Parts 1-8 in this series focused on events that happened during the Obama administration and how he dealt with them in communicating details to the American people. My purpose in covering this detail was to build and establish a timeline and more importantly expose the playbook operative behind these issues. At the close of Part 8 I posed a hypothetical based on the US paying ransom money to Iran in exchange for Navy sailors that had been illegally detained in the gulf, as “this incident begged the question: what would-and wouldn’t-the Obama administration due to keep the Iranian deal on track?”
The LSMBTG* and many friends, colleagues, frenemies and pundits remain somewhat in “Katie bar the door” mode when it comes to admission or acknowledgement of any chink in the vaunted, “no scandal during the Obama administration” narrative, proverbial armor. Even in a case where you have bald-face lies issued by the man himself, followed shortly by admission of the lies by his people or spokesman, it is still explainable-and more importantly-somehow understandable and forgivable by so many defenders that it is disturbing.
One day Obama is near dismissively lecturing the American people in the “how dare you” accusatory tone of the superior being deigning to communicate with the little folks who have the temerity to question his superior grasp of the events, and the next thing you know it turns out to be all manner of bullspit: “we don’t pay ransoms for hostages,” but we just did! From the piece:
Surrounded by his yes-men at the Pentagon on August 4, President Obama, with trademark smugness, hammered the media and his political opponents for claiming that his $400 million cash payment to Iran in January was tied to the simultaneous release of four American hostages. “We do not pay ransom for hostages,” the President declaimed.
Just two weeks later, State Department spokesman John Kirby acknowledged in response to a reporter’s question that Iran’s release of the hostages was “contingent” upon the $400 million cash payment. Much of the elite media continues to see Emperor Obama clothed in all his finery. But increasingly, the American people now see him for what he is: a bald-face liar.
Hmm, so if the release of US sailor’s captured on the open seas by the terrorist Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was contingent on the payment of some 400 million dollars by the US government-now this would be the same Obama administration led government involved in ongoing “secret” nuclear negotiations with the same Iranian government in charge of the IRGC-payable in Swiss Francs-the cash being necessary to skirt US sanctions and financial rules prohibiting such actions because-well-they are illegal under federal law that prohibits transactions with Iran, particularly those usually indicative of actions undertaken by the mafia, drug dealers or terrorists, then what does that say about President Obama?
The above article citing Hans A. Von Spakovsky is noteworthy because I discovered this article recently-and I could have saved dear reader and myself a lot of time, as he makes the same case that I did-only it took more words for me!
How big a stretch would it be to believe such a person is capable of doing anything necessary to achieve his objectives?
Consider project Cassandra, where the might of the US government was brought to bear on ferreting out and tracking Hezbollah terrorist networks trafficking drugs in America to fuel-among other things-rocket diplomacy in the Middle East-which typically led to responses by Israel, which typically led to more funding from congress to replenish their rocket and missile inventories (rinse and repeat.) From the piece:
In early 2015, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), working in cooperation with European authorities, launched Operation Cedar, targeting a Hezbollah money laundering network operating with drug cartels in South America, Europe and the Middle East. Operation Cedar was part of a longer, wider law enforcement effort known as Project Cassandra to disrupt Hezbollah’s joint ventures with drug cartels.
Hezbollah trafficking in drugs in the US should have been a very big deal-and was-until the secret Iranian nuclear negotiations became the equivalent of a United States-Obama administration-get out of jail-free card. The Obama administration failure to pursue and prosecute known Hezbollah terrorist trafficking networks in the US, profiting from myriad efforts including drugs, cigarettes, used cars-with deep connections to South America-Venezuela and Columbia, as well as West Africa-is indicative of what Obama was willing to do to maintain his nuclear deal with Iran, no matter the cost to the American people or the US reputation. It wasn’t just overlooking criminality in the US that Obama’s DOJ shut down, these efforts funded actions against our military in Iraq:
Meanwhile, in Iraq, the U.S. military was probing the role of Iran in outfitting Shiite militias with high-tech improvised explosive devices known as Explosively Formed Penetrators, or EFPs, that had already killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers.
All of these paths eventually converged on Hezbollah.
Was this a scandal under the Obama administration? I already regaled you with the details that Obama authorized secret negotiations with the Iranians without placing any restrictions or requirements that would have required them to cease and desist all actions focused on the killing and maiming of American military and contractors in Iraq as a condition of talks.
The action to stonewall and eventually shut down project Cassandra extended the callous and cold-blooded approach of whatever it takes to keep negotiations on track-“anything to appease the Iranian’s,” while American citizens who were the focus of the Hezbollah drug trafficking efforts were just collateral damage: as were our American soldiers and contractors, as well as Iraq civilians.
I started down a logic path to highlight the types of things that one would undertake to “woo” a committed enemy to the table in order to negotiate a deal. Setting aside for the moment this was an Obama administration that never put in the time and effort to attempt to work with-to “woo”-what they clearly considered their “real” enemies-republicans in the swamp, specifically congress, adopting a “my way or the highway” attitude that resulted in decreasing engagements over time, and yet not only bent over backwards to conduct these secret negotiations and keep them on track, but were willing to overlook all manner of illegal activity, terrorism, kidnapping, trafficking drugs in America-the IED murder of American military and contractors-whatever it took to keep negotiations going-at a time when very few citizens in the US would have supported the activity.
So the number one condition for deal making by the Obama administration involved money-a billion was too much, 100 million not enough-500 million would draw attention cause it would be described as half a billion, so, much like porridge, 400 million in Swiss Francs was “just right.” Number two in terms of importance, but likely an original consideration of establishing an ongoing dialogue with the Iranians, was to have relatively non-threatening, non-govt native speakers who could convey things in Iranian terms and keep things relatively low level and cordial, lead the initial but informal efforts to keep things low key, maybe leveraging the touch of woman negotiators to do the engagement to take advantage of presenting our efforts in more of a soft-gloved power approach-folks like Valerie Jarret-who was on staff in the WH, and Humah Abedin who was on staff with HRC at the State Department. The renowned diplomat and raconteur, story spinner Ben Rhodes was part of this ingratiating “team outreach.”
A third aspect was going to be dealing with the enemy of my enemy that I am now courting as a friend-and that meant some type of marginalization campaign against the elephant in the room, Israel: this was inevitable and of great importance to Iran-and should have been a big old redlight, stop sign, do not pass go criterion for any US president: but nope. The fourth thing that would be necessary is to use a whole of US government approach in eliminating from the US public view to the greatest extent possible any callouts byway of references, stories, notices or announcements of any Iranian criminality, Iraq meddling, international terrorism or any activity that would reflect badly on the partner of the US emerging negotiations. While simultaneously spinning not only an information operation creating an alternative reality of good and positive news, but to engage the LSMBTG in propagating it to convince the American people it was true.
The fifth element of such a strategy is the toughest and most important by far thing to accomplish, representing an act of total commitment to the endeavor that would involve something of great intrinsic value to the Iranian government well beyond the nominative or dollar value of the action. This was not the final element, which would be represented by the follow-up to the money provided as a down payment early-on, in effect a bribe of nearly four times the ransom money paid as earnest money to kick-start the effort and provided as the kicker to buy the agreement signatures.
But the fifth element was the deal maker, piece de la resistance act that represented a compact of evil cementing-in effect-a drug deal between the two negotiating sides.
If you’ve followed the logic of this strategy with the backdrop of the secret Iran negotiations, one can’t help thinking in terms of some sort of combination of the Prince-Machiavelli-and Saul Alinsky in all his leftist, manipulating black arts glory, bred to the black widow, with an offspring scheming to use your own beliefs and philosophy against you like a demented clairvoyant Jiu Jitsu master: that’s what we are talking about to pull this audacious and bodacious scheme off.
The type of treacherous, duplicitous scheming insinuated by the elements I touched upon above reach a whole new level of understanding on the approach Barrack Hussein Obama followed in his life and in his job as president-if accurate.
Which is why I introduced and presented and discussed in detail the start of this “sting” operation done to the American people, with Act 1, the down payment (the no ransom, ransom for the sailors.) I also in an earlier part of the series covered Act 2, the Outreach Team, as well as introduced elements of Acts 3 and 4 with a pending discussion of the mistreatment of Israel, while detailing the fictional talent and lies of Ben Rhodes in Act 4.
Anybody who studies a people or religion-friend, foe, or undetermined-with an intent to gain insight on their behavior as a way to inform whatever action is being undertaken-can’t help but be fascinated with some of the tenets of the Muslim faith and the Quran, particularly as relates to infidels and non-believers.
An incident that made a huge impression on me somewhat early-on as many of us transitioned from a near dedicated focus on all things related to the Soviet Union to happenings in Afghanistan and continual strife in the Middle East was the story of the Lion of Panjshir, Ahmad Shah Massoud. Widely credited with being instrumental in the defeat and retreat 15 February 1989 of the Soviet Union Army from Afghanistan, it would be nearly three years before his Northern Alliance force would force in April 1992 the last remnants of Soviet power from control of the Afghanistan government. He assumed the Minister of Defense position in the new government, but tribal infighting and emerging fiefdoms prevailed-flush with weaponry that had flooded into the country to defeat the Soviets, as well as conflicting and confusing influence from outsiders-predominantly Pakistan, the residue of Soviet backed power, the near total withdrawal of the formerly heavily engaged-read funder-the United States-now delegated to the CIA as power broker, who much like the British-threw the weight of their influence and more importantly-money-behind the traditional tribal power structure that had prevailed for centuries in Afghanistan working the poppy trade.
The vacuum created by a power struggle in Kabul resulted in a civil war that would lead to the development of the Pakistan backed Taliban, who shortly thereafter took control of Kabul September 27, 1996. Massoud attempted to broker an effort to hold elections, but the Taliban was not interested in any attempts to undermine their newfound power and Massoud was soon forced to flee Kabul to take refuge in his mountain stronghold as his country-starting with Kabul-underwent a strict form of Muslim-Sharia-rule. He was a bona fide threat to the unpopular Taliban leadership that was regarded as “foreigners” by Kabul based Afghans who were still looking for some sense of a return to normal Afghan life-whatever that meant anymore-in a culture that had been rendered unrecognizable in the wake of the Soviet withdrawal, the revival of tribal fiefdoms in a widespread civil war, resolving to Taliban rule.
With his by now legendary status as the leader acknowledged as the Lion who defeated the Soviet Union, he was the one true threat to the Taliban and was soon targeted for assassination on 9 September 2001, on the eve of the 9-11 attacks on the US.
From many views Afghanistan’s last, best hope to return to some semblance of normalcy was gone in what seemed like a senseless, self-defeating act-but not when you consider the Pakistan influence over the Taliban and the desire to have a controllable and malleable neighbor to the west they could depend upon as they turned focus back to their true enemy-India. And OBTW, Afghanistan was one of the countries that voted against the establishment of a Pakistan state.
When we later searched for Osama Bin Laden like some deadly serious “Where’s Waldo?” effort, we spent an inordinate amount of time looking at the infamous “Tora Bora” video and the Pashtun or Pashtunistan area on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan-and culling through accounts like this that were a never ending source of interest and frustration over some seven or more years (in my case.) In hindsight we should probably have spent more time-given the emergence of the Taliban as an extension of Pakistan influence over the region-and the fact that Pakistan was the major state actor interfering in Afghanistan attempts at self-rule after the Soviet withdrawal-farther east. Which did not happen until fairly late in the hunt, although the compound he was subsequently eliminated at met the criteria early-on, but had very dedicated and cautious occupants who did not slip up until late in the quest.
Any study of the goings on with all things Afghanistan leads to the sobering history, the life, tenets of the Muslim faith and the seeming inability or propensity for the cycle of violence that preceded and followed the Soviet invasion to reoccur in a never ending cycle repeated for nearly a thousand years, with the periodic break in the in-fighting to defeat an outside interloper daring to venture into Afghanistan with delusions of grandeur that never end well.
This little treatise on interpretations of the Quran and the Muslim faith based on a discussion of truth and lies either allowed or encouraged in dealing with other faiths-infidels-is instructive to inform the answer to the question of what Obama was willing to do to complete negotiations with the Iranians. I think we will find the key and answer to that question lies in what would constitute a satisfactory “sacrificial lamb” under the category of the fifth requirement outlined above.
27 March 2022
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