Benghazi IC Report: Terror Attack, AQ Links, No Protests

6 Comments

1. 

   Marie2 on January 15, 2014 at 2:52 pm

   In intelligence and foreign affairs matters, Dianne Feinstein is as crappy as McCain and Graham.  

   • 

     kafkananda on January 15, 2014 at 7:15 pm

     I totally agree with you here…..BUT then someone steps up unexpectedly and does the right thing (for whatever reason). Case in point: DiFi spoke out on the Senate floor against the warmongers who are out to sabotage the peace with Iran.

     “We can’t let Israel determine when and where U.S. goes to war,” says Feinstein

     Tuesday’s floor speech by Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein could bury AIPAC’s hopes of winning passage of what I have called the Kirk-Menendez Wag the Dog Act of 2013…at least for the next month or so. The speech, which was remarkably comprehensive in rebutting virtually every argument made by AIPAC and the 59 co-sponsors in favor of the bill, comes amid a surprising spate of newspaper editorials against the bill, particularly given the dearth of actual news coverage about it. Newspapers that have taken position against the legislation in just the last few days include the Minneapolis Star Tribune, USA Today, the New York Times, and the often-neoconservative-leaning Washington Post. As cash-poor as they are, newspapers are still less susceptible to the kind of pressure exerted by AIPAC and its associated PACs that are able to provide — or deny — substantial cash for political campaigns.

     There is a C-Span video and a transcript at the posted Mondoweiss link. Very thorough discussion and debunking of BS arguments by her. Got to give her kudos, she done good here.

     Oh, and where is Hillary?

     • 

       Marie2 on January 15, 2014 at 9:28 pm

       An odd shift for her.  There’s a back story to this that we may never learn about.

2. 

   Oui on January 17, 2014 at 2:46 pm

   .
   Juan Cole’s abysmal analysis on Benghazi and final Senate report. The professor was wrong on Libya, the “success of our intervention” and mitigated the dangers of the militias in a broken country. Terrible circular reasoning after his previous praise for Kirkpatrick’s NY Times article. Now he asserts the NY Times report has all the facts, so the Senate Intelligence Commission report is erroneous. See point 2 and 3 to white-wash the responsibility of Hillary Clinton. Clinton was close to the Muslim Brotherhood, so was JC fond of Qatar, Turkey and Egypt’s Morsi. It’s time to admit defeat and move on.

   What really pissed me off, Juan Cole putting blame on Ambassador Stevens with an argument full of holes and hardly part of the essentials in the Benghazi and Libya quest by the State Department during 2011-2012.

   It’s Secretary Clinton who sets policy on our presence in Libya and how to operate the Tripoli embassy and the Benghazi mission. Stevens represented the US as her ambassador, not someone setting policy or where ultimately the buck stops!

   ○ Ambassador Stevens twice said no to military offers of more security, U.S. officials say
   By Nancy A. Youssef – McClatchy Foreign Staff on May 14, 2013

   ○ State Department, military blamed for Benghazi attack
   Senate report » Ambassador Stevens, who died in the assault, twice refused extra security

3. 

   Oui on January 17, 2014 at 2:58 pm

   .

   Libya: The Dictatorship of the Militias  by Imad Mesdoua @YourMiddleEast

   “Ansar Al-Sharia cleans the streets of Benghazi and conducts social work to further enhance its standing”

   Security in Libya still remains an ephemeral prospect. The country is awash with guns and militias, numbered in the thousands. Since the collapse of the Gaddafi regime, successive transitional governments have consistently failed to impose their authority over the entirety of its territory and to reverse a deteriorating security climate. An ever-expanding network of rampant militia groups, with varying agendas and scope, is an undeniable obstacle to the country’s post-revolutionary stability. They typify Libya’s complex tribal, regional and ideological makeup, which Gaddafi held together with an iron fist for four decades.

   Unable to adequately police Libya’s vast desert borders, the militias pose a threat to regional security. Small arms, antiaircraft missiles and rocket propelled grenades in some of the world’s largest weapons warehouses are readily available for militant groups, jihadists and violent opportunists, who consider these weapons as an “insurance policy” amidst the reigning anarchy. As a result, the entire Maghreb-Sahel region is vulnerable to cross-border militancy emanating from the Libyan “arms bazaar.”

   KETTLE BREWING: THE AQIM THREAT

   More worrying still for Libya’s stability is the resurgence of terrorist activity by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its affiliated organisations, such as Ansar Al-Sharia in Libya. Libya is at the cornerstone of AQIM regional strategy. Members of the intelligence community have gone so far as to label Libya, AQIM’s “headquarters” in the region.

   With little to no policing of its vast and porous desert borders, the country is now a launching pad for terrorist operations throughout North Africa and beyond, helping jihadi groups in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt to organise well-coordinated attacks such as the unprecedented hostage crisis at the In Amenas facility in Southern Algeria. Libya’s lawless desert provinces are a haven for weapons trafficking. The vast and unsecured weapons stockpiles, which mushroomed during Libya’s eight-month civil war, are at the mercy of Islamist militants with the financial clout to secure them for their fighters.

   THESE GROUPS USE LIBYA AS A SAFE-HAVEN

   These groups use Libya as a safe-haven, establishing training camps for new recruits. North African and Western would-be jihadists travelling to Syria to join the fight against the Assad regime begin their journey in training camps situated in Libya’s central and eastern regions. AQIM‘s modus operandi in Libya remains largely unclear but its activities in the country follow an all too familiar strategy adopted since the early 2000’s, which consists of identifying and occupying spaces beyond the reach or control of central governments. AQIM’s ability to infiltrate, fund and persuade armed groups with an Islamic agenda should not be understated. In Mali, the group was able to hijack the Tuareg rebellion through a loose coalition with other local jihadi groups to create a short-lived Islamic state in the country’s Northern Azawad region.

   [All links added are mine – Oui]

   ○ Benghazi Witness Account

   Cross-posted from my diary @BooMan – Libyan Leader Aims for Separate Cyrenaican State.

4. 

   Oui on January 25, 2014 at 4:51 pm

   .
   Can it get any worse on a path towards democracy a failed state?

   Egypt considers evacuating Libya embassy after kidnappings

   (Ahram/Reuters) – Foreign Ministry spokesperson Badr Abdel Aaty has told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the ministry is considering sending workers at the Egyptian embassy in Libya back to Egypt after the kidnapping of five staffers Friday and Saturday.

   Four Egyptian embassy staff were kidnapped in Libya’s capital Tripoli on Saturday, a day after another Egyptian diplomat was seized there by gunmen, the Libyan government said.

   No group claimed responsibility for any of the abductions, but they came soon after a powerful Libyan militia reported its leader had been arrested in Cairo and threatened to retaliate.

   “Four more have been kidnapped. One of them is the cultural attaché and the other three are staff,” the Libyan Foreign Ministry spokesman said, without going into further details.

   Two years after Muammar Gaddafi’s fall, Libya is still in flux with the government struggling to control heavily-armed former rebels, militias and Islamist militants who fought in the uprising but often challenge Tripoli’s authority.

   One militia group, the Operations Centre of Libya’s Thuwar (Revolutionaries), said on Friday its leader Shaban Hadia had been arrested in Egypt, where he had been travelling with his family for medical treatment.

   Another of the group’s leaders, Adel al-Gharyani, denied it had kidnapped the first Egyptian diplomat. But he called on Egyptian authorities to release their commander or there would be a “strong response” from the group.

   Kidnappers of diplomats give Egypt 24 hours to release militants’ leader