“COVERING UP WHO THE REAL ENEMY IS”
by Capt. Joseph R. John (Ret.), ©2015, Chairman, CombatVeteransForCongress
(Jan. 12, 2015) — One of the endorsed and newly-elected Combat Veterans For Congress, Rep. Ryan Zinke, Cdr-USN (Ret) (SEAL) (R-MT-1), is the first US Navy SEAL ever elected to Congress. Congressman Zinke has had extensive anti-terrorist training and combat experience including combat operations as a member of SEAL Team SIX. In the below-listed interview with “The Free Beacon” in Washington, DC, Congressman Zinke criticized the Obama administration’s “reckless” six-year approach to defeating radical Islamic Terrorists.
Rep. Zinke said Obama has failed to properly identify those who the US Armed Forces have engaged in combat as radical Islamic terrorists, that the Obama administration has not been taking the right approach to accomplishing its oft-stated goal of defeating ISIL, and that Americans can’t negotiate with Islamic terrorists; they have no interest in negotiating and are interested only in killing Americans. Congressman Zinke said the Obama administration lacks a serious commitment to defeat radical Islamic terrorists, that long-distance air strikes against them have not and will not work, that Obama’s approach to obtaining operational intelligence from terrorist leaders hasn’t worked, that Obama has failed to provide proper logistic support for the Kurds and Sunnis fighting ISIL, and that Obama has not provided the required number of Special Ops Forces to train and coordinate close air support for air strikes to protect the Kurdish and Sunni forces fighting ISIL.
Obama’s approach to dealing with Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders has been to kill them with standoff drone strikes instead of capturing and interrogating them to gain valuable intelligence. Capturing interrogating terrorist leaders would be much more humane than killer drone strikes, which have not decimated the leadership of Al Qaeda because once a leader is killed, the next senior terrorist in training for leadership simply moves up to fill that leadership position. The net result of the six-year drone kill policy, with no boots on the ground to capture and interrogate terrorist leaders, is that Al Qaeda terrorist networks have grown and spread worldwide like wildfire because the US intelligence has no idea what Al Qaeda has been doing with its worldwide expansion plans.
The killing of terrorist leaders with standoff drones has resulted in the inability of the CIA and military front-line intelligence from acquiring the current operational intelligence required to gain strategic advantage on the battlefield. This policy is not only negatively affecting combat personnel on the battlefield, but it is also preventing security personnel in the United States from acquiring the current intelligence required to properly protect the homeland. The Senate and House Select Intelligence Committees should put pressure on the Joint Chiefs of Staff to stop killing intelligence assets with standoff weapons and demand they capture Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist leaders to gain needed current operational intelligence.
Obama changed the Rules Of Engagement (ROE) after he was elected in 2008, making them much more dangerous for U.S. military personnel engaged in combat operations, so that the ROE now favor the enemy rather than the American fighting man. Obama’s new and dangerous ROE are responsible for increasing the number of Wounded In Action (WIA) by 378% since 2008 and the Killed In Action (KIA) by 458% since 2008. The details concerning the percentages of WIA and KIA are further described in the following link http://bit.ly/1gnvgzp. The US Senate and House Armed Services Committees should put pressure on the Joint Chiefs of Staff to roll back the ROE to the ROE previously employed by Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.
In 2013, during many campaign speeches, Obama repeatedly stated that Osama Bin Laden is dead and knowingly lied when he said Al Qaeda had been defeated. By refusing to properly secure the wide-open southern border from the incursion of radical Islamic terrorists as it was once secured during World War II, Obama has facilitated the easy entry of terrorists into the United States to set up sleeper cell killer networks for six years. The US Senate and House Committees on Homeland Security must use the power of the purse to force DHS to hire enough Border Patrol Agents to properly secure the southern border.
By dramatically reducing the strength of the most effective U.S. military combat force in history, Obama has created a much weaker U.S. armed force, and the void that has been created has encouraged Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Iran, Hezbollah, Communists, and the New Black Panthers to grow the size and strength of their terrorist networks throughout the world and within the United States. By releasing 28 of the world’s most dangerous terrorists from Gitmo in 2014 (who intelligence agencies report will return to the battlefield to kill U.S. military personnel), Obama is demonstrating what Congressman Zinke termed his “reckless” approach to dealing with and identifying radical Islamic terrorists as the enemies of all American citizens. The Senate and House Armed Services Committee must force DOD to stop violating federal laws that were enacted to prevent the release of dangerous terrorists from Gitmo, and they must also use the power of the purse to rearm and expand the U.S. Armed Forces.
For six years, the Obama administration has been using the word “intolerance” to try to force federal agencies of the US government, the US military, the FBI, the CIA, and the Intelligence Services from properly labeling the enemies of the United States as radical Islamic terrorists—in fact, the words “Islamic” and “The Muslim Brotherhood” have been purged from all military and FBI counterterrorist publications and courses on terrorism. We witnessed how Hillary Clinton and Obama lied when they said the attack on the US Mission in Benghazi, Libya was the result of an anti-Islamic video that was never broadcast in Libya. The Obama administration’s approach to preventing anyone from identifying the enemies of the United States as Islamic terrorists has permitted Islamic front groups in the United States to continue to use the by-word “intolerance” to brow-beat the news media, federal agencies, state agencies, and religious groups from using the word “Islamic” when referring to the Islamic enemies of the United States.
For over six years, Obama has been turning a blind eye toward the genocide being perpetrated on innocent and defenseless Assyrian Christian men, women, and children by radical Islamic terrorists in order to wipe out the Assyrian people in their ancestral homeland, their Christian religion, and their ancient culture. The Pope, the UN Secretary-General, the British Royal Family in England, the Prime Minister of Egypt, the Prime Minister of France, The Prime Minister of Germany, the Prime Minister of Italy, the Prime Minister of Australia, many other world leaders, and religious leaders have demanded that the murders, beheading, burying people alive, cutting off hands, cutting the bodies of children in half, and crucifying Assyrian Christian women and children in Syria and in Iraq cease.
The Obama administration has been trying for six years, with the help of the liberal media establishment, to prevent educational institutions, state agencies, the American people, and federal agencies from referring to the enemies of the United States as radical Islamic terrorists. Instead, they have been using the politically-correct words “extremists,” “lone-wolf terrorists,” and “homegrown violent extremists.”
Sun Tzu stated to defeat your enemy, you must “Know your Enemy”; the Obama administration has been trying to cover up who the real enemy of the United States is. Even though the Obama administration has tried to force the US Military, the FBI, the CIA, the Intelligence Agencies, and religious organizations to use politically-correct names to identify the enemies of the United States instead of using the correct term of “radical Islamic terrorists,” but it has not worked; they are being referred to as radical Islamic terrorists.
Joseph R. John, USNA ‘62
Capt USN(Ret)
Chairman, Combat Veterans For Congress PAC
2307 Fenton Parkway, Suite 107-184
San Diego, CA 92108
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/zinke-obama-foreign-policy-provides-fuel-for-terrorism/