Sen. Lindsey Graham on the Real Truth Behind the Benghazi Attack ...

It's a story about al Qaeda coming back, Libya going south, and it destroys the narrative that by killing bin Laden, al Qaeda's been dismantled. And it also destroys the narrative you can lead from behind in Libya and everything's fine. I hold the president personally accountable for knowing the security situation in the world.

This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," October 17, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, the controversy over Libya leading to fireworks at last night's debate. Since the day after this year's September 11 attack, the Obama administration has been dishing out different versions of what happened. Here's a look at their ever-changing stories.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What we're seeing on social media, what we're seeing in some of the local commentary is largely related to this reprehensible video.

HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: We've seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.

SUSAN RICE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: This was not a pre-planned, pre-meditated attack.

OBAMA: It is an extremely offensive video directed at Mohammed and Islam. Extremists and terrorists used this as an excuse to attack a variety of our embassies, including the one -- the consulate in Libya.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy.

CLINTON: What happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.

OBAMA: We're still doing an investigation. There's no doubt that the kind of weapons that were used, the ongoing assault, that it wasn't just a mob action.

LEON PANETTA, DEFENSE SECRETARY: It was a group of terrorists obviously conducted that attack.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAN SUSTEREN: And now is President Obama changing his tune again? For weeks, the president's been saying al Qaeda is on the run and on its heels, but today -- and everyone was listening for this -- the president specifically removed those words from his campaign speech.

Senator Lindsey Graham is demanding answers from the president. He joins us. Nice to see you, Mr. -- nice to see you, Senator.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: Thank you. I'm from Wisconsin, believe it or not,.

Via: Fox News

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White House reportedly preps strike team to take out terrorists tied to Libya attack

WASHINGTON –  The White House has put special operations strike forces on standby and moved drones into the skies above Africa, ready to strike militant targets from Libya to Mali — if investigators can find the Al Qaeda-linked group responsible for the death of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya.

But officials say the administration, with weeks until the presidential election, is weighing whether the short-term payoff of exacting retribution on Al Qaeda is worth the risk that such strikes could elevate the group's profile in the region, alienate governments the U.S. needs to fight it in the future and do little to slow the growing terror threat in North Africa.

Details on the administration's position and on its search for a possible target were provided by three current and one former administration official, as well as an analyst who was approached by the White House for help. All four spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the high-level debates publicly.

The dilemma shows the tension of the White House's need to demonstrate it is responding forcefully to Al Qaeda, balanced against its long-term plans to develop relationships and trust with local governments and build a permanent U.S. counterterrorist network in the region.

Vice President Joe Biden pledged in his debate last week with Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan to find those responsible for the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others.

"We will find and bring to justice the men who did this," Biden said in response to a question about whether intelligence failures led to lax security around Stevens and the consulate. Referring back to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden last year, Biden said American counterterror policy should be, "if you do harm to America, we will track you to the gates of hell if need be."

The White House declined to comment on the debate over how best to respond to the Benghazi attack.

Via: Fox News

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State Dept. Confirms: Marines Were Guarding U.S. Embassy On 9/11--In Barbados

(CNSNews.com) -- When terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 of this year and killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, there were no U.S. Marines deployed in Libya to defend U.S. diplomats, diplomatic facilities and classified information and equipment.

However, says the State Department, a Marine Security Detachment was deployed on that day to carry out those duties at the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados.

“U.S. Marine Security Guards serve at the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown, and at other diplomatic missions around the world, to protect and safeguard American diplomacy,” Rebecca Ross, the U.S. Embassy to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean Counselor for Public Affairs, said in a statement to CNSNews.com.

“On September 11, 2012, our U.S. Marine Security Detachment carried out its regular duties which include providing internal security, preventing the compromise of classified information and equipment, and providing protection for U.S. citizens and property located within official U.S. facilities,” Ross said.

On August 16, less than a month before the terrorists struck the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the U.S. Marine Security Guard Force in Barbados led a physical fitness test for young athletes.

Via: CNS News

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Newt: It’s ‘Clear’ That Obama Team Had Biden Lie About Benghazi

Former Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich took to Twitter on Saturday morning to weigh in on the week’s vice presidential debate, bluntly attacking the Obama administration for what he sees as a deliberate and intentional lie about the fatal attack in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in the deaths of ambassador Chris Stevens, among other Americans and Libyans.

Here’s what he had to say:

You’ll recall that VP Joe Biden denied that he and the President had had knowledge of repeated requests to the State Department for increased security in Libya.

Gingrich later added that, in the next two presidential debates, the number one goal should be “getting to truth.”

Via: Mediaite

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AP Fact-Checker Bulldozes Through Biden Falsehoods

WASHINGTON (AP) — Anyone who paid attention to a hearing in Congress this week knew that the administration had been implored to beef up security at the U.S. Consulate in Libya before the deadly terrorist attack there. But in the vice presidential debate Thursday night, Joe Biden seemed unaware.

 

"We weren't told they wanted more security there," the vice president asserted flatly. During a night in which Biden and Republican rival Paul Ryan both drifted from the facts on a range of domestic and foreign issues, that was a standout.

 

A look at some of their claims:

 

BIDEN: "Well, we weren't told they wanted more security there. We did not know they wanted more security again. And by the way, at the time we were told exactly — we said exactly what the intelligence community told us that they knew. That was the assessment. And as the intelligence community changed their view, we made it clear they changed their view."

 

RYAN: "There were requests for more security."

 

THE FACTS: Ryan is right, judging by testimony from Obama administration officials at the hearing a day earlier.

Charlene R. Lamb, a deputy assistant secretary for diplomatic security, told lawmakers she refused requests for more security in Benghazi, saying the department wanted to train Libyans to protect the consulate. "Yes, sir, I said personally I would not support it," she said.

 

Eric Nordstrom, who was the top security official in Libya earlier this year, testified he was criticized for seeking more security. He said conversations he had with people in Washington led him to believe that it was "abundantly clear we were not going to get resources until the aftermath of an incident. How thin does the ice have to get before someone falls through?"

 

He said his exasperation reached a point where he told a colleague that "for me the Taliban is on the inside of the building."

 

Via: Associated Press

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BIDEN GRUNTS, GUFFAWS, SMIRKS AND BULLIES HIS WAY THROUGH VP DEBATE

Did Joe Biden bring in Al Gore as his debate coach? Did he review the tape from the Bush-Gore debate in 2000 and think obnoxious interruptions and smirks on questions of national security are the way to move voters? He sighed. He broke into Ryan's answers. He chortled. His actual answers were the least of his problems. His tone and demeanor were beneath the office he currently holds. 

Paul Ryan was fine. And, I mean that in the most literal use of the term. A snap CNN poll found that Ryan won the debate, 48-44. It wasn't the decisive mauling that Romney delivered to Obama, but it was enough to sustain Romney's momentum. At times, I wished Ryan had been more aggressive in defending his time to speak. Biden left some whoppers on the table that went unanswered. 

That said, Ryan gave forceful, passionate answers to several questions and his closing was especially strong. He had a firm command of the situation in Libya, Syria and Afghanistan. Most voters only know him as a budget guy, so his command of these issues was probably a pleasant surprise. There was nothing in his performance that would suggest he wasn't up to the job of being Vice-President. 

Biden though, was beneath his office. He clearly carried the weight of the campaign's recent stumbles on his shoulder. In the first hour, he acted like a man would had downed a six-pack of Red Bull before taking the stage. By the debate's end, the sugar rush had clearly worn off and his speech was much slower and more deliberate. The frenetic pace is better for him, because you can't pay as much attention to each word he says. As he slows up, the utter absurdity of what he's saying becomes more clear. 

Both Biden and Ryan had decent moments. In the end, Biden lost for two reasons. Ryan came off as an earnest and utterly reasonable person, with substantive ideas on a range of issues. He was likable. Biden's biggest problem, though, was his tone. He was rude, abusive and dismissive. He repeatedly smirked while Ryan was prosecuting the Administration's missteps in Libya. Smirking should be the furthest thing from anyone's mind when four Americans have been murdered. 

Via: Breitbart

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Why Hasn't Obama Avenged the Deaths of Americans in Libya?

Today marks exactly one month since terrorists attacked the U.S consulate in Benghazi, Libya, killing our ambassador and three other American personnel. In the weeks since, Washington has been gripped by the unfolding scandals over the Obama administration’s failure to heed warnings of a growing terrorist danger in eastern Libya; its failure to provide additional security requested by U.S. personnel on the ground; and its failure to acknowledge that what happened in Libya was in fact a terrorist attack.

But all this has obscured the more serious scandal: the Obama administration’s utter failure to respond.

It took less than four weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, for the Bush administration to gather intelligence, plan the full-scale invasion of Afghanistan and begin executing Operation Enduring Freedom. By October 7, 2001, multinational forces from the United States, Britain and Australia were on the ground, linking up with friendly Afghan forces, overthrowing the Taliban and driving al-Qaeda from the haven from which they had attacked our country.

By contrast, it is now Oct. 11 — four weeks after the attack of Sept. 11, 2012 — and the Obama administration has barely gotten a criminal investigation off the ground. The Post reported this week that while President Obama has vowed to “bring to justice” those responsible for the attacks, “nearly one month later, the White House has not spelled out how it plans to do so, even if it is able to identify and capture any suspects.... An unproductive, slow-moving investigation is complicating matters, with the FBI taking three weeks to reach the unsecured crime scene.”

Three weeks to reach the “crime scene”? Within days, CNN reporters were able to rummage through the rubble and recover the ambassador’s diary, and Post reporters were able to access and photograph the destroyed diplomatic compound. But the administration can’t get the FBI to the scene for three weeks? It should come as no surprise that the Obama administration is treating the attack as a crime — but it can’t even get the criminal investigation right.

This is not to suggest an invasion of Libya. But certainly by now we could have identified the groups responsible for the attack, targeted their compounds and retaliated in some fashion. Heck, the Libyan people have done more to retaliate than Obama has. The Associated Press reports that a few days after the attack, “Hundreds of protesters seized control of several militia headquarters … including the compound of one of Libya’s strongest armed Islamic extremist groups, evicting militiamen and setting fire to buildings as the attack that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans sparked a backlash against armed groups.”

What kind of signal does it send when a Libyan mob does more to avenge the killing of an American ambassador than the president of the United States?

Via: Fox News

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Issa Calls For Classified Briefing On Libya Intel

Fresh off his hearing on security deficiencies at the U.S. mission in Libya, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Wednesday called for a classified briefing on what the Obama administration knew — and when — about the causes of Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi.

“Right now, what we've agreed to, [ranking member Elijah] Cummings [(D-Md.)] and I, is formally asking for a classified briefing so that a lot of what wasn't discussed here, the committee would have knowledge of,” Issa told reporters. “And of course that's not an open hearing.”

He said it would be modeled on Tuesday's hearing for the Republican chairmen of committees of jurisdiction over intelligence and foreign affairs, and should include Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and the FBI. Asked if he would invite the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, Issa said “not necessarily.”

Republicans on Issa's committee have been chomping at the bit to go after Rice, who told five Sunday shows five days after the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans that initial intelligence suggested an anti-Islam video posted to YouTube had caused the violence. The administration later said the attack was an act of terrorism.

Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) all told The Hill they think the committee’s next move should be to request Rice to testify before the panel.

“President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and Ambassador Rice have a lot of questions to answer,” said Chaffetz, the chairman of the committee's panel on national security. Chaffetz said it was up to Issa to decide whether to request her for another hearing, but that he’d “love to hear from her sooner rather than later because she’s got a lot to explain.”

Issa himself told The Hill that “someone in Congress will cover some of these ambiguities.”

Via: The Hill

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Hillary Throws Obama Under The Benghazi Bus?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department now says it never believed the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was a film protest gone awry, giving congressional Republicans new fodder for criticizing the Obama administration's initial accounts of the assault.

The State Department's extraordinary break with other administration offices came in a department briefing Tuesday, where officials said "others" in the executive branch concluded initially that the protest was based, like others in the Middle East, on a film that ridiculed the Prophet Muhammad.

That was never the department's conclusion, a senior official told reporters.

The Republican-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee holds a hearing Wednesday on diplomatic security in the attack that killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The attack as become a political football in the final weeks before the election.

The committee's chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., has accused the State Department of turning aside pleas from its diplomats in Libya to increase security in the months and weeks before the attack in Benghazi. One scheduled witness Wednesday, Eric Nordstrom, is the former chief security officer for U.S. diplomats in Libya who told the committee his pleas for more security were ignored.

Via: AP

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Byron York Column: Liberals Fret: Is Obama Bored? Does He Want A Second Term? Maybe Not

There’s no doubt President Obama’s liberal supporters are worried by his lackluster performance in the Denver debate.  “Everyone is in shock,” one show-business liberal told the Hollywood reporter.  “No one can understand what happened.”  The Obama faithful are offering the White House advice, talking points, pep talks — anything to improve the president’s performance when he next faces Mitt Romney at Hofstra University on October 16.

But for some liberal writers, the concern goes deeper.  Perhaps Obama’s somewhat withdrawn demeanor at the debate was an indication that he doesn’t even want a second term as president.

On the morning after the debate, The Atlantic ran an analysis headlined, “Snippy Obama, Whose Heart’s Not In It.”  Writer Garance Franke-Ruta suggested that Obama, as an unusually sensitive man, has been worn down by the presidency’s demands of conducting war in Afghanistan and dealing with crises like the murder of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya.  “His supporters keep wanting Obama to be who he was in 2008,” Franke-Ruta wrote.  “But that’s not who he is anymore.” Obama’s old enthusiasm for the job is simply gone.

Now, in the Daily Beast, liberal writer Michael Tomasky asks, “Does Obama Even Want to Win the Election?”  After poor Obama showings at the debate, the Democratic convention, and a high-profile “60 Minutes” interview, Tomasky writes, “Someone needs to ask the cut-to-the-chase question: is he enthusiastic about keeping this job, or he is just maybe tired of being president?”

Perhaps he is.  If so, there were certainly signs long before Wednesday night in Denver.  A look at the president’s career shows he has never stayed in a job four years without looking to move on to something.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Obama Trolling for the Knucklehead Vote

Pundits have ridiculed the string of fluff television, radio, and magazine appearances that Barack Obama has been making the last few months.  They are wrong.  He has a strategy and is executing it well.  He is seeking and winning the votes of those Michelle Obama calls knuckleheads.

Inside-the-Beltway journalists have decried Barack Obama's refusal to hold many press conferences.  His canned speeches and reliance on the teleprompter have provided them with precious few chances to score points among their colleagues for gotcha questions.

Ah...just kidding.

Most journalists would rather attack Mitt Romney like a pack of hyenas than ask the president any questions that may discomfort him.  Instead, Barack Obama sends out his hapless Press Secretary Jay Carney to field questions -- or people like Susan Rice to evade truthful answers regarding the murders of Americans in Libya, the march of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Arab Spring going up in flames (along with American flags and embassies).  That is what they are paid to do: make excuses, fabricate answers or curse those seeking answers, fall on the sword if need be.  They will still keep their lives and their jobs.

Barack Obama would rather nurture his bromance with David Letterman, who has had the president and the first lady on his show numerous times.  Letterman gets a big ratings boost; the Obama campaign gets free airtime in front of an audience in millions.  That is certainly worth millions of dollars -- or at least a Kennedy Center honor.

Or perhaps, Barack Obama prefers chatting about his pepper preferences and favorite superpowers with a New Mexico talk show host to explaining how his administration screwed up security in Libya so that those bumps in the road (otherwise known as the murders of Americans) happened.  Contemplating fantasy abilities must be far more enjoyable than revealing the true history of the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal -- a topic that might be of interest to citizens of a border state.

Via: American Thinker

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WaPo Reporter Beats FBI to Benghazi, Finds Sensitive US Documents Scattered Around

BENGHAZI, Libya — More than three weeks after attacks in this city killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, sensitive documents remained only loosely secured in the remains of the U.S. mission here on Wednesday, offering visitors easy access to delicate details about American operations in Libya.

Documents detailing weapons collection efforts, emergency evacuation protocols, the full internal itinerary of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens’s trip and the personnel records of Libyans who were contracted to secure the mission were among the items scattered across the floors of the looted compound when a Washington Post reporter and a translator visited Wednesday.

Although the gates to the compound were locked several days after the attacks, looters and curiosity-seekers were free to roam in the initial chaotic aftermath, and many documents may already have disappeared.

No government-provided security forces are guarding the compound, and Libyan investigators have visited just once, according to a member of the family who owns the compound and who allowed the journalists to enter Wednesday.

Two private security guards paid for by the compound’s Libyan owner are the only people watching over the sprawling site, which is composed of two adjoining villa complexes and protected in some places by a wall only eight feet high.

“Securing the site has obviously been a challenge,” said Mark Toner, deputy spokesman at the State Department, in response to questions about conditions at the Benghazi compound. “We had to evacuate all U.S. government personnel the night of the attack.  After the attack, we requested help securing the site, and we continue to work with the Libyan government on this front.”

State Department officials were provided with copies of some of the documents found at the site. They did not request that the documents be withheld from publication.

None of the documents were marked classified, but this is not the first time that sensitive documents have been found by journalists in the charred wreckage of the compound. CNN discovered a copy of the ambassador’s journal last month and broadcast details from it, drawing an angry response from the State Department. Unlike the journal, all of the documents seen by The Post were official.

Via: Washington Post

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Chicago Sun-Times: Emperor Obama Has No Clothes

The conventional wisdom is that Wednesday night’s presidential debate is a huge opportunity for Republican nominee Mitt Romney. The emperor-has-no-clothes reality is that the political forum would be meaningless if President Barack Obama could stand on the stage and boast his administration had ushered in an era of low unemployment, surging economic growth, reasonable gas prices and rising prosperity for the American family.

None of that is remotely plausible. The jobless rate has been north of 8 percent for 43 months. Median family income fell more during the Obama recovery than during the recession. Economic growth is slowing: The economy grew at only a 1.3 percent rate in the second quarter, raising fears the nation may be drifting back toward recession.

In addition, Obama’s big foreign-policy accomplishment, the killing of Osama bin Laden, lost some luster in the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya and the assaults on U.S. embassies across the Muslim world. A scandal is brewing over revelations suggesting lax security for Stevens and over the administration’s initial, repeated denials that Stevens was killed in a terrorist attack in what increasingly looks like an effort to protect Obama’s campaign theme that he has degraded al-Qaida. Al-Qaida links to the Benghazi murders are no longer deniable; the terrorist group is a growing menace in the Middle East and North Africa, and al-Qaida in Iraq, all but wiped out by President George W. Bush’s surge, has made a deadly comeback.

Such developments may explain a new Rasmussen Reports poll finding that only 29 percent of likely voters believe the United States is stronger than it was four years ago and 49 percent say it’s weaker.

Still, the overriding issue remains the economy generally — and specifically, jobs — unrestrained government spending, the deficit, energy prices and development and the miserable state of family pocketbooks.

Obama’s defense, as proclaimed by Bill Clinton in his Democratic convention speech, is that the economic collapse was just too big for Obama or any president to handle in one term. Obama has seized this theme, claiming Washington can’t be changed from the inside.

Via: Chicago Sun-Times

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The Sorry State Department

It should come as no surprise that the State Department has much to answer for in the abysmal manner in which it so disastrously allowed the horrific murder of the American Ambassador, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans by Muslims in Benghazi, Libya to occur. What took place was an act of barbarism deliberately planned and perpetrated on the very anniversary of the 9/11 atrocity by fellow Muslims against Americans upon American soil.

And who must bear full responsibility for not adequately protecting the hapless ambassador and his staff in Benghazi? Well, it has to be none other than Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, and appeaser to all and every tyrant and international thug in the world.

Her craven apologies to the ever hate filled and murderous Muslim world by blaming an amateurish video, purportedly the excuse for mass Islamic violence and killings, has been enough to make Neville Chamberlain look decidedly heroic and resolute. But then she takes her queue from her boss, the Appeaser and Apologist in Chief; Barack Hussein Obama.

We now know that the killings, using RPGs and incendiary devices, were a premeditated and well planned operation by Al Qaeda. Even the Libyan president has said so, yet Hillary Clinton and President Obama continue to falsely attribute the Arab bloodlust to the video. And the Secretary of State, a week before the atrocity took place, stated that the security measures in place at the Benghazi mission were “robust.”

Via: Canada Free Press

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Slacker-In-Chief

NEW YORK — Concerning the fun parts of his job, Barack Obama resembles the Energizer Bunny. If there are crowds to wow, entertainers to schmooze or donors to pitch, Obama is Johnny on the spot.

Too bad Obama's sparks stop flying when it comes time for the serious, heavy lifting of the presidency.

This phenomenon's most chilling example involves Obama's national security-related presidential daily brief. As the conservative Government Accountability Institute calculated, and Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen first reported Sept. 10, Obama attended only 43.8 percent of his daily briefings between Jan. 23, 2009, (three days after his inauguration) and May 31, 2012.

Available nearly every day, the briefing allows the commander-in-chief to hear directly from top intelligence professionals about the latest threats to U.S. safety. These experts are on hand to answer questions, hear suggestions and otherwise help Obama foil America's enemies.

But Obama has had higher priorities.

According to the institute's data culled from the official White House calendar and Politico.com's news coverage of that schedule, Obama chose to skip his daily briefings and, instead, simply read his briefing book.

This is a bit like studying one's chest X-rays at home while spurning a radiologist's offer to interpret them and answer pertinent questions.

In this sense, Obama quietly reviewed his national security X-rays alone during 56.2 percent of the time the institute analyzed. Obama missed 61.6 percent of these briefings in 2011.

Obama skipped his briefings between last Sept. 4 and 11, the entire week before the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, suffered an Islamic terror attack that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, technical officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

Who knows if a briefer's classified utterance, or a particularly astute question from Obama, might have triggered tighter security in Benghazi and perhaps prevented the murders of four Americans?

Even worse, as Thiessen reports, Obama postponed and eventually skipped his briefing on the day after these planned and deliberate assassinations. This liberated Obama for a truly indispensable responsibility that day. As American embassies burned brightly throughout the Islamic world, Obama jetted off on Air Force One for a campaign fundraiser in America's least solemn city — Las Vegas.

Via:San Angelo Standard Times

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U.S. Move to Give Egypt $450 Million in Aid Meets Resistance

The Obama administration notified Congress on Friday that it would provide Egypt’s new government an emergency cash infusion of $450 million, but the aid immediately encountered resistance from a prominent lawmaker wary of foreign aid and Egypt’s new course under the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The aid is part of the $1 billion in assistance that the Obama administration has pledged to Egypt to bolster its transition to democracy after the overthrow last year of the former president, Hosni Mubarak. Its fate, however, was clouded by concerns over the new government’s policies and, more recently, the protests that damaged the American Embassy in Cairo.

The United States Agency for International Development notified Congress of the cash infusion on Friday morning during the pre-election recess, promptly igniting a smoldering debate over foreign aid and the administration’s handling of crises in the Islamic world.

An influential Republican lawmaker, Representative Kay Granger of Texas, immediately announced that she would use her position as chairwoman of the House appropriations subcommittee overseeing foreign aid to block the distribution of the money. She said the American relationship with Egypt “has never been under more scrutiny” than it is in the wake of the election of President Mohamed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“I am not convinced of the urgent need for this assistance and I cannot support it at this time,” Ms. Granger said in a statement that her office issued even before the administration announced the package.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking at a meeting of the Group of 8 nations in New York, said on Friday that the world needed to do more to support the governments that have emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings, including those in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

Via: NYT

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MSM Tipping Point On Obama in the Middle East?

The repercussions from 9/11/12—the day the roof fell in on the Obama administration’s Middle East policy—continue to rumble across the diplomatic and political landscapes. Before that day, much of the country’s political and media establishment had been studiously ignoring signs of trouble in the Middle East or, when problems were too serious to ignore, studiously refraining from drawing conclusions about the overall state of US policy in the region.

The anti-American riots that have been rocking the Muslim world since 9/11 have shaken the establishment out of its complacency. Increasingly, even those who sympathize with the basic elements of the administration’s Middle East policy are connecting the dots. What they are seeing isn’t pretty. It’s not just that the US remains widely disliked and distrusted in the region. It’s not just that the radicals and the jihadis have demonstrated more political sophistication and a greater ability to organize and strike than expected and that the struggle against radical terror looks longer lasting and more dangerous than thought; it’s that the strategic underpinnings of the administration’s Middle East policy seem to be falling apart. A series of crises is sweeping through the region, and the US does not—at least not yet—seem to have a clue what to do.

The New York Times and the Washington Post are both thoroughly alarmed by the state of the region after 9/11/12 and the reporters if not the editorial pages have moved on from the “Blame Bush” approach. The latest article by Helene Cooper and Robert Worth in the Times cites some pretty biting criticism about the President’s approach to the Arab Spring from (unnamed) top aides and associates. It even quotes an Arab diplomat who sounds nostalgic for the good old days of W to illustrate a criticism of the President made by an (unnamed) State Department official who said, speaking of the President:

Via: The American Interest

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Hillary Clinton Admits Al-Qaeda Linked With Attack On U.S. Consulate In Libya…

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday suggested there was a link between the Qaeda franchise in North Africa and the attack at the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the American ambassador and three others. She was the highest-ranking Obama administration official to publicly make the connection, and her comments intensified what is becoming a fiercely partisan fight over whether the attack could have been prevented.

Mrs. Clinton did not offer any new evidence of a Qaeda link, and officials later said the question would be officially settled only after the F.B.I. completed a criminal inquiry, which could take months. But they said they had not ruled out the involvement of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb — an affiliate of the international terrorist group with origins in Algeria — in an attack the administration initially described as a spontaneous protest turned violent.

Her remarks added to the administration’s evolving and at times muddled explanation of what happened on the evening of Sept. 11 and into the next morning. Republicans in Congress have accused President Obama of playing down possible terrorist involvement in the midst of a re-election campaign in which killing Osama bin Laden and crippling Al Qaeda are cited as major achievements.

Mrs. Clinton made her remarks at a special United Nations meeting on the political and security crisis in the parts of North Africa known as the Maghreb and the Sahel, particularly in northern Mali, which has been overrun by Islamic extremists since a military coup helped lead to the division of that country this year.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has long operated in the region, she said, and was now exploiting a haven in Mali to export extremism and terrorist violence to neighbors like Libya.

Via: NYT

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Former Navy SEAL’s To Obama: We Are Not ‘Bumps In The Road’

Former Navy SEALs are speaking out after President Barack Obama referred to recent events in the Middle East, including the deaths of two former Navy SEALs, as "bumps in the road."

Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty were providing security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya when it was attacked on 9/11. They were both hailed in the aftermath of the attacks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Both had gone into private security after retiring from the Navy after distinguished careers.

Former SEAL and current Montana State Senator Ryan Zinke issued the following statement:

The President refuses to admit that his policy of appeasement and apology has failed.  The murder of our Ambassador and two former Navy SEALs is more than a "bump in the road," it is a global catastrophe where America is seen as being weak and vulnerable by our enemies. This President has failed to establish a red line for Iran's nuclear ambitions and has failed to recognize the scale and implications of the attacks against us. Reagan had it right: don't negotiate with terrorists and recognize the clear and present danger of not being willing to act or lead from the front.

Zinke has been a frequent critic of President Obama's foreign policy, and started a super PAC, Special Operations for America, that has released ads to that effect, including an adhighlighting Obama's bows to foreign monarchs.

Beyond the political debate, however, Navy SEALs are also a close-knit brotherhood, and do not take kindly to disrespect when lives are lost. President Obama's "bumps in the road" comment is particularly chafing because of the credit he has taken for the success of the SEALs in the raid against Osama bin Laden. 

They are heroes when they return, and heroes when they fall--not just when it is politically convenient for those in power.

Via: Breitbart

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U.S. President Speaks to U.N. About YouTube Video Posted in June by Southern Californian

(CNSNews.com) - In an address to the United Nations General Assembly today, President Barack Obama dedicated several long passages to discussing and condemning what the New York Times has described as a 14-minute "amateurish video" that a 55-year-old Southern California man posted on YouTube in June.

Obama also told the United Nations that with modern technology efforts to control the flow of information have become “obsolete.”

The Obama administration had originally suggested that the video in question—which the New York Times said was a trailer for a movie entitled “The Innocence of Muslims”—may have been responsible for inspiring a mob to attack the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11 and to kill U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

However, the Libyan prime minister said last week that the attack on the U.S. consulate was pre-planned. Also, the chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee said on Sunday that not only was the attack planned but also that there was reason to believe it had been carried out by al Qaeda or an al Qaeda-affiliated group and that he had seen no evidence that there had even been a demonstration outside the consulate before the attack.\

Via: CNS News

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