This better be my last post about Benghazi!

It sucks that I'm still writing about Benghazi. It sucks that the issues surrounding Benghazi haven't been settled. It sucks that information about  Benghazi hasn't been thoroughly thrashed and set to rest. It's a living demonstration of the partisanship that there hasn't been a clear, concise, thorough, and uncontested report of what happened. It reflects on secrecy and cover-your-ass dissembling by the Obama administration and partisan point-scoring, innuendo, and hyperbole by the GOP.

This latest bout of Benghazi research was prompted by a comment on the stand-down order. Politifact says that the story of a stand-down order is mostly false. It pointed to a report of a House Intelligence Committee, and I decided to read it. It's actually pretty readable, less than 30 pages, and doesn't get bogged down. It seems to be mostly a fact-finding mission--the kind of report I've wanted to see.

From my own research during the summer of 2014, I figured that the stand-down story had some major holes in it, primarily that it was simply a 20-minute delay, not a stand-down. But there's not enough drama with a delay, so the story was juiced up.

The report confirmed what I had suspected (win for me!). There was a delay as the station chief tried to gather more info and more support, but it was a minimal delay, per pages 19-21 of the report.

However, drama sells. Partisan audiences are hungry for scandal that fits their biases. So we get books and even a movie based less on evidence and more for giving the crowd what it wants. Trey Gowdy (GOP representative) is too cowardly to tell the whole truth either:

"The best I can do is tell you what the witnesses say, and then you can decide who you think is more credible."

Let me translate that:

'I don't think the story is credible, but I'll cling to the thin thread of evidence because it's politically expedient.'

He does admit that leaving earlier wouldn't have saved the lives of the two diplomats who died in the compound. I'll be remembering this to refute the yahoos who repeat that specious claim.

But back to the report. It was good to find out about roadblocks, and how the team that flew in from Tripoli was stuck at the Benghazi airport until they found one local group that seemed trustworthy enough. The attack on the CIA annex was unusually precise and coordinated, and deadly, with two more Americans killed there. Then everyone evacuated to the airport, along with the body of the ambassador who had been missing. That mystery was resolved in less than 10 hours, even in dangerous territory like Benghazi.

Some GOPers wouldn't sign on to the report. I guess it blew up too many of the talking points they wanted to clutch. Gowdy was one of those who refused. That guy--sometime he goes up in my estimation, and sometimes he scrapes the bottom.

One final sentiment: it was worth my time to research this and find what seems to me like the actual truths. Truth is worth the effort.

Image: house.gov 

Extras.  National Review declares there's evidence for the stand-down order... and neglects the evidence that refutes it. Convenient omissions? From WaPo: Who is more credible--the Benghazi CIA station chief, or the author of the sensationalist book?

Benghazi hearing round-up

Nope, I didn't watch the Benghazi hearings where the GOP hoped to embarrass Hillary Clinton. I caught up with the news later. It seems that Clinton did pretty well and the committee was blah, as befits a newstory that's been raked over for three years already.

When I first checked Google News for stories, I noticed the lack of stories from conservative sites like Breitbart and Daily Caller. Oh my, they didn't have any stories to trumpet. Looks like it was a bad day for the Hillary-haters all over the US internet.

That seems to be the consensus--no big moments going against Hillary. A bust for the committee, if we are to guess what their real objective is.

Extras. The MSM reviews the conservative media (3 stories). Politico's top moments. Very pithy and readable analysis. I sought out a bit of video.

McCarthy and the real purpose of the Benghazi committee

For laughs and for posterity, here is what Kevin McCarthy, a House GOP leader and probable next Speaker of the House, said about the Benghazi investigation committee on Tuesday:

"Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping."

This is what he said on Thursday:

"This committee's sole purpose is to find the truth why four Americans were killed that night, and that is the work they have done, that is the hearings they have done, they have been applauded on all sides of the aisle, so it was never my intention to say that."

And some people think politicians, some of them at least, aren't regular and habitual liars. This shows how truth is the exception and must be 'clarified' or contradicted post haste.

I'll say it again--all politicians are liars. It's completely ridiculous to claim a politician is a liar and therefore no one should vote for him or her. There would be no one to vote for. So, go ahead and vote for the liar of your choice, even McCarthy, but don't claim he's not a liar.

Liars to the left of us, liars to the right

Image: crooksandliars.com

Benghazi: What is being covered up?

I never got to finish my post on Benghazi because I waited for the GOP House to hold its Benghazi hearings. They were supposed to happen during the summer when they would be filler during the news-drought months of the summer. Then it turned out that summer 0f 2014 was well-populated with political bombs, such as the immigration crisis and Mideast crisis. Benghazi wasn't necessary after all. That also turned out to be true in Fall '14, so the GOP didn't hold the hearings then either.

Nonetheless, I waded through a lot of Benghazi info last summer, and I don't want it to go to waste. So, finally seven months later, I'm publishing what I found out. It's late, but still more timely than our GOP political circus. This is actually two posts in one.

1. The Conservatives' Attempt to Make a Smoking Gun

What is the big new story about Benghazi [as of last summer, that is]? It seems that there was a stand-down order. Well, maybe it was more like a wait-and-let-me-think-about-this order. The CIA leader at the annex  (that secret other location that was attacked later that night but not at first) made his gung-ho underlings wait about 22 minutes before going to the consulate.

This word comes from three security operatives who were among the forces at the annex. These are three of the two dozen or so 'Benghazi survivors' who were strangely absent from previous hearings. Now some information is leaking from a few of these sources. So far it doesn't seem like enough for the GOP to cry "scandal," but the GOP will try anyway.

Here's the headline from Breitbart (same link as above):

BENGHAZI SECURITY CONTRACTORS: ABOUT 25 AMERICANS ARE STILL ALIVE BECAUSE WE BROKE 'STAND DOWN' ORDER

But if you read it closely, they saved 5 people from the consulate, not 25. They didn't exactly defy a stand-down order so much as put pressure on the chief/team leader to end the delay and get going. If there was a stand-down order, the chief/team leader didn't obey either, because he went with the security team to the consulate. Ah, but you must have drama, especially if you're trying to sell a narrative or sell books. 

From another article:

Their team leader was a CIA official who got direct orders from Washington to wait multiple times... [One security operative] said "I strongly believe if we would have left immediately, they would still be alive today."

Neither of these points is supported by other evidence. Was someone in Washington incorrectly telling them to wait? Maybe it wasn't that bad a call. Would leaving immediately have saved lives? That's questionable. Shoot first and plan later isn't a great policy in general.

2. The Worst of It: Bad, but not even close to horrific

Despite conservative media hype, the Benghazi scandal is bigger than the MSM made it out to be. The best evidence of this comes from Hicks, an assistant to the ambassador. The mistakes/poor judgment/incompetence has two parts:

1) Libya was a lot more dangerous than the administration let on, and the staff was expected to live with that danger and not report. If the dangers were known, it would bring unwelcome focus on Obama's decisions on how to handle Libya, and Obama seems to be unable to handle criticism.

2) The administration wanted to cover up that they were informed about the dangers, so they decided to go with the story that it was a protest similar to the one in Egypt. I don't know who made the decision, but people at the top knew it was a lie. However, the lie unraveled pretty quickly because GOP congress members knew of the dangers in Libya from intelligence briefings, and they gave that info to conservative news sources who ran with the story.

Get By with a Little Help from Our Friends

Obama and Clinton have counted on the friendly MSM to not pursue the story hard and not put them in a terrible light. No surprise there. Our media is very skewed, with the conservative media being even worse, and therefore having even less credibility.

How will Obama, Hillary, and the Dems deal with the scandal? I'm not sure, but perhaps they will treat it as a regrettable mistake, but not a huge, disqualifying mistake. Perhaps that's the conclusion of most of the electorate too, and they don't want to hear anymore about it. It boils down to this: most people are tired of it, so it won't matter in the 2016 campaigns.

Image: pinterest.com

Extras. I did lots of research, and here are the most interesting bits:

Three days after the attack and some newspapers are getting the story straight.

Comments at National Review are almost all partisan--not looking for truth, but looking to smear Dems. George will is castigated for not getting on the bandwagon. This is the echo chamber again.

Why Stevens didn't take the offer of more security--a good reason: immunity for the security personnel.

Who and what on the stand down command, maybe. This is the decision not to send fighter aircraft to Benghazi. Might or might not have helped. No refueling support available.

Strong comment with perspective on the incident. "It does not matter to ordinary voters whether it was a local militia stirred up by the video or it was a pre-planned Al Qaeda attack. We sent our people to a dangerous place, some of them died. Who [in the administration] said what ... is not really an important issue." What's not important is all the stuff the GOP is focusing on.

Politifact account of chain email about rape and mutilation. Another rumor with a different name as the source. This is very ugly partisanship, luckily confined to the shadows.

Update 3/13/16.  Did Clinton make false claims about the video to the families of the casualties? Accounts differ in profound ways. Why is this a big issue? Um, oh, because Clinton had a spin-laden story in public, and a different story in private. And because she must be blamed for the spin since she's running for president. Can't forget that reason.

Benghazi redux, Part I

Just before vacation, I finally realized that there is something worth exploring in the Benghazi brouhaha. Now I'll start that exploration.

Facts

Salient Point A. I think we can all agree that the Benghazi consulate wasn't well enough protected. The deaths at the consulate clearly demonstrated that on Sept. 11, 2012, so I don't think there's any controversy over that opinions.

Salient Point B. I hope we can also agree that the Obama administration explanation for what happened at Benghazi changed between its first explanation and ones in the following weeks.

I can't really say that much about Point A. I don't know how we provide security in rougher parts of the world, or how we could or should do better.

Plausible Reasons

Point B, on the other hand, intrigues me. The Obama administration had to change what it was saying about the attacks. There could be many reasons for this. Here are a few obvious ones:

1. The attacks were so sudden and violent that communication was disrupted. The people in charge of talking about it lacked accurate information about what happened. They made mistakes that they then had to correct. (Notice how much benefit-of-the-doubt is given in this explanation.)
2. The administration felt that attack would reflect very badly on them so close to the election, so they tried unsuccessfully to offer an explanation that made them look less to blame.
3. The administration wanted to cover up the situation in Benghazi, but they were caught in their lies. After being caught, they've tried to minimize the cover-up and have deflected questions about the reasons for the attempted cover-up.

More Plausible, Less Plausible

Although Option 1 could be true or partially true, I'm not believing it at this point. It's true that the situation was volatile and communication wasn't normal. However, it seems strange that some in the administration (Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State and direct boss of the ambassador who was killed) didn't participate in delivering this mistaken message. It seems possible that she knew parts of this story weren't true, and she didn't want those lies on her resume. I'm choosing this as the likeliest explanation for why Clinton wasn't delivering the administration talking points, but that job fell to Susan Rice.

Option 2, that the administration concocted a story that made them look less bad is very likely. However, it ignores whether the people formulating the concoction knew what they were trying to hide. I think they did. It wasn't campaign operatives involved in sorting out the talking points, it was the State Department, the White House, and the CIA.

So I think Option 3 is closest to the truth. The WH, State Dept, and CIA wanted to cover something up, so they figured out a cover story, but that story failed within several days.

There are other aspects that support Option 3. The administration has muzzled the survivors almost completely. That takes a lot of power or persuasion, so it's probably not within the capabilities of campaign people. I have to wonder what the survivors could tell us, and why the administration is working so hard to stop them from talking. The muzzle on the survivors is Salient Point C. I don't know what it means, but it sure seems significant.

It will take me plenty more research and several more posts to unpack my thoughts about Benghazi. I'm going to have to read some of those official reports, and that's not going to be fun. Wish me luck...

Image: examiner.com

New Benghazi info

There's an interesting new wrinkle in the Benghazi story. According to a CNN story, there were over two dozen CIA personnel in Benghazi, much more than mentioned before. The current speculation is that the CIA was rounding up Russian-manufactured anti-aircraft missile that got loose in Libya in order to send them to the Syrian rebels via Turkey.

I don't know whether this is credible, and I'm certainly not going to out on a limb and declare that this is what Obama's been trying to hide, so now it's definitely impeachin' time. (I realized just a few hours ago that my reaction was very much affected by my dislike for those crowing about being right all along, when of course they weren't.)

If this is true, it's surprising how zippered up the Obama administration is. Or perhaps the CIA is much better at keeping secrets than most government organizations. Maybe the ambassador died protecting a secret stash of weapons from the al-Queda aligned group. May he died unsuccessfully protecting the weapons, and that group got its hands on bunches of missiles. Maybe it's some totally different incredibly sensitive story.

It would be great to know what it was, but the Obama administration is obviously not trusting Congress with the info. Currently none of us peons can judge whether the mission in Benghazi was worth the risk, totally immoral, or something in between. In the future, however, this information should be shared, with small leaks generally being the preferred method. There are probably more leaks to come. I hope we get the story soon and I hope it's not too bad. Reagan managed to withstand the Iran-contra scandal, but I'm not sure Obama could do the same.

All about the weapons?

Image: alhittin.com

Extra. Self-declared definitive timeline. It's about the weapons according to this 9/20/12 article.

Update 8/5/13. In posts like this, I usually write "What you want to hide, it ain't gonna stay hidden." This time might be different. If there was a big hush-hush operation in Benghazi, it's stayed hidden for nearly eleven months. Maybe it will stay hidden, or maybe it will slowly be revealed. With four Americans dead, it's had enough impact that it should be revealed. As I said before, I hope the story isn't too bad.

The significance of the Obama-era scandals

Republicans may be overjoyed--they have a triad of scandals to hold against the Obama administration. There's new information on Benghazi including the edit trail of the administration talking points and testimony of personnel who dissent with administration handling of the Benghazi attacks. The IRS targeted Tea Party groups for onerous oversight, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoenaed and seized phone records of many journalists of the AP.

Benghazi

Benghazi is the oldest of the scandals, dating from September 2012. The death of four Americans at a satellite diplomatic facility in Libya hasn't been the story that the GOP had hoped for. It's difficult to turn a single incident like Benghazi into a wide-ranging indictment of the administration's capability of running competent foreign relations. The Obama administration has generally been competent, with fewer Americans soldiers dying, fewer wars started in various hot spots, and not considerably more nuclear tests by North Korea. It's hard to make the case that Obama is so incompetent that we need the more war-like Republicans in office. The narrative that some conservatives wanted to push, that Obama is a welcome mat for Islamist groups, was undercut by other groups in Libya attacking the group responsible for the attack. Also there's Obama's generally aggressive posture in Pakistan and Yemen that belie the GOP position.

So how bad is Benghazi? Hillary is looking less like the firm hand at the State Department handling a myriad of international situation without any of them spinning out of control. She ignored the warnings of dangerous conditions in Benghazi, and she has no good way to apologize for it. This is a black mark against her that she can't clean up. So far her efforts have been defensive and screechy--she may need to learn how to be humble and contrite. She has to hope that her strong points are enough to compensate. That said, she has a couple years to figure out how to explain and mitigate.

The damage to Obama is his lack of engagement. His underlings are mealy-mouthed, his own role in decision-making is muddy. He doesn't know how to end the drip, drip, drip of discrediting information and doubts about the handling of the situation. The CIA is trying to make sure State gets the blame for lack of preparation, but the responsibility for the non-timely military response to the emergency is still a liability that hasn't been fully explored. But this incident, as a small tragedy, isn't large enough to sink Obama's presidency.

IRS

The IRS scandal is also less than initial reporting would have it. The IRS probably wasn't directed by the White House, so this is more a rogue operation, rather like Fast + Furious. Also, I doubt that it will seem as egregious as trying to deny tax-exempt status to a church. These groups were political, and the three salient issues were:

• How much they would have to report, such as listing their donors.
• How much paperwork and red tape the IRS piled on them.
• Whether the IRS leaked confidential information to the press or other groups.

No political group, left, right or center, is going to arouse that much sympathy or indignation, so hearings will be either boring or falsely histrionic. That won't do much damage to Obama.

The Obama administration can and should be tough on the personnel responsible for the decisions to pursue these procedures. Perhaps this will mark a new higher standard for the IRS that future administrations will have to follow.

Subpoenas of Journalists' Records

Finally, there is the seizing of the telephone records from the AP. This concerns a leak about a foiled bombing. The leak included some surprisingly detailed information, such as the existence of a double agent who came from the UK and infiltrated a terrorist group in Yemen. If CIA methods for infiltrating this al Qaeda group were compromised, that is a serious leak that deserves scrutiny and perhaps prosecution.

On the other hand, Obama administration may just be trying to intimidate news organizations. Considering that the target was the evil mainstream media, the GOP are not going to be able to spin it as much as they would want to. (Let me crank up my crocodile tears over the missed opportunity.) Obama's handling of leaks and whistleblowers may be tougher than some previous administrations, but it hasn't been severe or common enough to worry the garden-variety, non-libertarian voter. There are good arguments on both sides, which makes it hard to paint Obama as the villain. So, no legs on this scandal either.

Thin Sauce

Sometime last year, perhaps when I was researching Fast + Furious, I realized that the Obama administration has been surprisingly clean, though certainly not squeaky clean. There were some known back door deals in ACA, and it would be hard to believe that there weren't any goodies in the stimulus bill. However, the worst malfeasance was ill-considered large loans to Solyndra and other pet causes. (Or maybe it was some of the big policies, like Obamacare, that don't lend themselves to sound-bit scandal hearings.)

That leaves the GOP-controlled House without enough to investigate, so they are inflating whatever they can find. But that isn't much. There isn't a revolving door between lobbying firms/oil companies and the White House staff. The administration either isn't throwing favors at its Wall Street friends, or the favors pale compared to other times.

The lean pickings, and the insistence of the out-party on investigating something brought us the endless delving into Fast + Furious last year, and will bring us endless Benghazi this year with some droning IRS hearings mixed in. Perhaps some Republicans will weary of the attempt to weave these tiny scraps into a funeral shroud for the Obama administration, and this will end, but I doubt it. The House will have to fill its time somehow, and they certainly won't be spending the time hammering out courageous compromises on pressing issues like entitlement reform or tax reform. No, we can expect some very dull partisan soap operas. Sigh.

The Short Version

Some lessons from these scandals:

• Bringing the in-party down a few notches doesn't translate into more support for the out-party. The Dems look slightly worse, but ...
• The GOP still look like a bunch of opportunistic scoundrels who are interested primarily in power rather than sound policy.

Image: democraticunderground.com

Short: Missing piece of the Benghazi puzzle

Wow. Now I understand why the Benghazi cover story was exposed so quickly. The original story was that there were demonstrations over a nasty anti-Muhammad video, and these turned violent. It sounds plausible because that was happening in Egypt on the same day. But how did Fox News know to push back against this story?

I hope you're curious. Still time to put down a bet...

At the same time in Egypt...

Image:  guardian.co.uk

OK, here it is, per Marc Ambinder:

"Republicans got briefings, classified briefings, attesting to the evidence the al Qaeda-linked militants were ready to strike... The briefings were accurate. Republicans knew. And indeed, they began to speak out almost immediately..."

Some the GOP knew that al Qaeda groups were poised to make attacks in Libya. State knew, Hillary knew, Dems in Congress knew, Obama knew, etc. They all knew that this was a strong possibility, if they had been paying attention to those briefings.

That seems significant to me, but I haven't worked out the implications. For example, was Obama unprepared with an explanation for why he didn't prevent the attack? Did he use the video cover story to buy time?

I suspect that spin for the election drove reactions all around, with Dems trying to minimize damage and the GOP trying to maximize it. Is there anything that isn't treated as a zero-sum game in this country? Did all administration response have to go through the election filter first? Ugh.

Benghazi: Incompetence or political smear?

This happens when the MSM doesn't cover a story--you don't know how big it is. We know that the conservative media isn't trustworthy in its assessment of how serious an issue is, since their prime criterion is how embarrassing it is to a Democratic target. A lot of their stories are molehills photographed through ground level microscopic lenses. This was the case when I looked into Fast and Furious (with its 1.5 years of Congressional hearings).

Now the RWM (right-wing media) and opportunistic politicians are doing the same with the attacks at Benghazi. It feels like another trumped-up GOP gripe, doesn't it?

That's because it is. When you read the actual reporting by David Ignatius (the reporter everyone ultimately refers to), the sense is of a fast-developing, minute-by-minute situation that overwhelmed the professional diplomatic staff. It's not surprising that we can't call down airstrikes in another country, and I'm not sure what else would have worked. But I try to be fair--rather than to look for an issue with which to beat my opponent senseless. So Benghazi is another dishonest issue that conservatives are ruthlessly trying to exploit. It would be nauseating except that we've become accustomed to these tactics and their stench.

Image: time.com

Other sources:

• Screaming right-wing media.
• Benghazi takes its place in a laundry list of partisan complaints.
• One of many opportunistic politicians. 

Update 11/2/12. Spurred by Couves' comments, I've looked at more sources.

• A timeline from Wapo.
• A WaPo column showing the minute issues that Fox is trying to turn into major issues.
• David Ignatius supplies a timeline.
• Analysis of testimony about the security situation in Libya and a leaked memo compiling security incidents in the country.

There's no sign of rank incompetence or a breakdown in foreign policy. This tragedy is being used opportunistically. That would be sickening except, sadly, I've gotten used to such poison.