What to believe, whom to believe on Benghazi---loss of common sense?

The terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi continues to rip at my soul. My basic problem is I don't know whom to believe, or what to believe. In such cases, I have to revert to common sense.

The Atlantic Council of Washington, an organization for which I have great respect, has published an article by R. Nicholas Burns, entitled, "Three Benghazi myths."

Burns is to be respected, and his opinion should be heard. My only issue is that he is a former State Department and White House guy, but okay, let's accept that such means he has experience most of us do not have. I am a retired USAF intelligence officer and Indochina war veteran, so I have some experience different than his.

Myth One: Burns argues the first myth is that the "The Obama administration conspired from the first hours of the attack to cover up for political advantage during the election campaign what was clearly an act of terrorism against our county." Burns says he sees confusion rather than a cover-up. He then says, "I understand and sympathize with how difficult it often is to make sense of complicated events overseas when we have at best an incomplete understanding of what happened. This is particularly true of Benghazi."

I do not buy this line of thought. For starters, I am unimpressed with a "wait until all the facts are available approach." The fact is, for whatever reason, non-Americans in Libya attacked our consulate --- American territory --- and killed our ambassador and three others. There is no question in my  military mind that the US was obliged to respond with military force to defend its people and territory as a matter of urgency. We could have done so. There were troops in Tripoli ready to go, we had air forces in Italy ready to go, we had a fleet in the Mediterranean, and at the very least, we could have, and should have responded immediately with forces to retake the consulate and defend it, no matter where we were in the timeline. People sitting in Washington needed no more facts than the one that I have described above. On scene military commanders, in this case the commander African Command, General Ham, USA, should have taken the lead and at the very least done what I have just said. I understand he was ready to go and was suppressed by someone. No one can tell me the US military could not have implemented a strong response with dispatch. There was no risk to global international relations. Common sense should have driven our response, and common sense in this instance dictated a rapid military response. Any enemy existing in Benghazi would have posed no serious threat to our response force --- if there was such an enemy, it would have gone down in flames promptly.

Myth Two: Burns takes account of what I have just suggested. He wrote, "Benghazi and its aftermath showcase an administration that lacks the backbone to support our people overseas in volatile places like the Middle East. Some Republicans have charged Democrats as insufficiently martial and tough-minded in defense of Americans against terrorists and other enemies of our country.

"A more careful, considered view shows this to be well wide of the mark. President Obama called this 'an act of terror' the day after the attacks. Former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton took full public responsibility for what went wrong."

My response is "poppycock" and "who cares?" Obama calling it an act of terrorism a day later and Clinton taking responsibility have nothing to do with what our immediate response should have been. In Benghazi, we faced an issue of self-defense. Our people were attacked at our diplomatic consulate, US property, we were obliged as a nation to respond instantly to take that consulate back and defend not only the structure, but its contents and any people who may have survived the attack. We were also obliged to defend the consulate from any further attack, and we could have reinforced in the days after with considerable power. The administration did not do that. Calling the event terrorism and taking responsibility are simply empty rhetoric with no value.

Myth Three: Burns said, "Some administration supporters continue to maintain that the White House and State did the best they could and that the Benghazi furor is simply a partisan right-wing attack against Hilary Clinton and the Democratic party ahead of the next election cycle.

"Benghazi, like all terrorist attacks, was a wake-up call. It is vital now that the State Department continue its efforts to do everything possible to protect our diplomats overseas."

Again, Washington blather. The Obama administration did not do the best it could. Had it done the best it could, it would have had military forces there with dispatch to retake the consulate and defend it as I have described. It failed to do that. If the Obama administration's performance of wishy-washy back and forth on the video and no military response at all is the best it can do, then we are in big trouble.

Benghazi might have been a wake-up call to the Obama administration, but it should not have been. Remember the embassy in Tehran? We did nothing to send military forces in there to retake our embassy and rescue our diplomats and their supporting staffs. I can tell you, based on my experience perhaps two decades ago, that the State Department is widely known in the security business to be lax in the security area. It has been so for a very long time. My gut instinct is that virtually every embassy we have is indefensible and therefore vulnerable. This has been true for a very long time. Expert after expert has told the State Department this, but the State Department fears making US embassies seem like fortresses. Okay, fair enough, if that's its call, then it has to be prepared for more Benghazis and Tehrans.

I see that former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean has said "Benghazi is a laughable joke." I'll have to sign off I'm sick to my stomach.

Handling of Fort Hood killer Hasan mystifying

I have been complaining for a long time about how the US military and Obama administration have been handling the case of Major Nidal Hasan, USA, who "allegedly" murdered 13 people on 2009 at Ft. Hood, Texas. And I will continue to do so here.

For starters, that event took place in 2009, and it is May 2013 and he still has not come to trial. This is absurd. The defense has kept calling for delays --- over trivia in my view, and the dumb judges have always allowed the delays. Are they afraid to bring this dirtbag to trial because this is an Islamic thing?

If you cross your fingers, he is scheduled to go to trial on May 29, 2013, but watch the circus parade when and if that gets going.

Now what irritates me --- and I am a retired USAF officer --- is that he has been collecting his Army pay since his arrest but he still wears that stupid beard. I can understand, I guess, that he is innocent until proven guilty and therefore is entitled to his monthly pay, though we all know he is guilty as hell and should get nothing. But okay, the law is the law.

Well being that such is the case, it is against Army regulation for him to sport the beard he has been wearing for several years. I don't care about the relationship Hasan sees between his faith and his beard. He didn't wear the beard until they put him in the slammer, so he is BS'ing through his teeth on the relgious thing.

This issue has been raised with the judges on a number of occasions. One judge as I recall said shave it off, and he refused; so the same or another judge ordered that beard be shaved even if they had to tie him down. But that was reversed, with another judge saying that this was not a judicial issue, but rather a command issue. Okay, I guess I agree with that.

However, even though he is in the slammer, he has a commander. Every GI has a commander. So the commander should force Major Hasan to comply with Army regulations. But his commander has failed to do so, and Hasan presses ahead with the beard. I wonder if he'll show up in court with the beard, and wonder what he'll wear. His uniform, or some Islamic garb, or his orange jail suit.

The Army looks dumber than dirt and completely impotent in this entire affair in my book. I question whether the Army is capable of taking this murderer to trial.

Get it together lads. Get this bum a shave, get him in his uniform, and get him to trial, and do so now.

I want our USS Pueblo ship back, or sink it

The North Korean press reported back in March 2013 that the USS Pueblo will be moved to North Korea’s huge museum in Pyongyang that is dedicated to the Korean War. Peter Roper reported for The Pueblo Chieftain of Colorado on March 6, 2013, “The Pueblo is still a commissioned Navy warship but it was on a National Security Agency mission in January 1968 when it was cruising alone off the coast of North Korea to electronically eavesdrop on that country. It was attacked and seized on January 23 by North Korean gunboats. One of its 83-member crew was killed in the attack while the others were held captive, and often tortured, until Dec. 23 of that year.”

It is my opinion that the US should demand the ship be returned to the US, or US forces should sink and destroy the Pueblo in an attack against North Korea.

That is our ship.

Americans don't care about defense? Damn.

General Ray Odierno, USA,CSA, said on May 7, 2013 the Army may not be ready to respond to contingencies next year if current the budget sequestration continues. He said, “Readiness is OK right now, but it’s degrading significantly because our training is reducing. So the next three to four months, we’d probably have the capability to do it. Next year it probably becomes a little more risky because our readiness is lower … We’ll have the troops to go, but the increased risk goes up. And what is the risk? The risk is lives.” Odierno lamented that congressional representatives have told them that they get no calls from constituents about defense.

It is this last point that is so worrisome to me. What's the deal, Americans don't give a damn that our sons and daughters are getting or will be killed and maimed? I believe this to be true, and that pisses me off beyond your imagination.

Look at the nonsense to which so many Americans attach their interests. Some gay NBA player? Oprah, Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz? 

Medic!

I repeat, stay out of Syria

Back in a March blog item, to which I added a few addendums, I urged the US stay out of the Syrian civil war, and provided you expert recommendations to the same effect.

There are now rumors floating about that the US is prepared to send in 20,000 troops. I do not know if this has merit or not, but I have a gut feeling Obama is planning something.

We now know that elements of the Army's 1st Armored Division headquarters at Ft. Bliss, Texas are preparing to go to Jordan, for at least a year. They are said to be going to help the Jordanian military. The element will be led by Major General Wayne Grigsby Jr., USA, deputy division commander for operations. This deployment size will be about 200. An advance party from the 1st Armored is already there for this next deployment.

A small U.S. military team has been there since 2012 to support planning for a possible spillover of the Syrian conflict and to deal with chemical weapons.

I'll try not to speculate here, but I do have 20 years in the USAF under my belt, along with one war, and I submit a headquarters element of this size in place in the region could be used to plan for and perhaps even lead a future deployment of a greater number of ground forces to the region.

I, like most, deplore the violence, death and destruction that has been in train in Syria for so long. However, Syrians kicked off this fight, the Syrian leadership ramped it up, now foreigners from a wide variety of countries have come to support the rebels, to include those with strong al Qaeda ties.

This is not an American fight. I do not buy the notion that the Syrian civil war will spread throughout the Mideast and even if it does, I do not buy that such would pose a risk to our vital national interests.

I do not want to see US military forces go to Syria to fight, be killed and maimed. Such a deployment would surely widen the war and we would be there for many years to come. What would the mission be? To depose the government? We did that in Iraq and Afghanistan, then got wrapped around the axle over nation building and the spread of democracy. These latter two missions in my view should not require the employment of US military forces. For Iraq, once we did not find weapons of mass destruction, we should have left. In Afghanistan, once we deposed the Taliban government and beat up al Qaeda for a while, we should have left. Both of those could have been wrapped up in a matter of months.

I urge my readers to watch events here very carefully and weigh in with their congressional representatives and senators to stop any US military involvement in Syria.

Protecting freedom not the sole job of military

On the surface, this looks like a grand slogan poster. It has its merits. But, "Houston, we have a problem."

Our military forces do not go abroad to fight, die and be maimed in the name of freedom while the population at large gives our freedoms away here at home. 

Those in military uniform comprise about one percent of the population --- their blood should not be shed in the name of freedom when 99 percent of the population is giving its freedoms over to an ever stronger and growing centralized government at home. 

A time will come when our military realizes this formula will not work. 

John Kerry haunts me

So, here is our secretary of state-to-be, in waiting, waiting for Jane Fonda to complete her spiel to an anti-Vietnam protest group so he can add in his two cents. As a veteran of the Indochina War, I have pretty well gotten over Jane Fonda, though I know plenty of men who have not, especially those who were POWs. That she is playing Mrs. Reagan in a film is tragic.

But Kerry, no, I do not think I will get over him. In my book, he is no damn good, and it is an embarrassment to see him stomping about the world, fixing his tie, fixing his suit coat, looking like a dunce which is what he is, a freeloader who has sucked the blood out of the treasures of several women, and now is our secretary of state.

His appointment says a lot about our president and our Senate.

I have great contempt toward this man and hold no respect for him. He does not represent me.