General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEmail used to accuse White House of Libya "coverup" turns out to have been incorrect - Mother Jones
GOP's Benghazi Smoking Gun Goes Up in Smoke
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/10/benghazi-libya-state-emails
When a set of State Department emails were released Wednesday, one reporting that a local Islamist militia had claimed responsibility for the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya, conservatives thought they had the smoking gun that the Obama administration had lied about what had occurred.
Reuters reported Wednesday that on September 11the day of the attacka State Department email with the subject header "Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack" was sent to the White House. The message stated that "Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli." Case closed, conservatives said: The White House had engaged in a cover-up.
"[T]he president and his advisers repeatedly told us the attack was spontaneous reaction to the anti-Muslim video and that it lacked information suggesting it was a terrorist assault," wrote Jennifer Rubin, president of the Washington Post's Mitt Romney fan club. "Bottom line? Barack Obama was willfully and knowingly lying to the American people," wrote Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. (Of course, the idea that the video played a role is not inconsistent with the idea that the attack was an "act of terror," a phrase the president himself used to describe the attack in the days following the incident.)
There's only one problemwell, actually, there are many, but one big one: The email appears to have been incorrect. Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi, the group suspected of attacking the consulate, never claimed responsibility for the assault. In fact, according to Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who monitors jihadist activity online, Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi didn't post about the attack on its Facebook or Twitter page until September 12, the day after the attack. They expressed their approval of the incident, but they didn't take credit; they did imply members of the group might have been involved, according to Zelin, stating, "Katibat Ansar al-Sharia [in Benghazi] as a military did not participate formally/officially and not by direct orders." The statement also justifies the attack by implicitly alluding to the anti-Islam video linked to unrest in other parts of the Middle East, saying, "We commend the Libyan Muslim people in Benghazi [that were] against the attack on the [Muslim] Prophet [Muhammad]."
Sedona
(3,769 posts)demgrrrll
(3,590 posts)spanone
(135,855 posts)Lucinda
(31,170 posts)malaise
(269,103 posts)They lie and they cheat - power by any means.
Keep them away from the White House
Spazito
(50,404 posts)another lame attempt by them debunked.
Thanks for posting this, it is important news.
ProudProgressiveNow
(6,129 posts)Dalai_1
(1,301 posts)dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)Last edited Sun Oct 28, 2012, 06:11 PM - Edit history (1)
which Reuters said is in its possession, reached the US 11th Sept, it was already past midnight and hence 12th Sept in Tripoli.
The Facebook and Twitter issues appear to be incidental.
See Tue Oct 23 :
The records obtained by Reuters consist of three emails dispatched by the State Department's Operations Center to multiple government offices, including addresses at the White House, Pentagon, intelligence community and FBI, on the afternoon of September 11.
>
A third email, also marked SBU and sent at 6:07 p.m. Washington time, carried the subject line: "Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us-usa-benghazi-emails-idUSBRE89N02C20121024
AzDar
(14,023 posts)ip5683
(11 posts)Is an American General losing his job for trying to save the Americans besieged in Benghazi? This is the latest potential wrinkle in the growing scandal surrounding the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack that left four men dead and President Obama scrambling for a coherent explanation.
On October 18, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta appeared unexpectedly at an otherwise unrelated briefing on Efforts to Enhance the Financial Health of the Force." News organizations and CSPAN were told beforehand there was no news value to the event and gave it scant coverage. In his brief remarks Mr. Panetta said, "Today I am very pleased to announce that President Obama will nominate General David Rodriguez to succeed General Carter Ham as commander of U.S. Africa Command. This came as a surprise to many, since General Ham had only been in the position for a year and a half. The General is a very well regarded officer who made AFRICOM into a true Combatant Command after the ineffective leadership of his predecessor, General William E. "Kip" Ward. Later, word circulated informally that General Ham was scheduled to rotate out in March 2013 anyway, but according to Joint doctrine, "the tour length for combatant commanders and Defense agency directors is three years." Some assumed that he was leaving for unspecified personal reasons.
Read more: TRR: Is a General losing his job over Benghazi? - Washington Times http://p.washingtontimes.com/blog/robbins-report/2012/oct/28/general-losing-his-job-over-benghazi/#ixzz2Ad19ny8v
Spazito
(50,404 posts)Please don't post that shit here.
Squinch
(50,977 posts)Segami
(14,923 posts)Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)bluesbassman
(19,378 posts)Metaphorically speaking of course, but the result will be the same.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)...as if he was strutting all over Washington claiming he won the war on terror and a terrorist attack would prove him wrong.
Republicans make stuff up and then run with it as if it's real. Then they claim it is real and take it six steps further and then look stupid because the original premise was fictional.
DeltaLitProf
(769 posts)This was dealt with last week. And it certainly needs to be kicked, yes. But the new GOP meme is that the consulate and forces outside of it begged many times for force to be used in the consulate's defense, only to be told no.
The CIA's spokesperson denied this on Thursday (I think) but Fox is still blaring out that the consulate and people outside it requested to be allowed to engage the attackers, but were turned down and that this mistake led to the deaths of those inside.
I think we can expect millions of Superpac dollars to be spent publicizing the Fox version of the Benghazi tragedy.
David Zephyr
(22,785 posts)zuzu98
(450 posts)for all of my right-wing FB friends and colleagues to choke on.