Little-Acorn
Gold Member
Originally written May 2013
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 The gate guards and patrols had been replaced by Libyans...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.
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CBS News - Breaking News, U.S., World, Business, Entertainment & Video
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.
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.
------------------------------------------------------
CBS News - Breaking News, U.S., World, Business, Entertainment & Video
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.
