Absolutely Clueless (Part Deux)

OK, so I take back what I said previously. Apparently the Obama Administration isn’t Absolutely Clueless and knew “within twenty-four hours” that the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya was a terrorist attack and suspected Al Qaeda-tied elements were involved.

In fact, a senior intelligence official stated that “No one ... believed that the mortars, indirect and direct fire, and the RPGs were just the work of a mob….. no one." Additionally, officials said the intelligence community knew by Sept. 12 that the militant Ansar al-Shariah and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb were likely behind the strike. 

So when Ambassador Susan Rice and Press Secretary Jay Carney were out pitching their story, they knew that they were lying. As recently as this week the President was still alluding to the nonsense about the insulting video that no has seen.

In fact, members of the House Intelligence Committee were briefed by administration officials and told the same thing. If that is the case, then those personnel intentionally misled Congress.

Which begs the question, why has the administration been lying to Congress as well as the American people?

I mean wasn't it President Obama who said in 2011 that “even before his death, al Qaeda was losing its struggle for relevance, as the overwhelming majority of people saw that the slaughter of innocents did not answer their cries for a better life. By the time we found bin Laden, al Qaeda’s agenda had come to be seen by the vast majority of the region as a dead end, and the people of the Middle East and North Africa had taken their future into their own hands.”

The answer is that we, including the President, don’t see things the way they see them. This “war” ends only two ways. We wipe them out to the last man, or they wipe us out. There is no neutral corner in this war. We are, and always will be to radical Islam, infidels.

Yes, Obama green-lighted the SEAL Team Six op that resulted in Bin Laden’s death. But it took out one person, not an ideology. We’ve grown war weary after a decade. As of 25 September 2012, there have been 3,015 coalition deaths in Afghanistan since the war started. One thousand, nine hundred and forty two US deaths.   Ask the Russians how it worked out for them in the nine years from late1979 to early 1989. They lost over fourteen thousand and over fifty-three thousand wounded. The Mujahideen lost between seventy-five and ninety thousand, with an equal amount wounded. They simply will not back down. And what was the Soviet Unions withdrawal strategy? The first step was to transfer the burden of fighting the mujahideen to the Afghan armed forces, with the aim of preparing them to operate without Soviet help. Al Qaeda was formed from those Mujahideen fighters. Think they don’t remember?

Consider the following assessment from Brian Jenkins, Rand Corporation.

“In the minds of most Americans, al Qaeda descended from the heavens in Wagnerian-opera fashion, on September 11, 2011, putting the organization today at the beginning of its second decade. But al Qaeda was formally established in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1988. It claims connection with assaults on American forces in Somalia and Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s, declared war on the United States in 1996, and launched its terrorist campaign in earnest in 1998. By 2001, the struggle was already in its second decade. Whether al Qaeda is in its third decade or third century matters little to its leaders, who see the current conflict as the continuation of centuries of armed struggle between believers and infidels, and who expect it to transcend their lifetimes. While al Qaeda, especially its central leadership, has been pummeled, and its capabilities to mount large-scale attacks have been reduced, claims of its imminent defeat are hyperbole.   Al Qaeda is more decentralized, more dependent on its affiliates, its allies, and its ability to radicalize and recruit distant recruits to carry out attacks on its behalf. Its peripheral commands remain strong. Its allies have bought into its ideology of global terrorism. Its communications network continues to function. It is resilient and opportunistic.”

In the end maybe it is easier to blame something tangible, like some two bit movie trailer, then to accept that despite all the rhetoric, despite all the chest thumping, this war will not end. Reality sucks, when your forty some odd days away from an election.