It was Obama himself who denied additional security to the embassy in Benghazi, Libya not Hillary Clinton as many had suspected. New emails and documents have shown that not only did the President and the administration know that this was a terrorist attack – while it was still happening – bit that absolutely nothing was done about it. The security was denied only because it would be admitting that the world was a more dangerous place. There was an election coming up and if they admitted this, it might hurt his re-election chances.
The State Department had even issued a traveled advisory warning people that Benghazi was dangerous with real threats of political violence and assassinations in August. Yet the White House continued to allow the Benghazi mission to be almost completely undefended. Intelligence e-mails before and after the attack have surfaced that show that the situation was well known.
When Barack Obama was informed of the violence at the Benghazi mission he went to bed. The attack lasted between 6 and 8 hours. During that time, an unarmed drone was reportedly launched, allowing real-time images and video to be seen by intelligence officials and the White House. Still, nothing was done through the assault and murder of 4 Americans including Ambassador Stevens.
The next morning challenger Mitt Romney openly wondered why the administration was silent on the attack and condemned the terrorism in Benghazi Libya and why the Cairo embassy seemed to apologize to the attackers. The White House went after Romney, saying he didn't know what he was talking about. This was the first instance where the administration seemingly denied that an organized terror attack took place.
For days the Obama administration kept the attention of a compliant press on the Romney “gaffe” as they worked on their next distraction. They could not politically allow the issue to become a foreign policy disaster.
The President then boarded Air Force One for a trip to Las Vegas for a multi-million dollar fund-raiser, giving the President hours to review the information on Benghazi. If the reports of the drone over Benghazi are true, then he likely had access to that aerial video as well.
Within days the administration would be openly castigating the Youtube video “Innocence of Muslims” and blaming it for causing a large protest that turned violent in Benghazi. We now know that there was no protest in Benghazi before the attack.
On September 16, five days later, UN Secretary Susan Rice on CBS saying …
“But based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present is in fact what began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy–
BOB SCHIEFFER: Mm-Hm.
SUSAN RICE: –sparked by this hateful video. But soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in that– in that effort with heavy weapons of the sort that are, unfortunately, readily now available in Libya post-revolution. And that it spun from there into something much, much more violent.”
Two days later Jay Carney said “MR. CARNEY: No, I’m saying that based on information that we — our initial information, and that includes all information — we saw no evidence to back up claims by others that this was a preplanned or premeditated attack; that we saw evidence that it was sparked by the reaction to this video. And that is what we know thus far based on the evidence, concrete evidence — not supposition — concrete evidence that we have thus far”
“Based on the information that we have now, it was — there was a reaction to the video — there was protests in Cairo, then followed by protests elsewhere, including Benghazi, and that that was what led to the original unrest. The other factors here — all factors — but the other factors here, including participants in the unrest, participants in the violence, are under investigation”
The President himself, in front of the United Nations, continued the theme almost two weeks after the attack. “The future does not belong to those who blaspheme the prophet of Islam” - a clear reference to the Youtube video.
So why did the administration continue to go down that road when they clearly knew it was not true? Their actions and accusations about the video likely sparked deadly riots in other countries, like Pakistan. 23 people reportedly died in Pakistan riots while a paid TV ad by Obama and Hillary Clinton apologized to them for the offensive video.
So the admin had to keep downplaying the events and the impact. The four deaths were simply “bumps in the road” or it was “not optimal”. Anything to keep from having to answer the hard questions of why it had spiraled out of control.
Was it all a cover-up of their failure to provide more security to the embassy, which might affect his chances at being re-elected?
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