Benghazi revisited

[IdylleSeethes]

I split this off from the "Trump's America" thread - VtF

This may not belong here, but it is a response to an attack on Trump's America

I had not expected to return in this this way, but I had no idea BHO had scheduled a resurrection tour or that a large part of it would be recalling his past, replete with all of the original misrepresentations. Why can’t he just go away like most past presidents have done.

Another part of Friday’s speech went to one of the worst possible places. This has been reported in a thousand places, none of which you will probably ever see:

Obama then attacked Republican members of Congress, accusing them of embracing "wild conspiracy theories like those surrounding Benghazi."
I can’t find the text of his speech so the above is one of several variations for which you can replace “Congress” with “Americans” or “Republicans”. None of my searches turned up NYT, WP, or other mainstream media comments.
I am former military. Something important to a soldier who is about to risk their life, is knowing the military will do everything possible to help them if they get in trouble. I was still doing DoD work on September 11, 2012. I had many connections and I know where to find things about what is happening in the Middle East.
I have written several hundred pages about this. I will try to pare it down to the essentials.

Why were we there?
One of my sources is my brother, who resides at the opposite end of the political spectrum with the rest of my family. After the bombing of Libya began, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, my brother, and 2 others made their way into Libya to find out why Libya was being attacked. It made no sense. It seems a certain billionaire had asked BHO to solve a financial problem for him that required the elimination of Qaddafi. BHO told him he couldn’t be involved, but he should ask Hillary to see if she could. She accepted the assignment. It wasn’t until the summer of 2016, before Hillary was nominated, that the Admiral in charge of negotiating with Qaddafi confirmed everything but the billionaires name. You can find this in the NYT or WP. He added that Hillary refused to accept the negotiated arrangement. Qaddafi was willing to stand down, leave Libya, and never return. After several attempts to get Hillary’s approval she finally told the Admiral that the objective was to kill Qaddafi. Nothing else was acceptable. Someone eventually killed Qaddafi, the bombing ended and a once peaceful country remains in ruins, controlled by dozens of roaming militias, populated by a still suffering people. All of this to help a billionaire who pulls a lot of strings on a lot of puppets.

Why Benghazi?
Ayman al-Zawahiri became leader of Al Qaeda when Bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011. He is thought to have been the mastermind of the 9/11/2001 attacks. On June 4, 2012, Abu Yahya al-Libi was killed in a US drone attack. Yahya was Ayman main lieutenant. Seeking revenge for the death of Bin Laden and his own Libyan subordinate, Zawahiri sent another of his lieutenants to Libya to set up an attack on an important US asset on 9/11. He connected with the local militias and made several practice runs, one against the British ambassador in a convoy, and another convoy attack.
I need you to remember that every bit of the above paragraph was available on the internet before the night of 9/11/2012. I found it while the attack was ongoing. All it took was wanting to know, searching Middle Eastern media, and translating it. I was sitting in the woods in southern Indiana, with few language skills. None of the US media and none of the US intelligence agencies found this? That was the full-time job of at least hundreds of people. US intelligence had to have known. I have no problem believing the media never looked.

The Attack
In the late afternoon of 9/11/2012, the US consulate in Benghazi was attacked by several heavily armed militias. Small arms, RPGs, and 81mm mortars were used. Several Libyan militia members working for the US died along with 4 Americans including the ambassador. Contrary to what you were told, the ambassador was alive for a while and drug out into the street to be publicly tortured with a cattle prod. There were pictures of this in the Middle Eastern media before midnight EST.
American survivors fled to a building a few blocks away known as the CIA Annex.

The CIA Annex
It isn’t clear who knew what went on in the CIA Annex. It was frequently claimed the CIA didn’t know. It isn’t clear the State Department knew. It was an operation run directly from the White House. US Special Forces were roaming around Libya to collect what they could of Qaddafi’s huge arsenal. The primary objective was to find and destroy 20,000 surface-to-air missiles. Since there is only one known incident that might have made use of one of these, it seems they succeeded. The second objective was to collect arms and Libyan militia in Libya to send them to the coasts of Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. I don’t know how the weapons were scattered from there. The militia were sent to a US base on the Iraq/Jordan border. This was the area from which Syria was to be attacked. For now, you can use your imagination about why it is also the area from which ISIS emerged.
It isn’t clear that the Annex was an intended target. It may only be that the terrorists followed the Americans to it. The Americans gained access and provided protective fire for several hours from the roof. Eventually the terrorists set up their mortars at the consulate and quickly silenced the Americans. The oddity of this is that it took so few rounds. Indirect fire is imprecise, which means they took the time to practice elsewhere for the exact distance, or it was preplanned, or they were very good at their job. I was in the field artillery. It wasn’t beginner’s luck.
A rescue team showed up between the time Americans died on the roof of the Annex and the terrorists were able to penetrate.

US Response to the Attack
The State Department, and the White House both knew of the consulate attack immediately. The closest assets were in Tripoli. The most effective assets that were available quickly were 2 C-130 planes armed with 105mm cannon sticking out the side along with smaller multi-barrel cannon that can kill everything larger than a roach in a one-acre field in less than a minute. They also contain a few other tricks. They were first developed at Fort Sill when I was there years ago. I know the person currently responsible for some aspects of them. There were jet fighters at a base in southern Italy which could have been sent. There were troops on the ground at that base for whom the protection of assets in Libya was a primary reason for their existence. There were also Special Forces in the area who were probably never informed of the incident.
These assets were under the immediate control of AFRICOM, the US African Command:
The troops in Tripoli were told to stand down.
The C-130s were said to be patrolling without ammunition, not very likely
The fighter jets were just too far away and would need refueling, supposedly
That left the troops in Italy. What was the excuse for not using them?
The excuse that came out in the hearings should have been enough to sink the administration. Nobody cares, though. The troops in Italy were loaded on planes and ready to go immediately. However, the White House situation room couldn’t decide what uniforms they should be wearing in Libya. They could look like US troops, NATO troops, UN peacekeepers, or go in unmarked. Oh, what dress should I wear to the party? There was a side issue of whether or not to notify any Libyan officials and if so who. Benghazi wasn’t and still isn’t under the control of Tripoli. Our rescue team never left Italy.

The Military Response to the White House and the White House Response to the Military
A 4-star General, the military’s highest rank, was in charge of AFRICOM. He eventually tired of the White House nonsense and said he would take care of it. The White House said no. He said stop me. His second in command was ordered to place him under arrest. You won’t find mention of that anywhere.
A Fleet Admiral, whose fleet had recently arrived in the Indian Ocean volunteered to help. He only asked that someone provide refueling service. He was quite a distance away, but he seemed the only hope. His assistance was refused. He objected. A few days later he was physically removed from his flagship. You should find mention of his removal, without a reason given. You should find no mention of him since.
What eventually happened was the troops in Tripoli disobeyed orders and flew to Benghazi. They managed to arrive before the Annex was breached.

Then What?
The White House lies started while shots were being fired. They continue to this day from outside the White House. The opinion of those who know the details is that the White House wanted no survivors. The activity managed from the Annex was too rogue to risk the 2012 election. Our most transparent president couldn’t afford to be that transparent. After the occupants were rescued, they were silenced and their identities were most likely never exposed to any investigator.
There are a couple of books written by or with the surviving special operators, who lost their companions. One spoke out today. Why can’t you believe him? He was there. His name is Kris Paronto.
Abu Khattala was photographed at the embassy during the attack and seemed to be in charge of the action. He was allowed to roam freely for years. The day after the attack he was giving interviews to foreign media. He was captured by Special Forces in June 2014 in Libya. The full set of charges were filed in October 2014. Hmmm, that kept him silent until his trial began in 2017. I wonder why? For some reason, the pictures of him commanding the terrorists were not seen by the jury. I don’t know what else was kept from them. He was found not guilty of 14 of the charges and guilty of 4. He was sentenced on June 27 of this year. He gets out of prison in 2040. The NYT reported how disappointed the Obama era prosecutors were. I think the families of the victims were more upset. Turkey detained 2 of his men but let them go. Another died in Egypt while being arrested.

This the first time I revisited this since 2013. It is from memory, but at least 99% is accurate. It is missing a few names like that of the person sent to Libya to set up the attack. The dates I discovered things are recorded somewhere. Almost all of this was known in less than a week, most within 24 hours of when I heard of it. Most of this eventually became public in the following years and can be found in news on the internet, but not always in the NYT or WP.
This is one of a broader set of stories that concern activity in Africa from 2008 to around 2015. I was a very minor participant in the largest of them, but that allowed me to know quite a bit about it. Americans need to be far more skeptical of what they are told.

[yovargas]

That was a little bit difficult to follow, but if I am understanding you correctly, what you are saying in short is that based on the info you've gathered, the White House Administration actively wanted the people at the US Consulate and at the CIA Annex to get killed in the attack? That is a very tough thing to ask people to believe. And your post doesn't seem to discuss what the motivation would it be for the US Administration to let those people die? Unless you are saying it is because of the billionaire you say wanted Kadafi dead but I am not seeing the connection between the two.

[IdylleSeethes]

The activity managed from the Annex was too rogue to risk the 2012 election. Our most transparent president couldn’t afford to be that transparent. After the occupants were rescued, they were silenced and their identities were most likely never exposed to any investigator.

The transfer of Libyan former military personnel and Libyan weapons to create a clandestine army to invade Syria was a violation of international law and the sovereignty of several nations at a time the US was claiming to negotiate peace. It could be hidden from we the people, but once it was exposed, it gave license to Russia and Iran to come to Syria's aid and allowed Syria to cross Obama's line in the sand with impunity.

Up to that point the US and Russia were publicly negotiating peace in Syria between the parties in its civil war, under the auspices of the UN. In June, Russia complained about US hypocrisy over arms being smuggled to Syrian rebels by a route other than Benghazi. Obama drew his Syrian red line on August 20, 2012. After Benghazi, the Russians feigned withdrawal from Syria, although numerous Russian "volunteers" appeared. Russia announced it was abandoning its naval base in Tartus. Syria started moving sarin gas weapons to Tartus in September 2012, and began testing near Aleppo. On September 28, Leon Panetta claimed the movement was to done to protect them from rebels. Chemical weapons were first used in on October 17, 2012 and December 23, 2012, followed by 11 more uses in March and April 2013.

Iran sent its first 150 Revolutionary Guards to Syria in September 2012. CNN reported in October 2012 that Iranian drones were being used for targeting rebels.

This entire dance pivoted around the exposure of the activity in Benghazi. That is what Obama and Clinton had hoped to hide.

Edited: The puppeteer is never at risk.

[yovargas]

I've been thinking about this post a lot this week. When people bring up Hillary these days, I often see people on the left react by saying "why are you still so obsessed with Hillary? She lost, it doesn't matter anymore!" It is a very fair point in my opinion, because Hillary and her alleged past misdeeds still get brought up so often as a deflection to criticisms of the current president's actions. As a response to what the current president is doing, continuing to bring up a prior opponent's actions is surely irrelevant in terms of what matters to the nation right now.

And yet this post made me realize that on a personal level, this kind of thing really does matter to me. You see, for me it has been a genuine shock and struggle to understand how so many Americans looked at the available options and decided to choose Trump. I do not consider myself a Democrat or a Republican in general so it is not about party or biases, or at least I don't believe it is. And I also generally have a positive and optimistic view of people, and I think that people in general are much more good than they are bad. But I simply cannot wrap my head around the idea that millions of good people could look at Trump, and what he is, and say that is what they wanted as a leader. It has been a genuine challenge to my world view that people are largely good.

But if allegations like the ones IS is making here are true, it could bring some sense and reasoning to this whole thing. If Hillary and Obama really did if these terrible, murderous things, they would be far worse than anything Trump has been even suspected of doing. Given the option between a lying asshole and a lying murderer, I guess you have to pick the asshole. So in some sense, I almost wish these allegations were true as it would make what happened make more sense to me.

If these allegations were true. Now, IS, I don't really know you but you seem like an intelligent and informed guy. Certainly more informed than me, which is not at all difficult. But after reading your post I decided to Google this info a little and quickly found that there had been an astounding ten - ten! - investigations into Benghazi, six of them led by Republicans, and all of them found that there was no wrongdoing. Investigations led by people who wanted nothing more than to destroy the Clintons and they found nothing they could use against them. I have no reason to believe that you are not being honest with the things that you say, but how can you expect anyone to believe that you are privy to information that did not come out in all of that investigating? Sure, there are a few suspicious sounding details about the Benghazi story, but taking those details and jumping to the most extreme and nefarious explanations is, I'm sorry to say, something that looks like the mental workings of a mad conspiracy theorist.

I decided to look a little bit into your claims about the uranium scandal too and ended up feeling the same way - a few suspicious looking details - and they do look suspicious! - stretched out to form the most nefarious conspiracies. (Though in that case that conspiracy leaves out a few very important facts, such as the fact that even if Clinton wanted to give a bunch of uranium to Russia, she never had the authority to do that.) A few minutes of casual review quickly managed to punch giant holes in both these allegations and theories against Clinton. So perhaps my question then becomes not how could so many (I hope) good people vote for Trump, but instead becomes how did so many people get convinced that's Clinton had done so many very terrible things when those stories were so easily shot down? How is it that that we now have more access to more information than we have ever had in all of human history, yet humans seem to be more misinformed than ever?

[IdylleSeethes]

yovargas,

It is easy to understand your reaction The problem is that all you hear is what the MSM allows you to hear. Occassionally something slips through. For example, on the Uranium One issue, this is a NYT article from the before anyone else actually looked at it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/c ... mpany.html

Hillary was one of the people who had to agree to the Russian involvement in Uranium One. THe MSM dutifully conveyed her statement that she wasn't, so you have to look beyond the MSM. Since it was The Hill (hardly conservative) that broke the story, you might read this. Work your way to the bottom where you can read the informants words, not what the Democrats claimed he didn't say.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -testimony

Any event that has a national security aspect is most likely going to have its reporting twisted into something quite distant from the truth. Do you remember the Paula Broadwell incident? She was the other woman in the General Petraeus scandal. Broadwell was a Major in the Army Reserves, with security clearances for her role as an intelligence officer and her job running an intelligence research group associated with a major university. She attended White House intelligence briefings. She was approved for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel when th scandal broke. What you don't know is that the scandal was caused to occure because of statements she made about one of the activities at the CIA Annex in Benghazi that I didn't mention, but is related to what I did mention.

In October 2012, just after Benghazi, Broadwell disclosed the CIA Annex was used as a holding cell for captured terrorists. She was at the University of Denver at the time. She didn't go the rest of the way and mention they were being held for shipment to Syria to join Syrian rebels. The Petraeus-Broadwell scandal erupted immediately afterward to punish both Broadwell and Petraeus for the disclosure.

I don't recall this being mentioned anywhere in the MSM at the time. What you were allowed to hear was intended to make Major Broadwell seem like Mata Hari. Petraeus resigned on November 9, 2012. This article appeared on the Guardian, a liberal English news outlet on November 12, 2012:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/ ... a-petraeus

No stone is left unturned when trying to hide the truth. If you looked for the Ambassador Stevens torture images, what you found from months and years later were hundreds of stories in the MSM about them being fake. They went unnoticed for a while after the incident. Once they surfaced, they had to be discredited. I found them before Steven' body was in Tripoli the next day.

The majority of the witnesses to Benghazi were made invisible to the investigations. The security contractors who saved them, who survived, weren't under control of any intelligence agency. They have been involved in the writing of several books, trying to set the record straight. Of course that won't happen because of the deluge of misinformation fed by the administration to the MSM and passed on to you

There are a few things that i have said that you can never verify. The reactions and treatment of the General and the Admiral are among these, but a few things leaked. Stars and Stripes isn't known for promoting controversey, but you should read this article from the Gateway Pundit that surfaced in October 2012:

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/1 ... officials/

This will tell you something of Hillary's role in Libya:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/p ... libya.html

Some details of the Benghazi debacle did make it to the news, but in a backhanded way like this NYT "fact check" of an investigative report:

"Finding: A Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team sat on a plane in Rota, Spain, for three hours, and its members changed in and out of their uniforms four times. — Part 1, Page 154"

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/us/b ... inton.html

If there is any particular issue about what I wrote that you want more informatio about, let me know. It has been 6 years, but I should be able to show that I didn't fabricate it and that it was at least alluded to by a reasonable media source. It is difficult to prove anything when the liberal MSM does whatever it can to protect a liberal government and I'm required to provide evidence from an MSM source.

What is more interesting is Obama's whole failed African adventure in which I played a very minor role, my brother and Cynthia McKinney, played a small part, and I knew some other participants. If you can't ferret out enough to acknowledge strange things happened in either Benghazi or Uranium One, there is no chance you will believe the larger African story.

Ignorance is bliss.

[yovargas]

Thanks for the response, IS, I do appreciate it. I intend to look into those Benghazi links later. I am curious.

Hillary was one of the people who had to agree to the Russian involvement in Uranium One. THe MSM dutifully conveyed her statement that she wasn't, so you have to look beyond the MSM.

The issue for me isn't so much whether she knew or approved of the deal. It's that those who talk about this conspiracy always try and make it sound like Hillary personally made this deal with the Russians when the fact is that the deal required the authorization of a broad number of people from multiple agencies and departments. This makes the idea that the Clintons orchestrated this whole thing seem far-fetched at best.

There's also the other big point for those that believe this conspiracy about Russians and others making big donations to the Clinton Foundation. While that does sound shady - especially since they failed to disclose those donations like they were supposed to - to my knowledge, there has never been any evidence that the Clintons personally benefited from the charitable donations given to the foundation. Independent agencies that rate the charity organizations give the Foundation give it high marks for transparency and for how much money is given to their causes. If you have some evidence suggesting otherwise, I would love to hear it.

[IdylleSeethes]

Yovargas,

When the NYT was still interested in the story, they reported the method by which disclosure of donations and amounts was obscured by the Clinton's use of a Canadian foundation scheme. Canada has no disclosure requirements so the Uranium One related donations were sent to the Canada foundation and then transferred to the US. The visible transaction was just the transfer between the Clinton operations. The NYT link I gave you earlier, from 2015 said the amount was only $45 million. Later investigative reporting showed the total was around $145 million. Much of the money was from Canadian donors who benefitted from the sale.

This story isn’t over. A grand jury was empaneled in early September to investigate fired Deputy Director McCabe’s involvement in several things, including the Clinton investigations.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/07/politics ... index.html


Older Uranium One news:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opin ... story.html

https://www.investors.com/politics/edit ... y-clinton/

https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/10/ ... e-damning/

https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/10/ ... keteering/

https://nypost.com/2017/11/18/donations ... on-defeat/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/uranium-on ... 1518564360

The following is from a conservative Canadian source. It has an nice timeline of events and reationships which is reliable and useful. Feel free to disregard the embedded opinion.

https://canadafreepress.com/article/und ... ne-scandal

For several years, there has been some concern about what happened to Clinton Foundation income:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood ... 58bf7f3bce

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/na ... e30845665/

https://nypost.com/2015/04/26/charity-w ... lush-fund/

The FBI was still investigating the Clinton Foundation early this year and may still be;

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3 ... estigation

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... story.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-fbi ... ion-2018-1


I'm not sure why you think I should be able to prove the connection between Hillary's foundation receiving millions of dollars from parties interested in the approval of the Uranium One deal while she was in charge of the State Department which was required to approve the deal. It is indisputable that the foundation received the money and the State Department signed off on the deal. There are currently at least 2 "secret" DOJ investigations of how these were linked. These are investigations of the DOJ/FBI wrongdoing in the prior investigations. You my have noticed this is the same group that protected Hillary from the consequences of her massive national security email violations.

I'm positive Hillary's fingerprints don'y appear on any of the Uranium One documents. She, Eric Holder, and the other Obama appointees responsible for approval of the deal, just delegate their authority to senior staff. There is no mystery to that.

We just emerged from a shameful attempt to derail the Kavanaugh nomination. There were numerous unsupported accusations that some believe justify destroying a man's life. The reopening of the FBI investigation demanded by the Democrats, failed to end the insanity. There is another thread on this board that followed the Russia-Trump collusion hoax as if it was real. After over 2 years there is still no evidence, but you wouldn't know it from what you can read. What would liberals think if the Russians donated millions to the Trump Foundation?

All conservatives want is for cases, for which there is actual evidence be investigated, no matter how powerful and influential the accused is.

[yovargas]

Huh. That's disappointing. Based on your earlier posts I had gotten the impression that you were coming to this from a nonpartisan viewpoint. now I see that you're just doing the same thing everyone else does. Allegations of suspicious activity against the opposing team obviously means they are totally guilty of terrible crimes. Allegations of suspicious activity against my own team, clearly that's just a nonsense partisan conspiracy that should be dismissed.

Which doesn't mean you are wrong, I guess. I will try to read through your links later through the week.

All conservatives want is for cases, for which there is actual evidence be investigated, no matter how powerful and influential the accused is.

Hillary has been investigated, over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

[IdylleSeethes]

yovargas,

You missed two important distinctions:

• Hillary was investigated by Hillary supporters within the FBI and was exonerated. That's why McCabe is being investigated.

• There are not just accusations but ample evidence to investigate Uranium One. Millions from beneficiaries of the Uranium One deal were funneled through the Canadian foundation to hide the source, at the same time Hillary's State Department approved the Russian acquisition.

I identify myself as a conservative, not a Republican. I took an oath once:

"I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;"

I believe the Constitutiion says what it means. I believe the evidence of its meaning lies in the papers of the founders, not in the imaginations of either politicians or jurists. I believe we are all equal before the law and am offended when some people manage to be above the law. It doesn't matter to me what their political affiliation is. I have voted for many Democrats and condemned many Republicans, Mitch McConnell for one. More Republicans than Democrats seem to accept the Constitution as written, so I most often agree with them, but not because they are Republican.