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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRONALD REAGAN’S BENGHAZI
May 6, 2014
by Jane Mayer
Late Saturday night, at the Vanity Fair party celebrating the White House Correspondents Association Dinner, Darrell Issa, the Republican congressman from San Diego, California, was chatting amiably with Governor Chris Christie, of New Jersey, leaning in to swap gossip and looking very much at ease in his tuxedo. Issa, who has been the lead inquisitor into what, in shorthand, has come to be known as Benghazi, was having a busy weekend. House Speaker John Boehner had just announced a plan for a new special select investigative committee, and, on Friday, Issa had announced that he had issued a subpoena to Secretary of State John Kerry for a new round of hearings devoted to searching, against diminishing odds, for some dirty, dark secret about what really happened in Benghazi.
Ever since militant jihadists killed four Americans, including the U.S. Ambassador, in an attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in that remote Libyan town two years ago, House Republicans have kept up a drumbeat of insinuation. They have already devoted thirteen hearings, twenty-five thousand pages of documents, and fifty briefings to the topic, which have turned up nothing unexpected. Kerrys predecessor, Hillary Clinton, has already accepted responsibility for the tragedy, and the State Department has issued a critical independent report on diplomatic security, resulting in the dismissal of four employees. If the hearings accomplish nothing else, it seems that they promise to keep the subject on life support at least through the midterm congressional elections, and possibly on through any potential Hillary Clinton Presidential campaign. The word impeachment has even been trotted out by Obama opponents in connection with this non-scandal.
Watching Issa silhouetted against the Belle Époque windows of the Italian Ambassadors residence, which were wide open to a garden bathed in colored spotlights, I found myself thinking about another tragedy, thirty years ago, that played out very differently.
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.
-snip-
There were more than enough opportunities to lay blame for the horrific losses at high U.S. officials feet. But unlike todays 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 ONeill, the Democratic Speaker of the House, was no pushover. He, like todays opposition leaders in the House, demanded an investigationbut 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.
read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2014/05/ronald-reagans-benghazi.html
liberal N proud
(60,336 posts)moondust
(19,993 posts)Reagan turned and ran like a scared little girl, which emboldened at least a generation of terrorists.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)05/06/14
By Steve Benen
A terrorist attack on a U.S. outpost in the Middle East. Americans killed. Congressional hearings. Evidence that the administration failed to take security as seriously as it should have.
It was over 30 years ago that a terrorist attack on a U.S. Marine compound in Beirut killed 241 American servicemen, which came just six months after militants had bombed the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans. Jane Mayer, who covered the attack in Lebanon at the time, reflects today on the domestic political environment and how much its changed.
There were more than enough opportunities to lay blame for the horrific losses at high U.S. officials feet. But unlike todays 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 ONeill, the Democratic Speaker of the House, was no pushover. He, like todays 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 reports findings, by the way, were bipartisan. (The Pentagon, too, launched an investigation, issuing a report that was widely accepted by both parties.)
Six months after the terrorist attack, militants struck American officials in Beirut again, killing the CIAs station chief. This happened during an election year, but I can find no evidence of any federal politician using this in television attack ads. And six months after that, terrorists bombed a U.S. government outpost in Beirut once more in the middle of Reagans re-election campaign. The then-president conceded at the time that repairs at the U.S. embassy annex were behind schedule, telling the public, Anyone whos ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would.
Again, no hearings. No attack ads. No select committee. No subpoenas. No organized conspiracy theories pushed by members of Congress or their media allies. No talk about impeaching the president.
read more: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/tale-two-terrorist-attacks
malaise
(269,054 posts)No ReTHUG outrage there either - indeed they kept on telling us that the war criminals kept America safe (after the worst attack on American soil). What's more they ignored warnings of an attack.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)malaise
(269,054 posts)Benghazi
napkinz
(17,199 posts)kardonb
(777 posts)my answer to every "Benghasi " howler is simply " 9-11 !!!
napkinz
(17,199 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)By Steve Benen
A terrorist attack on a U.S. outpost in the Middle East. Americans killed. Congressional hearings. Evidence that the administration failed to take security as seriously as it should have.
It was over 30 years ago that a terrorist attack on a U.S. Marine compound in Beirut killed 241 American servicemen, which came just six months after militants had bombed the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans. Jane Mayer, who covered the attack in Lebanon at the time, reflects today on the domestic political environment and how much its changed.
There were more than enough opportunities to lay blame for the horrific losses at high U.S. officials feet. But unlike todays 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 ONeill, the Democratic Speaker of the House, was no pushover. He, like todays 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 reports findings, by the way, were bipartisan. (The Pentagon, too, launched an investigation, issuing a report that was widely accepted by both parties.)
Six months after the terrorist attack, militants struck American officials in Beirut again, killing the CIAs station chief. This happened during an election year, but I can find no evidence of any federal politician using this in television attack ads.
And six months after that, terrorists bombed a U.S. government outpost in Beirut once more in the middle of Reagans re-election campaign. The then-president conceded at the time that repairs at the U.S. embassy annex were behind schedule, telling the public, Anyone whos ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would.
Again, no hearings. No attack ads. No select committee. No subpoenas. No organized conspiracy theories pushed by members of Congress or their media allies. No talk about impeaching the president.
Im trying to imagine what would happen if, in todays climate, terrorists struck repeatedly at U.S. installations in a Middle Eastern country, killing hundreds of Americans.
- more -
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/tale-two-terrorist-attacks
ProgressiveJarhead
(172 posts)Carlsbad up to San Clemente can have him.
humbled_opinion
(4,423 posts)The teabags at my job say there is no comparison to Benghazi no precedent ever...because never before has a President and SecState intentionally and for purely political reasons lied to the American people about the reason behind a terrorist attack that killed Americans by blaming the attacks on some youtube video in order to trick the American public (in and election year) into thinking that radical Islamic terrorism was on the decline. They claim this whole charade is a testimony to the failed foreign policy of this Admin....
I tell them good luck in proving that and they tell me to sit down and shut the PLAME up...
LOL
I love politics.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)to the American people about the reason behind a terrorist attack that killed Americans"
WOW ... who was it that made the bogus link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 a casus belli that resulted in the deaths of 5000 American soldiers and over 100,000 Iraqis?
hmmm ... what administration did that ... the name escapes me
(remind your teabagger co-workers)
humbled_opinion
(4,423 posts)Bush lied to prevent another attack Obama lied after the attack happened... they blame one on bad intel and the other as purely political in the run up to a presidential election...
napkinz
(17,199 posts)nt
humbled_opinion
(4,423 posts)this is exacly how all the wingnuts sound...
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)Talk about "wag the dog."
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)"Yeah, but Reagan took responsibility for it from the start, and didn't blame some nonexistent cheesy movie!!!!"
(I've been seeing a lot of this on Twitter feeds)
XRubicon
(2,212 posts)Cha
(297,319 posts)http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/10/10/985191/chaffetz-absolutely-funding-embassy-security/
mahalo napkinz~
IronLionZion
(45,457 posts)and for all their righteous indignation and fouxtrage, they still decided to cut funding for embassy security even more. Not to mention the 13 benghazis that happened at US embassies and consulates during W's term.