BENGHAZI AND REPUBLICAN

DISLOYALTY AND TREACHERY

Benghazi. A set up by the Republicans. It was supposed to be a game changer for the GOP. The Republican anti-Muslim video maker just happened to release his video around about the time of the September 11 memorial solely for the purpose of provoking and instigating outrage and murder in the Middle East with the sole purpose of bringing President Obama’s international accomplishments into disrepute. The outpouring of rage and violence in the Middle East was the consequence of the video and what provoked the violence that provided the cover for the assassination of the U.S. Ambassador in Libya. There is a direct link with the video and the timing of the terrorist attack, and it was unfortunate that the opportunity was created by the Republican video maker. It is therefore shameful how the Republicans intend to make Susan Rice the scapegoat if she is nominated by President Obama to be the next Secretary of State. First and foremost, Susan Rice was acting on behalf of her boss, President Obama who gave her the instructions and script to present to the Sunday shows on that fateful day. Susan Rice was not presenting a personal position or opinion on what happened in Benghazi but was made the official spokesperson by the Administration on that issue. One small question I have is why was Hillary Clinton not the one tasked with presenting this information on that Sunday on behalf of the Administration, since she was the Secretary of State. It is unfortunate that the Obama Administration was stampeded into hasty action and statements by the crass and unpatriotic actions of Mitt Romney who immediately politicised the issue of Benghazi.  It is obvious that Romney lacked the qualities of a statesman. He proved himself to be the supreme political opportunist where nothing was off limits. Even if it brought his own country into disrepute in the international arena. His one overriding agenda was to defeat Obama at the polls, and he was going to do this by any means necessary even if his conduct was unpatriotic, disloyal and treacherous, if by so doing he could impugn Obama's international standing on foreign policy issues.

It is therefore spiteful and mean-spirited in the extreme that the GOP intends to crucify her for doing the job she was given as a public servant under the authority and supervision of the President. The GOP needs to give it up and desist with their continuing obstructionism and obfuscation, now that the elections are over. Whatever they do can no longer hurt Obama. First, the presidential election has come and gone, and President Obama has won a convincing and resounding mandate for his second term in office. He is entitled to his team and the puerile attempts of the GOP, principally in the form of Graham and McCain, to constantly obstruct him serves no useful purpose for the GOP except to put them in a bad light with the electorate. And they will have to answer for their misconduct and misdemeanours at the next elections coming up in 2014. The GOP should realise that no one is asleep any more. There will be no repeat of 2010, because everyone is now paying attention. They should have read the writing on the wall after the resounding electoral spanking of the GOP by the Democrats in both the Senate and House of Representatives.

The problem is why the continuing hullabaloo over Benghazi by the GOP? Obama is prone to falling into these sorts of traps set by the Republican extremists who have essentially put him on the defensive since the GOP 2010 landslide congressional election. Obama has never learnt the virtue of keeping silent until he has all the facts. He tends to act spontaneously whenever he is criticised. And the GOP has capitalised on this unfortunate trait. Essentially, Romney stampeded him into sending Susan Rice to present the administration’s position on a matter of national security before he could be fully briefed by his intelligence apparatchiks. In another time and place, Romney would have been arrested, tried and hanged for giving comfort to the enemy. You just do not pre-empt the President with reckless statements about national security before the President has received a full briefing from the appropriate intelligence and national security agencies. Thereafter, it is the President’s duty to brief the public. There was no justification for Mitt Romney's midnight attack, except to give the enemy satisfaction of American disunity.

Within 24 hours of the al-Qaida attack on New York, did any sane American come out and criticise George Bush for not taking action in spite of the fact that he had been forewarned about the imminence of such an attack. When Pearl Harbour was attacked, did any American come out within 24 hours to criticise FDR for not heeding the warnings about the imminence of such an attack. In this particular matter, there were no warnings of any kind, since no human assets had infiltrated this terrorist cell that launched the murderous assault on the Ambassador. Romney’s actions were totally despicable and he only got away with it because nothing was off-limits by the Republicans against the first brown President, even where it entailed treachery against the country and giving comfort to its enemies. There were no failures at Benghazi. What needs to be explained is why the Ambassador took an ill-advised trip to Benghazi, without ensuring adequate security for himself. That was his own primary responsibility. In this case, it is obvious that no amount of security would have saved the Ambassador because he put himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. The terrorists were only biding their time and waiting for a perfect opportunity to launch their assault and the Ambassador gave it to them. It did not have to be that day, it could have been any other day. It was easy to make the mistake and assume that the cause of the attack was the anti-Muslim video, but the truth of the matter is that it was the cover the terrorists used, as it incensed all Muslims including the Libyan authorities. Since a simultaneous attack was going on in Cairo at that time, it was easy to assume that the events were related. In fact, what should be investigated is not the Obama administration but Romney and his Republican cohorts who imperilled their country’s national security by their idiotic partisan actions. In presidential politics, one thing has always been sacrosanct in the public arena that is the President’s prerogative on national security. No one else has any right to make dangerous and reckless statements on national security issues or by their actions imperil the country or give comfort to its enemies.

However the assassination of the U.S. Ambassador in Libya brings into focus an aspect of Obama’s policy that has troubled me deeply. Muammar Gaddafi had become a reformed leader. He had given up his nuclear ambitions and had been rehabilitated by the international community. What was the raison d’etre of driving him from power and killing him? Muammar al-Gaddafi gave Libya a measure of stability and economic development that it has lost since he was driven from power and killed by American and British military might. We now see shades of Somalia in Libya. Now Libya is in a state of “democratic” chaos deeply divided along tribal lines, just like Somalia. These deep tribal divisions that Gaddafi had been able to contain and hold in check have now been let loose and anyone expecting Libya to become a democratic society any time soon is just engaging in wishful thinking. The internecine strife will continue indefinitely creating a new safe haven for al-Qaida terrorists and sympathisers. The consequences of killing Muammar al-Gaddafi can already be seen by the takeover of northern Mali by al-Qaida affiliated terrorists. In fact, I predict that Libya will never become a democratic country. The concept of democracy is anathema and an abomination to Muslim thinking and philosophical thought. The only democracy in an Islamic society is the “democracy” of the Shari'a. You cannot give human rights to Muslims when their religion does not recognise the concept of human rights, and have devised barbaric punishments for actions that are not deemed crimes in the West. These are the mistakes that have been made by U.S. policy makers since George Bush decided he needed to bring “democracy” to Iraq and liberate it from dictatorship.  George Bush only succeeded in opening a Pandora ’s Box, let the genie out of the bottle, creating Frankenstein states that have a natural and innate dislike and hatred for the U.S. The result of Bush’s policies was the creation of a less than friendly Shiite state culturally and spiritually allied and subservient to its no. 1 enemy, Iran. Like the Shias used Bush to remove Saddam Hussein and the Sunnis from power in Iraq, America has now been used by the same Islamists to overthrow Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya. Whatever you do for Muslims, never expect friendship or gratitude from them because the first enemy of the Muslim is always and ultimately the Christian West and that will never change because this is the fundamental principle and tenet of the Quran and the Islamic faith, hatred of Christianity and Christians. It is obvious that most Christians have never read the Koran or understand what it stands for. They view Islam as innocuous, as if it guarantees freedom of religion or the concept of separation of the mosque and state. It is impossible to explain the naiveté of U.S. policy makers in relation to the dynamics of the Islamic world.  Otherwise the West would not have been so quick to take action in Muslim countries for any side or whatever reason, because the ultimate result is to create an anti-western political environment, once the Islamists have achieved their goals with U.S. support. You can see this in Afghanistan, where the so called Afghan allies of the Americans are now responsible for more U.S. deaths and casualties than the Taliban or its allies. America just stayed too long in Afghanistan. The war there should have been limited to eliminating Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida leadership as well as the Taliban leadership that gave Osama bin Laden safe haven in Afghanistan. This should have been done within 2 years, wherein U.S. troops should have withdrawn and set up a military quarantine around Afghanistan, driven by drone strikes and CIA led strategic support.

Bogging down the U.S. military for years in Afghanistan has served no useful purpose except to provide cannon fodder and target practice for a continuing Taliban insurgency. Afghanistan is now on the verge of collapse and will ultimately revert back to the Taliban. So much for all the U.S. financial and military efforts and the unnecessary loss of American life in this god forsaken Islamic backwater. If Muslims want to stone themselves to death, cut off their limbs, oppress and subjugate their women, deny basic rights except those recognised by the Shari'a, why then should the U.S. be concerned for Muslims when they are not concerned for themselves. They believe in the Quran and the Shari'a, so they should be allowed to live according to its dictates. Muslims who reject the Shari'a should be made to reject Islam and convert to Christianity or any other religion that guarantees their rights. They cannot insist on being Muslims and then continue to clamour for western freedoms and liberties. Islam and western concepts are incompatible and diametrically opposed to each other. And since the West has always believed in freedom of religion, the West should allow Muslims to practice their religion, no matter how harsh and draconian it may seem to the West. Maybe when they have cut off all their hands and disabled all their people, they would lack the capacity to launch holy wars and terrorist attacks.

And yet the U.S. has learnt nothing. Now they want to interfere in Syria on the basis of human rights without understanding what makes that intervention dangerous. Obama is being egged on by the warmongering and bellicose Republicans who have a penchant for advocating wars that they never enlist to fight in. Two draft dodgers, George Bush and Mitt Romney fit this mould. Bashar al-Assad is engaged in a war for the very survival of his people, the Alawites. Should the Sunnis win, there is going to be genocide, a systematic pogrom of the Alawites by the Sunnis. Unlike Saudi Arabia, ironically America’s number one ally in the Middle East, apart from Israel of course, one should not forget that almost all the September 11 terrorists were Saudi citizens [all Sunnis], yet Bush chose to attack Iraq instead in spite of the lack of evidence and proof of Iraqi complicity in the September 11 attacks. The Alawites have prevented Sunni radicalism from making Syria a hotbed for al-Qaida style Sunni terrorists. If the Alawites are driven from power, Syria far from becoming a democratic state would just become another hotbed of Sunni radicalism, irrational opposition to any peace with Israel and anti-Americanism. It is incredible that the U.S. cannot see this. Fortunately, Obama has been unable to act militarily in Syria, in the same manner as he did in Libya, because the Russians, who fully understand the danger to the whole of the Middle East, if the Sunnis radicals were to come to power in Syria, have refused to allow the U.S. through the U.N. to attack Syria on behalf of the Sunni rebels and insurgents. And China and Russia should continue to oppose U.S.  military intentions in Syria. America will be in danger if they allow the Sunnis to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria. America needs to fully back Russia, and assist in quashing the Sunni rebellion in Syria. Just like Libya, the Syrian Sunnis will pretend that they fight for human rights, democracy etc. but in the end, their goal is to use the West  to oust Assad and the Alawites from power, just like the got the West  to remove Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Gaddafi in Libya. Since the removal of Saddam, Iraq has maintained a very lukewarm relationship with the U.S., while the Libyan thank you to the U.S. for liberating them from Muammar al-Gaddafi was to allow the U.S. Ambassador to be killed apparently by al-Qaida terrorists.

Ironically and ultimately, in international law, the protection of foreign diplomatic personnel rests with the host government, and if the U.S. Ambassador was killed the ultimate and final responsibility for his death rested with the Libyan government, not with Obama or his administration. It is the Libyans who are required to give an account as to why the Ambassador was not adequately protected. So the question is why the Libyans did not provide adequate security for the Ambassador, and not why the U.S. did not provide him with adequate security, since Libya is not a province of the U.S. And the answer is that the Libyan authorities were simply distracted by the video disrespecting Islam, so inadvertently failed to perform their duties to the U.S. Ambassador and his staff.

When you don’t learn from historical mistakes, the tendency is to repeat them. America needs to inadvertently stop supporting Muslim radicalism and extremism and advancing their cause because nothing, absolutely nothing the U.S. does in the Middle East would give it any political capital or advantage with its radicalised Sunni population. To most Muslim believers, the U.S. will still remain an infidel state, the great Satan, to be ultimately defeated by Islam. The delicate balance of power in the Middle East has been upset incessantly by misguided American zeal to interfere in places that it understands absolutely nothing about. The Chinese and the Russians oppose naïve and dangerous American policies in the Middle East for good reason. The US believes that democracy is a panacea for all the problems of the world. It is not. This is the fallacy of trying to use a headache pill to cure cancer. Democracy does not fit all. It is not one size fits all. For Muslims, the ultimate goal is the imposition of Shari'a, because this is what their prophet told them to do. And Shari'a is antithetical to democracy, to human rights, women’s rights, in fact to everything that the West and western philosophical thought stands for. The U.S. just allows radicalism and extremism to be introduced and installed democratically. Once they win, that is the end of democracy. Remember Hitler’s democratic assumption of power in 1933 ended democracy in Germany, and the communist’s 1919 democratic assumption of power in Russia led to the one party state. The democratic assumption of power by the Shiites in 1980 led to the Iranian theocracy.  Everywhere in the Middle East and North Africa, we have seen radicalisation whenever the status quo is tampered with. Americans should continue to ask why their Ambassador in Libya was killed, when it was America’s so called help that freed the Libyans from the “tyrannical” hand of Gaddafi. America will continue to be deceived into helping its natural enemies who have concealed their true intentions under the shibboleths of western philosophical thought, viz., democracy, human rights etc.

It is quite disappointing the role Senator McCain has played in undermining the President at every opportunity in the international arena. While McCain appears to still be bitter about his loss to Obama in 2008, what is observable is that he has seized on every international incident and crisis to criticize Obama with the intention of stampeding him into hasty and ill-advised political and/or military action. Currently, McCain is trying everything he can to force Obama to intervene militarily in Syria, even though that is not in America’s best interest. Suddenly, “oppressed” Muslims have become the GOP and McCain’s number one priority. It is okay if Americans are killing Muslims, but Bashar al-Assad should not kill Muslims who are trying to overthrow his government in an internal rebellion. Since when did it become the right of countries to interfere in the internal affairs of other states? If there was a rebellion in the U.S., I assume that the U.S.  federal government is just supposed to hand over the country to the rebels. Then why must Assad be asked to hand over his country to rebels? McCain’s parvanimity is breath taking. Having lost to the first brown President, who has now been validated by his win over Romney, McCain has done everything within his power to obstruct, oppose, and interfere with Obama’s handling of foreign, national security and military policy.

McCain is not an honourable man. In a decent society, McCain would have been quiet and held his peace so as not to be accused of shameless and unjustified obstruction of the man who beat him fair and square. Obama has earned the right to conduct the foreign policy and military strategy of the U.S. as Commander-in-Chief. It is Obama that is Commander-in-Chief, not McCain, and his views on these issues are completely irrelevant. The U.S. is struggling to get out of Afghanistan, and McCain is hell-bent on dragging the U.S. into the Syrian quagmire. Since when did McCain develop this love for the Sunni Muslims of Syria that American lives must be expended to free them from their legitimate government? In fact, it is in the best interests of the U.S. that Bashar al-Assad continues as President. Just like Muammar al-Gaddafi, he is a rational devil that the West knows who would be replaced by an irrational and rabidly anti-American Iranian like form of government, if the Sunni insurgents succeeded in overthrowing him. And every change of government in the Middle East threatens Israel. It is not in Israel’s best interests that Bashar al-Assad is overthrown. Just like it was not in Israel’s best interests that Mubarak was overthrown. In fact, the Arab spring was not in Israel’s best interests and the U.S. cannot inadvertently continue to further the interests of radical Islam in the Middle East and North Africa. Islam recognises the complete submission to the will of God, and complete submission to their leaders ordained by God. In the Muslim world nothing happens by chance. Their leaders are divinely ordained to rule. Radical Islam cannot and should not be allowed to use western philosophical and political concepts to achieve radical religious dictatorship in their countries. One of the best Muslims of all time, Kemal Attaturk understood the dangers of Islam, and suppressed it as a political and cultural force in his country. Unfortunately, radical Islam is gradually creeping back into Turkey, and had it not been for the Turkish army upholding the principles of Attaturk, the secular democratic state that he created would have long since been overthrown and consigned to the garbage can of history by Islamic radicals.

There is no doubt that Republicans have been using their fraudulently obtained congressional majority in the 2010 elections to keep alive partisan non issues like Benghazi, the General Petraeus extra marital affair, etc. on the front burner, instead of addressing the serious economic issues confronting the middle class of America, especially the advancing fiscal cliff. These diversionary tactics seen useless, now that the presidential elections have lost and won. Do they honestly believe that they can hurt President Obama, now that the 2012 elections have become history and Obama has been validated for all time? Does the legitimate rape Congress believe it can hold on to its majority at the next midterm elections? What is wrong with these Republicans in and out of Congress? Do they need a time machine? The Republicans have gone nuts. They need to focus. Benghazi is not a matter for congressional investigation. Mistakes were made but that is why we are human.  It is within the purview of the State Department to investigate and submit a report to Congress on Benghazi. It is on the basis of that report that the Congress can then determine if the matter should be pursued further. It is obvious that the main culprit for instigating a premature partisan and irrational Republican congressional investigation was Mitt Romney, aided and abetted by Fox News and certain members of the “liberal” media that apparently secretly wanted Obama to loose.

Lastly, let me comment on the killing of U.S. citizens who are also Islamic terrorists and sympathisers. Once again, it is convenient to criticise Obama on this issue, in spite of the fact that  criminals are killed every day by the police for resisting arrest, escaping lawful custody and a whole range of other reasons for the legitimate killing of a citizen. Safeguards have been put in place to ensure the police do not abuse this power wherein they can engage in senseless random and illegal killings. The killing of Islamic terrorists outside the U.S. who are U.S. citizens is justified under the concept of wanted dead or alive. Since the founding of the republic, wanted criminals can be captured alive if that is possible, or be killed to apprehend them if it is impossible to capture them alive. And this is the scenario when a terrorist ensconces himself in a terrorist enclave out of reach of American law enforcement. He can be killed wherever he is, if he cannot be physically apprehended from the location in which he is hiding. So the killing of U.S. citizens who are terrorists who cannot be apprehended alive is perfectly justified under the wanted dead or alive concept. And since criminals are being killed every day for a variety of reasons, it defies reason that terrorists should be exempted from being killed, where they cannot be apprehended. My last word is that McCain needs to bow his head in shame and spend the remainder of his life seeking penance for his numerous irresponsible acts as a U.S. Senator.