Justin's Political Corner

Exposing The Myths Behind The Right-Wing’s Trumped Up Benghazi “Cover Up”

MYTH: The White House And State Department Edited References To Terrorism Out Of Talking Points For Political Purposes

FACT: The CIA Signed Off On The Changes For Tactical, Not Political Reasons. Gen. David Petraeus, former head of the CIA, testified in November that the intelligence community signed off on the final draft of the talking points, and that references to terrorist groups in Libya were removed in order to avoid tipping off those groups. [The New York Times, 11/16/12]

FACT:  President Obama Had Already Referred To The Attacks As An Act Of Terror. On September 12, President Obama  referred to the attacks as an act of terror when he spoke from the White House Rose Garden. One day later, Obama again referred to acts of terror at a campaign event. These comments undermine the myth that edits to a document that were made on September 14, after Obama had already labeled the attack an act of terror, demonstrate that the administration was trying to downplay the role that terrorism played. [Media Matters for America, 5/10/13]

MYTH: Benghazi Whistleblower Gregory Hicks Is Being Prohibited From Talking To Investigators And Members Of Congress

FACT: Hicks Was Interviewed Twice As Part Of The State Department’s Independent Internal Investigation. After Gregory Hicks sat down for an initial interview with the State Department’s Accountability Review Board, he asked for a follow-up interview to expand on issues that he felt needed amplification. And he was granted one. [Media Matters for America, 5/9/13]

FACT: Hicks Was Only Told He Was Not Allowed To Speak With A Member Of Congress Without A State Department Attorney Present. Following the attacks, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) traveled to Libya, seeking to interview witnesses and survivor, including Hicks. Hicks testified that the State Department had instructed him not to speak to Chaffetz without a State attorney present — a condition Hicks says was unusual, but which the State Department says is standard procedure. Hicks ended up speaking to Chaffetz without a State Department attorney present because, according to his testimony, the lawyer lacked the proper security clearance. [Media Matters for America, 5/9/13]

MYTH: Cheryl Mills Tried To Intimidate Hicks After His Meeting With Chaffetz

FACT: Hicks Admitted Mills Offered No Criticism Or Reprimand, Only That She Had Asked For A Report. While being questioned by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Hicks elaborated on a phone call from Cheryl Mills, at the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chief-of-staff. Hicks made clear that he had received no direct criticism from Mills. It was the “tone of the conversation,” he testified, that led him to believe Mills was unhappy with him. But MSBNC reported that Philippe Reines confirmed to them that he witnessed the conversation and that it was supportive. [Media Matters for America, 5/11/13; MSNBC.com, 5/8/13]

FACT: Congressional Republicans Are Falsely Framing The Phone Call As “Threatening.” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) repeatedly asked Hicks if Mills was “upset” with him during the phone call. Hicks answered in the affirmative. After Hicks finished describing his phone call with Mills, Jordan immediately characterized it as an act of retribution for not going along with the “cover-up.” Rep. Ronald DeSantis (R-FL) told Hicks at one point that “we need to know who actually gave the order to stand down. I’d like to know why you’ve been demoted, why they — the secretary’s chief of staff called you and spoke with you the way she did.” [Media Matters for America, 5/11/13]

MYTH: Hicks Is Being Punished For Speaking Out And Has Been Demoted And Received Criticism Of His Mmanagement Style

FACT:  Hicks Testified That He Voluntarily Chose Not To Return To Libya And That The Overriding Reason Was Because Of His Family. During his testimony, Hicks said that “based on criticism that I received, I felt that if I went back, I would never be comfortable working there, and in addition, my family really didn’t want me to go back. We had endured a year of separation when I was in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007. That was the overriding factor. So I voluntarily curtailed.” [House Oversight Committee Hearing, 5/8/13, via Nexis] 

FACT: Embassy Staff Told ThinkProgress That People Were Upset With Hicks’ Management Style Before The Attacks. State Department employees, who spoke to ThinkProgress on the condition of anonymity, said that the staff was upset with Hicks’ performance since he was first assigned to Tripoli on July 31. Contrary to Hicks’ claim that he was demoted out of retribution,  the sources said that Assistant Secretary Jones’ meetings with the staff prior to Oct. 2 were “entirely” focused on Hicks’ performance as a manager. [“EXCLUSIVE: Embassy Staff Undercut ‘Whistleblower’ Testimony On Benghazi,” ThinkProgress, 5/10/13]

MYTH: The White House Refused To Send A Second Team To Benghazi Because Of Political Motivations

FACT: The Decision Was Made By The Head Of The Military’s Africa Command, Who Was Concerned About Embassy Security In Tripoli. Diplomats on the ground the night of the attacks were concerned about threats to the Tripoli embassy complex, and a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed that the assessment of Special Operations Command Africa leadership at the time was that “it was more important for those guys to be in Tripoli” for embassy security. [Media Matters for America, 5/09/13]

FACT: Additional Reinforcements Would Not Have Been Able To Get To Benghazi Before The Second Attack Was Concluded. Transcripts of an interview Hicks gave to congressional investigators show that he said that the flight these special forces were scheduled to take, but did not, was scheduled to take off after 6:00 a.m., local time — approximately 45 minutes after the attack at the CIA annex that killed two people. [Media Matters for America, 5/7/13]

h/t: MMFA

Those who are trying to make the Benghazi tragedy into a scandal for the Obama administration really ought to decide what story line they want to sell.

Actually, by “those” I mean Republicans, and by “the Obama administration” I mean Hillary Clinton. The only coherent purpose I can discern in all of this is to sully Clinton’s record as secretary of state in case she runs for president in 2016.

The hearing convened Wednesday by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) produced a riveting narrative of the chaotic events in Libya last September. But what was the supposedly unforgivable crime?

Did Clinton’s State Department fail to provide adequate security for the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi? In retrospect, obviously so. But the three diplomats who testified at the hearing gave no evidence that this failure sprang from anything other than the need to use limited resources as efficiently as possible.

House Republicans who voted to cut funding for State Department security should understand that their philosophy — small government is always better — has consequences. Bureaucrats have to make judgment calls. Sometimes they will be wrong.

Well, then, maybe the transgression is that administration officials, for some unfathomable reason, willfully lied when they said the attack was in reaction to an anti-Islam video produced in the United States and disseminated on the Internet.

The problem is that there were, in fact, tumultuous anti-American demonstrations taking place in cities throughout the Muslim world because of the video. President Obama labeled the Benghazi assault an act of terror almost immediately — as Mitt Romney learned in the second presidential debate — but it was hard to imagine that the attack was completely unrelated to what was happening in Cairo, Tunis, Khartoum and Jakarta.

I knew when the moment the GOP screechers were screaming about Benghazi back in September 2012 (and will go on forever), it was just another manufactured scandal to harm Obama, Clinton, and the Democrats.

h/t: Eugene Robinson at WaPo

Wednesday’s Congressional hearing on Benghazi is actually part two of the Benghazi show. Season two in the DVD box set, if you will.

Previously, on Benghazi!

Hillary Clinton, in her last appearance before Congressional committees as Secretary of State, was supposed to collapse at the feet of her GOP inquisitors, helpless before them as they posed for the cameras and delivered Fox-generated storylines. In reality, Clinton’s testimony resembled Neo from the Matrix, batting away nonsense and helping to remind the world why she has a historical legacy of her own apart from her husband.

Now with the latest dog and pony show, we will be treated to more GOP harrumphing and more Fox News alerts that will largely be about old, well-worn nonsense that the conservative media will treat as bombshells but turn out to be nothingburgers.

Pardon my grizzled cynicism, but I have seen this storyline before, with Clinton and Whitewater and breathless mumbles of scandal from the mainstream press that turned out to be nothing.

It’s all as fake as the claim that a tiny Arkansas land deal was an abuse of power. I’ve seen this show before, it sucks and it’s a perversion of our government. In other words, standard issue conservative politics.

More proof that the right-wing fearmongering about Benghazi is just a disgusting attempt to weaken Hillary Clinton’s chances for the Presidency or even the Democratic Party nomination in 2016.

H/T: Oliver Willis at The Daily Banter

The ongoing situation in Mali is gaining traction in the media with the reporting of Al Qaeda members within the ranks of the Tuareg rebels. The situation in quite complicated and involves not only France, but also the US and partially Canada and links to the interests of these Western powers with not just Mali, but with the African continent as a whole.

The Tuareg People

In order to get a better handle on the situation, there must first be an understanding of the domestic actors, namely the Tuareg people, who presently “live across the Sahara Desert, including in the North African countries of Mali, Niger, Libya, Algeria and Chad.”[1]

Tuareg are a people that have lived in northern Mali “as early as the fifth century BCE”[2] according to Herodotus. After establishing the city of Timbuktu in the 11^th century, the Tuareg “traded, traveled, and conquered throughout Saharan” over the next four centuries, eventually converting to Islam in the 14^th century, which allowed them to “gained great wealth trading salt, gold, and black slaves.”[3] This independence was swept away when the French colonized Mali when they “defeated the Tuareg at Timbuktu and established borders and administrative districts to rule the area until Mali declared independence in 1960.”[4] The Tuareg people have consistently wanted self-independence and in pursuit of such goals have engaged in a number of rebellions.

The first was in 1916 when, in response to the French not giving the Tuareg their own autonomous zone (called Azawad) as was promised, they revolted. The French violently quelled the revolt and “subsequently confiscated important grazing lands while using Tuaregs as forced conscripts and labor – and fragmented Tuareg societies through the drawing of arbitrary boundaries between Soudan (Mali) and its neighbors.”[5]

Yet, this did not end the Tuareg goal of an independent, sovereign state. Once the French had ceded Mali independence, the Tuareg began to push toward their dream of establishing Azawad once again with “several prominent Tuareg leaders [lobbying] for a separate Tuareg homeland consisting of northern Mali and parts of modern day Algeria, Niger, Mauritania. […] [However,] black politicians like Modibo Keita, Mali’s first President, made it clear that independent Mali would not cede its northern territories.[6]”

The First Tuareg Rebellion

In the 1960s, while the independence movements in Africa were beginning, the Tuareg once again vied for their own autonomy, known as the Afellaga rebellion. The Tuareg were greatly oppressed by the government of Modibo Keita, which came into power after the French had left, as they “were singled out for particular discrimination, and were more neglected than others in the distribution of state benefits,” which may have been due to the fact that “most of the senior leadership of post-colonial Mali were drawn from the southern ethnic groups who were not sympathetic to the pastoral culture of the northern desert nomads.”[7]

In addition to this, the Tuareg felt that the government’s policy of ‘modernization’ was in reality an attack on the Tuareg themselves as the Keita government enacted policies such as “land reform that threatened [the Tuareg’s] privileged access to agricultural products.”[8] Specifically, Keita “had moved increasingly in the direction of [establishing a version of] the Soviet collective farm and had created state corporations to monopolize the purchase of basic crops.”[9] In addition to this, Keita left customary land rights unchanged “except when the state needed land for industry or transport. Then the Minister of Rural Economy issued a decree of acquisition and registration in the name of the state, but only after publication of notice and a hearing to determine customary claims.”[10] Unfortunately for the Tuareg, this unchanging of customary land rights did not apply to the subsoil that was on their land. Instead, this subsoil was turned into a state monopoly due to Keita’s desire to ensure that no one became a capitalist based on the discovery of subsoil resources.

This had a major negative impact on the Tuareg as they had a pastoral culture and the subsoil helps to “determine what kind of crops can be grown in any area and, therefore, what livestock can be raised.”[11] Thus, by creating a state monopoly on subsoil, the Keita government was effectively in control of what the Tuareg would be able to grow and therefore in control of their very lives.

The Second Tuareg Rebellion

The raging inferno that was the spirit of independence of the Tuareg people once again came back to life in 1990. It must be noted that Tuareg had greatly changed since the 1960s and moved from a socialist government to a military dictatorship that (due to massive pressure from the people) quickly changed to a transitional government with military and civilian leaders, finally fully becoming democratic in 1992.[14]

While Mali was transitioning to a democracy, the Tuareg people were still suffering under the boot of oppression. Three decades after the first rebellion, the occupation of Tuareg communities still had not ended and “resentment fueled by the harsh repression, continued dissatisfaction with government policies, and perceived exclusion from political power led various Tuareg and Arab groups to begin a second rebellion against the Malian government.”[15] The second rebellion was sparked due to “attacks on non-Tuareg Malians [at] the southernmost edge of the Tuareg regions [which led to] skirmishes between the Malian army and Tuareg rebels.”[16]Yet it did not last long as the first major step to peace was made in 1991 by the transitional government and resulted in the Tamanrasset Accords, which was negotiated in Algeria between the military government of Lt. Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré (that had taken power in a coup on March 26, 1991) and the two major Tuareg factions, The Azaouad Popular Movement and the Arabic Islamic Front of Azawad, on January 6, 1991. In the Accords, the Malian military agreed to “disengage from the running of the civil administration and will proceed to the suppression of certain military posts,” “avoid zones of pasture land and densely populated zones,” to be “confined to their role of defense of the integrity of the territory at the frontiers,”[17] and created a ceasefire between the two main Tuareg factions and the government.

The transitionary government of Mali attempted to negotiate with the Tuareg. This culminated in the April 1992 National Pact between the Malian government and several Tuareg factions. The National Pact allowed for “integration of Tuareg combatants into the Malian armed forces, demilitarization of the north, economic integration of northern populations, and a more detailed special administrative structure for the three northern regions.”[19] After Alpha Konaré was elected president of Mali in 1992, he furthered the process of Tuareg autonomy by not only honoring the concessions made in the National Pact but by removing the structure of federal and regional governments and allowing authority to take hold at the local level. Yet, decentralization had a greater political purpose, as it “effectively co-opted the Tuareg by allowing them a degree of autonomy and the benefits of remaining in the Republic.”[20]

It must be noted that the introduction the Arabic Islamic Front of Azawad to the Tuareg rebellion is also the introduction of radical Islam to the Tuareg fight for independence. The emergence of radical Islam was greatly aided by the Gaddafi regime. During the 1970s many Tuareg had fled to Libya and other countries, mainly for economic opportunity. Once there, Gaddafi “welcomed them with open arms. He gave them food and shelter. He called them brothers. He also started training them as soldiers.”[22] Gaddafi then used these soldiers to found the Islamic Legion in 1972. The goal of the Legion was to “further [Gaddafi’s own] territorial ambitions in the African interior and advance the cause of Arab supremacy.”[23] The Legion was sent to fight the in Niger, Mali, Palestine, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. However, the Legion came to an end due to the price of oil declining in 1985, which meant that Gaddafi could no longer afford to recruit and train fighters. Coupled with the Legion’s crushing defeat in Chad, the organization was disbanded which left many Tuareg going back to their homes in Mali with large amounts of combat experience. The role of Libya played a role not only in the third Tuareg rebellion, but also in the current, ongoing fighting.[24]

The Third Tuareg Rebellion

The third rebellion was not so much a rebellion, but rather an insurgency that kidnapped and killed members of the Malian military. The insurgency began in May 2006, when “a group of Tuareg army deserters attacked military barracks in Kidal region, seizing weapons and demanding greater autonomy and development assistance.”[25] The former general Amadou Toumani Toure had won presidential elections in 2002 and reacted to the violence by working with a rebel coalition known as the Democratic Alliance for Change to establish a peace agreement that solely restated that Malian government’s commitment to improving the economy in the northern areas where the rebels lived. However, many rebels such as Ibrahim Ag Bahanga, who was killed just last year,[26] refused to abide by the peace treaty and continued to terrorize the Malian military until the government of Mali deployed a large offensive force to eliminate the insurgency.[27]

Yet, the fight for Tuareg independence remains and leads us into the current, ongoing rebellion.

The Current Rebellion

To understand this most recent rebellion, one must first go back to the ‘humanitarian’ intervention mission in Libya that was conducted by US-NATO forces in 2012. During the invasion of Libya, many Tuareg fighters fought in defense of the Gaddafi regime and once Gaddafi had been defeated, the majority of these fighters returned to Mali, armed with the weapons they had obtained while in Libya.[28] Once there, some of the fighters joined the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad which again started up the call for Tuareg independence and on January 17, 2012, began to attack towns in northern Mali.[29]

From there, the rebellion spread and the Tuareg making more and more headway in northern Mali would eventually have an effect on the government of Mali itself, namely in the form of a coup. Time Magazine noted that the coup began in March when “Sanogo led a mutiny at the garrison in Kati — a sleepy commune of cinder-block bungalows just north of the capital” and that it later “intensified into a coup.”[30] The coup eventually resulted in Sanogo taking power. In December 2012, it was reported that “Soldiers arrested Mali’s prime minister and forced him to resign before dawn on Tuesday” and that “coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo had ordered the prime minister’s arrest.”[31]

France

As was noted, Mali was a former colony of the French and thus it was not surprising when the French decided to intervene in Mali on the grounds that “Mali’s existence as a state was under threat”[34] and needing to protect the 6,000 French citizens living there. Airstrikes soon began to take place there, which was quite easy due to the proximity of French air bases near Mali.[35] Yet, there are more interests at stake than just protecting French citizens, namely oil.

The United States

The US has its own personal interests in Mali, which is why they have been backing the French in the form of transportation assistance.[40] The official line is that the main US concern is Al Qaeda, with the Congressional Research Service reporting that “The prospect of an expanded safe-haven for AQIM and other extremists and criminal actors in Mali is a principal concern for U.S. policymakers examining the situation in Mali and the wider region.”[41]

However, the real problem that the US has isn’t Al Qaeda, but rather China. China’s economic power has grown greatly within the past two years.

China’s trade with Africa reached $166 billion in 2011, according to Chinese statistics, and African exports to China – primarily resources to fuel Chinese industries – rose to $93 billion from $5.6 billion over the past decade. In July 2012 China offered African countries $20 billion in loans over the next three years, double the amount pledged in the previous three-year period.[42](emphasis added)

Thus, we see not only the increasing economic influence of China via trade, but also their increasing political clout due to the economic aid that China is giving African countries.

Canada

Unfortunately, even our friends up north have their own interests in Mali, with Canadian Prime Minister Harper giving transportation aid to the French and former diplomat Robert Folwer wanting Canada to play a bigger role.[46]

Like the French, Canada’s biggest interest in Mali is mining, mainly in the gold sector. The violence is currently hurting Canada’s mining interests, with CTV News stating that the violence threw a “monkey wrench in the Harper government’s ambitions for Canadian firms, especially in the mining sector” and that “The government is actively promoting Canadian business opportunities in Africa, but has no stomach for contributing troops to the French-led military campaign to drive al Qaeda-linked extremists out of northern Mali.”[47] Thus, while Harper are worried that the mining companies whom he has helped so much to make record profits will find themselves in trouble, he has no interests in getting his hands dirty to send troops to Mali.

h/t: Addicting Info

ALGIERS, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Islamist militants attacked a gas field in Algeria on Wednesday, claiming to have kidnapped up to 41 foreigners including seven Americans in a dawn raid in retaliation for France’s intervention in Mali, according to regional media reports.

The raiders were also reported to have killed three people, including a Briton and a French national.

An al Qaeda affiliated group said the raid had been carried out because of Algeria’s decision to allow France to use its air space for attacks against Islamists in Mali, where French forces have been in action against al Qaeda-linked militants since last week.

The attack in southern Algeria also raised fears that the French action in Mali could prompt further Islamist revenge attacks on Western targets in Africa, where al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operates across borders in the Sahara desert, and in Europe.

AQIM said it had carried out Wednesday’s raid on the In Amenas gas facility in Algeria, Mauritania’s ANI news agency reported.

The Algerian interior ministry said: “A terrorist group, heavily armed and using three vehicles, launched an attack this Wednesday at 5 a.m. against a Sonatrach base in Tigantourine, near In Amenas, about 100 km (60 miles) from the Algerian and Libyan border.”

A member of an Islamist group styling itself the “Blood Battalion” was quoted by Mauritanian media as saying that five of the hostages were being held at the gas facility and 36 were in a housing area. APS said the Islamist raiders had freed Algerians working at the gas facility.

Belmokhtar for years commanded al Qaeda fighters in the Sahara before setting up his own armed Islamist group late last year after an apparent fallout with other militant leaders.

H/T: HuffPo

WASHINGTON — An investigation into the State Department’s preparations for and management of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, has concluded that “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” within the department played a major role in the devastation that took place there last September.

Four Americans were killed in the overnight raid on the compound, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The ensuing controversy over the incident, and the administration’s handling of it, threatened to derail President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign through the fall.

The new report, by an independent Accountability Review Board established by the State Department, concluded that two bureaus at the department — Near East Affairs and Diplomacy Security — failed to properly recognize the rising dangers of Eastern Libya despite the lack of any specific threats, and neglected the growing concerns of security analysts on the ground about the capabilities of the local Libyan guard force.

The result, the report said, was a “security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.”

But while the unclassified version of the report, which was released Tuesday night, is undeniably harsh in its analysis of the State Department’s management ahead of the attack, it also appears to undermine a number of the more outlandish charges made during the heat of the uproar this fall.

For instance, while many figures — led, in large part, by the news analysts at Fox News — suggested that the administration had opted to watch the crisis unfold rather than send military reinforcements, the report found “no evidence of undue delays in decision making or denial of support from Washington.”

Many critics of the administration had raised question about why a team of specially trained military operators had been dispatched to an airfield in Italy but not, apparently, sent to help fend off the attack.

Another accusation rebutted by the report was the notion that senior-level officials had in some way refused to permit CIA operatives working out of a nearby annex to travel to the main compound to assist in repelling the attack.

That detail, first reported by Fox News, was not correct, the report said.

Instead, a “team leader” at the annex had “decided on his own” to delay leaving the facility briefly to see if local security elements would arrive with reinforcements. After “a brief delay,” and determining that they would not, the team leader made the decision to move some units toward the compound, the report said.

It is also not clear from the report if the attackers of the compound were aware that Ambassador Stevens was there on the night of the attack, or if he was their target.

The night before the attack, the report notes, local media turned up at an event that the embassy had believed to be an undisclosed meeting with the Benghazi City Council, meaning that at least some people in town were aware of Stevens’ visit.

The report also upholds much of the basic outline of the course of events on the ground in Benghazi as described by the State Department in a briefing for reporters that took place almost a month after the attack, and adds some striking details of bravery.

And while the report does not focus on the more heated controversy about how the Obama administration opted to share information with the public about the raid, it does make clear that the initial claim that the attack was simply an outgrowth of a larger protest is not correct. There was no protest outside the compound, the report states.

In a letter accompanying the release of the report, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said her department was accepting all 24 of the report’s recommendations.

I knew what the #TCOT morons have been saying about Benghazi was just lies and myths and was also a power play of trickery to attempt to get Scott Brown back in the Senate.

h/t: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — An independent panel charged with investigating the deadly Sept. 11 attack in Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans has concluded that systematic management and leadership failures at the State Department led to “grossly” inadequate security at the mission in Benghazi.

“Systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place,” the panel said.

The report singled out the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Bureau of Near East Affairs for criticism, saying there appeared to be a lack of cooperation and confusion over protection at the mission in Benghazi, a city in Eastern Libya that was relatively lawless after the revolution that toppled Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

Despite those failures, the Accountability Review Board determined that no individual officials ignored or violated their duties and recommended no disciplinary action now. But it also said poor performance by senior managers should be grounds for disciplinary recommendations in the future.

The report appeared to break little new ground about the timeline of the Benghazi attack during which Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens, information specialist Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods — who were contractors working for the CIA — were killed. Stevens’ slaying was the first of a U.S. ambassador since 1988.

But it confirmed that contrary to initial accounts, there was no protest outside the consulate and said responsibility for the incident rested entirely with the terrorists who attacked the mission.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, administration officials linked the attack to the spreading protests over an American-made, anti-Islamic film that had begun in Cairo earlier that day. Those comments came after evidence already pointed to a distinct militant attack. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on numerous TV talk shows the Sunday after the attack and used the administration talking points linking it to the film. An ensuing brouhaha in the heat of the presidential campaign eventually led her to withdraw her name from consideration to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state in President Barack Obama’s second term.

The review board determined that there had been no immediate, specific tactical warning of a potential attack on the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. However, the report said there had been several worrisome incidents in the run-up to the attack that should have set off warning bells.

On Thursday, the State Department’s two deputy secretaries, William Burns and Thomas Nides, will testify in open sessions before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Clinton was to have appeared at Thursday’s hearing but canceled after fainting and sustaining a concussion last week while recovering from a stomach virus that dehydrated her. Clinton is under doctors’ orders to rest.

The Benghazi attack has highlighted the larger question of how U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers can do their jobs in unstable environments, as al-Qaida spreads across Africa, without also expanding their security. Diplomats have said that overreacting to the attack could produce what some are calling a “Benghazi effect” that would wall them off from the people they are supposed to be engaging.

In her letter to lawmakers, Clinton said, “We will never prevent every act of terrorism or achieve perfect security” but she stressed that “our diplomats cannot work in bunkers.”

“We must accept a level of risk to protect this country we love and to advance our interests and values around the world,” she said.

h/t: Washington Post

National security journalist Tom Ricks appeared on Fox News to blast the network’s incessant coverage of the attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. After saying that “Benghazi was hyped, by this network especially,” Ricks went on to say that “the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political, partly because Fox was operating as a wing of the Republican Party.”

Indeed, Fox has relentlessly hyped the Benghazi attack — and repeatedly pushed distortions of the events that happened before, during, and after the attack.

For example, Fox claimed that the Obama administration’s statements that an anti-Islam video played a role in the attack were indicative of an administration “cover-up”; in fact, reports confirm that some of the attackers say they were motivated by the video. Fox has also attacked Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., for linking the video to the attacks in a series of Sunday show appearances, even though Rice was accurately conveying the consensus of the intelligence community at the time. Fox even suggested that the Obama administration abandoned Americans to die in Benghazi, despite the fact that reinforcements were sent to Benghazi from Tripoli on the night of the attack.

JON SCOTT (co-host): Pressure mounting on the Obama administration over its response to the deadly attack on our consulate in Benghazi, as [Fox News correspondent] Catherine Herridge reported just minutes ago. Several top GOP lawmakers are backing off their criticism of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, instead focusing on the White House. Two senators even expressing concerns about a possible White House cover-up. Let’s talk about it with Tom Ricks. He is author of The Generals. He has spent decades covering our military. He joins us now.

Senator John McCain said in the past he would block any attempt to nominate Susan Rice to become U.N. — I’m sorry, secretary of state. She’s currently the U.N. ambassador. He seems to be backing away from that. What do you make of it? 

RICKS: I think that Benghazi generally was hyped, by this network especially, and that now that the campaign is over,  I think he’s backing off a little bit. They’re not going to stop Susan Rice from being secretary of state.

SCOTT: When you have four people dead, including the first dead U.N. ambassador — U.S. ambassador in more than 30 years, how do you call that hype?

RICKS: How many security contractors died in Iraq, do you know?

SCOTT: I don’t. 

RICKS: No. Nobody does, because nobody cared. We know that several hundred died, but there was never an official count done of security contractors dead in Iraq. So when I see this focus on what was essentially a small firefight, I think, number one, I’ve covered a lot of firefights. It’s impossible to figure out what happens in them sometimes. And second, I think that the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political, partly because Fox was operating as a wing of Republican Party.

SCOTT: All right. Tom Ricks, thanks very much for joining us today.

RICKS: You’re welcome. 

h/t: MMFA

President Obama has not yet even made a final determination on whom he will appoint to serve as his administration’s secretary of state during his second term, but Congressional Republicans are already severely concerned about one possible nominee: Susan Rice, who currently serves as ambassador to the United Nations. Even though the House of Representatives has no role whatsoever in the appointment or confirmation of cabinet-level appointments, 97 House Republicans have signed a letter to President Obama opposing the possible nomination of Ambassador Rice to head the Department of State, presumably because House Republicans have never had anything better to do since their 2010 ascension besides attack the president for things he hasn’t even done yet.

The opposition to the potential nomination of Ambassador Rice is rooted in Republican desperation to turn the tragedy in Benghazi into a scandal for the Obama administration. The Romney campaign was licking its chops at the prospect of attacking President Obama on Benghazi until facts stubbornly got in the way. Joe Scarborough decided to interrupt an entire broadcast and repeated the word “Benghazi” no fewer than 23 times on air. And now, Republicans have it in for Susan Rice, who, according to the previously mentioned letter, is too incompetent to head up the state department:

“Though Ambassador Rice has been our Representative to the U.N., we believe her misleading statements over the days and weeks following the attack on our embassy in Libya that led to the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans caused irreparable damage to her credibility both at home and around the world,” the letter reads, later adding: “Ambassador Rice is widely viewed as having either willfully or incompetently misled the American public in the Benghazi affair.”

The accusations of incompetence leveled against Rice derive from her appearance on Sunday morning talk shows, in which she attributed the incident at Benghazi to protests against a sacrilegious anti-Islam movie, rather than a premeditated attack. Rice, of course, was simply repeating the most current intelligence assessments available at the time, but that hasn’t stopped Republicans in the House, as well as Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, from trying to stop any potential nomination of her in its tracks before it even gets started.

And yet, on January 26, 2005, Condoleezza Rice was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 85-13. Voting in favor? Lindsey Graham, as well as John McCain. Why? Because they, like so many of their Republican colleagues, are nothing more than hypocrites who believe that their past actions and statements can simply slip down the memory hole without anyone remembering.

Legendary civil rights leader and current Congressman James Clyburn (D-S.C.) felt that the accusations against Rice smacked of racial dog whistles—and given the way Republicans have acted since President Obama was first elected, that argument certainly holds weight. However, I feel it is preferable to compare this situation to the last time a black woman with the last name of Rice was considered for an appointment as secretary of state.

h/t: Dante Atkins at Daily Kos

The leader of the Religious Right gun group Gun Owners of America is warning that the government, through the health care reform law and a new service program, is going after everyday Americans. Pratt, the organization’s executive director who has ties to white supremacists, appeared on VCY America’s Crosstalk to float a number of conspiracies. Pratt alleged that the left is to blame for the Benghazi attack because of its “profound dislike of self-defense” and refusal to “believe in self-defense either personally or as a matter of national self-defense.”

But Pratt wasn’t done yet, as he went on to say that Obamacare will help the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to “take away your guns.”

There’s a big one that doesn’t get much attention as a gun measure but it is, and that’s Obamacare. Obamacare among its many unconstitutional aspects, I’m sorry Supreme Court, has made privacy something that only applies between consenting adults but not certainly our relationship with the government. It says that all of our medical records are available to be pawed through by bureaucrats somewhere in Washington, looking for a reason to disenfranchise gun owners, to say ‘oh you have a medical diagnosis that means you might be a danger to yourself or others so we’re going to come and knock on the door for the BATF to take away your guns.’

Of course, the law that screens out people such as mentally ill individuals through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to prevent them from purchasing guns was signed by President Bush, and the health care reform law [PDF] explicitly does not allow for a gigantic gun owner database or discrimination against people who own guns.

Last time I checked, the President (and basically the entire Democratic Party for that matter) will NEVER take away your guns.!

H/T: Brian Tashman at RWW

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is accusing the Obama Administration of adopting a “false narrative” on the attack at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans were killed.

Bachmann insisted on “further investigation” in a statement issued by her office Friday, Patch reports. Bachmann issued the statement as a response to General David Petraeus’s testimony before Congress on the raid.

Bachmann also demanded more information on Obama’s knowledge of the attack, comparing the incident in Benghazi to the killing of Osama bin Laden.

“Ultimately, President Obama is responsible for the actions of his national security team and it is incomprehensible that we have yet to hear what the President knew, when he knew it, and the specific orders he gave his team,” Bachmann’s statementsaid. “Almost immediately after Osama bin Laden was killed the Obama administration starting releasing specific details… By contrast, two months after the terrorist attacks in Benghazi… we have little knowledge of what the President knew and what his actions were.”

This isn’t the first time Bachmann has criticized Obama over the Benghazi attack. Speaking at the 2012 Values Voter Summit in September, Bachmann said Obama’s “supposedly genius foreign policy” is being “exposed for what it really is” after the attack.

h/t: Huffington Post

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has not hesitated to voice his distaste towards U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who may be nominated to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. On Face the Nation Sunday morning, McCain went even further than simply opposing Rice’s nomination and said that, “until we find out all the information” on the Benghazi consulate attacks, he would not support any Secretary of State nominee.

McCain at first said it “might be a beginning” if Rice could come on the program to explain her position. But when pressed by host Bob Schieffer, the Arizona senator dug in and refused to support any nominee “under the present circumstances”:

SCHIEFFER: Until then, you will remain opposed to her nomination?

MCCAIN: Under the present circumstances, until we find out all the information as to what happened, I don’t think you would want to support any nominee right now. Because this is very very serious and it has even larger implications than the deaths of 4 Americans. It really goes to the heart of this whole light foot print policy that this administration is pursuing.

h/t: Aviva Shen at Think Progress