BANANA REPUBLIC BENGHAZI: Any complaint will do!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2012

Concerning the Libyan president: Do you live in a banana republic?

We think you do. Consider this:

Susan Collins thinks that Ambassador Rice should have agreed, right there on the spot, with the Libyan president. And Maureen Dowd thinks that makes sense! (See our previous post.)

Sadly, that doesn’t make sense. Just to refresh you, here is the passage from yesterday’s column in which Dowd transmitted this nonsense:
DOWD (11/28/12): When Rice heard the president of the Libyan National Congress tell Bob Schieffer on “Face the Nation,” right before her appearance, that 50 people had been arrested who were either foreign or affiliated with or sympathized with Al Qaeda, why did she push back with the video story? “Why wouldn’t she think what the Libyan president said mattered?” Collins wondered.
Should Rice have agreed with the Libyan president? Obviously, no. Just ask yourself this: What ever happened to the fifty people who “had been arrested?”

Uh-oh! By September 26, the number of miscreants had been bumped back. On that date, Magariaf told the Today show that “at least forty people” had been “interrogated.”

Is it possible that Magariaf had rounded up the usual suspects? We have heard little follow-up about what happened to all those people who got arrested—and as you’ll recall, the criticism quickly turned to the claim that no one had been apprehended for the Benghazi attack.

None of that matters to Maureen Dowd. Inside a banana republic press corps, any complaint will do!

Meanwhile, this was Magariaf on the Today show on September 26. Do you think Ambassador Rice should have rushed to agree with him ten days earlier, right there on the spot?
ANN CURRY (9/26/12): Would you call the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi an act of terrorism?

MAGARIAF: I have no doubt about that, and that it's a pre-planned act of terrorism directed against American citizens.

CURRY: What is your evidence that it was a pre-planned act of terrorism?

MAGARIAF: Number one is choosing the date, 11th of September. It has all the significance. If we take the facts about the, the way it was executed, we can see that there's enough proof that it is a pre-planned act of terrorism.

CURRY: Describe the attack based on your investigation.

MAGARIAF: It’s too early for me to give the details, I have minor details about this. But it was launched in—with a high degree of accuracy, which means that the perpetrators must have some kind of exercise on how to hit and how to launch these rockets.

[...]

CURRY: So do you know then who is behind this attack and what the motive was?

MAGARIAF: I think it’s—it's al Qaeda elements who are hiding in, in Libya.

CURRY: Is there any direct evidence that it is al Qaeda behind this attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi?

MAGARIAF: No, so far not—so far not. As the investigation progresses, there is the, there is the likelihood that we’ll—we’ll reach that. The attack on the consulate was, was pre-planned. Whether with the intention of killing Ambassador Stevens or not, that’s—it’s too early to say.
Ten days later, Magariaf still had no direct evidence that al Qaeda was behind the attack! But ten days earlier, Rice was supposed to agree with him, right on the spot, when he said it did!

His evidence that the attack was preplanned seemed to consist in the date.

Susan Rice would have been out of her mind to agree with Magariaf on the spot. But so what? Almost eleven weeks later, Maureen Dowd shows no sign of grasping this fact.

Banana republics are like that. You live in such a republic.

18 comments:

  1. Who benefits from the media focusing on Rice, and endlessly dissecting her Sunday show comments rather than investigating whether the level of security was appropriate given the known threats, and other questions about the actual events? Hint: not the Republicans.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Quaker in a BasementNovember 29, 2012 at 2:59 PM

      So you're concluding that John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the entire staff of Fox News are working to advance the Dems' cause now?

      Delete
    2. So Obama tricked McCain, Graham and Collins into giving their press conferences, and Fox into its endless reporting. If he's that much of a genius he deserves to be President. Thanks for the insight, Quaker!

      Delete
    3. I'm saying that McCain and Graham are grandstanding publicity hounds who predictably go after cheap political points when they smell them. I'm saying that this whole controversy may be harming Rice, but it has the collateral effect of shielding the administration from scrutiny on more substantive aspects of the incident.

      Delete
    4. ABL 6:39

      Then it's clear you don't know how these bats-in-the-belfry republicans operate. You think it's going to stop with Ambassador Rice?

      Delete
  2. It's my understanding that it was Stevens himself who made the decision regarding the security, how much or how little. He wanted to interact with the locals and didn't want to be behind a fortress with little contact.

    I read there was a joke in Arabic newspapers that showed a fortress with an American flag at the top with a sign that read "American Embassy". One man says to the other, "How do you get into the American Embassy?" the other answers, "You can't, you have to be born there."
    GW

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    Replies
    1. Of course that's not what the article says, you mendacious troll.

      Also,

      In his interview with ABC News, Wood did not argue that his and the Security Support Team’s presence would have made a difference for Ambassador Stevens and the other three Americans killed at the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.
      “That’s way speculative; I don’t even know the facts of what happened” that night, Wood said.

      Delete
  3. The reason for the fake scandal at Rice, they (REPS) are for Kerry. The want his senate seat.

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  4. @Anonmous 11-29 4:25PM

    If we could could gaurentee Scott Brown replaced Kerry, would McCain, Graham, Ayotte, and Corker's conduct end ? Nope ... they say they are deeply troubled. I think they are wrong on just about everything. They are right on when they say they are deeply troubled. I wonder if there is a pill for their condition.

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    Replies
    1. Disturbed, they said they were deeply disturbed. I agree and think they should seek help.

      Delete
  5. While agreeing about the distortions, I would like to add a theory about what is behind them; a theory that has historical precedence. Descriptions of international violence must be twisted to conform with a simplistic, manipulative worldview. In the leadup to the war with Iraq one strong assertion made was that Saddam was a supporter of international terrorism. Abu Nidal, the MEK, Ansar al Islam and cash payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers were most cited as examples. Abu Nidal was assassinated, it was pointed out that Israel was punishing the families of suicide bombers by bulldozing their homes, Ansar al Islam was an ANTI-SADDAM terror group based in Northern Iraq protected by the no-fly zone and that the MEK was supported by conservative Republicans and was an anti-Iranian terror group (the MEK was PROTECTED by US forces from arrest by the new Iraqi government after the invasion!) ...but closer examination of the claims showed that in essence the claim was toothless but that didn’t matter. That was nuance to those with an ideology that is as complex as Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos. Likewise, Lindsay Graham on one of the Sunday shows called Ansar al Sharia an al Queda supported group, an al Queda affiliated group and then just called it al Queda all in a span of minutes. Anything that adds a shade of factual nuance to the Pam Geller-John Bolton caricatured War on Islam is dangerous to the manipulative selling of that concept. Al Queda attacked us again on September 11th!!! They anally raped Ambassador Stevens and dragged him through the streets like Mogadishu! Thats all ye need to know...

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  6. And if one is interested in distortions it is interesting that no one has pointed to FoxNews which reported that a Guantanamo released al Queda member led the attack (nothing more on that), that the CIA annex rescuers were ordered to 'stand down' (untrue) or that the Annex was twice 'denied back up' (untrue, a backup force from Tripoli was on the ground in Benghazi by 1:30 AM). FoxNews even trotted out the father of one of the ex-Navy Seals after inflaming him with this misinformation. Or Republican representatives Dan Burton and Paul Gosar who claimed that Stevens was tortured and anally raped. Or Sen. McCain who misled Americans by claiming this was a 7-hour attack. Maybe there should be an investigation of this misinformation...

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