Tag Archives: National Security

News

Kyle Clarke of 9NEWS grills Obama on Benghazi and green energy corruption

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Watch the raw video (7 minutes) here before it disappears. (H/T ABC News via ECM)

Excerpt:

KUSA – President Barack Obama would not directly address questions from 9NEWS on whether Americans under attack in Libya were denied requests for assistance during the September 11th terror attack.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Friday that the military did not send immediate help to the consulate in Benghazi because commanders lacked enough information about the ongoing attack to put troops in harm’s way.

President Obama discussed the situation in Libya during a satellite interview Friday afternoon with 9NEWS reporter Kyle Clark, who also asked if it’s fair for Americans to be told to wait until after the election to learn what truly happened in Libya.

“The election has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened,” President Obama said. “Nobody wants to find out more what happened than I do.”

President Obama was directly asked twice whether pleas for help on the ground in Libya were denied during the attack. Both times, he repeated his standard call for a thorough investigation.

The President was also asked about the loss of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars in the failure of Abound Solar, a Fort Collins company connected to one of the President’s billionaire fundraisers.

“These loans that are given out by the Department of Energy for clean energy have created jobs all across the country,” President Obama said. “Some of them have failed but the vast majority of them are pushing us forward into a clean energy direction.”

“These are decisions, by the way, that are made by the Department of Energy, they have nothing to do with politics,” President Obama said.

President Obama was asked, in light of his calls for increased civility in politics, why he recently called Governor Mitt Romney a “bullsh—–” in an interview appearing in Rolling Stone magazine.

That article has excerpts from the transcripts for those who cannot watch the video.

This interview is amazing. Actual journalism. This is a must-see. Click the link and watch it NOW. Watch Obama squirm to defend his record without a teleprompter to save him. Oh my God. I have never, ever seen a reporter actually challenge this President in four years. This is amazing. CLICK THE LINK AND WATCH IT.

The mainstream media, tilted to the left as it is, has given Barack Obama a pass for the last four years. No one wanted to ask him any hard questions. Until this interview.

Also, please check the links below to make sure you keep up to date on this story, and Obama’s other foreign policy blunders. This is our generation’s Watergate – only it’s worse. Obama lied, Americans died. His weak foreign policy emboldened our enemies. Rather than hold the terrorists accountable, he blamed some unknown film maker who had nothing to do with causing the attack.

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News

Paul Ryan’s views on foreign policy and social issues

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Rep. Paul Ryan
Rep. Paul Ryan

We all know that Paul Ryan is conservative on fiscal issues. He’s the man with a plan to stop overspending and solve the debt problem. But where does he stand on other issues?

Here’s an article from the liberal Washington Post about Ryan’s foreign policy views.

Excerpt:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) gave a speech Thursday to the Alexander Hamilton Society in Washington. If one is looking for clues as to Ryan’s interests beyond chairing the House Budget Committee, a speech, as he put it, to “a room full of national security experts about American foreign policy” would merit attention.

…Ryan delivered an above-the-fray talk on the subject of American uniqueness (a less loaded term) and the myth that American decline in inevitable. He posited, “Our fiscal policy and our foreign policy are on a collision course; and if we fail to put our budget on a sustainable path, then we are choosing decline as a world power.”

Ryan contends that the debt crisis is not a bookkeeping problem or even simply a domestic problem; it is about maintaining our status as a superpower and about American values.

[…]He plainly is not with the cut-and-run set on Afghanistan. “Although the war has been long and the human costs high, failure would be a blow to American prestige and would reinvigorate al-Qaeda, which is reeling from the death of its leader. Now is the time to lock in the success that is within reach.” Nor can he be accused of wanting to “go it alone.” “The Obama administration has taken our allies for granted and accepted too willingly the decline of their capacity for international action. Our alliances were vital to our victory in the Cold War, and they need to be revitalized to see us through the 21st century.”

As for China, he bats down the idea that we should go along to get along… He’s clear that China has “very different values and interests from our own.”

And finally on defense spending, he rejects the sort of penny-pinching isolationism of Jon Huntsman or Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.).

According to On The Issues, he’s solid on military spending:

  • Rated 22% by SANE, indicating a pro-military voting record
  • YES on $266 billion Defense Appropriations bill
  • YES on deploying SDI
  • YES on emergency $78B for war in Iraq & Afghanistan
  • YES on continuing military recruitment on college campuses
  • YES on restricting no-bid defense contracts

He’s solid on counter-terrorism:

  • NO on Veto override: Congressional oversight of CIA interrogations
  • NO on requiring FISA warrants for wiretaps in US, but not abroad
  • YES on making the PATRIOT Act permanent
  • YES on continuing intelligence gathering without civil oversight
  • YES on allowing electronic surveillance without a warrant
  • YES on removing need for FISA warrant for wiretapping abroad
  • YES on retroactive immunity for telecoms’ warrantless surveillance

And supports military intervention against Islamic terrorists:

  • Strengthen sanctions on Syria & assist democratic transition
  • Sanctions on Iran to end nuclear program
  • YES on authorizing military force in Iraq
  • YES on declaring Iraq part of War on Terror with no exit date
  • NO on redeploying US troops out of Iraq starting in 90 days
  • NO on investigating Bush impeachment for lying about Iraq

I agree with him on all of that. But how is he on social issues?

Excerpt:

Ryan, the top Republican on the Budget Committee who has a strongly pro-life record, talked about the place social issues have in the election in an interview with CNBC last week.

“We will agree to disagree on those issues,” Ryan said last Monday on CNBC. “But let’s rally around the tallest pole in our tent

Ryan also released a statement today that LifeNews.com received saying pro-life issues are not on a list of menu items that have to be given up during the election season.

“Healthy debate should take place within the Republican Party on specific policies, but it is a false choice to ask which natural right we should discard

“All planks – economic liberty and limited government; keeping our nation secure; championing America’s founding truths and the dignity of every human person – are rooted in same timeless principles, enshrined in our Founding and the cause of our exceptionalism,” Ryan added. “The American family must remain at the core of our free society, and I will remain ever-vigilant in its defense.”

Conor Sweeney, a top Ryan spokesman, told LifeNews.com today that Ryan doesn’t agree with the “truce” on social issues Barbour and Daniels have advocated.

“Paul Ryan rejects the false choice that our natural rights to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ are a menu of options,” he said, adding that Ryan has been “calling upon his colleagues to defend the sanctity of life.”

He also pointed to comments Ryan made in a Weekly Standard interview rejecting the “truce” language and putting him outside the Daniels-Barbour circle.

“I don’t see it quite the same way [as Daniels],” Ryan said in June, “we don’t need to ask anybody to unilaterally disarm.”

“I’m as pro-life as a person gets,” Ryan continued. “You’re not going to have a truce. Judges are going to come up. Issues come up, they’re unavoidable, and I’m never going to not vote pro-life.”

Here’s his voting record on pro-life issues:

  • Rated 0% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record
  • Rated 100% by the NRLC, indicating a pro-life stance
  • Prohibit transporting minors across state lines for abortion
  • Bar funding for abortion under federal Obamacare plans
  • Congress shall protect life beginning with fertilization
  • Prohibit federal funding to groups like Planned Parenthood
  • Grant the pre-born equal protection under 14th Amendment
  • YES on barring transporting minors to get an abortion
  • YES on banning partial-birth abortions
  • YES on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad
  • YES on federal crime to harm fetus while committing other crimes
  • YES on funding for health providers who don’t provide abortion info
  • YES on banning partial-birth abortion except to save mother’s life
  • YES on making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime
  • YES on restricting interstate transport of minors to get abortions
  • NO on allowing human embryonic stem cell research
  • NO on expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines

And he is also a strong defender of traditional marriage:

  • Rated 0% by the HRC, indicating an anti-gay-rights stance
  • YES on banning gay adoptions in DC.
  • YES on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage
  • YES on Constitutionally defining marriage as one-man-one-woman
  • YES on prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation
  • NO on enforcing against anti-gay hate crimes

Tough on crime:

  • Rated 30% by CURE, indicating anti-rehabilitation crime votes
  • YES on more prosecution and sentencing for juvenile crime
  • NO on funding for alternative sentencing instead of more prisons.
  • NO on expanding services for offendors’ re-entry into society

Favors school choice:

  • Rated 8% by the NEA, indicating anti-public education votes
  • NO on environmental education grants for outdoor experiences
  • NO on $40B for green public schools

And an increased role for families and churches:

  • YES on responsible fatherhood via faith-based organizations
  • YES on treating religious organizations equally for tax breaks
  • NO on instituting National Service as a new social invention

So definitely not just a fiscal conservative. He’s conservative across the board. And STRONGLY so.

Female readers of the Wintery Knight blog may now swoon.

News

Requests for support from Benghazi defenders denied by the Obama administration

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AC-130H Spectre
AC-130H Spectre gunship

Exclusive story from Fox News. This one is a must-read. (H/T Weasel Zippers via ECM)

Excerpt:

Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command — who also told the CIA operators twice to “stand down” rather than help the ambassador’s team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.

Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods was part of a small team who was at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under attack. When he and others heard the shots fired, they informed their higher-ups at the annex to tell them what they were hearing and requested permission to go to the consulate and help out. They were told to “stand down,” according to sources familiar with the exchange. Soon after, they were again told to “stand down.”

Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a [AC-130] Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights.

Read the rest.

Respected military blogger and former paratrooper BlackFive has more details here (H/T ECM) from a Delta Force operator who thinks that the AC-130 was “on station”, i.e. – in flight:

Having spent a good bit of time nursing a GLD (ground Laser Designator) in several garden spots around the world, something from the report jumped out at me.
One of the former SEALs was actively painting the target.  That means that Specter WAS ON STATION!  Probably an AC130U.  A ground laser designator is not a briefing pointer laser.  You do not “paint” a target until the weapons system/designator is synched; which means that the AC130 was on station.
Only two places could have called off the attack at that point; the WH situation command (based on POTUS direction) or AFRICOM commander based on information directly from the target area.
If the AC130 never left Sigonella (as Penetta says) that means that the Predator that was filming the whole thing was armed.
If that SEAL was actively “painting” a target; something was on station to engage!  And the decision to stand down goes directly to POTUS!

And BlackFive himself writes:

Even with two Predators on station, one unarmed and filming and one armed, the call to stand down comes from the same sources.  Earlier today, Bob Owens at PJ Media posts about the responsibility of the order to call off the mission as well as some good info about the AC130s on station.

Here’s the Predator:

Predator UAV drone firing missile
Predator UAV drone firing missile

AC-130 gunships and Predator drones are incredibly accurate when the target is being “lit” by a laser target designator (LTID) on the ground. There was no reason not to engage, and lives could have been saved. Instead, the Obama administration did nothing. This is worse than Watergate. Nobody was murdered by our enemies in Watergate. Nobody died because Nixon lied.

Gateway Pundit has already pointed out that the Obama administration refused to call for support that was an hour away in Italy.

The father of the ex-Navy SEAL killed at the consulate is calling for accountability from “the murderers of my son“. Will Obama respond? Or should we expect the same response as he gave to the death of the Border Patrol agent killed because his administration’s “Fast and Furious” gun-running operation?

UPDATE: CIA director David Petraeus confirms that “No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate” . The Weekly Standard agrees that it was likely a decision made by the President himself.

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