Saturday, November 22, 2014

Republican led House investigative committee finds there is no Benghazi scandal. Gee, really?

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

 The House Select Intelligence Committee—controlled by Republicans—has been investigating the Benghazi attacks in minute detail for two years. Today, with the midterm elections safely past, they issued their findings. Their exoneration of the White House was sweeping and nearly absolute. So sweeping that I want to quote directly from the report's summary, rather than paraphrasing it. Here it is: 

The Committee first concludes that the CIA ensured sufficient security for CIA facilities in Benghazi....Appropriate U.S. personnel made reasonable tactical decisions that night, and the Committee found no evidence that there was either a stand down order or a denial of available air support.... 

Second, the Committee finds that there was no intelligence failure prior to the attacks. In the months prior, the IC provided intelligence about previous attacks and the increased threat environment in Benghazi, but the IC did not have specific, tactical warning of the September 11 attacks. 

Third, the Committee finds that a mixed group of individuals, including those affiliated with Al Qa'ida, participated in the attacks.... 

Fourth, the Committee concludes that after the attacks, the early intelligence assessments and the Administration's initial public narrative on the causes and motivations for the attacks were not fully accurate....There was no protest. The CIA only changed its initial assessment about a protest on September 24, 2012, when closed caption television footage became available on September 18, 2012 (two days after Ambassador Susan Rice spoke).... 

Fifth, the Committee finds that the process used to generate the talking points HPSCI asked for—and which were used for Ambassador Rice's public appearances—was flawed.... 

Finally, the Committee found no evidence that any officer was intimidated, wrongly forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement or otherwise kept from speaking to Congress, or polygraphed because of their presence in Benghazi. The Committee also found no evidence that the CIA conducted unauthorized activities in Benghazi and no evidence that the IC shipped arms to Syria. 

It's hard to exaggerate just how remarkable this document is. It's not that the committee found nothing to criticize. They did. The State Department facility in Benghazi had inadequate security. Some of the early intelligence after the attacks was inaccurate. The CIA should have given more weight to eyewitnesses on the ground. 

But those are routine after-action critiques, ones that were fully acknowledged by the very first investigations. Beyond that, every single conspiracy theory—without exception—was conclusively debunked. There was no stand down order. The tactical response was both reasonable and effective under the circumstances. The CIA was not shipping arms from Libya to Syria. Both CIA and State received all military support that was available. The talking points after the attack were fashioned by the intelligence community, not the White House. Susan Rice followed these talking points in her Sunday show appearances, and where she was wrong, it was only because the intelligence community had made incorrect assessments. Nobody was punitively reassigned or polygraphed or otherwise intimidated to prevent them from testifying to Congress.

Okay does anybody else feel that this should be national news on ALL cable and network news outlets? Including Fox?

And not only that I feel that the Republicans should also apologize to President Obama and Hillary Clinton for essentially accusing them of allowing Americans to die and treason.

Of course that would never happen. But it should.

So I guess the Republicans will now simply shift their focus to attacking Obamacare again and suing the President for doing his job.

Different shit, same bunch of assholes.

36 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:09 AM

    The fabricated legend of Benghazi is a lot like Sarah's Fifth..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous4:51 PM

      leave sarah's nipples out of it. Sheesh, can't she keep something private?

      Delete
  2. Anonymous6:20 AM

    I'm sure we will only hear crickets from the cable news outlets.

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  3. You notice when they don't want to call attention to something, they always release it late on a Friday.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Otherwise known as the Friday dump.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous6:43 AM

    How will the Wasilla Drunken Brawler and Tri-g Hoaxer explain that? Visitor from United States Troll and a Wasilla Troll are collaborating right now. Do you clowns phone each other before posting at IM, or is it just a coincidence every day?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Randall6:45 AM

    Oh NO!

    You mean Fox News
    ...lied???

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous6:55 AM

    How Fox News Dismissed Today’s Benghazi Report in Less Than 30 Seconds

    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/how-fox-news-dismissed-todays-benghazi-report-in-less-than-30-seconds/

    ReplyDelete
  7. LoveAndKnishesFromBrooklyn7:07 AM

    The Kochs bought, uh, WON the election, so no more Benghazi, Ebola, Putin/Cold War and very little anymore about ISIS coming to Amurika to whack off our heads. Never fear, Teatards, your old friend Ben Ghazi will be dragged out of mothballs when Hillary runs, and "new" allegations will suddenly spring up like stinkweed.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Anonymous11:54 AM

      Exactly, and the explanation will be that those who investigated were simply bought and paid for. Just like every other RW accusation against this administration, when the furor dies down on one story they simply resurrect an old chestnut and beat off to it.

      Sheesh

      Delete
  8. Anonymous7:10 AM

    They shouldn't just get an apology. The President and former SoS should sue THEM for what is CLEARLY defamation, slander and libel. But the even smarter thing to do is to use it against ANYONE who runs off at the mouth in the last two years of this presidency or who is running for POTUS on the ruthug side for 2016. Shove it down their throats the way they shoved it down ours! Take that a**holes!

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  9. Anonymous7:15 AM

    And let us not forget -- as we already have -- that film funded in the U.S., that served as a catalyst for all those tensions to erupt. Or maybe it was not the catalyst, maybe it was the cover-up catalyst, the pretend catalyst aimed at concealing more overt lines of force determined to create a brou-haha that would seem to humiliate Obama and Clinton.

    Who funded that film? Let's go a little deeper than the front organization.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:14 AM

      The U.S. media will never investigate the ties between the film and the GOP.

      If they would, they could start here:
      Pamela Geller promoted pre-production fundraising on her website.

      "Ali Sina, renowned ex-Muslim author, founder of FaithFreedom.org and SION Board member, has a brilliant idea, a plan, to educate and liberate those enslaved by the most radical and extreme ideology on the face of the earth, but he needs our help:

      A Movie about Muhammad: An Idea whose Time Has Come.

      - See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2012/02/a-movie-about-muhammad-an-idea-whose-time-has-come.html/#sthash.NgpMYs4X.dpuf

      http://pibillwarner.wordpress.com/category/gasbag-pamela-geller-2/

      Playing connect-the-dots leads from Geller and her buddy Robert Spencer to a bevy of GOP big shots, significantly Walid Phares, foreign policy adviser to the Romney campaign, and to Mitt Romney, himself.

      "How Walid Phares went from advising Lebanese warlords to counseling the GOP front-runner."
      http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/walid-phares-mitt-romney-lebanese-forces?page=2

      "The Romney campaign appears to accept Phares’ public association with the Islamophobic Clarion Fund and anti-Muslim blogger Robert Spencer. But given Romney’s record of calling for the firing of individuals for far less than ties to a violent militia, will he apply the same standard to Walid Phares?"
      http://www.islamophobiatoday.com/2011/10/27/romney-has-called-for-firing-of-public-officials-for-far-less-than-ties-to-war-criminals/



      Delete
    2. LoveAndKnishesFromBrooklyn10:40 AM

      That's great info, anon @ 10:14am. I always suspected Sheldon Adelson, but I do remember well how Mittens seemed to know immediately that this mess had happened, and was ready with a very smug press conference. Will check out the links, which is more than our unbiased *cough* media will do, unfortunately.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:52 AM

      Yup, I remember a tiny bit of attn to this, but then it was all squashed. I still think the movie was part of a bigger plan to foment unrest to hurt our president -- who prob knows all about it but is not in a position to tell much.

      Delete
  10. Anonymous7:24 AM

    Move over BenGhazi ... here's comes GruberGate!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And all these investigations cost the American tax payer how much?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous12:45 PM

      tailher1 -
      Don't you wish there was a mechanism in Congress similar to that in the court system, where people are punished for filing frivolous law suits?

      I would love to see the GOP sent a bill for all of the wasteful Benghazi investigations and the repeated attempts to repeal the ACA. Oh, and let's not forget all the money lost when they shut down the government during their latest temper tantrum.

      Pay up, GOP!

      Delete
  11. Anonymous7:55 AM

    There's got to be a huge majority of Americans who see through these frivolous charges and the waste of taxpayer money by Issa's Investigative Committee.

    And some of those IRS Lois Lerner e-mails have been retrieved, which negates the accusations that they were destroyed and shredded. It would seem that no matter how hard they try witch-hunt this President and Administration, they fall hard on their faces.

    Imagine the incredible book President Obama will be writing in his presidential memoirs? That book will be a best-seller.

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  12. Anonymous7:57 AM

    How much money did they waste?
    How much time did they waste?
    What weren't they getting done when they were masturbating over this so-called "scandal?"

    Expell the bastards. Or at least censure them.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous8:43 AM

    After being attacked by the Reich Wing the entire time he has been in office the President has never QIUT!. Hear that Sarah? you can't say the same quitter and loser.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Anonymous9:34 AM

      Yeah, and remember how she said that as a lame duck she wouldn't be able to do much anyway (and had that weird dead fish going with the flow metaphor)? He has already proven her wrong.

      Delete
  14. Anonymous8:54 AM

    If I was Susan Rice, I look at McCain and say, you POS!

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    1. Anonymous2:02 PM

      McCain is a vindictive little bitch like Palin when he feels he's been slighted. In July or Aug 2008, while appearing as an Obama surrogate on one of the cable channels, Susan Rice has this to say about McCain: "There are two ways to do
      Foreign Policy - you can do it smart or you can do it stupid, and McCain is promising four more years of STUPID." And I believe THAT is why she's not Sec'y of State.

      I only needed one reason to vote for Obama - to keep McCain as far away as possible from American Foreign Policy. His trail of blunders should have sidelined him years ago.

      Delete
  15. Anonymous9:20 AM

    We want to see the results of the 'DRUNKEN BRAWLGHAZI' Anchorage reports.

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    1. Anonymous10:10 AM

      In a nutshell the Palins got wasted, crashed a party, got their asses handed to them, made fools of themselves and confirmed for the world, on tape, what a foul-mouthed bunch of trash we all knew they were.

      Delete
  16. Anonymous9:49 AM

    Just on example of foot-in-mouth on Benghazi:

    Sarah Palin on Fox News Oct. 17, 2013
    And then, of course, he, having left behind, his administration left behind our brave men in Benghazi to be murdered
    http://www.youtube.com/v/mOBr_IKedqE&hl=en_US&fs=1&

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:38 AM

      This is just another in a long list of Palin overreactions because she relies on Wingnut news sites before she spews.

      Delete
  17. Anonymous10:10 AM

    OT please advise me why I can't post from my Ipad

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:35 AM

      I have the same problem IOS the newest version of IOS has issues.

      Delete
  18. Anonymous11:17 AM

    Don't fret this fellow Gruber and his thoughts about Obamacare have just stepped up the conservative plate and they are gonna swing away on this one now.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous11:18 AM

    The Republican asses are going to be creamed in 2016 and it will all be due to the members they have had and will currently have in the U.S. Congress. Plus, the facts are out there that they are blatantly anti women and racists (many members of the KKK)!

    It's so easy to prove all these things about them - many of us have kept records of some of their past dirty deeds that we'll be more than happy to share.

    Hillary Clinton (and Bill) are going to have a field day with them in 2016 and I can hardly wait to watch the Clintons (yes, both of them - they have so much history and experience!) in action when it comes to the Republicans. They know how to deal with them better than any other Democrats on the planet!
    Plus, Bill is admired and loved all over the world!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous11:46 AM

    Because nothing says Tea Party Made-in-America (dammit) pride like a Nissan SUV

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous12:49 PM

    I can't wait to see how much time is devoted to this story on tomorrow's Sunday political shows on the so-called 'liberal media'.

    Admitting the right wing was wrong all along has GOT to be worth at least 3 or 4 seconds!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anita Winecooler5:00 PM

    S-L-O-W news cycle, eh? Diane Sawyer's husband passed away, Thanksgiving and black friday coming up soon, lots of snow in a a lot of places. Nothing to research and report on, so put it out there on a weekend, when no one's watching.
    We've only heard bits and pieces of screams of "Benghazi" with all kinds of conspiracies for how long? Now, unless you're stuck behind this silver nissan, you wouldn't even know the results.
    I hope they handle "Ferguson" and the " lily white police officer" mistakenly killing an unarmed african american teenager.

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  23. My God. What is Darrell Issa going to do with all his copious free time now?

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