Greg Hicks, who was the State Department's Deputy Chief of Mission at Tripoli at the time of the Benghazi attack says he and his people in Libya knew at the time of the Benghazi attack that it was exactly that-an attack.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/05/chaffetz-state-department-officials-fear-retaliation-on-benghazi-more-will-talk/
When you consider his words, which he will be giving under oath next week, how can anyone excuse President Obama, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice for continuing to lie about a "protest over a video that got out of hand" for days on end after the attack?
We have all been lied to about Benghazi as to the run-up to the attack, the attack itself, and after the attack-not about a burglary of the other party's hqs as in Watergate, but about a terror attack that killed four Americans-who never should have died.
Meanwhile, an obscure Coptic Christian refugee from Egypt is sitting in a federal prison for making a dopey movie that had nothing to do with the attack. Talk about a political prisoner.
After the deaths/injuries and the principle of an attack on essentially American soil in a foreign country, the additional travesty of this situation is its raw partisan political nature, I believe solely in regard to making it through the 2012 midterm elections.
ReplyDeletePerhaps even more sadly, it appears to have worked, although on another hand I am not at all sure that the outcome would have been any different if we knew then what we already know now, let alone what we are apparently about to learn further very shortly. Looks to me like the ignorant, unproductive, "low information voters" (as Rush calls them) at least temporarily have the upper hand. Hopefully, that will not be a permanent condition.
Yes Siarlys, I know the "people spoke" and the system worked. However, you have to be a little bit careful with "democracy" (we actually live in a representative republic, not a pure democracy) and "the majority rules", either/both of which can very easily turn into mob rule. As only one example it was, after all, essentially "the majority", through its representatives, which resulted in slavery continuing to be an institution in this country for the better part of our first 100 years as a sovereign nation, no??
The Coptic Christian refugee is a felon who violated conditions of parole, and should be deported. We don't need immigrant criminals hanging around in our cities masquerading as refugees.
ReplyDeleteSee how it sounds when the shoe is on the other foot?
Nobody in Tripoli "knew" anything about what was happening in Benghazi in real time. Neither did anyone in Washington, or in Greece or Italy. Various people charged with trying to make sense of the stream of reporting in real time came to different judgements, and are now indulging in Monday morning quarterbacking about "see, my hunch was closer to what we now know to be the truth than your hunch." That might even qualify someone for a promotion. It doesn't qualify as a scandal.
If there is anything the Obama administration should be faulted for, it is saying ANYTHING about what did or didn't happen in the first five days. In a moving situation, you make the best call you can. After its over, there is no point in rushing to pretend "we know exactly what was going on." Its time for everyone to shut up and do the sober work of FINDING OUT.
Ah, elwood, how did you know I would be back just in time for this post, you clairvoyant comrade?
IF you represent the Republican campaign team and the right-wing news media (but I forbear to insult you by assuming you do), you would be the pot calling the silverware black. What do you think the whole idea of making a big deal out of this situation was in the first place? It was grasping at straws, aka "Darn, there must be SOME last minute October surprise we can pull out to derail Obama's re-election. Awww, why don't voters pick up on this one, we're screaming from the rooftops and nobody is listening? Dumb voters!"
I don't recall the last time that "information" was of any significance at all to Rush's diatribes. He's a performer dishing out drama, not an analyst or seeker after truth.
Actually, slavery existed a priori republican government in this country, certainly a priori constitutional government, and what "the majority" couldn't get its act together to do, for four score and seven years, was sort out how to deal with it.
If there had been no slavery UNTIL a majority voted to enslave some portion of the enfranchised citizenry, to the benefit of the unenslaved majority, then you might have a point.
Try again old man, you may get a winner some day.
Siarlys--thanks for recognizing my clairvoyance, recall that I previously demonstrated it when I advised you relative to how much higher my IQ value was than yours.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't know why we should be at all surprised that Hillary probably/apparently lied under oath relative to this issue. She has done it before. Almost certainly, all politicians, and most/all of the rest us, lie at some time or other. Either separately or together, Bill and Hill are in my view among the worst of the worst.
While Bill was in no danger of being removed from office thanks to a bunch of lib/Dem gutless wonders in the Senate, Hill came within an ace of actually being indicted, and almost certainly convicted, of perjury and/or other felonies relative to the Whitewater mess and what it morphed into. It is fairly well understood by most that the reason she was not indicted was that a little deal was cut where Bill took most of the heat (settling the Paula Jones case, not contesting the contempt citation by a Federal judge, paying a fine, losing both his law license( for a time) and the right to practice before SCOTUS).
Short of removal itself, that is a fairly heavy indictment of a President, sitting, former, or dead.
elwood, your clairvoyance is limited to knowing that I would be around to say something pithy in due time -- which doesn't qualify you for a medal.
ReplyDeleteAs for IQ, mine has been tested everywhere from 70 to 145, which tells me all I need to know about the merit of IQ as a measure of anything.
Your stale rehashing of old conspiracy theories is too tiresome to merit serious response. Get a life.