No, I disagree. No “mumbling answers” or “see the political side” can give him wiggle room. CBA is a total yes/no pass/fail litmus test.
The key is the 5pm DC-time oval office meeting with Panetta and Biden. “Do all that you can” is not enough. Panetta would return with, “So, you are granting the military cross-border authority to conduct the rescue mission?”
It’s a yes-no question on CBA. Did he give it, or not? It’s a scepter of authority that POTUS carries, nobody else.
Panetta would not be told, “Check with my politicos.” I call BS on that. Panetta is too cagey to be left holding the bag with ambiguous orders. He would not walk out of the Oval Office with explicit instructions, explicity granting or not granting CBA.
And there is a record of it, believe me. These guys go everywhere with aides and coat holders. At the very least formal level, Panetta, to protect himself, walks out of the Oval Office and tells his aides and the generals flocking to him for instructions, “The President has granted you cross-border authority. Save our consulate. God speed, gentlemen.”
It’s a totally historic moment, this waving of the CBA scepter. There is NO ambiguity about it. It is given, or withheld. No middle ground.
The POTUS doesn’t want a jacked-up jet jockey in hot pursuit, (or a lost SEAL Team squad in a rubber boat), to start WW3 by accident. Crossing an international border with a military force, without permission of the nation invaded, is ONLY up to the POTUS and nobody else.
Always, and every time. This is the one crystal-clear issue in this mess.
Typo
“He would not walk out of the Oval Office with explicit instructions, explicity granting or not granting CBA.”
Should read
“He would not walk out of the Oval Office withOUT explicit instructions, explicity granting or not granting CBA.”
Yes Sir.