BBO Discussion Forums: BENGHAZI: COVERUP OR INCOMPETANCE? - BBO Discussion Forums

mikeh, on 2012-October-25, 11:58, said:

Sir, my litigation experience has brought me to many of the same conclusions you have voiced re: eyewitness testimony. It has also taught me how lawyers -- including, perhaps especially so, those who work for politicians in framing discourse-- address the "facts" underlying a situation in controversy: Absent the proverbial 'smoking gun', Our story will be consistent with as much of the evidential record as possible, and inconvenient evidence will be contested and muddled to the greatest extent possible, in order to achieve a persuasively coherent public posture that maximally advances our goals. It's commonly called tap dancing; politicians have to be masters.

I do know how complicated real events can be, particularly when there is no information source within the event. I suspect that analyzing a plane crash by looking at a smoking pile of rubble was made slightly more efficient by the utilization of black boxes and real time radar. I do not think you have any warrant for implying that I got any of my information from "cartoon depictions"; I've spent as much time reviewing the reported record as I possibly can. The OP was deliberately left a virgin canvas, and was meant to solicit opinion re: both pre- and post-attack actions and non-actions of the administration. Interesting there are no real discussions of the reported record; interesting that posts accepting the "just gathering information" meme seem to reflect political orientations explicitly revealed in other threads.

My personal view at this time is that administration actors never believed the "horrible video" story. There is absolutely no evidence of any demonstration based upon the video or otherwise. The attack began at night, and some of the weapons used -- known in real time -- require planned deployment. This was not a pile of rubble in a field rrequring reconstructiion after the fact.

The administration knew from the first real-time camera/sound/cell phone/email/ radio reports from the event and those within it that this event would reveal just how vigorously political actors had screwed the pooch re: the entire situation leading up to the attack, most importantly re: the administration's narrative of Arab Spring democracy success in Libya and the death of al-Queda-linked terrorist activity there and elsewhere (this includes failure to deploy protection adequate to the known volitility of the environment). They had been walking a tight wire and they knew it (I suspect -- pure speculation --that the odds are pretty high that there were highly-placed people who were just hoping beyond hope that any blow-up would occur after Nov. 6, and who expressed that opinion to colleagues). In the days following, they noticed that the media were not much interested in detailed investigation or reportage, but had just loved the "horrible video" explanation, and decided to lawyer up, knowing they'd get the maximum pass available for any story they constructed. The inconsistency in the developing administration response is evident; the "just gathering information" meme is maximally efficient in allowing them to be vague and run the story into hearings post-election. (Is there really so much info that all those talented analysts with all that information-crunching power could not give us a reasonable picture within a couple of days? Of course, some important people would have to be inconvenienced....)

So IMHO "coverup" is an accurate term, but it is directed at obsfuscation of the pre-attack grossly negligent failure to protect our personnel and intentional failure accurately to depict the truth about Libya for the American public. OTOH, charges of failures to respond once the attack began seem badly misplaced, even those from highly-exercised former military "experts." In these situations my inclination is to support whatever decisions are made by military chain-of-command, at least to the extent they are uninfluenced by the politicians. It is possible the best decision was to let the guys in the Annex and the limited on-ground support, try to get out on their own.

But the rest of it: Just politics as usual. Messed up and will do anything to avoid taking responsibilty.

EDIT: Why was the administration's response so damned casual, campaigning as usual? As Bolton has said, any administration he has worked for would've been in red alert overdrive immediately. This aspect of the situation is what has most people worked up, I think, and there really is no good story there.

what we do know:

• there were 2 attacks, this year, on the consulate prior to 9/11
  
• stephens, as well as the security personnel on site, requested more security... it was declined
  
• because of the threats, great britain (as well as the red cross) pulled out of the area
  
• stephens continued to cable state that the situation was dangerous and continued to request more security... still denied... in fact, security was reduced
  
• the attack, when it occurred, was followed in real time by state (at least - there could have been others in the admin looking in)
  
• all emails, etc, were sent immediately to several recipients, including the wh situation room
  
• the military was mobilized, in the sense that troops were sent to tripoli (where they remained, making no effort to reach the consulate) and warships were moved to the coast... however, no help came for those being attacked
  
• obama has stated, and it appears to be true given the just released 60 minutes video, that a terrorist attack could have been the cause
  
• jay carney, for days following the murders, said the cause was a video
  
• hillary clinton said the cause was a video
  
• susan rice said on 5 talk shows, days after the attacks, that the cause was a video
  
• obama stated, 6 times in his speech to the u.n., that the cause was a video
  
• not once did any of those people mention a terrorist attack - not carney in his press briefings, not rice on the talk shows, not obama at the u.n.
  
• joe biden, in the vp debate, said (when asked about it) that "we didn't know"... and now we learn that he *did* know because he was included in the sit room briefings

if the prez knew it was a terrorist attack, why did nobody mention it when given numerous opportunities? why did biden say he not know? why did they continue to blame a video when they *knew* it had nothing to do with it?

so to answer your original question, i think it's both... incompetence in not at least attempting to send relief to our people and a coverup because to admit the truth would do harm to the narrative the admin had been floating for a year (obl is dead and aq is kaput)... it would also, rightly, call into question obama's entire ridiculous mid east "strategy"

Flem72, on 2012-October-25, 15:09, said:

Does everything have to be black and white? Terrorists often claim they are retaliating for something, or in any case sometimes there is a catalyst that sets them off. So was the attack an action by quiet, law-abiding citizens responding to the video, or was it by terrorists partly, at least, responding to the video.

That having been said, protesting around the world about a video made by one guy somewhere is not the behaviour of rational people. Yet masses of some sort of people went out to demonstrations. I suspect terrorists/extremists of lighting a fire under these people. Was the film available on YouTube before the demonstrations? Is there an informed estimate of how many protesters actually watchedit?

Vampyr, on 2012-October-25, 19:13, said:

My understanding is that relatively few people actually saw the video on the Internet. (Internet connectivity is still relatively expensive in much of the world and there were some efforts to block access)

With this said and done, the (supposed) contents of the video were widely shared in broadcast media like television. Furthermore, as I understand matters, clips from the video were broadcast on TV in Egypt. (I don't claim to understand why this didn't lead to the TV station being burned down...)

while egypt *may* have been caused in part by the video, libya most definitely was not... most of the muslim world did not even know of the video until the u.s. started apologizing for it

I admit I don't understand this debate very well.

There seem to be three basic possibilities:

1. attack was organized and preplanned all along. Video is coincidence.
2. attack was entirely spontaneous reaction to video.
3. attack was quickly improvised by terrorist group/individuals, using the video and public response as an opportunity/excuse.

I don't really know which is true. Maybe the administration did know, maybe not, maybe not at first but later did know. But I don't see how this really matters. For me the most interesting point is that additional security was requested, and denied. This point does not seem to be in doubt, neither side is denying it that I know of. Assuming this is true, then whoever made this decision seems to have made a bad one. Why the other issue (who knew what when) is getting so much more attention frankly baffles me.

As an aside, about the video. From the point of view of the residents in that area of world, is it really true that, on the other side of the world, some idiot with a video recorder and an internet connection makes a childishly crude video to insult you, and your response is to erupt in widespread protests and violence? Is your society really so easily trolled? Or is this a case of incitement by a relatively few leaders (political, religious, media, or otherwise) who wanted the protests and violence for their own reasons?

Yes, this event was identified as an act of terror from the start, and what caused it is of (much) less importance than why the security was insufficient to handle it.

This topic reminds me of a bridge problem. You are playing 7NT holding
♠AKQJ
♥AKQJ
♦AK
♣AJ2

opposite a dummy of
♠5432
♥432
♦432
♣KT3

Which way do you make the finessing act and does it make a difference if you call it an act of finessing? Or is there a third alternative? If you are wrong then everyone on these forums and in your bridge club will ridicule you about this every time they meet you for the next 4 years. It will naturally be 100% obvious to everyone where the queen is. And yes, I could give a better example but honestly, what is the point? This entire topic is silly and smacks of desperation in Republican circles to create a mountain out of a molehill.

To me, the question is not so much about the administration's handling of telling us what they knew during and after the attack. I'm much more interested in why the administration didn't anticipate the possibility, didn't give more weight to the Ambassador's previously expressed concerns about security, and why there seems to have been a policy decision made to rely almost entirely on the host nation for security of our embassies and embassy personnel. Frankly that bothers me a lot more than "how much did Obama (or Rice, or whoever) know while the attack was going down?" I would add that if we are going to rely on the host nation in that way, then our policy should include "if you cannot protect our embassy, we will withdraw it".

luke warm, on 2012-October-26, 06:52, said:

Because, of course, the Muslims don't have their own radio shows, television broadcasts, etc
And no one would ever cover the widespread rioting in Egypt... no siree bob

You are completely detached from reality

Zelandakh, on 2012-October-26, 07:38, said:

I agree. The weird thing is that they have a much larger molehill available, i.e. the denial of additional security prior to the attack. Why aren't they targeting that instead? Is there a reason I am overlooking, or are they just dumb, or .. .?

blackshoe, on 2012-October-26, 07:44, said:

There is a very good reason why this is not the primary question, namely that House Republicans voted for an embassy security funding package that was $459m less than the Obama administration had requested. Keeping the focus on the actions of the administration avoids any awkward questions or accusations of hypocrisy. Remember, this is a presidential campaign. It is not about finding the truth, it is about pinning the (short-term) blame on Obama. This sits very well with the image Republicans like to paint about his being weak against the threat from extremists. I would like to think voters are sensible enough to see through such a transparent facade but, sadly, history is not on my side in this regard. As Ken points out, emotions are far more important than facts.

Zelandakh, on 2012-October-26, 08:26, said:

Aha, thanks Zel, I figured there had to be a reason.

Zelandakh, on 2012-October-26, 08:26, said:

So is it your position that a Repub administration, operating under a reduced budget (whixh may or may not mean anything about security at embasies that are maintained), would nevertheless fail to use part of that budget to strengthen an embassy desperately requesting help?

Of course, at least as I read the numbers, the total requested 2013 budget for embassy and consulate security is over $3B -- you can do the math. And, of course, State is currently sitting on $2.2B that could be used for this purpose -- so maybe the reduction makes sense.

Zelandakh, on 2012-October-26, 07:38, said:

This seems to be a one-level relay to play, NYT/Mommy Jones style.

This entire topic is open to any optional explanation anyone would care to post. So far, the 3rd option concensus seems to be "we were just confused, darn it." Query: Is this level of confusion a competence issue?

If there are no questions, why schedule hearings at all?

Missing from this dialogue: The true state of affairs in Libya for the last several months -- especially Eastern Libya, which was known by apparently everyone in the world except the American public to be under the control of Islamicist militias. My understanding is that other nations had concluded that aggressive Islamicist attacks - - that is, organized, armed opposition to the leadership we had put in place - - were imminent; we were the last foreign embassy in Libya for that reason. There's that tight wire again....

[I'm trying to use as many ;;;; and ..... as possible, but, really, I prefer the - - -s.]

Flem72, on 2012-October-26, 09:17, said:

Not much that can be done about the poor education of the American public.

Can you believe that some people are so ill informed that they don't understand the difference between and embassy and a consulate?

They make completely asinine statements like "We were the last foreign embassy in Libya" when they meant to say "The British Foreign Office withdrew all consular staff from Benghazi in late June."

Some people are stupid enough to make multiple posts complaining about the poor state of intelligence while making multiple, glaringly obvious, misstatements of their own.

Flem72, on 2012-October-26, 09:08, said:

"Darrell Issa is an asshole" would seem to be the obvious explanation...

hrothgar, on 2012-October-26, 10:14, said:

U-m-m-mm, maybe, don't know the man, but do know that the Sen. Intel. Comm. is dominated by Dems and chaired by the lovely Ms. Feinstein....;;;;- - - Oh, and State will hold internal hearings....

hrothgar, on 2012-October-26, 10:12, said:

So I appear to have made a misstatement of fact, and my understanding was therefore in error. Thank you for the correction. Don't think that changes anything about Eastern Libya...

As for the rest: plonk.