LONG STORY SHORT – The Obama State Department:
- REMOVED U.S. Special Forces from a red-hot danger zone;
- INSTALLED local militia with ties to Muslim extremists to “guard” the embassy;
- IGNORED multiple signs that attack(s) were being planned for the anniversary of 9/11;
- DENIED multiple requests for additional security;
- LIED for weeks after the attack about what they knew and when they knew it.
SHORT STORY LONG – Here’s the timeline I’ve pieced together, with URLs at the end:
- 2011 March: Obama authorizes a military assault on Libya’s Gaddafi government, without obtaining the approval of Congress that is required by law. Only 47% of Americans approve of Obama’s action.
- 2011 October: The leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, dies. While Gaddafi was admittedly a seriously major creep, he had at least been keeping Al-Qaeda out of Libya. Extremists move into the leadership vacuum left by his death.
- 2012 February: The U.S. embassy in Libya requests — and is granted — an extension on their Site Security Team (SST) composed of 16 Special Forces soldiers who provided security, medical and communications support to the embassy. The State Department says the SST can stay four more months. That sets them up to leave Libya in August, shortly before the anniversary of 9/11.
- 2012 March: Eric Nordstrom, the State Department’s Regional Security Officer, sends a cable to Washington asking for additional diplomatic security agents for Benghazi. He gets no response.
- 2012 April: Two men throw an IED over the consulate fence.
- 2012 May: Militant Muslims attack the Red Cross office in Benghazi, then post on Facebook that they’re planning something for the Americans.
- 2012 June: Unknown assailants blow a ginormous hole in the consulate gate. Four days later, the British ambassador’s car is ambushed by militants with a rocket-propelled grenade. Another threat appears on Facebook.
- 2012 July: Nordstrom again asks Washington for additional security for the diplomats in Libya. Again, he gets no response.
- 2012 August: Family members of the Libyan militia protecting the consulate receive warnings about an impending attack. Ambassador Stevens wants the 16-special forces SST to stay longer; Washington orders them to leave.
- 2012 September 8: Members of the Libyan militia protecting the consulate warn U.S. diplomats that the security situation is “frightening.”
- 2012 September 10: The day before the anniversary of 9/11, Ayman al Zawahiri, the man who took over as head of Al Qaeda after Osama bin Laden was killed, issues a public call for Libyans to avenge the death of his Libyan deputy, Abu Yahya al Libi, who was killed in June by a U.S. drone.
- 2012 September 11: American embassies are assaulted in 20 different countries. In Cairo, attackers scale the U.S. embassy walls and replace the U.S. flag with the Islamist banner. The consulate in Benghazi is attacked by about 20 heavily armed men. Our people in the White House, State Department, military, FBI and CIA watch the attack going down in real time.
Click on graphic to embiggen.
SBU means Sensitive but Unclassified. COM means Chief of Mission – i.e., the Ambassador.
February 17 Brigade is a militia with links to the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and most influential Islamic movement in the world. It’s credo is, “Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.” Its most famous slogan, which is used worldwide, is “Islam is the solution.”
Click on graphic to embiggen.
Ansar al-Sharia: Translation “Partisans of Islamic Law” is an Islamist militia group in Libya that advocates for the implementation of strict Sharia law throughout Libya.
Category Yellow: Homeland Security uses a five color-coded threat level scale to label the probability of a terrorist attack and its potential gravity. Red is severe risk; Orange is high risk; Yellow is significant risk; Blue is guarded, general risk; Green is low risk.
- Late on the night of September 11 to 12: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issues a statement that “some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.”
- 2012 September 12: Media outlets report that Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans were killed in an attack by well-armed militants. Reuters reports that some administration officials believe the assault “bears the hallmarks of an organized attack.” Reuters also reports there are indications that members of both al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al-Sharia may have been involved in organizing the attacks. President Obama says he does not believe the “outrageous and shocking attack” was simply due to a protest that turned violent, but he never mentions either the video or the word terrorism. He just says, “My suspicion is that there are folks involved in this who were looking to target Americans from the start.”
- 2012 September 13: White House spokesman Jay Carney says “the protests we’re seeing around the region are in reaction to this movie.”
- 2012 September 14: Carney says the administration had “no actionable intelligence” that a 9/11 attack was being planned.
- 2012 September 15: A CNN reporter walks through the unsecured crime scene at the Benghazi consulate and makes off with Ambassador Stevens’ personal journal. CNN reads and uses Stevens’ journal entries in news reports, citing it as an unidentified source “familiar with Stevens’ thinking” and saying the ambassador had been concerned about a “rise in Islamic extremism” that posed security threats to him and his staff.
- 2012 September 16: Susan Rice, Obama’s Ambassador to the United Nations, appears on multiple Sunday talk shows, saying again and again that a protest over the video was the “proximate cause” of the four American deaths. Libya’s interim president Mohamed Magarief says the assault in Benghazi was not a spontaneous protest, but “was planned, definitely.”
- 2012 September 19: National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen testifies before the Senate Homeland Security Committee that the assault was an “opportunistic” attack in which armed terrorists took advantage of an on-going protest. (Olsen was appointed to the position in 2011 by President Obama.)
- 2012 September 20: President Obama says, “What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.” CBS reports that witnesses in Benghazi say there was no protest prior to the armed assault against the consulate. White House Press Secretary Carney declares it “self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”
- 2012 September 21: Secretary of State Clinton says “what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”
- 2012 September 25: In his address to the U.N. General Assembly, Obama makes repeated references to the video, but never mentions terrorism. Then he goes on ABC’s The View and, when asked about Clinton’s statement that “what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack”, Obama blames “extremist militias” and says “we’re still doing an investigation.”
- 2012 September 26: Libyan president Magarief tells NBC there was no protest prior to the armed assault against the consulate.
- 2012 September 27: Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says it’s “clear that there were terrorists who planned that attack.”
- 2012 September 28: The Director of National Intelligence (DNI), James Clapper, issues a statement kinda sorta taking the blame for maybe saying there had been a protest that got out of control. (Clapper was appointed by Obama in 2010 and is subject to his authority, direction, and control.)
2012 October 1: Jon Stewart summarizes the administration’s fumbling in “American Terror Story” [5:09 video embedded]
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-1-2012/american-terror-story
- 2012 October 3: FBI investigators finally arrive at the crime scene in Benghazi, which has been unsecured since September 11. (One wonders what exactly constituted all the alleged “investigating” Obama et al. had been claiming they were doing. Isn’t securing the crime scene the FIRST thing you’re supposed to do?)
- 2012 October 6: U.N. Ambassador Rice says when she was yapping on all those t.v. shows about the video, she had “relied solely and squarely on the information the intelligence community provided to me and other senior U.S. officials.”
2012 October 7: The White House Disinformation Campaign on Libya Summarized [2:52]
- 2012 October 9: Senior State Department officials for the first time acknowledge that there was never any protest in Benghazi. Then they blame the whole “blame the video” thing on the intelligence community.
- 2012 October 10: Both Lt. Col. Andy Wood (head of the SST the State Department pulled out of Libya in August) and Eric Nordstrom (the State Department’s Regional Security Officer) testify at a House Oversight Committee hearing about how their repeated requests for more security in Libya were denied by Washington. Their testimony is confirmed by cables made public by Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).
- 2012 October 11: During the vice presidential debate, Biden says, “We weren’t told they wanted more security there.” He also blames the administration’s shifting explanations about the attack on the intelligence community.
- 2012 October 22: Members of the February 17 Brigade tasked with guarding the Benghazi consulate say that, on August 28, 2012, they received a tip about a possible attack on the diplomatic compound and that on the morning of 9/11, the consulate asked them to increase security, but later, for some unknown reason, said to never mind.
- 2012 October 23-24: ABC, CBS and Reuters all release the three emails reproduced above. Reuters notes, “The timing of the emails is consistent with what a senior State Department official told reporters at a briefing on Oct. 9.”
- 2012 October 24: When asked about the emails, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the White House knew about those emails as soon as they were received. The word he used was “instantaneously.”
- 2012 October 26: Fox reported that three urgent requests for military assistance for the Benghazi consulate were sent from the CIA annex. SOMEBODY told the CIA operators they were to stand down. Two former Navy SEALS, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, were at the CIA annex. They wanted to go help defend the consulate. They were ordered to stay put, but DISOBEYED that order. Both died heroically, trying to protect the ambassador and his staff.
I was talking about all this with Dearest and mentioned my blog of Oct 15, 2012 (see URL below) where I showed how President Carter’s approval ratings had gone above 50% for four months after our Tehran embassy personnel had been taken hostage. And I said, “I bet Obama was pissed they murdered Stevens instead of taking him hostage.”
Dearest said he would not be at all surprised if Obama had actually organized the whole thing. I was skeptical at first, but when he laid out his reasoning, I had to admit, disgusting as it is, it’s also plausible.
Suppose Obama made a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood, or somebody like them, to swoop into an unprotected compound on 9/11 and take Stevens hostage. And suppose that it was only because Doherty and Woods disobeyed orders to sit on their hands that said attackers found themselves getting shot at by two highly trained Navy SEALS.
Would not the likely outcome be that the attackers would assume they had been taken for suckers and take out their anger at Obama by publicly brutalizing and murdering the guy they were supposed to just kidnap?
Keep in mind, please, that we have NO EVIDENCE this is what happened. It just seems to make a lot of sense of all of the above, KWIM?
Consider if Stevens had been kidnapped and the American people had acted the way we usually do, rallying around in support of our leader during a time of national crisis. We could easily have been headed toward a sure Obama win on November 6th.
We may owe our national salvation to two heroic Navy SEALS. Had they survived, they would surely have been court-martialed. They knew that and ran into battle anyway, because it was the right thing to do.
It would be poetic to learn this is all true, seeing as it was Navy SEALS who risked their lives to get Osama bin Laden, only to have Obama claim all the credit then blab their identities and operational secrets to our enemies.
You might also want to look at:
Oct 11, 2012 Benghazi — Terrorist Attack & WH Cover Up
https://polination.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/benghazi-terrorist-attack-wh-cover-up/
Oct 15, 2012 Was reduced security an Obama campaign strategy?
https://polination.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/was-reduced-security-an-obama-campaign-strategy/
Oct 22, 2012 How many synonyms are there for appalling?
https://polination.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/how-many-synonyms-are-there-for-appalling/
Oct 26, 2012 Our Military Deserves Better
https://polination.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/our-military-deserve-better/
Oct. 26, 2012 Tyrone Woods’ father on Glenn Beck [2:55]
Sources:
March 24, 2011 – Obama’s Libyan Intervention Has Lowest Approval of Any Military Op Polled by Gallup in 4 Decades
Ansar al-Sharia (Libya)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_al-Sharia_%28Libya%29
Oct 14, 2012 – Timeline of Libya Consulate attack reveals administration contradictions
http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/terrorism/261839-timeline-of-libya-attack-reveals-administration-contradictions-
October 22, 2012 – Benghazi Consulate was Tasked with Training Islamist Militia Members
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/benghazi-consulate-was-tasked-with-training-islamist-militia-members/
October 23, 2012 – CBS: Emails detail unfolding Benghazi attack on Sept. 11
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57538689/emails-detail-unfolding-benghazi-attack-on-sept-11/?tag=AverageMixRelated
October 23, 2012 – ABC: Email Alerts Describe 9/11 Benghazi Consulate Assault Unfolding
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/email-alerts-describe-911-benghazi-consulate-assault-unfolding/
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/page/email-attack-us-consulate-benghazi-17549429
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/page/email-attack-us-consulate-benghazi-17549430
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/page/email-attack-us-consulate-benghazi-17549431
October 24, 2012 – Reuters: White House told of militant claim two hours after Libya attack: emails
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us-usa-benghazi-emails-idUSBRE89N02C20121024
October 26, 2012 – New Explosive Benghazi Allegations: CIA Operators Told to ‘Stand Down’ During Attack As 3 Urgent Requests for Military Back-Up Were Denied
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/explosive-benghazi-allegation-cia-told-to-stand-down-during-attack-3-urgent-requests-for-military-back-up-were-denied/
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