A Web of Lies

It was a movie that caused the protests by the “folks” outside the US Consulate in Libya, and the protests that allowed miscellaneous evil doers who just happened to be walking by … at 9:30 in the evening — armed with mortars and RPGs, which are easily found throughout Libya — to take advantage of the moment, scale the consulate’s walls and kill the American Ambassador who was working there at the time. That this occurred on 9/11 was purely coincidental.

So says Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the UN. I’m not sure why the US Ambassador to the UN was selected to be the spokesperson in this matter. What does her job have to do with Libya, or the consulate or other matters of State? Shouldn’t it be some State Department person, someone in the chain of command relative to embassies and consulates that was chosen to make the  statement? 

No matter, that is what she’s said, as reported by Fox News today. 

In the same article, Fox also reported that an intelligence source on the ground claimed there was no protest outside the consulate at all that night, despite our own government’s insistence that there was.

“There was no protest and the attacks were not spontaneous,” the source said, adding the attack “was planned and had nothing to do with the movie.” According to this source, the attack came without warning, with firing originated in two separate locations.

This corroborates an earlier report from McClatchy of an unnamed Libyan security guard who alleged the same thing. “There wasn’t a single ant outside,” he said.

The Obama Administration rejects both sources, as well as the Libyan president’s claim that this was a planned out attack, a view the Obama administration says is not consistent with “the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community,” which has been investigating the incident.

“He doesn’t have the information we have,” the U.S. official said of Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif. “”He doesn’t have the (data) collection potential that we have.”

Except… recently we were told that the situation in Benghazi had been turned over to the FBI to investigate, because it was now regarded as a crime scene. There could be no further talk on the matter beyond whatever the FBI was willing to reveal — not what happened, not who was involved,  not the condition of Ambassador Stevens’ body… nothing until the Justice Department’s investigation was completed.

Unfortunately, the FBI agents haven’t even gotten to Benghazi yet, because it was decided the area was too unstable for them to enter.

So… who is investigating? And how can the US say that the President of Libya, who is in Libya, doesn’t have the same “data collection potential that we have,” when our agents haven’t even gotten there yet?.

“A consensus view of our intelligence community”  just means the majority opinion, not eyewitness testimony or any kind of hard facts. And majority opinion isn’t always right. In fact, I’d say it’s rarely right.

And how is our “data collection potential”  relevant to all this?  “Potential” means we haven’t collected it yet, otherwise it would be real not potential.

So really, all the administration has said in defense of  it’s theory is that they’ve voted on the best guesses of what really happened, and since the US’s ability to gather data is so much superior to Libya’s, eventually the data we’re going to collect will support the majority-opinion guess.

Which means, the US official really didn’t say anything.

So why did I write an entire blog post on this? Because the dissembling fascinates me, especially when I notice it. I grew up with the notion that those in authority don’t lie.  Perhaps bend the truth. Or leave certain things out. But not outright lie.

Even having blogged about the doctrine of taqiyya, I still find it hard to believe that people actually do it. But in a society like ours, where we don’t believe in such things, where a man’s word was once his bond, and honesty is still mostly considered a virtue, it’s harder still.

I know all politicians lie on some level or other. I know it. But I think I still don’t totally believe it. Otherwise why would this stuff surprise me?

Maybe because it’s so obvious and how can they think we all won’t see it? Do they think we won’t care. (Granted a far too many of our citizens don’t seem to.)  And yet the media just reports it all as if it’s truth, as if it’s not the least bit inconsistent, and certainly not that it’s reprehensible.

(The only thing they seem to think is reprehensible is that pathetic little movie trailer that’s supposedly started all this.)

It seems like it should be against the law for government officials to lie like this, so easily, so blatantly…  Because the result for me  right now is that I have no idea what is truth and what is lie. Are the Intelligence “Source” on the ground and the unnamed Libyan security guard lying?  Could be.

The President of Libya? Yeah, he could be lying, too.

The US administration official? The US ambassador to the UN? Obviously. Everyone’s clearly scrambling to cover their rears…  It would be funny were it to show up in some comedy movie.

But it’s not a movie.

How can we, as supposed-to-be-informed citizens ever know what’s actually going on, when everyone seems to be lying? All the time. When one lie doesn’t work, they just float another… Where is that all going to lead? 

I don’t have answers for these questions, but I do believe that this is one more thread in the unraveling of a culture once based on Biblical standards, now steadily heading down the road to destruction.

“In the last days,  difficult times shall come. For men shall be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” ~ 2 Ti 3:1-4

4 thoughts on “A Web of Lies

  1. Rebecca LuElla Miller

    I heard the tape of that UN ambassador. I can’t remember what station, but it was aired as a “not everyone is in agreement on what caused the incident in Libya” piece.

    The thing is, President Obama has political reasons for making this about the movie rather than about an attack on his watch as Commander in Chief. What makes the case for the latter is that the movie trailer had already been out for two months. Why were Muslim Brotherhood members suddenly upset by it? Even the “spontaneity” of the Egyptian protests seems orchestrated to fall on a day significant to the US and just before a day significant to the Islamic community.

    And now there’s uncertainty about who authorized the movie. They guy here in SoCal who is supposed to be the one behind it, claims he isn’t. Hmmm. Talk about not knowing what to believe.

    But isn’t that the way we’ve been headed ever since the “right” thing for every defendant to do is to plead not guilty, even when caught red-handed? Then there are the Presidents who lied in office, or covered for those who did.

    OK, don’t get me started about the corruption in government and business. It’s too big a topic! 🙁

    Becky

    Reply
    1. karenhancock

      You bet the President has political reasons! He just spent his convention going on about how he got Bin Laden and has the Middle East sewn up. Plus I don’t think he’s capable of accepting responsibility for anything he might have done wrong. He never makes a mistake after all. He just needs more time.

      That business about the movie already having been out there on YouTube… and before that shown in a movie house in LA… and suddenly they all find out about it and have a fit? Why didn’t they have a fit about Bill Maher’s Religulous which came out in 2008? I’ve never seen it, except bits on YouTube, but from what I’ve heard he makes great fun of the Muslims. And that was a professionally made Hollywood “documentary”. Soon they’ll be releasing Zero Dark Thirty, celebrating the killing of Bin Laden. My goodness! If The Innocence of Muslims trailer could disrupt the muslim world as it has, the administration should probably be pressuring Hollywood not to release a full length, probably Oscar-contending movie, ’cause that would surely cause them all to go berserk.

      Then again, maybe that’s his secret Middle East Foreign policy…

      Reply
  2. Pingback: Update: the Mystery Project continues « Writing from the Edge 2

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