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

Wednesday, June 04, 2014

HEROES: World War II Vets and Airborne Visit Omaha Beach

These are what heroes look like.


Over at London's Daily Mail, newly released aerial photos of D-Day taken by the RAF reveal the utter chaos and madness of the Longest Day.


Tuesday, June 03, 2014

OH, DAYAM: Mad Magazine Sticks the Landing

On a scale of one to 10, this one earned a 12.9 (for degree of difficulty):



Hat tip: Twitchy

The 10 Most Stunning Revelations Surrounding the Bergdahl Fiasco


In my pathetic and desperate attempt to mimic popular websites, I'm now resorting to BuzzFeed-style Top 10 lists.

10. White House Overrode Internal Objections To Taliban Prisoner Release
"To pull off the prisoner swap of five Taliban leaders for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the White House overrode an existing interagency process charged with debating the transfer of Guantanamo Bay prisoners and dismissed long-standing Pentagon and intelligence community concerns based on Top Secret intelligence about the dangers of releasing the five men, sources familiar with the debate tell TIME."

9. Bergdahl Never Listed By Pentagon As Prisoner Of War
"In his five years of captivity, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was never listed by the Pentagon as a prisoner of war... After disappearing in eastern Afghanistan in June 2009, Bergdahl was listed by the Pentagon on July 1, 2009, as “duty status whereabouts unknown.” Two days later his status was changed to “missing/captured,” and it did not change again prior to his release."

8. Bergdahl Deserted, Leaving Note Saying He Was Disillusioned with the Army
"Sometime after midnight on June 30, 2009, Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl left behind a note in his tent saying he had become disillusioned with the Army, did not support the American mission in Afghanistan and was leaving to start a new life. He slipped off the remote military outpost in Paktika Province on the border with Pakistan and took with him a soft backpack, water, knives, a notebook and writing materials, but left behind his body armor and weapons — startling, given the hostile environment around his outpost."

7. Pentagon knew Bergdahl’s whereabouts but didn’t risk rescue for ‘deserter’
"The Pentagon on several occasions had ground-level intelligence on where ArmySgt. Bowe Bergdahl was being held captive at various times — down to how many gunmen were guarding him — but special operations commanders repeatedly shelved rescue missions because they didn’t want to risk casualties for a man they believed to be a “deserter,” sources familiar with the mission plans said."

6. Susan Rice Claims Bergdahl served with “honor and distinction”
"Did the White House send Susan Rice out on another Sunday talk show fool’s errand? Just as with the Benghazi attack, Barack Obama’s national-security adviser went out on a Sunday to discuss a burgeoning controversy, and perhaps without a full set of the facts in front of her. When questioned by George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week, Rice tried to parry the question about Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s initial disappearance, which some of his fellow soldiers believed to be an act of desertion that cost more American lives. Rice insisted that Bergdahl had served with “honor and distinction,” a claim that will be tested in the coming days and weeks..."

5. Hours Later, White House Backpedals After Claiming Bergdahl ‘Served With Honor And Distinction’
"Deputy national security advisor Tony Blinken struggled to cover for his boss Susan Rice on Tuesday, backtracking from her contention that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl “served with honor and distinction” in the face of tough questions from NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell... Mitchell confronted Blinken over Rice’s Sunday claim that Bergdahl “served with honor and distinction” — an assertion almost immediately disproven by scores of Bergdahl’s comrades and official Pentagon reports, which show the soldier abandoned his post and may have been seeking to join the Taliban."

Monday, June 02, 2014

SIMPLY DELIGHTFUL: First words of Bergdahl’s father at White House were spoken in... Arabic

The indefatigable Allen West has the scoop:

Clare Lopez is a former CIA operations officer, a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, national defense, WMD, and counterterrorism issues, and a friend of mine.

She emailed me this morning a very poignant analysis that only someone knowing language and Islam could ascertain. She wrote:

“What none of these media is reporting is that the father’s (SGT Bowe Bergdahl’s father Bob) first words at the WH were in Arabic – those words were “bism allah alrahman alraheem” – which means “in the name of Allah the most gracious and most merciful” – these are the opening words of every chapter of the Qur’an except one (the chapter of the sword – the 9th) – by uttering these words on the grounds of the WH, Bergdahl (the father) sanctified the WH and claimed it for Islam. There is no question but POTUS knows this.”


Folks, there is a lot to this whole episode — like Benghazi — that we may never know. And this is not conspiracy theory, it is truth based upon Arabic and Islamic dogma and tradition.

Let me guess: we released five hardened terrorists -- who are certain to kill American soldiers and citizens again, perhaps by the score or thousands -- in exchange for an alleged Muslim sympathizer, deserter, and whack-job. With all due respect, of course.

Only in Obama's America.

See the video at Col. West's site.


Hat tip: BadBlue News

Thursday, May 29, 2014

HILLARY'S NEW BOOK "HARD CHOICES" AND THE BIN LADEN RAID: 7 Ways POTUS Led From Behind

By Rusty Weiss

With her memoir, Hard Choices set to be released in the coming weeks, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her publishing company have provided an excerpt in which she claims President Obama’s actions during the Bin Laden raid were “as crisp and courageous a display of leadership” that she had ever seen.

Here are 7 reasons that Obama’s leadership during the raid was neither crisp or courageous.

1) Obama Canceled the Mission to Kill Bin Laden Three Times

Clinton writes about one of the strongest examples of decision-making under pressure:

“Perhaps the most famous example from my four years as Secretary of State was President Obama’s order to send a team of Navy SEALs into a moonless Pakistani night to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. The President’s top advisors were divided. The intelligence was compelling, but far from definitive. The risks of failure were daunting.”

The Clinton memoir tries to paint a picture of decisiveness despite “risks of failure” and “far from definitive” intelligence. President Obama made the call despite the numerous doubts. That isn’t necessarily the case, however.

According to a book released in August of 2012, titled Leading from Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him, a source “with Joint Special Operations Command who had direct knowledge of the operation and its planning,” claims that Obama squashed the kill order on bin Laden in January, February, and March of 2011. Bin Laden was successfully taken down in early May.

2) Obama’s Indecisiveness Was Decided For Him

ObaVAcare

As A.F. Branco observes, "the V.A. is but the tip of the iceberg."


Hat tip: BadBlue News

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

ANOTHER BENGHAZI MYSTERY: Where was the USS Bataan?

By Investor's Business Daily

Benghazi: The administration deploys an assault ship with 1,000 Marines to Libya after ordering Americans to leave as the country implodes. Where was this ship on Sept. 11, 2012? Where was the president?

The families of the Benghazi dead must be cursing and scratching their heads at the sight of the amphibious assault ship Bataan, with about 1,000 Marines aboard, sailing into the Mediterranean Sea to assist in evacuating Americans if the current round of deadly fighting in Libya worsens.

Suddenly the administration is paying attention to the warning signs of a crisis of its own making and issuing concerns about security that were absent when four Americans died begging for help from an indifferent administration and a president who was resting prior to yet another fundraising trip.

Based on escalating security concerns, the U.S. State Department recommended Tuesday that Americans in Libya "depart immediately." In addition to the Bataan and its helicopters, America also has 250 available Marines, seven Osprey combat aircraft and three refueling planes in Sigonella, Italy, AFP reported.

Three years after President Obama supported the move to topple and kill longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has descended into armed chaos, and there isn't even a YouTube video to blame this time.

OBAMA'S WORDS: Like Sand Against the Wind

By Lawrence Sellin

For Barack Obama speeches are not just motivational instruments or representations of a desired state of affairs, but feats of political transubstantiation, where, if he utters them, words become reality.

It is a behavior not dissimilar to Adolf Hitler maneuvering imaginary German divisions from his Berlin bunker while Russian troops rampage throughout the city above him.

Delusional is the only term that I can muster to describe the chasm that exists between the words Obama uses and the differing reality into which they are dispensed.

In politics and foreign policy, words have power if they are truthful and followed by corresponding actions. When they lack authenticity, however, words degenerate into the coarse tools of a con artist, receptive only to the cynical or the equally delusional.

It is as if Obama is following the George Burns axiom, the key to success is sincerity, if you can fake that, then you've got it made.

Case in point was his 2014 commencement speech at West Point, which was little more than a collection of false assumptions and imaginary accomplishments.

Monday, May 26, 2014

OPEN BORDERS: Mexican Drug Cartels Now Using Billboards in Texas to Threaten Police and U.S. Citizens

The insanity of a federal policy that refuses to secure America's border with a failed narco-terror state is nowhere better illustrated than today in El Paso.

Two frightening incidents of vandalism in El Paso near the Mexican border in Texas have been interpreted as warnings from drug cartels...


In both instances, a mannequin wearing a suit and tie was tied to a billboard with a noose and messages were scrawled over the placards.


Local station KHOU reports that one of the signs reads 'Plata o Plombo' which translates to 'silver or lead', a threat used commonly against police officers effectively warning that if they do not accept the cartel's bribes then they will be shot.


...This symbol has historically been used by Mexican drug cartels to threaten or intimidate Mexican citizens, business owners and government officials; however, we have never experienced this in El Paso,' local police said in a press release about the vandalism...

...The fear now for many is that the 'warnings' shows that the drug cartels- which have not been identified by name- are willing to bring the violence from Mexican border towns into Texas.

Oh, yeah. I forgot.

They're "doing it for love," right, Jeb Bush?


MEMORIAL DAY: Obama Should Apologize For Five Years of Abysmal Treatment of Veterans

By Michael Synder

This Memorial Day, Barack Obama and members of Congress will honor our veterans by wearing ribbons and laying wreaths, but what they should really do is apologize to the entire nation for treating them like human trash for the past five years. You see, the truth is that this VA scandal is nothing new. The problems at the VA hospitals have been documented over and over again for years. When Barack Obama was a U.S. senator, he served on the Veterans Affairs Committee. So as he entered the White House, he was supposed to be an expert in this area. And back in 2008, he pledged to "make the VA a leader of national health care reform so that veterans get the best care possible". But of course that never happened. And now Obama is claiming that he only learned of the "secret waiting lists" at VA hospitals by "watching television", and his staff says that he is "madder than hell" about it. So now that he has been publicly shamed, will Obama actually do something about it? Because our military veterans deserve far better care than what they have been getting.

Most Americans don't realize this, but members of al-Qaeda detained at Guantanamo Bay actually receive far better medical treatment than our military veterans do. Just consider what former Pentagon spokesperson J.D. Gordon had to say about the matter...

Friday, May 23, 2014

Scandal Déjà vu: As Veterans Needlessly Suffer, President Obama Refuses to Hold Anyone to Account

By Investor's Business Daily

Scandal: While his clueless Veterans Affairs secretary stays, the president issues his response: If reports are true, people will be held accountable — that is, as soon as he gets the inspector general's report in August.

'If these allegations prove to be true, it is dishonorable, it is disgraceful and I will not tolerate it, period," the president said, drawing a red line in his first public comments in weeks on the issue after a meeting with Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki at the White House.

His faux outrage and emotionless tap-dancing differed little from his comments when the IRS was found to be targeting Tea Party groups to aid his re-election.

"If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous and there's no place for it," he said then, promising to wait, yep, for an inspector general's report.

Veterans are tired of waiting for reports. There have been at least 50 of them, as senators pointed out to Shinseki at a hearing, not counting the transition briefing President-elect Obama received in 2008 about a problem he pledged to address in 2009.

Now he has to wait for one more?

As the Washington Times notes, Obama's transition team was warned in 2008 of no less than three audits that showed the VA Department was misreporting wait times for medical treatment, including one audit revealing delays nearly 10 times worse than officially acknowledged. As we have noted, Obama promised then to fix a situation he now says he doesn't have enough data on.

Obama, at his meandering presser Wednesday, said he wants "to know the full scope of this problem, and that's why I ordered Secretary Shinseki to investigate."

Friday, May 16, 2014

POLL: Pretty Much Everyone in America Wants an Investigation into Benghazi Except... the Media

Noah Rothman deserves our thanks. He is doing yeoman's work at Mediaite as but one of a handful of reporters willing to speak truth to power.

The journalistic establishment is convinced that the investigation into the attacks on Benghazi is a partisan sideshow that is unlikely to unearth any new information, the fact that new information was unearthed just weeks ago as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request notwithstanding. 

Nevertheless, reporters are quite sure that any investigation into the preparation for and response to the Benghazi attack is purely political. CNN’s Erin Burnett summed it up best when she declared on Wednesday night that even the word Benghazi has “become like abortion.” Meaning, the issue has grown so polarizing that there are few people left who can be persuaded to change their already settled opinion on the matter. 

Outside of the newsroom, however, opinions about Benghazi seem to be far less set in stone. On Thursday, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace revealed that, according to the crosstabs on the latest Fox News poll, Democrats are just as eager for a definitive investigation into Benghazi as are Republicans in Congress

...That comes as a surprise only to those who refuse to acknowledge that there are outstanding questions relating to that attack. Writing in National Review, Jim Geraghty critiques MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, who recently insisted that “all the questions” relating to Benghazi “have been answered.” In a thorough post, Geraghty outlines just how many questions relating to the attack and its aftermath have not been answered and why the slow drip of information coming out of the White House begs for a stronger response from congressional investigators.

But while the country clearly believes there is more to the Benghazi story, and it is perfectly appropriate to investigate the White House’s handling of that attack, the latest Fox poll has its share of red flags for the GOP, too. ... When asked if Republicans in Congress are investigating the Benghazi attacks out of a desire to get to the truth or to secure “political gain” for themselves, 63 percent said that the GOP’s motives were not entirely pure... For now, however, this survey indicates that voters want to see a full accounting of events of what happened before and after the Benghazi attacks. The GOP has a mandate to pursue those answers, but voters have little patience left for the GOP and that mandate could quickly evaporate.
I must also mention that Rothman was one of 2013's Fabulous 50 Blog Award Winners, which recognizes a select group of elites in the world of online media.


Thursday, May 15, 2014

HALL OF SHAME: GOP House Chairmen Actively Fought Select Committee for Fear of Getting Shown Up

Eli Lake at The Daily Beast is one of the true superstars of modern investigative reporting. Legacy media, namely the likes of 60 Minutes, long ago abandoned their charter of speaking truth to power and instead feature gauzy interviews with FLOTUS in the White House vegetable garden.

Lake has broken a series of fascinating stories on the scandals engulfing the Obama administration, most recently deconstructing the Benghazi cover-up that implicates both Obama and ostensible 2016 Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.


But yesterday's scoop also reveals something about the feckless House Republican leadership. Namely that various House committee chairmen fought tooth-and-nail against a Select Investigative Committee for reasons, well, you be the judge.

There is deep unease within the Republican leadership that the select committee, which has yet to announce a schedule of hearings, could backfire, and badly. Investigate and find nothing new, and the committee looks like a bunch of tin-hatted obsessives. Investigate and uncover previously-hidden secrets, and it makes all of the other Republican led panels that dug into Benghazi seem like Keystone Kops.

Based upon the performance of Judicial Watch, which routinely out-investigated the Keystone Kops House, the latter fear is well-founded.

Three Republican sources tell The Daily Beast that the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Armed Services, and Government Reform committees—Reps. Rogers, Buck McKeon, and Darrell Issa, respectively—all opposed the formation of a select committee on Benghazi. All three men have led their own investigations into the matter.

Well, not to toot my own horn or anything, but I certainly called that one last year. Here's what I published then:

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

STUNNING: White House Hashtag Strike Against Islamist Terror Group Boko Haram Proves Curiously Ineffective

By Investor's Business Daily

War On Terror: The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee reminds us of why our friends no longer trust us, our enemies no longer fear us and that un-friending terrorists on social media is not a foreign policy.

We've all seen the photo of first lady Michelle Obama holding up a sign with the hashtag slogan "Bring Back Our Girls." It underscores a totally unserious foreign policy that relies on gimmicks and reset buttons as Russia and radical Islamists go on the march.

"You can't base your policy on what's trending on Twitter," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, a day after the first lady made her Mother's Day Twitter hash-tag appeal to put social media pressure on the Islamist terrorists of Nigeria's Boko Haram. The group abducted 276 Nigerian schoolgirls and has reportedly converted some who were Christians to Islam.

Delivering the Saturday radio address, Mrs. Obama seemingly framed the incident as part of some sort of sexist war on women, as one of "grown men attempting to snuff out the aspirations of young girls."

She did not mention that the schoolgirls are Christian and their abductors are Islamist, or that while Boko Haram abducts girls from schools to be sold as wives or slaves, it kills the boys outright.

This White House sees social media as substitutes for action and as excuses for its foreign policy failures, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's in Benghazi.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

The Simple Attack That Could Leave 300 Million Americans Dead

By Investor's Business Daily

Vulnerability: Expert testimony before Congress on Thursday warned that an electromagnetic pulse attack on our power grid and electronic infrastructure could leave most Americans dead and the U.S. in another century.

That dire warning came from Peter Vincent Pry, a member of the Congressional EMP Commission and executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security.

He testified in front of the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies that an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) event could wipe out 90% of America's population.

Most people's eyes might glaze over upon mention of the committee name, the title of the hearing — "Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP): Threat to Critical Infrastructure" — and the general subject of EMP. But it is a real threat and not the stuff of science fiction.

Some attention has been paid to the potential cataclysmic effects of a natural phenomenon such as a massive solar storm, an event that has occurred in America's horse-and-buggy era when it did not matter.

Today an electromagnetic pulse event would be devastating. It wouldn't need a solar storm, just a solitary nuke detonated in the atmosphere above the American heartland. We would envy the horse-and-buggy era.

"Natural EMP from a geomagnetic superstorm, like the 1859 Carrington Event or 1921 Railroad Storm, and nuclear EMP attack from terrorists or rogue states, as practiced by North Korea during the nuclear crisis of 2013, are both existential threats that could kill 9-of-10 Americans through starvation, disease and societal collapse," the Washington Free Beacon quoted Pry as saying.

Monday, May 12, 2014

DEPRAVED: Washington Post Glowingly Reprints Gun Control Screed Published by Modern-Day Nazi Regime

By NRA-ILA

Well, it's nothing especially new in the realm of anti-gun propaganda, but the Washington Post “Morning Mix” section on Thursday reprinted yet another screed by a big city newspaper against U.S. gun culture. The reprinted article followed a template familiar to anyone who is engaged in the gun debate in America.

It reminded readers of past highly-publicized gun crimes.

It depicted President Obama shouting himself "hoarse" over the need for action on gun control.

It made the expected public health analogies, calling gun-related crimes an intractable "malignant tumor."

It indicated that no place in the U.S. is free of firearms, be it "campuses of universities and high schools, department stores and even churches."

Picking up a thread heavily promoted by Bloomberg's Moms Demand Action franchise, it warned parents that "even children brandish guns," and cited two incidents in which a young child accidentally shot a sibling.

And, with typical disregard of declining rates of violent crime and firearm accidents, it claimed that "social uneasiness is growing day by day among Americans" because of gun-related crime. Indeed, the paper warned, no American can escape the "uneasiness and horror" caused by guns.

Yes, we've seen it all before, and it didn’t paint a pretty picture of America or the American people. You'd almost think the author believes Americans are too savage and unruly for self-government and certainly for any sort of liberty that demands discretion and good judgment. As with all these sorts of articles, it implicitly pointed the way to a brighter future: civilian disarmament and a tighter reign over the American people by their betters in government.

The Post, of course, was inclined to agree. Its introduction to the reprint cited, with apparent admiration, the low firearm ownership rate amongst civilians in the jurisdiction where the editorial was written: .06 guns per 100 people. Meanwhile, the nationwide U.S. rate, the Post reported, is closer to 100 firearms per 100 people. The Post also noted recent attempts by the locale where the editorial was written to tighten its own firearm laws, including laws governing their registration, storage, use, and prohibition.

Like we said, we've seen it all before, and so has anyone who's read gun-bashing editorials in any big-city American newspaper.

Only this time, the editorial wasn't originally published in a U.S. city.

THE BENGHAZI COVER-UP UNRAVELS: Analysis Points to Hillary Clinton as Source of the Video Lie

By Investor's Business Daily

Benghazi: The language in an email from Obama aide Ben Rhodes used to prep Susan Rice is virtually identical to one issued by the former secretary of state 36 hours before — the first public official to mention the video.

One of the first questions we hope the Select Committee on Benghazi asks is who gave Ben Rhodes the authority and the content for the Sept. 14, 2012, email from him, an assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser, on how to prep Susan Rice for her talk show tour on Sept. 16 blaming a video for the terrorist attack.

Either Rhodes is the most powerful communications assistant in American history or he was instructed by superiors in the administration to launch the video lie.

A clue may be found in a State Department press release that night and in a comparison of emails sent 36 hours apart by Clinton and Rhodes.

At 10 p.m. Washington, D.C., time on Sept. 11, 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received a call from the man she wants to replace, President Obama, while terrorists were in the midst of massacring Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

TREY GOWDY: Hillary Clinton's got a lot of explainin' to do

Megyn Kelly's recent interview with Trey Gowdy gives me great hope that this investigation will be thorough and competent.

KELLY: ...Let's talk about Hillary Clinton. She comes out tonight and suggests that people like you, I assume, are not choosing to be satisfied, that that's your choice, and the rest of us have to live with that. Your thoughts on that?

GOWDY: Well, you can add to that the family members of the four murdered Americans, because they still have unanswered questions. And I would just ask Secretary Clinton, with all due respect, can you explain why we were still in Benghazi after everyone else had pulled out and after the British ambassador was almost assassinated and our compound was attacked twice?

There are three separate categories of questions, each with subunits within them that have not been answered. I realize it's been 20 months, but time is no barometer of thoroughness. My daughter took Latin for three years; she still can't speak it.

So, time doesn't mean something is thorough. When we get through with this select committee, those questions will be answered for the family members and Ms. Clinton will have another chance to come and talk to us.

KELLY: I know that you have said you intend to subpoena her, that you want her to appear before your committee. However, and I say this respectfully, the last time she appeared before Congress, what we had was a series of speeches from the lawmakers without that many probing questions. And I hear that from my viewers often when we look back on the hearings. What would be different this time?

Friday, May 09, 2014

You know that totally insane Benghazi conspiracy theory? Yep. It keeps getting less insane each and every day

Was the Benghazi debacle, as "The Citizen's Committee on Benghazi" asserts, really a failed kidnapping attempt? Was it part of a broader plot to trade a U.S. Ambassador for the release of the “Blind Sheikh”, Omar Abdul Rahman?

It sounds insane, yet each and every day more evidence emerges to support it.

In October of 2013 (via the outstanding PJMedia), Arabic language media offered compelling evidence that tied the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

Multiple Arabic media sources have reported that the purpose of the Libyan intelligence chief’s recent trip to Cairo was to share information about Mursi’s involvement.

Other Arabic sources (1, 2, 3), including Masress, have reported on the details of the charges being filed against Mursi. They involve his release of [terrorist Mohammed Jamal] Al-Kashif... If Mursi was involved, what were his possible motives? Indisputably, the two most prominent voices as of late demanding the release of “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdul Rahman were Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Muhammad Mursi. Interestingly, Mursi made such a demand before and days after the attacks in Benghazi.
Word of Egypt's involvement in the assassination of Ambassador Christopher Stevens had circulated in intelligence circles since September. Raymond Ibrahim reported then on a troubling Libyan intelligence document. It asserts that the Muslim Brotherhood, including Egyptian President Morsi, were involved in the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
On Wednesday, June 26, several Arabic websites ... quoted the intelligence report, which apparently was first leaked to the Kuwaiti paper, Al Ra’i... It discusses the preliminary findings of the investigation, specifically concerning an “Egyptian cell” which was involved in the consulate attack. “Based on confessions derived from some of those arrested at the scene” six people, “all of them Egyptians” from the jihad group Ansar al-Sharia (“Supporters of Islamic Law), were arrested.

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

This jibes with original reporting from September 2013 by Walid Shoebat. A cellphone video taken during the attacks depicts gunmen running toward the camera. At one point an approaching gunman cries, "Don't shoot us! We were sent by Morsi!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
But where did this theory originate?

In October of 2012, a comment by "Kozy" posited that the Benghazi attack was an "October Surprise". Easily dismissed at the time as some sort of conspiracy nonsense, with each passing day the scenario appears to become more plausible:

Starting in late March, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz begs the State Department for more security assets. These requests are flatly refused.

Also early in the year (February, March and April), White House visitor records show several lightly documented -- and possibly confidential -- visits by Hillary Clinton to the White House.

In May, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz is swapped for Chris Stevens.

In June, Egyptian President Morsi publicly pledges to secure the release of 'The Blind Sheikh', the extremist cleric responsible for the first World Trade Center attack.

Also starting in June, Ambassador Stevens' security teams are systematically removed from Libya, despite increasingly urgent requests and dire predictions. As the State Department itself confirmed in testimony before Congress, there were no budget cuts involved: the removal of security occurred at the sole discretion of the Secretary of State. By the time of the 9/11 attack, Stevens has not a single personal bodyguard. These stunning actions effectively remove any barriers to the capture of the Ambassador for use as a hostage.

Did back-channel communications between the White House and the Blind Shiekh's legal representatives confirm that a swap could be achieved with a high-level hostage exchange? Were the Sheikh's cronies informed that Ambassador Stevens had no security in Benghazi? This would enable the Sheikh to be secured through a trade after capturing Stevens; after all, the ambassador has had his security teams completely stripped away.

Someone -- it is not clear who -- arranges a meeting between Stevens and Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akinin in Benghazi, not Tripoli, late in the evening of 9/11. It is during this meeting that terrorist checkpoints are established around the compound. The terrorists know precisely where Stevens is and are prepared logistically to capture him.

The initial attack involves only small arms fire. In fact, no one appears to have been killed at the consulate by gunfire. Smoke inhalation was reportedly the cause of the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and attache Sean Smith after a fire was ignited by terrorists. In other words, the lack of RPG and mortar rounds during the initial attack means it is possible that the operation was a "smash and grab" designed to capture the Ambassador, not assassinate him. RPGs were only used later at the annex, hours later, after Stevens was known KIA.

And, as stated above, during the initial attack, a video shot via camera phone records men yelling "Don’t Shoot us! We were sent by Morsi!"

Hostage swap

Under this operating theory, had all gone according to plan, the Obama administration would have secretly facilitated the capture of Ambassador Stevens. This would have permitted Obama to safely trade the Ambassador through the release of the Blind Sheikh.

The trade of the Sheikh for Stevens would have occurred, of course, just before the election. Obama would take very public credit for Stevens' safe return as well as a newly strengthened relationship with Egypt's Morsi.

Photo ops featuring Obama and Stevens would be splashed along the campaign trail, ostensibly solidifying the president's foreign policy qualifications.

Sound too far-fetched? Consider the following unanswered unanswered questions:

Why did State repeatedly deny requests for more security in Benghazi, despite increasingly dire predictions? Instead, State completely stripped security from Stevens. No credible explanation has been offered for the removal of security by the White House or the State Department. It has been confirmed that the budget excuse proffered by State was completely false.

Who arranged Stevens' meeting with Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akinin in Benghazi, not Tripoli, so late in the evening on 9/11?

Why on 9/11 -- of all dates -- was there no special security posture ordered in diplomatic installations around the Middle East?

Why did so many people in the administration publicly lie about the nature of the attack when it was clear from the onset that it was an organized attack by terrorists?

Why is President Obama lobbying so hard for the release of Muslim Brotherhood terrorists including Mursi?

Why did the president disappear after getting word of the attack and never even visit the Situation Room during the 10-hour running gun battle (according to spokesman Tommy Vietor)?

Why did he reportedly refuse security briefings in the aftermath of the attack, instead simply departing for a fundraiser in Las Vegas?

The operating theory being: the President didn't need to stay informed after hearing of the attack. He didn't need any briefings. He knew exactly what had happened.

A review of the Complete Benghazi Timeline makes some of these anomalies apparent. It's time for the Select Committee on Benghazi to uncover the truth.

Four dead Americans and their families deserve the truth, not lies and cover-ups, about what happened and why.


Fast forward to May 2014 and this "crazy conspiracy theory" is still as viable an explanation as any we have. There must be a damned good reason for all the obstruction and obfuscation by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Never -- never -- in our nation's history have our people been left behind, allowed to be slaughtered without lifting a finger to help. I keep thinking of Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, as they drew their last breaths, realizing that the country they had dedicated themselves to had let them down.


Hat tips: Wanda and MOTUS.

Thursday, May 08, 2014

CBS: State Run Media

Guest post by Andrea Lafferty

Recently revealed White House emails show that the Obama Administration knew the September 11, 2012 attack on the consulate in Benghazi was a planned terror attack – and they lied to the American public anyway, blaming the loss of American lives on a video that no one had ever seen.

On September 12, 2012, the day after the attack, CBS News president David Rhodes spoke to the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce and spoke about how he thought the attack would be covered by the news:

David Rhodes
“Now we don’t think that [story’s] going to last, as far as it being about the people we lost and the unfolding situation which is pretty remarkable in our life time. Our government thinks that, you know, there’s a really good chance this was not just a spontaneous mob reaction to what some thought was an offensive film but actually a coordinated effort timed to the 9/11 anniversary.”

On September 14th, a full three days after the incident and in the face of CIA intelligence showing a terror link to the attack, David Rhodes’s brother and then White House Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes instructed Ambassador Susan Rice“to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.” All in an effort to make Obama look like a statesman with mere months to go before the November election.

This direction is one that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney would repeat time and time again on September 14th, telling reporters “we do not at this moment have information… that would indicate that any of this unrest was preplanned… The cause of the unrest was a video… ”

From this point on, CBS News repeated these talking points, going so far as to remove a portion of a 60 Minutes interview with President Obama recorded on September 12th where the president acknowledged that the attack was not tied to an offensive video, instead “that there are folks involved in this who were looking to target Americans from the start. ”