May 14, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
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| Hi, everybody. | |
| It's Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio. | |
| I have Alan West on the line, an American political commentator, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant. | |
| Also, and primarily for the purposes of this conversation, a member of the Citizens Commission on Benghazi, and a new book, author, Guardian of the Republic. | |
| Thank you so much for taking the time today. | |
| Well, thanks for having me with you, Stefan. | |
| So, Benghazi. | |
| A lot of liberal commentators and even some of the conservative side are saying this is not a significant issue. | |
| It was, you know, mistakes were made in the usual phrase. | |
| I disagree with that. | |
| I think it's actually quite a significant issue more to do with geopolitics and arms sales. | |
| What is the case that you would make that comes out of the commission as to why the American public should be paying attention to this story? | |
| Well, it's a breach of the level of trust and, you know, having served in combat zones, I mean, how can you believe that civilian leadership It's going to, you know, truly look out for your best interests. | |
| We see that four Americans can die, and no one really cares about it. | |
| Furthermore, they can continue to perpetuate a lie, which we see with this anti-Islam video, and deny the proper type of security and resources that should have been there in Benghazi to protect an ambassador. | |
| This cannot be the new normal in the United States of America. | |
| The last time an ambassador lost his life, I believe it was in Afghanistan, was during the Carter administration. | |
| And now here it is, some almost, what, 40 years later, and we're having it happen in the Obama administration. | |
| This is a black eye on America, and the survivors, you know, we should care about them. | |
| We should make sure that the truth is out there for the American people, but also those survivors. | |
| Their faces should be brought to the forefront. | |
| And I think the similar question is, what What was Ambassador Christie doing in Benghazi Libya, which is a hotbed, a center of radical Islamic jihadist activity on 9-11? | |
| Right. | |
| It seems also that one of the narratives that had to be changed was this disastrous result of multi-year foreign policy on the part of the Obama administration. | |
| I believe you can make a strong case that it would have had a material effect on the election that was a few weeks after the incident I mean, the phrase stolen election is a very incendiary one, but it seems to me that if the American public had had the right information, they may have made a different decision on the re-election of Obama. | |
| Well, I think you're absolutely right, and this is where you see the complicity of the liberal progressive media. | |
| If Benghazi had happened with a Republican president, I can guarantee you that every single media outlet would have been hammering that Republican president and would have made a difference in the election of 2012. | |
| How many times were we subjected to front-page New York Times stories about Abu Ghraib? | |
| And I think that that was not as important as us losing four Americans, one of which being an ambassador. | |
| But you have not seen any front-page stories consistently in the New York Times and other liberal outlets. | |
| So yes, you saw Candy Crowley from CNN, who was the moderator for the second debate, insert herself. | |
| And make a false statement that, of course, afterwards she came out and said, you know, that she had misspoken. | |
| But, you know, the optics, the moment had passed away. | |
| The debate was over and no one was paying attention to her recanting or retraction of what she had said. | |
| So, yes, we did not have the scrutiny that we should have had. | |
| We continue to find out more and more information. | |
| If it had not been for a civilian, a citizen or a watchdog group, Judicial Watch, We still would not know about these emails that they were able to get unredacted due to a lawsuit that they filed against the Obama administration. | |
| And these are emails that it was a conscious pursuit of the narrative, that it was a YouTube video that provoked a spontaneous demonstration rather than the reality, which was this is a well-planned attack designed to coincide with 9-11. | |
| Yes, you're absolutely right. | |
| And I find it interesting that The person who was in charge, it seems, of this gathering together to create this false narrative, Ben Rhodes. | |
| His brother is the president of CBS, David Rhodes. | |
| And we all know that Cheryl Atkinson, who was working at CBS, wanted to continue to dig deeper into Benghazi. | |
| She was pretty much so shut down, and now she has left. | |
| So it's that type of collusion that you see. | |
| And the fact that the White House spokesperson, Jay Carney, said that the White House had nothing to do with altering talking points other than changing cosmetic things, changing the word to From consulate to mission or what have you. | |
| And now we find out there's an email that he was included on, as well as members of the Obama campaign that is quite to the contrary. | |
| So, you know, this select committee should have been done two years ago for us to get to the bottom of this. | |
| I think that Speaker Boehner was embarrassed by Judicial Watch, as well as the five different committees who were begging for information, but just got stonewalled and got redacted information. | |
| Well, I would argue that this should have been done by the media two years ago, and the fact that a Citizens Commission has to be established in order to prompt the Congress and other groups to do the job that the media should have been done. | |
| The media is going to circle the wagons around President Obama and the person that they hope to be the next president, Hillary Clinton. | |
| They do not want the American people to know the truth. | |
| They do not want the American people to understand First and foremost, why do we go into Libya anyhow? | |
| Because if we want to talk about a humanitarian crisis, there's a bigger humanitarian crisis in Syria. | |
| And you brought up a great point. | |
| I think that this was all about a gun-running operation to Islamist forces in Libya, and somehow we were trying to recollect those weapons and maybe shift it. | |
| To the Islamists in Syria by way through Turkey. | |
| So all of those suppositions need to be hashed out, and someone needs to be held accountable. | |
| Hillary Clinton stands up and says, I take responsibility. | |
| Okay, so what? | |
| Nothing has been affected in her life. | |
| It was an empty statement that she made. | |
| Well, and it does matter now. | |
| I mean, if prior to an election, information was withheld from the American public that sources high up or actors high up in the White House administration were knowingly lying to the American public about a disaster that happened on 9-11 and attempting to keep from the American public the information that some of the weapons used against the mission in Libya were supplied by the American government through UAE, | |
| through Turkey, And through Qatar to Islamic insurgents. | |
| I mean, that would have been a shell shock of a revelation to occur late in the campaign. | |
| Well, you're absolutely right. | |
| And even still to today, I mean, this is a violation of U.S. statutes. | |
| Because we are not supposed to be providing armament and weapons to aiding and abetting, you know, terrorist forces, the enemy. | |
| But that seems that this could possibly be what would happen. | |
| Could that be the case? | |
| I mean, this is a treasonous action. | |
| And furthermore, I mean, this does constitute the high crimes and misdemeanors that the Constitution talks about a reason for an impeachment of a president. | |
| So this makes, you know, Iran-Contra look like Romper Room. | |
| And the fact that you still have President Obama a couple weeks after this standing up at the United Nations and still talking about an anti-Islam video, something is horribly wrong. | |
| And, you know, it is sad. | |
| It's a sad state of affairs in the United States of America where we truly cannot trust and depend upon the mainstream media that is out there, most of the stations that are out there, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, and CNN, to tell us the truth. | |
| Well, of course, fortunately the Commission has the internet now, which is very helpful in trying to get this information out. | |
| What chance do you think that independent inquiries or even congressional inquiries have of piercing the, as you call it, the circling of the wagons around Obama and getting the relevant information to the American public? | |
| Well, I think that the Select Commission is going to be very important. | |
| It is vital that the 30-some-odd survivors that have been hidden away You know, rumors are about them having to sign a nondisclosure agreement. | |
| They need to be brought to the forefront. | |
| And the critical people that are part of this need to be brought before this commission. | |
| You know, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Susan Rice needs to be brought forth, Hillary Clinton needs to be brought forth, Victoria Nuland, who, you know, was promoted. | |
| She was the State Department spokesperson. | |
| So, and look, let's be very honest. | |
| I think that the president should be brought forth. | |
| And ask the tough questions about what happened. | |
| Because he is not above scrutiny. | |
| He is not above inquiry. | |
| We have co-equal branches of government. | |
| We have separation of powers. | |
| That's what James Madison established in the United States Constitution. | |
| And so there is proper oversight. | |
| And for the Democrats to come out and say that this is just a political ploy, a political stunt, and Nancy blows his words, for the president to say this is a phony scandal, it's really not phony to the four people that are dead. | |
| Well, and I mean, if political stunt is the standard by which actions are to be judged, then blaming a coordinated attack armed by people that the U.S. had armed on 9-11 on what was basically American soil and calling it an internet video spontaneous demonstration is the ultimate political stunt. | |
| So if people have a problem with political stunts, they should focus on Obama's action rather than those who are trying to uncover the truth, in my opinion. | |
| Yeah, but like I said, this will be very damaging for the current administration. | |
| And for who they believe in to be the future administration. | |
| And it can't go away because this could, like I said previously, this cannot be the new normal. | |
| This cannot be something where we just accept, hey, you know, an ambassador was killed. | |
| I even heard that on PBS, I think it was a McLaughlin report, a female journalist from Newsweek said that Ambassador Stevens was not murdered. | |
| He died of smoke inhalation. | |
| Well, how do you think the smoke got there? | |
| It's because the consulate was under attack. | |
| And so it is this constant stream of talking points that, I don't know if it emanates from the White House, it emanates from Media Matters and the gentleman there, but they continue to try to get this narrative out there that desensitizes the American people to what happened. | |
| The ambassador was murdered. | |
| Of course. | |
| I mean, if I stab a guy and then say, well, he died of some mysterious blood loss, nobody's going to take me seriously. | |
| In fact, it would be an insult to the intelligence of anyone I was claiming such a fantastic story to. | |
| And that thing shows the desperation that the media is engendering in trying to protect against all reason and evidence this administration. | |
| Yes, you're spot on. | |
| But, you know, like you said, the Internet is a powerful thing. | |
| The fact that, you know, some polls say anywhere from 65 to 71 percent of the American people want the truth. | |
| And, you know, when you have a Citizens Commission on Benghazi with, you know, some very qualified experts in these fields, I mean, Claire Lopez, I mean, look at the job she's doing, Lieutenant General McCarney, Major General Vallely, lots of great horsepower there, and trusted voices, even though, you know, some people on the left would want to say that, you know, we're just a bunch of conspiracy theorists and crackpots. | |
| That's not the truth. | |
| That's how they have to denigrate the mean and otherwise discredit and disrespect you because they're afraid of the truth. | |
| But I think this is going to be a very telling thing. | |
| And, you know, once again, it's not just Benghazi now. | |
| We've got the VA scandal. | |
| We have many other things. | |
| And that's why they're trying to deflect over and make Boko Haram all of a sudden in Nigeria a big news item when these guys have been at this for the past, you know, almost three to four years. | |
| So, last question I have is, do you think that there's going to be any smoking gun that leads directly to Hillary Clinton's inbox? | |
| I believe that there are, and I believe that, you know, if we can get more unredacted emails of what transpired in the State Department, but look at what the Obama administration is already doing. | |
| Emails that were unclassified, they have now reclassified, as classified, so that they believe people will not be able to get their hands on it. | |
| If there's nothing there, there's no there there, then why take these types of actions? | |
| So, you know, they're guilty by their response to this already. | |
| Yeah, if you destroy evidence, that itself is a crime, and you don't really need to look any further. | |
| But I know our time is short here today. | |
| Thank you so much, Alan. | |
| I appreciate the work that the Commission is doing, and I wish you the best of luck in helping to uncover some of these potentially treasonous activities. | |
| Thank you. | |
| The truth always shines brightly. | |
| All right, take care. | |
| Appreciate it. | |
| Bye-bye, Stephen. |
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