The video below is a snip from a speech given by John Brennan on June 29, 2011. At that point Mr. Brennan was Homeland Security Advisor to President Barack Hussein Obama. He is now the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
In his speech he mocked radical Islam’s “grandiose vision of global domination”:
Mr. Brennan dismissed any threat of a Caliphate with these words:
Our strategy is also shaped by a deeper understanding of al-Qa’ida’s goals, strategy, and tactics. I’m not talking about al-Qa’ida’s grandiose vision of global domination through a violent Islamic caliphate. That vision is absurd, and we are not going to organize our counterterrorism policies against a feckless delusion that is never going to happen. We are not going to elevate these thugs and their murderous aspirations into something larger than they are.
What a difference three years makes!
I haven’t read any comments from the esteemed CIA director since ISIS declared a Caliphate, ethnically cleansed Mosul of its Christian population, besieged the Yezidis on Mount Sinjar, and beheaded James Foley. At a press conference yesterday, however, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were singing a different tune:
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel warned of the threat posed by militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL), calling the group an “imminent threat to every interest we have.”
“They are as sophisticated and well-funded as any group that we have seen. They’re beyond just a terrorist group,” Hagel said at a joint press briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey.
Hagel added: “This is beyond anything we’ve seen. We must prepare for everything.”
[…] Both [Hagel] and Dempsey said ISIS must also be defeated in Syria as well as Iraq.
Dempsey, the U.S.’ top general, said it would be possible to “contain” ISIS, but not without going after the group in Syria.
“This is an organization that has an apocalyptic end-of-days strategic vision that will eventually have to be defeated,” Dempsey said. “Can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organization that resides in Syria? The answer is no.”
One would normally assume that all three top advisors to President Obama would be singing from the same hymnal. Does the CIA view the situation differently from the Pentagon and the DoD? Or has the nature of “violent extremism” actually changed that much in the past three years?
Or is something else at work?
Notice that John Brennan referred only to “Al Qaeda” in his speech. In order to avoid the I-word, Al Qaeda has been named as the enemy ever since the fall of 2001, when George W. Bush declared that our enemy was a band of extremists led by Osama bin Laden that had hijacked a noble religion. As a corollary, any group of Muslims that does not call itself “Al Qaeda” tends to get a free pass. That’s why we could ship arms and cash to the Free Syrian Army, the al-Nusra Front, and all the other jihad groups in Syria who weren’t Al Qaeda. (Yes, I know we did business with Al Qaeda groups in Libya, and probably in Syria, too. But we had to do so secretly — can’t have that stuff getting into the papers.)
And ISIS wasn’t Al Qaeda, so it could be safely ignored. Mind you, it used to be Al Qaeda — it started out as Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by the late renowned militant insurgent Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But by 2011 it had reformed itself, and could be safely admitted into the alliance of Syrian “rebels” that was tasked by our brilliant intelligence operatives with overthrowing the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Well, we all know how that one worked out.
Since ISIS wasn’t Al Qaeda, the nattering nabobs of the Obama administration could pretend they didn’t see all the rapin’ and enslavin’ and beheadin’ and crucifyin’. No matter how many horrible videos were posted on Facebook, no matter how many triumphant jihad tweets were retweeted, the administration was unconcerned.
Until late August 2014, that is. One day the Secretary of Defense woke up and noticed that ISIS was an “imminent threat” to the United States.
So what does an “imminent threat” mean at this late date?
Am I being cynical to think that it means “anything that forces President Obama to come in from the links and speak into the microphone for four minutes before returning to the back nine?”
Or is it maybe something that makes for embarrassing sound bites on the nightly news? The kind of bloody unpleasantness that is hard for the press secretary to spin? And that threatens the re-election of colleagues in Congress?
In any case, the “grandiose vision of global domination” now seems a little less feckless and delusory than it did three years ago. And the officially recognized danger of “violent extremism” has now been extended beyond the imaginary boundaries of “Al Qaeda”.
This entire saga is further evidence that ISIS is a monster of our own making that escaped from our control. The geniuses in charge of our foreign policy probably told each other, “Hey, we know we’re dealing with thugs. But at least they’re our thugs.”
Now we know that the groovy beheaders of ISIS are nobody’s thugs but their own. Or, more precisely: they’re Allah’s thugs.
An afterword
As a reminder of how important the meaning of “is” is, this headline from Arutz Sheva, when processed as an all-caps text feed, reads: “HAGEL: IS AN ‘IMMINENT THREAT’”
Once again, this is why we are reading a lot about the “Islamic State” in media outlets that would otherwise be avoiding JIM like the plague. The meaning of brief snips of text tends to get scrambled unless the full name is used. It makes for an educational opportunity in the MSM that would otherwise have been absent.
Hat tip for the Arutz Sheva article: JP.
Shows you just how hopeless and deluded these people are. The world is in its death throes. I would just like to see these people swinging from a lampost before I go, that’s all.
Nick, that’s all I want, too. Traitorous bastards.
John Brennan is not deluded; he has converted to Islam. Whatever he writes or says from now on, you can be sure is taqiyyah; he is no longer obligated to tell the truth to Americans. He is now committing stealth jihad…working to bring our country down from within our ranks.
You think Barak “Hussein” Obama might be a Moosie too?
No,…. well maybe not, ……..just the usual garden variety Marxist.
Thus spake John Brennan on June 29, 2011. Should we believe him while he comes from a “democracy” or should we believe the so-called “dictator Assad, who two years ago said that what the west was doing in arming the “rebels” amounted to breeding and empowering terrorists.
Ok Now we have ISIS. Who is telling the truth? The one who is lying is the dictator. Or better said any liar/ politician is a dictator. How do we know it is a dictator? Easy: The media dare not tell the truth. Reporters sense what their respective govs. want and adjust their reporting to that and to islamization: the ultimate goal of the western govs.
How could these people still keep their jobs while conducting such satanic, feckless, incompetent, miserable anti-citizens policies is uncanny.
We hear the truth from the horse’s mouth, we see the truth in Boston, Twin Towere, 7/7 London, Madrid . . . and they tell us don’t trust your senses, trust us you have freely elected us so we must be telling the truth.
Hussein selects those who promote his lies, apply his own agenda and philosophies. If not there is always another one who will.
Do you remember during the campaign how Hillary spoke logically and sensibly and reasonably. Amazing. Do you remember her foreign policy? She had no ideas of her own: She carried out whatever was dictated to her by Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. At Home she tell us USA is still the leader of the Free World. When in Istanbul she only listens and sing the diktats of OIC, while it is written in Turkish.
Whatever in the diktats she signs …. she has no choice, and as long as it comes from Turkey it must be good.
You’ll notice the sequence of events here too. There have been innumerable atrocities committed by the Islamic State in particular and jihadists in general yet this one incident – after being in the public domain for a day or so – suddenly is catapulted to prominence. As if nobody had ever seen the like before.
And now – we have politicians saying that the Islamic state is an imminent threat, they’re a real danger, appallingly bad, etc etc.
The truth is that our politicians were waking up to that fact already, so this video was just what they needed to backtrack and go – Oh dearie me! Look at those unpleasant fellows over there in the ME! Aren’t they just awful! Tut, tut …
They have used this video to cover up their previous denials – point at the video as if it is so “shocking” (as if beheading in the name of islam has never been seen before, by George!) – so they can give themselves a bit of wiggle room and bring their narrative closer to reality.
After all, the Islamic state is clearly not going away. So they’re going to have to say something.
It would be nice if they did something too. So they will. Already we hear rumblings that the thing to do is to bring in MORE anti-freedom legislation in the name of “fighting terrorism” so that our liberty is further reduced, and the state is given even more control over our lives. That’s the way to go, according to these politicians who have been lying for years, and are lying still.
It’s worse than the Soviet bloody Union!
Don’t worry folks, Islam will get theirs when they drag Russia into attacking Israel. You should read 2Chronicles how the Jordanian, Syrian, and Iraqi (Edom, Ammon, and Assyria) would march on Israel to pillage it but before they arrived at the border Ya (God Almighty) had them fight amongst themselves to that when Israel’s army showed up to defend Israel there were only dead bodies and no one to fight, only a battlefield to clean up. Fast forward to Ezekiel Chapters 37, 38 & 39. The Jihadist hordes will be ‘sixthed’ as only one-sixth of them will survive to be sent back with their proverbial tails between their legs.
I was listening to Amir Tsarfati yesterday in the car on the way to work and he was talking about Ezekiel 38 & how things are changing shape over in the ME to line up with those events. Very interesting.
I guess you actually believe this stuff.
This is after all the usual pattern of events. Multiple atrocities are committed throughout the world in the name of the false religion islam, and those atrocities and human rights violations are completely ignored by all and sundry. No examination of the way minority religious groups are treated in islamic states run in accordance with shariah law, despite evidence being freely available. No mention of the brutality exhibited every day by misunderstanders of the “religion of peace”. No talk of how the British government established “Londonistan” years ago and we are only now tasting the bitter fruit of that policy of appeasement. And yet …
The Islamic state has now grown to an unstoppable phenomenon that is using social media and other informal outlets to release footage of their march through the ME, heading, as their name indicates, for the Levant (i.e. Israel). Since this is a significant event and it’s clearly not going to fade away, Western politicians have to say something about it.
So they pick a video, any video, of a muslim beheading an infidel, and push it in the media as if the like had never been seen before. And they cause a fuss about it, using awfully fine words to condemn such behaviour etc. (Before returning to the golf course or their holiday in Cornwall, naturally – they’re not that bothered after all.) And so their narrative has shifted a little closer to real life.
In this way, they don’t look like complete numpties who don’t have a clue what is happening in the world today. And just as importantly – they can use this as yet another excuse to do what they have been doing since the eleventh of September 2001:
1. By denying (again) that the Islamic state has anything to do with Islam, they can target anyone who says otherwise, by calling them “racist” and having them lose their livelihood etc. What they’re doing here is identifying citizens who are willing and able to stand up for our traditional Judeo-Christian values – and removing them from the field of play.
2. Draw up even more “anti-terrorist” legislation so they can further decrease our personal liberty and increase state control.
We are all participating in a global battle of good v. evil, whether we like it or not.
THE “NOTHING-TO-DO-WITH-ISLAM”
ISLAMIC STATE
Mr. Cameron knows the relevant fact to relate:
It is the “Nothing-to-do-with-Islam” Islamic State.
It’s a terrorist entity, militant entity,
“Poisonous” ideological entity,
Warping and twisting,
Perverting and smearing and
Misunderstanding and misrepresenting,
A violent extremist and radical state,
He dubs it the “so-called” Caliphate.
I actually heard the TV station say ” beheaded by a muslim militant. There was no mention of terrorist.
Until now we have not hear the words “ethnic cleansing” concerning the cleansing of Christians from Mosul: Real cleansing. How many times did we hear “ethnic cleansing of Albanian Turks” from Kosovo, and they are still there and no one cleansed them. Actually Serbs were cleansed from Kosovo. Western media dare you correct yourself?
Londonistan’s Foreign Affairs Minister opened his mouth and said something very clever that Britain is not ready to ally itself with Bashar Alassad to destroy ISIS.
Are we not safer to have such extraordinary reasonable people with icy nerves and stiff upper lip.
Everything in the west is upside down. LIARS can’t even understand axioms.
The question is can Islamic snuff videos compete with ‘Big Brother’?
The Lee Rigby beheading in Woolwich London failed to arouse British sensibilities to any extent, although there is a seething undercurrent of anti Islam feeling, it has yet to show to any real extent because old traditions die hard, and it is difficult to accept that it is happening again, and it is happening here. Our fathers and Grandfathers fought off the ‘white’ Nazis, it is difficult for the western man in the street to understand that somebody now has to fight off the ‘brown’ Nazis. Israel is already doing it, and getting little by way of thanks, the brainwashing of equality was never applied to Israelis. In the end, Israel is the only country equipped to stop ISIS, but what are western governments doing? sanctions and arms embargos thats what.
So as always don’t look at what governments say, look at what they do.
Lee Rigby’s killers were ISIS minded, and I expect to see ‘moderate’ muslims by the score flocking to the caliphate; “betraying Islam….” (an ‘Islam’ that only exists in the minds of the western elites).
I came across a very interesting question from a commentator whilst browsing through an article in the UK media:
“Why are the Political-Media-Elite in the UK getting so excited about the beheading of a single American in Iraq, when they couldn’t wait to pour cold water on the public reaction to the beheading of a British soldier in Britain, by people of exactly the same creed ?”
Why indeed!
As documentation of the remarks by Tabitha, above, the Blaze reported in February, 2013, that John Guandolo had revealed that Brennan had, in fact, secretly converted to Islam when in Saudi Arabia. What has, since then, so consistently appeared simply feckless and obtuse, in fact adds veracity to that report. A man reputed to be so brilliant and well-informed could not, through simple inadvertence, produce such consistently harmful results. Even the blind squirrel…..well, you know. Of course, the same dissembling is also practiced by his boss, Hussein Obama, but nothing seems to interrupt the torpor of Congress.
Each time I am treated to a statement by the likes of Brennan, I am reminded of the moment I read about the dismissal of Stephen Coughlin from the Pentagon on the grounds that his services (solitary Islam expert) were no longer needed (wanted) while under Gordon England’s questionable judgement, Hisham Islam kept his position (seriously flawed background check). Hisham Islam was the culprit who characterized Coughlin as a
. Gordon on the other hand, ‘the big cheese’ leading this fiasco was also responsible for the first mosques on military property at Quantico and West Point – not to mention his role in promoting Wahabbi trained imams – willfully inflicting the enemy within – criminal beyond words.
Some wounds take longer to heal, and this episode appears to be festering to epidemic proportions.
Well, at least Brennan was speaking of the future, and got it wrong. What about Obama, who is lying while the situation on the ground is plain for all to see. He lied that “situation on Mt. Sinjar is not very bad, so we won’t be going back.” The very next day, the telegraph reported that the situation WAS very bad, and I trust them because they are the first western news agency to put a reporter on Sinjar. It appears Obama is trying to play down the situation there so that he can justify his isolationist policy.
The US has no option at this stage. A pure evil (or pure Islamic, both are the same) group has taken over an entire country. There are slaughters and massacres now happening daily. Soon there will be another catastrophe in Amerli.
Obama, pl. send the troops in now. The IS is a monster beyond anything we have seen for a while. They make Al Qaeda look like peaceful benign kindergarteners.
IS is pure evil. It must be destroyed NOW.
The reaction of the Obama Administration to the murder of James Foley is reminiscent to that of the Carter Administration after William D. Stewart was shot by the Nicaraguan National Guard. The outrage from that killing resulted in the withdrawal of U.S. support for the Somoza Dynasty in that country and its eventual end. Hopefully this killing will result in forcing the U.S. Government to destroy this nascent Caliphate.
Alexander Boot has a good take on what should have been done in Iraq here http://www.alexanderboot.com/content/now-our-family-policy-sorted-let%E2%80%99s-talk-foreign-variety
Yes, indeed. If we observe the behaviour of our Daring LIARS/ politicians you conclude the following: When beheading a British soldier, Britain downplays the atrocity and finds some justification for it. When it happens in America, Americans downplay it. The same happens in Oz or any those progressive lame democracies.
Once elections are over the Daring LIARS” sole goal in life is to promote islamization on every turn in every area and institutions. There is a fervor and an itching enthusiasm in the west to surrender their countries to the beheaders, Saudi Arabia and Turkey– the real movers and shakers of the world.
The EU/US /IS Mad Hatter’s party.
The Islamic resurgence caught official America with its pants down in 1979, in Iran, and officials America has not been able to find the waistband of said allegorical pants every since.
Having worked a few years for the US Dept. of State, I recall a training on Southeast Asia that assured us that “Monsoon Islam” was kinder and gentler than “Desert Islam” (never mind the upsurge in Islamism in Indonesia and Malaysia, or the Moro jurementados who gave our forces a run for the money back in 1902). We were also told how wonderful Sufis were, because they dialogued with Quakers (themselves a band of once-fire-breathing Ranters, Levellers, and Fifth Monarchy Men who had unfortunate run-ins with Cromwell’s Ironsides)–completely ignoring how Sufis were behind a number of anti-Russian and anti-Chinese insurgencies in Central Asia and the Kavkaz; or how they inspired such things as Sudanese Mahdi’ism (save the slave trade!).
Perhaps American education’s trashing its own theological heritage for roughly a century and an elite for whom rejection of any traditional theism is virtually a rite of passage has left our leadership utterly clueless in dealing with the Islamic world. Considering that the journalist Foley was originally held by the Free Syrian Army, the very group the O’s administration wished to aid, I have come to believe that the anti-Christian animus of America’s elite culture and corresponding bewilderment that the Islamic world (with whose elites it got drunk and chased skirt in college) doesn’t follow the same route has actually stupefied the country rather than educated it.
Or, perhaps, the admission to the American literary canon of _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_has made it impossible for any American with intellectual pretensions to perceive of Islam as something unbearably ugly?
America needs a serious counter-Revolution badly.