Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Unraveling of Obama's Foreign Policy
Townhall.com ^ | October 2, 2012 | Pat Buchanan

Posted on 10/02/2012 2:34:04 PM PDT by Kaslin

Three days after Ambassador Chris Stevens was assassinated, Jay Carney told the White House press corps it had been the work of a flash mob inflamed by an insulting video about the Prophet Muhammad.

As the killers had arrived with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, this story seemed noncredible on its face.

Yet two days later, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice doubled down.

Appearing on five Sunday talk shows, she called the massacre the result of a "spontaneous" riot that was neither "preplanned" nor "premeditated."

Carney and Rice deceived us. But were they deceived?

It is impossible to believe that Carney would characterize the Benghazi, Libya, massacre as the result of a protest that careened out of control unless he had been told to do so by the national security adviser, the White House chief of staff or President Barack Obama himself.

Who told Carney to say what he did? Who arranged for Rice to appear on five shows to push this line?

Throwing a rope to Rice and Carney, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said last week that only recently had his team concluded that Benghazi was the work of terrorists.

Yet intelligence insiders were leaking to the press the day after Stevens was murdered that it was terrorism.

Now that the cover story -- that the murder of Stevens and the other Americans was the result of a spontaneous outburst the Obama administration could not have foreseen or prevented -- has collapsed, the truth is tumbling out.

And the truth is more alarming. For it calls into question the credibility and competence of Obama's security team and the judgment of the president himself.

What do we now know?

Stevens believed he was on an al-Qaida hit list and so wrote in his diary. He was concerned about a rise in Islamic extremism in the city.

"Days before the ambassador arrived from the embassy in Tripoli," The Washington Post reported Sunday, "Westerners had fled the city, and the British had closed their consulate."

Rice insisted that the act of barbarism arose out of a protest, but there may not even have been a protest, just a military assault with RPGs, machine guns and mortars that hit a safe house a mile from the consulate, killing two former Navy SEALs, while other U.S. agents fled to the airport.

So dangerous is Benghazi, The New York Times reported Friday, FBI agents investigating the ambassador's assassination have yet to venture into the city.

Was U.S. intelligence oblivious to how dangerous Benghazi was when Stevens went in? Was not Benghazi's reputation as a haven for Islamic jihadi known to us all before we "liberated" Libya?

This is the city U.S. air power saved when Moammar Gadhafi's forces were closing in. It now appears to be an al-Qaidaville where U.S.

diplomats and agents dare not tread.

Late last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton conceded that the Benghazi murders were acts of terror perpetrated by extremists associated with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. She alluded to Mali, where an al-Qaida affiliate, the Ansar Dine, has taken over half the country.

How grave is that threat?

On Thursday, The Associated Press reported that Gen. Carter Ham, head of the U.S. Africa command, met with Mauretania's president to discuss "a possible military intervention ... in north Mali against al-Qaida-linked group members and their allies."

Yet Vice President Joe Biden still campaigns through the Rust Belt bellowing, "General Motors is alive, and Osama bin Laden is dead," and Obama still recites his mantra, "al-Qaida is on the path to defeat."

The reality. Al-Qaida affiliates have taken over a region of Mali the size of France. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb may have been in on the Benghazi massacre. Al-Qaida is in Syria fighting for a cause, the overthrow of Bashar Assad, Obama supports. Al-Qaida has helped reignite sectarian war in Iraq. Al-Qaida remains in Pakistan. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is in Yemen.

We failed to cut out or kill the cancer at Tora Bora in 2001, and it has since metastasized and spread across North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

As for the Arab Spring Obama embraced, that has given us the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo and jihadi in Sinai. Our departure from Iraq paved the way to a new sectarian war. The surge troops are out of Afghanistan, and the remaining U.S. troops no longer partner with the Afghan soldiers who are to take over the war.

Any doubt about the outcome there when we're gone?

Within the past month, anti-American riots, flag burnings and the raising of Islamist banners atop U.S. embassy facilities have occurred in too many countries and capitals to recite.

If this is the fruit of a successful engagement with the Islamic world, what would a debacle look like? Rep. Paul Ryan said Sunday, "The Obama foreign policy is unraveling literally before our eyes on our TV screens."

Is he wrong?


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: barackobama; foreignpolicy; jaycarney; libya

1 posted on 10/02/2012 2:34:07 PM PDT by Kaslin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

It was never raveled to begin with..........


2 posted on 10/02/2012 2:36:38 PM PDT by Red Badger (Is it just me, or is Hillary! starting to look like Benjamin Franklin?.................)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Obama’s foreign policy was clearly set out in Dreams From My Father. “I will side with muslims should the political winds shift”. At least he has kept one promise.


3 posted on 10/02/2012 2:46:06 PM PDT by ilovesarah2012
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
[We failed to cut out or kill the cancer at Tora Bora in 2001, and it has since metastasized and spread across North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.]

Had Bin Laden died at Tora Bora he might have been more valuable to radical Islam than he was hiding out in Pakistan. And had Al Qaeda been snuffed out in 2001 something just as deadly would have filled the vacuum. This is a 100-year war.

4 posted on 10/02/2012 2:46:27 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee (A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin; All

President Plunder and Vice President Death do not care. Plunder & Death = Socialism/Totalitarianism 2.0

BIG GOVERNMENT IS CRONY SOCIALISM. Witness its devolution into totalitarianism. Witness history. Witness current events.

“Socialism Is Legal Plunder” - Bastiat

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Socialists/totalitarians have much in common.

It’s easy to live - free - republic...

DEFUND socialist collectives/programs, foreign and domestic.
DEPOPULATE socialists/totalitarians from the body politic.

C’mon November!


5 posted on 10/02/2012 2:49:02 PM PDT by PGalt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin; All

President Plunder and Vice President Death do not care. Plunder & Death = Socialism/Totalitarianism 2.0

BIG GOVERNMENT IS CRONY SOCIALISM. Witness its devolution into totalitarianism. Witness history. Witness current events.

“Socialism Is Legal Plunder” - Bastiat

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Socialists/totalitarians have much in common.

It’s easy to live - free - republic...

DEFUND socialist collectives/programs, foreign and domestic.
DEPOPULATE socialists/totalitarians from the body politic.

C’mon November!


6 posted on 10/02/2012 2:49:13 PM PDT by PGalt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

“And the truth is more alarming. For it calls into question the credibility and competence of Obama’s security team and the judgment of the president himself.”

Not if the mind-set is that they’re not terrorists but criminals. The June attack the State Dept asked the Benghazi government to investigate it.


7 posted on 10/02/2012 2:55:18 PM PDT by bronxville (Margaret Sanger - “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population,Â)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brad from Tennessee
Basically we have gone from fighting wars to win to paying people not to fight.

As inferred, if the US wanted to 'win', they could have filled the void with death.

8 posted on 10/02/2012 3:22:48 PM PDT by Theoria (Romney is a Pyrrhic victory.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Unraveled my hind end! It has now come to fruition!


9 posted on 10/02/2012 3:30:10 PM PDT by fightin kentuckian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Theoria
[Basically we have gone from fighting wars to win to paying people not to fight. . .As inferred, if the US wanted to ‘win’, they could have filled the void with death.]

There is this liberal notion that man—at least intellectual Western man—has evolved to a plane above physical warfare. The truth is that man has not evolved from the Neolithic era. He just has fancier tools. Collectively, people are hardwired to war. If the U.S. didn't have two wars going when Obama took office he would have started one, maybe in Africa.

10 posted on 10/02/2012 3:46:36 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee (A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Many voices here were warning about the Arab Spring being little more than an al-Queda Trojan Horse and that allowing it to overthrow The Colonel was a gigantic mistake and would lead to NOTHING but Big Trouble.

Has Obama decided to become head of al-Queda after his chief rival was hit? Obama replaces Osama.

Right now it appears Assad has not been hit for some odd reason. Is his security that good? Does his sect insulate him? Why is he still alive?


11 posted on 10/02/2012 5:18:53 PM PDT by arrogantsob (The Disaster MUST Go. Sarah herself supports Romney.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: arrogantsob; SunkenCiv
Many voices here were warning about the Arab Spring being little more than an al-Queda Trojan Horse and that allowing it to overthrow The Colonel was a gigantic mistake and would lead to NOTHING but Big Trouble.

My point exactly. It would have been best to quietly arm that madman Ghaddafi and let him concentrate this attention on slaughtering jihadis. The Jihadis would also be occupied trying to overthrow Ghaddafi

Assad is still around because the Russians are smarter than the USA -- they realise that the devil that is Assad is better than the alternative...

12 posted on 10/03/2012 12:56:45 AM PDT by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Cronos

It is bad when we realize that Putin has a better policy than The Disaster.


13 posted on 10/03/2012 12:58:39 PM PDT by arrogantsob (The Disaster MUST Go. Sarah herself supports Romney.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson