Articles Index What Difference Does It Make?
Arguably the most known statement by former Secretary of State and current Democratic Presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton is the statement she made during the Benghazi hearings in January 2013..
When asked by Senator Ron Johnson (R) –WI, “No, again, we were misled that there were supposedly protests and that something sprang out of that -- an assault sprang out of that -- and that was easily ascertained that that was not the fact, and the American people could have known that within days and they didn’t know that.”
Mrs. Clinton replied with a raised voice the now infamous line, “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? “
But that it was the Liberal left as well as many left leaning media outlets do, they will blatantly lie if it fits their agenda and it’s irrelevant who gets hurt or what reputations are ruined so long as it fits the narrative. This is straight out of the “I have nothing of substance to offer, so I’ll smear and lie” handbook.
In the Clinton case it was obvious, she gave two examples in her statement in order to keep the talking points going. “Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans?” Well, actually it was neither and that was the whole point, it was a terror attack plain and simple.
Clinton didn’t care about the truth or those that she smeared in the process after all it was only the four dead Americans, Ambassador Chris Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and two CIA operatives, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
Now we see the same thing yet again, but this time it’s targeting a leading counterterror expert, professor and academic, Dr. Walid Phares. What I found most interesting is that it is nothing more than a regurgitation of what occurred to Phares back in 2011 and for the same reasons.
In 2011, presidential candidate Mitt Romney appointed Dr. Walid Phares as one of his national security and Middle East advisors. Wasting no time the Muslim Brotherhood-linked CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) launched a wave of organized assaults against him. In March of that same year CAIR went so far as to ask Homeland Security Committee Chair Pete King to rescind an invitation to the top U.S. expert on Jihadism to testify about Jihadi radicalization in the United States. CAIR wanted to stop Phares’s testimony knowing that he would draw attention to the process that is spreading the Jihadi ideology, a process Phares exposed in his book Future Jihad, a process which would later be recognized as being responsible for the radicalization of many terrorists—including those perpetrating attacks at Fort Hood and in Boston, Chattanooga and San Bernardino. Phares had one goal, to help the U.S. government detect Jihadists, but CAIR’s aim was to block his advising of Congress.
But this was not CAIR alone. By October 2011, the Islamist lobby in the United States, both the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian regime backers, were waging a massive smear campaign against Phares, accusing him of “having ties with the Lebanese Forces,” a coalition of Christian political parties in Lebanon that resisted the Syrian occupation, Palestinian terror groups and Hezbollah between 1975 and 1990.
The most ludicrous of these attacks came from “Mother Jones,” a far left outlet that toes the line with the Iranian regime’s interests. The author of this smear job was Adam Serwer, he used two sources from Lebanon for his article, neither of which has any weight or validity to say the least. One was a militant aligned with pro Hezbollah leaders, and the other was a NGO member fired by the group which worked with Phares on Middle East democracy.
Now, five years later we see the same resurgence from the likes of Mother Jones as well as other left leaning media outlets and Iran deal admirers. Why? Because Phares has already offered briefings to other candidates, including Walker, Huckabee, Carson and Trump. As soon as Donald Trump announced Phares as one of his advisors, Mother Jones (within hours) posted a ferocious attack referring back to its article from five years ago and in Mother Jones style, offered no new content.
Let me state for the record here and now, I have yet to decide who I will be voting for in the Presidential election and my standing with Dr. Phares is for one reason and one reason only. I have been studying, teaching, lecturing and writing on terrorism, Islam and National Security for years. I can count on one hand those in the counter terror field who know and understand the subject. Dr. Walid Phares stands far and above the rest.
Simply stated who would have the most to gain by smearing or stopping Phares?
Phares has never been in any military formation, but rather a jurist and a human rights defender. Professor Phares has been an advisor to the US House of Representatives Caucus on Counter Terrorism since 2007 and is the Co-Secretary General of the Trans-Atlantic Legislative Group on Counter Terrorism since 2008.
He taught Global Strategies at the National Defense University in Washington DC since 2006, lectured at the National Intelligence University since 2008 and he has been a Professor of Middle East Studies, Ethnic and Religious Conflict at the Department of Political Science at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) from 1993 to 2006. Professor Phares has also been a senior lecturer on the War on Terror and Global Conflicts at the LLS Program of FAU and the IRP Program at the University of Miami. Previously he taught at Florida International University in 1991 and 1992 and at Saint Joseph University in Beirut in the 1980s. Currently he is a visiting Professor at Washington DC based private universities. He was appointed as director for international relations and Political Sciences at BAUI University in Washington DC since 2013 and has been appointed as a Provost of BAUI since 2014.
Professor Walid Phares was a Senior Fellow and the director for Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington (2001-2010). He was also a Visiting Fellow with the European Foundation for Democracies in Brussels (2006-2010).
But why bother with facts when we are facing the evil of ISIS and Iran, after all Clinton said it best, what difference does it make?
