Friday, May 10, 2013
Barker's Newsbites: Friday, May 10, 2013
Another beautiful spring morning, folks! Supposed to hit 80-degrees today! Looking forward to spending time outside reading and highlighting my Kerala/Southern India guide books!
So... just posted (below) a stand-alone newsbite of the latest ABC News Benghazi reporting.
(*SHRUG*)
Too little, too late? Yep. Probably. This said... I'll continue to chronicle the decline and fall of a once great nation presently rotting from within.
I'll be seeing "He Whose Name Dare Not Be Mentioned" early in this coming week... it'll be interesting to find out whether he's been keeping up with the actual newsbites and whether what's come out... including what's been sworn to under oath... has led to any "change of heart" regarding what happened, why it happened, and what the significance of the Administration's lies, actions, and inactions was, is, and will be.
Speaking of Benghazi newsbites... yep... keep on going to Wednesday's "The Benghazi Hearings" post in order to keep up with fresh Benghazi newsbiting!
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/9/seals-families-hit-2011-afghan-mission/?page=all#pagebreak
* READ THIS... I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK. AT FIRST I WAS SCEPTICAL... BUT BY THE TIME I FINISHED READING THE ARTICLE I WAS OUTRAGED!
The families of Navy SEALs killed in an August 2011 downing of a helicopter in Afghanistan came forward Thursday to blast the U.S. command and the Obama administration for the mission and to call for an official investigation into what they deem a whitewash.
* THE FAMILIES OF HOW MANY OF THE SEALS...???
They also rebuked the White House for its extensive leaking of details of the Osama bin Laden raid in May 2011. Identifying the raiders as the secretive SEAL Team 6 put a target on the heads of the members of the doomed mission in Afghanistan, the parents said.
* WELL CERTAINLY IDENTIFYING THE TEAM BY NUMBER WAS IRRESPONSIBLE... NO ONE CAN DENY THAT.
They also said the CH-47 Chinook helicopter used in the mission had no gunship escort and no cover when it was attempting to land at 2 a.m. that Aug. 6. (Taliban on a rooftop shot down the helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.)
A Pentagon spokesman ... noted that the official investigation “found that the tactics employed in the mission were consistent with previous missions.”
* SO WHO IS TELLING THE TRUTH? (BOTH OF THEM...???)
The hastily planned mission was intended to aid 47 Army Rangers in the Tangi Valley, even though the Rangers controlled the battle zone.
In August 2011, the U.S. command in Afghanistan first reported the failed mission to the news media as a rescue of Army Rangers in a firefight. But it was learned later that the Rangers controlled the battle zone and were hunting for some Taliban who escaped from a home the commandos had raided.
The Washington Times reported extensively at the time that special operations officers criticized the mission as unnecessary and a waste of lives.
Based on investigative documents, which U.S. Central Command later erased from its website, The Times revealed that special operators were uncomfortable flying with conventional National Guard flight crews, who ferried the SEALs that night.
The Times also reported that Apache gunships could have gone to the landing zone to provide protection, but they were never ordered to do so and stayed involved hunting the Taliban, who had run into some woods.
A Ranger officer told investigators that he could not explain why the choppers were not ordered to cover for the incoming Chinook.
Investigators also were told that special operations helicopters were moved out of their region, which included the Tangi Valley just south of Kabul, and moved farther south. Officers said they were never told why.
The families noted that Afghan security forces were closely involved in planning the mission, yet no one appears as having been interviewed in the military’s official investigative records given to relatives. The family members [also] suggested that these insiders leaked information about the mission to the Taliban, given the fact that the enemy happened to be stationed near the landing zone on a roof with rocket-propelled grenades. “[They] were positioned in a tower in a building at the perfect place and the exact time to launch an attack on the CH-47 when it was most vulnerable,” said Doug Hamburger, father of Army National Guard Sgt. Patrick Hamburger, a gunner and flight engineer. “How can anyone justify putting our troops in that type of danger?
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