Posted on 10/29/2012 2:51:17 PM PDT by Snuph
The secretary of defense in his best grown-up voice says:
“(The) basic principle is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on; without having some real-time information about what’s taking place,” Panetta told Pentagon reporters. “And as a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, Gen. Ham, Gen. Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation.”
It seems obvious that Panetta is trying protect Obama from responsibility for the administration’s Benghazi response. I don’t think that works. The decision to outsource the call is still a presidential decision.
But there are two problems bigger problems with the Panetta doctrine. First, Panetta says they didn’t have real-time information. Uh, if having a live video feed and real-time reports from assets on the ground for hours doesn’t count as real-time information, what does? And if, as rumors suggest, the drones monitoring the situation were armed, the idea that the administration was trying to avoid some kind of “black hawk down” situation seems incomprehensible.
Which brings us to the second, I think bigger, problem with the Panetta doctrine. If the circumstances in Libya didn’t meet the “enough information” threshold for a rescue attempt or some other form of intervention, then what does? And, note, Panetta & Co. make it sound as if the decision to let the Americans on the scene twist in the wind was sort of a no-brainer, not a difficult decision. So what happened in Libya didn’t even come close to the threshold for intervention.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
If you look closely at this weasel, he is fidgeting, nervous and all the while he is speaking, his eyes are everywhere but looking at the camera or reporters.
He is so obviously obfuscating and prevaricating to make it laughable, if this was not so serious a matter.
He is but another sycophant, Demo-Rat, puppet who will do or say anything to advance this corrupt Regime’s narrative.
First I also noticed we’re the eyes, and non contact. Hillary does the same
Thing
This is a lot like Governor Blanco of Louisiana who refused to deploy the national guard into the hurricane zone because it wasn’t safe.
There are people who simply can not be entrusted to positions of authority.
I think Panetta is basically a political hack and a coward; I don’t think he’s any more a Communist than the average liberal, but he’s in a situation now that is way beyond him. He was picked not for any competence or ability, but because he would offer no objections to Obama. And now he’s being told that he’s got to be Obama’s fall guy, so he’s a little freaked out.
Gen. Dempsey is a PC loser who was referred to by Netanyahu as being a supporter of Iran (in other words, Dempsey does what Valerie Jarret, the uber supporter of Iran, tells him to do). Dempsey was the one who made the phone call and brought the pressure of the top military in the US to bear upon a private citizen to prevent that citizen (Terry Jones) from exerting a constitutionally protected right as a private citizen (to show the dread video to his congregation). This was back when Obama was still trying to blame the video, and since Terry Jones - a nothing backwoods preacher promoted to prominence by Obama - was Obama’s favorite villain at that point, Dempsey disgraced his office by running to do his master’s political bidding.
Gen. Ham is now out of a job (replaced by another commander for the Africom), since it appears that somewhere along the line, he opposed Obama or perhaps knows too much for Obama to feel comfortable about leaving him in his position.
This could be something out of Shakespeare, with the depth of plots and confusion of characters. A few weeks ago, I would have said it was difficult to tell whether it was one of Shakespeare’s comedies or one of his tragedies, but now I know it can be only one thing: a tragedy. For us.
Particularly laughable, since no matter who they were, if they were out there, they were bad guys.
I think another Freeper said it best: Obama simply refused to risk harming even a single Muslim to save Americans. His allegiance is not with us.
And Hillary, Panetta and everybody else in the government knows this, but for some reason, they are too terrified of him to do anything about it. Or perhaps they feel so compromised now that they are afraid that when he's tried for treason, they'll go too; or maybe they're fearing a literal Night of the Long Knives.
Leon Panetta as a lifeguard...
Swimmer: Help! I’m drowning!
Panetta: How did you get in the water? I’m not jumping in there to save you without knowing all the details first.
NOt even to protect CIA assets. What kind of intelligence were they willing to compromise rather than do a surgical strike at the exact location where the enemy fire was coming from?
And they could have dispersed the crowd and eliminated the fire-power of the enemy without hurting anybody, if they had simply authorized all their assets to enter Libyan airspace at the same time as they authorized their drones. They didn’t have to use any of them if the situation didn’t warrant it, but the only reason they didn’t have the option of peaceful dispersion of the crowd is because they specifically CHOSE NOT to have the option.
Why would they ever choose not to have that option? That’s what they need to answer.
Impotent
One thing we can count on, Panetta will whore out a book 2-5 years after Obama leaves office.
It appears that between the Admiral and the General, people were willing to put their careers on the line to get a force into Benghazi, but were stopped. When the stories of not being ready haven't flown, along with the lack of forces yarn, and the lack of intel fairy tale, it seems that decimating the brass is the way to send a message to the Armed Forces that disagreement with Duh-1's party line fable will not be tolerated.
Sometimes bravery is just standing up and setting the record straight knowing full well your career will likely end over it.
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 dark 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.
...fine spit polish bureaucrat but lousy combat commander,
There was backup sent to the CIA outpost. More infor here. Scroll down to second post.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2952000/posts
In Liberal Land, a person speaking in a “grown up” voice is speaking down to the plebes like they are eight year olds. I got a good dose (overdose) of that in Minnesota.
I didn’t know much about Panetta until I saw what he said about getting permission to attack Libya from the UN and then informing Congress of their decision. I knew then and there that he was anti-America and a communist hell bent on a new world order with the UN in total power. Treason, plain and simple.
Panetta has a long and lustrious backgrond in Brown-nosing.
He earned SecDef because he was “owed” for years of dem sabateoug of America or has a library of “goat pictures”.
I ran it through Spell Check, but the Commador 64 “server” FR is using this last couple of weeks failed to post revised spell.
Thank you all for the comments.
God Bless,
Snuph
SecDef Panetta doesn’t understand his job nor the men and women accomplishing the mission.
If you are in the Armed Forces you are expected to “go in harms way.”
I will concede that there is something I have called the calculus of combat where you come down to deciding how big a loss outweighs the military/political gain of a successful mission. During my decade in AFSOF (1980s) I planned and executed missions were the acceptable loss rate ranged from zero (everyone came home) to 75%. We never achieved zero and luckily never got to the 75% mission.
The 75% mission was never executed and even its name has disappeared from the official histories. Having said that I will say it would have rewritten the history of the Middle East. Something that a geo/political/military response on the night of September 11, 2012 would not have done by any stretch of the imagination.
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