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Gates: Some Benghazi critics have "cartoonish" view of military capability

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pbrauer

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Robert Gates appeared on CBS's Face The Nation on Sunday and pushed back on the critics of Obama's military. See the video on his appearance at the link .

Gates, a Republican who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush in 2006 and agreed to stay through more than two years of President Obama's first term, repeatedly declined to criticize the policymakers who devised a response to the September 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

"Frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were," said Gates, now the chancellor of the College of William and Mary.

"We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, and so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible." he explained.

Suggestions that we could have flown a fighter jet over the attackers to "scare them with the noise or something," Gates said, ignored the "number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from [former Libyan leader] Qaddafi's arsenals."

"I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi under those circumstances," he said.

Another suggestion posed by some critics of the administration, to, as Gates said, "send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, would have been very dangerous."

"It's sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces," he said. "The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm's way, and there just wasn't time to do that."



Gates: Some Benghazi critics have "cartoonish" view of military capability - CBS News
 
Robert Gates appeared on CBS's Face The Nation on Sunday and pushed back on the critics of Obama's military. See the video on his appearance at the link .

Gates, a Republican who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush in 2006 and agreed to stay through more than two years of President Obama's first term, repeatedly declined to criticize the policymakers who devised a response to the September 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

"Frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were," said Gates, now the chancellor of the College of William and Mary.

"We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, and so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible." he explained.

Suggestions that we could have flown a fighter jet over the attackers to "scare them with the noise or something," Gates said, ignored the "number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from [former Libyan leader] Qaddafi's arsenals."

"I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi under those circumstances," he said.

Another suggestion posed by some critics of the administration, to, as Gates said, "send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, would have been very dangerous."

"It's sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces," he said. "The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm's way, and there just wasn't time to do that."



Gates: Some Benghazi critics have "cartoonish" view of military capability - CBS News

I can already hear the complaints about Gates being a turncoat.
 
Another suggestion posed by some critics of the administration, to, as Gates said, "send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, would have been very dangerous."

So we have a former secretary of defense who wouldn't send help to a distressed foreigh mission because it would have been dangerous? You're kidding. Military operations can be dangerous? Glad he's no longer running the Pentagon.
 
I completely agree with him. I think the RW faux and others came up with this conspiricy to make Obama look bad, but most of the Fauxites completely believe the US military has limitless resourses and capablities, if the mean old military hater Obama would have let them use them. According to testimony I watched on CSPAN it would have taken 20 hours to get jets overhead. I hear the repubs keeps saying somewhere between 30 min to 2 hours. If the bird is on the runway and is not flight ready, it does take a while a lot more than an hour or two. If a jet flew over it would just cause the terrorist to get closer to the American. I really have a hard time believing it would really scare the bad guys.
Robert Gates appeared on CBS's Face The Nation on Sunday and pushed back on the critics of Obama's military. See the video on his appearance at the link .

Gates, a Republican who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush in 2006 and agreed to stay through more than two years of President Obama's first term, repeatedly declined to criticize the policymakers who devised a response to the September 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

"Frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were," said Gates, now the chancellor of the College of William and Mary.

"We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, and so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible." he explained.

Suggestions that we could have flown a fighter jet over the attackers to "scare them with the noise or something," Gates said, ignored the "number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from [former Libyan leader] Qaddafi's arsenals."

"I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi under those circumstances," he said.

Another suggestion posed by some critics of the administration, to, as Gates said, "send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, would have been very dangerous."

"It's sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces," he said. "The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm's way, and there just wasn't time to do that."



Gates: Some Benghazi critics have "cartoonish" view of military capability - CBS News
 
Robert Gates appeared on CBS's Face The Nation on Sunday and pushed back on the critics of Obama's military. See the video on his appearance at the link .

Suggestions that we could have flown a fighter jet over the attackers to "scare them with the noise or something," Gates said, ignored the "number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from [former Libyan leader] Qaddafi's arsenals."

"I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi under those circumstances," he said.

Interesting that we approved flying fighter jets over Lybia when Qaddafi had those surface to air missiles......
 
Robert Gates appeared on CBS's Face The Nation on Sunday and pushed back on the critics of Obama's military. See the video on his appearance at the link .

Gates, a Republican who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush in 2006 and agreed to stay through more than two years of President Obama's first term, repeatedly declined to criticize the policymakers who devised a response to the September 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

"Frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were," said Gates, now the chancellor of the College of William and Mary.

"We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, and so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible." he explained.

Suggestions that we could have flown a fighter jet over the attackers to "scare them with the noise or something," Gates said, ignored the "number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from [former Libyan leader] Qaddafi's arsenals."

"I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi under those circumstances," he said.

Another suggestion posed by some critics of the administration, to, as Gates said, "send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, would have been very dangerous."

"It's sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces," he said. "The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm's way, and there just wasn't time to do that."

Gates: Some Benghazi critics have "cartoonish" view of military capability - CBS News

Bolded statement: If what I recall is true, that the attack transpired over four or five hours, I find his statement not only unbelievable, but a lie.

If we don't have a "ready force" standing by in the Middle East? Where they hell do we have a ready force?
 
So we have a former secretary of defense who wouldn't send help to a distressed foreigh mission because it would have been dangerous? You're kidding. Military operations can be dangerous? Glad he's no longer running the Pentagon.

The problem was that no one knew the exact situation on the ground so there was not enough information to make a feasible plan.
 
I can already hear the complaints about Gates being a turncoat.

That's fine for him to say that, but it doesn't excuse the State Dept lax preparation at the consulate and the dismissiveness of the ambassadors request to maintain or increase security; nor excuse the indequacy of the building structure itself.
 
Robert Gates appeared on CBS's Face The Nation on Sunday and pushed back on the critics of Obama's military. See the video on his appearance at the link .
Gates, a Republican who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush in 2006 and agreed to stay through more than two years of President Obama's first term, repeatedly declined to criticize the policymakers who devised a response to the September 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

"Frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were," said Gates, now the chancellor of the College of William and Mary.

"We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, and so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible." he explained.

Suggestions that we could have flown a fighter jet over the attackers to "scare them with the noise or something," Gates said, ignored the "number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from [former Libyan leader] Qaddafi's arsenals."

"I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi under those circumstances," he said.

Another suggestion posed by some critics of the administration, to, as Gates said, "send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, would have been very dangerous."

"It's sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces," he said. "The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm's way, and there just wasn't time to do that."



Gates: Some Benghazi critics have "cartoonish" view of military capability - CBS News

a good cartoonish headline from cbs news.

to the highlight, that statement seems quite false given what we now know.

the US people in benghazi at the consulate knew what the environment was, knew what the threat was and knew what was going on the ground.

NO ONE LISTENED!!
 
Military people die all the time in training exercises. We'd better stop that training crap, too.
 
a good cartoonish headline from cbs news.

to the highlight, that statement seems quite false given what we now know.

the US people in benghazi at the consulate knew what the environment was, knew what the threat was and knew what was going on the ground.

NO ONE LISTENED!!

I believe that the pentagon, defense department and its officals are in charge when it comes to the deployment of military forces. Funny thing is all the ire of these investigations is not aimed at them.
 
I believe that the pentagon, defense department and its officals are in charge when it comes to the deployment of military forces. Funny thing is all the ire of these investigations is not aimed at them.

the investigation is trying to find out who made the decisions that involved the benghazi terrorist attack..... before, during and after the attack.
 
I believe that the pentagon, defense department and its officals are in charge when it comes to the deployment of military forces. Funny thing is all the ire of these investigations is not aimed at them.

Do you really believe this?
 
Robert Gates appeared on CBS's Face The Nation on Sunday and pushed back on the critics of Obama's military. See the video on his appearance at the link .

Gates, a Republican who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush in 2006 and agreed to stay through more than two years of President Obama's first term, repeatedly declined to criticize the policymakers who devised a response to the September 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

"Frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were," said Gates, now the chancellor of the College of William and Mary.

"We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, and so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible." he explained.

Suggestions that we could have flown a fighter jet over the attackers to "scare them with the noise or something," Gates said, ignored the "number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from [former Libyan leader] Qaddafi's arsenals."

"I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi under those circumstances," he said.

Another suggestion posed by some critics of the administration, to, as Gates said, "send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, would have been very dangerous."

"It's sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces," he said. "The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm's way, and there just wasn't time to do that."



Gates: Some Benghazi critics have "cartoonish" view of military capability - CBS News

I disagree with you, and if you don't like it, I'll send Yosemite Sam after 'ya. :mrgreen:
 
"We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, and so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible." he explained.
No Mr. Gates, what's "cartoonish" is the level of common sense applied toward keeping our embassy personnel safe.
 
How does this statement about ignorance of the tactical situation match up with statements that the situation was watched off and on in real time with drones?

One is false or the other is.

Way too much contradictory BS being circulated from various sources right now. Just a heads up but this kind of thing happening while hes part of the admin leadership doesnt exactly make him look any better.
 
No Mr. Gates, what's "cartoonish" is the level of common sense applied toward keeping our embassy personnel safe.

It wasn't an embassy, it was a diplomatic compound. An Embassy tend to be better protected.
 
Robert Gates appeared on CBS's Face The Nation on Sunday and pushed back on the critics of Obama's military. See the video on his appearance at the link .

Gates, a Republican who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush in 2006 and agreed to stay through more than two years of President Obama's first term, repeatedly declined to criticize the policymakers who devised a response to the September 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

"Frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were," said Gates, now the chancellor of the College of William and Mary.

"We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, and so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible." he explained.

Suggestions that we could have flown a fighter jet over the attackers to "scare them with the noise or something," Gates said, ignored the "number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from [former Libyan leader] Qaddafi's arsenals."

"I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi under those circumstances," he said.

Another suggestion posed by some critics of the administration, to, as Gates said, "send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, would have been very dangerous."

"It's sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces," he said. "The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm's way, and there just wasn't time to do that."



Gates: Some Benghazi critics have "cartoonish" view of military capability - CBS News

Gee, who knew the American military was so ineffectual and incapable of at least attempting the rescue of a US Ambassador and his colleagues. America's enemies must be comforted by such admissions.
 
Gee, who knew the American military was so ineffectual and incapable of at least attempting the rescue of a US Ambassador and his colleagues. America's enemies must be comforted by such admissions.

Good morning, CJ. :2wave:

Not only comforted, but probably also emboldened, and laughing at their success in making America look ridiculous! :thumbdown: I really resent that!
 
Good morning, CJ. :2wave:

Not only comforted, but probably also emboldened, and laughing at their success in making America look ridiculous! :thumbdown: I really resent that!

Good morning Lady P - how goes the garden?
 
"It's sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces," he said. "The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm's way, and there just wasn't time to do that."

I agree with Gates' assessment.

But while I agree with Gates' assessment, I fail to see why Gates' assessment is of any real consequence here.

The issue isn't thhat America didn't have a fighter wing on-call in the event a foreign service officer somewhere in MENA found him/her self in hot water.

The issue is that the Obama administration lied to the American people, doctored reports to keep American citizens in the dark, pretended that this wasn't a planned al Qaeda terror attack but rather a spontaneous uprising by a group of average people who got mad over the trailer to an Internet video, concocted a deliberately obfuscatory "investigation" into the incident where it failed to put pertinent administration officials in the hot seat and allowed others to lie with impunity, and in general handled this matter in the most unprofessional, immature, unpresidential way possible.

Yes Mr. Gates, I understand that there isn't a SEAL Team 6 hostage rescue team on 24/7 standby everywhere in the world.

Now please explain all the a$$clownery coming out of the Obama administration in terms of their dishonesty and efforts to "bury" this matter.
 
I completely agree with him. I think the RW faux and others came up with this conspiricy to make Obama look bad, but most of the Fauxites completely believe the US military has limitless resourses and capablities, if the mean old military hater Obama would have let them use them. According to testimony I watched on CSPAN it would have taken 20 hours to get jets overhead. I hear the repubs keeps saying somewhere between 30 min to 2 hours. If the bird is on the runway and is not flight ready, it does take a while a lot more than an hour or two. If a jet flew over it would just cause the terrorist to get closer to the American. I really have a hard time believing it would really scare the bad guys.

It seams like every time someone points out something that makes Obama look bad everyone is screaming that it's all a conspiracy theory. There are things about this that either aren't being said or completely contradicted. We don't call attention to this for fun, we call attention to this because it's important.

nothing_to_see_here.jpg

And it wouldn't take 20 hours to put jets over head, we have jets in Italy. Not 20 hours away. We are the ONLY country on Earth that keeps troops all around the world, especially scattered around Europe. They could have put boots on the ground in 2-4 hours.
 
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