“Leave no man behind” is a Ranger slogan, not a standard Rule of Engagement.
Also, I would remind you that there was no “unit” in Benghazi to be abandoned. Everyone at the annex was a civilian.
The US military is not, cannot be, and should not be a global 911 service that zips in to the rescue every time an American citizen is in trouble anywhere.
The military decisions it has been documented were made by the military. There is no there, there on any of that. I. But here is the real problem with your, "See, here’s the problem: If the administration had come clean early on about their mistakes, it would have meant some criticism, but the issue wouldn’t still be going on right now. But the administration would much rather have what’s happening now than even a little bit of criticism in the run up to an election. So they lied.:
(A) It is absurd for you to expect anyone to believe that there would only have been criticism 'but the issue would not be going on right now" because:
(a) The issue going on right now is not about mistakes in military judgment made by the military and defended by the military officers and leadership that made instant judgments in the heat of a deadly crisis.
(b) The explosive issue this past week was tied to Jon Karl’s flawed supposedly brand new revelation that the “talking point emails” were ‘SCRUBBED’ by the White House and the State Department.
(c) The fact that the CIA was under attack under diplomatic cover required immediate caution in what was said during and after the attack - complicating all matters. A fact that is complicating this tragedy to the present moment.
(d) Do you recall Romney’s farce and disgrace of politicizing the deaths of Americans by calling Obama practically a traitor for sympathizing with the attackers? He did that most reprehensible political pre-dance on graves of Americans serving abroad the night of the attack and prior to the smoke even clearing on the burned out building. - - - That is proof that Republicans were going to used the deaths of Americans in any way they could without doing what most reasonable Americans understand that it would take a long time to figure out what went wrong and all that. The immediate matter is some goddamned foreigners most likely killed our ambassador who was a great friend of 99.99999 percent of the citizens of Benghazi.
(e) The trumped up scandal trumpeting was not focused on ‘mistakes made’ because Republicans knew that there was not enough time to make hay out of that issue and get some traction prior to the election in less than two months. So the political advantage from day one, as Romney shows us (see (d)) was to politically exploit the already existent right wing theme that Obama was the “APOLOGIZER IN CHIEF” and a “MUSLIM SYMPATHIZER” and a “AMERICA HATER” of some sort. So the process started with the “BLAME THE MOVIE” assault based mostly upon Susan Rice’s damn near perfectly exact recital of the talking points that were we now know written by the CIA that at first thought there was a crowd outside the consulate that had a spontaneous element about it and was taken over by Islamic Extremists and all of that WE KNOW NOW **WAS NOT EDITED **by the White House or the State Department by Victoria Nuland on September 14th through the 15th. - - - Republicans are still en mass lying about that specific SCANDAL and most likely never ever in a million years stop lying about it.
II. And here is the real problem with your, *“Contrast this to the Boston response … It was revealed that the FBI interviewed Tamerlan, but didn’t believe he was dangerous” *:
(A) Because that is not one bit the sort of information that would have taken a thorough investigation to conclude. It was a fact of public record and is not at all the same thing as an investigation into who made a mistake.
(B) You have really come up with a non-fact based argument here in the first place:
Just for laughs here is one comment from the Free Republican link:
Are you comparing the ‘battles’ in Iraq to the attack on our consulate and CIA Annex in Benghazi…? Where there were no " highly motivated and disciplined U.S. Army and Marine Corps troops" and were not supposed to be there. The troops in Iraq should not have been there either…
Here’s a brief description from Amazon and the book: Battle for the City of the Dead: In the Shadow of the Golden Dome, Najaf, August 2004
Not so. From the link below: “The CIA itself and then the ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] all made clear that every one of the changes with regard to the involvement the naming of al Qaeda and Ansar al Sharia were made by the CIA,”
Am I really the first person to point out that we didn’t leave anyone behind at Benghazi? All the survivors came home safe. All the bodies were recovered. No one got left behind.
So, you wanted to send in a US-based team of civilians to negotiate with terrorists? A team that would have arrived many hours after the event had ended?