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**bsteadman** · 05-09-2013, 03:37 PM

The Tears of Benghazi

Canada Free Press
Alan Caruba
5/8/2013

Excerpt:

The Hollywood version of heroes is that of large, muscular men who show no fear and little emotion after a confrontation with the enemy. The images that come to mind are Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwartzenegger, and Bruce Willis who, while not a muscleman, has the swagger we associate with movie heroes.

On Wednesday, on Capitol Hill, three men, Greg Hicks who was deputy chief of mission in Libya, second in command to the assassinated Ambassador, Chris Stevens; Eric Nordstrom, a diplomatic security officer who was formerly the regional security officer in Libya; and Mark Thompson, a former Marine and an official with the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau; sat at a table and gave short statements followed by answers to the questions they were asked.

In real life, heroes often look like someone in middle management. It was wrong—even demeaning—for the media to call them “whistle blowers.” These men were patriots. Who else would go to a war zone to represent their nation or to protect its highest diplomat there?

At the hearing they wore suits and ties. And, when called on to tell the truth, they sometimes choked up from the mix of emotions that flowed through them from memories of colleagues lost in combat and the awful realization that the nation for which they put their lives on the line, the nation they served with honor, left them defenseless to come to the aid of those colleagues.

Looming in the room were the ghosts of the dead ambassador, two security personnel; Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were both former Navy SEALS, contracted by the Central Intelligence Agency, and Sean Smith, a ten-year veteran of the State Department and on temporary assignment in Libya as an information officer for the embassy. Smith, an Air Force veteran, left behind two young children.

The testimony was emotional at times as the witnesses had to pause to regain their composure. They were a sharp contrast to the former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who became annoyed by the questions she was asked at a hearing on Benghazi. “What difference does it make?” she replied angrily to a question from Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

“With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?” Clinton asked the Republican Senator. “It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.”

Did she really believe it was just “because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill Americans”? On the anniversary of 9/11? Did she and the President really believe that the attack was because of a video? That is what they told Americans in the wake of the attack. That is what our ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, was sent out to say on five Sunday morning news shows.

What emerged from the hearings was the failure and the refusal of the State Department, the CIA, and the Department of Defense to activate any of the resources they had to send any forces to defend the consulate. Someone had to make a conscious choice to do that. Someone had to tell those forces to “stand down.

As Hicks said, “I am a career public servant. Until the aftermath of Benghazi, I loved every day of my job.” As one watched, his quiet presentation was marked with moments of emotion. He was the last man to speak by phone to Ambassador Stevens. Thompson said he was rebuffed by the White House when he asked for specialized team known as FEST—men trained specifically to response to an attack. Asked how a team of Special Forces personnel were not given authorization to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi responded, Hicks said “They were furious.”

Rep. Darrell Issa, (R-CA) the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told Fox News, “The question is, where’s the accountability for lying to the American people?”

That’s what the President of the United States did. That’s what the former Secretary of State did. And that’s why the White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, replied to a question about Benghazi dismissing it saying the attack had happened “a long time ago.”
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View the complete article at:

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/55064

**bsteadman** · 05-09-2013, 03:47 PM

Blow-by-Blow: How Obama & Hillary Left Americans to Die

Canada Free Press
Arnold Ahlert
5/9/2013

Excerpt:

Wednesday on Capitol Hill, three impeccable witnesses offered the clearest evidence to date that the Obama administration’s response to Benghazi before, during and after the terrorist attack that claimed the lives of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, State Department employee Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen A. Doherty and Tyrone S. Woods, was a deadly combination of ineptitude, political calculations, and outright lying.

Mark Thompson, acting deputy assistant Secretary of State for counterterrorism; Greg Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya; and Eric Nordstrom, former regional security officer in Libya, offered unshakeable testimony, despite efforts by several Democratic lawmakers to protect both the current administration and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, their party’s most viable presidential candidate for 2016. What the witnesses averred reveals a grim web of deceit likely orchestrated by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to cover up the order to ground U.S. rescue teams that could have easily saved our besieged countrymen in Benghazi.

Some of the most compelling and emotional testimony was provided by Hicks, who offered the House Oversight and Government Reform committee a damning blow-by-blow account of the September 11, 2012 attack: In Tripoli at the time, Hicks recounted how he had spoken with Stevens early in the evening, and there was no sign of unusual activity. After relaxing for a while, he got an alert that Benghazi was under attack. When he checked his cell phone he saw two numbers, one of which he didn’t recognize. He called that number first and got Stevens on the phone. “Greg! We’re under attack!” said Stevens, according to Mr. Hicks.

Later, when it became clear that Stevens was missing, the first concern was that he had been taken by terrorists. “We began to hear also that the ambassador’s been taken to a hospital,” said Hicks. “We learn that it is in a hospital which is controlled by Ansar al-Shariah, the group that Twitter feeds had identified as leading the attack on the consulate.” As this information was coming in, a “response team” from Tripoli arrived at the Benghazi airport, one that Hicks thought might become involved in a “hostage rescue” operation, even as officials worried they were being “baited into a trap.”

Hicks then spoke of the mortars that landed on the compound shortly after a group of Americans fleeing the consulate arrived at the annex. The first mortar landed among a group of Libyans who had helped bring the Americans to safety. “The next was short,” he said. “The next three landed on the roof.”

Those were the mortars that killed Doherty and Woods.

Hicks was visibly choked up when he recounted learning about Stevens’ death from the Libyan prime minister. “I think it’s the saddest phone call I’ve ever had in my life,” he said.

In one of the most stunning portions of the hearing, Hicks confirmed the chilling refusal of the Obama administration to send in readily available U.S. assets to stop the consulate slaughter. This order to “stand down” was given not once, but at least twice. Hicks also revealed that an explicit order from the chain of command prevented a four-man special forces rescue team in Tripoli from getting to the Americans trapped at the annex. He noted the order came from “either AFRICOM or SOCAFRICA” and that the team was “furious” when they were told to stand down. “I will quote Lieutenant Colonel Gibson,” said Hicks, referring to the officer on the receiving end of that command. “He said, ‘This is the first time in my career that a diplomat has more balls than somebody in the military.’” Hicks’ testimony on this point directly contradicts recent statements from the Obama-run Pentagon. “There was never any kind of stand-down order to anybody,” said Maj. Robert Furman, Pentagon spokesman, on Monday.

Yet Mark Thompson also testified that he tried to get a Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) comprised of special ops and intelligence personnel deployed, and he, too, was told to stand down. According to a source interviewed by Breitbart.com, only President Obama, or someone acting on his authority, could have given the stand down order. As we know from testimony provided by former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, President Obama met with the two officials on September 11 at 5 p.m. EDT for 30 minutes—less than an hour-and-a-half into the attack—and was supposedly never heard from him again for the rest of the evening. The very next day, Obama headed to a campaign fundraiser in Las Vegas.

The Obama administration undoubtedly understood that its decision to leave defenseless Americans, including our ambassador, to needlessly die at the hands of al-Qaeda-linked jihadists would not go over well for a commander-in-chief in the throes of a presidential election and a secretary of state angling for the Oval Office in 2016. Hicks’ testimony affirmed suspicions that administration officials conspired to conceal the nature of the attack by concocting an absolutely fictitious account of events involving a “spontaneous” attack prompted by an anti-Islam YouTube video. Hicks testified that he had personally told former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the Benghazi raid was a terrorist attack at 2 a.m. that same night. He recounted that “everybody in the mission” believed it was an act of terror “from the get-go,” a reality echoed by Libyan President Mohammed al-Magariaf, who said his government had “no doubt that this was pre-planned, predetermined.” Magariaf made this assertion the very day before UN ambassador Susan Rice went out to peddle the lie that a “spontaneous demonstration” had gotten out of hand due to an Internet video.

When Hicks heard Rice, he was appalled. “My jaw dropped, and I was embarrassed,” he said.

Rice was a willing mouthpiece for the two biggest promoters of the Internet video lie: President Obama and Hillary Clinton

In reality, Rice was a willing mouthpiece for the two biggest promoters of the Internet video lie: President Obama and Hillary Clinton. In fact, the State Department spent $70,000 to run advertisements in Pakistan featuring the two of them rejecting the contents of the video, and promoting tolerance for all religions. Even more remarkable, despite committee Democrats implying that a thorough investigation was conducted internally by the State Department’s Accountability Review Board (ARB), Hillary Clinton was never interviewed by the ARB.

Hillary’s entire take on the matter can be whittled down to the infamous statement she made during the U.S. House Oversight Committee hearing on May 8, 2013. After being questioned as to why the administration misled the American people, Clinton became indignant. “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans,” she said. “Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?”

Eric Nordstrom, who became emotional when he described his friends and other personnel who lost their lives in the attack, provided an answer to that question. “It matters to me personally and it matters to my colleagues—to my colleagues at the Department of State,” he said, his voice breaking. “It matters to the American public for whom we serve. And, most importantly, it matters to the friends and family of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods who were murdered on September 11, 2012.”

Nordstrom further testified in writing that Hillary Clinton waived security requirements for the Benghazi consulate despite high and critical threat levels in the six categories of security standards established under the Overseas Security Policy Board and the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act of 1999. The waiver can only be authorized by the Secretary of State, who cannot delegate that responsibility to someone else. “If the Secretary of State did not waive these requirements, who did so by ordering occupancy of the facilities in Benghazi and Tripoli?” Nordstrom wrote.

Nordstrom also offered his take on the ARB. “I found the ARB process that I was involved in to be professional and the unclassified recommendations reasonable and positive. However, it is not what is contained within the report that I take exception to but what is left unexamined,” Nordstrom wrote. “Specifically, I’m concerned with the ARB’s decision to focus its attention at the Assistant Secretary level and below, where the ARB felt that ‘the decision-making in fact takes place,’” he wrote.

State Department actively sought to intimidate witnesses

Hicks testified that the State Department actively sought to intimidate witnesses in order to prevent facts surrounding the Benghazi attack from being leaked. He revealed that a top State Department official called him to demand a report from his meeting with a congressional delegation and expressed unhappiness that a State Department lawyer was not present for the session. “I was instructed not to allow the RSO, the acting deputy chief of mission—me—to be personally interviewed,” he said. Later in the hearing, Hicks noted that State seemed especially concerned with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), who has done yeoman’s work tracking down the survivors of the attack, kept under wraps by the administration.
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View the complete article at:

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/55070

**bsteadman** · 05-09-2013, 04:03 PM

The Benghazi hearings: what’s new and what’s not

The Washington Post
Glenn Kessler
5/9/2013

Excerpts:

“I was stunned. My jaw dropped. And I was embarrassed”

— Gregory Hicks, former U.S. deputy chief of mission to Libya, testifying on his reaction to U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice’s remarks on the terror attack in Benghazi, May 8, 2013

.................................................. .

... it is not new that there was no protest. That’s been officially well established. It is also not new that many officials knew it was a terrorist attack.

What is new is that Hicks has put a human face on previous reporting. He also disclosed he spoke directly to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton the night of the attack, presumably relaying his conclusions. - (bold and color emphasis added)

The hearings also revealed an e-mail written by Elizabeth Jones, the acting assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, in which she recounted a conversation with the Libyan ambassador on Sept. 12: “When he said his government suspected that former Gadhafi regime elements carried out the attacks, I told him that the group that conducted the attacks Ansar Al Sharia is affiliated with Islamic terrorists.” - (bold and color emphasis added)

One generally presumes that top government officials have access to classified information and firsthand accounts not available to the media. But in this case either their judgments were colored by media accounts as well — or they took advantage of the media’s reporting to obscure some politically difficult news.

Video and the talking points

The administration also has come under fire for repeatedly pointing to an anti-Muslim video as the source of the protests, and thus by implication the attack in Benghazi. We covered a lot of this in our extensive timeline on Benghazi statements, but it is worth noting that in many cases, a direct line between the video and the attack was never quite connected; it was simply implied.

Here, for instance, is Clinton speaking at the transfer of remains ceremony on Sept. 14:

“This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with. It is hard for the American people to make sense of that because it is senseless, and it is totally unacceptable.”

Note that Clinton never really combines the Benghazi attack and the video, but leaves them as separate elements. It was clearly carefully written — a fact we confirmed with an administration official.

When U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice appeared on the Sunday news shows on Sept. 16, she was much less careful than Clinton, drawing a link that has since been discredited: “It began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy sparked by this hateful video,” she said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

.................................................. ..........

While the political fallout long has been clear from Rice’s appearance on the Sunday shows, what’s new is Hicks’ description of the diplomatic impact — that Libyan cooperation into the probe was greatly hindered because the president of Libya, Mohamed Yusuf al-Magariaf, who also appeared on Face the Nation, was so angry that Rice disagreed with his description of a “preplanned” attack.

Magariaf was “insulted in front of his own people,” Hicks said. “His credibility was reduced. His ability to lead his country was damaged.”

Hicks’ description of his reaction to Rice’s comments — “I was stunned. My jaw dropped. And I was embarrassed” — is also rather telling, given that previously administration officials had asserted that Rice’s remarks reflected a consensus that no one would dispute at the time.

Here’s what Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy told reporters on October 10:

“If any Administration official, including any career official, had been on television on Sunday, September 16th, they would have said the same thing that Ambassador Rice would have said. She had information at that point from the intelligence community, and that is the same information I had and I would have made exactly the same points. Clearly, we know more today, but we knew what we knew when we knew it.”

Hicks is obviously a career foreign service officer, making Kennedy’s statement now moot. So that’s also new. Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Whistleblower’ blowback

Hicks provided compelling testimony that he was punished by senior U.S. officials for questioning Rice’s comments and also for agreeing to an interview with House investigators without a State Department lawyer present. (Hicks said the lawyer did not have the proper security clearance.)

He described a phone call by an “upset” Cheryl Mills, State Department chief of staff and close confidante to Clinton, concerning his meeting without the lawyer. And he said that when complained about Rice’s statement, asking “why she had said there was a demonstration, when we had reported that there was an attack,” Jones curtly gave him the sense “that I needed to stop the line of questioning.”

After that, he said, relations with his superiors went downhill, especially with Jones, who gave him “a blistering critique of my management style.” He eventually returned from Libya and was given a job that he described as a significant demotion. - (bold and color emphasis added in the above 3 paragraphs)

There are obviously two sides to any such exchanges. (The State Department, in fact, disputes these allegations.) But Hicks’ description of the internal dynamics — and reported retaliation for questioning the administration’s public posture — is certainly new.

View the complete article at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...7add_blog.html

**bsteadman** · 05-09-2013, 04:24 PM

Free Republic is running a thread titled, 'Five Key Points from Today's Benghazi Hearing [ 2 Stand Down Orders given -2 ! ]', which was started 5/8/2013 by 'NoLibZone'

The thread references a 5/8/2013 Breitbart article written by Joel B. Pollak - http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2...Hearing-So-Far

View the complete Free Republic thread at:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3017275/posts

Excerpt:

1. Two "stand-down" orders were given while the Benghazi attacks were in progress.

2. The "protest" about a YouTube video was a complete fabrication by the Obama administration.

3. Cheryl Mills, Clinton's lawyer at the State Department, told witnesses not to speak to House investigators.

To: MNDude

‘After Benghazi hearings, lawmakers want more ‘whistle-blowers’ to step forward’

After hours of testimony Wednesday from witnesses to last year’s lethal terrorist attacks in Benghazi, lawmakers on Capitol Hill called on more “whistle-blowers” to come forward, saying there is much more to learn.

“This hearing is now over, but this investigation is not,” Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told reporters in the hallway after the hearing.

Issa, a Republican from California, said his message to potential “whistle-blowers” who “have been afraid to come forward” is that “today should demonstrate that in fact it is the right time to come forward.”

“Tell us your story, and we’ll make sure it gets told,” he said in the Rayburn House Office Building.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/08/af...#ixzz2Sl4bMRBo

16 posted on Wednesday, May 08, 2013 10:24:32 PM by Hotlanta Mike ("Governing a great natiorn is like cooking a small fish - too much handling will spoil it." Lao Tzu)

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Where is Justice for Benghazi? -- Canada Free Press, Judi McLeod

Where is Justice for Benghazi? -- Canada Free Press, Judi McLeod

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