This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/5837
May 17, 2013
By WILLIAM MAYER
May 15, 2013 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Ok, it's clear now to anyone who happened to watch more than a few minutes of Wednesday's testimony by State Department officials before Darrell Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that Team Obama has, to use the vernacular, lied its ass off in an effort to cover-up the Benghazi affair.
However perhaps the most important question - aside from investigating the actual terrorist attack on the Benghazi compound by elements of Ansar al-Shari'a - remains unanswered...why on earth was J. Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya in the first place?
At the time of his clandestine arrival, Benghazi was one of the strongholds for the rebels - i.e., jihadists attempting to overthrow then dictator Moammar Gadhaffi.
Stevens had not yet been named as an ambassador [his tragically short ambassadorial career spanned a little over 90 days from June 7, 2012 to September12, 2012].
So why was he there?
Stevens arrived in the dead of night, ferried to Libya in a commercial Greek cargo ship, a very unusual way to enter a country if one's purpose is to begin a high level diplomatic assignment.
"...During the early days of the Libyans' fight to overthrow Moammar Gadhafi, Christopher Stevens wrangled a ride on a Greek cargo ship and sailed into the rebels' stronghold city of Benghazi. He arrived at a time when the crackle of gunfire could be heard each night..." [source, Amy Bingham, Slain Ambassador Chris Stevens Slipped Into Libya on a Cargo Ship During RevolutioHYPERLINK "http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/diplomat-chris-stevens-slipped-libya-cargo-ship-revolution/story?id=17218702"n, ABC News]
Below, an account of the circumstances surrounding Steven's mysterious arrival, courtesy of the State Department Magazine:
"The story of how the agent got there began in February when the large catamaran ferry Maria Dolores eased into the rocky harbor at Valletta, Malta. Her passengers included American diplomats, who had hurriedly evacuated after conflict erupted in Libya and their safety and security could no longer be assured in Tripoli. Over the next two months, these same diplomats joined the international effort to support Libya's revolution and march toward democracy and freedom."...By early April, with Benghazi firmly in rebel hands, a dozen intrepid U.S. diplomats equipped with armored vehicles and communications gear set sail from the same port, passing Valletta's ancient harbor fortress and cruising into the blue Mediterranean beyond the breakwater. The Libya of April was a dramatically changed place from the Libya of February."We arrived April 5th," recalled the expedition's leader Special Envoy Chris Stevens. "It was difficult to get there at the time. There weren't any flights. So we came in by a Greek cargo ship and unloaded our gear and our cars and set up our office there..."
The Business Insider goes into further detail regarding Chris Stevens running armaments to the Syrian "rebels," whom we know are really roving bands of jihadists, many linked to the al-Qaeda that Mr. Obama so brilliantly destroyed during his first administration.
"...In March 2011 Stevens became the official U.S. liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan opposition, working directly with Abdelhakim Belhadj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group - a group that has now disbanded, with some fighters reportedly participating in the attack that took Stevens' life.In November 2011, the Telegraph reported that Belhadj, acting as head of the Tripoli Military Council, "met with Free Syrian Army [FSA] leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey" in an effort by the new Libyan government to provide money and weapons to the growing insurgency in Syria..." [source, Michael Kelly, How US Ambassador Chris Stevens May Have Been Linked To Jihadist Rebels In Syria]
Stevens was appointed by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the official liaison - between the United States and the Libyan rebels who eventually toppled Gadhaffi.
"The Obama administration's new liaison with the Libyan opposition will be diplomat Chris Stevens, who had been the number two official at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli until it was suspended when fighting began last month, according to two U.S. officials. Stevens attended Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's meeting in Paris tonight with representatives of the Libyan opposition, as did the U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz, who has also had contacts with the opposition." [source, Kirit Radia, U.S. Names Chris Stevens Liaison to Libyan Opposition, ABC News]Abdulhakim Belhadj would have to have been the contact Stevens dealt with given his unchallenged prominence among Libya rebel leaders.
"Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, "met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey," said a military official working with Mr. Belhadj. "Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there."The "covert operation" was immediately laid bare when a rival Libyan rebel brigade detained Belhaj at Tripoli airport, accused him of travelling on a fake passport, and declared they would jail the senior military leader...The meetings came as a sign of a growing ties between Libya's fledgling government and the Syrian opposition..." [source, Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group, The Telegraph]
This budding relationship between Syria's jihadist rebels and the jihadists who overthrew Gadhaffi resulted in a delivery of 400 tons on military hardware including thousands of surface-to-air missiles. The vessel, Libyan, docked in Turkey, whose government then transferred the weaponry to the Syrians engaged in attempting to depose Bashar al-Assad. [source, Largest Shipload of Libyan Weapons Heading to Armed Groups in Syria, Libyan Free Press]
The handiwork of Stevens is written all over this operation as no one had the requisite relationships with Libya's rebels and following the revolution Libya's president Mohammed Magariaf, himself a revolutionary Muslim. Additionally no one had the ear of president Obama on this matter to the degree demonstrated by Stevens.
In substantiation of the above charge regarding Magariaf, please read Andrew Bostom's detailed presentation - Libya's "Classical Liberal" Islamist President - a portion of which is below quoted:
"'But this does not mean at all that the constitution or any laws and legislation should contain anything that clashes with or is in contradiction to Islamic sharia and its objectives.'He reiterated that viewpoint at the inauguration ceremony of the Maydan al-Shuhada [Martyrs' Square] Mosque in the northwestern Libyan city of Al-Zawiyah three weeks later (October 21, 2012). After thanking the denizens of Al-Zawiyah for inviting him and members of the (Libyan) General National Congress to take part in "laying down the cornerstones of Allah's house [i.e., the Maydan al-Shuhada Square mosque]," Al-Muqaryaf proclaimed,
'On this occasion I want to reassure you that the constitution is laid down in a Muslim country, with all its residents Muslim, and it cannot rely on anything other than Islamic Shari'ah as the fundamental source of legislation in the country...'"
The preponderance of the evidence thus far - with more information certainly to come - is that no one but Chris Stevens had the authorization, the connections, expertise, resources and diplomatic cover which would have been essential, but J. Christopher Stevens.
So gentle readers, when former Secretary Clinton rages while screaming "what difference does it make?" now you know.
The entire Benghazi diplomatic gambit has proven to be an unmitigated disaster [as has Obama's fairy-tale "reset" of relations with the Muslim world].
1. It resulted in the rise of an Islamist as president of Libya
2. Stevens' action strengthened the hand of jihadist groups in the region because the fall of Gadhaffi resulted in loosing of probably 20,000 surface to air missiles on to the world's terrorist black market as well making Libya's now battle tested mujahideen available to work their mischief in hot-spots such as Syria.
3. The arms transfer to Syria via Turkey went primarily to al-Qaeda main, its many affiliates and similarly motivated jihadists in that country...tantamount to an endorsement of Islamic jihad by Team Obama.
[note: one major aspect of the Syrian civil war which is beyond the scope of this piece but bears consideration is the fratricidal angle, wherein this conflict also involves a continuation of the 1,400 year old schismatic blood feud between Sunni and Shia Muslims which resulted from the dispute over the successor to Mohammed upon his death in 632. Yet it must also be remembered that despite such ancient grievances, the Great Satan still remains the U.S. and the West and this belief unites jihadists of all stripes into temporary, but always shaky alliances - witness Shia Iran providing safe harbor to various Sunni al-Qaeda types.]
Given the character - or lack thereof - of Mr. Obama and his ex Secty of State Clinton we would not be surprised that Chris Stevens, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods and Sean Smith were allowed to die simply on the theory that dead men tell no tales.
Let's be completely clear on that point - based upon the evidence so far presented we find it difficult to dismiss the dark possibility that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton intentionally abandoned Stevens and the brave Americans who defended the U.S. embassy, hoping that with their demise the issue would just "go away."
In the real world, Team Obama's actions in this wretched matter come very close to the statutory definition of negligent homicide, but in the world which the president and the Clintons occupy, it's just the politics of personal destruction carried to its natural conclusion.
We doubt that Speaker Boehner has the stones to pursue this matter properly, adding it as a charge in a bill of impeachment, but it would be the right course to take. In support of this rather harsh judgment of the Speaker might we suggest that it is Mr. Boehner who is the sole road-block to the establishment of a special committee of Congress, with full subpoena power, to professionally investigate these various matters. Therefore we endorse the methodology suggested by former Watergate Fred Thompson [minority counsel to the GOP during the Watergate proceedings]:
"...The special committee should hire respected, experienced counsel. The counsel should be responsible for the committee staff, and have the authority to question all of the public witnesses. Giving the counsel 30 or 45 minutes in which to question each witness will ensure all of the appropriate facts see the light of day. The current practice of giving each committee member five minutes, with each usually having his own line of questioning, is not designed to get to the bottom of anything. A hostile or reluctant witness doesn't even have to be especially clever to avoid having to answer anything of substance in just five minutes..." [source, National Review]Barack Obama, by his actions, has made it clear that his presidency represents a growing threat to the security of the United States; the sooner he is removed from office, for cause, the better.
At best, it will take a generation for succeeding administrations to undo the repercussions of his disastrous foreign policy. If, as we suspect, Iran is allowed to develop its nuclear weaponry during the remainder of his second term it may prove impossible to undo the great peril he and his fellow neo-Marxist/collectivists have brought to America's doorstep.
©2013 PipeLineNews.org LLC. William Mayer. All rights reserved.
http://www.pipelinenews.org/2013/may/15/What-Difference-Does-It-Make-The-Mysterious-Ambassador.html
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/5837