Terrorist traded for traitor fighting again?
One of the five Islamic terrorist that President Barack Obama released from Guantanamo Bay and traded for United States Army deserter Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is reportedly returning to militant jihadist activity in Qatar.
Information gathered by the U.S. military and intelligence community is pointing to evidence that one of the five detainees the Obama administration traded for Bergdahl last May is making efforts to rejoin Islamic terrorist circles in Qatar, according to a CNN report.
The White House is now assessing the situation to determine the seriousness of this new potential threat it unleashed last year — now debating how many of the five released terrorists are rejoining jihadist efforts.
Even though officials would not divulge which one of the released terrorists is back to his jihadist activities, it has been confirmed that one of them has “reached out” in recent months to other jihadist operatives in an attempt to incite more acts of terrorism. Information on the five militants is continually being retrieved through a program set up by U.S. intelligence officials to covertly intercept and track all of the jihadists’ communications in Qatar.
Officially designated in the “suspected” category for information collected that points to his re-engagement in terrorist or insurgent activities, the former Gitmo prisoner in question is said to raise much more than mere suspicions. A number of officials now contend that the Obama administration is currently considering raising the “suspected” level — as they deem the evidence of the terrorist returning to illegal activities strong enough to categorize him as “confirmed.”
During this heightened alert, the communications of each of the five terrorists are being more tightly traced, even though an official indicated to CNN that there isn’t a current threat. This assurance has not been received by many with great confidence, considering that the administration adamantly promised that the “Taliban 5” from Gitmo would be closely monitored from the get-go and kept from rejoining jihadist efforts — whether through returning to the battlefield or recruiting militants on the Internet for future insurgent Islamic attacks.
But Hillary Clinton doesn’t seem to think that the Taliban 5 pose any kind of a security threat to America as long as they remain in Qatar.
"As long as they're in Qatar, they’re not a threat to the United States,” Clinton assured, according to Townhall. “In Qatar, with an agreement that has been entered into, they are supposed to be constrained from what they can do, and certainly, they are not supposed to be permitted to travel. That is — as my understanding tells me — what the deal is, and in that situation, they are not a threat.”
Clinton has not yet explained how recruiting jihadists via the Internet to wage war against infidels on a global scale is not a threat to America.
White House: Taliban not a terrorist group
In its latest attempt to explain away why it refuses to name its enemy after recently declaring that Islamic State (ISIS) isn’t Islamic, the Obama administration just proclaimed that the Taliban isn’t a terrorist organization — they merely “pursue terror attacks.”
When ABC’s Jon Karl asked White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz why it condemned Jordan for making a deal with ISIS for hostages while praising Obama’s deal with the Taliban for Berghdal, Shultz argued that the Taliban was just an “armed insurgency” — not a terrorist group. He used this so-called explanation to justify Obama’s negotiation of Bergdahl for the Taliban 5 as perfectly acceptable, stating that at the end of any war, prisoner swaps are commonplace.
Karl bounced back the next day with a follow-up question to the Obama administration’s problematic reasoning.
"Yesterday it was said that the United States government, that the White House, does not consider the Taliban to be a terrorist organization,” Karl said, setting up his inquiry. “I'm just wondering how that is consistent with what I believe is the designation that the Treasury Department has on its list of Specially Designated Terrorist Groups, which clearly lists the Taliban. So, does the administration consider the Taliban a terrorist organization or not?"
Justifying Obama’s illegal deal with terrorists?
Continuing another round of doublespeak from the administration, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was prepared for another round-about explanation.
"Jon, the reason that the Taliban is listed on this description that you have put forward here, is for two reasons,” Earnest began. “One is they do carry out tactics that are akin to terrorism. They do pursue terror attacks in an effort to advance their agenda and by designating them in the way that you have described, does allow the United States to put in place some financial sanctions against the leaders of that organization in a way that has been beneficial to our ongoing efforts against the Taliban."
The splitting of hairs and tying of knots continued.
"Now what is also true, though, is that it is important to draw a distinction between the Taliban and al Qaeda,” Earnest continued. “The Taliban has resorted to terror tactics, but those terror tactics have been principally focused on Afghanistan … Al Qaeda is an organization that has aspirations beyond just the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al Qaeda and its affiliates around the globe have sought to carry out terror attacks against Americans and American interests all around the globe. And that explains the difference between the classification[s]."
Townhall’s Conn Carroll points outthe deceptive language used by Earnest.
“First of all, note that Earnest declined to use Karl's ‘Specially Designated Terrorist Groups’ description of the Treasury's terror lists,” Carroll notes. “Instead, Earnest refers to it as ‘listed on this description that you have put forward here’ and ‘by designating them in the way that you have described.’”
Carroll argues that manipulative rephrasing aside, Earnest doesn’t have a leg to stand on in his argument geared to justify Obama’s illegal terrorist-for-traitor swap.
“The list in question is referred to by the Treasury Department as the Specially Designated Nationals List, which Treasury says ‘lists individuals, groups and entities, such as terrorists and narcotics traffickers’ whose assets have been frozen by Treasury,” Carroll asserts. “Is the Taliban on this because of their narcotics trafficking? No.”
Another flaw in Earnest’s contention is brought to light.
“As Earnest admits, the Taliban does ‘pursue terror attacks in an effort to advance their agenda,’ and the Obama administration uses this Treasury list to ‘place some financial sanctions against the leaders of that organization in a way that has been beneficial to our ongoing efforts against the Taliban,’" Carroll explains. “So if the Taliban carries out terror attacks, and the Obama administration uses those terror attacks as justification to freeze their assets, why aren't the Taliban terrorists?”
According to further analysis, Earnest’s response to Karl was anything but earnest.
“Earnest says the Taliban are not terrorists because their ‘terror tactics have been principally focused on Afghanistan,’ while al Qaeda attacks American interests around the globe,” Carroll recounted. “But the official State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations is chock-full of lots of groups that only focus on local grievances — the Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA), the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and the Irish Republican Army are just some of the terrorist groups listed by the State Department that are ‘principally focused’ on local disputes.”
Looking at the Obama administration’s dealing with the whole Taliban 5 situation, only one conclusion can be made, which Carroll candidly presents.
“The reality is that Obama does consider the Taliban a terrorist group, but he just can't admit it because then his trade for Bergdahl would violate America's longstanding principle against negotiating with terrorists for hostages,” Carroll concludes.
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