Tucson Citizen.com

Posts Tagged ‘Benghazi’

Obama Impeachment?

Tuesday, May 14th, 2013

Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee made the stunning prediction that Obama will not finish his second term. Huckabee, widely respected and not known for partisanship, may be right!

The Political Demise of Richard Nixon

Richard NixonJohn F KennedyMany older Americans remember the Nixon years. Richard Nixon was reelected in a landslide, but the groundwork for Nixon’s demise was laid during his first term. The Nixon administration engaged in dirty tricks to aggressively undermine his opposition.

The White House “plumbers” were hired to repair “leaks” of sensitive information that embarrassed Nixon. With no accountability or oversight, the “plumbers” were soon out of control. One night they broke into Democratic National Headquarters (DNC) at the Watergate Hotel, and were arrested.

Nixon didn’t know in advance about the burglary, and was furious. Like most presidents, Nixon’s king-sized ego that would not allow apology, and instead he covered-up, which led to Nixon’s downfall.

Nixon, like John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson before him, unleashed the IRS to go after his enemies, which also came to light during the furor over Watergate.

Nixon was able to cover-up scandals during his first term, but during his second term a steady drip-drip-drip of revelations about Nixon’s abuses of power appeared in the news media, and eventually Congress began impeachment proceedings, and when impeachment became apparent he resigned.

Obama’s Abuse of the IRS

Obama impeachmentLike Nixon, Johnson, and Kennedy, the Obama administration used the IRS to intimidate enemies. The latest revelations are truly shocking. Any organization whose name included “tea party” or “patriot” received intense scrutiny from the IRS, which demanded answers to questions about donors, volunteers, Facebook posts, even which legislators they had talked to.

Now Jewish groups who had opposed Obama’s Mideast policies have revealed they were abused by the IRS too, and the Koch brothers revealed in 2010 the White House had information about them which could only have come from the IRS.

If Obama abused the IRS to intimidate and harass his political enemies, that may well lead to an Obama impeachment, just as it did with Nixon.

‘Fast and Furious’ may also lead to Obama impeachment

During Obama’s first term, the Obama administration sold over 2,000 high powered assault weapons to Mexican narco-traffickers, supposedly to track these weapons, but nobody put tracking devices in the guns or tracked them. Border patrol agent Brian Terry was killed with one of these guns, which initiated the scandal.

Basically the guns were allowed to ‘walk.’ The Mexican government was not told and dozens of innocent Mexicans were killed by drug traffickers with these weapons.

When Congress investigated, the Obama DOJ dragged its feet for months, withholding requested information. The eventual subpoena led to a showdown with Obama. With Holder about to be held in contempt of Congress, Obama threw an overreaching blanket of executive privilege over everything related to ‘fast and furious.’ Congress held Eric Holder in contempt, and not surprisingly the DA refused to prosecute his boss. Any day now we can expect a court to order compliance with the subpoena, court appeals, but in the end Obama will lose and the truth about ‘fast and furious’ will be public.

Will the Benghazi cover-up lead to Obama impeachment?

The full story of the tragic loss of four American heroes in Benghazi begs to be told. Benghazi was unmistakably a terror attack from the beginning, but Obama lied for weeks to assure his reelection.

There was nothing criminal about Obama’s actions leading up to Benghazi, but the incompetence will sink Hillary’s career and tarnish Obama’s leadership. Terror attacks on American diplomatic outposts are nothing new. Two U.S. embassies in Africa were destroyed by car bombs during the Clinton years with massive loss of life. Hillary Clinton was first lady, and Susan Rice the Associate Secretary of State for Africa at the time. Amazingly, Hillary Clinton ignored numerous urgent requests for beefed up security.

Obama failed to authorize military support when told about Benghazi, and at least two who died could have been saved with military support in the region. The Obama administration sought to cover up this gross incompetence to get past the election just two months later, and Susan Rice and Obama clearly lied to the American people about a third-rate video and “spontaneous” demonstration, to divert attention from the fact Al Qaeda is as dangerous as ever.

It remains to be seen whether witnesses in Congress were induced to lie and obstruct. There are already serious allegations a recent witness was the victim of retaliation. One thing is already apparent. The “talking points” from the intelligence community, which Jay Kearney said received one minor insignificant edit before release, were edited 12 times and scrubbed of any terror references. The Review Board that reviewed Benghazi didn’t interview key witnesses, who now are testifying in Congress. Apparently, the review board was a whitewash from the start!

Will Congress consider an Obama impeachment?

If an impeachment vote were held today, it would undoubtedly fail. Congress generally won’t impeach a popular president.

Bill Clinton committed impeachable offenses and was impeached, but the Senate balked at removing Clinton from office because he was still popular.

However, as these scandals grow and the wheels fall off of Obamacare next year, Obama’s approval ratings can be expected to sink to rock bottom levels, and we may well see an effort to impeach Obama. The Obama recovery is worse than the Bush recession, and the public is tired of a jobless economy. Bush has been out of office for four years now, and Obama owns the economic morass though he still blames Bush.

In my opinion, Obama is the worst president in modern history, and the only reason he was reelected is that Mitt Romney wasn’t the best candidate, and didn’t run a good campaign against Obama.

####

Bob Quasius is the founder and president of Cafe Con Leche Republicans.

So Which One (Obama or Hillary) Do You Trust With a 3 AM Crisis Phone Call?

Thursday, October 25th, 2012

by Bob Quasius

Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.
The Art of War, Sun Tzu, 512 BC

Apparently, President-Elect Obama in 2008 followed the age old advice of Sun Tzu, appointing Hillary Clinton, a former political enemy and potential future political enemy in 2012, to a job where he could keep keep a very close eye on her, and she would be so busy she wouldn’t even have time to contemplate running against Obama in 2012.

During the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton fought bitterly, attacked each other, then when Obama was elected he appointed Hillary to be his Secretary of State, despite her complete lack of experience in foreign policy (unless we count sipping tea with first ladies of other nations), or running large government agencies like the State Department.

One of the most memorable attack ads of the 2008 primaries, is this ad by Hillary Clinton, asking who would we want taking that crisis call at 3 AM?

I recently blogged about ‘Amateur Hour’ at the White House comparing Hillary’s qualifications to every Secretary of State since at least World War II. She had no diplomatic experience, had never run a cabinet or served as a governor, served on a foreign relations committee in the senate, etc. Only Jimmy Carter’s second Secretary of State, Edmond Muskie, even came close to Hillary’s lack of qualifications, and he had served much longer in the U.S. Senate and had been governor of Maine.

The State Department has long known of the vulnerability of our embassies and consulates. Under Jimmy Carter, in 1979 our embassy in Tehran was overrun by violent protestors, and our staff held hostage for a humiliating 444 days until minutes before a new president, who appeared more resolute about facing Iran, was about to be sworn into office. I was stunned recently to learn that Jimmy Carter had covertly funded Ayatollah Khomeini and pressured the Shah’s military to accept the Shah’s departure when Jimmy Carter threw the Shah ‘under the bus. We should have known that those we support in overthrowing regimes aren’t always reliable in protecting our embassies and consulates afterwards. Though we had covertly funded Khomeini and paved the way for the Shah’s departure, Khomeini didn’t lift a finger to free our embassy in Tehran when it was overrun and our embassy held hostage for 444 days!

In 1979, our Pakistan embassy was burned down to the ground, as well as our embassy in Tripoli, Libya.

In 1983, or embassy in Beirut was bombed, killing 63, and our embassy in Kuwait was also bombed.

In 1998, during Bill Clinton’s presidency, Al Qaeda totally simultaneously destroyed with bombs two U.S. embassies in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. killing 223 and wounding 4,000. You’d think that day would be seared into the memory of Hillary Clinton, since she was first lady at the time.

Now fast forward to 2012. In Libya, despite the unstable environment and heavy Al Qaeda presence, amazingly Hillary Clinton declined to authorize marine contingents, and special teams of Navy Seals who had provided protection were prematurely withdrawn, over the strong objections of embassy security officials, who pointed to a series of alarming attacks on embassies, consulates, diplomats, and non-governmental agencies present in Libya. Instead, the State Department relied on militia units of dubious reliability provided by the new Libyan regime.

Within two hours of the start of the terror attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya on 9/11, we already had intelligence the consulate was under attack by dozens of militants with heavy weapons such as rocket propelled grenades, mortars, assault rifles, etc. E-mails are starting to be revealed that showed just how much information was received at both the White House. From the Blaze:

When the attack began, the U.S. military also deployed an unarmed predator drone over the consulate, and remote operators watched as the horror of four Americans were slaughtered by terrorists with burning hatred in their eyes. According to various sources, as reported in the New York Post, the U.S. military had special forces deployed in Libya and nearby Italy, and heavily armored AC-130 gunships were available but shockingly inadequate response was mounted to rescue our embassy staff and their handful of guards as they desperately fought for their lives.

The administration sought for two weeks to convince us this wasn’t a terror attack, that a spontaneous demonstration over a offensive video escalated into a full fledged assault, until the overwhelming evidence confirmed this was a terror attack. Obama and Clinton even went to lengths to keep apologizing for the video, when the U.S. government had absolutely nothing to do with producing the video!

When did President Obama and Hillary Clinton find out it was a terror attack? It seems they were made aware by late afternoon, and a web site owned by terror group Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility. From The Blaze (summarizing other sources):

The first email, timed at 4:05 p.m. Washington time – or 10:05 p.m. Benghazi time, 20-30 minutes after the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission allegedly began – carried the subject line “U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack” and the notation “SBU”, meaning “Sensitive But Unclassified.”

The text said the State Department’s regional security office had reported that the diplomatic mission in Benghazi was “under attack. Embassy in Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well.”

A second email, headed “Update 1: U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi” and timed 4:54 p.m.Washington time, said that the Embassy in Tripoli had reported that “the firing at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi had stopped and the compound had been cleared.” It said a “response team” was at the site attempting to locate missing personnel.

A third email, also marked SBU and sent at 6:07 p.m. Washington time, carried the subject line: “Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack.”

The message reported: “Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli.”

Both Obama and Clinton undoubtedly knew of the terror attack by late afternoon. Apparently neither reacted and ordered immediate military assistance, dooming our embassy staffers to a horrible death. Obama has missed nearly 60% of his daily intelligence briefings, appointed an amateur as Secretary of State for purely political reasons, and is just much an amateur at foreign relations as Hillary. You might term this “the blind leading the blind.” Obama apparently was unperturbed by the serious terror attack and left the next day for another fund raiser in Las Vegas, leaving the impression he is not doing his job and spending all his time at fund raisers, schmoozing with celebrities, at a moment in time when Americans needed to see strong leadership in Washington.
The answer to the question… both Obama and Hillary Clinton failed miserably to gain our trust, and the call didn’t come at 3 AM either!
Sadly, the wheels are falling off America’s foreign policy. We need new leadership at the helm of the State Department. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice is heir apparent to replace Hillary, who is already planning to step down at the end of Obama’s first term. However, though she has more experience than Hillary, she’s not exactly a heavyweight (i.e. like Condi Rice or Madeleine Allbright) and was an integral part of the cover-up of the Benghazi massacre, appearing on numerous talk shows to present the totally false narrative the attack was a spontaneous reaction to a demonstration over a stupid video trailer for a movie that hardly anyone ever watched, that was posted on-line months ago. Obama seems to have a problem calling a terrorist attack just what it is, a terrorist attack!
Mitt Romney proved his ability to select excellent leaders during his various roles at Bain Capital, the Salt Lake City Olympics, and as governor of Massachusetts, and no doubt if elected will make a prudent choice and do what nearly every president except Obama and Jimmy Carter has done: appoint a Secretary of State with in-depth foreign policy experience and leadership roles as a cabinet secretary or under-secretary, giving showing they know how to run large agencies. Unfortunately, if Obama is elected, we can expect more of his warped worldview exposed in 2016: Obama’s America, and he hasn’t demonstrated the ability to pick competent leaders. Hillary is just one example of a bad hiring decision by Obama. There’s also Eric Holder, Van Jones, and many others.

Illegal War Leads to Death and Cover-up – Obama’s Chickens are Coming Home to Roost

Thursday, October 11th, 2012

by Bob Price (re-posted with permission of TexasGOPVote)

Shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, President Barack Obama’s former minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright went on an anti-American rant which included an America-blaming quote, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”  After listening to this pastor, whose church President Obama sat in for over 20 years, it is easy to see where the President gets his “blame America first” mentality. But after looking back at Obama’s illegal war against Libya and his ill-advised Middle East policy, one must wonder if Rev. Wright would revise his now famous quote and say “Obama’s chickens are coming home to roost”?

This week, the House Oversight Committee held hearings to get to the truth about what happened in Libya leading to the death of our Ambassador and 3 other Americans and then the subsequent cover-up. As you might recall, despite the fact that there was no protest underway during the attack in Libya, the Obama Administration rushed to the streets proclaiming this was an out of control protest about a video that very few people have ever seen. Even after it became clear that was not the truth, the Obama team kept singing their song hoping someone might actually come to believe it.

Last month, On Sept. 11, almost simultaneously with the riots in Egypt and the terrorist attack in Libya, I was meeting in Washington, DC with Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN). I reported last week about his uncanny prediction of violence in response to Obama’s amateurish foreign policy and illegal war. During that interview he told me,

“I think he’s always looked at America as a state that tries to control the rest of the world, and he’s never liked that. He sent Winston Churchill’s statue back to England because they had the worldwide organization, and so I think he deliberately wants to diffuse the popularity and strength of the United States, and I think that’s by design, and I think it’s also incompetence. A lot of people would be very upset to hear me say that, but I really mean it. I think he is a disaster for this country.

The next day, I also spoke with Congressman Mike Turner (R-OH). At that time, we already knew about Ambassador Stevens’ death, but the President was still singing the “blame the movie” song. Turner described Obama’s foreign policy as a failure stating,

“So now we are in the aftermath of that action where the president is sitting with an ill-defined policy and Americans have been killed and our country is still at risk.”

After yesterday’s Oversight Committee hearing, Mr. Turner issued the following statement:

Turner Statement on Oversight Hearing on Security Failures at Benghazi 

I would like to thank Chairman Issa for holding this important hearing to investigate the events surrounding the September 11th attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi that led to the murder of Ambassador Stevens and a number of embassy staff. The attack was performed on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history and is the first time a U.S ambassador has been killed since Adolf Dubs, the former ambassador to Afghanistan, was murdered in 1979. It is a stark reminder that terrorist groups continue to actively plan attacks against the United States and will exploit any opportunity when our guard is down.

The concern for terrorist activity has been particularly prevalent in Libya, which has a history of harboring known terrorist groups and top leaders of terrorist activity against the United States. Libya is reported to be the source of numerous terrorist training grounds and has produced such top ranked Al Qaeda commanders as Abu Yahya Al Libi.

Anti-American sentiment is a prevalent theme in the region and requires a careful diplomatic and military strategic engagement plan to ensure the promotion of a healthy democratic state. Achieving this goal places a great onus on the American diplomats and field agents operating in these dangerous environments, and our government has a responsibility to enact and adhere to safety policies that protect the lives of our agents. However, in the case of the September 11th attacks in Benghazi, it appears that State Department officials not only ignored security policies but, on numerous occasions, directed their agents not to file reports that would trigger the very safety measures that could have prevented the tragic loss of life.

Witnesses at today’s hearing, including the Regional Security Officer (RSO) of the U.S. Mission in Libya, Eric Nordstrom, shared with the committee evidence to suggest that the State Department intentionally kept the number of security agents assigned to Libya artificially low in order to give the appearance that the situation in Libya had “normalized.” This conclusion is consistent with an internal Embassy document from February 2012 that refers to an effort underway to “transition from emergency to normalized security operations,” including the “transition to a more locally based security team.”

It appears that the State Department’s goal to achieve this false perception took priority over the safety of the Ambassador and embassy staff. Evidence collected by the committee paints a chaotic and violent picture of Libya that starkly contrasts the “normalized” environment the State Department intended to project. According to this information, in the 13 month period preceding Ambassador Stevens’ death, the Embassy’s RSO, Mr. Nordstrom, reported over 230 security incidents in Libya and made numerous requests for additional security personnel. These incidents included IED attacks, kidnappings and gun battles. Despite these circumstances and repeated embassy requests for additional security personnel, the State Department systemically reduced security forces to dangerously low levels.

The evidence provided to the committee raises serious questions as about the Administration’s policy in Libya and whether their strategic plan places a premium on promoting a false perception of the region at the expense of American citizens. However, there are many reasons to believe that the situation in Libya is disintegrating. The country remains dangerously splintered and infested with extremist groups. Authorities in Egypt, Niger, Algeria, Israel, and Tunisia, have repeatedly expressed concerns about weapons smuggling across their borders and into the hands of terrorist groups.

These weapons could include the innumerous shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles (MANPADS) that are known to exist in Libya. While it is estimated that Gadafi had an estimated 20,000 MANPADS before the collapse of his regime, only 5,000 have been recovered. These weapon systems pose a real threat to the United States military and civilian aircraft, and our inability to account for them in this extreme, terrorist diaspora is reason for great concern. Of equal concern is the Administration’s apparent attempt to hide these realities from the American public despite the grave threat they pose.

If September 11th, 2012 and September 11th, 2001 have demonstrated anything, it is that the terrorist threat to our nation is real and we cannot let down our guard. Our government has a constitutional responsibility to protect its citizens and must adopt policies that achieve that end. I hope this hearing will aid in ensuring that safety of American’s at home and abroad and will influence a policy shift that better serves that objective.”

In the 1970′s, President Richard Nixon was forced to resign under threat of impeachment for covering up a third rate burglary. No one was hurt or killed as a result, but clearly laws were broken and the public was outraged. Now President Obama and his Administration have engaged in not one, but two, cover-ups where lives have been lost. Operation Fast and Furious has left a trail of death in Mexico and Arizona. And now we have more dead Americans in Libya and yet another Administration cover-up of critical security information. Additionally, we have about 15,000 missing missiles that could be smuggled across our open borders to attack Americans in our own country. We are in danger because of Obama’s reckless and illegal war in Libya. It is time for the public outrage to reach an appropriate crescendo leading to the President’s removal from office by a huge defeat at the polls.