Why AC130s were grounded: Obama didn’t want voters to find out that he armed the jihadists w SAMs

Flopping Aces ^ | 10-30-12 | Alec Rawls

[Starman417]

It's simple logic. In Libya there is only one possible threat to an AC130 gunship: surface to air missiles. Thus this is the only way Panetta wasn't lying when he said that it was lack of information about the threat environment that kept him from sending defenders into "harm's way" in Benghazi. He must have been afraid that the jihadists were lying in wait with surface to air missiles, and he had good reason to suspect such a ploy.

A primary task of the Libyan mission was to round up the war materiel of the deposed and decomposing Moammar Ghadaffi and funnel it to chosen opponents of Assad in Syria. Which part of the Syrian opposition has Obama been choosing to supply? Al Qaeda:

“Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster, according to American officials and Middle Eastern diplomats,” the Times reports.

The paper quotes one U.S. official as saying, “The opposition groups that are receiving the most of the lethal aid are exactly the ones we don’t want to have it,” adding that “officials, voicing frustration, say there is no central clearinghouse for the shipments, and no effective way of vetting the groups that ultimately receive them.”

According to Adm. James A. Lyons (retired), the Libyan arms that have been funneled to the jihadists include substantial numbers of surface to air missiles:

We now know why Ambassador Christopher Stevens had to be in Benghazi the night of 9/11 to meet a Turkish representative, even though he feared for his safety. According to various reports, one of Stevens’ main missions in Libya was to facilitate the transfer of much of Gadhafi’s military equipment, including the deadly SA-7 – portable SAMs – to Islamists and other al Qaeda-affiliated groups fighting the Assad Regime in Syria. In an excellent article, Aaron Klein states that Stevens routinely used our Benghazi consulate (mission) to coordinate the Turkish, Saudi Arabian and Qatari governments’ support for insurgencies throughout the Middle East. Further, according to Egyptian security sources, Stevens played a “central role in recruiting Islamic jihadists to fight the Assad Regime in Syria.”

So of course Panetta had to worry about the jihadists having man-portable SAMs. He had been supplying them, and a successful SAM attack on our military with these U.S. supplied weapons would be devastating for Obama's election chances. From the start of the Libyan operation critics have been complaining about U.S. aid going to the jihadists. To have that treasonous strategy backfire in such spectacular fashion would be Fast and Furious times a thousand.

So they made a calculated decision. Our people on the ground would be sacrificed to Obama's political ambition and the Obamatons would coordinate on a cover story about there not being any planned attack at all, when it actually appeared to them to be so well planned as to look like a possible trap.

(excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...

[Delmarksman]

“...and the AC130s have countermeasures...shown on the picture.”

They have measures against 1-2 Sams. Not a half dozen, maybe more.

[Delmarksman]

Not saying that we shouldn’t have sent assets, just questioning the In-vulnerability of the 130 against multiple incoming.

Former AF Jet Mech. (T38, F4, F105, B52, C5...)

Personally I am livid about the whole situation.

[castlebrew]

agreed, and concur.

as I said, no good choices. at least Jimmah Cahtah tried...