Diminishing Benghazi

Renee Nal | May 7, 2013 | 0 Comments

Image Source: Tarpon.WordPress

According to Gregory Hicks, The U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens’s Deputy,

“a team of Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks was forbidden from doing so by U.S. Special Operations Command Africa.”

Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the Deputy Coordinator for Operations in the agency’s Counter-terrorism Bureau charged that “then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key aide effectively tried to cut the department’s own counter-terrorism bureau out of the chain of reporting and decision-making.”

He further claims that his account of the Benghazi terror attack:

“was suppressed by the official investigative panel that Clinton convened to review the episode, the Accountability Review Board (ARB). Thompson’s lawyer, Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, has further alleged that his client has been subjected to threats and intimidation by as-yet-unnamed superiors at State, in advance of his cooperation with Congress.”

Damage control tomarginalize Hicks and Thompson iswell underway.

The Diminishing of Benghazi

The diminishing of Benghazi has been occurring ever since the avoidable terror attack took place in Libya on 9/11. Anyone who has been paying attention can see that the bad behavior before, during, and after the murderous rampage that claimed the lives of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods was the result of one thing:

Politics.

The crime scene was not secured, which allowed journalists and others to remove (and destroy) evidence, CNN National Security Analyst Fran Townsend stated that the FBI took so long to get to the scene, due in part, to “infighting.” She said,

“They had difficulty, and we understand there was some bureaucratic infighting between the FBI and Justice Department on the one hand, and the State Department on the other, and so it took them longer than they would have liked to get into country.”

A team, known as the “Commander’s In-extremis Force,” was designed specifically for quick reaction to unforeseen emergencies and wasan hour away. However,

“…confusion about what was happening on the ground in Benghazi—and State Department concerns about violating Libyan sovereignty—made a military rescue mission impractical, the officials say.“

Ironically, anyone who dares to seek answers has been accused of “politicizing” the terror attack.

The real “politicizing” was done when the Obama Administration immediately started pointing fingers…in the strangest places, spurred on by the lapdogs of the mainstream media, who also leaked out some ridiculous theories.

In the days and weeks following the terror attack, President Obama famously referred to the brutal killings as “not optimal” and as “bumps in the road.” Hillary Clinton, along with President Obama, initially blamed an anti-Muslim YouTube trailer for spurring on the “spontaneous protests” that got out of control and resulted in the terror attack on the consulate in Benghazi.

On “This Week” on 16-Sept-2012 as well as several other news programs, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice stated,

“Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous – not a premeditated – response to what had transpired in Cairo…[where] a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated.”

The desperate blame game included fingers pointed to:

• Mitt Romney: Obama’s deputy campaign manager,Stephanie Cutter said that Benghazi “is only an issue because Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are making it one.”

• The Wealthy:Jay Carney said

“its just a fact, that the President has fought for, and put forward funding for our diplomatic personnel and Embassies around the world, and “others” have had their budget priorities, to reduce that funding by way of tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires…that’s just a fact”.

And:

“When it comes to funding, this president makes sure that diplomatic security is adequately funded, make sure that that funding is restored when efforts on Capitol Hill are made, principally by House Republicans, including Congressman Ryan to slash it in order to cut taxes for the wealthiest 2 percent in this country.”

• The GOP: In one example of many, House Minority LeaderNancy Pelosi attempted to lay the blame for the September 11 terror attack in Benghazi on House Republicans while speaking with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. She also blamed Republicans for lax security at the consulate that was burned in the attack.
  
  
• YouTube Video: a relentless, repeated notion that a “spontaneous protest” spurred on by a YouTube video was falsely blamedweeks after the attack.

Vice President Joe Biden, during the VP Debate, stated, in regard tosecurity at Benghazi:

“Well, we weren’t told they wanted more security again. We did not know they wanted more security again. And by the way, at the time we were told exactly — we said exactly what the intelligence community told us that they knew. That was the assessment. And as the intelligence community changed their view, we made it clear they changed their view. That’s why I said, we will get to the bottom of this.

When White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked about Vice President Joe Biden’s statement on additional security requests by Benghazi staff at a press conference, Carney blamed Republicans in general, and Congressman Paul Ryan in particular, for “politicizing” the issue to make President Obama look bad.

Even worse, he blamed Republicans for denying funding for U.S. embassy security. This oft repeated statement about Embassy funding is a strawman. Requests for extra security were not denied to Benghazi because of lack of funding. Obama Campaign Senior Advisor David Axelrod made a similar comment onCNN, He said,

“One thing we shouldn’t do, however, Soledad, is what Paul Ryan and the Republicans in Congress have suggested, which is to cut back on funding for the security of these facilities.”

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Charlene Lambtestified in October that the size of the attack — and not the money — was the issue. Asked if there was any budget consideration that led her not to increase the security force, she said: “No.”

She added: “This was an unprecedented attack in size.” Asked again about budget issues, Lamb said: “Sir, if it’s a volatile situation, we will move assets to cover that.”

When asked about Lamb’s testimony, Hillary Clinton stated that “the review board that examined the Libya attack found budget issues have played a role.” This author cries foul.

Image Source:Heritage.org

The Heritage Foundation notes that

“…total funds for Worldwide Security Protection for FY 2012 are estimated to be $94 million higher than in FY 2011, while Embassy Security, Construction and Maintenance is estimated to be $61 million less than FY 2011. Together, there is a net increase.”

By the way, right around the time that security was being denied to the officials in Libya, other U.S. embassies were given funds for creating “green” initiatives, as reported by theWashington Times. Also, it should be noted that despite the fake charge, “the overall securitybudget has more than doubled since fiscal 2004.”

Before they were supposed to testify on their roles in Benghazi,Tavern Keepers reported that Former CIA DirectorDavid Petraeus, Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton EACH had excuses why they could not testify.

In what should have been anexplosive revelation, Charles Woods, the father of slain Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, described Hillary Clinton’s reaction to him on the Lars Larson radio show. He said that Mrs. Clinton explained that they were going to prosecute the man who made the video. This, despite the fact that Americans now know that White House officialswere aware that the terrorist attack had nothing to do with the YouTube Video, the “Innocence of Muslims,” a lie that persisted for weeks.

It is still not known who originated the “YouTube Video” meme.

In June, the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was bombed. The event was barely reported in the mainstream media. There were increasingly desperate requests for assistance, which were ignored and not provided. Eric Nordstrom, a former Regional Security Officer, testified that requests for additional security in Libya were ordered not to be made for what he described as “political reasons.”

The Mainstream Media:

• New York Times White House correspondentHelene Cooper referred to the attack on Benghazi as “peripheral to what’s going on right now.”
• Time Magazine’sJoe Klein on “Meet the Press” said, “This business about the…Libya consulate has been like the October mirage — it really isn’t an issue.”
• MSNBC’sMartin Bashir: “…in many ways this Republican ticket are responsible for a reduction in security at consulates and embassies throughout the world and yet now they’re hammering the president and this administration for what has been, let’s be frank, a terrible tragedy.”
• CNN’sSoledad O’Brien furiously tried to blame lack of embassy funding for the attack.
• Then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that due to the lack of “real-time information,” he opted not to send help to the officials under attack at the Benghazi Consulate on September 11, as he did not want to “deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on.”

So,

• despite the fact that it was September 11th in a highly unstable country in the middle east,
• despite that the Benghazi Consulate was bombed in June (with flyers left at the scene declaring that more attacks would follow),
• despite the repeated requests for assistance (requests made even before the June bombing) that were ignored by the State Department,
• despite the fact that security was actually reduced, and
• despite the fact that the Red Cross and the British Consulate came under attack and had already fled Libya,

Panetta told the world that the intelligence community had no clue what was going on in Benghazi and they allowed Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty to be attacked by al Qaeda-friendly militants.

CBS’s Sharyl Attkisson is an Emmy award-winning investigative reporter who has been covering the Benghazi story. It seems as though Attkisson is paying for her crime of being a journalist and daring to challenge the Obama Administration, just likeBob Woodward did.

She noted,

“I went after many things in the Bush Administration and a lot of reporters joined me in those efforts when there were things to be asked in the Bush Administration. With the Obama Administration sometimes I feel like it’s uh, I’m alone with a few other journalists and I can’t say why that is, I don’t know”

And the diminishing continues…..