Another glorious Democratic leader speaks!

Dumb and dumber: In yesterdays Democratic townhall event, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton not only claimed that “we didn’t lose a single person” in the regime change in Libya, she seemed unaware that

ISIS is taking up blocs of territory in Libya now, too. So have al-Qaeda affiliates like Ansar al-Sharia — the group that sacked our Benghazi consulate nearly four years ago, thanks in large part to security decisions made by State under Hillary’s leadership. We didn’t give Libya a chance — we destroyed Libya, and left nothing but a viper pit of terror networks to replace it. And Hillary thinks this is a success story.

Be sure to watch the video of Clinton at the link, where she argues that the elections in Libya have worked, installing a moderate government. I guess it was that moderate government that killed our ambassador and three others in Benghazi four years ago.

Islamists gain control of a dozen commercial jets

Anyone see a strategy yet? A dozen commercial airplanes are missing since Islamist militias took over the airport in Tripoli, Libya.

The state-owned Libyan Airlines fleet until this summer included 14 passenger and cargo jetliners, including seven Airbus 320s, one Airbus 330, two French ATR-42 turboprop aircraft, and four Bombardier CJR-900s. Libyan state-owned Afriqiyah Airways fleet is made up of 13 aircraft, including three Airbus 319s, seven Airbus 320s, two Airbus 330s, and one Airbus 340.

The aircraft were reportedly taken in late August following the takeover of Tripoli International Airport, located about 20 miles south of the capital, by Libyan Dawn. Al Jazeera television reported in late August that western intelligence reports had warned of terror threats to the region from 11 stolen commercial jets.

The situation in the Arab Middle East continues to deteriorate, and the only way to stabilize that I can see will involve major warfare involving many countries.

Identification of unknown airstrikes in Libya revealed

Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have admitted they launched combined air strikes in Libya this past week.

There are two aspects of this story that are significant. First:

Egyptian officials explicitly denied the operation to American diplomats, the officials said. It is almost as if the theme of ignoring and/or mocking US superpower status exhibited most recently by both China and Russia, is gradually spreading to even the more “banana” republics around the world. Because, while one can debate the pros and cons of any previous administration, it is very much improbable that any regime, especially ones as close to the US as the UAE, and to a lesser extent Egypt, would have conducted such military missions without preclearing with the Pentagon first.

Desperate to stop radical Islamists from taking over Libya, Egypt and UAE made the decision to act without U.S. involvement, on their own. They no longer felt obliged to get our advice, or even tell us what they intended to do.

Second, the air strikes illustrate how the Middle East is becoming increasingly destabilized. The U.S. is seen as weak and unwilling to act. Thus, the radicals move to grab power, and the status quo elites feel compelled to respond.

As long as Barack Obama is in power, expect this unstable situation to become even more unstable. When we occupied Iraq we brought stability and the promise of civilized rule of law. Until recently that stability was held together by either our presence or the belief that we would return if things got out of hand. Now everyone in the Middle East knows the U.S. will do nothing, no matter what happens. They are on their own. And the crazies are moving to take advantage of our absence to bring chaos to the region.

The filmmaker who made the anti-Islamic movie falsely blamed by the Obama administration for the Libya attack has now been in jail for a month.

Freedom of speech is so 20th century: The filmmaker who made the anti-Islamic movie falsely blamed by the Obama administration for the Libya attack has now been in jail for a month.

The movie had nothing to do with the Libya attack. And even if it caused the riots in Egypt, who cares? I thought there was something called the First Amendment, a law to protect the speech rights of U.S. citizens. Yet, Barack Obama and his entire administration have done everything they can to blame the movie, not their own foreign policies, while going out of their way to squelch this man’s freedom.

But remember those binders!

Disgrace in Benghazi.

Disgrace in Benghazi.

The men who organized this attack knew the ambassador would be at the consulate in Benghazi rather than at the embassy in Tripoli. How did that happen? They knew when he had been moved from the consulate to a “safe house,” and switched their attentions accordingly. How did that happen? The United States government lost track of its ambassador for ten hours. How did that happen? Perhaps, when they’ve investigated Mitt Romney’s press release for another three or four weeks, the court eunuchs of the American media might like to look into some of these fascinating questions, instead of leaving the only interesting reporting on an American story to the foreign press.

For whatever reason, Secretary Clinton chose to double down on misleading the American people. “Libyans carried Chris’s body to the hospital,” said Mrs. Clinton. That’s one way of putting it. The photographs at the Arab TV network al-Mayadeen show Chris Stevens’s body being dragged through the streets, while the locals take souvenir photographs on their cell phones. A man in a red striped shirt photographs the dead-eyed ambassador from above; another immediately behind his head moves the splayed arm and holds his cell-phone camera an inch from the ambassador’s nose. Some years ago, I had occasion to assist in moving the body of a dead man: We did not stop to take photographs en route. Even allowing for cultural differences, this looks less like “carrying Chris’s body to the hospital” and more like barbarians gleefully feasting on the spoils of savagery.

“Those who produced the movie should be tried and killed.”

Islamic tolerance and justice: “Those who produced the movie should be tried and killed.”

Notice he didn’t simply say “Put them on trial,” which would have been bad enough, arresting someone for something he said. He wants them “tried and killed.” In other words, no trial in an Islamic nation is worth the electrons we use to read about it. They are merely kangaroo courts. If an Islamic preacher declares that you are guilty, you are guilty.

Which makes his other statements calling for peaceful demonstrations completely worthless and absolutely bullcrap. What is really going on is that they are now terrified that all that good U.S. money is going to be cut off, and want to placate the naive idiots in the U.S. To quote Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky):

“My position is not one penny more for Libya or Egypt or Pakistan until they act like our allies,” Paul said on the Senate floor Thursday. “Some say we’ve got to keep sending it. Fine. Let’s send it when they act like our allies. Let’s send it when they start behaving like civilized nations and come to their senses.”

As they used to say in the 1960s, “Right on!”

The murder of four Americans in Libya, including the ambassador, appears to have been the result of failed security.

Focused like a laser: The murder of four Americans in Libya, including the ambassador, appears to have been the result of failed security.

Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the “safe house” in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed “safe”. Some of the missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans, putting them potentially at risk from extremist groups, while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts.

According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and “lockdown”, under which movement is severely restricted.

This is a disaster, and suggests incompetence at all levels of the State Department and the White House.

An American professor of religious studies has called for the arrest of a filmmaker because his film insults Islam.

Words fail me: An American professor of religious studies has called for the arrest of an American filmmaker because his film insulted Islam.

The most revealing moment in this disgusting op-ed is when Butler explains that somehow this filmmaker’s free speech rights are less valuable than the filmmaker who made The Last Temptation of Christ.

Bacile’s movie is not the first to denigrate a religious figure, nor will it be the last. The Last Temptation of Christ was protested vigorously. The difference is that Bacile indirectly and inadvertently inflamed people half a world away, resulting in the deaths of U.S. Embassy personnel.

So in other words, free speech is only allowed when it offends Christians or Jews. Offend a Muslim, however, and you must go to prison.

As I said, words fail me. Though I might add that you can reach the head of Anthea Butler’s Department of Religious Studies here. It might be worthwhile to politely ask him what he thinks of his associate professor’s interpretation of freedom of speech.

Not only has Barack Obama not attended an intelligence briefing since Sept 5, he canceled the briefing yesterday, the day after the attacks on our embassies in Egypt and Libya.

Focused like a laser: Not only has Barack Obama not attended an intelligence briefing since Sept 5, he canceled the briefing yesterday, the day after the attacks on our embassies in Egypt and Libya.

And why did he not have a briefing yesterday? He had a campaign fundraiser he just had to attend in Las Vegas.

Obama and ignoring the War Powers Act

Obama and ignoring the War Powers Act.

If nothing happens, history will say that the War Powers Act was condemned to a quiet death by a president who had solemnly pledged, on the campaign trail, to put an end to indiscriminate warmaking.

The point here has nothing to do with whether the military operation in Libya is wise or foolish. The point is that Obama has now committed American troops to a war without legal authorization.