Posted on 09/16/2012 12:28:25 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Yesterday, when most of the mainstream media busied themselves pounding Mitt Romney for having the chutzpah to denounce the initial apology for American freedom of speech issued by the U.S. embassy in Cairo, they were missing a much more important story. As Islamist attacks on the U.S. escalated throughout the Middle East, it became apparent that the Obama administrations recent bout of back slapping celebration over its foreign and defense policy was completely unjustified. Not only were the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department sleeping while terrorist forces plotted a full-scale assault on our mission in Benghazi, Libya but other al Qaeda operatives were at work throughout the region plotting mischief.
As the New York Times reports today, the assault on the U.S. embassy in Sana, Yemen was apparently fomented by one Abdul Majid al-Zandani, whom they describe as, a onetime mentor to Osama bin Laden and someone who, was named a specially designated global terrorist by the United States Treasury Department in 2004. Would it be considered in bad taste to ask why, if the Obama administrations counter-terrorism policy is such a raging success, such a person is still on the loose? Equally interesting is the answer to the question of how it is that in Libya, a country where American influence is supposed to be currently strong, this administration found itself surprised by the appearance of armed foes. Though Democrats spent the last week furiously patting themselves on the back for having such a tough and successful leader at the helm, it appears that not only is the country just as unpopular in the Middle East as it was when George W. Bush was president, but that the security situation there may be rapidly unraveling. Though no one in Washington is allowed to say the phrase war on terror anymore, it appears that Islamists have no trouble in continuing their war on America.
These events in Libya, Egypt and Yemen may be just the tip of the Islamist iceberg. We now know that the kerfuffle over a trailer for an anti-Muslim movie was merely a cover for attacks on American targets in the Middle East by an al-Qaeda movement that is, despite the death of Osama bin Laden, very much alive and well. As the Times relates, U.S. forces continue to try to battle al-Qaeda. Earlier this week, one of the groups top operatives in Yemen was killed by a U.S. drone strike. But not all of Americas security problems can be solved with remote control bombs.
Rather than this topic being a source of strength for President Obama, the embarrassing and tragic events of the past few days show it to be a weakness. This is a president who came into office desperate to ingratiate himself with the Arab and Muslim worlds, but who has discovered that a policy of engagement with Islamists has utterly failed.
In Egypt, Obama equivocated while the Muslim Brotherhood rose to power. He has chosen to embrace the now Islamist government there with debt forgiveness and continued aid only to see it stand by and watch while our embassy was assaulted.
In Iran, the president spent years on failed policies of engagement and diplomacy. Rather than set red lines on the Iranian nuclear program that would trigger action rather than more talk, he has made it abundantly clear he is more interested in stopping Israel from forestalling Tehrans bomb than he is about the threat itself.
It is true that Osama bin Laden is dead, but that creditable action hasnt ended the Islamist threat. The president has lost his way in the Middle East and is too full of self-regard to acknowledge the problem. Rather than dumping on Romney for stating the obvious about a disgraceful apology, the media needs to start scrutinizing an administration with a floundering foreign policy. Whether he knows it or not, the presidents long-running touchdown dance over bin Laden is over.
.....Fewer people might have been aware until now that his Secretary of State, and his top foreign policy aides, Susan Rice (U.S. Ambassador to the UN)and Samantha Powers (Special Assistant to the President) are every bit as feckless and ill-informed on these matters as he is.
I read with initial suspicion the report from the UK Independent that we had received 48 hours notice that an attack on our interests in the Middle East preceded the Egyptian and Benghazi assaults. After all the Independent's reporting during the Iraq war was laughably false on every count that I recall. Then I saw the weasel words of Shawn Turner spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence : "This is absolutely wrong. We are not aware of any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent."
I read this as utterly consistent with the claim that we had received an advance general warning of trouble to our interests in the Middle East on September 11. (Certainly, one would suppose as a matter of prudence we'd harden security there on this anniversary of the worst attack on US soil.) There is no indication that our embassies received this news. If they did there's more than negligence involved, for our Ambassador to Egypt was in the U.S. and had forbidden the guards there to use live ammunition, and there were no Marine guards at our Consulate in Benghazi, our Ambassador [Christopher Stevens] being a man who like Obama had a deluded concept of his influence on the Moslem terrorists there......."
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Fact: The Internet penetration in Yemen is among the lowest in the Arab World region. By September 2005, Yemen’s Internet subscribers’ penetration stood at a very small 0.5%, The Internet users penetration was however 2.4% by end of September 2005. The Arab Advisors Group projects the Internet subscribers’ penetration to reach nearly 1.36% and the users’ penetration to reach nearly 6.81% by end of 2010. Ms. Hadeel Sakkijha, Arab Advisors Research Analyst wrote in the report.
So is Government Motors. Rigor hasn't set in yet on GM. The Union is alive; however the bond holders were pushed under the bus.
His, "I got bin laden" (not capped on purpose) is wearing a little thin. He got nobody. Our brave military did the work. The seals pulled the trigger. It took a whole lot of people to pull it off.
bin was a tired old man by the time we got him. Holed up in some house watching porn, chocking the chicken.
We need to get the politicians out of out intelligence gathering so that we can face the real world instead of some politically corrected delusion.
September 11th 2012 Proved Mitt Romney to be right and Obama to be wrong:
Good read. I have been dumbfounded to watch the media craft the fairy tale version of what transpired. The smartest people in America (just ask them) continue to tell us this was about a youtube video of a crappy movie that appears to have been altered after the original production.
This administration is full of idiots. I pray a majority of our fellow citizens who vote are not idiots in November.
>> negligence
That word is not being mentioned. It’s the “film” don’t ya’ know which raises the other issue of abject disregard for the 1st Amendment.
The rabble-rousing Egyptian tele-Islamist knew he had found a ratings-grabber when he found an obscure, badly-made film on the internet called the Innocence of Muslims.
It had actually been online since July, but nobody had paid attention to its crude libels against the Prophet Mohammed until Mr Abdullah's show broadcast clips from it last weekend, calling for the film-makers to be executed.
Within hours the hardline Salafi Islamists who watch his programme, and who have been growing in strength since last year's revolution, were demonstrating in Cairo's Tahrir Square and outside the US embassy, which they stormed on Tuesday, burning the US flag."........................
There's one more big spike of the ball to come.
A film by Kathryn Bigelow w/assistance from the 0bama administration.
It'll be a blast!!!
BTTT
Excellent.
Well, thanks. I hear it’s good. I don’t go to movies though.
Canada was evacuating personnel from sensitive embassies in the Muslim world just before the attacks.
If they plan on opening a lemonade stand they better plan on getting a permit.
The national news sources are still repeating the lie that the crazies are upset about some stupid film. My local rag put the story on page three and repeated the meme that they (the Islamists) are doing all this over a film. My wife told me to calm down as I was reading the story to her.
The “silent majority” isn’t buying the administration and state media push to divert our eyes from Obama’s foreign policy disaster.
Tick-tock.
Tick-tock.
November 6, 2012 is just around the corner.
NPR news on Friday had a story on the riots. Within the space of one minute they mentioned the video at least three times.
Like “it was because of the video, it was because of the video, you are getting sleeeeepy, blame the video......”
Well, at least "half wrong."
I predicted that we would see no Islamofascist Terrorist acts (oops, sorry Big Sis) "Man made disasters," on US soil until after the election.
I also suggested that any serious disruptions or Jihadist strikes throughout the World would be tempered as well until after Nov 6th.
This I predicated on the fact that the Islamic Supremacist know full well, they have a "bud" or simpatico ally in the White Hut and would do nothing to diminish his chances at reelection, whereby, they could then go nuts for the foreseeable future without concern of any serious repercussions.
Well, there has been no attacks here in the US, but the "dustup" in the ME and elsewhere really surprised me, but then again, who can figure out what makes those evil, zombie, true believers tick.
I don't care how much the MSM spins this, all of the Sheeple are not stupid and most will see this (and lay the blame where it belongs) as a weakness and will not abide by our embassies being attacked (absent any response) and our Ambassadors murdered.
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