The newly announced $5 billion fund Secretary of State John Kerry said would be assigned to help American "partners" fight terror is, in reality, no more than a "grandiose political statement," according to a critic.
Kerry said Wednesday that the intent to help other nations push back against radical extremists.
He was on a series of morning television shows to promote President Obama's latest strategy in international relations, which aims to "terminate the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan by the end of the year."
Kerry said: "This is not an abandonment of Afghanistan. This is an emboldenment. This is an empowerment of Afghanistan."
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Obama himself called on Congress to rally around his Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund, which is to be one component of the response to terror threats around the world.
"The partnership I've described does not eliminate the need to take direct action which necessary to protect ourselves," he warned. "When we have actionable intelligence, that's what we do."
In the White House announcement about the program, part of Obama's fiscal 2015 funding request, it was explained the additional money would let the Department of Defense conduct expanded operations in high-risk areas and to work with the State Department to "support efforts to counter violent extremism and terrorist ideology."
Cheryl Chumley, the author of the new book "Police State USA: How Orwell's Nightmare is Becoming Our Reality," had doubts.
"This has all the makings of a grandiose political statement, aimed more at proving this administration – which has a poor track record, to say the least, of even recognizing when terrorists strike, never mind reacting and rooting out terrorism – is strong on defense," she said.
Her newest project includes research on the war on terror and radical Islam.
Order your copy now of Cheryl Chumley's "Police State USA."
"Think how many days it took the Obama administration to admit the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist strikes that left four Americans dead in Benghazi were actually the work of terrorists,” Chumley said. "And now we're sending $5 billion of taxpayer dollars to help other nations identify, root out and halt the spread of terror? That's a tad ironic."
Though it received immediate intelligence that it was an organized terrorist attack, the White House for weeks insisted the violence was prompted by an obscure anti-Muhammad video posted online.
"The simple fact of the matter is this White House has neither admitted nor clamped down on the real cause of most of the world's terror attacks – radical Islamism – and instead preferred to wage the war on terror in other ways, by patting down baby diapers at the nation's airports, or humiliating disabled veterans and cancer patients at the TSA check-point lines," Chumley said.
"Truly, this administration’s attacked the Constitution with greater intensity than true terrorism threats."
Chumley, a full-time reporter for the Washington Times, writes about politics and government for various newspapers, Internet news sites and think tanks. She is a journalism fellow with the Phillips Foundation, a prestigious organization in Washington, D.C., where she spent a year researching and writing about private property rights.
Her WND Books project, "Police State USA: How Orwell's Nightmare is Becoming Our Reality" has received high praise from Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas.
In the foreword to Chumley's book, Gohmert writes:
Look at what we know the government already has accessed. Under Obamacare, the federal government now gets complete documentation of your deepest, darkest, most personal secrets in your medical records that only your doctor once knew until the government decided to help you.
Your revelations to your doctor were completely secret, and our courts used to protect that precious doctor-patient relationship with full-blown privacy rights. Now, without a single Republican vote, the Democrats in the House and Senate decided that those full-blown rights should be fully blown up because the omniscient, ubiquitous, all-knowing, all-caring federal government needs to be in full control of our lives.
Those Democrats are hoping that the governmental god in whom they trust will be more trustworthy in controlling our lives than it is in controlling and operating a website," he said.
The coming signs of tyranny are all around us. Fortunately, they can be stopped before it is too late, but not without a courageous effort. This nation’s founders risked absolutely everything to secure the blessings of freedom. We only risk some belittling by the mainstream and government harassment for preserving those freedoms. Bottom line, the data in Chumley’s book concerns me and it should concern you.
The book describes the case of a former Marine living in Virginia.
It was August 2012, and he "was taken into custody, thrown in jail, and forcibly transferred to a hospital located nearly three hours from his home and family to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, all at the order of law enforcement officials."
"His crime? He posted on his private Facebook page messages that painted the government in a poor light."
Then there was the July 2013 case of a University of Virginia student. She was "swarmed by state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents who thought the carton of bottled water she was carrying across the parking lot of a grocery store was really a 12-pack of beer and she was an underage buyer."
"She said one drew her gun, another jumped on the hood of her SUV, and still others shouted conflicting orders and flashed badges she couldn’t read. Terrified, she tried to flee in her SUV, but agents halted and arrested her, charging her with two counts of assault.
"Even the commonwealth's attorney who investigated the incident found the case ridiculous and refused to prosecute. But the 20-year-old still spent a night in jail – for the crime of purchasing water."
Media wishing to interview author Cheryl Chumley may contact [email protected].
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