On Sept. 12, 2012, President Barack Obama vowed to "bring to justice" the perpetrators of the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya. On Oct. 26, 2012, Obama said his "biggest priority" was bringing the "folks" in Libya responsible for murdering four Americans to "justice." Tick, tock, tick, tock.
While White House press secretary Jay Carney sneers at the GOP's "obsession" with what went wrong at the besieged Libyan consulate, Obama continues to ply his emptiest talking point. On May 13, 2013, more than eight months after the bloody disaster, Obama snippily reminded reporters that he had told us all back in September that "we would find out what happened, we would make sure that it did not happen again, and we would make sure that we held accountable those who had perpetrated this terrible crime."
Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Justice delayed is justice denied.
A little more "obsession" from this administration with hunting down the jihadist killers would be a good thing. How about a little more anger directed at the perpetrators and a little less rage aimed at the conservative press? Nah. Team Obama seems more singularly focused on blaming its opponents, smearing whistleblowers and deriding those who are trying to hold the president to his words, words, words.
Perhaps with their newfound skepticism toward the lying liars of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the former lapdogs of the White House press corps will start asking questions like this: Where the hell is Sufyan Ben Qumu a.k.a. Abu Sufian bin Qumu?
Qumu, a suspected Libyan Islamic Fighting Group militant with ties to the financiers of the 9/11/01 attacks, was held at Guantanamo Bay for six years. The Bush administration foolishly handed him over to the Gadhafi regime on the promise that he would remain imprisoned. In 2010, Qumu was granted amnesty and released.
Contrary to the delusions of the International Gitmo Bleeding Hearts Fan Club, the supposedly poor and oppressed Qumu did not content himself with writing poetry or farming potatoes. A week after the 9/11/12 attack, the Ansar al-Sharia leader was named a possible chief plotter in the deadly terrorist assault on our consulate personnel, staff and private security contractors in Benghazi. In April, international media outlets reported widely that Qumu had survived an assassination bid.
Two weeks ago, the FBI finally got around to publicizing photos of three individuals at the Benghazi murder scene who are wanted for questioning. Congressional and intelligence sources have said the probe has moved at a snail's pace. There's been a "near total lack of progress," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said in December.
It's all par for this administration's foot-dragging course. Remember: The FBI conducted a drive-by investigation last fall, flying in and out of Libya after a paltry 12 hours on the ground. What difference did the phony YouTube narrative plied by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and President Obama make? As former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, Greg Hicks testified last week that the damage done was "immeasurable" because it delayed the FBI probe. Classified documents were left unsecured at the compound. Critical time and evidence were squandered.
As Hicks explained, the YouTube fable publicly contradicted Libyan President Mohammed Magariaf, who had immediately reported after the 9/11/12 Benghazi attack that "this was an attack by Islamic extremists." The nonsense YouTube talking points "affected cooperation with the Libyans," Hicks said. "I firmly believe that the reason it took us so long to get the FBI to Benghazi is because of those Sunday talk shows." Meanwhile, the Washington Free Beacon's Bill Gertz reports, Qumu's Ansar al-Sharia goons "continue to operate freely" in Benghazi and spread jihadist ideology.
Instead of keeping as many terror operatives as possible off the streets and out of commission, the Obama administration is once again vowing to shut down Guantanamo Bay. Attorney General Eric Holder, whose former law firm Covington and Burling represented 18 Gitmo detainees demanding freedom, announced "a renewed effort to close Guantanamo" this week. This despite the chilling disclosure by the office of the director of national intelligence that 27.9 percent of the 599 former detainees released from Guantanamo were either confirmed or suspected of later engaging in jihadist attacks. That's a "2.9 percent rise over a 25 percent aggregate recidivism rate reported by the intelligence czar's office in December 2010," according to Reuters.
Closing Gitmo, you should note, just happens to be the top policy goal of the left-wing Center for Constitutional Rights. CCR is the U.S. group of jihadi-sympathizing lawyers who helped spring none other than Benghazi terror plotter Abu Sufian bin Qumu from Gitmo.
Social justice for Qumu and the Gitmo Goon Squad. No justice for the Benghazi Four. When it comes to Obama's vow to hold the killers accountable, there is no there there.
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.
