Author Archives: onthow

A Calculated Lie

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From Thomas Sowell:

There can be honest differences of opinion on many subjects. But there can also be dishonest differences. Last week’s testimony under oath about events in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 makes painfully clear that what the Obama administration told the American people about those events were lies out of whole cloth.

What we were told repeatedly last year by the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, and the American ambassador to the U.N., was that there was a protest demonstration in Benghazi against an anti-Islamic video produced by an American, and that this protest demonstration simply escalated out of control.

This “spontaneous protest” story did not originate in Libya but in Washington. Neither the Americans on duty in Libya during the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, nor officials of the Libyan government, said anything about a protest demonstration.

The highest American diplomat on the scene in Libya spoke directly with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by phone, and told her that it was a terrorist attack. The president of Libya announced that it was a terrorist attack. The C.I.A. told the Obama administration that it was a terrorist attack.

With lies, as with potato chips, it is hard to stop with just one. After the “spontaneous protest” story was discredited, the next claim was that this was the best information available at the time from intelligence sources.

But that claim cannot survive scrutiny, now that the 12 drafts of the Obama administration’s talking points about Benghazi have belatedly come to light. As draft after draft of the talking points were made, e-mails from the State Department pressured the intelligence services to omit from these drafts their clear and unequivocal statement from the outset that this was a terrorist attack.

Attempts to make it seem that Ambassador Susan Rice’s false story about a “spontaneous protest” was the result of her not having accurate information from the intelligence services have now been exposed as a second lie to excuse the first lie.

Despite Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s loudly proclaimed question “What difference, at this point, does it make?” the difference is between an honest mistake and a calculated lie to deceive the American people, in order to win an election.

Barack Obama’s election campaign oratory had proclaimed the death of Osama bin Laden as an accomplishment of his administration, as part of a general defeat of Al-Qaeda and other terrorists. To admit that these terrorists were still in action, and strong enough to kill an American ambassador and three other Americans in a well-coordinated military style attack, would be a politically devastating admission during the election campaign.

Far better, politically, to come up with a story about a protest demonstration that just got out of hand. This could be presented as an isolated, one-time event, rather than part of a continuing pattern of terrorism by groups that were still active, despite President Obama’s spin suggesting that they were not.

The problem with telling a lie, or even a succession of lies, is that a very small dose of the truth can sometimes make the whole thing collapse like a house of cards. The State Department’s own foreign service officer Gregory Hicks was in Libya during the attack, so he knew the truth. When threats were not enough to silence him, it was then necessary to try to discredit him.

After years of getting glowing job evaluations, and awards of honors from the State Department for his work in various parts of the world, Mr. Hicks suddenly began to get bad job evaluations and was demoted to a desk job in Washington after he spoke with a Congressman about what he knew. The truth is dangerous to liars.

The Obama administration’s excuse for not trying to get help to the Americans in Benghazi while they were under attack — namely, that it would take too long — is as shaky as its other statements. A small fighting unit in Tripoli was ready to get on a plane to Benghazi when they were ordered to “stand down.” Other fighting units located outside of Libya are designed precisely for fast deployment — and nobody knew how many hours the attack would last.

But it will take more investigations to determine who gave the order to “stand down,” and why. How many new lies that will generate is another question.

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Truth — what difference at this point does it make?

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From VDH:

Hillary Clinton’s now infamous second question that followed, “Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d go kill some Americans?”: “What difference at this point does it make?” is rightly quoted as a reflection of the callousness toward finding out the truth about the death of four Americans. But the first question in some ways is even worse. By the time Secretary Clinton posed that either/or question in January, she had known for months from both intelligence reports and from the administration and State Department efforts to massage those reports, and from the efforts of diplomat Gregory Hicks and others to set the story straight, that the murders were preplanned assaults by an al-Qaeda affiliate. She knew that the attack was neither a “protest” nor “guys out for a walk” — but was still peddling scenarios that were simply untrue and designed to mislead.

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Obama’s Court Eunuchs

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From Mark Steyn:

Toward the end of my column on Gregory Hicks’ testimony re Benghazi, I write:

The dying Los Angeles Times reported this story on its homepage (as a sidebar to “Thirteen Great Tacos in Southern California”) under the following headline: “Partisan Politics Dominates House Benghazi Hearing.” In fact, everyone in this story is a Democrat or a career civil servant.

Mr Hicks was there in the latter capacity, and he didn’t come across as a political person. But just for the record:

A key Benghazi whistle-blower who has allegedly been punished for speaking out against the administration is a registered Democrat who voted for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Gregory Hicks, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are all Democrats. The only difference is that for Mr Hicks four dead colleagues trumps party.

That it doesn’t for Obama’s court eunuchs is a comment on them.

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97 Percent

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From Daniel Pipes:

The FBI’s list of “Ten Most Wanted” fugitives dates back to 1950, but the list of “Most Wanted Terrorists” began just after 9/11. Today, the list includes 31 individuals, all of them male and, with a single exception (Daniel Andreas San Diego, an animal-rights extremist), all of them Muslim:

  • Abd al Aziz Awda – 1950, Palestinian, Palestinian Islamic Jihad
  • Abdelkarim Hussein Mohamed Al-Nasser – ca. 1947, Saudi, Saudi Hizbullah
  • Abdul Rahman Yasin – 1960, American, World Trade Center bombing in 1993
  • Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah – 1963, Egyptian, Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings in 1998
  • Adam Yahiye Gadahn – 1978, American, Al-Qaeda
  • Adnan G. El Shukrijumah – 1975, Guyanese, Al-Qaeda
  • Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Mughassil – 1967, Saudi, Saudi Hizbullah
  • Ali Atwa – ca. 1960, Lebanese, TWA hijacking in 1985
  • Ali Saed Bin Ali El-Hoorie – 1965, Saudi, Saudi Hizbullah
  • Anas Al-Liby – 1964, Libyan, Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings in 1998
  • Ayman Al-Zawahiri – 1951, Egyptian, Al-Qaeda
  • Faouzi Mohamad Ayoub – 1966, Lebanese, Lebanese Hizbullah
  • Hakimullah Mehsud – ca. 1980, Pakistani, Pakistani Taliban
  • Hasan Izz-Al-Din – 1963, Lebanese, TWA hijacking in 1985
  • Husayn Muhammad Al-Umari – 1936, Lebanese, 15 May Organization
  • Ibrahim Salih Mohammed Al-Yacoub – 1966, Saudi, Saudi Hizbullah
  • Isnilon Totoni Hapilon – 1966, Filipino, Abu Sayyaf Group
  • Jaber A. Elbaneh – 1966, Yemeni, Al-Qaeda
  • Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim – 1965, Palestinian, Pan Am hijacking in 1986
  • Jamel Ahmed Mohammed Ali Al-Badawi – 1960, Yemeni, USS Cole bombing in 2000
  • Jehad Serwan Mostafa – 1981, American, Al-Shabaab
  • Mohammed Ali Hamadei – 1964, Lebanese, Lebanese Hizbullah
  • Muhammad Abdullah Khalil Hussain Ar-Rahayyal – 1965, Palestinian, Pan Am hijacking in 1986
  • Muhammad Ahmed Al-Munawar – 1965, Palestinian, Abu Nidal Organization
  • Omar Shafik Hammami – 1984, American, Al-Shabaab
  • Raddulan Sahiron – ca. 1936, Filipino, Abu Sayyaf Group
  • Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah – 1958, Palestinian, Palestinian Islamic Jihad
  • Saif Al-Adel – ca. 1960, Egyptian, Al-Qaeda
  • Wadoud Muhammad Hafiz Al-Turki – 1955, Palestinian, Pan Am hijacking in 1986
  • Zulkifli Abdhir – 1966, Malaysian, Kumpulun Mujahidin Malaysia

Muslims make up 30 out of 31 most wanted terrorists, or about 97 percent of them. That’s a pretty good indication of the insight contained in Bernard Lewis’s 1990 article famously called “Muslim rage,” and of why Islam-related issues have such prominence.

Islamists make up 27 out of those 30; the only exceptions were the three perpetrators of the Pan Am 73 hijacking in 1986 (Rahayyal, Munawar, Turki), all connected to the Abu Nidal Organization, a non-religious Palestinian terrorist group (at least, they were not Islamists in 1986). This predominance of jihad reflects the Islamist hegemony among politically extreme Muslims.

Ethnic Arabs make up 25 of the 30 terrorists. The largest numbers are four each of Lebanese, Palestinians, and Saudis, three each of American citizens and Egyptians. Non-ethnic Arabs include two Filipinos, one Malaysian, one Pakistani, and one American convert. This high percentage confirms the sense that Arabic-speakers have the most pent-up hostility toward Americans.

Most attacks by these most-wanted fugitives date from the 1980s and 1990s — Khobar, TWA 847, East African embassies, WTC bombing. Reflecting this relative antiquity, in fact, the only American airlines attacked by members of the list were Pan American and TWA, both long defunct. This points to the greater success since 9/11 in both foiling and tracking terrorism, thanks to greater resources and more diligence.

Also reflecting the long-ago quality of this most-wanted list, note the striking pattern of their decadal birthdates:

1930s – 2
1940s – 1
1950s – 4
1960s – 18
1970s – 2
1980s – 3
1990s – 0

The average age is now close to 50 — not exactly the prime time of life for terrorism. The youngest listee, Hammami, will be 29 years old in less than a week. The eldest two, Umari and Sahiron, are approaching 80.

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Americanism vs. Leftism

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Americanism:

If you think about the founders, they looked at the government as the enemy of rights; that we secure our rights by limiting the government. And even where you have government, it has to be checked. And so you have separation of power, checks and balances — all techniques to put a rein, a leash on the government. And that’s why when you look at the Bill of Rights, a lot of the phrases begin, “Congress shall make no law.” So how do we protect free speech, Congress shall make no law restricting free speech; how do we protect religion, Congress can’t pass laws about it. So restricting the government is seen as the mechanism to protect rights.

– Dinesh D’Souza, The Dennis Prager Show, January 22, 2013, Hour 2

Leftism:

Government is not inherently bad; government is inherently good. That is why we have a Constitution.

– Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), U.S. Senate Floor, April 23, 2013

Nothing to do with Islam

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From Mark Steyn:

Former brother-in-law Elmirza Khozhugov explains Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s grievances to the New York Times:

He was angry that the world pictures Islam as a violent religion.

So he blew up an eight-year old boy and a couple of hundred other Americans.

And now the media are full of stories about how the Tsarnaevs were all-American kids and “beautiful, beautiful boys” and maybe it was the boxing or the Ben Affleck movies or the classical music but, whatever it was, it was nothing to do with Islam. Nothing whatever.

So I guess it worked.

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Two Great Guys

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From VDH:

I am not so struck by the glowing testimonials from fellow teenagers and twenty-somethings about the two monstrous Tsarnaevs, to the effect that they seemed great guys. Such is the power of anecdote and emotion over reasoned empiricism in the young untrained mind.

The stranger fact is the adult media’s gullible reporting of these impressions as if they were somehow significant, as if superficial impression is the key to understanding an ideology that drives behavior. The following caricature reflects how one of the present therapeutic society might remark on the death of Adolf Hitler. “I don’t quite understand his violent side. He was a man who simply loved children — certainly he fawned upon the Goebbels kids. He inquired about the health and welfare of his chauffer and valet, and no boss was more considerate of his secretaries. Hitler’s dogs were his pride and joy; I never saw a kinder and more gentler master. Eva Braun simply lit up at his presence. His conversations at dinner were witty, lively, and polite. He gave up almost everything for Germany. And while he seemed troubled at times, I always attributed it to the horrors of the trenches. None of us can quite judge him, or even know what it was like for a young man to be subject to what Hitler endured — only to be unemployed, shamed, and ignored upon returning to a defeated Austria and Germany. It just makes no sense that such a seemingly kind person could commit such horrors. I still can’t quite believe it.”

Do we care whether a man who placed a bomb full of ball bearings next to an eight-year-old boy and blew apart dozens of innocents was nice to his peers? Let us at least hope that the killer Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is not to be known as “unduly influenced by his brother,” “fully American,” “coerced to become violent,” “brain-washed,” and “young and impressionable.”

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Dead Souls

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From VDH:

Although information is still too sketchy to draw any comprehensive conclusions (other than that the Boston killings are not, as recently suggested, fall out from sequestration, the NRA, lack of gun control, climate change, right-wing tea-party zealots, etc.), there emerges a familiar profile to the suspects that we have seen before. In articles in 2002 and 2007, I touched on the dangers of isolated Islamic-driven terrorists without direct connections to organized terrorist networks, calling it a sort of “al-Qaedism.”

In other word, single and usually young American resident males, often originating from the Muslim world (and not always from the Arab Middle East), sometimes citizens, sometimes resident aliens, can at some point not square the circle of being attracted to American popular culture, often failing to assimilate or succeed in the United States, and ostensibly seeking to remain (or return to being) a devout Muslim that alone gives them moral redemption and guidance.

The result is a dead soul who kills the vulnerable and innocent, and who is a psychological and social mess: consumed by fury at the country that embraced him in extremis, coupled with romance toward the country he or his family fled (and no longer has to endure), and a reliance upon, and yet lack of respect for, the tolerant liberal culture that allows him a freedom of action impossible in the land of his birth.

Like some, I question the standard American conceit that ignorance of the U.S. explains anti-American behavior in the Islamic world. It often seems just as likely the very opposite case: The more Islamists are exposed to our affluence, popular culture, informality, self-critique, lack of hierarchy, sexual liberality, tolerance of homosexuality, parity between the sexes, and tolerance of all religious observance, and see that such American values may contribute to the world’s attraction to the United States, the more they end up hating it, not the least because of fears that America’s nature erodes one’s own zealotry.

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