Stand Down

The many legitimate scandals that plague the Obama presidency all have a few things in common: (1) stonewalling by the administration and the government agencies involved, submarining any attempt by investigators to get to the truth; (2) complicity by Obama's trained hamsters in the media, keeping the public ill-informed or misinformed; (3) obstruction by the Democrats, who rather that trying to get to the truth, demonize those who would like to find out what really happened, and (4) a lack of interest by the Justice Department who are unashamedly partisan in virtually all their work.

This strategy has worked well for Barack Obama. All of the scandals have faded from view and none of them have been adequately explained. No one has been brought to justice, and likely no one will. And yet, some of the principals involved and/or injured by the scandals and a few intrepid news sources won't let them die.

Yesterday, three CIA operatives present in Benghazi, Libya (you remember Benghazi, don't you?) on the day of the Embassy attack (9-11-2012) granted an interview with FoxNews—the only main stream media source that has the courage to continue to dig on the disgraceful actions that preceded, accompanied and followed an incident in which a U.S Ambassador and three other Americans were murdered by Islamists.

FoxNews reports:

The security contractors -- Kris (“Tanto”) Paronto, Mark (“Oz”) Geist, and John (“Tig”) Tiegen -- spoke exclusively, and at length, to Fox News about what they saw and did that night. Baier, Fox News’ Chief Political Anchor, asked them about one of the most controversial questions arising from the events in Benghazi: Was help delayed?

Word of the attack on the diplomatic compound reached the CIA annex just after 9:30 p.m. Within five minutes, the security team at the annex was geared up for battle, and ready to move to the compound, a mile away.

“Five minutes, we're ready,” said Paronto, a former Army Ranger. “It was thumbs up, thumbs up, we're ready to go.”

But the team was held back. According to the security operators, they were delayed from responding to the attack by the top CIA officer in Benghazi, whom they refer to only as “Bob.”

“It had probably been 15 minutes I think, and … I just said, ‘Hey, you know, we gotta-- we need to get over there, we're losing the initiative,’” said Tiegen. “And Bob just looks straight at me and said, ‘Stand down, you need to wait.’”

“We're starting to get calls from the State Department guys saying, ‘Hey, we're taking fire, we need you guys here, we need help,’” said Paronto.

After a delay of nearly 30 minutes, the security team headed to the besieged consulate without orders. They asked their CIA superiors to call for armed air support, which never came.

It was clear from the first day, that the Barack Obama, who had created a false narrative that Libya was a success (it was, in fact, an unmitigated disaster) and that al Qaeda was defeated (it was, in fact, restructuring and growing) in the run-up to the 2012 presidential elections, did everything possible to obscure the Benghazi story—remember the 'bad video' meme espoused by Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton?

Is it possible (and more likely probable) that the White House didn't want to engage the Islamic terrorists who were attacking the Benghazi compound? That someone in the administration decided that no help would be offered because an air strike or a significant military action would have to be reported, even by Obama's trained hamsters in the media? That Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were nowhere to be found as the incident unfolded? That someone in the administration co-opted the military and the CIA, who clearly wanted to act, and commanded that they stand down and then commanded that they lie about it and claim that help was unavailable? That politics trumped the need to save Americans under fire?

In the two years since Benghazi, the Obama administration has demonstrated that domestic politics trumps all else and that administration actions are driven solely by political concerns, not the best interests of the United States. We may never know the truth about Benghazi, but "stand down" orders did happen, and American's died as a consequence. The only solace is that Barack Obama's presidency will be remembered not for his meager accomplishments, but his monumental failures. Benghazi is one of those failures.