Departing along the orange-yellow brick road from Benghazi
Much as it pains me to write it, Fox News has apparently obtained the real "smoking gun" about the Benghazi fiasco, in the form of a video posted online by an extremist group.
It's quite the scoop, and appears just when Republicans are banging the Benghazi drum more loudly, as reported on the DKos frontpage,
Republicans will also probably cite testimony this week from Brigadier Gen. Robert Lovell who said that he knew instantly the attack in Benghazi was not a result of a protest or video and was unhappy that we did not mobilize a military response to save the lives of the Americans who were killed in Bengahzi.
It is significant that Lovell is a retired
Air Force Brigadier General, since when he questions the lack of a "military response", it calls to mind the role, or rather lack of a role, played by US fighter jets in responding to the Benghazi attacks.
Last year Fox News reported on the state of US military preparation prior to the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi:
The U.S. military could have prevented one wave of the deadly attack on American personnel in Benghazi if fighter jets had been promptly deployed, a top diplomatic official who was in Benghazi during the Sept. 11 assault told congressional investigators.
....
Hicks, in his interview, argued that after the first wave of attacks on the U.S. consulate, the U.S. military could have prevented additional violence with a quickly scrambled flight -- after the first wave, terrorists would go on to launch a pre-dawn mortar assault on the CIA annex.
Now Fox News claims that
an extremist video has surfaced that sheds further light on the attack in Benghazi. Follow me over the
Orange Brick Road for details.
Fox interviewed famed British counter-terrorism experts Sir E. Hercules John and Bernard Taupin, who claim the extremists behind the embassy attack had posted their plans on the internet, in video format, long before the attack was carried out.
The Fox analysts provided a transcript of the extremist video in question, which was originally posted under the title "The Terrorist Guide to the United States Libyan Embassy Site and Available Air Power."
The video features what appears to be the group's charismatic leader (identifiable by his high status garb including distinctive headgear and military-grade protective eyewear). The counter-terrorism experts on Fox claim "the extremists were obsessively focused on the US embassy in Libya, and referred to Benghazi so frequently that they even shortened the city's name in their communiques and videos to "Beni".
The transcript of the chilling extremist video begins:
Hey "kids", shake it loose together, the spotlight's hitting something that's been known to change the weather. We'll kill the fatted calf tonight, so stick around. You're gonna hear "electric music", solid walls of sound.
The Fox counter-terrrorism experts noted that "The reference to 'kids' is of course a code for the - obviously misled - extremist youth, who are implored to 'shake loose' the grip of American 'imperial' power. The terror group also shows savvy in appealing to the ecological concerns of the younger generation when it focuses its attention ('spotlight') on the US by highlighting the superpower's climate-altering carbon footprint ('something that's been known to change the weather'). The mention of killing, 'electric music', and 'walls of sound' plainly romanticizes the violence of the planned attack itself."
The Fox experts further analyzed the transcript of the video, with its specific references to the Libyan city that was the site of the attack, Benghazi, here shortened in terrorist parlance to "Beni":
Say, Candi and Ronnie, have you seen them yet? But they're so spaced out, Beni [i.e. Benghazi] and the jets. Oh but they're weird and they're wonderful! Oh Beni! She's really keen, she's got electric boots, a mohair suit, you know I read it in a magazine: Beni and the jets.
Fox's counter-terrorism experts commented that
The magazine mentioned by the radicals is clearly al-Qaeda's Inspire, which had claimed that, in any attack on US interests in Benghazi, American jet fighters would not be scrambled in a timely manner, since the Obama administration had them located at a strategically insufficient nearness to the embassy location in Benghazi (thus the two locales are 'so spaced out').
The Fox analysts also indicated that the extremists specifically identified Hillary Clinton as a weak link in US defense preparedness:
The militants are aware that the Obama administration and the State Dept. under Hillary Clinton lacked the strategic preparedness of earlier, Republican governments, including the services of 'Candi' (Condi) Rice and 'Ronnie' Reagan. And, while acknowledging Hillary Clinton's sharp intellect ('she's really keen'), they nevertheless deride her pretense to authority, and even mock her fashion sense as favoring overly colorful footwear and high-end woolen power suits.
The Fox experts also warned that the demagogic video ends with these ominous words:
Hey "kids", plug into the faithless, maybe they're blinded, but Beni makes them ageless. We shall survive, let us take ourselves along where we fight our parents out in the streets to find who's right and who's wrong.
Fox News noted the obvious references to infidel Americans, and the 'ageless' martyrs who would struggle against them to the bitter end. They added that the fight against "'our parents' is a dramatic allusion to the overbearing, paternalistic nature of US 'empire' as perceived by the violent extremists."
Authorities warn that, although a younger generation of extremists has largely taken over the movement, the radical leader seen in the video is still at large and considered to be dangerously charming and extremely funky. If he is sighted, citizens are urged to immediately call ticket-agent authorities.