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#NotARansom: The $400 Million Dollar LIE

It’s always a good thing to know exactly what one is talking about, so let’s find out what the dictionary says about ransom: “ 1. It is the redemption of a prisoner, slave, or kidnapped person, of captured goods, etc., for a price. 2. It is the sum or price paid or demanded. 3. It is a means of deliverance or rescue from punishment for sin, especially the payment of a redemptive fine.” To me that sounds like you pay a price to get someone, back.

So, let’s look at the recent exchange of a huge sum of money, 400 million dollars in cash, to the Iranian government. What did we buy? We bought back four Americans that had been held hostage. That word, hostage, plays right into this scenario because it means “a person given or held as security for the fulfillment of certain conditions or terms, promises, etc., by another”, and isn’t that what just took place?

In the New York Post, this headline…”How Iran spent its $400M ‘ransom’ windfall” by Post Editorial Board August 4, 2016…and here’s what it says…Now that we know President Obama paid Iran $1.7 billion — $400 million in cold hard cash loaded on a secret flight — to ransom four American captives, comes an obvious question: What did Tehran do with all that money? To hear Team Obama tell it, Iran’s windfall went for strictly benign purposes. Just last week, CIA Director John Brennan claimed the money Iran is getting under Obama’s nuclear deal “is being used to support its currency” and “build up its infrastructure.” We doubt that’s true of all the hundred-billion-plus in sanctions relief — and we know it’s not true of the ransom payout.

As Bloomberg’s Eli Lake reported in June, the money — a settlement of Iranian legal claims dating back to 1981 — is going straight to the military. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies uncovered an item in Iran’s 2017 national budget ordering the Central Bank “to give the money from the legal settlement . . . of up to $1.7 billion to the defense budget” — which then rose 90 percent over the prior year’s. In other words, the cash is being used to arm Iran’s terrorist clients, like Hezbollah, and to fund its war for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. And that won’t be the last of it. Iran has already taken several more US hostages since releasing the last batch. Expect fresh ransom demands to follow.

Why are we, the United States, paying a foreign power to give us back our citizens? This smacks of the Barbary Pirates of Jefferson’s time…and you know what he did. Given that Iran is more powerful than the Barbary Pirates, we still have some sort of an advantage…don’t we? Have we already surrendered our place at the top of the heap to some semi-backward nation? Is our leadership that weak, that corrupt, that we bow down to inferior forces? The simple answer to that is a resounding YES!

What else is the Hussein administration lying about, you ask? The quick reply would be EVERYTHING!

Oh, before I forget…I want to answer the reader who complained that I jump from one subject to another with no warning. Suggest some type of all-purpose warning that we’re changing the subject, and I’ll start using it. Also, do consider that there’s SO much going on in the world, so much that affects us both directly and indirectly, that it should be obvious that some of it has to be covered now and then. A prolonged treatise on any subject might do more harm than good just by its length…some folks might drift off to sleep, turn the page or the channel or whatever, in order to get away from it. Shorter paragraphs which contain the “meat” of the subject do better, I believe. So stick with us and we’ll both get a better understanding of the news, eh? Now let’s see what other fabrications they’ve foisted on us.

Oh, here’s one you may not have heard. First, let’s remember that Islam is always touted as “the religion of peace”, right? In Dhaka, Bangladesh recently that same religion of peace hacked to death a gay rights activist and his friend and it was done by Al Qaeda, or so they claimed. On top of that, in the same week ISIS claimed to have killed a university professor. My question is…where and how does the peaceful part of this cult, and I don’t call it a religion, come into play? It seems that every reporting of any activities of ISIS or any of its affiliated groups centers around some horrible atrocity. To the average person it appears that these barbarians have contests with each other to see who can commit the most heinous of crimes against their captives. So, the religion of peace, in my not-so-humble opinion, is just a pack of liars.

Parting shot…if you can believe anything that ISIS says then this should come as no surprise. They have opened a relationship counseling center in Raqqa, Syria because, it seems, that a lot of the women who flocked to join them have become disillusioned, and who could blame them? One very disenchanted “bride” said that “before ISIS we had electricity and could cook and bake…now we are back in ancient times.” That is exactly what Islam wants.

photo credit: 100 Dollar Bills via photopin (license); Phillip Taylor

Share if you agree the US paid a ransom to Iran.

Larry Usoff

Larry Usoff, US Navy Retired. Articulate. Opinionated. Patriotic. Conservative. Cultured enough so that I can be taken almost anywhere. Makes no excuses for what I say or do, but takes responsibility for them. Duty. Honor. Country. E-mail me at: amafrog@att.net

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