Posted on 10/29/2012 5:46:50 PM PDT by raptor22
Benghazi: The president says the election has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed, but, as in 1980 at another embassy, it should — just as it matters who gave the order to stand down.
We have speculated that a reason the cries for military help during the seven-hour assault on our consulate in Benghazi were ignored was due to fears of another "Blackhawk down" incident as in Somalia under President Clinton or a repeat of the Desert One mission that crashed and burned in the Iranian desert in a failed attempt to rescue our hostages in Tehran in 1980.
After all, according to Richard Miniter's book "Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him," it was at the urging of White House adviser Valerie Jarrett that President Obama canceled the operation to kill Osama bin Laden three times before finally approving the May 2, 2011, Navy SEAL mission. Her concern: the political harm to Obama if the mission failed.
As we've written, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has falsely said we didn't have real-time intelligence of the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi. The administration has also suggested it was the CIA that put the brakes on any attempt at relief or rescue.
ABC's Jake Tapper reports that a CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA Director David Petraeus, has put out a statement saying, "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate."
Someone did, and the question is who?
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Gen. Ham said nobody ever gave him the order to go:
Such an order could only have come from the top. The units within reach of Benghazi all knew what was happening and I cannot believe that every commander who was relevant did not request immediate permission to respond.
Sounds as if Obama has been placing military officers loyal to “O” in positions to subvert their commanders and begin a takeover of military units.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2951989/posts
“Africom commanding officer U.S. General Carter Ham, after being ordered to essentially surrender control of the situation to alleged Al Queda terrorists and let Americans on the ground die, made the unilateral decision to ignore orders from the Secretary of Defense and activated special operations teams at his disposal for immediate deployment to the area.”
“According to reports, once the General went rogue he was ARRESTED WITHIN MINUTES by his second in command and relieved of duty.”
Cowarly lyin’ ping
Everything I have read and seen so far on Benghazi is still confirming my initial thinking on the matter, going way back to my days as a NavSpecWar officer who took a SEAL det to Beirut a long time ago.
Once the alarm is sent from Benghazi, dozens of HQs are notified and are in the loop in real time, including AFRICOM and EURCOM, both located in Germany.
Without waiting for orders, they begin planning and executing rescue operations, including getting air support over Benghazi ASAP. But one thing they CANNOT DO without explicit orders from the POTUS is cross an international border. That is the big “red line.”
All POTUS has to do is NOT grant cross-border authority, and the entire air-armada of military rescue (already in progress) must stop in its tracks. Ships can loiter on station, but planes fall out of the sky, so they must be redirected to an air base (Sigonella Sicily) to await the POTUS decision on granting CBA. If it never comes, the men in Behghazi must rely only on assets already “in country” in Libya, such as the Tripoli QRF and the Predators.
(And possibly AC-130s that might already have been in Libya: they were last year, but their location on 9-11-2012 is unknown. If they were “in country” but were prevented from firing, that is another situation.)
So if at the 5 pm DC-time meeting with Panetta and Biden, Obama said, “No outside military action,” meaning no CBA will be granted, then THAT IS IT. Case closed.
That constitutes “standing orders” all the way down the chain of command via Panetta and Dempsey to Ham and the subordinate commands trying to rescue the men in Benghazi.
If Obama then goes upstairs to the family quarters to watch TV or sleep, or otherwise makes himself “unavailable,” then his last standing orders will stand until he changes them, even if he goes to sleep until the morning of 9-12.
Nobody in the chain of command below him can countermand his “standing orders” not to send military forces from outside of Libya into Libyan air space.
Nobody.
Personally, I think he left “no outside miltary intervention, no cross-border authority” standing orders, and then he went to bed. Damn him to hell.
(And to me, the most damning aspect of all is that Obama went to bed while his Ambassador was still missing and presumed kidnapped by Al Queda. Ambassador Stevens might have been on a Youtube video pleading for his life, ready to get the Nick Berg/Danny Pearl “intro to jihad” treatment, and Obama WENT TO BED to rest up for his much more important fund raiser in Las Vegas!)
What we are sure of is that the stand down order was a political calculation that four (or more if the SEAL’s had not rescued them) American’s lives were worth less that Obastard’s political future.
Obama sent 'em the blue pill.
They can concern their collective azzes all they want. Americans, and the families of the fallen, want and deserve answers.
0bama was notified immediately and automatically when the Benghazi consulate triggered the "Imminent Danger Notification System" alert. He did nothing.
There are three scandals here...
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Denial of requests for security were a dereliction of duty. The lies and misdirection about the "video" after the attack were fraud and malfeasance under the color of authority. The inaction during the attack was something more than that.
The failure to act during the attack is the direct equivalent of desertion IMO.
ONE man had the authority to act that night.
ONE man deserted his post!
EXCLUSIVE: CIA operators were denied request for help during Benghazi attack, sources say
0bama Is A Deserter!
This had everything Black Hawk Down had - including the American dragged through the streets and soldiers dying. Except for the brave guys defying the orders they were given, there would presumably have been about 30 other lives lost as well since it was a PLANNED ATTACK and not a protest.
It was only because of somebody else’s heroism that Obama didn’t get the same kind of casualty numbers as Black Hawk Down (if we go with the official story line that it wasn’t a staged kidnapping so Obama could heroically rescue Stevens and the 30 others).
So the argument that they are using is more like we already had 2 Black Hawks down and the people of Benghazi were about to kill them all, and Obama had the capability of dispersing the crowd but refused - even though that would be the only thing that WOULD prevent Black Hawk Down levels of casualties.
That whole story doesn’t wash.
I’m going to watch Black Hawk Down tonight because it is the only thing that fits my mood right now. I want to remember the brave caliber of men who fight for us, and remember that no matter how the a-hole-in-chief tramples these guys, he can never comprehend or defeat the honor of who they are.
Didn’t he have to authorize the 2 drones to cross into Libyan airspace? Doesn’t make sense for them to claim they had to get permission from Libya, when they already sent in drones. And what retired General Keane said very strongly implied that there was an armed drone there - since he said they didn’t intervene because the drone didn’t allow them to identify who were the enemies and who were Libyan militia members.
IOW, it sounds to me like there was an armed drone there, which is why Woods painted the target and why somebody was giving coordinates for the target. And the story NOW is that they didn’t trust Woods to report exactly where the incoming fire came from.
I'm sure you know that the answer is "no," because had he done so there would be records of it in every command center within 5,000 miles.
“Muslim sensibilities first and American lives last.”
Heaven forbid, we might upset the muzzies.
I think that the only rescue assets were those already “in country” in Libya on 9-11. The QRF from Tripoli, and the predators. AC-130U spectre gunship possible, but doubtful. If the AC-130 was over Behghazi, then it was clearly not permitted to fire. My guess is they only had support from the Tripoli QRF and the Predators for eyes above, but no weapons.
Why did we overthrow the government in Libya? Think about it! Gaddafi was a bad guy, but if Obama wants to take out bad guys, Fidel Castro is what, 90 miles away? Obama is a grifter. He’s out for himself and Democrat campaign funds. What was in it for him? Look at illinoispaytoplay.com and read the three part story. It was for money! Obama overthrew governments and started wars to make himself some money. People died because he wanted money.
Is QRF Quick Reaction Force?
Did we have drones already in Libya?
The things that don’t make sense if the drones were unarmed are the painting of the target (as well as giving the coordinates for the target) and Keane’s claim that they couldn’t intervene because they were afraid of hitting militia members. That wouldn’t make sense as a reason to not send in something to simply disperse the crowd; it would only make sense for not using weapons that were available at the time.
There have to be records about what happened, and hopefully there will be more people setting the record straight. No matter how you slice it, Obama and his regime are all jerks who between them all don’t have as much honor as Woods has in his little toenail.
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