Congressman: Investigate Obama protection of Hezbollah
A Republican Congressman urged Congress to launch an investigation into a report that the Obama Administration shielded the Iran-controlled Hezbollah terrorist organization in order to protect the nuclear deal with Iran, Fox News reported.
Rep. Robert Pittenger (R. N.C.) asked House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy to open the investigation after Politico reported that the Obama Administration had deliberately derailed a years-long investigation of the terror group's involvement in the drug-trafficking business to avoid tensions with Tehran during negotiations with the rogue regime.
In 2008, the Drug Enforcement Administration launched what was dubbed “Project Cassandra”, a secret criminal investigation into the Lebanon-based Shi’ite terror group Hezbollah.
According to an investigative report published by Politico Monday, a team of DEA agents aided by dozens of US and foreign security and law enforcement agencies spent eight years mapping out Hezbollah’s intricate web of organized crime operations, massive drug dealing and other money-making schemes around the globe aimed at funding the terror group’s operations in the Middle East.
Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy in Lebanon, conducted hundreds of terror attacks against Israeli forces during the 1980s and 1990s, and was responsible for the 1983 bombing of a US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut which left 305 people dead, including 241 American servicemen.
In 2006, Hezbollah carried out an unprovoked attack on Israeli forces inside Israeli territory, killing three, and taking two captive. The attack sparked a month-long war between Israel and the Shi’ite terror group, which pounded northern Israel with missiles, rockets, and mortar fire.
But the Lebanese terror group has also demonstrated a global reach, aiding the perpetrators of the 1992 suicide bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina which killed 29, and being widely suspected of carrying out the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, killing 85.
Lapid: If Obama blocked Hezbollah probe, he should give back Nobel
Israeli politicians lashed out at former US president Barack Obama after an exposé in Politico alleged that his administration had blocked a major investigation into Hezbollah’s global drug trafficking activities so that Iran would sign the 2015 deal to curb its nuclear activities.Thinking outside the box
“Obama must return his Nobel Peace Prize,” if the Politico story is correct, Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid said.
“Israel warned repeatedly that there can be no connection between the nuclear deal and anti-terror activity, certainly against Hezbollah... We also warned of this specifically, because of the proven link between Hezbollah and Iran.”
Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi wrote on Facebook that the report is not surprising, due to Obama’s “persistent efforts to give Iran, Nasrallah’s patron, legitimacy at any price.
“Up until the Obama Administration, every American President fought terrorism uncompromisingly... I am convinced that the Trump administration will not turn from that tradition, and that the outrageous and mistaken policy that was revealed this week will not be repeated,” Hanegbi said.
The Politico piece details the efforts of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, which launched Project Cassandra in 2008. The group tracked Hezbollah’s global criminal-syndicate operation, backed by Iran, including drug and weapons trafficking worth $1 billion annually.
But while DEA gathered evidence, including of Iran-backed activities in Latin America and the US, Politico charged that the Justice Department and other US authorities refused to file charges against major players.
This included, according to Politico, “Hezbollah’s high-profile envoy to Iran, a Lebanese bank that allegedly laundered billions in alleged drug profits, and a central player in a US-based cell of the Iranian paramilitary Quds force.”
The Nobel Peace Prize is considered a most prestigious award. Politicians who are awarded it enjoy international glory. But twice in recent decades, the glory has been replaced by ridicule. In 1994, the prize was awarded to Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat for their efforts to reach peace in the Middle East and for signing the Oslo Accords. In 2009, it was awarded to then-U.S. President Barack Obama, only a few months after he was sworn in as president, for his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.No moral backbone
Over the past 24 hours, fascinating reports have been published about the two bizarre Nobel prizes. For years, statesmen have operated on the assumption – unchecked and absolutely false – that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is preventing peace in the Middle East and is the basis of the Islamist terrorist that is striking worldwide. Given that assumption, Israel has been under immense pressure to withdraw, concede, and give in.
The Oslo Accords led to the delusion that peace was closer than ever and despicable murderers would beat their swords into plowshares and release doves of peace. It quickly turned out that the way the Palestinians saw it, the Oslo Accords were designed to deceive the Israeli leadership. They had lethal results, and the international pressure on Israel encouraged the Palestinians' recalcitrance and violence. President Barack Obama was a friend to the Palestinians, and only Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's firm stance and maneuvering allowed Israel to work successfully with the hostile president.
This latest affair is like a tunnel that sends us back through time to the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War, when the administration of then-President Harry Truman stopped at nothing to enlist some 1,600 Nazi scientists, engineers and technicians, particularly in the field of missile development. That campaign, which was dubbed Operation Paperclip, is now considered the essence of immoral, inhumane conduct, which ignored the crimes against humanity the candidates had committed.
It is becoming clear that the liberal President Obama did not learn from history, and in complete contradiction of his saintly statements, effectively gave a green light to an entire web of ongoing crimes, based on his perception – ridiculous in itself – that it was in America's national interest to do so.
To sum up, Obama not only refrained from taking action against the ruler of Syria when he crossed all the red lines that had been drawn on chemical warfare but also contributed – if indirectly – to Assad building up his chemical arsenal and deploying it against his own civilian population. Obama deserved a Nobel Prize for his Machiavellian, opportunistic and immoral conduct, which also hurt the security of the U.S.'s partner, Israel.