Posted on 10/22/2012 1:14:18 PM PDT by pabianice
A U.S. ambassador is missing and his diplomatic team is desperately fighting off terrorist attacks. Our commander-in-chief and his national-security team in Washington are listening to the phone calls from the Americans under attack and watching real-time video from a drone circling overhead. Yet the U.S. military sends no aid. Why?
On September 11, at about 10 p.m. Libyan time (4 p.m. in Washington), Ambassador Chris Stevens and a small staff were inside our consulate in Benghazi when terrorists attacked. The consulate staff immediately contacted Washington and our embassy in Tripoli. The White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and numerous military headquarters monitored the entire battle in real time via the phone calls from Benghazi and video from a drone overhead.
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.
By 4:30 p.m. Washington time, the main consulate building was on fire and Ambassador Stevens was missing. In response, the embassy in Tripoli launched an aircraft carrying 22 men. Benghazi was 400 miles away.
At 5 p.m., President Obama met with Vice President Biden and Secretary of Defense Panetta in the Oval Office. The U.S. military base in Sigonella, Sicily, was 480 miles away from Benghazi. Stationed at Sigonella were Special Operations Forces, transport aircraft, and attack aircraft — a much more formidable force than 22 men from the embassy.
In the past, presidents had taken immediate actions to protect Americans. In 1984, President Reagan had ordered U.S. pilots to force an airliner carrying terrorists to land at Sigonella. Reagan had acted inside a 90-minute window while the aircraft with the terrorists was in the air. The Obama national-security team had several hours in which to move forces from Sigonella to Benghazi.
Fighter jets could have been at Benghazi in an hour; the commandos inside three hours. If the attackers were a mob, as intelligence reported, then an F18 in afterburner, roaring like a lion, would unnerve them. This procedure was applied often in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Conversely, if the attackers were terrorists, then the U.S. commandos would eliminate them. But no forces were dispatched from Sigonella.
In the meantime, while untrained and poorly led by American standards, the terrorists at Benghazi were proving to be lethal. They forced the Americans to abandon the consulate, with the ambassador still missing, and fall back to an annex a mile away. When the terrorist gang followed the Americans, looters took the opportunity to ransack the empty consulate. But when they found Ambassador Stevens unconscious on the floor, they stopped looting and rushed him to a hospital. Unfortunately, the doctors could not save his life. Not knowing who he was, they took the cell phone from his pocket and called numbers. By about two in the morning, the American embassy received word that the ambassador was dead.
At about the same time, the 22 men from the embassy in Tripoli had arrived at the Benghazi airport. They drove to the annex to assist in its defense against persistent terrorist attacks. Around 4 a.m. Libyan time — six hours into the fight — enemy mortar rounds killed two of the defenders on the roof of the annex.
The fight began at 10 p.m. and petered out at dawn when the Libyan militia came to the aid of the Americans.
It is bewildering that no U.S. aircraft ever came to the aid of the defenders. If even one F18 had been on station, it would have detected the location of hostiles firing at night and deterred and attacked the mortar sites. For our top leadership, with all the technological and military tools at their disposal, to have done nothing for seven hours was a joint civilian and military failure of initiative and nerve.
Secretary of State Clinton has said the responsibility was hers. But there has been no assertion that the State Department overruled the Pentagon out of concern about the sovereignty of Libyan air space. Instead, it appears passive groupthink prevailed, with the assumption being that a spontaneous mob would quickly run out of steam.
Firefights, however, wax and wane from dusk to dawn. You cannot predict ahead of time when they will stop. Therefore a combat commander will take immediate action, presuming reinforcements will be needed.
The administration wrongly blamed a mob for the attack. Yet ironically, Mr. Obama’s chances of reelection would have plummeted were it not for the human decency of a mob that took the ambassador to the hospital before the terrorists returned.
If the terrorists had taken his body and, with no Special Operations Forces hot on their trail, taunted America the next day — claiming the ambassador was still alive — the Benghazi tragedy would have escalated into an international disaster. The U.S. military sent no aid. Why?
— A former assistant secretary of defense, Bing West is co-author of Into the Fire: a Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle of the Afghanistan War.
The short answer to the first sentence; Obama is an american hating moslem who desires to see the United States destroyed.
“It is bewildering that no U.S. aircraft ever came to the aid of the defenders.”
It isn’t bewildering. It’s treason.
I am so mad at this I better not even try to post my thoughts.
A: Not enough! Not nearly enough!
> Secretary of State Clinton has said the responsibility was hers.
What’s the punishment for dereliction of duty in time of war?
I’ve come to believe that the regime let the ambassador die on purpose. He likely had something on owebama or hillary.
Because Obama is a coward.
We have no President; or rather the one we have is an ice-cream cone lickin’ juvenile. - I well remember the assured feeling of Terrorists being ordered to land by our jet fighters per President Ronald Reagan after their Achille Lauro escapade. - They landed and were taken into custody. - This is the difference in having a President and having a President who is an ice-cream cone lickin’ juvenile.
interesting piece.
first I’ve hear this story.
I’ve been wondering why the WH & sec of state can watch the assassination of the alleged bin laden in real time, but couldn’t watch the attack on the embassy in real time.
I guess they could after all.
thx.
ping!
How did the US recover the ambassador’s body?
Romney should approach bringing charges against zero, tomorrow night.
The Commander In Chief abandoned an outpost in the midst of battle and watched a murder happen on friggin' TV .. like SVU !!!.
orange jumpsuit.
7 hours. And Noone answered the phone.
So, Bozo had to get Panetta’s and Biden’s oppinion. Biden talks tough about when he was a kid and someone bloodied his nose his mother would tell him to get back up. We now know the truth. When he got punched in the nose he’d run home to mommy.
This just proves obama is a puppet. And he couldn’t get in touch with his puppet masters so he did nothing.
Judge Jeanine Investigates Benghazi Gate Part 4 - 10/20/2012 video 6:53
Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer (U.S. Army ret.), former CIA Station Chief Gary Burtson and former CIA operative Mike Baker
Howie Carr interview with Col. Hunt On The Newest Libyan Revelations audio 28:37
There are three scandals here...
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For weeks now I have thought that the denial of requests for security were a dereliction of duty. I consider the lies and misdirection about the "video" after the attack to be fraud and malfeasance under the color of authority. I don't consider the inaction during the attack to be any of those.
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!
When America is attacked it is beyond the purview of SOS.The CIC was notified within a half an hour,
and he failed to protect America !Later BHO sent Susan Rice,
who works directly for him
to lie and coverup on five Sunday shows.
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