UnNews:U.S. State Department reverses opinion on Benghazi
| UnFair and UnBalanced | ✪ | UnNews | ✪ | Sunday, December 22, 2024, 02:03:59 (UTC) |
| U.S. State Department reverses opinion on Benghazi | 
|
10 October 2012
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. State Department now denies it ever said that the September 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed Ambassador Stevens was simply a protest over a YouTube video. The reversed position puts the State Department in harmony with the Republican opposition, and President Obama somewhere in between.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Susan Rice have hinted that the attack might have been terrorism. The President has mostly stuck to the original position that it was spontaneous and playful urban unrest over hurtful American freedom of expression that sadly got out of hand; also, that Mr. Stevens was only molested because he and his assassins failed to follow the time-tested precaution of working out a "safe word." Mr. Obama has mere weeks before the foreign-policy Presidential debate to change his position too, to avoid being the only person who believes it other than debate moderator Bob Schieffer.
The extraordinary shift came as House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa issued a subpoena for a pound of flesh from the State Department. Rep. Issa complained that barely three ounces had been rendered so far, and it is not clear to whom that finger belonged.
Rep. Issa's committee called Eric Nordstrom to testify on Wednesday. He is the embassy security official who stated in an October 1 email to an investigator that his pleas for additional security were ignored in order to "normalize operations," as murder of foreign diplomats is quite normal in Libya. Reduction in staffing levels has been routine in Mr. Obama's drive to reduce the federal deficit, with armed guards for embassy personnel leaving as fast as food-stamp fraud investigators.
State Department officials were asked about the administration's original explanation linking the violence to the YouTube video. One official responded, "That was not our conclusion."
He added, "Ms. Rice and Ms. Clinton don't work here. Their badges look real, but I don't know how they got in. Or the black guy." He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to shoot a foreign-policy hole in the bottom of the Presidential boat to match the domestic-policy hole the President created in last week's debate.
Mr. Nordstrom stated that Deputy Assistant Secretary Charlene Lamb wanted to keep the security presence in Benghazi low, citing the "residential safe haven," the top-top-secret retreat that, unfortunately, the amateur cinema critics reached before Ambassador Stevens did.
The anonymous State Department official added, "As Mitt Romney is gaining in the polls, we are practicing governing by flip-flop."
Sources[edit]
Larry Margasak and Bradley Klapper "State Dept. description of attack in sync with GOP". Associated Press, October 10, 2012