Watch 2016 Obama's America and EVERYTHING makes sense including the return of the Churchill bust.
Printable View
Watch 2016 Obama's America and EVERYTHING makes sense including the return of the Churchill bust.
I take it you saw it. I'll have to go see it. Maybe today. I'll see if I can find a theater. There wasn't one last time I checked in my area though (but that's been a couple weeks ago).
It's a bit of a recap for us old salts but I had never put all the pieces together in that fashion.
Essentially, Obama was forged in a communist, anti-colonial crucible and all his decisions and actions are to put the USA back where it was in the 1500s in relation to the rest of the world. He doesn't believe we have the "right" to be as prosperous as we are and we should simply be one small voice among others. Further, we should be forced to repay all the wealth we've stolen. In essence, he wants our country broken and ruined and it's people pushed into poverty and suffering as we've inflicted around the world. The USA is the problem and without the USA, the rest of the world would be better off. He wants us in the dark shivering and suffering for our crimes. He wants to oversee the deconstruction of the United States.
He needs to go then.
Period.
Far away.
Somewhat rhetorical question... Why is a jackass like Obama anywhere even close to the white house? The answer is a scary one, having to do with the level of common sense, logic and patriotism of America's citizenry. At least half of our nation's people are either morons or neo-marxists.
I saw something on facebook a bit ago...
"It's not where he was born, it's where he lives NOW"
Sep 20, 2012 White House: Libya was 'terrorist attack'
- http://i.usatoday.net/_inside2011/_i/_share/email.png
- http://i.usatoday.net/_inside2011/_i/_share/print.png
- http://i.usatoday.net/_inside2011/_i/_share/plus.png
By David Jackson, USA TODAY
Updated 27m ago
http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USA...-community.jpg
CAPTION
Mohammad Hannon AP
A White House spokesman today said it is apparent that last week's attack in Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans was an act of terrorism.
"It is self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack," said White House spokesman Jay Carney."Our embassy was attacked violently and the result was four deaths of American officials."
Carney also noted that the killings are still under investigation, and, "we have no information at this point to suggest that this is a significantly pre-planned attack."
Asked about the Libyan attack during a forum in Miami, President Obama said: "We're still doing an investigation ... I don't want to speak to something until we know all the information."
Carney spoke as CNN and others, citing unnamed sources, reported that slain U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens had "worried about what he called the never-ending security threats in Benghazi and mentioned his name was on an al Qaeda hit list."
The White House spokesman also cited testimony from National Counterterrorism Center director Matthew Olsen, who told a Senate hearing yesterday: "I would say, yes, they were killed in course of terrorist attack on our embassy."
U.S. officials initially attributed the death to protests over an anti-Islam that got out of control.
The attack "was the result of opportunism, taking advantage of and exploiting what was happening as a result of the video which was found to be offensive." Carney said.
The investigation also concerns security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, officials said.
At a White House briefing Wednesday, Carney said that President Obama "is absolutely concerned that we take the necessary measures to make sure that those who killed Americans are brought to justice.
"And he has been focused from the beginning on ensuring that adequate security reinforcements be brought to bear at embassies and consulates and diplomatic facilities where that's deemed necessary," Carney added.
Al-Qaeda claims torture death of Ambassador Stevens was revenge for Al- Libi
- Policy & Issues Topics
- September 18, 2012
- By: Robert Tilford
- Subscribe
http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/def...d7dd5c12ca.jpg
Al-Libi
"We encourage all Muslims to continue to demonstrate and escalate their protests ... and to kill their (American) ambassadors and representatives or to expel them to cleanse our land from their wickedness," said the statement from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, according to one CNN report.
In a statement, al-Qaida in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb praised the killing of Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya, in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi on September 11 2012.
See article: Ambassador Stevens tortured before his death http://www.examiner.com/article/ambassador-stevens-was-tortured-libya-before-his-death
See video: Libya : U.S. Ambassador killed by Al-Qaeda Muslim Brotherhood in Benghazi, Libya (Sept 11, 2012) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeZ3ZOQ8IU4
Al-Qaeda threatened attacks in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania, and condemned the United States for "lying to Muslims for more than 10 years, saying its war was against terrorism and not Islam."
The group urged Muslims to pull down and burn American flags at embassies, and kill or expel American diplomats to "purge our land of their filth in revenge for the honor of the Prophet”, see article: Al-Qaida calls for attacks on US diplomats http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/w...w/16449369.cms ).
Al-Qaeda has said the death of its second-in-command, Abu Yahya al-Libi has been avenged by the killing of the US ambassador to Libya earlier this week (see video: Al-Qaeda: US ambassador is vengeance for Al-Libi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skDgT6UTOWg ).
Abu Yahya al-Libi born Mohamed Hassan Qaid, was an Islamist terrorist and leading high-ranking official within al-Qaeda, and an alleged member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
The United States targeted him with a drone strike on June 4, 2012 in Mir Ali where he was killed. His death was later confirmed by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a video released in September 2012 to coincide with the 9/11 anniversary (see article: Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri confirms the death of his deputy Abu Yahya al-Libi http://www.news.com.au/world/zawahir...-1226471954248 ).
Gohmert nauseated upon hearing reports of what they did to Ambassador Stevens
- Libya
- September 15, 2012
- By: Robert Tilford
- Subscribe
http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/def...a470bbf2fa.jpg
“I come over here nauseated today upon hearing reports about--and I pray God they're not accurate--about what may have happened during the 8 hours or so the body of our great ambassador was missing", said Congressman Gohmert of Texas.
Credits:
planetpov.com
1 Email
Related topics
In a speech on September 14, 2012 before the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Gohmert bluntley stated: “I come over here nauseated today upon hearing reports about--and I pray God they're not accurate--about what may have happened during the 8 hours or so the body of our great ambassador was missing.” (source: Congressional Register for September 14, 2012 http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-20...2012-09-14.pdf ).
His remarks seem to confirm other reports that Ambassador Stevens was beaten and tortured before his death in Libya (see article: Ambassador Stevens was tortured in Libya before his death http://www.examiner.com/article/amba...fore-his-death ).
http://ecn.t2.tiles.virtualearth.net...ading=hill&n=z
http://ecn.t1.tiles.virtualearth.net...ading=hill&n=zhttp://ecn.t0.tiles.virtualearth.net...ading=hill&n=zhttp://ecn.t3.tiles.virtualearth.net...ading=hill&n=zhttp://ecn.t2.tiles.virtualearth.net...ading=hill&n=z
http://ecn.dev.virtualearth.net/mapc...poi_search.png
© 2012 Nokia© 2012 Microsoft Corporation
US House of Representatives
38.868228 ; -77.009512
See also: U.S. Ambassador savagely murdered and dragged through the streets in Benghazi http://www.examiner.com/article/u-s-...ign-right-next
In related statements Congressman Gohmert said: “But, we also know, well, gee, the Embassy in Cairo released a statement and they were basically condemning anybody that would produce a provocative film that might offend Muslims. Good grief. How many movies have been produced that provoke and insult those of us who are Christians? Thank God that most of us, as Christians, understand that that does not justify going and killing people and burning people and burning up buildings.”
It is not know is he was referring to Ambassador Stevens as one of the people who was “killed and burned” in this case, but it makes you wonder.
Congressman Louie Gohmert is serving his fourth term in the United States House of Representatives.
He represents the First District of Texas which encompasses over 12 counties stretching nearly 120 miles down the state's eastern border.
It's Always Our Fault...
Revisiting the "Stockholm Syndrome"
By Leslie J. Sacks · September 20, 2012
0 Comments
http://media.patriotpost.us/site/icons/printer.png http://media.patriotpost.us/site/icons/email.png http://media.patriotpost.us/img/icon/font-bigger.png http://media.patriotpost.us/img/icon/font-smaller.png
I've been following the sad news out of Benghazi. The late ambassador Stevens was a courageous man committed to uplifting the Libyan people who, together with the Egyptians, are our new "allies." Seeing photos of his corpse being dragged like garbage through the streets of the city by those who demand the niceties of Sharia Law, those who wish to establish the worldwide Muslim Caliphate and enforce the subjugation of women -- I had nothing pithy left to say, only sadness to feel.
Yet it took the American Embassy in Cairo, Hilary Clinton and the Vatican to raise my hackles. The embassy tweeted: "we condemn the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims"; whilst Hilary, parading the endemic White House political correctness, called the obscure video by a crackpot "reprehensible" saying "we absolutely reject its content and message." The Vatican's Father Lombardi did not condemn the killings in Benghazi; rather he condemned "provocations against the sensibilities of Muslim believers."
Yet, the attack in Benghazi was more an act of war than a spontaneous protest -- 400 showed up with mortars and RPGs.
Why? Why does the most powerful government in the world apologize to a rioting rabble, murderers of ambassadors, avowed followers of Bin Laden, pillagers of sovereign American property, whilst at the same time equating the obnoxious and isolated video with the iniquitous violence, as though the two were in any way comparable? The allure of the freedoms guaranteed by our Bill of Rights seems lost to the White House; the integrity of moral judgment has become clouded amongst our leaders.
Yes, this obscure and largely unseen video may indeed hurt the feelings of some devout Muslims, and may inflame some habitual anti-American hatred. But so will every Hollywood movie, every porn site, every political statement that's deemed impure and insulting to the Islamists who have zero tolerance to Western mores and traditions. This 14-minute video by some Egyptian Copt in California about the prophet Muhammad, "Innocence of Muslims," has been on YouTube since June -- yet the propagators of these riots waited until September 11th, that infamous anniversary, to fan the flames. (On September 8th a major Egyptian TV station aired this largely ignored short film).
The real question is not the volatility of millions of Middle Easterners taught from birth to hate America and to despise Israel (as any excuse is usually enough). The real question is why we feel the need to pander and apologize to the most radical, violent and intolerant extremes around the world, to let them set the tone; a tone designed to stifle all criticism of Islam, to declare as blasphemy any attempt to reform radical Islam. (To Islamists, free speech does not extend to defamation of Islam and democracy merely another avenue to implement their 7th century theology).
There were indeed in the past other isolated incidents -- Geert Wilders' "Fitna" movie in Amsterdam, the now infamous cartoons in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Denmark, a few pages of a discarded Koran burnt in error in Afghanistan. In the whole scheme of things, it's remarkable that there are not many more of these criticisms of Islam as we experience some of its radical manifestations today.
When Saudi citizens murdered 3000 innocents on 9/11, no embassies were burned in America, no ambassadors murdered, no riots started. Yet a video of no value seems to bother the Muslim World more than these 3000 victims. Apologies seem to go only one way -- that is the real quandary. We are irrevocably always the Infidels, and they are always the revered protectors of Muhammad.
Ignored yet more relevant is the proliferation, by contrast in the Middle East, of daily anti-West, anti-Semitic propaganda. It's everywhere, all the time -- it's the staple of much of the media, the education system, the Madrassas and the Mosques.
A 41 episode series (Horse Without a Horseman) -- based on the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion -- has been running on Egyptian TV presenting the Jews as a cabal of conspiring demons taking over the world.
In Syria, a government-supported TV series trotted out the ancient blood libel, that of Jews murdering Muslim children, then using their blood to bake Passover Matzos. Strange also, since Kosher laws expressly forbid blood residues from meat.
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority regularly equate Jews with the sons and daughters of monkeys, deserving of death and banishment. The PA pay convicted and jailed suicide bombers $3,000 per month using American government subsidies.
Ahmadinejad talks of destroying Israel. Huge crowds danced, celebrated and handed out sweets in the Middle East capitals on 9/11.
The list is endless as are the calls to violence, rage and vengeance.
Does anyone from that world apologize for these daily genocidal exhortations? Does anyone from the West demand it? None that I have heard. Why? At MSNBC a consensus from a talk show advocated jailing the videographer as an accessory to murder, but not jailing the murderers themselves, not any lynch mobs. The murderers are granted victimhood in our upside-down world.
US Ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, had forbidden the embassy's security to carry live ammunition -- talk about a misguided attempt not to antagonize the Muslim Brotherhood, after all, talk about a more direct accessory to murder.
Where's the outrage when in the Middle East homosexuals are tortured, women stoned, acid thrown into the faces of young girls, Coptic Churches burned, IQ deficient kids used as suicide bombers? The silence is more than deafening.
We now apologize for our unique freedom of speech, the core bastion of our society; we apologize for the words, cartoons and photos of a few independent individuals exercising their inalienable right to free expression, to differing opinions for which we have no control over or responsibility for.
Our ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, and White House spokesman, Jay Carney, insist unwaveringly, against all evidence, against the findings of the Libyan and Egyptian authorities, that the violence was not premeditated, that it was entirely due to the obscure YouTube video. Reports also note that the brother of Al Qaeda's current leader, namely Mohammed Zawahiri, was instrumental in the Cairo attack.
Yet we seem to take the hate speech in the Middle East for granted, including beheadings, kidnappings, rapes, murders, and suicide bombings. We cowardly choose to respond by subsidizing these supremacist and fanatical leaders, these anti-American entities. We now show every variation of weakness and pandering, any apology we can muster in spite of the immutable reality that the Middle East only respects the strong horse and mocks the weak horse. Logic and morality be damned.
We, and our ambassadors, should not be anywhere in which we cannot engender respect or elicit appreciation. Skype as an alternative really works very well nowadays. The White House ignores the green revolution in Iran, that hugely deserving opposition to a viciously anti-American regime, in a country of people primarily pro-American. Yet this same White House supports Egyptian President Morsi who demands the release of the first World Trade Center bomber, blind sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. This same White House supports the Muslim Brotherhood, who has refused to recognize the State of Israel and whose leaders reaffirmed Jihad on Israel.
We apologize when we should stand firm; strangely, we draw our enemies close and alienate our friends.
I don't understand -- do you?
White House Lies Behind The Deaths Of Our Men In Libya, Elsewhere
- Posted by Paul Szemanczky on September 17, 2012 at 4:48pm
**** Let's all take a long piss on Obama's endless apology. In Tunisia, the birthplace of the anti-American wave of revolutions from two years ago, let's faithfully hold the 'stream' right to Libya where they murdered our men while Obama slept cleanly in another country. I guess Obama and Hillary Clinton must have thought it was a joke or a clever ruse. She was sleeping too through the 9/11 anniversary violence. Then the waves of revolution spread and they burned our flag in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Cairo, Libya, Jalalabad, and Tunisia. They attacked the British and German embassies in the Sudan and raised their militant black flags high on all foreign flagpoles. This was evidence of their glee over the Arab Spring in which their new governments allowed greater license to radical Islamist groups to take to the streets and pillage the embassies. A film about the Prophet Muhammad supposedly fueled the mass eruptions on the streets but I believe their actual hatred for western civilization echoes their ignorance and wider transmission of rampaging anger at our democratic republic and the fool in charge of it, President Obama. Why should they tolerate our fool, even if we must?
To their sudden eruption of power and hatred Obama presents no challenge; his weakness is a signal vindication of their willing hand to slap us in the face over and over again. The democratic slogan songs of the Arab Spring in 2012 from Hillary's lips have become a siren's yell of banishment. It reminds me of the 9/11 Trade Towers site eleven years ago. The firemen were rushing into both buildings while the financial workers were fleeing. There remains chaos in all evacuation procedures: one group of U.S. evacuees were being mortared after the Benghazi compound was torched. Marines are being dispatched to embassy compounds, but what about the American schools, businesses, parking lots that have been incinerated by rampaging mobs. All these sites can't be protected at once. When protesters clash with the national police of these embittered nations they mostly drop their arms and resistance ceases under an order of the imam from his mosque. Islam is being defended by the destruction of a foreign embassy, so the embassy burns, and now some smolder, and tomorrow, more will burn. After all, the protesters know, 'The imams never lie'.
Ali Shajerah, one of the protesters at Yemen said: "It is a shame that American aren't protesting in our support against the wrongdoing of their own people," referring to the creator of the video that mocked Prophet Muhammad. The pail (not rosy) lips of Hillary Clinton hesitantly worked to reveal her sadness about the death of her Californian friend U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. She and Obama never hesitate to remind us that their State department people apologized first, even before our men died in Benghazi, Libya, Tuesday night. You could see the fear mingled in salt in Hillary's eyes, and her old, sudden age. While Obama's serious task was performed with transparent fidelity to another lie and apology: he wasn't asleep after being told 6-hours prior that his ambassador in Libya was missing, so his shoulders slumped with his usual modest misfortune slump we've seen time and time before. We have a fool of a president who undresses his 'nation' and dons a tuxedo for a presidential party in Las Vegas, while the corpse of one of his ambassadors lies frozen in a freezer.
The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran condemned Israel and the U.S. for the inflammatory video "calling on Muslims world-wide to unite" forcing more evacuations of U.S. Embassy staff and wider destruction of government buildings where clashes resumed between protesters and security forces. More sparks and Saladin reprisals for the contingents of Marines being relocated to these reckless arenas of hatred who will face death and injury themselves. They will fight as bravely as the SEALS did in Benghazi. Some of them will be cornered and trapped like the SEALS were. But they will receive even less presidential praises than the bloodless body of Christopher Stevens as he was being dragged through the street with his open-eyed stare of the already dead, while Obama was dreaming up even more apologies in a 'holy wars' crisis of fiction and truth in his 4 a.m. mind.
The al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen, Libya, Iraq, East Africa, Egypt and Afghanistan will demand more blood and will ignore the steady stream of apologies coming from our administrators for a video film that was just an excuse. They want a Muslim caliphate stretching from the Middle East through Africa and Asia till Sharia law gloats like a giant conquering the threadbare, trackless republic of the United States weakened by this miasma of apologies. The merciful pleadings of a feckless American president preaching his godlike moderation to his empty consulates only ordains more mass confrontation with the violent core of Islam. They want us naked the way Obama has laid us out with all his fearful eloquence. They will take our hide and strip it to ensure a feast for their thirst and hunger as they pursue us by our 'tears of apologies'. Saudi Arabia will fund this rise of militant Islam and Iran will seed the turmoil, and only Israel is prepared to defend against it. The Tea Party membership who loves Israel must be willing to form Lincoln Brigades one day to defend her freedom and to help her fight for it against the new 'fascism-theocracy': Muslim aggression and violent anti-American protests.
Clinton and Obama were at the Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Friday (9/14/12), to eulogize (apologize again) the bodies of Stevens, Sean Smith, and SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty in their flag-draped coffins. Their pro-Islamic message was invisibly tapped to the tarmac at the airport like the seminal fluid of their presidential race, which, of course, is angled to make the most out of any crisis, as stated from the infamous slogan of 2008. The undecided voters in this filthy race to President should be asking themselves: "Is this evidence of a leader of the U.S. who doesn't have things under control?" "Is this costly rioting and destruction of American lives really a quest for democracy and freedom by the Arab Spring countries, or is it a Muslim caliphate signal to Obama to be compliant and more apologetic as the present turmoil expands?" It all began with Obama's shunning of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt three years ago in a speech in Cairo. Libya, like Afghanistan, too are Obama-enhanced Muslim Brotherhood/al Qaeda packages, each going out of control because of Obama's compliance and praises for their revolutions, withal the backing of the propaganda non-journalists of ABC, NBC, CNN, and CBS. Obama and Clinton have wedded us to these riotous ambitions of 'destructive Islamist forces' who wish our annihilation in their ambitious prayers in their countless mosques. They will bring us more grief and shame, but as little as possible of that will be reported by the named-lying media networks above.
Republican nominee Mitt Romney understands that the forces being unleashed by the rebellions that have gripped this region since last year necessitated the U.S. to have tried to fashion these new regimes into something "more secular and pro-West in their orientations." Instead, he intones, the domestic forces are so many and the unconstrained violence within them is so uncontained (and migratory between countries) by the Obama administration that our own U.S. diplomats are pulling back and disengaging from these Mideast new governments.
In other words the White House is truly the piss-pot of Mideast foreign policy tumult, as well as the urine stream for 19% Unemployment, and the latest Egan-Jones credit rating demotion from "AA" to "AA-" since we can't ignore the intensity of the avalanche of a "government-made recession coming in 2013", according to Bob Woodward, investigative journalist and author of the newly released account of the U.S. budget process fiasco under Obama called, "The Price of Politics".
Fortunately we have a good half-dozen weeks with Arab help to fill the 1st and 2nd floors of the White House with the urinary stench of Obama administration apologies, as their ripple effects and tributaries will carry over to the undecided voters, and maybe over some of the falsehoods about democracy for which Stevens died in Libya. Maybe even a few of the 2008 followers of Obama here are discontented with the prophesies of inspired bards in Obama's procession of foreign and domestic failures. Maybe their very fear over their leader's and Hillary's performances of late will forbid them from accepting the 'produce' of all these urine-stained apologies.
Let's all line up. The stupid apologies need a good wetting.
I'm hearing on Hannity, the two Navy SEALS who died were not employed by the Embassy or Dept of State.
They stepped up to defend him, and died.
They died as heroes trying to save the Ambassador.
Fuck the White House and it's LIES.
U.S. says two former Navy SEALS also died in Libya attack
WASHINGTON | Thu Sep 13, 2012 10:28pm EDT
(Reuters) - The United States on Thursday identified two additional victims of this week's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, as former Navy SEALS who died trying to protect their colleagues.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty died in Tuesday's assault on the Benghazi consulate, which also killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and Sean Smith, a State Department information management officer.
"Our thoughts, prayers, and deepest gratitude are with their families and friends. Our embassies could not carry on our critical work around the world without the service and sacrifice of brave people like Tyrone and Glen," Clinton said in a statement.
The statement identified both Woods and Doherty as former Navy SEALS with lengthy experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. It did not say in what capacity they were working in Benghazi.
"I am enormously proud of the men and women who risk their lives every day in the service of our country and our values. They help make the United States the greatest force for peace, progress, and human dignity that the world has ever known," Clinton said in her statement.
U.S. officials had confirmed that Stevens and Smith died in the attack, but said they could not confirm the identities of the two other victims pending notification of their families.
Three other U.S. personnel were wounded in Tuesday's attack, which took place amid a wave of anti-U.S. protests across the Middle East against a low-budget, anti-Islam film produced in the United States.
U.S. President Barack Obama has vowed to work with Libyan officials to seek justice for those responsible for the Benghazi attack, which presented Obama with a new foreign policy crisis less than two months before he seeks re-election.
The U.S. Navy's SEAL (Sea, Air and Land) teams are among the most storied of U.S. special operations forces.
Doherty's family, through a public relations firm, had released information about him, including comments from friends.
"Don't feel sorry for him, he wouldn't have it," wrote Brandon Webb, who identified himself as a former SEAL and friend of Doherty's.
"He died serving with men he respected, protecting the freedoms we enjoy as Americans and doing something he loved."
ABC News interviewed Doherty last month. At the time, he said he was working with the State Department on an intelligence mission to round up shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles and destroy them, according to an ABC News report.
Ex-SEALs, online gaming maven among Benghazi dead
2:26 PM, Sep 14, 2012 | comments
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/images...canskilled.jpg
Sean Smith, left, and Glen Doherty died in the recent attacks on the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi, Libya. Courtesy U.S. Department of State and Doherty family
Obama officials' spin on Benghazi attack mirrors Bin Laden raid untruths
In a familiar pattern, White House claims about what motivated the killing of the US ambassador in Libya are now contradicted
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...cc2a3-460.jpeg Damage inside the burnt US consulate building in Benghazi. Libya said it has made arrests and opened a probe into the attack. Photograph: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images
Almost immediately after President Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden, top government officials, including then-CIA Director Leon Panetta and top terrorism adviser John Brennan, made numerous false statements about what took place. That included the claim that Bin Laden was killed after he engaged in a "firefight", that he used his wife as a human shield to protect himself, and that he was living in luxury in a $1m mansion.
None of those claims, central to the story the White House told the world, turned out to be true. Bin Laden was unarmed and nobody in the house where Bin Laden was found ever fired a single shot (a courier in an adjacent guest house was the only one to shoot, at the very beginning of the operation). Bin Laden never used his wife or anyone else as a shield. And the house was dilapidated, showed little sign of luxury, and was worth one-quarter of what it was claimed. Numerous other claims made by the administration about the raid remain unanswered because of its steadfast insistence on secrecy and non-disclosure (except when it concerns Hollywood filmmakers).
Would it have mattered had the White House been truthful about the Bin Laden raid from the start? It would have undoubtedly made no difference for many people, who simply craved Osama bin Laden's death without regard to how it was done. But it certainly would have made a difference for at least some people around the world in terms of how they perceived of these actions and whether they approved – which is presumably why the White House was so eager to insist on these falsehoods and to ensure that the world's perception was shaped by them. (Please spare me the "fog of war" excuse: when the so-called "fog of war" causes the US government to make inaccurate claims that undermine its interests, rather than bolster them – as always happens – then that excuse will be plausible.)
There's obviously an enormous difference between killing someone in a firefight and shooting him in cold blood while he's unarmed. The morning after the Bin Laden killing was announced, I wrote that although I'd have preferred he be captured and tried, "if he in fact used force to resist capture, then the US military was entitled to use force against him, the way American police routinely do against suspects who use violence to resist capture." At least one legal scholar has changed his mind about the legality of the killing, in the wake of evidence that Bin Laden was killed while lying on the ground, unarmed and severely wounded.
But no matter. The White House's initial statements about what happened, false though they turned out to be, forever shaped perceptions of that event. Many people are unwilling to change their minds even in the wake of new evidence, while many others hear only of the initial claims made when news coverage is at its peak and never become aware of subsequent corrections. Combine that with the generalized "Look Forward, Not Backward" mentality popularized by President Obama – as embodied by John Kerry's "shut up and move on" decree to those asking questions about what really happened in the Bin Laden raid – and those initial White House falsehoods did the trick.
We now see exactly the same pattern emerging with the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya and the killing of the US ambassador. For a full week now, administration officials have categorically insisted that the prime, if not only, cause of the attack was spontaneous anger over the anti-Muhammad film, The Innocence of Muslims.
Last week, White House spokesman Jay Carney insisted that "these protests, were in reaction to a video that had spread to the region." On Friday, he claimed:
"'This is a fairly volatile situation, and it is in response not to US policy, not to, obviously, the administration, not to the American people. It is in response to a video – a film – that we have judged to be reprehensive and disgusting. That in no way justifies any violent reaction to it. But this is not a case of protests directed at the United States, writ large, or at US policy. This is in response to a video that is offensive and – to Muslims.'"On Sunday, UN ambassador Susan Rice, when asked about the impetus for the attack, said that "this began as, it was a spontaneous – not a premeditated – response to what had transpired in Cairo," and added: "In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated." In other interviews, she insisted that the Benghazi violence was a "spontaneous" reaction to the film.
Predictably, and by design, most media accounts from the day after the Benghazi attack repeated the White House line as though it were fact, just as they did for the Bin Laden killing. Said NPR on 12 September: "The US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi by protesters angry over a film that ridiculed Islam's Prophet Muhammad." The Daily Beast reported that the ambassador "died in a rocket attack on the embassy amid violent protests over a US-produced film deemed insulting to Islam." To date, numerous people believe – as though there were no dispute about it – that Muslims attacked the consulate and killed the US ambassador "because they were angry about a film".
As it turns out, this claim is almost certainly false. And now, a week later, even the US government is acknowledging that, as McClatchy reports this morning [my emphasis]:
"The Obama administration acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that last week's assault on the US consulate compound in Benghazi that left the US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans dead was a 'terrorist attack' apparently launched by local Islamic militants and foreigners linked to al-Qaida's leadership or regional allies.Worse, it isn't as though there had been no evidence of more accurate information before Wednesday. To the contrary, most evidence from the start strongly suggested that the White House's claims – that this attack was motivated by anger over a film – were false. From McClatchy:
"'I would say they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack,' said Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
"It was the first time that a senior administration official had said the attack was not the result of a demonstration over an anti-Islam video that has been cited as the spark for protests in dozens of countries over the past week .'The picture that is emerging is one where a number of different individuals were involved,' Olsen said." [My emphasis]
"The head of Libya's interim government, key US lawmakers and experts contend that the attack appeared long-planned, complex and well-coordinated, matching descriptions given to McClatchy last week by the consulate's landlord and a wounded security guard, who denied there was a protest at the time and said the attackers carried the banner of Ansar al-Shariah, an Islamist militia."Indeed, Libya's president has spent the week publicly announcing that there is "no doubt" the attack was planned well in advance and had nothing to do with the video.
CBS News reported Thursday morning that there was no anti-video protest at all at the consulate. Witnesses insist, said CBS, "that there was never an anti-American protest outside of the consulate. Instead, they say, it came under planned attack." That, noted the network, "is in direct contradiction to the administration's account of the incident." The report concluded: "What's clear is that the public won't get a detailed account of what happened until after the election."
The Obama White House's interest in spreading this falsehood is multi-fold and obvious:
For one, the claim that this attack was just about anger over an anti-Muhammad video completely absolves the US government of any responsibility or even role in provoking the anti-American rage driving it. After all, if the violence that erupted in that region is driven only by anger over some independent film about Muhammad, then no rational person would blame the US government for it, and there could be no suggestion that its actions in the region – things like this, and this, and this, and this – had any role to play.
The White House capitalized on the strong desire to believe this falsehood: it's deeply satisfying to point over there at those Muslims and scorn their primitive religious violence, while ignoring the massive amounts of violence to which one's own country continuously subjects them. It's much more fun and self-affirming to scoff: "can you believe those Muslims are so primitive that they killed our ambassador over a film?" than it is to acknowledge: "our country and its allies have continually bombed, killed, invaded, and occupied their countries and supported their tyrants."
It is always more enjoyable to scorn the acts of the Other Side than it is to acknowledge the bad acts of one's own. That's the self-loving mindset that enables the New York Times to write an entire editorial today purporting to analyze Muslim rage without once mentioning the numerous acts of American violence aimed at them (much of which the Times editorial page supports). Falsely claiming that the Benghazi attacks were about this film perfectly flattered those jingoistic prejudices.
Then, there are the implications for the intervention in Libya, which Obama's defenders relentlessly tout as one of his great victories. But the fact that the Benghazi attack was likely premeditated and carried out by anti-American factions vindicates many of the criticisms of that intervention. Critics of the war in Libya warned that the US was siding with (and arming and empowering) violent extremists, including al-Qaida elements, that would eventually cause the US to claim it had to return to Libya to fight against them – just as its funding and arming of Saddam in Iraq and the mujahideen in Afghanistan subsequently justified new wars against those one-time allies.
War critics also argued that the intervention would bring massive instability and suffering to the people of Libya; today, the Washington Post reports that – just as the "president of Afghanistan" is really the mayor of Kabul and the "Iraqi government" long exercised sovereignty only in Baghdad's Green Zone – the central Libyan government exercises little authority outside of Tripoli. And intervention critics also warned that dropping bombs in a country and killing civilians, no matter how noble the intent supposedly is, would produce blowback in the form of those who would then want to attack the US.
When the White House succeeded in falsely blaming the consulate attacks on anger over this video, all of those facts were obscured. The truth, now that it is emerging, underscores how unstable, lawless and dangerous Libya has become – far from the grand success story war proponents like to tell. As McClatchy noted in Thursday's report:
"Libya remains plagued by armed groups nearly a year after the US-backed ouster of the late dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Yet the facility was primarily defended by local guards who may have been complicit …Then, there are the garden-variety political harms to the White House from the truth about these attacks. If the killing of the ambassador were premeditated and unrelated to the film, then it vests credibility in the criticism that the consulate should have been much better-protected, particularly on 9/11. And in general, the last thing a president running for re-election wants is an appearance that he is unable to protect America's diplomats from a terrorist group his supporters love to claim that he has heroically vanquished.
"Since the fall of Gaddafi last year, Libya's security has been dependent on a group of armed militias, including Ansar al-Shariah, that represent a wide variety of political strains and interests and remain heavily armed with weapons looted from Gaddafi storehouses. Interior Ministry forces and the Supreme Security Committee have been accused of complicity in recent attacks by Islamic fundamentalists on mosques and shrines affiliated with the moderate Sufi strain of Islam."
The falsehood told by the White House – this was just a spontaneous attack prompted by this video that we could not have anticipated and had nothing to do with – fixed all of those problems. Critical attention was thus directed to Muslims (what kind of people kill an ambassador over a film?) and away from the White House and its policies.
The independent journalist IF Stone famously noted that the number one rule of good journalism, even of good citizenship, is to remember that "all governments lie." Yet, no matter how many times we see this axiom proven true, over and over, there is still a tendency, a desire, to believe that the US government's claims are truthful and reliable.
The Obama administration's claims about the Benghazi attack are but the latest in a long line of falsehoods it has spouted on crucial issues, all in order to serve its interests and advance its agenda. Perhaps it is time to subject those claims to intense skepticism and to demand evidence before believing they are true.
White House: 'What Happened in Benghazi Was a Terrorist Attack'
http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com/img/u...7Z9M/large.jpg Reuters
- http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com/img/s...it-addthis.jpg Share
- http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com/img/s...lkit-print.jpg Print article
- http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com/img/s...lkit-email.jpg Email article
- http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com/img/s...t-comments.jpg Comments
John Hudson and Alexander Abad-Santos 627 Views 2:14 PM ET
In a statement that suggests the White House and State Department may not be totally in sync, White House spokesman Jay Carney said today "It is self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack," referring to the assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other U.S. personnel. That brings the White House view more in line with the assessment of Libyan President Mohamed Yousef El-Magariaf, who has long said there was "no doubt" the attack was a premeditated terrorist plot. On Sunday, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice surprised some journalists when she rebutted Magariaf's assessment on ABC's This Week, saying the attacks were spontaneous. “What this began as was a spontaneous, not a premeditated response to what happened in Cairo,” Rice told Jake Tapper, referring to protests of an anti-U.S. film in Egypt. Now Carney is saying the "best indication we have now" is that the attacks may have had an Al-Qaeda connection, the view Magariaf has had all along. Carney was not ready, however, to say the attacks were "significantly pre-planned."
So why does it matter if the attacks were pre-mediated or not? Other than pursuing the truth, it's also about holding the administration accountable, as The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald noted earlier today. "The claim that this attack was just about anger over an anti-Muhammad video completely absolves the US government of any responsibility or even role in provoking the anti-American rage driving it," he wrote. "After all, if the violence that erupted in that region is driven only by anger over some independent film about Muhammad, then no rational person would blame the US government for it, and there could be no suggestion that its actions in the region – things like this, and this, and this, and this– had any role to play," referring to instances where civilians were killed by U.S. forces.
Still, the investigation is ongoing at this point and U.S. officials are resisting any claims that the attacks were "significantly" pre-planned. In the coming days, we'll hopefully find out what the administration means by "significantly."
Pretty damned idiotic acting if you ask me... but there's the so-called trailer that allegedly caused the problems.
It didn't cause anything.