Obama's Unholy Mess in Libya
by Jan LaRue
September 25, 2012
Islamic terrorists murdered the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans during an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11. President Obama, promising "to bring to justice the killers," dispatched the FBI to investigate.
Why did he send the FBI rather than the 82nd Airborne or Navy SEALs? Inquiring minds like Late Show host David Letterman want to know.
After determining Obama's weight and that he's feeling "great," even though Muslims are attacking our embassies around the world, Letterman on Sept. 19 asked Obama if the Benghazi attack was "an act of war[. A]re we at war now?"
"No," Obama assured him.
He told Letterman that there is this "shadowy character" who made a highly offensive video mocking Mohammed, which highly offended highly sensitive "extremists and terrorists." They used it as an excuse, according to Obama, to attack the consulate, but "they do not represent what the Libyan people think." Obama said he is going to make Muslim countries understand that they have to protect our people.
Consider it the soft side of soft-headed diplomacy. We know it works -- just ask Iran.
In case you missed it, the State Department declared victory some time ago. According to Michael Hirsh, writing for the National Journal on April 23:
"The war on terror is over," one senior State Department official who works on Mideast issues told me. "Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism."Hirsh updated his column the next day because "White House spokesman Tommy Vietor clarified that while the 'war on terror' concept has been dropped, 'we absolutely have never said our war against al Qaida is over. We are prosecuting that war at an unprecedented pace.'"
You might get a migraine, but let's review:
- According to the State Department, the "war on terror is over" because we've "killed most of al Qaeda."
- According to the White House, we're prosecuting "our war against al Qaida," but it's not a "war on terror."
- According to Obama, we're not at war.
You get the feeling that the left hand at Foggy Bottom doesn't know what the left hand on Pennsylvania Avenue is doing. It's why Obama prefers explaining it to Letterman rather than Charles Krauthammer. But then, if Obama had opted for the latter, we'd be left guessing his weight.
Read more: http://goo.gl/kQkIR
No Surprise: America Under Attack Again in the Mideast
by John Bolton
September 25, 2012
The September 11 assassination of four American diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, and the assault on Washington’s embassy in Cairo was a complete surprise to the White House. Immediately thereafter, violent demonstrations in other Middle Eastern countries quickly resulted in the deployment of Marine anti-terrorism security units, and the drawdown of non-essential personnel from U.S. embassies in Tunisia and the Sudan.
Undoubtedly, the violence will ebb and flow, as it did throughout the region in 1979, culminating in the seizure of our Tehran embassy, where the Iranian ayatollahs held Americans hostage for 444 days. Important questions about why the United States did not see the terrorism of this second September 11 coming, and what to do in response, should prompt a wide-ranging political debate in the weeks before the November 6 presidential election.
But there is a much more fundamental question: what caused the violent outbursts in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere? The Obama administration, following the pattern that Jeane Kirkpatrick once called “blame America first,” ascribed it all to an obscure movie ridiculing the prophet Muhammad. Much like the 2006 controversy over cartoons of Muhammad appearing in Danish newspapers, prompting riots and murder threats, top Obama officials argued that the satiric film triggered the deadly response.
White House press spokesman Jay Carney said expressly: “This is not a case of protests directed at the United States at large or at U.S. policy, but in response to a video that is offensive to Muslims.” Others blithely repeated this line, stoking the media attack not on the terrorists who killed an American Ambassador and three colleagues, but on Mitt Romney for suggesting that appeasing mobs never works.
Obviously, if we misunderstand the cause-and-effect foundations of the September 11 violence, our response will be ineffective or even harmful long-term. We can be certain of one thing: the film, however vile, was merely a pretext for the violence—an excuse, not a reason. As today’s controversy and the 2006 Danish cartoons demonstrate, almost anything can be used as a propaganda tool. But if the West reacts simply to the propaganda rather than to the fundamental problem, we will never adequately defend ourselves.
For some time, the Middle East has been experiencing a rising tide of radical Islam, fanatical and unreasoning in many manifestations, accompanied by an extremist political agenda. This radical Islamicism is replacing the receding wave of Arab nationalism which enveloped the region at the end of the colonial era half a century ago. The nationalism tide, embodied by Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, was secular, socialist and decidedly anti-American and anti-West. The new wave of radical Islamicism is obviously grounded in extremist religion rather than secular ideology, but it is just as virulently anti-American and anti-West.
These fanatical religious and political views are clearly the logical foundations for hatred of all free and open societies which do not adhere to their central tenets. Moreover, the religious radicals cleverly partner with other sources of anti-Americanism to advance their objectives. Accordingly, focusing on an offensive movie as the cause of the assassinations and riots merely highlights a symbol of what the radicals hate about us, not the underlying ideology itself.
Blithely trying to appease the extremists by knee-jerk reactions to this or that pretext will always fail to sate their anger, and convince them that a weak, decadent West can be intimidated even further. This was the U.S. Cairo Embassy’s central error in apologizing about a film for which neither Washington nor the American people had any responsibility. And although the White House repudiated the embarrassing embassy statement, Administration officials like Secretary of State Clinton have continued to apologize, as though the film is the real issue, a view 180 degrees opposite to reality.
Read more: http://goo.gl/noJSn
U.S. Intelligence Suffers Major Compromise in Libya
by Streiff
September 24, 2012
The sheer incompetence of our State Department and the Obama administration is once again being trotted out for the world to see.
The tip of the iceberg was exposed last week when CNN reported on the journal of slain US Ambassador Christopher Stevens that one of its news crews had recovered from the smoking rubble of the former US consulate in Benghazi. One had to wonder what possessed a US ambassador to carry a paper journal outside the US embassy in this day and age and how in the name of heaven such a document was left unattended after the attack on the consulate.
Now it appears that the “safe house” where Stevens and others were supposed to find security during the attack was a treasure trove of CIA and State Department information on efforts to recover MANPADS and the identities of local nationals who were working on our behalf.
“It’s a catastrophic intelligence loss,” said one American official who has served in Libya and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the F.B.I. is still investigating the attack. “We got our eyes poked out.”
American intelligence operatives also assisted State Department contractors and Libyan officials in tracking shoulder-fired missiles taken from the former arsenals of the former Libyan Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces; they aided in efforts to secure Libya’s chemical weapons stockpiles; and they helped train Libya’s new intelligence service, officials said.
Senior American officials acknowledged the intelligence setback, but insisted that information was still being collected using a variety of informants on the ground, systems that intercept electronic communications like cellphone conversations and satellite imagery. “The U.S. isn’t close to being blind in Benghazi and eastern Libya,” said an American official.
Spokesmen for the C.I.A., the State Department and the White House declined to comment on the matter on Sunday.Adding to the general aura of disarray was the rather hilarious exchange between one of Hillary’s spokestoads, the French sounding Phillipe Reines, and Buzzfeed’s Michael Hastings when Buzzfeed decided to try to commit a random act of journalism.
From the tenor of interview, it seems that not only does Mr. Reines have a problem keeping his hands to himself but there is a much larger compromise of intelligence than is currently been reported. In the midst of a slanging match over State’s unprecedented attack on CNN’s reporting, we get this gem:
I do agree that the media has lots of responsibilities, and CNN fulfilled its responsibility by returning the diary while still managing to inform the American public of newsworthy information. So it’s unfortunate that you are trying to make a scapegoat out of CNN. That State was forced to flee Benghazi–again, because of such inadequate security, leaving behind all sorts of sensitive information–tells us more about DoS than CNN.This lies and dissimulation of this administration in the aftermath of 9/11/12 have been stunning in both their scope and amateurishness. It paints the picture of an incompetent and insular regime only now confronting the first actual questions by the previously stump-trained media and failing miserably in the process.
Read more: http://goo.gl/RqbXI
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