Harf, Let me clear it up for you.
The White House leaked it.
Why ? Because they were petrified of the political optics of contrast. The Obama administration had just used the excuse, “by any means possible” to trade the release of the Gitmo5 terrorists for Private Bergdahl. The White House understood the optic of an American hostage being killed as retaliation for military strikes against ISIL as a risk of the newly created Obama reality – negotiating with terrorists.
The White House leaked the rescue effort in a feeble attempt to show they did try something.

So the White house compromised a covert operation for political cover and gain. It’s how the McDonough team work. The only risk they worry about is the political risk of how it makes them look. All politics all the time. Period.

IRAQ – A new video posted online Tuesday purportedly shows Islamic State militants beheading an American journalist.
The nearly five minute video, titled “A Message to America,” depicts a man believed to be missing photojournalist James Foley being beheaded by a militant.

The video opens with a message from the Islamic State, attacking President Barack Obama for recently directing airstrikes against the terror group.
“Obama authorizes military operations against the Islamic State effectively placing America upon a slippery slope towards a new war front against Muslims,” the video said.
Then the shot pans over to Foley, who speaks into the camera.
“I call on my friends, family and loved ones to rise up against my real killers: the U.S. government,” Foley said in the video. (more…)

As with all complex stories the valuable discoveries come with time.

This Brief has been updated to include newly spotlighted research on Syria and ISIL. Most importantly the previously unknown “Second Presidential Finding Memo” to the CIA in 2012 specifically directed to arm/aid ISIL in Syria. The new information from the month before the Benghazi attack explains the motive of the Turkish delegation toward Chris Stevens.
Grab a cup of coffee because it’s a long read with over 350 citations and reference source links for conformational material.   We think you’ll get hooked and find 95% of your Benghazi questions answered.   And if you can find a factual flaw I’ll buy the coffee.. SD

We know from the Bret Baier interview with Hillary Clinton that she was physically located at her 7th floor office in Washington DC on the night of the attack. Unfortunately we also know during the November 2012 Thanksgiving holiday a mysterious fire took place in that building. Well, actually directly above her exact office – cause undetermined.
A “fire” which preceded an unfortunate slip and fall for the Secretary, resulting in a concussion, which led to the discovery of a blood clot, that ultimately delayed her congressional testimony before a Senate Hearing into the events of the night in question.
We know the Libyan uprising began on February 10th of 2011, and we also know that sometime around the end of February 2011 President Obama signed a presidential directive authorizing the State Dept and CIA to begin a covert operation to arm the Libyan “rebels”.
We also know of a Second Presidential Finding Memo authorizing additional CIA covert action in 2012, this time in Syria. However, unlike the 2011 Libyan operation we do not know the operational name of the second action in 2012 Syria.
We know the Libyan “rebels” were positioned in two strategic places. Benghazi, and the port city of Darnah, both located in Northeastern Libya.
We know this 2011 Libyan covert operation came to be known as “Operation Zero Footprint“, and fell under the military command authority of NATO not (important to repeat), NOT, the U.S. Military. (more…)

(Via CNN NEWS) Kurdish forces fired mortars and explosives at extremist militants Sunday as the battle to retake a strategic dam in northern Iraq raged on.

Fighters for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria set up high powered explosives around buildings and detonated them, Kurdish Intelligence chief Masrour Barzani said.

Kurdish forces fought back, sparking clashes. Smoke could be seen rising in the distance.

ISIS, the extremist militant group that calls itself the Islamic State, seized the strategic Mosul Dam this month.

U.S. warplanes joined the effort to retake the dam amid growing concern it is not maintained and could rupture, a U.S. official told CNN. (more…)

(more…)

The story below has recently become a familiar mention.   A Christian family living in Mosul whose neighbors turned on them as ISIL approached.

This frustrated Iraqi Christian family repeats a reality being heard from many families who faced a similar situation.   Their experience is more specific evidence that Islam does not have a moderate strain within it.   At the end of the Western Media talking points there’s a sadly divergent reality.

CNS NEWS – An Iraqi Christian who fled for his life from Mosul says that his Muslim neighbors welcomed the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) and told him “this land belongs to Islam.” (more…)

The slow motion U.S. response to the crisis on Mount Sinjar is not only understandable it’s actually quite predictable.

President Obama’s entire ideological outlook and world view is born amid the kitchens, coffee tables, and social organizations of his life.   Together with his compadre’s they view the Gaza conflict through the prism of righteous protests against U.S. engagements in Vietnam.

Bill Ayers famously views armed opposition to the U.S. government as a patriotic and loyal endeavor – what’s a few local bombs intended to do if not to prove a point.   The rockets from Gaza are no more radical in the mind of the radical left than Ayers pentagon bombing of another similarly oppressive entity, the United States.

But something happens at that very specific juncture where the presentation of Hope and Fundamental Change meets the more brutal reality of consequence.  (more…)

President Barack Obama pledged during the 2012 campaign, and since, that he will not let Iran develop nuclear weapons.   This is one of the potentially broken promises that can have massive geopolitical consequences.

Last Friday he seemed almost resigned toward that end:

(more…)

WASHINGTON DC – Kentucky GOP senator and likely 2016 presidential candidate Rand Paul is “not saying [he’s] completely opposed” to “maybe even bombing” the genocidal Islamist terrorists known as ISIS. But Paul also isn’t saying that he supports bombing ISIS. Politico reports Paul has “mixed feelings”: 

“I have mixed feelings about it,” the senator said Monday evening of the recent strikes against ISIL targets. “I’m not saying I’m completely opposed to helping with arms or maybe even bombing, but I am concerned that ISIS is big and powerful because we protected them in Syria for a year. Do you know who also hates ISIS and who is bombing them? Assad, the Syrian government.”

“So a year ago, the same people who want to bomb ISIS wanted to bomb Syria last year,” he continued in remarks were first reported by WBKO.

It’s not true, as Paul implies, that everyone who wants to take military action against ISIS supported military action last year against the Syrian regime.  (read more)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. is weighing a military mission in Iraq to rescue thousands of Yazidi refugees, a move that risks putting American forces in direct confrontation with Sunni fighters for the Islamic State.

The proposal is still under development and hasn’t been approved by President Barack Obama. U.S. officials said the rescue mission is one of many options the U.S. military is weighing after dropping food and water to dying refugees over the past six days.

“People are looking at ways to do something more than just drop water and supplies,” one senior U.S. official said. “You can only do that for so long.” (more…)