U.S. Ambassador to Libya Killed

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
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Remember the Crowley incident?

On September 12, the same day as the now infamous Rose Garden speech, President Obama went on 60 minutes to do an interview. Steve Kroft of 60 minutes–not Fox News, not the Romney campaign–says to the President, “this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word terrorism in connection with the Libya Attack, do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?”

Obama’s answer completely ducks calling this a terrorist attack. Having had it pointed out to him that he had gone out of his way to avoid saying it terrorism, he still avoids saying it…

This is the very same day as the Rose Garden speech, to which Kroft is referring to, September 12…

October 16, the Crowley incident. Big story. So, where’s the clip?

November 4th, CBS decides to finally post the unaired clip…

Nobody watched the 2nd debate? Post debate, and nobody is checking interviews that occurred the day of the Rose Garden speech? Nobody thought that while Romney might have fallen into a semantics trap, that the spirit of his inquiry was not only valid, but served by this very clip? Give me a break.

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[quote]mbdix wrote:
http://beforeitsnews.com/obama/2012/10/cia-agents-confirm-obama-told-them-not-to-aid-ambassador-chris-stevens-the-white-house-disinformation-campaign-on-libya-2445322.html

Not sure if this has been discussed or posted yet? But very much worth the quick read imo.[/quote]

Absolute horseshit. CIA “Agents”? Anyone with even an elementary knowledge of the Intelligence Community would stop reading at this point. Whoever cooked up this shitty article doesn’t even understand the difference between an Agent and an Operations Officer. Ask anyone who has actual experience in the IC. Top Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency officials have repeatably stated that there were no assets in the region that could respond fast enough to halt the attack on the post in Benghazi. Fox News is running nothing short of a propaganda campaign. I suppose they have said it so many times that even they believe it now.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/10/pentagon-denies-fox-news-benghazi-report/58489/

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Source: Petraeus wants to clear up misrepresentations of what he told Congress

By Barbara Starr

Former CIA Director David Petraeus knew “almost immediately” after the attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi it was the work of Ansar Al-Sharia, a loosely-formed group that has some members sympathetic to Al Qaeda, according to a source who has spoken to him and is directly familiar with his analysis of the situation.

According to this source, Petraeus says the stream of intelligence from multiple sources, including video at the scene, indicated the group was behind the attack. But a separate stream of intelligence also emerged indicating ongoing riots in Cairo over an anti-Islamic film might have motivated the attacks.

The source says there were some 20 different intelligence reports indicating the Cairo film might be responsible. The CIA eventually disapproved all those reports, but not until after Petraeus? initial briefings to Congress in which he discussed all possibilities, the source said. “All those other reports got disproved over time,” the source says Petraeus told him.

Petraeus also believes confusion has emerged over two separate intelligence questions. First, who was responsible, and second what was the motivation of the attackers.

Petraeus’ aim in testifying, the source said, is in part to clear up “a lot of misrepresentations of what he told Congress initially. He wants to clear it up.” Petraeus is expected to tell Congress he had no direct involvement in the talking points UN ambassador Susan Rice used in the days after the attack. Petraeus developed unclassified talking points that were approved by the intelligence community the source says. Rice’s talking points may have used some of that information but were separate from what Petraeus provided

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Petraeus believed terrorists behind Libya attack

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Ex-CIA Director David Petraeus (peh-TRAY’-uhs) has told Congress that references to militant groups Ansar al-Shariah and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb were removed from the agency’s draft talking points of what sparked the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya.

http://news.yahoo.com/petraeus-believed-terrorists-behind-libya-attack-145946656--politics.html

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Leaders from the State Department, FBI, CIA, including former CIA Director David Petraeus, testified on Thursday and Friday. Regarding the allegations that the original CIA talking points had been changed so that terrorist involvement was not included, Sen. Chambliss said, ?Everybody there was asked do you know who made these changes; and nobody knew. The only entity that reviewed the talking points that was not there was the White House.?

So we now know the CIA put out talking points linking terrorists/AQ to the attack. State Dept., FBI, CIA say they did not remove such wording. So who did? Well, the WH wasn’t there to testify…

Kind of a scandal to say Rice merely used CIA talking points, only to have the CIA testify that someone (not themselves) altered those talking points.

I’m very surprised at how little attention has been paid to this here, and elsewhere. Petraeus has just testified that not only did the CIA connect terrorists (AQ/AQ affiliated) to the Benghazi attack, but also that someone outside of the agency altered their points. And this after being told repeatedly that Rice simply used the CIA talking points on her now infamous blame a mob/video news show tour.

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State Dept hiding Benghazi survivors:

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Clinton will not testify before Congress on Libya, purported concussion cited

Read more: Clinton will not testify before Congress on Libya, purported concussion cited | Fox News

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[quote]pushharder wrote:This is really really really starting to smell rather bad.[/quote]As opposed to when it had that Glade fresh scent?

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[quote]Sloth wrote:
Leaders from the State Department, FBI, CIA, including former CIA Director David Petraeus, testified on Thursday and Friday. Regarding the allegations that the original CIA talking points had been changed so that terrorist involvement was not included, Sen. Chambliss said, ?Everybody there was asked do you know who made these changes; and nobody knew. The only entity that reviewed the talking points that was not there was the White House.?

So we now know the CIA put out talking points linking terrorists/AQ to the attack. State Dept., FBI, CIA say they did not remove such wording. So who did? Well, the WH wasn’t there to testify…

Kind of a scandal to say Rice merely used CIA talking points, only to have the CIA testify that someone (not themselves) altered those talking points.

I’m very surprised at how little attention has been paid to this here, and elsewhere. Petraeus has just testified that not only did the CIA connect terrorists (AQ/AQ affiliated) to the Benghazi attack, but also that someone outside of the agency altered their points. And this after being told repeatedly that Rice simply used the CIA talking points on her now infamous blame a mob/video news show tour.[/quote]

Oh, hey ABC! Where have you been? Oh that’s right, the election is over so maybe it’s safe to do some journalism. Administration blamed bad CIA talking points…Except that’s not how it went down.

[i]White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012. “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the [b]single[/b] adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”[/i]

Oh hey, only a single change was made. No really. And only to reflect the proper designation of a facility. Yeah, that’s the ticket.*

Summaries of White House and State Department emails–some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard–show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points.

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This is going to make Watergate, Iran Contra, and Clinton’s perjury look like child’s play. Here’s hoping the corrupt leaches in DC have the stones to see this through to the end.

Never in my wildest dreams have I imagined saying President Biden.

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[quote]drunkpig wrote:
This is going to make Watergate, Iran Contra, and Clinton’s perjury look like child’s play. Here’s hoping the corrupt leaches in DC have the stones to see this through to the end.

Never in my wildest dreams have I imagined saying President Biden. [/quote]

Only one was actually impeached. But none voted out of office. Nixon actually resigned. Lets see where this goes, but Clinton’s 2016 run just got a lot more difficult for her.

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Video of the reporting up now.

Pause at 1:17 and read that e-mail out of the State Department. Political damage control.

There wasn’t just one change to the talking points–a quibble over a facility designation–like the administration told us. In fact, there’s a least twelve. Including absolutely relevant and explosive passages germane to the controversy this whole time. And, those changes were done/requested by the Administration. The same administration that said they simply used the CIA’s talking points (excepting the facility quibble noted above.) In other words, they knew their bull-crap was bull-crap, because it was their bullcrap.

Allowing the story to become ‘Romney/Crowley and the Rose Garden’ in the final countdown to the election was plain journalistic malpractice. The smoke was already there, and to allow Obama and his administration to wiggle out from under the spirit of Romeny’s questioning in that debate was journalistic malpractice. There was a fire, after all.

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[quote]Sloth wrote:
Video of the reporting up now.

Pause at 1:17 and read that e-mail out of the State Department. Political damage control.

There wasn’t just one change to the talking points–a quibble over a facility designation–like the administration told us. In fact, there’s a least twelve. Including absolutely relevant and explosive passages germane to the controversy this whole time. And, those changes were done/requested by the Administration. The same administration that said they simply used the CIA’s talking points (excepting the facility quibble noted above.) In other words, they knew their bull-crap was bull-crap, because it was their bullcrap.

Allowing the story to become ‘Romney/Crowley and the Rose Garden’ in the final countdown to the election was plain journalistic malpractice. The smoke was already there, and to allow Obama and his administration to wiggle out from under the spirit of Romeny’s questioning in that debate was journalistic malpractice. There was a fire, after all.[/quote]

I agree, but I don’t think it changed the election (I could be wrong). It happened too close to the election to make a big impact on the votes.

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[quote]dmaddox wrote:

[quote]drunkpig wrote:
This is going to make Watergate, Iran Contra, and Clinton’s perjury look like child’s play. Here’s hoping the corrupt leaches in DC have the stones to see this through to the end.

Never in my wildest dreams have I imagined saying President Biden. [/quote]

Only one was actually impeached. But none voted out of office. Nixon actually resigned. Lets see where this goes, but Clinton’s 2016 run just got a lot more difficult for her.[/quote]

Which is why I said the Benghazi coverup will make all of them look like child’s play. This is a real crime with a real coverup, and the smoking gun is still smoking.

That is only IF the House remembers where it left their collective cajones, and IF the little real estate embezzling Senator from Nevada can be bothered to do anything at all.

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[quote]drunkpig wrote:

[quote]dmaddox wrote:

[quote]drunkpig wrote:
This is going to make Watergate, Iran Contra, and Clinton’s perjury look like child’s play. Here’s hoping the corrupt leaches in DC have the stones to see this through to the end.

Never in my wildest dreams have I imagined saying President Biden. [/quote]

Only one was actually impeached. But none voted out of office. Nixon actually resigned. Lets see where this goes, but Clinton’s 2016 run just got a lot more difficult for her.[/quote]

Which is why I said the Benghazi coverup will make all of them look like child’s play. This is a real crime with a real coverup, and the smoking gun is still smoking.

That is only IF the House remembers where it left their collective cajones, and IF the little real estate embezzling Senator from Nevada can be bothered to do anything at all.

[/quote]

Democrats will not do anything unless there is something out there that states, “Let those guys die.” Democrats are already circling the wagons as we speak around Obummer and Hilary. It will take the 2014 midterm elections to make a difference. Republicans have to take the Senate.

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[quote]dmaddox wrote:

Democrats will not do anything unless there is something out there that states, “Let those guys die.” Democrats are already circling the wagons as we speak around Obummer and Hilary. It will take the 2014 midterm elections to make a difference. Republicans have to take the Senate.[/quote]

Everyone is up for election in the house in 18 months. A third of the Senate is up for re-election. If this thing drags out long enough, and the proof is stacked high enough, even the die-hard progressives up for re-election will pander for their job and vote which ever direction the winds of the focus group are blowing.

I used to think that the republicans taking the Senate would be a good thing. But how is a Senate full of McCains any different than a Senate full of Reids?

Until conservatives and libertarians (ie. Cruz and Paul) take over the republican party, nothing will change.

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I don’t get this bullshit at all. Republicans are up in arms over the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi after some mistake on the part of the State Department and an alleged subsequent coverup by the Obama administration. That PALES in comparison to the colossal mistake of sending American troops to Iraq to get WMDs that simply weren’t there. 4500 dead Americans over there due to the deceit, ignorance and war-mongering ways of the Bush administration and we’ve got to listen to the same party that was in lockstep with him over that debacle cry foul over the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi?

I agree that this Libya thing smells foul and all that, but let’s use some fucking perspective here when we criticize the actions of an administration that led to unnecessary American deaths.

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And if we’re going to talk coverups, I sincerely hope that every single person here is who is crying foul over the Obama administration’s actions were screaming from their soapbox just as loudly when the Bush administration was busy covering up the death of Pat Tillman. Otherwise, it’s just more partisan bullshit and selective righteous indignation.

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I think this whole thing is just the result of bureaucratic bickering and blame-placing between the CIA and State. Some shit was removed from talking points and what was released was so watered down and edited that people automatically assumed a coverup was in place. I think all that happened was that the CIA and the State Department each refused to allow anything to be made public that would reflect poorly on themselves, so what was released as a result had the appearance of a coverup.

Which is understandable. We live in a time of extreme distrust of our gov’t , for reasons that are both legitimate and illegitimate (mostly legit). We refuse to believe that the govt is capable of getting anything done at all, and then when the shit hits the fan all of a sudden this previously incompetent govt is now suddenly capable of (almost) successfully masterminding some conspiracy after the fact. The truth is that govt agencies are usually too incompetent to accomplish something like that. In this case, the agencies in question simply fucked up and are covering their tails. How that is criminal or can give cause to potential impeachment proceedings against the President is beyond me.

People always want to believe that the govt is completely stupid and ineffective, and then when it serves them and their biases, they want to believe that it’s capable of deceiving us all. So which one is it?

I think this article sums things up perfectly.