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Et Tu, Petraeus?
- Thread starter STOVLer
- Start date
I guess I'm confused on the basis upon which the right is upset about Benghazi. As best as I can tell, there was an attack, then there was confusion about the origins of the attack and the admin talking heads weren't all on the same sheet of music. Now that more facts are known, people seem to agree that it was a terrorist attack. People should (and presumably will) be held accountable for any intelligence failures, or failure to provide security, or any other fuck -ups, etc. Presumably with the investigation still ongoing, it's probably too early to draw any hard and fast conclusions. Yes, there has been a certain amount of political jockeying, especially with the election - what else is new. If this were an aircraft mishap, would we all be so demanding of answers and hard conclusions before the investigation was complete?
What am I missing?
What am I missing?
Simple.
Using your analogy, immediately following a mishap, do squadron COs go public with what they feel are the "causal" factors? For example, would you expect a CO to go on TV, slap the table, immediately proclaim, "The plane crashed into the neighborhood and killed four people because the pilot was high on angel dust"? What if, as time went on and the investigation proceeded, it became abundantly clear that there was no angel dust, and the aircraft actually crashed because of a series of maintenance mis-steps, poor aeronautical decision-making, etc. As has been pointed out on this site over and over again, we are obscenely "closed" with our mishap investigations, until the appropriate people have had time to thoroughly investigate it and come to a conclusion.
Your aircraft mishap parallel did not happen with this incident. I'm not going to get into a political discussion (nothing good can come of it), but the table was apparently slapped - there was no "confusion" early on: It was declared in numerous statements/press conferences that there was an angry mob due to some video. A conclusion was jumped to...but, as time is passing, it is becoming more and more obvious that the wrong conclusion was jumped to in the immediate aftermath.
What is wrong with demanding answers as to why a U. S. Ambassador was killed on duty?
The whole Benghazi brew-ha-ha (in my mind, anyway) has nothing to do with whether it was due to the video or a planned AQ attack. It has to do with what actions were or were not taken to provide an appropriate response and spare the lives of four Americans. Who gives a shit about the public affairs buffoonery that followed? Its about the operational competency as the situation unfolded.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
Oh I can play the slippery slope game, too...
Adm [name] resigned because he got arrested for jay walking. This is an obvious character floor that is unacceptable in senior military officers. Who knows what other nefarious deeds he may have committed?
From: Congressmen Peter King R-NY said: "I strongly believe that General Petreaus has to testify, if not this week, then the following week or sometime very soon because it's not the CIA director who has to testify, it's the person who was involved at the time of Benghazi. And that was David Petreaus,"
It's not really a slippery slope. Gen. Petreaus apparently had an affair while fighting the wars and sought to keep it secret. The desire to keep such a thing secret makes the affair an obvious, if somewhat small, security concern. The affair itself is unethical. His character is no longer one of unimpeachable integrity, which is what I previously thought of him. It's not really a question of, "what else is he hiding" so much as it is a concern along the lines of, "his integrity is no longer beyond reproach."
Comparing that to a public arrest for a traffic violation is silly. That's not apples and oranges; it's different food groups entirely.
I see where you're coming from, but in that sense, my analogy isn't perfect. The press and public generally demand answers in a crisis, and while the administration could have said "we're not telling you anything until the investigation is complete," that wouldn't have been a politically viable option. I don't deny that that part of the crisis was mishandled and highlights the principle we're all aware of - never believe first reports. That said, some seem to imply some kind of conspiratorial or deliberate obfuscation of what happened, where I see only bureaucratic bungling.
What I'm trying to say with the airacraft mishap analogy is that now (after everything was mishandled initially), we ought to let the investigation proceed to get to the facts so we can apply lessons learned and hold those who were negligent accountable. Seems like a reasonable COA to me.
I am almost on board with this. But there is very rarely any political context to an aircraft mishap. In this case there is (was). The administration is trying to have it both ways. Coming out too soon with highly flawed information and when that falls flat they want to shut everything down until the investigation is complete. Investigations even in the best of circumstances take a while and in a political context, especially just before an election, that is just too easy to abuse. The longer it takes the less people will care when it all comes out. Whatever "all" is. The investigation itself, therefore becomes political by virtue of its timing if nothing else. I also don't think we should have to rely on the official investigation as the best and final word. The press has a roll to play in these things. By all accounts, whether you approve of their narrative or not, the press has come up with lots of information, reports and documents that the government has not been very eager to release or couldn't/ wouldn't obtain on their own. The press had people in the compound before the FBI arrived in town. Documents that will make it into the official report have been obtained by the press because the government either didn't get there before the press or was collected by the press even after the FBI had been on site. Good on them. I don't think any serious person is saying the investigation shouldn't go on. The argument made is that the press should stop asking questions and reporting on the event until after the investigation is complete. I reject that. Moreover, most of those folks have come to their own pre investigation conclusion that there is nothing to the story. What makes them any different than a person that thinks, before all the facts are revealed, that it is cover up to protect the political? The Watergate investigations came about because of press reporting and the Post and others continued to report and investigate even while Sam Ervin held hearings. Let them stir the pot. This is serious stuff whether conspiracy, buffoonery, or incompetence.
Agree. My frustration is with those who seem spring-loaded to believe in conspiracy when in all probability, it's the latter two. I don't think the press needs to stop asking questions - far from it, but when the answer is "we don't know yet," people shouldn't jump to conspiratorial conclusions. I know that's demanding a lot from the public these days, but hey.
I think that most reasonable people would accept "we don't know yet" if that had been articulated from the get-go. However, we were fed an "explanation" from some heavy-hitters, which was very quickly proven to be false.
Hence the skepticism/conspiratorial conclusions.
It seems that actually is what was articulated.
That's Susan Rice, speaking to ABC on September 16. She said the same thing to the other three Sunday talk shows.