Served up by the New York Times, as if they are helping us get to the bottom of it.
"Video, false allies a fatal mix in Benghazi" by David D. Kirkpatrick | New York Times, December 29, 2013
BENGHAZI, Libya — A boyish-looking US diplomat was meeting for the first time with the Islamist leaders of eastern Libya’s most formidable militias.
It was Sept. 9, 2012. Gathered on folding chairs in a banquet hall by the Mediterranean, the Libyans warned of rising threats against Americans from extremists in Benghazi. One militia leader, with a long beard and mismatched military fatigues, mentioned time in exile in Afghanistan. A US guard discreetly touched his gun.
“Since Benghazi isn’t safe, it is better for you to leave now,” Mohamed al-Gharabi, leader of the Rafallah al-Sehati Brigade, recalled telling the Americans. “I specifically told the Americans myself that we hoped that they would leave Benghazi as soon as possible.”
Yet the militiamen also gushed about their gratitude for President Obama’s support in their uprising against Moammar Khadafy. They emphasized that they wanted to build a partnership with the United States, especially in the form of more investment.
The diplomat, David McFarland, a former congressional aide who had never before met with a Libyan militia leader, left feeling agitated, according to colleagues. But the meeting did not shake his faith in the prospects for deeper involvement in Libya. Two days later, he summarized the meeting in a cable to Washington, describing a mixed message from the militia leaders.
Despite “growing problems with security,” he wrote, the fighters wanted the United States to become more engaged “by ‘pressuring’ American businesses to invest in Benghazi.”
The cable, dated Sept.11, 2012, was sent over the name of McFarland’s boss, Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
Later that day, Stevens was dead, killed with three other Americans in Benghazi in the most significant attack on US property in 11 years, since Sept. 11, 2001.
The cable was a last token of months of American misunderstandings and misperceptions about Libya and especially Benghazi, many fostered by shadows of the earlier Sept.11 attack. The United States waded deeply into post-Khadafy Libya, hoping to build a beachhead against extremists, especially Al Qaeda.
As they create, fund, and direct them.
It believed it could draw a bright line between friends and enemies in Libya. But it ultimately lost its ambassador in an attack that involved both avowed opponents of the West and fighters belonging to militias that the Americans had taken for allies.
Months of investigation by The New York Times, centered on extensive interviews with Libyans in Benghazi who had direct knowledge of the attack there and its context, turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had a role in the assault.
Oh, that cover-up pile stinks!
The attack was led, instead, by fighters who had benefited directly from NATO’s extensive air power and logistics support during the uprising against Khadafy. And contrary to claims by some members of Congress, it was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.
Wow.
That is shocking to me because even though I missed the video I know that is not what made Libyans mad.
How can we ever believe the NYT ever again?
A fuller accounting of the attacks shows the risks of expecting US aid to buy durable loyalty, and the difficulty of discerning friends from allies of convenience in a culture shaped by decades of anti-Western sentiment.
The attack also suggests that, as the threats from local militants around the region have multiplied, an intensive focus on combating Al Qaeda may distract from safeguarding US interests.
In this case, a central figure in the attack was an eccentric, malcontent militia leader, Ahmed Abu Khattala, according to numerous Libyans present at the time. US officials briefed on the criminal investigation into the killings call him a prime suspect.
Abu Khattala declared openly and often that he placed the United States not far behind Khadafy on his list of infidel enemies. But he had no known affiliations with terrorist groups, and he had escaped scrutiny from the CIA unit in Benghazi.
Abu Khattala, who denies participating in the attack, was firmly embedded in the network of Benghazi militias before and afterward. He was never more than a step removed from the most influential commanders who dominated Benghazi and who befriended the Americans. They were his neighbors, his fellow inmates, and his comrades in the fight against Khadafy.
Fifteen months after Stevens’s death, the question of responsibility remains a searing issue in Washington, framed by two contradictory story lines.
One has it that the video, which was posted on YouTube, inspired spontaneous street protests that got out of hand. This version, based on early intelligence reports, was initially offered publicly by Susan E. Rice, who is now Obama’s national security adviser.
That proved to be the official lie.
The other, favored by Republicans, holds that Stevens died in a carefully planned assault by Al Qaeda to mark the anniversary of its strike on the United States 11 years before. Republicans have accused the Obama administration of covering up evidence of Al Qaeda’s role to avoid undermining the president’s assertion that the group has been decimated.
The limited hangout version.
The investigation by The Times shows that the reality in Benghazi was different, and murkier, than either of those story lines suggests. Benghazi was not infiltrated by Al Qaeda, but contained grave local threats to US interests. The attack does not appear to have been meticulously planned, but neither was it spontaneous or without warning signs.
Meaning, at bottom this is all bulls***.
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Related: CBS Assists Benghazi Cover-Up
I'm really starting to get sour on the AmeriKan media!
"CBS disciplines 2 for Benghazi story" by David Bauder | Associated Press, November 27, 2013
NEW YORK — CBS ordered ‘‘60 Minutes’’ correspondent Lara Logan and her producer to take a leave of absence Tuesday following a critical internal review of their handling of the show’s October story on the Benghazi raid, based on a report on a supposed witness whose story cannot be verified.
The review, by CBS News executive Al Ortiz, said the ‘‘60 Minutes’’ team should have done a better job vetting the story that featured a security contractor who said he was at the US mission in Libya the night it was attacked last year.
CBS taking its lumps for the team.
Questions were quickly raised about whether the man was lying, something ‘‘60 Minutes’’ should have better checked out before airing the story, the report said.
How could they tell with so many lies filling my ma$$ media?
The report also said Logan should not have done the story in the first place after making a speech in Chicago a year ago claiming that it was a lie that America’s military had tamed Al Qaeda.
Oooooooooh!
Lara Logan was SET UP because she DEIGNED to SPEAK OUT AGAINST RECEIVED ORTHODOXY!
CBS News chairman Jeff Fager, who is also the ‘‘60 Minutes’’ executive producer, said he had asked Logan and her producer, Max McClellan, to take a leave of absence of an undetermined length.
Fager said he prides himself on catching almost everything, ‘‘but this deception got through and it shouldn’t have.’’ There was no word about whether Fager will face any repercussions for his role.
How did all that Iraq WMD and Al-CIA-Dun connection garbage get through my propaganda pre$$ filter?
‘‘The ‘60 Minutes’ journalistic review is concluded, and we are implementing ongoing changes based on its results,’’ said CBS News spokeswoman Sonya McNair, who did not make clear what those changes were.
As if it would matter. I never watch 60 Minutes or any other cable news anymore.
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Looks like Lara got off light:
"The end of Alec Baldwin’s ‘‘Up Late With Alec Baldwin’’ show came on the same day CBS ordered ‘‘60 Minutes’’ correspondent Lara Logan and her producer to take a leave of absence following a critical internal review of their handling of a report about the fatal attack on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya."
Related: Bashir Shit in Sarah Palin's Mouth
It really is the Most Shitty News Broadcast Channel.
Globe gets in on it, too!
"Learning from Benghazi: Fat target, feckless allies" January 06, 2014
If further investigation bears out The New York Times’s recent account
of the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, the United States
faces a much more daunting challenge in Libya than previously
understood.
Four Americans died in the Sept. 11, 2012, incident. From the
earliest days after the attack, conservatives set out to prove that the
Obama administration had been negligent in preventing it and then lied
about its cause, as the election loomed, to downplay any involvement by
Al Qaeda. For its part, the administration initially emphasized the role
of an anti-Muslim video that led to violent protests in Islamic
countries. Since then, conspiracy theories have abounded.
When the propaganda pre$$ starts throwing that term around you know you are on to something.
The detailed Times investigation concluded that anger over the
anti-Muslim video motivated some of the attackers who converged on the
Benghazi consulate, but the operation was planned by local militia
leaders, not Al Qaeda. The Times article named Ahmed Abu Khattala, a
Libyan militant who may be mentally unstable, as the primary leader.
Khattala, who was indicted by the Justice Department this fall, denies
it. But his face was reportedly caught on film.
Like that can't be faked!
Americans should take no comfort if local militias, not Al Qaeda, led
the attack. A well-planned attack by a closely watched international
network would be easier to guard against in the future than haphazard
assaults by various militia groups — including ones the United States
had considered allies. Perhaps most disturbingly, the Times account
indicates that US officials relied heavily on their Libyan friends to
warn and protect them, but those “friends” declined to intervene.
The Times investigation doesn’t settle the question.
Both
Republican Representative Mike Rogers and Democratic Representative
Adam Schiff, who sit on the House Intelligence Committee, dispute the
newspaper’s conclusion that Al Qaeda was not involved. Several news
organizations, including the Times itself,
published stories casting suspicion on Egyptian militant Muhammad
Jamal, who trained with Al Qaeda in the 1980s and is believed to run a
training camp in Libya. He was placed on the State Department terrorist list in October. Weeks later, the United Nations Security Council also blacklisted him,
due to his alleged involvement in the Benghazi attack. The Times
investigation did not directly address whether members of Jamal’s
network were present that night.
Either way, it’s noteworthy that at least two potential Benghazi
suspects remain at large, and the United States currently is not in a
position to apprehend either of them. US officials must continue efforts
to bring them to justice. As it engages with Libya’s many factions in
the meantime, the United States must make more cautious judgments about
their capabilities and intentions — and make decisions based on facts.
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Also see: Benghazi was preventable, Senate panel says
Yeah, they could have cancelled the operation.
Clinton deserves Christie-level scrutiny
I think I just did that, but I will be getting to a post regarding other such things shortly.
Meanwhile, over in present-day Libya the U.S. has quietly offered a reward and has allegedly ID'd the CIA-Duh ghosts:
"US ID’s 2 militant groups in Benghazi assault; Also designates them as terrorist organizations" by Deb Riechmann | Associated Press, January 11, 2014
WASHINGTON — The Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi is still a political issue in Washington….
And always will be until we find out what really happened.
Sufian bin Qumu, the leader of the Derna branch of the Ansar al-Sharia in Libya, who was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2007 and later freed in Libya, was described as a “probable member” of Al Qaeda in an assessment written by officials at the military prison in Cuba in 2005. The assessment was released by Wikileaks.
What an agenda-pushing operation Wikileaks turned out to be, and how interesting that Snowden popped up just after it had been discredited as an intelligence agency snare and trap.
The State Department, however, said Al Qaeda did not orchestrate the Benghazi attack.
The adjunct branch of the CIA said that?
Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the two Ansar al-Sharia branches are separate groups. ‘‘They’re not official affiliates of core Al Qaeda so we have no indications . . . that core Al Qaeda directed or planned the Benghazi attack,’’ she said….
For more than two years, Libya has been held hostage to increasingly powerful militias. Initially they were formed out of rebel brigades that fought Libyan forces in the 2011 uprising. The government has relied on them to carry out security duties because of the weakness of the army, but they have carved out spheres of power of their own, and many are made up of Islamist extremists.
In addition to being involved in the attack on the US mission and annex in Benghazi, the two branches of Ansar al-Sharia — created separately after the fall of dictator Moammar Khadafy — have been involved in terrorist attacks against civilian targets, assassinations, and attempted assassinations of security officials and political figures in eastern Libya. “Members of both organizations continue to pose a threat to US,” the State Department said in announcing the designations.
Last year, US special forces carried out a raid in the Libyan capital of Tripoli to capture an Al Qaeda leader linked to the 1998 American Embassy bombings in east Africa. The Pentagon identified the Al Qaeda leader as Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Anas al-Libi.
Really shoving the bullshit alibi up your ass with that hilarious play on words.
It is unclear whether US forces have targeted Qumu or Ahmed Abu Khattala, a senior leader of the Benghazi branch of Ansar al-Sharia in Libya, who lives openly in Benghazi and has denied any role in the Benghazi attack….
Globe says he was caught on candid camera!
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Well, I guess we know who did this then:
US teacher shot to death in Benghazi, Libyan officials say
US teacher killed by gunmen in Libya
Security stepped up for foreign teachers in Libya
Teacher is simply their CIA NOC.
Extra security didn't seem to stop the Christmas car bomb.
Libya puts off action on constitution
Going to give it another year.
4 US military personnel detained at Libyan checkpoint, then released
Libya militia warns of gas shutoff
Can see where it is all leading, right? Going to have to back that army against protesters who despise U.S-inspired foreign militias that have taken over the country and are murdering government security services and those affiliated with them.
"The battles currently raging in the South of Libya are no mere tribal clashes. Instead, they represent a possible burgeoning alliance between black Libyan ethnic groups and pro-Gaddafi forces intent upon liberating their country of a neocolonial NATO-installed government….
Thus they become "Al-CIA-Duh" militias!
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The closest the propaganda pre$$ gets to that is this:
"Cabinet official shot dead in Libya" New York Times, January 13, 2014
CAIRO — A Libyan deputy Cabinet minister was killed by a gunman Saturday evening in the first assassination of a senior government figure in Libya since the ouster of Moammar Khadafy more than two years ago.
The deputy minister of industry, Hassan al-Droui, was hit by a spray of bullets in the former Khadafy stronghold of Surt….
Also Sunday, the country’s Health Ministry said three days of fighting between tribes in a restive city in southern Libya killed 31 people. The fighting pitted the African-origin Tabu tribe against the Arab-origin Awlad Soliman tribe in the city of Sabha, some 400 miles south of Tripoli. The fighting, which began Friday, also wounded 65 people.
A local leader said the tribal fighting was sparked by the killing of a guard of the city’s military leader, a member of the Awlad Soliman tribe, in retaliation for the killings of dozens of Tabu men in 2012.
Assassinations of military and police officers, usually presumed to be the work of Islamist extremists, have been accelerating in the eastern cities of Benghazi and Darnah….
The fact that the Ali Zeidan incident is cited makes one conclude that also is a scripted and staged false flag hoax.
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And at the bottom of the terrorist militias constantly cited in my paper you will find it leads back here.
