Benghazigate: The Cover-Up Continues

Bill Schanefelt @ American Thinker:

From the start, almost everything that we were originally and “officially” told by the Obama Administration about the Benghazigate “event” was false (i.e., a lie) or misleading or inadequate. And now that the sole suspect held in the attack has been released, the cover-up is gaining momentum.

The report produced by State’s Accountability Review Board (ARB) and released in an unclassified version Dec. 18 (pdf) did little to clear up what was misleading and inadequate in the “official” versions about the happenings during the “event.”

The recently-released “Flashing Red: A Special Report On The Terrorist Attack At Benghazi” (pdf) by the Senate Committee On Homeland Security And Governmental Affairs is little better.

I write today to: 1) Describe the lies within the contexts of the reports; 2) Reveal the shortcomings of the reports; 3) Discuss the implausibility of the various details of encounters between the intruders, the occupants, and the rescuers; and 4) Examine the pre-“event” operations in Benghazi and the possible reasons the “event” occurred.

Abridged versions of the two reports showing points relevant to this post can be found here and here.

The reason that this serial perfidy should be exposed is that the lies — along with the misleading and inadequate focus on the pre-“event “security situation in Benghazi, the Mohammed video, and the questions about the lack of support during the “event” — all distract from the main issues:

(1) The pre-“event” purpose of the compound and its Annex (since these operations probably motivated the perpetrators of the “event”); and

(2) Team Obama’s failed policies in North Africa, the Middle East, and Afghanistan.

That is, everything that we are “officially” being told is intended to or serves to provide a cover-up both of the gun-running operation that was run out of the compound and its associated Annex and of the fiascoes in Libya, Egypt, and Syria.

The reports reveal little new information, and that is disappointing but not surprising, for the administration has no intention of ever allowing the truth to be known by the public about the pre-“event” operations in Benghazi, the “event” itself, and the aftermath of the “event.” Michael Hirsh sums it best in his review of the ARB report: “A real reckoning of Benghazi will have to await further reports.

Neither report discusses pre-“event” operations in Benghazi, nor do the reports investigate possible motivations for the attack. Instead, both reports dwell at length about the pre-“event’ security situation in Benghazi and the absence of military responses during and after the “event.”

The ARB report is 39 pages of mush — some say cover-up — interspersed with purported facts that pretty much follow the substance of earlier “official” descriptions of the “event.” It is ironically headed with the quote by Santayana about the past repeating itself, and that, alone, would be cringe-inducing were it not so risible — since the authors of the report placed it there with apparent serious intent, and it was “included perhaps to add legitimacy and a veneer of integrity to an investigative report unworthy of such a definition, it is an insult to those aware of” the actual circumstances prior to the “event.”

The Senate report offers little new insight, but it does go into more detail on pre-“event” circumstances, the “event” itself, the “Mohammed film” lie, and a few other things — worth the read only if you have nothing else to do!

Both reports dismiss the first lie — that the intrusion resulted from spontaneous demonstrations in reaction to a “disgusting and reprehensible” video. The ARB report simply states that “there was no protest prior to the attacks, which were unanticipated in their scale and intensity.”

Read more