I find it difficult to believe they would be that stupid. I don’t find it difficult to believe that we were trying to buy the man-portable anti-aircraft missiles the rebels secured when they overthrew the regime. There were thousands of SA-7’s and other versions in country before the uprising ever began.
NATO had full air superiority in Libya and that is a large part of what allowed the rebels (likely worse people than the regime) to win the ground war. I fail to see the need or advantage of giving stinger missiles to the rebels. It would not make sense and the risks are too great. What if they shot down NATO aircraft? OTOH - I can see our State Department and CIA attempting to secure items like this that were all of a sudden all over the place.
Big story if true, but color me skeptical. The State Department does not possess stinger missiles - the Defense Department does. I would be stunned if they could keep that quiet - it only takes one whistleblower.
The part about Africom having assets in place to act quickly is likely in my opinion and the failure to act remains the most surprising part of the Benghazi story to me. My best guess is that someone in the White House decided based on known facts at the time that the political risks of a failed rescue operation outweighed the rewards of rescuing our people. They likely thought nobody had been killed and if we rescued folks the real story would come out that they were paying massive amounts of cash to the rebels we supported to buy the anti-aircraft stuff.
Speaking of that.... wonder what happened to all that cash? A few clever men could create an attack like this and possibly walk away with millions - especially if that is why Stevens was in town. I will take my tinfoil hat off now.
You make some excellent points, but I would bet that money and missiles were involved in some way. Stay tuned, and don’t put the tin foil hat in storage just yet.
If you open the gate and walk away so that anyone can take what is inside, then are you supplying weapons to the opportunists?
How many of these weapons are floating around now and in whose hands?
Bad gamble on the part of the administration.
Suppose they wanted them dead, dead men tell no tales. If they survive they might say what they were involved in, that necessitated their rescue. Exploring possibilities here.
Africa Command (AFRICOM) was swirling in scandal before and after Benghazi.
Do you believe Obama and Hillary went into Libya on trumped up bs to oust Quadaffi? It was illegal,first of all,We were using The jihadists to oust the dictator,who flew the NATO missions to prevent Quadaffi from attacking the Alqueda terrorists in Benghazi?Americans,we then went in with Stevens and VIA operatives to try and get these weapons back and the jihadists turned on us. Sounds perfectly plausible to me with the Muslim sympathizers we have running this train wreck,just think of the reaction if this had become public before the election.
Hillary is now a private citizen,if she was a republican the press would be camped on her front doorstep 24/7 hounding her to get anewers. Do you think all these reports of snooping on reporters has anything to do with information like this? I do
remember that it is State, not DOD, that must approve all exports of any item on the ITAR list...which means they can approve direct transfers of these items into Libya and distribute them...through shell companies just like CIA must do (if they do it with the correct paperwork)
DOD, CIA, anyone other than State must get State’s approval...
I don't - arrogance breeds stupidity. People feel they are too smart for anybody else, no matter how experienced in a field, to tell them anything. I think the CIA probably did not want to participate in this plan and that Obama simply did what he always does, which was just ignore the agency or entity responsible for doing a particular job in the government and have somebody else (illegally or at least irregularly) carry it out.
I do think this is all part of an overall plan to turn the ME over to the Islamists, with whom Barry and Valerie clearly feel a great bond, but I think that would be hard to prove.
However, this particular incident shouldn't be hard to prove, if somebody's willing to talk. It's so blatantly illegal that everybody knows there's jail time involved and I think they're wondering if Obama is really worth going to jail for. Once somebody starts to talk, they'll probably all talk.
State may have control over the list of weapons not to be sold to enemies, but to my knowledge, nobody ever said that State was supposed to sell or "distribute" them itself. And the unilateral decision that the Libyan "rebels," whom everybody knew even at the time to be al Qaeda linked, were no threat to us was certainly not their decision to make.
So instead they sidelined Defense (probably lying their little socks off about their actions to the complaisant wuss in charge of Defense) and tried to cut the CIA out altogether until possibly they needed help in controlling the weapons. Even then, it's possible that they were not honest about the source of the weapons, considering the vague "fell into the hands of rebels" explanation they gave out.
But this would explain a lot of things: their frenzy to cover it up, the inaction of the Defense Dept. and the freezing out of the military, and the confusion of the CIA. Since that time, I think Obama has been on a mission to remove, disperse or silence anybody who might know anything.
And while Hillary was no doubt the agent of this plan (hence her desperation), it came from one place only: Herr Obama, the smartest man in the room, who knows better than anyone else.
There is an outside chance that the Libyan compounds were 'redition sites'. The head of the gang who attacked in Benghazi has said on al jazeera that he was 'going in to get his four people', whatever than means. If ol' bin Laden is still alive and being interrogated, he is definitely a hot commodity, too hot for Gitmo or the US. What better place to hide him for interrogation than Bosnia, so Stevens might have been seen as a bargaining chip to get ol'bin released, secretly. No criminal act is beyond the possibilities for this lawless regime now in power.
I agree, giving Stingers to rebels in Libya makes no sense what so ever. I doubt this story is true as written.
Too, perhaps the calculus was that it would have been even more embarrassing to potentially lose additional American assets to our own equipment in the hands of AQ. That would have been even harder to explain right before an election.
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." - Sir Walter Scott
Partially correct. Holders of MANPADS also include the Department of Energy's NNSA OST teams, Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), CIA SAD/SOG, and the United States Secret Service (USSS). There was also talk of federal court officers having access to MANPADS for USSC and Capitol Air Defense, but it was cheaper to make some Avenger units Active-Gaurd Reserve (AGR) and ADSW duty permanent.
I signed for Stinger trainers (Smokey Joes) in the late 90s. My predecessor had to hand count all the DOE/OST Redeyes and Stingers in Albuquerque after the TWA 800 disaster.
If you remember back when to when the Benghazi attack just happened, there were reports about 20000 to 40000 weapons at the facility. Then suddenly those weapons were absent from the reports. Not mentioned again..
And remember that the Zero admin was telling us that the FBI couldn’t go to Benghazi becuz it was too dangerous, for 2 or 3 weeks after the attack. That story didn’t hold water esp after we learned that a CNN reporter found Amb Stevens’ diary somewhere at the compound there...
These facts may not be conclusive proof, but as someone with common sense tinged with suspicion on anything the AAdmin tells us, I smelled a coverup having to do with those weapons very early on.
Leave your hat on, fasten the chin strap, and loan me your extra. I’m suspecting this particular whistler is a ringer. State Dpt. doesn’t have any kind of authority to deal in heavy weapons. For one, that’s why US Marines guard embassies instead of Peaceniks. We saw in Early Afganistan how weapons buy-backs have to work. The CIA ADVERTISED they were paying $50 K apiece to get them back, the ones they didn’t use on the Russians earlier. And what self-respecting rebel is going to turn in usable weapons of any sort? And why were there no reports of any planes being downed by ground fire in the early days of the Libyan Spring? If buying weapons was Stevens actual mission it would be pointless to keep it a secret-—like Walmart not putting any signs on its stores-—just hoping the word gets out? Go ahead and try to convince me that Stevens wasn’t in Beengazzi banging Libyan boys. So far as I can see/hear no one in congress is asking what his mission actually was and how did the killers even know he was there if he was good at doing SECRET MISSIONS?
This is what happens when you lead from behind. Al Qeade gets its hands on thousands of MANPADS.
Interesting analysis. The one point of debate is about the intel on causalities.
Once the mortars started hitting, it was clear that the attackers were skilled and would cause death. Also, the Libyans would not commit assets, so our people were not only left to fend for themselves, but the admin also ordered special ops assets in Tripoli to stand down and not help with extracting our personnel from Benghazi. There was plenty of intel that our people could be wiped out without help. It's due to a few heroic individuals that any of our people survived.