# Benghazi Attack for Dummies. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 8, 2013, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466 "2013-11-08T23:46:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 41
**Author:** ![Acewiza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f475e1/32.png) [@Acewiza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acewiza)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/801 "2014-01-30T19:09:34Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > So how is it that you are better informed on what the military could have done than all of those experts? Appeal to authority, much? I would be pointless for me to further explain whatever it may be they chose not to tell you or anyone else. Maybe you should re-read my post with a bit more focus on comprehension this time around? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/802 "2014-01-30T19:10:35Z")
I think conjecture on an event that has basically been studied to death is unwarranted. The record is out there if you want to read it. But to decline to inform yourself about fundamental matters such as “Why would an ambassador leave his embassy?” indicates that you’re just engaging in Glenn Beck-like “just asking questions” based on a shoddy understanding of easily available facts. I have no interest in supplying “another set of plausible conjectures.” Conjecture means you don’t know what happened but you offer your opinion anyway. I don’t need to engage in conjecture, I’m perfectly happy sharing an informed opinion. But seriously, it’s pretty deceptive to talk about “murky circumstances” when the main reason for any confusion is that you decline to inform yourself. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/803 "2014-01-30T19:12:46Z")
> [@Acewiza](#): > > Appeal to authority, much? Oh please. Here, [read up](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority), so you understand what you’re saying. > [@](#): > > I would be pointless for me to further explain Too easy. _Funny_, but too easy. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/804 "2014-01-30T19:15:37Z")
> [@Acewiza](#): > > Appeal to authority, much? > > I would be pointless for me to further explain whatever it may be they chose not to tell you or anyone else. Maybe you should re-read my post with a bit more focus on comprehension this time around? You don’t actually know what an appeal to authority is? If two secretaries of defense, a slew of four star generals, several national security congressional committees, and various other military experts issue an opinion on something they don’t actually know much about – like that global warming is fake, or that I am an excellent abstract artist – and I use their opinion which is devoid of expertise as evidence for those claims, that is an appeal to authority. Using their opinion on military matters which they are clearly expert in is not. I understand you may long for a hippie-dippie PC world where everyone’s opinions are equally valid, but that’s BS. The leading experts in the world on US military capabilities have weighed in on this, and they’re saying that random people on the Internet (such as yourself) are making things up. Deal with it. You’re wrong. End of story. You might as well spend your next post talking about what could have happened if we had bothered to deploy Iron Man. ETA: By the way, if you had any knowledge of even the most basic military matters, you wouldn’t have called it “AFRICON.” Twice. ---
**Author:** ![Acewiza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f475e1/32.png) [@Acewiza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acewiza)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/805 "2014-01-30T19:17:54Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I think conjecture on an event that has basically been studied to death is unwarranted. Be careful not to hurt your wrist with all that hand waving. ---
**Author:** ![Acewiza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f475e1/32.png) [@Acewiza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acewiza)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/806 "2014-01-30T19:21:05Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > ETA: By the way, if you had any knowledge of even the most basic military matters, you wouldn’t have called it “AFRICON.” Twice. AFRICON, AFRICOM - what difference does it make? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/807 "2014-01-30T19:25:08Z")
> [@Acewiza](#): > > AFRICON, AFRICOM - what difference does it make? :rolleyes: The more relevant question is why we should take your posts about F-16 capabilities seriously if you don’t even know the name of one of the geographic combatant commands. You think General Dempsey goes around talking about “YOOCON” or “PAYCOMM?” ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/808 "2014-01-30T19:26:02Z")
> [@Acewiza](#): > > Be careful not to hurt your wrist with all that hand waving. You have a cartoonish view of how the military works. > **[Gates: Some Benghazi critics have "cartoonish" view of military capability](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gates-some-benghazi-critics-have-cartoonish-view-of-military-capability/)** > > Former secretary of defense pushes back against accusations that the administration could have done more to stop the attack in Benghazi, calls for "caution" in Syria ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/809 "2014-01-30T19:27:03Z")
> [@Acewiza](#): > > Why am I not surprised you clearly have no F-16 combat flight ops experience in the close air support role? > [@Ravenman](#): > > \ So how is it that you are better informed on what the military could have done than all of those experts? I think he stayed in a Holiday Inn once. For fun, let us postulate a group of 100 bad guys. And for simplicity, let’s line them all up single file down the middle of a (straight) street, at say 24 inches each. That gives us a line of targets 200 feet long. At 900+ feet per second, our F-16’s total time on target (assuming our pilot approaches them lengthwise) is – ahh — less than a quarter of a second. Outside of that target we have nothing but “collateral damage” – read dead civilians and destroyed buildings. Oh I know, you plan to use a “short burst”, so that makes everything alright. We’ll circle back again, lather, rinse, repeat, yes? Until “dozens in the attacking rabble” and untold numbers of other men, women and children are dead. \*\*Ace \*\*old buddy, you wanna tell me a bit more about your extensive experience with combat flight ops and close air support? In an urban environment? At night? In an otherwise friendly city with a population of around 650,000? In somebody else’s country? Or is your intention merely to produce extensive unnecessary casualties and an “act of war”? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/810 "2014-01-30T19:32:28Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > You don’t actually know what an appeal to authority is? It’s also worth noting that, in post 796, he dismisses someone’s argument on the grounds that they’ve never flown an F-16, and in the _very next post_ he dismisses the viewpoints of top military experts as an “appeal to authority.” Which is it, **Ace**? Does first hand military experience count, or not? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/811 "2014-01-30T19:39:05Z")
Another factor: A conjecture, perhaps, so I will mark it as such in hopes I wont rile up anybody with definitive and encyclopedic knowledge… We were pretending what we hoped to make true, that Libya was a functional nation with a government that had recently gone through a rather exciting change in power structure, but was nonetheless a sovereign nation with all the respect due to it that other such nations enjoy. One of which being control over its own territory and air space. According to commonly accepted constraints, that is the standard, and a nation wishing to interpose its own military force must, at the very least, ask permission. Otherwise, technically, its an act of war. My understanding is rudimentary, but I think that is widely understood to be a Very Bad Thing. Just spitballin’, of course, summarizing diplomatic proceedings from roughly 1800 to date, and such international protocols and agreements as may be relevant, but I am willing to go way out on a limb and suggest I’m on pretty solid ground. Yeah, I’m a wild man… ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/812 "2014-01-30T19:42:07Z")
I agree. (With the substance of your comments, not that you’re a wild man!) ---
**Author:** ![Acewiza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f475e1/32.png) [@Acewiza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acewiza)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/813 "2014-01-30T19:49:06Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > It’s also worth noting that, in post 197, he dismisses someone’s argument on the grounds that they’ve never flown an F-16, and in the _very next post_ he dismisses the viewpoints of top military experts as an “appeal to authority.” > > Which is it, **Ace**? Does first hand military experience count, or not? I have not “dismiss(es) the viewpoints of top military experts.” What I have dismissed is the commonly held position of posters in this thread such as yourself to ascribe those viewpoints as gospel, based on the assumption that any publicly recorded uttering thereof constitutes the whole story - or even an unbiased without ulterior motive partial story. It’s an appeal to authority - authorities who’s motives, reasoning and acts in this particular case are being legitimately questioned. Don’t be so naive. ---
**Author:** ![Acewiza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f475e1/32.png) [@Acewiza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acewiza)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/814 "2014-01-30T19:59:07Z")
OBTW, I was nowhere near post 197 anyway, so what form of dismissal would you desire on that count? “You People” will be perfectly content to go on believing you won this one on the basis of scurrilous commentary and technicalities. Good for you! It all comes (came) out in the wash. Par for “the Dope” course. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/815 "2014-01-30T20:02:07Z")
> [@Acewiza](#): > > I have not “dismiss(es) the viewpoints of top military experts.” What I have dismissed is the commonly held position of posters in this thread such as yourself to ascribe those viewpoints as gospel, based on the assumption that any publicly recorded uttering thereof constitutes the whole story - or even an unbiased without ulterior motive partial story. It’s an appeal to authority - authorities who’s motives, reasoning and acts in this particular case are being legitimately questioned. > > Don’t be so naive. Then why does the Republican Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee agree with them and not you? ---
**Author:** ![Acewiza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f475e1/32.png) [@Acewiza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acewiza)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/816 "2014-01-30T20:06:30Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Then why does the Republican Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee agree with them and not you? It’s politically expedient. How old are you? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/817 "2014-01-30T20:08:34Z")
> [@Acewiza](#): > > “You People” will be perfectly content to go on believing you won this one on the basis of scurrilous commentary and technicalities. I, personally, think we won this one because of the inept clownshoe bellyflops on the other side. When one side has all the experts and all the reasoned arguments, and the other side wants to drop motorcycle spec-ops teams and riddle a friendly city with F-16 strafing runs, it’s not that hard to call a win. You don’t know what you’re talking about, so you lost an argument. _That’s what is supposed to happen_. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/818 "2014-01-30T20:10:17Z")
> [@Acewiza](#): > > It’s politically expedient. > > How old are you? It’s “politically expedient” for a political opponent of the Administration to say that there was no military course of action that Obama could have ordered that would have had a realistic chance to save four American lives? I’m not sure you’re living on planet earth. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/819 "2014-01-30T20:15:15Z")
> [@Acewiza](#): > > OBTW, I was nowhere near post 197 anyway, so what form of dismissal would you desire on that count? Sorry, 796. I’ve edited my post to fix the mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Wolf333](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf333/32/3460_2.png) [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/820 "2014-01-30T20:18:34Z")
> [@Acewiza](#): > > It’s politically expedient. > > How old are you? Says the person who apparently believes that “Iron Eagle” is a documentary. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466.md?page=40) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466.md?page=42)