Special Ops Veteran Analyses Full #Benghazi Report
Barry C. Jacobsen, former Green Beret and military history expert, digs into and explains what happened.
Mary recently covered the damning Benghazi report that indicates Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Obama administration focused on managing public relations instead of military assets in response to the 2012 attack in Libya.
However, the mainstream media asserts the 800-page evaluation shows no new evidence of wrongdoing by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised Clinton as intelligent and capable the day after that report.
One of our best known San Diego bloggers, Barry C. Jacobsen, is a former Green Beret and a military history expert.
He is taking the time to read the full document and analyze various sections through the prism of his Special Ops experience and insight into military tactics.
In other words, a blogger is doing the job the mainstream American press won’t do. Again.
Jacobsen’s first analysis covers the question: Why did the Marine Corps Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team (F.A.S.T.) take so long to launch from its base in Rota, Spain to Benghazi?
. . . . The F.A.S.T.team Marines loaded rapidly and were prepared to depart by 1 pm. However, there was further delay of 4 hours; as decision-makers in Washington debated whether or not the F.A.S.T.platoon should go in uniforms or not (Section 1, p. 154); and whether to deploy with their weapons or without! (To his very great credit, this latter option was dismissed by the Platoon Leader, who refused to consider such a ridiculous option.) Four times the team changed in-and-out of uniform; as conflicting orders continued to come in! The delay was also caused by efforts to get diplomatic permission from the Libyan government (what there was of it). This took fully six more hours. (The Committee failed to discover who was responsible for this farcical display of indecision.)
By the time the F.A.S.T. rescue team actually took off, and landed in Tripoli (not Benghazi), the battle was long over and three more Americans were dead at the Annex.
These delays show the utter lack of preparation and coordination at all levels, an operation that was utterly FUBAR from beginning to end. Only the junior officer commanding the F.A.S.T. platoon at Rota and his men showed the proper alacrity and concern for timeliness necessary to accomplish such a rescue mission as was required of them that night.
Jacobsen plans to continue with this riveting analysis, detailing sections of the 800-page report that most Americans won’t have time to read. His insights will help us understand and appreciate the full scope of the Clinton State Department, which continued its Mogadishu-based-tradition of putting political messaging ahead of sensible military tactics.
The rest of the American press, however, will probably continue its focus on transgenders and climate change.
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Comments
I get that Washington is feckless, and our current administration is more so, and both Obama and Hillary are the worst of the bunch.
I also appreciate that the junior FAST officers understood the need to get moving right now.
What about the middle of this sorry chain of command? Did not the Marine colonel, the Marine general, the DoD officer on call, his/her superior, and the SecDef not get it?
Where did it break? We need to know that so that it doesn’t happen again. Did it break at the level of SecState? White House? Did the DoD do everything it was supposed to do?
Thanks for the tip to Mr. Jacobsen. Since the MSM is its usual doormat self we’ll need his analysis.
Wasn’t there a General who was fired for disobeying orders not to go?
Yes, and an admiral, too.
Of course there was no NEW evidence…just CONFIRMATION of what we already knew about how Obama and Clinton left them to die and how they played politics with the situation due to the coming election.
What we believed has been confirmed. And that should be sufficient to take down this administration and Clinton’s candidacy.
But then again….the double standards and hubris of the Left….
Todays generals are politicians feeding at the trough like the rest of DC. Geez, if the Corps could just have another commandant like Gen Gray.
Obama/Jarrett have corrupted the military as much as they have corrupted every other department in the government, culling honest general officers since 2008 and replacing them with corrupt hacks. It’s so bad, you could swap them with MSM people and never tell the difference.
Remember this: federal bureaucrats under Obama (including the likes of the department of education) have more guns bullets than than the entire Marine Corps.
http://freebeacon.com/issues/now-bureaucrats-guns-u-s-marines/
This is about martial law, slowly implemented.
It’s become undeniable this was a political fiasco from the beginning.
1. We still don’t really know why the ambassador & his support staff & personnel were there to begin with.
2. Priority 1 was political damage control. Human assets were irrelevant factors in decision-making that followed.
3. There was no coordination between all the factors, each factor was simply interested in covering their own asses.
This pattern has carried thru in everything that’s followed. Both political parties have been a disgrace. The media has been criminally complicit & willfully negligent. It’s all been deliberate. There is no further proof needed that our leadership classes & relevant institutions are in a state of collapse & are total failures. They are utterly incapable of fixing the problems they’ve created over at least 30 years.
The democrats needless to say have been the driving element. We have settled out over the past almost 240 years as a 2 party system. That more or less worked thru Reagan, tho it showed signs of coming apart all the way back to the Vietnam war.
The reasons we settled on a 2 party system is it was relatively efficient as a political operation given our governmental structure. An administrative function under the timed & temporary control of one of the parties. Checks & designed balances inherent in the rest of the system, at least in part under the control of a contending party. Democrats continue to do what democrats have always done. Advocates for government.
It is the republican party that is failing in its intended role. They are no longer a party of opposition. They’ve instead taken on the role of a party of cooperation thru mutual bipartisan governance. So the question arises, why do we need that? It’s totally at odds with the way our system is meant to operate.
We don’t need that. That we now have it is a primary factor in why our country has been becoming increasingly dysfunctional over the last 30 years. Two parties seeking the same things.
The republican party as it now is either must be destroyed :
Or a true party of opposition must be created to serve the market the republican party wants nothing to do with.
With all respect, Ms. Eastman, I think it’s unreasonable to expect the mainstream media to “do it’s job” when one considers how many former SF/military historians there are in that category.
To be honest, all I’ve gathered so far from all the drama following the release of this report is that somebody (likely more than one) effed up royally. This I figured out about an hour after reading about the Bengazi tregedy in the first place.
One thing was new from his analysis: it took several hours for their air assets to show up from Germany.
I doubt we will ever get a solid idea of what happened that night until at least a couple of decades have gone by.
Unbelievable… dithering on the runway while people died, waiting for Washington to decide if they should go in uniform or civvies?
Did no one think to grab BOTH uniforms AND civvies and get underway, then decide which to switch into en route?
It was a delaying tactic.
They weren’t actually thinking about saving the people on the ground. That’s the point of the whole Benghazi fiasco. As soon as the administration heard about this, they began to think how they could spin it into something small. They didn’t want a full on gun battle between US troops and AQ fighters, that would have been disastrous for Obama’s foreign policy message. So they didn’t send the troops and hoped for the best. They probably figured that if they could squeak by w
With a couple dead staffers, it would all blow over and be a PR win, but if they got uniformed soldiers into a major gun battle it would be a PR disaster either way. So they gambled on the thing that would be best for the reelection instead of the best thing for the people on the ground. They lost that gamble and have been in full spin mode ever since.
This is one of the best posts I’ve seen on LI. I applaud you and look foward to Barry Jacobsen’s continuing analysis.
How hard could it be to find out who gave the orders to change uniforms? All you have to do is start at the bottom and ask. It seems like the real farce here was Gowdy’s committee.
“It seems like the real farce here was Gowdy’s committee.”
Gowdy’s “committee” is nothing more than republican cover for the masses. They never intended to find anything.
As Barry isn’t registered to comment, I am transmitting the following response:
“The Committee labored under two major handicaps.
The first was a well-coordinated effort to stonewall by the Administration at all levels; giving as little information and cooperation as possible.
The second was that the Committee worked with one hand tied behind their back; in that half of the Committee was comprised of Democrats; who did everything they could to block the investigation rather than aid in it.”
“As Barry isn’t registered to comment, I am transmitting the following response:”
Leslie, It is unclear to me what that means…
Regarding my comment about the committee – If anyone on the committee labored under the illusion that the administration would be forthcoming (I.E., not “stonewalling”) or that the democrats on the committee would be helpful, then they are neophytes with no business being involved in such an inquiry.
The results, and Gowdy’s comments, confirm my conclusion.
This is not a judgment on your, or Mr. Jacobsen’s, reporting here. I think you’re both doing a fine job.
Hah. Too many “Barry’s”. Mr. Barry Jacobsen is not registered to comment.
Sorry for my confusion.
“These delays show the utter lack of preparation and coordination at all levels, an operation that was utterly FUBAR from beginning to end.”
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That’s because the armed forces under Obama’s direction have been required to spend all their time and money on diversity seminars and transgender sensitivity training courses. They can’t be bothered with silly stuff like military preparedness.
I got used to it already.
Journalism is (almost) dead.
It would be extinct, if it wasn’t for a few serious bloggers. Present company included.
My official “Comment of the Day.”
“Journalism is (almost) dead.”
The communist left recognized that to destroy freedom and liberty in this country required control of the news and education.
They have been rather successful.
I ask again: how many former special forces are there in the world of journalism? This is not a valid criticism.
They need a replacement term for journalism. Maybe blogreporter, (this could definitely be improved on.)
I like the term coined by blogger Mike Vanderboegh, who used it to describe (among other things) his ground-breaking work uncovering the “Operation Fast & Furious” debacle:
“Citizen journalist”
Or change the job title of present “journalists” to what they are, that is “shameless whores”, thus freeing up “journalists” to return to its’ former exalted status.
There are two issues that bother me immensely.
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The first is how the report was written and received. Enormous pressure was brought to bear by the Democrats about how everything was political concerning the investigation. In an effort to deny this charge, the committee was tasked with only finding facts and not assigning blame or guilt. Had they assigned blame or guilt, then the politicking accusations would have been deafening. Now that blame and guilt were left out, the Democrats are crowing about how the report vindicates Hillary and Obama. If this is making the issue political by the Democrats, then nothing could ever be made political.
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The second issue is the absolute stupidity of so many Americans. They hear about the report (because they couldn’t care less about actually reading it) and then either cannot or will not look at issues like how hundreds of requests demanding better security went unanswered despite the area being a hotbed of hostile activities, how on the anniversary of 9/11 (and everyone knows how terrorists love anniversaries) neither State or DOD was prepared for anything unusual, how no one was ever sent to support those being attacked in Benghazi, and so forth, and they are incapable of seeing incompetence at a minimum and outright treason/abandonment of US forces by our political leaders and facilities in their greatest time of need. The politicos tell the ignorant masses that the report proves nothing and these useful idiots blindly accept this as though it was the most reasonable statement ever made.
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When, not if, America collapses, it will be these ignorant fools led by our duplicitous government leaders who will be asking how it happened and demanding that it all be fixed when the truth of the matter is that it was them who caused it in the first place. They will get what they deserve and, unfortunately, the rest of us will be forced to suffer with and because of them.