The Oswegonian

The Independent Student Newspaper of Oswego State

DATE

Dec. 23, 2024

Opinion

Assassination controversy

It is coming to light that President Obama’s administration may very well be involved in the biggest cover-up in our nation’s history. On Sept. 11, 2012, the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attacked and Ambassador Chris Stevens along with three other Americans were murdered.

Upon hearing the news, it was former governor Mitt Romney who gave a statement announcing that it was a terrorist attack. Obama chastised Romney saying that Governor Romney seems to have the tendency to shoot first and aim later. Obama and his administration on the other hand, made statements to the American people saying that this was a protest over an anti-Islamic video. Even though U.S. intelligence agencies have stated that it was a terrorist attack, the Obama administration continues to blame the video.

“There was a coordinated military-style; commando type raid that had both direct fire and indirect fire…This was a well-planned, well targeted event,” said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers.

On Sept. 14, the remains of the Ambassador and the three others arrived home. The families, as well as officials including Obama and Hilary Clinton attended ceremony. In her memorial speech, Clinton referenced, “an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with” as the cause of the attack.

Obama and his administration continued to blame the video on talk show appearances, news shows and on the campaign trial, from Sept. 12 until Sept. 27 before stating that it was under investigation.

Prior to the VP Debate, Stephanie Cutter, Deputy Campaign Manager for Obama, gave an interview in which she blamed Romney and Paul Ryan for politicizing the attack. It was Ryan who spoke out stating “this is becoming more troubling by the day. They first blamed the YouTube video; now they’re trying to blame the Romney/Ryan ticket for making this an issue.”

Obama and Clinton both condemned the video in their speeches to the UN. Obama stated, “There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents. There’s no video that justifies an attack on an embassy.” Obama went on to say that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

On Sept. 27, in the dead of the night, local officials arrested the film-maker of the anti-Islamic video. He was paraded in front of the media wearing a scarf, hat and dark glasses so as to not reveal his identity. He is still in custody, held without bail. According to officials he is being detained on parole violations. There have been demands by Muslim clerics to turn him over to them for punishment.

The arrest aligns with Obama and his administration’s philosophy of appeasement and their tendency to blame America first.

Evidence is mounting against the Obama administration for covering up the details of the attack. A CNN reporter retrieved the Ambassador’s diary from the wreckage of the consulate. The diary indicated that there was a concern about security threats in Benghazi.

On Oct. 10, the House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa made it known that there had been a number of requests for additional security at the consulate in Benghazi, however those requests were ignored. According to Josh Rogin’s article, Issa had released unclassified cables that detailed the requests for added security dating back to March and July of this year that the State Department had refused to release..

S.C. Congressman Trey Gowdy, in a heated moment, demanded answers from this administration.

“I would like to have another hearing where we can ask Ambassador Rice, under oath who told you what, when.  If you’re going to blame the intelligence community, you come before this committee and you tell us who told you it was a video!  Who in the intelligence community said it?  Who in the diplomatic community blamed this on a video?” Gowdy said. “Mr. Chairman, the American people are reasonable. People understand investigations take time.  People don’t expect you to speculate until you have all the facts.  What they will not forgive, Mr. Chairman, is being misled.”

There are now videos retrieved from the attack surfacing, which include footage from a passing drone that shows there was never a protest. A transcript that was released by the State Department via a conference call on Oct. 9 provides proof that a protest against the video on YouTube was not the cause of the attacks. A senior state official told Brad Klapper of the associated press that the Ambassador had escorted a Turkish diplomat out of the compound at approximately 8:30 p.m. and there was no one on the street at the time.

On Oct. 14, Senator Lindsey Graham of S.C. said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he believes the Obama administration knew within 24 hours that the Benghazi raid was a planned act of terrorism.

“They’re trying to sell a narrative, quite frankly, that [in] the Mid-East, the wars are receding and al Qaeda has been dismantled, and to admit that our embassy was attacked by al Qaeda operatives … undercuts that narrative,” Graham said. “They never believed that media would investigate. Congress was out of session, and this caught up with them. I think they’ve been misleading us, but it finally caught up with them.”

What is known, the video is that Obama and others blamed for the attack was a 15-minute YouTube trailer that has been on the net since June of this year. We also know that the attack was executed by al-Qaida on the 11th anniversary of 9/11.

Think about what this means logically. Don’t you think that the killing of Osama Bin Laden and Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, al-qaida’s second in command and a Libyan native, would be a more likely reason to plan an attack on America?

Two days before the election, one of Obama’s big Hollywood fundraisers is set to release a feature film on the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that if al-Qaida was upset about a video trailer that no one has seen, a film about killing their leader would spark more attacks on America?