“The views of men can only be known, or guessed at, by their words or actions.”
George Washington, 1799
Before the Obama administration, I would have dismissed outright the idea that the Rolling Stone-journalist Michael Hastings might have been executed by the federal government because he was about to publish an expose about CIA chief John Brennan. Today, however, I am inclined to go a bit slower in dismissing the idea. I still doubt the possibility of such an abomination — partially, I admit, because I hope it is not true — but until the whole matter is thoroughly and publicly investigated and documented the idea should not be ruled out.
If I was asked why I would want to go slow before dismissing the idea that the federal government murdered Mr. Hastings, I would answer that the power of the examples set by Barack Obama, in his two terms, and by John Brennan, in his work for Clinton and Obama, give me pause. From my perspective, both men consistently have demonstrated themselves to be completely comfortable with creating situations, or permitting situations to exist in which Americans — civilian and military — are killed, in essence, by their own government’s decisions, actions, or inactons. And what would these situations be, one might ask? Well, let me start with the following ten items.
- John Brennan prevented the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden before 9/11. He was perfectly at ease with staying America’s strong right arm — in the form of a CIA operation vetted and approved by U.S. Special Forces Command/Fort Bragg — in favor of letting his Saudi government “friends” get bin Laden for America. This was not a mistake, Brennan was currying favor with his Bedouin buddies, who in fact never did anything more than talk about getting bin Laden. One wonders if Brennan had read Bob Baer’s Atlantic essay in which he quotes Saudi Prince Bandar’s public admission that the Saudis always take very good care of their “friends” in the U.S. government after they retire? In any event, should anyone ever bother to look for the person who started building the trail that has led — so far — to the deaths of c. 3,000 people on 9/11 and all of the U.S. military personnel and civilians who since 9/11 have been killed or maimed by the mujahideen in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere, there is no need to look further than Mr. Brennan and President Clinton.
- In a smug, self-righteous manner, Obama and Brennan ended the CIA’s rendition and interrogation programs, thereby cutting off an invaluable and continuingly refreshed channel of intelligence collection, one that allowed U.S. forces to counter some of the operations and growth of the al-Qaeda-led Islamist movement. This program was especially important because Obama, Rice, Biden, Mrs. Clinton, and their lickspittle senior generals sent U.S. soldiers and Marines to war as the targets for the mujahideen, not as their killers, and so renditions and interrogations were America’s major if still inadequate tool for protecting Americans at home and abroad. Obama and Brennan gleefully blinded the U.S. Intelligence Community by ending rendition — and then attacked U.S. civil liberties by enormously expanding the NSA collection program so as to replace the intelligence lost by ending renditions — because both men are quite at ease with the dead U.S. citizens that have and will result from the CIA’s lack of rendition-derived data. And, after all, for Obama and Brennan hurting Americans by destroying their Bill of Rights is much more fun than killing our Islamist enemies or, as Brennan would deceitfully refer to them, “Violent Extremists” who have nothing to do with Islam.
- Obama and Brennan — with Mrs. Clinton and Susan Rice — have been consistent liars about the motivation, legitimate religiosity, intent, manpower, durability, growing lethal capabilities, and ongoing geographic spread of our Islamist enemies. Brennan, of course, is the crown prince of liars in this regard, glibly describing “jihad” to Obama’s media pets not as the thoroughly martial concept it is, but rather as an idea akin to some kind of benign Rotary Club-like activity. As a result, most Americans have yet to recognize that they are engaged in a full-scale and expanding war with militant Islam, and that many more of them will be killed by the Islamist fighting forces about which they have been duped by the American-killing lies of Obama, Brennan, Clinton, Rice, etc.
- Obama was perfectly comfortable with his administration’s “Fast & Furious” program, a daft but inexpensive program that even a pea-brain should have seen held a near-certain likelihood of blow-back in which Americans would be killed. One has been killed; more will be. Obama and his Capo Holder clearly are comfortable with that reality.
- Obama’s decision to announce a date-certain for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan told the Taliban and its allies that America had decided to lose the war and was surrendering. Every soldier and Marine who has died or been maimed in Afghanistan since that announcement is the direct and unshirkable responsibility of Obama, who kept them there to protect his 2012 election prospects. And so too, every American who is killed or maimed by the mujahideen in the years ahead will be Obama’s responsibility because he knowingly is turning Afghanistan back to the Taliban, its al-Qaeda allies, and their funders and enablers in the governments of Pakistan and the Arab Peninsula. Obama seems comfortable with this reality and the American corpses it will yield.
- To shine Obama’s apple, John Brennan disclosed to the media that the U.S. and its allies had a human source in an Al-Qaeda-in-the-Arabian (AQAP) group while it was preparing to install explosives in ink cartridges for printers and then place those bombs on cargo aircraft. Since the original AQAP operation already had been stopped, the only point of Brennan’s deliberate leak was to take credit for himself and his boss. He thereby publicly identified a source who may have been useful in stopping future anti-U.S. attacks. In short, Brennan — probably jointly with Obama — weighed future, successful anti-AQAP operations against winning more fawning praise from the media, and the latter won by a mile — and so more Americans will die.
- Benghazi I: Anyone who has ever worked in the Intelligence Community — especially after 9/11 — will tell you that Obama, Brennan, and Mrs. Clinton all knew that the U.S. ambassador to Libya had called repeatedly and urgently for more protection for U.S. personnel and facilities in Benghazi. It also is certain that these three disgraceful individuals met on the issue, discussed a response, and jointly and knowingly decided to leave the Ambassador and his subordinates vulnerable to the Islamist attack that killed them. This result was more acceptable than jeopardizing the plausibility of the gross lie they were telling about how peaceful and near-to-democracy the “new Libya” was. Once again for Obama and Brennan, dead Americans are just fine as long as there is no erosion of Obama’s position in the political polls. And in the case of Benghazi, Obama and Brennan also were able to enjoy watching the murder of Americans on a live video feed. (NB: And who changed the talking points from CIA truth to Susan Rice’s lies? Well, the National Security Council’s Terrorism Czar’s main job under both parties — in my experience — is to make sure nothing gets blamed on the president. Mr. Brennan, of course, had the last review on the talking points that Susan Rice used to lie to the media. The talking points also included no mention of al-Qaeda or Islam in discussing the fatal attack, another standard tool Brennan uses to deceive Americans and ensure more of them die.)
- Benghazi II: Nearly a year went by after the Benghazi attack before the American public learned that 400 surface-to-air missiles had been acquired by the Islamist fighters who killed the Americans in Benghazi. For all of those months, not a single member of the American flying public knew that those missiles were missing and had to be assumed to pose a threat to their lives whenever they stepped on an airliner anywhere in the world. Again, Obama and Brennan decided that the former’s election and subsequent political standing were much more important than alerting Americans to this new and highly lethal threat to air travel.
- Egypt: Obama, Brennan, Mrs. Clinton, John McCain, and Lindsay Graham have been an effective bipartisan interventionist team, one that has ensured that many more Americans will be killed by Egyptian Islamists and their allies. Because America’s bipartisan interventionists are terminally arrogant, willing to cause unlimited numbers of American deaths by motivating Islamists to attack, and are to-the-bone ignorant about how the world works outside North America, Obama’s Egypt policy — if it can be called that — has admirably paved the road leading America to endless war with Islam. When put into plain English, Osama’s statements to Americans about what has gone on in Egypt since 2011 amount to the following:
Obama first said, “We support Mubarak but urge a peaceful resolution.”
Then, “Mubarak has to go.”
Then, “The Egyptian demonstrators are secular democrats.”
Then, “Mubarak is gone, the democrats won, and coming elections will solidify the ‘new, secular, and democratic Egypt’.”
Then, “The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists won in a free and fair election.”
Then, a period of silence while Obama and his NATO peers probably authorized covert operations to organize, fund, and motivate the until-then-hapless “democratic” opposition to cooperate with the Egyptian military, stage large public demonstrations, and thereby create a situation where the Egyptian generals could — with clear if muted Western cheers — overthrow a legitimate, popularly elected government and imprison its leaders.
Then, Obama said, “It was not a coup and we urge new and peaceful elections.”
Then, “We urge the Brotherhood to negotiate and reconcile with those who stole power from them through the illegitimate non-coup.”
Then, “We are sending the our ace Muslim haters McCain and Graham to persuade the Brotherhood to seek reconciliation with the Egyptian generals.”
Then, “We hope the generals will not kill too many Brotherhood members while moving to eradicate all opposition to the newly installed and illegitimate non-coup regime which will rule until a round of dependably fixed-elections can be conducted.”
Then, late last week, “You Egyptian generals should be less nasty. We are going to delay military exercises with you, but worry not, you are our non-coupists and you will still get 1.3 billion in U.S. military aid.”
Thus, Obama, Brennan, Mrs. Clinton and their Republican allies have been wrong at every step in their continuous intervention to make sure that Egypt’s effort at self-determination recreates a regime Mubarakian in all but name. They have taken intervention to new extremes in order to destroy an operating democratic process that produced an outcome they abhorred. In doing so, they have made sure that no Muslim — radical, moderate, or nominal — will ever again be fooled by Washington’s public support for democracy in the Muslim world. And they have put countless American heads on the Islamists’ chopping block by greatly increasing the credibility of the Islamists’ core argument, which, in paraphrase, is “the Americans do not want democracy for Muslims, they want to destroy Islam and its followers.” This reality, however, will have no impact whatever on our bilateral interventionists. They will — with Obama, Kerry, Brennan, and some senior, senile Republicans in the van — continue pursuing an interventionist policy which benefits only the Islamist movement and America’s undertakers.
10.) Ibragim Todashev: Perhaps this young man’s apparent execution by the FBI and their law-enforcement colleagues is what tips the scales for me in terms of arguing that we should not rule out the possibility of the federal government having killed Mr. Hastings. As you probably will not recall — because the Obama-adoring media have buried the story — Ibragim Todashev is said to have known all about the Tsarnaev bothers who conducted the attack on the Boston marathon. During the FBI’s interview of Todashev in his Orlando, Florida, apartment, the FBI shot Todashev through the heart and in the back of the head. The media first described the incident as one in which Todashev attacked the sainted if reliably bumbling FBI. Then the story changed and the “authorities” said Todashev “lunged” at the FBI officers with a “weapon” in hand.. Then the story changed again, leaving the impression that there was no lunge, no weapon, but plenty of lead pumped into Todashev. Then the story disappeared. The media now reports that the FBI is blocking the return of Todashev’s body to his father, and also will not allow the Florida medical examiner’s report on Todashev’s corpse and cause of death to be made public. I wonder what Todashev knew about the Tsarnaev brothers, about who they were working with, about what other plans they had, or about what other Obama administration lie or fiasco the Tsarnaev brothers’ activities touched on? Were the brothers Tsarnaev about to be hired as IRS/ObamaCare Enforcers? After all their talents were perfect for that task. Anyway, and again, for Obama, Brennan, and company, the dead folks in Boston, as well as the deaths of Americans that may yet result from the unpublicized data held by Todashev are a worthwhile price to pay if killing him can foreclose the chance of any negative political fall out that might result if Americans learned what Todashev knew.
This list could, of course, be expanded, but the ten items above ought to do for starters in attempt to discern consistent patterns of behavior and the ends to which those behaviors have and will lead. Indeed, how else are we to judge the attitudes and intent of men like Obama and Brennan except, as our first president suggested, by their words and actions. Given how much more Obama, Brennan, and their senior colleagues value political power when weighed against American lives — and given the murderous extent they have shown themselves willing to go to keep that power — Mr. Hasting’s death indeed requires a very close investigation. For me, at least, I can no longer rest easy with just hoping that the federal government under Obama has not become a new Murder Inc. designed to kill Americans, or allow Americans to be killed, in order to protect its political viability.
AFTERWARD: Just as I finished this piece, I took a quick look at GOOGLE news to see if there was anything new about Mr. Hastings, and, lo and behold, it appears that Massa’ Barack cracked the whip up at the Big White House and his servile journalists have emerged from the slave quarters to attack those questioning the cause of Mr. Hasting‘s death. These forelock-tugging, Y’ez-boss reporters damned those looking into Mr. Hasting’s death, accusing them of being amateurish and scare-mongering. With Obama’s media goons now in action, Mr. Hasting’s death more than ever merits a thorough and public investigation. But, of course, that process cannot begin until the few remaining non-servile journalists and the adults in the reading public are able to halt the paralyzing waves of side-splitting laughter brought on by the idea of such Obama-worshipping rags as Mother Jones, the Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and CNN having the monumental nerve to call other journalists “amateurs.”
