Posted on 01/03/2014 7:24:51 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The New York Times just delivered a mortal blow to the Obama administration and its Middle East policy.
Call it fratricide. It was clearly unintentional. Indeed, is far from clear that the paper even realizes what it has done.
Last Saturday the Times published an 8,000 word account by David Kirkpatrick detailing the terrorist strike against the US consulate and the CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. In it, Kirkpatrick tore to shreds the foundations of President Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism strategy and his overall policy in the Middle East.
Obama first enunciated those foundations in his June 4, 2009 speech to the Muslim world at Cairo University. Ever since, they have been the rationale behind US counter-terror strategy and US Middle East policy.
Obama’s first assertion is that radical Islam is not inherently hostile to the US. As a consequence, America can appease radical Islamists. Moreover, once radical Muslims are appeased, they will become US allies, (replacing the allies the US abandons to appease the radical Muslims).
Obama’s second strategic guidepost is his claim that the only Islamic group that is a bona fide terrorist organization is the faction of al Qaida directly subordinate to Osama bin Laden’s successor Ayman al-Zawahiri. Only this group cannot be appeased and must be destroyed through force.
The administration has dubbed the Zawahiri faction of al Qaida “core al Qaida.” And anyone who operates in the name of al Qaida, or any other group, that does not have courtroom certified operational links to Zawahiri, is not really al Qaida, and therefore, not really a terrorist group or a US enemy.
These foundations have led the US to negotiate with the Taliban in Afghanistan. They are the rationale for the US’s embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide. They are the basis for Obama’s allegiance to Turkey’s Islamist government, and his early support for the Muslim Brotherhood dominated Syrian opposition.
They are the basis for the administration’s kneejerk support for the PLO against Israel.
Obama’s insistent bid to appease Iran, and so enable the mullocracy to complete its nuclear weapons program is similarly a product of his strategic assumptions. So too, the US’s current diplomatic engagement of Hezbollah in Lebanon owes to the administration’s conviction that any terror group not directly connected to Zawahiri is a potential US ally.
From the outset of the 2011 revolt against the regime of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, it was clear that a significant part of the opposition was comprised of jihadists aligned if not affiliated with al Qaida. Benghazi was specifically identified by documents seized by US forces in Iraq as a hotbed of al Qaida recruitment.
Obama and his advisors dismissed and ignored the evidence. The core of al Qaida, they claimed was not involved in the anti-Qaddafi revolt. And to the extent jihadists were fighting Qaddafi, they were doing so as allies of the US.
In other words, the two core foundations of Obama’s understanding of terrorism and of the Muslim world were central to US support for the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi.
With Kirkpatrick’s report, the Times exposed the utter falsity of both.
Kirkpatrick showed the mindset of the US-supported rebels and through it, the ridiculousness of the administration’s belief that you can’t be a terrorist if you aren’t directly subordinate to Zawahiri.
One US-supported Islamist militia commander recalled to him that at the outset of the anti-Qaddafi rebellion, “Teenagers came running around…[asking] ‘Sheikh, sheikh, did you know al Qaida? Did you know Osama bin Laden? How do we fight?”
In the days and weeks following the September 11, 2012 attack on the US installations in Benghazi in which US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and four other Americans were killed, the administration claimed that the attacks were not carried out by terrorists. Rather they were the unfortunate consequence of a spontaneous protest of otherwise innocent Libyans.
According to the administration’s version of events, these guileless, otherwise friendly demonstrators, who killed the US ambassador and four other Americans, were simply angered by a YouTube video of a movie trailer which jihadist clerics in Egypt had proclaimed was blasphemous.
In an attempt to appease the mob after the fact, Obama and then secretary of state Hillary Clinton were filmed in commercials run on Pakistani television apologizing for the video and siding with the mob against the movie maker, who to date is the only person the US has imprisoned following the attack. Then ambassador to the UN and current National Security Advisor Susan Rice gave multiple television interviews placing the blame for the attacks on the video.
According to Kirkpatrick’s account of the assault against the US installations in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, the administration’s description of the assaults was a fabrication. Far from spontaneous political protests spurred by rage at a YouTube video, the attack was premeditated. US officials spotted Libyans conducting surveillance of the consulate nearly 15 hours before the attack began.
Libyan militia warned US officials “of rising threats against Americans from extremists in Benghazi,” two days before the attack.
From his account, the initial attack — in which the consulate was first stormed — was carried out not by a mob, but by a few dozen fighters. They were armed with assault rifles. They acted in a coordinated, professional manner with apparent awareness of US security procedures.
During the initial assault, the attackers shot down the lights around the compound, stormed the gates, and then swarmed around the security personnel that ran to get their weapons, making it impossible for them to defend the ambassador and other personnel trapped inside.
According to Kirkpatrick, after the initial attack, the organizers spurred popular rage and incited a mob assault on the consulate by spreading the rumor that the Americans had killed a local. Others members of the secondary mob, Kirkpatrick claimed were motivated by reports of the video.
This mob assault, which followed the initial attack and apparent takeover of the consulate, was part of the predetermined plan. The organizers wanted to produce chaos. As Kirkpatrick explained, “The attackers had posted sentries at Venezia Road, adjacent to the [consulate] compound, to guard their rear flank, but they let pass anyone trying to join the mayhem.”
According to Kirkpatrick, the attack was perpetrated by local terrorist groups that were part of the US-backed anti-Qaddafi coalition. The people who were conducting the surveillance of the consulate 15 hours before the attack were uniformed security forces who escaped in an official car. Members of the militia tasked with defending the compound participated in the attack.
Ambassador Stevens himself, who had served as the administration’s emissary to the rebels during the insurrection against Qaddafi knew personally many of the terrorists who orchestrated the attack. And until the very end, he was himself taken in by the administration’s core belief that it was possible to appease al Qaida-sympathizing Islamic jihadists who were not directly affiliated with Zawahiri.
As Kirkpatrick noted, Stevens “helped shape the Obama administration’s conviction that it could world with the rebels, even those previously hostile to the West, to build a friendly, democratic government.”
The entire US view that local militias, regardless of their anti-American, jihadist ideologies could become US allies was predicated not merely on the belief that they could be appeased, but that they weren’t terrorists because they weren’t al Qaida proper.
As Kirkpatrick notes, “American intelligence efforts in Libya concentrated on the agendas of the biggest militia leaders and the handful of Libyans with suspected ties to al Qaida. The fixation on al Qaida might have distracted experts from more imminent threats.”
But again, the only reason that the intelligence failed to notice the threats emanating from local US-supported terrorists is because the US counter-terrorist strategy, like its overall Middle East strategy is to seek to appease all US enemies other than the parts of al Qaida directly commanded by Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Distressingly, most of the discussion spurred by Kirkpatrick’s article has ignored the devastating blow he visited on the intellectual foundations of Obama’s foreign policy. Instead, the discussion has focused on his claim that there is “no evidence that al Qaida or other international terrorist group had any role in the assault,” and on his assertion that the YouTube video did spur to action some of the participants in the assault.
Kirkpatrick’s claim that al Qaida played no role in the attack was refuted by the Times’ own reporting six weeks after the attack. It has also been refuted by Congressional and State Department investigations, by the UN and by a raft of other reporting.
His claim that the YouTube video did spur some of the attackers to action was categorically rejected last spring in sworn Congressional testimony by then deputy chief of the US mission to Libya Gregory Hicks.
Last May Hicks stated, “The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya. The video was not instigative of anything that was going on in Libya. We saw no demonstrators related to the video anywhere in Libya.”
The reason the Kirkpatrick’s larger message – that the reasoning behind Obama’s entire counter-terrorist strategy and his overall Middle East policy is totally wrong, and deeply destructive – has been missed is because his article was written and published to whitewash the administration’s deliberate mischaracterization of the events in Benghazi, not to discredit the rationale behind its Middle East policy and counter-terrorism strategy. This is why he claimed that al Qaida wasn’t involved in the attack. And this is why he claimed that the YouTube video was a cause for the attack.
This much was made clear in a blog post by editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal who alleged that the entire discourse on Benghazi is promoted by the Republicans to harm the Democrats, and Kirkpatrick’s story served to weaken the Republican arguments. In Rosenthal’s words, “The Republicans hope to tarnish Democratic candidates by making it seem as though Mr. Obama doesn’t take al Qaida seriously.”
So pathetically, in a bid to defend Obama and Clinton and the rest of the Democrats, the Times published a report that showed that Obama’s laser like focus on the Zawahiri-controlled faction of al Qaida has endangered the US.
By failing to view as enemies any other terror groups — even if they have participated in attacks against the US – and indeed, in perceiving them as potential allies, Obama has failed to defend against them. Indeed, by wooing them as future allies, Obama has empowered forces as committed as al Qaida to defeating the US.
Again, it is not at all apparent that the Times realized what it was doing. But from Israel to Egypt, to Iran to Libya to Lebanon, it is absolutely clear that Obama and his colleagues continue to implement the same dangerous, destructive agenda that defeated the US in Benghazi and will continue to cause US defeat after US defeat.
The writer needs to further explain how exactly this will lead to him being removed from his current position to a place he can no longer do damage to this country.
“...alleged that the entire discourse on Benghazi is promoted by the Republicans to harm the Democrats..”
:::::::::::::
Horse Excrement. The Repubs do not have to promote anything to harm DemoRats. They do an excellent job of that all by themselves. No need to mention the long list.
OK....so what? Who is going to do anything about it?
Of interest.
The only thing destroyed here is the credibility of the NY Times. The false narrative of Baraq H. Obama will continue ad infinitum.
bookmark
Comrade Obamatollah is practicing Taqiyya.
If only
Imagine, a mortal blow struck by felløw travelers .. schadenfreude10
Exactly! The only thing they'd do is vote for him again if they could.
At 3pm CST, sept 11, 2012, at car line, I was screeching about how our State Dept, led by Hillary and Obama was making a mess out of a disaster, apologizing to the Libyans for our murdered troops and embassy (state dept staff) getting in the way of the Libyans activities of daily living. It’s now 18 months later and nothing has changed and certainly not my assessment of the situation
Our country is made up of half of its citizens on drugs. With 55,000,000 that’s millions abortions since 1973, we have about twice as many post abortive parents (2 - a man and a women for each one) there is a lot of depression put tgere, medicated but not properly treated and most women on hormonally induced sterility.
there is a tremendous amount of stupidity in the electorate.
There is a lot of drug addiction, legal and illegal. And the pharmaceutical industry is about to hard press is into a slave labor importing amnesty so they can stay afloat.
Our country is in a stupor.
Benghazi is a disaster. It will never go away. But nothing is being done about it
It’s the way most people are handling family problems, denial
Exactly. This impostor thinks he's made of Telflon. If only in government had the guts to prove otherwise.
Just covering for hillary’s keister.
That’s EXACTLY what this article is about: HILLARY! Obama gets the blame, but not impeachment. Hillary! then gets the White House. Simple.
DON’T EVER TAKE ANYTHING THE NEW YORK TIMES PRINTS AT FACE VALUE . They are nothing more than a house organ for the DNC(and by extension, the Communist Party USA).
Those of us in the sciences have always (properly) considered most of the journalism set to be - shall we say - perhaps a standard deviation or two to the left of the intelligence, morality, and honesty norms.
It is always gratifying to see the journalists themselves provide us with irrefutable proof of what we suspected. And the NYT/B Globe/LAT group are proudly heading up the even more rarified, but not envied, six sigma to the left collection of Obama adoring dolts.
Heh!
Doesn't the New York Times employ any copy-editors?
Regards,
Destroys??? OMG.. If the writer means destroys as in bolsters and supports the administration’s mob and video theory. I cannot get over this. The secondary mob is explained and supports every line the administration rolled out in the days following the massacre. This gives Hillary’s mob and video intel legitimacy. This is very supportive of their media parade in the days following the attack.
Hardly destruction.
“The New York Times just delivered a mortal blow to the Obama administration....”
.
Wishful thinking.
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