Posted on 10/21/2012 5:08:29 AM PDT by Alas Babylon!
The Talk Shows
October 21st, 2012
Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:
FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; David Axelrod, adviser to President Barack Obama's re-election campaign; Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.
FACE THE NATION (CBS): Rubio; Stephanie Cutter, deputy campaign manager for the Obama campaign; Kevin Madden, adviser to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.
THIS WEEK (ABC): Rubio; Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Donna Edwards, D-Md.; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; former Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.; Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.; former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.
I remain to be convinced that the media wasn’t directly responsible for more of our military casualties than the VC, NVA and Red Army combined.
...and when you consider the civilian losses in SE Asia after ‘72, they make Mao look small time.
(Thanks, Marine. I was merely a swabbie, so it’s humbling to hear that.)
Problem is, the probable choice of aircraft for a job like this (transport of 50-100 troops + weapons) would be a C-17.
Haven't had direct experience with them, but most likely maximum cruise is 550-600 MPH, which puts that trip out to around an hour.
OTOH, any Navy ship in the area would likely have a detachment of Marines on board to get support there in that half hour time frame. Even if the skipper had to beach the ship and make the Jarheads walk.
Just
Like
They
Did
Viet Nam
.
.
no, I haven’t forgotten.....
Good point. Old Walter Kronkite sure pulled the wool over a lot of eyes on that
one.
Being an Nam Era Army Vet I remember it very clearly
I can’t believe it takes so long to get the truth about all this out,like pulling teeth.
Agree. They want to run out the clock, and find some lower level person to take the fall.
Regarding info , at least we have this site/each other to communicate.
I routinely refer people to info gained from the threads. They are amazed how
much they know before anyone in the MSM, and even Fox etc reports on it.
Thanks for your efforts in that regard.
Today’s Transcripts:
Fox News Sunday: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-news-sunday-chris-wallace/2012/10/21/senators-dick-durbin-lindsey-graham-debate-us-foreign-policy-middle-east
Meet The Press (NBC): http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49493360/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts/
Face the Nation (CBS): http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57536887/face-the-nation-transcripts-october-21-2012-sen-rubio-cutter-madden/?tag=showDoorFlexGridRight;flexGridModule
This Week (ABC): http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-mayor-rahm-emanuel-sen-marco-rubio/story?id=17512499
State of the Union (CNN): http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1210/21/sotu.01.html
Did you know that Mao and the communists are responsible for 50-100 million Chinese civilian deaths?
There first few years saw terrible famines due to the commies “redistributing” the food.
http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html
I stand corrected. I’m off by at least a couple orders of magnitude, since SE Asia losses probably were “only” a few million.
...still PO’s me, anyway.
I don’t think that a rapid response team would use a C-17. They have to have something that travels a lot faster than that.
Let me jump in on this to dispel some misunderstandings and maybe add something else useful. I do so, having spent a lot of years in the past in this business.
Unless armed military aircraft or forces were very close or immediately overhead at the time of the FLASH warning traffic of the attack, it is unlikely any could have been on the scene and ready to participate within 20 minutes.
On the other hand, an airborne armed drone which was close enough could have done it - and apparently did. Drones usually have a very long loiter time over station unless they are at the end of their mission.
There still would have been the difficult problems of identifying the friendlies, identifying the enemy, and getting clearance to engage the target.
There were apparently no combat air controllers or forward air controllers either on the ground or in the air. This would have complicated the problem of identifying friend/foe and getting permission to engage using deadly force. After all, the missiles on the drones are area weapons with a good chance of collateral damage to friendlies especially if their exact positions were not identified. From the State Department briefing, there was a lot of fluidity in the situation.
If there was a ship in the Gulf with prepped aircraft (likely helicopters) and a fast reaction force on board, they could have been in the engagement, likely within an hour or two depending on their location. If armed aircraft were on a quick reaction alert (either at sea or in Tripoli) they might have been airborne within 20 minutes and engaged quickly - providing they could positively identify the targets and if they had the proper ordnance on board to use. So far as I have heard, nothing has been revealed about what capabilities in Tripoli or closeby at sea or what status they were in.
Frankly, given the events of the day throughout the Middle East and the signal day it was, we should have had forces available and on alert both at the nearest military bases, like Sigonella on Sicily, as well as at sea and in Tripoli.
Sigonella is about 450 miles away. If a C-130 gunship were on a strip alert, with aircrew available and standing by, they could have been airborne within an hour (unless they were actually sitting in a cockpit alert status, which is unlikely, and then it would be less). It would then take them under three hours to be on station at Benghazi and ready to go.
Again, the problem would be identifying targets and friendlies in a fluid situation, and Benghazi is a rather major city and not a free fire zone.
If fighter aircraft were on strip alert at Sigonella, they could be airborne within 15 minutes and depending on the type, on station within an hour or two.
So, the best option would have been to have fast reaction combat teams in helicopters backed up by air support available, on a quick reaction alert, and either close at sea or in Tripoli where they could react to any place in the country. Backup C-130 gunships in Sigonella would have been very useful in the force mix.
Apparently this was not done, and the opportunity to do anything because of this was strictly ad hoc as illustrated by the long firefight without coordinated relief or support.
We are very lucky we didn't lose everybody in Benghazi instead of just those four we admitted we lost. It was a total political f*ck*p and we were unprepared.
The poster on the WSJ comment board said that there is a rapid response team stationed in Southern Italy. He said that it would take ten minutes to activate the team and 20 minutes flight time. They had pictures from the drone and knew exactly where and who every one was in real time. There was no problem identifying anyone. The attack was on-going for 6 hours. There was time to get some kind of defence going. They were watching the attack both from the drone and from cameras inside the compound. They knew everything there was to know in real time.
There was nothing in Tripoli. They had taken everything away. The ambassador had requested that they at least return one plane and they refused.
Hard to tell which would be used. But either way in a 6-8 hour battle sounds very doable.
I disagree, completely. Your social security monthly deductions are about 13% of your salary. That's all of your salary in a savings account every 8 years. In a 40 year working lifetime your actual deductions are 5 times your annual salary. With proper investing you could have a "millionaires pension". What you actually get is a millionaires savings, and a paupers pension.
Social Security is broke because it was squandered, not because there aren't enough taxes to cover it.
How many names on your ping list?
That is a speed of 1350 knots, almost twice the speed of sound. Most transport aircraft cruise at about 300-480 kts at altitude (a bit more in an emergency situation) depending on aircraft model. Helicopters cruise at considerably less. Once you get there, you have to find a suitable place to land and deploy - unless you are going to jump in, and then you have to have a suitable place to drop in to and a plan. Likely, the best plan in Benghazi would have been to land at the airport and deploy to the counsulate/annex in force from there.
There is little doubt, however, if the troops and transport were on alert and prepped they could have been in the area and in the fight in time to make a difference. Obviously, they weren't - so somebody, somewhere made the decision not to employ. The next questions are, "who" and "why"?
It's not like it was a secret at the time what was happening. All the applicable Command Centers in the Med and around the world would have been buzzing and especially as there was a drone on station watching live time. This would have been a top priority.
NO problem! Just doing what I can when I can. This is a grand group here. Lots of really good people including yourself.
Great analysis,sounds like you really know your stuff.
I’m guessing last night Lt. Col. Shaffer was referring to naval response with either planes or choppers. I don’t know and am not sure how far the ships would have been from N.Africa.
If there were ships in the Mediterranean Sea looks like Benghazi is is right on the coast. Looks like they may have been near enough to help out. But I don’t know what planes are available on what ships.
Thanks. That sounds about right. I don’t think we could have reacted quickly. Maybe, since it was a 6-8 hour firefight, had some force there at the tail end.
Doesn’t matter though. Without the political will to use them, any forces in the Med might as well be in PACOM.
We did not have the poilitical ill to defend our own, and the outcome was pre-written. Remember at that same time we had attacks in Cairo, Yemen and Sudan.
72. The list is also on my profile page.
Almost, no, we’re at 300!!!!
Somebody tell Ross!
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