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Ex-Gitmo hard boy involved in consulate attack
Today's Headlines
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Home Front: WoT
Hillary Clinton, State Department, Michelle Bachman, Muslim Brotherhood Infiltration Warning
An uncomfortable thought occured to me today and as a reader of Rantburg, I thought I would run this theory past Rantburg readers first. HOW did the attackers know what they knew about the State Department's supposedly top secret embassy safe house in Benghazi and were able to ambush the fallback effort of the Embassy staff at the safe house? Michelle Bachman was recently trashed by her own party including McCain and Boehner for expressing concern that Muslim Brotherhood has deeply infiltrated the upper echelons of the Washington DC State Department. Hillary's assistant, Huma Abedin, who Bachmann cited as having family with close affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood. Could it be that coddled, Islamic moles are working against our embassies from within thier positions within the State Department in Washington, DC, resulting in the murders of an Ambassador and staff by Islamic Radicals?
It need not be Hillary's girlfriend. There are plenty of folks at Foggy Bottom who hope to retire on the consulting fees paid by the House of Saud...
Bachmann sparked controversy earlier this year for saying Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood may have infiltrated the U.S. government. But after facing condemnation over the statements from her own party, the Minnesota congresswoman took a brief hiatus from her running theme of warning the United States against the threat of "radical Islam."
Posted by: Clolutch Sherens3563 || 09/20/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  AND A LOUD ***COUGH *** COUGH ****COUGH *** IS HEAR OVER THE PACIFIC, FROM GUAM.

Ah yes, "Michelle's Brigade" + Milwaukee Days.

"Trashed by her own Party" > because, not unlike back then, Michelle didn't ask or work wid me when she should've.

But I digress ...
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/20/2012 0:16 Comments || Top||

#2  seems like it was more likely done through surveillance at Benghazi. But it's a reasonable procedure for the USA to conduct a full investigation to determine if there were any leaks from the State Dept. That should be done.
Posted by: Raider || 09/20/2012 0:59 Comments || Top||

#3  As Raider indicated, consulte surveillance is more likely. Recruiting or bribing a host-nation consulate guard to gain daily reporting and situational awareness would not have been difficult.

The painful irony, reporting indicates that the Ambassador was in Benghazi for the ribbon-cutting for an “American Corner.” An American Corner is, in State’s own words, a “friendly, accessible space, open to the public, which provides current and reliable information about the United States through bilingual book and magazine collections, films and documentaries, poster exhibitions, and guides for research on the United States.” Ironic of course that Ambassador Stevens and his people died in what is sadly all of a propaganda gesture, a book nook Corner that says happy things about America so that Libyans will love us. When will the west awaken ?

Lastly, this region was not Middleburg, VA. It was an incubator for terrorists. See Ambassador Steven's cable dated 6/2/2008.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/20/2012 4:42 Comments || Top||

#4  Gateway Pundit report on Qumu.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/20/2012 5:03 Comments || Top||

#5  They were targeted and executed why information from the start of the fake Arab Spring crap there from the start and all! Remember how they laughed when announcing the death of Mu Mi, play it listen to it and analyze it with some shrinks etc. we call it hitler bunker insanity, nice hole they dug for themselves in Washington 86 million worth right? Nice choice from the prison system also! If TRUE!
Posted by: Angiting Snore1647 || 09/20/2012 8:12 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Extreme reaction to film
[Dawn] AT one level, much of the furore over the somewhat elliptically titled film Innocence of Moslems could be described as predictable. After all, we have seen it before.

Coincidentally, it comes at a time when The Satanic Verses is back in the news because of Salman Rushdie's memoir about the personal consequences entailed by Ayatollah Khomeini's infamous fatwa. The reaction to it was perhaps the first instance in living memory of globalised protests against a controversial literary text that many Moslems deemed blasphemous.

Rushdie, who remained in hiding for a decade under the protection of the British state, has, gratifyingly, lived to tell the tale. But numerous people -- translators, publishers, even a pair of Belgium-based imams -- were killed over that novel. Iran effectively rescinded the fatwa eventually, but it is sobering to note that an independent Iranian organization has lately increased its bounty on the writer's head by half a million dollars.

The sordid saga of the Danish cartoons, rescued from the obscurity they deserved by some Europe-based mullahs intent on making trouble, is even fresher in the collective memory.

In the case of the present provocation, there is an added frisson on account of the so-called Arab Spring. A great many Libyans are upset about the death of the US ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi last week, and the authorities in Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of thich is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
seem duly embarrassed. The irony, of course, is that the incidents that resulted in the fatalities occurred in a nation that NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
forces 'liberated' last year, and that too in a city celebrated as the cradle of the revolt against Muammar Qadaffy
...Proof that a madman with money will be politely received for at least 42 years until his people get tired of him and kill him...
's dictatorship.

It is perhaps pertinent to recall that at least one NATO general was honest enough to note at the start of the intervention that some of the forces the West was assisting in Libya were precisely the sort of forces it was combating in Afghanistan. What's more, no lessons have been learned. The same mistake is being repeated in Syria.

It's unclear from the available evidence whether the ambassador, Christopher Stevens -- remembered by friends and acquaintances as a genial State Department Arabist -- was deliberately targeted. The attack on the US consulate in Benghazi has been attributed to a group called Ansar al-Sharia
...a Yemeni Islamist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends...
, and it has been suggested that the violence on the anniversary of Sept 11 had little to do with the offending film: rather, it ought to be perceived in the context of the struggle for ascendancy within Libya.

Similar claims have been aired about the protests in Egypt, whose president has been accused of tardiness in condemning the violence and vowing to protect foreign missions. In Sudan, it is not just the US embassy that has attracted protesters but also the British and German missions.

Of course, the latter two governments have no more to do with the offending film than the US authorities. It is almost certainly the case that the protests across the Moslem world are in some part an excuse for venting anti-American -- and, more broadly, anti-Western -- sentiments. They are a sorry excuse. There are plenty of reasons to be appalled by US actions and manoeuvres in any number of Moslem countries. Innocence of Moslems should not figure among them.

The film was clearly intended as an Islamophobia
...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do...
-inducing provocation. The sensible approach would have been to ignore it completely. Judging by the 14-minute 'trailer' on YouTube, it has no artistic merit whatsoever.

What's more, the cast and crew were apparently unaware of its intended purpose. They were told it was a depiction of Egypt 2,000 years ago. The anti-Islamic aspects of the dialogue were dubbed afterwards, as a canny American blogger, Sarah Abdurrahman, was among the first to cotton on.

Perhaps equally insidious has been the effort to portray it as an Israeli-funded venture. It was purportedly the brainchild of 'Sam Bacile', a Jewish real estate agent in the US, who claimed in interviews that the funds came from Israeli businessmen. This has turned out to be one of the many myths perpetrated by petty criminal Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a Caliphornia-based American of Coptic Christian origin, who used the pseudonym 'Sam Bacile' to conceal his real identity, and who has thrived on publicity from a couple of fundamentalist Christian confederates.

It is useful to remember, in this context, that some fundamentalist Christians in the US support Israel unreservedly solely in the interests of hastening Armageddon. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to conjecture that Innocence of Moslems is a consequence of that mindset.

What's not surprising is that some Islamists are willing to match the Islamophobes, absurdity for absurdity. Excerpts from the film apparently failed to excite much of a response after it was posted on YouTube last month, until it was dubbed into Arabic and a handful of Egyptians picked up on it, going to the extent of broadcasting bits of it on a private evangelical channel.

The very idea that a film such as this can in any way dent the faith of Moslems does not bear serious scrutiny. But then, one cannot fail to recognise that the idiocy of Islamophobes easily finds echoes in the Moslem world. It is unlikely that Nakoula sought to elicit the sort of reaction witnessed in Benghazi, but there can be little doubt he did seek to provoke a response. And he got what he wanted. It would undoubtedly have been infinitely wiser to deny him this satisfaction. But it's too late for that.

Perhaps the most bizarre response to recent events came from Republican presidential contender Willard Mitt Romney
...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney has a record as a successful businessman, heading Bain Capital, and he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from the midst of bribery and mismanagement scandals. More to the point, he isn't President B.O...
, who accused the B.O. regime of pandering to Islamist sentiments. Romney has rightfully been taken to task for that ridiculous insinuation. It is nonetheless interesting to imagine, though, what Washington's response would have been had the events in Benghazi taken place in Islamabad, Tehran, Damascus
...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations...
or Kabul.
Posted by: Fred || 09/20/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  The film was clearly intended as an Islamophobia-inducing provocation.

It was clearly intended as Western/Christian-phobia inducing provocation.

That this otherwise reasoned editorialist could that get that arse about tit, speaks to how deeply rooted irrationality is in the Muslim world.
Posted by: phil_b || 09/20/2012 5:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Seems obvious that many Moslems do not feel their God is powerful enough to punish blashemers without a lot of mortal help. Must be sad to consider your god to be week.

Perhaps Allah is offended by this attitude and has struck the Mualim countries with bad leaders, unproductive cultural habits, and ignorance as retribution.
Posted by: Rjschwarz || 09/20/2012 12:27 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel: A new, leviathan defense bill
Posted by: tipper || 09/20/2012 11:01 || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:


Olde Tyme Religion
VDH: The Premodern Middle East and Postmodern West Don't Mix, Mr. President
The wrath of the Muslim Street is elemental and existential. It can be explained in terms something like this: Islamists have convinced the Arab masses that their present mess (so easily fathomed in a globalized world in second-by-second, instantaneous comparisons with other cultures -- via cell phones, the Internet, DVDs, and cable television) is not their own fault.

The Middle East is not fascist, communist, Baathist, pan-Arabist, or Islamist, so much as it is screwed-up-ist and blame-them-ist.

It is not brain surgery to enter the modern world. Follow some South Koreans or Chileans around for a week with a video camera. Grow up and stop blaming those on whom you depend for everything from drilling bits to laptops.

A good start [for US foreign policy] would be very quietly to start trimming aid at about $100 million every month, and quite coolly rejecting visas from the Middle East. We can put travel restrictions on the Middle East, and ask the Egyptian ambassador to go home for a month or so to think things over.

Otherwise, Westerners must make themselves as immune from Middle East passions as is possible.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/20/2012 10:00 || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:


-Election 2012
You Didn't Build That - A short but powerful video
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/20/2012 09:40 || Comments || Link || [336088 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thanks Besoeker; made my day. ROFLOL!
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/20/2012 10:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Excellent
Posted by: swksvolFF || 09/20/2012 15:18 Comments || Top||

#3  Ms. Rand would have loved that.
Posted by: Shinter Javirong9154 || 09/20/2012 16:21 Comments || Top||

#4  Thanks, B - saw it on Instapundit and wanted to bring it here, but you did it already.

(So obviously I didn't build this comment. ;-p )
Posted by: Barbara || 09/20/2012 19:34 Comments || Top||

#5  I liked it so much I stole it. Sent it to everyone I know.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/20/2012 19:47 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2012-09-20
  Ex-Gitmo hard boy involved in consulate attack
Wed 2012-09-19
  Rally against sacrilege: Ten Lahore rioters injured in clash with police
Tue 2012-09-18
  U.S. military suspends joint patrols with Afghans
Mon 2012-09-17
  Libya arrests 50 after US envoy's killing
Sun 2012-09-16
  Yemeni official: DNA tests did not prove the killing of Al-Shihri
Sat 2012-09-15
  Al Qaeda in Yemen urges Muslims to kill U.S. diplomats over film
Fri 2012-09-14
  Pakistan orders anti-Islam video block on YouTube
Thu 2012-09-13
  Egyptian protesters, police continue to clash near U.S. Embassy
Wed 2012-09-12
  US Official Killed In Libya Prophet Protest
Tue 2012-09-11
  Somali election: Hassan Sheikh elected as president
Mon 2012-09-10
  Yemen says kills deputy regional head of al Qaeda
Sun 2012-09-09
  Three injured in blast at Indonesia ''bomb workshop''
Sat 2012-09-08
  Canada breaks off relations with Iran
Fri 2012-09-07
  Pakistan evicts Save the Children foreign staff
Thu 2012-09-06
  Drone Strike in Yemen Kills 5 'Qaida' Militants

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