Benghazi: Reductio Ad Absurdum

 

Update:  Apparently a number of folks that should be commenting on The Blaze have chosen to instead to grace me with their charming wit and razor sharp intellects.  Oh lucky, lucky me.   Because, really, reason, punctuation, and spelling are so overrated.

As such, comment moderation will be periodically turned on when I’m not able to watch the post in real-time.

This way I can get on with my life, rather than play Whack-A-Mole with a bunch of trolls.  Feel free to comment, stuff worth posting will appear eventually.  The other crap will be bundled up, put into a brown paper bag, placed on Glenn Beck’s front porch and … well, you know how this gag works. Just be prepared to run when I push the doorbell.

//Jim

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Benghazi.

Let’s lay out the playing field.

Just to make sure we all understand the rules.

If the President is in the White House situation room surrounded by his staff and military advisors, and he, personally, on his authority as the Commander In Chief, authorizes the US Navy to take whatever action necessary, if he authorizes weapons-free and gets out of the way, and then US Navy SEAL snipers acting on the resulting orders from their on-scene commander execute an astounding feat of marksmanship which then instantly kills three Somali pirates via three perfectly executed head shots which then subsequently allows Navy boarding crews to successfully rescue American merchant Captain Richard Phillips off the Horn of Africa in the tradition of Preble and Decatur – the President gets no credit for that at all, he was only a bystander.

Likewise, if the President is in the White House situation room, surrounded by his staff and military advisors, and he, personally, gives the go/no-go order on his authority as the Commander in Chief, and US Navy SEALs then jump from a C-130 high above Adow, Somalia, and make a daring raid in the middle of the night on an armed pirate camp to successfully rescue Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted, and kill nine pirates in the process – well, Obama gets no credit for that either. He’s just some uninvolved asshole who watched it all on TV.

And of course, if the President is in the White House situation room surrounded by his staff and military advisors, and he, in real-time, personally, gives the go/no-go order on his authority as the Commander In Chief, and US Navy SEALs then swoop into an allied country and double-tap Osama Bin Laden right in the brainpan – Obama gets no credit for that at all.  In fact, if he even mentions it in any way whatsoever, he’s grandstanding, taking credit,  dishonoring the men who actually put themselves in harm’s way to neutralize one of America’s greatest enemies.

However.

However, should four Americans die in the middle of a riot in a warzone, by intent or by accident – well, then that, by the Angry Bearded Christian God, that, Sir, is all Barack Obama’s fault, one hundred percent.

And he should be impeached for it.

And maybe shipped back to Kenya.

He gets no credit for any success and all the blame for every failure.

Do I have that about right?

I’m not complaining, I just like to know what the rules are.

 

Maybe Obama should have maybe made his various announcements of success while standing on the deck of USS Abraham Lincoln in a flightsuit, maybe conservatives would cut him some slack then.

But probably not.

 

So, Benghazi.  

What, exactly, is the point of this circus again?

I’m not asking rhetorically, I mean it precisely as stated.

What is the point?

Last week, the chief clown in this posse, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), said that he “did not know what took place, and who was where doing what and why."

King doesn’t know who, what, or why, and yet he next declared confidently, "I believe that it's a lot bigger than Watergate, and if you link Watergate and Iran-Contra together and multiply it times maybe ten or so, you're going to get in the zone where Benghazi is."

Bigger than Watergate?

Bigger than Iran Contra?

Conservative math, folks: ((Iran Contra + Watergate) x 10) = Joe Biden for President!

Yay!

… ur, what? No, that’s not what we, wait, now just hold on a minute, what do you mean it’s in the Constitution? Well, crap! Though, you know, at least Biden’s white….

So, if it’s not to make Joe Biden president, then what exactly is the point of the current conservative “investigation” into Benghazi?

I mean let’s be honest here, these people hate the government, they hate it more and more with every day that passes.

And they hate liberals, hate them with the fiery righteous fury of a born-again Evangelical minister denying that’s his face on YouTube snorting cocaine out of Rentboy’s tanned asscrack.

Now, the four Americans killed in Benghazi were government employee. 

And the Ambassador was a liberal appointed by President Obama. 

I’m frankly surprised that the folks screaming loudest about Benghazi aren’t out in the streets next to Westboro Baptist Church, cheering the fortuitous reduction of  government and thinking up ways to make it happen again.

Oh what? Now I’m being offensive? Now I’m being insulting?

Okay, fair enough, but come on, conservatives have spent the last five years threatening to take their guns to Washington. According to a Rasmussen poll taken two weeks ago, more than fifty percent of conservatives said that they believe armed revolution is now the only way to get what they think they want – now that they’ve lost two presidential elections to a black guy it’s time to burn down democracy.  Hell, they’d celebrate if somebody gunned down the president, would they not? A number of them have said so, in exactly those terms, in public. They talk openly about it. And, really, armed revolution, right? If you’re not talking about shooting down government employees, then what’s the point of the gun in the first place?

So what exactly are conservatives pissed about with Benghazi?

That the Libyans denied them four more targets?

That Ambassador Stevens died in a Libyan civil war instead of an American one?

Seriously, what’s the problem?

Hey, don’t get all soggy and hard to light with me, this is your revolution. I know which side I’m on. I know how long I’ll live once the shooting starts. The knock on my front door will surprise me not at all, nor what comes after (though it might surprise you. Just saying).

Like I said up above, I just like to know what the rules are, that’s all.

Given all the dead and sick and maimed Americans that Congress turns a blind eye to day in and day out, all the blood they personally have on their own hands, and given the responsibility they themselves bear for all our war dead up to and including Benghazi itself, what is the purpose of this particular Republican witch burning?

What is the point in specific and concise terms? Bullet point by bullet point, so to speak.

What is the purpose of the investigation, spelled out, in detail? What is the objective? What are the expected outcomes? How do we measure them, i.e. how do we know when the investigation is complete?

Most importantly: What will we do with the information once we have it?

I’d really like to know.

Why are we spending so much time on Benghazi?

I mean, we already know the answer, don’t we?

We know who is to blame. We know who is at fault, do we not? Conservatives certainly do. They’ve already reached a conclusion and made the announcement. It’s all over but the shouting and now they’re just looking for the smoking gun, and they’re going to keep at it until they find it – and in today’s world if you can’t find a smoking gun, well you can always just print one out of thin air, can’t you? (Of course, it’s liable to blow up in your hand, but that’s not really the point, is it?).

Is Benghazi that important? In the grand scheme of things, among all the dead, among all the carnage, among all the blood we’ve shed in the Middle East, is it really that important?

It is?

Really?

But why?

 

No, stop for a minute and think about it carefully.

 

Why? Why is what happened in Benghazi important? Why does it matter?

Why does it matter to you? You personally. You as an American.

Will the answers, whatever they may be, will they make a difference? To you? Will they, whatever they may be, will they change what you think? Will they?

Will those answers, whatever they may be, make a difference in your life, personally?

Will the final analysis make a difference in the lives of people that you love or admire or are responsible for?

Will the answers make Congress fully fund embassy security and the foreign service? Will they approve funding and full military support to the eventual Damascus mission, you know, the one we’ll have to stand up once we oust Bashar al-Assad from Syria as certain members of congress are insisting the president do right now – the very same members of congress who are conducting the Benghazi investigation, as a matter of fact, and who cried Treason! when Obama sent us to Libya.

Will the answers reanimate the men who died in Benghazi?

Will the investigation return those dead men to their families, alive?

Now I, personally, don’t believe in reincarnation, reanimation, resurrection (divine or otherwise, now or previously), nor zombies, But some folks certainly do, including the ones conducting the investigation. So is that what this is about? Never mind the thorny moral or ethical questions posed by resurrection. Never mind the profound theological implications or the mind-bending metaphysics. Never mind even the practical, legal aspects of reanimating the dead or the chilling political implications of putting that god-like power into the hands of Congress. Simply answer the question, will the current investigations into Benghazi bring those men back from the grave? Yes or no?

Better yet, do you, as Americans, really expect that the investigation will return those men to life? 

No?

No, I suppose not.

Well then, if the investigation won’t make the dead live again, will it at least give their families closure?

Will the answers, whatever they may be, give those left behind comfort and surcease. Will it ease their pain and put their hearts at peace?

Is that noble idea what this is about?

Are we doing it for the families?

Are we doing it because we owe those who fell in the service of their country at least that much?

If that’s so, are the families of these four men that much more important to us, as Americans, than the families of all the thousands of men and women who have fallen, unlamented, uninvestigated, in the service of their country over the last decade? Are the memories of these four men so much more important than all of thousands who have died on patrol in hostile territory, who died because they lacked proper body armor or reinforced vehicles or dependable equipment or reliable intelligence or air cover or even a decent map, who died carrying out impossible orders in untenable positions, who died because they were sent into battle under false pretext, who died due to any of the hundred million idiotic things that can take your life in a war zone, leaving behind bereft wives and husbands and daughters and sons and mothers and fathers? 

Is that why we’re doing it? Because we owe the families of the fallen?

If so, shouldn’t we give each death, each life lost before its due time, each and every one of those fallen thousands, equal attention, equal outrage, equal measure?

And should we not hold to account with equal diligence the men who sent them?

No?

No, I suppose not.

Is the purpose of the investigation about the words?

Is it about Act of Terror versus Terrorism?

Is that what it has finally come down to?

Is it really about the missing “ism?”

Have all the big questions been answered to such a degree that we have nothing left to debate on the national stage but the phrasing? Has Congress really solved all the big problems, addressed all the big issues, faced all of the challenges, settled all of the big debates, that the only thing left to do is argue over grammar?

Is the Republican party so desperate, are conservatives so exhausted of substance, that the only thing they have left to argue about is the suffix?

Have they truly been reduced to that level by the mighty negro mojo of Barack Obama?

Does it really matter if the president called Benghazi terrorism or if he called it a ham sandwich? 

Do conservatives really, and I mean really, believe that “Act of Terror” and “Terrorism” actually determined the outcome of the last presidential election? 

That it really, honest and truly, came down to that?

Really?

If it’s that important, that the tense can determine elections, that it can change the very fate of nations, if it can alter the very fabric of the time/space continuum, I mean if it’s really that important, what we call it, then shouldn’t Congress draft a bill defining the exact criteria? If it really matters to the American people, then should we not, each and every one of us, demand from our elected officials a clear and unambiguous definition of the words and specific guidance on when each expression may be used – under penalty of law.

If it’s really that important, I mean.

On the subject of words, is the number of revisions important? 

CNN’s Candy Crowley suggested that the Benghazi talking points were edited to “help the president get elected.”

Leaving aside the question of why anybody would watch either Candy Crowley or the pitiful joke that CNN has become, what exactly did the rough draft say?  “The Ghost of Osama Bin Laden came to the president in a dream and said, ‘Baaaaaarack, America wiiiiiill beeeee bathed in the blood of infidels.’ But Obama ignored the warning, thinking it no more than a fitful bit of REM sleep brought on by the spicy halibut tacos he had consumed during a Press Club Dinner earlier in the night. ” er, no, let’s make that “The CIA had no credible indications of Al Qaida activity near the Libyan consulate…”

And should we, as Americans, even allow revisions to the pending release of government documents at all? If it’s that important, so important that Congress must hold hearings into the differences between a rough draft and the final copy of each White House memo, can we as citizens do no less than demand that only first drafts be used? That when penning a report to the American people, all government agencies must agree in the rough draft and that no changes shall ever be made?

Or shall we allow a certain number of revisions? One? Two? Exactly how many revisions shall constitute high crimes and treason? Come now, don’t be shy, Conservatives, step up and make your case. If an overabundance of revisions is an impeachable offense, well then shouldn’t that number be codified into the very Constitution of the United States itself via amendment (Wait, the Constitution is the ultimate government document, does the act of revising the Constitution via constitutional amendment fall into this same impeachable offense? Wouldn’t that make the Founding Fathers traitors? After all, they revised the Constitution several times. Also, will conservatives now throw out their bibles, starting with the King James Version? After all, look how many times that silly tome has been revised, it’s damned near gibberish. But I digress).   

Should we set a limit on the number of drafts?

If it’s that important, I mean.

Ridiculous?

Congress doesn’t think so. Conservatives don’t think so. They’re both deadly serious.

Is the exact location of the president that important?

Fox News’ Bill Kristol says the president was “absent the whole night the crisis.”

Absent? Like what absent exactly? Like they couldn’t find him absent? Like he was hiding behind the couch absent? Like Obama went out for a smoke without telling anybody? Like he just opened a window and shimmied down a tree, over the wall and disappeared out into the night?

Like where’s Obama? I dunno, I thought he was with you absent?

Like Great Scott, he’s absconded absent? Like that?

If that’s the case, maybe we should be having a completely different investigation.

What? I’m just asking, how’d he get past the Secret Service? 

Was it Obama’s smooth negro mojo again?

And what? He didn’t take a cell phone?

Former Secretary of Defense, Leon Penetta and General Martin Dempsey testified before Congress that the president was fully engaged with the National Military Command Center during the attack.  And really, don’t we spend a metric shitload of money to make damned sure the president is fully connected, all the time, no matter where he is – even if he sneaks out for pizza?

But here we are, with Conservatives declaring that the president, the president, wasn’t in the right place at the right time.  That the very future of the nation is at stake, isn’t that what conservatives are telling us?  The nation teeters on oblivion, the seas shall rise, the dead will walk, the Anti-Christ is come.  Because, hey, even though these are the same people who predicted with absolutely confidence that their guy would be sitting in the White House right now, we should just take them at their word on this subject. Right?  Because they’ve been so, so very correct in the past (like that time these same clairvoyant assholes told us to invest in real estate, but I digress). We can’t determine the exact nature of the treason until we pin down exactly where Barack Obama was during every second of every minute of every hour of the unfolding crisis. 

We don’t know where he was, man, but we know where he wasn’t – he wasn’t in the right place.

And where is that exactly?

Should Obama have remained in the Situation Room? The Pentagon? Deep below Cheyenne Mountain? Or perhaps he could have called Dick Cheney and asked for the undisclosed location of a convenient Cold War redoubt. 

If it’s that important, shouldn’t Congress pen a bill requiring the real-time tracking of the President via GPS collar? If it that’s important? Or maybe every member of the government, including Congress, should be belled, just in case we need to know where they are.  Hello? Is this thing on? Hello?

Are we doing this for the people? For us? For America?

Are we doing it because the people have a right to know?

Are we doing it for the truth?  Because the truth, the truth no less, actually matters to a nation steeped in conspiracy theories and make-believe creationist hoodoo and chock-a-block with science-denial and awash in unchecked rumor mongers and which routinely lends credence to hysterical talk radio and reality TV and embraces deliberate ignorance, because that nation clearly gives a good goddamn about the truth?

Really?

The Truth. That’s funniest thing I’ve heard all day. The Truth.

 

Of course, in reality (if that word has any meaning here), we should be investigating Benghazi in order to determine how we might better protect our people in the future.

That’s what responsible, mature, intelligent people would do.

That’s what those charged with the security of nation are enjoined to do. That’s the oath they swore and their solemn duty.

But obviously we’re not investigating what went wrong in Benghazi in order to reduce the likelihood of such an event again.

Look at the “investigators.” Look at the questions they’re asking. Look at the witnesses and those called before Congress. Look to the talking heads on the News. Look at the testimony. Nowhere is there any effort whatsoever to quantify lessons learned, to develop a better process, to update security procedures or embassy staffing or define security protocols.

Because, obviously, the investigation isn’t about that.

It’s not even about Barak Obama, except by default.

It’s about blame.

It’s about sour grapes.

It’s about bitter partisan driven revenge.

It’s about the last presidential election.

And more than anything, it’s about preemptive strikes. it’s really about the next presidential election and if these silly sons of bitches want the truth, the Truth, then they should start right there and admit it. 

But they won’t, and they won’t admit what they’re really up to because conservatives go into an election the same way they screw, scared to death and afraid somebody is going to catch them cheating.

 

Nothing, and I mean nothing tells you who conservatives fear in 2016 more than this idiotic charade.