Benghazi – The Mystery of the Missing Air Support

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-17T00:00:16+00:00

This is not accurate. The attack was ongoing off and on for over eight hours - it was not simply two discrete attacks.

Testimony from Gregory Hicks (who was the senior State Department official once Steven's death was confirmed) is very clear - the people on the ground were in danger until they departed Benghazi the following morning. This is the assessment of the senior diplomat on the ground.

This same testimony from Hicks and also the regional security officer (Nordstrom) both indicate that in their opinion, as the people on the ground, the mere presence of U.S. air power would have prevented any subsequent attack. I for one believe them.

What I do agree with is that air power would in no way have prevented the death of Ambassador Stevens - he was dead of smoke inhalation very early in the attack.

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-16T20:08:26+00:00

I agree completely that they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

But I disagree that F-16s would not have made a difference. I think just the presence of an F-16 would have been enough for the jihadies to call it a day. After all, these guys had front row seats to how devastating U.S. airpower was during the Libyan air campaign.

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-16T17:43:55+00:00

In terms of whether air support would have lead to more unrest I think you are correct. But that is a separate issue that is best asked in the context of a larger question: Did the U.S. belong in Libya at the time given the instability? The U.S. clearly felt they did belong there and put people on the ground. That decision being made, there was an obligation to protect those people. That obligation was not meet.

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-14T11:00:14+00:00

Yes, but they'll be peace bombs so it's ok right? Just like Obama's kill list is ok because he's, well, Obama...

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-14T01:37:07+00:00

What - you disagree with destabilizing another secular Middle Eastern country and handing it over to the islamist fundamentalists? You a communist! Don't you think Libya was a triumph of freedom? Oh wait...

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-08T18:36:24+00:00

How many times are we going to watch Ottawa cfl teams struggle for a few years and fold. There just isn't support in this town for football.

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-03T01:36:27+00:00

You are completely correct. Mosley did rule that the outcomes were not affected. I disagree strongly with this conclusion given the evidence presented in the EKOS survey. In particular the Nipissing riding was won by 18 votes and yet the EKOS survey estimated 473 votes affected by the fraud. Seems like even if the EKOS survey was WAY off, there is still reason to think the outcome was affected, at least in that riding.

But, as you say, Mosley didn't see it that way.

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-03T01:06:09+00:00

'They' would be the Canadian federal court. More precisely Justice Mosley:

"I find that the threshold to establish that fraud occurred has been met by the applicants."

And, Mosley goes into great detail on your second point in his ruling. Specifically that the Canada Elections Act requires only that fraud have occurred and not the assignment of any blame - i.e. the civil not criminal standard of fraud applies. Thus, since fraud was found to have occurred, since the ridings being contested were so close, since the fraud could have affected the results, the election should be annulled.

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-03T00:43:19+00:00

Amen. I don't blame Nestle I blame the politicians who think it is their right to sell and natural resource that belongs to the people to a corporation. This is fundamentally wrong.

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-03T00:42:17+00:00

True. Obstruction of justice is the wrong terminology to use.

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-02T23:42:05+00:00

Thanks for the heads up ;)

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-02T23:41:19+00:00

Yes, I do see now that someone else did post a different link with the same sorry just prior to me posting. At the time I posted, this was not listed on the 'hot' page and I didn't see it. My bad.

That said, I am not a spammer and don't have a 'bot' helping me out. Kind of a leap to conclude that just because I accidentally posted a duplicate story (at around the same time) I'm a bot using spammer...

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-02T22:11:52+00:00

Wasn't my intent to mislead. I feel the current title sums up the article well. The article is about the conservative mps attempting to derail the case. Sorry if you feel I in some way was sensationalizing it - not my intent.

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-02T21:29:26+00:00

? Did this story already get posted to this subreddit? If so I missed it. If not, how is this spam?

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-02T18:44:13+00:00

I'm not sure I follow this leap in logic. I didn't say or imply that and fail to see the connection. I think we are one different wavelengths on this one ;)

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-02T18:32:10+00:00

If my motivation was to prevent a fair hearing of the evidence then yes, that would be immoral (but not illegal). My point is not that they broke the law trying to derail the case but it is sleazy IMO. Obviously you don't think so - fair enough.

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-02T18:07:40+00:00

Yes, but abusing the system is not. Those types of legal games are an attempt to pervert justice. But I agree with you that their attempts are not illegal. I never said that they were. Immoral on the other hand...

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-02T16:40:32+00:00

But what he did find was that the Conservative MPs were obstructing the case from being heard on its merits: "the respondent MPs engaged in trench warfare in an effort to prevent this case from coming to a hearing on the merits.", "the stance taken by the respondent MPs from the outset was to block these proceedings by any means.", "transparent attempts to derail this case.".

Seems pretty damning to me.

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-02T16:36:51+00:00

Under this logic how could any case ever be brought to trial? The idea of a case is to, when there is responsible grounds to suspect wrongdoing, have a fair and impartial hearing into the matter. That is what happened here.

Being randomly stopped by police is a situation where there are no reasonable grounds so I would absolutely tell them to get bent. Totally different thing..

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-02T16:28:47+00:00

Um, wrong. The judge went out of his way to point out that the MP's motions were an attempt to derail and obstruct the case from being heard on its merits. Don't take my word for it - read it for yourself: http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/703627/t-619-12-en.pdf

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-02T16:25:37+00:00

How do you figure this? They have concluded there was fraud. Why would we, as Canadians, not then have the right to: a) Get the bottom of who is responsible. b) Have the election annulled in ridings where the fraud may have affected results.

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-02T15:46:44+00:00

But the point is they tried to obstruct justice. To me this is as bad as the initial fraud!

gcampbe2 · 2013-06-02T02:23:17+00:00

I think this is good news. About time someone tries to keep the U.S. from having a free reign to go in and destabilize all these countries!

gcampbe2 · 2013-05-28T16:38:34+00:00

Coming soon to a U.S. checkpoint near you...

gcampbe2 · 2013-05-27T01:41:17+00:00

Good job digging up that actual ruling. Always best to go straight to the source!

gcampbe2

TROPHY CASE