the video is irrelevant to the equation....it was nothing more than a smoke screen for the killers and the administration

I see, so it's just because you say so. Right.

The video is, obviously, not out of the equation. Or, more accurately, out of various equations, only one of which can be true--except in a relative world, in which case all things are true and what would be the point of arguing about it?

If we have an equation where after the equal sign there must be the attack, and we use Occam's razor of the simplest explanation, what can be left out of causes before the equal sign and still have the result? If we took the video out of the equation would the result still be valid. Yes.

Which puts in question what is the purpose of putting the video into the equation? It could be used to facilitate a circumstance that would occur wthout the use of it. Just as all evil will be justified by some excuse to make it appear as good. Or to cover up that which incriminates.

If the video was used, it was obviously done so to somehow make sensible, excuse, what otherwise might be seen by the world as senseless violence (even though, to the attackers ,it was not senseless without the video), or as a cover-up for the incompetence in not preventing the attack.

Making an issue of the video deflects from the ignorant incompetence of the administration.

And promising to prosecute the maker of the video even though it was not illegal raises the level of incompetence to psychopathic justification for it.

yup...and deflects blame from those that actually did the attacking and killing

You're making an assumption that the attack would have happened at the same time and same veracity regardless. That's a big assumption not supported by any facts...which greatly complicates your equation.

Occam's Razor = FAIL :eek:

Jeepers? That video only had a handful of hits up until the night of the attack.
That video, AFTER the Administration viewed it and settled on it and THEN presented it to the World as the cause of the deadly Benghazi attack, then had MANY views.

Why has there been no OTHER attacks on OUR interests related to THIS video?

it was September 11th...nothing ever happened that was related on September 11th

You're making more assumptions and complicating Detbuch's equation.

people like to celebrate anniversaries

Here's what is not an assumption.

(1) other nations, as well as the Red Cross, were aware that Benghazi was too dangerous to safely keep their people there, so they were evacuated. Clinton's State Dept didn't come to the same conclusion.

(2) Stevens, sensing the danger, made many requests for extra security that were denied.

It would appear that the State Dept really screwed this up, and left those people up the creek without a paddle.

She was in charge, was she not?

1) True. Stevens was part of the state department, why did he chose to go to Benghazi if he was that worried and it was that dangerous. That is not blaming Stevens, but he certainly knew the ground conditions better than most.

2) in part, see 1), but what I want to know, is who denied the extra security. Did it actually cross Clinton's desk or is that handled at a lower level

3) State department screwed up; mistakes were made and it was a tragedy. This has been turned from something to learn from and not repeat, to a political event.

You asked earlier about the video and the conflicting statements. Frankly, I don't give a #^&#^&#^&#^& what they told the Egyptian prime minister. I am sure there was and always is politicking on these events when dealing with other countries with dubious ally relations. The timeline, as I read it, seems to support initially, many in the intelligence community blaming things on a video. that metric changed over time. Maybe Clinton et al should have caveated their remarks a bit more, but that to me does not equate to out-right lying.

" want to know, is who denied the extra security. Did it actually cross Clinton's desk or is that handled at a lower level"

Agreed. I suspect it's handled at a lower level. But we don't know who made those decisions, but I believe we know that no one was fired. I'd like to know why that is, if it's true.

"The timeline, as I read it, seems to support initially, many in the intelligence community blaming things on a video"

That doesn't explain why her early private emails (to Egypt and to her family) asserted that it was a planned terrorist attack. Yet after that, in public, she blamed the video. She told the families of the victims it was the video, and that was also after she claimed privately it was a planned attack.

If she blamed the video, knowing that it was really a pre-planned attack, her only conceivable reason for doing so, is to avoid looking like her agenccy bungled this. That doesn't raise any red flags to you, in terms of her qualifications for the job?

The guy who made the video is an American citizen. It doesn't bother you that she likely threw him under the bus, to save her own skin?

Jim, all your questions have been answered over and over and over and over...

No, they haven't. You are assuming that every time she changed her tune, it was in response to a new conclusion from intelligence.

Have there been any confirmed intelligence reports, that told her "look, we know what we said yesterday, but we were wrong, so now we want you to say this.."

Here is a questoion for which I have not seen the answer. If it has been answered, please share. Here goes...if half the reports were blaming the video, and half said it was planned, shouldn't she have said "we are getting conflicting reports, we are looking into what happened"?

Why didn't she do that? Because the statements I have seen attributed to her, aren't very ambiguous. In public, she seems certain it was a spontaneous response to a video, and by an amazing coincidence, that means she can't be held accountable for not preventing it.

Spence, I admit I cannot stand the woman, and may not be looking at this with a completely objective eye (though I try, as when I say I don't think she's personally responsible for every bad decision made by everyone who works for her). But what you will never admit, is that you are so blinded by ideology, that you will never fault her for anything, ever.

If I can see a timeline of what reports she got when, and how those coincide with her changing stories, then it's POSSIBLE that every one of her flip-flopping claims was based exactly on the most recent report. And that would not be her fault. But it's extremely unlikely that was the case.

It's not like she always blamed the video up to a certain date, and then said it was a planned attack. She kept flip-flopping. The commonality, is the audience she was speaking to. In private, she admitted it was a planned attack, nothing to do with the video. In public, she said it was a spontaneous reaction to the video, therefore nothing she could have foreseen, therefore not her fault.

Coindicence? Possible. Highly unlikely.

In Libya? Video had nothing to do with it. The leaser of the attackers blamed that after he was caught, the Guv's investigation determined the video was not the instigator but the attack was planned for the Sept 11th anniversary.

I've read through all the reports and never seen that finding stated explicitly.

Did you read that every time she changed her story, it was after receiving a report that a reasonable person would conclude was more credible, than the previous one? You must have, because that's what you keep insisting she did.

You're saying that every time she flip-flopped, it had nothing to do with avoiding guilt, but rather, she was always reacting to the most current, most credible, report?

The focus of her remarks follows quite closely what the CIA was giving the State Department at the time, yet it does...

I don't see how the email to her daughter is even contradictory to anything. She just said there was an attack. There was...

Can you post something to support your statement that she was always relying on the latest CIA report? The CIA flip-flops dovetailed with her flip-flops? The CIA flip-flopped as many times as she did? And all those flip-flops from CIA, were timed perfectly, so that she never had to say in public that it was a planned terrorist attack? Boy, what good fortune for her.

The email to her daughter, I thought, stated that it was a pre-planned terrorist attack, which is contradictory to the theory that it ws a spontaneous reaction to the video.

So now in addition to France, we have to listen to what the Red Cross is doing? No more America leading, but instead follow the Red Cross.

She was in charge and took responsibility for it. Did Bush ever take responsibility for the colossal screw up in Iraq?

I'll tell you, when you disagree with me, you have a really hard time distinguishing what I actually said, from what you are claiming that I said.

I think we went through this before. I did not ever say we have to follow the French or the Red Cross. What I said was, I want to know why, in this case, everyone else sems to have done a better job of gauging the threat level. Why were we outperformed by everyone else in this case.

She seems to struggle with the concept of accurately summarizing threat level. Sometimes, she thinks the threat level is higher than it really is (like when she said she came undr sniper fire at an airport, when video showed her shaking hands with a big smile). In this case, it sure seems like we thought Benghazi was a lot safer than it actually was - after all, we left our people there, and denied their repeated requests for extra security.

Maybe you don't care about such things when the people under scrutiny are Democrats.

"She was in charge and took responsibility for it"

She did? By shrieking "what difference does it make" what happened?

"Did Bush ever take responsibility for the colossal screw up in Iraq"

Do you honestly not know if he has ever conceded that he was wrong about WMDs? As were a lot of other people, like Hilary. She made the same mistake that Bush did, and she supported the war based on the same evidence. So why don't you claim she made a colossal screw up, when she voted for that war, based on her often-stated conclusion that they had WMDs?

You have fun with that.

Jim, you really should read the Senate Intelligence and House Select reports from 2014.

I did. And nowhere, can I find conflicting reports that coincide precisely with her flip-flopping.

Why can't you post the data that supports what you are saying?

Originally Posted by spence
"I see, so it's just because you say so. Right."

he projects a lot.....

No I am not making such an assumption. I am assuming that if we set up a system of verbal equations re attacks by al Qaeda, each with combinations of different known or assumed causes on the left hand side of the equations, but each with the same known constant result on the right hand side=an attack by al Qaeda--and there was included a constant variable in all the left hand sides of the equations but the other causative variables differed from equation to equation, were not constant, then the constant one could be assumed to be the basic and necessary cause. The others being peripheral, or not even true.

The video would be an assumed variable in very few of the known al Qaeda attacks. Ergo, assuming the constant variable was necessary to all of al Qaeda attacks, the video does not have to be considered as a reason for the Benghazi attack. It would not be necessary for the attack to occur. And wouldn't have to be considered a "veracity" as a reason for the attack, even if some of the participants said it was. They haven't been vetted. We don't know if they were truthful. Or even if they really exist. If they do, and if they were ginned up to it by al Qaeda operatives, they would be more tools in the attack rather than merely spontaneous let's have a party and go kill Americans because of a video we were told about (by al Qaeda operatives) types. But the video can fit into an equation which explores not actual reasons for the attack, but cosmetic justifications for it.

It can be used as lipstick on a pig. The pig being a brutal massacre of not only innocent beings, but those who, as you claim, are loved and supported by the Libyan people. Or the pig being failed policy which made possible the massacre.

And I still wonder what you think about Hillary's promise to prosecute the video maker as a result of something that is not illegal. Or about Hillary's role in creating a vacuum for "extremists" by her recommendation to remove Qaddafi--which created vastly more of a condition for the Benghazi massacre than the video could. And how she is any better than Bush was in his removal of Saddam.

if you replace the video with some other source of blame...like the anniversary of 9/11....some guy drawing a cartoon somewhere....a guy in Texas burning a stack of Korans.....

would Hillary then have told the families of the victims she was going to arrest those responsible for the deaths?....which would be who? the folks that brought you 9/11??...a cartoonist??.....a guy burning Korans on the other side of the planet??

and would the administration and willing media the push those stories in order to deflect .......oh probably

future terrorist attackers should blame George Bush as the motivation for their actions and then we can enjoy the spectacle of President Shillary announcing that she's going to track down and jail the person responsible for the "tragedy"...George Bush....and that would just please a bunch of leftists to no end and probably make sense to them too...

bizarro world....

Who ever said this was an alQaeda attack? More assumptions?

Al Qaeda affiliates? That was not said? And what did you mean by not being able to leave the video out of the equation? What do you mean by an equation . . . a=c? No a+b=c, or a+b+x=c? That the video was the sole reason for the attack? Is that truly what you meant by saying that the video could not be left out of the equation?

Yes, those are some of the types of reputed causes for various attacks. And if the differently motivated attacks are treated as separate incidents specifically caused by different reasons, there is the (manufactured?) appearance of no connective tissue holding them together as individual parts of a greater whole. If Korans are not burned, there will be no attacks. If cartoons are not drawn, there will be no attacks . . .

But if there is a broader issue binding the attacks together in a more basic cause such as Bin Laden's call for a global jihad against the satanic West and against even those Muslims who bastardize Islam . . . a jihad for the ultimate purpose of establishing a new, powerful, caliphate destined to rule the world . . . and the jihad to be carried out by individuals (lone wolves) as well as groups whether directly sponsored by his al Qaeda or philosophically affiliated with it . . . then wouldn't that be a constant variable added to the different and not constant variable reasons in each specific attack? Wouldn't that be the real reason for the attacks?

Otherwise we would have to hold those who burn Korans, or draw cartoons, or make videos, or who foster any incidence or lifestyle contrary to Islamic law, as the culprits, as the guilty parties who must be prosecuted for causing the attacks. Which means that all of us who are not proper Muslims are guilty and the cause of Muslim attacks.

And isn't that exactly the point of view of the Islamic attackers. And don't we corroborate that point of view by shifting blame to the rest of the world when we accuse various peripheral reasons for the attacks by Muslim perpetrators rather than understanding really why they do what they do?

I believe the investigation found the attackers were a diverse mix of militants, Gaddafi loyalists and angry locals. A few of which had some connection al Qaeda members. That's a LONG way from saying it was an affiliate...and even LONGER from suggesting that previous al Qaeda behavior should be used as any measure in trying to establish a motive for the attack.