Dazed and Confused

Where have i been? i don't know. looking at the world, i guess. and it makes no sense. i'm going back to bed.

What?

i don't get paid to think the big thoughts. but somebody's got to do it.

Oh, They're United Alright

i've seen headlines that implore Donald Trump to try to unite the republican party. what the hell are they talking about? the republican party IS united. the GOP is perfectly and completely united with the democrats, and has been for at least 25 years.

there has not been a single piece of legislation or policy proposed by the democrats that the republicans stood in the way of. they passed it all. obama, clinton, any demo congressman or senator, whatever they wanted the republicans gave it to them, even when they were in the majority and could have blocked it.

the only time the republicans haven't stood squarely behind the democrats is when they actually jumped out in front to lead the charge for ever increasingly insane liberal policy.

Trump has proved beyond any doubt that he can win just fine thank you without any help from the republican party. he's gone farther than that: he's won even when they have viciously attacked their own front runner. but wait, farther still, even when the republican party has joined forces with the democrats and lies, cheats, and slanders him, Trump still kicks the shit out of the retards they put up against him.

so, unite the party? i don't fucking think so. i certainly don't want the GOP united. au contraire: i want them destroyed beyond all recognition. i want their name to be stricken from all official records, i want pages ripped out of books, and i want the penny taken out of circulation and dumped in the ocean. fuck illinois and their demon spawn. erase them from the face of the earth.

then there's the paul ryan issue. is this toad the most delusional megalomaniac in the history of delusional megalomaniacs? i say yes. this little putz actually thinks he's SOMEBODY, and that if he doesn't endorse trump it's a big deal. go to any mall in the country and ask a hundred people who the speaker of the house is. if two of them know the correct answer i'd be very surprised. when trump gets to the convention, the first thing he should do is fire paul ryan from the chairman position. then have him escorted out of the hall.

the republican party has betrayed its base so egregiously it deserves to cease to exist. they haven't been an opposition party for a quarter century. they haven't been a conservative party since eisenhower. disperse them. trump owns what used to be their base, lock, stock and barrel. he should even change the name AT THE CONVENTION. make former republicans come to him. make them beg for an audience. this is no time to be mr. nice guy. don't unite the republican party; nuke it!

I've Been Saying For Years....

i've been saying for many years that i don't know how anyone who has raised 2 or more children could have any delusions about world peace. the story of cain and abel did not fall out of the sky. even though siblings are made of the exact same genetic material, and thus could not be closer or more homogeneous, any parent knows they can be vicious toward each other.

when i stumbled onto this video of identical twins, barely old enough to sit up, and yet fighting over a  pacifier, my instincts were confirmed even more concretely about the perpetual strife that is the hallmark of humanity. identical twins, even more so than mere siblings, are the closest nature comes to a single spirit in two beings. but as the video shows, it doesn't make a fucking bit of difference. the overriding imperative is, i want. and if that means i have to poke your eye out to get what i want, well, such is the world. oh stop whining.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXATjvr_rl4

yeah, world peace. any day now.

Speaking of The Acropolis

Jesus. even cruz dropping out has only slightly moved the odds: 63 to 37 hillary. WTF. if trump falls back to 33 i have to go in big. that would give me 3 to 1 odds. the other interesting bet is christie vp at 12. that's up from 6 so maybe something is happening there.

with trump now unquestionably the nominee, something very large has happened. the establishment has been driven back, the media have been driven back. despite the most despicable, mendacious, vile, and underhanded tactics ever seen in our lifetimes, their heads have been handed to them. pikes wanted. line the road to athens with their shit smeared skulls.

If She Said It, It Must Be True

a reporter claimed that Trump's campaign manager roughed her up at a rally. she filed a police report and the news outlets reported that the manager had been "charged" with battery. that was a lie. the first of many. he was not charged; he was given a notice to appear. two very different things.

for over a week the allegation was treated as a fait accompli by all news organizations. but unbeknownst to the reporter who made the allegation and the media who slavishly reported it as fact, there was surveillance video that recorded the encounter. in her allegation, the reporter said that the manager grabbed her arm very roughly and pulled her so hard she almost fell to the ground. in her police report she said she never touched trump and thus there was no reason for the rough treatment by the manager, cory lewandowski.

the video begs to differ. it clearly shows that cory neither grabbed her or pulled her, roughly or otherwise. he simply put his arm between her and trump as he was catching up to trump and then placed himself between them without even looking at her.

the video also shows quite clearly that she lied in her police report. she definitely grabbed trump's arm, and then you see him pull his arm from her grasp. no reasonable person could dispute either move.

after prosecutors saw the video they said they would not charge lewandowski. but of course they wouldn't. it was ridiculous from the start. but here's the thing; lying in a police report is a crime, a criminal offense. and the video showed proof that the reporter lied when she said she never touched trump.

so here is an actual crime, with actual evidence. shouldn't the reporter be charged? and here the word "charge" is used correctly. of course she should. but she isn't being charged even though a conviction could be almost guaranteed. the zealous prosecutors who were so eager to investigate and pursue her dubious claim against trump's manager, are now suddenly very, very cautious. and the equally zealous and eager news outlets have completely dropped the story. why? because it doesn't fit their Goddamned narrative of woman reporter good, trump and anyone associated with him bad.

does anybody remember phil donahue? he was a talk show host and he started this particular narrative. his version was women good, men bad. every day he hammered that theme on his show, and now it is part of the culture. i wish somebody would prosecute that asshole.

A Forum Here, A Forum There

i write on forums occasionally. if there's an interesting exchange i'll post it here sometimes. the following is an example. the text in bold and underlined was written by someone else. the regular text is my response.

Trump was caught completely off guard.

and it seems to be a streak. first, he was completely unprepared for the last debate and got hurt bad because of it. then he let chris matthews sucker punch  him on the abortion issue and completely fucked up the answer. that did damage that may not be fixable. we'll see in new york.

and today in an interview he speaks favorably of marco greaseball rubio and doesn't rule him out for vp, which is just fucking nuts. trump needs my help so fucking bad.

But you know what it shows? Ted Cruz is an absolute despot and as corrupt and crooked as they come.

which i saw on day one. glad you guys are finally catching up. any man with even an ounce of integrity would refuse the colorado delegates and insist on a vote. but that wouldn't even occur to ted crudz. he is a vain, self-centered, narcissistic piece of cuban shit. the fact that he considers this a victory should tell you all you need to know about that slimebag. and the fact that he has gotten ANY votes shows how low the american electorate has sunk.

is a situation Cruz was able to exploit to his benefit and Trump wasn’t. Trump can’t call foul play. Ted did his homework, Trump didn’t.

that's not homework, gallo. it's the kind of deceitful, corrupt, hidden, backroom bullshit they pull in thirdworld shitholes like mexico. not surprising you recognize it and consider it valid. not your fault; nobody gets to choose where they're born. but it shows once again how powerful childhood influences of culture have on a being. and why the founding fathers required that presidential candidates must be natural born citizens. cruz isn't qualified and neither was obama, but he couldn't be questioned because he's a negro and they're sacred now in america. but it sure is a powerful argument that only natural born white males should be eligible, because they're the only ethnicity and gender that can be held accountable (the standards had already collapsed or else that traitor geo w. bush would have been prosecuted).

we used to be above this kind of shit. this is where political correctness leads. the toilet. and we're already in it. welcome back to guadalajara.

i try to go easy on you, and then you come up with something like the homework statement and my temper goes right out the window. nothing personal. just debate.

Here is an idea: Trump/Sanders 2016.

actually, i think this is kind of an interesting idea. i like it. if i can get through to the campaign i'll suggest it and give you the credit.

i don't know where your optimism is coming from, MW. i'm not sure you realize how badly trump has been damaged.

on march 17, 2003 i told lyn nofziger i would be a republican no more forever. i'm so far ahead of the curve it astonishes even me. the gop doesn't deserve anybody's vote. they are dog shit wrapped in cat shit in a bucket of horse shit.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Photoshop

saw an article today on the yahoo homepage. the headline was 

"Donald Trump: His madness, GOP insanity"

with the usual thumbnail photo beside it. the pic was of donald trump at a podium, with a very angry and odd look on his face, and he's giving the finger to the audience it appears, or in that general direction.

i thought to myself, "that doesn't look like something trump would do".  so i clicked to see the article, wondering where this incident took place. that took me to the article with only a paragraph ending in mid-sentence, and a "read more" button. clicked again. 

i finally got to the article which had the same pic only larger. the piece was mostly name calling and saying how low the republican party had sunk and what a megalomaniac trump was, and basically just drivel with no supporting evidence or logic or context, in other words, what's come to be reporting since trump announced his candidacy.

that "read more" button is really pissing me off with yahoo. it's just a way to load another page with a new raft of ads on it and another example of why yahoo has petered out. but that's for another post.

the article itself was garbage and it never mentioned where the photo of trump took place. but i noticed that there was now a caption under the pic in very tiny print. it said this:


"Donald Trump to America: A illustration created in Photoshop to make the point".

this caption was not in the thumbnail, nor in the first click paragraph. and my instinct was right; donald trump didn't make the gesture and he didn't have that angry, odd expression on his face. the whole thing was faked with photoshop, but someone who just saw the headline with the thumbnail, or even gone farther and clicked on it to get to the next page, would have gotten the impression that it was real and that trump was an angry, venal pisspot. (unless their eye was as keen as mine). and even when you finally got to the full version, the type of the caption was so small i had to enlarge it to read it.

so basically yahoo was telling a lie. i even think it is actionable. if i were trump i'd sue for about two hundred million for defamation. i mean that middle finger gesture is universally understood in the u.s. to mean a very specific two word phrase. and they even got the grammar wrong in the caption. and by showing that photo they were attributing an offensive statement to trump that he never made. that's called lying. they used photoshop to create a falsehood. they should be held accountable, plus punitive damages. here's the link if you want to see for yourself,   http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/59753

it used to be that tv news and newspapers lied constantly but the internet finally made it possible to get to the true story. not anymore. the internet has an agenda now too, the same as the mainstream media. and i hate photoshop. they've already destroyed the collective self-esteem of an entire generation of young girls by eliminating every perceived flaw in published photos and causing these poor girls to think that they should aspire to a perfection that doesn't even exist. as always, tech is a double edged sword. be wary. be wary, wary.

U.S. foreign policy via youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUObFqU5cgE

do you really need to know anything more about hillary clinton?

a letter to my congressman

March  4, 2016

Congressmen Bera, M.D.

I received your letter dated 12-8-15, that was in response to my phone call to your local office objecting to the settling of Syrian refugees in the United States. First, let me say that I appreciate your responding to my call.

This letter of mine may appear antagonistic, but it is not meant to be so. It is meant to correct certain statements of yours that are factually incorrect, and to question your policy stance. If I am wrong in anything that I say, I am perfectly willing to change my mind if my statements can be refuted.

I find your response troubling at best.  First things first: your opinion, and hence your vote, are exactly the opposite of mine, so you are NOT representing me as your title suggests. I can understand that people can have good faith disagreements regarding policy, and that does not necessarily put me off.

But there are other things that do put me off. You make statements in your letter that are patently false. That indicates either an insufficient knowledge of American history to qualify you for your current office, or a deliberate attempt to take both sides of an issue in order to not lose a vote. If you can think of another reason, I am open to hearing and considering it.

I have enclosed a copy of your letter and highlighted the statements that I consider to be false. I have also copied the statements to this letter of mine to better refute your beliefs and hopefully change your opinion. Your statements are underlined and my response appears beneath each one.

Our nation has always been a place for those fleeing violence or oppression and we must stay true to those values.

This is simply not true. Our nation has not always been a place for those fleeing violence or oppression. There have been numerous periods in American history when we have turned away thousands of so-called refugees because having them here was not in the best interests of the American people. The late 1930's come to mind. We turned away boatload after boatload of so- called refugees because of the war building in Europe, and accepting them would have unnecessarily involved us in that war. The vast majority of American voters were united in that policy. There are many other instances of our refusal to admit foreign nationals fleeing their responsibility to fix their own problems.

There have also been numerous periods in our history when we have stopped ALL immigration for lengthy periods of time, again, because it simply was not in the best interests of the American people to accept immigrants at a particular time for various reasons. There have also been many instances when we have restricted various categories, nationalities, and even individuals from entering the U.S.  At this very moment as I write, there are such restrictions in force denying entry to this country. The most obvious pertain to Russian nationals whom our government is currently using  as a proxy dispute against Russia for reasons that may or may not be legitimate. In any case, the current restrictions have the force of law and the American people have not voiced any objection to that policy.

I suggest you look up american immigration and “refugee” policy throughout our history to better educate yourself to the truth of the matter, rather than making sweeping emotional statements that are false. The Founding Fathers of the United States wrote very specifically on this issue and advised extreme caution on the topic. Men such as Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton wrote on the topic and it would behoove you to read their words.

The vast majority of refugees are mothers, children, and the elderly

This is another false statement. I have been following this situation very closely. From everything i've read in multiple domestic and foreign news outlets, the majority of the so-called refugees are young men of military age. I have seen many cases of these Syrian men admit on camera that they are fleeing military service in their own country. I have seen multiple reports from volunteers who are actually helping these so-called refugees state that the majority of them are young men. Significant numbers of them are not even from Syria, but rather, muslim men from eastern Europe seeking to take advantage of generous welfare benefits in western European countries.

There are hundreds of video clips showing hoards of young men traversing fields in Europe, with just enough small children sprinkled in to give them plausible deniability. The port city of Calais in France has become unlivable because of the crime and violence brought by these same “refugees”. There are dozens of reports and videos of them storming the Chunnel in order to illegally enter Great Britain. There are also innumerable accounts of rapes, sexual assault, battery and generalized crime in the refugee camps that hold them. I don't want them in my country.

we must honor the long American tradition of helping to resettle refugees.

I have addressed your similar statement above. This one is false , too. There is no such tradition. This is the second time in your letter that you have made the statement. Repetition does not make it true, or any the less false. Repetition counts against a debate team. It is a sure sign of a weak or disingenuous case.

That's why I voted for H.R. 4038, a bill that requires government agencies that are already doing refugee background checks to certify that a refugee applicant is not a national security risk.

This statement is especially troubling. It indicates unequivocally that the security checks currently in place were not stringent enough and therefore it was necessary to add something to them. You may not have been in office when the first bill was passed, in which case you are not responsible for its deficiencies. But it makes a statement about congress in general that does not inspire confidence. After the atrocity of 9/11, shouldn't they have been able to get it right the first time? And shouldn't you have addressed that the first day you took office?

Instead, it builds upon our already strong security screening process to ensure Syrian refugees are thoroughly vetted and are not a security threat.

Thoroughly vetted?? Is that a joke? The simple fact is that in Syria, as in many middle eastern countries, all civil order has collapsed, and meaningful background checks are impossible. The recent San Bernardino mass murder terrorist attack backs up my assertion and proves beyond doubt that the laws that congress has passed to prevent these attacks are completely worthless. Fourteen Americans were killed and 22 wounded.

The woman terrorist attacker easily obtained a fiancé visa and entered the U.S. without question, even though she had posted extremest rants on social media and pledged her allegiance to ISIS publicly. Where was “our already strong security screening process” the day she effortless walked into our country? And if our security screening process is already strong, as you say, how did she get in? And why did we need an additional bill to make it stronger? Because it's not strong, that's how. It is just more politically correct bullshit that ignores actual threats and instead, harasses old women and children, and even U.S. congressmen. 

We prudently take extra precautions to keep Americans safe.

I refer you to my previous 2 paragraphs. If congress is prudent and takes extra precautions to keep Americans safe, why do these attacks keep happening? Another example is the Boston Marathon attack. Russian officials alerted the CIA about those particular suspects TWO  YEARS  BEFORE the attacks took place. TWICE. But that agency, along with the FBI, only did a perfunctory investigation and then dropped the matter. American citizens again paid for their incompetence with their lives. We spend $40 billion a year on so-called intelligence and yet can't follow up on information that is handed to us on a silver platter.

At present, we don't have enough jobs for the people who are already here. Why take in more? The U.S. taxpayer is not responsible for the rest of the world's standard of living. We have VETERANS, men and women who put their lives on the line for our country, who are now homeless. Tens of thousands of them, and we don't seem to have the money to give them adequate care. The VA hospital system is shamelessly underfunded. Veterans have to wait months to get an appointment, and many times must travel long distances to get to a VA facility. This is a national disgrace and a treacherous betrayal of the men and women in uniform who serve our country at great risk to themselves. 

Money that could be used to adequately provide care for them is instead diverted to provide a new life for foreign nationals who refuse to fight for their own countries, and who refuse to address the political problems in their own countries. Why would I want cowardly and irresponsible people like that in my country? I wouldn't and I don't.

Apart from veterans, we have thousands upon thousands of homeless people in the U.S. that we are not taking care of. I live in Sacramento. There are well over a thousand homeless people here. They are everywhere. They are in neighborhoods that we would never have imagined them being in even 10 years ago. 

It has been reported that congress is spending 1.6 BILLION DOLLARS to resettle ILLEGAL aliens within the United States. We are giving billions of dollars to known criminals who have invaded our country and broken our laws. And you want to spend billions more on thousands of foreign nationals who have proven themselves to be unworthy citizens in their own countries. But we don't have the money to take care of American citizens that you were elected to represent? I cannot abide by that.

Your policy stance on refugees seems to put the interests of foreigners and criminals ahead of our own citizens. 

I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that your positions are just a matter of being insufficiently acquainted with historical facts, and genuinely misled on the situation in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Iran and others. You may laugh at that statement since you seem to be a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, whereas I am just a common citizen. But I would just tell you that I have seen many high level officials and even Cent/Com generals make statements that I know to be factually incorrect.

Bottom line: I see two possibilities here: 1. I can work for you and help you get a better grasp of American history and to reconfigure your priorities in such a way that is unassailable, honorable and right for Americans.  Or, 2. I can volunteer to work for your opponent and defeat you in the upcoming election, because as it stands now, your policies are absolutely unacceptable to me.

I look forward to hearing from you within a week of the date of this letter. But in case I don't hear from you in that time, you can contact me henceforth at the headquarters of your opponent for the election in November 2016, where I will be working diligently 14 hours a day to oust you from office.

Sincerely,

you're kidding, right?

so the security guys tell bob to get everybody in the cars and get the hell out of there to the airport. but bob, ever the CIA operative, says first we have to tear down the office, and he has his people shredding documents, smashing video cassettes, that sort of thing, wasting valuable life saving minutes on a task that is ridiculous. the security guys are barely able to believe what they're seeing. they argue with bob, they try to explain the urgency of the situation, that an embassy personnel has already been killed, the american ambassador is missing, and the annex is next in a matter of minutes.

bob continues to shred and smash, ignoring them. but they know how close the danger is and realize they're out of time, they are going to have to fight off the arabs who attacked the embassy. they go up to the roof, take up positions, put on night vision goggles and start looking onto the grounds and waiting for the inevitable thugs they know are coming.

they don't have to wait long. they begin to see shadows moving at the periphery of the grounds. one guy goes down and tells bob to kill the inside lights and get everybody behind cover. bob, of course, even now starts to object. the security guy grabs his throat and makes sure he understands that he is no longer in command and that security is giving the orders from here on. bob reluctantly realizes things may have changed.

back up on the roof the guys are holding their fire and waiting till the enemy gets close enough to where they can take the arabs out in clumps and conserve ammunition. when they're sufficiently bunched up, the guys begin using short bursts, killing two or three of the enemy at a time, and even picking off one at a time when they can. the arabs retreat. but they'll be back. and meanwhile more and more of them are arriving at the annex. the security guys know they're in for a long night.

i'm going to condense this. for the next 13 hours they are fighting off wave after wave of the enemy. it is indeed a VERY long night. just before dawn all the enemy pull back, start getting into toyota and driving away. at first the guys think they've managed to hold them off, but then a lone car drives up to the annex gate, stops for half a minute, and then drives away. that's when they realize, holy shit, they're using their cell phone to get location coordinates.

the whole night, in between attacks, the security guys are on the radio with the u.s. military asking where in the hell they are, why aren't they getting air cover, and when are they going to send in the marines. the generals are monitoring this all over the fucking globe and staying mostly silent. there are units in tripole, an hour away. there are ships in the Mediterranean, there are fighter jets that could have flown in 5 hours ago. but they get nothing.

so the lone car drove away 10 minutes ago, the guys can't get off the roof and take cover because they don't know if there's going to be another attack. a couple minutes later the first mortar round comes in. it lands on the grounds short of the building. i'm not going to give away the ending here but what we need to talk about is bob.

none of this ordeal had to happen. what the hell kind of top secret documents are they keeping at an annex in this shithole, benghazi, that bob thinks are so important that he has to shred them, risking the lives of two dozen people? could the u.s. government, the CIA, the pentagon be THAT stupid, to keep anything important in a place like this? we'll never know what the true situation is. but from what i've told you so far you can take a pretty good guess. an american embassy is attacked and the ambassador and an aide are killed because of too little security.  libya, thanks to the u.s. government, an idiot president, a useless congress, libya has been a war zone for 2 years. there shouldn't have been a damned embassy there, or a CIA post, in the first place.

during that two years the u.s. has been bombing libya with more ordinance than was dropped in all of world war II. that's not an exaggeration; it's the truth. the country's infrastructure is completely destroyed. warring factions have destroyed anything u.s. bombs may have missed. ghaddifi has been killed. you can't take a breath without inhaling bullets or shrapnel. and they're keeping something in a marginal CIA annex that needs to be shredded? are you fucking kidding me?

and for what? do i give a shit about what's going on in libya, or if gadaffi is a benevolent dictator or not? hell no. but the whitehouse wants REGIME CHANGE. and the congress is too cowardly to make them justify their whims and take the correct constitutional path before throwing american lives off a cliff. so to answer my own question two paragraphs back, YES, the entire u.s. intelligence agencies, every elected representative, up to and including the president, every general in every branch of the military, YES, they are THAT STUPID! and if you have an ounce of sense you would be shitting yourself right now.

i'm still not finished with this topic.

Lie number 1

initially the whitehouse put out a story supposedly explaining why the american embassy in benghazi, libya was attacked. it's a seriously stupid story, and considering the president signed off on it, you've really got to wonder about the iq in the oval office.

according to the spokesman, a video was posted on youtube that was insulting to islam. a protest ensued in front of the american embassy in this one town. not in tripoli, the capitol of libya, but in this secondary town. and nowhere else in the muslim world, just benghazi.

as more and more people gathered at the protest things began to get rowdy. pretty soon rocks were being thrown. things got out of hand. somehow a fire started. that was the official story.

while this protest was going on, before the fire started, the american ambassador was calling the CIA annex about a mile away and pleading for them to send help. he said there was heavy gunfire and they were being attacked. the station chief, to this day known only as bob, declined. there were american contract security men at the annex and they were ready to go within 5 minutes of the first call. they were ordered to stand down and denied their advice that they should go immediately.

after about 30 minutes, they overheard the ambassador telling the station chief that the whole building was on fire, they were in the safe room but smoke was coming in and if someone didn't get there right away they would be dead. bob refused, he was worried about blowing the cover of the annex.

the american security guys hearing the sit/rep said screw the order, we're going. all the while bob is yelling at them that he is in charge and he is ordering them to stay put. they don't give a shit about bob's orders at this point, they're in their trucks and on their way.

from several blocks away they can see that it's a conflagration, the embassy is engulfed in flames. they do the best they can to find the ambassador and his aid but the flames and the smoke make navigation inside the building impossible. they do find the aid but he's already dead. they were unable to locate the ambassador. all the while they're shooting it out with the "protestors" who are remarkably heavily armed with AKs and grenade launchers, considering this was a spontaneous event that started peacefully because of a youtube video. which by now you should be able to discern that the story is bullshit. this was a planned, coordinated attack.

when they get back to the annex they tell bob that the annex is going to be attacked next and to get everybody out and to the airport at a hundred miles an hour. wait till you hear what bob thinks is more important and wastes critical time doing.

to begin: last night i saw the movie "13 hours". it was good despite the fact that there were no major actors in it. the tension began almost immediately and kept you on the edge of your seat till the end.

it says at the beginning it's based on a true story. if that's the case, anyone who sees it should be soiling their trousers. aside: when i got home i started googling the hell out of it, and in my opinion, it is indeed a very accurate portrayal of the events in benghazi that resulted in the deaths of the american ambassador, chris stephens, an embassy staffer, and two contract security men.

both the book and the movie were helped by the remaining contract security guys who were there and experienced the debacle live. they are on the record saying that they were ordered to stand down when they wanted to rescue the people in the embassy. the CIA denies their statement and maintains that they were never given such an order.

what gives the contractors credibility is, not only are they on the record, but they use their real names. the CIA, by contrast, refuses to reveal the station cheif's name who was also there when the event occurred. in the movie he is referred to as "bob", and the CIA continues to use only that name in reference to him. another point of credibility is the fact that about a dozen CIA operatives resigned directly after the event. why?

so, i have to believe the contract guys. they have nothing to gain by lying and a lot to lose (their lives,   for instance) by revealing their true identities. what is so frightening about this, well, two things, is first, the u.s. government lied to the american people about what really happened, and second, it becomes very clear when watching the movie that nobody is steering the boat. none of the u.s. officials knew what the hell they were doing, the ambassador, chris stephens, being near the top of the moron heap, but even higher is the CIA station chief who definitely should have known better. and even higher than him is the pentagon, the various CENTCOM guys, who let american personel be killed because saving them would have exposed both the lies and the incompetence.

a lot more to say about this and why you should care, but right now i've got to eat.