2641

Yeah, those quote unquote Fox News zombies. Dehumanize much?

2642

The US administration is now facing a crisis in Libya. Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the “safe house” in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed “safe”.

Some of the missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans, putting them potentially at risk from extremist groups, while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts.

According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and “lockdown”, under which movement is severely restricted.

But but but, having an agency location overrun and looted pales in comparison to the damage inflicted by the GOP. They might have totally forgotten about this stuff until he brought it up.

2643

I’m not saying it was a pristine location by any means. I’m saying that if your job is to protect the safe house, then you protect the safe house. Anybody who goes into that line of work, providing security for secret locations in dangerous countries – or even working as an official representative, such as the ambassador – knowingly assumes a great deal of risk on behalf of a ‘greater good,’ be that diplomacy or intelligence. That former SEALs would bitch that they were denied permission to rush headfirst into an assault mocks the entire process. In fact, those guys probably never would have been offered that post had their superiors suspected they would behave that way (the bitching). It’s not a clean line of work by any means, but just like with the bin Laden raid (which is compared in the photo), you do what you’re told because that is what the people who are coordinating the activities believe to be in the best interest of the ‘greater good.’ Had they been given permission, we may well be talking about the 6+ people who died instead of the 4. And yes, that attitude extends to careless public briefings where you show the location of a secret facility on a map.

2644

The airquotes were the equivalent of the wikipedia note [who?] and were meant as a poke at a passively constructed sentence blandly alluding to unnamed “people” who upset by something or other best summarized by a sad and ugly chain-email-looking image.

Although it is probably fair to guess that I’d find anyone circulating an image like that sort of dislikeable politically. I guess if that’s dehumanization, as opposed to just judging people?

2645

My problem with it is more how much this episode resembles the years of W - total incompetence and failure to listen to people on the ground, followed by an equally insipid domestic cover strategy where anyone who points out the total farcical fuckup is accused of being disloyal.

The thing that really worries me - Obama’s people couldn’t even get something so simple as a coherent public domestic narrative about it out after a week. Which makes me think that it’s probably really, really, really fucking bad behind the scenes.

Also I assure you that this mess has been noted by a lot more people than just some community of SEAL people you think would be worried about it. Really anyone who works for the US in a place that could potentially go to shit has been watching this very closely and I don’t think anyone has been much impressed.

2646

I agree with you there. It probably is a mess. The lurching giant beast of bureaucracy that was behind W largely is made up of the same people now. It’s not like there’s a magic turnover in career gov. employees when a new president comes into office. In fact, the intel community took a good 7-8 yrs to get back to legitimate strength AFTER 9/11 (due to issues with the amount of time it takes to hire and train appropriately) that, if anything, there’s even less turnover there.

Anybody working overseas for the US government, especially in lesser safe locations, should be constantly vigilant and should be worried. Obama and the crew he appointed, including his advisors, can’t do anything for their safety other than bring them home or sign legislation for more funding for security. There the burden lies with both parties, who need to get their heads out of their asses and work together on these issues. It’s easy to point at the very top of the pyramid and try to blame a failure of leadership for every last incident. The White House definitely could have handled this better, but I seriously doubt that there’s anything they could have done directly to prevent the attack. The vast majority of communications in the overseas USG community never go through the White House; the players on the ground (be they military, intel, State, USAID, etc.) communicate directly with regards to important security bulletins and other issues.

2647

I don’t think anyone has any idea that the White House should have prevented the attack. No one blames Obama for that. Remember how this unfurled: The White House blamed the video and the “spontaneous attack following a protest” for 10 or 11 days before the “terrorist attack” term started to be used. Then it became clear it was a planned attack, not the result of disorganized protesters. Then it was uncovered there was no protest at all. Then the details of what took place that night started to be released.

The entire event lasted approx. 8 hours, IIRC. There were two unarmed drones watching the attack for hours and hours, streaming a live feed into the US intel system, including Washington and the White House Situation Room while the guys on the ground were calling for aid, and no one sent any. There were special forces elements in Tripoli. There is an Air Force base 500 miles away in Italy. There are Army units within an hour’s drive of that Air Force base. The second drone came from the base in Italy. There were all kinds of resources the Pentagon/CIA/State Dept. could have called in to assist.

At first the CIA repeatedly refused to let the former Seals go help the Ambassador, then when they went anyway and recovered both living personnel and the body of Sean Smith and came under attack at the Annex, the Chain of Command still didn’t send in any help. Despite repeated calls, no one in the chain of command provided any support at all. The two former Seals died manning a machine gun on the roof, “painting” the mortar positions that eventually killed them in the hope that air cover would come in and take them out.

People in Washington, in the President’s residence, watched and did nothing. Worse than nothing, they deliberately mischaracterized the nature of the attack to minimize the political impact of the guys’ on the ground death.

Now, shit happens and people die. It sucks but it’s true. That the administration has stonewalled, misled, outright lied, and still continues to obviscate and prevaricate on the issue is the real reason everyone should be upset.

2648

The wingnut news sewage pipe claims another victim.

The first link to “drone embassy tripoli” goes to wingnut Althouse. Which links to the NY Post as the source of the drone thing. Which references a CBS report where “they have been told”.

CBS News has been told that, hours after the attack began, an unmanned Predator drone was sent over the U.S. mission in Benghazi, and that the drone and other reconnaissance aircraft apparently observed the final hours of the protracted battle.

So there was a drone there in “the final hours” doing something or another, if you believe CBS news’s completely unspecified source. Poking around I find this discussion from Kevin Drum which links to this bit by Weigel, which links to Jake Tapper’s interview with the father of someone killed in it, and his exciting habit of giving unsourced information to wingnut talk radio.

But the new criticism of the Obama response dials the clock back to the day of the attack, and it’s compelling. Charles Woods, the father of Benghazi victim Tyrone Woods, has been calling up conservative talk radio to explain how his sun rushed into the fray and was denied back-up.

In other words, there’s no goddamn evidence at all for this horseshit:

There were two unarmed drones watching the attack for hours and hours, streaming a live feed into the US intel system, including Washington and the White House Situation Room while the guys on the ground were calling for aid, and no one sent any.

The Jake Tapper piece has better sourcing on what drones were involved and when:

A Defense Department official confirms that there an unarmed ISR (“intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance”) drone overhead over part of the assault in Benghazi.

90% of what you said about drones is not remotely reliably sourced and flat contradicted by reliable sources. I see no reason to carefully evaluate whatever other crap you’ve picked up from wingnuts.

2649

But you do believe that they had a live feed from a drone during at least part of the attack, which took place over a period of many hours, right?

2650

No, because no one has reliably sourced that claim about the live feed. Look carefully at who’s claiming what, what their sources are, and how reliable their sourcing is. “There were drones of unspecified capabilities over Bengazi for hours at some point” is the only thing with a remotely reliable source, the “Defense Department official” Tapper sources. We don’t know exactly how many; we don’t know what capabilities the drones had; and if it did have a video feed, we don’t know who was watching it; if someone was watching it, we don’t know much of anything about how it impacted their response.

The story is plenty bad even from the uncontroversial facts, but no, that’s not good enough.

2651

Err… I think all drones have a live feed, don’t they?

This is an honest question… I just assumed that they all did, since it’s generally the most basic of functionality for a drone.

2652

Nope, the blind Navigators fly them with thought only after years of exposure to Spice.

We will need a signed note from the President’s mother that they left the men to die. Even if this doesn’t merit inclusion in a legal case, understand this is the narrative that is driving people (WINGNUTS!!! not people, I keep forgetting) on this topic.

2653

Err… I think all drones have a live feed, don’t they?

They have a feed for the operator, but it’s an open question beyond that.

It’s a narrative that is fiction. There is no goddamn evidence it is true. It’s not a minor detail, it means I can’t trust a thing you’re saying.

2654

Ah I forgot the other great W tendency - blame an underling for any fuckups.

By ‘bureaucracy’ who exactly do you have in mind? Is it over here? Perhaps here or here instead. Perhaps you have some lower level than that in mind - always a good choice. I guess it’s a miracle they could get anything done at all, what with all those Bushies they appointed to oversee operations with the militias in eastern Libya. What a mess they left Obama to clean up over there!

Anybody working overseas for the US government, especially in lesser safe locations, should be constantly vigilant and should be worried.

Uh, I think you will find the source of worry is the concerning part - outside the gate - sure. Voice on the other end of the phone? Not a good thing to have to worry about.

Obama and the crew he appointed, including his advisors, can’t do anything for their safety other than bring them home or sign legislation for more funding for security.

What does this even mean I don’t even … christ. Dude. This is your Libyan militia control program being run out of an off the books location by the CIA. Oh yes, very important to sign some legislation to cover that one and make sure it’s funded through congress. If you had one of those, you could stack it on top of the authorisation for the Libyan intervention in the first place I guess. Haha oh wait it was decided not to ask for anything covering it from congress at all, rather, to just go ahead and spend a billion plus on it because the decider decided that the war powers resolution didn’t apply to him.

There the burden lies with both parties, who need to get their heads out of their asses and work together on these issues. It’s easy to point at the very top of the pyramid and try to blame a failure of leadership for every last incident.

That’s true, it’s important that underlings, dead people, and domestic opposition who had fuck all to do with anything take their share of the blame.

The White House definitely could have handled this better, but I seriously doubt that there’s anything they could have done directly to prevent the attack. The vast majority of communications in the overseas USG community never go through the White House; the players on the ground (be they military, intel, State, USAID, etc.) communicate directly with regards to important security bulletins and other issues.

I think you can bet that if there was even a skerrick of exculpatory evidence firewalling anyone senior between anyone on the nss/state/pentagon/fbi/dni/etc list who were dealing with it, it would have been leaked by now. Also, the hilarious shitshow Obama and Clinton have put on, playing dumb and repeating that we must all be patient while they mystically divine the exact sequence of events (some 50 days later) would indicate to me that they probably do know pretty much what happened and that it is not good for them. Someone needs to run some of that in a youtube doubler with Walter White faking a fugue state.

2655

They have a feed for the operator, but it’s an open question beyond that.

I’m not really sure what’s an open question in this case.

Ya, it’s a feed for the operator… who is sitting at a computer terminal some place. You can direct that feed anywhere you want, since it’s just a data feed. That’s kind of the point of drones.

I mean, you can argue about some of those other aspects of the story, but I don’t think you can really argue that they had a feed of what was happening on the ground, if the State Department folks actually testified that they had a drone in the air over the area during the attack. That part of the story seems to have pretty solid sourcing.

2656

Remember what Rhino’s original claim was here:

The entire event lasted approx. 8 hours, IIRC. There were two unarmed drones watching the attack for hours and hours, streaming a live feed into the US intel system, including Washington and the White House Situation Room while the guys on the ground were calling for aid, and no one sent any.

There is zero evidence of this. We have no idea whatsoever as to who the feed was going to, much less the narrative where Obama was all la-de-da whatever, let them die. We don’t even know, to my knowledge, what the standard practices are for distributing drone feeds. Remember this is the DOD we’re talking about; seemingly easy things like “direct live feed from field where ever you want” aren’t.

The point isn’t that it didn’t happen this way, it’s that we don’t know. Yet wingnuts are out there spinning all sorts of bullshit; there are pages and pages of wingnuts repeating the claim that Obama watched the whole thing in the situation room, from some ex-military guy’s completely unspecified sources.

2657

Obama was having a fairly bad day in the polls today…until this evening. That’s when we got two respected polling outfits–SUSA and Quinnipiac–giving him +3 and +5 in Ohio respectively. SUSA also has things tied in Florida, which is something we’ve seen develop over the last week in a lot of polls. Watch where Romney goes on Thursday-Friday-Saturday. If it’s to Florida, that’s an admission that they put it in their win column a bit too early.

As a result of Ohio polling (and polls in Colorado and Nevada that were good for Team Obama earlier) Nate Silver moved Obama from 72% to 77% this evening.

2658

I don’t know if you’re up there, but if you are, save me, Strawman!

I don’t claim to know if Obama was in the room, sitting on his skull throne in a darkened section of the White House Situation Room stroking his hairless cat. What I can tell you is that I think it’s preposterous to think that the White House wasn’t watching the Bengazi feed after the events in Cairo, whenever it became available. We know they get feeds there, including the Osama raid. Everyone has seen the photos of them watching the Osama feed. Those drones are flown from Las Vegas. Now, the person/people watching may have been the duty officer; it may have only been the SecDef, it may have been any number of people. It strains credulity, though, to think that no one was watching.

The story is so convoluted, not because what isn’t knowable but because of the incessant spin coming from the Obama administration. It’s all “Wingnuts”, though, like CBS News.

So the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense knew at the start of the attack, with 7+ hours to go before it was over and decided they could get someone to Benghazi in less than a day. Bravo. But let’s continue:

There is an tense-shift there that could use more explanation, I think.

The airbase in Italy is less than 500 miles from Benghazi. How long does it take to get F-15s on station? How much longer to get more ground-support-oriented aircraft to the scene? So reinforcements were sent, according to a shadily-sourced (I mean, it’s just a guy someone knows, right?) “White House official”. Does anyone think, even in upteen-hundred to three Qt3 for Obama land, that the administration wouldn’t be dog-and-ponying this around the media if it were remotely A) true B) helpful?

Again, I don’t know the logistics of any of this but how can even true believers trust the White House story on this? At the very least, someone decided the optics looked bad and tried to cover up the details until after the election. And at worst, its much worse. I personally don’t think that skull-throne Obama stopped burning money long enough to give the Seals and the Ambassador the thumbs down. What I do think happened is that the bureaucratic sclerosis caused enough delay that help that could have arrived on scene to assist these guys wasn’t authorized and a political decision drove the way the administration tried to spin the story. What outcome should result from that I think is up to the reader. But don’t pretend that this is a WTC7-esque lunatic fringe or that “people”, i.e. slack-jawed mouthbreathing hillbilly conservatives, I guess don’t have any reason to be angry.

2659

“Sure, there’s no evidence of it, and I have no idea how the military and White House handle this sort of thing in general, but it’s obviously what happened.”

I am making no claims about the response to the event other than 1) your description of the drone situation is completely unsupported axe-grinding speculation 2) therefore I don’t really care what your other theories are. Other people shouldn’t either, because it’s clearly not about what actually happened.

2660

There’s a huge big ass storm that just hit the East Coast with 50 dead, billions in damage. Willard is on record that FEMA should be sent to the states or privatized yet here are “people” insisting on some massive cover up inLibya.

Ok then.