Posted on 05/09/2013 12:45:17 PM PDT by ken5050
Let me be 100% clear from the outset. The question I pose is in no way meant to imply or suggest any criticism of Lt.Col. Gibson. I suspect that at some time in the future we will know what he was thinking on that day. Because there are a great many Freepers who are active-duty or retired military, I ask the question because it is both fascinating, and needs to be asked.
We do know, from the testimony of Gregory Hicks, that Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were just about to board the C-130 for the flight from Tripoli to Benghazi, when Gibson received a phone call from SOCAFRICA telling him "not to go, that they didn't have the authority to go."
We do not know who made that call, who issued Gibson the NO GO order, and from where, and whom the NO GO order originated. We will find that out, and, I suspect, fairly soon. The military chain of command is precise; the trail is clearly laid out. Everyone in the military involved in that order has already carefully documented their role in that process.
But that is not the point of this exercise. I am curious as to what others may think. And let's be very clear, even posing the question has problems:
For example, "ignoring" an order sounds so much better than "disobeying" an order. From my perspective, as a long-ago Vietnam-era junior Marine officer ( who did not see combat) even entertaining the mere thought of disobeying an order was heresy. And we do not as yet know exactly what intelligence Gibson had when he received the phone call. That could make a huge difference in what action he chose to take, or not.
One has to assume that Gibson at least though momentarily of ignoring the stand-down order..we know that he was furious when he received the stand-down order; that's obvious from his comment to Hicks that he was embarrassed because "for the first time in his career, a State Department officer ( Hicks) has a bigger set of balls than someone in the military..."
So, when Gibson had those thoughts, weighed the available intelligence, and his options, he also had to realize that if he went, succeed or fail, he would be throwing away his career.
And let's remember also, this is real-life, real-world,and not a work of fiction, or an action film. But I can't be the first one who has wondered about this, and wondered what others think, or might have done.
Ignoring treasonous orders is lawful, isn’t it?
Having been in the military as an officer, I would have been nervous about ignoring a command.
Has Gibson identified who made the call?
Civilian control of the military is just about the oldest principle of the American armed forces.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/opinion/15miller.html?_r=0
Civilian control doesn’t mean the civilians will always make the right call. But then military government, which is where you tend to end up once you reject the principle of civilian control, has a much worse record.
I think Gibson did the right thing, as hard as it no doubt was for him.
I say this despite a strong emotional desire to with he had told higher to screw itself and gone charging to the rescue regardless.
Also it should be noted that had he gone ahead and taken off it is probable higher would have contacted the pilots and ordered them to return to base.
It was a no-win situation for him.
I seem to recall that someone was relieved of command position minutes after refusing to call off a response team. The replacement issued stand down orders that stopped a response/assistance to the compounds.
At the Battle of Copenhagen, Nelson was ordered to fall back at a critical stage in the battle. He held the telescope to the eye he’d lost fighting for his country and claimed he couldn’t see the signal.
He then went ahead and won the battle.
Disagree.
We have a treasonous administration bent on aiding Jihadists and endangering our own military.
I’d like to see more commanders in the field giving Obama the finger.
i never served in the military, but understand a calling to a higher authority. one that is apparently being court-martialled out of the military.
a decision to disobey an illegal order, is expected. these men took oaths to protect and defend and that is what they did. anyone trying to make these brave men anything less, deserves to be ridiculed and dispatched with extreme prejudice.
Disagree. We have a treasonous administration bent on aiding Jihadists and endangering our own military. I’d like to see more commanders in the field giving Obama the finger. However, it is always wrong to refuse a lawful order, and the order not to act is in this case a lawful order. He had no way to know that no one was responding and the American citizens were being left to die, and there are a variety of other reasons why he had to follow what turned out to be an evil and treasonous order. There are imaginable (and perhaps upcoming in the near future) situations in which the military would be right to slap a drug-addled traitor down, but this was not such a situation.
Disagree.
We do NOT need military commanders deciding for themselves whether higher authority is or is not treasonous. I refer you to the history of every military coup and civil war in history to see why.
I quite agree that it is possible to imagine scenarios in which the military’s oath to the Constitution would allow, even require, them to take military action against their Commander in Chief.
But we aren’t there now. IMO, of course.
Indeed. And often one does not have information that the higher-ups have to even properly evaluate the correctness of one's own position.
“seem to recall that someone was relieved of command position”
I recall more than one senior commander in that region leaving the service under fuzzy circumstances.
Ask Terry Lakin what happens when you decide on your own what orders to obey and what not to.
Soon...very soon.
It were a career ender and probably would have got him a court martial but, yes, as an man and an American he should have ignored the order and gone ahead.
I believe there were two such commanders, a navy and I think an army.
You never know what the big picture is, I served under Nixon and Reagan, if Reagan gave an order related to such a situation, I would have to remember that as insane as it might appear to me, I probably shouldn't take my men into it against a direct order.
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