Report: Barack Obama being asked to return his Nobel Peace Prize after allegations of aiding Islamic terrorists

Report: Barack Obama being asked to return his Nobel Peace Prize after allegations of aiding Islamic terrorists
December 20, 2017
https://www.conservativeinstitute.org/foreign-policy/iran/obama-asked-return-prize.htm?utm_source=boomtrain&utm_medium=NS1&utm_campaign=1513888402932&utm_source=boomtrain&utm_medium=NS1&utm_campaign=1513888402780
Report: Barack Obama being asked to return his Nobel Peace Prize after allegations of aiding Islamic terrorists
Ben Ferenchak / CCL
Israeli politicians have called for Barack Obama to forfeit his Nobel Peace Prize. The outrage follows a Sunday report by Politico that the former president blocked criminal investigations into operatives of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese terror group, to pave the way for the Iran deal.

The report claims that the Obama administration obstructed a Drug Enforcement Administration task force in its efforts to prosecute suspected drug and weapons traffickers linked to the terror group.

There can be no doubt that Trump understands America’s priorities better than Obama did.

Calls to forfeit Nobel Peace Prize
A chorus of anger erupted among Israeli politicians after the Politico story broke.

“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.”

Former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren said, “It was clear that the government was willing to do anything to reach an agreement, including ignoring Iranian terror that took the lives of hundreds of Americans and Israelis and hundreds of thousands of Syrians.”

“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,” Regional Cooperation Minister Tazchi Hanegbi said.

Communications Minister Ayoob Kara put it in plain terms when he said, “Does anyone still doubt why Obama was bad for Israel and how Trump is better for us?”

Indeed, it looks like the Obama administration was involved in more underhanded dealings than previously thought.

Project Cassandra
The bombshell report by Politico details how Obama administration officials obstructed a DEA task force, Project Cassandra, in its efforts to prosecute Hezbollah operatives involved in global drug and weapons trafficking operations as well as money laundering. According to the report, Obama’s reluctance to prosecute directly led to the group amassing huge profits and expanding to the point that it became a global terror force.

The Iran-backed terror group ran a global crime syndicate that totaled $1 billion annually from drugs and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.

It’s like something out of a crime thriller movie.

Obama-era Justice and Treasury department officials delayed, hindered, and blocked requests from Project Cassandra leaders to charge major Hezbollah operatives involved in the crime syndicate. According to the report, the red tape got worse the closer the Obama administration got to securing the Iran deal.

“When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests,” according to the report.

Cassandra ran for eight years out of a top secret DEA office in Chantilly, Virginia, where officials amassed evidence of a global criminal network, tracing a conspiracy to Hezbollah and their state sponsor, Iran. They discovered cocaine shipments running from Latin America to the Middle East and Europe and “multi-ton loads of cocaine” entering the U.S. from Venezuela and Mexico.

The Justice Department refused to charge a Hezbollah-linked Lebanese bank that allegedly laundered billions in drug profits. The State Department rejected requests to lure major players to countries where they could be arrested.

The Obama administration also refused to apply pressure to extradite Ali Fayad, a Putin-linked Lebanese arms dealer who ran guns to Bashar Al-Assad and a suspected top Hezbollah operative who was arrested in the Czech Republic in 2014. Another suspected operative who goes by the nickname “the Ghost”, a man who is believed to be one of the world’s biggest cocaine traffickers, was also let off the hook despite being under sealed U.S. indictment for years.

“The administration also rejected repeated efforts by Project Cassandra members to charge Hezbollah’s military wing as an ongoing criminal enterprise under a federal Mafia-style racketeering statute,” the report said.

Cassandra officials further allege that the administration refused to label Hezbollah a “significant transnational criminal organization” and “blocked other strategic initiatives that would have given the task force additional legal tools, money and manpower to fight it.”

Deliberate obstruction
Project Cassandra officials were transferred to other assignments after the deal went through in January of 2016. David Asher, a former Defense Department finance analyst who worked on Project Cassandra, said the obstruction was deliberate: a “policy decision.”

“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” said Asher, according to Politico. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

Katherine Bauer, an Obama-era Treasury Department official, said in a written congressional testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that “under the Obama administration … these [Hezbollah-related] investigations were tamped down for fear of rocking the boat with Iran and jeopardizing the nuclear deal.”

Hezbollah was founded in Lebanon in the 1980s to counter Israeli invasion and occupation. The Islamist group has a political arm that holds seats in Lebanon’s parliament.

Republicans call for investigation
A Republican lawmaker on Monday called for a House investigation into the matter. Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-N.C.) sent a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy calling for a probe into the disturbing revelations. Pittenger told Fox News:

These revelations are shocking and infuriating. While American soldiers were bravely fighting ISIS terrorists, with some paying the ultimate price, the Obama administration reportedly was protecting Hezbollah terrorists who were funding themselves by trafficking illegal drugs.

No wonder President Obama couldn’t bring himself to call them ‘Radical Islamist Terrorists.’

Obama administration officials have tried to downplay the significance of the reporting, but this will certainly become difficult as the story develops further.