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incoherentbellydancerMax Read
5/10/13 5:51pm

"The idea seems to be that there is some badass special operations team that could have been instantly deployed to rescue the Benghazi personnel—but the Pentagon has flatly denied this, and the numbers don't add up anyway."

It's called FEST... From the Benghazi hearing:

"Later, when I heard that the situation had evolved to them going to a safe haven and then, the fact that we could not find our ambassador, I alerted my leadership indicating that we needed to go forward and consider the deployment of the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST)… I wanted that considered. I notified the White House of my idea. They indicated that meetings had already taken place that evening (9/11/12) that had taken FEST out of the menu of options. I called the office within the state department that had been represented there asking why it had been taken off the table and was told that it was not the right time and it was not the team that needed to go right then… The other thing that I pointed out was that, with the tyranny of distance, with at least 8 or 9 hours to get to the middle of the Mediterranean, we needed to act now… One definition of a crisis is, you don't know what's going to happen in two hours, so you need to help develop that situation early."

Mark Thompson - Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Operations - Counterterrorism Bureau

http://2001-2009.state.gov/s/ct/about/c16… - FEST

Max Read, get your goddam head out of your ass.
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  _Redshirtincoherentbellydancer
  5/10/13 6:59pm
  Comments like this are why talking about Benghazi is so incredibly infuriating. If you had done even a tiny bit of research, like say, reading the link you posted, you would never have pretended that the FEST constituted a plausible response force to an ongoing attack.
  
  The FEST is based in the continental United States, roughly eight or nine hours flying time from Libya. Even if they had been activated and departed the *instant* the attack began, (which is impossible) they would have been landing at the airport in Benghazi (not the CIA annex, the airport, and with no vehicles) around quarter to 6. Even with this implausibly fast timeline, they would have been hitting the ground after everyone who died there was already dead, and they still wouldn't have been on scene.
  
  Of course, this talk about timelines ignores the more important point that you have no idea what the FEST actually is. It is not a direct action military unit, it is primarily an investigative and law-enforcement focused unit composed of technical experts. From the archive link you posted, here are FEST's capabilities:
  
  Seasoned crisis management expertise,
  
  Time-sensitive information and intelligence
  
  Planning for contingency operations
  
  Hostage negotiating expertise
  
  Reach-back to Washington agencies
  
  You know what isn't on that list? Direct action in line with SOCOM or CIA paramilitaries. Why, it's almost as if basing a redundant strike team thousands of miles away from any potential foreign crisis would be a laughably stupid idea, so instead, the military takes care of that role, and the FEST provides after the fact crisis management and investigative expertise!
  
  You are an idiot, and you should feel stupid for posting what you did.
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  MisterPigginsincoherentbellydancer
  5/11/13 6:27am
  Um, how many people are in that FEST unit...which would still have been 8 or 9 hours away from doing anything anyway?
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gramercypoliceMax Read
5/11/13 1:08am
Interesting article in the Washington Post (i know, right?), saying that basically the issue in the aftermath story was that Benghazi wasn't a consulate or an embassy or, really, a State Dept site at all. It was a secret CIA station and the Ambassador just happened to be there at the time of the attack. So, State was pissed that the CIA was calling it a 'consulate' and laying blame for the site, the attack, and the defense on the State Dept. But no one could publicly claim that it was a CIA station, because, actually, the site wasn't even registered with the Libyan government.

From the Post:

[...But with the release of 12 versions of the talking points Friday by ABC News, perhaps there is an alternative explanation: This basically was a bureaucratic knife fight, pitting the State Department against the CIA.

In other words, the final version of the talking points may have been so wan because officials simply deleted everything that upset the two sides. So they were left with nothing.

Let’s examine the evidence for a bureaucratic explanation.

First, some important context: Although the ambassador was killed, the Benghazi “consulate” was not a consulate at all but basically a secret CIA operation which included an effort to round up shoulder-launched missiles. In fact, only seven of the 30 Americans evacuated from Benghazi had any connection to the State Department; the rest were affiliated with the CIA.

The official reports, such as the one from the Accountability Review Board and the Senate Homeland Security Committee report, essentially dance around that uncomfortable fact:

“In December 2011, the Under Secretary for Management approved a one-year continuation of the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi, which was never a consulate and never formally notified to the Libyan government.” (ARB)

“The attacks in Benghazi occurred at two different locations: a Department of State ‘Temporary Mission Facility’ and an Annex facility (‘Annex’) approximately a mile away used by another agency of the United States Government.” (Senate report)

So, from the State Department perspective, this was an attack on a CIA operation, perhaps by the very people the CIA was battling, and the ambassador tragically was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, for obvious reasons, the administration could not publicly admit that Benghazi was mostly a secret CIA effort.

The talking points were originally developed by the CIA at the request of a member of the House Intelligence Committee. Interestingly, all of the versions are consistent on one point — that the attacks were “spontaneously inspired by protests at the U.S. embassy in Cairo,” a fact later deemed to be incorrect.]
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  Lisa_Stratagramercypolice
  5/11/13 3:58pm
  I thought it was interesting that Patreaus's affair and resignation came out when it did - immediately after Obama won re-election. I kind of assumed there was something the CIA messed up in Benghazi and they wanted Patreaus out.
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  sui_generisgramercypolice
  5/13/13 3:58am
  Yup.
  
  This is the truly jaw-dropping omission that every single talking point from both sides seems to be ignoring.
  
  The thing is, if you're a Republican Congressman, you KNOW this is the case. So why would you STILL pursue this "scandal", when you know it has fuck-all to do with the State Dept and Obama, and is actually blowback from a CIA operation, which you would normally pound your chest with patriotic fervor to protect?
  
  The fucking craven hypocrisy is stunning. That and the doubling down of counting on the ignorance of the American people and the media.
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Young Mozzarella SticksMax Read
5/10/13 5:44pm
Yes of all the things to happen under the Obama administration, the right throws a batshit hurricane hissy fit about this.

But when it comes to drones, extralegal killings, illegal wiretapping, not prosecuting wall street, prosecuting whistleblowers and pot dispensaries, and all the other horrible things Obama has done, fucking crickets.

This is what I hate most about politices. Outrage about shit that doesn't deserve outrage, but no outrage about shit that does deserve outrage.
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  DennyBirdYoung Mozzarella Sticks
  5/10/13 5:54pm
  I like how you completely ignored the fact that drone strikes have been going on for quite some time now. I.e. vietnam.
  
  And all the shit that the republicans have done, such as
  
  - cashing in on Sandy Hook with the NRA.
  
  - Boycotting School Funding
  
  - racism and homophobia, with a dash of antisemitic notions.
  
  it's fun playing the blame game, isn't it?
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  strayYoung Mozzarella Sticks
  5/10/13 5:56pm
  The right has to think about the next GOP president and the toys he gets to use. They love their warmongering, you know.
  
  I'm kind of amazed the Benghazi crap has gone on this long, though. When the right finds an issue they think they can use they will run it into the ground, though, regardless of its validity.
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BP_PRMax Read
5/10/13 11:21pm
Today's Benghazi is just yesterday's Solyndra, Fast & Furious, Shirley Sherrod, ACORN, Common the rapper, Ground Zero Mosque.... all phony controversies manufactured by conservative noise factory to keep the right wing drones stimulated and drooling.
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  RainInSpainFallsMainlyOnTheDanBP_PR
  5/11/13 9:11pm
  Solyndra = 1/2 billion or more dollars down the crapper for crony socialism.
  
  Fast & Furious = dead Mexicans, dead B.P. agent, thousands of legal guns given to criminals.
  
  ACORN = subversion of the voting process / money to criminals / money to freinds
  
  Ground Zero = church in Mecca after we bomb the crap out of it during the haj, anyone?
  
  Common = don't care to look it up...
  
  Yeah, the problem is the right wing in this nation, sure...
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  AnthonyIsMyPreferredCarterRainInSpainFallsMainlyOnTheDan
  5/12/13 9:47am
  Not that you care, but for the record, ACORN has been cleared of all wrongdoing and the idiots who made those fake videos are now under investigation.
  
  So what actually happened there was a non-profit doing good work in the community was shuttered because some assholes made a terribly-edited video no one actually bothered to watch.
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Graby SauceMax Read
5/10/13 6:21pm
Republicans aren't interested— at all— about the facts around Benghazi. They demand answers, the Obama administration provides answers, the Republicans refuse to listen to the answers. John McCain and John Boehner demanded administration briefings designed to provide answers, and the fuckers SKIPPED the briefing! Republicans demanded answers to how the talking points were developed, the administration provided relevant emails MONTHS ago, and Republicans either ignored them or didn't find them damning, so we didn't hear about them until ABC released them yesterday. http://www.salon.com/2013/05/10/wh_…

These guys aren't interested in the truth. They don't really care that four people died. They aren't interested in identifying screw ups to prevent future screw ups. They just want to embarrass Obama and kneecap Clinton. I don't think they are really helping themselves or the image of Republicans overall with this shit, but they certainly aren't helping the country.
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  Deadly the EternalGraby Sauce
  5/10/13 8:12pm
  The dumbasses on all the right-wing sites ranting about this are the same way, too. They say that they care about those four dead Americans, yet they still believe that mindless blaming is the best response. That's what they accuse libtards of doing, too (I'm just gonna start using that term ironically; it's so cute). Once again, I hope that America will look at the facts when deciding who should become the next president. I would be better if all the shit-spewing sites and TV networks were shut down during that time, too. One can hope.
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  ACRFilmGraby Sauce
  5/10/13 8:41pm
  They can't even be intelligent about the manner in which they chose to make their partisan beneficial claims. The "conservatives salivating" part about trumpeting some vast "cover-up"? Wouldn't the more realistic claim to make other than a UFO-tinfoil hat conspiracy be to say ok the White House & State Department's info all said spontaneous protest, then how could they be so wrong in not having any immediate info on it being a planned attack? You know try to paint the administration as bumbling, completely out of the true loop of info and totally fumbling the country's terrorist threat tracking, but no they immediately go in for the lofty, completely unprovable (and likely non-existent) conspiracy theory. They're so perpetually stuck on their grassy-knoll mindset of nonsense theories they completely tank any real opportunity they might have at making a decent political point.
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effdot should stop reading the gawker shitshowMax Read
5/10/13 6:29pm
There's a big thing missing in this story; the riot in Egypt in 2012.

A Youtube video called, "Innocence of Muslims" stirred up resentments among the Egyptian population. A few thousand protesters attacked the Embassy in Egypt on 9/11/2012. The attack on the Libyan consulate happened within that context.

I'm surprised and saddened, given that it's been only 8 months, that the context of what was happening is already gone. It was a busy, chaotic, violent day; I'm not surprised there was confusion about reports going on. I don't think any reasonable person could be.

Then again, Benghazi isn't about reasonable people.
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secretagentmanMax Read
5/10/13 7:41pm
The Republicans are going to beat this horse until 2015, so that Hillary wears it leading up to the election. I would bet a thousand Dinar that most Americans have no clue where Benghazi is, and the mouthbreathers who vote Republican think it's a country 'over there'. 'Benghazi' is the new Rudyism. you just keep saying it over and over again and it has a life of it's own. Meanwhile, guns for everyone!
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Hello_Madam_PresidentMax Read
5/11/13 5:24pm
They are just trying to give Obama a Major Fail (and potentially Hilary Clinton) to try to win some seats next election cycle. Obama's presidency has been defined by some smaller fails and most of the fails are in the minds of Democrats who wish he'd take things further.

Nothing compares to Bush/Cheney's unjustified invasions and insane spending and tax cuts that blew up our deficit.
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Tyrant BigglesMax Read
5/10/13 6:03pm
But...but...BENGHAZI!

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KrantzstoneMax Read
5/11/13 4:41am
Blinking avatar is freaky.

/that is all
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  AuntEggmaBlowtorchKrantzstone
  5/11/13 6:49am
  Max Read can see into my soul.
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