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Sara Carter uncovers plight of Christians in the Middle East ignored by Obama

October 29, 2015
Ted Tuttle

Editor

Programming Alert: Watch For the Record tonight for a special report with Sara Carter at 8pm ET on TheBlaze TV.

Having recently returned from the Middle East assessing the front lines of ISIS, investigative journalist Sara Carter joined Glenn's radio program Thursday to report on the situation from the perspective of persecuted Christians and other minorities in the region.

"It started last year, for me. When the Sinjar situation escalated, it was when the Islamic State was already inside Iraq and then made an advance into the Sinjar region, which is mainly home to many Yazidi people that have lived there for thousands of years," Carter said.

She went on.

"Everything that they had been promised by the administration to help the Yazidi people and the Christians that were in the region being slaughtered by the Islamic State failed to come through. They were left on their own," she said.

Listen to the full interview or read the transcript below. Here's a preview of the Special Report:

8pm ET on TheBlaze: ‘For the Record' Special Report: Journey t...

One year after the rescue mission on Mt. Sinjar, For The Record contributor Sara Carter traveled to Kurdistan for an update. What she discovered was a tragic truth that the American people were never told.

Posted by

TheBlaze on Thursday, October 29, 2015

 

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

GLENN: Sara Carter is just an unbelievable reporter. She's the one who has broken so many stories. She's worked for TheBlaze. She's doing some work for For the Record. And I have to say on the outset, thanks to American Media Institute for their assistance in helping us produce an episode of For the Record.

I'm going to have her tell you what this episode is tonight. But she went on a -- well, I'll let her tell you. Sara, welcome to the program.

SARA: It's great to be on, Glenn. Thank you so much.

GLENN: You bet. Tell me why you went on this trip.

SARA: It started last year, for me. When the Sinjar situation escalated, it was when the Islamic State was already inside Iraq and then made an advance into the Sinjar reason, which is mainly home to many Yazidi people that have lived there for thousands of years. Rumors started spreading that they were mass executing, that then was validated. We were on the sidelines. Nobody was in the region. Nobody was stopping them at that point in time. And I had received an email from somebody that was there in August. And they were devastated. They were assessing the region. They were an American. And they said it was an absolute slaughter, that everything that they had been promised by the administration to help the Yazidi people and the Christians that were in the region being slaughtered by the Islamic State failed to come through. They were left on their own. And it wasn't until the situation escalated to such a point where, by that time, mass graves were discovered. People were up on the mountain. Sinjar mountain is very stark. You know, I was just there. And it wasn't at all as I expected.

There's no life. It's a desert area. Jagged rocks. Very hot, desolate. And there's no water. So these people were escaping for their lives. Those that made it out of Sinjar village and the other surrounding villages near the mountain, went up the mountain to escape from the Islamic State and were just devastated. They were left on the mountain. They were abandoned. Promises were made to them. And then promises were broken.

And I don't know if you remember the president finally -- President Obama on August 7th said that he was going to be conducting some airdrops. And by that time, the Islamic State had really stepped to the doorstep of Erbil, which is the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region, Kurdistan, which is part of Iraq.

And at that point, the president realized there was nothing they could do. They would have to launch some strikes against the Islamic State or they would infiltrate the capital of Kurdistan. So at the very last second, there were some airstrikes.

And then after August 7th, some airdrops came in on the mountain. But there was no Noncombatant Evacuation Operations. This is what they were promised. They're called NEOs, Glenn. NEOs are when you try to rescue people out of a situation that are noncombatant, and you're taking them out of a war zone. And that was what was promised to them.

GLENN: Okay. We were told --

SARA: And they never showed up. They never showed up. In fact, on the 14th, the president said, "Hey, they've already made their way out. We sent a team there to assess it. We did our job. The Yazidi people are fine. And they're going to be okay." And I think everybody just bought the story. But the problem was, they were so many elderly. So many children. So many women. And people with disabilities that weren't able to make it over the mountain. And they were just abandoned. Some of them didn't get food because, of course, the young and the strong get the food first, right? Once it drops. People are starving. They grab what they can. So I think that there was this enormous sense of failure among the people that were there. That they wanted to help the people. And even the Peshmerga fighters who were up on the mountain, they were tough. I mean, they stood up against the Islamic State. But they really had no backup support. So the whole place just fell apart.

So that was the reason why I went. I made a promise that I would take this trip, even if I had to fund it myself. That I would get to Iraq and I would see with my own eyes what actually happened, and I was grateful that I was able to get there with TheBlaze and For the Record and with American Media Institute because I think it changed my life.

GLENN: In what way, Sara? In what way?

SARA: And I know it did. You know, it's easy to turn a blind eye to the atrocities when they're so far away from you, when you don't have to put yourself in the shoes of -- of those that are suffering.

But when you go there and when you realize -- I'm a mother, and when I stood -- I stood in this mass grave, Glenn, and there was just some tattered clothing, some shoes left, somebody's finger -- a bone of a finger -- a human finger left, after they had already taken the bodies out when they discovered it early in February. In this desolate desert.

And I saw this little girl's blouse. And no more than maybe two years old, just sitting there. Knowing that she and a relative, maybe a mother, maybe an aunt, were standing there, knowing that their death was on the way, that this is it. This was the last day they were going to live. Imagining that if I was that mother holding my child in my hands and knowing there was nothing I could do for her and wondering where the rest of the world was, when is someone going to come save us and that feeling of utter hopelessness, that feeling of utter hopelessness and doom just swept over my body. And I thought to myself, "You know, we're better than this. We need to tell these stories. We need to be the voice of those who have no voice." And I was so grateful that despite all of the horror that I felt I could witness -- and just -- I mean, telling you, I could see the Islamic State from Mount Sinjar. I could see their vehicles. I could see their flags down below in Shingal Village, Sinjar Village. Knowing that they were right there at the door. And that they were ready to make a move any time. That the only reason they were being held off was from a few airstrikes right now in the Peshmerga forces. But knowing how many people died at their hands and that nobody was there to save them, I felt like this was -- this was a story that needed to be told. That we can't forget. We cannot forget what happened to these wonderful people.

GLENN: Sara Carter is on For the Record tonight. A special report. Journey to the Front Lines. You don't want to miss it. 8:00 p.m. tonight. Only on TheBlaze. Go to TheBlaze.com/FortheRecord.

Sara, as always, good to talk to you. Thank you so much.

And, again, thank you to American Media Institute for partnering with us on this important story. That is tonight, only on TheBlaze.

Glenn: What I saw on the ground in Asheville gave me hope

Melissa Sue Gerrits / Stringer | Getty Images

The government can’t save us. Washington is too slow and too bureaucratic, and quite frankly, the government doesn’t care.

I’ve seen a lot of destruction in my life. I’ve walked through war zones and cities torn apart by riots, and I've stood at the sites of natural disasters that leave communities devastated. But what I saw in Asheville, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene was unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed.

Houses were washed down rivers, upside down and crushed. Train tracks, strong enough to support locomotives, were left suspended in midair after the earth beneath them was eroded away. Semi-trucks, rolled by the force of the floodwaters, now lie like children’s toys, tossed and overturned hundreds of feet from the road. Whole towns have been uprooted and scattered — debris from homes miles away, stacking up like dominoes, bridges that stood for decades washed out by water so high that it flowed six feet over their tops.

'You tell everybody you know — even if they don’t care — we’ll take care of our own damn selves if nobody shows up.'

I stood there, looking at this idyllic small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I thought, “This will take years to rebuild. Maybe even decades.” But I didn’t just see destruction. I saw something far more powerful than nature’s wrath: the resilience of the American spirit.

My expectations for the government’s assistance were low before I arrived in Asheville, given its failing track record in previous natural disasters, but its response to Hurricane Helene victims — or lack thereof — was a new category of negligence. But the people in Asheville weren’t waiting on FEMA or the federal government to swoop in. They knew no one was coming.

The bridges were out, roads were destroyed, and the mountains had isolated them from outside help. But instead of despair, I saw hope. Instead of panic, I saw action. People were taking care of each other, and that is the America I remember, like in the days after 9/11 when we came together regardless of political party, race, or background. We didn’t care about who voted for whom. We just saw our neighbors hurting, and we asked, “Are you OK? What can I do to help?”

I saw that again in North Carolina. I saw it in the man who turned his Harley-Davidson dealership into a helicopter landing zone, shoveling mud out of his showroom just so rescue teams could land. I saw it in the volunteers flying missions across treacherous terrain, getting the elderly and the injured out of danger. They weren’t asking for government permission. They were doing what needed to be done.

Adam Smith, a retired Special Forces veteran who is coordinating the landing of helicopters in Asheville, told me that the FAA is trying to shut down the operation because it isn’t federally regulated. He told the feds that they’re going to leave because he has a helicopter landing in a few minutes that will actually help people while they are barking orders from Washington.

One story stood out to me. We landed to help evacuate an elderly woman with a broken hip and a severe infection. She just had surgery, but because her family didn’t have insurance, the hospital pushed her out as fast as it could. Her wound became infected, and her leg was on fire. We helped airlift her to get her desperately needed antibiotics and treatment. There were no government resources to help her to an emergency room.

As we loaded the woman into the helicopter, her grandson turned to me and said, “You tell everybody you know — even if they don’t care — we’ll take care of our own damn selves if nobody shows up.” That hit me hard because it’s the truth. It’s the way America used to be, and it’s the way we need to be again.

As I flew through those mountains in the helicopter, I couldn’t help but think of Billy Graham. I’d visited Asheville about 10 years ago to see him, and I remember thinking how beautiful and peaceful the town was. Today, it’s unrecognizable. The destruction is overwhelming. But the people are stronger than ever.

The government can’t save us. Washington is too slow and too bureaucratic, and quite frankly, the government doesn’t care. I saw it firsthand. We found a FEMA truck parked under a tree, its workers sitting at a card table in the shade. They weren’t doing anything to help.

But we’re Americans. We can take care of ourselves. We don’t need Washington to save us. We need each other. This is the America that Billy Graham spoke to me about — the America that will rise again in times of trouble. And while the government might fail us, we will not fail each other. And that’s exactly what I saw in North Carolina — Americans stepping up, taking care of their neighbors, and rebuilding their communities.

This is what I told the people of Asheville: You are not forgotten. There are millions of Americans who love you, who are praying for you, and who are ready to help. Because that’s what we do. We don’t wait for permission. We roll up our sleeves and take care of our own.

And to the rest of America, I say this: It’s time to remember who we are. It’s time to stop looking to Washington for solutions and start looking at each other. Because when the chips are down, it’s not the government that’s going to save us. It’s you and me, and if we stand together, nothing — no hurricane, no flood, no disaster — can break us.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

UPDATE: Will Florida survive Hurricane Milton?

Handout / Handout / Getty Images

For the second time in two weeks, Florida is in the path of a major hurricane.

Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall sometime tonight, Wednesday, October 9th, somewhere near Tampa Bay. This will mark the first time in a hundred years the city has been hit directly by a hurricane, raising concerns about the preparedness of the city's infrastructure. Milton, which was rated a category five hurricane earlier this week, has been reduced to a category four as it approaches land and is expected to make landfall as a powerful category three.

The Sunshine State has already begun to feel the effects of the historic storm, with strong winds and heavy rains battering Tampa Bay this morning. Many are still trying to evacuate or prepare for the storm as conditions worsen. Highways have slowed down, and gas has run short. Residents are preparing for the worst.

The federally recognized "Waffle House Index" is in red, meaning that several Waffle House locations in the Tampa Bay area will be shut down. Waffle House prides itself on being open 24/7, no matter the conditions, so for them to shut down, if only for a brief time, indicates that severe damage to the area is anticipated.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

In short, Milton is anticipated to be a disaster, and as we have learned, FEMA is unlikely to be much help. Fortunately, Floridians have Ron DeSantis, who has continued to prove himself a capable governor, and the aid of good-hearted Americans from across the country. If you want to lend a hand to your fellow Americans you can donate at Mercury One and rest assured that your money will be used to step in to help hurricane victims where the government is failing.

'Call her Daddy'? Kamala Harris keeps dodging important questions

TING SHEN / Contributor | Getty Images

Kamala Harris has been making her rounds on talk shows and podcasts in order to increase her poor recognition amongst voters, but all we're hearing is more of the same.

Just in the past few days, Harris has appeared on "60 Minutes" and the popular podcast "Call Her Daddy" to help Americans get to know her. But instead of bold answers to hard-hitting questions, Harris delivered rambling responses to soft-ball questions and squirmed her way out of the few tough questions thrown at her. Overall, it is unlikely that any voter who tuned in to get a solid grasp on Harris's policies was left with a better understanding after either one of her interviews.

Below is a summary of Harris's most recent interviews:

"Call Her Daddy" podcast

Antony Jones / Stringer | Getty Images

Despite this podcast's unsavory name, it consistently ranks among the most popular podcasts in the world, right up there with Joe Rogan's show, and is especially popular among women. Shortly after releasing the interview with Harris, Alex Cooper, the host of the podcast, received backlash for her extremely soft treatment of the presidential nominee. After watching the interview, it's not hard to see how that impression might have come across.

The interview consisted of several surface-level, gimme-type, questions on common Democrat talking points. Harris said she was—surprise—pro-choice. Who would have thought? She also expressed her desire to dump taxpayer money into student loan forgiveness along with other government "aid" programs, which is pretty standard amongst the Left. Overall, nothing new was revealed.

The rest of the interview was little more than gossip. Cooper and Harris chatted about a comment made by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the "at ladies" comment made by J.D. Vance. This was not the deep dive on Harris that voters wanted.

60 Minutes

CBS Photo Archive / Contributor | Getty Images

On Monday, October 8th, Harris sat down with CBS's Bill Whitaker for an interview on 60 Minutes. While Whitaker defiantly upped the ante in comparison to "Call Her Daddy," Harris still managed to dodge several questions. When asked about foreign policy, Harris parroted the same tired schtick we've heard for the past four years, which clearly hasn't worked. Like Biden before her, she called for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, primarily out of concern for the Palestinians, while simultaneously maintaining Israel's right to self-defense.

Harris also deflected Biden's failure at the Southern Border onto the House Republicans, citing a single instance where a border security bill failed to pass. Even Whitaker pointed out the obvious: The Biden-Harris administration has had four years to solve the problem, and the blame does not fall on this single instance. Harris didn't waver, and doubled down on her excuse, again blaming Congress.

Harris went on to repeatedly dodge questions about her three trillion-dollar economic plan and offered little explanation of what might be included in such a plan, or how it will be paid for. These interviews have repeatedly failed to define Harris or her platform in any meaningful way, though they were successful in concealing just how radical of a candidate she actually is. She is still just a vaguely left-wing, Joe Biden replacement in the eyes of many voters, which might be the best she can do.

The Howard Stern Show

Kevin Mazur / Contributor | Getty Images

In her recent interview on The Howard Stern Show, Harris once again demonstrated her signature combination of evasiveness and unreliable platitudes. Rather than offering substantive answers to Stern’s pointed questions, Harris deflected with awkward humor and vague talking points, sidestepping any real discussion on critical issues like the border crisis or inflation. Her attempt to portray herself as relatable felt painfully out of touch, especially when she pivoted the conversation to her fondness for music and cooking.

Harris’s inability to confront pressing national concerns only highlights her growing reputation for evading accountability during her term in the Biden administration. Stern, typically known for drawing candid responses from guests, seemed unable to penetrate the wall of superficiality that Harris maintained throughout the conversation.

"The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert

CBS Photo Archive / Contributor | Getty Images

We saw a similar performance from Harris on Stephen Colbert's "The Late Show." Colbert teed her up for questions about inflation, the southern border crisis, and the administration’s plunging approval ratings, but Harris stuck to her well-worn script of platitudes and vague promises. Instead of addressing the economic pain felt by millions, she laughed nervously through softball questions, leaving viewers with nothing but empty rhetoric about “working together” and “finding solutions,” while the country watches the consequences of ineffective leadership.

Moreover, when Colbert pressed her on issues like the administration's immigration policies or lack of legislative victories, Harris deflected with hollow talking points, refusing to engage in any serious reflection or accountability. Her awkward attempts at humor felt like a shield against real criticism, confirming the impression that she remains detached from the gravity of the crises unfolding under her watch.

PHOTOS: What Glenn saw in North Carolina was INSANE

Sean Rayford / Stringer | Getty Images

Last Thursday, October 3rd, Glenn traveled to North Carolina to join Mercury One as they provided critical aid to those devastated by Hurricane Helene.

What Glenn saw during his brief visit looked like scenes straight out of an apocalypse movie: houses torn from their foundations and tossed to the side, sometimes entire towns away from where they were built, semi-trucks rolled, railroad tracks swept away, bridges washed out. It was a level of destruction Glenn had never before seen.

But perhaps the most shocking encounter of his whole trip was when Glenn discovered a lone FEMA crew. It was a miracle that Glenn even spotted the FEMA truck, as it was parked away from the main road without any signs or markers to indicate to any passerby in need of its existence. Glenn and Congressman Cory Mills decided to talk to this FEMA crew, the only one they had encountered on their trek, and see what they were up to. As it turns out, not much. The FEMA workers admitted that they had only arrived the day before (nearly a week after the hurricane) and still did not have any sort of supplies. They claimed that people would know where they were located via the local news, despite the fact that most people did not have access to power, cell service, their home, or even their cars. Moreover, there seemed to be confusion about whether they were to go door-to-door in order to render aid to those in need.

FEMA dropped the ball on this entire affair, and it is only going to get worse. FEMA is claiming they blew their yearly allowance on aiding illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, another hurricane is approaching Florida and is expected to make landfall on Wednesday. It seems unlikely that FEMA will be of any use to Floridians in need, and they will have to rely on the aid of their fellow Americans.

Want to help out your fellow countrymen where our government has failed? You can donate at Mercury One and rest assured that your money will be used to step in to help hurricane victims where the government is failing.