{"id":30655,"date":"2012-10-17T09:34:22","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T15:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/17\/there-are-acts-of-terror-and-there-are-acts-of-terror.html"},"modified":"2012-10-17T13:16:41","modified_gmt":"2012-10-17T19:16:41","slug":"there-are-acts-of-terror-and-there-are-acts-of-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/17\/there-are-acts-of-terror-and-there-are-acts-of-terror.html","title":{"rendered":"There are "acts of terror," and there are "acts of terror""},"content":{"rendered":"

There are "acts of terror," and there are "acts of terror"<\/b><\/p>\n

Okay, I call "shenanigans" on both sides over the whole Benghazi Acts of Terror thang. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Obama did in fact refer to the attack as an "act of terror" the day after the Benghazi killings. "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America." \u00a0This was not just generic boilerplate posturing, but referred to these particular attacks. The denialism and negative spinning from\u00a0the Right on this is just silly.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Obama's comments\u00a0were not any sort of announcement that this was being blamed on terrorist<\/i> activity. They applied just as well (and in context seem to apply) killings associated with protester \/ angry mob activity. For the Left to claim otherwise is\u00a0disingenuous.<\/p>\n

That said, the whole matter — aside from the actual tragedy of the killings — seems very much a tempest in a teapot to me, ginned up politically by Romney and his supporters to try to prove … well, something. \u00a0Even Romney couldn't manage to articulate his point on it. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The question of when the Administration did know (and\/or should have known) about the nature of the actual attack there (vs. protests and more mob-like activities elsewhere at the same time in both Libya and Egypt) is worth discussing, but nothing that's been actually alleged strikes me as specifically heinous or credible. There were questions raised and indications, publicly, that it might have been a specific terrorist act (vs generic mob "act of terror", I guess) very early on (decent timeline here: http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/security\/2012\/10\/15\/1014241\/timline-benghazi-attack\/<\/a> ) … but, having said that, the idea that if the Administration wasn't giving daily detailed briefings giving concrete and consistent conclusions during ongoing investigations<\/i> then it must have been\u00a0trying to "cover up" something is just goofy. \u00a0Indeed, most of the "suspicious" stuff being pointed at is because there were too many<\/i> Administration folks being\u00a0badgered for answers and giving inconsistent ones.<\/p>\n

And then, of course, after it came up at the debate last night, now the Right — having criticized\u00a0Obama for not already brought the Benghazi attackers to\u00a0justice, are now saying that Obama's trying to do so now soley\u00a0for political gain.<\/p>\n

There may very well be some lessons to be learned in what happened in Benghazi. That the event has become so politicized will make learning those lessons much more difficult, and that the Dem and (especially) GOP election teams are both stretching the truth to score points with the electorate is, at best, unhelpful.<\/p>\n

Reshared post from +Media Matters for America<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

During last night's debate, Candy Crowley corrected Mitt Romney's false claim that President Obama did not refer to the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi as an act of terrorism.<\/p>\n

But, the transcript of the President's remarks from the Rose Garden make clear that Crowley was correct. Despite the words appearing in the transcript, conservatives in the media are insisting the President never said it.<\/p>\n

Get the full story on the emergence of the transcript truthers here: http:\/\/mm4a.org\/QSHbZF<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Google+:<\/strong> View post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are "acts of terror," and there are "acts of terror" Okay, I call "shenanigans" on both sides over the whole Benghazi Acts of Terror thang. \u00a0 Obama did in fact refer to the attack as an "act of terror" the day after the Benghazi killings. "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve … Continue reading “There are "acts of terror," and there are "acts of terror"”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,99,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-elections-2012","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":129117,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/14\/the-radicalization-of-luke-skywalker.html","url_meta":{"origin":30655,"position":0},"title":"The Radicalization of Luke Skywalker","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 14-Dec-15 11:35pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not sure what's more amusing: the (satirical) attempt to frame the original Star Wars trilogy as the radicalization of a young man (Luke) into a rebellious religious cult (the Jedi), leading to various acts of terror (destroying government defense installations, sand barges, etc.) ... or the outraged disgust from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":773,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/11\/15\/its_not_terrori.html","url_meta":{"origin":30655,"position":1},"title":"“It’s not terrorism — well, some people don’t think it is, anyway.”","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 15-Nov-01 7:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The BBC World Service loses a bit of my respect, by deciding to no longer use the word \"terror\" or \"terrorism\" in relation to 9-11. Mr Damazer, speaking in a...","rel":"","context":"In "9-11"","block_context":{"text":"9-11","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/9-11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128873,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/17\/it-takes-two-to-terrorize.html","url_meta":{"origin":30655,"position":2},"title":"It takes two to terrorize","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 17-Nov-15 2:45am","format":false,"excerpt":"Terrorism works because we allow it to work, because we allow an intentional, unanticipated act of violence to seize us with fear and drive us to emotional overreaction.'We are richer, and mightier, and far more deadly than any of our terrorist foes could dream of being. And yet we happily\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43222,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/23\/but-they-were-all-bad-except-the-occasional-innocent-civilian.html","url_meta":{"origin":30655,"position":3},"title":"But they were all BAD (except the occasional innocent civilian)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 23-Jun-14 2:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently the legal justification memo for the use of drone strikes is \"Congress authorized a War on Terror, and wartime lets us do things that include civilian casualties, so we can pretty much use drones to kill whomever we want, wherever we want, but trust us that we'll only use\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16193,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/11\/14\/what-is-terrorism.html","url_meta":{"origin":30655,"position":4},"title":"What is Terrorism?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 14-Nov-09 10:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Terrorism is commiting acts in order to invoke terror among a target population to influence their future actions. If I do X to make you, and your family, and your neighborhood, do Y because you are terrified of what I've done, that is terrorism. If I do X to strike\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4383,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/09\/12\/the_pause_that.html","url_meta":{"origin":30655,"position":5},"title":"The Pause that Confuses","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 12-Sep-03 8:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"Two years ago, yesterday, an incredible, massive, horrific act of terror and violence occured in this country. Since then ... nada. Why? Was it an all-or-nothing gasp of an organization...","rel":"","context":"In "9-11"","block_context":{"text":"9-11","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/9-11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}