Monday, January 13, 2020
To: Friends & Supporters
From: Gary Bauer
Saudis Expelled
Attorney General William Barr is expected to confirm this afternoon that as many as 20 Saudi military students are being deported from the United States. Their expulsion comes in the wake of increased vetting following the December shooting at Pensacola Naval Air Station.
Just over 10 years ago, 14 people were killed at Fort Hood. That attack wasn't perpetrated by a foreign student. Virtually everyone knew that Nidal Hasan was more loyal to Islam than he was to America.
But military bureaucrats passed the buck because Hasan was playing the race card and the Islamophobia card. Sadly, too many military leaders were more afraid of jeopardizing their own careers than protecting our soldiers.
Ten years have passed since the atrocity at Fort Hood, and the problems of political correctness have only compounded during most of that time. Don't forget the Bergdahl trade, in which Barack Obama traded five Taliban leaders for a deserter.
Fast forward to December 6, 2019. While the FBI was using its vast intelligence capabilities to monitor the Trump campaign and wiretap various aides, several Saudi military students were visiting jihadist websites and sharing extremist materials, and apparently no one was monitoring them!
When Donald Trump suggested that we didn't know enough about what was going on within radical Islam and should pause immigration from nations known to be hotbeds of jihadism, the roof caved in on him. Politicians from both parties condemned him.
I wish I saw that kind of outrage after three American personnel were murdered, not in Afghanistan, not in Iraq, but in their own country because a jihadist managed to get a gun where they were not permitted to have one.
It is impossible to come up with a better example of how political correctness multiplied during the Obama years has put us in jeopardy. Thank God we are beginning to rein it in under President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.
Iran's Unbelievably Bad, Terrible Week
It all began at approximately 5:00 PM EST on Thursday, January 2nd when a drone took out Gen. Qassem Soleimani because the Iranians still hadn't figured out who Donald Trump was.
In retaliation, Iran fired 15 missiles at Iraqi bases on January 8th trying to kill U.S. soldiers. They missed. Iran does have good missiles because a few hours later we discovered that they are very capable of shooting down civilian airlines with 176 passengers on board. Iran's leaders spent the next 48 hours lying about the incident, but they eventually had to admit that they did shoot down the plane.
Then Iran's only Olympic medalist defected, saying she could no longer tolerate the regime's oppression and that she was tired of wearing the hijab. I'm still waiting for press releases from American feminist organizations praising this brave woman, but I'm not holding my breath.
Thousands of Iranian students soon took to the streets. Were they chanting, "Death to Israel"? No. "Death to America"? No. They were chanting "Death to the dictator," and "Death to liars" in protest of the ayatollah's regime.
Then the regime was hit by another American super weapon – a Donald Trump tweet in Farsi expressing America's solidarity with the Iranian people who seek freedom. It quickly became the most liked Persian tweet in history.
We've seen Trump tweets destroy the careers of professional politicians. We'll see what effect his tweet has on the mullahs of Iran.
The Left's Spin Machine
Once the left decides what its talking points will be, within 24 hours virtually every progressive leader begins using the same arguments. It is extraordinary to watch, and we saw it last week with the left's response to events in Iran.
But it is even more disturbing and not because "Democrat Central" ordered it. What concerns me is that the left is echoing the mullahs of Iran.
After the president took out Soleimani, Iran said he was a national hero, that his death was an act of war and that the Iranian nation was united against America.
Within hours, various Democrat presidential candidates, politicians and left-wing commentators were saying, "Soleimani was a beloved hero." They called his death "an act of war," and suggested that Trump only succeeded in uniting Iranians against us.
Then the Ukrainian airliner was shot down. Iran is caught in a lie when the regime eventually admits that it was responsible. But the mullahs insist that Trump is ultimately responsible because they wouldn't have shot down the airliner without the strike on Soleimani.
Incredibly, Pete Buttigieg and others parrot Tehran by blaming Trump for the downing of the airliner.
It's not just the coordinated spin. It's also what the left isn't saying that is so revealing. I've not heard one liberal commentator or politician express support for the Iranian Olympic defector.
And the same media that gave such glowing coverage to Soleimani's funeral barely covers the growing discontent among Iranian youth when they chant, "Death to the dictator!"
It's odd that so many progressives, who are eager to attack faith in America, are unwilling to take a stand against the ayatollah and his theocratic regime. They seem more committed to attacking the president than they are to attacking America's enemies.
When Iran interferes in the 2020 election, as it surely will, guess which side Tehran will be on.
Meanwhile, Back In The Swamp. . .
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to send the articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate in the next day or so, kicking off a trial that could last several weeks. Needless to say, that dynamic is creating some strange optics.
Not only does the president have Iran on the ropes, he's benefiting from a booming economy, and will likely get a major new trade deal through Congress soon.
Overseas, protestors in Hong Kong are marching with U.S. flags and posters of Trump as Superman. In Taiwan, there are celebrations as the nation's anti-communist China president was just reelected by a landslide. In Britain, there is a resurgence of populist conservatism.
As Steve Bannon so aptly put it, President Trump bucked the established order, which was to appease China, appease Iran and undercut U.S. workers.
In short, this president has a tremendous record of accomplishment for which I and many other conservatives are deeply grateful. In fact, I was pleased to join scores of conservative leaders today in sending a letter to the White House thanking the president for what he has accomplished for our country. You can read our letter here.
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