The Glade 4.0

What is it with people suggesting ridiculous consequences for regular salaried government employees? Seriously, life imprisonment or shooting people for professional misconduct? These aren't even elected officials, they're just regular people with a desk job.

What is it with people suggesting ridiculous consequences for regular salaried private employees? Seriously, life imprisons or shooting people for ... oh, wait, this isn't Deepwater Horizon, Conservatives, or people who aren't Democrats.

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Wait, were the liberals actually advocating the shooting of BP employees and/or executives? I must have missed that one, but it's just as idiotic.

Nuremberg was obviously a partisan witch hunt. The national socialists were just salaried government employees doing their job.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Dont be silly. All Liberals hate and fear guns like Neanderthals fear fire.

Publicly? Or just including all the death threats the BP execs "allegedly" (which I'm quite confident is correct) received?

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Just remember, only conservatives make threats and do stupid things ...

Your blinders are so thick, I'm watching three reasonable intelligent adults defend the President for treason.

I know you don't like that word, but allowing an attack (of which the evidence indicates we knew as an imminent threat) kill 4 Americans, issuing stand-down orders to the US Special Forces and to US Intelligence Operatives covered by the CIA charter, and then proceeding to defraud the public about it constitutes treason. It was illegal. And no matter what Feinstein says or Boxer says or Reid says, the simple matter is only one man in this country could have given that order; and no one could have relayed that order without direct input from that man -- President Barack Obama.

So, yes, everyone should be outraged, including his supporters. And if they aren't, then those individuals aren't interested in governing by good faith or addressing politics with good faith.

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I was talking about the IRS misconduct, not this.

Khross, you can't accuse the president of treason based on our limited understanding of the tactical decisions made at the time. It may well have been a tactical blunder, it may have been a calculated risk, it may have been miscommunication. Or it could have been that they prevented more American deaths by sending in troops into a situation that would have seen them outnumbered, outgunned and sent into a trap. We simply don't know.

There are a number of things I DO hold the president accountable for, and some things that may even rise to the level of impeachable offenses. This isn't one of them. If you read some of the accounts of WWII (or probably any war, but WWII is the one I have read most on) stupid, reckless and selfish decisions were made all over the place. But in the end they were tactical decisions and though they cost lives, they are not considered treason.

It's not an accusation. It's a statement of fact. The President issued an order that ignored an immediate and imminent threat to sovereign US territory. That order cost American citizens their lives. More to the point, that imminent threat was created by actions of the previous diplomatic officer and the intelligence operations run from that location: the Syrians and Egyptians seem to think we were arming Libyan and other Middle Eastern partisans out of that location. Whatever happened to piss off the locals, the President knew about it.I was neither a tactical blunder or a miscommunication; rather, the President issued orders that would result in Court Martial and Treason prosecutions for any commissioned officer in our military. The President's Administration orchestrated a cover-up, and that Administration continues to lie about the events.You would do well not compare command decisions made by battlefield commanders with political decisions made by our President.

Would Barack Obama have won the election if accusations of questionable gun-running were asked during the immediate run-up to the election?

Would Barack Obama have won were it known by the general public that he issued orders that directly contributed to the deaths of four American citizens on sovereign US soil?

Would Barack Obama have won were it known that the entire Administration position was a complete fabrication?

The answer to those questions are almost invariably, "No."

The cover-up, the orders, and the response, particularly since it's now been drug out almost a year, were ALL politically motivated and based on NOT giving his opposition lethal press ammunition before the election. I don't have to read his mind to know that; and I do know enough about US Law to know that issuing such orders happen to be illegal, particularly since soldiers in the Embassy and under attack were directly ordered NOT to return fire.

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We do know that there is no way the terrorist forces could have matched available response forces in terms of firepower. USS John C. Stennis and her battle group were within range to launch close air support, as were AC-130 gunships. Unless terrorists in Libya now outgun carrier battle groups, that's not even remotely likely. "Treason" and such charges are totally over-the-top nonsense; the President makes decisions as commander in chief as to what national assets to commit to what matters, and deciding poorly or wrongly is not treason. That said, for terrorists to have a chance of ambushing a response force it would need to involve arrogance and overconfidence on the level of the Somalia debacle, a lesson which has already been learned. Notably, the Rangers did NOT have the kind of firepower an aircraft carrier can bring.

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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."

Treason and such charges are not totally over the top; we're not talking about command decisions or asset decisions, Diamondeye. We're talking about intentionally allowing an attack to take place and then ordering all available intercession to let it happen. This is not a matter of deciding poorly or wrongly; this is a matter of making a political decision and attempting to cover it up. It's treason because he willfully violated his oath of office and governing rules and traded the lives of Americans for his re-election.

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Khross, do you honestly believe there's evidence for any of the "willful this" and "intentionally that" assertions you keep throwing around, or are you just personally convinced of those things based on your assessment of his character?

How much of that could have been reasonably deployed against the attacking force? I understand we could have eliminated the attacking forces but the cost of doing so in a populated area including civilian losses may well have exceeded what the loss of what? 4 US deaths?

The reports indicate that nearly 100 attackers were killed compared to 4 deaths (of which at least one was from smoke inhalation) We can what-if this all we want, but any of the following COULD have been a factor in a decision to not return fire immediately.

lack of information
fear of creating a greater incident that would have cost more US lives in the long run
the forces there were deemed adequate (4-100 is a pretty one sided battle. Would more troops have really saved more lives?)

I do; do I believe we'll ever see that evidence? No. The fact remains, though, that Barack Obama HAD to give that order himself, but he keeps disavowing any involvement whatsoever despite mounting evidence of a White House confined cover-up. So, let's just put it this way ...

If any of the truths revealed in the last week were known on Election Day, we'd be dealing with Captain Underoos appalling leadership decisions instead of Obama's.

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No, it is not. The president is totally within his power to decide national assets may be sacrificed, including loss of life, if it is in the greater national interest. That's in his judgement as Commander in Chief. Trying to impeach him for treason would be a gross abuse of legislative power. The effect it may or may not have had on his re election is irrelevant.

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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."

Pretty much all of it; you'd do well not to underestimate our military response capabilities. The United States is far better at war than we let the world believe.Ummm, you do understand that every CIA official and uniformed soldier in the building defied their direct orders not to return fire and defended themselves?

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Don't move the goalposts. Is the concern avoiding casualties, or rescuing Americans? The terrorists will claim all their own losses were civilians anyhow. The fact is that the terrorists could not outgun a rescue force. If the force handicapped itself to the point it could be trapped, there would be no point in sending it.

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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."

"Treason?" Probably not.

"Violation of the oath of office of the President of the United States." Worth a hearing, at least.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

The President issued an order that would have resulted in the termination, prosecution, and incarceration of any uniformed officer in our military, including any member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And, yes, the effect that covering this up had on the election is relevant; this information was kept from the public arena to keep it from influencing the election. The illegal order was illegal. The conspiracy became treason when a cover-up was executed.

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Just keeps getting better..



http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/05/ ... t=hts&or=1

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

The president is the elected commander in chief; uniformed officers are not. The order was not illegal. The election is irrelevant. The fact that the President could and should have ordered a rescue does not obligate him to do so if his opinion of the "should" differs. Get that through your head. That's his job as CIC.

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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."

Diamondeye:

Get it through your head -- an order illegal for any commissioned and uniformed officer to issue is also illegal for the President of the United States to issue. Being Commander-in-Chief does not give him special privileges to violate our laws; in fact, we have specific rules for giving war-time generals more command authority than the President as it pertains to use and deployment of armed forces and military assets. More to the point, the order in question countermanded extraction operations already put under way by the standard chain of command for BOTH agencies and the soldiers affected.

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How is it an illegal order, though? Are you saying it's illegal for a commander to order a delay in reinforcements for any reason - whether tactical, strategic or diplomatic - or are you saying it's illegal to delay reinforcements for the reasons you believe motivated Obama's decision here?

No.

This is completely and totally false. You are simply making **** up. It is not illegal for the Preesident.to issue such an order, regardless of whether itld be for a general or admiral. If you don't understand that, then you don't understand the topic well enough to comment at all. Period. That's all there is to the matter.

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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."