http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/11/why_it_should_always_be_called_hamas-cair.html Last Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear appeals from the Holy Land Five: five former officials of what was once the largest Islamic charity in the United States, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), who were convicted of funneling millions in charitable donations to the jihad terror group Hamas. That effectively ends the story […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/why_obama_chose_to_let_them_die_in_benghazi.html
The burning question is why Obama didn’t give orders to defend our consulate and American lives in Benghazi. The answer is becoming clearer each time President Obama and Secretary of Defense Panetta issue a denial or explanation of their inaction.
To the president’s surprise, he chanced on an honest reporter during a local interview on the campaign trail in Denver. On October 26, for the first time, Obama was asked directly about the explosive reports on CBS and Fox News, a week earlier, that the CIA and our military denied direct requests for help by the Americans fighting for their lives during the seven-hour battle in Benghazi.
Denver TV’s Kyle Clark twice tried to pin Obama down by asking the key question: “Were they denied requests for help during the attack?”
Obama’s answer is the proof of his guilt, and it gives us a clue as to the doctrine informing his decision to do nothing. The most damaging part of Obama’s evasive answer is this:
… the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. … I guarantee you that everyone in the state department, our military, the CIA, you name it, had number-one priority making sure that people were safe.
This is the blatant lie that condemns the liar. The president says here that immediately, “the minute I found out what was happening,” he gave the order to the military, the CIA, to everyone, to secure our personnel in Benghazi and do “whatever we need to.”
Yet the undeniable fact is that nothing was done. We know that the CIA security agent in Benghazi, Tyrone Woods, asked for permission to rescue Ambassador Stevens when Stevens was still alive and in the safe room. Woods was told twice by the CIA to stand down. He then disobeyed direct orders and rescued the survivors at the consulate, but it was too late for Stevens and Sean Smith.
Secretary of Defense Panetta tells us the military had gunships and Special Forces less than two hours away in Sicily but felt it was too “risky” to send in reinforcements or air cover. It would have been normal military procedure to pre-position air cover and assets from Sicily to Benghazi, but Panetta says this was not done. The air support and FAST platoons, we are told, were left in Sicily. All the U.S. military did was send two unarmed drones to observe the battle.
So if President Obama is not lying about his directives, he is saying that the CIA and the Defense Department and our military chain of command disobeyed the direct order of our commander in chief to do everything in their power to rescue our people under attack in Benghazi. And that as commander in chief, Obama did nothing in response to their dereliction of duty.
That doesn’t happen. No one believes that; the president is lying. He did not issue directives to the CIA, our military, and State to “secure our personnel” and “do whatever we need to do.”
We know it was not the CIA on its own that made the decision to abandon Ambassador Stevens and the eight others with him in the consulate. The CIA say they did not advise anyone in the administration to deny help to the Americans in Benghazi. A CIA spokesman on October 27 issued this statement:
No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate.
General Carter F. Ham, the combatant commander of Africa Command (AFRICOM), says he was never asked to send help.
Congressman Jason Chaffetz, Utah Republican, said that General Ham told him during a visit to Libya that he had never been asked to provide military support for the Americans under attack in Benghazi.
On October 18, General Ham resigned.
Panetta explained why no help was sent on October 26, the same day Obama was telling the Denver reporter he had ordered the military to do “whatever we need to.”
Panetta admitted we did nothing. He says the military had the readiness and capability to help. He says the military responded quickly and deployed forces close to Benghazi, ready and capable of responding “to any contingency.”
We quickly responded, as General Dempsey said, in terms of deploying forces to the region. We had FAST platoons in the region. We had ships that we had deployed off of Libya. We were prepared to respond to any contingency and certainly had forces in place to do that.
Panetta then tells us why the forces were never deployed. He says the top leadership of our military didn’t want to send reinforcements, even air support, into harm’s way. It was too risky. Panetta does not indicate that he knew of Obama’s supposed directives to do “whatever we need to” to save the Americans trapped in the 9/11 attack.
“[The] basic principle is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on; without having some real-time information about what’s taking place,” Panetta told Pentagon reporters. “And as a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, Gen. Ham, Gen. Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation.
Note that General Ham had already told Congressman Chaffetz he was never asked to provide military support.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204846304578092832332179210.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion Let’s play connect-the-dots! Here’s our favorite children’s book, the New York Times op-ed page. “Along with eight million others, the Kristofs have lost power,” writes patriarch Nicholas, “so I’ve been sending Twitter messages on my iPhone by candlelight.” Not to mention phoning it in. Can anything be more predictable than a Kristof column after […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/sixty_percent_of_us_muslims_reject_freedom_of_expression.html After violent Muslim reactions to the amateurish “Innocence of Muslims” video, which simply depicted a few of the less salutary aspects of Muhammad’s biography, international and domestic Islamic agendas have openly converged with vehement calls for universal application of Islamic blasphemy law. This demand to abrogate Western freedom of expression was reiterated in a […]
http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/ In his latest article (which is entitled “Palestine: Falk’s Failed Philosophy Guarantees Continuing Conflict”), Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer offers a searing criticism of Professor Falk’s attitude, and maintains that it is time for the professor to forsake his UN post. ‘Professor Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation […]
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1955/daily_telegraph_runs_shameful_anti_israel_propaganda_piece
The point about propaganda is that is has to be convincing. Nabeel Shaath’s piece is total rubbish from beginning to end
“Oh, and by the way. I forgot to mention that the Telegraph’s writer is a Palestinian “moderate”. God help Israel if they ever bump into any Palestinian extremists. Oh, wait…”
If I were to write a point by point refutation of former PLO foreign minister Nabeel Shaath’s screed in today’s Telegraph I’d be here all day.
Suffice it to say that it’s the standard Palestinian cocktail of falsehoods, half-truths and omissions; the Palestinian victim complex in all its shabby dishonesty. But let me just focus on two key elements which tell you everything you need to know about the real reason that, after all these decades, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians endures.
Shaath’s piece sets out to persuade Britain that it should back a forthcoming Palestinian bid to get some sort of recognition as a state at the United Nations. The whole exercise is a classic piece of Palestinian subterfuge so they can avoid direct talks with Israel. But Shaath’s aim in his piece is to give Britain a good telling off for trying to discourage the Palestinians from adopting such a course of action. On the contrary, we should be right behind them.
He says: “It is unacceptable that today, 65 years after the partition of Palestine, the UK has recognised the state of Israel but not the state of Palestine…. For a country with the historic responsibility that the UK carries towards Palestine, a victim of British colonialism, this should be the least we can expect in order to repair decades of occupation and exile.”
Who does this guy think he is in admonishing British foreign policy as “unacceptable”?
And, more importantly, when will the Palestinians ever start telling the truth about their own past? On November 29, 1947 they were offered a Palestinian state under the UN partition plan passed by the General Assembly. They rejected it and opted for war and violence, while the Jewish/Israeli side accepted it.
Typical of Shaath’s writing are sentences like this in which he refers to the, “Palestinian catastrophe of 1948, during which approximately two thirds of the Palestinian people, Christians and Muslims, were expelled to become refugees…”
http://pjmedia.com/blog/on-the-brink-50-year-anniversary-of-the-cuban-missile-crisis/ Fifty years ago this past week, the world watched transfixed as the United States and Soviet Union edged to the brink of war and what could have been a nuclear Armageddon. The cause was the U.S. discovery on October 16, 1962, of the installation of Soviet missiles in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Yet the two […]
http://newmediajournal.us/indx.php/item/7348 The moment is fast approaching when you will be asked to cast your vote in the 2012 Presidential Election. And while most people don’t understand that the American electorate, in fact, elects “Electors” and not the President of the United States, the act of electing the Electors holds an equal weight and an equal […]
I’ve been fighting for women’s rights my whole career — in the United Nations and as Secretary of State — and in all those years, Deborah, I’ve never seen a Republican Party and Republican presidential ticket as extreme as this one.
Governor Romney is the standard-bearer of a party that doesn’t think women should have a voice in decisions affecting their bodies, their wages, or their rights.
And I am not willing to stand by and let the Republican leadership take the presidency — or Congress — and bring those beliefs with them. Today there are five days left until the election. We need to reach more voters with our message, and time’s running out for you to make a difference.
Please offer a donation of $5 or more to Democrats today.
Perhaps the Republican Party thinks that it’s better for women to have their decisions made for them.
I happen to think that women want to take care of themselves — and control their own bodies and personal health. Women deserve the ability to fight for a fair wage, and to speak out in support of legislation like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This shouldn’t be a lot to ask — aren’t we in the 21st century?
This year’s Republican Party doesn’t get that. If you listen to the Republicans, you might think our country’s most dangerous foe is Planned Parenthood.
I honestly can’t understand why any woman or, for that matter, any thoughtful man, would want to vote for Mitt Romney. Wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters would see their lives change for the worse if he’s elected president.
But the reality is that many women and men will vote for the Romney-Ryan ticket and Republicans.
So we need to get our message out there. We have five days to make sure President Obama and Democrats across the country can continue to make progress for all of us — and right now, they need our help more than ever.
Please — make a donation of $5 or more to help Democrats before time runs out:
https://my.democrats.org/Womens-Rights
Thank you,
Madeleine Albright
PAID FOR BY OBAMA VICTORY FUND 2012, A JOINT FUNDRAISING COMMITTEE AUTHORIZED BY OBAMA
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100021082/dont-cry-for-me-francois/ Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has covered world politics and economics for 30 years, based in Europe, the US, and Latin America. He joined the Telegraph in 1991, serving as Washington correspondent and later Europe correspondent in Brussels. He is now International Business Editor in London. French leader François Hollande is uncomfortably close to a collapse in […]
