Saturday, October 27, 2012

About those AC-130s

I heard that we had an AC-130 gunship over Benghazi during the assault on our embassy, and that one of our folks was laser illuminating the mortar attacking them.  And the AC-130 was not allowed to fire.  I sure hope that story isn't true.

Here's why I suspect that it is.  Compare and contrast, the "need to investigate":



"People know what I mean".  I fear that I do.

Contrast with "I can hear you":



Ambassadors are an odd, feudal holdover in the American political system: they answer solely to, and serve solely at the pleasure of the President.  It is the single vestigial remnant of the old European monarchical system on these shores.  There's quite good reason for this: the Ambassador's person is inviolate, and wars have begun when an Ambassador was abused.

I normally post a country music song on Saturday, but even someone as cynical and jaded as I find myself nauseated by the idea that a commander in chief might have let Americans - including an Ambassador - be butchered while armed forces were standing by, able to rescue them. Today, my heart isn't in it.  There's music a-plenty, but not if those who need to won't listen.



Thus may poor fools believe false teachers: Though those that are betray'd Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor stands in worse case of woe. 
- William Shakespeare, Cymbeline Act III Scene IV

8 comments:

Jay G said...

If this is true - that there was support in theater for the embassy and that our troops were prevented from engaging on direct orders from the White House or their surrogates, then this is an impeachable offense.

There are conspiracy theories out in force, whether this was supposed to be a kidnapping that could, in the final moments of the election, be resolved dramatically for effect; or that there was *something* in the embassy that the jihadis were allowed to take.

I'm not sure I buy it; I suspect it had more to do with hope that they wouldn't actually enter the embassy and that unleashing an AC130 would be bad juju on the ground. That's far more in line with the pasty hand-wringing we've seen.

But regardless of reason, US citizens died because this administration withheld our immediate response. That's more deaths of American citizens from this administration. The previous administration was accused of "Bush Lied, People Died", but the truth is this current adminstration has a higher non-military body count...

Roger said...

I recall from '65, bringing truckloads of 7.62 ammo to the AC 47 gunships at DaNang. Hell from the sky they were. Today's AC 130s are that and far more. Area suppression & almost pinpoint accuracy. Hell and Perdition from the sky? Perhaps Hell and Perdition are too good for the cowards in Washington that let our people die.

Blue said...

Remember Mogadishu?

Remember then president Bill Clinton's promise to back the troops on the ground with the full force of the US Military, if things went bad?

Remember the international outrage that occurred almost immediately when the world found out that the US had troops on the ground in Mogadishu? I mean, wow, it was instantaneous.

Remember Clinton then bowing to foreign political pressure and refusing to use the promised military assets to help those troops when the shit went bad? He left them there to fend for themselves.

Can you imagine being an American on the ground in some bad place, expecting promises to be kept when things go wrong?

Anyway...

Sounds like Stevens may have been playing a dangerous game (at the behest of the current criminal administration) and got caught up in a situation where (I killed Osama) obama once again lacked the intestinal fortitude to do what needed to be done.

I don't know what happened there. I suspect that Stevens knew in advance that he was on his own if things got ugly.

I was an Infantryman for a bunch of years and it makes me physically ill to consider what those people on the ground went through that morning. There came a point when they knew that help was not forthcoming and that they were going to die. It would have been like being the condemned man walking to the gas chamber or the gallows. They knew what was coming. They knew that there was no way out. At some point they knew that they had been betrayed.

Yes, it pisses me off to no end when the government of the US watches its people die in this manner for the sake of politics. I suppose that's because I watched too much Lone Ranger and Superman when I was a kid. It isn't the way we work.

Promises made are promises to be kept. I sometimes feel like I'm the only person in the world who still believes that.

I am still a naive child, in some ways.

Our government is rotten to the core. Romney will be no better.

I need more coffee.

Gun show in town this weekend. I went last night and I think I'll go back this morning. There is a gentleman there from Cedar Rapids who is selling BLC(2) and H335 for $20 a pound. :) Bought one pound of BLC(2) last night. I think I'll get some more this morning. I need some re-loading therapy.

Happy Saturday!

SiGraybeard said...

If the Seals/CIA guys who were killed were ordered to stand down and not go try to rescue Stevens and Sean Smith, that can only mean those giving the orders knew that Stevens was being left to die, right? The logical extension of that thought is that Stevens was being killed for some reason - unless they honestly thought he would be taken hostage for some sort of negotiation. Possibly to release the blind Sheik. Or because the fact that he was negotiating with Al Qaeda forces over running guns into Syria wouldn't sit well during the campaign.

Someone needs jail time, at the very least.

Blue said...

Don't forget that the US Embassy in Libya is in Tripoli, not in Benghazi. The attack was not on a US embassy, rather on a CIA station in Benghazi. I think that's an important detail to remember.

Old NFO said...

130 never launched...

Phelps said...

The sad thing is there doesn't have to be any conspiracy for this to have happened. All that was required was for Obama to get a go/no go question and to decide to answer "present".

Anonymous said...

Men, in spite of your heeled over media, a lot of us outside your old country know what he is as well.
The day he was elected I said he was a coward and a snake. No one believed me either.
Good luck with it all.
Australian.