Via Josh Rogin in The Daily Beast:
The State Department under Hillary Clinton fought hard against placing the al Qaeda-linked militant group Boko Haram on its official list of foreign terrorist organizations for two years. And now, lawmakers and former U.S. officials are saying that the decision may have hampered the American government’s ability to confront the Nigerian group that shocked the world by abducting hundreds of innocent girls.
In the past week, Clinton, who made protecting women and girls a key pillar of her tenure at the State Department, has been a vocal advocate for the 200 Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, the loosely organized group of militants terrorizing northern Nigeria. Her May 4 tweet about the girls, using the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, was cited across the media and widely credited for raising awareness of their plight….
What Clinton didn’t mention was that her own State Department refused to place Boko Haram on the list of foreign terrorist organizations in 2011, after the group bombed the U.N. headquarters in Abuja. The refusal came despite the urging of the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, and over a dozen senators and congressmen.
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Comments
“… militants terrorizing …”
At the risk of sounding like a language Nazi, why not, “… terrorists terrorizing …” ??
Stylebook?
“What difference did it make that Hillary’s State Dept …?”
Now, that’s good. That’s style.
I’m afraid that firming up the political message “we’ve got al-Qaeda on the run!” was far more important than the lives of thousands of Christian men, women, and children.
Successful politics and good governance requires setting the proper priorities.
SMART POWER LEANING FORWARD IN HOPE OF CHANGE
“I’m afraid that firming up the political message ‘we’ve got al-Qaeda on the run!’ was far more important than the lives of thousands of Christian men, women, and children.”
Well, ya gotta admit, our ‘Enry, al-Qaeda is definitely up and running.
Wonder how fast the Clinton machine will push this down the rabbit hole, and punish any journalist who dares to bring it up?
Oh, and Happy V-E Day. War is over. This is the modern world now.
The Clinton tenure at State WILL go down in history as a disaster for American interests. (See the period?)
But one must wonder if Kerry was appointed so as to make her look…if not good…better, or out of a very dark sense of humor.
He needs to resign.
Rags,
Who are we to judge Mr. Boko Haram when we had a presidential candidate who admitted to keeping “binders full of women”?
I wonder how many of those women escaped from those binders and made it back to their families.
Is Sandra Fluke’s amazing life story of struggle any less valid than Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s?
Come on, Rags, you’re better than this.
For crying out loud, on V-E Day, of all days, take a moment to realize that the first step to winning the war on women is acknowledging it exists. The Democrats warned us about this war.
Binders, Rags. Binders. I shudder.
OK, Luke, that was mean.
You made me think briefly of how the Romney administration would feel if it were reality right now…how different the country would feel right now.
You have harshed my (partial) mellow.
Have you watched “Mitt” on Netflix? Apart from wanting to give him a hug at the end, I think he came off as an absolute monster.
I love the picture of Hillary waving from her airplane door.
I’d like to caption it: “I abducted your democracy!”
“Hey, I couldn’t be bothered to provide a few security guys to my own gay, Native American ambassador.
Why the hell should I care about a bunch of straight African Christians? Do you know how rare video cameras are over there? Sheesh…!”
The woman in the center really didn’t say anything.
I guess for Hillary Benghazi was just another one of those evolving black & white & grey issues that involved terrorists but didn’t involve terrorists.
Then lie or not to lie became the question after the fact. At 3am in the morning don’t call Hillary if you need help.
Hillary (and Obama) covet the recognition but not the responsibilities that come with their positions.
I didn’t realize there was a video there until I read your comment. Thought it was a screen grab. Thanks!
“The woman in the center really didn’t say anything.”
Although you share the exact same name as my sweet niece, and, like her, are obviously a very sharp young lady, I’m going to disagree with you a tiny bit here on one point.
I know what you’re saying, but at the same time, something she said speaks volumes to me.
When she was (consciously or subconsciously) flacking for Hillary saying “… they didn’t want to elevate …” Poco Harum or whatever they’re called, it struck me as yet another incarnation of,
“You didn’t build that. Somebody helped you along the way. Some bureaucrat elevated you to terrorist status, and that’s why you’re so successful in terrorizing people now.”
Do they really think that whatever they designate this or that group has that much effect on them? Seriously?
I mean, if anything, one could arguably say they’re encouraging terrorists to terrorize on a larger scale in hopes of achieving some coveted designation from their fellow contractors back in America helping the terrorist wannabees to build this into a proud, worthy terrorist organization.
I’m not paranoid or a conspiracy theorist.
I don’t believe American bureaucrats, even liberal Democrats, would have this intent. Only the predilection to achieving an Oscar in Best Performance in a Documentary of Tragic Unintended Consequences.
LukeHandCool (who is sick of this Amateur Hour administration and desperately wants a Happy Hour administration to replace them)
It’s Procol Harum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqOxyqGiLeE
…and Poco:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIZt2uyu4-4
We need to keep these straight if we’re gonna defeat liberalism, mister.
I swear to God on a stack of Bibles I was just thinking, “Did I say ‘Poco Harum’?” and came here to check.
But you’d already acted. I think a discrete private email would’ve been very nice.
But I don’t blame you. I’d have done the same thing.
Lest we go off topic, in keeping with the main riff of this thread,
“I’ve abducted your Rock n’ Roll street cred!”
—Henry Hawkins
LukeHandCool (who never cared for nor listened to Poco Harum)
You’re right. Please post your email address for the future.
Fool me once!!
I’m still frantically searching the internet. I’m sure there was a band named Poco Harum at one time in Australia or Austria. Or was it Malaysia or Micronesia?
No, only public denunciation would suffice in this sort of case.
Go forth, and reeducate thyself!
You guys can’t do this to me.
I’m like Rock n’ Roll Royalty once or twice removed.
I’ll have you know Susie Cowsill had the head-over-heels hots for me one summer. (Although the next summer Luke had to walk an entire block as Susie pleaded with her one-year older boyfriend not to beat up Luke, as the brute continued to make Luke flinch with his threats of a whooping. I forgive ya, Susie. We were all wild, dopey, impetuous youths at the time. Call me.)
Luke’s uncle and grandfather owned and operated the biggest, most famous club in Arizona’s history, where Waylon Jennings got his start playing 7 nights a week.
Don’t even get me started on my connections with The Bangles, The Knack’s Sharona (real person) and … oh, what’s the use. I don’t need to prove anything to you guys. Rock n’ Roll pulses through my veins.
Here’s a tune my uncle wrote for a band he managed along with Waylon. Their songs made the Nuggets and Pebbles compilations.
My uncle passed away a year ago. God he had some amazing stories from the wild west days of rock ‘n roll.
Although he aggravated the hell out of me with his social-phobic, agoraphobic ways, I do miss his sense of humor.
My sisters and I rented an apartment for him in West L.A. after my mom died and there was no one to look after him. We promised her.
Our last conversation was when my older sister and I stopped by his place and dropped off dinner.
He loved history and geaneology and was the one who knew all the trivia about our family’s past. My sister made the mistake of telling him she’d just joined ancestry.com for a trial membership and, always lonely, he begged her to bring her laptop so they could research our ancestors together.
Trying to make our getaway, she told him she’d try to find the time and told him that yes, indeed, she’d found information on his and my mom’s maternal grandmother, Julia Hirschbein, and yes, she was definitely Jewish.
Imitating my dad, who used to always call the Czechs (my mother’s and uncle’s paternal side) “those God-damned Bohunks,” I handed him his dinner and said,
“You’re part Jew, you God-damned Bohunk.”
“Yeah, well, you are, too!” he laughed. That’s the last thing he ever said to me.
Family. Egad. All right, I’m bored with procrastinating. Chapter on corporate taxation, although I know you’ll bore me, here I come.
From a simpler time. Terrible recording. Great bass line is all washed out. Can’t find the 45 I had:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAy8JuLcwMc
Please, oh please, do not post anything else from Procol Harum. I want to be able to forget that they ever existed because they were so boring!!
Not as boring as Poco.
P.S. I still gave you a thumbs up because I always do enjoy reading what you have to say. Excellent, quality stuff!
I hear you LHC. No failure to communicate here.
But at the WH there is one big disconnect w/the American people.
Thanks for kind words.
“But at the WH there is one big disconnect w/the American people.”
Beautiful understatement of the year!
Kind words or not, I wouldn’t want to run into you on a dark debate stage.
What difference did it make that Hillary’s State Dept refused to list Boko Haram as terrorist organization?
It may mean that Islamic organizations will replace the Chinese government as the funder of the Clinton political campaign machine. After all, Hillary has done more to advance the cause of Islam than any other American Secretary of State. Although Kerry is trying.
Hill-larry had her very own Muslim Brotherhoodlem in the person of Huma, whispering in her ear. For years.
And that was never even questioned by anyone in the Mushroom Media.
And with Valerie Jarrett whispering in Obama’s ear, that makes two matched pairs.
The MoBroHoodlums have had carte blanche in this administration.
You have to admire the beauty of the PR blunder….
The Nigeria thing has been out there and ignored by the MSM, White House and State Department for a while. In the meantime, the mainstream media is starting to be a bit embarrassed about ignoring the Benghazi thing. There’s also the possibility that something big was happening and they’re going to look pretty foolish for having continued to ignore it.
Vieter’s “Dude” interview with Brett Baier comes off callous and he accidentally drops a few new morsels that Obama wasn’t actively monitoring the situation that night. Cue Gwen Ifil…. who reminds everyone that this is old news and we should all be focusing on other important stories – like these poor Nigerian girls kidnapped and being sold as sex slaves.
And like magic…. the (incompetent as usual) WH spin machine is all over it and Hillary jumps on board as well. Look at how awesome and brilliant and concerned the hashtag diplomacy is!
Then, oops, seems like someone forgot that Hillary was also responsible for not listing Boko Haram as a terrorist organization because it conflicted with the narrative that the world was safer and Islamic extremism declining because Obama wasn’t Bush 43.
And boom….. now, the scandal is sitting back on top of Hillary times two! Pure PR incompetence!
I feel embarrassed for 2nd Ammendment Mother.
She’s all but admitting she has no idea how 5-dimensional chess is played.
2nd Mom,
5-dimensional chess seems hard, but there’s a trick to it that makes it very easy.
The trick is to get everyone (especially journalists) thinking you know how to play 5-dimensional chess during a campaign, and that they themselves are virtual grandmasters of 4-dimensional chess by virtue of the fact that they early on recognized and called attention to your interdimensional checkmating skills.
Then you get elected and let them find out for themselves you wouldn’t even know your way around an ordinary, everyday, 3-dimensional chessboard if Kasparov had you in a full-Nelson mind meld.
Then, when they start to voice their doubts, (if nothing else, out of sheer embarrassment at having been exposed as gutless, gullible rubes) you get them doubting their doubts by having your little brain-trust pronounce you bored with 5-dimensional chess and everything else in this unenlightened universe.
You run out the clock and everyone moves on and, years go by and new generations are born and their professors have them believe you were doing 8-dimensional chess behind the scenes to combat your boredom, still to no avail. (Like Roosevelt and his polio, you were too ashamed and modest to let the public know, and swore your inner circle to secrecy. You did not want the public any more insecure of themselves than they already were … what with the unemployment and health care situations of the time.)
Some of those kids will leave their lectures inspired to become historians, and your prowess will become legend.
They’ll laugh, and have their readers laughing, at the pedestrian Neanderthals of the time who scratched their heads at your seemingly incomprehensible inability to comprehend two-dimensional thingies, like red lines.
Lines were beneath you. You led from behind. In another dimension. Yet undiscovered, shrouded by another undiscovered dimension.
I could write a book on 5-dimensional chess but, I’m bored.
LukeHandCool (who is procrastinating and who wonders what a TV series teaming George Orwell with Rod Serling would have been like. Luke isn’t sure, but he is sure that it would have bored Barack Obama)
Every time someone sticks a pin in Hillary’s balloon, Elizabeth Warren smiles while Joe Biden asks someone if this is a good thing or not..
…and for another hi-ball…
Aside from what this decision (or, more accurately lack of decision) means regarding the State Dept’s ability to recognize terrorism, is it possible that the administration turned a blind eye because of Iran? Why would the State Dept. lobby against placing these guys on a terror list?
The African terrorists need to get their heavy weaponry and funding from somewhere and we know that Iran is usually happy to oblige. This Tower article describes the inroads Iran is making into African countries.
http://www.thetower.org/article/desperate-for-allies-and-secret-assets-iran-penetrates-africa/
With this bunch it may be no more substantive a reason than a desire not to add to the identified terrorist lists while they are claiming they have all the terrorists on the run. They are just that shallow and self-serving.
this may be an accurate assessment, considering the quality and professionalism of the personnel involved.
http://famousdc.com/2010/06/07/white-house-gone-wild-shirtless-favreau-and-vietors-sundayfunday-beer-pong-match/
lol, aw geez, that’s confidence inspiring.
The real reasons they didn’t want Boko Haram listed as a terrorist group is that a) there was still an election coming in which Obama intended to run on “Osama is dead and GM is alive!” and that the targets of their murders, including burning children alive in dorms, had been directed against Christians and mainly men and boys.
Wimmins is such special creatures to Hillary, you know, so soft, so smooth – and they can have abortions! So she is VERY offended now that the “militants” have crossed the line and kidnapped females.
Hillary and Obama will really take action if the terrorists torch a Planned Parenthood clinic or something, though.
Boko Haram — The “Planned Parenthood” of Nigeria. (“What difference, at this point, does it make if the child is in or out of the womb?!?” [To paraphrase Hillary, and Planned Parenthood, and Barack Obama.])
During a visit to Nigeria in February, former president Bill Clinton commented on the security crisis there by concluding that “it is almost impossible to cure a problem based on violence with violence.” A lasting solution to Boko Haram will require robust political and developmental components initiated by the Nigerian government and broadly endorsed by the Nigerian people through democratic processes that enhance the rule of law.
—As reported in TheCorner
See, we go back to the fundamental stupid of Collectivist thinking…these are law enforcement and social issues.
Pirates (NOT “militants”) are just like street gangs in LA or Chicago. They need a big hug.
I think they need to be killed until they don’t need to be killed.
The issue with Boko Haram has been simmering for several years. The U.S. State Department had been ignoring it for years.
Recently the Muslim regional governors in Nigeria had a meeting with the remainder aka all the Christian leaders. The Muslims were blaming Goodluck and the Christians yet Boko Haram is Muslim!! There is a disconnect right there!!
If the meeting was successful then it would have united all of the leaders to take on Boko Haram. To date that had not happened in Nigeria. They had been blaming each other for the situation.
It is not just the kidnapping of the girls, but also the massacre of more than 300 Nigerian villagers that should be discussed. There needs to be some very serious action against Boko Haram and whoever goes in to take care of them, they need to keep going until all of them are dead.
“Recently the Muslim regional governors in Nigeria had a meeting with the remainder aka all the Christian leaders. The Muslims were blaming Goodluck and the Christians yet Boko Haram is Muslim!! There is a disconnect right there!!”
There is no disconnect. If there is a problem, by (Muslim) definition it can’t have been caused by Muslims. Islam is perfect, and Christians are the descendants of apes, destined to hellfire. Besides, Boka Haram are good Muslims doing what Muhammad’s did, and thus are beyond blame since blaming them would be tantamount to criticizing Muhammad himself, which is a sin punishable by death.
Hillary’s personal assistant and closest advisor, Huma Abedin, was the former head of a designated terrorist organization. Her family tree is a Who’s Who of the leadership of a wide variety of designated terrorist organizations.
Of course, those organizations were designated, officially, as terrorist groups before Hillary became Secretary of State.
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?
Over 350 girls were kidnapped and sold into slavery by this despicable group of Islamists.
Over 300 people were recently slaughtered by this despicable group of Islamists:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2622226/Boko-Haram-terror-group-responsible-kidnapping-300-schoolgirls-slaughter-hundreds-latest-attack-Nigerian-town.html#ixzz312FKZVDb
This is not the first time this despicable group of Islamists have committed such ATROCITIES thanks to despicable Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Hussein Obama, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell and Sorry Soros and their all their obedient complicit media sycophants.
Boko Haram not a terrorist group? The Treasonous Criminal Zerobama Regime’s promotion of Black African Slavery continues. Zerobama is pro-slavery because slavery is still practiced by mohammedans. In addition to supporting Boko Haram, the treasonous criminal Zerobama actually has promoted Black African slavery. He cancelled a number of long standing anti-slavery initiatives, to please his moslem brothers.
Zerobama is the first pro slavery president since Buchanan.
The irony is rich… how much GWB did, and continues to do, to help Africans.