In her latest round of testimony on the Benghazi attack that left four Americans dead, Hillary Clinton, secretary of state at the time of the attack, was exposed as a liar. But she was careful to avoid any “serious” scrutiny of the 800-pound gorilla in the room: the Obama administration’s widely reported gun-running programs for jihadists battling former U.S. government terror-war allies in Libya and Syria. When questioned, Clinton denied any knowledge of such a program, only to be confronted with an e-mail in which she proposed doing precisely that via proxies. Indeed, the fact that Obama has been arming jihadists in Syria is today beyond dispute.
Facing a question by Representative Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which is investigating the attacks, about whether Clinton knew of a gun-running scheme to Libyan rebels, Clinton said, “I think the answer is no.” Note the caveat. Asked if she knew whether the U.S. government or its proxies were sending weapons to Syrian “rebels” from Libya, Clinton also said no. “Did you ever consider the idea of using private security experts to arm the opposition?” Pompeo asked. Clinton responded: “Not seriously, no.”
The word “seriously,” though, appears to have been an effort to conceal the truth and perhaps avoid being brought up on perjury charges. Right after Clinton denied “seriously” considering such a scheme, Pompeo read an e-mail from Clinton to another official at the time outlining a scheme to do exactly that. “FYI, the idea of using private security experts to arm the opposition should be considered,” Clinton was quoted as saying in the document. But Clinton stuck to her story: “It was not considered seriously.” Perhaps Americans need some clarification on what the word “seriously” means — at least when used by the notoriously dishonest Clintons.
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And that was that. Pompeo asked whether there were more discussions or e-mails on arming the jihadist rebels, whom the Obama administration was supporting with air strikes under the illegitimate “authority” of a United Nations Security Council resolution. Clinton said she was not aware of any, another non-answer, and Pompeo moved on, again leaving the issue of Obama administration gun-running to jihadists unresolved. Even if the White House did not directly or through proxies provide weapons to jihadist rebels, as Clinton claimed implausibly, the administration’s air strikes on Libyan forces allowed those same Obama-backed jihadists to seize the regime’s weapons.
Of course, the U.S. Congress never authorized Obama’s disastrous war on Libya or its partnership with self-declared al-Qaeda leaders to overthrow a former U.S. terror-war ally to begin with. Indeed, Clinton was quoted in news reports as telling lawmakers that even if Congress tried to stop it, the American people’s elected representatives would be ignored. Today, thanks in large part to Obama’s lawless war sold based on demonstrable lies, Libya is a jihadist paradise engulfed in ongoing, bloody civil war. Critics on both sides of the aisle in Congress have said Obama’s machinations in Libya were grounds for impeachment.
Despite implausibly denying the Obama administration’s role in arming the jihadists it was providing U.S. air strikes for, Clinton did touch on Ambassador’s Stevens and his role in dealing with Libyan weapons. During her testimony, she said the ambassador “chose to go to Benghazi because he understood America had to be represented there at that pivotal time.” Stevens “also knew how urgent it was to ensure that the weapons Gadhafi had left strewn across the country, including shoulder-fired missiles that could knock an airplane out of the sky, did not fall into the wrong hands.”
The “wrong hands,” presumably, are the very same terrorist groups the Obama administration backed during the Libyan civil war. Not only did those weapons end up in the hands of al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other jihadist groups, they are now being used across the region to wreak havoc, murder Christians, overthrow governments, and much more. In a UN report, the global outfit said the Libyan weapons, now in the hands of al-Qaeda, were fueling conflict and terror throughout North Africa, Syria, Gaza, and beyond. If an everyday U.S. citizen had been responsible for such a disaster, he would likely be sitting in federal prison for a long time for providing material support to terrorists.
Clinton was also grilled on the fact that Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the jihadist attack on September 11, 2012, had recently met with a “rebel leader” who had previously fought U.S. troops under al-Qaeda in Iraq. “Were you aware that our folks were either wittingly or unwittingly meeting with al-Qaida on the ground in Benghazi, Libya, just hours before the attack?” Representative Pompeo asked. Clinton replied: “I know nothing about this, Congressman.” Pompeo called that response “deeply disturbing.” And it is almost certainly untrue, assuming Clinton was not asleep at the wheel, as Libya was at the top of the Obama administration’s radical agenda during that time period.
Clinton also came under strong fire from Republican lawmakers on other issues, including the administration’s deliberate effort to deceive Americans on what happened before, during, and after the terrorist assault. One e-mail from Clinton to her daughter, for example, shows that the Secretary of State knew jihadists had perpetrated the attack — not “protesters” allegedly angry about a YouTube clip ridiculing Islam as Clinton and other top Obama officials claimed falsely for days. “Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an Al Queda-like [sic] group,” Clinton wrote in the e-mail, which was cited by Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) during the hearing.
Even more explosive, perhaps, was another e-mail documenting a call between Clinton and the Egyptian prime minister on the day after the attack. “We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film,” Clinton was quoted as saying. “It was a planned attack — not a protest.” Days after that conversation, Obama’s UN ambassador at the time, Susan Rice, was still lying about it on Sunday morning talk shows. In other words, the Obama administration knew full well that it was lying to the American people, yet continued to push the lie for days until it finally became untenable. Nobody has been held responsible for deliberately trying to deceive the American people.
But despite the politicking and minor new revelations, the real questions remain as shrouded in mystery today as they were three years ago. Writing in Fox News ahead of the hearing, national security analyst Kathleen Troia McFarland, who served in multiple U.S. administrations, noted that the “fundamental question” hanging over the Benghazi attacks still remains unanswered. “What were the Americans doing in Benghazi in the first place?” she asked, a question that remains essentially unanswered to this day. “Consulates and embassy annexes are where diplomats issue visas and find lost luggage, and that’s clearly not what former special forces Americans were doing.”
She also wondered who Ambassador Stevens was supposed to meet in Benghazi (apparently al-Qaeda), who was responsible for his security (apparently an al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group), which Libyan militia groups Obama partnered with (various jihadist groups with links to al-Qaeda), and who vetted those revolutionary forces. “For over a year there have been unconfirmed reports that the Benghazi was a gun running operation to take Qaddafi’s abandoned weapons and turn them over to Syrian rebels,” she continued. “Is this what the American contractors were doing — running guns? Were we working with and arming Libyan rebels who turned out to be Al Qaeda-type terrorists? If that’s true, then not only was this foolish, it was illegal.”
In fact, that is exactly what the administration was doing, with self-declared al-Qaeda leaders boasting openly to the Western press about their Obama-backed jihad on the “apostate” Libyan tyrant. And it was hardly a secret: The New American magazine and numerous other sources had been reporting as much almost from the start of the globalist-fueled conflict. The situation was so outrageous that even retired U.S. generals have concluded that Obama “switched sides” in the terror war.
Now, the fruits of that lawless war are clear, yet the officials responsible for the bloodshed, genocides, revolutions, and lies remain in power. Indeed, Obama is still in the White House using his “pen and phone” to strip Americans of their rights and foment chaos abroad, and Clinton remains the leading 2016 presidential contender for the Democrat Party. Americans, especially those killed in Libya, deserve better. And they deserve, at the bare minimum, the truth.
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at [email protected]
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