Coupled with the fact that our men on the rooftops were lasing targets, calling in strikes, and being denied, this is very damning of Obama, without Patraeus jumping in with both feet.
The C-130 gunship was in the air, and it was developed for this exactly scenario. There was no need to send in more troops. Just unleash the weapon on station overhead.
The enemy would have stood down immediately.
Yesterday evening a member of the military (someone with some clout I don’t remember who just now) stated that when they can’t get people on the ground in close in circumstances, they fly over one of our fighters close to the ground, and that fairly well breaks up attacks.
Obama did nothing.
We do not know that. We know that assets were available 480 miles away, an hour or two air time. There were drones in the air. We do not know if they were armed or not.
We know that the assets in Italy were not allowed to respond.
DO:
It seems to me that you are the solid voice of reason on this thread. There may have been others (I’m not going to look again at it all) but you have been tremendous.
I agree that it is very important to keep Director/CIA as much above the fray as possible in a situation like this. I do not understand his failure to smash the “video narrative”, but he definitely should not be doing something like say, “The President is lying.” to the world, via a spokesman. I am glad that he has come around for whatever reason to know that his remaining silent is a wrong course of action now. I also believe he should not be resigning, for reasons you delineate quite well in this thread. Congress ought to subpoena him, and the strongest action I believe he ought to take is to defy an order by the President to say nothing to Congress. I believe that with this statement, he is telling Issa that he will cooperate, and immediately, with such a subpoena. I suspect a large part of that testimony would have to be in closed session. After that, Congress can decide the best course of action, releasing as much info to the voters as possible, immediately.
CIA is too important to squander. This whole situation is fraught with danger in many ways, not the least of which is the position of these executive agencies and departments.
In addition, I strongly object to people who are calling the administration out for “treason”, and calling for impeachment based on the CinC failing to order a “rescue mission”. That is properly HIS CALL, despite my strong disagreement with the call he made. If you want to call for impeachment, call for it on the basis of failure to enforce laws like DOMA or instituting new law such as DREAM act without Congressional approval. Call for it based on the kangaroo court arrest of the video maker. Call for it based on lying to American and the world about the motivation for this attack. All these things are clearly unConstitutional, just as it is clearly Constitutional that CinC makes the call for use of the military in this type of case.
That said, CinC DEFINITELY SHOULD relate FULLY to America, before the election, WHY he made the call he did, and who he consulted, and the assets that were immediately available. That ought to be related at least several days before the election so military members and diplomatic corps can give rebuttal or supporting opinion. Then, let America’s voters decide whether they agree with him: do we give support to Americans in need without counting the cost, or do we evaluate whether “rescue” is worth it. I can imagine many would disagree with my belief that we give support first and evaluate later. This is something that American voters should decide together.
Time has run short to do that, but it is still not impossible. Without such a course by CinC, it is my opinion that everyone ought to simply say, “I can not trust this guy to be CinC since I don’t know how he will treat our people going forward” and vote against him with prejudice.