Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Asks, “What Difference at this Point, Does it Make?”

My Answer to Her Ridiculous Question

By The Colonel

The real difference it makes is that we trusted American lives to several individuals in senior leadership roles; these individuals either made poor decisions or failed to make decisions at all. As a result, our U.S. Ambassador to Libya was murdered along with three other brave Americans. These senior individuals (President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and General David Petraeus) were embarrassed at their total failure and decided to fabricate a more politically excusable reason for the Benghazi disaster…they blamed a scarcely watched YouTube anti-Islam film?

The public has been lied to, deceived, had the truth hidden from them by journalist/executives in the mainstream news media and by the Federal Government. It will not work. Like all cover-ups there are too many lies to keep straight and too many people who know the truth…the truth will surface eventually. So let’s get back to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s angry response to the Congressional questioning, “What difference at this point does it make?” The difference it makes is we need effective senior leaders who make good decisions under pressure in key Federal Government jobs--and to know if that is true we have to evaluate their performance.

We have to know what they actually did and how they did it…a performance evaluation is not possible unless we know the complete truth. The most important questions have still not been answered.

• One, why was our Ambassador in Benghazi and with so little protection?
• Two, why did we not have contingency response forces readily available to respond to Benghazi…especially on an anniversary of 9/11?
• Three, when the attack was reported by phone to the Department of State and U.S. forces in Tripoli began to respond to Benghazi, who gave the order to “stand-down” and why did they give that order?
• Four, where was President Obama and what was he doing when Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone S. Woods were engulfed in an eight-hour fight for their lives?

I have a theory… President Obama and Secretary Clinton were very busy working on the presidential election and not paying much attention to what was happening in Libya…after all, they have lots of “little people” who can handle the mundane tasks of actually governing the United States of America. By the time the President’s staff and Secretary Clinton’s staff realized that Benghazi was a really serious crisis, it was too late to successfully intervene. At that point all the well-honed machinery of campaign central kicked in to produce the “blame the video” strategy (the anti-Islam YouTube video) and they got all the help they needed from the mainstream media.

I am hopeful the truth will soon come out. Why am I hopeful? Well, if President Obama’s  extensive “Chicago” style political machine could not crush and intimidate the insiders who knew the truth at the State Department, the families of the brave Americans who were murdered at Benghazi, and a few inquisitive/daring within the news media beginning to ask the right questions (who have typically been strong allies)…then there is hope. The truth must be very bad indeed.

Rule of Law or Big Government Tyranny?

By The Colonel

There was a story in the New York Times this morning by Azam Ahmed and Habib Zahori  about a case of government “ruling class” abuse of power in Afghanistan but this story is little different in principle from another story taking place in the United States of America. That story involves the Attorney General of the United States seizing James Rosen and his parent’s phone records with no evidence to support a warrant. I argue the Afghan story illustrates an important principle in that one of the few core responsibilities of any government is to protect its people from external (National defense) and internal harm (law enforcement)…to protect the weak from the strong. Yes the government can be an equalizing force protecting the little guys from the big powerful guys…unfortunately the government can also be the big and powerful who tyrannizes we common citizens. I worry that we are seeing the symptoms of tyranny not just in Afghanistan, but here at home in the USA.

The Afghanistan story is about an army major (Pashto) who was stopped for a routine traffic check and vehicle search by an Afghan policeman (Dari), the army major was reportedly arrogant and angry that he had been stopped by a Dari policeman so he phoned his Army unit and asked that soldiers be sent to teach this lowly policeman a lesson. Two trucks, 17 soldiers, arrived and beat the policeman severely after which the army major left to go on his way. The other policemen on duty at the checkpoint took their colleague to the hospital. Even though the incident was reported up the police chain of command, the army major remains free and giving orders because his ethnic or political group (Pasto) is in “power” and the policeman’s ethnic group (Dari) is not.

While we might think this lack of justice is pretty common in a third world country, it seems to be happening more frequently now in the United States of America? For example, James Rosen, a reporter for Fox News, recently had his and his parent’s phone records collected by the U.S. Attorney General without charging or indicting him with any crime…and in spite of his First Amendment right to free speech and a free press. Even though the Justice Department got a judge to issue a warrant, it was not easy to do…they (Justice Department) had to “Judge-Shop” … to fool a judge into signing the warrant…the first two judges approached refused to issue the warrant because there was no evidence to support it and because the Justice Department had not notified James Rosen of their intention to go after his and his parent’s phone records nor had they taken the first steps required by law to simply ask James Rosen for the information they were seeking. In fact, on the warrant the Justice Department finally found a judge to sign the AG lawyers had stated that James Rosen was “potentially criminally libel” in a National security case…even though they knew well he was not. James Rosen vs. the power of the entire United States government…with very deep pockets full of taxpayer dollars and an armed FBI agent to do the enforcement does not seem fair? I think this is why we have the rule of law…at least for now?

James Rosen and his parents were powerless and worse yet unaware they were being investigated by the all-powerful, resources-rich Federal government of the United States of America. James Rosen is a reporter for the Fox News network which is reportedly a conservative news organization and the U.S. Justice Department is under Attorney General Eric Holder, a member of the reportedly liberal administration. So the liberal party in power in America can abuse the rights of the conservative party members who are not in power? In Afghanistan, the ruling party-in-power abuses the rights of those who are not in power or are of another ethnic group (Dari). There may not be as much difference between us and the third world countries as there once was; do we really want to drift into the rule-of-man (even if he is historic and charismatic) or did our Founding Fathers have it right in the Constitution to guarantee rule-of-law, where we are all equal before the law? 

Remember the classic book Animal Farm where “all of the animals were equal but some were more equal than others” (Orwell, 1946). Orwell was humorously mocking socialism and communism in 1946 but I think he would be shocked today at how some of our citizens (e.g., ruling class elite) are, “more equal than other citizens.”

 Ahmed, A., & Zahori, H. (2013, May 28). Beaten On The Job, An Afghan Police Officer Goes On TV And Hits Back, New York Times.

Troubling Question Answered - Tipping Point Crossed - Atlas Shrugs’!

By the Lieutenant Colonel

We were founded as a Republic of self-governed people championing maximum individual liberty based on property rights and an equally applied traditional rule-of-law. However, a majority, mostly huddled together in America’s major urban centers, no longer comprehends what it truly means to live in freedom; they have spurned liberty centered limited-governance of the intended Constitutional Republic and enthroned a professed benevolent king. America---“Transformed” into just another failing Democracy of needy piglet subjects suckling on the tits of a withering sow.

Prospects for a renaissance of liberty anytime soon are fading. But embers still smolder under the ash. Linking admired stories---like Jedi Obi Wan of the Old Republic, it may be time to rejuvenate in “Red” pastoral America by “Going Galt” and awaiting the opportunity to fight for a “New Hope”.