Retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer said Saturday he has sources saying President Barack Obama was in the room at the White House watching the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya unfold.
Two unarmed U.S. drones were dispatched to the consulate and recorded the final hours of the attack, which killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
“This was in the middle of the business day in Washington, so everybody at the White House, CIA, Pentagon, everybody was watching this go down,” Shaffer said on Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine.” “According to my sources, yes, [Obama] was one of those in the White House Situation Room in real-time watching this.”
[…]
Shaffer said the question now is what precisely Obama did or didn’t do in the moments he saw the attack unfolding. The CIA reportedly made three urgent requests for military backup that were each denied.
“He, only he, could issue a directive to Secretary of Defense Panetta to do something. That’s the only place it could be done,” Shaffer said.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last week the military did not intervene because they did not have enough information about what was happening on the ground.
Col. David Hunt, a Fox News military analyst, said the military could have had jets in the air within 20 minutes and forces on the ground within two hours.
“The issue is always political with the White House, but the secretary of defense gives the order, has to be approved by the White House, they wouldn’t pull the trigger, and it’s disgraceful,” Hunt said. “We’ve got guys dead.”
This is entirely consistent with much of our speculation — and does nothing to either strengthen or weaken Obama’s statement, issued through an aide, that he denied calls for military support. And that’s because I believe he weighed his options, dithered, and let things play out. He voted present, in effect — and the motivation was the election and the possibility of a military disaster so close to November 6, and on 9/11, to boot.
What will cost him is that Tyrone Woods defied orders, rushed in to help, saved many in the consulate, and then was left to die later at the CIA annex, having identified and tagged the mortar team that eventually cost him his life. And because of Obama’s inaction — why were no jets scrambled, or an armed drone flown in? — that team at the annex was left to die.
Incidentally, I don’t buy the story about the “trap” being set by the Iranians to draw in US forces — this being the reason our CiC, under advice from Panetta, deferred. Because if they knew about the plan, they’d have a remedy ready for the situation — essentially, they could have moved in other forces, including Delta, behind the first responding forces to spring their own surprise trap on the trap setters.
More likely, Obama just let things play out and started working on finding a fall guy. That we paid money to advertise on Pakinstan TV that the culprit was some filmmaker is all part of the distraction.
It is sickening. To lead and govern effectively in a society such as ours, virtue is a precondition. Obama lacks that. And for that reason alone he should never see power again.
Plus the weather in Vegas is stunning this time of year… when else can you go to Vegas and just gather bundles of cash after the main tourist season unless you are a mafia money launderer??
Clearly the smartest President ever was focused like a laser on the big picture(s ): first fund raising at home and then appeasing fundamentalist Islamic crazies by granting them the human sacrifices their weak ass god and weaker ass prophet demand.
“Obama lacks [virtue].”
I guess that’s one way of putting it.
There really isn’t anything left to say after that.
Ooooh, so THAT’S why the MSM isn’t saying anything about Libya…
D. Greenfield — The Innocence of Obama
Incidentally, I don’t buy the story about the “trap” being set by the Iranians to draw in US forces…
I’d like to reiterate just how silly and stupid it sounds when the Secretary of Defense says, “We can’t send our soldiers in — there might be bad guys there! With guns!”
So if Obama was in the Situation Room watching, who was in there with him? Who did he consult with when he dithered and/or made the decision each time to not provide the requested assistance? Could it be that he was being advised by Jarrett and Axe, who have no authority over this type of decision? Sure seems like it may have been a replay of the 3 times the SEALs were ready to raid OBL’s place and Obama did not give the go-ahead under advice from Jarrett (per Richard Miniter).
And it probably goes without saying, but: If the Benghazi story finds the light of day, it will happen on Monday night, just as everybody goes to 24/7 coverage of the Disaster In Manhattan. Believe it.
Probably, Sqid. Some time after the election the MSM, led by Howard Kurtz, will spend a few days of “introspection” where they perform a perfunctory review of why the media didn’t give this more coverage (hint: they’ll blame Mitt & hurricane) and then it’ll go down the rabbit hole until the post-Obama presidency tell-alls come out. We’ve seen this dance so many times we could practically write the script.
He lacks backbone, integrity, judgment and compassion.
Along with missing a sense of being an American and a strong possibility that he is a genuine “Manchurian Candidate” (having been groomed from the age of 18 to be in a position of power, aided financially at every step, guided by those who despise America and had his sordid past whitewashed by a compliant and complicit Media).
We now should start to realize that he is NOT so much incompetent as he is malevolent and guided by those who have dedicated their lives to the destruction of America and all it stands for for the purpose of the rise of States or A State that will be the precursor for World Government and the beginning of a Hell on Earth.
As the legacy media circle the drain over the next several years, I hope that every story about the slow decline-into-irrelevance of the industry is peppered with one-word comments reading simply: BENGHAZI.
Democrat Pat Caddell on Judge Jeanine Pirro Show
Can honestly say I doubt I’ve seen anyone so visibly filled with anxiety at the Benghazi obfuscation on Television – THIS IS MUST WATCH TV
A collation of silence and whispers of a Sunday morning at Breitbart.
Media Blackout: Aside from FOX, Sunday News Hosts Fail to Raise Benghazi
I don’t know about virtue per se, we are talking about politicians after all… I’d say a lack of malevolence toward the USA might be a precondition though.
Virtue is a tough nut. For a great time the term had completely dropped out of political discourse in the United States. It only began to reenter it to its rightful place around about the beginning of the ’50s, though now that time of loss has nearly been forgotten, almost as though it had never happened. It will take decades of work to fully reestablish any serious examination of the idea.
The really exasperating thing is that we’re unlikely to ever learn the the whole truth about Benghazi or Fast & Furious (or anything else Issa’s looking into) —particularly if Romney wins in just over a week.
You look to be right on the money Ernst. Romney will treat Obama much as he treats the war. “We must leave Afghanistan,” he says, not on grounds of strategic necessity, but on the cowardly political grounds that the mass opinion is “tired of war”.
“He loves his country,” Romney says of Obama today. This is the pass given. It bars the door to searching for the truth of the assertion on the cowardly grounds of practical politics, for seeking the truth about Obama is simply too hot a political potato to hold.
[…] It’s of a piece with the rest of his shabby, lackluster career. This is entirely consistent with much of our speculation — and does nothing to either strengthen or weaken Obama’s statement, issued through an aid, that he denied calls for military support. And that’s because I believe he weighed his options, dithered, and let things play out. He voted present, in effect — and the motivation was the election and the possibility of a military disaster so close to November 6, and on 9/11, to boot. […]
Like Ike loved Tina.
Gosh, the high road worked out so well for Bush when he came into office, ignoring the last months of Clinton’s presidency that included stolen WH furniture, pardons for sale, the trashing of the old executive office building. Then he reached out to Ted Kennedy only to be totally stabbed in the back. Good times!
The difference is that people died because of this – no parent should have to accept not knowing what happened just because the incoming president doesn’t want to start off with a controversy.
Alphabets ignoring Benghazi and our feckless president’s dereliction of duty need to hear an earful about it.
Get your phone numbers here:
ABC Phone (212) 456-7777
CBS Phone (212) – 975-4321
CNN Phone (404) 827-1500
– The entire Obama circus would have been sunnarized in a single phrase by my Uncle “Cjarley “Bud” Owen, if he even felt his assholiness was worth the breath as “hin? that city boy….not worth a bucket of warm spit.”
– The whore media is using “the storm” as cover to ignore Benghazi. Its even more of a travisty, headling every Left-wing publication avtoss the board, where they are projecting the worst possible tracl for the storm so many days aheads, when in reality they can’t even predict with anything like reasonable assurance of accuracy for 72 hours.
– I suppose you could argue from the standpoint of having to scare reluctant residents into taking evasive action, but this level of alarmism is unprecidented. Obama, that fucking weas;e. doesn’t give a shit about people, he just doesn’t want to get caught in a Katrina like mess just befre election day.
– Knowing him and his pack of jackles sat and watched our people get murdered and refused to help its safe to always assume the worst of this bunch of bastards.
Instead of “Hurricane Sandy” they should have named it “Hurricane SQUIRREL!!!”
…come to think of it, isn’t there a squirrel character on Biden’s cartoon show named Sandy?
Libby asked who the Pres was in the Situation Room with watching the video. My sources tell me it Reggie “Sweetcakes” Love
“oh Barry just ignore that icky war stuff and keep doing what you’re doing”
Well, that didn’t last long. Hurricane Sandy is a hurricane no more.
And it’s only Monday.