Don's Tuesday Column 7-26

               THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson Red Bluff Daily News   7/26/2016

                  The plain truth about Benghazi

Continuing from last week, the facts established by the House Select Committee on Benghazi were summarized by Representative Mike Pompeo in an interview with Hugh Hewitt. They weren’t mentioned on broadcast or cable shows—the “wolf pack” of Democrats-with-bylines, the mainstream news media. Their adherence to Hillary Clinton’s spin and talking points provides “chaff” to obscure the truth.

A video conference call that involved Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took place during the attacks on the Benghazi mission and CIA annex; it was documented by interviews with “a good number of people who were there. There is a memorandum by now-Ambassador Mull, who took notes after the meeting. It shows the ten points that were takeaways from the meeting…but we do not have a transcript of that meeting…The meeting ran something between an hour and two hours, and she was there for a good part of it.

“There is no evidence that at any time did she do what a leader would do that night, which is say why on Earth are we talking about whether we’re in uniform. Why on Earth are we talking about deployed forces that the Secretary of Defense has already ordered deployed? Why are we screwing around with these things that don’t have any opportunity to help us rescue my, what would have been her ambassador? Instead, she participated in meetings that clearly delayed the American response.

“I don’t know the answer to [whether Marines could have gotten to Benghazi before Ty Woods and Glenn Dougherty were killed]. I do know this. They didn’t try. At no time was there ever a U.S. armed aircraft en route to Benghazi, Libya—at no time—when the final mortars fell.

“Hugh, one last fact, these aren’t conclusions. We’re being accused of being political. These are just facts. When the final mortars fell, there was not a single wheel turning moving an aircraft with U.S. soldiers toward Libya. Not one when the final mortars fell. There was political spin taking place, but the wheels weren’t spinning.

“That [Gaddafi-ites rescued our annex people] is true. No help from Washington ever arrived. The amazing work of a CIA case officer on the ground in Benghazi calling around, seeking help, figuring this out, solved the problem by reaching out to a group that was then known as the Libyan Military Intelligence. And they showed up with about 50 gun trucks and rescued our personnel that night.

“Hugh, what this shows is that we were in the throes of a close presidential election. And the administration was in a desperate hurry to sweep Libya under the rug. It’s why we weren’t prepared. They didn’t want to send more folks to Benghazi, Libya. The tide of war was receding, according to them. And then that night, again, politics enter. They are literally, Ben Rhodes is talking about politics before we even have our folks out of Benghazi, Libya.

“And then of course, they told the story that fit the political narrative of GM being alive and Osama bin Laden being dead, that is that radical Islamic terrorism had been defeated. They told that story for weeks publicly, when in fact Secretary Clinton within hours of the attack was telling her daughter that she knew this was a terrorist attack. It was, at every turn, Hugh, it was their political legacy over the folks who were on the ground in Benghazi.”

Rep. Pompeo then described how the State Dept. and Democrats on the panel threw up every roadblock possible to slow down what was a fact-finding task, making it “deeply political.”

Refuting all of the spin from Democrat/media mouthpieces that there was no “stand down order,” Pompeo said that the report cites sworn testimony from then-Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, that in less than two hours after his daily White House meeting, by 6-7 PM Washington time, “he issued an order to go. He was unequivocal. His testimony, which you’ll be able to see, says go. Do what you have to. Go rescue these people. His orders are unambiguous.”

That, readers, is an order from the top of the chain of command; only President Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could have countermanded that with a stand down order.

Consider the glaring hypocrisy of the strategy of Hillary Clinton, Obama, his administration and every Democrat on relevant committees: it was, and is, a crass tactic to delay, obfuscate, mislead, “hide the ball,” and obstruct the finding of facts. Why? Because the plain facts are, as Hewitt repeated, damning, damning, damning to Hillary as a candidate.

Pompeo: “The storyline here is that there was no effort. No one tried. Had it been your son or daughter, or your husband that was there, not just the four who were killed, but there were 30-plus folks there. Had it been one of your family members there, and you watched the U.S. Government fail to move Heaven and Earth, not to even try to rescue them, I mean, you would find that kind of political expediency unacceptable and morally reprehensible.”

The bottom line is that shameless, partisan tactics kept America from knowing 1) what Ambassador Chris Stevens said in emails, 2) what happened prior to Panetta ordering military help, 3) who countermanded Panetta’s order, 4) why security was not increased, and 5) why Obama and Hillary issued no visible, documented demand for a rescue. This is new; these are bombshells. Hillary knows; Hillary lied and she continues to lie.

I add this to my original June writing: The Republican convention inspires me to fully endorse every word that I heard, particularly Donald Trump’s acceptance speech. Yes to being “Great Again!”