Libya: The REAL October Surprise

Every presidential election cycle, Americans of all walks and political affiliations eagerly anticipate an "October surprise" -- that one bombshell revelation made public roughly two weeks before voters head to the polling stations to cast their ballots -- that will effectively tar and feather one candidate so thoroughly his or her chances at claiming the presidency become null and void.

Campaign strategists like David Axelrod have perfected the art of unearthing these "skeletons" on rival political candidates, and in some instances, even conjure them out of thin air for this very purpose. Case in point is attorney and Obama-supporter Gloria Allred's newly acquired preoccupation with Mitt Romney as she scrambles furiously to uncover any shred of "evidence" that might prove his "unsavory character" right before the November election. While the Romney camp could follow suit and in turn start digging in the dirt to discredit Obama, it doesn't need to.

It has Libya.

The attack on our diplomatic outpost in Benghazi that left Ambassador Christopher Stevens, two Navy SEALs and an additional civil servant dead has soured quickly from foreign policy debacle to an all-out scandal from which the president may not recover -- nor should he. When viewed in its proper context, Allred's October surprise, which rings more like something found in an episode of the Real House Wives of New Jersey, is an insult to the fallen Americans in Benghazi and their families.

The facts as they now stand reveal that not only did Obama know from day one that the Benghazi breach was an act of terror waged by pro-al Qaeda militants, but that he likely watched the carnage unfold via cameras fed live into the Situation Room from a predator drone hovering above the consulate during at least a portion of the attack, which was roughly seven-hours long.

How, really, could a decades-old testimony during a divorce proceeding compare to the gravitas of a U.S. president with American blood on his hands? How could the fodder of tabloids distract attention away from an American president who repeatedly lied to the American public to cover up either his ineptitude, or worse, the fact that he knew precisely who attacked our consulate in Benghazi because they were the very pro-al Qaeda rebels his administration had been arming all along?

Those I have spoken to including former CIA officer Clare Lopez and Middle East experts Steve Coughlin and Andy McCarthy are all acutely aware that Ambassador Stevens may have indeed been the pointman in yet another U.S.-led gun running scheme. From what can be pieced together thus far, the Muslim Brotherhood and its proxy, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) leader Abdulhakim Belhadj, appear to have been advising the U.S. on which rebel-factions in Libya and later, in Syria, should receive our arms. Those rebel factions, by the way, comprise members of al Qaeda, which stands to reason given that bin Laden's alma matter is in fact Muslim Brotherhood progeny.

Questions, of course, abound.  Why would Obama turn on Muammar Ghadafi, who had abandoned his nuclear and biological weapons program in compliance with U.S. demands and with whom he had been working specifically to tamp down the very al Qaeda insurgents who were spreading through Libya like a cancer?

Why would rebels kill the man who was supplying them with weapons? Why would these al Qaeda rebels turn on the very country that was aiding them? Moreover, why were we aiding them in the first place?

The answer is likely a rancid stew of flawed ideology on the part of administration officials coupled with the misguided belief that if America simply helps those who hate us, those who hate us will somehow hate us less -- or at least enough not to seek our outright destruction. Time and again, we have been proven wrong, as was made evident after Jimmy Carter aided the Mujahideen (and a young Osama bin Laden) in Afghanistan against the Soviets.

It would behove elected officials to heed the fable about the viper and the farmer:

A farmer, trekking home through the woods one blustery winter day, stumbles upon a snake, near-death, half-frozen from the cold. The snake implores the farmer to take him into the warmth of his cabin so he might be given another chance at life. The farmer, at first skeptical of trusting a viper, disregards his better judgement and decides that all things great and small, good and evil, deserve an act of kindness. With that, he bundles the snake deep into the coziness of his coat and makes his way home. Within moments, the farmer feels a sharp pain at his side. Ripping open his coat, he sees blood has been drawn and feels the venom begin to course through his bloodstream. "Why did you bite me?" asked the farmer. "I was trying to help you."

"Silly farmer," said the snake. "You knew who I was."

One thing is certain, if Obama was in fact fashioned in his father's anti-colonialist image, aiding Islamists to retake the Maghreb while expunging the region of all Western-influence, might make sense.

Despite the deeply flawed unofficial U.S. policy of aiding "non-violent" Islamists -- an oxymoron if ever there was one -- the Left conveniently forgets that jihadists do what jihadists do -- manipulate Americans to get what they want, then kill in the name of God as they work to implement a global caliphate based on sharia law. Ambassador Stevens learned this the hard way after he outlived his usefulness, and, like any other infidel, was snuffed out by the very savages he attempted to champion.

I was asked earlier today if it would not have been better for the president to simply have come out immediately following the terror attack this past September 11 and admit to al Qaeda's involvement. The issue for Obama, however, would be that by doing so, he would also have to admit that his policy of pandering to America's enemies has been the failure common sense always indicated it would be. Taking ownership of Benghazi would mean that Obama could no loner continue to sell the bill of goods that he cut off the head of the al Qaeda snake when he "single-handedly" smote bin Laden as he skulked in an Abbottabad compound. Nor would the president be able to peddle the lie that the war on terror is over.

Liberals now who deign mention Allred's juicy October surprise would be well advised to fear the Pandora's Box they are opening. Benghazi is Obama's Iran-Contra, Watergate, Whitewater, and Fast and Furious all rolled into one. And while a contingent of the U.S. may still have an appetite for reality television, there is no place for it in a U.S. presidential race, especially one that comes on the heels of American-lives lost, and lost so senselessly.