The Axis Behind Benghazi by CAPTAIN GARY HARRINGTON, U.S. NAVY (RET)
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-axis-behind-benghazi?f=puball
There is now a burgeoning cornucopia of common sense revelations concerning the administration’s Benghazi cover up. Despite a new lucidity flowing from the drip, dripping deck chairs of deception and correctness, reporters have yet to define the iceberg clearly: I’m convinced it is an unholy civil union of political Islamists and U.S. transnational progressives. One party delivers, the other obfuscates and mollifies foreign and domestic violence.
There is a common thread linking the ever-lengthening list of Islamist outrages. That thread runs from Wahhabi economic jihad yesterday to diplomatic jihad today. In between, strategies of ideological, political, intelligence, and subversive jihad flowered. The seed corn of petro dollars poured into our intellectual centers years ago. Today, the Islamists’ bitter fruits are too numerous to count. CAIR-Ikhwan friendly advisors work closely with our highest defense, military and intelligence officials, and former Bush career Flag officers purge all references to Islamists from the training of our splendid young warriors. In 2005, a Middle East scholar artfully identified, weaved and published these troubling threads in his book, “Future Jihad – Terrorist Strategies Against America” (See chapter 9, page 137 for a quick overview).
I suspect the “Mother of All Answers” must be to this question: “If transnational progressive security policies are good for America’s defense, why won’t their champions explain and defend them in the public square as they apply to the goals of Salafist Jihadists?” Recent U.S. policies seem to have had a worsening effect in precisely those countries where there has been an administration push.
The Administration’s obfuscation of the identity, threats and motivating ideology among Al Qaeda, its affiliates, and the Muslim Brotherhood appears to manifest itself in a hyper tolerance of serial failures at CIA, FBI, DOD, and Homeland Defense. What’s wrong with this picture? I suspect the earnest people in those offices labor with half their brains tied behind their backs.
It is a cliché that epic journeys begin modestly. On a bitterly frigid night in 1947, our Ambassador to Moscow did something earthshaking. He picked up a pen and wrote the “Long Telegram” to Truman. In that once secret document, George Kennan described, in riveting terms, the nature and goals of the emerging Soviet Empire. His illumination of the new threat was so brutally honest that it forged the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan to halt and reverse the spread of Soviet totalitarianism in Europe.
Here’s the thing that connects those dusty dots to this morning’s headlines: You can read that famous, 60-year-old document on the web by simply Googling “Long Telegram.” If you substitute the words “radical Islamist” or Al Qaeda or “Salafist” for the word “Soviet”, the telegram comes alive with contemporary menace and utility for sensible policy makers. What’s so gobsmacking is that the Muslim Brotherhood’s goals, set down by Mr. Sayyid Qtub, are there to see for anyone who has a library card. Where in the world is our George Kennan? Will his or her Word doc or Power Point presentation ever signal the end of the beginning in our longest national nightmare?
Having reflected on events from the hanging of Colonel Higgins to Ambassador Stevens’ murder – and all the rest – I’m never going to write an epic, 6 volume ‘History of Global Jihadi Strategies in the 20th Century and Beyond’. I will leave that to a bright young Muslim Gibbons, who will have lived and fought, and God help us, prevailed amid the toxic, intolerant, takfiri ideas of the new totalitarians.
Someday, an author will sit down on a bitterly cold night and reprise the short phrases Winston Churchill used to preface and ‘theme’ each volume of his “The Second World War”. Here are those themes from each dusty volume with very small, or no, adjustments:
Volume 1: How tolerant pluralists through their unwisdom, carelessness and good nature allowed the wicked to arm
Volume 2: How a tiny brave lot held the fort alone until those who hitherto had been half blind were half ready
Volume 3: How Americans fought on with hardship their garment until Arab League pluralists and other stakeholders were drawn into the great conflict
Volume 4: How the power of the Grand Alliance became preponderant
Volume 5: How Salafi and Khumeinist totalitarianism were isolated and assailed from all sides
Volume 6: How the great democracies triumphed, and so were able to resume the follies which had so nearly cost them their lives
Initially, I thought a Pulitzer awaits the reporters who first and best decipher the overarching strategic motives behind the Benghazi deception – perhaps using Phares’ model. Now, I’m not confident a Pulitzer is right. Perhaps a Medal of Honor equivalent is more proper. Journalists are just passing mile marker 1 in the most consequential Post Benghazi/Boston marathon. They should pace themselves, but pick up it up a bit.
I’ll close with a quote from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense: “These proceedings may at first seem strange and difficult, but like all other steps which we have already passed over, will in a little time become familiar and agreeable; and until an independence is declared, the Continent will feel itself like a man who continues putting off some unpleasant business from day to day, yet knows it must be done, hates to set about it, wishes it over, and is continually haunted with the thoughts of its necessity.”
Captain Gary Harrington, U.S. Navy Retired in 1996 after 34 years service with DSSM, LOM, DMSM,MSM,NCM,NAM. Served at Pentagon and in London, Naples, Norway, Tampa, Atlanta, Israel, Vietnam, Turkey, San Diego, Long Beach, Boston, Hawaii, Japan and the Republic of China. Captain Harrington specializes in “War of Ideas Strategies” with a focus on detecting Jihadi narrative. He has served as an assistant to Dr. Walid Phares, advisor to the US Congress and the European Parliament.
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