How did Obama mess up in Benghazi?

[fuelair]

This.

I'm not even a fan of the rabid left wing, but it doesn't take much to see that what the right has is stupidity.

I've been meaning to ask about this issue, because all that our Fox News loop on the monitors at work play is Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. They're setting themselves up to look like cretinous morons.

It's bizarre.

No, for them it is completely normal.

 

[Molinaro]

Petraeus knew that it was likely terrorism and not a demonstration gone wild. If he misled Congress about that, that's a problem, but we know he knew. And we also now know that this was included in the CIA's assessment that went out to other agencies.

I don't see that the excluded information was anything more than a combination of a not yet verified claim of responsibility and speculations.

Hindsight now shows it to be accurate, but why the insistence that they knew it to be accurate at that time?

 

[DGM]

I don't see that the excluded information was anything more than a combination of a not yet verified claim of responsibility and speculations.

Hindsight now shows it to be accurate, but why the insistence that they knew it to be accurate at that time?

This is simple, Our hindsight is not the same as what the insiders knew.

 

[PhantomWolf]

jj did back in post #15.

Again, I disagree that it's disloyal to criticize the Commander in Chief. I think dissent is essential.

However, that criticize should be coherent and supported by evidence.

That's why I keep asking what exactly the criticism is. It's been like hitting a moving target trying to figure out what it is much less what the evidence to support it is.

Actually he didn't, you might want to reread that post without the assumptions.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Actually he didn't, you might want to reread that post without the assumptions.

I think you're giving jj an overly-generous reading of post #15, especially considering the follow-up in post#48.

If he wants to agree that it's not disloyal to criticize the Commander-in-Chief, I'm happy to stand corrected.

ETA: And I would argue that it's wrong to call even poorly-substantiated or politically motivated criticism of the president "disloyal" and "un-American".

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Petraeus knew that it was likely terrorism and not a demonstration gone wild.

I must have missed it, but where exactly did the Obama administration say it was not terrorism and that it was only a demonstration gone wild?

I did see Susan Rice's Meet the Press statement where she indicated, with plenty of disclaimers cautioning that we don't yet have full information, that they didn't have evidence that it was the result of months of planning, and that the demonstration was spontaneous. But I saw no denial that it was terrorism, or any misleading statement that it was certainly a demonstration done wild.

Again, it's not really an all-or-nothing kind of question anyway.

Is the allegation that the Obama deceived Congress and the public for some specific purpose, or just that it's the result of incompetence?

Frankly, I'd rather the executive branch erred on the side of cautious characterizations of the intelligence rather than claiming certainty when it's not justified.

 

[thaiboxerken]

No it didn't. Not only did Petraeus indicate that the CIA's version of the talking points indicate the attack was likely terrorists (and not a spontaneous demonstration), but other sources have also reported that the president knew before Rice made her controversial (read: false) claims.

I don't understand this conspiracy theory. Why do you think the administration would try to hide that this was a terrorist attack? Do you think Obama is trying to make his administration appear more competent by claiming that this was a spontaneous attack by random civilians?!

Obama to his staff: "Uhm... we know that the Republicans will attack us on not having adequate security. So.. uhm.. what we will do is.. uhm.... claim that a bunch of civilians breached security and killed our guys... uhm... instead of a well-organized group of terrorists."

 

[Unabogie]

I don't understand this conspiracy theory. Why do you think the administration would try to hide that this was a terrorist attack? Do you think Obama is trying to make his administration appear more competent by claiming that this was a spontaneous attack by random civilians?!

Obama to his staff: "Uhm... we know that the Republicans will attack us on not having adequate security. So.. uhm.. what we will do is.. uhm.... claim that a bunch of civilians breached security and killed our guys... uhm... instead of a well-organized group of terrorists."

Yes, except in their minds they see him reading that off a teleprompter on the golf course.



While holding a Quran.

 

[ravdin]

I don't understand this conspiracy theory. Why do you think the administration would try to hide that this was a terrorist attack? Do you think Obama is trying to make his administration appear more competent by claiming that this was a spontaneous attack by random civilians?!

Obama to his staff: "Uhm... we know that the Republicans will attack us on not having adequate security. So.. uhm.. what we will do is.. uhm.... claim that a bunch of civilians breached security and killed our guys... uhm... instead of a well-organized group of terrorists."

If it had been a spontaneous demonstration, then we can conveniently blame the unsavory character who "abused" his free speech rights by inciting a bunch of religious fanatics into a riot. The Obama administration could credibly claim that they never saw it coming and had nothing to do with it.

On the other hand, if it was a preplanned operation (as it certainly seems to be) then the Obama administration looks incompetent at best. It means that this was a direct result of our policy of toppling Khaddafi, that we had insufficient protection for our personnel on the ground, that we were unaware of al Qaida activity in Benghazi leading up to the attack, and that we ignored all warnings.

I don't see a massive conspiracy or a cover up, but I do see that Obama's people were a lot more concerned about covering their asses and deflecting blame to an amateur filmmaker than they were about informing the public about what had happened.

 

[thaiboxerken]

That's just stupid. The administration would look much less competent if this was a protest gone wrong. And if it turned out to be so, the republicans would be saying so.

Also, there was no cover up.

 

[A'isha]

Or maybe because it was blatantly clear that the film was the reason for all the other protests at embassies that day, including one in Cairo where a mob tried to attack and breach the walls, that it's not exactly a crazy leap of faith to assume that it might be connect to the Benghazi attack too, especially when intelligence sources were reporting conflicting information about who was responsible for the attack and why (such as Ansar al-Sharia apparently first claiming and then denying responsibility).

And even then, the administration was consistently careful to emphasize that the investigation was still ongoing, and they didn't want to make any definitive statements about who or what was responsible for Benghazi, because new information could change their assessment at any time.

"Here's what we think is going on, but we're not positive because we're still sorting everything out" is not a cover up.

EDIT: Not to mention that the repeated crying wolf that the right has been doing on this, leaping to eagerly seize on every allegation, then discarding them without a second glance when their conspiracy theories go down in flames (most recently with the whole thing with the "suspicious timing" of Petraeus' resignation), isn't exactly doing much to help their case that this isn't simply a partisan witchhunt that has nothing to do with what happened in Benghazi and everything to do with a desperate effort to find something, anything, to try and pin on Obama.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Investigation is for wimps. Real leadership is to shoot people before knowing the facts.

 

[fuelair]

I don't see that the excluded information was anything more than a combination of a not yet verified claim of responsibility and speculations.

Hindsight now shows it to be accurate, but why the insistence that they knew it to be accurate at that time?

Because that supports blaming of people who actually did not likely have all the real info. And, frankly, it does not matter for crap as if they let the rectums dig deep enough it must come up clearly who refused a year or so previously to vote the money for State that would have provided decent security. (Subtle hint: their party name did not begin with A-Q or S-Z.)

 

[Peephole]

Petraeus knew that it was likely terrorism and not a demonstration gone wild.

Which is something he's saying now, but not back then.

"He (Petraeus) ... stated that he thought all along he made it clear that there was significant terrorist involvement, and that is not my recollection of what he told us on September 14," King said.
The clear impression we were given (in September) was that the overwhelming amount of evidence was that it arose out of a spontaneous demonstration, and was not a terrorist attack,"

If he misled Congress about that, that's a problem, but we know he knew.

How do we know that?

And we also now know that this was included in the CIA's assessment that went out to other agencies. Somewhere between that assessment leaving the CIA and reaching Rice, that information got redacted..

Here's what was changed:

The first draft of the CIA unclassified talking points stated there were indications the attack was linked to al Qaeda, but during the interagency process when the talking points were reviewed, al Qaeda was changed to extremists. The official said the change “was not a political decision.”

"The points were not, as has been insinuated by some, edited to minimize the role of extremists, diminish terrorist affiliations, or play down that this was an attack. There were legitimate intelligence and legal issues to consider, as is almost always the case when explaining classified assessments publicly." the official explained. "First, the information about individuals linked to al-Qaeda was derived from classified sources. Second, when links were so tenuous—as they still are—it makes sense to be cautious before pointing fingers so you don’t set off a chain of circular and self-reinforcing assumptions. Third, it is important to be careful not to prejudice a criminal investigation in its early stages.”

The official said the controversy over the word "terrorist" caught the intelligence community by "surprise."

“Most people understand that saying “extremists” were involved in a direct assault on the mission isn’t shying away from the idea of terrorist involvement," the official said. "People assumed that it was apparent in this context that extremists who attack US facilities and kill Americans are, by definition, terrorists. Because of the various elements involved in the attack, the term extremist was meant to capture the range of participants."

The talking points, the senior U.S. official explained, "were a reflection of the understanding at the time that could be provided at an unclassified level. They were preliminary and were never meant to be the final word on the issue."

So somewhere along the way "Al Qaeda" (which is already a pretty useless and overused term) was changed to the broader "extremists".

So again, what is the problem? Why should the US Government not be careful about how they put out information about these sort of incidents?

 

[12AX7]

I wonder where the right wing outrage was on previous attacks. This thread was very telling.

 

[thaiboxerken]

I wonder where the right wing outrage was on previous attacks. This thread was very telling.

It's okay if you are a Republican.

 

[Travis]

No it didn't. Not only did Petraeus indicate that the CIA's version of the talking points indicate the attack was likely terrorists (and not a spontaneous demonstration), but other sources have also reported that the president knew before Rice made her controversial (read: false) claims.

Back up there. All the evidence says Rice did not know. And Obama appears to have had good national security reasons for having her not know.

Petraeus knew that it was likely terrorism and not a demonstration gone wild. If he misled Congress about that, that's a problem, but we know he knew. And we also now know that this was included in the CIA's assessment that went out to other agencies. Somewhere between that assessment leaving the CIA and reaching Rice, that information got redacted. We do not yet know by whom. If that information got redacted before Obama saw it, well, that's a problem, isn't it? Shouldn't the CnC be getting the best information, even if there's a reason to hide it from the public?

But we also have reports that Obama DID receive this information. But the White House and Rice spent a lot of time publicly claiming that the attack was a demonstration gone wild. Why then did they do this? Maybe there's a good answer to that, but one has not yet been forthcoming.

There is a damn good reason for why Obama might not have known and if he did he couldn't tell anyone: the sources for the info would be compromised.

But this is really the tip of the iceberg of a much bigger problem. We toppled the mad Duck with no real plan of what would happen post-"revolution".

Well the revolution wasn't exactly planned you know. It just happened. Maybe it would have been nice for the revolutionaries to call up the White House and hammer out a plan and a timeframe but that didn't happen.

Given that this erupted how it did we had little time to choose to do one of three things: do nothing, aid Qaddafi or aid the rebels. We chose to aid the rebels.

I don't understand this conspiracy theory. Why do you think the administration would try to hide that this was a terrorist attack? Do you think Obama is trying to make his administration appear more competent by claiming that this was a spontaneous attack by random civilians?!

Obama to his staff: "Uhm... we know that the Republicans will attack us on not having adequate security. So.. uhm.. what we will do is.. uhm.... claim that a bunch of civilians breached security and killed our guys... uhm... instead of a well-organized group of terrorists."

If it had been a spontaneous demonstration, then we can conveniently blame the unsavory character who "abused" his free speech rights by inciting a bunch of religious fanatics into a riot.

No we couldn't. If it had turned out to be because of that video then the maker of the video is still just an idiot. The deaths were never his fault.

The Obama administration could credibly claim that they never saw it coming and had nothing to do with it.

On the other hand, if it was a preplanned operation (as it certainly seems to be) then the Obama administration looks incompetent at best. It means that this was a direct result of our policy of toppling Khaddafi, that we had insufficient protection for our personnel on the ground, that we were unaware of al Qaida activity in Benghazi leading up to the attack, and that we ignored all warnings.

Look, going in to the whole thing there were risks. We would have been stupid to assume no one would die as a result. The alternative was to let the rebellion be crushed. Maybe that means no Americans died but is the world a better place?

I don't see a massive conspiracy or a cover up, but I do see that Obama's people were a lot more concerned about covering their asses and deflecting blame to an amateur filmmaker than they were about informing the public about what had happened.

Actually I don't see that at all. I neither see now nor have I ever seen any evidence of butt covering. I think this is total projection. Obama critics are so used to their side doing unsavory things to protect their butts that they simply can't comprehend anyone else not doing it.

 

[Unabogie]

So that's it? Obama messed up because following an event with hazy intelligence, they were too unspecific about what actually happened when appearing on cable news, even though they felt they had a pretty good idea but wanted to make sure before confirming that in public? Damn those careful, deliberate technocrats!

McCain figured it out with his gut! Why couldn't Obummer?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

It's fun to watch you guys jump to attack Obama before all of the facts are in. It's almost religious too.

When are "all the facts in"? Obama screwed up long before the attack on the US facility. War on Libya without provocation, Congressional authorization, or plan for succession. Indifference to reports of Islamist activity and requests for enhanced security in the weeks before the attack. Hitting the "snooze" button after the attack began. Lying about the genesis of the attack after enough facts were in to call the video explanation into question. Giving Islamists a veto over the First Amendment rights of Americans.

Just to start. We will learn more.

 

[TimCallahan]

When are "all the facts in"? Obama screwed up long before the attack on the US facility. War on Libya without provocation, Congressional authorization, or plan for succession. Indifference to reports of Islamist activity and requests for enhanced security in the weeks before the attack. Hitting the "snooze" button after the attack began. Lying about the genesis of the attack after enough facts were in to call the video explanation into question. Giving Islamists a veto over the First Amendment rights of Americans.
Just to start. We will learn more.

Concerning the hilited areas: What are you talking about?