NEW YORK, January 3, 2020: The American Freedom of Defense Initiative (AFDI), one of the leading human rights organizations in the United States, on Friday applauded President Trump’s decision to target General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of the Iran-backed militias called the Popular Mobilization Forces, in an airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport.
The strike came after the Iranian government masterminded the siege at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad earlier this week. President Trump tweeted that “General Qassem Soleimani has killed or badly wounded thousands of Americans over an extended period of time, and was plotting to kill many more…but got caught! He was directly and indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people, including the recent large number of PROTESTERS killed in Iran itself. While Iran will never be able to properly admit it, Soleimani was both hated and feared within the country. They are not nearly as saddened as the leaders will let the outside world believe. He should have been taken out many years ago!”
AFDI President Pamela Geller said in a statement: “There is no doubt that Soleimani was a dangerous and determined enemy of the United States who had been targeting Americans for a considerable period. The President was wise to show the bloodthirsty Iranian mullahs a strong response to the Baghdad embassy siege; a weak response would only embolden them further.”
Geller added: “Americans can all be grateful today that Barack Obama is no longer in the White House. Instead of deterring Iran’s terrorist activities and moving boldly to end them definitively, as President Trump is doing, Obama enabled the mullahs by sending them billions of dollars and agreeing to a nuclear deal that allowed the Iranians to develop nuclear weapons with relative impunity. Obama empowered this genocidal and inhuman regime; Trump is working to end it. Accordingly, AFDI applauds this airstrike.”
The AFDI President also criticized the Democrats who are deploring Trump’s action, stating: “It is astonishing that Democrat Party leaders are actually claiming that Trump has made matters worse by targeting Soleimani. They are apparently unaware of or indifferent to the fact of Iran’s global jihadist adventurism. Their assumption that if we didn’t respond, Iran would leave us alone is a position of weakness and ignorance. The Democrat Party is now the party of impotent cowards and appeasers who don’t know how to fight a war.”
AFDI is dedicated to the defense and strengthening of the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, the equality of rights of all people before the law, and individual rights.