Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Libya crisis: Benghazi

[American Patriot]

The crap coming out of Jay the Carney's mouth is pretty disgusting.

The White House JUST wants Benghazi to "go away", it can not be clearer.

He's calling it a "political sideshow" and other names.

What a bunch of bullshit.

if anything when the WH uses those phrases it means "Shut up, we don't want to tell you about this". And it means that the MEDIA needs to rip it to shreds. Now.

[vector7]

Flashback:

Government
Ed Klein: Bill Clinton ‘Urging’ Hillary to Release Benghazi Documents That Would ‘Exonerate’ Her, Destroy Obama’s Re-Election Hopes

Oct. 25, 2012 12:44am Jason Howerton


(TheBlazeTV)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered additional security for the U.S. mission in Benghazi ahead of the terrorist attack but the orders were never carried out, according to “legal counsel” to Clinton who spoke to best-selling author Ed Klein. Those same sources also say former President Bill Clinton has been “urging” his wife to release official State Department documents that prove she called for additional security at the compound in Libya, which would almost certainly result in President Obama losing the election.

Appearing on TheBlazeTV’s “Wilkow!” on Wednesday night, Klein told host Andrew Wilkow that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been having “big fights” for “two or three weeks” about the issue, according to his two sources on Clinton’s legal counsel. While Bill Clinton wishes his wife would “exonerate” herself by releasing the documents that show she wasn’t at fault for the tragic security failure in Libya, the secretary of state refuses to do so because she doesn’t want to be viewed as a traitor to the Democratic party.

On Glenn Beck’s radio show earlier on Wednesday, Klein said his information comes from two “very good” sources.

Wilkow pointed out the obvious, that the Obamas and the Clintons have a “very behind the scenes, tense relationship” — to put it lightly.

“I said to you last night, and I think I stand corrected, that it seemed like Obama out-Clintoned the Clintons,” Wilkow said. “But Clinton seems to have gone along with all of this because he knew that Hillary would be exonerated in the end.”

He then asked Klein whether he thought Clinton would resign over the Libya scandal and expose the truth.

“No,” the author said immediately. “I can’t imagine that she would resign. It would bring down the entire administration. [Obama] would lose the election and she would be essentially blamed by the left-wing base of the party.”

“She will not be tarred with the blame for bringing down this administration,” Klein added.

Watch the segment via TheBlazeTV below:



In an exclusive interview with TheBlaze, Klein confirmed that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been engaging in “heated discussions” where the former president has urged his wife to “release the documents that would exonerate her.” He reiterated that Clinton has refused to do so because she fears she would look like a “Judas,” or a traitor, in the administration and it might hurt her chances for a presidential nomination in 2016.

If the claims turn out to be true and Clinton did suggest more security be sent to Benghazi, it is appropriate to ask: why didn’t it happen?

Klein said Clinton’s request for beefed up security would have to go through CIA special ops and or the Pentagon.

“But none of that would happen with the National Security advisor to the president of the United States Tom Donilon going to the president and saying, ‘We want to send reinforcements to Libya because our ambassador is in jeopardy,’” Klein explained.

Ultimately, he indicated the ultimate authority would have been President Obama.

Wilkow and Klein also discussed what role Obama’s closest advisor, Valerie Jarrett, played in the Benghazi cover-up.

By Obama’s own admission, Klein said, the president never makes a big decision without first consulting with Jarrett.

“We have to assume that Valerie Jarrett, who is also by the way hooked into the Chicago campaign…that she was part of this cover-up in the White House.”

He continued: “The CIA got cables, the Department of Defense got cables, the NSA got cables during the attack on Benghazi, in addition to the emails that have since been made public. We know that there are cables that we haven’t seen yet, confirming the State Department cables that this was an al-Qaeda linked attack.”

These new revelations, following Tuesday night’s explosive report that 300 to 400 national security officials received emails detailing the Benghazi terrorist attack as it was happening, raise fresh questions about the truth behind the Benghazi attack.

The emails revealed that the Libyan radical Islamic group Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility for the attack just two hours after it began. White House officials told CBS News that an unmanned Predator drone was sent over the U.S. mission in Libya, providing Washington with a live feed to the chaos that unfolded.

To read the full emails, click here.
–

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CIA Agents Confirm Obama Told Them Not To Aid Ambassador Chris Stevens – The White House Disinformation Campaign on Libya

truther May 14, 2013 5

by Erictronik UPDATE 3.: SEAL’s father Charles Woods on Hannity: WH officials “murdered” my son…





The father of a former Navy SEAL killed in the Libya terror attack last month said Friday that U.S. officials who denied a request for help while the diplomatic compound in Benghazi was under attack “are murderers of my son.”

Charles Woods was reacting to accounts by Fox News sources that a request from the CIA annex for backup was denied by U.S. officials. His son, Tyrone Woods, was killed in the Sept. 11 assault. “They refused to pull the trigger,” Woods said. “Those people who made the decision and who knew about the decision and lied about it are murderers of my son.”

Woods said he forgives whoever denied the apparent request, but he urged them to “stand up.”

Sources also said Tyrone Woods and others, who were at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. consulate, ignored orders by their superiors to stand down and not go to the consulate to help. Woods went to the consulate, and hours later he was killed back at the annex.

Charles Woods said his son’s action “does not surprise me.”

“I wish that the leadership in the White House had the same level of moral courage and heroism that my son displayed,” he said.

---

UPDATE 2.: BREAKING NEWS!!! Obama a Hitman or Terrorist Arms Dealer??? Why He Hid the Truth of Benghazi…

Published on Oct 29, 2012

Was Obama finished with our Ambassador to Libya where the Arms Trading was concerned???? Did he believe Chris Stevens was going to go public with what he knew about this administrations illegal trading of weapons to the enemy??? Was this like the dreadful murderous colladeral damage of ‘Fast and Furious’ ???The Turkish leader left the meeting he was having with our Ambassador 1 hour before the attack without being touched, while the building was being watched by the attackers, according to the reports coming from onsite officials at the time, to the white house and to the internet. The whitehouse WATCHED THE ATTACK on Benghazi go down, via drone recon. They were told as it went down it was a terrorist attack and while it happened THE WHITEHOUSE WATCHED OUR PEOPLE DIE FROM THE SITUATION ROOM!!!

And then lied about it!!!

Hillary Clinton said the buck stopped with her, taking the fall after the lies were being outted and blame had to be placed. I have always said,it is a deadly dangerous business to be one of Hillary Clinton’s ‘friends!!!’ Any ‘friend’ of hers involved with the Whitewater Scandal could tell you that, if any of them were alive today! Every last one of them, even the ones who went to prison, died mysteriously!

Remember Vincent Foster… Foster’s death became part of a broad investigation of President and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s financial dealings in Arkansas when Whitewater records were discovered to have been in his office six months after his death. He was found sitting up – dead – in Virginia State Park. Some theorized he died elsewhere, was wrapped in a carpet and brought to the park. Strangely, his death was ruled a suicide.

I said it on the day this took place, and I will say it again. This is a false flag. It had nothing to do with a 13 minute Youtube video. But for the public to know who the terrorist was who did it, would point the finger at the person who sold the terrorist the weapons to do it with!!! And that would be inconvenient just now. As he is trying to win a presidential election!

---

UPDATE 1.: CIA agents confirm Obama told them not to Aid Ambassador Chris Stevens



Published on Oct 29, 2012
CIA operatives have now confirmed that they were told by the Obama Administration to hold back and not come to the rescue of Ambassador Chris Stevens or the other 3 USA officials butchered in Benghazi Sept 11,2012.rescue

[American Patriot]

Sometimes I think people lose credibility on their spelling....

"colladeral damage"

should read:

"collateral damage".

(I know I misspell words often enough, but I usually use a spelling checker, and at least I DO go back and re-read things several times before I post it. Even so I still miss certain words, like "teh")

lol

[American Patriot]

Chris Stevens was killed on purpose.

[American Patriot]

Heads of Benghazi review board say they'll testify before Congress after criticism

Published May 14, 2013

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The leaders of the panel that independently reviewed last year's deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, said Tuesday they were prepared to testify publicly before Congress to counter what they consider unfounded criticism of their work.

In a letter to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering said he and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen would answer any questions lawmakers have. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the panel, is pressing for the two men to agree to an interview with staff investigators prior to a public hearing.

The work of the Accountability Review Board is the latest focus of a broader Republican inquest into their claims that the Obama administration misled Congress and the American people after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

The blistering report released in December by Pickering, Mullen and three other reviewers found that "systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels" of the State Department meant security was "inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place."

Pickering, however, noted how recently "some have called into question the integrity of the board and its work."

"We believe that such criticisms are unfounded and, if left unaddressed, undermine the essential work that the board has done," he wrote. "It is therefore important that we be afforded the opportunity to appear at a public hearing before the committee and answer directly questions regarding the board's procedures, findings and recommendations."

Republicans believe the report was flawed, and they want to know why top officials like Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton weren't interviewed. The panel absolved Clinton of any wrongdoing, faulting lower level State Department officials. Four were given paid suspensions.

On Monday, Issa asked Pickering and Mullen to meet privately with committee staff investigators to answer questions about their review. Democrats countered that if lawmakers wanted to talk to them, Issa should hold a full open hearing.

Pickering said the board "conducted a thorough review and produced a report that included detailed findings and frank and often highly critical assessments." It issued 29 recommendations for improving security at diplomatic facilities worldwide, and Pickering insisted that the board "fulfilled its role in identifying the lessons that must be learned and acted upon from Benghazi."

"We stand behind the board's report and look forward to discussing it in a public hearing," he wrote.

Frederick Hill, a spokesman for the committee, said late Tuesday that the panel was following up with Pickering and the State Department to determine whether he would appear voluntarily for an interview with committee staff investigators. Hill noted that Issa and Pickering appeared on a Sunday talk show together two days ago, and said the former diplomat had told the committee chairman that he would voluntarily submit to an interview.

"The committee is giving him a full opportunity to voluntarily follow through on his commitment," Hill said.

Issa, in his letter on Monday to Pickering and Mullen, had said that following the private interview, the committee would work with the report's authors on a date for a public hearing.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...#ixzz2TNB4Q4D7

[American Patriot]

Jake Tapper blows a hole in Benghazi ‘scandal’

By Greg Sargent, Published: May 14, 2013 at 1:36 pmE-mail the writer

CNN’s Jake Tapper scoops:

CNN has obtained an email sent by a top aide of President Barack Obama, in which the aide discusses the Obama administration reaction to the attack on the U.S. posts in Benghazi, Libya. The actual email differs from how sources were inaccurately quoted and paraphrased in previous media accounts.


The significance of the email seems to be that whomever leaked the inaccurate information earlier this month did so in a way that made it appear that the White House – specifically deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes – was more interested in the State Department’s desire to remove mentions of specific terrorist groups and warnings about these groups so as to not bring criticism to the State Department than Rhodes’ email actually stated.

The actual email is right here. The key portion is this:

“There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don’t compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression.”

Tapper says that ABC News, in its scoop last week, quoted from this email in a way that suggests more of an administration emphasis on resolving the State Department’s concerns with the talking points — i.e., that State wanted to remove mentions of specific terror groups and cut the CIA’s warnings about previous attacks.



But as Tapper puts it: “Whoever provided those quotes and paraphrases did so inaccurately, seemingly inventing the notion that Rhodes wanted the concerns of the State Department specifically addressed…Rhodes put no emphasis at all in his email on the State Department’s concerns.”


This would seem to do still more damage to the notion that there was any kind of cover up here. Remember, the desire by State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland to cut the talking points’ references to previous attacks was an area where the editing really did appear to be about managing appearances. It’s increasingly clear that this was merely a bureaucratic turf war at work, in which State wanted to get rid of the CIA’s efforts to insert into the talking points stuff seemingly designed to preempt blame against the agency. This new revelation from Tapper takes this even further — it suggests the administration didn’t even prioritize State’s demands and was simply looking to get agencies on the same page to prevent the spreading of misinformation.


Indeed, the email explicitly cites worry about the ”significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression.” That suggests, again, that this internal debate was mainly about not getting out too far ahead of what was actually known — which could actually be a desirable thing under such circumstances.


Indeed, if this report bears out, it weakens the underpinning of this supposed scandal considerably. The edited talking points themselves actually don’t support what conservatives claim they do: Even the initial, unedited talking point describes the attack as spontaneous, noting that extremists with ties to Al Qaeda “participated” in it.

While the reference to Al Qaeda was cut out — and while the talking points watered down the initial claim by couching it as speculation — the talking points never, at any point, even before any editing, claimed this was a preplanned terror attack. What this means is that the administration, in its initial assessments, did not meaningfully deviate from the assessment the intelligence community was reaching in real time. So there’s no scandal there. Now the notion that the editing itself had overly political motives has been challenged.


The problematic piece that’s left is that the White House did, in fact, initially misrepresent the extent of the involvement in the editing of the talking points. I still believe the White House could clear that up by admitting error. But either way, if the editing itself is not problematic, then that doesn’t leave much of a scandal behind.


Tapper concludes: “whoever leaked the inaccurate information earlier this month did so in a way that made it appear that the White House – specifically Rhodes – was more interested in the State Department’s concerns, and more focused on the talking points, that the email actually stated.”


So who provided this seemingly changed version of the email to ABC News?

[American Patriot]

May 14, 2013
What the A.P. and Benghazi Scandals Have in Common

Posted by Amy Davidson

What does the A.P. scandal, in which the Justice Department grabbed A.P. journalists’ phone records with the indiscriminate eagerness of someone stuffing packets of Saltines in his pockets, have in common with the questions raised about Benghazi? In the next days and months, a number of answers will be offered, and measured in different balances: abuse of power, debased Republican scandalizing, the muddles of a second term. (The I.R.S. is also in the mix.) One story concerns twenty different phone lines, among them home numbers whose records would include personal calls that the government has no business knowing about; the other is about four diplomats, whose obituaries we shouldn’t have had to read for many years. But both have to do with transparency and, even more so, with how the Administration’s alternating evasions and manipulations of the legal requirements surrounding war and security have distorted its actions.


When it comes to Benghazi, one has to sort out which story line one is talking about. The first has to do with the actual chain of events surrounding an attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012; the other is a fight over talking points—how honest the Administration was about the incident, and, as the issue became a cover-up, how honest it was about its honesty. The latter is where there might be the most obvious surface similarity to the A.P. case: a fixation on controlling a message leads to bad behavior—though a difference is that this particular aspect of Benghazi has been subject to a good deal of disingenuous G.O.P. hysteria. Shortly after the attacks, Susan Rice, the U.N. Ambassador, was sent on the Sunday morning talk shows with talking points that were, to put it charitably, inadequate. She was a stand-in for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who did not want to go on. (She’d had a long week, apparently; when she did testify about Benghazi, months later, it didn’t go well.) The Republican use of those appearances to make sure that Rice wouldn’t be nominated as Secretary of State was ugly and, given that Rice was relying on vetted talking points, unfair—and in many ways gave the entire inquiry into Benghazi a bad, politicized name.


[Update: Here, I'd originally gone on to discuss a report by ABC News's Jon Karl, about edits of the talking points and associated E-mails. But as CNN’s Jake Tapper has reported, at least one of the E-mails was badly misquoted, and Karl's own explanation makes it unclear whether other quotes are verbatim. As TPM and others note, his description suggests that he may have been misled by Congressional staffers. So I've cut that passage.]



The A.P., meanwhile, had actually reported on an Obama success: the U.S. had stopped a terror plot centered in Yemen. What’s more, the A.P. had, for several days, held off on publishing the story—written by Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman, with contributions from Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan, and Alan Fram—after the Administration had cited security concerns. The A.P. was rewarded for this careful non-absolutism with an aggressive criminal-leaks investigation, led by U.S. Attorney Robert Machen—one of too many such investigations that this White House has put in motion. (John Cassidy has more on that.) That search for leaks has been the sorry excuse for the Justice Department getting the phone records of all the reporters involved in the story, as well as those of their editor, Ted Bridis, and, according to a letter of protest that Gary Pruitt, the President of the A.P., sent to Holder, “an AP general phone number in New York City as well as AP bureaus in New York City, Washington, D.C., Hartford, Connecticut, and at the House of Representatives.” The pursuit of these records affected perhaps a hundred journalists in all. As Pruitt writes,

There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection…. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know

The Justice Department obtained this information secretly and, it would appear, mendaciously. According to the D.O.J.’s own rules, it is supposed to tell a news organization before it subpoenas such records, to see if it can get them any other way (and as narrowly as possible), and to give the news organization a chance at getting the subpoena quashed. In this case the D.O.J. got the records some time ago, but only told the A.P. on Friday. The Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney’s office, in a statement, cited an exception: it was allowed to not to tell if giving such a warning “would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation.” How did that apply in the case of the A.P.? The office didn’t say. Given the A.P.’s long and distinguished record—we are not talking about Inspire, the Al Qaeda magazine—its restraint in delaying publication, and the fact that it would be hard to alter phone records, invoking that exception strikes one as close to slander.


Maybe the Justice Department’s idea of the “integrity of the investigation” in a national-security leaks case is that it gets to not be disturbed. This notion—that the White House ought to be left alone when it comes to questions of terrorism and war—may present the strongest parallel of all to Benghazi, and to the attacks themselves, not just the talking points.


The Administration has chosen practical answers when people ask why the diplomats couldn’t have been rescued, having to do with things like the distance of carrier groups and the refuelling needs of planes. “It’s sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces,” Robert Gates, the former Defense Secretary, said on “Face the Nation” this past weekend, referring to the idea of planes or soldiers swooping in. But the security situation before the attack may have reflected a cartoonish impression of non-war. When examining Obama’s motives in Libya, one has to return to his decision to initiate military action in March, 2011, without acceding to the War Powers Act, so that he wouldn’t have to get Congressional approval if it went on for sixty or ninety days (as it did). In explaining why, the Administration said that “U.S. military operations are distinct from the kind of ‘hostilities’ contemplated in the law,” even as we were bombing Libya and handing out guns, supposedly because it was limited and small and no Americans would get hurt. That never made any sense. And it may have committed the Administration to the idea that the Libyan denouement was a simpler story than it was. One of the lines edited out of the talking points was this:

The wide availability of weapons and experienced fighters in Libya almost certainly contribute to the lethality of the attacks.

That may have been the worst cut of all. One could at least argue that there was uncertainty about the Al Qaeda intelligence, but this point, on the other hand, was simply true.


Avoiding the War Powers Act also meant that Congress—by the Administration’s own insistence—would have no full, true purchase on the project, however many Senators made speeches calling for no-fly zones. By avoiding legitimate political processes in starting a war, the Administration just made it easier for that war’s aftermath to be politicized.


What the A.P. and Benghazi cases might have most in common, then, is the Obama Administration’s strange belief that if it can just find the right words, that reality will comply and bend to meet it—that its challenges are so extraordinary that the use of any exceptions built into normal processes should be regarded as unexceptional. In fairness, almost every President is susceptible to this—George W. Bush conspicuously so. But Obama was supposed to learn something from that.

Above: Then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in January. Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty.

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Today is Thursday, May 16, 2013 RSS feed

http://www.ammoland.com/2013/05/hold...#axzz2TTGgXCBC

Holder Says ‘NO’ to Special Counsel to Investigate Benghazi ~ Video

Published on Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Tags:Attorney General Eric Holder|AWR Hawkins|Benghazi|Obama Administration
Holder Says 'NO' to Special Counsel to Investigate Benghazi ~ VideoReviewed by AWR Hawkins on May 15Rating: 5.0Mr. Holder, will you appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Benghazi? "No"... Mr. Holder, will you appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Benghazi? In equally clear tones, Holder answers, "No," and disappears into the building...
By AWR Hawkins
Holder Says ‘No’ to Special Counsel to Investigate Benghazi

AmmoLand Gun News

Washington DC - -(Ammoland.com)- Breitbart News has obtained an exclusive video of Attorney General Eric Holder flatly rejecting the idea of appointing a special counsel to investigate Benghazi.

Filmed on May 15 2013 and provided to Breitbart News by Special Operations Speaks, the video shows Holder emerge from his car and walk towards the Rayburn House Office Building for hearings on the IRS scandal. Holder is clearly asked, “Mr. Holder, will you appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Benghazi?”
In equally clear tones, Holder answers, “No,” and disappears into the building.

About:
AWR Hawkins writes for all the BIG sites, for Pajamas Media, for RedCounty.com, for Townhall.com and now AmmoLand Shooting Sports News.

His southern drawl is frequently heard discussing his take on current events on radio shows like America’s Morning News, the G. Gordon Liddy Show, the Ken Pittman Show, and the NRA’s Cam & Company, among others. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal (summer 2010), and he holds a PhD in military history from Texas Tech University.

If you have questions or comments, email him at awr@awrhawkins.com. You can find him on facebook at www.facebook.com/awr.hawkins.

Read more at Ammoland.com: http://www.ammoland.com/2013/05/hold...#ixzz2TTIOwOf6

[American Patriot]

"No, no thank you. We don't want that investigated, cuz, you know, we might find ourselves guilty of something and we certainly can't have that...."

[American Patriot]

CBS/AP/ May 16, 2013, 11:36 AM
White House Benghazi email release prompts GOP to demand more

WASHINGTON The White House release of some 100 pages of emails and notes about the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year has failed to satisfy congressional Republicans, who are demanding more information.


"Why not release all of the unclassified documents?" said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "The president has repeatedly said that when he gets new information, he'll release it to the public. Why not release -- instead of the hand-picked ones -- why not release all the unclassified documents?"


A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday that Republicans hoped "this limited release of documents is a sign of more cooperation to come," while the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee pressed the Pentagon for more details about military orders around the time of the attack and what military aircraft were in the region.


Four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed when militants struck the U.S. mission and CIA annex in twin nighttime attacks on Sept. 11, 2012.
Republicans have accused the Obama administration of misleading the American people about the circumstances of the attack, playing down a terrorist strike that would reflect poorly on President Obama in the heat of a presidential race. Mr. Obama has dismissed charges of a cover-up and suggested on Monday that the criticism was politically motivated.


Eight months after the attack, the issue remains a political winner with the Republican base as conservatives have been ferocious in assailing Mr. Obama. Rank-and-file GOP members and outside groups have pressured Boehner to appoint a special select committee to investigate. Instead, Republicans on five House committees are pursuing their own inquiries and promising to call more witnesses to testify publicly, including the veteran diplomat and retired admiral who led an independent review of the attack that widely criticized the State Department's insufficient security at the facility.


In the latest back-and-forth between the two leaders and a House Republican chairman, Thomas Pickering and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen sent a letter Thursday to the Oversight chairman saying they will testify in public but not submit to private interviews with staff investigators prior to their testimony.


"The public deserves to hear your questions and answers," Pickering and Mullen told Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. They offered to appear before the panel either May 28 or June 3.

Play Video
Pickering: Wasn't necessary to interview Clinton on Benghazi

Play Video
Rice: Libya attacks spontaneous

Play Video

White House releases internal e-mails on Benghazi attack

On CBS News' "Face the Nation" Sunday, Pickering told moderator Bob Schieffer that he informed Issa's committee ahead of its hearings last week on the attacks that he was "fully prepared to come at any time." Pickering said he received a response that Republicans didn't want to include him in last week's hearings.


The emails disclosed on Wednesday underscored the turf battle between the State Department and CIA, as neither one wanted to take the blame for the attack. They also showed the reluctance within the administration about saying anything definitively as officials scrambled to write talking points for lawmakers and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who discussed the attack on Sunday talk shows.


Rice's widely debunked remarks that cited protests over an anti-Islam video as the cause of the attack fueled the criticism of the administration and later cost her a chance at becoming secretary of state.


According to the 99 pages of emails, then CIA-Director David Petraeus objected to the final talking points because he wanted to see more details revealed to the public.
In the original draft of the talking points, the CIA said the assault may have been "spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate," CBS News chief White House correspondent Major Garrett reports.


But the first version also acknowledged that "Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda participated in the attack" and that there had been "at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi" in the previous six months and that "we cannot rule out that individuals had previously surveilled the U.S. facilities."


Petraeus' deputy, Mike Morell, after a meeting at the White House on Saturday, Sept. 15, scratched out from the CIA's early talking point drafts mentions of al Qaeda, the experience of fighters in Libya, Islamic extremists and a warning to the Cairo embassy on the eve of the attacks of calls for a demonstration and break-in by jihadists.

• Benghazi timeline: How the attack unfolded
• Timeline: How the probe unfolded

Intelligence officials told CBS News that Morell was worried that naming the terror groups would unnecessarily influence the FBI investigation. The intelligence community also wanted to protect classified information already pointing to possible culprits, Garrett reports.


Petraeus apparently was displeased by the removal of so much of the material his analysts had proposed for release. The talking points were sent to Rice to prepare her for an appearance on news shows on Sunday, Sept. 16, and also to members of the House Intelligence Committee.


"No mention of the cable to Cairo, either?" Petraeus wrote after receiving Morell's edited version, developed after an intense back-and-forth among Obama administration officials. "Frankly, I'd just as soon not use this, then."


The emails were partially blacked out, including removal of names of senders and recipients who are career employees at the CIA and elsewhere.


The emails show only minor edits were requested by the White House, and most of the objections came from the State Department. "The White House cleared quickly, but State has major concerns," read an email that a CIA official sent to Petraeus on Friday, Sept. 14.


Critics have highlighted an email by then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland that expressed concern that any mention of prior warnings or the involvement of al Qaeda would give congressional Republicans ammunition to attack the administration in the weeks before the presidential election.


That email was among those released by the White House, sent by Nuland on Sept. 14 at 7:39 p.m. to officials in the White House, State Department and CIA. She wrote she was concerned they could prejudice the investigation and be "abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to agency warnings so why do we want to feed that either? Concerned."


After Nuland sent several more emails throughout that Friday evening expressing further concerns, Jake Sullivan, then-deputy chief of staff at the State Department, said the issues would be worked out at a meeting at the White House on Saturday morning.

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Amid all the controversy the Administration is grooming her for a promotion?


Will Benghazi furor keep Susan Rice out of the White House?

Posted By John Hudson Wednesday, May 15, 2013 - 6:56 PM Share



Insiders with ties to the Obama administration tell The Cable that U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice has become the heir apparent to National Security Advisor Tom Donilon -- a post at the epicenter of foreign-policy decision making and arguably more influential than secretary of state, a job for which she withdrew her candidacy last fall amid severe political pressure.

"It's definitely happening," a source who recently spoke with Rice told The Cable. "She is sure she is coming and so too her husband and closest friends."

"Susan is a very likely candidate to replace him whenever he would choose to leave," agreed Dennis Ross, a former special assistant to President Obama and counselor at the Washington Institute. "She is close to the president, has the credentials, and has a breadth of experience."

Both sources said the timing of succession was uncertain. "I don't believe Tom Donilon is about to leave but would be surprised if he were to remain for the whole second term," Ross said. "But in answer to your question, [Rice's appointment] is very logical."

Rice's candidacy for secretary of state imploded in November after she recited talking points about the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi on five Sunday talk shows that turned out to be erroneous.

The question now is whether Benghazi's return to the spotlight will affect her potential appointment at a time when the White House is reeling from revelations about the IRS's scrutiny of conservative groups and the Justice Department's subpoena of the calling records of AP journalists.

For now, prominent Republicans don't seem inclined to make a fuss.

In November, Arizona Sen. John McCain pledged to "do everything in my power to block her from becoming secretary of state"; South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said, "I don't think she deserves to be promoted"; and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker said she'd make a better DNC chair: "I think most of us want someone who is more independent minded."

But now -- even as Benghazi fever reaches a crescendo following last week's dramatic "whistleblower" hearing and Wednesday's release of 100 pages of Benghazi emails -- the GOP's desire to check her rise has seemingly evaporated, and Republicans have few tools to prevent her appointment, which would not require Senate confirmation.

When asked if he was concerned about a future National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Corker, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told The Cable he was sitting this one out.

"In the case of national security advisor," he said, "whomever serves in that position serves at the pleasure of the president. So it's totally his prerogative." When The Cable asked Graham and McCain the same question, their spokesmen declined to comment.

In some ways, the deflated interest in Rice is only natural. Though the testimony of State Department witnesses last week served to highlight the inaccuracy of Rice's talk-show appearances, new details of the editing process of her talking points show her nowhere near the drafting process -- just as the administration has long maintained.

Meanwhile, a more tantalizing GOP target has emerged in the form of Hillary Clinton, the overwhelming favorite to assume the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. Democrats, Republicans and witnesses fixated on Clinton 32 times during discussions in last week's hearing.

Rice spokeswoman Erin Pelton declined to comment for this article. White House National Security Council Spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said, "We don't have any personnel announcements to make at this time, and Mr. Donilon has no plans to depart at this point."

She added that Donilon is "fully engaged in managing our national security agenda, from his recent trip to Moscow and major address on global energy, to planning for a trip to China in late May and more upcoming speaking events."

The administration hasn't shied away from heaping praise on Rice. Last week, at a gala for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Vice President Joe Biden told the audience that the U.N. ambassador has "the absolute, total, complete confidence of the president," and that when she speaks on issues of foreign policy, nobody doubts she's speaking for Obama.

Back in March, when colleague Colum Lynch first reported whispers of Rice's comeback, Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, spoke glowingly of Rice's relationship with the president. "Susan always maintains close relations with the president and his national security team, and that continues to be the case," he said. "If anything, the way she handled the Benghazi situation -- and then the withdrawal -- only enhanced her relations here, because she did so with grace and good humor."

The president himself has gone out of his way to wink at an expanded role for Rice within his administration. "I have every confidence that Susan has limitless capability to serve our country now and in the years to come, and know that I will continue to rely on her as an advisor and friend," Obama said in a December statement.

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Retired 4 star Admiral Blows Whistle on Benghazi new Evidence

Post Published: 17 January 2013
By Doc Vega
A lot has been said and written, but this promises to break the case wide open!



Ambassador Stevens carried through the streets of Benghazi for 5 hours while US media alleged he was being helped to the hospital? More Obama

White House lies!

There have been many theories and accusations about the Benghazi fiasco that not only cost Ambassador J. Christian Stevens his life, but the lives of his staff and one Navy Seal body-guard as well. This action which led to a complete conflagration of terrorist attacks against US diplomatic buildings throughout the Middle East and North Africa still remains largely uninvestigated by the government, unprosecuted by AG Eric Holder’s Depart of Justice, and refuses to bring the guilty parties to justice while many know the truth and are not coming forward. Even though President Obama is implicated in this oversees tragedy still the truth has not emerged.

That has all changed. Finally, an authoritative figure with the proper credentials has stepped up to the plate to tell the true story of what did happen without the lies and cover-ups that have so far kept those guilty of murder from standing trial. The admission on the part of this man will likely blow the Benghazi scandal wide open and lead to arrests if we can get our legal system to act as it should. That, however, is a big if.

Related: Read Letter: Special Ops Vets Demand Benghazi Congressional Investigation

The story as it truly unfolded

According to a report from the Washington Times, retired 4 Star Admiral James Lyons reveals the entire plot that led to the deaths of Americans in Libya that could have been prevented, who gave the orders, and why events took place as they tragically did. Admiral James Lyons is probably the highest ranking figure ever to intervene in a federal government criminal case, and testify. Thanks to this man’s dedication to his country and the truth, we will finally know the truth and who was responsible.
In his words Lyons says that the attack on Benghazi was a bungled kidnapping attempt to be perpetrated upon Ambassador Stevens. This was to appear to be a hostage exchange for a terrorist prisoner who was to be released in trade for a supposedly captured US ambassador. The trade would have been for Omar Abdel Rahman an international prisoner, known as the Blind Sheikh.

This apparent abduction by terrorists of our ambassador and then negotiated trade for the Blind Sheikh would have been the “October Surprise” that would have elevated President Obama’s flagging popularity and boosted his approval ratings for a re-election. A dramatic prisoner exchange that saved our ambassador’s life However, something went horribly wrong. A cunning and illegal bit of treachery by the Obama White House turned into something entirely different. Obama’s October surprise turned into a carnage orchestrated by the White House itself as the President, Leon Panetta, and CIA Director, David Petraeus watched via a UAV real-time feed as a 7 hour attack on the Benghazi Embassy raged. Reportedly, stand down orders were given several times to different units within striking distance.

A plot of pure deception

With what should have been only a staged kidnapping of Ambassador J. Christian Stevens, instead, Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty refused a stand down order and began doing their job of protecting the ambassador using force. Immediately the well-trained Seals began inflicting heavy casualties upon the terrorists who thought they were merely in a cake walk to abduct Ambassador Stevens without mishap. As a result of the plan going awry, a massive attack arose from the anger of the terrorists who felt they had been betrayed by President Obama. In the aftermath of the battle which saw Navy Seal Glen Doherty was killed after the embassy had been overrun along with the ambassador’s staff. Ambassador Steven’s whose body showed up 5 hours later at a Benghazi hospital supposedly overcome by smoke as the initial press reports indicated was, in fact, raped, tortured, and dragged around Benghazi in retaliation for the botched Obama White House plan.

Obama hands over Libya to Al Qaeda

Was this just a freak occurrence that belies the true nature of dealings in Libya with American diplomatic efforts, just one glitch in normal standard operating procedure? No, according to former Admiral Lyons and many others such as Glen Beck, who have all uncovered evidence that lead to much more sinister deeds being undertaken. Evidence of a working relationship between the US and its alleged terrorist enemies had already delivered Libya to the Al Qaeda terrorist organization through infiltration of the government, media, and general society prior to the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi that toppled the dictator last year. That the US has worked with Al Qaeda awarding them security contracts for all US embassies and consulates as well as border protection has instead allowed Libya to become a haven for numerous terrorist operators who have automatic access to Libya’s territory to carry out their training. All this with the support and blessing of the Obama administration. This is not only unthinkable, but beyond excuse or rationalization. There should already be indictments for many in the state department, in the DOJ, all the way up to the oval office, yet, so far nothing has been done.

Treason plain and simple

It goes even farther than that. Evidence indicates that Ambassador Stevens was being used as an arms dealer to supply Jihadists in the region to support yet another uprising in Syria. Just prior to the murder of our ambassador, he was trying to locate guns that had been walked across Libya’s border to other countries just as the ATF had done in operation Fast and Furious on the border of Mexico. These are not the actions of inexperience or bad intelligence. They are the actions of traitorous intention. President Obama will, no doubt, be linked to these deaths and operations if Congress will only act, and do its duty in prosecuting a treasonous president who is endangering national security.

There is no where else for a Congressional investigation to turn other than naming the conspirators, determining when officials knew, and assembling the evidence that murder was committed on behalf of the White House to silence those who knew and could testify. Through out the Obama presidency over the last four years the administration has master minded operations that have caused numerous controversies and crises.

When will the GOP take action?

The Republicans have missed opportunities to discredit the President, to impeach Obama in the wake of waging war against Libya without Congressional approval, and allowed executive privilege to quash subpoenaed demands for evidence on Fast and Furious never released by AG Eric Holder. John Boehner, Speaker of the House, has refused to exercise initiative whenever the GOP could have used much-needed momentum to stem the tide against the incessant assaults against state’s rights, constitutional rights, and the traditional institutions of America. Will the recent damning evidence now uncovered over the Benghazi fiasco thanks to Admiral James Lyons be implemented to convict the President of potential high treason, or will we see yet another case of criminal acts ignored and hidden at the expense of the American people? If you bother to take interest and act as a responsible citizens contact your congressman and demand action!

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The Benghazi deception

Doug Hagmann (Bio and Archives) Thursday, May 16, 2013
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It is interesting that the corporate media, like sharks attracted to chum in the water, is just now appearing to treat Benghazi as a political scandal similar to Watergate that took down former U.S. President Richard M. Nixon in his second term. While many people see the comparison, I not only see the comparison, but also sense a collusion of a different, more nefarious and less conspicuous type as well.

As the details of Benghazi are beginning to emerge from “whistleblowers” and the murderous events are being rightfully elevated to the proper realm of criminal conspiracy, other scandals have suddenly seemed to erupt, almost as if cued by a complicit choreographer. Most egregious misdeeds of the Internal Revenue Service, for example, that allegedly targeted Conservative groups, from 501(c)3 organizations to any group with Tea party or Constitution in their names, were suddenly “revealed.”

Other scandals of lesser significance, but nonetheless poking at the embers of public ire and intolerance are popping up as well. Watching the people who are reading the multiple news headlines on various news aggregator sites are like watching spectators at Wimbledon, as their heads move from side to side as they follow the ball in play. The white noise of new problems are constantly erupting, resulting in a feeding frenzy in the waters surrounding the Executive branch.

While fascinating to watch, has anyone stopped to consider that the process of chumming the waters with a flurry of cascading news events, combined with a docu-dump of 100 pages of Benghazi e-mails is actually a methodically orchestrated diversion? What is it we are not supposed to be seeing amid the white noise of new controversies of varying values? Are we being told that we’re aboard the Queen Mary and being directed to look over the port side at the antics of the sharks attracted by the chumming of the waters while we’re actually aboard the RMS Lusitania sailing through the Irish Channel on the afternoon of May 7, 1915? Meanwhile, a torpedo fired from a German U-boat is traveling directly for our starboard side, and is about to take the entire ship down.

Like a levy that has been suspiciously breached, the informational flood created by these news events is without recent precedent. The timing of this flood is of particularly critical importance. The headlines are diverting our attention away from a critical window of investigative value relating to Benghazi. Could it be that we’re seeing a form of force majeure being implemented to overwhelm and distract us from something far more important to truth seekers and consequently, much more lethal to Obama’s second term? Perhaps the Cloward-Piven strategy adapted and modified for the modern news cycles of today?

The Watergate-Benghazi time continuum

It has become common practice to use the Watergate “scandal” as the basis for any controversy involving the President or the White House, having set some arbitrary high-water mark for behavioral tolerance involving a sitting president. Watergate is commonly used to describe an intricate web of criminal deception that took place during former President Richard Nixon’s second term in the White House, and is routinely identified as the cause that brought down Nixon’s presidency.

A critical component of the Watergate investigation involved audio surreptitiously recorded by a little-known audio taping system installed in the Oval Office in early 1971 that captured nearly all utterances by anyone meeting with the president. During the investigation of the Watergate scandal, the recordings pertaining to relevant discussions were the subject of investigative demands and subpoenas by the investigating committee. Submission of the tapes became a bloody battleground between Nixon and the House Select Committee. After months of fighting, the tapes were finally surrendered and an unexplained 18 1/2 minute gap, or totality of gaps, was discovered. Analysis of that effacement determined that it was the result of at least five separate manual erasures, verifying that the missing time memorialized by these tapes was no accident.

Whether it’s Watergate or Benghazi, there’s one piece of evidence in both of these criminal cover-ups from which the actors involved try to deflect your attention by any means possible. It’s the proverbial garden path plotted by the architects of deception themselves. Following this garden path through the winding turns to its origins will expose that one nugget of information needed to unravel the lies and cover-ups elusive to so many. It is a highly protected secret nestled among other less damning facts, diversions and deceptions.

Benghazi is no exception, but instead provides a textbook example of diversion from the golden nugget hidden inside a crusted shell made to look like all others. So, just what is that particular nugget of criminal naughtiness?

Erasure of evidence: Present day

The nugget that is being hidden here is not content of the memos relating to matters of diplomatic security, but something far more nefarious and elusive by its mere simplicity. Like the questions that surrounded the mysterious 18 1/2 minute gap in the Watergate tapes forty-years ago, there is a period of missing time that few seem anxious to address. By order of magnitude, however, this missing time is far greater than anything we saw with Watergate. Instead of 18 1/2 minutes of presidential time, it’s nearly 18 1/2 hours of time involving the actions, utterances, commands or lack thereof of Barack Hussein Obama as Americans were being killed a half-world away.

Expose that nugget and I suspect the findings will be far more damaging, far more troubling, and exceedingly more alarming than anyone has begun to imagine. It is this mystical missing period of time where many clues exist. Exactly where was Barack Hussein Obama following his 5:00 meeting in the Oval Office until the next day? Where wasn’t he? It’s almost as if the Wizard of Oz himself waved his magical wand to divert attention away from those lost hours.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s crystal ball

It’s almost as if Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 campaign commercial relating to the proverbial 3:00 a.m. telephone call was precognitive and eerily accurate. If not answering the calls to save American lives during the darkest hours of the night, could he have perhaps found a glimmer of light from a bad moon rising from which to order the positioning assets and personnel in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief? If not, then did not Hillary Clinton accurately predict the ringing but unanswered phone with crystal-ball like accuracy?

Based on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s unspoken ambitions for a White House bid in 2016, why aren’t partisan mouthpiece sycophants like Media Matters and Think Progress illuminating her prophetic warnings instead of shamelessly working overtime to politicize legitimate questions surrounding the murders in Benghazi? Instead of prepositioning political capital on behalf of Clinton, they are still in full defensive mode to divert all attention away from Obama’s activities taking place under the cover of a shadowy darkness.

Few have demanded, in the form and fashion of Watergate, to know where Obama was during this most critical time in American history, who he was with, and what he was doing - far beyond the snippets we have been provided. Why does the request for specificity for Obama’s activities during this very precise segment of time be shaping up to be some type of “third rail” to the Benghazi cover-up?

We know that the Secret Service, in tandem with the National Security Council perform joint drills for such emergencies such as this. The Secret Service, among others, possess very specific logs from that night that could provide answers. Why has no one with the authority to do so requested a full accounting of Obama’s location and activities?

Interestingly, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s apparent powers of clairvoyance nearly a half-decade before Benghazi is being ignored rather than celebrated, and questions, much like an incessantly ringing telephone, are being diverted instead of answered.

The missing 18 1/2 hours

Perhaps it was fate that placed a much younger Hillary Rodham to serve on the staff assembled for the impeachment of former President Nixon. Students of history know that her activities in this position were not themselves without scandal, but that is another issue for another time. Nonetheless, the outrage caused by the infamous 18 1/2 minute gap of audio of conversations between Nixon and others in the Oval Office during a critical time of high level discussions between Nixon and his closest aides was pivotal in the impeachment proceedings.

Presently, Americans are faced with another erasure of time well beyond the 18 1/2 minutes that was a focus of the Watergate investigation. It is exponentially longer and by orders of magnitude much more prescient to the events of that September day. Today, the questions far exceed “what did he know and when did he know it” of the Nixon era, and well into “where was he, where wasn’t he, what was he doing, and who was he with? The former refers to the potential planning of a cover-up while the latter refers to a potential cover-up itself. It is a difference with a significant distinction.

With Watergate, we have a deliberate erasure of time that took place long after the primary criminal act occurred. With Benghazi, we have a Commander-in-Chief who, while acting in that capacity, fits the very definition of MIA, or missing-in-action. Not AWOL as some have proclaimed, but MIA. A schedule not erased after the fact, but an itinerary deliberately withheld from the purview of us all. The Commander-in-Chief inexplicably went “off the grid” during a time of national and international crisis. He became MIA, but why?

We are often cautioned not to ascribe conspiracy to that which can be attributed to incompetence. In this case, however, incompetence falls woefully short when a Commander-in-Chief becomes missing in action, especially during a time of such national and international crisis.

It is this golden nugget that is hidden inside a crusted shell that is the subject of diversion. That is the reason an obscure and inane video was initially grabbed from the inventory of ready-made diversions until it could no longer withstand reasonable scrutiny. His MIA status is the reason behind the $70 million public relations expenditure - no, payoff - by the Department of State to broadcast an apologetic television message across the Middle East.

It is on this issue that we must never lose focus until we are provided answers, wherever and to whomever they might lead.

If you think this matter is trivial, then you are not thinking big enough.


BENGHAZI: WHERE ARE GEN. HAM AND ADM. GAOUETTE?

By J.B. Williams
May 16, 2013
NewsWithViews.com

Who knows the whole truth about why Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty along with State Department officials Chris Stevens and Sean Smith died in Benghazi 11 September 2012?

It’s now public knowledge that the ever evolving official administration stories on Benghazi are all bold faced lies. It’s clear that the four Americans who were brutally murdered in Benghazi did not have to die. What’s not clear yet, is who is responsible for these murders? Nothing the Obama administration has told the people about Benghazi is true… but who is responsible?

General Carter Ham and Admiral Charles M. Gaouette know the answer to this question. Where are Ham and Gaouette today? Why hasn’t Issa’s investigative committee called these decorated Military officers to testify before the committee investigating Benghazi?

We have known since 30 October 2012 that these two officers…

1. Were ordered to STAND DOWN in Benghazi
2. Ignored those orders
3. Were relieved of duty for refusing orders to STAND DOWN

We know from the unclassified cables between Benghazi and DC and the subsequent Executive Brief, that cables were firing in all directions in the hours before and during the Benghazi attack that ended in the brutal death of four Americans.

General Ham was head of AFRICOM and Commander of the 2011 US-NATO operation to depose Gadhafi in Libya. Rear Admiral Charles M. Gaouette was in command of the Carrier Strike Group Three (CSG-3), then deployed in Middle Eastern waters during the attack on Benghazi.

Both Ham and Gaouette reported receiving the same desperate cables for additional security and backup that Obama administration officials received and ignored from Benghazi. They did not ignore those desperate calls for help ringing out from the Benghazi installation on 11 September 2012.

No, both Ham and Gaouette attempted to launch ready response teams in the region capable of provided the much needed assistance during the seven hour long assault on Benghazi. Both were then relieved of command for their actions, described by the US Military as “allegations of inappropriate leadership judgment.”

General Ham immediately had a rapid response unit ready and communicated to the Pentagon that he had a unit ready to deploy to Benghazi. Then, General Ham received the order to stand down. His response was “screw it,” - he was going to help anyway.

Within minutes after issuing an order to deploy his ready response team, Ham’s second in command apprehended the General and told him that he was now relieved of his command. Ham knows who issued the order to STAND DOWN as well as the order to relieve him of his command at AFRICOM.

Adm. Gaouette had also received the startling requests for support as the attack unfolded in Benghazi. Like Ham, he readied a response from Carrier Strike Group Three (CSG-3). Gaouette was also ordered to STAND DOWN and like Ham, he decided to refuse those orders. Gaouette readied vital intelligence and communications operations for an extraction effort to be launched by Ham.

Stars and Stripes reported October 18, 2012 that General Ham is being replaced by Gen. David Rodriguez. They also reported on October 27, 2012 that Adm. Gaouette is being replaced by Rear Adm. Troy M. Shoemaker. The Navy stated that it was “replacing the admiral in command of an aircraft carrier strike group in the Middle East, pending the outcome of an internal investigation into undisclosed allegations of inappropriate judgment.”

What were the “inappropriate judgments” of these two decorated Military leaders? Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Navy's chief spokesman, declined to discuss the investigation.

What we know is that these two highly unusual acts to remove two highly decorated commanders is related to the 11 September 2012 strike on Benghazi. We also know that the congressional investigation has not yet called these valiant men in to give testimony.

We know that months’ worth of warnings and requests for additional security at Benghazi we ignored and denied by the Clinton run State Department and that someone gave the DoD order to STAND DOWN when American troops were in the region and ready to assist.

We know that the Obama administration manufactured a lie about some obscure anti-Islam youtube clip that had nothing whatsoever to do with the events of 11 September 2012 Benghazi. We know that the Obama administration is holding that filmmaker in prison today. We know that Benghazi survivors have been threatened and silenced.

But most of all, we know that Gen. Ham and Adm. Gaouette can provide very real answers to a laundry list of very important questions regarding the Benghazi attacks and Issa’s alleged investigation.

On 23 April 2013, Five House Committees investigating Benghazi issued a joint Interim Progress Report. In it, all five committees fail to ask the right questions and all five demonstrate a clear intent to keep the truth about Benghazi under wraps, though the report does confirm almost everything stated herein.

The attack in Benghazi of 11 September, 2012 is now almost eight months old and yet, the truth about that attack is still a distant fog sheltered by government officials engaged in blatant obstruction of justice, made possible by the help of a totally incompetent or complicit press.

If you want to know what really happened in Benghazi, demand that Issa’s congressional committee subpoena both Gen. Ham and Adm. Gaouette to testify before the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform.

And then, recall Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta once Ham and Gaouette have testified.

Someone is responsible for the murder of Americans in Benghazi and the lies that followed. That someone, in fact all who are involved in the Benghazi murder and the cover up, must be held fully accountable.

[American Patriot]

if this is accurate.....

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Four-Star Admiral James Lyons - Barack Obama intentionally conspired with America's enemies

Published on May 1, 2013

It's even worse than we previously thought. A retired four-star admiral is now claiming that Barack Obama intentionally conspired with America's enemies to stage a bogus attack and the kidnapping of an American ambassador so he could "negotiate" the release of a "hostage" and bolster his mediocre approval ratings just prior to the election!

The Washington Examiner, quoting retired Four-Star Admiral James Lyons, writes: "the attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi... was the result of a bungled abduction attempt.... the first stage of an international prisoner exchange... that would have ensured the release of Omar Abdel Rahman, the 'Blind Sheik'..."

But something went horribly wrong with Obama's "October Surprise." Although the Obama Administration intentionally gutted security at the consulate prior to the staged kidnapping, former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty disobeyed direct orders to stand down, saved American lives, single-handedly killed scores of attackers...and the attackers, believing that Obama had betrayed them, tortured Ambassador Chris Stevens and dragged his body through the streets.

Some will say that Admiral Lyons' accusation is not a smoking gun. We agree; that's exactly why Congress must investigate Benghazi-gate.

Moreover, we firmly believe the problem with Admiral Lyons' assertion is that he is only scratching the surface; the full and complete truth may be much, much worse.

Benghazi-gate is not about a bogus YouTube video series of lies. It's not about the Obama Administration's foreign policy ineptitude. We are dealing with something much more sinister... something potentially treasonous... and the following questions, posed in an article in The New American, go to the heart of the matter:

1. "What was the Obama administration's full role in helping violent Jihadists, self-styled al Qaeda terrorists, and Western-backed "revolutionaries" take over Libya in the first place?

2. Did that half-baked scheme to arm Jihadist leaders, who... had previously fought U.S. troops in Iraq, contribute to the attack, as countless experts and officials have suggested?

3. What was actually going on at the compound in Benghazi, which, as the report states, was never a "consulate" despite establishment media claims?

4. Was Ambassador Stevens recruiting and arming Jihadists and terrorists to wage war on the Syrian regime after what Obama called the "success" in Libya, as a growing body of credible evidence suggests?

5. Why did the administration claim for so long that the attack was just a "protest" over a YouTube video gone awry, even when it knew definitively that was not the case?

6. Was the lack of security at the compound a political ploy to conceal the extent of the lawlessness and utter chaos left in the wake of Obama's unconstitutional "regime change" war on Libya, as even members of Congress have alleged?"

It's clear. Benghazi-Gate is only a small piece of a much larger operation, an attempt to conceal what The New American calls "the Obama administration's full role in helping violent Jihadists and self-styled al Qaeda terrorists."

Prior to the election Barack Obama continually told us that "Osama bin-Laden is dead and GM is alive"; but the sad truth is that Osama bin-Laden's organization is alive and well, and the Obama Regime may be giving aid and comfort to this terrorist network.

And prior to the election, Fox News' Geraldo Rivera pontificated that Republicans shouldn't "politicize" Benghazi-gate. Swaggering onto the set of Fox and Friends, Rivera bloviated: "I think we have to stop this politicizing." And Rivera issued the following veiled warning to Republicans: "Do we want to try and influence the election with a tragedy that happened in North Africa?"

Ironic, isn't it? Barack Obama played politics with the lives of Americans; like Rivera, the media covered Obama's rear and threatened to accuse anyone and everyone who mentioned it of "playing politics."

[American Patriot]

May 13, 2013 Ben Rhodes: Obama's Fixer behind the Benghazi Cover-Up

By Ed Lasky

Barack Obama's "Tower of Fabrications," as Peter Wehner describes the Benghazi scandal, is beginning to crack. And that crack will soon reveal a central figure behind the cover-up, a man close to Barack Obama for years but generally unknown to the public: Ben Rhodes.



Rhodes has risen from being an obscure and failed fiction writer to formulating foreign and national security policy for Obama precisely because he is willing to his superiors' bidding regardless of facts. He has a history of using whatever talents he has with the pen to do so.

A few years ago he had drafted the Iraq Study Group report on the causes and mishaps of the Iraq War to focus on Israel -- despite the fact that Israel was not part of the scope of the mission the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group was given. Witnesses and experts called by the Committee were appalled. Why did Rhodes distort the record? He seemingly was doing the bidding of his masters who have a history of animus towards Israel. Rhodes had attended Rice University, where the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy is housed; it was headed by Edward Djerejian. Both Baker and his friend Djerejian (a former Ambassador to Syria) have pro-Arab records; criticism of and pressure towards Israel have been hallmarks of their careers. Both Baker and Djerejian played key roles in choosing whom to hire for the Iraq Study Group and how the work was done.

Rhodes may also just be indulging his own pro-Muslim sympathies. He wrote Obama's infamous Cairo Speech. That paean to the Muslim world was filled with fulsome praise of Islam that were factually incorrect (Rhodes' post-graduate education, after all, was in fiction-writing and under Obama he seems to have finally found someone who will pay him for writing fiction). The speech avoided references to radical Islam and was filled with platitudes about Islam. The speech highlighted a tougher line towards Israel and "credited" that nation's founding as due to European guilt over the Holocaust (ignoring 5000 years of history).

Rhodes has gone from writing reports and drafting speeches to playing a key role in formulating foreign and national security policy, according to the New York Times. His closeness to Obama -- a man known for his aloofness ("he doesn't like people" says a former aide) has become well-known.

There is a reason Rhodes is close to Obama.

Everyone in power needs a fixer and, according to the latest revelations, Ben Rhodes is Obama's fixer.

Rhodes seems to be proud of his role. Patrick Howley of the Daily Caller notes that Rhodes "identifies himself first and foremost as a strategist and mouthpiece for the president's agenda" whose, quoting Rhodes, "main job, which has always been my job, is to be the person who represents the president's view on these issues"

When State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland requested changes to the original CIA talking points to eliminate reports regarding warnings of the upcoming attacks who responded positively to her wishes? Ben Rhodes.

Stephen Hayes writes at the Weekly Standard (The Benghazi Scandal Grows:

The CIA's talking points, the ones that went out that Friday evening, were distributed via email to a group of top Obama administration officials. Forty-five minutes after receiving them, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland expressed concerns about their contents, particularly the likelihood that members of Congress would criticize the State Department for "not paying attention to Agency warnings." CIA officials responded with a new draft, stripped of all references to Ansar al Sharia.
In an email a short time later, Nuland wrote that the changes did not "resolve all my issues or those of my building leadership." She did not specify whom she meant by State Department "building leadership." Ben Rhodes, a top Obama foreign policy and national security adviser, responded to the group, explaining that Nuland had raised valid concerns and advising that the issues would be resolved at a meeting of the National Security Council's Deputies Committee the following morning.

As Charles Krauthammer noted, Rhodes had written in an email he wanted the revisions to reflect all the "equities" of the various departments involved in the Benghazi story -- not reflect the truth but the "equities" (a Washington euphemism for reputations). Truth ended up on the cutting room floor.

This report was backed up by other journalists.

As Kevin Robillard wrote at Politico,"Terror References removed from Benghazi talking points":

Nuland was backed up by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes.
"We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don't want to undermine the FBI investigation," Rhodes wrote. "We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting."
After the meeting Rhodes mentioned, all references to Al Qaeda were deleted.

Hayes outlines what happened next:

Mike Morell, deputy director of the CIA, agreed to work with Jake Sullivan and Rhodes to edit the talking points. At the time, Sullivan was deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the State Department's director of policy planning; he is now the top national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.

It is highly doubtful that Morell, the deputy director of the CIA, a career official (not an Obama appointee), found this work comfortable or rewarding.

After all, he was being "asked" to distort the CIA's original report -- to eliminate references to Islamic terrorism, to delete warnings of an organized attack to come, to shield the Obama administration and cover-up the Benghazi disaster, a problem that would have plagued Barack Obama in the run-up to the election.

Then CIA-director David Petraeus was reportedly appalled at the revisions forced upon them by Team Obama (recall the constant references during the Bush era about the "politicizing of intelligence"?). He was particularly frustrated over the deleted references to terrorism.

So who pushed for such a radical alteration of the CIA talking points, who has a history of writing reports, drafting speeches, doing his bosses bidding regardless of ethics and fealty to facts, and who has a record of indulging in pro-Islam messaging? None other than Ben Rhodes.

Journalists have just begun to focus on his role.

James Rosen, the Fox News Washington correspondent, reported Friday night on the Bret Baier show, that the Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes at the White House was an early participant in the process of rewriting the CIA talking points and he lined up with State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland in a "way that served to accelerate the scrubbing of the talking points".

Coincidentally (or not) Ben Rhodes's brother, David Rhodes, is the head of CBS News. One of the most dogged journalists trying to peel away the covers behind the Benghazi scandal has been CBS journalist Sharyl Atkinson. She has had to endure pressure from liberal journalistic colleagues to stop digging. Politico reports that "network sources" say that she "can't get some of her stories on the air."

The coercion may be going into overdrive as the investigations gets closer to fingering Ben Rhodes as the key player behind the Benghazi cover-up. According to Patrick Howley of the Daily Caller, CBS News may be on the verge of firing Atkinson.
Furthermore, Ben Rhodes is married to Ann Norris, senior foreign and defense advisor to Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California). One might with some justification expect Sen. Boxer to run interference for Ben Rhodes should investigations begin to focus on his role in the Benghazi scandal.


Congress, or rather the Republican-held House since Harry Reid would never permit any truth-finding by the Democrat Senate, needs to step up the pace of their investigations, issue subpoenas, and call witnesses. America (and the wounded and dead victims and the family and friends who survive them) deserves to know the truth behind Benghazi.

And among those witnesses should be Ben Rhodes. Perhaps being forced to swear he will tell the truth will finally cause him to abandon fiction.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/...#ixzz2TrXSqYcv
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[American Patriot]

Exclusive: CIA Honored Benghazi Chief in Secret Ceremony

by Eli Lake May 21, 2013 4:45 AM EDT Part of why the State Department has taken the brunt of the political blame for the Benghazi attack, writes Eli Lake, is that clandestine services by definition have very little public oversight.

At a secret February ceremony at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., the chief of the CIA’s base in Benghazi the night of the 9/11 anniversary attacks there was awarded one of the agency’s highest intelligence medals, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials.

The interior of the burnt US consulate building in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. (Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images)

The honor given behind closed doors to “Bob,” the officer who was in charge of the Benghazi intelligence annex and CIA base that was attacked in the early morning of September 12, 2012 and then abandoned for nearly three weeks, illustrates the murky lines of command that preceded the attack, and helped make it a politically volatile issue. While the State Department was responsible for elements of the security for the diplomatic mission at Benghazi, the mission itself was used primarily for intelligence activities and most the U.S. officials there and at the nearby annex were CIA officers who used State Department cover.

That purposeful ambiguity between diplomatic and intelligence efforts abroad has meant that at home, the State Department has taken almost all of the public blame for an error that was in part the fault of the CIA. And while CIA contractors performed heroically on the evening of the Benghazi attacks, Bob was also responsible in part for one major failure the night of the Benghazi attack: his officers were responsible for vetting the February 17 Martyr’s Brigade, the militia that was supposed to be the first responder on the night of the attack, but melted away when the diplomatic mission was attacked.

To be sure, the CIA has reviewed what went wrong in the Benghazi attacks in its own internal report. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has conducted three classified hearings with CIA officials regarding Benghazi. CIA deputy director Michael Morell is scheduled to testify in closed session before the committee on Wednesday regarding Benghazi.

But those hearings have been closed to the public as opposed to the grueling public hearings of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Earlier this month that committee held a hearing that featured YouTube–friendly moments from witnesses hostile to the administration like former deputy chief of mission Gregory Hicks, who described what was likely the last phone call of Ambassador Chris Stevens, one of four Americans who were killed that evening.

What’s more, the CIA’s own internal review was not led by outside figures like the State Department’s Accountability Review Board (ARB) headed by a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and a former U.S. ambassador, Thomas Pickering. Nor was the CIA review made public.

Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell arrives at the Capitol to attend closed-door meetings about ongoing intelligence activities related to the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

If you are talking about a clandestine service, it’s very difficult to conduct that oversight in a public way.

Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House committee’s panel on national security and the first lawmaker to contact Hicks after the Benghazi attacks, said there are special challenges in performing oversight of the CIA. Even though the CIA’s role at the Benghazi mission and nearby annex has been widely reported in the U.S. and international press, its role in Benghazi remains a classified secret.

“If you are talking about a clandestine service, it’s very difficult to conduct that oversight in a public way,” Chaffetz said. “You are talking about people’s lives. We have to be ultra-cautious in talking about something that may cost lives. When you start getting into sources and methods you just can’t go there in a public setting.”

Chaffetz has some experience in the matter himself. In a Benghazi hearing in October, he abruptly interrupted the hearing when State Department officials testifying referenced an aerial photograph of the Benghazi mission that disclosed the CIA annex more than a mile away.

A U.S. official familiar with the Libyan security situation explained that the agency did not have many good options for working with a militia in Benghazi.

“The host country is responsible for perimeter security, but no one can provide guarantees,” this official said. “Typically with unstable and dangerous places the security elements are unreliable. No matter how many relationships are developed and precautions taken, you can’t make an insecure environment completely safe. That night some Libyan militia members bravely and immediately answered the call for help, some didn’t, and others took time to coordinate their eventual support to the evacuation.”

Another U.S. intelligence official disputed this view. This official said the failure for the CIA at Benghazi was the mistaken assumption that the Zintan tribe in Benghazi—that provided many of the fighters for the February 17 Martyr’s Brigade—would have the same loyalties as the Zintan tribe in Tripoli, which had protected several senior U.S. officials including Hillary Clinton in her visit last year to Libya. “The CIA failed at mapping the human terrain,” this official said. “They did not understand the politics in Benghazi and we paid the price.”

Despite the CIA’s role in vetting the Libyan militia that failed the U.S. mission the night of the attack, the Republican chairman and the Democratic vice chairman of the House intelligence committee have both said publicly they do not believe the CIA committed an intelligence failure in the run-up to the Benghazi attack.

On May 4, appearing on CBS Face the Nation, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the Democratic vice chairman of the House intelligence committee said, “The most important issue though too, from an intelligence perspective… there was not an intelligence failure. We did not have intelligence ahead of time as it related to this incident.”

Nonetheless, some U.S. intelligence officials have privately complained that Bob, the Benghazi base chief should not get a medal. Two such officers told the Daily Beast that Bob—who was based in the CIA annex--also gave the initial order on the evening of the attacks to the CIA contractors to gather more information about the attack before rushing off to the diplomatic mission.
The State Department’s own Accountability Review Board (ARB) found there was a 23-minute gap between the initial distress call from the diplomatic mission at 9:42 local Benghazi time to the time when the CIA contractors departed the annex at 10:05 pm. The initial delay, according to two intelligence officials, could have made a difference the night of the rescue.
The ARB however disputed this notion. It said, “The departure of the Annex team was not delayed by orders from superiors; the team leader decided on his own to depart the Annex compound once it was apparent, despite a brief delay to permit their continuing efforts, that rapid support from local security elements was not forthcoming.”



Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.


Eli Lake is the senior national-security correspondent for Newsweek and the Daily Beast. He previously covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times. Lake has also been a contributing editor at The New Republic since 2008 and covered diplomacy, intelligence, and the military for the late New York Sun. He has lived in Cairo and traveled to war zones in Sudan, Iraq, and Gaza. He is one of the few journalists to report from all three members of President Bush’s axis of evil: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.


For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

[American Patriot]

May 21, 2013 4:00 AM
Issa Warns Hillary
If she’s called to testify again, she’d better be ready.
By Jonathan Strong


Since Hillary Clinton last came up to Capitol Hill, we’ve learned senior State Department officials sought to scrub references to terrorism from the infamous Benghazi talking points to insulate Foggy Bottom from political criticism — citing concerns of their “building’s leadership” to justify the demands.

The rising temperature of the scandal means it’s possible that Hillary could be asked to return and testify again. If she comes back, she had better be prepared, says House Oversight and Government Reform chairman Darrell Issa.

“We are interviewing lots of people, most of them under oath,” Issa says, describing the “methodical” approach his committee has been using for months.

“We’re going to go through . . . that so that if we bring Secretary Clinton back, we bring her back when we have a lot of questions, including who told her what, or, more importantly, who didn’t tell her something, and why” Issa says in his office in the Rayburn House Office Building, his foot propped up on a table.

Generally speaking, the chairmanship of the oversight committee is a job that holds a lot more appeal when it’s the other party’s guy in the White House. Issa has held the coveted position for over two years, but it’s only now that Obama-administration scandals have truly consumed Washington.

White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer was peppered with questions about a trio of scandals on the Sunday shows this week, and his performance actually prompted pity from some members of the media. (“It’s abusive of Obama to send him on Sunday shows with no more to say than he had today,” tweeted Fox News’ Brit Hume.)

“He was spinning truth into lie, wasn’t he? He was like Baghdad Bob!” says Issa, who figured prominently in Pfeiffer’s responses. After it was revealed that senior Treasury Department officials knew about the IRS inspector general’s inquiry prior to the November election, Democrats have suggested that Issa knew, too.

Issa says he knew about the investigation only because he asked for it in the first place. “It was a completely opaque process to us and we had no pre-warning that the IG was nearing” the end of his work, the congressman says, “or that he’d reached conclusions.”

A May 8 hearing on Benghazi was probably Issa’s biggest success yet as chairman. In closed-door meetings with chairmen of other committees, he has attributed the success to careful planning and urged his colleagues to take their time with investigative hearings.

That involves rigorous preparation, including coordinating questions among the GOP’s committee members. “There’s an old expression among lawyers, ‘Don’t ask a question unless you know the answer.’ Going to a hearing and going fishing for five minutes, knowing that a good witness and a bad witness both want to ramble on for a long time, is kind of a waste,” he says. “When [Representative] Trey Gowdy asks questions, to the greatest extent possible, he knows what the truth is, so he can cut off, agree or disagree with, a witness and move on using 30 seconds to a minute at most, and you can get five good questions and answers in” during each congressman’s five minutes, Issa explains.

Issa’s groundwork started a long time ago: Early in this Congress, he struck what he describes as a “truce with skirmishes” with Democratic congressman Elijah Cummings, his ranking-member foil on the oversight panel. Issa agreed to give Cummings a chance to provide input on committee actions, and Cummings said he’d do his best to defend the committee’s prerogatives.

While Republican members of the committee have won some success on Benghazi, Issa shies away from suggestion of impeachment — despite the fact that one member of his committee recently told National Review Online it was on the table.

“We’re doing many investigations and most of them are sins of omission — failure to do a job, failure to have a plan, failure to tell the truth. And, for the most part, failure to do things doesn’t rise to impeachment,” he explains.

“But more importantly, that’s not a decision that I expect to ever be the first to reach. I expect to be the person who works with my staff, uncovering — pealing the layers of the onion, so to speak — then presenting the information to the public and to the members of Congress,” Issa says, while still urging his fellow Republicans not to “jump to impeachment.” But don’t think that means he’s going easy on President Obama.

Asked what he knows about how the president spent the night of the Benghazi attack, Issa says Obama generally just twiddled his thumbs.

“From what we can tell he went to the residence. From what we can tell, between 5:00 in the evening and when he got on a plane for fundraisers in Las Vegas, he pretty well ignored his responsibilities as commander-in-chief,” Issa relates.

“And by the way, I’m not accidentally saying ‘ignored his responsibilities as commander-in-chief.’ George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney would have required constant, periodic — you know, every hour — reporting,” he explains. “I use George W. Bush because he’s the most recent in people’s memories,” he says. “George W. Bush, if he said ‘use all measures necessary,’ he’d want to make sure we use all measures necessary.” Under the current regime? “Clearly we didn’t use any measures.”

On the Sunday shows, Pfeiffer said the president was being briefed on the situation, and that what he did and where is therefore “irrelevant.” The White House did not respond to Issa’s remarks or a request for more information about Obama’s activities that night.

I ask him, “what difference, at this point, does it make?” echoing Hillary Clinton’s famous non-answer to Senator Ron Johnson at her Benghazi testimony in January.

At the time, much of the media celebrated Clinton’s combativeness, thinking she had put an impertinent opponent in his place. But her words have lingered since as a symbol of an administration trying to get beyond a scandal that has dogged it for more than eight months.

“The difference is, public confidence comes from telling the truth as best you know it,” Issa says. “We didn’t tell the truth as best we knew it in the days and even weeks after” Benghazi, and it seems until Congress does, Darrell Issa won’t rest.

— Jonathan Strong is a political reporter for National Review Online.

[American Patriot]

PJM EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Diplomats Report New Benghazi Whistleblowers with Info Devastating to Clinton and Obama
May 21st, 2013 - 12:05 am

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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.

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May 21st, 2013 - 12:05 am