Former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is scheduled to appear Thursday before a special House panel on the 2012 attacks on a U.S. government instillation in Benghazi, Libya following the U.S./NATO bombing of that country. For listing of events, see: accuracy.org/calendar.
DIANE ROARK, gardenofeden at wvi.com
Roark just wrote the piece “Classified Politics: A System and a Clinton in Disrepute,” which states: “The system for classifying intelligence and other national security documents is broken in major respects. Increasingly, it is also manipulated to punish perceived critics or to protect agency reputations and high officials, both from adverse publicity and in the courts. Hillary Clinton’s use of a private rather than State Department email service illustrates many of these issues. Her experience stands in stark contrast to treatment of national security whistleblowers, as illustrated in particular by variance in NSA (National Security Agency) communications intelligence policies.”
Roark retired in 2002 after 17 years on the professional staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and prior service on the National Security Council Staff, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and in the Intelligence section of the International division of the Department of Energy.
MELVIN GOODMAN, goody789 at verizon.net
Goodman is director of the National Security Project at the Center for International Policy. He was an analyst at the CIA for 24 years, including as chief and senior analyst at the Office of Soviet Affairs for a decade. His most recent book is National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism.
He said today: “The Benghazi hearings presumably will become part two of the media circus that the Republicans have created. But we still have much to learn about the CIA’s role in Benghazi; the interest of Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi; and the communications between the White House and the CIA in trying to explain the events of that terrible night in Benghazi.”
Goodman wrote in 2012 for ConsortiumNews that: “the consulate was the diplomatic cover for an intelligence platform and whatever diplomatic functions took place in Benghazi also served as cover for an important CIA base.” See: “The Why Behind the Benghazi Attack.”
Goodman wrote the piece in 2013 “The Real Benghazi Scandal,” for CounterPunch, which states: “When congressional Republicans complete manipulating the Benghazi tragedy, it will be time for the virtually silent Senate intelligence committee to take up three major issues that have been largely ignored. The committee must investigate the fact that the U.S. presence in Benghazi was an intelligence platform and only nominally a consulate; the politicization by the White House and State Department of CIA analysis of the events in Benghazi; and the Obama administration’s politicization of the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General, which has virtually destroyed the office and deprived congressional intelligence committees of their most important oversight tool.”
