Geraldo joins Rice..."We Have To Stop Politicizing" Benghazi Raid

reply to post by Grimpachi


I called Geraldo a liar. He is speaking lies, half truths, with some actual truth mixed in. If you want to see why I am calling him a liar see my post here, www.abovetopsecret.com...

Although I do agree with him about why wasn't security provided when it was requested.

reply to post by Swills


I replied to you in the thread you provided so we can keep this thread about the OP. I have to say I didn’t find anything that shows that Geraldo lied.

Geraldo is right, the depth of the depravity and the delusions of the Obama haters is FUBAB.

These people make these second guesses about what the military would do take arm chair quarterbacking to a ghoulish level. It is ignorance squared.

reply to post by poet1b

All these claims that Obama should have sent some large force in to save people ignore the reality that far more lies would have been lost.

honestly ??
i think most ppl would like [color=amber]more of the lies to be lost
all good humor intended.

i know what you meant to type, please don't take offense.
however, i have a question for you ... if our military doesn't (correction) exist to save/protect our own, what is its purpose ?

reply to post by Honor93


I know you were responding to another poster but bear with me on this. Yes the US government has a responsibility to all citizens however have you ever thought about what could happen if they blindly sent in a force with bad Intel.

Please review this link this happened a year after I joined the Army and even though I joined knowing full well I would be put in harm’s way I hope that those in command would not do so blindly and recklessly. This is an example of what can happen with substandard Intel.

Battle of Mogadishu(1993)


Remember they still have a responsibility to citizen soldiers. Firemen fight fires but they still have limits so do soldiers. I think Geraldo was trying to make the point that the Generals were not willing to sacrifice lives needlessly. With hindsight everything is clear but in the moment it’s called the fog of war.

reply to post by Grimpachi

ummmm, ever thought of it ??
more like lived it ... over and over and over again.
how many "conflict" fubars do i need to list before you'll understand, i get it, i really do.

truthfully, in this digital environment, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to hear/read that the delay (stand down order) was due to confirming the video feed was legitmate and not some hackers Onion.

believe me, if and when the excuse is released, it'll be a whopper alright.

i'll see your mogadishu and raise ya one Grenada, Bay of Pigs, VietNam and a few more if needed.
not saying it's ok, but it happens, that's the nature of the conflict.

don't suppose you'd agree that before we had a CIA, we didn't have these kind of intel errors either, did we ??

look, i cannot surmise any good reason POTUS would sit by and watch these soldiers be murdered. ppl can say it was a political, strategical, tactical, whatever-cal kinda decision they want, it won't change my opinion about that.

it's been my opinion for some time that our soldiers don't belong there in the first place.
and they certainly shouldn't be doing the bidding of the CIA, ever.
[too bad their majority of recruits come directly from the service branches ]

if they (ambassador and company) were in such a position, really doing what has been reported, it wasn't the duty of the military to respond anyway.

so, until more details become available, let's not go down this road, ok ?

before it was reported that rather a consulate, this was a CIA outpost deeply involved in weapon transactions with the "enemy", i firmly believed the military should have responded.
with new info surfacing, my opinion isn't quite the same.

oh please stop with the "fog of war" nonsense, i nearly the first time Condi said it.
she must be suffering WMD syndrome.

ETA: ya know, after reading the release about the weapons transactions, the first visual that came to mind was of the character Nicholas Cage played in Lord of War.
perhaps that's the guy Obama needs as an advisor ??

reply to post by Honor93


The only point I was trying to make here was the decision to not send in more troops with little Intel. I thought about this last night and I remembered what had been released.

First they had reports that they were under attack and there were people missing. I would be asking how many people and who were they. I would also be asking if the assets reporting this had any idea where they were or if they were thought to be alive or not.

If that isn’t bad enough they get another report stating the fighting has stopped 2 hours later. Now the POTUS had two Generals with him I am sure as advisors and the nearest rapid response team is 500 miles away. Somewhere I read that they could have used an AC-130 but I disagree. It would be like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer and remember there were people missing so how could they be sure they wouldn’t be firing on those people. I just do not see many viable alternatives here.

It has been said that there was an order to stand down but that has not been confirmed however it has been denied so I am dismissing that until I see proof. The idea that he just sat there watching soldiers be murdered is farfetched for me. It paints a picture that from one drone in smoke filled sky they had perfect visibility and confirmation on who and where everyone was which from the first report we know this isn’t the case. Under fire people missing.

I guess they could have fired a Hellfire and hoped the missing people were not being held captive in the area they were firing at. I would hope Intel would have been considered solid beforehand because the second drone was unarmed.


BTW sorry if you do not like the term fog of war but I have experienced it from a ground troops perspective I can only imagine what it would be like with a drone feed in a smoke filled area and communications with two CIA operatives as eyes and ears on the ground presumably from cell phones and getting conflicting information. I didn’t know Condi said the same thing because I have been out of the country and away from the boob tube. The US is not exactly high on other countries priority’s to report about.

Oh and I brought up the Battle of Mogadishu because it was an extraction mission in hostile territory with similar environments and with both we had eyes in the sky but in the case of Mogadishu they had time to gather Intel and form a plan with all available resources before going in. It would be foolish for me to think in 7 hours’ time the US could mount a rescue operation anywhere near that scale. I wasn’t starting a pissing contest about battles or combat experience we have seen. I believe if they had sent in troops blindly into that situation then we should have expected higher casualties than what we had at the Battle of Mogadishu.

I understand your concern about if there was a CIA gun running or weapons transactions but I do not share your belief that it is relevant to finding out what happened although it could explain why it happened. To me it is unsubstantiated rumor and I do not add it to the equation.

reply to post by Grimpachi

i understand your points, i just happen to disagree with them.
personally, i think you're being funny (on purpose is yet to be determined)

funny because you believe the story that says POTUS & company received notifications of the attack but DID NOT receive requests for assistance OR provide a stand down order.

funny because you don't question advance requests for additional security being denied, but you accept the story of weapons transactions as rumor.

funny because you seem to think events in Mogadishu are in any way comparable to what happened here. (aside from intel issues, there is no other reasonable comparison)

funny because you seem to actually believe what you typed.
i could go on but what's the point ??