Capitol Hill, Benghazi hearing:

SteveT · Veteran Member

Capitol Hill, Benghazi hearing:

cruiser · Newbie

Democrat Eliot Engel could not say enough good things about Hillary Clinton. He basically said that he didn’t want to find out who didn’t do their job pertaining to all of the misinformation, lies, cover-ups etc. But to move forward to make sure that it does not happen again. What a bunch of bull!

Hillary talked about all the other attacks on Americans around the world in the past 30 years. Obama got involved by saying that the Benghazi attack was due to the anti- Muslim video; Eliot Engel (D) said that he was no more responsible than President Bush was for the 911 attack. What?

This entire hearing sidestepped the entire situation with the Benghazi attack’s misinformation, lies, and cover-ups. This was not a hearing; it was a history lecture of situations around the world! This whole situation is still in the cover-up mode!

FOTH · Veteran Member

Cruiser and Steve,

I think you are both right to a point. The hearing did not get into the question of misinformation, lies and cover-ups, as least not very deeply so. But I am not sure that was the object of this particular hearing. In my opinion there should (and may yet be) multiple hearings to address the different aspects of the whole incident. Discovering what went wrong, without regard to accessing blame, is necessary to the purpose of preventing, or at least reducing the likelihood of, it happening again. I believe that was the purpose of the hearing yesterday. (Although, for reasons that don’t matter here, I was not able to watch the hearing and so I do not know how its purpose was explained at the opening of the process.) If that was the purpose, then not allowing the process to get blogged down over the cover-up issues was appropriate. On the other hand, from what I have seen of the coverage from the hearing it did not do a very good job of discovering with any credibility, what did go wrong or what to do about it. No big surprise there.

I think there should be separate hearings in both Houses of Congress, as well as Justice Department and perhaps even assignment of Special Investigation inquiries into the question of lies and cover-up. There is too much smoke for us to pretend there is no fire. I disagree with Steve that those inquiries should be secondary to the purpose of preventing future occurrences. I do so for these reasons:

First; we cannot allow high level government officials to believe that they can successfully cover-up their failures--especially when those failures result in the deaths of Americans bravely attempting to perform their duties to our country. To do so will be counter-productive to any measures taken to prevent reoccurrences of such incidents. Part of the problem we have with high level officials is that they tend to think they can get away with anything and be forgiven for everything. It has to stop.

Secondly; at the bottom of it all, those four Americans who died did so in service to our Nation and its government, a Republic which exists for nothing else but to preserve our safety and our liberty. How safe are we and how secure is our liberty if our national leaders know they can do as they please then openly lie to us about what they have done and expect to get away with it? If we cannot not stop that from happening then those four—and many thousands of others—have indeed died in vein. Preventing that, is in my judgment, the first priority.

FOTH · Veteran Member

Steve, I forgot to add that you are right that we must take every precaution to avoid turning the process into a political witch-hunt.

SteveT · Veteran Member

Hi, FOTH,

Perhaps this will help: http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/123-2-pm-secretary-clinton-testify-house-foreign-affairs-committee-benghazi-attack (which I found on the C-SPAN web site, http://www.c-span.org/Events/Sec-of-State-Clinton-Testifies-to-Senate-on-Benghazi-Attack/10737437475/).

Your "disagreement" with me is absolutely valid but I do not believe irreconcilable. I have little issue with the idea of a separate investigation into whether there were intended lies and/ or cover-up of mistakes. From what I have seen and heard so far (including Ambassador Rice's original interview on Fox News Sunday and what President Obama has said about the incident), I see no clear evidence of any but that doesn't mean that there were none. I just don't want any such investigation to interfere with the goal of preventing future such incidents or turned into a political witch hunt, as you put it so well in your follow-up post.

On your second reason for "disagreeing" with me, I worry that your position, while virtuous, risks conflicting with the reality of the awesome responsibilities of some government officials, especially the President's. If the goal of an official's lies or cover-ups is simply to protect her/ himself and/ or colleagues from embarrassment or penalty, that is to be discovered and sanctioned; if it is to protect American agents whose lives would be endangered, or the legitimate interests of the country and its citizens and allies, we have a grey area that may be best resolved in favor of allowing, even encouraging, the lies and cover-ups. In some cases, it may be that only history can reasonably judge whether they actually happened and, if so, whether they were a net positive or a net negative.

FOTH · Veteran Member

Hi Steve,

You are right. I think I now understand your position better now than previously, particularly with regard to the need of, in certain circumstances, using misinformation to protect national security interests. Moreover, I need to concede that upon deeper reflection, part of my reaction to the appearance of lies about the Benghazi incident is emotional. There are, I believe, valid reasons for that emotional reaction.

On a personal level I am very distressed at the disregard for the truth that we see daily in public figures and private individuals in all walks of life. It is in my mind one of the most serious aspects of the degradation of virtue that is currently afflicting our culture and society. (I am tempted here to throw down a laundry list of examples of the daily lies which we have shoved at us, some repeatedly, but that should probably be the subject of another discussion.)

Circumstance in which the use of lies, misinformation and cover-ups, can be justified would be rare and very exceptional in nature. If those incidents caused suspicion to be aroused that all may not be as the public are being told, then I concede that you are right, the public ought to have sufficient trust in the high level officials to let it slide, so to speak, and not demand full disclosure. However, because the tendency, now days, for public officials to misled and lie to the public about anything and everything has eroded the level of trust that we (or at least I) need in order to accept what they say about anything at face value. Perhaps the Benghazi incident, as you suggest, may be a time when I need to keep my distrust in check. But the disgust I feel toward lying politicians makes it difficult for me.