Petraeus on Benghazi: Stupid, Dishonest or Crazy?

Per The Hill:

Former CIA Director David Petraeus told lawmakers at a closed-door briefing Friday the agency believed the assault on the US Consulate in Libya was a terrorist attack from the beginning.

The media's focus on this, naturally, is all about Petraeus contradicting the Obama administration's early line (that the attack spontaneously emerged from a raucous demonstration against an anti-Islam video).

The focus should be on the fact that the statement is obviously really dumb, and/or a complete falsehood, and/or else an indication that Petraeus lives in a fantasy world.

Terrorism is "the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or ideological or religious in nature; this is done through coercion or intimidation or instilling fear."

The Benghazi attacks were attacks on US government facilities (the consulate and a "CIA annex"), not civilian facilities.

The casualties were US government personnel, including two CIA paramilitaries, not civilians.

Both of these facts were well-known and undisputed from the beginning. It was clearly not "a terrorist attack."

There are three possibilities here:

1. Petraeus managed to climb to the top of the US military and intelligence pyramids without ever bothering to master basic military and intelligence concepts; or 
2. Petraeus is -- like so many other members of the political class -- comfortable just lying about stuff because "terrorism" is much more effective as jingoist political propaganda than "we messed up; we were some place we should have known better than to have been, and we got our asses handed to us;" or
3. Petraeus is completely delusional.

My bet is on a combination of (2) and (3).

Why the Petraeus Departure is Good for the GOP

David Petraeus (Wikipedia)

Naturally, there's a lot of speculation -- for example, is it possible that Obama's people blackmailed Petraeus into not contradicting the administration's line on Benghazi? Or that they let him go on his own terms as long as he waited until after the election (to avoid a possible "Obama canned Petraeus" backlash)?

I'm sure that in due time we'll all know more than we want to know about the general's love life, and get a face full of wild theories about what went on behind the scenes, but the one thing I have to say about it is that this is good for the Republican Party.

As long as Petraeus remained a top military/intelligence/political figure, with "bipartisan" chops to boot, he was an obvious candidate for the Republican Party's presidential or vice presidential nomination in 2016.

And a plausible candidate, too. He certainly has the experience. He would probably be a lock for VP and a serious contender for the top slot.

But his ability to compete at that level would have a lot to do with the GOP's tin ear on "defense" issues -- he would be a bad pick.

Even (maybe especially) if the US is substantially free of its current set of expensive military entanglements -- Afghanistan especially -- by 2016, voters are still going to be war-weary and suspicious of any candidate fitting a "likely ultra-hawk" profile.

The timing is good for the GOP too. Maybe not as good as having the whole thing create a scandal that helped Mitt Romney would have been, but at least it's soon enough after this election that if it cuts the other way it won't hurt the GOP in 2014 or 2016.