New Disclosures on Benghazi

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16.5 said:
This has been covered at length in this thread.
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Well, no. Which is why it keeps being brought up; why is _this_ embassy attack somehow far, far more terrible than all the others which occurred on Bush's watch, several of which caused significantly more deaths?

It seems like it would be a simple question. Any deaths from terrorist attacks are regrettable, whether they be Americans, foreign nationals visiting or employed by the embassy, or just random bystanders who were unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And yet, this particular attack is worthy of a Grand Inquisition, while the others were passed off at the time as a tragic "cost of doing business". Of course, I've already drawn that conclusion earlier; this is nothing more than another stalking-horse for the GOP's simultaneous attempt to overturn the legitimate results of a duly-conducted presidential election, and political fodder for 2016 against a candidate they don't think they can beat without a four-year smear campaign.

I feel that serious readers of this thread draw significant benefit from hearing... "the rest of the story". ;) Whether you agree with me is, frankly, irrelevant.
 
NoahFence said:
To be fair, we're not sure if any of those 50-odd Americans actually were odd. They may have been quite normal.
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I only count 48 deaths from the tally in the Wikipedia reference.

It is not readily apparent to me if any had security lapses that were worthy of significant investigation.

As far as tu quoque:

Merriam-Webster said:
tu quo·que noun \ˈtü-ˈkwō-kwē, ˈtyü-, -ˈkō-\

: a retort charging an adversary with being or doing what he criticizes in others
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Wikipedia said:
Tu quoque /tuːˈkwoʊkwiː/,[1] (Latin for "you, too" or "you, also") or the appeal to hypocrisy, is a logical fallacy that attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting the opponent's failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. This dismisses someone's point of view based on criticism of the person's inconsistency, and not the position presented,[2] whereas a person's inconsistency should not discredit their position. Thus, it is a form of the ad hominem argument.[3] To clarify, although the person being attacked might indeed be acting inconsistently or hypocritically, this does not invalidate their argument.
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Wiki References:
1. OED
2. Bluedorn, Nathaniel (2002, 2003). The Fallacy Detective. p. 54. ISBN 0-9745315-0-2.
3. Logical Fallacy: Tu Quoque
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Given the above, I believe that bringing up a charge of tu quoque by 16.5 appears valid, in that the thread is discussing the disclosures with regard to Benghazi.

As far as the Benghazi investigation, is there a link or reference to a current, ongoing, official investigation?
 
LSSBB said:
Given the above, I believe that bringing up a charge of tu quoque by 16.5 appears valid, in that the thread is discussing the disclosures with regard to Benghazi.
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Except of course that it's not, because I'm not attempting to discredit his position that... well, to be honest, it's difficult to determine what his position is, but for now let's go with "there were unusual security lapses", to paraphrase your words. For this to be tu quoque, I would have to say something like "Since nobody investigated the embassy attacks that occurred under Bush, therefore there were no unusual security lapses" -- which is nonsensical on the face of it, really.

What I _am_ doing is successfully revealing the motivations behind his desire that there be an investigation in the first place, _and_ I am successfully challenging his position that any security lapses which occurred were necessarily out of the ordinary; to do this you must, of course, reference other incidents. Historical record indicates that, in fact, our embassies are attacked frequently, and sometimes people die as a result of these attacks. No special investigations were conducted for the vast majority of those attacks; the question becomes immediately, why should a special investigation be required for this one? (Throwing the names of logical fallacies at the wall hoping they'll stick is not really an answer.)

As far as the Benghazi investigation, is there a link or reference to a current, ongoing, official investigation?
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Someone else in this thread said earlier that there is no current Senate investigation. Beyond that, I'm sure our resident link generator will be along shortly.
 
LSSBB said:
As far as the Benghazi investigation, is there a link or reference to a current, ongoing, official investigation?
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As far as I can tell there isn't one. I think Issa's dog and pony show has gotten in the way of any actual investigation and now there are far more immediate issues to be dealt with.
 
remirol said:
Except of course that it's not, because I'm not attempting to discredit his position that... well, to be honest, it's difficult to determine what his position is, but for now let's go with "there were unusual security lapses", to paraphrase your words. For this to be tu quoque, I would have to say something like "Since nobody investigated the embassy attacks that occurred under Bush, therefore there were no unusual security lapses" -- which is nonsensical on the face of it, really.

What I _am_ doing is successfully revealing the motivations behind his desire that there be an investigation in the first place, _and_ I am successfully challenging his position that any security lapses which occurred were necessarily out of the ordinary; to do this you must, of course, reference other incidents. Historical record indicates that, in fact, our embassies are attacked frequently, and sometimes people die as a result of these attacks. No special investigations were conducted for the vast majority of those attacks; the question becomes immediately, why should a special investigation be required for this one? (Throwing the names of logical fallacies at the wall hoping they'll stick is not really an answer.)
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So were there security lapses at Benghazi, or not? In other words, what I'm saying the question should be is:

"why should an special investigation be required for this one?"
 
LSSBB said:
So were there security lapses at Benghazi, or not? In other words, what I'm saying the question should be is:

"why should an special investigation be required for this one?"
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They have had an investigation. Several hearings as well. And yet for some reason that's not enough. So the question flips back to: why is that not enough? Did they do countless hearings and investigations into prior embassy/consulate attacks? If not, why focus on this one for YEARS?

The obvious answer is that this started with Mitt Romney using the attack as an election year cudgel against Obama, and then Fox News jumped on it when it seemed as though it could be a useful smear with which to attack Hillary Clinton in advance of 2016.

I keep asking periodically in this thread: exactly what is alleged to have been done here? What is the "scandal" even supposed to be? And I've yet to get an answer.
 
LSSBB said:
So were there security lapses at Benghazi, or not? In other words, what I'm saying the question should be is:

"why should an special investigation be required for this one?"
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There's always an ordinary investigation conducted, of course (cf. the hunt for the actual bombing suspects); any further investigations would almost by definition be 'special', or at the very least 'additional'.

This is also why I specifically call out "unusual" security lapses, because no process is perfect -- especially when used in a neutral-to-hostile foreign environment while constrained to a very small area. This means that the question doesn't lend itself well to "yes or no", it really becomes more of a qualitative analysis as well:

a) Were there security lapses?
b) If a), were these lapses particularly egregious?
c) If a) or b), were there unusual circumstances contributing at the time?

For there to be a special investigation, I would expect that the answers should be a) YES, b) YES, and c) NO. From everything I've read so far, the actual answers are YES, NO, and YES, though.
 
remirol said:
There's always an ordinary investigation conducted, of course (cf. the hunt for the actual bombing suspects); any further investigations would almost by definition be 'special', or at the very least 'additional'.

This is also why I specifically call out "unusual" security lapses, because no process is perfect -- especially when used in a neutral-to-hostile foreign environment while constrained to a very small area. This means that the question doesn't lend itself well to "yes or no", it really becomes more of a qualitative analysis as well:

a) Were there security lapses?
b) If a), were these lapses particularly egregious?
c) If a) or b), were there unusual circumstances contributing at the time?

For there to be a special investigation, I would expect that the answers should be a) YES, b) YES, and c) NO. From everything I've read so far, the actual answers are YES, NO, and YES, though.
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I scanned the reports I could find and see that investigations were done, and recommendations were made. I don't see what the remaining issue is - a list of "unanswered questions" from Issa or the subcommittee would be good. Do heads have to roll? :confused:

As far as "unusual" lapses - I believe that is the wrong way to view it, and is what brings up the tu quoque charges. The proper way is to view the attacks within the ecosystem of embassy security and the interactions between State and DoD, and whether systemic solutions need to be developed. Looking at the reports I have seen, that appears to have been the approach of the investigators.

As far as reviewing the full committee hearings and the approach of the House members, I don't have the time or patience to listen to congressional droning, and there is a cloud of partisanship in the media analysis. Grandstanding will always occur. The key thing for me is: has the congressional hearing process terminated?
 
LSSBB said:
Are any future hearings scheduled?
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Could be.

As soon as it was clear that Issa and company were less concerned with the truth than with being partisan hacks I pretty much stopped caring what they did.
 
I see that Remirol has refused to support his false claim that 50 odd Americans dies in attacks on diplomatic facilities during the Bush administration.

Had he done anything more than cite Wikipedia, he would have found that 50 Americans were not killed in such attacks, and that any claim to the contrary is utterly false.

1 American died, his name was David Foy. He was killed in a Car Bomb attack near the Embassy in Pakistan. I am very familiar with that attack. It was absolutely nothing like the attack on Benghazi. If you are going to attempt to derail the thread with your fallacies, at least do some *********** research. I know you did not read the thread

If anyone wants to revisit this off topic derail AGAIN Here is the link to my post discussing it THE LAST TIME IT WAS RAISED.


16.5 said:
Where to begin?

In all of those cases, there was no "cover up." Unlike the attack on the Consulate in Benghazi, where we see: 1. Non Disclosure Agreements; 2. Abusive and totally unprecedented repeated polygraph tests on CIA personnel; 3. the Pentagon lying about the status of a witness.

How many of those attacks involved deaths of an American? How many involved the deaths of 4 Americans? How many involved the death of an Ambassador? How many involved the complete take over of an American facility? How many involved the complete take over of two facilities?

None, of course. "But Bush...."

The subject is the attack on the facility at Benghazi. Your tu quoque fallacies are totally off topic.
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I trust this ridiculous derail is done.
 
LSSBB said:
I scanned the reports I could find and see that investigations were done, and recommendations were made. I don't see what the remaining issue is - a list of "unanswered questions" from Issa or the subcommittee would be good. Do heads have to roll? :confused:

As far as "unusual" lapses - I believe that is the wrong way to view it, and is what brings up the tu quoque charges. The proper way is to view the attacks within the ecosystem of embassy security and the interactions between State and DoD, and whether systemic solutions need to be developed. Looking at the reports I have seen, that appears to have been the approach of the investigators.

As far as reviewing the full committee hearings and the approach of the House members, I don't have the time or patience to listen to congressional droning, and there is a cloud of partisanship in the media analysis. Grandstanding will always occur. The key thing for me is: has the congressional hearing process terminated?
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The state department released a report (I believe that's it, it's been a while since I looked at it) on their findings on failures and lapses involved in the incident. There are likely valid complaints about consequences and whatnot, but there was an investigation.
 
16.5 said:
1 American died, his name was David Foy. He was killed in a Car Bomb attack near the Embassy in Pakistan. I am very familiar with that attack. It was absolutely nothing like the attack on Benghazi. If you are going to attempt to derail the thread with your fallacies, at least do some *********** research. I know you did not read the thread

If anyone wants to revisit this off topic derail AGAIN Here is the link to my post discussing it THE LAST TIME IT WAS RAISED.
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I didn't realize that you believed the lives of foreign nationals were worth less than the lives of Americans, and thus the attacks in which those same foreign nationals died were deserving of less attention. Well, that certainly clears some things up, though I have to point out that I do not agree with your perspective on things in the slightest.

This still doesn't change that the repeated calls for additional investigations are nothing more than an attempt to politicize an event which has occurred repeatedly over the last decade as part of a concerted smear campaign in preparation for 2016, of course. Where else have we heard people constantly calling for "another" investigation, I wonder?
 
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remirol said:
I didn't realize that you believed the lives of foreign nationals ....
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And that folks is what is known as moving the goal posts.

He makes a false statement, he gets called on it, he moves the goal posts.

He doesn't acknowledge the lie, just moves the goal posts.

Learn from it.

Thanks for posting Remirol. Next time do a little research.
 
16.5 said:
And that folks is what is known as moving the goal posts.
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It seems that your complaint is that I said "50-odd Americans", when I should have really said "50-odd people". Isn't that accurate?

Could you, then, explain to us why those foreign nationals who died as a result of attacks on our embassies were less important than American citizens -- sufficiently less important that special investigations and Congressional hearings weren't required for those attacks?
 
remirol said:
Could you, then, explain to us why those foreign nationals who died as a result of attacks on our embassies were less important than American citizens -- sufficiently less important that special investigations and Congressional hearings weren't required for those attacks?
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To understand the difference you need not look at who died but who's living (or was living), in the White House.
 
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