Doomed
Paul Wolfowitz argues that although he is not 100% certain the claims can be verified on all points that he believes the administration did all it reasonably could to defend the consulate in Benghazi.
From what I can determine from talking with someone who has spoken directly with key general officers and others involved in the US response to the Benghazi attacks, it would appear that – contrary to Panetta’s “basic principle” – the US did almost everything possible to protect our people once the attacks had started, though not in advance:
The Consulate was overrun in a matter of minutes, before any help was possible.A team that appears to have been CIA personnel deployed quickly (and bravely) from the Annex to the Consulate and rescued everyone they found alive there. (It’s not clear whether Ambassador Stevens had already been taken by Libyans to the hospital or whether they simply failed to find him.)
A mainly CIA response force deployed quickly from Tripoli to reinforce the Annex and facilitate its successful evacuation.
Decision makers in Washington appear to have been leaning forward, as they should have been. The military’s most capable rescue force, based on the East Coast, was deployed immediately (something that is very rarely done), but – given the distances involved – arrived at Sigonella only after the crisis was over.
Also, the European command (EUCOM) deployed its number one counter terrorism force, which was training in central Europe, as quickly as possible, but it arrived in Sigonella after the evacuation of the Annex was complete.
Other special forces deployed to Sigonella but arrived on the 12th after it was too late to make a difference in Benghazi.
There was no AC-130 gunship in the region.
The only drone available in Libya was an unarmed surveillance drone which was quickly moved from Darna to Benghazi, but the field of view of these drones is limited and, in any case, this one was not armed.
The only other assets immediately available were F-16 fighter jets based at Aviano, Italy. These aircraft might have reached Benghazi while the fight at the Annex was still going on, but they would have had difficulty pinpointing hostile mortar positions or distinguishing between friendly and hostile militias in the midst of a confused firefight in a densely populated residential area where there would have been a high likelihood of civilian casualties. While two more Americans were tragically killed by a mortar strike on the Annex, it’s not clear that deploying F-16’s would have prevented that. In any case, the decision not to do so was made by the tactical commander, General Ham, as it should have been.
He argues the administration’s difficulties arose from the lack of preparation before the attack and the misleading statements it made in the aftermath of the incident. But he believes that in the time window when events were unfolding the US had few if any options.
The idea of using fighters buzz the consulate to provide psychological aid was mentioned by Bing West, another individual with close ties to the military and sources within it. Writing nearly two weeks ago, West said:
Our diplomats fought for seven hours without any aid from outside the country. Four Americans died while the Obama national-security team and our military passively watched and listened. The administration is being criticized for ignoring security needs before the attack and for falsely attributing the assault to a mob. But the most severe failure has gone unnoticed: namely, a failure to aid the living.
Wolfowitz basically conveys that although he has reservations, he thinks that no material aid of consequence was withheld in Benghazi. Former Speaker New Gingrich — another person with sources — claims that there may be documents establishing the contrary case.
“There is a rumor — I want to be clear, it’s a rumor — that at least two networks have emails from the National Security Adviser’s office telling a counterterrorism group to stand down,” Gingrich said. “But they were a group in real-time trying to mobilize marines and C-130s and the fighter aircraft, and they were told explicitly by the White House stand down and do nothing. This is not a terrorist action. If that is true, and I’ve been told this by a fairly reliable U.S. senator, if that is true and comes out, I think it raises enormous questions about the president’s role, and Tom Donilon, the National Security Adviser’s role, the Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who has taken it on his own shoulders, that he said don’t go. And that is, I think, very dubious, given that the president said he had instructions they are supposed to do everything they could to secure American personnel.”
Both Wolfowitz and Gingrich cite information that others have told them. And since the information does not agree on the key points this means that the publicly known facts surrounding the incident are still very much in doubt. They are probably going to remain that way until after Election Day.
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With respect to Benghazi, let me be the first to kick off this discussion by citing “White House Insider” over at the Ulsterman Report. He’s ticked off that 3-4 Republicans (and possibly one ‘sorta’ Democrat Senator — gee I wonder who fits that bill) who had promised a news conference with something big didn’t deliver regarding Benghazi.
http://theulstermanreport.com/2012/11/01/white-house-insider-governor-romney-is-gonna-win-this-thing/
WHI mentions something about warehouses full of armaments. In the meantime Doug J. Hagmann over at his website Northeast Intelligence Network says his sources are telling him the ‘swap’ for the blind sheikh story is pure red herring.
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/archives/7056
If you can’t squash one conspiracy theory (i.e. Fast and Furious on steroids, in Arabic, the MANPADs and heavy weapons letting slip from the Duck of Death’s arsenals to Syria 1-2, plus a healthy smattering of .223 and .303 from DHS stocks) then release a few other sillier ones that push the same hate-Obama buttons but are not in fact true. Because if the U.S. policy is indeed to massively arm the ‘Free Syrian Army’ including with MANPADs jihadis could use on airliners far from Syria, there are people outside of the Obama Admin complicit in it, including a few (McCain, Graham, cough cough) on the GOP side of the aisle who’ve been screaming for intervention in Syria for months and might’ve been willing to play certain games to move that intervention along.
Only in worshipping their own D.C. genius mutual admiration society they forgot the ‘enemy’ gets a vote too. In Hagmann’s case, he thinks it was the Iranians who carried out the compound assault with local mercs/Al-Qaeda in on it. Hagmann has evidence Iranian ‘Red Crescent’ workers were casing the compound back in July when it was hit by a mortar round. He suggests the Iranians may have been tipped off by Russia who knows some of those MANPADs could end up in Vladikavkaz or Malachkala instead of Damascus. The Russians if you recall did warn against any provocations to justify a NATO intervention in Syria days before the assault — and also told Assad in no uncertain terms that his support would be cut off if he deployed chemical weapons. Hagmann says that means the Libyan jihadis may have been planning to ship one of the Duck’s old chem warheads from eastern Libya to Syria and fire it off in a crowd and blame Assad (and the Russians).
At any rate, some neocons probably thought we were going to have a 1980s nostalgia fest with the FSA playing the role of the Afghan mujahadeen, Romney playing the role of the Gipper, the Saudis reprising their role of opening the oil spigots to bankrupt Tsar Putin’s revived Evil Empire. They thought they could execute this plan until eventually the old Z. Brzezinski blueprint of fighting Russia and China to the last Muslim is fulfilled. They forgot the Russians have seen that movie before and know how to preempt it and the Chinese are not on board this time either, not to mention America being vastly economically and socially weaker than we were in the 1980s. Plus if the Saudis open the spigots they slit their own throats because Riyadh/eastern KSA would endure an uprising long before Pootie Poo gets overthrown by a Colored Revolution in Russia. And so on and so forth.
Battlefield obscured not by the fog of war, rather by the fog of politics.
They are probably going to remain that way until after Election Day.
And after the election, ‘nothing to see here, move on…
Decision makers in Washington appear to have been leaning forward, as they should have been.
They’re so vulgar, the way they insert their propaganda tropes into everything.
I called my Senator, Richard Burr, and spoke to his LA for Foreign Affairs. She said that Harry Reid put the Senate into recess and the Intelligence Committee will not meet until November 16th. The Administration’s stonewalling has been very effective. Speaking with co-workers (college educated and fairly aware), the latest revelations about Benghazi are simply unknown to them. Stories such as Wolfowitz’s are very effective at confusing/obfuscating the issue. While the spin is working, I do not think it will be enough to allow Obama to pull this out.
It is disgusting that a Romney Admin will likely not pursue this issue after taking office. The truth will come out, but only a relatively small minority will be paying attention.
Wolfie’s probably trying to rehab his reputation amongst the Beltway chattering class just in case, on the slim chance he can get a gig in a GOP administration.
Not buying it. Too many well-connected military folks have been desperately trying to call attention to this, since a day or two after. Are we really supposed to believe Paul Wolfowitz over them?
Perhaps only 1% of voters will change their minds over this. But that’s plenty.
What was a US Ambassador doing in a terrorist stronghold with little by way of security? A plausible scenario: he went to negotiate with them and was given “safe passage.” Either it was a trap or a rogue element went after him or both. When Arafat ordered the murder of a US Ambassador four decades ago it was by a “rogue” element that actually took his orders — a fact that was kept from Americans for years after (and when it came out it didn’t seem to matter).
I see the Economist has endorsed Obama once more — demonstrating why I stopped reading them. It became a verbose version of Newsweek. Maybe it will merge with “The Daily Beast.”
What will it take for people to understand what Islamic Fundamentalist means?
Seven hours. That’s the data point that shines in red. That is the glaring eye in the mist that must and should be explained. Seven hours to respond and nothing was done. Nothing at all.
Seven hours.
Is this the same Paul Wolfowitz who thought nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan was a really good idea? He’s as competent as Obama in weighing appropriate actions and knowing limits.
I will go away after this, but really asking about what went on in Benghazi can be likened to ordering a steak and being served up a dead unskinned rat. After challenging the waiter as to the accuracy of the order and his response is that it is indeed a steak, one wonders as to whether he is a liar who thinks he talking to a fool or if he’s merely an idiot who truly can’t tell the difference between a steak and a dead rat. Neither alternative says anything good about the waiter, and it says even less about the establishment he works for.
What is one to make then of the report that our guys repeatedly asked for assistance, but the order went out for that assistance to stand down? Was there such an order and if so, why? That whole matter is sitting out there, left unexplained by Wolfowitz’s statement on the matter. Also, why the Administration’s outright lie to the American people about the YoutTube trailer being the cause of the debacle? Was ZERO going back to his Muslim roots and practicing takkiye on the infidel? (That’s us.)
The thing I’m wondering about…
It’s less than a fortnight shy of two months since the September attack. Has any of the attackers or groups been formally identified and has any form of retaliation been planned or (especially) carried out? Or has Obama gone full Mogadishu like Bill Clinton did?
KRB
Wolfowitz having a senior moment, paying no attention to the actual timeline. He speaks as if it were over in minutes, not hours. He’s just dead wrong.
Does he KNOW that there was no C-130 Spectre in the area? I doubt it. *I* don’t “know” that there was one, but I don’t know that there wasn’t, and we’ve heard hints that there might have been.
AND NONE OF THAT MATTERS as it should have been planned out in advance, and best yet entirely avoided, they all should have signed their own letters of transit, got on their DC-3, and flown to Lisbon the day before.
The man who cried Wolfowitz: “Decision makers in Washington appear to have been leaning forward, as they should have been.”
Are they so brainwashed they actually believe their own lies? Or, do they believe we’re so brainwashed, we no longer have the ability/will to recognize lies when we see/hear them?
Lean forward, indeed.
Ha! I’m listening to the tone of this thread. I think we should surrender because we’re just too weak to win against the Brilliance of President Obama’s Army – the American media.
And the $hit from the various “Joes” – stow it in your bilge.
People are threatening to shoot each other after just 5 days of gas shortages?
There will be a complete breakdown in two years if Obama gets re-elected, but what the hey, we’ve never experienced one of those. It just might be fun -waddyas think?
The veterans in this country are seething over Benghazi. Me? I’m just peachy here in Georgia.
The active duty guys who have skin in the game and information about what went down? They’re not saying a word. In a sense they’re making their own bed.
We’re inside our own OODA Loop here at the ‘Club. Lotta good that’s doing.
OK. For the sake of argument say that in fact the various quick response teams the military has were unready and in fact nothing could be done. Fine. Now its time for the Grave of a Hundred Head. Real soon, I’ll betcha (Hah!). I suspect that a daisy cutter dropped on his parent’s house would put the message across. Course it would be mean to do that out of the clear blue. An idea from Starship Troopers: 15 minutes before dropping the daisy cutter drop a voice broadcasting bomb on a big parachute that does nothing more than announce that in 15 minutes this house will be destroyed, and the reason why.
I’ve adopted a new strategy, or at least a new saying: “The means don’t justify the ends.”
The opposite of what’s usually said, but since real information about the means – the nuts and bolts of what decisions were being made and what information was going into them – is nearly impossible to determine in the truth-defying atmosphere of current affairs, I’ve decide to just observe outputs and not worry about the inputs.
An ambassador was killed and abject chaos, shifting stories, cuffing-and-stuffing a film maker in California, and serial justifications, have been the outputs of this affair. So at this point, don’t know, don’t care, what Wolfie or Gingrich know, or have heard, or suspect. Obama effed up and tried to cover it up. Everything else is just spin.
I mean, maybe they didn’t screw up, maybe this was all actually handled the best way it could have been and it was just, well, doomed, from the begining. But sorry, losing the benefit of the doubt is the consequence of engaging in constant distortions, lies and spin. If you lay a smoke screen, don’t be surprised when the enemy shoots you without making positive ID first.
The wages of spin are distrust.
Wolfie Wolfie blowing smoke
Out his kiester, what a joke
White House doing all they can
Every woman, every man
Leaning forward, as they say
Hard at work in every way
Seeing that the good guys win
And good guys’ names begin with bin
And maybe I am paranoid
But whispered in my ear a boid
Who said the guys in turbans were
Our guys who called H. Clinton sir
And that is why no relief came
And that is why the silly game
Of telling us a film no less
About their god caused such distress
That killing us was justified
And so it’s not we haven’t tried
To rescue those in peril there
As Woflie says there was no prayer
Of doing anything that night
And so we all just sat real tight
‘Twas all so sad, Obama said
And that is why he went to bed
Nothing more could have been done. That reminds me of their excuse about the economy: It was so bad, no one could have fixed it. Losers whine and make excuses. Rather than admit that they are inferior, they deny that anyone could have done any better.
Hey, idiots, it’s not that you failed. It’s that you didn’t even try. “But, we did not have any assets which could get there in time.” Uh-huh. So, why is that? Was there no expectation of problems for 9/11? How about our NATO allies? Do they not have forces with which to help us? I bet you never even asked them.
These people do not wish to pass a budget, nor fix the economy… nor did they wish to kill these attackers and rescue the 2 heroes, who, by the way, should get the Medal of Honor. Their heroism was truly above and beyond the call of duty.
mm @ 21: should get the Medal of Honor
Yes they should.
But not from Obambus.
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I’ll give you doomed: the front page of Drudge now and for the next week is the chaos in NYC and New Jersey. That redounds to the guy in charge, and has to pull Obambus vote count down by a couple of percent. Act of God, indeed.
“In Time?”
How the hell could anyone know how much time was available?
What a piss poor excuse for dithering.
I probably haven’t de-lurked since the last time my Detroit Tigers flailed in the World series. I either need to comment more or pick another team.
This doesn’t pass the smell test. The timeline and details are too close, too cute. Too ‘almost’ and we ‘woulda’. Kind of like my Tigers. Except this is serious. Lives were lost. People were left behind and people are playing ‘inside’ baseball.
Blackfive.net has the best source I have seen online who speaks specifically about one of the former SEALS using a laser target designator to identify a mortar position he needed taken out, during the firefight. And how one doesn’t use such equipment unless there is an air asset in place capable of accomplishing the mission.
The addendums and comments don’t make it fully clear to me IF a Spectre C-130 was available/on station or not. But it makes me believe there were Tier 1 operators very willing to stage a rescue assault.
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2012/10/bigger-than-watergate-proof-that-the-president-is-lying-about-benghazi.html#comments
The dribs and drabs of ‘information’, the constantly changing explanations, the 2+ weeks delay in getting the FBI onsite to secure the compound & begin a thorough investigation (unlike our news-stream brothers who found the ambassador’s diary and filmed the ‘ghost’ compound.)
Ooh look, a squirrel. A GIANT squirrel. It certainly does appear to be ‘squirrels, all the way down’. With apologies to the ‘turtles’ who traditionally are spoken of as stacked up, all the way down….
Agree totally about the heroism of Woods and Dougherty — they were civilians at the time but whatever medal is appropriate was more than earned.
The Libya story is a kind of Rorschach Test. People seem to see whatever they want in the same data, or they ignore some data to maintain their a priori convictions.
What is going on in the minds of those who refuse to see? My theory for my Jewish co-religionists is that they fear the Inquisition more than they fear the Holocaust — that is, they fear Christian Fundamentalists more than Islamic Fundamentalists. Fools.
My theory for my left leaning colleagues is that they believe that conservatives want to take away their sexual freedom, whether it be same sex marriage, abortion, birth control, or just plain immodesty.
What is amazing to me is that they are blind to what will happen when the country collapses. How defenders of sexual freedoms and “women’s issues” could turn a blind eye to Islamic Militants remains a mystery to me.
The Creator must have a weird sense of humor — either that, or humanity is still in beta testing.
Over at the Tatler read A Ghost in Benghazi.
The ambassadors toilet was covered in blood. I hope it belonged to an attacker.
That ‘nothing more could have been done’ really illuminates the failure in mission planning. If they weren’t going to beef up the security at Benghazi, then surely it must have occurred to somebody to preposition an emergency strike force.
CBS is reporting that:
“Counterterrorism sources and internal emails reviewed by CBS News express frustration that key responders were ready to deploy, but were not called upon to help in the attack.”
and that:
“Another senior counter terrorism official says a hostage rescue team was alternately asked to get ready and then stand down throughout the night, as officials seemed unable to make up their minds”
CBS News article
Wolfowitz is an interesting person. At Chicago he had the professors, Leo Strauss and Albert Wohlstetter, that I wanted but arrived just to late for. His conduct over the last few years, really since separating from his wife of 30 years, has been problematic. It may be the Left pursuing him or it may be that something has slipped. Is Resa another Huma, without the exotic Hillary angle?
b @ 25: What is going on in the minds of those who refuse to see? My theory for my Jewish co-religionists is that they fear the Inquisition more than they fear the Holocaust — that is, they fear Christian Fundamentalists more than Islamic Fundamentalists. Fools.
I think the traditional explanation is they more fear the pogrom and so cozy up to the sovereign. The Holocaust – the liberals still cannot imagine it, they have forgotten it even if they still celebrate it, and so they set themselves up for it again. There’s an old Jewish science fiction story, “Son of the Morning” by Phyllis Gotlieb, where space cats from the future manage to save a nineteenth century shtetl village from a local pogrom instigated by a trapped alien, who laughs at them and tells them of the much greater disasters to follow. The pattern seems burned into the Jewish soul.
… though what that says about the secular electorate looking at Obambus in all of his mundanity, I dunno.
either that, or humanity is still in beta testing
Quite. And I laugh at the computer geeks who talk of the “perpetual beta”. Joke’s on me.
I am breaking my own “two” rule here, but # 19. JMH, The wages of spin are distrust. I love that. Thank you. But to it I would add The wages of spin are distrust AND CONTEMPT.
True bastards always think that when and if they are caught there will always be a way to spin out of it. But true sons of bitches like myself never forgive true bastards or believe that they can ever be trusted again.
Its a son of a bitch thing.
Look at this from Obumble’s perspective — maybe this is all to the good! His screw up in Benghazi has certainly relegated Fast & Furious to the mental back pages, even of those who care. (And his NYT-reading mental faculties-suspended supporters don’t know about either failure, so he doesn’t have to worry about them).
The effect of Benghazi has been to shove F&F down the memory hole, which is a big plus for Hussein. After all, illegal aliens from Mexico vote in the Presidential election; Li’l Barry’s got to make sure they have no reason to vote the wrong way.
The timelines just do not add up. The United States could have responded with force from a number of assets in the region. It chose not to, and there’s no way around that for Obama. Whatever his reasons might be (I do not presume to guess them), it is clear that he chose not to support those on the ground in Benghazi.
All we need to focus on is three facts and the questions that arise from them:
1)9/11/12 was the eleventh anniversary of 9/11/01. Given the Islamo-facists’ obsession with numbers and anniversaries; given the current turmoil in the region; given the Libyan mission’s concerns in August about the presence of al Qaeda forces around Benghazi; given that US intel had no doubt picked hints that something was afoot plain old Sarah Palin common sense would dictate that at a minimum that all US overseas installations and especially our embassies would be at high alert status with full security staffing; all high-ranking diplomats in MENA in safe and secure locations. Had decision makers in Washington really been “leaning forward” all US military units in MENA would have also been on high alert status: all rapid deployment forces, air and sea assets positioned and ready to go at a moment’s notice. So why wasn’t any of this done?
2)The one question that has me perplexed from the start is why the hell was Stevens in Benghazi to begin with on 9/11?? What was so important that he was sent there despite the obvious danger? What was the meeting with Turk diplomat about and why wasn’t it in Tripoli rather than Benghazi?
3)Someone high up in the chain of command sent out three stand-down orders during the long firefight. So far no one has stepped forward to shoulder that one. Not Panetta, not Hillary, not Patraeus, not General Ham. No one. But someone did. Remember, the President, the Vice President and the NSD were in the Situation Room because of a previously scheduled meeting at 5 pm EST (1 hour and twenty minutes into the attack). Someone gave the stand down orders. Who did it and why?
Those questions get answered and we know the hows and whys. Regardless of the answers, Obama doesn’t escape the stench attached to the Benghazi mess. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. The whole thing stinks to holy hell. It was either gross incompetence or malfeasance. I am leaning to malfeasance as the reason Stevens was in Benghazi to begin with and when it blew up in Obama’s face it rapidly revealed his utter incompetence and unwillingness to make a decision. I have no doubt that if Obama loses the election that folks on the inside and in the know will be running for the exits and telling their tales.
No AC130 in the area? Well not after it had been ordered to hold fire and return to base. (By what passes for POTUS, no less)
This is no longer about a terrorist attack. This is about four murders and highly placed U.S. Government officials as accomplices after the fact!
A lot of ink has been spilt focusing on the fact that the last diplomat Stevens met with was Turkish. But Stevens put in a full day and met with a lot of people, the guy from Turkey was simply that last one, and that meeting took up less than an hour. After putting in a long day filled with meetings, Stevens retired for an evening that would be his last.
There’s a long list of characters itching to “do” an American ambassador. I don’t think the Turks are among that number!
The important issue right now for Turkey is what to do with Syria. Amd Stevens met with the Turks before he died. There is no doubt that they discussed Syria To what end we do not know. That was all natural.
What followed was a sustained and coordinated attack on the United States. If you believe the hooyeeh about diplomatic missions being sovereign outposts, and that Ambassadors are stand-ins for the POTUS.
Obviously the terrorists didn’t believe any of that for a minute. And neither did the President of the United States of America.
A lot of this stuff coming out now is meant to muddy the waters regarding a very simple fact. This administration (including POTUS) knew almost immediately this was a terrorist attack and had nothing to do with a stupid YouTube video, yet Buraq, Hillary, Rice, Panetta, etc. stood up and flat out lied about that fact for weeks (including lying in front of the caskets of the deceased and to the family members of same).
The other thing I’d like to stress is that we can’t let Buraq have it both ways. If he’s the Big Billy Bad Ass who bagged Bin Laden, then he must accept responsibility for this failure, regardless of who ordered the stand-down. He needs to be hammered on this point; we can’t let him weasel out by trying to shift the blame on an underling. However, given the state of the government-media complex and the Institutional Republicans, I don’t expect we’ll get much traction on this point.
On a side note, things sound pretty grim in Staten Island. Some folks making some interesting claims under the hashtag #SandyLootCrew. Might see some real-life examples of what Wretchard has been warning us about recently.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9648557/US-withdraws-its-support-for-Syrian-opposition.html
The inevitable cut-off of the Salafists in Syria, a consequence of the Benghazi attack, has occurred.
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This was so predictable that it makes Clinton and 0bamba look foolish.
The Wan has entirely surrounded himself with political hacks, and this is the result.
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Wolfie is injecting just more spin into the news cycle.
His sourcing is of a ‘trust me’ basis.
If it IS true, we’re in more peril than I thought.
It’s 9-11-2012 and purportedly all of our rapid reaction forces are unavailable for one reason or another.
And then, what of the sweep through the flag ranks?
What of General Ham?
Bryan Suits had on a former “Commanders In Extremis Force(CIF) soldier who spoke about the absolute availability of assistance to Benghazi. Patch Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany. Were moved to Sigonella, Italy TO BE AVAILABLE.
Wolfowitz is full of it.
Click to 6:00.
http://www.kfiam640.com/player/?station=KFI-AM&program_name=podcast&program_id=DarkSecretPlace.xml&mid=22575160
Read Matt Bracken’s post on PJM (I think this is a crosspost from Western Rifle Shooters) about Cross-Border Authority.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/11/02/US-officials-CIA-ran-Benghazi-consulate/UPI-44771351839600/
Now the maladministration’s spin machine is pushing the goof back onto the CIA.
What one notices with these spins is that they don’t hold all of the facts together.
We’re told that the fighting was pretty intense, with the assaulting force losing 60 to 70 out of a purported force of 150. Right there, that’s a hyper-committed attack force.
Yet this latest tale tells us that the attack died down to nothing — then suddenly precision mortar strikes wiped out our SEALs, semi-retired, under contract to the CIA, just after our Libyan reinforcements arrived.
It just doesn’t add up.
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I don’t know just how limiting cross border authority might be in an hours long defensive fight to protect sovereign territory from terrorist irregulars under drone surveillance for hours on end.
If such a construct blocked the cavalry it would’ve had blood boiling.
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Another upshot: any prospect of American aid to Egypt just took a body blow.
The Wan is setting the MENA on fire — pure Gonnabee in inaction.
#39 Joan – thank you for the Bryan Suits reference! I used to listen to him here in Seattle. The show you referenced was excellent.
sure, they did all they could during the attack. but why did they create the conditions that failure is the inevitable outcome?
Re. #25 batman – For Americans, Nehemiah Scudder is far, far, far more likely than an Islamic Caliphate. The same is not by any means true for the UK or any other European country. Here, we have creeping Sharia already.
#42 Knight1:
Glad to be useful here.
More of Bryan Suits, click on “podcast” for previous shows:
http://www.kfiam640.com/cc-common/podcast/single_page.html?podcast=DarkSecretPlace
Screw Wolfowitz.
It makes NO SENSE to give any credence to anyone DEFENDING the administration with unverifiable allegations and stories, lacking even the vaguest citation, especially when the damning evidence has been specific as to individual sources, times, and origins. In other words, there are plenty of well-documented pieces of evidence showing that this administration was utterly imbecilic in long-range strategies, chaotically contradictory in policies, preparations and implementation, cowardly and indecisive at the moment of necessity, and craven in denial of responsibility in the aftermath.
For Wolfowitz or any other public figure to take up valuable bandwidth spreading this defense of the inexcusable we gotta set up a special Day of Shame.
The entire Obama administration needs to be arrested and frogmarched to adjoining cells awaiting trial. Attend to all their needs, just as soon as the victims of Hurricane Sandy have been provided for…
Yes I am very confident that as soon as the election is over the major networks will start finding stuff they have in their desk drawers now. The media in this country is actually more corrupt than the politicians. It is way past time to punish their corporate owners in the stock markets and for the best of reasons – they are destroying stock holders equity in valuable brands.
The bottom line in evidence for me though is that they would not have been painting targets with laser ground designators if there was not something armed overhead. Either that story is BS or Wolfowitz is full of it or he is a fool.
I might add that if we cannot put air power over any coastal point of what used to be an American lake then President Obama is the one who has been playing battleship with a Navy that has more admirals than ships.