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benghazi sounds like a person's name to me tbh, ben ghazi
odd wrinkle, perhaps: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti....html?ITO=1490
benghazi sounds like a person's name to me tbh, ben ghazi
What really happened in Benghazi:
Something Bad That Republicans Think They Can Score Political Points With, So They Will Play It Up For All The Political Points They Think They Can Score.
Perhaps I am being a bit cynical, but the more I see the GOP congress members grandstanding at the committee, and the endless Fox "news" coverage, the less I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Between this and the trumped up concerns about "voter fraud", I have become pretty disgusted with the GOP in general. It is one thing to be genuinely concerned about security lapses, and quite another to use someone's death as a political football.
keep in mind that many of the same republicans were silent well after the iraq invasion and never once asked for answers as to why we invaded (and lost thousands of lives over it). seems to me that these 4 lives lost are greater than (politically) that 4,000 + that died is Iraq.. it's a political winner!
Besides, it was only four people.
Which republicans were silent about it?
At least Bush didn't send out the same autobot signed form letter to those 4000 troops families.
Translation:
"Instead of admitting when Republicans up, let's play the for tat game".
(sighs heavily)
Sure. You're right.
You must have awful reading comprehension. I have said over and over we ed up going into Iraq.
Saying that we erred in going there in the first place, is not the same as saying that the post occupation up until the surge (and actually using the counterinsurgency doctrine that they had drawn up after that) was a soup sandwich. We had a counterinsurgency doctrine in 2003 that was ignored for years. It should have been the plan from day 1, not year 3 IF the ignorant dip s had known what the they were doing.
Did I miss something?
Nope.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/17/bush.terror/ (stay the course) 2005
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n2117323.shtml (Bush drops it) 2006
I remember quite clearly noting how many disturbingly similar our tactics were in Iraq to the failures of vietnam, and screamed it quite vociferously in several political forums, only to be pooh-poohed by red teamers eager to downplay their presidents ups, who accused Democrats and anybody who didn't go along with looking the other way as not being patriotic enough.
It was the height of frustration. Especially after I read the counterinsurgency field manual after being pointed to it, and that manual had all the things I had been saying needed to be done.
One concrete example:
http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/20...system-in.html
Political purity was placed over expertise and competence for the post.The USAID initially appointed Frederick Burkle Jr., a deputy assistant manager at the Agency, to advise the Health Ministry. He had a master’s degree in public health, was a teacher at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health with expertise in disaster relief, and had worked in Kosovo, Somalia, and Kurdistan after the Gulf War. He was sent to Baghdad immediately after the fall of the regime. Within weeks of arriving however, he was told that he was going to be replaced by a political appointee from the White House. The new Health Ministry adviser was James Haveman Jr. He was formerly the community health director for a Republican governor of Michigan, John Engler, and had some foreign experience working for International Aid, a Christian relief group. Engler recommended Haveman to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who had him hired. Burkle was obviously far more qualified than Haveman. Not only that, but Burkle had worked in Iraq before in 1991 in Kurdistan, giving him some on the ground experience in the country. Since health was not a major priority, the Bush administration probably felt like it was okay to hand the task over to someone with political connections rather than a USAID official.
Haveman then went about causing a major conflict with the Iraqis. He wanted to completely change the country’s reliance upon hospitals, and build a series of small clinics that would concentrate upon preventive care. Haveman believed this would provide greater care to Iraqis. He also didn’t like the fact that healthcare was free in Iraq, and wanted people to pay for their services. Finally, Haveman pushed to privatize the importation and distribution of drugs in the country. This led to a series of bureaucratic battles with the Health Ministry. In the end, Haveman went ahead with his plans even though he never convinced the Iraqis of his point of view. This came at a bad time, because demand for emergency care was taking off in Iraq’s hospitals as violence started. People were regularly being brought in from bombings and shootings, while hospitals were not getting that much money, because Haveman wanted new clinics built instead.
Trying to reform how Iraq procured and handed out its medicine became a huge fiasco. Haveman was in charge of changing drug distribution when he worked in Michigan. He wanted to cut costs in the state, and decided to achieve that by limiting the number of drugs that doctors could prescribe to patients. He wanted to do the same in Iraq. There, roughly 4,500 medications were used, which Haveman wanted to slash. Furthermore, he wanted to stop Iraq from buying its medicines from Syria, Iran, and Russia, and have it purchase them from the United States instead.
Rather oft-cited, but indicative of what went on. Ideology over pragmatism, at the expense of what worked.
Last edited by RandomGuy; 10-16-2012 at 05:08 PM.
Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq
After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.
To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.
O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .
Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.
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The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091600193.html
That seems like it needs its own thread though.
(edit)
I think I have made a fair point about how foreign policy ups get swept under the rug by red teamers when they find it convenient.
Four people die and they want answers. 100,000 die in Iraq... nuthin.
Given the lack of calls for investigations into those deaths, I think I have a fair reason for being somewhat su ious of Republican motivations for this investigation.
Did the Democratic administration up? Quite possibly, we will know soon enough.
Does anyone doubt that Republicans will make any fault try to seem larger than is fair?
Last edited by RandomGuy; 10-16-2012 at 05:07 PM.
What did he personally send to each of their families?
http://icasualties.org/
US casualties in Iraq: 2003-2008:
4222
US casualties in Iraq: 2009-2012
264
Whoopsies.
The robosigning faux outrage is the bull du jour in the right wing osphere, it would seem, based on a quick google search. Only a matter of time until Fox "news" picks up on it and starts strutting about it, no doubt.
Sorry to interrupt your dumping. By all means... continue.
Chumping?
As Richard Clarke, a former counterterrorism adviser to Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton. and George W. Bush, as well as deputy assistant secretary of state for intelligence under President Ronald Reagan, so aptly put it in today’s Daily News:
News media and members of Congress may want instant answers when something explodes, when Americans die, but national security professionals know that “first reports are always wrong.” That is why, when pressed by reporters to say what had happened, UN Ambassador Susan Rice qualified her response by saying that the investigation was ongoing. She then said what the intelligence community had reported to her at that time.
Indeed, as Clarke notes, every president since Ronald Reagan has suffered American casualties to terrorism, but Obama has kept terrorist groups on their toes;
he has kept the terrorist groups off balance by relentlessly attacking them. He has largely eliminated Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan as an effective fighting force. His use of drones and special forces has been aggressive and successful, including in Yemen and Somalia.
Romney will clearly continue on this specious warpath in the next debate on October 22, which focuses on foreign policy. The real question is why? As Clarke explains:
Karl Rove, the Republican evil genius of campaign slurs, is famous for advising candidates to attack an opponent’s strong suit. If Sen. John Kerry is a decorated war hero and your guy avoided going to Vietnam, then attack Kerry’s service record. If Sen. Max Cleland lost limbs fighting for America, question his patriotism.
The problem is that those two outrageous attacks worked, as have many others like them.
Why is the attack on Benghazi being talked about so much? It is not because the Republicans have a long record of caring about embassy security. House Republicans cut $128 million in fiscal year 2011 and an additional $331 million in fiscal year 2012 from what Secretary of State Clinton requested for embassy security.
No, it’s because their polling and focus groups show that voters believe that President Obama has done a very good job fighting terrorists. Therefore, the Rove theory says, you attack Obama on terrorism.
Romney’s attack on the minutiae of who said what, and when, is a petty distraction, a stab at politicizing a serious event, an attempt to take the spotlight off his utter lack of foreign policy knowledge and experience.
Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/who-do-y...#ixzz29jf64JpO
And right-wingers here dance to and parrot the Fox Repug progaganda network tune.
First Issa and his group of Congressional witch-hunters expose a secret CIA base in Bengazi now this...
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/po...ng_with_the_us .........SNIP........ House
Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) compromised the iden ies of several Libyans working with the U.S. government and placed their lives in danger when he released reams of State Department communications Friday, according to Obama administration officials.
Issa posted 166 pages of sensitive but unclassified State Department communications related to Libya on the committee's website afternoon as part of his effort to investigate security failures and expose contradictions in the administration's statements regarding the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi that resulted in the death of Amb. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
Those number just moved to Afghanistan after Obama took office. Deaths are deaths.http://icasualties.org/
US casualties in Iraq: 2003-2008:
4222
US casualties in Iraq: 2009-2012
264
Whoopsies.
The robosigning faux outrage is the bull du jour in the right wing osphere, it would seem, based on a quick google search. Only a matter of time until Fox "news" picks up on it and starts strutting about it, no doubt.
Sorry to interrupt your dumping. By all means... continue.
Anyhow lol at self righteous assholes around here who never served, many anti-military in the 1st place who use combat related deaths as a talking point.
According to the CIA account,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...b7c_story.html... “The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.”
... “This assessment may change as additional information is collected and analyzed and as currently available information continues to be evaluated.” This may sound like self-protective boilerplate, but it reflects the analysts’ genuine problem interpreting fragments of intercepted conversation, video surveillance and source reports.
....
“We believe the timing of the attack was influenced by events in Cairo,” the senior official said, reaffirming the Cairo-Benghazi link. He said that judgment is repeated in a new report prepared this week for the House intelligence committee.
..
There’s no dispute, however, that it was “an act of terror,” as Obama described it the next day.
...
Here’s how the senior official described the jumble of events in Benghazi that day: “The attackers were disorganized; some seemed more interested in looting. Some who claimed to have participated joined the attack as it began or after it was under way. There is no evidence of rehearsals, they never got into the safe room . . . never took any hostages, didn’t bring explosives to blow the safe room door, and didn’t use a car bomb to blow the gates.”
The official said the only major change he would make now in the CIA’s Sept. 15 talking points would be to drop the word “spontaneous” and subs ute “opportunistic.” He explained that there apparently was “some pre-coordination but minimal planning.”
Yet I'm willing to bet my left testicle you voted for Bush in 2004.
The blood of every soldier who died after 2004 is on your hands. Congratulations.
You know who else never served? Most of the warmongers who send our troops off to risk their lives, tbh...
Are you implying that being pro-peace is a bad thing?
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