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Mr. Speaker! We Need To Get Back To Benghazi

RW reactions to the capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala.

Indeed, as the afternoon has progressed, the right’s potential talking points have begun to take shape – enough to create a Top 10 list.

1. This is about Clinton’s book tour. It’s hard to know how to respond to such obvious nonsense, but to believe that U.S. Special Forces, the FBI, and the White House hatched a military mission, months in the making, to help a former cabinet official on a book tour seems rather delusional.

2. This is about the IRS “controversy.” Apparently, capturing terrorists is now part of a plot to distract attention away from a story that evaporated a year ago?

3. Obama was golfing when the suspect was captured. I’m not sure if the claim is true, but if it is, I’m not sure why anyone should care. The president ordered the mission; American personnel on the ground carried out the mission. Why would anyone care about Obama’s physical location when the suspect was taken away?

4. Obama should put Ahmed Abu Khattala in Guantanamo. This gem, pushed by Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, argues that the terrorist suspect shouldn’t be tried in courts with a great track record for convicting and imprisoning terrorists. (Wasn’t McCain the guy who, in 2008, said the United States needs to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay? Does McCain even remember his own position?) Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, after hearing about McCain’s and Graham’s appeal, was quoted as saying,”Oh for God’s sake…” which seems like the appropriate reaction.

5. Obama waited for the “perfect political opportunity.” This line, rolled out by former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), seems especially bizarre given that it’s easy to think of plenty of other politically opportune moments to capture Abu Khattala. Indeed, there’s nothing particularly interesting or important about right now.

6. Nothing to see here; move along. Told about the Benghazi attacker’s capture in Libya, one Fox News host said, “Good news there … I guess.” Drudge is pretending this is largely meaningless, too. The moral of the story: ridiculous Benghazi conspiracy theories are huge news, while successful counter-terrorism missions in Benghazi are ho-hum.

7. This took too long. There’s a lot of “Obama was too slow” commentary this afternoon. Funny, five full years after 9/11, George W. Bush said he didn’t even much care about catching bin Laden – ever. Where were the conservative complaints then? The truth is, these missions abroad aren’t easy and they take time. A win is a win, no matter how long it takes.

8. Don’t Mirandize! Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) responded to the developments with a statement that read, “Rather than rushing to read him his Miranda rights and telling him he has the right to remain silent, I hope the administration will focus on collecting the intelligence necessary to prevent future attacks and to find other terrorists responsible for the Benghazi attacks.” For the record, Bush/Cheney routinely Mirandized terrorist suspects in U.S. custody, which GOP lawmakers never found troubling until after Jan. 20, 2009.

9. Only one? House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) issued a statement saying Abu Khatallah is but “one of dozens, if not hundreds of individuals, involved in the murder of four Americans in Benghazi.” Perhaps, though Khatallah is believed to have been a ringleader of the attack, and other suspects are likely to be taken into custody, too.

10. We could have had Abu Khattala sooner. The accused has been the principal suspect for quite a while, but in reality, a previous mission “postponed because of violent uprisings against the Libyan government.”
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Rolling Stone Article over two years ago made the same point about why (at that time) we had not either ransomed or attempted a snatch of Berdahl.

C-Sling had a huge guffaw over the fact that I pointed to that article where an administration official said that it would be a great political coupe if it was 'timed right" and the administration CHOSE politically to make the trade that Bergdahls hosts had offered over two years ago.

He thinks these things happen magically and political considerations and timing are not considered in making these decisions.

Hell, if he knew FOR SURE he could get Bin Laden exactly in time for a "November Surprise" it wasn't like Bin Laden was "likely" going anywhere.

The reason he had to "make that somber decision" when he did was too many people in intelligence knew he was handed Bin Laden on a plate and he had NO choice on timing.

They had the mission planned and rehearsed before the bothered to run it by him.

He made it sound like he was day-to-day involved in the analysis that found Bin Laden. They had time to construct and game a complete, life sized model of the compound before they dared mention it to him.

This isn't unique to this president of course...ALL presidents have to think of optics and politics.

This one has fans that pretend his motives and timing are pure. Wonder when he has decided to flip that switch that parts the seas and keeps them from rising?
 
From Salon:

Wednesday, Jun 18, 2014 10:41 AM EDT

GOP’s Benghazi humiliation: Capture of suspect up-ends deranged agenda

With alleged ringleader now in custody, the Benghazi Select Committee just loss a prized grandstanding opportunity

Simon Maloy

For the not insignificant portion of the right that operates under the theory that everything the Obama administration does is intended to distract from the Benghazi scandal, yesterday’s news Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the alleged ringleader of the Benghazi attacks, had been apprehended in Libya was something of a conundrum. The White House was making news about Benghazi – the very thing they wanted swept under the rug. What did it mean???

The consensus was White House had switched gears, and was now diabolically using Benghazi to distract from something else. But no agreement could be found on what that other thing is. It’s either Iraq (the Limbaugh theory), Libya (the Daily Caller theory), Hillary Clinton’s gaffes (the Fox News theory), or everything (the Allen West theory).

That the good news of Khatallah’s apprehension could be so easily twisted into an outlandish anti-Obama conspiracy does not speak well of the health of the conservative movement. It shows how much conservatives have invested in the Benghazi scandal narrative, and how ultimately weak that narrative is. In that vein, Khatallah’s capture poses a setback for the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which was formed to keep the Benghazi scandal alive, but has had the legs kicked out from under it before it could even hold a hearing.

That committee, chaired by the flamboyantly prosecutorial Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), was formed ostensibly to answer the “unanswered questions” that supposedly remain about the Benghazi attack after multiple inquiries by congressional investigators and other parties. Gowdy, after he was tapped by John Boehner to chair the committee, did a round of media interviews to lay out some of those questions. As a number of observers pointed out, the questions Gowdy wanted answered – Why was security lacking? Where were the military support units? What of the talking points? – have already been asked and answered several times over.

Really, there were only a few avenues of inquiry that offered some legitimate opportunities for oversight, and the lack of action in pursuing the people responsible for the attacks was one of them. Apprehending terrorism suspects does sometimes take a while — the Bush administration couldn’t nab Osama bin Laden after seven years and a suspect indicted in 2000 for the 1998 embassy bombings was arrested just last October – but Khatallah was out in the open, talking to reporters and generally flaunting his freedom. It seemed reasonable to ask why, exactly, that was the case.

After the House voted to approve the committee in May, Gowdy issued a statement indicating that he would try to nail down that question. “No one has been arrested, prosecuted, or punished for the murders of our fellow Americans,” the statement read. “These outstanding questions, and others, are legitimate, and seeking the answer to these questions should be an apolitical process.”

That “outstanding question” is now moot. Gowdy can press and investigate why it was that it took so long to actually capture Khatallah, but he runs the risk of looking like he’s signing on with the conspiracy crowd. Also, part of the reason it took so long for special forces to move against Khatallah is that they reportedly spent over a year training and preparing for the mission. That preparation was undoubtedly worth it – Katallah was captured without incident – so it doesn’t look like there’s much for the committee to gripe about.

Losing Katallah as an opportunity to grandstand is only the latest setback Gowdy’s committee has faced. Not long after the committee was formed, it was hamstrung – intentionally or not; it’s up to debate – by Rep. Darrell Issa, who talked to reporters about a classified memo indicating that shortly after the attacks began, the White House contacted YouTube to “warn of the ‘ramifications’ of allowing the posting of an anti-Islamic video.” If you’re not well-versed in the conservative Benghazi conspiracy lore, a big part of it is that the White House conspired after-the-fact to blame the attack on this video so they could pretend it wasn’t an act of terrorism. But Issa’s memo blew a hole in that by indicating that the White House thought the video was to blame from the very start. And as it turns out, the New York Times reported yesterday that Katallah “told other Libyans in private conversations during the night of the attack that he was moved to attack the diplomatic mission to take revenge for an insult to Islam in an American-made online video.”

Fewer avenues to investigate Benghazi mean fewer opportunities for the select committee to politicize the proceedings and generate headlines. It means fewer opportunities for Trey Gowdy to make angry or emotional statements for the cameras and then post the videos to YouTube. Katallah’s apprehension and the demise of silly conspiracies are obviously in the public interest, but they’re counter to what Republicans want politically.
 
query said:
Saw that. Scratching my head a bit.

I will say that for sure the Pakis having ANY idea about it was from State Department press release after planted story in Egyptian paper led to Egyptian Embassy apologizing then huge ad buys in Pakistan apologizing for offending them with a video none of them had seen.

There hadn't been a Danish Cartoon/ Southpark episode sort of thing to hand their "we bring this on ourselves by offending them" meme in a while, so this meets the minimum thresh-hold on my plausibility meter.

IF they had a hand in (at minimum) promoting it they of course could not have known HOW much they would come to rely on it.

Hell, Phrodeau STILL maintains that Benghazi was related in SOME way to the video when it had ZIP to do with it.

It's like walking up to the biggest guy in the bar and saying..."I just want you to know that I do NOT agree with THAT guy over there that you are a pussy."
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Hey everyone, I got my own ascription!

I maintain the same thing Susan Rice did. At the time, it seemed that the Benghazi attack was a response to the OTHER PROTESTS. The other protests were in response to the video. That is what she said, and there is no credible evidence to prove that it wasn't the case at the time.
 
KingOrfeo said:
Ahmed Abu Khatallah says it did, and he should know.
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Handy he had a coupla years to be fed the talking points from all the same sources you and phrodeu get yours.

As I already said...negligent manslaughter, 1-3 years for a "movie review that got a little out of hand."
 
phrodeau said:
Hey everyone, I got my own ascription!

I maintain the same thing Susan Rice did. At the time, it seemed that the Benghazi attack was a response to the OTHER PROTESTS. The other protests were in response to the video. That is what she said, and there is no credible evidence to prove that it wasn't the case at the time.
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so the ascription was as per usual accurate.

There is "credible" evidence that THEY didn't believe it; that they worried that it was "due to a broader failure of policy" which is why they made that shit up to reframe the narrative.
 
query said:
so the ascription was as per usual accurate.

There is "credible" evidence that THEY didn't believe it; that they worried that it was "due to a broader failure of policy" which is why they made that shit up to reframe the narrative.
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Hardly. There was concern that it would be claimed to be due to a failure of policy by the administration's enemies. Which indeed it was and continues to be, all over AM radio.
 
vetteman said:
After two years Obama finally decided he had to arrest a Muslim to draw attention away from Iraq for a brief moment so he could catch his breath. After getting his address from CNN, Special Ops and the FBI moved in for the arrest. The trial ought to be quite a diversion for the rest of Obama's term in office.
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Vetty uses Talking Point 5 from KingOrfeo's list of wingnut excuses.
 
KingOrfeo said:
What on Earth are you talking about? I don't recall any stories about "Khatallah Known to Be Hiding in South Locationstan."
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You should read more. NY Times, Time magazine, AP wire services. We have known where to find him for two years.

who was openly living in Libya after the attacks, and in fact gave interviews several interviews with TIME magazine in 2012, but with AP in October 2013:

The Libyan militant accused by Washington in the killing of the U.S. ambassador told The Associated Press on Monday he's not worried about being next on the list for capture by the Americans after the U.S. commando raid that spirited a senior al-Qaida suspect out of Tripoli.



Ahmed Abu Khattala's confidence reflects the power that Islamic militants have grown to wield in Libya since the 2011 ouster of longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi. Militia groups, some of them inspired by al-Qaida, operated with virtual impunity in the country, with the central government too weak to take action against them.



Now many of the groups are furious over Saturday's U.S. special forces raid that captured Abu Anas al-Libi, wanted by the Americans for more than a decade over the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. Some have hinted at retaliation at U.S. and other foreign interests and have lashed out at the government, accusing it of colluding with Washington.



"We only fear God," Abu Khattala told AP by telephone from Benghazi, when asked if he is concerned he too could be snatched. Abu Khattala lives openly in the city, despite the indictment against him in a U.S. court over the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed the ambassador and three other Americans. He denies any role in the attack.

And with the NYT, where we read the following pearl:

Witnesses and the authorities have called Ahmed Abu Khattala one of the ringleaders of the Sept. 11 attack on the American diplomatic mission here. But just days after President Obama reasserted his vow to bring those responsible to justice, Mr. Abu Khattala spent two leisurely hours on Thursday evening at a crowded luxury hotel, sipping a strawberry frappe on a patio and scoffing at the threats coming from the American and Libyan governments.



Libya’s fledgling national army is a “national chicken,” Mr. Abu Khattala said, using an Arabic rhyme. Asked who should take responsibility for apprehending the mission’s attackers, he smirked at the idea that the weak Libyan government could possibly do it. And he accused the leaders of the United States of “playing with the emotions of the American people” and “using the consulate attack just to gather votes for their elections.”
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Argue that we were not wanting to piss off the Libyans, but don't argue that his whereabouts were unknown. Obama chose NOW to have this news story on the front page.
 
query said:
You should read more. NY Times, Time magazine, AP wire services. We have known where to find him for two years.

who was openly living in Libya after the attacks, and in fact gave interviews several interviews with TIME magazine in 2012, but with AP in October 2013:



Argue that we were not wanting to piss off the Libyans, but don't argue that his whereabouts were unknown. Obama chose NOW to have this news story on the front page.
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you are talking to MUSHROOM II:rolleyes:
 
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