Kyle Becker:
Many of us have seen the narratives refuting “Benghazigate.”
“Where was the outrage about all those embassy attacks under Bush? What about all the people killed in those attacks? Where was Fox News then?”
Let’s put aside for now that this line of questioning has nothing at all to do with why people are concerned about what happened during and after the Benghazi terror attack. Just take a look at this meme:
One of the best-known versions of this meme is the ridiculous screed at Huffington Post “13 Benghazis That Occurred on Bush’s Watch Without a Peep from Fox News,” which has around 90K shares and likely well over a million views.
The post was nearly replicated on numerous left-wing sites, such as DailyKos, the Daily Banter, and PolicyMic.
Here goes: the “13 Benghazis That Occurred on Bush’s Watch Without a Peep from Fox News” – cases versus reality.
1. HUFFPO: THIS WAS JUST LIKE BENGHAZI.
“January 22, 2002. Calcutta, India. Gunmen associated with Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami attack the U.S. Consulate. Five people are killed.”
REALITY: NONE WERE AMERICAN. (The Tribune)
2. HUFFPO: THIS WAS JUST LIKE BENGHAZI.
“June 14, 2002. Karachi, Pakistan. Suicide bomber connected with al Qaeda attacks the U.S. Consulate, killing 12 and injuring 51.”
REALITY: NONE WERE AMERICAN. (BBC)
3. HUFFPO: THIS WAS JUST LIKE BENGHAZI.
“October 12, 2002. Denpasar, Indonesia. U.S. diplomatic offices bombed as part of a string of ‘Bali Bombings.’ No fatalities.”
REALITY: NONE WERE AMERICAN.
You said it, Huffington Post.
4. HUFFPO: THIS WAS JUST LIKE BENGHAZI.
“February 28, 2003. Islamabad, Pakistan. Several gunmen fire upon the U.S. Embassy. Two people are killed.”
REALITY: NONE WERE AMERICAN. (Fox News)
5. HUFFPO: THIS WAS JUST LIKE BENGHAZI.
“May 12, 2003. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Armed al Qaeda terrorists storm the diplomatic compound, killing 36 people including nine Americans. The assailants committed suicide by detonating a truck bomb.”
REALITY: NINE AMERICAN DEFENSE CONTRACTORS KILLED.
After numerous State Department warnings, and Saudi Arabia investigating al Qaeda for a potential planned attack, three defense compounds were assaulted with car bombs and armed attackers. Nine defense contractors were killed.
Bush immediately called the attack part of the “war on terror,” and two of the attackers that survived the raid were killed by Saudi police forces. You know, just like Benghazi. (CNN)
6. HUFFPO: THIS WAS JUST LIKE BENGHAZI.
“July 30, 2004. Tashkent, Uzbekistan. A suicide bomber from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan attacks the U.S. Embassy, killing two people.”
REALITY: NONE WERE AMERICAN. (BBC)
Why bother with small details such as facts? Always change the narrative , always blame some one else and never take responsibility for what happens on your watch… lie.
Children and liberals seem to follow a similar behavior.
So, as a general rule, those killed in attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities who weren’t actually U.S. nationals don’t count. Additionally, 9 killed in the Riyadh attack who were U.S. nationals don’t count either—for some unspecified reason. And the U.S. ambassador who was killed in a terrorist attack in Karachi also doesn’t count because—because he was killed instantly?
WTF?
Kyle Becker has surely just written one of the lamest defenses of blatant, politically motivated hypocrisy ever created. It’s an affront to the reader’s intelligence.
@Greg:
You calling anyone else a hypocrite is laughable. Your wimpy attempt at trying to push this leftwing deflection from the complete dereliction of duty by the Obama administration, totally ignoring tbe outrageous attempt at covering up the democrat malfeasance by blaming a video for days and weeks after it was known the Benghazi attack was a muslim terrorist assault, is typical leftist arrogance and dishonesty.
You have no honor. You and your ilk are beneath contempt. Your lies deceive no one, but only highlight you vile character.
You clearly have the intelligence to recognize the absurdity of Becker’s article. You won’t do so, however. Instead, you attack my honor, my truthfulness, and my character.
@Greg:
Since when did you progressives start caring about life? Seems to me that you support the killing of human beings, you just prefer to do it before they are born.
9 were killed in Riyadh. How many Americans died when the U.S.S. Cole was bombed. Oh, wait, I’m sure that doesn’t matter to you since it was a Democrat in office. More Americans died in terrorist attacks on American interests under Bill Clinton than under Bush, if you remove the 9-11 attack.
What U.S. Ambassador was killed in Karachi? Who was it? I cannot find any news article on any Ambassador being killed in Karachi.
Perhaps you mean David Foy, who CNN and NBC both wrongly reported as a “diplomat.” If Foy is who you are talking about, Greggie, he was NOT a “diplomat” but was a facilities maintenance office, as reported in his obit. Was he an officer? Yes. Did he work for the FS? But he was neither an ambassador nor a diplomat.
That’s what you get for reading the left wing media screed.
@Greg:
What character? You and I together have repeatedly revealed you to be a liar and a hypocrite.
@retire05, #5:
“Ambassador” is indeed an incorrect description of David Foy. “Diplomat,” however, is not. That word simply means an official representing a country abroad. Though you apparently want to reduce his importance by discounting his diplomatic status and implying he was something akin to a janitor, that’s not the case. Foy is thought to have been the specific target of the terrorist attack that killed him.
The balance of your responses are hardly worthy of comment. They don’t have a damn thing to do with the points you’ve for some reason blockquoted. One is an accusation that liberals don’t care about life. This is some serious bullshit, coming from a person who is busily trying to discount the comparative importance of 10 dead Americans and 50 friendly foreign nationals associated with them.
@Greg:
Greg, I don’t have to attack your honor, truthfulness or.your character. Your own posts do that.
Show us a single instance from any of the Bush era attacks where there was any effort by the Bush admin to falsely…knowingly….blame a video – or any other such ridiculous red herring – for a terrorist attack that resulted in the murder of a US Ambassador and 3 other Americans. Show us where in any of the Bush era attacks that Bush admin officials went out for over a week and lied to the American people, claiming a spontaneous protest was the reason for an attack with mortars and RPGs on an American diplomatic compound, and compounding the magnitude of such a lie by the existence of emails showing such an attack was known to have been a terrorist assault almost immediately, but showing government officials discussing the need to push a known lie about a video.to avoid admitting a political policy failure.
You won’t, because you can’t and you know this. Hence the deliberate lack of integrity in your posts on the issue. Hence the obvious lack of character and honor inherent in your posts.
And as far as your hyperventilating over the deaths of non-Americans at the majority of the terrorist attacks which you so disingenuously wish to focus, it is not the job of the US government to protect non-Americans. Your fixation on this is totally negated by your lack of concern in another thread over Jewish schoolgirls being firebombed by islamic terrorists, while you shed bogus tears over 2 muslim “protestors” shot by IDF soldiers.
Bottom line…if Obama and his acolytes had told the truth about the attack on our compound in Benghazi, and had done something to actually punish the muslim terrorists, this would not be such a huge issue. What you refuse to admit is the damning evidence of the Rhodes email proving the dems were engaging in a cover up in lying about protests over a video, when the Obama admin KNEW it was a muslim terrorist attack. Susan Rice was lying on 5 separate TV talk shows 5 days after we knew it was a terrorist attack.
So keep pushing your leftist hypocrisy and lies. Just don’t expect anyone here to accept your nonsense without calling you on it.
@Greg: About the powerful bomb explosion outside the US consulate in Karachi 2002: The US envoy expressed his satisfaction at the level of cooperation provided by the Pakistani authorities in hunting down terrorists.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2045045.stm
If the US envoy was satisfied why would we turn around and be ”outraged,” Greg?
Outrage for stupid reasons is a silly thing, like a hissy-fit.
On the other hand, people are rightly outraged about Benghazi.
No one arrested or killed.
No one here even working to catch the killers.
Hillary and Obama seemed perfectly satisfied with the mere imprisonment of the man who made the video no one saw!
See the difference?
No?
Why am I not surprised?
@Greg:
It is you who doesn’t understand positions as a FSO. A “diplomat” is NOT someone who has the title “Facilities Maintenance Officer.” As a matter of fact, a facilities maintenance officer would have no diplomatic authority.
Damn man, do you know anything?
Where did I say, or even remotely imply that Foy was akin to a janitor? When you have to put words in someone’s mouth, Greggie, I know you are just spinning.
Thought to be? You mean there is no proof of that claim, don’t you?
When did you become the arbiter of what has worth? When did the owner of this blog bestow that right upon you?
Perhaps you should go back and read what I said. I said progressives don’t care about life, not liberals. You are not a liberal, Greggie, you’re a progressive, a cultural Marxist.
And where did I discount any life lost in a terrorist attack? Perhaps you should look in the mirror, Greggie. It has not gone unnoticed that you don’t want to talk about the number of American lives lost due to terrorist attacks under Bill Clinton. What about Kenya, Nairobi, the U.S.S. Cole, or even the first World Trade Center bombing? Why aren’t you whining about those? 10 dead Americans and 50 friendly foreign nationals? How many Americans died under Clinton? How many foreign nationals? Yet, no mention of those from you.
And what about Francis E. Moloy, Jr. and Adolph Dubs? Did the murder of those Ambassadors not count because they were under a Democrat administration?
You’re a joke, Greggie. No go try to figure out a way to CYA on all the deaths of Americans at American interests under Democrat presidents.
@retire05, #10:
Consider some news stories reporting the event back in 2006:
The New York Times: American Diplomat Is Killed in Blast Outside Karachi Consulate
BBC News: Pakistan bomb kills US diplomat
The Boston Globe: US diplomat killed in car bombing
FOX News: KARACHI, PAKISTAN – A suicide bomber who was blocked from driving into the U.S. Consulate slammed instead into an American diplomat’s car Thursday, killing the envoy.
President Musharraf of Pakistan, speaking at the end of a meeting with George W. Bush:
Maybe you and President Bush share the same vocabulary deficits. He didn’t acknowledge Musharraf’s publicly expression of condolences. He did tell a joke about the game of cricket, however.
It’s interesting how you fixate on on something like a definition, rather than on the fact that an American diplomatic officer was targeted and killed by terrorists. You obviously want to diminish the man’s importance and the significance of the event, along with the other 59 killed while Bush was in office. You want the story to be exclusively about Benghazi and exclusively about the Obama administration.
HIS MOTHER SAID: why did you do it? WAIT TILL YOUR FATHER COME home,
HE WILL PUNISH YOU,
THE CHILD SAID: YES BUT MY BROTHER DID THE SAME YESTERDAY,
AND YOU DIDN”T TELL DAD, WHY ME?
MOM SAID: WELL BECAUSE, UNLIKE YOUR BROTHER,
I SAW YOU DO ALL OF IT,
Benghazi is different than the rest. The attack took place in a quagmire of our own creation. We insisted on deposing the dictator who had kept the country under control. We had no national interest in doing it, but we created a middle east mess with a power vacuum and noone to fill it who would help deter the religious fanatics there.
Then we established a diplomatic post in a hotbed of political turmoil where no leadership existed and armed radical factions roamed everywhere at will and we farmed out security to the “locals” just for appearances. We tried to make the mess we created appear like a successful, stable republic.
We repeatedly refused requests to provide better security for these reasons and trusted to luck. When it led to predictable disaster, we dithered for hour after hour and failed to make any attempt to reinforce the people who were fighting for their lives. We didn’t try to help them and merely arrive too late. We never lifted a finger! Our Ambassador died slowly and horrifically along with some true American heroes because of leadership decisions and indecision.
Then, in the aftermath, just before the election, an elaborate cover-up is orchestrated by the White House and sold to the public by the always faithful leftist media. A demonstration grew out of control, caused primarily by a careless American who recklessly abused his privilege of freedom to publish a video which hurt their feelings!
There was no demonstration. Everyone in the chain of responsibility knew that. It was known to be an attack from the start. But, as always, there is no watchdog mainstream press corps left to raise questions, so the PR team was able to deflect enough attention to give cover for the election.
The opposition party tried holding hearings and called for documents and testimony from the key players for months and, as usual, the Administration stonewalled and redacted and dissembled climaxing in the well rehearsed “At this point, what difference does it make?” performance.
Now, some assclown assembles a list of suicide bombings, blitz attacks and shootings at other embassies under other leaders and feeds the story to the Kos kids and they chant in unison “These were exactly equivalent. Our Glorious Leader is Divine after all. Hail Obama! Hail Hillary!”
And life goes on. And the silliest of the silly socialists really believe they aren’t socialists at all because they don’t actually want the State to own the means of production. And power seeps towards the bureaucracy as if by osmosis. And freedoms more and more become privileges.
@Greg:
Feb. 1993 – First World Trade Center bombing. 6 Americans killed.
1995 – Riyadh bombing – 5 Americans killed
1998 – Nairobi bombing – 213 killed. 12 Americans among the dead.
1998 – Dar el Salaam – 11 killed
Oct., 2000 – U.S.S. Cole bombing – 17 Americans killed.
By my count, that is 40 Americans murdered under Bill Clinton. Where is your outrage at that number? Instead, you are fixated on continuing your BDS and whining about 9 Americans killed under Bush.
Nor do you mention the people slaughtered at Fort Hood. Seems Obama’s numbers have been greater than Bush’s numbers, and Fort Hood was on our own soil at a military base, for God’s sake. But you will dismiss that as “work place violence” although the jihadist shouted “Allah Akbar” as he slaughtered the innocent.
You bet. Because no matter how much you parrot the DailyKos/Huffington Post, that pig that it was not the fault of the current administration, is just not going to ever fly. Four Americans were left to hang out and dry because to take the precautions that were required to protect their safety would not have been in keeping with Obama’s “Al Qaeda is on the run” meme or what a success overthrowing Gaddafi was.
Remember this, Greggie; when the alligator comes to eat you, he doesn’t care if you’re last in line.
@retire05, #14:
You’re the one with the outrage problem, blockhead. No one even thought to go over the terrorist attacks on U.S. diplomatic personnel and outposts during the Bush years with a yellow highlighter until your lot began frothing at their mouths and throwing around an endless series of unfounded stories and accusations about Benghazi, remember? Democrats didn’t attempt to politically capitalize on such tragedies during the Bush years, which is really what this is all about. How many Benghazi investigations have republicans already conducted, without finding a damn thing that substantiates any of the bat shit crazy theories that have been spun out on the right? And now we’re having yet another. The select committee just might be the one that finally blows up in their faces. Clear-thinking republican leaders are aware of that possibility.
As for the Clinton administration, there was growing alarm on the left all through the Clinton years about radical terrorist groups—one notable example of which had been provided by the CIA with training, arms, and funding to the tune of some $3 billion during earlier republican administrations. Clinton ordered missile attacks on al Qaeda training camps and the bombing of suspected chemical weapons facilities, you may recall. Unfortunately at the time your lot was totally fixated on their efforts to politically capitalize on the Monica Lewinsky affair—certainly a matter of earthshaking importance—and simply couldn’t be bothered. I remember Clinton being openly accused on FOX News of launching missiles in an effort to change the subject. I’m surprised you even bring the Clinton years up in the context of a discussion involving your Benghazi fixation. It only tends to yellow-highlight a pattern of dysfunctional republican political behavior for any reasonable person who might have somehow missed it: They repeatedly abuse their powers to conduct investigations, misusing an important governmental process as a political propaganda tool.
While it might be unsurprising that Republicans would yet again have to show Democrats how to think, let’s examine the abject childishness of this statement.
No one would have thought to criticize the President for diplomatic deaths if the Republicans hadn’t done it first? Is this your deeply stupid assertion? What are you, 5 years old?
“They made me do it!”
Honestly, this is yet another example of how the Boomer-era black-footed hippie generation never matured beyond toddlerhood.
Actually, this is what it’s all about you pea-brained moron. Nevertheless…
Remember Greg, your kind routinely imbibes mind altering substances and exist primarily as emotional basket cases that subscribe to Marxism, because their incompetence prevents them from creating their own wealth. So you really don’t have any business calling anyone or anything bat shit crazy, unless of course you’re looking squarely into a mirror.
Thankfully. As long as this corrupt administration continues to withhold documents, stops altering documents, stops refusing to comply with subpoenas, stops trying to controversialize the hearings for propagandist purposes, stop forcing Benghazi survivors to sign Non-Disclosure agreements, stop hiding Benghazi survivors all over the country, and stop using lie detector tests to keep survivors silent, perhaps at some point after that the investigations can stop.
Question: Are the Daily Beast’s 3 Republican sources anything like Nancy Pelosi’s super secret Republican friends that keep whispering sweet nothings into her ear?
Something tells me that your mind altered memory may not be exact.
Now, Elizabeth Scalia does a pretty decent breakdown of the issue, but these are the primary points.
#1 Attacks on embassies under the Bush administration were predominately in Iraq, and were considered to be part of the war that your ilk approved before you protested.
#2 Attacks on embassies during the Clinton years were mainly premeditated planned attacks.
#3 In both of these instances, neither administration attempted to lie to Americans to say that these were not premeditated planned attacks.
#4 None of our ambassadors were murdered during those attacks.
#5 Neither Bush nor Clinton attempted to stupidly apologize for extremist Islamic behavior by blaming the the attacks on a crappy YouTube video, and place blame for international events on a private citizen protected by the 1st Amendment. This is quite possibly in the running for the dumbest thing any administration has ever done in American history.
Seriously Greg, you need to come to terms with the reality of your own idiocy.
An amusing aspect of the lower credible hack sites is to go and copy and paste some non sequitur argument as if it somehow gives credence to their bigoted, hypocritical, and obvious politically motivated hate fest.
60 dead and many more injured in multiple Embassy attacks over a span of military quagmire guidance under the Bush/Rumsfeld team is no comparison to the isolated Embassy attack under Obama because, well, Bush’s American casualties were only up by 250% of Obama’s.
Nice argument.
@Kraken, #16:
I think you might need to come to terms with reality in general. You seem to have about as much genuine freedom of thought as a well-indoctrinated cult member. As is commonly the case with such people, you believe that it’s everyone else who has been brainwashed.
@Ronald J. Ward:
Oh, but wait, we all know how Obama likes to top anything done by Bush. Consequently, Obama can claim the distinction of being the first, and only, president who had American military attacked on American soil by a foreign (and known to be) agent working for the enemy.
@Kraken:
http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2014/may/19/ron-johnson/hillary-clintons-state-department-reduced-security/
Oooops!
@Greg:
A person who opens doors to commune directly with spirit, really isn’t on solid ground when making statements like these.
Remember Greg, it is you that embraces an ideology that stumbled out of the primordial piss holes of Woodstock. Besides, there’s nothing more cultish, than the cult of Obama.
Things will go better for you if you stop projecting your own problems onto everyone else.
And honestly, co-opting the criticisms and insults that the Greatest Generation understandably levied against your kind, and attempting to send them back to the political adversaries that you unthinking morons have had a gripe with since your early teenage years, really just doesn’t make any sense because it’s not directly applicable as it was when it was used to describe your ilk.
@Ronald J. Ward:
What’s even more amusing is moonbats who like to name drop elements from Carl Sagan’s Fine Art of Baloney Detection without understanding what the definition of those terms actually are.
@Kraken, #21:
It’s interesting that someone would claim a blind spot as a virtue.
@Greg:
If you think that sobriety is a blind spot, then that explains most of your problems right there.
Sobriety seems to be a matter of much greater concern among people who have had problems maintaining it. What it has to do with having experienced a spiritual dimension to reality, I really don’t know. Accounts of such experiences reach back into the earliest times of recorded human history.
You’re just looking for things to take issue with and avenues for personal attack. It’s either an unusually common compulsion around here, or someone has a drawer full of sock puppets.
@Greg:
Or among those who understand that altered minds aren’t fertile ground for the genesis of a political ideology.
No, not at all. What I’m illustrating here, is that the altered minds that thought up modern progressive ideology back in the flatulent 1960s and gave us the political reality that we live under today, really have no business commenting on the nature of reality, or much of anything else for that matter.
It may annoy you to discover that everything the Greatest Generation tried to tell you has turned out to be correct after all, and that you’ve wasted an entire lifetime still continuing to rebel against them, but that’s too bad.
I mean really, go lay on the couch and marvel at the colors in Scooby-Doo or something.
Kraken
on the dot,
perfect exposee,
BYE
retire05
it make one think he wanted him to die
why would the young heros been told to stay down?
ANY ONE CAN THINK THAT THEY HAD THE AMBASSADOR ,
IN A POSITION TO KNEW TOO MUCH,
THAT ATTACK COULD HAVE BE TO HIS ADVANTAGE FOR THE ELECTION,
BUT, THE 3 HEROS DECIDED TO HELP THEIR AMBASSADOR WITH THEIR LIVES,
WHAT ELSE CAN WE THINK OF,
THE HEROS REALY SCREW UP OBAMA’S PLAN,
AND HILARY’S FUTURE,
DIDN’T THEY?
@Kraken, #27:
Those would be the people who elected FDR three consecutive times, as I recall. Assuming you’re using the Greatest Generation in the same way that the man who coined the phrase was using it. They also elected Harry Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson.
@Greg:
Nobody claimed the Greatest Generation to be infallibly divine. Hell, bringing up the Boomers proved to be a monumental failure.
Besides, the Democrats have long since ceased being the party that asked not what their country could do for them. Now, it’s pretty much all they ask. Every day.
You guys must really like wrestling with pigs in the mud. Remember, pigs love the mud!
FOX News just explained the full extent of the pre-positioning of U.S. military forces and aircraft to allow for the rapid emergency evacuation of all diplomatic personnel when the sh-t hits the fan in Libya, without once suggesting that the President of the United States has had anything to do with it or has anything to say about it. That apparently wouldn’t fit well with their current propaganda narrative.
@Greg: IF
, THEN Fox News skipped the all-important CROSS BORDER AUTHORIZATION that ONLY a PRESIDENT can sign to allow any of our military to go help when a border must be crossed as was required in this case.
But, hey, you parroted your talking-point-du-jour.
@Greg:
Can you point to the footage?
@Kraken, #35:
Here, on Shepard Smith reports. He’s generally one of the FOX voices I consider to be more even-handed, but he doesn’t script his own reports.
Maybe I’m putting too much significance on the omission of a single reference to the President. Maybe it only registered because I’m unaccustomed to hearing any mention of Libya on FOX without Obama’s name coming up. I did appreciate the subliminal touch at the end, with the inserted map. Tripoli in little letters, BENGHAZI in BIG LETTERS.
Nanny G
that is most likely what they where waiting for,
I remember hearding someone make an allusion of crossing the ir borders,
i cannot remember where when it was mentioned,
PELOSI put ELIJAY CUMMING ON TOP OF THE 5 DEMOCRATS TO JOIN THE COMITY OF THE REPUBLICANS,
I HOPE HE DOESN’T GET TO PLAY THE SAME GAME AS HE DID WITH CHAIRMAN ISSA,
IN THE IRS
CRIMES, HE ONLY DISRUPT EVERY ONE, EVERY TIME HE SPEAK,
AND WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR DELAYING THE PROCESS, ON LERNER,
HE NEVER BROUGHT ANY SUBSTANCES TO THE CASE,
I WAS HOPING HE WOULD NOT GET ON THIS ONE,
BUT I AM NOT SURPRISE WITH PELOSI,