Posted on 09/20/2012 10:14:48 AM PDT by barryobi
Though Libya's deputy interior minister described the locating of the safe house as a "critical security breach," the attack may not have been planned for long in advance. The assailants would have had some hours to follow the fleeing Americans and set up an ambush after the consulate attack. "It began to rain down on us," Obeidi said just as the rescue force was preparing to leave. "About six mortars fell directly on the path to the villa," he said. One American fell wounded by him. A mortar struck the building itself, throwing from the roof another American posted there onto the men below. "I was being bombarded by calls from all over the country by Libyan government officials who wanted me to hurry and get them out," he said. "But ... I needed more men and more cars." Two Americans, including one of the eight security personnel sent from Tripoli, were killed and several wounded.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
It is not that there was totally inadequate security to protect him, with only 9 UNARMED locals guarding the perimeter of the consulate.
It is not that the armed Libyan guards from the February 17 brigade who were inside the compound fled when the fighting stopped.
It is not that there was not even enough US security presence at the consulate to find and extract Sean Smith and Ambassador Stevens once the attack began.
It is not the fact that security at the consulate was not increased even though it had been bombed by Al Qaeda on June 6th and the Ambassador told others he was on an Al Qaeda hit list.
THE REAL SCANDAL, which confirms all the appalling lack of competence illustrated above is this. When the terrified consulate employees called the Embassy in Tripoli and reported they were being attacked by jihadi's with automatic weapons, mortars, and RPG's, the only assistance the Embassy could provide was EIGHT CIVILIAN security contractors to go rescue them.
Let that sink in folks.....The vaunted US military was not in position to send ONE plane, armed drone, special forces squadron, marine, army, air force, or navy personnel to help our people in Benghazi. Instead, we sent a 'force' of EIGHT people to do battle with 100's of heavily armed jihadi's. That is the real scandal and tells you everything you need to know about the competence of the Administration to protect its people in harms way.
Oh yeah, notice one of the ex-SEALS killed was part of the rescue group, bet you did not hear that anywhere either.
correction, should be the ‘fighting started’ , not stopped
"This much is clear" - and the article proceeds to guess at what was going through 'protestors' minds- a sympathetic assumption, of course.
The part about bullets flying and fires starting as if anyone could be responsible is a knee slapper too.
What complete trash this article is.
God, please help me to endure this until “We Your People” have an opportunity to sent this Obamanation packing.
The article was posted immediately after the attack and had a lot of CYA statements by the libyans there. The salient point if the part about the rescue mission from Tripoli and the fact all our gov’t could muster up in Tripoli to helicopter to Benghazi were EIGHT private contractors.
Its important to remember you will never get the complete truth from Reuters.
“Libya's highest politician says the United States government was warned about a pending attack on its diplomatic staff three days before it took place.
Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif says his government received word of the pending attack and passed that information to US diplomatic officials no later than 48 hours before the attack.”
____________________________________________________________
I have not ‘read’ when the Ambassador went to Benghazi, but the Libyan president said we were warned three days before the attack.
The sick twisted part is our president sent out mouthpieces after the fact, to flat out lie that this was a spontaneous reaction to some ‘14 minute video’.
And today we find out that the story of the protest about the film was Obama and Hillary’s lie to cover up their gross incompetence. They should be frog-marched into a Congressional hearing to explain this craven lying to the American people.
Hell, these two have apologized to every tin-horn country on the planet. The very least they could do is apologize to the American people for there dereliction of duty.
Report: Never an Anti-American Protest in Benghazi, Only a Planned Attack (CBS Video Report)
Did that title get changed?
To think that this was one of the first articles written on this subject - that they would be able to put together a timeline of such details. That being said, it sounds as if the powers that be in charge in Libya are not too critical about the average Joe Libyan protester shoouting rifles in the air - which some may argue escalated a vocal revolt for the Prophet into a Black Hawk Down moment. I wonder how far the enraged leftist US protesters will take things if Obama is voted out of office? Good thing new leadership is likely to control Homeland Security (and their billions of bullets) soon.
I disagree with your issues that you brought up:
a) the administration has lied from the start about the incident.
b) totally inadequate security to protect ...
c) the armed Libyan guards.. who were inside the compound fled ..
d) not even enough US security presence at the consulate ..
e) that security at the consulate was not increased even though it had been bombed ..
f) the only assistance the Embassy could provide was EIGHT CIVILIAN security contractors to go rescue them.
No sir ! That is NOT the scandal, to my mind.
It is the admitted fact that while our embassy and staff were under armed attack , the COMMANDER-In-CHIEF chose to go to SLEEP !
then he lied
then the media matters spin and issued talking points to the main stream media (false story)
then the main stream media spued the spin to the public (false story)
then the ambassador to the UN repeated (the false story) on TV network appearances .
The real scandal is that the commander-in-chief needed to sleep so that he would be alert for fund raising while America and its’ representatives were under attack.
Well, you also have a point. My point is this was a failure on so many levels that to me it rises to the point of criminal negligence on the part of whomever was responsible for making sure we had adequate security in Libya. That chain of responsibility goes from Hillary to Obama, they both are culpable for the deaths of these four and should be punished accordingly. Voting Obama out of office is not sufficient imho.
Oy.
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