Tammy Duckworth slams congressman who said that Democrats are 'in love with terrorists'

CNN

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, right, rips Rep. Doug Collins. 

Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a former Army lieutenant colonel who lost both her legs in Iraq, slammed Republican Congressman Doug Collins of Georgia Thursday for saying that Democrats are “in love with terrorists.”

In a Fox network's interview Wednesday, Republican Congressman Doug Collins claimed, without an ounce of evidence, that Democrats mourn the recent assassination of top Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani more than they do fallen members of the US military.

“I'm not going to dignify that with a response. I left parts of my body in Iraq fighting terrorists. I don't need to justify myself to anyone,” Duckworth responded on CNN.

What Collins is learning: you don't want to tangle with Duckworth, especially don't question her love for the US.

Collins made his accusation on Fox's “Lou Dobbs Tonight” Wednesday, in response to Democratic criticism of Trump’s handling of the killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.

Most Democrats fear that Soleimani's assassination will be considered an act of war.

Collins added, Democrats "mourn Soleimani more than they mourn our Gold Star families, who are the ones who suffered under Soleimani. That's a problem,”

“I’m disgusted. I would never, ever use Gold Star families, military men and women or their families as any pawn in any political game. Let me tell you something: This issue is about America’s national security. It is not a partisan political issue,” Duckworth said.

“My concern is, is America safer today than it was before the president made this rash decision without considering the consequences and having a plan in place to handle the consequences? And my answer at this point is no.”

“I am not sad that this man is dead. I am glad that he's gone to meet his maker and that he will get his just desserts,” she made clear. “But at the end of the day, because of the poor handling of the White House and the consequences of their actions, American troops are now hunkered down, American forces are now under greater danger of attacks from Iran and other hostile forces in the Middle East.”

Duckworth, who is part Thai, posted the following Friday morning on Twitter:

As a U.S. Air Force Reserve chaplain, Collins served a 2008-2009 deployment to Iraq while stationed at Balad Air Force Base. While he may have comforted the wounded or dying, it was likely that as a chaplain, he was not in a firefight on the front lines facing enemy bullets or IEDs.

After the killing of Soleimani, Iraq’s parliament took a nonbinding vote expelling foreign troops and Iran launched a retaliatory missile attack on an Iraqi airbase housing US service members and contractors. The White House has said there were no American or Iraqi casualties from the attack.

Iran said that the apparently measured attack, which occurred on the same day as Soleimani's state funeral, was its sole military response to Soleimani's assassination.

Veterans and Collins' Georgia constituents chimed in, too:

Iran releases Princeton student accused of spying for US

US STATE DEPARTMENT

U.S. Special Representative Brian Hook welcomes Xiyue Wang to Switzerland.

ASAM NEWS

An American graduate student held prisoner in Iran for three years on suspicion of spying is on his way back to the United States Saturday morning, reports CNN.
Xiyue Wang is being evaluated by doctors in Germany at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center which is operated by the US Army.

“Our family is complete once again,” his wife, Hua Qu tweeted “Our son Shaofan and I have waited three long years for this day and it’s hard to express in words how excited we are to be reunited with Xiyue. We are thankful to everyone who helped make this happen.“ 

Donald Trump announced the release of the Princeton graduate student this morning. Wang release is apparently part of a prisoner exchange which also led to the release of Masoud Soleimani, an Iranian held in the US.

“The highest priority of the United States is the safety and well-being of its citizens,” Trump said. “Freeing Americans held captive is of vital importance to my administration, and we will continue to work hard to bring home all our citizens wrongfully held captive overseas.”

Born in Beijing, Wang immigrated to the United States in 2001 and became a naturalized citizen in 2009. He went to Iran to study Farsi and to work on his dissertation. Princeton has long advocated for his release maintaining he was not involved in any political activities.

His wife as recently as August has criticized the United States for using her husband as a bargaining chip and not doing more to win his release. Iran convicted Wang of spying in 2017 and sentenced him to ten years in prison despite denials for Princeton, the US government and his wife. 

Wang was arrested in August 2016 while carrying out research on Iran’s Qajar dynasty for his Ph.D., according to Princeton.

A senior administration official told NBC News that the Swiss took the lead in the negotiations over the past three to four weeks. Those discussions for the release of Wang, a Chinese-born naturalized American citizen and a fourth-year doctoral student of history at Princeton University, came without pre-conditions on issues such as ending the Iranian nuclear program or its long-range ballistic missile program, the official said.

"The entire Princeton University community is overjoyed that Xiyue Wang can finally return home to his wife and young son, and we look forward to welcoming him back to campus," said Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber.

Wang is expected to arrive in Washington, DC on Monday, according to Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese businessman resident in the United States who was freed from Iran four years ago. He told Reuters he was the first to learn of Wang’s release and informed the family. 

Views From the Edge contributed to this report.

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Chinese American accused of spying on Iran, sentenced to 10 years in prison

Xiyue Wang

AN IRANIAN COURT has sentenced a Chinese/American scholar to 10 years behind bars after accusing him of espionage.

Xiyue Wang, 37, under the auspices of Princeton University, was in Iran doing research on ancient Persian history and culture.

UPDATE: The events and announcements of Tuesday, (July 18) were added.

On Tuesday (July 18), the detention of Wang and other U.S. citizens was among Iran's "malign activities" that justify continuing the economic sanctions initiated by President Barack Obama and which Donald Trump announced would continue. 

Wang's "field is late 19th and early 20th century Eurasian history," said Princeton in a press release Sunday (July 17). He was arrested in Iran last summer, while there doing scholarly research on the administrative and cultural history of the late Qajar dynasty in connection with his Ph.D. dissertation. Since his arrest, the University has worked with Mr. Wang’s family, the U.S. government, private counsel and others to facilitate his release."

Fars, a semiofficial Iranian news agency, quoted Mizan Online, a news agency affiliated with Iran’s judiciary, as saying Wang pursued espionage “through the cover of being a researcher.” 

Mizan, Fars said, reported that Wang was “gathering secret and top secret [intelligence]” for the U.S. State Department, Harvard Kennedy School, and the British Institute of Persian Studies. He was accused, the Fars report said, of “infiltrating Iran’s national archive and building a 4,500-page digital archive” for “the world’s biggest anti-Iran spying organization.”

Stephen Kotkin, Wang’s adviser at Princeton, told the Washington Post that Wang was a gifted scholar who was impressed with Persian culture.

“Xiyue Wang is a remarkable, linguistically gifted graduate student studying late 19th- and early 20th-century governance in predominantly Muslim regions — Qajar Iran, Afghanistan, imperial Russian Turkestan,” he said. “He is innocent of all the charges. In Tehran, Wang collected documents that were 100 years old. He has told me often of his exhilaration at the exquisiteness and depth of Persian civilization.”

According to CNN, Wang was raised in China and earned a bachelor's degree in South Asian studies from the University of Washington. 

His Facebook page lists Beijing as his hometown, Wang is proficient in Pashto, a language spoken in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, and Hindi. 

For a time, he worked as a translator for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he helped Afghans traumatized by violence and death from the American-led war against the Taliban, according to the NY Times.

He also studied Russian and Eurasian studies at Harvard University, according to a biography of Wang from Princeton in Asia program, where he did a fellowship from 2008 to 2009.

"What he does know is that his dream is to walk the ancient Silk Road from Xi'an to Rome one day,” the biography read. 

Anna Lind-Guzik, a graduate student in Russian history at Princeton, wrote on her Twitter account: “This is nuts! Xiyue Wang is a friend. We did all our coursework together. He’s a kind family man, great scholar & furthest thing from a spy.”

The U.S. State Department called for the immediate release of all U.S. citizens in jail in Iran.

“The Iranian regime continues to detain U.S. citizens and other foreigners on fabricated national-security related changes,” a press statement said. “The safety and security of US citizens remains a top priority. All U.S. citizens, especially dual nationals considering travel to Iran, should carefully read our latest travel warning.”‎

At least three other Americans are thought to be imprisoned in Iran although the number could be higher.

The three Americans hold dual U.S.-Iranian citizenships: Siamak Namazi was detained in October 2015; his 80-year old father Baquer Namazi, former UNICEF employee, was detained four months later. They were sentenced in October 2016 to 10 years in prison. 

Reza “Robin” Shahini, a San Diego resident who was arrested in July 2016 while visiting family in Iran, was sentenced in October to 18 years in prison for spying. He was freed this year pending an appeal. 

In addition, the fate of Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent, who disappeared in Iran in 2007 is still unknown.

Wang's conviction and sentencing comes at a sensitive time amid tensions between the the U.S. and Iran as Donald Trump and his GOP-dominated Congress have taken increasingly harsh positions against Iran.

During his election campaign, Trump has promised to tear up the 2015 deal struck between Iran and world powers, including the United States, that lifted some sanctions in return for curbs on Tehran’s nuclear program.

Relations between the U.S. and Iran have “hit rock bottom,” according to Sanam Vakil, a professor of Middle East studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Wang's arrest may just be another bargaining chip in the high-stakes talks between tough-talking Trump and conservative hardliners in Iran.

The Trump administration on Tuesday announced new sanctions targeting Iran’s ballistic missile program and support for terrorists, citing the failure of the Iran nuclear deal to contribute to the stability of the Middle East.

The move came a day after the administration certified to Congress that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal but would face consequences for breaching its “spirit."

Trump, who vowed as a presidential candidate to dismantle the agreement, has given himself more time to determine whether to let it stand.

"Iran’s other malign activities are serving to undercut whatever 'positive contributions' to regional and international peace and security were intended to emerge from the (agreement)," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

The statement went on to mention the detention of Wang along with other U.S. citizens and other foreigners on fabricated national-security related charges, and that the U.S. calls on Iran to release them.

“Iran should immediately release all of these U.S. citizens on humanitarian grounds,” Nauert said.

“Part of the reason why they’re doing this is because they understand that arresting the U.S. citizens and Westerners, particularly on ridiculous charges like this, has a deterring effect against companies that have been thinking about investing in the Iranian economy,” said Trita Parsi, the author of a new book on US-Iran relations, Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy

According to Parsi, Iran’s hardliners oppose foreign economic investment because they fear it could lead to instability and the ultimate downfall of the regime.

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