Just a few days ago a story emerged. Under the cloak of night a white unmarked small cargo jet approached the runway and its landing gear screeched as it touched down on the tarmac. Nearby on a departure runway another jet aircraft holding 5 American hostages had been awaiting the arrival of the mystery jet that had just landed. They had been told by their Iranian captors that they might have to wait for hours and that not until a certain plane arrived would they be allowed to take-off and leave the much hated airspace of Tehran and head for friendlier havens.
Initial developments
Little did the captive Americans know that 400 million dollars in various currencies stored on pallets had been stored in the unmarked cargo jet that had just landed thus clearing the way for them to take-off and head for a US controlled jurisdiction. Aboard that flight was one Saeed Abedini, a Christian Pastor, who was imprisoned, tortured, and beaten for his refusal to denounce his faith. The Iranians have been conducting an unceasing persecution of Christians and Jews at an accelerated pace over the last few years of an Obama White House that has emboldened our enemies both at home and abroad.
Flawed rationale
Trying to explain away the simultaneous exchange of 400 million on an unmarked aircraft that briefly proceeded the take-off of the hostage plane within minutes, President Obama used a number of chuckles to dismiss the incident as well as misdirection statements according to one former CIA interrogator that actually indicated aggression toward the press who reported the event and those who would interpret this secretive exchange as an exercise in a ransom situation. While the president denied that the US entertains such practices in hostage scenarios his behavior suggested otherwise. Complete lies, according to Phil Houston, now a CEO in the private sector, Obama’s public announcement about the 400 million disbursements of cash in Euro’s, Swiss Francs, and other currencies in synchronicity with the hostage release was highly deceptive! This only adds more of an insult to the intelligence of the American citizen.
The explanation
The cash, it was rationalized, was offered to simplify Iran’s difficulty in navigating currency markets with foreign banks due to existing sanctions, but according to others who know better, cash can be paid undetected to fund terror operations as unlike wire transfers and credit purchases the money cannot be traced as easily. CIA and other intelligence sources have no doubt that the 400 million will likely go into a stealthy funding for the support of terrorism worldwide as the Tehran has done for decades now.
Unintended consequences
The advent of this particular trade of hostages for money between the Obama White House and Iran will likely send a signal to our adversaries that the US does indeed partake in ransoms and that taking American hostages can indeed be lucrative with little to fear in the way of repercussions. Once again, there’s that all important legacy that our president is so consumed by and everything else does indeed become secondary in terms of priorities even when it comes to the lives of Americans and national security. The recent kidnapping of an American professor and his colleague in Afghanistan may well point to an unfortunate trend abroad now in light of the Iranian deal.
