Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Why nothing said in the Benghazi hearings matter.

Representative Darrell Issa's got his political mojo on today, by holding a public hearing on Benghazi that was supposed to show that the Obama administration and former Secretary Clinton dropped the ball.  Only problem is, when events unfold in real time under extreme duress, information gets mixed up and conflated.

Things get foggy.
Put it this way: Almost nothing that we were told in real time, between Friday and Saturday evenings, about the Boston Marathon bombers, was true.  Even the police misheard information being transmitted over police radio, and misconstrued events in real time.

Yet, somehow Issa and his Republican partisans believe that there should be a political price to pay for the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, and have thus decided that decisions could and should have been made immediately and correctly to prevent the deaths of these four Americans in Benghazi.

They should have beefed up security long before!
Maybe.  But then again, ALL US Embassies are targets.  It wasn't as though there was chatter that hinted at the US Embassy in Benghazi was being targeted.  But anyway, Republicans were the ones who slashed the State Department's budget.  How are you going to pay for beefed up security, when you have LESS money than the previous year?  We were warned two years ago, and then again last year, of the consequences of those State Department cuts made by the Republican House.  Funny how they turned a deaf ear and a blind eye towards their culpability to the security lapses in Benghazi, eh?

They should have sent a fighter jet to scare the terrorists away!
Well, I don't know about how terrorists react to the sounds of jets, but if they did run away, what's to stop them from setting up their portable mortar launchers and engage the US compound?  I would imagine that terrorists are a bit more tenacious than to be permanently scared away from the sounds of a jet flying overhead.  After all, they already had drones flying overhead, and if the threat of drones overhead didn't scare anyone, why would fighter jets?

They should have sent in Special Forces!
Just to be clear, it took months of prep for the Special Forces to take on the mission of getting Osama Bin Laden -- you saw Zero Dark Thirty, right?  Even if on a quick mission to take out a target, there is planning involved, and coordination.  Besides, you don't need Special Forces training to take on terrorists involved in a firefight.  It'd make more sense to send in the closest armed folks who are on your side, than to wait around for Special Forces, going in blind (no information about where the target is), which is exactly what happened.

It's just folly.
At a time of sequester cuts and reduced federal budgets, Chairman Issa's spent your tax dollars on these silly poster images.  What's next...a movie?  I understand that his role in the House Oversight Committee is to look over these sorts of things, but really, you're going to spend money and time, producing these silly poster images that already state your position on the matter?  Where's the oversight on the oversight committee?

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