The Wages of Libya [clear directives, cover-ups and lost careers]

National Review Online ^ | October 30, 2012 | Victor Hanson Davis

[Cincinatus' Wife]

We have had ambassadors murdered abroad before, but we have never seen anything quite like the tragic fate of Chris Stevens. Amid all the controversy over Libya, we have lost sight of the human

[Larousse2]

This segment on Hannity last might made me cry. Please share with others. Thanks!

Powerful Hannity Show - 10/29/12 - Father of SEAL Ty Woods killed in Libya demands truth from WH

[Cvengr]

Since 2 different flag ranked officers did the same thing 2 years apart, which is highly unusual and arguably unconstitutional, maybe they both had been directed by direct verbal order from the Commander-in-Chief to make those calls. If Obama asked NASA to develop a Muslim outreach, it would be more consistent that this notion of calling up Jones came from Obama.

It would also be consistent with the State Dept and UN Ambassador’s obsession with the video. Maybe they were placating a Hitleresque, maniacal commander.

[kabar]

There is no way they are doing this on their own. My problem is that they went along with it rather than drawing the line that it is not their job or place to contact private US citizens and ask them to curtail their Constitutional right of free speech for the good of the country or admonishing them that such free speech results in the death of American military personnel.

[Cvengr]

Conjecture using Occam’s Razor:

POTUS became a Hitleresque maniacal tyrant in the Situation Room, acting to kill 4 friendlies including an Ambassador, 4 star equivalent, and relieving another 4 star, when all had been told to ‘Stand down’, until he decided what to do, even though he wasn’t deciding.

All the others are simply responding in as professional method using their skill sets as they are able in face of such a maniacal authority, trying to manifest to him, their submission to his authority within their own volition.

Simplest solution is that there is only one madman involved. Until he is out of power, they might not consider it wise to act.

Remember, all of this went down before 10pm in DC and the ambassador’s body was found by midnight in DC, and being flown out by 0230 DC time. If he has a history of getting coked up, and he felt slighted by the actions of others in the binLaden situation, I suspect he reacted the same way he behaved in the 3rd debate in response to the 1st debate.

Look at his glare and commanding presence in the 3rd debate, and translate that to a situation room where he felt being adversarial was his forte amongst those requesting immediate action which he had been unprepared to comprehend.

This seems more plausible to me than 20 or so others providing their outlandish statements and coverups. Either it is conspiracy or they are responding to the situation unknown to all of us.

[archy]

What I know FOR SURE is that the big "stand down order" issue revolves around granting or withholding cross-border authority. Every SOF officer and ops officer all the way up has this drummed into his head.

I was always real bad at land navigation, sometimes getting lost miles from my intended position, even clear off my working map sheet.

And I wasn't the only one with that problem:

BENAVIDEZ, ROY P.
Rank and organization: Master Sergeant.
Organization: Detachment B-56, 5th Special Forces Group, Republic of Vietnam
Place and date: West of Loc Ninh on May 2, 1968
Entered service at: Houston, Texas June 1955
Born: August 5, 1935, DeWitt County, Cuero, Texas.

Citation:
Master Sergeant (then Staff Sergeant) Roy P. Benavidez United States Army, who distinguished himself by a series of daring and extremely valorous actions on 2 May 1968 while assigned to Detachment B56, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces, Republic of Vietnam. On the morning of 2 May 1968, a 12-man Special Forces Reconnaissance Team was inserted by helicopters in a dense jungle area west of Loc Ninh, Vietnam to gather intelligence information about confirmed large-scale enemy activity. This area was controlled and routinely patrolled by the North Vietnamese Army. ... .

[Indeed, he was inserted west of Loc Ninh...quite a bit west of there, in fact....]

Army Master Sgt. Roy P. Benavidez (center) is flanked by United States Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger (left) and President Ronald Reagan at his Medal of Honor presentation ceremony in 1981.

"If the story of his heroism were a movie script, you would not believe it. -- President Ronald Reagan, 24 February 1981, after having presented Roy P. Benavidez with his Medal of Honor.

[Travis McGee]

I can buy most of that as a plausible scenario, it still leads to the litmus question, yes or no, about granting or not granting CBA. “Standing down” etc are weasel words used by obfuscators.

Cross-border authority: yes or no, Mr. President? Did you grant it? When? To whom? I’m pretty sure they’d remember the moment very, very well.

Not sure about your timeline. When is the verified hour/minute in Behghazi when Ambassador Stevens’ remains were postitively back in U.S. hands?

That is critical. Did Obama go to bed while his ambassador was still missing, and presumed in the hands of AQ, prepping for his Danny Pearl star turn?

My understanding had been that it was broad daylight, well into morning, when the ambassador’s remains were positively back in U.S. hands.

Knowing the moment is not trivial. Did Obama go to bed with an ambassador MIA in AQ contry? A four-star-genearl of diplomats, our point man in North Africa? Obama’s own “Lawrence of Libya?”

“Somebody said they got a phone call said he was found” does not constitute the time the ambassador was back in U.S. custody, as the Obamite defenders might try as an obfuscation. He’s missing until he is known to be back in U.S. hands.

What time did Obama go to bed?
What time did we have the ambassador back?

[affan76]

The question still stands as to why did the muslim brotherhood assemble at the location of the ambassador. What was the purpose of the gathering? No issue that manpads were being gathered by the CIA and being shipped to Syria with the exception of a Jerusalem Post article yesterday saying the weapons were showing up on Israel’s border.

[piasa]

20 people were rescued at 2 am... the ambassador was still missing when the 20 were rescued I believe.

[Tainan]

"I didn't see any border signs out there."

[Travis McGee]

You could miss a jungle border pre-GPS, but it’s much harder to miss the coastline of Libya in 2012.

[piasa]

They didn't know where he was until they received calls from his cell phone as doctors there tried to call everyoe in it, so the story goes. [I still wonder if the hospital was Ansar al Shariah's HQ]

And since he was still not in US hands at that point, just getting phone calls from some Libyans isn't going to cut it.

[archy]

It's infuriating. Libya, as far as standing down the rescue, is 100% Obama's show, and nobody else's. Only he can grant CBA, not Biden, not Panetta, not Dempsey, not Hillary, and certainly not Ham in Germany.

It looks like they may be setting Ham up to take the fall for it though.

Any bets on how long until some lesbian jstaff or intel weenie down his chain of command screams about sexual harassment or rape? Or until Ham goes down in another of those General Officer plane crashes like Alamo-Girl wrote about so often back in the Clinton days....

[Jim Noble]

I am beginning to suspect that the attack on the “consulate” was a diversion to draw defenders away from the “Annex (CIA)”, and that the Annex was the real target. It may be that Stevens was collateral damage, and that he suffocated in the safe room more or less by accident.

They wanted something that was at the Annex, perhaps in the so-called “warehouse”, and they got it.

[archy]

You could miss a jungle border pre-GPS, but it’s much harder to miss the coastline of Libya in 2012.

Do not bet the farm that I wouldn't miss a major international boundary, either accidentally or on purpose. But it seems that I am not the only one with the problem, even in these GPS/LORAN days.

The SAS and PPA jeep raiders of WWII did awfully well in the Libyan desert using nothing more than a sun compass and an astrolabe. Which was, in fact, the emplem of Popski's Private Army, and the recognition marking on their jeeps.

[piasa]

The Libyan "special forces" Capt. al Obeidi said that it was AFTER he, his men and the 50 Marinesarrived and rescued the 20 people on scene - which according to another article was 2 AM Sept 12... - that the building that the ambassador was last known to be in came under, as he put it "an intense and highly accurate mortar barrage."

Which means that's probably when the seal-contractor was on the roof trying to paint the mortar emplacement.

I don't know diddly about this stuff but I'm the sort who likes the idea of having a gunship around to cover 50 fellow Americans, even if I didn't know a seal had dropped everything to come in to help too.

[archy]

"I didn't see any border signs out there."

How you fixed for dimes?

[piasa]

Good point, was wondering if they already had figured out the location of the CIA annex before they began the attack too after reading an article last night.

[piasa]

maybe these links will help if they are still there:

Barack Obama’s Terrorist Attack Cover-Up
American Thinker ^ | 9/29/2012 | Sara Goss
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/barack_obamas_terrorist_attack_cover-up.html

Libyan attacks said to be 2-part militant assault Sep 13, 2012 AP News
http://news.yahoo.com/libyan-attacks-said-2-part-militant-assault-153824468.html

US diplomats, Marine rescue team were also attacked at safe house, Libyans say Alistair McDonald Sept. 12,2012
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/12/13833848-us-diplomats-marine-rescue-team-were-also-attacked-at-safe-house-libyans-say?lite

[piasa]

US consulate attack in Benghazi ‘disrupted major intelligence operation’ (telegraph UK)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/9563831/US-consulate-attack-in-Benghazi-disrupted-major-intelligence-operation.html

[Cvengr]

NYT reported on 13Sept that the Ambassador’s body was found/located about dawn at the hospital, but had been brought in about 0100 and attempts made for 90 minutes to resuscitate without success.

FoxNews timeline video states the Tripoli Reaction team departed Benghazi airport with their 2nd flight out with all 4 dead aboard at 08:30am.

Conjecture: That means somebody was coordinating the Ambassador search at all the likely places in parallel to the rescue effort, and the Ambassador located probably by HumInt at the hospital, then probably with local assistance quickly brought to the airport and all left as soon as possible. When no support was being provided, I suspect those on the ground had every incentive to get the heck out of Dodge, and they had to have been assisted by locals.