Big Red Car here. The Boss and I are up early headed to coffee. I must admit that a 6:00 AM coffee is just a bit too much for this Big Red Car but, hey, I can use the work.
The Boss is all exercised about yesterday’s Benghazi hearings. He was ranting about them yesterday evening at a lovely little neighborhood gathering across the street. I could hear it all from the driveway. The Boss seems to have a point. Maybe.
Cut the crap
As a result of yesterday’s Congressional testimony, it now appears conclusively that we have finally put a stake through the notion that the Benghazi Massacre was perpetrated by wayward movie critics who happened by while toting mortars, rocket propelled grenades and crew served automatic weapons. Mortars. RPGs. Machine guns.
It was all a lie and those involved knew it was a lie from the second the utterances were released.
Who tells such a preposterous lie when others within the government know it to be a lie?
Did the administration — our President, our Secretary of State, the head of the CIA, the Sec of Defense, our UN Ambassador — think the truth would lie dormant? Did they think they could lie to the American people with the blood of four Americans on their hands and it would all be fine? Are we Americans really that stupid?
Why?
Equally apparent is the notion that this lie was perpetrated to ensure that the President’s re-election meme — the wars are winding down, Al Qaeda is neutered, Osama Bin Laden is dead — would not be challenged or measured for its truth.
The President allowed these lies to be told when he and his lying emissaries knew the truth. The truth did not support the President’s re-election meme and thus it was strangled and thwarted.
It was a calculated and ruthless action taken with a cynical rationalization — by the time America learns the truth, the President would be re-elected.
It is the ultimate disdain of the President for America and for YOU. Yes, YOU!
The President used his UN Ambassador like a rented mule
The President trotted out his UN Ambassador for the Sunday talk shows — FIVE Sunday talk shows — to tell a huge lie. A story so preposterous that it was originally met with a dumbed silence. Really?
As this lie was being spread the President knew that members of his own administration knew it was a lie, knew the truth and could clearly divine his intentions.
How does a leader face his Cabinet when they are all thinking — this man is a liar and has just lied to the very people we have all sworn to serve. How does one do that?
The President callously allowed his own folks to see into the vacuum where his soul used to live and see the emptiness of his character. A truly frightful prospect.
The Secretary of State of State, an accomplished liar
If one were ever concerned as to whether Secretary of State Hilary Clinton was equal to the challenges of the Presidency, one only has to look at her performance before the same Congressional hearings at which she gave the performance of her life when she cruelly asked: “What difference does it really make?”
What difference does it make that our Ambassador is dead? What difference does it make that warriors gave their lives in the defense of our Nation and our countrymen at a moment of grave peril? What difference does it make that we failed to come to the aid of our countrymen when their lives were literally at risk? What difference does it make that our President and his Administration lied to the American people?
Let me tell you what difference it makes — YOU ARE NOT FIT TO HOLD HIGH OFFICE.
Secretary of State Hilary Clinton knew that it was all lies and then used her office to perpetuate them, to cover for the President and ultimately to threaten those who would expose the lie and share the truth.
It is difficult to conclude otherwise — Hilary Clinton is as accomplished a liar as her husband and she is a craven bully willing to sacrifice her colleagues to achieve a cynical political objective.
The 3:00 AM phone call
The 3:00 AM phone call came and the President went to bed rather than answer it. He failed to answer the fundamental challenge of his office.
Know this and know it well. When the 3:00 AM phone call came, the President refused to send aid. He went to bed while our countrymen bled into the Benghazi night. He enjoyed a good night’s sleep, arose early and flew to Las Vegas for a political fundraiser.
Theater
When the President and the Secretary of State stood on the tarmac at Dover Airbase receiving the bodies of our dead Libyan Ambassador and those who had died in defense of our Nation, the President and the Secretary State repeated the lies and provided a theatrical performance worthy of an Oscar.
On that cold tarmac, their cruel hearts lied to the victims and lied to the American people while projecting faux emotions which compounded the cruelty of their lies.
It was theater. It was not truth.
Consequences
The truth has consequences. The victims scream from their graves for the truth and the American people deserve the truth.
The truth has now found us.
In the end, we can only attribute this entire episode to a lack of competence — what thoughtful leader would not have stationed military assets in close proximity to the Middle East on the eve of 9-11 and in the environment in which Benghazi had been evacuated by all other governments? When the British Ambassador had already been the target of an assassination attempt? When the dead American Ambassador had asked for enhanced security? Competence?
This consideration is so fundamental as to indict the native intelligence of all those above the American Ambassador to Libya. He knew and understood the threat and pleaded for help — he was denied and in that denial one has to indict the native intelligence of those who made those decisions. Had a different course of action been taken, the American Ambassador is alive today.
But we all know the real indictment, don’t we? It is one of the character of the President, the Secretary of State and others in their entourage. In their relentless focus on the election, they lost their way and sacrificed lives at the altar of their ambition.
For this they must be held to account.
So, the Big Red Car asks the obvious questions — what now America? Can you be led by such people? Do such people deserve to lead? Does American deserve better?
But, hey, what the Hell do I know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car but I know a liar when I see one.
they may have put a spin on the Benghazi attack, but I don’t think that anyone knowingly with held military support. I think there was legitimate confusion, and things happen fast.
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Sachmo —
The military has a tendency to lean forward in the saddle. It is their job. They run to the sound of the gunfire. They anticipate where trouble is going to happen and they prepare for such contingencies.
Having been a professional soldier myself I can assure you that a Captain with a company of Rangers or paratroopers or an A Team leader with a SF team would have sorted that mess out pretty damn quick.
It would have only taken: ‘Captain, take your men down there and sort that shit out. Now. Questions?”
The fact that assets were on the ground in Tripoli while the feces was hitting the fan in Benghazi — an hour away — indicts the notion that there was no possible help to send. WTF?
The bigger question is this — if there were no military assets in close proximity to Benghazi on the anniversary of 9-11 when the entire Middle East is aflame, who is running the show? Where would you pre-position such assets — Disneyland?
This is just basic contingency planning. If I am in charge, someone loses their job over that oversight. WTF?
There should have been boots in the air ready at all times to come to the rescue of American interests in the Middle East on the anniversary of 9-11 when the entire region is on fire.
BRC
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You’re going to hate me for linking to a liberal blog, but didn’t congress (primarily under Repubs in House) cut $300 million from embassy security budget?
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/budget/news/2012/09/18/38352/diplomats-national-security-and-the-house-budget/
My big issue is that some of the people trying to score points right now on sunday talk shows were at least equally responsible for lack of security in Benghazi…
and there is still a political prisoner in jail. Why are they not releasing the film maker that they rounded up like Stasi agents in East Germany?