No one yet knows all the facts surrounding the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, but it’s clear that the State Department made a serious mistake. There wasn’t enough security to protect Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The Obama administration issued contradictory statements about what triggered the attacks. And days after the compound was burned, it was left so unsecured that a journalist plucked Stevens’s diary from the wreckage. Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary for diplomatic security, didn’t help matters this week when she insisted that the consulate had “the correct number” of security assets on the ground. With four Americans dead, she should have admitted the obvious: It didn’t.
Still, it is disingenuous for members of Congress to express outrage over security failures after they voted to cut hundreds of millions in funding for diplomatic security last year. At the hearing this week, Representative Darrell Issa, the California Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he was so concerned about the safety of US diplomats that he rushed to hold a public hearing even before the FBI investigation was finished. Yet he was silent when a colleague challenged him to help restore the funds.
Comments
This unsigned editorial should remained unsigned. If the writer became known, the Democrat party would be enlisting him/her for party leadership. Let's get something straight. As the VP repeated in the midst of his laughing, chuckling outbusts of humor, facts are facts. Here's one for you. The five guards at the embassy were in "fact" unarmed by order of this Democrat Secretary of state and her president. Here's another. Biden said, "we weren't told they wanted more secuurity again". His state department officials say this is a lie. You, Mr/Mrs editorial writer, declare that Republicans should not exploit this absurd unwillingness to provide security because they cut millions from diplomatic security and then "rushed to hold a public hearing before the FBI investigation was finished." So sad, that it was up to the journalists on the embassy site to dig up the ambassor's diary for us to know that he was pleading for more security long before he lost his life. His pleading went unheard by the prresident and his secretary of state. Let's be clear on this. Your Democrat administration is responsible for this horror show. Talking publically about it is not exploitation. Your Democrats need to answer for this and more newspapers should be investigating not castigating.
Nice try, Globe. The Clinton/Obama State Department ignored requests for more security at our Bengazi consulate and then the White House blamed a stupid video for the death of four Americans. Don't try to blame the GOP for this tragedy and cover up.
so you do not mind that AmericaNS were killed and the administration is trying to cover it up?
2 scenarios:
- Obama did not know. If this is the case why was he so wildly uninformed?
- They did know and are covering it up
Which is worse? Another example of Obama not taking responsibility.
Security denied. People died. Obama lied.
"No one knows ALL the facts". Well, that's an awfully artful way to get around what IS known to date, isn't it? There was never any "protest", was there? Intelligence never suggested there was, at any time, did they? There is NOTHING indicating a Youtube video incited anything, anywhere, is there? Yet Obama, Clinton, Rice and Carney all immediately FLOGGED this fabrication for weeks. Why? Has there ever been a more obvious case of outright, despicable, bald face lying to America? Only to the Globe is it not "clear" why the Obama administration would use such a lie. They lied because they wanted a simple "narrative" to be accepted which would absolve the administration of ANY blame for the gross, negligent, homocide resulting from THEIR policies to act "nice" around the world. They had less security, not because there weren't enough funds (no reduction in funding EVER passed) but because Obama's approach is to avoid anything that might "offend" other countries, anything that might appear "imperialistic". The first US ambassador to be murdered in 30 years (along with other poor souls) was sacrificed to a POLICY that imagines thugs will respect weakness: "the plan was to have a small footprint". Pity those in the State Department who must be sacrificed to achieve this flaccid policy. And the Globe has the audacity to suggest the REAL ISSUE here is Republicans "playing politics" with THE most flagrent debacle in State Department history AND with an administration that foisted a calculated LIE to evade responsibility. Nice try Globe, but anyone in their right mind can see this for what it is; corrupt incompetance on a massive scale.
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As a liberal and a democrat I found it shocking that every US Consulate in the world would not be heavily armed at all times. To not be armed on 911 in Libya is just madness. Obama messed up. Sad situation and should not happen ever again. Hate to see Republicans using the death of the ambassador for political gain, but that's what Republicans do. Have fun guys.
yes, they should concentrate on important things like big bird and tax returns
Yeah and the mantra "Bush lied and people died" was never uttered by the left (even though the Brits, Germans and French AGREED with our intelligence on WMD's in Irag). The fatuousness of the left never ceases to amaze. EVERYTHING is ripe, political, fodder for the left if you haven't noticed.
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So the democrats say there was no money to fund security in Lybia...but they gave the embassy in Vienna $100 thousand dollars for 2 electric car hook up stations....go figure and sent to Finland $200 million to build the Fiske electric car in Finland.
The state dept. denied more security and no one is to blame but this administration. When that attack was going on they were in contact with the state dept. and maybe they could not find Pres. Obama to inform him because he was at a fund raiser. But the gall to go to a fund raiser that day an ambassador and others were murdered and our consulates in many countries were burning shows the lack of leadership and no one but Pres. Obama & Hillary are to blame. Do not blame the republicans...for focusing to find out what really happen and not sweep it under the rug until after the election...for once can Pres. Obama and Joe Biden stop blaming others.
Sorry to be a pedant and to correct you, but the Fisker--not Fiske--is based in Anaheim, California, and takes its name from the Danish immigrant, Henrik Fisker. Fisker and his partner, Bernard Koehler, immigrated to the U.S. from England (they worked for Aston Martin--makers of the original James Bond car) long before Barack Obama had even announced his candidacy for President. The firm, itself, was fully established in 2005. The original financial backers, aside from Fisker and Koehler, were primarily American high tech firms and venture capitalists. The only foreign investor of note was an Italian businessman, Gianfranco Pizzuto, who had a small stake. The current CEO previously worked on the Chevrolet Volt Fisker Automotive, then, is not a Finnish company, but is fully American firm by any definition, even if it takes its name from an immigrant from Denmark, by way of the United Kingdom.
We can argue until Hell freezes over about who is responsible for the insufficient security at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. My guess is that there is plenty of blame to be spread between the Obama State Department and the Repubicans in Congress. But in any case, there is no evidence to adduce the Fisker automobile as a point in a case to portray Barack Obama as a treasonous consipirator against his country (Yes, "his," as it is incontestable that he was born in Hawaii and, except for a coup[le of years in Indonesia, was raised and educated in the USA). God knows, there is enough to criticize in the Obama administration's performance--the lack of persecution of any Wall Street banker by the Justice Department and the feeble efforts to clean up the mortgage mess come to mind--but the time-tested and mendacious Republican slurs and innuendos alleging treason in Democratic administrations poisons the public debate and distracts voters from our real problems.
Sorry--a correction: Slurs and innuendos poison--not "poisons"--the public debate!
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So let's see, "Security denied. People died. Obama lied." Using that measure of political and moral responsibility, we should blame 9/11 entirely on George Bush: "Intelligence warnings denied. People died. Bush lied."
yes, good logic
I knew you would agree. See more about the role of neocon ideology and 9/11 in "The Deafness Before the Storm" by Kurt Eichenwald, New York Times, September 10, 2012 [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html ]: "The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that "a group presently in the United States" was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be "imminent," although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible. But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day. In response, the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real."
No one yet knows all the facts surrounding the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya
really?
So you saw the post-attack interviews with the named perpetrators and their affiliations on CNN too, begolfing?
please. grow up
Son-of-a-Bitches.
Globe says "We still don’t know all the facts surrounding the deadly attack on the US consulate Benghazi, Libya". This entire editorial is based on the Globe's deliberately FALSE statement. Yes, we DO! And the Globe knows it.--The Globe knows that, as a matter of standard military procedure, every US embassy has multiple video cameras surrounding it, which transmit images INSTANTLY around the wor;d. There are satellites also. Also, as a matter of standard procedure, as soon as ther embassy csme under attack, the embassy communicated with the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department, and the White House SIMULTANEOUSLY. This entire procedure was described to WRKO listeners this week by Col. David Hunt, an Obama voter in 2008. Col. Hunt said that the US government would have known, and seen video of the attack, WITHIN MINUTES! When Hillary Clinton went on CNN the next morning to describe the attack as being casused by protestors who saw a Video, she knew thast she was flat out LYING to the American public. And furthermore, this procedure is NOT classified information. There is already testimony made to Congress that in the hours before the attack, there were no protests whatsoever, and the streets were quiet.--Video of the attack is available on the Internet, and just a few minutes of viewing tells anyomne that Susan Rice, Hillary clinton, and barack Obama flat out LIED when they blamed the attack on a "Spontaneous attack" due to a Video.-- Since we DO know all of the facts surrouding the deadly attacks, we also know that this Administration has engaged in a massive COVERUP, 100 times worse than Nixon's Watergate coverup. Richard Nixon was asked to resign for doing far, far less. If george Bush had done anything like this, you can be absolutely sure that the Globe would be asking Bush to resign. -- WE DO know all of the facts. The GOP has every right to make a potitical issue out of this. --In fact, this situstion is far far worse that politics here. -Americans should not be voting for Barack Obama. They should be asking for Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden (who also flar out LIED at the VP debate when he cited an "intelligence failure") to RESIGN!