Leaks, Lies, and Libya: How Not to Inform a Nation

While the current administration has strayed far from Barack Obama's 2008 campaign promise that it would be the most transparent government in history, nothing so points to its failure to keep that promise as have events of the past two years.

Starting with the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, the Obama administration has, in a very real sense, "informed" Americans of current events via selective and random leaks (many of them apparently unintentional). For example, on the day after the bin Laden mission, both the president and the vice president identified SEAL Team 6 as the unit executing the mission.

One might call this a "leak in plain sight," but a leak it was, carrying with it every negative connotation in the word. From the perspective of my military mind, the identification of a specific unit as responsible for the death of bin Laden should, if it ever happened at all, have been the result of intelligence-gathering of the highest order on the part of America's al-Qaeda enemy. That information surely should not have been provided "free of charge" by the nation's commander-in-chief.

Recent insider accounts of the planning of the raid indicate that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and the Joint Chiefs of Staff virtually ignored Obama when the time came to order the SEALs into action. At least two sources claim that he was playing golf when the raid was launched and that he was brought into the White House Situation Room and told of the mission only after the SEALs' task force had crossed into Pakistani airspace. Why was Obama not apprised of the launching of the raid? According to those same sources, it was because Valerie Jarrett, Obama's most trusted adviser, had on three previous occasions convinced the president not to launch an attack against bin Laden's compound, despite certain knowledge that he was "at home" and vulnerable. Secretary Panetta and his inner circle clearly understood that Obama would probably never authorize the attack.

All right! I knew Larry Baily, and he is the ultimate stand-up-guy patriot in retirement!

Here is my 2 cents:

Long ago I was a SEAL officer and I attended many joint and combined operational planning meetings in the USA, abroad, and on ships at sea. This type of rescue mission is called a "NEO" operation, for Non-combatant Evacuation Operation. Every embassy and consulate has and practices all kinds of emergency evac plans, in concert with the US military.

For example, Marines and SEALs practice NEO ops prior to deploying on every float, as a VERY high priority mission. They involve full dress-rehearsals, with civilian role players, helos, landing craft, rounding up stranded stragglers, opfor ambushes, role-playing "angry mobs," fighting your way to LZs or even beaches while protecting a gaggle of civilians down to babies etc. Conducting successful NEO ops is a TOP TOP TOP military and state department mission priority. I cannot emphasize this enough. NEO ops are planned and practiced over and over and over.

When the alarm goes off worldwide that an embassy or consulate is being attacked, the entire U.S. military swings into rescue mode, without waiting for any orders from the White House. The military does all of the operational planning and begins to execute the rescue op.

The one thing they CAN'T do is cross an international border without permission from POTUS. So the US Military will be inbound full-steam-ahead to make the rescue, and all they need from POTUS is a "proceed" order. In this case, they got a "stand down" instead.

This is at the POTUS level, it is not a decision taken at State. State and the military (JCS) should be in the Situation Room with POTUS soon after a critical incident like this begins, so all decisions can be made in real time. (I have heard nowhere that POTUS went into the Situation Room at all. Apparently he went to the Oval Office briefly, but not down to the Situation Room, where the "war planning" screens, full staffs and commo tools are all located for dealing with a major crisis.)

But if POTUS punts after a brief Oval Office meeting with Dempsey and Hillary and goes upstairs to the family quarters....the stranded Americans will die.

Only POTUS can give the order to cross international borders. Only POTUS can allow US warplanes to give air support to Americans battling on the ground in a foreign country. If POTUS makes himself unavailable, the Americans will die.

Even the VEEP or Secretary of State cannot make that call. The VEEP can only do it if the POTUS is determined to be medically unable to perform his functions. If the POTUS goes upstairs and turns off his phone, there is nothing anybody can do about it. Nothing. And the besieged Americans will die.

On Friday an anonymous Pentagon insider ("Doug") called into Rush with a lot of new details about this disgraceful fiasco. But what we really need now is for a high-ranking officer with insider knowledge to go public, risk his pension and career, and tell the truth.

The blame for this humiliating and shameful national disgrace is pointing directly at the POTUS, and America needs to know why the inbound rescue operation was aborted.

But what we really need now is for a high-ranking officer with insider knowledge to go public, risk his pension and career, and tell the truth.

Sad isn't it, that out of the many (no doubt DOZENS) of people in the know, (not including the 30 or so who were rescued from the Consulate...BTW, where are they?) there is not ONE who has the intestinal fortitude to pick up a phone (even anonymously) and call a major news outlet (preferably FOX) and tell all?

Where is the patriotism? Where is the love of country? Where is the oath of office they all took to defend the Constitution?

Pathetic, dishonorable, COWARDS, all!!!

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