Category Archives: War on Terror
Ben Rhodes Benghazi Memo
The White House was forced to cough up another Benghazi memo this week because of a FOIA request by Judicial Watch. The memo written by Ben Rhodes urged staffers to emphasize the line that the 9/11/2012 Benghazi attack was caused by an anti-Muslim movie and not a failure of policy. The attack killed a US ambassador and 3 others. At the time the president was bragging that he had decimated al Qaeda. The White House feared news of a planned terror attack would tarnish the president’s campaign theme. Rhodes and others prepped Susan Rice for 5 Sunday talk shows with the message that a demonstration against the video got out of hand, causing the violence in the Benghazi compound.
This Catherine Herridge report shows General Robert Lovell testifying that there were no ant-video demonstrations preceding the Benghazi attack.
Benghazi Memo
Charles Krauthammer says the release of the Rhodes e-mail is up there with the discovery of the Nixon tapes.
Last night Bret Baier asked National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor if he changed Susan Rice’s talking points from terror “attack” to “demonstrations” protesting a video. Spokesman Vietor replied, “Dude, this was like two years ago.”
Sharyl Attkisson Resigns
Sharyl Attkisson has resigned from CBS. She had been negotiating with CBS News President David Rhodes since last April for release from her contract.
Sharyl Attkisson Background
Attkisson’s tenacious reporting on the Fast and Furious Scandal won an Edward R. Murrow award in 2012. The Justice Department tried to intimidate her for her efforts. She was also losing airtime for her reporting at the network. It could be her reporting just wasn’t up to CBS standards.
Sharyl Attkisson is now working on a book called “Stonewalled: One Reporter’s Fight for Truth in Obama’s Washington”.
David Rhodes got his start with Fox News. His brother, Ben Rhodes, is a deputy national security advisor in the Obama administration. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
JV Terrorism
Ever since he killed Osama bin Laden President Obama has insisted Al Qaeda is beaten and on the run. Except that al Qaeda affiliated terrorists are now instituting islamist rule in Fallujah and Ramadi, two cities liberated by the American military in 2004. In Syria al Qaeda beheads Muslims and infidels alike. And then there was the matter involving Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi.
JV Terrorism
In his New Yorker interview Obama dismissed all this as JV team terrorism.
The hunt goes on to protect the Winter Olympics from Black Widow terrorism.
Update:
Here’s a link to Stanford Professor Victor Davis Hanson’s essay “Obama’s Recessional” in which he identifies the Obama Doctrine as American withdrawal from the world:
Summed up, the Obama Doctrine is a gradual retreat of the American presence worldwide — on the theory that our absence will lead to a vacuum better occupied by regional powers that know how to manage their neighborhood’s affairs and have greater legitimacy in their own spheres of influence…
For Obama, America abroad is analogous to the 1 percent at home. We need not squabble over the reasons why the wealthiest Americans enjoy unequal access to the things money can buy, or why America, of all nations, finds itself with unmatched global clout and influence. The concern is only that such privilege exists; that it is unfair; that it has led to injustice for the majority; and that it must be changed…
Just as the United States would be a lot better place if a few million were not so rich, so too the world would be better off if the United States — and to a lesser extent Europe — were not so powerful and interventionist.
Benghazi: Bad Movie Review or Act of Terror?
David Kirkpatrick wrote a long piece in the NYT December 28 that said the attack on Benghazi was the act of a bunch of locals very pissed off about a movie. The Washington Post later reported that a former GITMO detainee who had trained under Osama bin Laden and fought with the Taliban played a role in the attack.
As they say, “what difference does it make?” Well, President Obama did say that al Qaeda was on the run and headed for defeat. After the attack Susan Rice went on five Sunday news shows to say it was caused by the internet video. And Hillary promised the father of murdered Navy Seal, Tyrone Woods, that they would prosecute the movie maker.
Was Benghazi a Bad Movie Review or Act of Terror?
The fact is the mystery of Benghazi can easily be solved by the man himself. In the second 2012 presidential debate Obama insisted that it is was an act of terror.
Here’s Andrew Wilson’s review in The American Spectator.
Gates’ Book
Update:
The Democrats hoped to change the subject for the new year from ObamaCare to income inequality. Former defense secretary Robert Gates, a Republican, didn’t get the memo.
A WSJ review of his new book, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War says Gates treated Bush and Obama in a nonpartisan way. But Bob Woodward’s review in the Washington Post called the book an emotional and seething critique of Obama’s top aids.
Gates didn’t hold back. He called Congress “ugly”, said Biden was wrong on every foreign policy issue for the last forty years, and criticized Obama for making national security choices based on getting re-elected.
