{"id":67854,"date":"2016-09-09T06:45:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-09T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=67854"},"modified":"2016-09-07T17:35:55","modified_gmt":"2016-09-07T21:35:55","slug":"about-that-recent-return-of-assets-to-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=67854","title":{"rendered":"About That Recent \u201cReturn of Assets\u201d to Iran . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember that $400 million\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ransom payment<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 return of assets we recently sent to Iran?\u00a0 You know, the one made in cash, using foreign currency obtained in Europe, by a cargo plane immediately before 4 US citizens\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 held hostage by Iran<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 detained by Iran were released?\u00a0 The cash payment I wrote about previously here<\/a><\/em> \u2013 and again here<\/a><\/em> \u2013 and mentioned yet again here<\/a><\/em>?<\/p>\n

Well, it appears that the\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0gang of idiots screwing up US foreign policy \u201cby the numbers\u201d<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0current Administration has recently acknowledged that cash payments in foreign currency made to Iran didn’t stop after the first payment.\u00a0 The total paid in cash to Iran amounted to far more than the original $400M.\u00a0 Rather, the entire $1.7 billion in “returned assets” was apparently paid in foreign currency – e.g., in cash<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

The first installment of $400M was sent to Iran on the day Iran agreed to release those\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 US hostages<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 detained US citizens:\u00a0 17 January 2016.\u00a0 The Administration has now confirmed that the second and third payments of those “returned assets”, totaling another $1.3 billion, were made a few days after their release – on 22 January 2016 and 5 February 2016, respectively.\u00a0 They were also made in foreign currency.<\/p>\n

Hmm.\u00a0 So, we made cash payments to an adversary that was at the time detaining a number of US citizens, and in return those US citizens were promptly released.\u00a0 To me that certainly sounds an awful lot like the textbook definition of something called a \u201cransom\u201d<\/a> <\/em>\u2013 and a big honking ransom at that.\u00a0 And it was paid in cash.<\/p>\n

But maybe that\u2019s just me.<\/p>\n

Oh, and if anyone’s wondering if this is a “big freaking deal”, it is – for two reasons.\u00a0 First, we have now established the principle that we will indeed pay ransom for US citizens held hostage by adversaries, at least sometimes.\u00a0 This is idiocy that even Jimmy “the Clueless” Carter did not commit.<\/p>\n

And, second:\u00a0 cash generally cannot be traced<\/em>.\u00a0 And $1.7 billion can fund a helluva lot of terrorist activity.<\/p>\n

I really did not think I’d live long enough to see a US Administration more inept, foreign-policy wise, than Carter’s Clueless Crew.\u00a0 I was wrong.\u00a0 This gang of naive fools in DC today takes the cake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember that $400 million\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ransom payment\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 return of assets we recently sent to Iran?\u00a0 You know, … About That Recent \u201cReturn of Assets\u201d to Iran . . .<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,220,213,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teh-stoopid","category-the-floggings-will-continue-until-morale-improves","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-politics","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}