Monday, May 13, 2013

The Obama administration must be held accountable

Mike L.
{Originally published at the Times of Israel.}
Much to everyone's amazement, the New York Times toxic opinionator, Maureen Dowd, may be the first outspoken "progressive" in the American press to actually understand that the Obama Administration failed the country when they refused to even try to rescue Ambassador Stevens and his staff in Benghazi.
In a piece entitled, When Myths Collide in the Capital, she writes:
After his Libyan intervention, President Obama knew he was sending diplomats and their protectors into a country that was no longer a country, a land rife with fighters affiliated with Al Qaeda.

Yet in this hottest of hot spots, the State Department’s minimum security requirements were not met, requests for more security were rejected, and contingency plans were not drawn up, despite the portentous date of 9/11 and cascading warnings from the C.I.A...
The Obama administration played fast-and-loose with the lives of its diplomatic corps in Libya and Stevens and his people paid the ultimate price for the administration's negligence.  Of course, Obama and Hillary lose nothing because Democrats and "progressives" are circling the wagons in order to protect this administration from the fair consequences of its heinous behavior.  Days and weeks prior to the murderous attack in Benghazi Ambassador Stevens requested additional security and was turned down in the request.  This is the first thing that the administration must answer for.
In an emotional Senate hearing on Wednesday, Stevens’s second-in-command, Gregory Hicks, who was frantically trying to help from 600 miles away in Tripoli, described how his pleas were denied by military brass, who said they could not scramble planes and who gave a “stand-down” order to four Special Forces officers in Tripoli who were eager to race to Benghazi.

“My reaction was that, O.K., we’re on our own,” Hicks said quietly. He said the commander of that Special Forces team told him, “This is the first time in my career that a diplomat has more” chutzpah “than someone in the military.”
This attack did not take half an hour, nor an hour, nor three.  It took place throughout the night over the course of about eight hours and the administration did nothing.  That famous "3 AM call" came and Barack Obama went directly back to sleep; then, upon awakening, he promptly lied to the American public.
In the midst of a re-election campaign, Obama aides wanted to promote the mythology that the president who killed Osama was vanquishing terror. So they deemed it problematic to mention any possible Qaeda involvement in the Benghazi attack.
The Obama administration is deeply untrustworthy when it comes to political Islam and this really is the root of this entire scandal.  Obama claims that Qaeda is the enemy, yet he embraces the Muslim Brotherhood which is Qaeda's parent organization.  Both the Brotherhood and Qaeda share the goal of promoting a misogynistic, homophobic, and deeply anti-Semitic form of government under al-Sharia.   The administration seems to think that there is "moderate" Islamism and "extremist" Islamism and therefore chooses to support "moderate" Islamism.  In this way the administration ends up embracing political Islam, a movement that is as hateful toward Americans as it is towards Jews.
The Department of State, therefore, scrubbed any mention of political Islam or Qaeda from the CIA talking points because the administration was lying to the American people about the alleged defeat of Qaeda and, therefore, they needed to hide the fact that the Benghazi atrocity was a terrorist attack by a Qaeda affiliated group.
Hicks said that Beth Jones, an under secretary of state, bristled when he asked ask her why Susan Rice had stressed the protest over an anti-Muslim video rather than a premeditated attack — a Sunday show marathon that he said made his jaw drop. He believes he was demoted because he spoke up.
Gregory Hicks was the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attacks.  He knew those attacks were not some spontaneous and righteous response in anger to that internet video about the life of Muhammed and was horrified when he learned that the Obama administration was lying to the American public regarding their own negligence.  It was precisely that negligence which led to the deaths of four Americans in the Libyan diplomatic corps.
It's a rather sad and pathetic thing that American journalism would rather back the administration for political partisan reasons than do the necessary muck-raking.  If Maureen Dowd is going to break the impasse then so be it, but it does not speak well of the field of American journalism that it is someone like Dowd who is willing to break ranks for the purpose of speaking the truth.
One can only hope that others will follow her lead, but I would not count on it.  FOX news, of course, is heavily banging the Benghazi drum and a few other outlets have paid some lip-service, but what we need is sufficient pressure in order to bring about an independent investigation into this matter.
If the Obama administration lied to the American people concerning its own negligence, resulting in the murder of American diplomats (which it did), then the American people need to know about it.  For Democrats and "progressives" to deny and deflect and misdirect and demean their political rivals on this question is absolutely disgraceful.
The truth is not dependent upon what one finds politically convenient.  The fact of the matter is that the administration was entirely negligent in protecting its people in Libya, refused to help them when they were in desperate need of help, lied to the American people about the source of the attack, and then even lied about the lying when White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, denied any substantive alterations of the CIA talking points.
The Obama administration must be held accountable.

11 comments:

  1. Not to mention sick'ing the IRS on conservative groups AND PRO ISRAEL GROUPS LIKE ZSTREET....

    And now illegally grabbing phone records from AP....

    We may as well suspend elections.

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  2. This looks bad, but stepping back a bit, what can we realistically hope for here?

    This can be stretched out forever, by both sides (certainly beyond the end of President Obama's second term), so probably best to move on.

    Let history judge, and if it were up to me it wouldn't judge this administration's actions on this kindly.

    "The truth is not dependent upon what one finds politically convenient."

    Fully agreed.

    Those who throw their hands up, then get angry and screech "right-winger!" at anyone who mentions this would have been apoplectic had George W. Bush done such a thing.

    They would have dug in and not let go for years. Michael Moore would have made a (putridly shitty) 'movie' about it. Daily Kos would have assigned four of their simpleton 'writers' to do daily incitement pieces from every possible angle.

    These types are an absolute disgrace to the liberal label they claim.

    But again, I dunno. What are we hoping for here?

    Those four men aren't going to be brought back to life. Nobody's ever going to go to jail, though there were clearly bad decisions made and lies told to cover up for same.

    "The Obama administration must be held accountable."

    They will, I'd say, but it'll take a while. That's just the way it goes in our system.

    History will judge them eventually, rather than Fox News tomorrow, and I think that's a good thing. At least in my opinion...

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    1. I want someone to disagree with me here, btw, but I may not get back to you until tomorrow evening, for the record... ;)

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    2. I don't know that I disagree with you, Jay, but what I am hoping for is a fair-minded, independent investigation.

      The administration had 8 long hours to do something to save those people, yet they did nothing.

      Why?

      Whose idea was it to blame this Jihadi attack upon that video? Where did that nonsense come from?

      As far as I am concerned this is absolutely worse than Watergate, to swipe John Dean's words.

      Stevens and his people died because this administration (somehow) thought it was a good idea to leave their security in the hands of Libyan Islamists.

      How wrong can wrong possibly get?

      How stupid can anyone be?

      Barack Obama is a smart politician, but a moron as a president.

      This needs to be investigated.

      How could Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton treat the threat to these people's lives so cavalierly?

      Y'know, I hardly said a word when this all first came up. I kept my powder dry, but now with the whistle-blower testimony we should all speak up and demand answers.

      That's what I think.

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    3. "what I am hoping for is a fair-minded, independent investigation."

      I'm right with you. But who's available to do that?

      Politics in our country sickens me.

      Republicans blame night on the Democrats. Democrats send me dozens of emails a week about how Republicans are destroying our environment, likely composed from their airplanes or SUVs in between fundraising appearances.

      I'm tired of them all.

      So I guess you could say I'm quote cynical these days... ;)

      If nothing else, though, and even though we disagree on the utility of taking this any further under our current system, it's at least been quite instructive to watch 'progressive' hacks lash out in anger against the very same investigations they'd tear their throat out in favor of, had it been George W. Bush in the White House for this incident...

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    4. I want Democrats to understand that just because Obama is a Democrat does not mean he is automatically right.

      Of course Obama calls scrutiny of his performance a sideshow. He seems to have the attitude that all scrutiny is politically inspired and improper. Even if he has established a Nixonian mode of behavior.

      All the while he indoctrinates his followers to serial demonization of opposition, to the point of frothing.

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    5. Concur.

      Basically, the hyper-partisan warfare is something I'm very tired of. For the record, I don't sense any such thing in Mike's focus on this (it's consistent with his regular focus here), though some surely have zeroed in on this issue out of partisan concerns. In the same way that partisans from the other side have swooped in to smear anyone who even mentions it.

      Wet willies upon both their houses, if you ask me. ;)

      "All the while he indoctrinates his followers to serial demonization of opposition, to the point of frothing."

      You know, it truly is incredible, the extent to which this administration's defenders have managed to set a new standard for same, considerably above and beyond even that I remember of the last administration's.

      It's almost as if they're consciously trying to do so. The bullying and demonization of all who dare speak up, but especially against perceived heretics, really is astounding.

      Good to know I'm not the only one who's noticed that.

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  3. If there's no accountability and our government is self admittedly above the law, then fine, let's admit that and move on. Let's not have these silly commissions that attempt to get at facts outside of political expediency. Let's unwind the clock all the way back to Iran Contra, Watergate, the Teapot Dome and beyond and pardon everyone. If the US is a 'post governance' government where corruption, obscurity and the random wielding of petty power to win the next election is the norm, then again, fine. There are quite a few one party autocracies that run or ran more or less efficiently; Singapore, Malaysia, Franco's Spain, Mexico until 1995, Communist Hungary, and others. Since 2000 we've heard the constant cry from the far left demanding the US become more like the rest of the world. Well ok, there you have it; The United States of Cubano-Venezuela. After all, what good is power if you can't abuse it?

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  4. Best case the Obama presidency was going into a terminal glide path of lame duckery in about 10 months from today. All we're seeing is that date moving up to about now, give or take a month. Accountable? Oh that's precious. He doesn't care in the least and can barely work up the pretense to pretend he's paying attention to something that matters. But similarly the cries from the GOP are twaddle. There is not change in a billion of that happening.

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