Trying to make sense of the administration's Libya story
The Defense Secretary says they did not have enough intelligence to go to the aid of our people in Benghazi. Really? How many crisis situations do you have your own team of CIA agents on the ground with a laser site on the enemy as well as a Predator drone overhead, and you have a State Department official in constant contact as the situation unfolds?
I suspect that our military rarely has that much real time intelligence before it executes a mission, if ever. I know for a fact that when I was in Vietnam we never had that much intelligence before we went on a mission. There maybe some other reason why we did not execute a rescue operation, but it has not surfaced yet. So far, officials are mainly responding to questions raised by leaks that are inconsistent with the narrative being spun by the administration. Panetta hints that he was worried about a potential ambush. Perhaps there was some intercept which hinted at such, but so far the only intercept discussed is one where the the attackers are bragging about their operation in a conversation with an al Qaeda operative.
But that intercept is also the only "evidence" that the attack was in anyway tied to the video that became the excuse for the attacks, despite the clear and unequivocal real time evidence that there was no mob of movie critics. We had direct eyewitness evidence contradicting the movie critic mobs theory from the State Department and the CIA. Despite the eyewitness accounts the administration sold a story wrapped around mob violence. By the time the bodies were returned to the US Hillary Clinton is alleged to have told the father of one of the victims they were going after the guy who made the video.
If I were the lawyer for the video maker, I would want to talk with him and also start subpoenaing documents, because it sounds very much like his client is being made a scapegoat for the failure of the government at the highest level.
If there is a more logical explanation for these events, my advice to the administration is to get it out before the less flattering conclusions become accepted. Mark Steyn believes politics was involved in the decision to do nothing. It is one logical explanation, but not the one the administration is willing to admit to.
Sen. McCain says the military was unprepared to respond to the calls for assistance. While getting troops into the area would have been difficult, I don't see any reason why an aircraft with a laser guided bomb could not have hit the attackers. A Spectre Gunship would have been even better.
There is a logical inconsistency in the story at this point. Either there was a disorganized mob with a few weapons attacking our people, or it was a highly trained attack force that maybe setting up an ambush of those sent to rescue our people. But if it was the latter, why didn't they ambush the people sent from Tripoli?
I still think the evidence supports the thesis that it was a planned attack using swarm tactics to overwhelm the consulate, and standoff weapons to attack the CIA annex. A robust response from attack jets would have chased them away.
There is a procedure in place that sends a flash message directly to the White House when an ambassador is under direct threat or is missing. A former special ops officer thinks the administration may have feared a debacle like the one that Jimmy Carter had trying to rescue the hostages in Iran. That suggest the commanders wanted time to create a walk through for the rescue team.
I suspect that our military rarely has that much real time intelligence before it executes a mission, if ever. I know for a fact that when I was in Vietnam we never had that much intelligence before we went on a mission. There maybe some other reason why we did not execute a rescue operation, but it has not surfaced yet. So far, officials are mainly responding to questions raised by leaks that are inconsistent with the narrative being spun by the administration. Panetta hints that he was worried about a potential ambush. Perhaps there was some intercept which hinted at such, but so far the only intercept discussed is one where the the attackers are bragging about their operation in a conversation with an al Qaeda operative.
But that intercept is also the only "evidence" that the attack was in anyway tied to the video that became the excuse for the attacks, despite the clear and unequivocal real time evidence that there was no mob of movie critics. We had direct eyewitness evidence contradicting the movie critic mobs theory from the State Department and the CIA. Despite the eyewitness accounts the administration sold a story wrapped around mob violence. By the time the bodies were returned to the US Hillary Clinton is alleged to have told the father of one of the victims they were going after the guy who made the video.
If I were the lawyer for the video maker, I would want to talk with him and also start subpoenaing documents, because it sounds very much like his client is being made a scapegoat for the failure of the government at the highest level.
If there is a more logical explanation for these events, my advice to the administration is to get it out before the less flattering conclusions become accepted. Mark Steyn believes politics was involved in the decision to do nothing. It is one logical explanation, but not the one the administration is willing to admit to.
Sen. McCain says the military was unprepared to respond to the calls for assistance. While getting troops into the area would have been difficult, I don't see any reason why an aircraft with a laser guided bomb could not have hit the attackers. A Spectre Gunship would have been even better.
There is a logical inconsistency in the story at this point. Either there was a disorganized mob with a few weapons attacking our people, or it was a highly trained attack force that maybe setting up an ambush of those sent to rescue our people. But if it was the latter, why didn't they ambush the people sent from Tripoli?
I still think the evidence supports the thesis that it was a planned attack using swarm tactics to overwhelm the consulate, and standoff weapons to attack the CIA annex. A robust response from attack jets would have chased them away.
There is a procedure in place that sends a flash message directly to the White House when an ambassador is under direct threat or is missing. A former special ops officer thinks the administration may have feared a debacle like the one that Jimmy Carter had trying to rescue the hostages in Iran. That suggest the commanders wanted time to create a walk through for the rescue team.
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