Fort Hood vs Benghazi?
James Oliphant asks, "Why Hasn't the GOP Treated Fort Hood Like Benghazi?"
James Oliphant asks, “Why Hasn’t the GOP Treated Fort Hood Like Benghazi?”
In November 2009, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 people and injured 30 more on the sprawling East Texas military base. Since then, a debate has raged about whether Hasan, who some believe was influenced by a radical Islamic cleric, committed an act of domestic terrorism or whether the incident was an episode of “workplace violence.”
The Obama administration has long maintained the latter—that there wasn’t enough evidence to show that Hasan acted with a political motive. Plenty of Republicans have disagreed.
Yet, unlike Benghazi, there’s never been a concerted push in the House to probe more deeply into the possible intelligence and investigative failures that might have led to the tragedy despite the still-unanswered questions about the nature of the threat Hasan posed.
This is an interesting question. Because Hasan was both loosely connected to al Qaeda and an American military officer, his crimes have been in a murky gray area. I’ve written at least three posts on the matter, going back to days after the attack: “Was Fort Hood Massacre ‘Terrorism’?” “Purple Heart for Fort Hood Victims?” and “Army Denies Purple Heart to Fort Hood Victims (For Now).” To both summarize and bring up to date my thoughts, there was insufficient evidence in the days after the shootings that Hasan was a terrorist rather than a psychopath; it’s now clear that he was, at very least, an al Qaeda wannabe if not more connected than that. The Army rightly denied the Purple Heart to his victims prior to his conviction for complicated reasons having to do with the unique nature of the military justice system but should have moved quickly to award the medal afterwards given both the regulations governing its award and precedents set after other attacks.
So, why is the government still dragging its feet here and, as Oliphant’s title question has it, why aren’t congressional Republicans treating this matter with a fraction of the zeal they’ve invested in the Benghazi tragedy?
Before the select committee, the House had already launched eight separate probes of the attack on the diplomatic outpost in Libya. The number of GOP deep-dive inquests into Fort Hood? Zero. Moreover, legislation seeking to reclassify the incident as a terrorist act and to award combat-related Purple Heart benefits to the victims has been stalled for years.
There is one clear difference between the two incidents: Benghazi affords the GOP a chance to make life more difficult not only for President Obama but perhaps also for the Democrats’ future presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton. The chain of fault with respect to Fort Hood is muddier, reaching back into the George W. Bush administration.
That strikes me as a thin reed. The massacre took place under Obama’s watch and nothing about Hasan’s prior conduct, which should indeed have raised giant red flags, would have been expected to reach the political appointee, much less presidential, level under Bush. And, while I have no doubt that the visceral disdain for Hillary Clinton is helping fuel the flames, there’s just a fevered swamps feeling to Benghazi that defies political calculation.
Plus, drilling deeper into that affair would force Republican leaders to openly take on the Pentagon, which opposes any legislative attempt to compensate the Fort Hood wounded as victims of a terrorist attack or to paint Hasan as a terrorist who was hiding in plain sight. “They’ve fought this every step of the way,” said Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va.
This is a much more likely explanation: Benghazi implicates not only the highest levels of the Obama administration but the State Department, whereas the first Fort Hood massacre (one sadly needs to qualify given recent events) implicates the military. The former are held in very low esteem by the GOP while the latter is revered. To be sure, Republicans were fine with going after the political correctness angle of the military ignoring Hasan’s various Islamist rants; but they’re loathe to risk alienating the brass.
With Republican leaders unwilling to push the issue, fighting for Fort Hood has been a lonely struggle, involving just a handful of members mostly from Texas, including Rep. John Carter, whose district includes Fort Hood, and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, as well as Wolf, Tom Rooney of Florida, and a single Democrat, Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania. Democrats, standing by the administration, have also shown little interest in the issue.
That’s really a shame. But it’s pure politics: both Republicans and Democrats have different vested interests in just ignoring the issue.
Last week, Carter, with the help of Reps. Mike Conaway and Mac Thornberry, both also of Texas, was able to insert some Purple Heart language into this year’s National Defense Authorization Act. A similar push last year was first watered down in order to pass the House and then stripped out during a conference committee. In the other chamber, Sen. John Cornyn’s bid to include a related amendment in the NDAA was blocked.
Last year’s effort failed, Virginia’s Wolf told National Journal, because of pressure from the military and the administration. In a letter leaked to ABC News, the Pentagon warned members of Congress that approving the legislation would “fundamentally alter the fundamental character” of the Purple Heart award and would “undermine” Hasan’s prosecution.
More than 100 victims of the shootings and family members filed suit in 2011, asserting that the Defense Department’s refusal to classify the injuries as combat-related cost them thousands of dollars in benefits. But the suit was stayed, pending Hasan’s court-martial. Hasan last year was convicted on premeditated murder charges, yet the lawsuit still hasn’t moved forward. Nor has the military backed off in its opposition to reclassifying the event.
As I’ve noted in the past, I’m torn on the matter of issuing the Purple Heart to people who are essentially crime victims. Historically, it had been reserved for those who were actively engaged in combat with the enemy, knowingly risking life and limb. But we changed the rules after the 1983 Hezbollah attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon and the award of the medal to those killed in an Arlington, Virginia office building in the 9/11 attacks has opened the floodgates. It would be churlish to deny that small comfort to the victims’ families given the precedent. But, while it has gotten a lot of attention, the Purple Heart is really a side issue.
The fact that we’re denying the victims’ families the additional compensation and benefits they’d get if the deaths are classified as combat-related is shameful. There’s no obvious distinction between these victims and those who died in the Pentagon on 9/11.
Beyond compensation, the lawsuit would have given the plaintiffs to opportunity to review Defense Department and administration documents—and their lawyer, Reed Rubinstein, says Congress still has a responsibility to provide “honest, open, transparent oversight and accountability” for the events leading up to—and following—the shootings.
“Nobody wants to revisit it,” said Rubinstein, who has been lobbying Congress to act on behalf of his clients.
The FBI conducted its own internal probe in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings, as did the Army and the Senate Homeland Security Committee under then-Chairman Joe Lieberman.
The FBI investigation, overseen by former Director William Webster, concluded that the bureau failed to act on a chain of emails between Hasan and radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki which seemed to indicate that Hasan was sympathetic to the Islamic militant cause.
The Army’s report was heavily criticized for not touching on Hasan’s possible political and religious motivations.
Neither review sought to establish whether political concerns played into the Obama administration’s decision to classify the act as a workplace crime. No investigation ever has—even as the House GOP today is fixated on whether the White House burnished Benghazi talking points in a bid to protect its image.
The only effort to date to hold the administration “accountable”—to use Boehner’s word—is the bid by Carter, McCaul, and Wolf to force Attorney General Eric Holder to say whether the Justice Department advised the Pentagon against investigating and prosecuting the Fort Hood shootings as a terrorist incident. But even there, after Holder stonewalled them, there’s been no attempt to take him to task, as the House GOP did with the “Fast and Furious” gun-tracking scandal.
But that was another investigation that promised to show only the Obama administration in a poor light. What went wrong at Fort Hood doesn’t break down so neatly along party lines. Which means as a political bludgeon, it’s just simply not as useful.
My own sense of the matter is that, as with Benghazi and “Fast and Furious,” there’s little here that reasonably rises to the level of presidential scandal. The Army’s handling of Hasan long before the shootings was lamentable but perfectly understandable. In a posting written within a couple days of the attacks titled “Hasan a Muslim First, American Second?” I observed:
In hindsight, it’s pretty clear that the Army didn’t [take appropriate action] with regard to the signs that Hasan was unfit. But it’s not at all inconceivable that “the Army” had no idea. The fact that several of his colleagues had heard him say highly inflammatory things doesn’t mean that these things were reported up through the chain of command. Further, it’s not entirely clear what his superiors could have done with these reports, aside from confronting and counseling him.
While highly constrained in terms of time, place, and manner, military officers are allowed to disagree with official government policy in casual conversation with one another. Plenty of officers, including those currently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, have no doubt expressed bitterness at missions they don’t believe in. Lord knows, a large number of them did so about the various deployments ordered by Bill Clinton in the 1990s. And, while it may not have made Hasan a popular guy on base, one doesn’t have to be a Muslim or want Americans killed to hold the view that citizens have a right to “rise up” against an invading force.
Beyond that, there’s a natural reluctance to be overly aggressive in challenging a Muslim soldier as an enemy sympathizer. Being accused of racial profiling can be damaging to one’s career. Further, it can feed natural resentments against Muslim soldiers, almost all of whom are just as loyal to the country, the uniform, and their fellow soldiers as the next guy.
I’m of course reminded of Sgt. Hasan Akbar, who went into a religious-inspired rage and murdered two 101st Airborne Division officers in 2003. But, as Spencer Ackerman reminds us, Sergeant John Russell, who killed five soldiers in a shooting spree at Camp Liberty back in May, was not a Muslim. So, outlandish claims that “the enemy is infiltrating our military” are unhelpful.
We have a natural desire to want to make sense of tragedy. Unfortunately, we seem to have lone psychopaths going on shooting sprees and committing mass mayhem every now and again. And we only see the “obvious” clues in hindsight.
A few months later, in “Army Political Correctness and the Hasan Report,” I both side with critics of Big Army like Ralph Peters but make the substantial caveat:
Look, we’ve got to change a system where someone so blatantly outspoken in his sympathies for his country’s enemies can be weeded out. But let’s not pretend that there are hundreds of Hasans out there in the ranks, ready to rise up and commit jihad against their erstwhile comrades-in-arms.
The United States military long had difficulties with intolerance of difference, whether of race, gender, ethnicity, or political outlook.
During the first half of my dad’s career (which spanned from 1962 to 1983) blacks and Hispanics faced hostility from an Army culture that is exceedingly Southern. That’s largely gone; racial minorities likely face greater acceptance in the military than in most workplaces.
When I first went into the military, starting as a cadet in 1984, most of us — and, yes, I include myself — were hostile to the presence of female soldiers, thinking most of them unfit for service and the impact on esprit and unit discipline not worth whatever benefit derived from the handful of good ones. Why, the military isn’t a social experiment; it’s a fighting force. But politicians kept forcing the military to allow women into more and more career fields that the military’s leadership thought they couldn’t do. Lo and behold, they’ve done pretty well for themselves. There’s still some resistance to the role of women in the force — especially in the Navy, for understandable reasons — but the culture has changed.
A primary mechanism for making this work was a system that made it very difficult for officers to get promoted if they were perceived as anything less than wholly enthusiastic of then new policies. Like anything else that bureaucracies do, it naturally went too far. For example, when women were first allowed to become fighter pilots, too few of them were selected for candidacy and the people in charge of training were afraid to wash out the ones who weren’t hacking it. People died. Arguably, the same thing happened in Hasan’s case.
But, as Bernard Finel points out, part of the problem is that the Army is having a hard time attracting psychiatrists, Palestinian or otherwise. And, since the main weeding mechanism is periodic promotions, incompetents are likely to get a free pass. The system just isn’t designed to get rid of people unless they’re up from promotion. So, absent a court martial or some sort of administrative discharge for incompatibility for service, it was going to be extremely difficult to get rid of Hasan.
I’d like to fix that. Not just for the purposes of getting potential serial killers and terrorists out of uniform — it’s hard to design a system around extremely unlikely contingencies — but to ensure that our soldiers have the leadership they need and deserve. At the same time, we shouldn’t overreact to the point that it’s open season on Muslims — or people with funny sounding names — in uniform.
The potentially good news is that we happen to have a commander-in-chief named Barack Hussein Obama. For a variety of reasons, I didn’t vote for him and likely won’t next time. But there is a certain “only Nixon can go to China” advantage in having the boss inoculated from criticism for bigotry when the policy goes in the other direction. And, one would think, a certain interest in making sure we don’t overcorrect, too.
In both Fort Hood and Benghazi, people were murdered by terrorists. In both cases, there were clues, easily seen with the advantage of hindsight, that pointed to leadership decisions that could have prevented tragedies. Because of the differing nature of service in the military and an overseas embassy—the former is hierarchical to the extreme whereas the latter requires at least the appearance of welcome openness—it’s the former, not the latter, where more reasonably should have been done. But neither are legitimate scandals.
But the aftermath of Fort Hood is quickly rising to the level of shamefulness. It’s time for the president to make the right decision with regard to the victims’ families. If he doesn’t, both parties in Congress should demand to know why.
I can see the point that the deaths were not combat-related; however, as you pointed out, the precedent was set after 9/11. So, I agree, let’s get the compensation issue out of the way.
As for knowing whether Maj Hasan was a threat; it would be very difficult to know. I’ve spent my whole life in DoD, both active duty and, as a contractor. I’ve listen to much more casual talk and complaining from the right wing oriented folks (especially right wing Christians) that could be considered downright seditious. Most is just that: talk. But sometimes you just have to wonder what is really going on in these people’s heads. This was especially true during the Clinton and Obama administrations. However, there is a political correctness at work when it comes to threats from the right.
Finally, there was a similar question yesterday about why the GoP hasn’t gone after the VA scandal like they do with Benghazi. Really, you just look at Benghazi and just conclude that it is small potatoes. The VA issue is bigger and more important; however, I just believe they know the answer will be the need for more money and they don’t want to go down that road.
“Allahu akbar?” That’s Arabic for “Nothing to see here”.
This was my first thought when reading the title.
The cost would be equal to what, the cost of an A-1 tank? A few MRAPs that they are selling on the open market? But having our toys for the military is so much more important than taking care of our own.
And we all know they won’t.
@Scott:
What, you mean lip service won’t cover it?
James,
“And, while I have no doubt that the visceral disdain for Hillary Clinton is helping fuel the flames, there’s just a fevered swamps feeling to Benghazi that defies political calculation.”
I think you’re missing the point. Benghazi!!! is an attempt to preemptively damage the likely next Democratic Presidential nominee, just as Karl Rove’s hinting of brain damage suffered in her concussion is.
@Moosebreath: I dunno. The Benghazi! thing was going full tilt during the 2012 cycle. They clearly think they have something here, although for the life of me I don’t see it.
@James Joyner:
“The Benghazi! thing was going full tilt during the 2012 cycle.”
Sure, and then it was there to damage Obama during his re-election campaign. And at least at that time, one could reasonably say we did not have all the facts. Not so now.
“They clearly think they have something here, although for the life of me I don’t see it.”
You are not cynical enough about your own party. Why do you assume that they actually believe there is something here, as opposed to exploiting something their constituents believe (and the press is too consumed with “he said she said” reporting to point out is false) for their own gain and Democrats’ loss?
@Moosebreath: Maybe. While I concede that Republicans have been more prone to it, going back to at least the Clinton era, there is a tendency among both parties to latch on to seemingly minor incidents that become shibboleths. They just KNOW there’s something there, regardless of constantly running into dead ends trying to prove it.
Tl;dr version:
it’s pure politics
@James Joyner: James, you’re not running the Washington Post here. If you say both sides do it, we expect examples. Bridgegate? It may not touch Christie, but there’s clearly a culpable act. Clarence Thomas’ confirmation? There was credible testimony of sexual harassment, and he was confirmed anyway. Watergate? Reporting had reached a point it could not be ignored. It may be that your right, it is symmetric, but make a case.
um, maybe because they got the guy already?! unlike our libyan suspects, who must have been invisible.
@gVOR08:
I would suggest examples like Diebold and the 9-11 Truthers, but neither reached the level of having a significant number of elected officials pushing the story the way Benghazi!!! has.
@James Joyner: what is the dem party’s equivalent to Benghazi!!? Birtherism?
@James Joyner:
So what you’re saying is that both sides do it?
@Moosebreath:
9/11 Truthers aren’t a left-wing phenomenon. There’s probably more libertarian and various anti-government types that subscribe to it. In fact, while I know probably hundreds and hundreds of politically active liberals, both in and out of government, I can’t say I’ve ever heard even one engage in 9/11 Trutherism.
@becca:
There isn’t one. James is, as usual, engaging in reflexive, knee-jerk bothsidesdoitism, without regard for the facts.
@Rafer Janders:
“In fact, while I know probably hundreds and hundreds of politically active liberals, both in and out of government, I can’t say I’ve ever heard even one engage in 9/11 Trutherism.”
I’d say it’s a small number, but I recall when Daily Kos banned the discussion from its boards.
@Moosebreath:
If he banned it because he found it so outrageous and distasteful, then it’s not ipso facto equivalent to birtherism or Benghazism on the right, both of which theories were actively embraced and encouraged by large numbers, including prominent elected officials.
@becca:
How about the outrageous claim that the Reagan administration sold weapons to terrorists…no, wait, that actually happened.
But what about the vicious lie that Bush ignored warnings from the CIA that bin Laden was determined to strike…no, again, that turned out to be true.
Aha, but what about the crazy conspiracy theory that Bush and Cheney cooked up a false WMD rationale as cover for an unprovoked invasion of Iraq…actually, again, that did really happen.
Sure, granted, but you can’t deny the left’s insane fairy tale that the Bush regime was running a worldwide gulag of kidnap and torture camps…um, ah, no, no, that was true as well.
“Benghazi implicates not only the highest levels of the Obama administration but the State Department, whereas the first Fort Hood massacre (one sadly needs to qualify given recent events) implicates the military”
Let me offer a cynical explanation. The word ‘Benghazi’ sends a frisson up the paranoid anti-Islamic fundament of the GOP base. The words ‘Fort Hood’ don’t.
@James Joyner: I thought the meme now was that, despite how horrible Benghazi was, Obama managed to steal the election anyway. If only we knew more about the tragedy of Benghazi. Hence, the investigations. Clinton’s dismissal of the circus during her first testimony hasn’t done her any favors.
I want to say the right in Congress is concerned that Obama will be perceived as a moderate success as a president and thus are attempting to tarnish his image in the final years. A few probably are acting in this metapolitical way, but I don’t think the majority are.
@Rafer Janders:
“then it’s not ipso facto equivalent to birtherism or Benghazism on the right, both of which theories were actively embraced and encouraged by large numbers, including prominent elected officials.”
That must be why I said about it “but neither reached the level of having a significant number of elected officials pushing the story the way Benghazi!!! has.”
If Republicans thought that the blame for the Fort Hood massacres could be put squarely on Obama, then Darrell Issa would be running another (sham) investigation.
Of course, there is the real possibility that Issa and Republican leadership haven’t thought of this yet.
They are on Benghazi like a dog with a bone purely because it involves the presumptive 2016 Democratic nominee for president. End of story. Pure politics. Sure they hate Obama enough to keep harping on all the other things but Benghazi is, to them, an opportunity. Fort Hood just doesn’t register politically the way Benghazi does.
@James Joyner:
Thanks mostly, it seems, to Mitt Romney’s “leadership.”
@gVOR08: @Moosebreath: @Rafer Janders: There were all manner of conspiracy theories surrounding Reagan and GW Bush. Everything from stolen debating books to secret deals with Iran to delay releasing the hostages to CIA conspiracies to get black people hooked on crack to rigged electronic voting machines in Ohio. I think it’s worse now because of the 24/7/365 propaganda campaign enabled by cable news, social media, and the Internet in general. But we’ve entered an era where no election is ever legitimate and all politicians are criminals.
@James Joyner:
“There were all manner of conspiracy theories surrounding Reagan and GW Bush. Everything from stolen debating books to secret deals with Iran to delay releasing the hostages to CIA conspiracies to get black people hooked on crack to rigged electronic voting machines in Ohio.”
I’d agree with this list (and even mentioned Diebold above). How many of them had investigations supported by more than 10 Democratic members of Congress, let alone substantially all as in the case of Benghazi!!!? (removed reference to Iran-Contra on edit)
“I think it’s worse now because of the 24/7/365 propaganda campaign enabled by cable news, social media, and the Internet in general.”
Probably so.
“But we’ve entered an era where no election is ever legitimate and all politicians are criminals.”
I’d say only the extremes do this. The difference is that for Democrats, the extremes have no power and have the support of no more than a few members of Congress. For the Republicans, they are the bulk of the party and have the support of substantially all members of Congress. This just isn’t a case where the two sides are equal, James.
@James Joyner:
There’s all manner of conspiracy theories surrounding all presidents, Democratic and Republican. The difference is that the conspiracy theories on the Democratic side are marginalized and condemned by both the party leadership and the rank and file, while the conspiracy theories on the right are embraced and celebrated.
Ergo, no equivalence.
@James Joyner:
Also, too, some of those “conspiracy theories” surrounding Reagan and GW Bush were either (a) actually true (the stolen debate books, secret deals with Iran) and/or (b) may well be true and are quite credible, but the evidence is lost or suppressed (hacked voting machines).
I mean, the stolen debate books and the deals with Iran ACTUALLY HAPPENED. And yet here you are treating them as some kind of crazy conspiracy theory…..
@Rafer Janders: I think the “secret deal with Iran” conspiracy he means is the one about how Reagan somehow convinced the Iranians to keep the hostages captive until Carter lost the election/left office.
@Tillman:
I originally read it the way Rafer did, and changed my mind to your reading, which is why I edited my post and added the note about it.
This, unfortunately, is true and is sucking the life and morale out of this country. Right now, there is a concerted attempt not to seriously examine Hilary Clinton’s record but to soften her up and raise doubts. Karl Rove brought up her head injury with glee to plant the seeds of doubt.
No matter what the subject: climate change, pollution, economics, the various propaganda machines continually work to fog up the national mind.
No wonder people just give up and tune out.
Kneecap Hillary. That is all.
If Hillary announced tomorrow that she wasn’t running for President, there would be a gradual de-escalation of BENGHAZI! until in a few months, people would be wondering what happened to that issue.
The initial Conservative (blog commentor/fever swamp anyway) response to Ft. Hood was to rail against Obama too. But leadership didn’t pick it up. Not sure why, though “because it didn’t involve Hillary” is probably a good bet.
@James Joyner:
And, much like today’s Republican Party congressional leadership, Democratic Party leadership conducted open-ended, countless and endless investigations of those conspiracies.
@James Joyner:
While what you saying is true James, it seems like there’s a critical differentiation: official congressional involvement.
While Democrats made these allegations, how many turned into actual congressional investigations?
In part, this could be related to the fact that (with the exception of a two-year gap in the Senate) Republicans controlled the House and Senate from 1995 to 2007. That means that, they have twice held power for extended periods under an opposition party President (Clinton, Obama). The Dems have only had two years under GW Bush.
That said, beyond Kucinich and a few of the party extremists agitating for Bush’s impeachment in 2007-8, how many “Benghazi!”, “IRS”, and “Fast and Furious” style investigations were opened into Bush Administration activities while the Dems were in power?
I’m not saying there were none — I just cannot remember any (though that could just be my bias-blind-spots) and can’t find examples from a quick Google Search.
Alternately, someone could show how these type of red-meat fishing expeditions were going on under Reagan and GHW Bush (when the Dems had control of Congress under an opposition president).
From this perspective, while both sides have a fringe, it seems that in the last two decades years, the Republicans have been far more interested in using Congressional Investigations to serve up red meat to their base.
@Rafer Janders: For those of you too young to remember Iran-Contra, the Reagan administration defied an embargo to sell weapons to the Iranians and used the proceeds to fund the Nicaraguan Contra insurgents in defiance of a congressional ban on such aid. The result was a little confusing, but in the end the leftist president the Contras revolted against is currently the president of Nicaragua.
There was an investigation. People were convicted of crimes and would have gone to jail except for legal technicalities and pardons by HW Bush.
This should have destroyed Reagan’s reputation and the Republican brand. As near as I could figure out the only thing that saved them was that the reality was so bizarre people wouldn’t believe it. That and Dems are wusses and didn’t push it.
@Rob in CT: I think it had more to do with the fact that the shooting happened early in Obama’s presidency and the shooter was under investigation during the Bush administration. Can’t investigate something that might show a Republican presidency in a bad light.
@beth: I think that’s right. The other thing is it opens the door to Bush’s culpability in the 9/11 and anthrax attacks.
@gVOR08:
It still staggers me that Oliver North — the man who engineered weapons sales to the terrorist-supporting government of Iran, just a few years after the embassy takeover — became and remains a hero to the right because of that.
@Rafer Janders:
It’s reflected glory – Reagan is revered by the Right, and it apparently does not matter that the hostages were released as part of one of the “most interesting” presidential election deal ploys in our history.
It’s already been implied but the simple fact is that Ft. Hood didn’t happen during election season.
@al-Ameda:
“It’s reflected glory – Reagan is revered by the Right, and it apparently does not matter that the hostages were released as part of one of the “most interesting” presidential election deal ploys in our history.”
I’ll disagree, as many other Reagan Admin. figures are not given the same level of hero worship. I think it’s because he vocally disparaged Congress by saying he knew better than they how to protect the country. There is a giant-sized weak spot in some people for the man of action who talks down to the dithering eggheads, which North is an embodiment of.
On the subject of comparative scandals, Obama will never come close to the standard set by Saint Ronnie. Link:
Conservatives will love the source.
@gVOR08:
Don’t forget about the arms-for-hostages aspect which just resulted in more kidnappings, torturing, and murders of American citizens in Lebanon.
Don’t forget that the arms transfer were to a designated state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, less than two years after they murdered 241 American servicemen in Beirut.
Don’t forget that those weapons were used against our valiant ally, Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Iran only agreed to a peace deal for the Iran-Iraq War in 1988 because of internal war weariness. If Iran had survived more casualties, the Iranian regime would have been further weaken and who knows what might have happened?
Don’t forget that Iran managed to reverse engineer those weapons (the Hawk anti-air missile and the TOW anti-tank missile) and now manufactures them and could end up one day using them against American soldiers if we ever find ourselves in a war with Iran.
Don’t forget that the money from those arm sales were used to the fund the Contras: murderers, torturers, rapists, and outright terrorists, who specifically targeted one American engineer, Ben Linder, for assassination. The Reagan administration response to the murder of Linder by the Contras? To engage in a character assassination campaign against him and his family.
Iran-contra has been appropriately mentioned, but there is another highly relevant Reagan scandal that is being overlooked. Link:
IOKIYAR.
Ft. Hood was an obvious carefully planned, controlled, and timed terrorist attack. It was probably a run up or practice for a larger event sometime in the future. Brainwashing was probably the major component. Of course it has been secreted, covered up, and swept under the couch. Most of the media was fed the theory that this man had mental problems, blew a gasket, went postal, or had a bad hair day. One need only look at the Kennedy and King assassinations for comparable actions. And the Booth conspiracy, in which so called “conspirators” were tried by a military court with hoods over their faces and not allowed to say one word.
I see no one has bothered with actually addressing the differences, so I guess it’s up to me to spell them out. Here are some of the big ones.
1) With Fort Hood, Obama found a technicality to hang his “workplace violence” story on. With Benghazi, they found a plausible story that they could sell long enough to keep it from affecting the election.
2) Fort Hood happened in Central Texas, with tons of American victims, survivors, witnesses, affected families, and whatnot. Benghazi was halfway around the world in the middle of an Islamist revolution.
3) Benghazi happened almost exactly two months before the 2012 elections, Fort Hood happened almost exactly halfway between the 2008 presidential election and the 2010 midterms.
4) This one was actually brought up: with Fort Hood, we had the bad guy in custody, and knew all about him in very short order. With Benghazi, the only people able to find the killers seems to be the press.
5) This one is more important to me, personally: in Fort Hood, those shot were victims by design; they were not allowed to have weapons to fight back. In Benghazi, the killed fought back like hell. Americans tend to remember the latter type more; compare the 2,500 killed at Pearl Harbor vs. the 189 killed at the Alamo. We remember a lot more of the individual names of the Alamo heroes than the Pearl Harbor heroes. Yeah, part of that might be scale, but Pearl Harbor’s watchword is “infamy,” while the Alamo is “glory.”
Now, to the diversions: once again I see the Usual Gang of Idiots are predictably absent-minded. Here are a few examples you keep asking for, and deny exist.
1) “Bush wore a wire” during a debate with Kerry (where Kerry was actually the one caught cheating, with proscribed prepared notes).
2) Bush and the fake Texas Air National Guard memo.
3) the 9/11 Truthers who blamed Bush, who were divided into two factions: A) LIHOP, or Bush Let It Happen On Purpose, and B) Bush MIHOP, Made It Happen On Purpose. Those nutjobs were predominantly on the left.
And on a tangent… both Bushes and their families and staff were very gracious during their transitions. When the Clintons left, the White House was trashed (remember the stolen “W” keys from keyboards?) and the Clintons hauled off almost $200K in “gifts” acquired over the previous eight years — about 60% of which they ended up either paying for or returning when apolitical White House staffers (the White House Curator and the Chief Usher) asked them (politely, I’m sure) to do so.
@OzarkHillbilly:
How sadly true. Perhaps if veterans could
bribecampaign fund Congress the way defense contractors do it would be a different story.Not unlike the conservative abortion position either: Nothing is more sacred than a fetus, but the minute it becomes an actual baby, it’s on its own: No welfare coddling!!
(At least they’re for once consistent in these two cases.)
@Jenos Idanian #13:
“When the Clintons left, the White House was trashed (remember the stolen “W” keys from keyboards?)”
You really are a complete idiot, aren’t you?
@Jenos Idanian #13:
“Gang of Idiots, yes, however, I wouldn’t characterize House Republicans as “absent-minded.”
@M. Bouffant: Your link doesn’t seem to work — quelle surprise.
Here one that does.
Here’s another.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say your non-link is from 2001, when everyone was parroting the same denial. Mine are from 2002, after an actual investigation.
Let’s see… good guess. That bastion of objective journalism, Salon, from May 2001. Here’s another part you didn’t quote, but I will:
See above, with the Clintons paying for/returing $114K in items.
None of which has much to do with Benghazi or Fort Hood, but it does reinforce my point: flagrant dishonesty and/or willful ignorance.
Now, got anything of substance to say?
Quelle surprise, indeed.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
From your link
@Jenos Idanian #13:
You left out some lines from your links. From the first:
“The accounting office said similar pranks were reported in prior transitions, including the one from Mr. Bush’s father to Mr. Clinton in 1993. ”We were unable to conclude,” it said, ”whether the 2001 transition was worse than previous ones.”
From the second:
“In a letter to the GAO comptroller, White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales criticized the report for minimizing the number of pranks–which the GAO put at two dozen–and for failing to detail them.”
Presumably Gonzales wanted the GAO staff tortured.
@Scott O: ..and you left out any mention of either Benghazi or Fort Hood. Points that I addressed from the outset, and everyone wants to ignore.
It’s so predictable. The Usual Gang Of Idiots (I think I lifted that from Mad Magazine) see something that threatens Their Lord And Messiah, so they immediately engage Operation Circle Jerk and throw up as much muck as they can about Those Evil Right-Wingers, hoping to bury the original topic and devolve it into yet another “Aren’t Those Right-Wingers So Stoopid and Eeeevil, And Ain’t We So Much Better” masturbatory oratories.
All it takes is a few well-aimed Reality Grenades, though, to blow that up. Which triggers even more desperate “Quick! Change the Subject!” responses, over anything BUT the subject at hand. (I must modestly confess that I am often not just the opposition, but the attempted subject to be changed to. It’s so flattering.)
I’ll note that at 17:07 I gave six concrete answers to the topic, and at least seven people noticed them — they down-dinged them. Which is, obviously, easier than answering them. But my answer to the diversions, posted mere minutes later, are sucking up all the oxygen on this thread. And even those aren’t doing it all — just the little aside I stuck on the end.
The decoy, the IR flare, if you will, that drew the attention and left my other points to stand unchallenged.
So, so easy and predictable…
Let me put on my Amazing Karnac turban and predict the future: mantis will squawk up his standard personal insults and snide, michael reynolds will unleash is mighty vocabulary and barely-repressed sociopathy, and they will attack me over past disputes and mightily ignore the whole above.
Finally, when it all settles down to a dull fap, wr will show up to say something snotty when he thinks the worst is over so he can once again pretend he was relevant.
And in the end, there won’t be another mention of Benghazi and Fort Hood, the original topic. Let alone any actual response to my six-pointed answer from 17:07.
I think I’ll call it a night. After all, I’ve already seen this show too many times, and I know how it ends. As the late Arthur Muldoon’s know-it-all nephew Ralston famously said, “God, how predictably boring.”
Are you actually developing some self-awareness?
@jukeboxgrad: Yeah, but the President Reagan who actually ran the government in those days is “just another RINO.” Ronald Reagan, the candidate and author of American Prosperity, is a completely different guy. If you don’t believe me, ask at RedState.
@Jenos Idanian #13: And yet none of these events prompted Congressional investigations despite the demands of the believers that they should. But, of course, “both sides do it”–except…well…they don’t.
@Dr. Joyner and Matt Bernius: The difference between the two sides and what they do is, at Matt noted, that the radical element on the left is a bunch of marginalized nut-jobs recognized as such by the mainstream left. The radical element on the righthas become the mainstream. James, you need to find a new club to join.
@anjin-san: All is proceeding as I have foreseen.
@Just ‘nutha’ ig’rant cracker: And yet none of these events prompted Congressional investigations despite the demands of the believers that they should. But, of course, “both sides do it”–except…well…they don’t.
So, your standard of an event has nothing to do with the actual event, but the response generated? What an… interesting metric there. I can see its appeal; it spares you the tiresome effort of actually thinking about the issue, but just let a bunch of other people make your judgments for you.
Kinda surprised you’d so openly advocate such laziness, but if it works for you…
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Spend some time reading the rest of the thread and you’ll learn that this has been asked & answered many times above.
@Jenos Idanian #13: I thought you weren’t going to be commenting as much as in the past?
His standard of judging the different parties is by how they respond to different “scandals” that occur when they hold investigative power. I figured context would give that interpretation away, but your usual “reading comprehension duplicity” is on display again.
Let’s look at your Six Points of Difference…
As jukeboxgrad is fond of pointing out, they can claim, technically, that the attacks on Benghazi also involved the Innocence of Muslims video. So, both involve technicalities, distance from American elections notwithstanding. I don’t see the substantive point here unless you subscribe to the notion I pointed out up here that Obama stole the election because Benghazi wasn’t thoroughly investigated.
After a revolution, Islamist is debatable. The militias that rebelled against Qaddafi included secular elements. Also, this point should have drawn sharper focus on to Fort Hood from investigative agencies, but Benghazi dominates the agenda. Hmm.
A substantive difference. It shows Benghazi was more likely to be politicized as an attack on Obama. As Romney did, to his discredit.
This one brings up an interesting similarity. Benghazi and the Alamo were the subjects of propagandizing efforts to rev up the troops. Since the Alamo became “Remember the Alamo,” a rallying cry for troops fighting in the Texas Revolution and later Mexican-American War, while Benghazi is a constant rallying cry of the right.
I mean, yes, it’s a difference, but I don’t think it’s one you want to point out. Most of these you don’t want to point out; they make your “side” look worse.
@Tillman: Oh, I forgot the Sixth Point of…oh. Oops.
Rafer:
The sickness of right-wing culture is reflected in the kind of scum they defend and/or admire. North is one of the most significant examples, but there are plenty of others. I’m thinking of people like George Zimmerman, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (the “Benghazi patsy,” as Rich Lowry called him), Paula Deen, Dan Cathy (the Chick-fil-A dude), Donald Trump, Ted Nugent, Phil Robertson and Clive Bundy. Putin probably belongs on this list.
I’m probably forgetting lots of other examples.
Jenos:
Didn’t notice this until just now.
Obama blamed the video because the video was to blame. Link.
@Timothy Watson: “don’t forget” that Reagan is and will always be far more revered than obama, maybe not in here but in the real world!
@bill:
And what does it say that your political party worships someone who committed treason against the United States and did absolutely nothing while Americans were being murdered across the globe?
@ Jenos
You mean the first time you saw “Return of the Jedi” you foresaw you would grow up to be the… person you have become?
That must have been depressing.
@ bill
The Reagan that is revered by the right has little to do with the actual Ronald Reagan. You are worshipping a fictional character.
@bill: The word you’re looking for is infamous. The guy resurrected and rehabd the Nixon creeps that we tried to free ourselves from, to no avail, which led to the Bush regimes. In his defense, for all intents and purposes he died in the assassination at the beginning of his admin which left a hollow shell for his wife and staff to fill.
@jukeboxgrad: The sickness of right-wing culture is reflected in the kind of scum they defend and/or admire. North is one of the most significant examples, but there are plenty of others. I’m thinking of people like George Zimmerman, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (the “Benghazi patsy,” as Rich Lowry called him), Paula Deen, Dan Cathy (the Chick-fil-A dude), Donald Trump, Ted Nugent, Phil Robertson and Clive Bundy.
The majority of your list would be better classified as “people the right doesn’t hate enough.” Speaking strictly for myself, I don’t think any of those people are particularly heroic, I just get disgusted when they become the Hate Flavor Of The Month.
Especially when the people attacking them are putting on some kind of air of moral superiority while defending (your term; I think of it more as “pretending to not know or care about”) people like William Ayers, Roman Polanski, Bob Filner, Jesse Jackson, the SPLC and its terrorist-inspiring “hate groups” listings, Charlie Rangel, Harry Reid… there’s a good starting point.
And it’s still remarkable how the subject for the most discussion is “anything but the bad things that have happened under Obama.”
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Is that why Sean Hannity, right-wing media personality, describes Ted Nugent as a Friend of the Show? Because he doesn’t hate Nugent enough?
Now we’re all unique snowflakes of opinion, but Nugent’s been embraced by a variety of right-wing figures. His endorsement was sought by Mitt Romney in the 2012 election. That doesn’t fit the profile of someone the right “doesn’t hate enough.” Call me when the next Democratic candidate asks for Roman Polanski’s endorsement.
Compared to the bad things that happened under Bush, the worst of the Obama era looks like kisses from a prom queen.
I think that’s also why Kevin Williamson compared Clive Bundy to Gandhi. Another example of Insufficient Hate Syndrome.
@jukeboxgrad: See? Told you. Can’t slip anything past this dude.
Has anyone on the right come out and condemned Nugent? You would think the “family values” crowd would have a problem with a guy who recorded a song about raping a 13 year old girl.
@jukeboxgrad:
“I think that’s also why Kevin Williamson compared Clive Bundy to Gandhi. Another example of Insufficient Hate Syndrome.”
And why conservatives organized special days to eat at Chick-Fil-A. Just more insufficient hate.
Can my comment be released from spam purgatory, please?
@anjin-san:
Indeed. Ted dodged the draft during the Vietnam era so he could stay at home and write songs about raping underaged teenage girls. Of course – and forgive me for pointing out the obvious – now he’s widely revered on the Right as a patriot.
The Ted Nugent hate here reminds me of the whole Donald Sterling thing. The greatest offense the left seems to be taking lately isn’t from people doing bad things, but instead the most outrage is people saying bad things. Sterlin’s racism was proven in court, time and time again, but he bought his way into acceptance — including one Lifetime Achievement from the NAACP and was about to get a second when the recordings came out. William Ayers is an unrepentant domestic terrorist and bomber. (Maybe just a bomber wannabe, but he was involved in bombings.) Jesse Jackson — I’m sorry, the married Reverend Jesse Jackson — knocked up a staffer for his charity, then used the charity’s money to pay her off. Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl, and is Hollywood royalty who gets big-name stars to call for his pardoning.
But Ted Nugent’s greatest offenses? Things he said.
I prioritize my outrage. Nuge’s words are misdemeanors, metaphorically speaking. The above? Felonies — in several cases, literally.
And NONE of this has any bearing on Fort Hood or Benghazi, but yet more “SQUIRREL!” efforts.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
For the record
Actually, for the judicial record, Donald Sterling ACTUALLY did bad things. He was convicted in federal court of housing discrimination and was required to pay a fine of $2.7 Million.
It’s interesting how so many conservatives seem to think that anyone who is a liberal and/or Democrat “reveres” the President…he has, in fact, disappointed many people who voted for him…it must be projection, as conservatives seem far more likely to look upon Reagan as a deity….well, the image of Reagan they form in their minds, anyway, not the real person…
@Jenos Idanian #13:
You’re talking about your own post there, right? ’cause I answered your
sixfive points and you have yet to respond. I mean, it’s one thing to call out others for squirreling a debate away from uncomfortable territory, it’s another to call out others for squirreling a debate away from uncomfortable territory while doing it yourself.A learnéd man might even think you were just trolling. But you’re far too intelligent to be so juvenile for cheap kicks, you’ve got some sort of excellent and elegant argument that will stupefy all of us into admitting your superior intellect. I mean, your “decoy, the IR flare, if you will, that drew the attention and left [your] other points to stand unchallenged” worked brilliantly. Anyone capable of distracting that herd of cats which is an Internet thread must be concealing ever-greater powers of deduction and eloquence, waiting to unveal them in a coup de maître of logical assault.
Well, let’s see it. I’m tired of this obfuscating stupidity of yours concealing the behemoth of sagacity underneath. Let loose with the glory of your proofs so that we may bow down at last. Please. The suspense is terrible.
@ Jenos
Well, there was George Zimmermann. We did not like him because of things he had done. You, on the other hand, were pretty much a “spit or swallow?” guy when it came to GZ.
@al-Ameda: Actually, for the judicial record, Donald Sterling ACTUALLY did bad things. He was convicted in federal court of housing discrimination and was required to pay a fine of $2.7 Million.
My point exactly. No one had any problems with Sterling’s doing bad things. It wasn’t he was caught saying bad things that it all blew up.
Thanks for the backup, old chum.
@anjin-san: Well, there was George Zimmermann. We did not like him because of things he had done. You, on the other hand, were pretty much a “spit or swallow?” guy when it came to GZ.
Look, I told you in private, but apparently you don’t appreciate my discretion: I don’t swing that way. No judgment, just not my personal orientation. I’m flattered by your enticements, but it just isn’t my thing.
@Tillman: I’ll be damned, you actually did — I missed that response of yours. Lemme get a bit of sleep here…
Jenos, let’s face it. You don’t swing any way.
@anjin-san: Just ‘cuz I’ve said no to you, annie, repeatedly, doesn’t mean that’s the only answer I ever give anyone.
I mean, why else would you always want to talk about me, to the near-total exclusion of anything else?
So Jenos, you work tirelessly to get noticed – then you tell yourself how people are obsessed with you.
I see. That’s how you swing. I mean, it’s less that a three year old on a playground does, but it’s something for you to hang your hat on.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
No one had problems with Sterling’s doing bad things? A liberal jury seemed to have a problem with Sterling’s housing discrimination, they convicted him.
@ Jenos
It is probably a waste of time, but I will try to explain something to you. When I make a reference to you and George Zimmermann, and frame it with “spit or swallow”, my comment has no gay implications whatsoever. I am simply referring to the slavish adulation that you heaped upon him for many months.
In liberal circles, we don’t really have gay insults. We don’t think being gay is abnormal, and we don’t attach negatives to it. So there is really no material for insults. People’s sexual orientation is what it is. Different strokes for different folks.
Likewise, you can’t really hurt my feelings with an attempted gay cut. I’ve had gay men flirt with me ever since I was a bartender in the Haight back in the early 80s. It’s never bothered me, in fact I find it flattering in an odd way. My wife and I were having dinner at Jardine a while back and our waiter was flirting with me all through dinner. My wife got a kick out of it, he was a pretty cool guy and he knew a lot about music. If you are secure about your manhood, and you give other people to space to be who they are, none of this can ever be a problem for you.
At any rate, I did not mean to imply you are gay, I don’t think you are. You seem like a fairly typical nutty right winger, a straight guy who has had very little luck with women. The collective rage directed at women from the right is coming from somewhere.
@anjin-san: When I make a reference to you and George Zimmermann, and frame it with “spit or swallow”, my comment has no gay implications whatsoever.
I’d ask how the hell you typed that with a straight face, but that’s too bad a pun for even me to make.
Look, you have every right to believe whatever bullshit you like, but you don’t get to impose your bullshit on everyone else. You’ve done a wonderful job of demonstrating your homophobia, and “some of my best friends are gay” doesn’t fly now. I don’t think it ever did.
@Tillman: OK, properly caffeinated now.
1) When you have to use terms such as “technically” to rationalize deliberate deception, you’ve already lost the moral case. The video may, technically, have been a factor, but the Obama administration’s carefully orchestrated and coordinated response was to push the notion that it was the primary, if not only factor.
2) You’re fixating on my choice of an adjective that is irrelevant to the point. Drop “Islamist” from my statement, and it still stands true: Libya was — and largely is — in chaos, and that makes finding out what happened very difficult.
3) You kinda skipped that one, but I’ll fold it into #4 anyway.
4) Here it’s a matter of perspective. You say it’s more likely to be “politicized” by attacks on Obama; I say it’s more likely to be “politicized” by Obama not wanting to be attacked over it. The potential effect on the election was a major factor.
And bringing up Romney is a diversion. Essentially, you’re saying that Obama was justified in pushing a misleading narrative because it might help his political opponent. I’d like to think that Obama — and any other elected official — should put a higher priority on telling the truth than protecting his own political interests.
5) This point was more abstract, and not political. It was more an observation about American nature. Other cultures have different priorities. “Martyrs” are big in religious groups, for example. (This leads an interesting dichotomy: Christian “martyrs” tend to be those who die for their beliefs; Muslim “martyrs” tend to be those who died while killing others. But I digress.)
As far as your propaganda point, I give you three words: Remember Pearl Harbor. It was the rallying cry — or, if you prefer, “propagandizing efforts to rev up the troops.”
And it doesn’t address my point — we remember individuals more often when they go down fighting than when they are victims. You went haring off on events — and were wrong on that, too.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
“As the late Arthur Muldoon’s know-it-all nephew Ralston famously said, “God, how predictably boring.””
Don’t worry, you will still get your lifetime supply of Boot-to-the-head flavored ice cream.
@Tillman: Perhaps a better rebuttal to my 5th point would have been numbers. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 killed thousands of Americans; the Alamo, on the other hand, was around 200, and Benghazi 4. It’s easier to remember individuals out of small groups than large.
“A Single Death is a Tragedy; a Million Deaths is a Statistic.”
@Timothy Watson: well, obama had a chance until he went “full retard” with obamacare. he knew it wasn’t ready, knew people would lose coverage and knew they wouldn’t be able to keep their plans/doctors. heck, bengazi could be a nice distraction from falling approval ratings!
@anjin-san: i don’t worship “heroes”, it’s foolish. @anjin-san: sounds like he lifted lyrics from a bunch of blues guys,
but back then emulating elvis wasn’t always considered all that bad.
@Moosebreath: I’m Frantically looking for a good comeback, but coming up empty. I’d ask my friend, Ed Gruberman, but he was caught speeding and is hiding up in a gas station washroom…
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Heh. And one more for Jenny and the Wimp.
@bill: And in your deluded mind, whatever failures of the PPACA are somehow comparable to Benedict Reagan’s selling of weapons to terrorists (Iran) and his non-response to the murders of Americans across the globe?
@Jenos Idanian #13: Sorry, spent Sunday doing other things.
1) A “carefully orchestrated and coordinated” response which included an incredible amount of hedging and cautions that this was the best idea they had so far, five days after the attack. Rice’s exact words on This Week, which were duplicated on the other four Sunday shows, were:
The conservatives invested in Benghazi as a scandal of import have elevated these words to the level of conspiracy. What you describe as careful orchestration and coordination is a mundane procedure all administrations use in this situation. Hell, the same basic response was used to point to Osama bin Laden after 9/11.
Also, the “technicality” point you make concerning moral cases works just as well on the Fort Hood shootings.
2) Fair enough, but I still think the differences you pointed out make Fort Hood more compelling a case.
3) Eh. The election differences didn’t seem that interesting. Or maybe I’m having real difficulty with counting lately.
You’d have a point if not for the chronology of the evening, in which Romney utilized the attacks in Benghazi to critique Obama’s overall foreign policy the same night they were happening. Whether political attacks or political defense is more likely is not the case: we’re dealing with what did happen. Statements politicizing Benghazi were released hours after the fact. My reference to Romney is not a diversion, but a note of how events played out.
5) Your original point was to contrast the Alamo (defended against Mexican attackers) and Pearl Harbor (bombed by the Japanese) because those at the Alamo fought back. Your point is historically inaccurate: the Japanese suffered losses, though not many as it was a surprise strike. The generalization you make from it doesn’t make sense.
And what, precisely, makes you think Roosevelt’s “infamy” speech wasn’t propaganda? Yet you dismiss it in favor of the Alamo’s “glory.” (Honestly didn’t know about “Remember Pearl Harbor.”)
@Jenos Idanian #13: Not to mention several in the Alamo were famous for other exploits. If Pearl Harbor had taken out Charles Lindbergh…
Indeed. Consider Cook Third Class Doris “Dorie” Miller, who was awarded the Navy Cross for his heroic actions at Pearl Harbor.
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq57-4.htm
@jukeboxgrad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benghazi_scandal
even Wikipedia says that it wasn’t about the video at this point. albeit it beats around the bush because god forbid they say the administration was caught lying again.
“Initially, it was reported[15] that the Benghazi attack was a spontaneous protest, triggered by an anti-Muslim video, Innocence of Muslims. According to Finding #9 of the Senate Intelligence report, “press reports on protests…were simply copied into intelligence products” of the intelligence community and that these “erroneous reports” “caused confusion and influenced the public statements of policymakers.”[
The presence or absence of a protest tells you nothing about whether or not the attackers were motivated by the video.
“because the video was to blame” keep shoveling that line of sh!t Junky.
This is the worst lie heaped on the republic by the worst administration in history.
Even at this point Wikipedia admits this was a lie.
Initially, it was reported[15] that the Benghazi attack was a spontaneous protest, triggered by an anti-Muslim video, Innocence of Muslims. According to Finding #9 of the Senate Intelligence report, “press reports on protests…were simply copied into intelligence products” of the intelligence community and that these “erroneous reports” “caused confusion and influenced the public statements of policymakers.”
Isn’t that Grand? it makes excuses for them? “it caused confusion”
Benghazi: The attempt to rehabilitate Hillary Clinton begins as the New York Times revives the long-ago debunked “video clip” excuse for the well-planned Benghazi massacre while denying documented al-Qaida involvement.
Investor’s Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/123013-684596-ny-times-revives-benghazi-video-lie.htm#ixzz32MlAYMvp
The Obama administration’s video-inspired, spontaneous-mob fiction was concocted so the White House could dodge charges of massive intelligence failure. The reality — a planned, focused, al Qaeda-linked jihadist battlefield victory — didn’t fit the White House’s rosy election-year storyline.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/17/obamas-benghazi-lie/#ixzz32MlxRsXI
and this is why the fort hood shooting was classified as workplace violence because it downplays the role of islamic jihad “Allahu akbar?” That’s Arabic for “Nothing to see here”.
right they weren’t motivated by the video….are you going to talk about bifurcation or something now?
no they were motived by the arms deal that sour.
New reports now indicate that the Western press in Libya, including New York Times correspondents, knew all along that the assault was not “a spontaneous attack brought about by an anti-Islamic movie in the United States.” Instead, the attackers targeted a spy operation being run by the CIA tasked with moving weapons to rebel fighters around the Middle East. – http://americanfreepress.net/?p=7396#sthash.FuaDtSbc.dpuf
Obama blamed the video because the video was to blame. Link.
no… no it wasn’t.
“Some of the same forces that were set against Qaddafi were later used to provide security at the CIA’s safe house,” he said. “Although many of the details are still clouded, it’s certain that the CIA embassy was not attacked due to an anti-Islamic film, as the administration initially claimed.”
For at least 30 days prior to the September 11 onslaught, Stevens’s emails prove that he felt an attack was imminent,” said AFP’s source. “But since the CIA had already moved a majority of weapons out of Libya on the September 6 boat dispatched to Turkey, there was no more need for the mission in Benghazi. Now that most everyone knows about this situation, the CIA’s cover was blown, which is something they never wanted.” http://americanfreepress.net/?p=7396#sthash.FuaDtSbc.dpuf
Unsupported claims from some right-wing blog are worthless, especially when they don’t even know it was not an “embassy.”
The CIA has embassies? The things you learn…
well if you use your poor reading comprehension skills you will realize that is a quote from a local on the ground there.
On November 9 AMERICAN FREE PRESS interviewed a source who requested to be used only as “background” for this story.
He responded: “The Libyans were pawns in their own revolution. NATO and the Obama administration wanted Qaddafi out, so they used the home team to do it. Soldiers that opposed Qaddafi received their funding from NATO and the CIA. Then, after these rebels did the dirty work and got rid of Qaddafi, the CIA went searching for his heat-seeking missiles.” whichs leads into quote above post
but here is a better explanation for you dullards….
According to public documents the State Department made available to Congress, Ambassador Stevens arrived in Benghazi on September 10th, 2012. The first order of business for Stevens was an urgent meeting at the CIA annex. Stevens was then escorted to the Special Mission Benghazi Compound, which had a villa that would be utilized for Stevens and his staff during their stay. The Special Mission Benghazi Compound did house a handful of State Department officials, but was also host to CIA operatives and officials. The Special Mission Benghazi Compound was not an actual embassy or consulate office and was not actually used as such. –
The constant reference to the Special Mission Benghazi Compound as a “consulate” leads the casual news reader to believe the Ambassador may have worked out of this office as a facility made available for traditional, more public type of diplomatic operations http://www.libertynews.com/2013/05/benghazi-the-biggest-cover-up-scandal-in-u-s-history-was-benghazi-a-cia-gun-running-operation-for-muslim-brotherhood-other-insurgents-fighting-in-syria/#sthash.AoCgdTdI.dpuf
@ MUNCHBOX
These both came from you:
It’s kind of you to refute your own BS, saves others the trouble 🙂
follow the link idiot
and on the way pick up some reading comprehension while you’re there too.
@ MUCHBOX
It does not take a lot of comprehension to see that you are a complete, utter waste of time – the internet equivalent of the crazy guy under the freeway that screams at cars as they go by.
You are dismissed.
Thank you I felt terrible I called you an idiot.
I ARRGGGHHHHH live close to the road under a bridge in fact!
In the mean time the admin’s handling of the foot hood attack was a disgrace. Still paying this guys salary. The court fiasco. Finally after almost after five years he is prosecuted.
Hasan, an American-born Muslim, had exchanged e-mails with a leading al-Qaeda figure in which he asked whether those attacking fellow soldiers were martyrs. The e-mails were seen by the FBI.
Hasan, who acted as his own attorney, tried to plead guilty before the start of the trial with a brief opening comment in which he took responsibility for the shooting and said he was a soldier who had decided to “switch sides”
So the man admits in open court that he switched sides and the faulty administration we currently have refuses once again as in Benghazi (wow surprised the auto correct doesn’t come with a !) to call this terrorism.
This designation ((work place violence..) Thats @ you anjin-san so you can follow along) has since resulted in an embarrassing lack of care and treatment by our military for the victims and their families.
Many survivors suspect the real reason the Army has tried to keep them from speaking out is because details of the case could embarrass the Pentagon and the Obama administration. Law enforcement and intelligence officials had collected evidence of Hasan’s jihadist sympathies long before his shooting spree. Beginning in 2008, an FBI-led joint terrorism task force—which included military officials—intercepted more than a dozen emails between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric associated with Al Qaeda who was killed in an American drone strike in 2011. (sounds familiar….Boston Bombing maybe?)
Police sergeant Kimberly Munley, who helped stop the Ft. Hood shooting, said she felt “betrayed” by President Obama and that he broke a promise to make sure the victims would be well taken care of. (kinda like his problem with lying about everything)
Since 2009, Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), whose district includes part of Fort Hood, has been promoting a bill and a string of amendments. The stand-alone measure has garnered broad support, with more 200 co-sponsors. Rep. Carter said the Fort Hood Families Benefits Protection Act “would award the military and civilian casualties of the 2009 Fort Hood attack the same status that was awarded to the casualties of the Pentagon attack on Sept. 11, 2001. All of the casualties would be eligible for the Purple Heart Award or the Department of Defense civilian equivalent.”
Several members of Congress have also tried to remedy the problem—to no avail. Reps. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), Frank Wolf (R-Va.), and Thomas Rooney (R-Fla.) wrote a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, calling the government’s decision to classify the shooting as workplace violence an “irresponsible, indefensible breach of our nation’s sacred pledge to our service members.”
So in last years defense-spending bill a variation was included, that passed the House but after the White House and the Army voiced opposition, it was stripped out of the Senate version in favor of language requiring the Pentagon to re-evaluate its rules for awarding medals. Once again obama refuses to acknowledge the blatant terrorism. “Allahu akbar?” That’s Arabic for “Nothing to see here”.
@MUCHBOX:
Congratulations, it took you about 10 paragraphs to somehow implicate President Obama in this. Well done.
No Problem.
When the commander in chief fails to / refuses to see things as they are we have issues as a country. Conveniently (ironically?)through out this disaster of hope and change we have seen dramatic cuts to the military, rules changes for engagement of the enemy, terrorism not called terrorism, and two of the biggest leaks of covert intelligence in the past half a century.
“The U.S. intelligence chief, James Clapper, said this week that the loss of state secrets as a result of leaks by former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden was the worst in American history. ”
As a post scrip to these leaks we see red lines in Syria come and go and the full fledged invasion of a country under our strict protection with nary a peep of response….coincidence? or this truly scary administration hard at work?
“And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back. ”
INDEED
I wouldn’t mind people calling the Benghazi building an “embassy” instead of a consulate if the same people didn’t think that the semantics of “terrorism” rises to the level of scandal.
The scandal here is the left’s ability to turn a national travesty into a what they think is just a funny joke.
http://twitchy.com/2014/05/08/next-up-in-the-say-something-crass-and-tasteless-about-benghazi-rotation-david-plouffe/
The other scandal among the growing list, is the left’s indoctrination of the school system and product of people it produces like @Lenoxus, @anjin-san, and @jukebox. If you can’t read and comprehend that the above quote was from above was a local on the ground saying the cia compound “was an embassy” ; its truly shameful just like obama lying about the attack in the first place to save his bid for reelection.
“In what surely was one of the weirdest incidents in a presidential debate, CNN’s Candy Crowley egregiously sided with President Obama on his false remarks on Libya” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/obama-still-wrong-on-libya-crowley-blows-it/2012/10/17/b2e7eede-1841-11e2-a55c-39408fbe6a4b_blog.html
I then go further to include a definition of just what was this cia compound, which was a gun running operation. And you still don’t get it. WOW.
Anyway Have a Safe and Happy Memorial Day. At this point there probably aren’t many more of them left.
….because we have such competent people running the show.
https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/kabul-cia-station-chief-outed-in-press-release-on-obama-afghanistan-visit/
…and because of such things coming from the allegedly home state of obama
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/716/Hawaii-ldquoIslam-Dayrdquo-secretly-marks-September-11.aspx
You are apparently unable to “read and comprehend” that the ignorant and obscure right-wing blogger you cited posted an article with this headline:
So because his mysteriously unnamed source stupidly said “embassy,” the blogger was obliged to make the same stupid mistake in his headline? Hilarious.
http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Egypt-intelligence-warns-of-attacks-on-Israel-US-embassies (funny looking at the title of this link)
“The information, the best information and the best assessment we have today is that in fact this was not a preplanned, premeditated attack. That what happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video. People gathered outside the embassy and then it grew very violent and those with extremist ties joined the fray and came with heavy weapons, which unfortunately are quite common in post-revolutionary Libya and that then spun out of control.” [Susan rice September 16]
oh boo hoo Junkie. So the guy called it an embassy in the title. Maybe he got the term from the initial lies of SR and company? Oh I guess you didn’t know?….. or can’t comprehend the difference?
“some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons, weapons that as you know in — in the wake of the revolution in Libya are — are quite common and accessible. And it then evolved from there.” SR well yes we know now your guy was handing them out like cr@zy!
Somehow I doubt that the families of Christopher Stevens, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods or Sean Smith believes that. And to all the Countless Regulars who gave their Lives Our Memorial Day thoughts are with you.
Maybe you should pay more attention to what they have actually said. Via Jim Ward (an excellent commenter who pops up in various places):