Ah… The Benghazi nut is finally starting to crack open.
This is what I wrote on Ann Althouses blog back in November of last year, when everyone was still fluffed up about Susan Rice and her silly “horrible video” talking points:
Please explain how her actions, of throwing out a false narrative when it was becoming clear that it was false… a lie even, did anything to get those four killed. The administration and those advising that they stick to the video story were complete idiots, but, unless something comes to light that shows she specifically did something to hinder the rescue, this outrage at her specifically is overblown.
I think at this point she is damaged goods and doesn’t deserve the nod of Sec of State. This Susan Rice thing is a distraction. I’d rather the GOP focus like a laser on what actually happened in Benghazi, and if it can be shown that there was no reason why aid was denied, then go from there. Unless, of course, the GOP knows in fact that the administration didn’t bomb because CIA was actively on the ground rescuing people and that fire would kill more American lives than were lost that day, so they have no leverage to stand on, and going after Susan Rice is now all they have in their arsenal.
Turns out i was right about CIA being on the ground. That info was out there at first then got lost during the election, partially because the GOP was trying to sleigh Obama with the Beghazi thing before they had any real ammo….
Well, we can finally forget about the distraction that was Susan Rice. Now, it certainly looks like they have some real ammo!
Jake Tapper at CNN is reporting that many more CIA agents were on the ground in the Benghazi embassy consulate annex than was acknowledged, and that the administration was hiding this fact, makes for so real eyebrow raising speculation. This would certainly explain, as I said why the military was ordered NOT to do anything to stop the attacks…. We would have killed more Americans on the ground than ended up dying that night, Americans that maybe were not supposed to be there!
It’s time to put on the tin-foil hat.
If I recall, at some point we were told there were a handful of extra CIA on the ground in Benghazi trying to rescue the other Americans that were there, and that might still be true. But if this new information does pan out, that there was at least 40 or so CIA agents there… There will be a lot of explaining to do.
What exactly were all those agents doing there????
The speculation is that we were already illegally running guns, from Benghazi through Turkey, then out to the rebels in Syria. If that’s true, (and hat tip to Glenn Beck as he, and then Geraldo Rivrera, were the lone voices saying this a few months ago) then it explains the weirdness of the Obama administration deciding out of the blue to announce that we would be arming the Syrian rebels.
The announcement was so arbitrary.
Yes, there were saying that Assad’s military had been caught using chemical weapons. But that evidence was never quite substantiated. It was kind of a “We the US declares that country has been using chemical weapons… Trust us!”.
Trust us???…. Insert WMD’s for chemical weapons… And we’ve been down that path before. Plus, trust is not a virtue we can allocate to the current government when we find they are secretly collecting every scrap of digital information on us that it can store for potential use against us at a later date.
I was not the only one who was skeptical of the Syrian chemical weapons claim.
Western officials and diplomats also acknowledged that the lack of transparency undermined the credibility of the chemical-weapons claims.
That skepticism is justified. It’s that nasty bothersome transparency thing tripping up this administration…. Again!
Think about it. When Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons on the Kurds, there was plenty of evidence in pictures and tons of people in hospitals suffering from the exposure. That was in the late 1980, eons ago, when there was no such thing as the internet. In our magnificent digital age, when a former Congressman can’t take a picture of his thing without the images getting splashed all over for the world to see, it seemed like there would plenty of visual evidence to support the accusation that the Syrians were indeed using chemical weapons. There were a couple of images here and there of one or two guys. But if there was chemical weapons being used, as we had seen a few decades ago, they leave behind many victims.
Chemical weapons are not neat. They are messy, clumsy weapons.
“Well” you say “The Brit’s and France also agree with that assessment”.
OK. They also agreed with the Bush Iraqi intelligence on Iraq, AND, it’s just been revealed that Brittish intelligence is being paid for by the US! Wonder what that $150 million, at least that is the amount that we know about, paid for?
And, if they WERE used, we don’t know who used them. Is it so hard to imagine that the rebels, who are not the warm and fuzzy rebels depicted in Star Wars movies, could just as easily have been messing around with sarin or something, and some of it got out of containment, poisoning only the guys working on it? That would explain the small number of victims in this case.
So, anyway, if the administration was ALREADY running weapons to the Syrian rebels, and the Benghazi attacks forced that to come to a screeching halt, then the administration would see the need to find a way to get those weapons flowing again.
Back in May, in a report by the Washington Post titled “Obama may arm Syrian rebels: Why now?” the paper speculated there were three reasons why the Obama administration would want to arm the rebels:
There are, at the moment, three prevailing theories for the apparently shifting White House strategy. The real answer may well be some combination of these, perhaps with a touch of internal politics or other less-strategically oriented factors:
1. An earnest response to Syrian chemical weapons reports.
Obama administration officials have been clear that the use of chemical weapons in Syria is a “red line” for them, although they’ve been consistently vague on what happens if the line is crossed. Late last week, the administration revealed that U.S. intelligence had found signs that some Syrians had been exposed to sarin, although it’s not clear whether it was due to a deliberate attack….
2. A slow evolution
The deaths have been mounting for months now, and the fighting intensifying, with no clear sign that the rebels are headed for sure victory. Meanwhile, Islamists, some of them allied with al-Qaeda, are increasingly prominent among the rebels. Perhaps these trends have gradually led Obama to become more sympathetic to the idea of directly supplying arms, if only to hasten the conflict toward its conclusion.
3. A warning to Russia
It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but such writers as Barbara Slavin of the Atlantic Council and Foreign Policy’s Blake Hounshell have wondered if the announcement might be timed to influence Russia’s calculus on whether it should continue to support Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Moscow has long backed Assad, who needs its support to remain armed and in power. Obama, by dropping hints that he is considering arming the Syrian rebels, might tip Russia in the direction of abandoning Assad. If Russian President Vladimir Putin can be convinced that Assad’s fight is hopeless and that the status quo could lead to American involvement — something Putin would surely rather avoid — then perhaps he might back away from Assad.
I’m wondering if we have a fourth theory why the Obama administration would start arming the rebels…. The administration was ALREADY arming the rebels, and the Benghazi fiasco interfered with this gun running enterprise, and the Obama administration felt the rebels were starting to lose ground, and they had to find a way to get the weapons flowing again.
I will also add, now that Eric Snowden has been granted a one year asylum by Russia, the administration is acting as if this is some horrible insult, yet you get the feeling that they are being very tepid in their approach to Russia about this. Do the Russians have more info on the gun running to Syria through Benghazi, and the administration can’t really lean on Russia in fear of this getting out?
That is pure speculation on my part. But it is interesting to think about.
So, as Dan Carlin would say, I’m putting my tin-foil hat on today, and finishing a blog post on the latest new on the Benghazi affair. I’m connecting a couple of fuzzy dots.
The administration / CIA had said there were some extra CIA on the ground, but the number ad why they were there was never explained. It was always assumed that those boots on the ground were sent to help try and get the Americans in the annex to safety. But they were very vague….
Fuzzy Dot # 1
Then, half a year later, the Obama admin, kind of out of the blue really, says they have proof that the Syrian government is using chemical weapons. But, in the internet age, where everything is photographed or videoed, you would thing there would be SOME good visual evidence to show the world this is happening… But nope. They say the info is classified.
Fuzzy Dot # 2
Then, because of the supposed chemical weapons use, the Obama administration announces we’re going to arm the Syrian rebels.
Fuzzy Dot # 3
It’s a nice trifecta.
PS. I found this quote from Dick Cheney in a June Bloomberg article:
You had an opportunity earlier to provide support without having to get American forces directly involved,” Cheney said on the “Fox News Sunday” television program. “And they took a pass. Now they are going to do it, but the question is whether or not they are a day late and a dollar short.”
President Obama has consistently been more hawkish than many of his critics have acknowledged. What if Mr. Obama actually DID arm the rebels? Wouldn’t be the first time Mr. Cheney and Mr. Obama were in agreement and in line on national security issues, though the latter would never admit it. Would damage his image.
Jump The Shark!, Politics / Law Stuff, Stupid Government, Stupidity / Satire | Sonicfrog August 19, 2013 | 
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Comment by North Dallas Thirty — July 25, 2013 @ 8:27 am – July 25, 2013