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Monday, December 31, 2012

Senate Report on Benghazi

In the wake of the State Department's own report on the failures in Benghazi, the Senate has come out with its own report.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/30/latest-senate-committee-report-on-benghazi-terrorist-attack-faults-state/

"State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy told lawmakers that Libya and Benghazi were "flashing red" by the time of the attack, Lieberman said."

(See Finding 1)

Which makes it very unlikely that the situation never reached the desk of the secretary of state in the months and weeks leading up to 9-11-12.




This should put the final nail in the coffin of Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations.



6 comments:

Siarlys Jenkins said...

The final nail in the coffin of Hillary Clinton's presidential ambitions should have been her book "It Takes A Village..." in which she openly assumed that in the modern world, government IS the village it takes to raise a child.

Everything since is mere detail.

elwood p suggins said...

All this from a Democrat-controlled Senate AND, therefore necessarily, a Democrat-controlled committee. Think what the real truth must be, or if this was reported by a Republican Senate committee. Maybe better, don't think of it.

I am not so sure about the nail, she may be closer to a vampire or werewolf.

And incidentally Siarlys, since you support redistribution of wealth (the punishment of producers, and the resultant rewarding of non-producers), why could it not be said that you are a fellow villager with Hillary, or at least something like that?? Just a thought.

Squid said...

Good point Siarlys! But you do not get the Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina (Order of Lenin) award for your statement. Not only did Hillary show her incompetence as the director of the U.S. State Department, but also mislead U.S. citizens by pushing the Administration's talking points on Benghazi, as ambassador Rice did.
Included in the Senate report was also the slam on the U.S. DoD and Inrtelligence agencies that expunged the words "Terrorist attack" and "Al Qaeda" from their reports.

Happy New Year

Siarlys Jenkins said...

If it was a Republican controlled committee, truth would have taken fifth place to gaining petty political advantage, which would have taken fourth, third, and second, as well as first place.

It is quite obvious to me that Republicans didn't really care about our embassy personnel, but were VERY hopeful of making Benghazi into the kind of uproar that can swing undecided voters in the midst of a heated campaign, even though many of those voters might have second thoughts in January or March, when it doesn't matter any more.

No doubt about it, the Obama administration and the Democratic Party wanted to avoid any such thing, more than they wanted to air the situation thoroughly and cleanly. Considering the unprincipled bastards they were up against, I hardly blame them.

I believe that a careful, sober consideration, taking time to get all the facts, followed by a critical report that spares nobody, was the right thing to do. And it was right that it came out after the election, since these are long-term systemic problems, not bad choices by the president.

I don't buy the nonsense that "this had nothing to do with the movie about Muslims." Of course it did. The movie provided a convenient flashpoint. The action by Ansar al Shariah was of course no more an act of principled outrage than were the rhetorical statements by Republicans in congress. Its all a matter of use what is at hand as cover and rationale for doing what you want to do.

elwood, you have definitely forgotten a great deal that your father must have understood very clearly -- as he supported you on his hard-won union scale paycheck. Redistribution is not about punishing producers, it is about rewarding the REAL producers. Look up an old Wobbly song book. I have in my possession a vintage 1921 original. The capitalists are, not inaccurately, presented as the parasites, living off the real PRODUCERS who do the real work.

Yes, we also have to make some provision for the destitute, but I'm all for replacing welfare with a massive apprenticeship program to build high speed rail across the country. It might cost more than the current TANF and SNAP programs, but we'd get some durable benefit out of it, and everyone would be working. Those not working on the railroad would be working in child care for those who are.

Favorable reference to the Wobblies won't get me the Order of Lenin either (I admire your cyrillic Squid), but "those who work will eat" might do so.

elwood p suggins said...

Siarlys, get your head out of the sand, or wherever else it might be. I never, ever said that workers were non-producers.

What I have a problem with is excessive taxation of both workers at all income levels and "capitalist robber barons", thereby reducing their standards of living to elevate the standards of those who are already a drain on the society/economy so that they are essentially equal to those of at least some of the producers, without their being required to do anything for it except to breathe the same air the rest of us do.

Surprisingly or otherwise, I find myself probably agreeing with you in principle on some apprenticeship/job training concept, but I question whether "high speed rail" is the appropriate (excuse me) vehicle
for that effort. That would undoubtedly and inevitably result in more spending, increased taxes and debt, and eternal subsidization of the rail system. We can do better than that.

Siarlys Jenkins said...

elwood, you made a broad sweeping statement, and I responded to it as such. That you denied meaning what you said when I pointed out some of its implications is no fault of mine.

Robber barons LIKE having a large destitute population around -- it makes it easier to keep wages down for those who ARE working. Robber barons only shed crocodile tears over workers taxes subsidizing welfare when they need to swing some votes, the better to enrich themselves.

You yourself, I gather, are no robber baron, which makes you a useful idiot. Capitalists have those too, you know, in fact, capitalists use them in a more smooth and sophisticated manner than communists ever did.

I do see a modest problem with sending single mothers to work when their youngest child is two years old. Now we have a generation of kids far less socialized than even what we had in the 1990s. I watched the change at a local Boys and Girls Club. Sure, not all moms on AFDC made the effort, but now those who would cannot. There are better ways to go than running back to handing out checks. But your outdated rhetoric doesn't exactly illuminate the way.