Shooter"s motive stumps Obama, FBI, media

WASHINGTON – The nation’s top talk-radio host, Rush Limbaugh, says parody becomes real life when the Obama administration tries to respond to Islamic terrorism in America.

• President Obama said it was a “lone gunman.”

• White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the FBI was “looking at a variety of possible motives.”

• U.S. Attorney Bill Killian said “it’s premature to speculate on the motives of the shooter.”

• FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Edward Reinhold said he “no idea” what the shooter’s motive was because because, “There is nothing that ties him to an international terror organization.”

Given those statements, Limbaugh observed that life seemed to be imitating art, as the nation’s top investigators claim to be stumped as to what possibly could have prompted Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez to murder four Marines in broad daylight in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Thursday.

On Friday, Limbaugh dug up a comedy skit from 2007 that he said “parodies exactly what’s happening in the Drive-By Media this moment, today and last night.”

The eight-year-old skit on Fox News Channel’s “1/2 Hour News Hour” included dialogue that Limbaugh suggested was a mirror of the real-life reaction to Thursday’s shooting:

Female anchor: Six men have just been charged with conspiracy to murder in connection with a plot to blow up buses and subway cars in London during the summer of 2005.

Male anchor: The six would-be suicide bombers charged are Muktar Said Abraham, Ramzi Muhammed, Yasin Omar, Manfu Asiedu, Adel Yahya and Hussain Osman.

Female anchor: Since their capture, the big question for Scotland Yard has been, “What exactly is it that links these six individuals? What common denominator motivated this seemingly random group of young men?”

Male anchor: It is puzzling, isn’t it?

“Yes, it was, very puzzling,” Limbaugh jested sarcastically. “That was parody in 2007, eight years ago. Today it’s the news.”

Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez

If the administration, the FBI and the media were stumped, a group that monitors online posts by radical Islamists was on the case.

What do YOU think? Is the U.S willfully blind to the threat of jihadis? Sound off in today’s WND poll

A picture of Abdulazeez had already begun to emerge on the day of the massacre, after the SITE Intelligence Group discovered a blog post from the shooter extolling the virtues of fighting “Jihad for the sake of Allah.”

On July 13, Abdulazeez wrote, “Don’t let the society we live in deviate you from the task at hand. Take your study guide, the Quran and Sunnah, with strength and faith, and be firm as you live your short life in this prison called Dunya.” In the context of the post, Dunya apparently signified the world, as opposed to the afterlife.

Limbaugh also observed how readily the media parroted the Obama administration’s line that investigators were still searching for a motive in Thursday’s attack.

He played a series of audio clips from television news coverage of the massacre:

• Shepard Smith: “Now the search for motive.”

• Don Lemon: “… too soon to know the motive.”

• Lester Holt: “The motive for the attacks unknown.”

• John Berman: “Any sign of a motive?”

• Paul Cruickshank: “We do not yet know the motive at this point.”

• Erin Burnett: “They’re desperately trying to figure out what the motive might have been.”

• Wolf Blitzer: “This individual, we don’t yet know the motive, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez.”

• Joie Chen: “Investigators are already looking into the suspected shooter’s background to identify some motive. The trail so far has not revealed much.”

Limbaugh then deadpanned, “The media’s pulling its hair out trying to figure why in the world would this average, ordinary blend-in-with-the-crowd, never-stop-him-in-a-lineup American teenager, Mohammed Youssuf Abdulazeez, what in the world could have motivated him to shoot five people. Why in the world would something like this happen?”

Tongue firmly in cheek, the talk-radio king then diagnosed the hesitation to state the obvious.

“We have to be very, very careful here, my friends, not to rush to judgment. We have to move slower than the glaciers move to avoid bigotry, to avoid prejudice, to avoid racism and, obviously, to avoid the truth. And that’s what we must avoid at all costs. We must not find the truth. And if anybody does find the truth, they better not say it.”

Rush Limbaugh

Later, he added, “Now, you would think that after all of the previous Muslim terror attacks, the authorities in the news media would start see a pattern. But they don’t want to jump to any conclusions, and they don’t want to move any faster than the glaciers move. They don’t want to bring up Muslim terrorism until we’ve gotten used to the idea that another four people have been killed. Nobody wants a backlash against Muslims.

Limbaugh also pointed out that former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes wasn’t even sure if a man named after the founder of Islam was a Muslim.

Fuentes had said on CNN, “I know that what the name sounds like, but we don’t know that it’s a Muslim name. We know it’s an Arabic name. We don’t know what this individual was believing in, and that’s what they’re gonna be trying to determine.”

Limbaugh also mentioned such headlines as one from Reuters that proclaimed, “Investigators Seek Motive Behind Tennessee Shooting Rampage.”

It was just one of many.

Here are a few more:

• Los Angeles Times: Chattanooga gunman’s motive remains a mystery, authorities say

• Washington Post: As investigators probe motive in Chattanooga rampage, a portrait of the shooter emerges

• CNN: Chattanooga shooting: 4 Marines killed, a dead suspect and questions of motive

• NBC: No motive known for gunman opening fire on Marines

• CBS: Authorities look for motive in Tenn. rampage

• ABC: Authorities try to figure out motive of Chattanooga shooting

• Detroit News: Chattanooga gunman’s motive a mystery

• Chattanooga Free Press: Officials comb through shooter’s history in search of motive

• Philly Voice: Investigators seek motive behind Tennessee shooting rampage

• Front Page Magazine: Authorities Still Searching for Motive of Muslim Terrorist

• Haaretz: FBI search for motive in Tennessee shooting rampage after ISIS ties ruled out

Follow Garth Kant @DCgarth

WND » World
Shooter"s motive stumps Obama, FBI, media

Obama response to Christian killing fields "horrifying"

Some Syrian Christians have formed militias to protect their homes.

Syrian Christian families are being forced out of their homes by rebel factions operating with the support of the U.S. and its allies in Syria’s civil war while President Obama continues his policy of ignoring a genocide in the making.

A coalition of Sunni Islamist forces working to overthrow the Shiite government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is attempting to seize the key northern city of Aleppo with help from the U.S., Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Aleppo has been home to Syria’s largest Christian community, numbering in the tens of thousands, but two-thirds of this community has been scattered throughout the surrounding countryside into neighboring towns while others have migrated across the border to Turkey or into Lebanon.

The rebel coalition, which is fighting ISIS as well as Assad, is no different than ISIS in its utter contempt of Christians. And a July 3 report from National Public Radio confirms this, saying: “The alliance has extremists in its own ranks who have mistreated Christians and forced them out of their homes.”

NPR reporter Deborah Amos traveled to Antakya, Turkey, once known as the ancient city of Antioch. This is the site of one of the first Christian churches organized by the Apostles Peter and Paul. She met a priest there, Father Ibrahim Farah, who was kidnapped last March by al-Nusra Front, an affiliate of al-Qaida that fought alongside ISIS before later branching off from the caliphate.

The al-Nusra terrorists held Father Ibrahim for 20 days. In Syria, his church in the provincial capital of Idlib is now shuttered and he is living with Christians across the border in southern Turkey.

At the turn of the century Syria was home to about 1.5 million Christians, which made up 10 percent of its population. Those numbers swelled to about 1.75 million by the time the civil war started in 2011, largely because the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 left Islamists in charge there, forcing many Iraqi Christians to flee to Syria.

According to George Marlin’s new book, “Christian Persecutions in the Middle East: A 21st Century Tragedy,” acts of violence by Islamic groups forced about 150,000 Iraqi Christians to escape to Syria.

Now, the Christians are running out of places to hide in an increasingly Islamic Middle East.

“Christians in Syria and Iraq are generally caught in the middle of these conflicts and find they are targeted by all sides, because they support democratic reform and are perceived to be sympathetic to the West,” said Marlin, chairman of Aid to the Church in Need USA.

“Many elements on both sides would not be unhappy if Christians disappeared from the face of the Middle East and they (the Islamists) would destroy all the Christian historical sites, the relics and the documents dating back to the founding of the Church, that are there,” he continued. “Peter centered the church in Antioch before he moved it up to Rome. Syria is the cradle of Christianity.”

He said Christians were generally left alone under Assad and lived peacefully. “But Islamic Turks slaughtered 200,000 Christians in Syria during the Ottoman Empire so it’s nothing new.”

As of December 2014, 600,000 Syrian Christians had fled their country or have been internally displaced, Marlin reports. In Aleppo, more than 65 percent have been forced to leave.

He told WND that most Syrian Christians will not go to the United Nations refugee camps, for two reasons. First, they are afraid they will be harmed and, second, they do not want to leave their country.

“The Christians are afraid to go to those camps, because the camps are basically populated by Muslims and they’re afraid of retaliation and harm in these camps,” Marlin said. “So what is happening with the Christian refugees is the Christian community are basically taking care of these people, they’re staying in the churches, they’re staying in Christian homes, and we at Aid to the Church in Need are trying to get aid to the churches that are housing them.”

He said many rural Syrians have been run off their farms and have fled to the mountains between Syria and Lebanon, while others have gone into Lebanon. Many would rather die than abandon their ancient homeland but there could come a day when they run out of places to flee.

“In Aleppo and elsewhere Christians who are escaping, they are staying at Christian homes, churches, places where there is solidarity so they are not necessarily leaving the country or trying to get into refugee camps,” he said.

This could explain why so few Syrian Christians are among the refugees being sent to Western countries. In the U.S., for example, more than 90 percent of the Syrian refugees being sent to the U.S. from U.N. refugee camps have been Muslim.

Marlin said the persecution of the Church in Syria has followed the same pattern as every other country where Islamists have taken over.

“In the eight countries I cover in the book, the tactics are pretty much the same, with the exception of Saudi Arabia which doesn’t have any Christians and focuses on harassing Christians there as guest workers,” he said. “In the other seven countries, the churches are being blown up on high holy days, the pastors are being abducted and murdered. We’ve kept these records so people can recognize the pattern.”

‘Horrified’ by Obama response to persecution

He said the response of the Obama administration to the war on Christianity in the Middle East has been abysmal.

“My hope in writing this book was to remind the West that the unthinkable is real and to jolt the conscience of the West, where too many people have been putting their heads in the sand, including the White House,” Marlin said. “I was horrified at their response of the White House when those Coptic Christians were murdered on the beach in Libya, specifically because they were Christians, and our president referred to them as ‘migrant workers from Egypt.’

“Pope Francis said they were murdered solely because of their faith, and no one has stepped up to the plate on this, no one in Europe, no one at the White House, to condemn what is going on and try to effect change.”

Marlin believes part of the lack of response comes from the fact that Europe, and increasingly America, have lost touch with their Christian roots and thus feel no connection with the persecuted Christians of the Middle East.

“Secretary of State John Kerry said we don’t recognize this, that ISIS acts like they’re in the 18th century. This did not begin with ISIS; this is what’s been going on for centuries Mr. Kerry, so this again is just the West putting its head in the sand.

It has been said that “the last acceptable prejudice is against Christianity,” Marlin said. “And when people like Mrs. Clinton said a few weeks ago that we must change our religious views (on same-sex marriage), that is where we’re heading. That’s what’s coming next, it’s no longer freedom of religion but freedom from religion. You can practice your religion in your home and within your church, but not in the public square. So yes, language matters, culture matters, and we’re seeing a change in the language to justify actively shutting up of Christians in the public square.”

And without that voice, the suffering of Christians in the Middle East will not be given a willing ear.

‘We’re here to get you’

In just one of many examples of the blood-lust of al-Nusra, Marlin documented the attack in late 2013 on the Christian village of Maaloula.

“They destroyed the crosses on the monastery of St. Serge and threatened the nuns at the convent of St. Thekla. They forced their way into Christian homes screaming, ‘We’re here to get you, worshippers of the cross.’”

When the Islamic invaders demanded in one household that three Melkite Christians convert to Islam, they proceeded to murder them, after one had said, “I am a Christian and if you want to kill me because I am a Christian, than do so.”

Al-Nusra Front then kidnapped 12 Orthodox Christian nuns from the convent in December 2013 and held them for four months.

In October 2013 the al-Nusra Front captured the Christian town of Sadad, about 200 miles north of Damascus, where 45 Christians were brutally murdered, Marlin reported, and 2,500 families fled after their homes, shops and churches were destroyed.

Marlin cited a report by Catholic World Report in October 2014 in which a nun who had worked in Syria for years assessed the situation.

“There are slaughterhouses, many slaughterhouses, in Syria where Christians are taken to be tortured and slaughtered. People who are not political, who do not choose or take sides in the conflict, are taken from their families, kidnapped, forced to deny their faith and then — whether they have or have not — are killed, often by beheading. This is not about siding with the government, not about siding with President Assad, but about sheer persecution of a peaceful but vulnerable minority. Yet the world says so little, and often nothing at all.”

Stoking the war against Assad

The U.S. government under President Obama, with the help of its ally Turkey, has helped stoke the civil war against Assad’s regime, training rebels, helping transfer arms, and creating a refugee crisis of unimaginable scale.

The U.S. has agreed to accept 2,000 Syrian refugees during the 2015 fiscal year and many more in 2016 and beyond. But of the nearly 1,000 resettled in the U.S. so far, 90 percent of them have been Muslim and only 4.5 percent Christian.

Aleppo now stands poised as the next bloody front in the now five-year-old civil war.

Christians there are preparing for mass exodus as the Middle East continues to empty itself of followers of Jesus Christ. Ancient churches dating back to the first century have been left in ruins.

Syrian Christians are being run out of their homes and businesses not only by ISIS but by al-Nusra Front and other Sunni radical groups.

Father Ibrahim, who escaped the northern Syrian town Idlib last March and is now living in Turkey, told NPR that Christians in Turkey are concerned for their brothers and sisters just across the border to the south.

“Of course, they’re interested. And they ask because they know about the situation in Syria, and we are all Christians in the Middle East,” he told NPR. “They’re afraid. They’re very afraid.”

He stopped the interview when asked if these Christians are right to be afraid of the advancing Sunni Muslim rebels.

He still hopes the Islamists can be convinced to allow civilians to run the government, according to the NPR report. But those hopes are fading fast.

Are Kurds last best hope for protecting Christians?

Half of Aleppo is now held by the Islamist rebels. Many Christians in the Turkish frontier towns just across the border are stepping up emergency plans for when Aleppo falls. They expect a mass exodus of Christians.

Of all the groups in the Middle East that have had success fighting ISIS, the Kurds are clearly the one group most worthy of American support, says Joel Richardson, author of the best-seller “The Islamic Antichrist” and “Mideast Beast.”

Richardson, earlier this year, visited Kurdish strongholds in northern Iraq. The Kurds also control areas within Syria and the New York Times recently reported that the Kurds have made advances against ISIS in northern Syria, increasing their control of a strategic highway and cutting off a main supply route from Turkey. Many Christian men have fought alongside Kurdish militias.

“I can attest that not only do Christian churches exist there, but the Christians are treated well. Americans of all parties must ask themselves why the Obama administration has, up until this point, refused to adequately get behind the Kurds,” Richardson told WND.

“The U.S. has openly supported the Syrian rebels, despite the fact that it is well documented that many of these rebels have gone on to join al-Nusra or ISIS,” he said. “It is also well documented that many of the Syrian rebels have been brutal in their persecution of the Christians, and other non-Sunni minorities throughout the region.”

What is Obama seeking to accomplish?

Richardson said he has been in regular contact with Syrian Christian leaders, and they have repeatedly reminded Americans to look at the history of the Assad regime.

“Under Assad, Christians in other minority groups have lived with a relative freedom and security,” he said. “Why then has the Obama administration chosen to cast (the Assad regime) aside as the greatest evil in Syria above all others?”

No one is suggesting that Assad is an angel, Richardson said.

“But look at the nation of Libya, after Obama and Hillary Clinton decided to remove Qaddafi. Of course, no one will say that Qaddafi was an angel, but Libya under his control was 1,000 times more stable and secure than it is today, after the Obama administration effectively handed that nation over to Islamists. One would think that they would have learned their lesson, and taken a different approach in Syria.”

WND » World
Obama response to Christian killing fields "horrifying"

Obama adviser wants Israel to give up nukes

President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

TEL AVIV – The president of a think tank that arranged a conference call Monday between the White House and progressive activist organizations in which participants discussed how to coordinate public defense of President Obama’s pending Iran deal has another ultimate target in mind.

Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, wants Israel to give up its nuclear weapons, arguing such a move will ensure Iran halts its illicit nuclear program and will help to create a Mideast nuclear-free zone.

On Monday, White House officials held a private strategy conference call with progressive organizations to discuss ways of convincing lawmakers to support a deal with Iran being brokered by the Obama administration.

The conference call organized by Ploughshares Fund, an anti-nuclear weapons advocacy group, had about 100 participants.

Cirincione previously advised Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign on nuclear issues.

The Ploughshares president outlined in his 2008 book, “Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons,” that he favors Israel giving up its nuclear weapons to ensure Iran doesn’t obtain nukes.

He presented his position in a March 2005 opinion article for The Globalist, “Iran and Israel’s Nuclear Weapons.”

In the piece, Cirincione stated, “Now is the time to put U.S. muscle behind long-standing U.S. policy of seeking a nuclear-free Middle East region” with specific focus on Israel’s nuclear weapons.

He called for an “even-handed policy that views all nonconventional weapons in the Middle East as threats to regional peace and stability.”

“Everyone already knows about Israel’s bombs in the closet,” Cirincione wrote. “Bringing them out into the open and putting them on the table as part of a regional deal may be the only way to prevent others from building their own bombs in their basements.”

For Cirincione, targeting Israel’s nuclear program is a long-term policy aim.

“It will not be easy and will likely take years to fashion such an agreement. That is why there is no time to lose.”

Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, yet, as a policy, the government does not acknowledge it.

Israel is said to have launched its nuclear program as early as the late 1940s and early 1950s.

In March, at about the same time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress, the Obama administration approved a Freedom of Information Act request that resulted in the release of an extensive Pentagon report discussing Israel’s nuclear weapon capabilities.

‘An issue of the presidency’

On Monday, the Washington Free Beacon reported it obtained an audio recording of the conference call that day arranged by the Ploughshares Fund. In the call, White House officials described Obama’s Iran negotiations as the president’s “signature foreign policy accomplishment,” a policy that must in turn be supported by Democrats.

“This has really been on the front burner from a foreign perspective, although not in the public eye necessarily, since the very beginning,” Matt Nosanchuk, an official in the White House Office of Public Engagement, told participants, according to the audio description. “This is not an issue of the day, this is really an issue of the presidency.”

Another official with the White House’s Public Engagement office, John Bisognano, stressed “the importance of this to the president.”

“This is clearly an issue that is very close to his heart and something that’s extraordinarily important for the future of frankly the world,” Bisognano said. “I want to make sure everyone understands this is a top priority for the administration, and this is clearly something that we’re all focused on moving forward and excited about hoping that we can come to a solid agreement.”

A key participant in the call was Robert Creamer, a member of the progressive Democracy Partners group and the general consultant to United for Change, which was formed to support Obama’s governing agenda.

“We have to take to our memberships all over the country,” Creamer told participants in the call. “We all have to step up. The other side will go crazy with intensity.”

Creamer urged progressive activists to target Democrats by “blitzing the hell out of the Hill.”

“What will be ultimately decisive is the level of intensity that members of Congress feel, particularly Democrats,” said Creamer. “Democrats are actually the key people here because if we can have enough votes to prevent a presidential veto override [of the deal], then we win.

“That means tons of phone calls, lots of lobbying contacts, not just a couple of good conversations, I mean just blitzing the hell out of the Hill,” Creamer said, predicting “a big, big battle” over the deal. “This is going to be a real war for the next week.”

Creamer reportedly also provided participants with input from his wife, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.

“Let me just also note, my wife, Congresswoman Schakowsky, just yelled across the room to me to make clear to everybody that we have to be clear that this is a good deal because it prevents Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” Creamer said. “The other side will go crazy. We have to be really clear that it’s a good deal.”

As WND reported, the Ploughshares Fund opposes America’s development of a missile-defense system and contributes to scores of anti-war groups highly critical of U.S. foreign policy and military expansion.

The Ploughshares Fund has a long history of anti-war advocacy and is a partner of the Marxist-oriented Institute for Policy Studies. The institute has urged the defunding of the Pentagon and massive decreases in U.S. defense capabilities, including slashing the American nuclear arsenal to 292 deployed weapons, WND also previously reported.

WND » World
Obama adviser wants Israel to give up nukes

U.S. general: Obama making Americans ripe for kidnap

The Obama administration is changing federal policy to allow the families of American hostages to negotiate ransom payments with the abductors, but a former high-ranking Air Force officer says that’s a recipe for many more Americans to get kidnapped.

On Wednesday, President Obama announced the anticipated policy change. The change comes after the families of several Americans murdered by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, lashed out at the administration for refusing to let them negotiate and even allegedly threatening some with prosecution if they tried to pay a ransom.

Officials say U.S. government policy will remain unchanged in not paying ransom for American hostages, because they believe it will only encourage U.S. enemies to take more citizens into custody.

Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney fears the very same thing will happen by letting families negotiate price of their loved one’s release.

“This is a very difficult one because there’s a great deal of emotion. But the fact is, I think we’re going to see more cases of kidnapping by radical Islam and trying to use those Americans that are over there helping in the Arab countries as treasury bait,” said McInerney, who is also a military analyst for the Fox News Channel.

McInerney concedes that reasonable people can disagree about whether to give families the option of negotiating a ransom, but he said it’s the wrong choice, and the administration is making a mistake by talking about it.

“I would much rather have not announced it because I think it will increase the number of kidnappings. I think if we had a covert program that could have been done, that would have been better,” said McInerney, who calls the policy change “a political decision.”

Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney:

In addition to the protests of hostages’ families, McInerney believes the administration also changed course and adopted the policies of some European nations that allow families to negotiate with hostage takers.

The Obama administration is also promising to do a better job of communicating with the families of future hostages. Several families publicly scolded the government for infrequent updates and being treated as a nuisance when they asked federal officials for more information.

McInerney said that’s the least any government should be able to do.

“There is nothing that encourages the radical Islamists to kidnap people if we keep our people informed,” he said. “So there’s absolutely no reason that the administration is not giving them up-to-date briefings, at least on a weekly or a bi-weekly basis.”

In the big picture, McInerney said the best way to discourage more ISIS kidnappings is to wipe the radicals off the face of the earth. He is deeply frustrated by the administration’s refusal to use its air-power dominance.

“We’ve got to take the handcuffs off our air power,” he said. “Seventy-five percent of the missions that come back are not dropping bombs. I know the air commander over there says, ‘Well, the generals that are complaining have never fought this kind of war.’ He’s correct. We’ve never fought a war where we lost cities like this and air power has been so ineffective.”

McInerney said the Obama team is paralyzed by fears of killing innocents in the air campaign. He said that mindset cannot lead to success.

“We know where they are,” he said. “We’re worried about the collateral damage. I think we have to accept it is war, accept that collateral damage and have it over quickly.”

WND » World
U.S. general: Obama making Americans ripe for kidnap

Obama Gives Emotional Eulogy for Vice Presidents Son

U.S. President Barack Obama gave an emotional eulogy at the funeral for Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Beau Biden, calling him a “man who loved deeply and was loved in return.”

Obama was among several people who honored Beau Biden Saturday at St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in Wilmington, Delaware.

He said Beau learned from his father how to get back up when “life knocked him down,” and that Beau was “very much his own man” who “brushed away the possibility of privilege for the better reward of earning his own way.”

Beau Biden, a former Delaware state attorney general, died of brain cancer one week ago at age 46.

About 1,000 people packed the church to pay their respects, including former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as General Ray Odierno, the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, where Beau Biden was once deployed for a year.

High-ranking members of Congress were also present.

Vice President Joe Biden, accompanied by his family, watches an honor guard carry a casket containing the remains of his son Beau Biden into a funeral service at St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in Wilmington, Del., June 6, 2015.

General Odierno called Beau Biden a “patriot,” saying he had the “incredible honor” to serve beside him in Iraq and to get to know him.

Vice President Biden’s two surviving children, Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden, also eulogized their late brother.

The funeral capped an emotional three days of public mourning for Beau Biden, whose casket was displayed in the Delaware state Senate chamber on Thursday, before a public viewing at St. Anthony on Friday.

On both days, long lines of people gathered to pay their respects to Beau Biden and to console the vice president and his family.

Beau Biden battled brain cancer for several years and had been receiving treatment for the disease at Walter Reed Army Medical Center outside Washington.

Joe Biden’s first wife and daughter were killed in a car crash more than four decades ago.

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Obama Gives Emotional Eulogy for Vice Presidents Son

Obama will sign Iran deal "no matter how bad it is"

President Obama. left, and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton says President Obama is likely to sign any nuclear deal he can get with Iran because it’s the centerpiece of his second-term agenda.

In a wide-ranging interview, Bolton also defended his strong support for the NSA’s bulk data collection program that expired Sunday night and explained why he decided against a presidential run in 2016.

The Iranian nuclear threat emerged again on Monday when the New York Times reported that Iran’s enrichment program is ramping up, contrary to Obama administration assurances.

“With only one month left before a deadline to complete a nuclear deal with Iran, international inspectors have reported that Tehran’s stockpile of nuclear fuel increased about 20 percent over the last 18 months of negotiations, partially undercutting the Obama administration’s contention that the Iranian program had been ‘frozen’ during that period,” said the Times in its lead paragraph.

Bolton said this disconnect between administration statements and the true state of Iranian activities raises even more red flags about a formal agreement.

“It underlines just how feckless the president’s policy is with respect to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, how dangerous and how flawed this deal that they’ve been negotiating is turning out to be,” Bolton said in a radio interview with WND and Radio America.

While Bolton thinks the recent injury to Secretary of John Kerry could postpone a final deal with Iran, he firmly believes Obama will take whatever agreement he can get from the mullahs in Tehran.

“The president’s press people have already said this is his second-term signature issue, the equivalent of Obamacare in the first term,” Bolton said. “He’s going to sign a deal with Iran, I’m afraid, with Iran no matter how bad it is.”

Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton:

Even if talks were to break down somehow, Bolton believes simply engaging with Iran has done America’s enemy enormous good.

“The administration’s efforts are both legitimizing the regime, which is a tragic mistake, given that it’s still the world’s largest financial supporter of international terrorism,” he said. “It also legitimizes the nuclear program, which really paves the road for Iran to become a nuclear weapons state at a time of its choosing. This is very dangerous.”

Bolton also believes it was dangerous for Congress to let certain aspects of the Patriot Act expire over the weekend and for lawmakers to reject giving the National Security Agency, or NSA, the power to collect bulk data as a means of tracing terrorist connections.

Led by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., lawmakers concerned about the program’s intrusion into Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure succeeded in ending the program that a federal appeals court said was never authorized by Congress in the first place.

On Tuesday, the Senate passed the House version of the USA Freedom Act. Bolton isn’t impressed.

“I think that’s a very poor substitute for the Patriot Act program,” he said.

Under the previous policy, the NSA collected information on every phone call in the U.S., listing both the numbers involved in each call and the duration of the calls. Critics like Sen. Paul contend the government has no right to that information without probable cause.

Bolton disagrees.

“Unless you own a telephone company, if you want to make a phone call, you’ve got to go through a third party. The records we’re talking about are not your records. They’re the telephone company’s billing records,” said Bolton, who says other sources are far more likely to act irresponsibly with Americans’ information.

“These records are like bank records, department store records, Amazon.com records, all of which are sold to other commercial ventures. I think Google and Facebook probably know more about you than the NSA ever will,” he said, adding that the collection of any data beyond the numbers called and the length of those calls requires a Fourth Amendment compliant warrant.

Calling the recent debate “a bizarre moment in American politics,” Bolton, without naming Paul or any other critic of the bulk data collection program, slammed them for what he considers a series of misleading points.

“I think this debate has been characterized by demagoguery and misinformation,” he said. “It’s very hard to catch up with the truth when some of the opponents of the program are saying things that leave many Americans with the implication NSA is listening to their phone calls or reading their emails. Absolutely not true and yet it’s very hard to have a rational discussion when the distortions are so prevalent.”

Bolton also addressed his recent decision not to join the crowded Republican presidential field. After publicly mulling that option for weeks, as he also did in 2012, Bolton ultimately decided running for the highest office in the land without ever holding elected office was not the right move. Still, he believes his motivation for considering a White House bid has succeeded.

“Too many people in the Republican and Democratic Parties don’t understand how critical national security is, Barack Obama at the top of that list. I thought running for president would help restore that attention. Unfortunately, events in the external world have put it back in the center of the debate, and I think it will be one of the very top issues in the 2016 presidential campaign,” Bolton said.

Bolton still expects to be active in the 2016 cycle through his PAC, Super PAC and a new foundation he is starting. He is not endorsing any GOP hopeful at this point but says the Republican nominee must be ready to debate Hillary Clinton and ready to lead in a dangerous world on their first day in office.

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