DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Christians4LessGvt on May 08, 2013, 12:39:32 PM
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Live stream of BenghaziGate Hearings:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/05/benghazi-hearing.html (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/05/benghazi-hearing.html)
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Here's my prediction.
The testimony will be just as damning as we've all been expecting
The MSM, outside of Fox perhaps, will merely report that there were hearings, and that the testimony "has the potential" to cause some political headaches for Obama and some concern for a Hilary presidential run
The MSM Pundits will then circle the wagons and repeat how "long ago" this was, how it matters not any more, since Obama won re-election, and that we need to all just "move on" so Obama can "do the work of the American people"
And the public will go back to watching baseball, going to work, paying their enormous tax bills, and settling in for the greece-like econimic crash that our debt is going to take us down in
(not to mention how if under a similar scenario, the left & MSM would be demanding resignations from the State Dept, CIA, and demands for impeachment procedings, given the amount of lies used in covering this up......IF this were a Republican President and his administration)
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Here's my prediction. he MSM Pundits will then circle the wagons and repeat how "long ago" this was, how it matters not any more,
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And that would be because this is of no importance to any sane American who understands that Libya was a chaotic place and the President was NOT TO BLAME fpor what happened.
Far More blame falls on stupid Juniorbush for all that crap about mushroom clouds and weaponized anthrax.
I do not give a shit about Benghazi.
I never will.
And neither should any sane American.
President Obama is doing a fine job despite all you ratbag rightwing Lumpenproletarian assholes.
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And once again, no one is "blaming Obama for the attack on Benghazi". The issue, has been and remains the actions leading up to, during, and the cover-up immediately following the attack. So you can dispense with the Blaming Obama strawman, since no one is argueing that
And of course you don't give a sheep. It's a Democrat running things. If it were a Republican, you'd be screaming bloody murder, jumping up and down and perseverating how it "happened under his watch"
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There are two questions about Benghazi that remain unanswered.
Once the attack was underway, what factors led to Obama Administrations non response.
What was going on in the annex that to this day has not been disclosed.
I believe the answers to the second are more embarrassing to the admin than the first.
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Indeed....excellent questions, and neither of which is into trying to blame Obama for the attack itself
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But we sure as Hell can blame Juniorbush, Cheney and Runsfeld with the expensive murderous mess they made of Iraq.
Obama is doing as good a job as he can, DESPITE the ratbag right.
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#1 - argue points never made
#2 - try to change the subject
#3 - launch personal insults
#4 - repeat
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But we sure as Hell can blame Juniorbush, Cheney and Runsfeld with the expensive murderous mess they made of Iraq.
Obama is doing as good a job as he can, DESPITE the ratbag right.
Obama is doing a piss poor job.
Exhibit A is how he transmogrified National HealthCare into National Insurance Industry Job Security Act
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I suspect there is blame here for Obama and Clinton prior to the attack. Once the attack started there wasn't much that could be done. Airpower was a 3 to 4 hour flight away and they would have needed to be refueled. From what I understand there were no tankers available. The Special Forces was also going to be late to the party.
BSB
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This was a minor incident.
It is unimportant to the fact that Prssident Obama has cleaned up Juniorbush's ghastly messes and has not mongered a war of his own.
Socialized medicine will one day save or extend your life, you should be grateful.
Dumb shits.
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Socialized medicine will one day save or extend your life, you should be grateful.
What part of ObamaCare is socialized medicine?
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I suspect there is blame here for Obama and Clinton prior to the attack. Once the attack started there wasn't much that could be done. Airpower was a 3 to 4 hour flight away and they would have needed to be refueled. From what I understand there were no tankers available. The Special Forces was also going to be late to the party.
BSB
The Enterprise was in the Med, it had passed thru the Suez 2 days earlier.
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Wait and see, that is what we will have, eventually.
Healthcare is too expensive because hospitals, specialists and drug companies are allowed to set proces. This will have to stop, and the government will stop it. Profit margins and salaries will be forced down.
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Wait and see, that is what we will have, eventually.
Healthcare is too expensive because hospitals, specialists and drug companies are allowed to set proces. This will have to stop, and the government will stop it. Profit margins and salaries will be forced down.
We don't have universal healthcare now, and that is because Obama did a piss poor job of selling it when he had the house and senate to get it done.
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Once the attack started there wasn't much that could be done. Airpower was a 3 to 4 hour flight away and they would have needed to be refueled. From what I understand there were no tankers available. The Special Forces was also going to be late to the party.
BSB
So, how far away is Tripoli from Benghazi? Last I heard, we had Special Forces stationed there (not to mention that the attack lasted hours, and was in at least 2 waves. Even some flyovers could have swayed the attack, lessened it, maybe even save some lives)
The efforts here to minimize and try to justify, not just the in-actions of this administration, but the clear effort to cover-up and try to make it about some you-tube video, is dare I say, very shameful, and very telling, considering these same folks are now trying to claim cover by citing that any "questioning" now is tantamount to politicizing the attack. Especially given how vigorous the criticism would be if this were a President Bush, McCain, Romney, or Palin
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I suspect there is blame here for Obama and Clinton prior to the attack. Once the attack started there wasn't much that could be done. Airpower was a 3 to 4 hour flight away and they would have needed to be refueled. From what I understand there were no tankers available. The Special Forces was also going to be late to the party. BSB
A US Special Forces ream in Tripoli was locked and loaded...
ready to go
and they were told to "stand down" and not go.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/10040372/Benghazi-US-special-forces-team-ordered-to-stand-down.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/10040372/Benghazi-US-special-forces-team-ordered-to-stand-down.html)
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But C.... they had to be "hours" away. I mean Tripoli is ........ how far away again, B?
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The Enterprise was in the Med, it had passed thru the Suez 2 days earlier.
Show me that is was available.
BSB
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The problem is not what happened after the attack was under way. The problem is that they were hung out to dry before the attack.
BSB
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From CU4s posted article:
>>Mr Hicks said a unit of American commandos had been ordered to board a Libyan aircraft in Tripoli and fly to Benghazi hours after the assault began on September 11 last year.
However, as they were preparing to head to the airport they were told by a senior figure at the US Special Operations Command Africa "you don't have the authority to go now," Mr Hicks told congressional investigators.
According to Mr Hicks's account, the special forces team would still have arrived too late to prevent the deaths of Mr Stevens and three other Americans.<<
Too late for the party.
BSB
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The problem is not what happened after the attack was under way. The problem is that they were hung out to dry before the attack.
BSB
Actually the problem is that we had special forces no more than 2 hours away, in an attack that lasted OVER 7 HOURS. The Consulate radioed for assistance almost immediately. We had air assets, including C-130's no more than 3 hours away, that did NOT require any refueling. The problem remains the elephant in the room.....the efforts to minimize and try to justify, not just the in-actions of this administration, including & especially the State Dept, but the clear effort to cover it up and try to make it about some you-tube video. So, we can "speculate" that their arrival would have been too late, but the problem is, it may have not been
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The elephant was in the room before the attack took place. That's the point. It's just like Lebanon. The mistake occurred before they drove through the gate and killed several hundred Marines. This happens a lot. People warn, and warn, no one does anything, bang.
BSB
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The elephant was in the room before the attack took place. That's the point.
That's ONE of the points, and agreeably a BIG one (I guess we have Hillary and the State Dept to thank for that). The BIGGER point here were the in actions of this Administration, when they CLEARLY had a window of opportunity to intercede, diminish, possibly have even halted the attack, even possibly preventing the deaths of 4 Americans. With then the BIGGEST point, the cover-up immediately following, based on what was clearly playing politics, as an election was drawing near. 4 lives, needlessly lost, because the Democrats had an election to win, as they could not be bothered with any of the clear warnings being provided before had, and couldn't be bothered with letting the Citizenry know the truth of what actually happened, after the fact, and risk dear Obama looking bad before ballots are cast. Yea, let's blame it on a you-tube video. Yea, that's the ticket >:(
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The elephant was in the room before the attack took place. That's the point.
That's ONE of the points, and agreeably a BIG one (I guess we have Hillary and the State Dept to thank for that). The BIGGER point here were the in actions of this Administration, when they CLEARLY had a window of opportunity to intercede, diminish, possibly have even halted the attack, even possibly preventing the deaths of 4 Americans. With then the BIGGEST point, the cover-up immediately following, based on what was clearly playing politics, as an election was drawing near. 4 lives, needlessly lost, because the Democrats had an election to win, as they could not be bothered with any of the clear warnings being provided before had, and couldn't be bothered with letting the Citizenry know the truth of what actually happened, after the fact, and risk dear Obama looking bad before ballots are cast. Yea, let's blame it on a you-tube video. Yea, that's the ticket >:(
Look, if the Special Forces, a unit I served in, was in Tripoli, that is hours from where the attack occurred. If you think they could have stopped the assault after it started you're going to have do better than you've done showing how. You can't just say, hey the SF unit was locked and loaded. Or, hey we had a carrier in the Mediterranean. They fucked up alright but they fucked up beforehand.
BSB
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The Enterprise was in the Med, it had passed thru the Suez 2 days earlier.
Show me that is was available.
BSB
Why wouldn't the carrier and its escorts be available? They were fully armed and provisioned, having just finished a deployment to the Gulf.
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BT, they might have been. I don't know what they were up to? I don't know if they had fighters available to be scrambled or if they were on a preselected mission. I don't know. Then you wonder what would they use? 250lbs.? They couldn't drop anything bigger in a neighborhood like that. Even 250 pounders are pretty big. I suppose they could have fired their 20mm. We'll have to ask plane about what else they have, I'm out of date.
BSB
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IIRC, we had one of our american heros, who perished needlessly, using a laser designator, lasing the mortars, that would have allowed pin point accuracy of Laser Guided munitions, which all carrier strike aircraft can carry. Not to mention that the special forces in Tripoli, were no more that 2 hours from the battle, given the speed of the Blackhawk helicopters, that our special forces generally use for entry into an area, when its not from sea. So yea, they could have had an impact on the battle, could have slowed the attack, maybe even have stopped it with, possibly even saved the lives of everyone........HAD THEN BEEN ALLOWED. There was a definate window, yet all our assests were told to stand down or never given orders to begin with
The frak up occured pre, got bigger during, with the fit hitting the shan immediately after
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Here's my prediction.
The testimony will be just as damning as we've all been expecting
The MSM, outside of Fox perhaps, will merely report that there were hearings, and that the testimony "has the potential" to cause some political headaches for Obama and some concern for a Hilary presidential run
The MSM Pundits will then circle the wagons and repeat how "long ago" this was, how it matters not any more, since Obama won re-election, and that we need to all just "move on" so Obama can "do the work of the American people"
In the real world, when you cover up four murders after the fact, you likely go to jail. In government, you retire with dignity and run for president with full media support.
Up until yesterday, that was the Benghazi scenario following the death of four Americans including our ambassador to Libya.
The Obama administration has lied, stonewalled, bullied, and intimidated – the true marks of an open and transparent administration. And, with a few notable exceptions, the American media haven’t just let them get away it. Heck, they’ve helped.
Hill testimony of State Department whistleblowers might change that, but it’s doubtful given the one-sided reporting so far.
The Obama administration has lied, stonewalled, bullied, and intimidated – the true marks of an open and transparent administration.
NBC said there was an “obvious political undercurrent” to the hearings and accused the GOP of going after the “most popular Democrat,” Hillary Clinton.
The New York Times public editor criticized her own paper’s Benghazi coverage and The Washington Post’s Twitter account inexplicably mocked those Tweeting about the case as “Chick-fil-A lovers.” AP even called it a “GOP” hearing, to make sure readers saw it as partisan.
A Politico story about CBS showed the truly insidious nature of media bias on this story and how the network held back Emmy award-winning reporter Sharyl Attkisson. “CBS News executives see Attkisson wading dangerously close to advocacy on the issue, network sources have told Politico,” wrote Dylan Byers. So much so that Attkisson is “in talks to leave CBS ahead of contract.” As a result, she hadn’t even reported on the Libya attack for five months.
It hasn’t just been CBS that has been trying to corral this story. New York Times coverage might still damage the administration even though that paper has tried to prevent it. MSNBC's sometime conservative, former Florida Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough, even Tweeted about Thursday’s Times story, saying it “should cause great concerns in the White House.”
That piece, “Diplomat Says Questions Over Benghazi Led to Demotion,” detailed State Department retaliation against one witness, saying “the prospects for the 2016 presidential election” could be impacted.
Of course, the article minimized that impact. “Mr. Hicks offered an unbecoming view of political supervision and intimidation inside the Obama administration,” wrote three Times staffers.
Unbecoming? Quite the understatement. Hey, sorry we ruined your career. That’s so unbecoming.
Public Editor Margaret Sullivan took her own paper to task, but also blamed Fox News for having “fomented” criticism of the Times. “In fact, what’s been written in The Times has been solid. But my sense is that, starting last fall, The Times has had a tendency to both play down the subject, which has significant news value, and to pursue it most aggressively as a story about political divisiveness rather than one about national security mistakes and the lack of government transparency,” she concluded.
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank treated the testimony as if witnesses were lying. His column called the sworn comments a “yarn” and referred to our No. 2 diplomat in Libya as a “virtuoso storyteller.” Milbank pushed the standard lefty response you can expect to see at least till November, 2016: “Hicks didn’t lay a glove on the former secretary of state Wednesday.”
It wasn’t just the traditional media spinning for Team Obama. Lefty outlets did their darnedest to downplay the death of four Americans, including the only U.S. ambassador killed since 1979.
On MSNBC, NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd undercut the scandal on the May 8 “Morning Joe.” Todd called the decision to not send more special ops forces to Benghazi “very rational.” Host Rachel Maddow blasted the GOP on her May 8 show for an organized conspiracy to make Obama resign, calling it “the most ambitious thing they have done.”
Comedian Jon Stewart devoted 8 and a half minutes attacking the GOP for the hearings, even bringing up Nixon cover-ups and saying the party has “a history of hysteria.” Increasingly, his role isn’t to make jokes. It’s as Obama’s Youth Ambassador/Spinmeister.
The liberal propaganda site Huffington Post incredibly didn’t even mention the hearings on the front page, just an attack on Fox’s coverage. Buried on the Politics page was the approved Democratic spin: “Benghazi Hearing Reveals Incompetence, But No Cover-Up.” Instead, it found room for stories on food addiction, “the female word for blowjob,” and “The Incredible Name Kevin Spacey Picked For His Rescue Dog.”
Other liberal sites went even further, ignoring the hearing and the testimony entirely. The Nation, Alternet and Democracy Now had no visible coverage. That’s a far cry from how the left reacted to even something as mundane as the NRA convention, where no terrorists killed four Americans.
It doesn’t really matter how they spin it, the news continues to get out. But if all major news outlets do is cover for the administration, they may well succeed in protecting their 2016 candidate.
Commentary (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/05/09/liberal-media-spin-benghazi-scandal-to-protect-team-obama/)
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There are....questions about Benghazi that remain unanswered.
What was going on in the annex that to this day has not been disclosed.
I believe the answers ......are more embarrassing.
(https://store.globalresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/logo_store.png)
The Benghazi Affair: Uncovering the Mystery of the Benghazi CIA Annex
By Ronda Hauben
Global Research, January 28, 2013
Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, finally appeared before the US Senate and House Foreign Relations Committees on Wednesday, January 23, after a long delay. She was asked many questions by the Congress about what had happened in Benghazi on September 11 and how this could happen. The problem with the responses she gave to these questions was that she focused on the narrative presented in the State Department Report that had been released a month earlier, and which is deeply flawed.
In order to understand the nature of what happened on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, and how the State Department under Hillary Clinton has been an important part of the cover up of what this second September 11 is actually a part of, it is important to understand the problem with the State Department Report being used to carry out the US government cover up of what I call the Benghazi Affair.
On December 18, the US State Department released its report on the September 11, 2012 attacks on two US facilities in Benghazi, Libya. These attacks had resulted in the deaths of the US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans working for the US government in Libya. The US government had claimed that its report would shed light on what had become a contentious Congressional and media debate over the cause and details of the attack on these two US government compounds in Benghazi.
Soon, however, it became clear that the State Department Report issued by the Accountability Review Board (hereafter ARB Report), offered the public little information to add to what had already been made available by the State Department or the media. Instead, the public version of the ARB Report, referred to as the ?unclassified? version, actually functions as part of the cover-up of what happened on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi. Most of this public document carefully refrains from any discussion of the role or activities of the CIA and what bearing this had on the events of September 11-12 2012 in Benghazi. But the role of the CIA in Benghazi and its bearing on what happened there on September 11 is the crucial question that any legitimate investigation into the situation must explore.
The trick of the Accountability Review Board (ARB) was that it issued two different versions of its Report. One version was an ?unclassified? report that was available to the press, the public and the US Congress to discuss in public.(1) The other version was a ?classified? report that was to be hidden from public or press scrutiny and was only to be available to Congress in a closed Congressional process. The unclassified version of the ARB Report could not mention the CIA activities. It could only discuss the role of the State Department in what happened.
The problem with such a restriction is that one of the US government sites in Benghazi that was attacked was a CIA facility referred to as the ?Annex? (hereafter CIA annex compound). The other site was allegedly a State Department administered facility referred to as the ?Special Mission Benghazi Compound? (hereafter special mission compound). This second compound, according to the WSJ, was actually created to provide diplomatic cover for the CIA facility.(2)
While some US Congressional Committees have been conducting investigations into what happened in Benghazi, they have agreed to discuss only the activities of the State Department in their open, public sessions, and to reserve any consideration or questions about the activities of the CIA for closed sessions of their committees, away from public view.(3)
Not only is the US Congress restricted from discussing the role of the CIA in Benghazi in open session, some of the mainstream US media have agreed to a request by the US government to withhold details about the CIA operations in Benghazi. The New York Times (NYT) is one such publication. (4) In an article briefly referring to the CIA annex compound, which the NYT says ?encompassed four buildings inside a low-walled compound?.? The NYT acknowledges that, ?From among these buildings, the C.I.A. personnel carried out their secret missions.? But then the article explains that, ?The New York Times agreed to withhold locations and details of these operations at the request of Obama administration officials?.?
To declare an investigation into or discussion of the activities regarding the role of the CIA and its Annex compound as a forbidden subject during an open committee meeting of Congress, is to prevent the US Congress from fulfilling its oversight obligations over the US Executive branch of government. For the US government to require the US media to restrict coverage is to shroud the needed public discussion and investigation in darkness.
The effort to cover up the role of the CIA in the events resulting in the attack on the two US government facilities in Benghazi, however, demonstrates that something important is at stake and worth investigating.
Despite the US government effort to impose such restrictions, there are media accounts and some Congressional documents that provide a glimpse into the details of hidden CIA activity that the attacks on the US facilities in Benghazi help to reveal.
To understand the nature of this hidden activity, requires a willingness not only to critique the official explanations, but also to examine the events that can help to uncover the actual forces at work in Benghazi and the role they played in CIA activities in Libya.
One Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article is particularly helpful. The article, is titled ?CIA Takes Heat for Role in Libya.? It provides a rare window into details of the murky world of the CIA operation in Benghazi and how it came about.(5)
The article notes that former CIA Director David Petraeus did not greet the bodies of the four Americans killed in Benghazi when they were returned to the US, even though two of those killed are acknowledged to have worked for the CIA. ?Officials close to Mr. Petraeus,? the WSJ explains, ?say he stayed away in an effort to conceal the agency?s role in collecting intelligence and providing security in Benghazi.?
Of the 30 or more American officials evacuated from Benghazi, only seven worked for the State Department. According to the WSJ, ?Nearly all the rest worked for the CIA, under diplomatic cover, which was a principle purpose? of the special mission compound.
Soon after the struggle against the government of Libya began in February 2011, the CIA set up a compound in Benghazi for its spy operations. Eventually, the CIA gave its compound a State Department office name, the Annex, to disguise its purpose, the WSJ reveals. According to the US government, the role of the CIA in Benghazi was ?focused on countering proliferation and terrorist threats?.A main concern was the spread of weapons?.?
?At the annex,? the WSJ explains, ?many of the analysts and officers had what is referred to in intelligence circles as ?light cover? carrying U.S. diplomatic passports.?
Providing a cover for the secret operation of the CIA, however, created problems for State Department officials who felt the CIA was not ?forthcoming with information,? even in the midst of the attack on the US facilities. As the WSJ notes, on September 11, 2012, ?At 5:41 p.m. Eastern time, Mrs. Clinton called Mr. Petraeus. She wanted to make sure the two agencies were on the same page.?
Even after the attack was over and the analysts and officers had been evacuated, the accounts in the WSJ and McClatchy Newspapers, describe how quickly the CIA acted to clean out documents and equipment from the Annex. By contrast, the US government left the premises of the special mission compound unguarded and open to looters for weeks after the attack.
?The significance of the annex was a well-kept secret in Benghazi,? the WSJ reporters conclude. A McClatchy article documents how a well guarded secret was even the location of the CIA Annex compound. (6)
The implication is that the attackers at the special mission compound intended to flush out the covert location and presence of the CIA Annex compound so as to end its ability to continue its secret activities.(7)
An opinion piece, ?The Fog of Benghazi?, appeared in the WSJ on November 3. It discusses what was at stake for the US government as a result of the September 11 attack in Benghazi(8): ?America has since closed the Libya diplomatic outpost and pulled a critical intelligence unit out of a hotbed of Islamism, conceding a defeat. U.S. standing in the region and the ability to fight terrorist groups were undermined, with worrying repercussions for a turbulent Middle East and America?s security. This is why it?s so important to learn what happened in Benghazi.?
The effort to learn what happened in the Benghazi Affair, is similarly the subject of a 10 page letter dated October 19 sent by two US Congressmen to President Obama. (9) One of the Congressmen, Darrell Issa, is Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The other, Jason Chaffetz, is Chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations.
Their letter raises ten questions for President Obama, the answers to which they explain are needed for the US Congressional investigation to determine the significance of the Benghazi affair. Also in their letter they include an attachment of 160 pages of data and photos which document the lawless environment in Libya, and particularly in Benghazi in the months before the Benghazi attack. This data was obtained by the US Congress from the State Department. (10) Though the data is labeled as sensitive, it is not classified material.
This data documents in a way that is now public, the perilous environment existing in Libya, providing a graphic description of the armed militias who carry out bombings, murders and kidnappings of government officials and others who try to challenge the lawlessness.
The data demonstrates the details of what the ARB Report acknowledges as ?a general backdrop of political violence, assassinations, targeting former regime officials, lawlessness, and an overarching absence of central government authority in eastern Libya.? (11)
The Internet has made possible the publication of a number of investigative accounts of various aspects of the Benghazi Affair. Several of these propose that the CIA and even Chris Stevens were part of a gun running operation, gathering up weapons from Libya and facilitating their shipment to the insurgents fighting against the government in Syria. Some of the articles also propose that the CIA operation in Benghazi helped to send mercenaries from other countries to fight against the government of Syria. (12)
Fox News and a number of associated websites have featured articles which offer such accounts. Often, however, the articles rely on anonymous sources to support their claims.
Rarely are media offering accounts that portray this reality able to present direct evidence to support the narratives they develop.
An important exception is an article that appeared in the Times of London on September 14, 2012. This was three days after Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.
The article documents that a ship, the Al Entisar (also written as Intisaar or The Victory in English), sailing under a Libyan flag with a 400 ton cargo, which included SAM-7 surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and some humanitarian supplies, is said to have arrived September 6 at the Turkish Port of Iskenderun.(13)
The captain of the ship, Omar Mousaeeb, a Libyan from Benghazi, was accompanied by 26 Libyans who were on board to help smuggle the shipment from the Turkish Port across the border into Syria. The plan was then to distribute the weapons to insurgents in Syria who were allied with the Muslim Brotherhood.
This account by the Times of London provides specific details about the mechanisms and problems of this Libyan weapons pipeline to the insurgency in Syria. The article describes the conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) over who would get the weapons from the Al Entisar shipment.
?The scale of the shipment and how it should be disbursed, has sparked a row between the FSA and the Muslim Brotherhood, who took control of the shipment when it arrived in Turkey,? writes Sheera Frenkel, the author of the Times of London article.
Though the ship arrived at the port in Turkey on September 6, not all of the cargo had been transported into Syria by September 14, the article notes, though this is over a week after the ship arrived at the port in Turkey. While ?more than 80 percent of the ship?s cargo,? the Times of London explains, ?had been moved into Syria, Mr. Mousaeeb and a group of Libyans who had arrived with the ship said they were preparing to travel with the final load into Syria to ensure it was being distributed.? Actually their concern appeared to be to whom it was distributed, not how.
The Times of London refers to two Syrian activists with the FSA who complained that infighting within the insurgent ranks had delayed the arrival of the weapons in Syria, ?There was widespread talk of Syrian groups who allied themselves with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement being given a larger share of the ship?s cargo.? One activist quoted objects that, ?The Muslim Brotherhood, through its ties with Turkey, was seizing control of this ship and its cargo.?
While the Times of London does not directly link Chris Stevens or the CIA annex compound to the Al Entisar arms shipment to Turkey, the article does provide an important context for how the conflict over which insurgent group would get weapons from the shipment created a source of significant tension at the very time the attack on the two US compounds in Benghazi took place.
Given the question, ?Why Chris Stevens would have traveled to Benghazi to be in this perilous environment on September 11,? an answer which points to some urgent matter which needed his attention, would help to provide the rationale for him to ignore the security considerations against his making such a trip.
Keeping in mind the importance of this shipment of weapons from Benghazi to Turkey, the need to work out the details of the weapons distribution process could very well have provided the motive for Stevens to plan a visit in Benghazi during such a perilous period as the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack on the US.
By September 11, infighting among the Muslim Brotherhood and other insurgent groups, over who would be given the weapons from the Al Entisar shipment, suggests the likelihood that Turkey?s Consul General in Benghazi and the US Ambassador needed to discuss the conflict over the weapons and the problem of how they should be moved into Syria and distributed among the insurgent groups.
In line with this reasoning, it is not surprising that Chris Stevens had a meeting with Turkey?s Consul General to Benghazi, Ali Sait Akin on September 11 at the Benghazi special mission compound.
The description of the infighting over the Al Entisar shipment to a port in Turkey of weapons for the Syrian insurgency, raises the possibility that the Turkish Consul General to Benghazi and Stevens discussed the conflict over the weapons. As of September 11, there were weapons that had yet to be distributed and smuggled into Syria from the Al Entisar shipment.
On September 10, when Stevens arrived in Benghazi, the shipment of arms had only recently been received at the Turkish port of Iskenderun, and the conflict among the insurgent groups who were to receive the weapons was not yet resolved.
According to documents that Congress received from the State Department, soon after Stevens arrived in Benghazi on September 10, he visited the CIA annex compound for a briefing.
On September 11 he stayed at the special mission compound but had meetings scheduled with someone from the Arabian Gulf Oil Co. (AGOCO), and later in the afternoon with someone from the Al Marfa Shipping and Maritime Services Co. (The names of the individuals were blacked out.) Then he had dinner and discussion with Ali Sait Akin, Turkey?s Consul General to Benghazi.(14)
While there has been no specific information made available by the State Department about the content of the meetings Stevens had on September 10 and 11, Turkey?s role in the shipping of weapons and foreign fighters into Syria to assist the fight against the Syrian government is the subject of numerous articles. The Times of London article describes previous difficulty experienced in trying to ship a cargo of weapons to where they could be safely unloaded and moved to insurgents in Syria. Given this previous experience it is not surprising that it was necessary to have the Turkish government intervene to settle problems that arose with the Al Entisar weapons shipment. It had taken several weeks ?to arrange the paperwork for the Turkish port authorities to release the cargo.?(15) The Times of London quoted Suleiman Haari, who worked with Captain Mousaeeb. Haari explained that ?Everyone wanted a piece of the ship. Certain groups wanted to get involved and claim the cargo for themselves. It took a long time to work through the logistics.?
This could account for the surprise visit by the then head of the CIA, David Petraeus on September 2 to Ankara. (16) Petraeus arrived in Ankara for what appeared to be talks with the President of Turkey and other Turkish government officials. Were Petraeus?s meetings with Turkish government officials needed to help make the arrangements for the Libyan ship to dock at the port in Turkey and unload the weapons that were to be smuggled across the border into Syria? This is a question Petraeus could answer if he were to testify at a US Congressional hearing again.
In light of the WSJ claim that the special mission compound had been set up to provide diplomatic cover for the CIA operation run out of the Annex, the question is raised as to whether the special mission compound was actually a State Department facility or a CIA facility acting under cover as a State Department operation.
According to the unclassified version of the ARB Report, Chris Stevens had arrived in Benghazi on April 5, 2011, ?via a Greek cargo ship at the rebel-held city of Benghazi to re-establish a U.S. presence in Libya.? He had been appointed the US government?s ?Special Envoy to the Libyan Transitional National Council? (TNC), acting as an official contact between the insurgents fighting to overthrow the government of Libya and the US government that was aiding them to bring about regime change in Libya. (17) Such an activity is contrary to international law and provisions of the UN charter (Article 2 Sections 1, 4, 7) which prohibit interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. (18)
Stevens? mission, the Report states, ?was to serve as the liaison with the TNC? for a post-Qaddafi government in Libya. The US embassy had been closed in February 2011, and was only reopened on September 22, 2011 with Gene Cretz as the Ambassador.
The ARB Report notes, however, that the CIA had set up the CIA compound in Benghazi in February 2011 soon after the insurgency arose against the Libyan government. This is a confirmation that the US government had put intelligence operatives on the ground in Benghazi just as the insurgency against the Libyan government was getting underway. This is also at least one month before Chris Stevens arrived in Benghazi.
The ARB Report also reveals that Chris Stevens stayed at the CIA Annex from the beginning of June, 2011 until June 21, 2011. Not until June 21 did ?he and his security contingent move into what would become the Special Mission Benghazi compound?.? According to the ARB Report the special mission compound in Benghazi was set up a few months after the CIA compound. (19)
This puts in perspective why the WSJ article on November 1 says that the special mission compound was established to provide diplomatic cover for the CIA facility, subsequently referred to as ?the Annex?. Stevens remained as Special Envoy to the TNC and stayed in Benghazi until November 17, 2011. On May 26, 2012 Stevens arrived in Tripoli to replace Cretz as US Ambassador to Libya.
What was the State Department responsibility for the special mission compound? If its purpose was to provide diplomatic cover for the CIA, then what was the CIA responsibility? These are significant questions. But it is unlikely that such questions will be asked at the public Congressional oversight investigations because questions about the role of the CIA Annex in Benghazi have been declared to be a classified matter.
Though the NYT article, ?U.S. Approved Weapons for Libya Rebels Fell into Jihadis? Hands,? about the Benghazi affair doesn?t go into detail about what the CIA was doing in Benghazi, it raises a significant issue that is likely to be at the root of why there was an attack on both the special mission compound and the CIA Annex compound.(20) The NYT refers to the concern US government officials involved in the program raise about the problems created by the US government helping to provide weapons to insurgents fighting in Libya and Syria. According to the NYT, what these Islamic militants will do with these weapons worries high level US government national security officials.
While officially, the US government claims it is not providing weapons, the Times of London article about the shipment of weapons from Benghazi to Turkey, provides a striking example of how the US and Turkish governments, both overtly, and covertly, appear to be involved in collecting weapons in Libya and helping to ship them to be used against the Syrian government and people.(21)
The NYT claims that the US government has little control over where these weapons go and the harm they do when used in Libya, Syria, or other conflicts in the region. The NYT reports, ?Concerns in Washington soon rose about the groups Qatar was supporting, officials said. A debate over what to do about the weapons shipments dominated at least one meeting of the so-called Deputies Committee, the interagency panel consisting of the second-ranking officials in major agencies involved in national security. ?There was a lot of concern that Qatar weapons were going to Islamist groups,? one official recalled.? (22)
These supposed ?Qatar? weapons, however, did not originate with Qatar alone. By way of an example, the NYT quotes one US weapons dealer who wanted to sell weapons to the insurgency in Libya during the war against Libya. The NYT describes how he applied to the State Department for a license. ?He also sent an e-mail to J. Christopher Stevens, then the special representative to the Libyan rebel Alliance, ? reports the NYT. According to e-mails provided to the NYT by the arms dealer, Marc Turi, Stevens wrote back to Turi that he would ?share Mr. Turi?s proposal with colleagues in Washington.? Eventually the weapons dealer was encouraged to communicate with contacts in Qatar.(23)
Such examples help to demonstrate both that there is concern among US government officials in Washington about the US government arming militant Islamists, the very people the US government condemns as ?terrorists? in other situations. Also though the weapons pipeline may have on the surface been made to appear unconnected to the US actually supplying the arms that are being distributed by Qatar or Saudi Arabia, in the case of Marc Turi, as one example, the weapons pipeline was arranged for by a license provided by the US government to ship the weapons to Qatar.
Such examples provide the context for how the US government has covertly and overtly been helping to provide the weapons that are then used by those hostile to the US to inflict harm on the Libyan and Syrian people and even on Americans, as those killed in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. This situation, several commentators have noted, is reminiscent to the Iran Contra Affair where the US government entities covertly acted in a way that jeopardized the interests and even the physical well being of US officials and civilians. And it is likely that the actions being taken by US government officials to arm and provide other forms of support for the Libyan and Syrian insurgencies, are contrary to US laws and constitutional obligations.(24)
Such considerations reflect some of the salient concerns raised by a number of online commentators about the Benghazi Affair. One example of many that have been published online in the last few months is the article ?Benghazigate: The Cover-up continues? by Bill Shanefeld published at the American Thinker website. The article raises two important questions (25): ?(1) The pre-?event? purpose of the compound and its Annex (since these operations probably motivated the perpetrators of the ?event?); and (2) Team Obama?s failed policies in North Africa, the Middle East, and Afghanistan.?
The article also refers to some of the many contributions made by other online commentators. These various commentaries help to clarify that the Benghazi affair offers a relatively rare window into the on the ground actions of the US government?s clandestine operations. These actions are the partner to the role the US government is playing in the UN Security Council and the UN in general in its efforts to turn the UN into a partner in its CIA and NATO activities. The Benghazi Affair is an important situation and the question remains as to whether the illegal activities of the US government acting contrary to the obligations of the UN Charter in Libya and more recently Syria will come to light.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-benghazi-affair-uncovering-the-mystery-of-the-benghazi-cia-annex/5320872 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-benghazi-affair-uncovering-the-mystery-of-the-benghazi-cia-annex/5320872)
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Among all this effort to layer complication, after fog of war, after complication, this whole issue could be made clear for everyone to gauge accurately...........a coordinated graphic timeline, showing WHEN events started/ended, what dept knew what/when, and what actions those departments took at those specific times, with the necessary "who" was in authority of those departments, at those specific times. If it involved covert CIA operatives, those names could be redacted in the graphic
We already know we had Special Forces assets no more than 2 hours away, Fully fueled C-130s no more than 3 hours away, and a Carrier Strike Group in the Med, with a plethora of laser guided ordinance for their F-18's. All we need to know is the timeline above, to fully determine the full extent of the window that existed, that just may have saved some lives
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This was a minor incident. Dumb shits.
A minor incident?
Are you insane....
this is the first sitting U.S. ambassador to be killed in a violent attack since 1979!
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/s480x480/190516_281586721976944_1803897632_n.png)
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Sirs don't you get tired of living in a pretend world?
BSB
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Actually its called reality, unless you can factually demonstrate how it isn't, (translated, not just your oh so superior say so). You should try visiting it some time
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The facts. No one requested carrier support. It wasn't on anyone's radar. The closest air support was on the ground in Italy. All this carrier stuff that was suggested by BT and you have subsequently grabbed onto is pure crap.
Again, don't you get tired of living in a pretend world? If you don't, you should.
BSB
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Wow...pulling out the Xo school of responding. I never claimed carrier support was requested. I referenced the FACT is was an avaliable asset. And the closest air support were the C-130's, no more than 3 hours out, not Italy. THAT's a fact. And the Special Forces were less than 2 hours out, via Blackhawk. THAT's a fact. The call for assistance from the attack was nearly immediate
So, what FACTS above are pretend?? Ball in your court, let's see what you got
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Everything you wrote is pretend. What SF unit? What Group? 5th Group? 10th Group? 3rd Group? Another Group? How many were there? Five, twenty, how many? Were they an A, B, or C unit? When was the call for help sent? Who sent it? Who did they send it to? African Command? Who?
You're all bullshit Sirs.
BSB
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The facts. No one requested carrier support. It wasn't on anyone's radar. The closest air support was on the ground in Italy. All this carrier stuff that was suggested by BT and you have subsequently grabbed onto is pure crap.
Again, don't you get tired of living in a pretend world? If you don't, you should.
BSB
Crap my ass, the Enterprise was on its way to Naples and some of the escorts split towards Portugal.
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I don't give a fuck where it was going it has nothing to do with this event.
BSB
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Everything you wrote is pretend. What SF unit? What Group? 5th Group? 10th Group? 3rd Group? Another Group? How many were there? Five, twenty, how many? Were they an A, B, or C unit? When was the call for help sent? Who sent it? Who did they send it to? African Command? Who?
Good lord, you wouldn't even make a good defense attorney. IT HAS BEEN FACTUALLY REPORTED THAT A SPECIAL FORCES UNIT WAS STATIONED AND READY TO LIFT OFF IN TRIPOLI. I was not aware that every story regarding Special Forces required a designation of its specific unit #. WHAT THE HELL DIFFERENCE WOULD THAT MAKE? THE FACT IS THEY WERE THERE.....NO PRETENDING.
IT WAS ALSO REPORTED THAT THE CALL FOR ASSISTANCE WAS GENERATED ALMOST IMMEDIATELY, from the consulate specifically under attack. Sure, I can pull up these reports......hell, sure, I'll google them, again, and your response will be.....what then?? More Xo-like garbage of arguing points never made, followed by more insults??
You're all bullshit Sirs.
BSB
I hope you've been washing that mirror you're using as a monitor, since you have yet to refute ANY of the nonpretend facts produced, BnonameB
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I don't give a fuck where it was going it has nothing to do with this event.
BSB
NOR IS BT CLAIMING IT WAS. ::) MERELY THAT IT WAS IN THE IMMEDIATE AREA, AND HAD PLENTY OF STRIKE AIRCRAFT, THAT HAD BOTH THE PROPER GUIDED MUNITIONS AND THE RANGE, FOR SUPPORT
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As I said, it's all crap. It's got nothing to do with anything. There was a Beetle boat headed for Crow Island Me. to.
BSB
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"Good lord, you wouldn't even make a good defense attorney. IT HAS BEEN FACTUALLY REPORTED THAT A SPECIAL FORCES UNIT WAS STATIONED AND READY TO LIFT OFF IN TRIPOLI. I was not aware that every story regarding Special Forces required a designation of its specific unit #. WHAT THE HELL DIFFERENCE WOULD THAT MAKE? THE FACT IS THEY WERE THERE.....NO PRETENDING."
Show me the factual report.
BSB
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I don't give a fuck where it was going it has had nothing to do with this event.
BSB
precisely. The call was not made.
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I wonder why they didn't call the Beetle boat off the coast of Me.?
This is the real problem. They should have sent a Special Forces team to Benghazi weeks earlier when further security was both requested, and obviously necessary. The rest of this is all Monday morning quarterbacking crap by people who have no idea what they're talking about.
BSB
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I wonder why they didn't call the Beetle boat off the coast of Me.?
This is the real problem. They should have sent a Special Forces team to Benghazi weeks earlier when further security was both requested, and obviously necessary. The rest of this is all Monday morning quarterbacking crap by people who have no idea what they're talking about.
BSB
The pre-attack neglect is obviously of concern. The dissembling and obfuscation during and after the attack are of equal concern.
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Beirut: "Suicide bombers detonated each of the truck bombs. In the attack on the American Marines barracks, the death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers, along with sixty Americans injured, representing the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima of World War II,"
Thanks Ronny.
BSB
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9/11 "The September 11 attacks resulted in 2,996 immediate (attack time) deaths: 2,977 victims and the 19 hijackers.[1] A total of 372 foreign nationals (excluding the 19 perpetrators) perished in the attacks, representing just over 12% of the total. The immediate deaths include 246 victims on the four planes (from which there were no survivors), 2,606 in New York City in the World Trade Center and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon.[2][3] About 292 people were killed at street level by burning debris and falling bodies of those who had jumped or fallen from the World Trade Center's windows. All the deaths in the attacks were civilians except for 55 military personnel killed at the Pentagon.[4] Some immediate victims were not added to the list until years later.
More than 90 countries lost citizens in the attacks on the World Trade Center.[5] The foreign countries with the highest losses are the United Kingdom (including the British overseas territory of Bermuda) with 67, the Dominican Republic with 47, and India with 41.
In 2007, the New York City medical examiner's office began to add people to the official death toll who died of illnesses caused by exposure to dust from the site. The first such victim was a woman who had died in February 2002 from a lung condition.[6] In 2009, a man who died in 2008 was added,[7] and in 2011 a man who died in 2010.[8]"
Thanks George.
BSB
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Thanks Ronny.
BSB
Thanks George.
BSB
Are we going to discuss the coverup and deflection that Ronnie and George used to escape responsibility?
Did anyone in the Reagan administration say in public "What diffrence does it make at this point?"
I don't really feel that mistakes being made is the point, the best of the best generals and Presidents make fewer mistakes , not none. NO matter who we elect we ought to expect a tragic mistake now and then.
Then we ought to demand the truth so we can know how bad it really is.
Digging up excuses and pushing the excuse hard in frount of the truth might be something that happened this time, if so , then we have a president that holds the American people in contempt and is willing to sweep blood under the rug.
I am not sure yet that this is the case , but it looks more and more like it is all the time.
Q. What could President Obama do that would retire him in greater disrepute than Richard Nixon?
A. He could out Nixon Nixon, and perhaps he has.
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Yes all pertinent to the current situation, past is prologue blah blah blah.
There are also the lessons learned when studying Les Aspin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Aspin)
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OUCH, ....touche', Plane 8)
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BT, they might have been. I don't know what they were up to? I don't know if they had fighters available to be scrambled or if they were on a preselected mission. I don't know. Then you wonder what would they use? 250lbs.? They couldn't drop anything bigger in a neighborhood like that. Even 250 pounders are pretty big. I suppose they could have fired their 20mm. We'll have to ask plane about what else they have, I'm out of date.
BSB
I don't have much special knoledge , and if I do I can't give it here , sorry.
Stuff like the range of the C-130 and the arms it can carry are probly availible to the public without much trouble.
Where special mission aircraft are at particular times might not be so easy to find , Air craft Carriers too might not publish their whereabouts most of the time.
This kind of information will likely be opened in congress, and then made public if it is politicially usefull.
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And that would be because this is of no importance to any sane American who understands that Libya was a chaotic place and the President was NOT TO BLAME fpor what happened.
Far More blame falls on stupid Juniorbush for all that crap about mushroom clouds and weaponized anthrax.
I do not give a shit about Benghazi.
I never will.
And neither should any sane American.
President Obama is doing a fine job despite all you ratbag rightwing Lumpenproletarian assholes.
Should the president be sane enough to know that Bengazi is a dangerous place?
Or perhaps the secretary of state should ?
This first mistake is a lack of forsight , which is gonna happen now and then untill we invent time travel and make forsight as dependable as hindsight, I don't feel like that is the biggest problem.
A bigger problem is that when the attack was going on cries for help were ignored, since the attack went on al day something could have been brought from quite a long distance and been helpfull. Was any attempt at counterattack or evacuation tried?...... But this is just a worse mistake than the first and isn't what hurts worst.
A coverup is not a mistake , it was a deliberate attack on the wisdom of the American people.
we have little enough wisdom in the first place , we don't need to b e misled tso that what little we have is destroyed.
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"But his deposition did reveal startling gaps in the memory of the 79-year-old former president. In all, Reagan said ``I don`t recall`` or ``I can`t remember`` 88 times in the eight hours of testimony taken Feb. 16-17 in Los Angeles.
At one point, Reagan said he could not identify Gen. John Vessey, who served for more than three years as his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At other times, he said he could not identify a picture of contra leader Adolfo Calero, could not recall a shipment of Hawk missiles to Iran in November 1985, had no memory of signing one presidential finding relating to the shipment of weapons to Iran and had only the slightest recollection of signing a second such finding.
He also appeared hazy on the identity of Eugene Hasenfus, an American whose shooting down over Nicaragua helped precipitate the unraveling of the then-secret Iran-contra operation. And Reagan seemed totally unable to recall what the Tower Commission-a panel he appointed in December 1986 to investigate the affair-said in its report three months later."
Sure Ronny.
BSB
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Yes, moral equivalency will be the best response to Obama and co. being asleep at the wheel.
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Well I'm just trying to find out if Ronny was smart, if he had integrity, was he kind hearted, or more of a tough love sort? Like plane, I'm certainly not interested in anything political.
BSB
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This is what happened. The Special Forces unit that had been in Tripoli left several weeks before this occurred. SF personal that didn't leave were part of a classified unit, that was at a classified location. Once the shit hit fan nothing could have been done. Nothing, to include air support, and ground support, was close enough to stop what occurred. That's the way it is. We're at war. People die. The unclassified unit should been temporarily shifted to Benghazi, instead of going home, while the Ambassador was there. Benghazi was not his permanent residence. A Marine ready reaction force it was really should have been close enough to react. Ambassadors are a Marine responsibility. They aren't the responsibility of the Special Forces.
BSB
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Well I'm just trying to find out if Ronny was smart, if he had integrity, was he kind hearted, or more of a tough love sort? Like plane, I'm certainly not interested in anything political.
BSB
That's fine . Though I'm not sure what Reagan has to do with Benghazi.
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This is what happened. The Special Forces unit that had been in Tripoli left several weeks before this occurred. SF personal that didn't leave were part of a classified unit, that was at a classified location. Once the shit hit fan nothing could have been done. Nothing, to include air support, and ground support, was close enough to stop what occurred. That's the way it is. We're at war. People die. The unclassified unit should been temporarily shifted to Benghazi, instead of going home, while the Ambassador was there. Benghazi was not his permanent residence. A Marine ready reaction force it was really should have been close enough to react. Ambassadors are a Marine responsibility. They aren't the responsibility of the Special Forces.
BSB
Hopefully you are called to testify and put this matter to rest once and for all so we can Move On TM
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Well, actually BT, and keep this secret, they already know. Shhhhhhhhhhhh
BSB
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So they know that the DoD and the Obama was negligent in having sufficient security personnel in the region regardless of whether that responsibility fell on the SF or Marines?
Cool
Move OnTM
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So you're just figuring that out huh? Well better late then never I guess. Good job BT.
BSB
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Ouch (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/exclusive-benghazi-talking-points-underwent-12-revisions-scrubbed-of-terror-references/)....so pretty much everything Romney and the right, in referencing this administrations blatant dishonesty, was pretty much......dead on. Good to know. I wonder if Candy Crowly is feeling bad, in any way for her part in it? Hmmmm
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In the White House’s latest efforts at transparency, the administration announced to reporters that it would brief reporters on the latest shocking developments about the Benghazi situation … behind closed doors. Politico reports that the meeting started at approximately 12:45 PM ET, and that it moved the normal press briefing to 1:45 PM ET. Jay Carney, White House press secretary, did not comment on whether the meeting took place.
Politico reports:
The off-the-record session was announced to reporters in the wake of an ABC News report showing that White House and State Dept. officials were involved in revising the now-discredited CIA talking points about the attack on Benghazi.
The administration routinely exerts pressure on reporters it feels are not kind enough in their coverage. Reporters like Cheryl Attkisson of CBS News have felt the hand of their bosses for “wading dangerously close to advocacy” with regard to Benghazi. No doubt this “off-the-record” meeting was designed to get all the president’s horses and all the president’s men to put the Benghazi humpty dumpty together again
"Most Transparent Administration history", right? (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/05/10/White-House-Benghazi-off-the-record)
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So you're just figuring that out huh? Well better late then never I guess. Good job BT.
BSB
Knew there was dereliction of duty from the gitgo. Just curious what else will surface as the pot reaches a slow boil.
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Only the right gives a sh*t about this.
It is no big deal. No one is going to find harping on this tired old crap until 2016. It is just more Hillaryhate.
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A good portion of this comes from the way Ambassador Stevens liked to operate. He didn't like to operate at a distance, with walls, Marine guards, and so forth. He wanted to present a more directly engaged with the populace face. That's what made him so good, but it's also part of the reason he's dead.
BSB
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Ahh, you knew him personally, did you. Well, that makes all the difference in the world. It was his fault. Like Bt said, why haven't you been called as an expert witness yet?? Wow, we could have had this settled months ago
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Obama survived the 2012 presidential election because he told the American people that he kept them safe from terror; that he had Al Qaida on the run; that he was fighting America’s battles smarter than before.
And to prove the point, when things got really tough, he cheated with other peoples’ lives in order to avoid defeat.
He let four Americans die, rather than admit the truth. And that truth is this: That in war, as Winston Churchill said, “there is only one thing certain… that it is full of disappointments and also of mistakes.”
Obama could have admitted a mistake and walked away with dignity- he might have even won still.
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Only the right gives a sh*t about this.
It is no big deal. No one is going to find harping on this tired old crap until 2016. It is just more Hillaryhate.
Good.
The right needs more people.
Perhaps just the sort who give a * about the life of an ambassidor and his staff.
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Well I'm just trying to find out if Ronny was smart, if he had integrity, was he kind hearted, or more of a tough love sort? Like plane, I'm certainly not interested in anything political.
BSB
That is a good point. The political affiliation does inform a voter, and partys as partys can push grand causes.
Still I think my point still stands , the party is not enough to know, both partys attract rascals often enough that the party label is no garuntee of quality.
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(https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/428691_517667464955410_41359666_n.jpg)
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More of Christian's talentless graffiti.
BSB
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Chelsea Clinton is not trained as a diplomat.
Juniorbush lost LOTS more diplomatic personnel than President Obama.
No one gives a sh*t about the Benghazi hearings for any reason other than smearing the Administration.
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Hillary sure as hell was not trained as a leader or manager either, and we can see the deadly repercussions of that now
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Delusion met reality in Benghazi (http://www.ocregister.com/articles/government-507878-hicks-benghazi.html)
Shortly before last November's election I took part in a Fox News documentary on Benghazi, whose other participants included the former governor of New Hampshire, John Sununu. Making chitchat while the camera crew was setting up, Gov. Sununu said to me that, in his view, Benghazi mattered because it was "a question of character." That's correct. On a question of foreign policy or counterterrorism strategy, men of good faith can make the wrong decisions. But a failure of character corrodes the integrity of the state.
That's why career diplomat Gregory Hicks' testimony was so damning – not so much for the new facts as for what those facts revealed about the leaders of this republic. In this space in January, I noted that Hillary Clinton had denied ever seeing Ambassador Stevens' warnings about deteriorating security in Libya on the grounds that "1.43 million cables come to my office" – and she can't be expected to see all of them, or any. Once Ambassador Stevens was in his flag-draped coffin, listening to her eulogy for him at Andrews Air Force Base, he was her bestest friend in the world – it was all "Chris this" and "Chris that," as if they'd known each other since third grade. But up till that point he was just one of 1.43 million close personal friends of Hillary trying in vain to get her ear.
Now we know that,
at 8 p.m. Eastern time on the last night of Stevens' life, his deputy in Libya spoke to Secretary Clinton and informed her of the attack in Benghazi and the fact that the ambassador was now missing.
An hour later, Gregory Hicks received a call from the then-Libyan Prime Minister, Abdurrahim el-Keib, informing him that Stevens was dead. Hicks immediately called Washington. It was 9 p.m. Eastern time, or 3 a.m. in Libya. Remember the Clinton presidential team's most famous campaign ad? About how Hillary would be ready to take that 3 a.m. call? Four years later, the phone rings, and Secretary Clinton's not there. She doesn't call Hicks back that evening. Or the following day.
Are murdered ambassadors like those 1.43 million cables she doesn't read? Just too many of them to keep track of? No. Only six had been killed in the history of the republic – seven, if you include Arnold Raphel, who perished in General Zia's somewhat mysterious plane crash in Pakistan in 1988. Before that, you have to go back to Adolph Dubs, who died during a kidnapping attempt in Kabul in 1979. So we have here a once-in-a-third-of-a-century event. And at 3 a.m. Libyan time on Sept. 12th, it's still unfolding, with its outcome unclear. Hicks is now America's head man in the country, and the Cabinet secretary to whom he reports says, "Leave a message after the tone and I'll get back to you before the end of the week."
Just to underline the difference here: Libya's head of government calls Hicks, but nobody who matters in his own government can be bothered to.
What was Secretary Clinton doing that was more important?
What was the president doing? Aside, that is, from resting up for his big Vegas campaign event.
A real government would be scrambling furiously to see what it could do to rescue its people. It's easy, afterwards, to say that nothing would have made any difference. But, at the time Deputy Chief Hicks was calling 911 and getting executive-branch voicemail, nobody in Washington knew how long it would last. A terrorist attack isn't like a soccer game, over in 90 minutes. If it is a sport, it's more like a tennis match: Whether it's all over in three sets or goes to five depends on how hard the other guy pushes back. The government of the United States took the extremely strange decision to lose in straight sets. Not only did they not deploy out-of-area assets, they ordered even those in Libya to stand down. Lt. Col. Gibson had a small team in Tripoli that twice readied to go to Benghazi to assist and twice was denied authority to do so, the latter when they were already at the airport. There weren't many of them, not compared to the estimated 150 men assailing the compound. But they were Special Forces, not bozo jihadists. Back in Benghazi, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty held off numerically superior forces for hours before dying on a rooftop waiting for backup from a government that had switched on the answering machine and gone to Vegas.
Throughout the all-night firefight in Benghazi, Washington's priority seems to have been to do everything possible to deny that what was actually happening was happening at all. To send "soldiers" on a "mission" to "fight" the "enemy" was at odds with the entire Obama narrative of the Arab Spring and the broader post-Bush Muslim world. And so the entire U.S. military was stood down in support of the commander in chief's fiction.
As Mr. Hicks testified, his superiors in Washington knew early that night that a well-executed terrorist attack with the possible participation of al-Qaida elements was underway. Instead of responding, the most powerful figures in the government decided that an unseen YouTube video better served their political needs. And, in the most revealing glimpse of the administration's depravity, the president and secretary of state peddled the lie even in their mawkish eulogies to their buddy "Chris" and three other dead Americans. They lied to the victims' coffins and then strolled over to lie to the bereaved, Hillary telling the Woods family that "we're going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video." And she did. The government dispatched more firepower to arrest Nakoula Basseley Nakoula in Los Angeles than it did to protect its mission in Benghazi. It was such a great act of misdirection Hillary should have worn spangled tights and sawn Stevens' casket in half.
The dying Los Angeles Times reported this story on its home page (as a sidebar to "Thirteen Great Tacos In Southern California) under the following headline: "Partisan Politics Dominates House Benghazi Hearing." In fact, everyone in this story is a Democrat or a career civil servant. Chris Stevens was the poster boy for Obama's view of the Arab Spring; he agreed with the president on everything that mattered. The only difference is that he wasn't in Vegas but out there on the front line, where Obama's delusions meet reality. Stevens believed in those illusions enough to die for them. One cannot say the same about the hollow men and women in Washington who sent him out there unprotected, declined to lift a finger when he came under attack and, in the final indignity, subordinated his sacrifice to their political needs by lying over his corpse. Where's the "partisan politics"? Obama, Clinton, Panetta, Clapper, Rice, and the rest did this to one of their own. And fawning court eunuchs, like the ranking Democrat at the hearings, Elijah Cummings, must surely know that, if they needed, they'd do it to them, too. If you believe in politics uber alles, it's impressive, in the same way that Hillary's cocksure dismissal – "What difference, at this point, does it make?" – is impressive.
But the embassy security chief, Eric Nordstrom, had the best answer to that: It matters because "the truth matters" – not least to the Libyan president, who ever since has held the U.S. government in utter contempt. Truth matters, and character matters. For the American people to accept the Obama-Clinton lie is to be complicit in it.
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Hillary was the BEST Secretary of State we have had for a long time. Benghazi is not a serious issue except to the ignorant lumpenproletarians.
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LOL.....priceless.....coolaide coated priceless
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Behold the ignorant lumpenproletarian.
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Xo response SOP
#1 - argue points never made
#2 - try to change the subject
#3 - launch personal insults
#4 - repeat
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Benghazi is soaked in CIA and classified Special Forces operations. Give it up far right wing.
BSB
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Yea, let's not be looking at how seriously incompetent our State Dept was, under this Administration.....so much so, 4 Americans died needlessly, 1st Ambassador in 30 years. Move along
Not going to happen
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(http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/ca051413dBP20130514104520.jpg)
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Benghazi is soaked in CIA and classified Special Forces operations.
BSB I think you are right about that.
In fact I think it was a lot like "Arms for Hostages" in the Reagan admin.
Obama was selling/transferring arms to the enemy from Benghazi...
for what he saw as a bigger more important cause.
Obama was transferring arms to Al-Qaeda to fight Assad in Syria.
I also think you are right about this may never come out....
We need a "deep throat" to blow the cover....and I bet it dont happen.
My money is that Obama "skates" on transferring arms to Al-Qaeda.
The truth is there....but it probably wont see daylight.
We'll see......
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Chelsea Clinton is not trained as a diplomat.
Juniorbush lost LOTS more diplomatic personnel than President Obama.
No one gives a sh*t about the Benghazi hearings for any reason other than smearing the Administration.
Do you mean that it is unimportant that the administration has little ability to make good decisions on forign polocy?
I think President Obama disagrees with you quite a lot.
The evidence is that a lot more thought went into massageing the talking points and covering up the facts after the attack than went into security before.
If it is unimportant, why perform a coverup?
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Benghazi is soaked in CIA and classified Special Forces operations. Give it up far right wing.
BSB
Bengazi was free of American influence before the Obama administration.
How is this administration not responsible for the situation?
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If it is unimportant, why perform a coverup?
And there's the $64,000 question
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(http://www.lucianne.com/images/lucianne/DailyPhoto/2013-05-16-JIUUH.jpg)
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arguing points never
But SIRS....what with the I.R.S. scandal, the Benghazi controversy, and revelations about the Justice Department's sweep of The Associated Press's phone records....at least nobody in the administration has been caught driving to Canada with Bo the dog strapped to the car roof several decades ago....afterall that's the important stuff! ::)
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Indeed ;) But the cynic in me, especially as it relates to politics, leads me to believe beyond the obvious......the obvious here is that all these actions, (Benghazi, IRS, and AP) were all performed to better provide Obama a victory in Nov. Acts that would have had the Conservative base howling made at a GOP president, if it were occurring under their administration's purview. Beyond the obvious is the theory that this administration knew this stuff was going to come out, and what better time to allow it to happen, well removed from the Nov Elections, and over a year away from the 2014 elections, hoping that the electorate will have "moved on" by then.
The Democrat tactic is clear, employed for Benghazi, and soon to be employed for these latest scandals, including the one regarding Obama's HHS' Secretary......cite how these "revelations/accusations" are very troubling.....make it clear that they will be investigated thoroughly, and as such can't be bothered to answer any questions now, for fear of its impact on any "investigation", then just sit back for, oh a minimum of 8 months, repeating the above, if asked. And after 8+months, then cite how this is old news, and the only reason its being brought up now is political. That's what they tried to do with Benghazi, as well as Fast & Furious, and that's what they'll likely do with the latest ones
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But SIRS....why are the Republicans such idiots?
The Democrats always use situations to futher their agenda.
Newtown, Colorado theater....Democrats immediately use for Gun Control agenda.
It's like an automatic for Dems to use everything to push their agenda
So why aren't the Republicans using Obama's IRSgate to further their agenda?
Why not say "hey this shows again how corrupt the IRS and our tax system is"
Use this scandal to push a Flat Tax or Sales Tax to replace the current tax system.
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Yes .....& No. I completely agree with you C, on how idiotic the GOP can be, especially in running campaigns, especially in what they should focus on vs what they don't. Romney should have HAMMERED Obama on Benghazi. I mean, its easy to see how validated and vindicated it would be now, but that was an absolute nail, to go along with the economy, that should have handed Romney an easy win. Neither here nor there now, Obama is President for 4 more years, and the country is going to reap what they just sewed, so we're all screwed together, which I guess is the liberal platform
But to the point you're making, ......I don't think I can support tactics by the GOP that I consistently condemn the Dems for doing. Now, we can debate that this isn't taking a tragedy like Newtown, to push a political agenda, but more so taking political fallout of a person or party to push one. It's less seedy than Newtown, but it is along the same lines. I suppose I could be swayed, but at present, I'd rather focus on just how immense and widespread, not to mention how far up, all these abuse of Government agencies went, in trying to get Obama re-elected. But your point on using this to educate the electorate on the idea of a Flat tax or National Sales tax, vs what we have now, indeed has merit
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.......and for the left & those in the MSM to try and pretend its a non-issue, requires them to avoid, at all cost, talking about it
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Chelsea Clinton Killed by Terrorists in Benghazi....
what does it matter?
Chelsea Clinton Killed by Terrorists in Benghazi... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rphIXJiF38#ws)
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(https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/s480x480/942110_304550689678116_678915082_n.jpg)
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That's 2 more marines deployed to keep Obama dry, than were deployed to help keep Americans, like Ambassador Stevens, alive. Gotta love the priorities
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But to the point you're making, ......I don't think I can support tactics by the GOP that I consistently condemn the Dems for doing. Now, we can debate that this isn't taking a tragedy like Newtown, to push a political agenda, but more so taking political fallout of a person or party to push one. It's less seedy than Newtown, but it is along the same lines. I suppose I could be swayed, but at present, I'd rather focus on just how immense and widespread, not to mention how far up, all these abuse of Government agencies went, in trying to get Obama re-elected.
This sentence from the NY Times story is precious:
Mr. George told Treasury officials about the allegation as part of a routine briefing about ongoing audits he would be conducting in the coming year, and he did not tell the officials of his conclusions that the targeting had been improper, he said. Still, the inspector general’s testimony will most likely fuel efforts by Congressional Republicans to show that Obama administration officials knew of efforts to single out conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status for additional scrutiny, but did not reveal that knowledge during President Obama’s re-election campaign.
Yes, New York Times, the sworn testimony of the Inspector General and your reporting may "fuel efforts by Congressional Republicans" to, um, point out what happened. For his part, Treasury says Wolin didn't discuss the revelation with anyone outside of his own department. First of all, the IRS is overseen by Treasury, which is run by the executive branch. Targeting conservative was a systemic, well-known practice for years inside the IRS. Even if Wolin is telling the truth, we now know that at least some administration officials at Treasury were made aware of the investigation six months before the election. Are we to believe that Wolin didn't bring this explosive information to his boss, Sec. Tim Geithner? Is there any chance this didn't make its way up the food chain in June of last year, if it hadn't already? NBC News' Lisa Myers raised similar questions about the IRS this morning. She noted that IRS brass failed to disclose this extraordinary information last September in a letter to Congress:
"Imagine, if you can, what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012 in the middle of the presidential election. The terrain would have looked very different."
We now have confirmation that it wasn't just the IRS that knew about all of this and failed to disclose it in the closing weeks of a bitterly-fought election. Treasury was in the loop, too. The "guess who knew?" game keeps creeping closer to the White House door, and the "official" story seems to be changing almost hourly. For instance, we also now know that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has known about this for months. Acting IRS Commissioner Stephen Miller served up quite a few eye-opening remarks during today's testimony. Among them was the explanation that a huge uptick in applications for tax-free status that coincided with the rise of the Tea Party is what precipitated the "efficiency/triage" targeting program. One small problem: There was no deluge of applicants during that time frame.
Oh well, time to dream up another excuse.