Today we mourn the loss of thousands of lives in a terrorist attack on 9/11, 2001.
There was another 9/11 attack in 2012. It was three months before the 2012 presidential election and the implications of this were obvious.
A recent movie documented some of the lies about that event.
Despite Obama’s and Clinton’s recurring lies to the contrary, the deadly attacks of September 11, 2012, on U.S. diplomatic and intelligence facilities in Benghazi, Libya, had no connection with political protests. In director Michael Bay’s political-action thriller, which Paramount Pictures calls “a true story,” these two outposts get slammed ferociously by growing waves of well-armed jihadists who know exactly what they are doing. As if mocking Obama’s and Clinton’s lies, they do not drop their picket signs and then suddenly grab grenades, rocket launchers, and mortar shells. Instead, these killers skip the placards and head straight for the firepower.
We actually know quite a bit about how that event came to pass.
It began as “Operation Zero Footprint.”
We know Operation Zero Footprint was the covert transfer of weapons from the U.S to the Libyan “rebels”. We also know the operation avoided the concerns with congressional funding, and potential for public scrutiny, through financing by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
We also know that officials within the government of Qatar served as the intermediaries for the actual transfer of the weapons, thereby removing the footprint of the U.S. intervention.
We know the entire operation was coordinated and controlled by the State Department and CIA. We also know (from the Senate Foreign Relations Benghazi hearings) that “Zero Footprint” was unknown to the 2011 Pentagon and/or DoD commanders who would have been tasked with any military response to the 9/11/12 attack – namely AFRICOM General Carter Ham.
However, it would be implausible to think that then Defense Secretary Bob Gates or Joint Chiefs Chair Admiral McMullen were completely unaware of the operation. Even today, despite the numerous hearings and reports, this aspect remains murky.
I was quite aware of the relief of Carter Ham at the time.
It was reported at the time or shortly after.
The information I heard today was that General Ham as head of Africom received the same e-mails the White House received requesting help/support as the attack was taking place. General Ham immediately had a rapid response unit ready and communicated to the Pentagon that he had a unit ready.
General Ham then received the order to stand down. His response was to screw it, he was going to help anyhow. Within 30 seconds to a minute after making the move to respond, his second in command apprehended General Ham and told him that he was now relieved of his command.
The story continues that now General Rodiguez would take General Ham’s place as the head of Africom.
This version of events contradicts Mr. Panetta’s October 25 statement that General Ham advised against intervention. But so far there is nothing solid to back it up. Maybe Ham attempted to send a reaction force against orders, or maybe he simply said the wrong thing to the wrong people. Perhaps he gave whomever he was talking to up the chain a piece of his mind about leaving Americans to die when there was a chance of saving them. At the very least U.S. forces might have made those who killed our people pay while they were still on the scene. The Obama White House is famously vindictive against perceived disloyalty – the administration would not let Ham get away with scolding them for failing to show the leadership necessary to save American lives. The Army’s ethos is to leave no man behind, but that is not shared by a president accustomed to leading from that location.
The CTH account is now a pretty complete record of what happened that day.
Both Defense Secretary Gates and Joint Chiefs Chair McMullen were in place when Operation Zero Footprint began. However, both retired from their jobs in Sept of 2011, and were replaced by Leon Panetta and Martin Dempsey respectively.
Leon Panetta was CIA Director at the beginning of Operation Zero Footprint (March 2011) and was replaced by CIA Director David Petraeus in the fall of 2011 as Panetta replaced Bob Gates and became Secretary of Defense.
However, Panetta (now as Def Sec) and JC Martin Dempsey were the two who initially briefed President Obama on the night of Sept 11th 2012. This is an important fact to remember – because of his previous CIA role in constructing Zero Footprint, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta definitely had knowledge of the intents of the joint State Dept/CIA mission in Benghazi, Martin Dempsey may not have.
A pretty damning account of what went down that day.
There was an additional 9/11: The 1973 coup in Chile. Where the Allende fans ignore that the Chamber of Deputies, three weeks before the coup, passed a resolution by a a 81-47 vote- a 63% majority- that Allende accurately stated promoted a coup. Condemn Pinochet all you want, but there was widespread civilian support for the coup. Patricio Aylwin, who was elected President in 1990 and who led the successful NO vote in 1988 against 8 more years of Pinochet, supported the coup. All former Chilean Presidents alive in 1973 supported the coup. Granted, most civilian support for the coup assumed that the Junta would step down within 6 months for elections. Had such civilian supporters of the coup known that Pinochet would remain in power for 16 years, would they still have supported the coup? Probably not, but once the fox was in the henhouse, it was difficult to get it out.
chicagoboyz:The Allende Myth, by Vladimir Dorta.
José Piñera: CHILE’S SALVADOR ALLENDE YEARS IN ELEVEN TRUTHS.
José Piñera:HOW ALLENDE DESTROYED DEMOCRACY IN CHILE.
James R. Whelan:Out of the Ashes: Life, Death & Transfiguration of Democracy in Chile 1933-1988.
What’s now forgotten is that there were major protests and attacks on the US Embassy in Cairo BEFORE the Libya attacks. The Embassy there even apologized for that stupid video as the attacks were ongoing.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/salafists-attack-us-embassy-cairo
The Libya attacks were a minor side story.
“UPDATE: It’s getting less press, but our consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi was also attacked, this time by a militia. And this time a U.S. official was killed.”
I believe there was far more to the story than was ever released. It was all way too sketchy. Recall the crazy conspiracy theories, in which the protests and attacks were staged, synchronized with the MB in Egypt, that the plan was to have the US ambassador taken prisoner and then swapped for the Blind Sheikh, and that when several US personnel went rogue by fighting back rather than standing down as ordered, the fighting escalated and Stevens got killed, either in the crossfire, or by the Islamists who thought they’d been double-crossed by the Americans.
Sounds crazy, but given what we know about the Obama IC team, I don’t see why it’s any less plausible than that they’re just a bunch of feckless idiots.
Given how large Gadaffi’s military stockpile was, it seemed plausible that anybody with access to a stockpile had a surplus, and might be willing to sell some–using e.g. Saudi money–to be passed along to Syrian rebels.
Soaking up some of the loose weaponry before it went to Boko Haram and others would have been a good cause, and I was hoping that was what was attempted–it would have been _something_ they tried to do right. But supplying Libyan rebels seems fat-headed enough that maybe the administration was trying that after all.
There, of course, is also speculation that Stephens was there at the consulate as part of the weapons deal.
He should have been warned off by the Cairo events,
Right, so by the official story, he was dumb and feckless and shouldn’t have been there.
Does that really make more sense than that he was trying to execute a plan, and that the Cairo riots were all a known part of the plan?