidable — as was the case in our bombing of the PLO headquarters. We sometimes risk the lives of our soldiers to avoid civilian casualties.Nonetheless, you punished us: You suspended delivery of F-15 planes. A week ago, at the instance of the government, the Knesset passed on all three readings by an overwhelming majority of two-thirds, the ‘Golan Heights Law.’
Now you once again declare that you are punishing Israel. What kind of expression is this — ‘punishing Israel’? Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we a banana republic? Are we youths of 14 who, if they don’t behave properly, are slapped across the fingers?
Let me tell you who this government is composed of. It is composed of people whose lives were spent in resistance, in fighting and in suffering. You will not frighten us with “punishments.” He who threatens us will find us deaf to his threats. We are only prepared to listen to rational arguments.
You have no right to ‘punish’ Israel — and I protest at the very use of this term. You have announced that you are suspending consultations on the implementation of the memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation, and that your return to these consultations in the future will depend on progress achieved in the autonomy talks and on the situation in Lebanon.
You want to make Israel a hostage of the memorandum of understanding. I regard your announcement suspending the consultations on the memorandum of as the abrogation (by you) of the memorandum. No ‘sword of Damocles’ is going to hang over our head. So we duly take note of the fact that you have abrogated the memorandum of understanding.
The people of Israel have lived 3,700 years without a memorandum of understanding with America — and it will continue to live for another 3,700. In our eyes it (i.e., the U.S. suspension) is an abrogation of the memorandum. We will not agree that you should demand of us to allow the Arabs of East Jerusalem to take part in the autonomy elections — and threaten us that if we don’t consent you will suspend the memorandum.
You have imposed upon us financial punishments — and have (thereby) violated the word of the president. When Secretary Haig was here he read from a written document the words of President Reagan that you would purchase 200 million dollars worth of Israel arms and other equipment. Now you say it will not be so.
This is therefore a violation of the president’s word. Is it customary? Is it proper?You canceled an additional 100 million dollars. What did you want to do — to ‘hit us in our pocket’? In 1946 there lived in this house a British general by the name of Barker. Today I live here. When we fought him, you called us “terrorists” — and we carried on fighting. After we attacked his headquarters in the requisitioned building of the King David Hotel, Barker said: ‘This race will only be influenced by being hit in the pocket’ — and he ordered his soldiers to stop patronizing Jewish cafes.
To hit us in the pocket — this is the philosophy of Barker. Now I understand why the whole great effort in the Senate to obtain a majority for the arms deal with Saudi Arabia was accompanied by an ugly campaign of anti-Semitism. First, the slogan was sounded ‘Begin or Reagan?’ — and that meant that whoever opposes the deal is supporting a foreign prime minister and is not loyal to the president of the United States. And thus Senators like Jackson, Kennedy, Packwood, and of course Boschwitz are not loyal citizens.
Then the slogan was sounded ‘We should not let the Jews determine the foreign policy of the United States.’ What was the meaning of this slogan? The Greek minority in the U.S. did much to determine the Senate decision to withhold weapons from Turkey after it invaded Cyprus. No one will frighten the great and free Jewish community of the U.S., no one will succeed in cowing them with anti-Semitic propaganda. They will stand by our side. This is the land of their forefathers — and they have a right and a duty to support it.
Some say we must ‘rescind’ the law passed by the Knesset. ‘To rescind’ is a concept from the days of the Inquisition. Our forefathers went to the stake rather than ‘rescind’ their faith.
We are not going to the stake. Thank God. We have enough strength to defend our independence and to defend our rights.
If it were up to me (alone) I would say we should not rescind the law. But as far as I can judge there is in fact no one on earth who can persuade the Knesset to rescind the law which it passed by a two-thirds majority. Mr. Weinberger — and later Mr. Haig — said that the law adversely affects U.N. Resolution 242. Whoever says that has either not read the Resolution or has forgotten it, or has not understood it. The essence of the Resolution is negotiation to determine agreed and recognized borders. Syria has announced that it will not conduct negotiations with us, that it does not and will not recognize us — and thus removed from Resolution 242 its essence. How, therefore, could we adversely affect 242?
As regards the future, please be kind enough to inform the secretary of state that the Golan Heights Law will remain valid. There is no force on earth that can bring about its rescission.
As for the contention that we surprised you, the truth is that we did not want to embarrass you. We knew your difficulties. You come to Riyadh and Damascus. It was President Reagan who said that Mr. Begin was right — that had Israel told the U.S. about the law (in advance) the U.S. would have said no. We did not want you to say no — and then go ahead and apply Israeli law to the Golan Heights.Our intention was not to embarrass you. As regards Lebanon, I have asked that the secretary of state be informed that we will not attack, but if we are attacked, we will counterattack.
1b) Exclusive: Obama Blames Border Crisis for Immigration Reform Delay
BY CARRIE DANN
In an exclusive interview with Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd, President Barack Obama defended his decision to delay executive action on immigration, saying the summer’s surge of unaccompanied children at the Mexican border changed the politics of the issue.
“The truth of the matter is that the politics did shift midsummer because of that problem,” Obama said in the interview, which will air on Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC. “I want to spend some time, even as we're getting all our ducks in a row for the executive action, I also want to make sure that the public understands why we're doing this, why it's the right thing for the American people, why it's the right thing for the American economy.”
Watch the full interview Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, Todd’s debut as moderator of the longest-running show on network television. NBCNews.com will live stream the show at 9 a.m. ET.
In the sit-down with Todd, Obama rejected criticism that the postponement is merely a political tactic intended to help embattled Democrats in the months before contentious midterm elections, saying that the delay will help make new immigration policies “sustainable” when they are announced later this year.
“What I'm saying is that I'm going to act because it's the right thing for the country,” he said. “But it's going to be more sustainable and more effective if the public understands what the facts are on immigration, what we've done on unaccompanied children, and why it's necessary.”
White House officials confirmed to NBC News earlier Saturday that the president will delay any executive action on immigration until after November.
“The reality the President has had to weigh is that we're in the midst of the political season, and because of the Republicans' extreme politicization of this issue, the President believes it would be harmful to the policy itself and to the long-term prospects for comprehensive immigration reform to announce administrative action before the elections,” a White House official said.
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2) No one should be surprised at ISIS' brutality because the world rewards terrorism
In brief, terrorism has proved to be a successful tactic. It works. That’s why ISIS engages in it.
The international community seems to have been caught off guard by the brutality of ISIS. The beheading of two Americans, the murder of many Christians and Muslims, and the widespread support for these brutal killers has taken the world by surprise. But we should have anticipated this, because for the last half century, the international community has rewarded precisely the kind of behavior by ISIS we now condemn. In brief, terrorism has proved to be a successful tactic. It works. That’s why ISIS engages in it. That’ why Al Qaeda engages in it. That’s why Boko Haram engages in it. That’s why the Taliban engages in it. And that’s why Hamas engages in it.
Compare the visibility and success of groups that employ terrorism as the main tactic for responding to their grievances, with comparably aggrieved groups that reject terrorism. Hamas is more popular than ever among Palestinians following their kidnapping and murder of three Israeli schoolchildren, their brutal slaughter of the Fogel family, and their deployment of rockets and tunnels against civilians from civilian areas. The same is true of Hezbollah.
Now comes ISIS which is quickly becoming the terrorist group of choice for disaffected radicals, because their brutality is now in the headlines.
Contrast these successes with the failure of the Tibetan people to achieve any progress in their quest to end an occupation even longer than the one Israel is accused of maintaining. The world demands statehood for the Palestinians, while allowing the Kurds to remain stateless despite treaty obligations and other promises. Why? Is it because the Kurds have rarely engaged in terrorism, whereas the Palestinians have specialized in it since the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the early 1960s—and even before that?
Success begets emulation, and the success of terrorist organizations is spreading quickly. No one should be surprised.
ISIS has already achieved success as a result of their brutal terrorist acts. Millions of dollars has been paid to them as ransom for hostages. They have used this money to recruit more members. Now other Muslim terrorist groups want to join forces with them, because they have shown that within the world of brutal terrorism, they stand out for their unmitigated and televised brutality.
Consider the following hypothetical situation. A new group with a serious grievance hires an immoral or amoral consulting firm to advise them on the most effective tactic for achieving their goals. Such a consulting group might well recommend that they emulate Hamas, ISIS, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, rather than the Tibetans or Kurds. This advice would of course be immoral but it would be truthful as a matter of simple cost-benefit analysis.
In the end, the only way to defeat terrorism is to reverse the cost-benefit calculus. This would require an international agreement whereby every country in the world would pledge to refuse to give in to terrorists, to pay ransom to terrorists, to legitimate terrorist organizations or to treat them as morally and politically equivalent to the democracies they are fighting. It would also require that no country release captured terrorists from custody and that they place them on trial or extradite them to a country that will.
We are doing exactly the opposite today. World leaders, such as Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu, demand that we treat Hamas, which is indistinguishable in its overall brutality from ISIS, as a legitimate political organization. The United Nations General Assembly grants statehood to a group that began as a terrorist organization and continues to honor terrorists who murdered children. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee honors Yassir Arafat, the Godfather of terrorism, who persisted in this tactic until the day he died. European countries pay ransom to terrorists. Any many European nations—Italy, Germany, Great Britain and others—have freed terrorists, including mass murderers, who have returned to lives of terror. Even Israel has engaged in prisoner exchanges with terrorist groups.
It is one thing to negotiate—directly or indirectly—with terrorists who hold innocent people as hostages. Such negotiation may be a necessary evil. Democratic nations are sometimes forced to negotiate with the Mafia, the Ku Klux Klan and other criminal gangs. But we should never honor or legitimate them, as we have done with Palestinian terrorists. Nor should the world condemn and place on trial democracies that fight against terrorist organizations which use their own civilians as human shields. The current misguided approach to terrorism is a prescription for emulation and repetition of terrorism as the tactic of choice.
So let’s not be surprised when a group like ISIS learns the tragic lesson of history and emulates success and visibility rather than failure and invisibility. ISIS is doing exactly what the immoral consulting firm would advise it to do. So we shouldn’t be surprised. Instead we should reverse course and develop responses to terrorism that never allow this tactic to succeed. Terrorists must never be allowed to win, as they are, unfortunately, doing today.
Compare the visibility and success of groups that employ terrorism as the main tactic for responding to their grievances, with comparably aggrieved groups that reject terrorism. Hamas is more popular than ever among Palestinians following their kidnapping and murder of three Israeli schoolchildren, their brutal slaughter of the Fogel family, and their deployment of rockets and tunnels against civilians from civilian areas. The same is true of Hezbollah.
Now comes ISIS which is quickly becoming the terrorist group of choice for disaffected radicals, because their brutality is now in the headlines.
Contrast these successes with the failure of the Tibetan people to achieve any progress in their quest to end an occupation even longer than the one Israel is accused of maintaining. The world demands statehood for the Palestinians, while allowing the Kurds to remain stateless despite treaty obligations and other promises. Why? Is it because the Kurds have rarely engaged in terrorism, whereas the Palestinians have specialized in it since the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the early 1960s—and even before that?
Success begets emulation, and the success of terrorist organizations is spreading quickly. No one should be surprised.
ISIS has already achieved success as a result of their brutal terrorist acts. Millions of dollars has been paid to them as ransom for hostages. They have used this money to recruit more members. Now other Muslim terrorist groups want to join forces with them, because they have shown that within the world of brutal terrorism, they stand out for their unmitigated and televised brutality.
Consider the following hypothetical situation. A new group with a serious grievance hires an immoral or amoral consulting firm to advise them on the most effective tactic for achieving their goals. Such a consulting group might well recommend that they emulate Hamas, ISIS, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, rather than the Tibetans or Kurds. This advice would of course be immoral but it would be truthful as a matter of simple cost-benefit analysis.
In the end, the only way to defeat terrorism is to reverse the cost-benefit calculus. This would require an international agreement whereby every country in the world would pledge to refuse to give in to terrorists, to pay ransom to terrorists, to legitimate terrorist organizations or to treat them as morally and politically equivalent to the democracies they are fighting. It would also require that no country release captured terrorists from custody and that they place them on trial or extradite them to a country that will.
We are doing exactly the opposite today. World leaders, such as Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu, demand that we treat Hamas, which is indistinguishable in its overall brutality from ISIS, as a legitimate political organization. The United Nations General Assembly grants statehood to a group that began as a terrorist organization and continues to honor terrorists who murdered children. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee honors Yassir Arafat, the Godfather of terrorism, who persisted in this tactic until the day he died. European countries pay ransom to terrorists. Any many European nations—Italy, Germany, Great Britain and others—have freed terrorists, including mass murderers, who have returned to lives of terror. Even Israel has engaged in prisoner exchanges with terrorist groups.
It is one thing to negotiate—directly or indirectly—with terrorists who hold innocent people as hostages. Such negotiation may be a necessary evil. Democratic nations are sometimes forced to negotiate with the Mafia, the Ku Klux Klan and other criminal gangs. But we should never honor or legitimate them, as we have done with Palestinian terrorists. Nor should the world condemn and place on trial democracies that fight against terrorist organizations which use their own civilians as human shields. The current misguided approach to terrorism is a prescription for emulation and repetition of terrorism as the tactic of choice.
So let’s not be surprised when a group like ISIS learns the tragic lesson of history and emulates success and visibility rather than failure and invisibility. ISIS is doing exactly what the immoral consulting firm would advise it to do. So we shouldn’t be surprised. Instead we should reverse course and develop responses to terrorism that never allow this tactic to succeed. Terrorists must never be allowed to win, as they are, unfortunately, doing today.
2a)
FBI: Cuban Intelligence Aggressively Recruiting Leftist American Academics as Spies, Influence Agents
An automobile drives by the Capitol in Havana, Cuba / APBY:Cuba’s communist-led intelligence services are aggressively recruiting leftist American academics and university professors as spies and influence agents, according to an internal FBI report published this week.
Cuban intelligence services “have perfected the work of placing agents, that includes aggressively targeting U.S. universities under the assumption that a percentage of students will eventually move on to positions within the U.S. government that can provide access to information of use to the [Cuban intelligence service],” the five-page unclassified FBI report says. It notes that the Cubans “devote a significant amount of resources to targeting and exploiting U.S. academia.”
“Academia has been and remains a key target of foreign intelligence services, including the [Cuban intelligence service],” the report concludes.
One recruitment method used by the Cubans is to appeal to American leftists’ ideology. “For instance, someone who is allied with communist or leftist ideology may assist the [Cuban intelligence service] because of his/her personal beliefs,” the FBI report, dated Sept. 2, said.Others are offered lucrative business deals in Cuba in a future post-U.S. embargo environment, and are treated to extravagant, all-expense paid visits to the island.
Coercive tactics used by the Cubans include exploiting personal weaknesses and sexual entrapment, usually during visits to Cuba.
The Cubans “will actively exploit visitors to the island” and U.S. academics are targeted by a special department of the spy agency.
“This department is supported by all of the counterintelligence resources the government of Cuba can marshal on the island,” the report said. “Intelligence officers will come into contact with the academic travelers. They will stay in the same accommodations and participate in the activities arranged for the travelers. This clearly provides an opportunity to identify targets.”In addition to collecting information and secrets, Cuban spies employ “influence operations,” the FBI said.
“The objective of these activities can range from portraying a specific image, usually positive, to attempting to sway policymakers into particular courses of action,” the report said.
Additionally, Cuban intelligence seeks to plant disinformation or propaganda through its influence agents, and can task recruits to actively disseminate the data. Once recruited, many of the agents are directed to entering fields that will provide greater information access in the future, mainly within the U.S. government and intelligence community.
The Cubans do not limit recruitments to “clandestine agents,” the report said. Other people who do not have access to secrets are co-opted as spies because of their political position or political views that can be exploited for supporting Cuban goals, either as open supporters or unwitting dupes.
“Some of these individuals may not be told openly that they are working for the [Cuban intelligence service], even though it may not be too hard for them to figure out,” the report said. “The relationship may openly appear to be a benign, mutually beneficial friendship.”Chris Simmons, a retired spycatcher for the Defense Intelligence Agency, said Cuban intelligence has long targeted U.S. academics. For example, Havana assigned six intelligence officers to assist Council on Foreign Relations Latin Affairs specialist Julia E. Sweig in writing a 2002 book on the Cuban revolution, he said.
“College campuses are seen as fertile grounds for the recruitment of the ‘next generation’ of spies,” Simmons said. “Cuba heavily targets the schools that train the best candidates for U.S. government jobs, like Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, and George Washington University.”
One goal of the Cubans is to recruit students prior to federal employment, a method that allows Havana to direct a recruited agent into targeted key spy targets, like Congress or the FBI, Simmons said.
“A preferred target are ‘study abroad’ programs in Cuba, as participating students are assessed as inherently sympathetic to the Cuban revolution,” Simmons said.
Cuban intelligence has recruited numerous spies in the past that became long-term penetration agents inside the U.S. government. According to the CI Centre, a think tank, there have been 25 Cuban spies uncovered in the United States since the 1960s, including former CIA officer Philip Agee to who defected and worked closely with both Cuban intelligence and the Soviet KGB starting in 1973.
One of the most notorious Cuban spy cases involved Ana Montes, a senior analyst who worked in the highest levels of the U.S. intelligence and policymaking communities.
Montes, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, pleaded guilty in 2002 to spying for Cuba for 17 years. She is serving a 25-year prison term.
Montes was recruited by Cuban intelligence in 1984 while a student at the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where she was a graduate student and had voiced her hatred of the then-Reagan administration policy of backing anti-communist rebels fighting the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.
She was recruited at SAIS by another Cuban spy, Marta Rita Velazquez, who worked for U.S. Agency for International Development and fled the country after Montes was arrested in 2001.Two other notable Cuban spies were Walter Kendall Myers, a State Department Foreign Service contractor who worked for Cuban intelligence from 1979 to 2007, and his wife Gwen Myers. They were recruited after visiting Cuba. Walter Myers was a leftist who criticized “American imperialism” in a diary entry after visiting Cuba. He held a top-secret security clearance and in 2010 was sentenced to life in prison after a conviction for spying.
Cuba’s spy agencies “actively target academia to recruit agents and to support Cuban influence operations.”
“Unfortunately, part of what makes academic environments ideal for enhancing and sharing knowledge also can assist the efforts of foreign intelligence services to accomplish their objectives,” the report concludes. “This situation is unlikely to change, but awareness of the methods used to target academia can greatly assist in neutralizing the efforts of these foreign intelligence services.”
The FBI report was based largely on testimony from José Cohen, a former officer of the Cuban Intelligence Directorate, known by its Spanish acronym as DGI, who defected in 1994.The targeting of American spies takes place at schools, colleges, universities, and research institutes. “Cuban intelligence services are known to actively target the U.S. academic world for the purposes of recruiting agents, in order to both obtain useful information and conduct influence activities,” the FBI said.
The academic world, because of its openness and need for networking, “offers a rich array of targets attractive to foreign intelligence services,” the report said, noting that U.S. government institutions draw on academia for personnel, both for entry level staffing and for consultation from established experts.
Cuban intelligence seeks leftists and others sympathetic to Cuba’s communist regime because it lacks funds needed to pay recruited agents, the report said.
The process includes targeting American and Cuban-American academics, recruiting them if possible and eventually converting them into Cuban intelligence agents.
Cuban front groups also are used to recruit spies in the United States, including a network of collaborators and agents in Cuba that make contact with counterparts in the United States.Specific universities in Washington and New York that were not specified by the FBI are targets because they are close to Cuban intelligence posts in those cities.
An example of the recruitment effort was provided to the FBI by a “self-admitted Cuban intelligence” officer outlining how a spy is recruited at a U.S. university.
“The Cuban intelligence officers located at the Cuban Mission to the United Nations in New York, New York, or the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., obtain a published work by a specific professor or student … from a university the [Cubans] are monitoring,” the report said.
A Cuban control agent in Havana studies the work and works together with a co-opted Cuban academic and together the pair analyzes published material and forms a plan of action that may include a personal letter to the targeted individual in the United States.
“The letter will suggest a ‘genuine’ interest in starting a friendship or contact regarding the topic of the article,” the report said. “The personal letter becomes a pretext for the Cuban intelligence officer stationed in the United States to use for initial contact with the targeted individual.”A Cuba spy posing as a diplomat develops a relationship with the academic that can last months or years of assessing motivations, weaknesses, and current future and access to information.
In some cases, the Cubans use compromising video or audio and sexual entrapment to develop U.S. spies.
“Ultimately, when the time is right, the plan will be executed and the targeted individual will be approached and formally asked to help the government of Cuba,” the report said.
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3) Abbas threatens to break partnership with Hamas
PA President: Decisions of war and peace must be decided by one Palestinian govt, Khaled Mashaal won't accept this condition; 'my patience with Israel, US, Hamas has expired'.
By Elior Levy
The rift between Fatah and Hamas, which developed over the course of Operation Protective Edge, continued to widen Saturday, when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas spoke to Egyptian reporters, threatening to break their current partnership if the organization in Gaza doesn't begin to make some changes.
"If Hamas won't accept a Palestinian State with one government, one law, and one weapon - then there won't be any partnership between us," said Abbas. "This is our condition, and we won't back away from it."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. (Photo: EPA)
The Palestinian leader made the comments while on a three day visit to Cairo, where he said that dialogue with Hamas regarding Palestinian reconciliation could only continue if the organization based in Gaza softens its position.
"We will only be talking to Hamas if they meet our requirements. The partnership with Hamas depends on arms being under the control of the Palestinian State," said Abbas referring to Hamas' underground military wing led by Mohammed Deif.
The rift between Fatah and Hamas, which developed over the course of Operation Protective Edge, continued to widen Saturday, when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas spoke to Egyptian reporters, threatening to break their current partnership if the organization in Gaza doesn't begin to make some changes.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. (Photo: EPA)
"Mashaal told me, 'I'm the resistance leader and there will be no ceasefire (between Hamas and Israel) without my agreement,'" said Abbas. One of the Palestinian journalists who took part in the meeting suggested that Abbas is expected to make an official announcement Sunday, during a meeting with Arab League ministers, that the PA will cease the reconciliation dialogue unless Hamas agrees to comply with his stated requirements.
The PA President made similarly threatening comments last week during a television interview in which he addressed an announcement from Hamas that they would be the ones to choose war or peace with Israel. Abbas said in the interview that he opposes the statement and that according to the current reconciliation agreement, decisions of war or peace lay with the PA.
Abbas is scheduled to meet Egyptian President Sisi during his trip to Cairo. (Photo: Reuters)
According to Abbas, if this condition doesn't manifest itself into reality, there would be anarchy and no point in keeping with a reconciliation agreement.
Abbas is scheduled to meet Egyptian President Sisi during his trip to Cairo. (Photo: Reuters)
"One side can't unilaterally declare war," said Abbas. "That isn't unity or reconciliation." He also stressed that any reconstruction plan in Gaza will be carried out under the authority of the PA.
Hamas' political leader Khaled Mashaal seems unprepared to meet Abbas' demands for reconciliation. (Photo: AFP)
"Who will return Gaza's residents to their homes?" asked Abbas sarcastically. He continued his criticism of Hamas, asking how they could have been surprised by Israel's military response after having abducted and murdered three Israeli teenagers and then firing rockets at Israel.
Rocket 'efficiency'
A group of journalists who participated in the meeting also testified that Abbas announced in the conversation that some 400,000 Palestinians were left homeless as a result of the operation. He also mentioned Hamas' boasts at the end of the operation that the organization was "allowing Israelis to return to the homes."
Hamas' political leader Khaled Mashaal seems unprepared to meet Abbas' demands for reconciliation. (Photo: AFP)
Abbas also launched criticism against rocket fire from Gaza, saying that some 4,000 had been fired, but only three Israelis were killed as a result. He added that Hamas' interest in democracy was only as a way to gain power.
But Abbas expressed that he was exacerbated by more than just Hamas. "Honestly - my patience with Israel, the United States and Hamas has expired," he said.
The Palestinian President arrived in Cairo on Friday and he plans to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as well as taking part in a meeting of foreign ministers from Arab League members.
Hamas spokesperson Hussam Badran condemned the "escalation in the amount of summons and arrests in the West Bank."
Over the weekend, Hamas officials claimed the PA was arresting its men for no reason.
The Palestinian President arrived in Cairo on Friday and he plans to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as well as taking part in a meeting of foreign ministers from Arab League members.
Meanwhile in the West Bank, Hamas called on its operatives not cooperate with Palestinian Authority security forces investigations.
Hamas spokesperson Hussam Badran condemned the "escalation in the amount of summons and arrests in the West Bank."
Over the weekend, Hamas officials claimed the PA was arresting its men for no reason.
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