U.S. President Barak Obama announces his nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA. (Photo:Reuters)
President
Obama’s determination to keep his Middle East outreach agenda alive, no
matter how at odds with reality, continues. Yesterday, John
Brennan, Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and
Counter
terrorism, was
nominated to head the CIA, replacing scandal-scarred David Petraeus. “John knows what our national security demands,” Obama announced:
“John has an invaluable perspective on the forces, the
history, the culture, the politics, economics, the desire for human
dignity driving so much of the changes in today’s world…He knows the
risks that our intelligence professionals face every day.”
At best, the 25-year CIA veteran’s record is a mixed bag. At worst,
he becomes another link in the administration’s efforts to normalize
relations with Islamic terrorists.
Brennan was considered to run the CIA after the president was elected for the first time in 2008. But he
withdrew his
name from consideration after critics derided his support for the Bush
administration’s enhanced interrogation techniques, a charge he denied.
“It has been immaterial to the critics that I have been a strong
opponent of many of the policies of the Bush administration such as the
pre-emptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics, to include
waterboarding,” Brennan wrote at the time.
In 2009, Brennan came under fire again, as the result of the colossal
intelligence failure that allowed terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
to board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009, during
which he attempted to detonate an underwear bomb.
Abdulmutallab was able to board the fight despite several red flags, including
intercepted conversations
between Abdulmutallab and American terror cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a
British visa rejection, and a warning from his own father, who went to
the U.S. embassy in Abuja, where he told officials of receiving a letter
in which his son talked about “sacrificing himself.”
After
calls for his resignation, Brennan
responded to the criticism in a
USA Today
editorial. “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded
fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda,” he wrote. ”Terrorists
are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to
instill.”
One suspects those on board Flight 253 might disagree. Yet Brennan
doubled down, and insisted on treating Abdulmutallab as a criminal,
rather than an enemy combatant, contending that it is “naive to think
that transferring Abdulmutallab to military custody would have caused an
outpouring of information. There is little difference between military
and civilian custody, other than an interrogator with a uniform. The
suspect gets access to a lawyer, and interrogation rules are nearly
identical,” Brennan contended.
Brennan further cemented his soft-on-terror credentials only days later in a February 13, 2010
speech at New
York University law school’s Islamic Center. In front of a largely
Muslim audience, he called for trying 9/11 terrorist Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed in a civilian court.
During the same speech, Brennan endorsed the administration’s determination to delete words like “
jihadist” and “war on terror” from its lexicon. “They are not
jihadists, for
jihad
is a holy struggle, an effort to purify for a legitimate purpose, and
there is nothing–absolutely nothing–holy or pure or legitimate or
Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children,” Brennan
insisted. “We are not waging a war against terrorism because terrorism
is but a tactic that will never be defeated, any more than a tactics of
war will.”
In another telling moment, Brennan’s first
referred to
Jerusalem as al-Quds, which is its Arabic name. ”In all my travels the
city I have come to love most is al-Quds, Jerusalem, where three great
faiths come together,” he said.
During the question and answer period, Brennan contended that a 20
percent recidivism rate for terrorists released from Guantanamo Bay
prison “isn’t that bad” when compared to the American penal
system. ”People sometimes use that figure, 20 percent, say ‘Oh my
goodness, one out of five detainees returned to some type of extremist
activity,’” Brennan said. “You know, the American penal system, the
recidivism rate is up to something about 50 percent or so, as far as
return to crime. Twenty percent isn’t that bad.”
That Brennan could compare one-in-five hardcore terrorists returning
to the task of waging war against the West with regular criminals of all
kinds, demonstrates either a monumental level of naiveté, or a
disingenuousness bordering on delusion.
In another speech given in May 2010 at the Nixon Center, Brennan
upped the ante yet again, asserting that that “violent extremists” are victims of “political, economic and social forces.” Reuters
reveals additional comments Brennan made, following his return from Lebanon:
“Hezbollah is a very interesting organization,” Brennan told a
Washington conference, citing its evolution from “purely a terrorist
organization” to a militia to an organization that now has members
within the parliament and the cabinet. ”There is certainly the elements
of Hezbollah that are truly a concern to us what they’re doing. And what
we need to do is to find ways to diminish their influence within the
organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements,” Brennan
said.
Again, one might be forgiven for wondering what constitutes a “moderate” in an organization that has
carried out a series of worldwide terror attacks over the course of decades, yearns for Israel’s annihilation and, prior to 9/11, was
responsible for killing more Americans than any other terrorist organization in the world.
Unfortunately, Brennan’s infatuation with outreach is not limited to Hezbollah. In 2010, columnist Patrick Poole
revealed that
Hamas operative Kifah Mustapha was given a guided tour of the “National
Counterterrorism Center and other secure government facilities,
including the FBI’s training center at Quantico.”
Mustapha was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land foundation
case, during which his colleagues were convicted of funding Hamas, yet
another U.S.-designated terrorist organization. Center for Security
Policy chief Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration official,
demanded Brennan’s
resignation as a result. ”The FBI gave a guided tour of one of our most
sensitive counter-terrorism facilities to a known Hamas operative,”
Gaffney said. “It is clear that the cluelessness fostered by Mr. Brennan
is causing an empowering of the wrong sorts of Muslims in America and
endangering the American people.”
Brennan penchant for revealing America’s secrets continued in 2012.
When the United States thwarted another would-be underwear bomber last
May, Brennan inadvertently
revealed we
had a double-agent working on the case when he briefed former
counter-terrorism advisors who subsequently got work as TV commentators.
He told them that the bomber was never a threat because America had
“inside control” of the situation. The former advisors reached the
inexorable conclusion shortly thereafter.
May was also the month Judicial Watch finally
obtained documents,
via a Freedom of Information Act, from the U.S. Department of Defense
(DOD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA,) revealing that Brennan
and Defense Department officials disclosed to Hollywood filmmakers the
identity of the SEAL Team Six operator and commander involved in taking
out Osama Bin Laden. A transcript of a meeting held July 14, 2011,
reveals that ”documents seemingly reference John O. Brennan, Chief
Counterterrorism Advisor to President Obama and Denis McDonough, who
serves as President Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor.”
“These documents, which took nine months and a federal lawsuit to
disgorge from the Obama administration, show that politically-connected
film makers were giving extraordinary and secret access to bin Laden
raid information, including the identity of a Seal Team Six leader,”
said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is both ironic and
hypocritical that the Obama administration stonewalled Judicial Watch’s
pursuit of the bin Laden death photos, citing national security
concerns, yet seemed willing to share intimate details regarding the
raid to help Hollywood filmmakers release a movie ‘perfectly timed to
give a home-stretch boost’ to the Obama campaign.”
All of the above suggests that John Brennan is, at the least, an
extremely dubious pick to head the CIA. But a story by Associated Press
columnist Kimberly Dozier entitled, “Who Will US Drones Target? Who Will
Decide?”
paints an
even more disturbing picture of Brennan, who she contends has “seized
the lead in guiding the debate on which terror leaders will be targeted
for drone attacks or raids, establishing a new procedure to vet both
military and CIA targets. The move concentrates power over the use of
lethal U.S. force outside war zones at the White House,” she writes. She
further noted that while some intelligence officials are comfortable
with the new process, others expressed concern about ”how easy it has
become to kill someone.”
PJ Media’s Patrick Poole puts it more directly: “John Brennan is the
man under whom President Obama has consolidated the unprecedented power
of assassination. He directly controls and oversees all aspects of the
program that had been previously divided between the Pentagon, the CIA,
and other officials,” he writes.
A soft-on-terror approach, combined with an appetite for
unprecedented powers, makes John Brennan a perfect fit for a president
with the same proclivities. So does a dubious mixture of incompetence
and arrogance.
It remains to be seen whether the Senate thinks such qualities work
for the nation as a whole. Since the Senate is controlled by Democrats,
one suspects that Brennan’s confirmation will be little more than a
formality.
Arnold Ahlert is a former NY Post op-ed columnist. He may be reached at atahlert@comcast.net
This article appeared originally on FrontPageMag.com
