Ministry of Truth?

[Dill]

(05-03-2022, 12:06 PM)Sled21 Wrote: Some of you will go to ridiculous lengths to defend her. 

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that some of you will go to ridiculous lengths to attack her? She murdered Vince Foster, Clint McDougal, Seth Rich, and Jeffrey Epstein?  Trafficked children out of a Pizza Hut? Gave 20% of U.S. uranium to Russia?  Absence of evidence cannot mean absence of crime--only that she "got away" with all those crimes we always already KNOW she committed. That she got off is only proof there is a double standard for the Clinton, the elite pedophile. There may be a clue here as to how Hilary's "guilt" for Benghazi has really been established as well--and for whom, and why Fox facts continue circulate as "findings." Imagine how all this looked to the Russians in 2016. She was the perfect target around which to feed election disinformation. A DHS dept. dedicated to challenging disinformation and giving people the tools to recognize it may now be too little too late.
 

(05-03-2022, 12:06 PM)Sled21 Wrote: The amount of money it would have taken to put more security agents and infrasctructure at that consulate is less than a drop in the bucket. The fact all the other Western Govts. closed their shops up and left should have lit someone's light bulb that maybe we needed to leave too, or strengthen security. If you think the scandal is disproportionate, how proportionate do you suppose a US Ambassador and 3 other people's lives should be?

Let's start with the bolded as a first step towards contextualizing Benghazi--by comparing it to other U.S. foreign policy actions which also ended tragically; let loss of men, material and geopolitical risks/consequences on one hand, and the scale of official (Congressional) investigations and public outrage in each case on the other, set a baseline for determining "proportionality."  
 
I've lived long enough to remember  the Pueblo (1968) and Mayaguez Incidents (1975); the former resulted in 1 dead, 82 captured and the loss of spy ship; and the latter claimed 38 lives, including Marines who died in battle, the three who were "left behind," captured and apparently executed by the Khmer Rouge, and 23 Airmen who died in a helicopter crash during an initial rescue attempt;three helicopters were lost in the rescue attempt. Recall also the Operation Eagle Claw (1980), in which 8 Americans died, one helicopter lost, and the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut (1983), which cost 241 marines their lives--over 50X the loss at Benghazi. And finally the embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya (1998), which killed 200+ people, including 12 Americans.
 
The first three involved mobilization of entire carrier groups and risked war with another sovereign nation. All were national humiliation on a large scale highlighting limits to U.S. power. The Pueblo is still a Museum to Yankee aggression in Pyongyang. Its sophisticated comm equipment was reverse engineered and shared with the Soviet Union. The captain and a Lieutenant were recommended for court martial by a Navy Inquiry, but the Sec. of the Navy nixed that. No Congressional hearings, so far as I know.
 
The Mayaguez incident abandoned 3 Marines to the Khmer Rouge, who apparently executed them, not to mention other bodies "left behind." All died AFTER the Mayaguez and crew had been released. Riots broke out in Thailand, because the U.S. used for a staging ground without permission of the Thai government. Yet the disaster boosted Ford's approval rating, possibly because people thought his efforts to rescue the ship were right regardless of outcome, and possibly because in those days more people understood that politicians have to make tough decisions, and so tolerated mistakes which appeared honest, even through horrible consequences.
 
None of these incidents provoked 10 separate investigations, let alone seven Congressional.  Investigations were handled by the appropriate service branches, except for the Beirut bombing, for which Reagan appointed a special committee, which found the military chain of command, not him, at fault. You'd have to add the Iraq war to get something close to Benghazi scale Congressional attention--and that falls short even if you include the British investigations as well--though a thousand times more Americans died in Iraq than in Benghazi, not to mention 150,000 Iraqis and a final bill for a war of choice which may exceed 3 trillion. 
 
To approximate more closely the actual loss of blood and treasure at Benghazi, you'd best compare it to a tragic post-Benghazi event--the deaths of 4 special forces members in Niger in 2017. Although these deaths were the result of miscalculation and perhaps negligence at the operational level, and occurred Trump’s and Tillerson’s watch, there was no Left-wing noise machine to drive accountability right up to Trump, or even his secretary of state, to the point that Congressional hearings were demanded and given. Again, the investigation was handled by the appropriate service branch.
 
The Iraq War level response to a Niger-level event may be why Hollo found that response "ridiculously inappropriate." I do too. To answer your bolded question above, a State Dept. investigation would have been “appropriate” along with one from the CIA.
 
Next step will be to contextualize the security requests.