Merged State Department admits there was no protest at Benghazi consulate

[Newtons Bit]

Because Obama wants to help the terrorists in their efforts to impose "sharia law" as part of their shared ideological goals, of course.

Or was it because he helped forge a video which he could use to scapegoat the Jews as part of his long-term plan to destroy the Constitution?

Or maybe it was to cover up the fact that he's been secretly arming Syrian rebels for the benefit of al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Or could it have been because it was just God's punishment on America for violating His commandments?

Well, it's one of those, I'm sure.

Or, more plausibly, it could be because he is terrified of collateral damage. He'd rather do nothing then do something and have that go wrong.

 

[A'isha]

Or, more plausibly, it could be because he is terrified of collateral damage. He'd rather do nothing then do something and have that go wrong.

As Osama Bin Laden and the other residents of Abbotabad, Pakistan, can assuredly testify to.

 

[Meadmaker]

My view here though, is that there is a coordinated effort to exploit what is an unfortunate, horrific event for partisan political purposes regardless of the facts.

Well.....yeah. It's an election year. Go figure.

The problem for Obama is that mixed in with the partisan political junk, there's a glimmer of substance in it.

Will it matter? Not a lot. The reality is that a different response in Benghazi that night might have saved at most two lives, or it might have killed a whole bunch of people. I really don't know. There are lots of experts on the internet and talk radio on the exact significance of laser targeters and the proper use of predator drones in urban areas. I'm not one of them.

If extra security had been provided before the attack, that might have helped, but once again, I don't really know.

Politically, will people be swayed by this anti-Obama rhetoric? If there were no substance to it, then the only people who would swayed by it would be people who were already going to vote for Romney anyway. However, I do think that the administration looked foolish. At best, you could say they did the right thing, but communicated badly. Since communication is a major part of the job of a chief executive, that's still a legitimate criticism. It might lose up to 1% of the vote. If the election weren't so close, that wouldn't matter.

It seems pretty obvious that a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking is going on here without much need to tie the ideas to reality.

It goes with the territory. When things go bad, people blame the boss. Here in Detroit, I'm sure there are many, many people saying what Jim Leland, manager of the Tigers, should have done differently to prevent a four game sweep in the World Series.

 

[Newtons Bit]

As Osama Bin Laden and the other residents of Abbotabad, Pakistan, can assuredly testify to.

Bin Laden was taken out after a very carefully planned raid involving ground forces. Where does that collateral damage come into play in your specious example?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No. It's that they didn't even consider it a valid option. We deserve a real answer as to why. Citing some missing small surface-to-air missiles is not a valid excuse.

We also deserve a real response to why the guys at the CIA annex were told more than once not to intervene at the consulate.

I don't suppose you could show us some equivalent concern you posted over the embassy attacks after 9-11-01 while Bush was in office?

Your co-believers can't seem to:

Krauthammer Whitewashes Bush's History To Bash Obama Over Embassy Attack

If diplomatic attacks are a sign of weakness, Bush was the weakest of all

Rumsfeld defends Romney: Embassy attacked because of ‘American weakness’

“The attacks on our embassies & diplomats are a result of perceived American weakness,” Rumsfeld wrote. “Mitt Romney is right to point that out.”

As The Daily Dolt noted on Thursday, terrorists attacked U.S. embassies 12 times while President George W. Bush was in office. At least eight of those attacks occurred while Rumsfeld was serving as secretary of Defense.

 

[A'isha]

Bin Laden was taken out after a very carefully planned raid involving ground forces. Where does that collateral damage come into play in your specious example?

You wrote "He'd rather do nothing then do something and have that go wrong" too, you know.

But if you want opportunistic airstrikes carried out without regard for collateral damage, maybe you ought to read up on the Obama Administration's drone strike program.

With the exception of a handful of people like Meadmaker, I don't believe for one second that all this "concern" about the Benghazi attacks has anything whatsoever to do with an actual interest in finding out what happened in order to make sure it doesn't happen again. Because if it were, there wouldn't have been this litany of accusations snatched up and quickly discarded by the right, and there certainly wouldn't be nonsense like right-wing blogs (including one at a major newspaper) excitedly passing around an anonymous rumor posted at a college football fansite's message board.

Because if there were real concern and real problems with what happened, the right wouldn't need to stoop to that.

 

[Newtons Bit]

I don't suppose you could show us some equivalent concern you posted over the embassy attacks after 9-11-01 while Bush was in office?

Your co-believers can't seem to:

Krauthammer Whitewashes Bush's History To Bash Obama Over Embassy Attack

If diplomatic attacks are a sign of weakness, Bush was the weakest of all

Rumsfeld defends Romney: Embassy attacked because of ‘American weakness’

Really raising the bar on them straw men tu quoque and non sequitur arguments, huh?

 

[tyr_13]

You wrote "He'd rather do nothing then do something and have that go wrong" too, you know.

But if you want opportunistic airstrikes carried out without regard for collateral damage, maybe you ought to read up on the Obama Administration's drone strike program.

With the exception of a handful of people like Meadmaker, I don't believe for one second that all this "concern" about the Benghazi attacks has anything whatsoever to do with an actual interest in finding out what happened in order to make sure it doesn't happen again. Because if it were, there wouldn't have been this litany of accusations snatched up and quickly discarded by the right, and there certainly wouldn't be nonsense like right-wing blogs (including one at a major newspaper) excitedly passing around an anonymous rumor posted at a college football fansite's message board.

Because if there were real concern and real problems with what happened, the right wouldn't need to stoop to that.

Just because there is a huge and ever expanding list of incidents which are clearly nothing more than dancing on graves for stupid partisan reasons from many MANY on the right, that doesn't mean that any given criticism is motivated only by a desire for partisan advantage, or even that partisan advantage is a motivation at all.

It is possible to discuss what happened and what could have been done better without the political blame game. For example, perhaps more troops already in place would have been helped the situation. Of course maybe it would have just meant more deaths. Or there could have been a diplomatic cost or diplomatic reasons for not having them in the first place. Or it was a calculated risk. Perhaps air support should have been brought to bear, but maybe they had reason to not trust the laser data, or the mortar team, or teams, were placed well enough to ensure return fire would have had disastrous collateral damage. Perhaps there are completely mundane reasons that say, the gunships couldn't get there.

I agree that the politics have messed this entire discussion messed up to hell and back, and for the most part all it is is political mudslinging. But as you say, there are a handful of people not slinging any mud, even if it gets on all the avenues of argument.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Really raising the bar on them straw men tu quoque and non sequitur arguments, huh?

I take it your answer is, "hypocrisy, no problem".

 

[Newtons Bit]

I take it your answer is, "hypocrisy, no problem".

Care to make this non-personal?

 

[davefoc]

Care to make this non-personal?

“The attacks on our embassies & diplomats are a result of perceived American weakness,” Rumsfeld wrote. “Mitt Romney is right to point that out.”

As The Daily Dolt noted on Thursday, terrorists attacked U.S. embassies 12 times while President George W. Bush was in office. At least eight of those attacks occurred while Rumsfeld was serving as secretary of Defense.

Did you take this personally? Were embassies attacked 12 times while Bush was president? Do you have some thoughts about which ones of those attacks were because of perceived American weakness under Bush? Do you have some thoughts about why with all this rampant perceived American weakness only two embassies have been attacked under Obama?

Do you have some thoughts about what part of all the criticism of the Obama administration over the Libyan embassy attacks is just hypocritical partisan BS and what part is thoughtful criticism genuinely concerned about figuring out what went wrong and how the chances of such an occurence might be reduced in the future?

 

[theprestige]

Would it really be worth the resources to secure a burned out and looted compound at a time when every other facility is on high alert?

Obviously not a completely looted compound, since CNN still found stuff there.

But you make a good point: Why didn't the compound have a Marine Security Detachment on the premises before the attack?

Did the State Department and the White House believe the people in Benghazi, and their work, wasn't very important, or did they believe it wasn't very much at risk?

ETA: And every other facility was on high alert? Really? There are 28 MSDs headquartered in Ft. Lauderdale, assigned to the Americas. Was the US embassy in Canadia on such high alert that they couldn't spare six Marines?

 

[A'isha]

But you make a good point: Why didn't the compound have a Marine Security Detachment on the premises before the attack?

Did the State Department and the White House believe the people in Benghazi, and their work, wasn't very important, or did they believe it wasn't very much at risk?

Here's what the Marines themselves told Breitbart when that site tried to make hay out of the "no Marines" thing:

Regarding no Marines at the embassy/consulate in Libya:

Embassy security in Tripoli and the consulate in Benghazi fall under the Regional Security Officer with the State Department. The U.S. maintains over 285 diplomatic facilities worldwide. MCESG provides 152 security detachments provide internal security at designated U.S. diplomatic and consular facilities in order to prevent the compromise of classified material vital to the national security of the United States. Perimeter security is the responsibility of the host nation police/security forces. The embassy in Tripoli and the consulate in Benghazi do not have a MCESG detachment. Typically, when a new embassy is established, it takes time to grow a new MCESG detachment. In coordination with the State Department, there was discussion about establishing a detachment in Tripoli sometime in the next five years. Overall, the plan is to grow the number of MCESG detachments worldwide to 173.

 

[Newtons Bit]

Here's what the Marines themselves told Breitbart when that site tried to make hay out of the "no Marines" thing:

Wow, they really lit a fire under that task, didn't they?

 

[theprestige]

Here's what the Marines themselves told Breitbart when that site tried to make hay out of the "no Marines" thing:

Thanks, but it is not news that the Marines are not responsible for deciding where they are deployed, nor is it at all surprising that they promptly passed the buck right back to the State Department and the Executive branch where it belongs.

And of course, it doesn't answer the question of why the people the Marines correctly identified as being responsible for US diplomatic security decisions in Libya, made the decisions they did.

Was it that those people didn't think Stevens' work in Benghazi was important? Was it that they didn't think it was at risk?

Wow, they really lit a fire under that task, didn't they?

I know, right?

 

[A'isha]

Wow, they really lit a fire under that task, didn't they?

Marine Security Guard Detachments are not assigned to embassies and consulates for external protection purposes, but to provide internal security and to safeguard classified information and ensure its destruction if necessary. They may secondarily act to protect diplomatic facilities and personnel in an emergency situation, but since such protection is the responsibility of forces belonging to the host country, Marine detachments are not posted on the perimeter of American diplomatic facilities for external security purposes. As a result, they aren't generally assigned based on external protection requirements - even in emergency situations where the detachment has to act to protect facility personnel, Marines are only "expected to delay entry by hostile elements long enough to permit destruction of classified material and to assist in protecting lives of the mission staff until host government forces arrive."

[EDIT: External security for the main consulate compound in Benghazi was provided by a local militia called the February 17th Brigade. The annex nearby was a CIA facility, not a State Department diplomatic facility, with its own security personnel separate from State Department's personnel.]

As for the ostensibly slow speed of establishing a Marine detachment in Libya, according to this,

The Embassy Security Group, which is based at Marine Corps Base Quantico in northern Virginia, is expected to add detachments over the next five to 10 years, said Capt. Greg Wolf, a Marine spokesman at the Pentagon. However, he emphasized that this growth effort has been in place since 2004 — and that it’s not a knee-jerk response to recent events.

In 1983, 126 locations (less than half of all diplomatic facilities worldwide) had Marine detachments. Currently, that number is 148 (according to their homepage) or 152 (according to the spokesperson's email to Breitbart) out of over 285 facilities worldwide, a little more than half, but still only an increase of 22-26 facilities with detachments in 29 years, or less than one new added detachment per year on average. If the plan is to add 21-25 new detachments to bring the total number up to 173 over the next five to ten years, as the Marine Corps Times article says, that represents a two- to five-fold increase in the rate new detachments are being assigned to diplomatic facilities than there has been in the thirty years previous. Though that drops to a one-or-two-per-year rate if you include the time since the 2004 start date of the current expansion program along with the 5 to 10 year projected completion time, instead of just counting the projected 5 to 10 year timeline for the adding of all 21-25 new detachments.

 

[Newtons Bit]

And... what's your point? To post something that everyone here already knew? Looks like you did a great job at that!

 

[A'isha]

And... what's your point?

That the "where were the Marines?!" thing is yet another "throw every accusation at the wall to see what sticks" red herring.

 

[Newtons Bit]

That the "where were the Marines?!" thing is yet another "throw every accusation at the wall to see what sticks" red herring.

We get it. The State Department is really slow at organizing new Marine detachments for embassies. We got that from the previous post.

But what part of that explains why a FAST unit (or any other non-marine security unit for that matter) wasn't deployed before the attack?

 

[casebro]

Has this thread been informed of the rumor that a Gen. Ham, chief of Africom, wanted to send in the Spec OPs he had lined up but his 2nd in command relieved him of duty? Ham is now suddenly 'retiring'. Seems the army was ready to go in, but the pols said no.