A thought on the lack of outrage/action over Benghazi

Point of order (entirely irrelevant to the thread subject): If this were true, we would have had President Hillary Clinton in 2008.

Not even close. In 2008 Hillary had the big money backing and the institutional insider backing but most of the actual primary voters didn't want her. That's why they jumped aboard the Obama train. The actual voters trumped Hillary's money advantage.

Hillary Clinton lost the nomination in no small part simply because of terrible planning.

Her campaign staff didn't think there was any way the nomination battle would go beyond Super Tuesday so they make NO PLANS (seriously) beyond then.

Thus, they basically spent freely and exhausted virtually all of her funds. When the nomination battle went longer the Obama campaign simply ran her steadily into the ground.

The attack isn't the news. Not in the slightest.

The direct refusal of aid to Americans is the issue.

Ron Paul is exhibit A that this is an invented issue.

Robert Gates, Bush 43's 2nd Secretary of Defense, criticized the Congressional Republicans very harshly recently over this issue. He pointed out that such an immediate response by the military to the Libyan attack was unprecedented and that he would have shot it down too - just putting more people at risk with no intel, no force estimates, and no reasonable chance of success. They had 4 guys ready to go.

His went so far as to say that the GOP's understanding of the military realities of the situation were 'cartoonish.'

So I'm not a fan of how Hillary handled this, and I think its done a pretty good job of screwing up her chances for the Presidency - if she even still wanted that at this point.

But the GOP is clearly using this for that, and there were cover ups at the time, not because of military fail ups or intelligence failures but because of the political ramifications of the reality of the situation weren't palatable right before the election.

Obama also did a better job in the debates than Hillary. Obama was cool and precise while Hillary came across as nasty when she got angry.

I'm not sure I agree with this. While I tend to support the U.S. military's judgement I think they tend to a "Cold War/Desert Storm" mentality in some respects about using American forces.

It was said that during the Cold War, the U.S. military wanted to train for 10 years and then fight for one month (hypothetically against he Soviet Union).

While after Desert Storm it was said that the Dept. of Defense had a stock answer for anytime a U.S. leader wanted to deploy troops.

"The answer is 6 months and 500,000 troops. What is your question."

In short, they are ultra (and probably overly) cautious.

Robert Gates was not a general, but ex-CIA. During his tenure Special Operations were used to a higher degree than ever before.

Try again.

Of course he wasn't a general. You can't be a general (at least a recent one) and be Secretary of Defense without a congressional waiver.

Then why did you try and use the mentality of the Army brass 20 years ago as a weakass rebuttal of Gates' statement?

I think the mentality persists. Generals today with 30 years experience entered and began their rise all the way back during the Cold War.

Look it's all a bunch of bullshit.

We had assets in Tripoli that were ready to fly to Benghazi and they were told not to go.

Now of course with perfect hindsight we know they still probably wouldn't have made it in time to save those four people but on that day they did not know that.

No one can say it doesn't matter because it wouldn't work because there is no way to prove it wouldn't work. Maybe buzzing the compound at Mach speeds may have scared off the attackers who might have thought more were on the way. Maybe it wouldn't. Who knows.......

Is not sending them a impeachable offense? Of course not.

And lying about it isn't good enough to impeach either.

But it is enough to rip off the mask of this administration to the public and show them for the bastards they are.

It is enough to put a stake through Hillary's heart to end any chance of her running for POTUS.

Add in now the IRS mess which is just starting to explode everywhere making Obama practically a clone of Nixon and his enemies list, and this one could be impeachable, Obamacare is starting to turn into the monster everyone said it would, and the Democrats are right to start shitting bricks as 2014 and 2016 are going to be bad years for them.

The IRS mess? You mean investigating political activists masquerading as non-profits? That's called investigating tax fraud, which is a good thing. And this screaming post about Benghazzi pretty much proves Gates' point. I thought you had something Zombie, with the phone records, but then I read the entire article, not just your selective quote. Don't put yourself with the drooling idiots, you're smarter than them.

[?=Updated timeline for those needing to catch up.][/?]

Michele Bachmann says "God did it."

I however have to put you with the drooling idiots since you believe what the IRS was and probably still is doing is okay.

Even after the IRS admitted they did it.......

Yes, they admitted that they investigated groups that had applied for a social welfare agency exemption but who appeared engaged in political organizing, should they not investigate these things?

And you can't be either one of those.

Let's see.

Armchair generals ... secretary of defense.

Armchair generals ... secretary of defense.

Tough choice.

The thing is that you don't know. You can't say for sure what would happened had jets buzzed the compound, maybe strafed a target or two.

So this nonsense from Robert Gates is just that: Nonsense. No one now will ever know what may or may not have happened had the jets gone in.

But the fact remains someone refused to let those jets even try and that someone also stopped a special forces team from going in and trying to rescue people.

We don't have time to get to Mars! There's no time!

My favorite argument. "There wasn't enough time!"

Dude, there was seven or eight fuckin' hours.

It's not "armchair general" territory to point out that if they'd got off their fucking asses when they got the phone call, then yes, they would have had people there in time. We're not talking about a fuckin' Chicago drive-by here. It was almost eight hours worth of attack.

The only way there "wasn't enough time" to put more feet on the ground is if Hillary Clinton was knitting fuckin' mittens for the soldiers they intended to send there to reinforce the diplomatic facility.

Yep, I called it -- Gates is suddenly unqualified to comment on such matters.

At any rate, I thought what a friend had to say on Facebook was pretty spot on about how ridiculous this is:

^According to my Facebook friend - Victory is mine!

Sometimes a quote makes the point more effectively.

I wonder what your position regarding "Armchair generals...secretary of defense" would've been had we been talking about Robert McNamara and the Vietnam War.

Or for that matter, Donald Rumsfeld and the Iraq War.

I'd go with Matthew 7:20. Some of us measure people's actions by outcome.

That said, McNamara had profound regrets about his role in history...decades after the carnage of which he was architect. We'll have to see if Rumsfeld suddenly develops a conscience as he gets closer to death.

In any event, either man had access to more information in a day about the actual events on the world stage than some guy who keeps a copy of Clever Sayings of Lao-Tzu for All Occasions in the shed out back of the house will accrue in a lifetime.

Robert Gates WAS NOT A GENERAL.

And what if they had gone?

A small group of US soldiers going into hostile territory with no clear objective or exit strategy, sure to be outnumbered, probably outgunned and with no chance of reinforcement. You're looking at, at best, a repeat of Mogadishu. At worst, the entire team might have been killed or captured.

How is that better than what happened already?

Well, if you're the batshit insane wing of the GOP, it's better for one reason: more dead Americans. And more dead Americans means more trouble for President Obama.

The Benghazi truthers aren't upset four Americans died. They're upset only four Americans died.