May 9, 2013
The Benghazi scandal is unquestionably the lowest point of American foreign policy in the last 50 years. It sends a message to all foreign service workers that their government will no longer rescue them when experiencing hostile situations; this flies in the face of historical military coda where all available resources are brought to bear to rescue and protect the wounded, trapped or endangered. Furthermore, it brands our government as unreliable and untruthful.
Henceforth, diplomats and soldiers everywhere should beware of the “Benghazi Bus“, which could run over them at any inconvenient time. Getting Benghazied may even become a new verb in diplomatic language.
Today’s live testimony of the “Benghazi Whistle blowers” before the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee could provide the testimony that takes down the Obama Administration. Or not. The question is, will Congress have the guts to impeach the public officials who were responsible for the disaster and the subsequent coverup. This writer’s guess is that no one will be held accountable in the end.
This writer’s original analysis of the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attack and coverup can be read in these two articles:
Those testifying before the House Committee are high-profile whistle blowers, including the former deputy chief of mission in Libya, Greg Hicks. Hicks immediately became the chief of mission when it was learned that his boss, Amb. Chris Stevens was killed during the attack. Eric Nordstrom was the former regional security officer in Libya, responsible for overall security of U.S. and diplomatic personnel. Mark Thompson is the deputy assistant Secretary of State for counterterrorism.
After listening to the entire live testimony on C-Span, and reading numerous reports on this and the other 8 Congressional hearings, it is evident that there were two layers of operation in Benghazi. First, there was a blackops group centered in and operating out of the CIA compound that was just down the road from the diplomatic mission: Exactly what they were doing in Libya will never be fully known.
Secondly, there was the diplomatic mission that was in the chain of command under the Department of State. By contrast, we now know a lot about this.
According to eye-witness testimony, the 9/11 (2012) attack was clearly planned and executed by a known terrorist group and everyone in Libya understood this to be the case. This information was clearly passed up the ladder to direct leadership in Washington, who chose to ignore it and instead cooked up an entirely different story for the world press.
Hicks, Nordstrom and Thompson testified that a military stand-down order was indeed issued that prevented a team of Special Operations troops from flying into Benghazi. They could not even get a simple fighter jet flyover to take place, which would have quickly dispersed the attackers. (The terrorists are deathly afraid of laser-guided armaments carried by U.S. airplanes because once they are “locked”, they are as good as dead.)
The only important questions that remain concern who threw the Benghazi mission under the bus in the first place, and then who orchestrated the coverup.
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