El ex-presidente ecuatoriano Rafael Correa difunde activamente retórica antiamericana y altera las instituciones democráticas de su país para su propio beneficio. Correa ha sido condenado por corrupción por parte de la Corte Nacional de Justicia de Ecuador. Los...
News
Latest News
English/ Español: Rubio, Risch, Colleagues: Rafael Correa Must Be Held Accountable for His Crimes
Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa actively spreads anti-American rhetoric and tampers with his homeland’s democratic institutions for his own benefit. Correa has been convicted of corruption by Ecuador’s National Court of Justice. U.S. Senators Marco Rubio...
Rubio Demands Answers on Decongestant Medication Efficacy
A U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee recently determined that phenylephrine, an ingredient commonly used to treat sinus and nasal congestion, is ineffective in treating these symptoms. This was apparent from research for years, yet large...
Rubio Habla en La Poderosa
El senador estadounidense Marco Rubio (R-FL) habló con César Grajales de La Poderosa 670 AM en El Panorama Político, sobre la crisis fronteriza, sobre cómo los hispanoamericanos se ven afectados con la realidad del país, sobre los cargos contra el senador Bob Menéndez...
Rubio, Colleagues Reintroduce Bill to Protect Rights of Pregnant Students
Pregnant students are sometimes discriminated against by their schools, either intentionally or unintentionally and there is a concerning lack of awareness about the resources and rights available to them. Due to a lack of services and discrimination, these women may...
Rubio, Colleagues Reintroduce Intelligence Community Workforce Agility Protection Act
Currently, intelligence community civilians are subject to certain tax penalties for job-related relocation requirements, but active-duty military servicemembers are not subjected to the same penalties. These tax benefits, including the ability to deduct moving...
ICYMI: Rubio: POW Swap Endangers Americans
POW Swap Endangers Americans
By Senator Marco Rubio
USA Today
June 4, 2014
http://usat.ly/1mQ6niM
Last month, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum opened its doors at Ground Zero in New York. Lost in the solemn remembrances of that day was the fact that America remains at war. Every day, those affiliated with the terrorists who committed the atrocities 13 years ago plot to kill Americans, including here in the U.S. homeland.
This inconvenient fact should be foremost in our mind when we review the president’s decision to release five hardened Taliban terrorists with the blood of Americans on their hands in exchange for a detained U.S. prisoner of war.
Although the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is welcome, the conditions under which it occurred are very worrying. The president has elevated a terrorist group to the position of a nation state’s military, in effect, legitimizing the Taliban. This apparent shift in U.S. policy is troubling for a number of reasons.
First, it demonstrates to other non-state actors and terrorist groups that the U.S. government is willing to deal on a peer-to-peer level, even with terrorist groups that do not respect the laws of armed conflict. Second, this demand from the Taliban, which was not new, shows that the U.S. was, over time and under pressure, ultimately willing to accede to its requests. Third, this change in policy may endanger the lives of Americans abroad, both military and civilian, by making U.S. citizens more attractive to pirates, terrorists and any other thugs who expect to get paid or have their demands met in return for the release of a captive American. For instance, al-Qaeda affiliates, particularly in the Sahel, Horn of Africa and Libya use this method as their primary means of revenue generation.
This also comes as the president has announced his intention to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by 2016. The Afghans need to step up and take on more responsibility for their own security. But this decision to send five senior terrorist leaders to Qatar who within a year will be able to return to the battlefield even though they have killed innocent Afghans in the past, as well as announcing a date certain for U.S. withdrawal based on nothing more than a political timeline, sends the wrong message to our Afghan allies as well as our enemies at a key moment in the Afghanistan War.
The prisoner swap is part and parcel of a broader problem with the president’s approach to the war on terror.
Put simply, he doesn’t seem to understand that we are still at war.
The president has tried to argue that the threat from Islamist terrorism is receding. He and his top lieutenants frequently talk about al-Qaeda’s leadership being “decimated” or “on the run.”
The reality, however, is that al-Qaeda is not defeated. Under President Obama’s watch, it has instead morphed into affiliates operating in as many as a dozen countries. The threat from these disparate groups is not subsiding. In fact, it is metastasizing across the Middle East, the Sahel and Horn of Africa, Libya, the Sinai and, yes, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has gone so far as to say that he is unable to state that the threat from al-Qaeda “is any less” than it was 10 years ago.
…
Keep reading here.