I don’t think either the administration’s investigation or the one being done by Congress is finished yet, so there is no “final word”. But if Romney loses the election, I suspect the energy being put into this by the right will fade quickly, if it hasn’t already.
Exactly, the whole issue is a partisan misdirection by Republicans to 1. Make Obama look bad and 2. Make Romney look less stupid for his moronic press conference while the corpses were still cooling.
The Facebook version of this claims that Obama sat in the situation room watching the event and refusing to help. It makes him sound rather ghoulish, like the Governor at the end of the last Walking Dead episode, sitting and looking at heads floating in fish tanks.
When I tried to follow the claims back, all I found was hard right bullshit sites spinning the same claims.
Any substantiation? Do we really just have drones sitting around that we can get one up over a relatively remote consulate at a moment’s notice? Where was the drone from? Who was controlling it and from where?
I believe it will fade no matter who wins. It will become a non-issue for the right if Romney loses. It will become a non-issue for Romney himself if he wins.
So have Fox News and the conservatives decided which lie they are going to stick with?
Was Obama in Las Vegas partying-it-up at a fundraising event while Benzghazi was being attacked or was he at the White House, watching “LIVE” feeds of the attack on Benzghazi via a drone?
That’s the cool thing. It can be BOTH!
Just like how he can be born in Kenya, and also born in Hawaii, but the son of a known Communist.
Just like how the WTC was brought down by radio-controlled planes with no passengers AND brought down by controlled explosives!
This was the “best” of articles I could find about General Ham.
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Could be. I think this only “works” as a campaign issue. Normally, It think, it would just be the outrage of the week, supplanted by the next news cycle.
I’m not so sure. If Obama wins, look for them to be beating this dead horse all the way for the next 4 years. It will probably morph into a giant conspiracy theory that somehow involves the murder of Vince Foster…
I mean, would you have predicted years ago that the Birthers would still be around by now?
The “General Carter Ham being relieved” rumor springs from a single source: an anonymous poster passing on something he himself says is just a rumor, posted on a fansite for the LSU Tigers college football team. You can read the thread for yourself here (and note the responses on later pages from other posters identifying themselves as active-duty military personnel).
That is the single, one-and-only source. A random poster on a college football forum. Jim Hoft first spread the rumor described in (and cited) this post, and then a political blogger at a major newspaper, the Washington Times, picked up on it (also citing the same college football forum post). They didn’t check into the rumor, they didn’t try to verify its accuracy or veracity or reliability, they didn’t consult any other sources about it, they never even bothered telling readers why this one random anonymous LSU fan living in West Monroe, Louisiana, posting about rumors he heard from unnamed people “inside the military” on football forums, is trustworthy enough to merit passing on his posts verbatim and with no questions asked or journalistic investigation done.
Everything else repeating this rumor on the internet traces back to Hoft and this Times blog post.
Here is AFRICOM’s official response, if you’re interested.
I went to the link Katriona posted. As usual, if ain’t from Faux News, its labeled “liberal” BS.
I disagree with most. There are real questions surrounding the tragedy, questions that the media deferred to Romney and that Romney completely missed.
As I said above, I think that Romney had 3-4 strong lines of attack - some substantive, some demagoguish and political - that could have changed the campaign. Now, I’m of the view that the attack makes for bad politics, so I’m not complaining.
But it is pretty darn unfortunate that the media, collectively, has not been able to put together a single, coherent timeline of the event. Here are the bits and pieces that were challenged above, synthesized:
1. There was no protest in Benghazi. Full stop. The protest story was make-believe.
Source: Factcheck.org
http://factcheck.org/2012/10/benghazi-timeline/
**2. The attack was organized and paramilitary-quality. It could not plausibly be considered a protest. **
Source: New York Times
CNN, on September 13, citing a “senior State Department official”:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/12/world/africa/libya-consulate-attack-scene/index.html
**3. The source of the make-believe protest story appears to be a CIA “talking points” document given to Susan Rice on September 15. **
Source: Washington Post (through David Ignatius, writing an opinion piece)
If the talking points were declassified, I missed them - but I don’t doubt that Ignatius is accurately quoting them.
But here is cover-up #1: the US had witnesses on the ground and through drone video. How did that point - pure fiction - get inserted into the CIA talking points later on?
4. The battle was in multiple waves that spanned more than seven hours, starting at the consulate and then moving to the CIA annex a kilometer away.
Source: CNN
The portion of the battle at the consulate itself was about four and a half hours, including the initial attack and several subsequent counterattacks by US special operators and Libyan allies:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/12/world/africa/libya-consulate-attack-scene/index.html
The mortar attack that killed Doherty and Woods appears to have occurred around 4:00 am.
(Ignatius, WaPo, opinion column)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-benghazi-questions-the-administration-must-answer/2012/10/30/02d02538-22e2-11e2-8448-81b1ce7d6978_story.html
5. The United States had drones observing the final hours of the battle.
Source: CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-33816_162-57536611/could-u.s-military-have-helped-during-libya-attack/
The United States also had real-time audio of the events:
(CBS)
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57539738/u.s-military-poised-for-rescue-in-benghazi/
Cover-up #2: In the course of the running battle, the US was able to dispatch eight operators from Tripoli to Benghazi, who spent much of their time at the airport waiting to be driven to the CIA annex. The US had other assets in Libya, in the Gulf of Sidra and in Sigonella, Italy. Who denied any further support, and why?
[quote=“bbonden, post:32, topic:639384”]
5. The United States had drones observing the final hours of the battle.
Source: CBS News
“Has been told”. By who? It is never said. Was it told to them by a reliable source? who knows.
Was it told to them by Bob, who heard it from Stan, who read it on a website, whose source was a guy who knew someone?
This is a pretty poor cite. I have not bothered with the others.
There is no real controversy and no real cover up.
I think there must be some muddling of facts here. As far as we know from the House Committe investigation headed by Issa.
Benghazi never asked for re-inforcements, it was actually the embassy in Tripoli that asked for them and was denied.
By politicizing the Libyan attacks on Benghazi, the GOP and Issa inadvertently release some classified information regarding Benghazi.
- Benghazi wasn’t an Embassy installation
- Benghazi was a CIA compound
- There were over 22 CIA operatives at the compound when it was attacked
- Issa inadvertently released the names of the 22 CIA operatives.
Then the investigation was closed to public hearings because of National Security secrets that were leaked (by Issa).
Which begs this question:
What was the purpose of the CIA compound in Benghazi?
If Chris Stevens was the ambassador to Libya, why was he in Benghazi and not Tripoli?
What was going on in Benghazi (PERIOD).
Inquiring minds want to know, because whatever was going on, it stopped Romney from bringing up the Libya attacks during the last Presidential debates.
It could also explain the desperation and constant lying coming from the Romney camp as the election day nears.
[quote=“Euphonious_Polemic, post:33, topic:639384”]
Right. CBS News’s investigative reporter in Washington was putting out information that was told to her “by Bob, who heard it from Stan, who read it on a website, whose source was a guy who knew someone.”
Look, this is not an even remotely controversial statement of fact. The US government had real-time audio for the entire event (see above in the thread) and real-time video for much of it. Here is CNN:
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/26/panetta-on-benghazi-attack-could-not-put-forces-at-risk/
If your goal is to justify the US response, the tack you want to take is to say that the intel from Carol Lamb’s audio feed and the drone’s video feed was not enough to justify a more rapid or robust response. That’s Leon Panetta’s story, at least.
But than again, you’re not the poster who said, “if what you are saying is true–that a battle waged for some amount of time, that the US was aware of it for any substantial portion and at that point denied re-enforcements–that’s not a cover up. that’s dereliction of duty on a gross scale.”
The CIA compound in Benghazi served the same purpose as any other CIA compound or operative: to gather humint on local activities that are possibly detrimental to US security and interests. As ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens was the senior American in country, and represented the POTUS, with nearly the full power of same. Do you really think the ambassador to any country has no control or contact with the CIA operatives there? I’d be willing to bet hard cash money that he has made multiple trips up country to this station, and that his movements were likely known to the local terrorist cell.
Your (and Factcheck’s) conclusions are incorrect here. The attack was the protest.
There was no separate, civil disobedience, sort of protest going on when suddenly a terrorist event broke out. But the motivation for the whole thing was to protest the video - I’ll go into this more at my response to point #3.
Again, your conclusion is unsupported. The fact that the protesters were armed and organized doesn’t mean that they weren’t actually protesting what they said they were protesting.
There was a protest - the attack was the protest. Declaring it “pure fiction” is completely incorrect.
The NYT had reporters on the scene in Libya at the time - here’s what they had to say about things:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/world/africa/election-year-stakes-overshadow-nuances-of-benghazi-investigation.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all&_r=1&
In other words:
- We know who conducted the attack: a local militant Islamic group called Ansar al-Shariah
- We know why they attacked: because the video was an “insult” to Islam
- We know why they were organized: they’re an established militia in the region
- We know that they’re not really interested in a larger war on America, making “terrorist” label sort of vague and iffy, but convenient for Republicans.
Bottom line: the original description of the attack as being a response to the video was correct. Mentioning it in talking points or Rice’s appearances was not a cover-up. It was the best interpertation of what happened at the time, and it matches reasonably well with what eye-witnesses and people who live in Libya were saying.
There may have been a drone by the end of the day - but a drone isn’t going to pick up things such as the unmasked faces of Ansar militants or they’re remarks to an NYT reporter.
Stipulated.
Your own source up there explains what the problem was: confusion and a reluctance to step on Libyan sovereignty. I’ll also add - probably confusion between State and the CIA about who was handling what.
The State department gets a cable saying there’s an attack - then 45 minutes later, another cable saying it’s over. The ambassador was already dead at that point. It was hours later that the CIA safe house was hit and the other Americans killed.
Well, all of that’s consistent with the whole “attack was happening in waves” thing.
So a few hours into it - a drone shows up? Big deal. So there were other personnel in the area? That’s not news and they couldn’t have saved the Ambassador, anyway, since he died early in the situation.
In Summation: your first coverup isn’t a coverup, since the attacks really were a protest over the video, and your second coverup isn’t a coverup, it’s just a snafu. But this won’t stop Darrel Issa from trying to impeach Obama over this, if he gets reelected.
I agree, if “protest” is defined as “coordinated multi-prong company-sized surprise attack using combined arms and mobile light artillery,” then there was a “protest.”
I think that most people use the term “protest” somewhat differently.
The word in the reported portion of the September 15 CIA talking points was, I believe, “demonstrations.”
Yup …
BlogBanner_MorningJoe_976x100
President Barack Obama: Morning Joe Interview (FULL TRANSCRIPT)
MSNBC staff
7:14 am on 10/29/2012
Mika Brzezinski: Why has it been so easy for critics to say the administration does not have its story straight on Benghazi?
President Barack Obama: Well, look, the fact of the matter is that this is a tragedy. There’s all kinds of legitimate questions to ask because anytime a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans who were serving our country get killed, we have to figure out what happened, and fix it. And most importantly, we’ve got to bring those folks who carried that out to justice. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. But I do take offense, as I’ve said at one of the debates, with some suggestion that in any way, we haven’t tried to make sure that the American people knew, as information was coming in what we believed happened. And-
Joe Scarborough: Was it the intel community that gave you bad information early on?
Obama: That-that
Scarborough: Because the story keeps changing.
Obama: Well, that’s what we’re going to find out from the investigation. But the truth is that across the board, when this happened, my number 1 priority was, secure Americans, figure out what happened, bring those folks to justice. We are in the process of doing that right now. Congress has been getting the flow of information continuously from day 1. And what my attitude on this is, if we find out we that there was a big breakdown, and somebody didn’t do their job, they’ll be held accountable. Ultimately, as commander-in-chief, I’m responsible, and I don’t shy away from that responsibility. My number 1 responsibility is to go after the folks who did this, and we’re going to make sure we get them. I’ve got a pretty good track record of doing that.
NOT FULL TRANSCRIPT…MUCH MORE ON OTHER TOPICS