Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Obama & Hezbollah: The cunning defeat of Project Cassandra & What is to be done?

John Batchelor’s podcast, The cunning defeat of Project Cassandra & What is to be done? with guest David Asher is a must-listen:

In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.

The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.

In the news,
Sessions orders review of abandoned Hezbollah-linked drug prosecutions.Inquiry follows POLITICO report that potential cases languished amid Obama drive for Iran nuclear deal. More on this at Legal Insurrection.

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Obama administration allegedly covered up for Hezbollah in Latin America

Long-time readers of this blog will remember that I have blogged about Hezbollah‘s inroads in our hemisphere for the last decade (for additional posts see also Hizballah Hizbollah).

Josh Meyer’s fascinating report, The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook, highlights the connections between the drug trade and terrorism:

Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.

They followed cocaine shipments, some from Latin America to West Africa and on to Europe and the Middle East, and others through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States. They tracked the river of dirty cash as it was laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them to Africa. And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

And

The untold story of Project Cassandra illustrates the immense difficulty in mapping and countering illicit networks in an age where global terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime have merged, but also the extent to which competing agendas among government agencies — and shifting priorities at the highest levels — can set back years of progress.

And while the pursuit may be shadowed in secrecy, from Latin American luxury hotels to car parks in Africa to the banks and battlefields of the Middle East, the impact is not: In this case, multi-ton loads of cocaine entering the United States, and hundreds of millions of dollars going to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization with vast reach.

What did the Obama administration do about it?

They killed a probe of the terror group to get the Iran deal (emphasis added)

After 9/11 the DEA launched investigations into Venezuelan crime syndicates, links between Colombian drug-traffickers and Lebanese money-launderers, and the “suspicious flow of thousands of used cars” from the U.S. to Benin, Mr. Meyer explains. The U.S. military was also investigating links between Iran and Shiite militias with improvised explosive devices that killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers. “All of these paths eventually converged on Hezbollah,” he writes.

By 2008 the DEA had “amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself” into a global crime syndicate “that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking and money laundering,” Mr. Meyer reports. DEA’s Project Cassandra was born to take down the Hezbollah operation by busting its “innermost circle.”

For instance,

Alleged Venezuelan drug kingpin Hugo Carvajal was arrested in Aruba in 2014. Venezuela’s close alliance with Iran is no secret and reeling in “the chicken,” as Carvajal was known, would have generated key intelligence about cocaine trafficking to the U.S. and North Africa. The Netherlands mysteriously intervened and returned him to Venezuela.

When Colombia arrested Walid Makled, a Syrian-born Venezuelan who was alleged to be shipping ten tons of cocaine to the U.S. each month, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos refused U.S. extradition requests and sent him to Venezuela. Mr. Obama repaid Mr. Santos by backing his amnesty for the FARC, the largest drug cartel in the Americas.

Additionally, (back to Meyer’s article),

As a result, some Hezbollah operatives were not pursued via arrests, indictments, or Treasury designations that would have blocked their access to U.S. financial markets, according to Bauer, a career Treasury official, who served briefly in its Office of Terrorist Financing as a senior policy adviser for Iran before leaving in late 2015. And other “Hezbollah facilitators”arrested in France, Colombia, Lithuania have not been extradited — or indicted — in the U.S., she wrote.

Billions of drug trade money funding terrorists. Tens of thousands of lives ruined. Read The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook.

This warrants a most rigorous congressional investigation.

Related: “Venezuela looks like a failed economy. In fact, it’s Iran’s frontier in the Americas”

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Hamilton would not approve of Lopez Rivera’s release

Joe Connor, whose father was murdered at the 1975 Fraunces Tavern bombing, writes,
Alexander Hamilton Wouldn’t Approve of a Terrorist’s Clemency. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s shameful performance for a man who helped murder my father. (emphasis added)

López Rivera was a longtime leader of the Armed Forces of National Liberation, known by its Spanish acronym FALN, a group claiming support for Puerto Rican independence. It was actually a Marxist organization intent on subjugating Puerto Ricans and imposing a Castro-like communist regime. From 1974 to 1983, the group claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings and other violent crimes in U.S. cities, making it the most active domestic terrorist group in U.S. history.
. . .
López Rivera organized and personally led numerous FALN bombings, armed assaults and hostage takings in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. He also was a prime FALN recruiter; a crucial trainer in bombing, sabotage and other techniques of guerrilla warfare; and the mastermind behind the establishment of a series of FALN weaponry safe houses and bomb factories. When the FBI finally arrested him in 1981, it found in his residence a large quantity of dynamite, blasting caps and other bomb components.

Connor points out that in 1976 the FALN bombed a location near where Hamilton is playing in Chicago.

At least Obama did not pardon FALN chief William Morales, who has been living comfortably in Cuba where he sought political asylum – and whose extradition Obama did not seek while easing relations with Cuba.

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Setting free an unrepentant terrorist who used his own apartment as a bomb-making factory is a bad idea.

As mentioned yesterday, Obama commuted the prison sentence of Oscar López Rivera, an unrepentant FALN terrorist convicted of waging war against the United States.

I do not exaggerate when I say that López Rivera set his apartment as a bomb-making facility. I also do not exaggerate when I say that I’ve been hearing for decades López Rivera described as a political prisoner.

Which is pure propaganda:

López Rivera was NOT imprisoned for believing in independence for Puerto Rico, but for the violent means through which he and others sought to further that otherwise respectable cause. Having failed to persuade their fellow Puerto Ricans to support their particular brand of a Marxist-Leninist independence, López Rivera and others sought to advance independence through bombings and other violent acts, such as the ambush of a group of U.S. Navy personnel just outside the base at Sabana Seca, P.R., which resulted in the deaths of four sailors.

The public relations campaign for López Rivera is just getting started, though. Just wait for the photo-ops when he goes to Hamilton and the cast honors him on stage.

Jorge Bonilla translates an op-ed by Congressman Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL) that was first published in El Nuevo Día, where Gutiérrez refers to López Rivera as a “great man” who “gave us a great example.” It opens with a meeting between Gutiérrez and Rafael Cancel Miranda, one of the 1954 U.S. Capitol Gallery shooters and a joke they shared:

An International Victory

Nearly 25 years ago, in the summer of ’92, in Philadelphia- interesting city that we chose for that meting-, I remember Rafael Cancel Miranda and I conversing at a table, as though it were yesterday. Jokingly, I told him to let me know when he was coming to Congress so that I could bring a water pistol. We spoke of many things, Oscar among them.

We have much for which to thank people like Don Cancel Miranda. There are many like him who, between jokes, have carried out the struggle for our Oscar López Rivera. That great man.

We will never be able to thank these people enough. Take Dr. Nieves Falcón, for example. We campaigned with him for Oscar’s freedom, both in and out of Puerto Rico.

The truth is that Oscar could have been with us years ago, but he is a great man. In 1999, President Bill Clinton offered him a prompt release but offered nothing to his comrade Carlos Torres. Oscar did not want to accept the deal.

Years later, now with President Obama, we would ask for his freedom every year. I still remember the president’s face as he said, “but that gentleman was already offered freedom”. One time I said no, that if we were combat soldiers this is the soldier we’d want to have, one who doesn’t leave his men behind, who doesn’t abandon the trenches.

In all this, I can only express my thanks to Puerto Rico, because (they) proved to be a family, a great family. To Dr. Fernando Cabanillas, for his incredible help. To (San Juan) Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, a lioness, for her active campaign, her communication, and for being an incredible comrade in this struggle. To that great leader, Florencio Merced, who was also a comrade-in-arms, very admirable. To all the brethren at the (pro-independence) newspaper Claridad, who were very vocal for this cause and I can now say that we did it. To El Nuevo Día, its journalists, its owners and its Editorial Board. Their commitment and effort is admirable. They took this very seriously, and that speaks volumes about their people, who without a doubt are good and committed. I recall when we met in the summer and I assured them that this would not seem easy. Thanks to all for not giving up.

Oscar’s freedom is an international victory. Leaders and heads of state from all over joined the call for justice for him (Oscar). Letters and calls went out from the Vatican and its department of international diplomacy so that this could happen. Even former President Jimmy Carter said that his work was not done and joined in. We have to see this from that perspective. This is a victory for justice throughout the world.

Ultimately, we have to emphasize that Oscar gave us a great example. And that example inspired all. The Dominican congressman Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), citing Hostos, also joined the call within the first few days of (the 115th) Congress being in session. Upon swearing in, Darren Soto (D-FL) also pled for Oscar having been in Congress for two weeks. These are acts of courage.

Like them, we all follow –and are inspired by- Oscar’s example. And the example of this woman: Zoraida Arocho Díaz, from Moca (Puerto Rico), my wife. At every White House Christmas party, she would ask President Obama for her gift, which was Oscar’s freedom. And this Christmas, when she greeted the president and asked for her gift, the president smiled.

On December 15th, (NYC Council Speaker) Melissa Mark-Viverito, Mayor Carmen Yulín and I went to see Oscar, and when I asked him how he felt he said: “how long does it take you to run a mile?” I said, “I don’t know.” Laughing, he told me “I can run it faster than you can.” He’s never been a prisoner. Oscar has a free spirit.

Likewise, we should be very thankful to President Obama. Year after year, we pled to him for Oscar’s freedom. When someone is recalcitrant you argue and advocate, and if they give in at the end, you have to be thankful. He could’ve said no, but he listened to us, considered it and gave us that gift. I am very grateful.

In 120 days, we will go get him and preparations for his welcome are well under way. Puerto Rico, get ready because our Oscar is coming back. It is a time to celebrate, especially for his family. His daughter Clarisa and his granddaughter Karina, this is their time. Oscar is returning home.

Obama may yet surprise us with news on JoAnne Chesimard AKA Assata Shakur, William Morales and Charlie Hill within the next 24 hours.

For now, as Gutiérrez put it, “get ready because our Oscar is coming back.”

Related:
Why liberals love to set terrorists free

[López] Rivera, not that it seems to matter, was involved directly or otherwise in at least 146 bombings, leaving nine dead in Puerto Rico and on the mainland. Among the wounded were NYPD bomb squad officers, one of whom was blinded.

Pardon Parade

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Obama commutes unrepentant sociopath’s sentence UPDATED

Oscar López Rivera was offered clemency by Bill Clinton in August of 1999 (in a move that was engineered by then Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder) but refused to show remorse for his involvement in the FALN

Until its dissolution in the early 1980s, the F.A.L.N. would remain one of the most destructive terrorist groups in America. Throughout the rest of the decade numerous bombs were placed — mainly in New York and Chicago — causing millions of dollars in damages and a few injuries. The next fatality did not occur until August 1977, when Charles Steinberg was killed at the Mobil Building on 42nd Street. The F.A.L.N’s last bombing in New York was took place on December 31, 1982, when bombs were exploded at Federal Plaza, One Police Plaza, near Foley Square, and in Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn. Three NYPD officers were badly injured in the blasts.

López Rivera (emphasis added)

has been in federal prison since 1981, after he was convicted of seditious conspiracy and arms trafficking in connection with his leadership of the FALN, the notorious left-wing terrorist group that perpetrated more than 130 attacks on U.S. soil from the mid 1970s through the mid 1980s, killing six and wounding many more. Most members of the FALN, which purported to fight for Puerto Rican independence but maintained deep ties to Fidel Castro’s Cuba, were long ago captured and imprisoned, and many of them have already served their time and been released. But Lopez-Rivera remains unrepentant about his crimes, and he’s hardly been a model prisoner: In one of two failed attempts to escape, he conspired with others inside and outside his prison to kill his way to freedom, attempting to procure grenades, rifles, plastic explosives, bulletproof vests, blasting caps, and armor-piercing bullets. After the FBI thwarted this plan, another 15 years was added to Lopez’s original 55-year sentence

Three days before leaving office, Obama Commutes Sentence of F.A.L.N. Member Oscar Lopez Rivera

Mr. Lopez Rivera was not specifically charged in the Fraunces Tavern bombing but more broadly with, among other things, the interstate transportation of firearms with the intent to commit violent crimes, and transportation of explosives with intent to kill and injure people and to destroy government buildings and property.

The creator of the Broadway Hit Hamilton is jubilant,

So are NYC mayor Bill DeBlasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (the @MMViverito in the above tweet).

Chillingly,

In an earlier interview with El Nuevo Día, Mr. Lopez said: “I want to enjoy Puerto Rico, my family. But I like to work. I have some skills — organizing, helping young people — that I want to share with people.”

Says one of the founders of a group responsible for over 120 bombings throughout the U.S.

UPDATE
Steven Hayward reminds us of Bryan Burrough’s excellent book, Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence,

In his invaluable history of the maniacal leftist terrorism of the 1970s, Bryan Burrough frankly characterizes FALN leader Oscar López Rivera as “the man behind the deadliest bombing campaign of the era.” That’s quite a distinction.

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Cuba: US to share law enforcement info with the regime

Gregory Kolte reports that In final days, Obama administration signs law enforcement pact with Cuba (emphasis added):

The U.S. State Department signed a new agreement on law enforcement cooperation with Cuba on Monday, seeking to further deepen ties with the communist island just four days before the end of the Obama administration.

The agreement outlines U.S.-Cuban cooperation on a wide range of criminal and security-related issues, including terrorism, narcotics, cyber-security, immigration, money laundering, smuggling and human trafficking.

In practical terms, Obama has authorized the release of national security information to a communist regime

As if that were not enough,

Notably, the agreement did not include a return of U.S. fugitives that Cuba has harbored, including New Jersey cop killers, Black Panther hijackers and Puerto Rican terrorists. Cuba’s continued protection of those fugitives has been a major source of congressional opposition to President Obama’s Cuban policy.

Call them
Call them “irreversibles”

Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes has declared,

“I think what we were trying to do is to create as much momentum for the policy so as to make it irreversible, to enlist as many stakeholders as we could in the policy so as to make it irreversible”

While the Dems bemoan Russian “hacking” the U.S., they ignore the reports that Russia may open a military base in Cuba.

How’s that for irreversible?

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

UPDATE
Obama’s Strange Pattern of Concessions to Cuba’s Communists

Linked to by Babalu. Thank you!

Linked to by Instapundit‘s Stephen Green. Thank you!

Linked to by Doug Ross. Thank you!

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Cuba: Obama ends Clinton’s immigration policy

Ace summarizes it in one sentence:

Because, you see, Cuba is no longer a human rights violator, after undertaking no reforms that Obama did not demand they undertake to get more American dollars.

Babalu has facts and reaction to the news.

At Drudge:

Here’s the Memeorandum roundup:

Associated Press:

OBAMA MAKING CHANGES TO CUBAN IMMIGRATION POLICY  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is ending a longstanding immigration policy that allows any Cuban who makes it to U.S. soil to stay and become a legal resident, a senior administration official said Thursday.
RELATED:
Lest we forget,
President Bill Clinton created “wet foot, dry foot” policy in 1995 as a revision of a more liberal immigration policy that allowed Cubans caught at sea to come to the United States become legal residents in a year.



UPDATE
Trending at BadBlue.

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