Was the R Congress to Blame for Benghazi?

[SVPete]

I've noticed that Libs & Progs are "answering" the SHREW-Benghazi issue by recycling the excuse that the R Congress cut the State Department's budget. This "answer" assumes that the State Department was so tightly run that it could not have shifted resources from elsewhere to Benghazi security. If that sounds absurd on its face, it is. I found two articles were posted on another board in a 2012 thread concerned with Benghazi, showing that $$ and people resources were being expended that could have been shifted to Benghazi:

State Department Cut Libyan Security While Spending on Chevy Volts
by Michael Patrick Leahy
Breitbart.com/Big-Government
11 Oct 2012

The Washington Times is reporting that at the same time State Department officials were cutting security for our diplomatic stations in Libya, they were increasing the budget for our embassy in Austria in order to purchase Chevrolet's electric powered Volt:

In a May 3, 2012, email, the State Department denied a request by a group of Special Forces assigned to protect the U.S. embassy in Libya to continue their use of a DC- 3 airplane for security operations throughout the country. . .

Four days later, on May 7, the State Department authorized the U.S. embassy in Vienna [Austria] to purchase a $108,000 electric vehicle charging station for the embassy motor pool’s new Chevrolet Volts. The purchase was a part of the State Department’s “Energy Efficiency Sweep of Europe” initiative, which included hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on green program expenditures at various U.S. Embassies.

While the State Department Rules of Engagement for Libya signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton within the last eighteen months specifically prohibits the stationing of Marines at any diplomatic station in that country, the American embassy in Austria has a full complement of Marines.

State Dept. Confirms: Marines on 9/11/12 Were Protecting U.S. Embassy--in Barbados
By Patrick Burke
CNSNews.com
October 12, 2012

(CNSNews.com) -- When terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 of this year and killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, there were no U.S. Marines deployed in Libya to defend U.S. diplomats, diplomatic facilities and classified information and equipment.

However, says the State Department, a Marine Security Detachment was deployed on that day to carry out those duties at the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados.

I like recycling, too, .