if you wanna blame hillary for benghazi, then you've gotta blame 9/11 on dubya

You can actually pin 9/11 on the other Clinton. He had ample opportunity to deal with UBL, but he was a complete fluff and did nothing.

-"I'm not sure you know what you are talking about."

I'll make things more clear since you obviously want to jump on the 'pass the buck' bandwagon. I'm talking about Mrs. Clinton's and SD involvement as it relates to the situational dynamics and failure to adequately respond to a changing situation in a known hostile area from February 2011 to September 11, 2012. I don't care about what happened with previous administrations and former Department Heads.

-"What we are talking about is the request to strengthen security at the embassy made well before the attack by the ambassador due to concerns about changing dynamics on the ground."

Duh? A hostile situation is a hostile situation. I don't care if you're talking about a hot extract or an increase in security for deterrence. Unless you have the means, whether they be diplomacy or military, to diffuse said situation you have a security concern. Especially in a country with the recent history like Libya. There should have been more prep for the possibility of an evacuation.

-"Reports of "inadequate security" exist at A LOT of foreign installations run by State... "

OK, fine. Cry Wolf Fever runs high at the State Department. But how many of those come from locations with organized and well armed hostile forces like you would find in Benghazi, Libya given your time frames? (probably somewhere around 20-25 with maybe 4-6 being highly credible threat areas). There's a difference between a increase in security request coming from Ottawa, Canada and one coming from somewhere like Benghazi.

"So either we fund initial security at a level commensurate with the requests or we pay for "emergency" security on a more routine basis (which is actually more expensive)."

See, that wasn't so hard, now was it? Especially considering the overall budget for OCO and Support was $126.5B and $159.3B, respectively for 2012. More to the point, they most likely would have been working from the 2011 budget pool ($159.4B, OCO; $159.3B, Support) given the time frames when they started asking for help (February 2011) to the time of the actual attack. Budget wasn't the issue here. It was failure to act. The British and UN had already removed NEPs (that's Non Essential Personnel) after a series of close calls and several warnings from the intelligence community. These people are subject to the same bureaucratic processes as Mrs. Clinton and her Department and somehow came up with the right answer.

They had the intelligence. They had the time. They had the money. If she "trust[s] the Diplomatic Security professionals with [her] life," as she stated, why did they fail to act when these very people had been warning and asking for assistance for the better part of two years?

Although I'm not disagreeing with you that Clinton probably should have done something about it, to be fair, Bush had intelligence on OBL too.

Edit: This was a response to ssewellusmc.

Dammit, TAN, use the quotes! I can't keep track of who I'm arguing with in this chaos! ;)

both willie and dubya had the intel on bin laden. wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more american citizens were killed as a result of bin laden under dubya's watch, than willie's watch.

yer tinfoil teaparty hat needs readjusting, usmcsewage

You were the one who said "We're talking about a hot extract." not me.

My point was that the issue had nothing to do with a hot extract. If you *did* know that, then why did you write it? Sorry for making my assumptions based on what you were writing.



B does not follow from A. When you have significantly less money appropriated than you need, it doesn't matter that you have money, it matters that you are having to decide what to cut - all the time. This creates a culture of "making do with what we have". I know the slogan of "starve the beast" is favored in some circles but guess what? Starving hurts.

[quote poster=Schilling; 37200; 676112]If she "trust[s] the Diplomatic Security professionals with [her] life," as she stated, why did they fail to act when these very people had been warning and asking for assistance for the better part of two years? [/quote]

That is exactly the point the report made. We do need to understand why they failed to act. That isn't the same as saying that Clinton herself is criminally liable, as the OP in this thread opened with.

You're right, I failed to identify my main point clearly. I am talking about the incident as a whole, up to and including what became a hot extract (and one that took them around 18 hours to get around to).

There was actually significantly more money available. DSD pulls funding from Support with a contingency under OCO in the event they need to use QRF/FAST Co. Support, the main fund for DSP and other non-military based security has climbed every year except 2012 (it dropped about $5B compared to 2011), while most other funds have decreased. The money was there, this was an administrative fudge. The report even indicates that for a short time, due to visa issues, the QRF had one man on station. One.

Something criminal was going on. Depraved indifference, maybe? Maybe it doesn't warrant jail time, but she shouldn't be even remotely considered for any kind of promotion. In any other circle she'd have been suspended indefinitely.

both willie and dubya had the intel on bin laden. wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more american citizens were killed as a result of bin laden under dubya's watch, than willie's watch.

yer tinfoil teaparty hat needs readjusting, usmcsewage


What does the above statement have to do with HC failing at her job as SoS?

You are still ignoring the fact that security at one embassy isn't the personal day job of the Secretary of State. As both the reports on this incident by Congress and State have pointed out, those decisions are made below that level. As an organizational leader, if a bad decision is made in your organization, you make adjustments to the organization's people and/or policies to rectify it, which they did. If a pattern of such incidents occurs without any response from the organizations leadership (such as in the past at the VA or TSA) then you need a change in leadership.

Now, in fact, there has also been a change in leadership at State. Whether that was based in whole or in part on the Benghazi incident and the handling of it by Clinton is a question the President would have to answer, since he made the change.

But regardless, when something goes wrong in your organization, it isn't typically criminal.

What I am hearing described as criminal, even if just "negligence" is an assertion that she should have been second-guessing and over-ruling her regional/area leads who had concluded the extra security was not needed. That comes back to Charlene Lamb, right? If Lamb went to Clinton and said "we need more security in Benghazi now" and Clinton's response was "no, that would be expensive, lets sit on that for a while" - there is a much better case. I haven't seen that though, but who knows what we'll see in those emails. :)

She shouldn't have routed all that email through her own server as secrectary of state. Having the server wiped was also just wild. I have no real knowledge of working with classified information or security clearances so I will defer to others on the thread who seem well versed.

Get your logic out of here!

Lay out that bullfluff then conclude with
"but who knows what we'll see in those emails".

Classic

Duh.... it is more "this is how the world should work" and then followed by "but if incriminating evidence surfaces, my position would change". That's pretty much the definition of a presumption of innocence before proof of guilt.

Lol.