Benghazi Attack

                    The Obama Administration views foreign policy as its strongest asset, but the terrorist attack in Benghazi has proven otherwise.  We were first told that the terrorist attack on September 11, 2012, was just a mob spontaneously set into motion by an anti-Islamic film.  Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton and other members of the administration repeated this story for two weeks before they were forced to backpedal.   There were no American investigators on the scene for over a week.  Why?  One of the first people to investigate the burned out consulate was a reporter from CNN who found the Ambassador's diary on the floor.  It is now seven weeks since the attack; information about it continues to leak out.  Copies of e-mails from the Libya Embassy were recently leaked - and the information is not good.

Four Americans died in the attack - Ambassador Christopher Stevens, former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, former Navy Seal Glen Doherty, and Sean Smith - and their families are begging to know why they died.  The Obama administration continues to stone wall.

An article at Fox News presented the most concise details I have read about the attack.  Fox News communicated with sources who were in Benghazi when the first shots were heard about 9:40 p.m. on the night of the attack. Fox learned that "an urgent request [came] from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate" and the "subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself."  This request was "denied by the CIA chain of command".  In fact, the CIA chain of command "told the CIA operators twice to `stand down' rather than go to the consulate to help the Americans there.

The CIA annex is located about one mile from the U.S. consulate in Benghazi where the attack occurred.  Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods was at the annex as part of a small team when he and others heard shots.  They told their superiors what they had heard and "requested permission to go to the consulate and help out."  They were told to "stand down" - twice.

Woods and at least two other people ignored those orders and went to the consulate, which they found on fire.  "Shots were exchanged."  The rescuers from the CIA annex "evacuated those who remained at the consulate and the body of Sean Smith - killed in the initial attack.  They returned to the CIA annex about midnight after searching unsuccessfully for the Ambassador.

By that time, the CIA safe house or annex was being fired upon, and another call for military support was made.  This request was denied.  "There were no communications problems at the annex, according to those present at the compound.  The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters.  In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound.  The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights….

"According to sources on the ground during the attack, the special operator on the roof of the CIA annex had visual contact and a laser pointing at the Libyan mortar team that was targeting the CIA annex.  The operators were calling in coordinates of where the Libyan forces were firing from….

"Fox News has learned that there were two military surveillance drones redirected to Benghazi shortly after the attack on the consulate began. They were already in the vicinity.  The second surveillance craft was sent to relieve the first drone, perhaps due to fuel issues.  Both were capable of sending real time visuals back to U.S. officials in Washington, D.C.  Any U.S. official or agency with the proper clearance, including the White House Situation Room, State Department, CIA, Pentagon and others, could call up that video in real time on their computers."

In spite of the fact that the U.S. officials in Washington, D.C., could watch the attack in real time, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta claimed that he did not have "a clear enough picture" of the event in Benghazi to send help.  Besides, they thought the attack was over because there was a lull in the action.

The Fox News report continued:  "Tyrone Woods was later joined at the scene by fellow former Navy SEAL Glen Doherty, who was sent in from Tripoli as part of a Global Response Staff or GRS that provides security to CIA case officers and provides counter surveillance and surveillance protection.  They were killed by a mortar shell at 4 a.m. Libyan time, nearly seven hours after the attack on the consulate began - a window that represented more than enough time for the U.S. military to send back-up from nearby bases in Europe, according to sources familiar with Special Operations.  Four mortars were fired at the annex.  The first one struck outside the annex.  Three more hit the annex.

"A motorcade of dozens of Libyan vehicles, some mounted with 50 caliber machine guns, belonging to the February 17th Brigades, a Libyan militia which is friendly to the U.S., finally showed up at the CIA annex at approximately 3 a.m.  An American Quick Reaction Force sent from Tripoli had arrived at the Benghazi airport at 2 a.m. (four hours after the initial attack on the consulate and was delayed for 45 minutes at the airport because they could not at first get transportation, allegedly due to confusion among Libyan militias who were supposed to escort them to the annex, according to Benghazi sources.

"The American special operators, Woods, Doherty and at least two others were part of the Global Response Staff, a CIA element, based at the CIA annex and were protecting CIA operators who were part of a mission to track and repurchase arms in Benghazi that had proliferated in the wake of Muammar Qaddafi's fall.  Part of their mission was to find the more than 20,000 missing MANPADS, or shoulder-held missiles capable of bringing down a commercial aircraft….

"Fox News has also learned that Stevens was in Benghazi that day to be present at the opening of an English-language school being started by the Libyan farmer who helped save an American pilot who had been shot down by pro-Qaddafi forces during the initial war to overthrow the regime.  That farmer saved the life of the American pilot and the ambassador wanted to be present to launch the Libyan Rescuer's new school."

The twitter account of Jake Tapper relayed the following information given to him by a CIA spokesperson:  "Breaking news on Benghazi:  the CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus, has put out this statement:  `No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate.'"

                    Assuming this breaking news is the truth, if the orders for the CIA special operators to "stand down" did not come from Petraeus or anyone else in the CIA, who did they come from?

                    Republicans are accusing the Obama administration of "distorting the account of the attack."  Republican senators are demanding that the Obama administration declassify the surveillance video taken by the drones and make it public.

                    Charles Woods, father of Tyrone Woods, the hero who left the CIA compound and lost his life fighting to help his fellow Americans at the Benghazi consulate, shared his experience at the official memorial service for the four slain Americans held at Andrews Air Force Base a few days after the attack.

                    "When [Obama] came over to our little area, he kind of just mumbled, you know, `I'm sorry.'  His face was looking at me, but his eyes were looking over my shoulder like he could not look me in the eye.  And it was not a sincere, `I'm really sorry, you know, that your son died,' but it was totally insincere, more of whining type, `I'm sorry.'"

                    Woods described how it felt when he shook Obama's hand - "like shaking hands with a dead fish."

                    He said that his encounter with the commander-in-chief "just didn't feel right.  And now that it's coming out that apparently the White House situation room was watching our people die in real time, as this was happening."

                    Woods also described his experience of meeting Hilary Clinton:  "Well, this is what Hillary did.  She came over and, you know, did the same thing - separately came over and talked with me.  I gave her a hug, shook her hand.  And she did not appear to be one bit sincere - at all.  And you know, she mentioned that the thing about, we're going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video.  That was the first time I had even heard about anything like that.

                    Woods wants answers on what happened, why back-up troops were not sent, and why there was no apparent effort to save his son's life and the lives of the other three Americans.

                    Blogger James Lewis asked:  what did Obama know and when did he know it?  He also presented the following "fact".

                    "According to Special Ops Lt. Colonel "Doug" calling Rush Limbaugh today, there are standing orders for instant flash communication about any attacks on US Ambassadors or four-star generals.  As soon as the assault on the Benghazi mission started, local personnel notified the US Embassy in Tripoli, which triggered an instant alarm in Washington, D.C.  The President's military aide knows within a few minutes and is required to notify POTUS immediately.  Two separate `In Extremis' rescue teams were alerted, a C-130 was ready, and F-18 jet bombers.  US personnel laser-spotted the Libyan mortar team that killed Americans, pointing the way for bombs that never came…."

                    Buck Sexton is the national security editor at The Blaze and the Co-host of Real News on The Blaze TV.  Before he joined the Blaze, he served in the U.S. intelligence community for six years, specializing in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency.  He has field experience in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.  He has a B.A. in Political Science from Amherst College.  He wrote a very informative article entitled "Here's What Obama Doesn't Want You to Know about Libya."  He cites information that Obama knew before the attack - or should have known.  (Maybe he did not know it since he stopped attending security briefings!)  Then he asked the million dollar question:  "Why was the White House so unwilling to state the obvious on Benghazi?  The answer is all about Obama's narrative heading into reelection.  The Benghazi debacle makes it appear Libya is heading for darker times, it proved that the global Jihad marches on after Bin Laden's death, and Libya could even become a safe haven for terrorists to plot attacks on the world."

                    Sexton continued his article:  "In fact, as we headed into the thick of election season, the Obama administration was poised to hold Libya up as the poster-child for humanitarian intervention….

                    "Then our U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other brave Americans serving their country were murdered by the very people they had risked their lives to liberate.  Americans now see threats on the horizon for which this administration is ill-prepared.

                    "So what does Benghazi tell us about the real state of Libya?

                    "The militias control everything.  The central government doesn't have an effective police force or military, and there are Salafists and Jihadists angling for power in the Eastern province of Barqa who entirely reject the democratic process.  Many of them also despise America and the West, despite our saving them from annihilation.

                    "Libya as it exists on a map is a fiction.  It is really three separate states that were pulled together by a vicious strongman in Qaddafi who was bizarre even by maniacal dictator standards.  He allowed no civil society to form, and even kept most of the military intentionally weak."

                    I got the idea from this article that Libya is a long way from having a unified democracy, and I wonder if we made a really big mistake by helping the people of Libya get rid of Muammar Qaddafi.  He at least had some control over the different factions in Libya.

                    The bottom line is, if Sexton knows all this information about Libya, then our intelligence agencies must have the same and more.  Why were there no Marines at the consulate to protect the ambassador?  Why didn't backup support come when it was requested time after time?  Why did the Obama Administration lie to us?

                    Richard Nixon resigned rather than be impeached for covering up Watergate.  Benghazi is much, much bigger than Watergate because no one died in the Watergate break in or cover up.  Will Benghazi prove to be Obama's Watergate or has he finally met his Waterloo?   We must fire Obama and get a new President!