via National Review.
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.Wow.
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.
Excuse me. I'm going to go punch walls.
And what could the F/A-18s have done? Bombed a protest? Because that is how it would have been reported and then every embassy in the Middle East would have fallen within 72 hours.
ReplyDeletelook up show of force,
DeleteAnd you actually think that would have stopped them if it had got there in time? They would have kept it up in the hopes that there would be an airstrike, because that would play right into their hands.
DeleteBomb the "protestors" inside the walls.....
Deletethey were attackers not protesters. lets be clear on that.
DeleteHuron called one thing right- attackers or not (and I agree, that's what they were) the int'l media would have reported it as "American planes bomb protestors"
Deletemaybe but this show of weakness will have consequences. is it better to be feared or loved? its better to be feared. you can be respected and feared. but in international politics when you're loved then more than likely you're a punching bag. look at Israel. before the peace process they were feared throughout the region. now not so much. Israel has sought to be loved and now their enemies are sensing weakness instead of seeing them as seeking peace. did you know that 50 missiles struck Israeli towns yesterday? probably not and that's because Israel didn't retaliate.
DeleteSo what if there were US Forces 480 Miles away? What could they do? It's the US military, not a SWAT team.
ReplyDeleteNo intel, no targets, no planning equals no mission.
How long would it take to call up pilots, fuel and arm aircraft, receive clearance and launch? It would be hours ex post facto before they were even wheels up.
Where would a Special Ops guys land? How would they travel once on the ground? What could they have done after the fact?
A fly-over show of force at O Dark Thirty when most of Benghazi was asleep would do absolutely nothing.
The mistakes that were made were made several days earlier when they didn't reinforce the consulate as it had requested.
It was a tragic event that MIGHT have been prevented.
ok. let me take a few minutes to educate your ignorant ass. first i was never part of SOCOM but even line Marine Units (showing my age cause i don't know if they still do this shit) had emergency recalls where we had to have all our shit together and ready to go to places unknown in a given time. considering that the 82nd reactivated there ready alert brigades i would imagine that if the Marine Corps ain't doing it then the Army is...oh and notice we're still talking conventional forces not SOCOM. i don't know but from what i've seen of the Ranger units they DO STILL HAVE ready alert forces that are restricted to certain locations they're not to travel out of so that they can deploy in an emergency. now fast forward to the incident in Libya and unless McRaven is a pure dee idiot (sorta like you) then he would have units ready to go. if McRaven is that stupid then some hard charging Colonel in the Ranger Batts or some hardcore dinosaur in the Special Forces would have his teams ready to go even if the headshed didn't think it through.
Deletelong story short, between the shooters in the Rangers or Special Forces or MARSOC and the wing guys in Marine Air, 160th or the Navy Helo units dedicated to SOCOM then it would have been possible to get feet on the ground and then extract them.
would it have been easy? no. could it have been done.
fuck yeah.
Just more partisan bullshit masquerading as outrage from our ignorant friend Sol...now here comes the part where he says he's a Ron Paul supporter, because nothing says Ron Paul like sending troops and TACAIR in to a sovereign state guns blazing without a plan or a target...stick to hardware, Sol, its what you're kind of OK at
ReplyDeletewhat is partisan about being outraged by the needless deaths of American citizens? you're a jewel buddy. a shiny jewel of bullshit masquerading as a sensible human being. did you even read the article? i doubt it,cause you're the type to reflexively defend the liberal position. read Animal Farm. its short and to the point. no matter which party wins we're still screwed.
DeleteA guy who's posting illogical bullshit from a partisan rag is telling me to read Orwell...that's classic. So tell me, genius, if you're done punching walls...if the terrorists attacked at 4pm and the place was on fire, the principal missing and a relief force en route by 4:30 WTF difference would the force in Italy have made? You're absurd F/A-18 show of force wouldn't even have made a difference when they arrived at 5...who didn't read the article? or the book...like I said, stick to hardware...every so often you have something unstupid to say about it
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous.....I would hide my name to if i couldn't get the point Solomon is making....YES we could have had a USMC FAST team on ground in said time, The Tripoli Marines faster, See air speed on "the Bus" & 480 miles, Certainly capable of saving American lives.....INstead it's so damn close to ELECTION time & "Obummer"& the "brilliant advisors" he surrounds himself with...LOL! were taking their own little "Snap Poll" not wanting any type of "incident" that may hurt him in his re-election bid! Simple!
ReplyDeleteExactly, Obama let 4 Americans die, but that to him is better than 9 or 10 and having to say he had to send forces to stop a terrorist attack. Though most Americans Liberal or Conservative would say if we had any chance to send in the cavalry to save one of the Americans we should have. Oh and if we are worried about anything happening in any other Middle East Embassy then you get forces ready and send them in as well before the word spreads. Most Americans don't care about the political BS of the matter they just want to know why the hell someone was not sent with the firepower to thwart the threat. Oh and the protest started hours after the attack so if anyone with balls would have done something at the first sign of the attack clear targets could have been taken out before the crowd came around....
ReplyDeleteThis is just Draconian Communist Soviet doctrine from our democrat/communist leaders.
ReplyDeleteThe Soviet rule?
"Always reinforce success, never reinforce failure."
Once Commissar's Barack and Hillary realized the Post was lost they considered it a failure and let it die on the vine. Had the Post held and fought back successfully or surrendered successfully then POTUS and SoS would have stepped in with all the diplomacy, money or release of the Blind Sheik for the Hostage Stevens. The very last thing on their minds was rescue because the re-election would be imperiled by attacking the attackers and possible bombing civilian areas in Benghazi.
This is all these folks know, it's all communist doctrine disguised as the party of democrats.
And then there is Hilliary's own words, "Never let a crisis go to waste."
Their big plan failed, and they let the post die for that sin.