Fast and Furious Benghazi Edition
A blockbuster news event happened earlier this week - one that ought to have caused outrage in all political quarters. One that ought to have made us question not only the Obama administration's competence, but also their motives. How else should we explain $500 million in arms that the United States facilitated to al-Qaeda linked groups in Libya? How else to explain the sudden shift in a decade and a half-long War on Terror from waging merciless war against the terrorist group that felled the Twin Towers and killed 3,000 Americans to becoming their sugar daddy on the shores of Tripoli?
On April 22nd, a group of retired intelligence professionals, generals and admirals called the Citizens' Commission on Benghazi strode to the microphones in front of members of the press to announce the results of their interim report. They interviewed informants and witnesses. They collected hundreds of documents. And their results were unequivocal: America blundered itself into a war of choice by allying with al-Qaeda.
And yet if you had been watching CNN or your network nightly news, you wouldn't have the faintest idea. If you were waiting for feckless Republicans on Capitol Hill to comment, let alone do something, you'd still be waiting.
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This is our upside-down world. A bipartisan code of silence has been struck between John Boehner and Barack Obama. Thousands of guns and weapons were handed over to the enemy, and now we are supposed to feign surprise and shock that the September 11th, 2012 attacks in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans were killed. It's still unclear who knew what when. But where are the voices calling for a permanent select committee with subpoena power to bring Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, John Brennan and the administration's top intelligence and diplomatic officials to account.
Surely one would think that if we agreed on anything, it would be that in the post 9/11 world al-Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates are our nation's enemies. But apparently not. Whether out of indifference or malice, the United States sided with al-Qaeda in Libya. It's as if the ATF set up a branch in Benghazi and started funneling guns to the enemy, much as they did with drug cartels along the Mexican border.
Another important nugget was buried in the Citizens' Commission on Benghazi report, and covered up by members of the media desperate for Hillary Clinton to run for the presidency, unscathed by trivial matters like Benghazi. The entire Libyan war could have been avoided. That's right. Moammar Gadhafi had offered to abdicate peacefully and turn over power, thus avoiding bloodshed and war.
A former admiral, Chuck Kubic was working those negotiations between the U.S. and Libyan military chains of command before he was told to step aside by Washington. Gadhafi wanted only two conditions to step down: permission to keep fighting al-Qaeda and the removal of sanctions against him. The Obama administration was uninterested in peace. They turned down the offer to broker a peaceful exit for the Libyan strongman. And thus months of bloodshed, culminating in the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, began.
Hillary Clinton would like us all to drop the B-word from our vocabulary. She and her spinmeisters have convinced the press to do exactly that. Reporters who have tried to cover it, reporters such as Lara Logan and Sharyl Attkisson, have been demoted and fired. Their senior editors have told them that Benghazi is old news. That it's a partisan agenda cooked up by Republicans to hurt Hillary. If that were true, why aren't more Republicans speaking up?
We need more truth. We need more people digging out the facts. Even If our elected leaders won't do it, even if our betters in the mainstream media won't do it, we must.
