Rice’s Real Benghazi Mission
Bill Siegel is the author of The Control Factor published by Hamilton Books.
http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/rices-real-benghazi-mission/
Five days after the terrorist attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans at our “mission” (falsely called a “consulate”) in Benghazi, Libya, Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the UN, appeared on five national Sunday morning shows and repeated the fiction that an anti-Islam video inspired what she called a “spontaneous attack.” Recently, she blamed the intelligence community for providing her with invalid talking points when “there was no protest or demonstration in Benghazi.” Blaming the video has been described as a “cover-up” of the fact that terrorism and al-Qaeda are very much alive, contrary to President Obama’s campaign posture. Rice also has been attacked for being the “wrong person” to defend the White House response. The current criticism of her from key Senators such as John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Kelly Ayotte and others in and out of government focuses on whether she deliberately lied to the American people and whether that disqualifies her to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. While that criticism is legitimate, it misses the central point.
Put aside that an Obama compliant press is failing to examine other reasons for a cover-up such as reports that Stevens was in Benghazi to oversee a gun-running operation with al Qaeda linked terrorists both in Libya as well as Syria. Never to let a good crisis to go to waste, blaming the video was not a random press release dumped on Rice to mouth out loud. It not only shifted responsibility for the murders away from terrorists; it encapsulates a critical aspect of the ideology that Rice, along with Clinton, have been advancing at the UN. If the public battle over Rice centers on her presumed irresponsible use of information obtained from intelligence sources, she will win. Failure to grasp what an ideologue Rice has been will make a mockery of any Senate confirmation hearings to be held.
Rice was precisely the right person for the task. She has been a strong advocate for UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 which was co-sponsored in 2011 by none other than Clinton. Entitled “Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence, and violence against persons based on religion or belief,” it is the latest iteration of long term efforts by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the largest Islamic body in the world and largest–if not controlling–voting bloc in the UN General Assembly toward criminalizing any speech that is critical of Islam or the Prophet Mohammad. As seen throughout the Islamic world, forbidding such criticism through blasphemy laws and otherwise is fundamental to establishing and maintaining Islamic control. This aspect of the OIC’s 2005 Ten Year Program of Action is also fully consistent with the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Civilization Jihad” for transforming the US from within. The Brotherhood, through purported hundreds of meetings in and outside of the White House, has had a profound impact on the Obama administration’s policies.