Oh the poor little dears. They have become detached from reality and convinced that their wild Benghazi fantasies actually happened.
I recommend clozapine and cognitive behavioral therapy. As a secondary effort, electro-convulsive therapy may prove useful.
Can you summarise this whole Benghazi conspiracy theory for us non-Americans?
hmm. that’s a tough one, because there really isn’t anything to the complaints, and they are constantly changing as a result. i’ll try…
so, the CIA was running an operation out of a State Dept consulate in Benghazi Libya. it was a small, relatively unguarded setup.
just before 9/11 of last year, there was a big furor in the middle east over some stupid anti-Muslim YouTube video. rioting. “death to America”. you know, a normal Tuesday. on 9/11, there were some big protests outside the US embassy in Cairo. later that night, in Benghazi, some armed fighters attacked the consulate. in the two waves of attacks, four Americans, including the ambassador to Libya, were killed.
immediately after, there was confusion about whether or not the attack was because of the video, or if there was a protest in Benghazi that got out of hand, or if there was a protest and an attack, or if the attack was pre-planned for 9/11, or if the attackers just took advantage of the general unrest that day, etc..
so, Obama gave a short speech about it the next day in which he called it an “act of terror”. our UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, went on some TV shows and made statements that were reflective of the confusion, but which were based on information that the State Dept and the CIA had put together. she mentioned that the video might have played a role.
“conservatives”, always looking for something they can use against Obama, decided that leaving our embassy unguarded on 9/11 was crazy. except it wasn’t an embassy and wasn’t unguarded. it was a consulate and the guards who were there just weren’t equipped to handle an attack of such a scale. the salient difference between consulate and embassy being that a consulate is basically an office (ex. the local Swedish consulate is an office suite on the first floor of the building where i work), but embassies are much more heavily defended and are considered US territory; an embassy attack would be a much bigger deal, in terms of diplomacy etc..
then they got mad because nobody called it “terrorism”, except Obama had.
then they got mad because Obama wouldn’t acknowledge that it was al-Queda. except i don’t think we know even now if it was an al-Q operation, or just someone loosely affiliated, or just a group of un-affiliated anti-US militants.
then they got mad because there were unspecific warnings about possible attacks. which there always are, in that part of the world.
then they got mad because Obama didn’t send troops to help, except that Benghazi is too remote for any sizable reinforcements to have got there in time to make a difference. and the handful of troops that did get there, and assisted with the evacuation, ended up in the second attack, and counted for two of the killed.
then they got the idea that some military people had ordered help that would have arrived in time, but someone told them to stand down. this comes up over and over with different people – sometimes Obama himself gives the order to stand down! but, AFAIK, that’s been pretty thoroughly debunked each time it’s come up.
then they got mad because they thought that it was crazy that Obama and Rice had suggested that the video played any part at all – they say blaming the video at all “excuses” the attack. except that there were news reports from the day after which said that the attackers themselves had said the video was part of their motivation. and at the time Obama and Rice made their statements, it wasn’t a controversial thing to say. it seemed rather obvious, even. but in the link up there, they’re pretending that they don’t know any of that.
and the best one of all: they say that Obama started using the video as an excuse to try to gloss over the fact that our people were killed by terrorists (very important!) on 9/11 (our national day of rage) – just before the election. if, the thinking goes, that he was to admit that terrorists attacked us on 9/11, it would have destroyed his chance of reelection because, they say, he was going around telling everybody that he had defeated terrorism. except, he did call it terrorism, and he has never said we’ve defeated terrorism. but they insist that he was using the video as an excuse for the attack to deflect from admitting that he’s done a terrible job of keeping America safe, etc, etc.. it’s absurd.
and then they got mad that this was the first (or worst) attack on a consulate, ever! where ‘ever’ means ‘since Obama became President’.
and then there were investigations and hearings: a parade of people who all told Congress what they knew, or thought. and the most damning bit of it all seems to be that that particular location was simply unprepared for the possibility of an attack (duh). so we need better security at outposts like this. which makes it ironic that Congress had recently cut funding for security at outposts like these.
and then “conservatives” started digging around for inter-agency emails, trying to see where Obama and Rice got the information that they based their statements about the video on. and they discovered that the CIA and State Department were having a little turf war, when they were crafting the talking points for officials to use. CIA wanted to cover its ass while keeping its own involvement hidden, and the State Dept wasn’t crazy about taking the blame. so, a few drafts went back and forth, and the language in the end was typical bureaucratic mushiness. but the lunatics want to tie the White House to that turf war, saying Obama forced/directed/intimidated/mind-controlled State and the CIA to craft their official talking points so as to cover up his abject failure as a leader – except there’s no evidence of that either. but that’s the “cover up” they keep talking about. or, that’s the big one. there are others.
and as part of the email thing, someone leaked some of the emails to a conservative-friendly reporter, and the emails make the administration look bad. except, the emails weren’t the actual emails – they were paraphrases put together by an as-of-yet unnamed Republican. so, they’re starting to manufacture ‘evidence’ to use in all of this.
so, in terms of scandal (as opposed to just run of the mill organizational incompetence and unpreparedness) it’s a giant ball of nothing. but there’s so much of it, and the attacks keep changing, that it’s impossible for Obama’s team to knock it all down. every day it seems there’s a new mini-freak out over some aspect of it. and there are plenty of Republicans who think (or are at least acting) that there must be something in all of this that they can use to bring down Obama. but there have been 9 (?) investigations, and none of them have provided the GOP with the ammo they need, so they keep at it. and the conspiracies theories are piling on top of each other (as always do) so that the true believers have now built an alternate universe in which this is the biggest scandal in US history, and they’re going to keep up the freak out until the bitter end. and then there are those who know it’s all nonsense but are just happy to keep the idea that there’s a ‘scandal’ bubbling away because it hurts Obama (they think, tho polls haven’t shown it).
i’m sure i missed something.
That was awesome and pretty much covers it. A giant ball of nothing indeed.
Thanks. That was a great explanation.
here’s a big thing i missed:
because Hillary Clinton was Sec State at the time the attacks happened, the people stirring this pot are obviously doing this, in part, to bring her electability down. they blame her for the lack of security and for not knowing about the attacks in advance, etc.. she is, currently, a huge favorite to be the Democratic nominee in 2016, and would be a formidable opponent, so this is a pre-emptive strike on her.
…
and today’s big theory is that the CIA was in Benghazi buying up anti-aircraft missiles that the State Dept (aka Hillary Clinton) had given to the rebels. and the rebels had turned out to be Al Queda. embarrassing ! so, what did the nefarious Obama do? why, he leaked the story about General Petraeus’ affair, and just in time to distract the media! and why did our ambassador die in Libya? well, if you’re the commenters at PJ MEdia, he had to die because he knew too much!
it all ties together nicely, if you’re willing to use imaginary string.
Agree, that was awesome.
Bookmarking this precis for ready reference! Thank you, cleek.
I’m glad someone is keeping track of this. I mentally shunted all things Benghazi into the Too Irritating And Stupid To Care About folder 6 months ago.