[Plantagenet]

Wow.... Obama just had his first presser in months, and claimed that when UN ambassador Susan Rice did the round of TV panel shows claiming the murder of our ambassador was the result of a protest against an evil video that got out of hand, she was simply repeating the available intelligence data. But there was no such intelligence----the CIA has always said it was an attack---there was a drone filming the attack from overhead as it went on for five hours----and the people being killed were in contract with DC begging for help during the five-hour-long attack.

??

[Lore]

FoxNews guff.

It's Time for the Republican Freakout Over Susan Rice to Stop

The CIA's collective judgment on Saturday the 15th, when Rice taped her interviews, was that the protests earlier in the week in Cairo — which had been inspired by the video — had also inspired protests in Benghazi. Later, extremist elements hijacked those protests to storm the consulate. The CIA subsequently backed off its belief that there had been protests in Benghazi, but that only happened later. On Saturday, the CIA told Rice there had been protests, and that's what she said on TV.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2 ... -rice-stop

[Plantagenet]

On Saturday, the CIA told Rice there had been protests, and that's what she said on TV.

Thats the Obama administration claim.

The problem is that there were no protests in Benghazi.

Either the CIA was so incompetent they fabricated a story about an imaginary demonstration or Rice (and Obama) are lying to cover up the BO administration's failure to protect the ambassador and his staff, in spite of repeated requests for more security going back for months, and repeated requests for help during the actual attack (which went on for more than five hours).

Lets wait and see what Patreus says, now that the Obama administration snooping into his bedroom is over.

[Lore]

Thats the Obama administration claim.

No, that's the claim from the CIA and is backed up through their transcripts.

Colonel Jack Jacobs and Gen. Barry MCCaffery had a discussion shortly after the incident and both claimed that assets could not be brought on the scene in that amount of time. Jacobs said, they were all but dead when the attack began.

[Pops]

Another little fiefdom showing cracks...
http://www.salon.com/2012/11/14/is_it_g ... _norquist/

[Plantagenet]

assets could not be brought on the scene in that amount of time

All the assets needed were already "on scene." There was a US drone overhead sending live TV of the attack back to DC. All it would've taken was one missile from the drone to disperse the attack.

But someone kiboshed saving our guys. Who what where when why?

[Lore]

All the assets needed were already "on scene."

Without proper intelligence, you wouldn't know if you're hitting friend or foe. That would have made a headline, embassy staff killed by friendly fire.

For the same reason you just can't drop a bunch of people into a situation like this without some coordinated on the ground intell. Would a tactical squad been enough? Maybe a platoon? You end up having another Blackhawk Down before you realize it, in which many more people are placed in unintended mortal jeopardy.

[Plantagenet]

Without proper intelligence, you wouldn't know if you're hitting friend or foe.

The people shooting RPGs at our consulate were the foes. Surely even someone in the BO administration could've figured that out!

[Lore]

The people shooting RPGs at our consulate were the foes. Surely even someone in the BO administration could've figured that out!

The enemy was within the compound by the time observations from the drone occurred. You're other problem with that scenario is that the drones on the scene were unarmed.

Joshua Foust, a fellow at the American Security Project, also doubts that using armed drones would have had a major impact. “Drones are great for rural conflicts with low population density, like the countrysides of Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Yemen, but are very bad at riot control in an urban conflict,” Foust said in an email interview. “Basically, the calls for armed drones assume that a drone could have meaningfully distinguished between legitimate militant targets and illegitimate targets such as the embassy’s contracted militia guards or normal civilians who were also in the crowds nearby. Additionally, any time you use an aircraft to fire ordinance right near your own compound you take an extreme risk of hurting or killing your own side.” (Even former Bush administration official Paul Wolfowitz agrees on this point.)

[PrestonSturges]

All the assets needed were already "on scene." There was a US drone overhead sending live TV of the attack back to DC. All it would've taken was one missile from the drone to disperse the attack.
But someone kiboshed saving our guys. Who what where when why?

Plant is forgetting the line from Tropic Thunder - "Never go full retard."

He's just doing this to get attention.

[PrestonSturges]

The guys at the CIA annex were contractors, they were private citizens outside the military chain of command. Probably nobody had any authority to order them walk/drive to the consulate through Libyan territory shooting people as they went, no more than I have authority to tell the UPS guy to shoot my neighbor. Obama probably had no authority over them, and nobody in the Pentagon or CIA had the power to order them into Libya to kill people.

[Plantagenet]

the drones on the scene were unarmed.

Is that right? Gosh....How do you know that?

When asked directly, the BO administration officials have refused to say if they were armed or not. Its one of the questions that Congress is trying to get info about in the DC hearings.

Were you flying your black helicopter at the scene and you took a look at the drone yourself? Or are you making things up again.....


typical unarmed done (not).

[Plantagenet]

There were secret closed door hearings on the Benghazi mess today. Hopefully they will finally get answers about what happened at our consulate.

[Plantagenet]

Ahh....CNN has some info about the hearings. The CIA brought a copy of the surveillance video to the hearing. The video surveillance of the attack in Benghazi seems to have been excellent

Legislators saw a "real-time film (showing) exactly what happened" on September 11 in Benghazi, starting before the attack began up "through the incident and the exodus," said Feinstein. A source familiar with the House committee hearing said the video included shots of Stevens being dragged out of the building. Sen. Dan Coats, an Indiana Republican, described the footage as "a combination of video from a surveillance camera and a drone."
"It gave us a good picture, from the surveillance standpoint, what was happening," Coats said.

Given that none of the footage shows a "spontaneous demonstration" it makes one wonder why Obama and Susan Rice fabricated a story about an imaginary "spontaneous demonstration" in Benghazi?

[Lore]

Given that none of the footage shows a "spontaneous demonstration" it makes one wonder why Obama and Susan Rice fabricated a story about an imaginary "spontaneous demonstration" in Benghazi?

Why wonder? That was the information given to them by our intelligence agency at the time. There was no fabrication.

[Plantagenet]

Petraeus is saying the CIA briefing blamed the attack on terrorists from the start and the CIA said so in their briefing notes to the BO administration. Soomehow this point was absent from the briefing note given by the BO administration to Susan Rice before she was sent out to the talk shows to claim the attack was due to an imaginary spontaneous demonstration. Other BO administration people also made inaccurate statements based on the fabricated claim of a spontaneous demonstration.

CIA briefing note edited by BO administration to remove reference to terrorism and add in fabricated claims about a non-existent spontaneous demonstration

Who in the BO administration could have been so slimy as to lie to the families of the murdered Americans and all the American people by pretending these deaths were the result of an imaginary spontaneous demonstration?

Was this as evil as it seems, or was it just typical incompetence from the BO people?

Hopefully the hearings will soon shed more light on who is responsible for the fabrications.

[Lore]

More conspiracy claptrap from FoxNews. Some anonymous somebody said or did something again that raises, guess what... more "questions". Still, the White House, Rice and members of Congress were given the same information from the CIA at the time which was modified four days later by the same agency as more information was obtained.

California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff also came to Rice's defense Thursday, saying after a House intelligence committee hearing that Rice was given the intelligence community's "best assessment" at the time.

"Those who have suggested that Ambassador Rice was politicizing the intelligence or misrepresenting what the intelligence community was putting forward as its best assessment are either unfamiliar with the facts, or willfully disregarding them," he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11 ... urce-says/

[Plantagenet]

The NY Times is saying the BO people cleverly fabricated the story about the spontaneous demonstration in order to avoid tipping off Al Qaida that we knew they did it.

[Lore]

The NY Times is saying the BO people cleverly fabricated the story about the spontaneous demonstration in order to avoid tipping off Al Qaida that we knew they did it.

Well, let's see the proof of this?

Now, just ten days after Romney's drubbing, and just ten days after Republicans sounded alarms about chronic and paranoid misinformation on their side of the media aisle, Fox News is applying contorted pretzel logic as it desperately tries to turn the General David Petraeus extramarital affair story into a "Watergate"-like chapter in the supposed mega-scandal surrounding the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Benghazi represents the would-be bonfire that Fox News has tried to light time and again in order to fan the ugly flames of Obama hatred. Fox has now formed an impenetrable wall of noise on the topic. Since Novemeber 1, "Benghazi" has been mentioned far more often on Fox News than it has on CNN and MSNBC combined, according to TVeyes.com

It's painfully obvious that despite concerns about the long-term effects of a misinformation echo chamber, Fox is not willing to change. It's not willing to turn off the fake outrage machine (Benghazi's worse than Watergate!) because that's what fuels Fox News. Without phony outrages constructed from conjecture and lies, there's no there there at Fox News. There's no programming. There's no content. And there's certainly no hook to keep viewers tuned in.

The absolutely sorry display now being put on by Fox and the rest of the right-wing media bubble with regards to Benghazi only confirms that the practitioners have no interest in mending their dishonest ways. Any conservatives who were hoping their media entertainment complex would be willing to engage in some post-election introspection are surely disappointed. (Unless they think hyping calls for secession qualifies as introspection.)

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/16 ... -wo/191425

[dinopello]

Well, let's see the proof of this?

You want proof ? What is this, the e-cat thread ? Let the poor guy have his fun.