by Jack
When it comes to splitting hairs, parsing words or spinning the truth nobody does it better than Obama and his minions. Bill’s definition of, “it depends on what the definition of is is,” during Monica-gate pales by comparison to Obama’s latest in-your-face definition of terrorism to dodge criticism. Read on:
An unwritten, but often stated policy of the United States is, we do not negotiate with terrorists…period. This policy has now been amended by Obama to be, “unless the terrorists are defined as an armed insurgency.”
What is the difference between a terrorist and an armed insurgency, you may wonder? Well, a terrorist is a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political, social or religious aims. However, an armed insurgency is (a term of convenience used by a slick President to obfuscate defining) a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political, social or religious aims, if it is for his own personal advantage. Uh, that would be the president’s advantage, not the terrorist; unless the president is the terrorist, then it works both ways.
This is why it’s okay to negotiate with the Taliban, who’re deemed only as armed insurgents. But, it’s not okay to negotiate with ISIS, who’re terrorists.
An example would be it’s okay to swap Bowie Bergdahl, an alleged Army deserter, for five Taliban leaders. But, it’s not okay for Jordan and Japan should not negotiate with ISIS for the release of their citizens because this would be aiding the enemy. (Unlike [not] aiding our enemy by returning 5 of their commanders to the field.)
Are we clear on this difference now?
As mud, Jack. Garbage in garbage out. Well articulated though đ
Gobbledegook has replaced rational reasoning in the Obumble white house.
Jack, why did George III decide to throw in the towel re those armed insurgents in the colonies?
Because he suddenly embraced the legitimacy of their political position?
No, that wasn’t it.
Because we tromped their meager forces in the field, and he just wasn’t going to spend any more lives or money on the venture?
Bingo!
Don’t be going all pious and righteous and whatnot just cause we’re wearing the shoe this time.
Libby, oh my gosh, the British forces had us outnumbered and outgunned in the Revolutionary War! How could you say something like that? Don’t you know your history? The British forces were not [meager] at all! And defeating the British came at a terrible cost! Did you know that over 8,500 of our soldiers died as POW’s?
Look at the statistics below Libby. See how bravely our ancestors fought against a powerful enemy:
The British army was about a total of 48,000 men composed of around 39,000 infantry units, 7,000 cavalry units, and 2,500 artillery men. A majority of the British Army were professional soldiers for life. They often came from poor sections of England or the prisons. There were rough, battle hardened men.
Between the battle casualties and mistreatment as prisoners of war, the Continental Army suffered 18,500 dead. Another 8,445 suffered from serious battle wounds. These losses are staggering considering that the Continental Army never had more than 17,000 soldiers deployed at any given time during the war.
We suffered from a lack of supplies, lack of military training and we had a very limited professional leadership. Our weapons were not even standardized, this was basically a militia, not an Army in truest sense of the word. But, we had one big edge, we were fighting for freedom and self rule.
The British Army should have defeated this rag-tag Continental Army under typical European-theater conditions. However, the vast, undeveloped territory in Colonies meant the British had to cover a huge coast line and it made winning and keeping ground within the 13 Colonies extremely difficult. We had the home field advantage and often used this to outmaneuver the British to win small battles, then fall back and avoid capture.
The odds against winning this war were against us on many levels and it was further compounded because at least 20% of the Colonists remained loyal to the King and about 20% more just sat it out, choosing neither side.
“During the French and Indian War (1754-63), Brig. Gen. James Wolfe had described Americaâs soldiers as âcowardly dogs.â Henry Ellis, the royal governor of Georgia, nearly simultaneously asserted that the colonists were a âpoor species of fighting menâ given to âa want of bravery.â
Source: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/myths-of-the-american-revolution-10941835/#oAMTIk8EjQmxkCH2.99
If only we had a president like Reagan again, who never negotiated with terrorists.
Libby Obama wasn’t ready for this job! The state of the entire world is a testament to this fact.
In terms of the war, we needed a leader not a narcissist! We needed someone with enough backbone and experience to present a strong unified front. Obama inherited a stable ME and has muddled through to chaos creating a much more dangerous world in the process…and then he pulled a King George III and retreated, or did he, well, so he has said, maybe.
Lordy gal…give it up!
Good going Jack!
Jack … we tromped them. To maintain the campaign would have been hideously expensive, and the Brits didn’t have it, and we did have the home court advantage, and a damned sight more than 48,000 in fervent manpower to draw on, and that’s why we won, and we did win … and don’t evade the point.
It’s a valid comparison. Look it in the eye, and reconsider your position.
The fact is … that all this Jihadi putzing is very little threat to us. It’s very little threat to anyone else but their fellow Muslims.
Let’s see if you can consider something else … objectively. The Parisian Fracas. In forty-eight hours, I think it was, the perpetrators were dead. How could that be bettered?
Is the organization, the ideal, the principle, they attacked destroyed?
Hardly.
They advanced the cause not one little bit.
Could you possibly consider the Japanese hostage dilemma … objectively?
ISIS has betrayed a truly weak hand. They’re fast becoming completely isolated. They’ve stolen everything they have access to. Their supply of hostages is drying right up. They’re broke.
There will, alas, be further, hitherto unimaginable excesses … but soon, that grisly entity will starve and die. (As long, that is, as you and your idiot Congress don’t do anything stupid … like send them more stuff to steal.)
“Jack ⌠we tromped them. To maintain the campaign would have been hideously expensive, and the Brits didnât have it, and we did have the home court advantage, and a damned sight more than 48,000 in fervent manpower to draw on, and thatâs why we won, and we did win ⌠and donât evade the point.” Libby
It’s apparent you just realized the big error you made and now you’re a patriot, okay, whatever…I won’t chastise you any further over your previously stated (unpatriotic) faux paux. I’m glad we now agree that the Revolutionary War was long and hard fought. That it was a terribly bloody struggle that in the end the starving, poorly equipped militia, defeated the stronger foe. They believed in a just cause and they finally wore the enemy down. We agree, right? That’s good, no need to say another word then.
ISIS has indeed betrayed a weak hand. They are running out of money, but their zealots are still wreaking a good deal of carnage amongst the locals. Beheading them for raising pigeons, beheading them for not believing in their version of Islam, beheading them for being a POW, and other such things that are only transgressions in their twisted world.
It is amazing to me now that you would blame the United States for equipping ISIS. It was the Iraqi army that abandoned their excellent USA taxpayer funded equipment on the battlefield. I recall where many thousands of them ran away as a force of 500 jihadi approached. And how did that happen, huh Libby? Of course you have no clue, so I will tell you: It happened, not because of Congress, it happened because of decisions made by BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA!!!! His weakness, his stupid leadership, his lack of knowledge and his perpetual liberal gullibility, caused a premature departure of US troops and it NEED NOT HAVE HAPPENED if he had ONLY laid down the law to the other idiot…. MALIKI. Those two men, NOT CONGRESS, LIBBY were responsible for the creation and equipping of ISIS and much of the slaughter now taking place in Syria. Yeah, that’s right, that war could have been over the first time Obama drew a red line. But, the dumbass didn’t have the guts to follow through!!! That’s your man Libby…don’t you come here and lecture me about Congress, not with Obama’s track record!!!
Hey Libs, if you don’t want to read about our revolutionary war there’s a pretty good and entertaining show called “Sons of Liberty” on the History channel that even shows how outnumbered we were.
From a Brit.
”
This is quite possibly the bravest man on earth. Reasoned, well thought out and without hate. The question is will he be silenced by:
Beheading by Muslim extremists
Jailed by a p c government
Squashed and destroyed by the press?
He speaks the truth and has real courage. I want to meet him. I doubt he would be afraid to come on tv!
The question for us as individuals is:
If he is silenced who will take his place? Who has the courage to “like” this or share it? Is courage contagious?”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YQjTLGgQV2w
You people are so freakin … programmed. Think about things, won’t you please, for a minute … just one?
What was involved in sending a troop ship over here in the mid-eighteenth century?
Months, for a start. Then there was the business about a quarter of your largely press-ganged contingent expiring of scruvy, dissentary, cholera, and heaven only knows what all else, before they got anywhere near a battlefield.
We won because it was too expensive for Britain to pursue the enterprise. Your patriotic pieties about the virtue of our cause, the valor of our citizens, and so on and so forth are nonsense … also incorrect.
I’m not sure I get how Obama splitting hairs over whether terrorists are really terrorists (reminds me a lot of when the Clinton administration claimed there was no genocide going on back then either) and what it all has to do with the revolutionary war?
The Taliban, Al Quaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, etal, are NOT FREEDOM FIGHTERS. They are not fighting to liberate their people and bring freedom to the world. They are fighting to continue their evil, bigoted, totalitarian control over anyone and everyone in their reach! Come on, even Bill Maher gets it, these freaks behead gay people at mecca, is there some reason the left wingers in this country continue to make excuses for them?
Steve, you make all very good points, but as to your question why left wingers makes excuses for the persecution of gays…I have no idea. It’s beyond my comprehension.
Good question…no answer other than PC dogma insists on it.
Obama won’t call them terrorist because we don’t negotiate with terrorist. That’s how he negotiated the Bergdahl exchange for the five Gitmo “prisoners.”
And it’s also how he’s going to empty out Gitmo and give the base back to Cuba. Castro has already demanded the base be returned along with millions. For Castro to already be talking about it is a sure indication the deal has already been agreed upon with Obama. Remember he like to work from behind not out front so he can say he had to meet their demands so his hands will be clean.
Castro Demands Return of Guantanamo, Compensation for Embargo:
http://www.Newsmax.com/Newsfront/Raul-Castro-cuba-Guantanamo-relations/2015/01/29/id/621451/#ixzz3QN8WdIcv
White House grapples with fraught terrorism language:
“Under Obama’s narrower definition, his advisers say the U.S. is at war with terror groups like al-Qaida and its affiliates, as well as the Islamic State group.
Given the U.S. policy of not making concessions to terrorists, the White House has refused to negotiate with Islamic State militants to free American hostages and opposes Jordan’s ongoing efforts to orchestrate a prisoner swap with the group. However, the U.S. did negotiate with the Taliban through an intermediary last year to free American Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for five Afghan detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison.
The White House insisted anew this week that those negotiations did not violate U.S. policy because the administration does not classify that Taliban as a terrorist organization – though officials said there are overlapping characteristics.”
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/national/political/story/2015/jan/30/white-house-grapples-fraught-terrorism-langua/285648/
Megyn Kelly gets to the heart of the terrorist not terrorist matter with Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby.
Megyn to Pentagon Spox: Americans Think You Negotiated With Terrorists: Video
http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/01/30/megyn-pentagon-spox-american-people-say-you-negotiated-terrorists
Gen. Keane: Pentagon Spox Is ‘Defending Bad Policy’:
“Gen. Jack Keane told Megyn Kelly tonight that Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby knows âfull wellâ that releasing the âTaliban Fiveâ from Guantanamo Bay was bad policy.
âHeâs defending bad policy,â Keane said, adding that itâs been tough to watch.
Keane reiterated that radical Islam has grown four-fold in five years.
He charged President Barack Obama with emptying Gitmo because Congress wonât close it.
Watch the full interview above. Below, check out a map of radical Islam, as of January 2015.”
http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/01/30/gen-keane-pentagon-spox-defending-bad-policy
It’s all a semantic game. Qualifying the Taliban as not officially terrorists (even though they remain on an official list of terrorist groups) allows the WH to claim that “America does not negotiate with terrorists.” This is a lie to make us feel better, but the thing is, it has always been a lie to make us feel better. America has always negotiated with terrorists, because sometimes that is the only option.
Bush negotiated with terrorists:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/10/the-right-didn-t-mind-when-bush-paid-a-ransom-to-terrorists.html
Reagan negotiated with terrorists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair
Johnson, Nixon, Carter and Clinton negotiated with terrorists:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jun/01/ted-cruz/ted-cruz-us-policy-has-changed-now-we-make-deals-t/
And now Obama is continuing this tradition.
Now, that doesn’t make it right. But Obama’s hypocrisy and weasel-wording on this issue is not a change from anything. What would be radical and different would be if Obama didn’t negotiate with terrorists.
In answer to your question “When is a Terrorist not a Terrorist?”
I would state that acquires a millisecond after a special team trained sniper put them in his cross hairs and squeezed the trigger on them!
End of discussion…..
In 2003 Tom Knowlton wrote this very informative article about Muslims. It’s worth the read:
The recent “Letter to the American People” allegedly authored by Osama bin Laden is a virtual ideological manifesto for Islamic extremists. It serves to outline the perceived grievances of radical Muslims against Israel and the West.
The letter claims, “It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses,” dating the conflict between Jews and Arabs back to the Biblical conflict between Abraham’s two children: his eldest son, Ishmael (from who Arabs are believed descended), and his younger son, Isaac (from who Jews are believed descended). Some Muslims believe that Isaac usurped Ishmael’s birthright.
Likewise, prominent imams such as Abu Qatada, Omar Muhammad Bakri, and Abu Hamza regularly echo this claim that Arabs and Jews have been bitter enemies from the dawn of time.
However, if one examines the history of the Middle East, there is very little evidence of constant warring and animosity between Jews and Arabs.
In fact, when the city of Jerusalem fell to Christian Crusaders in 1099, the defenders of the holy city had been a combined force of Jews and Muslims. After the Crusaders captured the city, they massacred Muslim and Jewish citizens alike and left the survivors to flee Jerusalem. Not until the Muslim hero Saladin defeated the Crusaders in 1187, did the Jewish population even begin to return to Jerusalem.
Jerusalem’s Jewish community continued to prosper under the Muslim Nahmanides in 1267. But the community’s true renaissance occurred during the 15th and 16th centuries, when a large influx of Jews were welcomed into Jerusalem by the Ottoman Empire after being expelled from Spain.
For four centuries under Ottoman rule, Arab and Jewish neighborhoods peacefully coexisted. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the region came under British mandate. The early days under the British also saw relatively peaceful coexistence continuing and manifesting itself in the form of Arab and Jewish neighborhoods springing up in the “garden neighborhoods” of Talpiot, Rehavia and Beit Hakerem.
However, after over 700 years of peaceful coexistence, the true start of the Arab-Israeli conflict can be dated to 1920 and the rise of one man, Haj Amin Muhammad Al Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem. As grand mufti, al Husseini presided as the Imam of the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the highest Muslim authority in the British mandate.
History shows Al Husseini to be a brutal man with aspirations to rule a pan-Arabic empire in the Middle East. He rose to prominence by actively eliminating those Jews and Arabs he considered a threat to his control of Jerusalem’s Arab population, and he heavily utilized anti-Jewish propaganda to polarize the two communities.
In 1920 and again in 1929, Al Husseini incited anti-Jewish riots by claiming the Jews were plotting to destroy the Al Asqa mosque. The riots resulted in the massacre of hundreds of Jewish civilians and a virtual end to the Jewish presence in Hebron.
The 1936 Arab revolt against the British is believed to have been at least partially funded by Nazi Adolf Eichmann, and Al Husseini again ordered armed Arab militias to massacre Jewish citizens.
When British authorities finally quelled the rebellion in 1939, Al Husseini fled to neighboring Iraq and helped to orchestrate a 1941 anti-British jihad. As in Jerusalem, the British successfully put down the rebellion and Al Husseini fled to Nazi Germany.
Al Husseini found the Nazis to be a strong ideological match with his anti-Jewish brand of Islam, and schemed with Hitler and the Nazi hierarchy to create a pro-Nazi pan-Arabic form of government in the Middle East.
Dr. Serge Trifkovic documents the similarities between Al Husseini’s brand of radical Islam and Nazism in his book The Sword of the Prophet. He noted parallels in both ideologies: anti-Semitism, quest for world dominance, demand for the total subordination of the free will of the individual, belief in the abolishment of the nation-state in favor of a “higher” community (in Islam the umma or community of all believers; in Nazism, the herrenvolk or master race), and belief in undemocratic governance by a “divine” leader (an Islamic caliph, or Nazi fĂźhrer).
The Nazis provided Al Husseini with luxurious accommodations in Berlin and a monthly stipend in excess of $10,000. In return, he regularly appeared on German radio touting the Jews as the “most fierce enemies of Muslims,” and implored an adoption of the Nazi “final solution” by Arabs. After the Nazi defeat at El Alamein in 1942, Al Husseini broadcast radio messages on Radio Berlin calling for continued Arabic resistance to Allied forces. In time, he came to be known as the “Fuhrer’s Mufti” and the “Arab Fuhrer.”
In March 1944, Al Husseini broadcast a call for a jihad to “kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion.”
On numerous occasions, Al Husseini intervened in the fate of European Jews, most notably blocking Adolph Eichmann’s deal with the Red Cross to exchange Jewish children for German POWs.
Moreover, Al Husseini personally recruited Bosnia Muslims for the German Waffen SS, including the Skanderberg Division from Albania and Hanjer Division from Bosnia. The Hanjer (Saber) Division of the Waffen SS was responsible for the murder of over 90 percent of the Yugoslavian Jewish population.
SS leader Heinrich Himmler was so pleased with Al Husseini’s Muslim Nazis that he established the Dresden-based Mullah Military School for their continued recruitment and training. In 1944, Hanjer commandos parachuted into Tel Aviv and poisoned drinking wells in Jewish communities in an effort to stir up ethnic tensions.
After the fall of Nazi Germany, Al Husseini fled to Cairo, Egypt in 1946 rather than face war crime charges for his actions in Yugoslavia. But he continued his operations.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Al Husseini worked closely with a pro-fascist group in Egypt called Young Egypt. In 1952 Gamal Abdul Nasser, a prominent member of Young Egypt, was among military officers who seized control of the Egyptian government from King Fu’ad. Al Husseini is reported to have been responsible for bringing Otto Skorzeny, the Nazi commando once labeled by the OSS as “the most dangerous man in Europe,” into the employ of the Nasser government.
Similarly, Al Husseini had a strong influence over the founding members of both the Iraqi and Syrian Ba’ath party. Strong evidence exists that al Husseini was instrumental in the arranging of Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner’s employment as an advisor to the Syrian general staff.
However, al Husseini’s central role in the creation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964 is perhaps his most indelible mark on the Middle East today.
The radical Imam was the spiritual mentor of the first chairman of the PLO, Ahmed Shukairi, and saw that much of his ideology was instilled in the organization. More importantly, Al Husseini used his extensive connections to recruit financial supporters for the PLO throughout the Arab world.
Almost 30 years after al Husseini’s death in 1974, the Palestinian people still revere him as a hero and embrace his radical theology. The “Arab Fuhrer’s” close Nazi association and virulent anti-Semitism is perhaps the reason that Hitler’s Meinf Kampf is ranked as the sixth all-time bestseller among Palestinian Arabs.
Several of his descendants remain active in Palestinian affairs today.
Al Husseini’s grandson, Faisal Husseini, was part of the PLO since 1964 and served as minister without portfolio in the Palestinian National Authority, with responsibility for Jerusalem until his death in May 2001.
The radical imam’s nephew, Rahman Abdul Rauf el-Qudwa el Husseini, has been a major player in Palestinian terrorism for almost 40 years. He was the guiding force behind the merging of the Fatah faction into the PLO. In 1990, Rahman Abdul Rauf el-Qudwa el Husseini was responsible for the Palestinian community’s support of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.
Most Mideast observers today recognize the younger Al Husseini by the secular name he adopted as his own in 1952, Yasser Arafat.
By the late 1980’s many of the PLO’s radical Muslim financiers had become disillusioned with the increasingly secular nature of the Palestinian movement. Yasser Arafat’s support of Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s strongly angered and prompted many of these extremists in the Persian Gulf states to reduce or all together withdraw their financial backing of the PLO.
An astute emerging Sunni terrorist, Osama bin Laden, capitalized upon Arafat’s political misstep and transformed his al Qaeda organization into the prime recipient of financial support from Sunni Muslim radicals. That funding has enabled bin Laden to wage terrorist attacks on western and Israeli interests for over a decade. His most recent “Letter to the American People” echoed al Husseini’s propaganda claim that “the Israelis are planning to destroy the Al Aqsa mosque.”
The is little doubt that throughout history the Arabs and Jews have encountered the kind of friction that comes from any two distinct religious or ethnic groups sharing the same geography. However, that history has largely been one of relatively peaceful coexistence.
The divergence from that pattern occurs in 1920 with the rise of a virulent anti-Semitic mufti of Jerusalem whose ideology embodied more similarities to that of Nazi Germany than to the historical Islam of Saladin or the Ottoman Turks.
The wave of extremist Islam that has plagued the world in the latter days of the 20th century and into the opening days of the 21st, has little to do with ancient history or Islam. The cause lays largely at the feet of Haj Amin Muhammad Al Husseini, who utilized murder and anti-Semitism to consolidate his power over his fellow Arabs and further his personal quest to be caliph of the pan-Arab world.
The latest on Benghazi attack. Clinton’s finger prints appear to be all over its cause.
Washington Timesâ Bombshell Tapes Confirm Citizen Commissionâs Findings On Benghazi:
http://www.westernjournalism.com/washington-times-bombshell-tapes-confirm-citizen-commissions-findings-benghazi/#yzUBI0G4uJOfWBkz.99
Jonathan Turley at Senate Judiciary hearing for Loretta Lynch.
Liberal GW Professor: Obama Guilty of âViolations of His Oath of Officeâ:
“âThe Justice Department,â said Turley, âis at the epicenter of a constitutional crisis, a crisis that consumed her predecessor and his department.â
âMy focus therefore, of my written testimony and my oral testimony today is less on Ms. Lynch, than on a department she wishes to lead,â said Turley. âAs my academic writings indicate, I have been concerned about the erosion of the lines of separation of powers for many years, and particularly the erosion of legislative authority, of this body, and of the House of Representatives.â
âThat concern has grown to alarm,â said Turley, âin the last few years under President Obama, someone that I voted for, someone with whom I happen to agree on many issues â including some of the issues involved in these controversies.â
âWe are watching a fundamental change in our constitutional system,â said Turley. âItâs changing in the very way that the Framers warned us to avoid.â
âThe Justice Department has played a central and troubling role in those changes,â explained Turley. âIn my view, Attorney General Eric Holder has moved his department outside of the navigational beacons of the first and second articles of the Constitution.â
âIn that sense, Ms. Lynch could be inheriting a department that is floundering,â said Turley. âThe question is whether she can or will tap back to calmer constitutional waters.â
Video:
http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-morris/liberal-gw-professor-obama-guilty-violations-his-oath-office-0?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=marketing&utm_term=facebook&utm_content=facebook&utm_campaign=b-prof-Obama
At #16 Peggy, according to Gen. Jack Keane radical Islam has grown four-fold in five years.
That means to me that downplaying the threat as our President has done by bringing an early end to campaigns, declaring the war has ended, changing the rules of engagement, removing language from training and training manuals has not worked.
The idea that being careful and nice so as not to offend is a winning strategy is bologna. A heavy price has been paid for this PC nonsense, not the least of which is that winning the war has been delayed while ground has been taken. Many lives, including Muslim lives have been lost, atrocities have been committed, nations have been thrown into chaos, and radical Islam is expanding.
No matter what the left says this strategy is not working.
This is meant for Libby.
I understand what you were trying to say. One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.
I respectfully disagree because these terrorists are not fighting for freedom or rights they are looking to dominate and control people. Todays terrorists have almost nothing in common with the reasons we fought the revolutionary war.
Jack at #22, that is a very good article. Many people think that Muslims and Jews have been at war in the Middle East for centuries, but in reality the conflicts we see today are relatively modern phenomena. Realizing this can help us find hope that the conflicts are resolvable.
Tina: “The idea that being careful and nice so as not to offend is a winning strategy is bologna.”
But that’s NOT the strategy. It’s a strawman you’ve made up.
#23 Tina, Obama and his administration are experts at word-smithing to change the narrative when they need to. When their failures become apparent they just create another word usage to defect their failures.
Every military commander I’ve seen addressing the “terrorist” issue has said a strategy has to be developed to defeat the enemy. This administration will not use the words to identify who/what is the enemy and, therefore, it is impossible to have the necessary strategy plan to defeat them.
It’s like the wak-a-moe game where you’re trying to hit a moving target.
I reemphasize my above statements that this administration will not identify those identified by current and previous gov’t list because doing so would not allow them to negotiate with “known” terrorist and also allow them to empty out Gitmo and give the base to Cuba.
Obama’s campaign promise to close Gitmo has to be done in less than two years. He will do whatever he needs to do so he can add it to his legacy, no matter what the cost to the security of our country is.
U.S. Military Leaders Criticize Obama’s Failed Terrorism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0PF8RFgbJ0
General Jack Kean, in the video, said in 2008 the terrorist said they had lost, not to send any more men. Then Obama pulled out our men and one week later the terrorist bombs began hitting Baghdad again.
The war had been won by us. It was over. But, because of the incompetence of Obama and his WH advisors thousands more have been killed since and still are today. Worse is without a plan to stop them thousands more will die.
Love watching the news these days where Democrats and even reports aren’t supporting Obama’s decisions.
Why Wonât Obama Use the Words âIslamic Extremismâ? Watch What This Democrat Says:
“In a recent interview with Fox Newsâ Greta Van Susteren, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, was asked why President Obama avoids the phrase âIslamic extremism.â Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, said, âIf you are at war, which we are, you have to know who your enemy is in order to defeat them.â She criticized Secretary of State John Kerry for his description of terrorists.”
Video:
http://dailysignal.com/2015/02/01/wont-obama-use-words-islamic-extremism-watch-democrat-says/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=thffacebook02012015
Chris: “But thatâs NOT the strategy. Itâs a strawman youâve made up.”
Bologna! The Obama expanded don’t offend strategy has been in place for five years (at least) and in that time recruitment is up and terrorist are anything but “on the run,” unless by that Obama means they’re spreading across the globe!
Regarding history of Muslim violence/oppression of the Jews:
Another pig just grew wings. (When pigs fly.) For the first time I agree with what Ms. Debbie said.
Leaked Recording: Debbie Wasserman Schultz Goes After MSNBC for Biased Israel Coverage:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/30/leaked-recording-debbie-wasserman-schultz-goes-after-msnbc-for-biased-israel-coverage/
“The Taliban, Al Quaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, etal, are NOT FREEDOM FIGHTERS. They are not fighting to liberate their people and bring freedom to the world.”
Sorry, fellas, but the comparison still holds. Our revolutionaries were bent are running their own show, without interference from the crown.
All these Jihadi organizations want to live in states governed in by their own … lights … giggle.
No diff.
However, all these Jihadi organizations are nothing like monolithic. They spend as much time butchering each other as they do chanting “Death to America.”
And I really do think that it’s in our long-term interests to leave them to sort it out themselves. Every time we get caught trying to manipulate their politics, it just pisses them off. It can be argued that the rise of Islamism is our doing, that we inspired the formation of the Muslim Brotherhood fifty years ago …
… and maybe we should just back off.
Peggy I too applaud Debbie for the first time but Her desired goal reflects the problem: “Letâs make sure that we can adopt a two-state solution where you have a Palestinian state and a state of Israel living side by side in peace, and letâs make sure that we have in communities all around the world the adults not raising their children and teaching their children to hate us, to hate Israel and to hate Jews simply because of who we are.â
Radical elements (terrorists) on the Palestinian side don’t want that.
Israel cannot negotiate peace and a two state solution with people that refuse to acknowledge their right to exist.
Peggy: “Why Wonât Obama Use the Words âIslamic Extremism?'”
This is SUCH a dishonest question. I’ve explained to you over and over and over that the decision to stop using this term was made by the Bush administration. The reasons were made abundantly clear and they had nothing to do with political correctness or being ‘nice,’ they had to do with refusing to use the terrorists’ own language.
Why do the conservatives here keep ignoring these facts? Do you think I’m going to stop pointing them out to you?
Libby how many times in the past fifty years have we “backed off” only to be attacked again?
You really don’t get the ultimate goal, whether it seems ridiculous or not, is world domination and control.
The Muslim Brotherhood can be linked to Saudi willingness to do business with the west (oil) which has nothing to do with the U.S. “manipulating their politics.”
The discord in the ME is an age old fight against the forces of freedom and the forces of authoritarian tyranny, the forces of good and of evil. It would go on whether or not we had any involvement. When those evil forces choose to involve us in their games of tyranny we have no choice but to defeat them or be overrun by them.
I’d love it if the people in the ME that would prefer to live without the tyranny would step up and crush them once and for all but your blame America position denies the history and ideological thrust of radical Islam.
Peggy at #27, we have all witnessed the results of Obama’s soft warm embrace war policy. Some of us are just in denial.
Another good article for history buffs: The Iranian dream of a reborn Persian Empire,” by Ralph Peters, NY Post.
Chris: “Why do the conservatives here keep ignoring these facts? Do you think Iâm going to stop pointing them out to you?”
Because they are NOT facts, they are YOUR opinion.
No, I expect you to keep pointing out what you believe and I for one will keep right on ignoring your stupid statements of fiction and your tantrums when we don’t accept what you say as gospel truth.
Grow up!
Good answer Peggy!
Neville Chamberlain felt it was in England’s best interest to back off and let heir Hitler sort it out. However, I’m still flexible, still open to trying whatever we can before we resort to killing them. But, if and when that time comes, we ought to do it right.
“The Muslim Brotherhood can be linked to Saudi willingness to do business with the west (oil) which has nothing to do with the U.S. âmanipulating their politics.â
Uh … the Muslim Brotherhood arose in Egypt, and got a big bump, politically speaking, in the 50’s in response to our meddling.
You do have factual issues you need to deal with … yes you do.
Libby before you accuse me of having “factual issues” you should articulate the facts. Getting a “big bump” doesn’t exactly qualify as American political meddling.
Put up or, as they say, shut up!
Jack I imagine it would take another big hit before we commit a major, boots on the ground, offensive.
The current leadership in America is dangerously incompetent, courting Iran like it was a responsible, honorable nation. A nuke in downtown LA or the heart of NY or DC isn’t a very pleasant thought. What would our response be?
Tina, my guess is as good as yours on this one. Tough call, but I think if it was terrorist organization that hit us and they were sheltered within a frenemy country, we would be compelled to enter with or without their permission and destroy our enemy, and likely not take any more prisoners than we had too. There’s generally only one way to pacify a fanatic. If it was a rogue state that hit us, like Iran or North Korea, then we would have no choice but to declare war and take out the regime and try to limit the collateral damage. The average person in a dictatorship is generally not our enemy. I’m not sure if we would use a nuclear weapon in either case, there would have to be a lot of mitigating circumstances thoroughly gone over first.
A nuke in downtown LA or the heart of NY or DC isnât a very pleasant thought. What would our response be?
Well, I hope it won’t be as lame-assed as the last one: a feeble and failed effort to round up AQ in Afghanistan, followed by an adventure in Iraq that has yet to be satisfactorily justified.
All of which unfocused and incompetent flailings having spawned a truly obnoxious organization, ISIS. Seems to me I’ve read that most of the upper echelon of ISIS spent time in Iraqi (aka our) custody … and took instruction and inspiration therefrom.
Ain’t that something to be proud of!
Peggy: “Because they are NOT facts, they are YOUR opinion.”
Ridiculous. And false.
Whether or not the policy of avoiding the term “Islamic terror” began under Bush is NOT a matter of opinion. There is nothing subjective about it. Either it happened, or it didn’t. Either the is documented proof of this policy change being made under Bush, or there isn’t.
Unfortunately for you, there is. I have posted this proof before. If you didn’t see it, it would only take five minutes of Google for you to confirm it for yourself.
Your suggestion to “grow up” is deeply ironic as it is you that lacks the ability to distinguish between fact and opinion, a skill that most people learn in elementary school.
This conflation of facts and opinions has become alarmingly common on the right. Funny, as the right is always accusing the left of post-modernism, subjectivism, and political correctness, when there is really nothing more politically correct than the idea that all opinions are equally valid regardless of how well they match objective reality.
Ref post 28 by Peggy: I too have wondered why the lack of Obama’ WH using the concise words that call Islamic extremism what it is terrorism
“Sept 11th 2001, on the evening of the day of these attacks, the President declared a “War on Terror”.
Since then Bush used several different descriptions of Jihadists terrorism and extremism. But it has been clearly noted the Obama Administration was the one that forbid use of the term War on Terror.
“Soon afterwards, President Bush’s approval ratings rose to 90% the highest approval rating that had been recorded for any president since FDR.”
“Although the termâ War on Terrorâ is no longer officially used by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama (which prefers the term Overseas Contingency Operation), it is still commonly used by politicians, the media, and in some official governmental aspects, including the US military’s Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.”
“Start with Obamaâs claim that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or ISIS) is not Islamic.
Say what? In fact, the so-called war on terror is clearly a war that Islamic jihadists have declared on us. Yet Obama is so hostile to this war that even the subterfuge âwar on terrorâ was too much for him and he purged it from official government statements and replaced it with âOverseas Contingency Operations,â which describes nothing. Why would he do this? To avoid confronting the actual threat from what is obviously the most dynamic movement in Islam today: the jihadist war to purge the world of infidels and establish a global Islamic state.
The same impulse to deny this threat can be seen in the Obama administrationâs characterization of domestic acts of Islamic terror like the beheading in Oklahoma and the Fort Hood massacre as âworkplace violence.â
Chris, my issue isn’t whether Bush or Obama used “act of terror” first. My issue with you is your denying that Obama and Clinton refused in the beginning to say the Benghazi attack was a “terrorist attack” and did not begin with a nonviolent protest over a stupid You Tube video.
You keep saying he did acknowledge it was an attack in the very beginning, when the facts say he didn’t. Tina and I have both presented these facts to you, but you either lack the comprehension skills to understand it or you are so deep into your progressive ideology you refuse to admit the truth.
Fact. Every known eye witness, who was on the ground in Benghazi and in Tripoli said it was a attack by terrorist and did NOT begin because of a video. The video was concocted by individuals in DC by emails going from the WH, State Dept.
If Obama and Clinton had nothing to hide why are the still hiding the 30 or so people who were evacuated from Benghazi on Sept. 12th? Why were they forced to sign another non-discloser document to silence them from telling what they saw and experienced? A reasonable person would conclude if they told the truth it would be harmful to Obama and Clinton. Otherwise they would allow them to speak. Why would they want to keep 30 people silent who would confirm their narrative of the video demonstration? Use your head Chris. They wouldn’t.
Once again, here are the FACTS as presented by Fact Check outlining the chronological events from Sept. 11, 2012 to Oct. 24th with additional updates after and links to the resources used at the end.
From FactCheck.org
Benghazi Timeline:
“The long road from “spontaneous protest” to premeditated terrorist attack.
Summary
The question wonât go away: Did President Obama and administration officials mislead the public when they initially claimed that the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi began âspontaneouslyâ in response to an anti-Muslim video?
The question surfaced again on Oct. 25 â more than six weeks after the incident â when government emails showed the White House and the State Department were told even as the attack was going on that Ansar al-Sharia, a little-known militant group, had claimed credit for it.
We cannot say whether the administration was intentionally misleading the public. We cannot prove intent. There is also more information to come â both from the FBI, which is conducting an investigation, and Congress, which has been holding hearings.
But, at this point, we do know that Obama and others in the administration were quick to cite the anti-Muslim video as the underlying cause for the attack in Benghazi that killed four U.S. diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. And they were slow to acknowledge it was a premeditated terrorist attack, and they downplayed reports that it might have been.
What follows is a timeline of events that we hope will help put the incident into perspective. We call attention in particular to these key facts:
âžThere were no protesters at the Benghazi consulate prior to the attack, even though Obama and others repeatedly said the attackers joined an angry mob that had formed in opposition to the anti-Muslim film that had triggered protests in Egypt and elsewhere. The State Department disclosed this fact Oct. 9 â nearly a month after the attack.
âžLibya President Mohamed Magariaf insisted on Sept. 16 â five days after the attack â that it was a planned terrorist attack, but administration officials continued for days later to say there was no evidence of a planned attack.
âžMagariaf also said the idea that the attack was a âspontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous.â This, too, was on Sept. 16. Yet, Obama and others continued to describe the incident in exactly those terms â including during the presidentâs Sept. 18 appearance on the âLate Show With David Letterman.â
âžMatt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, was the first administration official to call it âa terrorist attackâ during a Sept. 19 congressional hearing. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did the same on Sept. 20. Even so, Obama declined opportunities to call it a terrorist attack when asked at a town hall meeting on Sept. 20 and during a taping of âThe Viewâ on Sept. 24.
Here is our timeline:
Analysis:
Continued..
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/benghazi-timeline/
Then we have this from Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch: Benghazi Documents Point to White House on Misleading Talking Points:
“(Washington, DC) â Judicial Watch announced today that on April 18, 2014, it obtained 41 new Benghazi-related State Department documents. They include a newly declassified email showing then-White House Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes and other Obama administration public relations officials attempting to orchestrate a campaign to âreinforceâ President Obama and to portray the Benghazi consulate terrorist attack as being ârooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy.â Other documents show that State Department officials initially described the incident as an âattackâ and a possible kidnap attempt.
The documents were released Friday as result of a June 21, 2013, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the Department of State (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-00951)) to gain access to documents about the controversial talking points used by then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice for a series of appearances on television Sunday news programs on September 16, 2012. Judicial Watch had been seeking these documents since October 18, 2012.
The Rhodes email was sent on sent on Friday, September 14, 2012, at 8:09 p.m. with the subject line: âRE: PREP CALL with Susan, Saturday at 4:00 pm ET.â The documents show that the âprepâ was for Amb. Riceâs Sunday news show appearances to discuss the Benghazi attack.
The document lists as a âGoalâ: âTo underscore that these protests are rooted in and Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.â
Rhodes returns to the âInternet videoâ scenario later in the email, the first point in a section labeled âTop-linesâ:
[W]eâve made our views on this video crystal clear. The United States government had nothing to do with it. We reject its message and its contents. We find it disgusting and reprehensible. But there is absolutely no justification at all for responding to this movie with violence. And we are working to make sure that people around the globe hear that message.
Among the top administration PR personnel who received the Rhodes memo were White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, Deputy Press Secretary Joshua Earnest, then-White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, then-White House Deputy Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri, then-National Security Council Director of Communications Erin Pelton, Special Assistant to the Press Secretary Howli Ledbetter, and then-White House Senior Advisor and political strategist David Plouffe.
The Rhodes communications strategy email also instructs recipients to portray Obama as âsteady and statesmanlikeâ throughout the crisis. Another of the âGoalsâ of the PR offensive, Rhodes says, is â[T]o reinforce the President and Administrationâs strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.â He later includes as a PR âTop-lineâ talking point:
I think that people have come to trust that President Obama provides leadership that is steady and statesmanlike. There are always going to be challenges that emerge around the world, and time and again, he has shown that we can meet them.
The documents Judicial Watch obtained also include a September 12, 2012, email from former Deputy Spokesman at U.S. Mission to the United Nations Payton Knopf to Susan Rice, noting that at a press briefing earlier that day, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland explicitly stated that the attack on the consulate had been well planned. The email sent by Knopf to Rice at 5:42 pm said:
Responding to a question about whether it was an organized terror attack, Toria said that she couldnât speak to the identity of the perpetrators but that it was clearly a complex attack.
In the days following the Knopf email, Rice appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News and CNN still claiming the assaults occurred âspontaneouslyâ in response to the âhateful video.â On Sunday, September 16 Rice told CBSâs âFace the Nation:â
But based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present is in fact what began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassyâsparked by this hateful video.
The Judicial Watch documents confirm that CIA talking points, that were prepared for Congress and may have been used by Rice on âFace the Nationâ and four additional Sunday talk shows on September 16, had been heavily edited by then-CIA deputy director Mike Morell. According to one email:
The first draft apparently seemed unsuitableâŚ.because they seemed to encourage the reader to infer incorrectly that the CIA had warned about a specific attack on our embassy. On the SVTS, Morell noted that these points were not good and he had taken a heavy hand to editing them. He noted that he would be happy to work with [then deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton]] Jake Sullivan and Rhodes to develop appropriate talking points.
The documents obtained by Judicial Watch also contain numerous emails sent during the assault on the Benghazi diplomatic facility. The contemporaneous and dramatic emails describe the assault as an âattackâ:
Continued…
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-benghazi-documents-point-white-house-misleading-talking-points/
God, I hope your comprehension skills are up to absorbing all of these facts and we aren’t back here in another couple of months arguing this same issues over and over again!!
Harold, I agree with you. Words have meaning and when an expert orator tries to pull the wool over people’s eyes by trying to use his skills to double talk his way around what he meant vs. what he said we have to hold him accountable.
Obama has been lying to us since the very beginning. Luckily most are waking up to his lies and when even Democrats are calling him out it is heartening to see them join with Republicans to say enough.
Jonathan Turley has been the most outspoken Democrat, but Dems Menendez and Gabbard are speaking out against Obama now too.
Menendez: Obama Admin’s Iran Talking Points Are ‘Straight Out Of Tehran’ (VIDEO)
“Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Wednesday that the Obama administration sounds like it’s getting its talking points on the Iran nuclear negotiations straight from the Iranians themselves.
Menendez made the comment during a hearing on the Iran nuclear talks following Tuesday’s State of the Union address, in which President Barack Obama warned that he would veto any new sanctions bill Congress may put forward.
“The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran,” Menendez said. “And it feeds to the Iranian narrative of victimization, when they are the ones with original sin — an illicit nuclear weapons program going back over the course of 20 years that they are unwilling to come clean on.”
Menendez and Obama reportedly got into a tense exchange over the nuclear talks last week at the Senate Democratic Issues conference, according to the New York Times.
Two anonymous sources who witnessed the exchange told the newspaper that Menendez said he took “personal offense” at the President’s urging lawmakers not to pursue sanctions against Iran for short-term political gain.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bob-menendez-obama-admin-iran-talking-points
Hawaii Dem. Tulsi Gabbard: (I agree with what she said.)
VIDEO: Even Some Democrats Are Baffled By Pres. Obama and His Administrationâs Refusal to Say âIslamic Extremismâ:
http://gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com/video/video-even-some-democrats-are-baffled-by-pres-obama-and-his-administrations-refusal-to-say-islamic-extremism/
Peggy: “Chris, my issue isnât whether Bush or Obama used âact of terrorâ first. My issue with you is your denying that Obama and Clinton refused in the beginning to say the Benghazi attack was a âterrorist attackâ and did not begin with a nonviolent protest over a stupid You Tube video.”
WTF?
This has NOTHING to do with what we were discussing.
Go back to comment #33. I was not addressing Benghazi and neither were you. You asked “Why Won’t Obama Use the Words Islamic Extremism?” To which I replied that Bush stopped using these words first, which is a fact. You then ludicrously claimed it was only an “opinion,” which showed you did not know the meaning of the term.
And now you are showing you can’t even follow the basics of a conversation because you somehow think we were talking about Benghazi.
I don’t have time to get into more Benghazi conspiracy theories with you. I would just like to know if you now understand that documented proof of the Bush administration changing policy to avoid using words like “Islamic terror” qualifies as “fact” rather than “opinion.”
Peggy: “Fact. Every known eye witness, who was on the ground in Benghazi and in Tripoli said it was a attack by terrorist and did NOT begin because of a video.”
False. On-the-ground witnesses were reported as saying the attack was motivated by the video by many news sources at the time.
Your own links show that the video talking points originated from the CIA, not the White House.
There is no substantial difference between the term “act of terror” and “terrorist attack.”
You’ve got nothing.
Peggy it’s Chris who has nothing, nothing but invention, excuses, cover up and lies!
This is the most egregious denial of facts I’ve seen in a long time. On one side we have weighty information and on the other an invention holding almost zero weight. Chris chooses to dismiss the weighty information to believe the invention, which is his right, but please, wouldn’t it be great if he would spare us the pompous arrogance?
They really do think they are invisible!
Tina: “On one side we have weighty information and on the other an invention holding almost zero weight.”
That’s correct, but you have the details wrong: the weighty information is the vast body of evidence showing that the attackers were motivated by the video, and that the White House got this information from the CIA. The “invention holding almost zero weight” is the notion that the video was merely an “excuse” promoted by the White House in order to preserve Obama’s election chances in an election which had nothing to do with foreign policy.
Peggy and Tina, do you acknowledge the proven fact that the move away from terms like “Islamic terror” and “jihad” was made under the Bush administration, not the Obama administration as you have repeatedly falsely suggested?
It’s a yes or no question.
Chris willful blindness is also a characteristic of your generation. /there is zero evidence that the Al Qaeda associated terror group in Benghazi was part of a protest that “got out of hand suddenly with RPG’s at the ready. The story that this was the #1 motivation for this well planned 911 anniversary attack is a big fat lie!
I have already answered your question. It is a nit pickingly irrelevant question. The larger point being the weenie approach this president has taken in fighting this enemy…and embracing and empowering our enemies while betraying our allies and friends.
Bush pulled back his rhetoric; Obama has changed everything from training manuals to rules of engagement to renaming terrorist acts to “workplace violence. Your ability to discern the difference is your problem.
Dunce cap for teacher!
Tina: “there is zero evidence that the Al Qaeda associated terror group in Benghazi was part of a protest that âgot out of hand suddenly”
True, but the White House stopped claiming as much almost immediately after the CIA revised their assessment. So this is not evidence of a scandal or a cover-up.
“renaming terrorist acts to âworkplace violence.””
I think you mean “act,” singular. He has only labeled one act of terrorism workplace violence. I find this action baffling, but in most other instances he is clear to use the word terrorism, so this does not speak to a broader pattern in my view.
Chris: “WTF? This has NOTHING to do with what we were discussing.”
It has everything to do with the discussion and this administration’s word-smithing and refusing to use words like terrorist attack and Islamic extremist to accurately describe specific events.
Get over blaming Bush for everything. We’re not talking about what he did THIRTEEN years ago, we are talking about what Obama’s doing NOW. Will you progressives EVER stop blaming Bush for Obama’s mistakes?!!
Chris: “And now you are showing you canât even follow the basics of a conversation because you somehow think we were talking about Benghazi.”
I’m not the one with the inability to follow a basic conversation Chris, but you obviously can’t.
Chris: “False. On-the-ground witnesses were reported as saying the attack was motivated by the video by many news sources at the time. Your own links show that the video talking points originated from the CIA, not the White House.”
Bull Sh**!! Get YOUR facts straight. EVERY KNOWN person AT Benghazi during the attack has reported there was NO protest. The CIA annalist in DC (or wherever they are located) and Gen. Petraes are the ones who tried to cover their butts while drafting the talking points with the State Dept. by saying the attack started with a protest over the You Tube video.
I repeat, in case you missed my point, NO KNOWN PERSON AT BENGHAZI OR IN TRIPOLLI HAS TESTIFIED, WRITTEN IN A BOOK OR SAID PUBLICLY THERE WAS A PROTEST ON 9/11/12.
There are approximately 30 UNKNOWN individuals who were AT Benghazi that night, but they have been kept secret and silenced.
Don’t believe me Chris, here’s your left-leaning media guy Jake Tapper from CNN who will tell you almost exactly what I just said.
Analysis: CIA role in Benghazi underreported:
“To really understand the push-pull over the bungled talking points in the wake of the Benghazi attack, you have to understand the nature of the U.S. presence in that city.
Officially, the U.S. presence was a diplomatic compound under the State Department’s purview.
“The diplomatic facility in Benghazi would be closed until further notice,” then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland announced last October.
But in practice – and this is what so few people have focused on – the larger U.S. presence was in a secret outpost operated by the CIA.
About 30 people were evacuated from Benghazi the morning after the deadly attack last September 11; more than 20 of them were CIA employees.
Clearly the larger mission in Benghazi was covert.
The CIA had two objectives in Libya: countering the terrorist threat that emerged as extremists poured into the unstable country, and helping to secure the flood of weapons after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi that could have easily been funneled to terrorists.
The State Department was the public face of the weapons collection program.
Current and former U.S. government officials tell CNN that then-CIA director David Petraeus and others in the CIA initially assessed the attack to have been related to protests against an anti-Muslim video produced in the United States.
They say Petraeus may have been reluctant to conclude it was a planned attack because that would have been acknowledging an intelligence failure.
Internally at the CIA, sources tell CNN there was a big debate after the attacks to acknowledge that the two former Navy SEALs killed â Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty â were CIA employees. At a 2010 attack in Khost, Afghanistan, when seven CIA officers were killed in the line of duty, the agency stepped forward and acknowledged their service and sacrifice. But in this instance – for reasons many in the Obama administration did not fully understand – it took the CIA awhile to “roll back their covers.” Petraeus did not attend their funerals.”
Continued..
http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/15/analysis-cia-role-in-benghazi-underreported/
Are we clear on this now so you will stop attacking me? I am talking about those in Benghazi including the contractors who were working FOR the CIA and NOT about the CIA analyst located state-side.
Chris: “Youâve got nothing.”
Wrong! I have the truth and you have your head so far up Obama’s backside you can’t see it. You have nothing, but your inflated ego with your demands for total submission.
Chris: “Peggy and Tina, do you acknowledge the proven fact that the move away from terms like âIslamic terrorâ and âjihadâ was made under the Bush administration, not the Obama administration as you have repeatedly falsely suggested?”
No, because, if he did, Bush’s reasons over ten years ago may have been for completely different reasons than Obama’s. I’ll not compare two completely different individuals over a decade apart and assume I know what was going on in their heads.
Ridiculous comparison and stupid question.
#51 Tina, you are absolutely right. Trying to talk to Chris is like talking to a brick wall. He refuses to read anything that proves him wrong and will defend his incorrect position by repeating those same false facts.
I read “13 Hours” which was written by CIA security operators and I’ll bet Chris never did even though both Jack and I asked him to. Everyone of those men said, “There was NO protest prior to the attack.” And his claims that Obama changed from the You Tube video to a terrorist attack is completely false. Obama was still blaming the video on Sept. 24th when he was on “The View.”
Taken from the timeline a posted above.
“âžMagariaf also said the idea that the attack was a âspontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous.â This, too, was on Sept. 16. Yet, Obama and others continued to describe the incident in exactly those terms â including during the presidentâs Sept. 18 appearance on the âLate Show With David Letterman.â
âžMatt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, was the first administration official to call it âa terrorist attackâ during a Sept. 19 congressional hearing. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did the same on Sept. 20. Even so, Obama declined opportunities to call it a terrorist attack when asked at a town hall meeting on Sept. 20 and during a taping of âThe Viewâ on Sept. 24.”
Any way, you and I know we are right and Chris can keep on believing what he wants. But, every time he calls me a liar or tells me I’m wrong I’ll go down this road again and again until he either changes his mind or gives up, cuz I’m not. When I’m wrong I will at least admit it, but when I’m right…I’m right.
Peggy: “It has everything to do with the discussion and this administrationâs word-smithing and refusing to use words like terrorist attack”
Obama uses the term “terrorists attack” very frequently.
“and Islamic extremist”
As previously noted, this is a continuation of a Bush policy.
“Get over blaming Bush for everything.”
I am not “blaming” Bush for anything. Please pay attention. I am CREDITING the Bush administration for a wise decision to stop using the terrorists’ own language to describe them in a way that helps legitimize them and furthers the terrorists’ hateful, bigoted “holy war” narrative. Al Qaeda WANTS war between Islam and the West. For everything I think Bush got wrong, I think he was right to always specify that we were NOT at war with Islam and to eventually decide to take the advice of many advisors who pointed out that using religious terms to describe the terrorists only helped their goals.
I also credit Obama for continuing this particular policy.
“Weâre not talking about what he did THIRTEEN years ago,”
No, we certainly aren’t. The decision to stop using the terms “Islamic terror” and “jihad” was made in 2008, which was only seven years ago.
http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/126.pdf#page=3
“Will you progressives EVER stop blaming Bush for Obamaâs mistakes?!!”
Chris: âFalse. On-the-ground witnesses were reported as saying the attack was motivated by the video by many news sources at the time. Your own links show that the video talking points originated from the CIA, not the White House.â
Peggy: “Bull Sh**!! Get YOUR facts straight. EVERY KNOWN person AT Benghazi during the attack has reported there was NO protest”
You are proving my point for me. Read the portion of my comment you quoted before you started yelling at me. Does it say anything about a protest? No? Then what is your response, other than a complete non-sequitur?
Yes, I know there was no protest. Everyone knows there was no protest now. That was conceded by the White House very quickly. That was not what I was talking about.
As you can see using your adult literacy skills, what I said was that on-the-ground witnesses reported that the attackers said that they were motivated by the video. I did not say they reported a protest before the attack. You do understand that “The attack was motivated by the video” and “There was a protest before the attack” are completely separate claims, don’t you? I don’t think you do, since this is at least the fifth time you have conflated the two and responded to me as if I had said one instead of the other. Is the rage getting in the way of your thinking on this issue?
You did not contradict the fact that many journalists who were on the ground in Benghazi did report that the attackers said they were motivated by the video. You also did not contradict the fact that at least one of the attackers brought into custody said the same thing. You did not contradict these facts because you cannot contradict these facts.
Rice was incorrect when she said there was a protest before the attack. She was incorrect because this is the information the CIA gave the Obama administration. The administration corrected this quickly, because they had no reason to hide it; whether or not there was a protest beforehand was a fairly irrelevant detail, all things considered.
But Rice was ENTIRELY correct when she said that the terrorists were motivated by the video, just as anyone who would describe the Charlie Hebdo attacks would be correct to say the terrorists were motivated by the cartoons they found offensive.
“No, because, if he did, Bushâs reasons over ten years ago may have been for completely different reasons than Obamaâs.”
Your use of the phrase “may have been” shows that you are completely uninformed on the stated reasons given by both the Bush administration and the Obama administration. These are readily available. Why are you arguing about something that you admit you are not informed about?
I have posted the stated reasons for the Bush administration choosing to avoid the terms “Islamic terror” and “jihad.” I have also stated the stated reasons for the Obama administration to continue that policy and avoid similar words. The stated reasons are IDENTICAL. You say you have no way of knowing their reasons, but of course you do; they are a matter of public record. And yet despite the fact that you had no idea of this, nor did you have any idea of even when the Bush administration made this decision, you decided you knew more than I did on the subject and just assumed their reasons would be wildly different? That is ridiculous, and exposes you as the excuse-making partisan you falsely accused me of being. You were faced with evidence that Bush did the EXACT same thing as Obama, and instead of even trying to figure out why Bush did that or how, you simply assumed that he must have had different reasons than Obama. Why? Because Bush = good and Obama = bad. That is the only explanation for your assumptions and ignorant arguments here. Your thinking is entirely based on tribalism, not facts or evidence.
Chris: “I think he was right to always specify that we were NOT at war with Islam and to eventually decide to take the advice of many advisors who pointed out that using religious terms to describe the terrorists only helped their goals. I also credit Obama for continuing this particular policy.”
This is where we differ. According to all of the military leaders I’ve heard everyone of them say a strategy needs to be developed based first on the clear identification of who/what the enemy is. Since Obama refuses to state clearly who the enemy is he has NO strategic plan to defeat it. All of the experts I’ve heard have used the term “Radical Islam” is the enemy and exist in multiple countries across the ME.
Show us where Obama has used this exact term and we’ll come to agreement. But, based on what he said this morning at the Payer Breakfast finding that quote may be a real challenge for you.
Obama at National Prayer Breakfast: 3 Principles to Oppose Those Who Use Religion for Evil:
“Three principles can guide people of faith in opposing those, like ISIS, who distort their faith and commit evil acts, President Barack Obama explained Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast.
Compassion and love flows from all faiths, he said, and all faiths have been distorted for evil purposes.
Faith inspires people daily to do good deeds around the world, Obama reminded as he pointed out Dr. Kent Brantly, the Samaritan’s Purse West Africa missionary who contracted Ebola and survived. Brantly delivered the opening prayer and was sitting to Obama’s left.
Faith has also been misused for evil, he continued: “We see faith driving us to do right, but we also see faith twisted and distorted, used as a wedge, or worse, sometimes used as a weapon.”
After alluding to recent acts of violence in the Middle East and Paris, Obama said that terrorists “profess to stand for Islam but are, in fact, betraying it.”
“How do we, as people of faith, reconcile these realities?” he asked. “The profound good, the strength, the tenacity, compassion and love that can flow from all of our faiths, operating alongside those who seek to hijack religions for their own murderous ends? Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history.”
Committing violence in the name of religion is not unique to Islam, Obama reminded and referenced the Crusades, the Inquisition, slavery and Jim Crow. All of those, he noted, were defended by people who professed to be Christians.
Sin is the reason religion is misused for evil, Obama continued.
“This is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency, that can pervert and distort our faith.”
http://www.christianpost.com/news/obama-at-national-prayer-breakfast-3-principles-to-oppose-those-who-use-religion-for-evil-133633/
Chris: “Yes, I know there was no protest. Everyone knows there was no protest now. That was conceded by the White House very quickly. That was not what I was talking about.”
I get it finally. Your definition of “very quickly” and mine are very different. Obama still didn’t admit it was a terrorist attack on Sept. 20 and 24th almost two weeks after the attack. Very quickly to me would be a day or two, not two weeks.
Chris: “You did not contradict the fact that many journalists who were on the ground in Benghazi did report that the attackers said they were motivated by the video.”
Journalist? What journalist were on the ground during the attack at Benghazi? I’ve sure not read anything about them being there. Like I said, I did read the book “13 Hours” written by the surviving CIA contractors who all said the video was NOT an issue in Benghazi. So did Gregory Hicks in Tripoly.
Benghazi witness: We knew it was a terrorist attack ‘from the get go’:
âI thought it was a terrorist attack from the get go,â says Greg Hicks, a 22-year foreign service diplomat who was the number two U.S. official in Libya at the time of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks. âI think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning.â
Hicks is highly critical of the Obama administrationâs explanation in the immediate aftermath of the attacks — that the strikes were sparked by earlier protests in Egypt over an anti-Islamic video.
The attacks killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
âFor there to have been a demonstration on Chris Stevens’ front door and him not to have reported it is unbelievable,â says Hicks, according to the transcript provided by the committee. âAnd secondly, if he had reported it, he would have been out the back door within minutes of any demonstration appearing anywhere near that facility. And there was a back gate to the facility, and, you know, it worked. ⌠Chris’ last report, if you want to say his final report, is, “Greg, we are under attack.”
He also expresses frustration about why U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice appeared on all the major Sunday talk shows five days after the attacks and said they were sparked by protest and not premeditated, as Libya President Magarief was saying otherwise.
âI reported an attack on the consulate,â Hicks says in the transcripts. âIt’s jaw dropping that to me how that came to be. ⌠I was personally known to one of Ambassador Rice’s staff members. And, you know, we’re six hours ahead of Washington. Even on Sunday morning I could have been called.â
The transcripts were released by House oversight committee Chairman Darrell Issa during an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“We know one thing, the talking points were right, and then the talking points were wrong,” said Issa, R-Calif. “The CIA knew it was a terrorist attack, the deputy chief of mission, Gregory Hicks, knew it was a terrorist attack, the ambassador before he died, one of the last words he ever said is, ”We`re under attack.“
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/05/chaffetz-state-department-officials-fear-retaliation-on-benghazi-more-will-talk/
Just so we are clear here Chris, when I refer to individuals who were at Benghazi DURING the attack on 9/11/12 I am referring the “known” CIA operator survivors and even Greg Hicks in Tripoli just miles away within the same country and not some unknown CIA analyst in the US.
Hicks: YouTube Video Was A Non-Event In Libya:
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=greg+hicks+video+non+issue&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=C3DBF2E827868E5D1435C3DBF2E827868E5D1435
Chris: “But Rice was ENTIRELY correct when she said that the terrorists were motivated by the video, just as anyone who would describe the Charlie Hebdo attacks would be correct to say the terrorists were motivated by the cartoons they found offensive.”
Wrong! Greg Hicks testified the video was a “non-event in Libya.” Did your “adult literacy skills” understand the video was a non-issue for the whole country of Libya? The video being a non-issue for the WHOLE country means it wouldn’t be a motivation for the attack.
Charlie Hebdo had prior threats and warnings based on their cartoon characters, but NO threats had been made in Benghazi because of the video. The previous attacks were by a pro al Qaeda set to drive out foreign presence.
From CNN:
Pro-al Qaeda group seen behind deadly Benghazi attack:
“A pro-al Qaeda group responsible for a previous armed assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is the chief suspect in Tuesday’s attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, sources tracking militant Islamist groups in eastern Libya say.
They also note that the attack immediately followed a call from al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri for revenge for the death in June of Abu Yahya al-Libi, a senior Libyan member of the terror group.
The group suspected to be behind the assault — the Imprisoned Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades — first surfaced in May when it claimed responsibility for an attack on the International Red Cross office in Benghazi. The following month the group claimed responsibility for detonating an explosive device outside the U.S. Consulate and later released a video of that attack.
Noman Benotman, once a leading member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and now based at the Quilliam Foundation in London told CNN, “An attack like this would likely have required preparation. This would not seem to be merely a protest which escalated.”
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/12/world/africa/libya-attack-jihadists/index.html
Chris: “You were faced with evidence that Bush did the EXACT same thing as Obama, and instead of even trying to figure out why Bush did that or how, you simply assumed that he must have had different reasons than Obama.”
My reasoning for Bush and Obama using different and/or similar phrases was based on the differing circumstances that have taken place since the 9/11/01 attack, which is where I got the “14 years.” Bush was dealing with a “terrorist attack/attack by terrorist” by unknown individuals and group until they had been identified as al Qaeda. Obama started calling them “core” al Qaeda and said they had been eliminated and had them on the run during his 2012 campaign. His word-smithing and avoiding to identify the Islamic terrorist for who and what they are is not about trying to calm the waters it’s about not admitting his failures. He can’t be pinned down and held accountable when he’s constantly changing the narrative. It has nothing to do with Bush=good and Obama=bad. It’s about taking responsibility, identifying the enemy and stop saying the enemy doesn’t exist or can’t be defined.
The enemy absolutely can be defined. The Jordanians just identified them and are making plans to defeat them. We on the other hand have a leader who today said:
“But we also see faith being twisted and distorted, used as a wedge — or, worse, sometimes used as a weapon. From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris, we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith, their faith, professed to stand up for Islam, but, in fact, are betraying it. We see ISIL, a brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism — terrorizing religious minorities like the Yezidis, subjecting women to rape as a weapon of war, and claiming the mantle of religious authority for such actions.
We see sectarian war in Syria, the murder of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, religious war in the Central African Republic, a rising tide of anti-Semitism and hate crimes in Europe, so often perpetrated in the name of religion.
So how do we, as people of faith, reconcile these realities — the profound good, the strength, the tenacity, the compassion and love that can flow from all of our faiths, operating alongside those who seek to hijack religious for their own murderous ends?
Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. Michelle and I returned from India — an incredible, beautiful country, full of magnificent diversity — but a place where, in past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by other peoples of faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs — acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that nation.
So this is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith. In today’s world, when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to counteract such intolerance. But God compels us to try. And in this mission, I believe there are a few principles that can guide us, particularly those of us who profess to believe.”
I rest my case. Are you any clearer today on where Obama stands on identifying the enemy so our military and world leaders can develop that strategic plan to keep us safe?
Forgot the Breakfast Prayer link.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/obama-national-prayer-breakfast-2015-text-transcript-and-full-video-the-starting-point-of-faith-is-some-doubt-133638/
Peggy and Tina, here is an interview conducted by the Guardian on Sept. 12, 2012, the day after the Benghazi attack. In it, an enraged Libyan man explains that the attack was motivated by an American-made film which insulted the prophet Mohammed, and warns the U.S. that these types of attacks will occur whenever any American dares to insult his idol.
Please watch:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2012/sep/12/benghazi-us-consulate-video
I hope this will confirm that there were reports from people on the ground at the time that the video was the motivation for the attack.
Peggy, I can’t imagine how anyone could read that prayer breakfast speech and coming away thinking that Obama didn’t condemn religious terrorism strongly enough.
Obama not using the term “Islamic terrorist” doesn’t mean that he “does not identify the enemy clearly.” On the contrary, it is more effective to identify them by specific organization and by the simple designation “terrorist” than to legitimize them by mentioning their religion. This is the opinion of many terror experts under both Bush and Obama. That’s why the change was made under the Bush administration, and why it continues to this day.
There is video. It shows there was no local protest that night. This evidence tracks with remarks made by Stevens that night. The attack was sudden and well planned. It’s shameful that the administration pushed a deceptive narrative.
The Libyan man’s “opinion” doesn’t prove a thing. He may have been personally aware and affronted. So what? Can it be proved he was involved? Did his interrogators in media ask leading questions?
I don’t bend to bullies. It’s irrelevant that this man is offended.
In a civil world he doesn’t get to respond to being offended by murdering and terrorizing others. That is the number one lesson that must be learned if ever we are to defeat this radical enemy.
They won’t get that message if we cower, bend, and step-n-fetch-it! Announcing to the world that an offensive video was the motivator behind the 911 anniversary attack in Benghazi played right into their hands. It told them they are justified in murdering anyone who offends or refuses to live under their rules.
Leadership is on display in Jordan.
Chris, your video shows one unknown man complaining about a video. Here is the president of Libya in an interview on Sept. 16th with NPR saying it was a “preplanned attack.” Who is more credible? The president of Libya or some guy who could have been from another country as the president stated were amongst the 50 individuals they arrested. Obama was still promoting the video when he was on “The View” Sept. 24th.
Libyan President el-Megarif reportedly eyes Al Qaeda in ‘preplanned’ attack on US consulate:
“Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif said he believes Al Qaeda is responsible for the deadly attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that killed four Americans and that roughly 50 people have arrested in connection with the violence, according to two broadcast interviews Sunday.
Megarif, president of the Libyan National Congress, also differed with the Obama administrationâs position that the attacks that started Tuesday were sparked by an anti-Islamic video on the Internet.
In an interview on with NPR, Megarif said foreigners over the past few months have been infiltrating his country, which has been undergoing major changes since the uprising against the late dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi.
Megarif says the attackers, whom he believes are connected to Al Qaeda, used the protests as a cover to attack the U.S. Consulate on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“The idea that this criminal and cowardly act was a spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous,” Megarif told NPR. “We firmly believe that this was a pre-calculated, pre-planned attack that was carried out specifically to attack the U.S. Consulate.”
Megarif said in a separate interview with CBS News that Libyan authorities had arrested about 50 people in connection with the attack.
The Americans were killed when attackers fired on the U.S. consulate with rocket-propelled grenades and set it on fire.
Megarif said on CBSâ âFace the Nationâ that “a few” of those who joined in the attack were foreigners, who had entered Libya “from different directions, some of them definitely from Mali and Algeria.”
“The others are affiliates and maybe sympathizers,” he said.
Megarif also repeated his assertion that the attacks were planned.
The way these perpetrators acted and moved ⌠and their choosing the specific date for this so-called demonstration, I think ⌠this leaves us with no doubt,â he said.
Susan Rice on Fox News Sunday said:
âThe best information and the best assessment we have today is that this was not a pre-planned, pre-meditated attack,â she said on âFox News Sunday.â âWhat happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video. People gathered outside the embassy and then it grew very violent. And those with extremist ties joined the fray and came with heavy weapons, which unfortunately are quite common in post-revolutionary Libya, and that then spun out of control.â
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/16/libyan-president-megaryef-al-qaeda-behind-deadly-attack-on-us-consulate/
Ms. Rice should have responded the same way to both theories instead of denying one and promoting the other. If she had said both are under FBI investigation instead of saying, “it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video,” we would not be having this endless discussion still today.
The bottom line question you should be asking is why was the video pushed as the reason for the attack instead of saying, “At this point we don’t know.”
I’m done. You’re not going to believe me or the president of Libya no matter what we say so just keep carrying those water buckets.
Tina: “Leadership is on display in Jordan.”
Big time!! Looks like we have a new leader of the free word the president of Jordan. Good for him. Obama can take up his usual position “behind.”
When the president of Jordan has someone murdered by ISIS he hops on a plan and head for home after giving orders to execute two ISIS prisoners.
Obama on the other hand went and played a round of golf 10 minutes after James Foley was beheaded.
Did you read my turtle post joke? So appropriate.
Tina: “In a civil world he doesnât get to respond to being offended by murdering and terrorizing others. That is the number one lesson that must be learned if ever we are to defeat this radical enemy.
They wonât get that message if we cower, bend, and step-n-fetch-it! Announcing to the world that an offensive video was the motivator behind the 911 anniversary attack in Benghazi played right into their hands. It told them they are justified in murdering anyone who offends or refuses to live under their rules.”
This is deceptive. Obama explicitly said in his speech at the UN that there is never any excuse for violence in response to speech. Acknowledging that the terrorists were motivated by the video–which is a documented fact–is not the same as justifying the attack.
“There is video. It shows there was no local protest that night. This evidence tracks with remarks made by Stevens that night. The attack was sudden and well planned. Itâs shameful that the administration pushed a deceptive narrative.”
They pushed the narrative given to them by the CIA. Take it up with them.
“The Libyan manâs âopinionâ doesnât prove a thing.”
It proves that there were sources on the ground who reported that the video was the motivation, and that they reported this to journalists. Now, that in itself doesn’t prove it WAS the motivation. But it does prove that some in the CIA and the administration had reason to believe that it was the motivation, and that this idea was not just “invented” by the administration.
There were many other reports that said the same thing. From an October 16, 2012 New York Times story:
To Libyans who witnessed the assault and know the attackers, there is little doubt what occurred: a well-known group of local Islamist militants struck without any warning or protest, and they did it in retaliation for the video. That is what the fighters said at the time, speaking emotionally of their anger at the video without mentioning Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or the terrorist strikes of 11 years earlier. And it is an explanation that tracks with their history as a local militant group determined to protect Libya from Western influence.
”It was the Ansar al-Shariah people,” said Mohamed Bishari, a 20-year-old neighbor who watched the assault and described the brigade he saw leading the attack. ”There was no protest or anything of that sort.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/world/africa/election-year-stakes-overshadow-nuances-of-benghazi-investigation.html
Hadeed Al-Sachi of Reuters said in a Sept. 13 interview that he had spoken with Libyans at the ruins of the compound and they all said they believed the attack was retaliation for the video:
AL-SHALCHI: In Benghazi at the consulate, the consulate is now not secure at all, like, you can walk in and out of it. And people all day yesterday were doing that. They would come, sort of take a stroll inside the grounds, you know, take pictures and little videos of the damage.
The majority of those people said two things. They said, first of all, why did the United States allow something like this movie to happen? Because at the end of the day, almost everybody here believes that it was a reaction to the movie that – and they believe that the United States had a responsibility to stop the production or…
STEVE INSKEEP (HOST): This is a film that was spreading on the Internet that was seen as insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Go on.
AL-SHALCHI: Exactly. And so they said, why did this happen? But in the next breath, they say: But we don’t condone this kind of thing. There are civilized ways to show and express our anger, and this is not one of them. This should never have happened.
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/13/161050137/how-benghazi-is-reacting-to-the-deadly-attacks
Al Jazeera reported the same thing the day after the attack:
“About 11:30 PM, a group of people calling themselves as “Islamic law supporters” heard the news that there will be an American movie insulting the Prophet Mohammed. Once they heard this news they came out of their military garrison and they went into the street calling [unintelligible] to gather and go ahead and attack the American consulate in Benghazi.”
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/05/14/four-media-reports-from-libya-that-linked-the-b/194073
It is clear that there was plenty of reason for the administration to believe that the attackers were motivated by the video.
They got the “spontaneous protest” part wrong. But that does not a scandal make.
Chris: “This is deceptive. Obama explicitly said in his speech at the UN that there is never any excuse for violence ”
Yes he did. His words are meaningless; they have no teeth.
” Acknowledging that the terrorists were motivated by the videoâwhich is a documented factâis not the same as justifying the attack.”
Documented? Interviews that may or may not be truthful and may or may not represent planning done by the Al Qaeda affiliated group. This is hearsay testimony at best.
“They pushed the narrative given to them by the CIA. Take it up with them.”
Peggy’s right, you believe what you want.
You’re a tool and this is a waste of time.
Peggy: “Did you read my turtle post joke? So appropriate.”
I may have missed it. Personal issues have me out of the loop more than usual. Article and comment number?
Tina, even conservative anti-Islam activist Daniel Pipes acknowledges that the video motivated the Benghazi attackers. Citing journalist John Rosenthal, who provided evidence from social media showing that the attackers were outraged by the video, Pipes writes:
“In an article, “Rampaging Islamists,” I listed Libya as one of the over thirty countries where the Innocence of Muslims video had prompted demonstrations, rioting, or violence in September 2012; it seemed obvious at that time that the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi fit into the much larger context of agitation and hostility sweeping so many Muslim communities.
But then, after Barack Obama nominated Susan Rice as his national security adviser, her having repeatedly stated that the attack had been a “spontaneous” response to Innocence, a demonstration that “spun out of control,” prompted a backlash against this account of what happened on Sep.11, 2012. The conservative interpretation focused entirely on Al-Qaeda and rejected any role for Innocence.
Despite this consensus, I stood by the contention that Innocence played a part in the events that night. Now, the journalist John Rosenthal confirms this connection at “New Evidence Links Benghazi Attack to Anti-Muslim Movie,” where he argues that Innocence served as a “catalyst” for the attack on the US mission. His proof?
Examination of contemporaneous chatter on Libyan websites shows that locals really were in an uproar about the video in both the run-up to and immediate aftermath of the Benghazi attack. This finding is all the more significant inasmuch as the chatter in question comes from precisely the same extremist milieu as the presumed assailants. In the hours immediately preceding the attack, local Islamists were calling on their brethren to “do something” in response to the video. From both the source and tenor of these appeals, it is clear that they meant something more emphatic than just a peaceful demonstration.
Rosenthal uses the Facebook page of the Libyan Ansar Minbar, which “provides an important window into the agitation embroiling the local Islamist scene around the time of the attack.”
Timeline entries on the page show that in the early evening of Sep. 11, 2012, Ansar Minbar was closely following developments in Cairo, where a crowd of thousands had converged upon the US Embassy, ostensibly to protest a US-made film that insulted the Prophet Muhammad.
Examples (see Rosenthal’s article for the accompanying graphics):
At 6:04 p.m., the page administrator posted a photo of an al-Qaeda flag being attached to a flagpole at the embassy in Cairo. The accompanying text read: “Egypt urgent. Demonstrators take down the American flag and raise in its place the ‘There is no God but God’ flag. And us, what are we doing in Libya???”
Six minutes later, the administrator posted another photo, this one showing the al-Qaeda flag now flying in front of the embassy. The new, more insistent, message enjoins, “God is great, o brothers! The ‘There is no God but God’ flag rises above the American Embassy in Cairo. And what, brothers, men of Libya, are you doing??!! Expel them from our land, we do not want one infidel of them ⌔ It continues, “The measuring cup has overflowed and the flood has reached the place above the flood line, long live Jihad, long live Jihad!”
Just three hours later, at 9:11 p.m., a newsflash on libya-s.net, an Ansar Minbar online forum, announced that the US mission was being attacked. Note that this puts the start of the attack around a half hour earlier than the official US account. The post identifies members of Ansar al-Sharia as the assailants.
At 1:20 a.m. on Sep. 12, a new photograph appeared on the Ansar Minbar Facebook page under the heading “Photographs [sic] of the Benghazi demonstrations.” But rather than any demonstration, the picture shows just a single masked “protester” burning an American flag.
Rosenthal’s conclusion about Susan Rice’s mistakes in blaming the attack in Benghazi solely on a demonstration against the video: “She was not right about the demonstration. There appears not to have been any. Moreover, even if there were some unarmed hangers-on who converged upon the compound, it is beyond doubt that the armed assailants went there with the sole purpose of attacking it.”
But, he goes on, “what brought the militia members out of their homes or barracks at that particular time on that particular night appears to have been none other than the ‘anti-Islam video’.”
Comments: (1) It’s not either the video or a terrorist attack; it can be a bit of both. (2) That the video has some connection to the attack does not reduce the Obama administration’s incompetence and its culpability for the what followed that night. (July 8, 2013)
Dec. 28, 2013 update: A major New York Times investigative report, “A Deadly Mix in Benghazi” by David D. Kirkpatrick, finds that the attack on the American mission on Sept. 11, 2012, was “fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.””
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2013/07/did-the-innocence-of-muslims-video-play-a-role-in
Yes, the video played a large role in the motivation for the attack. Yes, there is documented proof of that.
There remains zero evidence that the video explanation was made up by the White House in order to win an election that had nothing to do with foreign policy in the first place.
Tina, here it is. Easier to just repost it.
Post Turtle:
While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher, whose hand was caught in the squeeze gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Obama and his role as our president. The old rancher said, âWell, ya know, Obama is a âPost Turtle.â Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him, what a âpost turtleâ was. The old rancher said, âWhen youâre driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, thatâs a âpost turtleâ.
The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctorâs face so he continued to explain. âYou know he didnât get up there by himself, he doesnât belong up there, he doesnât know what to do while heâs up there, heâs elevated beyond his ability to function, and you just Wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there to begin with.â
Best explanation Iâve heard yet.
Rings true to me, Peggy!