Which scandal will bring about impeachment?

The reality is that Barry Soetoro is embroiled in a series of scandals, not just one, that have the potential to bring about impeachment proceedings. In each case it is the lies and the cover-up that is important. The Republican Congressman Chaffetz is probably the most keen to consider impeachment over the stonewalling regarding the Al Qaeda attack at Benghazi. I do think that by the end of his investigations he will be even more keen to see the impeachment process put in place. Yet there are other scandals, each with their own importance and each of them attacks the very freedoms that are gained from the U.S. Constitution.

1. The attack on the First Amendment. The reality of the scandals that indicate attacks on the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is only just beginning to hit. There are at least three scandals involved:

– IRS harassment of conservative groups

– the collection of AP records via DoJ

– the attack on Fox News and in particular James Rosen also via DoJ.

I have no doubt that this list will increase in the coming days as more and more things come to light. It is early days where each scandal is concerned.  The IRS one has some legs with so many lies being told that it seems obvious that the instigator of the harassment was in fact POTUS. The smoking gun has to be in the White House logs… and no I do not believe the story about the forum being the reason that the head of the union was at the White House. The log actually indicates that she was there for a meeting with POTUS. (developing)

2. The attack on the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

– Fast and Furious which is still being investigated and there continues to be a situatin where Eric Holder is in contempt of Congress and the White House refuses to hand over documents relating to that matter claiming executive privilege. At this stage I am willing to state that Barry Soetoro was aware of Fast and Furious and that he was the instigator because he wants to be able to ban guns.  I have no doubt that Eric Holder is in collusion with Barry on this subject.

3. Benghazi. I cannot properly classify this one, but I see it as tied up with the attack upon the First Amendment. My reasoning is based upon the attitude of Muslims with regard to the Freedom of Speech…. but that is only one very small portion of this particular subject. Benghazi is a multi-part scandal because there are many issues to take into account including talk of gun running (this is not proved). The real scandal is of course the cover-up and there is where the free speech component surfaces, because of the false claims that a third rate short documentary was somehow to blame for what took place. The person who was responsible for the documentary is in jail, allegedly because of parole violations. Yet, it goes deeper because this is also an attempt to stop anyone criticizing Islam. The speeches of Barry Soetoro to the UN on the subject is ample evidence that this story is about anti-free speech motives.

Now I am one who supported the people of Libya as they fought to free themselves from the yoke of Gadhafi. It did not bother me that some of those fighting were Islamists. What Gadhafi had done through the years was sufficient reason to not support him in any way. I will continue to point out that the Libyan government is elected and it is not run by Islamists (even though Islamists are trying to get control). There are lots of issues remaining in Libya and the situation remains fluid. What I want to point out is that those governing Libya were not responsible for the Al Qaeda attack upon the US consulate. I will also point out that the Libyans would have been more cooperative if it had not been for the amateurish stuff ups that followed the attack including Susan Rice going on TV and contradicting President Mogharief of Libya. She caused him to lose face in Libya and abroad because of the contradiction.  I do not support the Islamists in Libya and I believe that those responsible for the continuing violence in that country, especially in Benghazi need to feel the full force of the Libyan law. However, that is a Libyan internal matter and is not necessarily related to the AQ attack.

The real issue is the cover-up and the refusal to acknowledge that Al Qaeda is not in demise as proclaimed. There has been a refusal to acknowledge terrorism in the USA and that has led to the harming of the survivors of the Ft Hood jihadi attack by Hussein Nidal. It also led to the refusal of the FBI to take warnings about the Tsarnaev brothers seriously, even though it did not stop the FBI doing surveillance on a journalist by the name of James Rosen who was just doing his job.

4. This leads me to the AP scandal again because it is one that is developing legs since it was first revealed. Once again I see this in terms of an attack upon free speech.

At least 3 of these scandals are tied to the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case. From that point of view, I can see that there is an overkill, an overreaction in regard to that decision. In that decision, certain things were struck down that affected to a very small extent campaign donations.  What it did not do was to make it easier for corporations to donate to political parties or individuals. Neither did that case make it easy for overseas individuals to donate to political figures. In fact Barry Soetoro has been guilty of accepting those oversease donations (yet another scandal) and hiding the information via bundling. The parts of McCain-Feingold that specifically stayed in place were those parts that forbid foreign donations. The case itself dealt with the chilling of free speech, and this was something brought out in the opinion of Clarence Thomas. It was an issue that 5 of the justices took seriously. For this they were attacked by Barry Soetoro.

Each and every one of these particular scandals could lead to impeachment. We just have to see what develops because in each instance there has been intimidation of individuals that has been in place to stop them talking. It is not just Gregory Hicks who has complained about such intimidation.

A few names keep springing up in regard to these matters. One of them is Lois Lerner, another is Cheryl Mills who is a close associate of Hillary Clinton.  The name of Cheryl Mills keeps cropping up as underlings in the State Department have been “punished” and without just cause.

Talking Points – the cover-up begins

My aim here is to play devil’s advocate to some extent. By doing that, I want to be able to draw out all possible scenarios as to why Susan Rice went on those talk shows and lied about what happened. My initial conclusion has been reduced to one word and that word is “POLITICS”.  I think it is also essential to view this through the political prism yet in doing that, I want to play devil’s advocate in order to try to get to the truth.

I do think that the truth is a lot nastier than anything that we can imagine, yet I hope that I am wrong about what the truth might be. At the very least the actions or rather the non-action was a display of incompetence. Yet, this conclusion is hard to accept for a variety of reasons.

The evidence being provided by the whistleblowers of high calibre such as Eric Nordstrum and Gregory Hicks tells me that there is a lot more to be told, and that we have not yet heard the truth. Then there is the evidence coming from the families of the dead men. That evidence points a finger directly at Hillary Clinton with her blabbing about some stupid documentary that had barely any views on Youtube.

Once again I point out to you that Muslim Brotherhood is SHIA and that the insurgents were members of Ansar Al-Sharia and other Al Qaeda operatives, who happen to be Salafists and Salafists are aligned to Yemen and Saudi Arabia, thus they are SUNNI. I point out again SHIA and SUNNI hate each other. I also point out that the civil war in Syria is Sunni vs. Shia. I will also point out that when Libya was going through its civil war, there was no Sunni vs Shia but it was anti-Gadhafi vs. pro-Gadhafi and there were strange bedfellows on the anti-Gadhafi side. I will also point out that in Libya both Shia and Salafists are in the minority. The majority in Libya are Sufi. The Sanusi (a mixture of Sufi and Wahibi) had been on the decline especially with Gadhafi destroying their mosques. (that action was meant to destroy the power base of the followers of king Idris).  I will point out that Muslim Brotherhood was not involved with the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. That attack was carried out by Salafists, not Muslim Brotherhood.

At the same time I point out the harm that is being done because CAIR and other Muslim organizations have been gaining a strong foothold in the USA. I do believe it is dangerous and I do think that Huma Abedin should be sacked from her job.  What I am also wanting to point out here is that Iran was not involved in the plot unless Iran was playing its own double game because Iran is pissed over losing a sphere of influence when Gadhafi was toppled from power.

I have no doubt that there was a plot involving the very poor low-grade documentary. However, that plot did not involve Benghazi. I believe that the plot involved inciting riots in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East and the timing was meant to make the incumbent in the White House look good as he once again began his farting as he was bending over to kiss the butts of Muslims in an apology tour. The fact remains that he went ahead with these apologies. He made an ass of himself at the UN when he gave that speech blaming this documentary that in fact initially had nothing to do with Mohammed. Whoever dubbed the video that was uploaded to Youtube was in on the plot. The words were changed such that there were “insults” against the cattle thief and pedophile founder of Islam.  One must never forget that “Islam” is Arabic for submission. It does not mean peace in the way that either Judaism or Christianity understands the word peace. Al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and all of their offshoots are after one thing, and that is SUBMISSION.

Now here is my guess as to what really went down. The plot regarding the Youtube video documentary had already been put in place. The riots had already begun in Cairo and they were spreading. At the same time as this political plot  hatched, Al Qaeda sympathizers had come up with their own plot that involved sacking the consulate in Benghazi. Now this other plot could have had something to do with the work being done to recover weapons, or it might have been an attempt by the leader of the attack to assert himself within the Al Qaeda hierarchy. All possibilities need to be laid out on the table because there is no simple answer. This Al Qaeda plot did in fact give some cover to the other plot.

The first talking points that I saw actually mentioned things like there had been a protests that suddenly got out of hand. The report was not true. I cannot remember the source for that report, but I do remember seeing it, and I remember writing about it in this way initially.

However, word did get out from the Libyans themselves, and they were people who were on the ground, that this was an Al Qaeda attack. The people tasked with guarding the consulate were the first to debunk the protest, but as I recall the initial reports, it was stated that the guards on duty had melted away, except that is not what happened, and the guards on duty have stepped forward with their version of events – they were overwhelmed and they hid themselves on the roof. They did not have enough fire power to be of assistance. Still, there were others who belonged to the group responsible for guarding the consulate and they were involved in the attack. You simply cannot trust any Salafist no matter what country they live in. The President of Libya was the first to state outright that it was a terrorist attack.

According to the testimony that came from the whistleblowers, the staff in Tripoli knew that there was an Al Qaeda attack going on, and that they had notified Washington that there was an Al Qaeda attack. It makes no sense at all that people in Washington refused permission for the rescue mission to take place.  The people in the situation room always knew that this was an Al Qaeda attack.

The White House Administration plays by the rule of grabbing every opportunity to promote their agenda. On that afternoon, when the attack began, a group of people met in the Oval office to work out how they would respond to what was taking place.  They saw this as an opportunity to show to the public that they could handle a crisis. They already knew about the protest in Cairo, and they decided to use that protest as the reason for the attack in Benghazi except that what they talked about never happened and they knew that what they proposed was a lie. Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State was one of the plotters. Susan Rice was probably at the same meeting. She was “just following orders”.

Now this is where the whole thing gets messy because once they had decided to use the demonstration in Cairo as an explanation, they then took a series of decisions that had deadly results.

Barack Obama is the world’s worst ditherer. He never wants to lead anything. He has no leadership skills and he is not fit to be POTUS.  He does not have the ability to lead the USA. The things he is good at are corruption and lying about everything. Barack Obama is the most corrupt President ever. He makes Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy look like choirboys, and he makes FDR look like a Boy Scout leader. On that afternoon he failed decision-making 101.  The question that I have is: did Barack Obama make the decision to not allow assistance? If the answer is NO then that means someone else made those decisions. This was a decision that only the President could make, and the finger is pointed right at him.

So, we then get to the talking points given to Susan Rice and promoted by Hillary Clinton as well as Barack Obama. Yes, each of them engaged in those talking points.

The talking points directly contradicted Magarief the Libyan President, causing him to lose face, not just in Libya, but all over the world. He was steamed over what Susan Rice did. As a result of decisions that were no doubt made in the Oval Office, there was a delay in getting an investigation under way.

The plot could only succeed if the MSM continued to cover for Barack Obama, and thus on the night of one of the debates, when Mitt Romney had made what should have been a killing thrust, Barack Obama said “Help me Candy”.  That was the point when Candy Crowley pulled out her own talking points and she helped to cover up what had happened immediately after the attack, and she lied.

(To be continued)

Islamist terror on the rise – French Embassy in Tripoli

UPDATE: If you have not seen the connection of the Touareg to the bombing of the French Embassy in Tripoli then you should have a look at this report from Reuters.

During the Libyan civil war the Touareg remained loyal to Moammar Gadhafi. He had ensured that loyalty by giving them weapons as well as money to fund their fight against the government in Mali. I have no idea if Gadhafi money is still being used to fund the Touareg. What I can say is that the Touareg are Islamists and they are in Libya. I will also point out that prior to the actual war breaking out Gadhafi brought in people from Mali to be the sharpshooters. A lot of Libyans died as a result of indiscriminate shooting from the rooftops, and yes many children died at the hands of Gadhafi.

This particular car bombing has all of the hallmarks that points the finger at the Touareg rather than at the Islamists in Benghazi (a different group of Islamists). It must always be kept in mind that neither group is kosher.

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UPDATE:  Here is a much better report on the bombing of the French Embassy in Tripoli.  I draw your attention to one very important point and that is Mohammed Aziz, the Libyan minister did not waste time dithering about whether or not this was a terrorist attack. This is a far cry from the wishy washy response that came from the White House after the Boston bombing…. where they continue to downplay that it was a terrorist attack.

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Do keep in mind that this attack could have been perpetrated by people loyal to Gadhafi, but in Libya you just never know….. I have just seen a report that a car bomb went off outside of the French Embassy in Tripoli.

After just reading that it is now believed that the younger Tsarnaev blamed American presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan (an irrational belief in my view) for his radicalization, it is astounding to see, once again the rise of the Islamist violence. (tongue in cheek because it is not astounding at all).

At this stage I have some theories about motivations:

1. the pro-Gadhafi contingent in Libya are beginning to make their move. Possible, but unlikely at this point in time.

2. the specific attack on the French Embassy in Tripoli is related to the Mali situation. The French went into Mali to expel the Islamists who were making life hell for the people who live in that country.

The most likely reason is in fact a revenge attack over Mali, and this raises the question as to who might be responsible for the car bombing. I keep coming back to those who had been sponsored by Gadhafi – the Touareg. However, this might not be the case. It could have been inspired by those affiliated with Al Qaeda as well. The main group that had affiliation have been quiet and they had not been all that active in Tripoli since their base is in Benghazi.

The French took a leading role during the civil war in Libya such that the pro-Gadhafi contingent in the country would be both Anti-American and Anti-French, but that leaves out Canada…. except for one thing….

The two men who were busted in Canada for their plans to bomb a passenger train as it passed over the bridge that crosses the Niagara Falls were Tunisian nationals, and it is believed that they are linked to the Iranian branch of Al Qaeda.

Here is where it gets all fuzzy because Iran, Russia and China were assisting Gadhafi. Iran has been assisting Assad in Syria (a big sphere of influence for Iran). Iran has probably been sponsoring and helping the Chechen Islamists…. Why is it that Iran keeps popping up?

BTW one more thing to consider: Iran had been helping North Korea in building their nuclear weapons….is it all coincidence?

The White House vs Libya

As you are aware, I have supported the Libyan government from the time they formed as rebels and a force against Moammar Gadhafi the tyrant. I had my reasons, including the Lockerbie bombing to believe that Gadhafi had to go. As I read up information I did learn that Gadhafi had been sponsoring terrorism in Africa whilst he pretended to the West that he was a changed man. I see that many believed the Gadhafi lie in that they have jumped to the conclusion that the world is worse off because he was defeated and is now dead. There are many who have lumped the former rebels with Al Qaeda. They would take any little clue and then smear the good and sincere individuals with claims that they are Al Qaeda. It was not true then, and it is not true now. I acknowledge what was always known, that there were elements of the movement that had links to Al Qaeda. Some of those who did not lose their lives and survived the torture at the hands of Gadhafi have learned by their errors and their group, the former Libyan Fighting Group are now the analysts who understand terrorism. They did in fact renounce terrorism and they do not support Al Qaeda. I continue to have some respect for these people and I recognize that they are not to blame for events in the past week.

However, I am here to state what I believe to be true, and that is the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi was planned months in advance. The Spaghetti Western documentary was nothing more than an excuse, a cover for this planned covert action. I agree with the Libyan government and their analysts in London, that this was an Al Qaeda operation. In fact even AQAP agree with me, that this was a planned attack. Their reason is the death of Al-Libi but I think that there is another reason which is that they want to disrupt the fledgling partnership that Libya has with the USA, Great Britain and France in particular. The Libyan President has announced the arrest of 50 individuals in relation to the deaths of the 4 Americans and he has given far more detail than what we are getting out of the White House.

The White House Administration has its collective head in the sand. Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the UN (an utter disgrace to the US) has doubled down on the belief that this terrible movie was somehow the motivation for the attack. As a spokesperson for the White House Susan Rice claims that the whole thing was spontaneous. My question to Susan Rice: Since when do the Rage Boys take weapons of that nature to a protest? They do not take the kinds of weapons that were used in the consulate attack. Not even protesters last February 17 used those weapons when they stood protesting against Gadhafi, but the Gadhafi government used weapons against them!!

I have seen various reports that point to the fact that the White House was warned at least 72 hours before the attack took place that something was afoot. Yet the White House Administration did not respond and did not order the consulate in Benghazi and the Embassy in Cairo into lockdown. This is a very serious matter because it is this lack of heeding the warning that in fact shows the culpability of the Obama Administration in the death of Chris Stevens.

The movie was worse than B-grade and from the trailers that I have seen it is really stretching to claim that it really was about Mo the Ped. However, there is an anomoly and that is the fact that the actors were speaking about George but the voiceover was saying something else entirely. Who did the dubbing on this C- grade documentary? Another thing to consider is that in Egypt the documentary was aired whereas in the US it had been on Youtube. For this reason, I maintain my belief that this terrible documentary was used as a blood libel. Did the Eyptian TV dub the movie with inflammatory material? Did they add Arabic with inflammatory comments? Please keep in mind here that when Rage Boy came to prominence with the protests over the Danish cartoons, which in my view were inoffensive, one imam had added material that had not been amongst the original cartoons that were in fact quite offensive, thus the libel against the Danish cartoon was that of a blood libel.

This c- grade movie should not have been the cause of the riots that took place. It has been used by Al Qaeda as a motivation to cause mayhem. What were people thinking when they decided to create this movie?

What is of concern here is not so much the movie, but the fact that the motivation for the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi has been shifted from the truth to a lie that is being spread by the American and Australian media, that a low grade movie somehow was the reason for Rage Boy to come out and play. There might be some truth because I think that the imams in their mosques, especially the radical imams have jumped on this dreadful movie to give them the opportunity to cause mayhem throughout the world.

However, truth has a habit of coming to light and in this case the Libyans are telling the truth. Al Qaeda operatives crossed the border into Libya via both Mali and Algeria (how strange that both these countries have haboured members of the Gadhafi family). They then spent several months training with a group known as Ansar al Sharia from Derna. The leader of Ansar al Shariah had been busy attempting to recruit people from Benghazi through to Brega to join him.  This was all watched via US drones and the intelligence should have reached the White House.

The White House has ignored the other attacks upon consulates and consular staff in and around Benghazi. Nothing was done to increase the security for the US Ambassador and his staff. The White House was warned prior to the attack that an attack was imminent, but the White House Administration failed to warn its own consulates to be either on the alert or to go into lockdown. Compounding these failures is the fact that the US consulate building in Benghazi was not sufficiently secure.

Then there is the matter of security. I have no doubt about the sincerity of some members of the Februrary 17th movement. However, in their midst there had been some who were never to be trusted. Their names had already been mentioned as being behind some minor atrocities during the civil war. This begs the question about those who were detailed to guard the US Consulate and they really were not trustworthy. One thing did stick out and that is these guards ran off when the US consulate was attacked. They left their posts supposedly because they too were angry about this c- grade documentary. Did they ever see it?

The White House Administration had refused to provide proper security for its Middle East embassies, and now it reaps what it has sewn. There is even more suspicion on one side and it is all against the USA.

Yet, this does not cover the fact that the attack in Benghazi was not spontaneous. It was a well planned attack under the cover of a protest. When viewed in this way, you can see why I am asking questions about that dreadful documentary and the way it was used to suddenly inflame the passions of Rage Boy.

My post about blood-libel is speculative but what do the Syrians think?

It was MyPetJawa who led me to have a look at this site. Yes, it is actually Al Jazeera where this story is being aired.

The Syrians are confused, because they want to know why there is so much outrage over a poorly produced film when 33,000 have been murdered by the Assad regime. Their take happens to be that the murder of these men, women and children by Assad is more offensive to Allah than a poorly produced film.

You want to know something? These people are correct. If you read the comments and the tweets related to the subject you will see that the majority think the same thing.

The documentary movie is very poorly made. The words are dubbed over what the actors and actresses in the moving are saying… and this is why I am convinced that it is blood libel.

However, it seems that Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch has been taken in, and he has up a post about how the Egyptian behind the movie looks like going back to jail. The thing is that when you read the man’s rap sheet I am surprised that he is not already in jail!!  Spencer states that the man is a Coptic Christian. If that is true, then there is no blood libel, but only if Robert Spencer is correct.

This is where it gets messy and we need to know the truth. I said on the other post or at least in comments that there were rumours regarding the producer with claims that he was a Jew and that he had backing from other Jews. I also heard that Coptic Christians were involved. Then there is the involvement of Terry Jones.

What if someone used the man’s name deliberately in order to set him and Coptic Christians up?

What I am saying is that the whole thing sounds very much like a set up. It simply does not ring true in some respects. The portion of the documentary that I saw (a very small portion) showed me something that reminded me of the worst of the Spaghetti Westerns. Yes, it really was that bad.

My questions remain. Did a Coptic Christian actually produce that rubbish? If not, then what is the likelihood that someone was pretending to be a Coptic Christian or a Jew with the intention of blame being placed upon them for allowing Rage Boy to be unleashed?

UPDATE: Ann Althouse has a post that is worth a look. It also supports the idea that the attack was planned. There is a twist and I think it makes perfect sense. I am sticking with the idea that this was a planned attack by Al Qaeda and there is more evidence to support this than all the denials in China (make that CNN and that dumb Amanpour woman). Here is an aspect that I had not thought about but it makes sense: This was a revenge attack because of a drone strike that took out an Al Qaeda operative who went by the name Al-libi meaning the Libyan. Does that make sense now?

UPDATE: Something brought to my attention, which I feel needs full verfication, but sickens me, is that Chris Stevens was possibly raped. There is a lot of confusion about what happened. I had seen reports stating that he was taken to the hospital, but where I saw what seems to be verification of what really took place shows a very different story, and it is very sick. This kind of behaviour is the work of Salafists.

UPDATE: It could be that CNN refuses to tell the whole truth, yet I found one report that is quite lengthy and I might add gives a lot of decent analysis. I want to point out that some of the opinion in the report comes from people who were associated with the Libyan Fighting Group who were considered to be linked to Al Qaeda in the past. The comments need careful study because the person making the comments is someone who knows the subject better than others.

Specifically, what this report points out is that the attack coincided with a statement from Al-Zawahiri and that it is indeed a revenge attack because of the death of Al Libi which was the work of a drone attack.

What is more, the report contains some extra detail about how the attack was timed with the protests and that the attack came in waves. The officials in the embassy were removed to what was supposed to be a secure location. That location was also attacked.

The name of the Salafist group is identified. What is more, this is the same group that attacked prior to the election. It is also the group that attacked the British Embassy in Benghazi.

The Libyan government does not have the ability to protect foreign embassy personnel, thus all are vulnerable anywhere outside of Tripoli. What is more the people behind the attack were keeping tabs on the US officials. They must have known that one of them was there to search for the very weapons that were used in the attack.

UPDATE: The truth about the attack is filtering out of Libya. The interim President has gone up in my estimation because he is not holding back on the truth. Yes, it is true that he talked about this being a foreign plot…. and it was a foreign plot… but Libya is now saying that 50 individuals have been arrested over the deaths of the 4 Americans. This was an Al Qaeda plot. I am not sure if the Egyptian Zawahiri was the originator and for all I know al Libi could have been the one who originated the plot. Apparently there were some foreigners who slipped into Libya via the borders of Mali and Algeria. Now you must understand that Benghazi itself is a long way from those borders. I can understand if there is mention of this being a pro-Gadhafi plot because the remaining Gadhafi family are in Algeria and there is a link between the Gadhafi family and Mali. It would not surprise me if we were to learn that Gadhafi money paid for the weapons that were used to carry out the attack. However, I add to this that the AQAP (Yemen based) knew of the plot.

On top of that there is the intelligence that the leader of the local group Ansar al Sharia had been busy recruiting people over the past few months. This suggests to me that they were planning something a lot bigger. I am not convinced that Chris Stevens was the target of the attack, but I do feel that perhaps one of the other men who died was the target. I suspect that one of the two ex-Navy SEALs was the target because he was there on a secret mission to find those weapons. The activities of Ansar al Sharia were known. It was not their first attack upon foreign diplomats. It always had the hallmarks of Al Qaeda.

Syria vs. Turkey. The Syrian situation hots up

The conflict in Syria is nothing like either Libya or that of Egypt and Tunisia. This is because it is more of a tribal conflict than any of these other situations. It is also because there are other big players behind the scenes. Tunisia was the springboard, and the people wanted to get rid of a President who had been there for a very long time, to the point that he was involved in big time corruption. The same is true for both Egypt and Libya, yet the Libyan situation bore little resemblance to either of those two nations for other reasons. In Syria, it is the Alawite tribe, which is a minority Shiite tribe that has had power for close to 40 years. On the opposite side there appears to be Sunni  (the Al Qaeda connection?) but in reality it is a tribe vs. tribe conflict.  Yes, there are Christians in Syria, but these Christians have been backing Assad for their own personal reasons.

In working through the actual history of the conflict (which I have not completed at this point in time), one has to be careful about not being blind-sided bigger Sunni vs Shiite type conflict. It is important to go back and look at how the protests began, who was behind the protestors and what they expected to gain by ousting Assad. At the moment, even that is moot because Assad has been able to hang onto power. This is because of his connections to Iran.

The Syrian conflict is a battle by proxy and Assad has powerful allies behind the scenes. In fact Assad brought in the Iranian guards in an effort to clean out the protesters. It is important to look at these allies and see what influence they have been exerting – it is an influence that has prevented the UN from taking much stronger action. Those other allies include both Russia and China.

Once again we have what I call the sphere of influence. Russia, Iran and China are all seeking influence in Syria. When Gadhafi was defeated the Russians and the Chinese lost an important ally and sphere of influence in North Africa and the Middle East. They were not likely to allow any further deterioration of their influence in that region. It is for this reason that both Russia and China have vetoed any positive UN action in Syria. They have too much to loose if Assad is defeated. The other player is Iran and again Syria has a pivotal role because Syria has been like a go-between with regard to Lebanon. Iran has been sponsoring the Hezbollah via the Syrian regime. Hezbollah is allied to the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Everything fits together when we look at the sphere of influence.

When the conflict broke out in Libya, Gadhafi’s biggest mistake was the decision to use his own forces against the people of Benghazi and other towns. He actually used his air force to bomb those towns. It is for this reason that other countries via the UN and NATO were prepared to help the people who were in danger because of Gadhafi’s intention to punish them in such a fashion. Gadhafi also made the mistake of claiming that those protesting were Al Qaeda. A very small portion had some links to Al Qaeda, but the way in which the conflict snowballed, those people remained a minority. The Berbers from the mountains who were the first to penetrate Tripoli were not members of Al Qaeda. They were in fact a minority people who had been squashed over the years by Gadhafi, and they, like the people from Benghazi and elsewhere wanted their freedoms above anything else. It seems to me that Assad did not learn from Gadhafi’s fatal mistakes.

During the early part of the conflict in Syria there were army defections, and on top of that there were thousands of people who crossed the border into Turkey. For a very long time the Turks have been keeping an eye on the situation. They have provided refugee camps for the people who fled the Syrian border region. It should be pointed out that those army deserters did so because they were being ordered to fire upon unarmed civilians (a lot like what happened in Libya). Assad kept on claiming that the soldiers who were killed were killed by Al Qaeda but that is not the truth. Many of them were shot in the back because they refused to fire upon their own people…. and then Assad blamed an imaginary opposition. It must be pointed out, however, that there continues to be the danger and potential that Al Qaeda will get involved in Syria.

The latest news from the region is not so good, and it is another step which could lead to a war in the region. Today, the Syrians shot down a Turkish fighter aircraft. This incident has the potential of seeing an escalation that goes beyond the borders of Syria. Since Turkey is a NATO country, there is the potential that Turkey will call upon NATO to come to their aid.

It really is the wrong time to have someone who is really stupid in the White House.

Endgame complete – beginning of a new era

Actually I should highlight the hypocrisy of the remarks made by Østupid in his remarks concerning the death of Moammar Gadhafi. It is hard to believe that the day has finally arrived where Gadhafi and another of his sons, the brutal Mutassim have been killed at Sirte. For the Libyans it is a final victory over what had been a most brutal dictatorship. Over the past months I had learned a lot about the brutality of the regime, and I have read about the aspirations of the people who are now freed from this most brutal dictator.

What can be expected now that Gadhafi is dead? In an Islamic country one must expect that any democracy that is formed will be based upon Islamic law. That sounds like an oxymoron. However, we have to respect the fact that not every country follows the Westminster system. For this reason it should be no surprise that any Libyan government that is formed will be based upon Shariah.

So, what exactly was it that these people wanted? It is here that you have to look more closely at what took place during the rule of Gadhafi and his henchmen. It all comes back to the national flag, because that flag is the key to understanding both the revolution that took place and what these people want in regard to what they term democracy. Believe it or not what they have rejected is in fact Communism. Yes, it is true. Gadhafi had imposed a system of government (if you can call it government) upon Libya that was in fact Communism. His was a Leftist rule. His allies were all Marxists. The green flag was a symbol not of Islam in this case but of Marxism. Ah the irony of the watermelon!!  This is absolutely classic because here is an example where Green was being used to hide the Red!!

Gadhafi had changed the name of Libya to be that of the Socialist Republic of Libya. Very few people outside of Libya have understood what in reality that meant to so many of the Libyans opposed to Gadhafi. The Green flag was a symbol of that Socialist Republic of Libya and it was a hated symbol, just like the Little Green Book of Gadhafi (aka the Little Red Book of Chairman Mao). This is why there was a lot of symbolism in the use of the old Libyan flag. What the people wanted was to shift their country away from Communism.

In the early days of the revolution I heard stories of business people who had their businesses taken away from them by Gadhafi, and they also lost shipments of their goods – just taken by the brutal regime. It would be fair to say that these people had a particular grudge over the loss of their livelihood. A lot of Libyans are still very capitalist at heart.

However, there are other questions that need to be answered. With those questions it remains a “wait and see” situation. I do think that some of the issues that were raised during the conflict need to be cleared up. One such issue relates to the “Al-Qaeda” question. Let me start with two men, one of them by the name of Belhadj who is a known Islamist. It is claimed that he had links to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, but I am not yet convinced that such links were true or real. Mr. Belhadj has been very upfront on the subject and with him it has not been taqiyya. Whilst it is true that Belhadj had been to Afghanistan, it is not necessarily true that he knew Osama Bin Laden and the reason that I make that statement is based upon the fact that Belhadj was in Afghanistan fighting with the Mujhadeen not against the Allies, but against the Soviets when they invaded that country in the 1980s. Osama Bin Laden did the same thing at the time. Mr Belhadj stated that he rejected the ideology of Osama Bin Laden, and for that reason I doubt that he would have allowed any military equipment to find its way into the hands of that outfit.  Belhadj is of interest because he was subjected to rendition, was forced back to Libya and was tortured for several years in prison. This also happened to another man, who is now suing the British Government over the rendition of himself and his family. Both men formed the LIFG. It has now been revealed that the LIFG was anti-Gadhafi rather than pro-Al Qaeda. You need to think about what that really means.

This brings me to the issue of those “missing weapons”. First of all, I question the statements of the group Human Rights Watch. As an extreme Left-wing organization they had an agenda. They lied about the number of people kidnapped, tortured and killed by the Gadhafi regime by grossly under-estimating the numbers involved. The people employed by the UN had a far better grip on the numbers that were killed in Misrata as an example. Then there were those killed in Zintan, Benghazi and other places. The NTC is itself exaggerating the numbers upwards with their claims of about 40,000 dead, but this is probably closer to the mark because in this last month alone several hundred died fighting to liberate Sirte from Gadhafi.  However, HRW was the one that was going around claiming that there were thousands of weapons missing from warehouses. I think that they are grossly overestimating the weapons.

The pro-Gadhafi people were giving the impression that it was the revolutionaries that were sending weapons across the border into Chad and Mali. If people have no understanding of Libya then it is easy to understand them thinking that this alleged weapons movement was being done by those who were alleged to have links to Al Qaeda. The fact is that the initial reports were a fabrication picked up and repeated many times by people who simply did not understand the nature of the borders of that country. They also did not understand that both the Chad and the Mali governments were Gadhafi allies, and that they willingly participated in the lie.

Why do I mention the borders? It is simple to explain why I questioned these stories when they first arose. The revolution started in Benghazi which is closest to the Egyptian border. There were no weapons crossing from Benghazi and Tobruk and into Egypt. There were other pockets of resistance such as Misrata, districts within Tripoli, the mountain region (the Berbers), Zawiyah and Zintan to name just a few places. Only the mountain region was close to these countries where the weapons allegedly crossed the border, but the point here is that these areas were poorly resourced for weapons.  Even in Benghazi there were no weapons that could have been transported. They were using what they found when they captured the fort.  It never made sense that they would have wanted to supply Al Qaeda.

One of the most distinguishing features of this revolution had been the way in which the people of Benghazi had been swift in taking control and restoring order to the streets. This was also noticeable in Tripoli when the fall of Tripoli finally took place (the pictures of the checkpoints in Tripoli were indeed quite hilarious – the Libyans have a good sense of humour). What is more, when the NTC was formed they were swift to deny any link to Al Qaeda, and their motivation for keeping out foreign boots was to ensure that there was no reason for Al Qaeda to become active in Libya. This is why the fact that it was a Libyan who killed Gadhafi is indeed a moment of triumph for the people.

That being said, Al Qaeda remains a threat if the NTC fails to swiftly establish the workings of a government. Whatever they set up, it must be inclusive of all the people, and that includes the few remaining Christians and Jews (their numbers are small because they were forced to leave the country pre-Gadhafi era). It means allowing the Berbers to have their own language. There are many obstacles that must be faced by the NTC before a final structure of government can be achieved. This is the time of wait and see. Of one thing I am certain. The Libyans have rejected Communism.

One real problem will be relationship with Iran. It did come out that the people in Benghazi accepted some aid from Iran. However, it was medical aid, not weapons. Iran was providing weapons to Gadhafi. Their offer of aid to Benghazi was probably an attempt to make sure that Iran was relevant in the future. However, I do not expect that the new Government in Libya will ally themselves with Iran. I expect that they will remain allies with the British and the French. This is an alliance that goes back to the Second World War when Idris allied himself to the British and the French and the Libyans from Benghazi and Tobruk, as well as the Berbers fought against the Nazis and the Fascists under Mussolini. Tripoli on the other hand had stayed loyal to Italy during the Second World War. The pay back for Idris had been British and French help in defeating the colonial masters of Italy in the years after the second world war and the establishment of the Kingdom of Libya – and then Gadhafi seized control of Libya.

It is more important than ever to continue to monitor Libya. These are big changes because with the death of Gadhafi the African League has lost a big sponsor. Those African nations that have been a big threat have lost their terrorist sponsor. The Tuareg tribe which is on the border of Algiers is one of the biggest losers with the death of Gadhafi. You can expect those nations to continue to turn to China and to the Soviets for sponsorship. One of Gadhafi’s biggest supporters had been the Marxist Zuma of South Africa. He is yet another who has had his funding cut from beneath him. The same goes for Mali and Niger, as both governments were willing to shelter Gadhafi if he had managed to cross the border. Algeria had been playing a double game, but not so with Tunisia. The Tunisians had been amongst the first to recognize and support the aims of the NTC.

We can expect that pressure will be applied to Algeria to send back the Gadhafi family, and yes at least one member of that group should face charges over the brutality displayed to staff members. Niger needs to be forced to send Saadi Gadhafi back to Libya or at least hand him over to Interpol – there is an arrest warrant for Saadi over the deaths of people in Benghazi.

Today is the real beginning of a new era in Libya. The people have an opportunity to live in a free society. We can only hope that they will appreciate the opportunity that has been handed to them now that they are freed from the tyranny of Gadhafi.

 

Sirte airport is captured again, and Libya’s Baghdad Bob dresses like a woman

According to this BBC report, the NTC units that have been fighting to capture Sirte, have captured Moussa Ibrahim, the Gadhafi mouthpiece at the Rixos Hotel. Moussa Ibrahim is a relation of Moammer Gadhafi, and he was the front man at the Rixos Hotel because of his excellent command of English. Moussa Ibrahim was working hard to take the crown from Baghdad Bob, and perhaps it should be noted that the worst of his propaganda were the lies that he told about Eman al-Obeidi, the woman who was raped by 15 of Daffy’s men (including some that were Gadhafi relatives) at a checkpoint leading into Tripoli.

What caught my eye in the BBC report is that it has been rumoured that Moussa Ibrahim was trying to escape by dressing in the clothing of a woman. This of course is a good reason as to why the burqa should be banned. What I am thinking here that Moussa Ibrahim has been all bravado until now, and his hiding in Sirte is probably evidence that other members of the Gadhafi family have been hiding in the same location. I think it is Mutassim Gadhafi who has been in Saif has been hiding out in Bani Walid.

Since his escape from Tripoli (and he left in a mighty hurry) Moussa Ibrahim has continued with the propaganda. He has given a regular diatribe, most of which has been exaggerated and totally lacking in reality. The situation in Sirte and Bani Walid remains grave, and there are citizens within those towns who are being held hostage as human shields for the Daffy Duck loyalists. Even if you resent these people because they are Muslim, one should pray for their well-being during this time.

There is still no real sign of where Daffy Duck might be hiding but one possibility is that he is in a border town between Libya and Algeria, possibly Gadames (sp) where he will be hiding with the Tourareg, who have been his supporters, as well as mercenaries from Niger and Chad, and possibly some mercenaries from Algiers.

 UPDATE: As usual, it seems that someone has jumped the gun with regard to Moussa Ibrahim. Whilst the BBC reported that Libya’s Baghdad Bob was caught just outside of Sirte, and dressed as a woman, complete with veil, the people in Misrata have stated that they have not been able to confirm this information.

 

 

 

Vindication

Whilst nothing is certain in Libya, this news report is vindication of my own position as regards to who might be funneling weapons to terrorists. This comes with a bit of caution that in reality anything is possible, meaning that some people who are Islamists could indeed forward weapons to Al Qaeda. I will not discount that possibility.

Since I first heard the rumours that weapons were being transported and the implication for those rumours was that the Islamists in the opposition forces were taking the few weapons that they possessed and were passing them to Al Qaeda or to Hamas, depending upon which version was being spouted, I was smelling a bit of a rat. The opposition forces had few weapons and what they found they were using. On the other hand, Daffy Duck had a large cache of weapons dotted around the countryside. The sources were claiming that the weapons convoys had gone through Chad and Niger. Really? What these sources did not report is that Daffy Duck is allied to both Chad and Niger. What they also did not report is that the border between Libya and Niger closest to Sirte, a Gadhafi stronghold.

At the same time there have been rumours about weapons moving across the Algerian border. Really? Algeria is another Gadhafi ally, and in fact one of the “news” agencies that has been used by people hostile to the Libyan opposition was one that was tied to Algeria. The report that I read pretty much summed it up for me as simply pro-Gadhafi propaganda. If that report was true then the Algerians were firing upon those “Islamists” if they crossed the border. I doubt that they were able to send any convoys via that route.

In my view this led me to conclude that if anyone was smuggling weapons out of Libya, then it had to be Gadhafi and his goons that were doing the smuggling. (my conclusion could always be wrong but it seems that for the moment such a conclusion is vindicated).

In the past few weeks there has been mention of missing weapons: missiles, chemical weapons etc. Considering that the opposition would not know the location of the chemical weapons, it is a sure bet that if such weapons are missing then Gadhafi and his henchmen are behind their disappearance.

Here is a snippet from the report:

Jeffrey Feltman, the US assistant secretary of state and the most senior international visitor to arrive in Tripoli since the fall of Col Gaddafi, said Washington was concerned about the spread of both conventional and non-conventional weapons.

He said he had people working “quietly” with the National Transitional Council particularly on the hunt for surface-to-air missiles, of which more than 15,000 are said to be unaccounted for from Col Gaddafi’s weapons dumps, and chemical weapon precursors.

“It’s a potential risk not only to Libya but to the region,” he said.

The rebel military official in charge of securing Tripoli International Airport told The Daily Telegraph yesterday his men were scouring an area of more than 30 kilometres for missing weapons.

The Libyan authorities and their western backers are nervous about allowing the airport to reopen to scheduled passenger flights until they can be sure there can be no threat from any SAMS still in the area. There is also the fear that they may be sold to terrorist groups who could use them to target civilian planes anywhere.

“The policy of Gaddafi was to scatter these missiles through civilian homes,” the commander, Mukhtar al-Akdar, said. “We have great difficulty when we try to collect them as some of the local people are very pro-Gaddafi.”

He said he had cleared “70-80 per cent” of the relevant area and found a number of SAMS already.

 

Egypt – was it Islamists who stormed the Israeli embassy?

The report at News.com.au indicates that the protesters were not members of Muslim Brotherhood. This particular report is without the hype that I have seen elsewhere on the Internet. It gives the facts about what happened, that protesters who had been at Tahrir Square broke away and headed to the Israeli Embassy. They had sledgehammers and they hacked away at the walls that were put in place to secure the building. Roughly 30 of them got inside the building and then distributed papers onto the street. Of concern to me is that these people were chanting: onward to Jerusalem, blah, blah.

According to this report, the cause of this extraordinary activity was an incident near the border of the Gaza strip where some Egyptians had been killed. Likewise some Israelis had been killed. The kicker here is that it looks as if this had nothing to do with Muslim Brotherhood. It seems that the individuals involved are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

As you are aware Egypt has co-operated with Israel with regard to attempting to keep arms out of the Gaza strip. The incident that took place has not really been explained. There has been no apology over the latest of the rockets that were fired into Israel from the Gaza strip either.

If Muslim Brotherhood has disavowed the protest as well as the action at the Israeli Embassy, then it seems that rather than Islamists at work, this is the handiwork of the LEFT WING communists from Egypt.

As we have noted in the past, it seems that certain Communists within the USA have had more than a passing interest in causing disruption in Egypt. I refer of course to Bernadine Dorhn, William Ayers, and the luvvies from Code Pink. The people who have been attempting to get into the Gaza strip have been the Marxists, not the likes of Muslim Brotherhood.

I find this very curious since CAIR is an offshoot of Muslim Brotherhood, or is it? I am wondering if CAIR is being sponsored by some other party. Members of CAIR have been behind some pretty nasty stuff in the USA, and they are linked to other groups such as the Holy Land Foundation, which was taking money for Palestininian activists in that region.

Perhaps we need to have another look at the activities of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Are they linked to Iran, or putting that another way, is Iran somewhere in the background waiting to pounce if Muslim Brotherhood rises as a political force in Egypt?

Something else on my mind here concerns Mr. Potato Head who has been very quiet lately. As you are aware this is the man who claimed that there were no WMDs in Iraq, which is not true, and he also made false statements about the WMDs in Iran. His wife is an Iranian who is the daughter of a prominent member of the Iranian government. It is obvious that Mr. Potato Head, if he got into power in Iran would push Egypt into some form of alliance with Iran. Mr. Potato Head wanted to be allied to Muslim Brotherhood, but it seems that they are not interested in him. Interesting.

What it looks like here is that Muslim Brotherhood joined in the original protests to oust Muburak, but have always had their own agenda. I think that was clear immediately after Muburak was sent into exile. However, it looks like there was some kind of immediate split between the two groups. Again it was quite obvious. What seems to be happening is that the Marxists want to keep protesting, but the Muslim Brotherhood are happy biding their time. Also, it appears that Muslim Brotherhood is not the same as the Salafists.  Here again we have that split based upom Islamic sectarianism. Muslim Brotherhood seems to be Shia oriented, and the Salafists (Al QAEDA) are Sunni in origin.

I think that demanding Muburak step down was the biggest Foreign Policy of the present USA administration. It was something that was a total botch from the time that the protests began. Egypt is a separate issue from that of Libya, especially when Østupid actually had very limited say on what was happening over there. He had more impact upon Egypt, than on Libya. In fact Østupid was reluctant to make a decision on the no-fly zone and he had to be pushed. (ALSO please note the way that this stupid individual is trying to big note himself on making the decision to go after Bin Laden. He has no shame. He is claiming that his advisors were against it, but from what has been passed on, it was Valerie Jarrett who was against it, and it was Leon Panetta who went ahead with the action, but just watch Østupid as he continues to lie in the hope that people will see him as some kind of hero – he is not anything of the kind).