Here’s the timeline. You can judge for yourself what the administration’s response was.
On the day after the attack, “administration officials” were hedging their bets, but Clinton seemed to want to pin things on the video. If you ask me, it was a bit of both, but one would think Clinton’s statements would carry more weight.
It was mishandled by the White House who then went on to blame a movie director over the assault. We had assets specifically to deal with this in Italy and they were not activated. The only fast response by the White House was to send Susan Rice out in front of cameras with a bogus story.
There is no football in this. It was mishandled and covered up.
Incompetence and mishandling? Football? Two words. Tampa Bay. 'Nuff sed.
To deal with “This?” What “this” do you mean? An attack on the Embassy? Yes, we had military assets ready to defend the Embassy, and they were not activated. No, we did not have military assets ready to defend the Consulate; they were standing by to defend the Embassy.
Your use of “this” is misleading.
“Dummies” is best here defined as anyone who cares about the Benghazi attack.
But why was Stevens not at the Embassy? WTF was he doing in Benghazi? I could listen to a theory that he was hoping to leverage his personal popularity to help calm a surly area of Libya, but I can’t see anyone asking him to volunteer for that. So, what?
Would anyone even give him permission to do something that risky? Would anyone want to take the risk of signing off on that, him being such a juicy target? Captured, taken hostage? Who would risk that. So, I’m thinking it was his idea.
But why?
[QUOTE=magiver]
It was mishandled by the White House who then went on to blame a movie director over the assault.
[/QUOTE]
Because while this was happening in Benghazi, in many *other *places in the ME US embassies were being violently protested by crowds fuming about the movie. In the initial chaos, with precious little solid intel to go by, it wasn’t exactly out there to posit that the attack was a similar protest turned a bit more action-oriented.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
But why was Stevens not at the Embassy? WTF was he doing in Benghazi? I could listen to a theory that he was hoping to leverage his personal popularity to help calm a surly area of Libya, but I can’t see anyone asking him to volunteer for that. So, what?
[/QUOTE]
The Consulate also happened to be twinned with Spooksville, CIA. So, draw your own conclusions as to what he might have been doing there.
I’d be pleased to do so, if I had the slightest idea. Having trouble drawing a reasonable conjecture, never mind a conclusion.
We had teams specifically trained to deal with this type of event. It doesn’t matter WHERE they were pulled from Europe they were within reach of Benghazi long before the attack ended. And this was an Embassy that had specifically asked for additional support against such an attack.
How many? Shouldnt you know how many you need? If we send fifty, how many do we lose? Suppose they have access to a lot more manpower than we realized, we send a rescue team to fight sixty fanatics and there are six hundred. And just to remind, we are sending them to fight fanatics, people with a demonstrated willingness…nay, eagerness!..to get themselves killed. So long as they can take some of ours with them, so much the better.
Bad enough the killed, the wounded. What about the captured? They don’t take prisoners, they take hostages.
A willingness to sacrifice ten soldiers to save one civilian is noble. Courageous, bold. But it ain’t smart.
It’s not noble, it’s their job. The job they’re specifically trained to do. and this is an era where we can watch what is going on in real time. Which is what was going on at the White House.
These are the facts
-The attack happened
-Previous requests for extra protection were not authorized
-Requests for support were not authorized
-Four Americans were killed in a US embassy.
-The attacks were by Al Qaeda
-A video was blamed
We do not have all of the emails and communications for all of the facts. We do have government email systems which are absolutely backed up and archived for several years because of the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA).
The only real emails presented to the US people so far are the ones that lead to the blaming of the video… And we all know now that the video was not the culprit because of the emails. Why isn’t the rest of the information available to us?
Hard to argue with an op-ed in Forbes with such extensive sourcing. Rock solid documentation and thorough corroboration.
And yes, this is that age. But that stops short of actually proving that we were. Suggestion and insinuation are not fact. And even if we were watching in real time, that doesn’t mean we were in a position to knowledgeably answer those questions.
The Embassy wasn’t attacked.
Your use of “this type of event” is misleading.
Sorta, kinda. The Embassy did request more money for security in a general sort of way. I don’t recall anything about specifying such further security for the consulate in Benghazi. Be willing to bet there was no request regarding the CIA station there. Call it a hunch.
Wait a minute. I’m getting confused again. Are you saying we do know about other e-mails that don’t back up the ‘blame it on the video’ explanation?
Would Magiver be appropriate and cite the exact quote from an Obama White House official where they claimed the actual heavily armed extremist assault that resulted in the killing of Ambassador Stevens and one other American was blamed upon the director of a video who was in California at the time.
I’ll wait for Magiver to produce it.
I recall Ambassador Susan Rice going on the Sunday AM news shows and blaming the killing of four Americans on extremists that brought heavy weapons.
I recall that it was revealed later that Rice repeated the CIA talking points near verbatim that were given to the WH and Congress.
There is no doubt who the White House blamed.
Can you provide a link to the emails that lead to the “blaming of the videos”. If they have been presented to the US people you must know where we can see what you are talking about.
Dont be confused. Ask the two for sources for their claims and when you are provided none your confusion goes away.
The Obama Admin did not blame the video. They blamed extremists that brought heavy weapons to what the CIA originally reported as a crowd or demonstration that was related to the Cairo events. It was the CIA that put the video connection to Benghazi in Susan Rice’s talking points for her initial trip to the Sunday Morning punditry shows.
That thing about the emails is confusing. We must wait until the author is able to respond. If no response comes, there is obviously no merit to the claim that has been made.
Or he has been silenced.