Written by: Diana West 

Near the Italian consulate, Benghazi, 2006

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Imagine, pre-9/11/12, that you were responsible for arranging the defense of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Would you have considered American interests and personnel best protected by bringing in a local security outfit called the February 17 Martyrs Brigade?

The question has yet to come up in House hearings, but I think it holds the key to the Obama administration’s betrayal of the American people in “Benghazi-gate.” To an American with common sense not subverted by advanced degrees, the thought of putting Islamic “martyrs” in charge of American “infidels” in Benghazi – which, fun fact, literally means “city of holy warriors” – would trigger the inevitable “heck, no.” And that’s without even knowing what is significant about Feb. 17.

But I’m talking about Washington, D.C. Here, placing the lives of Americans in the hands of a thug-army linked to multiple atrocities and drawn from jihad-epicentral eastern Libya disturbs no collective brain wave. No matter that Benghazi and nearby Derna sent more men, per capita, to Iraq to kill Americans than anywhere else in the world. As far as the Obama administration is concerned, putting local boys in barracks inside the consulate compound was a great idea. Why not? President Obama’s ambassador, the late Christopher Stevens, was, as they say, “reaching out” across the jihad spectrum on official business.

Meanwhile, Ansar al Sharia (“Supporters of Islamic Law”), the al-Qaida-linked militia believed to have led the consulate assault in September, is a spinoff of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, but that didn’t scratch the lacquered political surface, either. And even as reports remind us of ties among February 17 Martyrs Brigade leadership, the Muslim Brotherhood and the web of jihad-poison spun by Qatar’s Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Libya’s Ali al-Salabi – the latter having been tapped by the Qatari dictatorship to distribute $2 billion to Libyan “rebels” – the focal point remains elsewhere.

Partly, that’s because the breathtaking lies the Obama administration has told us post-9/11/12 distract our attention from the disastrous policy previously in place. Plus, there remains a lingering confusion over good guys and bad guys. After all, Uncle Sam isn’t supposed to support bad guys. The Obama administration, however, threw in Uncle Sam’s lot with bad guys – the “rebels,” the “martyrs,” the Muslim Brothers, the whole jihad-happy crew in Libya and the wider Middle East. Uncle Sam, more or less, crossed to the “other side.” It is this alliance or support for “martyrs” and their sympathizers in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and Syria that is the betrayal from which Benghazi-gate rises, particularly as our veterans’ cemeteries and hospitals are filled with casualties caused by such “martyrs.”

More here.