The Glade 4.0

http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2012/09/21/boldly-into-the-breach/

I ask that you read this, and consider, but do not focus on, the criticism. That's not the point of this post.

What is your intent then.

I fail to see how the President's comments (right or wrong) in any way diminish their heroism.

My intent is to provide an account of the incident and their role. This has not be adequately reported on.

Pretty exemplary, but not surprising for those types of guys.


It can't be because it raises too many "uncomfortable" questions. Sad.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Don't understand what's uncomfortable. Military guys gave their lives well, defending others in a cause they believed in.

Good way to go, if you're going to go, I guess.

And the administration lied about them. That's the shitty part.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I think it's a bit disingenuous to call that a lie. Maybe they weren't in Libya to protect the diplomat, but that's certainly what they were trying to do when they died. That's just my interpretation.

That's the untruthful part. It doesn't just imply, it comes right out and says that was what they were doing there. "Providing security" isn't volunteering to defend someone from a sudden attack. If you saw a woman being raped and ran over to fend off the attacker, would you consider it accurate if some lawyer said you were "providing security" for her?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Yes, I would consider that accurate.


Part of the definition of security (and there are many parts of the definition, which is why I'm okay with this):

...and it most certainly was a continuation of their service to our country. Was it the reason that they were in Libya? No, but it's still a true statement. I don't think that the President was under any obligation to announce on a world stage that there were operatives in Libya under CIA direction looking for missing surface-to-air missiles.

He said they were continuing their service providing security. It was not a true statement. That was not what they were doing there. They eventually ended up trying to defend the Ambassador, but that isn't the manner in which they were "continuing their service".

As to that definition of security, by the time someone is getting attacked, you aren't "ensuring their safety" to defend them. It's too late. They're already being attacked.

As for not announcing that they were CIA operatives looking for SAMs, the shoulder-launched SAM issue is already known. The Soviets manufactured and sold thousands of them all over the world and it has been an ongoing security concern, although rather ignored in favor of the glamor of "suitcase nukes" and other WMD-based threats. Announcing that people were looking for Ghaddafi's stock of MANPADS would hardly have raised eyebrows. Even if he didn't want to, however, he could have said something to the effect of "despite not being their in a security capacity these meen took it upon themselves..." without mentioning what they were supposedly doing there, rather than claim they were there "providing security".

I'm going to remember this thread the next time someone jumps through all kinds of hoops to claim Romney was lying, like in the debate thread.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

When Reagan took a bullet and then got shoved into a car, was the SS no longer providing security for him because he had already been injured?

Remember this thread all you want, but I'm not jumping through any hoops. That's how I interpret his statement. Two US operatives were in an area under attack by enemy forces and they responded by defending civilians and countrymen, ultimately losing their lives in the process. If that's not a continuation of their [military] service then I don't know what is. You're getting stuck on what their official mission was at the time and disregarding what they were doing at the time of their deaths so you can make Obama out to be a liar.

They voluntarily stopped action on the mission they were hired to perform and acted in a noble fashion to save the lives of others. What Obama said is a direct lie.

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"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." - Alice R. Longworth

"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun." - Ash Williams

They were retired from the military, yes? But what was their charge while they were enlisted, to protect the nation and its citizens, right? That's exactly what they were doing when they voluntarily decided to take up arms and defend a US ambassador. That's a continuation of what their service to our military was when they were still members of it. It's not the reason that they were in Libya, but there are no falsehoods in the statement that they continued their [former] service.

C'mon, Lenas, they weren't providing security, they were looking for weapons. They weren't "continuing their military service" (they were no longer in the military) they were fighting for the lives of their countrymen at peril to their own.

These guys were continuing their service through their covert intelligence operations. I'll grant that I can understand how you can interpret what they did as providing security, but that's not the line Obama is trying to sell by saying what he did. He's trying to imply that there were former SEALS there to protect the embassy in order to deflect criticism of why two security details were pulled out of a war zone, and not replaced, when the inevitable comparison is made between the minimal defense detail at the Benghazi embassy vs. places like the Paris embassy.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Well, since he didn't explicitly state any of that, I guess I'll just have to say I disagree and leave it at that.

I salute these two men for their sacrifice and I'm sad that their deaths have been politicized like this.

But you aren't sad about the way your Liar in Chief is handling their deaths?

Would you like to debate the meaning of the word is while we are at it?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

No, they were continuing to provide security. Providing security is something you do before a threat actually materializes. You also continue it after the threat has abated. When you show up in the middle of or aftermath of an incident and start taking action, that's not what we customarily refer to as "providing security". That's defending the principle. When Hinckley shot the president,

Let me give you another example. Lets suppose we set up an infantry platoon patrol base. It is cutomarily a triangle with a squad on each side. If the perimter is probed, only the squad on that side will fire, for obvious reasons. The other two squads are still providing security, even though they are not actively engaging the enemy. The engaged squad has gone beyond providing security; it is now engaging the enemy.

In fact, if one were to refer to a person's heroic attempt to defend another from harm when the defender had no obligation to do so as simply "providing security", that would be a major downplaying of the heroism of what they did. If what you're saying about Obama's statement is true, then he unnecessarily obfuscated his own point, and in the process belittled the voluntary heroism of these two men by calling it merely "providing security".

Technically, according to the dictionary, you could call what they did providing security, but people don't say that in actual practice.



No, we're not getting stuck on anything. It is very common practice when a member of the military leaves the service and goes to a civilian position within the government to refer to that as continuing his service. That's what that customarily refers to. You are trying to insert "military" in there, instead of it referring to public service or government service. Military service is just one type of government/public service.

What you're doing is looking for ways to excuse Obama from being a liar on this.



In a moral sense they may have been continuing their military service. However, by working for the CIA they were both morally and in actuality continuing their public service, which is the most obvious thing for Obama to refer to. Either he said what he wanted to say in an incredibly convoluted manner, and in the process belittled their actions, or he just didn't want to admit that either A) security was that bad B) we had people looking for SAMs or C) both. Given the already-publicly-known threat of loose MANPADs, A) is the most likely.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Well, the administration is catching such a shitstorm for "outing" U.S. intelligence officers by confirming the assassination of Osama bin Laden, that they decided not to be honest and forthcoming about why these two men were really in Libya. So, they were "part of the security detail" instead.

So what is it? Should the identity of intelligence officers be protected, or should they get the proper recognition for their actions? You can't have both. You have to pick one.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

The administration was taking flak about disclosing secret operations such as drone strikes and cyberattacks on Iran. Obama was also taking flak about seemingly taking credit for killing Osama. I've seen nothing about them taking flak for "outing" intelligence agents.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I don't see that "outing" intelligence officers who are already dead is terribly likely to present a problem.

Furthermore, as I already pointed out, there was no reason any mention of what they were there for at all needed to have been made. If absolutely necessary, "Part of the U.S. mission to Libya" would have sufficed.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You guys get crazy in election season.

Is this offensive? At most it seems you could say its mildly inaccurate.

I really dont understand the excitement. It seems a long way from a direct lie or something condemnable... I'd get it if he'd said something negative or belittled the soldiers.

It honestly looks lie you're all looking for anything to interpret in a light that lets you throw rocks - "I'll remember this in the next thread" indeed.

Pffff. Off to forage grubs instead.

I resent that remark, I'm crazy all the time. I just really dislike being lied to by my employees.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I'd say that reducing a voluntary heroic action to protect others when under no obligation to do so, and with only improvised weapons and equipment to "providing security" is belittling the former sailors. (Navy, not Army) Then again, Britain's treatment of it's military in the last 20 years has been appalling, so I shouldn't be surprised.

As for remember it in the next thread, we just had someone loudly insisting that Romney was "lying" for saying the same thing in more than one way, which is far far less deceptive than this speech by Obama was.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This. It's distasteful, it glosses over the depth of their actions, but it's not much more than that.