LF: Issa And GOP Expose Secrets And Endanger Lives Of U.S. Allies In Libya Document Dump

Title: Issa And GOP Expose Secrets And Endanger Lives Of U.S. Allies In Libya Document Dump
Source: RawStory
URL Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/ ... allies-in-libya-document-dump/
Published: Oct 20, 2012
Author: By David Ferguson
Post Date: 2012-10-20 19:44:32 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 2781
Comments: 5

Republicans aiming to expose an alleged “cover-up” by the Obama administration regarding the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya may have instead exposed the identities of Libyans working with the U.S. in that country and placed their lives in danger.

According to Foreign Policy magazine’s “The Cable” blog, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) “posted 166 pages of sensitive but unclassified State Department communications related to Libya on the committee’s website afternoon as part of his effort to investigate security failures and expose contradictions in the administration’s statements regarding the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.”

However, “Issa didn’t bother to redact the names of Libyan civilians and local leaders mentioned in the cables, and just as with the WikiLeaks dump of State Department cables last year, the administration says that Issa has done damage to U.S. efforts to work with those Libyans and exposed them to physical danger from the very groups that had an interest in attacking the U.S. consulate.”

An unnamed administration official told Foreign policy that several individuals’ safety has been placed in jeopardy thanks to the revelations, including a Libyan woman who heads an anti-violence campaign. The woman traveled to the U.S. to seek resources and financial backing for her organization.

“She isn’t publicly associated with the U.S. in any other way but she’s now named in this cable. It’s a danger to her life,” said the official.

Other Libyans named in the cables include a port manager who is trying to reopen the port of Benghazi to provide much needed trade to the region. Now because he is publicly associated with the U.S., his life is in danger. Another is a local militia leader who was a source of intelligence regarding the inner workings of the new Libyan government.

Administration officials have accused Issa and his delegation of rushing to get publicity for their investigation in the days before the final presidential debate, which is slated to focus on foreign policy. They told “The Cable” that Issa acted before knowing the facts, and in the process has compromised national security.

“He’s trying to gather all the facts, but he’s blurting out all the evidence before the State Department and FBI investigation is done,” the official said.

Meanwhile, a Washington Post article states that CIA documents unearthed in the investigation are bearing out Ambassador Susan Rice’s version of events, which was the version presented to the public by Obama and his administration.

“The Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attack last month weren’t supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official,” wrote Post scribe David Ignatius. The article goes on to piece together available information from the CIA and measure them against statements by the administration.

Now, not only have U.S. allies in the field been compromised, Ignatius wrote, “The intelligence community obviously feels burned by having its tentative assessments become a political football in this campaign and, in truth, one obvious lesson is that the United States could use much better real-time intelligence from places such as Libya,” real time intelligence that the U.S. is significantly less like to have access to.

I got the idea for this post from Jack Jodell at the Saturday Afternoon Post. His June 23rd post gives a rundown of Darrell Issa’s long record of criminal charges and convictions. And he makes the point that the mainstream “media” never mentions any of this.

I knew that Darrell Issa was once convicted of auto theft, but I didn’t know his police record went any further than that. It does. It’s a big ’un. It includes auto theft, carrying a concealed weapon, and insurance fraud (or whatever the charge was; he faked the theft of his Mercedes Benz).

Sometime after that, Darrell Issa had an extremely suspicious fire in a building he owned. The fire broke out right after he had tripled the value of the insurance he was carrying on the building. Insurance investigators were suspicious but they couldn’t prove anything.

If you do a Google search for “Darrell Issa criminal record” all of the above-listed crimes come up, plus a whole lot more. Check out some of the links.

On the other hand, if you do a Google search for “Eric Holder criminal record” you get Nada. Jack Shit. Bupkis. Sure, you’ll find some links about Fast and Furious and the House’s ongoing witch hunt; and you’ll find a few rightwing bloggers spewing their retarded venom.

But you won’t find any criminal charges, much less any convictions. Unlike Darrell Issa, Eric Holder was working hard and getting one degree after another instead of stealing cars and setting buildings on fire.

Kinda makes you wonder: how does a convicted criminal — and all around dickwad — like Darrell Issa keep getting re-elected to the House? And how did he get appointed to chair the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee? That’s much too important a committee to be headed by a car thief and arsonist.

They're priming the pump for the foreign policy debate. Whenever Oilbomber is asked a question, he'll say that someone's safety would be in jeopardy if he answered, and then talk about Mitt giving some fag a haircut 60 years ago in kindergarten.

Obama's watch stopped on 24 May 2008, but he's been too busy smoking crack to notice.