You mean your sober, measured judgement that “Bill and Hilary Clinton both are lying, arrogant, obstinate, obfuscatory and evidence-hiding pieces of shit”?
Why would anybody argue with an objective, fact-based statement like that?
That would sound loony, even if it wasn’t written right after the same kind of loony speculation from Fox News types about Petraeus’s resignation being forced on him to keep him from testifying. Guess what, Congress can subpoena anyone, and in fact Petraeus did testify under oath, a few days later.
So even if Hillary quit her job today as a result of the injury, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference regarding the Benghazi “fact finding.” Unless she is claiming her injury has resulted in complete amnesia about everything that happened in September, you’re making a fool of yourself.
Why not worry about something more substantial, like how Obama was losing the election until Hurricane Sandy oh, so conveniently, diverted attention from Acorn and the New Black Panthers stealing the election?
It’s not a judgement, it’s a fact. And it’s based on personal observation of their behavior both on the campaign trail, while in the White House, during the various investigations that their behavior prior to and during their time in the White House gave rise to, after they had left the White House, and during Hilary’s campaign for the presidency.
I don’t watch Fox, I don’t listen to Limbaugh, and I haven’t said anything about Patraeus’s involvement or made any of the other arguments you’ve erroneously presumed.
There’s a reason why even though stereotypes may not form in a vacuum, they shouldn’t be regarded as a slam dunk.
Simply put, you don’t know what you’re talking about, which is especially amusing given your superior tone.
Its based on your personal observation? Well, heck, why didn’t you say so, you left us to think it was nothing more substantial than an ill informed opinion, but its actually your personal observation! Well, that certainly settles that!
*An independent panel charged with investigating the deadly Sept. 11 attack in Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans has concluded that systematic management failures at the State Department led to inadequate security that left the diplomatic mission vulnerable.
Despite those failures, the Accountability Review Board determined that no individual American officials ignored or violated their duties and found no cause for any disciplinary action…
Diplomats and intelligence officers alike have spoken about the rising risk in Benghazi and growing debate over how to improve security before the attack, set against Ambassadors Chris Stevens’ decision to keep the Benghazi diplomatic post open and even visit there on Sept. 11. Late that evening, militants overran the lightly defended U.S. Consulate, setting fire to it and ultimately killing Stevens and information specialist Sean Smith…
But the incident also sparked debate on the larger question of how U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers can do their jobs in unstable environments, as al-Qaida spreads across Africa, without also expanding their security. Diplomats have said that overreacting to the attack could produce what some are calling a “Benghazi effect” that would wall them off from the people they are supposed to be engaged with.
Though called a consulate, the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi was so small it was only lightly staffed by a skeleton crew of diplomats and guarded by a local Libyan force. Its small size was partly because there was not yet much diplomacy to do in a city still rebuilding after the revolution that toppled Libyan strongman Muammar Qadhafi, but also because [COLOR=“Red”]the consulate’s role was in part to provide cover for the larger intelligence gathering mission in the region.
Most of the roughly two dozen Americans based in Benghazi worked for the CIA, some helping the State Department track and buy up the tens of thousands of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile systems known as MANPADS (man-portable-air-defense-systems) that have made their way from Qadhafi’s arsenal to the open market, trying to keep them out of the hands of Al Qaeda sympathizers throughout the region. That work included developing a network of tipsters in the port city who would watch for weapons shipments headed out of the country.[/COLOR]*
Eye-bleeding emphasis mine, to point out irony and stuff
Not getting it, here. What level of security would be adequate to neutralize determined enemies with automatic weapons and grenade launchers? Diplomats risk their lives for their country, just as soldiers do. They just don’t have the option of shooting back.
I have only read the first 11 pages of the unclassified report, but the “…systematic management failures…” has yet to come up. “Systemic failures…” were mentioned.
What does Systemic versus Systematic mean?
Philologists and English majors correct me if I am wrong.
**Systematic **indicates something which is done as procedure, part of the prescribed process of accomplishing a goal. Something like: the purchase of a new device or devices must include the cost of maintenance and replacement over a period of X number of years. Part of a “checklist” in project management, perhaps.
Systemic (to me) indicates something which is imbued into a culture or business by stated or implied goals to perform in a particular manner.
For example: “Our budget will be cut by 10-25% for the foreseeable future, therefore, I had best not authorize anymore than absolutely necessary.” (In Washington “absolutely necessary” may not be relate to the facts on the ground.)
This is classic bureaucratic CYA. Government agencies are not immune, possibly, because of journalistic and governmental agencies’ oversight, they are even more vulnerable than commercial entities.
Benghazi was a small, mostly temporary outpost providing cover for the “other agency” personnel, security upgrades were being made, albeit slower than we would have preferred. But I suggest that State was not the main driver behind activating, manning or funding the post.
As I mentioned upthread, Marines are rarely assigned to consulates. Defending the posts are often, if not usually contracted to local or third party organizations. Engaging additional Marines for a post, let alone a new one, requires negotiations with several layers of State and Defense, and funding from Congress.
The decision to even establish a post is often not in State’s control (or best interests). Just look at Baghdad. Consulates and embassies until the invasion of Iraq have never been constructed and manned in a war zone. Conflicts arise, the post is evacuated. It’s little different over the past 10 years, and the reasons are subjects for other threads.
The conspiracy theories blowing through this thread, while initially amusing have become…I don’t know…idiotic?
“This is classic bureaucratic CYA”? More likely, a statement that problems occurred which were not foreseen or addressable in time when they did occur, but that by no means is anyone going to be thrown to the jackals over it. The GOP and Fox want a scalp for self-vindication, but they don’t deserve one and this statement shows they aren’t going to get one. Besides, the election is over and they’d be happy to put this in the past, too.
The State Department’s immediate response is: Give us a billion (1.3, actually) dollars, you fuckers, instead of denying funding every fucking year, and we might be able to do something other than wait for your tight asses to unclench.
This seems pretty much like boiler plate stuff to me. I mean, what are they going to say: This was a tragedy, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it. They have to find some fault somewhere, and this faults a whole lot of people but no one in particular.
From what I heard on the news, the report recommends zero disciplinary action but 29 suggestions for a proper reaction (all of which Hillary Clinton said she will implement).
Such a recommendation seems to be saying that there is a lot to be done with the benefit of hindsight but that it’s not fair to assign blame for a lack of foresight.
Despite that conclusion - and screaming from the Breitbarts of the world over it - three state department heads resigned under pressure and the candidacy of a someone who looked like she would have been an exemplary Secretary of State was derailed by rabid Republicans looking to “get” Obama with this.
In it, you have the NYT Cairo bureau chief reporting that:
[ul]
[li]The Libyan government identify Abu Khattala as the leader of the attacks[/li][li]“Witnesses” observed Abu Khattala’s organization perpetrating the attacks[/li][li]“Witnesses” observed Abu Khattala personally directing fighters[/li][li]Abu Khattala admitted that he was at the scene[/li][li]Abu Khattala described what he witnessed as a “peaceful protest,” something that we know never occurred[/li][li]Abu Khattala saying that he never saw anything burning, even though he was walking through a compound that was being gutted by fire[/li][li]Abu Khattala descibing guns and other items at the dipomatic mission that never have been verified[/ul][/li]
We also have the fact that the NYT Cairo Bureau Chief thought the story plausible enough that he went to Benghazi and found Abu Khattala in the first place. Read the article: it’s pretty clear that Kirkpatrick didn’t believe a word that he was hearing.
Is that “proof”? You tell me. Did you ever see “proof” that bin Laden was involved in the WTC hijackings? He denied it, after all.
No, I didn’t. Nor am I totally convinced. Let the rich guy give you all his money, tell him he’s the leader, let him take the heat. Could happen. Keeping in mind that the 9/11 plot was the stupidest plan that ever worked perfectly. Forty years of airplane hijacks, and we don’t lock the cockpit doors. Retarded outsmarts braindead.
Rubbish. Susan Rice told flat untruths on five separate news programs. We don’t know whether her fabulism was a lie perpetrated by her personally (because we don’t know whether she was given the real events and timeline), but the Administration certainly knew that her statements were untruths at the time she was making them.
Since time immemorial, the consequence for a bureaucratic functionary who is publicly embarrassed in his or her official capacity is resignation. Since Rice was essentially up for a promotion, she lost that, instead of her existing position. It may be fair, it may be unfair to Rice personally – but it is the way of things.
Oh, poppycock. I defer to Chefguy and others as to what security is reasonable for a diplomatic mission in general; certainly diplomatic missions and diplomats always are going to be vulnerable, and terrorists are going to seek out the most vulnerable targets. “Stuff” happens, as it were, even really bad stuff. But when the head of al Qaeda calls on his cadres in the first week of September to attack Libya, and when the US has a diplomatic mission in Libya within spitting distance of an al Qaeda training camp, it doesn’t take “foresight” to have – at a bare minimum – some type of rapid response force available in Sicily or elsewhere close to react to an incident in that region on September 11.
To be perfectly clear, I think that the absence of a rapid response team anywhere in the Mediterranean (i.e., within a short flight to the Arab Spring nations, probably from Sicily) requires so much incompetence that the most parsimonious explaniation is that a team was physically available but bureaucratically put or held off limits.
Although its easy to say now, retarded doesn’t begin to describe it when you also consider that a plane being flown into the White House was a major plot in a very popular book, and from a different author, a plane being “hijacked” and flown into a building was also written about.
No, you and your like repeat that but it’s simply not true:
So either the CIA lied to her when they were giving her what they knew at the time, or what they knew at the time had some inaccuracies because it was all very new and investigations were ongoing.
Why would the administration and CIA, knowing that there would be exhaustive investigations into what happened and why, give Rice information that they knew was untrue? Sorry but I’ll use Occam’s Razor on this one. Why attribute malice to something when intelligence incompetence is the simplest explanation?
I hesitate to even use the word incompetence since there is nothing incompetent about having some facts wrong at the onset of an investigation. It’s called the process.
I defer to the actual report that suggested no disciplinary action.
Like many of these issues when it comes to Republican outrage, their hypocrisy is showing to those who pay attention to these things (see Condoleezza Rice).
So why was Condoleezza Rice held to a different standard by McCain and others? Gee, I wonder…
