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Finally, after puttering around with stories and videos and lies after the attacks, Congress is beginning to get at the real scandal in Benghazi.
What happened after the attacks, and who lied to whom and how, is less important than why security there was left to deteriorate for months, even while attacks were going on, bombs were blowing 12-foot holes in the consulate walls, and Amb. Stevens was pleading for months for more security.
That summer, Obama was crowing over "Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive!". He was desperately trying to fool American voters into thinking he had defeated Al Qaeda and they were "on the run". And the increasing attacks by Al Qaeda were not fitting into the glossy image he was trying to project.
Sending MORE security into areas like Benghazi, Cairo etc. would have done even more harm to his story... so he simply didn't do it. Instead he reduced security, pulled out American agents, and in some cases substituted Libyan personnel for the American security troops. He was hoping this would look good to American voters who weren't paying much attention.
By the first week in September 2012, there were exactly three American security personnel at the consulate in Benghazi. The gate guards and patrols had been replaced by Libyans... and they were unarmed, with nothing but whistles and batons. And so, when the major attack came on Sept. 11, 2012, the people in the consulate didn't have much chance.
Basically, the lives of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans, were sacrificed so that Obama could get more votes three weeks later in the November, 2012 election.
And that is the real scandal of Benghazi. Obama hopes fervently that people will keep complaining about Susan Rice and lies about a video afterward... because then they aren't complaining about what killed Amb. Stevens and three other Americans: Months of fatal, flagrant neglect of consulate security for the purpose of gaining votes.
The Obama administration -- and the State Department in particular -- has been accused by Republican lawmakers and some former U.S. officials who worked in Libya of ignoring warning signs and even rejecting pleas for increased security around American offices in the country ahead of the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, which left U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others dead.
The House Oversight Committee will begin questioning three senior State Department staff on Capitol Hill Wednesday over claims that dozens of U.S. security personnel were removed from Libya in the six months leading up to the attack, in spite of alleged requests to increase personnel levels from American officials on the ground.
According to one of the key witnesses expected to testify before the committee this week, even Ambassador Stevens himself had repeatedly requested more security personnel, but was turned down.
Lt. Col. Andy Wood, the former head of a U.S. Special Forces "Site Security Team" in Libya, has told CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson that he and many other senior staff at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, "felt we needed more, not less" security personnel in the country, but were told "to do with less.
For what reasons, I don't know."
This begins to get at the real scandal in Benghazi.
The fact is, if a simple "diplomatic post" (Benghazi had neither an embassy nor a consulate) requires a huge amount of security foxes to operate, it should be shut down instead. There are legitimate questions about why Stevens was there with a minimal security detail in the first place.
The story about Obama lying about the attack in order to help his election chance is both illogical, and proven false. Illogical, since outside attacks seem to help presidents, rather than harm them, and because Romney's ham-fisted responses would have only helped further, and because voters pay exactly no attention to issues like embassy security in normal circumstances. Proven false, because we already know that it was the CIA who thought that the attack was related to the Cairo protests that were in reaction to a video - and they were the ones that stressed that this assessment could easily change as their investigation continued.
Looks like the usual leftist apologists are doing their usual shucking, jiving, and personal attacks in response to facts and conclusions they don't like but can't refute.
SSDD.
Now that Congress is starting to get to the real meat of the matter, will the media finally stop their spectacular show of being unhappy with the Obama administration's lies and coverups, and revert back into their usual coverup mode in support instead?
If they lied so we wouldn't think some Islamists are crazy then it backfired. Saying they rioted and killed our men over a stupid youtube video makes them seem more radical and crazy than ever. Like anything can set them off, even looking at them the wrong way.
I was kinda relieved when I found out it wasn't because of the video.
he and many other senior staff at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, "felt we needed more, not less" security personnel in the country, but were told "to do with less.
For what reasons, I don't know."
And before you people start shrieking about "deflection," riddle me this: if the State Department had somehow provided funding to Benghazi in spite of Congress' refusal to do so, wouldn't that constitute an tyrannical "end run" around Congress?
If they lied so we wouldn't think some Islamists are crazy
Nope. They lied so Obama would look more worthy of election, as the President who defeated Al Qaeda.
When it started becoming apparent that he hadn't defeated them (on Sept. 11, 2012), more lies were necessary, saying it wasn't A Qaeda, it was just a bunch of film critics who spontaneously showed up.
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then it backfired.
I'd say so.
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I was kinda relieved when I found out it wasn't because of the video.
When then-Clinton administration supporter Dick Morris was asked in 1996 (after that election) about the effects of Clinton's various illegal moves, specifically when they were caught taking illegal foreign campaign funds from Chinese and Indonesian donors, he replied, "We had to give back the money, but we didn't have to give back the votes. (chuckle)".
Fast forward to today. By the time we found out it wasn't because of a video, the votes had already been counted.
Someone in the Obama administration might get punished, but they won't have to give back the votes.
Osama Bin Laden is dead and Al-Quaeda is on the run.
Explain why you think this is incorrect.
Al Queda was on the run in some places, for example, northern Pakistan.
It's not a singular group in one location.
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