"OK, now ABC, CBS, and NBC, as well as CNN have agreed to broadcast stories about the hurricane 24x7 all this week. And Geraldo has volunteered to be duck-taped to a tree on a New Jersey beach, so that'll be good for a day or two..."
Posted on 10/29/2012 5:58:13 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
........................................Now, the episode has taken another turn as more information emerges about what actually happened in Benghazi over the seven hours of the attack – and what US military assets might have been available to protect or perhaps rescue the American diplomatic personnel under fire.
On Sunday, the Associated Press carried a long report from Tripoli suggesting that a planned attack likely was only incidentally connected to the crude YouTube video about the Prophet Mohammad that sparked protests across the Middle East and North Africa.
Neighbors of the US consulate in Benghazi “all described the militants setting up checkpoints around the compound at about 8 p.m. The State Department’s timeline says the attack itself began at around 9:40 p.m.,” according to the AP report.
“Khaled al-Haddar, a lawyer who passed by the scene as he headed to his nearby home, said he saw the fighters gathering a few youths from among passers-by and urged them to chant against the film,” the report continues.
"I am certain they had planned to do something like this,I don’t know if it was hours or days, but it was definitely planned," said al-Haddar. "From the way they set up the checkpoints and gathered people, it was very professional."
The guard told the AP he saw no protesters, instead hearing a few shouts of "God is great," then a barrage of automatic weapons fire and rocket-propelled grenades, along with barrages from heavy machine guns mounted on trucks.
Earlier, Fox News reported that security officers working for the CIA in Benghazi heard the attack on the consulate but were twice told to wait before rushing to the compound. Fox also reported that U.S. officials refused when the security team asked for U.S. warplanes to bomb their attackers, which would have meant violating Libyan airspace.
CIA and Pentagon officials strongly deny the allegations.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
First part of article speaks of some information is informed but "much of it strictly partisan."
It should be an albatross hung around his neck.
Weasel worded..... Might..... Perhaps....
In the words of that great orator. Joey B... “. Grow a set” and tell it like
It really was
http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-09-11
How is it possible that Obama and Panetta have a different version of what occurred that day?
"When Obama called the US Navy SEALS to get Osama, they got the job done. When the US Navy SEALS called Obama for help...he watched them die. It's time to STAND OBAMA down."
FREEPERS! Send this far and wide!!
CROSS-BORDER AUTHORITY.
Everything I have read and seen so far is still confirming my initial thinking on the matter, going way back to my days as a NavSpecWar officer who took a SEAL det to Beirut a long time ago.
Once the alarm is sent from Benghazi, dozens of HQs are notified and are in the loop in real time, including AFRICOM and EURCOM, both located in Germany.
Without waiting for orders, they begin planning and executing rescue operations, including getting air support over Benghazi ASAP. But one thing they CANNOT DO without explicit orders from the POTUS is cross an international border. That is the big "red line."
All POTUS has to do is NOT grant cross-border authority, and the entire rescue (already in progress) must stop in its tracks. Ships can loiter on station, but planes fall out of the sky, so they must be redirected to an air base (Sigonella Sicily) to await the POTUS decision on granting CBA. If it never comes, the men in Behghazi must rely only on assets already "in country" in Libya, such as the Tripoli QRF and the Predators.
(And possibly AC-130s that might already have been in Libya: they were last year, but their location on 9-11-2012 is unknown. If they were "in country" but were prevented from firing, that is another situation.)
So if at the 5pm DC time meeting with Panetta and Biden, Obama said, "No outside military action," meaning no CBA will be granted, then THAT IS IT. Case closed.
That constitutes "standing orders" all the way down the chain of command via Panetta to Ham and the subordinate commands trying to rescue the men in Benghazi.
If Obama then goes upstairs to the family quarters to watch TV or sleep, or otherwise makes himself "unavailable," then his last standing orders will stand until he changes them, even if he goes to sleep until the morning of 9-12. Nobody in the chain of command below him can countermand his "standing orders" not to send military forces from outside of Libya into Libyan air space.
Nobody.
Personally, I think he left "no outside miltary intervention, no cross-border authority" standing orders, and then he went to bed. Damn him to hell.
(And to me, the most damning aspect of all is that Obama went to bed while his Ambassador was still missing and presumed kidnapped by Al Queda. Ambassador Stevens might have been on a Youtube video pleading for his life, ready to get the Nick Berg/Danny Pearl "intro to jihad" treatment, and Obama WENT TO BED to rest up for his much more important fund raiser in Las Vegas!)
Yes, the CSM is lending its support to Zero, but it is still an interesting piece. Obama will have difficulty to freely interact with voters and the media during the end of the campaign. He really, really do not want to have questions about Benghazi and who knew what when, and so forth.
Anything to hamstring the last days of his campaign is good, even if it would have been so much better if the story finally got out.
(I must admit, that even though I consider myself a cynic, I really didn’t think they would manage to cover up a story like this. Two American heroes goes against orders and rush towards the danger to save their countrymen, and then are denied help, help that could have saved their lives, all due to political considerations.
This is a script that would have fit right into any Hollywood production or Tom Clancy novel. Woodward and Bernstein would have sacrificed their left arms for a story like that, but no, protection of the One comes first. Disgusting!)
Obama's September 11 Phone Call ".........................While Americans were under assault in Benghazi, the president found time for a non-urgent, politically useful, hour-long call to Prime Minister Netanyahu. And his senior national staff had to find time to arrange the call, brief the president for the call, monitor it, and provide an immediate read-out to the media. I suspect Prime Minister Netanyahu, of all people, would have understood the need to postpone or shorten the phone call if he were told that Americans were under attack as the president chatted. But for President Obama, a politically useful telephone call—and the ability to have his aides rush out and tell the media about that phone call—came first.
So here are a few more questions for the White House: While President Obama was on the phone for an hour, did his national security advisor Tom Donilon or any other aide interrupt the call or slip him a piece of paper to inform him about what was happening in Benghazi? Or was President Obama out of the loop for at least an hour as events unfolded and decisions were made? On the other hand, national security staff were obviously with the president during and immediately after the phone call—otherwise how could they have put out their statement right away? Surely his aides told the president about what was happening in Benghazi. Was there then no discussion of what was or what wasn't being done to help, pursuant to the president's first directive that everything possible be done?"
It’s not an albatross that should be hung around the traitØr’s neck.
“Khaled al-Haddar, a lawyer who passed by the scene as he headed to his nearby home, said he saw the fighters gathering a few youths from among passers-by and urged them to chant against the film,”
Isn’t it odd that the attackers sought to use the same obsure film as cover as did our government. One might think they were in collusion.
The people Obama meets on “the campaign trail” don’t care about Benghazi. They probably think it’s the name of a sports car.
I believe Render is referencing Boston mayor Menissolini’s famous malapropism.
The time-line and the plot thickens!
4.50 President arrives WH.
5 pm. President and VP meets with SecDef in Oval Office.
Between 5 pm to 7.30 pm a 1 hour call to Israeli PM Netanyahu. (Article by Lynn Sweet posted 8.18 pm.)
The questions Kristol poses should be asked by everyone getting close to anyone in his administration.
Benghazi story is showing up in some local and area media and a few major newspapers.
Even Hurricane Sandy may not be big enough to bury it.
Every day more details on what did and did not happen in Benghazi.
drip drip drip
Those drips could become a flood by the election weekend.
BUMP!
The attack against the Cairo embassy had occurred the day before as far as I recall.
What Benghazi tells me is that Buckwheat doesn’t have the backs of Americans nor does he stand with us. If terrorists stage an attack, such as what happened in Beslin when terrorists raped and murdered children in a Russian school, no help will be coming from the criminal fascist syndicate occupying Washington.
We are on our own.
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