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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jjs_ynot who wrote (58084)	10/31/2012 12:51:58 PM
From: Peter Dierks	3 Recommendations Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 71588

Benghazi Coverup Much Worse Than "Third-rate Burglary" By Jack Kelly October 31, 2012 The ride on the Obama bus gets bumpier as more bodies are thrown under it. The latest to go thumpity thump are journalists who trumpeted the administration's excuse that faulty intelligence is why the president said for so long the attack on our consulate in Benghazi was a "spontaneous" protest over a Youtube video. The journalists went under the bus because the Foreign Service and career intelligence officers the administration tried to scapegoat refused to go there. They've leaked emails that reveal the White House was informed while it was still going on that the attack was the work of terrorists affiliated with al-Qaida. To put this in the context of the Mother of All Scandals, these emails are the equivalent of a transcript of what was on the 181/2 minutes of the secret White House tapes President Nixon's secretary erased. "What did the president know, and when did he know it?" Sen. Howard Baker, R-Tenn, asked during the Watergate hearings. The answer in the leaked emails is that the president knew everything, all along. They were sent by the Regional Security Officer in Libya to the State Department in Washington, the White House Situation Room, the Pentagon, the FBI and thedirector of National Intelligence. The first said the consulate was being attacked by "about 20" armed men. The third, sent two hours later, reported that Ansar al Sharia, an Islamist militia, was claiming credit for the attack. A fourth, sent at 11:57 p.m. EDT, described a mortar attack on the consulate annex, where the Americans were killed. About 300 watch officers at the NSC, State, Defense, the FBI and other agencies would have read these emails as soon as they were received, and informed their superiors right away. This was a crisis. Men armed with mortars, machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades were attacking a U.S. consulate. The ambassador was missing. The secretary of state, the DNI and the president would have been briefed within hours. When the "three a.m. phone call" came (at 6:07 p.m. EDT), the president ignored it. The day after learning Ambassador Stevens had been murdered and sensitive intelligence documents were missing, he jetted off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas. And for nearly two weeks afterward, Mr. Obama and his senior aides blamed the attack on the Youtube video -- even though they knew that wasn't true. His interview with Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes, taped the day after the attack, indicates that Mr. Obama has been lying from the get-go. "My suspicion is, is that there are folks involved in [the attack on the consulate] who were looking to target Americans from the start," the president told Mr. Kroft. The fact that CBS cut this from the broadcast -- airing instead Mr. Obama's attack on Mitt Romney for criticizing his Middle East policy -- indicates why the White House remains confident the "mainstream" media will continue to downplay the scandal. This cover-up, like that in Watergate, goes right to the top. What's being covered up is much worse than a "third rate burglary." Why was security so lax? Why were the ambassador's pleas for more turned down? Why did the president lie? Americans have a right to know. Few in the media have tried to find out. Appeals to their integrity are unlikely to get "mainstream" journalists to do their jobs, since they have so little of it. Self preservation may. The leaked emails expose journalists who touted the administration's story as gullible chumps, corrupt shills, or both. Spooks and diplomats are angry at the attempt to make them scapegoats; furious that the president didn't lift a finger to help their comrades in the consulate during the seven-hour siege. More leaks may be on the way. If they fail to follow up, journalists could lose more credibility than the president. They haven't much credibility left to lose. Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio. realclearpolitics.com

To: jjs_ynot who wrote (58084)	11/1/2012 10:49:11 PM
From: greatplains_guy	Respond to of 71588

Why Did Obama Refuse to Send Air Support? ‘YOU HAVE THE BLOOD OF AN AMERICAN HERO ON YOUR HANDS’ 12:01 a.m., Oct. 31, 2012 What did President Barack Obama know and when did he know it? Why has the Obama administration kept changing its story about how Ambassador Chris Stevens, security officials Tyrone Woods of Imperial Beach and Glen Doherty of Encinitas, and information officer Sean Smith, who grew up in San Diego, died on Sept. 11 in Benghazi, Libya? Why won’t the mainstream media treat the incontrovertible evidence of the White House’s dishonesty and incompetence like the ugly scandal it obviously is? These are all questions that demand to be answered after revelations that demolished the tidy narrative the president has been offering about Benghazi. Until last week, the White House had taken a moderate hit over the fact that for two weeks after it happened, officials had fostered the impression that the four Americans were killed Sept. 11 in a spontaneous protest triggered by a blasphemous anti-Islam video posted on YouTube – not by a coordinated terrorist attack on the 11th anniversary of 9/11. But administration officials pushed back by saying the “fog of war” had left them uncertain about events, and that when White House press secretary Jay Carney and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice had cited the video, they were only repeating the best available information they had. The president’s repeated comments conveyed the impression that he wasn’t aware of the attacks as they were unfolding, saying only that the next day, he ordered increased security for embassies in the area. But after a torrent of leaks of official emails and communiqués – likely coming from CIA officials who refuse to participate in a cover-up and/or who won’t accept the role of scapegoat – the “fog of war” narrative looks like damage control: a determined attempt to keep the facts from the public until after the Nov. 6 election. After the leaks, the president suddenly changed his story to say he was aware of the attacks as they unfolded and had quickly issued an order to “make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to.” There was no “fog.” There was no spontaneous uprising. Thanks to a drone and other surveillance technology, the White House’s national security team knew in real time that the U.S. consulate and a “safe house” a mile away in Benghazi were under coordinated attack by a well-armed group, not from a protest that unexpectedly escalated. Over a seven-hour span on Sept. 11, the besieged Americans made at least two urgent requests for help; the U.S. military has considerable assets in the area that could have been deployed to Benghazi. Who told the besieged Americans they were out of luck? After hints appeared in the media that it was the CIA’s fault, the spy agency – obviously at the behest of CIA Director David Petraeus – put out a statement Friday that flatly denied it opposed coming to the rescue of Stevens, Woods, Doherty and Smith. At roughly the same time, in a TV interview, the president offered his new narrative of being aware of the crisis and taking decisive action, while refusing to answer the direct question of whether Americans in Benghazi requested help but were rejected. A day later, however, the White House said in fact that it had never received requests for help. This sets up the Pentagon to take the fall. On Monday, incredibly, Obama acted put-upon by the questions about his administration’s integrity. In a TV appearance, he said, “I do take offense with some suggestion that in any way, we haven’t tried to make sure that the American people knew as the information was coming in what we believed.” Remember, the president made this statement only after leaks the previous week demolished his and his administration’s dishonest, intentionally misleading Benghazi narrative. It has now been seven weeks since the terrorist attack. We deserve to know the truth. Charles Woods, father of Tyrone Woods, the former Navy SEAL from Imperial Beach, said it best in a Monday TV interview. “I can’t imagine anyone with any heart that would watch a battle rage for seven hours knowing that heroes were there that were going to be slaughtered if you didn’t have help sent in. ... Whoever it was that was in that room watching that video of my son dying, their cries for help, their order ‘don’t help them at all, let them die’ ... you have the blood of my son, you have the blood of an American hero on your hands. I don’t know who you are, but one of these days the truth will come out.” The senior Woods is correct. Inevitably, there will be a bipartisan fact-finding commission into this terrible tragedy and its cover-up. Unless the mainstream media stops abetting the cover-up and the facts come out without a commission wielding subpoena power. Isn’t this a story – a gigantic story? Of course. But we fear that ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post will only choose to realize how obvious this is after Nov. 6. Then it will come to them – spontaneously, we’re sure. utsandiego.com