Benghazi: Set Up For Failure And Knowingly Abandoned By America
BY Herschel Smith7 years, 12 months ago
There is a deep, dark history in the engagement at Benghazi. I’ve covered it exhaustively, but I’ll rehearse only a few details since there are just-released revelations we must cover.
Within 24 hours, my own military readers knew precisely that this was the result of a well-planned, well-coordinated combined-arms attack with the use of crew served weapons (see Dirty Mick’s comment and others). The administration knew that as well, but the reason they didn’t acknowledge it has now been revealed. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
I knew that there was a QRF that could have responded, I just couldn’t prove it, or demonstrate where they were and what happened. Eventually it all began to drip out (secrets cannot be long hidden, the truth eventually finds a way to see the light). Take for instance this report.
The team – at Aviano Air Base in northeastern Italy – raced to the field and was briefed, as planes were armed and prepared to launch. Hundreds of miles away, fellow Americans were under attack in Benghazi.
“There were people everywhere,” said the witness, who was on the ground that night but wished to remain anonymous. “That flight line was full of people, and we were all ready to go” to Benghazi. Only they were waiting for the order. It never came.
“The whole night we were told that we are waiting on a call,” he told Fox News. This account is from a squadron member at Aviano the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, terror attack in Benghazi. The source, the first in his squadron to speak out publicly since that attack, is going public to explain – in his view – that more could have been done to save Americans under attack that night. He asked that his identity be protected for fear of retribution. He says others in his squadron also have wanted to talk about Benghazi from the beginning, but no others have been interviewed and all are afraid of the potential backlash from speaking out.
“I’m not trying to give away any type of [information] that could ever harm the military,” the source told Fox News. “That is never my plan. I feel that some things need to come to light.”
Namely, he said, that a team was ready to go that night to help protect Americans under fire in Benghazi – an account that runs counter to multiple official reports, including from a House committee, a timeline provided by the military and the controversial State Department Accountability Review Board investigation, which concluded the interagency response to Benghazi was “timely and appropriate.”
The source said: “I definitely believe that our aircraft could have taken off and gotten there in a timely manner, maybe three hours at the most, in order to at least stop that second mortar attack … and basically save lives that day.”
Matt Bracken has also dealt with Benghazi, explaining that ultimately all the administration had to do to prevent timely support is NOT grant authority for cross-border operations. Kris Paronto has addressed the issue of forces being turned back, and this post at Judicial Watch is clear based on a FOIA request that the Department of Defense had forces that could move to Benghazi to assist.
Judicial Watch today released a new Benghazi email from then-Department of Defense Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash to State Department leadership immediately offering “forces that could move to Benghazi” during the terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. In an email sent to top Department of State officials, at 7:19 p.m. ET, only hours after the attack had begun, Bash says, “we have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak.” The Obama administration redacted the details of the military forces available, oddly citing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemption that allows the withholding of “deliberative process” information.
Now there are revelations that the QRF was intentionally delayed. Furthermore, the very guards that the State Department hired were terrorists.
An obscure private firm hired by the State Department over internal objections to protect U.S. diplomats in Benghazi just months before the American ambassador and three others were killed was staffed with hastily recruited locals with terror ties who helped carry out the attack, multiple sources told Fox News.
The explosive charge against Wales-based Blue Mountain Group comes from several sources, including an independent security specialist who has implemented training programs at U.S. Consulates around the world, including in Benghazi, where he trained a local militia that preceded Blue Mountain. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Blue Mountain used local newspaper ads to assemble a team of 20 guards, many of whom had terror ties, after securing a $9.2 million annual contract.
“The guards who were hired were locals who were part of the Ansar al-Sharia and Al Qaeda groups operating in Benghazi,” said the source, whose assignment in Benghazi had ended in November 2011. “Whoever approved contracts at the State Department hired Blue Mountain Group and then allowed Blue Mountain Group to hire local Libyans who were not vetted.”
[ … ]
One former guard who witnessed the attack, Weeam Mohamed, confirmed in an email sent to the Citizens Commission on Benghazi and obtained by Fox News, that at least four of the guards hired by Blue Mountain took part in the attack after opening doors to allow their confederates in.
“In the U.S. Mission, there were four people [who] belonged to the battalion February 17,” Mohamed wrote to the Commission, an independent body formed with Accuracy in Media to investigate the attack and the administration’s handling of it.
Whether they were trying to traffic more weapons or recover the more dangerous ones they had lost is irrelevant. The fighters at Benghazi trying to save American lives were set up for failure and knowingly abandoned by this administration, who coldly calculated that they could cover up their nefarious actions, thereby hiding the gun running and weapons trafficking they were conducting to foment revolution. That the mission as it was conceived was ill advised and unwise isn’t the point. The point is that on Tuesday this country has a choice. She can voluntarily choose to firmly ensconce into office the wicked woman who caused all of this, or they can turn her over to God for judgment.
On November 8, 2016 at 9:33 am, MattBracken said:
What a disgrace. In U.S. military history, there is NOTHING more important than coming to the rescue of Americans trapped in an Alamo situation. Obama and Clinton decided to write off the American lives, and blame the attack on a video instead. Just disgraceful. They broke the faith.
On November 8, 2016 at 10:59 am, notyranny said:
If Trump loses we will be in another “Alamo Situation” in our own Country. Do we prepare defenses or listen to Gen. George Patton who said…………..Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
On November 17, 2016 at 2:52 am, hoss2013 said:
Matt thanks to your commentary which I found here,
“Hillary’s Benghazi Stand-Down Order Exposed”
I have finally grasped the simple truth about Obama and this event. Everyone else for years was leading people down bureaucratic dead ends which explained nothing.
Benghazi was USS Liberty.
On November 8, 2016 at 9:58 am, Col. Douglas Mortimer said:
But the leftist media says these issues aren’t important. Everything about Killary from Benghazi, to her emails, her treacherous history and the corruption of the Clinton Foundation reeks like a organized crime family. Dark days await us if she becomes POTUS.
On November 8, 2016 at 11:27 am, Fred said:
Clinton is a real life international super villain, like something out of a movie.
Article Linked #Gab.ai
@ProGunFred
#2A
On November 8, 2016 at 12:27 pm, Col. Douglas Mortimer said:
http://countdowntozerotime.com/2016/11/08/outrage-as-satanic-lady-gagas-bizarre-costume-at-hilary-rally-she-looks-like-a-futuristic-nazi-and-tyhe-inspiration-for-hillarys-outfits-kim-jung-ung-really/
On November 8, 2016 at 11:52 am, Grandpa said:
I’ve said it before. Where were the carriers? The truth will come out, eventually. It is beyond belief, that our prime instrument of force projection – the carrier battle group, that we know was on station somewhere in the Mediterranean – could not have responded with aircraft overhead of Benghazi, in a short time.
If there was no carrier in the Mediterranean during this time, we need new Navy leadership that acknowledges the need for our presence in the area. If the Navy couldn’t respond despite being in the area, then please explain why we build carriers and sail huge numbers of floating capital ships around the world’s oceans; with no capabilities to respond to emerging contingencies.
Good that Aviano was spinning up, but we know they weren’t the only ones…