13 Benghazis That Occurred on Bush’s Watch Without a Peep from Fox News

[Loco Vette]

Originally Posted by Joecooool

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told CBS News that Republican lawmakers who are blasting President Barack Obama's administration for failing to take military action during last September's surprise attacks in Benghazi have a "cartoonish" view of the military.

"I listened to the testimony of [Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta] and [Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey]," Gates explained to CBS host Bob Schieffer in an interview that aired on Sunday. "And, frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were."

"We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East -- despite all the turmoil that's going on -- with planes on strip alert, troops ready to deploy at a moment's notice. And so, getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible."

He continued: "And, frankly, I've heard, 'Why didn't you just fly a fighter jet over and try and scare them with the noise or something?' Well, given the number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from [former Libya dictator Muammar] Gaddafi's arsenals, I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi under those circumstances."

Gates pointed out that others had suggested that the military could have sent in Special Forces or some other small group.

"Based on everything I've read, people really didn't know what was going on in Benghazi contemporaneously, and to send some small number of Special Forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, I think, would have been very dangerous," the former defense secretary observed. "And personally, I would not have approved that."

"It's sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces. The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm's way. And there just wasn't time to do that."

Gates: Benghazi-Obsessed Republicans Have 'Cartoonish' View of Military Capability | Video Cafe

Assuming for a second that the above is a realistic assessment (and so far those that have actually testified before Congress under oath as opposed to grandstanding in the press have reported otherwise) than there should be no reason for the WH and it's minions to revise the report 12 times before issuing it and making up a complete horseshit story to boot.

[Joecooool]

Originally Posted by Loco Vette

Assuming for a second that the above is a realistic assessment (and so far those that have actually testified before Congress under oath as opposed to grandstanding in the press have reported otherwise)

OK - that's bullshit.

[Loco Vette]

Originally Posted by Joecooool

OK - that's bullshit.

Well, faced with a well thought out argument like THAT, I supposed there is nothing left to say

Requests for military backup denied

Originally Posted by Gregory Hicks, from the above link

So Lieutenant Colonel Gibson, who is the SOCAFRICA commander, his team, you know, they were on their way to the vehicles to go to the airport to get on the C­130 when he got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, you can't go now, you don't have authority to go now. And so they missed the flight,” Hicks said in written testimony given to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Hicks is scheduled to testify Wednesday before that committee, along with other witnesses who are expected to cast doubt on the administration’s narrative about the attack.

[Craig]

All this has a lot less to do with incompetence (and there’s plenty of that in this administration, and Washington in general); it’s the motivation (it had potential to negatively impact Obama’s re-election), and the cover up. In the end, it worked. They kept it quiet until after the election, and Obama was safe. Now some Republicans will make news being indignant, and some Democrat advisors will be fired and go make millions being lobbyists.

Americans will forgive idiots, it's the liars we hate (briefly).

But I’m not cynical.

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by Craig

All this has a lot less to do with incompetence (and there’s plenty of that in this administration, and Washington in general); it’s the motivation (it had potential to negatively impact Obama’s re-election), and the cover up. In the end, it worked. They kept it quiet until after the election, and Obama was safe. Now some Republicans will make news being indignant, and some Democrat advisors will be fired and go make millions being lobbyists.

Americans will forgive idiots, it's the liars we hate (briefly).

But I’m not cynical.

ED Zachery......seen it many times in my 53 years in DC.....40 of them cognitive as to where I lived, and started in on the back channel of the one horse town industry everyone depended on, got news, it's FUGLY!!!!!


BTDT, know more than anyone on this forum, I bet....

[Cybercowboy]

Originally Posted by Joecooool

I'll for the live of me, never understand why anyone would ever give a shit about how soon it was called a "terrorist attack". Who gives a flying fuk what it was called. Its irrelevant.

But to piss on your parade, Obama did call it an "act of terror" the day after it happened.

Bullshit, utter bullshit. I'm calling it. Obama was trying, desperately, to keep the campaign optics on point. He lied for political gain, pure and simple. Either through utter incompetence, inaction, or calculated means no support was sent to help get the ambassador to safety. This on top of the shocking mismanagement of the security situation there, something that was bad in and of itself. Blaming on the video was something Obama's staff came up with to edit out all mention of al Qaeda-related terrorists killing our ambassador. Period.

If you think this was nothing, then you must have thought Watergate was really totally nothing since on a scale of 1 to 10, Watergate was about a 2 compared to the 10 of this clusterfcuk.

[VITE1]

Originally Posted by Joecooool
But to piss on your parade, Obama did call it an "act of terror" the day after it happened

Obama’s claim he called Benghazi an ‘act of terrorism’ - The Washington Post

Obama’s claim he called Benghazi an ‘act of terrorism’

Posted by Glenn Kesslerat 06:00 AM ET, 05/14/2013


(JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS)

“The day after it happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism.”

— President Obama, remarks at a news conference, May 13, 2013

Once again, it appears that we must parse a few presidential words. We went through this question at length during the 2012 election, but perhaps a refresher course is in order.

Notably, during a debate with Republican nominee Mitt Romney, President Obama said that he immediately told the American people that the killing of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya “was an act of terror.” But now he says he called it “an act of terrorism.”

Some readers may object to this continuing focus on words, but presidential aides spend a lot of time on words. Words have consequences. Is there a difference between “act of terror” and “act of terrorism”?




The Facts


Immediately after the attack, the president three times used the phrase “act of terror” in public statements:

“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.”

— Obama, Rose Garden, Sept. 12

“We want to send a message all around the world — anybody who would do us harm: No act of terror will dim the light of the values that we proudly shine on the rest of the world, and no act of violence will shake the resolve of the United States of America.”

— Obama, campaign event in Las Vegas, Sept. 13

“I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished. It will not dim the light of the values that we proudly present to the rest of the world. No act of violence shakes the resolve of the United States of America.”

— Obama, campaign event in Golden, Colo., Sept. 13

Here’s how we assessed those words back in October:

Note that in all three cases, the language is not as strong as Obama asserted in the debate. Obama declared that he said “that this was an act of terror.” But actually the president spoke in vague terms, usually wrapped in a patriotic fervor. One could presume he was speaking of the incident in Libya, but he did not affirmatively state that the American ambassador died because of an “act of terror.”

Some readers may think we are dancing on the head of pin here. The Fact Checker spent nine years as diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post, and such nuances of phrasing are often very important. A president does not simply utter virtually the same phrase three times in two days about a major international incident without careful thought about the implications of each word.


The Fact Checker noted last week that this was an attack on what essentially was a secret CIA operation, which included rounding up weapons from the very people who may have attacked the facility.

Perhaps Obama, in his mind, thought this then was really “an act of war,” not a traditional terrorist attack, but he had not wanted to say that publicly. Or perhaps, as Republicans suggest, he did not want to spoil his campaign theme that terror groups such as al-Qaeda were on the run by conceding a terrorist attack had occurred on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Whatever the reason, when given repeated opportunities to forthrightly declare this was an “act of terrorism,” the president ducked the question.

For instance, on Sept. 12, immediately after the Rose Garden statement the day after the attack, Obama sat down with Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes and acknowledged he purposely avoided the using the word “terrorism:”

KROFT: “Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word ‘terrorism’ in connection with the Libya attack.”

OBAMA: “Right.”

KROFT: “Do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?”

OBAMA: “Well, it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans. And we are going to be working with the Libyan government to make sure that we bring these folks to justice, one way or the other.”


(You can view this segment of the interview below. A key question is what the president meant when he said “right.” Was this agreement with Kroft or just verbal acknowledgment? It is a bit in the eye of the beholder, but we lean toward agreement that he avoided using “terrorism.” For unknown reasons, CBS did not release this clip until just two days before the elections, and it attracted little notice at the time because Superstorm Sandy dominated the news.)



Eight days later, on Sept. 20, Obama was asked at a Univision town hall whether Benghazi was a terrorist attack related to al-Qaeda, after White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that “it is self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”

QUESTION: “We have reports that the White House said today that the attacks in Libya were a terrorist attack. Do you have information indicating that it was Iran, or al-Qaeda was behind organizing the protests?”

OBAMA: “Well, we’re still doing an investigation, and there are going to be different circumstances in different countries. And so I don’t want to speak to something until we have all the information. What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.”


(It is unclear whether Obama is ducking the “terrorism” question or answering one about al-Qaeda.)

Finally, during an interview on ABC’s “The View” on Sept. 25, Obama appeared to refuse to say it was a terrorist attack:

QUESTION: “It was reported that people just went crazy and wild because of this anti-Muslim movie -- or anti-Muhammad, I guess, movie. But then I heard Hillary Clinton say that it was an act of terrorism. Is it? What do you say?”

OBAMA: “We are still doing an investigation. There is no doubt that the kind of weapons that were used, the ongoing assault, that it wasn’t just a mob action. Now, we don’t have all the information yet so we are still gathering.”


So, given three opportunities to affirmatively agree that the Benghazi attack was a terrorist attack, the president obfuscated or ducked the question.

In fact, as far as we can tell from combing through databases, Monday was the first time the president himself referred to Benghazi as an “act of terrorism.”

Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House national security council, said in the case of “The View,” “the point of the question what about what happened, not what to call it.”

She also noted that President George W. Bush used the phrase “act of terror” while visiting victims of the Sept. 11 attacks in the hospital, and critics such as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) have used that phrasing as well in speaking about terrorist attacks. (She provided citations.) “I don’t really accept the argument that we are somehow unique in that formulation,” she said.

Administration officials repeatedly have insisted that this is a distinction without much difference. “There was an issue about the definition of terrorism,” Carney said on October 10. “This is by definition an act of terror, as the President made clear.”




The Pinocchio Test


During the campaign, the president could just get away with claiming he said “act of terror,” since he did use those words — though not in the way he often claimed. It seemed like a bit of after-the-fact spin, but those were his actual words — to the surprise of Mitt Romney in the debate.

But the president’s claim that he said “act of terrorism” is taking revisionist history too far, given that he repeatedly refused to commit to that phrase when asked directly by reporters in the weeks after the attack. He appears to have gone out of his way to avoid saying it was a terrorist attack, so he has little standing to make that claim now.

Indeed, the initial unedited talking points did not call it an act of terrorism. Instead of pretending the right words were uttered, it would be far better to acknowledge that he was echoing what the intelligence community believed at the time--and that the administration’s phrasing could have been clearer and more forthright from the start.



Four Pinocchios

Obama did not want to call it a terror attack since that would show his statements that we had won the war on terror were false.

[VITE1]

Originally Posted by TxAg

I just about to post the same thing as VITE1.

Wondering how that chit burger tastes.

Like an O bung hole??

The Slurpers lost their taste buds in 2010 when they covered up for this loser on Walpin and the Koch brothers IRS files.

[Loco Vette]

But yet he knew enough to say instantly that the Cambridge Police "acted stupidly."

[VITE1]

[VITE1]

Powers on Obama and Benghazi Lies ... | Benghazi | Fox Nation

Kirstin Powers on Obama's Strategy: I'm Just Going to Call Them Lies Because They're Lies - YouTube

Kirstin Powers on Barack Obama’s Benghazi “lies.”:

“He’s so centrally involving himself with these repeated lies. And, I’m just going to call them lies because they’re lies. They’re on tape. Nobody thought that he called it a terrorist attack. Last night I went up and I looked at The New York Times how they reported it (Benghazi) the day after. They never reference that we had a terrorist attack against the United States. On September 20th, however, they run a story that says Libyan envoys killing was a terrorist attack. And they say until now White House officials have not used that language in describing the assault. That is September 20th. That is The New York Times. Now at what point are people going to get tired of the president coming out and over and over saying things like don’t believe your lying eyes?“

[VITE1]

Obama Admin Are You Lying About Benghazi To Get Elected? - Judge Jeanine Pirro - YouTube

[Craig]

Originally Posted by Joecooool

But to piss on your parade, Obama did call it an "act of terror" the day after it happened.

It's anything but a parade. But to your point, he used the words "act of terror" the day after it happened, which one could infer he meant in relation to the attack...if he hadn't then spent three weeks calling it something else.

[Cybercowboy]

Just heard some spokeshole on the radio saying that the newly-released Benghazi emails show that there was confusion and "too many cooks in the kitchen."

Well, isn't that convenient. It was just a bunch of confused cooks that were cooking utter bullshit.

Why aren't they asking the obvious question: Why cook the bullshit at all? Why are there any cooks involved in this? We didn't ask to be served dinner, we asked you what happened and why you didn't send help. Why was the available help told to stand down? Was it because Obama and Biden were on the phone with Netanyahu and Obama didn't want to be bothered because he was desperate to get the optics correct for his campaign? THOSE ARE ACTUAL QUESTIONS. Somebody needs to answer them, without bullshit.

But thanks Phil for giving us the Candy Crowley "But you called it terrorism on Sept. 12th" line of bullshit. That he was giving a speech about 9/11 and terrorism in general, and then sent Susan Rice out on all the weekend shows to peddle the video meme, well, nice try Candy.

[RedLS1GTO]

Originally Posted by Cybercowboy

Just heard some spokeshole on the radio saying that the newly-released Benghazi emails show that there was confusion and "too many cooks in the kitchen."

...and there is no way that could be due a a complete and utter lack of leadership.

[VITE1]

Originally Posted by RedLS1GTO

...and there is no way that could be due a a complete and utter lack of leadership.

[VITE1]

Originally Posted by TxAg

Obama needs to send crazy uncle joe out on a speaking tour.

He'll say so much stupid crap it will distract the media from the scandals.