What is the old saw about tangled webs and deception … absolutely has one shaking their heads as we watch the political-media circus that will come down around the hearings on the resignation of former CIA Director David Patraeus, his mysterious affairs and what happened in Benghazi two months ago.
First of all, it doesn’t take a savant or rocket scientist to figure out that there obviously more things at play here than meets the eye. Exactly what they are, I haven’t a clue. But you can be certain the media mavens and internet pundits are going to have an absolute field day covering this and trying to spin whatever limited facts are out there to whatever advantage they can leverage for their political agenda.
There are so many cover-ups going on that all the misdirection would make a magician proud. This almost sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, but for the fact that it really does involve real people doing real things in real time. Just how it will all shake out is beyond me but I am getting my share of chuckles about it.
Why am I chuckling? Because it is all spinning so fast and out of control that the handlers don’t know which way to go … and that I find outrageously humorous. You see, politicians, bureaucrats and progressives are control freaks and this circus train already has gone off the rails.
But that aside, I do want to make one point about the sad affair at Benghazi: The moment the ambassador went to the “consulate” he was a dead man. There was nothing that anybody could have done.
You see, and you people addicted to instant gratification take note, when the first alarms went up, the only resources that could have any impact on the situation were those resources on the ground in Benghazi, and there was never a chance they would be enough.
Yes, you can fault all sorts of people for not anticipating the ambush, but that doesn’t change the fact that no matter what miracles military people in Italy or Spain or Germany or the US pulled off, to expect a response that would have been in the air or on the ground in less than 12 hours (by which time it was all over but the shouting) is absolutely ignorant.
The problem, as I have pointed out before is not tactical, but logistical.
Let’s assume that you send folks from Italy (They are relatively close):
Ok, first you have to assemble your crew. Now I seriously doubt they were sitting there on alert to roll when the first siren sounded. No, let’s get real here folks, they either were in bed or out socializing. So, you have to wake these people up, get them dressed and co-located so they can have some idea of what the emergency is.
Now, if it involves aircraft, you have to check out which planes are fueled, serviced, armed (if necessary) and ready to rock and roll. If not, then your ground crews have to get on the stick and start prepping the birds. Those things don’t happen in instants like they do in video games, they take time … excruciating long time it seems when they are trying to rush the job.
IF you going to insert ground pounders, then you have to issue them all the equipment, ammunition, etc. they need for whatever mission you expect them to do, which means the leaders have to take some time to figure out what that is going to be. Remember, this is a no alert effort here, which means even, if you have a contingency plan, you have to take the plan off the shelf, dust it off, get out the checklists before you can really start moving your people through the process of strapping on armor, arms and ammunition.
Back when I used to cover the XVIII Airborne Corps and the 82nd Airborne Infantry Division, the standard they had was for the first troops to be wheels up (note I said the first troops) and on their way was 18 hours. They actually hit that mark when they deployed elements of the 16th Military Police Brigade to St. Croix after the island was hammered by a hurricane in 1989.
So, when you read all the stories about the time lines about what happened that night in Libya, remember the tyranny of the clock and logistics.
Now, I am not absolving the Obama administration for fumbling the explanation following the debacle, nor for ignoring all the warning signs ahead of time.
I am not sure even if Gen. Patraeus’s not necessarily hewing the appropriate narrative as to the role the intelligence agencies played in the post-disaster cover-up about the YouTube video has anything to do with his resignation.
Actually, I suspect that the good general was going to get hammered for other reasons, but then I am being cynical about how things work inside the Beltway of Washington, D.C.
As it is, I am just going to sit back and try to enjoy the circus with all the clowns running around trying to bring the chaos under control.
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