In Disney’s delightful movie “Up” there is a dog named Doug who, with the help of a special collar, can speak. Doug has an inclination toward a short attention span and is easily distracted.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSUXXzN26zg[/youtube]
Doug is a metaphor for the US press. And democrats.
Barack Obama is becoming more and more predictable. Every time he is in a bind, he looses a squirrel for the distraction of the press. Just as the VA scandal was reaching a crescendo Obama announced the retrieval of Bowe Bergdahl from the clutches of those into whose arms Bergdahl chose to go. This was by design. I am hardly the only one to believe this:
Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) told KCWY in Casper that he thinks the prisoner swap for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl may be an attempt to divert attention from the VA scandal. Enzi also stated that he believed the five detainees released for Bergdahl were no longer in Qatar.
Today as the IRS scandal was exploding Obama, desperately needing a squirrel moment, announced the capture of the world’s most accessible terrorist.
“With this operation, the United States has once again demonstrated that we will do whatever it takes to see that justice is done when people harm Americans,” Obama said in a written statement. “We will continue our efforts to bring to justice those who were responsible for the Benghazi attacks.”
Let’s crank up the Wayback Machine again and review some history. October 18, 2012. The Wall Street Journal knew who Khatalla was and where he was.
BENGHAZI, Libya—The founder of Libya’s Islamist militia Ansar al-Sharia was at the U.S. consulate compound during the deadly attack here, Libyan officials say, but he remains free a week after those allegations were disclosed to Libyan political leaders and U.S. investigators in Tripoli.
Ahmed Abu Khattalah—who current Libyan officials and former Islamic militants describe as propagating an al Qaeda-style ideology—was seen during the Sept. 11 attack at the diplomatic mission where two of the four Americans died, said two senior Libyan security officials familiar with the investigation.
The officials’ allegations provide the most direct link so far between the assaults and Mr. Abu Khattalah’s militia. They also may fuel a political controversy in the U.S., where the Obama administration faces questions over security at the consulate and its response to the attack.
To steal a line from one of Glenn Reynolds’ readers, Ahmed Abu Khatalla was sipping a pina colada at Trader Vic’s. His hair was perfect.
If Ahmed Abu Khattala is worried about being arrested, he’s doing a good job hiding it. The man authorities believe helped lead the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi has given interviews to both Reuters and the New York Times. “Here I am in the open, sitting in a hotel with you,” he says in one. In another, he smirks at the idea of Libya’s army arresting the culprits, calling it a “national chicken.” He admits being at the consulate, but denies being a ringleader. He’s also sticking to the story that the attack grew out of a spontaneous protest over The Innocence of Muslims.
Now you know where Obama and Rice get their “intelligence.”
For a laugh, read this. The NY Times soils itself with what has to be one of the most idiotic corrections of all time.
Khatalla knew he was a suspect. US authorities knew he was a suspect. Reuters and the NY Times had found him. In 2013 CNN found him and he granted them an interview.
The only person who couldn’t seem to find him was Barack Obama.
This wasn’t lost on Jason Chaffetz.
“One of the pertinent questions today is why we have not captured or killed the terrorist who committed these attacks?” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told reporters. “News out today that CNN was able to go in and talk to one of the suspected terrorists, how come the military hasn’t been able to get after them and capture or kill the people? How come the FBI isn’t doing this and yet CNN is?”
Chaffetz was referring to CNN’s recent interview with Ahmed Abu Khattala, who Libyan and U.S. officials have described as the Benghazi leader of the al Qaeda-affiliated militia group Ansar al-Sharia — one of many groups that filled the vacuum of authority following the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi.
Unless he is a complete moron, Obama has had this guy in his pocket almost since the attacks. Everyone knew who he was. Everyone knew where he was. Obama pulled him out of his pocket when he needed the distraction from the IRS scandal. Obama wagged the dog.
WASHINGTON — In the months after the 2012 Benghazi, Libya, attacks, Ahmed Abu Khattallah always seemed to be hiding in plain sight.
Khatallah, a key suspect in the attack who officials say was captured Sunday in Libya, was famously spotted just weeks after the deadly assault that left four Americans dead, sipping a strawberry frappe on the patio of a Benghazi hotel.
In the hotel scene, detailed by the New York Times, Khattallah is wearing a fez and sandals and accusing U.S. leaders of “using the consulate attack just to gather votes for their elections.”
Indeed. With the IRS scandal erupting and Hillary having a bad week, the timing of the capture of the world’s most accessible terrorist was very convenient.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
@Greg:
Today it broke that ISIS seized Saddam’s Al Muthanna chemical weapons facility. The facility according to the CIA: Stockpiles of chemical munitions are still stored there. The most dangerous ones have been declared to the UN and are sealed in bunkers.
What timely news. Stockpiles. Chemical Weapons. Sealed in Bunkers.
@mossomo: Greggie won’t believe you!! Remember Bush made it all up!! Probably the Koch brothers helped with the story!!
@Bill, #49:
Possibly so. I therefore posted links to the documents produced as a result of the bipartisan investigations in Post #46, should anyone wish to examine them.
Alternately, people can continue to believe in the fantasy history that’s being promoted by right-leaning media and by republican politicians who appear to have highly selective memories.
@This one: this one called wing nuts ,ha ha ha ha that is so funny ,ever use a wing nut this one?how about a nut and bolt?screwdriver?.
@Greg:I’m afraid that’s not going to be good enough. You need to cite the part that specifically says Bush lied and made it all up.
@Bill, #55:
I posted a lengthy excerpt from the investigative committee’s findings in another thread, which is linked here. There’s no need to copy-and-paste it in this thread as well.
As the bi-partisan committee noted in the quoted paragraph, the U.S. intelligence community warned the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq that it would likely result in an influx of al Qaeda into Iraq and an increase in terrorism. That’s precisely what followed. It went on for years and has never ceased.
The intelligence community also warned that because of the deep sectarian divides in Iraqi society, the post-Saddam Hussein nation would hold together only for so long as an occupying power remained present. The investigative committee noted the details of that pre-invasion prediction on page 8 of the same document. What we’re now seeing is exactly what the intelligence community said would happen.
Was that what the Bush administration was telling the American people they could expect? I seem to recall predictions of a short war at the cost of some $60 billion, that we would be greeted as liberators, and that Iraq would pretty much bear all post-invasion reconstruction costs with their oil revenues.
@Greg: So, that’s Bush lying about WMD’s? If you recall (if any of you leftists ever listened to what was really going on in the world instead of receiving your directives of what to think from Soros) Bush made it abundantly clear that the war on terror would be long and difficult. He made that statement several times.
War is unpredictable. They say war plans go out the window after the initial engagement. It was not the initial war that was costly, but the insurgency that followed that, up until Obama entered the scene, had been won.
Again, to be clear, it is confirmed that the oft repeated lie about Bush lying about WMD’s is confirmed as the lie that it is.
I don’t think there’ any doubt that the American people and Congress were deliberately misled in order to gain support for an invasion that never should have happened because it was never likely to turn out well. Whether that’s characterized as a lie or not is probably a matter of semantics, and of how charitable or forgiving one feels toward the Bush administration. There are people that I blame more than George W. Bush. Dick Cheney, for example, and other neo-cons associated with the Project for the New American Century, who had regime change in Iraq as the Number 1 item on their to-do list before Bush was ever elected. I think they used 9/11 as an excuse to do more than intelligently respond to 9/11. I don’t need an old geezer like George Soros to help me come to such a conclusion.
@Greg: No, Greg, you have shown you don’t have any facts to back up your (or, rather, those who provide you your opinions) assertion that the Bush administration lied about the reasons for going to war in Iraq, notably WMD’s. Just as I said. That assertion is a lie, always was a lie and and always will be a lie (unless new evidence appears to prove it so).
Just admit it, Greg, that all on the left concocted this lie because you wanted to destroy the administration in order to gain political power. Admit the truth and you will feel much better.
@Bill: Bill, surely you and the obviously cloned sock puppets here as well as anyone of reasonable intellect can scroll through the post and quickly deduce that it is in fact you who has come of short on facts. You and/or your fabricated Calvary of merry men in harmony cover your ears and sing “la la la” to any and all constructive arguments and then simply make up a lot of incredibly stupid shit and the actually pretend that some massive audience believes you. It’s actually rather funny.
@Ronald J. Ward: Well, Ronald, just like Greg you are more than welcome to present evidence of whatever you choose to believe. If you, too, believe Bush lied about WMD’s to go to war… for some obscure reason which, as all you rabid haters gather together and accuse him of war crimes, you can never agree on motive… then where is your proof? Oh, and having a sick mind that simply believes the worst in motives of anyone that is not a lying liberal is not exactly what I consider proof.
@Bill: Presenting evidence or proof to those who refuse to accept evidence or proof has proven to be a rather mundane task here, particurly to an obvious bigoted crowd that’s focused solely on spinning evidence and proof and then simply make up your own. @Bill:
When you say incredibly stupid things like we had won the war until Obama came along after babbling something about how we would have had a secure, friendly, and stable Iraq had Dems not been cowards (on previous page), it just simply validates my claim that you are an argumetive fraud and that trying to rationalize with you is like trying to teach advanced calculus to a tree frog. It just isn’t going to happen. You are demanding proof of what’s consider factual for most of the world and will be argued for years to come while making statements that insults the intelligence of anyone with an iota of knowledge of the argument.
@Ronald J. Ward: You, among others, have not even attempted to provide any factual basis to support your anti-whatever-America-does-to-protect-itself position. At least Greg tried to fake his way through by offering a document that he assumed no one had read nor would read. So, where is yours?
“When you say incredibly stupid things like we had won the war until Obama came along ” Oh. So why, then, did Obama pull us out? I don’t recall him mentioning we lost and are leaving. Anything on that, Ronaldo?
Here’s the situation: you have lied for years about our efforts around the world, but have no basis in fact for those lies. Now that you have all the elements you wish for, a liberal government that will not even bother with Congressional approval for action and simply does what is ideologically desired, you have monumental failure. Yet, you continue to blame the very people who warned you this is exactly how doing things YOUR way would turn out.
Both Obama and Hillary admitted they opposed Iraqi security on political grounds, using threats to American security as a political issue to be exploited. While Obama is consistently anti-American, Hillary is more hypocritical than most as she supported the removal of Hussein and the threat of WMD’s. As it turns out, they are both nothing but political varmints that will say and do anything for political power. This is what you support, even without any attempt to justify it.
@Bill: ouch ronnie boy,that had to hurt,time for the sock puppet insult you and greggie have throwing around lately,I’m sure that’s a coincidence too
@Ronald J. Ward: You want an insult of intelligence my frog friend? Try the IRS telling America that the Emails of Lerner and the other six suspects in question over the scandal where lost!! Try telling America that if you like your health insurance and/or doctor you can keep them “period”!! Try telling America that trading 5 known 9/11 terrorist free for one American who abandoned his post is a fair trade!! I’m not THAT stupid!!
@Bill: Once again Bill, you impute opinions of me that I do not have. Your deep seeded hatred and abject bigotry of anyone that doesn’t kowtow to your agenda allows you to just make up lies about me that, using your very own argument, you cannot validate with proof or evidence.
You say I have an “anti-whatever-America-does-to-protect-itself” when that is absolutely untrue and I’ve never advocated such things in any of my writings.
You state I support policies of both Obama and Hillary which you have no possible knowledge of. You state my positions on policies that I do not have and have never expressed.
You say I have “lied for years of our efforts around the world” which is indeed a fabrication on your part.
Each time you respond, you continue to prove my point while exposing your profound dishonesty.
News Flash:
Indictment of suspect in Benghazi attack debunks the Obama tale
Justice Dept. says assault on U.S. mission was a conspiracy
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/1/indictment-of-suspect-in-benghazi-attack-ahmed-abu/
Maybe Obama’s ”evolving” on this story.
Gee.
I bet Obama hopes nobody bothers with reading this one.
Maybe a few more ”phony scandals,” to obfuscate it.
@Nanny G, #67:
Stories “evolved” as more details come in. This is generally how we come to understand distant events. The right seems to remain obsessively fixated on official statements made very early on. They’re still arguing with early appraisals that have long since been acknowledged as inaccurate or incomplete.
Perhaps it might be helpful to remember some of the misinformation that we’ve heard from the right about the situation. For example, it was repeatedly and erroneously stated that there were military aircraft stationed close by that could have responded in some meaningful fashion. It’s been stated repeatedly that the early assumption that the video was a triggering event was totally groundless, when in fact the video was a precipitating factor in the case of numerous violent protests all across the Muslim world. Then we’ve had multiple “reports from unnamed sources on the ground” swaying opinion on the right that were never verified in any fashion but never retracted, and at least one first-hand account from an “eye-witness” at the compound that turned out to be a total fabrication; the guy never even showed up at the compound that night.
Compared with the totally irresponsible reporting and deliberate misinformation that’s come from critics and enemies of the Obama Administration, what the Obama Administration has said has been far more rational, measured, and reliable.
@Greg: Yet Obama, the White House and the State Department knew, based on intelligence on the ground at the time, that this was a coordinated terrorist attack.
They rolled out the “video” misdirection because it suited their political purposes. They lied.
Did you order starch with that brain wash?
@Greg: did you get a band aid for that head wound you got from this one holding your head while smash your head against the constitution