Tag Archives: Barack Obama

13 Hours movie review, and my top 25 posts about the Benghazi cover-up

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

I went to see the movie 13 hours on Saturday and found that it dovetailed nicely with all the stories that I had written on this blog about the events in Libya and the subsequent lies and cover-up by the Obama administration.

I was asked to review the movie and post all of the links to the previous stories by my friends Kevin and McKenzie, so that’s what I’m going to do.

So, I am a huge war movie fan, and I read military biography and military history. The most frustrating thing in war movies and books about war is that the go too far down to the level of details, without providing the context. Very frustrating. I don’t want movies to be too much about action and fancy animations. I want to learn something about the strategy and tactics in play. And 13 Hours does not disappoint.

You get a lot of exposure to the real world of espionage, black ops and drones for one thing. They show you the insides of a real CIA station in Libya, tell how it was acquired, and they show what goes on there. You also get to see what diplomats do, and who is responsible for keeping them safe. The battle scenes feature a ton of top down / map-like shots. There are shots of maps with the buildings and who will be deployed where, and for what reason.

Everything is called by its real name, e.g. – a technical is not called “a pickup truck with a heavy weapon”, it’s called a “technical”. An AC-130 gunship is not “air support” it’s an AC-130 gunship. A Predator drone is not a drone, it’s a Predator. An F-16 is not a “fighter jet” it’s an F-16. A QRF is not a “Quick Reaction Force”, it’s a QRF. Too bad for you if you don’t read enough to know what these things are and how they work. Everyone should be interested in these things, because these things matter for national security and foreign policy.

And the actual scenes of shooting is not mindless gunplay like in “Inception” or “The Matrix” – they try to show you the ranges, the cover, the concealment, the lines of sight, suppression, etc. There is realistic confusion about fog of war (FOW) and identifaction: friend of foe (IFF). The fact that this is a true story where the people involved all collaborated on the book and on the movie makes it really something if you like realism. This is how State Department and CIA work in other countries really goes down. If you liked “Act of Valor”, “American Sniper”, “Blackhawk Down”, “Lone Survivor” or the battle scenes in “Rules of Engagement”, then you need to see this movie.

Hillary Clinton look bored about the deaths of 4 Americans who asked for her help
Hillary Clinton look bored about the deaths of 4 Americans who asked for her help

What difference at this point does it make?

All right, now the politics was kept to a minimum in the movie, but I was asked to list out all the posts that I wrote about this.

The list of posts goes back in time from October 22, 2015 to September 13th, 2012 (the day after the terrorist attack):

  1. Hillary Clinton’s State Department ignored 600+ requests for more security in Benghazi
  2. Why did Hillary Clinton blame the Benghazi terrorist attack on an “Internet video”?
  3. All evidence points to Hillary Clinton as source of internet video lie
  4. E-mails: Hillary Clinton’s top aides knew in minutes that Benghazi was a terrorist attack
  5. Clinton confidants were present to “separate” damaging documents before Benghazi probe
  6. E-mails: Susan Rice prepped to lie about Benghazi by White House
  7. Transcripts show that top U.S. military officials briefed Obama on Benghazi terrorist attack
  8. Benghazi liar Susan Rice to be appointed National Security Adviser by grateful Obama
  9. Released e-mails show that State Department edited terrorism out of Benghazi talking points
  10. Obama: editing of talking points to cover-up of Benghazi terrorist attack is a “sideshow”
  11. BBC News covers whistle-blower testimony: “After Benghazi revelations, heads will roll”
  12. What we learned from the Benghazi whistle-blowers
  13. Whistle-blower: State Department cut counterterrorism experts out of Benghazi decisions
  14. Official: We knew Benghazi was a terrorist attack “from the get-go”
  15. Benghazi whistle-blower: assets to protect the embassy were available
  16. Obama administration refused to engage top counter-terrorism resource for Benghazi
  17. Classified cable sent on August 16th warned of vulnerability of Benghazi consulate
  18. Requests for support from Benghazi defenders denied by the Obama administration
  19. White House told that terrorists took credit for Benghazi attack within two hours
  20. Unmanned drone observed Benghazi attack, no help sent for 7 hours
  21. CIA in Libya reported that Benghazi was a terrorist attack in first 24 hours
  22. Obama’s Watergate: State Department falsifies Obama’s Benghazi cover-up
  23. Benghazi attack was a massive failure of Obama’s security policy
  24. UK Independent: “America ‘was warned of embassy attack but did nothing’”
  25. Al Qaeda chief suspect in Libya terrorist attack, Obama flies to Las Vegas fundraiser

And of course the famous Hillary Clinton meltdown when questions about why she blamed a terrorist attack on a YouTube video, and why there was a stand down order to prevent help from being sent.

Hillary also lied to the families of the victims, telling the families that she blamed a YouTube video for protests that got out of hand.

To make a long story short, the Benghazi terrorist attack occurred two months before the 2012 re-election of Barack Obama. And that’s why Obama, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice lied to the American people about it – they did not want the American people to know how poorly their Libya intervention had worked out. An intervention that was strongly supported by easily-influenced moderate, establishment Republicans such as Marco Rubio, by the way. Everyone who voted for the Obama administration in the 2012 elections voted against the 4 Americans who were killed in that terrorist attack. As Secretary of State, Clinton did not prioritize national security. Her focus was on promoting abortion and gay rights abroad.

Searching by tag name

If you want to search the blog by tag, just add tag/<tagName> to the end of the web page address (URL). The list above was generated with: “https://winteryknight.com/tag/Benghazi“. Use a dash for spaces in the tagName. For my other series of posts about Democrat scandals, such as Fast and Furious, just change the tag name: “https://winteryknight.com/tag/Fast-and-Furious“. You can do the same thing with the e-mail scandal, the Clinton Foundation scandal, and all the other scandals of this corrupt Democrat administration.

DHS whistleblower: Obama more concerned with protecting Islamists than Americans

Is Barack Obama focused on protecting the American people?
Is Barack Obama focused on protecting the American people?

This PJ Media article is by Debra Heine.

Excerpt:

Philip Haney, the Homeland Security whistleblower whose investigation into Islamic infiltration of the U.S. might have prevented the San Bernardino attack, has written an important op-ed for The Hill, warning of President Obama’s misplaced priorities when it comes to national security. In brief, says Haney, “the Obama administration is more concerned with the rights of non-citizens in known Islamist groups than with the safety and security of the American people.”

There are terrorists in our midst and they arrived here using legal means right under the noses of the federal law enforcement agencies whose mission is to stop them. That is not due to malfeasance or lack of effort on the part of these officers; it is due to the restrictions placed on them by the Obama administration.

Not only did the Obama administration shut down an important investigation that could have connected enough dots to prevent the San Bernardino terrorist attack, they went back and erased the dots Haney was “diligently connecting.” Worse yet, when he complained to the DHS inspector general, the DHS and the Department of Justice subjected him “to a series of investigations and adverse actions, including one by that same inspector general.”

None of them showed any wrongdoing; they seemed aimed at stopping me from blowing the whistle on this problem.

Debra (Nice Deb) was one of the first people to blogroll me when I was first starting out with blogging.

She links to Gates of Vienna, another of my blogroll friends, and quotes them about that:

The “behavioral indicators” listed to help DHS agents identify potential domestic terrorists include carrying around a copy of the Constitution, promoting First and Second Amendment rights, having a Gadsden flag sticker on one’s car, and advocating for a minimal federal government.

[The Obama administration’s approach] is thus designed to serve a dual purpose: (1) to protect Muslim Brotherhood organizations and their operatives who have penetrated federal, state, and local governments, and (2) to help the Obama administration crack down on its real enemies, domestic conservatives who want to re-establish constitutional governance.

Debra wrote a couple of prior articles on this DHS whistleblower, one from 12/14 and one from 12/11.

So is it really true that the Obama administration – in their mad rush to let in immigrants from countries that don’t like us very much – is not serious about keeping terrorists out?

CBS News reported that 5 different Obama administration agencies failed to detect one of the San Bernadino terrorists:

Tashfeen Malik arrived in the United States with her fiance Syed Farook in July 2014. Just two months earlier, her U.S. government background check found no suspected ties to terrorism.

She was granted a K-1 visa, even though the FBI now believes she was radicalized before she met Farook.

The State Department says Malik was thoroughly questioned during an interview at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan.

[…]Five U.S. agencies also vetted her, checking her fingerprints against two databases. Neither her name nor image showed up on a U.S. terror watch list.

One can only imagine that the questions were like “do you believe in the Constitution?” or “do you attend a Christian church?” or “do you think that abortion should be restricted?”. She would be rejected if she affirmed any of those, of course, but affirming Islamic jihad is nothing to be concerned about – if you’re a Democrat.

Homeland Security's new enemy!
Homeland Security’s new enemy! This little girl who supports the Constitution.

It seems to me our national security agencies have been indoctrinated by their Democrat leaders to target conservative taxpayers instead of radicalized Islamists. And in fact we have evidence of that, reported in the Washington Times way back in 2009:

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity,” saying the economic recession, the election of America’s first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” the warning says.

[…]The nine-page document was sent to police and sheriff’s departments across the United States on April 7 under the headline, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”

It says the federal government “will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months” to gather information on “rightwing extremist activity in the United States.”

The joint federal-state activities will have “a particular emphasis” on the causes of “rightwing extremist radicalization.”

According to Democrats, radical Islam is not the real threat. American taxpayers who want to not pay for abortions are the real threat. And it turns out that many Democrat voters think that this is correct, even in an age of Islamic terrorism.

Nile Gardiner writes about a recent Rasmussen Reports poll in the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

[A]mong those who approve of the president’s job performance, just 29% see radical Muslims as the bigger threat. Twenty-six percent (26%) say it’s the Tea Party that concerns them most. Among those who Strongly Approve of the president, more fear the Tea Party than radical Muslims.

[…]Twenty percent (20%) of government workers see the Tea Party as the nation’s bigger terror threat.

That’s what we voted for, when we voted for Barack Obama.

Obama releases jihadists from Guantanomo, then misleads the public about it

Neville Chamberlain Obama: peace in our time
Neville Chamberlain Obama: peace in our time

This is from the Weekly Standard.

Excerpt:

Consider the Taliban Five, released in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl. Although Obama administration officials initially downplayed the significance of these detainees, intelligence and military officials made it clear that they were high-risk transfers. Michael Leiter, the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center under Obama, said it was “very, very likely” that the five Taliban leaders would return to the fight. Rob Williams, the national intelligence officer for South Asia, who briefed Congress shortly after the transfer, testified that there was a high likelihood that at least four of the five freed detainees, and possibly all of them, would rejoin the fight.

And what about Ibrahim al Qosi?

[…]Was he a “low-level” fighter, as Obama suggested?

He is not. Qosi is now a senior leader in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as the group’s public spokesman. AQAP has repeatedly attempted to attack the U.S., while taking over large parts of Yemen. The dossier compiled by U.S. officials for Qosi demonstrates that he served bin Laden in multiple roles because he was so trusted.

Does this surprise you? It turns out that Obama regularly makes decisions that benefit America’s enemies, and put America’s allies and armed forces in harm’s way. His job is to make us safe, but his ideology prevents him from doing that, apparently. He just doesn’t have a sufficient grasp on reality that he is able to make decisions that produce good results for his clients – the American people. Instead, he wants to do things that make him feel good about himself – “look at me, I’m so merciful and compassionate” – and then when bad consequences occur, he tries to minimize the damage by lying about the harm he’s caused to his gullible followers. As if lying to them about the mess he’s made somehow makes the mess go away. I know that children sometimes do that, but this is the President of the United States. I expect more accountability.

And as for the misleading the American public:

“I am absolutely persuaded, as are my top intelligence and military advisers, that Guantanamo is used as a recruitment tool for organizations like ISIS,” Obama began. “And if we want to fight ’em, then we can’t give ’em these kinds of excuses.”

There is no reason that Obama would need to be “persuaded” of something that can be easily demonstrated. Either Guantanamo is a major recruitment tool or it’s not.

Administration officials have been making this claim for years and it’s not true.

Guantanamo rarely appears in jihadist propaganda, whether ISIS or al Qaeda, and reviews of recent propaganda materials from ISIS and al Qaeda – online videos and audio recordings, glossy magazines, etc. – found very few mentions of the facility.

“Keep in mind that between myself and the Bush administration hundreds of people have been released and the recidivism rate – we anticipate,” Obama said. “We assume that there are going to be – out of four, five, six-hundred people that get released – a handful of them are going to be embittered and still engaging in anti-US activities and trying to link up potentially with their old organizations.”

A handful? Obama is woefully ill-informed or he’s being dishonest. According to the most recent report on Guantanamo recidivism, prepared in September 2015 by James Clapper’s office, Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, 196 former detainees are either confirmed (117) or suspected (79) of returning to the fight. That’s a recidivism rate of more than 30 percent. Intelligence officials tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD that those numbers are almost certainly low, as they do not include jihadists the United States and its allies are no longer tracking.

How many times have you seen Obama assert that “all the experts agree with me” without naming any? Do you know why he does that? Because no one agrees with him, and that’s why he cannot name any names. The surprising thing is that his gullible supporters believe that, instead of saying “name one person who agrees with you”. We have stopped asking questions, apparently.