Choking on the ashes of her enemies, Madame Sec HRC"s Let It Benghazi Be epitaph was horribly hokey “The fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?”
Whale, to be about as blunt as a coordinated infantry assault on a diplomatic annex - quite a bitEspecially on the diplopolititary front.Ebberdobby knows about Polislam - the Arab Spring phenom that hooks up governance and teachings of the PBUH cat.As State testified at that Senate thingy - a causality of the Benghazi Boomerang is moderate Polislam In a pleasant surprise during the dark days after the Benghazi massacre, President Magariaf forcefully condemned the attack as the work of Islamic terrorists. For career State Department officials such as him, Hicks elaborated, this was a major coup. Now, to say Hicks was a compelling witness is an understatement. On this point, though, he did not flesh out what he meant. That is why it has not gotten the attention it deserves.
Democratization calls for authentic Muslim moderates to separate themselves from violent jihadists (and, I would add, from sharia chauvinists posing as moderates). If they are unwilling or unable to do so, there can be no real democracy. There can be only the law of the jihadist jungle or, at best, a milder sharia totalitarianism that, though we may refer to it as “democracy,” is not democracy in any real sense.
As we have seen time and again, however, this is a very hard thing for moderates to do. Study Islamic-supremacist ideology. The unyielding fact is that this ideology is prevalent throughout the Middle East — it is not just the stuff of fringe terrorists. And it teaches that those who sow discord in the ummah — by, for example, condemning fellow Muslims or endorsing Western standards over sharia subjugation — should be ostracized or even killed.
It takes a great deal of bravery for a Muslim to make a stand against this. He is sure to be vilified as an apostate for doing so. Sharia’s penalty for apostasy is death, and the so-called Muslim Street is well known to take such matters into its own hands. This is why President Magariaf’s acknowledgment that the atrocity in Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and his forceful condemnation of the jihadists who carried it out, was such a coup in the eyes of Hicks.
Libya is a plenary Islamic country. Magariaf is a Sunni Muslim from Benghazi — albeit one who lived for decades in the U.S. He was among Qaddafi’s most prominent enemies, and is reputed to be a liberal in the classic sense, supporting free elections and free speech, as well as equality among citizens and between the sexes. Not surprisingly, he has been the target of multiple assassination attempts, the most recent one in January. He is, in sum, exactly the kind of ally the democracy project desperately needs if it is to have any chance of success.
Magariaf’s condemnation of the Benghazi terrorist attack was an announcement to the world that there are prominent Muslims willing to run the risk of taking on the jihadists — the very thing we justifiably complain that we don’t hear nearly enough of from self-professed moderates. It was also an announcement that there are Muslims prepared to stand publicly and strongly with the United States, even if that means influential sharia jurists will condemn them for breaking ranks
None of this was lost on the White House. Yet 44 dispatched Susan Rice to the Sunday talk shows anyway — her talking points oozing with deceit, as Steve Hayes’s devastating report in The Weekly Standard has demonstrated. Rice directly contradicted Magariaf, maintaining that the attack on our compound resulted from a spontaneous “protest” provoked by a hateful video defaming Islam’s prophet.
This disgusting performance — mounting evidence proves she knew what she said was false — badly undermined Magariaf’s credibility. Worse, it implied that the jihadists who murdered our officials were justified in their rage, if not in their savage actions — i.e., that sharia blasphemy principles trump the free speech that any real democracy must have as its foundation.
That, Hicks said, is why his jaw dropped when he heard Rice’s assertions, which, he further recalled, left him personally “stunned” and “embarrassed” for our country. He was embarrassed because the cause for which he has spent much of his career struggling — the cause for which American blood and treasure have been copiously sacrificed for a dozen years — had been cravenly sold out.
That is what Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, 44, and the rest of the cabal betrayed. And for no better reason than that telling the truth about Benghazi would have wounded 44’s campaign less than two months before Election Day. Bluntly, a jihadist attack in the heart of the “rebel” resistance to Qaddafi made it embarrassingly clear that 44 had not crushed al-Qaeda. It showed that the president’s Libya misadventure had empowered America’s enemies. This the reelection effort could not afford, so the administration used the video — and familiar demagoguery about dread “You Know What phobia” — to cover it up.
Pic - "Spring Fever"
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"What diff does it make, be otche"
While not an exact quote perhaps, the spiritual/material hello that Madam Sec HRC shrieked at curious quetionmakers may be part of the Benghazi Boomerang.In fact, zooming out of desperate Americans fighting and dying ala the Alamo with zero hope of rescue, respite or revenge - the goofy cover up cover story about a m"Hammedist Haters Gone Wild video provoking the easily proked - all seem to indicate one thang.
It"s all to save HRC"s future political gig
While nothing said at the hearing was the “smoking gun” that some in the GOP suspect will eventually bring senior administration officials down because of the Libyan tragedy, enough questions were raised to keep the fires stoked on the issue for the foreseeable future.
Whether Democrats like it or not, Americans are going to be wondering about what senior diplomat Gregory Hicks told the committee about requests for military assistance on the night of the attack, the disconnect between the false story about the murders being a response to an anti-You Know What film and what he and others on the scene told Washington, and why he was told not to cooperate with the House committee.
If Clinton thought she had put these issues to rest in January when she railed at senators inquiring about Benghazi asking, “What difference does it make?” who killed the Americans and why, the whistleblowers have ensured that Congress will keep pushing until they get the answers to these questions.
Hicks’s recollection of the phone going dead as Ambassador Chris Stevens told him the attack was under way made it clear that what he would say would rise above the political maelstrom. And when he spoke of his conversations with U.S. military personnel who were outraged that they weren’t being ordered to go to the rescue of the beleaguered Americans, that opened a can of worms that the administration had hoped it had definitively closed.
Just as problematic was Hicks’s telling of his shock when he heard U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice tell the country that U.S. intelligence had decided the attack was the result of film criticism run amuck. Given that he had already communicated to Washington the fact that the film wasn’t a factor in Libya and that U.S. personnel in Libya knew the assault was the work of an Islamist group connected to al-Qaeda, this makes the growing controversy about the truth behind the official administration talking points that the White House altered to downplay any connection to terror even more worrisome.
As Pete Wehner noted on Monday, the emails prove that the administration knowingly misled the country about the attack in a manner that makes it impossible to believe they weren’t motivated by their desire to help 44 win re-election.
When combined with other testimony raising questions about what was not done to protect or help the Americans, it’s clear that further grillings of senior officials will ensue and keep the issue alive. More than that, what we heard today will deepen the suspicion that Clinton or others very close to the top in the capital had a clear desire to lie about the attack and to make sure that no one in the know about what actually happened would speak out.
None of this may change the opinions of Donkie Party cats who have been determined to move on from Benghazi since the fateful night of 9/11/12. Nor will it deaden the enthusiasm they are feeling about the prospect of Hicks’s former boss running for president in 2016.
Testimony shows that the attack will be a wound that will continue to bleed in the weeks and months ahead. It may not sink Clinton, but anyone who thinks she’s heard the last of this wasn’t paying attention today.
Pic - " 2016 Bay Bee!!"
Oh, it's true!
Consider - the most volatile regional powder keg already exploding.
And it's that wild wack 7th Century sectarian shiz
The fourth Great War is less "you know what slam against the West" (although that surely is there) than it is Sunni expansionists vs. Shiite expansionists. Neither is an appealing partner for Great Satan in the region, and neither has a natural claim on our politics or our interests. For reasons having to do with Iran itself, the U.S. will not choose to support Iranian-backed Shiites. However, Sunni expansionists are simply no better; Saudi and Qatari-supported Islamists run from the unacceptable Muslim Brotherhood to the even more unacceptable Wahabis, al Qaeda or Jabhat al Nusra – it is like a choice between cancer and a heart attack. (Second obligatory disclaimer: That is NOT to say the U.S. has no interests in the Middle East/North Africa/Southwest Asia, or that there is no humanitarian impulse due. It is to say both Sunni and Shiite expansionists have views and values inimical to Western liberal democracies, and neither is better than secular despots.)
In broad terms, the current fighting in the region is Sunni-Shiite: Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen, Pakistan, and rumblings in Kuwait all have a Sunni-Shiite component. Turkey thinks of the Ottoman Empire, particularly after the freeing of the "Stans" from Russian control. Iran revisits the Persian Empire. The Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Jabhat al Nusra, and others all find patrons in the region rather than in the U.S. or Russia. Oil money, particularly Saudi, Iranian and Qatari, greases various paths.
As both Sunnis and Shiites try to expand both deeper into their own societies and move farther afield, they run headlong into other regional, tribal, ethnic, religious, and familial interests. Christians, particularly in Iraq, Egypt, and Nigeria, have been hard hit as intolerance increases; it is estimated that half of Iraq's Christians have left the country. As a corollary, the minority communities of Syria backed the secular Assad regime for fear of an Islamist takeover. The U.S. has been attacked and vilified, and Europe is being subverted through "no go" zones for police, the installation of elements of Sharia law, and rising Muslim anti-Semitism. Venezuela and Argentina are Iran's hoped-for proxies, and Hezbollah operates freely in several South American countries.
Long involved in the repression of Sunni Caucasian nationalists, although the Chechen war only took on religious overtones in its second incarnation (2002-2007), Russia has chosen the Shiite side of the larger war. Even the idea of a nuclear Iran does not disturb Russia as much as the idea of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons in the hands of Sunni terrorists. Russia preferred secular despots in the Middle East as well -- Saddam, Assad father and son, Nasser -- who would repress the Muslim Brotherhood and other internationalist Sunnis. The despots obliged. Nasser outlawed the Brotherhood, Assad killed tens of thousands in Hama, and Saddam ran a savagely secular state to ensure that his minority Sunnis could remain in power. Russia's commitment to Bashar Assad should not be underestimated.
And with shades of the Cold War, as Russia supports the Syrian regime, the U.S. has moved closer and closer to military involvement. Our first choice was to outsource the funding, arms and training of rebels to Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia who chose, naturally enough, expansionist Sunni groups hoping to push Iranian-supported Shiites out of power. American arms are intended to end up with the Free Syrian Army, but according to David Ignatius "Islamist fighters…have formed the backbone of the Free Syrian Army for nearly two years. The Syrian opposition is almost entirely Sunni Muslim, and the Islamists (especially al-Nusra's recruits) have been among the best fighters."
The clear implication is that regardless of what they say to the U.S. to win our support, their long-term aims may be incompatible with ours. The possibility remains for direct U.S. military involvement, although hard on the heels of Hagel's statement about arming rebels, U.S. Special Operations Commander Admiral William McRaven strongly warned against considering the use of U.S. troops.
If American policy in Syria seems feckless, it is because it is feckless.
44 initially tried to "win" Assad to the West by sending envoys and lifting parts of the embargo. But Assad was not "won," and when he turned his army on his people, the President, apparently trying to satisfy American sensibilities with rhetoric, demanded that he step down. But Assad did not step down and rebel bands struck back, which did not displease the President, who was perhaps hoping that the rebels could do what his words alone could not do -- get rid of Assad quickly and without American involvement. The discovery that some rebels have serious jihadist tendencies offended American sensibilities, so the U.S. declined to "arm the rebels." That refusal apparently satisfied American public opinion, which leans heavily against any involvement in Syria; but the grossness of the slaughter, particularly the use of chemicals, did offend American sensibilities. The President's sliding "red line" on the use of chemical weapons offended some parties and satisfied others. Claiming to find "moderate, secular rebels" will satisfy some, but the admitted interconnectedness of the rebels -- and the fact that the Islamists are far and away the best fighters -- will continue to worry others.
The administration's policy on Syria has been a series of visceral reactions to graphic events and horrific casualties, offset by a gigantic distaste for confrontation. Without a definition of America's strategic interests, such as a defeat for both Iran and the Sunni jihadists, the chance remains that America might be dragged into another front in the Fourth Great War. A war in which neither side is our friend.
Pic - "We are seeing signs of an unfolding region-wide sectarian conflict, as tensions from Syria spill over into Iraq."
Dongfeng!Over the next 15-20 years, the U.S. and China are headed for a confrontation in the western Pacific, with Japan caught in the middle. And China, currently the underdog, could very well come out on top. That’s the unnerving conclusion of a new report by the Carnegie Endowment
3 Scenarios are: China’s 10-percent annual economic growth continues unabated despite high debt, an aging population and vexing ecological concerns. The People’s Liberation Army enjoys year after year of elevated spending. Its homegrown ships, planes and missiles get better and better alongside improving Chinese military doctrine, leadership and training.
But on the opposite side of the Pacific, the United States succumbs to its own internal problems. Economic growth slows to just 1.5 percent per year, leading to what the Carnegie experts describe as “enormous downward pressures on U.S. defense spending and U.S. military deployments in Asia.”
The stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, meant to rescue U.S. air power from obsolescence, instead falters, as does an ambitious program to develop a new, affordable stealth bomber. A shrinking American naval fleet runs low on floating sonobuoys used to detect the new and improved Chinese submarines pouring out of the country’s shipyards.
Broke and demoralized, America retreats from the Pacific, leaving an equally struggling Japan to fend for itself against its powerful neighbor. Instead of ramping up its own military spending in order to confront China, Japan strikes a conciliatory tone with the world’s new Pacific hegemony.
This worst-case (for Washington and Tokyo) combination of events is “highly unlikely but not entirely inconceivable,” according to the Carnegie report. But if they or similarly bleak circumstances come to pass, the Asia-Pacific in 2030 truly will belong to Beijing. “Needless to say, this scenario would present an enormous potential for severe crises.”
Best Case
The opposite extreme is an era of substantially increased U.S. presence in the western Pacific. For Washington and Tokyo, a stronger Asia-Pacific posture would result in “a more stable long-term regional security environment,” according to the Carnegie authors. Especially if American resurgence meets with a collapse in Chinese military capabilities and strategy.
But this rosy scenario counts on a big boost in U.S. military spending, amounting to a full four percent of GDP — an assumption that itself hinges on a rapid economic recovery from today’s depressed levels plus a sustained high birth rate. In addition to more spending, the “America-wins” future assumes ideal outcomes across a wide range of military initiatives. The F-35 fighter and the new stealth bomber come in on time and on budget — and they both work as advertised. A U.S. plan to expand its naval fleet also proceeds without a hitch.
At the same time, all the major trendlines towards a stronger and more assertive Chinese military would have to reverse themselves — and fast. The open spigot of weapons funding would have to close. Technologies already in development would have to fail. Training exercises currently growing more realistic would need to end or somehow get dumber.
In short, this outcome is unlikely. “It is quite probable that the United States and Japan will lack the financial resources, technological capacity and political willpower necessary for such an ambitious military response, especially in the next 15 to 20 years,” the report warns.
So which scenario is probable? America does not collapse back into economic crisis but neither does yearly growth reach the three-percent threshold policymakers desperately hope for. China also enjoys moderate economic expansion sustaining continued improvement of its air, sea, land, space and cyber forces.
Japan meanwhile navigates perilous domestic politics in order to somewhat increase its own military investment, resulting in a more powerful navy, a small number of stealth fighters for its air force and a naval infantry force modeled on the U.S. Marine Corps.
This “slightly unstable” scenario is the “most likely” of those studied, according to the experts. With relations between China and the U.S.-Japan alliance slowly eroding year on year, “this situation would result in a greater likelihood of tensions and incidents” compared to now. But the chance of major flare-ups, to say nothing of a shooting war, would be as remote as it is today.
This version of the western Pacific circa 2030 is also probably the best that anyone in Washington should hope for, given economic, cultural and strategic realities. It’s “manageable,” and its military balance still “slightly” favors the U.S, according to the report.
If the Carnegie experts are to be believed, the likely future of U.S.-Japanese-Chinese relations looks a lot like today, although more volatile. In that sense the think tank’s report could be mistaken for, well, accepted wisdom. It’s tempting to project current, short-term trends in straight lines over decades, although in reality today’s trends are often fleeting — and poor predictors of the future.
It should not come as a surprise, then, if the seemingly unlikely fringe scenarios spelled out in the Carnegie report – both pro-U.S. and pro-China — look a lot more realistic in just a few short years. Between America and China, with Japan watching closely from the sidelines in the world’s new strategic center of gravity, the future could be a toss-up.
Nazi time Deutschland literally fought to annihilation -- until there was literally no country left to defend. The Third Reich - she died kicking and screaming, finally crashing down in an orgy of pulverized, burning cities and a river of blood — civilian and military, German and non-German. Military history knows no year quite like 1944 -45 and if lucky, will never see another. On May 7th the surviving ruling remnants of the once powerful Dritten Reich finally screamed "GOD! PLEASE! STOP!" May 8th is Victory In Europe Day.The legacy of VE Day is with us still. Commonwealth Russia's paranoia about her near abroad - French, Polish and Russian fears of a re hooked up, riled up rowdy Deutschland and there never could have been a European Union - let alone a re unified Germany without Great Satan's will power, staying power and fire power.And VE Day would not have been possible without Great Satan, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and the Russian Red Army's incredible ability to absorb horrific losses, to bounce back and win.Happy VE Day!Pic - "Bedingungslose Kapitulation der Wehrmacht"
GsGf"s cool kid at FPI unleashes an LOLable "Hello Batman" regrding knee jerking jerks who fear Great Satan"s aerial hyperpuissance is so last year over SyriaOn Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House is hamstrung over the "formidable deterrent" presented by Bashar al-Assad's air defense system. Carried by such leaks as the disclosure of new details about the 2007 Israeli airstrike against a nuclear reactor in Syria, the story built up to one unnamed official's conclusion that "the issue is can you take out the entire air defense system and keep it down."
By that evening, MSNBC's Chris Matthews elaborated on the political subtext of these leaks, warning that if the United States were to intervene in the Syrian conflict, Assad "can shoot anything that goes overhead. So if we get in there, we start losing pilots and start losing planes and start getting captives - how can you bail out over Damascus?"
While it is prudent for U.S. decision makers to weigh the risks posed by Assad's air defenses, this panicked response is unhinged from the actual debate over U.S. options to intervene in the Syrian conflict.
Advocates of greater U.S. involvement in Syria have described three basic options: vetting and supporting moderate members of the armed Syrian opposition; creating safe zones to protect opposition-controlled portions of the country from the Assad regime's air and missile attacks; and conducting limited military operations to degrade Assad's air power. None of these options necessarily requires an immediate, all-out campaign against Syria's air defense system.
Here, Assad's air defenses are irrelevant to America's ability to deliver this assistance to anti-regime rebels, unless he plans to dramatically escalate the conflict by attacking U.S. aircraft over Turkey.
Where Assad's air power matters today is not in its ability to prevent the United States and its allies from aiding the opposition, but in the regime's use of aircraft and SCUD missiles to strike and destabilize rebel-controlled regions of Syria. It is because a stable and secure Syria cannot emerge from rubble that a growing number of lawmakers and experts have called for safe zones to end Assad's indiscriminate attacks against rebel-controlled areas.
At a bare minimum, Great Satan and our allies could use the Patriot missile defense batteries now deployed in southern Turkey to establish a credible threat against Assad's air power over parts of Aleppo and Idlib provinces, and even provide some limited defense against future SCUD missile attacks. This effort to establish a safe zone, like the effort to aid vetted Syrian rebels, would incur no immediate threat from Assad's air defenses, again unless Assad chose to directly attack our NATO ally, Turkey.
The last, immediately available option would be for the United States and its allies to conduct limited military operations to degrade and suppress Assad's air power, including his fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, ballistic missiles, and air defenses. As Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ) recently wrote in a March 21 letter calling on the President to consider such an effort, such precision strikes against Assad's air power "would not require American or allied pilots to fly into the reach of Syria's air defenses."
In contrast to these options, there is one scenario in which Syria's air defenses would clearly pose a major obstacle-if we were to launch a large-scale military operation in order to secure or destroy all of the Assad regime's chemical weapons stockpiles.
Such an operation would most likely occur if Assad engages in large-scale use of those weapons or loses control of them, forcing 44"s hand. Although Syria's air defenses would not hold U.S. forces at bay, they could buy just enough time for Assad to further utilize chemical weapons or distribute them to terror organizations like Hezbollah. This danger is punctuated by reports that the U.S. intelligence community has already lost track of Syria's chemical weapons.
Unfortunately, the longer Great Satan stands on the sidelines, allowing the Syrian conflict to spin out of control while the opposition is infiltrated by al Qaeda-linked extremists and Assad escalates to ever more deadly weaponry, the more likely this nightmare scenario will become.
The President has said for almost two years that he believes Bashar al-Assad's days in power are numbered. If that is the case, the question is not whether Assad will eventually use or lose control of his chemical weapons arsenal, but when and how.
The day that Assad finally falls, Syria may feature a U.S.-vetted and backed opposition, safe zones out of which American forces can operate as needed, and significantly weakened air power under Assad's control. Or, if we continue on the present course, the Syrian opposition will be further fragmented and radicalized, and we will have wasted the opportunity to degrade Assad's air defenses before it is too late.
Facing these options, the prudent course would be to utilize the options that have been debated in Washington for nearly two years: aiding the opposition, establishing safe zones from which a new Syria can emerge, and working to degrade Assad's air power before the United States and its allies may be forced to take direct action against his arsenal of chemical weapons.
For now, exaggerating Assad's air defenses to justify inaction will only serve to diminish our ability to shape the outcome of the conflict in Syria and will increase the likelihood that the war will end in the nightmare we all fear.
Pic - "In other words, post-post-Assad Syria is likely to be even more complicated, regionally dangerous and nightmarish than what we see now. "
