Romney Obama
© Koterda
"The simplest explanation for some phenomenon is more likely to be accurate than more complicated explanations." Occam's razor

For those of us keeping up-to-date in the alternative-news-a-sphere, political theatre has become increasingly predictable. Events occur, tragedies happen, 'evil' scapegoats are blamed, politicians say craftily scripted words and the media exalts them. Innocent victims suffer and the general 'herd' are delivered top-ups of fear to maintain their terror-anxiety levels and faith in Governments to protect them from non-existential threats. This process has played out time and time again, especially over the last decade in the wake of 9/11, and remains effective on an ill-informed populace that is unaware the FBI organizes almost all terror plots in the US.

In the run-up to elections, terror-related popularity-boosting events are laid out for politicians to capitalise on. They are normally precise and clearly orchestrated. Take the recent case of the FBI foiling their own terror plot against the New York Fed. This is a classic tried and tested method of framing a patsy in order to perpetuate the myth of Islamic extremists for political gain. However, when a terror attack happens that causes confusion and finger-pointing amongst the political elite in the run-up to a presidential election, then clearly something is not quite 'optimal'.

Five weeks after the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi resulted in the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, the way that the Obama administration, intelligence services and media have reacted has been somewhat perplexing. No elected official has yet to reveal with certainty who led the attack, and at times, both the White House and the US State Department have provided completely different explanations for the assumed motives of the attackers.

What on earth is going on?

The apparent indecision, side-tracking and confusion in the White House has led to a great deal of speculation as to who was really behind these attacks and what purpose they serve. All I can say for certain is that the Obama administration is not in control and at the mercy of information coming to them from competing sources within the intelligence services. Mitt Romney's election campaign has not been particularly effective in capitalising on it. Was the Benghazi attack pre-planned? Was it politically motivated? Was it allowed to happen?

Let's take a look one-by-one at five theories circulating the net on who was behind the attacks:

1. Mossad-instigated at the request of Netanyahu in a bid to interfere with the U.S. election
2. Collaboration between the Neocons, Mitt Romney presidential campaigners and the CIA Mormon Mafia
3. Team Obama plotting a heroic voter-rousing rescue of a kidnapped Ambassador that went badly wrong
4. Libya's Green Resistance with NATO cover-up
5. Resistance fighters after documents containing names of Libyans who are working with Americans

1. Mossad

The Israeli intelligence services are frequently implicated in staged terror attacks. Gordon Duff's theory is that:
"The attacks against the US consulate in Benghazi were, we believe, stimulated, paid for and organized by Israel's Mossad and they had nothing to do [with the Libyan people]," he added.
And
"All that Netanyahu has managed to convince is he has convinced the people of the United States that he is attempting to interfere in our election; we resent it," Duff noted.

Given their track record, we can't rule out Israeli intervention in such events. However, would such an attack guarantee a Republican win at the polls? Does it really matter either way to Netanyahu? Recently both Obama and Romney provided the American Jewish Committee with pledges to isolate Iran and support Israel. With no fundamental difference between Obama and Romney when it comes to attacking Iran (or anything else for that matter), is Netanyahu really concerned who wins? Having said that, there could be something to Netanyahu preferring Romney's support and therefore Mossad involvement: It is publicly known that Romney is a 'personal friend' of the Israeli Prime Minister. The emotive 9/11 date of the attack and timing of the release of the CIA/Mossad/MI5 anti-Islam video seem more than coincidental.

2. CIA Mormon Mafia

Webster Tarpley lays the blame at the door of the Neocon supporters of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and what he calls the 'CIA Mormon Mafia'. He cites a rather questionable UK Daily Mail article claiming the 'al Qaeda' attack ringleader was 'former' al-Qaeda terrorist Sufyan Ben Qumu, who was reportedly once Osama bin Laden's chauffeur. The Mail claims Qumo had been released from Guantanamo in 2007, turned over to Gaddafi on the condition that he be kept in prison, but was released in 2010 by Gaddafi to celebrate the dictator's 41st year in power. Tarpley then speculates:
Clearly, the likely way somebody like Qumu could be released from Guantanamo would be if he had become a double agent working for the CIA in the overthrow of Qaddafi. We therefore have a situation in which a reputed CIA asset has carried out the assassination of the US ambassador. The existence of a Mormon Mafia within the CIA interested in staging an October surprise to help Romney get elected may provide the key to explaining these phenomena.
In his research Tarpley does provide some very interesting connections and information on Romney's relationship with the Morman Church. However, given the average American voter's knowledge and interest in foreign policy, it seems a rather convoluted method to alter the course of a US election. An example of voter indifference over Benghazi is illustrated by this video targeting the ignorance of 'Obama' voters. One would expect Republican voters not to fare much better:


The indecision and apparent 'weakness' the Benghazi incident invoked in the Obama administration could be favouring the Romney campaign. However, if that was the intention wouldn't something a bit closer to home, and delivering much clearer impact, have been orchestrated?

3. Team Obama

As an example of the more ludicrous and unsubstantiated claims, another theory begins with 'a call from a someone high up in White House circles' from an 'impeach Obama' website. I include it here just to illustrate how distorted and speculative theories can become:
According to her [some anonymous high-up insider lady], Barack Obama, wanting an "October Surprise," had secretly arranged with the Muslim Brotherhood for a kidnapping of our ambassador. Then sometime in October before the election Obama was to orchestrate some great military action to rescue Ambassador Stevens, causing all of America to cheer Obama's strong foreign policy and bravery and making him look like a hero. After all, his supposed killing of Osama Bin Laden bounce had long since faded. Thus, sweeping him to victory in November. Imagine the headlines and talking points.
10 out of 10 for creativity, but this hypothesis would elevate Obama to criminal master-mind status. He can just about read a Teleprompter and make witty one liners on the Daily Show, but to pull off a stunt such as this seems rather far-fetched. This theory also requires us to believe that the winner of the US election is undecided until the votes are 'counted' and that Obama or Romney have to use dirty tricks to actually try and win. The sad truth, however, is that the US presidential elections are a charade and nothing more, and the decision as to who will 'win' has already been made.

As a side note, the Daily Show episode provides an excellent example of just how the election campaigns and complicit media stage-manage events. To counter claims of the contenders not doing enough to appeal to female voters - and not to be outdone by Romney announcing his 'binders full of women' - Obama starts off by introducing a crowd of 'woman warriors' who just happen to be in the audience by accident.

4. Libya's Green Resistance

Mark Robertson and Finian Cunningham present compelling evidence of the attack not being politically motivated at all. Instead it is just one in a long series of strikes by a strong resistance force that Western powers refuse to acknowledge for fear of bursting the illusion that their occupation of Libya is wanted by the Libyan people:
In reality, the Resistance has been increasingly active since shortly after the murder of Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011, as will be shown below. They strike any NATO target they can, and they execute key Libyans who betrayed Gaddafi and sided with NATO. The Benghazi incident was merely their latest blow against what they see as NATO's illegal occupation of their country.[...]

The most obvious explanation is that cadres - the Green Resistance - loyal to Gaddafi and in opposition to the NATO-imposed regime carried out the attack. NATO and its Libyan quislings don't want to admit this subversive reality. The fact of a resistance - a potent and growing resistance at that - has to be denied, erased from the record.
5. Stolen Documents

John Robles provides a corroborative reason to the previous theory with the addition of a key piece of information that has received little attention:
What really happened in Benghazi was the result of long-running US meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations and in particular in the Muslim world, an area they have shown time and time they have no clear understanding of and even less respect for. The attack in Benghazi was an attack on one of the CIA's largest operations in the region. This is clear from the fact that Steven's death was a secondary event in the attack on the compound. The attackers were after what was in the compound, not Stevens.

This was also underscored by the fact that over half of the US personnel evacuated from Benghazi were CIA, the sheer number of them surprising even to Libyan officials and the fact that a CIA safe house was also attacked at the same time.

The most conclusive evidence we have as to the nature of the attack was what was taken from the embassy compound. The UK's Independent reported that: "... missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans... while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts." The same article states that the US knew 48 hours before the attack that American missions could be attacked but failed to do anything about it.
Supporting evidence for the security failure was reported by the Daily Telegraph in this remarkable admission:
Sources have told the Daily Telegraph that just five unarmed locally hired Libyans were placed on duty at the compound on eight-hour shifts under a deal that fell outside the State Department's global security contracting system.

Blue Mountain, the Camarthen [Wales,UK] firm that won a $387,000 (£241,000) one year contract from the US State Department to protect the compound in May, sent just one British employee, recruited from the celebrity bodyguard circuit, to oversee the work.[...]

Other firms in the security industry expressed surprise that Blue Mountain had won a large, high profile contract from the US government. One industry executive said the level of service Blue Mountain provided did not appear adequate to the risks presented by a lawless city.
With such ineffective and seemingly deliberate security choices, one can't help wondering whether the attack was indeed intended to happen. But would the US really want important documents to fall into the hands of an anti-US resistance force?

Occam's razor

Occam's (or Ockham's) razor is a principle attributed to the 14th century logician and Franciscan friar William of Ockham. Derivatives of the theory include that "in choosing between competing hypotheses, the one which makes the fewest assumptions should be selected" or "The simplest explanation for some phenomenon is more likely to be accurate than more complicated explanations."

Using that principle to select the simplest explanation, it would appear that a combination of 4 and 5 are most probable. The resistance force in Libya against the US-led NATO occupation is much stronger than Western powers would care to admit. Documents containing names of which Libyans are working with American occupiers and oil contracts would be highly valuable to those wishing to destabilise the occupying force. The Western mainstream media, a dubious video and political debates play their role in spreading confusion and disinformation to cover-up continued anger over the mass-murder of innocent civilians with 'humanitarian' bombing campaigns.

However, in global geo-politics the simplest theory is not always the correct one. The waters muddy with competing imperialistic ideologies, political allegiances and corporate interests, such as security contractors vying for lucrative contracts,

Debate charade and non-election

The problem theories 1, 2 and 3 have is that in each case they assume that foreign policy is a decisive factor for voters in US elections. It isn't, not by a long shot. Voters are generally far more concerned about the economy, whether they have a job or not and to some where candidates stand on same-sex marriages. If Benghazi was going to be the deal-breaker for Romney, wouldn't he have been primed a little more thoroughly on what to say in the televised debates to captitalise on this? If Netanyahu, the Neocons or a 'CIA Mormon Mafia' were using this event to promote Romney, then wouldn't they have told him what to say?

romney obama big bird
© unknownThe next president may just as well be 'Big Bird'
Judging by the way the debate charade concluded, it seems that all the Benghazi attack has accomplished is to provide candidates with something to talk about and has assisted in perpetuating the illusion that there is any difference between them. Whoever gets elected will surround themselves with their cronies while US taxpayers continue to see their wealth redistributed, not to social programs in support of the general welfare, but to competing in-favour companies who have sent them the largest campaign donations. The largest corporate entities, such as the banks, financially support both sides and care not whether they are red or blue. The financial elite will continue their imperialistic expansions, covert wars of regime change and overt military attacks regardless of which puppet gets to call himself the commander-in-chief. The next president may just as well be 'Big Bird' for all the influence and power he will wield to change anything other than inconsequential issues.

The tactic of dividing voters on trivial issues hasn't changed since the Bankers' Manifesto of 1892 was written:
History repeats itself in regular cycles. This truth is well known among our principal men who are engaged in forming an imperialism of the world. While they are doing this, the people must be kept in a state of political antagonism.[...]

By thus dividing voters, we can get them to expand their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us, except as teachers to the common herd. Thus, by discrete action, we can secure all that has been so generously planned and successfully accomplished."
Conclusion

Perhaps we will never know exactly what happened in Benghazi and the reasons behind it. There isn't much hope for a Senate-led investigation providing the answers. Events such as these do, however, provide insight into how little control our elected officials have in a world dominated by unaccountable intelligence agencies operating at the bequest of corporate behemoths in oil, finance and military. Ultimately, politicians have little say in the direction of US foreign policy, which has been controlled by a wealthy financial elite comprising a shadow government for centuries. While Americans sit glued to their TV screens watching so-called leaders arguing in live televised 'debates', they are kept oblivious to events that will have far greater impact on their lives, such as the increasing signs of a celestial threat to humanity, arising from the increasing number of invading meteorites/comet fragments and a coming collapse of the global food supply.

Instead they are treated to a circus of distraction that cares nothing for the lives lost in maintaining the illusion of the American Dream.