By Douglas J. Hagmann
Most thinking Americans are outraged about the cover-up pertaining to Benghazi. Questions about the deaths of four Americans, including a U.S. Ambassador, posed to Obama and his spokespeople have been met with vague, carefully worded, well-parsed, and deliberately misleading responses. Why? To cover up incompetence and intelligence failures? No, because there were no intelligence failures!
To say that the lack of response or calls for assistance was due to a communications breakdown is like calling a five-alarm fire that completely destroys a critical structure and everything in it, deliberately set to cover up a crime, an accident. And in this case, the fire department dispatchers are co-conspirators in the arson! In addition to not sending the fire company, they are now busy making sure that the fire investigators they are now sending to investigate what happened are maintaining their cover.
While the public is aghast at the damage caused by the fire, they are not paying attention to the crime it covered, hoping that it will all be relegated to the ash heap of history. We must look through the smoke from the burnt embers and pick through the ashes to see what was covered by the fire. When we do, we will find the singed blueprints of activities so nefarious that they will explain the cover-up. To best understand the cover-up, it helps to identify and understand the crime.
Full disclosure of the Benghazi situation would expose an agenda that would surprise many Americans and answer a lot of questions about what’s going on in the world, even offering explanations for such issues as Obama’s low-bow to the Saudi Royals to the exposure of a plan for the global power structure. It’s that big, that revealing, and that important.
There’s a real-life game of Risk being played by Obama and the major powers of the world, and Americans are involved in the game by default. Much like the Parker Brothers’ game of military strategy and world domination, Benghazi acts like a snapshot in time of the players, exposing the armies and their positions on the board. In those terms, it shows that Benghazi was a skirmish of significant import and reveals the agenda and strategy of many players.
As Americans, however, you were not asked whether you wanted to play. Your role was predetermined for you. The color of your army, that of the Muslim Brotherhood, was picked by Obama for you. Unlike the game Risk, the real-life version produces real causalities. Four Americans are dead, but no one seems to be talking about forty thousand more men, women, and children who have been killed in Syria as a result of the real-world actions caused, in large part, by Obama’s actions in Libya. Or the tens of thousands of refugees created. This is the real-world version of Risk.
And therein lies the rub. It is this agenda, this plan, this foreign policy in action that is at the very heart of the events in Benghazi. It is this deliberate course of action that has led us to the brink of a regional conflict in the Middle East that could further ignite World War III. As Fellow Americans, do we want to be part of another war? Is taking us to the brink of World War III and beyond in our best national interest? If it’s not in our best national interest, for whom are we doing the dirty work? Let’s look at the players, game board, and game pieces to see if we might find answers.
In this real-world game of Risk, Obama appears to be following the instructions of a super secret mission card. The “Benghazi mission” was to facilitate the destabilization of Syria at the hands of “freedom fighters,” overthrowing Assad and installing a sympathetic Muslim Brotherhood-backed regime. The installation of such a regime is critically important here for reasons that will become obvious later.
At this point, however, it is no secret that the rag-tag groups of rebels or freedom fighters are no match for Assad’s military. They are disorganized and ill-equipped to depose Assad. Also, Assad, under the guidance and support of Russia, had so far escaped the full wrath of NATO for his part in putting down the various attempts to oust him from power. And the game clock was running out.
The anti-Assad rebels needed assistance in the form of weapons, training, military coordination, and discipline. At the behest of Saudi Arabia (a player with no army pieces in this game), Mr. Obama agreed to step in to provide material and manpower, but he had a dilemma; he could not do so openly, with the full knowledge and consent of the U.S. Congress as they would never approve of such an operation (think Iran-Contra in terms of strategy, but with a much different intent).
The operation, therefore, had to be conducted under the radar. Mr. Obama could not be directly linked to this agenda, so the exports of weapons had to have some cover and provide some distance between Obama and the boots on the ground in Syria. This is where alliances were formed, and obfuscation reigned supreme.
As we were in Libya under the pretext of securing caches of weapons and arms left after Qadafi, Obama sent U.S. Ambassador Stevens to take charge of the logistics. Stevens was selected as he had vast experience and contacts on all sides in the Middle East. He was the perfect “go-to” guy for all sides.
Under cover of securing and “destroying” arms as publicized, Obama’s covert operation diverted the functional weapons to Syria while destroying the non-functional weapons and broadcasting their destruction in the media as eye candy. From the time Qaddafi was deposed and killed through the attack of September 11, 2012, reasonable estimates suggest that between 30-40 million pounds of missiles, guns, and even chemical weapons (gas) had been confiscated from Libya and shipped to various prepositioning locations in Turkey and directly into Syria for use by anti-Assad “rebels.”
In addition to arming the anti-Assad rebels with conventional weapons, there was a concurrent plan that would have been the icing on the cake, so to speak. An event that would have put the objective on a fast track to completion.
Imagine the outcry from the civilized world that wakes up one morning to the news that Assad had “gassed” his own people. Except it would be a false flag event that would set up Assad. That would be an invitation to NATO and the West to intervene, using the same or a similar template we have seen Mr. Obama use. Again, the game clock was running out on Mr. Obama and his handlers, and there was no guarantee that he would see another term to get the job done. Such an event would usher in the forces of NATO and expedite plans.
As we begin to remove the layers of obfuscation, we can see that Obama is doing the “heavy lifting” for Saudi Arabia and the advancement of the Muslim Brotherhood agenda. For anyone doubting this assertion, follow the money. Where did the money originate for the boat shipments of arms? At its most basic level, who filled the gas tanks?
More visible is the able assistance to this operation provided by Turkey. Somewhat of a fair-weather friend, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan looked the other way as weapons were being secreted into staging areas in Turkey near the Syrian border for their ultimate transfer to the rebels in Syria.
Turkey was not the only country used for this operation. Jordan and Lebanon also received their fair share of arms, where Muslim Brotherhood-backed rebels were (and continue to be) materially supported by the CIA under Obama’s orders.
Meanwhile, Assad was being schooled and assisted by Putin and the Russians, and had a working relationship with Iran.
It is admittedly difficult to “side” with Russia on a worldview level, but in this case, it’s at least understandable. Putin, seated at the game board across from Obama, was aware of this gun-running operation and Obama’s attempts to meddle in his backyard. On several occasions during this operation, Putin warned Obama and the West to stop. Undeterred, the covert arms-running operation continued.
This is where the Turkish counsel general comes into the picture, and the entire operation unravels. Turkey knows which side is buttering its bread and realizes that they are caught in the middle between Obama and Putin and have much to lose. Perhaps Russia had evidence, possibly satellite images of the anti-Assad freedom fighters being trained to load the gas canisters onto missiles. The clock continues to run down, yet the operation is continuing. Turkey gets a call from Russia; they’ve been caught in this plot of international intrigue, and Putin is not happy.
What happens next is the stuff of spy novels, double agents, film noir mafia movie scenes. Imagine this: the Turkish counsel general calls Stevens, the point man in this Obama-sanctioned operation, and tells Stevens that he’s got to meet with him immediately. It’s most urgent. Perhaps Stevens tells the Turk that he’ll meet him in Tripoli later in the week. The Turk says no, we’ve got to meet in Benghazi, at the CIA operations center immediately.
Despite concerns for his safety, Stevens ultimately agrees, and the meeting is scheduled for dinner time. Now think about the timing. The meeting was not scheduled for breakfast or lunch, but dinner – at the end of the day, when the cover of darkness was about to engulf the area. It was a set-up.
As Stevens meets the Turkish counsel general, the stage is being set for a classic “mob” hit, but not just your run-of-the-mill hit. It’s an international “mob hit” with two purposes. First, to stop the flow of arms to Syria, and also send a message to Obama and others that Syria and Russia are not to be trifled with, and in so doing, expose the operation to the world as well.
It’s been reported that during the meeting, the “hit teams” closed off the streets and other access points around the CIA operations center. They were getting ready to assault the compound. Interestingly, the Turk was permitted to leave unmolested from the compound, that by now, was surrounded by those dispatched to carry out the hit.
After the Turk’s departure, it is likely and even customary that Stevens sent a cable to Washington, perhaps letting Clinton and Obama know that there is a problem – the operation has been compromised. Obama and his cohorts know the operation has been compromised, and they enter into a full cover mode. Difficult to believe? Then why has no one yet questioned the Turk who met Stevens?
Shortly after the departure of the Turkish counsel general, the attack began. Again, after the Turkish counsel general left. Who was behind the attack? Ultimately, it would be reasonable to suspect Russia as the “mob boss,” but like a mob boss, Russia would not carry out the hit. Furthermore, there are enough willing participants in the area that the actors could be pulled from any number of “rebel” groups.
As the attack began, calls for assistance were made. Using the fire department analogy, no fire trucks or firemen were dispatched. Why not? Here we need to look at the dispatchers and not the firemen for answers.
Sending the full military to respond to Benghazi would have exposed them to other teams in the area that they knew were there and caused the Libyans and the world to see exactly what was going on. Instead of being a cover-up for which they have yet to be held accountable, it would have been an international incident that would have exposed the entire affair. Many Americans still remember Iran-Contra, and this is much worse. So, what were the “dispatchers” doing while the fire raged?
They were engaged in a real-world game of Risk as Benghazi burned, Americans died, and Obama and his spokespeople lied.
