This Would Be Funny If It Weren’t So Sad

Fox News posted an article about some recently declassified documents today that really makes me wonder about the wisdom of choosing Joe Biden as the Democrat nominee for President.

The article reports:

Usama bin Laden wanted to assassinate then-President Barack Obama so that the “totally unprepared” Joe Biden would take over as president and plunge the United States “into a crisis,” according to documents seized from bin Laden’s Pakistan compound when he was killed in May 2011.

The secretive documents, first reported in 2012 by The Washington Post, outlined a plan to take out Obama and top U.S. military commander David Petraeus as they traveled by plane.

“The reason for concentrating on them is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make [Vice President] Biden take over the presidency,” bin Laden wrote to a top deputy. “Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour … and killing him would alter the war’s path” in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden specifically wanted fellow terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri to shoot down Obama.

“Please ask brother Ilyas to send me the steps he has taken into that work,” bin Laden wrote to the top lieutenant, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. Kashmiri wouldn’t get too far along in the plot, however; he was killed in 2011 in a U.S. drone strike shortly after bin Laden himself was shot to death by Navy SEALs.

I guess Joe Biden’s reputation internationally is not too wonderful.

The Cost Of Inaction

NBC News is reporting today that President Obama stopped the CIA from executing a plan to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad from power in 2012. The President’s reluctance to do anything to end the Syrian Revolution had serious consequences–the rise of ISIS.

The article reports:

It’s long been known that then-CIA Director David Petraeus recommended a program to secretly arm and train moderate Syrian rebels in 2012 to pressure Assad. But a book to be published Tuesday by a former CIA operative goes further, revealing that senior CIA officials were pushing a multi-tiered plan to engineer the dictator’s ouster. Former American officials involved in the discussions confirmed that to NBC News.

In an exclusive television interview with NBC News, the former officer, Doug Laux, describes spending a year in the Middle East meeting with Syrian rebels and intelligence officers from various partner countries. Laux, who spoke some Arabic, was the eyes and ears on the ground for the CIA’s Syria task force, he says.

The article noted that the President, who must approve all covert operations, never approved the action.

The article further reports:

Petraeus and others who supported the plan believe it could have prevented the rise of ISIS, Assad’s use of chemical weapons, the European refugee crisis and the tens of thousands of civilian deaths that have happened since, the former officials say. President Obama and many other analysts strongly disagree.

Elements under discussion at the time included not only bolstering Syrian rebels, but pressuring and paying senior members of Assad’s regime to push him out, the former officials said. The idea was that the Syrian civil war could then have been peacefully resolved–a huge uncertainty.

Laux ultimately resigned in frustration — over that and other issues — after it became clear the Obama administration would not move forward.

…But former senior U.S. officials point out that the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, had not yet begun fighting in Syria in significant numbers in 2012. Many players in the region, they say, were waiting to see what the United States would do.

Interfering in civil wars in foreign countries is risky. Libya did not turn out well, and initially Egypt did not turn out well. However, in the case of Syria, not getting involved probably created more problems than it solved.

Part of the problem here is the cultural differences between western culture and the Middle East. The Middle Eastern culture has very little respect for anything but force. President Obama’s lack of action was seen as weakness and viewed as something to be taken advantage of. Unless America elects a leader who is viewed as strong by our enemies, we can expect the problem of ISIS and Hezbollah to grow. We shouldn’t be sending our troops overseas at every moment, but we need to project enough strength to prevent nations and groups that are less than friendly to us from taking advantage of perceived weakness.

Will We Actually Have Equal Justice Under The Law?

Fox News posted a story today about new information regarding Secretary Hillary Clinton’s email. Some of the emails on Secretary Clinton’s private server were marked “special access programs” (SAP).  This is a label higher than Top Secret. These emails were on her private server, which did not have the layers of security that a State Department server would have had. A private server is much more vulnerable to hacking than a State Department server would have been.

The article reports:

According to court documents, former CIA Director David Petraeus was prosecuted for sharing intelligence from special access programs with his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell. At the heart of his prosecution was a non-disclosure agreement where Petraeus agreed to protect these closely held government programs, with the understanding “unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention or negligent handling … could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation.” Clinton signed an identical non-disclosure agreement Jan. 22, 2009. 

Fox News is told that the recent IG letter was sent to the leadership of the House and Senate intelligence committees and leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and State Department inspector general. 

Representatives for the ODNI and intelligence community inspector general had no comment.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. If Secretary Clinton is not prosecuted for her mishandling of classified information, then the charges against General Petraeus should be dropped.

I Have An Absolute Attitude Problem With This Story

Yesterday Bloombergview posted a story about the fact that the Justice Department is threatening to bring charges against General Petreaus for classified information found on Paula Broadwell‘s computer. Paula Broadwell was writing a biography of the General, and he has been accused of giving her classified information. My first reaction to this is suspicion of the government. I posted a story in October (rightwinggranny) about Sharyl Attkisson, an investigative reporter who has done a tremendous amount of research on Fast and Furious and Benghazi.

The article at rightwinggranny stated:

Attkisson says the source, who’s “connected to government three-letter agencies,” told her the computer was hacked into by “a sophisticated entity that used commercial, nonattributable spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency.”

…“The intruders discovered my Skype account handle, stole the password, activated the audio, and made heavy use of it, presumably as a listening tool,” she wrote in “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.”

But the most shocking finding, she says, was the discovery of three classified documents that Number One told her were “buried deep in your operating system. In a place that, unless you’re a some kind of computer whiz specialist, you wouldn’t even know exists.”

“They probably planted them to be able to accuse you of having classified documents if they ever needed to do that at some point,” Number One added.

Considering the thuggish tactics often used by the Obama Administration, it is very possible that they did the same thing to Paul Broadwell’s computer.

So what is this really all about? Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted a story that provides some interesting information.

The story at Power Line states:

Petraeus denies that he gave classified information to Broadwell. However, FBI officials reportedly found such documents on her computer after Petraeus resigned from the CIA when news of the affair became public. But it does not appear that the disclosure by Petraeus, if any, resulted in harm to the nation.

Indeed, President Obama has said that he knows of no evidence that Petraeus disclosed classified information “that in any way would have had a negative impact on our national security.” Obama has also said that “we are safer because of the work that Dave Petraeus has done.”

General Petraeus is going to be called to testify before the Congressional Committee investigating Benghazi. I am inclined to believe that this is a warning shot across the General’s bow designed to control his testimony. I hope the intimidation effort by the Obama Administration fails miserably.

Selective Comebacks

One of the more amazing things to happen in recent years is the rehabilitation of the image of Bill Clinton. George H.W. Bush had a lot to do with bringing Bill Clinton back into the public spotlight in a positive way. It seems as if America has forgiven President Clinton for his antics in the White House and his general weaknesses regarding the opposite sex. Now we are about to face a similar situation with General David Petraeus (although General Petraeus was not the serial adulterer that President Clinton was).

Yesterday Bloomberg News posted an article entitled, “Why Is the FBI Still Targeting Petraeus?” It is becoming very obvious that justice and criminology under President Obama has become a totally political matter.

The article reports:

Most importantly: According to current and former U.S. intelligence officials who have spoken to us, the FBI still has an open investigation into whether Petraeus improperly provided highly classified documents to Paula Broadwell, his biographer and the woman with whom he had an affair.

A little history: In the spring of 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigation stumbled upon the Petraeus-Broadwell relationship while investigating a separate cyber-stalking matter. While the FBI has cleared Broadwell of those charges, and Obama has said Petraeus never endangered national security, the FBI’s probe remains open.

Two U.S. officials familiar with the investigation say Broadwell was never authorized to receive material that was found on her personal computer. Because this included compartmentalized intelligence that only a handful of very senior officials were approved to view, the FBI considers the breach to be a serious matter. “It was inappropriately shared and it should never have been shared,” one former senior intelligence official said.

Before we decide if this is valid, there is another series of events we need to look at (as posted at rightwinggranny). The events listed below are reported by Sharyl Attkisson:

“The intruders discovered my Skype account handle, stole the password, activated the audio, and made heavy use of it, presumably as a listening tool,” she wrote in “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.”

But the most shocking finding, she says, was the discovery of three classified documents that Number One told her were “buried deep in your operating system. In a place that, unless you’re a some kind of computer whiz specialist, you wouldn’t even know exists.”

“They probably planted them to be able to accuse you of having classified documents if they ever needed to do that at some point,” Number One added.

I wonder how the documents the FBI is searching for arrived in Paula Broadwell’s computer.

The article at Bloomberg further reports:

What stands out here is not just that Petraeus remains under investigation but that he remains under investigation while being reintegrated into the foreign policy establishment.

To wit: Petraeus is ostensibly being investigated for mishandling classified material and yet he retains his security clearance. What’s more, he has been casually advising the White House on Iraq, where he directed the effort to end a civil war in 2007 and 2008 and still maintains close relationships with many of its leaders.

“All of us who know him and are close to him are mystified by the fact there is still this investigation into him,” Jack Keane, a retired four-star U.S. Army General said in an interview.  Keane has been both an adviser to and mentor of Petraeus since he saved Petraeus’s life during a live-fire training exercise in 1991. 

Keane questions whether the Petraeus FBI probe lasting this long may be driven by something other than a desire to investigate a potential crime. “It makes you wonder if there is another motivation to drag an investigation out this long,” he said.

General Petraeus was an honorable man who made a mistake. I suspect that the people behind this continuing investigation are less honorable. It is time to return the White House to someone who will not abuse his power to eliminate people he considers political threats.

 

This Isn’t Going Away

This is a copy of a letter posted at the Center for Security Policy. The letter was written to Representative Trey Gowdy, Chairman House Select Committee on Benghazi and signed by a group of American leaders seeking the truth about the attack on the CIA Annex in Benghazi.

This is the letter:

October 10, 2014

Hon. Trey Gowdy
Chairman
House Select Committee on Benghazi
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Mr. Chairman:

As you are well aware, on May 8, 2014, the House of Representatives adopted H. Res. 567 “Providing for the Establishment of the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi, Libya”. With the publication this week of former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s book, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leaders in War and Peace, the need for such an inquiry has become both indisputable and even more urgent.

In particular, it is clear that there is more – and likely much more – that has yet to be established about the murderous September 11, 2012 jihadist attack on American facilities in Benghazi and those assigned to them. Indeed, former Secretary Panetta is providing an account of the Benghazi attacks that differs dramatically from what President Obama and his spokesmen presented in the hours, days and weeks after the attack.

For example, when shown a video clip of the former security contractors who defended the CIA Annex, who described how they were told to stand down that night by their superiors, Mr. Panetta agreed that Congress needed to investigate their story. Secretary Panetta has claimed that he set in motion a number of military units that night. Why was none of them directed to actually reach Benghazi? Who gave the ultimate order to U.S. military forces not to come to the rescue of our people in Benghazi that night? Was it the Secretary of State? The President? Or someone else? If so, on whose authority?

In addition, Mr. Panetta is saying in the course of his book tour that he disagreed with the assessment of CIA Director David Petraeus that the attacks were a demonstration turned violent. But what was the source of Gen. Petraeus’ assessment, since we know from other congressional committees that the CIA station chief in Tripoli was emailing the Director’s deputy, Mike Morell, within 48 hours of the attacks, telling him emphatically there had been no demonstration in Benghazi that night?

The need for full accountability for what really happened in Benghazi – and to establish how to prevent such murderous attacks on our foreign missions in the future – has taken on even greater urgency in light of recent developments with ominous implications for American diplomats, military personnel and security contractors overseas. These include:

  • This summer, we had to evacuate our embassy in Tripoli, Libya because of threatening jihadist operations there.
  • This week, our embassy in Sanaa, Yemen has come under attack – reportedly putting another 80 Americans at risk from jihadists who are openly boasting of their plans to kill Americans.
  • Should Baghdad fall to the Islamic State in coming weeks or, more likely, the Green Zone come under enemy fire, some1000 of our countrymen and women could be at risk.

Has our government learned the lessons of Benghazi? Does it have actionable plans in place that will provide for the defense of our embassies and people in Sanaa or Baghdad?

We believe that Congress has a responsibility to get to the bottom of such questions as a matter of the utmost urgency. Otherwise, more American lives may be on the line and needlessly lost.

Clearly, the fact that the House of Representatives is in recess is not an impediment to holding hearings in the immediate future as you and other Members of Congress have been returning to Washington in recent days to hold high-profile hearings concerning a Secret Service scandal and the spread of Ebola. It strains credulity that Congress cannot find time for hearings about an act of war in which four Americans – including our ambassador – were killed, with many others seriously wounded as sovereign American territory was attacked by terrorist enemies determined to murder more of us. We know for a fact that the Islamic State, al Qaeda, Iran and a growing universe of jihadists are busy plotting to create more Benghazis, here and elsewhere.

What is the select congressional committee doing to prevent that?

We respectfully request that you make plain to the American people, who are seeking the truth and anxious to avoid any repetition of Benghazi that might arise from its continued suppression, that you will promptly secure the testimony under oath of Secretary Panetta and the other principals and key subordinates who have first-hand knowledge of the events that took place on the night of the 11th of September. In light of the stakes, hearings for this purpose should be held this month, not weeks and weeks from now.

Sincerely (signatories as of 4:15 PM DST – 10/10/14),

  • Andrew C. McCarthy, Chairman, Benghazi Accountability Coalition
  • Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President & CEO, Center for Security Policy
  • Charles Woods, Father of Ty Woods, victim of 9/11/2012 terror attack in Benghazi
  • Michael Ingmire, Musician, Writer, Activist, Uncle of Sean Smith, victim of 9/11/2012 terror attack in Benghazi
  • Allen Roth, President, Secure America Now
  • Sandy Rios,  Director of Governmental Affairs for AFA
  • Paul Caprio, Director of Family Pac Federal
  • Kenneth Blackwell, former U.S. ambassador, UN Human Rights Commission
  • Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com
  • Dick Brauer, Colonel, US Air Force (Retired), Co-Founder of Special Operations Speaks and member, Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • Ken Benway, Lieutenant Colonel, US Army (Retired), Co-Founder of Special Operations Speaks
  • Dennis B. Haney, Lietenant Colonel, US Air Force (Retired), Special Operations Speaks
  • Daniel W. (Jake) Jacobowitz, Political-Military Consultant
  • Andrea Lafferty, President, Traditional Values Coalition
  • Rev. Lou Sheldon, Chairman & Founder, Traditional Values Coalition
  • Thomas McInerney, Lieutenant General, USAF (Retired), Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • Wayne V. Morris, Colonel, US Marine Corps, (Retired), Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • Kevin M. Shipp, Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • Charles Jones, Brigadier General, US Air Force (Retired), Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • John A. Shaw, Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • Clare Lopez, Vice President, Center for Security Policy
  • Joseph E. Schmitz, Former Inspector General of the Department of Defense
  • Tera Dahl, Executive Director, Council on Global Security
  • Brigitte Gabriel, Founder & CEO, ACT for America
  • Anita MonCrief, Advisory Board Member , Black Conservatives Fund 
  • Elaine Donnelly, President, Center for Military Readiness
  • Allen B. West, Lieutenant Colonel, US Army (Retired)
  • Fred Fleitz, Former CIA analyst and Senior Fellow, Center for Security Policy
  • Roger Noriega, former US Assistant Secretary of State and Ambassador to the OAS
  • Henry F. Cooper, Ambassador and former Chief U.S. Negotiator at the Defense and Space Talks and former Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative
  • Paul E Vallely, Major General, US Army (Retired), Chairman, Stand Up America
  • Roger Aronoff, Citizens Commission on Benghazi
  • William G. “Jerry” Boykin, Lt. General, US Army Special Forces Command (Retired)
  • James A. “Ace” Lyons, Admiral, US Navy (Retired), President/CEO, LION Associates, LLC
  • Dr. Ron Crews, CH, Colonel, US Army (Retired), Executive Director, Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty
  • C. Preston Noell III, President, Tradition, Family, Property, Inc.
  • Kenneth R. Timmerman, Author, Dark Forces:  The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi
  • David N. Bossie, President, Citizens United
  • Ginni Thomas, President, Liberty Consulting, LLC
  • John Fonte, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute

The list of people who have signed this letter is an indication of the concern about the seeming cover-up of the events in Benghazi. It is time for the truth to come out.

 

Sometimes It Just Takes A While For The Truth To Come Out

Fox News posted an article today about some of the testimony on the attack on Benghazi that simply does not add up. The testimony relates to whether or not the attack was a spontaneous event or the result of careful planning.

The article states:

In addition to Rogers’ (Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee) assessment, military experts say the mortar strike on the CIA base was evidence of a planned terror attack, and because it forced the evacuation of the annex, it must have been known immediately in Washington. But in a letter to the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2013, Morell said “the nature of the attacks suggested they did not involve significant pre-planning.”

Two of the witnesses that have previously testified before the committee are expected to be called back–former CIA Director David Petraeus and his ex-deputy Michael Morell.

The article reports:

In addition to Rogers’ assessment, military experts say the mortar strike on the CIA base was evidence of a planned terror attack, and because it forced the evacuation of the annex, it must have been known immediately in Washington. But in a letter to the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2013,Morell said “the nature of the attacks suggested they did not involve significant pre-planning.”

…Separately, Morell is accused by Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee of misleading lawmakers over the White House’s role in the so-called Benghazi talking points by stating the text was provided to the administration for their awareness, not for their input. Emails later released by the administration showed otherwise. Morell, who excised half of the talking points text, previously told Fox News that “neither the Agency, the analysts, nor I cooked the books in any way.”

When pressed on the sophistication of the mortar attack, two sources familiar with Petraeus’ statements to Congress said he also seemed to downplay the necessary planning and skill, stating the mortars could have been fired from the back of a truck with the same accuracy.

None of the five military officers contacted by Fox News said the truck explanation was plausible.

There has been so much misinformation put out by the Obama Administration about Benghazi that I really wonder what in the world is the truth and what is the reason for all the misdirection. It is amazing to me that the only person who has actually spent time in jail for the Benghazi attack is the filmmaker of the video that had nothing to do with the attack. The bad guys have been interviewed by CNN, but somehow out government can’t find them. It would be really nice if we found out what all the lying was about so that we could move on to other things.

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The Cost Of Ignoring The Lessons Of History

I am part of the generation that graduated from high school during the ramp up of the war in Vietnam. The boys in my high school graduating class went to college or Vietnam. There were no other choices. That was a time in the history of this country where everyone was not expected to go to college. My husband served in the Navy during that time. We lost friends in Vietnam, and we have friends who physically came home but never mentally came home. Vietnam was a striking example of what happens when politicians take over a war. The military wins wars when they are allowed to do so. Politicians fight with one hand tied behind their backs so that they don’t risk offending anyone. That is the place we have come to (again) in Afghanistan.

On Thursday, the Washington Times posted an article about the increase in casualties in the war in Afghanistan. Although it is difficult to prove statistically, the author of the article believes that the increase in casualties is directly related to the rule of engagement set by the Obama Administration.

The article reports:

“In Afghanistan, the [rules of engagement] that were put in place in 2009 and 2010 have created hesitation and confusion for our war fighters,” said Wayne Simmons, a retired U.S. intelligence officer who worked in NATO headquarters in Kabul as the rules took effect, first under Army Gen. Stanley M. McChrystal, then Army Gen. David H. Petraeus.

“It is no accident nor a coincidence that from January 2009 to August of 2010, coinciding with the Obama/McChrystal radical change of the [rules of engagement], casualties more than doubled,” Mr. Simmons said. “The carnage will certainly continue as the already fragile and ineffective [rules] have been further weakened by the Obama administration as if they were playground rules.”

As President Obama’s troop surge began in 2009, so did new rules of engagement demanded by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was responding to local elders angry over the deaths of civilians from NATO airstrikes and ground operations.

Please read the entire article to get the full picture. I posted it simply to bring up the concept. We need to allow our young men to fight, or take them out of harm’s way. What we are doing now is slowly killing off the future leaders of our country for no apparent reason. We made that mistake in Vietnam. Let’s not make it again.

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Incredible Coincidence Or Government Thuggery?

The Benghazi attack is still surrounded by more questions than answers. Yesterday CNN posted an exclusive story about a number of CIA agents who were on the ground in the outpost at Benghazi during the attack. Since the attack, many of these agents have been recovering from the wounds, but all of the agents have remained out of sight. Why?

The article reports:

Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency’s missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency’s workings.

The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.

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

In exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider writes, “You don’t jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well.”

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

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

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

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

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

If the CIA has been all that open with Congress, why are agents being kept from the press and subjected to lie detector tests much more frequently than usual?

With this is mind, let’s take a look at the timeline regarding the resignation of General David Petraeus as the head of the CIA. Regardless of his affair, General Petraeus is known for being an honest man who loves his country and believes in America. There are a lot of stories about when General Petraeus began his affair with Paula Broadwell. The timeline on this is important–was the affair going on in early September 2011, when General Petraeus took over as the head of the CIA? If it was, how did the people who screened him for the job miss it? If the affair began later, was the Obama Administration aware of it? Why does this matter? The attack in Benghazi took place on September 11, 2012. General Petraeus resigned on November 9, 2012. The cover-up of Benghazi began immediately–keep in mind the only person in jail for the Benghazi attack is the filmmaker who made a film no one saw and had nothing to do with the attack. Is it possible that General Petraeus was told to go along with the cover-up or have his affair revealed?

Regardless of the scenario anyone chooses, it is obvious that there has been a cover-up of what happened in Benghazi. The thing to keep in mind is that cover-up, deny, and delay are all standard tactics of the Obama Administration. There are two main theories I have heard on what was going on in Benghazi — number one that it was a gun running operation supplying arms to the Syrian rebels, and number two that the attack was supposed to be a peaceful kidnapping of Ambassador Stevens so that he could later be swapped for the Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman (the Blind Sheik), currently serving a life sentence at Butner Federal Medical Center in North Carolina.

Neither scenario would be popular with the American public, but I suspect the spin artists in the media could dress up either one to make it work. With the recent reporting on Benghazi by CNN, it may actually be possible that Americans will eventually know the full story of what happened at Benghazi on September 11 of last year.

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Some Interesting Information About Benghazi

The U. K. Daily Mail reported today:

Benghazi: The Definitive Report,’ published by William Morrow and Company, is due out in e-book on Tuesday. The authors, Webb and Murphy, are editors of SOFREP.com, a site devoted to news and stories written by current and former special operations commandos.

The book makes a lot of interesting charges about the fall from grace of General David Petraeus and exactly who orchestrated that fall, but it makes some even more interesting charges against CIA Director nominee John Brennan.

The article reports:

Murphy and co-author Brandon Webb also revealed that the September 11 Benghazi terrorist attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, was retaliation by Islamist militants who had been targeted by covert U.S. military operations.

The book claims that neither Stevens nor even Petraeus knew about the raids by American special operations troops, which had ‘kicked a hornet’s nest’ among the heavily-armed fighters after the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser, had been authorizing ‘unilateral operations in North Africa outside of the traditional command structure,’ according to the e-book. Brennan is Obama’s pick to replace Petraeus as head of the CIA.

This is disturbing. The idea that there were ‘unilateral operations in North Africa outside of the traditional command structure’ is highly questionable. I don’t have a problem with the concept of secrecy, but the President is not entitled to run his own private army operations outside the structure of command. This is clearly unconstitutional. Not to inform the people who would be ultimately impacted by these operations is unthinkable.

The article further reports:

Webb and Murphy said they wrote the book to reveal ‘the truth’ behind the attack. They say news accounts of the incident have often been inaccurate because journalists have not had inside access to the people who were on the ground at the time.

The authors have been frustrated, they say, by politicians who have attempted to twist the facts of the case to suit their own ends. Conservatives sought to use the attack as an election issue and place the blame on Obama.

Democrats and the Obama administration have worked to deflect responsibility and downplay the warning signs that were present before the consulate was raided.

Webb and Murphy claim that the ‘inside’ story of the attack – as told by their connections in the CIA and special operations units of the military – show that Brennan never warned the CIA or Stevens about ongoing U.S. military operations in the country.

Had the State Department and the intelligence community known about what was happening, they would have stepped up security in Benghazi and could have prevented the tragedy.

The entire article makes me wonder about the fitness of John Brennan to be Secretary of Defense.

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The Spin Continues

Fox News posted a story today about the testimony of General Petraeus before Congress. Unfortunately, unless things change in this investigation, politics will be more important than the fact that four Americans lost their lives in Benghazi.

The article reports:

Former CIA Director David Petraeus stoked the controversy over the Obama administration’s handling of the Libya terror attack, testifying Friday that references to “Al Qaeda involvement” were stripped from his agency’s original talking points — while other intelligence officials were unable to say who changed the memo, according to a top lawmaker who was briefed. 

Needless to say, there were a few people at the hearings who did not want to hear that testimony.

The story continues:

(Representative Peter) King said a CIA analyst specifically told lawmakers that the Al Qaeda affiliates line “was taken out.” 

A congressional source familiar with this week’s testimony also told Fox News that the language in the CIA talking points about Benghazi was changed from “Al Qaeda-affiliated individuals to extremist organizations” — which had the effect of minimizing the role of terrorists in the attack. 

The Democrats on the Committee accused the Republicans of taking the issue out of context.

The article further reports:

California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff also came to Rice’s defense Thursday, saying after a House intelligence committee hearing that Rice was given the intelligence community’s “best assessment” at the time. 

It was pointed out today that up until September 11, the YouTube video in question had 200 hits. It is amazing that a video with only 200 hits is being credited in some circles with causing the death of four Americans.

Everything the Obama Administration has done on and since September 11th appears to be a cover-up. The goal of the cover-up was to keep the truth under wraps long enough to get President Obama re-elected. Now the election is over, and I am not sure we have seen any noteworthy percentage of the truth. Were there prisoners at Benghazi and was there a gun running operation operating out of Benghazi? Until these two questions are answered in a convincing way, we are simply running around in circles.

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When National Security Takes A Backseat To Politics

Today was the day General Petraeus testified before Congress on the Benghazi attack of September 11. MRC.TV is reporting on a statement made by Representative Peter King after the General testified.

This is the video:

The article reports Representative King’s statement:

Representative Peter King stated that former CIA Director David Petraeus stated that he knew the Benghazi attack was terrorism and that the talking points given to Ambassador Susan Rice were different from the ones prepared by the CIA. Petraeus stated Rice’s talking points were edited to demphasized the possibility of terrorism. 

The reason behind this is simple. The Democrat Convention was all about killing Osama Bin Laden and the end of Al Qaeda. The attack on Benghazi showed that Al Qaeda was alive and quite capable of attacking American assets. Therefore, the fact that the attack at Benghazi was Al Qaeda needed to be covered up–at least until after the election.

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What Happens When The Press Tells Only Part Of The Truth

Recently we heard that the FBI Agent investigating the threatening e-mails sent to Jill Kelley was taken off the case because he had become enamored of Ms. Kelley and sent her a shirtless photograph of himself. There was some truth in that lie, but the story behind the lie is just now beginning to come out. Did anyone wonder why threatening e-mails got the attention of the FBI rather than local law enforcement? Well, it seems as if the Kelley family and the family of Frederick Humphries (the FBI agent taken off the case) had a social relationship. It would not have been odd for Ms. Kelley to ask his opinion of the e-mails as he was a family friend. Now, about the shirtless picture…

Today’s New York Daily News posted the picture in question. This is the picture: 	This undated photograph obtained by The Seattle Times shows FBI Special Agent Frederick W. Humphries posing with target dummies following a SWAT practice in an unknown location. The Times says Humphries sent the photograph to friend and Florida socialite Jill Kelley and others, including one of the paper's own reporters, in an email Sept. 9, 2010. (AP Photo/Special to The Seattle Times)

It should be noted that the picture was sent in 2010 by Agent Humphries to dozens of his friends. Smile, we have all been snookered.

So what was really going on here? The New York Times posted an article on Tuesday detailing some of Agent Humphries past work:

Two former law enforcement colleagues said Mr. Humphries was a solid agent with experience in counterterrorism. He has conservative political views and a reputation for being aggressive, they said.

Colleagues and news reports described the role of Mr. Humphries, who in 1999 was in his third year at the F.B.I., in building the case against Ahmed Ressam, who was detained as he tried to enter the United States from Canada with a plan to set off a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport.

In May 2010, after he had moved to the Tampa field office, Mr. Humphries fatally shot a knife-wielding man near a gate of MacDill Air Force base. A state prosecutor declined to prosecute the case, and the Justice Department’s civil rights division and an internal F.B.I. review board each also found that the use of force had been justified, according to bureau records.

So why were two-year old joke pictures dragged out and made to be something they weren’t?

The New York Times further reports:

The subsequent cyberstalking investigation uncovered an extramarital affair between Mr. Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, his biographer, who agents determined had sent the anonymous e-mails. It also ensnared Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, after F.B.I. agents discovered what a law enforcement official said on Wednesday were sexually explicit e-mail exchanges between him and Ms. Kelley.

When Agent Humphries suspected that the FBI was stalling the investigation possibly due to political reasons, he took his concerns to Congressional Republicans. That was when things began to get complicated.

So what probably happened here? The assumption can be made that the Eric Holder and the Justice knew about the Petraeus affair as far back as last summer. You can draw your own conclusions as to whether or not Eric Holder chose to share this information with President Obama. Remember, President Obama claims he did not know about the affair until the day after the election. Had Agent Humphries continued his investigation, he might have upset the Administration’s plans to use the affair as leverage against General Petraeus (which I believe they did).

There is nothing about the attack on Benghazi that does not reek of cover-up, lies, and misinformation. The shame is that the four men who died in the attack are innocent victims not only of an Al Qaeda attack, but of a totally dishonest administration.

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Curiouser and Curiouser…

This story is based on two sources–an article by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air and an article by Eli Lake at the Daily Beast.

Both articles deal with the testimony of Michael Morell, who became acting Director of Central Intelligence following the surprise resignation of David Petraeus, who will be appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee today. Director Morell is expected to testify that the CIA never requested military assistance during the attack on Benghazi.

The article at the Daily Beast reports:

The CIA, however, requested none of that assistance. Neither did the State Department. None of those teams ever arrived in Benghazi.

On the evening of the attack, the military provided two kinds of support to the CIA security officers who tried to fend off an attack at the U.S. diplomatic mission and then later stood guard at a CIA base less than a mile away, which was hit in a second wave at about 5 a.m. (A U.S. military team working for the CIA was sent that evening from Tripoli, but that team did not arrive at the CIA annex until after the U.S. diplomatic mission was overrun.)

The military support included an unarmed predator drone that recorded the dramatic rescue of U.S. personnel from the diplomatic mission to the CIA base at about midnight. (Timelines differ between the Pentagon and the CIA.) The U.S. military also provided medevac support to survivors of the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, State Department communications specialist Sean Smith, and two retired Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty.

Ed Morrissey points out:

But Morell’s explanation, as related by Lake, doesn’t make a lot of sense.  If the consulate and the CIA annex was under heavy and deliberate attack by forces using mortars and RPGs, why wouldn’t they ask for the military assistance that they knew was on standby for just this sort of contingency?  Why just ask for an unarmed surveillance drone rather than something that could potentially offer a diversion for the extraction of personnel from the consulate?  It’s difficult to imagine that the intelligence unit under fire off an on for seven hours would never have requested military assistance to save the lives of the people in the compound — not impossible, perhaps, but certainly implausible.

My hope is that there will be enough public hearings to make sense of this mess. Right now, this seems to have become a partisan accusation match. When questioned about the statements of Susan Rice on the Sunday news shows after the attack, the reply was that Condoleezza Rice was wrong when she testified that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Answers like that will not help anyone get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi. Answers like that will also prevent steps being taken to make sure the events of September 11, 2012, are never repeated.

 

 

 

 

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Another Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy theories about the Obama Administration are getting to be old hat. I suspect some of them have a basis in truth, but I also suspect the majority of them don’t. Generally conspiracy theories arise because there is a vacuum of information that people tend to want to fill. Because the details about President Obama’s life–school records, childhood education, etc.–are so sketchy, conspiracy theories have arisen.

My latest contribution to the conspiracy theory pile is the reason for the resignation of General David Petraeus.

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line is one of the sources for my latest conspiracy theory.

In an article posted yesterday, Mr. Mirengoff states:

…If so, then it seems that the affair started before Petraeus became the director of the CIA. The background check on Petraeus when he was being considered for the CIA job must have been incredibly thorough. And, since an affair with an embedded reporter would probably have been difficult to keep fully secret, even an ordinary investigation might well have uncovered word of it.

Thus, it may be that the White House knew of the General’s affair before he became the DCIA.

USA Today reported early this morning:

A federal law enforcement official said the relationship was discovered by the FBI during the course of an unrelated security investigation. Subsequently, a number of e-mails concerning the relationship were discovered, said the official who is not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.

Now, my questions. Did the White House know of the affair when General Petraeus was chosen to head the CIA? Did General Petraeus know that they knew? Does that explain the fact that he towed the Democrat party line in his last appearance before Congress? Did he resign and make the matter public to avoid having to tow the Democrat party line again in his appearance before Congress next week? Who authorized the FBI investigation and who were they investigating?  I don’t want to see the reputation of a good man ruined by one serious mistake, but I think that there is a whole lot more to the story than we currently know.

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This Just Isn’t Getting Any Clearer

Yesterday the Weekly Standard reported:

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. ”

OK. Who did tell the military special forces not to help those under attack in Benghazi? And why? It seems to me that at least the first question should have been answered by now.There are phone records and email records that should paint a fairly clear picture of who said what.

I heard a theory today that totally unnerved me. The New York Times reported recently that the Obama Administration was selling weapons to the rebels in Syria, despite the fact that these rebels have close connections to Al Qaeda. It also should be noted that Libya has supplied a major portion of the Al Qaeda soldiers we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. What if the Ambassador (who was a good man who had a heart for the Arab people) was about to blow the whistle on our gun running activities in the Middle East? Would that have been a reason not to send help? As I said, that is just someone’s theory, but can someone come up with a better explanation as to why help never came?

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