Amateur Diplomacy, Typical White House Politics, Tragic Consequences

We have known for some time that the State Department, aka Hilary Clinton, was responsible for “heavy substantive revisions” to what the news accounts refer to as “CIA talking points.” Talking points?  Aren’t talking points what politicians use for political pronouncements?  Why were talking points needed to convey information about events in Benghazi? Oh, wait. It was a political pronouncement. The president’s repeated claim, that he had ended terrorism by killing Osama Ben Laden, would combust if it became known only two months prior to the 2012 election that terrorists were responsible for the attack in Benghazi,

And so Hillary’s shop “fixed’ what the CIA told them by deleting a few items. For example, the reference to “Islamic extremists,” reminders of agency warnings about al Qaeda in Libya, reference to “jihadists” in Cairo, and the possible surveillance of the facility in Benghazi.

Versions of Administration Talking Points

Gregory Hicks, assistant to slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, in his testimony before Congress, provided an explanation of why it took the FBI team so long to get to Benghazi. He explained that Libyan President Magariaf was insulted by having his credibility challenged before his people and before the world by Susan Rice. He was furious at being contradicted by the Obama administration narrative of  “the video was the trigger for the attack.” Hicks said the diplomatic gaffe contributed to the FBI team being stuck in Tripoli for about 17 days. He said the U.S. could not even get the Libyans to secure the crime scene during this time. “I definitely believe that It (the Obama administration’s video ruse) negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team quickly to Benghazi.”

Not publicly contradicting another head of state would seem to be diplomacy 101, but Barack and Hillary must have cut class that day.

Mark Thompson, former Marine and a member of the State Department’s Counterterrorism, Bureau, was asked why more military assets were not deployed during the Benghazi attack. He stated that the White House rebuffed him when he asked for a specialized team to be deployed. So much for the president’s claim that all available resources were deployed and no one was ordered to stand down.

So now we know, if we didn’t before, that the so-called Accountability Review Board was mostly a whitewash. Hicks also testified that a team of Special Forces was prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks but was told to stand down by U.S. Special Operations Command South Africa. Who, if not the president, or someone acting with his authority, could shut down a mission to help besieged Americans?

The congressional inquiry into Benghazi is going to stain more than Hilary Clinton’s pantsuit. President Harry Truman had a sign on desk that read, “The buck stops here.” In his farewell address to the American people in 1953, he elaborated: “The President–whoever he is–has to decide. He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job.”

A president cannot vote “present,” “lead from behind,” or absent himself during a crisis as Obama reportedly did on September 11, 2012.

Truman would have been appalled. The Main Stream Media ought to be.