Obama’s secret ransom payment
Now it’s coming out how the release of the Iranian hostages was arranged: the WSJ has reported that Obama paid a ransom of $400 million for them and kept it secret.
…[N]negotiators originally established a formula of people for people: American nationals held by Iran for Iranian nationals held by America. But then the Iranians started demanding billions of dollars as well. Iranian officials later bragged they coerced the ransom out of U.S. diplomates…
Lawmakers have been pressing the administration for six months to provide more details about how and where the money went, among other things because Iran has been transferring money for military purposes. They’ve made little progress…
Tehran went back to arresting American hostages after releasing the last round, and are now seeking another billion dollar deal in the last six months of the administration…
This is sickening. And yet, given what we already know about the groveling the administration did during the negotiations in their desperate desire to get a deal and to seem to be getting something out of the deal, it makes perfect sense that this was the way it was accomplished. The US has had a long-standing policy against paying ransoms for the simple reason that they encourage more hostage-taking, but I guess they can violate their own rules with impunity because, after all, who’s going to stop them?
Hillary Clinton’s hands are probably clean on this one, since she was already out of office when it happened.
Think of it as tribute.
It speaks ill of those Americans, “nationals” or otherwise who put their lives and safety at risk while travelling to Iran. More hostages taken. No surprise. Stupidity. It comes in all flavors.
Yeah, this is a coincidence. That Americans swallow anything forwarded by this, Community Organizer, agitator, race-baiter, race-hustler, is further proof of this country having received what it deserved.
The action fits squarely with the pattern marked by Michael Doran in his Feb 2015 article:
http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2015/02/obamas-secret-iran-strategy/
Which you’ve posted about.
“It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: —
“Though we know we should defeat you,
we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.”
— Rudyard Kipling (of course)
Daniel in Brookline,
Read the Doran article I linked at 4:23 pm. It’s worse than that.
What is Val Jarrett’s cut?
We are paying Iran to kill Americans in Iraq and Jews in Israel.
On the fool or knave issue, this is worse than a knave. Obama is on Iran’s side.
And all those GE and Boeing salespeople in Iran are now subject to kidnapping.
Obama has now established that he was unfit to be President.
Maybe Trump can get a Gold Star parent whose child was killed by an IED made in Iran to talk about Obama’s Iran policy.
Eric, Daniel in Brookline, and Cornhead,
In the same context, you may be interested in reading “The Mind of the President”, by David Hazony, at http://www.thetower.org/article/the-mind-of-the-president/.
Intention, not incompetence.
My understanding is that the $400 million is just the first part of the $1.7 billion Obama will be paying the mullahs. The justification is that this settles a long standing case between the U.S. and Iran. I strongly suspect that the Obama administration dropped it’s legal dispute with Iran as a means of providing a monetary incentive, to get the Ayatollah to agree to Obama’s nuclear ‘deal’… it is indeed a payoff but with… deniability.
Michael in Pennsylvania,
Good recommendation. I am interested in the Hazony article because I’ve read it.
In my references, the Hazony and Doran articles are bundled together with Kyle Orton’s detailed reaction to Jeff Goldberg’s The Atlantic article on Obama, same subject:
https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2016/03/11/barack-obama-comes-clean/
In general, Kyle Orton is a must-read for his extensive sharp analysis on ISIS and the Syria crisis, and his research on the Saddam regime’s terrorism.
I second your recommendation with the Hazony article and add Orton’s post to the reading list.
Eric,
Thanks for that link. I’ve followed some of this, but Doran’s article ties it all together. Meanwhile here at home, Obama distracts the public with BLM and transgenderism. and Trump has fights with Cruz, Ryan, and Khan.
Cornhead:
If Trump was sharp he would do just that.
I told people Hussein Obola gets a big phat smile on his face whenever Americans are tortured or killed. This is merely part of the intentional package. It is not misguided or unintentional, which is why the Left is evil, not merely a political opponent.
What’s pathetic is how many Americans believe and still believe in the Lightbringer.
Any of those already have blood on their hands, no matter their protestations of innocence or politics. Such a nation will be saved by an election? As if that would ever happen.
This is of a piece with Kennedy’s Cuban Missile Crisis, which involved the dismantling of missiles in Turkey that was kept secret for years.
The press can no longer be trusted to tell the truth.
Mostly ignored by CNN. Completely ignored by MSNBC. If GWB did this they would run hour specials.
Eric,
Thank you for the link to Kyle Orton’s blog. I just skimmed his essay, which I’ll certainly fully read.
Upon considering this discussion, I’m reminded of a podcast I listened to — literally two days ago, talk about synchronicity! — by (once again!) Michael Doran, concerning Elie Kedourie’s 1970 book, “The Chatham House Version and Other Middle Eastern Studies” (available in PDF at Archive.org). Specifically, Doran zeroes in upon Kedourie’s analysis of the late Arnold Toynbee, who is seen to embody and typify, in the context of the immediate post-WW II decades, the ideology and agenda of significant portions of mid-twentieth-century Western intellectual and diplomatic elites via-a-vis “the West”, and the Islamic world.
The podcast (at https://tikvahfund.org/library/podcast-michael-doran-on-western-elites-and-the-middle-east/) is about 48 minutes long, and the “money quote”, among several worthy quotes, appears at about the 15-minute mark.
Namely: “His major message about the Middle East is really very simple, and it’s very familiar to anyone, who’s been following events at that time. And that is, the west is guilty. The West went and conquered and took over alien peoples, and thereby sowed the seeds of further conflict. He [Arnold Toynbee] is, for all this incredible cerebration and learned references, a mainstream British radical when it comes to British imperialism in the Middle East.”
In this sense, the American President’s agenda vis-é -vis Iran shows a remarkable consistency with longstanding patterns of Western intellectual thought; his progenitors and influences have antecedents far beyond Reverend Jeremiah Wright, or, his intellectual circle and backers from Chicago.
In the same way that his re-election and continuing acceptance by much of the American electorate reveals more about that electorate as such, than simply about the President himself as an individual, so too does his international agenda reveal something disillusioning about what’s become of “The West”.
Hey, well, just look at what’s become of Western Europe…
(Thanks for telling me about Orton.)
Cornhead:
“Maybe Trump can get a Gold Star parent whose child was killed by an IED made in Iran to talk about Obama’s Iran policy.”
Neo:
“If Trump was sharp he would do just that.”
Just as it’s necessary for the Benghazi controversy to have traction for the public, for this suggestion to have traction first requires reframing the whole context of the discourse on ME affairs by setting the record straight on the Iraq intervention and de-stigmatizing OIF.
With the context reframed, the impactful narrative is the US soldier honorably, humanely, lawfully, and justly – heroically – building a revolutionary peace with Iraq during the OIF peace operations, opposed by the same terrorist Iran now wreaking havoc in Iraq and Syria with Obama’s complicity, causing more harm than ISIS.
The US soldier’s sacrifice for the peace alongside his Iraqi partners was upheld with the OIF Surge, but was subsequently betrayed by Obama’s radical course deviation that betrayed progressing strategic partner Iraq in order to empower terrorist Iran.
Join the gold-star parents of the US soldier peace builder with their son’s Iraqi partners, all betrayed by Obama.
Cornhead:
Iran-Contra?
expat Says:
“Thanks for that link.”
You’re welcome. Neo posted about Doran’s article when it was published. Events since have further substantiated the pattern Doran marked.
Michael in Pennsylvania:
“Thanks for telling me about Orton.”
You’re welcome. A lot of good stuff on Orton’s blog. He writes for academic and journalist publications, too, but his best stuff is on his blog.
Some more recommendations:
https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2016/07/06/donald-trump-is-wrong-again-saddam-hussein-supported-terrorism/
https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/a-myth-revisited-saddam-hussein-had-no-connection-to-al-qaeda/
https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2015/12/12/the-islamic-state-was-coming-without-the-invasion-of-iraq/
Cornhead Says:
August 3rd, 2016 at 5:19 pm
What is Val Jarrett’s cut?
We are paying Iran to kill Americans in Iraq and Jews in Israel.
On the fool or knave issue, this is worse than a knave. Obama is on Iran’s side.
* *
It is becoming very easy to believe that.
* * *
Geoffrey Britain Says:
August 3rd, 2016 at 5:53 pm
My understanding is that the $400 million is just the first part of the $1.7 billion Obama will be paying the mullahs. The justification is that this settles a long standing case between the U.S. and Iran. I strongly suspect that the Obama administration dropped it’s legal dispute with Iran as a means of providing a monetary incentive, to get the Ayatollah to agree to Obama’s nuclear ‘deal’… it is indeed a payoff but with… deniability.
* * *
This is right out of the same playbook as the EPA encouraging environmentalists to sue over some policy and then AGREE to a settlement; no one is actually fighting for the public or the (you know, legislated) law.
the traditional Muslim bribe, the baksheesh, which, depending on the value of the deal, can involve millions of dollars.
This came up in articles about Khan
Khan co-founded the Journal of Contemporary Issues in Muslim Law, an academic periodical that seeks to defend the arcane Sharia law to a legal system based on Western jurisprudence. Of course, Sharia law justifies the execution of gays, prostitutes, blasphemers, and Muslim “apostates” who convert to other religions.
We are paying Iran to kill Americans in Iraq and Jews in Israel.
That’s OK… Back in the day, Cruz CFR campaign man was pardoned for creating the crack epidemic to fund Oliver north in south America and pay/force Israel to supply weapons to Iran…
Same old same old when the job is not representation but compact and collision for power and gain and ideology…
(Notice how much under the guise of cause impropriety we abandoned and never really had, the conspiracy to control the elective outcome
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-23/1967-he-cia-created-phrase-conspiracy-theorists-and-ways-attack-anyone-who-challenge
In 1967, the CIA Created the Label “Conspiracy Theorists” … to Attack Anyone Who Challenges the “Official” Narrative
The dispatch was produced in responses to a Freedom of Information Act request by the New York Times in 1976.
Copy of the document can be seen
But if your forgot the article from way back when, then you believe what????
Very very interesting article on how we the people have been gamed and think that state of mind is normal
Two days ago they announced the effort to paint Trump as insane and I have been watching the collectives start to insert the theme and make it true into a failure consensus a la dialoguing
Wake up… Most with any mental issues end up quickly in poverty
Not successful with a false front public image that contradicts what those who have personal experience say and know!!!!
Wake up!!!
Baksheesh or bagsheesh is tipping, charitable giving, and certain forms of political corruption and bribery in the Middle East and South Asia.
So I’m very familiar with these things personally from family and travel in those areas… It’s a formalized way corruption exists next to other things without question of its morality (usually)
Out ignorance and us to be played through our emotional custom…s which makes us believe we are right even if it’s wrong… In fact, we have been told wrong custom or partial custom removing exceptions and conditions that would allow us to think right
Children are to be protected by matter what sounds great until you meet one that is stoned and made into a killing machine… The exceptions removed and replaced by an absolute leaves one defenseless or hesitant where others without that have no issue
Same with Khan… Even neo silent time trying to imagine it if nothing something that would negate the Sharia law the couple follows and promoted with their money as an explanation because it would make Trump mean, not more knowledgeable about Islam and so do protection… In case you have no idea, trunk has many businesses deals in Islamic area and has to know the Sharia rules to conduct it
Neo and others forgot when devotion was normal and lack of whether to tenets now normal was considered very bad… The lens of secular western pseudo believe and personal version has people protecting their lack and cheating as normal to people that do not do that
Our troops caught by Iran sang like birds in the sun, divulged anything and everything to the embarrassment of the old timers… Yet Christians knowing they will be horribly tortured and makes to death, choose death in the middle East… Even children have more adherence and belief willing to die rather than say what is asked
His wife did not talk because he and she followed tenets in a way Westerners rarely understand any more to the point that they can’t believe this to be normal when they think someone crazy or extreme who follow such to that end…
They be playing your arse like a fiddle in the hands of the devil
You do not promote Sharia when you dont adhere…
And you should not ignore the lies to the face of two mom’s side children die in Benghazi as being nothing compared to a person fighting fire with fire when attacked ignoring the self serving debasement of the attackers abuse of their own child heroism fit the gain of depotism and imposition of Sharia
“Hillary Clinton’s hands are probably clean on this one, since she was already out of office when it happened. ”
Yes, but this isn’t the first time the Obama administration met the Iranians’ ransom demands when they’ve taken Americans hostage.
http://www.wsj.com/video/iran-sets-bail-for-two-americans/37E780F3-A1E3-4249-AD2A-1F41AE701FE4.html
This was in 2011 and HIllary was definitely Secretary of State at the time the administration paid the $500k ransom for each of the hostages. And, yes, I realize the press reported the payments as “bail,” but bail is a security payment that guarantees the accused will show up for trial.
1) People out on bail awaiting trial are not allowed to leave the country, especially in Iran.
2) The two male hikers were no longer awaiting trial; they had already been convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison illegal entry and espionage.
It was a ransom, pure and simple. But in 2011 the Iranians weren’t quite sure what they were dealing with so they were willing to call it bail to help Obama and Clinton save face. By January 2016 they realized Obama is so weak and feckless that he’d do what they demanded, no face saving gestures required. They were free to be openly contemptuous.
And as Secretary of State Clinton’s hands could not have been clean on that occasion. She would have had to been involved negotiating with the Swiss (and the Swiss also helped with this latest ransom payment) who have a US interests section in their Tehran embassy to help US nationals in Iran and with the Omanis who acted as Obama/Clinton’s bag men and transferred the funds from the USG to the Mullahs.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/hikers-josh-fattal-shane-bauer-held-hostage-iran/story?id=14601130
“…They were accused of spying and last month Fattal and Bauer were sentenced to eight years in prison. ”
Again, people convicted of crimes and have already been sentenced are not released on bail. They are released upon payment of the ransom.
The Obama administration has been pursuing the federal takeover of local police right under Congress’ nose – and Republicans in Congress were apparently unaware it was happening.
The consent decrees are already being implemented in Newark, New Jersey; Miami, Florida; Los Angeles, California; Ferguson, Missouri; Chicago, Illinois; and other municipalities.
Here’s how it works: the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice files a lawsuit in federal court against a city, county, or state, alleging constitutional and civil rights violations by the police or at a corrections facility. It is done under 42 U.S.C. § 14141, a section of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, granting the attorney general the power to prosecute law enforcement misconduct. The municipality then simply agrees to the judicial finding – without contest – and the result is a wide-reaching federal court order that imposes onerous regulations on local police.
In short, the much-feared nationalization of local police departments is already being initiated by the Obama administration’s Justice Department. And somehow nobody noticed.
[so keep paying attention to the bombast they are baiting and creating with Trump and you may find that the election will be called on account of the US becoming the same as Russia in the 100th year of the Soviet Revolution!!!!!!!!!!!]
Good thing the CIA provided the cover that prevents us from discussing this in the 1970s… (ny times article, i posted the old news of their campaign we now believe, based on their gaming us]
I always have to remind myself when listening to people like Jim Kirby, Josh Earnest, Barak Obama, and Hillary Clinton, that to them, “truth” is what advances the leftist cause, “lies” are what retard it.
Conspiracies aren’t anything new, one can probably go back to Caesar, as Max Holland pointed out, there was a particular soviet desinformatya, that mark lane picked up, and was even recycled into the x files ‘confessions of a cigarette smoking man’ now the reason might have been as gus russo and brian latell put it, it came from soviet trained officials of the cuban dgi
This isn’t the first time Hussein Obola, and by extension America, has funded terrorists.
It’s one reason why the world chafes under a now dead and ineffective Pax Americana.
Stuff like this is why Trump even has a chance to win!
Most know Clinton would do the same and demand kickback to the Clinton Foundation Slush Fund.