Why didn’t they?
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.
Someone should ask him why at the debate tonight.
My boss was the leader of that Delta Force team who removed the hijackers from the airliner. He says he still can’t go to Italy as a result. He’s led quite a colorful life.
Any comment on Tom Clancy’s account in “Special Forces”?
I have two takeaways from Tom Clancy’s book. One is that Reagan’s response was a much bigger operations than the impression given in contemporary news accounts.
Two, just like how on Star Trek, all of the Vulcans you encounter somehow seem to know each other, the same seems to apply to terrorists of various races, religions, nationalities and causes. “Special Forces” seems to give support for Clancy’s fictional back story to “Sum of All Fears”, that international terrorism is comprised of a melange of peoples with various grievances who all seem to know each other and form various alliances of convenience.
I wouldn’t expect everything Tom Clancy writes to be 100% factual, having attended Caltech, I can assure you that “Jonesie” in “Red October” did not major in “cybernetics, with a strong minor in signal processing”, or was it the other way around.
On the other hand, any thoughts about Clancy’s account for the Sigonella standoff?
I’ll ask him his opinion of Clancey’s account. He told me that Ollie North was the driving force in the White House behind the operation and didn’t sound too pleased about that. In his opinion, Ollie was a wild card and his team ended up with their asses on the line to pull off Ollie’s operations.
My boss was in an Air Force transport plane as the operation went down. A Navy F-14 found and positively identified the airliner carrying the hijackers and ordered it to land in Italy. My boss and his team boarded the plane, identified the hijackers and removed them to the transport for a one-way trip to the US. Apparently, Italy was none too pleased by the operation which is why he says he can’t go there ever again. As I remember his telling of the story, everyone in his team were in civilian clothes. When the transport pilot asked who they were, he replied, “Who do you want us to be?”
Lest anyone think my boss is blowing smoke, his office is decorated with all sorts of memoribilia from his Army career. One little tidbit concerns the movie Renessaince Man starring Danny DeVito, Gregory Hinds and Cliff Robertson. He was the base commander when that movie was shot. The scenes where Robertson (who played Colonel James) was in his office were actually shot in my bosses real office. He has photos of him with the actors and the Colonel James desk nameplate in his office. The man has some stories and is a great storyteller. I’m encouraging him to write his autobiography.
I asked him about Clancey’s book. He said the account was from a general’s perspective, not the operator’s. The general arrived on site 40 minutes after the plane landed and he spent a lot of his time dealing with Italian civil and military authorities. The operators were with the plane for some 12 hours before getting the hijackers off. They were surrounded by Italian Air Force personnel who seem unclear whether the Americans were under their protection or were the target. Many comical remarks about the Italian forces until their equivalent of Delta showed up. They all knew each other so the situation was defused. It seems there was a Canadian present in the Italian Air Force. His parents were 1st generation immigrants and had him serve in the home country’s military. It was his last day and he was none too happy with the disruption.
Apparently, it wasn’t a gutsy call, so nobody asked him.
When the proverbial 3 AM call came in, Obama voted present.
Obama has top men looking into it as we sit here and ridicule his command style. A blue ribbon commission will interview these top men and generate a huge report. Stimulus money will be directed toward the ‘appropriate’ paper manufacturing organization creating or saving millions of new jobs. The EPA will then do a report on the carbon content of that report. A new commission of top men will review the analysis of the carbon emissions reported in this report. Obama is offended that you would dare to question his leadership on this matter.
We did aid the Benghazi consulate. Per this timeline, the attack started at 9:30 PM. By 10:45 PM, one hour in, the consulate was evacuated. From 10:45 to 1:30 AM, there was nothing for an F-18 to buzz, because the Americans were sitting at the safehouse, awaiting the arrival of the rapid response team. That team arrived and was attacked in the second attack of the evening.
Here’s the questions to ask Bing West, which the armchair generals here don’t know to ask:
1) How was the F-18 supposed to communicate with the consulate?
2) If the F-18 can’t communicate with the consulate, how can it suppress fire? For all the F-18 can tell, the people shooting are Americans.
3) Are the (unspecified) commandos sitting at Sigonella on a 15-minute alert? If they’re not, then it will take some time to round them up from beds or the local bars to even get them in the air.
4) Do the commandos know where the US safe house is? Do they have a way to communicate with the people at the safe house? Again, absent that, how do you avoid a “friendly fire” incident?
Egad, Chris, you ask questions as if it was the consulate staff’s own fault they got killed.
No, I ask the basic questions any company-level officer would ask before putting his unit in harm’s way.
You were an officer in the military? Which service?
1) F-18’s don’t have to communicate with the consulate. We had at least one drove overhead. The drone operators can communicate with the fast movers. So can headquarters.
2) We ll knew who was doing the shooting. We all knew where the good guys were. We all know there were mortars being lobbed in. There is no guarantee you won’t hit friendlies but the alternative is unspekbly gruesome….that would be the alternative we experienced.
3) 2 minutes.
4) The WH and State and the CIA and perhaps Centcom know where the safehouses are. They can communicate with the jets. Don’t have to commuicate with the people IN the safe house You just need to plaster the surrounding area for an annular ring of about 2 miles. The above agencies know where any relief force is so youcan avoid them
No one guarantees a perfect outcome (although liberals demand it before you take any action). But you very well might have had a better outcome and fewer american deaths had Obama decided to help his people rather than board the plane for Vegas.
One should TRY , Chris. Rather than just shrug and leave those pour souls to their fate.
1) You keep asserting without evidence that there was a drone overhead.
2) No, actually we don’t know where the good guys were. Are they all in the safe house or are some of them holed up somewhere else?
3) What are you smoking? Have you ever been in the military? At 10 PM at night, people aren’t sitting around dressed and ready to go unless they are on a specific alert status.
4) You’d need an entire carrier air wing of F-18s to get a “two-mile annular ring” around a building, or a B-52. Both of those take a couple of hours just to load and brief.
We actually executed a plan to help the consulate, which was to evacuate the building and fly in a quick-response team. A team that had comms and knew where they were going.
1) you are misinformed. Do a google search on “drone Benghazi.
here is an excerpt from a NY Post article dated the 21st:
“The United States had an unmanned Predator drone over its consulate in Benghazi during the attack that slaughtered four Americans — which should have led to a quicker military response, it was revealed yesterday.
“They stood, and they watched, and our people died,” former CIA commander Gary Berntsen told CBS News. ”
2) Yes we knew where the good guys were.once again you don’t need perfection. We know where all the safehouses were and we were listening to their screams on the phone and other comm lines.
3) Yes I was in the USAF – my DD-214 is dated 1976. Want to see it? How about my Honorable Discharge? Want to see that?
What about you? No I didn’t think so. Nice try though.
“The Pentagon said it moved a team of special operators from Central Europe to Sigonella, Italy — about an hour flight from Libya — but gave no other details.
Fighter jets and Specter AC-130 gunships — which could have been used to help disperse the bloodthirsty mob — were also stationed at three nearby bases, sources told the network.”
4) See above – AC-130 gunship. Plus a squadron of F-18’s. More than enough to kill the close ones, suppress the distant ones, and plow a path out.And you don’ t need to flatten the area just get their heads down. Keep then from shooting. Smoke so they can’t see (especially the mortarmen).
Chris – why do you insist we should not have tried?
Answer that.
Even if there were no guarantees, why would you, President Gerrib, not try to save your people from a gruesome death?
Why?
Don’t try to feed us any more 4 point bs. Just answer that one question:
Why would you not try?
Yes I was in the USAF – my DD-214 is dated 1976. Want to see it? How about my Honorable Discharge? Want to see that?
Thank you for your service.
What about you?
Gerrib claims to have served in the Coast Guard. For the record, I just did AFROTC, but didn’t sign contract when I was told I’d go into Logistics, which I knew was already being transitioned to LOGCAP. Instead, I just went into the industry as a civilian doing engineering. Gerrib is a bank IT weenie.
Still, here’s the fun part; Gerrib always asserts this fallacy of appealing to his authority. He thinks it is important, particularly when he consistently cannot argue on the facts. Without providing your fullname (which Gerrib will likely call you a coward for not providing), claiming your service is irrelevant to him. He simply disagrees with you, despite you providing facts and citations to back up your claim. You’ll note, he provides none himself. Personally, I find your argument satisfying, because it is not condecending and is backed up by evidence.
Thanks!
Now onto Gerrib’s questions; they are almost irrelevant. I realize our host suggested the notion of support. However, just last week, Gerrib claimed there was no real time data coming into the US about the attack. Gerrib was responding to comments about how the National Command Authority decided to knock off a bit early rather than follow events as they unfolded. Here was a major event, an attack on a US consulate threatening (and eventually succeeding) to cause harm to the US ambassador. The end result may have been inevitable, but Obama didn’t just move heaven and earth to try something; he went to bed.
Still, I challenge Gerrib to answer your reasonable question. You answered all of his. He can at least be decent and answer yours.
I did – the drone arrived “several hours into the attack.” From this site: at the start of the attack, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “looked at available options, and the ones we exercised had our military forces arrive in less than 24 hours, well ahead of timelines laid out in established policies.”
US Navy, 1989-1994. I’ve been to Sigonella several times.
How long does it take to fuel and prep an AC-130?
We did try to save people from a gruesome death. The first two people died in the first hour, well before any help could get there from anywhere. The second two casualties were part of the quick-reaction team sent in from Tripoli.
Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do.
Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do.
So knock off and head to bed, eh? Gutsy call.
Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do.
Which is why there is a thing called planning and preparation. If your default position is to do nothing… P&P means nothing.
Since they’d been asking for help and prior attacks existed, the admin has no excuse what-so-ever… but do keep trying to come up with some.
The choom gang in the WH are disgusting. Why would you align with them? How can you possibly defend the indefensible?
“Nothing you can do” is Bull. There’s always something you can do. Especially since we had advanced warning. Why did this president not try to save our people? What does that say about him?
“From 10:45 to 1:30 AM, there was nothing for an F-18 to buzz, because the Americans were sitting at the safehouse, awaiting the arrival of the rapid response team.”
Chris keeps talking about this “safehouse” like it was off site from the compound somewhere. The Ambassador never made it out the building he was residing in after the initial attack had started.
There was a fortified section of the house where the Ambassador stayed that could be closed off from the rest of the house by a large metal gate. The windows in this section of the house were all protected by metal grates with a few that could be opened from the inside. There was a closet with supplies and fortified walls that provide protection from small arms. After the attackers failed to bypass the metal gate they used the diesel fuel that was used to burn down the barracks to burn out the people inside of the Ambassadors house. When the smoke got too thick inside of the building the lone special agent that was protecting the Ambassador and the information specialist tried to move them outside through one of the window grates that could be opened. The special agent jumped out the window but when he turned around the Ambassador and the information officer were not there. They evidently succumbed to the smoke before they could make it from the closet to the window.
And actually there were people spread across 3 different buildings during the attack. They weren’t all holed up together. 3 of them in the Ambassadors house, 2 in the tactical operations center, and one in the mess hall area. One of the people in the TOC was making several calls out during the attack and describing the situation. He called the Annex which sent a quick reaction force, he called the Embassy in Tripoli which got additional reinforcement onto a chartered flight to fly to Behghazi. And he called Washington who apparently sat on their hands and did nothing.
Chris, I find your questions bizarre and given about as much thought as breathing.
1) How was the F-18 supposed to communicate with the consulate?
It wasn’t. The consulate and the F-18 both just needed to be able to communicate with a common command center. That would be near trivial for the US military.
2) If the F-18 can’t communicate with the consulate, how can it suppress fire? For all the F-18 can tell, the people shooting are Americans.
The previous answer covers this as well.
3) Are the (unspecified) commandos sitting at Sigonella on a 15-minute alert? If they’re not, then it will take some time to round them up from beds or the local bars to even get them in the air.
September 11 (especially in light of the riots and protests that had already happened earlier that day) would have been a great time for them to be on 15 minute alert.
4) Do the commandos know where the US safe house is? Do they have a way to communicate with the people at the safe house? Again, absent that, how do you avoid a “friendly fire” incident?
Yes, because the command center would know.
And a couple of later questions.
Which would require somebody on the ground to recognize (at night) the jet overhead as being American.
I assume you’re referring to some part of plot of whatever movie the cell phone call is supposed to be from. The only people who needed to know what was overhead was whoever was running the show. It wouldn’t be the people in the safe house.
How long does it take to fuel and prep an AC-130?
I bet it’s well under half an hour. So looks to me like plenty of time to put air assets in the area, ignoring that there were probably someone already in the air and available.
Now, if the second attack of the night had been an IRA-style raid, over with in a few minutes, then it’d make sense that air assets couldn’t have played a role. The attackers might be gone by the time the jet or whatever is in position to strike. But from what I’m reading, the fighting went on for an hour. That was plenty of time for jets, AC-130s, or whatever to get involved. As a result, I just don’t see any of those questions above, being relevant.
I read that they did send special forces from somewhere in Central Europe to Sigonella. I haven’t seen any explanation why they weren’t used. And with a drone overhead and with the exact location of the embassy personnel known they could even have sent in a cruise missile.
A cruise missile? Fired at a mortar team? By the time you loaded the targeting data, let alone pickled it off, the team would be long gone. This assumes that you have comms with the consulate and solid targeting data from the ground.
This assumes that you have comms with the consulate and solid targeting data from the ground.
Or pulled targetting data from the overhead drone, which were originally designed to develop target data for 3rd party attacks prior to being armed themselves.
A cruise missile should be enough to wipe out the thugs surrounding the consulate and scare off the rest. Everybody knows there is or is supposed to be a Marine security detail at embassies and consulates. Shoot at an embassy and you can expect return fire. Anyone who sticks around to watch is an idiot.
Tomahawks have a 1,000 lb warhead. They’ll take out not just the mortar team but the entire block. They travel at high subsonic speed, so even if your shooter is right off the coast at 50 miles or so, that’s 15 minutes of flight time. Anybody in Libya who ran a mortar team and was dumb enough to still be in the same spot 15 minutes later died a long time ago.
I wasn’t thinking of the mortar team specifically, but of the whole group besieging the embassy. You don’t even have to know there is a mortar team. Of course this would be a desperate measure and I don’t know if they knew the situation was this desperate.
The situation reminds me of Mogadishu. Didn’t they have grenade launchers and if not, shouldn’t they have? And what about tear gas? Or maybe you shouldn’t have a consulate in an area where the host government is unable to control crowds and stop an hours long siege.
1) How was the F-18 supposed to communicate with the consulate?
Same way that a Marine in Grenada did when he had to, improvise. A cell phone would have worked well.
Just for those with no historical memory, a Marine in Grenada used his AT&T calling card to call Quantico from Grenada when he had no other means to communicate and he used a telephone to coordinate airstrikes on Cubans there.
Clint Eastwood (“Heartbreak Ridge”) to the contrary, it was more likely an Army soldier who made that call, not a Marine. From this source:
Shortages were not the only communications problems found during
the invasion of Grenada; interoperability was another. For example,
uncoordinated use of radio frequencies prevented radio communications
between Marines in the north and Army Rangers in the south. As such,
interservice communication was prevented, except through offshore relay
stations, and kept Marine commanders unaware for too long that Rangers
were pinned down without adequate armor. In a second incident, it
was reported that one member of the invasion force placed a long
distance, commercial telephone call to Fort Bragg, N.C. to obtain C-130
gunship support for his unit which was under fire. His message was
relayed via satellite and the gunship responded. Commenting overall
on the issue of interoperability, Admiral Metcalf wrote, “In Grenada we
did not have interoperability with the Army and the Air Force, even
though we had been assured at the outset that we did.
Which would require somebody on the ground to recognize (at night) the jet overhead as being American.
1) Who’s jet would it be?
2) No one at the consulate needs to talk to the jets. Would be nice but not absolutely required. There were Seals on the ground. They would understand if a corridor was blasted out for them.
Why do you insist that all i’s be dotted and t’s crossed before you try to help the people being slaughtered? There isn’t time for that. You do what you can to help your people and hope it works.
Collateral damage?
Tough.
1) Some fifteen countries flew combat missions over Libya.
2) Blasting out a corridor requires knowing where to start and where to end. It also means killing hundreds of innocent civilians.
No one is flying jest over Libya in combat now
All that is over.
You are at a consulate or a safe house under extreme attack.
You hear jets and see explosions beyond the perimeter. Not on your position – outside of it. And beyond it.
Whose jets are they?
Gregg, he actually has a point about the jets. Lots of countries fly F-18’s, like Australia and Canada, and are also more likely to be using them to aid US diplomatic personnel during a terrorist attack – unless there was some kind of communication breakdown that left the Obama Administration completely out of the loop.
And how, at night, is somebody on the ground supposed to distinguish between an F-18, a French Mirage, or a Swedish Grippen? Why exactly would the consulate know that the jet buzzing around is military and was sent to help?
You’re right. They’d probably assume the jets were flown by the Al Qaeda air force, or just fighter pilots out sight-seeing, and wouldn’t take the appropriate action for someone holed up and surrounded by hostile forces when aircover arrives, which I think is to use their cell-phones to take a picture of themselves either Tebowing or planking, or more commonly, to run outside, jump up and down, and cheer while they’re still surrounded, such as was done in the movie “Stargate” and a host of other pathetically bad action-sequences.
This may in fact be why Obama and Hillary didn’t put any assets in the air, thinking that consulate personnel would come out from their hiding places to dance and sing, thus putting themselves at even greater risk.
George,
No one would actually see F-18’s. Night time, they move too fast, and too much confusion. There wouldn’t be time to ID them as F-18’s or Sopwith Camels. AC-130? no one would see it. They would see the tracers from it as it circled and fired. That’s pretty identifiable
What you would see are the results of their presence. The Seals would have understood.
You might also understand by what you saw and if all of a sudden there’s no enemy fire.
A pathway out would be made as obvious as possible.
Where, Gerrib asks, from and to?
From their location and towards the relief force Gerrib insists were on the way.
…or to the relief force you are inserting….
Guaranteed to work? Of course not.
But I would have tried and so would the servicemen
But Gregg, if they’d have put those kind of assets into the air over Benghazi, then they’d see real-time low-light and IR video feeds and more importantly, they’d once again have to make an executive decision, perhaps even a sequence of decisions. This close to the election, decisions carry risk, and risk is something to be avoided at all costs.
The Obama Administration was faced with a no-win situation in Benghazi because Bush never had a consulate in Libya, so there was simply no option on the table whose failure could be blamed on him.
In any event, there’s an aspect to these revelations that is probably being overlooked:
Hillary and other top officials (and one story implied Obama was on the line) were on the phone with the president of Libya asking for permission to enter his airspace, and these conversations were apprently quite lengthy. Over the next couple of days, the president of Libya was adamant that there had been no protest and that it was a pre-planned Al Qaeda and militant attack.
If that information came from him, it probably came from his own assets on the ground in the area of the consulate, and he would’ve relayed it in his phone call with the White House, so they would’ve known from the get-go that it was a terrorist attack.
If instead that information came from the White House (which is probably more likely), then he was adamant that it wasn’t a spontaneous protest based on real-time intelligence from the White House that was conveyed to him during the phone call.
In either of those cases, a recording of his phone conversation with the White House would probably be more damning than anything that would’ve been on Nixon’s 18-minute gap.
Indeed. Something like:
“No, we’re going with a youtube video.”
“What’s a youtube video?”
“Not enough time to explain right now, we’ll follow up. But it’s something we’ve had in reserve for awhile and we think the time is right.”
“OK. So what do you want me to say?”
“Just say it’s a response to a youtube video. We’ll take it from there.”
Actually Gregg, other than Australia and Canada, NOBODY flies F-18s (other than the USN and Marines, of course), and since neither Australia or Canada was anywhere near Libya (something that it is very likely that State Dept personnel or SEALS/misc special forces would know), there is little chance that there would be a whole lot of confusion on the subject. As for this being at night (in which case the profile of an F-18 would not be obvious), just who else’s jet would it be? The French aren’t close enough to get anything there that quickly, the Italians….well, lets just say that there isn’t much chance of the Italians intervening…and as for anyone else, they are no longer based in that area, and are thus out of range. Only someone as willfully ignorant as Gerrib pretends to be could suggest that there would be any significant confusion as to what would happen here.
Finally, just because the military command (who are of course ultimately responsible to Obama, and aren’t too likely to cross their boss in the middle of election season) said that nothing THAT HAD BEEN PLANNED FOR was within range, doesn’t mean that nothing was within range. Most Predators, for instance, carry at least two Hellfires on most flights, unless they are carrying a whacking huge recon package. In the former case, there were certainly assets (at least one) in pace to use against the crowd, and in the latter case, we would have enhanced targeting capabilities for the fast-movers and Spectres.
Arguing with Gerrib is silly…he is simply defending his God to the death, and will bob, weave, lie, and finally change the subject. Fact of the matter is that Obama blew it, so he is in full denial mode….
Ahhh George yes I did forget the Al Qaeda sightseeing fighter pilot tours over lovely Benghazi….
Hi George:
“But Gregg, if they’d have put those kind of assets into the air over Benghazi, then they’d see real-time low-light and IR video feeds and more importantly, they’d once again have to make an executive decision, perhaps even a sequence of decisions. This close to the election, decisions carry risk, and risk is something to be avoided at all costs.”
George, I have been struggling from the start to NOT conclude that Obama looked at the situation and made a conscious decision to sacrifice those people for political purposes.
I have struggled to not succumb to the notion that Obama walked down the hallway and headed to Vegas knowing he was condemning those people to horrid death……just to preserve his electoral prospects.
I have worked very hard to not give in to the belief that Obama considered that the *optimal* solution to this problem was to let them die and blame it on a video….
Because I don’t want to believe that man can be THAT cold blooded and selfish.
Gregg, it was the not optimal decision. Sometimes you just have to kill a few of the little people to get elected.
I don’t think he made the decision to sacrifice them, but I’ll bet his team kept offering up reasons not to intervene, and I’m sure he encouraged that line of argument.
Seems Obama has no problem making a “gutsy-call” when all the facts and information are laid out in front of him and all he has to do is say yes or no. But when it came time to make a real gutsy call before all the facts were available and the information crystal clear he waffled. If in fact what he said in the debates was true, that upon hearing about the attacks he told his team to enhance security in the region and investigate who carried out the attack, then I think we’ve got a serious problem here. For starters this just sounds like Obama phoning in a vote of ‘Present’ once again.
The first command is something you tell people the first time you hear of plans of an attack, as they did several weeks before it happened. Ordering people to upgrade security in the middle of an attack is like declaring that the barn doors should be closed after the horses are all gone. The second command you issue after the smoke clears and the questions that need to be asked to insure it doesn’t happen again can get answered. Every commander or leader would love to make decisions only when the best and most accurate of information is available. Unfortunately, reality has a way of making people act when doubt and uncertainty are at their greatest. Only truly innovative people act boldly in the face of adversity. This event tested Obama’s mettle and I think we all see that when the shit hits the fan he’d rather go hide his head under a pillow.
The important questions here are why was the new, friendly Libyan government powerless to stop this attack and why did the administration peddle a false account for so long when they had drone footage which showed exactly what happened? Did we try to call the Libyan government and request that they do something? If that government is incapable of stopping a major attack such as this that doesn’t bode well for its future.
Where was Obama in this whole mess? Was he even called? Keep in mind that half a dozen other embassies were under attack at the same time. Why was so little done before and during and why was so much done after to give a false sense of what happened?
The simple answer is Obama only cares about American security when he’s forced to care because of the office he holds. Otherwise, it’s not his concern.
Well, Ken, it’s so much more fun to plan the next Wednesday night party…who will be the guest singer? How can one be sure the Waygu beef is fresh?
All the important questions……….
This is also why he doesn’t have to prepare for a debate. He’s had his rhetoric down since he actually was a member of a communist political organization.
Which leaves plenty of time for he and his wife to enjoy the good times on taxpayer dollars.
Mr. Gerrib, I also served in the USN. 1979-1999. I retired as an OS1. To have to admit that I served during the same period as someone who is willing to type the things you have here is sickening.
Why do you insist on defending the indefensible?
Just wanted to point out to Chris that the two ex-seals killed were not security or part of a quick reaction team and that the quick reaction team he mentions was not a US force.
Wodun,
Yes he’s been making that mistake for several weeks now. He keeps saying that 2 americans on the quick reaction team died where, in fact, they were in the vicinity and rode to the sounds of the guns and……
tried….and….
did what they could.
Unlike our president……
Now they have emails showing the admin lied from the beginning watching an attack they knew was a terrorist attack for seven hours and did nothing to protect our people. Other presidents have acted in the first hour or so of similar situations.