On October 25th 2012 this very writer made a lengthy case that the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton at the State Department, were deliberately undermining Middle East peace by ousting secular governments who wanted peace with Israel and replacing such governments with Muslim Brotherhood/Al-Qaeda, yes, the same people who hit us on 9/11.
This very scenario did indeed come about with secular governments in Egypt and Libya being replaced with Muslim Brotherhood/Al-Qaeda while the ousting of the secular Syrian government was underway.
The Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt immediately threatened war with Israel and started exterminating Christians and other minorities. President Obama’s response to the new Muslim Brotherhood government was to sell them F-16 fighter planes, in this writer’s opinion and also quite obviously, to use against Israel.
Fortunately the Egyptian military, which is largely secular, trained in the United States, and knows very well that war with Israel is hopeless if not suicidal, overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government, took power, and worked to stop the persecution of said minorities. President Obama’s “punishment” was to demand that the Muslim Brotherhood government be restored and he halted the sale of the fighter planes.
Fast forward to Benghazi, Libya where four Americans were killed and dozens injured, secret documents in both our consulate and CIA annex were exposed, national security compromised. It was all avoidable.
We know that in spite of the fact that they asked for better security hundreds of times, Hillary stripped their security from them and Hillary actually hired an offshoot of Al-Qaeda to provide security for our consulate.
[See our previous Benghazi and Libya coverage HERE]
One of the weapons dealers the State Department used was Marc Turi. After they used him and after things went bad as they did in Benghazi, the Obama Administration decided to “tidy up” and moved to prosecute Turi and accuse him of dealing weapons to terrorists, even though he was doing so on orders from the United States Government, in particular, Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
So in order to fight back, Turi, who apparently kept meticulous records and evidence, threatened to expose Hillary’s role in all of this highly illegal activity. The Department of Justice then petitioned the Court to drop all charges against Mr. Turi and made it clear that the petition to the court was for political reasons.
Watch and see for yourself. This is as caught as caught gets. Hillary is now being sued for wrongful death, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress by the families of those killed in Benghazi. She would be wise to settle out of court…
Four Americans were killed in Benghazi and dozens injured, secret documents in both our consulate and CIA annex were exposed, national security compromised. It was all avoidable.
We know that in spite of the fact that they asked for better security hundreds of times, Hillary stripped their security from them and Hillary actually hired an offshoot of Al-Qaeda (yes the guys who carried out the 9/11 attacks) to provide security for our consulate.
[See our previous Benghazi and Libya coverage HERE]
Democrats have said over and over that the Benghazi investigation was purely political. Democrats, along with their friends in the elite media, have said that the attacks have been investigated and resolved.
To this day, thanks to Obama Administration stone walling, most of our Benghazi questions to this day have not been answered:
Thanks to Clinton campaign emails released by WikiLeaks we see very clearly just who was politicizing what rather than working to find the truth. The email:
New documents released by WikiLeaks in connection with its dump of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s email indicate that Democrats on the House Select Committee on Benghazi coordinated with David Kendall, Bill and Hillary Clinton’s long time private counsel.
Kendall, of Williams & Connolly, has represented the Clinton’s since 1993, when he was retained in connection with the Whitewater investigation.
“Benghazi Committe Dems want us to know that Gowdy has just quietly signed up to appear live on FTN this Sunday,” Kendall wrote, in reference to Face the Nation, the CBS Sunday morning political program hosted by John Dickerson. “Apparently, R’s were disappointed in how little media pick up the SB email ‘revelations’ got. I’m not sure there’s much we can do but be forewarned,” he continued, in reference to news that Sidney Blumenthal, a long time Clinton confidant who was banned from joining the administration by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, was advising Mrs. Clinton in an informal capacity.
The email was sent to Jennifer Palmieri, the campaign’s communications director, and Nick Merrill, Clinton’s traveling press secretary. Senior Clinton aides Cheryl Mills, Heather Samuelson, and Katherine Turner were also copied on the message. All three are lawyers who have counseled Clinton throughout the probe of the private email server she maintained during her tenure as Secretary of State. All three were present when she was questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Mills forwarded the email to “hdr29@hrcoffice.com,” the email address Clinton appears to have been using at the time. The address is no longer active.
“Can we do another video w Brian Fallon or another campaign press person debunking it all before he appears so he has to respond?,” Clinton responded. Fallon is a campaign spokesman.
As if the previous revelations from the Clinton Campaign’s own emails weren’t solid proof enough to show how the elite media and the Obama Administration colluded to commit perjury and obstruction, this email chain is especially damning.
It shows Hillary Clinton’s staff attorney Cheryl Mills actively working back and forth with the State Department and the Associated Press (AP) to get everyone on the same page as far as the talking points and the story (read lies) they are going to tell. It also shows that they knew they were not turning over all of the subpoenaed emails.
Read the email for yourself HERE. This is a key section:
Hi FBI, this is Hillary’s State Department. Can you do me a favor? Can you declassify some of the secret docs Hillary had on her illegal private emails server so it can look like she didn’t break the law? If you do I will open up new slots for additional FBI Agents in other countries…..
The FBI says that it turned the quid-pro-quo offer down.
The FBI released documents on the bribe offer HERE. The smoking gun:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation released several documents Monday morning confirming discussions between officials at the State Department and at the FBI about a “quid pro quo” to reclassify documents stored on Hillary Clinton’s private email server. Among the 34 released documents, which are summaries of interviews conducted by the FBI in its investigation of the Clinton server, is evidence that a high-ranking State Department official, undersecretary of state for management Patrick Kennedy, discussed a quid pro quo with the FBI.
In one interview summary, a witness described receiving a call from the International Operations Division of the FBI who he says “‘pressured’ him to change the classified email to unclassified”, and that in exchange the State Department “would reciprocate by allowing the FBI to place more Agents in countries where they are presently forbidden.”
The witness also told the FBI that he “believes [the State Department] has an agenda which involves minimizing the classified nature of the CLINTON emails in order to protect STATE interests and those of CLINTON.”
UPDATE II – Judge Napolitano – This was a crime, an offer to bribe – VIDEO.
In yet another revelation of collusion between print and network media journalists (see the list at the bottom of the page), this one is especially disturbing as it involves a secret document.
We know it is secret because the Benghazi investigative committee in the House has kept everything secret with the exception of their public hearings and an occasional press conference until they released their final report on July 8th, 2016.
The email was released by WikiLeaks. As we know the Clinton’s and many others in the administration were using unsecured email methods and home brew private servers. Those emails of course were compromised.
In this email exchange dated April 15, 2015 between Hillary Campaign Chairman John Podesta, Clinton attorney David Kendall, Hillary staffer Cheryl Mills, and Mark Hosenball from Thomason Reuters.
Thomason Reuters is the “objective” human intelligence and data-mining firm owned by Reuters news service who promises unbiased and ethical reporting and processes. They certainly failed in this case as the email clearly shows that Hosenball had obtained a secret document from the committee, most likely from a Democrat member, and immediately contacted Clinton’s top staffers to show it to them.
Patricia Smith and Charles Woods, whose children Sean Smith and Tyrone Woods, were killed in Benghazi, are suing Hillary Clinton for the wrongful death of their children via negligence. They are also suing for Hillary defaming them when she called them liars and they are suing for intentional affliction of emotional distress for lying to them about why their children had to die.
This is a classic example of government incompetence that gets Americans killed and makes you want to pull your own hair out. The ARB (Annual Review Board) is a part of the State Department which exists to find and correct mistakes within the department.
Since 1999 the ARB has been pounding that security at State Department facilities such as Beirut, Benghazi, and more have been woefully inadequate. How many lives have been lost because the State Department bureaucracy simply refuses to do its job?
At Benghazi the Al-Qaeda mortar teams had each building zeroed in which takes time and training. Distances measured to the meter, advanced scoping of the targets etc. Who brings mortars to a protest?
And this was after Al-Qaeda made coordinated attacks against the British, the Red Cross and other Western targets in Benghazi and took credit for them. We also know from wires to the State Department that our own people on the ground predicted an Al-Qeada attack was inevitable.
– Signed, the editor of this blog who has military munitions experience and everyone else who has had the requisite military training who isn’t paid to lie for you.
I think another interesting aspect to this story is this claim that nobody should cover it because it’s being ‘politicized’? Which would then mean nothing in Washington can ever be covered. Right?
The [so called] ‘war on women’ was that not politicized? That was a DNC talking point. The fact that Fox News covers something means you shouldn’t cover it? Really? Because I never noticed that when MSNBC was hysterical over Sandra Fluke that nobody thought that it was a reason to ‘not cover it’.
There is just something just fundamentally really, really wrong with our media. They need to take a look at themselves and do some accounting.
Related: CBS News President David Rhodes and ABC News President Ben Sherwood, both of them have siblings that not only work at the White House, that not only work for President Obama, but they work at the NSC on foreign policy issues directly related to Benghazi. – LINK.
This post is being continually updated! Please scroll down for the latest updates!!
There will also be whistle-blowers from the CIA, but they are being threatened and forced to undergo constant polygraph tests while the Obama Administration tried to keep this a secret (according to WABC’s John Bachelor. UPDATE – House Intelligence Committee Chair says that there are more whistle-blowers to come).
UPDATE – Sen. Coburn: ‘Glaring omission’ in Benghazi information from State Department to the Intelligence Committee – LINK.
UPDATE – Rand Paul: Hillary should never hold public office again – LINK.
UPDATE – CNN has had enough, blasts Obama Administration lies on Benghazi:
UPDATE – BBC News Editor – Benghazi is very serious, heads will roll – LINK.
UPDATE – Geraldo Rivera: My sources tell me that Benghazi was about running missiles to Syria – LINK.
UPDATE – Democrats still in denial..the dead are no big deal… – LINK – LINK.
UPDATE – Must see: Sharyl Attkisson interview on the Benghazi attack and coverup – LINK.
UPDATE – CBS News President David Rhodes and ABC News President Ben Sherwood, both of them have siblings that not only work at the White House, that not only work for President Obama, but they work at the NSC on foreign policy issues directly related to Benghazi. – LINK.
UPDATE – IBD: Benghazi Talking Points: A Lie Hillary Agreed Upon – LINK.
UPDATE – Kirsten Powers: There is something just fundamentally really, really wrong with our media…
UPDATE – Senator Rand Paul on the latest revelations:
UPDATE – Fox News gloats – We Got Benghazi right all along:
UPDATE – Kirsten Powers – Obama inserts himself in the center of these scandals because he constantly lies about them:
UPDATE – Krauthammer: Biggest scandal of all is what the President was doing for eight hours?
UPDATE – Kirsten Powers: Obama lying about Benghazi and his word games are getting old.
UPDATE – KT McFarland: Internal State Department investigation was a subterfuge. Why? Ambassador Pickering and Admiral Mullins were given such a narrow portion of the Benghazi scandal to investigate, only investigated if there was inadequate security at our diplomatic mission in Benghazi (Duh! Four people are dead, of course it was inadequate):
UPDATE – Benghazi Scandal Investigation Widening – Lawmakers Seek Interviews Of 13 Top Officials:
UPDATE – State Department: We May Not Comply With Congress’ Benghazi Subpoena – LINK.
UPDATE – Bob Woodward: I would not dismiss Benghazi as merely politics; compares it to Watergate:
UPDATE – Truth or scapegoat? State Department tells CBS News that stand down order to FEST response team was incompetence by Patrick Kennedy, one of Hillary Clinton’s Deputies – LINK.
UNSPEAKABLE – The only action President Obama took while our people were under attack in Benghazi was to Hillary Clinton to discuss the cover story:
One other whistle-blower is still being silenced by the Obama Administration – LINK – LINK.
Editors Note – Please see our previous Benghazi coverage HERE. Also, be sure to see our two comprehensive analysis pieces from October and November:
Democrats in the House and on MSNBC and in the Administration are calling these men liars:
Greg Hicks is a long time State Department career officer. He is not a political appointee. Hicks is the Chief of Mission which put number two in Libya until Ambassador Stephens was killed.
Gregory Hicks’ 30 Minute Recount of Benghazi Attack
Gregory Hicks (Whistleblower) Embarrassed By Blame Placed On YouTube Video:
Rep Chaffetz Questions Greg Hicks: There Was Never An Intention To Rescue US. Personnel In Benghazi:
Gregory Hicks (Whistleblower) Stand Down Order Came From AFRICOM or SOCAFRICA [Only the Secretary of Defense or Obama could have sent such a stand down order and prevent help from coming]:
UPDATE – Megyn Kelly analyzes the testimony about the stand down orders and Democrats’ efforts to paint the whistle-blowers as liars:
Whistle-blower Greg Hicks tells committee State Dept told me not to speak to Congressman Chaffetz:
This is how far the Obama Administration will go to keep the truth from coming out.
UPDATE I – Attorney for a whistle-blower speaks out:
UPDATE II – As we told Political Arena readers previously, there were indeed forces in range of the Benghazi attack. Some forces that were not even the closest are speaking out:
In high security cases the government must clear the lawyers who can pass a background check so they may speak with their clients legally. The Obama administration in refusing to grant the clearance is preventing the whistle-blowers from having legal representation, which of course is illegal. This will go to court and the Obama Administration will lose as legally the Administration does not have a legal leg to stand on.
According to former US Attorney Joe DiGenova, the State Department is standing in the way of lawyers trying to represent whistleblowers in the ongoing investigation into the events at the US Consolate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.
DiGenova appeared with me and co-host Brian Wilson this morning on “Mornings on the Mall” on WMAL-FM in Washington DC.
“The Department of State is refusing to grant clearances to Victoria (Toensing) and other people who want to represent the whistleblowers in an attempt to prevent the testimony,” DiGenova said, referring to the upcoming hearing before Rep. Darrel Issa’s House Oversight Committee.
DiGenova called the stand-off a “constitutional showdown” and added, “Congress is going to win. The administration’s effort to cover up what happened in Benghazi is going to fail.”
Listen to the entire interview below. The part about the Benghazi whistle-blowers begins at 3:09:
And where is the media with their “Katrina” coverage? Oh that’s right, Obama is President so the suffering of these good people is just not newsworthy.
The Obama Administration has granted only a measly $650 million to New Jersey. Obama has been proposing and working to give the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood (2) over a billion dollars while they slaughter Christians, suppress democratic reforms and promise war on our allies. This speaks volumes about President Obama’s priorities. The damage estimates for Hurricane Sandy start and $50 billion and go as high as $75 billion.
In case you don’t remember what a joke the Hurricane Sandy relief bill was in Congress click HERE. Where is the money being spent?
Six months after Sandy ravaged the tri-state area, uprooting thousands of trees, decimating homes and submerging cities, many residents say life has mostly returned to normal, though for some, recovery from the deadly storm remains a painstaking process, and “life as normal” a far-away dream that may never be realized.
Separation is the new reality for the Gatti family, a clan of several generations that shared the same three-story home near the ocean on Staten Island until Sandy destroyed it.
The flood-soaked place was demolished months ago, and they’re waiting for a government buyout. Now the family is scattered across New Jersey, New York and Texas.
Photos and Videos
“The whole family’s separated,” said Marge Gatti, the matriarch. “And it’s terrible, you know?”
Tens of thousands of people remain homeless. Housing, business, tourism and coastal protection all remain major issues with the summer vacation — and hurricane — seasons almost here again.
“Some families and some lives have come back together quickly and well, and some people are up and running almost as if nothing ever happened, and for them it’s been fine,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said ahead of the six-month mark. “Some people are still very much in the midst of recovery. You still have people in hotel rooms, you still have people doubled up, you still have people fighting with insurance companies, and for them it’s been terrible and horrendous.”
Lynda Fricchione’s flood-damaged home in the Ortley Beach section of Toms River, N.J., is gutted; the roof was fixed just last week. The family is still largely living out of cardboard boxes in an apartment. But waiting for a final decision from federal and state authorities over new flood maps that govern the price of flood insurance is tormenting her and many others.
“The largest problem is, nobody really knows how high we’re going to have to elevate the house,” she said. “At town hall they told us 5 feet, but then they said it might go down to 3 feet in the summer. Most of us are waiting until the final maps come out. It’s wait-and-see.”
By many measures, the recovery from Sandy, which struck Oct. 29, has been slow. From Maryland to New Hampshire, the National Hurricane Center attributes 72 deaths directly to Sandy and 87 others indirectly from causes such as hypothermia due to power outages, carbon monoxide poisoning and accidents during cleanup efforts, for a total of 159.
The roller coaster that plunged off a pier in Seaside Heights, N.J., is still in the ocean, although demolition plans are finally moving forward. Scores of homes that were destroyed in nearby Mantoloking still look as they did the day after the storm — piles of rubble and kindling, with the occasional bathroom fixture or personal possession visible among the detritus.
And more than a few residents whose homes were overtaken by mold or completely destroyed in the storm still cry as they drive down the barren streets that once held their valued memories as well as their most fervent hopes for the future.
Throughout the region, many businesses are still shuttered, and an already-tight rental market has become even more so because of the destruction of thousands of units and the crush of displaced storm victims looking to rent the ones that survived.
FEMA has paid out $387.4 million in housing grants and $263 million to communities and nonprofit groups in New Jersey since the storm hit. In New York, Cuomo’s administration worked with banks to release more than $200 million in insurance payments.
In this case, Hillary Clinton said that she never saw the Libyan Ambassadors security requests and that she never saw the memo’s stripping our facilities of their security. Unfortunately for Hillary documents show the signature of Hillary Clinton acknowledging said requests and memos.
Democrats are crying “its all politics” but the documents speak for themselves, as does the stonewalling of any transparency. We know that forces in the area were told to stand down, we know that the administration lied about the nature (blame the video) of the attacks from day one, we know Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lied when he said that we had no assets that could have responded within the six hour long attack, we know that Obama lied to NBC’s Brian Williams when he said he ordered that all resources be sent to aid our people under attack as no record exists of any such orders. In fact, Leon Panetta said that Obama went to bed after he heard of the attack. Obama skipped his morning intelligence briefing and went to a campaign fund raiser.
Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State seeking access to “all videos and photographs” depicting the Benghazi, Libya, Consulate between September 10 and September 13, 2012, the period leading up to, during, and immediately following the deadly attack that took the life of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Judicial Watch filed its lawsuit on February 25, 2013 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-00242)). This is one of three Benghazi FOIA lawsuits being pursued by Judicial Watch.
Specifically, Judicial Watch seeks the following records pursuant to its December 19, 2012, FOIA request: “Any and all videos and photographs depicting U.S. Consulate facilities in Benghazi, Libya (including the Special Mission Compound and the Annex) between September 10, 2012, and September 13, 2012 that were provided to the Accountability Review Board (ARB) for Benghazi and/or to any individual member of the ARB.”
The State Department acknowledged receiving the Judicial Watch FOIA request on January 4, 2013, and was required by law to respond by February 4, 2013. As of the date of Judicial Watch’s lawsuit, the department had failed to produce any records responsive to the request, indicate when any responsive records will be produced, or demonstrated that responsive records are exempt from production.
On December 19, 2012, the Accountability Review Board (ARB) for Benghazi, convened by then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, released its report on the attack on the U.S. Consulate. According to ARB Chairman Ambassador Tom Pickering, the Board “reviewed thousands of documents and watched hours of video” during the course of its investigation. The Obama administration also reportedly shared Benghazi video with certain members of Congress. The State Department, however, has refused to comply with the Judicial Watch FOIA request seeking access to these materials on behalf of the American people.
“It has now been more than five months since the attack on America’s Benghazi consulate, and the American people still don’t know basic facts about what actually occurred,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Any video or photos will tell us more about Benghazi than Obama administration lies and spin. This latest stonewall shows that President Obama’s line, that his administration is the most transparent in history, is laughably false.”
Judicial Watch has a separate FOIA lawsuit seeking access to the controversial internal “speaking points” used by the Obama administration in the days following the attacks when administration officials advanced the false narrative that the attacks were inspired by a rudimentary Internet video perceived as anti-Muslim. Judicial Watch also sued the State Department for records detailing a nearly $400,000 contract awarded to a foreign firm for “Security Guards and Patrol Services” at the Benghazi Consulate prior to the deadly attack of September 11, 2012.
Political Arena Editor Chuck Norton – We reported that this was going on back in June and again in our comprehensive piece on this emerging scandal in October. The evidence is piling on. There can be almost no doubt that President Obama is deliberately aiding jihadists in the overthrow of governments that favored the Israeli peace agreement.
BERLIN (Reuters) – Americans are training Syrian anti-government fighters in Jordan, the German weekly Der Spiegel said on Sunday, quoting what it said were participants and organizers.
Spiegel said it was not clear whether the Americans worked for private firms or were from the army but said some wore uniforms. The training focused on use of anti-tank weaponry.
Some 200 men have already received such training over the past three months and there are plans in the future to provide training for a total 1,200 members of the “Free Syrian Army” in two camps in the south and the east of the country.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper also reported that U.S. trainers were assisting Syrian rebels in Jordan. British and French instructors were also participating in the U.S.-led effort, the Guardian said on Saturday, citing Jordanian security sources.
Jordanian intelligence services are involved in the program, which aims to build around a dozen units totaling some 10,000 fighters to the exclusion of radical Islamists, Spiegel reported.
“The Jordanian intelligence services want to prevent Salafists (radical Islamists) crossing from their own country into Syria and then returning later to stir up trouble in Jordan itself,” one of the organizers told the paper.
The reports could not be independently verified.
A spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department declined immediate comment on the Spiegel report. The French foreign ministry and Britain’s foreign and defense ministries also had no comment.
More than 70,000 people have been killed and 1 million refugees have fled the Syrian conflict.
It started as pro-democracy protests but has turned into a sectarian war between rebels mainly from Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority and state forces defending President Bashar al Assad, who follows the Alawite faith derived from Shi’ite Islam.
The United States has said it would provide medical supplies and food directly to opposition fighters but has ruled out sending arms for fear they may find their way to Islamist hardliners who might then use them against Western targets.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are widely believed to be providing weapons to the rebels, and Arab League ministers decided on Wednesday to let member nations arm them.
(Reporting by Gareth Jones; Editing by Jason Webb)
Senator McCain said that members of his own party that are concerned about “Drone Strike” policy are “wacko birds” while insisting that no innocent Americans are going to be killed with drones.
The problem is that innocent Americans have already been killed, namely the 16 year old AMERICAN son of a terror suspect. The Obama Administration flippantly said “the kid chose the wrong father” when critiqued. President Obama asserted that he has the power to lock up Americans indefinitely or even kill us, his administration has even made cracks about the “kill list“.
Senator Rand Paul “I will speak until I can speak no more”
When questioned about some of these extra constitutional powers they said, “trust us” because they would give people on such target lists “administrative due process” which is something that the Obama Administration made up out of this air and essentially means that even when it comes to Americans not engaged in combat, but are merely viewed as a terror threat, the Administration can act as judge, jury and executioner.
Keep in mind that all of what we just told you are facts that are not in dispute.
This made some civil libertarians in both parties nervous for good cause. So members of the House and Senate started asking questions about how the Administration sees the limits of this power and in every case the Obama Administration would use lawyerly rhetorical slight of hand to avoid answering simple questions about the limits of such a policy.
Over and over Senators such as Rand Paul would ask simple questions, so would Senator Ted Cruz, only to get the run around. After weeks of rhetorical gymnastics and Senator Rand Paul’s epic filibuster the Obama Administration, suffering public humiliation on the issue, finally answered a straight question with a straight answer.
Why can we not just “trust them”?
Keep in mind that the Obama Administration willingly and knowingly sent guns to Mexican Drug Cartels in an effort to blame the subsequent loss of life (hundreds killed including an American border agent) with those guns on American gun owners and use the subsequent bloodshed as an excuse to attack the 2nd Amendment. The administration was outed by their own federal agents.
This is the same President and his administration that have been caught in lie after lie after lie in their cover up of the four Americans murdered in Benghazi. President Obama still refuses to let Congress have any access to the survivors of the attack.
While Rand Paul was having his epic filibuster on the Senate floor with the help of Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Ut.), John Barrasso (Wyo.), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), John Cornyn (Tex.), Jerry Moran (Kan.), John Thune (S.D.), Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Ron Johnson (Wis.). Sens.Ted Cruz (Tex.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Tim Scott (S.C.) made their first speaking appearances on the Senate floor. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) also voiced their support.
Senator Mark Kirk, made his first appearance on the Senate floor after having a stroke, he did not speak but he brought Rand Paul an apple and a thermos full of of tea (the same refreshment that Jimmy Stewart used in his famous film about a Senate filibuster).
From the House Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) Justin Amash (Mich.), Ron DeSantis (Fla.), Doug LaMalfa (Calif.), Garland “Andy” Barr (Ky.), Trey Radel (Fla.), Michael Burgess (Tex.), Jim Bridenstine (Okla.), Raul R. Labrador (Idaho), Keith Rothfus (Pa.), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Steve Daines (Mont.), Bill Huizenga (Mich.), Richard Hudson (N.C.) and David Schweikert (Ariz.) all came over to the Senate floor to show their support.
While Senator Rand Paul was engaging in his epic filibuster to fight for your rights under the Constitution, John McCain was having dinner with President Obama. The problem is not that Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Justin Amash are “wacko birds”, the problem is that John McCain doesn’t get Barack Obama.
They are also in the process of taking over Libya, Syria and Jordan, with Obama and NATO giving them military support. Al-Qaeda, you know, those guys who hit is on 9/11, are a sub-group of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Obama is giving them tanks and F-16’s too (but wants to take your guns)
What would the elite media reaction be if Bush had been doing this?
The New York Times Cairo bureau chief David K. Kirkpatrick insists that the Muslim Brotherhood is a “moderate, regular old political force,” despite Muslim Brotherhood-backed Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi’s recent power grab and the Islamist organization’s radical views.
Kirkpatrick called into Hugh Hewitt’s radio show Wednesday from Egypt as the Brotherhood’s supporters battled opponents who feared a return to dictatorship on the streets of Cairo. When asked by Hewitt whether the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi, a former top ideological enforcer in the movement, were consolidating power in Egypt to pursue an undemocratic Islamist agenda, Kirkpatrick said he thought such criticism was “misplaced.”
“The Brotherhood, they’re politicians,” he said.
“They are not violent by nature, and they have over the last couple of decades evolved more and more into a moderate — conservative but religious, but moderate — regular old political force. I find that a lot of the liberal fears of the Brotherhood are somewhat outside. That said, you know, you don’t know what their ultimate vision of what the good life looks like. But in the short term, I think they just want to win elections.”
Founded in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, the Brotherhood’s slogan is the not-so-moderate “Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.”
Eric Trager, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an expert on Egypt, told The Daily Caller that Kirkpatrick’s assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood as moderate was simply a regurgitation of Muslim Brotherhood propaganda.
Why was our embassy staff in Benghazi allowed to die over the course of seven hours when we had assets in range? Why did Obama order the CIA, the State Department, and the military response teams to stand down while they watched on live video feeds from our drones overhead?
If you have read the above you know that President Obama watched in live video feed from our drones as our embassy staff was slaughtered. The CIA, State Department FEST (Foreign Emergency Support Team), Military, and the Counterterrorism Security Group were all told to stand down. Even after our Benghazi Consulate was the fourth embassy to come under attack in 24 hours. There is no excuse.
The Veterans
Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), a Marine veteran, says that every meeting he has held lately is filled with veterans who want to know more about the Benghazi massacre and cover-up. “The military no longer trusts that Obama has their back” Roberts said.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said that, veterans and the military “Have no confidence in this President as Commander in Chief” and he said that “the military is angry like I have never seen before”.
While the CBS, NBC and ABC evening news ignore this story (CBS did report on this on their web site) Fox News, some newspapers, blogs and talk radio are all over it and the word is getting out.
The Obama administration sat by doing nothing for seven hours that night, ignoring calls to dispatch help from our bases in Italy, less than two hours away. It has spent the past seven weeks stretching the story out, engaging in misdirection and deception involving supposed indigenous outrage over an obscure anti-Muslim video, confident that with the aid of a docile press corps this infamous climax to four years of misguided foreign policy can be swept under the rug, at least until after Tuesday’s election.
The Obama administration was warned. They received an embassy cable June 25 expressing concern over rising Islamic extremism in Benghazi, noting the black flag of al-Qaida “has been spotted several times flying over government buildings and training facilities.” The Obama administration removed a well-armed, 16-member security detail from Libya in August, The Wall Street Journal reported last month, replacing it with a couple of locals. Mr. Stevens sent a cable Aug. 2 requesting 11 additional body guards, noting “Host nation security support is lacking and cannot be depended on,” reports Peter Ferrara at Forbes.com. But these requests were denied, officials testified before the House Oversight Committee earlier this month.
Based on documents released by the committee, on the day of the attack the Pentagon dispatched a drone with a video camera so everyone in Washington could see what was happening in real time. The drone documented no crowds protesting any video. But around 4 p.m. Washington received an email from the Benghazi mission saying it was under a military-style attack. The White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA were able to watch the live video feed. An email sent later that day reported “Ansar al-Sharia claims responsibility for Benghazi attack.”
Not only did the White House do nothing, there are now reports that a counterterrorism team ready to launch a rescue mission was ordered to stand down.
The official explanation for the inadequate security? This administration didn’t want to “offend the sensibilities” of the new radical Islamic regime which American and British arms had so recently helped install in Libya.
The official explanation for why Obama administration officials watched the attack unfold for seven hours, refusing repeated requests to send the air support and relief forces that sat less than two hours away in Italy? Silence.
These behaviors go far beyond “spin.” They amount to a pack of lies. To return to office a narcissistic amateur who seeks to ride this nation’s economy and international esteem to oblivion, like Slim Pickens riding the nuclear bomb to its target at the end of the movie “Dr. Strangelove,” would be disastrous.
The Obama administration entered office with a theory of foreign policy that has failed the test of practice.
Candidate Obama promised a responsible end to the war in Iraq. But in 2008 the war was won and Iraq on a fragile path to stability and alignment with the United States. His administration declared that it wanted a continuing presence of thousands of American troops in Iraq; in fact, it appears, he did not believe in his own policy. President Obama’s policy has thus left us today with no presence, no leverage, and no credibility with the Iraqi leadership. Iran uses Iraqi air space and roads to resupply the Assad dictatorship.
Candidate Obama called Afghanistan a “war of necessity,” and promised to win it. But President Obama’s declaration of a date certain to end American combat operations discouraged our friends and heartened our enemies. Afghans, who know from bitter experience what abandonment can mean, are picking sides. In 2008 there were two “green on blue” attacks by Afghans against NATO forces. In the first nine months of 2012 there have been 33.
Candidate Obama defined our war with Islamist terrorists as being against the Al Qaeda organization that existed on September 10, 2001. But targeted killing is a tactic, not a strategy. The president and his advisers have crowed that the enemy is “on the verge of strategic defeat.” That complacency explains their bafflement at the precisely executed mortar barrage, the rocket propelled grenades and machine gun fire that demolished our consulate in Benghazi, killing four Americans, including the first American ambassador to die violently in over three decades.
The lapping of the Islamist tide through North Africa, Yemen, parts of South and Southeast Asia, and now in Syria suggests that they never really came to grips with who the enemy is. We have changed; so too has Al Qaeda, which has spread far beyond the Pakistan borderlands.
Candidate Obama believed that his life story would win over the Muslim world. He attempted to realize that notion in his Cairo speech, delivered on a trip to the Middle East that deliberately avoided Israel. But President Obama’s charisma and personal history failed him. In 2008, for example, 19 percent of Pakistanis had a favorable view of the United States. Today 12 percent do. And Pakistan is far from the only case.
The true audacity of the Obama administration lies less in its proclaimed foreign policy hopes, than in its insistence that its record is one of foreign policy success. It has, rather, been one of embarrassment, failure, and in some cases, disaster.
Because of the last four years, we face a world in which our enemies do not fear us, our friends do not believe they can trust us, and those who maneuver between the two camps feel that they will not get in trouble by crossing us. It is time, and more than time, to choose a different course.
The Wall Street Journal has more of the same, and even the “in the tank” for Obama Washington Post is stunned. They give Fox News credit for solid, aggressive reporting while insulting them later in the same sentence (to save face with liberal readers no doubt).
When you are done reading be sure to see Benghazigate Part I and the following link has all of our coverage on this emerging scandal.
In a nutshell what is new:
More evidence on the timeline and what the White House knew and when they knew it.
New documents discovered show that Chris Stevens told the State Department that Al-Qaeda forces were gathering in Benghazi and that he believes the consulate was next. His warning was ignored.
Ambassador Chris Stevens called and spoke with Gregory Hicks, The Deputy Chief of Mission in Tripoli, begging for help as the attack began. We had TWO drones overhead. Hicks notified Washington.
Ed Klein reports that Hillary Clinton also asked President Obama to send in help and he said no.
CBS News releases information form confidential emails showing that Obama would not even assemble the counter terrorism group and reports that they were told to stand down.
Ambassador Stevens’ emails to State Department: Al-Qaeda forces are gathering in Benghazi and this consulate is the next target.
His warnings, which were classified by the Obama Administration but leaked, came in the weeks and even hours before the attacks so why were his security teams taken away, even under protest? Previous requests for more security were not only denied, but they were told to stop making the requests.
Catherine Herridge in the video below: The State Department has culpability in the deaths of these four Americans. The warnings were specific, they were direct, they named the enemy and they said that this consulate needed more support. Stevens said that the Consulate should move long term into the CIA Annex. [Diana West has a transcript of Heridge’s remarks in the video below as well as more details on the terror groups mention. Nice work Diana – Editor.]
Also in this video Intelligence Committee member Jason Chaffetz: Ambassador Chris Stevens called and spoke with Gregory Hicks, The Deputy Chief of Mission in Tripoli, begging for help as the attack began. Hicks notified Washington.
Chaffetz says that he spoke with (former as of a few days ago) AFRICOM commander Gen. Carter Ham personally. Chaffetz says Ham told him, “he did not get a directive from the White House, from the president of the United States to engage in the fire fight to help protect those people.”
“Mr. President, you can’t have it both ways,” Chaffetz added. “You can’t say that you are doing everything you can to protect the people in Benghazi when we are under attack — a fire fight that starts at 9:40 at night and goes to the wee hours of the morning — and say you did everything when the military did not engage.” Says Cheffetz, we had proximity, we had capability, and we had opportunity and the President would not pull the trigger.
Emails from the embassy staff to the State Department, local military commands such as AFRICOM, the CIA, DoD, DNI, and the White House Situation Room were sent DURING the attack. They watched the attack in real time via the drones flying overhead.
Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer along with Col. David Hunt said that his sources say that Obama was one of the people in the room watching the Benghazi attack. Col. Hunt explains how and who was watching the live feed from the two drones overhead. Says Col. Hunt, “This was also the fourth embassy in 24 hours to come under attack so the entire U.S. Government was paying attention”.
[Editor’s Note – Col. Hunt says that the President or the Secretary of Defense could have ordered the military to intervene, but it didn’t happen. President Obama said that he ordered the military to do all that they could to help, did the Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta disobey that order or is Obama lying again? Remember that after the “it was the video” lie was busted the next lie was “it was the fog of war, we had no communication, then we had too much communication” then after that the story was that we didn’t know what was going on and we didn’t want to send our guys into an ambush. But what better data is there than contact with people on the ground and two drones giving a live feed?
There are standing orders to preserve American life when such a call comes in. Why were those orders not followed or were commands ordered to stand down?
Local CIA teams were told to stand down multiple times during the attack while in contact with Washington. The AC-130 gunship was certainly overhead because one of our people on the ground was painting the mortar target with a handheld laser designator that works with the fire control system of an AC-130. You do not waste batteries on the laser designator and make yourself a target in the process if you are not in direct contact with close air support.]
Two U.S. officials tell Eli Lake at The Daily Beast that the State Department never requested military backup the night of the attack.
Arab TV is reporting that documents found at the site confirm that Stevens was sending emails about the security situation HOURS before the attack. Foreign Policy Magazine also has the story:
BENGHAZI, Libya — More than six weeks after the shocking assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi — and nearly a month after an FBI team arrived to collect evidence about the attack – the battle-scarred, fire-damaged compound where Ambassador Chris Stevens and another Foreign Service officer lost their lives on Sept. 11 still holds sensitive documents and other relics of that traumatic final day, including drafts of two letters worrying that the compound was under “troubling” surveillance and complaining that the Libyan government failed to fulfill requests for additional security.
When we visited on Oct. 26 to prepare a story for Dubai based Al Aan TV, we found not only Stevens’s personal copy of the Aug. 6 New Yorker, lying on remnants of the bed in the safe room where Stevens spent his final hours, but several ash-strewn documents beneath rubble in the looted Tactical Operations Center, one of the four main buildings of the partially destroyed compound. Some of the documents — such as an email from Stevens to his political officer in Benghazi and a flight itinerary sent to Sean Smith, a U.S. diplomat slain in the attack — are clearly marked as State Department correspondence.Others are unsigned printouts of messages to local and national Libyan authorities. The two unsigned draft letters are both dated Sept. 11 and express strong fears about the security situation at the compound on what would turn out to be a tragic day. They also indicate that Stevens and his team had officially requested additional security at the Benghazi compound for his visit — and that they apparently did not feel it was being provided.
One letter, written on Sept. 11 and addressed to Mohamed Obeidi, the head of the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ office in Benghazi, reads:
“Finally, early this morning at 0643, September 11, 2012, one of our diligent guards made a troubling report. Near our main gate, a member of the police force was seen in the upper level of a building across from our compound. It is reported that this person was photographing the inside of the U.S. special mission and furthermore that this person was part of the police unit sent to protect the mission. The police car stationed where this event occurred was number 322.”
The account accords with a message written by Smith, the IT officer who was killed in the assault, on a gaming forum on Sept. 11. “Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures,” he wrote hours before the assault.
White House has disclosed that President Obama was informed about the attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi at roughly 5pm by his National Security Adviser Tom Donilon as he was in a pre-scheduled meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey. At that meeting, senior administration officials say, the President ordered that the U.S. begin moving military assets into the region to prepare for a range of contingencies.
We believe this is misinformation. We know that there was a previously scheduled meeting with President Obama at 5pm, which is an hour and twenty minutes into the attack. What we do not believe was that this was the first that the President knew about the attack. As Col. Hunt said, this was September 11th and three of our embassies had already been attacked that day. The entire US Government was watching. Everyone was on a heightened state of readiness.
Remember when we said that the Obama administration may be in denial of terrorism because they were caught up in a “mission accomplished” mentality? Today there are reports that President Obama said in a speech in Ohio that bin Laden is dead and Al-Qaeda is finished. After Al-Qaeda killed our people in Libya they flew the Al-Qaeda flag over our consulate.
Did Barack Obama have a “Mission Accomplished” moment with dreadful consequences in Libya? Libya’s former Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril believes he did.
Perhaps you’ll recall when George W. Bush stood on the flight deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and a banner positioned behind him read “Mission Accomplished” regarding Iraq on May 1, 2003. It was a moment that haunted him throughout the rest of his presidency and beyond, as the Iraq War continued on for eight and a half more years.
And just as many Democrats say Bush made a premature call after the sacking of Baghdad and the toppling of the Hussein regime, so too the former Libyan PM says Obama counted his eggs before they hatched.
Jibril has “accused the United States and its NATO allies of high-tailing it out of [Libya] as soon as dictator Moammar Gadhafi was disposed a year ago.” He says the quick departure created “a power vacuum” that has allowed radicals, like those who attacked the Benghazi consulate, to strengthen their numbers and flourish.
According to Jibril:
After the collapse of the regime, the immediate task of our friends was to help us rebuild the government before they withdrew from Libya. [But] the moment the regime fell down, they felt that their mission [had] been accomplished. I think it was a premature decision.
Ed Klein, a confidant of Bill Clinton (known as one of the Clintonista’s) tells Andrew Wilkow that Hillary Clinton asked President Obama to respond as the attack happened and Obama refused. See the video interview HERE.
CBS News: Counterterrorism Security Group told to stand down
CBS News has learned that during the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Obama Administration did not convene its top interagency counterterrorism resource: the Counterterrorism Security Group, (CSG).
“The CSG is the one group that’s supposed to know what resources every agency has. They know of multiple options and have the ability to coordinate counterterrorism assets across all the agencies,” a high-ranking government official told CBS News. “They were not allowed to do their job. They were not called upon.”
Information shared with CBS News from top counterterrorism sources in the government and military reveal keen frustration over the U.S. response on Sept. 11, the night ambassador Chris Stevens and 3 other Americans were killed in a coordinated attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.
The circumstances of the attack, including the intelligence and security situation there, will be the subject of a Senate Intelligence Committee closed hearing on Nov. 15, with additional hearings to follow.
Counterterrorism sources and internal emails reviewed by CBS News express frustration that key responders were ready to deploy, but were not called upon to help in the attack.
Now read carefully – from CBS:
Another senior counter terrorism official says a hostage rescue team was alternately asked to get ready and then stand down throughout the night, as officials seemed unable to make up their minds.
“The response process was isolated at the most senior level,” says an official referring to top officials in the executive branch. “My fellow counterterrorism professionals and I (were) not consulted.”
This of course is a bomb shell. What is interesting is that Speaker Newt Gingrich said that he knows of two major news agencies that have these emails, including the story about the stand down order, and that a Senator told him of this [probably the same Senator who leaked it to CBS and Glenn Beck in the first place who is almost certainly an Intelligence Committee member – Editor].
What is even more interesting is that Glen Beck not only said the same thing but he threatened that if said major news network waited until after the election to release these emails that he would out them, name names, etc. Hours later CBS released the story above.
Greg Davis, a retired DIA and State Department official tells Political Arena, “I think this is the first time in modern history where we can absolutely NOT trust our President to protect our troops; in this case, we need to protect them from him”. Davis has a light hearted blog where he talks about deadly serious things and offers up some of his speculation and what information he is still able to glean. He is not happy that our people were allowed to die while the White House situation room watched.
UPDATE – Followup report from Jennifer Griffon: More on the ground sources confirm they asked for help and were ordered to stand down – LINK:
On Sunday’s political talk shows, several Republicans criticized the Obama administration’s response to the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. Here’s Senator John McCain of Arizona on CBS’s Face the Nation:
You know, this administration is very good at touting and giving all the details like when they got Bin Laden. But now, we know that there were tapes, recordings inside the consulate during this fight, and they’ve gotten—they came—the F.B.I. finally got in and took those, and now they’re classified as “top secret.” Why would they be top secret? So the president went on various shows, despite what he said he said in the Rose Garden, about terrorist acts, he went on several programs, including “The View” including “Letterman” including before the U.N., where he continued to refer, days later, many days later, to this as a spontaneous demonstration because of a hateful video. We know that is patently false. What did the president know? When did he know it? And what did he do about it?
McCain said for “literally days and days” the White House “told the American people something that had no basis in fact whatsoever.”
Newt Gingrich, on ABC’s This Week:
But the bigger issue is, whether it’s unemployment or it is what happened in Benghazi, where we’ve had this strange situation over the weekend that the Secretary of Defense apparently refused to obey the President’s order, if the president is telling the truth and he actually instructed his assistants to get aid to Benghazi, we’re now being told that the Secretary of Defense canceled that. And I think these kinds of things all drag down the Obama campaign.
Ohio senator Rob Portman talked on Fox News Sunday about a “shocking breakdown” with regard to the Obama administration’s response:
This is not about politics. This is about a huge national security issue that affects all of us and there was a shocking breakdown, operationally, not to have the security there in the first place. And then not to respond to these guys, in their pleas for help for 7 hours, during a firefight. It’s unbelievable and now, we are hearing that the president of the United States, based on his own words, issued a directive immediately after he found out about the firefight, saying that he wanted to be sure those people on the ground were safe and they were getting what they needed. It didn’t happen. This means either that the president’s order was not followed, which would be a breakdown in terms of the White House procedure, or, it means the order wasn’t issued. We need to find out about this, it is not about politics, it is a very serious situation. After the fact, of course, there’s also been a lot of confusion about what happened and why it happened.
Here’s Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, also on Fox News Sunday:
Chris, the American people have the right to know. And that is what they are demanding here in Wisconsin. I mean, let’s face it. What was the president doing during those 7 hours? Did he give that directive? Or didn’t he? Did Leon Panetta directly defy his directive? I mean, what happened? Who sent out, who sent Ambassador Rice out five days later when they knew it was a terrorist attack, that it was pre-planned, sent her out on the Sunday talk shows to say that in fact this was a spontaneous reaction to of course the video?
Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, on CNN’s State of the Union:
The mishandling of the situation in Benghazi. No answers, no transparency, 45 days after the fact is a great concern. Either the president gave an order that was disobeyed by the Secretary of Defense to provide support in Benghazi or he didn’t, and I think people want answers before this election on that, so that’s what’s going to determine the outcome.
Representative Jason Chaffetz also tells of his meeting with General Ham who said that no orders came to help those in Banghazi.
Democrat Senator Udal, who sits on the Intelligence Committee, confirmed that drones were overhead during the attack so all could see what was happening in real time:
Two days after the Libya terror attack, representatives of the FBI and National Counterterrorism Center gave Capitol Hill briefings in which they said the evidence supported an Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda-affiliated attack, Fox News has learned.
The description of the attack by those in the Sept. 13 briefings stands in stark contrast to the now controversial briefing on Capitol Hill by CIA Director David Petraeus the following day — and raises even more questions about why Petraeus described the attack as tied to a demonstration.
The Sept. 13 assessment was based on intercepts that included individuals, believed to have participated in the attack, who were celebratory — as well as a claim of responsibility.
FBI and NCTC also briefed that there were a series of Al Qaeda training camps just outside of Benghazi, where the attack occurred and resulted in the deaths of four Americans. The area was described as a hotbed for the militant Ansar al-Sharia as well as Al Qaeda in North Africa.
Fox News is told there was no mention of a demonstration or any significant emphasis on the anti-Islam video that for days was cited by administration officials as a motivating factor.
The FBI and NCTC did not immediately respond to a request from Fox News for comment.
Fox News is told that the Petraeus briefing on Sept. 14 conflicted with that of the FBI and NCTC.
On Capitol Hill, Petraeus characterized the attack as more consistent with a flash mob, where the militants showed up spontaneously with RPG’s. Petraeus downplayed to lawmakers the skill needed to fire mortars, which were also used in the attack and to some were seen as evidence of significant pre-planning. As Fox News previously reported, four mortars were fired — two missed the annex, but the mortar team re-calibrated and the next two mortars were direct hits.
Fox News is told that Petraeus seemed wedded to the narrative that the attack was linked to a demonstration and was spontaneous as opposed to pre-meditated.
Editor’s Note – one of my closest sources told me that CIA Director Petraeus was trying to carry the water for the administration about “blaming it on the video” when he full well knew better. I am glad that he came clean.
There is an urgent need for full disclosure of what has become the “Benghazi Betrayal and Cover-up.” The Obama national security team, including CIA, DNI and the Pentagon, apparently watched and listened to the assault on the U.S. consulate and cries for help but did nothing. If someone had described a fictional situation with a similar scenario and described our leadership ignoring the pleas for help, I would have said it was not realistic—not in my America – but I would have been proven wrong.
We now know why Ambassador Christopher Stevens had to be in Benghazi the night of 9/11 to meet a Turkish representative, even though he feared for his safety. According to various reports, one of Stevens’ main missions in Libya was to facilitate the transfer of much of Gadhafi’s military equipment, including the deadly SA-7 – portable SAMs – to Islamists and other al Qaeda-affiliated groups fighting the Assad Regime in Syria. In an excellent article, Aaron Klein states that Stevens routinely used our Benghazi consulate (mission) to coordinate the Turkish, Saudi Arabian and Qatari governments’ support for insurgencies throughout the Middle East. Further, according to Egyptian security sources, Stevens played a “central role in recruiting Islamic jihadists to fight the Assad Regime in Syria.”
In another excellent article, Clare Lopez at RadicalIslam.org noted that there were two large warehouse-type buildings associated with our Benghazi mission. During the terrorist attack, the warehouses were probably looted. We do not know what was there and if it was being administrated by our two former Navy SEALs and the CIA operatives who were in Benghazi. Nonetheless, the equipment was going to hardline jihadis.
Once the attack commenced at 10:00 p.m. Libyan time (4:00 p.m. EST), we know the mission security staff immediately contacted Washington and our embassy in Tripoli. It now appears the White House, Pentagon, State Department, CIA, NDI, JCS and various other military commands monitored the entire battle in real time via frantic phone calls from our compound and video from an overhead drone. The cries for help and support went unanswered.
Our Benghazi mission personnel, including our two former Navy SEALs, fought for seven hours without any assistance other than help from our embassy in Tripoli, which launched within 30 minutes an aircraft carrying six Americans and 16 Libyan security guards. It is understood they were instrumental in helping 22 of our Benghazi mission personnel escape the attack.
Once the attack commenced, Stevens was taken to a “safe room” within the mission. It is not known whether his location was betrayed by the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, the local force providing security to the consulate, which had ties to the Ansar al-Sharia terrorist group conducting the attack, and to al Qaeda. Unbelievably, we still do not know how Ambassador Stevens died.
The Obama national security team, including CIA, DNI, State Department and the Pentagon, watched and listened to the assault but did nothing to answer repeated calls for assistance. It has been reported that President Obama met with Vice President Joseph R. Biden and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in the Oval Office, presumably to see what support could be provided. After all, we had very credible military resources within striking distance. At our military base in Sigonella, Sicily, which is slightly over 400 miles from Benghazi, we had a fully equipped Special Forces unit with both transport and jet strike aircraft prepositioned. Certainly this was a force much more capable than the 22-man force from our embassy in Tripoli.
I know those Special Forces personnel were ready to leap at the opportunity. There is no doubt in my mind they would have wiped out the terrorists attackers. Also I have no doubt that Admiral William McRaven, Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, would have had his local commander at Sigonella ready to launch; however, apparently he was countermanded—by whom? We need to know.
I also understand we had a C-130 gunship available, which would have quickly disposed of the terrorist attackers. This attack went on for seven hours. Our fighter jets could have been at our Benghazi mission within an hour. Our Special Forces out of Sigonella could have been there within a few hours. There is not any doubt that action on our part could have saved the lives of our two former Navy SEALs and possibly the ambassador.
Having been in a number of similar situations, I know you have to have the courage to do what’s right and take immediate action. Obviously, that courage was lacking for Benghazi. The safety of your personnel always remains paramount. With all the technology and military capability we had in theater, for our leadership to have deliberately ignored the pleas for assistance is not only in incomprehensible, it is un-American.
Somebody high up in the administration made the decision that no assistance (outside our Tripoli embassy) would be provided, and let our people be killed. The person who made that callous decision needs to be brought to light and held accountable. According to a CIA spokesperson, “No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need.” We also need to know whether the director of CIA and the director of National Intelligence were facilitators in the fabricated video lie and the overall cover-up. Their credibility is on the line. A congressional committee should be immediately formed to get the facts out to the American people. Nothing less is acceptable.
Retired Adm. James A. Lyons was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations.
[Editor’s Note – Cindy Sheehan lost a son in Iraq and the elite media put her on every day for many months. Obama ordered our forces to stand down and let Charles Woods’ son die in Libya fighting the enemy; and Woods can only get an interview on Fox News. Sean Smith’s mother got one interview on CNN and has had several on Fox. No one else want’s to interview her.]
Imagine that you are Charles Woods and you learned that the administration left your son to die when they had an AC130 gunship overhead ready to fire and help. The story from the Obama Administration keeps changing.
First it was “we didn’t know” and “we had no idea” and “fog of war”. After word got out that the White House was watching what was unfolding in real time as they had drones overhead and they were in contact with people on the ground the story changed to “Obama told people to do everything that they could to help”. Now we know that forces in the area were told to stand down three times during the attack. We also have a credible but unconfirmed report that AfriCom Commander General Ham was going to violate the stand down order and help. He was placed under arrest by General Rodriquez about 90 seconds after he made the decision.
Now the story has changed again to we did not want to send our reinforcements into an ambush…. umm you don’t ambush an AC130 gunship… it ambushes you.
AC-130 Gunship
The AC130 has advanced computer aimed fire controls. Our men on the ground were in contact with that AC130 and had laser designators on the enemy targets. All the AC130 gunship had to do was pull the trigger, but something prevented them from doing so.
CIA Operators Were Denied Request for Help During the Benghazi Attack
Judge Pirro goes nuclear – Interviews Father of slain Navy Seal
Megyn Kelly plays Charles Woods’ interview with Lars Larson
Charles Woods with Megyn Kelly –
A generation of liars who have no morals – Charles Woods on the White House staff.
SEAL’s father Charles Woods on Hannity: WH officials “murdered” my son
A much better interview of Charles Woods with Glenn Beck
Woods to Obama: Better to die the death of a hero than to live the life of a coward
Democrat Pollster Pat Caddell with Judge Pirro on how the media is helping Obama cover up Benghazigate and our four dead heroes. Pat Caddell is mad as hell.
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
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