Blog
LatestArticlesVideos
Radio
LivePodcastSerialsStations
TV
Podcasts
The Glenn Beck ProgramThe Glenn Beck PodcastThe Beck Story
Fine Art
Real Estate
More
AboutCharityBooksSponsorsShopContact
SEARCH
Live Radio

©2024 MERCURY RADIO ARTS.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY

Live

Glenn's Show Prep

How bad is Obama’s foreign policy? Let’s count the ways

July 14, 2015
Staff

WRITER

Last night on Glenn’s program featured a segment titled ‘Enabling the Enemy’ that breaks down Obama’s horrific foreign policy mistakes. In many instances these mistakes are the exact same ones the Bush administration made. Obama promised a new era of foreign policy -- but has anything changed? Blaze head writer Dan Andros and head researcher Jason Buttrill break it down.

Dan: Hi, this is Dan Andros, head writer for The Glenn Beck Program, along with Jason Buttrill, who is former military intelligence and the chief researcher here at TheBlaze. Over the next couple days, we’re going to be going through explaining something that is really important. It’s just how badly America’s foreign policy has failed. Not surprisingly, the press hasn’t paid much attention to the details of this administration’s foreign policy and the results.

What we want to look at is the last twelve years here, because six of them have been under Bush, and now we’ve had six under Obama’s administration, and how much has changed really, because he promised a big change. Really not much has changed at all. In fact, I think it’s gotten worse. I think the argument we’re going to make here over the next couple days is that the administration is actually enabling the enemy instead of degrading and destroying them as they had promised.

That is quite a claim, and so we’re going to try to unpack that over here in the next few episodes of this. We’re going to start here, with the beginning of the Iraq war. This is obviously under Bush in 2003. Ever since then, there’s been a disturbing trend where Christians are fleeing Iraq in record numbers. Explain the history there, what’s happening, and why it matters.

Jason: Since after the Iraq war, since after the invasion, around 2003, there was around 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. Think about that. These are Christians that have survived multiple genocides, so there was around 1.5 million Christians there. These were Christians that have been there since the time of the apostles. When the apostles converted the Assyrians, the Assyrians were one of the most ancient peoples in the lands. After 2003, these Christians slowly started disappearing. From 1.5 million Christians, today there are 200,000 Christians left.

It’s insane, 1.3 million Christians have been wiped off the face of the earth, and it’s not just the people that are getting slaughtered, it’s national heritage sites. It’s the places that you’ve learned about in Sunday school, the tombs of Jonah, the tombs of Daniel. Those places have been destroyed. So, they’re not only trying to get rid of Christians, they’re trying to erase our history. They’re trying to not only make sure that we don’t go forward in the region, they’re trying to make sure that we never existed at all.

Dan: Okay, so the crazy thing is that ISIS which was founded in Iraq as Al Qaeda in Iraq, they just invaded Iraq from Syria as an outside invading force, which is well, how did that happen? You say the answer to how that came about is kind of crucial to explaining all of the foreign policy mistakes that we’re making right now. Can you explain that a little bit more?

Jason: Al Qaeda had always been an organization that was extremely brutal. We’ve seen that. We’ve see the multiple videos they did, but we never saw them go to what you see ISIS doing right now. You say why is that? Well, it’s not only us that are realizing that. Even Al Qaeda’s own imams are noticing that too. Imam Maqdisi, who is one of their most influential imams, he came out and called ISIS a deviant. Why is that?

ISIS created a political and geographic framework for the caliphate. They provided what Al Qaeda wanted to create, so why would Maqdisi come out and say that they’re a deviant? In 2003, this was one of our first mistakes after the Iraq war, which was probably the actual first mistake. What we’ll track now is in 2003, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, he disbanded the Iraqi military. What he should have done was he should have kept the Iraqi military in place.

Now, these are guys that were trained in the West, some of them. They went to Western schools. They were professionals. They were generals, they were officers in Saddam’s army. Not all of them were bad. Some of them were Christians even. Not all of them were bad guys. What they should’ve done is kept that infrastructure in place and handed them over to the new Iraqi government. They didn’t do that.

So, what were they doing? They were pissed. They didn’t have nothing to do, so what they did was they went to some of these jihadi organizations that were fighting American troops.

Dan: Because now you’ve got a whole legion of people who are not only pissed, don’t have a job anymore, they’ve got to get something to eat, they’re also loyal to Saddam, and they have no reason not to be loyal to Saddam now.

Jason: Exactly.

Dan: And more of an ax to grind.

Jason: Exactly. So, this landed a lot of them in prison camps, more specifically what you’ve probably heard about, Camp Bucca. Camp Bucca housed some of all of ISIS’s current members. Many of their high-ranking membership came from Camp Bucca. There were three specific guys. They met up with the young man named al-Baghdadi, who you know now is the current caliph.

Now, these three guys, these are older gentlemen. They were generals in Saddam’s intelligence apparatus. These were very intense, serious dudes, and if you think about nowadays, you see the brutality of ISIS, and it shocks us. People are forgetting that this was something that we had just saw about ten years ago from the Saddam regime. Their actions are the reason why the majority of us, of Americans, gave our consent and said yes, go in and stop them.

Dan: Right, because he gassed his own people.

Jason: Gases his own people. He would beat people to a pulp and have dogs finish it off and chew them up and kill them. Decapitations, it was crazy.

Dan: On par with how awful ISIS is.

Jason: Exactly, and that’s what we’re getting too. So, these three intelligence guys, they meet up with Baghdadi. They get out of prison. Baghdadi actually gets out first. He’s a nobody. Baghdadi is a nobody. He had no jihadi links whatsoever. He was known to be hanging out with some jihadi folks. That’s what got him arrested. He stayed in for a matter of months.

Dan: Right. That’s how he got out because they didn’t have any hard evidence that this guy was active on the battlefield.

Jason: Exactly. They couldn’t hold him, so he gets out. He gets out, he goes straight to Zarqawi, which is the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq. He goes and hangs out with him. Pretty soon these three intelligence guys, they get out, and they go link up with Zarqawi and Baghdadi.

Dan: Zarqawi was like enemy number one at the time. I remember when they had the picture cards out. They had the ace of spades and everything else. He was one of the top guys on there besides bin Laden at the time.

Jason: He was one of the top guys. He met bin Laden. That’s how you actually became a leader in a certain providence for Al Qaeda. You had to be vetted by the man. Osama bin Laden had to sign off on you. That’s the only way you could get into Al Qaeda. He signed off on Zarqawi. Zarqawi was legit.

Zarqawi dies in the US bombing raid. Somehow Baghdadi slips into his spot. He had never met Osama bin Laden. This was before Osama bin Laden was killed. This was around 2010-ish. He had never met him. He had no fighting experience.

Dan: He didn’t have the cred, but somehow he gets boosted up there. How does that happen?

Jason: A man that had nothing but two things, he had a PhD in Islamic studies, and he came from the correct tribe that Muhammad was descended from, the Quraysh tribe. At some point along this time, they split from Al Qaeda. They make a split. Baghdadi makes a huge public statement that he is no longer in support of Al Qaeda. A guy with no jihadi street cred whatsoever, he’s now in control of one of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terror groups. How did that happen?

Dan: He would never have been approved for that by bin Laden.

Jason: Never would have been approved for that, and he had no approval for it because they eventually split, and now Al Qaeda is calling them a deviant. Why is that?

Dan: So, it kind of begs the question, who was recruiting who in that prison? Because the answer to it, if it goes the way we think it does, would lead us to believe that we’re actually still fighting Saddam Hussein’s loyalists and Saddam Hussein in Iraq in this battle against ISIS. It’s not just a rogue force that came out of nowhere. It’s born out of our own foreign policy mistakes, and it’s just the first in a whole series of them. We’ll pick up with more of those next time.

The Deep State's NEW plan to backstab Trump

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move.

In 2016, Donald Trump shocked the world by defeating Hillary Clinton. Conservatives cheered, believing we’d taken back the reins of our country. But we missed the bigger battle. We failed to recognize the extent of the damage caused by eight years of Barack Obama and decades of progressive entrenchment. The real war isn’t won at the ballot box. It’s being waged against an insidious force embedded deep within our institutions: the administrative state, or the “deep state.”

This isn’t a new problem. America’s founders foresaw it, though they didn’t have a term for “deep state” back in the 1700s. James Madison, in Federalist 48, warned us that combining legislative, executive, and judicial powers in the same hands is “the very definition of tyranny.” Yet today, that’s exactly where we stand. Unelected bureaucrats in agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Justice hold more power than the officials we vote for. They control the levers of government with impunity, dictating policies and stifling change.

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege.

We’ve felt the consequences of this growing tyranny firsthand. During COVID-19, so-called experts ran our lives, crushing civil liberties under the guise of public safety. Our intelligence agencies and justice system turned into weapons of political warfare, targeting a sitting president and his supporters. Meanwhile, actual criminals were given a pass, turning American cities into lawless war zones.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816 that “the functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.” Today, we see Jefferson’s prophecy fulfilled. The deep state exercises unchecked power over our freedoms, and information itself is controlled by the fourth branch of government: the legacy media.

Even when we win elections, the deep state doesn’t concede defeat. It switches to survival mode. Trump’s first term proved this. Despite a historic mandate to dismantle the bureaucracy, the deep state fought back with everything it had: leaks, investigations, court rulings, and obstruction at every turn. And now, with the possibility of Trump returning to office, the deep state is preparing to do it again.

Progressives are laying out their attack plan — and they’re not even hiding it.

U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) recently boasted about forming a “shadow cabinet” to govern alongside the deep state, regardless of who’s in the White House. Nickel called it “democracy’s insurance policy.” Let’s be clear: This isn’t insurance. It’s sabotage.

They’ll employ a “top down, bottom up, inside out” strategy to overwhelm and collapse any effort to reform the system. From the top, federal judges and shadow officials will block Trump’s every move. Governors in blue states like California and New York are gearing up to resist federal authority. During Trump’s first term, California filed over 100 lawsuits against his administration. Expect more of the same starting January 20.

From the bottom, progressive groups like the American Civil Liberties Union will flood the streets with protesters, much as they did to oppose Trump’s first-term immigration reforms. They’ve refined their tactics since 2016 and are prepared to unleash a wave of civil unrest. These aren’t spontaneous movements; they’re coordinated assaults designed to destabilize the administration.

Finally, from the inside, the deep state will continue its mission of self-preservation. Agencies will drag their feet, leak sensitive information, and undermine policies from within. Their goal is to make everything a chaotic mess, so the heart of their power — the bureaucratic core — remains untouched and grows stronger.

We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move. Progressives never see themselves as losing. When they’re out of power, they simply shift tactics, pumping more blood into their bureaucratic heart. We may win elections, but the war against the deep state will only intensify. As George Washington warned in his Farewell Address, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force; and force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege. The deep state has shown us its plan: to govern from the shadows, circumventing the will of the people. But now that the shadows have been exposed, we have a choice. Will we accept this silent tyranny, or will we demand accountability and reclaim our nation’s heart?

The battle is just beginning. We can’t afford to lose.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Drone mystery exposes GLARING government incompetence

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone issue is getting way out of hand.

Earlier this month, Glenn first reported on the mysterious drones stalking the night sky over New Jersey, but the situation is increasingly concerning as the sightings have escalated. Not only have drones been seen across the Northeast Coast, including over New York City, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, but recently, they have been spotted over the night skies of San Diego and other parts of Southern California.

It doesn't take an expert to identify the potential dangers and risks that dozens of undetectable, unidentified six-foot or larger drones pose to national security. Yet, our government's response has been one of unimaginable incompetence, leaving us to speculate on the origin and intention of these drones and wonder in astonishment at the government's ineptitude. Here are three examples of the government's lackluster response to the mystery drones:

Iranian Mothership and Missing Nuclear Warheads

- / Stringer | Getty Images

After several weeks of hubbub, New Jersey Representative, Jeff Van Drew gave an interview on Fox News where he claimed that the drones originated from an Iranian "mothership" off the East Coast of the United States. This theory has since been disproven by satellite images, which show that all Iranian drone carriers are far from U.S. shores. Another theory suggests that drones may be equipped with sensors capable of detecting nuclear material and that they are looking for a nuclear warhead that recently went missing! With these apocalyptic theories gaining traction in the absence of any real answer from our government, one can't help but question the motive behind the silence.

Pentagon's Limp Wristed Response

Alex Wong / Staff | Getty Images

In a recent press conference, national security spokesman John Kirby responded to reporters demanding answers about the government's lack of transparency, which has caused increasing public anxiety. He insisted that the drones did not pose a threat and were not assets of a foreign power, such as from Iran or China--even though he is still uncertain about their identity and origin. He also claimed that many of the sightings were simply misidentifications of normal aircraft.

This lackluster answer has only further inflamed national anxieties and raised even more questions. If the government is unsure of the identity of the drones, how do they know if they are a threat or if they aren't foreign assets? If they aren't foreign, does that mean they are U.S. assets? If so, why not just say so?

The Pentagon has also stated that they are leaving it up to local law enforcement to spearhead the investigation after concluding that these drones pose no threat to any military installation. This has left many feeling like the federal government has turned a blind eye to a serious issue that many Americans are very concerned about.

Where's Pete Buttigieg?

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

We are in the closing weeks of the Biden administration, and with the finish line in sight, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg probably figured nothing else could go wrong on his watch—but boy was he wrong. As Secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg is in charge of the FAA, the agency responsible for managing all air traffic across the nation. One would think that mysterious, 6-foot-long, seemingly intractable drones are invisible on radar and flying above major cities would pose a serious threat to the myriad of legal aircraft that traverse our skies. Yet, Buttigieg has been silent on the issue, adding another failure to his resume which includes: malfunctioning airplanes, the train derailment in Ohio, and the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, just to name a few.

Glenn: How Alvin Bragg turned hero Daniel Penny into a villain

Michael M. Santiago / Staff | Getty Images

We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty.

America no longer has a single, shared understanding of justice. Two Americas now exist, each applying justice differently depending on who you are and where you live. One America, ruled by common sense and individual courage, praises heroes who stand up to protect others. The other, driven by political agendas and corrupted institutions, punishes those same heroes for daring to act.

This stark division couldn’t be clearer than in the case of Daniel Penny, the Marine whose trial in New York City this week drew strong reactions from both sides across the divided line of justice.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare.

Penny was on a subway train last year when Jordan Neely — a man suffering from severe mental illness and reportedly high on drugs — began threatening passengers, saying, “I’m going to kill you all.” The fear on that subway car was palpable, but nobody moved. Nobody, that is, until Penny did what needed to be done. He took action to protect innocent lives.

In the America many of us used to believe in, Penny’s response would be heralded as heroic. His actions mirrored the courage of Todd Beamer on Flight 93, who, on September 11, 2001, rallied others with the words, “Let’s roll,” to prevent further tragedy. But in New York, courage doesn’t seem to count anymore. There, the system turns heroes into villains.

Penny subdued Neely using a chokehold, intending only to restrain him, not kill him. Tragically, Neely died. Penny, filled with remorse, told the police he never meant to hurt anyone. Yet, instead of being recognized for protecting others from a clear and present threat, Penny stood trial for criminally negligent homicide.

In Alvin Bragg’s New York, justice bends to ideology. The Manhattan district attorney has made a career of weaponizing the law, selectively prosecuting those who don’t fit his narrative. He’s the same prosecutor who twisted legal precedent to go after Donald Trump on business charges no one had ever faced before. Then, he turned his sights on Daniel Penny.

A jury may have acquitted Penny, but what happened in New York City this week isn’t justice. When the rule of law changes depending on the defendant’s identity or the prosecutor's political motives, we’re no longer living in a free country. We’re living in a state where justice is a game, and ordinary Americans are the pawns.

The system failed Jordan Neely

It’s worth asking: Where were activists like Alvin Bragg when Neely was suffering on the streets? Jordan Neely was a tragic figure — a man with a long history of mental illness and over 40 arrests, including violent assaults. The system failed him long before he stepped onto that subway train. Yet rather than confront that uncomfortable truth, Bragg’s office decided to target the man who stepped in to prevent a tragedy.

This isn’t about justice. It’s about power. It’s about advancing a narrative where race and identity matter more than truth and common sense.

It’s time to demand change

The Daniel Penny case — and others like it — is a wake-up call. We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty. Americans must demand an end to politically driven prosecutions, hold DAs like Alvin Bragg accountable, and stand up for the principle that true justice is blind, consistent, and fair.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare. It’s time to choose which America we want to live in.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

CEO Brian Thompson's killer reveals COWARDICE of the far-left death cult

Jeff Swensen / Stringer | Getty Images

Early on the chilly morning of Wednesday, December 4th, Brian Thompson, CEO of health insurance giant, UnitedHealthcare, was walking through Midtown Manhattan on his way to a company conference. Suddenly, a masked and hooded figure silently allegedly stepped onto the sidewalk behind Thompson, drew a 3-D printed, silenced pistol, and without warning fired multiple shots into Thompson's back before fleeing the scene on an electric bicycle. After a multiple-day manhunt, a 26-year-old lead suspect was arrested at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania after being recognized by an employee.

This was not "vigilante justice." This was cold-blooded murder.

As horrific as the murder of a husband and father in broad daylight in the center of New York City is, the story only gets worse. Even before the murder suspect was arrested, left-wing extremists were already taking to X to call him a "hero" and a "vigilante" who "took matters into his own hands." Even the mainstream media joined in on the glorification, as Glenn pointed out on air recently, going out of the way to show how physically attractive the murder suspect was. This wave of revolting and nihilistic fanfare came in response to the findings of online investigators who surmised the murder suspect's motives to retaliate against healthcare companies for corruption and denied coverage. The murder suspect supposedly underwent a major back surgery that left him with back pain, and some of his internet fans apparently viewed his murder of Thompson as retribution for the mistreatment that he and many other Americans have suffered from healthcare companies.

The murder suspect and his lackeys don't seem to understand that, other than depriving two children of their father right before Christmas, he accomplished nothing.

The murder suspect failed to achieve his goal because he was too cowardly to try.

If the murder suspect's goals were truly to "right the wrongs" of the U.S. healthcare system, he had every tool available to him to do so in a constructive and meaningful manner. He came from a wealthy and prominent family in the Baltimore area, became the valedictorian at a prestigious all-boys prep school, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a master's in engineering. Clearly, the murder suspect was intelligent and capable, and if he had put his talent into creating solutions for the healthcare industry, who knows what he could have accomplished?

This is the kind of behavior the far-left idolizes, like communists on college campuses who wear shirts that celebrate the brutal Cuban warlord, Che Guevara. Merchandise celebrating the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect is already available, including shirts, hoodies, mugs, and even Christmas ornaments. Will they be sporting his face on their T-shirts too?

This macabre behavior does not breed creation, achievement, success, or life. It only brings death and risks more Americans falling into this dangerous paradigm. But we still have a chance to choose life. We just have to wake up and take it.