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

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I can agree with some of the statements in that that was what applied at the time. My question is, why was that the conditions?

Why was there no "ready force"? Why were there no "go to hell" plans? What Mr. Gates is really saying is that because nobody planned for anything to happen, they were unable to do anything when it did. Any so called "leader" sending people into a potentially hostile situation that does not have a plan for when things "go to hell" or "drop in the pot" is a piss poor "leader" and undeserving of respect or loyalty. Why Gates feels that he owes anything to Obama/Clinton, I don't really know, but his statements clearly show that Obama and Clinton were, in this instance, piss poor "leaders".
 
I think the Obama administration obviously majorly botched the level of security at the Embassy AND maybe is guilty of some kind of cover-up.
But Gates is about as un-partisan as you can get - he served for both GWB AND Obama. So I highly doubt he was a partisan agenda.
And if he says that all that could have been done, was done - I will take his word for it until I see evidence to the contrary.

I certainly agree that just sending an armed force into an extremely uncertain and violent area on short notice could have made a bad situation a whole lot worse in terms of American lives lost.

Remember the Battle of Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down).

Yes, different situation. But I am just sayin'.
 
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Tettsuo said:
It wasn't an embassy, it was a diplomatic compound. An Embassy tend to be better protected.
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Technically, it wasn't anything. Didn't appear on the state department website. It's been called a consulate, a diplomatic mission, and even the administration has referred to it as "our embassy" in Benghazi at times. (Besides, "embassy personnel" is a generic term.)

But who the @&$# cares what you call it, it wasn't protected as it should have been.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Good morning Lady P - how goes the garden?
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In an attempt to save as many plants as I could, I was out in the dark last night, wearing my winter coat, covering plants with quart jars to try to give them a fighting chance for survival. It did dip into the low 30s, but when I uncovered them this morning, it looks like they may have made it through. Time will tell. If not, I'll have to buy replacements, since it's too late to start seedlings again. ...sigh...
 
The jets in Italy are exactly what I heard the testimony on yesterday. They were not flight ready, they were sitting on the tarmac. The flight crew was somehere in italy on leave or liberty. They were not on standby, it would take hours after the crews got there to get one in the air. This is where the cartoonish thing comes in. Not all jets in the military are takeoff ready with a pilot in the ready room.
Indeed said:
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.

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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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I commented a while back I read in Janes the US was the only country in the world that could put firepower on any point in the world today (as in a 24 hour period) having boots 2-4 hours away from anywhere is almost impossible. There is only a limited amout of resources. Beef up one spot they attack another.
DVSentinel said:
I can agree with some of the statements in that that was what applied at the time. My question is, why was that the conditions?

Why was there no "ready force"? Why were there no "go to hell" plans? What Mr. Gates is really saying is that because nobody planned for anything to happen, they were unable to do anything when it did. Any so called "leader" sending people into a potentially hostile situation that does not have a plan for when things "go to hell" or "drop in the pot" is a piss poor "leader" and undeserving of respect or loyalty. Why Gates feels that he owes anything to Obama/Clinton, I don't really know, but his statements clearly show that Obama and Clinton were, in this instance, piss poor "leaders".
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The big pink elephant in the room that everyone is continuing to ignore is the military brass keeps insisting that they couldn't get military help there in time. I would like to know how did they know they wouldn't get there in time how in the hell did they knew when the attack was going end and why hasn't any one asked
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
I can already hear the complaints
about Gates being a turncoat.
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*gasp* .......

You mean, AFTER the terrorist blew a 12 foot hole in the compound wall 3 MONTHS before terrorist killed four Americans the President didn't have any off-sight military assets just for this type of situation ?

Do you have any clue to what our military is capable of ?

Our weapon systems ?

No ? You want to keep trying to cover up the deaths of four Americans. ?
 
pbrauer said:
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
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In the back of every Obama supporters mind lingers the question" Why couldn't those damned protestors finished the job "
 
trfjr said:
The big pink elephant in the room that everyone is continuing to ignore is the military brass keeps insisting that they couldn't get military help there in time. I would like to know how did they know they wouldn't get there in time how in the hell did they knew when the attack was going end and why hasn't any one asked
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The next 'big pink elephant' would be 'since the ME is/has been 'on fire' lately why wouldn't we be at some elevated risk level with varying levels of response readiness on or about 9/11? This especially considering there were multiple reports of this elevated risk prior to 9/11. Are WE paying attention OR has complacency becoming more prevalent the further we get from 9/11/01?
 
And further, why aren't 'left leaning' folks who incessantly rant on the amount we spend on the MIC hammering these Gates positions relentlessly? I mean if we spend what we do how can we not respond somehow?
 
mak2 said:
I commented a while back I read in Janes the US was the only country in
the world that could put firepower on any point in the world today (as in a 24 hour period) having boots 2-4 hours away from anywhere is almost impossible. There is only a limited amout of resources. Beef up one spot they attack another.
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Lol...Bull Sh**.

Your justifying away the needless deaths of four Americans just shows the length some people will go through to protect their candidate.

Lives before politicians ? Not me, no thanks.

THE CONSULATE HAD BEEN ATTACKED BEFORE, IN JUNE. THE PERSONEL ON THE GROUND HAD BEEN ASKING FOR MORE BACK-UP, MORE SECURITY FOR MONTHS...

There is NO excuse. Obama and Hillary and their corrupt group of thugs killed these people, and then tried to cover it up.

But it's all the left can do to justify down the low life actions of a few Democrats.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
The problem was that no one knew the exact situation on the ground so there was not enough information to make a feasible plan.
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Yes, good intelligence isn't always available. What they did know, however, is that an American facility was under attack. To do nothing was inexcusable. Period.
 
mak2 said:
The jets in Italy are exactly what I heard the testimony on yesterday. They were not flight ready, they were sitting on the tarmac. The flight crew was somehere in italy on leave or liberty. They were not on standby, it would take hours after the crews got there to get one in the air. This is where the cartoonish thing comes in. Not all jets in the military are takeoff ready with a pilot in the ready room.
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True. But still, there should still be jets somewhere in Europe. Still not 20 hours away. I'm not sure, but I heard somewhere that there were drones in the air practically over Benghazi.

Even if there were no available jets or drones in Europe, Africa, or the Middle East, you haven't addressed that everyone is screaming conspiracy. Or the threatening of whistle-blowers. Or that he originally blamed it on a video that some guy made who was detained in clear violation of his first amendment rights and still hasn't been released. If not for the stuff done by the Administration, this wouldn't be a major issue. People screaming about Benghazi would be completely ignored like the 9/11 conspiracy theorists. This is different. This isn't just to make Obama look bad, he did that on his own.
 
The jets are just one example of the lies from the right. The RWers have not proof the jets were ready to fly and the RW have presented none. They merely keep repeating the lie there were planes available. If Faux and the RWers lie about the jets, why do you believe anything they say? The fact you have heard there were jets over head really should make you wonder. I heard all kinds of stuff on faux from jets and armed drones overhead to units of Marines offshore that obama held back.
Indeed said:
True. But still, there should still be jets somewhere in Europe. Still not 20 hours away. I'm not sure, but I heard somewhere that there were drones in the air practically over Benghazi.

Even if there were no available jets or drones in Europe, Africa, or the Middle East, you haven't addressed that everyone is screaming conspiracy. Or the threatening of whistle-blowers. Or that he originally blamed it on a video that some guy made who was detained in clear violation of his first amendment rights and still hasn't been released. If not for the stuff done by the Administration, this wouldn't be a major issue. People screaming about Benghazi would be completely ignored like the 9/11 conspiracy theorists. This is different. This isn't just to make Obama look bad, he did that on his own.
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mak2 said:
The jets are just one example of the lies from the right. The RWers have not proof the jets were ready to fly and the RW have presented none. They merely keep repeating the lie there were planes available. If Faux and the RWers lie about the jets, why do you believe anything they say? The fact you have heard there were jets over head really should make you wonder. I heard all kinds of stuff on faux from jets and armed drones overhead to units of Marines offshore that obama held back.
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Clearly America has jets flying around constantly with people always awaiting orders to quell any uprising we don't like or approve. Also, marines are sitting in hidden bunkers worldwide just waiting for the president to give them to "go" order. :roll:

If people in the military tell you it's not probable we could have stopped an attack, they probably know what they're talking about. We can't stop every bad thing from happening to Americans abroad. Hell, we can't stop Americans from harming Americans with a police force that's at the ready 24hr a day 7 days a week.
 
mak2 said:
I commented a while back I read in Janes the US was the only country in the world that could put firepower on any point in the world today (as in a 24 hour period) having boots 2-4 hours away from anywhere is almost impossible. There is only a limited amout of resources. Beef up one spot they attack another.
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The only real limit on our resources is our countries commitment to make resources available. We could and should have a greater availability of resources.

Proper prioritization of resources is also a Leadership function. Our resources are not that limited. Unfortunately for us, for the last 20 years or so, politically and for Senior Officers, we have had a severe, self-induced lack of Quality leadership and ass-kissing is the number one skill determining an Officers ability to get promoted.
 
mak2 said:
The jets are just one example of the lies from the right. The RWers have not proof the jets were ready to fly and the RW have presented none. They merely keep repeating the lie there were planes available. If Faux and the RWers lie about the jets, why do you believe anything they say? The fact you have heard there were jets over head really should make you wonder. I heard all kinds of stuff on faux from jets and armed drones overhead to units of Marines offshore that obama held back.
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You just dodged most of my post. Even if it were a lie perpetrated by the right, unlikely as it is, that doesn't dismiss the points I've made.
Even if you don't believe these things, you have to admit that the rest of this is really fishy. I find the fact that so many people complain that these things are being noticed and acknowledged by the right disturbing because seriously, an obviously premeditated attack on a U.S. consulate on the anniversary of Sept. 11th was blamed on a trailer for a shoddy movie? Followed by very few details? Then threatening whistle-blowers? I believe that Obama personally, (that would just be silly) ordered the threatening of whistle-blowers, but his admin is, and he is responsible for the actions of his admin.

This isn't just about the military action or inaction, this is more about the cover-up than anything.
 
If the planes are not true, why should I believe anything else? I am not dodging, but not a lot else needs to be said. The rest, like the jets are probably made up so why discuss it further?
Indeed said:
You just dodged most of my post. Even if it were a lie perpetrated by the right, unlikely as it is, that doesn't dismiss the points I've made.
Even if you don't believe these things, you have to admit that the rest of this is really fishy. I find the fact that so many people complain that these things are being noticed and acknowledged by the right disturbing because seriously, an obviously premeditated attack on a U.S. consulate on the anniversary of Sept. 11th was blamed on a trailer for a shoddy movie? Followed by very few details? Then threatening whistle-blowers? I believe that Obama personally, (that would just be silly) ordered the threatening of whistle-blowers, but his admin is, and he is responsible for the actions of his admin.

This isn't just about the military action or inaction, this is more about the cover-up than anything.
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mak2 said:
If the planes are not true, why should I believe anything else? I am not dodging, but not a lot else needs to be said. The rest, like the jets are probably made up so why discuss it further?
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Yes, you are dodging. You said that this was all to make obama look bad. Saying that if one thing is wrong then the rest must be wrong is a logical fallacy. Back your accusation or withdraw it.
 
Oh great. Another Benghazi thread. *sigh*
 
Tettsuo said:
Clearly America has jets flying around constantly with people always awaiting orders to quell any uprising we don't like or approve. Also, marines are sitting in hidden bunkers worldwide just waiting for the president to give them to "go" order. :roll:

If people in the military tell you it's not probable we could have stopped an attack, they probably know what they're talking about. We can't stop every bad thing from happening to Americans abroad. Hell, we can't stop Americans from harming Americans with a police force that's at the ready 24hr a day 7 days a week.
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The military's ability to perform is reliant upon planning. Piss Poor Planning leads to Piss Poor Performance.

All Gates addresses is the conditions of situation at the time it occurred, he does not address why those conditions existed in the first place. Since there is an investigation into a cover-up, then clearly someone, in the halls of power also assumes that improper actions were taken, otherwise, there would be no need for the cover-up.

Comparison to crime is really misleading. True we cannot prevent bad things from happening, but when you have indications and intelligence indicating the possibility of something bad happening, that is not the same as a totally random act. It is also not surprising that many crimes are not a "surprise" to law enforcement. For any criminal act, most local law enforcement can give you a rather short list of who probably committed that particular crime. Some are indeed surprising and random, but far more often, the police already know ahead of time that such crimes will be committed and who will do them, they just have no legal means of preventing them.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
The problem was that no one knew the exact situation on the ground so there was not enough information to make a feasible plan.
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The problem with that notion, is that military operations are dangerous by their very nature. Special operators join special operations units knowing this and accepting the danger involved in being a member of a special operations team.

That being said, you don't stand down your forces, because it's dangerous, or because someone might get hurt, or killed.

No one is under the illusion that our servicemen are super human, or that they have no limitations. However, in the case of Benghazi, there wasn't ANY attempt made to relieve our people that were being attacked on the ground.

The flaw that exists there, is made up of timidity and indecisiveness; shortcomings that will become a scurge on any fighting force.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
I can already hear the complaints about Gates being a turncoat.
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Gates is well known to be a "yes man." That's why Obama had him stay on the job for another four years. Leon Panetta is also known as being a "yes man." Both are capable of feeling at home under a Republican administration or a Democrat administration.
 
fmw said:
Yes, good intelligence isn't always available. What they did know, however, is that an American facility was under attack. To do nothing was inexcusable. Period.
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It was under attack but they did not know exactly how many attackers there were or how well armed they were.
 
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