Posted on 10/30/2012 5:02:52 PM PDT by kristinn
The attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi has become a political football in the presidential campaign, with all the grandstanding and misinformation that entails. But Fox News has raised some questions about the attack that deserve a clearer answer from the Obama administration.
Fox’s Jennifer Griffin reported Friday that CIA officers in Benghazi had been told to “stand down” when they wanted to deploy from their base at the annex to repel the attack on the consulate, about a mile away. Fox also reported that the CIA officers requested military support when the annex came under fire later that night but that their request had been denied.
The Benghazi tragedy was amplified by Charles Woods, the father of slain CIA contractor Tyrone Woods. He told Fox’s Sean Hannity that White House officials who didn’t authorize military strikes to save the embattled CIA annex were “cowards” and “are guilty of murdering my son.”
SNIP
Looking back, it may indeed have been wise not to bomb targets in Libya that night. Given the uproar in the Arab world, this might have been the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a burning fire. But the anguish of Woods’s father is understandable: His son’s life might have been saved by a more aggressive response. The Obama administration needs to level with the country about why it made its decisions.
A final, obvious point: The “fog of battle” that night was dense not just in Benghazi but in Cairo, Tunis and elsewhere. U.S. officials needed better intelligence. That’s the toughest problem to address, but the most important.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Isn't it true that the attack began about 2:00 PM Eastern? Why would the President be sleeping in the middle of the afternoon?
Whoops. Never mind.
Dear Secretary Clinton: if my neighbor’s house is on fire and the flames are two stories high, have I actually tried to help if I throw a cup of water on the fire? Sure, I can claim I tried, but is just doing something an attempt at a real solution? If, as I’ve read, there were 150 attackers armed with mortars, Rocket Propelled Grenades and heavy machine guns, what could be expected from the six Americans dispatched from Tripoli? Could they secure both sites? I mean “secure” in the military definition. My understanding is that one of those six was killed. Let me give you a piece of advice from an old Infantryman......hit your knees tonight and thank God that there weren’t more dead Americans. I personally think they let you off the hook. This was obviously just a raid.
The Post utterly fails to address the elephant in the room:
Why the flash mob YouTube video bullshtt that was floated for 14 days by the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, UN Secretary and Communications Director/Press Secretary?
Not to worry! I am sure the SSN (Selective Story News) will cover the tragedy of Tyrone Woods like they did Cindy Sheehan’s story.
I challenge every Freeper to write a letter to their local paper and demand they give as much ink to Benghazi as they did for Cindy and her code pinkers.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/10/30/Facebook-Censors-Navy-SEALS-To-Protect-Obama-on-Benghazi-Gate
Facebook Censors Navy SEALS to Protect Obama on Benghazi-Gate
I don’t know, maybe they are referring to Benghazi time? Stevens was missing for 7 or 8 hours... they “tortured him”, did he tell them where the CIA agents were located? See Obama....THEY TORTURED HIM! We can’t water board but....
I think this is why there was a delay from the consulate being hit and the annex. And I most definitely want to know if there are other Americans that are missing.
Just more spinning to try to cover for Obama. Attempting to suggest reasonable sounding theories for why the Administration made a tough call, but had to turn down the pleas for help instead of inciting the thugs - as if they need an excuse for their violent, obnoxious, insane behavior.
Not buying it for one second!
They could have taken them out with an armed drone.
Obama didn’t want to do it because he’d rather lose Americans than Muslims.
They were watching this live, as Charlene Lamb of the State Dept. testified. Remember that they were able to do so in Pakistan for the killing of bin Laden. No advance notice in the case of Libya, you say? We have been fighting the GWOT for 11 years. We had plenty of intel. We stood up AFRICOM to deal with these places. The Post is covering for Obama by claiming we had inadequate intel to enable Obama & Panetta to act.
They simply did not want a Black Hawk Down or Carter rescue debacle this close to the election. Remember, they said bin Laden was a gutsy call because of the political risk if the mission failed. Here, hundreds of people were shooting at us, not a couple of guys and a woman. Too much political risk for the narcissist running this country.
There was NO crowd.
There was NO crowd.
There was NO crowd.
I don’t have to make three posts that way:)
It sounds to me like they’re still covering for him. Now they’re sort of conceding that their hero didn’t do anything that he could have done, but they’re saying it was a wise decision - because it might have “inflamed” the Muslims. Like they weren’t “inflamed” already; they’re inflamed when they get out of bed in the morning.
And as for the risk, they could certainly have used one of the armed drones that Bambi is so fond of playing with. But that’s going to be the story - remember Panetta saying that he really didn’t know anything so he didn’t want to take any risk.
However, that said, the idea that there was no intelligence about it is preposterous. Obama might not have paid attention to it, but there were warnings from other sources weeks in advance, there had been several other earlier attacks on this same facility, and, of course, they were watching the actual attack live from several sources.
Sorry, that’s an excuse that won’t fly. However, the press gets credit for trying.
Niemand muss erwachen die Fuhrer
Poor choice of a word - crowd.
But there was a sizable number of attackers in the vicinity of the annex. Seems like there would be something unpleasant that could have been detonated to disperse them at the least.
Extremely disappointing, though, that he left out the most critical point in Griffin’s report: that Woods had laser painted the target that was firing on the CIA annex building and coordinates were being sent - something that makes no sense unless there WAS an armed drone available to lock in the coordinates.
Easy to say you don’t have enough information when you ignore a brightly-painted X right over the place that the grenades/enemy fire were coming from.
And why the HECK are we afraid of starting a sh!t-storm by defending our own ambassador and his crew in a country we supposedly just placed our ALLIES in power of - after getting the whole Muslim world to positively love us and ridding the world of terrorism? If our only way to keep peace with our FRIENDS is by letting their terrorist buddies kill all our people - at this point about the same number of people as have died as a result of the storm yesterday - then who needs enemies, anyway? We had the capability of dispersing that middle-of-the-night crowd; would it have been too “provocative” to disperse those innocent little victims who just happened to be taking a stroll at 4am when Woods was killed? But we only had the capability of dispersing the crowd if our assets were actually deployed to the area in order to be available if needed. That is standard protocol, but we didn’t even do that, to have the option of peacefully dispersing the crowd.
Obama claims that he immediately instructed that we try to find and bring justice to those responsible. Well.... Tyrone Woods put a big X right where the grenades were coming from, but Obama let those grenades kill Woods instead of doing anything to either stop those terrorists or bring them to justice. And 3 terrorists were captured by the people at the CIA annex - but SOMEBODY forced the Americans to release those terrorists. Who in that annex building had authority enough to override the (supposed) expressed orders of the POTUS?
Other facts claimed in this editorial don’t match the reporting that I’ve heard. For instance, how many times did Woods request permission to go help? I had heard it was the initial time and then again an hour later, and that he was refused both times and ended up defying orders and going anyway. So which is the truth? When are we going to see the communications that will prove what the truth was?
I’m not sure whether it is better for the media to ignore the issue, or to report falsely. Both options stink.
War er schläft oder stoned?
Obama was asleep at 4:55 pm when the report came that the outpost was under attack and the Ambassador’s whereabouts were unknown?
...oder mit Reggie vieleicht?
...in ihre Reggie? ;>
Stoned perhaps? Who knows? Or the timeline might be wrong, but I’m starting to believe he did go to bed early thinking it was no biggy and no one woke him up until after the fact. I know that sounds impossible but I’m beginning to think it true. Maybe V.J. blocked the info from him? I just don’t know...
I’m a little touchy on the word crowd because that was the false story that the Obama administration spun for two weeks.
Lead from a gunship or a rocket from a drone would be my idea of a dispersant.
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