Andy McCarthy tells us that Obama’s coddling and appeasing of terrorists is even worse than we originally thought:
I can’t believe I am writing this while Iranian tyrants are brutally suppressing a revolt by the Iranian people . . . and only days after the Obama administration made a fiasco of a terrorist attack that nearly killed 289 people.
Back in the early summer, I wrote about how, even as the Iranian regime continued killing American troops, the Obama administration had engaged in shameful negotiations with an Iran-backed terror network (the League of the Righteous) in Iraq — negotiations that resulted in the release of Laith Qazali, one of the terrorists responsible for the murders of five American soldiers in Karbala, in exchange for the remains of two British hostages.
Shortly thereafter, the Obama administration released the “Irbil Five,” commanders from the Iranian IRGC’s elite “Quds Force” who had been captured by our military after coordinating terrorist attacks in Iraq that have killed hundreds of American soldiers and Marines.
Today, New Year’s Eve, while everyone’s attention is understandably on family and friends, we learn (thanks to the ever alert Bill Roggio, reporting on the Standard’s blog) that the administration has now released Qais Qazali, Laith’s brother, who is the head of the Iran-backed terror network, in addition to a hundred other terrorists. In violation of the long-standing, commonsense policy against capitulating to kidnappers and terrorists because it just encourages more hostage-taking and murder, the terrorists were released in exchange for a British hostage and the remains of his three contract guards (whom the terrorists had murdered).
So, as the mullahs, America’s incorrigible enemies, struggle to hang on, we’re giving them accommodations and legitimacy. And the messages we send? Terrorize us and we’ll negotiate with you. Kill American troops or kidnap civilians and win valuable concessions — including the release of an army of jihadists, and its leaders, who can now go back to targeting American troops.
Read all of Andy’s article and weep. We have another three years of this man’s naivete and terrorist appeasement to live through.
Update: Allahpundit at Hot Air has much on this sad display of Obama appeasement gone wild and notes this particularly disturbing detail:
[Jake] Tapper’s military source insists that this has nothing to do with a prisoner swap but merely the U.S. honoring its obligations under the U.S.-Iraqi Security Agreement, but it ain’t just Roggio’s sources who insist that’s a lie. According to the Guardian, not only is this a prisoner swap but the guy we’re getting in return — Peter Moore, a British computer consultant who’s been held hostage in Iran since May 2007 — was kidnapped by Khazali’s group precisely because they wanted a bargaining chip to negotiate for Khazali’s release.
So, Moore was kidnapped in 2007 when Bush was president to use as a bargaining chip. They got nowhere with him, it seems, but Obama comes along and Khazili’s group sees nothing but chump in the White House and bingo! there’s a swap.
