Panetta has been echoing Obama on Israel, too. All commends come from Obama...whether text or trigger.
look at all obama’s minions..willing to fall on the sword for him
Be it Leon Panetta, Hilary Clinton or whoever, you cannot transform lowlife Democratic politicians into statesmen any more that you can turn lowlife Democrat political operative such as Chris Matthews or George Stephanopolis into journalists.
Clintonflunky Leon Panetta is the logical choice for fall guy here. He was previously turtled to the position of CIA director, where he could have been easily plinked off if anything had gone wrong, like the bin Laden hit.
Although Panetta has had a long and broad career in public service, it seems to have been lived in reverse from early merit in the Army and then the Republican party, to centrism (a hash of disconnected views) to Democrat party to Clinton inner circle where up is down.
Panetta is an empty vessel who unearned his post long ago. He may now regarded as useful.
I’m still somewhat surprised no one in the media has asked the admin, or digged further as to why they hired this British security company, who supplied them with LOCAL agents... hint, hint. The hiring of locals was no accident, we’ve seen this work so well in Afghanistan... it’s part of our foreign policy mandate which wrongly and prematurely returns control and responsibility to regional authority.
Yet no one in the media has asked the admin to explain this naive policy.
Leon Puñettas...
Long ago I was a SEAL officer and I attended many joint and combined operational planning meetings in the USA, abroad, and on ships at sea. This type of rescue mission is called a “NEO” operation, for Non-combatant Evacuation Operation. Every embassy and consulate has and practices all kinds of emergency evac plans, in concert with the US military.
For example, Marines and SEALs practice NEO ops prior to deploying on every float, as a VERY high priority mission. They involve full dress-rehearsals, with civilian role players, helos, landing craft, rounding up stranded stragglers, opfor ambushes, role-playing “angry mobs,” fighting your way to LZs or even beaches while protecting a gaggle of civilians down to babies etc. Conducting successful NEO ops is a TOP TOP TOP military and state department mission priority. I cannot emphasize this enough. NEO ops are planned and practiced over and over and over.
When the alarm goes off worldwide that an embassy or consulate is being attacked, the entire U.S. military swings into rescue mode, without waiting for any orders from the White House. The military does all of the operational planning and begins to execute the rescue op.
The one thing they CAN’T do is cross an international border without permission from POTUS. So the US Military will be inbound full-steam-ahead to make the rescue, and all they need from POTUS is a “proceed” order. In this case, they got a “stand down” instead.
This is at the POTUS level, it is not a decision taken at State. State and the military (JCS) should be in the Situation Room with POTUS soon after a critical incident like this begins, so all decisions can be made in real time. (I have heard nowhere that POTUS went into the Situation Room at all. Apparently he went to the Oval Office briefly, but not down to the Situation Room, where the “war planning” screens, full staffs and commo tools are all located for dealing with a major crisis.)
But if POTUS punts after a brief Oval Office meeting with Dempsey and Hillary and goes upstairs to the family quarters....the stranded Americans will die.
Only POTUS can give the order to cross international borders. Only POTUS can allow US warplanes to give air support to Americans battling on the ground in a foreign country. If POTUS makes himself unavailable, the Americans will die.
Even the VEEP or Secretary of State cannot make that call. The VEEP can only do it if the POTUS is determined to be medically unable to perform his functions. If the POTUS goes upstairs and turns off his phone, there is nothing anybody can do about it. Nothing. And the besieged Americans will die.
On Friday an anonymous Pentagon insider (”Doug”) called into Rush with a lot of new details about this disgraceful fiasco. But what we really need now is for a high-ranking officer with insider knowledge to go public, risk his pension and career, and tell the truth.
The blame for this humiliating and shameful national disgrace is pointing directly at the POTUS, and America needs to know why the inbound rescue operation was aborted.
The State Department flew a World War Two era propellor driven and unarmed DC-3 into the Benghazi airport during this fight. But Panetta and the generals were afraid to send armed, military jets with the latest technology to Benghazi? What an incredible lie.
The reason they didn't send support was because in the eyes of the Obama administration, the ambassador and the US contractors were expendable.
You had an ambassador and communication professional (Smith) who were guarded by the ‘February 17th Martyrs Brigade’.
Were they trafficking heavy arms to Syria? Probably. We’re they doing something hinky? Definitely.
Was what they were doing likely the province of the CIA? Most definitely.
Had people, including Stevens, raised alarm bells about the lack of security? Yup!
Was the CIA looking in on outright incompetence, while literally within earshot of rifle fire? Yes!
This all display Obama’s ideology, long held paranoia and bias world view. I’m sure Obama and his people thought what Steven’s was doing was sexy, because it was risky. Of coarse, a leftist can’t trust rank and file CIA, right? The CIA killed Che, Obama’s hero, Obama is the self styled Che of the new Islamic caliphate.
Again, you can’t trust the CIA, that is until your getting your ass shot off in a third world hell hole and your leftist party friends leave you for dead.
Stevens and Smith were expendable to Obama, but they weren’t expendable to Woods and Doherty.
bumpin just because.