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Posted on 01/01/2012 5:51:39 PM PST by MestaMachine
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SHOULD be a maximum security prison for the entire obama administration and his enablers...soros, clinton, buffet, et al.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2939928/posts
House panel: State Dept. confirmed Libya threats (Obama has blood on his hands)
CBS ^ | 10/4/2012 | SHARYL ATTKISSON
Posted on Thursday, October 04, 2012 6:37:41 AM by tobyhill
A House committee says a State Department officer told panel members there were 13 threats made against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya during the six months before the Sept. 11 attack on the facility.
The assault left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
The panel adds that the officer told it the U.S. mission had made repeated requests for increased security.
A spokesman for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is holding a hearing on the controversy next week, says its source is Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom, who was stationed in Libya from September 2011 to June 2012.
According to the panel, Nordstrom has already given a private briefing to members and will be called to testify at the session next Wednesday.
The committee has also requested testimony from a second State Department official, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Programs Charlene Lamb, who is involved in reviewing security requests.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57525717/house-panel-state-dept-confirmed-libya-threats/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2940216/posts
Despite Threats, U.S. Cut Security in Libya Before Attacks
Daily Beast ^ | 10/4/2012 | Eli Lake
Posted on Thursday, October 04, 2012 3:04:13 PM by mojito
In the six months leading up to the assault on the United States consulate in Benghazi, the State Department reduced the number of trained Americans guarding U.S. facilities in Libya, according to a leading House Republican investigating the Sept. 11 anniversary attacks. The reduction in U.S. security personnel increased America’s reliance on local Libyan guards for the protection of its diplomats.
This is the latest charge from Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican leading a House investigation on the Benghazi attacks, regarding alleged security defects in Benghazi. Chaffetz said the information comes from whistleblowers who have approached the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
******************************************
From the article:
“The fully trained Americans who can deal with a volatile situation were reduced in the six months leading up to the attacks.”
Exclusive: Former CIA Official: Obama ‘October Surprise’ Airstrike in Libya ‘Would Be Criminal’
The former senior CIA official told Breitbart News that with America’s lack of intelligence on the ground in Libya, the fallout for any sort of airstrike could be catastrophic, leading to civilian casualties, and more broadly, to the fall of a weak but moderate Libyan government. He pointed out that the government in Pakistan has been forced to answer for US airstrikes inside Pakistan, thanks to the high level of civilian casualties; such scrutiny for a weaker and far more moderate government in Libya would cause its collapse. “The danger is what straw will break a very weak, moderate, democratically elected government in Libya,” he stated. “There are people on the ground with relationships with the Tripoli government. This government is hanging on by a thread, building a coalition to keep the extremists at bay and the moderates together. Any unilateral US attack that isn’t looked upon as something done in conjunction with Libyan forces will be very difficult for this government to survive.”
snip
The former senior CIA official stated that it is usual for the Department of Defense to put together contingency lists in the aftermath of foreign policy catastrophes like the murder of our ambassador in Libya. He also said that he had confidence that the Department of Defense would stand against any airstrike inside Libyan targets: “They’ll have enough people who will say, ‘this is purely political.’”
snip
With that level of politicization of our defense strategy in the White House, this official states that a “wag the dog” scenario, in which airstrikes are undertaken in order to make the president seem stronger going into an election, is a very real possibility. “We’re 30 days before the election,” he said. “People have been crying wolf over ‘wag the dog’ since the movie came out. But this would be it. There’s not one intelligence officer – even the Director of National Intelligence – who could look you in the eye and say, ‘Sure, the intelligence is good enough for a surgical strike using smart weapons from above.’
“If the administration pursues an airstrike at this time, both Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and CIA Director General David Petraeus should be removed from office … This would be criminal.”
By Jake Tapper
@jaketapper
Find on FacebookFollow on Twitter
Oct 5, 2012 7:00amEmail Shows State Department Rejecting Request of Security Team at US Embassy in Libya
ABC News has obtained an internal State Department email from May 3, 2012, indicating that the State Department denied a request from the security team at the Embassy of Libya to retain a DC-3 airplane in the country to better conduct their duties.
Copied on the email was U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in a terrorist attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, Sept. 11, 2012, along with three other Americans. That attack has prompted questions about whether the diplomatic personnel in that country were provided with adequate security support.
No one has yet to argue that the DC-3 would have definitively made a difference for the four Americans killed that night. The security team in question, after all, left Libya in August.
But the question – both for the State Department, which is conducting an internal investigation, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is holding hearings next week – is whether officials in Washington, D.C., specifically at the State Department, were as aware as they should have been about the deteriorating security situation in Libya, and whether officials were doing everything they could to protect Americans in that country.
snip
The subject line of the email, from Miki Rankin, the post management officer for Libya and Saudi Arabia, reads “Termination of Tripoli DC-3 Support.”
Rankin informs Stevens and the others on the email, whose names have been redacted, that Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy “has determined that support for Embassy Tripoli using the DC-3 will be terminated immediately. Post’s request to continue use of the plane in support of the SST was considered. However, it was decided that, if needed, NEA will charter a special flight for their departure.”
snip
Email on next post
snip
Shown the email uncovered by ABC News, a spokesman for the committee said the “document is consistent with what the Oversight Committee has been told by individuals who worked in Libya. Ambassador Stevens and the diplomatic mission in Libya made multiple security related requests that were turned down by Washington based officials. Security related transportation has been identified as one of the particular items where embassy personnel did not receive the support they sought.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/2102-18563_162-57527150.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody
Congress to probe security flaws for Libya diplomats
By Sharyl Attkisson .Updated 10:43 PM ET
(CBS News) WASHINGTON - CBS News has learned that congressional investigators have issued a subpoena to a former top security official at the US mission in Libya. The official is Lt. Col. Andy Wood, a Utah National Guard Army Green Beret who headed up a Special Forces “Site Security Team” in Libya.
Lt. Col. Andy Wood led a 16-member Special Forces site security team responsible for protecting U.S. personnel in Libya.
/ CBS News/Andy Woods The subpoena compels Lt. Col. Wood to appear at a House Oversight Committee hearing next week that will examine security decisions leading up to the Sept. 11 Muslim extremist terror assault on the U.S. compound at Benghazi. U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three of his colleagues were killed in the attack.
Lt. Col. Wood has told CBS News and congressional investigators that his 16-member team and a six-member State Department elite force called a Mobile Security Deployment team left Libya in August, just one month before the Benghazi assault. Wood says that’s despite the fact that US officials in Libya wanted security increased, not decreased.
Wood says he met daily with Stevens and that security was a constant challenge. There were 13 threats or attacks on western diplomats and officials in Libya in the six months leading up to the September 11 attack.
A senior State Department official told CBS News that half of the 13 incidents before September 11 were fairly minor or routine in nature, and that the Benghazi attack was so lethal and overwhelming, that a diplomatic post would not be able to repel it.
Wood, whose team arrived in February, says he and fellow security officials were very worried about the chaos on the ground. He says they tried to communicate the danger to State Department officials in Washington, D.C., but that the officials denied requests to enhance security.
Bronxville: I don't see the direct link at ACD for this article. Can you provide?]
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The Benghazi Mess (Literally, As Well As Figuratively)
Posted on Saturday, October 06, 2012 5:23:12 PM by bronxville
The Benghazi Mess (Literally, As Well As Figuratively)
American Center for Democracy ^ | October 4th, 2012 | Kenneth D. M. Jensen
Stephen Fidler, writing in the Wall Street Journal, has provided an extensive update on the situation in Benghazi that focuses on the unsecured documents that remain scattered around the consulate. Because the situation is still regarded as too dangerous, the FBI has not been allowed to go in. However, others have, including CNN, and a great deal is already known about what “goodies” are accessible among the U.S. documents. Fidler says, giving an example,
“At least one document found amid the clutter indicates that Americans at the mission were discussing the possibility of an attack in early September, just two days before the assault took place. The document is a memorandum dated Sept. 9 from the U.S. mission’s security office to the 17th February Martyrs Brigade, the Libyan-government-sanctioned militia that was guarding the compound, making plans for a ‘quick reaction force,’ or QRF, that would provide security.
“’In the event of an attack on the U.S. Mission,’ the document states, ‘QRF will request additional support from the 17th February Martyrs Brigade.’”
This is interesting, of course, because the 17th February Martyrs Brigade is related in some way to the Muslim Brotherhood. The MB having security responsibility for our consulate? I ask you!
Fidler also says that
“The itinerary of Stevens’s trip to Benghazi includes a near-full accounting of his planned movements during what was supposed to be a visit that lasted from Sept. 10 until Sept. 15. It includes names and phone numbers of Libyans who were scheduled to meet with him. Some of those Libyans have not made their contact with Stevens public and could be at risk if it were publicly known.
“The meetings include briefings with U.S. officials, a private dinner with influential local leaders, and meetings with militia heads, businesspeople, civil society activists and educators. The highlight of the visit was the opening of the American Space, a center intended to serve as a hub for U.S. culture and education.”
Jordanian Islamist demonstrate for greater reform after parliament is dissolved
October 5, 2012
Thousands of Jordanians marched in the streets of the capital Amman Friday calling for reform.
The protest came at the heels of the Jordanian king, Abdullah II's decision to dissolve parliament and call for elections at the end of the year.
The king's move was likely executed after officials caught wind of the protest, said CNN.
Abdullah has tried to stem any chance of an Arab Spring-style uprising that has swept up neighboring countries by focusing his reform on parliament and prime ministers, of which he has fired four in the last two years.
Reuters reported that the protest was the largest in 22 months of now weekly protests that often occur after Friday afternoon prayers.
More from GlobalPost: Jordan: King Abdullah II dissolves parliament, calls early elections
It was estimated that about 15,000 people took part on the main street of Amman shouting demands for reform.
The "Friday to Rescue the Nation" rally was called by the Muslim Brotherhood, Reuters said, who told members to boycott the upcoming elections.
The Washington Post reported that the Islamist group also denounced recently passed electoral laws favoring rural tribal areas over urbanized areas, their typical stronghold.
It is believed that the protests have yet to amount to a real threat to Abdullah's power as opposition groups remain divided and few desire to see the king overthrown.
The protest on Friday ended without incident.
*************************************************
“For over 20 months, the Jordanian people have had one central demand: the right to choose governments,” said Zaki Bani Rsheid, the Brotherhood’s deputy head.“And for over 20 months, the regime has provided nothing more than empty promises, and now we are faced with a political crisis.”
Source
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Related thread:
Sorry thouworm, my computer seized at that moment thus accidentally posted the wrong link, thank you for pointing it out - I’m not a suscriber to the WSJ so could only get the information here:
http://www.econwarfare.org/viewarticle.cfm?id=4904
This is an amazing thread. Thank you for the ping.
Egyptian Soccer
Some readers will have noticed that James Dorsey’s pieces come out on the URL http: mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg . “Sg,” in this instance, stands for Singapore, by the way. For whatever reason, Dorsey is indeed serious about following Middle East soccer, as well as the involvement of Middle East interests in European football clubs. His interest, it seems, has given him access to all sorts of information, like the two pieces above on Qatari labor issues. Where it seems to stand him in the best stead regards what’s going on in Egypt.
Dorsey has brought to our attention the importance of the “ultras” in Egyptian politics. As he says, “Ultras groups across Egypt constitute the country’s second largest, most organized civic group after Mr. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s foremost political grouping.”
Who are they? If one knows the sports world outside the United States, one knows that “ultras” is a term for fanatical team partisans. In the case of Egypt, one is talking about “Ultras Ahlawy” (UA-07), a group that supported the Cairo-based Egyptian Premier League football club Al-Ahly....
http://www.econwarfare.org/viewarticle.cfm?id=4904
“Ultras Ahlawy played a key role in the 2011 Egyptian protests, along with the Ultras White Knights.[2]
The Battle of Feb2nd was a key turning point in the Egyptian revolution. It is known as Bloody Wednesday in Egypt and as “the battle of the camel” in the west. Over 300 Egyptians died that day, most of them Ultras. Video of Ultras Fighting in Tahrir Sq.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultras_Ahlawy
There are thousands of Ultras. They were called by the salafist mullahs on facebook to attend the recent protest in Cairo and are becoming more political. Quatar is being stirred up as well...this time with labor...large, easy to rile, angry grouping. They all sound kinda similar to the occupiers Obamist et al are setting up here - we’re not immune and when the time is right, such as, when jihad obamist loses the election, who knows...
Thanks.
Yes, there is so much info in this thread that we could use a search engine just for this thread alone.
Thank you for the info. Something very unsavory is going on here. The info TO the mb HAD to come from somewhere...up to and including that stupid movie trailer they used as an excuse. The timeline smells worse than rotten fish.
PS
Feel free to contribute anything you think would be of interest. We are very informal around here. Good info is good info and I would sure appreciate it.
PPS
There is a ping list for this thread.
http://freebeacon.com/revolt-of-the-spooks/
Revolt of the Spooks
BY: Bill Gertz
October 5, 2012 5:00 am
Weeks before the presidential election, President Barack Obama’s administration faces mounting opposition from within the ranks of U.S. intelligence agencies over what career officers say is a “cover up” of intelligence information about terrorism in North Africa.
Intelligence held back from senior officials and the public includes numerous classified reports revealing clear Iranian support for jihadists throughout the tumultuous North Africa and Middle East region, as well as notably widespread al Qaeda penetration into Egypt and Libya in the months before the deadly Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
“The Iranian strategy is two-fold: upping the ante for the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against Iran and perceived cyber operations against Iran’s nuclear weapons program by conducting terror attacks on soft U.S. targets and cyber attacks against U.S. financial interests,” said one official, speaking confidentially.
The Iranian effort also seeks to take the international community’s spotlight off Iran’s support for its Syrian ally.
snip
Intelligence officials pointed to the statement issued Sept. 28 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that raised additional concern about the administration’s apparent mishandling of intelligence. The ODNI statement said that “in the immediate aftermath, there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo.”
Officials say the ODNI’s false information was either knowingly disseminated or was directed to be put out by senior policy officials for political reasons, since the statement was contradicted by numerous intelligence reports at the time of the attack indicating it was al Qaeda-related terrorism.
snip
Officials with access to intelligence reports, based on both technical spying and human agents, said specific reporting revealed an alarming surge in clandestine al Qaeda activity months before the attack in Benghazi.
Yet the Obama administration sought to keep the information from becoming public to avoid exposing what the officials say is a Middle East policy failure by Obama.
Officials said that the administration appeared to engage in a disinformation campaign aimed at distancing the president personally during the peak of the presidential election campaign from the disaster in Benghazi, where numerous warning of an attack were ignored, resulting in the deaths of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other officials.
The first part of the apparent campaign, officials said, was the false information provided to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who appeared on Sunday television shows after the attack to say the event was a “spontaneous” response to an anti-Muslim video trailer posted online.
Officials said Rice was given the false information to use in media appearances in order to promote the excuse that the obscure video was the cause of the attack, and not the Islamic concept of jihad.
snip
The final element of the campaign involved comments by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was the first to give a partial explanation of the intelligence when she said al Qaeda terrorists operating from Mali were possible culprits in the Benghazi attack.
“What she failed to mention was the cooperation of Iran and Egypt in supporting jihadists in Libya,” the official said, who added the events would be investigated in an apparent effort to stave off internal critics in government.
That has led to delays in getting FBI and other U.S. investigators into Benghazi, raising concerns that some in the White House wanted to delay the FBI’s efforts to uncover evidence about the attack.
snip
The administration, in particular, wants to keep hidden solid intelligence showing that the terrorist group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans is now flourishing under the Muslim Brotherhood regime of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.
Egypt was among the locations of Obama’s 2009 so-called “apology” tour, when the president criticized past U.S. policies based on what he said was “fear and anger” that prompted actions “contrary to our ideals.” He also promised “a new beginning” for the U.S. and the world’s Muslims and a radical shift in U.S. policy.
The rise of Islamists in the region instead has produced a surge in anti-American protests and riots, culminating in the terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate.
Recent intelligence reports show that Egypt’s Al-Azhar University in Cairo is emerging as a covert base for al Qaeda organizational and training activities for a jihadi network consisting of many nationalities.
MUCH, MUCH MORE AT LINK
Statement by the Director of Public Affairs for the Director of National Intelligence, Shawn Turner, on the intelligence related to the terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Friday, September 28, 2012
In the aftermath of the terrorist attack on U.S. personnel and facilities in Benghazi, Libya, the Intelligence Community launched a comprehensive effort to determine the circumstances surrounding the assault and to identity the perpetrators. We also reviewed all available intelligence to determine if there might be follow-on attacks against our people or facilities in Libya or elsewhere in the world.
As the Intelligence Community collects and analyzes more information related to the attack, our understanding of the event continues to evolve. In the immediate aftermath, there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo. We provided that initial assessment to Executive Branch officials and members of Congress, who used that information to discuss the attack publicly and provide updates as they became available. Throughout our investigation we continued to emphasize that information gathered was preliminary and evolving.As we learned more about the attack, we revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists. It remains unclear if any group or person exercised overall command and control of the attack, and if extremist group leaders directed their members to participate. However, we do assess that some of those involved were linked to groups affiliated with, or sympathetic to al-Qa’ida. We continue to make progress, but there remain many unanswered questions. As more information becomes available our analysis will continue to evolve and we will obtain a more complete understanding of the circumstances surrounding the terrorist attack.
We continue to support the ongoing FBI investigation and the State Department review of the Benghazi terrorist attack, providing the full capabilities and resources of the Intelligence Community to those efforts. We also will continue to meet our responsibility to keep Congress fully and currently informed. For its part, the Intelligence Community will continue to follow the information about the tragic events in Benghazi wherever it leads. The President demands and expects that we will do this, as do Congress and the American people. As the Intelligence Community, we owe nothing less than our best efforts in this regard, especially to the families of the four courageous Americans who lost their lives at Benghazi in service of their country.
***********************************************
This is the ‘statement’ referred to in the Bill Gertz article.
Thanks MestaMachine, I just added some stuff to this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2941267/posts
There’s division in the ranks already. The Al Nour Salafist party are infighting. I believe the individual who dubbed the trailer movie is within that party. It could have been Ghaffour, leader of the Al Nour party, working for the Muslim Brotherhood, because he just got a promotion as advisor to President Morsi. Or it could have been Yasser Borhamy, as it’s just been discovered that he’s been meeting secretly with Ahmed Shafiq from Mubarak;s security detail, perhaps that’s why they were meeting.
The MB’s new political party is the Freedom and Justice Party. heh Al Nour is the Party of the Salafist Calling Movement. They each have their wings, one political and the other...assassins at the ready which is what happened at the Consul. One of these political groups dubbed the words into the trailer movie and attacked the Consul - which one is the question...
“The Al-Nour Party “Party of The Light”) is one of the political parties created in Egypt after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. It has an ultra-conservative Islamist ideology, which believes in implementing strict Sharia law.
It has been described as the political arm of the Salafi Call Society,[2] and “by far the most prominent” of the several new Salafi parties in Egypt,[3] which it has surpassed by virtue of its “long organizational and administrative experience” and “charismatic leaders.”....
...The Salafi Call group started during the 1970s, and was established in the 1980s in Alexandria University after students refused to join the Muslim Brotherhood, leading to clashes, leading the Salafis to institutionalize their activities within the city.[4]...
...Al-Nour Party is an ultra-conservative Islamist party maintaining a strict version of Islam, known as the Salafi methodology. Salafis believe in practising Islam as it was practiced by the Prophet Muhammad, his companions, and the later generations. Their main source of governance is strictly based on the Quran and the Sunnah.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Nour_Party
And the Muslim Brotherhood likens itself more to Khomeini’ style - Jimmah’s friend. These groups may be old enemies but both have the same endgame - a caliphate. The Turkish AKP party, of course, want Ottoman II. What an absolutely wonderful scenario the Jimmah/Obama/Hillary administrations have given us. And to think Zbigniew Brzezinski is still around and very involved in helping us all.
Could you please put me on your ping list...thank you.
Very interesting article by Bill Gertz.
Gotcha and welcome.
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