Before I present the views in this editorial, I should separate myself from the legions of libertarians and conservatives who have called for Obama’s impeachment since his election to office simply because they don’t like him or disagree with his policies; or at best over speculative and arduous claims about his birth certificate. While I join these affiliations in disliking the President and disagreeing with him on most issues - I’m a firm believer in staying within the bounds of the Constitution even when the immediate outcomes are not favorable to me, as well as in a justice system that operates on the presumption of innocence and requires evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. For these reasons, I have never called for Obama’s impeachment and have openly challenged many like-minded individuals calling for it to present judicially acceptable evidence that he has committed high crimes and misdemeanors – the only Constitutional grounds for such a procedure. However, a piece of news that has surfaced in recent days may finally change my mind.

 

            According to a CNN exclusive published on 8/2/2013, the Consulate in Benghazi was simultaneously home to a gun-running operation by the CIA to transfer weapons from the conflict in Libya to the rebels in Syria, the number of Americans in the Consulate was nearly 3 times the reported figure counting the CIA operatives involved in this operation, and many said operatives were injured during the attack but these casualties were never reported publicly. While the details are somewhat sketchy at this point – putting the various facts together paints a frightening picture about the moral standing of this administration and if the suspicions in fact prove to be true, President Obama has to go. In order to bring clarity to this situation, however, I must first address and dispel the mounds of popular fiction that have come to surround it.

 

Leave Romney, Morsy, and the Muslim Brotherhood Out Of This

 

            Everyone seems to have magically forgotten that there were attacks on multiple US diplomatic missions on 9/11/2012. Accounts regarding what brought these about and whether they had peaceful protest component s vary, but the fact remains that member organizations of the Al Qaeda network staged heavily armed assaults on at least 3 locations – the embassies in Cairo, Egypt and Islamabad, Pakistan in addition to the Consulate in Benghazi. However, the other two countries were not enveloped in complete political chaos at the time, and their governments responded to intelligence about “planned protests” by lining up columns of heavily armed military in front of their respective embassies. Islamabad actually saw some brief armed provocation from some so-called “protesters”, but the military had them hopelessly dominated and forcefully dispersed the protests at the first signs of violence, followed up by a public statement from their interior minister amounting to “those who attempt violence against foreign embassies in Pakistan will die”. As for Cairo, a relatively large protest took place and some “unrest” was reported as well as the presence of Islamist elements, but nothing that even required armed involvement on the part of the military to keep the US embassy safe.

 

            Firstly, this means that the Muslim Brotherhood’s dreaded Mohammed Morsy, whom right-wing propagandists love to speculate is an Islamic fundamentalist and co-conspirator of Al Qaeda by playing fast and loose with their facts, effectively used his military as President of Egypt to keep the US embassy in Cairo safe from Islamist militants. Secondly, it puts to shame Mitt Romney’s feeble last-ditch attempt to make the upcoming election competitive by claiming the incident demonstrated a need to reconsider looming sequestration cuts to our own military budget and to increase our military presence in the Middle East. He was right that the incidents were terrorist attacks and not protests, but the foreign governments adequately fulfilled their duties to protect our diplomats from violent criminal elements on their soil – brutal means in Pakistan notwithstanding. Romney had absolutely no interest in the administration’s shady activities in Libya. He was merely abusing a popular over-generalization about the attacks as an excuse to advocate for more wasteful handouts to military contractors – a fact that makes me stand by my view that terrible as Obama is, libertarians made the right decision by sitting out the election and keeping Romney out of the White House.

 

Far Worse Than Gun-Running

 

            OK, some may think, but Libya failed to protect our diplomats, maybe Romney was at least right about a need for more presence there. The problem with that line of thinking is that, due to the volatile situation in Libya at the time, we already had additional security personnel stationed on the ground that could have easily repelled the motley crew of fundamentalists in Benghazi. In addition, despite the absence of adequately organized government institutions, local powers were able and willing to help. A few days after the incident, 30,000 locals in Benghazi – most of them members of various militias that had participated in the anti-Gadhafi conflict – got together and marched on the compound of the fundamentalist militia suspected in the attack. The so-called “martyrs” responded by pissing themselves and taking off into the desert, followed quickly by an announcement that they were closing all their bases in Libya. Hence, the resources were present and available – why they failed to respond remains the million dollar question.

 

            Here is what we know as we search for an answer:

 

• A number of high-ranking Department of State officials testified that they had informed DC that the Consulate was under attack; expecting an order to dispatch special forces personnel to Benghazi. They were ignored for several hours until the Consulate was burned down, and in the meantime US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice was making public statements about the protest in response to an anti-Muslim film on YouTube.

• The recent CNN investigation reveals covert activities by the CIA being operated from the Benghazi Consulate, and significant evidence that the CIA has placed significant effort into keeping the knowledge of these activities from reaching the public eye.

• CIA Director David Petraeus resigned a few days after the incident, mysteriously citing an affair with a journalist month prior that a number of people apparently knew about and which had caused no scandal or public outcry.

 

            Of course it isn’t safe to assume anything based on these facts. But it is difficult to imagine that, useless and incompetent as they are, seasoned politicians like Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta simply let something as serious as a report of an armed attack on a US Consulate fall victim to bureaucratic oversight and ‘neglected’ the communiqués until it was too late to respond, all while the news was abuzz with misleading reports from their counterparts. It seems far more credible that once word got out, they decided to engage in damage control by attributing the incident to negligence so as to avoid any discussion of ulterior motives. But, if we suspect the administration and its various Secretaries intentionally ignored the calls for authorization to defend the Consulate – we now have a clear motive in wanting to avoid discovery of the unauthorized gun-running operation by the CIA. Petraeus’s sudden and unexplained resignation is also circumstantial evidence that encourages further investigation.

 

            I’ve heard multiple comparisons of such a gun-running operation to Reagan’s Iran-Contra scandal, and the final myth I want to dispel is that comparison; because of how much more serious this incident is. The CIA smuggling weapons from one country to arm rebels against a recognized government in another without Congressional approval is invariably unconstitutional and in itself grounds for impeachment if the President signed off on it. But the CIA is constantly engaging in such activities and the few we know about are simply the ones where they happened to get caught. However, there are no documented incidents in history of the White House intentionally refusing to protect diplomats from armed attack as part of a conspiracy to cover up an existing crime. Someone being killed as a result of the commission of a lesser crime is manslaughter, and if the criminal recognized the death was likely or inevitable and proceeded – it can even be classified second-degree murder. I’m not in favor of less-than-Constitutional covert activities by the CIA, but these are unfortunately a fact of modern politics and likely to remain that way for the time being. However, a President committing manslaughter or even murder to cover up such activities is not standard or acceptable by any stretch of the imagination, and a speedy criminal investigation followed by impeachment proceedings if the suspicions are corroborated is well in order.

 

 

By: Neurotoxin

 

 

About the Editor:

Neurotoxin holds a dual BA in Psychology and Political Science and an MSW with a specialization in Community Organizing. Politically, he is a “structural anarchist”; a school of thought that believes in treating all power structures as facts of nature that should be accounted for but not preserved. This school of thought dictates that policy ought to be driven solely by its empirically calculated outcomes.

Neurotoxin is the co-owner of Edge of Chaos – a political podcast and blog that can be found @ www.edgeofchaospodcast.com and http://www.facebook.com/theedgeofchaos.