Is it wag the dog?

…the indefinite shutdown of 20 U.S. embassies in the Mideast and Africa after the announcement of a for-sure, impending terrorist mega-attack looks suspiciously gift-wrapped and well-timed.

For one thing, if we’re on the eve of a possible “9/11 junior,” what on earth is the president of the U.S. doing going on the Tonight Show for the umpteenth time?

Why is funny man Jay Leno the one who gets to ask Obama about al-Qaida, but he’s too busy for queries without punch lines from the Washington press corps?

The paradox is dizzying: The new “on its heels” al-Qaida, whose charismatic leader “Osama bin Laden is no more,” as Obama boasted during last year’s campaign, may no longer be as centralized, and CIA director John O. Brennan may claim al-Qaida has its eyes on regional preoccupations rather than on attacking us.

Yet this supposedly weakened “network of local-actor organizations,” as German Marshall Fund analyst Hassan Mneimneh described it to USA Today, has managed to shut down U.S. diplomatic facilities indefinitely in a strategically vital region stretching 6,700 miles by 1,700 miles, as the State Department frightens thousands of Americans out of traveling.

And apparently all because current al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri told a flunky in Yemen to “Do something!”

Who is really “on its heels” or “on the run,” to use the president’s campaign rhetoric last year — the terrorists or the U.S.?

When you shut down that many embassies, the terrorists win.

[Update a few minutes later]

The problem is that the administration refuses to admit we’re at war, instead insanely thinking that wars can be “ended” (the thought of actually winning one, against foreign, as opposed to domestic enemies, in anathema to them) by unilaterally declaring it over. And such a delusional attitude manifests itself like this:

Don’t look to Obama for leadership, especially in the area where his constitutional responsibilities are highest — protecting the nation’s security. In fact, Bagram is a problem of his own creation. Obama cannot reach an agreement with the Afghans to continue operating the base. No doubt Afghan president Hamid Karzai is none too happy about being abandoned in the middle of a fight. The administration cannot send the enemy prisoners to their home countries, such as Yemen or Pakistan, because these countries cannot be trusted to hold them. Obama will not move the prisoners to Guantanamo Bay because he has ordered that no prisoners be added there (which has reduced U.S. captures of al-Qaeda leaders to almost zero and cut off our most valuable source of intelligence on the enemy). He cannot bring them to the U.S. because of congressional opposition to his earlier attempt to move the Gitmo prisoners to the continental U.S.

Absolutely nuts.

[Update a couple minutes later]

This terror alert is “crazy pants“:

If ordinary Americans are confused, they’re in good company. Analysts who’ve devoted their careers to studying al Qaida and U.S. counterterrorism strategy can’t really make sense of it, either. There’s general agreement that the diffuse list of potential targets has to do with either specific connections authorities are tracking, or places that might lack the defenses to ward off an attack. Beyond that, however, even the experts are stumped.

Take this sampling of reactions from prominent al Qaida observers:

“It’s crazy pants – you can quote me,” said Will McCants, a former State Department adviser on counterterrorism who this month joins the Brookings Saban Center as the director of its project on U.S. relations with the Islamic world.

“We just showed our hand, so now they’re obviously going to change their position on when and where” to attack, said Nada Bakos, a former CIA analyst who was part of the team that hunted Osama bin Laden for years.

“It’s not completely random, but most people are, like, ‘Whaaat?’” said Aaron Zelin, who researches militants for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and blogs about them at Jihadology.net

“I’m not going to argue that it’s not willy-nilly, but it’s hard for me to come down too critical because I simply don’t know their reasoning,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research institute.

I think he’s being generous in assuming that there is actual reasoning going on.

…not “workplace violence.”

I signed the petition.

What in the hell does “the core of Al Qaeda” even mean?

It’s a de facto “core” even if the administration doesn’t want to call it that, just as there’s a de facto U.S. retreat is in progress even if the administration doesn’t want to call it that. After all, the evacuation of personnel and the closure of diplomatic missions are physical acts involving actual people being transported thousands of miles. They are actions in which real concrete and steel buildings are being shuttered, at least temporarily. Set against these tangible events are Carney’s word games about the core and the periphery.

This is nothing except a pathetic attempt to continue to maintain the campaign lies of last year.

The Egyptians turn on us. But there is this:

The idea that observing the treaty with Israel is something the US “buys” from the Egyptian military with aid is a typical US liberal media construct. It magnifies our importance and flatters our narcissism, distorts the nature of our relationships with Israel and its neighbors, and provides a simplistic picture of both Egypt and US policy. The Egyptian military supports the peace treaty with Israel because stability on its eastern frontier (and the return of Sinai, which came with the treaty) are in Egypt’s national interest.

I think that one of the reasons the military tossed out Morsi (in addition to the obvious public dissatisfaction with his incompetent and ideological, undemocratic rule) was that they didn’t want to get sucked into a war with Israel.

Al Qaeda? Or us?

[Update a few minutes later]

The rise of Al Qaeda and the administration’s Benghazi lies:

…what accounts for Obama’s weird attraction for this “Muslim revivalism,” despite all its Medieval tenets and near-psychotic behaviors?

No, he is not a Muslim. I repeat NOT (just to be absolutely clear). Nor is the president a Christian, unless you count Reverend Wright as such, which is ridiculous (and we all know he’s under the bus anyway).

Obama is a postmodern agnostic par excellence. But like so many schooled in post-modernism and cultural relativism, he has an immediate and intense enmity for anything that smacks of imperialism — and an equally intense desire to be seen as supportive of (although certainly not to live like) the downtrodden of the Earth.

Which leads us back to Benghazi. You don’t have to be Muslim to love the Muslim Brotherhood or even, consciously or unconsciously, sympathize with the goals, if not the actions, of al-Qaeda. You just have to have been imbued with a blind hatred of imperialism. That’s all you need.

And as Dinesh D’Souza documented, he has that in abundance.

The witnesses are being forced into a witness-protection program.

I don’t think they’re the ones being protected, though.

[Update a while later]

Will David Ubben blow the roof off the “phony” scandal?

Ubben was stuck on that rooftop for 20 hours before help finally arrived. He can tell us and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “what difference does it make”that help was not sent — at least two American lives. Ubben sustained injuries at Benghazi so severe he’s still being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Rep. Darrel Issa’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has tried to interview Ubben as part of its Benghazi scandal investigation, but the State Department has not allowed the meeting, according to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.

“While initially they said they would be helpful, pretty quickly they turned that off,” Chaffetz reported. “And I had a meeting scheduled to go visit this … young man and then I was denied.” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki denies Chaffetz’s claim, saying State has been fully cooperative.

Yeah, right.

[Update a while later]

“The CIA has been subjecting operatives to monthly polygraph tests in an attempt to suppress details of a US arms smuggling operation in Benghazi that was ongoing when its ambassador was killed by a mob in the city last year.”

Of course they have. Can’t let the truth get out. Might turn a “phony” scandal into a real one.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Gee, maybe this is worth investigating after all.

To be clear, it isn’t at all certain that the CIA was secretly funneling Libyan weapons to Syria, long before Congress “lifted its hurdles” on arming Syrian rebels. But if CNN’s report is correct, the CIA is at minimum trying to hide something huge from Congress, something that CIA agents might otherwise want to reveal — itself a reason for Congress to press hard for information. And if speculation about moving weapons is grounded in anything substantive, that would be an additional reason to investigate what the CIA is doing in Libya. Dozens of CIA agents were apparently on the ground in Benghazi, Libya last September.

And yes, it would be nice to know why, and what they were doing.

Congress is interviewing dozens of Benghazi witnesses.