To: Interested Parties

From: America Rising Squared (AR2)

Date: December 15, 2015

RE: Hillary Clinton’s failed record on issue of terrorism

In the wake of the tragic terrorist attacks in Paris and Southern California, the American people now view terrorism and national security as the number one issue facing the country, according to a Wall Street Journal /NBC News poll released last night.

In response to these developments, Hillary Clinton will reportedly outline her counterterrorism strategy in a speech in Minneapolis, Minnesota this afternoon. In seeking to lay out a credible program for countering the growing terrorist threat around the world, Secretary Clinton will no doubt tout her years of service as Secretary of State under President Obama. In doing so, Secretary Clinton will inevitably be confronted with the reality that on the issue of national security and terrorism, her leadership as Secretary of State was a dismal failure.

Indeed, the negative impacts of Secretary Clinton’s policy decisions at Foggy Bottom are still rolling in. Just last month, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) reported an 80% increase in the number of people killed by terrorists in 2014 – a total of 32,658 people killed in terror attacks across 67 countries last year. And as President Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated last spring, “When the final counting is done, 2014 will have been the most lethal year for global terrorism in the 45 years such a data has been compiled.”

So in advance of her remarks later today in Minnesota, below are three quick examples of Secretary Clinton’s failed leadership on the issue of national security and terrorism:

1. Just last month, Secretary Clinton bragged about creating a new initiative within the State Department to counter jihadists online, but experts called its efforts “embarrassing” and “helpful to the enemy,” and even the White House distanced itself from the effort. According to The Washington Post, the Center for Strategic

Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) was “a priority for then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.” Yet new reports this year show that the program was a complete failure during her tenure. Experts called the CSCC’s efforts to counter ISIS online “embarrassing” and “helpful to the enemy.” And even the Obama White House has now admitted that Clinton’s “priority” program is something they might have to scale back. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest called the mission of CSCC something that didn’t make “common sense.”

2. During her tenure as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was a “strong advocate” for closing the Guantanamo Bay facility and transferring its inmates to the U.S. mainland, just as we learn that another former Guantanamo detainee has returned to the fight for Al Qaeda. Far from keeping Americans safe, the move to transfer Guantanamo Bay prisoners has put our security at risk, as a significant percentage of those released have returned to the fight. Indeed, it was reported just five days ago that Ibrahim Qosi, a former Guantanamo detainee released to Sudan in 2012, is now back in the fight as a leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen. In a propaganda video Qosi reportedly encourages individual jihad against America, saying, “Our dead are in heaven and theirs are in the hellfire, and the war is not over yet.”

3. Last month, Boko Haram was named the deadliest terrorist group

in the world, responsible for 6,664 deaths in 2014, yet for years under Secretary Clinton, the State Department refused to label them a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Starting in 2011, the Justice Department and members of Congress strongly lobbied Secretary Clinton to designate Boko Haram an FTO, yet the Secretary “fought” against placing Boko Haram on the FTO list. If Boko Haram had been named a Foreign Terrorist Organization, it would have given the U.S. government the ability “to use certain tools and authorities” to destroy the group that it couldn’t without the FTO tag. With Boko Haram having now pledged allegiance to ISIS, Secretary Clinton efforts hamstrung the U.S. government for several critical years, and endangered the lives of Americans in the process.

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