Which do you think will have a bigger effect on voters in a swing state, Nurse Bloomberg’s endorsement of Obama, or this devastating editorial in the Las Vegas Review-Journal?
At least more Nevada voters will know what happened in Benghazi.
[Update a couple minutes later]
At least Jake Tapper is reporting on it: “The Benghazi drip, drip, drip.”
People should realize that this is very much like 1972 (the Watergate break-in had happened that summer). We may be sparing ourselves another impeachment by removing the president on Tuesday.
The Benghazi coverup is much worse than you think. Clearly there were air assets on the scene above the CIA annex and they were denied permission to fire.
Tyrone Woods was painting a target with a ground laser designator (GLD). Those are only used when the air asset is overhead, ready to fire. The jihadis can use cell phones with night-vision capabilities to see the laser beam, which then pinpoints the location of the person using the GLD. As a former Navy SEAL, Woods would’ve known that. He would only have exposed himself if he thought that the mortar squad was about to be taken out. The air asset didn’t fire, and Woods and Glen Doherty were killed by the mortar squad.
There was either a Spectre gunship or an armed Predator or Reaper drone overhead, and it was denied permission to fire. That’s the only explanation that fits. Woods would not have used his GLD for any other reason than to paint a target for an immediate air strike.
Only the commander of AFRICOM and the president have the authority to tell the air asset to not fire in this situation.
So if so, who did it? Because whoever did killed those men.
It is heart breaking that the two defenders of the annex, former SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty who were in Libya as security contractors separate from the consulate, ran to the sound of the guns at the consulate–though they were unarmed–and picked up dropped weapons on the way (tip to Instapundit).
They didn’t know what was going on and didn’t have real-time information about what was happening, but they followed their instincts and ran to the sounds of the guns.
It is a good thing that they acted that way, or the American body count could have been much higher–or we’d be discussing Day 47 of America Held Hostage. The two Americans allowed the escape of 20 of our people in the consulate and then they set up a defense perimeter and held off an attack by 100-200 jihadis at the annex.
And they killed 60 of the attackers in their stand.
Our president said he is sharing information about what happened as he finds out. Why have I read this on a blog rather than on the news? Who would be disturbed to hear that our people performed acts of heroism with little hope of help?
Or is this account inaccurate? Certainly, our 20 people did escape the attackers. Those two men at least did that.
But I can’t doubt that it could be true. These were former SEALs. Certainly, they held for many hours. I’ll await further reporting about the jihadi body count. And if true, wonder why this is the first I’ve read of this epic defense. Somebody in the press corps might want to directly ask our president and government just what happened there.
Nah…why would they want to do that?
I think that we should start a meme to award both men a posthumous Medal of Freedom.
And at what point does DCI Petraeus noisily resign? A run at the presidency as a Republican would survive a stint at the CIA under a Democrat, but it won’t survive complicity, or remaining silent, in a coverup.
That’s how many times the embattled people in the consulate and safe house were denied help.
And what’s worse, there was an AC-130 orbiting, but the administration refused to allow it to fire. This is starting to look like manslaughter.
Too bad there’s not a Republican in the White House. If there were, maybe someone other than Fox News would be covering this stuff.
[Update a few minutes later]
It’s not Blackhawk down again. “It’s worse. Recall that the major problem in BD was the UN commander was unwilling to risk casualties to protect forward US positions and troops in the city. This is the US unwilling to protect its own. It’s like we have the UN for an administration or something.”
Investigative journalist Aaron Klein has reported that the “consulate in Benghazi” actually was no such thing. He observes that although administration officials have done nothing to correct that oft-repeated characterization of the facility where the murderous attack on Stevens and his colleagues was launched, they call it a “mission.” What Mr. Klein describes as a “shabby, nondescript building” that lacked any “major public security presence” was, according to an unnamed Middle Eastern security official, “routinely used by Stevens and others to coordinate with the Turkish, Saudi and Qatari governments on supporting the insurgencies in the Middle East, most prominently the rebels opposing Assad’s regime in Syria.”
We know that Stevens‘ last official act was to hold such a meeting with an unidentified “Turkish diplomat.” Presumably, the conversation involved additional arms shipments to al Qaeda and its allies in Syria. It also may have involved getting more jihadi fighters there. After all, Mr. Klein reported last month that, according to sources in Egyptian security, our ambassador was playing a “central role in recruiting jihadists to fight Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.”
A few days ago, I speculated that they might have been able to provide support from Sigonella. Bing West confirms it:
In the past, presidents had taken immediate actions to protect Americans. In 1984, President Reagan had ordered U.S. pilots to force an airliner carrying terrorists to land at Sigonella. Reagan had acted inside a 90-minute window while the aircraft with the terrorists was in the air. The Obama national-security team had several hours in which to move forces from Sigonella to Benghazi.
Fighter jets could have been at Benghazi in an hour; the commandos inside three hours. If the attackers were a mob, as intelligence reported, then an F18 in afterburner, roaring like a lion, would unnerve them. This procedure was applied often in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Conversely, if the attackers were terrorists, then the U.S. commandos would eliminate them. But no forces were dispatched from Sigonella.