BZ T-McG!!!Travis McGee, yours truly, was published in PJ Media today.
The title is “Benghazi’s Smoking Gun? Only the President can grant Cross-Border Authority.”
I posted the article on this thread above. The editors at PJ Media chose to focus exclusively on the CBA issue, which is fine with me, it’s their website and I’m glad to be on it, to get the word out about CBA.
However, here is the rest of the essay, as I originally submitted it to them:
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General Petraeus, however, has indirectly blown the whistle. He was probably “used” in some way early in the cover-up with the purported CIA intel link to the Mohammed video, and now he feels burned. So he conclusively said via his public affairs officer that the stand-down order did not come from the CIA. Well — what outranks the CIA? Only the national security team at the White House. That means President Obama, and nobody else. Petraeus is naming Obama without naming him. If that is not quite as courageous as blowing a whistle, it is far better than the disgraceful behavior of Panetta and Dempsey.
But in any event, Ambassador Stevens going to unsecure Benghazi on 9-11 of all days stinks to me of a setup. The ribbon cutting at the new Benghazi school cover story is laughably lame. You can bet that given his own input in the matter, Stevens would have told the Turks, “No, 9-11 is not a good day for us,” and stayed in Tripoli behind many high and thick walls. For him to go to hyper-dangerous Benghazi on 9-11 means the Turks insisted on that day, but why would they care about the meeting date, unless they were in on an assassination plan as the Judas goat?
Alternatively, the order for Ambassador Stevens to meet the Turks in Benghazi on 9-11 might have come down our own U.S. chain of command. Stevens seems to have been wearing two hats as ambassador and CIA arms shipper. His job involved moving between the far more secure embassy complex in Tripoli, the Benghazi “consulate,” and the CIA “annex.” So his orders might have come down either State Department or the CIA channels. I am unclear on his job title and true position, but either the CIA or State sent him his final instructions, and copies of those orders still exist, to be discovered on computer hard drives by future historians.
Ambassador Stevens meeting the Turks at the unsecure Benghazi “consulate” on 9-11 screams out to me of a deliberate setup. The Turkish “diplomats” (or arms shipment middlemen) left the meeting after dark and perhaps flashed their headlights to the Al Qaeda attack team commanders lurking in shadows. A coded text, a word on a phone, meaning, “The Amriki ambassador is there, with minimal security—proceed with the attack plan.” But that is pure speculation on my part. (The smoking gun clue will be the official CIA or State Department message ordering him to Benghazi on 9-11, perhaps using the preposterous “school opening” as a cover story for his later meeting with the Turks.)
I leave that for future investigators and historians. What I know for certain is that the rescue mission stand-down issue revolves around granting or withholding cross-border authority. And that sword of authority belongs 100 percent to President Obama. No weasel words or smokescreens should be allowed to cloud that very basic truth.
President Obama owns cross-border authority, so he owns the failure to rescue the American heroes who were fighting for their lives in Benghazi for seven hours. More than a hundred gung-ho Force Recon Marines were waiting on the tarmac in Sigonella just two hours away for the launch order that never came.
Semper Fidelis, President Obama?
The problem with this issue is that the water has become so muddied with peripherals (ranging from stupid YouTube videos to who was informed when through what sort of medium) that no one can establish a clear focus of blame unless they follow everything that’s been put out there.
The beauty of your piece (either version, IMHO) is that it breaks the issue down to the nut:
1) guys we’re dying, and asking for help
2) the only one who could help them (by issuing a CBA) was the POTUS
3) he didn’t.
End of story, end of case against the bucket-of-manure in charge.
big bump
In my mind they are two separate commands, since the stand down order was given to potential rescuers inside Libya.
Was the order to stand down an effort to save additional lives by thwarting a rescue attempt that would ultimately never see air support? If that's the case, wouldn't the order to stand down include mention that no CBA was given?
Petraeus blew whatever credibility he had when he threw in with this filthy soetoro crowd of islamists and communists.
I do have a few question though. Why did Ambassador Stevens allow himself to be caught in Benghanzi on 9/11? He, by his own words, knew it was Al Qaeda infested. It was his job not to make a splash, because that is undiplomatic, to create splashes. Yet, he and three fellow Americans are dead at Al Qaeda’s hands on 9/11. What was so damned important that he could not or was not allowed to say “NO”. I cannot think of anything, not a thing that was that important.
Three sentences moved me in your essay:
1. And like the former SEALs in Benghazi, General Ham and all of the troops under him would have been straining forward in their harnesses, ready to go into battle to save American lives.
2 and 3. President Obama owns cross-border authority, so he owns the failure to rescue the American heroes who were fighting for their lives in Benghazi for seven hours. More than a hundred gung-ho Force Recon Marines were waiting on the tarmac in Sigonella just two hours away for the launch order that never came.
It is infuriating, heart breaking and tragic that President Barack Hussein Obama broke faith with our Military, CIA and State Department. It is beyond tragic that MSM is complicit with President Barack Hussein Obama and his bad faith.
The absolute LAST thing you want to face as an enemy is Force Recon Marines. Having been support staff for them, you don’t get in their way when they are on a mission.
Many years ago, I was a young Marine when I met up with Force Recon. USS Princeton was their jumping off point. We were involved in a giant 85-ship, 7-nation SEATO maneuver off the coast of Formosa (Taiwan). This was Princeton’s first deployment as an Amphibious Assault Ship(LPH-5).
Anyway, one team of Force Recon Marines had a mission to blow up a bridge and set up a radio station. All of a sudden, a young 1st Lt. runs into AirOps to tell the Air Boss that the four Marines were lost. Nobody thought much of it, until the ist Lt. said: “You don’t understand. They have a mission to blow up a bridge and to set up a radio station. And they don’t care where the bridge is.”
Considering that we were operating between Formosa and Red China, it took about two seconds for the Lt.’s statement to sink in. Sixty ships pulled out of maneuvers to find the lost Marines. They were found on an island three days later. They said their radio had been smashed on the rocks and explosives had been placed.
BZ T-McG!!!Sent to my mailing list! Thanks for your great service to your cuontry, in the past and especially now!
Hi Travis,
I was so stunned by this article that I just sat down and cried my eyes out for a couple of hours.
I have a lot of family who were formerly military of some sort (an AF ace and a Naval Commander), so the military is very special to me.
I couldn’t help but wonder how the 100 Marines felt when they were not allowed to do the mission .. and I also wondered it they were concerned if Obama would treat them the same and abandon them in their time of need too ..??
No one should waste ONE vote on such a cowardly president.
BTTT