http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/novelists-view-world/2013/may/9/somethings-rotten-cleveland-and-boston-and-benghaz/ WASHINGTON, May 9, 2013 – They should have been arrested 10 years ago for being so ugly. Neighbors should have been suspicious for that reason alone. Instead, Ariel Castro was given all the time he needed, 10 years, to abduct and torture those three Cleveland women, plus a child that came along through rape, […]
http://www.prudenpolitics.com/newsletter?utm_source=P&P%20Auto%201&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=7182
“This is a very different White House than any the country ever had before. We’ve left Americans to die before, when there was no alternative. The defenders at Wake Island and Corregidor were left to the tender mercies of the enemy, but no president before this one left Americans to die, begging for help, just to save an election. Benghazi was a brutal betrayal, writ large with the blood of innocents. The perfidy of the guilty, including any someone who may be dreaming up a campaign for 2016, won’t be forgotten.”
The Benghazi hearings have come and gone, and Barack Obama and the Democrats turn now to stuffing charge and countercharge down the memory hole. The lies the president and his men and (mostly) women told in the days after the great betrayal must be swept from sight. Can’t everybody shut up?
The Democrats are getting the usual help from the correspondents and pundits who haven’t recovered from the bite of the tsetse fly. They don’t want to be awakened until it’s all over and it’s safe to go on to more exciting things, like budget hearings, elections in Lower Slobbovia and the environmental whine of the day. The New York Times reduced the Benghazi hearings to an antiseptic blip for the personnel file with its headline: “Envoy Testifies/Libya Questions/Led to Demotion.” A demotion is not what Benghazi is about, as the man demoted would agree.
The Benghazi panel set out to ask big questions, one still unanswered and one with an answer now clear enough. The first was why the diplomatic post in Benghazi was allowed to be an unguarded fort among hostile Apaches, the second was why the Obama administration was so persistent with its lies in the days after the attack.
Jay Carney, the president’s press agent, repeated the official White House view Wednesday that it’s all “politics.” Which of course it is, but not in the way Mr. Carney wants everyone to think it is. “Politics” is to Washington what “sex” is to a bordello; what would you expect to find in either place? Benghazi is not politics, but criminal incompetence and worse.
The House hearings on Wednesday produced no smoking gun, to employ another popular capital cliché, but added heartbreaking detail to the astonishing story of a smoking consulate and how the lives of an American diplomat and three of his colleagues were weighed by a cynical White House against the requirements of a close-fought presidential campaign. The ambassador and his men lost. Once lost, an ambassador can be replaced. The State Department is full of replacements. A political campaign once lost is done and gone.
Gregory Hicks, the No. 2 man in the American embassy in Tripoli, gave riveting detail – some of the sleepy journalists finally forced to cover the story were riveted awake – about how the ambassador was left twisting slowly, slowly in the poisonous smoke of the burning consulate. American special operations teams were enraged when they were told they couldn’t fly to the rescue. It was too far, senior officials said, and the rescuers would get there too late. There was no point in trying; the embassy would send an inspection team after breakfast the following morning.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0513/glick051013.php3 What “respectable” organizations — including Jewish ones — and the international media are trying their hardest to cover up In 2010, Cpl. Eleanor Joseph became the first female Arab combat soldier in the Israel Defense Force. Joseph, a Christian Arab told Israel’s daily Ma’ariv that her good luck charm is a drawing of […]
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2501/Living-in-McCainWorld.aspx
The Washington Free Beacon reports (h/t John Rosenthal):
Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) called the idea that the U.S. could not arm the right rebels in Syria to fight Bashir al-Assad “damned foolishness” in an interview with Charlie Rose Tuesday.
McCain has pushed for establishing a safe zone and supplying rebel forces with necessary weaponry.
He was especially frustrated with Gen. James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, and Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two administration officials who once favored arming rebels but said they were skeptical because of growing Islamist influence.
“Well, doesn’t that mean it was a terrible tragic failure that we didn’t act then and get these weapons to the right people then?” McCain asked. “And of course it’s damned foolishness. Of course we can get the weapons to the right people. Of course if we set up a Benghazi in Syria, we can get them to the right people.”
The gulf, the chasm between John McCain and Reality must now be measured in light years.
He still thinks — not “thinks” — he remains captured by the fiction that the “rebels” in Benghazi are inspired by the Spirit of ’76, not the Koran. He remains captured by the fiction that “rebels” in Benghazi are pro-American, not late of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the Other Side. He remains captured by the fiction that Benghazi, that Libya, that “Arab Spring” are part of a freedom-on-the-march victories for the United States, if not also for some fuzzy conception of “humanity” itself. He is blind to this cycle of jihad we are all living through.
Why?
One answer may be found in the statement McCain released immediately after the 9/11/12 attack on the US compound in Benghazi — the same attack that “whistleblowers” now, finally, but too late, promise to address by disputing some of the many lies the Obama administration told about its decision to withhold, first, military assistance from besieged Americans, then, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from the American people. This is the rat that Mitt Romney smelled immediately and then decided to ignore, thereby ensuring his defeat at the polls. The rat that the media, with few exceptions, did everything it could to tame and then ignore. This is the rat I cynically doubt that hearings this week will really corner and trap — but I hope I’m wrong.
Sens. McCain, Lieberman and Graham released the following statement, which I blogged at the time here.
We are anguished and outraged by the death of four citizens of the United States, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, during an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. Our thoughts and prayers go out to their families.
Chris was one of America’s finest and bravest diplomats, and also someone we considered a friend. In the midst of last year’s uprising in Libya, Chris traveled at great personal risk to Benghazi to represent the country he loved as the U.S. envoy to the Libyan opposition. He advanced American interests and values in Libya and stood with the Libyan people throughout their struggle for freedom and during the challenging times that followed.
Unless American interests are Al Qaeda interests, Stevens did no such thing. A seismic shift in US policy came about in Libya, supported, maybe led by Chris Stevens who had come to believe that overthrowing Qaddafi was the way to tame the jihadists. He and the Obama administration that enacted this policy were wrong. This will not come out in hearings, either.
His death at the hands of extremists is a tragic and awful loss for the people of both the United States and Libya.
Stevens’ death was at the hands of the “Libyan opposition” he served as US envoy to. This won’t come out in the hearings, either.
There is still much we do not know about what happened in Benghazi yesterday.
Such as: What was Stevens doing in Benghazi on 9/11/12? What was the CIA doing in Benghazi the rest of the time? Running guns to John McCain’s “rebels” in Syria? This, I’m afraid, won’t come out in hearings, either.
What is clear, however, is that the attackers must be apprehended and punished. …
To date, the only person punished for the attack is Nakoula Bassely Nakoula, producer of “Innocence of Muslims.” His prison sentence is a sacrifice to the Islamic world under Islamic blasphemy law. This won’t come out in hearings, either.
Now this:
Yesterday’s attack is a tragic and terrible reminder that – despite the hopes of the Arab Spring – the forces of violent extremism in the Middle East are far from defeated, and that the revolutions inspired by millions of people who dream of freedom and democracy can still be hijacked by small groups of violent extremists who are eager to kill to advance their evil ideology.
It’s called Islam and, as the history of jihad tells us (and redundantly so), this is exactly what it looks like on the march. It’s also very popular with Muslims, That won’t come out in the hearings either, now or at Doomesday.
Now for McCain’s major head case:
Despite this horrific attack, we cannot give in to the temptation to believe that our support for the democratic aspirations of people in Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere in the broader Middle East is naive or mistaken.
Translation: “temptation to believe” = evidence. McCain cannot “give in” to the evidence that contradicts his utopian visions.
We cannot resign ourselves to the false belief that the Arab Spring is doomed to be defined not by the desire for democracy and freedom that has inspired millions of people to peaceful action, but by the dark fanaticism of terrorists.
Similarly, “false belief” = fact. Team McCain — which includes the multitude of boosters of “Arab Spring” — cannot resign themselves to the fact that “Arab Spring” will be defined by Islam, as the driver of Islamic law, Islamic jihad, and, someday, jihad, or jihads over where the capital of the Islamic caliphate will be.
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2502/US-Religious-Freedom-Commission-Wont-Touch-Sharia.aspx
This week’s article for Dispatch International:
“US Religious Commission Won’t Touch Sharia”
But is keen to revile Western countries trying to defend against Islamic law
WASHINGTON DC. Fifteen years ago, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom opened shop with a mandate from Congress to examine the state of religious freedom around the world, and issue an annual report to the President. The idea was to provide the information necessary for the U.S. government to make religious freedom a greater factor in foreign-policy-making by highlighting the world’s worst offenders. Such offenders run, as the commission’s 2013 religious freedom report tells us, from Saudi Arabia to China to Russia to Sudan to Iran to Western Europe.
Western Europe?
The 2013 report marks the first time that the region of Western Europe has made the commission’s official watch list. It doesn’t debut as a “tier-one” offender, or even “tier two”. Western Europe, however, is listed in the commission’s third category of concern along with Bahrain, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Turkey and Venezuela as a “monitored” region.
Not that the commission can claim much influence on U.S. foreign policy. After all, of the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid – Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan and Egypt – four out of the five make the commission’s religious freedom watch list, with Iraq, Pakistan and Egypt ranking as top-tier offenders. Afghanistan is deemed a second-tier offender. Israel, meanwhile, is not on the list of offenders at all. It is also the only non-Islamic nation of the five. Coincidence
As far as the U.S. religious freedom commission goes, yes, absolutely. In cataloguing all manner of religious totalitarianism of mainly Islamic and Communist (or post-Communist) varieties, the commission fails utterly to connect the repressive, punitive laws of the Islamic nations to their direct sources in Islam. For example, the commission’s report tells us that Iraqis have “regulations” barring Muslims from “converting to another religion”. Similarly, in Sudan, it is “Article 126 of the 1991 Criminal Act” that defines leaving Islam as a capital offense. Neither of these statements are untrue, but the original source of both laws is in the sharia – Islamic apostasy law.
Such connections elude the commission’s report. It is “the Iranian justice system”, for example, that fails to grant Iranian women the same legal status as men, as when Iranian courts weigh a man’s testimony as “equivalent to testimony by two women”. Again, this statement isn’t untrue, but this example of male supremacism is a direct expression of sharia in the Iranian justice system. When it comes to Pakistan, the report explains that “Article 295, Section B” makes defiling the Koran punishable by life imprisonment”; additionally, it is “under Section C of the same article [that] remarks found to be derogatory against Prophet Mohammed carry the death penalty.” What the report doesn’t make clear is that the source of all such repressive legislation is, again, Islamic apostasy laws, pure and simple. These laws from the sharia represent the life-and-death powers of the Islamic religious state.
This should be of central relevance to any religious freedom commission. However, the direct connections between Islamic law and religious-based repression are lacking throughout the 371-page U.S. report. Even when the commission catalogues manifestations of this religion-based repression, it never links them to mainstream Islam or classical sharia. Rather, it is always an “extreme” or “restrictive” or “local” variant of Islam or sharia that is to blame. This disconnect leads directly to the commission’s decision to “monitor” Western Europe.
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/05/09/nobody-died-in-watergate Fear and loathing on the Benghazi scandal trail. Three State Department whistleblowers’ congressional testimony was nearly forgotten yesterday amid the lies and half-truths coming out of the White House and its congressional cohorts. If White House press secretary Jay Carney were spinning any faster, he’d be mistaken for an Iranian uranium-enrichment centrifuge. The testimony […]
I MET HIM LAST NIGHT AND HE IS SERIOUS, CAPABLE, LOW KEY, INTELLIGENT AND READY TO LEAD THE BIG APPLE
http://joelhotaformayor.com/
Joe Lhota, a Republican candidate for Mayor of New York City, has held a unique balance of leadership positions in both the public and private sectors. He has successfully led complex organizations while consistently exceeding the delivery of mission critical results.
Joe was an integral part of Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s core management team. He was the City’s Budget Director in Mayor Giuliani’s first term and Deputy Mayor for Operations during the second term. In 2011 and 2012 Joe was Chairman and CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Prior to joining the Giuliani administration, Joe was an investment banker for 15 years. He was an acknowledged leader in public finance and assisted in the financing of infrastructure projects throughout the United States. Following the Giuliani administration, Joe held executive positions in the Cablevision Systems Corporation and the Madison Square Garden Company.
Joe is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Harvard Business School. He is a trustee of the City University of New York. He was born in the Bronx, a son of a New York City police lieutenant and the grandson of a New York City firefighter and taxi driver. Joe and his family live in Brooklyn.
IN LIGHT OF THE FACTS ON BENGHAZI…MITT ROMNEY WAS SABOTAGED BY CANDY CROWLY…
http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/terrorism/262421-obama-rebuts-romney-on-libya-with-help-from-the-debate-moderator
President Obama had the help of moderator Candy Crowley during Tuesday’s second presidential debate when rebutting an argument from Mitt Romney about his administration’s response to last month’s attack in Libya.
Romney and congressional Republicans for weeks have been lambasting the president for taking too long to qualify the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that left four Americans dead on Sept. 11 as a result of terrorism.
In response to a question about the assault, Obama said he had called it an “act of terror” during remarks the next day in the Rose Garden, and Crowley vouched for him.
Romney was visibly surprised by the president’s answer and appeared to believe he’d caught the president in a lie.
“You said in the Rose Garden, the day after the attack it was an act of terror? It was not a spontaneous demonstration? Is that what you’re saying?” Romney said. “I want to make sure we get that for the record, because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.”
“Get the transcript,” Obama replied.
Crowley then broke in, saying: “He did in fact, sir. So let me — let me call it an act of terror …”
“Can you say that a little louder, Candy?” Obama shouted.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/347811/difference-it-made
On Wednesday, Representative Darrell Issa’s House Oversight Committee convened the ninth round of hearings on the lethal September 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, a number of iterations made necessary by the administration’s manifold efforts to stall, stymie, and deflect the investigation. Testifying were Mark Thompson, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for operations, counterterrorism bureau; Eric Nordstrom, former State Department regional security officer for Libya; and Gregory Hicks, a foreign-service officer and former deputy chief of mission in Libya, who, after Ambassador Chris Stevens’s death that night, became America’s senior diplomat in country. Rightly identified as “whistleblowers,” the three men came forward at considerable professional risk because, as a choked-up Nordstrom testified in his opening remarks, “it matters” that we find out what happened before, during, and after the attacks that left four Americans dead.
Mr. Hicks began the hearing with a harrowing and moving account of the attacks as they unfolded, from his vantage point at the embassy in Tripoli. He spoke of a first wave of some 60 attackers inside American walls in Benghazi — driven out by a mere six Americans, but not before they could set the fire that likely killed Ambassador Stevens. He spoke of hearing of the recovery of the mortally wounded ambassador during a second wave of attacks, and of trying to decide whether to allow him to be taken to a hospital reportedly under the control of Ansar al-Sharia, the al-Qaeda-backed terrorist group he believed responsible for the assault. “We suspected we were being baited into a trap,” Hicks testified, “and we did not want to send our people into an ambush.”
The jihadists launched yet another assault on the U.S. compound, this time killing two Americans with mortar fire. Hicks spoke with emotion of the heroism of the few left standing to fight: a Special Forces operative climbing down a ladder with a badly injured man literally strapped to his back; clerical workers smashing hard drives with axes while others loaded up magazines with ammunition in preparation for evacuation.
Later, Hicks testified, he asked military commanders to send a Special Forces attachment led by one Lieutenant Colonel Gibson back to Benghazi, but was denied by the brass at U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM):
People in Benghazi had been fighting all night. They were tired. They were exhausted. We wanted to make sure the airport was secure for their withdrawal. As he and his three personnel were getting in the cars, he stopped, they called them off. He said that he had not been authorized to go.
Lieutenant Colonel Gibson was furious. I had told him to bring our people home. That is what he wanted to do.
Hicks quoted Gibson as saying then that it was the only time in his career he saw a diplomat have “more balls” than the United States military.
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/
America is becoming a more tolerant nation, we are told. Each new thing that we learn to tolerate makes us more progressive. But tolerance is a relative thing. For every new thing we learn to tolerate, there is a thing that we must stop tolerating.
Tolerance does not usher in some tolerant anarchy in which we learn to tolerate all things. Rather tolerance is a finite substance. It can only be allocated to so many places. While a society changes, human beings do not fundamentally change. They remain creatures of habit, bound to the poles of things that they like and dislike, the people that they look up to and look down on.
The balance of tolerance and intolerance always remains the same no matter how progressive a society becomes. A tolerant society allocates its intolerance differently. There is no such thing as a universally tolerant society. Only a society that tolerates different things. A tolerant society does not cease being bigoted. It is bigoted in different ways.
America today tolerates different things. It tolerates little boys dressing up as little girls at school, but not little boys pointing pencils and making machine gun noises on the playground.
The little boy whose mother dressed him up in girlish clothes once used to be a figure of contempt while the little boy pretending to be a marine was the future of the nation. Now the boy in the dress is the future of the nation having joined an identity group and entirely new gender by virtue of his mother’s Münchausen-syndrome-by-proxy and the aspiring little marine is suspected of one day trading in his sharpened pencil for one of those weapons of war as soon as the next gun show comes to town.
