(Jdg
2:1-4 KJV) ¶ And an angel of the
LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt,
and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said,
I will never break my covenant with you. 2 And ye shall make no league with the
inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not
obeyed my voice: why have ye done this? 3 Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them
out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their
gods shall be a snare unto you. 4
And it came to pass, when the angel of the LORD spake these words unto all the
children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice, and wept.
More O Malfeasance / Benghazi baddies get away with
murder
The
biblical and constitutional remedy for our current political sickness is
impeachment, conviction, and removal from office.
The Real Scandal
Why are the Benghazi
killers still at large?
JAN
27, 2014, VOL. 19, NO. 19 • BY STEPHEN F. HAYES AND THOMAS JOSCELYN
Months
and months ago, when Barack Obama could be bothered to say anything at all
about the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012, the president
promised to bring the perpetrators to justice. That was before White House
spokesman Jay Carney dismissed the attacks as something that “happened a long
time ago.”
It’s
been 16 months. The U.S. government has neither captured nor killed a single
participant in those attacks, which left Ambassador Christopher Stevens and
three other Americans dead.
Why?
A new report on the attacks from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,
along with more than 400 pages of newly declassified congressional testimony
from senior military officials, provides fresh insight. The explanation for
this failure—a lack of will, combined with a shameless mischaracterization of
intelligence—is almost as outrageous as the failure itself.
Since
the attack in Benghazi, the Obama administration has refused to publicly identify
the parties responsible. But the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report
confirms that the U.S. government’s investigation has turned up more and more
ties to al Qaeda.
“Individuals
affiliated with terrorist groups, including AQIM [Al Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb], Ansar al-Sharia, AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula], and the
Mohammad Jamal Network, participated in the September 11, 2012, attacks,”
according to the Senate Benghazi report, prepared under the supervision of
Chairman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, and signed by every Democrat on the
panel.
Obama
administration officials know this. And so, when questioned by the press, they
increasingly rely on a false distinction. While some of the perpetrators may be
tied to al Qaeda, the administration argues, they are not part of “core” al
Qaeda.
State
Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf lectured reporters on this supposedly
crucial distinction during a briefing on January 14. A reporter pointed out
that Feinstein has openly disagreed with the idea that al Qaeda had nothing to
do with the attack. “I believe that groups loosely associated with al Qaeda
were” involved, she told the Hill last week. Feinstein’s comment was actually
an understatement, but it was enough to draw a defensive response from Harf.
“Well,
as I said, we have no information at this point that core al Qaeda, which I
think is probably what the senator was referring to, was involved in planning
or directing this attack,” Harf responded. Harf pointed to the State
Department’s recent terrorist designation of Ansar al Sharia, one of the groups
responsible, and conceded that there may be “some affiliations between some
people in Ansar al Sharia and some people who may be affiliated with al Qaeda.”
Still, Harf insisted: “But let’s be very clear that we don’t have
evidence—which I think we should all rely on evidence here—in our investigation
that links core al Qaeda to developing, planning this attack at this point.”
Harf
is right that “we should all rely on evidence.” When we look at the available
evidence it becomes crystal clear that the Obama administration is dissembling.
The
Senate Intelligence Committee’s report found that terrorists “affiliated” with
four organizations participated in the attack. The ties between those organizations
and al Qaeda are direct. Two of those groups,
AQIM and AQAP, are official branches of al Qaeda. Both have sworn
allegiance to Ayman al Zawahiri, the head of al Qaeda since the death of Osama
bin Laden, and there is considerable evidence that they continue to follow the
direction set forth by Zawahiri and his advisers.
Neither
Harf nor any other administration official has offered a precise definition of
“core” al Qaeda. The term, invented in the West, vaguely refers to the group’s
top leaders in South Asia. But al Qaeda’s senior leaders are not confined to
any one nation or region. They operate in several countries across the globe.
A
short biography of Nasir al Wu-hayshi, the general manager of al Qaeda, shows
just how dubious the administration’s concept of “core” al Qaeda really is.
Wuhayshi was handpicked by Osama bin Laden to serve as his aide-de-camp and
protégé years before the September 11, 2001, attacks. He fled Afghanistan after
the Taliban’s fall in late 2001 and was then imprisoned for several years in
his native Yemen. But Wuhayshi eventually escaped and quickly rose through al
Qaeda’s ranks once again. In early 2009, he announced the creation of Al Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula—a merger of al Qaeda’s wings in Saudi Arabia and
Yemen. In August 2013, Zawahiri appointed Wuhayshi as al Qaeda’s global general
manager—a “core” position if there ever was one. Wuhayshi is largely
responsible for managing al Qaeda’s international operations. The position was
previously filled by terrorists operating in Pakistan. In short, Wuhayshi is
“core” al Qaeda.
Some
of Wuhayshi’s men participated in the Benghazi assault. CNN first reported that
several Yemenis belonging to AQAP were directly involved. The Senate
Intelligence Committee has now confirmed the participation of terrorists
“affiliated” with Wuhayshi’s AQAP.
A
third group identified in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report is the
Muhammad Jamal network. Jamal is an Egyptian who was trained by al Qaeda in the
late 1980s. In the years that followed, Jamal served as a commander in the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), a group headed by Ayman al Zawahiri that merged
with Osama bin Laden’s joint venture prior to the 9/11 attacks. Jamal was
imprisoned by Hosni Mubarak’s regime, but released in 2011 after the Arab
uprisings. He quickly got back to work. Jamal established training camps in the
Sinai Peninsula and eastern Libya.
Jamal
was rearrested in late 2012. Egyptian authorities then discovered, on a seized
computer, that Jamal had been in direct contact with Zawahiri. In his letters,
Jamal reveals that he had sworn bayat (an oath of allegiance) to Zawahiri. This
oath is binding and requires Jamal to follow Zawahiri’s orders. One of Jamal’s
letters to Zawahiri was dated August 18, 2012—less than a month before the
attack in Benghazi. (The letter summarized Jamal’s prior operations, but
doesn’t discuss any upcoming plans.)
Jamal
was working to establish his own official branch of al Qaeda prior to his most
recent confinement. He was clearly operating as part of the al Qaeda network.
Both the State Department and the United Nations have recognized in formal
terrorist designations that Jamal conspired with AQAP, AQIM, and al Qaeda’s
senior leadership in Pakistan.
As
was first reported by the Wall Street Journal and other press outlets, some of
Jamal’s Egyptian trainees helped overrun the U.S. compound in Benghazi. The
Senate Intelligence Committee’s report confirms this fact.
The
final group identified in the Senate report is Ansar al Sharia. Administration
officials and some journalists have tried to portray Ansar al Sharia as a
purely “local” group unaffiliated with al Qaeda’s global operations. This is
false. According to multiple recent reports, the Ansar al Sharia chapters in
Libya and Tunisia are sending fighters to al Qaeda’s branches in Syria. Leaders
in both organizations are openly pro-al Qaeda, even when they deny being part
of the organization. And in the recent State Department designation mentioned
by Harf, the Obama administration recognized that Ansar al Sharia Tunisia is,
in fact, “tied” to al Qaeda’s branches, including AQIM. Ansar al Sharia Tunisia
was responsible for the ransacking of the U.S. embassy in Tunis on September
14, 2012.
The
head of Ansar al Sharia in Derna, Libya, is a former Guantánamo detainee named
Sufian Ben Qumu. A leaked threat assessment authored by military officials at
Guantánamo identifies Ben Qumu as a longtime al Qaeda operative and “associate”
of Osama bin Laden. The same file notes that Ben Qumu’s alias was discovered on
the laptop of the terrorist who oversaw the finances for the 9/11 plot. The
paymaster listed Ben Qumu as an al Qaeda “member receiving family support.” Ben
Qumu trained in al Qaeda camps, received al Qaeda stipends, and worked with
senior al Qaeda leaders.
Members
of Ben Qumu’s group in Derna also took part in the Benghazi attack, according
to the State Department.
The
ties between al Qaeda and the four organizations identified in the Senate
Intelligence Committee’s report are obvious and indisputable. What’s more,
prior to the Benghazi attack, the U.S. government had no trouble identifying
the groups involved as being part of al Qaeda. A July 6, 2012, report authored
by the CIA, “Libya: Al Qaeda Establishing Sanctuary,” described the Jamal
network, AQAP, and AQIM as “al Qaeda-affiliated” groups and warned that they
“have conducted training, built communication networks, and facilitated
extremist travel across North Africa from their safe haven in parts of eastern
Libya.”
On
August 16, 2012, Ambassador Stevens sent a cable to the State Department’s
headquarters summarizing a security meeting the previous day. During that meeting, a CIA officer pinpointed
“the location of approximately 10 Islamist militias and AQ training camps
within Benghazi.” Also in August 2012, the Library of Congress published a
report in conjunction with the Defense Department’s Combating Terrorism
Technical Support Office (“Al Qaeda in Libya: A Profile”) that exposed al
Qaeda’s clandestine network inside Libya and concluded that Sufian Ben Qumu and
his Ansar al Sharia group have “increasingly embodied al Qaeda’s presence in
Libya.”
Immediately
after the attack, nothing changed. According to Feinstein, when then-CIA
director David Petraeus testified before her committee on September 13, 2012,
he was clear that “al Qaeda elements” were involved in the assault. On
September 14, the original draft of the CIA’s talking points noted, “we do know
that Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda participated in the attack.” A
follow-up draft contained the same language before it was taken out—ostensibly
to protect sources and methods but certainly not because it was inaccurate. In
public statements well beyond those early days after the attack, members of the
intelligence committees in both houses of Congress—and from both parties—pointed
to al Qaeda involvement in the Benghazi attack.
Even
so, the Obama administration persists in hiding behind a rhetorical smoke
screen. It claims there is no evidence that “core al Qaeda” gave a secret,
specific order for these groups to conduct this particular attack, at this
particular time, in this particular manner. But we know that senior al Qaeda
leaders wanted U.S. facilities attacked. We know this, because they said so,
publicly. On September 10, 2012, the day before the Benghazi attacks, Ayman al
Zawahiri released a 42-minute video in which he called on followers to avenge
the death of Abu Yaha al Libi, a senior al Qaeda operative from Libya who had
been killed in a U.S. drone attack in June.
Zawahiri
called to the “Ummah of Islam and oh free and honorable ones in Libya” to seek
revenge. “So, where are you from retaliating for your son and reviver of the
biography of your Sheikh? His blood is calling you and is urging you and is
inciting you to fight and kill the crusaders. So, don’t weaken.”
The
Obama administration would have us believe that what happened in Libya the
following day, on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, was a coincidence. White
House spokesman Jay Carney has scolded reporters for “conflating” the attacks
in Benghazi with the anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001, as if
the events are obviously unrelated. The administration is clinging to the
fanciful notion that multiple members of al Qaeda’s international network—from
Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere—wandered onto the scene and just happened to
kill four Americans.
This
is far from an academic point. The administration is using lawyerly
misdirection to excuse its failure to capture or kill any perpetrators. In
testimony before the House Armed Services Committee last fall, declassified
last week and first reported by Kristina Wong of the Hill, the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, said the U.S. military was not
authorized to target the Benghazi attackers because they were not considered
“al Qaeda” or “associated forces” and were therefore not covered by the
Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed by Congress after the
original 9/11 attacks.
“The
individuals related in the Benghazi attack, those that we believe were either
participants or leadership of it, . . . don’t fall under the AUMF
authorized by the Congress of the United States. So we would not have the
capacity to simply find them and kill them either with a remotely piloted
aircraft or with an assault on the ground.”
Thus
the official position of the Obama administration—as conveyed under oath, in a
classified setting, by the nation’s top uniformed military official: The
Benghazi attackers are not covered by the AUMF because they are neither al
Qaeda nor “associated forces.”
This
is a reprehensible evasion. It explains why the United States has failed to
bring the Benghazi perpetrators to justice. But it in no way excuses that failure.
Stephen
F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard. Thomas Joscelyn is a senior
fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
I2C
140117b Jdg 2v1to4 More O Malfeasance / I2C / 1401 / Judges 2:1-4 More O Malfeasance / Benghazi baddies get away with murder
