Warnings of a massive economic collapse, government stockpiling of weaponry, and the idea that Americans could be broadly classified as terrorists and then detained indefinitely or killed often fell upon deaf ears.

Today, as more information ‘leaks’ into the mainstream, it is no longer just conspiracy theory. We now have some of the most influential journalists and commentators in the country alerting Americans to the possibility that everything the government has been preparing for the last several years may soon be realized.

I’m going to tell you what I think is going on.

I don’t think domestic insurrection. Law enforcement and national security agencies, they play out multiple scenarios. They simulate multiple scenarios.

I’ll tell you what I think they’re simulating.

The collapse of our financial system, the collapse of our society and the potential for widespread violence, looting, killing in the streets, because that’s what happens when an economy collapses.

I’m not talking about a recession. I’m talking about a collapse, when people are desperate, when they can’t get food or clothing, when they have no way of going from place to place, when they can’t protect themselves.

There aren’t enough police officers on the face of the earth to adequately handle a situation like that.

I suspect, that just in case our fiscal situation collapses, our monetary situation collapses, and following it the civil society collapses – that is the rule of law – that they want to be prepared.

The Pentagon and military have been war-gaming large-scale economic collapse and civil unrest for nearly four years. Those within our government who understand the ramifications a massive breakdown in our systems of commerce, transportation and justice are preparing by stockpiling weapons and ammo, tens of millions of food rations, and even emergency shelters. They are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on continuity of government programs and exercises, preparing for what they know is coming.

 

Greta Van Susteren was on “Hannity” to reveal how she was pressured by the White House to get Fox News to back down on Benghazi coverage.

In the wake of the Benghazi attacks, Van Susteren said that she got a call from someone high up in the administration. The official asked Van Susteren to tell Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin to stop reporting on an alleged “stand down” order because it was false.

Benghazi Bombshell: Security Team Told to ‘Stand Down’ By CIA Officer

This weekend in a Fox News Reporting special, security contractors gave their firsthand accounts of the Benghazi attacks. They say they were given a “stand down” order during the night of the fatal attacks.

The “On The Record” host said she asked for proof that the report was wrong, but the official did not provide any. She said that Fox News was then excluded from a State Department briefing on Benghazi, though the State Department said it was a mistake.

‘My Gut Is Yes’: Benghazi Security Contractor Says Stevens & Smith Would Be Alive If Team Wasn’t Delayed

Watch more above.

The FBI’s most recent national threat assessment for domestic terrorism makes no reference to Islamist terror threats, despite last year’s Boston Marathon bombing and the 2009 Fort Hood shooting—both carried out by radical Muslim Americans.

Instead, the internal FBI intelligence report concluded in its 2013 assessment published this month that the threat to U.S. internal security from extremists is limited to attacks and activities by eight types of domestic extremist movements—none motivated by radical Islam.

Click to Enlarge

They include anti-government militia groups and white supremacy extremists, along with “sovereign citizen” nationalists, and anarchists. Other domestic threat groups outlined by the FBI assessment include violent animal rights and environmentalist extremists, black separatists, anti- and pro-abortion activists, and Puerto Rican nationalists.

“Domestic extremist violence continues to be unpredictable and, at times, severe,” the report states.

A copy of the unclassified, 60-page National Threat Assessment for Domestic Extremism, dated Aug. 14, was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. It warns that the threat of domestic-origin extremism was moderate in 2013 and will remain so for this year.

“Domestic extremists collectively presented a medium-level threat to the United States in 2013; the FBI assesses the 2014 threat will remain close to this level,” the report said.

On black separatists, the report warned that a “high-profile racially charged crimes or events” could lead to an expansion of black separatist groups. The report identified three such groups as the New Black Panther Party, the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, and the Black Hebrew Israelite group as extremists under FBI scrutiny.

By Bill Gertz

Sooner or later everything becomes polarized in this divided country of ours. It’s against the rules to see the other side’s point of view.   That’s like giving ammo to the enemy. Besides, in media circles, where people make a good living dividing Americans, seeing the other guy’s point of view is bad for business.

When he first ran for president Barack Obama promised to unify us. You remember what he said about no Red America or Blue America, just a United States of America.

Instead we got the most polarizing president since Lincoln. I don’t know anybody who’s lukewarm on Mr. Obama. Liberals adore him – or at least have adored him for most of his presidency. And conservatives don’t simply disagree with him; many detest him. If he were caught on video robbing a bank, liberals would find an excuse to exonerate him. “He was just withdrawing money he had deposited, but the bank was closed. What was he supposed to do?” And if he found a cure for cancer, conservatives would condemn him for not finding it sooner. “If he didn’t play so much golf, he’d have found a cure years ago which would have saved the lives of many little children.”

Which brings us to Ferguson, Missouri. Nobody knows what actually happened there, except for the police officer involved – and we haven’t heard from him. Was he justified in shooting an unarmed kid 6 times or did he panic and overreact to some imaginary threat? We don’t know.

But in a polarized America, everybody is an expert. And everybody must take sides. To sit on the sidelines and wait for the facts to come in is a sign of weakness.  Warriors don’t sit on the sideline — ever.

So if you’re a liberal who gets what passes for news from MSNBC you know what happened: The racist white cop shot the black kid because he’s a racist white cop.

And if you’re a conservative who gets the lowdown from Fox, you’re pretty sure the cop is getting railroaded. Didn’t Michael Brown bust the cop in the face and fracture his eye socket? That’s what Fox News reported, initially getting its information from a conservative website. The report may be true – or not. But so far no one in authority has confirmed the story. But if you play right field, you’re hoping the story is true because that would confirm what you always knew – that the cop was right and the kid was wrong.

When they’re feeling generous both sides will say, “We have to find out what really happened” right before they tell us what really happened, even though they don’t know what really happened.

On MSNBC, we get contributor Michelle Bernard, a black woman, telling us that what happened in Ferguson amounts to a “war on black boys” that could turn into “genocide.” We get nothing from her about the inconvenient fact that black boys are far more likely to be killed by other black boys than by white cops.

Liberals condemn abusive cops – especially when young black males are involved. Conservatives say the problem isn’t racism, but dysfunction in too many black communities.

I’ve been a reporter long enough to know that there are bad cops out there. And some are racist bad cops. I’ve also seen dysfunction in too many black neighborhoods. But both sides have a problem in polarized America acknowledging that the other side might have a point. And on TV or talk radio or on the Web, it’s simply bad business to see more than one side. People turn to partisan media to get their own biases validated. They don’t want to hear the other side. That might require them to consider some arguments they’d rather not consider.

When the police in Ferguson released the video of Michael Brown stealing some cigars and roughing up the convenient storeowner, liberals said it was a “smear.”  Conservatives said – correctly, in my view – that a kid who had just committed a crime might also go after a cop he thought was on to him.

We don’t know.

None of this is a case for wishy-washy even-handedness. We all have deeply held opinions based on our values. There’s nothing wrong with that. But sometimes, especially when we don’t know the facts, it might be a good idea to keep an open mind. Maybe that cop was one of the bad ones. Who knows? Maybe the kid was a thug who after stealing the cigars instigated a confrontation with the cop that turned deadly. Could be. Hanging on to deeply held principles is one thing. Circling the wagons to protect your side, and your preconceived notions — ahead of the facts — is something else altogether.

By Bernie Goldberg

Last night on The Factor, Megyn Kelly and I debated the concept of white privilege whereby some believe that if you are Caucasian you have inherent advantages in America.

Talking Points does not, does not believe in white privilege. However, there is no question that African-Americans have a much harder time succeeding in our society. Even whites do. But the primary reason is not skin color. It’s education and not only book learning. Here are the facts.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for black Americans is 11.4 percent. It’s just over five percent for whites, 4.5 percent for Asians. So, do we have Asian privilege in America? Because the truth is, that Asian American households earn far more money than anyone else. The median income for Asians, close to $69,000 a year; it’s 57,000 for whites’ $33,000 for black — so the question becomes why? And the answer is found in stable homes and in emphasis on education; 88 percent of Asian Americans graduate from high school compared to 86 for whites and just 69 percent for blacks. That means 31 percent of African- Americans have little chance to succeed in the free marketplace because they are uneducated. They are high school dropouts.

Asian Americans also tend to keep their families intact. Just 13 percent of Asian children live in single parent homes compared to a whopping 55 percent for blacks and 21 percent for whites. So, there you go. That is why Asian Americans, who often have to overcome a language barrier, are succeeding far more than African-Americans and even more than white Americans. Their families are intact and education is paramount.

American children must learn not only academics but also civil behavior, right from wrong, as well as how to speak properly and how to act respectfully in public. If African-American children do not learn those things, they will likely fail as adults. They will be poor. They will be angry, and they often will be looking to blame someone else.

One caveat, the Asian American experience historically has not been nearly as tough as the African-American experience. Slavery is unique and it has harmed black Americans to a degree that is still being felt today, but in order to succeed in our competitive society, every American has to overcome the obstacles they face. And here is where the African-American leadership in America is failing.

Instead of preaching a cultural revolution, the leadership provides excuses for failure. The race hustlers blame white privilege, an unfair society, a terrible country. So the message is, it’s not your fault if you abandon your children, if you become a substance abuser, if you are a criminal. No, it’s not your fault; it’s society’s fault.

That is the big lie that is keeping some African-Americans from reaching their full potential. Until personal responsibility and a cultural change takes place. Millions of African-Americans will struggle. And their anger, some of it justified will seethe. The federal government cannot fix this problem. Only a powerful message of responsibility can turn things around. And that’s “The Memo”.

By Bill O’Reilly

Lois Lerner’s Blackberry was intentionally destroyed after Congress had begun its probe into IRS targeting of conservative groups, a senior IRS lawyer acknowledged in a sworn declaration.

Thomas Kane, Deputy Assistant Chief Counsel for the IRS, wrote in the declaration, part of a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch against the IRS, that the Blackberry was “removed or wiped clean of any sensitive or proprietary information and removed as scrap for disposal in June 2012.”

That date – June 2012 – is significant because by that time, ex-IRS official Lerner had already been summoned before congressional staffers who interviewed her about reports of the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups.

“We had already talked to her. Our personal staff and Oversight Committee staff had sat down with Ms. Lerner and confronted her about information we were getting from conservative groups in the state of Ohio and around the country,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Fox News.

“If you intentionally destroy evidence, that is a crime. If you make a statement in court saying the evidence is not available and it is, that is also a crime,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice.

The IRS did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

News of the Blackberry’s destruction followed Monday’s statement by Judicial Watch that Justice Department attorneys said in a Friday phone call the federal government backs up all computer records to ensure continuity of government in event of a catastrophe, but retrieving the Lerner emails would simply be “too onerous.”

An administration official told Fox News Monday night that Judicial Watch misinterpreted the Friday phone call. “There was no new back-up system described last week to Judicial Watch,” he said. “Government lawyers who spoke to Judicial Watch simply referred to the same email retention policy that Commissioner (John) Koskinen had described in his Congressional testimony.”

But Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who represents other conservative groups suing the IRS, cited a whistleblower who bolsters Judicial Watch’s interpretation.

“I received information from a former Department of Homeland Security official who had security clearances. He just retired in April,” Mitchell said. “He contacted me and he contacted Judicial Watch and some members of Congress and said there is backup material.”

The dueling versions are not likely to sit well with District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, who is presiding over Judicial Watch’s lawsuit against the IRS. “He gave the IRS not one, but two opportunities in court filings with him to tell him where they were,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. “There was no mention of this backup system to the court at that time.”

According to Sidney Powell, author of “Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice,” Sullivan is known to scold government lawyers who withhold evidence.

Powell said Sullivan appointed an independent counsel to investigate DOJ’s prosecution of now deceased Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska.Sullivan described the Stevens prosecution as “the worst case of misconduct he’d seen in 25 years.”

Sullivan also said, “When government does not meet its obligations to turn over evidence, the system falters.”

By Doug McKelway

Court documents released Friday in the so-called “John Doe investigation” into political supporters of Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker show prosecutors subpoenaed phone-company records and that the probe went deeper than previously known, say conservatives who were targeted.

Attorneys for conservative activist Eric O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth point to subpoenas requested by the John Doe prosecutors that sought records from “at least eight phone companies” believed to serve the targets of the investigation, according to The Wisconsin Reporter.

O’Keefe and the club have filed a civil rights suit against the prosecutors, alleging they violated conservatives’ First Amendment rights.

“In fact, Defendants’ submissions confirm and expand upon the scope and intensity of retaliation previously demonstrated,” O’Keefe’s attorney wrote in documents ordered unsealed by the federal appeals court.

The John Doe proceeding compelled scores of witnesses to testify, and a gag order compelled them to keep their mouths shut or face jail time.

Prosecutors conducted the investigation under the theory that at least 29 conservative organizations may have illegally coordinated with Walker’s campaign during Wisconsin’s partisan political recall elections in 2011 and 2012.

The investigation was conducted by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat, until a federal judge halted it in May.

The newly released documents show prosecutors’ subpoena requests sought phone records for a year-and-a-half period.

Prosecutors sought “all call detail records including incoming and outgoing calls,” “billing name and information,” “subscriber name and information including any application for service,” and more, according to the conservatives’ court filing.

By M.D. Kittle

Allen West, US Army Lieutenant Colonel veteran of 22 years and former Congressman, recently stated in his blog:

“The only plausible explanation for many actions taken by President Obama and his administration is that they are working counter to the security of the United States of America. How else can one rationalize the following:”

West goes on to describe 6 primary actions taken by Obama that can only lead to West`s conclusion:

“Sorry, but I can only explain this one way: Barack Hussein Obama is an Islamist in his foreign policy perspectives and supports their cause. You can go back and listen to his 2009 speech in Cairo, where Muslim Brotherhood associates were seated front and center.”

1. The unilateral release of five senior Taliban back to the enemy while the enemy is still fighting us.

2. Providing weapons of support to the Muslim Brotherhood-led Egyptian government — F-16s and M1A1 Abrams tanks — but not to the Egyptian government after the Islamist group has been removed.

3. Negotiations with Qatar and Turkey, two Islamist-supporting countries.

4. Negotiations with Hamas, a terrorist group.

5. Returning sanction money, to the tune of billions of dollars, back to the theocratic regime led by Iran’s ayatollahs and allowing them to march on towards nuclear capability.

6. Obama’s evident support of Islamists in Libya.

In an operation that was again unilateral with no Congressional approval, U.S. military support and resources were given to Islamist groups fighting against Moammar Qaddafy — and we know the results of that action. Not long after, one of the groups this administration armed, Ansar al-Sharia, took responsibility for the terrorist attack and murder of our U.S .Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Ty Woods, and Glenn Doherty at the Benghazi Special Mission Compound (SMC). Oh, and that same group claims it has established an Islamic caliphate in eastern Libya, based in Benghazi. Just two weeks ago, the United States of America evacuated the Libyan embassy in Tripoli due to security concerns.

But I guess it’s all hunky-dory there now, because according to the Washington Free Beacon, “The Obama administration has lifted longtime restrictions on Libyans attending flight schools in the United States and training here in nuclear science, according to a final amendment of the ban recently approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).”

“Less than two years after the deadly terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is poised to sign off on an amendment reversing the ban, which was enacted following a wave or terrorist attacks in 1980s and prevents Libyans from studying these sensitive trades in the United States.”

We just evacuated Libya due to security concerns. There can be no doubt that Libya is an Islamic terrorist sanctuary state, thanks in no uncertain terms to Obama, and now he wants them to come here and learn how to fly planes and understand nuclear science?

Ok Lucy, ‘splain this to me.

The Free Beacon says “the original law effectively disqualified all Libyan nationals and those “acting on behalf of Libyan entities” from training in “aviation maintenance, flight operations, or nuclear-related fields,” according to the ban. “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is amending its regulations by rescinding the regulatory provisions promulgated in 1983 that terminated the nonimmigrant status and barred the granting of certain immigration benefits to Libyan nationals and foreign nationals acting on behalf of Libyan entities who are engaging in or seeking to obtain studies or training in,” the amendment states.”

DHS spokesperson S.Y. Lee who told the Free Beacon that the Obama administration is reviewing its policies towards Libya “to see how they might be updated to better align with U.S. interests” in light of its revolution.”

If I may interject here, Libya is not a stable country and there can be no alignment with U.S. interests as long as there are al-Qaida affiliated groups freely operating in that country.

Of course this action is taken when the House and Senate is away on a five-week hiatus from D.C. but at least the House Judiciary Committee responded by acknowledging, “The terror threat continues and numerous news reports document recent terror-related activities coming from Libya.”

Why wouldn’t the Obama administration allow Kurdish Peshmerga members to come to America and receive flight training so they could be given quality helicopter gunships and destroy ISIS? Can anyone explain what the strategy and objective is here in lifting this ban with a nation that is or should be on the terrorist watch list?

Sorry, but I can only explain this one way: Barack Hussein Obama is an Islamist in his foreign policy perspectives and supports their cause.

While Congress is on recess and President Obama vacations in Martha’s Vineyard, a coalition of free press groups is escalating an already-aggressive campaign against the Obama administration for allegedly freezing out the press and cracking down on reporters.

The flood of critical letters and petitions and statements from First Amendment groups marks a new level of tension in a relationship that for years has been deteriorating. Though Obama, as a candidate in 2008, was widely seen to enjoy favorable media treatment, his administration now is fielding accusations that it’s one of the least transparent in history.

Society of Professional Journalists President David Cuillier, in a statement earlier this week, blasted the administration for what he called “excessive message management and preventing journalists from getting information on behalf of citizens.”

SPJ is among the groups that’s been leading the charge on the issue. Last month, more than three dozen groups, including SPJ, wrote to the White House about what they described as growing censorship throughout federal agencies.

Cuillier’s latest statement came in response to White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest’s Aug. 11 letter to his organization regarding their complaints.

In it, Earnest said Obama’s commitment to transparency is “unwavering.” While he acknowledged “there will always be a healthy, natural tension between journalists and the White House,” Earnest vowed greater transparency going forward and pointed to several steps the administration has taken: like processing more “freedom of information” requests, declassifying records and releasing information on White House visitors.

“Typical spin and response through non-response,” Cuillier shot back.

He said he hopes the administration is “sincere” about being more open, “but we want action. We are tired of words and evasion.”

Media groups are gearing up for another confrontation on Thursday, when they plan to present a petition with 100,000 signatures — backed by the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Freedom of the Press Foundation and others — to the Justice Department. It calls for the administration to halt legal action against New York Times reporter James Risen, who detailed a botched CIA effort during the Clinton administration to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Risen’s reporting is at the center of criminal charges against former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. Federal prosecutors want to force Risen to testify about his sources at Sterling’s trial, and the Supreme Court recently refused to get involved in the case.

Risen argued he has a right to protect his sources’ identity, either under the Constitution or rules governing criminal trials. A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., earlier rejected Risen’s bid to avoid being forced to testify.

At the same time federal prosecutors have fought Risen in court, Attorney General Eric Holder has suggested that the government would not seek to put Risen in jail should he refuse to testify as ordered.

But journalist groups want assurances. Risen also is expected to speak during a press conference at the National Press Club on Thursday afternoon.

The case follows tension last year surrounding the Justice Department’s snooping on Fox News’ reporter James Rosen’s phone records and emails, and its seizure of AP phone records in the course of leak investigations. The controversy over those actions led to some reforms at the Justice Department.

Press groups’ complaints about the administration are manifold. They say agencies are prohibiting staffers from talking to journalists without public affairs office approval — and sometimes without public affairs employees sitting in on interviews. Further, they complain about long delays in getting information and about communications staff speaking “confidentially” even on routine matters.

In yet another complaint, journalist and scientific organizations accused the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday of attempting to muzzle its independent scientific advisers by directing them to funnel all outside requests for information through agency officials.

In a letter, the groups representing journalists and scientists urged the EPA to allow advisory board members to talk directly to news reporters, Congress and other outside groups without first asking for permission from EPA officials. An April memo from the EPA’s chief of staff said that “unsolicited contacts” need to be “appropriately managed” and that committee members should refrain from directly responding to requests about committees’ efforts to advise the agency.

The scientific advisory board’s office had asked the EPA to clarify the communications policy for board members, who are government employees.

“The new policy only reinforces any perception that the agency prioritizes message control over the ability of scientists who advise the agency to share their expertise with the public,” the groups wrote.

The chair of that panel, H. Christopher Frey, said in an interview with the Associated Press Tuesday in which he stressed he was offering his personal opinion, that he found the tone of the EPA memo to be unnecessary.

Frey, a distinguished professor in North Carolina State University’s engineering department, said that many of the scientists that seek to serve on the committees are national and internationally-renowned experts and that EPA “need not be too strong in precluding interactions with the media or others.”

An EPA spokeswoman said there are no constraints on members fielding requests in a personal or professional capacity. She said the memo was designed to assure transparency.

Hillary Clinton and congressmen alike have called on Obama to arm Syria’s rebels. But the president fumed at lawmakers in a private meeting for suggesting he should’ve done more.

President Obama got angry at lawmakers who suggested in a private meeting that he should have armed the Syrian rebels, calling the criticism “horseshit.”

The argument that America should have done more in Syria, made for years by foreign policy leaders in both parties and several members of Obama’s senior national security team, was brought back to the fore this past weekend. Obama and Hillary Clinton gave dueling interviews in which they publicly split on whether the security and humanitarian catastrophe in Syria could have been avoided if the United States had played a larger role. Obama’s outburst on July 31, one week prior, reveals the criticism was already getting to him, even before the White House tried to deflect Clinton’s remarks as pre-presidential political posturing.

Just before the congressional recess, President Obama invited over a dozen Senate and House leaders from both parties to the White House to talk about foreign policy. According to two lawmakers inside the meeting, Obama became visibly agitated when confronted by bipartisan criticism of the White House’s policy of slow-rolling moderate Syrian rebels’ repeated requests for arms to fight the Assad regime and ISIS.

According to one of the lawmakers, Sen. Bob Corker asked the president a long question that included sharp criticisms of President Obama’s handling of a number of foreign policy issues—including Syria, ISIS, Russia, and Ukraine. Obama answered Corker at length. Then, the president defended his administration’s actions on Syria, saying that the notion that many have put forth regarding arming the rebels earlier would have led to better outcomes in Syria was “horseshit.”

White House officials confirmed the charged exchange between Obama and Corker but declined to confirm that Obama used the expletive. The interaction between Obama and Corker was a tense moment in the otherwise uneventful meeting.

Corker’s office declined to comment for this story. But days after the White House meeting, Corker wrote a blistering op-ed for The Washington Post criticizing Obama’s handling of foreign policy. “Today, after three years of bold rhetoric divorced from reality, 170,000 Syrians are dead, and we are not innocent bystanders. The president encouraged the opposition to swallow deadly risks, then left them mostly hanging,” the senator wrote. “Extremist groups from Syria have surged into Iraq, seizing key territory and resources, and are threatening to completely undo the progress of years of U.S. sacrifice.”

Top Democratic lawmakers agreed with Corker and Clinton that doing more to support the moderate rebels would have at least had a chance of averting or mitigating the current crisis, which has now spread to large parts of Iraq as ISIS expands its newly declared Caliphate.

“We may never know for sure if ISIS’s decisions were encouraged by Obama’s choices in Syria. What we know for sure is that ISIS metastasized in Syria and was not deterred because of anything Obama said or did so far.”

Rep. Eliot Engel, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, arrived at the White House meeting after the Obama-Corker exchange. But the congressman also heard Obama defend his Syria policy, although using more polite language.

“The president still feels very strongly that we are deluding ourselves if we think American intervention in Syria early on by assisting these rebels would have made a difference,” Engel told The Daily Beast in an interview. “He still believes that. I disagree, respectfully. They were not looking for U.S. troops, they were looking for help and the Syria civil war started with the most noblest of causes.”

In a New York Times interview published Aug. 8, Obama said that the idea arming the rebels would have made a difference had “always been a fantasy.”

“This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards,” Obama said.

Clinton told The Atlantic in an interview published Aug. 10 that Obama’s “failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.”

In 2012, Clinton revealed that she and then-CIA Director David Petraeus had pushed a plan earlier that year to arm the Syrian rebels that was rejected by the White House. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey later said they supported the plan at that time. Many lawmakers, including Corker and Engel, still support that plan and they agree with Clinton that Obama’s policy left a vacuum that ISIS rushed to fill.

“[ISIS’s threat in Iraq] is definitely tied to Syria because when the uprising started against Bashar al Assad, it was a movement of people wanting freedom and democracy in Syria, it wasn’t a war involving jihadism at all,” Engel said. “They desperately needed our help, which we didn’t supply, and as a result ISIS got the upper hand. We are now paying the price of that.”

Not all lawmakers support arming the rebels; Sen. Rand Paul, for example, is on the record opposing the use of U.S. military resources to fight ISIS in Iraq or Syria. Also, Clinton and many lawmakers acknowledge that arming the rebels was risky and might not have worked. The weapons could’ve fallen into the extremists’ hands, and Syria might have remained a jihadist free-for-all.

“Well, I did believe, which is why I advocated this, that if we were to carefully vet, train, and equip early on a core group of the developing Free Syrian Army, we would, number one, have some better insight into what was going on on the ground,” Clinton said.

By Josh Rogin