Smart Ad-Hocracy
The State Department’s Victoria Nuland’s briefing with reporters shows how careful she must be. Those who want to watch the video of her briefing can view it here. Take the killling of a Yemeni security agent employed by the Embassy. Even though the New York Times reports that “a senior Yemeni officer working in the United States Embassy in Sana was killed here in the capital on Thursday in an attack that security sources said bore the hallmarks of the regional franchise of al-Qaeda” Nuland had to make the following statement.
QUESTION: Does that mean that you don’t know if he was targeted because he was an employee? This could have been – as far as you know, this could have been just a random act of crime – criminality?
MS. NULAND: It could – he could have been killed for reasons that had something to do with his job or reasons that had nothing to do with his job.
The carefulness was evident elsewhere. In an extraordinary exchange Ms. Nuland was asked by reporters why even though the State Department knew or strongly suspected that the attack on the Benghazi consulate was planned from the first they deferred to higher authorities who insisted a video might have something to do with it.
QUESTION: And yet Under Secretary Kennedy and other people in this building knew, or felt in their opinion, that that was not correct, and that this was –
MS. NULAND: I’m not going to get into the personal feelings of anybody. I’m simply going to say that in making public statements, one depends on the totality of what the Administration knows.
QUESTION: But you didn’t. You never said that.
MS. NULAND: Look, I’m generally dumber than most of the rest of the government. I mean, that’s what I’m paid to be. (Laughter.)
She is paid to take the heat. Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post goes into detail about who else is taking the bullet so that the rest can skate.
The Romney campaign put out a statement by former CIA director Michael Hayden and former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff that read: “During the Vice Presidential debate, we were disappointed to see Vice President Biden blame the intelligence community for the inconsistent and shifting response of the Obama Administration to the terrorist attacks in Benghazi. Given what has emerged publicly about the intelligence available before, during, and after the September 11 attack, it is clear that any failure was not on the part of the intelligence community, but on the part of White House decision-makers who should have listened to, and acted on, available intelligence. Blaming those who put their lives on the line is not the kind of leadership this country needs.”
In fact, Corker explained that the U.S. government had information for some time about the internal security breakdown in Libya. He noted that Foreign Relations Committee had hearings in which the Libyan security situation was referenced. But the administration, Corker believes, still clung to the story that Libya was doing just fine. He said, “That narrative is the reason you are seeing the administration acting the way it is.”
They may have known the truth for some time, but all the same the administration itself is still examining the evidence before jumping to any conclusions, including video from an overhead drone.
The Obama administration has been studying the videos, taken from closed-circuit cameras throughout the Benghazi consulate’s four-building compound, for clues about who was responsible for the attack and how it played out. The two officials tell The Daily Beast that analysts are hoping to decipher the faces of the attackers and match them up with known jihadists …
In addition to the footage from the consulate cameras, the U.S. government is also poring over video taken from an overhead U.S. surveillance drone that arrived for the final hour of the night battle at the consulate compound and nearby annex.
Meanwhile Lee Smith writing in Tablet innocuously asks: “Will Jordan Be Next to Fall?” If it does we will no doubt hear about it eventually after the administration has finished examining drone footage of the event. Smith writes:
Should King Abdullah II become the next Arab ruler to fall as part of the upheavals that have swept through the region now for almost two years, it will mark another major setback for the United States in the region. For Israel it’s significantly worse news. Jerusalem would lose its remaining strategic partner in the region—having already lost Turkey and Egypt—and face a possible nightmare on its longest border, exposing the country’s center to attacks from the east that might include Sunni Jihadists or Iranian-trained Iraqi agents …
Over the last two years, the Arab uprisings have posed a number of vital questions for Washington and its allies. Where should the United States step in to intervene, and on whose side? What governments and movements should we engage, and which should we isolate or punish? The reality is that there’s little the United States can do at this point to protect one of its most steadfast allies in the region. Perhaps Abdullah will prove creative enough to exploit the weaknesses of the growing protest movement, or broker a new national identity that finally binds the East Bankers and Palestinians together and leaves him on the throne. If not, American policymakers will again be scrambling for answers—and Israeli leaders may find yet another border in trouble.
The fall of Egypt, the loss of Jordan, the give-away of Iraq, Hezbollah flying in drones from Lebanon, chaos in Syria — why Israel is pretty much surrounded — what could go wrong? For sure some people think the effects will never be felt in Ohio. And even if oil becomes scarce — so what? Buy a Nissan Leaf. Buy a Chevy Volt. They run on electricity.
Don’t worry we’re in the best of hands. What it really comes down to is the need to maintain the narrative that “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive”. At least until election day
Belmont Commenters
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
“Will Jordan Be Next to Fall?” If it does we will no doubt hear about it eventually after the administration has finished examining drone footage of the event.
And the fall guy set up.
Liberalism cannot endure unless the body politic deliberately ignores, or silently permits its policy makers to ignore, those things it knows to be true. The Muslim Brotherhood is just another political party. Al Qaeda no longer exists. Islam is a religion of peace. The Arab Spring is a democracy movement.
“Abandon
hopereason all who enter here.”Now I’m beginning to wonder if Bin Ladin is actually dead. If it weren’t for the seal team involved I’d consider the story of his death more prog fabrication.
“Should King Abdullah II become the next Arab ruler to fall…”
Or in other words, the entire region, outside of Israel, descends to its natural thermodynamically stable state, which is more or less the same as that of Gaza, on a good day.
Obama should have a Department of Entropy.
‘Dark energy’ will keep this region of the world accelerating into chaos.
“MS. NULAND: Look, I’m generally dumber than most of the rest of the government. I mean, that’s what I’m paid to be. (Laughter.)”
—
Isn’t that what Biden gets paid to be?
—
I knew their was a simple truism I was missing last night about Ryan’s performance:
When someone’s making an ass of themselves, I knew their was a simple truism I was missing last night about Ryan’s performance:
When someone’s making an ass of themselves, stay out of his/her way.
5:)
wormwhole or black hole …….
SF
RWE said…
“Obama should have a Department of Entropy.”
It must be near critical mass, too bad it can’t be controlled at that point and extract the energy.
…instead of the inevitable.
‘Dark energy’ indeed!
New policy, whenever we deem it necessary, we will confiscate a section of land, displace those living there and establish a military base. We will hold the base until we deem it no longer necessary. Start with Benghazi. Any trouble from Egypt against the US or our ally, Israel, and we take that sliver between the Suez Canal and Israel. Palestinians act up, all Arabs out of Palestine, US forces have a new training base for combined ops with Israeli forces. Pretty soon they will either catch on and behave or become extinct. Either way worrks for me. Call it tough love.
Ha! Every move Obama bin Sodden has made in the Middle East has resulted in victories for America’s and Israel’s enemies. He is not touching Syria because Syria is “one of America’s best allies in the Middle East,” and a dear friend of the Ayatollahs of Iran. If Israel is attacked and we do nothing, she WILL go down. And “Never Again” will punctuate what she does before she goes and the whole Arab and Persian world will rue the day they decided to “eliminate” a nuclear power.
After Israel is gone, who’s next? Perhaps we should ask the untold thousands of OTMs who crossed the border, who would undoubtedly love to join with La Raza and MS-13 terrorist groups who are now in 45 states. And what if they have already received “lots more” guns and ammo that we learned about in Fast and Furious?
And all you guys buying ammo – you don’t have enough. And all those who have ammo in large quantities who do not have a National redoubt to defend? You will be killed post haste in your little suburban dwelling and your ammo will be used against your countrymen who have remained intentionally deaf, dumb, and blind the last two decades.
Of course, there will always be plenty of patriots who would stand on the wall against any interlopers, but with what I’m seeing coming out of Washington of late, the guys who would eat the 2 ton J-Dams would be the guys fighting FOR America.
Hey, anybody seen or heard from Petraeus lately?
Not a peep out of him during the Bengazi mess. Perhaps he is followinghis Boss’s lead and hasn’t taken any intel briefs since his arrival and is more interested in video games:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/
Get used to it. America no longer has what would be easily recognized in days past as Heroes left in her non-military ditizens.
No one is holding America’s traitors to account. No one.
9. SpeakEasy.
Hey *snap* *snap* Wake up, man. Super ideas, but the President of the United States is Barack Hussein Obama. And he’s got lots of time to totally demolish the Middle East…including Jordan. And that’s if the total knuckleheads don’t re-elect him for 4 more. If so, we’ll have a big fight on our hands just to keep calm in this country.
First premise. No political structure in the Middle East, with the exceptions of Turkey and Israel, are legitimate. All others are merely projections of arbitrary and unnatural tribal despotisms imposed upon neighboring communities and supported by external powers through a two way graft machine.
Egypt had the potential to be a real nation-state but the inherent exploitative dysfunctional culture of the Arab-Muslim tribes who have occupied the place and exploited the native Coptic-Egyptian population have prevented a true nation from arising. This is what lead to such dead ends as the United Arab Republic, which at one time presumed to tie Egypt Yemen and Syria into a Frankenstein monster.
Lebanon also showed promise before drowning under waves of imported, i.e. the Palestinians who were often descended from a low productivity fedayeen community that had been encouraged 100 years ago to move from the Levant to where the Jews were creating wealth, or native, the Shi’a who proved the enemy of their own state, failure.
Second premise. The Iranian regime has waged aggressive war against peace loving nations, including the United States and has occupied and oppressed minority communities as part of their messianic imperial program.
Third premise. Since the current structures are both illegitimate and ineffective they can be replaced by new structures that may better serve the interests of the (productive) international community.
Conclusion, create new structures first by liberating regions that have been Iran and then by other would be Caliphates. Kurdistan, Baluchistan, and Arabistan, the last encompassing those Arabic speaking regions in the South-west of the country where the oil happens to be, could be granted independence and united with colingual neighbors. Carve KSA into three parts. Free the Eastern Province, where the oil happens to be. Return the Hashemites to the Hejaz, unless the Israelis get pushed to the point that they decide to reclaim Khaybar and Yathrib. Unite the Sunni Northern Arabs of Syria, Anbar and the Nejd. Unify the coastal multi-ethnic and multi-religious Levant from Antioch to Tyre and free it from occupation and oppression by Arab Islamic communities, Sunni or Shi’a. The indigenous Shi’a of the Levant are the biggest problem in that there are no neighbors that can absorb them and they have a track record of subverting and destabilizing any society that attempts to host them. They may need to be transferred to Southern Iraq-Iran-Arabistan.
11Sgian: No,no, I’m awake and aware. I am looking beyond the Clown Posse to an era similar to the Reagan-Bush I years.
When opportunity knocks you have to make the most of it. Carter made our modern military possible and Obama will unintentionally usher in the next Generation. The current economy will make the recovery look like a boom and most of the sheep will be too busy mending their lives to care about foreign policy too much. Good under the right stewardship, very bad under fecklessness. Call me an optimist.