Talk:2012 Benghazi attack/Archive 2

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Requested Move: Attack on the U.S. Diplomatic mission in Benghazi

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved per nom. DrKiernan (talk) 10:20, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

U.S. Consulate attack in Benghazi → Attack on the U.S. Diplomatic mission in Benghazi – Per WP:COMMONNAME, "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources." — Hasdi Bravo • 19:03, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The website of U.S. Embassy of Libya in Tripoli (e.g., http://libya.usembassy.gov/tw091312.html), described the incident as the "attack on the U.S. Diplomatic mission in Benghazi", of which the proposed title is adopted. The latest word from the administration referred to the attack as done to "U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya."

  • Mark Hosenball (2012-09-28). "U.S. intelligence now says Benghazi attack "deliberate and organized"". Reuters. Retrieved 2012-09-29.

However, all this namings make sense once you realize that the word "diplomatic mission" technically refers to a group of people that is headed by an ambassador (i.e., J. Christopher Stevens) rather than the building of the permanent diplomatic mission (a.k.a. the embassy) in Tripoli, Libya. While there is no U.S. embassy in Benghazi, there may be a consulate or a consular office, which is a similar but distinct function from a diplomatic office. There were two separate attacks, one of which may not be consular office at all. The administration thus used the general term "diplomatic facilities" which could refer to an embassy building, a consular office, a safe house, or any building that is operated by U.S. government in Libya. Anywho, with the passing with the ambassador, this is clearly an attack on the diplomatic mission in Libya, defined as a group of people lead by Stevens, so I think the proposed title is most accurate. — Hasdi Bravo • 19:03, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

  • Oppose WP:COMMONNAME, WP:OFFICIALNAME, WP:JARGON. The name as it appears in the press (Reliable Sources) is "consulate". There is no ambiguity in the name. We do not use the official name just because it is official. "diplomatic mission" (1300 Gnews hits) ; "consulate" (56000 Gnews hits) -- 70.24.245.122 (talk) 21:44, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Support (with reservation) Yesterday's WP ,Ernesto Londoño and Abigail Hauslohner (2012-09-29). "In Libya, security was lax before attack that killed U.S. ambassador, officials say". Washington Post. Retrieved 2012-09-30., notes `The Benghazi compound was an anomaly for U.S. diplomatic posts. It was not a formal consulate and certainly not an embassy.' The fact that it was *not* a consulate contributed to the weaker security. Also, there were two compounds separated by 1/2 mile. Suggest `Attack on the U.S. Diplomatic Compounds in Benghazi'.snug (talk) 01:04, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Confused - The current title, to me is a bit ambiguous (It was not a U.S. attack on anything). But the proposed name does not seem to solve the issue. It was an "attack on the U.S. ? in Benghazi". --ZooFamily (talk) 00:22, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

If this article is to be encyclopedic, rather than an opinion piece, the term used to describe the facility the "facility" is important. Embassies, consulates and Diplomatic Missions are all specific official US designations, and are listed here: http://www.usembassy.gov/ . I think it is premature to describe it further, as it may be more of a military outpost, to coordinate (lead?) the effort for military and political control of Libya. All US officials are careful to parse how this "compound" is described. See the nuances here, at moonofalabama.org, comment #50 citing US State Department statements:

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/09/obama-administration-finally-acknowledges-benghazi-attack.html#c6a00d8341c640e53ef017d3c6c8458970c 

See also:
http://reanimatedresidue.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/there-is-no-us-embassyconsulatemission-in-benghazi-libya/

which has collected various news stories on what the compound may have been (perhaps the Guardian's photos of the "gated compound" could be included to show that physical distinction. I suggest "U.S. Compound" rather than either "consulate" or "diplomatic mission" Erichwwk3 (talk) 01:53, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

  • Support rename. John Vandenberg (chat) 07:09, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment I think we can all agree it needs to be renamed to "Attack on U.S. X in Benghazi". We just need to agree what X should be. In latest news, it seems to be a CIA/military outpost that is visited by diplomatic agents that include Stevens and Sean Smith. :-/ — Hasdi Bravo • 21:04, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
    • consulate. This is what is initially reported but it may be accurate in later RS. According to this, U.S. embassy had visited Benghazi before for an open house and provided limited consular services. It could be the case here. :-/
    • diplomatic post. This is what Obama initially called in a video press conference.
    • diplomatic compound. This term is also used
    • diplomatic facilities. This covers any facility for diplomatic purposes including an embassy, a consulate, a consular office, a post, compound, etc
    • diplomatic mission. The permanent diplomatic mission or resident mission is actually in Tripoli. But the technical meaning of a "diplomatic mission" is not a building or any facility but a group of people lead by an ambassador (i.e., Stevens), which is technically correct but not commonly understood as such.
    • diplomatic agents. Casualties include Stevens and Sean Smith, as well as two private security employees Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods assigned to protect them. We could use this term if Stevens the primary target of the attack, not directed against an unmarked diplomatic facility, assuming that it is not a military/CIA facility.
  • Support I support the name change from "Consulate" to "Diplomatic facilities" Balistik94 (talk) 00:26, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

U.S. Politics

Perhaps the whole section shouldn't necessarily be deleted, but I do think it takes up too much space on a page its not directly related to (its in essence the opposition's response to the gov'ts response to the situation, usually we don't give so much coverage to responses of responses). The section's length is comparable- and if anything longer- than the background section. And in my view at least, it doesn't deserve so much coverage, at least not on this page (see below).
This topic- internal US political squabbles and finger-pointing - isn't directly related to the consulate attack. Perhaps we could make a separate page (where perhaps opposition presidential candidate Mitt Romney's comments regarding the Cairo Embassy can go too), and have an abbreviated version here?--Yalens (talk) 14:43, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

No.. not a separate page. The Republicans are making an big issue out of this so this has some relevance and notable, but it does not deserve its own article. In light of the upcoming Presidential election, we need maintain WP:NPOV and give fair shake to the Democrats. Personally, after all the screw-ups we have with our Middle East policy from both administrations, I don't see how a Republican can handle this so much better. Meh. — Hasdi Bravo • 16:21, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, I don't think it deserves to take up so much space here though. We could simply have a couple sentences that several members the US opposition Republican party claimed so-and-so, criticized the handling of the crisis and claimed they were not well-informed by the briefing. It's not necessary to list all different ways that various legislators said so and then quote them all. In addition, McCain's statement and the Fox news thing about "according to some [who?] observers" Obama held firm on the initial narrative... this is just a rehash of the dialogue seen in the Investigation section, and given the length of that section, and the potential WP:SYN violation of claiming McCain's statement as criticism of Obama when he didn't explicitly say so, nor did the source make that analysis it should probably just be removed from the page entirely. It's not necessary to have so much of the page devoted to discussions between American politicians over what happened (this applies to the criticism section, the lede and the investigation section actually).--Yalens (talk) 21:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Looking at the page further, I think the whole discussion over whether the attacks were a "terrorist" attack and so on can all be condensed into the investigation section, as its just repeating itself over and over throughout the page. --Yalens (talk) 21:37, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
If it is another "controversy of the day" sort of thing Wikipedia should not spend a lot of time on it. But there IS something notable here. There are still many new stories about this attack every day, weeks after it happened. Why? In large part because there has been a growing or at least ongoing controversy over the level of preparation for, follow-up on, and communications about this attack. If anything, the newsflow merits an expansion of this part of the article, as opposed to a contraction. There is already a great deal of repetition in the article that should be trimmed before eliminating the objections to the administration's messaging about this attack. The article could be made shorter by pulling out the criticisms that have currently been folded into other parts of the article. I think a separate section for the objections to the official narrative is in order, as it can provide a "one stop shop" for why there has been a political hullabaloo.--Brian Dell (talk) 11:10, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
I think "there are many news stories about this attack every day" not so much because of any lack of preparation to prevent an attack but because the liberal biases of the mainstream media are coming more into question as more details of the attack and the administration's information about that are coming to light. I agree with you that the article deserves expansion, not contraction. Unfortunately, I see that other Wikipedia editors do not agree and have, in fact, butchered the article from when I last edited it many days ago.--Cirrus Editor (talk) 01:23, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the "one stop shop" approach. Let me rephrase my stance on WP:NPOV. To use a sports analogy, we are here to keep the score, not take the shots. Wikipedia cannot advocate any particular viewpoint but can note the ositions each sides are taking. Criticism on the response of the U.S. administration will mostly come from the Republicans, because Obama is a Democrat. Just your typical arguments drawn upon party lines. :-/ Had we have a Republican president, it would probably be the other way around IMHO. I do think some of the text need to be trimmed and simplified though, but I have other sections and articles I like to work on, so... — Hasdi Bravo • 14:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't think POV is our main problem here, but we could improve it in two ways:
1) The gov'ts responses to these criticisms has in fact been reported, and we could summarize it on the page (i.e. see here: [1], a source that's already on the page in fact).
2) Avoiding usage of two notoriously slanted outlets: Russia Today and Fox News (i.e. replace them where necessary).--Yalens (talk) 13:47, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Please provide source material for Fox News being "notoriously slanted"--Cirrus Editor (talk) 01:13, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
And another thing. It's this kind of biased article writing that is bringing Wikipedia down and why the main article has a rating of 2 across the board. People don't trust biased thinking like what you're proposing.--Cirrus Editor (talk) 01:33, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
You can interpret the rating in any way you like. Both Russia Today and Fox News, regarding issues outside their respective "home" countries, are widely seen as the mouthpieces of Russian/American nationalism, while regarding issues within their own countries they are the mouthpieces of the right-wing (or whatever you consider Putin to be). This is common knowledge, but if you need sources you can find plenty using either a google search or going to their respective wikipedia pages.
That being said, I believe NPOV isn't really what we're dealing with right now. At least, its not why I'm here, at least for the moment. --Yalens (talk) 02:59, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
You can believe whatever you want to believe; it does not make it true. Your statements show bias because they're cherrypicked criticisms of one American news network. Your statements show ignorance by claiming this bias is "common knowledge." I am not attacking you; I am attacking your positions. Because your positions are influencing your POV. I could just as easily state how biased networks such as MSNBC and CNBC are, and how biased show hosts like Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow are, and that it's common knowledge that these networks and hosts are widely seen as mouthpieces for an American liberal progressive POV. But I don't state that. It seems to me that direct quotations that shed specific light on the mission attack have been removed from the article for no other reason than that the quotes were 1) from a political party you don't like and 2) from a news organization you don't like.--Cirrus Editor (talk) 14:18, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
1) You need to assume good faith. And yes I believe you are "attacking me" by alleging that I'm some POV-pusher.
2) MSNBC or CNBC isn't even used as a source here- its totally off-topic. If MSNBC was mentioned, then we could talk about that.
3) The reason I came here was because of the disproportionate coverage of internal US affairs on a page for an international event, not because of some alleged POV-pushing motivation. If anything, there should be much more coverage of what's going in Libya, which seems to be much more significant, considering that it involves armed confrontations between angry mobs, militias and the government. The processes that are occuring right not in Libya are much more significant as they will have a great impact on the future of the militias in that country, but somehow, the US debate over "is it terrorism" got about half the page. I thought there was something wrong with that, and that's why I came to the page.
4) After a quick search, I learned today that the bias of FOX news is so notable that we even have a Wikipedia page on it! I'm not saying you can't watch it (you seem quite fond of it), but it simply isn't a source that is widely regarded as neutral. If the page is perceived as having a POV issue, we should consider that- that's all I was saying, I'm sorry I offended your loyalty for FOX news... and that isn't even the main issue we're dealing with...
5) I am wondering what makes you jump to such conclusions about my intentions.
6) I've never said anything about that political party, so that makes me wonder further why you think I dislike it as a whole.--Yalens (talk) 14:58, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
Under the principle of extraterritoriality this was analogous to an attack on US soil (even if not strictly so as a matter of international law), in addition to being an attack on US officials. I accordingly do not agree that this article ought to be primarily about Libya or Libyan affairs. The attackers on the original 9/11 were Saudi Arabian but that does not mean that Saudi Arabian affairs should dominate the 911 article. You might not have said anything about the Republican party, but your edits have attempted to undermine or suppress Republican complaints such that it strikes me as perfectly reasonably to conclude you are not a supporter of that party.--Brian Dell (talk) 15:52, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
The 9/11 comparison actually supports my point: the article mainly deals with the events itself and its long-term effects, rather than the internal politics of any country involved. That is exactly how I think this page should be. And my stance is not that opposition criticism should be deleted from wikipedia entirely, but rather that it should be condensed on this page as it isn't the main topic (and I've stated numerous times that I'd support moving it elsewhere, such as either a separate page- though this was opposed by others- or other existing articles). --Yalens (talk) 16:19, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
The weighting of the domestic controversy should be proportionate to the weight that reliable sources are giving to the controversy. It there is a controversy out there that is getting a lot of media attention then Wikipedia should cover it appropriately (in the usual neutral way). If there is a big political dustup and Wikipedia ignores it Wikipedia is not fulfilling its role.--Brian Dell (talk) 16:36, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
What U.S. media decides to report with heavy frequency isn't necessarily what is more important- it is just what is more important to Americans. In the big picture, events like these ([[2]], [[3]] and [[4]]), all of which come as a result of the attack on the diplomatic mission, are of far more importance than US political squabbles during an election year, and yet they aren't even mentioned on the page while the squabbling over whether the attack is "terrorist" takes up half the page... I think there's something seriously wrong with that- and yes, I intend to add these, when I get a good chunk of time. --Yalens (talk) 17:30, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
The attack and its investigative aftermath is beyond a "political squabble." An American ambassador, along with three other Americans, were murdered in a terror attack that took place on the anniversary of September 11. This was the first ambassador killed by hostile forces since 1979. This is big news. Deciding who did it and how to bring them to justice is big news. Feel free to add other elements about consequences/aftermath of the attack in Libya. I still have problems with how some of my original language was watered down, and I hope to have time soon to fix that, too. I have no loyalty to Fox News or any other news outlet, except where journalists don't do their proper work and appear to bring all their political biases into their work. That is not supposed to happen here on Wikipedia. But it does happen here.--Cirrus Editor (talk) 01:30, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
For Americans, of course its important, but that doesn't mean its so important that it needs to dominate this page (as I've said before, I'm not against creating a separate page...). Anyhow, I've started the section. I still need to add sources from here ([[5]]) and these ([[6]], [[7]], [[8]]). Fyi, we could also mention that various Arabic media, as well as the Libyan gov't, originally thought that the attack might've been done by Gaddafi supporters (for example, [[9]], translated that using google if you need it: [[10]]). --Yalens (talk) 14:37, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

It looks to me like there's a consensus that the section shouldn't be removed but that redundancy and unnecessary elaboration can be trimmed out. Am I wrong?
I think I'll do the following:
1) Remove the SYN with John McCain. Although that's the logical assumption based on his party, neither he nor the article stated that he was criticizing the government with his statement. Other similar instances that may be found later also apply.
2) Remove the "according to some people" statement because (a) it's dubious and (b) its already elsewhere on the page.
3) Generally removing excessive names and quotes except when the person has an important position (like Rogers of the House Intelligence Committee), instead, only mentioning briefly on what terms x-thing was criticized in a sentence or two.
Any issues?--Yalens (talk) 19:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Whoa, don't take out John McCain's statement on the RPGs. O_O That wasn't really a criticism but a challenge/suggestion to the official story that Benghazi attack was in response of the film. It took weeks before the U.S. administration and U.S. intelligence finally accepted that it was terrorist attack. Uhmmm... I think John McCain's statement should be moved into "Investigation (government, intelligence, and news sources)" :-/ — Hasdi Bravo • 00:41, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps that would be a good idea, to put in the investigation section (which itself could be trimmed though...)--Yalens (talk) 13:33, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Why was Senator Rubio's complaint about Susan Rice removed? If a reader comes here looking for a reason why there have been calls for Rice's resignation shouldn't the reader be given a possible reason? This does not in any way require Wikipedia to endorse the soundness of such a reason. I also object to the removal of Senator Isaakson's remark "I cannot understand the continuance of the President to look the other way and not admit the fact that this was obviously a terrorist attack." This is the Republican complaint in a nutshell and accordingly makes for a fitting conclusion to this section.--Brian Dell (talk) 15:34, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
Well I removed Isaakson's second remark as it seemed to be the same thing (albeit a little harsher) of what Mike Rogers (who is more important as he is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee) said. If we want to deal with Susan Rice, shouldn't that be on her page instead, as that's really where a reader should look about information about her? At least, for me, this page is about an attack on a diplomatic office in the Libyan city of Benghazi, not the career of a U.S. politician. But I'm sure it would be fine for Rice's own wiki page.--Yalens (talk) 15:45, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
That Rice went on the Sunday Talk Shows and blamed the video is repeated three times in this article. But instead of trimming those three back to two or one, you've apparently attempted to erase the fact that those remarks were highly controversial by deleting McCain's remarks (now back in after someone else objected) and then Rubio's remarks. At issue here is priorities for shortening this article. As for who's "important", according to your system what Michelle Bachmann has to say in October 2012 is more "important" than what Mitt Romney says because Bachmann has more seniority in Congress than someone who is not in the Congress at all. I suggest a more appropriate standard should be whether what is quoted fits well in the article or not.--16:47, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
I haven't dealt with that because for the moment I"m only dealing with the criticism section... But we can talk about this too. The statement of Susan Rice is repeated three times not because she is getting more coverage than the opposition party, but because she is the US Ambassador to the United Nations, so obviously her statement is aimed at a foreign audience- i.e. it is the American response to the outside world. And the comparison between Bachman and Romney is a red herring, as of course Romney could very well be the next president, so of course what he says matters. Instead of assuming bad faith and talking about me (I could very well make plenty of assumptions about you too you know), we can get back to talking only about the page, can't we? --Yalens (talk) 17:17, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Libyan Civil War

Why is the attack on the American embassy listed as part of the Libyan Civil War? The attack took place nearly a year after the official end of the war.Spirit of Eagle (talk) 00:50, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

I suppose you could consider it part of the aftermath. --Yalens (talk) 13:11, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

U.S. consulate versus U.S. diplomatic mission

This page has been moved to "Attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi" per my earlier proposal, but after some digging I think we have a good case to change it to "Attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi" instead. Both titles would be correct, but the later is probably more WP:COMMONNAME. Right after the attack, U.S. Embassy did refer to it as an attack on the consulate[11] and also diplomatic mission.[12] This is because the technical definition of "diplomatic mission" refers to the diplomatic agents including the ambassador, who were killed in the attack. However, the attack also took place in the U.S. compound for the consulate [check layout of the compound in the satellite image on wikimapia as stated in the coordinates for this page]. This consulate has been attacked before with no casualties (see the June 2012 entry on 2011–present Libyan factional fighting of which I have copied the references from), and the daily beast also stated an earlier attack on April 2012.

So, the existence of U.S. consulate in Benghazi is likely common knowledge in Libyan residents for some time. I can only speculate why the U.S. administration is avoiding the term "consulate", e.g., maybe the compound also serves diplomatic purposes other than consular services. I read rumors that the consulate is actually a CIA nest, based on news reports that CIA personnel left Benghazi a week or so ago. At best, this still means that the compound is still primarily for the consulate, it's just that there could be a legitimate intelligence gathering office in the compound, much like our CIA HQ in Langley. Not necessarily anything nefarious.

Thoughts welcome. — Hasdi Bravo • 14:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I mildly lean in favor of consulate, simply because its shorter and more commonly used (probably just because it's shorter, but still...).--Yalens (talk) 17:02, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Well that US Citizen advisory notice is a good find, Hasdi. Curious in and of itself. Im wondering who that notice is really aimed toward as I cannot imagine any US tourist would have been aware of the presence of a US consulate in Benghazi considering it's location and contact details are not listed anywhere. Personally, I dont support another change of the title. "Diplomatic mission" covers the role of the personnel and facility sufficiently, whereas the best evidence would suggest "US consulate" (as per the definition of designation and function) is clearly questionable. PoizonMyst (talk) 17:44, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
An argument against "diplomatic mission" is that, people commonly use that term to refer to the resident mission (i.e., the embassy building or the chancery), which is located in Tripoli for Libya. If we stick to diplomatic mission, we have to make clear to the readers (e.g., in the lede) that diplomatic mission refer to a group of people, rather than the building. In the satellite image, the consulate in Benghazi seems new. I do not see tall perimeter walls surrounding the compound but these were shown in the June 2012 video, so I suspect the compound was leased with the existing buildings by the U.S. government fairly recently, thus the walls constructed later. It would be nice if the U.S. administration is more clear and consistent on the Benghazi facility, rather than leaving it up for speculation. :-/ — Hasdi Bravo • 20:32, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough about making it clear in the lede - I think this should be done anyway - but I would speculate that using "consulate" most certainly would commonly refer to a building, rather than the personnel, in the minds of most readers. The fact personnel were later attacked at the Annex, would suggest the personnel were the target. "Consulate" has a specific definition and also specifically implies US territory. "Embassy" on the other hand, does refer to the mission personnel, rather than the chancery - but again, most readers would not be aware of that either and immediately think of a building. "Mission" however, can refer to both a building and the personnel ... and I think most people are aware of the dual nature of that term. Again, contact details for a Benghazi consulate or embassy would need to be referenced somewhere for it to be useful to any American citizens in the region - otherwise it was simply an outpost facility frequented by the diplomatic mission personnel, but never intended for use by American citizens at the time. Yes, some consistency from the US administration in the overall of this event would be nice ... but then, what more can we expect from political figures? ;) PoizonMyst (talk) 03:17, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Attack on the U.S. diplomatic assets in Benghazi would cover all situations nicely Cramyourspam (talk) 03:36, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
No to the use of "assets" in this context. It's too vague and doesn't necessarily refer to what we want. And I see no problem with referring to the building, since the attack was originally on the building, no? Is it so far to say that the ambassador, since he works at the consulate, could still be considered a target if the attack was on a building?--Yalens (talk) 14:02, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

From this it seems clear that these buildings (described as a consulate, and an annex), was actually a secret CIA base: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-letting-us-in-on-a-secret/2012/10/10/ba3136ca-132b-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_story.html?hpid=z7 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.71.226.54 (talk) 14:44, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, this may explain why state.gov did not acknowledge any "assets" in Benghazi in its list of diplomatic missions overseas. The U.S. government has been deliberately less than fully transparent about what exactly was attacked in Benghazi which is why I don't think what the U.S. government says should be deemed all important with respect to how this article is titled.--Brian Dell (talk) 15:54, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
FYI, see non-official cover. This would be consistent with the practice official cover, where a CIA agent assumes a position at a seemingly benign department of their government like diplomatic service, to provide the agent with official diplomatic immunity, thus protecting them from the steep punishments normally meted out to captured spies. I have been more digging of this Benghazi facility on gov sites and congressional disclosures. As far as I can tell, the "US Citizen advisory" is the only instance it is referred as a "consulate". Otherwise, other terms used include "mission's compound" or "embassy's office in Benghazi". It's embarrassing for sure to disclose that intelligence gathering is conducted at a diplomatic facility but that's fairly common IMHO. CIA operations are not all like James Bond movies you know. :P — Hasdi Bravo • 19:00, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

This article has these major omissions: initial report(s) of video involvement, presence of protesters, and militia claiming responsibility

The content of this article gives the impression that the Obama administration fabricated the idea that the Benghazi attack resulted from the anti-Islam video, and that the attack was a spontaneous reaction of protesters.

The truth is that the Associate Press and others reported these very thing on day one, citing the assessment of a Libyan government official.

Here is the report:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57511043/assault-on-u.s-consulate-in-benghazi-leaves-4-dead-including-u.s-ambassador-j-christopher-stevens/

And here are some key excerpts from the report:

"Wanis al-Sharef, a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said the four Americans were killed when the angry mob, which gathered to protest a U.S.-made film that ridicules Islam's Prophet Muhammad, fired guns and burned down the U.S. consulate in Benghazi."

"According to al-Sharef, the angry mob stormed the consulate after the U.S. troops who responded fired rounds into the air to try and disperse the crowd."

"Al-Sharef said the Libyan guards employed to guard the consulate building were far outgunned by the protesters, and thus retreated when the building was stormed."

"Hours before the protest erupted in Benghazi, protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, tearing down and replacing the American flag with an Islamic banner."

"One of the [armed Islamic] groups to emerge in post-revolution Libya, Ansar al-Sharia, claimed responsibility Wednesday for the attack in Benghazi, which has been condemned by the country's new government."

Note that Ansar al-Sharia is an Islamic militia group, not a terrorist group. So this would have also added to the initial confusion. (It shows that it would have been premature to assume a terrorist attack.) That a militia group was widely suspected is born out by the fact that pro-American Libyans subsequently protested against the militias and the Libyan government initiated a crackdown on them. (I think this information *is* reported in this Wikipedia article.)

Here's another, independent, report:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/09/20129112108737726.html

To be fair to the Obama Administration, and for the sake of clarity and completeness, this information should be reported in this Wikipedia article. If nothing else, it shows that there were independent reports that the Obama administration could have base their initial story on. This info should be included in a number of places, including the timeline. The article is dated Sept. 12, but it appears to me that the quotes from Wanis al-Sharef likely came shortly after the attacks. His assessment was contradicted by the president of Libya and others later on.

I have Republican friends who insist Obama's team made this stuff up as a part of a cover-up. They quit talking when I showed them the articles I cite here. — SDLarsen • 00:48, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Go ahead, add stuff yourself if you want to see it on there. That's the essence of Wikipedia. --Yalens (talk) 01:07, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
We shouldn't invite people to engage in WP:SYNTHESIS. If the White House was misinformed by the media, we would wait for a reliable source (which could be the White House itself) to advance this contention. As it is, I was following the media early on September 12 and noted that there was more than one media narrative out there, such that the White House should presumably explain why it accepted one narrative as opposed to another. I edited Wikipedia on September 12 to have it note that CNN was calling attention to a non-government source that said the Benghazi attack was pre-planned. CNN's live blog furthermore noted early on that it was perhaps two dozen hardcore hitmen that caused the fatalities. Furthermore, CNN was also reporting on September 12 that some "U.S. officials" recognized the attack as pre-planned. Shouldn't "Obama's team" be preferring the US government as its source over private media? Indeed, the White House is considered a source for the media, not the other way around, because the media presumes the White House has access to US government intelligence resources. So it is that the White House's narrative shapes the media narrative, not the other way around, unless and until the private media has reason to doubt the White House's narrative.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:35, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
I actually never saw any claim whatsoever from this editor that "the White House was misinformed by the media". But whatever. --Yalens (talk) 13:56, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

FYI, it is already stated on this page that Libyan government disputed that the attack as prompted by the film, which is essentially in the two cites you pointed out. But put them anyway in the Investigation timeline section. The US administration suggested early on that the attack it was a spontaneous response of the the film, which made it difficult for some of us to spin off this page from 2012 diplomatic missions attacks. It's best not to judge the administration on this, but just focus on what actually happened. See my earlier comments on this. — Hasdi Bravo • 01:22, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I posted what I did so the article could be improved. The initial reports I point out are pertinent -- even though later corrected -- because the information given in them perfectly match the Obama Administration's narrative in the controversy going on between them and Republicans. Though I do occasionally make *simple* improvements to Wikipedia articles myself, I won't add this information myself for a number of reasons. (I'm not that great at writing; I don't know how to do references and other things and don't have time to learn, and even if I did learn I would forget; I don't want to argue with people about this; etc.) Past experience has taught me that a few editors tend to "own" certain articles and they end up getting their way, which is fine because I don't care that much. I'm just trying to be helpful, and if it ends up to naught then, well, I tried. (BTW, I wasn't chastising others for anything, as one person suggested. Just trying to fill a hole the best I could with the knowledge I have.) Have a pleasant day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SDLarsen (talk • contribs) 05:05, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I realized I shouldn't have chastised you for chastising others, that's why I deleted my comment :). Even though it sometimes looks like certain editors try to own articles, at least this isn't the way it should be according to wiki policy (see WP:OWN). I'm sure that if you only say exactly what's on the sources and use reliable sources, no one should give you hell about it or anything... I would suggest you follow Hasdi's advice, and put them on the timeline. --Yalens (talk) 13:56, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Ditto. The timeline could use some real work.--Cirrus Editor (talk) 21:21, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

What's this nonsense about the two ex-Navy SEALs being employed by the State Department diplomatic security?

It's been over a month since this terrorist attack. We've known for weeks these brave young men were private contractors who heroically ran to the fight without any official duty to do so.

You people need to show some respect for facts, research and most importantly -- Fallen Americans. 24.12.87.61 (talk) 17:57, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Ahem. I refer you the following cites
Hilary Clinton, speaking for our U.S. State Department, referred to them as "U.S. embassy security personnel". It is only later, unnamed officials in the Washington Guardian referred to them as "personal service contractors" who had other duties related to security. However, if you check the press release for the funeral of Tyrone woods...
Woods, stationed at Benghazi with the State Department Diplomatic Security service, and fellow Navy SEAL Glen Doherty saved the lives of many U.S. personnel, according to the State Department. When the consulate came under attack, Woods and Doherty immediately took up defensive positions trying to protect U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the consulate compound.
There is a ****load of misinformation going around, and some of us are trying to figure out the rumors from the facts. The best I can surmise from the above cites is that Woods and Doherty work as security personnel with the State Department, but on a contract basis, much like what is happened with many of our local industries to save hiring costs. It is going to take us a while to figure this all out but until then, please do not presume us to be morons. Thank you. — Hasdi Bravo • 19:11, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
By "you people" do you mean us private citizens out here spending our own time working on Wikipedia articles? ;) Yes, that's us; just like you. Jump on in, please, and contribute. Your help is welcome; there's only been a handful of folks (pretty diligently) working on this article since the event.--Cirrus Editor (talk) 21:23, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Clearly you (I mean the IP) see the page lacking something. So just add it yourself, no one will bite your head off unless it has problems... editing isn't that hard you know. I can see citing being hard for newbies, but we can help with that. --Yalens (talk) 14:34, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Table timeline of investigation?

Hey Hasdi, thanks for doing all that work of putting all that text into table format. First I hated it, then I loved it, now my honeymoon is over. :D I'm sure you've done this enough so that you can point to other examples on Wiki here for such use of a table. I'd like to conform as much as possible to an "accepted" Wiki way as we all are putting more information in. Thanks!! Oh, and, at what point do you think the investigation section gets to be too much and we start thinking about making it its own page? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 22:22, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Also, now that all that info is in that table, you can read through it and clearly see that some of the info has NOTHING to do with "investigation." Thoughts on how to handle this? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 22:25, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, timelines are discouraged on WP (see Wikipedia:Proseline). It's okay to have a timeline as a temporary storage of information. However, when the events are over, it's better to turn it into prose. As for content not relating to the investigation, can you be more specific?-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 22:56, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Meh, WP style of timeline is rather ghastly, e.g., See 2009 flu pandemic timeline, Timeline for the day of the September 11 attacks and 2011–present Libyan factional fighting. I am open to ideas. I just think it is useful to have some kind of chronology of events, particularly how the administration's position evolved from being prompted by the film to a terrorist attack by rogue militias, and also how popular protests against the killings lead to armed militias being voluntarily disbanded in Libya. — Hasdi Bravo • 02:15, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
HA! Hasdi, you slay me! "Meh". I love it. I've placed into the article numerous sources stating the day after the attack--September 12--that it was a terrorist attack. I like this chronology thing. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 02:32, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

How to handle the timeline? I think I don't even need to say it anymore. You guys already know my favorite line: new. page.
But seriously, while timelines may be discouraged in some cases, personally I actually kinda like them, provided they're relevant and don't have OR or POV or any of those things. The timelines for the Yugoslav wars, at least based on the last time I saw them, are good examples in my book. --Yalens (talk) 14:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

The timeline is needed I think because the information offered by the administration and the media is evolving. The body text should reflect the latest information we have, but other editors may inadvertently cite old information if we don't have the timeline. We can probably remove it once the outcome of the investigation is clear, e.g., in a few months time. — Hasdi Bravo • 18:53, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Propose split

I know I've already floated this elsewhere, but I wanted to get a discussion going specifically on this topic. Here's the problems I see:
1) About 50-60% of the page is dedicated to the investigation and political controversy in the U.S.
2) As others have stated, the heavy media coverage on this means that it has at least some degree of notability. However, in my view it should take up about 20% of this page at most. This page is about the embassy attack.
3) Obviously, deleting it would not be popular, and I wouldn't support that either.
So the obvious solution in my mind, right now, is to make a separate page for the U.S. investigation and political controversy surrounding it. So far, the only person who has replied to this idea (as far as I know) is Hasdi, who said it wouldn't be notable enough it didn't "deserve" its own page, also noting that there was a POV issue. To that, I would say that POV issues can be fixed, and clearly, it seems that most people agree that the heavy news coverage of it makes it notable.

And there seems to be plenty of info here to fill the page with.

So that's my two cents. What are other editor's thoughts?--Yalens (talk) 14:17, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Take a look at the September 11 attacks article. Most of the content concerns events that occurred after the attacks. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 16:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
I think the analogy FutureTrillionaire brings up holds. Keep this to one page.--Cirrus Editor (talk) 16:36, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
I would agree but it's difficult to edit this article as news develops when there is at least one editor insisting that "the U.S. investigation and political controversy" is already getting more than twice as much attention as it ought to be getting.--Brian Dell (talk) 16:02, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
And the one editor likes to selectively cut information from the article that is not flattering to the Obama Administration and their "take" on the attack. I've spent alot of time gathering information from alot of different sources for this article, particularly the aftermath investigation, and to see this information cut entirely, or trimmed extensively and watered down so as to leave little meaning from the original information, is both eye opening and upsetting. To cut information and then to threaten to "slap this page with {{POV}} until the November election)".... Is this what we're about here? I thought not. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Wikipedia editors fail at their own standards.--Cirrus Editor (talk) 18:00, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
I presume you are talking about my edit. Look, just explain to me why we need to have this text in in BOTH the lead AND in the "Criticism of U.S. government response" section.
The Washington Post Fact Checker blog reported on September 27 that the Obama administration's response was a "case study of how an administration can carefully keep the focus as long as possible on one storyline [the video] — and then turn on a dime when it is no longer tenable." [13]
You have a problem that I took one of them out? From a blog article no less. The lede should be a summary of the rest of the article (and in desperate need of cleaning up), so there should be at most one line to summarize "Republican Party members took issue with the Democratic Party controlled administration, accusing the White House and State Department of overplaying the role of the protests against a trailer for a controversial anti-Islamic movie and the alleged reluctance to label the attack as terrorism..." Is that too much to ask? — Hasdi Bravo • 18:50, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
The lede certainly is long, and for some reason or another, three of its five paragraphs (in fact, the three longest ones) are devoted to the US politics. And I'm pretty sure at least half our readers didn't come to the page for that reason... therefore, I'd throw my support behind Hasdi's proposed summary line. --Yalens (talk) 23:52, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Hasdi's proposed revision is inaccurate. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill just happened yesterday. No information in the article is from the results of this hearing. One Republican congressman is asking, "Why were we lied to?"[14] The Homeland Security Chairman has called for Susan Rice's resignation. Reuters was reporting that the Obama administration--within hours of the attack--"received about a dozen intelligence reports suggesting terrorists connected to al-Qaeda were involved." Yet, yesterday night, "President Obama acknowledged his administration passed faulty information to the public about last month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, but suggested those reports came in the interest of keeping the public abreast of what they knew at the time. In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer that aired Wednesday night, Obama said "as information came in, information was put out," and those reports "may not have always been right the first time."[15] Which is it? The preponderance of the evidence from multiple intelligence sources is that it was a known terrorist attack, an assassination of a U.S. Ambassador, less than 24 hours after the attack. Yet Obama administration officials were using the "blame the video" story to the media for many days afterwards, on TV, at the UN, when the officials were at the ceremony returning the bodies to the U.S. Slate reporters wrote today: "The State Department said Tuesday it never concluded that the consulate attack in Libya stemmed from protests over an American-made video ridiculing Islam, raising further questions about why the Obama administration used that explanation for more than a week after assailants killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans."[16] Two days ago the AP reported: "The State Department says it never concluded that an attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya was simply a protest gone awry, a statement that places the Obama administration's own foreign policy arm in sync with Republicans. That extraordinary message, appearing to question the administration's initial description of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, came in a department briefing Tuesday..." [17] This story is so fast moving it's hard to keep up with it. Instead of drawing party lines, I'm trying to fill in the many gaps and blanks that are in the article. Instead of changing Fox News to Faux News, I'm fixing vandalism on the article. I agree that the lede is getting a bit unweildy, but it shouldn't be watered down in the process. I read where Secretary of State Clinton was being considered to be called in to testify. That's not a small deal; that's a big deal.--Cirrus Editor (talk) 00:22, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

1. The 9/11 article has so many spin-off articles that there's a whole template. This article has zero. That's the difference in my mind.
2. Talk pages are supposed to be about discussing pages, not editors. But for the record, I hope you guys read the history and know that I wasn't the one who threatened to put on the POV tag, since I get the impression I'm the editor being talked about in third person here. Although based on Cirrus' statement, quite clearly there is some disagreement about POV between editors here...
3. Since you hardworking editors do a lot of research on this topic, is there specifically a problem with devoting a separate page to it? Not every reader comes to this page to read about U.S. politics. --Yalens (talk) 18:42, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I just don't see any real need to create a new page for that. I don't have a problem with keeping the content here. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 18:52, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
So you have no problem with this page being 60% about one-particular spin-off event? That doesn't resemble our model, the 9/11 page, at all...
Ah well, I might as well give up on this. I just think this is pretty long, and the news coverage certainly isn't going to stop- it's only going to get longer and longer.
Is there any argument AGAINST a separate page?--Yalens (talk) 23:54, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
On 2nd look at the main 9/11 page, we see that there are separate sections for Timeline, Effects, Aftermath, Response, etc. and within those sections are additional pages. Is this the "template" you mean, Yalens? If so, what sections and pages might you propose to begin with?--Cirrus Editor (talk) 02:08, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
...yes, with a large amount of separate pages. I have nothing against the timeline, effects, and so on- in fact some of these aren't bad ideas. The separate pages is the point.--Yalens (talk) 03:15, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
  • What part are you proposing to take out if you make separate pages. From what I've read through, only about 10-15% are about partisan bickering. The rest, including the investigation and ESPECIALLY the congressional hearings are relevant, the latter should be under a new section "Congressional hearing", placed right after "Criticism of U.S. government response". It's really simple guys. Focus on what the U.S. administration DID, NOT what they SHOULD have done. Yes, it took Obama and company a while to acknowledge it was a terrorist attack not prompted by the film, despite what the Libyan government said. It may make him look bad, but that is what happened. Just because the Republicans are politicizing it (as if they could have done sooooo much better had they have been in charge) does not mean it is not relevant to this article and/or need to spun off into a different article. Likewise, documented actions that made Obama look good should not be removed either. The one silver lining I see in this tragic event is the boost of pro-American stance by Libyans (most of them are against and symphatetic of the killings), the mass shift towards government-regulated militia, etc, etc. There may be hope for our Middle East policy yet, but I am not holding my breath. :P One good thing about the congressional hearings is the shaking of the apple tree. We're getting lots of goodies of information on the events the lead up to Benghazi attack that can be captured in this article... even the possible outing of a "CIA nest" in Benghazi. *smh* — Hasdi Bravo • 14:19, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
I'll think about page splits over the weekend. Re: your he said/she said: remember that multiple U.S. intelligence sources "knew within 24 hours of the attack that it was "planned and the work of al Qaeda affiliates operating in Eastern Libya." This is known. What's NOT known is why the Obama administration continued to cite the video as the source of the violence several days later. As late as September 25 (14 days after the attack), in his UN speech, the president cited "a crude and disgusting video [that] sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world." This was on Sept. 25, five DAYS after his press secretary first said it was "self-evident" that what happened was the work of terrorists.--173.67.63.73 (talk) 18:26, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
If I had my way and a lot of time, I'd do the following:
1)Everything (partisan bickering included) about the US investigation and blabla would be added to its own page. --Yalens (talk) 15:29, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
US investigation on its own page. I can buy that.--173.67.63.73 (talk) 18:26, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
2)There would be one section about the competing narratives. There would be one paragraph, along these lines: "At first the US gov't believed that it was a reaction to the video. The Libyan government, meanwhile, had a different belief, stating there weren't protestors, and it originally suspected Gaddafi loyalists (or in a different statement, Al Qaeda?) to be behind it. Days later, it became clear that the perpetrators were Ansar al-Sharia and armed with notable weapons and blablabla. The US gov't changed their position to that it was a terrorist attack saying that their intelligence report had changed. The opposition Republican party criticized this narrative and blasted the government for an alleged intelligence failure. The opposition also argued that the embassy was not properly secured. The governing democratic party disputes these narratives, viewing them as political positioning in an election year. In October, there were congressional hearings on the issue." Then there'd be a see-also statement at the top of the section leading to the separate page about the controversy.--Yalens (talk) 15:29, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I really cannot see how it's rationale to follow this thinking. See my note above. Multiple U.S. intelligence sources "knew within 24 hours of the attack that it was "planned and the work of al Qaeda affiliates operating in Eastern Libya."[18][19] The story broke on The Daily Beast. Fox News confirmed it.[20]. (Before anyone goes ballistic about "Faux News" and how they're biased, please see JournoList, where liberal-minded journalists and academics discussed politics and the news media and, among other things, how to "coordinate talking points on behalf of Democratic politicians, principally Barack Obama.") This source states that WITHIN HOURS, not 24 hours, the Obama administration knew it was a terror attack: Within hours of last month's attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, President Barack Obama's administration received about a dozen intelligence reports suggesting militants connected to al Qaeda were involved, three government sources said.[21] Three days ago the State Department admitted that they "suspected from the beginning that the ambush was pre-planned."[22] Odd, considering the U.S. intelligence sources were saying this WITHIN 24 HOURS of the attack. Anyway... --Cirrus Editor (talk) 18:43, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
I assume "your note" is the one signed by the IP address, which I guess is you? Anyhow, I don't really think the details are relevant to the argument here...... --Yalens (talk) 20:58, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it was. My bad. You don't think "the details are relevant to the argument here." Um. The details are the argument. You want to write a paragraph about competing narratives. I want to write a paragraph that tells the truth.--Cirrus Editor (talk) 14:13, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
I am, of course, willing to agree to a larger coverage here in the spirit of compromise. --Yalens (talk) 15:29, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
See, WP:TRUTH and WP:SOAPBOX. Wikipedia is not the place to find "the truth", just to document verifiable facts. If Obama was informed of a terror attack within hours, but publically stated otherwise, then we'll put the citation in. Whether it was a good or bad move is not really the place here. Maybe he didn't want people to panic, or didn't know that Libya and Egypt are two separate Muslim countries in the middle east (like most people...) The investigation and the evolving story from the administration is still relevant on this page, we just need to keep out the politicization of yet-another-screw-up-in-the-middle-east. .____. — Hasdi Bravo • 14:51, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree. I'll take some time today to put back into the article some facts that others have removed.--Cirrus Editor (talk) 14:58, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

I am undoubtedly late to the party, and not experienced at this so mea culpa for the poor formatting- here's my nickel (inflation ;):

I. Hasdi Bravo and Yalens make excellent and valid points about splitting the political controversy/investigation onto a separate page as that is the standard not the exception in WP as far as I have seen. The countering 9/11 page analogy is not valid as

  1. there are indeed separate pages dedicated to the FBI and 9/11 Commission investigations,
  2. to my knowledge there is no mention on the 9/11 Event Page of any of the strong and highly notable political controversies/events regarding the Bush Admin preparation/response that emanated from the 9/11 attacks: i.e. Rep Kucinich's Congressional investigation, Richard Clarke's public apology for the US government's failure to protect its citizens, as well as other notable and highly visible political events related to 9/11 (i.e. success of Moore's film Fahrenheit 911, raging controversies over US preparation and response, etc) are all relegated to separate pages away from the 9/11 main page.

II. I am quite convinced that this event page deserves a POV citation immediately and until it excises the attempt to lay blame for the attack on those who were attacked. Such does not exist in the 9/11 page even tho there is ample evidence that an attack was expected by the Clinton NSA but such was virtually ignored by the Bush NSA, that the FBI was monitoring extremists surveying the Wall Street area in the year prior to 9/11, and the Italian and German gov'ts had warned State/NSA that al Qaeda was planning on using hijacked planes to attack Western sites (i.e. the G8 mtng in Genoa and elsewhere) well in advance of the 9/11 attack. I am not making an argument for any conspiracy theory but for the fact that such material was excised from the 9/11 page yet is supported on this event page.

III. More reason for a POV banner: in surveying those WIKI entries on the 30+ attacks against overseas US consular entities during the Reagan and Bush Admins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_attacks_on_U.S._diplomatic_facilities) that are inherently far more analogous to the Benghazi attacks than is the 9/11 page - one finds no precedent for discussing political controversy/leveling blame on the country attacked on any other page describing a terrorist attack against US diplomatic entities:

  1. several have no separate discussion of the events whatsoever
  2. the ones that do, have separate discussions but do not contain any attempt at laying blame anywhere but on the attackers, despite the fact that, by example, the success of the 1983 Beirut attack owed in part to a security failure on the ground that allowed a van packed with explosives to enter the gates and then ram into the lobby of the Embassy killing 63 people. Several other succesful and deadly attacks in that period (Karachi, Beirut, et al) were shown to have been successful because of insufficient security, barriers, etc yet there is no language attempting to lay blame on the Reagan Admin.
Maybe there's just less coverage on those pages because there were no congressional hearings called? or if there were, no editor added them to the article page? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 00:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

This wide differential between Wikipedia's descriptions of ALL past US diplomatic attacks and the recent Benghazi attack indicates strongly that the Benghazi event is receiving unprecedented treatment based on current politics (aka the very close election) - making it a very strong candidate for POV at least until the Presidential election has been concluded.

Relocating the political controversy/investigation to a separate page of its own would go a long way towards resolving that issue efficaciously and I urge the lead editor/author to do so with all haste. Then the issue of political electioneering thinly veiled as investigation by Issa & Co can be explored/discussed appropriately on its own page and not the event page itself. BeBopnJazz (talk) 13:49, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

If we don't have significant opposition to quarantining the controversy on a separate page and summarizing it here... why don't we go ahead and start the new page in someone's sandbox? --Yalens (talk) 14:40, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
So now you're "quarantining" information? In an editor's sandbox page?? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 00:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
  • If we split off "Criticism of U.S. government response", we have to deal with NPOV on both pages, not to mention duplicate some information to give the new page enough context and background. For sanity, I propose we keep the pages together, but place {{POV-check}} on this page and/or {{POV-section}} on "Criticism of U.S. government response" section, at least until the election is over. — Hasdi Bravo • 18:49, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
The criticism section is 4 medium-sized paragraphs now. That is really not so much, seems to me. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 00:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
If we can get ourselves a summary paragraph we can all agree on than we could quarantine the POV dispute onto the other page. That way we can at least have 1 sane page that's largely on-topic and then another problematic but still on-topic page, rather than one page that's both problematic AND off-topic. --Yalens (talk) 21:15, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Here's my approximate proposed reductions [without citations; wording and details should be hugely rephrased of course, but just the basic idea.]
Paragraph dealing with early conflicting analyses:
"When the event occurred, there were conflicting analyses and statements on what exactly had occurred. In [interviews, whatever], the US gov't stated that the attack as part of a wider set of protests of the film that were occurring in [various Muslim/Arab/whatever countries], while in [others, CBS, etc...] US officials the attack was an armed assault [or however they stated it] rather than an "out-of-control protest". US officials also speculated to WP about Al-Qaeda inspired attack. Quilliam thinktank thinks its about al-Libi blablabla. On the Libyan side, Ahmad Jibril blamed Ansar, while al-Sharif at one time blamed Gaddafi supporters, another time said they were protests, and then on the 13th he says that its 'terrorists' who used an already existing protest about the film as cover..."
We can add or subtract this or that, or we could just summarize it all to something along these lines:
"Early on, both US and Libyan officials as well as other analysts [list?] gave various conflicting analyses of what happened, including that it could be a protest against the film, "terrorists" {we're not really supposed to use that word here on wiki, btw} using the protest as cover, Al-Qaeda inspired attack, vengeful Gaddafi supporters, or an Islamist militia named Ansar al-Sharia..."
And for our rump section, we can have something like the following:
"In the US, the opposition party criticized the government's handling of the affair, saying variously that the embassy wasn't secured enough [?], that the government had an intelligence failure and/or misread the situation, that intelligence services allegedly had delays in reaching the site and that the briefing held by the government on the 20th was uninformative. An investigation was opened into the issue in November."
And then, of course, we'd have a see also statement leading to the respective page, where all the details are. As I said, this is just the first rough sketch. Any thoughts? --Yalens (talk) 21:42, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

...and btw, since we started this discussion, the problem has actually worsened considerably. Now US-politics takes up about 70% of the page, by rough estimate :(. That's a little depressing. --Yalens (talk) 21:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

70%? How do you figure that? Also, is page-splitting in this case skating close to a POV fork? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 00:26, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps you can explain why you think it is "skating close to a POV fork", so we could work out how to deal with that issue if there is one? --Yalens (talk) 03:15, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Can other notable events help us decide how to handle the page? See pages for Iran–Contra affair, JFK assassination and Cuban missile crisis. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 00:36, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Anything "wrong" with the page going like War in Afghanistan (2001–present)? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 00:43, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Obama + Clinton picture

If you feel it'll be useful for the article, please feel free to replace the picture of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton with a video that just got uploaded to Wikimedia Commons: File:President Obama's statement on US Consulate in Benghazi attacks 2012-09-12.ogv. odder (talk) 20:23, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

 Done -Nice, rarely is WP able to find free videos. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 23:19, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Editing the lede

The 2nd sentence of the lede is grammatically and factually incorrect. It is now: "The sustained 5-hour gunbattle took place in a walled U.S. diplomatic compound and, in the early hours the next day." The problem is that the four Americans were killed in two different locations a half mile apart from each other. Please see the NYT interactive map and click through to the 2nd map [23]. Part of the confusion may stem from the wording in the section titled "The attack". In that section I don't think it is clear that there were two compounds a half mile apart, and that the attack came in two waves, first at the main compound, and then in the early morning hours the next day at the second compound, which was hit by indirect mortar fire (killing two more Americans). -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 21:03, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Also, why is the first sentence about "rogue militias" doing the attacking? The investigation is still ongoing, and many sources are stating different things about the attackers and who they suspect they may be aligned with. I think this is misleading to write "rogue militias" did the attacking, and it waters down the meaning, too; as if it were just rogue militias with no suspected ties to the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. Suspected perps right now are Ansar al-Sharia, Abu Sufian bin Qumu, and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 22:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

  • You are right about the second compound. I'll go ahead change it back. Apparently, the second compound is now a known to be a CIA post (but under diplomatic protection). [24][25] *smh* I put rogue because the militias are not all bad. Prior to the attack, various militias kept order in Benghazi, but by definition, the militias are not answerable to the newly formed Libyan government. The militias that attacked the U.S. compound were aligned with the extremists, but it was somewhat of a blowback because it lead all militias to be disbanded or submit government control. — Hasdi Bravo • 01:11, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for editing lede. I still take issue with the use of "militias" in the first sentence of the lede, though. It's not all-encompassing of all the suspected perps, currently, which include Taliban- and Al-Qaeda- related men. I thought "extremists" fit the bill nicely because it's an umbrella term. We could say "terrorists" but that term is loaded. Why not go completely neutral and use the term "men": "On September 11, 2012, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya was attacked by heavily armed men with ..." I had something like this before but it was edited. What do you think? Can we use the neutral "heavily armed men"? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 02:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
If you insist, we can have "heavily armed men executed an attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, with..." but the suspected perps are militias, which include Al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Sharia. Extremists don't necessarily involve militant attack with heavy arms, which is probably what we want to emphasize here. — Hasdi Bravo • 04:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it's an overstatement to say that the crowd the chased out the extremists was "pro-American". So I removed that part from the sentence. I hope you guys are okay with that. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 01:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it wasn't. Libya is apparently very pro-American, which is somewhat surprising for a Muslim country in the Middle East. Why else did you think Libyans helped to recover Stevens and brought him to the hospital?[26] There may hope for our middle east policy but as I have said before, I am not holding my breath. — Hasdi Bravo • 01:56, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Libyans held demonstrations in Benghazi and Tripoli on September 12, condemning the violence and holding signs such as, "Chris Stevens was a friend to all Libyans", and apologizing to Americans for the actions in their name and in the name of Muslims. The New York Times noted that young Libyans had also flooded Twitter with pro-American messages after the attacks. It was noted that Libyans are typically more positively inclined towards the United States than their neighbors. A 2012 Gallup poll noted that "A majority of Libyans (54%) surveyed in March and April 2012 approve of the leadership of the U.S. -- among the highest approval Gallup has ever recorded in the... region, outside of Israel." [27] Another poll in Eastern Libya, taken in 2011, reported that the population was at the same time both deeply religious conservative Muslims and very pro-American, with 90% of respondents reporting favorable views of the United States.
I guess your right. But sentence was still long and awkward containing the "support the U.S.". Removing it to me just sounds better. Hopefully it wasn't that necessary. As for Libyan attitudes, it would make sense for them to support America. Their war planes did help defeat Gaddafi after all. Now if only the U.S. could do the same for Syria. :/-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
The irony is that the four Americans became "martyrs" for the Libyan. o.0 That backlash became so great that it lead to popular opposition against militias. This is a complete 180 with happened in the protest in Egypt. I can only hope that the current and future administration don't squander this goodwill, like happened in Iraq. :-( Anywho, I need to at least mention in the lede that summarizes "Libyans held demonstrations in Benghazi and Tripoli on September 12, condemning the violence and holding signs such as, "Chris Stevens was a friend to all Libyans", and apologizing to Americans for the actions in their name and in the name of Muslims...." — Hasdi Bravo • 03:47, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Hasdi, please see my comment above re: editing first sentence to be neutral language. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 04:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The "second compound" is the (CIA) "Intelligence post"?

I think the cat is out of the bag since last week. Does anybody have any issue calling the second compound an intelligence post for the CIA? — Hasdi Bravo • 01:33, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Well it looks like that's what the news media are calling it, so it's fine with me. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 01:37, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
If it's what multiple and sound source materials are calling it, fine with me. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 01:56, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Let's move bios to bio pages for both Glen Doherty and Tyrone S. Woods

Not sure why these lengthy bios are in this article on the attack. Stevens and Smith have their own page. So these two also properly belong on their own bio pages. How do we remove the redirects someone placed and move them onto their own pages?--Cirrus Editor (talk) 14:56, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glen Doherty which includes Tyrone S. Woods. Articles of limited notability get merged in wikipedia. If it is WP:ONEEVENT and limited in scope, it waste editors time and get WP:MERGE. That's why I advised against spinning-off a separate article for the investigation, unless it becomes uncontainable (i.e., really really huge). — Hasdi Bravo • 15:18, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, the article looks like a mess now with all the images splashed all over the middle section. Dude. Seriously.--Cirrus Editor (talk) 15:32, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
I had nothing to do with the decisions to delete them, but if there is not enough supporters to keep them as separate pages, they are stuck on this pages so might as well try to make the best of it. You can try Wikipedia:Deletion review or try argue WP:SPLIT later if their materials become too big to be contained on this article. @_@ — Hasdi Bravo • 17:43, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Ummm... I don't why it's necessary to have a table of images for the victims if only half the victims have images. Can't we write about the victims in prose and then include the two pictures we do have on the side of the article? -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 17:51, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Because I think we can get the images released under CC-BY-SA-3.0 if we ask them nicely. Let's keep the image placeholders for a few weeks or so. — Hasdi Bravo • 18:02, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • FYI, I contacted Glen Doherty Foundation and they may be able to provide a photo of Doherty some time next week. Still working on Tyrone Wood's pic. Also, I clean some of the mess by consolidating some edits in "Fatalities and injuries". Still need more work. Let me know what you think. — Hasdi Bravo • 02:15, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Looks much better now. I say "thank you" for reaching out to sources to get those photos. Tip of the hat to ya. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 22:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Cirrus Editor that "the article looks like a mess now with all the images splashed all over the middle section." I also agree with FutureTrillionaire that a table of images is not necessary and that we can "write about the victims in prose and then include the two pictures we do have on the side of the article". The section headers are also distracting and only the name of each victim is needed with paragraphs for the prose. For now, I'm moving the section to the bottom so the article is not cut in half. IP75 (talk) 03:41, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
What is this about "distracting" and "image splashing"? Works fine on The Legend of Korra#Cast and characters. :-/ — Hasdi Bravo • 05:35, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't have any problems with the way the images are displayed, but do we really need to go into this much detail about their lives? Is it really necessary to note that Doherty co-authored on this page, really? I certainly don't see why its necessary... --Yalens (talk) 21:52, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

We could have a page for the Victims of the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi. There, we could place info about Doherty coauthoring a book. --Yalens (talk) 03:55, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Entire second paragraph is false

Obama never said that the attack was a reaction to Innocence of Muslims. His statements about the attack didn't even mention the film. He's only mentioned the film in reference to the unrelated storming of the US embassy in Cairo by flag-burning protestors the same day, and to the similar protests that sprung up across the region in following weeks. 24.214.230.66 (talk) 14:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

It says the "U.S. administration under President Barack Obama" initially thought the attack was a reaction to the video, not Obama himself. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 14:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Also, your attempted removal of content regarding the Libya attack from the Reactions to Innocence of Muslims page is unacceptable. Please discuss before making drastic changes like that. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 14:27, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
It's an objective fact that the Benghazi attack was not a reaction to Innocence of Muslims, and as such it has no place in the Reactions to Innocence of Muslims article. 24.214.230.66 (talk) 22:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
The President's remarks in the Rose Garden on September 12 mentioned "acts of terror" but was he identifying the Benghazi assault as a terrorist attack? On September 20 he was asked to be specific about what he wanted to say:
Q We have reports that the White House said today [for the first time] that the attacks in Libya were a terrorist attack....
THE PRESIDENT: ...I don’t want to speak to something until we have all the information. What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests --
Q Al Qaeda?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we don’t know yet...
We have to interpret and weight the September 12 remarks in such a way as to allow them to be fit in to a Wikipedia account that takes into consideration all the other statements by Obama, the State Department, the UN ambassador, etc. In the Presidential debate last night there was an issue about what was in the September 12 transcript. Here at Wikipedia the issue is broader and concerned with what is in the the totality of sources.--Brian Dell (talk) 17:51, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Of course he was referring to the Benghazi attack in his September 12 remarks about the Benghazi attack. 24.214.230.66 (talk) 22:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
There were many protests in countries other than Libya about the video, and those have been confused with what happened in Benghazi. From day one, the question was which terrorists, not if, and whether they used the protests elsewhere to provide cover and how long in advance the attack was planned. For example, the imams talking about the video may or may not have been involved in the timing. The important thing is for us to be accurate and not sloppy in conflating different locations, which only adds to the confusion. 184.78.81.245 (talk) 22:07, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussions during town hall debate

Given last night's presidential townhall debate, I wonder if the interplay between Obama, Romney, and moderator Crowley would shed light on the attack and the timelines involved. Several opinion pieces [28] [29] [30] make reference to Romney making direct accusations about when the president did and did not name the Benghazi attack an "act of terror" ... see transcript from this link:

OBAMA: Secretary Clinton has done an extraordinary job. But she works for me. I’m the president and I’m always responsible, and that’s why nobody’s more interested in finding out exactly what happened than I do. The day after the attack, governor, I stood in the Rose Garden and I told the American people in the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened. That this was an act of terror and I also said that we’re going to hunt down those who committed this crime. And then a few days later, I was there greeting the caskets coming into Andrews Air Force Base and grieving with the families. And the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the Secretary of State, our U.N. Ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, governor, is offensive. That’s not what we do. That’s not what I do as president, that’s not what I do as Commander in Chief.
CROWLEY: Governor, if you want to...
ROMNEY: Yes, I -- I...
CROWLEY: ... quickly to this please.
ROMNEY: I -- I think interesting the president just said something which -- which is that on the day after the attack he went into the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror.
OBAMA: That’s what I said.
ROMNEY: You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack, it was an act of terror.
It was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you’re saying?
OBAMA: Please proceed governor.
ROMNEY: I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.
OBAMA: Get the transcript.
CROWLEY: It -- it -- it -- he did in fact, sir. So let me -- let me call it an act of terror...
OBAMA: Can you say that a little louder, Candy?
CROWLEY: He -- he did call it an act of terror. It did as well take -- it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that.
ROMNEY: This -- the administration -- the administration indicated this was a reaction to a video and was a spontaneous reaction.
CROWLEY: It did.
ROMNEY: It took them a long time to say this was a terrorist act by a terrorist group. And to suggest -- am I incorrect in that regard, on Sunday, the -- your secretary -- ... Excuse me. The ambassador of the United Nations went on the Sunday television shows and spoke about how -- ... this was a spontaneous --
CROWLEY: Mr. President, let me --
OBAMA: I’m happy to have a longer conversation --
CROWLEY: I know you --
OBAMA: -- about foreign policy.
CROWLEY: Absolutely. But I want to -- I want to move you on and also --
OBAMA: OK. I’m happy to do that, too.
CROWLEY: -- the transcripts and --
OBAMA: I just want to make sure that --
CROWLEY: -- figure out what we --
OBAMA: -- all of these wonderful folks are going to have a chance to get some of their questions answered.

Also, CNN fact checked this debate and concluded "The conclusion: Romney's precise comment was false. Obama did describe the killings in Benghazi as an act of terror twice in the two days after the attack. In an interview two weeks after the incident, though, he appeared to reserve judgment, and some Obama administration officials, including Carney and Rice, suggested in the days after the attack that the United States had no indication that it was a planned assault. [31] Peace, MPS (talk) 20:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure how the above "interplay" sheds much "light on the attack and the timelines involved." It reads like blather. There is already a wealth of information about the attack and timelines involved from multiple news, intelligence, government, eye witness, and analyst sources. To be sure, "The attack" section needs editing and smoothing out. Ms. Lamb gave some pretty thorough testimony on Oct. 10 before the House Committee,[32] providing in good detail what happened during the attack. At a certain point early on in the attack, when the U.S. quick reaction security team stationed nearby was alerted, Ms. Lamb states: "I could follow what was happening in almost real-time." The two Libyan guards on duty also gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times.[33] Other news, intelligence, government, and analyst sources had assets nearby during the event to give a good picture about what happened in the immediate hours after the attack. See the sources in the timeline table from Oct. 12. This is just a partial list of sources. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 20:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

An assessment of the CNN fact check should take into consideration the likelihood that CNN is going to fact check in a way that makes the "real time" fact check of their moderator look wrong in hindsight. Should this article have called more attention to the President's Rose Garden speech on September 11 earlier? One could argue that Wikipedia was biased against Obama by not giving this rebuttal to Republican criticisms a higher profile. But the problem there is that there were few sources out there calling attention to the September 12 remarks prior to Obama doing so last night. Indeed, one could perhaps argue that Wikipedia ended up biased against Romney by potentially keeping him in the supposed "conservative media bubble" which ignored the September 12 remarks and so contributed to his overplaying his hand last night, leading to a dramatic "show cards" show down that the moderator called for Obama. But I think the Wikipedia community was not especially aware of the existence of the September 12 remarks not because we are in any "conservative media bubble" here but because we are in a "media bubble" period. The Rose Garden speech was a largely unexpected rebuttal, and had Wikipedia tried to make this rebuttal prior to Obama making it, there would have been a dispute about how effective a rebuttal it really is. Indeed there is still a dispute about just how effective a rebuttal this is such that it is not clear how Wikipedia should handle this.--Brian Dell (talk) 21:28, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Brian Dell: I am not wringing my hands over whether "wikipedia" woulda coulda shoulda known about Sep 12. Since there is currently uncertainty about what ACTUALLY happened, we are going to have to do a good job attributing perspectives to perspective holders. Cirrus Editor: thanks for the sources! re: above, I am just saying that we are looking to attribute perspectives to the owners of those perspectives (per WP:NPOV), then we have a fairly well documented perspective from POTUS, in his own words, on national television, saying that he announced it as a terrorist attack on Sep 12. Peace, MPS (talk) 21:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Brian Dell, that's why I'm going through the press releases and transcripts. There's no reason to stay in some "media bubble" when our taxpayer dollars are paying for transparency. 184.78.81.245 (talk) 01:05, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
I've looked at some of the transcripts and am finding some ambiguity. Is "inflammatory material posted on the internet" NOT a reference to the Youtube video? I think it could very well be! Indeed, realclearpolitics believed Hillary was referring to the video but you deleted that to substitute your own interpretation that she was not. See Wikipedia:No original research.--Brian Dell (talk) 18:51, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

This could be useful to refer to, not in the least because it has links to a wealth of sources for our timeline: [[34]].--Yalens (talk) 13:56, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

The liberal-leaning New York Times.[35] -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 16:11, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
I wasn't suggesting using their own analysis, but rather their collection of article links all gathered into one page. --Yalens (talk) 18:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh. The link you provided goes to an article titled "Clearing the Record About Benghazi." I couldn't find a "collection." For collections of source materials, try Foreign Policy Initiative; they provide a very nice collection of abstracts and links to source materials. Day by day:
  • FPI Overnight Brief: September 13, 2012 [36]
  • FPI Overnight Brief: September 14, 2012 [37]
  • FPI Overnight Brief: September 17, 2012 [38]
...and on and on. Just search by date. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 23:20, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Aftermath/Reaction of US Reponse

This section seems pretty one-sided. The content is almost all quotes from Republicans, and only seems to represent that side of the reaction. Given that the section is called Reaction (or response?) instead of "Criticism" of, I'd say we've run afoul of due weight. The republican response is not the sole or even overwhelming response. To only represent one side, democrat or republican, when due weight suggests both are represented in appreciable amounts in the category in question, is slanting things a bit. Either change the heading to "criticism" or please make it less one-sided. I know this is election season. I know spirits are high. But let's please keep some civility in our dealing with the death of an american citizen serving our country. This is not the time, even after the event, to be trying to score political points over the body of an american diplomat. 204.65.34.219 (talk) 19:04, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it was "Criticim of US Response" but it got changed. Seems ok to me to change it back. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 19:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
I changed it to the neutral "Reaction to U.S. government response" to avoid an unbalanced, pov section. Hopefully, content will be added to make it more balanced. IP75 (talk) 23:11, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, actually I don't think that added to the balance at all, and instead it just made an awkward title ("reaction to... response"... just sounds bad) and accomplished nothing. And the section only has criticism anyways, at least for the moment, so until something else shows up there, it's best not to white-wash what it is... So I reverted it. --Yalens (talk) 23:16, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Good man. (Happy dog.) -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 03:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Aftermath U.S. government response

This section opens with the sentence: "Some officials in the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama purportedly described the attack as an off-shoot of the protest over the film, although one U.S. official acknowledged that the attack was likely organized and deliberate."[39] That cite is from Sept. 26, which is 15 days after the attack. To open the U.S. government response section with a cite that is that old is really odd. I'll try to get some earlier cites that are better suited to what the U.S. government response was on Sept. 12, 13, 14 that timeframe. Also, to put into the lead sentence in this section that one "U.S. official acknowledged that the attack was likely organized and deliberate", just seems like a reach. The NYTimes put that tidbit in the 17th paragraph of their article. That's how much weight the NYT attributed to it; yet it appears in the opening sentence to this section. Not balanced. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 19:57, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Glenn Kessler's timeline here would be a good source.--Brian Dell (talk) 20:02, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

In the interest of transparency, I've removed this from the U.S. government response section: "Before the ceremony, Carney spoke of the video in relation to the protest in Egypt, not Libya.[1]" As I explain in my edit in the article itself, this is not what Carney stated. Here is the actual full exchange from the press briefing on Sept. 14:

Q Jay, one last question -- while we were sitting here -- Secretary Panetta and the Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee. And the senators came out and said their indication was that this, or the attack on Benghazi was a terrorist attack organized and carried out by terrorists, that it was premeditated, a calculated act of terror. Levin said -- Senator Levin -- I think it was a planned, premeditated attack. The kind of equipment that they had used was evidence it was a planned, premeditated attack. Is there anything more you can -- now that the administration is briefing senators on this, is there anything more you can tell us?
MR. CARNEY: Well, I think we wait to hear from administration officials. Again, it's actively under investigation, both the Benghazi attack and incidents elsewhere. And my point was that we don't have and did not have concrete evidence to suggest that this was not in reaction to the film. But we’re obviously investigating the matter, and I’ll certainly -- I’m sure both the Department of Defense and the White House and other places will have more to say about that as more information becomes available.

So even after Mr. Carney is informed that the Sec'y of Defense and the Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs is briefing senators on "indications" that the Benghazi attack was a terrorist attack, preplanned, premeditated....he goes back to the video. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 20:29, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. See American Crossroads: "Act of Terror" for video.--Brian Dell (talk) 21:37, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Here is the opening sentence I removed from this section:

Some officials in the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama purportedly described the attack as an off-shoot of the protest over the film, although one U.S. official acknowledged that the attack was likely organized and deliberate.[2]

I provide reasons above for this. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 21:52, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I fully agree with your reasons above. That was a horrible opening sentence. IP75 (talk) 23:27, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Sometimes I get it right. ;) -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 03:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, 9/14/2012, White House, September 14, 2012
  2. ^ Steven Lee Myers, Clinton Suggests Link to Qaeda Offshoot in Deadly Libya Attack The New York Times 26 September 2012

Links to collections of source materials

I thought this might be helpful to fellow Wikipedians, or anyone, really. I've collected here some popular source materials.

The Economic Times Benghazi collection[40]

The Chicago Tribune Benghazi collection[41]

Los Angeles Times Benghazi collection[42]

CNN Benghazi collection[43]

Foreign Policy Initiative provide a very nice collection of abstracts and links to many different source materials. Day by day:

  • FPI Overnight Brief: September 13, 2012[44]
  • FPI Overnight Brief: September 14, 2012[45]
  • FPI Overnight Brief: September 17, 2012[46]

...and on and on. Just search by date.

For these collections I've just saved the search criteria from Google. So we have searches on each site for "benghazi attack" at:

  • Associated Press site: ap.org[48]

This last one might be really useful. It's a search on "benghazi attack" on all .gov sites. So this will find U.S. government sites, such as the White House, the State Department, Congressmen, Congressional Committees, etc:

Search "benghazi attack" on all .gov sites[52]

Happy hunting! -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 23:52, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Here's the NYT one: [53]-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 00:08, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

POV-check nomination until the election is over

I am nominating this page for {{POV-check}} until the 2012 United States elections is over. Specifically, this page cannot be an considered an authoritative source regarding the allegation of cover-up and duplicity by the U.S. administration under Barack Obama on the Benghazi attack. While editors have worked to resolve WP:POV issues, we may not be able to catch them all and correct new ones in a timely manner. And I don't think splitting off page will help, and may even lead to WP:POV-fork. Let's focus on what had happened, not what should have happened. Thank you. — Hasdi Bravo • 20:44, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

"The editor who adds the tag should address the issues on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies." Which issues? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 21:01, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
  • "the allegation of cover-up and duplicity by the U.S. administration under Barack Obama on the Benghazi attack". I am putting this tag because I am noticing some... "activity" on the both the page and its talk page. Democrats want to say Obama is innocent, while Republicans want to say he is guilty as hell. This tag is less serious than a {{POV}} tag. It is just saying we are aware of potential POV issues, and editors will (hopefully) correct NPOV issues as these come along. Cheers. — Hasdi Bravo • 21:08, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm an Independent. Where do I fit in? And I can't locate the word "cover-up" in the article.... -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 21:50, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Cirrus Editor: we don't have to talk about a cover up as if it is an objective thing... as an example of NPOV attribution... during the debates, Romney confronted Obama, saying 'his -- the [obama] administration -- the administration indicated this was a reaction to a video and was a spontaneous reaction' ... this bolded statement is true regardless of your political affiliation, because it attributes Romney's perspective to Romney. Do you think some sort of quote like this belongs in the article? Peace, MPS (talk) 21:55, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're asking me, MPS? If I think it's ok to put something like that quote in the article? If I think the article deserves some mentioning of the debate exchange? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 22:39, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
The usual method is to avoid using 'said' for contentious claims and substitute 'claimed' or 'alleged' to clarify it's Romney's opinion, not necessarily true. That said, I don't know if that belongs in this article. 184.78.81.245 (talk) 01:00, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
I use "said" for direct quotations in any source, news, press release.... "alleged" bends the fact if it is a direct quotation. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 20:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't see anything in the article that's anywhere near the level of NPOV-violation as the phrase "allegation of cover-up and duplicity by the U.S. administration under Barack Obama on the Benghazi attack". 24.214.230.66 (talk) 22:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
You think so? Let's look with a recent edit
  • BEFORE: The U.S. administration under President Barack Obama initially associated the attack with protesters reacting to the anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims; U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday political talk shows on September 16 asserting that the attacks were a "spontaneous reaction" to "a hateful and offensive video that was widely disseminated throughout the Arab and Muslim world." However, some private analysts and U.S. officials noted that the Benghazi attack appeared to have been planned in advance and professionally executed. According to Libyan President Mohamed Yousef el-Magariaf, foreigners infiltrated Libya during the months prior to the attack, plotted the attack, and then used Libyans to carry it out.
  • AFTER: Although some initially associated the Benghazi attack with protesters in Egypt reacting to the anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims, others believed the Benghazi attack appeared to have been planned in advance and professionally executed. According to Libyan President Mohamed Yousef el-Magariaf, foreigners infiltrated Libya during the months prior to the attack, plotted the attack, and then used Libyans to carry it out.
See that? Systematic removal of any statements that may be construed as damning to Obama. Likewise, there are edits to insert statements that are critical to his (in)action. This is something we have to put up with until the elections are over. :-( — Hasdi Bravo • 22:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I see it. What are we to do about it? Put a lock on the article, again? (I was actually curious as to why the lock was removed.) Or just keep undo-ing this sort of thing? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 22:41, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
By the way, your placing that POV notice may have drawn extra attention to the article. That otherwise would not have occurred. Right? (That's a pretty big change to the lede, too, that that editor "184.78.81.245" made.) -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 22:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
btw, if the issue you cite for placing the POV-check on the article up to the election is, "Specifically, this page cannot be an considered an authoritative source regarding the allegation of cover-up and duplicity by the U.S. administration under Barack Obama on the Benghazi attack," why did you provide an example of text that goes the other way, to remove such text? I'd think you'd be more upset if text was being inserted into (not removed from) the article supporting your contention. I'm confused. Also, can you provide other examples in the article as of October 20, 2012 where you believe there are POV issues? Besides the section Criticism of U.S. government response, which is clearly labeled criticism. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 12:56, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
NPOV means you don't support either contention. I figured later, that rather than summarize a paragraph and risk leaning one way or the other, it is better to remove it completely. You know, if you have nothing good to say, don't say nothing. All that stuff can be elaborated on the section for the government response anyway. I put {{POV-check}} so that editors check for POV issues, not necessarily there is a {{POV}}. With the ongoing election, there are editors out there that are tempted to spin the events one way or the other. — Hasdi Bravo • 15:06, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
OK. So. If there's a nomination, shouldn't there be a vote? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 19:38, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh, are you asking me to remove the {{POV-check}} if my POV concerns have been resolved for now? :-? I suppose we could... but then we should put in the {{controversial}} tag instead until the election is over. @_@ — Hasdi Bravo • 20:33, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
There is clearly a POV-dispute on this page, so there is no reason to cover that fact up...--Yalens (talk) 23:57, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
And I also disagree with the notion that POV tag is here until the election is over. I think it should stay as long as there is a dispute. --Yalens (talk) 00:00, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone deny that this page has a POV? It seems to me that almost everyone thinks that it has some sort of POV (the remainder have - or perhaps had - no opinion), though they don't agree on what it is. Does anybody deny there is an issue?--Yalens (talk) 22:46, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I think some are stoking the issue. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 23:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
No takers on my claim that some are stoking the issue, huh? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 20:39, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
If what you mean is that putting the tag on "stoked the issue" (as you seem to imply elsewhere, that it brought attention to the page), I would remind you that most new editors participating on this talk page at least are IPs, who are unlikely to come to the page for that reason. More likely, it's because the debate two nights ago caused more people to visit this page...--Yalens (talk) 23:04, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
I stand corrected, kind sir. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 03:47, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

This article certainly should be tagged in some way to warn readers. As I commented earlier regarding the changes I made to U.S. government reaction, there is a lot of confusion in this article about who said what when, and were they talking about Benghazi or other places. Obama and Jay Carney are White House. Clinton is State Department. Rice is UN Ambassador. Olsen is NCTC. Each of those websites have all the statements, press releases and so forth. On September 12, Obama and Clinton were clear the Benghazi attack was by militants, not 'protestors'. The lede implied the Administration believed otherwise, and that simply isn't supported by their statements. No doubt there was unofficial conjecture by unknown staffers about all sorts of triggering factors, but it certainly wasn't the official position. I haven't yet reviewed Susan Rice's statements and talk show videos, so I left the current summaries of her statements as is for now. Our job is not to report what any of these people supposedly meant, but what they said and did. It's not right to claim they blamed a video for Benghazi's attack when they blamed it for Egypt's protests and attack. Those are two different places, people! 184.78.81.245 (talk) 23:39, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Warn readers of what? If you see confusion in the article, correct it. But don't go in and remove direct quotations from key players in this event, as you did when you removed from the lede direct quotations Susan Rice made on the five Sunday talk shows. Direct quotes are not interpretation, that's information. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 23:48, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
"On September 12, Obama and Clinton were clear the Benghazi attack was by militants, not 'protestors'. The lede implied the Administration believed otherwise, and that simply isn't supported by their statements." If it was clear to Obama on Sept. 12, why was he referring to the video in his U.N. speech on Sept.
There are various templates to use which warn readers of fast-moving stories, unclear facts, contentious issues and so forth. I did not remove any direct quote by Susan Rice regarding Benghazi. I left her section in the U.S. government reaction section as is for now. I have just found and added Jay Carney's comments on September 12, which fit in with the statements of the President and Secretary of State. Rice may or may not be the outlier here. One by one, I intend to summarize what each of the major players said on each day so all this becomes clear and useful to readers. So far, I have found some 'troubling' errors in simple accuracy, as well as context as to which attack was being referred to. A 'thank you' to me for my efforts would not be out of line. I AGF, and expect the same in return. What's with the determination here to 'prove' there's some cover-up in the first place? From what I've seen so far, there's only confusion, apparently by the media, regarding the multiple protests and attacks. I may change my view after reading every statement, but that's what I see now. 184.78.81.245 (talk) 00:53, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

The article is being changed in ways that I don't think it would be if this topic had not come up in the Presidential debate last night. Who are these "others" who "believed the Benghazi attack appeared to have been planned in advance and professionally executed"? It used to be more specific (excluding people like the President or Susan Rice), and it used to say that they believed this "early on" or "within hours" in order to correctly suggest that some were faster than others and that the administration was not in the fast group. Guess who said the following on September 30?
"Friday [September 28] we got the administration's sort of definitive statement that this now looks as though it was a pre-planned attack by a terrorist group, and some of whom were at least sympathetic to al Qaeda.
Why do you think and are you [Mr McCain] bothered that it has taken them this long from September 11th to now to get to this conclusion?"
Answer: Candy Crowley. This article used to read like Crowley - and most media sources who have following the development of this story - would have wanted it to read (as evidenced by that quote from September 30). Now it's changed but did anything really change? Did Crowley suddenly change her opinion and start believing that what was said on September 12 is as significant as September 28 in terms of how the matter should be fairly characterized? The more plausible explanation is that she just got hung up on a technicality last night and Wikipedia can and should avoid this.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:27, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Brian Dell, I don't know why you're fixated on Candy Crowley's opinions. I provided transcripts of the people involved. Do you find facts irrelevant compared to Crowley's opinion changes? Would you prefer to write an article about Crowley? I don't know why she picked September 28, and I don't see its relevance to this article. What are you trying to accomplish here? 184.78.81.245 (talk) 05:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
You've deemed those of us who disagree with the contention that Obama "clearly characterize[d] the attacks as an act of terror" on September 12 as "liars and scam artists." I'm trying to keep the article from being turned on its head just because Candy Crowley did a disputed "fact-check" during a widely televised debate. Why didn't you come to this article on September 13 or anytime prior to the October 16 Presidential debate and have it indicate that Obama "clearly characterized" the attack as an act of terror if that's true? Even more importantly, why didn't more media call attention to the September 12 remarks prior to the Obama campaign doing so this week if those remarks were so relevant? A key element of the Republican objection is that the administration wasn't leading the media in the right direction early on, yet now the administration is again leading the media, this time to play up the September 12 Rose Garden remarks!--Brian Dell (talk) 17:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
I think you're fighting a losing battle, Brian Dell. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 20:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

You know what, guys. I am going to take out one paragraph in the lede to avoid bipartisan edit-whoring (until the election is over). The lede is too long anyway and there are other sections in this article that need attention. Please place any "he said, she said" stuff in the "Investigation timeline" and withhold judgement. If anybody wants to stick {{POV-section}} in "U.S. government response" section, feel free. TQ. — Hasdi Bravo • 02:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

The lede is improved by taking that out. By "he said, she said" do you mean "Obama said, Clinton said" or "Obama said, Rice said" or something else? You're not being clear at all. The section is called "U.S. government response" but you and Brian want to change it to "Candy Crowley's responses" or "U.S. media response"? I just read the CNN transcript of Rice's comments on the Sunday show ("that horrific incident where some mob was hijacked ultimately by a handful of extremists"), and the summary is not accurate (the attacks were a "spontaneous reaction" to "a hateful and offensive video that was widely disseminated throughout the Arab and Muslim world."). Perhaps she said something quite different on the other four talk shows. 184.78.81.245 (talk) 05:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Nice scrubbing of the lede of all information regarding the investigation of the attack. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 11:51, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
But it's actually better now- now it reads like the lede of a page about an attack on a diplomatic mission, instead of a page about a political controversy for which that attack was a mere prologue. --Yalens (talk) 13:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
  • The lede now gives the impression that any controversy is just manufactured by Republicans because it does not identify anything that might give rise to a controversy.--Brian Dell (talk) 17:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
    The burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused. It's the American way. The third line in the third paragraph should suffice. See also WP:FLAT. ._______. — Hasdi Bravo • 17:20, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
    Susan Rice's comments were removed from the lede because there is no proof she said them?--Brian Dell (talk) 17:29, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Spot on, Brian Dell. I'm not going to get into an editing war here. One editor put the POV template on the page to bring attention to this sort of political back and forth. I think the lede is sort of ok now as it, thanks to Hasdi and others. Nitty gritty specifics don't belong in the lede. There is a paragraph on the political controversy; there are a great many details within the article to point educated readers to source materials so that a balanced person can follow the controversy. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 20:47, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Her comment is already in two sections, "U.S. government response" and "Investigation timeline". Per MOS:LEAD, the lead section "serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important aspects." We are not having a Presidential debate in the lede, and having the "discovery" hogging up multiple paragraphs. No thank you. — Hasdi Bravo • 17:39, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
There is a controversy, it is a non-trivial element of this topic, and yet the lede suppresses even a hint that there might be any grounds at all for there being a controversy. The lede has been totally transformed since Tuesday afternoon (and the whole article tagged POV, which it is after all these changes in the last two days) and the only intervening developments that I am aware of is that the Obama campaign has latched on to a new rebuttal line that allegedly reduces the controversy. Wikipedia does not need to be quite so responsive to the Obama campaign, just as there was no need for the Paul Revere article to be significantly changed just because Sarah Palin provided a new rendering.--Brian Dell (talk) 18:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
You call this a hint? What more do you want it to say, on a topic of "Attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi" no less? You think the controversy dwarfs the attack itself, the outing of the CIA base, the disbandment of militias all over Libya? You probably think this article is about your controversy, don't you? Don't you? — Hasdi Bravo • 18:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Questions about whether the White House should have stated or did state this conclusion earlier and whether the site of the assault was adequately secured before and after the attack created a political controversy in the United States, where the 2012 Presidential election campaign was underway.
That's more than a hint that there IS a controversy, but nowhere in the lede is there the slightest hint that there is any grounds at all for a controversy. The implication is that it's all ginned up by political partisans. If the way the lede read on Tuesday afternoon "dwarfed" "the attack itself" then why didn't you correct it then? I might add that the controversy has gotten more media coverage than the militia disbanding, and our guide to what deserves more Wikipedia coverage is the sources.--Brian Dell (talk) 18:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Just because US media is obsessed with US politics, especially during a US political election doesn't mean Wikipedia must make the same blunder. Anyhow, I'm not sure the average editor would see the implication that it's all "ginned up by political partisans"- they're more likely to think "oh, a political controversy" and if they're interested, they'll read the respective section.--Yalens (talk) 18:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
The lead already acknowledged the political controversy. If there is "any grounds at all for a controversy", it should be detailed in one of the sections, if it is relevant to this topic at all. Also, I have been working on the politicization in the lead since last Thursday. — Hasdi Bravo • 18:59, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
This objection to the "politicization" of this incident has been the Obama campaign's complaint for some time now but Wikipedia and the Obama campaign are not one and the same. A direct quote of a reliable source saying Clinton "repeated her denunciations of a privately produced, anti-Muslim video posted to the Internet" is deleted and replaced with "She did not blame protestors or the video" which is cited to, essentially, nothing, since this interpretation it is cited to the primary source (which happens to reference "inflammatory material posted on the internet"). If you have the time to edit this article, I would think you would have the time to uncontroversially correct edits like that instead of controversially editing the lede in a way that serves the interests of a particular political campaign.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:52, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Gee, maybe I should be bold in my controversial editing the lede to better serve the interest of the other political campaign. Will this pleases you? — Hasdi Bravo • 20:29, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Questions about whether the White House should have stated or did state this conclusion earlier and whether the site of the assault was adequately secured before and after the attack created a political controversy in the United States that is solidly grounded with indisputable facts, while the 2012 Presidential election campaign was underway.
Gee I love how you make those neat little boxes. Gotta get me some of those. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 20:49, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
See "He Said, She Said (disambiguation)". Apparently, somebody is not a fan of Limp Bizkit. :P Cirrus, I added another line in the third paragraph to summarize the investigation of the attack, because we can never have enough investigation. o.0 Yalens, I also think its fair to have one paragraph for the "discovery" instead of two. So we have the first paragraph to summarize the the attack, the second paragraph to summarize the repercussions of the attack on Libya, and the third paragraph to summarize the repercussions on the unity of the United States... .______. — Hasdi Bravo • 13:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
The three-paragraph scheme seems good to me.--Yalens (talk) 14:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Is the sarcasm necessary? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 15:32, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I wasn't trying to make fun of you. I am just exasperated with this whole bickering. x_x — Hasdi Bravo • 15:54, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
A nice cup of chamomile tea might help. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 17:54, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Fatalities and injuries?

The section titled "Fatalities and injuries" seems to only discuss the dead, not the injured. Perhaps we should change the title? -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 13:15, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I would name them "Casualties and injuries" instead and/or move it back before "the Aftermath" section. The U.S. administration had a ceremony to honor the "victims of the Benghazi attack", which also include those injured. My 2 cents. — Hasdi Bravo • 16:18, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

New section proposed: "Political controversy"

In light of the Benghazi attack being mentioned in the Presidential debated and multiple RS articles written on the "Benghazi scandal", it may be good idea to have this new section as h2-level heading, possibly combining it with the section "Criticism of U.S. response" that is currently a h3-level. Moreover, this section can prepped to be WP:SPLIT off it takes up more than a third of this page, which is probably in line with Yalens' earlier proposal. Thoughts welcome. — Hasdi Bravo • 01:14, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

  • Oppose - Undue weight and possible neutrality issues. The September 11 attacks and Iran hostage crisis articles don't have such sections, despite the political debates that the events caused. I think briefly mentioning the "scandal" in the "Criticism of U.S. response" section is good enough. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 01:29, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - Any undue weight and neutrality issues apply to the page as a whole right now anyways, so I fail to see how this would hurt in that way. I would stick to my view that this whole thing should have its own page, and only be briefly mentioned here, but if this is a stepping stone to that end, I see no reason not to support it.--Yalens (talk) 13:07, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Or how about we fix these undue weight and neutrality problems rather than exacerbate it? I still don't see how the "scandal" is significant enough to deserve its own article. Find some "political controversy" article over an attack or crisis, then maybe I'll be convinced.-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 13:33, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Some of the contents on this page is about how the U.S. administration should have responded on the attack and how it should have conveyed information to the public, which is somewhat irrelevant on readers learning about the attack itself. If that the "response to attack" is becoming notable in itself, it needs to captured somewhere but probably not extensively on this page. Personally, I think this article should incorporate more information from the U.S. intelligence rather than spin from either presidential candidates. — Hasdi Bravo • 16:05, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that "U.S. intelligence" is readily separable from the Obama administration, however. Quotes from people who won't be identified, sure, because they haven't been authorized at the top level to speak. But on the record statements? Recall that the CIA essentially fully backed Dick Cheney on WMD in Iraq, at least at the time. To a certain extent I believe "U.S. intelligence" provides a support role for the administration.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:13, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Nope. See Niger uranium forgeries#CIA doubts. CIA's job is too make an objective non-partisan assessment of an event. It's the administration's job to convey their information to the public, and sadly, spin them to suit their political agenda. Why else would the Republicans be requesting the same intelligence provided to the Obama administration on the Benghazi attack? The declassified information can be incorporated on this page, and probably more useful and accurate. — Hasdi Bravo • 19:28, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support as per Yalens as the political controversy has now risen to the level that normally warrants more than one catch-all article for both the agreed historical facts and the political back-and-forth. It should be noted, though, that the division still isn't as straightforward as it sounds, as a lot of the timeline has elements woven into it that are primarily notable for their relevance to the political controversy. The separation process would probably be simplest if all statements by elected office holders and political appointees in the U.S. (the White House, Republican party critics, the Ambassador to the UN) were moved to the controversy section that was titled "administration response and political controversy" or something like that.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:03, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
The Benghazi issue is in the news because of tonight's presidential debate. Once its over, I doubt its "significance" will remain. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 20:32, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - On the undue weight issue. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 20:58, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Investigation

I found an interesting article [54] detailing the chronology of the U.S. government's response and investigation of the attacks. One interesting thing it says is that "within 24 hours of the attack, the C.I.A.’s station chief in Tripoli, Libya, e-mailed headquarters that witnesses said the assault was mounted by heavily armed militants." -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 16:01, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

One source I read stated that MI6 was on the ground in Benghazi, too, and provided intelligence to U.S. intelligence that it was a coordinated attack. The article made a good point: these guys don't act in a vacuum; they knew what was going on immediately after the engagement. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 23:46, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Full Ginsburg for Susan Rice

If anyone is offended with term "Full Ginsburg" then argue your case on that page, i.e., have her entry removed from Full Ginsburg, don't take it out on this page. What she has been referred as that [55] and I don't see anything wrong with what she did. If you do, then you have issues. — Hasdi Bravo • 15:13, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Hatnotes

I removed a hatnote {{About}} and it was replaced with a {{For}} with a link to Reactions to 'Innocence of Muslims'. Both of these templates are being misused. cygnis insignis 00:02, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Why did you say that? Did you see the hatnote on Reactions to Innocence of Muslims page? The protest in Egypt and the attack in Libya coincided on the same day. Right or wrong, the Benghazi attack was initially reported in multiple RS as a similar reaction. This page was spun-off from 2012 diplomatic missions attacks, which in turn renamed to Reactions to Innocence of Muslims. Check the edit history. See also Reactions to the 2012 diplomatic missions attacks. 01:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hasdi (talk • contribs)
The templates alert a reader in a 'did you mean' manner, eg. directing them to another article with a very similar title (See Wikipedia:Hatnote). As it happens, I knew little about the Bengazi attack and came to this article to glean some facts after reading this op ed. The reason for the attack is a contentious point and open to political interpretation, prefacing the article with it—uncited and without context—is bias. cygnis insignis 01:04, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
See this 9/12 article from CNN, "Protesters attack U.S. diplomatic compounds in Egypt, Libya". I am glad you are enlightened on matter but back then, there were mass confusion of the coinciding events. Both involve attack on diplomatic missions, the first an armed attack on members of diplomatic mission to Libya, the second a mob attack on the building for diplomatic mission to Egypt. We initially had both on 2012 diplomatic missions attacks and we motioned for WP:SPLIT to separate them. A hatnote on each page is justified. Maybe you can offer some suggestions on how to reword the hatnote to remove any perceived bias? Danke. — Hasdi Bravo • 01:31, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Investigation timeline

I've trimmed the section 'Investigation timeline', but it needs to be furthered trimmed. Wikipedia is not a news source, to report the blow by blow of every statement made about the attacks. Also, the timeline should be restricted to reports on investigations into the attacks, it shouldn't include reports about the grandstanding of various congressmen who want to use the event as political fodder for their re-election campaign. So, please restrict to only news articles about actual investigations on the attack——no speculation and no political grandstanding please. FurrySings (talk) 14:43, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't just simply take out the investigation timeline! >:( Some of us are more interested in the attack and in the politics. Check out the archives, the timeline needs to keep until all the information is sorted. — Hasdi Bravo • 14:53, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Also, why did you remove Full Ginsburg for? Did you check the page like I asked you to? Rice's name is listed on that page so we need some kind of backlink. The refs in timeline is used multiple sections, not just the politicized ones, so knocked out some named refs. Please use the talk page before you do anything drastic like that! >:( >:( >:( — Hasdi Bravo • 14:59, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • "trimmed"? So you claim "Wikipedia is not a news source, to report the blow by blow of every statement made about the attacks." But you left Every. Single. Word. of the Sept. 28 statement by Director of Public Affairs for the Director of National Intelligence because (let me guess) that supports your political position. Is everyone here OK with the massive amounts of text FurrySings removed? (Note that I'm asking the group, not going in and butchering information on the article page.) -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 23:26, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
    I'm not OK with it. >:( I wanted to work on the "Fatalities and Injuries" section but what this guy did was too reckless for me to continue. I say revert his edits that are out of line. — Hasdi Bravo • 01:15, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, due to the controversy this is causing, I say we revert the major deletions that editor made and then have a clear discussion about what exactly to remove and what to keep in the timeline. After agreeing on what to remove, then we start removing content. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:13, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Please revert. Many thanks. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 09:27, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 Done- I added the removed content without disrupting any of the later edits. Now we need to discuss what to remove and what to keep. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 13:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you Futuretrillionaire! -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 00:34, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Motivations for Investigation timeline

I advocated for the timeline in the beginning due the conflicting and evolving reporting on the attack. Eventually, we have to summarize them and have the timeline reduced to briefly mention key news, possibly with links to relevant section on this page. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of this topic, any kind of summarizing will be perceived as bias for or against the Obama administration. Even quoting only part of full text, will be accused of taking a quote out of context.

I am hoping all this will go away after the election is over. Until then, we can use the timeline to put screened news/cites that are relevant to this page, waiting to "find a home" on one of the section. We don't have to keep everything. Many news/cites are just echos of key ones plus commentaries that are irrelevant in enlightening the reader on the Benghazi attack.

  • Officials: These are news/cites from the government and members of the congress, including the Republicans.
  • Shared Press: Reuters, Agence France-Presse, [[Associated Press] articles are reused by news organization, so they tend to be neutral. National Public Radio and Voice of America may fall in this category.
  • Private Press: CBS News, Fox News, CNN answer to their company's board of directors so I find some spin sprinkled in their factual reporting. Usually more presentable that shared press.
  • Unofficials: These are U.S. officials leaking speaking on the condition of anonymity, usually to the private press. Even if what they say is true, anything they say cannot be used against the government. We can cite them, but the reader has to take it with a grain of salt or two.
  • Blogs and others: Tend to be less reputable, but some have useful exclusives like The Daily Beast. We can cite them if what they say is supported by other RS. For example, if Reuters mentioned the CIA base inadvertently revealed in congressional hearings, we can cite a blog has satellite images of the CIA base that Reuters referred to (but neglect to include).

Thoughts welcome. — Hasdi Bravo • 02:31, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I've thought about how "this could go", too, but have not settled on any best way to do it. One of the challenges I see is the multiple, concurrent official investigations that are going on right now. As you note, when a "U.S. official" leaks/speaks to the press about some investigation going on, how are we to know if it's the FBI investigation, the congressional investigations, or the independent investigation? Or no investigation at all?? How can we know? That's why I keep coming back to my thought that I like the timeline in its current form. I think turning that into a narrative would be just turning it into a thick block of text. Unless, as you say, you cherrypick items to keep in the table timeline format; but then that might raise the perception of bias. I agree this will settle down post-election. But it might not. Depends on who wins, I think. In any event, the investigations will continue, and there may need to be separate (sub)sections for each one. I've found the table timeline to be really useful from a collection view and also from an "overview" view. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 15:15, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Where is the source for these emails?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us-usa-benghazi-emails-idUSBRE89N02C20121024

Where can I find the emails which are being reported on? Are the emails available to the general public? 71.52.199.48 (talk) 10:40, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Visit CBS News here and look for the "Read the emails (PDF)" link.--Brian Dell (talk) 18:04, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks so much!! 71.52.199.48 (talk) 03:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
I posted a link to the PDF of the emails from the CBS website in the article's Investigation Timeline row of Oct. 23. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 15:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

cleanup

This is already a long article. Apparently both Hasdi and Yalens aren't content to have "A 22-year-old freelance videographer, Fahd al-Bakoush, later published a video" mentioned once, this has to be in the article twice (because they reverted my minimization of it to once without removing the first mention when they put back the second). Does this really have to be in the article twice? There is already a lot of repetition in this article but there is little point in my, or anyone else, trying to condense this article if there isn't a consensus to do this. The ambassador "died of asphyxiation" is mentioned repeatedly, twice alone in the material that was reverted back in. "According to U.S. officials, security personnel were separated from Stevens during the attack in the chaos of smoke and gunfire that ensued." Didn't we already very clearly say that? Why repeat this? "Stevens and foreign service officer Sean Smith were inside the consulate with a regional security officer. They got separated in the smoke." Again, this is quite clear from the "Attack" section which provides more detail about who the "regional security officer" is and how they got separated. "he tried for 90 minutes to resuscitate him with no success" also needs to appear the article twice? "Stevens' body was later returned to U.S. custody" is also in the article already with more details on how the body was repatriated. "Seif Eddin Zoghbia was the general surgeon on duty" only appears once but really how notable is this when this person isn't the doctor who worked on the ambassador (who is already mentioned). This isn't an article about the Benghazi Medical Center and it has nothing to do with the events at either the consulate or the annex since it concerns developments at a hospital. Last I checked a hospital was not attacked. At most who "the general surgeon on duty" was is relevant to the fate of the ambassador and therefore appropriate for that biography. Would the New York Times have these sorts of details if it did a single article summary of the attack? If someone really thinks this is a must have, fine, that, along with things like "The crowd cheered 'God is Greatest'" (we already know the local population was sympathetic to the ambassador because they later drove suspect militias out of town, and at the time they didn't know this was the ambassador) could go in, but why not fit it into the narrative of the attack? These multiple sections are a major driver of all the redundancy in this article. The argument that this part of the article needs to be long because the rest of the article is too long doesn't make any sense to me. I would think it would make far more sense to split off the other material into a separate article if you don't think that other material is relevant to the topic or notable as opposed to packing the narrative of the night's events with redundancy. I was going to continue to the rest of the article but appears that it is going to be an uphill battle trimming this article back. "Romney claimed to have previously met Doherty at a gathering in La Jolla, San Diego" needs to be mentioned twice? With "As reported in the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other news sources" as well? "Romney said. '[Woods and Doherty] rushed there to go help. This is the American way." This can't be removed either? Romney is a notable person but this is just fluff and it isn't relevant to the controversy either, which like it or not is getting far more media coverage than these biographic details and if Wikipedia is neutral it takes its weighting cues from how the sources weight.--Brian Dell (talk) 16:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The butchery that was visited upon this article started with user Antisoapbox, who got on his own soapbox to do his editing. (As an aside I'll note again how it seems OK to be on a soapbox if you're on the "correct" soapbox.) Then user FurrySings joins in with his editorial knife. I think those were generally agreed to be over the line. But then during the massive rollback plus "cleanup" some information has been scrubbed from the article. For example, there were two eyewitness accounts to the attack, from a Libyan guard and from the Libyan landlord:
According to eyewitness Mohammad al Bishari, the property's landlord, assailants moved in from two directions.[1]
A Libyan security guard who was wounded in the attack said in an interview that the area was quiet "until about 9:35 pm, when as many as 125 armed men descended on the compound from all directions."[2] The attackers lobbed grenades and stormed through the facility’s main gate shouting "God is great", according to the guard.
But this has been folded into the narrative, and the cites have been kept intact. This is only two instances. If I took the time I'd likely find more information that has been jettisoned in favor of brevity; but I hope the sense of it is kept along with the cites.
You're noting the repitition, Bdell. I get it. I'd say: go ahead and do that cleanup where you see it, then note it in the change log for each edit you do. It's pretty simple but it takes time. I think if you approach this honestly and openly and in a spirit of improving the article, and not with a heavy hand, it'll be ok. If not, editors can talk it out here on the....Talk Page. :) I've tried to work on this article, and see others' work (with the exceptions noted above, and some few others), in WP:GOODFAITH. I think if you go ahead and make thoughtful changes to the article it'll be ok.
I appreciate the work other editors have done on the article. I think it's been a real team effort here, for the most part. And, for the most part, I've appreciated editors keeping off their WP:SOAPBOXes. :] -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 23:40, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Here's another good example of lost information during the scrubbing. During the attack it is known that the terrorists used: rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades, assault rifles, 14.5 mm anti-aircraft machine guns, diesel canisters, gun trucks, and mortars. In the scrubbed Attack section now, there is no mention that hand grenades were lobbed over the consulate wall at the beginning of the attack, as an eyewitness reported; there is no mention that the terrorists blocked the streets in coordination of their attack; there is no mention of the use of anti-aircraft machine guns mounted on gun trucks, as reported; there is no mention of the terrorists using rocket-propelled grenades to blow holes through buildings, as reported; all we know is that "gunfire and explosions were heard near the front gate," a very passive way to present an assault of "large numbers of armed men" (which eyewitnesses say was up to 125 men). So, instead of a coordinated assault by a platoon or company of battle-hardened terrorists, as what happened, it reads now like a few scraggly guys who didn't know, really, what they were doing meandered into the front gate and entered, unasked. But they entered. Oh. And there was no crowd of protesters gathered outside before their military-style assault began. But that information is no longer in the Attack section. You guys! You're so scrubby! :) -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 09:29, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Mkay, two things. First of all, the point in a talk page is to work out issues, not to call each other names or speculate about so-and-so's motives when you really don't know. Second of all (and more importantly), I do agree with Bdell that the bio info (Doherty writing a book, blablabla, etc) should be moved to a separate page. In an earlier discussion about this, Hasdi noted that the pages of the individuals were deleted. If I can get support, however, for making one page for all the victims, I will begin that page in my sandbox. --Yalens (talk) 13:43, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Who's calling names? I'm not. I'm saying folks have removed information from the article that they did not like. -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 17:24, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Brian Dell, I have been MIA for a while so I didn't get a chance to respond to you earlier. Thing is, I want the attack section to be as detailed as possible. Right now, it is very skimpy, and there are more detail on the aftermath and the politics, than the attack itself. I am not happy about this. As for your edits, some sentences are redundant so these can be consolidated, but you also removed some detail that I rather you not take out. If you don't want "Recovery of Stevens" to be a separate section that's fine for now, but once we have expanded on the detail of the attack, we may need to break up into 3-4 sub-sections, one of which will be the recovery of Stevens, which happened before the attack at the CIA annex. Thank you. — Hasdi Bravo • 00:46, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Nancy A. Youssef, Suliman Ali Zway, and Jonathan S. Landay (September 12, 2012). "Islamists targeted U.S. diplomats with gunfire, RPGs in planned assault, witness says". McClatchy.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ Nancy A. Youssef and Suliman Ali Zway (September 13, 2012). "No protest before Benghazi attack, wounded Libyan guard says". McClatchy.

POV nom link on top of article pointing to nowhere

Isn't there supposed to be a subsection to discuss the POV nom? That link on the main article has the URL of: [56]. How can this be fixed? -- Cirrus Editor (talk) 19:58, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

The tag was added by Hasdi with the edit summary "+POV-check nomination until the election is over, per talk page" which is, presumably, referencing this archived section of the talk page which you participated in. If you want to add a specific section on the talk page create a new one then I believe you link it using the |(section) format after the initial tag criteria. See the Template:POV page for more details. TomPointTwo (talk) 21:45, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I am withdrawing this nomination to switch it over {{controversial}} until the election is over. Seem more fitting. Sorry for being MIA for a while. — Hasdi Bravo • 00:11, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Nope. That's not the tag for it. Let me try something else. — Hasdi Bravo • 00:18, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Removing unreliable source

The Blaze cites Lt. Col. Schaffer as saying his unnamed sources place POTUS in WH situation room at the time of Behghazi attack. This is untrue. POTUS was at Walter Reed, Bethesda, MD, at the time of the US Consulate attack. [57]

  • 1415 EST visit begins
  • 1514 EST assault begins
  • 1645 EST visit ends ClaudeReigns (talk) 09:43, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Walter Reed is just down the street. The attack lasted something like seven hours, yes? I believe the claim is that he was in the situation room during the attack, not at the beginning of the attack. This leaves plenty of time for the President to be in the SitRoom during the attack. Unless I'm misunderstanding something? TomPointTwo (talk) 13:29, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, the first assault at consulate which occurred at 9:40PM (3:40PM EDT) lasted about an hour or so.[58] The second assault at the CIA annex happened at about 4AM (10:00PM EDT). Since Obama is preoccupied with the 9/11 ceremony, Biden as VP would be in charge in his absence. I suggest put both "USA Today" cite and "The Blaze" cite in the timeline, 9/11 and 10/26 respectively. "Reputable source" does not equate "reliable source", unfortunately. The stand-downs in Benghazi reminds me of the stand-downs of the fighter planes on the original 9/11 attacks when Bush was in charge. Another USS Liberty incident? Hmmm.... — Hasdi Bravo • 17:28, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

error on Wood

Sorry I'm a newbie and probably not doing this right. Just wanted to point out that in the section on Wood's he is describe as serving as a Seal until 2010 and then a couple of line latter state that he retired as a Senior Chief in 2007. Being a Senior Chief I know you can not serve as a Seal (or any part of then Navy) for 3 years after you have retired. Not sure which year is right but one of these is clearly wrong. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.53.210.93 (talk) 16:24, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi, thank for pointing that out. Rewrote it with the cites that we have so far. Let me know what you think. TQ. :-) — Hasdi Bravo • 02:55, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
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