U.S. Ambassador Killed Over Anti-Islam Movie

[Jive Turkey]

Indy, you left your web cam on, brother

 

[LPU2]

Republicans want so desperately to find some wrongdoing on the part of the administration here. And it sounds like mistakes were indeed made. But this barely rises to the level of a controversy, let alone the "bigger than watergate" scandal they wanted it to be.

 

[U2DMfan]

You should have watched 60 Minutes last night.

I watched it. Pretty damning w/r/t to an incompetent reaction.

Is the "scandal" the incompetence or the fact that they covered up the incompetence because of the election? And what can be done about it now?

Just asking the questions. What, in your mind, is the big issue here?

 

[Diemen]

Indy, you left your web cam on, brother

Enough with the insults, JT.

 

[INDY500]

I watched it. Pretty damning w/r/t to an incompetent reaction.

Is the "scandal" the incompetence or the fact that they covered up the incompetence because of the election? And what can be done about it now?

Just asking the questions. What, in your mind, is the big issue here?

Both but I certainly realize that no president can anticipate the terrible things that can happen when you have a presence in the shitholes of the world (Blackhawk down for Clinton, Marine base for Reagan, etc).

The scandal is the coverup (video protest), a covert CIA operation AND the president's lack of accountability.

 

[PhilsFan]

You should have watched 60 Minutes last night.

60 Minutes Benghazi Report Takes A Huge Credibility Hit | Blog | Media Matters for America

The Benghazi "witness" featured in a CBS 60 Minutes report that galvanized new discussion of the administration's response to the attack previously said he never got near the diplomatic compound on the night of the attack, according to a report from The Washington Post.

 

[Irvine511]

time to move on.

CBS correspondent Lara Logan apologized to viewers Friday for a disputed "60 Minutes" report on the Benghazi attack and said the program would issue a correction.

"Today the truth is that we made a mistake," Logan said on "CBS This Morning."

At the center of the dispute is Dylan Davies, a British security contractor who under a pseudonym gave "60 Minutes" a heroic account of his involvement in the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. After the program aired, the Washington Post and the New York Times discovered contradictions between the account Davies gave "60 Minutes" and the descriptions of the attack the contractor gave to his employer and to the FBI.

Those reports raised questions about whether Davies was actually present at the Benghazi compound on the night of the attack, casting doubt onto the contractor's credibility as a source. CBS issued a statement Thursday that said the network had learned of "new information" undercutting Davies' account and was looking into the matter.

Logan told viewers that the program took Davies' vetting "very seriously," but that the contractor "misled" them.

"We were wrong to put him on air," Logan said.

"We will apologize to our viewers and we will correct the record on our broadcast on Sunday night," she added.

CBS Reporter On '60 Minutes' Benghazi Program: 'We Made A Mistake' (VIDEO)

 

[Jive Turkey]

You shouldn't have watched 60 Minutes the other night

 

[Irvine511]

putting this to bed:

(CNN) -- A New York Times report on the September 11, 2012, attack that killed four Americans -- including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens -- in Benghazi, Libya, calls into question much of what Republicans accusing the Obama administration of a cover-up have said about the incident.

The three main points of contention have been whether the attack was planned, whether it was sparked by an anti-Muslim video, and whether al Qaeda was involved.

However, the Times says, the administration's version, focusing on outrage over the inflammatory video, and first delivered by then-ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice on Sunday morning talk shows five days later, isn't exactly right, either.

"The reality in Benghazi was different, and murkier, than either of those story lines suggests. Benghazi was not infiltrated by Al Qaeda, but nonetheless contained grave local threats to American interests. The attack does not appear to have been meticulously planned, but neither was it spontaneous or without warning signs," according to David D. Kirkpatrick's article in the Times.

It's a conclusion that CNN has drawn in its previous reporting.

The attack at the Benghazi diplomatic compound has become a political flashpoint in a long-running battle between the White House and Republicans, who accuse the Obama administration of not bolstering security before the attack, of botching the response to it and of misleading the public for political gain less than two months before the November election.

The GOP suggests the administration removed specific terror references and stuck to the explanation advanced by Rice -- later proved untrue -- that the attack was the result of spontaneous demonstrations over the U.S.-produced film "Innocence of Muslims," which contained scenes some Muslims considered blasphemous.

The White House and its allies in Congress have said any confusion and conflicting information in the early hours and days after the assault stemmed from the "fog of war," not any deliberate effort to mislead the public.

The White House had no comment when CNN requested a response to the Times article.

After reading it, Obama's former national security spokesman Tommy Vietor unleashed a series of tweets, including these, condemning Republicans who've spent more than a year lambasting and investigating the Beghazi incident:

-- "If Rs spent 1/50th as much time as @ddknyt learning what really happened in #Benhazi, we could have avoided months of disgusting demagoguery."

-- "Republicans inflated the role of al Qaeda in #Bengazi to attack Obama's CT record. They were wrong, and handed our enemy a propaganda win."

-- "Credit to @ddknyt but also disconcerting that his #Benghazi article offered more insight into what happened than all Congressional hearings."

The Times' article, which includes interviews with several Libyan militia leaders who helped bring down Col. Moammar Gadhafi's dictatorship in 2012, says no evidence supports speculation about al Qaeda's involvement in the Benghazi attack. To the contrary, the Times reports that the diverse and fractured opposition militias, many of whom were at least somewhat friendly toward U.S. interests, most likely contributed to the attack.

That dovetails with the findings of the State Department investigative panel report on Benghazi.

"The Benghazi attacks also took place in a context in which the global terrorism threat as most often represented by al Qaeda (AQ) is fragmenting and increasingly devolving to local affiliates and other actors who share many of AQ's aims, including violent anti-Americanism, without necessarily being organized or operated under direct AQ command and control," the report said.

The Times report zeroes in on militia leader Abu Khattala as well as the like-minded Islamist militia Ansar al Sharia.

In a recent interview with CNN's Arwa Damon, Khattala acknowledged being at the Benghazi mission after the attack but denied any involvement.

Damon spent two hours interviewing Khattala at a coffee shop at a well-known hotel in Benghazi. He allowed Damon to use an audio recorder to tape the conversation, but refused to appear on camera.

Khattala's narrative of the events that night was sometimes unclear and, at times, seemed to be contradictory, Damon said.

He admitted to being at the compound the night of the attack, but denied any involvement in the violence.

Asked about allegations he may have masterminded the attack, Khattala and two of the men he brought with him to the interview "burst out laughing," Damon said.

Khattala told CNN that he had not been questioned by either Libyan authorities or the FBI.

The militia leader was one of those whom U.S. prosecutors charged in the attacks, as CNN first reported.

Ansar al Sharia is more a label than an organization, one that's been adopted by conservative Salafist groups across the Arab world. The name means, simply, "Partisans of Islamic Law."

In Benghazi, Ansar al Sharia was one of many groups that filled the vacuum of authority following the overthrow of Gadhafi.

The group's central belief is that all authority is derived from the Prophet Mohammed, that democracy is un-Islamic and that other branches of Islam, such as the Sufi, are heretical.

There do not appear to be organizational links between Ansar al Sharia and al Qaeda, but there is solidarity.

Among the group's Benghazi membership is Mohammed al-Zahawi, who fought to overthrow Gadhafi and praised al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri in a BBC interview. He said al Qaeda's statements "help galvanize the Muslim nation, maintain its dignity and pride."

A different Ansar al Sharia is affiliated with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, and budding franchises are said to exist in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt.

New York Times report casts doubt on al Qaeda involvement in Benghazi - CNN.com

my takeaway: we have no idea what really goes on in these very complex societies, and we should think very carefully about messing with them.

and there is no low to which the GOP will not sink to smear this particular president.

 

[INDY500]

Down the Times’ Bengahzi Rabbit Hole | National Review Online

As for the Times’ exculpation of al-Qaeda, it doesn’t even comport with the Grey Lady’s own prior reporting. It is, more to the point, a continuation of what we’ve been arguing in this space for over a decade now: What knits together the global jihad is Islamic-supremacist ideology — mainstream Middle Eastern Islam, directly traceable to Koranic scripture. The organizational niceties and shifting loyalties of jihadist groups are a sideshow — including what it has become fashionable to call “core al-Qaeda” and its expanding array of franchises, tentacles, and wannabes.

So why do I say, “Mission Accomplished”? Because the objective of Kirkpatrick’s novella is not to persuade; it is to shrink the parameters of newsworthy inquiry to a punctilious debate over nonsense: The cockamamie trailer and the dizzying jihadist org chart.

We still don't know what the president was doing the night of the attacks do we?
We still haven't heard from survivors have we?
We still don't know what the CIA and the ambassador were even doing in Benghazi do we?
The only person "brought to justice" one year plus is the boneheaded producer of that video.

It's amazing to me what lengths the apologists will go to protect this particular president.

 

[Diemen]

The problem with the cries of "CONSPIRACY!!!!" is that, no matter what evidence is shown to refute the claims, it is always, always dismissed. Every tree that's been barked up has proven fruitless.

Much as with the birther movement, there's just no there there.

 

[the iron horse]

It's amazing to me what lengths the apologists will go to protect this particular president. ~INDY500

Not only the president, but now I think they are now trying
to patch their story for Hillary's run.

 

[INDY500]

It's amazing to me what lengths the apologists will go to protect this particular president. ~INDY500

Not only the president, but now I think they are now trying
to patch their story for Hillary's run.

Exactly right, imagine a comprehensive 7,500 word story on the murder of an ambassador and attack on a U.S. embassy in Benghazi that mentions Sec of State Hillary Clinton exactly... zero times.

 

[Irvine511]

Exactly right, imagine a comprehensive 7,500 word story on the murder of an ambassador and attack on a U.S. embassy in Benghazi that mentions Sec of State Hillary Clinton exactly... zero times.

This non-story would have been dropped months ago ... If not for Hillary and the GOP's need to try to damage her for 2016.

It didn't work against O (and was quite embarrassing for Mittens) and it won't work against HRC. If she runs.

 

[INDY500]

No comment on the Senate report? Not surprising since it isn't new to anyone other than NY Times readers.
http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/benghazi2014/benghazi.pdf

The House report did provide this revelation:

Minutes after the American consulate in Benghazi came under assault on Sept. 11, 2012, the nation's top civilian and uniformed defense officials -- headed for a previouslyscheduled Oval Office session with President Obama -- were informed that the event was a "terrorist attack," declassified documents show. The new evidence raises the question of why the top military men, one of whom was a member of the president's Cabinet, allowed him and other senior Obama administration officials to press a false narrative of the Benghazi attacks for two weeks afterward.

So Obama knew 90 minutes after the attack but he and Hillary pushed the video narrative for weeks.

 

[Diemen]

Funny, I'm pretty sure Obama referred to it as an act of terror pretty quickly.

The attack occurred on Sept. 11th.

“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