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Where are the Benghazi survivors?

Feb. 8, 2013 1:04pm Meredith Jessup

In my opinion, any good journalist is a bit of a conspiracy theorist at heart. Every story has a bottom, some are deeper to dig through than others and I believe Benghazi to be one of those stories.

Sen. Rand Paul seems to be one person working to get to the bottom of the story and keeping his eye on the bigger picture. Make no mistake, the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi wasn’t just about a protest gone awry or the anniversary of September 11. There’s a larger story that has yet to unfold in all of this, another shoe to drop.

As we reported here, Paul suspects it involves under-the-table arms deals:

I really think part of the cause may have been there was a gun running operation going on in Benghazi, leaving Libya and going to Turkey and distributing arms to the rebels… They’ve interviewed the captain of the ship. A ship from Libya sailed for Turkey a week before the ambassador was killed. It was full of arms and they interviewed the captain and he actually specifically talks about the distribution of the arms to Syrian rebels… And I think the administration needs to answer, “Are they running guns through Turkey to Syria?”

If true, this scenario might help explain why Ambassador Stevens was meeting with Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin just before he was killed. Through shipping records, Fox News has confirmed that the Libyan vessel Al Entisar arrived in the Turkish port of Iskenderun — located just 35 miles from the Syrian border — on Sept. 6, just five days before the attack. The cargo reportedly included surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and shoulder-launched missiles.

Although what was discussed at the meeting is not public, a source told Fox News that Stevens was in Benghazi to negotiate a weapons transfer, an effort to get SA-7 missiles out of the hands of Libya-based extremists. And although the negotiation said to have taken place may have had nothing to do with the attack on the consulate later that night or the Libyan mystery ship, it could explain why Stevens was travelling in such a volatile region on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Following their meeting, Stevens reportedly escorted Akin out the compound’s main gate at 8:35 p.m. local time. But residents in the neighborhood surrounding the consulate reported that bearded Al Qaeda jihadis in pickup trucks mounted with machine guns were setting up checkpoints at about 8:00 p.m. Because of the checkpoints, “it felt like our neighborhood was occupied, no one could get out or in,” one witness told the Associated Press. But somehow, Akin managed to slip out of the area with no problem before the attack commenced at 9:35 p.m. And even if he passed through the terrorists’ checkpoints, there was obviously no attempt on his part to warn the Americans at the consulate of an impending attack.

Obviously there are a lot of questions that remain. One of the biggest questions I have in all of this is where are the survivors? While four Americans were killed in the attack at the consulate and safe house, many others managed to escape. From early reports, we know that there were at least five State Department diplomatic security agents in Benghazi during the attack who were evacuated to Germany and received medical treatment for smoke inhalation; one was seriously wounded.

Further, Brig. Gen. C.K. Hyde has confirmed that Air Force personnel evacuated 32 Americans from Libya to Ramstein AFB in a noncombatant evacuation operation following the attack.

The State Department’s own Accountability Review Board later reported that one of the surviving diplomatic security officers at the Benghazi mission actually saw the attack begin on a security video monitor as dozens of armed terrorists entered the compound’s main gate. At that point, he sounded the alarm and phoned the CIA annex and the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli to alert them that they were under siege. (What? No protest over a YouTube video?)

During her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed that she had spoken to just one of the American survivors evacuated from Libya after the attack. The FBI has likely debriefed the eyewitnesses, but who knows? While the names of the four Americans killed in the attack were released almost immediately, the Obama administration has not publicly named a single one of these survivors.

Why?

We need to keep digging…

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Comments (13)

BrisonVoice
Posted on February 17, 2013 at 4:41pm
PLEASE! Keep digging! It’s been 6 months with no word about or from these survivors! What is going on???

Report this comment
thindime
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 12:10am
There massive coverups occurred for the price of one:

1.) The lead up to the massacre
2.) What happened during the 9 hour siege window
3.) The complicity in coverup for weeks after the massacre involving multiple US departments and people.

Most of atrocious of all? WHO SAT AND WATCHED OUR PEOPLE DIE OVER HOURS?
The President had the power and hung them out to dry,,,WHY?

Report this comment
noslave
Posted on February 9, 2013 at 9:30pm
THE 3AM CALL CAME&NO ONE ANSWERED??obama was fund raiseing??hillary was rug munching??panetta was??give me a break it was an OOPS WE DID IT AGAIN MOMENT??BUT WE PROMISE IT WONT HAPPEN AGAIN??AT LEAST NOT THAT YOU’LL BE AWARE OF?call the survivors to testify under oath,then execute the MUTTS RESPONSIBLE?

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SaturdaysWarrior76
Posted on February 9, 2013 at 8:03pm
There is someone very close to me who is in the USMC. He was on a ship in that area during the Attacks, and said everyone on the ship knew it was going on, and were ready to respond, ready to assist. All they needed was the word “Go” and they would have been on their way to help. He said the word NEVER came. And they were never told why they weren’t called (or allowed?) to go help…. they couldn’t understand why they were never sent to help! :(

Report this comment
- Philzway
  Posted on February 11, 2013 at 3:30pm
  Add your comments
  
  Report this comment
- AINT_SKEERT
  Posted on February 11, 2013 at 5:20pm
  A general and an admiral were relieved of duty after they refused to stand down. (within minutes after the attack started.)
  
  Report this comment
CathyvanDyke
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:46pm
FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Beck: Panetta testimony was cover Obama
http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/02/08/beck-panetta-testimony-was-cover-for-obama/?utm_source=Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2013-02-08_198584&utm_content=55424066&utm_term=_198584_198592

Rand Paul on Benghazi attacks: ‘Is admin. involved with running guns through Turkey to Syria.’
http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/02/08/rand-paul-on-benghazi-attacks-is-admin-involved-with-running-guns-through-turkey-to-syria/

GAFFNEY: The real reason behind Benghazigate
By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
The Washington Times
Monday, October 22, 2012
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/22/the-real-reason-behind-benghazigate/

Report this comment
- pragmaticpatriot
  Posted on February 12, 2013 at 12:41pm
  your food for thought gave me the runs, no one cares but We The People and that is the true scandal. Perhaps it was a case of green on blue shooting, or simply they didnt give them the Abrams and F-16s that they gave to The Brotherhood
  
  Report this comment
LeadNotFollow
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 5:00pm
Where are the survivors? Good point.
If the Government has nothing to hide, then let the survivors tell their side of the story.

Report this comment
Tom K
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 2:56pm
The Congressional Committee is still asking soft-ball questions and they are NOT getting to the bottom of this whole matter. Now, after three month delay to ” get her story straight “, Hillary Clinton has escaped to private life to crank up her 2016 campaign AND Pinetta is being replaced while making promises that this will not happen again. Only Rand Paul is asking the really tough questions about the Failure of Leadership and the Cover-up of Benghazi. Will there be Justice ? Call, e-mail or write your Congress Person and Demand Justice.

Report this comment
curmudgeon60
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 1:49pm
Thank you Meredith….my husband and I have been wondering This (as I’m sure many others) since the start. This brings it back to our attention again. Appreciate the work The Blaze does!

Report this comment
patriot30-378
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 1:19pm
From the very first reporting of this story, It seemed too conveniently concluded. Obviously the administration was out trying to head the story away from the direction that they didn’t want it to go. I got the feeling that Stevens was set up. He knew too much and wasn’t a sell out, the operation was coming apart at the seams and he had to be silenced permanently. The only option that they had was to take him out, but when the other Americans on the ground got involved, it monkeyed up their plans. You see the people in the administration have no morals, honor or guts and they do not think the way an Amercian Patriot thinks. They never would have put themselves at risk to save a brother and as such, these true Patriots became collateral damage in the operation. What was supposed to be an obvious response to some BS video blew up into a major league problem for the liar in chief. They have been doing everything they can to distance him from the flop, but it just shows his lack of cajones and value of American citizens and soldiers lives. He is truly a terrible, terrible human being. He is so damaged and brainwashed that he really thinks that what he is doing is the right thing.

Report this comment
- CathyvanDyke
  Posted on February 8, 2013 at 2:14pm
  patriot30-378 and Meredith Jessup
  
  Regarding the Benghazi attack … I am told I preceive an underlying conspiracy to happenings when in reality none exist. Both of your submissions articulate to a large extent my questions and suspicions.
  
  Thanks!!
  
  Report this comment

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