Via NRO’s Eliana Johnson, Charles Krauthammer provides a possible explanation for why the CIA supported the “spontaneous protest” narrative on the Benghazi attack.
Here’s Paula Broadwell’s reference to a potential secret CIA prison in Benghazi, which she made during a Denver University speech in October:
“They were requesting the – it’s called the C-in-C’s In Extremis Force – a group of Delta Force operators, our very, most talented guys we have in the military. They could have come and reinforced the consulate and the CIA annex. Now, I don’t know if a lot of you have heard this but the CIA annex had actually taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner, and they think that the attack on the consulate was an attempt to get these prisoners back. It’s still being vetted.”
As Krauthammer notes, Obama signed an executive order banning CIA detention centers right after he took office. The CIA can hold detainees temporarily without violating the order — which, based on Broadwell’s comments, may have been the case — but it can’t operate an actual prison. Obviously most of the media doesn’t find this worthy of investigation, but Fox News has a source who seems to support the “actual prison” scenario:
A well-placed Washington source confirms to Fox News that there were Libyan militiamen being held at the CIA annex in Benghazi and that their presence was being looked at as a possible motive for the staged attack on the consulate and annex that night.
According to multiple intelligence sources who have served in Benghazi, there were more than just Libyan militia members who were held and interrogated by CIA contractors at the CIA annex in the days prior to the attack. Other prisoners from additional countries in Africa and the Middle East were brought to this location.
The Libya annex was the largest CIA station in North Africa, and two weeks prior to the attack, the CIA was preparing to shut it down. Most prisoners, according to British and American intelligence sources, had been moved two weeks earlier.
Fascinating, if true. If detainees were being sent there from other countries for interrogation, wouldn’t that be a legitimate black site rather than a short-term holding cell for local jihadis?
Maureen Dowd will write a column on this as soon as someone explains to her what the letters CIA stand for. Very substantive piece coming. n nI can hardly wait.
It depends upon what the word "temporary" is interpreted as meaning. n nIt may also depend on the possible classified Presidential finding or even a classified Executive Order that countermands the public one, would you honestly put it past this administration? n nThat was the place that the Ambassador's people retreated to — albeit without him — which means that it wasn't really a secret from the Embassy Staff — which means that both Hillary and B. Hussein had to know about it. n nI go back to the three initial things I said about this: n n1: The "bad guys" didn't know the exact location of the CIA compound, but they did know that the Ambassador did, and presumed (correctly) that if they shot up the consulate and then left, he & his people would run to the CIA for shelter. And all they had to do was have a stack of US $20 bills (perhaps not even $20s) and they would have no shortage of information about where the highly-noticable American vehicles went to. n n2: As is often done for sexual trysts of all kinds, much to the legitimate concern of security folk who need to know where the VIP is at all times, the Ambassador had slipped away to be with his boyfriend and hence couldn't be found when the attack occurred. That is how he got left behind to die of smoke inhalation. n n3: The "bad guys" never intended to harm, let alone kill the Ambassador. Remember, they had mortars, RPGs and heavy machine guns, that kind of firepower could have leveled the consulate in the first attack if they had wanted to — I mean literally leveled with no survivors. Instead they shot it up – and then stopped. And they let the highly-vulnerable vehicles escape unmolested. n nAll they wanted was to scare folks into running to the CIA compound, and it never occurred to them that the Obama administration was so incompetent that they would leave an ambassador behind — and even if they lured him down there with the classic "honey trap" (and we've heard nothing of the fate of the boyfriend), they presumed that the Americans were competent enough not to leave their ambassador behind. n nLike a lot of other people, they overestimated the competence of the Obama Administration, but that is another story. And they paid a price for killing a quite-popular Ambassador — which makes me think that they didn't intend for that to happen. n nBut it all comes down to what the word "temporary" means, and what Obama may have done behind the veil of secrecy. After all, this is the same man who has been going through Hellfire missiles (i.e. Drone Strikes) like a college kid goes through cases of Bud Lite — and if he has no problem with the CIA killing people, I sorta doubt he really is going to have that much problem with them holdling folks prisoner.
I have heard somebody speculate that the intended (but failed) purpose of the raid on the consulate was to kidnap — not kill — the ambassador for the purpose of big-time embarrassment, and to hold him hostage for whatever came to mind. Of course, this is just another theory; and like so much else about this muddled matter, we may never know.
The problem I have with that theory is that the ambassador was wildly popular with the populace, sorta/kinda like Lafayette was after the American Revolution — and for some of the same sorts of reasons — and you don't kidnap people like that. Not when you need to be popular with a populace which will take an exceedingly dim view on this sort of thing. n nLook at what happened afterwards, and which we only sorta heard about — the citizenry attacked the militia's stronghold and drove them out of town, almost in a "torches & pitchforks" manner, as upset folk tend to do after you kill a public figure whom they liked. What do you think they would have done had they believed that the kidnapped ambassador was being held in that building — wouldn't they have gone to liberate him? n nAnd unless the AQ folks were truly out-of-touch, they would have understood that and *he* would not be the person they would want to kidnap. Now as to Petraeus or Clinton or someone like that, well that I could believe — and I believe that there was an attempt made to kidnap Petraeus at one point. But a guerrilla movement, which all the IslamoFascism essentially is, depends upon the support of the populace and knows it.
Not even Fox News has claimed Ambassador Stevens was a homosexual.
Point well taken — and not all unmarried men are gay. But remember the report that he had been sodomized, reported fairly widely a day or so after the incident — and then completely evaporating? Assuming that actually was in the autopsy report, why would it stop being mentioned??? And as far as I am concerned, the gender of the person he snuck off to be with doesn't matter — only that it explains how his security people managed to loose him. n nBack when the Schrafft's factory in Boston's Sullivan Square was actually manufacturing candy (it now is a State Office Building), President Kennedy reportedly used to love to ditch his Secret Service detail and go in there and get stuff. And we all know what eventually happened to JFK. And that was the point I was trying to make…. n
Tom Clancey once said that he starts his novels with a "what if" question. n nOK, what if Petraeus was interested in Broadwell for her mind? Not all attractive women are stupid, and it is possible for a man to genuinely respect a woman's intellect, judgment (and perhaps her training/experience) well enough to want to know her take on a certain circumstance or set of facts — not as a means to get her out of her clothing but because her opinion is genuinely valued and respected. n nThen let's ask "what if" Obama truly was intending to eliminate CIA black sites and that he had asked Petraeus to be D/CIA. And what if Petraeus realized that he couldn't trust his own (CIA) staff, that they were doing things behind his back and whatnot. Generals tend to make bad politicians — US Grant being the classic example — and Petraeus' background is in light infantry tactics and mechanized warfare – maybe he realizes that he is in over his head at CIA. n nWhat if he happens to know a bright woman who has a relevant background? Military intelligence, counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, geo-political analysis — the kind of stuff that he really needs a trusted person to discuss with him. And he absolutely can not have anyone in the CIA know that is why she really is meeting with him. For a bunch of reasons. n nNow a guy, cute girl, everyone is instantly going to think "sex" — and even though she was there to help him sabotage the efforts of his subordinates, they are all going to dismiss her as the bimbo he is sleeping with. And if both of them, particularly she, are disciplined enough to not let this bother them, this is the ideal cover. And as to the emails, think Harlequin Romance Novel combined with your most depraved and perverted sexual fantasies, the sort of stuff that you would never want to even discuss, let alone actually try with a sexual partner. n nIt isn't hard to make people see what they already think they see, and if she is trained in some of the things she claims to be trained in, this wouldn't be hard at all. However, and even if she has the rank of LTC in the Reserves, let's say she isn't able to deal with the stress of providing the advise that Petraeus is asking her to and freaks out. n nWell, who's to say that you can't admit to sleeping with someone whom you never did? n nOK, enough of Tom Clancey. I honestly don't think this is what happened — but it makes a nice story, doesn't it?
Tom CLANCY & ndon't delude yourself. nyou must not have read a Clancy novel in a very long time; probably never
However it is spelled (and I am from the Andrew Jackson school of spelling), the comment was part of an interview after the success of his book _Hunt for Red October._
Ed, I see no reason to take the sex out of the story. n nWhy can't the General have hot monkey sex with Broadwell, AND need her for her intellect and knowledge as well? n nBut I think you are on to something.
It's all becoming clear now. Obama got wind of the fact that the Republicans had secretly enabled Chinese scientists working in Venezuela to seed the storm that became Sandy, so that they could blame Obama for his lax response to the storm and win the election. This prompted Obama to convince Romney to persuade Cantor to lie about the Benghazi coverup, including Petraeus' role in it, so that he (Obama) could steal the loot from the White House safe, make off for the Bahamas with Paula, having arranged that Jill would continue supplying comfort ladies to the Washington Democratic high-ups, on the condition that they would continue sending money to the secret slush-fund on the Cayman islands, so that he could more effectively coordinate the activities of the Jews, the Arabs, and the Communists to take over the world!
This kind of makes sense. I would want to see Woodward turn his gaze on this scenario.
Still prefer the scenario where Amb. Stevens was lured to Benghazi to buyback those loose shoulder-fired MANPADS. n nA friend sent me an email last night with the header : "Who is writing this script?" with a URL link to gawker's report on the Tampa Twins, daughters of Lebanese Maronite Christians. nOnce I read that, Tom Clancy was only part of my answer. I had to start thinking that Oliver Stone wrote this script! n n
And the guy who made the video that was blamed for the embassy attacks is an Egyptian Coptic Christian — I am not sure how close that is to a Lebanese Maronite Christian in terms of culture or theology, but both are peoples whom the IslamoFascists have/are targeting for genocide and then Broadwell is fluent in Arabic which she studied extensively in Jordan and it wouldn't be hard to go down the conspiracy theory road here. n nThe problem with the CIA is that absolutely nothing is ever what it appears to be – by definition – and you never really know how many layers deep something is….
Hello, what is Paula Broadwell doing giving a speech on confidential CIA activity for the whole world to hear?!!! And moreover, how do you think that she obtained it? If people cannot understand the damage that was done, this speech should point people towards the answer.
It is interesting that Petraeus is listed as one of her dissertation advisers — if Kings College is like American universities, your dissertation committee consists of 2-3 professors at the college who are in your field and an "outsider" who is either from another academic department at the university (mine was from the School of Management) or from another university. The outsider must either have faculty status or be academically qualified to be hired as a professor and essentially be given some form of special adjunct graduate faculty status. n nThe dissertation process is stressful and drives everyone at least a little bit crazy. One of the really lovely parts of defending a dissertation is that any professor can come and ask you *anything* — and when the D/CIA is a member of your committee, well, some might want to. nThrow in possible post-postpartum depression and how women tend to freak out when they turn 40 and any stress out of anything she and Petraeus might have been working on, and she might have had a total breakdown. It happens. n nOR she might be faking that too. Mental illness can be faked too and if you don't mind the damage to your reputation, are an expedient and effective way to misdirect attention away from other things. People will believe she is sleeping with Petraeus, people will believe she is a scornful (rhymes with "rich") and people will believe the "catfight" stuff. n nI initially wrote the "Tom Clancey" version half in jest — although the more I think about this — particularly the part about her being a Major last January and apparently now a LTC and still in the reserves, I'm starting to wonder if I might actually be right. n nPast behavior indicates future actions — and there are too many people saying that she is not the type of person to have an affair. She either did something way outside of character here, is a really good liar and has had past affairs, or the affair was just cover for something else… n nAnd if the affair is going to come out, then Petraeus had to confirm it and quickly lest he loose the cover story and whatever was under it comes out…. n nWhich goes back to Alana's point about the CIA black sites and unauthorized prisons….
Where is Dan Rather and his "Fake but True" memos when the nation needs both? n nNothing to see here folks, it just is a guy hitting on a cute girl, nothing to see here folks….