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Sunday, October 28, 2012

Benghazigate: Gun-Walking to Jihadists?

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Doug Hagmann wrote a great piece today (see the link to “The Hidden Real Truth About Benghazi” below).  It struck me because many of my own thoughts and suspicions about this incident were validated by his words.  I read it a couple of times, and want to bypass some of the ‘weeds’ and list in a sort-of chrono order the points he makes, interspersed with some of my own comments.

1.  Our Benghazi facility was not a consulate; it was the largest of our CIA operations centers in the Middle East which served as the logistics headquarters for arms and weapons being shipped out of post-Qaddafi Libya.


2.  Our personnel there, aside from other routine things they may have been doing, were engaged in covert arms and weapons running from Libya to anti-Assad rebels in Syria via Turkey.

3.  Russia was aware of the operation and warned America against working to destabilize Syria because (a) it would endanger Russia’s own national security interests, and (b) they knew that as demonic, despotic and tyrannical as Assad may be, his forced ouster would leave yet another Mubarak-like and Qadaffi-like vacuum, and that the Muslim Brotherhood would move in and orchestrate more Islamic chaos across the region.  (And Putin would be right about that.)
4.  Ambassador Stevens was in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 to meet with his Turkish counterpart, who reportedly warned Stevens that the operation was compromised. The reason they met in person was so that his Turkish colleague could show Stevens overhead satellite images, taken by the Russians, of unmistakable surveillance footage of the anti-Assad “rebels” being shown how to load chemical payloads onto missiles inside Turkey near the border of Syria—weapons that were shipped from Libya by the CIA in conjunction with various Muslim Brotherhood rebel groups; —weapons that could be used as a “false flag” type of operation to “set-up” Assad by making it appear that he was using these weapons on forces dedicated to his overthrow.  In that scenario, the projected collective reaction of the international community would be swift and punishing, and the world would demand Assad’s overthrow.  NATO would then be used to expedite his ouster, and Russia’s moral position within the international community would be weakened.  So, the purpose of that Turkish diplomat’s in-person meeting was to show Ambassador Stevens that the operation was compromised and that they had to stop.  You can bet that Panetta and the highest levels of the administration knew that the operation was compromised; Stevens would have reported that to them after the Turkish diplomat left.
 

5.  The attack started not too long after the Turkish diplomat’s departure—no doubt the timing of which wasn’t a coincidence.  

6.  The Obama administration asserts that the attack in Benghazi was conducted by a group of rebels acting alone.  If that was true, our military assets, located just an hour or two away by air, could have easily handled them in short order and rescued our personnel.  So why was there no rescue operation?
 

7.  No rescue effort was made because the attack was not conducted by a group of rebels; it was a nation/state coordinated and sponsored attack in response to our covert operation in Libya and arming the anti-Assad Syrian opposition—and Panetta and everyone else knew it.  They also knew that the nation/state sponsored attack teams were lying in wait for U.S. rescue forces to arrive, which is the reason the fight did not end sooner.  From signal communication intercepts, they knew those nation/state attack teams were present but didn’t know exactly where all of them were and that was the Obama administration dilemma.  So, now, that gives deeper meaning to Panetta’s statement about why no rescue attempt was made, and why Dougherty/Woods was told three times to stand down:   “…the basic principle is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on…”  Would Obama-the-weak risk deploying a  rescue team to Benghazi, only to end up with another Black Hawk down type scenario, especially so close to an election?  Remember, this is the president who for months kept wavering and vacillating on giving the OK to get OBL, and even with all that time STILL couldn’t do it (Panetta had to make the call).  So, c’mon .. you don’t think he’s capable of actually making a tough call to deploy military assets in such a tight and fast-moving time frame, do you?  I mean, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod could never allow that, don’t you know?  After all, what’s ‘just’ 4 lives when you compare it to the possibility of another 4 years?

8.  As daylight approached with no response from the U.S. and no aid to the Americans under fire, the nation/state attack teams completed their mission in the remaining cover of darkness … killing four patriots.

Bottom line:

We were using anti-Assad forces to advance our objectives in Syria.

Russia was using Iranian-backed forces to protect theirs.

If you’re keeping score, put a check-mark in the Russian/Iranian column.

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