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2012-11-02 Africa North

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Posted by Steve White 2012-11-02 00:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11129 views ] Top

#1 Pretty much agrees with the official version except that the 2 agents were killed around 4 a.m:
They take up their positions. And somewhere around 5:45 in the morning sorry, somewhere around 4 o'clock in the morning I have my timeline wrong somewhere around 4 o'clock in the morning the annex takes mortar fire. It is precise and some of the mortar fire lands on the roof of the annex. It immediately killed two security personnel that are there, severely wounds one of the agents thats come from the compound.

At that point, a decision is made at the annex that they are going to have to evacuate the whole enterprise. And the next hours are spent, one, securing the annex, and then two, moving in a significant and large convoy of vehicles everybody to the airport, where they are evacuated on two flights.

And this version says around 5:15 a.m:

5:15 a.m.: A new Libyan assault begins, this time with mortars. Two rounds miss and the next three hit the roof. The rooftop defenders never laser the mortars, as has been reported. They dont know the weapons are in place until the indirect fire begins, nor are the mortars observed by the drone overhead. The defenders have focused their laser sights earlier on several Libyan attackers, as warnings not to fire. At 5:26 the attack is over. Woods and Doherty are dead and two others are wounded.

●6 a.m.: Libyan forces from the military intelligence service finally arrive, now with 50 vehicles. They escort the Americans to the airport. A first group of 18, including two wounded, depart at 7 a.m. A second group of 12, plus the four dead, leave at 10 a.m. for Tripoli and then the long flight back to America.

Posted by tipper 2012-11-02 01:11|| 2012-11-02 01:11|| Front Page Top

#2 While it obviously does not discuss the planning cycle or decision making process, this (conveniently leaked) timeline is plausible, and likely quite accurate. It is now obvious that a NEO (Non-Combatant Evacuation) was not authorized by the White House and that an adhoc (hastilly planned and under-resourced) CIA effort involving a contract aircraft, a handful of operators, along with local national malitia, became the EXFIL plan.

The presence of a LTD (Laser Target Designator) in the hands of trained, former SOF personnel, could indicate protective fires or kinetic action was at least discussed or planned for.

It is now obvious that two EXFIL plans may have been presented to the White House as possible solutions:

Plan-A: A standard on-the-shelf NEO involving In-Extremis forces US Military perosnnel with kinetic capabilities.

Plan-B: A covert CIA EXFIL involving local agency, para-military personnel.

Had no one turned up dead, the Benghazi "Plan- B" would have likely become another "GM is alive and UBL is dead" campaign slogan with follow-on Hollywood movie rights. As it turned out, we are very lucky the entire mission was not lost.

Many unanswered questions remain.

Posted by Besoeker 2012-11-02 02:33|| 2012-11-02 02:33|| Front Page Top

#3 U.S. officials: CIA ran Benghazi consulate

Posted by tipper 2012-11-02 05:01|| 2012-11-02 05:01|| Front Page Top

#4 there's no evidence that the White House or CIA leadership deliberately delayed or impeded rescue efforts

Sounds kind of defensive, no? Maybe he omitted the "despite what you may have read on the internet."

Posted by Bobby 2012-11-02 08:22|| 2012-11-02 08:22|| Front Page Top

#5 Its a story of individual bravery, but also of a CIA misjudgment in relying on Libyan militias and a newly formed Libyan intelligence organization to keep Americans safe in Benghazi.

That is not the whole story. There are too many unanswered questions. Benghazi is still the clusterMess it appears to be. This is being kicked down the road until after the election.

1. Why didn't State respond to requests for beefed up security before 911 since the situation on the ground had gone dangerous in the run-up to 911? Who made the decision to not respond to requests for enhanced security?

2. Why weren't the military assets called into play to take part in the rescue?

3. Where was the coordinating efforts and shared intel between agencies that supposedly had been set up by George W. Bush after the first 911 to respond to terrorism?

4. What were the decision-maker's (Obama, Biden, Panetta, Clinton, and Petraeus) responses to this emergency as it unfolded? Where were they any when the 3:00 a.m. (or 9:40 p.m. or whatever it was) call came? What did they do?

5. Let all the information come out. Enhanced timelines, people in the government involved, where they were to develop accountability for the failure. Still need answers to the who, what, where, when, why. These events cannot be reconstructed and used to prevent further such abortions without these kind of efforts.

Geraldo was on Fox this a.m. waving his arms and getting hysterical about this entire mess. It is so evident that he is an apologist for Obama. He acts like he knows everything while knowing nothing. He got quite steamed when asked about Bengahzigate. He is not a reporter but just adds noise to the investigative process.

There is a saying:

I have six honest men
They taught me all I know
Their names are who and what and when
And why and where and how.

Let's hear the answers instead of obfuscations and beating around the bush. This is owed to the dead heroes and their families, the American people, and the voters.

Posted by JohnQC 2012-11-02 09:02|| 2012-11-02 09:02|| Front Page Top

#6 Plan-B: A covert CIA EXFIL involving local agency, para-military personnel.

Almost appears as if it were an operation run 'on the cheap'; quick, dirty and temporary.

As discussed in other places, support and cooperation were likely set up ad hoc and not verified; same with contributing intel sources.

Posted by Pappy 2012-11-02 12:27|| 2012-11-02 12:27|| Front Page Top

#7 Exactly Pappy. A low-level Walmart rescue mission gone bad.

I can almost hear someone saying, "Hey boss, our bad, but we've got your back on this one. Let's keep the Fort Bragg knuckledragger footprint low and the noise level down. We'll work with our on site host-nation sources. We're on it"!

Posted by Besoeker 2012-11-02 12:40|| 2012-11-02 12:40|| Front Page Top

#8 By no means do I take 4 American deaths lightly. But absent increased security in the weeks prior, they were sitting ducks. Under those circumstances, with the deck stacked against them in multiple ways, I think "only" 4 friendly KIA is pretty decent for an ad hoc Wal-Mart rescue, facing resistance on two fronts (armed attackers, and up the chain). I'm sure you don't disagree - just stressing that the guys on the ground did good. Real good, if it's true that Woods and Doherty wiped out half the attacking force.

Posted by RandomJD 2012-11-02 13:27|| 2012-11-02 13:27|| Front Page Top

#9 Unfortunately, this is most likely true. Instead of funneling all the money after green energy crappy projects that failed and created few to no jobs, and electric cars that caught fire when flooded over, why not make sure our embassies were secure?

Posted by JohnQC 2012-11-02 13:30|| 2012-11-02 13:30|| Front Page Top

#10 JQC, I am wondering if the answer to that question is that "someone" was concerned that increased security would increase visibility. Seems that keeping the Benghazi villa casual and unofficial took priority over all else. Why?

Posted by RandomJD 2012-11-02 13:47|| 2012-11-02 13:47|| Front Page Top

#11 @RandomJD - 2 reasons - to keep up the meme of OBL is dead and AQ is on the run and perhaps to cover the possible gun running that may have been going on.

Posted by warthogswife 2012-11-02 14:12|| 2012-11-02 14:12|| Front Page Top

#12 Over at the Free Republic site (yeah, I know), they have a slightly different take on the events. They cite Nonie Darwish (Egyptian-American human rights activist and founder of Arabs for Israel) as saying that a snippet of a video from the beginning of the Benghazi attack shows the terrorists coming in through the conjectured unlocked front gate and the guards lowering their weapons at them, at which point one man says, Dont shoot, dont shoot. Morsi sent us!

Mrs. Darwish concluded that as President Morsi of Egypt has called for the release from US custody of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called Blind Sheik, as a gesture of good will, sent the terrorist-affiliated attackers to capture Ambassador Stevens and hold him hostage for the release of the Blind Sheik.

Now she sees why Ansar al Sharia took responsibility only hours into the attack. The only mistake was that there were former active-duty Seals on hand and Stevens was injured worse that they had anticipated. Morsi approved a state abduction identical to what would have been accomplished in Pakistan if bin Laden had been captured rather than killed. And as it happened Stevens was killed rather than captured as well. But she states that this explains why those who pulled Stevens half-dead body out of the consulate were praising Allah that he was still alive: they were not 'friendlies', they were hostage takers, and a dead hostage is no hostage at all.

This is also supposedly why Libya President Mohamed El-Magariaf said that this was a preplanned attack conducted by foreigners that entered Libya weeks before from countries including Algeria and Mali. She questions how he could know this so quickly. One knew from the start that El-Magariafs description of the attack was, in some way, ultimately self-serving. It turns out, he was just explaining what was common knowledge within his circle.

Her view that it is why Obama called for US agents at the scene to stand down: it was all a charade; the objective was to only capture Stevens, not to kill him. That is why we havent gotten a real October surprise yet: Stevens was accidentally killed and so there is no hostage to have returned to victorious praise in the last weeks before the election. (The only course left for an 'October Surprise' is to attack Stevens supposed murderers in the week before the election.)

This is supposedly also why the post-attack narrative was confused for a couple of days: the outcome was not the pre-scripted one. No one was supposed to be looking at the delay in sending military assistance to a murdered ambassador, they were all supposed to be watching breathlessly for the tense negotiations for the ambassadors release.

Again supposedly this is why the film was cast as the cause: it was the preplanned flashpoint to remove blame from both Morsi and his Obama administration co-conspirators. This is also why the consulate's Libyan guard is being held in a US German Base hospital incommunicado: so that he cannot muddy the new narrative.

If Stevens had just lived long enough to be ransomed home, the sun would be shining today. Obama was just waiting for a call from Morsi to heroically mediate Stevens/Abdel-Rahman exchange. And it was just a matter of time before the abduction would be announced and all parties would stand down.

Both Obama and Morsi would have been heroes to both the Western world and the Muslim world. But Stevens dying and the 'unexpected' Seals on scene blew it.

Posted by Mullah Richard 2012-11-02 14:51|| 2012-11-02 14:51|| Front Page Top

#13 I suspect my ranking as a cynic is fairly high Richard, (with regard to the US gov't... possibly among the top .05%) but I simply can't buy the kidnapping theory.

I'll grant you, I could be wrong... I could indeed be wrong. I thought I had most of this Benghazi disaster nailed... but certainly did not.

Posted by Besoeker 2012-11-02 14:58|| 2012-11-02 14:58|| Front Page Top

#14 Hate to say this but if Stevens was kidnapped or taken hostage it would just about be the end of Obama's chances for reelection. The media can forget a dead man but a live hostage is a little different. There might still be something to be done for him and the pressure to do it would have been on Obama.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-11-02 15:27|| 2012-11-02 15:27|| Front Page Top

#15 No problem here. Just transmitting another point of view (even if it is a freeperworld view). It is a little out there, but I do love a conspiracy.

Personally, I'm a little closer in belief to the 'helping a friend of a friend' gun running scenario.

Posted by Mullah Richard 2012-11-02 16:38|| 2012-11-02 16:38|| Front Page Top

#16 Right, I'm aware of (1) the kidnapping hypothesis, (2) the running-guns-to-Syria hypothesis, and (3) the "OBL is dead and AQ is on the run" hypothesis. All are consistent with the facts known so far, but that's not enough to convince me of any of them. Also, all point to BHO as a dangerous cretin, which we already knew, so filling in the big picture is mainly to establish the degree of how dangerous and how cretinous. If he's re-relected, I'd like to think that he's only won the right to be impeached.

Posted by RandomJD 2012-11-02 16:50|| 2012-11-02 16:50|| Front Page Top

#17 If B-Hussein-O gets re-elected, he might get impeached by the House but never prosecuted by the Senate unless the Senate changes hands and there are enough Dems who go along with an impeachment. The best shot at removing "O" from office is voting him out on Tuesday.

Posted by JohnQC 2012-11-02 17:14|| 2012-11-02 17:14|| Front Page Top

#18 Unless he declares a State of Emergency. I would never have believed that until Benghazi.

Posted by Charles 2012-11-02 17:15|| 2012-11-02 17:15|| Front Page Top

#19 Unless he declares a State of Emergency. I would never have believed that until Benghazi.

...or Sandy...

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-11-02 17:43|| 2012-11-02 17:43|| Front Page Top

#20 I wouldn't be spending the nightshift at any aspirin factories

/to semi-quote some other smartass a while ago...like tu

Posted by Frank G 2012-11-02 18:14|| 2012-11-02 18:14|| Front Page Top

#21 While Ima wake and about it occurs to me I've never seen FG and TU in the same picture.

Posted by Shipman 2012-11-02 18:39|| 2012-11-02 18:39|| Front Page Top

#22 And that's troubling... very troubling.

Posted by Shipman 2012-11-02 18:40|| 2012-11-02 18:40|| Front Page Top

#23 Bwahahahahaha!

Posted by Frank G 2012-11-02 18:53|| 2012-11-02 18:53|| Front Page Top

23:31 trailing wife
23:30 Frank G
23:30 trailing wife
23:18 trailing wife
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22:54 Redneck Jim
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20:55 newc
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18:54 Shipman
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