Benghazi thread..[up-to-date-info here]

[apples]

Video recording from the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya reveals that militants were highly coordinated and engaged in a “military style” operation, according to the Daily Beast.

Two intelligence officers who viewed the video told the Daily Beast’s Eli Lake that the video “shows an organized group of armed men attacking the compound.”

The militants killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Lake reports:

    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.

    The videos could also play into an expanding investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that is looking at whether security steps could have been taken that would have saved the life of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans killed that day. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who is one of the Republicans leading the House investigation, says he hasn’t been given the footage.

http://freebeacon.com/report-video-recording-of-libya-attack-shows-coordinated-assault/

[apples]

Video From Benghazi Consulate Shows Organized Attack

Footage from the night of Sept. 11 might be the clearest evidence yet of a military-style assault on the consulate in Benghazi. Eli Lake reports.

   

Video footage from the United States consulate in Benghazi, Libya, taken the night of the Sept. 11 anniversary attacks, shows an organized group of armed men attacking the compound, according to two U.S. intelligence officials who have seen the footage and are involved in the ongoing investigation. The footage, which was recovered from the site last week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, offers some of the most tangible evidence yet that a military-style assault took place, according to these officials.
Click here to find out more!

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.

The videos could also play into an expanding investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that is looking at whether security steps could have been taken that would have saved the life of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans killed that day. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who is one of the Republicans leading the House investigation, says he hasn’t been given the footage.

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.

Video from the compound’s cameras debunk the initial line from the Obama administration that there was a protest in front of the consulate on the night of the attacks, according to one of the U.S. intelligence officials who has seen the footage, and a senior Obama administration official familiar with what they show.

The videos were filmed from multiple closed-circuit cameras throughout the compound, and are at times grainy and hard to decipher. There are also some gaps. There is no footage, for example, of Ambassador Chris Stevens going into the safe room where he eventually died from smoke inhalation. The footage at the gate of the compound is taken from an angle that filmed the attackers from the side, so the people in the crowd can mostly be seen in profile.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/12/video-from-benghazi-consulate-shows-organized-attack.html

[apples]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Za4KXo5Ao" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Za4KXo5Ao</a>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Za4KXo5Ao&feature=youtu.be

[apples]

QUESTION: Is it safe to assume that he was targeted by al-Qaida, who may have also a list of all the national – Yemeni national employees at the Embassy?

MS. NULAND: Well, Said, I’m sure you can understand if I stress the fact that the Yemenis are investigating. We are supporting their investigation. It is premature – this happened today – for us to be drawing conclusions about who did it, why it happened, all of those things. But obviously it’s of great concern, and it’s of great concern given the larger issues in the region.

This is a stunning admission by the State Department. By refusing to say whether al Qaeda has a list of Yemenis working with the US embassy in Yemen, she tacitly admits that they could – and that puts all of their lives in danger. In Libya, our failure to secure our Benghazi consulate resulted in the loss of crucial national security intelligence, supposedly including lists of Libyans working with us in the country. Now it appears that a second list may have found its way to al Qaeda in Yemen.

The State Department went on to state that the Yemeni security official killed may have been targeted and murdered for other reasons:

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.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/10/12/State-Department-Al-Qaeda-Yemen

[apples]

Libyan al Qaeda ringleader Qumu, hired by Hillary Clinton to overthrow America-cooperative Muammar Qaddafi, in the Obama/Clinton version of the bipartisan-prepared Arab Spring, kills the U.S. field staff engaged in weapons tracking and (one would hope) recovery, on the job in Benghazi, on 9-11-2012

    He and Ambassador Stevens, as well as the two other special operators from Wind Zero, were executing a CIA and State Department mission to track not only Qaddafi’s weapons, but to trace any and all weapons trafficking in the regions. Smith was the information officer at the Benghazi mission and likely was too close to having uncovered intelligence that pinpointed key players both in and outside of Libya. Intelligence was shared with the CIA, which does enforce the drone program, whether inside Libya, stemming from the mission to remove Qaddafi, or in other hot-spots in the Middle East.

The Soviet occupation in Afghanistan was a long and stalwart war to install a subset of an overall communist footprint in the region. Military and ideological defeat were predictable and the CIA aided in the quest against the Soviets. Part of the original objective of the United States (credited to Zbigniew Brzezinski and adopted by Presidents Carter and Reagan) was to arm key factions to fend off the Soviets.

This was successful. But, as the full retreat by the Soviets was underway, al Qaeda and the Taliban were soon in full possession of weapons that the United States had provided over the years to the anti-Soviet opposition. And the greater part of weapons inventories were Soviet, including even tanks, amidst quite a full array of conventional weapons left behind in their hasty exit. The Afghanis being resourceful took full advantage and learned to repair, rebuild and clone weapons and ammunition, both.

This would soon become a major threat to the West. The cure was to dial up big dollars and go on a buy-back mission to get the weapons out of the hands of militants. Everyone in the nation was armed with virtual immunity; no checks and balances of force existed. Mutual failures to contain were nearly locked in. So, at least by the time of the Clinton administration, the U.S. had begun attempts at a buy-back program, to regain weapons sent to Afghanistan.

MANPADS

Looking over to Libya, Qaddafi during his reign, set on a quest to obtain his own arsenal. It came to include not only millions of weapons, from small arms and rocket propelled grenades, to Russian shoulder fired SA-24 missiles; it also carried a nuclear ambition. Foreign leaders pressed Qaddafi only on the nuclear ambition and there he capitulated, but all other weapons including the MANPADS among its surface to air missiles arsenal, was left out of the process and the arrangements made with him.

Last year, as the mission was underway to remove Qaddafi from power, a great deal of confusion set in and all armories were raided by unique militias across Libya. All weapons were stolen and taken to destinations unknown. Qaddafi had spent an estimated $30 billion in the span of twenty-five years, on conventional weapons from the USSR and China, via Algeria and even Belarus.  Included in this stout purchasing campaign were planes and communications equipment.

In the realms of arms trafficking, black markets, and jihad, members of these groups know the movement of weapons and maintain a keen eye upon their vulnerability, either to steal or to purchase them at discounted prices. Such was the case during the regime change objective, to remove Qaddafi from power. Libya experienced a huge infiltration of underworld terror groups such as al Qaeda, Boko Harem, pirates from Somalia, and militias, all sneaking into Qaddafi’s inventory. Weapons did leave Libya, but it is unknown just what remained in country. Of particular importance are the 20,000 MANPADS of which today, only 5,000 have been recovered.

Enter the United States with a large purse of an allocated $40 million, to search for weapons and to buy-back in large numbers, while tracing and tracking the sources and associations of the grou

http://gulagbound.com/33988/weapons-hunting-the-reason-for-the-9-11-murders-in-libya/#.UHmUqmdzddi

What say you?

[Stan In FL]

Under the obamites, working with the US will get you killed.  And they don't care.

[Stan In FL]

The country deserves an answer to that question.

[apples]

Under the obamites, working with the US will get you killed.  And they don't care.

leveling the playing field.

[Stan In FL]

must have been intermission at the movie that started all of this.

[apples]

I should have started this a week or so ago.

[apples]

Col. Hunt On The Newest Libyan Revelations

Fri, 12 Oct 2012

Fox military analyst Col. David Hunt checked in with us again after the revelation that there were multiple listening posts which heard the cries for help from the US Embassy in Libya and none of them did anything. The State Department says they still do not know what really happened in Libya.

bold type mine...

http://audio.wrko.com/a/64657882/col-hunt-on-the-newest-libyan-revelations.htm

Listen to this while it is still available.

[apples]

What Happened In Benghazi

The State Department has released a transcript of a briefing that two high-ranking department officials gave to a number of reporters via conference call on October 9 (Tuesday). I am not certain about this, but I believe the transcript was only made public today. You should read it in its entirety; it is the most detailed description I have seen of the events in Benghazi on September 11.

While this is by no means clear, it appears that the State Department may have released the transcript as part of the escalating conflict between Barack Obama and Joe Biden and the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. In their desperation to avoid responsibility for the Benghazi debacle, Obama and Biden have pointed fingers in two directions: at the intelligence community for reporting incorrectly that the incident was a protest over a YouTube video clip, and at the State Department for not providing adequate security for the Ambassador.

Here are some excerpts from the narrative:

    A few minutes later – we’re talking about 9 o’clock at night – the Ambassador retires to his room, the others are still at Building C, and the one agent in the [Tactical Operations Center]. At 9:40 p.m., the agent in the TOC and the agents in Building C hear loud noises coming from the front gate. They also hear gunfire and an explosion. The agent in the TOC looks at his cameras – these are cameras that have pictures of the perimeter – and the camera on the main gate reveals a large number of people – a large number of men, armed men, flowing into the compound. One special agent immediately goes to get the Ambassador in his bedroom and gets Sean, and the three of them enter the safe haven inside the building. …

    They turn around immediately and head back – or the two of them, from Building B, turn around immediately with their kit and head back to Villa C, where the Ambassador and his colleagues are. They encounter a large group of armed men between them and Building C. I should say that the agent in Building C with the Ambassador has radioed that they are all in the safe haven and are fine. The agents that encounter the armed group make a tactical

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/10/what-happened-in-benghazi.php

[apples]

Colonel: Hillary Made Decision Not to Post Marines at Benghazi

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Fox News military analyst Colonel David Hunt laid the blame for the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans at the Benghazi, Libya American mission on Hillary Clinton and the State Department:

    The State Department just allowed our guys to get killed. If you approve no bullets in guns for the mission security guards and an outhouse for a mission, you’re inviting it.

Earlier, on Howie Carr's radio show Thursday, Colonel Hunt said that the American mission at Benghazi "was like a cardboard building, there wasn't even bullet proof glass." In addition, Hunt said the security guards inside the mission didn't have bullets:

    Howie Carr: They weren't allowed to have bullets, is that correct?

    Colonel Hunt: That's true. They were private security. The rules of engagement were ridiculous.

Hunt told Breitbart News that the new State Department Rules of Engagement for Libya, approved and signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton since the 2011 fall of Khadafi's regime, severely compromised the safety and security of murdered Ambassador Stevens and all American diplomatic staff in Libya.

He also stated that the decision not to staff Benghazi with Marines was made by Secretary of State Clinton when she attached her signature to the State Department Rules of Engagement for Libya document. Breitbart News has subsequently learned that under those rules of engagement, Secretary Clinton prohibited Marines from providing security at any American diplomatic installation in Libya.

SNIP

Ambassador Stevens was based at the American embassy in Tripoli. According to a spokesperson at the State Department, he would visit the mission at Benghazi sporadically. No one at the State Department has yet answered this key question:

    Why on the anniversary of 9-11 was he at the low security mission in Benghazi when it would obviously have been more prudent for him to have been at the presumably more secure embassy in Tripoli?

At her daily press briefing on Thursday, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland offered a description of the defenses at the Benghazi mission that appeared to be in conflict with other press reports. In contrast to some reports that said security within the perimeter of the mission was provided by Libyan nationals, Nuland stated that they provided security on the perimeter and that "there was a robust American security presence inside the compound." [emphasis added]:

    QUESTION: Can you talk a little bit more about the security that was at the Embassy? It seems that for an area such as Benghazi,

where there was a lot of

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/14/Colonel-Says-Hillary-Clinton-Made-Decision-to-Have-No-Marines-at-Benghazi

[apples]

Benghazi: Osama's Revenge on Obama

    . Police Vehicle Outside Consulate "Fled The Scene"; No Response To Libyan Guards' Call For Backup 

    'Ali ... was taken by surprise by the attack, which he said "seemed to come out of nowhere." He said that he first noticed that the police car outside the consulate - an additional layer of security provided by the Libyan government - "took off quickly, fleeing the scene."

    He then saw some 50 men, mostly unarmed, approaching the consulate by foot on the dirt road leading up to it, headed by eight masked men, two of whom carried RPGs. ... Shortly thereafter, one of the attackers fired three (RPG) rounds at the main gate, while others stormed the consulate wall.

    ...the great majority of the attackers were Libyans from Benghazi, and some of them were masked. ... four of the attackers, all apparently masked, were the leaders of the group, because ... all the others seemed to listen to them and to follow their orders.

    ... one of the four leaders had worn a Pakistani-type garment, and carried a golden pistol. A second, whom he described as a "short, fat, irritable" man about 5'4" with a beard visible under his mask carrying an AK-47, asked him about where the Americans were inside the consulate. A third man, he said, who was about 5'7", wore a long robe."

This is the age of the web, and the U.S. State Department must have been following every moment of the six-hour attack.  They knew about September 11.  They knew about Zawahiri's video.  They knew Al-Libi was assassinated on President Obama's direct orders in Pakistan.  They had received distress calls from the U.S. ambassador in Libya.

They knew.  If they didn't know, they should resign en masse.

If the State Department knew, Hillary must have known.  If Hillary knew, Obama must have been told.  This is the age of instant communication.  Didn't somebody have a cell phone?

They knew and did nothing.

It was 3 am, and nobody picked up the phone.

If Americans can't figure this out, the bad guys will.  They already know.  Only the ignorant and foolish don't get it.

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/10/benghazi_osamas_revenge_on_obama.html

[apples]

Axelrod Throws State Department Under Benghazi Bus

The State Department is the latest casualty of the Obama administration’s obfuscation of the events surrounding the Benghazi attack.

Tearing a few pages out of the old Clinton playbook, David Axelrod carefully defined the word “we” this morning for Fox News’ Chris Wallace: when the Vice President said in Wednesday’s debate that “we” weren’t aware of the Benghazi consulate’s requests for increased security, “we” included only the President and the Vice President – not the Obama administration at large or the State Department.  You got that, right?

In response to Wallace’s inquiry about whether the President takes personal responsibility for the denial of security requests in Benghazi, Axelrod said, “these were judgments that were made by security folks at the State Department.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/330358/axelrod-throws-state-department-under-benghazi-bus-eliana-johnson