CBN News interviewed Rep Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Christopher Farrell, a top researcher for Judicial Watch on the one year anniversary of the Benghazi attack that resulted in four dead Americans.
Farrell is of the (now widespread) opinion that the whole thing was tied to the Obama administration’s covert operation to send Libyan weapons to some rebels in Syria – even some with links to al Qaeda to help tham in their fight.
“The Obama administration may have been involved in an arms smuggling operation…. in essence to al Qaeda in Syria”, Farrell explained matter-of factly. “And it’s very murky, and it’s very unclear exactly how that may or may not have played out….but that’s what it looks like.”
Gowdy said he’s aware of all the theories, but can’t know because witnesses haven’t been allowed to testify.
The truth will come out eventually if dogged House investigators like Gowdy get their way.
Meanwhile, Dems have blocked Senator Cruz’s Resolution to create a Joint Select Committee to investigate Benghazi
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced resolution, S.R. 225, Wednesday to create a joint select committee to investigate the Benghazi terrorist attacks from one year ago. But after requesting unanimous consent to introduce and pass the resolution, Democrats blocked it from consideration.
“On September 11, 2012, four Americans were brutally murdered in a terrorist attack against our embassy in Benghazi and one year later, there has still been no action of reprisal and no justice rendered upon the assailants,” Sen. Cruz said. “Failure to hold accountable the perpetrators of this vicious attack will leave terrorists around the world with the impression that they can kill Americans and escape the consequences, increasing the likelihood of future attacks. The American people deserve to have a complete account from their government of the events in Benghazi before, during, and after the attack.”
Cosponsors of the Cruz resolution include Sens. Vitter, Blunt, Toomey, Paul, Scott, Heller, Lee, Inhofe, Ayotte, Portman, Coburn, Roberts, Risch, Ron Johnson, Isakson, Crapo, Cochran, Grassley and Enzi.
In this RT broadcast, it is reported that government forces have succeeded in ridding most of the town of the rebel Jihadist fighters, but snipers remain at hotel that stands on a cliff that overlooks the village. As the news team tried to exit the town, their vehicle was fired upon, and they had to take cover in an ally where dozens of Syrian soldiers have also taken cover. One of the soldiers gets hit in the head with shrapnel.
Note that one of Obama’s partners in the fight to oust Assad has planted the black al qaeda flag on one of the buildings.
On September 6, the residents of Ma’loula sent a letter to the Congress of the USA, in which they tell what happened as a result of criminal acts in one of the oldest towns of the Christian world, reports Linga.
“First, let us tell you what has happened today in Ma’loula and then explain what Ma’loula is like,” the letter said. “At 4.00 AM (Damascus time), gangs of the ‘Free Syrian army’, terrorists and killers… attacked the town, violating the security of houses, monasteries and churches, desecrating icons, and demanding that people renounce their faith and accept Islam.
“Yes, that is what has happened today at dawn in Ma’loula, when the armed gangs burst into the town, shot in the square, desecrated the icons, and closed the gates.
“These are the crimes aimed at Christian towns, and the terrorism directed against Christians; and this is only a part of the larger plan of wiping out Christians from our native homes.
This is happening now, when our state is still strong. But what will happen when it weakens, when the air force of the USA is bombing Syria?
“What awaits Christians in the towns and villages? It is terrible and it is scaring us. What happened in Ghassaniyeh (A Catholic priest-monk, Fr. Francois Mourad, was brutally killed there), in the Monastery of St. Simeon the Stylite, and in Holms, where terrible attacks on churches and monasteries took place. What has happened in all these places, arouses one’s conscience, makes one suffer. What have I done to stop terrorism in Syria? I am not even speaking about the massacres that have happened in all towns to the Christian minority.”
A Fox News report from Thursday morning: Battle For Syrian Christian Of Maaloula Continues – Rebels To Christian “Convert to Islam Or Die”:
…the U.S. approved and cleared a path for a pipeline of weapons into Libya during the revolution in 2011. That pipeline would eventually reverse course to provide the same spare weapons to rebels in Syria. Both efforts seem to violate the UN resolutions (1970 and 1973) which the U.S. helped pass in early 2011.
But in late 2011 the Unites States realized its revolution-on-the-cheap in Libya had a worrisome downside. Thousands of dangerous anti-aircraft weapons were loose in Libya, attracting militants who might wish to use them to commit terrorist acts against civilian air traffic. Something had to be done.
Surface-to-Air Nightmare
After the fall of Qaddafi, the Obama administration gradually became concerned about the thousands (the figure 20,000 was often used) of Russian-made surface-to-air missiles loose in the country. In October 2011, ABC News’ Brian Ross reported on the “nightmare” these missiles could represent in they were to fall into the wrong hands.
Jonathan Spyer says the moderate rebels in Syria the Obama administration has been touting are really Muslim Brotherhood-types who adhere to an Islamist ideology.
Spyer should know. An academic who lives in Israel and studies the Middle East, he has traveled to and through Syrian rebel-controlled territory, reporting on what he saw for various publications. Asked by The Daily Caller to respond to a much-cited Wall Street Journal article by Elizabeth O’Bagy, which claimed “[m]oderate opposition forces … continue to lead the fight against the Syrian regime,” Spyer said, “I can only speak regarding my own experiences and my own knowledge.”
“Undoubtedly outside of Syria, and in the Syrian opposition structures, there are civilian political activists and leaders who are opposed to al-Qaida and opposed to Islamism,” Spyer explained to TheDC in an email interview. “There are also civilian activists and structures within the country which are opposed to al-Qaida and Islamism. But when one looks at the armed rebel groups, one finds an obvious vast majority there who are adherents of Islamism of one kind or another — stretching from Muslim Brotherhood-type formations all the way across to groups openly aligned with al-Qaida central and with al-Zawahiri.”
“The ‘moderate’ force which we are told about supposedly consists of those rebel brigades aligned with the Supreme Military Command, of Major-General Salim Edriss,” he continued. ”Most of the units aligned with the SMC actually come from a 20-unit strong bloc called the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front. This includes some powerful brigades, such as Liwa al-Islam in the Damascus area, Liwa al Farouq and Liwa al Tawhid. These and the overwhelming majority of the units aligned with the SMC are Islamist formations, who adhere to a Muslim Brotherhood-type outlook.”
BEIRUT, Sept 12 (Reuters) – The death toll from an alleged massacre in an Alawite village in central Syria has risen to 22, including women, children and elderly men, a rights monitoring group said on Thursday.
The minority Alawite sect to which President Bashar al-Assad and most of Syria’s elite belong is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam whose members have increasingly been targeted by radical fighters among the Sunni Muslim-dominated opposition in the 2-1/2-year revolt against Assad.
Fighters from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front shot dead 16 Alawites and six Arab Bedouins on Tuesday after storming the village of Maksar al-Hesan, east of the city of Homs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is opposed to Assad.
The British-based Observatory said the victims included seven women, three men over the age of 65, and four children under the age of 16, citing residents and medics.
Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Observatory, said the victims had been shot in their homes, and that they were not members of any pro-Assad militias. Activists in Homs had said on Wednesday that the dead were all from pro-government militias.
Newser’s Ruth Brown has written up an astounding, must-read story on what former hostages of the Syrian rebels have to say about their former captors now.
The rebels held Italian reporter Domenico Quirico for five months. Jeffersonian lovers of freedom and liberty tend not to take reporters hostage. Quirico did not develop any Stockholm syndrome.
“Our captors were from a group that professed itself to be Islamist but that in reality is made up of mixed-up young men who have joined the revolution because the revolution now belongs to these groups that are midway between banditry and fanaticism,” he wrote, per the BBC. “They follow whoever promises them a future, gives them weapons, gives them money to buy cell phones, computers, clothes.”
[B]ecause of the danger in reporting inside Syria, it was not possible to confirm the identity or political affiliation of the victim. Nor are we certain about the motivation of his killers. One eyewitness who lives in the area and was contacted by TIME a week after the beheadings said that the executioners were from ISIS, an Al-Qaeda franchise operating in Syria and Iraq.
TIME obtained the images exclusively from a photographer who was recently in Syria. This decapitation was the last of four executions he documented that day. TIME has agreed not to publish the photographer’s name, to protect him from repercussions when he returns to Syria. What follows is an edited account of his experience.
Michelle Malkin Schools Juan Williams on American Exceptionalism – Sean Hannity – 9-12-13:
“It’s not called isolationism Juan, it’s called ‘Patriotism!” says Michelle Malkin to Juan Williams in a smack down debate hosted by FNC’s Sean Hannity, regarding what’s REALLY happening in Syria and how President Obama should have taken measures previously to prevent it years ago.
Government forces are in Maaloula, but there is still fighting going on. I’ve heard a lot of heavy fire and one or two large explosions as well. Their opponents from the al-Nusra Front – the armed rebel group that is allied with al-Qaeda – appear to still be in the town. I’ve seen about half a dozen wounded government soldiers driven back at speed towards their rear echelon.
I’ve spoken to some local members of the National Defence Forces, a pro-government militia. They say they are fighting for their town and the fact it was a place where Christians and Muslims once lived side by side. They say they are fighting against the people they regard as terrorists.
The town’s residents fled in a hurry to Damascus when the rebels first moved in. They are very upset and angry about what happened. Some told me that when they left, the al-Nusra Front desecrated some of their churches. There is quite a bit of damage to the town, but I can’t see considerable damage to the holy places. In fact, I can see a big statue of the Virgin Mary that is very much intact.
Free Syrian Army (FSA) units and members of the jihadist al-Nusra Front occupied Maaloula for several hours on Thursday before withdrawing when their positions were bombed by government warplanes.
Syria’s state SANA news agency uses the government’s preferred term “terrorists” to describe the rebels….
A Maaloula resident said the rebels, many of them sporting beards and shouting Allahu Akbar, or God is great, attacked Christian homes and churches shortly after moving into the village overnight.
“They shot and killed people. I heard gunshots and then I saw three bodies lying in the middle of a street in the old quarters of the village,” said the resident, reached by telephone from neighbouring Jordan. “So many people fled the village for safety.”
Now, Maaloula “is a ghost town. Where is President Obama to see what befallen on us?” asked the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal by the rebels.
According to one eye witness, five Christians were seized and told, “either you convert to Islam, or you will be beheaded.”
A Christian woman from the besieged town who had fled to Damascus tearfully told a BBC reporter about the Free Syrian Army & Al Qaeda Infestation, and begged Obama to stop sending them weapons “because they are killing us!” When asked what the rebels she saw terrorizing the town looked like, she said said they were wearing “Free Syrian Army” clothes. Those would be the “good guys” Obama has been arming. Note that they have been fighting right alongside the al Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front.
When the reporter asked her about Obama’s plan to punish the regime for killing civilians with chemical weapons, she cried, “no that’s wrong! It’s wrong!…it’s a big liar (sic) you can watch the video (this one?) and you can tell…”
We absolutely need to stay out of this war. My God, I’m rooting for the government forces Obama wants to bomb to beat back the rebels Obama’s been arming.
UPDATE:
I saw reports about this last week, last week but they were second hand, unverified reports. Now, the nun has come forward to tell the story first hand to RT. Her story has yet to be corroborated by other news sources.
Mother Agnes, a catholic nun, who has been living in Syria for 20 years and has been reporting actively on what has been going on in the war-ravaged country, says she carefully studied the video featuring allegedly victims of the chemical weapons attack in the Syrian village of Guta in August and now questions its authenticity. […]
MA: In the village of Estreba they massacred all the residents and burnt down their houses. In the village of al-Khratta almost all the 37 locals were killed. Only ten people were able to escape.
A total of twelve Alawite villages were subjected to this horrendous attack. That was a true slaughterhouse. People were mutilated and beheaded. There is even a video that shows a girl being dismembered alive – alive! – by a frame saw. The final death toll exceeded 400, with 150 to 200 people taken hostage. Later some of the hostages were killed, their deaths filmed.
At the moment we are looking for the hostages and negotiating their release with the militants, but so far we haven’t managed to achieve that.
More at the link.
There are Western MSM journalists out there who are refusing to report these stories.
Nice Deb 