And a professional dumb@$$....
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Posted on 10/29/2012 4:17:22 PM PDT by Libloather
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Everything I have read and seen so far on Benghazi is still confirming my initial thinking on the matter, going way back to my days as a NavSpecWar officer who took a SEAL det to Beirut a long time ago.
Once the alarm is sent from Benghazi, dozens of HQs are notified and are in the loop in real time, including AFRICOM and EURCOM, both located in Germany.
Without waiting for orders, they begin planning and executing rescue operations, including getting air support over Benghazi ASAP. But one thing they CANNOT DO without explicit orders from the POTUS is cross an international border. That is the big “red line.”
All POTUS has to do is NOT grant cross-border authority, and the entire rescue (already in progress) must stop in its tracks. Ships can loiter on station, but planes fall out of the sky, so they must be redirected to an air base (Sigonella Sicily) to await the POTUS decision on granting CBA. If it never comes, the men in Behghazi must rely only on assets already “in country” in Libya, such as the Tripoli QRF and the Predators.
(And possibly AC-130s that might already have been in Libya: they were last year, but their location on 9-11-2012 is unknown. If they were “in country” but were prevented from firing, that is another situation.)
So if at the 5 pm DC-time meeting with Panetta and Biden, Obama said, “No outside military action,” meaning no CBA will be granted, then THAT IS IT. Case closed.
That constitutes “standing orders” all the way down the chain of command via Panetta and Dempsey to Ham and the subordinate commands trying to rescue the men in Benghazi.
If Obama then goes upstairs to the family quarters to watch TV or sleep, or otherwise makes himself “unavailable,” then his last standing orders will stand until he changes them, even if he goes to sleep until the morning of 9-12.
Nobody in the chain of command below him can countermand his “standing orders” not to send military forces from outside of Libya into Libyan air space.
Nobody.
Personally, I think he left “no outside miltary intervention, no cross-border authority” standing orders, and then he went to bed. Damn him to hell.
(And to me, the most damning aspect of all is that Obama went to bed while his Ambassador was still missing and presumed kidnapped by Al Queda. Ambassador Stevens might have been on a Youtube video pleading for his life, ready to get the Nick Berg/Danny Pearl “intro to jihad” treatment, and Obama WENT TO BED to rest up for his much more important fund raiser in Las Vegas!)
Treason is a very serious charge.
The first is the Valerie Plame 'outing' as an inactive CIA agent that over the 2003-2007. This had months of incessant and almost continuous media coverage on all news outlets. Numerous editorial pieces, demands for administration resignations and similar expressions of opposition outrage were almost continuous into the 2006-07 time frames. While there were no deaths nor monetary damages, VP Cheney's Chief of Staff 'Scooter' Libby was, in 2007, sentenced to 30 months in prison, a fine of US$250,000, and two years of supervised release after his prison term. After the sentence, President Bush (43) commuted the prison time but left the rest in place.
Now compare this Benghazi FUBAR with 4 deaths including the first Ambassador to be killed by violence in 30+ years. This affair involves a lot of obfuscation and confusion on the part of the current Administration at the highest levels. Of course this is only 6 weeks in the past and there is a 'on-going investigation' that promises a preliminary finding AFTER the coming general election.
However comparisons between these two situations do not support Mr Bookman's thesis. By most objective standards, the Plame was a small scandal made big by incessant media attention to the point of having a press encampment at Mr Libby's home. In comparison, the coverage of this Benghazi scandal, is being marked by non-coverage by the majority of the media. I wonder why the difference?
Does ANYBODY think that ANYONE will be accused of a crime here let alone be convicted? I mean other than the two area military commanders who have been recalled just recently?
I think he told Hillary to get Libya approval / involvement and left it at that.
Somewhere I recall she tried and was denied.
He wanted them to take all the responsibility, and never gave the military a go order.
This , to me, is the only reason they could say “ stand down”
“Now why do you think that is?”
That is because he is running for president on his own merits. Others are doing a fine job if destroying his opponent’s alleged merits - total failure to defend Americans when needed being an obvious issue now.
If the Republicans win the election they will still be republicans. Benghazigate will go dark and never be spoken of again.
If the Republicans let this pass by, then they truly are fools. This can be the absolute death of the Democrat party. Obama has been caught doing everything the Democrats have been accusing the Republicans of for the past 40 years. Benghazi opens the door to let everyone see what a bunch of childish hypocrites they are. The Republicans could control everything for the next 20 years.
Mr Bookman, Ambassador Chris Stevens wasn’t the only one who could have been saved had the American people got what is expected out of the White House Situation Room.
Why did they fail, Mr Bookman?
Liberals oughtta know about ginning up hysteria. They wrote the book on it.
Because he hasn't needed to...
Honest media, and the hysterics of leftist pundits to preempt the accusation, are having the necessary effect without opening him to criticism.
That would explain why the AJC is often called the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation.
Because the administration running guns to America's enemies is so preposterous?
Is this jackass serious?
Think about the cover story, about the video, and how obvious it is that the administration had zero reason to believe that lie. Think....
Now, do you get what he did to us, and our standing in the world?
In other news : Left wing ignorance knows no bounds!
Where is the gag alert?
If this had happened under BUSH, boy oh boy.
I've seen this repeated in the liberal media and liberal reporters including Geraldo Rivera on Bill O'Reilly who complain that it's Mitt's job to expose this-not his. He was waiting for the government to do it's assessment. Even Bill couldn't swallow that one.
Won’t happen. Democrats do stuff like that. Republicans don’t. Republicans seem to feel that the Democrats are the “natural” ruling group in this society and Republicans only exist to sort put Democrat programs on sounder financial footings or to save the country’s bacon when the Democrats get all screwed up in foreign policy. The Republican Party sees that it has to take managerial control of the economy to try to make Obamacare work better without sinking the economy and the nation altogether. Can’t be done but Republicans mostly don’t see that.
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