Important Facts Emerging about Libya

On the eve of this election, important new facts about what happened in Libya are slowly, but surely, emerging. The picture they are starting to reveal is not pretty, but pretty ugly. All the suspicions about Obama and his administration lying to protect a giant cover-up are looking more and more as though they are true.

Let me get the smallest and most irritating fact out of the way first. We all know about the incredible partisanship and bias of the mainstream media. Well, now we have the smoking gun to prove it.

Remember this famous moment in the second debate? Moderator Candy Crowley of CNN intervened to upbraid Governor Romney for his claim that President Obama never stated "terrorism" was behind the September 11 attack on the Benghazi consulate, which resulted in the death of our ambassador and three other Americans. Notice how President Obama leaps to back up Crowley, and to pile onto Governor Romney (a transcript of the exchange is here):



So with Crowley's aiding and abetting him, President Obama was able to wiggle out of the credibility gap created by his ten-day campaign of excoriation -- and eventual jailing, until after the election! -- of a disgruntled Islamic filmmaker whom no one had ever heard of until the President singled him out. (And that, folks, is what we mean by a "red herring.")

But now -- CBS has finally released the videotape of the interview which President Obama gave to Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes on the day after the attacks in Cairo and Benghazi (September 12). Notice the very first question, and the follow-up:



Thus both Steve Kroft and President Obama went from the premise that in the Rose Garden, on the morning of this interview, the President had not called Benghazi a "terrorist" act. Instead, we see the new meme being carefully sown and nurtured -- that "it is too soon to say that," and "we will have to wait for the completion of our investigation ...".

Balderdash and poppycock! Signs of a premeditated and carefully planned terrorist attack against our consulate were apparent from the very first: the streets around it were barricaded in order to allow the attack to proceed without interference from traffic or the civil authorities; the attackers came armed with rocket-propelled grenades, and mortars; and a local branch of Al Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack within two hours of its successful mounting.

And so we have Inconvenient Fact #1: Benghazi was an orchestrated terrorist attack against the sovereignty of the United States, planned well ahead so as to mark the 9/11 anniversary.

Next we come to Inconvenient Fact #2: The forces to rescue our embassy personnel from the attack were only two hours away, at most -- but they could not be turned loose without a direct order from the President himself. The reason is that they would have had to cross an international border (Libya) before there was time to obtain its consent -- and as this article by a former Navy Seal explains in painstaking detail, no one -- not Secretary Clinton, not Secretary Panetta, nor General Petraeus, nor General Dempsey -- could give that order besides the President.

And the fact that the forces were never given permission to come to Ambassador Stevens' rescue is irrefutable proof that Obama's permission to cross Libya's border was (a) either expressly denied; or (b) never able to be obtained -- because the President made himself scarce (and returned to campaigning in Las Vegas).

The frustration in the ranks which Obama's refusal to give permission for a rescue operation for fear of offending Libya may lie behind some of the unusual personnel replacements which have been going on behind the scenes: a Navy Rear Admiral is suddenly and inexplicably relieved of his command of a Carrier Strike Group; and the General who would have overseen the execution of any such rescue mission is suddenly retiring.

What is needed to complete this sorry, sorry picture is a good overview of the Administration's failed policies in the region that led up to the attack -- and indeed, through Obama's insistence on a premature pullout of NATO forces from Libya -- made it probable. And now we have that article, by Ira Straus -- a former Fulbright professor of political science and international relations, and the U.S. Coordinator of NATO's Committee on Eastern Europe and Russia.

His excellent survey, published in National Review Online, is worth reading in full. He shows, for instance, how the Obama Administration has made a fatal mistake in equating Egypt's new rulers with those of Libya -- and how that mistake is continuing even today, while the Administration is bending every effort to keep the facts about Benghazi under wraps until after the election.

Which leads us to Inconvenient Fact #3: President Obama did not know what he was doing in Libya, still does not know today what he is doing there, and is desperately trying to ensure that the voters will never find out about his gross incompetence until it is too late.

And with that, I shall wish you (and our nation) a Happy Election Day!