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Posted on 10/30/2012 4:30:51 PM PDT by gaijin
Just heard from Fox news 15 minutes ago that second drone above Bengazi came OUTSIDE Libya --it came from SIGONELLA, Sicily...! It was UNARMED and replaced the first drone that egressed owing to low fuel.
For unmanned drone observation of an ongoing battle against an American target is it a requirement that cross-border ingress authorization come from **POTUS**..? Because THIS might have required that.
Does anyone know?
I'm asking because if that is so, then what is possible is that gayMuzzie permitted drone observation but required that it be UNARMED...!
If you have one spun up and fueled then putting some hellfires on the pylons takes all of..5 minutes. I cannot believe they did NOT have the time to arm it or simply forgot --it's INCONCEIVABLE.
IF cross-border authorization for this second Predator was required by gayMuzzie then I can't imagine it's being UNARMED could not have eventuated by anything other than his insane preferences..
>:(
I would only guess that he wanted a ring-side seat on the action.
What’s up with this? Did this drone need potus order to fly into Libya? I can’t even fathom this!
“Mission Accomplished!”
There was no legitimate reason for not arming it, even as just a contingency or option. You would not have to use the weapons, but given the fact they knew an attack was underway, it only seems prudent to have that option available. So who made that decision? It had to come from the WH.
Let’s assume for now there was no AC-130. And let’s assume that BOTH drones went unarmed.
OK?
Woods was painting a target. Does that mean there was ANOTHER armed platform we don’t know about..?
I’m not sure they have fielded laser-guidable excalibur rounds by anything which is light.
Maybe he was painting in faith that platforms arriving later would know the primary enemy position? To me that seems somehow dubious. If he did, it seems very unlikely he would have done so from his M2 position atop, “The Farm”.
Anyone?
He was in real-time comms with someone who could see what he was doing and felt his actions were valuable.
I don’t understand this. Theories?
Holy crap!
That has got to leave a mark!
RIP brave soldiers, you fought hard!
Obama, You are a coward!
FYI
Exactly. That’s like someone phoning to police dispatch that 7-11 is being robbed and you radio to the nearest police station to ONLY sent cars driven by cops with NO GUNS.
It sounds like a faculty lounge lizard is controlling operational particulars.
It’s way beyond President Johnson and it brings us right back to the crazy, “botched prisoner swap” theory.
Range and time over station (TOS).
Predators don't hold a lot of gas. Hanging a couple of weapons significantly decreases range.
I'm not say that why this sortie was without weapons...just offering one option.
Could it have been a fuel consideration? Sigonella is 480 miles from Benghazi and a Hellfire would have increased its time to target and its loitering time.
The answer to both questions is simple. Obama.
Anyone know the range/endurance penalty for arming with hellfires? Was the aircraft from Sicily a version that could be armed (MQ-1 or MQ-9)? Not that they couldn’t send in armed manned aircraft, but it may not have been an option for the closest UAV.
Great theory but then we would have expected a third and fully-armed Predator to have arrived on station at a later point (20 minutes or so).
Was there a third armed one we don’t know about, or was there none?
If there was none then it’s like gayMuzzie WANTED them to die or at least get kidnapped.
Snuff film? I don’t get it...something I’m not seeing.
U.S. engagement in Libya consisted mostly of aerial missions. More than 70 U.S. aircraft were involved in the Libya operation -- throughout, the U.S. conducted a total of 145 Predator strikes in the country, in addition to thousands of other aerial missions. The United States has stepped up the use of Predator drones in several other countries, including Pakistan and Yemen. A drone was credited with killing American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September.
Great point —Sigonella is a major navy air-station and there WERE F-18’s. If they kick the spurs they can make it over Bengazi in...less than 30 minutes.
And F-18’s are easily armed with weapons terminally-guided by the type of GLD Woods was using when he was killed by the motar crew he had been painting.
Still doesn’t make sense, if we hang on to the idea that gayMuzzie did want to protect Americans.
But I’m still asking the question before, ie, does that Prez have to authorize cross-border ingress by a UAV to an American target under attack.
Perhaps they were afraid of hand held anti-aircraft weapons, about 10,000 to 20,000 were unaccounted for. In addition, using an F-18 would be less precise given the urban setting.
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