What Benghazi Truly Represents

THINGS I KNOW

1. On Sept. 11, 2012, the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attacked by a force armed with RPGs, machine guns and mortars. Initially, spokesmen for the White House said the attack was an “opportunistic result of earlier protests outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo” concerning an internet film, which Islamists claim defamed the Prophet Muhammad.

2. Even in a part of the world where heavy weapons are commonplace, the attack was both coordinated and a sustained night-long siege of the consulate, casting doubts as to its spontaneity.

3. As the attack on the consulate commenced, an urgent request for military back-up went out from the ambassador, and others on the ground in Benghazi, but none arrived in time.

4. Four Americans, including the ambassador, were killed during the assault, which breached the consulate’s perimeter defenses.

5. As the consulate was attacked, the chain of command from the Departments of State and Defense, the C.I.A., the National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and, eventually, President Obama were made aware of it.


THINGS I BELIEVE

1. Since the 1979 Iranian Embassy attack, and subsequent hostage crisis, plans have been in effect in the event of just such an attack.

2. Military assets “should” have been both immediately available and self contained in order to overwhelmingly repel just such an assault, with little or no assistance from indigenous forces.

3. Since senior intelligence officials have now stated, “within 25 minutes of the compound coming under attack the C.I.A. rushed security operatives to the area, but were delayed while attempting to secure heavy weapons, transportation and an armed escort”, whomever is responsible for this type of mission and the security of that consulate should be publicly pilloried and fired immediately for gross incompetence.

4. No one, including President Obama, specifically refused to send military aid to the compound that might have arrived in time to save the four Americans killed in the attack, but rather, that the response, or lack thereof, was more an institutional breakdown brought on by some misguided sense that our support for the Arab Spring in general, and the overthrow of Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi specifically, assured the security of our Middle East embassies/consulates.


Okay, so presupposing that anyone reading this agrees with my summation and observations, what does it all mean? It is my belief that the current administration has always been ready and, indeed willing, to kill Islamic terrorists anywhere and anytime they can be killed. One need not reference the SEALs death dealing to Osama bin Laden, but should instead look to the death of American born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, by C.I.A. led Predator drone strike in Yemen earlier this year. Killing al-Awlaki had potentially serious political complications for the President and his party, while killing bin Laden obviously had none. Once it was determined that al-Awlaki had become an integral player in the Yemeni affiliate of Al Qaeda and that he was planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans, the president did not hesitate to place him on the “kill or capture” list. That doesn’t impress me as someone who would balk at raining hell down on a force attacking an American embassy.

That only seems to bolster the point I made in point 4 of THINGS I BELIEVE. Had there been a Spooky II gunship, (Puff the Magic Dragon to you old timers), nearby I believe we would have seen pink mist aplenty in that consulate compound as 25mm rounds rained down from the GAU-12, 5 barreled, rotary cannon, while the Bofors 40mm auto-cannon and the M102 105mm howitzer punched big holes into any fortified, enemy positions. I just don’t think anyone in the political side of the chain of command believed there was any threat. All the reports, including those made by “senior intelligence officials” earlier today, cite the need for assistance from Libyan forces and/or the distance from Benghazi of any Special Operations-type forces who could have put down the terrorist assault.

CBS News is reporting that the CSG (Counter-terrorism Security Group) was not even convened during the attack on the Benghazi consulate. The CSG is tasked with knowing what counter-terrorism resources are available, where they are and has the authority to coordinate these assets across all agencies. Since CBS is in no way an active arm of the Republican Party, as is often claimed of Fox News, we probably can all agree that there is something to the report. Why then was the CSG not convened? It can only be that a) the attack wasn’t seen as particularly noteworthy, b) the sophistication of the attack wasn’t recognized or c) no one gave a shit about the Americans or the consulate.

I’ve already stated I don’t believe c) is a reasonable answer, and a) seems somewhat of a stretch too, especially once the urgent requests for assistance began making their way to the top of the political food chain. That, to me, leaves b) as the most likely reason why the consulate was destroyed and 4 Americans were killed. Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed in a mortar attack at least 6 hours after the initial attack on the embassy. As an 11-C type infantryman, I can attest that plotting mortar targets takes time and requires calculations, map skills and knowledge of trajectory. No report I have read thus far makes note of the “lucky shot” by the terrorists which killed Woods and Doherty. It appears that once the mortar attack commenced that they enemy mortar men put their rounds on target. That means they had to have been plotted on a map and probably paced off for accuracy at some earlier time. Doesn’t sound very “opportunistic” to me.

All this leads me to something I have always believed; a lack of executive experience is a crushing blow for anyone wishing to occupy the White House as Commander-in-Chief. The arrogance necessary to believe you should be the President of the United States has to be tempered by the knowledge that some things, especially military things, have to be managed by those who wear the uniform and only over seen by their civilian masters. I am fairly certain that had AFRICOM’s commanding officer been made aware of the security lapses in Benghazi, which were detailed in emails that predate the Benghazi attacks by weeks, then the consulate’s defenses would have been beefed up to ensure if not its impregnability, than at least its defensibility. Whether that meant additional security forces on site, assets like Spooky and/or QRTs (Quick Response Teams) manned by counter-terrorism experts such as Delta Force, hardened architectural defenses or some combination of them all is something we will never know.

I’m not now, nor have I ever been one of the vitriolic Obama haters that have appeared all too regularly. I detested that amongst the liberals when it was directed at “W” and I don’t like it any better when it comes from my side of the political aisle. I have applauded the president when I believed him to be right and purposely made a point to pen a piece congratulating him for his historic victory. Furthermore, his little girls seem to like him a great deal. That alone is no small feat, as any father of female progeny can attest. I just don’t believe President Obama has ever been prepared for the scope of the job responsibilities and his arrogance has only made that worse. He has behaved from the start as if he were only the president of those by whom he was elected and the rest of us are mere dolts too moronic to recognize how visionary he is. The “seas parting” line from his acceptance speech assured me that he saw himself as visionary from Day 1, and the battle over Obamacare solidified it.

Does all this mean I hold President Obama personally responsible for the deaths of 4 brave American patriots who saw public service as a calling? No. Does it mean I see President Obama as an evil man? Again the answer is no. What I do see though is a man who had four years to learn multiple lessons, but was too concerned with his lasting liberal legacy to give a damn. At the much publicized memorial service at Andrews Air Force Base, the father of one of the SEALs killed in the attack compared the President’s handshake to that of a dead fish and his apology as “totally insincere” and without eye contact. That is NOT the comportment I expect from the President of the United States.

When I was an 18 year old infantryman, I was drinking a cup of coffee in the field one morning with my then grizzled, 35 year old 1st Sgt. We were discussing combat and the respective responsibilities. 1st Sgt Gates said something to me than that I have never forgotten. He told me, “The only true responsibility your country has to you is to not waste your life needlessly and to make sure we bring you home if you die in battle.” It seems to me that the first of those responsibilities was not met, when it comes to those killed in the Benghazi attacks and, as Harry Truman so eloquently said, The Buck Stops Here, when it comes to the presidency. I am sure President Obama was saddened by their deaths, but that does not absolve him of the Buck Stopping with him. I didn’t vote for him last time and I won’t this time either, but even though I hope he is not re-elected I truly wish him well, just not as my president any longer.