The Benghazi failure is not unique to zero. Back in the late 60’s, a “reconnaisance” ship, the USS Pueblo, was captured by the North Koreans after being under attack from their patrol boats for approximately 24 hours. According to American officials at the time, the Pueblo was in international waters when the North Korean vessels began their attack.
When the attack began, the Pueblo radioed for assistance, but got none. The request was forwarded to the Chief of Naval Operations who would not order additional ships or aircraft to the Pueblo’s aid. After approximately 22 hours of being under attack, the ONLY military officer with the authority to do so (an Air Force general in Okinawa) sent his ready alert aircraft to aid the Pueblo. Upon arrival in Korea, the aircraft had to have their nuclear warheads offloaded and conventional weapons loaded before they could fly out to the Pueblo’s location. By the time that the weapons were exchanged, it was too dak fro the aircraft to assist the Pueblo.
The next day, the Pueblo surrendered and was ordered in the harbor at Pyongyang. The crew was taken captive and held for 11 months before being repatriated to the U.S. The USS Pueblo was never returned and, TTBOMK, remains in North Korea today.
The captain of the Pueblo, Cdr. Pete Bucher, was court-martialed for losing his ship, but the court-martial board would not convict him. Still, his Navy career was done.
The failure of good men to act is repeated throughout history. The Pueblo affair is one story, Benghazi is another.
I was working at Camp Fuchinobe, Japan, the evening Pueblo was hijacked. We were directed to focus all of our meager resources toward N. Korea. One of my neighbors from Kami Seya was supposed to have joined Pueblo at Sasebo, but he switched cruises and the other guy got to spend 11 months as a guest of Kim Il Sung.
His crew as totally unprepared for an emergency and Bucher ran a loose ship and he himself claimed to be unaware as to how much classified documents they had on board.
They failed to destroy a large amount of classified documents and equipment due to their unfitness
Many think he should have gone down with his ship and the classified materials..
while there was sufficient blame to go around, Bucher IMO should take the brunt of it. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB278/03.PDF