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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Benghazigate</title>
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		<title>US Intel Knew in Real Time Benghazi Attack was Terrorism from Intercepted Phone Calls</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/us-intel-knew-in-real-time-benghazi-attack-was-terrorism-from-intercepted-phone-calls/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=us-intel-knew-in-real-time-benghazi-attack-was-terrorism-from-intercepted-phone-calls</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/us-intel-knew-in-real-time-benghazi-attack-was-terrorism-from-intercepted-phone-calls/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Jun 2014 23:35:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=233818</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[They knew and they lied. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><script type="text/javascript" src="http://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=3618248080001&#038;w=466&#038;h=263"></script><br />
<noscript>Watch the latest video at <a href="http://video.foxnews.com">video.foxnews.com</a></noscript>
<p>There was no failure of intelligence. There was no period in which anyone thought that it was a protest. They knew all along.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/11/cia-heard-benghazi-attackers-using-state-dept-cell-phones-to-call-terrorist/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29">They knew and they lied</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Eric Stahl, who recently retired as a major in the U.S. Air Force, served as commander and pilot of the C-17 aircraft that was used to transport the corpses of the four casualties from the Benghazi attacks – then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, information officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods – as well as the assault’s survivors from Tripoli to the safety of an American military base in Ramstein, Germany.</p>
<p>In an exclusive interview on Fox News’ “Special Report,” Stahl said members of a CIA-trained Global Response Staff who raced to the scene of the attacks were “confused” by the administration’s repeated implication of the video as a trigger for the attacks, because “they knew during the attack…who was doing the attacking.” Asked how, Stahl told anchor Bret Baier: “Right after they left the consulate in Benghazi and went to the [CIA] safehouse, they were getting reports that cell phones, consulate cell phones, were being used to make calls to the attackers&#8217; higher ups.”</p>
<p>A separate U.S. official, one with intimate details of the bloody events of that night, confirmed the major’s assertion. The second source, who requested anonymity to discuss classified data, told Fox News he had personally read the intelligence reports at the time that contained references to calls by terrorists – using State Department cell phones captured at the consulate during the battle – to their terrorist leaders. The second source also confirmed that the security teams on the ground received this intelligence in real time.</p></blockquote>
<p>If the teams knew, then Obama, Hillary and Rice knew. They were also determined to lie and mislead.</p>
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		<slash:comments>14</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>No, Hillary Won&#8217;t Turn Over her Benghazi Notes</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/no-hillary-wont-turn-over-her-benghazi-notes/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=no-hillary-wont-turn-over-her-benghazi-notes</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/no-hillary-wont-turn-over-her-benghazi-notes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Jun 2014 14:29:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hillary Clinton]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=233758</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Offering investigators your ghostwritten campaign book instead of your notes takes a special kind of nerve.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Hillary-Clinton_sham-1-512x341.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-233759" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Hillary-Clinton_sham-1-512x341-450x299.jpg" alt="Hillary-Clinton_sham-1-512x341" width="450" height="299" /></a></p>
<p>Some conservatives have high hopes for a Clinton diary or notes, but I doubt they would be nearly as incriminating as they expect.</p>
<p>Once everything began, she would most <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/hillary-clinton-doesnt-want-to-turn-over-her-benghazi-notes/">likely have kept a log of talking points and spin</a>. There would have been some mention of trying to calm Muslims and probably the targeting of the Innocence of Muslims filmmaker.</p>
<p>Hillary has had a long tutorial in scandal management. In a crisis, she would have been thinking of the impact on her future race. But that&#8217;s clearly what Obama and Co. were also thinking. Such notes might be revealing, but I wouldn&#8217;t count on ever seeing them. The genuinely damning stuff would have stayed in her head. Maybe twenty years from now some current friend will donate her notes of her talks with Hillary to some university and we&#8217;ll know a little more of what was going on in her head.</p>
<p>But really we already know. For over a decade, Hillary had been doing everything she could to get to the White House. Seeing Americans dying, her first thought and priority would have been an obsession with how the Republicans would use it to get her.</p>
<blockquote><p>Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she would be unwilling to turn over her notes on the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack in an interview shown Tuesday on NBC Nightly News.</p>
<p>CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: You write in great detail in the book about what was happening in Benghazi as it evolved. Did you keep a diary during your time?</p>
<p>HILLARY CLINTON: I kept a lot of notes.</p>
<p>MCFADDEN: If the committee wants your notes, would you turn those over?</p>
<p>CLINTON: They can read it in the book. Let’s see whether this is on the level or not because that really matters to me. I don’t want to be part of something which, in any way, politicizes or demeans the sacrifice that we saw happen there.</p></blockquote>
<p>Offering investigators your ghostwritten campaign book instead of your notes takes a special kind of nerve. It&#8217;s as if Nixon had tried to pawn off Watergate investigators with Six Crises, a book that has a certain resemblance to Hard Choices.</p>
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		<title>Ex-AFRICOM Brig. General: Military Should Have Responded to Benghazi Attack</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/ex-africom-brig-general-military-should-have-responded-to-benghazi-attack/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ex-africom-brig-general-military-should-have-responded-to-benghazi-attack</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/ex-africom-brig-general-military-should-have-responded-to-benghazi-attack/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2014 21:02:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=224586</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["We should have continued to move forward with whatever forces we had to move forward with."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><iframe width="520" height="293" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/rvnwd6zGQlc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<blockquote><p>General Lovell also served as the Deputy Commanding General of Joint Task Force ODYSSEY GUARD with the mission to plan for any potential United States military missions in Libya following the fall of the regime of Moammar Gadhafi. Joint Task Force ODYSSEY GUARD was instrumental in providing support to the Department of State as it reopened the United States Embassy in Tripoli.</p></blockquote>
<p>Parts of retired <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Lovell-Statement-5-1-Benghazi-Libya.pdf">Air Force Brigadier General Robert Lovell&#8217;s testimony are technical</a> having to do with AFRICOM, but he makes one very important point. The Obama side on the Benghazi side has repeatedly claimed that there wasn&#8217;t enough time to do anything. <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2014/05/01/usaf-general-we-should-have-tried-to-respond-to-benghazi-attack/">But that&#8217;s a retroactive argument</a>.</p>
<p>If you do nothing, then you&#8217;re rolling the dice that the enemy might finish off your people before you could have done something and <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/01/benghazi-testimony-africom-general/8554559/">then you have an excuse</a>.</p>
<p>Instead of a military response to Benghazi, Obama absurdly enough sent in the FBI.</p>
<blockquote><p>Lovell&#8217;s testimony is the first from a member of the military who was at Africa Command at the time of the attack. Lovell was deputy director for intelligence at Africa Command.</p>
<p>Lovell did not question the Pentagon claim that it could not have scrambled forces in the region quickly enough to have prevented the deaths of the Americans. Lovell said no one at the time of the attack knew how long it would go, so could not have determined then that there was no use in trying.</p>
<p>&#8220;As the attack was ongoing, it was unclear whether it was an attempted kidnapping, rescue, recovery, protracted hostile engagement or any or all of the above,&#8221; Lovell said.</p></blockquote>
<p>It&#8217;s not just about the timeline. It&#8217;s about the fact that Obama and Hillary refused to even try and that their response was to shift blame and send a scapegoat to prison for offending Muslims.</p>
<p>Cummings broke in with his buffoon act again.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Why are you testifying that the U.S. military did not try to save lives,&#8221; Cummings asked.</p>
<p>Lovell said he was not disputing that information.</p>
<p>&#8230;</p>
<p>&#8220;We should have continued to move forward with whatever forces we had to move forward with,&#8221; Lovell said.</p>
<p>He described a sense of desperation while attack unfolded when asked by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, how the military responded during the attack.</p>
<p>&#8220;We sent a drone overhead,&#8221; Lovell said, almost mumbling. &#8220;It was desperation&#8230;. There was a lot of waiting for State Department for what it was that they wanted.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Which means that it really came down to what Hillary wanted.</p>
<blockquote><p>“We didn’t know how long this would last when we became aware of the distress nor did we completely understand what we had in front of us, be it a kidnapping, rescue, recovery, protracted hostile engagement or any or all of the above,” Lovell said. “But what we did know quite early on was that this was a hostile action. This was no demonstration gone terribly awry.”</p></blockquote>
<p>But the lie had to be told anyway.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<slash:comments>11</slash:comments>
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		<title>Bipartisan Senate Panel: State Department Failed to Secure Benghazi Mission Despite Multiple Requests</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/bipartisan-senate-panel-state-department-failed-to-secure-benghazi-mission-despite-multiple-requests/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bipartisan-senate-panel-state-department-failed-to-secure-benghazi-mission-despite-multiple-requests</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/bipartisan-senate-panel-state-department-failed-to-secure-benghazi-mission-despite-multiple-requests/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 15 Jan 2014 17:38:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[state department]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=216521</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ambassador Stevens asked for a minimum of 13 security personnel. He got 3 ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Benghazi-attack.png"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-189242" alt="Benghazi-attack" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Benghazi-attack-450x337.png" width="450" height="337" /></a></p>
<p>Not really news. We knew all this from multiple cables and testimony by Hicks and Nordstrom, but<a href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/senate-intelligence-committee-report-on-benghazi-attack/748/"> it&#8217;s now firmly on the record </a>from a bipartisan senate panel and without any of the equivocation from Hillary&#8217;s house-cleaning team.</p>
<blockquote><p>On July 9, 2012, Stevens sent a cable to State Department headquarters requesting a minimum of 13 &#8220;Temporary Duty&#8221; (TDY) U.S. security personnel for Libya, which he said could be made up of DS agents, DoD Site Security Team (SST) personnel, or_some combination ofthe two.  These TDY security personnel were needed to meet the requested security posture in Tripoli and Benghazi. The State Department never fulfilled this request and, according to Eric Nordstrom, State Department headquarters never responded to the request with a cable.</p>
<p>Despite the clearly deteriorating security situation in Benghazi and requests for additional security resources, few significant improvements were made by the State Department to the security posture of the Temporary Mission Facility.</p>
<p>Although the Mission facility met the minimum personnel requirements ~or Diplomatic Security agents as accepted by the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli at the time of the August 15 EAC meeting (specifically, the three Diplomatic Security agents were assigned to guard the Mission compound), the Committee found no evidence that significant actions were taken by the State Department between August 15, 2012, and September 11, 2012, to increase security at the Mission facility in response to the concerns raised in that meeting&#8230;</p>
<p>In contrast, the CIA, in response to the same deteriorating security situation and IC threat reporting, consistently upgraded its security posture over the same time period.</p></blockquote>
<p>Ambassador Stevens asked for a minimum of 13 personnel. He got 3 on site and 2 others who came with him.</p>
<blockquote><p>There has been considerable public discussion about the DoD&#8217;s Site Security Team in Tripoli. The SST, which was provided by the DoD at no expense to the Department of State, consisted of 16 special operations personnel detailed to the Chief of Mission in Libya&#8230;</p>
<p>State Department headquarters made the decision not to request an extension of the SST&#8217;s mission in August 2012, approximately one month prior to the attacks, because State believed that many of the duties of the SST could be accomplished by local security forces, DS agents, or other State Department DoD personnel in Libya</p></blockquote>
<p>According to the report, Stevens was to blame for some of this. It appears that he wanted some native security forces and he got them.</p>
<blockquote><p>DoD confirmed to the Committee that Ambassador Stevens declined two specific offers from General Carter Ham, then the head of AFRICOM, to sustain the SST in the weeks before the terrorist attacks. After reading the August 16, 2012, EAC cable, General Ham called Ambassador Stevens and asked if the Embassy needed the SST from the U.S. military, but Stevens told Ham it did not.</p></blockquote>
<p>Stevens is on the record as wanting security personnel, but didn&#8217;t want that form of security, probably for diplomatic reasons. It&#8217;s not terribly surprising that he was complicit in what happened.</p>
<blockquote><p>There were &#8220;tripwires&#8221; designed to prompt a reduction in personnel or the suspension of operations at the Mission facility in Benghazi and although there is evidence that some of them had been crossed, operations continued with minimal change.</p>
<p>State Department documents indicate that its Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs was aware of the fact that many of the tripwires had indeed been crossed and discussed suspending operations, but never did. Given these developments and the available intelligence at the time, the Committee believes the State Department should have recognized the need to increase security to a level commensurate with the threat, or suspend operations in Benghazi. However, operations continued with minimal improvements in security and personnel protections</p></blockquote>
<p>Which did not happen. And <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/robert-gates-revelations-confirm-horowitzs-party-of-defeat-on-the-glazov-gang/">as I said in the interview</a>, that is what this comes down to. Hillary&#8217;s State Department failed to secure a diplomatic facility that they knew was under threat and had been attacked in the past. They failed to meet its security needs as requested by its own ambassador.</p>
<blockquote><p>As noted, one unarmed Predator was diverted to provide surveillance coverage of the Temporary Mission Facility as it was being attacked. This Predator was subsequently replaced by another unanned Predator to enable the first Predator to return to base for refueling.</p></blockquote>
<p>It&#8217;s not stated, but the Predators were unarmed because Libya did not authorize the US to conduct armed flights. The question is why, considering the Al Qaeda presence in Eastern Libya and the difficulty supporting US personnel there, didn&#8217;t Obama Inc. at least insist on having authorization for self-defense.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Majority of Americans Believe Obama Lied about Benghazi</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/majority-of-americans-believe-obama-lied-about-benghazi/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=majority-of-americans-believe-obama-lied-about-benghazi</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/majority-of-americans-believe-obama-lied-about-benghazi/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 10 Jan 2014 00:26:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hillary Clinton]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214926</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A majority also disapprove of Hillary Clinton's handling of Benghazi]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/obama-hillary-knew-Benghazi-attack-was-terrorism.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-214928" alt="obama-hillary-knew-Benghazi-attack-was-terrorism" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/obama-hillary-knew-Benghazi-attack-was-terrorism-450x242.jpg" width="450" height="242" /></a></p>
<p>That &#8220;hoax&#8221; that David Brock and his Media Matters muppets keep yammering about in which four Americans weren&#8217;t murdered by Al Qaeda terrorists is <a href="http://weaselzippers.us/?p=167027">one that apparently most Americans believe</a>.</p>
<p>Including the mother of Sean Smith and the father of Tyrone Woods.</p>
<p>It might be because the hoax really happened and the only hoax involves Brock and his media accomplices trying to lie shamelessly about it for the sake of Hillary 2016.</p>
<blockquote><p> As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton battles new allegations that she only considered presidential politics in voting against the successful surge of troops to Iraq in 2007, the 2012 Benghazi attackcontinues to haunt her, with a new poll finding that Americans believe the administration “deliberately misled” them on the scandal.</p>
<p>A new YouGov poll found that 44 percent of the public believes “the Obama administration deliberately misled the American people” when the president, Clinton, and others suggested the attack was sparked by outrage over a western movie, not terrorism. Some 30 percent said the administration “shared the facts as they became available,” and 25 percent clocked in at “not sure.”</p>
<p>Worse for Clinton, 40 percent in the just-conducted poll disapproved of her handling of the affair. Just 31 percent approved. In addition, 46 percent disapproved of Obama’s handling of the affair.</p></blockquote>
<p>Fortunately David Brock and Hillary ave time-tested methods for turning this around.</p>
<p>1. Blame a vast-right wing conspiracy</p>
<p>2. Generate a New York Times story claiming that the attack was carried out by local mischievous youths upset over a YouTube video, which gets shot down the week after when the State Department designates an Al Qaeda terrorist as the perp</p>
<p>3. Turn Benghazi into a meme to illustrate how stupid Republicans are for caring about the murder of four Americans</p>
<p>Mission accomplished</p>
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		<title>State Department Renewed Benghazi Lease w/o Security Requirement</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/hillarys-state-department-renewed-benghazi-lease-wo-security-requirement/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hillarys-state-department-renewed-benghazi-lease-wo-security-requirement</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/hillarys-state-department-renewed-benghazi-lease-wo-security-requirement/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 09 Jan 2014 21:31:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214968</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Hillary's State Department exempted it from normal security requirements.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/benghazi-1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-188399" alt="benghazi-1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/benghazi-1-447x350.jpg" width="447" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>Not that security was a problem in a city run by Islamic militias where the British and even fellow Muslim diplomats had come under attack. And then the State Department chose to renew a lease while&#8230;</p>
<p>1. <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-benghazi-compound-lease-renewed-without-security/">Waiving the security requirement</a></p>
<p>2. Stopped properly paying the Islamic militia that was supposed to provide security</p>
<p>3. Did not deploy a meaningful security presence on the ground</p>
<p>&#8230; but it wouldn&#8217;t have been a problem if not for that &#8220;offensive&#8221; YouTube video.</p>
<blockquote><p>Sharyl Attkisson (CBS)</p>
<p>The State Department renewed the lease for the U.S. compound in Benghazi two months before the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks without requiring the facility to meet normal security standards.</p>
<p>The survivor, a State Department diplomatic security agent whose name isn&#8217;t being disclosed, spoke behind closed doors in late November to Senators Graham, Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Robert Menendez, D-N.J. The previously-undisclosed existence of the year-long lease calls into question the State Department&#8217;s designation of the compound as &#8220;temporary&#8221; and therefore exempt from normal security requirements.</p>
<p>The lease renewal came shortly after a June 2012 assault in which an improvised explosive device blew a giant hole in the exterior wall of the facility. Graham also says he learned that in addition to other denied requests, the State Department&#8217;s Regional Security Officer for Libya asked for stronger security for the compound in August 2012 but it was denied.</p>
<p>Four Americans including U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens were murdered in the terrorist attacks.</p></blockquote>
<p>But what difference does it make anyway?</p>
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		<title>Obama Donor Helped Free Terrorist Behind Benghazi Attack</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obama-donor-helped-free-terrorist-behind-benghazi-attack/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-donor-helped-free-terrorist-behind-benghazi-attack</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obama-donor-helped-free-terrorist-behind-benghazi-attack/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 09 Jan 2014 17:43:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Center for Constitutional Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Guantanamo Bay]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214919</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ratner has aided several detainees at Guantanamo Bay]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/obama-benghazi.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-210936" alt="obama-benghazi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/obama-benghazi-450x300.jpg" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>The left is rushing to blame Bush for the Benghazi attack, now that the State Department is moving to name a former Gitmo detainee released by Bush as a key figure in the attack.</p>
<p>But Gitmo detainees were released as p<a href="http://www.jammiewf.com/2014/former-club-gitmo-guest-implicated-in-benghazi-terror-attack/">art of a pressure and lawfare campaign by the radical pro-terrorist left</a>. Including Obama&#8217;s backers.</p>
<blockquote><p>The left-wing organization that helped spring Qumu was the Center for Constitutional Rights. Last April, the group issued an indignant press release painting Qumu as a harmless victim and blasting those concerned about his unrepentant jihadi ways.</p></blockquote>
<p>And who was running CCR at the time?<a href="http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/09/libyan-attack-leader-linked-to-obama-donor/"> An Obama backer</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Now the person that headed up the CCR when Qumu was released was none other than Michael Ratner, who not only endorsed Barack Obama in 2008, but also contributed $2,300 to his campaign as well.<br />
Mr Ratner has aided several detainees at Guantanamo Bay, according to the Huffington Post and several have been freed.</p></blockquote>
<p>Attorney General Eric Holder, who is also linked to CCR, has brought in a raft of terrorist lawyers into the Justice Department, including in the No. 3 position and described them as &#8220;patriots&#8221;.</p>
<p>In Benghazi, some of Obama and Holder&#8217;s patriots helped cause the deaths of four Americans.</p>
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		<slash:comments>11</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Left Blames Benghazi on Bush Listening to Them and Freeing Gitmo Terrorist</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/new-lefty-talking-point-benghazi-carried-out-by-al-qaeda-terrorist-freed-by-bush/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=new-lefty-talking-point-benghazi-carried-out-by-al-qaeda-terrorist-freed-by-bush</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/new-lefty-talking-point-benghazi-carried-out-by-al-qaeda-terrorist-freed-by-bush/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 Jan 2014 16:15:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214877</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Left: "You're raping the Constitution. You're worse than Hitler. Free the terrorists!"]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_214878" style="width: 460px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/close-guantanamo-protest-large.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-214878" alt="I blame Bush for listening to us" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/close-guantanamo-protest-large-450x250.jpg" width="450" height="250" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">I blame Bush for listening to us</p></div>
<p>It&#8217;s been a heady few weeks for the left.</p>
<p>Only a few weeks ago they rediscovered that Benghazi had been carried out by a few mischievous boys upset by an offensive YouTube video. Now that the State Department is moving to concede that an Al Qaeda terrorist who had been freed from Gitmo carried it out, they&#8217;ve got an even better talking point.</p>
<p>&#8220;Bush did it!&#8221;</p>
<p>What did Bush do? He listened to the left. So it&#8217;s his fault. Not the fault of the left.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s recap how all that happened a decade ago</p>
<p>Bush: &#8220;We&#8217;re going to lock up Al Qaeda enemy combatants in Gitmo.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Left: &#8220;You&#8217;re raping the Constitution. You&#8217;re worse than Hitler. Free the terrorists!&#8221;</p>
<p>Bush: &#8220;I can&#8217;t do that. They might kill Americans.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Left: &#8220;They&#8217;re all innocent people. You&#8217;re the one who should be behind bars. We&#8217;ll sue to free them.&#8221;</p>
<p>Bush: &#8220;Okay, I&#8217;ll try to free the least dangerous ones.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Left: &#8220;No, you&#8217;ll free all of them. Right now! You&#8217;re violating our values.&#8221;</p>
<p>Bush: &#8220;Okay, I freed some more.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Left: &#8220;No! All of them! Right now!&#8221;</p>
<p>Bush: &#8220;That&#8217;s too dangerous.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Left: &#8220;The War on Terror is something Dick Cheney made up. The only way to stop terrorism is to free all the terrorists!&#8221;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Fast forward to 2014.</p>
<p>The Left: &#8220;Bush freed the terrorists. It&#8217;s his fault.&#8221;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>While obviously Bush should not have let a single detainee out of Gitmo, it&#8217;s sheer mindblowing hypocrisy for the left to attack him for a course of action that they incessantly demanded, sued and protested over.</p>
<p>Furthermore Bush did not just set Abu Sufian bin Qumu free. He transferred him over to Libya. The Muslim Brotherhood with Obama&#8217;s support then negotiated a deal with the Libyan government that resulted in an amnesty for Islamist terrorists. The amnesty bit Gaddafi hard when, with Obama&#8217;s support, those same groups led a rebellion against him.</p>
<p>Abu Sufian bin Qumu would never have been much of a threat to US diplomatic facilities in Libya&#8230; if Obama had not engaged in illegal regime change in Libya.</p>
<p>It wasn&#8217;t Bush who turned Benghazi into a war zone or removed protection from the US diplomatic facility there making it a ripe target for Al Qaeda.</p>
<p>The buck still stops with Obama. Bush may have freed Abu Sufian bin Qumu, but it was Obama who turned Benghazi into a target of opportunity for Abu Sufian bin Qumu.</p>
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		<title>State Dept Kills New York Times Lie About Al Qaeda and Benghazi</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/state-dept-kills-new-york-times-lie-about-al-qaeda-and-benghazi/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=state-dept-kills-new-york-times-lie-about-al-qaeda-and-benghazi</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/state-dept-kills-new-york-times-lie-about-al-qaeda-and-benghazi/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 Jan 2014 15:09:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[state department]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Washington Post]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214824</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The State Department is expected to tie Qumu’s group to the Benghazi attack]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/0123_hillary-benghazi2.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-202687" alt="Hillary Rodham Clinton" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/0123_hillary-benghazi2-450x287.jpg" width="450" height="287" /></a></p>
<p>The New York Times produced a hoax report claiming that Al Qaeda was not involved in the Benghazi attack and that the whole thing had been set off by a YouTube video. It was a little like reading the paper claim that the earth was flat.</p>
<p>Ironically, the Times ran its Benghazi hoax report to protect former State Department boss Hillary Clinton. But now<a href="http://weaselzippers.us/?p=166987"> even the State Department is preparing</a> to shoot down the scam report according to the Washington Post.</p>
<blockquote><p>U.S. officials suspect that a former Guantanamo Bay detainee played a role in the attack on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya, and are planning to designate the group he leads as a foreign terrorist organization, according to officials familiar with the plans.</p>
<p>Militiamen under the command of Abu Sufian bin Qumu, the leader of Ansar al-Sharia in the Libyan city of Darnah, participated in the attack that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, U.S. officials said.</p>
<p>The State Department is expected to tie Qumu’s group to the Benghazi attack when it designates three branches of Ansar al-Sharia, in Darnah, Benghazi and Tunisia, as foreign terrorist organizations in the coming days.</p>
<p>Qumu and two other men, militia leaders Ahmed Abu Khattala and Seif Allah bin Hassine, will be identified as “specially designated global terrorists,” a determination that allows U.S. officials to freeze their financial assets and bar American citizens and companies from doing business with them.</p>
<p>The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the developments.</p></blockquote>
<p>No mention of the dreaded YouTube video of doom either because this is a professional report, not a PR exercise for Hillary 2016.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Benghazi Family Members Blast New York Times  Cover-Up</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/benghazi-family-members-blast-new-york-times-cover-up/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=benghazi-family-members-blast-new-york-times-cover-up</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/benghazi-family-members-blast-new-york-times-cover-up/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Jan 2014 17:49:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214735</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["The story contradicts objective truth and established facts"]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/charles-woods-benghazi.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-214782" alt="charles woods benghazi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/charles-woods-benghazi-450x253.jpg" width="450" height="253" /></a></p>
<p>I<a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/benghazi-victims-families-demand-real-investigation/">n a letter critical of the Congressional Republican</a> leadership for its failure to properly investigate the murder of their sons and loved ones, Charles Woods, the father of Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods and Pat Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, along with his uncle, are also harshly critical of the New York Times for its attempt to cover for Hillary&#8217;s 2016 election campaign.</p>
<blockquote><p>On Sunday, December 29, 2013, the New York Times published a story concerning the Benghazi attacks that directly contradicts the sworn testimony of witnesses who appeared before various committees. Besides the obvious New York Times editorial and political objectives of inoculating Hillary Clinton and her 2016 presidential campaign from further criticism of her failures as Secretary of State, the story contradicts objective truth and established facts in a way that confuses the public. Your inaction and failure to lead on the Benghazi investigation directly contributes to the repetition of lies; a lack of accountability from responsible government officials; and the political advancement of persons who seek to continue to “fundamentally transform” the Constitution and our country. The New York Times recent publication proves the Benghazi story is not “going away.”</p>
<p>Your oversight of the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation has been without any meaningful effect or result. Not a single terrorist in this well-planned and executed military attack by radical Islamists has been apprehended. Ahmed Abu Khattala, a ringleader of the attack, granted long interviews to reporters in Benghazi cafes, while the Obama administration – and you – have done nothing. Nearly 16 months after the terrorist attack, the American public has no accountability and no plan of action from House leadership. The public is subjected to undisputed disinformation from a White House who calls the terror attack a “phony scandal.” While the White House repeats false and misleading information, you continue to ignore claims, documented by Rep. Frank Wolf, of intelligence officers being intimidated with multiple, punitive polygraph examinations and harassing non-disclosure agreement demands. If Benghazi is “phony” why are intelligence officers being threatened not to speak and subjected to polygraph exams? Why do you stand by passively?</p></blockquote>
<p>Media Matters and David Brock have coordinated a campaign to label all criticism of the administration&#8217;s actions on Benghazi a &#8220;hoax&#8221;.</p>
<p>Will they be willing to make the same accusation to the families who have lost loved ones because of Obama and Hillary&#8217;s actions?</p>
<p>The letter, which was also signed by David Horowitz, president of the Freedom Center, as well as Allen West and a large number of military officers, demands a serious organized investigation backed by subpoena powers and concludes by saying,</p>
<blockquote><p>Mr. Speaker, we call upon you to act now and create a Select Committee on Benghazi to investigate all aspects of the United States involvement in Libya, to include, but not be limited to the attacks of September 11, 2012. It must now also include the protracted cover-up the American people, the families of the fallen and those with loved ones serving overseas have endured. The new committee must have subpoena power, capable staff and Members from both parties who are committed to finding the truth, not playing politics. The Committee must be staffed with new, professional, qualified and experienced investigators. It must have resources to conduct a thorough, comprehensive investigation and issue an exhaustive report before this Congress adjourns.</p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<slash:comments>12</slash:comments>
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		<title>Benghazi: New York Times vs US Intel Officials</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/benghazi-new-york-times-vs-us-intel-officials/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=benghazi-new-york-times-vs-us-intel-officials</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/benghazi-new-york-times-vs-us-intel-officials/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Jan 2014 23:36:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Kilpatrick]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214350</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Benghazi attackers included Ansar al-Shariah and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_214394" style="width: 430px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/131231-secret-times-benghazi-reporter-comix2.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-214394" alt="from Doug Ross at Director Blue" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/131231-secret-times-benghazi-reporter-comix2-270x350.jpg" width="420" height="544" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text"><strong>from <a href="http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2013/12/new-york-times-we-had-reporter-embedded.html">Doug Ross at Director Blue</a></strong></p></div>
<p>Allied media outlets and lefty think-tanks have trotted out David Kilpatrick&#8217;s dishonest New York Times essay on Benghazi as some sort of definitive reporting in regard to its claims that Al Qaeda was not involved and that the attack was caused by a YouTube video.</p>
<p>Kilpatrick&#8217;s essay is all the stranger because it attempts to revive a cover up of information from US intelligence officials by Hillary&#8217;s people that was then tossed aside.</p>
<p><em>Thomas Joscelyn</em> at the Weekly Standard quickly<a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/not-bogus-benghazi-connection_773188.html?utm_campaign=Washington+Examiner&amp;utm_source=washingtonexaminer.com&amp;utm_medium=referral"> takes apart Kilpatrick&#8217;s presumptions and lies</a> showing that US intelligence officials had reported all along and have continued stating that an Al Qaeda linked group was involved.</p>
<p>While Kilpatrick claims that&#8230;</p>
<blockquote><p>I don&#8217;t believe that group was involved. I think that the reporting in our paper was citing some congressional officials saying they thought this Jamal group might have been involved. And the congressional officials in turn were citing a report in the Wall Street Journal and that report seems to me to the best of my knowledge to have come from Egyptian intelligence. And at the end of the day, what it asserts is just that this character Jamal may have run a training camp someplace and people who had been at that training camp may have been involved in the attack. So it’s…to my mind a bogus connection and also a tenuous connection and it is certainly not a connection that the New York Times has ever put its weight behind.</p></blockquote>
<p>&#8230; here&#8217;s what the New York Times actually wrote&#8230;</p>
<blockquote><p>Three Congressional investigations and a State Department inquiry are now examining the attack, which American officials said included participants from Ansar al-Shariah, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Muhammad Jamal network, a militant group in Egypt.</p></blockquote>
<p>The report, which apparently David Kilpatrick never bothered to read, even though it came from his own newspaper, cites American officials, not Congressional officials or Egyptian intelligence or the Wall Street Journal.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/not-bogus-benghazi-connection_773188.html?page=2">Wall Street Journal reports also quote US officials</a>, not Egyptian intelligence or Congressional staffers or the Tooth Fairy.</p>
<p>So is David Kilpatrick incompetent or a liar? And can&#8217;t he be both?</p>
<blockquote><p>In its October 18, 2013 designation of Jamal and his network as al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists, the UN noted the following with respect to Jamal: &#8220;Reported to be involved in the attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi, Libya, on 11 Sep. 2012.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>That&#8217;s a long way a story made up by the Wall Street Journal and a few Republican congressmen. If the UN incorporated material, it came from those same US officials who keep being quoted. And those officials ultimately answer to the White House, not to Congress.</p>
<p>David Kilpatrick might have gotten away with it. All he had to do was claim that those &#8220;initial reports&#8221; were wrong. Instead he bizarrely decided to claim that those reports never existed and that no one except a few crazy right-wingers ever said that Al Qaeda was involved.</p>
<p>And that was a brazen lie. And even if Kilpatrick and his New York Times bosses at Ready for Hillary 2016 had gone that route, the story hasn&#8217;t actually changed.</p>
<blockquote><p>Three current U.S. intelligence officials tell The Weekly Standard that no new information has cast doubt on the Jamal network’s role in Benghazi. Each of the U.S. intelligence officials said that it is their current assessment that Jamal’s network was directly involved.</p></blockquote>
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		<title>New York Times Tries to Revive the Benghazi &#8220;YouTube Anger&#8221; Hoax</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/new-york-times-tries-to-revive-the-benghazi-youtube-anger-hoax/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=new-york-times-tries-to-revive-the-benghazi-youtube-anger-hoax</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/new-york-times-tries-to-revive-the-benghazi-youtube-anger-hoax/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 29 Dec 2013 03:12:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[innocence of muslims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214075</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Major media outlets have a new disinformation tactic.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/obama-benghazi.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-212639" alt="obama-benghazi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/obama-benghazi-450x300.jpg" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Major media outlets have a new disinformation tactic. Instead of a fact-check, which used to be their old tactic, they drop a voluminous multi-part essay that claims to be the product of intensive reporting, but doesn&#8217;t really offer much of anything new, except an attempt at reviving a discredited liberal narrative, which its own reporting doesn&#8217;t support.</p>
<p>That was how the Boston Globe deployed its attempt at rebranding the Tsarnaev brothers from Islamic terrorists to a poor traumatized mentally ill duo. Now the New York Times&#8217; David Kirkpatrick is getting his &#8220;Ready for Hillary&#8221; tag on with another multi-part essay already being trumpeted by Media Matters for discrediting what its leader calls the &#8220;Benghazi Hoax&#8221;.</p>
<p>The two tangible claims made by David Kirkpatrick are that</p>
<p>1. Al Qaeda had nothing to do with the Benghazi attack</p>
<p>2. The attack was motivated by anger over a YouTube video</p>
<p>The actual reporting about the attack is surface and neither claim is really backed up. David Kirkpatrick claims that there is no proof that Al Qaeda was responsible for the attack. That&#8217;s because there is no definitive proof of who was responsible for the attack.</p>
<p>David Kirkpatrick and the New York Times choose to focus attention on Ahmed Abu Khattala, but their own story shows that virtually everyone in the Benghazi militias was collaborating to either allow the attack or cover for the perpetrators.</p>
<p>And their sole basis for the YouTube video claim is that some of the attackers supposedly mentioned the video to outsiders during the attack. That fails to support the New York Times&#8217; claim that the Benghazi attack &#8220;was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.&#8221;</p>
<p>But the timeline of the attack discredits the idea that a series of attacks across the region could have been done in two days.</p>
<blockquote><p>Then, on Sept. 8, a popular Islamist preacher lit the fuse by screening a clip of the video on the ultraconservative Egyptian satellite channel El Nas. American diplomats in Cairo raised the alarm in Washington about a growing backlash, including calls for a protest outside their embassy.</p></blockquote>
<p>The overall context for the September 11 attacks isn&#8217;t the YouTube video, it&#8217;s the wave of simultaneous attacks. If you believe Rice and the New York Times, these attacks were just spontaneous. But the Benghazi attack, which was the most organized, is the least plausible of these video attacks.</p>
<p>If you believe Obama and the New York Times&#8217; Benghazi YouTube hoax, the most severe wave of attacks against American targets in the Middle East in decades was thrown together on a whim by purely local organizations with no earlier planning or international coordination.</p>
<p>This is about as unlikely as WW2 beginning because Hitler had some bad kielbasa and suddenly decided to invade Poland.</p>
<p>Furthermore there were multiple prior attacks against foreign missions and personnel in Benghazi long before the YouTube video.</p>
<p>Back to Ahmed Abu Khattala and Ansar Al-Sharia and Al Qaeda, Kirkpatrick and the New York Times disprove nothing, as Media Matters claims they have.</p>
<p>Al Qaeda has multiple franchises that choose to hide or deny their affiliations. These include Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Al-Nusra Front in Syria, a group that even the New York Times admits is Al Qaeda.</p>
<p>Even the New York Times article admits that Ansar Al-Sharia is pro Al-Qaeda. Ansar Al-Sharia <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2013/10/ansar_al_sharia_libya_honors_a.php">has repeatedly made a point of aligning</a> itself with Al Qaeda.</p>
<p>Kirkpatrick and the New York Times blast the US for focusing on Al Qaeda instead of local militias, worrying about ex-Gitmoite Abu Sufian bin Qumu, instead of Ahmed Abu Khattala. But older reports stated that<a href="http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/aq-libya-loc.pdf"> Qumu was leading Ansar Al-Sharia</a>. Confusing matters is the roster of shifting names and affiliations, which make the situation occasionally impossible to decipher. Especially when there is more than one Ansar Al-Sharia and when groups appear to share names while remaining vague about their national and international affiliations.</p>
<p>Militia leaders go by non-de plumes. Militias fragment and then reconnect. The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, the original definitive militia, switched its allegiance from Al Qaeda to the Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/aq-libya-loc.pdf">The report stated</a>&#8230;</p>
<blockquote><p>The name Ansar al-Sharia is also being used by al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in so-called liberated areas of Yemen and by Salafist groups in Tunisia. The Facebook sites of Ansar al-Sharia in Libya and the group in Tunisia appear similar in design and content and also share contacts, suggesting coordination between the groups.</p></blockquote>
<p>What the New York Times has done is simply chosen not to investigate any such links, declaring instead that there is no proof. That&#8217;s an easy cop-out that disproves nothing.</p>
<p>There are bits of relevant information buried in the rubble of the New York Times&#8217; disinformation essay.</p>
<blockquote><p>“We thought we were sufficiently close to them,” said one Western diplomat who was in Benghazi not long before the attack. “We all thought that if anything threatening was happening, that they would tip us off.”</p></blockquote>
<p>That&#8217;s probably the only significant paragraph in the whole essay.</p>
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		<title>Report that CIA in Benghazi Told to Stand Down, Shot Down by Report that They Were Told to Stand Down</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/benghazi-report-that-cia-contractors-were-told-to-stand-down-shot-down-by-report-that-they-were-told-to-stand-down/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=benghazi-report-that-cia-contractors-were-told-to-stand-down-shot-down-by-report-that-they-were-told-to-stand-down</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/benghazi-report-that-cia-contractors-were-told-to-stand-down-shot-down-by-report-that-they-were-told-to-stand-down/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Dec 2013 15:45:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=213340</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Confused? You probably don't have a future in the mainstream media.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/benghazi-obama.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182598" alt="benghazi obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/benghazi-obama.jpg" width="370" height="277" /></a></p>
<p>Confused? You probably don&#8217;t have a future in the mainstream media.</p>
<p>The latest talking point from Media Matters/Ready for Hillary/the Mainstream Media<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/14/cia-testimony-reveals-benghazi-rescuers-infighting-spawned-controversial-stand/"> is that the claim that Benghazi rescuers</a> were told to stand down has been completely shot down.</p>
<p>100 percent shot down.</p>
<p>Or as Media Matters puts it, &#8220;CIA Testimony Destroys Benghazi &#8220;Stand Down&#8221; Hoax&#8221;.  A hoax is what Media Matters loony boss David Brock, who needed a security team to defend him against &#8220;right-wing sniper assassins&#8221; is trying to rebrand the murder of four Americans in Benghazi as.</p>
<p>&#8220;Conservative media have repeatedly pushed the myth that security forces in Libya the night of the attack were ordered to &#8220;stand down&#8221; rather than rush to the aid of their colleagues in the diplomatic compound,&#8221; Media Matters writes.</p>
<p>&#8220;On December 14, an AP report explained how the &#8220;stand down&#8221; hoax developed, destroying the false conservative narrative.&#8221; Okay, MM please tell us more about this crazy conservative hoax.</p>
<p>Those CIA leaders decided they and their security contractor team should wait before rushing from their annex into the violence roughly a mile away.</p>
<blockquote><p>Westmoreland said the CIA security contractors loaded into two vehicles, with weapons ready, the moment they heard the radio call for help from the diplomatic building. Some wanted to rush to the U.S. compound roughly a mile away, and their agitation grew as they heard increasing panic when the diplomats reported the militants were setting the compound on fire.</p>
<p>At least one of those security contractors, a former U.S. Army Ranger, was told to “wait” at least twice, and he argued with his security team leader, according to his testimony, related by Westmoreland. Westmoreland declined to share the names of the officers who testified because they are still CIA employees.</p></blockquote>
<p>So they weren&#8217;t told to stand down. They were told to wait. Finally the great hoax has been disproven.</p>
<p>One problem though. The key stand down allegation didn&#8217;t involve local CIA personnel in Benghazi, <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/us-military-tripoli-ordered-not-go-benghazi_720894.html">but Special Forces personnel in Tripol</a>i. And <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/diplomat-us-special-forces-told-you-cant-go-to-benghazi-during-attacks/">that testimony comes from Gregory Hicks </a>who was the ranking diplomat after Stevens&#8217; death.</p>
<blockquote><p>The deputy of slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens has told congressional investigators that a team of Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks was forbidden from doing so by U.S. Special Operations Command Africa.</p>
<p>According to excerpts released Monday, Hicks told investigators that SOCAFRICA commander Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were on their way to board a C-130 from Tripoli for Benghazi prior to an attack on a second U.S. compound &#8220;when [Col. Gibson] got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, &#8216;you can&#8217;t go now, you don&#8217;t have the authority to go now.&#8217; And so they missed the flight &#8230; They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it.&#8221;</p>
<p>Hicks told congressional investigators that if the U.S. had quickly sent a military aircraft over Benghazi, it might have saved American lives. The U.S. Souda Bay Naval Base is an hour&#8217;s flight from Libya.</p>
<p>Hicks remembers Gibson saying: “I have never been so embarrassed in my life that a State Department officer has bigger balls than somebody in the military.”</p></blockquote>
<p>So completely disproven. Not. But we&#8217;re dealing with Media Matters here.</p>
<p>Finally <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/white-house-ordered-prosecution-of-mohammed-filmmaker/">here is notorious Benghazi hoaxter Charles Woods</a>, the father of Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, who was murdered in Benghazi.</p>
<blockquote><p>This was my son, he wasn’t even there.  He was at a safe house about a mile away.  He got the distress call.  He heard them crying for help.  That’s why he and Glenn risked their lives to go that extra mile just to take care of the situation.  And I’m sure that she wasn’t the only one that received that distress call: “Come save our lives.”</p>
<p>When I heard that there’s a very good chance that the White House as well as other members of the military knew what was going on, and obviously someone had to say, “Don’t go rescue them.” Because every person in the military, their first response is, “We’re going to go rescue them.” We need to find out who it was that gave that command.</p></blockquote>
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		<title>&#8220;You Are Gonna Get Attacked. You Are Gonna Get Attacked in Benghazi.&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/you-are-gonna-get-attacked-you-are-gonna-get-attacked-in-benghazi/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=you-are-gonna-get-attacked-you-are-gonna-get-attacked-in-benghazi</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/you-are-gonna-get-attacked-you-are-gonna-get-attacked-in-benghazi/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Oct 2013 13:11:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=208780</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["They're in the final planning stages of an attack on the American mission in Benghazi"?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>How much of an unexpected surprise was the Benghazi attack? According to the men who were there,<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57609479/60-minutes-benghazi/"> it wasn&#8217;t a surprise at all</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Green Beret Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Andy Wood, was one of the top American security officials in Libya. Based in Tripoli, he met with Amb. Stevens every day.</p>
<p><object width="425" height="279" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="src" value="http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/cbsnews_player_embed.swf" /><param name="scale" value="noscale" /><param name="salign" value="lt" /><param name="background" value="#333333" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="flashvars" value="si=254&amp;&amp;contentValue=50157980&amp;shareUrl=http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50157980n" /><embed width="425" height="279" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/cbsnews_player_embed.swf" scale="noscale" salign="lt" background="#333333" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="si=254&amp;&amp;contentValue=50157980&amp;shareUrl=http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50157980n" /></object></p>
<p>The last time he went to Benghazi was in June, just three months before the attack. While he was there, al Qaeda tried to assassinate the British ambassador. Wood says, to him, it came as no surprise because al Qaeda &#8212; using a familiar tactic &#8212; had stated their intent in an online posting, saying they would attack the Red Cross, the British and then the Americans in Benghazi.</p>
<p>Andy Wood: As they did each one of those.</p>
<p>Lara Logan: &#8211;attacked the Red Cross and the British mission. And the only ones left&#8211;</p>
<p>Andy Wood: Were us. They made good on two out of the three promises. It was a matter of time till they captured the third one.</p>
<p>Lara Logan: And Washington was aware of that?</p>
<p>Andy Wood: They knew we monitored it. We included that in our reports to both State Department and DOD.</p>
<p>Andy Wood told us he raised his concerns directly with Amb. Stevens three months before the U.S. compound was overrun.</p>
<p>Andy Wood: I made it known in a country team meeting, &#8220;You are gonna get attacked. You are gonna get attacked in Benghazi. It&#8217;s gonna happen.&#8221;</p>
<p>Andy Wood: &#8211;&#8221;<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50157980n">Shut down operations.</a> Move out temporarily. Ch&#8211; or change locations within the city. Do something to break up the profile because you are being targeted. They are&#8211; they are&#8211; they are watching you. The attack cycle is such that they&#8217;re in the final planning stages.&#8221;</p>
<p>Lara Logan: Wait a minute, you said, &#8220;They&#8217;re in the final planning stages of an attack on the American mission in Benghazi&#8221;?</p>
<p>Andy Wood: It was apparent to me that that was the case. Reading, reading all these other, ah, attacks that were occurring, I could see what they were staging up to, it was, it was obvious.</p></blockquote>
<p>So the attack was the least surprising thing of all. As we&#8217;ve already known, top security officials knew it was coming. They relayed the warning up the chain of command.</p>
<p>And then&#8230; nothing.</p>
<blockquote><p>About 30 minutes into the attack, a quick reaction force from the CIA Annex ignored orders to wait and raced to the compound, at times running and shooting their way through the streets just to get there. Inside the compound, they repelled a force of as many as 60 armed terrorists and managed to save five American lives and recover the body of Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith. They were forced to fight their way out before they could find the ambassador.</p></blockquote>
<p>But what difference does it make?</p>
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		<title>Released Gitmo Terrorist/US &#8220;Ally&#8221; May Have Been Involved in Benghazi Attack</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/released-gitmo-terroristus-ally-may-have-been-involved-in-benghazi-attack/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=released-gitmo-terroristus-ally-may-have-been-involved-in-benghazi-attack</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/released-gitmo-terroristus-ally-may-have-been-involved-in-benghazi-attack/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 27 Oct 2013 02:21:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=208670</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["The former enemy and prisoner of the United States is now an ally of sorts"]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/sufyan_bin_qumu.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-208674" alt="sufyan_bin_qumu" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/sufyan_bin_qumu-329x350.jpg" width="329" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>Abu Sufian bin Qumu was released under Bush, but he didn&#8217;t become a serious threat until under Obama, the Muslim Brotherhood &#8220;negotiated&#8221; the supposed shift of allegiance of Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) terrorists from Al Qaeda to the Brotherhood.</p>
<p>Gaddafi&#8217;s son, who had gotten his head turned around playing around with European liberals, stupidly went for it. The amnesty freed LIFG fighters who then went on to do all the predictable things.</p>
<p>Abu Sufian bin Qumu s<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8472816/WikiLeaks-Guantanamo-detainee-is-now-Libyan-rebel-leader.html">hould not have been transferred to Libya</a>. But once Libya began freeing LIFG terrorists, the end was near.</p>
<blockquote><p>In the report, US investigators classified Qumu as a “medium to high” risk because he was “likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies”.</p>
<p>Qumu was imprisoned in Libya for ten years for alleged “murder, physical assault, armed assault and distributing narcotics”, but escaped in 1993 and fled to Afghanistan.</p>
<p>After fighting against the Russians during the war in Afghanistan, Qumu allegedly moved to Sudan, where he worked for a company belonging to Osama Bin Laden. He was captured in 2001 shortly after 9/11.</p>
<p>According to notes, the Libyan government considered the detainee a “dangerous man with no qualms about committing terrorist acts.”</p></blockquote>
<p>As a measure of how detached from reality liberal foreign policy was, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/world/guantanamo-files-libyan-detainee-now-us-ally-of-sorts.html?_r=0">the New York Times wrote the following article</a> in 2011 after Abu Sufian bin Qumu had become a &#8220;rebel leader&#8221;</p>
<blockquote><p>Libyan, Once a Detainee, Is Now a U.S. Ally of Sorts</p>
<p>For more than five years, Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu was a prisoner at the Guantánamo Bay prison&#8230; Today, Mr. Qumu, 51, is a notable figure in the Libyan rebels’ fight to oust Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.</p>
<p>The former enemy and prisoner of the United States is now an ally of sorts, a remarkable turnabout resulting from shifting American policies rather than any obvious change in Mr. Qumu.</p></blockquote>
<p>That sums up the problem nicely. Obama illegally attacked Libya to implement regime change. And Qumu ended up in the driver&#8217;s seat.</p>
<blockquote><p>Sufian bin Qumu leads a militia that flies the black flag of militant Islam. A former truck driver for Osama bin Laden who spent six years as a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Mr. Qumu says the Koran is the only constitution he knows. He insists that he will remain armed until Libya adopts a Taliban-style Islamic government.</p></blockquote>
<p>There were reports for a while that Qumu was involved in the Benghazi attack. Those <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/25/former-guantanamo-detainee-was-on-ground-in-benghazi-night-11-attack/">reports have now gotten stronger</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>A former Guantanamo Bay detainee with Al Qaeda ties was in Benghazi the night of the Sept. 11 attack, according to a source on the ground in Libya.</p>
<p>The source told Fox News that ex-detainee Sufian bin Qumu, who is suspected of running camps in eastern Libya where some of the assailants trained, is also a &#8220;respected member&#8221; of Ansar al-Sharia &#8212; one of the Islamist groups identified in State Department email traffic two hours after the attack&#8230;</p>
<p>Before he was promoted to U.S. ambassador to Libya in May 2012, Stevens served as CDA, or &#8220;Charge de Affairs,&#8221; at the embassy in Tripoli. In 2008 cables, Stevens noted that he and his team from the politics and economic section of the embassy were visiting prisons to ensure the welfare of repatriated Guantanamo detainees from Libya. This included bin Qumu, who is referred to as ISN 557 in the cables dated from September 2008.</p>
<p>One cable says: &#8220;During our previous meeting on June 10, the security official who facilitated the meeting explained that detention protocols for extremists and terrorists mandate that they be held in solitary detention to preclude the possibility that they could recruit other members of the prison population.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>That hasn&#8217;t been a problem for Qumu in a while.</p>
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		<title>State Department Obstructs Benghazi Investigation, Refuses to Hold Memorial Service</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/state-department-obstructs-benghazi-investigation-refuses-to-hold-memorial-service/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=state-department-obstructs-benghazi-investigation-refuses-to-hold-memorial-service</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/state-department-obstructs-benghazi-investigation-refuses-to-hold-memorial-service/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Sep 2013 22:47:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=204403</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The State Department willfully obstructed a congressional investigation of the deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi last year]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/obama-benghazi.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-189308" alt="obama-benghazi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/obama-benghazi-450x300.jpg" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>First up, the House Oversight Committee <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/16/house-oversight-state-dept-obstructed-benghazi-probe/">is accusing the State Department of </a>obstructing the investigation into the Benghazi attack.</p>
<blockquote><p>The State Department willfully obstructed a congressional investigation of the deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi last year, according to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.</p>
<p>State Department officials routinely refused requests for documents on its investigation into the September, 2012, attack, including interview transcripts and summaries of eyewitnesses to the attack, according to a committee report obtained by The Hill.</p>
<p>Additionally, members of the independent Accountability Review Board (ARB) tasked with reviewing the events that led up to the Benghazi attack were rife with “actual and perceived conflicts of interest” with State, the House report adds.</p>
<p>“The State Department’s refusal to turn over ARB documents has made an independent evaluation of the ARB’s review difficult,” according to the report.</p>
<p>To that end, ARB members failed to “record or transcribe the interviews it conducted” and refuses to hand over summaries of the interviews, it adds.</p></blockquote>
<p>All those are rather blatant examples of obstruction. If a corporation were doing its own internal investigations conducted by its own friends, the media would be all over it. But since it&#8217;s Hillary 2016&#8230;</p>
<p>How blatant is State&#8217;s eagerness to bury Benghazi? <a href="http://weaselzippers.us/2013/09/16/state-department-employees-forced-to-hold-private-benghazi-memorial-after-agency-refuses-to-organize-formal-event/">This blatant</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: left;">Staffers at State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. held their own private ceremony Wednesday to commemorate the first anniversary of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya after finding out the agency would not be organizing a formal, official memorial service.</p>
<p>A State Department staffer who worked with Stevens in Libya and asked not to be named told TPM there were about 20 to 25 staffers at the memorial. The informal gathering was put together after staffers inquired and learned the department would not be holding an official event to mark the anniversary.</p>
<p>The event was held in the lobby of State Department headquarters at a memorial plaque bearing the names of Stevens, Smith, and other foreign service officers who have lost their lives while on duty.</p>
<p>“It was very meaningful — we hugged, told stories, laughed, cried. Someone put flowers by the wall, we stood awkwardly, then we went back to work,” the staffer said of the event.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It makes a big difference.</p>
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		<title>Benghazi Dad Wishes Obama Hadn&#8217;t Slept Through the Murder of his Son</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/benghazi-dad-wishes-obama-hadnt-slept-through-the-murder-of-his-son/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=benghazi-dad-wishes-obama-hadnt-slept-through-the-murder-of-his-son</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/benghazi-dad-wishes-obama-hadnt-slept-through-the-murder-of-his-son/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Sep 2013 02:14:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Charles Woods]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=204295</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ "I wish he had taken the time the night of September 11, not to go to bed, not to go prepare to collect money in Las Vegas, but to watch more of the video of the live time ambush attack."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Charles Woods is the father of Tyrone Woods, one of the Navy SEALS who disobeyed orders and heroically rushed to the rescue of the Benghazi mission personnel and was abandoned without support.</p>
<p>Under Bush, the media turned Cindy Sheehan into an icon. But none of the Benghazi family members can get airtime outside of FOX <a href="http://weaselzippers.us/2013/09/15/benghazi-dad-charles-woods-tys-body-left-on-tarmac-for-three-hours-no-rescue-sent-obama-off-to-vegas/">to discuss the sense of pain and abandonment</a> that they feel.</p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3gLazKfa7iM?feature=player_embedded" height="360" width="540" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<blockquote><p>When asked about Obama, Charles Woods, father of Ty Woods who was killed in Benghazi, said:</p>
<p>It’s a little late for that. I wish he had taken the time the night of September 11, not to go to bed, not to go prepare to collect money in Las Vegas, but I wish he had taken time then to watch more of the video of the live time ambush attack and that I wish that he had sent the troops that everybody knows were available to rescue those people…</p>
<p>In this case, there was no rescue attempt, no planes sent. In fact, Ty’s body was left on the tarmac for three hours and there wasn’t even an American plane sent to rescue or even take his body home.</p>
<p>They had to commandeer a Libyan plane and didn’t even know where they would be taken in order to remove his body from the tarmac. Is that the way to treat an American hero?</p></blockquote>
<p>Woods<a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/slain-seals-father-to-obama-if-this-attack-on-american-citizens-happened-in-la-would-you-have-waited-seven-hours-before-you-sent-the-first-airplane/"> had previously challenged Obama</a>, asking him,</p>
<blockquote><p>Your Honor, I respect your office as president. But if this attack on American citizens, on American soil, happened 2,000 miles away from Washington, D.C. — say in Los Angeles or in Seattle — would you have waited seven hours before you sent the first airplane? Would you have waited seven hours until the attack was over? Would you have waited a couple of days until you had all of the videos and all the information before you responded in a responsible military way?”</p></blockquote>
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		<title>Obama Lied, Al Qaeda Thrived, Americans Died</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-lied-al-qaeda-thrived-americans-died/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-lied-al-qaeda-thrived-americans-died</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-lied-al-qaeda-thrived-americans-died/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Sep 2013 00:43:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=203758</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Despite being briefed on it privately, Mr. Obama resisted portraying the Benghazi attack as having been carried out by, al Qaeda. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/obama-benghazi.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-201011" alt="obama-benghazi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/obama-benghazi-450x300.jpg" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>While Obama was doing his end zone dance during the election, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/9/intel-clashes-obamas-election-year-al-qaeda-claims/">he was well aware that he was selling Americans a false</a> narrative of victory. The mission accomplished banner he was hanging was threadbare and he knew it.</p>
<blockquote><p>As President Obama ran to election victory last fall with claims that al Qaeda was “decimated” and “on the run,” his intelligence team was privately offering a different assessment that the terrorist movement was shifting resources and capabilities to emerging spinoff groups in Africa that posed fresh threats to American security.</p>
<p>Top U.S. officials, including the president, were told in the summer and fall of 2012 that the African offshoots were gaining money, lethal knowledge and a mounting determination to strike U.S. and Western interests while keeping in some contact with al Qaeda’s central leadership, said several people directly familiar with the intelligence.</p>
<p>The gulf between the classified briefings and Mr. Obama’s pronouncements on the campaign trail touched off a closed-door debate inside the intelligence community about whether the terrorist group’s demise was being overstated for political reasons, officials told The Washington Times.</p>
<p>Many Americans believed when they voted in November that the president was justifiably touting a major national security success of his first term. After all, U.S. special operations forces succeeded in May 2011 in capturing and killing the al Qaeda founder and original leader, Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan.</p>
<p>But key players in the intelligence community and in Congress were actually worried that Mr. Obama was leaving out a major new chapter in al Qaeda’s evolving story in order to bend the reality of how successful his administration had been during its first four years in the fight against terrorism.</p></blockquote>
<p>If Obama isn&#8217;t allowed to bend reality into new and more interesting shapes, how is he supposed to win elections? By running on his record?</p>
<blockquote><p>Key attackers were identified early as belonging to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). A video message sent by al-Zawahri on the night before the incident explicitly called for attacks on Americans in Libya to avenge a fatal U.S. drone strike on a Libyan-born senior al Qaeda operative in Pakistan.</p>
<p>The message was almost immediately identified as a possible motivation, or trigger, for the Benghazi attack.</p>
<p>Despite being briefed on it privately, Mr. Obama and his surrogates resisted portraying the attack as having been carried out, or even inspired by, al Qaeda. To the contrary, Mr. Obama — then in the throes of daily campaigning for re-election — appeared only to ramp up his narrative that the al Qaeda threat was diminished.</p></blockquote>
<p>Politics comes first. It always comes first.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Message from Benghazi Mission to US Embassy: “Under Fire, Terrorist Attack”</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/message-from-benghazi-mission-to-us-embassy-under-fire-terrorist-attack/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=message-from-benghazi-mission-to-us-embassy-under-fire-terrorist-attack</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/message-from-benghazi-mission-to-us-embassy-under-fire-terrorist-attack/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Sep 2013 14:31:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=203052</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Apparently this was a really ambiguous message that could have been read to mean that an angry mob was protesting a YouTube trailer.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/what-difference-does-it-make.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-203053" alt="what difference does it make" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/what-difference-does-it-make-450x342.jpg" width="450" height="342" /></a></p>
<p>Apparently<a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/clintons-state-told-benghazi-was-a-terrorist-attack-minutes-after-it-began/article/2535081"> this was a really ambiguous message that could</a> have been read to mean that an angry mob was protesting a YouTube trailer.</p>
<blockquote><p>Just minutes after 35 jihadists crashed through the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, nearly one year ago, the facility got word to the State Department, FBI and Pentagon that terrorists were attacking, according to a forthcoming book that provides the fullest review of the assault to date.</p>
<p>In “Under Fire, the Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi,” it is revealed that an unidentified security official in the Benghazi compound protecting Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens messaged the U.S. embassy in Tripoli: “Benghazi under fire, terrorist attack.” Stevens and three others died that night.</p>
<p>Twenty-five minutes after it began, the operation center at State received an electronic cable announcing the attack, according to authors Fred Burton, a former State Diplomatic Security agent and Samuel Katz, an author and expert on international special operations and counterterrorism.</p></blockquote>
<p>So the CIA was pressured into discounting the immediate reports from the ground because they were politically inconvenient to the cause of Hillary 2016. The talking points were censored and a filmmaker was locked up and CNN&#8217;s finest lied about it during a political debate in what was an unambiguously prearranged moment by the political palace guard of the current government.</p>
<p>Furthermore, despite an immediate message warning that an armed terrorist attack was under way, no help was sent and the few men who intended to go were held back. The two Navy SEALS who disobeyed orders and rushed to their aid did so by disobeying orders, thereby affirming the Nuremberg protocols against the will of Obama Inc.</p>
<p>Had they survived, they could have no doubt told quite a story. Meanwhile the remaining survivors are being threatened and intimidated.</p>
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		<title>Some Libs Wondering About Having a 2016 Candidate Who Didn&#8217;t Get 4 Americans Killed</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/some-libs-wondering-about-having-a-2016-candidate-who-didnt-get-4-americans-killed/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=some-libs-wondering-about-having-a-2016-candidate-who-didnt-get-4-americans-killed</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/some-libs-wondering-about-having-a-2016-candidate-who-didnt-get-4-americans-killed/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:15:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hillary Clinton]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=201516</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["Hillary disqualified herself for the presidency in that fist-pounding moment at a congressional hearing when she said, “What difference does it make." ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/hillary-clinton-what-difference-does-it-make.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-191700" alt="hillary clinton what difference does it make" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/hillary-clinton-what-difference-does-it-make-367x350.jpg" width="367" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>Though by some, I mean Camilla Paglia who&#8217;s hardly traditional <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/08/21/camille_paglia_it_remains_baffling_how_anyone_would_think_that_hillary_clinton_is_our_party%E2%80%99s_best_chance/">and is allowed to say heretical things lik</a>e, &#8220;Why not put up someone qualified for 2016&#8243;?</p>
<p>And also someone who didn&#8217;t get 4 Americans killed and then lied about it.</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Any hopes, fears or predictions for the presidential elections in 2016?</strong></p>
<p>As a registered Democrat, I am praying for a credible presidential candidate to emerge from the younger tier of politicians in their late 40s. A governor with executive experience would be ideal. It’s time to put my baby-boom generation out to pasture! We’ve had our day and managed to muck up a hell of a lot. It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton (born the same year as me) is our party’s best chance. She has more sooty baggage than a 90-car freight train. And what exactly has she ever accomplished — beyond bullishly covering for her philandering husband? She’s certainly busy, busy and ever on the move — with the tunnel-vision workaholism of someone trying to blot out uncomfortable private thoughts.</p>
<p>I for one think it was a very big deal that our ambassador was murdered in Benghazi. In saying “I take responsibility” for it as secretary of state, Hillary should have resigned immediately. The weak response by the Obama administration to that tragedy has given a huge opening to Republicans in the next presidential election. The impression has been amply given that Benghazi was treated as a public relations matter to massage rather than as the major and outrageous attack on the U.S. that it was.</p>
<p>Throughout history, ambassadors have always been symbolic incarnations of the sovereignty of their nations and the dignity of their leaders. It’s even a key motif in “King Lear.” As far as I’m concerned, Hillary disqualified herself for the presidency in that fist-pounding moment at a congressional hearing when she said, “What difference does it make what we knew and when we knew it, Senator?” Democrats have got to shake off the Clinton albatross and find new blood.</p>
<p>The escalating instability not just in Egypt but throughout the Mideast is very ominous. There is a clash of cultures brewing in the world that may take a century or more to resolve — and there is no guarantee that the secular West will win.</p></blockquote>
<p>I don&#8217;t know what Paglia imagines the secular West is, but these days it&#8217;s only secular when it comes to opposing traditional indigenous religions. Otherwise it&#8217;s eager to ally with Islamists and to jump on every New Age fad and cult, to take health advice from doctors with no qualifications except a Third World background.</p>
<p>Everyone is happy when Richard Dawkins or Bill Maher slap around Christianity or Judaism, but boo loudly when they take on Islam.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s not secularism.</p>
<p>Paglia is nearly unique in thinking that Hillary&#8217;s post-Benghazi behavior was disgraceful on the left. And for wanting a governor with executive experience instead of the wife of a president who traded her husband&#8217;s support for Obama in 2012 for becoming the inevitable candidate in 2016.</p>
<p>&#8220;A governor with executive experience would be ideal,&#8221; Paglia says, but that&#8217;s so 2007. And the left&#8217;s cultural revolution is responsible. Notions of competence have been destroyed. It&#8217;s all about identity politics and charisma now and Hillary has 1 out of 2.</p>
<p>The Dems are looking forward to 8 years of War on Women and screaming that Republicans only oppose Hillary&#8217;s plan to hit a 40 trillion dollar national debt because they hate women.</p>
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