Tag: Libyan Embassy

The Benghazi Hearings: A Search for Responsibility

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

LibyanembassybloodThis is it. Make no mistake where you are. This is it. You’re going no further.

Kenny Loggins wrote those words a long time ago. Never have they been more appropriate than today, the first day of the Benghazi Hearing, presented by the House Oversight Committee.

Jim Geraghty of nationalreview.com has some advice for those holding the hearings:

Dear Republicans on the House Oversight Committee:

Please do not grandstand. Please do not take the time before the television cameras to tell us how outraged you are, even though what you are investigating is, indeed, outrageous. There will be plenty of time for that after the hearing. All day Wednesday, give us the facts, and then more facts, and then more facts.

Just ask the questions of the witnesses. Let them speak and don’t cut them off. Do not give the Obama administration any cover to claim that this is a partisan witch hunt from unhinged political opponents. Don’t waste time complaining about the media’s lack of interest or coverage so far. Just give them — and us — the facts to tell the story, a story that will leave all of us demanding accountability.

Going back through the Blogs I have written about Benghazigate, a mutlitude of answers remain to be given by this Administration.

Back on November 1, 2012, in a post titled, “BenghaziGate: A Matter of Transparency”, I reported that

On September 11, 2012, 4 brave Americans, including our Ambassador, were murdered on the grounds of the Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. As I wrote the other day, answers are still being sought , and America’s President “ain’t saying a mumblin’ word.”

Perhaps, that is because his present actions are in direct opposition to what he promised upon taking office.

From whitehouse.gov, “Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government”

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public…

As Americans have figured out by now, all of Obama’s promises come with expiration dates.

Jake Tapper of CNN,  yesterday, interviewed Pat Smith, whose son Sean Smith, a State Department information officer, was one of four Americans killed during the attack.

JAKE TAPPER: One woman still looking for answers is Pat Smith. Her son, State Department Information Officer Sean Smith was one of the four Americans killed. Pat, thanks so much for being here. I know this is not an easy time. How are you holding up?

PAT SMITH, MOTHER OF SEAN SMITH, KILLED IN BENGHAZI: Terrible. I cry every night. I don’t sleep at night. I need answers.

TAPPER: What do you want answers to? What do you not know?

SMITH: Why was there no security for him? When they were supposed to have security and the security that they did have was called back. It just — things do not add up and I’m just told lies.

TAPPER: Last week, you heard this in the piece the White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that Benghazi happened a long time ago.

SMITH: Yes, it did.

TAPPER: Eight months ago.

SMITH: Yes.

TAPPER: What is your reaction to that?

SMITH: Why don’t they have answers by now? They’ve had plenty of time to come up with something other than the things they have not told me.

TAPPER: Are you concerned at all that the hearings and Benghazi that has become a political issue, the Republicans have turned it into a political issue. The Democrats have turned it into a political issue as opposed to being a scandal and a tragedy apart from politics?

SMITH: Of course, it’s political. That’s the way it’s been. That’s how they’re treating it. That’s what they’re doing with it. They’re making it into something that — why don’t they just do their job? They didn’t do their job and now they’re hiding behind the word political and going from there.

TAPPER: You have expressed disappointment in the past because President Obama, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, all of them came to you, talked to you.

SMITH: Yes.

TAPPER: And then you haven’t heard from them. Have you heard from anybody in the Obama administration? Have you gotten any outreach or any answers at all?

SMITH: I got one telephone call from a clerk that was a couple days after it happened. He was reading to me from the time line, which I already had. And that was it. And since then, all they have told me is that I am not part of the immediate family so they don’t want to tell me anything.

TAPPER: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified about the Benghazi tragedy shortly before she left office. I want to play a little bit of what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: 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 who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What was your reaction to that?

SMITH: Well, that’s what I want to know. Why did it happen? And she is in charge. Why couldn’t she do something about it? I blame her.

TAPPER: You blame Secretary of State Clinton.

SMITH: Yes.

TAPPER: Why?

SMITH: Because that’s her department. She is supposed to be on top of it. Yet she claims she knows nothing. It wasn’t told to her. Well, who is running the place?

Good question, ma’am.

And, where was her boss, President Barack Hussein Obama?

Like Pontius Pilate, he washed his hands of the matter.

And, he, Former Secretary of State Clinton, and his entire Administration are a bunch of liars, and are guilty of Dereliction of Duty, at best, and, Treason, at worst…all for the sake of political expediency.

Period.

From the order given to “Stand Down” on that horrible night,  to the sending of Susan Rice out to the media sources to spread the blatant lie that an un-watched Youtube Video caused the murderous barbarians to attack on the 11th anniversary of the largest Muslim Terrorist attack ever perpetrated on American Soil, Obama and his minions did nothing but lie to the American people.

As I originally wrote on November 1, 2012,

This is not going away anytime soon.The American public wants some answers.

Ambassador Chris Stevens, Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty, and Sean Smith remain unavailable for comment.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Benghazigate: It’s Time for the Truth

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

benghazigate2The long-awaited hearings at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about the Benghazi terror attack of September 11, 2012,finally begin tomorrow. The mission of the Democrats will be to protect Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at all costs, because, at least for now, she is the front-runner to be their 2016 Presidential Candidate.

One of the witnesses is going to state that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key aide cut the department’s own counterterrorism bureau out of the chain of reporting and decision-making.

That witness is Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for operations in the agency’s counterterrorism bureau.

… Thompson considers himself a whistle-blower whose account was suppressed by the official investigative panel that Clinton convened to review the episode, the Accountability Review Board (ARB). Thompson’s lawyer, Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, has further alleged that his client has been subjected to threats and intimidation by as-yet-unnamed superiors at State, in advance of his cooperation with Congress.

Another witness who will testify against Ms. Clinton is Gregory Hicks, the former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya.

According to Hicks…

I thought it was a terrorist attack from the get-go. I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning.

The Libyan military agreed to fly their C‑130 to Benghazi and carry additional personnel to Benghazi as reinforcements. Because we at that time — at that time, the third attack, the mortar attack at 5:15, had not yet occurred, if I remember correctly.

So Lieutenant Colonel Gibson, who is the SOCAFRICA commander, his team, you know, they were on their way to the vehicles to go to the airport to get on the C‑130 when he got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, you can’t go now, you don’t have authority to go now. And so they missed the flight.

They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it. So, anyway, and yeah. I still remember Colonel Gibson, he said, ‘I have never been so embarrassed in my life that a State Department officer has bigger balls than somebody in the military.’ A nice compliment.

Q: What was the rationale that you were given that they couldn’t go, ultimately?

Hicks: I guess they just didn’t have the right authority from the right level.”

Regarding Susan Rice’s lies, among them, blaming a Terrorist attack on an unwatched Youtube Video, when Obama and Hillary trotted her out on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows, Hicks remarked…

I’ve never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day.

My jaw hit the floor as I watched this.

According to the man who was ultimately responsible for the safety of those 4 murdered Americans, President Barack Hussein Obama, who was interviewed by his fan club at Morning Joe on the seldom-watched cable News channel, MSNBC, on the morning of October 29, 2013:

Anytime a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans who were serving our country get killed, we have to figure out what happened and fix it. But I do take offense with some suggestion that in any way, we haven’t tried to make sure that the American people knew as the information was coming in what we believed.

Pamtelones en fumar!

Obama was all over the place that day, attempting to put out the fire of Benghazigate, that was threatening his re-election, as Foxnews.com summarizes for us:

President Obama declined to answer directly whether a CIA annex was denied urgent requests for military assistance during the deadly attacks last month on U.S. outposts in Libya.

The president did not give a yes-or-no answer Friday when asked pointedly whether the Americans under attack in Benghazi, Libya, were denied requests for help during the attack.

Fox News has also learned that a request from the CIA annex for backup was later denied.

“The election has nothing to do with the four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened,” the president said in TV interview with an NBC affiliate in Colorado.

When asked again, Obama said, “The minute I found out what was going on, I gave three very clear directives — Number 1, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to.”

According to Breitbart.com:

Lt. Col. Tony Schafer told Fox News that sources were telling him that the President was watching the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya in real-time. Schafer told Fox that “only the President” could have ordered backup for the Americans who were under siege by terrorists so the President was most certainly informed of the situation as it was unfolding. “I hate to say this,” Schafer said, “according to my sources, yes, [the President] was one of those in the White House situation room in real-time watching this. And the question becomes, ‘What did the President do or not do in the moments he saw this unveiling?’ He — only he — could issue a directive to Secretary of Defense Panetta to do something.”

And, in a related story from abcnews.go.com:

In an unusual move, the Navy has replaced an admiral commanding an aircraft carrier strike group while it is deployed to the Middle East. The replacement was prompted by an Inspector General’s investigation of allegations of inappropriate leadership judgment.

Rear Adm. Charles M. Gaouette, the commander of the USS John C. Stennis strike group, is being returned to the United States for temporary reassignment.

In a statement the Navy said it had approved a request made by Vice Adm. John W. Miller, the Commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, to temporarily reassign Gaouette “pending the results of an investigation by the Navy Inspector General.”

The statement said Gaoutte would return to the carrier’s home port of Bremerton, Washington.

A Navy official familiar with the circumstances of the investigation said it involved allegations of “inappropriate leadership judgment” and stressed it was not related to personal conduct.

Uh huh.

Charles Woods, father of Tyrone Woods, one of those brave Americans killed on 9/11/12, said, during an interview on Fox News:

This news that he disobeyed his orders does not surprise me. My son was an American hero, and he had the moral strength to do what was right … even if it would have professionally cost him his job, even if it would have cost him his life.

…The reason I’m speaking out right now is that after the facts came out that the White House […] watched my son and denied his pleas for help, my son violated his orders to protect the lives of at least 30 people. He risked his life to be a hero; I wish the leadership in the White House had the same level of moral courage that my son displayed.

Indeed, Mr. Woods. Indeed.

This week, we will see whether the Leader of the Free World will throw his Former Secretary of State under his now world-famous bus, as he apparently did those 4 brave Americans on that horrible night of September 11, 2012.

It will not surprise anyone if he does.

Harry S. Truman had a plaque on his desk which read,

The Buck Stops Here.

President Barack Hussein Obama has one on his desk, which reads, 

It’s Not My Fault.