10/22/16

LISTEN! Benghazi Song by Rob Malins (audio)

By: Trevor Loudon | New Zeal

Benghazi Song by Rob Malins

Rob Malins is one of the many patriots in America that feels deeply over the sick and unnecessary loss of life by brave men in Benghazi. Malins wrote a song to express his frustration and anger.

LYRICS

It was a long time ago, 9-11 again

I’m talking about the killing of four brave men

Who served their country thinking we had their backs

That you’d come for them should they be attacked

but when it went down you couldn’t get out of bed

you left them there dying out in the wind

you threw a man in jail but he wasn’t to blame

to cover your ass and tow the party line

Chorus: It was a long time ago, a long time ago, such a long time ago, a long time ago, a long time ago, yeah a long time ago, a long time ago, a long time ago but you lied, and they died

you said what difference does it make why they died

what difference does it make after all of this time

it’s yesterday’s news let’s just give it a rest

but we expect the truth you didn’t pass their test

did you help them to fight, no no no

did you do what was right well you know it ‘aint so

tell us the truth, what do we have to do

were they just too red white and blue for you

now we know why you lied and what you’re covering up

running guns to terrorist rebels that’s what you do

We know what you are yeah we can see right through

and now the red white and blue is gonna come for you

Chorus: It was a long time ago, a long time ago, such a long time ago, a long time ago, a long time ago, yeah a long time ago, a long time ago, a long time ago but you lied, and they died

Yell:

They had hearts of gold, but you got a heart of stone

You left them there suffering and dying all alone

They called for your help but you never came

Their very own people forgot their names

Needing and bleeding and dying in pain, looking up to the sky for the help but it never came

did you help them to fight no no no

did you do what was right well you know it ‘aint so

tell us the truth, what do we have to do

were they just too red white and blue for you

Watch:

Even more on Benghazi here.

GO TO THE BENGHAZI SONG WEBSITE HERE!!

09/12/16

The Terrible Legacy of 9/11

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

[Editor’s note: I was asked (along with their other contributing editors) by the outstanding website Family Security Matters, to offer up our thoughts on how we “view the significance of 9/11, fifteen years on.” Here was my response, which they posted over the weekend. Roger Aronoff]

As we approach the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., the tragedy is that the Islamic jihadists are winning too many battles around the world, and have forced the West and its partners to abridge freedoms in pursuit of security. And despite the claims of the Obama administration, the U.S. is not succeeding in leading a coalition of nations to defeat the enemy, which it identifies as ISIL. In fact, ISIL, more commonly known as ISIS, is now operating fully in 18 countries—a three-fold increase in just two years—according to a National Counterterrorism Center report leaked to NBC News in August.

The fact is, after nearly eight years of Obama and Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry, things have gotten much worse in many hot spots across the globe. Through the work of our Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi (CCB), we have concluded that Obama came to the White House seeking to empower the Muslim Brotherhood in North Africa, and the Iranian Shi’ite regime in the Persian Gulf region. Because of our unsigned nuclear “deal” with Iran, we have few options when it comes to restraining their behavior. We pretend that we have a common interest with both Russia and Iran, which is to defeat ISIS. But ISIS is just one manifestation of the jihadist ideology that seeks dominance, and submission, as it slaughters tens of thousands of people in its long, drawn out death march.

When the U.S. removed its remaining troops from Iraq in 2011, President Obama announced that “we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people.” That was the same year that the so-called “Arab Spring” led to the fall of America’s ally in Egypt, the start of the Syrian civil war, and the West’s war against Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, who had abandoned his WMD program and was fighting against al Qaeda. That is when America switched sides in the Global War on Terror, as we documented in our first CCB report, and further supported in our second report back in June. Benghazi turned out to be a pile-up of scandal, failed policy and dereliction of duty.

Today we have Libya as a failed state, dominated by jihadist groups; Syria as the home base of ISIS and the scene of what even The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof calledObama’s “worst mistake,” comparing it to Rwanda, with close to a half a million dead; and an emboldened Iran, regularly humiliating America because it can, since it has received an estimated $100 billion in formerly frozen funds, and there is no signed deal for which they can be held accountable. In addition, peace between Israel and the Palestinians is less likely than when President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton came to power.

Meanwhile, the corrupt news media pretend that Obama has been a successful foreign policy president, when, in fact, he has been a disaster. Fifteen years after 9/11, the frequency of terrorist and jihadist attacks is such that they are quickly forgotten in a fog of war that is rapidly enveloping the world.

This article was originally published on the website of Family Security Matters.

Roger Aronoff

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi. He can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff.

08/20/16

Does the Clinton Campaign Really Want to Make Benghazi an Issue?

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

The Benghazi scandal should be a significant campaign issue in this year’s presidential race. It goes to the heart of the many questions about Hillary Clinton’s integrity, judgment and values, as it does also for President Barack Obama’s. Together they sit at the center of this grand fiasco of botched decision-making, the refusal to provide adequate security in Libya, and the cover-up blaming the video in the aftermath. Questions still remain, such as how much of this was ideological, as opposed to just bad judgment. Why was the decision made to not send available air power into Benghazi while there was still time to save at least two of the four lives?

As we have reported, the Obama administration and Secretary of State Clinton not onlyswitched sides in the war on terror by pushing for the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and aiding al-Qaeda-linked rebels, but they also betrayed those Americans in Benghazi by leaving them on the ground to fend for themselves while under attack. This was unquestionably a dereliction of duty. Our Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi dealt with all aspects of this scandal at a press conference we held back in June at the National Press Club.

Yet in an effort to undermine the impact of the Benghazi scandal on her campaign, Clinton’s running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine (D) has started stumping on the false claim that she has treated the relatives of the Benghazi victims with compassion. Is this really an issue they want to run on?

“Did you see Hillary interrupt her campaign and start to go after grieving parents who had lost somebody on an attack on one of our embassies?” he asked, referring to Trump’s treatment of the Khan family. “No, because she has the heart of sympathy for people who’ve lost—she’s not going to go after them. She feels for them. I’ve talked to her about it.” But those relatives tell quite a different story.

There is a reason why the public feels that Mrs. Clinton is fundamentally dishonest. Contrary to Sen. Kaine’s assertions, Hillary has claimed that the relatives of the Benghazi victims are lying about what she told them in the aftermath of the terror attacks. Several members of the families of the deceased claim that Hillary said she would go get the filmmaker and bring him to justice, thereby blaming the video for the attacks. She denies that this happened.

“Somebody is lying,” said the Conway (New Hampshire) Daily Sun columnist Tom McLaughlin. “Who is it?”

“Not me, that’s all I can tell you,” Mrs. Clinton replied.

So who is lying, really?

Mrs. Clinton has been caught in a number of lies, including her false claim that FBI “Director Comey said my answers were truthful.” Among the lies that Comey refuted were her claims that she didn’t send or receive classified information on her homebrew server, and that she had turned over all of her work-related emails. She also has lied about what she said shortly after the Benghazi attacks. As we have reported, Charles Woods, the father of Tyrone Woods, wrote in his planner contemporaneously that Mrs. Clinton blamed the filmmaker. Yet Mrs. Clinton continues to argue that the families are merely distraught and making mistakes.

Mrs. Clinton also claimed during the Democratic debates that Pat Smith, mother of Sean Smith, was “absolutely wrong” in saying that she had blamed the video. Smith feels she has been mistreated for speaking up.

“Townhall cites not two, but four, family members claiming that Mrs. Clinton is an outright liar,” we reported.

“But has Clinton attacked the families of the Benghazi victims? Of course not, Kaine said Wednesday,” reports The Washington Examiner. “Hillary’s classier than that. Hillary’s smarter than that. Hillary’s more compassionate than that. Hillary has better judgment than that.”

Hillary’s statements have created animosity between her and the families of the victims, contrary to Kaine’s claims. Charles Woods and Pat Smith are suing Hillary Clinton for defamation for publicly calling them liars, as well as jeopardizing the security of those in Benghazi through her use of a private email server. The lawsuit states that “During her campaign for President, Defendant Clinton has negligently, recklessly, and/or maliciously defamed Plaintiffs by either directly calling them liars, or by strongly implying that they are liars, in order to protect and enhance her public image and intimidate and emotionally harm and silence them to not speak up about the Benghazi attack on at least four separate occasions.” These include appearances with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, the Conway Daily Sun, a Democratic presidential debate, and an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace.

Making Benghazi a campaign issue might be the Clinton campaign’s biggest blunder yet. But don’t look to the mainstream media to make them pay a price for it.

Roger Aronoff

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi. He can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff.

07/13/16

CCB Press Conference on Benghazi Proves Dereliction of Duty [Video]

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

The Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi (CCB) recently held a press conference and issued a report uncovering new details about the events leading up to and during the September 11, 2012 attacks in Libya that took the lives of four Americans. However, the press has done what it usually does when a story threatens the narrative or reputation of the administration of President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—they have, for the most part, ignored or misrepresented the CCB’s findings.

The speakers at our June 29 event at the National Press Club in Washington exposed, once again, how the U.S. facilitated the provision of arms to al-Qaeda-linked rebels, and demonstrated that there were many warnings leading up to the attack on the Special Mission Compound, warnings that the administration ignored. In addition, the administration was derelict in its duty to send forces to aid those under attack in Benghazi.

I said that “There’s a media theme, or meme, out there that keeps saying—and you see this [at the] New York Times, CNN, everywhere, saying, ‘No new evidence of any wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton.’ That seems to be the conclusion of most of the media in response to yesterday’s [House Select Committee report]. And we see a field of smoking guns.”

“No matter what comes out…the role of many in the mainstream media is to protect the legacy of President Obama and protect the presidential candidacy and viability of Hillary Clinton,” I argued.

I was joined by a number of other members of the CCB, including former CIA officer Clare Lopez, General Thomas McInerney, Lt. Colonel Denny Haney, Admiral James “Ace” Lyons (all retired), our attorney John Clarke, as well as guests Rear Admiral Chuck Kubic (ret.) and Charles Woods, father of Ty Woods, the former Navy SEAL who was killed in the attack on the CIA Annex.

Here are some of our findings, in the words of each of the CCB members and the guests. In my earlier column on the press conference, we included a video of the entire event, including Q&A and crosstalk among the panelists. Here we present a video of each individual speaker. If you want to see the Q&A as well, please go to the previous column:

Clare Lopez:

“So, when we undertook to begin this second report, we think that we bring to this topic a willingness to name names, a willingness to assign responsibility and to demand accountability that too many of the others, committees and others, have not done—have neglected to do.”

“Now, from Christopher Stevens to the folks at the CIA Annex, they were in fact then relying on exactly the jihadist enemy that was eventually to turn on them and to kill four Americans and injure others so gravely.”

“Absolutely, they [Hillary and Obama] lied. There’s no question. We know, again, from Judicial Watch documents obtained through the FOIA process that the administration, including the President and Secretary of State Clinton, were actively involved that very night while the attack was still going on in concocting a false narrative to deflect the story from the truth and to defend at all costs, even the cost of American lives, the re-election campaign of the President. They were not even decided on which video they were going to blame. They only knew that they were going to blame a video.”

General Thomas McInerney (ret.):

“We should have prepositioned F-16s from Aviano down to Sigonella to be on 15-minute alert.”

“It was 9/11. Isn’t 9/11 a significant date for us? And yet we had none of this preparation. We had all of the Combatant Commanders back in Washington, DC, on a commanders’ conference.”

“So, there was no pre-planning. I call that dereliction of duty.”

Lt. Colonel Dennis Haney (ret.):

“I talked to Sean Smith’s uncle this morning, and he said he’s read our report. He got halfway through [Trey] Gowdy’s report, he got all the way through our report. He says read this [CCB] report if you want to know the truth.”

“Qaddafi was out there killing bad guys. He was killing al Qaeda, and al Qaeda we supported—they went to Syria, they became ISIS. We developed ISIS. That’s a fact.”

Admiral James “Ace” Lyons (ret.):

“And when I watched the [Select Committee on Benghazi’s] press conference yesterday, to say I was disappointed would be an understatement, because Chairman Gowdy is not a stenographer and he’s not a tape recorder. He was there to make findings and conclusions. He had the information; he copped out.”

“There’s no reason why F-16 aircraft weren’t moved from Aviano to Sigonella, or to Souda Bay, Crete—either place. We had a 130-man Marine force recon team at Sigonella. We had the Marine FAST teams at Rota. We had the Commanders’ in Extremis Force in Croatia. We had assets.”

“We know Jeremy Bash, the chief of staff at the Department of Defense, at 1910 that evening sent an email, or called the State Department, and said ‘we’re spinning up as we [speak].’ Where do we get the cross border authority?”

John Clarke:

“Now we just heard, I just found out, because I haven’t read Mr. Gowdy’s report, that the order [to deploy] was given at 7:00 pm. Well, the attack began at 3:42 pm. local time. That’s three hours later.”

Rear Admiral Chuck Kubic (ret.):

“And I found out eventually that it was Secretary Clinton working directly with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had shut down not that truce talk [with Qaddafi] but had struck down a parallel one I didn’t even know was happening through a different business channel.”

“So it struck me that the same behavior that shut down the 72-hour truce at the onset of the war, leading to death, destruction a failed state, was the same kind of behavior that existed in that 7:30 [Deputies] meeting.”

Charles Woods:

“Many, many times Ty as a Navy SEAL in his 20 years of service was in worse situations than this. But he always knew that if there was a compromise of the mission, that he was going to be extracted. That did not happen in this case. That’s part of the DNA of being in the military. That’s part of the code of ethics, is you are always rescued.”

“We have a lot of experts in the military that say they could have been rescued. No attempt was made.”

You can read the CCB’s new report here. It is well documented, it puts Benghazi in context, it explains why we were in Libya, what we did and didn’t do, and it names the people most responsible for the failures of Benghazi.

Roger Aronoff

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi. He can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff.

07/8/16

AIM Editor on Conservative Commandos Radio Show about Benghazi

Accuracy in Media

AIM Editor Roger Aronoff appeared last week on the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Conservative Commandos Radio Show to talk about his recent article, “Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi Releases New Report; Press Conference on Wednesday.”

The Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi held a press conference on June 29 discussing the Obama administration’s dereliction of duty during the September 11, 2012 attacks. The report we issued is “an easy read, certainly compared to the 800-plus page Gowdy report,” noted Aronoff on the radio show.

“Well, look, Gowdy [and the Select Committee on Benghazi], they interviewed a hundred people under oath, and they had access to a lot more things than we did,” continued Aronoff. “But, they just kind of put it out there and said, ‘Look, read it. It’s 800 pages, come to your own conclusions.’ They failed to hold people accountable.”

President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should be held accountable for blaming the attacks on a video with full knowledge that these were terror attacks.

“This was several days later, [when Clinton was] telling [the family members of the deceased] that ‘we’re going to get that guy that made that video,’ when [she] knew in fact that the video had nothing to do with this,” said Aronoff. “We know that she knew that because of her email to Chelsea that night, her emails and transcript of her calls to the Egyptian prime minister and the Libyan president saying this was al-Qaeda related.”

Clinton and Obama must also be held accountable for helping to arm the Libyan rebels in the first place. “So, what we did, we facilitated the delivery of weapons to these al Qaeda and al Qaeda-related groups in Libya,” said Aronoff on the show. “And Christopher Stevens, he was not ambassador at that time, but he was an envoy to these groups. He was there at the docks when these things were being unloaded.”

“And what we learned from the Gowdy report this time is that there was this Deputies meeting at 7:30 that night where the power was basically transferred from Panetta in the Defense Department to Hillary at the State Department and, thus, the call to let the planes go,” said Aronoff. “We learned that the [military] changed uniforms four times because they were so sensitive to how the Libyans would feel if we sent in people in military uniforms versus civilian clothes. I mean, it’s that crazy.”

Despite Clinton’s and Obama’s blatant dereliction of duty, the media continue to look the other way. “But NBC, CNN, they figure if they don’t come and listen it didn’t really happen,” said Aronoff. Instead, he said, “everyone [in the media] is looking for how they can just blow off the Gowdy story and the whole thing.”

You can listen to the complete interview here.

07/6/16

CCB Press Conference on Benghazi Largely Ignored by Mainstream Media

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

On June 29, the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi (CCB) held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington to discuss the release of its new report on the events surrounding the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the Special Mission Compound and CIA Annex, resulting in the deaths of four Americans. As usual, the liberal media largely stayed away. Apparently, if The New York Times, CNN, the Associated Press and NBC don’t cover a story, no matter how important, it isn’t really news. So instead, the only representative from the mainstream media was The Washington Post’s designated hit man, Dana Milbank, who regularly trolls conservative gatherings to heap scorn, sarcasm and peddle misinformation to his waiting readers. That is the sad state of journalism in this country today.

Mr. Milbank’s penchant for playing fast and loose with the details has gotten him in trouble before, when he claimed that conservative speakers had “taunted” a young Muslim girl. These speakers had, in fact, thanked her for her presence. In the latest case, Milbank wrote an opinion piece, not a news story, with the online headline, “Benghazi Conspiracy Theorists Turn on Trey Gowdy.” The headline in the print edition of the paper was “Appeasing the far right? You’ll always end up wrong.”

During the course of Milbank’s article, he called the members of the CCB “a coalition of far-right foreign-policy types,” “conspiracy theorists,” and “agitators.” This is all part of the attempt to discredit the messenger, because Milbank can’t really dispute the message—although he has certainly tried. But at least he was there, and spelled the names correctly, though he was wrong about the number of members on the commission (it’s 14, plus two advisory, not 11). Apparently the Post’s Fact-Checker was busy on other stories that day. Maybe they should hire more.

Milbank found our report to be what he called “full of inventive accusations.”

“They found ‘troubling evidence that Obama and Clinton were deeply and knowingly involved in running guns to al-Qaeda in Libya,’” writes Milbank, “as well as ‘a clear case of official U.S. government submission to the Islamic Law on slander.’”

“They determined that the Obama administration ‘switched sides in what was then called the Global War on Terror’ and ‘benefited this country’s worst enemies,’” he continues. “They wrote that Clinton herself blocked U.S. military forces from attempting a rescue mission, and they attributed the decision to oust Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi in part to financial interests of the Clinton Foundation.”

When Milbank quotes from the CCB’s findings, the obvious inference is that he finds these points to be baseless—and believes they could only originate from the minds of right-wing conspiracy theorists. The findings in the CCB’s latest report are, indeed, very damning accusations. But we back them up in every case, and encourage people to read the report and judge for themselves. Our military and intelligence experts—former admirals, generals, colonels, congressmen and CIA officers—are people with vast service to this country and outstanding reputations.

In particular, we have repeatedly demonstrated that the Obama administration decided to send arms to the Libyan rebels, who themselves were affiliated with al Qaeda and other jihadists. This ultimately contributed to the death of our Ambassador at the hands of Islamic jihadists, and Libya’s transformation into a terror safe haven.

It is Milbank who is being played for the fool by not looking at the evidence.

Apparently he doesn’t believe that Hillary Clinton, or anyone else, for that matter, “blocked U.S. military forces from attempting a rescue mission.” Yet American military assets were not sent to aid those in Benghazi. The Americans in Benghazi were left to withstand multiple terror attacks on their own, lasting approximately 13 hours from start to finish .

That is why the testimony from Gen. Tom McInerney is so compelling. He led the air attacks into Libya in 1986. Admiral Ace Lyons, another member of the CCB, commanded more than 250,000 troops at one time as commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet of the U.S. Navy—while Dana Milbank was giving secret handshakes and who knows what else at Skull and Bones meetings at Yale.

If Milbank had wanted to actually read our report and challenge it on a factual basis, I could respect that. But all he wanted to do is make disrespectful, cutting comments that cast a slur on others while having no basis in fact. When it comes to knowing whether military assets could have been brought to Benghazi that night to attempt to save lives, whom are you going to trust—Milbank or McInerney? Does anyone really believe they couldn’t have gotten there if ordered to do so? And why, with multiple warnings of a terrorist attack in Benghazi in the weeks leading up to September 11, 2012, weren’t military assets on high alert, prepared for such an attack?

Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily did read the report, and he wrote a different sort of articleilluminating the dereliction of duty by the Obama administration.

“[Clare] Lopez charged Clinton’s role in the Benghazi debacle was ‘pivotal,’” writes Corsi. “She said that under Clinton’s leadership, the State Department ‘changed sides’ in the war on terrorism in Libya.”

Far from a baseless accusation, Clinton’s pivotal role can be seen in her aide, Jake Sullivan’s email that Clinton had “leadership/ownership/stewardship of this country’s Libya policy from start to finish.” Yet somehow we are supposed to believe that Mrs. Clinton ignored Libya after Qaddafi’s death, and missed 600 requests for additional security. That’s what she told the House Select Committee on Benghazi when she testified last October.

The military dereliction of duty in Benghazi is shocking, as well. “So we had no pre-planning of the possibility of a terrorist attack in the region on that day and while the attack was underway no U.S. military assets were moved into action,” said McInerney. “At least a fly-by over Benghazi could have been arranged, with F-16s using full after-burners that could have dispersed the terrorists and ended the attack.”

Corsi recounts how Charles Woods, the father of Ty Woods, spoke at the June 29 press conference, and asked to know who is “responsible” for his son’s death. Ty was a former Navy SEAL who was part of the CIA Annex Security Team. In fact, I hope every American will get the chance to watch the movie “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.” It is available on demand on most cable TV services. I attended the premiere last January in Dallas.

Jennifer Harper of The Washington Times also highlighted the new report from the CCB.

Regrettably, without even attending the event, MSNBC repeated some of the lies perpetuated by Milbank. “This is what it’s come to: Benghazi conspiracy theorists are so creative, and so unmoved by evidence or reason, that they can convince themselves that congressional Republicans are in on the conspiracy,” writes Steve Benen for MSNBC (emphasis in original).

As my colleagues and I explained at the press conference, Select Committee on Benghazi Chair Trey Gowdy (R-SC) had an unparalleled opportunity to explain the attacks, connect the dots and hold people accountable. Instead, he and the remainder of the GOP members largely acted as stenographers rather than investigators. Representatives Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Mike Pompeo (R-KS) provided a supplemental report more willing to place blame, and at the press conference on June 28 when their report was released, Pompeo called Mrs. Clinton’s actions “morally reprehensible.” But when it came to passing judgment, Gowdy took a pass.

This has allowed the mainstream media to claim that despite an exhaustive investigation, no new revelations have been found that implicate Hillary Clinton. For Benen, his headline reads that Clinton has been “exonerated.” But no new revelations were necessary to demonstrate the ongoing Benghazi cover-up.

You can read our new report or watch our entire June 29 press conference here:

03/4/16

The Times’ Attempt to Exonerate Hillary Clinton’s Role in Libya

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

The Washington Post recently penned a major story on Hillary Clinton’s leadership on the fate of Libya, integrating positive comments from an anonymous source in order to bolster her scandal-ridden reputation. Now The New York Times has followed suit, publishing an autopsy of what went wrong in Libya that extendsover 12,000 words between its two parts.

The Times writes that they talked with more than 50 people for the story, including Americans, Libyans and Europeans, virtually all who agreed to speak on the record. “They expressed regret, frustration and in some cases bewilderment about what went wrong and what might have been done differently.”

The Times then asks, “Was the mistake the decision to intervene in the first place, or the mission creep from protecting civilians to ousting a dictator, or the failure to send a peacekeeping force in the aftermath?”

The question remains, however, as to what prompted these columns. After all, both the Post and New York Times articles discuss very little about current events and largely report on Libya’s transformation into a failed state with ISIS strongholds. Clearly, these articles are meant as an attempt to explain how Libya devolved into chaos with neither President Obama, nor Mrs. Clinton, being at fault.

Continue reading →

02/18/16

VPAC 2016

02/14/16

A Disaster Worse Than Libya

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Now that another presidential primary is over, can the media take a few minutes to insist that the candidates address some important issues like the crisis in Aleppo, Syria? Tens of thousands of Syrians are dying or fleeing the Russians and the Iranians, who have invaded the country. President Obama is doing nothing to save them.

The American people should be reminded that Obama lost Libya in a fiasco that cost the lives of four Americans. In that case, he intervened militarily and assisted in overthrowing the regime of Muammar Qaddafi, then pulled back when American facilities were attacked. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says the country is now a haven for terrorists. President Obama is now losing Syria. Rebels opposed to the Bashar al-Assad regime don’t have the weapons to fight Russian planes and tanks.

Veteran diplomat Dennis Ross is the latest observer to note that the policies of Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin seem to be the same. “Rather than being opposed to the Russian efforts, we look to be in league with them,” he writes in the Los Angeles Times.

Continue reading →

01/22/16

Obama Continues Caving to Iran While Taking Credit for Diplomacy

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

The mainstream media cannot stand that the film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, in depicting the violence in Benghazi and the heroism of the Global Response Staff (GRS), has a straightforward common-sense message. Instead, reporters like Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post see fit to mock that heroism, and even suggest that President Obama’s latest appeasement to Iran deserves equal Hollywood fame.

“But, as Secretary of State John F. Kerry secured the release of American prisoners in Iran just hours after ‘13 Hours’ opened, the movie’s simplistic, shooting-good-talking-bad moral scheme began to ring impressively false,” arguesHornaday. “Maybe one day, State Department envoy Brett McGurk, who led the team that negotiated the release, will get his own big-screen blockbuster, even if it doesn’t feature prominent biceps, heavy ordnance and a careening SUV with its wheels on fire.”

A key message of 13 Hours, and the Benghazi scandal, is that the GRS’s gun-toting heroism wouldn’t have been necessary if President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hadn’t been derelict in their duty to secure the U.S. Special Mission Compound beforehand, or to provide military support to the Americans once the shooting started.

It has been President Obama’s disastrous policies that have put Americans in harm’s way abroad. It was also his recent decision to swap five American hostages in exchange for seven Iranians convicted of or charged with violating sanctions, as well as the removal of 14 Iranians from an Interpol watch list. Of course it is great that the Americans have been released, but at what price?

“As unbelievable as it will be for a lot of people, the two channels [the Iran agreement and prisoner swap] were really separate,” an unnamed U.S. officialtold Robin Wright of The New Yorker. Yet Iran released these hostages at this opportune time. Unbelievable is a good word for it.

The latest developments with Iran prove one thing: President Obama and Secretary Kerry have been right. Their diplomatic strategic patience brought us to the point where we could make such a great deal with Iran. “Iran gets back men who were assisting its military ambitions while we get innocents,” writes The Wall Street Journal. “This is similar to the lopsided prisoner swaps that Mr. Obama previously made with Cuba for Alan Gross and the Taliban for alleged deserter Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.”

In addition to the exchange of prisoners for hostages, Iran will be receiving upwards of $55 billion (the figure cited by Secretary Kerry)—although The New York Times is reporting that the number is “roughly $100 billion,” and others say it is closer to $150 billion—of their previously frozen assets which have been unavailable to them, and which will now support whatever they choose to invest in. That will certainly include their continued support of jihadist and terrorist organizations across the globe.

The media continue to fail to report truthfully about the Iran deal. CNN’s anchor Wolf Blitzer is still peddling the falsehood that Iran and the P5+1 have a signed deal, and that, so far Iran, is living up to its end.

“Do they formally sit down around a table to sign some sort of document, some sort of international agreement?” asked Blitzer of correspondent Nic Robertson who was in Vienna, Austria on Saturday as the world was waiting for the official release of American hostages and Iranian frozen assets. “We know they did that several months ago when they announced the nuclear deal, but as far as implementation, is there some sort of diplomatic protocol we should anticipate?”

As we have repeatedly cited, there is no signed Iran deal, only a set of political obligations that Iran can interpret whatever way it wants. Is it possible that Blitzer and his producers are unaware of that? And there is no verification that Iran is living up to its end of the non-deal, other than the IAEA’s certification. By many accounts, those guarantees don’t count for much, as there are many locations off limits to inspectors. No one has seen the agreement between the IAEA and Iran—including President Obama or Secretary Kerry, to hear them tell it—and Iran has a history of deceit. In the end, they didn’t even have to account for the possible military dimensions (PMD) of their nuclear program.

Fred Fleitz of the Center for Security Policy—formerly of the CIA and DIA—has put together an incredible list of Iran’s violations of both the spirit and the letter of this non-agreement in an article on the Fox News website, as well as the astonishing list of concessions the Obama administration made in order to claim that they got a deal that will halt Iran’s path toward nuclear weapons. For example, the fact that Iran shipped some of its enriched uranium to Russia, which was hailed by The New York Times as “one of the biggest achievements in his [Obama’s] foreign policy record…,” is another shell game. Actually, according to Fleitz, “this was a swap for an equivalent amount of uranium ore that can be converted into enriched uranium in a few months.”

Virtually every restriction in the “deal” is not what it claims to be.

Again, according to Fleitz:

How can Obama officials say this nuclear deal is a great diplomatic success?

The answer to these questions is this: because the Obama administration wanted a legacy nuclear agreement with Iran so badly they made any concession necessary to get one.

When Iranian officials refused to give up their uranium enrichment program, the U.S. said they could keep it.

When Iran balked on including restrictions on ballistic missile tests in the agreement, they were removed.

To get around Tehran’s refusal to answer questions about its past nuclear weapons work, this issue was moved into a secret side deal between the IAEA and Iran.

And there’s much more that’s wrong with this deal. You should read Fleitz’s column in its entirety.

Again, Iran is able to take U.S. sailors and force them onto their knees at gunpoint, and force a sailor to apologize on camera for entering Iranian waters. And since they were released, an Iranian backed Shiite militia in Iraq has captured three American contractors. CBS News reported that the Obama administration had “hoped” that Iran would have shown restraint in having their militias kidnapping Americans, at least for a while.

How well did Iran treat our guys, besides forcing them at gunpoint to put their hands behind their heads? The administration has argued that the 10 sailors were treated well.

Maybe with our new relationship, the Iranians just asked our sailors politely to do this staged video, and they went along with it.

“It was a mistake. That was our fault, and we apologize for our mistake,” said one sailor in an Iranian video.

Secretary of State John Kerry actually thanked the Iranians for their proper treatment of our American sailors. Seriously. “I could not be and I know the President could not be prouder of our men and women in uniform,” said Secretary Kerry, according to the Hill. “I also want to thank the Iranian authorities for their cooperation and quick response.”

CNN has heralded this as part of “The Week That Changed U.S.-Iran Relations…”

Other presidents might have wanted to make an international issue about the capture of members of our military. But as President Obama likes to present in his frequent straw-man arguments, there are only two choices: place hundreds of thousands of troops in harms way, or be smart like him and avoid using force unless absolutely necessary. During his victory lap on Sunday, he said, “This is a good day, because, once again, we’re seeing what’s possible with strong American diplomacy,” adding, “We’ve achieved this historic progress through diplomacy, without resorting to another war in the Middle East.” It depends on what the definition of “progress” is.

Some experts in the field believe that Iran already has nuclear weapons. Iran has never acknowledged a military use for its enrichment and ballistic missile programs.

The U.S. finally did impose some sanctions “against 11 people and companies involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program,” according to USA Today. The Wall Street Journal called them “very limited sanctions.” “We will continue to enforce these sanctions vigorously,” said President Obama. “We are going to remain vigilant about it.”

But what is not stated—besides the fact that there is no signed deal, and no agreed upon terms—is that the sanctions regime has been largely a charade as well.

Before the recent sanctions relief, the U.S. could not sufficiently track Iranian oil tankers around the globe. As of March 2015, there were 51 Iranian oil tankers under U.S. sanctions, yet the U.S. government could not “establish under what flag at least 31 of these tankers are doing business,” wrote Claudia Rosett for The Wall street Journal last year.

“They can be identified by their unique seven-digit hull numbers, or IMO numbers, issued for the life of each ship,” wrote Rosett. “But a ship’s flag also is a vital identifier, one under which it signals its position, carries cargo and presents credentials to visit ports, buy insurance and pay fees.” Even in 2012, the U.S. granted exemptions to 11 nations importing Iranian oil, according to Bloomberg at the time.

“Iran has again shown the world that taking American hostages while Barack Obama is President can yield a diplomatic and military windfall,” states The Wall Street Journal.

While President Obama and most of the media tout diplomacy to deal with Iran’s misdeeds, and claim that America has a new relationship with this theocratic, totalitarian regime, more hostages will inevitably be taken. And more blood, sweat, and tears may be shed as a result of this administration’s disastrous policies.

The media must do their job and look critically at these issues, rather than assume the role of enabler for President Obama’s phony and dangerous legacy.