The day after the September 11, 2012 attacks on our compounds in Benghazi!, I was very irritated. I was very angry with the mob that stormed our consulate and killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. But I was also really appalled by the behavior of Mitt Romney.
The first thing on the 12th, I put together the following list:
Sequence of Events
1. Gaddafi says he’ll hunt down the terrorists of Benghazi like rats.
2. The United Nations intervenes, led by NATO.
3. Benghazi is saved and Gaddafi is hunted down like a rat.
4. Some fruit-loop makes a stupid YouTube about Mohammed.
5. The Embassy in Cairo realizes trouble is brewing and condemns the fruit-loop’s stupid YouTube about Mohammed.
6. Angry Muslims storm our consulate in Benghazi and kill our Ambassador and three other government employees with a rocket-propelled grenade.
7. Ignoring that 5. came before 6., Mitt Romney issues press release blasting the administration for reacting to the death of our ambassador by sympathizing with the murderers.
I took particular umbrage at the behavior of Mitt Romney, who had issued the press release on September 11, but recognizing the sensitivity of both the day and the tragedy, asked the press to embargo it until midnight. Then he apparently could not stop salivating about the potential of the tragedy to redound to his favor, so he went ahead and issued the press release to the public before midnight.
Also, notice what Romney was condemning. He was condemning the behavior of the State Department officials in Cairo who, sensing they might be about to be overrun by an angry mob that was protesting the “The Innocence of Muslims” YouTube, issued a condemnation of the online movie. Romney was falsely suggesting that this condemnation had taken place after our ambassador was killed and that we had essentially apologized to the people who had murdered him. That was risible enough, but it also shows that even Romney had the two events linked in his mind that morning.
Also note that I had my own facts wrong. Ambassador Stevens wasn’t killed by a RPM, but by smoke inhalation. Facts were in short supply and unreliable in the immediate days after the attack.
By September 15th, I was seething about Romney’s behavior, calling him a “taunting jerk” who lacked all sense of “dignity or decorum.” By October 1st, I was in disbelief that the Romney campaign was chortling with glee at the death of four Americans and predicted that they would get the taste slapped out of their mouths if they continued to politicize the tragedy.
And then came the “Please proceed, governor,” moment in the second debate when moderator Candy Crowley called Romney a lying, liar and Obama just sat there drinking in the “the sweet sweet nector of Mitt’s humiliation.”
That should have been the end of it. The right should have just hung their heads in shame that they had tried to exploit the death of four Americans. But that isn’t what happened, is it?
Instead, they decided to make Benghazi! for the Republican Party what the original 9/11 attacks were for Rudy Giuliani: “There’s only three things they mention in a sentence — a noun, a verb, and Benghazi!”
And, now, they try to turn the tables on us and accuse us of being insensitive about these four men’s deaths. You can see the lengths Nancy Pelosi goes to avoid charges of insensitivity in her letter to Speaker Boehner (pdf) rejecting his proposals for the Select Committee charged with investigating the Benghazi! attacks.
The American people expect us to work together in a fair, balanced and open manner. For the sake of the families of the brave Americans who died in this tragedy, the process must not be politicized.
I look forward to meeting with you as you suggested so that we can find a way forward that is worthy of the sacrifice of our heroes who lost their lives in Benghazi and their families. I am still hopeful that we can reach an agreement. Thank you for your immediate attention.
Sadly, the Republicans’ behavior on Benghazi! has turned the very word into a punch line. But the seeds of this outcome were evident even before the fires were put out at the consulate, when Mitt Romney couldn’t wait even a few hours to publicly accuse the State Department of apologizing to the people who murdered Ambassador Stevens.
How depressing is it that while the worlds’ climate is slowly imploding, the American middle class is quickly becoming an historical footnote in our school books, we are once again re-fighting the notion of civil rights and have a large minority, not mention a major political party, questioning the legitimacy of the outcome of our own Civil War; that the majority of our elected government is going to spend the bulk of the next 18 months doing the equivalent of chasing rabbits down holes and trying to capture vapors in a butterfly net about what happened in Benghazi?
What a bunch of dumb, stupid fuckers we are.
It’s stupefying.
Yesterday, I had the first bout of writer’s block I’ve had in a long time because I was just struck dumb by how damn stupid our politics have become.
Fight through that block, Booman. The truth of the matter…the nonpartisan truth…is as follows. The stupidity is just about equal on both sides of the aisle and you are going to have a great deal to complain about over the next couple of years.
If we last that long.
AG
That’s a good point. If you have nothing to say, you can always type “PermaGov” a few times and then congratulate yourself on your superior wisdom and virtue.
Watch.
For variety, add “Bet on it,” “wake up” and rooster pictures.
It is stupefying. That’s why I’m disillusioned and cynical. How can anyone take it all seriously?
Your Libya timeline leaves out the US/NATO/EU/Israel-led invasion and occupation, and the tens of thousands of soldiers we have left there today. Because, you see, there’s oil there. And if there’s oil there, we’ll never leave.
Just like Iraq. Everyone knows we’ll never leave Iraq. Not while the oil is there. And that’s why we’ll never leave Afghanistan, either. And the same reason why we invaded Syria.
Because imperialism. And oil. And it’s always imperialism. And oil It’s the only reason why the US does anything
It’s always about oil, regardless of what we might say.
Oh, people will quibble and say there aren’t any troops in Syria and Libya. And that there’s no oil in Afghanistan. But those are just quibbles!
This is the just most important way, out of hundreds, that both parties are the same.
I spent this last week at an Oil Technology Conference in Houston. I hear there were estimates of about 120,000 people at this thing. All the big players were there from all over the world. And when you see the amounts of money that are involved in this business, it is really no wonder that oil drives our governance. There are so many people getting uber-wealthy at all levels of the energy sector. And politics is so intertwined with it that the likelihood it will ever be unraveled, even a small bit, is basically zero.
Mike…
I am afraid that you missed DXM’s point. It was snark. DXM is saying that oil is not the reason that the U.S. plays world cop. Not economic imperialism, either. DXM is insinuating that there are higher reasons for the U.S. World Cop act.
And DXM is wrong.
AG
For the GOP, Benghazi means desperation.
Lest your underestimate this, remember that “death panels” meant desperation as well–and so did “birth certificate”.
And it was the lying Wall Street media that gave both of those traction.
Horse race means close election means more ad revenue for media.
Interesting how that works.
Three days later, 9/14/12, Romney on ABC went on and on about the statement issued by the Cairo Embassy before protestors had breached and walls and over twelve hours before anything happened in Benghazi.
Repeated “inappropriate” wrt the US Cairo Embassy statement several more times and cited Obama WH agreement with Romney’s criticism. “Inappropriate” was also his criticism of the anti-Muslim movie trailer. Not once did he utter the words “terrorism,” “terrorist,” “al Qaeda,” or even “Benghazi.” Nor did he dispute that the events in Cairo, Egypt, or Libya were in response to the anti-Muslim movie trailer. Curious that three days later, Cairo figured more in what he had been prepared to speak about than Libya. (Takes a while for old guys to learn their lines.)
Lost in this debate is a more important question… to me anyway… why were they there? What vital national interest was served by having this presence is a cesspool of hatred, violence, and fanaticism?
There wasn’t one. The stupid republicans won’t point this out because they love war, but sensible progressives are too defensive to question of the logic of the whole damn thing.
So when some american gets killed in Nigeria trying to rescue those girls the Obama’s want to save, remember what will come after. If we want to be the world’s police force… if we want to spend our tax dollars defending the defenseless in every corner of the planet, then do it… and fund it… and for the weepy hand wringers bemoaning our violent human nature, perhaps you should join the police force.
Don’t come crying to me for sympathy when it ends like Benghazi.
That’s easy. It was ground zero for the US covert operations to take out Gaddafi. And we have this unfortunate habit of never leaving anyplace that leads to successful interventions. Amb Stevens was one of the early players in the Benghazi base of operations.
What’s unknown is exactly what the CIA was engaged in at the time of the attack. There have been speculations that it was a weapons supply route for the Syrian “rebels.” Then there’s the whole Africom endeavor.
None of that can be publicly disclosed or discussed. And there’s no disagreement on that point between Democrats and Republicans. However, knowing that much remains hidden and can’t be exposed, Republicans can engage in a version of commie-witch-hunts with no fear that they can be called out by those in the know and anything that feeds into anti-liberal CT is a winner with their base and the mushy middle of the electorate.
I guess that’s possible… whatever the case, the libya project does not seem to be going well. So the intervention was pretty much a waste of time, money, and lives…
Last week, it seemed we were seeing rare good news out of Libya. Oil exports were set to resume from the Zuetina port after rebels holding it reached an agreement with the government. On another optimistic note, the interim parliament convened to select a new prime minister. (The previous prime minister resigned after six days after rebels attacked his family, while the prime minister before him was actually kidnapped by rebels.) But the prime minister vote didn’t go well. Gunmen stormed the parliament building, started shooting, and forced lawmakers to abandon their plans.
http://warontherocks.com/2014/05/the-consequences-of-natos-good-war-in-libya/
In all armed conflicts there are winners and losers — short-term and long-term. Removing Gaddafi as a nuisance/impediment to the Africom mission has been a plus for US hegemony/imperialism. The money flows from Libyan oil have also been changed; new individuals and entities are scooping up what Gaddafi once took. Libya may be coming along very nicely on the big, secret game board that only the most trusted elites are privy to. Chaos, destruction, and austerity in Libya were predictable and irrelevant to the real game.
This.
It’s always amazing when people assume that the United States Empire gives a fuck about most of the peoples of the world.
It doesn’t, just like every Empire before and after the US.
Benghazi is where we took a jab on the chin in the efforts of our elites to continue dominating the world with wealth, power, and weapons.
If the US government truly gave a fuck about anyone, it would stop supporting monarchs, dictators and terrorist states with money and weapons.
That it doesn’t is the big tell.
Libya is making the right people money, otherwise we’d have a much bigger footprint there. Period.
oh, and heaven forbid we should do anything about the trafficking in young girls
p.s. no one will come crying to you
Oh I’m sure there will soon be some tear-jerker cable news nonsense about how our heroes saved the young women of Africa. Do you know why many girls get sent off to be slaves? Yeah, their parents sell them. Nice. Go and solve that problem, will you?
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2013/12/world/cambodia-child-sex-trade/
grow up. these girls were studying physics
.
Who tried to
prophetprofit from the prophet film?Has it been cleared up who paid for the last Arabic dubbing of the film “Innocence of Muslims” making it Islamophobic with release date early September 2012 in the Arab states?
After the Benghazi attacks, many extremists besides Republicans with Mitt Romney, tried to reap benefits …
○ Claim made by Al Qaeda and a video message by Al Zawahiri released hours before the attack
○ Claim by Ansar al-Islam on the night of the attack and in days after
○ Benefit Israel on Iran attack by hurting re-election chances of President Obama, DebkaFile said to be Israeli intelligence ‘sources’ [cached version only]
○ Harsh words by Charles Krauthammer
○ Islamophobess like Middle-East Forum of the likes of Daniel Pipes
○ Daniel Pipes: Speech Monitor to Silence Palestinians in the US
○ Pro-Israel funders put own Muslim ‘scholar’ on stage in Boston – “Nasser Weddady” replaces scholar Suhaib Webb
The origin of and funding for the “movie” went cold (or was quashed) once it was attributed to Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. As amateurish (which is being generous) as it was, it still exceeded any skill, knowledge or money that Nakoula could possibly have possessed. Seems as if that didn’t pique the curiosity of any skilled investigator. Then there’s the whole issue of how did it get from this one weird guy’s alleged vanity project to Cairo TV. Dots connecting to Pamela Geller exist. SPL Center profile of Ms. Geller.
Rabbis for Romney Founder Extends Invite to Pamela Geller. The Whirling Dervish: Mitt Romney and Pamela Geller. September 11, 2012: D-Day in the Information Battle-Space:
Robert Bork? John Bolton?? 9 Advisers Who Have Romney’s Ear
Geller and her cohort Robert Spencer’s status isn’t what it was in 2012 — (banned in the UK was a big hit) — and like the lady “birther loon,” have fallen out of favor with the high profile hate mongers.
the actors’ dialog was overdubbed – also costs money. was this set up for a Romney “october surprise” and not just an incident from which he tried to benefit? (someone’s still trying to get their money’s worth out of it?)
Several points in the project cost real money. An asset that Nakoula didn’t possess. For the little information that was obtained on this, it appeared that there were two phases to the project. The first beginning in 2009 with the hiring of a legit (if cheesy porn director) and open casting call published in legit movie trade publication. It was suspended when Nakoula was arrested and incarcerated for a year or so. Phase two picked up from where the first phase left off.
It’s anyone’s guess as to who/what/why it was originally initiated and if it remained the same or morphed into something else in 2011. If it was not dissimilar to The Patriot Act that went on the shelf until the right time.
My almost completely intuitive sense from the moment I heard about it was that it was an attempted “October Surprise.” Flubbed because the intended response was to have been extremely anti-American and take place in Cairo. To discredit Obama. However, tend to doubt that the characters involved at that stage were instrumental in making the damn thing. More like something that landed in their lap and they seized the opportunity. Check out the 5/17/12 secretly recorded Romney fundraising video:
Suggestive but too speculative to connect the dots.
yes, that video statement of Romney’s is an indicator. he had nothing, negatives in fact, on foreign policy. he needed to have something for “gravitas” and to cut into Obama;s record. the gloating photo, imo, is a giveaway
photo
https://twitter.com/Dharapak/status/245893711257563136
Thanks for that. I’ve never seen it before.
Walking trashbags, all of them.
Has it been cleared up who paid for the last Arabic dubbing of the film?
I should be forgiven for spend so much time rooted about the bowels of the Internet, but… I have this nagging suspicion that Willard and the White Dogs, that Romney and the Retard Party, tried to stage, perhaps “micro-manage” a Raygun-esque October Surprise. In the days prior to “9/11” Willard had (smugly) made a number of comparisons of Obama’s to Jimmy Carter’s (to this Ike baby our best president in memory) presidency. It was certainly within the Willard campaign’s wherewithall to hire some kook to produce and distribute the movie, and with Sheldon Adelson’s Jewish Mafia’s connections to the Israeli spy ring Mossand and its wealth of experience inciting violence in the Muslim world to provide a few agents provocateurs to stir up the locals and viola! a miniature, a micro, 1979 Iranian hostage crisis to negotiate and the appropriately grateful and adoring (say hallelujah!) voters will then hand him the presidency. It’s all really rather simple.
And no less plausible than the original “9/11”.
No fear.
I think this is about right.
Nixon did it in ’68
Reagan did it in ’80
Republicans are fucking traitors and should be treated as such.
What is the penalty for treason, again?
It depends on your connections, n1cholas .
Death, imprisonment, exile, wealth or high office, mostly.
AG
Anyone that feels that both parties are the same is vastly uninformed. There is a very clear, stark difference.
Currently the GOP is acting in a desperation mode. They counted very heavily on the Democratic Party members in the House to willing become members of their Benghazi witch-hunt. Now that the Democratic Party members have rejected to validate this show. The GOP is running around like chickens with their heads chopped off. Those GOP members that know party history are reminded of the major political backlash of the 1990’s when the party tried this tactic before. The cost was very real and hurt the GOP. They have in effect opened up a Pandora box of political ruin for themselves. By daring to fund raise on the tragic deaths of 4 Americans.
Their choices and actions have sent them sliding into political destruction.
Because the Republicans are moving forward on this, I think it’s time for Senate Democrats to open up some real hearings on 9/11. Why was Dick Clarke ignored? Was the August 6 PDB ignored? What really happened to our national security fabric in the weeks leading up to the attacks?
If the GOP can froth at the mouth over four diplomatic personnel in Libya, it’s completely fair for Democrats to demand some facts about the deaths of ~3000 civilians. Lord knows that the American people, and especially the families devastated by 9/11, deserve some real answers for once.
Sadly…this will never happen.
Why?
Because it would lay bare the real, Deep State roots of 9/11 and the subsequent Iraq War/Surveillance State PermaWar apparatus that is now firmly in place.
Never happen.
Sorry.
Not as long as someone who is a consenting member of the mainstream RatPublican/DemocRatic UniParty holds the White House.
And when will that change?
Never.
At least…not until the whole massive criminal enterprise that we now mistake for the U.S. government falls apart at the seams.
Any year now.
Aaaaaany year now…
AG
.
You are not questioning the ‘expertise’ of members of the 9/11 commission now, are you?
A correction to Silverstein’s piece:
billmon is a great and progressive blogger, but he was not a founding member of Daily Kos. He did establish himself very quickly as insightful and also a much better writer than anyone else there when he showed up in November 2002. A couple of months later, Kos asked billmon and Steve Soto to act as guest posters. (This was pre-Scoop; no diaries.) Within two to three months, Steve and billmon established their own blogs.