Benghazi: Attackers Used State Department Cell Phones to Call Terror Leaders

Posted by Tina

A retired U.S. Air Force Commander, Eric Stahl, spoke with Fox News recently about his role during the Benghazi attack and in the aftermath amd revealed new information:

The terrorists who attacked the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 used cell phones, seized from State Department personnel during the attacks, and U.S. spy agencies overheard them contacting more senior terrorist leaders to report on the success of the operation, multiple sources confirmed to Fox News.

The disclosure is important because it adds to the body of evidence establishing that senior U.S. officials in the Obama administration knew early on that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and not a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video that had gone awry, as the administration claimed for several weeks after the attacks

Stahl is the pilot who flew the bodies of Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty along with the wounded and survivors to Germany following the attack. He confirmed that when he landed in Germany a senior State Department official, rather than the FBI, was on the ground and first to question the CIA security officers. Major Stahl said he was never interviewed by the Accountability Review Board convened by Hillary Clinton. Apparently the board also never interviewed Clinton either.

On the one hand we have the Presidents lack of interest and on the other what looks like a loyal State Department and CIA willing to cover for Hillary Clinton. We need an independent special prosecutor to look into this.

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44 Responses to Benghazi: Attackers Used State Department Cell Phones to Call Terror Leaders

  1. Chris says:

    Tina: “The disclosure is important because it adds to the body of evidence establishing that senior U.S. officials in the Obama administration knew early on that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and not a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video that had gone awry, as the administration claimed for several weeks after the attacks”

    This is a disingenuous framing. It relies on the assumption that “spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam film” and “terrorist attack” are two mutually exclusive things. They’re not. Again, Obama called this an “act of terror” the day after it happened, and no semantic word game makes that substantially different from “terrorist attack.” Unless it’s revealed what exactly was said in those conversations then we still don’t know how much planning went into the attack; the Senate Report said that it could have been put together in less than a day. And there is plenty of evidence that the video was a motivator, or at least an excuse; several journalists on the ground in Benghazi were told by the attackers that that was their exact motivation.

  2. Tina says:

    As far as I’m concerned the truth is what is needed. the administration is pretty uncooperative when it comes to revealing what happened AND did a pi$$ poor job of investigating what happened…that CNN found Chris Stevens journal lying around after so-called investigators were there and the fact that key witnesses were not even interviewed show a pretty sloppy and apathetic attitude toward the entire episode. Therefore, within the context of what has been discovered,The disclosure is important because it adds to the body of evidence establishing that senior U.S. officials in the Obama administration knew early on that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and not a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video that had gone awry.”

    The administration made a concerted attempt to hide the actual events and lousy security and response. The American people, and certainly the family of those involved, deserve the truth from this government. If Hillary was the perpetrator of the cover story then voters need the information.

    It doesn’t matter that Obama called this an act of terror. The cause was being spun as being the fault of the video. Given the known decades old intention and goals of terrorists this fairy tale excuse is absurd!

    The problem for the administration isn’t that they didn’t say it was a terror attack; it’s that they attempted to blame a stupid video rather than the terrorists for their actions…they did it publicly, they did it blatantly, and they did it to hide the incompetence and indifference they showed before during and after the event…for political reasons. Otherwise remarks by Susan Rice and others would have put the emphasis on the terrorists and made the video a minor contributing factor that was, as Bush would have said, unhelpful!

  3. Libby says:

    ” … and U.S. spy agencies overheard them contacting more senior terrorist leaders to report on the success of the operation, ….”

    And? This analysis was made when? They reported this up the CIA chain how, when, and through how many people? This information then made it’s way to State how, when, and through how many people? There is no Batphone to the White House, you know.

    You guys are still making unreasonable conflations of very little substance, making assumptions and conclusions when you are appallingly ignorant of how shit works.

    It is so annoying.

  4. Tina says:

    I know Libby. This administration is perfect and all of the critics and witnesses are just bad people. There is nothing to see…your side is perfect….blah blah blah.

  5. Post Scripts says:

    Dewey, you bring nothing to the table when you comment, just hate speech! Please say something factual, give us something we can reply too! You’re just spouting liberal hate rhetoric absent any factual evidence. That’s a big zero Dewey, it means absolutely nothing without supportive facts. For example, “There is a reason study after study puts Fox viewers as knowing less about the facts than just about any other group.” Oh yeah, well what studies would that be? I’ve never seen them, so enlighten us, don’t just do drive by attacks.

  6. Libby says:

    “This administration is perfect and all of the critics and witnesses are just bad people.”

    For the hundred & seventy-seventh time, no. NO ONE is denying incompetence.

    But you, YOU are asserting malice, some criminal conspiracy. This we do not have to deny, because it simply is not true.

    Nothing Darrell has yet to contrive, including this, suggests, let alone proves, any such thing.

    Now … just … go away, will you.

  7. Libby says:

    Now, hold on, here. I’m no fan of Dewey’s prose, but there was nothing hateful in that post. He disagrees with you, in a somewhat disjointed manner, but still, that’s all.

    And as to the sad plight of the Fox News viewer, back in 2011 a climate change blogger named Chris Mooney put this together:

    ***

    Here are five such studies—and note that this list may be incomplete. This is just what I’ve come across so far:

    1. Iraq War. In 2003, a survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland found widespread public misperceptions about the Iraq war. For instance, many Americans believed that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had been involved in 9/11, or that it possessed weapons of mass destruction prior to the U.S. invasion. But not everyone was equally misinformed: “The extent of Americans’ misperceptions vary significantly depending on their source of news,” PIPA reported. “Those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions.” For instance, 80 % of Fox viewers held at least one of three Iraq-related misperceptions, more than a variety of other types of news consumers, and especially NPR and PBS users.

    2. Global Warming. In a late 2010 survey, Stanford University’s Jon Krosnick found that “more exposure to Fox News was associated with more rejection of many mainstream scientists’ claims about global warming, with less trust in scientists, and with more belief that ameliorating global warming would hurt the U.S. economy.” Notably, there was a 25 percentage point gap between the most frequent Fox News watchers (60 %) and those who watch no Fox news (85 %) in whether they think global warming is “caused mostly by things people do or about equally by things people do and natural causes.”

    3. Health Care. Earlier this year, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a survey on U.S. misperceptions about health care reform. The survey asked 10 questions, and compared the “high scorers”–those that answered 7 or more correct–based on their media habits. The result was that “higher shares of those who report CNN (35 percent) or MSNBC (39 percent) as their primary news source [got] 7 or more right, compared to those who report mainly watching Fox News (25 percent).”

    4. Ground Zero Mosque. In late 2010, two scholars at the Ohio State University studied public misperceptions about the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”—and in particular, the prevalence of a series of rumors depicting those seeking to build the mosque as terrorist sympathizers, anti-American, and so on. The result? “People who use Fox News believe more of the rumors we asked about and they believe them more strongly than those who do not.” Respondents reporting a “low reliance” on Fox News believed .9 rumors on average (out of 4), but for those reporting a “high reliance” on Fox News, the number increased to 1.5 out of 4.

    5. 2010 Election. Late last year, the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) once again singled out Fox in a survey about misinformation during the 2010 election. Out of 11 false claims studied in the survey, PIPA found that “almost daily” Fox News viewers were “significantly more likely than those who never watched it” to believe 9 of them, including the misperception that “most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring.”

  8. Peggy says:

    #5 Dewey: “There is a reason study after study puts Fox viewers as knowing less about the facts than just about any other group.”

    Curios if this statement had any truth to it I decided to look on the internet and found this little gym.

    “David Zurawik correctly points out that the questions were absurdly biased and, indeed, sometimes treated liberal opinion as fact.”

    Are Fox News Viewers Least Informed?:
    James Joyner – Monday, June 20, 2011

    Jon Stewart told Chris Wallace that Fox News viewers are consistently the least informed. It’s actually not true.

    PolitFact looks at a number of surveys on the subject and finds that Fox viewers do relatively well–indeed, Fox outperforms CNN and MSNBC–although not nearly as well as viewers of the Daily Show or listeners to Rush Limbaugh. But this is an artifact of selection bias, not the information quality of the programs.

    We asked Michael Dimock, Pew’s associate director for research, what he thought Pew’s data meant for Stewart’s claim. He said it’s crucial to understand that different news sources appeal to different types of people — and that highly political programming of any type attracts regular readers and viewers “who are, most likely, already highly knowledgeable prior to their exposure to those particular sources. Separating what knowledge they bring with them from what they learn while reading or watching is virtually impossible.”

    By contrast, Dimock said, for media outlets with a much broader reach — including Fox — “the average regular consumer of these sources is less informed than the more niche audiences, because these sources, by design, reach and appeal to a broader cross-section of the public. In most of our studies, the regular readers and viewers of these broad-based news sources are not significantly more or less informed than the average American, and there is no systematic pattern showing one broad-based source has a more knowledgeable audience than any other.”

    Presumably, Stewart was basing his survey on a December study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland. But David Zurawik correctly points out that the questions were absurdly biased and, indeed, sometimes treated liberal opinion as fact.”

    http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/are-fox-news-viewers-least-informed/

    While viewers were down for all networks Fox still led for the 149th straight month with more than all of the other networks combined.

    May 2014 Ratings: Fox News #1 For 149 Straight Months:

    “Fox News marked its 149th consecutive month as the most-watched cable news network in May, beating MSNBC and CNN combined in total viewers and ranking sixth among all ad-supported cable networks in both total day and primetime. The network had the top 14 shows in total viewers and the top eight shows in the demo in all of cable news. But despite its strong hold on the top spot, Fox News hit a series of 13-year lows among younger viewers this month.

    The ratings for May 2014 (Nielsen Live + Same Day data):

    ◾Primetime (Mon-Sun): 1,455,000 total viewers / 221,000 A25-54
    ◾Total Day Mon-Sun): 902,000 total viewers / 177,000 A25-54

    Fox News, like all the cable news networks, was down compared the same month last year: the network was down -27% in total viewers and -25% in the A25-54 demographic in total day and -26% and -28%, respectively, in primetime.”

    http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/may-2014-ratings-fox-news-1-for-149-straight-months_b226483

    In other words the left-leaning media are doing hit pieces in an attempt to discredit their competition by presenting biased studies as fact to the very uninformed viewers they serve.

    Worth repeating Fox News has more viewers than all the other cable news shows COMBINED. You don’t get to be #1 for 149 straight months with uninformed viewers. You get there and stay there because the viewers have learned the news will be as accurate as possible and presented in a clear and concise manner to be able to realize the difference between news and commentary. Other news channels present their news with a biased slant and very limited opposing views.

    Fox News has liberals Bob Beckel, Juan Williams, Allen Colmes, Kirsten Powers and others on various shows every day. Sure don’t see anything close on the other channels of presenting the whole story and both sides of issues.

    The question is who’s the “fool” and how many don’t have the intelligence to figure out the scam? Dewey apparently is and does.

  9. Peggy says:

    Oops, “gym” should have been gem.

  10. Chris says:

    Tina: “it adds to the body of evidence establishing that senior U.S. officials in the Obama administration knew early on that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and not a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video that had gone awry.”

    Do you believe that if you continue to repeat this false dichotomy over and over again, it will magically become something other than a false dichotomy?

    “It doesn’t matter that Obama called this an act of terror. The cause was being spun as being the fault of the video.”

    No. “They motivated by the video” does not equate to “the fault of the video.” Spot the difference.

    “The problem for the administration isn’t that they didn’t say it was a terror attack; it’s that they attempted to blame a stupid video”

    Again, no. They did not “blame” the video. They said the attackers were motivated by the video (which they very well may have been!).

    “rather than the terrorists for their actions…”

    Obama made it very clear in his UN speech that the terrorists WERE responsible for their actions, and that the only proper response to bigoted speech is more speech. You know this, because you’ve cited his speech here before; you just imposed a psychological block on every part of it that doesn’t fit your narrative.

  11. Chris says:

    Jack, here’s one study showing that FOX News viewers were less informed than others:

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2011/11/21/fox-news-viewers-uninformed-npr-listeners-not-poll-suggests/

    More important is misinformation; another study showed that FOX News viewers were much more likely to believe that there were proven links between Al Qaeda and Iraq, that weapons of mass destruction had been found there post-invasion, and that would public opinion generally favored the invasion.

    http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php

  12. Tina says:

    Libby: ” This analysis was made when?”

    The evidence comes from the horses mouths. It isn’t an “assessment” but testimony from witnesses to the events in real time. It represents evidence. Evidence is what we gather when we think something should be investigated. It appears the administration has lied, failed to provide adequate security, failed to adequately plan ahead in obvious conditions, and failed to defend/rescue our people. This is serious stuff. I know you would be screaming if this was a republican administration and you do too.

    ” This we do not have to deny, because it simply is not true.”

    I’m sorry Libby but that is bunk. Of course this administration has to answer to the people and to those tasked with asking questions and demanding answers. It comes with the territory; they are responsible for their actions or lack thereof.

    Being mad at me for discussing the issues as they break in the news won’t change a thing and, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s what we do at PS.

  13. Tina says:

    Libby at #8 and “misperceptions”.

    Perception forms opinion. If those doing these studies hold different opinions than FOX viewers, ie, they believe in consensus science, then of course the FOX viewers will be deemed not as informed (read bright).

    Studies like these are typical of the left. They are done to discredit, in this case, the most widely viewed news network on cable because it has made severe inroads in the market. They also take a shot at the right since most on the right watch FOX rather than other news outlets. The reason, of course, is those news outlets all operate from the same liberal bias. Look at the sycophantic way they covered (promoted) Obama, a man startlingly unprepared to be president.

    Liberals believe they are right about everything and smarter than everybody. It gives them a closed loop, view of reality and that is a really really dumb way to view and be in the world, but there you are.

    Thinking in lock step is not thinking at all. Instead liberals hold iron clad opinions and if you agree you are smart and if not, no.

    The studies don’t impress me much and despite our liberal friends patting themselves on the back all the time here at Post Scripts, I think we have shown we are not only aware of what is going on but more often than not pretty savvy about how things will turn out. That requires perception as well as sound thinking.

    And don’t even get me started about core values and grounding…liberals are all over the map.

  14. Tina says:

    Chris: “Do you believe that if you continue to repeat this false dichotomy over and over again, it will magically become something other than a false dichotomy?”

    Do you believe if you keep accusing me of repeating a false dichotomy it will make the accusation true?

    ““They motivated by the video” does not equate to “the fault of the video.”

    Sorry but that doesn’t wash. It might have had they not arranged for Susan Rice to repeatedly state that the attack began spontaneously in Benghazi as a result of the video and insist they did not have information that it was preplanned or premeditated. That was a lie!

    There’s testimony from several sources that refutes this claim. There’s testimony that the attack was viewed in real time and the people watching knew immediately there was no protest. Chris Stevens reported in his last correspondence that there was no protest going on. Libyan President Mohammed al-Magariaf reported it was a terror attack.

    The administration knew all of this before Rice told her story on the Sunday shows. Her statement that the spontaneous protest and video were the best or latest information they had at that time was just false…stupidly false!

    I’m not blocking a dam* thing. I am posting information that breaks in the news for discussion. I find the Presidents and Hillary’s behaviors bizarre and I suspect the decisions made on that fateful night were all politically motivated from covering for incompetence and blunders to shifting the messenger away from either Hillary or Obama to attempting to keep bad news at arms length until after the election.

    You don’t think it amounts to a hill of beans and you’ve said so. You’ve had your say and I’ve had mine.

    I trust the people to figure it out for themselves. I have to tell you, it doesn’t look good and that has nothing to do with me.

    It was a direct insult to the Libyan president. It was a lie told to the families of the dead.

  15. Tina says:

    In 2006 Pew did a study that Rush cited. Fox News viewers had less education, were slightly older, but scored only slightly less on being knowledgable than those who watched CNN. Since then Fox has taken a lot of market share from all of the alphabet channels so I imagine the stats have changed since then. The top performers were fairly balanced between left and right news outlets and viewers. Weekly Standard (right) and New Republic (left) were at the top followed by Rush Limbaugh. NPR listeners were 1% point higher in education but 9% points higher in knowledge. (see scoring posted at link)

    In 2009 Politics Daily reported on another PEW study:

    A poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press casts more doubt on the wisdom of the Democrats’ coordinated strategy to tie elected Republicans to radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. When it comes to American political knowledge, Limbuagh’s audience is better informed than those of most mainstream media news outlets.

    The poll tested the audiences of a host of news magazines, radio and television shows, and newspapers on three basic political questions: the majority party in the House of Representatives; the name of the Secretary of State; and the identity of the Prime Minister of Great Britain. On the American political questions, Limbaugh’s radio audience scored the highest, in a virtual tie with viewers of fellow conservative talker Sean Hannity’s Fox News show Hannity and Colmes audience. Eighty-three percent of Limbaugh listeners correctly identified the Democrats as being in control of the House and seventy-one percent were able to correctly name the Secretary of State. On all three questions combined, readers of The New Yorker and The Atlantic fared best. But Limbaugh’s audience easily outperformed those of all three major networks’ nightly news programs, readers of community and daily newspapers, as well as viewers of the news networks CNN, Fox News, C-SPAN, CNBC, and MSNBC.

    In 2012 Daily Caller reported on a PEW survey:

    Yet another new survey shows that Republican supporters know more about politics and political history than Democrats.

    On eight of 13 questions about politics, Republicans outscored Democrats by an average of 18 percentage points, according to a new Pew survey titled “Partisan Differences in Knowledge.”

    The Pew survey adds to a wave of surveys and studies showing that GOP-sympathizers are better informed, more intellectually consistent, more open-minded, more empathetic and more receptive to criticism than their fellow Americans who support the Democratic Party.

    “Republicans fare substantially better than Democrats on several questions in the survey, as is typically the case in surveys about political knowledge,” said the study, which noted that Democrats outscored Republicans on five questions by an average of 4.6 percent.

    The widest partisan gap in the survey came in at 30 points when only 46 percent of Democrats — but 76 percent of Republicans —- correctly described the GOP as “the party generally more supportive of reducing the size of federal government.”

    The widest difference that favored Democrats was only 8 percent, when 59 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats recognized the liberal party as “more [supportive] of reducing the defense budget.”

    The survey quizzed 1,000 people, including 239 Republicans and 334 Democrats.

    However, Pew’s data suggests that the Democrats’ low average rating likely is a consequence of its bipolar political coalition, which combines well-credentialed post-graduate progressives who score well in quizzes with a much larger number of poorly educated supporters, who score badly.

    Professor Bainbridge cites Daniel Kline of the WSJ:

    Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

    Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents’ (all American adults) answers to eight survey questions about basic economics. We also asked the respondents about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian.

    Here’s a NYT chart listing politics by profession that shows the idea that conservatives aren’t smart or informed is nonsense! More information here.

    Isn’t this a bit silly anyway?

  16. Peggy says:

    Yes. it’s silly, but I did find it interesting to know democrats’ low score on economic questions explains their lack of understanding we can’t spend and borrow ourselves into a balanced budget, solvent nation or improved living conditions.

    It also verified the liberals on PS and in the media will continue to promote falsehoods to cover up their own shortcomings and the major mistakes made by this administration’s failures.

    Everyone has heard about the IRS now saying they can’t provide Lerner’s emails for 2009 to 2011 from her and outside agencies like the WH and Treasury, but they still have them for that same time period for those she send to other IRS personnel.

    Does this administration really believe anyone will believe this lie? We all know our emails are out there and so are hers. And we know NSA has all of her email metadata, which will give us a whole picture of that time.

    One needs to only look at the dumb statements said and stupid decisions made to know what party is better informed and knowledgeable on issues important to our country and it’s solvent future.

    Oh yeah, one more thing. Did you all hear that one of the five terrorist Obama let go has direct ties with the terrorist that flew the planes into the Twin Towers? It’s really heartbreaking seeing the daughter of one of those killed that day say she can’t believe her own president let one of the men responsible for her dad’s death go free.

    Every week another scandal comes out validating just how uninformed this administration is and the lengths it will go to violate our constitution, the oath they took to uphold it and the rights of the people they are supposed to represent.

  17. Chris says:

    Tina, it IS true. You said this:

    “it adds to the body of evidence establishing that senior U.S. officials in the Obama administration knew early on that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and not a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video that had gone awry.”

    That is a textbook example of a false dichotomy. The attack could have been a terrorist attack AND a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video. The two are not mutually exclusive. If you don’t understand that this is a false dichotomy, that is because you don’t understand what a false dichotomy is.

    “Sorry but that doesn’t wash. It might have had they not arranged for Susan Rice to repeatedly state that the attack began spontaneously in Benghazi as a result of the video and insist they did not have information that it was preplanned or premeditated. That was a lie!”

    No, it was not a lie. The CIA said the exact same thing in their talking points before the White House ever saw them. The CIA linked the attack to the protests in Cairo, which were motivated by the video. Several journalists in Benghazi also reported the same thing. And as of the time of the Senate Report, our intelligence community STILL did not know whether or not the attack was planned more than a day in advance.

    You know all this. You have seen the documents which prove your accusations false. But you just. Keep. Making. Them.

    You are not an honest or rational person.

    “There’s testimony from several sources that refutes this claim.”

    There was also testimony from several sources that supported it. Why do you feel more qualified than CIA analysts and government officials to judge which evidence was best at the time? It’s clear that there was conflicting information and that the White House probably jumped the gun by going with the official CIA line before waiting until all the facts came out. You couldn’t publish this as a political conspiracy theory because it would be too dull. Your incessant harping on this mistake, as if it’s “worse than Watergate” your words, is ridiculous. Especially when you ignore a much, much larger intelligence failure under the previous administration that led to a needless war and thousands dead.

    “There’s testimony that the attack was viewed in real time”

    No, there isn’t. This is such an old, tired Benghazi lie that it discredits basically your entire opinion on this issue. Despite your obsession with the conspiracy theories, you really have not kept up with this story at all; you have only managed to collect and store every bit of data that supports your narrative while discarding the rest. You’re not interested in the truth, you’re interested in what you want to hear.

    http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/benghazi.asp

  18. Peggy says:

    Tina you’re right and Chris is wrong. Here is Charlene Lamb’s testimony about the night of the attack. She watched it live and a recording of it, therefore, must exist.

    Charlene Lamb Deputy Asst Secretary Of International Affairs Watched Take Down Of Benghazi In Real Time:

    “When the attack began, a Diplomatic Security agent working in the Tactical Operations Center immediately activated the Imminent Danger Notification System and made an emergency announcement over the PA. Based on our security protocols, he also alerted the annex U.S. quick reaction security team stationed nearby, the Libyan 17th February Brigade, Embassy Tripoli, and the Diplomatic Security Command Center in Washington. From that point on, I could follow what was happening in almost real-time.”

    Those are the words of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb from her testimony before House Oversight Committee, Washington, D.C.on October 10, 2012.

    Once these words were uttered there should have been a stunned silence followed by an explosion of questions filled with outrage and disbelief, followed by more yelling and righteous indignation; sadly there was none.

    Nowhere inside the Obama administration, the world press, radio, television and blogosphere, anywhere did “we” get what was just said and admitted. When Ms. Lamb testified in front of Congressman Issa’s committee she was opening a window into the failed emergency notification and reaction system that has been in existence for decades in the United States and refined after 11 years of continuous war.

    Because of the terror attacks of 9/11, our government has worked at interoperability within our vast intelligence servicers: connecting the dots.

    It is standard operating procedure for all of the agencies to be “tuned” in to what is happening and being reported especially on the anniversary of 9/11 and specifically when a United States Consulate is being burned and Americans are being butchered.

    Ms. Lamb, who was at the State Department Operations Center in Washington, D.C. and the entire United States government, military, intelligence and counter-terrorism centers were listening in real time to a six-hour battle.”

    http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2012/10/charlene-lamb-deputy-asst-secretary-of-international-affairs-watched-take-down-of-benghazi-in-real-time-2509364.html

    The same information is available on several other links too.

  19. Tina says:

    Chris I’m not stupid, of course it’s possible. I am not saying that the video had nothing to do with the feelings of the terrorists. I have no way of knowing (nor do you, or Hillary, or Rice, or Obama) what was in the minds and hearts of the terrorists!

    What we do have is evidence that there was NO PROTEST.

    IF there was no protest, then the scenario that a protest became a “spontaneous attack” is a fabrication.

    The question is, why did the administration choose to lie so blatantly to the American people and the families of the victims. And why did the administration make such a big public show of arresting the maker of the video as if the video was the direct and obvious cause? And why in hell did the administration take the opportunity to apologize for the video as if it were the cause? (As if the video were worse than the murderous acts of the terrorists)

    It is you who refuse to even entertain the possibility that this administration did it because they didn’t want the truth about their egregious failures prior to, during, and after the attack to be the headlines discussed right before the election. You refuse to entertain the idea that the Obama administration and the CIA also did what they did to cover for Hillary knowing she wants the presidency and this would look bad on her resume.

    That is a very real possibility, Chris.

    “Why do you feel more qualified than CIA analysts and government officials to judge which evidence was best at the time?”

    Why have you decided that the only reliable “government officials” are the ones who are friends of Hillary, Obama, and Rice? Why do you automatically dismiss the testimony of low level people who were on the ground who have nothing to gain or lose by telling what they know? Why do you dismiss the last telephone communication from Chris Stevens?

    Why are you not curious?

    “No, it was not a lie”

    Susan Rice was on TV many days after the event. The video and protest were NOT the only information they had. In fact they created a false dichotomy when Susan Rice was sent out to place the blame on the video and Obama later said they didn’t didn’t have enough evidence to say for sure. If they didn’t have enough evidence to say for sure then why trot out Rice with a story meant to convince the public?

    Chris this stinks to high heaven and you are just too partisan, not to mention angry at me, to relent.

    “It’s clear that there was conflicting information and that the White House probably jumped the gun by going with the official CIA line before waiting until all the facts came out.”

    Jumped the gun? The Sunday talk shows don’t coordinate with each other to get the same guest on Sunday…the administration arranged for Rice to be on ALL of them for the purpose of blaming the video. The move was calculated and strategic! There was no compelling reason for her to do that; the president said so himself later. think for once in your life…why would he send her out there to push the video/protest?

    “No, there isn’t.”

    Well if it’s true the President wasn’t watching in real time why the hell wasn’t he? He IS the commander-in-Chief and our nation was under attack! There is testimony that someone was watching in “near real time”…where was the President:

    Bloomberg:

    The U.S. State Department monitored the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, “in almost real-time,” according to an official who oversees diplomatic security.

    Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary of state for international programs in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, said a security agent activated a danger-notification system as the attack began shortly before 10 p.m. local time on Sept. 11.

    “From that point on, I could follow what was happening in almost real time,” Lamb said in written testimony prepared for a hearing today by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has been investigating the attack and whether security was adequate.

    State Department officials said yesterday they had never concluded the attack grew out of a protest over a video depicting the Prophet Muhammad, as some Obama administration officials had said last month. The officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said there had been no protest at the U.S. consulate that day and the attack came suddenly.

    Our readers have watched events unfold and it isn’t just right wing nuts that have questions and it isn’t just Post Scripts writing about this.

    Huffington Post:

    WASHINGTON — Political considerations influenced the talking points that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used five days after the deadly Sept. 11 assault in Benghazi, Libya, with State Department and other senior administration officials asking that references to terror groups and prior warnings be deleted, according to department emails.

    The latest disclosures Friday raised new questions about whether the Obama administration tried to play down any terrorist factor in the attack on a diplomatic compound just weeks before the November presidential election. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed when insurgents struck the U.S. mission in two nighttime attacks. …

    Numerous agencies had engaged in an email discussion about the talking points that would be provided to members of Congress and to Rice for their public comments. In one email, then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland worried about the effect of openly discussing earlier warnings about the dangers of Islamic extremists in Benghazi.

    Nuland’s email said such revelations “could be abused by members of Congress to beat the State Department for not paying attention to (central intelligence) agency warnings,” according to a congressional official who reviewed the 100 pages of emails.

    The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the emails that still have not been released.

    The final talking points that weekend reflected the work of several government agencies – CIA, FBI, State Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence – apparently determined to cast themselves in the best light as the investigation was just getting underway.

    A scathing independent report in December found that “systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels” of the State Department meant that security was “inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.” …

    Following Capitol Hill briefings in the days after the attack, members of Congress asked the CIA for talking points to explain the assault, and the CIA under the direction of David Petraeus put together an assessment.

    It said Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qaida took part in the attack, cited reports linking the attack to the group Ansar al-Sharia, mentioned the experience of Libyan fighters and referred to previous warnings of threats in Benghazi.

    The reference to al-Sharia was deleted, but Nuland wrote later that night that changes she had seen “don’t resolve all my issues and those of my building leadership, they are consulting with NSS,” a reference to the National Security staff within the White House.

    She also wrote that she had serious concerns about giving information to members of Congress “to start making assertions to the media that we ourselves are not making because we don’t want to prejudice the investigation.”

    Senior administration officials, including Jake Sullivan, deputy chief of staff at the State Department, and Ben Rhodes, the White House deputy national security adviser, met that Saturday morning to discuss the talking points.

    Following the meeting, Deputy CIA Director Mike Morell produced a final set of talking points that deleted mentions of al-Qaida, the experience of fighters in Libya and Islamic extremists.

    Politico:

    Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell, who took the blame for editing the Obama administration’s Benghazi talking points, announced his retirement Wednesday.

    Morell, a 33-year CIA veteran, leaves a month after the White House released emails showing he was the one who removed al-Qaeda references from the much-debated talking points, which United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice later delivered on the Sunday talk shows.

    CIA Director John Brennan said the exit was so Morell could “retire to spend more time with his family and to pursue other professional opportunities.”

    Morell explicitly tried to tamp down on speculation about the cause.

    “Whenever someone involved in the rough and tumble of Washington decides to move on, there is speculation in various quarters about the ‘real reason,’” he said in a statement. “But when I say that it is time for my family, nothing could be more real than that.” …

    Morell, 54, ran the day-to-day operations of the CIA under the agency’s high-profile former director, former Army Gen. David Petraeus. While Morell rankled some in the Obama administration for his role in crafting the early talking points about the Benghazi attack, it was him and not Petraeus who was involved in negotiating what Rice said.

    Delivering those talking points would eventually derail Rice’s chances to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

    The White House later released e-mail traffic showing the inter-agency editing of the talking points that showed it was Morell — responding to concerns from the State Department — who eliminated references to al-Qaeda from the talking points.

    An article in the Daily Mail tell us where Morell went to work after leaving his government position with the CIA:

    Beacon Global Strategies, Morell’s employer, is a ten-person firm whose co-founders include Philippe Reines, a senior counselor to Mrs. Clinton when she ran the State Department. Reines is still her spokesman, serving in that capacity in what New York magazine calls ‘a second full-time job.’

    ‘And if she runs again – he claims he doesn’t know if she will – Reines will be onboard,’ the magazine concluded in February.

    Meaning that Morell, as a senior official at Beacon, will also likely be part of the Clinton spin machine.

    WSJ:

    The acting CIA director’s changes to the talking points did indeed enable the blame-it-on-the-video fiction, which served the interest of a president seeking re-election based in part on having put al Qaeda on the run, although in fairness it is not clear that was Mr. Morell’s motive. Thus he edited out a description of the warnings that the CIA had provided to the State Department of earlier terrorist attacks on the British embassy and on the Red Cross that caused them to withdraw their personnel, and a description of an attack that blew a hole in the U.S.’s own installation—events that might have suggested that Sept. 11, 2012, was not an isolated event.

    Mr. Morell said he did the revising because it would have looked unseemly for the CIA to appear to be pounding its chest and blaming the State Department.

    He substituted “demonstration” for “attack” despite the direct statement by the CIA’s Libya station chief in Tripoli that there was no demonstration; Mr. Morell changed “terrorist” to “extremist.” His explanation is that he relied on the CIA’s analysts, who he said had comprehensive information available to them, rather than on the CIA’s station chief, who relied on the testimony of eyewitnesses who arrived soon after the attack started. He used the term “extremist” because that’s what CIA analysts call terrorists.

    Here it is actually possible that Mr. Morell fell victim to a bifurcated culture within the CIA. On one side is the directorate of operations, made up of those who do things, from gathering information to carrying out covert activities. On the other is a directorate of intelligence staffed by analysts who evaluate the information gathered by the directorate of operations and others. Mr. Morell spent his career in the directorate of intelligence. By his own account, when faced with a contradiction between what people on the ground were saying and what analysts were saying, his view was that unless the analysts—whom he called “my analysts”—changed their view, he would go with their version, even though they relied in large measure on local press reports. (emphasis mine)

    There was, as it happens, other information available. A private company, Agincourt Solutions, had followed the Twitter, TWTR +0.30% Facebook FB +0.33% and other social media in the vicinity of the U.S. installation attacked in Benghazi. The company found no evidence of a “demonstration.” There were video cameras trained on the front gate of the consulate that showed no demonstration. Days before the attack, al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri had been calling for an attack to avenge the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi, a senior al Qaeda member who was, as his name suggests, a Libyan. And Sept. 11 is a date of highly symbolic value to people who set great store by symbols.

    The last two data points were certainly available to the CIA analysts, and the camera feed should have been. But all this was discounted, apparently in favor of their consensus view that the attack at Benghazi had started with a demonstration that drew inspiration from violence inflicted on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo—allegedly as part of a protest against the video.

    That consensus about what happened in Cairo, which Mr. Morell repeated in his House testimony, is just as flawed as the conclusions initially drawn about Benghazi. The Cairo violence was organized by Zawahiri’s brother and ended with the hoisting of the al Qaeda black flag over our embassy.

    To be sure, after the attack Mr. Morell pointed out to White House officials during a secure video teleconference on Sept. 15 that the station chief disputed the analysts’ conclusion that there had been a demonstration in Benghazi. That objection might have been sobering if the disclosure of the analysts’ conclusion had taken place in a setting where the agency was performing its usual task of briefing policy makers who would then take a decision. And Mr. Morell seemed surprised, in this testimony, that the analysts’ views were taken public. Yet the CIA was asked soon after the attack by the White House to help draft “talking points,” which should have tipped him off that some extramural talking was planned.

    Of course, neither Mr. Morell nor the directorate of intelligence is responsible for where the administration took the narrative, which included both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama invoking the YouTube video over the caskets of the four slain Americans when they arrived in this country. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton told the grieving families that the producer of the video would feel the weight of the law. It was one promise they kept: Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was arrested in the middle of the night in the glare of TV lights for a probation violation—the only arrest thus far growing out of the Benghazi attack, even though the identity and whereabouts of the principal suspects, one of whom is an alumnus of Guantanamo Bay, have long been known.

    FOX News:

    Bill Cowan, a Fox News military analyst who spent more than two decades working with the intelligence agencies, said his former colleagues were alarmed by Morell’s testimony, especially his statement that if he wanted the CIA’s best judgment he would go to the analysts in Washington rather than to the agency’s top operatives in the field.

    “I have a lot of friends inside and outside the agency who are absolutely incensed that Morell would take the word…of analysts in Washington DC over the chief of station,” Cowan said. “I believe his testimony was a real slam to the men and women serving out there, around the world, in the CIA who are really putting their lives on the line…those people really feel like they’ve been betrayed – that their work maybe doesn’t matter quite as much as his personal ambitions do.”

    Morell confirmed in Wednesday testimony that he reviewed, but ultimately dismissed, the reporting of the intelligence community’s top officer on the ground in Libya, the Chief of Station, who reported throughout the first week after the attack there was no protest that night.

    The story is old and tired only because there are so many like you who continue to push the “nothing to see” narrative when clearly there is and you should be demanding the truth from Hillary and Obama!

    You aren’t interested in the truth, Chris; it is you who dismisses data and testimony that doesn’t exonerate the administration.

    I don’t pretend to know everything; I do have a lot of unanswered questions…and I am not alone.

    Doug Schoen is a Democrat and a political adviser and pollster:

    Whether or not the mismanagement of the tragedy–both before and after the attack–is an impeachable offense for President Obama, I believe that the facts and sound bites we have clearly indicate that while the administration’s maneuvering may not have been sinister in its aims, the Obama White House was definitely trying to mislead the American public. Senior State Department Diplomat Gregory Hick’s effective demotion is further evidence of this fact. Hicks was punished for speaking out against official policy–his deeply negative performance review in the wake of his critical (and vocal) assessment of the response to the Benghazi attack cannot be a coincidence.

    Indeed, both the administration’s statements in the wake of the attack–the shift from “act of terror” to Jay Carney’s September 13th statement that “the protests we’re seeing around the region are in reaction to this movie”–and the erasure of the lines in Susan Rice’s talking points that discussed the CIA’s reports on the threat from Al Qaeda-linked extremists in Benghazi, months before the attack, make the State Department and the Obama administration’s goal quite clear–to avoid inconvenient questions about the responsiveness of government agencies to reports of a threat before the attack, and, it follows, potentially fatal negligence on the part of those involved.

    Obama has said that the focus on these events is a sideshow–it’s clearly not a sideshow.

    Benghazi may not be “Obama’s Watergate,” as Senator Lindsay Graham has called it, but what we have is an administration that is adrift and out of control, with more and more unanswered questions. The White House has been caught not telling the full story, and modifying the narrative for political ends. On November 28th, 2012 White House spokesperson Jay Carney stated that the State Department had only changed one word of Susan Rice’s talking points–we now know this to be false. We also know that within hours of the attack, the White House, the State Department and the FBI received emails saying that an Islamic group had claimed credit–even going as far as to identify Ansar al-Sharia as the group.

    This epidemic of dishonestly only raises more questions. The White House, the State Department, and any additional officials involved have committed a serious breach of trust with regard to the American people, and moreover, their actions are an insult to the American citizens who died in Libya that night, on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

    With controversy raging over the Justice Department’s monitoring of the telephone calls of AP reporters, and more and more revelations about the nature and extent of the IRS exercising undo scrutiny over the tax returns of conservative groups, including, but not limited to, the Tea Party and Patriot groups, the Obama administration has not only a credibility problem, but a problem about the substance and nature of their conduct and behavior.

    Pull your head out Chris.

  20. Peggy says:

    Bill Whittle: Why Benghazi Matters: Breakdown of Bogus Memes, Deflections, Deception, Lies, Screw Ups & Cover-Ups

    http://www.ijreview.com/2014/06/147155-benghazi-matters-breakdown-bogus-memes-deflections-deception-lies-screw-ups-cover-ups/

  21. Pete says:

    @ #6 Post Scripts

    Okay…I’ve read Dewey’s response to this topic three times and it clearly does not include any “hate speech.” I’ve got to call out Post Scripts on this because for quite some time Pie, Toby, Tina, Chris, and Libby (I’m sure there have been others) have been at each other’s throats with blatant name calling. Post Scripts has not, to my recollection, chastised their words, so to do so with Dewey is unjust and wrong. If Post Scripts has reprimanded prior posts for “hate speech” I humbly apologize for this missive.

    Like Libby, I too have a difficult time following much of what Dewey has to say or ask (Sometimes deciphering a San Francisco bus schedule is easier, but usually I can find his point somewhere. That said, I appreciate Post Scripts allowing Dewey to post his thoughts on your blog.

    Finally, didn’t Post Scripts write something about being a friendlier, more tolerant and open discussion forum back at the start of the New Year? If you did…you have failed to meet your goal.

    P.S. The Benghazi topic is old…don’t we have bigger fish to fry?

  22. Pete says:

    Did you delete my post?

  23. Pete says:

    LOL…there it is. I’m blaming Al Gore for creating internet problems!

  24. Tina says:

    Pete I’m sure Jack will respond to you as soon as he’s able.

    We don’t generally delete any comments unless a person uses very bad language or issues continuous derogatory remarks with the intent to damage and without specifics.

    Dewey doesn’t just insult people occasionally out of frustration. From my perspective his only reason for being here is to insult and demean not only us but others like the entire FOX News staff and the Koch brothers. He rarely offers information or even opinion. His posts are more like left wing soundbites fired in sequence at random. It’s perfectly within his right to hate the Koch’s and think they are involved in a conspiracy to gobble up all the wealth and whatever else he imagines. I have attempted to engage Dewey by asking him specific question in the last few weeks. He has responded to none of them.

    I do my best to remain civil and usually don’t get nasty until someone kicks me in the teeth. I used to allow others to treat me that way as a conservative Republican and just walk away but I have chosen consciously to fight back with equal measure.

    The Benghazi “deal” is not old as long as the administration is refusing to cooperate with the Congress. It is also part of a pretty serious package of failures and possibly illegal or unconstitutional actions involving not only the President and his staff but several governmental departments. If you find it boring the best thing to do is avoid the posts involving Benghazi, no?

    What issue or subject would you like to see discussed on Post Scripts?

    I hope you will stick around Pete, It’s always fun to get a different perspective. I promise i will treat you with respect as long as you do the same with me. Deal?

    Finally, are all of your comments now posted?

  25. Jack from Post Scripts says:

    #7 Libby and #23 Pete, re hate speech.

    Libby and Pete you’re right in the context of what Dewey just said. It wasn’t that bad, although it didn’t have any supportive facts we could considered. However, please understand I’ve been dealing with Dewey for quite awhile and he’s pushed a whole lot of buttons around here and that is the context in which I was referring. That and Dewey likes to use the phrase hate speech when talking about Tea Party people, et al. It was kinda a right back at ya thing…but not really warranted in this case. (My bad!)

    In the past we’ve asked commenters until we were blue in the face to please, please, please, try and be respectful, well, obviously that didn’t work. So after a long time of trying edit out stuff I guess I got fed up and just let the words fly and I shouldn’t have done that. Set a bad example. That’s my mistake and I’ll try to do better. But, try to understand I have a real problem with censorship, so it has to be pretty raunchy materiel before I will snip it and that gives folks a wide latitude to be snarky if they are so inclined.

    Tina and I have never backed away from comments that are critical of us, PS or our positions and we never will. However, we frequently fire right back! It’s all part of the blog scene, but our real mission is to exchange information that is helpful to forming a balanced, well considered position.

    Pete, thank you for joining us. We look forward to many more of your comments on anything you wish to talk about!

  26. Peggy says:

    Pete, no way is Benghazi over. Did you hear the new information that came out just yesterday about the terrorist used the cell phone left at the burned out facility to call their terrorist leaders to tell them the attack had worked, and this administration knew the phones had been used? Did you hear about this over the past almost two year, cuz I sure didn’t?

    Drip..drip..drip. The information is not being given over freely. And until it is Benghazi will not be over. Obama won’t be in office forever and the Dems won’t be in control of the Senate either some day.

    The truth will come out one way or the other.

  27. Pete says:

    Jack,
    I completely understand the frustration with Dewey.

    What I like about PS is that most topic respondents view issues in black or white. I’m more of a shades of grey type of guy. I enjoy reading all of the posts and though rarely do they change my mind on a given issue, I like to read both sides of an issue. We’re all bias to some degree, but I try not to be when it comes to politics and current events. Thanks for your continued contribution to our right to freedom of speech. Now, If we could just get more people to be involved in local, state and federal processes.

    Take care,
    Pete

  28. Pete says:

    Peggy,

    Benghazi is so far down on my list of issues that face our United States that it’s not on my radar. My concerns are: 1. Economic (Global, National and Local) 2. The geopolitics of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Russia, China, North Korea and other global entities. 3. Health care and how we as a nation will respond to the common good of our people. 4. The education of our children.

    Benghazi is very low my list of priorities. I understand that it rates highly for you and that’s fine, but I just don’t have a dog this fight. In the not too distant future we will have a new president, democratic or republican, and in my view Benghazi will have gone the way of the birther debacle. Fight if you wish, but I see it as (in the long run) a waste of taxpayer dollars. I’m focused on the big picture and not what I see as a footnote in the annals of our history.

    Have a wonderful week,
    Pete

  29. Tina says:

    At #30 Pete

    Pete makes an interesting comment that’s probably true for many people in America:

    I just don’t have a dog this fight (Benghazi). In the not too distant future we will have a new president, democratic or republican, and in my view Benghazi will have gone the way of the birther debacle.

    He’s right about the changing of the guard. It’s inevitable that we will soon have a new president due to the two term limit on the presidency.

    I don’t agree with the apathetic approach he takes. The way a president comports himself in office matters and I don’t agree we should just shrug and let failures, lies, and deceptions go.

    The President and his cabinet are not above the law. No one in government is or should be and when people are dead due to incompetence, when rights have been violated, the people should have recourse to get to the truth.

    Benghazi isn’t even remotely like the birther issue, which for me was a point of interest only in the entertainment sense. What if, years from now, we discover the long form birth certificate we were shown was indeed altered. Will it matter? Not one whit. It will become a question on a quiz show. On the other hand as citizens we should care when our Commander-in-Chief is not taking his responsibilities seriously or is using the power of his office politically or against private citiznes. We should care enough to hold our elected leader to account.

    It looks like the entire operation in Benghazi was on the order of a fly by night mission with loose goals and little, if any, planning or oversight. Either that or a poorly planned secret mission of dubious intent. It appears that State Department failures were epic.

    What possible excuse can there be for not having tight security and an exit plan for the people serving our nation in a hot bed of radical terrorist activity? The fact that we didn’t is particularly troubling given full knowledge of recent attacks (including an attack on the Red Cross), the British evacuation, black flags flying in the vicinity, and considering the approach of a 911 anniversary.

    This failure isn’t a result of choosing to take the wrong course. That type of mistake, as regrettable as they can be, is to be expected since no President is perfect. But a pattern of failure to lead, to take responsibility for failures, to knowingly deceive and cover up, to use government agencies against citizens for political purposes, to legislate without Congress, to ignore existing law, and to fail to keep the people informed and to admit the truth when trouble arises is not acceptable.

    An apathetic citizenry is an enabling citizenry.

    As citizens we have a responsibility to be aware and to hold our leaders accountable. We have a responsibility to learn from history so we can make better choices in future. We can’t do that if we are poorly informed and apathetic.

    We bring the latest information available to our readers so we can all discuss it and at least attempt to learn from each other. We welcome people with differing opinions and views because they give everyone the opportunity to think beyond their own understanding.

    Some think that our purpose in following Benghazi and other issues is to beat up on the President. I remind them they did a lot of beating on the last president and wonder what the complaining is about. We let them express themselves. We gave them the opportunity to post their own articles to the front page. Much worse to me than the natural contentions that come when people have strong opinions is the notion that when your guy is in office we should all take a hands off, cheer leading stance.

  30. Peggy says:

    I don’t agree with Pete who thinks he doesn’t have a dog in the Benghazi fight. We all do, because of the current president’s involvement in it and because the Sec. of State in charge of this whole mess wants to be our next president. If she gets into the WH we’ll just have more horrible decisions being made by incompetent people who will tell more lies to pass off cover ups for even more mistakes no one will be held accountable for.

    Obama is getting away with destroying this country we don’t need another incompetent liar to throw the last shovel full on it.

    If the birth certificate issue does turn out to be a fake I have one question. If Obama was not eligible to be president what happens to all of the laws Congress passed and he signed? Are they still laws or are they null and void? If he broke the law and wasn’t eligible to hold the office in the first place what happens? We’d have one mell of a hess on our hands is the way I see it.

  31. Libby says:

    Pete: “The Benghazi topic is old…don’t we have bigger fish to fry?”

    Think “Whitewater”. It’s all they’ve got, and they’ll never let it go.

    Tina: “…it adds to the body of evidence establishing that senior U.S. officials in the Obama administration knew early on that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and not a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video that had gone awry.”

    No, it doesn’t. And even if it did … so what? We’ve already admitted that the administration was not on the ball here … so what more are you after?

  32. Tina says:

    Dewey: “Hilary while probably the most qualified by actual experience”

    What experience would that be? She was first lady twice and as such spent most of her time trying to keep bimbos from erupting; she did nothing in the Senate, She did nothing in the state Department. It’s an impressive resume only to those who think titles are significant and accomplishment a footnote.

    “find independent candidates.”

    Like?

  33. Tina says:

    Libby: “…so what? We’ve already admitted that the administration was not on the ball here … so what more are you after?”

    You may have admitted it. The man, his administration, Hillary, and your party have not…and will not. It is up to people like us to keep this alive since the left media (hacks all), like you, is uninterested in justice or holding the President accountable.

    And don’t play possum with me. You are a fanatic when it comes to this type of failure if the people involved have “R” behind their names.

    In neither Watergate nor Whitewater did anyone die. (Well not sure about whitewater; those Arkansans are a bit hillbilly old school.) But having said that the casual way you dismiss this is pathetic, even for you.

  34. Pete says:

    I only wish that some of our wonderful American citizens had put as much energy into investigating the evidence of going to war with Iraq as they do Benghazi. Benghazi is a tree within a forest of forests and Colin Powell’s presentation, justifying the need to go to war with Iraq, to the United Nations was an entire forest being clear-cut. Some citizens don’t see the forest for the trees. Too bad Colin Powell’s career ended with that speech; he was a good man screwed over by an overzealous Administration.

  35. Libby says:

    “You may have admitted it. The man, his administration, Hillary, and your party have not… .”

    Yes, they have. Where do you think I got this information?

    You still haven’t said … what more do you want? Resignations? I do believe that the pertinent people at State have been “re-assigned”, as the euphemism goes. And everybody’s on their toes now.

    What more do you want?

  36. Libby says:

    “It is up to people like us to keep this alive since the left media (hacks all), like you, is uninterested in justice or holding the President accountable.”

    Oh, that’s not a precedent you want to set … lest a certain former President gets convicted of committing the nation to a fruitless war on false pretenses. We’ve got a lot more hard evidence on that point than you will ever have.

  37. Tina says:

    Libby: “Oh, that’s not a precedent you want to set … lest a certain former President gets convicted of committing the nation to a fruitless war on false pretenses.”

    Au contraire! I’m not at all concerned.

    “We’ve got a lot more hard evidence on that point than you will ever have.”

    I wouldn’t be so sure about that if I were you,but then, I don’t live in a liberal bubble.

  38. Tina says:

    Libby: “And everybody’s on their toes now.”

    No, people are reassigned to give the impression that “everybody is on their toes” and to try to tamp down the narrative.

    See Libby I remember very well how you and your lefty pals ragged on the former President and did everything in your power to undermine his presidency. You were relentless. I’m just taking my cue from you. Even after he’s gone five and a half years you cannot resist trying to destroy.

    Resignation would be good except then we would have the hapless Joe running the country. No, he will probably stay and play a lot of golf while Valerie runs the show. I hope we can hold on. I hope we aren’t hit with another horrendous terrorist attack.

    What I want is for the people of the United States to wake up and be aware of the shenanigans of this lawless administration. What I want is a President next time that is up to the task and who cares about our Constitution and respects the rule of law. I want our country to work again. I want our citizens to jobs again and opportunities to invest and to save for their own futures. I want someone leading the country that knows what the heck to do, who chooses capable people, and who respects our allies.

  39. Peggy says:

    #38 Pete, The reason some of us are more interested in find out the truth on Benghazi is our involvement in the Iraq war based on the lies about the WMDs has already been explained. Guess since it wasn’t covered widely in the media you missed it. Remember Congress voted to go to war based on the false information, which included a bunch of Democrats who are denouncing their own actions today.
    ‘Curveball,’ Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, Iraqi Informant: I’m Proud My WMD Lies Led To Iraq War:

    “LONDON — An Iraqi man whose testimony the United States used as a key evidence to build a case for war in Iraq says he is proud that he lied about his country developing mobile biological warfare labs.

    The Guardian newspaper published an interview Wednesday with Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, who has been identified as the informer called “Curveball,” whose claims about weapon labs formed part of then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the U.N. Security Council in 2003, shortly before the war began.

    The Guardian quoted al-Janabi as saying: “I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that.”

    Although some intelligence agents were skeptical of Curveball’s story, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee reported in 2004 that the Central Intelligence Agency “withheld important information about Curveball’s reliability” from analysts dealing with the case.”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/16/curveball-rafid-ahmed-alw_n_824175.html

    I do agree with you it is a shame Colin Powell’s career pretty much ended because of his speech at the UN which was based on the informants lies. Even though he was a moderate republican he was a brilliant man with vast military experience we could have benefited from today.

  40. Peggy says:

    #39 Jack, They’re taken by surprise because Obama doesn’t attend his security briefing meetings. He prefers to read the reports alone without direct input from his advisors. And because he has a bunch of inept, unqualified advisors preparing those reports.

    Last night Bill O’Reilly and Brit Hume had a discussion on this topic.

    Brit Hume: Obama Overwhelmed by His Scandals, Doesn’t Know What to Do:

    O’REILLY: Thanks for staying with us. I’m Bill O’Reilly. In “The Hume Zone” segment tonight, we have three hot topics, beginning with the southern border chaos.

    Let’s bring in Fox News Senior Political Analyst, Brit Hume. So, you know, when I was giving Juan and Mary Katharine some jazz, I’m going, “The President is surprised. He’s surprised at everything.”

    You’ve been a around a long time. Are you surprised that he is so surprised.

    BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I wish I were not but — I mean, I wish I didn’t believe it. Unfortunately, I do believe it.

    I believe that he is basically caught off guard by all these things. Because I think this is an administration that, we’re coming to find out, is one of almost unimaginable incompetence and, in many respects, disengagement.

    O’REILLY: Very strong words.

    HUME: Yes.

    O’REILLY: Do we not have a CIA. Do we not have a National Security Agency. We have all the drones in space.

    With all of this stuff, he spent billions and billions of dollars. And he’s surprised? The border, he’s surprised at, surprised at V.A., surprised at Putin, surprised on Iraq. It’s just — it’s amazing.

    HUME: Well, look, I’m not — it’s not clear to me if these agencies aren’t trying to do their job and to keep the administration, at large and as entity, informed.

    But I don’t know if this President is paying that much attention.

    O’REILLY: Do you really believe that. Does he really want to get down in history beside James Buchanan and Warren Harding. Because, look, a lot of people feel —

    HUME: Look, I think he’s overwhelmed. I don’t think he really knows what to do. And I think he’s surprised about that. I think he’s surprised —

    O’REILLY: Wait, wait, wait. Let me challenge you. Let me challenge you.

    The man is playing golf —

    HUME: Well, there you go.

    O’REILLY: — while 2,000 people are being beheaded and gunned down in Iraq. I mean, —

    HUME: Well, that’s not the best way to keep on top of the situation, is it.

    O’REILLY: No, but it’s staggering.

    HUME: I’ve got no objection to a guy playing golf. And there are times when it is useful for the President not to seem overly bothered by things. But I don’t think this particular weekend in Iraq is one of them.

    O’REILLY: So, here’s a guy who’s brilliant enough to get elected president twice, all right, and head the Harvard Law Review, and he doesn’t understand that when he’s out on the golf course and 2,000 people are being gunned down by an invading al Qaeda army, that it looks bad. He doesn’t get it?

    HUME: Well, it certainly looks bad. The problem is, I’m afraid, is that it is bad.

    Look, you’ve got to understand, this is — the presidency is a job which separates — that it shows you the difference between being smart and being wise. This president is smart enough.

    He is not wise enough for the job, in my judgment. And he is, continually now, because of mistakes made in the past, issues neglected. The chickens are coming home to roost and they’re coming home in droves.

    O’REILLY: OK. So, all the foreign policy mistakes he’s made now are, all at once, collapsing in. And the same thing is going to happen in Afghanistan that has happened in Iraq if he pulls everybody out.

    The Taliban is just going to come down and slaughter everybody. So, you know, I mean, come on.

    But the border situation with the children, I mean, all of a sudden, you know, the public is told that what was described as a secure border — we have to have comprehensive immigration reform because we have a secure border now, is a chaotic mess.

    HUME: I would say that the case had been put quite another way, Bill. I think we need comprehensive immigration reform because we don’t have a secure border, that much of the problem we’re having, particularly with these unaccompanied minors, these children who are coming, in many cases, by themselves or in small groups, unaccompanied by any adults, and not getting much of any help at all, are arriving here because our immigration laws mean, the way they’re now written and the way that they’re executed mean that they simply can’t be turned away. And I’m not sure they should be.

    But, some years ago, we took the job of dealing with unaccompanied alien minors away from the Department of Homeland Security, you know, the Immigration Agency, and turn it over to the Department of Health and Human Services.

    They’re the “Help Me People.” The other people, the “Deport Me People.” And what they’re trying to do is to look after these kids.

    And, in some ways, that may be the right thing to do. But the laws dealing with all of this are chaotic.

    O’REILLY: That’s for sure.

    HUME: And they are not, basically, in the interest of the United States of America.

    O’REILLY: All right, I only have 20 seconds. Do you believe the IRS lost Lois Lerner’s e-mails. Or do you believe it’s one fat lie.

    HUME: I don’t believe for a minute that those e-mails are lost to the point of being irretrievable. Not for a minute.

    http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/06/17/brit-hume-obama-overwhelmed-his-scandals-doesnt-know-what-do

  41. Libby says:

    Hey! Our Special Forces descended on Libya and kidnapped a Benghazi plotter.

    I don’t think that’s quite legal. But I don’t seem to mind much. (The end of civilization is nigh.)

    But thank goodness our government is ignoring you … and doing real work.

  42. Peggy says:

    Breaking News!

    U.S. Captures Benghazi Attack Suspect:

    “WASHINGTON (AP) — A Libyan militant suspected in the deadly attack on Americans in Benghazi has been captured and is in American custody, the Pentagon said Tuesday, marking the first time the U.S. has apprehended one of the alleged perpetrators.”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/17/benghazi-suspect-captured_n_5503409.html

    Finally, after almost two years they decided to bring in one of the guys walking freely on the streets of Libya.

  43. Peggy says:

    Libby, something else we agree on. I too can’t wrap my brain around how the US can capture and kill individuals on foreign soil, but if they did they same over here we’d be screaming our heads off.

    Just heard Greg Palcot (sp?) from Fox give an accounting of his interview with this guy not long after the attack. He said the guy wasn’t afraid of being captured. And he was affiliated with AQ, but not any more. Was he during the attack?

    Also heard we’ve known where he’s been all of this time and a prior attempt to get him failed. With this administration’s history of dragging their feet on everything I do have to question why Obama gave the order on Friday to get him. Did his AQ involvement not fit in with Obama’s campaign rhetoric of Bin Laden is dead and AQ is on the run?

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