Why was there no military response to the events in Benghazi?
a. Were military assets in the region available? If not, why not?
b. If so, were they alerted?
c. Were assets deployed to any location in preparation for a rescue or recovery attempt?
d. Was military assistance requested by the Department of State? If so, what type?
e. Were any US Army/Naval/USMC assets available to support the US diplomats in
Benghazi during the attack?
f. What, if any, recommendations for military action were made by DOD and the US Africa
Command?
That's what I want to know:
[At the Annex], the heroic efforts of Woods and Doherty bought time to make a decision to intervene. We might have lost anyway. But the decision wasn't simply to drop ground troops into an uncertain situation where they, too, might have been lost. We had the time to dispatch air recon and air support assets. The former to find out what is happening from the air and be communicating with the annex defenders to clarify the situation. The latter to buy time by either buzzing defenders or shooting at the attackers guided by the defenders--or just firing around the perimeter of the annex to keep enemy forces at bay.
Then we might have had the information higher ups needed to commit ground forces. We failed here, assuming the worst and cutting our losses--we had our magical "exit strategy" and followed it rather than trying to win--or even trying to find out if we could win. Instead, the decision was made to go to Las Vegas to raise funds for the one battle our president is fully committed to winning--the White House.
If our leadership truly believed we are at war, we'd have sent cooks and typists to the sound of the guns. But we had better than that in Europe.
Our State Department and CIA sent tiny forces to help despite incomplete information. And they made a difference. Instead of four dead there might have been a dozen or more dead. But our enemies still got a victory. What more could regulars have done?
Really, it was already close. We could have won that battle:
We can't know what little bit of extra demonstration of our intentions to fight on that ground would have tipped the balance and frightened the attackers at the annex off on the theory that they'd best live to jihad another day.
Nothing might have altered the outcome. That's war. But we didn't even try.
Our leadership is relying on the bullshit argument that we didn't have enough real-time information to act. You never have all the information you'd like. But you always have the responsibility to act on what information you have, with the forces you have available, in the time you have left. Waiting for more information so you can appreciate how the situation is developing just gives the initiative to the enemy.
We didn't try to fight a battle in Benghazi that day when our enemy initiated a battle. Only the heart and skill of the few who did try to fight that battle kept the day from being far worse.
Did the White House really just write off the annex defenders? Was the overnight stand of those Annex defenders an unexpected embarrassment that exposed our refusal to act? Our refusal to fight the war we are in against jihadi murderers?
The day our military doesn't march to the sound of the guns with whatever is at hand is a sad day for our military'a legacy. I want to know what happened at Benghazi. Did our military fail to help? Or were they told to stand down?
I mean, our troops are still fighting and dying in Afghanistan because we are at war with jihadi murderers, right?
