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Why did Obama choose to “stand down” in Benghazi? (Best explanation of motive I've read.)
PowerLine ^ | October 27, 2012 | Paul Mirengoff

Posted on 10/28/2012 8:11:58 AM PDT by StandAndDeliver1

As John and Scott point out, the CIA has issued a statement making it clear that “no one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need [in Benghazi]; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate.” That statement surely was issued with the approval, and presumably at the direction, of the CIA’s director, General Petraeus.

Who, then, made the several decisions denying help to the Americans in Benghazi who needed it? Who, initially, told CIA to “stand down” in face of the attack? Who decided that American defense forces an hour or two away in Southern Europe would not be deployed?

Bill Kristol argues that, at least with respect to not sending in the military, the decision must have been made by President Obama. Given what was at stake – the safety of Americans, including an ambassador, in the face of an attack by hostile forces – Kristol surely is right. It is inconceivable that none of the key actors — Secretary of Defense Panetta, Secretary of State Clinton, and General Petraeus — failed to present to Obama the decision of how to respond. And if Obama failed to make a decision, that would be more damning than making the wrong one.

Kristol goes on to ask: “When and why—and based on whose counsel obtained in what meetings or conversations—did President Obama decide against sending in military assets to help the Americans in need?”

The key question is “why.”

Leon Panetta has provided an answer. He says “the basic principle is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on, without having some real-time information about what’s taking place.” At one level, this answer doesn’t work. He and the others involved did know the essence of what was going on, and they did have real time information.

At another level, Panetta’s statement provides a window into the thinking at the White House that day. Although the administration knew, in general, what was going on, there was much uncertainly in Benghazi. We didn’t know for sure what the outcome of the attack on our personnel would be; we didn’t know whether military forces, if deployed, would have succeeded in saving them; we didn’t know how many of our rescuers would have been killed; and we didn’t know (as far as I can tell) what Libya’s reaction to the use of large-scale use of American military force would be.

Faced with uncertainty, Obama apparently opted for caution, hoping that somehow the CIA contingent from Tripoli, aided perhaps by Libyan forces, would save the situation.

This is just the decision one would expect from Obama. By temperament, he is a non-interventionist and (except when pet domestic policies are in play) a non-risk taker. He was highly cognizant of the consequences of a failed U.S. military operation in Libya, including, I suspect, the electoral consequences in an election that he believed on September 11 he was winning fairly handily.

Let’s also remember that, although Obama decided to approve the raid that killed bin Laden, his team apparently considered this (and his campaign has promoted it as) a difficult decision. Bill Clinton and Joe Biden praise Obama’s alleged courage on this occasion, pointing to the adverse consequences to Obama of a failed mission against bin Laden.

If the decision to kill an unsuspecting and poorly defended bin Laden – America’s enemy number 1 for a decade – was difficult for the Obama administration to make, then the odds were always against a decision to fly our military blind into harm’s way in Benghazi in response to situation whose precise contours weren’t well known. Obama’s decision not to intervene was likely less about “the fog of war” than about fear of the fog of war.

In hindsight, Obama made the wrong decision. The extent to which he should be criticized for the decision is difficult to assess because we don’t know all of the information he had at the time the decision had to be made. Perhaps the decision was a reasonable one to make at that time. But let’s keep in mind that our inability to assess this is due mainly to the administration’s unwillingness to speak about the decision and the surrounding events.

Voters, then, must assess the administration’s handling of Benghazi with limited information. But we do know this: (1) the administration erred grievously by leaving open our mission in Benghazi while turning down requests for more security, (2) the administration made the wrong decision on the day of the attack by not bringing our military to bear, a decision consistent with Obama’s instincts, and (3) the administration has not been forthcoming or honest in its discussion of Benghazi after the fact.

These facts, without more, present a serious indictment of Obama.


TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: benghazi
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To: StandAndDeliver1

Didn’t you get the Zot awhile back?


21 posted on 10/28/2012 8:32:29 AM PDT by DJ MacWoW (My faith and politics cannot be separated)
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To: baddog 219

That’s a powerful image and message. I’d love to re-post it, but it’s got a typo in it. The word ‘terrorist’ should be plural. Is it yours, and can you fix it?


22 posted on 10/28/2012 8:32:52 AM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: gaijin

Yup.


23 posted on 10/28/2012 8:33:01 AM PDT by DJ MacWoW (My faith and politics cannot be separated)
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To: StandAndDeliver1

Decisions made in wartime, in business, or even in a football game are almost always made with imperfect information. One rarely knows with certainty when and where and with what force an enemy will attack. One can estimate and extrapolate to determine if selling a product at a given price will increase or decrease revenues, but there are no guarantees. A defensive coordinator might know that his opponent throws a pass 85% of the time on third and eight, but that still leaves a 15% probabability of a running play.

The hallmark of a successful leader is the ability to make optimum decisions based on (to copy an Obama phrase) “less than optimal” information. “The perfect is the enemy of the good” is a well-worn phrase, but it still rings true. Absent having perfect information, decision makers need to choose the best available option based on whatever information they do have.

Panetta’s excuse that they didn’t have enough information doesn’t pass the smell test. Most major battlefield decisions are undoubtedly made with far less perfect intelligence. There were drones overhead, a live audio feed, and a videotape now deemed Top Secret, no doubt because of how damning its contents are to Obama and his pals. This was hardly the “fog of war” that has thwarted military leaders in the past. The information that was available was so good, in fact, that it speaks to a political reason for the inaction, rather than a military one. And most intelligent Americans (i.e., conservatives) understand this.


24 posted on 10/28/2012 8:33:31 AM PDT by TruthShallSetYouFree (Benghazi murders due to spontaneous riot over a video. Or terrorism. Depends on the day.)
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To: StandAndDeliver1

Ping to find this later.


25 posted on 10/28/2012 8:36:15 AM PDT by Big Giant Head
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To: StandAndDeliver1

26 posted on 10/28/2012 8:36:29 AM PDT by CodeToad (Padme: "So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause.")
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To: StandAndDeliver1

Panetta decries “Monday morning quarter-backing”. We had NO Tuesday (9/11) afternoon quarter-backing.


27 posted on 10/28/2012 8:36:29 AM PDT by Jumpmaster (Defund the Left!)
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To: StandAndDeliver1
Why didn't Obama respond?

Why didn't Clinton respond to Blackhawk Down?

Answer one you answer both.

Clinton's non response made UBL the big dog on the block in the terrorist world for defeating the Great Satan and driving them out of Somalia.

Zippo’s non response has just made the clown responsible for this attack the big dog on the block in the terrorist world.

28 posted on 10/28/2012 8:36:29 AM PDT by IMR 4350
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To: FreeAtlanta

With his meeting a few hours earlier with Turkish diplomats probably tied to unauthorized MANPAD transfers to Syria via a Turkish port, Obama was the doofus just hoping the facilitator that had got them placed on a Lybian boat would extricate himself.

Ask: why was he at the undefended Consulate.


29 posted on 10/28/2012 8:36:39 AM PDT by KC Burke (Plain Conservative opinions and common sense correction for thirteen years.)
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To: StandAndDeliver1

Why all of this hand-wringing over concern of what the Libyans would think? Don’t we use Predator drones all over the world to ‘assassinate’ suspected terrorists who pose no immediate threat to Americans, even using said force in other Islamic countries? Why the hesitation to use such force during this incident? And no ‘real time info’ during a ‘war crisis situation’ is a pathetic excuse for a supposed world power with a first-class military. So we’re paralyzed without ‘pictures’?? During a self-defense situation??


30 posted on 10/28/2012 8:40:25 AM PDT by yadent
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To: heights

That’s it! His daughters, his “peeps” are not expendable, but anyone and everyone else is, particularly Americans who mess up his political campaign.


31 posted on 10/28/2012 8:41:26 AM PDT by smoothsailing
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To: Frapster

Make it a double-feature and pull out Clear and Present Danger.


32 posted on 10/28/2012 8:42:21 AM PDT by rabidralph (I passed tagline training on the third try. Ask me how!)
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To: TruthWillWin

Great point.
And the libs crucify Bush for taking 7 minutes to finish a reading session with kids on 9/11.


33 posted on 10/28/2012 8:43:49 AM PDT by Leo58 (Those who cheer you today will curse you tomorrow, the only thing that endures is character.)
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To: StandAndDeliver1

The Democrats are afraid of this because it is their “Iran Contra”. They held televised hearings and talked about impeaching Reagan. And here we are, a Democrat administration caught red handed handing out weapons to real terrorists and messing around in other country’s affairs. Ollie North has to be laughing himself silly over this.


34 posted on 10/28/2012 8:45:32 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: DJ MacWoW

If BO had made the call to go and run a rescue, that might have won him the election. Bad decision for him and the victims. To another post, those guys knew this was an admin choice and not the American people.


35 posted on 10/28/2012 8:46:01 AM PDT by peridot
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To: StandAndDeliver1

This still doesn’t explain why those at the annex were held back
from rescuing Stevens and the others at the consulate.


36 posted on 10/28/2012 8:47:37 AM PDT by rfp1234
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To: baddog 219

I share in your pessimism.

I get sick and tired of hearing this crap that obama was worried that if he went after Osama and it failed it would be compared to Carter’s failed mission in the dessert. With Carter, up until that time no one had been killed in Iran. Carter’s hostage rescue attempt was the first casualties. We’ve had thousands of war casualties since 2001. If the mission had failed and we had lost troops nobody would have blamed obama. Plus, obama knew the media would cover for him.


37 posted on 10/28/2012 8:50:01 AM PDT by Terry Mross (To former friends and relatives. Don't ever contact me if you still support obama.)
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To: StandAndDeliver1
Perhaps the decision was a reasonable one to make at that time.

BULLSHIT!! Decisions are evaluated on their results, not process.

Obama, the Coward-In-Chief, made a non-decision knowing full well that sovereign U.S. territory was being attacked and Americans killed. Then he hid under his bed-covers.

Since then, Obama the Coward has sent out his mommy-surrogates to explain why it just "wasn't his fault" and that he is really a good boy who we should keep in the White House.

America really needs to flush the national toilet bowl and be rid of this piece of filth!

38 posted on 10/28/2012 8:51:35 AM PDT by DakotaGator (Weep for the lost Republic! And keep your powder dry!!)
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To: StandAndDeliver1

Carnak The Magnificent Says:

  1. Someone in the Obama administration will be taking a trip UNDER the Obama bus in the next few days.

  2. Some innocent teenage goatherder in Libya will be blown into atoms by a $100,000 drone missle in the next few days.
    The administration will label him as the key figure in the Libya embassy attack.
    Obama will spike that football until the polls close on election night.


39 posted on 10/28/2012 8:52:24 AM PDT by Iron Munro (Psalm 109:8 "Let his days be few, and let another take his office.")
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To: peridot

Yeah but Obamadinejad isn’t that smart and neither are his lefty advisers. They thought these guys were expendable and that they could cover it up.


40 posted on 10/28/2012 8:53:09 AM PDT by DJ MacWoW (My faith and politics cannot be separated)
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