May 18, 2016

The Benghazi “Stand Down” Theory Finally Gets Officially Abandoned

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Ever since the Benghazi attacks four years ago,1 conservatives have been hawking the “stand down” theory. Basically, they’re convinced that troops could have gotten to Benghazi in time to help, but someone—Hillary Clinton? President Obama? Ben Rhodes?—overrode the military and told them not to deploy. This has been debunked several dozen times, and never made sense in the first place, but it’s still a big part of the whole conspiracy theory.

A couple of days ago, the ranking Democrat on the Benghazi committee sent a letter to chairman Trey Gowdy claiming that the GOP’s own counsel, Dana Chipman, had admitted during interviews that nothing more could have been done to help. Is that true? Gowdy says no:

When you see the full transcript—and you will—then you will see what Dana was talking about was a very small point: the posture of the troops, the order that was given by [Leon] Panetta and the president, how that order was received, all of that is what we want to ask people about. Whether or not they could have gotten there in time, I don’t think there’s any issue with respect to that. They couldn’t. The next question is, why could you not, why were you not positioned to do it?

Fascinating! Apparently there was never any “stand down” conspiracy theory in the first place. I guess Democrats just made up the whole thing. The only thing Gowdy is really concerned about is why all the troops around the Mediterranean were positioned so far from Benghazi—though that might seem like a fairly easy question to answer: just ask the Pentagon. Once you boil it down, their answer is basically that our military posture in the Med wasn’t based in any way on protecting the city of Benghazi, so there was no special reason they should have been close by.

Anyway, I’m sure Gowdy and his troops will get around to asking all these questions eventually. They just need more time. In the meantime, it’s good to know that nobody is accusing the White House2 of deliberately preventing the military from saving American lives. That would just be crazy, wouldn’t it?

1Seriously. It’s been three years and eight months. Hard to believe, isn’t it?

2Or, presumably, Hillary Clinton. The theory was always even crazier applied to her, since she never had the authority to order troops around anyway.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE ON MOTHER JONES' FINANCES

We need to start being more upfront about how hard it is keeping a newsroom like Mother Jones afloat these days.

Because it is, and because we're fresh off finishing a fiscal year, on June 30, that came up a bit short of where we needed to be. And this next one simply has to be a year of growth—particularly for donations from online readers to help counter the brutal economics of journalism right now.

Straight up: We need this pitch, what you're reading right now, to start earning significantly more donations than normal. We need people who care enough about Mother Jones’ journalism to be reading a blurb like this to decide to pitch in and support it if you can right now.

Urgent, for sure. But it's not all doom and gloom!

Because over the challenging last year, and thanks to feedback from readers, we've started to see a better way to go about asking you to support our work: Level-headedly communicating the urgency of hitting our fundraising goals, being transparent about our finances, challenges, and opportunities, and explaining how being funded primarily by donations big and small, from ordinary (and extraordinary!) people like you, is the thing that lets us do the type of journalism you look to Mother Jones for—that is so very much needed right now.

And it's really been resonating with folks! Thankfully. Because corporations, powerful people with deep pockets, and market forces will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. Only people like you will.

There's more about our finances in "News Never Pays," or "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," and we'll have details about the year ahead for you soon. But we already know this: The fundraising for our next deadline, $350,000 by the time September 30 rolls around, has to start now, and it has to be stronger than normal so that we don't fall behind and risk coming up short again.

Please consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

—Monika Bauerlein, CEO, and Brian Hiatt, Online Membership Director

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE ON MOTHER JONES' FINANCES

We need to start being more upfront about how hard it is keeping a newsroom like Mother Jones afloat these days.

Because it is, and because we're fresh off finishing a fiscal year, on June 30, that came up a bit short of where we needed to be. And this next one simply has to be a year of growth—particularly for donations from online readers to help counter the brutal economics of journalism right now.

Straight up: We need this pitch, what you're reading right now, to start earning significantly more donations than normal. We need people who care enough about Mother Jones’ journalism to be reading a blurb like this to decide to pitch in and support it if you can right now.

Urgent, for sure. But it's not all doom and gloom!

Because over the challenging last year, and thanks to feedback from readers, we've started to see a better way to go about asking you to support our work: Level-headedly communicating the urgency of hitting our fundraising goals, being transparent about our finances, challenges, and opportunities, and explaining how being funded primarily by donations big and small, from ordinary (and extraordinary!) people like you, is the thing that lets us do the type of journalism you look to Mother Jones for—that is so very much needed right now.

And it's really been resonating with folks! Thankfully. Because corporations, powerful people with deep pockets, and market forces will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. Only people like you will.

There's more about our finances in "News Never Pays," or "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," and we'll have details about the year ahead for you soon. But we already know this: The fundraising for our next deadline, $350,000 by the time September 30 rolls around, has to start now, and it has to be stronger than normal so that we don't fall behind and risk coming up short again.

Please consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

—Monika Bauerlein, CEO, and Brian Hiatt, Online Membership Director

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate