Author Topic: Benghazi and related matters  (Read 191018 times)

DougMacG

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #150 on: May 23, 2013, 12:39:43 PM »
"Administration officials agreed to remove all reference to Ansar Al Sharia , , ,"
What Orwellian clap trap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The purpose of the talking points was to have a statement of what officials could say publicly.  There is NO reason that I understand for them to have been modified at all.  The fact of the interagency-State-WH? discussions shows that the WH and State were seeking to manipulate what the CIA had already said could be said.  Do I have this right? 
Therefore to say the "WH agreed to remove" reads to me as an out and out Orwellian deception.

Do I have this right?

Yes, you have it exactly right.  The purpose of sending the representative of the administration to all major outlets to obscure the truth rather than reveal it, and they chose someone out of the loop that with no knowledge could not trip up on the follow up.  Obscure truth or tell the opposite of truth is what they almost always do on almost every issue, Bush tax cuts caused the housing collapse, a budget that never balances will not add a dime to the debt, and taxing only the richest among us will benefit the middle class.

Honest people can disagree about what to remove from a report for national security reasons, but honest people don't make up a false story for political cover to get through an election.

I can understand playing down the secret CIA presence.  I understand the human error or bad luck of underestimating the security risk.  I understand there might be good reasons why no terrorists have yet been brought to justice.  But there is no excuse imaginable for the stand down order leaving the rest left behind to die, and it is Orwellian for sure to send someone out to tell us the opposite of what really happened.

We endured the drama and photography from inside the situation room during the successful raid of the bin Laden compound.  The release of the details of that operation posed security risks as well, but it was worth it to the President for the political approval he gained.  We would also like to know during failure who was in the room and what decisions were made by whom and when.

Michael Moore spent 6 minutes of a movie showing that when George Bush was notified of 911 he kept reading to school children.  George Bush survived that and the country pulled together.  We have yet to learn anything about what this Commander in Chief was doing when his focus should have been on this crisis.  Our military would never order a stand down.  Only a civilian at a higher power than the highest General would or could do that.  David Axelrod from the Ministry of Disinformation owes the American people an explanation.

bigdog

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Surprises in the Benghazi E-Mails
« Reply #151 on: May 29, 2013, 04:49:48 AM »
http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2013/05/28/surprises-in-the-benghazi-e-mails/

From the article:

Before proceeding, it is worth noting in passing that Victoria Nuland would be a curious choice for the role of political manipulator. She is not a political appointee, but a professional Foreign Service officer. She has served as ambassador to NATO, as chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott in the Clinton administration, and as to principal deputy foreign policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney in the Bush administration. Her husband, Robert Kagan, was a foreign policy adviser to the McCain and Romney campaigns. Having served as department spokesperson for the past two years, she has just been nominated by President Obama to be assistant secretary of state for European affairs. If anything, her career suggests that she must be about as apolitical as a government official can be, but may take the institutional interests of the State Department quite seriously.

Briefly, then, what do we learn from the newly released e-mails—apart from a crash course in how bureaucracy operates? First, not only was the reference to the demonstration in the talking points from the beginning, but no one in any agency questioned it in any way. It was simply accepted as the truth at the time, even if it was later shown to be a mistake

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #152 on: May 29, 2013, 06:49:58 AM »
Sorry BD but not buying the direction in which this pushes.  The purpose of the talking points was to establish what the intel community was comfortable with the politicos saying in public.  IMHO it logically follows that there was no valid reason for any massaging whatsoever of what the intel folks first wrote- but there was massaging a plenty by the political and most reasonable people would strongly suspect the reasons for it were political at the cost of the American people being lied to about who attacked us for weeks and even months.  It takes a special level for Hillary to tell the parents of the fallen "Don´t worry, we´ll get the folks who made the video." :x :x :x

G M

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #153 on: May 29, 2013, 12:14:35 PM »
When disseminating intelligence, the only things that should be scrubbed are sources and methods.

bigdog

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #154 on: May 29, 2013, 03:10:08 PM »
No need to apologize. I'm not trying to convince you. But, the outlet is sound and the author is well regarded, so I thought it was worth a read.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #155 on: May 29, 2013, 04:46:58 PM »
Fair enough  :-)

Crafty_Dog

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Krauthammer goes for the jugular; gun running theory undergoes a mod
« Reply #156 on: May 29, 2013, 08:32:32 PM »
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/29/krauthammers-potentially-damaging-theory-benghazis-biggest-scandal-of-all-has-yet-to-be-uncovered-see-what-it-is/

Separately, as evidenced herein, I was one of the first to explore the gun running theory.  Here it goes through a fascinating modification with what seems to me tremendous explanatory power.  As noted in the piece, this is still hearsay: 

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/21/report-more-benghazi-whistleblowers-to-reveal-devastating-details-on-terror-attack-including-why-chris-stevens-was-in-libya/
« Last Edit: May 29, 2013, 08:37:36 PM by Crafty_Dog »

DougMacG

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #157 on: May 30, 2013, 02:02:29 PM »
Since we don't know it was gun running, I think we can safely say it was gun running or worse, going on in Benghazi.  Something they for sure do not want us to know.

Already covered in Crafty's Blaze post but deserving of a repeat and second source, Dr. Krauthammer concludes from the evidence available that Pres. Obama who was not meeting with Generals or even trying to summon a rescue, was engaged in the concoction of the false story WHILE the fatal attacks were staying going on, which we now all know was the main concern in the administration.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/05/29/krauthammer_obama_was_constructing_a_cover_story_for_benghazi_while_last_two_americans_were_fighting_for_their_lives.html

Krauthammer: Obama Was Constructing A Cover Story For Benghazi While Last Two Americans Were Fighting For Their Lives

"The biggest scandal of all, the biggest question of all is what was the president doing in those eight hours. He had a routine meeting at 5:00. He never after, during the eight hours when our guys have their lives in danger, he never called the Secretary of Defense, he never calls the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he never called the CIA Director. Who does he call?

About five hours in he calls the Secretary of State. And after the phone call, she releases a statement essentially about the video and how we denounce any intolerance. It looks as if the only phone call was to construct a cover story at a time when the last two Americans who died were still alive and fighting for their lives. There’s the scandal and that I think has to be uncovered." (The O'Reilly Factor, May 28, 2013)

DougMacG

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Benghazi precedent? Benghazi arrests
« Reply #158 on: June 11, 2013, 10:28:13 AM »
As the administration strives to accelerate scandal-fatigue, (thousands of) questions remain.

The first one here was posed by Allen West: When in our history did we ever leave Americans behind to die?

The second wave attacks and the last two to die were the guys who disobeyed the "stand down" order.  Will Carney, Obama, Hillary or any General on duty at the time step up to the plate and admit that they think these two deserved to die or at least deserved no support?

Did lying about what happened to the American people put egg on the face of the Libyan leaders and impede the slow-to-start investigation?

Where are the arrests?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/9/benghazi-killers-still-on-the-lam-after-9-months-m/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

Benghazi killers still on the lam after 9 months, may have sought to ‘smoke out’ CIA

Crafty_Dog

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Benghazi's Legacy of Broken Trust
« Reply #159 on: June 19, 2013, 07:19:14 AM »
Benghazi's Legacy of Broken Trust
When serving in harm's way, diplomats, spies and soldiers need to know that their government has their back.
By KEVIN G. NORTON

In 2009, I was a member of a small team of advisers to the Afghan police in Paktia province in the mountains near the southeastern Afghan border. One hot afternoon in early June, we received a desperate call for help from another American unit that was under a sustained attack. We drove out to their position as fast as we could, only to find several casualties and chaos. The Taliban cut off the attack soon after we arrived.

After we evacuated the casualties, the officer in charge of the unit told me that he could not find his interpreter. I led a small group of soldiers down into a wide field to look for the interpreter. We knew the danger: At any moment the Taliban could have resumed the attack and caught us in a very exposed position. We searched for more than 10 minutes before we found his lifeless body. It had been thrown from a vehicle that was hit by an improvised explosive device. We took another few minutes to locate his severed leg.

Why would we take such a risk to find an interpreter? Because he was a part of our team. He had taken on faith that we would do what we could to protect him and never leave him behind. Had we not done so, what message would it have sent to our other interpreters and partners? It would have been extremely difficult to ask others to take risks on our behalf or look out for us.


I am reminded of that day in the Afghan mountains whenever I think of the deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 last year. There are many causes for concern or outrage regarding the attack and its aftermath. But the heart of the scandal is this: Four U.S. citizens, willing to put themselves in harm's way for the country's greater good, were left to die with no support from the government they represented.

While many lawmakers and commentators have pointed out this basic fact, what is less appreciated is what the Benghazi scandal means for others who go abroad to serve the country. Servants of the American people—diplomats, spies, soldiers, aid workers—who work in harm's way should be able to depart these shores confident that their government will do anything it can to protect them. This principle is at the very core of foreign service and is based on trust. Any breach of that trust is devastating to our efforts abroad.

In Benghazi, the U.S. government simply did not do all it could to protect its agents in the field. Leon Panetta, defense secretary at the time of the attack, later told Congress that U.S. forces were not deployed because "you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on."

This was a stunning abdication of responsibility. Mr. Panetta and President Obama knew that Americans were under attack that night. Thousands of U.S. military personnel have given their lives to save their fellow Americans—civilians and soldiers alike—under similar circumstances.

At the conclusion of his recent speech on Memorial Day, Mr. Obama issued a challenge to all Americans: "Let it be our task, every single one of us, to honor the strength and the resolve and the love these brave Americans felt for each other and for our country." Those brave Americans include Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, including two former Navy SEALs, who died in Benghazi.

Amid the many recent scandals that have come out of Washington, there is a danger that the disastrous Benghazi episode will be put aside before it has been adequately explored—before Americans know exactly who did and did not perform capably and honorably during those terrible hours and their aftermath.

We do already know one essential truth about Benghazi: The sacred bond between the government and those who serve it was broken, and the message was delivered to Americans serving around the world. That's a scandal.

Mr. Norton is a national security consultant and former U.S. Army infantry officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2013, 08:00:45 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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Jim Gerghty: Meanwhile, back in Benghazi
« Reply #160 on: June 19, 2013, 08:02:19 AM »
second post


Meanwhile, Back in Benghazi . . .

Remember my story about the smuggling of shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles in and out of Libya during that country’s civil war? Public reports indicate that tracking those missiles was almost certainly what Ambassador Chris Stevens was working on when he was attacked and murdered in Benghazi. While the most lurid allegations of U.S. arms smuggling in Libya remain unproven, the Obama administration did give its blessing to Qatar’s smuggling of arms to the Libyan rebels in 2011 — and later realized that the weapons were ending up in the hands of Islamist militants. The quiet approval of the arms smuggling violated a United Nations arms embargo and probably ended up exacerbating a problem that would eventually require Stevens to be in that city when the danger was so considerable.

There is a new Reuters report from Benghazi that further corroborates the account of Libyans smuggling their leftover weapons, including missiles, through Benghazi to Syria, and adds additional details:

Abdul Basit Haroun says he is behind some of the biggest shipments of weapons from Libya to Syria, which he delivers on chartered flights to neighbouring countries and then smuggles over the border. . . .

The first consignment of weapons was smuggled into Syria aboard a Libyan ship delivering aid last year, Haroun says, but now containers of arms are flown “above board” into neighbouring countries on chartered flights.

That Libyan ship departed shortly before the attack against Americans in Benghazi:

On September 14, 2012, three days after Stevens was killed, Sheera Frenkel, a correspondent for the Times of London, reported from Antakya, Turkey:
A Libyan ship carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria since the uprising began has docked in Turkey and most of its cargo is making its way to rebels on the front lines, The Times has learnt.

Among more than 400 tonnes of cargo the vessel was carrying were SAM-7 surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), which Syrian sources said could be a game-changer for the rebels.

Frenkel’s report identified the ship’s captain as “Omar Mousaeeb, a Libyan from Benghazi and the head of an organisation called the Libyan National Council for Relief and Support, which is supporting the Syrian uprising.”

The Reuters report continues:

A Reuters reporter was taken to an undisclosed location in Benghazi to see a container of weapons being prepared for delivery to Syria. It was stacked with boxes of ammunition, rocket launchers and various types of light and medium weapons.,,

The UN report appears to confirm at least some of Haroun’s account, in its investigation in the case of a second vessel, the Al Entisar.

The [UN] Panel investigated a news report that a Libyan ship with around 400 tonnes of aid had supplied Syrian rebels with “the largest consignment of weapons … since the uprising”.

The Panel found that the loading port was Benghazi, that the exporter was “a relief organization based in Benghazi” and the consignee was the same Islamic foundation based in Turkey that Haroun said had helped with documentation.

Great omen for our efforts to arm the Syrians, huh?

Crafty_Dog

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Libyan arms going to AQ in Syria
« Reply #161 on: June 22, 2013, 08:15:45 AM »
A mere eight months later POTH catches us with this forum:

In Turnabout, Syria Rebels Get Libyan Weapons
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Crates of recoilless rifle rounds in a rebel cache in Idlib, Syria, bear the triangle symbol of arms sent to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
By C. J. CHIVERS, ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: June 21, 2013

   

During his more than four decades in power, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya was North Africa’s outrageously self-styled arms benefactor, a donor of weapons to guerrillas and terrorists around the world fighting governments he did not like.


A Libyan rebel in 2011 carried off boxes of ammunition from a factory near Tripoli that served as a supply point for Qaddafi forces.

Even after his death, the colonel’s gunrunning vision lives on, although in ways he probably would have loathed.

Many of the same people who chased the colonel to his grave are busy shuttling his former arms stockpiles to rebels in Syria. The flow is an important source of weapons for the uprising and a case of bloody turnabout, as the inheritors of one strongman’s arsenal use them in the fight against another.

Evidence gathered in Syria, along with flight-control data and interviews with militia members, smugglers, rebels, analysts and officials in several countries, offers a profile of a complex and active multinational effort, financed largely by Qatar, to transport arms from Libya to Syria’s opposition fighters. Libya’s own former fighters, who sympathize with Syria’s rebels, have been eager collaborators.

“It is just the enthusiasm of the Libyan people helping the Syrians,” said Fawzi Bukatef, the former leader of an alliance of Libyan brigades who was recently named ambassador to Uganda, in an interview in Tripoli.

As the United States and its Western allies move toward providing lethal aid to Syrian rebels, these secretive transfers give insight into an unregistered arms pipeline that is difficult to monitor or control. And while the system appears to succeed in moving arms across multiple borders and to select rebel groups, once inside Syria the flow branches out. Extremist fighters, some of them aligned with Al Qaeda, have the money to buy the newly arrived stock, and many rebels are willing to sell.

For Russia — which has steadfastly supplied weapons and diplomatic cover to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria — this black-market flow is a case of bitter blowback. Many of the weapons Moscow proudly sold to Libya beginning in the Soviet era are now being shipped into the hands of rebels seeking to unseat another Kremlin ally.

Those weapons, which slipped from state custody as Colonel Qaddafi’s people rose against him in 2011, are sent on ships or Qatar Emiri Air Force flights to a network of intelligence agencies and Syrian opposition leaders in Turkey. From there, Syrians distribute the arms according to their own formulas and preferences to particular fighting groups, which in turn issue them to their fighters on the ground, rebels and activists said.

Qatari C-17 cargo aircraft have made at least three stops in Libya this year — including flights from Mitiga airport in Tripoli on Jan. 15 and Feb. 1, and another that departed Benghazi on April 16, according to flight data provided by an aviation official in the region. The planes returned to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The cargo was then flown to Ankara, Turkey, along with other weapons and equipment that the Qataris had been gathering for the rebels, officials and rebels said.

Last week the Obama administration announced that it had evidence that Mr. Assad’s military had used sarin nerve agent in multiple attacks, and that the United States would begin providing military aid to the rebels, including shipments of small arms.

In doing so, the United States could soon be openly feeding the same distribution network, just as it has received weapons from other sources.

The movements from Libya complement the airlift that has variously used Saudi, Jordanian and Qatari military cargo planes to funnel military equipment and weapons, including from Croatia, to the outgunned rebels. On Friday, Syrian opposition officials said the rebels had received a new shipment of anti-tank weapons and other arms, although they give varying accounts of the sources of the recently received arms. The Central Intelligence Agency has already played at least a supporting role, the officials say.

The Libyan shipments principally appear to be the work of armed groups there, and not of the weak central state, officials said.

Mr. Bukatef, the Libyan diplomat, said Libyan militias had been shipping weapons to Syrian rebels for more than a year.

“They collect the weapons, and when they have enough they send it,” he said. “The Libyan government is not involved, but it does not really matter.”

One former senior Obama administration familiar with the transfers said the Qatari government built relationships with Libyan militias in 2011, when, according to the report of a United Nations Panel of Experts, it shipped in weapons to rebel forces there in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973.

As a result, the Qataris can draw on their influence with Libya’s militias to support their current beneficiaries in Syria. “It’s not that complicated,” the former official said. “We’re watching it. The Libyans have an amazing amount of stuff.”

====================

yrian activists and Western officials say that like the unregistered arms transfers organized by other Arab states, the shipments from Libya have been very large but have not kept up with the enormous rebel ammunition expenditures each day.

And most of the weapons have been relatively light, including rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, small arms ammunition and mortar rounds but the Libyan influx appears to account for at least a portion of the antitank weapons seen in the conflict this spring, including Belgian-made projectiles for M40 recoilless rifles and some of the Russian-made Konkurs-M guided missiles that have been destroying Syrian tanks in recent months.

Syrian rebels, working with Qatari backers and the Turkish government, have developed a system for acquiring and distributing Libya’s excess stock, Syrian activists and rebels said.

Orders are placed and shipments arranged through the staff of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, a Western-backed opposition committee that was formed in Turkey late last year.

Safi Asafi, a coordinator commander active on Syria’s northern borders, one of the unofficial gates for weapons shipment to the opposition, said that rebel groups seeking Libyan arms approach the council to arrange the deals.

“Any fighting group in Syria that wants weapons from Libya will go to the staff asking for the approval from the Turkish authorities involved in the transfer, then gets it, the weapons arrive in Syria, and everyone gets his due share,” he said.

By one common formula, Mr. Asafi said, the staff will take 20 percent of the weapons designated for individual groups and distribute them to others. But the ratio can fluctuate, he said, depending on the group’s stature and influence, and less powerful groups sometimes yield a larger cut.

The Supreme Military Council generally does not distribute weapons to blacklisted or extremist groups, Syrian activists said, but these groups have little trouble acquiring the weapons once the arms enter Syria, often buying them directly from groups that receive the council’s support.

Signs of munitions from the former Qaddafi stockpile are readily visible.

Late last month The New York Times found crates, storage sleeves and spent cartridge cases for antitank rounds from Libya in the possession of Ahfad al-Rasul, a prominent group fighting the government and aligned with the Supreme Military Council.

The crates were immediately identifiable because they were painted with a distinctive symbol — 412 inside a triangle — that has been used by many manufacturers, including in China, the Soviet Union, Russia, North Korea and Belgium, to mark ordnance shipments designated for Colonel Qaddafi.

Stenciling on the crates’ sides declared their original destination in 1980: the “Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahirya.”

Crafty_Dog

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Morris: Was Saudi money behind Benghazi cover up?
« Reply #162 on: June 26, 2013, 10:20:58 AM »
« Last Edit: June 26, 2013, 10:23:20 AM by Crafty_Dog »

ccp

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #163 on: June 26, 2013, 03:29:58 PM »
I can't seem to read Dick's essays anymore without being hit with ads to sign up for something.

Dick, if your listening, I like to read your essays but please make the sign up requests less "in your face".




Crafty_Dog

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Conspiracy Theory: Morsi/MB involved in Benghazi?
« Reply #165 on: July 01, 2013, 08:19:25 AM »

http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/06/libyan-intelligence-confirms-muslim-brotherhood-egyptian-president-mohamed-morsi-involved-in-benghazi/

Home » Libyan Intelligence Confirms Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian President Morsi Involved in Benghazi
June 27, 2013 by Tim Brown
Libyan Intelligence Confirms Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian President Morsi Involved in Benghazi


Just two days after the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, reports were already coming out that the Muslim Brotherhood led Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was somehow involved in the attacks. At the beginning of June, journalist Cynthia Farahat, linked Morsi to Benghazi from the same video in the link above and recently one of Egypt’s politicians was caught on a hot mic discussing war with their enemies, namely Israel and the United States. Now, according to a Libyan Intelligence document, the Muslim Brotherhood, including Egyptian President Morsi, were involved in the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, where several Americans, including U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, were killed.

Pamela Geller discussed this very thing on September 15, 2012 on Fox and Friends.

Image of the Libyan intelligence document

Image of the Libyan intelligence document

Raymond Ibrahim reports:

    On Wednesday, June 26, several Arabic websites, including Veto Gate, quoted the intelligence report, which apparently was first leaked to the Kuwaiti paper, Al Ra’i.  Prepared by Mahmoud Ibrahim Sharif, Director of National Security for Libya, the report is addressed to the nation’s Minister of Interior.

    It discusses the preliminary findings of the investigation, specifically concerning an “Egyptian cell” which was involved in the consulate attack. “Based on confessions derived from some of those arrested at the scene” six people, “all of them Egyptians” from the jihad group Ansar al-Sharia (“Supporters of Islamic Law), were arrested.

    According to the report, during interrogations, these Egyptian jihadi cell members “confessed to very serious and important information concerning the financial sources of the group and the planners of the event and the storming and burning of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi…. And among the more prominent figures whose names were mentioned by cell members during confessions were: Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi; preacher Safwat Hegazi; Saudi businessman Mansour Kadasa, owner of the satellite station, Al-Nas; Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Hassan; former presidential candidate, Hazim Salih Abu Isma’il…”

    It should be noted that these findings are unsurprising: the supremacism of prominent Brotherhood figure Safwat Hegazi is such that he publicly declares the Brotherhood “will rule the world“;  Saudi Mansour’s hate-mongering, pro-Brotherhood TV station repeatedly aired footage of the YouTube Muhammad movie inciting violence around the Muslim world; popular Sheikh Muhammad Hassan holds that smiling to non-Muslims is forbidden, except when trying to win them over to Islam;  and Sheikh Hazim Abu Ismail is simply an openly anti-freedom, anti-infidel religious leader.

The theory concerning the trade for Ambassador Chris Stevens for the “Blind Sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman has been circulated for quite a while now. However, as Dean Garrison points out, “Morsi has been the missing link to hold that story together.” We’ve been told that Stevens was also involved in the movement of stinger missiles and that he died from a lethal injection, not smoke inhalation.

The United States is arming and aiding a known enemy and terrorist in Mohamed Morsi. We’ve supplied them recently with $1.3 billion in aid right on the heels of slipping them $250 million. We’ve sent them 20 F-16s along with helped them get $1 billion worth of German U-boats.

Additionally, our own State Department hired Al-Qaeda operatives to provide security for the diplomatic mission in Benghazi!

One would wonder why Obama and his cronies wouldn’t be bringing this to light and implicating Morsi in the attack. It would seem to reason that this would alleviate some of the pressure from his administration, though not all of it. The only thing one can seriously consider here is that the Obama administration is indeed complicit in the attack in Benghazi.

Garrison seems to have hit the nail on the head on this piece of evidence. He writes:

    My opinion is that the pieces have fallen together and Benghazi has been blown wide open. You probably won’t get that story on CNN  but take all of the facts we have and look how they fit together.

    Obama agreed to send the Blind Sheik home but he needed Stevens to make it look like a valid prisoner exchange. He made a deal to set it up. It blew up in his face and now we see our congressional leaders chasing their tails like puppy dogs while conveniently avoiding the important questions. The truth lies in Morsi’s involvement and our government’s obvious efforts to protect him. I would be shocked if this is not the real story. Though we may never actually know.

    I believe that it was more than a case of negligence by our government. I believe they share guilt in the murder of four Americans. I believe they set it up.




Crafty_Dog

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ccp

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #171 on: July 19, 2013, 06:28:22 AM »
survivors forced to sign non disclosure

Obstruction of justice at the highest level.  This sounds like a Hillary trick.

Of course it is in the interests of "national" security.   Not just her political career security.

No outrage.  No response.  Not even a blip in the media's noise meter for the day. 

And people trust the government to control and monitor and manipulate the world's internet?

 


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Boener boning us?
« Reply #176 on: July 25, 2013, 12:57:22 PM »
Mark Levin: Boehner and Obama ‘Cut Some Kind of Deal’ on Benghazi
 
Dear Member:
 
Mark Levin dropped a bombshell on John Boehner.
 
He believes Speaker Boehner may have ‘cut some kind of deal with Obama’ on Benghazi.  Help Expose the Truth About Benghazi
 
Here’s what conservative radio host Mark Levin told listeners on Tuesday, just after Revive America joined former Rep. Allen West and other patriots at the Special Operations Speaks press event in front of the U.S. Capitol:
 
‘We have to draw a very sad conclusion: John Boehner does not want to know what took place in Benghazi on that horrific day,” Levin declared. “And I’m honestly starting to think that he’s cut some kind of deal with Obama, because why else would he do this?’
 
‘John Boehner is what stands between setting up a special investigative committee and not,” he concluded. ‘Why the h_ll should the Republican Speaker of the House obstruct the investigation?’
 
As you may remember, back in May, I caught some ‘flak’ for saying what I believe is obvious, ‘Boehner is the problem, not Obama… If you’re mad as h_ll about Benghazi, there’s only one person to blame… Speaker John Boehner’…
 
I stand by my words, and I doubled-down on them during my speech in front of the U.S. Capitol.  Watch the Speech 
 
And Mark Levin is spot-on.   
 
While I’m not holding my breath, I do sincerely hope Speaker John Boehner proves both of us wrong.  Benghazi isn’t about scoring political points. 
 
It’s about exposing the truth:
 
Why did America abandon four men, including our U.S. Ambassador, to slaughter?  Was this price paid for Obama’s reelection?
 
Who is the treasonous coward who issued the order for our troops to ‘STAND DOWN’?
 
Where exactly was Obama during the 8-½ hour terror attack?
 
Help Revive America to Expose the Truth About Benghazi – Go Here Now to Donate
 
You can watch my speech on Benghazi in front of the U.S. Capitol by Clicking Here
 
You Can Watch the entire Special Operations Speaks event, including speeches from former Rep. Allen West, Rep. Louie Gohmert, and ‘Special Ops’ veterans by Going Here Now.
 
Thank you for staying in the fight.
 
Remember Benghazi!
 
Bob Adams
Founder & President
 

There is no limit to what you can donate. Revive America USA, Inc., can accept unlimited individual and corporate contributions.

REVIVE AMERICA USA, INC operates as a social welfare organization organized under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to REVIVE AMERICA USA are not deductible as charitable contributions for income tax purposes.

DougMacG

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Re: Boener boning us?
« Reply #177 on: July 25, 2013, 02:58:09 PM »
Mark Levin: Boehner and Obama ‘Cut Some Kind of Deal’ on Benghazi
Mark Levin dropped a bombshell on John Boehner. ...

Levin is an accomplished lawyer who served in the Reagan administration as high as chief of staff to the Attorney General, yet thinks presume guilty and then prove yourself innocent is good enough for flame throwing.  If Boehner 'cut some kind of deal' wouldn't he already know that?  The President and former Secretary must love seeing Benghazi turn into a circus of conservatives blaming Republicans for mis-handling the scandal. 

Wouldn't it suffice to oppose the policy or call on him to do more, instead going after the person?  Speaker Boehner didn't order anyone to stand down or spread a false story afterward.  How about blaming those who did?
---------------
Continuing on Benghazi...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/24/still-no-benghazi-answers/

Still no Benghazi answers
A promise for action betrayed

Ten months after the horrific tragedy in Benghazi, Libya, when terrorists attacked the U.S. Consulate and killed four Americans, the administration has given no credible answer to persistent questioning about why units such as the Foreign Emergency Support Team were not activated to save the lives of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, information officer Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. 

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #178 on: July 25, 2013, 03:31:15 PM »
What good faith reason is there for Boener to be blocking true investigations?

DougMacG

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #179 on: July 25, 2013, 10:57:17 PM »
What good faith reason is there for Boener to be blocking true investigations?

It's a good question.  Maybe timing or waiting for information coming that we don't know about.  I agree he is a lousy point man but I don't believe he doesn't get the depth of the scandal or is part of a conspiracy or coverup.

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #180 on: July 26, 2013, 06:35:41 AM »
To have risen to Speaker of the House means he has sufficient intelligence to grasp the implications and the depth of what happened here.  I can see no good faith reason for blocking a genuine investigation.

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« Last Edit: July 26, 2013, 10:09:10 PM by Crafty_Dog »


G M

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #183 on: July 27, 2013, 05:34:25 PM »
Still waiting on that autopsy report.

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« Last Edit: July 28, 2013, 03:32:29 PM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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I'm guessing they were running guns to the Syrian rebels and
« Reply #185 on: August 01, 2013, 04:06:05 PM »
maybe the foreign accents heard amongst the crowd were Iranian agents , , , but I could be wrong.

========================================================
http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08/01/exclusive-dozens-of-cia-operatives-on-the-ground-during-benghazi-attack/

Exclusive: Dozens of CIA operatives on the ground during Benghazi attack

CNN has uncovered exclusive new information about what is allegedly happening at the CIA, in the wake of the deadly Benghazi terror attack.  Four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the assault by armed militants last September 11 in eastern Libya.

Sources now tell CNN dozens of people working for the CIA were on the ground that night, and that the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret.  CNN has learned the CIA is involved in what one source calls an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency's Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out.

Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency's missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency's workings.  The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.

It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career.

In exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider writes, "You don't jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well."   :-o :-o :-o

Another says, "You have no idea the amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this operation."

"Agency employees typically are polygraphed every three to four years. Never more than that," said former CIA operative and CNN analyst Robert Baer.

In other words, the rate of the kind of polygraphs alleged by sources is rare.

"If somebody is being polygraphed every month, or every two months it's called an issue polygraph, and that means that the polygraph division suspects something, or they're looking for something, or they're on a fishing expedition. But it's absolutely not routine at all to be polygraphed monthly, or bi-monthly," said Baer.

CIA spokesman Dean Boyd asserted in a statement that the agency has been open with Congress.

"The CIA has worked closely with its oversight committees to provide them with an extraordinary amount of information related to the attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi," the statement said. "CIA employees are always free to speak to Congress if they want. The CIA enabled all officers involved in Benghazi the opportunity to meet with Congress. We are not aware of any CIA employee who has experienced retaliation, including any non-routine security procedures, or who has been prevented from sharing a concern with Congress about the Benghazi incident."

Among the many secrets still yet to be told about the Benghazi mission, is just how many Americans were there the night of the attack.  A source now tells CNN that number was 35, with as many as seven wounded, some seriously.  While it is still not known how many of them were CIA, a source tells CNN that 21 Americans were working in the building known as the annex, believed to be run by the agency.

The lack of information and pressure to silence CIA operatives is disturbing to U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, whose district includes CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

"I think it is a form of a cover-up, and I think it's an attempt to push it under the rug, and I think the American people are feeling the same way," said the Republican.

"We should have the people who were on the scene come in, testify under oath, do it publicly, and lay it out. And there really isn't any national security issue involved with regards to that," he said.

Wolf has repeatedly gone to the House floor, asking for a select committee to be set-up, a Watergate-style probe involving several intelligence committee investigators assigned to get to the bottom of the failures that took place in Benghazi, and find out just what the State Department and CIA were doing there.  More than 150 fellow Republican members of Congress have signed his request, and just this week eight Republicans sent a letter to the new head of the FBI, James  Comey, asking that he brief Congress within 30 days.

Read: White House releases 100 pages of Benghazi e-mails

In the aftermath of the attack, Wolf said he was contacted by people closely tied with CIA operatives and contractors who wanted to talk.  Then suddenly, there was silence.

"Initially they were not afraid to come forward. They wanted the opportunity, and they wanted to be subpoenaed, because if you're subpoenaed, it sort of protects you, you're forced to come before Congress. Now that's all changed," said Wolf.

Lawmakers also want to about know the weapons in Libya, and what happened to them.  Speculation on Capitol Hill has included the possibility the U.S. agencies operating in Benghazi were secretly helping to move surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels. (as I speculated here almost immediately in the aftermath)

It is clear that two U.S. agencies were operating in Benghazi, one was the State Department, and the other was the CIA. The State Department told CNN in an e-mail that it was only helping the new Libyan government destroy weapons deemed "damaged, aged or too unsafe retain," and that it was not involved in any transfer of weapons to other countries.

But the State Department also clearly told CNN, they "can't speak for any other agencies."

The CIA would not comment on whether it was involved in the transfer of any weapons.

Programming note: Was there a political cover up surrounding the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans? Watch a CNN special investigation — The Truth About Benghazi, Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET.

Crafty_Dog

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Dick Morris lurking here?
« Reply #188 on: August 03, 2013, 11:04:59 AM »
second post

Benghazi May Have Been Center For Covert Arms To Syrian Rebels In CIA Op; Secrecy Is To Avoid Iran-Contra Type Exposure
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on August 2, 2013
Printer-Friendly Version
CNN's Jake Tapper broke new ground yesterday by reporting that there were 35 CIA operatives on the ground in Benghazi at the time of the September, 2012 raid. But the questions loom: What were they doing there?  And why was the Administration so desperate to cover-up their presence that it administered polygraph tests to stop leaking and had agents use aliases?
 
Answers to these questions were ventured by James Horn, a former intelligence operative and the author of the 2011 book Experiencing Islam.  Horn spoke on The Dick Morris Show on WPHT 1210 AM in Philadelphia.
 
In a previous appearance on The Dick Morris Show on June 24, 2013 and in an article in Family Security Matters magazine in June, Horn broke the news -- now confirmed by CNN -- that the CIA had "thirty additional Americans on the ground in Benghazi at the time of the attack."
 
He says that they were involved in a covert and possibly illegal effort to ship arms from Libya to the Syrian rebels with the aid of al Qaeda operatives.  Horn says, "The CIA was involved in the illegal acquisition of weapons from the terrorist al Qaeda affiliates in Libya and shipping them to al Qaeda Sunni terrorists in Syria via Turkey."
 
If Horn's testimony is to be believed, it would mean that the cover-up of the Benghazi raid was motivated by much more than a mere desire by Obama to conceal the viability of al Qaeda despite the bin Laden killing.  Obama may have been trying to stop a full blown Iran-Contra type scandal from engulfing his administration.
 
Apart from the cosmetics of being found to be working with al Qaeda to arm al Qaeda rebels in Syria, Obama may have feared legal issues.
 
Media reports suggest that lawyers advising the Administration have had serious concerns that arming the rebels could violate "customary international law" and give Syrian dictator Assad legal justification and motivation to attack Americans around the world.
 
In addition the House and Senate Intelligence Committees had not approved aid to the Syrian rebels at the time of the Benghazi attack and did not do so until last month.  To have armed the Syrian rebels would have violated the tacit understanding between the executive and the Intelligence Committees that the Administration would not proceed without the approval of the Committees.
   
The perspective from Horn of the real issues at stake in Benghazi makes the CIA's efforts to cover it up more understandable.  It would be to stop revelations of this magnitude from leaking out that the agency would be polygraphing its operatives in Libya monthly, moving them around the country, and making them take assumed names.
 
But the Benghazi scandal has gone from an effort by the Administration to deflect public focus on al Qaeda's continuing power to an attempt to cover up possibly illegal arms shipments reminiscent of Reagan's Iran Contra scandal.
 
Now the focus of the investigation must not only be why Obama and Hillary Clinton lied by saying that the raid was simply an overreaction to a movie and why there was not adequate military support for Ambassador Chris Stevens but what the CIA was doing there anyway and whether it violates American or international law.

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Re: Benghazi, Michael Ledeen has a different view...
« Reply #190 on: August 06, 2013, 10:11:41 AM »
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/08/michael-ledeen-on-the-benghazi-cover-up.php

    I have never believed the rumor that we were sending arms from Libya to Syrian rebels. I was told by Syrian friends that the opposition were furious because they weren’t getting any support. Not from us, and not via Turkey. There was some training, based in Jordan I believe. I think that the Annex was an Intelligence Community hq. Not just CIA, also NSA, FBI, DIA, special forces etc. and I think their major operation was trying to get control of US weaponry that we had sent to anti-Qadaffi forces, now spreading around the Middle East to the usual suspects.

    I think the admin was frightened about that story: US weapons end up in enemy hands, ergo we were arming our enemies, replay of the birth of al Qaeda etc. You can’t say you are at war with AQ if you are arming them, right? That plays very badly in the prez campaign. And then of course the total cockup of the non-response to the killing of our men.

    The CIA denial seems pretty strong to me. The Brennan letter, too, which is in a way a way of covering up the story because if CIA people talk to Congress, all that stuff is classified and can be hushed up. It’s the leaks that are worrisome if you’re trying to conceal the scope of the mission. Clearly the admin was trying to keep investigators from the wounded at Walter Reed.

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US files sealed charges
« Reply #191 on: August 06, 2013, 04:32:44 PM »
U.S. Files Sealed Charges in Benghazi Attack
Move Marks First American Response to Assault That Killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya
By  DEVLIN BARRETT

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department has filed sealed criminal charges against a number of suspects in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, according to people familiar with the matter.

One of those charged, according to these people, is Ahmed Abu Khattalah, founder of Libya's Islamist militia Ansar al-Sharia. Mr. Abu Khattalah was seen at the compound when it was overrun, according to intelligence officials. In interviews with reporters, Mr. Abu Khattalah has admitted being at the scene but denied involvement in the attack.

The exact nature of the charges wasn't clear, nor was the number of suspects named in the investigation. Investigators and prosecutors are continuing to pursue the case, and they plan to charge additional suspects, according to the people familiar with the case.

A Justice Department spokesman, Andrew Ames, said the investigation is continuing. "It has been and remains a top priority," he said, declining to comment further. Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress investigators were making good progress on the case, but declined to offer specifics.

The Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the consulate, which resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, led to accusations from Republicans that the Obama administration had issued public talking points designed to hide the likelihood that the attackers were linked to al Qaeda, and thereby insulate political figures from blame in the months before a presidential election. The White House has long denied those accusations.

The question of when to charge individuals in the Benghazi attack—and whether to make such charges public while the FBI engages in a world-wide hunt for suspects—has been the subject of internal debate among counterterrorism officials in the months since the attack, according to the people familiar with the case.

Some officials wanted charges filed earlier, and made public earlier, to reflect progress investigators believe they have made in the case, those people said. Others argued for a more cautious approach, in part out of concern that revealing too much about the probe could hurt its chances of gathering more evidence and apprehending potential suspects.

The lack of public charges has led critics of the Obama administration, particularly Republicans in Congress, to challenge the administration's handling not just of the immediate response to the attacks, but of the long-term response as well. Some conservatives have accused the administration of covering up its failures on the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, and beforehand-accusations the administration has strenuously denied.

In May, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released images of three men who were at the compound and who were being sought for questioning. It is unclear if any of those facing criminal charges are the same as the ones in those FBI images.

Ansar al-Sharia has been a focus of the joint U.S.-Libyan investigation after U.S. intelligence officials intercepted phone calls between members of the group and al Qaeda leaders in Northern Africa, made immediately after the consulate attack, bragging about the incident, according to the people familiar with the matter. While Ansar al-Sharia has been linked to al Qaeda, it isn't clear if the storming of the consulate was directed by the global terror group.

Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com

Crafty_Dog

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Boener's bashfulness explained
« Reply #192 on: August 06, 2013, 08:21:24 PM »
Is Benghazi Obama’s ‘Iran-Contra'?
 
Dear Member:
 
Rush Limbaugh’s right about Benghazi: “Where ‘there’s a lot of smoke... There’s a fire.”
 
On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh ripped House Republican Leaders for being wimps on Benghazi.
 
“Waiting for CNN to do this isn’t going to cut it. People need to be put under oath,” said Limbaugh, referring to CNN’s exclusive report of a possible Obama-CIA secret gunrunning operation in Benghazi linked to the 9/11-terror attack.
 
The CIA is also threatening and intimidating Benghazi survivors, including the use of extensive polygraph tests to ‘shut-up’ the witnesses of the terror attack, alleged the CNN report. This would account for why, almost a year after Benghazi, not a single Benghazi survivor has once testified publicly before Congress.  In fact, most have gone ‘missing-in-action’.  Obama and his goons have effectively ‘shut-them-up’.
 
“Democrats are scared to death what Benghazi could mean to their party,” continued Rush Limbaugh. “Because they remember Iran-Contra, they remember what they were able to do with that….”
 
Rush is right, but what if House Republican Leaders are also “scared to death what Benghazi could mean to their party”, or more specifically their own political careers?
 
If Benghazi were a secret CIA gunrunning operation, it would’ve required a sign-off by top congressional leaders known as the “Big 8”, which includes Speaker Boehner.
 
“According to section 503’s Presidential Approval and Reporting of Covert Actions in the 1947 National Security Act,” writes Kerry Pickett for Breitbart, “the President may not authorize covert CIA actions without informing the intelligence committees of Congress.”
 
If House Republican Leaders were informed, it would make Benghazi potentially a bipartisan cover-up.
 
It would also explain why House Republican Leaders have politically-stage-managed the whole Benghazi investigation from the very start.  Certainly, with the appointment of a House Select Committee to investigate Benghazi, Speaker Boehner would largely lose control over the mushrooming scandal.  Then so be it.
 
It brings to mind what Team Obama once so colorfully wrote to fellow Democrats before the infamous vote on Obamacare: “At this point, we have to just rip the Band-Aid off and have a vote — up or down.”
 
For once, House Republicans ought to take the Democrats own advice.
 
It’s time to “have a vote — up or down” on H. Res. 36, the House Select Committee to Investigate Benghazi.
 
Help Us Force the Vote -- Go Here Now to Donate 
 
Remember Benghazi!
 
Bob Adams
Founder & President

DougMacG

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Benghazi - A terror attack of oppportunity, not a CIA mission coverup
« Reply #193 on: August 07, 2013, 09:01:16 AM »
The scandal revolves around President Obama, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/08/benghazi-is-the-alleged-cia-scandal-real.php

A congressional source (to Powerline) who has knowledge of the Benghazi investigation wrote regarding the CIA:

    "The bottom line is that the CIA has been exceedingly responsive to us, we have no evidence to substantiate the claims of intimidation, and we interact with CIA personnel of all levels all the time both at official functions and informally. And we have not heard anything that would make me think any of the conspiracy rumors or intimidation rumors are true.

    We know what they were doing there (yes, there were such folks on the ground). We knew before the attack. And we have seen nothing to suggest that they were shipping arms to Syria or holding detainees at the annex, both of which would have been outside their authorization. We have been given a very large volume of reports, emails, and intelligence — thousands of pages — and we have met with folks who were on the ground. I see no evidence suggesting the attack was at all related to their specific activities. It was apparently a target of opportunity, and a relatively insecure one at that. We are pretty confident we know the whole story, and I constantly ask reporters to share their unnamed sources with a promise to keep it anonymous and confidential, and they never follow through."


If there was a substantial group of CIA people on the ground in Benghazi, could they have been brought into play to help save Ambassador Stevens? Our source responds:

    "The folks who moved to the TMF were able to get everyone out, save Stevens who could not be found. They were able to evacuate everyone else, including retrieving Sean Smith’s body.

    The two security professionals from the Annex who died were killed later — during the mortar attack on the annex — not during the initial attack on the TMF. We don’t see anything suggesting that more people going to the TMF from the annex would have helped. They mobilized pretty quickly. Some guys weren’t immediately close, and you don’t want to clear out an entire facility to help another. So the tactical decisions on the ground can be debated with hindsight, but we see nothing suggesting that there was a failure on the ground by the U.S personnel at the moment of the attacks. Everyone behaved rationally and heroically."


Does that include Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton back in Washington? No:

    "There is a scandal here. It is the light footprint mindset of this admin and the inability of the white house to make the tough decisions to get the attackers. As we learned from the 911 commission report, when terrorists succeed in attacking the United States, and we don’t respond quickly and successfully to find them, terrorist groups are only emboldened and empowered. It seems it is a truth that we are seeing play out again around the world right now."

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Benghazi: Did Valerie Jarrett Give the Stand Down Order?
« Reply #194 on: August 09, 2013, 07:22:10 AM »
This piece is based on speculation, but it the best information available (IMO) until the Presidential stonewalling breaks down, which is likely never.

She did it before.  Where was he after the 5:00 meeting?  No one else from staff 'regularly follows' the President to the residential quarters of the White House.
--------------

"Present as the call was made, reports blogger Chip Jones at Conservative Report Online, was Valerie Jarrett, who, as the call was ending, went from the living quarters to the White House Situation Room, where the attack in Benghazi was being monitored by Dempsey, Panetta and other top-ranking officials.  What she may have said and whether the president sent her is unknown. We do know the president retired for the night, and no rescue mission was launched.  Once before, Jarrett had called off the military for political purposes."

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/080713-666729-jarrett-gave-benghazi-stand-down-order.htm?p=full
http://conservativereport.org/benghazi-valerie-jarrett-cic/

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #195 on: August 11, 2013, 05:22:24 AM »

Sign the petition here :http://specialoperationsspeaks.com/3929-billboard-pm

Barack Obama's "leadership" during the massacre in Benghazi can only be characterized as a dereliction of duty by the Commander-in-Chief. As we approach the one year anniversary of the September 11th attack, SOS remains steadfast in our dermination to expose the truth behind the Administrations false narrative.

And still, ONE MAN stands between the American people and the Watergate-style Select Committee needed to get to the truth and deliver justice.

It’s not Barack Obama. It's not Eric Holder. It's not John Kerry either...
 

House Speaker John Boehner is the ONE MAN blocking a real investigation of Benghazi.
 
Sign the Petition to Demand a Watergate-style Select Committee to Investigate Benghazi

Boehner’s stonewalling is helping Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and the rest of Obama’s corrupt administration get away with the deadliest scandal in American history.

Four Americans were brutally murdered on September 11, 2012 – including two courageous special operations soldiers who fought for their lives against scores of heavily armed Islamic terrorists. Abandoned by the president, denied reinforcements, they died needlessly, and they and their families deserve justice.

Barack Obama’s incompetence deserves the full attention of an investigation with all the power needed to uncover the levels of corruption that grow taller with every day.

And now, for some reason, John Boehner is helping perpetuate that corruption.

Shortly after you helped us present Congress with a petition demanding action, Rep. Frank Wolf introduced a bill (H.Res. 36) to establish a House Select Committee to find out once and for all what Barack Obama did – and didn’t do - while Americans under his command were being slaughtered by terrorists.

With a single stroke of his pen Boehner could bring H.Res. 36 to the floor of the House for a vote. Once there, it could finally bring to light the truth about the Benghazi scandal – and finally bring to light Barack Obama's dereliction of duty as Commander in Chief.

Instead, John Boehner refuses and continues to help hide the truth by denying a vote to form a Select Committee.

Demand a Watergate-style Select Committee to Investigate Benghazi

And please give any amount you can afford to keep the pressure on to END THE COVER-UP

That’s why, in late July (as you may have seen or read in the news), Special Operations Speaks worked with Rep. Steve Stockman as he introduced a historic Discharge Petition that would bring Rep. Wolf’s bill to the floor of the House.

We are fighting hard at Special Operations Speaks to force Boehner to allow a full investigation of the Benghazi massacre.

And now, we need your help to put some teeth into this historic Discharge Petition.

If we can get 218 members of the House of Representatives to sign the Stockman Discharge Petition, Boehner will be forced to bring H.Res. 36 to the floor of the House for a vote.

And I can assure you that we will win!

Within days, a Watergate-style Select Investigating Committee would begin forming to delve into the criminal negligence of Barrack Obama.

Finally those four Americans who were robbed of life would see some amount of justice.

So here is what we have to do:

Right now members of Congress are home for August recess – we need to tell them personally to sign the “Stockman Discharge Petition” for a House Select Committee to investigate Benghazi.

If your member holds a town hall meeting – go there, stand up, and speak out. If he visits your neighborhood – confront him in the street. And if he tries to hide – go to his district office! Let them know the support of the people is behind them.

And we will take care of Speaker of the House John Boehner, by following him right into his own backyard.

In just a matter of days, we are going to begin running the billboard above throughout his entire district in Ohio.

We'll show the Speaker to his face the same thing you need to show your member of Congress back home: We want answers because this is not a ‘phony scandal!’– Sign the Stockman Discharge Petition NOW!

The brave Americans who died in Benghazi, Libya – especially our fellow special operations soldiers who sacrificed their lives when they could have remained safe - deserve better than a cover up by Barack Obama and John Boehner. They may be just “bumps in the road” to them but they are heroes to those of us at SOS, as I’m sure they are to you.

So, please, Help demand justice for these brave soldiers who were ignored by the president by signing our petition and donating to help us keep the pressure on... and by telling your House member to sign the Stockman Discharge Petition – right now, while he or she is in your district during the August recess.

With your help, that Watergate-style Select Committee will finally get to who is responsible for the deaths of our soldiers in Benghazi, Libya.

So, please, act now.

Sincerely,
 



Dick Brauer, Colonel, USAF (Ret.)
Co-Founder of Special Operation Speaks

P.S. Special Operations Speaks relies completely on voluntary contributions from its supporters like you to carry on this important battle to find out the full truth about the Benghazi massacre. We will proudly take the point – it is what we have always done – if you will take our back.

Crafty_Dog

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400 ManPADs diverted!
« Reply #196 on: August 12, 2013, 01:09:28 PM »
As was noted here ten months ago , , ,

This is real bad folks , , ,

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/08/12/Attorney-For-Benghazi-Whistleblower-400-U-S-Missiles-Stolen-In-Benghazi-Annex-Involved

On August 12, Joe DiGenova, attorney for one of the Benghazi whistleblowers, told Washington D.C.'s WMAL that one of the reasons people have remained tight-lipped about Benghazi is because 400 U.S. missiles were "diverted to Libya" and ended up being stolen and falling into "the hands of some very ugly people."

DiGenova represents Benghazi whistleblower Mark Thompson. He told WMAL that he "does not know whether [the missiles] were at the annex, but it is clear the annex was somehow involved in the distribution of those missiles."

He claimed his information "comes from a former intelligence official who stayed in constant contact with people in the special ops and intelligence community." He said the biggest concern right now is finding those missiles before they can be put to use. "They are worried, specifically according to these sources, about an attempt to shoot down an airliner," he claimed.

On August 4, Breitbart News covered a report in The Telegraph that said 35 CIA operatives were working in Benghazi when the attack against the consulate took place. The Telegraph claimed these operatives were allegedly in an "annex near the consulate [working] on a project to supply missiles from Libyan armories to Syrian Rebels."

Months earlier, following then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's February 7 testimony on Capitol Hill about the Benghazi attacks, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) suggested that one of the causes behind the terrorist attack "may have been that there was a gun running operation going on in Benghazi, leaving Libya and going to Turkey and [distributing] arms to the [Syrian] rebels."

Crafty_Dog

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VDH: The Mother of all Scandals
« Reply #197 on: August 14, 2013, 08:36:19 AM »
Hat tip to Doug:


The Mother of All Scandals   by Victor Davis Hanson
August 12th, 2013

IRS?

A system of voluntary tax compliance cannot survive a dishonest IRS. Lois Lerner and company have virtually ruined the agency. For the foreseeable future, each time an American receives a tax query, he will wonder to what degree his politics ensures enhanced or reduced scrutiny — or whether his name as a donor, activist, or partisan has put him on a watch list.

Worse still, when a high commissioner of the IRS takes the 5th Amendment, it sends a frightening message: those audited go to jail when they refuse to testify; those who audit them who do the same do not.

AP?

The Associated Press/James Rosen monitoring by the Obama administration was creepy not just because it went after a heretofore obsequious media, but because Obama’s lieutenants alleged that the reason was aiding and abetting the leaking of classified material.

Of course, disclosing top-secret information and thereby damaging the national interest is no small thing. But was leaking the real reason that Eric Holder lied under oath when he assured his congressional inquisitors that he was not monitoring the communications of Americans — after he had done just that in the case of James Rosen of Fox News?

No modern administration has leaked classified data like the Obama administration. Do we remember a frustrated Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warning White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon “to shut the f— up” for disclosing the secret details of the bin Laden hit?

Or was John Brennan’s effusive blow-by-blow description of the Navy SEAL team protocol worse? Or for that matter, why did David Sanger and David Ignatius seem to have access to classified details about the bin Laden document trove and the Iranian Stuxnet cyber-war campaign? The obvious answer is that after the midterm election of 2010, a panicking Obama administration worried about reelection, and especially polls that suggested the president was weak on national-security issues.

To rectify that image, politicos began leaking the nation’s most intimate secrets to remind the public that, behind the scenes, Obama was a veritable Harry Truman. The problem with the AP was not that it leaked, but that it did not leak in a fashion and at a time of the administration’s own choosing. In other words, the Associated Press was a competitor when Obama wished a monopoly on the leaking franchise.

NSA?

No one knows much about the NSA mess. But already there are some disturbing developments. How can Director of National Intelligence James Clapper outright lie under oath without consequences after he assured the Congress that the agency did not monitor the communications of American citizens?

After the president’s press conference last week, an embarrassing paradox arose: the president promised all sorts of new NSA reforms. But why now, and for what reason the sudden worry? After all, Obama offered no new protocol to ensure that classified matters did not end up in the hands of a high-school dropout and highly ideological computer hacker like Eric Snowden.

Instead, the president de facto made Snowden’s case. It was only because of the illegal acts of Snowden that Obama promised future measures — not against the next Snowden, but against abuses promulgated by himself. Consider the logic: Snowden is supposed to be a criminal for leaking a top-secret intelligence gathering operation, but in response to that illegal conduct, Obama for the first time promises to address just the sort of abuses that Snowden outlined.

With enemies like Obama, the lawbreaking Snowden hardly needs friends.

Benghazi!

Of the four most prominent scandals — and by “four” I do not wish to deprecate “Fast and Furious,” or EPA Director Lisa Jackson’s fake email persona, or the arbitrary non-enforcement of the law, from ignoring elements of Obamacare to granting pre-election amnesty by fiat to over one million illegal aliens — Benghazi is by far the most disturbing; the scandal is insidious.

Death?

Four Americans were slaughtered under conditions that we still cannot fathom. It was rumored but not confirmed that Ambassador Stevens in extremis was either raped or brutalized, though those details remain murky — given that the assassination of an American ambassador is rare, and the vicious brutalization of his person is unprecedented. Witnesses of the attack on the CIA annex have either disappeared or gone silent. The families of the deceased have received conflicting accounts of how loved ones were murdered. All that we know for now is that the entire scene of the caskets arriving on U.S. soil — from the melodramatic assurances that the perpetrators would shortly feel American retaliation, to the demonization of Mr. Nakoula as the cause of the deaths — was a lie, and a cynical one at that.

Military protocol?

The American military takes incredible risks to come to the aid of its own beleaguered. When it does not — consider Wake Island in World War II — a national scandal erupts. For now, we know that those under assault requested aid; that sending such help was imminently feasible; and that no one yet can explain why such succor was not sent.

We are left with the suspicion that some official surmised that the reelection campaign did not want a Mogadishu-style shoot-out less than two months before the election, or a messy Libya, or the risk of beefing up security. The reelection mantra was instead that Osama bin Laden was dead; al Qaeda was nearly defunct; and that the “lead from behind” removal of Moammar Gaddafi had helped to energize the Arab Spring and lead to a new age of reform. No wonder someone ordered a stand-down to preserve that fantasy.

“Leading From Behind” has led to “Leaving Them Behind.”

If Obama can monotonously “spike the ball” on Osama bin Laden, cannot he offer a little clarity to the families of the deceased? Nearly a year after the murders, what happened to Obama’s reelection boast that he would bring the perpetrators to justice?

Cover-up?

Barack Obama, Susan Rice, and Hillary Clinton all falsely swore that the obscure amateur video maker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was guilty of prompting a mass riot at Benghazi. Nakoula — petty crook and loud opponent of Islam — was a fall guy right out of central casting.

A favorite topos of Barack Obama — consider the al-Arabiya interview, or the Cairo speech — is his courageous and principled opposition to supposedly ubiquitous Islamophobes. Beating up on the unsympathetic Nakoula killed two birds with one stone: it reminded the world that the multiculturalist Obama would not tolerate anti-Muslim thought on his shores, and it propped up the sinking narrative of an extinguished al-Qaeda.

There were absolutely no professional consequences for publicly lying — to the nation, to television audiences, to the relatives of the deceased, to the United Nations — that the Nakoula video was the cause of the deaths of our Benghazi personnel. Barack Obama was reelected. Hillary “what difference does it make” Clinton retired from the secretary of State post to congratulations and media frenzy about her likely 2016 presidential campaign. Susan Rice was promoted to National Security advisor.

There is almost no one left at his 2012 post. In addition to the above, General Carter Ham, in charge of Africa Command, has retired. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has retired. CIA Director David Petraeus has resigned.

How did it happen that just nine months after the attack, most all of the relevant decision-makers — Clinton, Ham, Panetta, Petraeus, Rice — have vanished from their jobs?

Ron Ziegler Redux

Jay Carney cannot be believed. He lied when he said that there were only “stylistic” changes made to CIA talking points, when in fact the administration’s revisions were both major and predictably aimed at serving a false narrative. Carney also did not tell the truth when he repeated on several occasions that Mr. Nakoula was the culprit for the violence, a fact that he knew at the time was false. And when Carney deprecated Benghazi as a “phony” scandal, we heard the ghost of Ron Ziegler stonewalling with “third-rate burglary.”

The Engaged President

We saw minute-by-minute pictures of Obama in command surrounded by advisors during the bin Laden raid. Why not the same level of photographed attention on the night of Benghazi? In a nutshell, in one operation we sent lots of soldiers after a few enemies, and in the other, lots of our enemies were sent after a few of our soldiers. Saving trapped Americans from a pre-planned al-Qaeda hit is not a photo-op in a way a preplanned American attack on al-Qaeda most certainly could be. Otherwise, I have no idea where the president was during that long tragic night, only that we will never know until he is well out of office.

“National Security”

The hallmark of most recent American presidential scandals — whether Watergate or Iran-Contra — has been the evocation of “national security” and often the supposed role of the CIA that must preclude full disclosures. For now, almost a year later, no one knows what exactly the CIA was doing in Benghazi, only that hiding whatever it was doing — perhaps gunrunning confiscated weapon stockpiles to insurgents of some sort in Syria — was of utmost importance, at least in the political context of late 2012. I have read the accounts of the original CIA talking points, reviewed the public statements of Gen. David Petraeus both before and after his resignation, collated the assertions of top administration officials — and the narratives cannot be squared. Someone at some point flat-out lied and thought it critical to hide American activity in Benghazi.

A False Campaign?

The election of 2012 may well have been altered by the Benghazi cover-up, in ways that transcend debate moderator Candy Crowley’s puerile and unprofessional efforts to shield Obama from Romney’s questioning about the deaths. Imagine the fallout on voters had we been told from the very beginning that an al-Qaeda affiliate had stormed our consulate — ill-prepared and unable to obtain needed beefed-up security, reliant for safety on local suspect tribal militias, in a country that had deteriorated into a failed society after our Libyan bombing — and slaughtered four Americans, apparently stationed in Benghazi to help in some way a covert CIA operation.

So here we have it: a beleaguered “consulate” that was refused additional security and relied on local militias, apparently due to administration worry over destroying an Obama campaign narrative of a reborn Libya and dying al-Qaeda. A CIA operation of some sort supplied something to someone, but what and why and to whom, we are not supposed to know. Four Americans, the very best the country had to offer, are dead, denied assistance when assistance could have saved them — the why and the how and the when of it all we are not told. We fear it might have been a crackpot cost-benefit analysis: four lives versus another Mogadishu and an Obama November defeat.

We know only that the dead were far more heroic than the leaders who chose not to aid them.

And in reaction to all this, we jail a petty video maker, who makes the perfect scapegoat as a supposedly right-wing Islamophobic hate monger whose take-down advances our president’s politically correct narrative of Muslim outreach. That yarn required a president, secretary of state, and UN ambassador to lie repeatedly. When we ask questions, witnesses are browbeaten, the knowledgeable fade into the Washington woodwork, the luminaries have all left their offices, and we are left with “phony” scandal and “what difference does it make.”

All in all — the mother of all scandals.


Crafty_Dog

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Re: Benghazi and related matters
« Reply #199 on: August 20, 2013, 09:13:48 PM »
Sorry I do not have a citation, but on the Bret Baier Report today they reported that SecState returned the Benghazi 4 to work without their ever having missed even a paycheck while they were suspended.  Furthermore Cong. Issa reports that the investigation never even interviewed any of them even once or any of their superiors.  SHAME!!!