Was Benghazi CIA Annex Running Guns To Syrian Rebels?

Investor's Business Daily ^ | IBD EDITORIALS

[raptor22]

The Libyan Lie: Dozens more CIA operatives were on the ground in Benghazi than previously acknowledged. Were they running guns to Syrian rebels? And why are they and their families now being intimidated?

The only thing "phony" about the Benghazi scandal has been the cacophony of falsehoods and obfuscation pouring out of the Obama administration about the night four Americans, including the personal representative of President Obama, Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed.

Up to 35 CIA operatives were working in Benghazi the night of the terrorist attack, dozens more than previously reported, raising questions anew of why they were really there, what they were really doing and why the administration has tried so hard to fudge the facts and hide the truth.

One big unanswered question is why there was a CIA annex near to what was supposed to be a fledgling diplomatic outpost in Benghazi — a soon-to-be, we were told, diplomatic mission envisioned as the first fruits of the now-mythical "Arab Spring."

We may have the hint of an answer in revelations by Jake Tapper of CNN that dozens of previously undisclosed people working for the CIA were there that night, and that the agency is now going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing remains a secret.

[raptor22]

Obama's Syria-Contra Affair

[gaijin]

Guns? How ‘bout 20,000 anti-aircraft missiles?

Say, WHY do they check our shoes etc at the airport?

Cuz I got news for ya —IT DOES NOT MATTER (now).

[DoughtyOne]

Please don’t compare supplying arms to the Contras to supplying arms to the friends of Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Contras may not have been perfect, but they weren’t handing off weaponry to known terrorist groups, or killing Christians in mass.

[Carriage Hill]

I hope Jake has his car checked-out carefully.

[Fungi]

Bingo.

[gaijin]

The total load of 21,000 MANPADS included mostly SA-7's --old and very vulnerable to such simple countermeasures as flares. BELOW:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Sa-7.jpg

Also with the SA-7 featured above the target must be silhouetted against bare sky for the seeker to "see" the target. So if I'm a hilltop rebel trying to fire on a helicopter approaching from low in a valley using the SA-7 Grail, then forget it, the missile sees nothing, since there is a mountain behind him.

But After Reagan's air attack against Khadaffi (much later it turned out his daughter was not killed in the raid, as he'd claimed for many years), Khadaffi imported newer Soviet AA missiles, also, like the SA-24 Grinch, below, and THIS is the real problem:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j5TUVPrTpqA/Tmh48bS0bOI/AAAAAAAAAXM/T2e2iOPYRrw/s400/SA-24_Grinch_9K338_Igla-S_portable_air_defense_missile_system_Libya_Libyan_army_001.jpg

It flies at Mach 2, reaches up above 10,000 feet, and the aircraft needn't be seen against empty sky for targeting. Also the Grinch needn't score a physical hit for detonation --it also comes equipped with proximity fusing, so if senses an impending bypass, it will still trigger. Also if there is remaining fuel, this, too, will be blown in the explosion as a kicker. Even with jamming and flares, about one in four Grinches will score a hit, generally.

What type of success might it get against commercial aircraft in their current form...? The Obama Admin does NOT want to talk about this at all.

[marron]

Whatever CIA is doing there, it doesn’t answer who killed the ambassador.

So far I’ve heard a couple of theories. One, that it was organized by Morsi (the gunmen said, after all, “Morsi sent us...”). Why would he do that? Maybe a consulate held hostage and traded for the blind sheik. Suspicions are that O’s people were in on it, hence the repeated orders to potential rescuers to stand down and not interfere. And that when the rescuers did intervene (against orders) and kill some of the hostage-takers, that led to the death of the ambassador.

Another is that, since they were apparently recruiting Al Qaeda to send to Syria, and buying up weapons for the same purpose, that Syria or Iran hired the hit. If so, the orders to CIA and the military to stay out of it make less sense.

Another is that, although we were apparently dealing with Al Qaeda, that they did it just because they’re Al Qaeda and they couldn’t help themselves. It was an anniversary after all.

Maybe. The head gunman himself has said he wasn’t worried about being attacked for his role, that the US knows where to find him if they want him. He doesn’t seem to be in hiding.

So, while its obviously interesting to me what CIA was and is doing there, it doesn’t directly answer who killed him and why. So far options one and two seem most likely to me. Anyone have any better idea?

[Diogenesis]

al Qaeda murdered Americans,
then murdered an Ambassador,
and THAT was acceptable to the CIA?
and Obama and Congress?

Their treason and utter hatred for the American people
will NEVER be forgiven. EVER.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks fungi.

[gaijin]

Paula Broadwell, Petraeus’ ex-lover, went to her Colorado alma mater and in her speech disclosed that one of the motives they were looking at for the attack was:

The attackers might have been trying to free captives there.

How many people think she would have said that if US personnel had not been in the practice of confining people there?

How many people think that in addition to the MANPADS smuggling there might ALSO have been a small SECRET CIA PRISON in operation, there..?

And that is totally aside from the nightmarish possibility that this imbroglio might also have something to do with NERVE GAS.

[John S Mosby]

One rents these moosleem thugs. I go with iran paying top dollar to stop the transfer, in their traditional role of supporting assad. Amateur hour, and incredibly poorly played as such with a terrible loss of brave people.

they raised such hell about iran-contra.... the contras were pro US. No way is the mus bro-hood.

[John S Mosby]

How about this— the CIA and much of our intel is compromised by the islamic jihadists and their financiers (and arms dealers proxy for the russians and others)? What thinkest thou Diogenes?, shine your lamp.

[Sioux-san]

I think you are right about the staged kidnapping of the ambassador for the blind sheikh so that Morsi could get his man back to Egypt and Stevenson could be set free, none the worse for wear - everyone Heroes!!!! Maybe the homosexual angle played out in the double cross. It would seem that Iran could have done it because they don’t give a rat’s patoot about the blind sunni sheik. Saw an opportunity and took it. One thing for sure, our PINO is not playing for Team America.

[raptor22]

IBD EDITORIAL PING

[marron]

the contras were pro US. No way is the mus bro-hood.

I also find references to the contras very annoying. As you say, the contras were pro US and anti communist. The jihadis are anything but.

I suppose that's why Democrats and the press went ballistic over aid to the contras and are silent when we send weapons to jihadis.

[libstripper]

Looks like a good weapon to have shot down TWA flight 800,

[Paladin2]

Fast and Furious II. gate.

[cookcounty]

It could be more than one thing going on at Benghazi....MANPAD recovery may have been a screen for a couple other things. It’s a LOT of people for a relatively insignificant city.

[ptsal]

...Really ???

I'm totally shocked!!!

[Don Corleone]

To anyone with half a brain (I know that excludes All Liberals) it was obvious that there was gun running going on. The problem was that it WAS NOT authorized by Congress...only by the CIA and the Dictator in Chief.