Month: September 2012

Benghazi-Gate’: Lawmakers Demand Answers as Obama Administration’s Inconsistent Libya Story Falls

robbyba

‘Benghazi–Gate’: Lawmakers Demand Answers as Obama Administration’s Inconsistent Libya Story Falls Aparthttp://pulse.me/s/dKIoR

‘BENGHAZI-GATE’: LAWMAKERS DEMAND ANSWERS AS OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S INCONSISTENT LIBYA STORY FALLS APART

Benghazi Gate: Lawmakers Demand Answers as Obama Administrations Inconsistent Libya Story Falls Apart

Republicans are lashing out at President Barack Obama and senior administration officials over their evolving description of the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya after fresh claims that U.S. intelligence officials knew almost immediately that the attack was a coordinated terrorist plot.

Two senior U.S. officials told Fox News on Thursday that U.S. intelligence officials were aware within 24 hours of the attack that it was a terrorist plot and suspected al-Qaeda was involved.

“This is turning into something not short of Benghazi-gate,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told Fox News.

As FoxNews.com points out, the “account sharply conflicted with claims by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice on the Sunday after the attack that the administration believed the strike was a ‘spontaneous’ event triggered by protests in Egypt over an anti-Islam film.”

“The best information and the best assessment we have today is that in fact this was not a preplanned, premeditated attack — that what happened initially was it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video,“ Rice said on ”Fox News Sunday” earlier this month.

Her assessment was at odds with Libya’s interim President Mohammed el-Megarif, who said there was no doubt the perpetrators had predetermined the date of the assault.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney also initially tried to blame the fatal attack on the anti-Muslim YouTube video, deflecting blame from radical Islam and the Obama adminstration. Finally, Carney and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the violence a terrorist attack last week. However, Obama has still not called the incident a terrorist attack, despite being given many chances. He said last week that extremists used an anti-Islam video as an excuse to assault U.S. interests.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday also admitted it was a terrorist attack.

“What terrorists were involved I think still remains to be determined by the investigation,” he told reporters at the Pentagon. “But it clearly was a group of terrorists who conducted that attack.”

Now, lawmakers want answers as to why they were initially “misled.”

“If there was information a day after that was to the contrary, I think Congress was misled,” Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) told Fox News. “But again, it’s even more serious than that. It means that we have a real problem in not being able to face up to the national security challenges our country faces.”

Corker also said that the briefing he and his fellow lawmakers received was “worthless.”

Fox News has more details:

“It was just unbelievable that Ambassador Rice and Secretary Clinton and the White House spokesman and others would say that there was no evidence – that this was a spontaneous attack, yet they say, ‘come on, honey, bring your mortars, we’re going to a spontaneous demonstration,’” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on CBS’ “This Morning.”

McCain, who called the administration’s statements “disgraceful,“ joined three other Republican senators this week in a letter to Rice pressing her on her ”troubling statements that are inconsistent with the facts.”

The FBI is investigating, but the apparent contradictions have prompted demands for information from Congress and a flurry of scathing letters to the administration.

So far, U.S. intelligence has indicated that heavily armed extremists numbering 50 or more attacked the consulate, relying on gun trucks for added firepower. They established a perimeter, limiting access to the compound. A first wave of attacks forced the Americans to flee to a fallback building, where a second group of extremists attacked with mortar fire. Stevens died of apparent smoke inhalation when he was caught inside one of the consulate buildings, which had been set on fire.

Benghazi Gate: Lawmakers Demand Answers as Obama Administrations Inconsistent Libya Story Falls Apart

Benghazi Gate: Lawmakers Demand Answers as Obama Administrations Inconsistent Libya Story Falls Apart

Officials have not singled out one responsible group, but have focused their attention on Ansar al-Shariah, a Libyan militant group led by a former detainee at the U.S. military-run prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that there has been a “thread of intelligence reporting” about groups in eastern Libya trying to coalesce, but no specific threat to the consulate.

Since the fall of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi last year, militias, weapons and terrorists are common in Libya.

 Eyes wide shu…

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Eyes wide shut, world watches Syria bleed

A view of a damaged house in the city of Homs September 22, 2012. REUTERS/Yazen Homsy
By Dominic Evans
BEIRUT | Sun Sep 23, 2012 8:45am EDT
(Reuters) – Thirty years ago Hafez al-Assad cut phone lines from Hama to stop word spreading of his bloody crackdown on an uprising in the city, ensuring that the 1982 Syrian revolt was crushed and many thousands killed before the world even knew of it.
Three decades on, his son is 18 months into a military campaign waged, despite efforts at censorship, in the glare of a global media spotlight; but Bashar too can rely on Cold War-era divisions among major powers, and a growing sense of impotence and indifference, to shield him from armed foreign intervention.
A bloody winter lies ahead, many observers believe, with each side short of a killer blow and little sign of restraint.
More than 1,000 people are now being killed in Syria every week, according to activists who collate reports from various sources. Some are rebels, some loyalists; many are civilians.
Instead of stirring ever greater outrage, the remorseless violence seems instead to have numbed an outside world which has no answers to Syria’s nightmare, giving Assad free rein to ratchet up the firepower against opponents who began protesting in the streets and are now fighting an ill-matched civil war.
Air raids by jet-bombers and strafing by helicopter gunships against residential districts have become a daily routine, while reports of hundreds killed in the town of Daraya three weeks ago elicited barely more than token condemnation abroad.
“There is a dwindling public engagement with the issue outside Syria and that reflects the grinding relentlessness of the conflict,” said Julien Barnes-Dacey of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s not mobilizing Western populations to push governments to take action.”
Even if Western powers felt greater pressure to act, they are hamstrung by fears of stirring wider regional conflict, by reluctance to arm Assad’s foes and by deadlock at the United Nations where Russia and China have blocked moves against him.
The one case where the United State set a “red line” which might trigger a military response – Assad deploying his chemical weapons – may have served only to embolden the Syrian leader.
“They have effectively said: ‘We won’t intervene unless you use chemical weapons’,” Barnes-Dacey said. “Assad has felt liberated to use more violence.
“There has been a surge in government brutality and government-led violence and that hasn’t provoked any reaction.”
Underlining the apparent license which the Syrian government feels the global inaction has granted it, three members of a moderate opposition group which has operated with official permission were detained shortly after their return from Beijing with a promise of Chinese support, a group spokesman said.
“WE’VE LOST HOPE”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition body which collates reports of violence, estimates more than 27,000 Syrians have died since March last year and, on a typical day last week said 250 people were killed on Thursday. That included at least 30 in an air strike on a fuel station. Forty-six soldiers were killed by rebel attacks and in clashes, it said.
“The world is just not responding. We have lost hope that people are going to help us,” said one opposition activist who identified himself as Jacob, speaking from the southern Damascus district of Yarmouk where locals complain of frequent bombing.
The increasing use of the firepower of one of the Middle East’s larger armies does not ensure victory for the 47-year-old Assad, who has lost control of border crossings with Turkey and Iraq, large areas of the north and parts of most Syrian cities.
But after the assassination on July 18 of four top security officers he has clawed back control of most of the capital and his overwhelming military superiority, particularly in the air, means rebels have little prospect of driving him out.

#Obama Senior Adviser s-s-stutters t-t-trying To Explain Why Obama Will Meet The View But Not World Leaders

robbyba

Obama Senior Adviser Stutters Trying To Explain Why ObamaWill Meet The View But Not World Leaders

michellemalkin Michelle Malkin

Robert Gibbs t-t-tries to defend Obama going on The View, but ditching world leaders in NYC during UN mtg.#Fail http://t.co/8SLKg5MW

  • On “Fox News Sunday” Chris Wallace asks Robert Gibbs why Pres. Obama isn’t meeting with other World Leaders, but is finding time to appear on the “View” (September 23, 2012).  8 likes, 0 dislikes Show more  see all

    All Comments (9)

    medlor44

    Respond to this video…

    • Well, see theres the problem! He is defending Obama, how is the leader of the free world. He does not deserve a Break! Our enemys will not give breaks. If theycan not handle the heat, then get the hell out of the kitchen!!

      dragon2570 in reply to knicklas48 (Show the comment) 16 minutes ago

    • correct my grammar but not other comments……go pound salt!

      vicdon1941 in reply to thesupremo11 (Show the comment) 20 minutes ago

    • Um, then why do we have a UN? Why don’t the delegates just stay in their countries “and pick up the phone” when they need to discuss matters…you know with conference calls?

      free2contemplate 33 minutes ago

    • WE NEED A LEADER IN TIMES OF TURMOIL…OBAMA WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? ON THE VIEW? I AM SO GLAD YOU ARE DOING THIS BECAUSE YOU ARE SHOWING AMERICA WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU….RE ELECTION! NOT WORLD PEACE.

      flinhir 35 minutes ago

    • Little Debbie would lie better than Baghdad Bob.

      She would just say ” No, he’s not going on The View!”

      jdl341 36 minutes ago

    • Gibbs has a hard job. He has to defend Obama single day of the year. Give him a break.

      knicklas48 38 minutes ago

    • Executive Summary: President “Present” phones it in so he can hang with his peeps.

      CecilBDeSpruiell 44 minutes ago

SUSQUEHANNA POLLING FINDS OBAMA DRAWING 48 PERCENT OF PENNSYLVANIANS, WHILE ROMNEY GARNERS 47 PERCENT.

robbyba

Susquehanna Polling finds Obama drawing 48 percent of Pennsylvanians, while Romney garners 47 percent.

 
New Poll: Romney Closes To Within 1 Point Of Obama In Pennsylvania http://shar.es/uiYtm via @sharethis
 
  • TJ OffnerEyes Wide Openwc4mittMichael Scarlatarobbie pellicerMatt 2016 Sunny
7:17 PM – 19 Sep 12 · Details

New PA GOP poll has Romney one point away from Obama

Published: Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 7:51 PM     Updated: Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 7:58 PM
 
 
 
 A new internal poll by the Pennsylvania Republican Party claims the GOP nominee Mitt 
Mitt Romney 2012Republican presidential hopeful and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File)
Romney now trails President Barack Obama by a single point.
 
The poll, conducted by Susquehanna Polling and Research, finds Obama drawing 48 percent of Pennsylvanians, while Romney garners 47 percent.
 
The results will help state party leaders convince Romney campaign officials to ratchet up their efforts in the state and buy vital television ad time. The campaign has not been on the air in Pennsylvania since April.
Though rare for party officials to discuss internal polls publicly, state GOP Chairman Rob Gleason is so excited by the turnaround that he’s conducting a news conference Thursday morning to trumpet the poll’s findings.
In a just completed conference call with county chairs and other prominent Pennsylvania party figures, Gleason could not contain his enthusiasm.
“Gleason was obviously pumped up,” said a GOP official on the call who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The people who asked questions were excited. There no naysayers. It was all positive.”
Previous independent polls have maintained Obama’s margin was 8 points, and a Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll released Wednesday had Obama holding a 9 point lead.
 
But prominent state GOP figures have argued for weeks that their internal polls showed a much closer race.
“The shrinkage of the numbers is because the undecideds are breaking towards Romney,” the GOP official said, adding that Romney has also been aided by the recent unrest in the Muslim world directed towards the United States
“There was also some uptick for Romney as a result of the international stuff,” the official said.

Barack Obama On…

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Barack Obama On Mitt Romney Video: ‘Not A Lot Of People’ Think They Are ‘Victims’

By MATTHEW DALY 09/18/12 06:12 PM ET AP

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Obama Mitt Romney Video
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NEW YORK — Rebuking Mitt Romney, President Barack Obama said Tuesday that Americans are not “victims” and that anyone seeking the presidency ought to be working for “everyone, not just some.”
Obama’s remarks came after a secretly taped and newly released video of the Republican presidential nominee showed Romney describing “47 percent of the people” as Obama supporters who depend on government and believe they are victims.
“My expectation is that if you want to be president, you have to work for everyone, not just for some,” Obama said in a taping of the “Late Show” with David Letterman.
It was Obama’s first response to the Romney video, which roiled Romney’s campaign and put him on the defensive about his views about nearly half the nation.
In the video, taken during a May fundraiser and posted online Monday, Romney said it is not his job “to worry about those people.” He was referring to what he called Obama’s locked-in supporters who believe they are “entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”
Romney has since said he made his point inelegantly in trying to describe differing visions for the nation.
“There are not a lot of people out there who think they are victims” or simply entitled, Obama said.
Obama also said he did not know what Romney was even referring to with his “47 percent reference.”
The president said that when he won in 2008, 47 percent was the amount of voters who went for his opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain. McCain actually got about 46 percent of the popular vote.
Current polling shows Obama with a slight edge over Romney.
“One thing I’ve learned as president,” Obama said, “is that you represent the entire country.”
Obama said people understand that the presidential candidates will make mistakes on the campaign trail. He said that includes one he regrets from 2008, when audio from one of his own private fundraisers had him saying that some residents of depressed rural areas get bitter and “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”
Having said that, Obama added: “What I think people want to be sure of is you are not writing off big chunks of the country.”
The president appeared on the TV show before a night of fundraising in New York City.

Obama called Sufyan Ben Qumu “ally of sorts,”

Aside robbyba

Obama called Sufyan Ben Qumu “ally of sorts,” was mastermind of the al Qaeda attack on our Libyan consulate

Libya attacker was released from Gitmo. But more important, Obamaconsidered him “ally of sorts,” according to NYT.http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/09/19/Qumu-attacker-Libya-ally-of-sorts-US

 

REPORT: TERRORIST BEHIND AMBASSADOR MURDER ‘ALLY OF SORTS’ TO OBAMA ADMIN

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by BEN SHAPIRO 19 Sep 2012, 4:51 PM PDT 80 POST A COMMENT

TONIGHT, BRET BAIER OF FOX NEWS REPORTED THAT INTELLIGENCE SOURCES BELIEVE THAT THE MASTERMIND OF THE AL QAEDA ATTACK ON OUR LIBYAN CONSULATE IS ONE SUFYAN BEN QUMU. QUMU WAS A TANK DRIVER IN THE LIBYAN ARMY; HE WAS A DRUG ADDICT AND SPENT TIME IN PRISON. FROM THERE, HE FLED TO EGYPT, THEN WENT TO AFGHANISTAN AND JOINED UP WITH OSAMA BIN LADEN. HE LATER JOINED THE TALIBAN, AND WAS CAPTURED IN PAKISTAN, THEN TURNED OVER TO THE UNITED STATES. QUMU WAS RELEASED FROM GUANTANAMO BAY IN 2007 TO THE QADDAFI-LED LIBYAN GOVERNMENT, ON THE CONDITION THAT LIBYA AND THE US COULD REACH A “SATISFACTORY AGREEMENT … THAT ALLOWS ACCESS TO DETAINEE AND/OR ACCESS TO EXPLOITED INTELLIGENCE.” IN 2008, AS THE QADDAFI GOVERNMENT MADE NICE WITH THE LIBYAN REBELS, QUMU WAS RELEASED.

That’s where the story gets even more interesting. The Obama administration promptly labeled Qumu an “ally of sorts,” according to the New York Times – that despite the fact that as of 2005, he was known as a “medium to high risk … likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” What made him an ally? According to the Times, that status change was due to the Obama administration’s “remarkable turnabout resulting from shifting American policies rather than any obvious change in Mr. Qumu.” As a leader of the Libyan rebels, head of the Darnah Brigade, Qumu received support from NATO. And unnamed Western observers, according to the Times, felt that Qumu wasn’t a real threat: “We’re more worried about Al Qaeda infiltration from outside than the indigenous ones … Most of them have a local agenda so they don’t present as much as a threat to the West.”
This is the Obama perspective of the Islamist Spring in a nutshell: the administration preferred not to see with whom it was allying, instead hoping against hope that Islamists were good, decent, kind people who could be reasoned with. Qumu was none of the above. And now our ambassador to Libya is dead at the hands of a man we funded. For years, the left blamed the Reagan administration for failing to keep track of Osama Bin Laden in the years after the mujahedeen fought the Soviets out of Afghanistan. They claimed that US backing of Muslim terrorist groups paved the way for Taliban rule and terrorist growth. Certainly that claim is true for President Obama, whose quixotic support for the Libyan rebellion has already borne bloody fruit.

#Obama misleading about Navy SEALs killed in Libya and al-Qaida connections

Obama admin misled on role two former SEALS killed in Libya attack –http://bit.ly/R17NJH
9:50 PM – 19 Sep 12 · Details

U.S. officials clarify administration description of two heroes in Libya attack

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Ex-Navy Seals weren’t part of ambassador’s security detail but rose to occasion, officials now confirm
UPDATED 21:58 PM EDT, SEPTEMBER 19, 2012 | BY JOHN SOLOMON
Why It Matters:
The Obama administration’s initial account of the Libyan consulate attack didn’t give the full story about two ex-Navy SEALs who helped repel the security breach until they were killed. Now officials are confirming those two heroes’ real jobs at the embassy along with evidence of ties between the attack and al-Qaida.
The two former Navy SEALs killed in last week’s attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi were not part of Ambassador Chris Stevens’ official security detail but took up arms in an effort to protect the facility when it was overrun by insurgents, U.S. officials tell the Washington Guardian.
The two former SEALS,  Tyrone Woods, 41, and Glen Doherty, 42, were not employed by the State Department diplomatic security office and instead were what is known as personal service contractors who had other duties related to security, the officials said.
They stepped into action, however, when Stevens became separated from the small security detail normally assigned to protect him when he traveled from the more fortified embassy in Tripoli to Benghazi, the officials said.
The two ex-Seals and others engaged in a lengthy firefight with the extremists who attacked the compound, a fight that stretched from the inner area of the consulate to an outside annex and a nearby safe house — a location that the insurgents appeared to know about, the officials said.
The officials provided the information to the Washington Guardian, saying they feared the Obama administration’s scant description of the episode left a misimpression that the two ex-Navy SEALs might have been responsible for the ambassador’s personal safety or become separated from him.
“Woods and Doherty weren’t part of the detail, nor were they personally responsible for the ambassador’s security, but they stepped into the breach when the attacks occurred and their actions saved others lives — and they shouldn’t be lumped in with the security detail,” one senior official said, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the State Department.
The administration has not fully described the two former Navy SEALs’ activities, characterizing  their work only vaguely  as being security related. “Our embassies could not carry on our critical work around the world without the service and sacrifice of brave people like Tyrone and Glen,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after the attacks.
As recently as Sunday, UN Ambassador Susan Rice gave a similar description. “Two of the four Americans who were killed were there providing security. That was their function. And indeed, there were many other colleagues who were doing the same with them,” Rice told ABC’s This Week program.
In fact, officials said, the two men were personal service contractors whose official function was described as “embassy security,” but whose work did not involve personal protection of the ambassador or perimeter security of the compound.
The details emerged the same day that U.S. officials confirmed in public a Washington Guardian story Friday that U.S. intelligence believes al-Qaida or its affiliates played a role in the attack. “We are looking at indications that individuals involved in the attack may have had connections to Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda’s affiliates,” Matt Olsen, the director of the National Counterrorism Center, told lawmakers.
Administration officials had downplayed al-Qaida connections shortly after the attack.
Many U.S. agencies in foreign hotspots like Benghazi rely on and even share contract workers with special skills like those of retired Navy SEALs for security, reconnaissance and threat assessments.
Unlike full embassies such as the one in Tripoli, consulates like Benghazi usually don’t have a contingent of Marines to provide security, and private contractors help fulfill some of those responsibilities. The Washington Guardian reported last week concerns about the embassy security that predated the deadly attack.
Those briefed on the latest intelligence say investigators are trying to determine when and why Stevens’ official State Department security team got separated from the ambassador when the attacks occurred the evening of Sept. 11.
The separation of the team from the ambassador remains one of the more serious matters under review, the officials said.
In addition, while the administration has downplayed any link to al-Qaida, there is evidence some of  the attackers were affiliated with another group that sympathizes with al-Qaida and has grown more influential in Libya and other parts of north Africa.
State Department officials did not respond to emails or phone calls seeking comment Wednesday.
The current evidence leads U.S. intelligence to believe that a band of Islamist extremists with some ties to the north African affiliate of al-Qaida had accumulated a stash of weapons and extra human muscle, performed some reconnaissance to identify possible U.S. targets, and may have even infiltrated the Libyan security forces that help protect the consulate in hopes of eventually conducting a terrorist operation somewhere in Benghazi.
However, U.S. intelligence does not believe — at present — that the attackers specifically targeted Stevens, official said. Instead, they think the attackers sprang into action when, seeing crowds forming outside the consulate on Sept. 11, they perceived an opportunity to carry out a terrorist attack, officials said.
“Yes, they were killed in a terrorist attack on our embassy,” Olsen told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Wednesday. “The best information we have now, the facts that we have now, indicates an opportunistic attack on our embassy.”
U.S. officials say they have some evidence at least one of the attackers had prior connections to al-Qaida’s senior leadership and that others were linked to a sympathetic spinoff group in northern Africa known as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which is gaining influence in Libya.
Specifically, U.S. intelligence is investigating whether there is any connection to an al-Qaida-linked player named Sufyan Ben Qumu, who was captured by U.S. officials after the September 11, 2001 attacks and held at Guantanamo Bay for years before being released to Libyan authorities by the Bush administration in 2007. Qumu has emerged in recent months as an increasingly influential Islamist figure in eastern Libya, near Benghazi.
Fox News reported Wednesday night he might be a mastermind of the attack, but U.S. intelligence officials said such conclusions are premature.
“There’s an active effort to uncover those individuals and groups who were responsible for the attack. Any suggestion that a leading suspect or ‘mastermind’ of the attack has been identified at this point is premature.  It is safe to assume that any significant extremist in Eastern Libya is going to be under a lot of scrutiny right now,” one U.S. intelligence official told the Washington Guardian.

#Obama Failing to Stop Nuclear Iran, Syria

Mr. #Obama, after 4 years the Iran nuclear program is still alive and well. http://goo.gl/dNBex #pennsylvania #bigten #gm
10:01 PM – 19 Sep 12 · Details

Obama Failing to Stop Nuclear Iran, Syria

Wednesday, 29 Aug 2012 09:26 PM
By Todd Beamon and Kathleen Walter
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President Barack Obama’s policy on Iran obtaining nuclear weapons “has been a real failure,” former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton tells Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview from the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

“He has run a three-and-a-half year campaign, as opposed to governing, and his policy on the Iranian nuclear weapons front in particular has been a real failure,” Bolton tells Newsmax. “He’s proceeded on the assumption that he could negotiate Iran out of its program. That was never going to happen.”

Bolton said that the latest International Atomic Energy Association’s (IAEA) report on Iranian nuclear development, due out this week, will document further uranium deposits at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, which is buried deep beneath rock and soil to protect it from air strikes, among other developments.

Editor’s Note: Obama is Furious About This Book. Get “No Easy Day” Just $4.95 With Special Offer.

“The conclusion from that is that despite economic sanctions, despite political efforts by the Obama administration, Iran continues to make steady progress toward that objective of nuclear weapons. The threat not only remains but is growing.”

Bolton, who urged Israel last month to retaliate against Iran for the killing of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, said on Wednesday that “Israel will hold off until the very last minute but, ultimately, the decision on whether or when to strike Iran will be based on physics not on American politics.

“There’s a lot of speculation that they will strike before our election. I don’t pretend to have to insider information but I think they’ll wait until they don’t think they can wait any longer. If that’s before the election, fine; if that’s after the election, fine, from their perspective.”

Any such attack, Bolton said, “would be at the very outer limit of Israel’s capacity. We, obviously, have a much greater capacity.”

Obama’s poor leadership is even more acute on Syria and its leader, President Bashar al-Assad, Bolton said.

“He has operated under the assumption that Russia shared our objective to take Assad out of power. That was never true. Russia has vetoed three U.N. Security Council sanctions. We have not identified leaders among the opposition forces that we can really trust – and we have no certainty that they will not themselves conduct a bloodbath in Syria if the Assad regime falls. Not to mention, what happens to Syria’s very large stocks of chemical weapons.”

Because of the president’s ineffectiveness in foreign policy, “the rest of the world, friend and foe alike, sees a weaker America, in retreat from its global responsibilities,” Bolton said. “Polls have been taken in countries around the world that show that America has less respect under Obama” than President George W. Bush.

Editor’s Note: Obama is Furious About This Book. Get “No Easy Day” Just $4.95 With Special Offer.

“Even in countries where Obama has made a special effort, like in Egypt, where he made a famous speech early in his administration about the U.S. and Islam, the U.S. has a lower favorability rating today than when George Bush left office.

“What it proves is that America must protect its interest in the world,” Bolton concluded. “It is better to be respected than to be loved.”

Read more on Newsmax.com: NMX: Bolton: Obama Failing to Stop Nuclear Iran, Syria
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama’s Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

Syria’s Secular and Islamist Rebels: Who Are the Saudis and the Qataris Arming

10:18 PM – 18 Sep 12 · Details

Syria’s Secular and Islamist Rebels: Who Are the Saudis and the Qataris Arming?

Out of Istanbul, the two Gulf states play a game of conflicting favorites that is getting in the way creating a unified rebel force to topple the Assad regime
By RANIA ABOUZEID / IDLIB PROVINCE | September 18, 2012 | 27
Unrest in Syria

MARCO LONGARI / AFP / GETTY IMAGES
Syrian rebels take position during clashes with regime forces in the northern city of Aleppo on Sept. 14, 2012
Vast swaths of northern Syria, especially in the province of Idlib, have slipped out of the hands of President Bashar Assad, if not quite out of his reach. The area is now a de facto liberated zone, though the daily attacks by Damascus’ air force and the shelling from the handful of checkpoints and bases regime forces have fallen back to are reminders that the rebel hold on the territory remains fluid and fragile.
What is remarkable is that this substantial strip of “free” Syria has been patched together in the past 18 months by military defectors, students, tradesmen, farmers and pharmacists who have not only withstood the Syrian army’s withering fire but in some instances repelled it using a hodgepodge of limited, light weaponry. The feat is even more amazing when one considers the disarray among the outside powers supplying arms to the loosely allied band of rebels.
As TIME reports here, disorder and distrust plague two of the rebels’ international patrons: Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The two Gulf powerhouses are no longer on the same page when it comes to determining who among the plethora of mushrooming Syrian rebel groups should be armed. The rift surfaced in August, with the alleged Saudi and Qatari representatives in charge of funneling free weaponry to the rebels clearly backing different factions among the groups — including various shades of secular and Islamist militias — under the broad umbrella that is the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/09/18/syrias-secular-and-islamist-rebels-who-are-the-saudis-and-the-qataris-arming/#ixzz26yJUkfI3

This is not the aftermath of an earthquake..

Aside robbyba

Photo #Syria This is not the aftermath of an earthquake. It’s of a gov bombing its own people #Assad

Nora Basha ‏@Nora0315  This is not the aftermath of an earthquake. It’s the aftermath of a government bombing its own people. #Assad #Syria –http://pic.twitter.com/vTuVZ8jl
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7:28 PM – 17 Sep 12 · Details

Why is #Egypt P…

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Why is #Egypt President meeting with Sudan’s President Bashir? Why isn’t Egypt arresting Pres Bashir

Why is Egypt’s President meeting with Sudan’s President Bashir? Why isn’t Egypt arresting Pres Bashir – he is un… http://bit.ly/RbNBHh
3:17 PM – 16 Sep 12 · Details

WHY IS EGYPT’S PRESIDENT MORSI MEETING WITH SUDAN’S PRESIDENT BASHIR? WHY ISN’T EGYPT ARRESTING PRES BASHIR – HE IS UNDER INDICTMENT FOR GENOCIDE!

SEP 16 2012 – 3:16 PM ET
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As you know, I have traveled to Sudan with Reverend Franklin Graham (Samaritans Purse) and I have repeatedly blogged about President Bashir killing his own citizens.  You have seen the pics (refugees starving and fleeing) and you have read this blog.
The boy in the pic above is a boy I saw terrified and hiding in a cave (without food) because Pres Bashir had burned his village and was now bombing those who had survived the burning village.
You also know from GretaWire that President Bashir is under CRIMINAL INDICTMENT from the ICC for genocide in Darfur region.  This means, should he step outside his own country of Sudan, he runs the risk of arrest.
Well…apparently he is not worried and apparently the Egyptian President Morsi is protecting him.  See the pic below and note that Pres Bashir is now in Egypt meeting with President Morsi.  This can’t be good news.
Why isn’t Egypt (and President Morsi) turning Pres Bashir over to the ICC so that he can answer to the indictment for genocide?
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CAIRO (AP) — Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir met on Sunday with his Egyptian counterpart in Cairo, defiant of the International Criminal Court’s two arrest warrants against him for an alleged role in his country’s turbulent western Darfur region.
The visit underlines a renewed interest in cooperation between the two neighbors, after what many saw as a period of neglect in the years before Egypt’s new Islamist President Mohammed Morsi was elected this summer.
Relations largely deteriorated after former President Hosni Mubarak accused Sudan of harboring those suspected of being behind an assassination attempt against him in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa in 1995.
Prior to the trip, London-based Amnesty International called on Cairo to withdraw its invitation to the Sudanese leader or arrest him on arrival, but Egypt does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction and instead welcomed al-Bashir at the airport with a delegation led by Vice President Mahmoud Mekki.
It was at least al-Bashir’s  CLICK HERE

HOW #MITTROMNEY HELPED MY FAMILY DURING MY HUSBAND’S DEPLOYMENT – ANOTHER UNTOLD STORY OF KINDNESS.

robbyba

Nancy French ‏@NancyAFrench

How #MittRomney helped my family during my husband’s deployment – another untold story of kindness. http://ow.ly/dDiz8 #GOP2012
 


1:49 PM – 11 Sep 12 · Details
 
  
   
   
   
 
Over the next few 
In 2007, I was in Boston playing a very small part in trying to help Mitt win the GOP primary.  My husband, a constitutional attorney and captain in the U.S. Army Reserves, and I had started Evangelicals for Mitt the year before and — through a series of coincidences and opportunities — I ended up helping Ann Romney on a writing project.
 
In my normal life, I was a work-from-home mother of two, so life consisted of car lines, lunchboxes, and afternoon volleyball games.  But during the 2008 Presidential campaign, I spent time with Mitt and Ann, rode on their campaign bus, heard dozens of speeches, and saw the machinery of a modern Presidential campaign from the inside. Once, the dissonance between my normal life and my campaign existence was vividly illustrated when we were driving down the interstate in a bus, while CNN sped right beside us, a cameraman hanging out the window trying to get a shot of Ann as we drove about 70 mph.
 
That’s when I got a call from my husband, who had just opened a letter from the Army.  “You need to come home,” he said, with an edge in his voice.  He had just learned he was going to Iraq with the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment and would be stationed about ten miles from Iran.
Of course, everything changed.  Ann called me immediately after I got home to see how I was handling the news. When I was on the campaign trail with her, I’d been inspired by her as a mother –- she’d successfully raised five boys with a busy husband who’d traveled a great deal.  Though she would never compare her situation with a family going through a deployment, she did offer encouragement about how I could have a stable, peaceful family even in his absence.  I admired her strength and poise, and even began using her buttermilk pancake recipe with the family as we prepared for his departure.
One day, right before David left, we got a package from Boston with a beautiful brass compass inside.  On the back, a very touching message was engraved: “May your journeys always bring you back home.”  There was also a handwritten note from Gov. Romney:  “Thank you for your selfless service to our nation.  Your family represents what is good about America.  We are honored to call you friends. God be with you.”
 
The deployment didn’t make politics recede into the background of life… suddenly, it seemed so much more pertinent.  The very morning David left, he grabbed a pen and scribbled out a quick note to Gov. Romney.  “I hope when I return I won’t shake your hand as a friend but will rather salute you as my Commander-in-Chief.”
Of course, that didn’t happen.  When Gov. Romney dropped out of the race back in 2008 during a Washington, DC speech, I wasn’t there. I felt oddly bereft as I sat in front of the television trying to process the announcement.  “You see, kids,” I said, trying to put on a cheerful face, “we lost this one, but we’ll have another shot at it in 2012.”  I don’t think they quite grasped what I was going through.
But then, I got a call from the Romneys. As they were winding down from the fast tempo of the campaign season, they invited me to come to their home in Utah for some skiing.  Faster than I could say, “Mom and Dad, the kids are coming for a visit,” I headed out west, where I stayed with Mitt, Ann, Ann’s brother Rod, and his wife Cindy in the Romney’s home.  They even spent a day teaching this southerner how to ski at Deer Valley. I was terrible and uncoordinated, and  — in one inglorious moment –- even stopped myself from a bad fall by tackling Gov. Romney.  After seeing my incredible lack of talent, Ann stopped on the side of a steep slope and joked.  “It’s quite possible that you are in more physical danger right now than David,” she said.
 
Sometimes the media tries to portray the Romneys as uncaring, but nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, Ann talked about this unfair characterization in her recent speech at the Republican National Convention.  “Mitt does not like to talk about how he has helped others because he sees it as a privilege,” she said.  “Not a political talking point.  We are no different than the millions of Americans who quietly help their neighbors, their churches, and their communities.”
Though Gov. Romney doesn’t brag about the kindness he shows to others, the stories are leaking out.  For example, people are learning of this story of how Mitt helped organize co-workers at Bain Capital to find the teenage daughter of his friend Robert Gay. And they’re hearing, for the first time, the story of how Mitt developed a friendship with a 14 year old dying of Hodgkin’s disease, and even helped him write a will to make sure the right people received his prized possessions after he died.  And when Mitt sold their beautiful Utah home I visited to a couple from Florida, there’s even a story about how Mitt showed up to make sure the new owners knew how to use their appliances.
In other words, the kindness they showed me during my husband’s deployment isn’t unique or even nationally significant.  However, I happen to think a successful Presidency is about policies, yes, but it’s also about character.  That’s why it’s important that Mitt Romney’s incredible resume and economic skills are only matched by his willingness to serve others… even when it doesn’t benefit him, even when the cameras aren’t there to record it, and even when it means he’ll be tackled by an uncoordinated soldier’s wife on the side of the mountain

President Obama silent while US Consulate in Libya burned

Aside robbyba

3am Phone Is Ringing!!!!! American Killed in Libya Consulate Attack. #Obama is Silent.

President Obama silent while US Consulate in Libya burned

 

President Obama silent while US Consulate in Libya burned

Posted at 9:43 pm on September 11, 2012 by Twitchy Staff | View Comments
Clint Eastwood’s  performance sure seems a lot more apropos after today’s events.
The protests that started at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo today took an even more ominous turn as news outlets reported the death of a U.S. official in an attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Just last week at their convention, the Democrats offered Sen. John Kerry as the party’s voice of foreign policy, criticizing Mitt Romney for drawing his knowledge of Russia from watching “Rocky IV.” Tonight, though, with word of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi having been burned down, the Twitterverse wants to know if there’s an empty chair sitting next to that ringing telephone.
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9:43 PM – 11 Sep 12 · Details