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You Die, She Lies (Libya Edition)
Hillary must be tipping the diplomatic sherry again, because she seems to be just making this stuff up as she (burp) goes along. Let’s start with her ever-so-earnest Tweets, showing her grave concern over the deaths of her foreign service colleagues in Libya:
If any of that was true, she’d turn into a pumpkin for Halloween. Instead of the blah blah concern for everyone garbage, let’s look at the facts:
–The attack was September 11. The investigatory accountability review board has not yet started to meet, almost a month later. Clinton took a leisurely nine days after the attack to even announce forming the group.
The board’s existence was just announced on October 4 in the Federal Register, along with a note that “Anyone with information relevant to the Board’s examination of the Benghazi incidents should contact the Board promptly at (202) 647-6246 or send a fax to the Board at (202) 647-6640.” So, all you terrorists and random Libyans with info, please be sure to phone in during business hours, preferably in English, or dig out an old fax machine.P.S. The point is to ensure the report comes out after the election.
–The compound in Benghazi, which spokesdrone Nuland refers to as a crime scene, is still unsecured and sensitive documents, including names of Libyans working for and with the U.S., are scattered on the ground.You can see these sensitive documents online, and not Wikileaks this time!
Since State’s Nuland had a kitten when CNN found the Ambassador’s diary, she must had laid a whole litter over this.
–No one has interviewed many Libyans with first-hand knowledge of what happened.
–The FBI can’t get to the crime scene apparently, but the Washington Post can.
–For all the babble about how well the Consulate was protected, it turns out that the British contract guard company (Blue Mountain) which is all SAS Who-Dares-Wins on their web site, just hired some local thugs to do the work for $28 a day.Hell, you can even see their contract, left on the ground in Libya. (page 7)
–Even when Blue Mountain felt the security provided was “substandard and the situation was unworkable” and the Libyans tried to bring in a third party — an American contractor — to improve security, a State Department contract officer declined to get involved. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the department’s investigation “likely” would address the issue.
–White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to comment on an assertion by the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that requests from diplomats in Libya for added security prior to the September 11, 2012 attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, were denied. However, Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom, who was stationed in Libya from September 2011 to June 2012, confirmed for the House Committee the security incidents cited in the letter, and confirmed that the mission in Libya made security requests.
–The Consulate’s backup plan in case of attack was to contact a local “friendly” militia. So much for the Libyan government. You can even see the formal diplomatic note to the militia (page 8).
Of course this isn’t the first time that Hillary has said one thing and done another, so it is really no big deal.
Sleep tight America’s diplomats around the world, mama’s got your back.
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liberti said...
1Per usual, brilliant analysis of reality vs myth.
Hope you’re still not mentioning the possibility of Ms. Shrillary in 2016.
10/4/12 2:43 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
2Getting kicked out of Iraq and Afghanistan, we had to find a new fix for our addiction: http://rt.com/usa/news/us-attack-libya-military-583/
Guess “the plan worked.” http://www.newser.com/story/154461/us-official-on-libya-our-security-plan-worked.html
10/4/12 2:43 PM | Comment Link
Kyzl Orda said...
3How bad is it that the contractor gave a pass on this? But if you have worked in the State Department, is that really surprising?
How often are the people picked to take care of contracts for strategic portfolios from the same company that is involved in the contract, ie they carry out some or alot of the programs on behalf of State or the person hired is the docile, ‘yes, sir’ kind of employee?? How often are civil service positions filled through ostensibly competitive process yet the job candidate is already pre-identified?
In ECA Bureau, under our former DAS – his organization made nearly $1 billion in profits carrying out State programs and that HR rule that says employees from contract organizations must wait a year before joining State – was repeatedly and deliberately violated. If any civil service staff asked questions about the conduct of something, they were accused of being “too into their jobs” and shunted aside or worse. The preference was for bringing in certain people and the “competitive” hiring process was grossly manipulated as the job applicants were already pre-identified. There is a reason some of these rules are in place. If an agency can turn a blind eye on the ordinary, seemingly low-key aspects of HR matters, what’s going on in the areas for higher priority programs??
Common sense and security procedures should have ruled. In light of a revolution and prior incident, what compelled the approval for how security was being handled even after concerns were raised? Was nothing looked into? Why would concerns by the post’s ambassador just be ignored? Was someone trying to profit from this arrangement or did someone want to cut corners in a divorced-from-reality sort of way? How much was Blue Mountain making per day since it has been mentioned the subcontractor received $28 per day or is that each guard hired by the subcontractor received $28 per day?
10/4/12 6:45 PM | Comment Link
Kyzl Orda said...
4*State contracts officer
10/4/12 6:46 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
5As the State Department is now a militarized zone, don’t expect anyone to be held accountable for the Benghazi Blunder:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/top-military-officer-opposes-demotion-of-former-africa-command-general-accused-of-misconduct/2012/10/04/d7642918-0e6d-11e2-ba6c-07bd866eb71a_story.html
10/5/12 12:10 AM | Comment Link
Kyzl Orda said...
6I entertain *NO* such expectations anyone would be held accountable at State above a rank of GS 13. a head rolls, it’s gonna be some low ranking person. The article linked to the Post doesn’t exactly inspire confidence either. It’s an amazing feat we are hearing about it at all. How lucky we are to have such efficient bureacrats
10/5/12 2:21 AM | Comment Link
Kyzl Orda said...
7Al Jazeera is reporting the Libyan PM, Mustafa Abushagar, was forced to withdraw his proposed list of candidates for cabinet positions after 100-150 protestors made their way into the room where the Libyan Congress had been meeting and some of the Congressionals walked out protesting the nominees.
Apparently, the list contained mostly Islamist figures and none from the largest party in the government, the National Forces Alliance whose leader was one of the rebel heads. (article link below)
This power jockeying has been going on for months in Libya. The PM had no compunction putting this kind of list out there. Wasn’t our side aware of Libya’s domestic political scene enough to realize this was a tenuous political situation which, if using logic, would mean the security at the Benghazi post was not going to be adequate?
Somewhere, these concerns may have been buried along the reporting chain. Unless our current admin has continued the a practice from a prior admin of hiring people, of course through the “competitive” process, who had no concept of the Middle East and, worse, didn’t think they needed to know but they were loyal to their bosses or perhaps some prior contractor for whom they worked, if not always their own party.
It’s a sad given the high-ups are going to parrot what those below them, and possibly responsible for the mess, are going to feed them. The fact the high ups have now had to shift lame excuses more than once should be a wake up call for them – hey, those idiots you’ve been covering for may not exactly have our country’s interests first in mind. Maybe it’s time to roll the right heads?
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/10/201210572211744750.html
10/5/12 1:18 PM | Comment Link