The thing is this, the focus of Ms. Ayotte is the fact Ambassador Rice is a problem in stating al Qaeda has been decimated. Ambassador Rice was backed in her assertions by others, including the USA Defense Secretary. The only difference is that Secretary Panetta is not a potential candidate for Secretary of State. Who is inconsistent and irrelevant now, Ms. Ayotte? It is witch hunt only the Republicans are so invested in it they can't find the door out of the circus.
By KATE BRANNEN
11/21/12 9:12 AM EST
By KATE BRANNEN
11/21/12 9:12 AM EST
Leon Panetta: Al Qaeda’s leadership ‘decimated’ (click here)
Ever since United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice used “decimate” to describe Al Qaeda in September, Republicans have been crying foul: The terrorist organization cannot be decimated if it’s also behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Now, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is weighing in. Al Qaeda’s leadership has been decimated, if not the organization itself, he declared Tuesday night.
Speaking at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, Panetta qualified Rice’s statement that has come under fierce scrutiny from Republicans on Capitol Hill.
“Over the last few years, Al Qaeda’s leadership ranks have been decimated. This includes the loss of four of Al Qaeda’s five top leaders in the last two and a half years alone — Osama bin Laden, Sheikh Saeed al-Masri, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman and Abu Yahya al-Libi,” Panetta said.
The terrorist organization has not been eliminated and the administration knows this, Panetta said. “We have slowed the primary cancer — but we know that the cancer has metastasized to other parts of the global body.”...
Ms. Ayotte and her buddies are more of a national security issue than Ambassador Rice ever could be.
November 28, 2012
...Pakistan says 35,000 people have been killed (click here) as a result of terrorism since the 9/11 attacks and the 2001 US-led invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan....
PaKistan has a long way to go and the Haqqani Network is one of the hurdles it faces. Haqqani is not al Qaeda, in case Ms. Ayotte didn't know that.
Now, there is a problem in Yemen. But, for the most part Yemen is the last strong hold of al Qaeda. The Saudis are being targeted globally and their ambassador in Yemen was killed today. If one recalls the ambassador in the USA was a target not long ago.
'The Last Refuge': Yemen, Al-Qaida And The U.S. (click here)
November 27, 201211:00 AM
...According to Gregory Johnsen, a journalist who has covered Yemen and Islamic insurgency in the Middle East extensively, al-Qaida's presence has tripled in size within Yemen over the past three years. Johnsen charts this growing influence on the country in his new book, The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America's War in Arabia.
Al-Qaida's approach to gain support in Yemen has been to pit the country's interests against those of the West, particularly the United States....
Yemen was a focus of Former General Petraeus and he continued that focus as CIA Director. I believe it was he that first engaged drones in Yemen.
I don't know about Ayotte and her determination as to the potential of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but, 200 dead in a year is not a bad record.
November 28, 2012
...Pakistan says 35,000 people have been killed (click here) as a result of terrorism since the 9/11 attacks and the 2001 US-led invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan....
...“The cabinet today approved the National Counter-Terrorism Authority Bill the need for which has been felt for a long time,” Kaira told reporters after a regular cabinet meeting.
To come into effect the bill needs to be approved by parliament and signed into law by President Asif Ali Zardari.
Kaira said the new authority would “devise policies and improve coordination among provincial governments and intelligence agencies” as well as “research and devise long-term policies to defeat” the terrorist mindset....
PaKistan has a long way to go and the Haqqani Network is one of the hurdles it faces. Haqqani is not al Qaeda, in case Ms. Ayotte didn't know that.
ISLAMABAD |
(Reuters) - Pakistan is already cracking down (click here) on the Haqqani network and does not need to impose extra measures following the group's addition to the U.N.'s blacklist, a government spokesman said on Tuesday.
The U.N. Security Council's Taliban sanctions committee on Monday added the Pakistan-based group, accused of high-profile attacks in Afghanistan, to its sanctions list.
The action obliges all U.N. members to implement an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo for the Haqqani network.
"The three elements of the ban -- arms embargo, asset freeze and travel ban -- are all already in place in Pakistan," Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told Reuters....
There are many issues with violence coming from Pakistan into Afghanistan. But, the truth of the matter is al Qaeda has been decimated in the region. Not that they don't still strive to exist and carry power over governments and people, but, their ability is being and has been dismantled. The deaths of al Qaeda in the region is considerable. There is no disputing that. So, where Ayotte gets the nerve to actually try to start the Bush War on Terror all over again is beyond legitimacy.
Nov. 28, 2012, 8:42 AM
Geoffrey Ingersoll
The well-trained, well-equipped attackers (click here) that breached the wall of the biggest U.S.-U.K. base in Helmand Province several months ago may have been trained in Pakistan, according to a USA Today report....
Now, there is a problem in Yemen. But, for the most part Yemen is the last strong hold of al Qaeda. The Saudis are being targeted globally and their ambassador in Yemen was killed today. If one recalls the ambassador in the USA was a target not long ago.
'The Last Refuge': Yemen, Al-Qaida And The U.S. (click here)
November 27, 201211:00 AM
...According to Gregory Johnsen, a journalist who has covered Yemen and Islamic insurgency in the Middle East extensively, al-Qaida's presence has tripled in size within Yemen over the past three years. Johnsen charts this growing influence on the country in his new book, The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America's War in Arabia.
Al-Qaida's approach to gain support in Yemen has been to pit the country's interests against those of the West, particularly the United States....
Yemen was a focus of Former General Petraeus and he continued that focus as CIA Director. I believe it was he that first engaged drones in Yemen.
I don't know about Ayotte and her determination as to the potential of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but, 200 dead in a year is not a bad record.
- 09.05.12
- 2:44 PM
- ...29 dead in a little over a week. (click here) Nearly 200 gone this year. The White House is stepping up its campaign of drone attacks in Yemen, with four strikes in eight days. And not even the slaying of 10 civilians over the weekend seems to have slowed the pace in the United States’ secretive, undeclared war.
-
At this week’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, you’ll hear lots of talk about the Obama administration’s pursuit of al-Qaida and its allies — including, of course, the raid that ultimately took out Osama bin Laden. But the hottest battlefield in this worldwide conflict isn’t likely to receive much attention. It’s a shame, because the fight in Yemen is one that demands discussion. Not only does the White House consider al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to be the extremist group most likely to strike in the United States. But the American response to that threat was been widely questioned by regional experts, who wonder whether U.S. drones and commandos aren’t being duped into fighting on one side of a civil war....One might recall there is a real legitimacy for the USA in Yemen as the underwear bomber came from this region. Right? So, there is a reason and not simply a whim why our drones are there.
I think the Saudi death in Yemen is being blamed on al Qaeda, but, it is not confirmed at this point. Military official, not an ambassador.Saudi Military Official Killed by Armed Men in Yemen, SPA Says (click here)
By Deema Almashabi & Mohammed Hatem
Nov 28, 2012 8:37 AM ETGunmen killed a Saudi Arabian military official (click here) in Yemen after he left his house with a bodyguard, the Saudi Press Agency said, citing an unidentified official with the kingdom’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.The Yemeni bodyguard of Saudi Sergeant Khalid al-Onizi was also killed in the attack by two gunmen in the capital Sana’a, the official SPA said.This was the second assault on a Saudi official in Yemen this year. In March, unidentified gunmen kidnapped Abdullah al- Khalidi, Saudi Arabia’s deputy consul in the Yemeni port city of Aden. In August, Al Jazeera television reported that he was released by suspected al-Qaeda militants.Last month, a U.S. embassy security official in Sana’a was shot and killed by an unidentified gunman. Yemen, which borders Saudi Arabia and Oman, has been battling militants from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula with U.S. military support....US Embassies are not necessarily secured by Americans and that was the case here. If the USA is being aggressive in killing al Qaeda and extremists in Yemen, there will be a backlash. I suspect that is what this was.
Thursday, 11 October 2012 09:07 EDTA masked gunman assassinated (click here) a Yemeni security official who worked for the US embassy in a drive-by shooting near his home in the capital Sana'a on Thursday, officials said.Yemeni officials said the killing bore the hallmarks of an attack by the al-Qaida offshoot in Yemen, but it was too early to determine whether the group was behind it....
So, the focus of al Qaeda by Former CIA Director Petraeus as a potential with Libya was directly related to his understanding of the dynamics within Yemen. This presence of al Qaeda in Yemen is not new. As a matter of fact, I don't recall al Qaeda being among those involved with the USA Consulate in Benghazi.
I raise that doubt because the people involved with Benghazi were Salafists. That is my understanding. These are the folks that want to destroy the pyramids in Egypt. The idea of destroying icons of civilization and religion is not alien to al Qaeda. It has been noted before with Buddist statues. I think I have that right. Buddists. Regardless, we have witnessed this focus on destroying icons of faith, belief and basically social value as a precursor to aggression affiliated with al Qaeda.There was one other anecdotal reporting in Libya of an al Qaeda flag flying over a courthouse in Benghazi. But, the best this can be considered is anecdotal and not USA intelligence as to what was occurring inside the courthouse and the official Transition Council denied involvement.Ynet
Published: 11.01.11, 14:10 / Israel News Flag seen flying alongside Libyan national flag (click here) but National Transitional Council denies any involvement. Interim rulers name US-educated engineering professor as Libya's new prime minister....I have absolutely no doubt al Qaeda was involved with the Libyan rebels. I am quite sure they armed the rebels. We have witnessed the al Qaeda military presence in a way that is more vicious than most of the regional rebels carry out. Al Qaeda intervention is easy to identify. They are far more virulent attacks.
Was al Qaeda responsible for the September 11th attacks on the USA Consulate in Benghazi? My understanding is the jury is still out on that. I do believe Secretary Clinton has a classified investigation to these facts. Personally, I don't think there is anything al Qaeda about the attacks on the Consulate except the date of the attacks. Most of those involved in the attacks are identified and they are Libyans once involved in the revolution but a spin off group. No one has those answers, no one had the knowledge to the reason for the attacks that day they happened and how Ayotte can state she is concerned about the words of Ambassador Rice with so much unknown except talking points from USA intelligence is nothing more than tainted politics.
If Ms. Ayotte wants to put herself forward as a superior knowledge to the evidence and events with Benghazi, then I have to ask where she is getting her focus except from sensational politics. There is no reason for the circus. There sincerely isn't. No one is happy about a dead Ambassador and three other American agents, but, to somehow spin this into an attack regarding Ambassador Rice is nonsense. Pure nonsense and sensationalism.
