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Aiding and Abetting a Real War (Oliver North)
Creators Syndicate ^ | October 21, 2011 | Oliver North

Posted on 10/20/2011 5:29:37 PM PDT by jazusamo

PIERRE, S.D. — The good news about Moammar Gadhafi's demise arrived via my cellphone early Thursday morning. A friend from the Reagan administration, remembering the Libyan dictator's attempt to kill my family, called to let me know and added, "You must be very glad to see this day." But it doesn't seem to be a time for celebration.

Most of the Libyan people seem to be rejoicing — and with good reason. They suffered the most under the egomaniacal despot. But unless you are a U.S. Air Force, Navy or Marine pilot who had to brave anti-aircraft fire in Operation Odyssey Dawn, Moammar the Magnificent hasn't posed a serious threat to Americans for years. Now, thanks to the Obama administration's "no boots on the ground" policy for war fighting, America and our allies may actually be more vulnerable.

Members of the O-Team are busy backslapping and giving one another high-fives for their brilliant "no American casualties" strategy. They hope we forget that this mission, which began March 19, was supposed to be over "in days, not weeks." And they surely do not want it widely known that thousands — perhaps tens of thousands — of man-portable surface-to-air missiles are missing from Libyan ordnance depots. Now consider the "message."

President Barack Obama and our State Department are big on sending "messages." For months, they have been telling us that Gadhafi would fall because that's the inevitable result of brutal repression. They claim that the collapse of his regime sends a message to any government that spawns terror and denies basic human freedoms to a subjugated people. But that's not the lesson learned by the theocrats in Iran.

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the indictment of four Iranians for conspiring with a Mexican drug cartel to murder the Saudi ambassador — and perhaps a hundred or more Americans with a bomb planted in a Washington, D.C., restaurant. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton then told us this plot was a "dangerous escalation of the Iranian government's long-standing use of political violence and sponsorship of terrorism." Apparently, the O-Team didn't notice that the plotters allegedly received "go ahead" orders from Tehran to carry out the attack well after the "Arab spring" revolts were toppling and threatening authoritarian leaders throughout the Middle East. And anyone paying attention for the past 32 years should know that mass murder is hardly a new tactic for Tehran's ayatollahs.

Iran has been waging war against the U.S. and its allies since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urged Islamic radicals to sack the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979. Within months of consolidating power, they began exporting their Islamic Revolution and initiated attacks on regime defectors and dissidents in more than a dozen countries — including the U.S.

In Lebanon, operatives of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commenced building Hezbollah, a full-scale underground movement to "expel foreigners" and seize control of the country. In April 1983, Hezbollah terrorists detonated a truckload of explosives in front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. That was just the beginning.

Twenty-eight years ago this week, 241 U.S. Marines, sailors and soldiers were killed when a Hezbollah terrorist — trained and equipped by Iran — drove an explosive-laden truck into the U.S. Marine barracks at the Beirut airport. A nearly simultaneous attack on a French military barracks killed nearly 60 paratroopers. The suicide bombings were followed by a wave of kidnapping, hostage taking and murder. They grabbed American missionaries, journalists, academics and a hospital administrator, and they tortured and murdered the CIA's station chief in Beirut and a U.S. Marine colonel.

In the aftermath of al-Qaida's attacks on 9/11, Tehran stepped up its action against the U.S. Since October 2001, every U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan has warned of Iranian support for terror actions against our forces hunting down the remnants of al-Qaida and the Taliban regime. In Iraq, members of the IRGC have been captured while carrying out attacks on U.S. personnel and supporting Shiite terror organizations.

In 2007, our Fox News team arrived in Hillah, Iraq — a predominantly Shiite city on the banks of the Euphrates River — days after the provincial police chief, Lt. Gen. Qais Hamza al-Mamouri, was assassinated. He had built an effective police force, which provided security for all Iraqi citizens regardless of religion. Local citizens told us they had no doubt who had killed their beloved general: "It was the Iranians." On that same trip, special operators showed us sophisticated and deadly Iranian-built explosively formed penetrators designed to destroy any armored vehicle in the U.S. inventory.

Now, with U.S. forces set to withdraw from Iraq by the end of the year, U.S. and NATO commanders expect to see even more Iranian activity in Afghanistan. International Security Assistance Force and Afghan officials repeatedly warn that Tehran harbors, trains and equips insurgents and violent criminal elements involved in the opium trade. Despite claims of "religious purity," Iran has one of the world's highest drug abuse rates in the world.

Meanwhile, the U.S. border is a virtual "superhighway" for drug and human smuggling into the U.S. That's why Iranians plotting with Mexican drug cartels is so plausible. They understand how vulnerable our southern frontier has become. The Obama administration has to hope that a Libyan missile in the hands of an Iranian terrorist never makes its way into the U.S.

Celebrating the violent end of Gadhafi may make the O-Team happy. But it doesn't make us any safer. Failing to secure our border may well prove to be a case of aiding and abetting our enemies.



TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: dogofislam; iran; libya; mutthamad; obama; olivernorth

1 posted on 10/20/2011 5:29:39 PM PDT by jazusamo
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To: 2rightsleftcoast; abner; ACAC; advertising guy; amom; AnalogReigns; Anoreth; Arkinsaw; ...
OLIVER NORTH PING!

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Please Freepmail me to be added to the Ollie North ping list.

2 posted on 10/20/2011 5:32:20 PM PDT by jazusamo (The real minimum wage is zero: Thomas Sowell)
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To: jazusamo

North needs to remember that Col. Kadaffi was military man too, and knew the consequences of his actions. Being capped in a drainage culvert at age 69 is the price he paid. Game over.


3 posted on 10/20/2011 5:43:05 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: jazusamo

Ronald Reagan was the best president of the last 100 years but his allowing Iran to bet by with murdering so many Americans was a total embarrassment.


4 posted on 10/20/2011 5:44:43 PM PDT by yarddog
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To: SpaceBar

I believe you missed the point of the article. Go back and read it again.


5 posted on 10/20/2011 5:51:24 PM PDT by calex59
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To: calex59

I get it. No normal person is “celebrating”. Relief that the sob is dead might be more accurate.


6 posted on 10/20/2011 5:55:12 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: yarddog

I have to agree but I also have to wonder if the hostages being released as soon as he took office may have had anything to do with him not coming down hard on Iran. Just a thought.


7 posted on 10/20/2011 5:55:28 PM PDT by jazusamo (The real minimum wage is zero: Thomas Sowell)
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Please bump the Freepathon or click above and donate or become a monthly donor!

8 posted on 10/20/2011 5:56:40 PM PDT by jazusamo (The real minimum wage is zero: Thomas Sowell)
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To: SpaceBar

I’d like to know what all those decorations that the late Libyan dictator wore on his tunic were for. They looked pretty impressive.


9 posted on 10/20/2011 6:09:34 PM PDT by Ax
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To: jazusamo

Thanks for the ping, Jaz. I remember the role that Gadhafi played in the release of 21 people who had been taken hostage by the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines in 2000. According to an account by a member of President Estrada’s administration who served as a negotiator, Gadhafi sent $25 million to ransom the hostages. None of the hostages was from Libya so I never understood why Gadhafi was so generous.


10 posted on 10/20/2011 6:11:25 PM PDT by Ben Hecks (I support arms control - all law enforcement officers should carry handcuffs)
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To: SpaceBar
Col. Kadaffi was military man too

He sure took pleasure in reminding everyone of it with the uniforms that he wore.

11 posted on 10/20/2011 6:19:50 PM PDT by jazusamo (The real minimum wage is zero: Thomas Sowell)
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To: Ben Hecks

That is strange, Ben. Perhaps a guilty conscience if he had a conscience or perhaps hoping for some insurance should the day come similar to today but from the outside. I really have no clue but he wasn’t a stupid person, he may have realized he’d gone too far in the past.


12 posted on 10/20/2011 6:27:26 PM PDT by jazusamo (The real minimum wage is zero: Thomas Sowell)
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To: Ax
Most were for dying in a drainage ditch....awarded pre-drainage ditch...They're all legitimate now....
13 posted on 10/20/2011 6:28:33 PM PDT by M-cubed
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To: M-cubed

I’m sure one of them was for directing Operation Manta in 1984. The Libyans had invaded Chad because in the northern part of that country, in the Sahara, there were some significant deposits of some strategic ores. The French stepped in and eventually the Libyans retreated.


14 posted on 10/20/2011 6:58:00 PM PDT by Ax
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Name Another Site Where You Can Get As Much Information

Can't Think Of One?

Then Why Don't You Donate

15 posted on 10/20/2011 7:06:37 PM PDT by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are here! What will you do?)
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To: jazusamo

Thanks for the ping jaz. Seems some in commentary missed the point that Libyan missiles are missing, and our border is wide open.


16 posted on 10/20/2011 7:15:23 PM PDT by rockinqsranch (Dems, Libs, Socialists, call 'em what you will, they ALL have fairies livin' in their trees.)
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To: SpaceBar
Being capped in a drainage culvert at age 69 is the price he paid.

Plenty of people die in a drainage culvert or elsewhere, far younger than 69 and not after 40 years of living in luxury. Gaddhafi paid the price, but on purely economic grounds he did exceedingly well in his life.

My guess is that he loved it all, peace and war, and he wanted to die in battle. Otherwise he could have escaped on many occasions, just his family members and servants did.

17 posted on 10/20/2011 7:19:24 PM PDT by Greysard
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To: rockinqsranch

Right on, rqsr. Those shoulder fired ground to air missiles could and probably will come back to bite us for years. It’s a really big deal, here and world wide for our military and civilian flights.


18 posted on 10/20/2011 7:22:28 PM PDT by jazusamo (The real minimum wage is zero: Thomas Sowell)
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