Yes, he really said those words:
This is a tough time for a lot of people, millions of folks all across the eastern seaboard, but America's tougher, and we're tougher because we pull together, we leave nobody behind, we make sure that we respond as a nation and remind ourselves that whenever an American is in need all of us stand together to make sure that we're providing the help that's necessary."Tough time"? "Americans in need"? "Providing the help that's necessary"? Reminds you of some other recent event, doesn't it? Steyn:
We also learned that, in those first moments of the attack, a request for military back-up was made by U.S. staff on the ground but was denied by Washington. It had planes and Special Forces less than 500 miles away in southern Italy – or about the same distance as Washington to Boston. They could have been there in less than two hours. Yet the commander-in-chief declined to give the order. So Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods fought all night against overwhelming odds, and died on a rooftop in a benighted jihadist hell hole while Obama retired early to rest up before his big Vegas campaign stop. "Within minutes of the first bullet being fired, the White House knew these heroes would be slaughtered if immediate air support was denied," said Ty Woods' father, Charles. "In less than an hour, the perimeters could have been secured, and American lives could have been saved. After seven hours fighting numerically superior forces, my son's life was sacrificed because of the White House's decision."In light of President Obama's abandonment of Americans literally fighting for their lives, this statement strikes many as "clueless," but I don't think so. I'm sure he's acutely aware of the criticism he's getting for standing by, doing nothing, and then heading up to the residence to get his beauty sleep, while the siege against the American consulate was raging. Those words were his cowardly, tangential attempt to refute those criticisms. Weak, yes, but he can't afford to engage in an honest discussion of what happened that night, so he'll try to lay claim to the qualities of a real leader, one who is tough, competent, and loyal to his own, this way. Anyone buying it?
***
Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for the Buzzworthy link.
***
Update: The alert Nice Deb noticed that "leaving nobody behind" is a favorite Obama talking point. So perhaps he is clueless after all, and this graphic from Pseud O'Nym hits the bullseye:
"Never let a good crisis go to waste." ~Rahm Emmanuel.
ReplyDeleteImmature of me to resort to name calling but what a dufus this guy is.
I am so angry with this incompetent uncaring little SCOAMF. After Benghazi, the marine detail should turn their back on Obama EVERY time he repeats the falsehood, "never leave anyone behind." SPIT. How could he sleep not knowing the fact of 30 plus Americans? People he is directly responsible for? I am beginning to believe Obama is soulless. I cannot grasp the measure of a man who fails to render assistance to his fellow citizens, presumably either because of the election or the fact that he cannot seem to grasp the reality that Islamists dislike him as much as Bush. If Obama had been at the lake where Romney and sons rescued that family I am completely sure that Romney would have ignored a stand down order while Obama did nothing to help. I am embarrassed that enough of my fellow citizens fell for Obama's shtick, I pray it won't happen again.
ReplyDeleteTexasMom2012
PS although normally I would be happy for my sons to serve our country, under Obama I would discourage it because I know he does not have the back of our troops except in speeches.
Oh fer goshsakes...
ReplyDeleteTripoli reinforced the annex around 3am, after flying the 400 miles or so.
FOX has the annex getting reinforced by "dozens of vehicles some mounted with 50 caliber machineguns" at that same time.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say/
FOX has the two ex-SEALs dying from a brief mortar attack at 4am.
The situation is plenty bad, but Steyn and the other chest thumping dullards would have you believe that we invade Benghazi in response to learning that a US post has *fallen* at 10:30pm.
The survivors have a hair raising evacuation but are in an annex that is *not* under constant fire - despite what Steyn is puffing. Reinforcements arrive at the Annex. The annex is attacked with small arms hours after the initial attack ends.
More than *five hours after* the attack starts four mortar rounds kill two Americans. The annex reacts to this by evacuating the annex.
That'd be two attacks, separated by hours.
In response to the first one, a QRF is sent from Tripoli and local militia arrives to guard the annex.
If we had had more troops on the ground at the annex we would have had more people to evacuate when they began using mortars.
Crazy town.
-S
Your comment isn't clear, S. "Chest-thumping dullard", that's colorful. At least Steyn conveys ideas when he writes, though.
ReplyDeleteThe mortar attack was brief? I've read that one of the ex-Seals disobeyed the stand-down order and "painted" the mortar emplacement with a laser, which he wouldn't have done if an armed asset wasn't in the sky. Somebody ordered the asset not to fire, so the guy who "painted" it was mortared to death, however briefly.
Do you mean to defend the administration? You seem to admit it was a hash, but then you imply it wasn't so bad. What is it you mean?
What I mean, is that chest thumping dullards who claim that a rapid reaction force could and should have been deployed immediately forget that one *was* - the QRF from Tripoli.
DeleteAnd that talk of a single attack that lasted hours is mistaken. It was two events at two separate locations - and a reading of the events as they happened doesn't lead to a head-slappingly obvious call to "send in the marines."
Moreover, the send-in-the-marines crowd would be well advised to remember Mogadishu - when we sent troops into an unknown urban environment to get ambushed because nobody thought of a good plan C.
The US post with Stevens fell before any other assets could get to it. When the survivors fled, they were ambushed in the streets.
Then they arrived at a strong point that was reinforced with the QRF and over 60 militia.
Vs. small arms they will hold out. Vs mortars and artillery, they need to leave. Sending more marines was not a solution, they would not have arrived with their own armor and would have had to drive through town and risk more ambush.
The people crying over which public statement best captured the event are so beyond stupid. They should just shut the hell up.
The questions that need answers involve how little we knew and how much our enemy knew beforehand.
-S
"I've read that one of the ex-Seals disobeyed the stand-down order and "painted" the mortar emplacement with a laser, which he wouldn't have done if an armed asset wasn't in the sky."
DeleteYou should read more.
"There was no AC-130 gunship in the region.
The only drone available in Libya was an unarmed surveillance drone which was quickly moved from Darna to Benghazi, but the field of view of these drones is limited and, in any case, this one was not armed."
Paul Wolfowitz, quoting key general officers involved in the Benghazi response.
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/10/distrust-but-verify/comment-page-1/
^IPassGeronimo
Alas, your link yielded no results. Can you give a better one? And tell us more about the reaction force sent from Tripoli, too.
DeleteI've read that an AC-130 was in southern Italy, and could have reached Benghazi in two hours. I've read at BlackFive that Ty Woods, the former Seal, was quite experienced enough to know that painting a target with a laser was silly if there were no armed assets in the sky - BlackFive concludes that either the AC-130 was there and told to stand down, or that the drone was armed.
I'm sure you'll agree that this lack of transparency is annoying - details leaking out in dribs and drabs, while the admin tries to keep the lid on till the election. If all you say is true about us dullards and our groundless speculation, you should be gnashing your teeth that Obama won't call a press conference and clear the record.
Details leaking out slowly is normal.
DeleteAssuming that anyone has all the details is probably optimistic.
Google Wolfowitz Distrust but Verify.
^IPG
Eli Lake has stuff to say now. There were two attacks, nobody did anything - nothing about military relief from Tripoli - and Obama gave vague orders for deck chairs to be moved around during the first. That last leaves an AC-130 in the air over the target in the second attack quite possible. Links:
Deletehttp://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/01/documents-found-in-benghazi-consulate-claimed-troubling-surveillance-by-libyan-guards/
http://riehlworldview.com/2012/11/does-matter-state-department-never-requested-military-backup-the-night-of-benghazi-attack.html
Don't you agree, S., that this should all have come out sooner? But Obama's given fewer press conferences than any prez in living memory, and when he gives a presser, he filibusters each "answer" (usually the answers are unresponsive) for 15 to 20 minutes, so he takes only six questions max.
An adversarial press corps is good for the Republic. What we've got now is not.
Walt,
Deletehttp://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/01/new-details-on-benghazi.html
Eli Lake's article says the following
"The only security backup that did arrive that evening were former special-operations soldiers under the command of the CIA—one from the nearby annex and another Quick Reaction Force from Tripoli."
So, if your point is that there *was* armed relief from Tripoli, but it wasn't in Army green - okay, but so what? Trigger pullers were sent in to back up the Annex force, so "..nobody did anything..." doesn't hold up.
Also from Lake's article "By 11 p.m. Benghazi time, 90 minutes after the assault began on the U.S. mission, Obama met with the National Security Council to discuss the attack. NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor said the president “ordered Secretary Panetta and Chairman Dempsey to begin moving assets into the region to prepare for a range of contingencies” at that meeting."
AEI reads that as EUCOM sending its best antiterrorism force, the military sending a rescue force from the east coast sending other special forces to Sigonella.
You read that as "deck chairs" - I guess you see what you want to see.
Much like the Spectre.
When you have AEI and NPR saying there was no gunship - there was no gunship.
-S
There was an armed asset in the sky, or Ty Woods wouldn't have painted the target. The asset was ordered not to fire, and Ty Woods was killed as a result.
DeleteThis is a scandal.
"Details leaking out slowly is normal," says m urph. (You again, Anonymous S?) Yes, it's normal when a scandal is being covered up. What flowed out quickly and plentifully were lies from the administration about a fictitious demonstration (over an unreleased video) that got hijacked by hotheads.
Are you against administrations who deny reasonable security requests from consulates abroad? If it were a GOP admin, you'd be vociferously so, wouldn't you?
Will you condemn a president who was too timid to defend his employees under attack? Be honest, if it were a GOP prez, you'd be screaming denunciations, wouldn't you?
Are you disgusted with the way the president himself lied and ordered senior officials to lie to the American people in the wake of our ambassador's torture, rape, and murder?
You Democrats are not fit to lead the country because you refuse to police your own ranks. Nixon resigned after a group of GOP Senators told him they'd not support him. We vote out people like Foley for just sniffing after interns. But you, you circle the wagons, no matter what your pols are caught doing - cheating on taxes, running prostitution rings, taking underage pages for sex junkets, committing perjury and soliciting perjury from employees.
You need to be kept far from power.
I've responded to you on the other thread, but lest anyone wander onto this thread and assume the rape/torture/kill comment has any validity - I'll repost this here:
Delete- this nonsense about the US ambassador being raped. [on that snopes page you reference] did you actually read that page? Because here's the bit you seemed to have missed - where the AP forcefully renounces the Lebanese webite that falsely attributed its reporting to the AP:
"Concerning your query on the report published by a Lebanese website according to which ambassador Stevens was sodomized. That report falsely quoted our news agency and has no truth whatsover to it. AFP promptly sent a strongly worded complaint to that website and they removed the report and published a denial, saying that AFP did not report such a thing."
The Tayvar website account has since been taken down.
So you have an obscure internet reference that is refuted by the AP - and is then retracted, vs what?
-The fact that the US ambassador is filmed being taken out of a building by a crowd
-The fact that he shows up at a hospital shortly thereafter (mighty kind of a killing mob to take him to a doctor, no?)
-The fact that the doctor that treated him says the patient had not been abused and died of smoke inhalation
On balance, I'd say the rape/torture/kill hypothesis is the viewpoint that needs a fresh dose of evidence before any thinking person would consider it.
What does it say about a person who has no evidence but is eager to believe that an ambassador was raped, tortured and killed despite having no evidence?
Sad.
-S
Video:
ReplyDeleteSteven Crowder's Redistribution Halloween:
http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2012/10/video-redistribution-halloween.html