“Say, who was that Masked Man?”
The New York Times describes how arms meant for Libyan rebels accidentally fell into the hands of Jihadis. This may have colored its subsequent attitude to arming rebels in Syria. What happened? “The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants, according to United States officials and foreign diplomats.”
Right after the opening paragraph comes this disclaimer. “No evidence has emerged linking the weapons provided by the Qataris during the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to the attack that killed four Americans at the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in September.” The main reason for the poor oversight was the administration’s desire to “keep its fingerprints off operations”.
The United States, which had only small numbers of C.I.A. officers in Libya during the tumult of the rebellion, provided little oversight of the arms shipments. Within weeks of endorsing Qatar’s plan to send weapons there in spring 2011, the White House began receiving reports that they were going to Islamic militant groups. …
As a result, the White House largely relied on Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, two small Persian Gulf states and frequent allies of the United States. Qatar, a tiny nation whose natural gas reserves have made it enormously wealthy, for years has tried to expand its influence in the Arab world. Since 2011, with dictatorships in the Middle East and North Africa coming under siege, Qatar has given arms and money to various opposition and militant groups, chiefly Sunni Islamists, in hopes of cementing alliances with the new governments. …
“Nobody knew exactly who they were” … “They just handed them out like candy”.
“Nobody knew exactly who they were”. Nor perhaps approximately, nor even possibly remotely. “They just handed them out like candy”.
While “there is no evidence” American supplied weapons were used to attack the US consulate there is apparently no way to say they were not. “Leading from behind” was apparently another way of describing a policy of operating through cutouts such that the left hand never knew what the right hand was doing. This is not a defect in the scheme. It is the whole point of it.
The only law the administration apparently cannot flout is the Law of Unintended Consequences resulting in a “perverse effect contrary to what was originally intended .” That’s what they are belatedly worried about now in Syria. Is it too late? Perhaps even they don’t know. Given their penchant for media operations their fears may be revealed in the catchphrases they use. Greta van Susteren notices that the phrase Assad ‘facing justice’ is lately in evidence.
In preparing for tonight’s ON THE RECORD at 10pm, I have read many articles where leaders say that Syria’s President Assad will ‘face justice’ if he uses chemical weapons against his people. UN chief Ban Ki-moon is the latest to make the comment.
My thought? that is too late.
‘Facing justice’ — as in in the vow “the attackers of the US consulate will be ‘facing justice’” is really Obamaspeak for ‘there is nothing we can do about it now’. When uttered it usually means the horse has bolted and we’ll never see it again.
In one sense the Obama administration’s attitude towards events is remarkably the opposite of youthful Hope it espouses and more akin to middle-aged cynicism. In human history — at least their version of it — they seem to say, it is always too late.
Stay tuned for the next episode.
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Surprising that NYT comes out with story now. Certainly it lends more weight to why administration needed to get out front with “video did it” narrative. Since US foot print was so very small in Benghazi, we will likely never know what actually happened, or what weapons were used. If we had ended up with a big operation there, in effort to save those doomed Americans, there would have been even more media, more scrutiny.
What could be at work for this story to come out now? Something to do with other events bubbling up in Middle East? Maybe an administration effort to distance itself from some of the likely forthcoming blood letting?
INTENDED UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Obama basks in compliments
As an unintended consequence
Sees arms and ammo given to wrong guys
But who says they’re unintended
When so easily pretended
And when found out can evince such great surprise
So when guns go to jihadis
Just perhaps it was the Mahdi’s
Guys Obama had in mind the whole darn while
From behind the man is leading
And it seems he is succeeding
And the unintended consequence his style
“Unintended consequences”…just like gun running to Mexico. But Obama’s
intentions were good, that makes up for everything(sarc).
“No evidence has emerged linking the weapons provided by the Qataris during the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to the attack that killed four Americans at the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in September.”
This statement makes me think this is exactly what happened…Fast and Furious on a global scale would look really bad in an election cycle….
What Obama doesn’t understand is that the Law of Unintended Consequences was written by the Great God of Arithmetic when he was feeling frisky.
Like arithmetic, unintended consequences are empirical evidence of the real world. This evidence will poke Obama’s “lead from behind, government is your God” chimera right in its monstrous eye.
Meanwhile the snow base at the local ski hill is already six feet deep. Must be all that AGW.
In my dreams I can draw royalties from the of “surprisingly” “unexpectedly” and “oopsie.”
The administration’s defense is that you cannot see the evidence that they were seen stuffing into a desk. They will now proceed to poke out your eyes for looking, cut out your tongue for asking, and burn the desk before you for good measure.
‘facing justice’” is really Obamaspeak…
For: “We will handle it with all the judicial attitude that led us to promise the Gitmo Trials would moved to the U.S, all of the deft bureaucracy that we associate with Fast and Furious, all of the openness that people associate with Obamacare, accompanied by the rapid response that was demonstrated by our response to Bengahzi, directed all of the precise strategy that has characterized our approach to the overall problem of protecting U.S. interests in the Middle East.”
i.e., The 3 Stooges team up with the Marx Brothers and hire Abbot and Costello as expert communications consultants.
# 7. RWE–
The 3 Stooges team up with the Marx Brothers and hire Abbot and Costello as expert communications consultants.
You are praising the Administration with faint damnation. If we actually had a team as you describe that would be a vast improvement over what we have now (IMHO). Groucho Marx as POTUS would be much better than Obama, Clinton, or Carter. And the fact that he is dead shouldn’t really make a difference as to his qualifications to be President anymore than being dead affects one’s right to vote these days.
The establishment has little appetite for going after terrorists in any case. After the Beirut barracks attack in 1984- an attack that may have said to be the beginning of years of attacks- there was a plan to bomb terrorist camps in the Bekaa Valley, but Colin Powell vetoed it. Clinton would have at least sent a cruise missile or two.
Of course, ‘accidentally’. That’s the story and almost everyone, even over at Spengler’s forum, apparently wants to believe. No one would deliberately funnel guns to Mexican drug cartels or Libyan/Syrian jihadis. Not even the Obamanistas. Then they describe Doug Hagmann as no better than Debka. But at least some of the things Mr. Hagmann’s sources predicted, like a Syrian use of chemical weapons false flag (which the Benghazi assault may have been set up by the Iranians in an attempt to delay or interdict) to justify direct NATO/U.S. bombing of Syria are coming true:
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/archives/7215#more-7215
http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/11/27/iran-plutonium-bomb/#comment-91640
http://reginaldquillbigsis.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/not-so-streetwise-professor-benghazi-fast-and-furious-style-gunrunning-to-jihadis-not-plausible/
With all due respect to Spengler, the Saudis and Muslim Brotherhood are not strictly antagonistic. And one Saudi prince funds the Brotherhood while another fears them. We’re not dealing with Westphalian states with unitary chains of command, but quarrelling tribes posing as nation states.
At a certain point it’s time to stop being so gullible and refusing to accept how horrible things really are.
The preparations for war in Syria are all in place — the Peace Prize Winner is going to attack another sovereign state and tell Congress he doesn’t need them he has the UN and NATO instead. With McCain and Graham cheerleading on the creation of yet another Muslim Brotherhood dominated state bordering Israel. Stupid neocons, thinking they can keep their friends close and their enemies closer. Or maybe they just don’t care as long as they get their military industrial complex paychecks and hit the D.C. cocktail party circuit.
http://reginaldquillbigsis.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/tweeps-of-war-gets-inside-the-enemys-ooda-loop-the-truth-now-called-mr-x-hatting-we-love-it/
Truth About Benghazi as Deliberate NATO Gunrunning to Jihadis Can No Longer Be Hidden
“I’m shocked! I tell you..uhm shocked?….nah fagedaboutit.”
Somewhere some useful idiot is going to throw the wrong switch, pull a trigger on the wrong person, or make some kind of bone head move, and it will be worse than 1914.
t @ 11: Somewhere some useful idiot is going to throw the wrong switch, pull a trigger on the wrong person, or make some kind of bone head move, and it will be worse than 1914.
Yeah but how it is, ya see, is that 50,000,000 or so already did, so what’s one more?
‘Facing justice’ — as in in the vow “the attackers of the US consulate will be ‘facing justice’” is really Obamaspeak for ‘there is nothing we can do about it now’. When uttered it usually means the horse has bolted and we’ll never see it again.
Now now Wretchard, no need to be so pessimistic. I’m sure that if Assad uses chemical weapons the state department would quickly fire off a strongly worded letter. Ooh! Or maybe they’ll lodge a formal protest at the UN and who knows, we might even get a universal condemnation from the international community… Then again, I wouldn’t hold out much hope for that last one.
KRB
@ 13 Or more likely the chemical weapons used will be rusty Gaddafi models imported for the false flag event so Obama and NATO can commence bombing Syria. Only this time it won’t be Libya and the U.S. is going to lose some planes and crew members, I fear. With naturally Russians being blamed for any Syrian military successes to whip up Oceania’s eternal war with Eurasia that neocons hunger to escalate.
@14 I’m not disagreeing that it seems like big 0 is steering towards a confrontation, but he doesn’t seem to fit neocon image. What is his motivation in all this? When it finally comes time for him to stand up in front of his voters, what story is he going to tell? Again with the R2P?
RWE 7,
You Sir have insulted the Fine Brothers, Minnie’s Boys, and Bud & Lou by inclusion in comparing them to rejects from Major Bowes’s Amateur Hour. Furthermore Stan & Ollie should be offended by your failure to include them in any such list. My Seconds shall await your pleasure. Harrumpf.
stephen b 15,
“When it finally comes time for him to stand up in front of his voters …”
False premise. The election is over. Obama can now be more “flexible” as he promised Medvedev and reveal himself.
@16 OK, he doesn’t really have to justify himself to “voters”…but he will concoct some story about why it’s a good idea to pick a fight with some big dogs. How will that story go? What will its ending be? Will he state his case plainly, as in: “Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in Syria deserve their chance at democracy too, like we see today in Egypt.” Or perhaps: “It’s time Israel had some less cooperative neighbors on another one of its borders.”
“the White House largely relied on Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, two small Persian Gulf states and frequent allies of the United States” NYT
A quick search revealed no smoking gun on the UAE but Qatar is another matter.
“Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who has cultivated the image of a pro-Western reformist, vowed to “spare no effort” to spread the teachings of Wahhabi Islam across “the whole world”. Last December Qatari Emir inaugurated the “Imam Imam Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab” Mosque in Doha, dedicated to the founder of the most virulent, anti-Jewish and totalitarian Islamic school of religion. [my emphasis]
Qatar’s octopus is working on three fronts: overthrowing despotic Arab regimes and replace these with sharia-based countries; destroying Israel by financing the terror groups (the emir just visited Gaza) – and Islamizing the European continent through mosques and investments.”
In Germany, Italy, the UK and France the Emir is making big yearly investments.
“Gas-rich Qatar may invest up to 10 billion euros in big French firms, the ambassador of the Gulf state in France, Mohamed Jaham Al-Kuwari, announced this week.
Qatar has also purchased, for 300 million euros, the building which hosts part of the US Embassy in Paris.”
Qatar is no ally of the US and Obama has to either know this or if not, it’s a case of doesn’t want to know, and so, the entirely predictable ‘accident’ of arms falling into al Qaeda’s arms clearly wasn’t a concern. And if or when those arms are used to attack Americans, Obama will once again attempt to avoid all responsibility, aided and abetted by the MSM.
But that won’t erase the fact that he will be guilty of providing aid and comfort to the enemy.
OT but fascinating (H/T small dead animals); this link to the Daily Mail shows an interactive map of every bomb dropped on London during the blitz Oct 7 1940 to June 6 1941
I wonder what the equivalent map of Arab rockets fired on Israel would look like?
Speaking about Fast and Furious- From the Wall Street Journal http://tinyurl.com/aaox629
Firings Set Over ‘Fast and Furious’
Four senior managers who oversaw the ill-fated federal gun-trafficking probe called “Fast and Furious” will be fired if recommendations from a disciplinary panel are accepted.
People familiar with the matter said the Professional Review Board of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent notices of its decision in recent days to bureau managers. In addition, two lower-level employees face disciplinary actions, short of firings. The move from the ATF’s review board is the first step in what could be a monthslong process, including appeals.
The panel’s recommendations go to high-level ATF managers who will decide whether to accept them. That decision can be appealed to an outside board that oversees civil-service workers.
Republican lawmakers in recent months have pressed the ATF to hold employees accountable for what the Justice Department’s internal watchdog called a “pattern of serious failures” in an operation that lost track of thousands of guns sold to suspected smugglers.
The managers recommended for termination, according to people familiar with the matter, are Mark Chait, former assistant director for field operations; William McMahon, who oversaw field operations in the Western U.S.; William Newell, former chief of the ATF’s Phoenix office; and George Gillett, the No. 2 official in the ATF’s Phoenix office.
In addition to dismissal, the officials’ security clearances would be revoked if the recommendations are accepted, according to the people familiar with the matter, a move that could hurt their future job prospects.
Stephen B, with all due respect, do you think the vast majority of Obama’s voters care? So long as the body counts are low for those returning in caskets, will they notice? They haven’t noticed that U.S. combat deaths in the past four years in Afghanistan exceeded the previous seven, so why would they care about Syria? Most of his constituency does not care about Israel, not even the high techs who do business with Silicon Wadi and those with ethnic reasons to care.
Like Machias hints at @20, this is about Fast and Furious in Arabic, a massive funneling of weaponry to Syria via Libya with Benghazi and eastern Libya’s bigggest port as the jumping off points. This is like Iran Contra only the Iranians to my knowledge never used the weapons they got for hostages to kill Americans. The NYT bends over backwards to insist there’s no hard evidence the Benghazi ‘consulate’ (read: CIA center) attackers were armed by the U.S. or U.S. allies Qatar and Saudi Arabia. But how can they prove they weren’t?
But I’ll also grant that not everyone here at BC has been looking at the same sources that I have.
http://theulstermanreport.com/2012/12/06/obamas-literal-benghazi-smoking-gun/
Nonetheless reading between the lines as Wretchard hints at in his post, the NYT is preparing a Narrative of ‘oops, we let a few guns slip into jihadi hands’ just like Holder had an ‘oopsy’ letting thousands of guns slip into the hands of the cartels. So idiot neocons and useful Right Establishment tools can say it was all just a mistake and maybe even say it’s because Obama’s incompetent not because he would deliberately arm Islamists. Oh no no no, stupid and inexcusably incompetent is always allowed but evil and conspiratorial NEVER.
Re # 4. mapie
“Fast and Furious on a global scale would look really bad in an election cycle….”
No it would not with the crowd that presumably elected him.
#20,
“Four senior managers … will be fired if (when) recommendations from a disciplinary panel are accepted.”
Some scapegoats were needed, so these poor schmucks get thrown under the bus, to sweep Obama and Holder’s obscenity under the rug. And you can bet they were convincingly threatened to get them to go along with the charade.
Re # 5. stevesmith
“Like arithmetic, unintended consequences are empirical evidence of the real world. This evidence will poke Obama’s “lead from behind, government is your God” chimera right in its monstrous eye.”
I hoped they would have been hit in behind on Nov 6, but… it turn out to be another dashed hope.
“Mr. President LA, NYC,and Boston have just been hit with atomic bombs! Iran and China did it. Iran the East Coast, and China the West. Hmmm, well after I finish this round I’ll issue a statement of regret, a call not to rush to judgement, and leave for Honolulu.”
Re. #9. Jim
“The establishment has little appetite for going after terrorists in any case. After the Beirut barracks attack in 1984- an attack that may have said to be the beginning of years of attacks- there was a plan to bomb terrorist camps in the Bekaa Valley, but Colin Powell vetoed it. Clinton would have at least sent a cruise missile or two.”
Can you elaborate or provide a link? I’ve heard about the aborted plan but never was able to find who and why aborted it.
Thank you.
Fast and Furious, meet Iran-Contra. Within the week after the Benghazi killings I’m sure I read somewhere that Doheny was in Libya to buy up Manpads that had leaked out all over the country. My own suspicion is that he was trying to buy up those American weapons (possibly including Manpads) along with whatever else American dollars could soak up. The excess was going to another operation to do the same thing in Syria (which I guess would be Fast and Furious III.) The fingerprints on all of those weapons would make all of the efforts to low-key the operation make a little more sense.
As long as I’m into conspiracies tonight, I will also suggest that Obumble was nowhere near the situation room on that night and that that’s why no one could make the obvious decision to send help. The mind boggles at what he could have been up to if he wasn’t in that room or available to those in it.
#27,
He was in the room. At least long enough to determine the politically expedient move. Which, however unskillful has proven with a silent military and administration, some heavy lifting by the MSM, an uncaring public and democrat assistance, to be skilful enough.
After all, how many can say that they got away with murder? And in public view?
But many are culpable in the commission of this crime. He had accomplices.
Dennis…
It’s been admitted by the Pink House that, by quirk of fate, Barry held a previously scheduled confab with Panetta and the rest of the National Command Authority that very evening at 5pm local time.
The Benghazi fiasco was already well underway at that time; with a steady stream of emails and other timely intelligence pouring in.
Please, don’t run up the flagpole such weak hunches.
Flip through the back pages of the BC — all of these issues have been beaten to a pulp.
The upshot: he flip-flopped — like a multi-vibrator.
Google the terms if you’re not an electrical engineer.
Blast #16:
I thought that Stan and Ollie deserved a higher placement. Don’t they rather resemble Obama and Biden?
A few years back I received an e-mail (traced to Nigeria) about an irristable new opportunity in Australia, a new gold mine that was literally that. I was assured that the mining engineer, a man of impeccable credentials, had certified the certain promise of the new endeavor; his name was given as George Washington. The e-mail was signed by a venture capitalist whose name was a bit familiar, Mr. Abbot Costello. I forwarded it to a friend who replied he would have his investment advisor explore the opportunity, the well known banker Laurel Hardy.
I later received another offer involving misplaced bank funds in Nigeria; it was signed Lennord Skynerd.
I am not biting on one of these until I get an offer from Thurston Howell, III, himself or perhaps John Bresford Tipton, III. One cannot be too careful on the Internet.
“No evidence has emerged … ” reminds one of the old scientific truism: ”Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
#31,
Where there is smoke, there is fire.
#32, Where there is smoke, there’s a carbon credit for sale.
Re #26 grr, #39 Jim,
First, it was October 23, 1983. Second, three week after the bombing a punitave raid on Hezbollah and Iranian fighters was planned and approved by Regan but it was Caspar Weinberger, then Secy of Defence and a very close friend of Regan’s that vetoed the plan.
As an old Jarhead I never forgave them that decision. If we had greased the scumbags then we would have been seen as the “Strong Horse” and avoided much of what has followed from the sandbox since.
@34…
IIRC, Didn’t Jesse Jackson negotiate the return of our downed pilot at that time?
IIRC, Cap didn’t want any repetition of that ‘downside.’
The proposed raid would’ve flown right through the heart of opfor SAM defenses — without the trick ECM that the Israelis had ginned up.
Further, wasn’t it the case that the USN had virtually no actionable intelligence on Hez assets in the Bekaa Valley?
Blert #35
The way I remember it we were there as peacekeepers between the Maronite Christians (Phalangests) and the Muslims. The Muslims accused us of taking sides and Wineberger didn’t want to prove them right.
Of course the neighborhood (Lebanon) went to crap when the Palestinians were kicked out of Jordan (Black September) and took up residence in South Lebanon.
“Further, wasn’t it the case that the USN had virtually no actionable intelligence on Hez assets in the Bekaa Valley?” Kinda like Benghazi now. Hezbullah was still underground but we were well aware of Syrian training camps in the Bekaa and the Shia there were taking credit.