With all that has been going down with scandals and what could possibly be termed "Obamagate", one has to wonder what exactly is going on? It's as if, once Congress started pushing more on Benghazi lately, all of this other stuff exploded and the press came out of their coma and started actually reporting on this stuff. Which is fishy. I know I suggested before that the press might have done that in response to the Justice Department secretly grabbing up AP phone records. But honestly, that is still kind of a weak explanation.
Think about it...the press has been very good to Obama, because his administration supports their ideology. Yes, lefties turn on each other all of the time. But they also tend to stay in lockstep during a crises that could threaten their hold on power. I don't think the press would be reporting on all of this stuff just because of the AP thing, when there seems to be an actual threat to their favorite president, and ultimately to their own ideologies being represented in the White House.
So, needless to say, I'm pretty unsatisfied with all of the explanations of what's going on. The real story, in my opinion, is Benghazi, because that's one where Americans died, and also the one where the details are the most murky. Benghazi is the story that the administration had been working the hardest at being deceptive about and misleading the public. Where there is smoke, there is fire, and there always seems to be a little wisp of smoke coming out of Jay Carney's ears when someone asks about Benghazi.
Searching around on the interwebs lately, I came across a couple articles by some guy I never heard of that posited some explanations to the whole what is going on thing. And some of it did smack of conspiracy theory and I am not sure what to make of it. But there are odd things it explains and also events that have happened in the half a year since his writing the first one kind of match up with it. The "conspiracy" is also, while horrifying if true, also believable since it's the same sort of thing that used to go on during the Cold War.
The first article, written back in October, describes a scenario where the "consulate" in Benghazi wasn't a consulate, but a CIA warehouse. My ears perked up when I read that because of two things I've heard on the news. First, Jay Carney saying that the White House changed "consulate" to "diplomatic facility", and second the spurious reports that there were CIA there. It might explain the 20 "missing survivors" if they are all CIA that were there secretly.
He further goes on to explain that this facility was used to move weapons from Lybia through Turkey and into Syria, to support the anti-Assad rebels. Ok, that's plausible, but not really that damning. Next he says that Russia is upset about it (they want Assad to win) and were monitoring the operation. They took pictures of something in Turkey via satellites that they didn't like.
The author claims he has a source that told him that Ambassador Stevens was at the facility to meet with a Turkish official who was to show him the photos the Russians took and inform him that the operation was compromised. I don't know if that is legitimate or what kind of source this guy is talking about, but I'll go with it for now. The next part is the actual damning part in all of this, and it is little more than speculation on the part of the author and he does present it that way.
He suggests that the activities the Russians took pictures of in Turkey (and presumably were being shown to Stevens) was rebels being trained to load chemical weapon warheads onto missiles. He further posits that the real operation is using chemical weapons on people, hoping it would be believed that Assad did it, and then pressure NATO to remove Assad. I have a hard time believing our government would actually, purposely be behind such a thing, but who knows.
Of course, as we know now (or think?), chemical weapons were used (after this article was written) on people in Syria. Assad has denied doing it, of course, and the rebels and most western nations do point the finger at him. Some official at the UN claimed it was actually the rebels who did it and there has been a lot of tin foil hat types that have been echoing that accusation. I scoffed at all of that when I read it. But put into context...
The final piece of the puzzle in this author's theory is that the actual attack wasn't a terrorist one, but a state sponsored one. He suggests that Russia decided to shut down the operation and enlisted Iranians to do the job. He also suggests that there were teams that didn't engage in the attack because they were waiting in case an American rescue operation showed up. He claims that might be why no such rescue effort was sent in because it was suspected there was a larger force at Benghazi.
Which would make all of this a good old fashioned, Cold War type showdown between the US and Russia. Which adds the "plausibility" aspect to it. Of course this is also the kind of stuff that conspiracy theorists and whackos love, so there are plenty of them saying similar stuff all over the internet. So of course I take it all with a grain of salt.
The second article written by this Hagmann guy is from a couple days ago. In this one he doesn't really give a grand theory about Benghazi, but instead attempts to explain the whole scandal phenomenon. And considering a recent admission yesterday at a congressional hearing by some official that the revelation about the IRS stuff was planned by the IRS...this guy might be on to something.
Basically he suggests what I think a lot of us were kind of suspecting anyway, that all of these scandals are an attempt to obfuscate the truth about Benghazi and divert attention away from it. With the media helping to keep the public focus on the IRS and the Justice Department, while Congress is busy dealing with all three scandals at the same time, the White House is hoping the Benghazi thing will just kind of die down, just like Fast and Furious did.
This article is pretty close to what some others have been saying...that the truth might be found within the first couple days that the President was nowhere to be found. He likens that to the 18 minutes of gaps in the Nixon tapes.
Of course this whole suggested explanation for Benghazi brings as many questions as it attempts to answer, and frankly I am automatically skeptical of anything that sounds like a conspiracy theory. The only reason I shared it is because this type of operation has Cold War precedence and lots of it. The Middle East was a big battle ground for the silent conflict between the Soviets and the US, and it isn't far fetched to consider that it's still that way to a degree.
It isn't that we haven't done such things in the past...it's we wouldn't do anything like that now, right? I mean, we're more humane and responsible than we used to be, aren't we? I think that is what most of us believe...that those before us were barbaric and now we "know better". I mean, there is no way the US would actually, albeit covertly, direct the use of chemical weapons on people to basically start a NATO backed war. Right?
Like I said though, it does pose questions. The first question in my mind is: "Why would this administration go to such extremes to remove Assad?". Politically, it wouldn't be popular for Obama to get us into another conflict. And as bad of a person as Assad is, consider his rebel enemies...lots of extremists and Muslim Brotherhood types. Why would Obama want that side to win? Didn't we learn anything from the so called Arab Spring?
So, that's a major question when scrutinizing this theory of a false-flag chemical weapons operation. What is the motive? The other question is: "why use that method?". The possibility of it being found out (and eventually it would be, if 50 years from now) is too risky, not to mention the immorality of using chemical weapons on people. It just seems like there is a better way to get rid of Assad than all of that. Heck, assassination would be simpler and cleaner. We could even claim it was Israel that did it.
The one thing that really sticks with this theory is, it explains why the Administration seems so bent to hide the facts about Benghazi. The idea that an Ambassador is killed and the White House's response is "meh" all but screams coverup. There is something big and nasty behind it, whether it's that chemical weapons idea, or something else entirely.
I just hope Congress doesn't get too distracted by these other scandals and gets to the bottom of it all.
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