Raw Story Tries To Demonize Rand Paul For Talking About The CIA Running Arms Out of Benghazi
In a post on the left-wing Raw Story site yesterday, they had a report trying to demonize Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky for saying the widely reported story that the reason the Obama administration was working so hard to cover up the Benghazi attack was because the US was really running illegal arms out of the Benghazi consulate into Syria.
Raw Story tried to make it sound like it was a nonsense conspiracy theory that Senator Paul drummed up himself.
From Raw Story:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Thursday night offered a fresh conspiracy regarding the attack in Benghazi, claiming the Obama administration could be trying to hide a secret arms trade.
“I never have quite understood the cover-up — if it was intentional or incompetence,” he told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “But something went on. I mean, they had talking points that they were trying to make it out to be a movie when everybody seemed to be on the ground telling them it had nothing to do a movie. I don’t know if this was for political reasons.”
“I’ve actually always suspected that, although I have no evidence, that maybe we were facilitating arms leaving Libya going through Turkey into Syria.”
The Republican senator said the New York Times had reported that Turkish ships were transporting weapons from Libya to Syria. How falsely claiming the attack on the U.S. consulate occurred during a spontaneous demonstration would help cover-up such a situation was unclear.
It’s funny that they mention how Senator Paul referred to a story in the New York Times, and yet they never bothered to check it out themselves. Instead they say that his theory is a “fresh conspiracy.” Awesome reporting guys!
This is from the New York Times:
The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants, according to United States officials and foreign diplomats.
No evidence has emerged linking the weapons provided by the Qataris during the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to the attack that killed four Americans at the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in September.
But in the months before, the Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan militants, concerns that have not previously been reported. The weapons and money from Qatar strengthened militant groups in Libya, allowing them to become a destabilizing force since the fall of the Qaddafi government.
The experience in Libya has taken on new urgency as the administration considers whether to play a direct role in arming rebels in Syria, where weapons are flowing in from Qatar and other countries.
Besides that, other news sites around the web were talking about this back in December.
From The Examiner:
New details have emerged that shed light on the chaos that embroiled the Benghazi mission on 9/11/2012 that led to the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans at the hands of the very anti-Qaddafi rebels that Stevens formally liaised with for the CIA.
It wasn’t a secret that Ambassador Christopher Stevens played a key role in Libya’s “Arab Spring.” During the course of the revolution that ultimately toppled Muammar Qaddafi, Stevens’ built a relationship with the Libyan rebels and it’s this experience that made him the frontrunner for the Libyan ambassadorship. Stevens’ history of working with Libyan radicals provided the perfect opportunity for the Obama administration to covertly move newly purchased weapons from Libya’s freedom fighters to Syrian insurgents via ships through Turkey.
In March 2011 Stevens became the official U.S. liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked “Libyan opposition, working directly with Abdelhakim Belhadj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group—a group that has now disbanded, with some fighters reportedly participating in the attack that took Stevens’ life.”
Former CIA officer Clare Lopez said, “That means Stevens was authorized by the U.S. Department of State and the Obama administration to aid and abet individuals and groups that were, at a minimum, allied ideologically with al-Qaeda, the jihadist terrorist organization that attacked the homeland on the first 9/11, the one that’s not supposed to exist anymore after the killing of its leader, Osama bin Laden, on May 2, 2011.”
So this isn’t a “fresh conspiracy” theory drummed up by a Tea Party sponsored Senator as Raw Story so arrogantly suggests. This is a legitimate story that has been widely reported.
Look, I’m just a part-time blogger. I don’t run a full fledged news site like Raw Story. Hell, my degrees are in Computer Networking and Network Security and not Journalism. I do know one thing though, Google works. I suggest Raw Story learns how to use it.
What do you think about this? Let me know in the comments.
[Via Mainwashed]
Excellent Article; too bad the MSM, even conservative/libertarian websites haven’t followed up on this; i always believe that romney’s reluctance to make hay with the obvious during the debates had to do with the classified information he was privy to. The Turkish ambassadors close proximity during these attacks and the plethora of chemical and biologic weapons left from Qadafi and in the Syria, leads me to believe something was being negotiated between us and rogue elements through Turkey. I’m not sure it was our weapons we were concerned about, but I think we were purchasing chemical or bio weapons from terrorists…..
But then again, it could be a “awful” B-rate movie that hurt muslims feelings