“.............Four hundred miles away in Benghazi, the Supreme Security Committees have offices but little presence on the streets. Rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons that rebels stole from Kadafi’s stocks during the revolution are for sale in the main market, sometimes by men who look barely old enough to drive.
At Jalaa Hospital, the main emergency trauma center in eastern Libya, the only security for months was provided by Ansar al Sharia. Ten days after the attack, protests forced the group to abandon its installations in Benghazi, including the hospital.
Now the doctors want the group back.
A weaker militia has taken its place, but security has badly deteriorated, with gun battles sometimes spilling into the parking lot and reception areas. After several days of chaos, including one incident where a nurse was assaulted, about 200 doctors, nurses and other staff signed a petition seeking Ansar al Sharia’s return.
“There is a lot of propaganda against them, but we are asking for them,” said Ahmed Abdul Gader, a weary-eyed orthopedic surgeon who was on duty one recent evening. “The government has no control here.” - “Libya militia tensions hampered post-attack U.S. efforts” [October 24, 2012]
....If you buy the view that the only real enemy in the so-called War on Terror is AQ, a tiny group of crazies in the AfPak mountains who follow some nut named Osama,Obama's policies make total sense.
(1)We should not have been in Iraq;instead,we should have gone after Osama bin Laden and AQ in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
(2)The only problem is AQ and not Saddam,the Taliban,Hamas, Hezb'allah, the Muslim Brotherhood, or anyone not explicitly in AQ.
(3)Killing Osama was all-important, since he was the leader of AQ, our only threat.
(4)We have nothing to fear from the "Arab Spring" because those Muslims are not AQ--just people who want freedom and democracy.
....In short, the "it's all about AQ" theory was a convenient excuse to do nothing other than the occasional drone-kill or SEAL-kill of an identifiable AQ operative and then "Disneyfy" all other Muslim movements as people who yearn only for freedom and democracy--even people who killed Gaddafi by "bayonet stab to the anus"or sexually assaulted Lara Logan.
And here is how much the "it's all about AQ" crowd wanted that worldview to be true. They claimed that killing Osama turned the corner on terrorism.
....In what universe does an increase of attacks indicate "a path of decline"? In the same universe where an attack on a U.S. embassy in a Muslim country on September 11 was motivated by a YouTube video that no one saw.
It was just in July that the State Department said that AQ was on "a path of decline." By September, protesters would be flying AQ's flag over our own embassies in Tunisia, Egypt, Kuwait, and Libya while chanting, "Obama, we are all Osama." And four Americans...would be killed in Libya, after which CNN ran this headline:"Pro-al Qaeda group seen behind deadly Benghazi attack.".... Obama's Fog of War