Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Benghazi Brief – Ghosts Beyond The Wire
The Conservative Tree House ^ | November 10, 2014 | Sundance

Posted on 11/10/2014 9:17:17 AM PST by kabar

Grab a cup of coffee because it’s a long read with over 350 citations and reference source links for confirmational material. We think you’ll get hooked and find 95% of your Benghazi questions answered. And if you can find a factual flaw I’ll buy the coffee.. SD

The CIA and Intelligence community had stated earlier the biggest concern anyone held about arming the Libyan Rebels was the possibility those weapons might leave the Libyan conflict and travel to other locations where they would be used against our own soldiers. More and more evidence of this happening was growing.

In 2011 a total of four air assets were destroyed by enemy fire in Afghanistan. Two of those helicopters happened at the same time in August 2011 when we lost the Navy Seal unit that killed Osama Bin Laden. 22 Americans killed.

We had been in close quarter full combat operations in Afghanistan for 10 years, and we never had a problem with close air support. We had never faced the concern of our enemy having MANPADS. 2002 through 2010 saw zero occurrences of SAMS, Stingers, or MANPADS in general.

Within months after delivering weapons to the Benghazi and Darnah rebels (May, June and July 2011) we began facing MANPADS in Afghanistan.

Four instances in late in 2011 including the 22 lives lost in what came to be known as Operation “Extortion 17″.

In 2012 it got worse, much worse: June 1st AFGHANISTAN:

A combined patrol discovered a weapons cache containing three shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles, three anti-tank mines, 423 RPGs, 118,600 7.62 mm rounds, 30 rifles and other ordnance in the Tarin Kot district of Uruzgan province. The cache’s contents were destroyed. (link)

(Excerpt) Read more at theconservativetreehouse.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 2011; 201108; 201206; 20120601; afghanistan; afghanwar; alisaitakin; benghazi; benghazicoverup; benghazitimeline; extortion17; helicopters; libya; manpads; missiles; opzerofootprint; rpgs; sealteam6; shootdowns; turkeydiplomat; zerofootprint
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-39 next last
Fascinating and well-documented.
1 posted on 11/10/2014 9:17:17 AM PST by kabar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: kabar

BTTT


2 posted on 11/10/2014 9:24:46 AM PST by Cold Heart
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: kabar
I'll venture to guess the Readers Digest version states:

Obama Lied Soldiers Died !!

3 posted on 11/10/2014 9:27:41 AM PST by TexasCajun
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TexasCajun
"Obama Lied Soldiers Died !! "

Don't leave out the witch, blood is all over her hands too. . . .

4 posted on 11/10/2014 9:35:37 AM PST by DeaconRed (Where is the deserter Bergdol? We need to stay on this until he is tried and convicted. . . .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: TexasCajun
Include Hillary in that conversation. This is much bigger than Fast and Furious. Many American lives were lost, killed by US weapons supplied to the enemy. If what is reported in this article is true, Hillary will be severely damaged, not to mention Congressional leaders and Obama.

We had a serious problem and it was picking up speed exponentially. June 6th 2012 we lost another crew. July 25th 2012 yet another. August 16th 2012 again more losses. September 5th 2012 more deaths. It just kept getting worse. By September 5th 2012 in the preceding nine months we had lost 11 helicopters to shoulder fired missiles in Afghanistan.

The events of the attack itself are gut wrenching and troubling. Our brave operations folks had to fight their way out of a situation where they literally were on their own due to the political risks inherent in carrying out their objectives.

However, they knew they were beyond the wire – they knew there was no manner, method or possibility of protection…. And this is the point everyone seems to miss:

THEY KNEW THE DoD WAS IN THE DARK ABOUT THEIR ACTIVITY. There was NOTHING the Pentagon could have done to help them. Those people inside the Eastern Libya City of Benghazi, operating on behalf of the administration, were, for all intents and purposes, GHOSTS. They did not “technically” exist.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the mission they were tasked to carry out, there is no doubt they worked honorably to serve their nation. Ultimately the leadership within the State Department, The CIA, and the White House are responsible for the outcomes of policy.

Our hope is that this outline will stimulate journalists to question those who were at the heart of these two operations. Ultimately the Trey Gowdy select committee will find there is no venue to discuss intelligence operations with public sunlight. While both Zero Footprint in 2011, and the Unnamed CIA operation in 2012 were flawed policy – they were not necessarily illegal.

5 posted on 11/10/2014 9:39:25 AM PST by kabar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Cold Heart

If you read only one article today, this is it.


6 posted on 11/10/2014 9:42:55 AM PST by kabar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: kabar

The Obama policy should be re-stated as: Arm your enemies, while at the same time, disarm your citizens.


7 posted on 11/10/2014 9:45:40 AM PST by Real Cynic No More (Border Fence Obamacare!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: kabar

“possibility those weapons might leave the Libyan conflict and travel to other locations where they would be used against our own soldiers. More and more evidence of this happening was growing.

In 2011 a total of four air assets were destroyed by enemy fire in Afghanistan. Two of those helicopters happened at the same time in August 2011 when we lost the Navy Seal unit that killed Osama Bin Laden. 22 Americans killed.”

The Seal helicopter in Afghanistan was downed with an old-fashioned RPG, of which the Soviets left many behind. The black market of Islam is full of them without Libya.

So, while I’m first in line to want to know why 30 CIA guys were in Benghazi (I believe they were shipping Ghaddafi’s arsenal to Al Qaeda in Syria) this very first factoid does not support the author’s thesis.


8 posted on 11/10/2014 9:52:31 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (I'M WITH CRUZ!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: kabar

“shoulder fired missiles”

What kind, RPG or MANPAD?

It matters....


9 posted on 11/10/2014 9:53:31 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (I'M WITH CRUZ!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: rodguy911; Alas Babylon!; bray; shalom aleichem; Gritty; ROCKLOBSTER; Morgan in Denver; chiller; ...

Long, but well-worth the read.


10 posted on 11/10/2014 9:53:59 AM PST by kabar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: kabar

I want evidence 0bama’s Benghazi weapons ended up being used against America.

But I don’t see it here yet.

I actually believe that has happened and is happening.

But we need proof.


11 posted on 11/10/2014 9:55:03 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (I'M WITH CRUZ!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: kabar

Obama/Soetoro and Hillary Clinton WERE running weapons to terrorists out of the Benghazi compound.

“The Benghazi and Darnah Brigades already knew the compound inside and out, as well as the CIA ANNEX compound, a kilometer away, which contained four warehouse type buildings used by the CIA during the collection, distribution and delivery of Zero Footprint’s objectives over the past 17 months.

What we did not know at the time was that Chris Stevens was also acting as the facilitator for U.S. arms shipments OUT OF LIBYA, through Turkish diplomatic couriers and into Syria. While coordinating a second covert action to arm the Syrian resistance.”


12 posted on 11/10/2014 10:06:36 AM PST by Para-Ord.45 (Americans, happy in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own dictators.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Miltie
First, I suggest you read the entire article, which will answer all of your questions.

Initially the CIA was sent there to arm the Libyan rebels--Operation Zero Footprint. The diversion of some of these weapons elsewhere, e.g., Afghanistan, to AQ and the Taliban set off the plan to get these weapons back and then send some of them to Syria.

We know from a speech delivered by Asst. Secretary of State Shapiro in Feb of 2012 the actual program to recapture the Zero Footprint weapons began in August of 2011 about two months before Gaddaffi was killed:

“Once the stalemate broke and the fighting rapidly shifted in the TNC’s [Libyan Transitional National Council] favor in August, we immediately deployed a State Department expert from the MANPADS Task Force to Benghazi.

Mark Adams, who you will hear from shortly on the panel, is the head of our MANPADS Task Force and spent considerable time on the ground in Libya.

[… ] The initial primary objective was to reach an agreement with the TNC to set up a MANPADS control and destruction program that would enable us to set up what we call our Phase I efforts.

Phase I entailed an effort to rapidly survey, secure, and disable loose MANPADS across the country. To accomplish this, we immediately deployed our Quick Reaction Force, which are teams made up of civilian technical specialists.”

We know those “civilian technical specialists”, being talked about in August 2011, were contractors, CIA contractors, hired by the State Department to recapture the weapons – some of which they provided as a specific consequence of Operation Zero Footprint.

If the story ended there it would be bad enough. A flawed policy, a secret mission arm the Libyan “rebels” without a great deal of thinking through the longer term consequences. A flawed policy with political consequences.

But when you think about the larger picture you understand why the details of the covert weapons operation Zero Footprint were so tightly guarded among select members of Congress (the Gang of Eight), the CIA (Panetta), the State Department (Clinton) and the White House (Donilon).

Each of them was trying to manage a covert operation that would expose a U.S. policy decision to arm al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist militias. But that’s only “IF” the story ended there, in Libya, at the end of 2011 into the beginning of 2012. It didn’t, the decisions got worse – much worse.

The saga then continues with the arming of the Syrian rebels including ISIS. You really need to read the article due to the complex series of actions and reactions.

13 posted on 11/10/2014 10:08:34 AM PST by kabar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Miltie

But we need proof.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE! There is proof.


14 posted on 11/10/2014 10:12:34 AM PST by kabar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: kabar

Does it discuss Eric Holder’s presence and 0bama’s video to the Dubai conference on asset recovery, which had Holder in Dubai on 9/12/2012?


15 posted on 11/10/2014 10:19:29 AM PST by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: TexasCajun
Obama Lied Soldiers Died !!

16 posted on 11/10/2014 10:25:52 AM PST by Cheerio (Barry Hussein Soetoro-0bama=The Complete Destruction of American Capitalism)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: kabar

Somebody has to do the nuts and bolts, minute by minute analysis of this and this is a good start.
The real question remains, “Why did Hillary and Obama work to overthrow the government of Libya?”
“Responsibility To Protect” comes directly from George Soros. When did Soros and Hillary and Obama become champions of the downtrodden in Libya? They didn’t. Qadaffi’s fortune is missing and the 3 Grifters, Soros and Hillary and Obama, all wanted it.
The Democrats want everyone to focus on Benghazi because the big story of LIBYA would destroy the Democrat Party.


17 posted on 11/10/2014 10:50:03 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TexasCajun
So it was Barack, Hillary & CIA doing covert ops without the DOD knowledge or support.

US weapons & rockets destined for "rebels" were used to shoot down numerous US helicopters in Afghanistan.

ISIS using US made weapons and rockets from Barack & Hillary's gun-running.

There seems to be several Republicans with knowledge of the gun-running operations including Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

18 posted on 11/10/2014 11:20:40 AM PST by TexasCajun
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: kabar

Good article. The high points of it, many of us had surmised by reading between the lines of what little was publicly known. To see our assumptions confirmed in detail is still a splash of cold water in the face.

The question remains: why was Stevens killed? We know who killed him, but who was pulling their strings?


19 posted on 11/10/2014 11:22:46 AM PST by marron
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: combat_boots

No.


20 posted on 11/10/2014 11:25:49 AM PST by kabar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-39 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson