New Disclosures on Benghazi

[tyr_13]

Quoting something in its entirety and then claiming it is all baseless assertions is itself a baseless assertion.

No, it very simply is not. Notice that what I just said is an assertion, but it is also not baseless and is true. His assertion was demonstrated by reading your post, and it wasn't long enough to reasonably justify taking it apart. However, he did so anyway.

You have to actually do some analysis. It is of a piece with linking to an article and implying that it means something that it doesn't mean.

As for my post, there are no baseless assertions in there, despite RandFan's attempts to identify any. A baseless assertion would be something akin to what Harry Reid said about Mitt Romney not paying federal taxes for ten years. There was simply no basis for such a claim. My claims are either axiomatic or inferences from available evidence. Of course, some of these axioms or inferences fall under the rubric of opinion. Most interesting statements about political events do. But the right way to respond to an opinion with which you disagree is to provide your own opinion which contrasts with the first in a meaningful way.

For example, if I were to say that Obama is a worse president than Bush was, that is an opinion, but it is not baseless. In order to have a meaningful discussion, the proper way is to respond "What are your reasons?" or "I don't agree with you, and here's an example of how the two handled these issues ..." It is simple bickering to say that the an opinion that Obama is worse than Bush is a baseless assertion.

I was operating under the assumption that he was using 'baseless' as it is colloquially used, as in, 'based on nothing reasonable or substantive/ lacking well founded support'. I've already said that I think 'baseless' might be too strong, but I don't believe your opinion is well founded nor your other inferences in that post reasonable.

You are correct that it is more productive to ask for reasons and support, but you can also give those in response to an accusation that something is baseless assertions.

 

[davefoc]

She knew. Africa Command offered the Benghazi mission additional DoD security on two occasions and the Ambassador was instructed by Sullivan and Kennedy to turn the offer down due to Hillary/Obama's small footprint policies.

She knew.

I am not well informed about Benghazi minutia, so perhaps my incredulity that a non partisan zealot sees the Benghazi events as some sign of great malfeasance on the part of Clinton, Rice or Obama or anybody is not well founded.

Let's suppose that at the absolute worst Clinton and Obama made some sort of a decision to not increase security in Libya for the Libyan diplomatic people and facilities. So what? Is there a successful attack on a US diplomatic facility that might have been defeated if the security had been increased. People in charge need to make decisions that in a real world don't work out sometimes.

Apparently Susan Rice made some statements soon after the attacks that claimed the attacks were probably spontaneous. She made it absolutely clear that there was more investigation to come and that the current understanding of what the facts are might change. Apparently this gets blown up into some sort of great sin because the attacks seem not to have been spontaneous. Why the hell is this some great horrible thing? People are wrong sometimes. And Rice wasn't technically wrong in the sense that she admitted further investigation might lead to a better understanding. And apparently what she was saying had been vetted by the CIA so what she was saying either was some lie the CIA was pushing or the CIA was mistaken, not Susan Rice.

Essentially all the other badness on the part of the Obama administration has been shown to be made up crap. So who in the long run here is more morally culpable, people lying for partisan political purposes or people that may have made errors in judgment that led to the death of four people?

This is sad, but people dying as the result of errors in judgment is probably a fact of life for every American administration that has ever existed.

So if 16.5 and sunmaster are not rabid partisans what do they see here that I don't? I didn't subscribe to this thread by intent because I thought the Benghazi thing was one big pile of partisan BS. Now that I've followed this thread for a bit and read some of the underlying links it looks even more like a total partisan witch hunt for the sole purpose of embarrassing political opponents than it did when I started following this thread.

 

[The Big Dog]

People in charge need to make decisions that in a real world don't work out sometimes.

and they need to be held accountable.

Obama/Clinton made failed policy decisions before, during and after the attack.

You should get familiar with the so-called "minutia."

Start with the Rhodes memo, which was withheld from Congress, and pay close attention to the scramble for political cover.

They told a false story for weeks and disregarded undisputed intelligence in doing so.

By the way, arguments from incredulity are not strong arguments.

In addition, the Clinton/Obama approach has resulted in Libya turning into an anarchic hell hole, but perhaps that policy decision failure is the subject of another thread.

 

[davefoc]

and they need to be held accountable.

Obama/Clinton made failed policy decisions before, during and after the attack.

You should get familiar with the so-called "minutia."

Start with the Rhodes memo, which was withheld from Congress, and pay close attention to the scramble for political cover.

They told a false story for weeks and disregarded undisputed intelligence in doing so.

By the way, arguments from incredulity are not strong arguments.

In addition, the Clinton/Obama approach has resulted in Libya turning into an anarchic hell hole, but perhaps that policy decision failure is the subject of another thread.

As a master of the Benghazi minutia, could you specifically tell us what those policy decisions were? I saw a claim that they didn't bump up security because they were trying to keep a low profile for the embassy. What is the source for that and how is that such a terrible thing? They were trying to stabilize a country in a part of the world where American presence was often a lightning rod for hatred. Keeping a low profile seems like a good goal to me. But what was the source of the claim and what exactly happened?

As to the Rhodes memo, here's an overview from MotherJones:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/05/benghazi-explained-ben-rhodes-foia

Oh my God it's from Mother Jones and not some whack job Fox News wannabe, so that makes it wrong? I didn't think so. Their reaction was obviously more informed than my reaction but in the end I think they were probably right. Do you believe the Republicans don't have political spinners? Did Rhodes at any time think he was promoting the telling of a lie? Once again, people spoke without perfect knowledge and their imperfect knowledge was closer to the facts than the various political partisans have been that have attempted to promote this incident for their partisan self interests who have had the advantage of time to get their facts right. Why, somebody that seems to be as intelligent, objective, and well informed about this incident as 16.5, seems to have put so much credence in the importance of this partisan driven scandal remains something that I don't get.

ETA: Benghazi is a partisan witch hunt. I added this because I know you like it when I say it 16.5.

 

[The Big Dog]

I saw a claim that they didn't bump up security because they were trying to keep a low profile for the embassy.

literally everything posted there is wrong.

since when did mother jones become the go to for the left wing???

 

[tyr_13]

literally everything posted there is wrong.

since when did mother jones become the go to for the left wing???

Even this?

1. First things first: this memo should have been released earlier, and conservatives are fully justified in asking why it took a FOIA request to finally shake it loose.

I await your best political spin on why political spin is inexcusable.

 

[The Big Dog]

Even this?

I await your best political spin on why political spin is inexcusable.

Wow, that was not even remotely the sentence that I quoted I cannot even fathom where you came up with that.....

It seems that misrepresenting intelligence is now called "political spin" tho.

I'm just going to call it *********** lying.

 

[tyr_13]

Wow, that was not even remotely the sentence that I quoted I cannot even fathom where you came up with that.....

It seems that misrepresenting intelligence is now called "political spin" tho.

I'm just going to call it *********** lying.

Oh, I misread what you meant in your post. I thought you were talking about the Mother Jones article you were complaining about before. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Foolmewunz]

I've read through all the new pages. I suppose in the excitement of the freedom to gish gallop, we've overlooked the promised analysis of the emails, 16.5. (The OP, as avid readers will know, wasn't able to answer a question on May 20th, 2015 because he was too busy reading emails. And then, when questioned about the result, responded to your humble reporter that one should seek out his analysis in the Benghazi thread.)

It seems there's no such analysis, or did I miss it? I'm sure that avid readers will want to know what was discerned from all that reading.

 

[12AX7]

I've read through all the new pages. I suppose in the excitement of the freedom to gish gallop, we've overlooked the promised analysis of the emails, 16.5. (The OP, as avid readers will know, wasn't able to answer a question on May 20th, 2015 because he was too busy reading emails. And then, when questioned about the result, responded to your humble reporter that one should seek out his analysis in the Benghazi thread.)

It seems there's no such analysis, or did I miss it? I'm sure that avid readers will want to know what was discerned from all that reading.

Yeah, I must have missed it too. Maybe it was "misrepresented intelligence"?

 

[12AX7]

BTW, the rhetoric has gone through so many contortions over this thread that I'm not sure exactly what the point is.

Diplomatic workers staffed a temporary residential outpost in the Libyan city after the death of dictator Moammar Gadhafi. On a night the U.S. ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was visiting from the capital in Tripoli, armed Islamic terrorists attacked, setting a toxic diesel-fueled fire that killed the ambassador and a colleague. Americans then drove, chased by attackers, to a nearby annex, where a mortar attack in the morning killed two security contractors. By noon, hasty scrambling by the American and Libyan governments got U.S. workers to safety in Tripoli, along with their four dead comrades.

Is there something about this summary that is inaccurate? Presumably if it had been known that conditions in Benghazi were that dangerous then no one would have been assigned there. Rice seemed to blame the attack mostly on the video. This is clearly wrong. The attack was too well organized and the date of September 11 was obviously chosen to coincide with the WTC attack. Is there something criminal about being wrong? No, Rice was hardly the first person to say something that turned out not to be true. Just ask Colin Powell about his UN testimony concerning Iraq. Even looking like a fool is not a crime. Just ask Bush about his "you're doing a heck of a job, Brownie," statement.

The Benghazi attack doesn't seem to be fundamentally different than the attack on the Beirut barracks on October 23, 1983. In that attack, 241 were killed. Was Reagan somehow criminally negligent?

I understand the addiction to rhetoric but is that all there is?

They may have been wrong though, barehl pretty much summed up everything I have to say about Benghazi and it hard to imagine that I have anything more to say about it except to call it a partisan witch hunt again. I know that 16.5 likes it when I do that.

I am not well informed about Benghazi minutia, so perhaps my incredulity that a non partisan zealot sees the Benghazi events as some sign of great malfeasance on the part of Clinton, Rice or Obama or anybody is not well founded.

Let's suppose that at the absolute worst Clinton and Obama made some sort of a decision to not increase security in Libya for the Libyan diplomatic people and facilities. So what? Is there a successful attack on a US diplomatic facility that might have been defeated if the security had been increased. People in charge need to make decisions that in a real world don't work out sometimes.

Apparently Susan Rice made some statements soon after the attacks that claimed the attacks were probably spontaneous. She made it absolutely clear that there was more investigation to come and that the current understanding of what the facts are might change. Apparently this gets blown up into some sort of great sin because the attacks seem not to have been spontaneous. Why the hell is this some great horrible thing? People are wrong sometimes. And Rice wasn't technically wrong in the sense that she admitted further investigation might lead to a better understanding. And apparently what she was saying had been vetted by the CIA so what she was saying either was some lie the CIA was pushing or the CIA was mistaken, not Susan Rice.

Essentially all the other badness on the part of the Obama administration has been shown to be made up crap. So who in the long run here is more morally culpable, people lying for partisan political purposes or people that may have made errors in judgment that led to the death of four people?

This is sad, but people dying as the result of errors in judgment is probably a fact of life for every American administration that has ever existed.

So if 16.5 and sunmaster are not rabid partisans what do they see here that I don't? I didn't subscribe to this thread by intent because I thought the Benghazi thing was one big pile of partisan BS. Now that I've followed this thread for a bit and read some of the underlying links it looks even more like a total partisan witch hunt for the sole purpose of embarrassing political opponents than it did when I started following this thread.

As a master of the Benghazi minutia, could you specifically tell us what those policy decisions were? I saw a claim that they didn't bump up security because they were trying to keep a low profile for the embassy. What is the source for that and how is that such a terrible thing? They were trying to stabilize a country in a part of the world where American presence was often a lightning rod for hatred. Keeping a low profile seems like a good goal to me. But what was the source of the claim and what exactly happened?

As to the Rhodes memo, here's an overview from MotherJones:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/05/benghazi-explained-ben-rhodes-foia

Oh my God it's from Mother Jones and not some whack job Fox News wannabe, so that makes it wrong? I didn't think so. Their reaction was obviously more informed than my reaction but in the end I think they were probably right. Do you believe the Republicans don't have political spinners? Did Rhodes at any time think he was promoting the telling of a lie? Once again, people spoke without perfect knowledge and their imperfect knowledge was closer to the facts than the various political partisans have been that have attempted to promote this incident for their partisan self interests who have had the advantage of time to get their facts right. Why, somebody that seems to be as intelligent, objective, and well informed about this incident as 16.5, seems to have put so much credence in the importance of this partisan driven scandal remains something that I don't get.

ETA: Benghazi is a partisan witch hunt. I added this because I know you like it when I say it 16.5.

Excellent posts here.

 

[RandFan]

As a master of the Benghazi minutia, could you specifically tell us what those policy decisions were? I saw a claim that they didn't bump up security because they were trying to keep a low profile for the embassy. What is the source for that and how is that such a terrible thing? They were trying to stabilize a country in a part of the world where American presence was often a lightning rod for hatred. Keeping a low profile seems like a good goal to me. But what was the source of the claim and what exactly happened?

As to the Rhodes memo, here's an overview from MotherJones:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/05/benghazi-explained-ben-rhodes-foia

Oh my God it's from Mother Jones and not some whack job Fox News wannabe, so that makes it wrong? I didn't think so. Their reaction was obviously more informed than my reaction but in the end I think they were probably right. Do you believe the Republicans don't have political spinners? Did Rhodes at any time think he was promoting the telling of a lie? Once again, people spoke without perfect knowledge and their imperfect knowledge was closer to the facts than the various political partisans have been that have attempted to promote this incident for their partisan self interests who have had the advantage of time to get their facts right. Why, somebody that seems to be as intelligent, objective, and well informed about this incident as 16.5, seems to have put so much credence in the importance of this partisan driven scandal remains something that I don't get.

ETA: Benghazi is a partisan witch hunt. I added this because I know you like it when I say it 16.5.

literally everything posted there is wrong.

since when did mother jones become the go to for the left wing???

Okay, let's look at what we have.

1. Subject of Dave's post is the Mother Jones article.
2. The quote by Dave in question is an opinion based on a claim he read and not a definite proposition.
3. 16.5 responds by saying everything posted 'there' is wrong.
4. 16.5 then goes on to disparage Mother Jones.
5. 16.5 makes no attempt to justify his claim.
6. 16.5 only asserts that it is wrong (it's considered poor form to simply make an assertion and not even explain why you have made the assertion).

sunmaster14, granting your proposition, can you give a reasonable argument to justify 16.5's claim?

 

[RandFan]

Is there any doubt that this was a CIA operation and that the CIA was in charge of security?

New Benghazi report says security flaws were known

WASHINGTON — A House Intelligence Committee investigation of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on U.S. outposts in Benghazi concludes that while the Central intelligence Agency had properly secured its compound in the Libyan city, the State Department knew its security precautions were inadequate at the U.S. Special Mission where U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens died.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/11/21/247801/new-benghazi-report-says-security.html#storylink=cpy​

The State Department facility in Benghazi has been widely mischaracterized as a US consulate. In fact it was a Temporary Mission Facility (TMF), a presence that was not continuously staffed by senior personnel and that was never given formal diplomatic status by the Libyan government. ...

...

​

As a result of the deterioration in security in Libya, we at CIA at least twice reevaluated our security posture in Benghazi and made significant enhancements at the Annex. It was only later—after the tragedy of 9/11/12—that we learned that only a few security enhancements had been made at the TMF. CIA does not provide physical security for State Department operations. Why so few improvements were made at the TMF, why so few State Department security officers were protecting the US ambassador, Chris Stevens, why they allowed him to travel there on the anniversary of 9/11, and why they allowed him to spend the night in Benghazi are unclear.

 

[12AX7]

This is, without a doubt, the most pathetically-partisan "witch hunt" thread to ever grace the Internet.

 

[RandFan]

This is, without a doubt, the most pathetically-partisan "witch hunt" thread to ever grace the Internet.

Link after link after link, politifact, snopes, factcheck, no skepticism and no honest admission that all of these points have been debunked.

Has there been a single acknowledgement of the debunked claims by those who propagate this long dead narrative?

Just like 9/11

 

[RandFan]

Of course facts don't matter.

Handwaving in 3... 2.. 1.

It's Time To Discuss The Secret CIA Operation At The Heart Of The US Mission In Benghazi

Among the questions are whether CIA missteps contributed to the security failure in Benghazi and, more importantly, whether the Agency's Benghazi operation had anything to do with reported heavy weapons shipments from the local port to Syrian rebels.

In November The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. mission in Benghazi "was at its heart a CIA operation."

In January, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Congress that the CIA was leading a "concerted effort to try to track down and find and recover ... MANPADS [man-portable air defense systems]" looted from the stockpiles of toppled Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi.

The State Department "consulate" served as diplomatic cover for the previously-hidden annex.

The top-secret presence and location of the CIA outpost was first acknowledged by Charlene Lamb, a top official in the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, during Congressional testimony in October.
​

NOW this makes sense.

Here's what's odd. Obviously there is nothing new here yet someone decided to turn facts that supported the CIA spying operation into "Obama running guns".

 

[barehl]

• Agreed, although that does not absolve the White House or the military of being slow to react. Special forces from Europe should have been sent.
• That delay was on the order of 5-10 minutes, and it would have been longer, except the security people eventually decided to go anyway. That delay was ordered by the local commander and was not unreasonable at the time.

I'm confused about what you are trying to say. If a 10 minute delay was too much then what could special forces have done? I assume you are talking about transportation on a C-130. But that would have been to the airport, right?

She was the big cheese at the State Department. Ultimately, she has to take responsibility for strategic errors like this. If her underlings failed to tell her that there was inadequate security and that nobody was going to do anything about it, then that is a management failure on her part.

Well, I doubt the Secretary of State has ever been expected to be a security expert.

• In 2006, a car bomb was set off outside the US embassy in Damascus.
• In 2006, a suicide bombing at the US consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killed a US diplomat.
• The US embassy in Athens, Greece, was attacked in 2007.
• The US embassy in Serbia was burned down early in 2008.
• The US embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, were attacked in September 2008

Now these all happened under Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who was in fact the National Security Adviser for four years before this. So, if she couldn't prevent attacks then why would anyone else be able to? Also, isn't normal protection provided by the Diplomatic Security Service? This is the only security force attached to the State Department, right? And the people in this bureau are roughly the same as FBI or Federal Marshals. Standard issue is the HK53 with a 30 round clip and 5.56mm ammunition, right? The HK53 is the short barrel, commando version of the HK33.

 

[barehl]

She knew. Africa Command offered the Benghazi mission additional DoD security on two occasions and the Ambassador was instructed by Sullivan and Kennedy to turn the offer down due to Hillary/Obama's small footprint policies.

But actually isn't this a contradiction? Whenever a consulate requires more than an honor guard isn't it normally closed except in unusual circumstances? How was this a policy limited to Obama/Clinton?

 

[barehl]

It looks like The State Department has turned over 1,200 pages of new emails from one of Hillary Clinton’s top aides to the House panel investigating the deadly Benghazi attacks.

why were these not made available to Congress before? Keep that in mind the next time some partisan apologists tries to claim that a thorough investigation is not necessary.

Why wouldn't I keep in mind that there was no legal requirement for Clinton to save any emails and that former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, himself said that he didn't save any of his. How long did Powell's investigation last?

 

[barehl]

the Clinton/Obama approach has resulted in Libya turning into an anarchic hell hole

You mean they ruined the paradise it was under Khadafi? Do you suppose there is another ruthless, arrogant dictator handy that we could replace him with? Maybe Kim Jong-un is available.