Tag Archives: Benghazi

News

Hillary Clinton gets Four Pinocchios rating for Fox News interview

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What difference does national security make?
What difference at this point does national security make? How dare you question the Queen?

There was an interview on Fox News Sunday featuring centrist Chris Wallace and Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Full video:

It was hard work to find any news articles that mentioned the exchanges about Benghazi, her private, unsecure e-mail server and alleged peddling of Secretary of State influence for foreign donations, through the Clinton foundation,

Regarding Benghazi, the Washington Free Beacon noted that Clinton called one of the gold star moms a liar, for contradicting Clinton’s story that the terrorist attack was caused by a YouTube video:

 

With Benghazi playing a major theme in the attacks against Clinton, Wallace played a video clip from the Republican National Convention (RNC) of Pat Smith blaming Clinton for her son’s death.

“I blame Hillary Clinton. I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son. That’s personally,” Smith said.

Wallace asked Clinton about Smith’s comments that Clinton lied to her and the other families on the day when the Benghazi victims’ bodies returned to the United States.

“I don’t hold any ill feeling for someone who in that moment may not fully recall everything that was or wasn’t said,” Clinton said.

Wallace played the video of Clinton blaming the attack on YouTube video. She’s not just calling the gold star mom a liar, she’s calling the video of her blaming the video a liar, too.

Breitbart News reported on the questions Wallace asked about the Clinton Foundation:

Wallace, in an exclusive sit-down interview, asked Clinton about allegations first made in Clinton Cash, the book and now film/graphic novel, that Clinton used the multi-billion-dollar charity for international “pay-to-play” deals while she served as Secretary of State. Author and Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer says that Clinton Foundation donors were on the receiving end of corrupt deals approved by Hillary’s State Department — including the sale of U.S. uranium to Russia and a rare, lucrative mining permit in Haiti.

Clinton retorted that she is “really proud of the Clinton Foundation,” yet not a single speaker at the DNC last week — not even Bill or Chelsea Clinton — mentioned the Foundation or its spinoffs such as the Clinton Global Initiative.

[…]This week, news broke that the IRS is investigating the Clinton Foundation. Earlier this month, FBI Director James Comey would not confirm or deny whether the bureau is investigating the Foundation during congressional testimony. Just days later, The Globe and Mail reported that “The Canadian affiliate of the Clinton Foundation is spending an astounding 78 percent of the money it raises on administrative costs.”

And finally, she got a Four Pinnochios rating from the far-left Washington Post for her comments about her private, unsecure e-mail server – which she used to prevent her employer from reading her e-mails when she was Secretary of State:

The Facts

“Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails.”
—Hillary Clinton, interview on “Fox News Sunday,” July 31, 2016

Clinton made these remarks after “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace played a video of her saying: “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified materials. I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time. I had not sent classified material nor received anything marked classified.”

As Wallace put it, “After a long investigation, FBI Director James Comey said none of those things that you told the American public were true.”

After Clinton denied that, Wallace played another video of an exchange between Comey and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chair of the House Select Committee on Benghazi:

GOWDY: Secretary Clinton said there was nothing marked classified on her emails either sent or received. Was that true?
COMEY: That’s not true.
GOWDY: Secretary Clinton said, “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.” Was that true?
COMEY: There was classified material emailed.
So what’s going on here?

The Facts

Clinton is cherry-picking statements by Comey to preserve her narrative about the unusual setup of a private email server. This allows her to skate past the more disturbing findings of the FBI investigation

[…]The Pinocchio Test

As we have seen repeatedly in Clinton’s explanations of the email controversy,she relies on excessively technical and legalistic answers to explain her actions. While Comey did say there was no evidence she lied to the FBI, that is not the same as saying she told the truth to the American public — which was the point of Wallace’s question. Comey has repeatedly not taken a stand on her public statements.

And although Comey did say many emails were retroactively classified, he also said that there were some emails that were already classified that should not have been sent on an unclassified, private server. That’s the uncomfortable truth that Clinton has trouble admitting.

Her final rating:

Four Pinocchios

It’s a firing offense – unless you’re Hillary Clinton. And when you are dealing with classified information, it’s a treason offense – unless you’re Hillary Clinton.

News

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

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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.

Events

It’s time for my annual trip to the movie theater… to see “13 Hours”

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

Here’s the trailer:

I listened to an episode of of the Weekly Standard podcast featuring Stephen Hayes. No one has done more and better reporting on Benghazi than Stephen Hayes, and I’ve featured his work on it on this blog. I wanted to see what he thought of the movie. He loved it, and said it was accurate to the way it was reported by the Weekly Standard and elsewhere.

I looked at 3 reviews, and chose this one from the leftist Seattle Times to quote here.

Excerpt:

Friend? Or foe?

Those are the critical questions bedeviling the six main characters in “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.”

Strangers in a strange land, unable to speak or understand Arabic, assigned to provide security at a secret CIA installation in the restive Libyan city of the title — for them, those questions have life and death implications when the nearby ambassadorial compound is overrun by jihadist attackers on the night of Sept. 11, 2012. The assault claims the lives of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

In Michael Bay’s gripping dramatization of that controversial event, the men, highly trained American private security operatives, can’t be sure if the figures they see moving toward them in the dark are jihadists or friendly Libyan militia members who are supposed to be the main protectors of the compound. The loyalty of those supposed allies is also questionable. It’s only when the shooting starts that the questions are answered, and then the six are in for the fight of their lives.

The picture is reminiscent of “Black Hawk Down” and “American Sniper” in the way it marries visceral Hollywood-style filmmaking (a Bay trademark) with sober subject matter in a manner that doesn’t trivialize the seriousness of the story it’s telling.

Based on Mitchell Zuckoff’s 2014 best-seller “13 Hours,” Bay’s movie is a ground-level depiction of heroism in the midst of the fog of war. Hewing closely to Zuckoff’s true-life account, Bay seems to have no political ax to grind, at least with respect to the role in the fiasco of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose name is never mentioned.

I have heard the actual operators interviewed on TV and on several radio shows. They were heavily involved in the book and the movie. So, I’m going to do something that I really hate, and give the movie theater my money to see this thing. I am almost certain I won’t be disappointed. I loved Act of Valor, American Sniper and especially Lone Survivor, and people are comparing this movie to those movies. If you’re looking for something to see this weekend, try this one.