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

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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

Hey, what does he know? Just because he was Secretary of Defense under two Presidents, this somehow makes him smart about defense? He can't possibly know as much as the Chicken-Hawks beating the Benghazi drum.
 
What hasn't been mentioned so far is what contingency planning took place at the State Department in Washington and on the ground in Tripoli to protect American personnel in Libya during this time? Since people keep saying there wasn't time to plan and there was no one close to help, how is that not a direct dereliction of duty? Don't people in the State Department plan for attacks on embassy officials on a regular basis?
 
You would probably be surprised what fighters can do...

Well, you're far smarter than the former Secretary of Defense, so we bow to you superior wisdom on military matters.
 
because no oil tanker aircraft were available. what good would fighter aircraft have done if they had crashed into the sea for lack of fuel after going full after burner.

oh and it takes time to arm, fuel, taxi, launch and organize fighters into a organized strike.

No carrier group is stationed anywhere without adequate support. If the carrier was in port, the fighters were on land and could be ready to go within an hour or two If the carrier group were at sea, some are ready to go as soon almost immediately...
 
You would probably be surprised what fighters can do...


Then, please tell me what a jet fighter can do in a situation like this. They can't pick out individual target with their 20mm, all they can do is rake the ground in front of them. The missiles can't be programed to only kill certain people. So please educate me on how a jet fighter would have been useful there?
 
No carrier group is stationed anywhere without adequate support. If the carrier was in port, the fighters were on land and could be ready to go within an hour or two If the carrier group were at sea, some are ready to go as soon almost immediately...

then how would the fighters know what to do when they ever arrived? wait for someone on the ground to radio in the situation?
 
Then, please tell me what a jet fighter can do in a situation like this. They can't pick out individual target with their 20mm, all they can do is rake the ground in front of them. The missiles can't be programed to only kill certain people. So please educate me on how a jet fighter would have been useful there?

The missiles can be programmed on the fly to pick up a target lit up by a laser or any one of several other guidance options...
 
We're not discussing other threads. We're here discussing this situation in which US citizens were under attack. Try to stay on topic...


You're the one that brought up that some collateral damage was ok. I just pointed out that in those other threads people whined about collateral damage. But, we'll put that aside for now. How many collateral damage deaths is an acceptable number for you?
 
then how would the fighters know what to do when they ever arrived? wait for someone on the ground to radio in the situation?

There was an ex SEAL on the ground lighting up the target(s)
 
You're the one that brought up that some collateral damage was ok. I just pointed out that in those other threads people whined about collateral damage. But, we'll put that aside for now. How many collateral damage deaths is an acceptable number for you?

Any amount when we are under attack...
 
You're the one that brought up that some collateral damage was ok. I just pointed out that in those other threads people whined about collateral damage. But, we'll put that aside for now. How many collateral damage deaths is an acceptable number for you?

I have to say I find this question odd. We're talking about an attack on an American compound in the middle of the night. Do you think there were a lot of innocent women and children out sleepwalking at the time of the attack? By reports on the ground at the time there were hundreds of attackers outside the compound - I'm pretty sure none of them were innocent bystanders - no collateral damage there, just terrorist being sent home to Allah.
 
I suppose it doesn't make sense if you think it was a cover-up. I don't think it was, because on the 12th President Obama said in the Rose Garden it was an act of terror. Remember the the discussion between Romney and Obama at the debate about this? It makes sense if in fact the President is trying to misdirect the terrorists.

Petraeus Says U.S. Tried to Avoid Tipping Off Terrorists After Libya Attack

WASHINGTON — David H. Petraeus, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told lawmakers on Friday that classified intelligence reports revealed that the deadly assault on the American diplomatic mission in Libya was a terrorist attack, but that the administration refrained from saying it suspected that the perpetrators of the attack were Al Qaeda affiliates and sympathizers to avoid tipping off the groups.​

What one would expect in an instance like this is the CIA taking out of the talking points all references to AQ, not the State Department. The rolls should have been reversed. It should have been the CIA trying to delete any reference to terrorist and AQ if this was right, not State. In case you haven't noticed, I have very little respect for State when it comes to any type of security. There is also a big difference in saying a video caused all of this than just refraining from not mentioning a particular AQ organization. A simple phrase like, "At this time we think a video caused a bunch of protesters to get angry and attack our consulate, we are still researching the event." Now that covers just about everything and it doesn't leave the perception if that is all it is of an administration purposely misleading the American Public. Sometimes perception matters more than reality, I have seen that more than a few times. I probably would believe the above if it was the CIA trying to get things deleted instead of vice versa. This tells me the CIA didn't care if the terrorist knew we knew who thay were and that it was they that attacked the consulate and not an angry mob. The CIA holds everything close to their vest, even if they don't need to. It is usually State that do not care and if there is a turf battle, it is on these grounds.

Sometimes our intelligence community amazes me. They do come up with some pretty dumb stories and activities. But having the CIA being more lax on security and the State Department more strict seems nearly impossible to me in my experiences. I may be proved wrong on this, stranger things have happened and it may very well have something to do with intelligence or assets. As of now in my mind the perception is still there of State trying to protect their butt. Time will tell, most everything comes out, but not all. There is still quite a bit of stuff still classified from WWII.
 
and if that colateral damage was the americans you were trying to save, but got caught in the explosions.

Our missile guidance technology is a bit more advanced than you seem to think...
 
I have to say I find this question odd. We're talking about an attack on an American compound in the middle of the night. Do you think there were a lot of innocent women and children our sleepwalking at the time of the attack? By reports on the ground at the time there were hundreds of attackers outside the compound - I'm pretty sure none of them were innocent bystanders - no collateral damage there, just terrorist being sent home to Allah.

no but there were americans in the consulate, and americans and allied libyans in the CIA Annex. what if the attackers were inside the same buildings as the people you are trying to protect?
 
No carrier group is stationed anywhere without adequate support. If the carrier was in port, the fighters were on land and could be ready to go within an hour or two If the carrier group were at sea, some are ready to go as soon almost immediately...

That's not really true. It depends on what port the Carrier is in. In the US and friendly ports most (not all)aircraft are on land in ME ports all aircraft stay onboard. At sea in a hostile area or if they expect any hostile action there's generally 2 fighters on deck. One on the catapult armed,engines running with a pilot in the seat and can be launched in about 30 seconds and another one that is ready to be launched in about 2 minutes or less.
 
Heaven forbid. What a lousy excuse for letting a U.S. facility be attacked and destroyed while doing nothing about it. Perhaps we shouldn't have a military. I'm not sure we know how to manage one.

Secretary Gates advocated no such position. He stated that resources were not available and the on-the-ground situation was uncertain. That's very different from advocating a position that the U.S. should not act if it had military assets and sufficient information to do so.

Added: The following link reveals what was "known" about the attack: http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/26/panetta-on-benghazi-attack-could-not-put-forces-at-risk/
 
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no but there were americans in the consulate, and americans and allied libyans in the CIA Annex. what if the attackers were inside the same buildings as the people you are trying to protect?

Really, that's just nonsense for the sake of being argumentative - if bombs started dropping from the sky on the terrorists congregating outside these compounds, how long do you think they'd stick around? Such an action would have evened the odds and given those hold up inside a better chance to save themselves.
 
a explosion can't tell the difference between friend or foe.

Using you "logic" (if one can call it that), close air support should never be provided to our troops on the ground. That's an insane position to take or defend...
 
Using you "logic" (if one can call it that), close air support should never be provided to our troops on the ground. That's an insane position to take or defend...

30 lives were saved without the aid of military jets, the lives of the people evacuated.
 
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