Deadly Mix in Benghazi: False Allies, Crude Video
December 28, 2013 4:11 PM   Subscribe

A new piece of investigative reporting by the New York Times would suggest vindication to some degree of the U.S. government's original explanation of the 2012 Benghazi Attack, which proposed that the attack developed from a spontaneous protest in anger over the anti-Islamic youtube video, Innocence of Muslims. Despite this being the explanation that the intelligence community found most probable given their quick, initial analysis of the empirical data, the government faced much criticism for it. Susan Rice, who might have otherwise became the new Secretary of State, was one individual who got caught in the crossfire. Senator McCain once remarked that, "she has proven that she either doesn't understand or she is not willing to accept evidence on its face. There is no doubt five days later what this attack was and for." But as the NYT indicates, what truly happened there in Benghazi is, "murkier and more complex than initially believed."
posted by SollosQ (25 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
Interesting, but ultimately irrelevant. This is spilled milk in the milk hurricane that is American foreign involvement. It's a single-digit tragedy that Republicans are cynically and artificially manipulating into a political opportunity. It's gross - this was in incident that took 4 lives at the tail end of a conflict that claimed tens of thousands. We should learn what we can, and use appropriate channels to bring perpetrators to justice, then we should move on with our lives and stop feeding the trolls.

On another note, I like the NYTimes long form web design.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 4:52 PM on December 28, 2013 [20 favorites]


(That's not a criticism of this post, just of the ridiculous way this has been used by conservative politicians and their associated media organizations as a political wedge)
posted by Salvor Hardin at 4:54 PM on December 28, 2013 [7 favorites]


Ultimately irrelevant because a disturbing chunk of Americans will get as far as "by the New York Times" and dismiss it out of hand as Socialist Propaganda from Pravda On The Hudson, ghostwritten by Bill Ayers and shadowy sources from KENYATOWN, KENYA.

Sarah Palin will hold up the headline and declare it PROOF that there is a CONSPIRACY because otherwise the LAMESTREAM MEDIA wouldn't work so hard to try to prove otherwise.

Louie Gohmert will blame the abortionist lobby, MSNBC and the Reverse Vampires.

The circus never ends. The clowns just take turns in the center ring.
posted by delfin at 5:05 PM on December 28, 2013 [17 favorites]


One thing that made Benghazi significant was it was when Senator McCain fully committed himself to wearing the clown makeup.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:08 PM on December 28, 2013 [5 favorites]


One thing that made Benghazi significant was it was when Senator McCain fully committed himself to wearing the clown makeup.

That happened when he chose Palin in 2008.
posted by Sangermaine at 5:20 PM on December 28, 2013 [22 favorites]


between the crazy people here and the crazy people over there it's really fucking depressing.
posted by angrycat at 5:26 PM on December 28, 2013 [6 favorites]


I refuse to accept any explanation that doesn't fit in a 48pt headline.
posted by petrilli at 5:36 PM on December 28, 2013 [4 favorites]


angrycat - can we just send all the crazy people somewhere together? I hear Antarctica is nice this time of year.
posted by petrilli at 5:36 PM on December 28, 2013


Ultimately irrelevant because a disturbing chunk of Americans will get as far as "by the New York Times" and dismiss it out of hand

I was excited to see this post, because I've been waiting for something like this to share with someone who has, uh, different opinions on Benghazi than I do. Then I got to "New York Times" and thought, Nope. I marked it as a favorite anyway, just in case I get desperate.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:06 PM on December 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


As a society, we should strive to remember that things are often, if not always, "murkier and more complex than initially believed."
posted by 1367 at 8:03 PM on December 28, 2013 [9 favorites]


Hey hey hey, leave Antarctica out of it. It's got its share of crazy people already, and they're at least doing useful and interesting science.
posted by rtha at 8:05 PM on December 28, 2013 [11 favorites]


Ultimately irrelevant because a disturbing chunk of Americans will get as far as "by the New York Times" and dismiss it out of hand as Socialist Propaganda from Pravda On The Hudson,

Well, you can always remind these people of Judith Miller.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:50 PM on December 28, 2013 [3 favorites]


Uncertainty is the conservative equivalent of an amateur mechanic's crow bar: appropriate in some places, otherwise it's just applying a brute force method.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 8:53 PM on December 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


One page version anywhere?
posted by maryr at 9:30 PM on December 28, 2013


It's hilarious and sad that there are people who won't read a New York Times article because the paper is "too liberal." Fun exercise: Go through American history and find a war the New York Times didn't support, or actively print falsehoods in support of? Good luck.
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:25 PM on December 28, 2013 [5 favorites]


At least personally, I'm really curious to see the internal reaction by the government. I haven't kept up with it, but my understanding was that the intelligence community and all eventually did come to believe that this was an orchestrated terrorist action by Al Qaeda.

Although perhaps the development of the government's opinion has long not been published, and eventually did return to something along the lines of the NYT article. There might be some suggestion of this given a mention that U.S. investigators were looking to get their hands on the individual the NYT targeted as the perpetrator.
posted by SollosQ at 11:32 PM on December 28, 2013 [1 favorite]



Senator McCain once remarked that, "she has proven that she either doesn't understand or she is not willing to accept evidence on its face. There is no doubt five days later what this attack was and for."


Christ, what an asshole!
posted by Golden Eternity at 12:46 AM on December 29, 2013 [2 favorites]








Nebel des Krieges is no respecter of persons, and blinds all participants. Technology may gather more information, but not necessarily more truth.
posted by cenoxo at 8:59 AM on December 29, 2013


Bullshit outrage turns out to be bullshit.;

Color me unsurprised.
posted by edheil at 10:31 AM on December 29, 2013


Politico:
Issa on defense over Benghazi statements

Rep. Darrell Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on Sunday defended his past statements on Benghazi in response to a New York Times story that said it had “turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault.”

“There is a group that was involved that claims an affiliation with Al Qaeda,” the California Republican said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” insisting that he was accurate in his past assertion that Al Qaeda was involved in the attacks.

Issa’s committee has been investigating last year’s assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, and the congressman has repeatedly slammed the Obama administration for its handling of the issue.

On Sunday, “Meet the Press” host David Gregory asked Issa to respond to The Times story, which was published online Saturday. The story also said the Benghazi attacks were “fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.”

“We have seen no evidence that the video was widely seen in Benghazi,” Issa said Sunday. “People from this administration … have said under oath there was no evidence of any reaction to a video.

“What we know, David, is the initial reports did not name this video as the prime cause,” he added.

Issa also commended The Times for doing “some very good work” in its reporting on the issue.
posted by XMLicious at 2:50 PM on December 29, 2013


The Daily Beast has a piece that leans toward the GOP version of events but takes pains to make close distinctions: Yes, There IS Evidence Linking al Qaeda to Benghazi This version isn't ironclad, but does suggest that if there are groups that have communicated with al Qaeda or have personnel links then saying there is "an al Qaeda connection" is not that far off. It also points out a curious omission (of the Jamal Network) in the NYT piece, not even as dismissal. The main underlying narrative seems to be that militants in Libya may have reasons for making their own claims about the matter, but on the other hand, there's no analysis of why this might be the case. Certainly claiming al Qaeda as an actor here would only serve to increase US participation in a normal political sense, but US domestic politics might mean the opposite is true (i.e. GOP wanting a reason to hit the Obama administration over the head whatever tack they take).

My own thinking on this from the beginning was that it's pretty absurd to claim this as an al Qaeda operation, the (apparently accidental) success of having the ambassador's head and the calendar date notwithstanding. It's just small potatoes for them. I mean, some of the pushback on FOX seems to be that the mortar attack on the CIA annex was too accurate for amateurs, but sheesh, this was a country that just fought a war -- there might be one or two crack artillerymen out there freelancing. By the same token, high explosives should not be in short supply and al Qaeda "style" is always as audacious and sudden as possible -- and when have they ever hidden behind a protest? Their thing is small groups hitting fast at prominent targets, and this is just the opposite in almost every way. They're also not shy about taking credit, although some of the communication lines are pretty fraught these days. Not much to claim "ha ha, in a country still wracked by civil war and short of security we still managed to pierce your imperial defenses" when it amounts to scaring the guards away from a gate and setting some smoky fires (with, albeit, deadly effect). Talk about failing to demonstrate their continued prowess -- this was amateur hour.

Anyway, Cole makes two salient points (or did in his own self quote), which is that a) the GOP knows that Obama is limited in what he can reveal without peeling the onion off the intelligence side of the GWOT, and b) there are interesting suggestions that the whole video project was ginned up to make trouble for him.
posted by dhartung at 5:39 PM on December 29, 2013


I finally read This Fine Article and it's pretty solid. The NYT has greatly disappointed me in the past too, but when they do this kind of investigative journalism they sometimes do it right. Do they have a standard print version too? This kind of interactive they're doing is neat, but I fear it doesn't find the audience a standard print article does.

The problem with the article is that it's too easy to say "they got it wrong". Basically you're left to trust that David D. Kirkpatrick's analysis and summary is correct. I'm willing to trust that, certainly more than a few Republican assholes with a talking point, but those assholes can always say "nuh uh!" and who knows the truth?

Speaking of which, fuck those guys on the right (and on the left) who turned the Benghazi attack into partisan politics. It's absolutely disgusting. State Department employees dedicate their lives to public service for the US, their careers, their very lives. It used to be that both parties respected that and mostly kept hands off the day to day stuff of the rank and file. But the Republicans chose to twist this event for political gain and it dishonors the memory of all of America's State Department employees in foreign postings.

RIP Vile Rat (aka Sean Smith).
posted by Nelson at 2:43 AM on December 30, 2013 [3 favorites]


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