I write
books. They are mostly mystery / thrillers with a healthy dose of political intrigue thrown in for good measure. I get a lot of enjoyment in spinning a tangled web of lies and deceit, but lately it seems that my fiction is taking a back seat to real life.
In the latest installment of:
‘What did I do to piss you off this time?’ I think it is time we re-visit the
whole ‘Benghazi Thing.’ I say this, because there are some people who still just
don’t get it.
I read a post on Benghazi that
went something like this: “
I would love a debate about policy. Or we could say
just vote democratic because of the thirty embassy attacks when Bush was
president and the hundreds that died.”
<Squinting> Huh? Are You
F’ing serious?
You see, this is the bullshit they do. They, as in the poorly
uninformed, have learned it from the politicians and pundits. Don’t argue the actual
point, just change the narrative. As if the attack on Benghazi was just another terror attack, or the lives lost
were somehow the same as the ones killed
in other attacks.
Here is a newsflash: The Benghazi
attack was a completely different animal because, when the attack occurred, the
government failed them and then lied to us.
I read a CNN article the other
day which said: “
House Republicans capped
a partisan, two-year investigation of the Benghazi terror attacks Tuesday with
a report that faults the Obama administration for security lapses that led to
the deaths of four Americans, but contains no revelations likely to further
damage Hillary Clinton.”
Let that sink in for a moment.
No revelations likely to further damage Hillary Clinton?
As opposed to all the other stuff
that has damaged her, but yet we
somehow still want to believe she is capable of being President.
Fine, whatever, here’s another
glass of Kool-Aid, drink up.
And why exactly was this ever
partisan to begin with?
Investigations, especially ones
dealing with a terror attack in which an Ambassador and CIA contractors are
killed, should never be partisan, they should always be a search for the truth.
What is sad to me is that a large group of people are making partisan political
comments without knowing any of the facts. The majority of Americans have no
clue about what happened at Benghazi, either before, during or after the
attack. They have relied on carefully crafted talking points instead of actually researching it for themselves. I’d
venture to say that almost no one has actually read the 800+ page report.
In a way, it’s kind of like that
whole Affordable Care Act debacle.
In case you’d like to take a walk
down memory lane, here’s a piece I wrote
right
after the attack when they were pushing the
video
and spontaneous demonstration theory. You remember that lie, don’t you?
Consider that the first of many to come.
As I mentioned before, most
American’s have no clue as to what they are talking about. They couldn’t even
begin to tell you how long Libya has been an independent state; let alone what
the state of the country was leading up to the attack. Fortunately for you, I
have written a
Libya
/ Benghazi primer course for you, to bring you up to speed.
Bear in mind that these posts
tend to be a bit long, but that’s the key. They are not your cliché riddled
talking points.
You know, I’ve lost count of the
number of times I have heard people say: “It wouldn’t have mattered if they
sent troops; they wouldn’t have gotten there in time.”
Really? And exactly how did you,
or they, know just how long the attack was going to last for?
I guess using that analogy, the
next time you’re the victim of a violent crime, don’t bother calling the police because chances are they won’t get there in time either.
 |
| 13 Hours: Paramount Pictures |
The fact is that when word of the
attacks reached the Embassy and the CIA Station in Tripoli, in less than an
hour, they managed to assemble a response team and acquire an aircraft for
transport. The team, dubbed Team Tripoli, consisted of four Tripoli Station GRS
members, one of whom was Glen Doherty, two Defense Department special
operators, and a CIA linguist. An hour after they got to the airport in Tripoli
they were in Benghazi.
So much for not being able to get
there in time.
Now, Hillary Clinton, the woman
at the heart of the Benghazi attack, who is looking to be our next president,
is telling the world that there is nothing more to see here and that we simply
need to move on.
Really? Must be nice to be able
to lie to the American people, including the families of those four dead
Americas and then tell them to move on.
Here is what we know:
The Ambassador, as well as the
folks doing protection, requested additional manpower and resources which were routinely
met with no response or were refused by senior officials in Washington. I’m not talking 1-2 requests, but nearly 600
security requests / concerns from January through September 2012. While some
were acted on, the majority, including the requests for additional manpower,
were not. In fact, manpower was reduced leading up to the attack. Clearly there
were issues going on!!
Say what you will, but when an
Ambassador, the President’s personal representative to a foreign nation,
requests additional security, that cannot be overlooked, nor should it be dismissed
by underlings sitting in a cushy office in D.C.
When everything is said and done, the Secretary of State, Hillary
Clinton, dropped the ball. It was her agency and even the State Department ARB
said security was ‘grossly inadequate.’
If you don’t believe that she was responsible, then you need to stop
blaming Bush for everything because apparently the ‘buck’ really doesn’t stop anywhere
in Washington.
The fact is that the State
Department assessment of Benghazi in 2011 and 2012 noted rising crime and a
high-risk of militia violence left by the toppling of Gaddafi. The precarious
security situation was exacerbated by inadequate security at the Benghazi facility,
which was plagued by equipment failures, a lack of manpower and relied too much
on unreliable local militia for protection. Ironically, one of those Washington State
Department bureaucrats, Charlene Lamb, had the audacity to say: “It is very unfortunate and sad at this point
that Ambassador Stevens was a victim, but that is where ultimate responsibility
lies."
Wow, the State Department denied
additional security, but it’s really the fault of that poor schmuck who died. Oh, it should be noted that, while denying
the requests for security, the State Department, through their spokeswoman,
Victoria Nuland, emailed Stevens to ask how to describe the security incidents in 2012
Really, Vickie?
I would like to imagine that Steven’s
reply was something like: “They just
attempted to assassinate the British Ambassador with an RPG. I guess you could
say all’s well. Wish you were here, darling.”
One of the things that has always
troubled me about this attack was our response or lack thereof. On the night of the attack did the President
issue
Cross
Border Authority? If you don’t know what CBA is, then click the link. The Congressional
report now presents a distinct dilemma that no one seems to be considering or even
talking about.
According to the report, the
military did not carry out then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's
order to deploy U.S. forces to help rescue Americans under fire in Benghazi. If
this is correct, and the President gave CBA, then we have an act of gross
dereliction of duty on the part of senior members of the military. Or, as is
most likely the case, we are not being told the full story, yet again.
I’m sorry, but I simply do not
believe anything that comes out of the mouths of those inhabiting that cesspool
known as Washington, D.C. As someone who has served under a chain of command, I
know that there are consequences to failing to take action as directed by a
superior, especially when four Americans die in a terror attack.
Consider the following and ask if
you think this is plausible:
The President directs the
Secretary of Defense to take action.
The Secretary of Defense notifies
the Pentagon which in turns notifies the Commanding General of AFRICOM, General
Carter Ham.
By all accounts, General Ham immediately
began directing / assembling units for deployment, a deployment that never
occurred.
Shortly after the dust settled,
General Ham announced he was retiring, for personal
reasons, after only serving ½ of his scheduled rotation as head of AFRICOM
and only a few years shy of mandatory retirement. When announcing Ham's replacement, his X.O.
at AFRICOM, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta praised Ham's service. A report from
the department said leaders remain "fully confident" in
Ham's performance. Even Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said
that Ham “has the full confidence of the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” Little attributed the change to Ham's
"decision to retire," which he described as "an entirely
personal decision."
Now, Congressman Trey Gowdy, who
led the Congressional investigation into the attacks, states that Carter Ham
acknowledged that he altered President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta's order to deploy to Benghazi to rescue American personnel, and redirected
the deployment to Tripoli, Libya instead.
Wait, how does a commanding
general, who acted in contradiction to the direction of the President and
Secretary of Defense, still enjoy 'the full confidence of the Secretary of
Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?'
I’m sorry, but I call bullshit. That would fall
under Article 92 UCMJ: Failure to Obey Order or Regulation and
is a Courts Martial offense.
In October 2012, General
Ham told Rep. Jason Chaffetz that after the 9-11 Benghazi terror attack he
was never given the order to secure the consulate in Benghazi.
Wait, he was NEVER given the order? Yet we are also being told that he was ordered, but that he redirected the troops, from where they
were being requested, to a city over 400 miles away.
Add that to the fact that Leon Panetta testified that:
“The President made clear that we ought
to use all of the resources at our disposal to try to make sure we did
everything possible to try to save lives there.” He further testified that
within an hour of his return to the Pentagon, he issued an order to deploy the identified assets. “My orders were to deploy those forces, period.…It was very clear: They
are to deploy.” Yet it took nearly two more hours before the Secretary’s
orders were relayed to those forces and then several more hours before any of
those forces moved.
But how does this even make
sense, considering the statement in October 2012 by Panetta where he said: "The basic principle is that you don't
deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on; without having
some real-time information about what's taking place. And as a result of
not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in
that area, Gen. Ham, Gen. Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we
could not put forces at risk in that situation."
So now the Secretary of Defense
says they decided not to take action.
Not sure what he meant by not
knowing what was going on, as I think it was pretty clear from the drone flying
above, the calls from the Benghazi facility, and the reports at the CIA Annex
as to what was going on.
If all of this seems confusing and convoluted to you, imagine how the folks on the ground felt.
Kris ‘Tanto’ Paronto, one of the
CIA contractors who went to the aid of the Benghazi facility, said “I asked for
the Spectre and ISR [an armed Predator drone]. At midnight, they told us they
were still working on getting us that Spectre gunship. Not that it was not
available, but that they were still working on it.”
According to Paronto there were
two AC-130H Spectre gunships on call that night, both within range of Benghazi.
One of them was a six-hour flight away, co-located with a U.S. special
operations team in Djibouti, and the other was at Naval Air Station Sigonella,
in Sicily. In addition, the European Command (EUCOM), Commander’s In-Extremis
Force, was on a counter-terrorism training mission in Croatia. A three-hour
flight from Benghazi.
Paronto says that he knew people
in that unit and when he spoke with them, after he and his security
team got back to the CIA Annex from the diplomatic compound, he was told that
“they were loading their gear into their aircraft and ready to go.” Later, they
informed him that they had been shut down sometime after midnight.
All evidence now points to a
specific stand-down order issued by Secretary Clinton, since the Libyan
facilities came under her direct authority. Without a specific request for
assistance from the State Department, the Pentagon was powerless to act.
Why do I say this?
Because, in 2015, the State
Department released an email that was sent at 7:09 p.m. EST (1:09 a.m. Benghazi
time) from Jeremy Bash, an aide to the Secretary of Defense, directly to
Hillary Clinton’s office, informing them of the various military assets that
were “spinning up” to deploy to Benghazi. Among those assets were Special Forces
operation specialists (C-1/10), the In-Extremis Force Paronto talked about,
stationed in Croatia, along with two U.S. Marine Corps Fleet Anti-terrorism
Security Team (FAST) platoons based in Rota, Spain, the Spectre gunships, armed
Predator drones, and possibly elements of Marine Expeditionary Units in the
Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
We know this is accurate because,
in preparation for deploying the C-1/10 directly to Benghazi from Croatia,
General Ham, issued orders transferring authority for C-1/10 to him from
European Command (EUCOM). General Ham was actively beginning to stage units to rescue
those in Benghazi.
The email further states, and
this is VERY important: “Assuming
Principals agree to deploy these elements, we will ask State to secure the
approval from host nation. Please advise how you wish to convey that approval
to us.”
To date, the State Department has
not released any reply from Mrs. Clinton’s office to Bash’s email request. Why?
What we do know is that the top U.S.
diplomat in Tripoli at the time, Gregory Hicks, testified that the State
Department NEVER requested country clearance from Libya for any U.S. forces
that night.
And whatever happened to the
C-1/10 in Croatia?
When orders finally went out from
Panetta’s office, an hour later, they
included a re-transfer of C-1/10 from AFRICOM back to EUCOM, along with orders
for the unit to deploy to Sigonella, Italy, the NEXT DAY, and hold in place.
C-1/10, the Special Forces team that is actually trained to conduct hostage rescue and high-profile missions was activated to respond and then told to stand down.
Have you read that and let that
really sink in? Are you getting these
flip-flops?
Are you seeing that there was
never going to be a rescue?
So what exactly did the President
authorize that night? Again I ask: was Cross Border Authority ever issued? But, like the former Secretary of
State famously said: “What difference does it make?”
The presumptive democratic
nominee, along with the majority of democrats
in Congress, are telling you to move along; that there is nothing to see. I
don’t know about you, but the only thing I’m not seeing here are real answers,
except from those who were on the ground in Benghazi, and those answers paint a
sordid picture of lies, treachery, treason and deceit. Not exactly the
qualifications I find particularly pleasing in a Presidential candidate.
We, as American’s, now have the
government that we allowed. Our leaders no longer respect us nor do they
believe they have to answer to us. That is sad and it is the primary reason we
are in the state of division that we are. We have to wake up and take back our
country one election at a time. We can have civil discourse and we might not
always agree, but the time has come for us to educate ourselves and not rely on
what we are being told.
The truth is that, from the very
beginning, they lied to us about what happened in Benghazi. Now the question is
how many more lies were told. To determine that it is up to us to research the
facts and vote accordingly.
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