Patterico's Pontifications

9/5/2014

U.S. Security Team In Benghazi Told “Stand down, you need to wait.”

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:30 am



[guest post by Dana]

Adding another layer to the Benghazi story, three U.S. Security Team members claim they were told to stand down and wait on that fateful night.

Word of the attack on the diplomatic compound reached the CIA annex just after 9:30 p.m. Within five minutes, the security team at the annex was geared up for battle, and ready to move to the compound, a mile away.

“Five minutes, we’re ready,” said Paronto, a former Army Ranger. “It was thumbs up, thumbs up, we’re ready to go.”

But the team was held back. According to the security operators, they were delayed from responding to the attack by the top CIA officer in Benghazi, whom they refer to only as “Bob.”

“It had probably been 15 minutes I think, and … I just said, ‘Hey, you know, we gotta– we need to get over there, we’re losing the initiative,’” said Tiegen. “And Bob just looks straight at me and said, ‘Stand down, you need to wait.’”

“We’re starting to get calls from the State Department guys saying, ‘Hey, we’re taking fire, we need you guys here, we need help,’” said Paronto.

After a delay of nearly 30 minutes, the security team headed to the besieged consulate without orders. They asked their CIA superiors to call for armed air support, which never came.

Now, looking back, the security team said they believed that if they had not been delayed for nearly half an hour, or if the air support had come, things might have turned out differently.

“Ambassador Stevens and Sean [Smith], yeah, they would still be alive, my gut is yes,” Paronto said. Tiegen concurred.

“I strongly believe if we’d left immediately, they’d still be alive today,” he added.

In a statement to Fox News, a senior intelligence official denied their claim, yet acknowledged in a statement that the “team was delayed from responding while the CIA’s top officer in Benghazi tried to rally local support.”

Also, a team member laughed about the infamous video that the administration claimed sparked protests – he wasn’t even aware of such a video until he was outside of Libya and on his way home.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is wondering why this story just won’t die already.

–Dana

119 Responses to “U.S. Security Team In Benghazi Told “Stand down, you need to wait.””

  1. Hello.

    Dana (4dbf62)

  2. “[delayed]while the CIA’s top officer in Benghazi tried to rally local support.”

    Middle management failure, those guys that have all the authority in they pocket.

    Kinda late in the day for Langley to take the fall, don’t ya think, their contractors are the only people who didn’t stand down.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  3. Corkscrew landing in
    Tuzla, Hillary! says boo.
    We are so FUBAR.

    carlitos (c24ed5)

  4. Why do these constant revelations keep reanimating the conspiracy theory, that the original idea (with Obama’s help) was to kidnap the ambassador, and then trade him for the “Blind Sheik”. In this trade the US would release the sheik to Egypt, helping the Muslim Brotherhood carry out one of their promises. Problem was the violent Islamist had no self control, go carried away and killed him. The stand down order to the security forces, not using our special ops , no supporting air assets; makes it seem as if they didn’t want American power to interrupt the kidnapping. It may be that the intervention of those two ex Navy SEALS may have blown the plan to hell.

    Mike Giles (930031)

  5. I still think Stevens was a hvt, traded for Al Libi’s life, and the administration’s reactions confirm the point,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  6. It’s much more than just a delay, it was a deliberate attempt to prevent help from reaching the diplomatic compound until the objective was achieved, which in the early stages was the kidnapping of Ambassador Stevens. And, when local Security Team members at the CIA Annex finally decided to go ahead with a relief effort on their own initiative, the secret group working behind the scenes to prevent interference with the ongoing attack could no longer remain in the shadows as unnamed voices on the telephone.

    Powerful members of the Obama Administration were monitoring the attack, directing events from inside the White House, State Department, and CIA HQ at Langley. They were orchestrating the stand-down. They prevented help from arriving in time. They betrayed brave Americans and abandoned them to die at the hands of Islamic terrorists. Then they lied to the parents, they lied to the American people, and they lied to Congress, and they sent that idiot Susan Rice out to lie on Television to the nation. They hid the survivors and threatened them with dire consequences if they revealed the truth behind Benghazi.

    ropelight (8a73c1)

  7. “Bob” probably didn’t want to sacrifice annex security or blow whatever cover existed for the annex and its operations or leave his own posterior uncovered. Whatever weapon collection/gun-running/militia taming operation they were running probably leads to the rise of the current crop of infidle destroying head-choppers.

    crazy (d60cb0)

  8. Remember when Intel reports claimed Saddam’s chemical and biological weapons were spirited out of Iraq by Russian special forces and taken to Syria’s Bekaa Valley? ISIL could have those weapons now.

    ropelight (8a73c1)

  9. I’m still of the opinion that what was being covered up was not a plot to facilitate Stevens’ kidnapping but the covert weapons pipeline to Syrian rebels who turned out to be ISIS.

    This is really what needs exposure – the reason for the coverup, more than the lies about the timeline itself which are now well established. The only advantage to ferreting out the timeline lies is to see if they lead to who ultimately made the decisions to foil rescue attempts. That person may know why they did so.

    SPQR (c4e119)

  10. yes Bel Hadj, who was in charge of the Tripoli military committee, Abu Jamal were all tied to events in syria, notably Nusra, which was a splinter of ISIS

    narciso (ee1f88)

  11. “Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is wondering why this story just won’t die already.”

    If she is, it’s because she is so accustomed to feeling the warm sensation of the Media’s collective tongue up her bottom. I suspect she knows perfectly well why this story doesn’t just die already, she just hasn’t got any better strategy than to bitch abut it.

    C. S. P. Schofield (e8b801)

  12. I’m assuming these people are coming public now for a few reasons:
    1) They are no longer employed by the CIA
    2) They have had time to write a book which will support them once they are no longer able to work in their chosen field.

    Maybe their example will spur even more people to come forth.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  13. No one will do a day for these crimes.
    Can’t we get back to Gary Condit and Chandra Levy?

    mg (31009b)

  14. “The wheels of justice grind slowly, but exceedingly fine”.

    felipe (b5e0f4)

  15. #11… I agree w/SPQR… weapons being funnled to BAD guys was the issue. Bad management of the IS-holes.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  16. May we soon have a replay of this photo featuring The One. At this point the President Idiot could not be worse-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3U4MhKDxcw

    Bugg (3a2abd)

  17. 5. With all due regard for the CYA angles, as they specifically intended to explain WH not wanting to be branded with FAIL ahead of elections, that the CIA station masters were protecting their territory, etc., this lesser conspiracy, the gun running, was already in the News and for some weeks.

    There were two drones overhead on mission. State had camera streaming from the Operations block. If this were a complete surprise why were “Stand Down” orders seemingly in effect at the outset?

    Special Ops would definitely not be waiting for the WH to give the go ahead, they’d be in the air. This requires a coordinated effort on the part of the WH, Pentagon, State and CIA–In the event of trouble, await orders, Cabinet on down.

    Now that might make some sense apart from stripping security, sending on the eve of 9/11 to no-mans-land the green Ambassador fresh from Europe, to Benghazi with adjacent open border to Tunisia, knowing one had had a flow of 20K militants during the last months of MB ascendancy, having the Turkish envoy file past assembled “demonstrators” awaiting their cue, ad infinitum.

    Its one thing to have a suspicion, its another to fail to update it on new information.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  18. I understand that everyone her knows the solution to 2 + 2.

    What completely baffles me is most of you look at the infinite sum (2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2…) and you just throw up your hands and go TILT; Does not compute, Will Robinson; let me check my cribs;..

    Why is the union of total incompetence and unalloyed evil a Null Set?

    Anyone?

    Bueller?

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  19. Just watched part of President Sub-par’s remarks from Wales on FNC…..
    A total moron!
    What is this area “Fatah” that he now speaks about?
    What is this: Obfuscation by Mulitplication – just enter new concepts into the lexicon so as not to have to deal with the reality?
    If IS/ISIL/ISIS is the JV, the WH is not even Pop Warner level.

    askeptic (efcf22)

  20. This is really what needs exposure – the reason for the coverup

    Like the IRS thing, and Watergate, it’s the coverup and the reasons for it that are most important. The actual incident is but an event in a thread, and the coverup is to prevent the entire thread from unraveling.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  21. It will not shock me to find out that Obama’s team that night was primarily concerned with political damage control, as their Libyan initiatives, whatever they were, were coming apart. I note that they responded to Romney’s late night WTF? statement rapidly and in detail. It’s almost as if they had tapped his phone.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  22. Of course there was no “stand down” order given…and there is not a smidgen of evidence that it was.

    Because, (as we were schooled a few months ago) telling the special reaction team in Tripoli not to go to Benghazi in a rescue attempt was not a “stand down” order, it was just an order not to leave their post in Tripoli. See the difference?

    The guys in Benghazi weren’t told to “stand down”, they were just told not to leave the CIA compound.

    People just need to stop lying about “stand down” orders that were never given. (Makes me long for the days of Clinton questioning the definition of the word “is”.)

    in_awe (7c859a)

  23. at this point rilly
    what difference does it make
    so two years ago

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  24. stand down or man down
    it’s one big “MEH” to these folks
    they’re obamakids

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  25. what these people depend on is that the sheer number of f*ck-ups and scandals will cause memory lapses and, in general, a wearing down of the American citizenry… at least those of us who actually care about the future of our nation.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  26. When the dam breaks, don’t be caught in Johnstown.

    askeptic (efcf22)

  27. this is just typical american ineptitude anymore

    you have to remember when you have these government losers involved, it could always have gone much much worse

    happyfeet (a785d5)

  28. this is just typical american political leadership ineptitude anymore

    FTFY!

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  29. this is a country what went through a significant period of time recently where it couldn’t even manufacture twinkies

    happyfeet (a785d5)

  30. #11, SPQR is correct that CIA’s Benghazi Annex was collecting Gaddafi’s Libyan weapons for transshipment through the Turkish port of Iskenderun to the Al-Qaeda affiliate (which later became ISIS) then fighting in opposition to Bashar Al Assad’s government in Syria. Although the gun running operation couldn’t be kept completely under wraps, Obama and Hillary were especially desperate to keep the depths their ongoing treasonous collaboration with Al-Qaeda well hidden till after the 2012 elections at all costs.

    But that still doesn’t explain why the initial terrorist attack in Benghazi was directed at the diplomatic mission and not at the CIA Annex. As gary gulrud points out at #19, the gun running, was already in the News and for some weeks. The plot had been carefully prepared well in advance, reliable American security forces had been systematically stripped away, the Ambassador’s airplane was suddenly diverted in-flight from it’s scheduled landing in Tripoli and rerouted to Benghazi on the pretext of an emergency meeting with the Turkish envoy.

    Ambassador Stevens was the target alright, no doubt about it. Remember the heady days of the Arab Spring? Egypt and Libya had emerged from the evils of dictatorship and we were assured a new day was dawning in the Middle East. But then things started to go sour, Arabs didn’t support the Muslim Brotherhood’s draconian agenda, people were in the streets clamoring for more individual freedom and less government intrusion, strong opposition was gathering momentum and threatening to overturn Obama’s grand strategy.

    Obama needed a diversion, something to deflect public attention from his failures and his duplicity till after the election. The kidnapping or the murder of Ambassador Stevens and the other miscellaneous disposable people was a price he was willing to pay. So Stevens et al were delivered up on a silver platter to the terrorists, only sometimes the best laid plans of traitors do go awry…

    ropelight (8a73c1)

  31. It’s not ineptitude. It’s the fact that everyone from the president down to the local news are nothing more than damn liars any more. I get up in the morning, turn on the news and immediately have to also turn on my lies-to-truth interpreter. Nobody, absolutely nobody in government, in the media, in Hollywood or in education values telling the truth any more. We are constantly being bombarded with lies and they call it “spin” or “miss-speak” or whatever. They give us economic news which anyone with eyes can see is a blatant lie. And it seems like no one cares any more.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  32. 11. SPQR (c4e119) — 9/5/2014 @ 7:44 am

    I’m still of the opinion that what was being covered up was not a plot to facilitate Stevens’ kidnapping but the covert weapons pipeline to Syrian rebels who turned out to be ISIS.

    I think this has it backwards.

    Stevens was trying to STOP the shipment of weapons from Quaddafi’s stockpiles, through Turkey, especially anti-aircraft missiles, paid for Saudi Arabia or Qatar, and
    the then-Saudi national security adviser, chief of intelligence, and,
    since earlier, in 2911, the man put in charge of the Saudi response to the Arab Spring [number 1 goal: prevent the establishment of any democracy) Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who, Hillary knew, had years before murdered Vincent Foster….

    …contrived the assassination of the Ambassador Stevens and the scaring out of Benghazi of the CIA, so that he would have a freer hand and the United States would not be buying up all these weapons.

    In the end the weapons were held up in Turkey anyway, andPrince Bandar lost all his jobs in early 2014, possibly precisely some of the groups he was helping turned out to be iSIS.

    The CIA helped bought into the “spontaneous” that is unplanned, assault cpver-up because it was and is, riddled with Saudi (or possibly Qatari) moles. This story was sold to the White House, but intensed to remain secret, but this wass such “good news” to some political people there, taht they went public with it.

    Hillary Clinton did not dare point the finger at Prince Bandar because then the Foster case coverup might come out.

    This is really what needs exposure – the reason for the coverup, </I.

    The reason for the coverup is to protect the people who killed or were involved in planning the killing of Ambassador Steven,s and that was most importantly, Prince Bandar.

    People in the CIA were working for foreign intelligence and Hillary Clinton didn't dare point ut too much.

    more than the lies about the timeline itself which are now well established.

    hat are you talking about?

    It is well established that some people from the CIA wanted to go ahead, and attempt a rescue, and were told not to, and that the orders not to do anything did not come from all the way at the top of the CIA in Washington, but from somewhere in the middle – that is, the
    moles, who shortly afterwards, managed to get rid of the Director, David etraeus, who
    was too smart to be fooled for a very, very, long time…

    The only advantage to ferreting out the timeline lie is to see if they lead to who ultimately made the decisions to foil rescue attempts.

    That might be the chief foreign intelligence mole in the CIA.

    But also, there were people on the ground in Libya in the Libyan government, and they helped stall it by ppromising to join in..

    Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1)

  33. I knew Bandar was involved.

    JD (8f77a5)

  34. * since earlier, in 2011.

    Prince Bandar’s first new important job, since his sidelining a few years before, was being put in charge of the Saudi Arabian response to the Arab Spring. He later on became National Security Adviser and Chief of Intelligence, but lost all his positions in the first part of 2014, while also at the same time, steps were taken to keep him away from the throne, by appointing a second person in the line of succession.

    Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1)

  35. 36. JD (8f77a5) — 9/5/2014 @ 12:10 pm

    I knew Bandar was involved.

    I’ve been sayng that for almost two years now. That was and is, my number one theory.

    Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1)

  36. JD owes you a sarcasm meter.

    carlitos (c24ed5)

  37. sammy finkelman
    i long for this eve’s sunset
    loath Saturday night

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  38. If the United States was trying to help get any anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, it is hard to see why his killing by Islamists took place.

    This was an attempt to prevent the United States from interfering with that, and while it makes sense that disinformation saying the opposite might have been spread, it makes no sense for that to be the truth. The killers then don’t have a big motive, and neither does the CIA have any reason to cover up the truth, except to hide carelessness.

    Oh yes, this disinformation is that they didn’t want to kill him but hold him hostage in exchange for the leader of the World Trade Center bombers, Sheik Omar Abdu Rahman, like there was any great chance the United States would agree to do that, like there was any great chance that terrorists would even think so.

    Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1)

  39. 39. I knew that was sarcasm, and critical. (I pointed out that I wasn’t saying anything new)

    Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1)

  40. So, Bandar killed Foster…another mystery solved.
    Could he also have been on the Grassy Knoll?

    askeptic (efcf22)

  41. There is nothing Bandar cannot do, or hasn’t been involved in. Let’s play 6 degrees of Bandar.

    JD (5e8ebe)

  42. While none of the Islamists in Syria got any of the anti-aircraft missiles, they did get other weapons from Qatar and Saudi Arabia and even from the United States.

    The Islamists were prevailing over the other rebels in Syria, but then, in 2013, the other rebels started to beat back the Islamicists, the maion one being ISIS, and ISIS was very cloe to being wiped out in January of 2014. (this year)

    But the Syrian government helped the Islamists by not fighting against them, and ISIS practiced deception, and headed off into Iraq, caoturing Fallujah.

    They had victories in Syria and then in Iraq, twice.

    And here we are, waiting for ISIS’ next move (or for President Obama to decide to do something else besides defend Baghdad, and Erbil, and places where non-Sunnis live near Kurdistan)

    Obama’s done a lot of reconnaissance in Syria, but no bombing yet, nor any assignment of very good special forces officers to plan an offensive by some rebel group(s)

    Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1)

  43. Back in 2012, the administration was slowly starting to learn a few things, especially after the killing of Ambassador Stevens.

    They realized that at least Qatar was no good.

    The Republicans were slowwr to catch on to the duplicity of the Qatar.

    Qatar was mentioned as good country by Republican candidates in the Preidential and vice-presidential debates, but omitted by the Democratic candidates.

    http://www.debates.org/index.php?page=october-11-2012-the-biden-romney-vice-presidential-debate

    BIDEN: …We are working hand and glove with the Turks, with the Jordanians, with the Saudis, and with all the people in the region attempting to identify the people who deserve the help so that when Assad goes — and he will go — there will be a legitimate government that follows on, not an Al Qaida-sponsored government that follows on.

    Notice who is not there? Qatar. But Ryan hasn’t caught on yet, or hasn’t been briefed fully:

    RYAN: We could have more easily identified the free Syrian army, the freedom fighters, working with our allies, the Turks, the Qataris, the Saudis, had we had a better plan in place to begin with working through our allies. But, no, we waited for Kofi Annan to try and come up with an agreement through the U.N. That bought Bashar Assad time.

    Also see:

    http://debates.org/index.php?page=october-22-2012-the-third-obama-romney-presidential-debate

    ROMNEY: …But the Saudi’s and the Qatari, and — and the Turks are all very concerned about this. They’re willing to work with us. We need to have a very effective leadership effort in Syria, making sure that the — the insurgent there are armed and that the insurgents that become armed, are people who will be the responsible parties.

    Really, Romney and company should not have made this mistake about Qatar.

    Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1)

  44. Ghosts sit around campfires and tell Bandar stories.
    The dark is afraid of Bandar.
    Bandar can cut through a hot knife with butter.
    Bandar can slam a revolving door.
    Bandar can fry an ant with a magnifying glass. At night.

    carlitos (c24ed5)

  45. “Really, Romney and company should not have made this mistake about Qatar.”

    Sammy – Really? How about the mistake Pelosi and leading Dems made pronouncing Assad a reformer who really wanted to make peace with Israel and traveled to Syria after Bush asked them not to go. If you want to match cheap shot for cheap shot, bring it on.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  46. Bandar is Saudi equivalent of Chuck Norris and John Bolton’s moustache.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  47. FYI, for those interested in more Ebola news, a third US infected person has been brought back to the states, to Nebraska, I think, where they have another one of those specialized isolation units.

    And, from Samaritan’s Purse
    Dr. Brantly and his wife, Amber, are now sharing their story for the first time on “Saving Dr. Brantly—The Inside Story of a Medical Miracle”, an NBC News special airing at 10 p.m. EST tonight.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  48. I always liked the Belmont Club take on Benghazi:

    http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014/05/11/the-day-obamas-presidency-died/?singlepage=true

    It fits the too clever by half way other Obama scandals went down, like Fast & Furious.

    OmegaPaladin (f4a293)

  49. 43. askeptic (efcf22) — 9/5/2014 @ 12:50 pm

    So, Bandar killed Foster…another mystery solved.

    Well, it needs further proof. I tried to use the FOIA to find out just when he paid that secret, unscheduled meeting in the White House with Preaident Clinton and Sandy Burglar, in July, 1993.

    That meeting was leaked to Fred Barnes, then of the New Republic, with an explanation as to why this meeting happened, some of which was carefully explained should not be a generalization.

    It was published on page 10 of the March 14, 1994 New Republic, right at the time of many known Foster case leaks.

    But I was unsuccessful in verifying when and if such a meeting took place. (it should be noted that Prince Bandar lived right across the street from Fort Marcy Park, had guns in his house, as well as many locked briefcases which he claimed contained secret files, but more logically likely contained money, and many meetings with American officials took place there.)

    A FOIA to the State Department asking about visists was answered early in the Bush Administration, but didn’t turn up anything,

    Could he also have been on the Grassy Knoll?

    Nobody was on the grassy knoll.

    That may be disinformation by the real plotters. (or by whoever decided to soread conspiracy theories)

    Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1)

  50. 51-
    Right On!

    Precious’ performance at the conference in Wales today was an attempt at tap-dancing around any possible admission that he’s completely lost, and has no idea what tomorrow will bring.
    And when you think of his circle of advisors – Powers, Rice, Rhodes, Kerry, Hagel, Klapper, Brennan, et al – you wonder if his caddy is the best person who serves him by giving him the correct club?

    askeptic (efcf22)

  51. Sammy, when are you going to explain these ex-special operators, now CIA operatives and/or contractors, are just wrong about the video?

    And everybody in the WH and over at State really believed the video story?

    That’s my favorite part.

    Steve57 (e0f6ab)

  52. 50. Important news or comments I wanted to say about Ebola:

    1. The Ebola virus rampant in West Africa is different from the one in the Congo, and the test may not work as well. It is estimated that they separated around 2004, but nobody knows where the new Ebola has been all this time.

    2. The great cure, ZMapp, is nothing but Ebola antibodies produced by a Rube Goldberg method involving tobacco plants. There are probably much more simple ways of manuufacturing Ebola antobodies but maybe they can’t be patented. They can most definitely patent this. This method is only used because of patent and drug approval laws.

    3 The doctor who now caught Ebola was not treating Ebola patients, but women giving birth. The other doctors who caught it also probably did not get it from anyone known to have Ebola.

    4. As I once noted, statins may very well redice the death rate by 80% but nobody is trying this. Patients can also be helped by trying to maintain electrolyte balance etc. In the same way that cholera does not have to be an extreme;y fatal disease. I think also Vitamin A and some other votamins could help people beat back an infection before it gets established. I don’t know that anything along these libes is being done. There’s no imagination and no reasonable experimentation.

    5. Many nurses are not going to work in Liberia.

    6. There are only 6 ambulances in Monrovia, Liberia, and only one place to take Ebola patients, which is full, and has a caacity of 120 patients, with vacancies occuring mostly by death.

    7. After a riot during which blankets used by Ebola patients were stolen, a quarantine was imposed on a slum in Monrovia, called “West Point. When some people tried to break the quatantione, shots were fired and one person was killed (dyig later in a hospital) International organzations opposed this quarantine. It turned out also that it was evaded, and sometimes people bribed their way out. People who owned or lived in some houses with windows, took money to let people out, like early in the history of the Berlin Wall. Some people went out every day to get to jobs, Prices of food inside the ghetto doubled. The quarantine was lifted last Saturday.

    8. Ebola can be easily controlled in a country when there are only a few cases.

    Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1)

  53. Sammy – If Qatar is not considered an ally, why did Obama negotiate with the Emir for the release of Bowe Bergdahl and why are we selling them Patriot missile batteries and Apache helicopters. Why did John Kerry get so upset when Qatar got cut out of the cease fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas?

    I am hard pressed to name a single position in the Middle East on which Obama and his team have taken the correct side as opposed to one that has hurt the U.S.

    http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Jul-15/263899-qatar-to-buy-patriot-missiles-in-11-bln-arms-deal-us.ashx#axzz37UmqkKPg

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  54. 54. Steve57 (e0f6ab) — 9/5/2014 @ 3:18 pm

    Sammy, when are you going to explain these ex-special operators, now CIA operatives and/or contractors, are just wrong about the video?

    No, they are right about the video.

    The video was one of the cover stories to explain the attack used by the perpetrators. It could only have been taken seriously by the CIA if there were moles there.

    It should be noted, that, AFTER Sept 11. 2012, demonstrations were organized all over the Moslem world about the video. That was part of the cover-up.

    Nobody in Libya but guards posted by al Sharia et al outside the mission to explain why they were doing it knew about the video that night.

    And everybody in the WH and over at State really believed the video story?

    Well, everybody except Hillary Clinton.

    That was what was in the president’s intelligence briefings.

    That’s my favorite part.

    Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1)

  55. Obama praises Qatar leader for Libya coalition help:

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/14/us-usa-qatar-idUSTRE73D8LX20110414

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  56. 58. That was in 2011.

    He silently corrected that mistake, but that was only part of the mistake.

    Sammy Finkelman (ce04e1)

  57. “Well, everybody except Hillary Clinton.”

    That’s the current version of her story.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  58. “He silently corrected that mistake, but that was only part of the mistake.”

    Sammy – What are you talking about?

    Selling arms to Qatar to they can be transshipped to Libyan rebels to be used in overthrowing Qadaffi is one thing. See those arms wind up in the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan and used by jihadis in Syria is another. Yet we continue to sell Qatar weapons.

    Don’t forget, the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East is in Qatar.

    What did Obama correct?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  59. I put together some notions, several years ago:

    http://narcisoscorner.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-syrian-imbroglio-by-narciso-old.html?view=sidebar

    Prince Bandar, no longer runs the operation, a former Ministry of Defense, Idriessi does

    narciso (ee1f88)

  60. hey fans of Barack
    you may call a cat a fish
    but it will not swim

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  61. If a monkey has wings instead of a tail,
    He could swim in the water like a rabbit.

    ropelight (8a73c1)

  62. Not if Jimmah was around, he wouldn’t…

    Gazzer (26a83c)

  63. Bandar was purged months ago when Dickless couldn’t enforce a red line, or something. King Abdullah has him detailing latrines.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  64. In other news…

    A dog adopted 14 kittens, a panda faked being pregnant and Kelly Osborne met Joan Rivers when she was six. Did you know Nick and Mariah broke up? And something called Ariana Grande up and posted a butt picture?

    So, really, what’s the problem? Seriously.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  65. just watched Bret Baier’s Bengahazi special with the interview of the three survivors, the Annex Security Team. Finally, we have survivors willing and able to step forward and tell the American people the truth about those hellish hours.

    Obama, Clinton and everyone else whose inaction, perfidy, and malevolent lies facilitated this debacle must be held accountable.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  66. I thought I’d throw this into the mix.

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/09/benghazi-security-personnel-say-they-were-told-to-stand-down.php

    Today, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf denied that the security team was told to stand down, but acknowledged that they were told not to enter the battle yet because they were under-equipped. I don’t see a big difference between these two accounts. In any event, the security team thought it had what it needed to make a difference in the fight without waiting.

    This is a model of understatement on Paul Mirengoff’s part. Not only isn’t there a big difference between being told to stand down and being told not to enter the battle yet, there is no difference at all. It’s just a matter of the administration insisting there is some magic attached to the two words “stand down” when they ordered these combatants to take no action even though they were in a position to do so. So as long as they didn’t use the magic words, their stand down orders weren’t stand down orders.

    But let’s dissect this absurd “under-equipped” objection to demonstrate just how stupid this administration thinks we all are. As I’ve been saying for years, I’m not only objecting to the fact that this administration is lying to me. It’s the low quality of the lies and the obvious intent to insult my intelligence I object to.

    1. Why were these experienced special operators under-equipped (if they in fact were; more on that further on). Remember, the administration’s original story was designed to deflect criticism that they had ignored this diplomatic facility’s (here on out to be DIPFAC for brevity) security needs, so they originally called these guys were security contractors.

    http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/10/world/benghazi-consulate-attack-fast-facts/index.html

    (Ignore the date on the article, the date in the URL is correct.)

    …Timeline:
    September 11, 2012 – Initial reports claim a mob of angry protestors gather outside the U.S. temporary mission in Benghazi, Libya. Protestors reportedly storm the building, and Ambassador Stevens dies of smoke inhalation as does IT expert Sean Smith. Two security personnel, former U.S. Navy Seals Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, are killed in a subsequent attack after helping to evacuate those at the mission to a US diplomatic annex.

    Where did CNN get the impression that Doherty and Woods (and by extension the rest of the CIA operatives who responded from the annex) were there for DIPFAC security? From the administration.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/15/lawmakers-say-rices-story-has-absolutely-collapsed-amid-more-questions-on/

    …Aside from wrongly linking an anti-Islam video to the Benghazi attack — when U.S. personnel were reporting a direct assault by Ansar al-Sharia within the first 24 hours — Rice’s statements about U.S. consulate security are under fresh scrutiny.

    On three network Sunday shows – ABC’s “This Week,” NBC’s “Meet the Press” and “Fox News Sunday” — Rice said security was “strong” or “significant” at the consulate on the day of the attack, which was incorrect.

    “Should U.S. security have been tighter at that consulate given the history of terror activity in Benghazi?” “Fox News Sunday’s” Chris Wallace asked Rice.

    “Well, we obviously did have a strong security presence. And, unfortunately, two of the four Americans who died in Benghazi were there to provide security,” Rice responded, incorrectly linking the presence of former Navy Seals Ty Woods and Glen Doherty to consulate security. Both men were killed in a mortar attack on the CIA annex, eight hours after the consulate was overrun.

    No, this wasn’t just incorrect. It was a deliberate lie. But then, that’s why I knew they were lying from the start. When Susan Rice went out and attributed everything to the “best available intelligence” I knew they were ignoring the best available information. Which would have come from operations. This administration wouldn’t have needed to ask the intel community to devote assets to determine the mission of the CIA in Benghazi. But then, they would have also know that they had own forces on the ground, who were reporting in real time through their chain of command on their own situation. This is ops, not intel. The fact that they chose to ignore it was telling.

    When Mike Morrell testified before Congress that he went to the one troglodyte in the CIA who was unaware of the survivor debriefs that too was telling. The administration was telling us to our face they intended to lie to our faces; they were setting up the “the intel was wrong” excuse from the start because it suited their political purposes.

    Now the administration wants to have it both ways. At first they wanted to claim these guys were there to provide security for the DIPFAC. Therefore they weren’t negligent in their duties. Now they want to claim the CIA operatives were under-equipped to go to the DIPFAC’s aid and provide security assistance.

    2. As crazy observes @9 above, the next line of absurdity from this administration will undoubtedly consist of this.

    “Bob” probably didn’t want to sacrifice annex security…

    Whoa, whoa, wait a sec. Sorority rush chairwoman Marie Harf is saying they were under equipped for that security mission.

    3. Why were the DSS personnel actually assigned to provide security at the DIPFAC even more under-equipped than the under-equipped CIA personnel? All they had were M-4s and their side arms.

    4. Why were the members of the prep-school model UN in this freshman dorm administration over-ruling experienced operators as to what constituted proper equipment? The ex-Rangers, Green Berets, Marines, and SEALs at the CIA annex thought they could work with what they had. Who the f#@% is Ben Rhodes et al to say otherwise?

    5. Events show that the CIA operatives were able to move to the DIPFAC, evacuate those left alive after the administration deliberately delayed them (and recover what bodies they could find), and withdraw to the annex without suffering any casualties to themselves during that evolution. Thus establishing beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were not under-equipped to go to the DIPFAC’s aid.

    6. Doherty and Woods were not killed while rendering assistance to the DIPFAC; they were killed after eight hours of fighting at the Annex. Thus demonstrating they weren’t under-equipped but instead under-supported. Which shows just how hollow this latest lie from the DoS actually is.

    I think I’m going to email someone in the MFM, raise these points, and ask them if they think we’re as stupid as the administration obviously does.

    Steve57 (e0f6ab)

  67. Oh, I forgot to say that the reason I mentioned the date in the URL of the CNN story is that for a year the administration was still insisting that Doherty and Woods were security personnel.

    Does anyone really think it took over a year for Obama to find out what job his administration had hired Doherty, Woods, and the rest of the contractors at the CIA annex to do?

    That CIA analysts were analyzing intercepts, imagery, and all the rest of the “best available intel” to figure out what the CIA was up to in Benghazi?

    Steve57 (e0f6ab)

  68. “Really, Romney and company should not have made this mistake about Qatar.”

    48. daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/5/2014 @ 2:12 pm

    Sammy – Really? How about the mistake Pelosi and leading Dems made pronouncing Assad a reformer who really wanted to make peace with Israel..

    That was one, I think, Romney and Ryan did not make. (We’re talking before the spring of 2011)

    August 5, 2007 The Republicans Candidate Debate

    But you’ll notice here he made the same kind of mistake about Pakistan that he later on made about Qatar:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/us/politics/05transcript-debate.html

    ROMNEY: Yes, I think Barack Obama is confused as to who are our friends and who are our enemies. In his first year, he wants to meet with Castro and Chavez and Assad, Ahmadinejad. Those are our enemies. Those are the world’s worst tyrants. And then he says he wants to unilaterally go in and potentially bomb a nation which is our friend. We’ve trying to strengthen Musharraf. We’re trying to strengthen the foundations of democracy and freedom in that country so that they will be able to reject the extremists. We’re working with them — we’re working with them… Obama was actually right about the possibility of having to act in defiance of Pakistan’s sovereignty and without Pakistan’s knowledge or permission, and if he hadn’t have done it, he would never have gotten Osama bin Laden. (Obama then made the mistake of telling Pakistan all immediately after that fact.)

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  69. Also, I suspect that the raid to free Foley, Sotloff, and others on July 3 this year may have failed because they told another country – (they would have told a country which had or could have had, captives there)

    I kind of “like” the way this article puts it:

    http://online.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-gaps-crippled-mission-in-syria-to-rescue-hostages-james-foley-steven-sotloff-1409957466

    The U.S. is still trying to determine why the militants moved the hostages at the last minute. The government doesn’t have evidence to suggest that Islamic State was tipped off but can’t rule out the possibility.

    That probably really should have been written:

    The U.S. is still trying to determine why the militants moved the hostages at the last minute. The government doesn’t have evidence to suggest the idea that Islamic State was not tipped off but can’t rule out the possibility it was a coincidence.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  70. 61. There’s nothing there about Syria – just about Boko Haram in Nigeria.

    Where, by the way, they have also apparently proclaimed a caliphate and are in danger (as of Thursday) of capturing an important city in the north, Maiduguri

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/world/africa/as-islamist-militants-advance-residents-flee-a-nigerian-city.html

    As in Iraq under Maliki, the army is prepared to flee, and hundreds (OUT OF A POPULATION OF A MILLION, augmented by maybe half amillion refugees) was preparing to flee also. There’s very limited u.S. military aid, mostly in the hunt for the captured schoolgirls, and abig new program of border security for the borders with Cameroon, Niger and Chad, but no hint of bombing which is the one thing taht could help.

    Just statements from the Assistant Secretary of State (for Africa) Linda Thomas-Greenfield who happens to be at a conference in Abuja, (the new capital of Nigeria) about developments that “deeply disturbing, and increasingly dangerous with each passing day.”

    Meanwhile, in Somalia, the United states just killed the leader or co-leader of al Shabab, and original al Qaeda just announced the formation of a 5th affiliate, for India, which is almostt new territory for jihadists.

    The previous four are 1) al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, 2) al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula 3) al Shabab – in Somalia and 4) Boko Haram in Nigeria.

    Al Qaida in Mesopotamia -> Iraq – broke away, although original al Qaeda still retains the loyalty of al Nusra in Syria maybe half the time.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  71. Steve57 (e0f6ab) — 9/6/2014 @ 2:34 pm

    But then, that’s why I knew they were lying from the start. When Susan Rice went out and attributed everything to the “best available intelligence” I knew they were ignoring the best available information. Which would have come from operations.

    But I knewe she had to mean the top level reporting in Washington, which by definition was the “best available intelligence” because it was supposed to be.

    And I think its; clear that was exactly what the presidential briefings were saying.

    Why nobdy got fired or reassigned after misinforming the president and a bunch of other people so much is another question, probably related to Obamas feelings of inadequacy. He didn’t decide taht there was a problem at the CIA or somewhere in the intelligence community.

    That they could have done better, at least.
    This administration wouldn’t have needed to ask the intel community to devote assets to determine the mission of the CIA in Benghazi. But then, they would have also know that they had own forces on the ground, who were reporting in real time through their chain of command on their own situation. This is ops, not intel. The fact that they chose to ignore it was telling.

    The CIA chose to ignore it, and instead relied on “intelligence partners” and people in the Libyan government.

    operatives were able to move to the DIPFAC, evacuate those left alive after the administration deliberately delayed them (and recover what bodies they could find), and withdraw to the annex without suffering any casualties to themselves during that evolution. Thus establishing beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were not under-equipped to go to the DIPFAC’s aid.

    They went without orders. And without equipment.

    It’s not clear where the wait order emanated from, and it is something that should be found out.

    Don’t ask if we are stupid – ask if Congress is stupid, because really, Congress has not asked enough good questions.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  72. 68. Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/6/2014 @ 10:04 am

    Finally, we have survivors willing and able to step forward and tell the American people the truth about those hellish hours.

    Finally? As the New York Times reported, this is not really new information.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/world/africa/new-book-says-cia-official-in-benghazi-held-up-rescue.html

    American officials have previously acknowledged that the Central Intelligence Agency security team paused to try to enlist support from Libyan militia allies. But the book is the first detailed account of the extent of the delay, its consequences for the rescue attempt, and who made the decisions.

    The commandos’ account — which fits with the publicly known facts and chronology — suggests that the base chief issued the “stand down” orders on his own authority. He hoped to enlist local Libyan militiamen, and the commandos speculate that he hoped the Libyans could carry out the rescue alone to avoid exposing the C.I.A. base.

    No meaningful Libyan help ever materialized.

    In an emailed statement on Thursday, a senior intelligence official said “a prudent, fast attempt was made to rally local support for the rescue effort and secure heavier weapons.” The official said “there was no second-guessing those decisions being made on the ground” and “there were no orders to anybody to stand down in providing support.”

    Now I think:

    “Orders” is strong language.

    1) Were there maybe standing cautions – like not to give away their location or existence?

    2) Was there advice – or “information” coming from Washington?

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  73. 65. gary gulrud (46ca75) — 9/5/2014 @ 8:33 pm

    Bandar was purged months ago when Dickless couldn’t enforce a red line, or something. King Abdullah has him detailing latrines.

    No, he was purged when ISIS started to get out of control

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  74. He silently corrected that mistake, but that was only part of the mistake.”

    60. daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/5/2014 @ 4:08 pm

    Sammy – What are you talking about?

    He stopped relying on Qatar to say who were the good guys in Syria.

    On August 28, 2014: President Obama said: (without naming names or anything like that)

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/08/28/statement-president-0

    The truth is that we’ve had state actors who at times have thought that the way to advance their interests is, well, financing some of these groups as proxies is not such a bad strategy

    State actors = at least parts of a government. This has to mean Qatar.

    Actors Plural – So also Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates or Kuwait.

    Advance their interest = He’s willing to forgive them, and make excuses for them.

    Selling arms to Qatar to they can be transshipped to Libyan rebels to be used in overthrowing Qadaffi is one thing. See those arms wind up in the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan

    Some of Quaddafi’s arms wound up in the hands of Hamas, but I don’t think anything got to the Taliban. The U.S. was agreeibg to Watar arming Syrian rebels, and even trained some of them in ordan. It’s been said the United states gave ISIS its first military training, but I don’t think this can be correct since Bagdadi is relying on people who were in Saddam Hussein’s army.

    and used by jihadis in Syria is another. Yet we continue to sell Qatar weapons.

    Fool me once….

    Don’t forget, the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East is in Qatar.

    What did Obama correct?

    The reliance on Qatar as a source of information.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  75. “But you’ll notice here he made the same kind of mistake about Pakistan that he later on made about Qatar”

    Sammy – Given that Joe Biden can’t remember from day to day whether he is actually wearing pants, I think you are giving him way too much credit for scoring intelligence points in his debate with Paul Ryan, especially given all his gaffes against Sarah Palin in 2008.

    With respect to the Obama/Romney debate, you have shown no evidence of public distancing between Qatar and the U.S. prior to the time of the debate to support your point. It’s a pure asspull on your part.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  76. Or maybe not.

    He let Qatar negotiate to keep some taliban there.

    He let Qatar negotiate the release of an American prisoner hed by original al Qaeda in Syria – maybe that’s even what stopped the Gaza war since the prisoner was released by way of Israel and had to fly out of the airport near Tel Aviv.

    But Obama corrected the mistake of assenting to giving weapons to whoever Qatar was OK.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  77. “But you’ll notice here [in 2007] he [Romney] made the same kind of mistake about Pakistan that he later on made about Qatar” [in 2012]

    78. daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/7/2014 @ 12:46 pm

    Sammy – Given that Joe Biden can’t remember from day to day whether he is actually wearing pants, I think you are giving him way too much credit for scoring intelligence points in his debate with Paul Ryan, especially given all his gaffes against Sarah Palin in 2008.

    It was just that Biden knew to leave Qatar off the list of reliable Arab allies in Syria, and Romney and Ryan didn’t know that.

    Now Biden says we will follow ISIS to the gates of hell. What I want to know is if they will follow them to the gates of Raqaa, Syria.

    so far Obama has bombed in Anbart province in Iraq (t get another dam out of ISIS’s hands)

    With respect to the Obama/Romney debate, you have shown no evidence of public distancing between Qatar and the U.S. prior to the time of the debate to support your point. It’s a pure asspull on your part.

    I believe leaving Qatar off that list was no accident.

    I think the distancing may have only happened after Benghazi, because possibly Qatar supplied faulty information about it.

    That was one month before the debate. What would be interesting to check was if Qatar was ever mentioned as a reliable intelligence source after that.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  78. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/obama-accuses-unnamed-countries-financing-extremist-groups

    (CNSNews.com) – Speaking about the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant Thursday, President Obama accused unnamed countries in the Middle East of having financed “some of these groups” – seemingly contradicting repeated State Department assertions that the U.S. has no information that countries like Qatar have been funding ISIS.

    I suppose that means, they say they were funding other groups that could be allied with ISIS.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  79. “It was just that Biden knew to leave Qatar off the list of reliable Arab allies in Syria, and Romney and Ryan didn’t know that.”

    Sammy – My point is you’re giving Biden too much credit for believing he actually knows or remembers things.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  80. “I think the distancing may have only happened after Benghazi, because possibly Qatar supplied faulty information about it.”

    Sammy – What information did Qatar supply about Benghazi?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  81. Wrong question.
    What happened to the stand-up order?

    RA (f6d8de)

  82. “I think the distancing may have only happened after Benghazi, because possibly Qatar supplied faulty information about it.”

    daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/7/2014 @ 2:03 pm

    Sammy – What information did Qatar supply about Benghazi?

    Probably that the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

    The original version of the “talking points” said:

    We are working w/ Libyan authorities and intelligence partners in an effort to help bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of U.S. citizens.

    Who is “intelligence partners”

    That would probably be Saudi Arabia and/or Qatar.

    At the end, the words “intelligence partners” got edited out.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  83. Sammy @74 said:

    But I knewe she had to mean the top level reporting in Washington, which by definition was the “best available intelligence” because it was supposed to be.

    Sammy, that is not the definition of “best available intelligence.” Intelligence has a very specific meaning. It is information about outside entities that are actual or potential enemies/threats/adversaries. It is collected and analyzed by the agencies that comprise the intelligence community or IC.

    http://www.dni.gov/index.php/intelligence-community/members-of-the-ic

    They couldn’t have been clearer about what they meant. They demonstrated what they meant by deliberately eliminating operational information from their talking points and subsequent misinformation campaign.

    You are simply inventing your own personal, new meanings for old and well established terms, to include categories of information which are by definition NOT the “best available intelligence.” Categories of information that the Obama administration pretended didn’t exist at the time but you now want to pretend was included under the heading of “best available intelligence.”

    You have a disturbing habit of going to ridiculous lengths to carry water for this administration while pretending to be impartial. Anybody who could twist the historical record and pretend the Obama administration did what they didn’t do and say what I’ve quoted above is not impartial.

    I may be a partisan, but I don’t redefine words as and when it suits me to do so. Only you do that, Sammy.

    Steve57 (e0f6ab)

  84. Here’s a link to one place that quotes and lets you compare all the drafts:

    http://www.thewire.com/politics/2013/05/benghazi-memo-drafts/65089/

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  85. 84. Wrong question.
    What happened to the stand-up order?

    RA (f6d8de) — 9/7/2014 @ 6:32 pm

    I agree that forces outside of Libya would have required a stand-up order in the form of cross border authorization. But clearly the administration had to actively interfere with US forces, meager as they were, already in Libya from acting on their own initiative.

    Steve57 (e0f6ab)

  86. 86. Steve57 (e0f6ab) — 9/7/2014 @ 7:00 pm

    Sammy @74 said:

    But I knew she had to mean the top level reporting in Washington, which by definition was the “best available intelligence” because it was supposed to be.

    Sammy, that is not the definition of “best available intelligence.”

    I don’t think that’s actually “best available intelligence” but it is supposed to be.

    It’s supposed to pull together everything, and make the best possible assessment.

    The talking points used the term “currently available information” but that obviously meant the “best available information.”

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  87. Re: Qatar and what Arab countries are trusted and when and if Obama corrected his mistake regarding Syrian rebels:

    Right now, (September 5, 2014) the only Arab intelligence agency the United States government trusts is that of….

    The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/06/world/middleeast/us-and-allies-form-coalition-against-isis.html

    The ten allies are: United States, Great Britain, France, Australia, Canada…I guessed them.

    And the other five are fairly easy to remember:

    Germany (which also got involved in Afghanistan, but not Iraq); Poland (which had secret prisons for captured al Qaeda people and wants to make itselfd a valuable ally, so that maybe they’ll be helped later); Italy (it’s big) Denmark (famous for the cartoon defiance) and Turkey (well, it belongs to NATO.)

    And one more, secret, uncounted, publicity shy, ally:

    Obama administration officials said privately that in addition to the participants at the meeting Friday, the United States was hoping to get quiet intelligence help about the Sunni militants from Jordan. Its leader, King Abdullah II, was attending the Wales summit meeting.

    They also wanted to include Saudi Arabia for its money, but apparently, not its advice, and…

    In addition, Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States, said in a statement this week that the Emirates stood ready to join the fight against ISIS. “No one has more at stake than the U.A.E. and other moderate countries in the region that have rejected the regressive Islamist creed and embraced a different, forward-looking path,” the ambassador said.

    Qatar is totally unmentioned here.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  88. Quite the Sammy monolog on this thread.

    red (2f19f1)

  89. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/world/middleeast/qatars-support-of-extremists-alienates-allies-near-and-far.html

    During the 2011 uprising in Libya, Qatar supported an Islamist militia in Benghazi known as Rafallah al-Sehati that had relatively Western-friendly leaders but extremists in its ranks. The extremists later broke away to form Ansar al-Shariah, the militant group that played a role in the death of the American ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens.

    Now Qatar is still backing militias at least loosely allied with the group in their fight against an anti-Islamist faction backed by the United Arab Emirates.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  90. Steve
    WRT 84 & 88.
    The lack of a stand-up order is, in a different way, equally damning. But, as it happens, Obama said he told …somebody…to do everything possible. What happened? In the hearings later, we were told nothing was possible. Panetta said they had insufficient intel to send troops, a piece of BS anybody who’s over nine years old can tell is utter crap. In the first place, sometimes you find out what is going on by sending troops. But in this case, we had live commo with several folks there and overhead surveillance. Utter crap. So who told Panetta to, 1, spike the go order, and, 2, lie about it?

    RA (f6d8de)

  91. RA (f6d8de) — 9/8/2014 @ 2:15 pm

    Panetta said they had insufficient intel to send troops, a piece of BS anybody who’s over nine years old can tell is utter crap. In the first place, sometimes you find out what is going on by sending troops. But in this case, we had live commo with several folks there and overhead surveillance. Utter crap. So who told Panetta to, 1, spike the go order, and, 2, lie about it?

    This all took place against a background of standing policy.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/world/africa/panetta-tells-of-monitoring-situation-in-benghazi.html

    … Mr. Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon, adding that “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.”

    President Barack Obama didn’t countermand any of that standing policy. They normally gathered a lot of intelligence before doing anything.

    The military commanders knew they would be held responsible if there was any unnecessary loss of American life or someone was captured.

    They were authorized to do anything, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be blamed if things went wrong! If something was shot down, for instance, in a circumstance where they were not defending any Americans.

    As the New York Times reported:

    As a result, Mr. Panetta said, he and two top commanders “felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation.” The commanders are Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Carter F. Ham of Africa Command, which oversees American military operations in Africa, including Libya.

    They didn’t know what opposition they would find.

    And the other thing is also, several times, during that night they thought it was all over. And they were being given the runaround by Libyan authorities, with promises of help and bad information, which meant the whole thing might be unnecessary.

    But a senior military official said that uncertainty about what was happening on the ground in Libya delayed the decision about where to send the Special Operations forces until about 9 p.m. in Washington, or 3 a.m. on Sept. 12, in Libya.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  92. Who told Panetta?

    Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Carter F. Ham of Africa Command.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  93. “President Barack Obama didn’t countermand any of that standing policy. They normally gathered a lot of intelligence before doing anything.”

    Sammy – You are not following RA’s point. Washington had live communications with people on the ground, video feed from the consulate grounds and drone feed from overhead.

    What intel was missing?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  94. Mr. Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon, adding that “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.”

    Sammy, I know nothing about the military other than what I read filtered by common sense.
    When that was reported, the people over at Blackfive I think went about through the roof. Many of those guys had often entered an arena not knowing what the situation was.

    Fer cryin out loud, if you knew exactly what the situation was, you might even get away with sending me in…

    Steve57, navyvet, and any others who know what they are talking about, feel free to affirm or deny.

    Maybe Panetta wanted Chloe O’Brien to be available to do her magic.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  95. What intel was missing?
    daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/8/2014 @ 3:12 pm

    Umm, pardon me, daley, did you ask what intelligence was missing…? 😉

    Its like the most dangerous part of a car is the nut that holds the wheel,
    the intelligence that was missing was the collective thinking ability of those in DC,
    or maybe it wasn’t so much the intelligence as it was the heart or spine or honesty.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  96. daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/8/2014 @ 3:12 pm

    What intel was missing?

    Was there still an attack going on or possible, or had all hostile forces withdrawn?

    Would help still be needed by the time it got there?

    Which were the friendly forces and which were not?

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  97. 97. MD in Philly (f9371b) — 9/8/2014 @ 3:13 pm

    Many of those guys had often entered an arena not knowing what the situation was.

    Who was president then?

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  98. Sammy, I already answered the question.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  99. Bandar is the root of all of this.

    JD (548f4a)

  100. daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/8/2014 @ 3:12 pm

    Washington had live communications with people on the ground, video feed from the consulate grounds and drone feed from overhead.

    And that told them: Nothing seems to be happening any more. Maybe it’s over. They had orders to evacuate.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  101. Bandar is the root of all of this.

    I just don’t have the details. Or too much to confirm this idea.

    But “intelligence partners = at last two, so it really can’t be just Qatar. And anyway Bandar was much more experienced.

    And after all how was it anyway that Ambassador Stevens went there on a day which he normally would have avoided: September 11th?

    And then there’s the security plan that called for him to go into a firetrap “safe room”

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  102. By the way, I think that reports of his death…

    http://cjonline.com/opinion/2014-09-03/david-ignatius-can-us-count-saudi-arabia-help-combat-isis

    The unsettled situation is illustrated by the mercurial Prince Bandar bin Sultan. He was ousted as intelligence chief last April, then rehabilitated this summer with the honorific title of chairman of the national security council.

    So he has not 100% been purged.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  103. Was there still an attack going on or possible, or had all hostile forces withdrawn?

    Would help still be needed by the time it got there?

    Which were the friendly forces and which were not?

    Sammy – Wouldn’t the above be a question of interpreting intelligence in hand, not a reason for sending FEST assets and other assets in the direction of Libya with ongoing assessments to be made while the assets were en route?

    Do you believe that anybody could predict what the conditions would be on the ground in eight hours in Benghazi? Was that a reason not to begin the process of sending assistance?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  104. not a reason for NOT sending

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  105. Is Bandar Groot’s sidekick?

    EPWJ (fa0e23)

  106. 97. Mr. Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon, adding that “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.”

    Sammy, I know nothing about the military other than what I read filtered by common sense.
    When that was reported, the people over at Blackfive I think went about through the roof. Many of those guys had often entered an arena not knowing what the situation was.

    Fer cryin out loud, if you knew exactly what the situation was, you might even get away with sending me in…

    Steve57, navyvet, and any others who know what they are talking about, feel free to affirm or deny.

    Maybe Panetta wanted Chloe O’Brien to be available to do her magic.

    MD in Philly (f9371b) — 9/8/2014 @ 3:13 pm

    Doc, you are 100% right and what Panetta and Dempsey, the WH really were counting on when they said some of the stupidest things I ever heard after Benghazi is that Americans are gullible and have the attention spans of gnats (we see the same plan now with the delay in executive action on amnesty, which everyone knows is coming, delayed until after the election in the hopes Americans will be stupid enough to vote for people they know will screw them after they’re safely in office).

    I recall the conversation at Blackfive very well. The basic principle is the exact opposite. When you don’t know what’s going on you send forces into harms way to find out what’s going on. At Blackfive I recall experienced operators noting that in the Iraq and Afghanistan they were sending regular Army and USMC infantry units to grid coordinates (no other information about the situation) at the rumor of a firefight.

    I’ve been saying for years that, when it comes to the kind of forces you want to go into harms way to do reconnaissance, we already had the gold standard right there on the objective from the beginning. We didn’t need to send anybody into harm’s way. The best were already there. Doherty and Woods. Special Reconnaissance is one of the standard Naval SPECWAR missions (and I’m assuming it’s pretty standard across the Special Warrior community). It’s one of the missions they train to infiltrate enemy territory, they train in reporting and communication techniques, to conduct BDA and call in air and artillery, and host of other skills they wouldn’t have needed at that point because the jihadis already knew they were there such as hide and surveillance site selection and evasion.
    .
    To give you a hint to how central the reconnaissance mission is to Special Forces, some special forces units are named (or were until recently) after it. The Marines didn’t have SEAL teams. Their special forces units were Marine Force Reconnaissance Companies (recently renamed after their WWII predecessors, the Marine Raiders, which I think is very, very cool). And the Army special warriors who went behind enemy lines are the Long Range Surveillance Units.

    I don’t know exactly the backgrounds of the other guys at Benghazi. One guy was a Ranger for instance, but I don’t know what’s standard training for a Ranger or if he had any special schools. But considering, as they observed on Blackfive, we send regular infantry into harms way without knowing what’s going on or without any real time intelligence any of the guys who were already there were more than up to the job.

    Which just shows how brazen and how transparent the lies we were being told about Benghazi were as that facility was going up in flames and in the days and weeks afterward. We didn’t need to send anybody into harms way. The best in the business at gathering the information they claimed they would have needed to send people into harm’s way were already there in harms way. Reporting that very information in real-time.

    I learned in Catholic school it isn’t nice to say things like, “I hope General Dempsey and everyone in this administration from the cabinet on up burns in Hell for their serial betrayals and their lies.”

    So I won’t say it.

    Steve57 (685cca)

  107. Bob has some ‘splainin to do. He was the AIC (agent in-charge) at the CIA Annex taking instructions from unnamed higher-ups over the telephone. This was the local chain-of-command which prevented security contractors already suited up, armed, and ready to engage from leaving the Annex in time to rescue Ambassador Stevens and the others under attack at the diplomatic compound and desperately calling out for immediate help.

    The security contractors who’ve come forward use both delay and stand down to describe Bob’s orders. Bob’s identity has yet to be revealed, but it won’t take all that long before he’s in front of a Congressional committee either revealing who he was on the horn with, or tap dancing faster than a cat on a hot tin roof as the ghostly specter of Leon Panetta lurks furtively in the shadows.

    ropelight (36b164)

  108. the term of art, is Chief of Base, like Munich, Marseilles, Mosul, Kandahar, as opposed to a chief of station, who operates in a capital

    commodus (ee1f88)

  109. “Delegate authority, take responsibility” is what I was taught. Army/AAF Dad, Navy Mom, USMC, ….

    I know, I’m old-fashioned. The new way is “Take authority, delegate responsibility, designate blame.” They have to do a lot of that designating blame thing, since they don’t have real successes to celebrate.

    “I think I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Obama told him. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

    I was also taught “Hire good people, get them what they need, and stay out of their way — you will shine in the light they create for you.”

    Guess he missed that one, too.

    htom (412a17)

  110. sorry about that, someone at the Horde, compared Obama’s national security team, to the Real Word reality show, the first sign of that pernicious infection,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  111. 100. 97. MD in Philly (f9371b) — 9/8/2014 @ 3:13 pm

    Many of those guys had often entered an arena not knowing what the situation was.

    Who was president then?

    Sammy Finkelman (728434) — 9/8/2014 @ 3:24 pm

    All of them.

    Steve57 (685cca)

  112. There’s a lot of news about ebola.

    One thing I read: it’s just like I suspected – there are many sub-clinical cases:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/06/health/ebola-immunity.html?_r=0

    Which, of course means they should be distributing 250,000 unit Vitamin A tablets (this has been shown to reduce deaths in other infections – there’s a famous study involving intestinal disorders in babies or small children in Indonesia.)

    You can take some precautions against (fatal or near fatal) overdoses.

    Sammy Finkelman (728434)

  113. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/some-administration-officials-were-concerned-about-initial-white-house-push-blaming-benghazi-attack-on-mob-video/

    Sep 27, 2012 6:13pm

    But sources told ABC News that intelligence officials on the ground immediately suspected the attack was not tied to the movie at all. The attackers knew Ambassador Stevens had been trying to flee — to a so-called safe house half a mile away. That building was hit with insurgent mortars — suggesting the terrorists knew what they were doing.

    You know what Clapper had said? The fact that the mortar attack on the safe house only came later indicated it was not premeditated!

    In a closed-door briefing with top officials, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper described the mortar attack on the safe house as suggesting that the terrorist attack was one of opportunity, not pre-meditation, since the mortars were not used to attack the consulate earlier in the day.

    They didn’t attack the CIA safe house early because their fiorst target was the amnbassador – they knew he was there!

    Clapper, of course, was supposed to have “the best available intelligence.”

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  114. On the ground – they knew it was premeditated, and one of the big reasons wa sthat they knew where to go to get the Ambassador.

    Clapper said it wasn’t premeditated because he JUST ASSUMED – or worse – that they did not know the Ambassador was there, and their prime and first target should have bene the CIA safe house, and by attacking the mission they lost some of the element of surprise.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  115. “Clapper, of course, was supposed to have “the best available intelligence.””

    Sammy – It’s too bad he was not talking to anybody who actually knew what was going on.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)


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