Showing posts with label War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War. Show all posts

Sunday, November 11, 2012

ANOTHER REELECTION CELEBRATION: Hamas Terror Groups Pound Israel With Over 100 Rockets

Given the praise for Obama's reelection by its proxy in the U.S., this may be Hamas's way of celebrating.

Gaza groups pound Israel with over 100 rockets


Over 100 rockets, mortar shells hit South in past 24 hours, Israeli officials weigh "dramatic response."

Israel will not hesitate to launch a major IDF operation against Gaza-based terrorist factions if necessary, Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned on Sunday – after some 100 rockets hit southern Israel in 24 hours.

Rockets wounded three people in Sderot during a barrage fired to coincide with the morning commute to work. One man was moderately wounded in his car by shrapnel and flying glass.

Something from the heavens told me not to take my son with me to school today,” Moshik Levy, a physical education teacher, told Army Radio on Sunday after he was treated for his injuries.

“Shattered glass from my car windshield exploded into my face,” Levy said. “I started bleeding. I didn’t understand what was happening. Thankfully I was alone.”

A couple heading to work was lightly wounded by shrapnel. A fourth person sustained injuries while racing for cover at a bomb shelter as the rocket warning siren sounded.

Five people required treatment for shock, Magen David Adom paramedics said.

Later in the day, a Palestinian rocket scored a direct hit on a Sderot factory.

Sderot is too close to the Gaza Strip for the Iron Dome anti-rocket shield to work effectively over it.

And what does the Obama administration have to say about these attacks?

Cue the soundtrack of crickets chirping.


PHOTOS: Jill Kelley, woman reportedly harassed by Paula Broadwell in possible Petraeus blackmail scandal

More details regarding the FBI investigation that led to the resignation of David Petraeus have been revealed over the last several hours.

37-year old Jill Kelley, a friend of the Petraeus family, reportedly alerted the FBI about threatening emails that appeared to blackmail the CIA director.

Kelley of Tampa, Florida is married with three children. She and her sister are close friends of the Petraeus family and sometimes vacation together. Sources indicate that she was not involved in an affair with the former CIA chief.

The FBI was investigating harassing emails sent by Petraeus biographer and girlfriend Paula Broadwell to a second woman. That probe of Broadwell's emails revealed the affair between Broadwell and Petraeus. The FBI contacted Petraeus and other intelligence officials, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asked Petraeus to resign.

A senior U.S. military official identified the second woman as Jill Kelley, 37, who lives in Tampa, Fla., and serves as an unpaid social liaison to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, where the military's Central Command and Special Operations Command are located.

Staffers for Petraeus said Kelley and her husband were regular guests at events he held at Central Command headquarters. A U.S. official said the coalition countries represented at Central Command gave Kelley an appreciation certificate on which she was referred to as an "honorary ambassador" to the coalition, but she has no official status and is not employed by the U.S. government.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the case publicly, said Kelley is known to drop the "honorary" part and refer to herself as an ambassador.

The military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation, said Kelley had received harassing emails from Broadwell, which led the FBI to examine her email account and eventually discover her relationship with Petraeus.

A former associate of Petraeus confirmed the target of the emails was Kelley, but said there was no affair between the two, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the retired general's private life. The associate, who has been in touch with Petraeus since his resignation, says Kelley and her husband were longtime friends of Petraeus and wife, Holly.

The Telegraph confirms the friendship between the Kelley and Petraeus families.

Paula Broadwell, the former CIA director’s biographer and reported lover, allegedly sent a number of threatening messages to Jill Kelley, a 37-year-old civilian who organised parties for the US military, who became frightened and turned to the FBI for help.

...Although the emails, believed to have been sent anonymously by Mrs Broadwell, 40, were said to have contained hints at classified information, the FBI concluded that there was no security threat and that they were instead looking at a case of lover’s jealousy.

According to The New York Post, Mrs Broadwell, a mother of two, told Mrs Kelley: “I know what you did” and warned her to “back off” from the 60-year-old former general.

"We and our family have been friends with Gen Petraeus and his family for over five years. We respect his and his family's privacy and want the same for us and our three children," Mrs Kelley said in a statement.

Photographs showed the Petraeuses and the Kelleys posing together at a pirate-themed festival in 2010 and ABC News reported that the families had spent Christmases together.

It is not clear why Mrs Broadwell would believe that the mother-of-three, posed a threat to her relationship with the general.

Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle want to know whether national security was compromised for political reasons.

Members of Congress said Sunday they want to know more details about the FBI investigation that revealed an extramarital affair between ex-CIA Director David Petraeus and his biographer, questioning when the retired general popped up in the FBI inquiry, whether national security was compromised and why they weren't told sooner.


"We received no advanced notice. It was like a lightning bolt," said Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The critical question: how long did the Justice Department freeze the story, thereby endangering U.S. national security?

BEST PETRAEUS AFFAIR HEADLINE: It's the New York Post Hands Down, No Contest

Via Outside the Beltway:


Ouch.



Thursday, November 08, 2012

THE PRICE OF APPEASEMENT AND WEAKNESS: Iranian fighter jets fire on U.S. aircraft in international airspace

Did CNN hold onto this story until the day after the election?

Two fighter jets fired on an unmanned drone in international airspace without provocation


BARBARA STARR: New military tensions now with Iran. CNN has learned it was last Thursday, just one week ago, that two Iranian SU-25–old Russian fighter jets the Iranians operate–flew out in to the Persian Gulf into international air space and fired on a U.S. Air Force predator drone, an unmanned drone in international air space, that the Pentagon insists was conducting routine, although classified, maritime surveillance. The Iranian aircraft fired continuously; they did not hit the drone; the drone was able to return to base in that region. But this does raise some serious new tensions with Iran. It was, of course, just a few days before the presidential election here in the United States. Officials that we have talked to who are confirming it after we questioned them say they just don’t know at this point what the Iranians were up to. Were they just out to cause trouble or were they really trying to bring down that U.S. drone, Brooke.

BROOK BALDWIN: this is clearly raising tensions as you point out. Could this be considered an act of war?

STARR: Well, it’s an interesting question, I suppose for the Pentagon lawyers. The thing is, you know, they fired–the U.S. believes, we’re told–in an unprovoked fashion. They say that the drone was in international air space about 16 miles off the Iranian coast in the northern end of the Gulf, and that it was completely unprovoked and without warning. The Pentagon, through the State Department, has protested to the Iranian government. The Pentagon says they haven’t heard back from Tehran.

Yes, the Obama administration issued a sternly worded memo to Iran.

That laughter you heard came all the way from Tehran as the Mullahs plot the nuclear destruction of the Great Satan and Little Satan.

History's lessons are as real as tomorrow's sunrise: the wages of appeasement against aggression is always more aggression.

But, please, CNN: whatever you do, don't report on Hezbollah operating in Mexico nor on the risk of Iran's nuclear weapons being smuggled over America's unprotected southern border into the U.S.

If a few American cities get taken out by Iran's nukes, after all, we might get a budget underrun for Obamacare -- at least for a week or so. And what an inconvenience that would be for the progressive drones: a single nuke can take out over 100 Starbucks in less than 25 milliseconds.


Monday, November 05, 2012

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG: Valerie Jarrett reportedly in secret negotiations with Iran's Mullahs

The woman who told Obama he would bring the Olympics to Chicago and who blocked the Bin Laden raid on three separate occasions is said to be negotiating with the Mullahs (you know them, they're the suicidal mystics with nukes):

One of US president's senior advisors is secretly making efforts to establish line of communication with Iran

A Chicago lawyer is the key player behind the secret talks between the US and Iran. Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday. A close friend of Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett is assisting the US government communicate behind the scenes with the representatives of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei... Jarret, who was born in the Iranian city of Shiraz, is a senior advisor to US President Barack Obama.

Last month, The New York Times reported that the US government is engaged in secret talks with Iran aimed at establishing a direct line of communication once the US presidential elections are over... The US has tried to keep the secret contacts under wraps since some of the countries involved in the public negotiations, such as Russia, were excluded from them.

...Israel was originally surprised to learn of the talks, but state officials now reveal that they were going on for several months. The talks, they claim, were initiated and led by Jarret, and took place in Bahrain.

The US State Department estimated the economic pressure on Iran will peek in February or March, immidiately after the president-elect takes office, rendering the talks over Iran's nuclear program – in case they materialize – with potentially positive results.

Of course, Jarrett's timing is -- as you would expect -- impeccable:

Iranians burn US flags to mark embassy seizure


Thousands of Iranians chanting "Death to America" burnt US flags on Friday to mark the 33rd anniversary of the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, just days before the American presidential election.

The demonstrators also chanted anti-British and anti-Israeli slogans, and burnt Israeli flags, in front of the site of the former embassy, dubbed the "den of spies" by the authorities who sponsor the annual commemoration, an AFP photographer reported.

This year's rally came just days before Tuesday's US presidential election in which Republican challenger Mitt Romney has made Iran's controversial nuclear programme a top foreign policy issue...

...After long denying the impact of the [sanctions], Iranian leaders are now beginning to acknowledge the extent of the damage and denouncing what they say is an "economic war" against the Islamic republic.

"Those who say that by compromising with the US, the economic situation will improve... (should know that) this is a big lie and deceit," Naqdi said... "We have declared a 10 kilo (22 pounds) in gold reward for researchers and historians, who have 10 years to prove that there is a more criminal country than America in the world... the US is the most hated among all nations."

And, heaven knows, Jarrett is eminently qualified to act as a global negotiator, what with her vast foreign policy experience. I'll ask again: what could possibly go wrong?


Third Anniversary of Ft. Hood "Workplace Violence"

Dan from New York:

Via Michelle Malkin:

Thirteen men and women, plus the unborn child of Pvt. Francheska Velez, died in the bloody terrorist rampage at Fort Hood three years ago today.

Never forget.

1. Lt. Col. Juanita Warman, 55, Havre de Grace, Md.
2. Maj. Libardo Caraveo, 52, Woodbridge, Va.
3. Cpt. John P. Gaffaney, 54, San Diego, Calif.
4. Cpt. Russell Seager, 41, Racine, Wis.
5. Staff Sgt. Justin Decrow, 32, Plymouth, Ind.
6. Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, Kiel, Wis.
7. Spc. Jason Hunt, 22, Tillman, Okla.
8. Spc. Frederick Greene, 29, Mountain City, Tenn.
9. PFC Aaron Nemelka, 19, West Jordan, Utah
10. PFC Michael Pearson, 22, Bolingbrook, Ill.
11. PFC Kham Xiong, 23, St. Paul, Minn.
12. Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, Chicago, Ill. and her unborn baby
13. Michael G. Cahill, Cameron, Texas [civilian]

The current appeaser-in-chief refuses to abandon the dhimmi definition of the attack as “workplace violence.” Need more reason to get out tomorrow and vote him out?

Listen to the families of those who were murdered.

America's national security hangs in the balance with this election. The debacle in Benghazi and President Obama's whispered promises of "flexibility" to Russia's President are only the most obvious signs of an impending disaster.


Sunday, November 04, 2012

TWIN TIMELINE: What was happening in Benghazi and Washington

Update: The latest version of the timeline is here.


On October 31st, I heard Newt Gingrich ask for a twin timeline to help illustrate what was happening in Benghazi and in Washington. Newt's wish is my command:


Some interesting observations:

• Hillary Clinton's aspirations for higher office are toast: despite numerous requests for additional security, the State Department adamantly refused each time -- for, what would seem, purely political reasons. Those partisan games cost four Americans their lives.

• The "Internet video" tale was an egregious lie foisted upon the American public by an administration committed to additional spiking of the Bin Laden football -- again, for purely political reasons.

• Methinks any effort to distribute the Bin Laden movie/Obama infomercial before the election will be extremely distasteful for most American.

What are your thoughts?


Friday, November 02, 2012

YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO ARMED FORCES BALLOTS MAILED FROM AFGHANISTAN: Yep. They Were "Lost".

But I'm sure Eric Holder will launch a thorough investigation any second now:

Postal officials are investigating the apparent loss of some absentee ballots mailed from Afghanistan.

A contractor who sent an email to Military Times said his county elections clerk in Texas had not received his ballot or his co-worker’s ballot by Thursday, although they mailed the ballots Sept. 27. “The Bagram Airfield Army post office placed Express mail tracking numbers on them, placed the ballots in an orange ‘Ballot Box,’ and probably in a dedicated mail bag.

“If our ballots got lost, how many other ballots are lost as well?” he wrote.

Military Postal Service Agency officials are working with the U.S. Postal Service to resolve the issue, said James Clark, chief of the operations division of the Military Postal Service Agency. It’s unknown whether other ballots may have been affected.

The contractor stated the tracking information shows their ballots are still in Bahrain, and have been sitting there since Sept. 30.

Once again, the votes of our best and brightest are suppressed, while the Obama administration tacitly encourages illegal immigrants, felons and the dead to vote Democrat.

You know what we need to do on November 6th. And hopefully the margin of victory will be sufficient to represent a complete and total repudiation of the Democrat Party.

Flush twice. It's the only way to be sure.


Wednesday, October 31, 2012

BOOM: Hey, How's That "Ignoring Benghazi" Strategy Working Out for Antique Media?

Let's compare Mondays -- one before Benghazi, one after -- and remove as much noise as we can from the equation (debates, Hurricane Sandy, etc.).

Fox News must be praying that the Leftist kooks running the other cable news operations continue their embargo on the biggest political scandal since Watergate.


FAST AND FURIOUS IN BENGHAZI: Timing of Attack Hints at Double-Cross of White House Gun-Running Operation by Turkey

Clare Lopez is an international security consultant at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies. She is uniquely qualified to analyze the intelligence and defense communities not only through her current professional connections, but also because of her 20-year background with the CIA. She served for 20 years as an operations officer specializing in counterintelligence, counternarcotics, and counterproliferation programs.

Today, writing at RI.org, Lopez spots a very troubling anomaly with the timeline of the Benghazi attack. And, as if there aren't enough unanswered questions about the attacks and the subsequent White House cover-up, her discovery has the potential to implicate Turkish officials in the murders.

...Ambassador Christopher Stevens held his last meeting of the day on September 11 with [a]] Turkish diplomat [Ali Sait Akin] from 7:30pm to 8:30pm and then escorted him out to the compound gate to bid farewell. At that point, the briefing states, “Everything is calm at 8:30 p.m. There’s nothing unusual.”

But the AP witnesses said that, “The neighbors all described the militants setting up checkpoints around the compound at about 8 p.m.” The checkpoints were described as being manned by bearded jihadis in pickup trucks mounted with heavy machine guns and bearing the logo of the Al-Qaeda terror franchise, Ansar al-Shariah.

That means that the Turkish Consul General would have had to pass out through the blockade as he departed the American compound and left the area. There is no record that he phoned a warning to his American colleague, the one he’d just had dinner with, Ambassador Stevens. Given the description of the blockade around the American compound and of the jihadis and their trucks that were manning it, it seems unlikely that the he somehow just failed to notice. “[N]o one could get out or in,” according to one neighbor interviewed by the AP.

Except for the Turkish Consul General, it would appear.

Stevens was a sitting duck, a target surrounded by the jihadist attackers who shortly would take his life and that of his Public Affairs Officer, Sean Smith.

...Similarly, this raises the question of the Libyan gate guards from the "February 17 Martyrs Brigade," the jihadi militia subcontracted by the British firm Blue Mountain, which was the prime contractor for the U.S. Benghazi compound security contract... [T]he Libyans of the Martyrs Brigade surely must have been [aware of the checkpoints]. Yet they provided no warning to the Ambassador and his people either, because again, according to the State Department briefing, the American security officers inside were taken by surprise when the first gunshots and explosions rang out around 9:40 pm...

In other words, the Turkish Consul General met with Stevens -- the discussion topics of which have not been released by the State Department -- and then left the Ambassador, drove safely through a newly-established terrorist checkpoint, and disappeared into the night without warning his colleague.

Lopez asserts that "it is obvious that the Turkish diplomat and by extension, his government, were at least to some degree complicit in the attack against Ambassador Stevens and the others."

What was the subject of the discussion between Stevens and Akin? Malta Today offers some context that hints at some strong possibilities.

A Libyan-flagged vessel which last year was used by a Malta-based humanitarian organisation in supplying a lifeline to rebels in Misurata, has been implicated in a covert US arms smuggling operation to Syrian freedom fighters, which may also be linked to murdered US ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi last month.

The ship 'Al Entisar' which was chartered last year by I-Go Aid Libya, then run by businessman Mario Debono, has been reported to be linked to last September's attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.


A Fox News investigation revealed that shipping records confirmed that the Al Entisar entered the Turkish port of Iskenderun, some 35 miles from the Syrian border, just five days before Ambassador Chris Stevens, and three other US officials were killed during an assault by more than 100 Islamist militants on the US Consulate compound in Benghazi.

Another report, this time appearing on the Times of London, said that the Al Entisar was carrying 400 tons of cargo. Some of it was humanitarian, but also reportedly weapons, described by the report as the largest consignment of weapons headed for Syria's rebels on the frontlines...

...The cargo reportedly included surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles, RPGs and Russian-designed shoulder-launched missiles known as MANPADS.

The ship's Libyan captain reportedly told the Times of London that "I can only talk about the medicine and humanitarian aid" for the Syrian rebels.

It was reported there was a fight about the weapons and who got what "between the free Syrian Army and the Muslim Brotherhood."

A reasonable person would deduce from these stories that the United States was running weapons (does "Fast and Furious" ring a bell?) from Libya to Syria using Turkey as a go-between. The end result turned out to be a complete disaster -- like everything this administration attempts.

The Libyan weapons likely went to the Muslim Brotherhood and a Turkish diplomat appears to have helped set up the assassination of Ambassador Stevens. We simply don't know whether the government of Turkey itself was involved with the double-cross or whether Akin was a Brotherhood sympathizer who helped set up the attack.

The families of those murdered deserve answers. America deserves answers. And we can start the interrogatory by firing this administration on November 6th and launching a full-scale Congressional investigation. We don't have to take this s*** any more.


Update: Clinton discloses West's effort to help reshape Syria opposition

EXCLUSIVE: Artist's Depiction of White House Situation Room as Benghazi Attack Unfolded

Redman Bluestate offers this courtroom sketch:


Note: You can get all of the latest Benghazi headlines at BadBlue.com, the real-time news service that automatically finds the stories antique media doesn't want you to see.


Tuesday, October 30, 2012

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Careers Will Be Destroyed by Benghazi

Stanford Fellow Victor Davis Hanson offers a historian's perspective on the catastrophe in Benghazi.

...When the government systematically misleads and cannot establish a believable narrative, almost everyone involved is eventually tarred. The final chart of those officials in the Nixon White House who were devoured by Watergate was vast — and so it is becoming with the disaster in Libya. If we have learned anything from Watergate and Iran-Contra, it is that the longer officials deceive and obfuscate, the greater the number of wrecked careers and reputations...

...Most likely, the political wing of the White House almost immediately made a decision that the attack on our Benghazi consulate should not endanger the conventional narrative of a successful commander-in-chief — ahead in the polls in part because he had highlighted a supposedly successful foreign policy. Key to that story was the notion that the hit on bin Laden and the drone attacks on other Islamists had rendered al-Qaeda all but impotent...

...In such a landscape, Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans were brutally murdered. And almost immediately it was clear that the ambassador had earlier warned that Libya was descending into chaos and that Americans were not safe there — only to have his requests for further protection rejected.

During the actual assault on the consulate, a real-time video, streams of e-mail exchanges, and surveys of Islamist websites confirmed that al-Qaedists were carrying out a preplanned assassination — and over the next seven or eight hours it became clear that our staff was in dire need of military assistance that was somehow never sent. Then for nearly two weeks, the president, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Press Secretary Jay Carney, and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice advanced a counter-narrative that simply could not have been true: A spontaneous demonstration over a two-month-old video — just happening to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11 — got out of hand as some disruptive protesters showed up with machines gun, mortars, and RPGs and began killing Americans. Since it was an American religious bigot who had prompted such terrible but “natural” riots with his video that ridiculed and injured Islam, we should apologize for the uncouth among us in the strongest terms.

Obama, Clinton, Clapper, Rice, and Carney strove to outdo each other in damning the obscure video maker — to such an extent that he was summarily arrested on a supposedly outstanding probation charge. The message? Ambassadors die and careful U.S. foreign policy is undermined when right-wing bigots abuse their free-speech rights...

Hanson's next column should deal with the historic malfeasance of old media, a wholly owned subsidiary of the federal government.


Hat tip: Ame.

Monday, October 29, 2012

ERNST SHREIBER: What Ty Woods and Glen Doherty Should Have Done to Get the President's Attention

But before we get to what these two American heroes should have done, please consider the following report from Benghazi during the attack:

...Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty disobeyed orders to “stand down”... they instead “walked” while under fire to the Annex compound.

They walked there, approximately a half mile, retrieved the consulate employees, and walked them back to the Annex. Woods and Doherty were not in an armored SUV as previously reported. They were on foot and they were taking fire while doing so...

...When Woods and Doherty safely secured the 20 to 30 employees back in the annex they took up positions on the roof, and Woods engaged communication traffic... “Where the f*** is the Spectre??, referencing the AC-130 gunship he anticipated would be overhead by then. Obviously it was never sent.

So who refused help?

We still don't know. The President -- who is reported to have witnessed the attack live -- won't say. And the White House Briefing Room has been closed for two weeks, so no one can ask the lying hack Jay Carney.

They're in total cover-up mode.

Meanwhile, the State Department and the Intelligence Community are disavowing any responsibility for refusing Doherty and Woods backup.

The local station chief is reported to have said, "Hell yes, we asked for help!", referring to multiple requests for an AC-130 or a rapid response force to assist.

Commenting at Protein Wisdom, Ernst Shreiber offers the only strategy likely to have worked with the Obama administration:

"Hell yes, we asked for help!"

See. That right there was the mistake.

What they should have done is passed the hat and collected campaign contributions, bundle those contributions, send them off to a lobbyist who could bundle their contributions with other contributions from all the guys cooling their heels while waiting the “go.”

Then the lobbyist could have sat down with Jarrett or Axelrod over lunch and talked about all the exciting green energy ideas the consulate staff had come up with in their free time -- but before the pols in D.C. could get rich cashing in on those ideas -- the administration would first have to save the lives of the consulate staffers.

Rest in peace, Ty Woods and Glen Doherty. We won't forget you. And we won't let the most incompetent, partisan administration in American history forget you either.



Sunday, October 28, 2012

SCANDAL COMPARISON CHART: Benghazi-gate vs. Valerie Plame

Please review the following chart. At the bottom, I have a suggestion for any Republican candidate, representative or pundit who is asked why they are "politicizing" Benghazi.


My suggestion for those who are confronted with charges of "politicizing" Benghazi?

I don't need to be lectured by the likes of you -- who made "Valerie Plame" a household term -- when a U.S. ambassador and three other personnel are dead, when the president lied for days about how they were killed, and when we can't find out why they were refused help, because the man ostensibly in charge refuses to take serious interviews and the White House Briefing Room has been closed for more than two weeks.


EXCLUSIVE: Obama Crisis Management System



















GOSH, WHICH COULD IT BE? "Either Fox is making stuff up, or the administration is lying through its teeth"

Rick Moran deconstructs the latest Benghazi-gate revelations and finds only one possible scenario: the White House is lying.

The CIA is denying. The Pentagon is denying. And now the White House is denying that anyone refused to send help to our embattled CIA and State Department personnel engaged in a seven hour running firefight with more than 150 jihadists.

It just doesn’t get any lamer than this:

The White House on Saturday flatly denied that President Barack Obama withheld requests for help from the besieged American compound in Benghazi, Libya, as it came under on attack by suspected terrorists on September 11th.

“Neither the president nor anyone in the White House denied any requests for assistance in Benghazi,” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told Yahoo News by email.

Why was this so hard for President Obama to say on Friday when asked a direct question about assistance to Americans under fire?...

...How do we know that the White House is lying about denying requests for military assistance from our beleaguered diplomats? Consider: If a news story is published basically accusing the President of the United States of standing by while Americans were killed, shouldn’t the reaction from the White House be a little more indignant? A little more agitated? Perhaps a lot angrier?

All of these denials point to one of two conclusions; either Fox News is making stuff up, or the administration is lying through its teeth. There is no other possible explanation.

And I would note the extraordinary detail in the Fox article, including specific communications between the various locations in Libya and national security people in Washington. If Fox is making stuff up, someone has a pretty vivid imagination.

Jennifer Rubin observes that the Benghazi cover-up now has three distinct facets, none of which have been suitably addressed by the administration.

The Benghazi debacle has three parts: how we neglected security while al-Qaeda was building a presence in Libya; whether the administration tried to mislead the public as to the nature of the attack; and now whether the administration denied pleas for help from operatives on the ground at the consulate.

Daniel Gardner goes further, labeling the president a "coward and a disgrace":

Obama was meeting with national security leaders when the attack in Benghazi went down. Unclassified documents reveal he received emails directly from Benghazi within minutes of the beginning of the attack, staff in Benghazi were in real-time contact with the State Department, and two drones overhead in Benghazi showed Washington exactly what was happening on the ground there.

Unclassified emails reveal three requests were made from Benghazi for help, and all three requests were rejected with orders to “stand down.” Special Forces troops were available and within two or three hours could have saved at least two of the four who died at the end of the seven-hour attack.

Obama literally watched the seven-hour battle refusing to send troops to save Americans…or, he didn’t care to watch or to intervene. Regardless, he didn’t care enough to save American lives when he had the opportunity.

The mainstream media is not even covering this story, but is [instead] parroting Obama’s talking points...

And all of this misdirection, all of the lies, all of the cover-ups detract from the simple truths of heroism that have been all but ignored by antique media:

A short distance from the American compound, two Americans were sleeping. They were in Libya as independent contractors working an assignment totally unrelated to our embassy. They also happened to be former Navy SEALs. When they heard the noise coming from the attack on our embassy, as you would expect from highly trained warriors, they ran to the fight. Apparently, they had no weapons, but seeing the Libyan guards dropping their guns in their haste in fleeing the scene, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty snatched up several of these discarded weapons and prepared to defend the American compound.

Not knowing exactly what was taking place, the two SEALs set up a defensive perimeter. Unfortunately Ambassador Stevens was already gravely injured, and Foreign Service officer, Sean Smith, was dead. However, due to their quick action and suppressive fire, twenty administrative personnel in the embassy were able to escape to safety. Eventually, these two courageous men were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers brought against them, an enemy force numbering between 100 to 200 attackers which came in two waves. But the stunning part of the story is that Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty killed 60 of the attacking force. Once the compound was overrun, the attackers were incensed to discover that just two men had inflicted so much death and destruction.

As it became apparent to these selfless heroes, they were definitely going to lose their lives unless some reinforcements showed up in a hurry. As we know now, that was not to be. I’m fairly certain they knew they were going to die in this gun fight, but not before they took a whole lot of bad guys with them!

Consider these tenets of the Navy SEAL Code: 1) Loyalty to Country, Team and Teammate, 2) Serve with Honor and Integrity On and Off the Battlefield, 3) Ready to Lead, Ready to Follow, Never Quit, 4) Take responsibility for your actions and the actions of your teammates, 5) Excel as Warriors through Discipline and Innovation, 6) Train for War, Fight to Win, Defeat our Nation’s Enemies, and 7) Earn your Trident every day.

Thank you, Tyrone and Glen. To the very last breath, you both lived up to the SEAL Code. You served all of us well. You were courageous in the face of certain death.

And Tyrone, even though you never got to hold your newborn son, he will grow up knowing the character and quality of his father, a man among men who sacrificed himself defending others. God bless America!


Last night, Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer said his sources revealed that Obama was one of the people in the room watching the Benghazi attack occur in real-time.

This entire administration needs to go.


Saturday, October 27, 2012

NO INVESTIGATION NECESSARY: 10 Questions President Obama Can Answer Himself

I'm not much of a fan of the Weekly Standard or its editor Bill Kristol, but his Ten Questions for the White House is getting a lot of play -- and rightfully so:

...it should be possible to answer these simple questions as to what the president did that afternoon and evening, and when he did it, simply by consulting White House meeting and phone records, and asking the president for his recollections.

1.) To whom did the president give the first of his "three very clear directives"—that is, "make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to?"

2.) How did he transmit this directive to the military and other agencies?

3.) During the time when Americans were under attack, did the president convene a formal or informal meeting of his national security council? Did the president go to the situation room?

4.) During this time, with which members of the national security team did the president speak directly?

5.) Did Obama speak by phone or teleconference with the combatant commanders who would have sent assistance to the men under attack?

6.) Did he speak with CIA director David Petraeus?

7.) Was the president made aware of the repeated requests for assistance from the men under attack? When and by whom?

8.) Did he issue any directives in response to these requests?

9.) Did the president refuse to authorize an armed drone strike on the attackers?

10.) Did the president refuse to authorize a AC-130 or MC-130 to enter Libyan airspace during the attack?

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has asked the White House these questions, and awaits a response.

As an aside, wouldn't it be great if we had a functioning antique media?


IMPLOSION: Obama fumbles local reporter's Benghazi question; CIA director throws President under bus

When confronted with a local reporter's pointed questions regarding Benghazi, President Obama fumbled his response and inadvertently provided a few clues into the timing and the cover-up.

KYLE CLARK: Were they denied requests for help during the attack?


PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, we are finding out exactly what happened. I can tell you, as I've said over the last couple of months since this happened, the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. Number two, we're going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn't happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice. And I guarantee you that everyone in the state department, our military, the CIA, you name it, had number one priority making sure that people were safe. These were our folks and we're going to find out exactly what happened, but what we're also going to do it make sure that we are identifying those who carried out these terrible attacks.

Last night, attorney Mark Levin deconstructed Obama's response as follows:

• ...the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives...

Note that this is stated in the present tense. The president found out about the attack while it was happening.

• ...make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to...

Well, sir, what orders did you give? Were they disobeyed? Did you receive requests for help? Notice that the president carefully avoided the reporter's actual question (lesson for vintage media: this is what your predecessors actually used to do) about whether calls for help were refused.

• ...Number two, we're going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn't happen again...

So during the attack, you clearly ordered an "investigation"? Does that make sense to anyone?

• ...Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice...

So while the attack was occurring, you want to find out who was attacking and arrest them? Again, does this make any sense at all?

Late last night, CIA Director Petraeus absolved the agency of blame:

Breaking news on Benghazi: the CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus, has put out this statement: “No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate.”

Put simply, Petraeus has handed the hot potato to President Obama.

Now let's examine the president's schedule on 9/11/12:


According to the official White House record, Obama, Biden and SECDEF Panetta were meeting approximately one hour after the Benghazi attack began.

Time for some answers, Mr. President, and we don't have to wait for the results of an "investigation" to hear your responses:

1. When did you first receive word of the Benghazi attacks?

2. Did you receive requests for help from those on-scene and, if so, when?

3. What orders did you issue, if any, after receiving word of the attacks and when did you issue them?

4. Within two hours of the attack, your own schedule indicates you were meeting with the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense. Did you discuss Benghazi and, if so, what information did you receive and what orders did you issue in that meeting?

5. There have been no White House press briefings for more than a week. Why?


Levin believes that the president received word immediately of the attacks and, whether through fear of the political ramifications or simple indecision (akin to voting "present"), watched as Americans were slaughtered as they begged for help.

And then he headed to Vegas for a fundraiser.

There are, of course, other theories worth exploring.


RESET: Russia conducts first large-scale exercises of strategic nuclear forces since Cold War

Hey, beatnik: need more proof that the only way to deter tyrants and preserve peace is through strength?

Large-scale exercises of the Strategic Nuclear Forces under the command of President Vladimir Putin have completed in Russia, the president’s press-secretary Dmitri Peskov reports.


He says that these were the first nuclear force exercises on such a large scale in Russia’s modern history.

On Friday, a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile was successfully launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk Region.

Also on Friday, The Svyatoy Georgiy Pobedonosets nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine of the Pacific Fleet launched a ballistic missile from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Chizha testing ground in the north of European Russia and Tupolev-95 and Tupolev-160 strategic bombers launched four missiles to the Pemboi testing site in the Urals Region.

Pemboi has also become the site where the Russian troops for the first time successfully hit a cruise missile with the Pantsir-S surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery weapon systems of the latest generation (the NATO name SA-22 Greyhound).

Voice of Russia, RIA, Interfax

Gee, that Hillary Clinton is doing a swell job, ain't she?

Consider this reason seventy bajillion proving that Democrats remain The Party of Weakness and Appeasement.

And weakness invites war, which is the course this administration has set for America.

Mitt Romney was completely, utterly correct when he named Russia a primary geopolitical foe. It is arming Iran and once again threatening its neighbors. None of its strategies, perforce, are intended to do anything but harm the interests of the United States.

Hat tip: Canada Free Press.

MUST WATCH: An Urgent Message for America

Though he's a New Zealander, author Trevor Loudon is one of America's national treasures. No one is a more tireless and accomplished researcher of the global Marxist movement -- and its covert ties to the Democrat Party -- than Loudon. His KeyWiki.org project is an invaluable online resource for exploring these links.

Loudon is currently on a speaking tour of the U.S., concentrating heavily in battleground states. If you are anywhere within driving distance, it's something you will not want to miss.


If you do nothing else today, watch this video. Don't worry, I'll wait here.