Morality Games
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True enough, but I think the "our **** doesn't stink" coming from Fenton is amusing...except that he actually believes it.
It's very unlikely that he seriously believes it, though he may on some level of consciousness. More like denying it is much more satisfying than acknowledging it.
From the AP article, key quote:
1- The order was to remain in Tripoli and protect some three dozen embassy personnel rather than fly to Benghazi some 600 miles away after all Americans there would have been evacuated
2- Military officials differ on when that telephone conversation took place, but they agree that no help could have arrived in Benghazi in time. They put the call somewhere between 5:05 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. local time. It would take about 90 minutes to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi. The next U.S.-chartered plane to make the trip left at 6:49 a.m., meaning it could have arrived shortly before 9 a.m., nearly four hours after the second, 11-minute battle at the CIA facility ended at about 5:25 a.m.
The decision was made to stand down before anyone could have known the fight was over. This is Monday Morning Quarterbacking. At the time that the order was given Ambassador Stevens had not been located. Stevens wasn't located until his body was delivered to the airport hours later. So, in perspective, the order not to go in was made while the Ambassador was still missing and before anyone could possibly know the attacks wouldn't continue.
And of course, there is the little problem that the Mission came under attack hours earlier, hours after Steven sent a message to State warning of security problems in Benghazi, and after a month of asking for more security.
Also, the stand down orders have many sources, here is a Washington Times article about the hold up at the Annex that some soldiers saw as a stand down order.
In the end, when you take all of the information into account, the problem was that the piss poor security offered by the State Department of the Annex and Mission left the US security forces in an untenable position of having to bargain with local Libyan Militias for sufficient firepower to defend the Mission, and later defend the Annex because the US State Department didn't see a need to give military hardware and heavy weapons to security teams in a war zone.
So feel free to make the semantic argument of whether the exact words "stand down" were made to willing rescuers in Tripoli, or Italy, or the Benghazi annex, but in the end it's the same Charlie Foxtrot by another name.
There are probably a 100 problems with what you just said, starting with the characterization of Benghazi as a "war zone" and ending with your suggestion that we needed a stronger security presence.
To begin with, its not our country and its a diplomatic embassy. "Relying" on foreign security to protect them is what you are supposed to do, because generally you aren't allowed to have a strong military presence or weapons grade technologies in someone else's country, particularly not at an embassy that is supposed to promote the ideals of peaceful cooperation and co-existence.
Granted, exceptions exist according to treaty, but those take a long time to make and revise and countries tend to be prickly about the exact terms.
Every country that has an embassy in the U.S. relies on foreign security.
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