# Benghazi Attack for Dummies. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 8, 2013, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466 "2013-11-08T23:46:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 42
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/821 "2014-01-30T20:20:07Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > You don’t know what you’re talking about, so you lost an argument. _That’s what is supposed to happen_. The system works! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/822 "2014-01-30T20:22:05Z")
> [@Acewiza](#): > > It’s an appeal to authority - authorities who’s motives, reasoning and acts in this particular case are being legitimately questioned. Oh, please. There’s absolutely nothing legitimate about these questions, and you’ve done more than any other single poster in this thread to demonstrate that fact. This is a purely partisan witchhunt, as is demonstrated by the the fact that only the most rabid political partisans are buying into it. Your arguments have absolutely nothing to do with reality, and are predicated solely and entirely on your dislike of Obama’s unrelated political policies. ---
**Author:** ![Acewiza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f475e1/32.png) [@Acewiza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acewiza)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/823 "2014-01-30T20:23:21Z")
Cognitive dissonance can be such a sad thing. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/824 "2014-01-30T20:25:11Z")
> [@Acewiza](#): > > Cognitive dissonance can be such a sad thing. … Nnnnope. Still too easy. . ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/825 "2014-01-30T21:20:45Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > . . . At 900+ feet per second, our F-16’s total time on target (assuming our pilot approaches them lengthwise) is – ahh — less than a quarter of a second. . . . I believe that during attack runs, especially strafing runs, modern jet aircraft slow down substantially. They don’t go full-throttle, but reduce to a manageable speed. For exactly the reason you just noted! If they go in full speed, they’re limited in what they can see. (And, heck no, I have no first-hand experience whatever! I’m quoting from memory from old James Dunnigan books like “How To Make War.”) (Anyway, nitpick, not rebuttal. I think your main point is correct: an F-16 wouldn’t have been able to save the ambassador. The idea is absurd.) ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/826 "2014-01-30T22:34:01Z")
**Trinopus** , agreed, nitpick not rebuttal. I was riffing off of Ace’s statement > [@](#): > > Providing that the two F-16s initial pass over the mob, in full afterburner at 200 feet and 550 knots did not stop the attack in its tracks, a few well placed strafing runs on targets of opportunity would assuredly do the trick. I suppose it is possible that he meant to stop the attack via acoustic pressure alone, and contemplates slowing down for strafing runs as a back-up plan. But he doesn’t make that clear and I think it would be giving him far more credit than he has earned with all his other silly postulates. So I’m gonna continue to ridicule 900 foot per second strafing runs. F-16s aren’t A-10s and don’t really have much go-slow ability, so even postulating less than half that speed makes targeting of humans on city streets totally unrealistic. I’m not trying to debate him any longer, just pointing and laughing. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/827 "2014-01-30T23:24:23Z")
I was wondering about that, too. Do F-16s strafe? Have they ever actually been used in that capacity? ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/828 "2014-01-31T02:24:36Z")
The F-16 is “a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft” (Wiki) with “fighter” being further defined as “a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat against other aircraft”. Variants have maximum speeds of somewhere around Mach 1.6. Most armament is missiles of a variety of types and purposes. The F-16’s M61 Vulcan is a 6 barreled “air-cooled, electrically fired Gatling-style rotary cannon which fires 20 mm rounds at an extremely high rate”. Most ammunition for this cannon is explosive and/or incendiary and is intended to be used against aircraft. Because of weight limitations, most M61 configurations in the F-16 are limited to a few hundred rounds. The F-16 was not designed to be a “ground attack aircraft”, meaning one designed for ground support. I’m sure there may have been some instance somewhere of this aircraft being used to strafe personnel, but I’ve been unable to find reference to any such. It’s designed to provide air superiority, to control the sky, not to attack personnel. I suppose I could ask my brother, who is a retired USAF fighter pilot. But then I’d have to explain this lunatic scenario, and I think he would just howl at the inappropriateness of it. Like using a Stradivarius to pound nails. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/829 "2014-01-31T02:47:48Z")
Grin! I admire the metaphor. And…yeah, that’s what I thought. It’d be like sending a P-38 to attack the Hiryu. Not the right role. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/830 "2014-01-31T06:26:30Z")
I just bought a couple of boxes of Benghazi’s from the Girl Scout who knocked on my door. What’s this about an attack? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/831 "2014-01-31T06:36:55Z")
OK, so the plane flies too fast for the purpose, true, but on the other hand, you got a methedrine powered machine gun firing 20mm rounds! So, may be you only kill one guy. But that guy is _severely_ dead. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/832 "2014-01-31T06:38:45Z")
> [@Lamar\_Mundane](#): > > I just bought a couple of boxes of Benghazi’s from the Girl Scout who knocked on my door. What’s this about an attack? Sure hope you bought enough. Keep posting, next few days, so we can be sure you’re still OK. ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/833 "2014-01-31T06:59:14Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/834 "2014-02-01T04:08:07Z")
To prevent the five or so mortar rounds from hitting the roof of the CIA Annex and killing two Americans after a long lull in the fighting it would have been necessary to bomb every sqare foot from the immediate perimeter of the Annex out to a circumference beyond the range of a mortar/rocket launcher of the type used, An F16 could not have done that? There was no mob at the Annex. The mob at the Consulate was long before dispersed. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/835 "2014-02-01T13:27:14Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > The F-16 is “a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft” (Wiki) with “fighter” being further defined as “a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat against other aircraft”. Multirole means jack-of-all-trades. The Viper can perform just about any mission adequately (and, according to specialists in the field, [fly right up its own asshole](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=335GdTqtyLs)). It’s certainly been used to pound mud in the past (if not by the US, by the dozens of countries who’ve bought it. It really it a great little lawndart). That being said, yeah, strafing is \*so \*1939. The Viper might “strafe” _tanks_, not people (which it couldn’t really acquire anyway, too small, zips by too fast), and not too many at that since its 500 rounds are gone in like 5 seconds. Besides, shelling a fucking demonstrating crowd ? **Ace** , what are you, a villain in a Schwarzenegger movie ? I’m fairly confident the Consulate had a few .50s on hand since the US has been using those everyfuckwhere since WW1, and they’re perfectly adequate to butcher civilians by the streetload. If the US had wanted to murder hundreds of random people (and the people who lived next to them), the soldiers defending the embassy could have gone full auto themselves. Thing is, and this is an important detail, it would have been _insane_. And Assad-level evil. So they didn’t. And the mob was pushed away regardless. I’ll say one thing about **Acewiza** ’s plan however : it does make **Magiver** ’s one look… well, not smart of course… but halfway cogent, in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2014, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/836 "2014-02-02T14:40:20Z")
**Kobal2** , you’ve reinforced everything I said. Could an F-16 fire it’s cannon at some hypothetical ground target? “Yes”, with significant qualifications. Would that capability be of any positive use in the case under consideration? The only possible answer is a resounding NO. To insist otherwise, as our friend Ace has done, demonstrates a profound failure of knowledge and analytical ability. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2014, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/837 "2014-02-02T16:32:15Z")
Let’s just be clear – there’s nothing unusual about an F-16 strafing personnel. [This](http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2007/July%202007/0707strafing.aspx) is an article about how strafing became common in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it’s the idea that an F-16 would make strafing runs in a city without a JTAC putting their eyes on the actual target and reading out a nine line to the pilot is what is truly out to lunch here (setting aside the idea that the entire Department of Defense is lying when it says there was no way to have combat-equipped aircraft on the scene in just a couple hours from the first distress call). There’s just no way an F-16 would go in and start blasting away at any vehicle with a machine gun or groups of armed individuals. The US forces that arrived in Benghazi, and the Americans that were evacuated, were escorted by a militia that was friendly to the US. If an F-16 pilot looks down and sees dudes with guns, there’s literally no way to know at that moment whether those would be friendly militias or Al Qaida linked bad guys. It is a fantastically stupid idea that has been proposed that F-16s would go in and just start killing random brown people. Just really, really dumb, and I think the idea is only taken seriously by those who tend to think that those people who live in that region of the world are all the same and mostly disposable. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/838 "2014-02-02T18:09:31Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Another factor: A conjecture, perhaps, so I will mark it as such in hopes I wont rile up anybody with definitive and encyclopedic knowledge… > > We were pretending what we hoped to make true, that Libya was a functional nation with a government that had recently gone through a rather exciting change in power structure, but was nonetheless a sovereign nation with all the respect due to it that other such nations enjoy. One of which being control over its own territory and air space. > > According to commonly accepted constraints, that is the standard, and a nation wishing to interpose its own military force must, at the very least, ask permission. Otherwise, technically, its an act of war. My understanding is rudimentary, but I think that is widely understood to be a Very Bad Thing. > > Just spitballin’, of course, summarizing diplomatic proceedings from roughly 1800 to date, and such international protocols and agreements as may be relevant, but I am willing to go way out on a limb and suggest I’m on pretty solid ground. > > Yeah, I’m a wild man… So we’re currently at war with Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia then? I’m not the only person who thought this event was a major foul up. [Here’s](http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/hillary-clinton-benghazi-biggest-regret-102655.html) someone in office at the time who thinks Hillary’s actions were less than perfect. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2014, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/839 "2014-02-02T18:28:49Z")
Heard about Google Cogent? Free from Google, analyzes responses and gives you a reading on the relevance and cogency. Or, at least it did. Now, its crying… ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2014, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466/840 "2014-02-02T19:12:37Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > So we’re currently at war with Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia then? > > I’m not the only person who thought this event was a major foul up. [Here’s](http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/hillary-clinton-benghazi-biggest-regret-102655.html) someone in office at the time who thinks Hillary’s actions were less than perfect. Who has argued that Hillary’s actions were perfect? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466.md?page=41) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benghazi-attack-for-dummies/673466.md?page=43)