I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

Hey, why go on the The View, where you could possibly speak to millions of undecided women voters, or persuade millions of others, when you could do something like wash clean pots?  Perhaps he'd have to defend his anti-women policies?  Perhaps he's afraid of Joy Beher?  Oh wait a minute....he already has a piss poor relationship with Whoopi (another one his Boca Raton diddys)....yep, probably AFRAID.

Poroguing parliament means that all the bills on the floor and committees that have been set up are shut down.  Nothing can be done. Nothing! So, in this economy, nothing at all is going to happen.  It is basically a hiatus.  Most people are quite upset about this, even the staunch McGuinty supporters.  Clearly, he was afraid of a non confidence vote amid all of the problems with his leadership coming out in the last year.  Some say he is stepping down gracefully.  I say he is running away from a mess like a child caught with his hand in the candy jar.  

Sandy

Damn.   Phucque, as Blue almost said.

I'm in my 6th year of Arimidex, think I've managed MORE SE's than I can remember.  Please PM me if there's a specific one - meanwhile, ACUPUNCTURE, which eliminated ALL THE JOINT PAIN, helped build muscle strength, and my knees don't hurt anymore ( and they've been, ah, bothersome, for about 25 years!)

I live in an area teeming with Complementary Medical practitioners, if I didn't - the first place I'd go would be to the bulletin board in the BEST YOGA center I could find.   Ask friends, somebody may know somebody...

what Athena said re: staging - hope it's clearly localized, and easy to remove!  

What Pip is referring to is that our provincial premier (maybe kind of like a state governor) has just resigned as leader of the party. That means that the party will select a new leader from amongst its members who would become premier.

The second thing he did at the same time was to prorogue the legislature -- which means the legislature is shut down til it isn't and everything that was in the proceedings is gone.

There have been a couple of issues that question the party but not one specific reason given to prorogue the legislature. Enquring minds are wondering what went on in the back rooms. So far the talking heads on the news channels have not found answers yet.

For a moment our politics is distracting us from the American news channels which are full of talking heads advising Obama and Romney on what to say and how to say it. I will watch the debate tonight on a Canadian news channel.

Isn't politics fun?!

Rofl! Excellent link, Yorkie. One could say that about all of his policy plans. Mr. Bob-and-weave.

Momine, well one of them maybe....but the rest - I doubt it.

This is an excellent timeline of what happened in Benghazi from a State Department briefing earlier this month. The first link is from the article in The Atlantic. The second link is from State's webpage with the transcript of the briefing.



I'd like to remind people that demonstrations in places like Libya aren't just a bunch of people with signs. They often start out or turn violent and are sometimes co-opted by terrorists who use the crowds as cover.



http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/what-really-happened-in-libya/263597/



http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/10/198791.htm#.UHoBdHRSV_h.twitter



L

HL,  I think the story is important enough to post in it's entirety.  Perhaps those lurking but who don't open links will find this testamony helpfull in understanding the facts which do not appear in the press.  Here it is.

****

Before you watch the debate tonight, read the State Department account of what happened in Libya. And then weigh the words you hear against this full account.

* * *

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER ONE: All right. Let me proceed. I'm going to give you as much information as possible about the events of that night, but I am going to start with a scene-setter.

So let me set the stage. On April 5th, 2011, a small Department of State team headed by Chris Stevens arrives by chartered boat in Benghazi. They set up shop in a hotel. This is at a time when Benghazi was liberated, Qadhafi was still in power in Tripoli, the war was going on, our Ambassador had been expelled from Tripoli by Qadhafi, the Embassy staff had been evacuated because it was unsafe. So Chris Stevens coming back into Benghazi -- coming into Benghazi on April 5th, 2011, is the only U.S. Government people in Libya at this time.

They set up shop in a hotel, as I mentioned. A few weeks later in June, a bomb explodes in the parking lot in front of the hotel. The group in Benghazi makes a decision to move to a new location. They move to a couple of places, and by August they settle on a large compound which is where the actual activity on 9/11 took place. So they're in a large compound, where they remain.

The compound is roughly 300 yards long -- that's three football fields long -- and a hundred yards wide. We need that much room to provide the best possible setback against car bombs. Over the next few months, physical security at the compound is strengthened. The outer wall is upgraded, its height is increased to nine feet. It is topped by three feet of barbed wire and concertina wire all around the huge property. External lighting is increased. Jersey barriers, which are big concrete blocks, are installed outside and inside the gate. Steel drop bars are added at the gates to control vehicle access and to provide some anti-ram protection. The buildings on the compound itself were strengthened.

The compound has four buildings on it, and you guys are going to have to get used to this, because I refer them to -- as Building C, Building B, Tactical Operations Center, and a barracks. So Building C is a building that is essentially a large residence. It has numerous bedrooms and it is -- it has a safe haven installed in it, and I'll talk more about that in a minute. Building C ultimately is the building that the Ambassador was in, so keep that in your heads.

Building B is another residence on the compound. It has bedrooms and it has a cantina. That's where the folks dine. The Tactical Operations Center, which is just across the way from Building B, has offices and a bedroom. That's where the security officers had their main setup, that's where the security cameras are, a lot of the phones -- it's basically their operations center. So I'll call it the TOC from now on.

And then there was a barracks. The barracks is a small house by the front gate, the main gate of the compound. In that barracks is a Libyan security force which I'll describe in a minute. Security on the compound consists of five Diplomatic Security special agents and four members of the Libyan Government security force, which I will henceforth call the 17th February Brigade. It is a militia, a friendly militia, which has basically been deputized by the Libyan Government to serve as our security, our host government security. In addition to all those, there is an additional security force at another U.S. compound two kilometers away. It serves as a rapid reaction force, a quick reaction security team -- a quick reaction security team, okay?

Now we're on the day of, and before I go into this discussion of the day of the events of 9/11, I'm going to be -- I want to be clear to you all. I am giving you this -- you my best shot on this one. I am giving you what I know. I am giving it to you in as much granularity as I possibly can. This is still, however, under investigation. There are other facts to be known, but I think I'm going to be able to give you quite a lot, as far as I know it. I have talked to the -- to almost all the agents that were involved, as well as other people.

Okay. The Ambassador has arrived in Benghazi on the 10th of September. He does meetings both on the compound and off the compound on that day, spends the night. The next day is 9/11. He has all his -- because it is 9/11, out of prudence, he has all his meetings on the compound. He receives a succession of visitors during the day.

About 7:30 in the evening, he has his last meeting. It is with a Turkish diplomat. And at -- when the meeting is over, at 8:30 -- he has all these meetings, by the way, in what I call Building C -- when the meeting is over, he escorts the Turkish diplomat to the main gate. There is an agent there with them. They say goodbye. They're out in a street in front of the compound. Everything is calm at 8:30 p.m. There's nothing unusual. There has been nothing unusual during the day at all outside.

After he sees the Turkish diplomat off, the Ambassador returns to Building C, where the information management officer -- his name is Sean Smith, and who is one of the victims -- the information management officer -- I'll just call him Sean from now on, on this call -- and four other -- four Diplomatic Security agents are all at Building C. One Diplomatic Security agent is in the TOC, the Tactical Operations Center. All of these agents have their side arms.

A few minutes later -- we're talking about 9 o'clock at night -- the Ambassador retires to his room, the others are still at Building C, and the one agent in the TOC. At 9:40 p.m., the agent in the TOC and the agents in Building C hear loud noises coming from the front gate. They also hear gunfire and an explosion. The agent in the TOC looks at his cameras -- these are cameras that have pictures of the perimeter -- and the camera on the main gate reveals a large number of people -- a large number of men, armed men, flowing into the compound. One special agent immediately goes to get the Ambassador in his bedroom and gets Sean, and the three of them enter the safe haven inside the building.

And I should break for a second and describe what a safe haven is. A safe haven is a fortified area within a building. This particular safe haven has a very heavy metal grill on it with several locks on it. It essentially divides the one -- the single floor of that building in half, and half the floor is the safe haven, the bedroom half. Also in the safe haven is a central sort of closet area where people can take refuge where there are no windows around. In that safe haven are medical supplies, water, and such things. All the windows to that area of the building have all been grilled. A couple of them have grills that can be open from the inside so people inside can get out, but they can't be -- obviously can't be opened from the outside.

At that point, he radios the other agents. Again, the other agents are barricaded in Building C and -- Building B, and the TOC. He radios the other agents that he's got a problem. He is very difficult to understand. He can barely speak.

The other agents, at this time, can see that there is some smoke, or at least the agents in the TOC -- this is the first they become aware that Building C is on fire. They don't have direct line of sight. They're seeing smoke and now they've heard from the agent. So they make a determination to go to Building C to try to find their colleagues.

The agent in the TOC, who is in full gear, opens the door, throws a smoke grenade, which lands between the two buildings, to obscure what he is doing, and he moves to Building B, enters Building B. He un-barricades the two agents that are in there, and the three of them emerge and head for Building C. There are, however, plenty of bad guys and plenty of firing still on the compound, and they decide that the safest way for them to move is to go into an armored vehicle, which is parked right there. They get into the armored vehicle and they drive to Building C.

They drive to the part of the building where the agent had emerged. He's on the roof. They make contact with the agent. Two of them set up as best a perimeter as they can, and the third one, third agent, goes into the building. This goes on for many minutes. Goes into the building, into the choking smoke. When that agent can't proceed, another agent goes in, and so on. And they take turns going into the building on their hands and knees, feeling their way through the building to try to find their two colleagues. They find Sean. They pull him out of the building. He is deceased. They are unable to find the Ambassador.

At this point, the special security team, the quick reaction security team from the other compound, arrive on this compound. They came from what we call the annex. With them -- there are six of them -- with them are about 16 members of the Libyan February 17th Brigade, the same militia that was -- whose -- some members of which were on our compound to begin with in the barracks.

As those guys attempt to secure a perimeter around Building C, they also move to the TOC, where one agent has been manning the phone. I neglected to mention from the top that that agent from the top of this incident, or the very beginning of this incident, has been on the phone. He had called the quick reaction security team, he had called the Libyan authorities, he had called the Embassy in Tripoli, and he had called Washington. He had them all going to ask for help. And he remained in the TOC.

So at this point in the evening, the members of the quick reaction team, some parts of it, go to the TOC with the Libyan 17th Brigade -- 17th February Brigade. They get him out of the TOC. He moves with them to join their colleagues outside of Building C. All the agents at this point are suffering from smoke inhalation. The agent that had been in the building originally with the Ambassador is very, very severely impacted, the others somewhat less so, but they can't go back in. The remaining agent, the one that had come from the TOC, freshest set of lungs, goes into the building himself, though he is advised not to. He goes into the building himself, as do some members of the quick reaction security team.

The agent makes a couple of attempts, cannot proceed. He's back outside of the building. He takes his shirt off. There's a swimming pool nearby. He dips his shirt in the swimming pool and wraps it around his head, goes in one last time. Still can't find the Ambassador. Nobody is able to find the Ambassador.

At this point, the quick reaction security team and the Libyans, especially the Libyan forces, are saying, "We cannot stay here. It's time to leave. We've got to leave. We can't hold the perimeter." So at that point, they make the decision to evacuate the compound and to head for the annex. The annex is about two kilometers away. My agents pile into an armored vehicle with the body of Sean, and they exit the main gate.

Thank you so much, notself. It is an extremely important story, and one that was not covered in its entirety by the press, who instead unfortunately chose to focus on the rabid attempts by the Republicans to try to smear this administration by politicizing the deaths of these public servants. The State Department briefing (at the second link in mY post) was even more revealing as the State Department officials answered questions by some very well-known journalists. The most telling one is from, of all people, a reporter at the Washington Times, not known for balance (or even sanity). The reporter's question gave the State officials a chance to address a very important point.



Glad you all found it useful. That was my world for nearly two decades, and I understood what happened. I hope this will clarify it for others.



L

Thank you, HL and Notself. Wow, what a chilling account. That's how tragedies happen. The little people with the small minds don't understand this.

One question: Who went and got the ambassador's body?

MODERATOR: Okay. Next question, please.

OPERATOR: The question is from the line of Eli Lake, with Newsweek's Daily Beast. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi, thanks so much for doing this. Do you have any response from the charge from Erik Nordstrom, the Regional Security Officer who left this summer, who is set to testify tomorrow to say that it was a mistake to begin to normalize security operations and reduce security resources in accordance with an artificial timetable? That's from a letter he sent earlier this month to the oversight committee.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: I don't know what Erik is going to fully testify on tomorrow. That's something that will come out in the hearing. We could have a different discussion about all the security measures we had taken, but that's a different question.

MODERATOR: Okay, next question, please.

OPERATOR: The next question is from the line of Margaret Brennan, CBS News. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi, thanks for doing this. The timeline here begins around 8:30 p.m., but we had heard in response to some reports where reporters had found paperwork documents on the grounds of the compound that secure materials, that confidential paperwork had actually been secured earlier in the day, therefore there wasn't any compromised material found at the compound. When did that occur? At 8:30 at night? When were those documents secured or shredded or burned or whatever?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Because of the - this was a post and not a - and we - this post held no classified documents. They had computer communications with Washington, but the material would arrive on the screen and you would read it on the screen, and then that was it. There was no classified paper, so there was no paper to burn.

MODERATOR: All right, thank you. Next question, please.

OPERATOR: The next question is from the line of Brad Klapper with AP. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi, yes. You described several incidents you had with groups of men, armed men. What in all of these events that you've described led officials to believe for the first several days that this was prompted by protests against the video?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: That is a question that you would have to ask others. That was not our conclusion. I'm not saying that we had a conclusion, but we outlined what happened. The Ambassador walked guests out around 8:30 or so, there was no one on the street at approximately 9:40, then there was the noise and then we saw on the cameras the - a large number of armed men assaulting the compound.

MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you. Next question, please.

OPERATOR: The next question comes from the line of Jo Biddle with AFP. Please go ahead.

QUESTION: Thank you very much. The two people who died in the compound - in the annex, excuse me - were they part of the five security agents you've mentioned, or were they separate to that? And how many people did you have to evacuate that night from the annex?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: Because - since unfortunately we couldn't fit everything on one compound, we had two - the principle compound and the annex. We had - therefore, had our security professionals divided between the two compounds.

MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you. Time for just a few more questions.

OPERATOR: The next question comes from the line of Jonathan Karl with ABC News. Please go ahead.

QUESTION: Yeah, hi. Just two quick follow-ups - I want to be clear on one thing. You said as soon as they heard the noises outside, they went to look and saw armed men assaulting the compound. That was the very first thing that they saw after hearing the noise outside?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER ONE: They heard noises, firing, and an explosion. The agent in the TOC looked at his camera and saw people coming through the front gate.

QUESTION: Okay. So there was --

MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you. Next question, please.

OPERATOR: The next question --

MODERATOR: Sorry, we're trying to keep it moving along here.

OPERATOR: -- from the line of Kim Ghattas with BBC. Please go ahead.

QUESTION: Yes, thank you for taking the call. I just wanted to clarify a little bit whether - with the rundown that you just gave us, whether it is possible to now say clearly that this was very much a preplanned attack, and if so, whether you can explain why there was no actionable intelligence.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: This - that subject is now under review by both the FBI and potentially the Accountability Review Board based on whatever information the FBI or the intelligence community collects.

MODERATOR: Right, okay. Thank you. Just a couple more questions.

OPERATOR: The next question is from the line of Shaun Waterman, Washington Times. Please go ahead.

MODERATOR: Shaun? Let's go to the next question, and maybe Shaun can go next. Maybe he's not off mute.

OPERATOR: The next question is from Dion Nissenbaum with Wall Street Journal. Please go ahead.

QUESTION: Thanks for taking the call. I was - just wanted to get a little more clarity about the annex attack and when the attack started on the annex. Was it before the convoy arrived or as they arrived or --

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER ONE: It started after they arrived and went on intermittently for several hours.

MODERATOR: Okay. Thanks. I think we have one more question, then. Time for one more question.

OPERATOR: Certainly. Our next question is from the line of Chuck Todd, NBC News. Please go ahead.

QUESTION: Can you at least explain the process by which if a request for more security comes in, how that's - how you go about determining resources, so in the instance of the reports that more security was requested by the folks in Libya, can you sort of walk through how that process works?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: Certainly. The - this is sort of an iterative process, a discussion between the field and Washington, back and forth; the field identifying what their needs are, Washington working very, very closely with them. We always attempt to mitigate our risk. We cannot eliminate them. Sometimes the post - any post in the world might come in and say, "We need A, B, and C," there would be a dialogue, and instead of sending them A, B, and C, we would send them B, C, and D because in this discussion process, we go to functionality, and when we determine the functionality that gets us the maximum - a maximum possible security, then we - that is what we deliver to the post.

MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you. I feel like I just ignored Shaun. I know you dropped off. If you're still on, you get last chance here, buddy.

OPERATOR: And our last question does come from Shaun Waterman, Washington Times.

QUESTION: Hello?

MODERATOR: Yes, Shaun. Go ahead, buddy.

QUESTION: Oh, hey. Okay. Thanks, man. So could - I mean, just in view of what you are now saying about the attack and the intensity of it and the numbers of people involved, what - can you say what kind of security presence might have been needed to repel an attack like that? I mean, what - I mean, if the criticism is there wasn't enough security, how much would you have needed to protect the compound from this attack?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: It is difficult to answer hypothetical questions, but let me just put it this way. The lethality and the number of armed people is unprecedented. There had been no attacks like that anywhere in Libya - Tripoli, Benghazi, or elsewhere - in the time that we had been there. And so it is unprecedented. In fact, it would be very, very hard to find a precedent for an attack like that in recent diplomatic history.

MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you, and glad we got that question in. Thanks to all of you for joining us so late this evening. We do appreciate it, and we will keep in touch with all of you as we move forward. Again, thank you.

Yep, HL - a tragedy all around.

But when you have no ideas and don't understand facts, you just have the option of doing politics over a civil servant's dead body - and over the objections of Stevens's own father, too.