Was U.S. Running A Secret Prison In Benghazi?
Information contained in newly declassified Pentagon documents may resurrect questions about claims the U.S. was running an interrogation center or secret prison in Benghazi, Libya, prior to the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks there.
Last week, the Pentagon produced 486 pages in response to a Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit asking the Defense Department to release “any and all” records produced by the U.S. Africa Command Operations Center concerning the Benghazi attacks.
One document was entitled, “Commander U.S. Africa Command request for forces.”
It contained Pentagon instructions to all deployed forces as part of what was known as Operation Jukebox Lotus, the codename for the crisis response that worked to secure U.S. interests in the region following the Benghazi attacks.
The operation began on Sept. 12 and was led by U.S. Africa Command. It also involved other forces, including those from the U.S. European Command.
On page No. “AFRICOM 87″ of the released documents, the following order about “detainees” was issued to the forces that deployed as part of the operation: “Transport of non-DOD passengers, detainees, and/or and (sic) cargo on DOD-owned or operated lift is not authorized without review and coordination by the HQ USAFRICOM Deployment and Distribution Center.”
The document did not further mention detainees. It did not specify whether there were any detainees in Libya or to which detainees the order was referring. It was unclear whether this was a general order about the possibility of detainees or was in reference to any specific detainees.
There have been some unsubstantiated reports claiming the CIA was running an interrogation center or secret prison at the Benghazi Annex.
An October 2012 Fox News report quoted a well-placed Washington source confirming “there were Libyan militiamen being held at the CIA annex in Benghazi and that their presence was being looked at as a possible motive for the staged attack on the consulate and annex that night.”
Fox News further cited multiple intelligence sources who served in Benghazi as saying, “There were more than just Libyan militia members who were held and interrogated by CIA contractors at the CIA annex in the days prior to the attack. Other prisoners from additional countries in Africa and the Middle East were brought to this location.”
A CIA spokesman flatly denied the claim of a prison at the Libyan annex.
New Information On Attack In Libya
Did the State Department and White House hide information indicating that a jihadist group promoting an Islamic state in Libya was responsible for a bomb attack on the U.S. special mission in Benghazi three months before the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the same compound which killed a U.S. ambassador?
Information contained in Pentagon documents released in response to a Judicial Watch lawsuit sheds light on who was responsible for a June 6, 2012, IED attack on the Benghazi special mission.
KleinOnline.com obtained and reviewed the newly declassified Benghazi documents, which for the first time publicly blame a group “promoting an Islamic state in Libya” for the IED attack.
Since the attack, the group, Ansar al-Sharia, has sworn allegiance to ISIS, which has established an Islamic “caliphate” in portions of Syria and Iraq that it intends to expand throughout the Middle East.
An arm of Ansar al-Sharia, the Martyrs of the February 17th Brigade, provided internal security at the U.S. Benghazi mission.
The IED attack took place June 6, 2012, causing no injuries but blowing a large hole in the compound’s exterior wall.
Despite the attack, the Obama administration took no significant steps to enhance security at the U.S. special mission.
Page 15 of the State Department’s Accountability Review Board report, or ARB, reported of the IED attack: “Omar Abdurrahman group makes an unsubstantiated claim of responsibility.”
On Net Neutrality
The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to approve the policy known as Net Neutrality while the language of the agency’s new regulations is still reportedly being drafted.
The FCC’s Net Neutrality ruling seems to be the continuation of a plan put in place by the agency’s former chairman, Julius Genachowski. In 2010, FCC’s Genachowski proposed a “third way” to regulate broadband by reclassifying the transmission of data as a telecommunications service to be directly regulated by the agency.
Already, some are pointing to concerns that the extensive new regulations will include a “general conduct rule” that will leave open the possibility of the FCC determining what is in the public’s “best” interest as far as Internet content.
To determine the possible aim of the FCC’s new regulations, consider some of the people behind the crafting and pushing Net Neutrality.
Firstly, there is Genachowski’s then-deputy at the FCC, Mark Lloyd, who was the agency’s diversity officer until 2012. Lloyd has been a principle advocate of Net Neutrality.
Lloyd co-authored a 2007 CAP study titled, “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.”
Lloyd wrote that all radio stations should be required to “provide information on how the station serves the public interest in a variety of areas.”
The CAP report specifically called on the FCC to mandate all radio broadcast licensees “to regularly show that they are operating on behalf of the public interest and provide public documentation and viewing of how they are meeting these obligations.”
Lloyd, meanwhile, has worked closely for years with Obama’s former regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein.
Sunstein himself in 2001 once proposed government intervention in the Internet. He called for a “legal mandate” to ensure diversity of content. However, in 2007, Sunstein recanted, stating government mandates for Internet “equality” were a “bad idea.”
Still, Sunstein’s other views on government mandates for the Internet have not been reconsidered by the ex-Obama czar.
Sunstein previously drew up a “First Amendment New Deal” – a new “Fairness Doctrine” that would include the establishment of a panel of “nonpartisan experts” to ensure “diversity of view” on the airwaves.
In his 2009 book, On Rumors, Sunstein argued websites should be obliged to remove “false rumors” while libel laws should be altered to make it easier to sue for spreading such “rumors.”
In the 2009 book, Sunstein cited as a primary example of “absurd” and “hateful” remarks, reports by “right-wing websites” alleging an association between President Obama and former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers.
In a lengthy academic paper, Sunstein, argued the U.S. government should ban “conspiracy theorizing.”
Among the examples of speech that should be banned, Sustein offered, is advocating that the theory of global warming is a deliberate fraud.
Sunstein also recommended the government send agents to infiltrate “extremists who supply conspiracy theories” and disrupt the efforts of the “extremists” to propagate their theories.