For goodness sakes, focusing on such trivialities as the model of LAD on one guy's rifle! Straining gnats, while ignoring the elephants in the room.
Benghazi's Smoking Gun: Only President Can Grant Cross-Border Authority (PJMedia link)
Posted on 11/04/2012 4:34:00 AM PST by maggief
Sources who have debriefed the team that was at the CIA annex the night of the attack in Benghazi say that the CIA operators from the Global Response Staff, or GRS, were equipped with Mark 48 machine guns and had two types of laser capability. Each weapon had both a “passive” as well as a “visible” laser that could be used against the Libyan attackers.
Fox News has learned the guns were fitted with PEQ-15 lasers. The “passive” laser is not visible to the naked eye but can help team members identify hostile forces when the shooter is wearing NODS, or Night Observation Device attached to their helmet. The visible laser system places a red dot on the attacker and warns the attacker not to shoot, encouraging them to flee the scene. US troops often use the visible laser to scare children or other civilians who find themselves in the middle of combat activity. When civilians see the laser they often back off in order not to be shot.
The GRS team that was present at the CIA annex provided security for the CIA station, as they do around the world. They are highly trained in countersurveillance, close target reconnaissance and in depth reconnaissance. Enemy fighters have learned in Afghanistan and Iraq to use their cell phones to follow or intercept these “passive” lasers without having night vision or NODS.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Libya Attack Shows Pentagon’s Limits in Region
EXCERPT
On the day of the attacks on the mission and a nearby annex in Benghazi, General Ham and other commanders were in Washington for a series of long-planned meetings. The Pentagon’s national military command center distributed a report around 4:30 p.m., 50 minutes after the assault started, that there had been violence in Benghazi and that the ambassador could not be located.
President Obama was informed about the attack at 5 p.m. by his national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, at the start of a meeting at the White House with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Libya was not the only worry. There were also protests at the United States’ embassies in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen.
In the meeting, Mr. Obama ordered the Pentagon to begin “mobilizing all available military assets to respond to a range of contingencies in Libya and other countries in the region,” said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
But the administration was not well positioned to respond quickly. On the night of the attack, the Pentagon was able to divert an unarmed Predator drone operating 90 miles away to Benghazi, and the C.I.A. later used it to help plan an escape route for the surviving Americans.
Two military officers working at the embassy in Tripoli volunteered to join C.I.A. reinforcements who arrived in Benghazi early the next morning, just before a series of deadly mortar rounds struck the agency’s annex in Benghazi and killed two C.I.A. security contractors.
But other military forces were too far away or could not be mobilized in time. The closest AC-130 gunship, a devastating and accurate weapon against insurgents in urban areas, was in Afghanistan, a senior official said.
There are no armed drones within range of Libya. The closest fly out of Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, and were not in range of Benghazi. There was no Marine expeditionary unit — a large seaborne force with its own helicopters — in the Mediterranean Sea. American F-16 fighters in Europe were not on alert, and General Ham concluded they would not have been useful in a confused fight in a major Arab city.
For goodness sakes, focusing on such trivialities as the model of LAD on one guy's rifle! Straining gnats, while ignoring the elephants in the room.
Benghazi's Smoking Gun: Only President Can Grant Cross-Border Authority (PJMedia link)
but i found this the most mind blowing statement from the government:
According to military sources, Libyan authorities have not given the US military permission to fly armed drones over populated areas like Benghazi.
Huh? we need permission to park military assets overhead to protect our people in Libya? Libya?
Incompetence and dereliction of duty no know bounds apparently
———to use their cell phones to follow or intercept these “passive” lasers -——
I do not understand this concept. How does a cell phone intercept a laser?
the cell phone camera can see the infared laser, thats what the red stuff is you see before you take the picture.
A meeting for the lap dogs only in which they are told what to report
in which they explain that at 5:15 a.m. (7 hrs and 28 minutes after the attack on the consulate began) five mortars are fired at the annex, three of them striking the roof and killing Woods and Doherty. The US military says that two unarmed Predators were overhead Benghazi that night and providing one stream of video back to Washington beginning at 11:11 p.m. (1 hr and 24 minutes) after the attack began.
Which is it? There were drones there were not any drones.
Ping
NYT:
“There will have to be a reassessment of the priorities and resources for Africom, given the responsibilities it has in one of the most volatile regions of the world,” said Jack Keane, the retired general who served as the Army vice chief of staff. “And certainly a quick response force, with air and ground capabilities, has to be an important part of those resources.”
Africom has no quick-reaction force?
If you are taking a picture or video with your “smart phone” or other camera that has an LCD viewfinder, the CCD lens of the device is sensitive to the invisible infrared light and the laser beam from the otherwise “invisible to the naked eye” designator will show up plain as day on the LCD viewfinder.
Look through your digital camera at the business end of your TV remote for a practical demonstration of what’s being described by these references to enemy combatants using cameras.
So let me get this right, it’s Not the commander in chief, it’s YouTube videos and cell phones? “Come on man!
Ahh..... I’ll try it
Thanks
This is utter nonsense, another deflection and smokescreen.
The best-trained and most capable group in the theater is designated the QRF. If the emergency was in Benghazi, that QRF would go. My best understanding at this time is that group was a USMC Force Recon company, and they were moved to Sigonella to be closer to Benghazi if a military rescue was ordered.
No military rescue was ordered. Obama did not have to "stand them down," all he had to do was passively NOT give cross-border authority.
Former SEAL: Obama Never Gave ‘Cross-Border Authority’ Orders (Breitbart link)
That, in a nutshell, tells you everything you need to know about the people responsible for this incident.
More spin. If this is true, this could’ve been said on September 12th. Why was it not? It took them this long to cook up a plausible story. But, what about Sigonella? This still does not hold water. They want us to think that the US military is that ill-prepared? We only have one C-130 gunship? Come on! This stretches credibility.
This is at least the second time Team Kenya has locked FNC out of a Libya briefing. What a despicable bunch they are.
Once again, Fox News gets excluded from a regime briefing. This is outrageous! Lots of questions to ask from this report..but here is one:
“According to military sources, Libyan authorities have not given the US military permission to fly armed drones over populated areas like Benghazi. However, for some time the unmanned aerial drones that have been watching Libya’s chemical weapons sites did have permission to be armed.”
If we know where the chemical weapons are...why haven’t we secured or removed them yet? That is crazy!
More dereliction of duty and/or treason IMHO.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.