Benghazi Conspiracy Theories

CNN reported some new information about the Benghazi attack--including a detailed timeline of events--which directly contradicts the stuff FOX News has been spinning:

"There were no orders to anybody to stand down in providing support," the official said.

The official detailed the minute by minute account of what they say happened that night. There was a roughly 25 minute gap between when the officers at a nearby annex received the call for help from the mission to when the officers were able to get on their way to assist. During that time the officers at that annex location were getting their weapons loaded into vehicles, while others were on the phone trying to get local "friendly" militias with heavier weapons to help.

The FOX report also suggested that the officers on the ground asked for military back-up but the CIA denied those requests. The official again said this report was wrong. The military, the official said, provided drone surveillance and a tactical security team to assist.

The tactical security team stuff is fuzzy, but there was a mention of about eight US personnel driving in from the Benghazi airport in the early morning before the second attack on the CIA annex. They were likely CIA personnel who came in from Tripoli.

CNN is part of the media cabal that's in the tank for Obama, so that's about as valid a source as the KCNA.

Prederick wrote:

CNN is part of the media cabal that's in the tank for Obama, so that's about as valid a source as the KCNA.

You can't see this Prederick, but I'm now doing the *pointing to you, pointing to me* gesture.

There's new articles out from the New York Times and the LA Times that provide more information that contradicts the FOX News story.

[i wrote:

LA Times[/i]]
The Fox story also asserted that the CIA "chain of command" refused to pass along requests from its officers for military aid and that special operations forces in nearby Sicily could have been sent to help but were not. Intelligence and Pentagon officials strenuously denied that Thursday.

They insisted there was no viable military option to disrupt what amounted to a series of sporadic attacks in a crowded city full of people sympathetic to the U.S. There were no armed drones in the region and airstrikes were not called for, officials said.

"Let's say we were able to get an aircraft there. Do you go in and start strafing a populated area without knowing where friend or foe is?" a senior Defense official asked. "If you did that, you could kill the very people you are trying to help."

A special operations team was sent to Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, but the team arrived after the attack ended, said the senior Defense official, who would not be quoted by name discussing potentially classified information.

The article also confirms that six CIA personnel were rushed from Tripoli to Benghazi, arriving at the Benghazi airport around midnight. Considering the attacks began at 9:40 PM and that Tripoli is 600+ miles away, I'd have to say that it seems like any and all US assets in the area were brought immediately to bear.

For those folks allergic to getting their information from the Lame Stream Media, there is an ideologically pure source they might try: an article by neoconservative American Enterprise Institute. It was written based on talks with "key general officers and others involved in the US response to the Benghazi attacks":

AEIdeas[/url]]The Consulate was overrun in a matter of minutes, before any help was possible.

A team that appears to have been CIA personnel deployed quickly (and bravely) from the Annex to the Consulate and rescued everyone they found alive there. (It’s not clear whether Ambassador Stevens had already been taken by Libyans to the hospital or whether they simply failed to find him.)

A mainly CIA response force deployed quickly from Tripoli to reinforce the Annex and facilitate its successful evacuation.

Decision makers in Washington appear to have been leaning forward, as they should have been. The military’s most capable rescue force, based on the East Coast, was deployed immediately (something that is very rarely done), but – given the distances involved – arrived at Sigonella only after the crisis was over.

Also, the European command (EUCOM) deployed its number one counter terrorism force, which was training in central Europe, as quickly as possible, but it arrived in Sigonella after the evacuation of the Annex was complete.

Other special forces deployed to Sigonella but arrived on the 12th after it was too late to make a difference in Benghazi.

There was no AC-130 gunship in the region.

The only drone available in Libya was an unarmed surveillance drone which was quickly moved from Darna to Benghazi, but the field of view of these drones is limited and, in any case, this one was not armed.

The only other assets immediately available were F-16 fighter jets based at Aviano, Italy. These aircraft might have reached Benghazi while the fight at the Annex was still going on, but they would have had difficulty pinpointing hostile mortar positions or distinguishing between friendly and hostile militias in the midst of a confused firefight in a densely populated residential area where there would have been a high likelihood of civilian casualties. While two more Americans were tragically killed by a mortar strike on the Annex, it’s not clear that deploying F-16’s would have prevented that. In any case, the decision not to do so was made by the tactical commander, General Ham, as it should have been.

Regardless of what really happened, the narrative that Fox spins will take hold. The people that watch Fox only want to hear confirmation of what they already think. They are not actually interested in learning what actually occurred.

Just in case you need a reference guide to the nutbar mind....

IMAGE(https://www.motherjones.com/files/mojo-obama-conspiracy.png)

Link

Married a Pakistani guy? Wow.

garion333 wrote:

Married a Pakistani guy? Wow.

It's all part of the whackadoo strategy to toss out more and more outrageous crap at a rate that is impossible to respond to.

I particularly like the lizard man one.

Yeah, but look how well *that* impulse turned out.

Paleocon wrote:

It's all part of the whackadoo strategy to toss out more and more outrageous crap at a rate that is impossible to respond to.

I particularly like the lizard man one.

And as ridiculous as it may seem, these things actually stick. They gain their own momentum after a while. Of the things posted in that tri-circle or whatever, I've heard these at work: Kenya, Muslim, fake birth certificate, removed US flag from not only Air Force One but everything, won't say pledge, plans to overthrow government and take land/gold/guns/everything, Antichrist, and sworn in on Koran.

Just another instance of...

IMAGE(http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcy63tjHsW1qdqix8o1_500.jpg)

Well, in fairness, they tend to take root in the fertile ground of the minds of folks who hate a particular person for reasons they either can not articulate or care not to articulate for reasons that might be otherwise be socially costly.

Paleocon wrote:

Well, in fairness, they tend to take root in the fertile ground of the minds of folks who hate a particular person for reasons they either can not articulate or care not to articulate for reasons that might be otherwise be socially costly.

Still, I don't want to live on this planet anymore!

ZaneRockfist wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

It's all part of the whackadoo strategy to toss out more and more outrageous crap at a rate that is impossible to respond to.

I particularly like the lizard man one.

And as ridiculous as it may seem, these things actually stick. They gain their own momentum after a while. Of the things posted in that tri-circle or whatever, I've heard these at work: Kenya, Muslim, fake birth certificate, removed US flag from not only Air Force One but everything, won't say pledge, plans to overthrow government and take land/gold/guns/everything, Antichrist, and sworn in on Koran.

Just another instance of...

IMAGE(http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcy63tjHsW1qdqix8o1_500.jpg)

I'm tempted to record myself reading all that out...

Ok, that's funny but I actually asked a serious question here. There was an attack on the US embassy in Benghazi. There was confusion over whether it was a protest or a terrorist attack or both. There seemingly hasn't been a distinct US response to the Benghazi attack. I don't think this means anything, but those are real things that happened and they feed any number of conspiracy theories that are far more grounded than "he's a lizard man".

I'm still curious if anyone has any more reporting or knowledge of what happened on that day.

DSGamer wrote:

I'm still curious if anyone has any more reporting or knowledge of what happened on that day.

More reporting has happened over the past couple of days. I've linked to several additional articles in previous posts.

The TL;DR version is that none of the new information supports the story FOX News and conservatives have been yammering about.

There weren't any US troops in the area and Obama most certainly didn't refuse to deploy them. In fact, the opposite actually happened. An Army commando unit in Europe was staged to a US airbase in Italy, but they couldn't be deployed to Benghazi in time to do anything. Another counter-terrorist team was flown in from the US, again, arrived too late to do anything. The only additional US assets in the the area--six CIA personnel in Tripoli--were on the move as soon as the first attack began. It says a lot about the conditions on the ground that they were able get to Benghazi's airport less than two and a half hours after the first attack was reported, but it took them nearly four hours to get from the airport to the consulate.

No military or CIA official denied requests for backup as none was available. Requests for airstrikes, if there even were any, were infeasible because the nearest US strike aircraft was more than 500 miles away and the best it could do would be to drop ordinance on crowds of rioting people.

There were only two drone aircraft in the area, but neither was armed. Both were re-tasked to surveil Benghazi.

The CIA supporting Islamists groups thing is simply ludicrous. Post 9/11, and especially in recent years, CIA has been working overtime to introduce anyone with vaguely Islamist ideas to the business end of a Hellfire missile.

If you read the American Enterprise Institute blog post I linked to before, you'll see there has been some walking back on the more crazy allegations made by conservatives. But, even then, they're sticking to the Monday morning quarterbacking by saying things like someone should have still had US strike aircraft orbiting the consulate even though they couldn't have actually dropped bombs if only to "intimidate" the attackers.

The reality is that the attack happened quickly and in an area where the might of the US military wasn't a quick chopper flight away. The entire incident--from the first attack to the evacuation of US personnel--took less than 12 hours and during a period of time when large chunks of the Middle East were rioting because some asshole had to go make a movie with the express purpose of pissing off a billion people.

It's classic fog of war stuff, but I'm sure it makes more sense for some people just to blame Obama. He's a Muslim lizard-man, after all.

So far, doesn't look like much new. Most of the reporting focuses on whether troops could have arrived on the scene in time. But instead of meaning "in time to save the ambassador", they downplay that what is meant is "in time to prevent a second attack on a secret CIA safe house hours later", which strikes me as a really ex post facto argument. (How, exactly, did Mr. Hicks know that assault was coming? And would two jets flying over the city, or four - count 'em, four - SF guys really add so much that the attackers would have packed up and gone home?)

But who knows, maybe we'll learn something besides the fact that some State Dept. guys have their own views on the world (what a shocker).

Robear wrote:

So far, doesn't look like much new. Most of the reporting focuses on whether troops could have arrived on the scene in time. But instead of meaning "in time to save the ambassador", they downplay that what is meant is "in time to prevent a second attack on a secret CIA safe house hours later", which strikes me as a really ex post facto argument. (How, exactly, did Mr. Hicks know that assault was coming? And would two jets flying over the city, or four - count 'em, four - SF guys really add so much that the attackers would have packed up and gone home?)

But who knows, maybe we'll learn something besides the fact that some State Dept. guys have their own views on the world (what a shocker).

It's really stunning to me that the GOP is trying to make hay with this issue. I'll be willing to listen to discussions on Benghazi as soon as Bush and Cheney are brought to trial for Iraq.

Bear wrote:
Robear wrote:

So far, doesn't look like much new. Most of the reporting focuses on whether troops could have arrived on the scene in time. But instead of meaning "in time to save the ambassador", they downplay that what is meant is "in time to prevent a second attack on a secret CIA safe house hours later", which strikes me as a really ex post facto argument. (How, exactly, did Mr. Hicks know that assault was coming? And would two jets flying over the city, or four - count 'em, four - SF guys really add so much that the attackers would have packed up and gone home?)

But who knows, maybe we'll learn something besides the fact that some State Dept. guys have their own views on the world (what a shocker).

It's really stunning to me that the GOP is trying to make hay with this issue. I'll be willing to listen to discussions on Benghazi as soon as Bush and Cheney are brought to trial for Iraq.

Yeah. Watching my relatives post this garbage over and over again on Facebook is getting so tiresome. The only reply is "more Americans died in Iraq".

That right there explains why this is happening - it's making hay for the GOP. Now that they have failed to limit Obama to one term, they have to - absolutely must - prevent him from getting any legislative successes. Tying him in knots over anything and everything is what's left.

Given that the US averaged 2.20 fatalities every day during the Iraq war (Brookings Institute paper - PDF warning), it is easy to portray the political posturing over Benghazi as small fry.

And folks pushing this as a conspiracy have done themselves no favors skipping intelligence briefings on Benghazi to hold a press conference complaining about the lack of briefings, as McCain did back in November.

That said, if folks made bad decisions regarding Benghazi, I want them to be held accountable.

I just don't see any smoking gun (so far). At most, it seems like there's a whiff of smoke, with a cigarette stubbed out, in plain view, on the floor.

Robear wrote:

When someone comes across a previously unreported capability to put armed assets on site before the ambassador and Sean Smith were killed, that's a Big Deal. But the attack on the CIA safe house could not have been anticipated; indeed, it was not, or the security guys would have taken everyone to the airport or the port, set up a perimeter and called for extraction. They were on alert, but they thought they had enough time to arrange for the usual methods of transport. There was a two hour lag between the end of the attack on the embassy, and the attack on the annex, so my guess is that someone was actually followed, although I doubt we'll ever have that level of detail.

Note that the current line is that if jets had been sent to circle the city, they *might* have scared off the fighters. If the four Spec Ops guys had arrived (and been able to traverse the city), they *might* have been able to render first aid.

So in practical terms, this is reaching. In any organization, you can find anyone to disagree with any decision. In the current climate, there's incentives for people to choose a side and act accordingingly. What interests me is that State has never attempted to shut these guys down. Either they know there is nothing there and it's political theater, or Clinton and Kerry and Obama and their teams are the ultimate in politically stupid players, with a Nixonian level of hanging their asses out to be shot at.

Guess which hypothesis I'm backing. :-)

I heard something this morning about having F-18s on standby to help with the attack? Do the people advocating an air strike have any idea how hard it is to hit the intended target without causing double or triple the amount of civilian casualties? My understanding of the events were that they were mostly limited to the compound itself? We're they supposed to drop CBU's on our own buildings?

When someone comes across a previously unreported capability to put armed assets on site before the ambassador and Sean Smith were killed, that's a Big Deal. But the attack on the CIA safe house could not have been anticipated; indeed, it was not, or the security guys would have taken everyone to the airport or the port, set up a perimeter and called for extraction. They were on alert, but they thought they had enough time to arrange for the usual methods of transport. There was a two hour lag between the end of the attack on the embassy, and the attack on the annex, so my guess is that someone was actually followed, although I doubt we'll ever have that level of detail.

Note that the current line is that if jets had been sent to circle the city, they *might* have scared off the fighters. If the four Spec Ops guys had arrived (and been able to traverse the city), they *might* have been able to render first aid.

So in practical terms, this is reaching. In any organization, you can find anyone to disagree with any decision. In the current climate, there's incentives for people to choose a side and act accordingingly. What interests me is that State has never attempted to shut these guys down. Either they know there is nothing there and it's political theater, or Clinton and Kerry and Obama and their teams are the ultimate in politically stupid players, with a Nixonian level of hanging their asses out to be shot at.

Guess which hypothesis I'm backing.

Edit - Sorry, I see now there was about a six hour gap between the attacks, and the second attack lasted for about 11 minutes. Five rounds total from a mortar that was never spotted (or lasered) by the defenders.

Hicks also said that the plane the Special Operators in Tripoli would have boarded would not even have arrived in time for the second attack.

The F-18s were in Italy (over an hour's flight away) and would have required about three hours prep before takeoff. There's just no way they could have had any effect on the first attack. Given the duration of the second attack, and the fact that no one spotted the mortars, they'd likely have been helpless for the second attack.

Robear wrote:

The F-18s were in Italy (over an hour's flight away) and would have required about three hours prep before takeoff. There's just no way they could have had any effect on the first attack. Given the duration of the second attack, and the fact that no one spotted the mortars, they'd likely have been helpless for the second attack.

#1 - You mean we don't have jets constantly in the air?

#2 - You can't just jump in an F-18, turn the key and fly off?

For anyone interested, this is a good rundown of the lies currently flying around the media. This is not a case of "that's your interpretation", but rather an assemblage of facts (mostly acknowledged by the accusing parties (senators, etc.)) which contradict their statements.

So, understanding the heavy liberal and Pro-Obama blinders inherent in these forums...can I ask the following question?

Put aside all the looney conspiracy and CIA theories and such...

Does it matter what really went on?

Specifically to Clinton at State (in her words...does it matter...according to the testimony going on...and my opinion...yeah, it does), Rice for her statements related to the video and demonstrations (bait and switch), and the fact Obama followed on/supported the loose narrative of demonstrations following the videos (a cute story it was) - since this was only a few weeks before the election, and he had just had his speech about the terrorists on the run...

So I ask the forum members - Does finding out the truth matter, or do we care anymore about finding objective and real truth?

Just curious?

(and of note...while jets normally require prep time, most active squadrons in any 'war related' zone have 2 folks and jets on standby ready to scramble to support incidents of flight intrusions...24/7. That said, I don't think their presence or trying to get there would have mattered at all.)

And quoting a summary from Salon Robear...come one man...you used to be the solid rock that I always looked at with facts grounded, in, if not pure objective, at least truth. I mean, Salon is the high journalism standard that brought us "Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American" by Sirota. Maybe I should quote Ann Coulter in retort to those facts to contrast that, but I figure the baseline prejudice premise inherent in either source puts it as nothing but one-sided hashing, in my humble opinion.

Pigpen, minus the snark wrote:

So I ask the forum members - Does finding out the truth matter, or do we care anymore about finding objective and real truth?

Just curious?

Dimmerswitch wrote:

That said, if folks made bad decisions regarding Benghazi, I want them to be held accountable.

I just don't see any smoking gun (so far). At most, it seems like there's a whiff of smoke, with a cigarette stubbed out, in plain view, on the floor.

Pigpen wrote:

So, understanding the heavy liberal and Pro-Obama blinders inherent in these forums...

The only reason to write this is to start a fight. I know it and you know it.