It's Time To Discuss The Secret CIA Operation At The Heart Of The Benghazi Scandal

[FarCenter]

In eight months since an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi left four Americans dead, a Republican-led investigation has focused on potential missteps by the White House — and come away with nothing significant.

There has been little attention given, however, to covert actions by the Central Intelligence Agency that were partially uncovered during the September 11, 2012 attack.

...

Among the questions are whether CIA missteps contributed to the security failure in Benghazi and, more importantly, whether the Agency's Benghazi operation had anything to do with reported heavy weapons shipments from the local port to Syrian rebels.

In short, the CIA is the most intriguing thing about Benghazi. Here's what we know:

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-secret-cia-mission-in-benghazi-2013-5

[riderinthestorm]

1. +10000. THIS is really the story. What was the US Ambassador doing there knowing all of that?

Huge K&R!!

[dkf]

4. Yes yes yes! +1000000

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[dkf]

3. Holy cow I had never heard this part before...

When they received word of the assault on the mission, Doherty and six others bribed the pilots of small jet with $30,000 cash for a ride to Benghazi.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-secret-cia-mission-in-benghazi-2013-5

Heroes...I cry when I think of what they did for us.

[reformist2]

5. And this is why the Bengazi 'scandal' is going nowhere.

It may even be why these other two new scandals came to light, to allow us to forget about Benghazi...

[DevonRex]

16. No. If Benghazi goes nowhere it's because 2 governments

would rather their traitors go unnoticed than air their dirty laundry for all to see. Rather like blaming everything on a magic bullet.

[Wellstone ruled]

6. There was s story out about a year ago.

Mr. Obama had warned the CIA something to the fact that if they screwed up another deal and it came back in his face,then,he was going to cut them at the knees. Notice who is doing the barking and yelping,Rethugs who carry water for the Military-Defence-Complex. This is the real story that needs to be investigated. I hope the Secret Service has their eyes and ears open,this is some really serious shit going down. BTW,what is going on with the Grand Jury in D.C.? Didn't they request the Phone Records as a investigation proceeds into a major security leak?

It's just stupefying how the DC press core feels they have been injured and Obama is a bully. This is all the manure pile created by Raygun not enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act. And so it goes!!!!

[malaise]

7. I'll take trying to create an Iran 1979 moment to turn Obama into the ReTHUG conceptualization

of Carter and swing the election to Rmoney for $2,000 Alex. I want to know the role of Betrayus who was forced to resign very shortly thereafter over some woman scandal.
Dons tinfoil hat!!!!

[deutsey]

8. When this first happened and I'd put on my tinfoil hat

I wondered if it wasn't some kind of "October Surprise" (a month early) designed to create a foreign policy crisis leading up to the election that would help to help throw it to Romney.

That hamfisted video that was made by a shadowy person here in America, the way Romney eagerly pounced on the incident with a press conference (that ended up backfiring on him), the way the GOP meme at the time was Obama was another Carter...

I'm not saying that's what happened...I just thought it all seemed a bit too convenient, especially with it happening on Sept. 11.

[bemildred]

9. Blowback. nt

[leveymg]

10. This is a valuable and well-written summary of the back story behind the attack. But, nothing

really new in here. The sad thing is that most Americans haven't heard any of this before.

Those who were paying attention however, it's been obvious since a day or two after the attack that this was a CIA operation involving the movement of arms and Jihadis from Libya to Syria. Serial regime change blew back on Petraeus and Clinton. This subject has been hijacked, poisoned and twisted into an unrecognizable mess by the GOP (and that is probably intentional).

There are a lot of details missing in this short report. You can google my screen name and Benghazi along any number of key words (blowback, CIA, Stevens, Petraeus, Clinton, SA-7, MANPADs, Syria, regime change). I was one of the few who persistently covered this back story, and have watched as both parties in DC did a first rate job in obscuring the real story.

[riderinthestorm]

11. +1. I remember leveymg. Very few people participated in those threads but you were there... nt

[leveymg]

12. Thnx. The twisting of the narrative by the GOP probably benefits Obama in the long run by obscuring

the real issues at stake - the unanticipated costs of serial blowback and the failure of the "humanitarian" regime change model. That's an irony that the Repugs probably don't grasp.

But, blowback from the Libyan and Syrian regime changes, and the earlier covert operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Bosnia, are actually part of a larger ongoing disaster for the US. The Soviet Union's collapse has resulted not in a peace dividend but the rise of ambitious and wealthy adversaries, and further overextension of the U.S. Each failure to restabilize after a setback illustrates how little real power we still have to effect outcomes in the MENA region and South Asia. Like the Russians before us, our interventions only weaken us and show the rest of the world just how vulnerable and rusted out we have become. The American people are the only ones fooled by all the secrecy and disinformation that goes along with these operations.

We are only beginning to feel the real domino effect - serial blowback from a whole series of misconceptualized covert operations and failed regime changes carried out over several decades. Secret wars never end. They are now cascading into each other -- the terrorists we supported in the Transcaucasus, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq now turn on us -- making the situation ever more chaotic and uncontrollable. In the midst of this we aren't even trying to contain the rise of Saudi Arabia/GCC as the dominant power in the region, and the Saudis and their Sunni proxies really, really don't like us at all, in the same way the Egyptians and Persians hate the British. But, this is far worse than the collapse of the British Empire, because we have been continually at war for well over a decade, and haven't even begun to create an exit strategy for ourselves. We can't even admit that it is our "allies" who have been funding AQ and are reaping the benefits as they fill our vacuum of power.

The bipartisan Cold War establishment in Washington now has to operate largely in secret because of public revulsion to the colossal debacle of Iraq and its costs, the buildup to which which was itself a semi-covert operation backed by the same people who are still largely in charge. They continue to run US foreign policy by the same strategy of propaganda and deception aimed at the American people as they did during Iran-Contra and the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. I don't have a lot of confidence that the thing can change course and save itself.

[FarCenter]

17. Syria and Iraq are far from over -- the whole region is a tinder-box

Scores killed in attacks on Iraqi Sunnis

At least 76 people have been killed in bombings in majority Sunni districts in Baghdad and surrounding areas in the deadliest day in Iraq in more than eight months have officials said.

The spike in violence has raised fears the country could be on the path to a new round of sectarian bloodshed.

Friday's attacks pushed the three-day Iraqi death toll to 130, including Shias at bus stops and outdoor markets in scenes reminiscent of the retaliatory attacks between the two Islamic branches in 2006-2007 that claimed tens of thousands of lives.

In the deadliest attack on Friday, twin bombings near a Sunni mosque in Baquba, north of Baghdad, killed 41 people and injured dozens.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/05/201351719455459869.html

[Whisp]

13. I smell a steenkin' Petraeus in this story.

His affair was cover for him resigning - someone got the big fuckin goods on him and his little personal kingdom of power (which included the SoS) and he was made to leave under a false reason.

[Whisp]

14. you know how the Pugs accuse the opposition of the same things they themselves do.

They were in cohoots with that ratfucking Petraeus - THAT is the cover up.

[DevonRex]

15. "A source told Fox News" and "Rand Paul told CNN"...

Not saying it's all garbage. Just saying that with those sources, some of which are even unsourced, it's getting pretty deep in here.

Of course it was a CIA operation. Ambassador Stevens himself was undoubtedly CIA, as were the civilians there. Which easily explains why Ambassador Stevens did not particularly feel the need for lots of extra military protection that last night. But OMFG, anyone who believes Rand fucking Paul has suddenly got the keys to the ME spy universe needs to take a few deep breaths. Same thing for Fox News...

[TakeALeftTurn]

18. Arms smuggling to Islamic Extremists in Syria

Both parties are avoiding the bigger picture … The fact that Democrats and Republicans alike have been using Benghazi as the center of U.S. efforts to arm the Al Qaeda-affiliated Syrian rebels.

Specifically, the U.S. supported opposition which overthrew Libya’s Gadaffi was largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists.

According to a 2007 report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center’s center, the Libyan city of Benghazi was one of Al Qaeda’s main headquarters – and bases for sending Al Qaeda fighters into Iraq – prior to the overthrow of Gaddafi:

The Hindustan Times reported in 2011:

“There is no question that al Qaeda’s Libyan franchise, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is a part of the opposition,” Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and a leading expert on terrorism, told Hindustan Times.

It has always been Qaddafi’s biggest enemy and its stronghold is Benghazi.

Al Qaeda is now largely in control of Libya. Indeed, Al Qaeda flags were flown over the Benghazi courthouse once Gaddafi was toppled.

(Incidentally, Gaddafi was on the verge of invading Benghazi in 2011, 4 years after the West Point report cited Benghazi as a hotbed of Al Qaeda terrorists. Gaddafi claimed – rightly it turns out – that Benghazi was an Al Qaeda stronghold and a main source of the Libyan rebellion. But NATO planes stopped him, and protected Benghazi.)

In 2011, Ambassador Stevens was appointed to be the Obama administration’s liaison with the “budding Libyan opposition,” according to ABC News. Stevens and the State Department worked directly with Abdelhakim Belhadj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Belhadj has direct connections to al-Qaeda.

CNN, the Telegraph, the Washington Times, and many other mainstream sources confirm that Al Qaeda terrorists from Libya have since flooded into Syria to fight the Assad regime.

Mainstream sources also confirm that the Syrian opposition is largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists. (Indeed, the New York Times reported last week that virtually all of the rebel fighters are Al Qaeda terrorists.)

The U.S. has been arming the Syrian opposition since 2006. The post-Gaddafi Libyan government is also itself a top funder and arms supplier of the Syrian opposition.

This brings us to the murder of ambassador Stevens …

The Wall Street Journal, Telegraph and other sources confirm that the US consulate in Benghazi was mainly being used for a secret CIA operation.

Continued at:-
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/05/its-dishonest-to-talk-about-benghazi-without-talking-about-the-syrian-war.html

[FarCenter]

19. The "Arab Spring" will be the point at which Sunni Islamist Arabs began to consolidate their power

[riderinthestorm]

20. Weekend kick for a really important story nt

[Berlum]

21. "Move along. Nothing to see here." - Generalissimo Pet Ray Us (R)

[HereSince1628]

22. Is this the old Rand Paul story being recycled?

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/01/29/1508331/paul-benghazi-conspiracy-again/?mobile=nc