Wtc building 7

[MediumTex]

M.T. He was an American ambassador. It was 9/11. We were lied to. It is newsworthy. 

Okay, I get it.  We were lied to, or maybe for a day or so the administration was actually gullible enough to believe that the YouTube video really was the driver.

But who cares?  Who cares if a politician lies about the nature of the mob that killed an ambassador and three other people on the other side of the world?  What does that have to do with me? 

Does it tell me that politicians lie?  I already knew that. 

Does it tell me that you have to be careful in post-revolution situations?  I already knew that. 

Does it tell me that tragic things sometimes happen and the government sometimes tries to cover it up?  I already knew that.

I'm just having trouble getting worked up over this incident (even though it was sad and tragic).  Sad and tragic things like this happen all the time.

Should there have been more security in Libya?  Apparently, yes, there should have been.  But there should have been more troops in Iraq for years after the 2003 invasion as well, and think of the hundreds of U.S troops who died because of that oversight.

This sort of bungling is just part of the way the government moves through time and manages events, especially situations that are changing fast.  I would be surprised if things like this didn't happen from time to time.

getting government to do what you want it to do is probably a huge exercise in futility, a lot like herding cats, and while all of MT's above points are true i still find myself drawn to paying attention to the behavior of cats (government), i may never herd them but i do want to know how they think and what they are up to in hope that i can keep them from overrunning everything, it doesn't require getting worked up over and i try hard not to (but being human i some times do..)

is this story meaningless? i am not sure.
most of what it tells me about government and the way things work i already know.
will i personally be able to stop them from doing more of the same in the future? probably not.
but if government is Representative then the people understanding its mistakes and it's corruption and paying attention when things like this happen, should help reduce it in the future.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

". . . whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that, whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them right."


or maybe i am just overly optimistic today??

[Reub]

"But who cares?  Who cares if a politician lies about the nature of the mob that killed an ambassador and three other people on the other side of the world?  What does that have to do with me?"

I care, M.T.

And you should as well.

Because the blatancy and the arrogance of the lie demonstrates just what this administration may be capable of in the future when elections no longer matter to them.

[Pointedstick]

"But who cares?  Who cares if a politician lies about the nature of the mob that killed an ambassador and three other people on the other side of the world?  What does that have to do with me?"

I care, M.T.

And you should as well.

Because the blatancy and the arrogance of the lie demonstrates just what this administration may be capable of in the future when elections no longer matter to them.

I fail to see how this is any different from any of the blatant lies told by the previous administration ("a mushroom cloud over American cities"), or the one before that ("I did not have sex with that woman"), or the one before that ("read my lips, no new taxes"). Why should this incident in particular merit our outrage any more than, say, the fact that more than a thousand American servicemen and women have been senselessly murdered in Afghanistan since Obama took office for no clear benefit to us? Or the murder of all these American citizens by terrifying masked government intruders looking for drugs?

The only thing that comes close to explaining the selective outrage regarding this embassy burning that I've seen from several quarters is that it derives from a sort of in-group/out-group sensitivity where the president--ultimately the leader of our in-group (The USA)--failed to prevent ostensibly peaceful members of our in-group being murdered by obviously violent members of the out-group.

There are many people who are very sensitive to these kinds of in-group/out-group dynamics, including everyone I've talked to who was outraged by this. But I guess I don't really care a lot about that, and apparently MT and many others here don't either. To us, we invoke our cold, calculating libertarian minds and say, "well it's terrible that n Americans died, but it's even more terrible that 20n Americans died over there, or that 500n foreigners were slaughtered even farther away over there."

[MediumTex]

"But who cares?  Who cares if a politician lies about the nature of the mob that killed an ambassador and three other people on the other side of the world?  What does that have to do with me?"

I care, M.T.

And you should as well.

Because the blatancy and the arrogance of the lie demonstrates just what this administration may be capable of in the future when elections no longer matter to them.

I fail to see how this is any different from any of the blatant lies told by the previous administration ("a mushroom cloud over American cities"), or the one before that ("I did not have sex with that woman"), or the one before that ("read my lips, no new taxes"). Why should this incident in particular merit our outrage any more than, say, the fact that more than a thousand American servicemen and women have been senselessly murdered in Afghanistan since Obama took office for no clear benefit to us? Or the murder of all these American citizens by terrifying masked government intruders looking for drugs?

The only thing that comes close to explaining the selective outrage regarding this embassy burning that I've seem from several quarters is that it derives from a sort of in-group/out-group sensitivity where the president--ultimately the leader of our in-group (The USA)--failed to prevent ostensibly peaceful members of our in-group being murdered by obviously violent members of the out-group.

There are many people who are very sensitive to these kinds of in-group/out-group dynamics, including everyone I've talked to who was outraged by this. But I guess I don't really care a lot about that, and apparently MT and many others here don't either. To us, we invoke our cold, calculating libertarian minds and say, "well it's terrible that n Americans died, but it's even more terrible that 20n Americans died over there, or that 500n foreigners were slaughtered even farther away over there,

Ultimately, I believe that the tragic deaths of people we don't know personally is typically presented to us basically for entertainment value and that bugs me.  If I lost a loved one in a tragic event the last thing I would want would be for my family's tragedy to turn into tomorrow's low-cost reality TV content (i.e., "the news").

Anyone who goes to Libya today representing the United States surely knows that they are facing a dangerous situation.  Unfortunately, bad things like this sometimes happen and we can say that Obama could have done this or that differently, but in a world with 7 billion people, many of whom live in desperate poverty and don't much like the U.S., periodic violence against high profile U.S. citizens is just a fact of life.

It's not an Obama thing.  As PS points out above, every American President has plenty of blood on his hands. 

To name a few:

Carter ordered the bungled Iranian hostage rescue

Reagan put Marines in harm's way in Lebanon and then "cut and run" after they were slaughtered by a suicide bomber

Bush I completely bungled the diplomacy leading up to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, which led to thousands and thousands of deaths associated with Gulf War I

Clinton bungled the Somalia mission and put troops in the terrible "Black Hawk Down" situation that ended so tragically

Bush II bungled the intelligence on Iraq, leading to Gulf War II, which was based on completely false pretenses

Obama foolishly continued a losing fight in Afghanistan when the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011 presented a golden opportunity to declare "mission accomplished" and begin bringing the troops home

All of these guys do this stuff.  It's just part of the job.

[Pointedstick]

That's a really great point, TennPaGa.

[Reub]

If mortal danger is the nature of the beast in the world of diplomacy, then why would the Obama administration send out numerous high ranking officials to repeatedly lie about what happened? The very fact that their lies were so easily seen through makes one either wonder about their lack of competence or what they are really covering up here. The truth must be really, really damning!

[MediumTex]

If mortal danger is the nature of the beast in the world of diplomacy, then why would the Obama administration send out numerous high ranking officials to repeatedly lie about what happened? The very fact that their lies were so easily seen through makes one either wonder about their lack of competence or what they are really covering up here. The truth must be really, really damning!

The truth is that they should have provided more security and they regretted not doing so and tried to muddy the water to cover up their own incompetence.

All politicians do this sort of thing.  It strikes me as utterly unremarkable.

The U.S. had plenty of intelligence before 9/11 to identify most of the hijackers and stop the attack, but for whatever reason didn't identify the risk before the attack occurred.  After the attack, no politician came forward and said "We blew it on this one--we could have prevented it but didn't."  Instead, what we got was "They hate us because of our freedom" and 10 years of military Keynesianism.

Politicians of all stripes do this stuff.  Politicians lie in the same way that a kitten plays with string--it's just an expression of their nature.

[doodle]

Reub,

You have kind of hijacked the topic of this thread.

Listen, you seem to have lost any sense of scale, reason, or objectivity regarding this issue. We have been lied to by every goddamn politician that ever existed in the history of this country! In many cases these lies led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans...not just one. Why are you continuing to harp on this particular case, which by all standards of political lying was minuscule?

I think that the only reasonable explanation is that your mind has been fully possessed by the demon that is Fox News. You need a Fox-ercism....and bad! Besides, if you are so worried about being lied to, you should be outraged every evening watching Fox as no one lies more than the commentators and pundits they put on that channel (with the exception of MSNBC...who are equally awful).

I could suspect deeper issues related to Obama's ethnicity as the motivation for your comments, but you seem intelligent and I don't want to go there.

Maybe you like to live with a feeling of anger, outrage, and paranoia. If that is the case I can see how one can get addicted to a news station that goes out of its way to instill that in its viewers. If you are looking for the "truth" (or at least a more accurate representation of what is going on in the world) I would suggest selling your TV alltogether. 

[Pointedstick]

I could suspect deeper issues related to Obama's ethnicity as the motivation for your comments, but you seem intelligent and I don't want to go there.

I don't think Reub is racist. I think he just really, really, really doesn't like Obama.

[MediumTex]

I could suspect deeper issues related to Obama's ethnicity as the motivation for your comments, but you seem intelligent and I don't want to go there.

I don't think Reub is racist. I think he just really, really, really doesn't like Obama.

That sounds about right to me too.

[Reub]

After all, some of my best friends have lost their birth certificates!

[doodle]

Reub,

It doesn't matter where Obama was born. He is a natural born citizen because his mother is American. So how about you birthers stop trying to change the meaning of the term "natural born citizen".

"No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

Naturalization Acts starting with the American Naturalization Act of 1790 and following naturalization acts such as those of 1855 have recognized that those "...born outside of the borders or beyond the control of the United States,...,to a US citizen shall be considered as a natural born Citizen of the United States."

Following the literal translation of the language of the Constitution and the following naturalization acts, you do not have to have been born in the United States. However, you do have to have been born to at least one parent who holds citizenship with the USA.

[Reub]

Doodle, it was a joke. You are among friends.

[doodle]

Thank goodness! Every time I hear Donald Trump rant on that I want to know if that furry creature that lives on his head has all its documents and papers squared away.

[Reub]

Do you think it's that obvious?

However, the polls, at least in this forum, heavily agree with me.

[MediumTex]

I just hope that Reub doesn't spontaneously combust between now and election day.

[Jan Van]

Sorry for another temporary hijack, but I thought this was interesting to see: 15 Photos Of Libyans Apologizing To Americans

[dualstow]

Sorry for another temporary hijack, but I thought this was interesting to see: 15 Photos Of Libyans Apologizing To Americans

Naturally, there are commenters on that page accusing someone of staging a photo-op, and I feel bad for them. I'm taking the photos and signs at face value, and I like what I see. Even if I hadn't seen them, I know they're out there.

[MediumTex]

Sorry for another temporary hijack, but I thought this was interesting to see: 15 Photos Of Libyans Apologizing To Americans

Naturally, there are commenters on that page accusing someone of staging a photo-op, and I feel bad for them. I'm taking the photos and signs at face value, and I like what I see. Even if I hadn't seen them, I know they're out there.

Based on everything I have read about Chris Stevens, I am sure that he was liked by most everyone in Libya who met him.  He seemed like a very down to earth, humble, and knowledgeable person about that part of the world who did his best to help the Libyans through a difficult time.

Sometimes people in those positions can be good people but still come across as a little arrogant.  Stevens does not strike me as having been that kind of person at all.

[Storm]

Here is an article that pretty much puts "Benghazi-gate" in the dustbin, where it belongs:



(looks like Reagan and George H.W. Bush had a pretty decent run of "people that hate our freedoms")

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... ama-romney

[Ad Orientem]

The latest Obama conspiracy... the national bacon shortage, as a precursor to his planned restoration of the Ottoman Empire.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colber ... man-empire

[Reub]

What does that graph have to do with Obama unleashing the Islamo-Fascist terrorists in Libya and Egypt with his policies and then not taking proper action to protect our ambassador despite known threats against him on the anniversary of 9/11? He is the first working US ambassador to be killed since Jimmy Carter left office.

Obama then sent out a wave of his officials to lie to the American public about it repeatedly until his lies were so obvious that he had to stop.

That is the essence of Benghazi-gate!

[smurff]

What does that graph have to do with (...)

It has to do with the fact that there have been many attacks against American diplomats, their staffs, and the buildings where they work and live, since 1968. 

Many people have been injured or died in those attacks, even if they were not diplomats.  American tendency to focus on superlatives ("the first working US ambassador to be killed since...") unfortunately means that death is the only outcome that gets attention, even though injuries of all types can be catastrophic for the injured and their families (as well as the taxpayers). 

According to the graph, the administration with the most attacks was Bush I--an administration with many issues, with its own "gate" scandals and its own posse of liars for the historians to sort out.

[Reub]

Is there a graph that shows the number of working ambassadors that have been killed? Is there even a more detailed graph showing how many lies were told to cover it up?

[Pointedstick]

Reub, I don't think we're managing to understand where you're coming from. We keep making the point that every day, many Americans are killed in far-off places, and every day the government lies to the American people about many things, but it doesn't seem like we're managing to communicate it in a way that's satisfying to you. Could you perhaps explain why this death and these lies are so objectionable? Perhaps you could explain why they're so much more objectionable than all the other deaths and lies, or at least why you've chosen to focus on these in particular? What is it that makes this such a scandal compared to, say, the three North Carolina Army National Guardsmen who were just blown up a few hours ago, or Obama's attempt to press contractors to break the law and lie to their employees about impending layoffs?