Posted on 05/16/2013 10:53:15 AM PDT by Anitius Severinus Boethius
The pieces of the puzzle fit. The rumors that Ambassador Stevens was in Benghazi to try and recover the MANPADS is one of the items that can't be proven, but it makes the rest of the case finally come into focus.
If the terrorists were supplied a large cache of surface-to-air missiles by the rebels (originally given them by the U.S.), then could the Pentagon, State Department and White House risk having an aircraft shot down by them?
There was no reason to believe that the Ambassador was dead until after the decision had been made not to send the planes in during the initial attack. The resumption of the attack at the CIA annex put them in a bind. If they sent planes in during the second phase of the attack, surely they would be questioned on why the planes weren't sent hours before. Plus, again, they may have lost an aircraft to terrorists using U.S. weapons.
All of the players would have known about the MANPADS. All of them would have recognized the political risk if it was revealed that the terrorists were using weapons that the Administration supplied to the rebels in Libya.
That is the only explanation I have for why they were adamant that they would not send help.
BTW Why didn't the bad guys take out the drone that was orbiting if they had MANPADs?
Why didn't the US Military crash that same drone into the heavy mortar position that was being painted by the SEAL?
Man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS). Basically, a shoulder fired surface-to-air missile.
Snipes and grenades would have worked.
That was the initial attack.
Our in-extremis forces, who are specifically trained and tasked with embassy rescues, will go into any situation without question. That’s what they do. In addition they could have had backup from as many as 130 Force Recon Marines from Sigonella according to Adm. Lyons. That’s some heavy duty backup.
The forces on the ground (in the Annex) were also told to stand down.
Tyrone Woods.
On the mortar position that the SEALs were marking with a targeting laser. Max Range on a JDAM is 28 KM.
i don’t understand. why didn’t breitbart’s family want an investigation into his death? I never understood that. If ever there was a suspicious death it was hIs... i still miss him.
The painting of the target and the drone were not in the initial attack. In the initial attack, a JDAM would have been useless since the attackers were inside the building.
I agree that the risk should have been taken, but this was politics. If, for some reason, an air asset had been destroyed, it would have been a disaster for the election.
I feel very confident that we have people in the United States Navy, Marines and Air Force who know how to mitigate threats when they plan a mission. Hillary and Obama knew that there would be risks when they decided to use the US military to overthrow the Libyan government, but they went ahead and did it anyway. And there were no American lives at stake then. So, when American lives are at stake, 40 of them, they get cold feet? Bulls**t. And, lest we forget, a rescue aircraft did make it to Benghazi that night. A C-47. Look it up. It’s a WWII propellor driven transport aircraft. They flew that in with no problems, but our modern, jet-propelled aircraft with sophisticated countermeasures can’t go in? Bulls**t. We even had a drone overhead providing real time intelligence and friendly eyes on the ground with communications. Saying we couldn’t send in aircraft because we didn’t know how much change the enemy had in his pockets is bulls**t. It’s an excuse and it’s insulting to every American who ever served in our armed forces.
“Did 0bama supply Al Qaeda with anti-aircraft missiles that can shoot down American Airliners?”.
Just wait until a commercial airliner makes a nose dive and kills all aboard. We will see another “center fuel tank malfunction” scenario as per Slick Willy.
Obama won the election through fraud using the IRS and other union thuggery tactics. Something is up with the AA missiles.
Bad times ahead in the USA.....Thanks idiot democRAT voters.
very interesting comments
how is b.o. doing in bringing the perpetrators to justice??
I think you might be right. However, I would think Petreaus would have known this right? Plus, we were flying sorties before without incident. Plus, our special forces if this were the case, would have been told this. Also, if this were true, it again points towards Obama being out of touch, as he all along, and Hillary, considered the areaa safe from AQ.
In summary, a non-military person told them to stand down, not a military one. The military was ready to go.
A small point. But a name worth remembering. :)
A big point when you are trying to link to something meaningful. :)
It was the stupid autofill that got me.
As I recall there were something like 20,000 SAMs were in the warehouses. Many are missing. I have been wondering where these will turn up for a long long time. This from 2011:
Heres some disconcerting news from Libya that confirms something weve all been worrying about for a while now hundreds of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles have been looted from Gadhafis old military stockpiles.
These arent just obsolete 1970-vintage Soviet missiles that barely work anymore. According to CNN, dozens of SA-24 Grinch shoulder-fired SAMs have been looted from one base alone. The SA-24 is the latest variant of the Soviet-designed Igla SAM thats been in production since the early 1980s. (the picture above shows a pro-Gadhafi fighter manning a multiple-launch SA-24 battery.)
There have already been cases of terrorists firing SA-7 Strelas but those missiles arent much of a threat against modern infrared countermeasures. Furthermore, many Strelas are quickly nearing the end of their service lives. However, the Grinch, which entered Russian military service in 2004, is designed to defeat modern infrared countermeasures and can shoot down planes flying up to 11,000 feet.
There are roughly 20,000 shoulder-fired SAMs in Libya, according to this CNN piece. Most of them are unaccounted for since they are among the first things to be looted from former regime facilities in Libya. This situation could be a bonanza for terrorists and arms dealers.
The next few paragraphs from CNN reporters who discovered the empty missile crates arent very comforting:
Fighters aligned with the National Transitional Council and others swiped armaments from the storage facility, witnesses told Human Rights Watch. The warehouse is located near a base of the Khamis Brigade, a special forces unit in Gadhafis military, in the southeastern part of the capital.
The warehouse contains mortars and artillery rounds, but there are empty crates for those items as well. There are also empty boxes for another surface-to-air missile, the SA-7.
Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch emergencies director, told CNN he has seen the same pattern in armories looted elsewhere in Libya, noting that in every city we arrive, the first thing to disappear are the surface-to-air missiles.
He said such missiles can fetch many thousands of dollars on the black market.
We are talking about some 20,000 surface-to-air missiles in all of Libya, and Ive seen cars packed with them. he said. They could turn all of North Africa into a no-fly zone.
Read more: http://defensetech.org/2011/09/07/modern-shoulder-fired-sams-missing-in-libya/#ixzz2TTtDTRE8
Defense.org
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