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Republicans, please explain the Behghazi outrage to me

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I haven't seen that statement, that costs were NOT a factor, but that a desire to appear "normalized" was. Can you cite something more specific I can look at?

IIRC, a State Dept security official said that while testifying during the House inquiry.

The "normalized" part I've heard several times and can't recall when/where, but it was an Admin official.

Never mind, I googled it:

The Obama administration rejected requests for more security in Benghazi amid growing signs of terror threats because it wanted to portray Libya as a calm country and foreign policy success, according to leaders of the House Oversight Committee.

The administration "made a policy decision to put Libya into a 'normalized' country status as quickly as possible," starting in November, stated a letter to President Obama from Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and National Security Subcommittee Chairman Jason Chaffetz.

The apparent aim of this policy was to convey the impression that the situation in Libya "was getting better and not worse," states the letter released Friday.

That policy was why State withdrew security personnel and resources from Benghazi, including a DC-3 aircraft, the letter says, citing an email from Miki Rankin, a State Department post management officer for Libya and Saudi Arabia.

The policy of "normalization" was described to committee members by Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary of state for international programs.

Edit: Forgot the link: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ecurity-vacuum-ignored-before-attack/1644925/

Fern
 
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IIRC, a State Dept security official said that while testifying during the House inquiry.

The "normalized" part I've heard several times and can't recall when/where, but it was an Admin official.

Never mind, I googled it:



Fern
Thanks Fern.
 
Says the newly converted wingnut that spent god knows how many posts trying to flesh out the birth certificate controversy for over 2 years.

Talk about stupid.

It doesn't matter . THE FACTS ARE ! The copy of the birth certifcate the White house furnished was a FAKE . Just like Obama himself . It had multi layers with differant script. In 1963 this was impossiable . There were NO layers in 1963 and there can't not be layers in a copy of that certificate period . Your so freaked out you eat their BS like its good for ya. You explain how the copy of a 1963 documment has differant layers . You can't because its just not possiable
 
Republitards pwnt:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/18/benghazi-attack-report-state-department_n_2326637.html

The review board determined that there had been no immediate, specific tactical warning of a potential attack on the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001.

It said the response by Diplomatic Security agents on the scene and CIA operatives at a nearby compound that later came under attack itself had been "timely and appropriate" and absolved the military from any blame. "There was simply not enough time for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference," it said.

The report also discounted speculation that officials in Washington had refused appeals for addition help after the attack had begun.

"The Board found no evidence of any undue delays in decision making or denial of support from Washington or from the military combatant commanders," it said. To the contrary, the report said the evacuation of the dead and wounded 12 hours after the initial attack was due to "exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response" that helped save the lives of two seriously wounded Americans.

But conservatards will still 'tard...
 
A few points for clarity:

1. The right clings to the dishonest claim this was an embassy. It was not. It was not even an official consulate. It was a "mission", i.e., a small U.S. office facility (and apparently a CIA station).

2. According to sworn Congressional testimony, the State Department had already spent over a million dollars (several million, not clear?) to improve security at that facility.

3. Lacking a crystal ball, what constitutes "proper protection" from an attack "unprecedented" in its intensity and duration?

It's easy to armchair quarterback with the luxury of 20/20 hindsight. But, what's the objective, factual basis for insisting the measures already taken were inadequate for the known risk? Do we turn every small facility in a "dangerous" country into a fortress? Where do we draw the line -- and how much are we willing to spend?

Mind you I think it's valid to ask the questions and it's certainly something the Obama administration needs to investigate thoroughly. One would hope the result will be better threat assessments and more effective security world-wide ... balanced by real-world financial constraints. The problem I have with the O'bashers is they aren't just seeking answers. They've already leaped straight to their partisan conclusions. They are screeching assertions they cannot support, e.g., that Obama failed to "provide proper protection".
1. Yes, it was a consulate rather than an embassy. As Fern points out, requirements for security are much the same.

2. Over a million dollars for exactly what? There were NO American guards and NO QRF detailed, only a gaggle of Libyans who predictably disappeared at the first sign of trouble. If we truly spent over a million dollars to "improve security", let's identify the particular FOB (Friend Of Barack) we paid and at least get our money back.

3. The ambassador and the commo specialist were killed within a few minutes using nothing more than small arms and gasoline. The CIA station was hit by a more concerted attack using crew-served weapons and certainly one could consider that part of the same attack, but even that is hardly unusual in troubled Islamic nations. The attack can only be considered "unprecedented" in its intensity and duration if one counts only attacks actually made on those facilities and ignores attacks made on all other facilities. As we've seen from the denied requests for security, the attacks were nothing more than the people at those facilities had been predicting. When what happens is exactly what has been predicted to happen, calling it hindsight is disingenuous - it's only hindsight to those who refused to see until it happened.
 
The attack can only be considered "unprecedented" in its intensity and duration if one counts only attacks actually made on those facilities and ignores attacks made on all other facilities.

What other diplomatic facility in a non-occupied country has been attacked and overrun by small-arms wielding terrorists which then, for an extended duration, followed the retreating forces with mortar fire?

A breakdown of local government authority on this level is unprecedented.
 

^ lol, I didn't even need to wait until 2013.

Cue excuses from resident wingnuts in 3, 2, 1....

Jeebus, the amount of cherry picking and spin in your posts is ridiculous even by P&N standards.

The report, by all accounts except DominionSeraph's, is highly critical of the State Dept. E.g., four officials have already been relieved of duty.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/...icial-resigns-in-wake-of-benghazi-report?lite

Fern
 
Jeebus, the amount of cherry picking and spin in your posts is ridiculous even by P&N standards.

The report, by all accounts except DominionSeraph's, is highly critical of the State Dept. E.g., four officials have already been relieved of duty.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/...icial-resigns-in-wake-of-benghazi-report?lite

Fern

Pathetic. Please delineate where your nutter conspiracy theories (and others in this thread) regarding the Obama admin lying about Benghazi have been corroborated by the report? Please link and quote in detail. You'll find that it is nowhere, as predicted, merely that certain lower ranking State Department officials were at fault, including Stevens himself.
 
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Pathetic. Please delineate where your nutter conspiracy theories (and others in this thread) regarding the Obama admin lying about Benghazi have been corroborated by the report? Please link and quote in detail. You'll find that it is nowhere, as predicted, merely that certain lower ranking State Department officials were at fault, including Stevens himself.

Not sure which conspiracy theories you are referring to, but the report confirmed that there was NO demonstration at the facility prior to the attack.

Fern
 
Not sure which conspiracy theories you are referring to, but the report confirmed that there was NO demonstration at the facility prior to the attack.

Fern

This is the height of bullshit obfuscation and rewriting the history of your own posts from mere weeks ago. You earlier claimed in this thread that "The lie is beyond obvious: Everyone knew it was a terrorist attack from the get-go, yet we were fed BS by the Admin" or that, in response to a report about Feinstein investigating Benghazi, you saying "The Senate, controlled by the Dems, doesn't like to be lied to".

Do you stand by these original two claims of yours or not?
 
What other diplomatic facility in a non-occupied country has been attacked and overrun by small-arms wielding terrorists which then, for an extended duration, followed the retreating forces with mortar fire?

A breakdown of local government authority on this level is unprecedented.
Hard to find exact correlations since American diplomatic facilities are generally hardened and equipped with American guards. Given a platoon of Marines and some SEAL or Force Recon snipers, a properly selected and/or hardened building, and a designated QRF with a better plan than "fly to the airport and hope the local government meets us with a truck", there is little need to run. However, we and our allies have had attacks with crew-served or other military ordnance (automatic weapons, mortars, grenades, RPGs) on American consulates or embassies within the last decade in Syria, Turkey, Greece, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia at the least. Throw in suicide bombs and car bombs (neither of which this facility could withstand) and you can add Uzbekistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

And of course this was a breakdown of local government authority. You might remember we helped overthrow the government this year. When you help bring down a government, predicting a breakdown in government authority is not exactly rocket science as it takes time for the new government to construct itself and to establish authority - and that's ignoring that the groups we helped put in power are largely salafist in nature and therefore guaranteed to turn on us as soon as it is safe for them to do so.
 
Pathetic. Please delineate where your nutter conspiracy theories (and others in this thread) regarding the Obama admin lying about Benghazi have been corroborated by the report? Please link and quote in detail. You'll find that it is nowhere, as predicted, merely that certain lower ranking State Department officials were at fault, including Stevens himself.

Doesn't matter if they all resign the buck stops at obama. OBAMA WANTED TO BLAME THE MOVIE A LIE . They were running guns and stevens had to be killed or obama goes down for the count . Hillary is hiding behind a doctors lie and her lie . To avoid testimony . Not going to happen . She has to testify anyway , It will just be latter . She as bad as bill if not worse .
 
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This is the height of bullshit obfuscation and rewriting the history of your own posts from mere weeks ago. You earlier claimed in this thread that "The lie is beyond obvious: Everyone knew it was a terrorist attack from the get-go, yet we were fed BS by the Admin" or that, in response to a report about Feinstein investigating Benghazi, you saying "The Senate, controlled by the Dems, doesn't like to be lied to".

Do you stand by these original two claims of yours or not?

Sure.

Both are accurate.

Fern
 
Jeebus, the amount of cherry picking and spin in your posts is ridiculous even by P&N standards.

Yup:

- Then we have the fact that no help was sent even though requested. The attack went on for 7 hrs and IMO it inexcusable that help wasn't sent. There were far too many ex-military and ex-CIA officials on TV describing our military assets in that region for any reasonable person to believe that at least those ex-SEALs couldn't have been helped. We have a large base located in Sigonella (Sicily, Italy) that is about 400 miles from Benghazi and help could have been sent from there. In any case, when an embassy or consulate is attacked you MUST send forces in, I don't give a g0d d@mn when they arrive. Even if too late to help people you go secure the facility and sensitive documents etc. The main objective of having Marines posted at embassies etc is to secure the classified and sensitives documents kept at such places. We still haven't done that to my knowledge. Heck, it was only about a week or so ago a US news crew was at the site and found sensitive documents lying on floor in plain sight (it was a draft of a cable from the Ambassador again requesting additional security).

However, IMO, whoever was responsible for deciding not to send help is going to catch holy hell. They are going to be fiercely criticized by the military community and others. Too many people know what military assets we have, what capabilities we have, and where they are. You don't need an uber top secret SEAL team 6 type thing to go defend an embassy/consulate or provide some air support for our people lazering targets.

Way to cherry pick to avoid the disproof of your own allegations as well as those of the conservatard conspiracy wingnuts in order to try to BS that this was about the uncontested fact that in a security breach there was a security failure.

Face it, you conservatards completely whiffed on putting anything on Obama.
You lost. Thanks for playing. Do come again. As you never have anything but propaganda it's not like you're ever anything but laughable.
 
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Yup:

Way to cherry pick to avoid the disproof of your own allegations as well as those of the conservatard conspiracy wingnuts in order to try to BS that this was about the uncontested fact that in a security breach there was a security failure.

Face it, you conservatards completely whiffed on putting anything on Obama.
You lost. Thanks for playing. Do come again.

They do have short & convenient memories, even wrt what they said themselves. That's particularly true when their conspiracy theory sensitivities have been aroused with suitable faux outrage & self righteousness. A select cohort of propagandists make very good livings pandering to them.
 
I see fox news and some of my conservative associates go on and on about Benghazi, but for the life of me I cant see what the supposed conspiracy is based on. Usually a conspiracy is based on a motive, ie "Bush the oil man wants Iraq's oil". In the case of Behghazi, it seems to me that Republicans noticed that there were some conflicting messages coming out of the state department over the motives for the embassy attack, and started constructing a conspiracy around that. Given the proximity of the Libya attack with the Egyptian embassy attack that supposedly WAS related to the video, it doesn't seem all that implausible to assume they were related, though the state department should not operate off assumptions. What concrete facts have come out so far that suggests that this is some kind of cover up, as opposed to simply negligence? Also, do you believe that fox news being the only news organization to relentlessly cover this confirms their claims of a liberal media bias, or is fox news simply driving a story it's readers would like to believe?
State Department is resigning in droves. Hilary's presidential hopes are CRUSHED.

Obama's lack of knowledge of Foreign Policy, or his blatant disregard of the Middle East, can't be covered up much longer.

-John
 
How much was lied about to protect the administration and ensure the chance of a second term.

Everytime a new piece of info was revealed by sources to the public; the administration spun a different story.

On the surface the admin reaction seems to be designed to put off any disclosure until after the election and minimize/deflect what was exposed as twisted and irrelevant.
During president Carter time when the ambisee in Iran was taken over by that country from that time upto president Obama what kind inprovement have been done to protect and Other situalwation to happen have their any thing been done about it. Or els this woulden, have happen .
 

ah, the herp and the derp goes on...

\Behghazi a scandal yet?

Indeed. Even the faithful aren't being held in thrall, other than the most obsessive...

I remember something similar from my childhood. I folded up a paper boat & put it in the creek. When the current swept it away, I tried to get it back, & failed, watched it float away...
 
The silence heard from those who still have failed to prove these supposed Benghazi "lies" as fact, is absolutely deafening.
 
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