Allahpundit @ Hot Air:
Not just on the day he died, mind you. Multiple times before, too. I’m near the point now where I want to abandon the whole “pre-planned attack versus spontaneous protest” line of inquiry just because it’s steering us away from the more important topic of State’s negligence on his security. Besides, we already know, more or less,why Carney and Rice pushed the “spontaneous protest” theory. Ask Saxby Chambliss:
“Talking points distributed by the administration [in the immediate aftermath] are nearly identical to intelligence assessments within hours of the attack, except in one important way: the intelligence judgment that the attackers had ties to al-Qa’ida was excluded from the public points,” [Saxby] Chambliss said in a statement on Friday.
“The administration omitted the known links to al-Qa’ida at almost every opportunity … Whether this was an intentional effort by the administration to downplay the role of terrorist groups, especially al-Qa’ida, is one of the many issues the Senate Intelligence Committee must examine,” Chambliss said.
The guy who got Bin Laden and knocked out Qaddafi didn’t need a storyline in the middle of a campaign about AQ affiliates killing the American ambassador in the heart of the “new Libya.” That’s straightforward, and that’s almost certainly why the “spontaneous protest” theory got traction initially. (“Al Qaeda is on the run” used to be part of Obama’s standard stump speech, in fact. That line has been quietly dropped lately.) What’s not straightforward is why State refused to boost Stevens’s security despite countless warnings about the danger, some from the man himself. It’s inexplicable. It’s not a budget issue, either: Charlene Lamb testified to thatbefore the House. She also testified that State had “the correct number of assets in Benghazi,” which literally no one but her seems to believe is true. So, once again: Why didn’t Stevens have more security? What were they waiting for before making a decision to either send him a more professional force or end the American presence in Benghazi? Was that politicized too, i.e. State didn’t want abandon the consulate over security fears because that would have made for some bad headlines about conditions inside the “new Libya”?
Here’s a link to the documents Issa has released in connection with the Benghazi investigation.
You can judge for yourself if the writer of the Fox News article cited by Hot Air is spinning that content to a political end. He seems to like to use 2-3 word quotes a lot.
Here’s the Oversight Committee’s letter to President Obama.
Here’s a link direct to the cable that Ambassador Stevens sent on September 11, 2012. It’s hard to find it, buried as it is in the middle of Issa’s 166 pages.
Everybody is making allegations about it, but hardly anyone doing so is providing a copy or transcript so that people can read it and draw their own conclusions.
On Aug. 8 Stevens had signed a two-page cable, also labeled “sensitive,” that he entitled “The Guns of August: Security in Eastern Libya.”
In that were these quotes:
“Benghazi has moved from trepidation to euphoria and back as a series of violent incidents has dominated the political landscape.” He added, “The individual incidents have been organized,” a function of “the security vacuum that a diverse group of independent actors are exploiting for their own purposes.”
“Islamist extremists are able to attack the Red Cross with relative impunity,” Stevens cabled. “What we have seen are not random crimes of opportunity, but rather targeted and discriminate attacks.” His final comment on the two-page document was: “Attackers are unlikely to be deterred until authorities are at least as capable.”
Before all that, on June 25th Ambassador Stevens on the “strong Revolutionary and Islamist sentiment” in the city…..
Stevens notified the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and other agencies about a “recent increase in violent incidents,” including “attacks against western interests.” “Until the GOL (Government of Libya) is able to effectively deal with these key issues,” Stevens wrote, “the violence is likely to continue and worsen.”
These documents also contain evidence that the State Department’s denials of requests for enhanced security in Benghazi in the months leading up to the attack.
Why on earth did Ambassador Stevens even go to Benghazi?
@Nan G:
More American security simply provides more eyes and ears on the actions of Ambassador Stevens. I suggest you read the BusinessInsider link provided by Aye.
I said just days after the Benghazi attack that this would wind up being Fast and Furious, Libyan Style. All signs point to my being right. Now we are learning that the Obama administration is arming the Syrian rebels, that by all accounts, are al Qaeda or AQ offshoots.
Obama’s reported in shock as his Jedi powers failed.
Nan G
hi,
you know your question, WHY CHRIS STEVENS WENT TO BENGHASI?
must have cross the mind of many PEOPLE, and mine also,
I have been thinking of that question many times,
and what I think is that CHRIS STEVENS being the AMBASSADOR OF THE THE TRIPOLI EMBASSY,
AND THE BENGHASI CONSULATE, HE FELT THAT THE DANGER WAS MOSTLY IN THERE and the others where vulnerable , AND DECIDE TO JOIN THEM FOR SUPPORT,
THIS according to his demands for more help which where not coming,
and he was dam right and he was kill because of his belief and because of his wanting to provide confort of his presence to the other,
and after what we learned from his letters, he knew it was coming soon,
he was right again,
bye