This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • Robert Lovell: Go, go, go

    Robert Lovell: Go, go, go

    BG Robert Lovell

    Retired Brigadier General Robert Lovell who was “running” intelligence at AFRICOM (the Pentagon’s African Command) on September 11, 2012, the night that the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attacked, testified to the House Oversight Committee today. From the Washington Times;

    Retired Brig. Gen. Robert Lovell also told the House Oversight Committee that the decision not to respond with military action was likely have been made outside of the Defense Department. He said the military should have tried to mount an operation because there was no knowing how long the attack would last or whether it would expand.

    “Go, go, go,” the general said.

    He said the military was waiting on a request from the State Department — a request that never came.

    Hasn’t this administration seen all of those bad movies about what happens when the Defense Department waits for the State Department to give them permission to act? But, I’m sure it’s not completely the fault of Hillary Clinton and the State Department. Leon Panetta and General Dempsey were in the White House during the attack on the consulate compound, and they could have made a dramatic appeal (like those in the same bad movies) to apply military force to the situation. Panetta and Dempsey are too focused on being political hacks to worry about lives lost. Besides, if they start looking bad, they always turn on Clinton after she gets elected and redeem themselves.

    The Defense Department has maintained it did not have assets available to respond quickly enough to make a difference on the night of the attacks. Some units were ordered to get ready to deploy to Tripoli, the country’s capital.

    […]

    Under questioning from Rep. Elijah Cummings, Maryland Democrat, Gen. Lovell acknowledged that those efforts did happen. He said his message was that the military should have been better prepared, not that it didn’t try at all.

    “My point is that there’s more that we should be able to do,” the general said. He said the problem wasn’t with the military, but that the interagency communication and interaction broke down.

    This might end someone’s presidential aspirations, but I wouldn’t count on it. But, MSNBC Is Now Admitting There MAY Be Something To This Whole Benghazi Thing. But I’ll never bet against the low-information voters again.

    But don’t bother checking at the Washington Post for news on the testimony, they’re still talking about the capsized Korean ferry.

  • Covering for the Emporer and his lack of clothes

    Covering for the Emporer and his lack of clothes

    According to the Washington Times, Judicial Watch has been hunkered down over the email records of the State Department during the Benghazi consulate raid that cost American lives and they’ve found evidence, they say, of the bureaucrats covering for the incompetence at the White House;

    The main point of the White House team’s strategy was to paint the terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video and not a failure of policy,” Judicial Watch said in an emailed release. Meanwhile, the State Department — at the same time that message was being shaped — initially considered the incident simply an “attack,” and perhaps even a kidnap try, the watchdog said.

    The email from Mr. Rhodes, dated Sept. 14, 2012, read in part: “Goal: … To underscore that these protests are rooted in [an] Internet video and not a broader failure or policy.”

    […]

    In the email, Mr. Rhodes also advises key White House and administration officials to make sure they presented Mr. Obama as “steady and statesmanlike” whenever speaking of the crisis. Another “goal,” he said, in his email, was to “reinforce the president and administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges,” Judicial Watch reported.

    I guess the fact that it was less than two months before the election had nothing to do with the coverup and keeping information from voters (many of whom wouldn’t have noticed anyway).

  • Citizens Committee on Benghazi: US switched sides in war on terror

    Citizens Committee on Benghazi: US switched sides in war on terror

    Citizens Committee

    The UK’s Daily Mail reports that the Citizens Committee on Benghazi, a self-appointed committee, released their report on the September 11th, 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. They claim that the attack sprang from the Obama Administration allowing a half-billion-dollar shipment of weapons to al-Qaeda from the United Arab Emirate;

    ‘The United States switched sides in the war on terror with what we did in Libya, knowingly facilitating the provision of weapons to known al-Qaeda militias and figures,’ Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told MailOnline.

    She blamed the Obama administration for failing to stop half of a $1 billion United Arab Emirates arms shipment from reaching al-Qaeda-linked militants.

    ‘Remember, these weapons that came into Benghazi were permitted to enter by our armed forces who were blockading the approaches from air and sea,’ Lopez claimed. ‘They were permitted to come in. … [They] knew these weapons were coming in, and that was allowed..

    ‘The intelligence community was part of that, the Department of State was part of that, and certainly that means that the top leadership of the United States, our national security leadership, and potentially Congress – if they were briefed on this – also knew about this.’

    The weapons were intended for Gaddafi but allowed by the U.S. to flow to his Islamist opposition.

    The committee’s work was funded by the right-leaning Accuracy in Media so I’m not sure how much stock can be put in their conclusions, but it does make for an interesting perspective in the discussion. They claim that Gaddafi offered to step down in the early months of the revolt against him but that the US wouldn’t entertain that option, for whatever reason. Of course, we know that Gaddafi wasn’t the most rational of actors on the world stage, anyway.

    Admiral James ‘Ace’ Lyons told the group that he believes the raid on the Benghazi compound was intended as a kidnapping exercise, aimed at snatching U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and demanding a prisoner swap for the ‘blind sheikh’ Omar Abdel-Rahman.

    […]

    Lyons also said U.S. claims that it lacked the resources to mount a counterattack in time to save lives is false.

    ‘I’m going to tell you that’s not true,’ he said. ‘We had a 130-man unit of forces at Sigonella [AFB in Italy]. They were ready to go.’

    ‘The flight time from Sigonella to Benghazi is roughly an hour.’

    I think some of their conclusions are too easy to arrive at, but I would like to see this administration answer some of the charges. This is me not holding my breath.

  • Washington Post; Obama dithers on Ukraine

    Washington Post; Obama dithers on Ukraine

    The Washington Post‘s editorial board took hard right turn this morning when they decided to criticize the Obama Administration for dithering when it comes to the “red line” that John Kerry drew for the Russians last week;

    Thursday, Secretary of State John F. Kerry was very explicit about U.S. expectations. “We fully expect the Russians?.?.?. to demonstrate their seriousness by insisting that the pro-Russian separatists who they’ve been supporting lay down their arms [and] leave the buildings” in eastern Ukraine, he said. “I made clear to Foreign Minister [Sergei] Lavrov today that if we are not able to see progress?.?.?. this weekend, then we will have no choice but to impose further costs on Russia.”

    The weekend has come and gone, and far from standing down in eastern Ukraine, Russia has continued to escalate. Its operatives and those they control have not withdrawn from the government buildings they occupy. In Slovyansk, the crossroads where Russian military operatives appear to be headquartered, a shooting incident early Sunday morning has been seized on by Moscow’s crude propaganda apparatus, which is claiming — based on what looks like fabricated evidence — that a Kiev-based right-wing group was involved.

    When the White House loses the Post, they’ve lost most of the country. Meanwhile, Joe Biden was in the Ukraine today “pushing for peace” according to Fox News. That doesn’t seem to have worked so well, since, while his seat at the table was still warm, the Ukraine government announced more “anti-terror” operations reports the Associated Press.

    Terrorists “are beginning to torture and kill Ukrainian patriots. They are impudently rejecting the calls of not only our country but of all the world’s society when they demonstratively mock the decisions taken in Geneva,” he said.

    “These crimes are being done with the full support and connivance of Russia,” Turchynov added.

    The acting government, which took over after President Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia in February, says Russia is behind the outbreak of unrest in eastern Ukraine with the possible aim of provoking violence that could be used as a pretext to invade. Last month, Russia annexed Crimea several weeks after seizing control of the peninsula.

    Kerry and Biden should not look for help from Republicans. Bob Dole injected himself into the discussion yesterday by telling the administration they should send small arms to the Ukraine. I just saw Bill Richardson on Fox News saying the same thing.

    The time to act tough with Russia passed years ago. A crawler at Fox News says that the Obama Administration wants to deploy 600 troops to the Baltic states to act as speed bumps if the Russians feel froggy. Being a pussy has a price, unfortunately, that price is going to paid by the troops…as always.

    ADDED: PintoNag sends and NBC News link about the 600 troops going to the Baltics region.

    The first company of soldiers (members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade) will arrive in Poland on Wednesday, officials said.

    Three additional company-size units will deploy to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for similar infantry training and exercises. They will be in place in all four countries over the next week.

    Pentagon spokesperson Rear Admiral John Kirby said the bilateral exercises were a result of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

    Kirby added that “since Russia’s aggression in Ukraine” began, the U.S. has constantly been looking at ways to reassure U.S. allies and partners.

  • The case for US troops in Ukraine

    Chief Tango sends us a link from the Washington Post written by James Jeffrey, a former ambassador for the Clinton and Obama Administrations who thinks that NATO ad the UN haven’t been fierce enough in the face of aggression in the Ukraine, so he figures that we need to put boots on the ground;

    The best way to send Putin a tough message and possibly deflect a Russian campaign against more vulnerable NATO states is to back up our commitment to the sanctity of NATO territory with ground troops, the only military deployment that can make such commitments unequivocal. To its credit, the administration has dispatched fighter aircraft to Poland and the Baltic states to reinforce NATO fighter patrols and exercises. But these deployments, like ships temporarily in the Black Sea, have inherent weaknesses as political signals. They cannot hold terrain — the ultimate arbiter of any military calculus — and can be easily withdrawn if trouble brews. Troops, even limited in number, send a much more powerful message. More difficult to rapidly withdraw once deployed, they can make the point that the United States is serious about defending NATO’s eastern borders.

    Yeah, no. We’ve gone past the point of sending a “powerful message”. That time was five years ago. Putin’s biggest fear is a missile shield in eastern Europe. Everyone on the planet knows that. Putting some Joe Rucksack in the western Ukraine as a minor speed bump on Vlad’s way to the Adriatic Sea will do nothing except make the US look weaker. the last I heard, the US pulled it’s last tanks from Europe last year. I guess that didn’t send a message to Putin, did it? And when you talk about “boots on the ground” you must mean tank treads on the ground, too. So which armored division are we going to reactivate to face the tank-heavy Russians, or would that be too strong of the message?

    These navel-gazing egg heads would make me laugh if they weren’t giving dangerous advice without a thought to the consequences and without considering the resources we’ll have left when the liberals get done slashing the shit out of the Pentagon. The troops aren’t mannequins to propped up in front of Russian divisions to scare them off – they won’t be scared off. The Russians don’t scare with piddly-assed think tank mental masturbation.

  • Hillary disappears from Benghazi story

    Our buddy, Rowan Scarborough at the Washington Times writes that as the Benghazi story is being written, Hillary Clinton’s name gets harder to find.

    Mrs. Clinton testified that she was never informed about how susceptible the Benghazi diplomatic mission was to attack or about requests for more security officers. On the infamous Benghazi talking points, that process was carried out below her level, she said.

    […]

    P.J. Crowley, who was Mrs. Clinton’s top spokesman at State in her first year, said Republicans have tried to nail her but there simply is no evidence.

    “Benghazi happened on her watch, so she will always have a connection to the attack,” Mr. Crowley said. “There have been some efforts to make it about her, which I suspect will continue despite the lack of evidence.”

    Lawyer Victoria Toensing has another view. She said members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence displayed incompetence while questioning Mr. Morell.

    “Nobody from the House committee asked about her,” said Mrs. Toensing, who represents Gregory Hicks, the chief of mission in Tripoli that day who was among the first to blow the whistle on lax security in Benghazi and a lack of help from Washington during the crisis. “Was that hearing somewhat incompetent? Yes.”

    Gee, I wonder why. As you read the rest of the article, you’ll get a sense of the tension between Washington and Benghazi. You might remember that the Pentagon was hesitant to send troops into Benghazi without knowing the situation on the ground, and yet the folks in Tripoli got forces that they had available into Benghazi without knowing the situation on the ground and those scant elements got to the consulate compound.

  • Obama White House denies entry for Iranian terrorist

    iranembassyhostages

    Iran tried to send a former terrorist who had been part of the invasion of our embassy in Tehran in 1979 as a UN ambassador. Jimmy Carter rushed to his defense while the White House discussed it’s dilemma. According to the BBC, it’s just been announced that Hamid Aboutalebi has been denied a visa;

    President Barack Obama has come under intense pressure from the US Congress not to allow him to enter the country.

    Earlier this week, the White House told the Iranian government its selection of a one-time student revolutionary to be UN ambassador was “not viable”.

    A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the UN, Hamid Babaei, described the decision as “regrettable” and said it contravened international law.

    I’m glad that the White House decided, in this case, to block a terrorist from entering the US. I guess they figured that they needed to act differently than Jimmy Carter for once.

  • Obama Sandwiches Himself

    Last week our president chose the setting of Ann Arbor, Michigan and a youthful audience at the University of Michigan to defend his argument for increasing the minimum wage from the current $7.25 per hour to $10.10 by 2016. In an obviously staged, pre-speech lunch, the prez had a Reuben sandwich at Zingerman’s Deli. He then used that luncheon experience to springboard into his argument for a higher minimum wage by noting that Zingerman’s pays its employees a fair wage, the implication being that Z’s nobly pays more than the minimum wage.

    Well that’s all well and good until you get curious, as I did, and find Zingerman’s menu online. Talk about sticker shock. Were I, like most Americans, to walk into this place off the street and open that menu, I’d most likely be heading for the door, looking for an eating place more in line with my budget.

    Now, I love a Reuben, and I’ve had them in delis and restaurants from coast to coast, but I have to tell you there is absolutely no way I’m paying more than sixteen bucks for one, except maybe at the now sadly defunct Stage Deli in Manhattan. If you go here, you’ll see that’s pretty much the situation with Zingerman’s. Eat there, and you’re gonna get zinged.

    How those clever planners who set up these presidential stunts could not have foreseen this obvious trap they let their boss walk into is beyond me. For crying out loud, you vacuous fools, the single strongest argument against raising the minimum wage is that it will result in higher prices to the public and reductions in employment. Yet you let your boss go through his pre-speech prepping in a place that proves exactly the truth of that? And then you let him use it as his springboard? It’s fine that Zingerman’s shares its largesse with employees, but irony all but drips from this presidential lead-in: “Hey, I had a great sandwich at a place that fairly compensates its employees.”

    Yeah, well, Mr. President, you got your sandwich in a place that charges prices that most Americans in flyover country would find unbelievable, unaffordable, and damnably near to being un-American. Hey, Barry, you were in flyover country, not on one of the coastal enclaves where such egregious price-gouging is accepted as standard practice. And we Americans are required to allow this clueless president and his out-of-touch advisors to represent us on the world stage?

    Too bad Zingerman’s couldn’t have served Barry a 21st-century variation of the Reuben, such as a Putin – a much meatier concoction, with a hint of bear flavor, definitely tougher to chew and damned near impossible to swallow.

    Crossposted at American Thinker