Magiver, you are in too deep supporting a plan too fanciful. I suggest you step outside your home, an area you think you know, and look up to see what you never noticed before: all the power lines, phone lines, poles for the same, trees, roofs, and everything else that would catch a parachute. Then imagine parachuting onto your street in the dark with a chute wider than the street. Those guys wouldn’t have your familiarity and would know the lay of the land only from satellite photos and low-resolution video from drones. They would be sitting ducks for any bozo with an AK on the ground. Could you, in good conscience, send them on a suicide mission like that? When Stevens and Smith were already dead? What would be the point of sacrificing the “rescue” team, too?
My friend, you are not stupid, but you keep defending this stupid idea. It’s time to stop and find something else to focus on.
Aww, gee. You know a jarhead. So do I. Several, in fact. I also know “green berets”, SEALS, and shitloads of TEDs. And a few flag officers. You sound like someone who’s never actually met any of those people. Except for a few TEDs who have the need to brag. And so have fantasies. And those trump everyone else’s experience. Yeah, that works. Maybe you don’t get this. I have friends that did SERE. Some of them are even serving, today. Like my brother. Who’s currently a CDR, so it’s not like he’s a low-rank n00b.
Cheshire Human: So, like, special forces guys wouldn’t eat something gross on a bet? Or some might and some mightn’t? Was the idea dead wrong, or just stated too broadly?
There is nothing remotely fanciful about anything I’ve suggested. I’ve pointed out the technology that’s been available for it’s use is old technology. All I’ve gotten is stupid replies about how hard it is to launch an airplane or parachute freight or operate in the dark. All the power lines and obstructions are mapped out in extreme detail and can be viewed by the troops with night vision. Imagine actually giving it 5 minutes of planning to select landing zones that take everything you said into consideration. This is not even a minor problem to overcome. They would be as vulnerable to attack as the group who responded on the ground from Tripoli. The difference is that I suggested air support which they could have used to direct inbound strikes of any size. Again, this is old technology.
All this is in direct defiance of what has been posted regarding the activation of the group I’ve suggested. Look at post 523: • 12:30 a.m. The first U.S. military unit is ordered to begin moving to Libya. By 3 a.m., two teams of special operations forces — one from Fort Bragg, N.C., and one from central Europe — and a Marine anti-terrorism unit are preparing to depart.
It’s a simple request. Cite who shut down the European team and why. Activating them was the right thing to do. Allowing them to proceed toward Benghazi created a useable option. When did this happen and who made the decision.
You can’t say when this happened because that information has never been forthcoming. Mr transparency COULD have made been a good decision but so far has chosen not to share it.
Ummm… ooookay right back, dude. I’m taking a few, very slow steps back as I speak, and I ready a “run for your life from the crazy person” action.
(and FTR, I don’t know a jarhead. Well, not know-know, you know ? We’re friends because the Internet is a wonderful thing that breaches boundaries and makes the antiquated notion of borders and foreign-ness obsolete and he’s a fun guy to play video games with)
I’ve been in an unintentional glider on a scud running night flight. Rest assured I know what looking for power lines is like without a FLIR system. You keep replaying a very tired scenario that is easily dealt with using old technology. The FLIR system I showed you was passive. Not active, passive. That means that they could actively enhance the image. Here’s a video of it being used to inspect power lines. They’re flying very close to the wires during the day time but the image is the same at night.
Not necessarily. I strongly suspect pylons and wires show up that well on thermal imaging in daylight (from what looks like 100 meters away, anyway :p) because they’re getting warmed by the Sun and metal heats up faster than the background. There’s a key element of this system missing in the middle of the night.
They could also get heated by the high current flowing through them in the case of power wires, I suppose, but that’s not true of TV antennas, radio receivers, clothes lines, phone lines, balconies etc…
Beyond that, and for the Nth time, all the “this is old technology !” in the world don’t mean a thing if they simply don’t have it, ready to reach Benghazi in 30 minutes without warning or prep time. I’ll refer you to the time it took, BY YOUR OWN CITE, for the SF team in Europe that you’re so concerned about to actually be ready to move (well, “preparing to depart”, which is still some steps removed from being in the air, much less being over Benghazi, but I’ll allow it). Which kind of throws a spoke into the whole 30 minute parachute drop thing.
Depends what you mean by “vulnerable”. Certainly, in the event that terrorists were on standby & making ready to ambush rescue forces then they certainly have the same chance of attacking people parachuting semi-naked in the middle of the night then hoofing it to the Consulate ; than a big honking convoy feat. armoured transports and support from the Lybian military.
But if we take vulnerable to mean “susceptible to get harmed and/or killed in the event of a terrorist attack”, well, let’s just say you won’t catch me volunteering for the impromptu midnight urban parachute drop plan, General Couchinson.
Everything absorbs energy at a different rate. That’s what makes it so effective. I cited a video of a plane landing at night. You could clearly make everything out because of this. That’s just a FLIR system. There’s also infrared systems that allow for active illumination at night.
I never said they were parachuting into Benghazi in 30 minutes. Nobody knew what was going to happen or how long people could hold out when it started. The correct decision was to move assets into position as soon as possible. It isn’t a difficult logistical mission.
The hostages in Iran was a difficult mission. It involved a lot of assets and planning. It was done years ago without the level of sophisticated equipment we have today. This wasn’t the mission to kill Bin Laden. That involved use of specialized black-ops equipment not readily available to regular troops. Sadly we lost a specialized helicopter to Pakistan and probably China but that’s the way it goes.
So you understand that there was significant risk in any rescue attempt.
What you seem to find difficulty with is the idea that the United States military is aware of, or has planned for, power lines in a night operation. This would have been at the top of their list many years ago.
Do you know what sort of vehicles the Tripoli team had? If they were armored, would you concede that this made them less vulnerable to attack than people mounted on motorcycles or light trucks?
To recap:
You won’t say which team(s) should have been deployed.
You won’t say how the people at the annex would be extracted.
You can’t articulate any benefit to deploying more troops in the fashion you’ve described. Again, it’s highly probable that the mortar attack was in response to more Americans reaching the annex, not some kind of scheduled 5:11 a.m. barrage.
Why do you assume they were shut down? They’d been on a training mission, not hanging around their base, is it really inconceivable that it would take them longer to get ready than the teams which were at their bases, and were sent to Libya? Or that C-110 lacked armored vehicles that could be deployed for an extraction? Or one of a dozen other reasons beyond…whatever you think Obama’s sinister motive was?
Naturally. Yet you still fail to understand that while all military operations involve risks, some risks are more risky than others (all due respect to Georges Orwell who, though dead, could kick my ass. Literary.)
I will not apologize for forcing that pun, which I’ve been holding back and dying to use for a very long time.
Why don’t you provide a cite that it isn’t a difficult logistical mission? And not a bogus “I worked in charter airplanes and I know” kind of cite, I’m talking a real cite that actually demonstrates what you’ve alleged.
Why don’t you provide a cite that they were shut down? We have provided probably a dozen or more cites in this thread that there was no “stand down” order, and it’s clear that you’ve ignored every one of them. Instead, you keep making unfounded assertions about enormous military capabilities that someone decided not to bring to bear – in essence, you keep asking over and over when Hillary Clinton (or whomever) stopped beating her wife. That’s a loaded question and deserves no response… other than the dozens of cites that have been provided and you ignored, of course.
So this is what the criticism from anti-Obama “BENGHAZI!!!” crowd has come down to? Obama failed order a rescue mission that by all accounts would NOT have made any difference in the outcome of the situation?
To be fair, para-dropping a team equipped with motorcycles into the city streets, which would then suffer casualities from the landing and the hundreds of militia fighters, and have to shelter somewhere in the city while another rescue team was scrambled to rescue them, would have made a difference in the outcome. Just not the kind of difference sane people would want.
no. One does not preclude the use of the other in tandem.
My position is they should have been launched with the benefit of having them onsite as quickly as possible. It doesn’t mean the situation unfolded to the benefit of their use. It means they are available for insertion upon arrival. This was not done. The benefit of deploying troops with special skills to defend, attack, and transport people is self explanatory.
To recap your position:
you can’t cite the decision process for the European team called up and not used.
I assume nothing other than they have the capacity to do what they are trained to do. Otherwise there isn’t really much point in having them around.
Why do you assume the WH was correct in their decision when it has not been forthcoming.
Why do you assume you understand the situation better than the then-Secretary of Defense, a former Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two four-star combatant commanders, the commander of the four-person Special Forces team based in Tripoli, and an independent review board that included the services of a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?
I’ve shown that from a technical standpoint it’s not a particularly difficult mission. Getting a plane airborne quickly is not miracle. Precision drops of equipment is not a miracle. Plotting a location and avoiding obstacles is not magic. Monitoring the situation in real time is not a problem. They had a drone in the area the whole time and any team entering the area would have brought their own sets of drones with them for additional coverage.
That you are unaware of aviation and find it magical is not my problem. You’re literally arguing that UPS or Fed Ex can’t do what they do on a daily basis. You’re arguing the military can’t handle a night landing when all the wars we’ve seen in the last 30 years have been launched at night. This is what they do best.
Why don’t you supply a cite for anything related to them. Again, and again and again I’ve pointed out this information has not been forthcoming.
What you seem to lack is the capacity to understand is that the WH might have made the correct decision but in the absence of their cooperation it appears they did not.
I’m unsubscribing. I heard this all before, multiple times. We’re in…what? The sixth iteration of this, with Magiver and Acewhiza repeating their talking points and ignoring all cites to the contrary. It’s old and useless at this point, and I’m getting tired of seeing it come up on my User CP…
That’s a non-answer. You wrote that a team dropped into a landing zone would be “as vulnerable to attack as the group who responded on the ground from Tripoli”. Why should that be the case, when the ground force potentially had access to armored vehicles?
Unless you have information that the C-110 team was made ready, then told not to deploy, as opposed to not being ready before the other teams arrived in Libya and Sicily, you can’t intelligently claim that they were “called up and not used”. Again, C-110 was on a training mission of some kind in Croatia, not sitting at their base at full readiness like the other teams.
And about those other teams: one actually was deployed, from Tripoli to Benghazi. A FAST platoon was sent to Tripoli. A team from Ft. Bragg was sent to a staging point in Sicily. Clearly, special forces were scrambled and deployed. How do you reconcile this with a belief that C-110 was ready and able to assist, but told not to travel to Libya?
Again, there’s a cost/benefit calculus at work. Whether something can physically be done is only part of the decision-making process.
I don’t. Not being privy to high-level strategy meetings at the White House or the Pentagon, I am forced to rely on the actions of the government. Which were sensible and effective under the circumstances.
Whence your firm conclusions, then? If the problem is what we don’t know, how are you making these confident assertions about what could and should have been done that night?
If one judges the decision by the outcome, then yes, they did.
That’s a non-answer. You wrote that a team dropped into a landing zone would be “as vulnerable to attack as the group who responded on the ground from Tripoli”. Why should that be the case, when the ground force potentially had access to armored vehicles?