JMS's Chronology of the Bengazi Raid and "cover-up"

[PeterMP]

I don't agree Peter. It is a scandal. It's a scandal because we could have taken measures to prevent this. We could have taken measures to prevent the loss of lives and we didn't. Now the WH and the State Dept. won't even acknowledge the fact that a mistake was made and there is no question, at all, that serious mistakes were made.

Really?

The reveiw board put together by Clinton herself didn't conclude:

"Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within\ two bureaus of the State Department (the “Department”) resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place."

That would certainly seem to me to be an acknowledgement of mistakes.

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/202446.pdf

That is a scandalous IMO. If this were not a democratic President, this board would be falling all over themselves calling it scandalous. We know that because it has happened many times in the past. It is what it is and the President is going to have to accept the consequences. Nothing can be done about that.

We could have taken steps to prevent Osama from escaping in Tora Bora too.

But I can't find a single post on this site that refers to it as a scandal.

[twa]

Ah, a conspiracy the Dems can believe in and promote

[AsburySkinsFan]

Ah, a conspiracy the Dems can believe in and promote

Why the deflection twa?

The GOP changed White House emails in order to build a case for conspiracy.

Notice there are no if's in that sentence.

[ABQCOWBOY]

if?

"IF" this administration really wanted the entire truth to be known on Benghazi, they would release more then what they have. In truth, there are something like 1200 e-mails on the Benghazi incident. IF is a tricky word isn't it?

[Bang]

Ah, a conspiracy the Dems can believe in and promote

You'll see a fundamental difference.

In one, there's a lot of conjecture.

In the other, there's a fact.

and it could be seen by intelligent people that the conjecture of one caused by the revealed fact of the other is what created your entire conspiracy in the first place.

Pull your nose up and look.

It's hog slop, not cake.

don't you all get tired of being played for chumps by the people you support?

~Bang

[AsburySkinsFan]

"IF" this administration really wanted the entire truth to be known on Benghazi, they would release more then what they have. In truth, there are something like 1200 e-mails on the Benghazi incident. IF is a tricky word isn't it?

And if the GOP was interested in the actual truth they wouldn't have altered the emails.

[twa]

We could have taken steps to prevent Osama from escaping in Tora Bora too.

But I can't find a single post on this site that refers to it as a scandal.

Were requirements for troops waived?

I can't recall,did we repeatedly say the bombing and attack on Bora Bora was because of Quadaffi's home video of Condi?

[Bang]

"IF" this administration really wanted the entire truth to be known on Benghazi, they would release more then what they have. In truth, there are something like 1200 e-mails on the Benghazi incident. IF is a tricky word isn't it?

If every government released all their info about such a thing while they were at war with those who caused it, they'd be pretty friggin' stupid. No if about it.

but in the absence of knowledge, making **** up and using a lot of IFs to imagine a problem is ridiculous.

~Bang

[Tulane Skins Fan]

If every government released all their info about such a thing while they were at war with those who caused it, they'd be pretty friggin' stupid. No if about it.

but in the absence of knowledge, making **** up and using a lot of IFs to imagine a problem is ridiculous.

~Bang

Making up "if's" and altering emails is a great way to create a problem.

How anyone can look at those two emails and not be at least a little annoyed that someone altered them is beyond me. And its also obvious it was done to "get" Hillary Clinton and/or Obama. Give it a rest right wing nuts.

[deejaydana]

I love seeing the left leaning media outlets, at least some of them, FINALLY taking Obama to task. None of these 3 stories are going away soon.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

Oh, and the GOP can start apologizing to Susan Rice for dragging her through the mud now. She really lied to the country by reading talking points she had nothing to do with creating. What a bunch of ****s.

---------- Post added May-17th-2013 at 10:47 AM ----------

I love seeing the left leaning media outlets, at least some of them, FINALLY taking Obama to task. None of these 3 stories are going away soon.

Is this reposted from a week ago?

[mcsluggo]

well... one of my major <personal> take-aways from this whole thing:

next time there is a President in office that i personally don't agree with ..i am going to try VERY hard to not always immediately buy into every assertion mde against him/her. Furthermore i am going to try hard to avoid assigining malicious intent to every action.

this was too easy of a trap to fall into during the W administration (for me). ANd apparently it is too easy of a trap to fall into during the O administration (for others).

I hope (for myself) that this lesson sticks with me.

[twa]

TSF....can you read the selected e-mails released by the WH and tell me What Carney and others have tried to sell? (That the only change made at States request was consulate < embassy)

[@DCGoldPants]

I love seeing the left leaning media outlets, at least some of them, FINALLY taking Obama to task. None of these 3 stories are going away soon.

GOP’s biggest obstacle on Benghazi/IRS/AP: Americans’ attention spans

To watch the news coverage this week, you’d think the Obama administration was on its last legs.

The good news for the Obama administration is that relatively few people are watching the news coverage.

According to a new Gallup poll, interest in the IRS scandal and the controversy over Benghazi remains below average when it comes to major news stories. While 60 percent of Americans are generally following a story at least “somewhat closely,” just 53 percent are following the Benghazi news and 54 percent are following the IRS scandal.

The findings mirror a poll we looked at Wednesday from the Pew Research Center, which showed relatively few people following the Benghazi controversy closely.

Put simply: Americans’ lack of attention span remains a — if not the — major hurdle in the GOP’s effort to turn these issues into ones that will help them win elections.

More from the link.

[twa]

Oh, and the GOP can start apologizing to Susan Rice for dragging her through the mud now. She really lied to the country by reading talking points she had nothing to do with creating. What a bunch of ****s.

I certainly agree she could just be a innocent tool ,ignorant of the facts and simply going with what they told her

[ABQCOWBOY]

Really?

The reveiw board put together by Clinton herself didn't conclude:

"Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within\ two bureaus of the State Department (the “Department”) resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place."

That would certainly seem to me to be an acknowledgement of mistakes.

If Pickering and Mullen had not been proven to have been inaccurate in the report, then I would agree with you. That too is a problem. This whole thing has been botched in it's handling. You can't have a review board that presents facts that are inaccurate. This is why both Mullen and Pickering are being called before the Congressional Oversight Committee for deposition. Too many things in that report are in question. I think that at this point, we can not say if the report furnished by review board is accurate or not.

We could have taken steps to prevent Osama from escaping in Tora Bora too.

But I can't find a single post on this site that refers to it as a scandal.

We could have gotten him in 96 as well. We can take this back a very long time if you wish but, at least in my opinion, it would not matter because the situations are clearly not the same. In December 2001, the order was not given for us not to kill OBL. In 96, though we knew he was responsible for terrorist activities, 9/11 had not yet happened. In Benghazi, troops were ordered not to engage. They were ordered to stand down. Surely, you must agree that the situations are dissimilar. But lets assume they are not. Had it been discovered, in 2001 that we missed OBL, then it would have been scandal. As it happens, it was only discovered after the fact and even in light of this, no small amount of blame is still being handed out. I find your argument here lacking but that is only my opinion.

[PeterMP]

Were requirements for troops waived?

I can't recall,did we repeatedly say the bombing and attack on Bora Bora was because of Quadaffi's home video of Condi?

Well, they did trash the pre-existing US military policy of using over whelming force.

And Rumsfeld did claim that there were many fortresses built into the caves that included things like hydroelectric power and so had lights and electricity, which turned out to be completely false:

http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/nether_fictoid3.htm

(There wasn't one, much less many)

And even in 2005 Tommy Franks was claiming that they really didn't know if Osama was in Tora Bora.

Different events with different issues and different mistakes, but the general gist is the same and despite that there weren't people running around on this board, prominant Democrats (i.e. members of Congress), or the major media outlets callits it a scandal.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

If Pickering and Mullen had not been proven to have been inaccurate in the report, then I would agree with you. That too is a problem. This whole thing has been botched in it's handling. You can't have a review board that presents facts that are inaccurate. This is why both Mullen and Pickering are being called before the Congressional Oversight Committee for deposition. Too many things in that report are in question. I think that at this point, we can not say if the report furnished by review board is accurate or not.

Pickering and Mullen have proven to be inaccurate about what exactly? I don't think a single thing they reported has proven to be wrong to date. Realize that they listed about 20 areas of poor management by the State Department before you conclude I'm a leftist commie pinko.

[skinsmarydu]

I love seeing the left leaning media outlets, at least some of them, FINALLY taking Obama to task. None of these 3 stories are going away soon.

MSNBC's entire lineup takes the POTUS to task on almost a daily basis, and has for years over things like Gitmo, drones, VA policy for returning war veterans, and Rachel Maddow almost had a meltdown over the AP phone-tapping thing. (Which isn't going away, thanks to those that just looooovvveee that Patriot Act.)

The liberal media are expressing what they hear from liberal citizens...we want to get stuff done for the good of the nation and its people. The GOP are doing whatever they can to obstruct this POTUS. Period. They will keep beating this drum, with "no there, there" until the cows come home if it'll stop any forward movement by this administration.

There will be no action on firearm safety, immigration reform, tax reform, or anything else as long as Fox keeps puking out the talking points of the talking points.

[ABQCOWBOY]

And if the GOP was interested in the actual truth they wouldn't have altered the emails.

And how does this apply to the 12 alterations of the original talking points provided by the CIA? That fact is not in question.

[twa]

Well, they did trash the pre-existing US military policy of using over whelming force.

.

.

Different events with different issues and different mistakes, but the general gist is the same and despite that there weren't people running around on this board, prominant Democrats (i.e. members of Congress), or the major media outlets callits it a scandal.

I seem to recall a number of congresscritters doing so over troop levels among many other things, and on this board

[PeterMP]

We could have gotten him in 96 as well. We can take this back a very long time if you wish but, at least in my opinion, it would not matter because the situations are clearly not the same. In December 2001, the order was not given for us not to kill OBL. In 96, though we knew he was responsible for terrorist activities, 9/11 had not yet happened. In Benghazi, troops were ordered not to engage. They were ordered to stand down. Surely, you must agree that the situations are dissimilar. But lets assume they are not. Had it been discovered, in 2001 that we missed OBL, then it would have been scandal. As it happens, it was only discovered after the fact and even in light of this, no small amount of blame is still being handed out. I find your argument here lacking but that is only my opinion.

Troops not in the country were not allowed in the country to find Osama in Tora Bora. EVEN in the country our troops took the back seat to the Afghanis.

Unless your name was Tommy Franks it was comletely clear we missed Bin Laden in 2001/2002 in Tora Bora and completely clear that the administration had completely over estimated the capabilities of Al Qeada in Tora Bora.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1213/p1s1-wosc.html

"Osama bin Laden escaped the embattled Tora Bora base to Pakistan 10 days ago with the help of tribesmen from the Ghilzi tribe, according to a firsthand account yesterday by a senior Al Qaeda operative and Saudi financier."

---------- Post added May-17th-2013 at 11:33 AM ----------

I seem to recall a number of congresscritters doing so over troop levels among many other things, and on this board

I've looked, and I can't find a single one. Here's a search for this board:

https://www.google.com/#output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=Tora+Bora+scandal+site:http%3A%2F%2Fextremeskins.com&oq=Tora+Bora+scandal+site:http%3A%2F%2Fextremeskins.com

There are some threads, beyond this one, that have scandal and Tora Bora in them, but not many, and I didn't see a single post that actually refers to Tora Bora as a scandal. There are posts that talk about other Bush era scandals and Tora Bora, but not really Tora Bora as a scandal, but a failure/mistake.

I also did searches for CNN.com, http://www.nytimes.com/, and http://www.washingtonpost.com/ and essentially got nothing (there are a very few hits, but none of them are relevant):

https://www.google.com/#q=Tora+Bora+scandal+site:http://www.cnn.com

Now, if a congress person was making a fuss and calling it a scandal, I suspect it would have made the news on one of those three sites.

So I'm going to go ahead and say I think your memory is likely faulty and biased based your personal perspective and not representative of reality.

[@DCGoldPants]

Now that things seemingly have been flipped.

[ABQCOWBOY]

Troops not in the country were not allowed in the country to find Osama in Tora Bora. EVEN in the country our troops took the back seat to the Afghanis.

Unless your name was Tommy Franks it was comletely clear we missed Bin Laden in 2001/2002 in Tora Bora and completely clear that the administration had completely over estimated the capabilities of Al Qeada in Tora Bora.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1213/p1s1-wosc.html

"Osama bin Laden escaped the embattled Tora Bora base to Pakistan 10 days ago with the help of tribesmen from the Ghilzi tribe, according to a firsthand account yesterday by a senior Al Qaeda operative and Saudi financier."

---------- Post added May-17th-2013 at 11:33 AM ----------

I've looked, and I can't find a single one. Here's a search for this board:

https://www.google.com/#output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=Tora+Bora+scandal+site:http%3A%2F%2Fextremeskins.com&oq=Tora+Bora+scandal+site:http%3A%2F%2Fextremeskins.com

There are some threads, beyond this one, that have scandal and Tora Bora in them, but not many, and I didn't see a single post that actually refers to Tora Bora as a scandal. There are posts that talk about other Bush era scandals and Tora Bora, but not really Tora Bora as a scandal, but a failure/mistake.

I also did searches for CNN.com, http://www.nytimes.com/, and http://www.washingtonpost.com/ and essentially got nothing (there are a very few hits, but none of them are relevant):

https://www.google.com/#q=Tora+Bora+scandal+site:http://www.cnn.com

Now, if a congress person was making a fuss and calling it a scandal, I suspect it would have made the news on one of those three sites.

So I'm going to go ahead and say I think your memory is likely faulty and biased based your personal perspective and not representative of reality.

Look at what you just said here. If, as you stipulate, we were not allowed to purse at will, the Hard Target, then there is no bases for even trying to use this as an example to support what happened in Benghazi. In your example, the ability to make a decision, one way or the other was not there. In Benghazi, the decision was 100% ours.

Now, I will tell you that what you outline in the above it not entirely accurate but that's a discussion for a different day. Surely you can see the difference here?

[PeterMP]

And how does this apply to the 12 alterations of the original talking points provided by the CIA? That fact is not in question.

What fact is not in question? The CIA generated a document and then asked for suggestions. Based on those suggestions, a Deputy Director of the CIA made other changes to the original document.

And none of the changes had anything to do with blaming or not blaming the YouTube video.

I will point out, I think it is unfair to state that the changes in the released memos from Congress had to be because somebody did it with not good intentions intentionally. The changes seem minor enough to me that they could have been somebody that saw the memo, but didn't have an actual copy and tried to reproduce it as best as they could from memory with some personal bias creeping in.

---------- Post added May-17th-2013 at 11:44 AM ----------

Look at what you just said here. If, as you stipulate, we were not allowed to purse at will, the Hard Target, then there is no bases for even trying to use this as an example to support what happened in Benghazi. In your example, the ability to make a decision, one way or the other was not there. In Benghazi, the decision was 100% ours.

Now, I will tell you that what you outline in the above it not entirely accurate but that's a discussion for a different day. Surely you can see the difference here?

The decision not to put the Marines on the ground in Tora Bora from the start was absolutely completely ours.

That decision was 100% ours (well at least as completely as the decision in Benghazi).

I will point out, I'm not sure what you are refering to as "our" decision, but it almost certainly would not have been really our decision to bring the US military into Libya as that would have illegal, at least, almost certainly would have required the okay of the Libyan government.

A decision was made- potentially the wrong decision.

That doesn't make it a scandal.