Benghazi: the coverup

Fox watchers, like lemmings, full stop.

 

People do not care because it was breaking news long ago, and it was investigated. Folks look at it for what it is, a political talking point. I personally find it disgusting that it has become a political talking point.... but I don't find it shocking.

 

I feel sorry for people like you BigDog63, I really do.

This country has serious problems and the right does everything it can to distract/stall from recognizing the biggest issue this country faces. Our government has become completed corrupted. They lie, cheat, steal, kill, torture, propagandize, etc. etc. to stay in power.

Sad little lemmings like you are too blinded by pride, racism or whatever your personal hot button issue is to open your eyes.

 

This idea that UN sanctions and weapons inspectors was not working is just ridiculous. Colin Powell went on David Letterman and said something like:

"We've been trying diplomacy for 12 years. It's not working."

This had me screaming at my TV. In the 12 years following the first Gulf War, we had Saddam completely in check. We were playing a game with him, though. He would refuse to let inspectors in, we would increase sanctions and pressure, he would target an allied plane and then we'd destroy a radar station. Rinse and repeat. We had this going like clockwork for over 10 years. THIS WAS WORKING!

And as far as lies go...Dick Chaney repeated the Mohammed Atta-Iraqi intelligence connection over and over, even though it was completely unsubstantiated and even after is was debunked. Dick Chaney, without doubt, spread misinformation on purpose to drum up support for the Iraq War.

 

Right on the money

GOP’s demented “Benghazi!” disease: Why conservatives so desperately need a scandal

Has anyone ever seen a full-blown marketing campaign replete with full-color graphics used to announce a House committee investigation? You have now:



I’m going to guess that was in development for a while. Somebody worked up a whole strategy for making the Big Announcement. You have to give them credit. What could have been a dull Friday with the only news being some good jobs numbers and Obamacare still not imploding. Instead the D.C. establishment went into another collective frenzy over Benghazi!™

The Republicans may be terrible at governance and they may even be awful at politics. But if there’s one thing they know how to do it’s stoke a scandal. In fact, it’s their very special gift and one to which they can always turn to rile up the rubes and make the Democrats dance on the head of a pin.

I won’t go into the details of the latest alleged “revelation” that supposedly prompted the new investigation (that they’ve obviously been planning for a while). You can read all the charges, countercharges and explanations all over the Internet. But the truth is that while it’s important for journalists and officials to produce the straight story, the substance of the story is not the winner the GOP seems convinced it has.

The facts show that an American embassy in the middle of a global hot spot was attacked and an ambassador was killed, a tragedy, to be sure, but considering the context, not something entirely shocking. Libya is a war zone, after all. In the early days after the attack there were conflicting accounts of what precipitated the event. The conventional wisdom says the administration insists this was because of the fog of war while the right says there was a coverup designed to keep the American people from seeing it as a terrorist attack. That’s it. Keep in mind that this isn’t a scandal over an attack like 9/11 when thousands of civilians were killed on American soil. It isn’t on the scale of the war with Iraq being sold on false premises and faulty intelligence. It isn’t even about earlier attacks by al-Qaida on foreign embassies where hundreds were killed, known as “the embassy bombings.” (Indeed, attacks on embassies are not all that unusual and happened with some frequency during the Bush administration with virtually no comment.) In fact, this isn’t even really about the attack in Benghazi. It’s about Benghazi!™ — the brand name for the latest Clinton scandal. This follows their previous successful product lines called Whitewater!™ and Monica!™ (There are various seasonal permutations of these brands, like Cattle Futures™ and Chinagate™ but they all pretty much taste the same.)

The point of this strategy isn’t to bring down a politician with one scandal although they’d be perfectly happy if it did. These are such small-bore narratives that they know it’s unlikely. No, the point is to create an atmosphere of scandal, a sense that something’s not right, even though the worst they can prove is that there was miscommunication or confusion. (That becomes part of the narrative as well — a sign of incompetence.) It’s all in service of manufacturing a sense among the people of “where there’s smoke there’s fire,” something into which anyone can be seduced when a byzantine, contentious scandal is in the news. Regular folks have better things to do than parse official statements or, frankly, even read long explanations by good clear-thinking journalists. (And let’s face it, if a scandal takes off, the ranks of good, clear-thinking journalists thin considerably.) If the scandal-mongers can keep it going long enough and can find enough hooks to reengage on a regular basis, it takes on a life of its own.

Benghazi!™ is about portraying the Obama administration as being wimpy on terrorism, of course. But think about that for a minute. The Obama administration is the one that killed bin Laden and is taking down terrorists — and anyone who might accidentally look like one, which is a whole other story — with drone strikes all over the Middle East and Africa. (It’s true that he’s failed to invade a random country just to prove America’s manhood, but he’s still got a couple of years.) The sad truth is that the Obama administration has made not one single move on terrorism with which the right would normally quarrel. But they simply cannot admit that this or one of their most important organizing principles is off the table: National security is as fundamental to them as low taxes and gun rights. If Democrats are not lily-livered cowards hiding beneath the camo-costumes of Real Americans, then they are missing a huge piece of their argument. So they’re doing what it takes: They’re making a national security scandal up out of whole cloth.

But this isn’t about Obama, not really. They have another Clinton to kick around and her involvement in Benghazi!™ as secretary of state gave them a perfect opportunity to dust off the old scandal sheet music and brush up on those old songs. They’re hoping that the mere sound of it will set off a Pavlovian reaction in independent voters and older Democrats who cringe at the prospect of a replay of the ’90s. And if the worst should happen and Clinton does get the nod, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. They will very likely control the House and we can expect to see many more “select committees” to investigate Republican hallucinations.

It beats governing. And by that time nearly half the country will already believe that Hillary Clinton ordered the attack on Benghazi in order to cover up her involvement in something even worse. They won’t know exactly what that is, but where there’s smoke there’s fire and this just doesn’t pass the smell test. No doubt Dick Morris will write a book about it.

[tl;dr]

Benghazi has nothing to do with the facts, dead ambassadors or Obama and everything to do with Hillary Clinton running for president.

 

As I recall about the sanctions imposed on Iraq (specifically Saddam Hussein)...
...the goal was to ultimately get him ousted from power, preferably by an insurrection or revolution from within Iraq...

Hussein countered that by nationalizing Iraq's oil fields (which was the surest way for him to cement his place as Iraq's ruler and control what the rest of the world saw and what he himself would permit to happen from outside nations. This also helped him create enough of a power base to crush any insurgent opposition that he faced (which was very high, especially during the Gulf War).

The condition of the Iraqi people was indeed dire...and Hussein had no great love for them outside of political maneuvering chips...he often blamed the U.N. Sanctions on the worsening conditions for his state's people (and with the closed, propagandized nature Hussein's government, it wasn't hard for the Iraqi people to believe).

Didn't want to get too far off track with this...just enjoying the back-and-forth....

 

I hope you are willing to admit that the left and the politicians they support are just as guilty of all of the above.

If not, "open your eyes".

 

Just "as guilty"? not quite.... but getting there.

 

Likewise.

Which is why people should be concerned when they do that. Very ironic that you bring this up while so busy being unconcerned about such, and I quote 'minor ****'. And yet you feel sad for me. That's a hoot.

My my ... panties in a wad much? And where do you get off calling me 'a sad little lemming'? You know jack squat about me. Also ironic that you throw this in here, when YOU are the one who is clearly the lemming, going off about how bad government is, and then making a point of how it's just fine by you when all those things happen. Yes, someone here is clearly too blinded by pride or whatever, but it is certainly not me.

<Insert your clown pick here.>

 

No, it absolutely was not. Just the fact that it went on for 12 years, with nothing really changing except for the worse, is proof positive of that. And it was absolutely getting worse. Hussein wasn't being affected at all, but it was causing severe hardship on the Iraqi people....and the Muslim community was blaming us for that. Come, on...wake up! This is the biggest myth put forward by all those against the Iraq war, and it's an utter myth. Look at what you wrote yourself----and you call that 'working'? Really? Ridiculous. Just ridiculous.

And that's not even including the impact this was having on the Iraqi people, which the Muslim world was blaming the U.S. for. And how come you're so in favor of Iraqi citizens dying, anyway? Again...this is what you call 'working'? Wow.

That is a point worth discussing, but, again, if spreading misinformation is the issue, one must also be upset with Obama for doing that about Benghazi. Yet no one is, hence the ONLY conclusion is that spreading misinformation must not be a big deal, to anyone.

 

Saddam was not a threat to anyone outside of Iraq from 1991 to 2003. I guess that wasn't good enough for you war hawks. The well being of the Iraqi people wasn't the justification for war, and acting like you care now is offensive. If the goal is to prevent Saddam from having WMDs and to prevent Saddam from being a threat to the USA, the sanctions absolutely were working. After all...HE DIDN'T HAVE WMDs. Diplomacy doesn't have to be perfect to be working.

Your false equivalency schtick is getting quite old.

 

Good god, the scale of fail here is beyond epic.

You rarely see a "True Iraq War Believer" anymore - even the total dingbats and morons have either wished it out of their memory banks or just try not to mention it to avoid embarrassment.

Probable troll, have fun andymoon.

 

I actually don't disagree with this (which is why Larsv8 is so completely off base with his comments about me, but if he want to continue making an arse of himself, that's fine with me). The politics of this is being spun. Not unusual, that's what politics does. But that doesn't change the facts of the matter, and that the Obama administration was trying to steer the narrative away from this being a terrorist attack, when so clearly it was, is something that should absolutely be getting more attention. Not political spin, but real attention.

Nothing special about it....look at all the extreme things the liberals put out, to this day, about Bush. Stoking a scandal is definitely NOT a unique trait. What is unique is liberals inability to even recognize it when their side does it.

That may be true, will see in the next election. But the election is a secondary issue to me---all I'm after is the first part---the journalists and officials producing the straight story. That any people out there still think this was just miscommunication is proof positive that that hasn't happened.

Hmmm....so you're agreeing that the State Department should have paid more attention to the requests for increased security, right?

.

The ONLY conflicting account being put out was the one by the administration. Everyone else had it right from the beginning. ALL of the news networks were covering this as a terrorist attack. Which is probably precisely why the administration wanted so desperately to change the narrative.

And examine the narrative for a moment. The narrative said that this was a spontaneous attack stirred up because of the video. The video part is perhaps understandable, but spontaneous attack? Really? The narrative was then that there were a bunch of people, randomly in a crowd, with no preplanning or coordination, that just happened to be walking around with a freaking mortar in their pants, magically knew just where to set it up, and just where to aim it, and that the rest of those involved in the attack, who also just happened to be carrying heavy weapons, then conducted a clearly coordinated attack by freaking accident? There is no way at all that anyone with even half a mind could buy that. It makes no sense. Yet millions did, and continue to to this day.

That's because there wasn't reason to believe that things could have been handled better during the attack (none of the others lasted more than a few seconds or minutes), nor were those attacks completely mischaracterized, intentionally, by the Bush administration.

Politically, you are probably right. But for me, it is definitely about the attack, and how things were handled during, and after.

Which is politics 101 these days (and probably long before now, too). That you think the other side doesn't do it too is what's noteworthy.

The Obama adminstration was counting on exactly this. And it seems like they were right.

I would agree with that. But what's interesting, therefore, is that he has clearly done lots of things that the left should be completely up in arms about...but not a peep. The drone strikes are a perfect example. They were all eeevvvviiiiillll when Bush was doing it, but Obama has not just continued but greatly accelerated that, and suddenly that's just fine.

Don't disagree, except for the last part. The Obama administration provided the cloth when they fabricated the narrative. Had they not done that, this was really have dried up and blown away. You'd still have the embassies and our response forces being unprepared, but that wasn't really much different than it would have been previously. Needs to be addressed, but I don't see that as a political issue.

True. And she hasn't done herself any favors by continuing to stick with the narrative. Kind of a shame...outside of this, she seemed to have done a good job as Secretary of State.

Ahhh. And I'm sure it's not hallucinations when Democrats do it. No, that couldn't possibly be.

Given the Obama administration's track record on governing, I'm not sure I'd keep repeating that meme.

Politically, probably correct. Ironic, though, that you fail to recognize that the Obama administration's handling of this has the exact same issues. The chose the narrative purely for political purposes...had nothing to do with facts, dead ambassadors or anything else. They felt that having it get out that this was a terrorist attack would harm them politically, so they did everything they could to change the narrative. Funny how it's so ok when they do it, but so mindless and evil when the other side does. Funnier still when those doing it break out the clown picture, not realizing that it's a selfie.

 

But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain.

 

Why is it you assume I am on the left?

I am not.

 

Yes, he was. He was creating more Muslim dissent against the U.S., which was absolutely a threat to many outside of Iraq.

But I guess that wasn't enough for you head in the sand liberals. Hey, this is fun. Beats the heck out of, you know, bringing anything factual to the debate.

Yes, it was, one of many. Not so much for the Iraqi people themselves, unfortunately, but because of the greater effect that was having.

No, that wasn't the goal, and no, they weren't working even at that. Note the reference in the article I cited about the WMD bunkers that were built, and used, AFTER the sanctions went into effect. But then actually reading about what happened would be too much work, I guess...even just a one pager.

Yes he did. If he didn't....why did he build the WMD bunkers? Why thwart the inspectors? Why all the video evidence of moving labs, etc. You are so blind to reality that you fail to recognize the reality of what happened, even though it's fairly readily apparent. Saddam stalled the inspections so that he could move the evidence out.

No, but it does have to be working to be working.

Funny how the liberal posters here keep bringing this up, even though they are the ones bring up the equivalency. But gotta stick to the talking points, I guess. And, yes, it IS getting quite old. But then I guess you have to stick with schtick when you got nothing else.

<insert clown pic again>

 

Then why did your post single out the right?

 

Don't worry.... there is a pattern here...

You seldom a real true "birther" either.

You seldom see a real true "Bill Ayers: Obama's mind controller" either.

You seldom see a real true "Jeremiah Wright represents Obama" either.

You seldom see a real true "Palin for President" either

Soon.....

You seldom see a real true "Gays shouldn't marry"....

You seldom see a real true peep on "Benghazi".....

You seldom see a real true "Tea Party"....


We are talking about the same people that AIDS was caused by and only could be contracted by gays. Eventually they realize they look ignorant, and move on to the next John Birch Society meeting...

 

You know what created "more Muslim dissent against the U.S."?

TRY OVER A DECADE OF WARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST!