By: James Simpson
Accuracy in Media

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote a column on Monday titled “Heritage’s ugly Benghazi panel,” portraying a forum held the same day at the Heritage Foundation, hosted by the newly formed Benghazi Accountability Coalition, as nothing more than an anti-Islamic hate-fest. This was a serious panel with numerous, widely recognized experts, a couple of whom were also members of Accuracy in Media’s Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi. CCB’s April report, “How America Switched Sides in the War on Terror,” made international headlines.

That report took some serious skin. Diane Sawyer, Bob Woodward, and other stalwarts of the mainstream media, have taken Hillary Clinton to task over Benghazi. With Heritage and others now picking up the baton, something clearly needed to be done. They can’t have Hillary’s chances in 2016 threatened by that Benghazi “old news.” As Hillary herself said, “What difference, at this point, does it make!?”

Enter Dana Milbank, WaPo’s hit “journalist,” who sees Joseph McCarthy, and racist bigots behind every conservative door. He could not, and did not, dispute the facts raised during this afternoon-long forum. Instead he used a now-standard device of the left when confronted with uncomfortable truths. The discussion and topic was discredited by simply describing what was said in a presumptuous and mocking tone. It is a clever way to discredit facts in the reader’s mind without actually disputing the facts. So for example, he wrote:

“The session, as usual, quickly moved beyond the specifics of the assaults that left four Americans dead to accusations about the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating the Obama administration, President Obama funding jihadists in their quest to destroy the United States, Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton attempting to impose Shariah blasphemy laws on Americans and Al Jazeera America being an organ of ‘enemy propaganda.’”

Most of the above, of course, is true. President Obama did fund the Libyan opposition, which was known to have al Qaeda ties, and those same jihadists turned around and attacked the Benghazi Special Mission Compound, killing Americans. He blatantly supported the Muslim Brotherhood in the misnamed Egyptian “Arab Spring” where one of America’s most reliable Muslim allies, Hosni Mubarak, was deposed.

Obama and Clinton are certainly doing nothing to stop the spread of Shariah in America, and the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the Obama administration. Another report out Monday quoted Mohamed Elibiary, an advisor to the Homeland Security Department and Muslim Brotherhood supporter, writing in a tweet, “As I’ve said b4, inevitable that ‘Caliphate’ returns…” Finally, anyone even remotely familiar with Al Jazeera knows it is an Islamist propaganda organ. The fact that it occasionally does a better job of reporting news than the American mainstream media is simply a reflection of just how bad the American media have become.

But apparently Milbank’s job is not to delve into the facts. Instead, his job is to discredit Obama’s detractors. So he used another standard leftist device as well. He found a convenient straight man to play the victim, innocently asking questions and making statements designed to provoke a predictable response, which could then be attacked with the usual leftist rhetoric. In this case, he utilized a Muslim woman named Saba Ahmed. He wrote, “Saba Ahmed, an American University law student, stood in the back of the room and asked a question in a soft voice…” He quoted her as saying:

“We portray Islam and all Muslims as bad, but there’s 1.8 billion followers of Islam… We have 8 million-plus Muslim Americans in this country and I don’t see them represented here.”

So, of course, the fact that the forum was not packed with Muslims implies it had to be biased. Substitute “white privilege,” “racism,” “McCarthyism,” or any of the other familiar leftist shibboleths. If you can’t discredit the message, smear the messengers. Ahmed also performed another, perhaps more important service, she changed the subject away from the disaster that was Benghazi and forced the panel to make it all about her bogus concerns.

As described by Milbank, one of the participants, Brigitte Gabriel, immediately “pounced” on Ahmed. Gabriel, who grew up in Lebanon during the civil war and saw first hand what the Islamists did there, founded Act for America to educate Americans on the threat from radical Islam.

Except that Gabriel didn’t pounce. She didn’t even respond. A partial video of the forum, posted at Media Matters of all places, and reposted at Mediaite.com revealed that instead, Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney gave a very measured, careful and respectful response. Then Gabriel “pounced.” But even then she didn’t pounce at all. Finally, Milbank selectively edited Ahmed’s question as well. He mischaracterized the entire exchange, which was very respectful. Here is the video.

Milbank described Gabriel’s response to Ahmed as though it was the height of absurdity. He selectively reported her response that “180 million to 300 million” Muslims are “dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization,” that the “peaceful majority were irrelevant in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001… Most Germans were peaceful, yet the Nazis drove the agenda and as a result, 60 million died.”

This is all true as well. The peaceful Muslims—and there are no doubt many—are just as passive and impotent as everyday Germans were while the Nazis were killing Jews during WW II, but Milbank made it sound as though she had committed a crime: “she drew a Hitler comparison,” he gasped. What is wrong with that? It is a good analogy. He didn’t mention all the other analogies she drew, including mass murder committed by Japanese and Soviet communists, where the people were similarly powerless.

But we must ask a larger question. What was Saba Ahmed, the innocent, soft-spoken American University “student,” doing there? It turns out Ahmed is more than just a “student.” She has a lobbying firm in Washington, DC. She once ran for Congress while living in Oregon, where she went missing for three days over a failed relationship, according to family members.

She came to the aid of a family friend, the Christmas tree bomber, who attempted to set off a vanload of explosives in a downtown Portland park where Christmas revelers were celebrating. The bomb was actually a dummy, part of an FBI sting investigation.

After losing the Democratic primary, she even switched sides, becoming a registered Republican. But she never switched loyalties. She spoke against the war in Iraq at an Occupy rally in Oregon, has worked on the staff of Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy (VT) and has been a Democratic activist for a long time—not exactly the innocent “student” portrayed by Milbank. A 2011 article describing her odd Congressional campaign stated:

Ahmed, who says she’s been recently lobbying Congress to end U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, said that ‘Obviously I am not a traditional politician.’

Obviously… Gabriel saw right through her act and confronted her. “Are you an American?” she asked, and told her that her “political correctness” belongs “in the garbage.”

Milbank characterized it all as a pile-on against this one meek, lone voice of reason. He went on to further ridicule the forum and its participants, observing among other things:

“[Talk show host and panel moderator, Chris] Plante cast doubt on whether Ambassador Chris Stevens really died of smoke inhalation, demanding to see an autopsy report.

(Many claim he was raped and tortured. An autopsy report would settle the issue, but of course the Obama administration won’t release it.)

“Gabriel floated the notion that Stevens had been working on a weapons-swap program between Libya and Syria just before he was killed.”

(That was apparently the real reason behind the entire fiasco.)

“Panelist Clare Lopez of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi said the perpetrators of the attack are ‘sipping frappes with journalists in juice bars.’”

This last comment was particularly outrageous. Milbank makes Lopez’s statement sound absurd, worthy of ridicule, but in fact CNN located the suspected ringleader of the terrorists involved in the Benghazi attack and interviewed him for two hours at a prominent hotel coffee bar in Benghazi. FBI Director James Comey was grilled in a Congressional hearing about it. Congressmen Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) demanded to know how CNN could locate the terrorists so easily while the FBI couldn’t. Just today it was reported that that same suspected ringleader of the attack on the compound in Benghazi, Ahmed Abu Khatallah, was captured in Libya and is being brought to the U.S. on a ship.

Lopez is a former career CIA case officer and expert on the Middle East. Yet here is Milbank trying to make her look like some kind of yahoo. But one doesn’t have to dig too deep to discover who the real yahoo is.

Milbank’s trump card was Ahmed. It was almost certainly a setup. Milbank found an activist he knew could play her part well. She feigned a humble, meek, ignorant college student who made a single observation and became the “victim,” whose harsh treatment Milbank could then excoriate, while discrediting a panel of distinguished experts that included Gabriel, Lopez, Andrew McCarthy—who prosecuted the case against the Blind Sheikh, the World Trade Center bombing mastermind—and many others.

Even Politico’s Dylan Byers and CNN’s Jake Tapper are calling foul:

Meanwhile, the pink elephant in the room was the massive intelligence, military, foreign policy and leadership failure that Benghazi represents for the Obama administration, and by extension, the absolutely inexcusable incompetence—or worse—of Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

Like most of the Democrats’ media shills, Dana Milbank lies quite well, but they are lies nonetheless. We are well advised to recognize them as such. Hillary Clinton should not be allowed anywhere near the White House. She, along with Obama and many other Democrats, should instead find themselves under the microscope in a serious criminal investigation. I won’t hold my breath, however.

James Simpson is an economist, businessman and investigative journalist. His articles have been published at American Thinker, Accuracy in Media, Breitbart, PJ Media, Washington Times, WorldNetDaily and others. His regular column is DC Independent Examiner. Follow Jim on Twitter & Facebook.

The Watcher’s Council

Every week on Monday morning, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum with short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture or daily living. This week’s question: Should The U.S. intervene in Iraq?

The Independent Sentinel: The U.S. must intervene in Iraq in a significant way. ISIS or ISIL will eventually attack the U.S. and they will attack Israel. Of that, there is no doubt.

United States intelligence intercepted a letter in 2005 written from Al-Zawahiri to the then-leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The letter outlined a four-stage plan to expand the war in Iraq: drive the Americans out, establish a caliphate in Bahgdad, use that base to attack other countries, and attack Israel –”because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity.”

Stage three is to attack us. The United States is in extreme and direct danger from ISIS.

They could have been stopped at the border if we had intervened in a timely manner or if we had a residual force in Iraq.

It’s a very complicated matter. We are indirectly supporting these same people in Syria as they rampage through the country killing Christians – they are dispersed among the rebel forces and we are supplying them with arms and funds.

ISIS has joined up with moderate forces in Iraq. The moderates are people we would prefer not to alienate. They don’t want Sharia law or an Islamic caliphate but they hate Maliki more. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

No matter what we do, we will be firing on people we claim to support, but the bottom line is that we can’t let ISIS form an Islamic state.

Will President Obama do anything of any significance – unlikely. I hope I am proven wrong.

The Razor: Whenever a clear and present danger against our Republic materializes in that infernal sandpit, then yes we should intervene and crush it. But until that time arises, absolutely not.

JoshuaPundit: No. Emphatically Hell No, with one possible exception. Send this guy:

Exactly what are we planning to accomplish there? The last time we got involved in Iraq, we took out a Sunni dictatorship that was the single counterpoint in the region to the Islamofacists in Iran and much to our allies in the region’s dismay, we put in a Shi’ite dictatorship with major ties to Iran in its place. We allowed the wholesale ethnic cleansing of Iraq’s Christians, sold out our only real allies in the region, the Kurds, and were finally able to extricate ourselves by bribing the Sunni chiefs in the Awakening Movement and lying to them about how Maliki was going to include them in his government as full and equal partners.

We lost over 4,400 U.S. troops there, spent at least a trillion dollars rebuilding their infrastructure, saved Iraq’s oil wells for the Chinese and spent billions building them an army. We got absolutely nothing for it, not even simple gratitude. Anyone familiar with the old saying about throwing good money after bad?

ISIS, whom President Obama and his team helped arm, fund and train is now facing off with Iranian forces. Are we now going to commit the U.S. military to fighting on the same side as Hezbollah, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. the Badr Force and Basher Assad to keep an Iranian ally in power? And if we’re going there, are we going to aid these same forces in Syria as well to help Assad out? Anyone care to explain that pretzel logic to me?

What’s most likely going to happen here is a stalemate, now that the Iranians have come in. Baghdad will be the dividing line, and the Shi’ites will hold on to the Baghdad to Basra corridor and the southern oilfields while ISIS puts together its Sunni mini-caliphate in southern Syria and the rest of Iraq and the Kurds carve of the Kurdish areas of northeastern Iraq and eastern Syria just across the border as the independent Kurdistan they always should have had. In other words, an artificial country that never should have been one is dividing along its natural lines.

The bloodshed and horror will last for months, just as it has in Syria and there’s absolutely no reason for us to get involved, although President Obama might be stupid enough to aid Iran and the Shi’ite bloc by doing so.It would be a huge mistake, just as it was sheer idiocy for Obama to go into Libya to save al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood from Khaddaffi, to champion the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, to arm Islamists in Syria and to fund the terrorist alliance between Fatah and Hamas in ‘Palestine’.

The last time the Sunnis and Shi’ites went to war in the Persian Gulf, there were a million casualties, both sides were too busy to bother us and ended up substantially weakened.As the Dark Lord Dick Cheney wisely said, “it’s a pity they can’t both lose.”

The majority of these countries are failed states, and most of them mean us no good. For that matter, there’s a failed state just east of Afghanistan that we’ve bribed with billions of dollars. If the rationale is that we’re going to knock off failed states with significant ties to Islamist terrorism just because, why not that one, which actually has an illegal nuclear weapons program already and has no love whatsoever for America? Obviously, playing that kind of whack-a-mole is no strategy.

Our best bet (and hopefully this president will stumble into it through sheer incompetence) is to leave this strictly alone and let the two sides fight it out.

President Obama will not be able to do this at this point because no one in the region trusts him, but we would be far better off resetting our relationships with our allies in the region like Israel, Jordan and Egypt and synching their intel more with our own to monitor the situation.

Especially valuable (and again, President Obama would not be able to pull this off but we might try for it in the future) would be an alliance with the Kurds, who loved America because we protected them from Saddam during the no-fly-zone days and actually wanted us to put bases in their country until Bush 43 betrayed them. A strong independent Kurdistan would be a major U.S. asset, provided we could get win their trust again.

But another undeclared war with fuzzy objectives? No.

Liberty’s Spirit: Should the US intervene in Iraq? In a review of the situation in Iraq you cannot look at it without looking at the Middle East as a whole. The effects of inaction in one sphere of the Moslem world has reverberations throughout the region.

The rise of ISIS can be directly connected to the Cairo speech that Obama gave shortly after coming to office. When he gave succor to the Moslem Brotherhood, Obama paved the way for the legitimization of radical Islamist organizations. By Obama turning his back on the consistent American allies in the Arab world (granted they were mostly tyrants and oligarchs) he let it be known throughout the region that the US would not step in to help its allies and that they in fact would support Islamists in their attempt to take over Arab governments. Without a history of democracy in the Arab world, the naive western support for the Arab Spring, which overthrew the longtime American allies, paved the way for the control by Islamists in the region. In truth, the Obama administration sees these Islamist groups as the true voice of the Arab people and an outgrowth of western imperialism and colonialism. In righting what the Obama administration sees as western domination of a third world people the Obama administration has facilitated the rise of the Islamo-fascists. I predicted everything that is happening now in the Middle East years ago, as well as outlining the ineptness of the Obama foreign policy worldwide

Obama has botched everything about Iraq from the day he came into office. When Obama took office, there was a modicum of organization and the beginnings of a new Iraqi nation. However, Obama was so intent on leaving Iraq that he pulled our troops out without securing the gains made by our soldiers. Obama abandoned the people of Iraq to the duplicitous Maliki government and the evil that is Iran. He basically paved the way for a Shiite-Iran alliance which alienated the Sunni population in the country.

Then Obama’s red-line in Syria was more of his machinations and complete inadequate understanding of the region. He allowed the Russians, who also join with Iran on the side of Assad, to come in and take over the “the good guy” position and lead the search for chemical weapons. (Of course, it has been proven to no thinking person’s surprise, that Assad has not destroyed his weapons of mass destruction) Now, by the time Obama actually thought to do anything on the side of the opposition, ISIS was the formidable opposition to the Assad-Iran regime. At that point there was no way that it made any sense for the US to take the side against Assad. Obama had his way and decided to just let the Syrian civil war play out on its own.

ISIS as it gained strength in Syria decided to branch out and saw an opening into Iraq. That this is an on-going battle between Sunni and Shiite Islam is true. But there is more at stake right now for the entire world. You have ISIS, which is backed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, versus the Shiite government of Maliki, which is backed by Iran. It is a power play for the control of the Moslem world and in the end control of the vast oil reserves in that region. (Meanwhile, the Obama administrations refusal to support oil and energy independence for the US in a logical manner, adds to our frightening dependence on this volatile region of the world).

That the US is reaching out to Iran for help to stop ISIS is not unforeseen. The Obama administration has been trying to normalize Iran since they came to office. They see Iran as a true player in Middle Eastern politics despite their human rights abuses and support for world wide terrorism. The Obama administration sees Iran as a needed ingredient to be a hedge against the State of Israel, who they see as the real impediment to any stabilization in the Middle East. The question is what exactly is the Obama administration giving Iran for their help in Iraq? Iran has already won the race toward a nuclear bomb, the issue is how else has the Obama administration endangered the entire world through their ineptness and ignorance when dealing with the Messianic cult that is in charge of Iran?

Yes, in many ways Obama is between a rock and a hard place. But it is one of his own making. Unfortunately his lack of ability to engender respect will lead to loosing the entire Middle East to any idea of democracy and freedom. Islamo-fascists are on the march, not only in the Middle East but in Europe, Asia and South America. They are coming here to the US, if their terror cells are not here already. They have promised that they will come after the US and the west. When people threaten your existence it is wise to listen. History no doubt, shows that Jimmy Carter by losing Iran facilitated the beginnings of the rise of Islamo-fascism. Meanwhile, history will show that Obama and his politically correct minions, caused a World War in the end so that we can preserve our own liberty and freedom.

Now as for what the US should do now? Whatever Obama does, it is too little too late. Bombing ISIS will only help the Iranian regime, but leaving ISIS will embolden Islamists. Arm twisting the Qataris and Saudis to pull their support for ISIS will not work. They have no fear of Obama and are terrified of Iran. Sadly, no matter who controls this region in the end it does not bode well for the future for anyone.

The Glittering Eye: It’s a tough call and I’m of mixed minds on it. Emotionally, I think we should since I think that under the circumstances which include invading their country and removing its government and not following through on post-withdrawal commitments we have a debt of honor. Rationally, I think we shouldn’t if for no other reason than that I am predisposed against intervention.

What I really think should happen is a public discussion about our actual interests in Iraq and in the region with the intention of quantifying those interests as a method of producing a cost-benefit analysis.

As it is I think people are producing tactics without a strategy or objectives. Let’s decide on the objectives first and then identify the tactics best-suited for accomplishing them.

GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD: 1st off, this ISIS gang is the Artist formerly known As al Qaeda. That alone is reason enough to rain destruction on them and any enablers, actualizers or sympathizers – the hurt feelings of Sunnis be danged.

44 says he’s thinking it over.

“The U.S. is not simply going to involve itself in a military action in the absence of a political plan by the Iraqis.”

A political plan for Iraq is vital. Everything the administration has said about the sectarianism and mis-governance of Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki is true. Assistance to Iraq must include strong conditions to press Maliki to change his approach – or leave office.

Yet the Iraqis need vigorous and intelligent American involvement right now to prevent a stalemate that will leave ISIS in control of much of northern Iraq. That is an unacceptable outcome.

We face a simple choice: We can either rejoin our demoralized Iraqi partners in the fight against ISIS or we can watch as this Al Qaeda franchise solidifies its control over several million Iraqis and Syrians, completes its plundering of military bases and continues to build up, train and equip an honest-to-goodness military.

Rejoining the fight means immediately sending air support; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets; air transportation; Special Operations forces; training teams; and more military equipment back into Iraq. It does not mean re-invading Iraq.

Immediately sending air support and Special Forces to Mosul might shock ISIS and embolden the population enough to rout the jihadis from the city. But if it does not, the Iraqi Security Forces may well prove unable to regain Mosul on their own.

In that case, a small contingent of U.S. ground forces would be required.

Friday 44 ruled out putting boots on the ground. He has consistently dismissed critics of his foreign policy as adventurers who want to invade everywhere Al Qaeda operates.

Cautiousness and deliberation are certainly warranted when contemplating re-entering a war, but delay risks allowing a key nation in the Middle East, one in which we’ve poured billions of dollars and thousands of lives, fall to violent Islamists.

The President no doubt has public opinion strongly on his side – especially since he has been leading the public to that side since before he first took office.

What are we to do as a country in which we have clear interests – preventing Al Qaeda from establishing a massive and wealthy safe-haven, stopping the evolution of a regional ethno-sectarian war, keeping Iran from establishing permanent forward military bases in Iraq – looks to be on the brink of falling to radical Islamists?

If the Iraqis cannot find a political solution quickly,is it better for the U.S. to allow all of this to happen? And are the odds of a political solution in Iraq increased or decreased by American inaction?

When America is passive in such cases, others fill the vacuum.

As we speak, the Iranians are trying to help the Iraqi Shi’a resist the ISIS advance. Reports indicate the deployment of hundreds of Qods Force troops to Iraq, and Tehran has threatened to conduct its own airstrikes in Iraq if militants come close to its border.

That advance will halt in any event once it reaches the Shi’a-dominated areas in and south of Baghdad.

Shi’a groups, including Moqtada al Sadr’s militias, are already reforming in preparation for the full-scale sectarian war that is on its way.

Some may argue that we should align ourselves with Iran – that our interests and Tehran’s coincide in Iraq. This is folly. The U.S. and Iran share a common concern about Al Qaeda, but our approaches to dealing with the problem are antithetical.

Turning the problem over to Iran is absolutely incompatible with the conditions for involving the U.S. at all that the President announced Friday. If we back Iran in Iraq, we’re taking Iran’s side against our Arab allies and aligning with the Shi’a against the Sunni. We should not be taking sides, particularly since Iran’s approach is certain to lead to an expansion of sectarian war, providing a perennial recruiting masterpiece for Al Qaeda.

Relying on the Iraqis, with Iranian support, to beat back ISIS would have a predictable, almost inevitable, outcome: a transposition of the Syria conflict into Iraq – with Maliki in the role of Assad and ISIS playing, well, ISIS.

Under this scenario, Iraq would once again become another magnet for international jihadis, and the black-and-white ISIS banner will become the symbol not merely of Al Qaeda’s most impressive military victory in history, but also of an actual Al Qaeda state.

Some would dispute this characterization, pointing to the vehement disagreements between ISIS and Ayman al Zawahiri, the head of Al Qaeda. Zawahiri, after all, partially expelled ISIS from the Al Qaeda movement.

Key to that disagreement is the argument about whether Al Qaeda affiliates should attempt to set up Islamic states now (ISIS says yes) or focus instead on the global jihad (Zawahiri’s insistence). In fact, we should not be surprised if we soon hear claims that it is actually better for us that ISIS prevail in this competition, since it is “locally-focused.”

Let us dispense with such sophistries at once. For all intents and purposes, ISIS is the Artist Formerly Known as Al Qaeda in Iraq. Whatever disagreements may fester at the moment, it is and remains part of the global Al Qaeda movement. The group continues to draw would-be jihadis from around the world, including the U.S. and Canada, to fight and die in Syria and Iraq. And it is about to become the most powerful and successful Al Qaeda franchise ever.

There is no way that such a development will be anything but disastrous for the U.S., even leaving aside the calamity that will flow from the full-scale regional and sectarian war that may already be underway.

There is, in fact, no end in sight for this war now, especially if we allow Iraq to go down. A policy of retreat and abandonment remains as it has always been the fastest road to endless war.

Ask Marion: Absolutely… the United States must intervene in Iraq. Otherwise all our young men and women that fought their so honorably, were wounded there, and died there did so in vane. And let us not forget the trillions we invested there.

And there is also a much bigger price to come if we don’t. If we allow this all-slaughter to continue, regardless of what crazy Nancy Pelosi says, that is our fault because President Obama did not listen to his generals and experts on the ground about the withdrawal, the Islamic Caliphate will have begun there, and will spread throughout the Middle East, after which the attacks on Israel, the United States and any non-Muslim countries will be endless.

We need to be launching targeted drones and dropping missiles as well as giving what is left of their leadership guidance… but no boots on the ground!

And people in the know need to be calling the big-three media outlets… ABC, CBS and NBC and their local papers and demanding that this news be covered for the low-informed to see and understand.

Well, there you have it.

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