By the end of October, when it became apparent that answers about the defeat were not going to be provided by the administration, I had questions about just what happened and four decision points:
We had four decision points in this crisis: the pre-attack decisions to defend our diplomatic outposts (or evacuate them if we couldn't defend them) and prepare forces to respond to threats to those outposts that exceed local defense capabilities; the decision to send forces to defend the consulate; the decision to send forces to defend the annex; and the decision to respond to the attacks.
At this point, we can add a fifth: the decision to blame a video and deny that there was a terrorist attack on our people.
As I've said repeatedly, I won't fault the president for defeats in the war. When you fight a war, defeats will happen. The enemy is, after all, trying to defeat us. And it is not possible to deny them every opportunity to inflict a defeat on us.
But I do insist that our president lead us in war. That's where I have my doubts.
It is important to understand the first decision point on pre-attack security decisions. At this point, the difference is future security against future threats. I can even excuse screw ups here. I want to know why the screw ups were made, but resources are not infinite and in weighing needs, mistakes can be made. Even really bone headed mistakes. But we shouldn't want to continue the fight without understanding why those possibly bone-headed mistakes were made.
The second decision not to try to use our military to rescue the consulate is excusable by the speed of the attack. Para-military security forces were rushed to the scene. So I'm not going to complain too much about that based on what I (think I) know.
The third decision is the most important to me, and I've complained again and again about why we didn't march to the sound of the guns. If our government truly felt at war, we'd have sent what we had in the hope that they'd make a difference. We did not. With tens of thousands of troops in Europe and many aircraft, none were dispatched. Just having unarmed fast jets overhead popping flares early in the battle for the annex could have persuaded the jihadi attackers that their window of opportunity was over and that the jets were the first shooters to arrive with more on the way.
And no, saying that no forces could have gotten to the annex before they evacuated (and after we lost two more defenders) doesn't cut it. It doesn't cut it because it assumes that when we failed to dispatch troops that we knew the crisis would be over the next morning. We did not know that overnight. We did not know that in the morning the annex defenders wouldn't be under siege in danger of being slaughtered, or captured and being transported deep into the desert for safekeeping.
Yet no troops or aircraft were sent. If we didn't know that our people would rescue themselves by the morning and so didn't need those troops or aircraft, we could have known that higher ups had written off the Americans on the ground as acceptable losses. That is the worst explanation for why we did not send whatever troops and planes were available toward the sound of the guns in the hope that they might be enough, with more gathered and sent as time went on.
The fourth failure is still amazing, 8 months after the attack. Still we have not retaliated. But who knows? Maybe we are working on that even as we speak. So on that I'll only remain uneasy rather than demanding answers.
The new, fifth issue is beyond the scope of this blog's normal lane. So I'll stay out of that. As a citizen, I want to know answers. But others more capable than I can explore that issue.
So the third issue is the key one for me. Did we decide that it was acceptable for a couple dozen Americans to be slaughtered that night of September 11/12, 2012. Did we simply get lucky that the tiny force that did run to the sound of the guns was sufficient to save the day? Because if so, that's not just a mistake. That's not fortunes of war. I hope that isn't why nobody from our military was sent in the uncertainty of the early hours of the crisis. But we haven't been told a credible story yet. I hope the Congressional hearings provide answers.
