New Disclosures on Benghazi

[The Big Dog]

Yea. The government did it on purpose!

By the way, I wrote that. Not 16.5.

I copied it because I thought it was awesome sauce!

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Yea. The government did it on purpose!

That's what 16.5 said. What else would it mean to say they overtly lied for the purpose of deflecting responsibility about the deaths?

BTW, the most problematic statements were the ones Rice made on the Sunday morning news shows, right? They're the ones were she made a disclaimer saying that it's too early to tell, right?

 

[Newtons Bit]

It's a good question but difficult to answer in a vacuum. I need some context. What did we do in the past? Just for comparison purposes: We know that what Bush said about WMD and FEMA's foresight on a direct hurricane hit on New Orleans were factually incorrect. Those are indisputable facts. Those both led to lots and lots of dead people. Again, just for comparison purposes. Tell me what we should have done then and perhaps that will help me decide what we should do now.

And that's a giant tu quoque. It doesn't matter what happened in the past. What matters it what we do going forward.

If Obama lied and that lie led to people's deaths I'd call for impeachment. If the lie simply upset people and was made by a staffer at the state department then fire the staffer.

You actually need to investigate to determine if the lie came from a staffer or if it came from higher. Thats hard to do when a significant portion of the political spectrum is running around like a chicken with its head cut off yelling "CT! CT! CT!".

 

[Newtons Bit]

I copied it because I thought it was awesome sauce!

I demand attribution!

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

THE "so" argument. Here is an excellent rule of thumb, if someone starts out an argument with "so" the chances are very, very good that what will follow is a straw man.

If you relied on that, you'd be wrong. What I have made is not a straw man. I quoted your words (or words you copied without attribution from Newton's Bit).

Some of us feel the government telling overt lies to deflect responsibility about the deaths of 4 Americans is bad.

If they don't mean what I said, what do they mean? What else could it possibly mean to claim that the administration lied to deflect responsibility for the deaths?

 

[RandFan]

And that's a giant tu quoque. It doesn't matter what happened in the past. What matters it what we do going forward.

I haven't tried to justify anything so it's not a tu quoque. How do we as a country respond to situations like this? How should we respond? I think for context it's very important. Are we making a special case just because the president is Obama?

You actually need to investigate to determine if the lie came from a staffer or if it came from higher. Thats hard to do when a significant portion of the political spectrum is running around like a chicken with its head cut off yelling "CT! CT! CT!".

So, in your opinion do you think it significantly probable that Obama could be impeached because of this incident. 16.5 says impeachment is nonsense and attacks anyone who says so and claims they are "jacking the thread". What's your opinion?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

And that's a giant tu quoque. It doesn't matter what happened in the past. What matters it what we do going forward.

That's a strange way to call for oversight of actions and events that happened last year.

You are in fact demanding something be done about what happened in the past.

 

[A'isha]

b) The State Dept. and White House altered the CIA assessment (12 times) to keep the state dept. from getting hit by calls of incompetence. (done)

The State Department, in conjunction with the CIA, altered the assessment only four times. The rest of those edits were made entirely by the CIA, before the State Department or the White House ever saw the memo.

c) It allowed the administration to point at a right wing video (and to subtly lay the blame at the right wing as a whole) as the cause of the attacks while shunting any reference of AQ away from it. (done)

The blaming of the video in the memo was entirely the CIA's doing.

Impeachable? I don't think so although the House may go through with the political theater causing limitations on what he can do. Keeping Hillary from running in 2016? Absolutely as this happened under her watch with her people doing the dirty work.

The House knew about these emails two months ago. As I tried to tell 16.5, this is not new information.

Republicans are apparently only banging the drum about the emails this week as part of the political theater that motivated Issa's hearings. I note that, after the complete non-issue that was the "whistlerblower's" testimony on Wednesday, no one is even talking about them any more, and suddenly the big new issue is these emails that they've known about for a while but didn't say anything about at the time.

It's ridiculous.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

So, in your opinion do you think it significantly probable that Obama could be impeached because of this incident. 16.5 says impeachment is nonsense and attacks anyone who says so is jacking the thread. What's your opinion?

If the CT 16.5 is alleging were true, I would demand he be impeached and then tried for treason. Deflecting responsibility for the killing of 4 embassy officials is in fact that very narrowly defined crime.

There's only the matter of the burden of evidence. . . .

 

[The Big Dog]

That's what 16.5 said. What else would it mean to say they overtly lied for the purpose of deflecting responsibility about the deaths?

BTW, the most problematic statements were the ones Rice made on the Sunday morning news shows, right? They're the ones were she made a disclaimer saying that it's too early to tell, right?

The most problematic statement was that they deleted every single fact the contradicted their false story, and grossly insulted the President of Libya in the process and impeded the investigation.

 

[RandFan]

The most problematic statement was that they deleted every single fact the contradicted their false story, and grossly insulted the President of Libya in the process and impeded the investigation.

Did they know the story was false or did they believe the story was true? Not sure if I'm excluding the middle here so feel free to offer another option.

 

[The Big Dog]

The House knew about these emails two months ago. As I tried to tell 16.5, this is not new information.


It's ridiculous.

Wait, the ones they were allowed to read but could not have copies of and the American Public did not see until yesterday?

Old news, non story, nothing to see here, move on.

Talk about ridiculous

 

[A'isha]

Did they know the story was false or did they believe the story was true? Not sure if I'm excluding the middle here so feel free to offer another option.

They keep ignoring the fact that the references to the video and the description of protests and demonstrations that evolved into an attack was put in the memo by the CIA, and was there from the very beginning.

 

[A'isha]

Wait, the ones they were allowed to read but could not have copies of and the American Public did not see until yesterday?

Yes, the ones they read and so knew the entire content of, but said pretty much nothing at all about for months.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

Some of us feel the government telling overt lies to deflect responsibility about the deaths of 4 Americans is bad.

The false story also embarrassed the President of Libya and may have impeded the subsequent investigation.

Or it might have aided the subsequent investigation, by not revealing what the US knew about terrorist organizations in Libya.

 

[The Big Dog]

Did they know the story was false or did they believe the story was true? Not sure if I'm excluding the middle here so feel free to offer another option.

Another option like they knew it was false and intentionally deleted information that contradicted it?

 

[RandFan]

Did they know the story was false or did they believe the story was true? Not sure if I'm excluding the middle here so feel free to offer another option.

They keep ignoring the fact that the references to the video and the description of protests and demonstrations that evolved into an attack was put in the memo by the CIA, and was there from the very beginning.

Plausible basis for confusion. Now, should they have deleted the references? Depends on what they believed. If they believed the video was the more likely basis for the attack then I've no problem with it. I don't know what they knew as fact.

 

[A'isha]

Another option like they knew it was false and intentionally deleted information that contradicted it?

You're asserting that they knew the CIA deliberately put false information into the memo from the very beginning, before anyone from State or the White House ever saw a draft?

 

[The Big Dog]

Yes, the ones they read and so knew the entire content of, but said pretty much nothing at all about for months.

So the fact that they were not released until yesterday is the GOP's fault??

Intriguing....

rolls eyes

 

[RandFan]

Did they know the story was false or did they believe the story was true? Not sure if I'm excluding the middle here so feel free to offer another option.

Another option like they knew it was false and intentionally deleted information that contradicted it?

No, that's not another option. We are focusing on what they "knew". That's my question. Did they know. If they did know then intentionally deleting the information was wrong. That's not in question.

What is in question is what they knew vs what they believed.