Free Republic

Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show. The emails, obtained by Reuters from government sources not connected with U.S. spy agencies or the State Department and who requested anonymity, specifically mention that the Libyan group called Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility for the attacks.

The Mail on Sunday today reveals shocking new evidence of the full horrific impact of US drone attacks in Pakistan. A damning dossier assembled from exhaustive research into the strikes’ targets sets out in heartbreaking detail the deaths of teachers, students and Pakistani policemen. It also describes how bereaved relatives are forced to gather their loved ones’ dismembered body parts in the aftermath of strikes. The dossier has been assembled by human rights lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who works for Pakistan’s Foundation for Fundamental Rights and the British human rights charity Reprieve. Filed in two separate court cases, it is set...

As violent mobs shouting Islamist slogans rampaged against U.S. diplomats across the Middle East and Southeast Asia in the weeks following the fatal Sept. 11, 2012 attack on U.S. officials in Libya, Russian President Vladimir Putin saw a chance to kick the United States when it was down. He did it by expelling the U.S. Agency for International Development, whose work -- advising private groups on democracy, as it has done since the 1990s -- he evidently resented. For good measure, he just cancelled the longstanding Nunn-Lugar program of cooperation on destroying and securing old Soviet weapons of mass destruction....

Despite statements by Vice President Joe Biden, the State Department is about to begin formal negotiations over the extension of U.S. troops past 2014, a top State Department official said Tuesday. Last week, U.S. and Afghan negotiators met in Kabul to talk about the Bilateral Security Agreement that will govern the extension of U.S. troops past 2014, when President Barack Obama said the combat mission in Afghanistan will end and the U.S. will complete the transition of the entire country to Afghan government control.

House Democrats opened Wednesday’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing by attacking Republicans for cuts to embassy security funding — cuts that only happened thanks to overwhelming support from House Democrats, INCLUDING House Oversight Committee Ranking Democratic member Rep. Elijah Cummings. In fact, more House Democrats – 149 of them — voted for the cuts than did House Republicans, of which 147 voted for them.

Now on Fox. Reporting that talks with Taliban have collapsed as our surrender date in 2014 is official. Talks were through intermediaries to get some sort of treaty with the terrorists to salvage some shred of respect from Obama's announced surrender. The Taliban refused to release the sole US soldier being held hostage no matter how many terrorists Obama would release from Gitmo. They told Obama, basically, to go to hell. Our surrender in Afghanistan is now complete, along with the Afghani "allies" upping the murders of US troops. Full coverage in The Boston Globe.

An Afghan soldier turned his gun on American troops at a checkpoint in the country's east, killing two Americans and at least two fellow members of Afghanistan's army in a shooting that marked both the continuance of a disturbing trend of insider attacks and the 2,000th U.S. troop death in the long-running war, officials said Sunday. The string of insider attacks is one of the greatest threats to NATO's mission in the country, endangering a partnership key to training up Afghan security forces and withdrawing international troops. Saturday's shooting took place at an Afghan army checkpoint just outside a joint...

The U.S. has lost track of some of Syria’s chemical weapons, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Friday, and does not know if any potentially lethal chemicals have fallen into the hands of Syrian rebels or Iranian forces inside the country. “There has been intelligence that there have been some moves that have taken place. Where exactly that’s taken place, we don’t know.” Panetta said, in a Pentagon press briefing.

At 7 p.m. on Sunday, Univision says it’ll air a blockbuster investigation detailing the impact of the deeply flawed gunrunning investigation, which operated between Oct. 2009 and January 2011. The Spanish-language channel says the “Aqui y Ahora” program will expose the true deadly toll of a covert program where US officials allowed over 2,000 high-powered rifles to “walk” into the hands of violent Mexican cartels. Expecting American interest, Univision will caption the program in English.

Five days before the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Libya, the U.S. state department posted an Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) memo saying there was no credible threat of violence against the U.S. for the then-upcoming September 11 anniversary. That memo has since been scrubbed from government websites.The memo read in part: "The OSAC has no credible information to suggest that Al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group is plotting any kind of attack overseas to coincide with the upcoming anniversary of September 11." Far from warning of impeding danger, the memo told U.S. personnel that increased media attention for...

"Absolutely not," Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs replied to "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace when asked whether the administration was politically motivated when it initially mischaracterized the recent attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya. "No one either intentionally or unintentionally misled anyone involved in this," Mr. Gibbs said. "We learned more information every single day about what happened. No one wants to get to the bottom of this more than we do." Some House Republicans have accused the president of intentionally misleading the public about the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S....

On Wednesday September 12, 2012 blogger Speak With Authority discovered that five days before 9-11, the US State Department sent out a memo announcing no credible security threats against the United States on the anniversary of 9-11. The Overseas Security Advisory Council, who posted the memo, is part of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security under the U.S. Department of State. The OSAC memo said: Terrorism and Important Dates Global 9/6/2012 OSAC currently has no credible information to suggest that al-Qa’ida or any other terrorist group is plotting any kind of attack overseas to coincide with the upcoming anniversary of September...

President Obama on Tuesday extended to Libya’s transitional leader a diplomatic honor never offered his predecessor, meeting formally with Mustafa Abdel-Jalil at the United Nations and heralding the victory of Libyan rebels who brought an end to the 42-year reign of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. It was not quite a victory lap, but it came pretty close. Mr. Obama credited his new doctrine with helping to topple the man whom Ronald Reagan once famously called the “mad dog of the Middle East.” And he held Libya up as “a lesson in what the international community can achieve when we stand together...

Islamists dragged the dead body of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens from the embassy after he was murdered last night. The radical Islamists attacked the embassy with rocket propelled grenades and machine gun fire.

President Obama said Wednesday he strongly condemns the “outrageous attack” by a mob in Libya that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. “Right now, the American people have the families of those we lost in our thoughts and prayers,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “They exemplified America’s commitment to freedom, justice, and partnership with nations and people around the globe, and stand in stark contrast to those who callously took their lives.” Mr. Stevens and three other Americans were killed Tuesday in an attack on the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi by protesters angry...

A bloody attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya that left American ambassador Christopher Stevens, two marines and a communications officer dead was a planned ambush by terrorists using a pro-Islam protest as cover, it has been claimed. The victims died during a rocket attack when an armed mob set fire to the consulate in Benghazi after joining a protest over a 'blasphemous' film about the Prophet Mohammed. It is believed a 'small, vicious group' of attackers used the protest as a diversion, although questions remain over whether the killers drummed up support for the march or simply took advantage...

CBS story: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57511043/assault-on-u.s-consulate-in-benghazi-leaves-4-dead-including-u.s-ambassador-j-christopher-stevens/?tag=stack CBS story quote, about half-way down: “He said Stevens, 52, and other officials were moved to a second building - deemed safer - after the initial wave of protests at the consulate compound. According to al-Sharef, members of the Libyan security team seem to have indicated to the protesters the building to which the American officials had been relocated, and that building then came under attack.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted this morning that the attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya was "not easy" for Americans. "Today many Americans are asking, indeed I asked myself, 'How could this happen? How could this happen in a country we helped liberate? In a city we helped save from destruction?'" Clinton asked. Clinton explained that this question "reflects how confounding the world can be" and reminded Americans to be "clear-eyed in their grief."

CNN’s Hala Gorani reported via Twitter that the network now believes that the Islamists who attacked the Libyan consulate used the existence of an anti-Muhammad film as a “diversion”: US sources tell CNN say attackers who targeted consulate used protests against film as a diversion. Say attack was planned. #Libya — Hala Gorani (@HalaGorani) September 12, 2012 Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/12/cnn-protests-against-film-a-diversion-attack-was-planned/#ixzz26H9yxsXt

An attack on our Embassy is an attack on our soil. We have been attacked by Libya. Go into Libya & take the oil--like we should have done in the first place!