Secure Freedom Minute

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

I grew up near the Pittsburgh synagogue that was murderously attacked on Saturday. The eleven elderly people killed there were neighbors in a community I remember fondly for its tranquility and harmony.

Another vivid memory is that some five decades ago this house of worship was one of those that prominently displayed a sign exhorting congregants and passersby like me to “Save Soviet Jews.” That expression of concern for others is a hallmark of so many of the Jewish faith.  It launched a movement that ultimately liberated millions of Jews and hundreds of millions of others enslaved by the “Evil Empire.”

Sadly, Jews now need saving in lots of places, including in Europe and even in America where anti-Semitic violence is on the rise.  We must stand against those who would come for them, and then for the rest of us.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Freedom’s light has just been snuffed in Europe. Yesterday, the European Union’s Court of Human Rights effectively affirmed the application of the so-called “blasphemy” restrictions of Islam’s totalitarian Sharia code. 

The court invalidated the right Elisabeth Sabbaditsh-Wolff, a courageous Austrian human rights activist with long experience in Iran, has to “freedom of expression,” saying it infringed upon “the right of others to have their religious feelings protected.”

The ruling thus affirms Sharia’s prohibition on giving “offense” to Muslims such as this freedom fighter’s accurate observation that the Prophet Mohammed consummated his marriage to a 6-year-old girl when she was nine.  

Unfortunately, Sharia-supremacists and their allies on the Left in this country seek to prohibit speech that offends Muslims here, too.  They say it’s “hate speech” and insist that our First Amendment mustn’t protect it.

That’s wrong and we must defend our freedom to say so.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Candidate Barak Obama promised a “fundamental transformation of America” and pursued it aggressively during his presidency. That Leftist revolution, however, has met its counter-revolution in Donald Trump’s. 

Both sides recognize the impending mid-term elections as a tipping point. If Mr. Trump’s party is triumphant and thus allowed to continue what he calls a “nationalist” agenda, the Marxists, socialists, globalists and Islamists who detest it could experience further, dramatic reverses to theirs.  If this “Red-Green” axis prevails in securing control of either the Senate or House – let alone both – the revolutionaries will be back in business.

The spate of pipe-bombs sent simultaneously to seven of the most prominent revolutionaries has instantly transformed them from being associated with increasingly violent mobs – a serious liability in this closely fought election – into perceived victims. We must punish Pthe perpetrators, but not lose sight of the stakes.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

President Trump has found a single word that elegantly describes his America First policies and succinctly defines what is at stake in the 2018 elections.  He has declared himself to be a “nationalist.” 

My bet is that lots of other Americans will identify themselves that way too this fall and reject the increasingly repugnant anti-nationalist left and their Sharia-supremacist allies.

That’s because most of us unapologetically and properly regard this country as the greatest on earth. We are proud to be its citizens, not citizens of the world. We want America’s sovereignty to be respected, its borders secured and its people protected from all enemies, foreign and domestic. And we reject the efforts of globalists, socialists, Islamists and others who seek our submission to their anti-constitutional agendas.

Be proud to be an American. And express it on November 6th.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Yesterday, the U.S. Navy sent two warships through the Taiwan Strait.  It is the latest, welcome and much-needed Trump administration assertion of freedom of navigation in international waters that the Communist Chinese are increasingly insisting are theirs.

It should be followed by more, and more durable, demonstrations of America’s resolve and capability to defend Taiwan and other friends and allies in the region from China’s escalating threats.

Specifically, the United States must reconstitute its ability to project power in the Western Pacific.  This will require not only the routine deployment and wide-ranging operations of more warships and aircraft there. 

We must also respond comprehensively to China by fielding effective anti-missile defenses, operationalizing cyber-warfare capabilities, arming the Taiwanese and other regional partners and protecting from Chinese weapons U.S. assets in space critical to our defense of the Pacific, among other missions.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

President Trump intends to withdraw the U.S. from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty – and the Russians are pitching a fit. 

Vladimir Putin insists we remain bound by an accord that even the Obama administration said the Kremlin has been violating for years, threatening our allies and forces in Europe and Asia with new nuclear weapons for which we have no in-kind deterrent.  

The INF Treaty also imposes no restriction on similar threats increasingly posed by the Communist Chinese to America’s personnel, bases and friends in the Western Pacific. 

Three decades ago, I helped President Reagan try to negotiate the “Zero-Option” – a deal that would permanently eliminate all intermediate-range missiles – but had to warn the Senate that the INF Treaty wouldn’t do that.

Mr. Trump is right to stop practicing unilateral disarmament and to restore the INF deterrence we need in Europe and Asia.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

President Trump faces growing pressure to punish the Saudi government for its role in the apparent, horrific murder of Jamal Khashoggi, one of its nationals with legal resident status in the United States.

Mr. Trump is rightly trying to avoid doing so in a way that would benefit our regional adversaries like Iran and the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood – and so-called “friends” who back them, including Turkey and Qatar.

Here’s a plan: First, sanction those who can be proven responsible for the murder of Khashoggi, a so-called “journalist” who was actually a rogue Saudi intelligence operative and Muslim Brother.  And second, couple such punishment with a measure that will reduce our enemies’ ability to capitalize upon it by designating the Muslim Brotherhood as the foreign terrorist organization it is, and begin rolling up its subversive Sharia-supremacist operations in this country and elsewhere.  

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Hillary Clinton has finally lost her Top Secret security clearance.  It’s about time, since nobody else could have done what she did in terms of violating procedures for handling state secrets and not be doing hard time in prison, to say nothing of being denied access to anything sensitive.

Five of Hillary’s top aides have also lost their clearances. Presumably, one of those yet to be identified is former State Department Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin. 

The question occurs: How did Ms. Abedin ever get a security clearance in the first place?

After all, she has had decades of family and personal ties to the Muslim Brotherhood whose mission is “destroying Western civilization from within.”

Presumably, this staffer was nonetheless cleared at Hillary Clinton’s insistence – early warning of her indifference to the national security and her seriously defective judgement.

Good riddance.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s travels in the Middle East this week showcase geostrategic tectonic shifts that have transformed the region. They have also greatly complicated his mission concerning the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi-born U.S. resident, Saudi intelligence operative and Muslim Brother close to Osama bin Laden.

Mr. Pompeo started in Saudi Arabia, whose Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is suspected of ordering Khashoggi’s murder. The prince has made his country a far more constructive U.S. partner: opposing such mutual enemies as the terrorist-tied Muslim Brotherhood and Iran; isolating their enabler, Qatar; and increasingly aligning with our key regional ally, Israel.

Today, the Secretary of State visits Turkey, where Saudis are believed to have killed Khashoggi.  The Sharia-supremacist regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however is: enabling the Muslim Brotherhood; helping Iran and Qatar; and menacing Israel.

Godspeed, Mike Pompeo.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

President Trump has dispatched Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Saudi Arabia to address a thorny problem.  The Saudi government under the influence of its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has been implicated in the suspected, brutal murder of a Saudi-born legal permanent resident of this country by the name of Jamal Khashoggi. 

The Crown Prince – who is universally known by his initials, MBS – has been working closely with the United States and against our common enemies, notably Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). 

Khashoggi was a Muslim Brother and shared, along with his friend, Osama bin Laden, that organization’s goal of supplanting the current government of Saudi Arabia – as it once disastrously did that of Egypt.

The present Saudi government is clearly the lesser of two evils. Messrs. Trump and Pompeo should make clear our displeasure, without endangering it.

This is Frank Gaffney.