The Columbus, OH Dispatch has published a searing editorial on Benghazi this morning. Here’s a quote from it.
Testimony in a congressional hearing Wednesday on the Sept. 11 outrage against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi fueled a growing suspicion: President Barack Obama’s administration was more concerned about projecting the image of improving stability in Libya, to bolster his re-election chances, than it was about ensuring the security of Americans on the ground there.
The fact of a successful terrorist attack against the U.S. on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — a day, above all others, when security for American officials in volatile countries should be at its utmost — is demoralizing and infuriating.
After months of concern by diplomats in Libya about the country’s deteriorating security, Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three embassy employees were murdered by heavily armed and organized terrorists. The possibility the government could have prevented their deaths by responding to their pleas for greater security is devastating.
Read the whole thing, and note well that Ohio is the vital swing state.
As far as I’m concerned, there are no new questions raised for anyone who has been following this apologizer in chief. The questions we’ve been asking for 4 years are finally being paid attention to by some in the media. Not enough, evidently, because we still have ratings in the 40% range for those who think he’s pretty “cool”. “Serious questions” indeed.
The irony here is that had the Administration thought ahead and prepared for an attack on 9/11, committed the necessary pieces for defense of our men and women in Benghazi, it would have come off as a failed attack against strong American defenders – or god forbid we still lost our Ambassador and his security detail – at least it would have been seen as a noble defense by an Administration that cares. The paper trail would have seen this Admin pumping men and material to a dangerous part of the world to protect our interest.
Instead, we now know that the Admin was willing to spend money on upgrading Volt charging stations in Vienna, while keeping security loose down in Libya. A lose-lose proposition. Only question is whether this nation will hear the truth.
Very interesting. Columbus is a heavily Democratic part of the state, for the Dispatch to come out with essentially an anti-administration editorial this close to the election is essentially giving everyone in the area a pass to vote Republican this time.
That was my takeaway, too.
It was Laura Washington’s column that made Lara Logan’s recent speech in Chicago about the administration lying about Al Qaeda and the Taliban a nationwide story. Washington is a very high profile black journalist in Chicago. In addition to her Sun Times column she has gig with the local ABC affiliate and NPR. When she was editor of the Chicago Reporter, an investigative journal on race and poverty, she who moved in the same political circles as Obama.
I took her column as a signal that it was OK for both liberals and blacks to criticize Obama for not getting the job done.
HARD TO BELIEVE OUR INTELLIGENCE SERVICES DIDN’T KNOW BEFORE HAND WHAT DEBKA.COM, A NEWS SERVICE, KNEW ON 9/12:
Al Zawahri personally ordered Al Qaeda to murder US Ambassador Stevens
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 12, 2012, 10:04 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags: Al Qaeda US diplomats Libya
US Ambassador Chris Stevens vehicle on fire
US Ambassador Chris Stevens vehicle on fire
The US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three staff members at the US consulate in Benghazi were deliberately murdered Tuesday night Sept 11 just after memorial ceremonies were held in America for the victims of the 9/11 outrage. debkafile’s counter-terror sources report exclusively that far from being a spontaneous raid by angry Islamists, it was a professionally executed terrorist operation by a professional Al Qaeda assassination team, whose 20 members acted under the orders of their leader Ayman al Zawahri after special training. They were all Libyans, freed last year from prisons where they were serving sentences for terrorism passed during the late Muammar Qaddafi’s rule.
In a video tape released a few hours before the attack, Zawahri called on the faithful to take revenge on the United States for liquidating one of the organization’s top operatives, Libyan-born Abu Yahya al-Libi in June by a US drone in northwestern Pakistan.
Its release was the “go” signal for the hit team to attack the US diplomats in Benghazi.
To mask their mission, they stormed the consulate on the back of a violent protest by hundreds of Islamists against a film said to insult Prophet Muhammed produced by a Florida real estate agent called Sam Bacile, who has been described as of Israeli origin.
The operation is rated by terror experts as the most ambitious outrage al Qaeda has pulled off in the last decade. According to our sources, the gunmen split into two groups of 10 each and struck in two stages:
1. They first fired rockets at the consulate building on the assumption that the ambassador’s bodyguards would grab him, race him out of the building and drive him to a safe place under the protection of the US secret service;
2. The second group was able to identify the getaway vehicle and the ambassador’s armed escort and lay in wait to ambush them. The gunmen then closed in and killed the ambassador and his bodyguards at point blank range.
debkafile’s intelligence sources report that the investigation launched by US counter-terror and clandestine services is focusing on finding out why no clue was picked up of the coming attack by any intelligence body and how al Qaeda’s preparations for the attack which took place inside Libya went unnoticed by any surveillance authority.
As Bryan says, read the whole thing. It’s a scathing indictment:
“What is equally evident is that, despite repeated concerns by diplomats working in Libya, the administration shortchanged security. And when the worst happened, it wasn’t willing to tell the truth to the American people. …
The murder of Stevens and his colleagues raises serious questions about the administration’s priorities and competence.”
People are dead and property destroyed because of Obama’s arrogance.
I think this attack, and the riots at the other American embassies in the Middle East, took the Administration and his enablers in the MSM by surprise because they honestly didn’t believe they could happen on his watch. After all, he’s the multiculti world citizen who bows to foreign leaders and honors Muslim holy days in his speeches and comments. Don’t they respect him, if not actually admire him? That’s why his first reaction was to condemn the video- surely when they were reminded how extremely tolerant and supportive Obama is of Islam, they would back down.
But they didn’t. They don’t want tolerance and support, they don’t want multiculturalism. They want Islam.
“They want Islam.”
Yes. They also follow the strong horse. Obama is perceived as a weak ass.