“NOTHING TO SEE HERE…,” OR IS THERE?
by Joseph DeMaio, ©2019
(Oct. 22, 2019) — After your faithful servant reviewed the comments to this post, the thought emerged: if the new Democrat standard for justifying – and even self-authenticating – a matter of “urgent concern” for whistleblower complaint purposes is “whatever one claims to have overheard in the lounge at The Mayflower Hotel or in one of the men’s room stalls at The Willard,” then additional hypotheticals regarding the Benghazi attack during Sept. 11-12, 2012 are possible.
Before jumping to the conclusion that the “botched kidnapping” theory of the Benghazi attack is tinfoil hat, Mother Ship conspiratorial nonsense, remember that many historical events have originated as conspiracy theories, only to evolve into undisputed empirical fact when the truth finally emerges…, as it always does.
As proof, look no farther than the Nixon Administration’s initial claim that people who labeled the Watergate break-in of the Democrat National Committee headquarters way back (more on those two words later…) in 1972 as anything other than a bungled, “third-rate burglary” were conspiracy theorists. Wrong. Nixon resigned over it. More recently, recall that Hillary Clinton’s initial labeling of the rumored illicit “extreme mentoring” of one Monica Lewinsky by her hubby, President Bill Clinton, as a “vast right-wing conspiracy” evaporated when the infamous DNA infused Blue Dress appeared.
As for the “botched kidnapping” theory surrounding the Benghazi attack, that hypothesis was first explored several years ago here at The P&E by your humble servant, here, here, here and here. The post you are now reading is merely an update to those prior offerings.
To synopsize the hypothetical “conspiracy theory” contents of those prior posts – and utilizing the Democrats’ new “men’s room stall” standard of proof – it was posited that in order to bolster his anemic poll numbers against Mitt Romney in the 90-day run-up to the 2012 general election, Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may well have concocted a bold conspiracy plan.
After all, since the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011 had not provided the hoped-for sustained “bump” in Obama’s poll numbers, something different was needed. Something with… more pizzazz. Obama (using a pseudonym) and Clinton (not caring about security… go figure…) may have exchanged emails and texts trying to refine the plan.
Aha! Because then-President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt had campaigned in his country on a platform that promised his supporters tireless efforts on his part to free from American prison one Omar Abdel Rahman – the “Blind Sheik” mastermind of the original 1993 World Trade Center bombing – perhaps a humanitarian “exchange” of human “assets” might be arranged. The exchange would be coordinated and timed such that it would make Obama and Clinton appear to be heroes, “reluctantly” exchanging Rahman for a high-profile American in radical Islamist captivity… just before the general election…, say, right after Halloween…., with full, live and exclusive coverage by CNN, of course. Morsi wanted the Blind Sheik freed and returned to Egypt, but what American was in Islamist captivity who could be exchanged?
Hmmmm… wait (thought Clinton… or Obama… or Brennan… or Clapper… or… you get the picture), what if… what if a staged “safe and secure” kidnapping of a high-value diplomat could be arranged? Maybe an envoy or, better yet, an ambassador? Wait…, how about newly-appointed and confirmed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens? He was, after all, already in Libya and involved in other “clandestine” CIA matters. Would Morsi embrace the idea of Obama and Clinton arranging for Stevens to be “safely abducted,” held in a secure location until just before the election, then traded (with live CNN coverage) for Rahman?
There might have even been a “secure” satellite conference call among Obama, Clinton and Morsi (fluent in English, as he had earned a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California) to hammer out the details. Stevens, of course, would not be told of the plan, as he might not be receptive. But with his safety assured by Morsi, there would be no cause for concern or for Stevens to know. That way, his panic on posted videos would be more genuine, justifying keeping him in the dark.
Moreover, the Libyan security guards, American CIA contractors and former Navy Seals would be instructed to “stand down” and not come to the aid of Stevens as the abduction took place in order to further ensure that no hostile actions broke out. In addition, overall general security at the U.S. Benghazi compound would be gradually relaxed as the abduction date approached, a gesture of “goodwill” and “normalization” of relations between the Obama regime and post-Gaddafi Libya. As for the date of the event, what else but September 11, 2012, less than two months out from the election? Morsi’s team could storm the compound firing their weapons into the air for added effect.
Once Stevens was captured and taken to a predetermined safe-house in Libya, Morsi’s henchmen would arrange for orchestrated threats to be posted to the Internet, warning that if Rahman were not released, Stevens would be beheaded, with his killing live-streamed worldwide. Obama and Clinton would publicly wring their hands during September and October as November neared.
Then, finally, and most reluctantly, they would announce that the Stevens/Rahman exchange would take place in the wee hours at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C. Stevens would step off an Air Force cargo jet, embracing and profusely thanking Obama and Clinton, and Rahman would be frog-marched (or wheel-chaired) onto the plane for a return flight to Cairo. Obama’s re-election would be assured and Clinton’s campaign for the presidency in 2016 would be launched. What could possibly go wrong?
Answer: Go watch “Thirteen Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.”
Returning, therefore, to events since those prior P&E posts – and apart from “men’s room stall” allegations in a whistleblower complaint – one of the most critical pieces of evidence corroborating the “hypothetical” Benghazi abduction was a cellphone audio/video clip. It was apparently taken either by one of the feckless Libyan guards hired by the U.S. State Department to “protect” the compound or by a member of Morsi’s kidnapping team. The video was imbedded a little over a minute into a primary video of a female newscaster broadcasting on an Arabic news channel, Al Karma TV.
After the newscaster describes what the viewers are about to see and hear, the primary video cuts to the cellphone video, in which automatic-weapons fire can be heard as the chaos of the initial attack unfolded. Then, a voice is heard shouting (depending on which English translation is believed) either (a) “Don’t shoot us! We were sent by Mursi!” or (b) “Don’t shoot them! They were sent by Morsi!” Another voice responds: “Ahhhh….” The audio accompanying the video was in Arabic and first appeared on September 13, 2012 here.
And this is where it gets more interesting…, and convoluted. So, faithful P&E readers, grab some heavily-caffeinated beverage and pay attention. You may also want to adjust your tinfoil hat to ensure continued clear contact with the Mother Ship….
First, if a plan of this nature somehow went horribly wrong – as history now confirms happened, killing not only Ambassador Stevens, but along with him, three extraordinary Americans, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty – one of the first things those responsible for the calamity would try to do would be to deflect responsibility and, of course, try to cover their tracks. Hence, the “vile, hateful video” defense based on a film purportedly “triggering the attack” on the consulate was concocted and launched by the Obama regime through then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. Why Secretary of State Clinton was not initially “out front” on the fabricated defense remains a mystery… at least to some…, but not to others….
The “vile video” to which Rice referred, of course, was “The Innocence of Muslims,” an anti-Islamic film which had appeared on the Internet the day before the Benghazi attack and which had triggered violent protests in Cairo and the Middle East…, but not in Benghazi. Thus, the Rice narrative was soon abandoned. Plainly, Rice was not referring to the “Morsi sent us” cellphone video and likely did not even know it existed.
Interestingly, although the “vile, anti-Islamic video” purportedly triggering the Benghazi attack and rioting elsewhere in the Middle East remains “up” on YouTube, the same cannot be said of the cellphone clip… but more on that later.
Second, it is important to know that the cellphone audio/video clip was posted to the Internet one day after the attack, Sept. 13, 2012. It first appeared on the website of www.shoebat.com here. Since shoebat.com does not maintain its own video archive library, the video was linked and posted to the YouTube Internet website. At that time, and for several years later, the video remained “up” and accessible on YouTube. However, if one tries to access it today, the following message appears: “Video unavailable. This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this account has been terminated.”
Moreover, when this post originally appeared August 17, 2017, linking to the clip, the “scrubbing” message added, after the word “terminated,” the following information: “… due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement.” When and why that additional language has been omitted in the current notice is unknown. However, the relevant point to remember here is that the “url” or “uniform resource locator” for identifying where on the Internet that original video could be retrieved was: “https://youtu.be/Qk3Hw6Quk60”. For brevity, let us use: “Quk60.”
Third, it turned out that when the August 17, 2016 P&E post appeared, there was also a second or “backup” copy of the video posted here. It was the same video containing the same female Arabic news announcer describing to viewers what they were about to see and hear from the same imbedded cellphone “Don’t shoot/Morsi sent us!” audio/video clip. Again, for brevity, let us call this second or “backup” version the “OTRk” copy.
It will come as no the surprise to Benghazi conspiracy theorists that, if one now tries to access either the “Quk60” or “OTRk” copy of the audio/video clip, YouTube informs users that neither clip is any longer accessible. YouTube uses the same language for both url’s: “Video unavailable. This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.” So, unless you had the foresight to make a screenshot copy of the clip when it was still available, from all appearances, it has been “Memory-holed,” disappearing as if it never existed. As discussed here, historical negationism is alive and well not only at the Congressional Research Service, but apparently at YouTube, too.
Fourth, there is a useful website known colloquially as “The Wayback Machine.” Its announced objective is to archive some 390 billion webpages for retrieval and review collected over the years that the Internet has been in existence. As it turns out, when one loads into the url searchbox on the Wayback site either the “Quk60” or “OTRk” locators, an unavailability message appears. For “Quk60,” the message is: “No URL has been captured for this domain.” For “OTRk,” the message is: “Sorry, the Wayback Machine does not have this video.”
Fifth, the Wayback Machine website’s “changes” tab for “OTRk” shows that the video was first “changed” or “edited” on January 28, 2014 and thereafter scrubbed on Sunday, July 13, 2014 at 9:29 PM GMT. The following statement regarding information relating to the scrubbing (e.g., the url and/or metadata for the computer source of the scrubbing) states: “There are no data available for https://www.youtube.com/watch and timestamp Sun, 13 Jul 2014 21:29:19 GMT.”
Thus, while the scrubbing of the video from the YouTube site for purported “copyright” violations or other reasons might be plausible, the deletion of the video from the Wayback Machine website presents a much different question. The whole purpose of that website is to preserve all posted material, whether or not copyrighted. Very curious.
Interestingly, the “About” tab for the Wayback Machine website states, among other things, that “[a] single copy of the Internet Archive library collection occupies 45+ Petabytes [i.e., LOTS] of server space (and we store at least 2 copies of everything).” (Emphasis added). Two copies stored? Everything? Really? So if there was a copy of the “Don’t shoot” video still in existence on Saturday, July 12, 2014, prior to its deletion from the general archive the following day…. might the “stored copy” of the video still be subject to retrieval… somewhere? If not subject to retrieval, why not? Was the copy destroyed at the same time the original video was scrubbed? If the copy was destroyed, who directed that action? Was it someone at a computer with a CIA url address? Maybe Hillary Clinton on one of the smashed cellphones and BleachBitted emails?
Sixth, however, if one goes to the “changes” tab on the Wayback Machine website and scrolls over to the November 18, 2013 “capture” date, guess what: one can still access the written Arabic version of the clip along with the audio/video. Stated otherwise, whoever determined to delete the cellphone clip from the English version of the YouTube Internet website overlooked the fact that it was still preserved on the Arabic version of the website. Go ahead, try it now…., and if you get a “video unavailable” message, shoot an email to the intrepid P&E Editor.
As of the date of this post – October 22, 2019 – the video clip is still “up” and seems clearly to corroborate that Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi had some role in the attack on the Benghazi U.S. consulate on September 11-13, 2012. And while there is yet no “smoking gun” proof that Morsi’s involvement was the result of the “hypothetical” scenario among him, Obama and Clinton discussed above, the still-preserved clip would seem to provide if not compelling, at minimum extremely strong anecdotal and circumstantial evidence supporting that conclusion. Recall that if a plan as evil and treacherous as this went awry, would not the perpetrators do all they could to erase their tracks? What better way to eradicate the implicating video clip than to have it scrubbed from the Internet? Or, to put it another way, it’s as if the “Don’t shoot! Dr. Morsi sent us!” exclamation as the attack took place… never happened. Problem solved. Boom.
The real test will now be whether, following the publication of this post (assuming it clears muster with the intrepid P&E Editor), the still-available clip remains accessible or whether, the existence of the Arabic version now revealed, it, too, will be “negationized” or “Memory-holed.” Word to the wise: if you want to see the clip, you’d better do it quickly.
At the end of the day, will any of this matter? Maybe. Maybe not. Is the hypothetical plausible? Of course. Can it be proven? Harder question, unless you use the Democrats’ “men’s room stall” standard of proof, in which case the clip is the smoking gun. Ask yourself this: if that pesky clip remains posted on the Internet, who has the most to lose? And if its various url’s keep being eradicated, who is responsible for that… and why is it being done now, some seven years after the attack? After all, have we not been told that the book on Benghazi has been closed? Move along…, nothing to see here.
The important thing to remember, however, as articulated by Edmund Burke, is this: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” This post is your humble servant’s attempt to do something other than nothing.
Oh…, and vote very carefully in 2020.