After a British soldier wearing a Help for Heroes charity T-shirt
was run over, stabbed and slashed with machetes and a meat cleaver, and
beheaded, the Tory government advised its soldiers that it is probably
best not to appear in uniform on the streets of their capital.
Both murderers were wounded by police. One was photographed and
recorded.
His message:
"There are many, many (verses) throughout the Quran that says we
must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth. I apologize that women had to witness this today, but in our land
women have to see the same. Your people will never be safe."
According to ITV, one murderer, hands dripping blood, ranted, "We
swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you."
Both killers are Muslim converts of African descent, and both are
British born.
Wednesday also, Stockholm and its suburbs ended a fourth night of
riots, vandalism and arson by immigrant mobs protesting the police
shooting of a machete-wielding 69-year-old.
"We have institutional racism," says Rami Al-khamisi, founder of a
group for "social change."
Sweden, racist?
Among advanced nations, Sweden ranks fourth in the number of
asylum seekers it has admitted and second relative to its population.
Are the Swedes really the problem in Sweden?
The same day these stories ran, The Washington Post carried a
front-page photo of Ibrahim Todashev, martial arts professional and friend
of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who, with brother Dzhokhar, set off the bombs at the
Boston Marathon massacre.
Todashev, another Chechen, had been shot to death by FBI agents,
reportedly after he confessed to his and Tamerlan's role in a triple
murder in Waltham, Mass.
Though Tamerlan had been radicalized and Moscow had made inquiries
about him, he had escaped the notice of U.S. authorities. Even after he
returned to the Caucasus for six months, sought to contact extremists,
then returned to the U.S.A., Tamerlan still was not on Homeland Security's
radar.
His father, granted political asylum, went back to the same region
he had fled in fear. His mother had been arrested for shoplifting. Yet
none of this caused U.S. officials to pick up Tamerlan, a welfare
freeloader, and throw the lot of them out of the country.
One wonders if the West is going to wake up to the new world we
have entere
d, or adhere to immigration policies dating to a liberal era
long since dead.
It was in 1965, halcyon hour of the Great Society, that Ted
Kennedy led Congress into abolishing a policy that had restricted
immigration for 40 years, while we absorbed and Americanized the millions
who had come over between 1890 and 1920.
The "national origins" feature of that 1924 law mandated that
ships arriving at U.S. ports carry immigrants from countries that had
provided our immigrants in the past. We liked who we were.
Immigration policy was written to reinforce the Western
orientation and roots of America, 90 percent of whose population could by
1960 trace its ancestry to the Old Continent.
But since 1965, immigration policy has been run by people who
detest that America and wanted a new nation that looked less like Europe
and more like a continental replica of the U.N. General Assembly.
They wanted to end America's history as the largest and greatest
of Western nations and make her a nation of nations, a new society and a
new people, more racially, ethnically, religiously and culturally diverse
than any nation on the face of the earth.
Behind this vision lies an ideology, an idee fixe, that America is not a normal nation of blood and soil, history and
heroes, but a nation erected upon an idea, the idea that anyone and
everyone who comes here, raises his hand, and swears allegiance to the
Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights becomes, de facto, not just
a legal citizen but an American.
But that is no more true than to say that someone who arrives in
Paris from Africa or the Middle East and raises his hand to declare
allegiance to the Rights of Man thereby becomes a Frenchman.
What is the peril into which America and the West are drifting?
Ties of race, religion, ethnicity and culture are the prevailing
winds among mankind and are tearing apart countries and continents. And as
we bring in people from all over the world, they are not leaving all of
their old allegiances and animosities behind.
Many carry them, if at times dormant, within their hearts.
And if we bring into America -- afflicted by her polarized
politics, hateful rhetoric and culture wars -- peoples on all sides of
every conflict roiling mankind, how do we think this experiment is going
to end?
The immigration bill moving through the Senate, with an amnesty
for 11 to 12 million illegals already here, and millions of their
relatives back home, may write an end to more than just the Republican
Party.
(CNSNews.com) - What did the White House know about the IRS targeting conservative groups and when did it know it?
Crucial
evidence needed to develop an accurate answer to that question would
include the records of any communications that went back and forth
between the IRS and the White House on the topic.
In a May 14 letter
signed by Chairman Dave Camp and Ranking Member Sander Levin, the
House Ways and Means Committee demanded precisely those records from
the IRS. In the same letter, the committee also demanded the records of
any communications between IRS and the Treasury on the matter, plus
other information and records that would help the committee understand
the facts about IRS actions that subjected to heightened scrutiny
conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Chairman Camp and Ranking Member Levin gave the IRS a deadline of
Tuesday, May 21 to comply with their committee’s demand for the
information and records.
The IRS--which requires working Americans to file their tax returns
by an April 15 deadline each year or else face penalties--did not
comply with this deadline imposed by the congressional committee that
has oversight over its activities.
“The Committee has not received a response to the Camp-Levin letter,”
House Ways and Means Spokeswoman Sarah Swinehart told CNSNews.com late
Tuesday after the IRS had closed for business for the day.
“Chairman Camp expects the IRS to comply and provide full and
complete responses to the letter since many of these questions were
asked, but went unanswered, in Friday’s hearing,” said Swinehart.
The letter that Camp and Levin sent to the IRS a week ago Tuesday
asked the agency to answer thirteen questions about its targeting of
conservative groups and, where relevant, provide all internal agency
documents and communications substantiating its answers.
Two of the committee’s questions sought records of any communications
between the IRS and the Treasury and the IRS and the White House about
the targeting of conservatives groups.
“As the Committee on Ways and Means continues its investigation into
these IRS practices,” Camp and Levin wrote the IRS, “we request that
the IRS provide the following information by May 21, 2013: …”
“Did the IRS at any time notify the Treasury Department of the
targeting of conservative or any other groups?” Camp and Levin asked.
“Provide all documents and communications between the IRS and Treasury
on this matter.”
“Did the IRS at any time notify the White House of the targeting of
conservative or any other groups?” asked Camp and Levin. “Provide all
documents and communications between the IRS and the White House on this
matter.”
In their letter, Camp and Levin said the IRS had not been “completely truthful” with the committee in the past on this matter.
“We are deeply troubled by the recent admission
of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that the agency has been
singling out organizations for additional review based on their
political beliefs,” Camp and Levin said in their letter to the agency.
“Despite repeated calls for cooperation, the agency failed to be
completely truthful in its responses to the committee during its nearly
two-year long investigation of this matter, and in testimony before
the committee.”
On Monday through Tuesday morning, CNSNews.com made multiple phone
and email inquiries to the IRS press office asking if the agency
intended to comply with this request for information and records from
the House Ways and Means Committee. The IRS did not respond.
Liberals don’t want honest Americans like you to have guns. Liberals
just want to arm foreign rebels in crapshoot attempts to “end global
violence.” But liberals feign ignorance when the rebels they arm end up
being criminals who kill innocent Americans like the late U.S.
Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens.
Why did Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans die in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012?
We now know that President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and then-CIA Director David Petraeus were likely behind a
mishandled gun-trafficking program that ended up arming the radical
jihadist rebels who stormed the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in
Benghazi, Libya on that fateful day.
Our CIA is still playing the role of vetting which Syrian rebel
groups will obtain arms including machine guns, ammunition, and
rocket-propelled grenades. While Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are
directly purchasing the weaponry, the Obama administration is aiding the
Arab governments in shopping for these arms and transferring them from
Libya, to Turkey, and finally into Syria.
Unfortunately the CIA has “vetted” shady intermediaries (including
Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood) and shady recipients of thousands of tons
worth of military equipment and millions of rounds of ammo.
Consequently, weapons have fallen into the wrong hands. In the case of
Benghazi, anti-tank weapons appear to have landed in the hands of
terrorists.
Now, Clinton is denying even knowing about the program, although the
evidence indicates it was largely her idea. Of course everything
happened under Obama’s watch and the buck stops with him. The story of
Obama’s gun-running program in Benghazi is long and multifarious, so I
will break down the timeline for you:
May 26, 2012: Stevens arrives in Tripoli, the capitol city of Libya and sets up camp at the U.S. embassy.
Last summer, Clinton first proposed a plan to then-CIA
Director David Petraeus to partner on a gun-trafficking program to arm
the Syrian resistance and “vet the rebel groups, and train fighters who
would be supplied with weapons,” according to The New York Times.
June of 2012: The New York Times reports
that the CIA is operating a secret arms transfer program that sounds
exactly like the plan Clinton developed with Petraeus. Suddenly, there
is: “…an influx of weapons and ammunition to the rebels.”
September 5, 2012: A Libyan ship called Al Entisar (“The
Victory”) docks in the Turkish port of Iskenderun, carrying 400 tons of
cargo including many weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs)
and shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS) destined for
Syrian rebels 35 miles away from Iskenderun. The ship’s captain told the
Times of London that the Muslim Brotherhood and the free Syrian Army
broke into a fight over the arms.
September 10, 2012: Stevens arrives in Benghazi, Libya, the
location of the U.S. consulate. About a mile away from the consulate, is
the CIA annex. Stevens planned to stay at the consulate for five days.
His visit was supposed to be secret, but Libya-based extremists somehow
learned of his arrival.
September 11, 2012: Stevens has an unusual meeting with Turkish diplomat Consul General Ali Sait Akin. Fox News
reported that the meeting was “…to negotiate a weapons transfer, an
effort to get SA-7 missiles out of the hands of Libya-based extremists.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham confirmed
on Fox News Channel’s “Special Report with Bret Baier” that Stevens was
in Libya to specifically control a situation: “…where the action was
regarding the rising Islamic extremists who were trying to get their
hands on weapons that were flowing freely in Libya…”
9:40 p.m. (Libya time): Libyan rebels launched and organized an armed attack against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.
10:04 p.m. CIA base chief at the nearby CIA annex calls for
help including 50-caliber machine guns and vehicles from the Libyan
intelligence, the 17 February Brigade and other Libyan militias. After
24 minutes of calls and no response, the CIA base chief takes a small
team of seven people to the consulate. They were too late to save
Stevens, but were able to save some State Department personnel.
11:56 p.m. CIA officers and the State Department members are
seeking safety back at the CIA annex. There, rebels attack them with
rocket-propelled grenades. Fighting continues on until 5:26 a.m.
6:00 a.m. Libyan forces suddenly arrive to “aid” the American team with 50 vehicles.
It is odd that the annex was attacked with same sort of weapons on
the Libyan ship and that Stevens was reportedly in Benghazi to manage
some sort of arms transfer.
Sen. Rand Paul said
on Aaron Klein Radio: “First of all with regard to Benghazi, I think
it’s important [to determine more about the apparent gun-running
program] because it may have something to do with why the compound was
attacked. If we were involved with shipping guns to Turkey, there was a
report that a ship left from Libya towards Turkey and that there were
arms on it in the week preceding this [attack]; there were reports that
our ambassador was meeting with the Turkish attaché, so I think with
regards to figuring out what happened at Benghazi, it’s very important
to know whether or not the CIA annex had anything to do with
facilitating guns being sent to Turkey and ultimately to Syria. With
regard to arming the rebels, just this week in the armed services
committee, General Dempsey, the [Chairman of the] Joint Chiefs of Staff
said that we were no longer able to distinguish who the good guys were
from the bad guys and that sounds pretty worrisome if we are actually
arming people who in the end may be enemies of America…enemies of
Israel… enemies maybe of the Christians who live within Syria...sending
arms to a rebel force to that may include Al-Nusra and other radical
jihadists.”
Here’s my concern: Obama’s gun-running program failed to
properly vet the rebels. Clinton most likely launched the gun program,
expected Stevens to oversee it and then her weapons likely landed in the
hands of al-Qaida affiliates who killed Stevens and three other
Americans. This is a tragic failure of foreign policy and diplomacy
under Obama’s watch.
It seems like only yesterday when President Obama stood in front of
an electrified audience at the 2012 Democratic National Convention just
days before the deadly September 11, 2012 attacks on the U.S. Consulate
in Benghazi, Libya, reminding supporters, "al Qaeda is on the path to
defeat and Osama bin Laden is dead."
Days later, on September 14, a somber-faced Obama and his
sullen-faced Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood in front of four
flag draped coffins at Andrews Air Force
Base, assuring the small group of grieving family members their loved
ones did not die in vain. Their ill-informed message suggested these
patriots weren't killed by terrorists; they died because of protests
about a YouTube video.
Since then, the administration has done its best to dodge questions
and distance itself from the events of September 11, and acquired a
convenient case of amnesia along the way. Nine months-in and Americans
still have no clue why initial talking points from top officials'
claiming the attacks were most likely executed by al Qaeda-linked
terrorists were reduced to "a YouTube video." Did they fear
acknowledging such a claim so close to the 2012 presidential election? Or did they actually believe the video story?
Hopefully, some of these questions were answered by way of three
courageous State Department whistle-blowers scheduled to testify before
the House Oversight Committee May 8. Pre-hearing interviews from one of
the whistleblowers, Gregory Hicks, the second highest diplomat in Libya
at the time of the attacks, were released to the press. Hicks claimed a
Special Forces team, which could have saved lives and protected
evidence, was ordered to "stand down" despite multiple pleas for help.
Contrary to the administration's claims, Hicks also said, "...everybody
in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack" from the beginning.
Hicks' statements seem to fit in with the timeline obtained by the
Weekly Standard from the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence. The Weekly Standard article "The Benghazi Talking Points,"
describes how "senior Obama administration officials knowingly misled
the country about what had happened" and made "substantive revisions" to
the "CIA's talking points" six weeks outside the 2012 presidential
election.
So where's your thirst for truth, America? Why aren't we outraged?
Maybe because, as White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, "Benghazi
happened a long time ago." Maybe Carney should ask grieving family
members wanting answers and longing for closure how long it's been since
their loved ones lost their lives in Benghazi. Or maybe we are at a
point in this country where a politician's political aspirations trump
everything else.
The last time something of this magnitude happened, a U.S. president
stepped down. But that was during a time when good men who made bad
choices still had the intestinal fortitude to accept personal
responsibility for their actions. It was also a time when journalists
were principled enough to set aside politics to do their job and make politicians accountable.
Some in the mainstream media are reluctantly pulling their heads out
of the ground. On May 5, CBS news anchor Bob Schieffer acknowledged the
possibility the administration might have been involved in a "cover-up."
Others are unenthusiastically following suit because they have no
choice. Of course, the illegitimate diehards will remain with their
heads in the sand until the storm passes.
As the pieces of this puzzle come together, one thing is certain:
Full and honest disclosure is always the best policy. Regardless of how
Benghazi pans out, we will discover that either the Obama administration
was involved in a cover-up and played us as fools, or our government is
run by fools who actually believed the Benghazi attacks were in
response to an uprising over an amateurish anti-Islam video by a man now
serving jail time for a separate issue. Either way, we lose.
Susan Stamper Brown's weekly column is nationally syndicated. She can be
reached at writestamper@gmail.com or via her website at
susan@susanstamperbrown.com. Her Facebook page can be found here.
Not even Barack Obama can defy the laws of physics.
Certain things are absolute. As Newton said, what goes up must come down. The wrinkles
you see staring back at you in the mirror validate the second law of
thermodynamics: eventually things fall apart. And, as any farmer will
tell you, if you plant cucumbers in the spring, no matter how hard you
try, you will never reap watermelons in the summer.
It’s the same with deeds; good and bad, we reap what we sow. From the
onset, the Obama administration has woven a web of fabrications so
thick it is hard to see where reality ends and make-believe begins. Over
time, Obama has woven that web tighter by installing a gang of Chicago
allies, confidants, tongue-biters and tale-tellers as a “shadow
government” answerable only to him. There was safety in this tight-knit
crew of like-minded associates, or so they thought, until recently when
parts of Obama’s web began to unravel.
As the old time pastor R.G. Lee once said, “Nature keeps books
pitilessly. Man’s credit with her is good. But Nature collects.” And
now it seems Nature has come knocking on the front door of 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue.
It all began with Benghazi. We now know celebrating in the end zone
about bin Laden’s death made for good re-election bumper stickers and
water cooler conversation but had little impact on America’s security
or the security of the grossly under protected consulate in Benghazi,
Libya. Farfetched stories about a video spun by a circle of close
confidants desperately desiring four more years of power fell apart
during recent testimonies. We reap what we sow.
Now we hear the IRS was party to Soviet-style scare tactics in the
inappropriate targeting of conservative groups prior to the 2012
election. The Washington Post reports the tentacles of this
scandal reach beyond the supposed few rogue agents in Cincinnati to
Washington. Doing what they do best, Progressives deflected the blame to
the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision – purporting had it
not been for it, there would be no need for the IRS’s intrusion into
the private lives of conservatives. Had the IRS targeted liberal groups,
Democrats would have blamed it on a Republican plot to steal the
election. And of course, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney remains
steadfast: the administration is beyond reproach. Sure.
So, how about a sprinkle of invasion of privacy to go with that
healthy those of scare tactics? The Associated Press (AP) discovered
Attorney General Holder’s Department of Justice secretly seized two
months of reporters’ phone
records, including both work and personal numbers; something the AP
called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into newsgathering. While
the jury’s still out regarding motives, it should be noted this was not
the first time for this administration. As originally reported by
Breitbart.com, former Holder spokesperson Tracy Schmaler colluded with
the far-left group Media Matters for America to “smear media figures,
whistleblowers, and members of Congress.” Transparency? Not.
Scandal by scandal, the president remains resolute and does his
sanctimonious best to remain blameless. The dominoes are dropping it is
harvest time for this corrupt administration which believes justice is
due for everyone but itself and will do everything in its power to avoid reaping the consequences for which it has sown.
Susan Stamper Brown's weekly column is nationally syndicated. She can be
reached at writestamper@gmail.com or via her website at
susan@susanstamperbrown.com. Her Facebook page can be found here
The Associated Press learned abruptly this week what the tea party and
American Catholics learned many months ago. The Obama administration
has no respect for freedom.
The AP reported Monday that the Justice Department seized records that "listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers" of AP reporters using more than 20 separate telephone lines in April and May of last year.
Justice
did not tell AP why it sought these records. But Attorney General Eric
Holder made a statement on Tuesday that seemed to confirm
that the department did it as part of an investigation into who leaked
to AP some details of a 2012 CIA operation that targeted an al-Qaida
plot to blow up an airliner.
Even that, however, would not explain why Justice indiscriminately targeted so many phones used by so many reporters.
"There
can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of
the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,"
AP President Gary Pruitt said in a letter to Holder. "These records
potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all
of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month
period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations and
disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the
government has no conceivable right to know."
Justice, which is supposed to protect the rights of Americans, trampled on them here.
"Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances,"
says the First Amendment.
"The right of the people to be secure
in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated," says the Fourth
Amendment, "and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
When
and how did the administration establish there was probable cause to
seize the records of more than 20 different work and personal phone
numbers used by AP reporters? How can such a bold assault on the Fourth
Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches not also be an
assault on the First Amendment right to freedom of the press?
Freedom of the press is and ought to be a check on government power.
Good reporters keep people in government honest by exposing things
that people in government are doing that they don't want the public to
know about. If the government can covertly seize the phone records of
one of the nation's largest and most influential news organizations,
how can that not have an intimidating effect on those honest people
still in government who want to tell the truth to the taxpayers who pay
their salaries by delivering facts to diligent reporters?
Or was that the very purpose of the Justice Department's move on The Associated Press? People who paid close attention to this administration knew from the outset it did not respect freedom of the press.
When
the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission first came
before the Supreme Court in 2009, then-Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm
Stewart argued that if a corporation published a book in an election
year that included an argument for voting against a particular
candidate, "we could prohibit the publication of the book using
corporate treasury funds."
When the administration went back to
argue the case in the court a second time, then-Solicitor General Elena
Kagan said the administration had now decided it could not ban
"full-length books."
"What about a pamphlet?" Chief Justice John Roberts asked his future colleague.
"I think a pamphlet would be different," said Kagan.
Then,
Roberts stood on the side of liberty. "The government urges us in this
case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech," he wrote in a
concurring opinion. "It asks us to embrace a theory of the First
Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio
broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet and virtually any
other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in
expressing their views on matters of public concern."
Days before
the AP reported the Justice Department had seized its phone records,
Lois Lerner, head of the Internal Revenue Services Exempt Organizations
division, admitted that the IRS had specifically targeted for
heightened scrutiny groups that used the words "tea party" or "patriot"
in their applications for tax exempt status.
Tea party groups
had publicly complained more than a year earlier about the IRS
harassment, and Mark Levin's Landmark Legal Foundation had written to
the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, asking for an
investigation. Lerner's admission only came as TIGTA was preparing to
release a report on the matter.
Obama ended last week issuing a
proclamation for "National Women's Health Week." Here he took credit
for the "preventive services" regulation his administration issued
under Obamacare that will force virtually all health care plans to
cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.
He
did this even though dozens of Catholic and Evangelical Christian
schools, nonprofits and business owners are suing the administration,
arguing the regulation forces them to act against their faith and thus
violates their right to free exercise of religion.
He did it
even though America's Catholic bishops unanimously declared the
regulation unjust and illegal — and many have boldly said they cannot
and will not obey it.
Would an administration where the IRS
targets tea party groups, and where the Justice Department sweepingly
seizes the phone records of The Associated Press, put Catholic bishops
in jail for holding true to the ancient and unchangeable teachings of
their faith?
Maybe even The Associated Press will now think about pressing that question with our president.
Washington, DC – We all know about the notorious Obama “Kill List.”
CIA Director John Brennan proudly told us about that last year when he
described how the O-Team decides which Americans should be executed by
Hellfire Missile fired from remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs). Why hasn’t
the White House used this capability to “take out” those who killed our
diplomats in Benghazi, Libya last year?
Clip and save this column. Herein are some important events, names,
places – facts your children and grandchildren will need to know about
these perilous times:
Tuesday, September 11, 2012, Benghazi, Libya. The U.S. consulate and a
diplomatic annex in this city on the Mediterranean coast are assaulted
and destroyed by radical Islamic terrorists. Four American citizens:
U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith
and two former Navy SEALS, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, are killed
during two attacks over a seven-hour period. Officials in Washington
take no action to stop the attacks or save lives.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012. The President, standing beside
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, describes what happened in
Benghazi as “an outrageous attack” and promises, “We will not waiver in
our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And
make no mistake, justice will be done.” For weeks thereafter, White
House officials, the Secretary of State and lesser government
functionaries, reiterate Obama’s claim the attack was fomented by a
crude anti-Muslim video posted on the Internet. It’s not true.
Thursday, October 4, 2012. Thirty-two days before the presidential
election, and desperate to preserve the fiction that “al Qaeda is on the
ropes” because “Osama bin Laden is dead,” the State Department
announces formation of an “Accountability Review
Board” (ARB) headed by former U.S. Ambassador Tom Pickering and a
recently retired Joint Chiefs Chairman. Though the Reagan White House
provided Pickering with extraordinary additional security when he was
threatened by terrorists in El Salvador, the ARB report, delivered on
December 20, 2012, found “mid-level State Department officials” were
responsible for security lapses in Benghazi.
Wednesday, Jan 23, 2013. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies
under oath before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In response
to questions posed by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) about who attacked the
U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi and why, she explodes: “What
difference at this point does it make?”
Wednesday, May 8, 2013, three brave men testify before the House
Government Reform Committee about the lies, misfeasance, and
incompetence in the Obama administration’s handling of the jihadist
attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi. Gregory N. Hicks,
deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya, the
highest-ranking American diplomat in the country during the attacks;
Mark I. Thompson, a former U.S. Marine and operations coordinator for
the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau; and Eric Nordstrom,
formerly the senior diplomatic security officer
in Libya, all testify about what really happened on 9-11-12. To avail
themselves of legal protections against retribution, all three claim
status as “whistleblowers.”
Their testimony indicts the President, the Secretary of State and
Administration minions of incompetence and lying to the public about
what happened before, during and after the Benghazi attacks. Supporters
of the Obama regime describe the three as “politically motivated” and
claim there is “nothing new” in what they said. That’s not true either.
Herewith, a few important facts we now know thanks to the courage of
these three men:
Though radical Islamists routinely use “anniversaries” to motivate
adherents to violence, the Obama administration did absolutely nothing
to anticipate such a possibility by pre-positioning quick-reaction
military forces in the Middle East prior to the 9-11-12 attacks. Worse,
instead of granting Ambassador Stevens’ repeated requests for additional
security assets, the O-Team actually reduced U.S. security personnel in
Libya. This abysmal failure reflects, inter alia, a near total deficit
of human intelligence (HUMINT). The Ambassador and three other Americans
paid for this misfeasance with their lives.
In the midst of the deadly attacks in Benghazi, bureaucratic inertia
and infighting in Washington prevented any response which might have
saved lives. In the aftermath, the Obama administration insulted the
Libyan government by refuting their assertion that the perpetrators were
radical Islamists. The result: more than two weeks before FBI agents
could visit “the scene of the crime.”
Since 9-11-12, the Benghazi terror attack has been probed by five
separate committees of Congress. The State Department’s ARB is at best a
whitewash. Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) and more than 140 of his
colleagues have called for a bi-partisan select committee of both houses
to fully investigate the matter. Senators John McCain and Lindsey
Graham support the proposal. It’s time – unless Congress wants to
participate in a cover up.
