From Benghazi to Boston, the Obama administration ignores it:
Looking back, a cynic would say that for this administration there really was no other way to characterize what happened in Benghazi but as a spontaneous protest to an anti-Islam video. For the truth to be revealed in the middle of a competitive election would have too many disquieting resonances, too many unknown effects. The specter of jihad must be muted and diffused. These are the same people, remember, who replaced the concept of “terrorism” with the euphemism “man-caused disaster,” who labeled Nidal Hassan’s jihadist rampage in Ft. Hood, Texas, an incidence of “workplace violence.” Who could doubt they’d blame the stupid videotape.
These are the same people, the Washington Free Beacon’s Bill Gertz reports, who have instituted a cultural change at the FBI that seeks “to dissociate Islam from terrorism, a policy critics say fails to properly identify the nature of an enemy engaged in waging religiously inspired war and insurgency against the United States and its allies.” It was the same politically correct blindness that led so many in the media and government, in their absurd search for a “motive” in the Boston bombings, to downplay the religious dimension of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s plot against America, to willfully describe the bombers as “lone wolves” despite their ideological allegiances and familial ties to overseas militants. Gertz’s sources suggest political correctness even may have played a part in the inability of the U.S. counterterrorism establishment to heed warnings from the Russians about the older Tsarnaev, whose every action in the run-up to the attack screamed, “Call the police.”
This is dangerous to our security, and utterly lacking in feck.
I suppose we can get a truckload of feck and dump it on them? If not, perhaps some zoo would loan us enough of elephants for a really good dump?
They’re working with a restatement of Blackstone’s formulation. Unfortunately it reads:
Better that ten gitmo men escape than one jihadist suffer.
From Benghazi to Boston
The trip is a bit longer than that. That whole thing of Nidal Hasan yelling “Allahu Akbar” and shooting up Ft. Hood after meeting with Anwar al-Awlaki is apparently just another case of disgruntled employee with access to firearms committing violence in the workplace.
But a kid shooting at a Congresswoman and killing a Federal Judge; well that’s home grown terrorism incited by Tea Party politicians. So there is that for recognition.
For the truth to be revealed in the middle of a competitive election would have too many disquieting resonances, too many unknown effects.
And yet the truth was revealed in the middle of a competitive election, and nothing much came of it.
You are absolutely right Jim, nothing new about Benghazi has come to light over the past 8 months and there is nothing more that can be learned…
Apparently Jim disagrees with The New Yorker. I’m curious if the State Department ever reported the Benghazi incident to Congress as a terrorist event as required by US Code. That report is required annually to Congress on April 30th of each year. Last year, they were late. So that might explain no posting yet.
You know what is interesting, check out the Department of State’s website for News Releases from it’s Bureau on CounterTerrorism. It was pretty busy up to September 7th. Then nothing until December 11th. Why, one would think they became pretty quiet during the heat of the election season between Labor Day and Election Day. That’s very interesting considering the President claimed there was a terrorist attack on a State Department facility during that time, but not one statement from the Department of State’s own Bureau covering terrorism.
And if that website was the only way for voters to get news about terrorism, that’d be a big problem.
Sadly, its the Bureau that the State Department relies on, which probably explains why it got the facts wrong on Bengahzi, no?
What do we know about the attack that wasn’t known before the election?
That Gregory Hicks was demoted for suggesting Amb. Rice had her facts wrong when she told the world the attack was “spontaneous”. That’s called a coverup and retaliation against a government whistleblower.
I wonder what Jim thinks about Obama saying today that Rice’s talking points were consistent with his daily briefings? It looks like Obama is still blaming a video and trying to throw parts of his administration under the bus.
Of course Obama thinks there is nothing there there because he supposedly went to bed early, never went to the situation room or met with any agencies tasked with dealing with terrorist attacks and whoever rights his daily briefings didn’t tell him about any of this.
It isn’t clear even now that Hicks was even demoted, much less that he was demoted for political reasons.
So you’re calling him a liar? Or too stupid to know whether or not he had been demoted?
Rice’s talking points were consistent with his daily briefings
You’d expect them to be consistent, they both came from the CIA.
Why the fascination with his bedtime?
“Unsatisfied with his current posting” is not the same thing as “demoted”.
Actually, it can very well be. When you have a job with which you are satisfied, and are removed from it and assigned a new one with which you are not for no stated reason, it is effectively a demotion.
Hicks does not say he was satisfied with his job, or that he was removed from it. Here’s what he told Congress:
Hicks clearly wasn’t satisfied with the job, based on “overriding” family concerns, and he chose to leave it.
His beef is that they haven’t found him an equivalent posting. That could be because they are retaliating against him for political reasons (his explanation), or because they weren’t happy with his job performance (the explanation of some of his colleagues), or because there hasn’t been an appropriate opening (the official State explanation).
Of course they’re unhappy with his job performance, at least since Benghazi. He refused to go along with their lies.
Hicks’ lawyer said he was threatened and demoted, punished for blowing the whistle. He wasn’t even allowed to speak to the State Department’s investigators. Pretty strange not to ask a person in charge of security any questions.
If people were unhappy with his performance, you think he would have been questioned. But I can see how people would criticize him for requesting additional security and being turned down by the Obama administration.
We also know the talking points did not come from the CIA, they were extensively edit by the whitehouse and state department. And why would Obama be standing by the story that Benghazi was a response to a youtube video? According to you he never said it was and even called it a terror attack but here we are all these months later and he says Rice was correct.
We also know the talking points did not come from the CIA
To quote Twain, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Examples: Rand knows that Hicks was removed from his post, when he left for family reasons. You know that the talking points did not come from the CIA, when the first draft (which implicated the video) was written entirely by the CIA.
You know that the talking points did not come from the CIA, when the first draft (which implicated the video) was written entirely by the CIA.
Wrong, it was the third draft that first included the video. The first draft came from CIA. The final draft used by Susan Rice was rejected by the CIA Director.
Follow your own link. The first draft said that “the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo”, protests that were in turn spurred by the video. The video itself is not explicitly mentioned in any of the drafts.
The final draft used by Susan Rice was rejected by the CIA Director.
He disagreed with the removal of a sentence on the “Cairo warning”, which more closely tied the attacks to the Cairo protests. You have things exactly backwards.
He disagreed with the removal of a sentence on the “Cairo warning”,
Right, he disagreed with Nuland removing the fact that the State Department received notice of a potential attack in the region 24 hours in advance. He thought it was pretty important to let legislators know that the CIA gave warning on September 10th. Nuland suppressed that information for exactly the opposite reasoning. She didn’t want Congress to have that information. This is why Petreaus says, it’s useless and not want Congress asked for, but he left the decision to use the talking points up to the White House, which pretty much left Nuland and one other State Department person to complete the edits.
I also clicked the link and stand by my comment and correction of you; the first draft made no mention of the video.
Reference to social media in the third draft is reference to Youtube video.
the first draft made no mention of the video
None of the drafts explicitly mention the video. All of them start with a statement linking the Benghazi attacks to the Cairo protests, which were about the video.
Reference to social media in the third draft is reference to Youtube video
The mention of “social media” is in the sentence that was ultimately removed! It’s the sentence that Petraeus wanted kept in!
To recap: it was the CIA, not State or the White House, that pushed the link to Cairo and the video all along. Doesn’t that blow your whole theory of the cover-up apart?
The source of the first draft hardly matters if it is unrecognizable 13 editions later. The CIA wasn’t responsible for the vigorous editing and last I checked the CIA operates as a part of the Obama administration. So what does it even matter? At all levels the administration messed up and lied about it.
Bear in mind, you don’t get graded on your first draft, you get graded on the draft you hand in to your teacher.
The source of the first draft hardly matters if it is unrecognizable 13 editions later
Yes, it matters, because the contention that bothered the GOP the most about Rice’s TV show appearances — that the Benghazi was a spontaneous spillover from the Cairo protests — was there in the first draft, and every subsequent one.
last I checked the CIA operates as a part of the Obama administration
The charge was that the White House directly changed the talking points for political purposes. Saying that the CIA wrote misleading talking points in order to re-elect the president is a very different charge, especially when the DCIA is a GOP hero.
you don’t get graded on your first draft, you get graded on the draft you hand in to your teacher.
This isn’t school. We aren’t grading the talking points, we’re trying to see who was responsible for which parts. The parts that bother the GOP the most came from the CIA. That’s relevant.
All of them start with a statement linking the Benghazi attacks to the Cairo protests, which were about the video.
There’s no evidence of that, either that the protests were about the video or mention of the video in the first draft. The State Department claimed on September 11th that the attack in Egypt was based on the video.
Yet, Here’s the Jerusalem Post reporting of what Egypt was saying earlier that day (Sept 10th in the US):
Egypt’s General Intelligence Service warned that a jihadi group is planning to launch terrorist attacks against the US and Israeli embassies in Cairo, according to a report Tuesday by Egypt Independent, citing a secret letter obtained by Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Don’t trust JPost? Here is the Egypt Independent:
The Egyptian General Intelligence Service warned that a radical jihadi group is planning to launch terrorist attacks against the US and Israeli embassies in Cairo.
Tel Aviv had accused the same group, Global Jihad, of perpetrating an attack in Sinai against Egyptian border guards, which left 16 dead on 5 August.
Al-Masry Al-Youm obtained a copy of a top secret letter addressed to Major General Samy Sedhom, first assistant Interior Minister for Social Security, on 4 September which stated that intelligence notified the ministry’s national security body that elements from the organization in Egypt and Gaza were planning attacks on the two embassies.
I’ve asked you before to provide evidence that the video was ever mentioned by anyone prior to the State Department’s mention on September 11th. I ask again, where’s your evidence, since you continuously bring it up as a fact.
I don’t care if it was CIA or State Department. The warnings prior to September 11th never mentioned a video. The attacks were never spontaneous. Why did the White House approve talking points that said any of these things, when there was no evidence before, during, or after that support the claims? If I’m wrong, and there is evidence, Jim; provide it.
“What do we know about the attack that wasn’t known before the election?”
Little, if anything, Jim. And that’s a significant problem in my opinion. What’s your take?
Something new must have been learned, because the BSM have been reporting on it lately like there’s news.
Just because people who pay attention already knew this stuff, doesn’t mean the press corps have always known it. But what bothers me is that someone who claims to have known all this all along is still defending the regime.
We know the ‘youtube video’ had absolutely nothing to do with the attack.
We know the person who made said video still sits in jail, while NOONE who attacked our embassy is in jail.
We know the White House and the Secretary of State knew about the attack and were told it was Terror from the start, yet did nothing to help.
We know the White House and the State Department scrubbed their memo at least 12 times, getting rid of any things that pointed to Islamic Terrorism.
We know that you will support Obama, even if he came to your house, peed on your carpet, set fire to your bedroom, and crashed your Prius into your garage. Well, to be fair, we knew the last point for many years.
We know the ‘youtube video’ had absolutely nothing to do with the attack.
People were saying that within days of the attack, long before the election.
We know the person who made said video still sits in jail, while NOONE who attacked our embassy is in jail.
Those things were true on election day.
We know the White House and the Secretary of State knew about the attack and were told it was Terror from the start, yet did nothing to help.
We know that the CIA’s original assessment (in the first draft of the talking points) implicated the video. We know that once the attack happened, there was nothing the White House or Pentagon could have done that would have saved lives (they could have risked more lives on efforts that would have come too late, and wisely chose not to). We know that there had been warnings of possible attacks, and that security was poor — but we knew that in November, too.
We know the White House and the State Department scrubbed their memo at least 12 times, getting rid of any things that pointed to Islamic Terrorism.
We know that the CIA went through 12 drafts of the talking points, incorporating input from the White House and State, with State and the CIA squabbling over assigning blame. But regardless of the talking points, it was widely known before the election that the attack was an act of Islamic terrorism; it isn’t as if the talking points were the first and last word on the subject. The fact that voters knew that the attack was an act of Islamic terrorism did not affect the election outcome as far as anyone can tell.
If the administration was covering up the nature of the attack, the cover-up was both ineffective (because the truth came out anyway) and pointless (because voters didn’t care).
We know that you will support Obama
And we know that some will attack Obama, regardless of the facts.
Something else we learned recently:
RADDATZ: About those. How about CIA Director David Petraeus? How did he respond to these talking points? And I know you have new information on that.
KARL: Yeah, this is fascinating. Because Mike Morrell, who was the deputy director, was the one that ultimately signed off on this one. Petraeus finally saw the final version of the talking points. This is the Saturday afternoon before Susan Rice’s appearances on the Sundayshows. He looks at these and says they’re essentially useless. And direct quote from his e-mail. He says, I would just as soon not use them. But it’s their call, meaning the White House’s call.
If the White House knew all along it was a terrorist attack, then why send out Susan Rice with the talking points from CIA that even the Director thought were useless? Jim, your comments make no sense when compared to the facts.
That’s some selective editing of Petreaus’s email! Here’s more context:
Petraeus was complaining that the talking points didn’t say enough about the links between the video-inspired Cairo protests and the Benghazi attack. The “Cairo warning” was the following line, which had been added to the talking points, and later removed:
“On 10 September we warned of social media reports calling for a demonstration in front of the Embassy [in Cairo] and that jihadists were threatening to break into the Embassy.”
If the White House knew all along it was a terrorist attack, then why send out Susan Rice with the talking points from CIA that even the Director thought were useless?
At the time the DCIA was still pushing the link to the video, even beyond what the inter-agency group settled on. You have his objection to the talking points exactly backwards.
From Jim’s link,
We see Victoria Nuland made this comment about the talking points: they selectively noted Agency warning in a manner which might have led Congress to believe the State Department had ignored them. This appeared to encourage a blame game before the investigation was complete. She did not make changes to the points. Rather, she asked for higher level interagency review, which the White House agreed was necessary. She played no further role in the handling of these points.
Well we learned this past week that Amb. Stevens did warn the State Department and that his warnings were ignored. And we’ve been told since then by Jim that the White House had nothing to do with the memo, it was all CIA.
It’s Nuland, spokesperson for State, that demands the removal of references to Al Qaeda from the talking points. Then later, references to Ansar Al-Sharia, which had already claimed responsibility for the initial attack that the Talking Points claimed were “Spontaneous”.
As for Jim’s selective edit, Petreaus is upset that the notification of prior warning to the embassy (part of the stuff State Department spokeswomen Nuland demanded be removed) was taken out. It doesn’t say video. It was a warning of potential attacks. A warning that was almost 24 hours prior to the death of Amb. Stevens, which would have been ample time to move a QRF into the region to provide support.
Jim, the link shows heavy modification by the State Department of the CIA talking points with approval by the White House. It pretty much defies everything you have written in the past few days. It also shows exactly where the lie developed and the reason for it. Hicks is right, Nuland was trying to hide the fact that the State Department ignored warnings. She edited any mention of warnings out, specifically so Congress wouldn’t know to ask questions about those warnings and lack of preparation.
That in a nutshell is the cover up.
Petreaus is upset that the notification of prior warning to the embassy
That’s right, embassy. The embassy in Cairo, Egypt. The CIA had warned of demonstrations in Cairo, linked to the anti-Islam video. Petraeus wanted that line in the talking points, because it shows the CIA as having done their job. But you ignore the fact that it also shows the CIA as invested in the idea that the Benghazi attack was a spillover from the video-inspired protests in Cairo. That idea did not come from the White House, or State — it came from the CIA, and was in the first draft of the talking points. So who’s covering up for whom?
That in a nutshell is the cover up
So now the cover-up is that State tried to hide the fact that they’d been warned about possible demonstrations in Cairo?!? And yet the Pickering-Mullen commission found lots of evidence of ignored warnings, and excoriated State for its lack of preparedness. Some cover-up!
The “nutshell” version of this scandal changes every time you turn around:
* It’s about pretending that the attack wasn’t an act of terror, except that Obama immediately called it an act of terror
* It’s about politicos in the White House blaming the video for the sake of the election, but it turns out it was the CIA blaming the video
* It’s about the White House changing the talking points, but it turns out it was a career State official (a former aid to Dick Cheney!) fighting a turf battle with the CIA
* It’s about leaving good men to die, except that the forces told to stand down would have gotten there too late
How can this be the worst scandal in US history if you can’t decide what Obama did wrong?
Jim is pretty good at selectively editing things, maybe he should go work for the State Department.
Were the Cairo protests about the video or were they organized to protest the captivity of Islamic militants?
Funny thing I read the other day. Obama sent more military muscle to arrest the film maker than he sent to protect the ambassador, before, during and after the attack.
The CIA had warned of demonstrations in Cairo, linked to the anti-Islam video.
Show us the warning that mentioned the video prior to the attack. There was warning of Ansar Al-Sharia was planning an attack, but no mention of a video.
Gee, then why did they have to order forces that were about to get on a plane for the short hop to Benghazi to stand down? How did seven people leave Tripoli at 11:30 PM, about two hours after the attack started (I guess they’d thrown up their hands at the White House doing anything), arrive in Benghazi at 1:30 AM, and how did two of them getting killed at 4:00 AM, and our people not leaving Benghazi till about 6:30 AM? That’s about nine hours. It took people who couldn’t be ordered to stand down about two hours to get there.
And of course, there was already a sizable British force in Benghazi but the administration never contacted them because an English/English translator wasn’t available. The administration also never even bothered to ask the Libyan president if we could send in any aircraft, which mystified him.
But perhaps you’re right. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on 9/11 the administration dispatched a team of FBI agents to collect evidence, and they didn’t manage to get there till October 3rd, apparently having landed in Liberia by accident and traveling to Benghazi by riding rented camels across the Sahara.
And of course, there was already a sizable British force in Benghazi
This is still beyond boggling.
Gee, then why did they have to order forces that were about to get on a plane for the short hop to Benghazi to stand down?
That plane took off after all 4 Americans were dead.
So it sat there all night when it was only a short flight away from Benghazi? Kinda blows your contention that they would not have got there in time out of the water. Remember that two people died in the early morning hours, some eight or more hours after the attack began, and there were 30+ people still there, some of them gravely wounded.
So Jim, you are saying that because we knew Obama and his administration were lying (even though then and now people say they weren’t lying), that it doesn’t matter that they lied? And witness intimidation, sending an innocent person to jail, and any questions about the tesponse to the attack or even security prior to the attack don’t matter?
The linked author writes that For the truth to be revealed in the middle of a competitive election would have too many disquieting resonances, too many unknown effects. But that plainly isn’t true, because the truth was revealed in the middle of a competitive election, and had no effect.
For this to make sense as a scandal, there has to be a compelling motive. What’s the motive to hide information that’s already widely available?
Jim, you are spouting outright fraud. The truth is out there, but that doesn’t mean it has a grip on anything. It’s exactly like Candy Crowley saying Barack did say it was terrorism. It’s the lawyers fine print excuse. It’s a lie hiding behind a technicality.
It’a fraud. You have no credibility when you spout it.
Except Jim that you say the truth is lies and the lies truth and that is the way the administration and their media reacted too. Knowing the truth matters far less than acknowledging the truth to in fact be the truth.
But Obama still blamed the video as late as yesterday and at other times he has said it was terrorism. The man’s story is all over the place. Perhaps if he spent as much time in the situation room that night as he did marshalling his forces over Newtown, he would have a better grasp of what his administration did and did not do.
Just not people you or the BSM agree with.
I’m not sure what BSM stands for, but TV network reporters were claiming to have administration sources calling it a terrorist act within a few days. It wasn’t secret information, it was information that the administration (including the DCIA) wasn’t 100% sure about.
Not even the Washington Post agrees with you. Today’s article gives 4 pinnochios to that statement.
But Blockheadedness is blockheadedness and I doubt you will see the light.
Today’s article gives 4 pinnochios to that statement.
Did you read the article? They gave 4 pinnochios to Obama’s contention that calling something an “act of terror” is the same thing as calling it a “terrorist act.” Which is 1) inane and 2) unrelated to my claim that TV reporters claimed to have administration sources calling it a terrorist act.
Yep…as predicted…
Your blockheadedness is inviolable.
Obama said “acts” of terror. Notice the plural which was used by you and Obama’s defenders in the media to say that Obama lumped Benghazi in with other terror attacks. However, the paragraph with the words “acts of terror” made no mention of Benghazi, that happened several paragraphs earlier.
You link unrelated things and then say that things that are actually grammatically linked have no relation. You have to be consistent.
Wodun says to Jim:
“You have to be consistent.”
You have to understand that the only way one can possibly defend The One is through inconsistancy, dissembling, deflecting, distracting, and ignoring the obvious.
Because on the world of common sense , there’s no defense for Obama.
Notice the plural
On September 12 he used the plural. On the 13th and 14th he used the singular. What’s your point?
made no mention of Benghazi
What other act of terror do you think he was referring to?
And now from the city that brought you the Marathon Bombing a month ago:
7 Caught Trespassing At Quabbin Reservoir; Patrols Stepped Up Across State
“BELCHERTOWN (CBS) – Shortly after midnight Tuesday, seven people were caught trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir.
State Police say the five men and two women are from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, and “cited their education and career interests” for being in the area. The men told police they were chemical engineers and recent college graduates.
…………
State Police say there were no warrants or advisories on any of the individuals and “there was no evidence that the seven were committing any crime beyond the trespassing.”
All seven were allowed to leave and will be summonsed to court for trespassing. The FBI is investigating and routine checks of public water supplies have been increased following the incident.”
I’m sure they will show up for their trespassing trial. Aren’t you?