Zero Dark Feinstein

At the Wall Street Journal, "When a Hollywood script is more accurate than Senate Intelligence":

'Zero Dark Thirty," the film from director Kathryn Bigelow that opened this month, is garnering rave reviews for its unblinking portrayal of what it took the United States to track and kill Osama bin Laden. But a trio of Beltway critics are all thumbs down.

They would be Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Carl Levin of Michigan and Republican Senator John McCain of John McCain. "We write to express our deep disappointment with the movie Zero Dark Thirty," the three wrote in a recent letter to Sony Pictures. "We believe the film is grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of Usama bin Laden."

You know it's a bad day in America when Hollywood seems to have a better grip on intelligence issues than the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the top two Members at Armed Services. The film depicts the "enhanced interrogation techniques," or EITs, used on the detainees held at the CIA's so-called black sites, and hints that the interrogations provided at least some of the information that led to bin Laden's killing.

What Ms. Bigelow intended by depicting the EITs is not for us to explain: This is an action flick, not a Ken Burns documentary. Yet the mere suggestion that such techniques paid crucial intelligence dividends—as attested by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former CIA Director Michael Hayden, among many others—has sent Mrs. Feinstein and her colleagues into paroxysms of indignation. They even have a 5,000-plus-page study that purports to prove her case.

We say "purports" because, so far, hardly anyone outside the Senate Intelligence Committee has laid eyes on this white whale. The report began four years ago as a largely bipartisan effort to examine the CIA's post-9/11 detention and interrogation programs....

As for the report's methods, we got a taste of them in April when Sens. Feinstein and Levin issued a statement denouncing claims by former senior officer Jose Rodriguez that coercive interrogation techniques were in fact effective.

"CIA did not first learn about the existence of the UBL courier [Ahmed al-Kuwaiti] from detainees subjected to coercive interrogation techniques," they write in one characteristically slippery passage. Yet there's no small difference between knowing some piece of information and knowing why that piece may be significant.

"In the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, waterboarding produced misinformation," journalist Mark Bowden noted in an interview with the Daily Caller about the hunt for al-Kuwaiti, whose discovery ultimately led the CIA to bin Laden's Abbottabad hideaway. But Mr. Bowden also notes that "in this case the lie, contrasting so sharply with other detainee statements, actually proved helpful."

Mr. Bowden, by the way, is an opponent of coercive interrogations and a sympathetic observer of the Obama Administration who nonetheless can distinguish a moral objection from a practical one....

One day, perhaps, some of our liberal friends will acknowledge that the real world is stuffed with the kinds of hard moral choices that "Zero Dark Thirty" so effectively depicts. Until then, they can bask in the easy certitudes of a report that, whatever it contains, deserves never to be read.

Right. And compare that to the excitable Andrew Sullivan, "The Zero Dark Debate, Ctd."

An Uneasy Separation in Afghanistan

It seems weird that we're approaching the full withdrawal date for the Afghanistan war, and I personally don't think it's going to go well when we're gone. But Barack Hussein will get all kinds of kudos for bringing another war to an end, and because he's all about scoring political capital in national security policy (compared to actually making Americans safer), it's all to be expected.

More on this throughout the next year. Meanwhile, at the Los Angeles Times, "Hard feelings on both sides as U.S. winds down its Afghan role":

SUROBI, Afghanistan — Col. Babagul Aamal is a proud veteran of 28 years in the Afghan National Army. Short and fit, with a thick black beard, he's a leader who blurts out exactly what he's thinking.

"I don't talk politics — I talk facts," Aamal said, wearing a sweater beneath his uniform in his unheated command office on a dusty base 40 miles east of Kabul.

It shames him, Aamal said, that he is not allowed to wear his pistol when he enters the fortified gate of the new American military base next door. Though he's a brigade commander, he's required to stand before an airport-type scanner with his arms raised, almost in surrender.

Yet when Americans visit Aamal's base, they are not searched. They are offered chai tea. And they bring half a dozen soldiers armed with M-16s, so-called Guardian Angels on the lookout for "insider attacks" by Afghan soldiers.

"Afghan generals get searched by low-ranking foreign soldiers," Aamal said. "Our soldiers see this, and they feel insulted."

As American troops shift from combat to advising, the ominous specter of insider attacks has strained the relationship between the two armies.

Sixty-two Western coalition troops have been killed this year in 46 such attacks, leaving many American soldiers deeply suspicious of their erstwhile allies.

At the same time, some Afghan officers and soldiers say they feel abandoned and patronized. After 11 years, they say, certain Americans still don't respect Afghan customs.

Moreover, they complain that the United States is pulling out without providing the weapons and equipment needed to hold off the Taliban.

"The Americans have the weapons, so they go wherever they want. It's like this is their country," the brigade's public affairs officer, Maj. Ghulam Ali, said with a weary shrug.

RTWT.

RELATED: At the New York Times, "Motive Unclear in Killing by Woman in Afghan Force."

U.S. Policy is Making Syria Into an Anti-Western, Antisemitic Islamist State

From Barry Rubin, at PJ Media, "Proof of a Scandal":

In his article “The Revolt of Islam in Syria” (Jerusalem Post, December 12), Jonathan Spyer — senior fellow at the GLORIA Center — points out compelling information about the new Western-backed leadership in Syria.

The bottom line: if this is Syria’s new government, then Syria now has an Islamist regime.

This is happening with the knowledge and collaboration of the Obama administration and a number of European governments. It is a catastrophe, and one that’s taking place due to the deliberate decisions of President Barack Obama and other Western leaders. Even if one rationalizes the Islamist takeover in Egypt as due to internal events, this one is U.S.-made.

As Spyer points out, U.S. and European policy can be summarized as follows:

To align with and strengthen Muslim Brotherhood-associated elements, while painting Salafi forces as the sole real Islamist danger. At the same time, secular forces are ignored or brushed aside.

The new regime, recognized by the United States and most European countries as the legitimate leadership of the Syrian people, is the Syrian National Coalition, which has also established a military council.

Spyer’s detailed evidence for these arguments — much of which comes from raw wire service reports, for which praise is due to Reuters in this case — is undeniable. And if we know about these things, there is no doubt that the highest level of the U.S. government does as well.

Why is this happening? Because Obama and others believe that they can moderate the Muslim Brotherhood and this will tame the Salafists, despite massive evidence to the contrary. This is going to be the biggest foreign policy blunder of the last century, and the cost for it will be high. It should be stressed: such a strategy is totally unnecessary; the alternatives have been ignored; and the real moderates are being betrayed...

Continue reading.

Well, they don't call him President Clusterf-k for nothing.

Libya Inquiry Sharply Critical of State Department

At The Hill, "Benghazi probe faults 'systemic failures' at State Department":

An independent review of the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi made public Tuesday night faults “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels” of the State Department.

The report by the Accountability Review Board says the local mission's reliance on Libyan guards and militia members was “misplaced” and that the Libyan government's response was “profoundly lacking.” However it “did not find reasonable cause to determine that any individual U.S. government employee breached his or her duty.”

The report also confirms that there was no peaceful protest ahead of the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, as the Obama administration initially said in the days after the attack.

“The Board concluded that there was no protest prior to the attacks, which were unanticipated in their scale and intensity,” the report says.

In a letter to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she accepted the report's 29 recommendations, all but five of which are unclassified. She said her department has already taken additional steps to beef up security at U.S. diplomatic posts around the world, including instituting periodic reviews of the 15 to 20 high-threat posts.

Of course she accepts the findings.

If she didn't accept them I doubt she would have taken to fainting so conveniently. She would have been up on Capitol Hill denouncing the politicization of the administration's foreign policy. But now she's just quietly accepting the recommendations, laying low while she eases out of office, keeping the road open to her 2016 presidential bid. How corrupt.

More at Legal Insurrection, "Benghazi Report — No protest, deteriorating security conditions ignored."

PREVIOUSLY: "Benghazi Reveals Obama Is a Coward and Disgrace."

Draft Army Handbook Wades Into Divisive Afghan Issue

Both fascinating and troubling, at the Wall Street Journal:

* * *

Cultural Awareness:

Flashpoints/Grievances Some U.S. Troops Have Reported Regarding Afghanistan National Security Forces:

To better prepare [coalition forces] for the psychologically challenging conditions in Afghanistan, familiarize yourself with the following stressors some U.S. troops have reported concerning [Afghan security forces] behavior during previous deployments. Bear in mind that not all [coalition] troops have reported such experiences or beliefs.

Some ANSF are profoundly dishonest and have no personal integrity
ANSF do not buy-into war effort; far too many are gutless in combat
Incompetent, ignorant and basically stupid

Bottom line: Troops may experience social-cultural shock and/or discomfort when interacting with [Afghan security forces]. Better situational awareness/understanding of Afghan culture will help better prepare [coalition forces] to more effectively partner and to avoid cultural conflict that can lead towards green-on-blue violence.

* * *

*****

WASHINGTON—American soldiers should brace for a "social-cultural shock" when meeting Afghan soldiers and avoid potentially fatal confrontations by steering clear of subjects including women's rights, religion and Taliban misdeeds, according to a controversial draft of a military handbook being prepared for troops heading to the region.

The proposed Army handbook suggests that Western ignorance of Afghan culture, not Taliban infiltration, has helped drive the recent spike in deadly attacks by Afghan soldiers against the coalition forces.

"Many of the confrontations occur because of [coalition] ignorance of, or lack of empathy for, Muslim and/or Afghan cultural norms, resulting in a violent reaction from the [Afghan security force] member," according to the draft handbook prepared by Army researchers.

The 75-page manual, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, is part of a continuing effort by the U.S. military to combat a rise in attacks by Afghan security forces aimed at coalition troops.

But it has drawn criticism from U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, the top military commander in Afghanistan, who aides said hasn't—and wouldn't—endorse the manual as written. Gen. Allen also rejected a proposed foreword that Army officials drafted in his name.

"Gen. Allen did not author, nor does he intend to provide, a foreword," said Col. Tom Collins, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan. "He does not approve of its contents."

Gen. Allen hadn't seen the proposed foreword until a portion of the handbook was called to his attention by the Journal, Col. Collins said. Military officials wouldn't spell out his precise objections. But the handbook's conclusion that cultural insensitivity is driving insider attacks goes beyond the view most commonly expressed by U.S. officials.

The version reviewed by the Journal—marked "final coordinating draft" and sent out for review in November—was going through more revisions, said Lt. Gen. David Perkins, commander of the Army's Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., whose Center for Army Lessons Learned wrote the manual.

The proposed foreword was prepared by Army staff for Gen. Allen's eventual consideration, and the general's concerns will be taken into account as the military moves ahead with more revisions, he added.

The proposed handbook embraces a hotly debated theory that American cultural ignorance has sparked many so-called insider attacks—more than three dozen of which have claimed the lives of some 63 members of the U.S.-led coalition this year. The rise in insider attacks has created one of the biggest threats to American plans to end its major combat missions in Afghanistan next year and transfer full security control to Afghan forces in 2014.

Afghan leaders say Taliban infiltrators are responsible for most insider attacks. U.S. officials say the attacks are largely rooted in personal feuds between Afghan and coalition troops, though not necessarily the result of cultural insensitivity.

Last year, the U.S.-led coalition rejected an internal military study that concluded that cultural insensitivity was in part to blame for insider killings, which it called a growing threat that represented "a severe and rapidly metastasizing malignancy" for the coalition in Afghanistan.

The study was reported last year by The Wall Street Journal. The U.S. military at the time said the study was flawed by "unprofessional rhetoric and sensationalism."

The 2011 report—"A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility"—is now a centerpiece of the draft handbook's advice to soldiers heading to Afghanistan, and it is listed under the draft's references and recommended reading. The report's findings also informed the current manual for troops in Afghanistan, which was released in February, according to Gen. Perkins.

U.S. Army officials didn't make the current version of the manual available for review.

No doubt there is a cultural disconnect, which is why many conservatives have been calling for withdrawal for some time.

The full piece is also at Current.Mil-Tech.News.

And see Atlas Shrugs, "NEW ARMY MANUAL ORDERS SOLDIERS NOT TO CRITICIZE TALIBAN, PEDOPHILIA, 'ANYTHING RELATED TO ISLAM' OR 'ADVOCATE FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS'."

Morsi Imposes Martial Law in Egypt

At Weasel Zippers, "Egypt: Morsi Imposes Martial Law In Run Up To Constitutional Referendum…"

This RT video has the developments from over the weekend. And see Barry Rubin, "A Turning Point in Egypt: Not on Direction But on the Speed of Islamist Transformation."

'Zero Dark Thirty' Aims for Authenticity and History

Hey, "Hurt Locker" was very good. I'm looking forward to this one.

At LAT, "'Zero Dark Thirty' hunts for Bin Laden -- and more."

In 2008, the screenwriter Mark Boal sought an appointment with a retired special-forces operator. Boal was researching a movie about the fruitless search for Osama bin Laden in the caves of Tora Bora six years before, and he wanted insight into how U.S. forces gathered intelligence.

The agent agreed to meet, but under strict conditions. Boal would be kept in the dark about where the encounter would take place until just before, when he'd be given directions, via GPS, to what turned out to be a gas station. The meeting would be brief, and there would be no guarantee of an information exchange.

"I showed up and there's this guy by the pump wearing sunglasses," Boal recalled in an interview. "And the first thing he said was, 'Give me a good reason why I should talk to you.' And I'm like, 'Well, nice to meet you too, sir.'" Boal eventually cultivated other sources, acknowledging that as a Hollywood screenwriter it isn't always easy emulating Bob Woodward.'

The zigzag-y process that began at the gas station culminates in the groundbreaking "Zero Dark Thirty," Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow's searing dramatization of a different U.S. mission to target Bin Laden that ended successfully last year in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

When Sony Pictures releases the tense, dense movie on Dec. 19, "Zero Dark Thirty" likely will take its place alongside classics of war cinema such as "The Dirty Dozen," "Apocalypse Now" and "Saving Private Ryan" while simultaneously redefining the form. Few Hollywood action thrillers have contained so many documentary-style aspirations to truth and urgency — and so quickly after an epochal event, to boot.

And never before has a stone-cold-serious American war drama featured a woman both behind the camera and at its center.

"Zero Dark Thirty," in other words, could well stand at the vanguard of a new genre: the viscerally human but post-feminist (and post-political) war film.

Continue reading.

Egypt Sees Largest Clash Since Revolution

At WSJ:

CAIRO—Tens of thousands of supporters and opponents of Egypt's president clashed Wednesday, hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails and brawling in Cairo's streets, in the largest violent battle between Islamists and their foes since the country's revolution early last year.

The confrontation started in the evening after Islamist protesters marching in support of President Mohammed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, moved to break up a demonstration by the president's non-Islamist opponents outside the presidential palace in Cairo, where Mr. Morsi has his offices.

Supporters of the rival camps, spurred by public defiance by influential figures on each side, waged back-and-forth battles in side streets outside the palace walls as night fell, shutting down major thoroughfares. Around midnight, police formed a barrier between the camps, with thousands of demonstrators on each side, as gunshots rang out and each side accused the other of firing live rounds.

Those allegations couldn't be confirmed. The Muslim Brotherhood said at least one of its supporters had been killed, while opposition officials said two of their supporters had died. An early Thursday report by state television quoted the Health Ministry as saying five people were killed and 446 people were injured, according to the Associated Press.

The Obama administration exhorted the sides to respect each other and refrain from bloodshed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking in Brussels, called for a two-way dialogue. She also expressed dismay at the constitutional process, saying Egyptians "deserve a constitutional process that is open, transparent and fair and does not unduly favor one group over any other."

Also in Cairo, crowds besieged the Brotherhood headquarters in the al Moqatam neighborhood, ONTV said. Protesters also burned down a Brotherhood headquarters in the Suez Canal town of Ismailiya, Egyptian media reported.

The conflict between Islamists and their opponents has been behind some of the Middle East's bloodiest civil wars. Those who battled in the shadow of Cairo's presidential palace mirrored Egypt's secular-Islamist divide—with a crowd of mixed-gender and mainly young Egyptians, many in tight jeans and hipster haircuts, facing off against men in conservative dress shirts or robes and skullcaps.

Egypt's opposition was galvanized last month when Mr. Morsi issued a decree granting him nearly unrestricted powers and placing him above the judiciary. The decree paved the way for hurried approval of a constitution that was drafted by an Islamist-dominated body that the opposition says was working illegitimately and produced a charter weighted with Islamic law. The government has set a referendum on the draft for Dec. 15.

Anti-Morsi Egyptians took to the streets. On Tuesday, they marched on the presidential palace to denounce Mr. Morsi, the first time in recent memory that protesters made it to the palace walls. On Wednesday, Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam El-Eryan, speaking on al-Jazeera, called on millions of Egyptians to go to the presidential palace to "defend the state and its legitimacy."

And see Telegraph UK, "Hundreds call on President Morsi to step down." And Instapundit, "JUST LIKE OBAMA AND THE “FISCAL CLIFF:” CBS News: Egypt’s president offers nothing to defuse crisis."

Mona Eltahawy Wants Hamas Justice

At Atlas Shrugs, "#Savage Mona Eltahawy in Court, Promises to Take Case to Trial Using Sharia Defense":

The savage wants Hamas justice.

"I acted out of principle and I did what I believe is right," Eltahawy said.

Yes, attacking people and destroying property is "right." That's rich. Speaking of rich, Mona's Hamas lawyer refers to Pamela Hall's standard eyeglasses that Mona destroyed as "Gucci" sunglasses...they are not Gucci, nor are they sunglasses. They are attempting to paint hardworking Pamela Hall as some dilettante, which is disgusting.

Mona Eltahawy attacked Hall, destroyed her glasses (that she sees out of) and her camera equipment that she works with, and now postures herself a hero instead of the big ugly bully that she is. Her lawyer with the war scarf (keffiyeh) is Stanley Cohen, who also represents the terrorist organization Hamas. “If I don’t support the politics of political clients, I don’t take the case.”

RTWT.

'The ideology of Islamism has been on the rise for generations and now aims to expropriate the Arab Spring...'

From Charles Hill, at The Caravan, "World Order in the Age of Obama" (via WSJ):

The ideology of Islamism has been on the rise for generations and now aims to expropriate the Arab Spring. The ambitions of the1979 Iranian Revolution and Sunni fanaticism are transmogrifying into the kind of major religious war that the Treaty of Westphalia sought to forestall.

Thucydides traced the war that ruined ancient Greece to Sparta’s fear that Athens’ growing power was crossing the line where it would be impossible to contain. Israel faces that threat from Iran, as today’s international structures for the maintenance of international security have failed to halt Iran’s drive, propelled by religious ideology, to possess nuclear weapons. Israel, bereft of its traditional sense of American support, is making ready to act against Iran’s menace to its existence. President Obama’s priority must repair relations with Israel by visiting the Jewish state and convincing its leaders that the U.S. understands Israel’s uniquely dangerous position.

And there now grows a deepening appetite for gain. America, perceived as eager to shed the burdens of world order in order to be “fundamentally transformed” through European-style social commitments, talks of engagement even when Iran’s “diplomacy” is a form of protracted warfare. The enemies of world order translate the American election results into the lexicon of abdication, telling themselves that their time has come: there is a world to be gained.

Only America’s return to world leadership can halt this deterioration. “Sequestration” will relegate the U.S. to a second rate power and must be reversed to enable American strength and diplomacy to be employed in tandem. Without this the prediction of a Kepler for today must be grim. As the biographer of Augustus Caesar wrote in the years just before the Second World War, “Once again the crust of civilization has worn thin, and beneath can be heard the muttering of primeval fires. Once again many accepted principles of government have been overthrown, and the world has become a laboratory where immature and feverish minds experiment with unknown forces. Once again problems cannot be comfortably limited, for science has brought the nations into an uneasy bondage to each other.”

In this maelstrom lie opportunities not for idealism but for the cold, austere use of power, soft and hard, in order to, as Augustus was advised, teach the arts of peace to all. The old platforms for the region, including the “peace process,” are gone. New structures must be built and only the US can lead the construction job. Peace is not at hand, but statesmen can see the possibility of laying foundations for a new Middle East in Syria-Lebanon, Egypt-Gaza, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, and even, should we finally get serious, in Iran.

U.N. Gives Palestinians 'State' Status

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Nearly 140 countries voted in the U.N. on Thursday to recognize the Palestinian territories as a "nonmember observer state" over the strenuous objections of Israel and the U.S., marking a milestone with potentially far-reaching consequences for the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict.

The 138-9 vote, with 41 abstentions, came on the 65th anniversary of the assembly's resolution calling for the partition of British mandate Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

The new status, which is akin to the Vatican's own stature in the world body, marked a rare victory for the Fatah party's diplomatic path toward statehood after its rival Hamas's military strategy had taken the spotlight during the recent Gaza conflict.

Palestinians in the West Bank city of Ramallah, who were crowded around outdoor television screens during the vote in New York erupted into applause, whistles and hugs, as some people fired guns into the air and beeped car horns in celebration.

"We didn't come here seeking to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of the state that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine," Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, told the assembly to a standing ovation.

The immediate question was whether the vote spurs or further delays the resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinians that Israel says are needed to finalize the status of the West Bank and Gaza territories.

While Mr. Abbas argued the vote would create the momentum to resume moribund talks, the U.S. and Israel denounced the vote as a "unilateral" move in the multilateral assembly.

"Today's unfortunate and counterproductive resolution places further obstacles to peace," said U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice. "No resolution can create a state where none exists."

She added, "Palestinians will wake up tomorrow and find that little has changed saved the prospect of direct talks have receded."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the vote as an empty gesture that makes little difference for Palestinians, and makes peace prospects more remote.

"The decision at the U.N. today won't change a thing on the ground,'' he said prior to the vote. "Peace will be reached through agreements reached between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and not through declarations passed at the U.N.''

RELATED: At Legal Insurrection, "“defamatory and venomous speech that was full of mendacious propaganda”."

The Obama Administratin's Fog of Moral Equivalence

Michelle Malkin slams the Obama foreign policy clusterf-k in the Middle East:

'The Generals' Author Thomas Ricks Disses MSNBC: 'You're Just Like Fox, But Not As Good At It...'

Ricks is a prolific author on military affairs, with a new books just out, The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today.

And here's the report at WaPo, "Tom Ricks to MSNBC: You're just like Fox, only not as good at it."

And for the record, I don't think Fox News should have cut short Ricks' appearance on the network. It'd be easy enough to come back with another commentator for rebuttal, for example, Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, who hasn't been too kind to the administration about these things. That said, I agree: MSNBC is a shitty network, with a bunch of despicable hacks, like the disgusting lying lesbo Rachel Maddow.

Who Changed the Benghazi Talking Points?

From Sharyl Attkisson at CBS News (via Memeorandum):

Who within the Obama administration deleted mention of "terrorism" and "al-Qaeda" from the CIA's talking points on the deadly Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi?

It isn't the only unanswered question in the wake of the tragedy, but it's proven to be one of the most confounding.

The question was first raised 12 days ago when former CIA Director General David Petraeus told members of Congress that his original talking points cleared for public dissemination included the likely involvement by terrorists and an al-Qaeda affiliate. Petraeus said somebody removed the references before they were used to inform the public.

The Obama administration has declined to directly answer who made the edits. And the nation's top intelligence officials appear either confused or not forthcoming about the journey their own intelligence took.

On Fri. Nov. 16, Petraeus told members of Congress that it wasn't the CIA that changed the talking points.

The White House and the State Department said it wasn't them.

The CIA then told CBS News that the edits were made at a "senior level in the interagency process." Intelligence officials said the references were dropped so as not to tip off al Qaeda as to what the U.S. knew, and to protect sources and methods.

Soon thereafter, another reason was given. A source from the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI) told CBS News' Margaret Brennan that ODNI made the edits as part of the interagency process because the links to al Qaeda were deemed too "tenuous" to make public.

On Tuesday, Acting CIA Director Mike Morell provided yet another account. In a meeting with Republican Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., Morell stated that he believed it was the FBI that removed the references. He said the FBI did so "to prevent compromising an ongoing criminal investigation."

"We were surprised by this revelation and the reasoning behind it," wrote the senators in a joint statement Tuesday.

But it was just a matter of hours before there was yet another revision. A CIA official contacted Graham and stated that Morell "misspoke" in the earlier meeting and that it was, in fact, the CIA, not the FBI, that deleted the al Qaeda references. "They were unable to give a reason as to why," stated Graham.

A U.S. intelligence official on Tuesday told CBS News there was "absolutely no intent to misinform." The official says the talking points "were never meant to be definitive and, in fact, noted that the assessment may change. The points clearly reflect the early indications of extremist involvement in a direct result. It wasn't until after they were used in public that analysts reconciled contradictory information about how the assault began."

If Obama and his minions would have just told the truth from the start there'd be no need for all these unending "revisions." But that's what we've come to expect from "the most transparent administration in history."

Car Bombs in Damascus Kill at Least 34 people

At the Los Angeles Times.

Professor Julien Bauer, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Targeted With Anti-Semitic Vandalism

The tolerant pro-Palestinian left.

At National Post, "Pro-Israel professor’s Montreal office door sprayed with anti-Semitic graffiti."

Path Clearing for Susan Rice Nomination as Secretary of State

I do think a Rice nomination will prove how arrogant this president is, but some reports indicate the way is clearing for Rice's promotion to Foggy Bottom. At USA Today, "Prospects brighten for Rice to succeed Clinton":

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's top U.N. diplomat appears to have a clearer path to succeeding retiring Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton after two top Republican critics moderated their accusations that Ambassador Susan Rice was part of a government cover-up of what happened in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya.

Rice has emerged as a clear front-runner to replace Clinton during Obama's second four-year term. If she is nominated for the position, it may signal greater U.S. willingness to intervene in world crises during Obama's second term.

The political furor over the Benghazi assault that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans exploded before the Nov. 6 presidential election and continued for weeks afterward, with Rice becoming the focus of Republican attacks.

Now, while refusing to back away from charges of a cover-up, Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham have toned down their complaints, suggesting Republicans may not block Rice's appointment if Obama chooses to nominate her.

We'll see. I'm not pleased that McCain and Co. is caving to the administration's deceit, although we still have the prospect of prolonged investigations in the House. More at Memeorandum.

'Unrestricted drones for me but not for thee?'

Ed Morrissey offers his comments on President Obama's "expected" release of legal rules for U.S. drone warfare --- you know, since Americans wouldn't be able to trust a President Romney with such unprecedented authoritarian powers, or something.

At Hot Air:

One of the tertiary issues that never got much attention during the presidential campaign was the use of drones to conduct the war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates in places like Pakistan, Yemen, and other loci of Islamist terrorist networks. It didn’t get much attention because Mitt Romney’s position on the use of drones didn’t provide much contrast from Barack Obama, and it seemed clear that the US would have continuity in this one area of policy regardless of who won the election.

That frustrated human-rights activists on the Left, who want the US to seriously curtail these attacks or stop them altogether, but have gained no traction with the Obama administration during his first term in office. Obama has remained determined thus far to keep the drone attack as a tactic open to him as he sees fit, acting as Commander in Chief. That probably wouldn’t get a lot of opposition from Republicans and hawks in both parties.

However, it seems as though Obama does have an objection to anyone else but him having that discretion. The New York Times reported yesterday on a ghastly hypocrisy within the White House, which tried to impose limits on the use of drones, limits that would activate if Obama lost the election...

Yes, "ghastly hypocrisy" fits the bill perfectly, with both this clusterf-k administration and his morally bankrupt supporters in the scum-infested progressive fever swamps.

But continue reading Morrissey's post, which comes to an interesting conclusion toward an argument to restrict the deployment of unmanned aerial kill machines (something that King Barack is certainly not likely to do).

PREVIOUSLY: "Obama Pushes to Codify Rules for Drone Warfare," and "FDL's Kevin Gosztola Wanted Bush-Cheney War Crimes Prosecutions But Gives Obama a Pass on Unprecedented Violations of International Law."

Kirsten Powers: Obama Nominating Susan Rice Would Show His 'Arrogance'

A great video at RealClearPolitics:

Kirsten Powers on if President Obama named Susan Rice as his next Secretary of State: "I don't know. I think if he does though it could be, that kind of arrogance, which I think it would be, would be his undoing. Because if she is put under oath and is forced to go through and answer all of these questions about Benghazi, it's going to put the administration into a really bad position. And I don't think she was the frontrunner. I don't understand where this came out of... It's now become almost a sense of pride... His defense of her was fine but then it kind of went into an area that didn't make sense."

I hope he goes ahead with that nomination. This ought to be very interesting.

Iran Shipping Rockets to Gaza

At the Times of Israel, "Fresh shipment of Iranian-made rockets reportedly already en route to Gaza":

Less than a week after the conclusion of Operation Pillar of Defense, and with Hamas boasting of an imminent increase in military aid from Iran, Israeli satellites have spotted a ship at the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas being loaded with rockets and other military supplies ostensibly bound for Gaza, the British Sunday Times reported.

The report cites Israeli intelligence sources who surmised that the cargo, loaded a week ago, would be shipped to Sudan and from there smuggled over land to Gaza.

According to the report, the cargo may include Fajr-5 rockets of the likes already fired by Hamas during the recent conflict, and whose stocks were reportedly depleted by Israeli bombings. Also possibly included: components of Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, which could be stationed in Sudan and used as a direct threat to Israel.

“With a lot of effort, Iran has skillfully built a strategic arm pointing at Israel from the south,” an Israeli source was quoted as saying.