Category Archives: Politics

Gladius emailed this handy link to the House’s Committee on Oversight and  Government Reform interim report on the Benghazi Attacks released September 16, 2013.  (full report here).   I’ve only waded through the first couple dozen pages and each page leads to more questions on Madame Secretary’s legally mandated internal review of the events surrounding Benghazi.  Her State Department set-up an Accountability Review Board (ARB), run by five big name former government servants, to include former ambassador to the UN and six other countries, Thomas Pickering and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Admiral Mike Mullen.  The Obama administration cited this ongoing investigation as a shield from probing questions by the media and concerned Congressional members and as a handy sword to swiftly fell any who dared criticize.  Pages 21-22  explains their process for gleaning the facts, with Admiral Mike Mullen testifying how their ARB report was put together:

In addition, the Committee has been unable to assess with any specificity what
information witnesses conveyed to the ARB during interviews. The ARB did not maintain
official transcripts of the testimony provided to the Board. Instead, it developed reports of each
interview based on the notes of staff and Board members. Mullen testified:

Q.   How were the interviews recorded? Was there a court reporter?
Was there video? Was there audio recording? Note taking?

A.  Note taking.

Q.  And none of the other options?
A.  No.

Q.  And how did it get put together?

A.  The staff would put a summary of the interview together. We
would — the members would be able to review that summary
shortly after the interview.

Q.  Any concerns with that?

A.  No.

Q.  That it wasn’t transcribed or recorded?

A.  No. From the standpoint of content, substance and content, I found
them to be very accurate.

Yep, they relied on their own personal notes rather than on recording, videotaping or even having a stenographer present.  This was how their official report was documented.  I’ll read the entire report before rendering a final judgement on Madame Secretary’s ARB report and relegating it to the bird cage liner pile (worthy only of catching droppings), but the first couple dozen pages are damning.

Former Democratic ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and current president of the Woodrow Wilson Center, Jane Harman, says John Kerry should be nominated for sainthood for his handling of the Syrian debacle and his talks with the Russians in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper (video here).  Harman offers only a “butterflies and sunbeams”  prediction of how this Russian-brokered  WMD deal will turn out.  With phrases like “Syria is in a box” and a slight cautionary  “all the puzzle pieces are still moving” , she gives herself a handy escape from her own partisan box of lies she unleashed in this interview.  She glowingly  professes that she feels certain Syria will turn over their entire chemical weapons arsenal, but….. when they don’t she can always refer back to, “….as you recall, I stated ‘all the puzzle pieces are still moving’ and the Russians own this mess, because they assured Syrian compliance!”   This woman spent “years” sitting through intelligence briefings through the 1990s and has in-depth knowledge of the WMD weapons charades and in her own words,  “the journey continues”.  In the meantime,  we can all sing along, “we all live in a yellow submarine”.

Our President, negotiator extraordinaire, will bask in the glow of reaching a “diplomatic” solution to his Syrian debacle.  The Russians, with their seasoned, highly competent diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, laid down the terms while John Kerry pontificated on and on and on.  At the end, the Russians insist that the US seek no UN authorization to use force, if Assad does not comply and they insist the US not refer Assad to the International Criminal Court for possible war crimes prosecution. (Washington Post story here).

“Oh,  libertybelle, you mean-spirited, partisan witch, how dare you laugh and say, ‘what a bunch of crapola!’?  You just don’t understand how to play weapons inspections charades, so hush your mean-spirited mutterings, you hater!  After all, what would you know after watching this game played for over a decade with Saddam…….”.  Like lambs to the slaughter, Putin leads them and here I am talking to myself……..

No leader is going to relinquish a potent weapons arsenal in the midst of an existential struggle, unless he is being given some other potent weaponry (in large supplies, with training included too) to win the struggle he’s engaged in.  The Russians would have to assure him of victory and even then the logistics of implementing a weapons inspection plan in the midst of a bloody civil war would make me wonder which countries will want their weapons inspectors walking into that.  It’s all a big smokescreen to give Obama cover for his Syrian missteps and the Russians will continue to run this show.  We have just traded away American influence in the region in nothing more than a face-saving exercise.  Did I miss John Kerry packing Jane Fonda in his suitcase, to help him “negotiate” away American prestige?  And our lovely, objective mainstream press is lapping it up and praising this as a “breakthrough”, not a breakdown of American standing in the Mid-East and beyond.

Time for some deep-breathing exercises, so I don’t blurt out some truly regrettable @%#$&^! things.  “Calm thyself, libertybelle, for they know not what they speak!”  Who in the Hades with a functioning brain cell believes that Syria relinquishing their WMD to a third party country could physically happen in the midst of a bloody civil war?  Just the actual logistics of that, ponder that for a moment.  Then, ponder what rational country would send teams into this hotbed to retrieve WMD???  So, obviously, even a half-wit should see that Putin was playing Obama (masterfully, I might add) and yet the punditry, by and large, this bunch of clowns at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and assorted Congressional folks yammer on and on about this WMD collection as if it’s a real breakthrough and even feasible.  And on top of that, they’re plagued by  short-term memory deficiencies, because we spent many years, endured endless media embarrassments playing WMD hide and seek just next door to Syria.  Oops, the media forgot how this game is played…….. idiots!  Putin offers this old, leaky lifeboat to Obama and the American press ignores that it’s sinking.  And Obama doesn’t care, at least he doesn’t have to decide on airstrikes now and who knows he might be able to bail water fast enough to avoid drowning and maybe if he’s lucky, the sharks aren’t lying in wait for him.  Can’t you hear the Annie, tune, “tomorrow, tomorrow….” playing in the background of his speech………..(sing along here)

Someone can tell me later what all our fearless leader droned on about, but ten minutes in my tolerance for pain got the better of me.  Just yesterday, I proclaimed some freakish, fake parakeet, Perfect Polly, the most bizarre thing possible.  Who on earth would want to listen to a fake parakeet chirp, I pondered, and yet here I was listening to a fake world leader chirp on and on about how we can’t tolerate the use of chemical weapons, with gut-wrenching detail of the victims.  He chirped and chirped, leaving this unsettling feeling that just maybe Perfect Polly could have delivered a more convincing speech…….