General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsONE simple fact: Benghazi was a covert CIA op under direction of Gen. Petraeus.
Last edited Thu Oct 22, 2015, 04:45 PM - Edit history (1)
Republicans have known from early on that ANY WH administration would be reticent in revealing a covert operation and have taken great advantage to deflect the blame onto State Dept.
Benghazi was a covert CIA operation under the direction of Gen. Petraeus who had dozens of his agents and operatives on the ground there before, during, and after the attack.
Republicans have known this since early on - they count on their dumbed down voter base believing the professional propaganda media that know exactly how to misdirect public anger and M$M's apathy for the truth.
WSJ/Nov2012:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204712904578092853621061838
DailyMail/Nov2012:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2226821/CIA-admits-role-US-consulate-attack-Benghazi.html#ixzz3pJTTNiEl
sandyshoes17
(657 posts)I've been thinking this for a long time. And Patreus resigning right before testifying, the whole thing stunk to me.
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)Then the Committee will be guilty of revealing state secrets>
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)blm
(113,055 posts).
blm
(113,055 posts).
tularetom
(23,664 posts)Especially when it's the Wall Street F'ing Journal.
Would it be possible to paraphrase/summarize a bit more of the article for those of us who don't want to give them any $?
blm
(113,055 posts)It basically reports that Gen. Petraeus had dozens of agents and operatives on the ground in Benghazi and that his absence at the receiving of coffins was worth noting.
Me: There were more CIA operatives on the ground in Benghazi than there were State Dept personnel and GOP intel committee members have known this all along, with GOP congress knowing full well before they got on TV and started lying about it in hopes of carrying Romney into the WH.
Me: The State Dept was doing what EVERY State Dept has done, and that is provide cover for CIA when it decides cover is needed.
starroute
(12,977 posts)If you go to the link as posted and then google on the headline, you will get a page of google results from which you can get to the full article. This also works with some other paywalled news sites -- I assume the reason is that they depend on google to drive traffic to them.
blm
(113,055 posts)The CIA was operating a covert mission in the U.S. consulate in Libya when it came under attack by al Qaeda-linked militants on September 11, intelligent chiefs have admitted.
Four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed in the six-hour, commando-style attack on the US Mission in the Libyan city, for which al-Qaeda and Islamist militia Ansar al-Sharia have been blamed.
The CIA made the revelation as it laid bare the heroic rescue by a handful of its agents in which they fought off wave after wave of mortar and rocket attacks with just their handguns as they sought to infiltrate the compound and shepherd its American staff to safety.
A timeline, released by the agency, has blown open the dramatic sequence of events, revealing for the first time that of the 30 American officials evacuated from the country following the deadly attack, just seven worked for the State Department.
>>>>>>
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2226821/CIA-admits-role-US-consulate-attack-Benghazi.html#ixzz3pJTTNiEl
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)'At its heart a CIA operation'
In November The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. mission in Benghazi "was at its heart a CIA operation."
much more
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-secret-cia-mission-in-benghazi-2013-5?IR=T
Petraeus' Role In Drafting Benghazi Talking Points Raises Questions
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/david-petraeus-benghazi/
Maybe Petraeus Plea Deal Is More Interesting to the Benghazi Report than Hillarys Emails?
https://www.emptywheel.net/2015/03/05/maybe-petraeus-plea-deal-is-more-interesting-to-the-benghazi-report-than-hillarys-emails/
blm
(113,055 posts)and this entire aspect of the Benghazi issue, including alleged 'left leaning' networks like MSNBC.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)in fact the whole middle east game they have been playing
is a clusterfuck.
blm
(113,055 posts).
H2O Man
(73,537 posts)I think that was apparent to anyone familiar with the CIA - Dept of State.
blm
(113,055 posts)as a matter of course.
And, as a matter of federal law. The republicans are attempting to force Ms. Clinton to mistakenly do something akin to the "Plame scandal."
erronis
(15,241 posts)They are a convenient way to inject operatives into seemingly innocuous roles - trade reps, etc.
Same as other countries do to the US and others.
Very few of the "operational" diplomats are overseas in order to rubber-stamp agreements or appear in photo-ops. All real diplomatic stuff happens in the nations' capitals (or in their subterranean vaults.)
blm
(113,055 posts).
SoLeftIAmRight
(4,883 posts)...
H2O Man
(73,537 posts)Thank you.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)Did DoD? Who in the administration knew about it, and APPROVED of it? Did the President give his approval? Because remember, Obama picks out his own targets on Terror Tuesdays, why wouldn't he know what the CIA was up to in Libya?...see, this is why nobody wants to dig deeper, neither R or D.
blm
(113,055 posts)It all seems so easy to those of us safe and nowhere NEAR the arena.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)Remember General "All-In" was saying a couple months ago that we ought to arm AQ-affiliated fighters in Syria because they're effective fighters? If that's indicative of how he thinks (and yes, the SUUURGE was us paying off AQ sympathizers), then I'd really like to know what we were doing in Libya and Syria. I hope the President wasn't involved in any bad decisions, but I'd still like to know the truth.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)My immediate response upon hearing the news of an "embassy" attack in Benghazi.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)It probably got our ambassador killed.
blm
(113,055 posts)None.
Response to blm (Original post)
Comrade Grumpy This message was self-deleted by its author.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)blm
(113,055 posts).
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)blm
(113,055 posts)substantial role on the ground in Benghazi, before, during, and after the attack.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Because Obama was running on having just won the War ON Terriers.
Can't do that if there are still terriers.
blm
(113,055 posts)The mic HAS been dropped.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Did an end run around the commander-in-chief to do it, the GOP mission accomplished, failing for the sake of wars without end for profits without cease.
The Why Behind the Benghazi Attack
The story behind the Benghazi attack was not the political cover-up that the Right has pushed, but rather how the U.S. consulate had grown into a CIA base, making it an inviting target for militants. The primary security failure was in not anticipating the danger, writes ex-CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman.
By Melvin A. Goodman
ConsortiumNews, November 4, 2012
Nearly two months ago, on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, a group of militants attacked the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, killing the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.
The Romney campaign has accused the Obama administration with a cover-up of the details of the attack, and various pundits have sown great confusion over a tragic event that points to a failure of intelligence analysis and operational tradecraft at the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.
The unwillingness of the White Houses senior adviser on counter-terrorism, John Brennan, to play a public role in the aftermath of this tragedy left the Obama administration without an authoritative voice on the event.
Its now apparent that the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was no ordinary consulate; in fact, it probably was no consulate at all. The consulates primary mission was to provide an intelligence platform that would allow the CIA to maintain an operational and analytical role in eastern Libya.
The region is home to myriad militant and terrorist organizations that threaten Western interests in North Africa and, more importantly, the creation of a stable state in Libya. In other words, the consulate was the diplomatic cover for an intelligence platform and whatever diplomatic functions took place in Benghazi also served as cover for an important CIA base. Both the State Department and the CIA share responsibility for seriously underestimating the security threat in Libya, particularly in Benghazi.
Any CIA component in the Middle East or North Africa is a likely target of the wrath of militant and terrorist organizations because of the Agencys key role in the global war on terror waged by the Bush administration and the increasingly widespread covert campaign of drone aircraft of the Obama administration.
U.S. programs that included the use of secret prisons, extraordinary renditions, and torture and abuse involved CIA collaboration with despotic Arab regimes, including Libyas Muammar Gaddafi. The U.S. campaign to overthrow Gaddafi didnt clean the slate of these abuses; it merely opened up the opportunity for militants and Islamists to avenge U.S. actions over the past ten years.
At home, Americans are devoting far too much attention to whether a so-called proper level of security in Benghazi could have prevented the attack, instead of trying to learn the motives and anticipate the actions of these militant organizations.
The CIA failure to provide adequate security for its personnel stems from degradation in the operational tradecraft capabilities of the CIA since the so-called intelligence reforms that followed the 9/11 attacks. Nearly three years ago, nine CIA operatives and contractors were killed by a suicide bomber at their base in Khost in eastern Afghanistan in the deadliest attack on CIA personnel in decades.
Virtually every aspect of sound tradecraft was ignored in this episode as an unvetted Jordanian double agent was allowed to enter a sensitive CIA facility (instead of a CIA safe house), where he was met by the entire base leadership (a breach of longstanding tradecraft).
The base commander in Khost had insufficient training and experience for the posting and had been promoted regularly by the CIAs Directorate of Operations despite having been cited in a CIA internal review on 9/11, according to the Washington Post, for failing to warn the FBI about two al-Qaeda operatives who had entered the country in 2000.
No reprimands were assessed in the aftermath of the 2009 bombing, although high-level Agency officials had to approve the assignment of the base commander as well as the entry of the Jordanian double agent onto the Agencys most sensitive facility in eastern Afghanistan.
The security situation in Libya, particularly Benghazi, was obviously deteriorating; the consulate was a target of a bomb in June and the British consulate closed its doors in the summer, leaving the U.S. consulate as the last official foreign presence in the city.
Overall security for the consulate had been in the hands of a small British security firm that placed unarmed Libyans on the perimeter of the building complex. The CIA contributed to the problem with its reliance on Libyan militias and a new Libyan intelligence organization to maintain security for its personnel in Benghazi.
On the night of the attack, the CIA security team was slow to respond to the consulates call for help, spending more than 20 minutes trying to garner additional support from militias and the Libyan intelligence service that never responded.
Although nearly 30 Americans were airlifted out of Libya in less than ten hours, there is no indication that these individuals were debriefed in order to get a better understanding of the militia attacks. The lack of such essential information from those who had been under attack contributed to the confused assessments in the wake of the attacks.
There were other complications as well. Ambassador Christopher Stevens was an extremely successful and popular ambassador in Libya, but he had become too relaxed about security in a country that had become a war zone.
UN Ambassador Susan Rice was too quick to pronounce judgments on the Benghazi attack before the facts were known, which could be attributed to her interest in assuming a public role in order to buttress her case for becoming Secretary of State in a second Obama administration.
The public role belonged to Brennan, but he had previously mishandled duties in the wake of the attempt of a young Nigerian to board a commercial airliner with explosives in December 2009 as well as in the immediate aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011.
The systemic failures surrounding the Nigerian bomber involved the entire intelligence community, including the CIA, the National Counter-Terrorism Center, and the National Security Agency. The Benghazi tragedy points to continued systemic failures in the intelligence community as well as within the State Department. A failure to conduct proper threat assessments will predictably lead to security failures.
The Benghazi failure is one more reminder of the unfortunate militarization of the intelligence community, particularly the CIA, in the wake of 9/11 that finds our major civilian intelligence service becoming a paramilitary center in support of the war-fighter.
Last years appointment of Gen. David Petraeus as CIA director; the CIAs increased role in drone attacks in Southwest Asia, the Persian Gulf and the Horn of Africa; and the insufficient attention to providing strategic intelligence for the policy-maker have weakened the Agencys central missions.
The success of the Bush and Obama administrations in compromising the CIAs Office of the Inspector General has ensured that the Agencys flaws have gone uncorrected. The politicization of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003 was the worst intelligence scandal in the CIAs history, but there were no penalties for those who shared CIA Director George Tenets willingness to make phony intelligence a slam dunk.
If more attention is not given to the biblical inscription at the entrance to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, that only the truth will set you free, the decline of the intelligence community will continue.
Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and the author of the forthcoming National Insecurity: The Costs of American Militarism (City Lights Publishing, January 2013).
SOURCE: https://consortiumnews.com/2012/11/04/the-why-behind-the-benghazi-attack/
I question why the Honorable General CIA Doctor Director walks free while good people are in jail for exposing government corruption?
The fact this episode has only been examined as a political tool to clobber Hillary Clinton shows the corrupt nature of Corporate Owned News.
Thank goodness for DU and blm -- nothing gets under their radar.
my friend
kentuck
(111,092 posts)The "compound" was a CIA station, not an embassy.
Hardly ever are any of these operations made public. Unfortunately, the Republicans decided to try and make it about Hillary and her incompetence. If there is blame to go around, the CIA, with David Petraseus, would receive the lion's share.
For some reason, I find it hard to believe that the Republicans are not aware of this?
blm
(113,055 posts)fit into the BS they have been selling their voter base.
blm
(113,055 posts); )
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)They are trying to manipulate a "gotcha." That they can't openly say anything about it is mere formality.
They think they can get Clinton to slip up, admit what it was that they already know it was, and freak out about it.
blm
(113,055 posts)psychopaths have absolutely no boundaries.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)MinM
(2,650 posts)NPR's on the media had an interesting personal look at one of the Benghazi victims a little over a year ago. They describe Sean Smith's gaming activities as though they were just a respite from his IT duties.
My guess since reading and hearing his story is that it was more than an avocation for him. That it was actually something more like what is described in the op ..
On September 11th, 2012, gunmen attacked two American compounds in Benghazi, Libya, killing four Americans. Sean Smith, one of the four killed in the attack, was an IT manager in the real world, but online, he was Vile Rat, a hugely influential diplomat in the video game Eve Online. Alex talks to Sean's friend Alex "The Mittani" Gianturco about who Sean was both in Eve and in the real world.
http://www.onthemedia.org/story/tldr-11-rip-vile-rat/
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026664037
*****
Of course all of these possibilities help to explain why the Republicans can drag these hearings out so long. They know the Democrats can't call bullsh*t without being accused of revealing State Secrets.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)You know, al queda in Syria. They screwed al nusra somehow so alqueda send their locak goons to kill the ambassador.
Myrina
(12,296 posts).... why hasn't the GOP been jumping up and down about it as a means to get at POTUS - who was directly responsible for Petraeus' command (and probably his marching orders) during that time & the ultimate Boss of the CIA, rather than this BS grilling of HRC??
I'm confused. Thanks.
blm
(113,055 posts)go to areas that Poppy Bush and his fascist cronies will never allow. seeJFK
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/21/this_is_not_a_democracy_behind_the_deep_state_that_obama_hillary_or_trump_couldnt_control/
Myrina
(12,296 posts)blm
(113,055 posts).
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)blm
(113,055 posts).
WillyT
(72,631 posts)seafan
(9,387 posts)From Seymour Hersh in April 2014, in a post I put together on October 3:
In January, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on the assault by a local militia in September 2012 on the American consulate and a nearby undercover CIA facility in Benghazi, which resulted in the death of the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others. The reports criticism of the State Department for not providing adequate security at the consulate, and of the intelligence community for not alerting the US military to the presence of a CIA outpost in the area, received front-page coverage and revived animosities in Washington, with Republicans accusing Obama and Hillary Clinton of a cover-up. A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafis arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didnt always know who was really employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer. (A spokesperson for Petraeus denied the operation ever took place.)
Washington abruptly ended the CIAs role in the transfer of arms from Libya after the attack on the consulate, but the rat line kept going. The United States was no longer in control of what the Turks were relaying to the jihadists, the former intelligence official said. Within weeks, as many as forty portable surface-to-air missile launchers, commonly known as manpads, were in the hands of Syrian rebels.
CIA Takes Heat for Role in Libya, WSJ, Nov. 1, 2012 9:05 p.m. ET
Officials close to Mr. Petraeus say he stayed away in an effort to conceal the agency's role in collecting intelligence and providing security in Benghazi. Two of the four men who died that day, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, were former Navy SEAL commandos who were publicly identified as State Department contract security officers, but who actually worked as Central Intelligence Agency contractors, U.S. officials say.
The U.S. effort in Benghazi was at its heart a CIA operation, according to officials briefed on the intelligence. Of the more than 30 American officials evacuated from Benghazi following the deadly assault, only seven worked for the State Department. Nearly all the rest worked for the CIA, under diplomatic cover, which was a principal purpose of the consulate, these officials said.
Well, THAT seems to be a calculated strategy by those who wanted to torpedo Obama, no? Seymour Hersh warned about that as well.
More from the WSJ:
This account of the CIA presence in Benghazi sheds new light on the events, and how the essentially covert nature of the U.S. operations there created confusion. Congressional investigators say it appears that the CIA and State Department weren't on the same page about their respective roles on security, underlining the rift between agencies over taking responsibility and raising questions about whether the security arrangement in Benghazi was flawed.
The CIA's secret role helps explain why security appeared inadequate at the U.S. diplomatic facility. State Department officials believed that responsibility was set to be shouldered in part by CIA personnel in the city through a series of secret agreements that even some officials in Washington didn't know about.
It also explains why the consulate was abandoned to looters for weeks afterward while U.S. efforts focused on securing the more important CIA quarters. Officials say it is unclear whether the militants knew about the CIA presence or stumbled upon the facility by following Americans there after the attack on the consulate.
The CIA worked from a compound publicly referred to as the "annex," which was given a State Department office name to disguise its purpose. The agency focused on countering proliferation and terrorist threats, said an American security contractor who has worked closely with CIA, the Pentagon and State. A main concern was the spread of weapons and militant influences throughout the region, including in Mali, Somalia and Syria, this person said.
Libyan officials say they were kept in the dark about what the CIA was doing in Benghazi.
This whole sordid story is also described here:
Benghazi consulate that came under attack by Al Qaeda militants was being used for CIA operations, 2 December 2012 (From the UK, of course.)
This whole nest of traitorous snakes needs to be flushed out. General 'Betrayus' was a highly accurate characterization, way back when.
Incalculable opportunities to make the world a more humane place, and they have repeatedly been forfeited by those at the pinnacle of power.
Thanks for helping get the word out, blm.
blm
(113,055 posts)Too long. ; )
jamzrockz
(1,333 posts)just throw the CIA under the boss? Maybe supporting the rebels very early on in the war is something that doesn't jive with the narrative of "we are only sending them non lethal arms"
Regardless, the buck stops with the president. The Libyan war is on him and Hillary and say they would have gotten off easy if this is all the grieve they got from destroying Libya and handing that country over to terrorists and starting a big war in Syria
This issue has been brought up by at least one republican and Clinton seems to deny knowing anything about weapon running to Syria.
blm
(113,055 posts)like this? I doubt it - he buckles under pretty quickly from all I've seen of him when the establishment powers tug at him.
I notice you like to push your Ayn Rand theories of unfettered capitalism and governance since you've been here.
jamzrockz
(1,333 posts)Wellstone maybe? I am not even sure what I am getting at. But its not just covering for the CIA, it is more about the whole incident coming about due the illegal war they both supported in Libya. A war I don't think a President Sanders or even Paul would have signed off on.
blm
(113,055 posts)the Deep State, but, instead must employ focused diplomatic efforts to get around it. I doubt a President Paul would NOT have the character to tap a Sec of State like Kerry who is doing some really heavy lifting in various regions in order to PREVENT the war expansion goals of the powerful elites.
I think your use of Wellstone, who may have been murdered, to bolster your delusions about Rand Paul is total BULLSH!T!
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)librechik
(30,674 posts)spanone
(135,831 posts)blm
(113,055 posts).
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)Coink I'm sure!