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Whats up with that.....one constructive congressional hearing with hundreds of dead marines

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2seaoat



Around dawn on October 23, 1983, I was in Beirut, Lebanon, when a suicide bomber drove a truck laden with the equivalent of twenty-one thousand pounds of TNT into the heart of a U.S. Marine compound, killing two hundred and forty-one servicemen. The U.S. military command, which regarded the Marines’ presence as a non-combative, “peace-keeping mission,” had left a vehicle gate wide open, and ordered the sentries to keep their weapons unloaded. The only real resistance the suicide bomber had encountered was a scrim of concertina wire. When I arrived on the scene a short while later to report on it for the Wall Street Journal, the Marine barracks were flattened. From beneath the dusty, smoking slabs of collapsed concrete, piteous American voices could be heard, begging for help. Thirteen more American servicemen later died from injuries, making it the single deadliest attack on American Marines since the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Six months earlier, militants had bombed the U.S. embassy in Beirut, too, killing sixty-three more people, including seventeen Americans. Among the dead were seven C.I.A. officers, including the agency’s top analyst in the Middle East, an immensely valuable intelligence asset, and the Beirut station chief.

There were more than enough opportunities to lay blame for the horrific losses at high U.S. officials’ feet. But unlike today’s Congress, congressmen did not talk of impeaching Ronald Reagan, who was then President, nor were any subpoenas sent to cabinet members. This was true even though then, as now, the opposition party controlled the majority in the House. Tip O’Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House, was no pushover. He, like today’s opposition leaders in the House, demanded an investigation—but a real one, and only one. Instead of playing it for political points, a House committee undertook a serious investigation into what went wrong at the barracks in Beirut. Two months later, it issued a report finding “very serious errors in judgment” by officers on the ground, as well as responsibility up through the military chain of command, and called for better security measures against terrorism in U.S. government installations throughout the world.

In other words, Congress actually undertook a useful investigation and made helpful recommendations. The report’s findings, by the way, were bipartisan. (The Pentagon, too, launched an investigation, issuing a report that was widely accepted by both parties.)

In March of 1984, three months after Congress issued its report, militants struck American officials in Beirut again, this time kidnapping the C.I.A.’s station chief, Bill Buckley. Buckley was tortured and, eventually, murdered. Reagan, who was tormented by a tape of Buckley being tortured, blamed himself. Congress held no public hearings, and pointed fingers at the perpetrators, not at political rivals.

If you compare the costs of the Reagan Administration’s serial security lapses in Beirut to the costs of Benghazi, it’s clear what has really deteriorated in the intervening three decades. It’s not the security of American government personnel working abroad. It’s the behavior of American congressmen at home.

The story in Beirut wasn’t over. In September of 1984, for the third time in eighteen months, jihadists bombed a U.S. government outpost in Beirut yet again. President Reagan acknowledged that the new security precautions that had been advocated by Congress hadn’t yet been implemented at the U.S. embassy annex that had been hit. The problem, the President admitted, was that the repairs hadn’t quite been completed on time.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2014/05/ronald-reagans-benghazi.html

Guest


Guest

You must've left out the part when the reagan administration promoted a false narrative...

withheld and redacted information to obstruct oversight and fact finding.

Did he commission an apology message blaming that false narrative to be aired in the middle east too?

What an amazing coincidence.

2seaoat



What false narrative? The President was clear, and Susan speaking on Sundays news programs ALWAYS prefaced her comments that they were still investigating, BUT they believed the demonstrations contributed to the attack........

ALL TRUE......NO False narrative, just a narrative that was true and slanted with more emphasis on the demonstrations, however unless somebody was developmentally impaired the president's words were dead cinch correct....it was a terrorist attack.

In tonight’s presidential debate President Obama maintains that he called the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi a “act of terror”, which turns out to be accurate.

An act of terror among demonstrators fired up by a video, or those tribal groups who planned an attack for 911 are not an all or nothing proposition and therein is your fundamental LIE......there was no false narrative

2seaoat



What a joke it would have been to have Howdy Doody, chairing a committee to investigate the Reagan cut and run.....a handful of dead Americans who freed a nation from a terrorist and tyrant made the ultimate sacrifice, but what did a couple of hundred marines die for in Lebannon?......and why cannot Howdy Doody ask some questions?

2seaoat



The hue and cry of cover up is the tied to the failed attempt to make this attack during the campaign a central theme that the President was soft and that America was at risk under the President. That presumption was historically false, and it was morally repugnant that these four brave Americans would become political fodder. When Romney was trounced, the absurd speculation began that but for the slant of some Sunday talk shows the man would have won the election......how much kool Aid must one drink to be rendered into this comatose state? How stupid would Americans have to be? The truth is that the Rush Limbaugh faction of the Republican Party is dead. The early primary results are clearly showing that the howdy doody's of the Republican Party are going to simply be regional candidates and that their national importance is irrelevant.

Guest


Guest

Why do you protest so much over a benghzi hearing?

History shows us that anytime there is an attack on Americans during an election the incumbent gets a boost.  Wink 


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/14/obama-s-team-sees-campaign-boost-in-overseas-attacks-on-americans.html


Guest


Guest

Seaoat,

Some of us lived that history homey. Reagan never lied or made up anything about it. He said he took full responsibility for those 241deaths. Col Gergheraty never earned his star because of that incident as well. People were held accountable unlike this administration. Had Obama not lied about this information (Benghazi) it would have cost him the election and the Dems both houses. Just like with Obamacare he has kicked the can down the road, except that Trey Gowdy and the rest if America has decided to clean up Obama's can kicking and hiding of the truth.

2seaoat



No President Reagan simply did not make the necessary recommended changes and more people died........it was worse than lying.....it was falling asleep on the job. It was outrageous, and I am a huge fan of the man, and the point I am making is that this entire investigatory witch hunting on these completely non existent infractions are an evil stain of racism in American history, as the determination of the attacks against this president are shameless and where the response could have been rationalized during the Regan presidency, there was a hall pass given because we all liked the man....he looked like us or someone we knew or loved......not so much with President Obama......he is a black man in a world of scared old white men who think that in their attacks on this man they will find Mayberry........Mayberry is gone.....Reagan really screwed things up and we are still paying for his mistakes, and President Obama is not this evil person that the racist persist in projecting.....it gets no simpler.

Guest


Guest

Whats up with that.....one constructive congressional hearing with hundreds of dead marines Images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT5tYWnI9Q8fWSnaBOegAuRmT-lm0jM7mkJScMr5LGpFLsu8Xbh
2seaoat wrote:No President Reagan simply did not make the necessary recommended changes and more people died........it was worse than lying.....it was falling asleep on the job.   It was outrageous, and I am a huge fan of the man, and the point I am making is that this entire investigatory witch hunting on these completely non existent infractions are an evil stain of racism in American history, as the determination of the attacks against this president are shameless and where the response could have been rationalized during the Regan presidency, there was a hall pass given because we all liked the man....he looked like us or someone we knew or loved......not so much with President Obama......he is a black man in a world of scared old white men who think that in their attacks on this man they will find Mayberry........Mayberry is gone.....Reagan really screwed things up and we are still paying for his mistakes, and President Obama is not this evil person that the racist persist in projecting.....it gets no simpler.
 
You are so full of shit your eyes are brown. There were no terrorism RAMs and such in 1983 doofus. There was no protocol for base defense then. I have sat on and helped promulgate RAMs and other force protection measures on multiple bases across the middle east. I know the history of anti-terrorism like you know the script on your meds bottle. Beirut was one thing...the UNs second chance for Yassir Arafat and the PLO. The IDF had their back to the med and were getting ready to wipe out this group had we and the UN not intervened. This second chance gave birth to Hamas and Hezbollah shit for brains. Now, both rain down rockets across Israel 24/7/365 from the border nations and the Gaza Strip. You're a clueless fool on this issue old man. Some of us have lived it. Stick to talking about Obama and how you teabag him. You are better at that at least....

2seaoat



So the cut and run in Beruit is cool with you, and those folks that died because of pure NEGLIGENCE......you are cool with that? It gets a pass as we put our tail between our legs and ran..........with an increasing military budget to boot(all while growing the national debt).......You are a funny man, you have learned to use outrageous and silly conclusions to keep your students awake.....but around here we pay attention. You have two sides to your face.

Guest


Guest

Uh Seaoat, there was not "cut and run". Congress mandated (and was Democratically controlled during Reagan's tenure) that the mission end. Only 10 years past when America left Vietnam, which was fresh in many people's minds, folks demanded the Marines brought home. Get over it. You have been on an anti-Reagan tangent for two days and you know he was controlled by Tip O'Neill and the Democrats his entire time in office.

Guest


Guest

He's just trying to shift the focus off of obama and current events... like any good apologist and useful idiot would.

Guest


Guest

Obama killed those people for political gain

Floridatexan

Floridatexan

Chrissy wrote:Why do you protest so much over a benghzi hearing?

History shows us that anytime there is an attack on Americans during an election the incumbent gets a boost.  Wink 


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/14/obama-s-team-sees-campaign-boost-in-overseas-attacks-on-americans.html



I see you're a history buff. Tell me why this history is important, but the history of the Marines killed in Lebanon during the Reagan administration is irrelevant. Why do we study history? Could it be to avoid repeating the same mistakes?

And this crap about Obama getting a "boost"? If he did, which I doubt, it's because Romney made a complete fool of himself by trying to politicize the event hours after it happened. One might, if one could look beyond the superficial, think that someone perpetrated this tragedy for political gain...that wouldn't be Obama, because there was an immediate attempt to smear him...and Hillary Clinton...almost to the point of assigning blame to him (or her) for a non-existent stand-down order.

2seaoat



Why do you protest so much over a benghzi hearing?

Which one....there have been seven. Yet, when I give historical context to the current farce, some become very uncomfortable. Sorry Pace as commander in chief and under the war powers act, President Reagan acted....he screwed up, and he cut and ran leaving dead marines. He also had the courage and understanding that being called weak and incompetent because of such an action is not as important than making rational decisions. He made a rational decision to cut and run.

Guest


Guest

Ben Rhodes emails Ambassador to the UN Rice that her primary goal in dealing with the press that sunday was to "underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy."

The email was redacted when the white house provided Benghazi documents to Congress in the previous hearings.

The email content was recently found out through a private FOIA request.

BEFORE Rice's appearances on 9/16/2012, NPR reported that Libya's president stated emphatically that al-Qaida was responsible for the "precalculated, preplanned attack."

Former deputy CIA director Mike Morell testified last month, "Analysts said from the get-go that al-Qaida was involved."

A former deputy chief of mission in Libya, Gregory Hicks, testified last year his "jaw dropped" when he watched Rice blame the video.

Retired Gen. Robert Lovell, on duty at U.S. Africa Command at the time, testified last week, "What we did know ... was that this was a hostile action … a terrorist attack."

Don't forget... there was live feed from a drone in the situation room too. The ambassador had made the situation clear in his reports and requests too... al qaeda openly flying flags and attacks on the british and red cross... which evacuated.

2seaoat



Please explain what if any cover up happened with this redaction? I think you will find that the first seven hearings found nothing. We have all seen the email. Please explain the cover up?

Guest


Guest

The email wasn't available during the congressional hearings... the contents had been redacted. Why?

I won't waste any more time on you... this is not a difficult thing to understand... if that were truly your objective.


The pdf of the emails can be downloaded here:

httpuh://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-benghazi-documents-point-white-house-misleading-talking-points/

The Rhodes email was sent on sent on Friday, September 14, 2012, at 8:09 p.m. with the subject line: “RE: PREP CALL with Susan, Saturday at 4:00 pm ET.” The documents show that the “prep” was for Amb. Rice’s Sunday news show appearances to discuss the Benghazi attack.

The document lists as a “Goal”: “To underscore that these protests are rooted in and Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.”

Rhodes returns to the “Internet video” scenario later in the email, the first point in a section labeled “Top-lines”:

[W]e’ve made our views on this video crystal clear. The United States government had nothing to do with it. We reject its message and its contents. We find it disgusting and reprehensible. But there is absolutely no justification at all for responding to this movie with violence. And we are working to make sure that people around the globe hear that message.

Among the top administration PR personnel who received the Rhodes memo were White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, Deputy Press Secretary Joshua Earnest, then-White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, then-White House Deputy Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri, then-National Security Council Director of Communications Erin Pelton, Special Assistant to the Press Secretary Howli Ledbetter, and then-White House Senior Advisor and political strategist David Plouffe.

The Rhodes communications strategy email also instructs recipients to portray Obama as “steady and statesmanlike” throughout the crisis. Another of the “Goals” of the PR offensive, Rhodes says, is “[T]o reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.” He later includes as a PR “Top-line” talking point:

I think that people have come to trust that President Obama provides leadership that is steady and statesmanlike. There are always going to be challenges that emerge around the world, and time and again, he has shown that we can meet them.

The documents Judicial Watch obtained also include a September 12, 2012, email from former DeputySpokesman at U.S. Mission to the United Nations Payton Knopf to Susan Rice, noting that at a press briefing earlier that day, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland explicitly stated that the attack on the consulate had been well planned. The email sent by Knopf to Rice at 5:42 pm said:

Responding to a question about whether it was an organized terror attack, Toria said that she couldn’t speak to the identity of the perpetrators but that it was clearly a complex attack.

In the days following the Knopf email, Rice appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News and CNN still claiming the assaults occurred “spontaneously” in response to the “hateful video.” On Sunday, September 16 Rice told CBS’s “Face the Nation:”

But based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present is in fact what began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy–sparked by this hateful video.

The Judicial Watch documents confirm that CIA talking points, that were prepared for Congress and may have been used by Rice on “Face the Nation” and four additional Sunday talk shows on September 16, had been heavily edited by then-CIA deputy director Mike Morell. According to one email:

The first draft apparently seemed unsuitable….because they seemed to encourage the reader to infer incorrectly that the CIA had warned about a specific attack on our embassy. On the SVTS, Morell noted that these points were not good and he had taken a heavy hand to editing them. He noted that he would be happy to work with [then deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton]] Jake Sullivan and Rhodes to develop appropriate talking points.

The documents obtained by Judicial Watch also contain numerous emails sent during the assault on the Benghazi diplomatic facility. The contemporaneous and dramatic emails describe the assault as an “attack”:

September 11, 2012, 6:41 PM – Senior Advisor Eric Pelofsky, to Susan Rice:

As reported, the Benghazi compound came under attack and it took a bit of time for the ‘Annex’ colleagues and Libyan February 17 brigade to secure it. One of our colleagues was killed – IMO Sean Smith. Amb Chris Stevens, who was visiting Benghazi this week is missing. U.S. and Libyan colleagues are looking for him…

At 8:51 pm, Pelofsky tells Rice and others that “Post received a call from a person using an [sic] RSO phone that Chris was given saying the caller was with a person matching Chris’s description at a hospital and that he was alive and well. Of course, if the he were alive and well, one could ask why he didn’t make the call himself.”

Later that evening, Pelofsky emailed Rice that he was “very, very worried. In particular that he [Stevens] is either dead or this was a concerted effort to kidnap him.” Rice replied, “God forbid.”

September 11, 2012, 4:49 PM – State Department press officer John Fogarty reporting on “Libya update from Beth Jones”:

Beth Jones [Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs] just spoke with DCM Tripoli Greg Hicks, who advised a Libyan militia (we now know this is the 17 Feb brigade, as requested by Emb office) is responding to the attackon the diplomatic mission in Benghazi.”

Material is blacked out (or redacted) in many emails.

Markle

Markle

Video Montage Shows Obama, Hillary, Susan Rice and Jay Carney All Blaming Benghazi on the Video


May. 2, 2014 8:30pm Mike Opelka

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/05/02/video-montage-shows-obama-hillary-susan-rice-and-jay-carney-all-blaming-benghazi-on-the-video/

Markle

Markle

My Progressive good friends 2seaoat and Floridatexan are understandably DESPERATE and are trying to live THREE DECADES AGO. THIS IS 2014...SURPRISE!!

What would convince you guys? That you're using a computer, at home to communicate with anywhere in the World?


The New York Times
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Today’s Paper
Personalize Your Weather

http://international.nytimes.com/

Will that help you guys?

2seaoat



Again, I am being entirely objective both in the immediate response and within the historical context. Please show me the cover up. I have read the email. Nobody with a sixth grade education or higher had anything put over on them. The president told us the absolute truth and Susan Rice was NEVER wrong in her concerns about the protest and the impact of the video. Now if she had come on those talk shows and said.......Our investigation has concluded and we believe the entire attack was based on the video..........Complete agreement. This simply did not happen. At each of her stops the language was impeccable. We are still investigating.........they never projected on those news shows anything but the TRUTH. Now if the shading of that truth is what you consider a cover up, then please show me your sixth grade report card which allowed you to proceed to seventh grade.

Floridatexan

Floridatexan


What Seaoat and I are both doing is making a very valid comparison. Sorry that flies over your head.

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