Monday, July 18, 2016

Benghazi - REDUX

     I know it is a tired old story.  It has been, like the proverbial horse, beaten to death.  But the sad thing is that the truth was never revealed, and probably will never be revealed because there were so many people at fault, starting with the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  The blame has to be placed at her feet, because ultimately she was the one responsible for withholding orders or not responding to request from Benghazi.
     The amazing thing is that the truth was always there, in the wide open.  Yet, somehow, it always got shunted aside and spin doctors went to work not only justifying Clinton's inaction, but also covering up confusion and lack of leadership, ability to make critical decisions at a crucial time at highest levels of State, Defense, and CIA!
     During Senate Hearings, various players at the highest level all testified and of course washed their hands of responsibility for not making the right decisions.  Hillary Clinton's response of, "What difference does it make now?" is well known and much bandied about.  But there were equally puzzling and confusing, if not callous responses from other individuals.  Joint Chief Dempsey's responses were confusing and inaccurate.  He didn't even seem to know where the Special Operations special unit for rapid reaction was located.  He said it was in Bosnia when in fact it was in Croatia.  He also said that it would have taken four hours to reach Benghazi for the special unit when a commercial airliner could have made the trip in two hours!  There were series of "bad" answers from those involved in decision making.  But part of the problem was that as I have stated many times, our congressional representatives in either houses seem to always ask the wrong questions.  They too seem to be clueless!
     The bottom line is that we did have the military capability to reach Benghazi and save the four Americans who perished.  That much information is openly available!  Yet, the news media that actually uncovered this information (FOX News) never stressed this part, never questioned why no "go" signal was given to the waiting rescue force in Croatia!  Recently Hollywood made a movie about the Benghazi disaster and in the movie it is clearly shown that we had the capability to save Ambassador Stevens and the three security personnel, but failed to do so for lack of a decision from the top!  The movie, 13 Hours: the Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, is remarkably accurate in depicting what actually happened behind the scenes.  Don't get me wrong, I am not promoting the movie!  This information is available in the form of an email that was sent to all parties involved, beginning with the Secretary of State.  The email had multiple addressees, from State to Defense and CIA.  The problem was that no one acted, everyone just waited.  What they waited for is not clear.  But, we must remember that everyone was simply following the administration's lead on Foreign Policy, which was and is, "wait and see."  That's how the whole mess in Syria began and how we once again have become embroiled in Iraq.  It is Obama's famous "wait and see" Foreign Policy.
     For a number of years we have maintained a special unit for just such situations as the one that took place in Benghazi.  The unit is known as C-110 and it is made up of specially trained soldiers from C Company of the 1st Battalion of 10th Special Forces Group.  They were at the time in Croatia, having just completed a training exercise when they received word to get ready for the real thing.  As the email explains, they were "spinning," that means they were all ready to go, literally spinning before taking off!  There was no preparation necessary, the troops were on the tarmac and the planes were ready to take off.  All they needed was a go signal and they would have been off and in Benghazi well within the time to rescue the doomed four Americans.
     So, all of that talk, all of the testimony that we did not have time or did not have the military capability at the time to reach Benghazi is a bunch of crock!  It was simply the indecisiveness of the top echelon of our government, beginning with Hillary Clinton, who didn't even respond to the email in question!  I blame all of our top leadership at the time, but most of all, our Secretary of State Clinton!  To claim that she never received proper information about the situation is just an outright lie!  But then, she is a habitual liar!
     Usually, Hollywood takes liberties with truth and sometimes invents things in the name of art.  So, perhaps those who saw the movie did not believe its content, the fact that we could have saved the people in Benghazi but didn't for lack of response from the top.  But in this case, as rare as it may be, Hollywood did not exaggerate the circumstances and amazingly placed the blame where it belonged!  But even for those skeptics who may still think that Hollywood just made up the whole thing, the original email is available for anyone to read on internet.  It is not classified, and you don't need the Freedom of Information Act to have access to it.
     It is truly a sad state of affairs when such poor leadership runs our country, and we are in the process of possibly seeing one of the biggest offenders of Benghazi tragedy become our next president!  What a travesty!

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