The Benghazi Political Circus

[notsheigetz]

Republicans ...

  "We just want to find out the truth of what really happened"

    Translation:

    "We smell blood in the water and we're going in for the kill".

Democrats...

    "You're making a mountain out of a mile hill".

    Translation:

    "Of course we're lying. We're politicians and that's what we do".

My prediction....

    It will be mostly forgotten by the next election.

[moda0306]

Boom!

[RuralEngineer]

Pretty much. Unless there's some smoking gun hidden somewhere, this will blow over in three years.

[Jan Van]

Next election? Three years? You think it will linger that long? I'd thing our adhd politicians will have forgotten about it by the time they really get into the immigration debate, or the next debt ceiling shenanigans.

[clacy]

This would have been a much bigger deal, if Obama wasn't the media's darling.

Maybe the administration using the tax enforcement arm of the US government to intimidate conservative groups will catch on, but probably not.

[FarmerD]

This would have been a much bigger deal, if Obama wasn't the media's darling.

Honestly I don't blame Barack for this fiasco.  The blame is 100% on Hilary Clinton.  Her  State Dept not only downgraded security at Benghazi over the strenuous objections of the ambassador, but actually refused to send help that may have saved some lives.  When people die because of your stupidity and lack of common sense, you deserve to be crucified. 

I think the media is covering for Hilary since they are all rooting for her to be the next president. 

[RuralEngineer]

Next election? Three years? You think it will linger that long? I'd thing our adhd politicians will have forgotten about it by the time they really get into the immigration debate, or the next debt ceiling shenanigans.

Earlier, but that's the next date when it might be referenced.

[MediumTex]

Compare the Benghazi incident (or whatever you want to call it) to another foreign policy security disaster in the form of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu on which the Black Hawk Down book and movie were based.

The Battle of Mogadishu also resulted from the U.S. having insufficient force on the ground to deal with a more or less known enemy threat.  In the Battle of Mogadishu 18 U.S. soldiers were killed and 73 were wounded.

Three years later Bill Clinton was re-elected in a landslide.

I doubt if Benghazi is going to give Hillary Clinton too much trouble in 2016.  If Bill Clinton could get past the Battle of Mogadishu debacle, I'm sure his wife can get past this relatively minor (by comparison) incident.

Note, too, that Bill Clinton had to deal with the Branch Davidian siege disaster in which the initial raid was bungled (resulting in the deaths of four federal agents) and then the siege of the compound ended with the deaths of 76 people, including 18 children.  You might as well also include the Oklahoma City bombing (168 dead, including 19 children, and 680 injured) in the collateral damage generated by the Branch Davidian siege diaster, since Timothy McVeigh cited the heavy handed government attack and siege of the compound as his inspiration for blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

Overall, a realistic body count from the 1993 incompetence of the Clinton administration in dealing with situations involving threats to U.S. forces (foreign and domestic) could easily be blamed for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. citizens (including dozens of children) and almost two dozen U.S. soldiers and law enforcement officers. 

1993 was a bad year for the federal government.  It was far worse, IMHO, than 2012 was when it comes to bungling, incompetence and cover-ups.

[Benko]

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the standard that everyone seems to use i.e. oh that's not so bad, lots of politician's in the past did that or much worse.
That allows for lots of horrible things to continue.  And democrats are known for (among other things) being soft on defense.  I am not for starting any more wars, an AIN'T a neocon, but defending current democrat incompetence in this area because previous democrats have also been soft on defense... We can't change the past, we can shed light on what has just happened to prevent more of the same in the future.  And I confess that I am surprised-perhaps I'm naive.  I don't know that much about Hillary, but though I disagree with her politics, I did think she was more competent than what appears to have been the case. 

[Pointedstick]

What I think MT is saying is that we need to have a little perspective. Now yes, we should definitely retain our sense of outrage when presidents mess up, get people killed, and then try to shift the blame around. But we also need to be realistic about the fact that they're always doing this kind of thing. It's pretty much their job to make tough decisions that can get people killed when the situation is bungled. We're all human, and anyone who makes decisions that affect peoples' lives is bound to get someone killed sooner or later.

My personal feeling is that the kind of person who aspires to be a politician is probably the last person I would want in charge of anything more important than a lemonade stand, so I'm rarely surprised when they screw up and get people killed. To that effect, the magnitude of the screw-up is more important to me since I just take it as a given that there will be death-causing screw-ups. That's why Waco, 9/11, and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam register a lot higher on my outrage-o-meter than the Benghazi screw-up.

[Benko]

That's why Waco, 9/11, and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam register a lot higher on my outrage-o-meter than the Benghazi screw-up.

PS,

Even among your list, there are (as best I know) vast differences. 

Like benghazi, Waco was a cluster due to incompetence.  People dieing due to stupidity/inncomptence are vastly different than people dieing because of policy.

From what I know, I'm not sure I agree with Iraq, Afghanastan, and Vietnam, but those are issues of policy.  It is not the same saying I have a problem with the president's policy vs saying the administration should have not killed US citizens at Waco and allowed US citizens to die by descreasing security when increased security had been asked for.

9-11 (you may know more) but from what I know there were warnings, which did not make it up the intelligence chain i.e. perhaps this was a system problem in the way intelligence is handled. and different in how they happened than either of the other two.

[Pointedstick]

Like benghazi, Waco was a cluster due to incompetence.  People dieing due to stupidity/inncomptence are vastly different than people dieing because of policy.

From what I know, I'm not sure I agree with Iraq, Afghanastan, and Vietnam, but those are issues of policy.  It is not the same saying I have a problem with the president's policy vs saying the administration should have not killed US citizens at Waco and allowed US citizens to die by descreasing security when increased security had been asked for.

9-11 (you may know more) but from what I know there were warnings, which did not make it up the intelligence chain i.e. perhaps this was a system problem in the way intelligence is handled. and different in how they happened than either of the other two.

Yeah… like TennPaGa, I'm not sure I really see the significance of the distinction. Can't policy be stupid or incompetent? And indeed, aren't most government policies stupid or incompetent?

From my perspective, those three wars are fantastically stupid and resulted from policies that were stupid from the start and executed with incompetence (forcing American teenagers to fight an unpopular war in Vietnam; insufficient ground force in Iraq; undefined mission in Afghanistan) and intelligence that was obviously, plainly cherry-picked or fatally flawed.

As for 9/11, Bush actually received a briefings on Osama Bin Laden's entitled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US". He blew it off. That seems pretty incompetent to me.

[Pointedstick]

This occurred to me afterwards, but also, if there's a difference in severity and outrageousness between people unnecessarily dying due to simple incompetence and people unnecessarily dying due to defined policy, then if anything, wouldn't the latter be worse?

[Jan Van]

Gates: Some Benghazi critics have "cartoonish" view of military capability

[quote=Gates]"Frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were," said Gates, now the chancellor of the College of William and Mary.[/quote]

[Benko]

I've thought about it and can certainly see your point of view, even though I don't feel the same way you do.'

1. WACO/BENGHAZI Personally Waco (probably most) and Benghazi (2nd) produce more of a reaction in me (rightly or wrongly).  Why?  being killed in the US by overzealous gov't employees generates the most visceral reaction in me. Waco is like killing demonstrators in '68, not an easy situation, but the deaths should not have happened.  Benghazi is not a safe place, which makes even less reason to turn down requests for added security.

2. AFGHAN/IRAQ Why do I not feel as strongly about e.g. Afghan and Iraq?    Decisions of policy are complicated.  There is a saying in medicine (about opinions on e.g. a case) that reasonable minds can differ.  I'm not a believer in attacking other countries unnecessarily, but am less willing to condemn Bush for Iraq (if I'm remembering the details, Afghan was problably stupider).  And yes, the plans for the immediate post invasion policy were botched (which was not Bush but Rumsfield or generals I guess)..  Also, if you are in the military you sign up for possible danger.

3. "As for 9/11, Bush actually received a briefings on Osama Bin Laden's entitled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US". He blew it off. That seems pretty incompetent to me."

I'm sure you are aware that Clinton had one (or more) opportunities to get bin laden and blew it.

Aside from that:  Did Bush receive info on 20 people who were determined to srike in the US?  Or only one or a few?  It is very easy to realize the significance of Bin laden now, it may not have been so clear prospectively.  Was the intelligence good?  I don't know the details.  If it really was as simple as that, then yes it would have been incompetence.

4. "I also think that, individually, people don't actually want to be seen as incompetent, so it will self-correct."

So Hillary will be less dangerous next time?  Sorry I don't buy it.  Especially since she was around Bill (while he was ignorning Bin Laden).

The US needs to get involved militarily far less than we have (IMHO).  On the other hand, best I can tell all dems channel Neville Chamberlin.

4. "I also think that, individually, people don't actually want to be seen as incompetent, so it will self-correct."

So Hillary will be less dangerous next time? Sorry I don't buy it. Especially since she was around Bill (while he was ignorning Bin Laden).

The US needs to get involved militarily far less than we have (IMHO). On the other hand, best I can tell all dems channel Neville Chamberlin.

the number one consideration for the politically driven creature is politics, they made decisions based on what seemed like the best political course of action, and they always will ! If they want to be seen as less incompetent they will get better at covering up the political nature of their decision making, they won't begin making decisions based on a more sensible criteria..

[Benko]

Yes, Tenn apparently any intervention once the attack had started would not have worked.

Did they ask Gates if he would have turned down repeated requests for more security ahead of time?
Did  they ask Gates if he would have edited a description of what happened to take out the word terrorist/al quida (sp?)
Did they asked Gates if he would have blamed it on a you tube video?

[Jan Van]

Did they ask Gates what he though about the requests for embassy security funding being cut by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012?

[Pointedstick]

Benko, I'm with you on the horror of being killed by your own government. To me personally, that is one of the scariest things I can imagine: the idea of the government sending their full range of killing toys against private citizens, especially those not convicted or even accused of any crimes. SWAT teams with body armor and automatic rifles, tanks, grenades, flashbangs… scary stuff for the government to be turning on the very people it's supposed to be protecting.

But that's not what happened at Behghazi. Those Americans were not killed by their own government; they were killed by terrorists after their government failed to properly protect them. To me, that's a lot closer to your average foreign conflict in which Americans stationed at a foreign location die at the hands of terrorists. It's actually a lot like the Beirut bombing. And while the government could have protected them better, yes, you could say that of every single casualty of every single war. Like you said, it was a dangerous area. The people there knew what they were getting into.

[moda0306]

I've thought about it and can certainly see your point of view, even though I don't feel the same way you do.'

1. WACO/BENGHAZI Personally Waco (probably most) and Benghazi (2nd) produce more of a reaction in me (rightly or wrongly).  Why?  being killed in the US by overzealous gov't employees generates the most visceral reaction in me. Waco is like killing demonstrators in '68, not an easy situation, but the deaths should not have happened.  Benghazi is not a safe place, which makes even less reason to turn down requests for added security.

2. AFGHAN/IRAQ Why do I not feel as strongly about e.g. Afghan and Iraq?    Decisions of policy are complicated.  There is a saying in medicine (about opinions on e.g. a case) that reasonable minds can differ.  I'm not a believer in attacking other countries unnecessarily, but am less willing to condemn Bush for Iraq (if I'm remembering the details, Afghan was problably stupider).  And yes, the plans for the immediate post invasion policy were botched (which was not Bush but Rumsfield or generals I guess)..  Also, if you are in the military you sign up for possible danger.

3. "As for 9/11, Bush actually received a briefings on Osama Bin Laden's entitled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US". He blew it off. That seems pretty incompetent to me."

I'm sure you are aware that Clinton had one (or more) opportunities to get bin laden and blew it.

Aside from that:  Did Bush receive info on 20 people who were determined to srike in the US?  Or only one or a few?  It is very easy to realize the significance of Bin laden now, it may not have been so clear prospectively.  Was the intelligence good?  I don't know the details.  If it really was as simple as that, then yes it would have been incompetence.

4. "I also think that, individually, people don't actually want to be seen as incompetent, so it will self-correct."

So Hillary will be less dangerous next time?  Sorry I don't buy it.  Especially since she was around Bill (while he was ignorning Bin Laden).

The US needs to get involved militarily far less than we have (IMHO).  On the other hand, best I can tell all dems channel Neville Chamberlin.

Policy decisions are complex.  However, misleading Americans into war based on cherry-picked intelligence is not complex, it's ridiculously unethical.  The "plans for immediate post-invasion" weren't botched... the entire thing was build on a scam to begin with.  It's like saying a Ponzi scheme was "botched" because everyone came to collect their money.  No, it was a giant botch in and of itself.

Soldiers "know" what they are signing up for, I suppose... though I wouldn't really say anyone knows that until they have their legs blown off or see it happen to someone they care for.  More importantly, these soldiers trust their leaders not to lie to them.  That they only go to war as a last resort.

Are these ambassadors any different, though?  In Libya of all places?

Further, while I think it's a bad sign if government is killing its own citizens, I see it as very inconsistent with the individualism to put some peoples' lives on a pedastal above tens-if-not-hundreds of thousands of other lives.  The only true sovereign entity is the individual.  Citizen vs non-citizen is a function of the state, and treating actions against one as worse than the other is probably more of a nationalistic group think bias than any sort of recognition of individual rights.  I'm not arguing for a trial-by-jury for every terrorist that we know is guilty, as opposed to making strikes against them.  I'd also add that I'd like to see more restraint against US citizens than non-citizens, especially if they're domestic.  However, I realize that this decision by me to prioritize people isn't one based on individual sovereignty, it's based on a biased state-sanctioned prioritization of taking actions more lightly against some people than others.  This is not rooted in individualism.  It's rooted in utilitarianism (gets the job done to be able to air-strike terrorists without a jury trial, and convenience (but I know the government can't do it to me).  And I'm definitely not going to take it to the point of writing the Iraq war off as a "botched, complex policy decision" to eventually freak out over 4 deaths of American ambassadors in Libya.

The Iraq war was a deliberate misleading of Americans combined with poor planning that was sure to result in the loss of thousands of lives.  The "cover up" was a tool to get us into war, not a tool used afterwards to try to skirt blame.  Trying to skirt blame for a f*ck up after-the-fact that resulted in the loss of a few lives is something I fully understand will happen and has happened, though it shows a lack of class, IMO.  Deliberately covering up facts to actually take us into war that results in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, injured galore, and displaced millions is far and away, completely, entirely a whole other level of schemery.

Just because "policy is complex" doesn't change that.  Just because "soldiers knew the risks" doesn't change that.  Just because "a lot of the dead and displaced didn't weren't US citizens" doesn't change that.

[MediumTex]

Did they ask Gates what he though about the requests for embassy security funding being cut by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012?

You mean the cuts that Congress voted to pass?

For whatever reason, no one is talking about that.

I'm really not trying to defend Obama here, it's just that this sort of thing is an unfortunate by-product of having almost two thousand military and diplomatic U.S. installations around the world and every single one of them is a potential target.  Some of them are going to be attacked and people are going to get killed.  My experience with different branches of government is that everyone always wants more resources.  It doesn't surprise me at all that U.S. diplomats in post-revolution Libya would be asking for more security resources, but I assume that every U.S. facility anywhere in the Middle East is probably asking for the same thing more or less all of the time.

To cite another parallel with Iraq (except Iraq involved a vastly larger scale), from day one the military asked for more resources for the Iraq war than the Bush administration was willing to give, and it probably resulted in several extra years of bloody fighting and hundreds of dead U.S. soldiers.  I don't recall there ever being any hearings on this issue in which any member of the Bush administration was held to account for the failure to provide the necessary level of resources (not to mention the whole WMD  debacle, which was sort of the foreign policy equivalent of Monica Lewinsky's dress).

[MediumTex]

The US needs to get involved militarily far less than we have (IMHO).  On the other hand, best I can tell all dems channel Neville Chamberlain.

Really?  Which Democrats are you taking about?

Woodrow Wilson, who turned a regional European conflict into World War I?

Franklin Roosevelt, who promised to keep the U.S. out of war in 1940 and through provocative foreign policy acts had us in World War II less than a year after being inaugurated in 1941?

Harry S. Truman, who did not stop the military from fire bombing civilian targets in Japan, then ordered two nuclear weapons dropped on civilian populations, then later took the U.S. into a stupid war on the Korean peninsula, and kept MacArthur (a narcissistic and deeply delusional war monger) around about two years past his expiration date?

John F. Kennedy, who started the U.S. Vietnam disaster, stared down the Soviet Union (sort of) in the Cuban Missile Crisis and sponsored an invasion of a sovereign nation off of the Florida coast?

Lyndon Johnson, who may have been the biggest U.S. war pig of the last 50 years?

Bill Clinton, who ordered multiple attacks on Afghanistan, led the international military effort in Kosovo, and ordered the ill-fated (but very deadly for the enemy) Somalia "humanitarian" mission?

Barack Obama, who despite being awarded the Nobel Prize 5 minutes after taking office, has ordered the steady and consistent assassination of individuals perceived to be hostile to U.S. interests all over the world, ordered the invasion of a sovereign state (Pakistan) to assassinate an individual living there suspected of hostile acts toward the U.S., increased the U.S. military commitment to Afghanistan and probably would have liked to do the same in Iraq if the Iraqis hadn't taken the wise step of asking the U.S. to leave during a small window of time when it was possible to do so (the Koreans missed their opportunity to do the same about 60 years ago)?

The only Democratic President of the last century or so who might be accused of being Neville Chamberlain-like was Jimmy Carter, and as far as I can tell it was only in his soft and indecisive response to the Iranian hostage crisis.  As I recall, Carter didn't appease the Soviet Union at all.  In fact, the 1980 grain embargo that Carter put in place, while it didn't have the hoped for effect, was designed to starve as many Russians as possible and cause the Soviet Union to soften its positions on some other issues.  Any action designed to starve civilian populations of your primary enemy could hardly be called appeasement.

[Benko]

The common thread in this analysis seems to be "Republicans good, Democrats bad".  It speaks to the thread title pretty convincingly.

You missed the part (I guess it was in another thread talking about the same topic) where I said that I must be naive, but that I expected Clinton to have been more competent (I assume she had to work for a living at some point).  It is certainly not not as simple as republicans good, democrats bad. 

The striking thing to me about the repies in this thread (I assume mine as well) is that one can tell where people fall in the political spectrum, by the content and more importantly the tone of their reply.

And it just occured to me to wonder about previous such topics when the shoe was on the other foot and if the lefties felt they were non-issues then.  Do the archives here go back to when the covert operative who wasn't was outed during the bush admin-- Valerie Plume?

[Reub]

This from O's presser today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AznmrRZsRQ
(As borrowed from Jim Rickards)

You see, its all about the strawberries.

[moda0306]

MT,

Exactly.

I find it interesting how war hawks (not saying anyone here is) completely discount economic tools to "fight wars."  Our current actions against Iran are devastating their economy.  We didn't have to fire one bullet.  However, many on the right think Obama's being far too easy on Iran.  It would seem that these actions "don't count" because they're too soft or indirect or something.  It's nice to have a 14 Trillion dollar economy to help you fight wars without having to do anything overtly coercive.  Let's use that tool first!!

[moda0306]

The common thread in this analysis seems to be "Republicans good, Democrats bad".  It speaks to the thread title pretty convincingly.

You missed the part (I guess it was in another thread talking about the same topic) where I said that I must be naive, but that I expected Clinton to have been more competent (I assume she had to work for a living at some point).  It is certainly not not as simple as republicans good, democrats bad. 

The striking thing to me about the repies in this thread (I assume mine as well) is that one can tell where people fall in the political spectrum, by the content and more importantly the tone of their reply.

And it just occured to me to wonder about previous such topics when the shoe was on the other foot and if the lefties felt they were non-issues then.  Do the archives here go back to when the covert operative who wasn't was outed during the bush admin-- Valerie Plume?

I can't speak for doodle, TennPaGa or Storm or any other "raging libs" on this forum, but I certainly didn't fall into any kind of anger or frenzy out of the Valerie incident.  I felt like I was being spoonfed a bunch of BS from dems that had no other goal than to make Bush look like a lying, unethical doofus (or a bigger one than he actually was).  I can't see those posters, even doodle, starting a thread about what an outrage it was.