The Real Story of Benghazi and the Arab Spring

In late April, the State Department issued a report on terrorism in 2013.  The conclusions were startling, and, in regular fashion, understated by the American media.  According to the study, terrorist attacks rose by 43% in 2013, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa.  Although the report singled out (Russia-allied) Iran the state sponsor of terrorism, it also conceded that, despite a concerted effort by the international community to crack down on al Qaeda, the multi-headed terrorist organization had proliferated across the Maghreb (i.e. North Africa) and Middle East.  As one article, summarizing the report, put it:

The most lethal attacks in 2013 were conducted by the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban, Nigeria’s Boko Haram, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Qaeda in Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, according to the report.

Note to the State Department: all of these – ISIS, the Taliban, Boko Haram, and the others – are under the al Qaeda umbrella.  They’re like different McDonald’s franchises, each ultimately answering to the same corporate headquarters.  And they’re all encouraged in their violence and other dirty dealings by the Muslim Brotherhood, whose main state sponsors are Qatar, Turkey, and Pakistan.  And yet, for some seemingly inexplicable reason, the State Department still singled out Iran.

A very curious ranking of priorities by the US Department of State, seeing as how it was al Qaeda, not Iranian-proxies such as Hezbollah or the Quds Force, who carried out the most lethal attacks.  Then again, the Obama administration did not even bother to define al Qaeda before declaring them all but defeated. Not to mention that the State Department was instrumental in training Egyptian Islamists political parties in 2011, prior to the election.

As explained in a previous article, The Manipulation of the American Military by the Muslim Brotherhood, the three most significant state sponsors of al Qaeda-tied terrorism are Qatar, Turkey, and Pakistan. Each of these countries is a significant US ally, and as a result have many important ties with the American military, diplomatic, and business establishments.  Qatar is the host to two of the largest American military bases in the entire world, as well as the Brookings Institution and the RAND Corporation; Turkey is a full-fledged NATO ally; Pakistan has a long history of “cooperation” with the American military and intelligence, and indeed is a subcontractor for NATO in the form of the National Logistics Cell – who are also heroin smugglers for the Taliban.

The Latest in a Long Line of Terror Groups

It would be unfair to the Muslim Brotherhood to not give them their due credit.  Their ideology was instrumental in the creation of al Qaeda, using bin Laden’s charisma as a means to attract new members to the Brotherhood’s eternal goal of uniting the Muslim world under Sharia law.  (You see, kafirs are going to be stuck in Dar al-Harb.)  AQ is just the latest in their tradition of militant, murderous, jihadi death squads.  In modern times, they were first known as the fedayeen.  Introduced by the Nazi collaborator Amin al-Husseini, the fedayeen were militant Palestinians who raided Israeli territory following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.  Next the world came to know them as the mujahideen, a word most often associated with the Afghan-Islamic resistance against the Soviet Union.  Led by, among others, bin Laden, and funded by the United States (beginning under Carter and continuing through Reagan’s presidency), Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other countries against Communism, the mujahideen acted as an unified front against an expansionist USSR.

Following the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, bin Laden increasingly fell under the sway of Ayman al-Zawahiri and his interpretation of the revolutionary Islamist ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood as elaborated by Sayyid Qutb in his jihadist manifesto, “Milestones.” Before he met Zawahiri, who would become his spiritual mentor, bin Laden was not anti-American.  Osama’s father, Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Yemeni, had risen to the top of Saudi social circles and was personal friends with the King, an ally of the United States (note: maybe not anymore).  The bin Laden family was (and still is) so respected that George H.W. Bush served on the Board of the Carlyle Group, a company with close ties to the family.  It was Zawahiri, a student and family friend (through an uncle) of the ideological father of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb, who convinced/manipulated? bin Laden into turning his nascent Islamic fighting force into a tool of terror as envisioned by the most extreme elements of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Sayyid Qutb, like Zawahiri an Egyptian, had lived in post-war America, in New York, Washington D.C., and Greeley, Colorado.  Disgusted with materialism and what he perceived as loose sexuality, Qutb turned on the “white man.”  Elevating his religious hatred to racial hatred (in the same fashion as Brotherhood hero, Adolf Hitler; Mein Kampf translates into Arabic as My ‘Jihad’), Qutb declared war on them, writing:

The white man in Europe or America is our number-one enemy… The white man crushes us underfoot while we teach our children about his civilization, his universal principles and noble objectives…. Let us instead plant the seeds of hatred, disgust, and revenge in the souls of these children. Let us teach these children from the time their nails are soft that the white man is the enemy of humanity, and that they should destroy him at the first opportunity.

There is a detailed narrative of bin Laden’s transformation under Zawahiri’s influence in Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower.  Wright’s book explains why Qutb’s seminal work Milestones (available here), might be called the Brotherhood’s Koran as well as the organizational equivalent of Lenin’s revolutionary call to action, “What Is to Be Done?”

We see in these relations the ideological link between Qutb’s fundamentalist vision of the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda.  Al Qaeda is the latest iteration of fedayeen and the mujihideen, and was conceived by another bin Laden mentor, Sheikh Abdullah Azzam. Sheikh Azzam’s purpose was to form a pioneering vanguard to serve as a military “base” –qaeda- for the jihad that would eventually establish an Islamic Caliphate. Azzam, bin Laden, and other likeminded jihadists actually organized al Qaeda in Peshawar, Pakistan in 1988.

The Arab Spring, Benghazi, Syria

Speaker of the House John Boehner recently announced that a special House committee would be formed to investigate what occurred on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, when a U.S. consulate was attacked by al Qaeda.  (As explained above, “al Qaeda-linked” is a meaningless expression.  Local names of local terrorists can be thought of as local brands.)  Congressman Trey Gowdy, a longtime skeptic of the administration’s explanation of the events, has been tapped to head it.  The formation of this new committee was prompted by a FOIA request by the group Judicial Watch, which revealed that the White House had intentionally decided to play down the idea that it was a terrorist attack, and instead focus on the contrived narrative that it somehow related to an anti-Islamic video on YouTube.  Further contributing to these salacious revelations is the fact that a Muslim Brotherhood operative was copied on the email correspondence chain.

Democrats in the House and the White House have pulled out all the stops to quash a new investigation.  House Democrats are deciding whether to boycott the committee, and Nancy Pelosi insisted that it have equal number of Republicans and Democrats.  (It has been decided that there will be seven Republicans and five Democrats.)  The White House has announced that it will not cooperate, period.  Such a move by the White House could lead to a Constitutional crisis.

Speculation abounds as to what the exact purpose of this Committee will be.  Many have suggested that it will prove how irresponsible Hillary Clinton was as a Secretary of State, therefore crippling her presidential ambitions.  Others think it may prove, finally, that the White House played politics with national security before the presidential election.  This would critically damage the president’s credibility, which has already suffered in his second term.  But what if it is something much more serious?  Evidence suggests not just a political failure on part of the administration, but a scandal so taboo that few want to entertain the idea that it may be true.

The as yet unproven scandal in question is no less than this: Was the CIA, under orders from the Obama administration, operating a weapons ring of Libyan arms to Syrian rebels, many whom are al Qaeda?  The circumstantial evidence available lends a high level of credulity to that very scenario.

It is important here to emphasize the purpose of Qatari-Turkish “Arab Spring” project, which was intended to install friendly, Muslim Brotherhood governments into countries where once secular strongmen ruled: first in Egypt, then in Libya, then in Syria.  The Qataris were not shy about backing the Libyan rebels.  They even provided armor.

If there was an arms smuggling ring operating out of Benghazi, the Turks and the Qataris, [like President Obama, both supportive of the Syrian rebels] would certainly have known of it – if not organized it themselves.

CIA Boots on Ground

Shortly following the attack, Senator Rand Paul and Glenn Beck both hypothesized that the consulate in Benghazi was actually a CIA safe house for a “rat line” of Libyan weapons into Syria.  CNN reported in August, 2013 that there were “dozens of people working for the CIA” in the compound at the time the attack.  They also reported that the agency had resorted to an “unprecedented attempt” to keep the CIA survivors from leaking to the press.  Many of them were even subjected to regular polygraph (i.e., lie detector) tests to determine if they had spoken to members of Congress or the press.  According to CNN, CIA contract security personnel had to sign nondisclosure agreements to prevent them from talking to Congress or the press, though CIA Chief John Brennan denies this allegation.   While it would be perfectly reasonable, even expected, that CIA officers were in Libya following the demise of Gaddafi, perhaps to prevent Libyan arms from falling into the wrong hands, why would the Agency go to such lengths to keep this a secret?  It doesn’t really make sense.

In that same article, CNN cited Congressional sources who speculated that “U.S. agencies [i.e. the CIA and State Department] operating in Benghazi were secretly helping to move surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels.”  Given Obama’s support for the Syrian rebels, not to mention the fact that the last visitor to the compound prior to the attack was a Turkish diplomat, the CNN account makes too much sense to ignore.

Benghazi witnesses are hard to come by.  Senator Lindsey Graham was flummoxed to learn that the survivors were “told to be quiet” about the attack by the administration.  The South Carolina Senator also believes that the administration is trying to cover something up, saying “We cannot let this administration or any other administration get away with hiding from the American people and Congress, people who were there in real time to tell the story.”  Such actions by the administration against Benghazi survivors has led many to quip that the witnesses have “vanished.”  Moreover, Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia has repeatedly called for a new investigation, due to the firm belief that the truth would never come out unless there was a bipartisan investigative panel.  Says Wolf in his press release, “This isn’t about politics nor is it a vendetta. It’s about the legislative branch conducting its most basic responsibility: strong oversight. To date, I do not believe anyone can honestly say Congress has fulfilled its constitutional responsibility with regard to Benghazi.”

Until last week, these calls had been ignored by House leadership and John Boehner.

Right Side News contributing writer William Michael