Tag Archives: consulate

Con-flicted? (…on steroids)

by Bullright

 


On the previous post, Dave posted a comment that Gen. Dempsey and Panetta were “conflicted” on what to do about the attack in Benghazi. That’s what we hear. Well, could that conflicted mode apply to Obama too? [H/T to Dave for the inspiration]

So I followed that description and the latest reports confirm and echo it. (an article below)

Allow me the liberty to take a stab at defining “conflicted” to Obama.

Let me see: It was September, 11th, during the anniversary Obama was paying his respects to 9/11 attacks and taking another victory lap in his marathon to take credit for killing bin Laden. While on the same day he would hang an ambassador and 3 Americans out to dry in Benghazi, Libya – a country he takes credit for liberating on the campaign trail. Abandoning the same type people who actually got bin Laden.

Now someone may want to disagree with my conclusion, but that takes “conflicted” to a whole new level. If that isn’t an absurd amount of conflicted… I don’t know what is.

*A psychic struggle between opposing or incompatible impulses, desires, or tendencies

 
Pentagon October 25

Glenn Fawcett/Department of Defense

Panetta: Benghazi intelligence too sketchy to send troops

Details released after pressure from Boehner

By Stephen Dinan and Shaun Waterman

The Washington Times

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Thursday that the U.S. didn’t send troops to defend the consulate in Benghazi from a terrorist assault last month because the intelligence was too sketchy.

The details emerged as House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, demanded that President Obama explain why his administration failed to heed security warnings ahead of the Sept. 11 attack in, and why it has struggled to explain the matter in the weeks since.

In a letter to Mr. Obama, Mr. Boehner told the president that he must answer questions including why it took the administration two weeks to acknowledge that the assault was a terrorist attack rather than a spontaneous protest against an anti-Islamic video.

/…

At the Pentagon, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pleaded Thursday for time for reviewers at the Defense and State departments to finish their work. [delay, delay]

“It’s not helpful, in my view, to provide partial answers,” he said.

Mr. Panetta decried “a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking” in the questions his department has faced about why it didn’t send help in the middle of an hours-long assault on the U.S. Consulate.

Mr. Panetta said the military had forces positioned to respond, but the situation was too uncertain to send them in.

“The basic principle is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on, without having some real-time information about what’s taking place,” he said. “It was really over before, you know, we had the opportunity to really know what was happening.”

Read more: Panetta: Benghazi intelligence too sketchy to send troops – Washington Times

 

And so it was over before they had an opportunity to know what was going on?

What they said… about Benghazi

by Bullright

I’m not so sure if this is a case of “what did they know and when did they know it” or more of a what the administration said and why they said it. We already know pretty much about what they knew – or should have known.


Since Obama says he stated September 12th this was an act of terrorism, then why did all the talk about videos and protests follow?

And why did Art Carney say in his official briefing, September 12 — White House spokesman Jay Carney– in response to questions about whether the attack was planned:

“It’s too early for us to make that judgment. I think — I know that this is being investigated, and we’re working with the Libyan government to investigate the incident. So I would not want to speculate on that at this time.”

Judgment? But apparently not to early to assume there was a protest which led to the events.

Then came Susan Rice’s defiant statements 5 days later. And now a month later they want to hop into the wayback machine to point out she mentioned the boilerplate “investigation” in it. Duh, so what? Rice’s statements to media:

ABC News:
RICE: Well, Jake, first of all, it’s important to know that there’s an FBI investigation that has begun and will take some time to be completed. … But our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous — not a premeditated — response to what had transpired in Cairo. In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated.

We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to — or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo. And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons, weapons that as you know in — in the wake of the revolution in Libya are — are quite common and accessible. And it then evolved from there.
We’ll wait to see exactly what the investigation finally confirms, but that’s the best information we have at present. — ( This Week with George Stephanopoulos, 9/16/12)

Apparently “present” is a state in the nation of denial.

Face the Nation
RICE: Bob, let me tell you what we understand to be the assessment at present. First of all, very importantly, as you discussed with the President, there is an investigation that the United States government will launch led by the FBI, that has begun and –
SCHIEFFER: But they are not there.
RICE: They are not on the ground yet, but they have already begun looking at all sorts of evidence of — of various sorts already available to them and to us. And they will get on the ground and continue the investigation. So we’ll want to see the results of that investigation to draw any definitive conclusions.[yada, yada] But based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present is in fact what began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy–
SCHIEFFER: Mm-Hm.
RICE: — sparked by this hateful video. But soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in that — in that effort with heavy weapons of the sort that are, unfortunately, readily now available in Libya post-revolution. And that it spun from there into something much, much more violent.
SCHIEFFER: But you do not agree with him that this was something that had been plotted out several months ago?
RICE: We do not — we do not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned.
SCHIEFFER: Do you agree or disagree with him that al Qaeda had some part in this?
SUSAN RICE: Well, we’ll have to find out that out. I mean I think it’s clear that there were extremist elements that joined in and escalated the violence. Whether they were al Qaeda affiliates, whether they were Libyan-based extremists or al Qaeda itself I think is one of the things we’ll have to determine. — (CBS, Face the Nation, 9/16/12)

On her blame tour, Rice also told Fox:
“But I do think it’s important for the American people to know our best current assessment.”

And this all was after Obama claimed he said it was terrorism. Instead of arguing with Romney, why isn’t he arguing with Rice and others? Why wasn’t he setting everyone in his administration straight?

Then at the debate he said he was “offended”. And now I assume he is claiming to be the victim.