WASHINGTON — The question from the congressman to the Obama administration official was straightforward enough: How many foreign visitors overstay their visas every year?
The reply was simple too, but not in a satisfying way. “We don’t know,” the official said.
The testy exchange during a recent congressional hearing between Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina, and Alan Bersin, the assistant secretary for international affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, highlights what some law enforcement officials call a critical weakness in the United States foreign visa program.
The issue has taken on added urgency as part of a broader examination of immigration policy following the mass shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., that left 14 people dead and 22 wounded. Tashfeen Malik, one of the attackers, was granted entry to the United States under a K-1 visa, also known as a fiancé visa. Her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, was an American-born citizen. Both died in a shootout with the police. While Ms. Malik did not overstay her visa, the attack added to fears that a terrorist could exploit gaps in the system.
Nearly 20 years ago, Congress passed a law requiring the federal government to develop a system to track people who overstayed their visas. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, an entry and exit tracking system was seen as a vital national security and counterterrorism tool, and the 9/11 Commission recommended that the Department of Homeland Security complete a system “as soon as possible.” Two of the 9/11 hijackers, Satam al-Suqami and Nawaf al-Hazmi, had overstayed their visas.
DECEMBER 30, 2015 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2015, 1:21 AM
THE RECORD
Ring in the new year with a scrumptious meal. The following are just some of the restaurants going all out to satisfy palates in the final moments of 2015:
Picnic on the Square
The Ridgewood restaurant is celebrating New Year’s with a loaded prix-fixe menu. The meal includes a snack plate to start followed by salad, appetizer, entrée and dessert courses. This year’s celebration features an all-new menu crafted by chef Christine Nunn and a complimentary champagne toast. Other than the toast, the meal is BYOB. $85 per person, 26 Wilsey Square 201-444-4001; picniconthesquare.com.
I can’t recall the Village Council ever approving a resolution permitting such an operation (at The Stable).
Does anyone know how this all happened and whether it’s legal? Are they operating there for free (on the taxpayer’s dime), or is money exchanging hands? All a mystery.
It’s the worst-kept secret in the Garden State: People are leaving the state in droves — New Jersey has the highest out-migration rate in the nation — and those who stay aren’t doing well.
But New Jersey is also the nation’s leader in another troubling, underappreciated category: Nearly half — 48 percent — of New Jersey’s young adults are living with their parents, more than in any other state.
Let that sink in. Tens of thousands of people in their prime — who should be building their dreams — are stuck in Mom and Dad’s basement.
Living with the parents means other dreams are being put on hold, like getting married, having a family or starting a business. As a millennial myself, I was fortunate to get married a few weeks ago. But 71 percent of young adults in the state have never been married.
Everyone has to accept disappointment in life, but far too many young New Jerseyans are getting used to disappointment being the status quo. And far too many families are literally being broken up as generations move out of state. I asked around recently — what’s life like in the Garden State for millennials?
“I’m living at home, have three degrees and can’t find a paying job anywhere! I’m currently working for free so I have some experience to put down on my résumé,” one 30-year-old attorney told me.
Don’t believe me when I say New Jersey’s economy is breaking up families? Then don’t take it from me, take it from a retired mother of three adult children, who said: “We have three kids living in three different states who will never return! They are asking us when we are leaving.”
A powerful solar storm set to slam Earth today will make for stunning views of the Northern Lights just before New Year’s Eve. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center said the “strong” storm could allow the Northern Lights to dip as far south as Oregon and Illinois.
NOAA classifies solar storms on a scale of one to five (one being the weakest; five being the most severe). Today’s storm is forecast to be a G3 event, meaning it could have the strength to cause fluctuations in some power grids, intermittent radio blackouts in higher latitudes and possible GPS issues.
Today is Holy Family Sunday, the day on which the Church celebrates family life and asks us to reflect on the family as
the basic unit of society. It is the family in which we are nurtured and nourished and which, throughout our lives,
offers the support that allows us to continue to grow and, at the same time, to be secure in the knowledge that there is a
place where we are loved. It is in the family that we experience the ties that bind, bringing us together into the
most intimate of all human relationships. We all know that families continue under a great deal of stress right now, not
only because so many households now have to have two “breadwinners,” but also because of the number of marriage
relationships that have failed and the stress of “blended families,” and the continued pressure to re-define marriage,
now also including the looming possibility that polygamy will be the next hot-button issue.
As our reflection, I once again offer this prayer, composed by the poet Robert Louis Stevenson, for all our families and
for the parish family of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. It captures so many of the deepest wishes we hope for our
families and it is my hope, prayer and wish for all of you. Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank you
for this place in which we dwell; for the love that unites us; for the peace accorded us this day; for the hope
with which we wait for tomorrow; for the health, the work, the food and the bright skies that make our lives
delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth.
Let peace abound in our small community. Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace and
strength to forbear and persevere. Give us the grace to accept and forgive offenses. Forgetful ourselves, help
us to bear cheerfully the forgetfulness of others.
Give us courage and gaiety and a quiet mind. Spare us to our friends, soften us to our enemies. Bless us in all
our endeavors. Give us the strength to encounter that which is to come that we may be brave in peril,
constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all changes in fortune, and down to the gates of death,
loyal and loving, one to another.
As the clay to the potter, as the windmill to the wind, as children to their father, we ask of You this help and
mercy for Christ’s sake. Amen.
God bless all our families and this parish family of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and a very large and warm thank
you for all of you who make this parish a real family.
All peace and joy in the New Year,
Fr. Ron
P.S. And here I go with another PS, which directly affects this parish family that I just wrote about. I have
briefly written previously on the proposed parking garage the Village is considering building on the site of
the present ground lot on Hudson Street. The Council had a first vote on the authorization of the bonds to pay
for the lot. I am not sure if the Council has officially approved the largest of the designs, for 400+ cars, but, I
believe the bond issue would be for an amount that is needed for that design.
As I wrote, I have concerns about the proposed size of that project, the traffic it could create around the church, and the
proposed re-orientation of Hudson and Passaic Streets, affecting the way funerals park at Mount Carmel and ingress and
egress into and from the driveways that surround the former convent. As I write this, we have engaged an
independent consultant to review the Traffic Impact Study prepared for the Village.
I invite all interested parishioners to one of two meetings to be held this week, one on Tuesday evening, December
29, 2015 at 7:30 PM or, for those who prefer not to come out at night, Wednesday afternoon, December 30, 2015
at 2:00 PM. Both meetings will be held in the Parish
Center and the purpose is to give you any information about our review of the Traffic Impact Study and to
offer you the opportunity to respond to the project proposed by the Village. In preparation, I encourage
everyone to go to the Village website www.ridgewoodnj.net . If you click on the Hudson
Street garage icon you will find some valuable information, including the simulations of the designed
garage as it fits into adjacent buildings and from different perspectives. It is very helpful in understanding the project.
It is important that we hear from you before January 6, 2016, when the Village Council will take up the Bond Issue again.
In the days prior to Christmas, two hastily called Judiciary committee hearings were called in an effort to change the NJ State Constitution, ensuring one party control of the State in perpetuity. Practically no notice was provided, no information was shared, no questions were answered and no experts testified. Regardless of your political leanings, anyone who favors open, transparent, good government should reject what transpired. So far the Star Ledger and the Daily Record editorial boards have denounced this political gamesmanship. Below please find an Op Ed piece regarding this issue.
Lame Duck Redistricting Scheme Raises More Questions than It Answers
By Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll and Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi
Schemes hatched in lame duck sessions of the Legislature should always give reason for pause, but changing voting rights without considerable public discussion is reckless. A proposed constitutional amendment with a significant but unknown impact on the voting rights of New Jersey’s citizens deserves more than the hasty, slapdash, non-transparent treatment the Democrats are giving this measure.
Ignoring the Legislature’s responsibility to hold fact-finding hearings, Chairman John McKeon dismissed concerns about fast-tracking the proposal changing the way the state redraws its legislative districts. “The people of New Jersey will have the opportunity to vote on whatever is on the ballot,” he said at last week’s Assembly Judiciary Committee hearing.
We did not support this plan in part because the sponsors couldn’t answer basic questions. How can voters make an informed decision about a constitutional amendment when the Legislature itself does not fully understand it?
What’s the rush? Legislative districts won’t be reconfigured again until 2021. When the 1966 Constitutional Convention considered the standards used today, it met for three months and had 14 meetings full of expert testimony. Additionally, there were six meetings specifically on apportionment. In this process, the Democrats are advancing a plan after only two brief committee meetings with no expert testimony and only one member of the public commenting.
Their amendment relies on a decades-old report by Dr. Donald Stokes, who served on the Apportionment Commission in 1981 and 1991. Many of his assumptions are based on demographics from almost a generation ago. No one can deny that New Jersey has changed significantly in a quarter century. Does Stokes’ modeling still hold true? Were the demographics he used in 1993 accurate on what we know today?
The amendment deviates from the report on even more critical aspects. Stokes used legislative elections to create his models and proposal, but this amendment ignores them. Instead, it relies on federal and gubernatorial elections that have little to do with drawing up legislative districts. Why exclude legislative races to determine how those districts should be drawn? That’s like using baseball statistics to figure out how football should be played.
Their plan requires only a quarter of districts to be competitive, but allows the remaining 75 percent to have no contest at all. Why not maximize the number of competitive districts? The Stokes test for determining whether a map is fair requires the popular vote across the state to be represented among the districts as a whole and be responsive to the shifts of public opinion. When electoral tides move strongly toward one party, that party should fairly quickly win an effective majority of seats. Using the 2011 legislative election returns, a fair map should have resulted with 21 Democrat and 19 Republican Senators, rather than the 24-16 split that has remained since that election.
Further, the amendment intentionally excludes the equal representation requirement in the state Constitution. Every state respects equal population requirements, the bedrock of American democracy since “no taxation without representation.” Yet, the Democrats intentionally left it out in favor of gerrymandering districts, which almost always shift groups of voters to limit the voting rights of others. They may point to the compactness requirement in the constitution, but this amendment makes federal law pre-eminent.
Why do the sponsors want to make this change? Democrats have held a legislative majority since 2001 and hold their largest majority in 40 years.
The plan was conceived behind closed-doors by Democratic political operatives with essentially a super PAC in East Brunswick. They introduced it to the Assembly Judiciary Committee on November 17, even though it was not mentioned during a previous meeting just three days earlier. With little more information than a Politico article, it passed on a party-line vote the week before Christmas.
By the end of the next day, the Democrats wanted to limit the number of members on the redistricting commission in their plan without explanation. They called the committee back the following Monday, but that meeting started four hours late after most of the media and public left. This contempt for transparency and lack of serious inquiry into this proposal’s ramifications is striking and should be a matter of serious concern to anyone who values New Jersey’s voting rights.
While parties may disagree on the result of the map every ten years, New Jersey’s electoral process has been routinely praised by academics when compared to other states. Why weren’t those experts invited to the committee hearing? Shouldn’t we know what other states do before moving forward with a constitutional amendment? Surely if this plan were all the Democrats say, there would have been a line of academics ready to back them up.
In no other profession would you first enact a policy to know what is in it. The lack of information, transparency and candor is reason enough to be concerned with where the state is headed under a Democratic majority. This constitutional amendment blindly leads the public into forever changing the way New Jersey votes.
DECEMBER 28, 2015, 12:02 PM LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2015, 11:09 PM
BY JAY LEVIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
he power of observation that informed the work of Ellsworth Kelly — whose innovative use of bold, geographic shapes and vivid colors established him as one of America’s leading abstract artists — was incubated in the rural Oradell of long ago.
Kelly, who died Sunday at 92, spent his boyhood in the Bergen County borough and enjoyed bird-watching at the Oradell Reservoir, an experience that helped him focus on nature’s shapes and kindled a passion for color and form.
Oradell, too, gave Kelly his professional moorings: His drawings — of daffodils, for instance, and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln set in profile against a Stars and Stripes backdrop — graced the covers of The Chirp, Oradell Junior High School’s quarterly literary magazine. Kelly himself credited a sixth-grade art teacher, Dorothy Opsut, with recognizing and encouraging his talent.
The artist, who counted Picasso and Matisse as influences, moved to upstate Spencertown, N.Y., after stints in lower Manhattan and Paris, but never forgot Oradell. A childhood friend, Frank Vierling, was the longtime borough historian, and when the Oradell Public Library embarked on a capital campaign to fund a renovation a decade ago, Kelly’s $50,000 was the largest gift.
When the library marked its centennial in 2013, Kelly, days shy of 90, was front and center at the celebration. Telling the crowd that “my art is simply about shapes and colors and what people make of them,” he presented the library with a signed print titled “Color Squares 2” (2011) — squares of green, blue, violet, red and orange on a horizontal white background. It hangs over the fireplace in the North Reading Room, and joins a trove of Kelly books and catalogs in the library’s collection.
By Samantha Marcus | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on December 28, 2015 at 7:08 PM, updated December 29, 2015 at 7:15 AM
TRENTON — New Jersey’s Unclaimed Property Administration connected $123 million in unclaimed assets with their rightful owners or heirs in the fiscal year that ended in June, according to an audit of the agency.
The state paid out $125 million in 2014 and $107.5 million in 2013.
But plenty remains unclaimed. Nearly $264 million was turned over to the state in the last fiscal year alone.
“It is common that in the normal course of business that individuals or businesses lose track of either checks that were issued to them or bank holdings,” according to the state website. “Once property reaches the defined abandonment period with no activity, the holder of this property will turn the property over to the state.”
The Unclaimed Property administration is merely the custodian. You never give up your right to claim these assets. “If property is not claimed it remains in the Unclaimed Property Trust Fund in perpetuity or until a valid claim is submitted and processed,” the website said
Ridgewood NJ, NJ TRANSIT is offering extra service for travelers attending New Year’s Eve festivities across the region. Please note that no alcoholic beverages will be permitted on board trains, light rail vehicles, buses or in any NJ TRANSIT facility. This policy will be strictly enforced by the NJ TRANSIT Police Department on New Year’s Eve and after midnight.
On New Year’s Eve, Thursday, December 31, rail service will operate on a weekday schedule with the following modifications:
Before 6 p.m., the Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast Lines will operate on a modified weekday schedule with certain morning peak period trains cancelled and additional mid-to-late morning service on each line. Extra mid-day Midtown Direct service will also operate between Summit and New York.
After 6 p.m., additional New York-bound trips will operate on the Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast and Morris & Essex lines. In addition, all trains that normally depart New York and Hoboken between 11:30 p.m. and 12:15 a.m. will be cancelled to support later service to customers returning from New York’s festivities. Customers should visit njtransit.com for details, including special printable schedules that cover the period from 6 p.m. on New Year’s Eve until 6 a.m. on New Year’s morning. For more information, click HERE.
Bus schedules vary by route. Customers are advised to check their timetables or visit njtransit.com for schedule information. Selected routes will operate on special holiday schedules, available on njtransit.com, to match service with ridership demand, including early getaway service from the Port Authority Bus Terminal and Jersey City Waterfront between noon and 4 p.m. to accommodate the heaviest travel, with less frequent service during the peak periods and later in the evening due to lower ridership. Early getaway service will also operate from the Jersey City waterfront on the No. 64 and No. 68 bus routes. In the evening, additional service to the Port Authority Bus Terminal will be offered on selected routes from approximately 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. to accommodate customers traveling to New York for the festivities. For more information, click HERE.
Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, Newark Light Rail and River Line will operate on a weekday schedule.
In addition, River Line will operate extended late-night service on New Year’s Eve and after midnight on New Year’s Day to accommodate customers attending the festivities on the Camden Waterfront. Special late-night trains will operate between Camden and Trenton, making all local stops. For more information, click HERE.
Hudson-Bergen Light Rail will also operate added late-night service on New Year’s Eve into New Year’s Day to accommodate travelers returning home from midnight celebrations. For more information for HBLR service, click HERE.
IMPORTANT NOTE: No alcoholic beverages will be permitted on board trains, light rail vehicles, aboard buses or in any NJ TRANSIT facility on New Year’s Eve and after midnight on New Year’s Day. This policy will be strictly enforced.
After midnight (early January 1), additional late-night trains will operate on most rail lines with one-seat ride service available on certain Raritan Valley Line and North Jersey Coast Line trains. Customers should visit njtransit.com for details, including special printable schedules that cover the period from 6 p.m. on New Year’s Eve until 6 a.m. on New Year’s morning. Expanded bus service will be provided from the Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) until approximately 2 a.m. on selected routes. Visit njtransit.com for details.
On New Year’s Day, Friday, January 1, after 5 a.m., trains will operate on a weekend/major holiday schedule. Newark Light Rail and River Line will operate on a Sunday schedule. Hudson-Bergen Light Rail will operate on a weekend schedule. Holiday bus schedules vary by route—customers are advised to visit njtransit.com for details.
On Saturday, January 2 and Sunday, January 3, trains will operate on a regular weekend schedule on all lines, with an additional train operating Sunday only on the Port Jervis Line. In addition, Meadowlands service will operate for the Giants vs. Philadelphia game on January 3. Customers should visit njtransit.com for details, especially those traveling to the Meadowlands for the 1 p.m. kickoff time. Buses will operate on a weekend schedule. Newark Light Rail will operate on a Saturday schedule. River Line will operate on a Sunday schedule. Hudson-Bergen Light Rail will operate on a weekend schedule. Please consult njtransit.com for additional details.
DECEMBER 28, 2015, 5:38 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2015, 6:44 AM
BY GREGORY SCHUTTA
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Years of debate. Months of meetings. Weeks of hand-wringing.
And in the end, athletes, coaches and officials of New Jersey high school sports find themselves right back where they started.
In a momentous announcement Monday, state Commissioner of Education David Hespe reversed controversial votes this month by state athletics’ governing body to separate public and non-public schools in football and on the road to the state wrestling tournament.
Related: Landmark vote splits N.J. H.S. football along public/non-public lines
The decision forces the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association and school officials to yet again seek a lasting solution to the longest-running issue plaguing high school sports in the state: the competitive imbalance between public and non-public school teams.
“I’m disappointed,” said River Dell Athletic Director Denis Nelson, a strong proponent of the separation proposal in football. “The strategic and competitive advantage non-public schools have is going to continue. I don’t think it’s fair. I don’t think it’s right. But it is in existence.”
“We’re back to where we were,” said Bergen Catholic Athletic Director Jack McGovern. “I don’t know that that’s a great place. But now we know the parameters we have to work with, and we will continue to try to make it better.”
Security bloggers and researchers claim to have uncovered a publicly available database exposing the personal information of 191 million voters on the Internet.
The information contains voters’ names, home addresses, voter IDs, phone numbers and date of birth, as well as political affiliations and a detailed voting history since 2000.
While in most states, voter registration lists are a matter of public record, many have regulations restricting access and use.
For example, South Dakota requires those requesting access to voter data to confirm that the information “may not be used or sold for any commercial purpose and may not be placed for unrestricted access on the internet.”
Security researcher Chris Vickery discovered the breach and reported it to DataBreaches.net, which has since reached out to law enforcement, as well as the California attorney general’s office.
“When one of their attorneys asked, ‘Well how much data are we talking about?’ and I read her the list of data fields and told her that we had access to voter records of over 17 million California voters, her response was ‘Wow,’ and she promptly forwarded the matter to the head of their e-crime division,” writes DataBreaches.net’s anonymous admin.
Steve Ragan, a security blogger for the security and risk management website CSO, has alsoinvestigated the breach, noting that none of the political database firms he identified and reached out to in connection with the database claimed ownership of the IP address where the files are posted.
an article worth reading and so relevant to what Ridgewood is going through right now..
PUBLISHED BY LESLIE WRIGHT ON DECEMBER 22, 2015
At this time of year, when we gather with loved ones, often returning to, or remembering, the places we hold dear, the reflections of Orton Family Foundation Trustee Ed McMahon on the importance of place seem especially apropos. Ed is senior resident fellow at Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C.
We live in a world of rapid change: immigration, new technologies, global trade, instantaneous communication, changing consumer tastes, rapid movement of people, ideas, and goods, etc. However, if I have learned anything over 25 years in the community planning arena, it is this: change is inevitable, but the destruction of community character and identity is not. Progress does not demand degraded surroundings. Communities can grow without destroying the things people love.
Place is more than just a location or a spot on a map. A sense of place is a unique collection of qualities and characteristics—visual, cultural, social and environmental—that provides meaning to a location. Sense of place is what makes one location (e.g. your hometown) different from another location (e.g. my hometown), but sense of place is also that which makes our physical surroundings valuable and worth caring about.
Land use planners spend too much time focusing on numbers—the number of units per acre, the number of cars per hour, the number of floors per building—and not enough time on the values, customs, characteristics, and quirks that make a place worth caring about. Unfortunately, many American communities are suffering the social, economic, and environmental consequences of being places that simply aren’t worth caring about. The more one place (one location) comes to be just like every other place, the less reason there is to visit or invest. Just take tourism, for example: the more a community comes to look like every other community, the less reason there is to visit. On the other hand, the more a community does to enhance its distinctive identity, whether that is natural, cultural, or architectural, the more reasons there are to visit. Why? Because tourism is about visiting places that are different, unusual, or unique; if one place was just like everyplace else, there would be no reason to go anyplace.
Similarly, when it comes to 21st century economic development, a key concept is “community differentiation.” If you can’t differentiate your community from any other community, you have no competitive advantage. Capital is footloose in a global economy. Natural resources, highway access, locations along a river or rail line have all become less important. Richard Florida, a leading economic development authority and author of The Creative Class, has said, “How people think of a place is less tangible, but more important than just about anything else.”
Astra Taylor’s iPhone has a cracked screen. She has bandaged it with clear packing tape and plans to use the phone until it disintegrates. She objects to the planned obsolescence of today’s gadgetry, and to the way the big tech companies pressure customers to upgrade.
Taylor, 36, is a documentary filmmaker, musician and political activist. She’s also an emerging star in the world of technology criticism. She’s not paranoid, but she keeps duct tape over the camera lens on her laptop computer — because, as everyone knows, these gadgets can be taken over by nefarious agents of all kinds.
Taylor is a 21st-century digital dissenter. She’s one of the many technophiles unhappy about the way the tech revolution has played out. Political progressives once embraced the utopian promise of the Internet as a democratizing force, but they’ve been dismayed by the rise of the “surveillance state,” and the near-monopolization of digital platforms by huge corporations.
Last month, Taylor and more than 1,000 activists, scholars and techies gathered at the New School in New York City for a conference to talk about reinventing the Internet. They dream of a co-op model: people dealing directly with one another without having to go through a data-sucking corporate hub.
If he declared an outsider presidential bid, the former Democratic candidate could have an outsize effect on the race.
Ben Brody @BenBrodyDC
When Jim Webb quit the Democratic presidential race on Oct. 20 amid low poll numbers and a minimal debate presence, the former Virginia senator left open the possibility he’d return for a White House run in a different political guise. Now he appears to be edging closer to making good on it.
On Saturday morning, Webb used Twitter and his Facebook page to attack Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton for her handling of Libya during her time as secretary of state.
The lengthy condemnation on Facebook, which said, among other things that “Clinton should be called to account for her inept leadership that brought about the chaos in Libya,” came just days before the end of the year, which his team had previously told CNN would be reasonable time for them to make a decision about an independent bid.
Since dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination, Webb has continued to maintain his Webb2016 website, which he has updated with posts about the possibilities of an independent run. On Twitter, he and his fans have been promoting a #WebbNation hashtag.
A run by Webb, who often manages his own social media accounts and has also used them recently to promote a petition in favor of his run and to deliver kudos to Bernie Sanders in his battles with the Democratic National Committee (“nothing more than an arm for the Clinton campaign,” Webb tweeted), could further complicate the already unpredictable 2016 election.
“Our next commander in chief must define a strategic vision for the country and accept accountability for past actions. Hillary Clinton should be called to account for her inept leadership that brought about the chaos in Libya, and the power vacuums that resulted in the rest of the region. She’ll need better answers than the recent nonsensical comment that she advocated taking out Muammar Qadaffi in Libya in order to avert a situation like Syria. The predictable chaos in Libya was bad enough, but it also helped bring about the disaster in Syria. Who is taking her to task for this?https://read.bi/1SbMG7h
She said, “If we had not joined with our European partners and our Arab partners to assist the people in Libya, you would be looking at Syria.” In reality that is what we are looking at. As the Harvard (Kennedy School) Lessons from Libya study of 2013 found, “The biggest misconception about NATO’s intervention is that it saved lives and benefited Libya and its neighbors.” Radical Islamist groups, suppressed under Qaddafi, emerged as the fiercest rebels during the war, highlighted by the September 2012 attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three of his colleagues.
Clinton talked at this last DNC debate about her failure as Secretary of State as if she was successful. While she held that office, the U.S. spent about $2 billion backing the Libyan uprising against Qadaffi. The uprising, which was part of the Arab Spring, led directly to Qaddafi being removed from power and killed by rebel forces in 2011. Now some 2,000 ISIS terrorists have established a foothold in Libya. Sophisticated weapons from Qaddafi’s arsenal—including up to 15,000 man-portable, surface-to-air missiles have apparently fallen into the hands of radical Islamists throughout the region. For a Secretary of State (and a Presidential administration) this is foreign policy leadership at its worst.
The first rule of wing-walking (and regime change) is never let go of what you have until you have a firm grasp on where you are going.”
