[PaleoBob]

Dempsey is not technically in the chain of command but Panetta relied heavily on his Joint Chiefs. My suspicion is Dempsey advised that the situation did not justify military intervention and Panetta never elevated it to the President. I am confident that Obama had made it clear to Panetta that he wanted “plausable deniability” if anything went south. I do not trust Demsey any more than I trusted Mullen.

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I covered DOD for 10+ years, practically lived in the Pentagon at times, and I can tell you that no request for rapid deployment funding would include or even fathom a situation in which an embassy or consulate under siege would NOT be rescued in some manner or form, a paradigm that has existed since Tehran in 1979 if not longer.

Sure. Policymakers can choose to hang embassy people out to dry and NOT attempt a rescue. But the idea that the military would say no to a rescue flies in the face of the entire purpose of special ops, rapid deployment, and all related strategies. Or, the idea that a member of the military hierarchy would go to the Hill and say, “Give us our money, but, no, we can’t even try to save Americans.”

BTW, does anyone remember the last day in Vietnam and the rooftop of our embassy in Saigon? There was an army of 10,000+ bearing down on the city. Did our military hierarchy say, “Well, too bad, we’ll just have to let the diplomats be captured, tortured or murdered.”

Some of the stuff being said by “military” leaders about Benghazi is disgraceful. They should be offering to give the American people their money back.

[bray]

It is what our military is for. They could have done the job or died trying. This order came from the President.

Pray for America to Wake Up

[csmusaret]

It is my suspicion that Dempsey and Panetta were dis inclined to involve the military is because Benghazi was a CIA operation.

[Cheerio]

BTW, does anyone remember the last day in Vietnam and the rooftop of our embassy in Saigon? There was an army of 10,000+ bearing down on the city. Did our military hierarchy say, “Well, too bad, we’ll just have to let the diplomats be captured, tortured or murdered.”

You are so correct!!!