A review of "13 Hours in Benghazi"
By Mitchell Zuckoff with the Annex Security Team
* * *
* * *
In a polarized time, in a polarized country, very little
has been more polarizing than the national debate over the attacks on the U.S.
diplomatic compound and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.
* AND FEW EVENTS HAVE BEEN SO DISTORTED, LIED ABOUT, AND
SO OFTEN IGNORED BY THE MEDIA AND OUR POLITICIANS AS BENGHAZI.
For critics of Barack Obama's handling of national
security, Benghazi is representative of his many failings.
* "FAILINGS" IS FAR TOO SOFT A TERM FOR WHAT
OBAMA ALLOWED.
The administration failed to heed dire warnings before
the attacks...
* FULLY DOCUMENTED...
...failed to respond adequately as they unfolded...
* AGAIN... AN UNDERSTATEMENT IF EVER THERE WAS ONE...
...and lied to cover up its mistakes afterward.
* OBAMA, CLINTON, PANETTA, PATRAEUS, RICE... ALL THE
HIGH-LEVEL SCUM SHOULD HAVE BEEN MADE TO TESTIFY UNDER OATH! (UNDER OATH!)
For defenders of the White House, Benghazi has come to
represent the excesses of Mr. Obama's critics. Mitt Romney hastily condemned
the president's handling of Benghazi just hours after the attacks, before the
facts were known.
* THE FACTS WERE KNOWN. THE FOREIGN PRESS WAS ALREADY
COVERING THE FACTS EVEN AS THE AMERICAN MEDIA SEEMED UNABLE - OR UNWILLING - TO
REPORT THE FACTS AND REPUTABLE ANALYSIS.
* FOLKS... AGAIN... GO BACK INTO THE ARCHIVES OF THIS
BLOG. YOU'LL SEE FOR YOURSELVES!
What's most remarkable about the millions of words spoken
and written during three years of debate is that none of them have come from
the small group of American officials who were there.
* THESE GUYS WERE BEING QUOTED LONG BEFORE NOW... THEM
AND OTHERS... BUT THEIR WORDS WERE LOOKED UPON AS "UNOFFICIAL."
AGAIN... GO THROUGH THE ARCHIVES FOR EVERY MENTIONED OF BENGHAZI I'VE EVER
POSTED! YOU'LL SEE!
This finally changes with the publication of "13
Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi," written by
Mitchell Zuckoff with five members of the team of six CIA contractors who
fought in Libya that night. (One of them, Tyrone Woods, died during the attack
on the CIA annex.) "13 Hours" is a crisply written, gripping
narrative of the events of the battle in Benghazi that adds considerable detail
to the public record of what happened there.
* WHAT GOOD IS A PUBLIC RECORD WITH NO PUBLIC
RESPONSIBILITY ATTACHED...?
The authors acknowledge the rancorous debate upfront and
announce that they don't intend to join it. Their account "is not about
what officials in the United States government knew, said or did after the
attack, or about the ongoing controversy over talking points, electoral
politics, and alleged conspiracies and cover-ups."
* IT SHOULD BE; AT THE VERY LEAST THERE SHOULD BE A
FOLLOW-UP.
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... THE WSJ... REPUBLICAN
ESTABLISHMENT. (THEY'RE WITH BOEHNER AND MCCONNELL; SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL,
SPEAK NO EVIL.)
Instead, it is about what happened that terrible night.
The contractors — three ex-Marines, a former Army Ranger
and two former Navy SEALs — were in Libya to provide protection for CIA case
officers, and they sought to defend U.S. facilities and diplomats during the
attacks.
What the five survivors have to say is at once compelling
and enthralling, infuriating and heartbreaking.
* FOLKS... WITHIN DAYS... WEEKS... MONTHS AT MOST... THE
MSM SHOULD HAVE BEEN FEATURING THESE FIVE MEN IN STORY AFTER STORY. THE FACT
THAT THIS ISN'T WHAT HAPPENED TELLS YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW.
Early on the morning of Sept. 11, 2012, 15 hours before
the attacks on the U.S. facilities began, local security guards working with
the Americans...
* PRIVATE "MILITIA" - NATIVE GUNMEN - NOT
PROFESSIONS... NOT AMERICANS OR OTHER FIRST-WORLD NATIONALS... CERTAINLY NOT
U.S. MARINES... NOT EVEN DIPLOMATIC SECURITY PERSONNEL.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
...observed a man wearing the uniform of the Libyan
Supreme Security Council, a sometimes-friendly coalition of local militias,
casing the compound. He had climbed to the second floor of an abandoned
building next door to the diplomatic compound and was "surreptitiously
taking photographs of the layout" of the enclosed area. When confronted,
he left.
The incident put U.S. diplomatic security agents on
"high alert." Those agents shared the information with the CIA
contractors, the Libyan foreign ministry and ultimately with Amb. Chris
Stevens, who was alarmed enough that he wanted a formal complaint sent to the
local police.
* WHEN WAS WASHINGTON INFORMED? WHEN... AND WHOM?
Forty minutes before the attacks began, at 9:02 p.m., a
pickup truck bearing the insignia of the Supreme Security Council parked
outside the walls of the compound, where the driver and passengers sat inside.
Then, at 9:42 p.m., "almost the moment the SSC pickup pulled away from the
Compound, shots and an explosion rang out." The fighting came in waves and
continued at the CIA annex down the road, where a series of intense clashes
were fought through the night. Before sunrise, four Americans were dead,
including the ambassador.
* THROUGH... THE... NIGHT...
The White House has long maintained, for instance, that
no one was prevented from coming to the aid of the diplomats and security
officials under attack at the compound. But the CIA contractors describe in
agonizing detail how they were forced by their base chief to wait at the CIA
annex before responding to the desperate pleas for help from their countrymen a
half-mile away.
* FOLKS! IT'S WORSE THAN THAT! THEY WERE ORDERED TO
"STAND DOWN" BY THEIR CIA CONTROLLER! AFTER IMPOTENTLY WAITING THEY
FINALLY LEFT - WITHOUT PERMISSION... TECHNICALLY AGAINST ORDERS - IN ORDER TO
TRY AND RENDER SUPPORT IN THE FIELD!
"If you don't get here soon, we're all going to
die!" one of the Americans trapped at the compound said over the radio.
* TO THESE AMERICANS WHO HAD BEEN ORDERED TO STAND
DOWN...!!!
After waiting in idle vehicles for several minutes, fully
dressed and armed for battle, one contractor shouts to the CIA base chief:
"Hey, we gotta go now! We're losing the initiative!" The base chief,
on the phone trying to get a local militia to respond instead, replies:
"No, stand down, you need to wait." Eventually the team grew so
frustrated they defied the chief's orders and raced to the fighting.
* SEVERAL MINUTES...? IT WAS 25-35 MINUTES AS MEMORY
SERVES! CALL IT A HALF-HOUR! BATTLES HAVE BEEN WON AND LOST IN LESS TIME!
Administration officials still contend that the attack
was unplanned. But the contractors write that the attackers' actions
"suggest a blend of tactical planning, perhaps based on reconnaissance,
and opportunistic rampage."
* SUGGESTS...?!?! THE TERRORISTS HAD MISSILE
LAUNCHERS...!!!
The Obama administration has abandoned its claims that
the attacks grew out of protests in front of the facility — a wise move
considering that the CIA contractors who drove past the compound around 8:30
p.m. report that "all was quiet."
(*SMIRK*)
* SUSAN RICE LIED. SHE LIED TO PROTECT (TRY TO PROTECT)
OBAMA AND CLINTON. AND FOR HER TROUBLE... SHE WAS PROMOTED! SHE'S NOW A SENIOR
ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL!
Administration officials have defended the decision not
to scramble air support by insisting that there was a long gap between the
initial attack on the compound and the subsequent battle at the CIA annex. But
the timeline of the fighting offered by those who were actually engaged in it
is much more fluid, with long stretches of continuous combat punctuated by
short periods of unnerving quiet. There is still no clear timeline of the
events of 2012.
* THE TIME-LINE IS CLEAR ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT OBAMA AND
CLINTON LEFT OUR PEOPLE TO DIE AND OUR CONSULATE TO BE OVERRUN.
The House Select Committee on Benghazi begins its
hearings next week. Addressing the discrepancies raised by Mitchell Zuckoff and
the Annex Security Team should be among its first orders of business.
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