Posted on 12/31/2019 10:54:36 AM PST by ransomnote
Thanks for the thread about the Mar a Lago New Years Party!
It’s nice that President Trump shared the festivities with the public.
General Carter Ham, Commander of US Africa Command at the time, is who you’re speaking of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Ham
General Ham became a general just before OIF 1. He had a respectable peacetime resume prior to that. Lots of admin and schoolhouse time, a couple commands of instructional units. Some Bosnia time under xlinton as commander in chief. All indicators of a suck up. His division command with 1st ID was unusually short. Less than a year, I think. Who the heck is a two-star infantry division commander for less than a year? That’s hardly enough time to change the stationary and signage. And suddenly when hussein got in he got another star, and then another. Very quickly. Four stars. Bang.
He was the USAFRICOM Combatant Commander (CC) on September 11, 2012, during the Benghazi attacks. Every CC has at their disposal an “in extremis” force of special operators that can be deployed anywhere in their theater on short notice. [ https://www.americanspecialops.com/special-forces/cif/ ]
In the case of Benghazi, this force and others tried to get in the air. Gen Ham later claimed that he didn’t have enough intel to deploy them. Always a good excuse.
Several officers lower in the chain, who were loaded on runways with engines hot ready to go, claimed that they were denied air clearance (State Dept) and told there were no rules of engagement (Pentagon/White House) that would accommodate a rescue mission in Libya. Essentially the stand-down order.
They were relieved or cashiered for speaking about it publicly.
General Ham retired in summer ‘13. He insists that he gave no stand-down order, which is true. He did not tell his forces to stand down. He simply ensured that they had no air clearances, and made sure his lawyers put a stop to any rescue mission.
The teams that were ready to go hot? All they knew is that there were Americans in trouble and they were told they couldn’t go help them for legal reasons and politics. The in extremis teams could have been there between 2-3 hours, with significant reinforcements between 6-10 hours. Would that have saved the ambassador Stevens and the others? Maybe not. But it sure as hell would have been better than the alternative.
I’ve been in some footsteps of Ham, but never worked around him directly so I can’t say anything against him personally. I’ll just say those footprints he left did not glow with patriotic sacrifice.
Here's a Cavalry jackass. And you. "Four legs good, two legs bad." Which has four legs, which has two?
Happy New Year, brother. Best blessings to you and your'n.
Ham is what Col. David Hackworth would refer to as a perfumed prince. These are brass that do all the right stuff to get into the upper ranks, which is never good for those under them.
-SB
Q salute to you sir. 188 degrees to the right shall set the course. Happy new year.
Amen to that!
Link to the video “This video will get Donald Trump Elected”. Almost impossible to find on YouTube search. They are really burying it!
Here it is in case you need it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2qIXXafxCQ
Download and archive. I have. A good reminder for Trump supporters. Hear what he says. He’s doing it.
Posted on 12/31/2019, 11:15:56 PM by Berlin_Freeper
Hack was quite the Soldier. He sure did like green rooms and TV cameras in his later years. But he told it straight. There’s reasons why he never made it from O-6 to O-7. Mostly his candor.
He could have made two or three stars, but he didn’t succumb to those “perfumed princes on the Potomac”. Heh. And I don’t think he cared much for Westmorland or McNamara.
Good on you, Hack!
Military resources are tightly controlled but one would think that some high level military commander that knew what was going on would have given the order to help save lives knowing and not caring that his career would be over
*******************************************************************************************
Well, some people still believe the story that General Ham was all set to do just that, but was relieved of command on the spot...No proof of it that I have seen:
Tiger Droppings reported:
The information I heard today was that General [Carter] Ham as head of Africom received the same e-mails the White House received requesting help/support as the attack was taking place. General Ham immediately had a rapid response unit ready and communicated to the Pentagon that he had a unit ready.
General Ham then received the order to stand down. His response was to screw it, he was going to help anyhow. Within 30 seconds to a minute after making the move to respond, his second in command apprehended General Ham and told him that he was now relieved of his command.
The story continues that now General Rodiguez would take General Hams place as the head of Africom.
Sure enough Obama nominated Gen. David Rodriguez to replace Gen. Carter Ham as commander of U.S. Africa Command.
Nice try, Mairdie (if that’s your real name). Bruce Willis is totally not in this video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHboDhFT9dc&feature=youtu.be
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful work, posting all the articles we might miss, and being a good digger on all things pertaining.
We wish you the happiest of New Years!
Don’t miss this. I don’t think too much of the Rodriguez story. That’s armchair hearsay.
see here: https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3804619/posts?page=304#304
I saw it just after I posted the GP article. Like I said-no way I know one way or the other. Don’t know the man. Don’t know anyone who does.
Jason Chavetz said that Ham told him, we had assets available, contrary to what Obama was peddling. That was an interview on Fox News.
At the time, I was following a military chat/blog post, and they were telling the same story as GP...IDK..Probably never will, but I’d like to think that someone said screw it and tried to send help anyway besides the heroes who died that night.
Thank you all for making me smile, day after day. Happy New Year to all FReeQs!
May this be THE year!
Happy New Year FreeQs. Finally caught up-signing off for the night.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.