Lt. Col. Tulsi Gabbard continues to face an uphill battle to secure her confirmation as America’s top intelligence chief. Although there are
apparently a handful of antagonists in the GOP looking to spike her candidacy, Democrats are doing all the heavy lifting, especially when it comes to characterizing Gabbard as a toady for subversive and adversarial forces.
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly (Ariz.)
tried to do his part Thursday, accusing Gabbard of repeating “Russian talking points” about the Obama administration’s material support for Islamic terrorists in Syria. Gabbard made Kelly regret his line of attack with a short history lesson, revealing why her previous statements were as factual as they were damning.
“When Russia was denying [former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s] use of chemical weapons, they accused the U.S. of supporting terrorists,” said Kelly. “This is a line Putin used frequently during the Syrian civil war as he supported Assad.”
Following in the footsteps of failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who
previously painted Gabbard as a Kremlin sympathizer, Kelly noted further, “In 2016, you said, ‘The U.S. is providing direct and indirect support to terrorist groups in order to overthrow the Syrian government.'”
At the time, Gabbard
also noted, “The U.S. government has been violating this law for years by quietly supporting allies, partners, individuals, and groups who are working directly with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham [an offshoot of the Al-Qaeda group Al-Nusrah Front], and other terrorist groups by providing them with money, weapons, and intelligence support in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government.”
“I am interested to hear, what was your goal in saying these things?” continued Kelly. “Did you consider, before saying them, that Iran and Russia, what their motives may have been making these claims?”
Gabbard noted that she joined the military “specifically because of Al-Qaeda’s terrorist attack on 9/11” and committed her life to defeating the terrorist organization, only to later learn as a member of Congress that former President Barack Obama, in an effort to overthrow Assad, “was working with, arming, and equipping Al-Qaeda in an effort to overthrow that regime, starting yet another regime change war in the Middle East.”
President Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence referenced the CIA’s Timber Sycamore program as well as the Pentagon’s covert Syrian Train and Equip Program, which were both launched by the Obama administration in hopes of facilitating the fall of the Assad regime.
Under the code name Timber Sycamore, the Obama CIA began directly arming Islamic terrorists in early 2013. CIA paramilitary operatives
reportedly also trained the so-called rebels to use automatic rifles, mortars, antitank guided missiles, and other weapons. The program had a price tag of over $1 billion and resembled in some ways the agency’s training of the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
According to the New York Times, some of the weapons shipped to Jordan intended for so-called rebels made their way to the black market and were ultimately used to kill Americans. Weapons supplied under the Timber Sycamore program also made their way into the hands of Al-Nusrah Front terrorists, who fought alongside the CIA-backed militants.
‘Every American deserves to know that people in our own government were providing support to our sworn enemy Al-Qaeda.’
The National Counterterrorism Center
noted that the Al-Nusrah Front announced its intention to overthrow Assad in 2012, then “mounted hundreds of insurgent-style and suicide attacks against regime and security service targets across the country. The group is committed not only to ousting the regime, but also seeks to expand its reach regionally and globally.” The group that Obama indirectly armed was accused of various atrocities, including the massacre of Druze villagers.
Trump
ended Timber Sycamore in 2017, calling the payments to so-called rebels “massive, dangerous, and wasteful,” and noting that many of the CIA-supplied weapons ended up in the hands of Al-Qaeda.
Gabbard noted that “the Department of Defense’s
Train and Equip program, also under President Obama, has been widely known, looked at, and studied, and resulted in over half a billion dollars being used to train what they called ‘moderate rebels.’ But in reality, they were fighters working with and aligned with Al-Qaeda’s affiliate on the ground in Syria all to move forward with their regime change.”
Gabbard, doubling down on remarks Kelly apparently found troubling, suggested that the Obama administration ignored “the obvious and now proven reality: much like in Iraq, the toppling of Gaddafi in Libya, and Mubarak in Egypt, a regime change war in Syria would likely result in the rise of Islamist extremists like Al-Qaeda taking power.”
Stressing that she “shed no tears for the fall of the Assad regime,” Trump’s nominee stressed that “today we have an Islamist extremist in charge of Syria — someone who danced in the streets to celebrate the 9/11 attack; who ruled over Idlib with an Islamist extremist governance; and who has already begun to persecute, kill, and arrest religious minorities, including Christians in Syria.”
The current interim president of Syria, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, is a terrorist who up until recently had a
$10 million State Department bounty on his head and used to lead the Al-Nusrah Front, which benefited from Timber Sycamore.
“Why that should be acceptable to anyone is beyond me,” added Gabbard.
After his question blew up in his face, Kelly tried once more to suggest that Gabbard has a “tendency to repeat Russian and Syrian — and, in some cases, even Iranian — information,” prompting Trump’s nominee to answer back with a showstopper: “Every American deserves to know that people in our own government were providing support to our sworn enemy Al-Qaeda.”
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Tulsi gabbard, Al-nusrah front, Isis, Al-qaeda, Syria, Propaganda, Mark kelly, Gabbard, Dni, Director of national intelligence, Senate, Confirmation hearing, Donald trump, Obama, Politics