Obama Did Not Deny Benghazi Requests for Help

I would imagine the comments from the Defense Secretary and the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff will suffice for those not playing partisan politics and on a pre-election day witch-hunt:thumbs:.

 

Apparently this is pretty routine is what it looks like Panetta is saying by saying that they will not deploy troops into harms way without having some realtime info as to what is going on.

 

Got me. Sounds like it would be a military policy.

He's already said that the buck stops with him. But not having served in the military, I'm sure there are certain things that he , as have a lot of past Presidents, defer to the military direction of his generals.

If your defense Secretary and Joint Chiefs of Staff and other generals aren't comfortable sending troops in without full knowledge of a situation, it's probably prudent to listen to them.

If he had sent troops in and something happened to them, people would no doubt be "Monday morning quarterbacking" as to why he didn't wait for full intel. Comments would be all over the place that he sent those troops in there to die without having full knowledge of the situation.

 

Troops, extra men, whatever you want to call them.

I'm sure they were working. But if you don't have real time info, what are you sending in drones and jet fighters for?

I guess it depends on what it was streaming.

 

Unless that account is coming from General Ham or someone who was there and they are on record as saying this, then it's just speculation and heresay. And it's being reported as a rumor.

I find it sort of suspect that a highly decorated General would disobey a direct order no matter what his personal feelings. You just don't see that type of behavior.

 

You'll have to wait for Panetta to explain what he means about real time info. How did the situation eventually come under control? Was our defense department working with the Libyan government to contain things? Maybe that's why they didn't send in US troops. I'm sure all that will come out. But for now, this is gonna be squashed by what Panetta said.

Romney has already admitted to being in agreement with most of the President's foreign affairs policy. It simply would not be that difficult to spin this in to a "Romney wouldn't have done anything differently" situation based upon what Panetta and the Joint Chief of Staff said.

I'm under the impression that some other stuff took place. But as far as the troops going in, Panetta seems to be taking responsibility and framing it as a military policy.

 

Right. I guess you are fully apprised of what took place there and what could have been done. So why don't we schedule a press conference for you at say, 2PM, and you can update the American people about what took place and what Panetta should have done.

Just be careful to conceal the <PA deleted - LE> while you're on screen or else you're gonna come across as a partisan political hack out to frame the President in order to score your side some election capital.

 

And I agree with this. It doesn't make any sense to me to send American citizens into hostile areas without equipping the embassies with the best military security including tanks or whatever else might be needed to allay an incursion.

But then you got that whole stupid UN thing coming into play again where our ambassadors are supposed to be seen a peacemakers so it just wouldn't look PC to have tanks sitting out in front of our embassies.

 

That's what he said. Same thing applies with our wars in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. He's the Commander in Chief. He ends up taking the responsibility.

That doesn't mean he doesn't listen to his generals and the defense Secretary.

I'm all but sure that Panetta probably told the President that they aren't in the practice of sending troops in without real time information.

There's simply no need to risk getting more folks killed because you're running in gung ho without fully knowing what is going on.

Now on the other hand, if I were going to go serve as an ambassador somewhere, I'd like to know that the country had my back and would come in with guns ablazing and shoot first and ask questions later. But that's just me.