Who’s in trouble over Benghazi (so far) and why
The Benghazi hearing this Wednesday and two pieces by The Weekly Standard and ABC News have established that there was a coordinated effort to scrub the initial public reports on the attacks of politically damaging information. They reveal that people in the State Department and, in all probability, the White House knew the attacks were pre-planned and well coordinated by al Qaeda linked terrorists. They reveal that the State Department knew from the beginning that there were long outstanding requests for additional security in Libya and that disclosure of this fact would be damaging.
ABC News has obtained the precise edits made to talking points to be disclosed to the public. The important point to be had here is that the person with the most fingerprints on these edits, so far, is career Foreign Service Officer and Ambassador Victoria Nuland. This is critical because Nuland is not a Democratic political appointee or White House staffer. In fact, Nuland served under various administrations and was a close adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney. While Nuland’s own politics are not yet clear it’s not without reason to note that she’s married to well known neoconservative intellectual Donald Kagan, the founder of the Project for the New American Century, putting her in close political and social proximity to Bill Kristol, the founder of The Weekly Standard, the same magazine calling for investigations and performing the first reporting on the talking points cover-up. This reveals two things, first that the cover up was systematic in the State Department; Nuland was seeking to cover for the Sate Department itself. Second it shows the non-Fox media’s initial indifference to the Benghazi investigations as partisan politics were more indicative of their own inherent biases than any grounding in fact. The partisan effort was not in investigating the attacks but instead in the Democratic Party’s circling of the wagons and “nothing to see here” routine. The true partisan politics were in the cover-up, a divide then sold to the public as a Republican witch hunt.
The cover-up, while seemingly starting at State, doesn’t end there. Reporting so far also fingers two high level White House staffers, Ben Rhodes and Jay Carney. Ben Rhodes is a White House Speech writer and close confidant to Barack Obama. He’s well known for helping craft the White House’s public positions on Middle East policy. In fact, Rhodes wrote Obama’s now infamous 2009 Cairo speech. Jay Carney is the White House Press Secretary, the same man who recently couldn’t find the moral clarity to reject the notion that U.S. troops in Afghanistan are terrorists. Both men seem to have been aware of, or participated in, the changes. Despite this Carney has been insisting from the beginning that the attacks were of the nature portrayed by the false edits instead of the nature indicated by the truthful intelligence reporting scrubbed from the release, something he knew to be a lie.
Of course the three people everyone is watching now are former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the President himself. There still remains the unanswered questions of how and why a Special Forces CIF team in Italy was left waiting on the tarmac, why no armed air support was scrambled, why a four man Special Forces detachment in Tripoli couldn’t get permission to fly in on a Libyan C-130, why CIA Global Response Staff at the nearby CIA Annex was refused permission to provide back up, why in the aftermath of the attacks Greg Hicks was told not to talk to visiting Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz and what instructions the President left as he delegated the handling of the attack before going to bed that night. Gregory Hicks, the State Department’s number one in country after Ambassador Chris Stevens’ death has already testified he was actively seeking the Tripoli detachment’s help and coordinated their airlift but that the team was denied permission to go. We also know that the CIA GRS, despite being denied permission to aid the Ambassador and his staff in Benghazi, saddled up and went anyway. Who exactly refused, or declined to provide, permission to send aid remains to be seen. The President, Panetta and Clinton are so far avoiding answering these questions, deflecting by leaning on the fog of bureaucracy surrounding the response.
The important thing to watch and demand accountability for now is that the media shines the light on the partisan obstruction of the investigation and that the House continues to seek answers to who, exactly, made the changes, was aware of the changes, was aware of requests for help, denied or refused to grant permission to help and what the President knew and when. Why did Jay Carney continue to lie to reporters about the nature of the attack? What was his motivation and who did he believe these lies helped? For those of us who expect leadership from our President perhaps most important of all is a personal explanation of why the President thought that having dinner with his family and getting rested up for a political fund raiser the next day was more important than dealing with an American Consulate under attack and one of our Ambassadors going missing.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Breaking News, Libya
Nobody expected a Spanish Inquisition!!!!
Normally, I might start off with ‘fire up the grill and get the thumbscrews’, but I’m in a somewhat more cheerful frame of mind and would recommend the comfy chair and poking Hilary with the pointy ends of soft cushions.
However, despite the cynical part of me that says it might all go south, I do believe this is unraveling — slowly, to be sure, there is no instant gratification in this — and there is much more than just Benghazi hidden behind that curtain.
I have a question…. someone came into the last posting about Benghazi and was all “B-b-b-b-b-b- Bush!!!” and someone else said…”Details boy”.
The following has been posted recently and folks are trying to use it as justification for this being “Republicans!!!/Right Wing/Tea Party” conspiracy but just how factual is this graphic? I’m finding quite different accounts on this as being somewhat factual or complete BS. Thoughts?
http://www.bartcop.com/benghazi-bush-60-dead.jpg
@2, what he fails to mention is that Liberals were up in arms over those bombings, but when one is attacked when a Democrat is in office not so much.
Hillary is getting strung up by the dem 2016 potus contenders.
Obama is going to get crushed by the gestapo tactics used against the film maker.
This a paper thin cover up of complete incompetence and misuse of power. very little probing is required to tear it wide open.
It still cracks me up that the official explanation of events of Sept 11, 2012 includes the delegation of decision making to the Sec’s of Def and State while the Prez took to his bed.
What really happened must be horrid if that appears to be a good cover story!
Voter are too busy ordering drugs via their Obama phones and trying to get 11 million illegal aliens more government benefits to care.
re #2
Most of those deaths are host country security forces or the attackers themselves. The premise of the graphic is also either mind numbingly stupid or intentionally disingenuous. The outrage over Benghazi isn’t that the attack happened, it’s that security requests were ignored, help wasn’t sent and, perhaps most crucially, there was a subsequent cover up of the attacks. In fact it was the reality as most Republicans understand it, that the world is filled with Islamist terrorists who will attack us any chance they get, that lead to the cover up of this attack. There isn’t outrage that it happened, it’s outrage that the Obama administration refused to admit the continuity as evidenced by the attacks in that very graphic.
@6
Echo that.
The US has way, way too many “low information” voters.
It’s not like the Dark Ages when Nixon was ousted. Back then, there were three channels and all of them were running the hearings live, for months on end.
Now you have so few media outlets even covering it (I’m looking at you, MSNBC) much less giving it the importance it deserves. Combine that with the eleventy-one bazillion other channels available, and the myriad of distractions available, and the demonization of anyone who cares about the subject and the public’s Give-A-Shit-meter bottoms out.
@7 That’s been my contention all along, that security requests from an area designated amongst the four most dangerous postings in the world should bear more weight to the Secretary than requests from The Netherlands for more tea cups and dinner service…..
Claiming you receive thousands of memos a day but fail to read the ones from the most dangerous areas speaks of incompetence at best and malfeasance at worst…of course this is the lady who determined that blow jobs are not sex….so her perceptive abilities are suspect at the outset.
of course this is the lady who determined that blow jobs are not sex
I’ve come to the conclusion she didn’t care who blew him as long as he didn’t blow her chances of getting elected.
@2 ChipNASA – I did a little homework on your question.
1. January 22, 2002 – Kolkata – the 5 killed were policemen — (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_attack_on_American_cultural_centre_in_Kolkata)
2. June 14, 2002 – Karachi – the 12 killed were Pakistani — (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/06/14/karachi.blast/)
3. February 28, 2003 – Islamabad – the 2 killed where security guards — (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/south/02/28/karachi.shooting/)
4. June 30, 2004 – Tashkent – the 2 killed where security guards — (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Uzbekistan) scroll down to 2004 Embassy bombings
5. December 6, 2004 – Saudi Arabia – there were actually 12 people killed, 3 attackers, 5 non-American employees, and 4 Saudi Security force people — (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/06/international/middleeast/06CND-ATTACK.html?_r=0)
6. March 2, 2006 – Karachi – 4 killed, 1 bomber, 2 locals, 1 American Diplomat David Foy — (http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/01/karachi.blast/)
7. September 12, 2006 – Damascus – 4 killed, 3 attackers and 1 local security guard — (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/12/AR2006091200345.html)
8. March 18, 2008 – Sana’a Yemen – 2 dead, a schoolgirl and a Yemeni policeman — (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/yemen/8097427/Yemen-a-timeline-of-attacks.html)
9. July 9, 2008 – Istanbul Turkey – 6 died, 3 gunmen and 3 Turkish National Police officers — (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_consulate_in_Istanbul_attack)
10. September 17, 2008 – Sana’a Yemen – there 19 dead, 6 attackers, 6 Yemeni policemen, and 7 civilians — (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_attack_on_the_American_Embassy_in_Yemen)
Of all the attacks on the list, as @7 NSOM said, one American was killed, he was diplomat David Foy in Karachi Pakistan. At the time of the bombing, Mr. Bush was visiting India and on his way to Pakistan.
@8
MSNBC isn’t a news outlet man, they just play one on TV.
Gee – a
left-wing“Progressive” web site that’s engaging in MSU (Making Sh*t Up) to cover for the POTUS. I’m shocked, chagrined, and amazed.Nuland’s involvement int this gives the left and the media (but I repeat myself) all the spin-munition they need: “The remnants of an evil right wing cabal in the State department engineered all of this to undermine the President! BUSH! BUUSH! BOOOOSH!!!”
68W58: depends. But I still want to hear her testimony as to what changes she made on her own authority – and what changes she was told to make, whether indirectly or directly.
Gov. Mike Huckabee’s comment on Fox News a week or so ago, may be accurate….he postulated that Obama would not survive the Benghazi scandal.
As the facts unfold, I tend to agree.
@16 LIRight :
Call me cynical, but I’ll believe that when I see it.
Am throwing this out after having watched most of the presser this afternoon. Something rather alarming happened, in my view. You could almost see the minds of almost everyone in the room rattle and turn away when they realized that they were being lied to, had been lied to, and were expected to continue to repeat the lies. The looks of betrayal around the room were difficult to ignore. Carney saw it, too.
Anyway, of all the questions that remain to be answered, this is the one which it looked today is the turning point for the media generally: How do you reconcile the fact that you refused to report terrorism without an investigation yet came up with the video, which no one had heard of until you put it out there, with no investigation?
I was surprised to learn CBS (Sheryl Atkinsson), ABC (Jonathan Karl) are covering the story. One soon to be unemployed reporter at NBC reported she’d been contacted as part of the effort to undermine the testimony of the 3 witnesses.
Of course, the rest of the press is out in full force, having the advantage of a message coordination meeting with the White House this afternoon. I’m sure we’ll soon learn Hicks, Nordstrom and Thompson are wife-beating Evangelicals who don’t pay their taxes and regularly rape small primates.
@19
Probably.
@18 – Looks of betrayal – priceless. I’m waiting for the anger to start.
I don’t know what you all think of Jon Lovitz, but a year ago at his comedy club, he epitomized the intensely angry reaction to being blatantly betrayed by — ready for it? — Obama. I’ll post it if you want to see it. It’s screamingly funny and worth the brief amount of time it takes to watch it.
I don’t really care what Nuland’s politics are. She needs to be held accountable like the rest of the lot. Like Ex-PH2 mentioned, this is unfolding but all too slowly for my preference. While being called on the carpet and having your ass chewed is one thing, but to keep lying about something that just doesn’t add up just makes things worse.
Another post mentioned tea cups in the Netherlands. What strikes me along those lines is that in a geographic hotbed like Libya, both State AND the White House should have particular and special interest in those places and acted immediately when the first message/phone call came in to the WH situation room. It’s not like the call came in from Switzerland. We’re talking about Libya, but they ignored it.
Like many of us observed on about September 13, 2012, things just weren’t making sense. The video excuse was bogus, because it had been out since June. Why hadn’t the radicals started burning shit up within days after it posted on YouTube? Sadly, what we all suspected then is just now coming to light now. It has NOTHING to do with politics, but it DOES have something to do with abandoning Americans and then specific people covering it up to save their own asses.
Is it worse than Watergate. You’re fuggin;-A right it is. Nobody died during Watergate. The only exception then was our culture had the mindset of getting down to the truth. Today, not so much. Hopefully we’re seeing that change.
Question of the Month: “How do you reconcile the fact that you refused to report terrorism without an investigation yet came up with the video, which no one had heard of until you put it out there, with no investigation?” Love it, OWB.
“The video excuse was bogus, because it had been out since June.” Not to mention the 12 memos, the on-the-record concern that an attack would occur, and the fact that within an hour or so after the attack began, State knew damn well that this was an organized terrorist attack. Only as an aside, I’d like to know what genius (probably CIA) knew of the video and suggested its use as the smokescreen.
@5 – OWB, I can’t watch this stuff on TV – don’t have a working TV, have other obligations right now anyway, so I’m missing a lot.
Are you saying that the Dumbocraps / administration are hanging Hilary out to dry — just hanging her from the yardarm? (old sailing ship phrase)
If so, if she’s even close to as smart as she’s been made out to be, she should hand it back, in spades.
I am hoping someone asks State “why was the Embassy secured by 2 five man DSS teams, an ODA with additional 18D’s, CCT’s, and M2 .50 cal and MK19’s….but after June 2012 it went to just Five DSS agents, who had NO heavy weapons. Who made the call to cut manning at State, and why were the SOF personnel pulled from Libya?
I’d like to take credit for this, but I stumbled on it at some point in my endless surfing over the past 18 years or so: “the greatest genius of the 20th century wasn’t Einstein-it was Goebbels.”
It’s true, I wish it weren’t, but it is. Propaganda and the ability to shape public perceptions are the key to power in a world of mass communications. The media and the left (but I repeat myself) have too much invested in Obama not to cover for him-regardless of the fact that he lied to their collective face. Obama is the most left-leaning President in American history and the left and the media (but I repeat myself again) will make every effort-and suffer any injury or insult-to protect him.
It won’t work against us, but we aren’t the target. A capable opposition party could make hay from a scandal like this, but the Pubbies have shown time and again that they aren’t capable of capitalizing on Dem mistakes.
@22, 24: The video played a clear role in the protests in OTHER cities. It’s not just some ‘excuse’ trotted up by the administration. When you have multiple cities holding protests over a video (regardless of the fact that most protesting would never have seen it), it’s reasonable to feel there would be some confusion as to the root cause of the attack in Benghazi.
Put another way, if a heat-wave and some thunderstorms lead to a bunch of brush-fires, and after four or five another one starts up, it isn’t unreasonable to think the weather might have something to do with it. Even if you had someone threatening to commit arson. Especially when that person ALWAYS threatens to commit arson.
@16
No way is the Imperial One getting blasted off his throne. Sorry, but Gov Huck is going to be eating his words. The combination of a massive sympathetic liberal media, the race card, and general public apathy provides the Emperor a cloak of un-impeachibility.
However,thats not to say Bam doesn’t have a serious problem. He is in a race against time to push forward his second term agenda, before becoming a lame duck – around 2014 midterm elections. Benghazi scandal will become a huge distraction occupying a big chunk of the administration’s time and focus.
To compound matters, there could be another investigation in the works for the admitted IRS strong arm tactics against a conservative organization. Things are getting curiouser and curiouser.
Heh-Iowahawk: “Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.”
https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/statuses/332494589934047234
Disengaged apathetic voters will keep ovomit in until the end of his term. I do believe that they will lose the senate though and that the house will remain in the RINO’s folder.
You always gotta remember they are supported by the typical idol voter and most of them don’t have enough sense or intelligence to blow their nose if the snot is running out of it into their mouths…
You people give up far too easily.
Sharon Atkinsson of CBS has been on this story since the beginning, no thanks to CBS news. There have been others as well but ABC isn’t one of them. Regarding the attacks while Bush 43 was in office; true, but he and his administration never lied or even remotely attempted to cover them up in any way. Most of them were bombings in which there was no chance to respond and save anyone as with what happened in Libya. B And the infamous video had absolutely nothing to do with the attack in Benghazi which got four Americans abandoned and killed. The military? That’s just an outdated institution from which democrats can take money from for redistribution and use for social experiments. Or insult. I hope Obama and the rest of these crooks go down hard.
#2, to be specific (some of the information may be a bit off, as it’s tough to find info on some of these attacks–shocking, huh):
Kolkata – 5 LNs killed by gunmen
Karachi (2002) – 12 LNs killed by VBIED
Islamabad – 2 LNs killed by gunmen
Tashkent – 2 LNs killed by VBIED
Saudi Arabia – 9 LNs and TCNs killed by gunmen
Karachi (2006) – 1 US diplomat, 3 LNs killed by VBIED
Syria – 1 LN killed by gunmen (the graphic says 4; the other 3 were attackers)
Yemen – 2 LNs (including a schoolgirl) killed by mortar attack
Istanbul – 3 LNs killed by gunmen (graphic includes 3 attackers)
Yemen – 12 LNs and one US civilian killed by gunmen
A couple obvious points here:
-Several of these were VBIEDs, the attacks using gunmen were all stopped almost immediately by local security forces. There were no multi-hour pitched firefights, so no need or opportunity for Bush to send in the cavalry.
-Grand total of two dead Americans. One was a diplomat in Karachi who was likely the target of the attack, the other was a civilian at the embassy in Yemen who had recently married a Yemeni man and was waiting in line with him to get him paperwork to move to the US–wrong place, wrong time.
-The fact that whoever made that graphic included terrorists to inflate the body count in several of the attacks shows you where their loyalties lie.
Looks like Anonymous is trying to raid the blog. Thousands of comments that will probably be nothing more than adds and links to porn sites lol.
#29 Devtun
You took the words out of my mouth with regards to; “there could be another investigation in the works for the admitted IRS strong arm tactics against a conservative organization”
I don’t think we should underestimate how seriously Tea Party and Conservative groups take this anti-American stance, nor should we sell short (as mentioned above)that Jay Carney threw Hillary under the bus in the news conference yesterday. The Clinton’s don’t like our ass-wipe POTUS, so I’m sure if they see her chances of being elected in 2016 evaporate, or at least severely damaged, they’ll come out swinging and throw that LIB-IN-CHIEF under his own bus….at least I hope that’s what happens.
@36 – I was hoping someone would say that (besides me).
The one time I would like to have a TV… oh, well.
@28- mortars and heavy machine guns are crew-served weapon systems. They are not items that you just grab on your way out the door when attending a spontaneous protest, and they are not something you just go bee-boppin’ down the street with. They are weapon systems that require both planning and a dedicated team to set up and use properly. Like the ambush at the safe house, where those bulky weapon systems were put to use.
The administration knew from the start that it wasn’t a protest, because the CIA told them so. So did the Libyan president. But a pre-planned terrorist attack by an organization that the president had triumphantly announced he had decapitated just months earlier doesn’t play well 8 weeks before an election, so someone at State ordered that it be blamed on a video.
Those of us with our heads out of our asses could tell the administration was lying about it from the jump.
I’d like to see some persuasive documentation from non-Administration sources that the other protests (Cairo et al) that day were in reaction to the video as claimed. My guess is they were organized and carried out on 9/11 for other reasons – reasons that should be obvious to even someone as deep in his cups of Progressive Kool-Aid as “Anonymous” in (comment 28 above). The Islamic world is very conscious of anniversaries.
The current Administration has told so many lies and/or shaded the truth so much about what happened on 11 September 2012 that I’m not willing to take much they say about events that day at face value. Hell, at this point they could tell me that 11 Sep 2012 was a Tuesday and I’d look at a calendar to verify the fact.
Hondo: At the time it was happening, terrorists around the world were communicating among themselves stuff like, “What video?” and laughing at the stupid Americans. It actually confused them. Here they had gone to the trouble of arranging all these different events around the world and the Americans were still clueless?
No, I don’t have a link to post on that – just remembering seeing that report some place at the time. And it stuck with me as being quite believable.
The video or, more accurately, the video trailer, prompted the widespread violence in the same way that a solo homerun by a team all ready leading 19-0 can be said to be the reason for the losing team’s defeat.
Don’t usually enjoy playing hypothetical games, but have been trying to make some sense out of this (as has everyone else) since it happened, and searching for any explanation for the follow-on nonsense.
AC, you threw out a detail that, when combined with other details, might explain quite a lot of it.
What if Boehner is not quite as dumb as we all think he is? Had he immediately appointed special counsel, what would the likely result have been? Pretty much stonewalling and derision. Perhaps absolutely no good at all.
What if broadbeam was allowed the “not under oath” thing as part of the greater plan here? She knew and Boehner knew that sooner or later she would be subpoenaed and would tell the absolute truth.
For those pushing an agenda, it is the agenda that is important, not the individuals involved. As much as the media, for instance, is enamored with the celeb du jour, they will happily support anyone else who would more effectively push the agenda. It’s looking from here that the occupier in chief has reached the limit of his effectiveness. He may not yet understand it, but some significant others do.
Prediction: Broadbeam comes out of this smelling like a rose. If allowing herself to be thrown under the bus actually would push the agenda, she might consider doing it. She absolutely would never allow that under any other circumstances.
First we had Bagdad Bob. Now we have Benghazi Jay.
Well, Hilary is being challenged to ‘splain herself by Rand Paul while he’s in Iowa.
http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/11/18183010-rand-paul-challenges-hillary-clinton-in-key-iowa-speech?lite>1=43001
She could do her so-called career a big favor if she got off her bodacious butt and turned the tables on the administration completely. I personally don’t think she has what it takes to do so, and I will not be surprised if she sticks to that stupid excuse (what difference does it make?) right to the end.
It isn’t jut Benghazi. That episode is the first leak in the dike. I believe there is far more crap coming, but it won’t be right away.
Don’t forget that at the time this was all going on, Muslim countries were pushing a resolution at the UN calling on member states to outlaw blasphemy against Islam and the administration’s friends in the press were starting to make noises about how maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea, just so we could all get along. The Youtube video story played right into that as well.
@38: Understood – and from the perspective that had that info, it was immediately clear that this was a well-planned attack. However, our intelligence community is large and complex, with different elements operating in slightly different spheres with considerable overlap. The ‘signal-to-noise’ ratio of attacks vs. ‘normal’ protests was pretty low that particular day, and early information is, sadly, often unreliable. For a more recent example of that, look at the Boston bombings.
All I’m saying is that when several embassies phone in saying, “Shit, we’ve got a LOT of protestors around, climbing over the fence and generally being idiots”, and ONE embassy, experiencing similar things, says, “Holy fucking shit! We’re under attack, get your asses over here!”, it’s possible -unfortunate, but possible- that you turn to other parts of the IC to see what their assessment is before you drop troops into a foreign land, fly jets over airspace you don’t own, etc. And if the other elements of the IC aren’t showing much, you hesitate. Some times that’s for the best, and sometimes -as in this case- it isn’t.
I don’t know what happened. I want to know more, too. There are lots of good questions to ask, and good ways to ask them, because nobody wants Americans to die, especially not to these types of assholes. But in getting to the truth, neither side should ignore the complexity of the situation, lest that lack of understanding of what really happened bite us in the ass again.
@ #46: And therein lies the largest of several ridiculous problems. In establishing truth, the only “sides” are those looking for the truth and those content with hiding the truth. My assumption is that you had a different view of the “sides” here.
I would be among those who finds this me vs thee thing as not only counterproductive by counterintuitive to the continuation of the Republic.
@Hondo: At the risk of playing semantics, can you define ‘reaction to the video’? If even one percent of the people protesting those few days had seen the video in question, I’d be shocked, but if one imam had -or had even heard about it- he could rally people for a protest. That protest would still be in reaction to the video, just not with first-hand knowledge of it.
As for news sources saying the video was indeed a critical part in protests, here’s the Wikipedia link which has some references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_Innocence_of_Muslims#Egypt
Specifically, it talks about Wesam Abdel-Wareth, the head of the Hekma TV channel, calling on Egyptians to protest that day regarding ‘this’ movie (he had the name wrong, and probably hadn’t seen it). There’s another mention that Jamaa Islamiya called for the protest on August 30th, according to experts at the WINEP.
And though you may feel me ‘deep in my cups of Kool-Aid’, I absolutely agree that the date wasn’t chosen arbitrarily, and I would wager good money on people using the protests to hide the carefully planned attack.
I don’t, however, think there’s some scandal here. Questionable actions within the ‘fog of war’? Sure, no problem, and they should be examined and learned from. The problem with this whole situation for people who aren’t already virulently anti-Obama isn’t the fact that there’s an investigation, it’s that this investigation is cranking the rhetoric up past 11 and is purely politics. Saying, “This was a sad day for Americans – we need to examine the causes to ensure this doesn’t happen again” would go over pretty well. Saying, “This is a scandal that dwarfs Watergate and is the worst moment in American history in the past hundred years, and the evil President doesn’t care about American lives! Vote us in instead!” just makes people like me -an independent, not a Democrat- tune out. Of course, maybe that’s just the Kool-Aid talking again.
@46- Your assessment of what the intelligence community may have been thinking DURING the attack (which lasted about 7 hours) could be right. I’m sure their switchboard was lighting up, though the information trickling out now seems to point towards the fact that the CIA knew an attack was going to happen there before hand, and that assets at the ready were told by someone high up to stand down. However, what the American public was sold as an excuse for weeks afterward was a blatant lie, and the source of our ire. After it was confirmed as an attack, it should have been called such. Not a protest. Hillary should not have told the grieving parents of those who were killed that she would “make sure that film maker is arrested” while their flag-draped coffins paraded by because she knew, at that point, that it was not about a film. As for the “not having enough time to arrange to get a team there” thing that is being passed around, let me share a little story with you guys: On 9/11/01, the USS George Washington was underway running reactor plant drills off the coast of the US. It was supposed to have been a four day cruise. We didn’t have any aviation fuel, no airwing, and no airdales. Just ship’s company. As soon as that second plane hit, we made flank turns toward NY. WHILE ON THE WAY THERE, the ship was supplied with aviation fuel, the airwing that was usually assigned to the JFK (which had gone into drydock), the airdales to run the airwing, bullets for our CIWS and M2s, and ordinance for the JFK’s F-18s. The GW went from unarmed and a thousand miles away to fully armed, battle ready and sitting in NY harbor, all in about 16 hours. This is not a routine drill that the navy runs, mind you- it was a drop-of-the-hat thing that required mind-boggling logistics to assemble. We don’t just have ships full of ammunition, ordinance and JP-5 cruising around looking for customers- they had to be loaded out and… Read more »
Anonymous (48): I’d take anything on Wikipedia with a huge grain of salt unless (1) I was familiar enough with the field to know whether or not their article was worth a damn, or (2) I independently fact-checked. Much on Wikipedia is either biased, inaccurate, or both. When you start talking about articles that support or cast doubt on “Progressive orthodoxy”, that becomes a near-certainty. Wikipedia is very biased politically.
Yes, Wikipedia has an article that says the protests on 11 Sep 2012 in the ME/Med were somehow related to “Innocence of the Muslims”. I have exceptionally grave doubts as to whether or not that is accurate.