Benghazi

[3rdnlng]

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2013/05/21/pjm-exclusive-ex-diplomats-report-new-benghazi-whistleblowers-with-info-devastating-to-clinton-and-obama/?singlepage=true

 

 

So, more whistleblowers to come? We had a general ordered to not send help at the risk of being relieved of command? Christopher Stevens was in Benghazi to buy back stinger missiles (that the state Dept. had sold over the objections of the CIA) from the original insurgency because they had close ties to Al Qaeda? If true these allegations are far worse than Watergate.

[4merper4mer]

Not necessarily a bad thing...I mean, if the Libyan government is so grabbastic that they can't arrest and extradite to the US, it's probably so fragile that you don't want to risk toppling it with any sort of military action in Libya. I'm not sure I agree with that...but I could understand that reasoning.

 

Somehow, though, I doubt the administration's policy is anywhere close to being reasoned. And AP should probably just hand over Dozier's phone records to DOJ right now and not bother waiting for the subpoena...

 

It is reasoned. The reason is Los Gatos.

[Cinga]

But Benghazi was so very long ago!!!

 

And now, Howard Dean takes to the airwaves, and declares it a "laughable joke"

 

Don't believe me??

 

[PastaJoe]

You guys still obsessing? He was a good actor, but he passed away over a year ago.

 

[DC Tom]

You guys still obsessing? He was a good actor, but he passed away over a year ago.

 

 

Says the guy who's worn the lips of his Hillary Clinton poster.

[3rdnlng]

You guys still obsessing? He was a good actor, but he passed away over a year ago.

 

Last time I saw him he was driving down a two lane road and using up both lanes, singing out his ass.

[IDBillzFan]

Says the guy who's worn the lips of his Hillary Clinton poster.

 

I don't remember the last time someone simultaneously identified someone perfectly while also creeping me out pretty badly.

[OCinBuffalo]

You guys still obsessing? He was a good actor, but he passed away over a year ago.

 

Jackie Treehorn treats objects like women, man, and so does the evil, equally rampant and pervasive, Meazza!

[drinkTHEkoolaid]

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2013/05/21/pjm-exclusive-ex-diplomats-report-new-benghazi-whistleblowers-with-info-devastating-to-clinton-and-obama/?singlepage=true

 

 

So, more whistleblowers to come? We had a general ordered to not send help at the risk of being relieved of command? Christopher Stevens was in Benghazi to buy back stinger missiles (that the state Dept. had sold over the objections of the CIA) from the original insurgency because they had close ties to Al Qaeda? If true these allegations are far worse than Watergate.

 

Wow.

 

I remember the cia had some weapon caches in a warehouse near the annex that was initially reported on but I haven't heard much recently.

 

I really want Hillary and obama to be held accountable for this.

 

Yes we can! Hope and change! Most transparent administration! Forward!

 

[B-Man]

If Obama's whereabouts are so irrelevant why don't they just say where it was?

 

 

The mystery night:

 

On “Fox News Sunday” last weekend, White House aide Dan Pfeiffer was asked about President Barack Obama’s whereabouts the night of the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi.

 

This was the night when we lost our first ambassador in 30 years, and when three other Americans were killed in an attack that lasted all night long at multiple locations within the eastern Libyan city. Since the president is commander in chief, one would think where he was and what he did during such an event would be of obvious public concern.

 

Not according to Pfeiffer. He deemed the president’s location, and specifically whether he was in the Situation Room, “a largely irrelevant fact.” If it is so unimportant, why not simply tell us? It’s not as if we haven’t heard largely irrelevant information before. Humor us. Then everyone can judge the value of the fact for himself.

 

Obama’s actions and nonactions on that terrible night are a blank spot in his presidency. We simply don’t know much about them, and the White House has always been perfectly content to leave it that way.

 

We know he was meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey on an unrelated matter at 5 p.m. Washington time, when he learned of the attack. In congressional testimony, Panetta said he had no contact with the president or the White House after that point.

 

Dempsey said he didn’t hear from the president, either. Although he did stipulate that “his staff was engaged with the national military command center pretty constantly through the period, which is the way it would normally work.” Fine, but one wonders: What is the standard operating procedure when a U.S. ambassador goes missing and is killed?

 

Next, we know that the president talked to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at 10 p.m., when the assault that killed Chris Stevens and State Department computer expert Sean Smith was over but the mortar attack that killed two former U.S. Navy SEALs at another facility hadn’t yet taken place.

 

What about the rest of the time? Pfeiffer assures us that the president kept “in constant touch that night with his national security team and kept up to date with the events as they were happening.”

 

He must have experienced the loneliness and responsibility of command during all his unspecified phone calls with unspecified national security personnel from an unspecified location until unspecified hours of the night.

 

When the White House has a good story to tell, we hear about it. As Boston Herald columnist Michael Graham points out, the president has been in constant evidence responding to the Moore, Okla., tornado. The White House blog on Wednesday informed us, among many other things, that the president spoke to Mayor Glenn Lewis and Gov. Mary Fallin “to reiterate that he had directed his administration to provide all available resources to support the response led by the governor and her team.”

 

The Osama bin Laden raid will be one of the most documented episodes of his presidency. Immediately after killing bin Laden, Obama gave a long, detailed interview to “60 Minutes.”

 

He talked about what information the CIA first brought him about bin Laden’s location and what orders he gave in response. When the planning began and how it proceeded. How involved he was in multiple meetings in the Situation Room. Every nuance of his thinking. The dynamic of the debate among his advisers. The mood in the Situation Room during the operation. And on and on.

 

In the case of Benghazi, the military maintains that nothing could have been done to save the lives lost that night, and it may well be right. But no one could say how long the attack in Benghazi would last or if there would be follow-on attacks in Tripoli. An engaged commander in chief would have been coordinating with his military and prodding it to see if it could do more, faster to respond to an attack that resulted in a national humiliation.

 

The day after his mystery night, Obama publicly emerged. He gave a statement at 10:35 a.m. condemning the Benghazi attack — and left Washington at 2:20 p.m. for a fundraiser in Las Vegas.

 

 

Read more: http://www.politico....l#ixzz2U8qqkcfz

[3rdnlng]

From the link in my post #301:

 

More whistleblowers will emerge shortly in the escalating Benghazi scandal, according to two former U.S. diplomats who spoke with PJ Media Monday afternoon.

 

These whistleblowers, colleagues of the former diplomats, are currently securing legal counsel because they work in areas not fully protected by the Whistleblower law.

 

According to the diplomats, what these whistleblowers will say will be at least as explosive as what we have already learned about the scandal, including details about what really transpired in Benghazi that are potentially devastating to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

 

The former diplomats inform PJM the new revelations concentrate in two areas — what Ambassador Chris Stevens was actually doing in Benghazi and the pressure put on General Carter Ham, then in command of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and therefore responsible for Libya, not to act to protect jeopardized U.S. personnel.

 

Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups issued to them by the State Department, not by the CIA. Such a mission would usually be a CIA effort, but the intelligence agency had opposed the idea because of the high risk involved in arming “insurgents” with powerful weapons that endanger civilian aircraft.

 

Hillary Clinton still wanted to proceed because, in part, as one of the diplomats said, she wanted “to overthrow Gaddafi on the cheap.”

 

This left Stevens in the position of having to clean up the scandalous enterprise when it became clear that the “insurgents” actually were al-Qaeda – indeed, in the view of one of the diplomats, the same group that attacked the consulate and ended up killing Stevens.

 

The former diplomat who spoke with PJ Media regarded the whole enterprise as totally amateurish and likened it to the Mike Nichols film Charlie Wilson’s War about a clueless congressman who supplies Stingers to the Afghan guerrillas. “It’s as if Hillary and the others just watched that movie and said ‘Hey, let’s do that!’” the diplomat said.

 

He added that he and his colleagues think the leaking of General David Petraeus’ affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell was timed to silence the former CIA chief on these matters.

 

Regarding General Ham, military contacts of the diplomats tell them that AFRICOM had Special Ops “assets in place that could have come to the aid of the Benghazi consulate immediately (not in six hours).”

 

Ham was told by the White House not to send the aid to the trapped men, but Ham decided to disobey and did so anyway, whereupon the White House “called his deputy and had the deputy threaten to relieve Ham of his command.”

 

The White House motivation in all this is as yet unclear, but it is known that Ham retired quietly in April 2013 as head of AFRICOM.

 

PJ Media recognizes this is largely hearsay, but the two diplomats sounded quite credible. One of them was in a position of responsibility in a dangerous area of Iraq in 2004.

 

We will report more as we learn it.

[B-Man]

 

Who Outed the CIA Annex in Benghazi?

by Eli Lake May 24, 2013 4:45 AM EDT

 

In a classified hearing, a House panel is trying to figure out how the attack transpired. Did the attackers know that secret location, or did they learn it that night?

 

 

More than eight months after the 9/11 anniversary attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, the CIA is still trying to find out how the attack that killed two former Navy SEALs at the agency’s annex transpired.

 

 

The attack on the CIA base came more than seven hours after an armed mob stormed the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, setting the compound ablaze and killing U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and Sean Smith, a State Department communications officer who was with him.

 

 

How the attackers knew about what was supposed to be a secret CIA facility is important. If the attackers had known for weeks about the facility and had staked out a position to fire the mortar rounds, it suggests the Benghazi attack was planned in advance and not the “flash mob with guns” that Obama administration officials described to reporters in the weeks following the attack.

 

 

If the attackers learned the location of the facility that evening, it would suggest the Benghazi assault was more of a target of opportunity and was therefore not planned well in advance of the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DC Tom]

Who Outed the CIA Annex in Benghazi?

 

I predict a response of "That's not important" from the same people that thought the Valerie Plame affair was a national security disaster...

[3rdnlng]

What could Obama be thinking?

 

http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2013/05/24/obama-state-dept-talking-points-editor-promotion/

 

 

The State Department spokeswoman who played a pivotal role in deleting portions of the Benghazi talking points has been tapped by President Obama for a plum new post, bagging a nomination to become assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

 

Nuland is a career foreign service officer who had held many high-level positions, including under George W. Bush. But her nomination to handle the European portfolio will likely be seen by Republicans as an example of the president flipping the bird their way.

 

Senate confirmation in the current environment would seem unlikely, at best.

During the process of whittling the original CIA talking points down, a reference to participation in the Benghazi attack by al Qaeda-linked elements was deleted. Nuland had expressed “serious concerns” about mentioning the terrorists. And she also asserted that including references to previous attacks against foreigners in Benghazi “could be abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings.”

[Magox]

What could Obama be thinking?

 

Senate confirmation in the current environment would seem unlikely, at best.

 

Obama and his administration understands this... It isn't as if they are oblivious to the chances of her getting confirmed. My hunch tells me that they believe they can goad the Republicans to "overreach" by looking overtly partisan, and that they will try to win political points with this baiting tactic. Either that, or that Hillary Clinton grew fond of her and appealed to Obama for her to get promoted. Edited May 24, 2013 by Magox

[3rdnlng]

Obama and his administration understands this... It isn't as if they are oblivious to the chances of her getting confirmed. My hunch tells me that they believe they can goad the Republicans to "overreach" by looking overtly partisan, and that they will try to win political points with this baiting tactic. Either that, or that Hillary Clinton grew fond of her and appealed to Obama for her to get promoted.

 

She has to go through a confirmation process in the Senate. She will be under oath. Questions like," Why did you change the talking points regarding the CIA's warnings"? An honest answer will be quite embarrassing.

[Magox]

She has to go through a confirmation process in the Senate. She will be under oath. Questions like," Why did you change the talking points regarding the CIA's warnings"? An honest answer will be quite embarrassing.

They must feel as if they can use this to their advantage, if they didn't then why do it? Specially knowing how politically minded and adept that they are. Let's face it, they relish Politics and they are damn good at it. Having said that, the political landscape for them has structurally changed and the press will view them with more skepticism than they previously have.

[B-Man]

She has to go through a confirmation process in the Senate. She will be under oath. Questions like," Why did you change the talking points regarding the CIA's warnings"?

 

An honest answer will be quite embarrassing.

 

 

Who will cover it in the media ?

 

I'm not trying to be sarcastic.....................No matter what embarrassing thing she says it will be buried inside the paper and ignored on Network broadcasts.

 

 

 

If anything is mentioned, as others have hinted at, the emphasis will be on the "attacking, mean" republicans and the subject matter will not be relevant at all..........................I've seen it too many times.

 

 

 

.

[3rdnlng]

They must feel as if they can use this to their advantage, if they didn't then why do it? Specially knowing how politically minded and adept that they are. Let's face it, they relish Politics and they are damn good at it. Having said that, the political landscape for them has structurally changed and the press will view them with more skepticism than they previously have.

 

She'll get cornered and the best that she'll be able to say is that "We lied, so we didn't look bad".

[Magox]

She'll get cornered and the best that she'll be able to say is that "We lied, so we didn't look bad".

I don't see it playing out that way... at all