Benghazi
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Obama and Hillary tried to cover up the facts because of the election. It's pretty obvious to most except Heck I guess. The failure to follow up on the attack and find out who is responsible is worse. The mother of the ex-Navy Seal who was DSS and killed was on CNN today telling how the Obama Admin did nothing except make promises they didn't keep on keeping her informed of what was going on. This Admin is really weak and falling apart.
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My God, man. I feel like I'm talking to a Truther about 9/11. "The fire would not have reached 900 degrees in that amount of time and therefore it would not have reached the burning point of steel."
You have lots particular things you wish to would have happened and precise wording that you wish had been used and the exact point in time you expect they should have been employed. This is your metric for scandal and I find it bizarre.
At this point it's clear that you read what you want to see and not what I typed. I have not called it a scandal, just a screw up. I have yet to say anyone purposely hid information or did anything with malice.
I just pointed out that Obama didn't call the attack a plot by terrorists. He said that "acts of terror" are bad. I don't care how he would have said it, just that he call it a plot by extremists and not a spontaneous riot because of a video. You thought the general phrase "act of terror" was a direct mention of Muslim extremists and I pointed out it's not. Killing 4 people is an "act of terror" if it was a planned by a group or spontaneously happened among random angry protestors.
At this point it's clear that you read what you want to see and not what I typed. I have not called it a scandal, just a screw up. I have yet to say anyone purposely hid information or did anything with malice.
I just pointed out that Obama didn't call the attack a plot by terrorists. He said that "acts of terror" are bad. I don't care how he would have said it, just that he call it a plot by extremists and not a spontaneous riot because of a video. You thought the general phrase "act of terror" was a direct mention of Muslim extremists and I pointed out it's not. Killing 4 people is an "act of terror" if it was a planned by a group or spontaneously happened among random angry protestors.
And even if we grant you this semantic point - which i don't, but whatever - this matters why?
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Also, let's get your basic complaint: why was it an unGodly and politically motivated act of misdirection to suggest that the attack was opportunistic and grew out of the videos? Because that's what some of the intelligence suggested.
Again, this is one of the the headscratchers. The idea that he had to say this was terrorism on __ day! Which is, as you've told us, the day your specific people said they knew it had to be terrorism, and disregarding anyone else who said otherwise.
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actually I don't think that it was terrorism given the definition we've most often used. It was an attack, an attack on our Embassy planned out and executed.
but neither was it a protest that got out of hand over some stupid YouTube video that nobody heard of until rice told us.
and frankly this investigation or this effort to get to the bottom of what happened to make sure it never happens again...
there may be a grain of truth to that but mostly people want to keep it in the Publix mind a little longer. Even though the horse is out of the barn.
all they really needed to do was run out the clock until the election and that was accomplished.
WSS
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At this point it's clear that you read what you want to see and not what I typed. I have not called it a scandal, just a screw up. I have yet to say anyone purposely hid information or did anything with malice.
I just pointed out that Obama didn't call the attack a plot by terrorists. He said that "acts of terror" are bad. I don't care how he would have said it, just that he call it a plot by extremists and not a spontaneous riot because of a video. You thought the general phrase "act of terror" was a direct mention of Muslim extremists and I pointed out it's not. Killing 4 people is an "act of terror" if it was a planned by a group or spontaneously happened among random angry protestors.
And even if we grant you this semantic point - which i don't, but whatever - this matters why?
And even if we grant you this semantic point - which i don't, but whatever - this matters why?
It's not semantics. You claimed he correctly pointed out is was an organized attack which he didn't. Unless "act of terror" isn't a general phrase but specifically refers to Muslim extremists. Which it doesn't.
No one knew "my guy" (the whistleblowers) claimed it was an attack because they weren't even asked about it. It's not a problem that they thought the protests could have been part of it after it first happened. It's a problem that people who were there and willing to tell what happened were ignored. Because they were ignored totally wrong info was stated as fact. You make it sound like I'm criticizing people for thinking the protests could have some how been a part of it. I'm not. I'm criticizing them for putting out the wrong info because witnesses were ignored.
I'm not criticizing anyone for not knowing everything day 1. I'm criticizing them for telling Rice to tell everyone a video was to blame when they didn't know that for sure. What I'm actually doing and what you are accusing me of are 2 different things.
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Now he has to point out it was an "organized" attack? I can't keep up with all of the made up rules you have for discussing terrorist attacks.
As for, "I'm criticizing them for telling Rice to tell everyone a video was to blame when they didn't know that for sure."
But that's not what happened. So stop doing that. They were giving their best sense of the information at the time. No one knew anything for sure. They hadn't completed the investigation yet. Nor did Rice definitively say how the attack occurred. You think they could have settled it by talking to the right people more. Maybe so. I still don't know which semantic detail has you so upset, or why you think it's such a big deal that we didn't know the exact details for another few days.
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There Was a Stand Down Order
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However, the burning question remains: Who, with the appropriate authority, actually gave the stand down order? And why?
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Baloney, Heck. Spin it all day, every way. But Obamao clearly knew it was terrorism the day after.
A week later, he was saying it was because of the video. Protests because of the video.
There were no protests. This president flat out lied a week later, and Rice and Clinton went full forward with
the lie.
The benefit is, to portray their "diplomacy" as much a success as they would like Americans to believe - that they
are sooooo successful. Like they were sooooo successful in "saving the auto industry". Except Ford didn't need help.
Successful as to how they "saved" all Americans from higher medical insurance premiums and got all uninsured to be insured.
It's desperate cover for a president who has become the opposite of what he was portrayed as, and has failed America as a result.
And running and spinning and changing the subject is beneath you, I would think. Steve catches you at it all the time. But you did
say that Obamao said Benghazi was terrorism a day later. And I showed you he said it was just a reaction to the video a week later.
And you ran and spun again.
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THERE WAS A STAND DOWN ORDER
Though some the details are still fuzzy, someone issued a stand down order that prevented Special Forces from traveling to Benghazi to intervene after the attack.
Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission for the U.S. in Libya and the highest ranking official in the country at the time of the Benghazi attacks, testified that either AFRICOMM or SOCAFRICA issued the stand down order, though he didn’t have a name or where the command originated.
Hicks said Lt. Col. Gibson, a Special Operations Command (SOC) Africa commander, was “furious” after receiving the stand down order. “Lt. Col. Gibson was furious. I had told him to go bring our people home. That’s what he wanted to do,” he said.
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actually I don't think that it was terrorism given the definition we've most often used. It was an attack, an attack on our Embassy planned out and executed.
but neither was it a protest that got out of hand over some stupid YouTube video that nobody heard of until rice told us.
and frankly this investigation or this effort to get to the bottom of what happened to make sure it never happens again...
there may be a grain of truth to that but mostly people want to keep it in the Publix mind a little longer. Even though the horse is out of the barn.
all they really needed to do was run out the clock until the election and that was accomplished.
WSS
but neither was it a protest that got out of hand over some stupid YouTube video that nobody heard of until rice told us.
This is so horribly inaccurate. How can you be so inaccurate? This happened in September of last year. The protests were all over the globe. The news covered them extensively. We talked about the video in here. That all predated Rice going on the Sunday shows.
Nobody ever heard of it? You mean the one that made international news and caused protests all over the world?
Oh, that video.
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Wait.. Our "strategy" to go after the groups or factions responsible for Benghazi was not to shout "come out come out wherever you are!!" as we went looking for them?
And this "strategy" being the impetus for changing the official dialogue thus concealing who we felt was responsible?
Holy fuck. I need some Tylenol.
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Anybody remember this scene from "Clear and Present Danger"??
Felix Cortez: [referring to Jack Ryan] Whatever this man has told you is a lie. He LIES for a living!
Ernesto Escobedo: He is in the Intelligence business.
Felix Cortez: Exactly.
Ernesto Escobedo: YOU'RE in the Intelligence business!
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When it became clear last fall that the CIA's now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, theWhite House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story.
ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk showsthe Sunday after that attack.
Related: Read the Full Benghazi Talking Point Revisions
White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from theState Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.
That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.
"Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC's best assessments of what they thought had happened," Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012. "The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word 'consulate' to 'diplomatic facility' because 'consulate' was inaccurate."
Summaries of White House and State Department emails - some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard - show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points.
State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to this paragraph drafted by the CIA in its earlier versions of the talking points:
"The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa'ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador's convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks."
In an email to officials at the White House and the intelligence agencies, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland took issue with including that information because it "could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned …"
The paragraph was entirely deleted.
Like the final version used by Ambassador Rice on the Sunday shows, the CIA's first drafts said the attack appeared to have been "spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo" but the CIA version went on to say, "That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack." The draft went on to specifically name the al Qaeda-affiliated group named Ansar al-Sharia.
Once again, Nuland objected to naming the terrorist groups because "we don't want to prejudice the investigation."
In response, an NSC staffer coordinating the review of the talking points wrote back to Nuland, "The FBI did not have major concerns with the points and offered only a couple minor suggestions."
After the talking points were edited slightly to address Nuland's concerns, she responded that changes did not go far enough.
"These changes don't resolve all of my issues or those of my buildings leadership," Nuland wrote.
In an email dated 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. - three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows - Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email saying the State Department's concerns needed to be addressed.
"We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don't want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting."
Related: Diplomat Says Requests For Benghazi Rescue Were Rejected
After that meeting, which took place Saturday morning at the White House, the CIA drafted the final version of the talking points - deleting all references to al Qaeda and to the security warnings in Benghazi prior to the attack.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said none of this contradicts what he said about the talking points because ultimately all versions were actually written and signed-off by the CIA.
"The CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted these talking points," Carney said. "The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this, but the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from consulate to diplomatic facility and the like. And ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators, and the attempt to politicize the talking points, again, is part of an effort to, you know, chase after what isn't the substance here."
UPDATE: A source familiar with the White House emails on the Benghazi talking point revisions say that State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland was raising two concerns about the CIA's first version of talking points, which were going to be sent to Congress: 1) The talking points went further than what she was allowed to say about the attack during her state department briefings; and, 2) she believed the CIA was attempting to exonerate itself at the State Department's expense by suggesting CIA warnings about the security situation were ignored.
In one email, Nuland asked, why are we suggest Congress "start making assertions to the media [about the al Qaeda connection] that we ourselves are not making because we don't want to prejudice the investigation?"
One other point: The significant edits - deleting references to al Qaeda and the CIA's warnings - came after a White House meeting on the Saturday before Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday shows. Nuland, a 30-year foreign service veteran who has served under Democratic and Republican Secretaries of State, was not at that meeting and played no direct role in preparing Rice for her interviews.
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Steven Hayes had this story up a couple days ago. ABC is just adding some new emails.
But this backs up what the White House has been saying and what we've been saying in here. I don't think there's anything new in this either. We knew this was an interagency process that made a decision to scrub the references to the terror groups because they thought it would impede the investigation, and that's what this shows. There's a little CYA and bureaucratic jostling here - the CIA trying to cover their ass at the expense of State and State trying to cover their ass at the expense of the CIA - but that's low grade stuff.
What would constitute more of an issue is if you've got details of the White House pushing these edits about terrorism rather than the intelligence community. That would be something, because it would mean that the White House was creating a narrative for political purposes.
But that's not what they have, try as they might. And unless Petraeus was covering for the White House - and why would he? - there's no evidence that this effort started in the West Wing for political purposes. It was started in the intelligence and law enforcement agencies for reasons concerning the investigation.
What's more, what does this story tell us? That the intelligence at the time is that the video had something to do with it, and the attacks grew out of those protests. It's the first thing they say. That's obviously what they thought at the time, and yet here we are demanding to know why anyone would say such a thing because it was so obviously untrue!
Except that's what they thought at the time.
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So four pages of commentary later you finally admit that Susan Rice told an intentionally bogus story. Great.
Baby steps.
WSS
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I honestly don't get why you keep coming back to that. Everyone knows the talking points ended up being wrong. That's not the point anyone is discussing.
Nor did she tell a bogus story. She told the one they believed at the time.
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Karl Rove's American Crossroads group released a new ad attacking former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her handling of the attack at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
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oh well, one step forward two steps back.
so if that was the truth I guess the State Department and the CIA had no reasin to cover their asses?
WSS
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That's not what they're covering their asses about. Read the story.
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