Happy As Kings: Alleged Benghazigate

I’ve been watching the Benghazi-attack rumor mill ramp itself up into a political cyclone of hysteria. Most of us of a certain age have probably seen the “surgical strike” imagery from Desert Storm. Jet pilots were able, twenty years ago, to send smart bombs into buildings to destroy the enemy. The military could put a metaphorical “man on the moon” then (a bomb through a window), so why couldn’t we do it in Benghazi?

A couple differences will set the stage: The Desert Storm pilots were prepped. The Desert Storm pilots were there.

To me, this political cyclone looks like a version of the “CSI effect” that plagues jury trial: people think that “the military” can routinely work TV magic by arriving someplace moments after an inciting incident. That’s fiction. “The military” does not keep units on permanent alert supported by aircraft revving their engines on the flight line with Harrier/Cobra/Concorde capabilities, and equipped with bad-guy profiling software-guided smart bullets. An effective response takes planning and that’s probably what was going on.

Another peeve-y caveat: There is no “the military.” “The military” is composed of branches of the service, with specific duties and particular units. One unit must talk to another unit, whether the “unit” I the Department of State, the Pentagon, or a special response unit. Details have to be confirmed and evaluated to avoid the pitfalls of the childhood game of “Telephone” in which the sentence the first person speaks isn’t the sentence the last person hears. We need the information to be timely, accurate and specific. Rushing into a situation, if you’re close enough to actually rush in, usually winds up with more mistakes than solutions. Ask any mother who tries to intervene in a sibling argument.

Some of the questions I’ve seen floating loose on teh Intertoobz are answered by a reporter in this article I read in this morning’s Kansas City Star: Questions and some answers about attack on U.S. consulate in Libya

An article I found while researching information for this blog post is also informative: Pentagon on Benghazi Troop Movements: ‘Swift Action’ on Night of Attack

From my own perspective of a lifetime in and around military installations, other clarifications are:

The closest American military installation to Benghazi, Libya is at Sigonella in Italy. Sigonella has no suited and booted instant response team with an airplane waiting on the runway with its engines running.
Units on standby alert need something to be standing by for. It can be argued that “’they’ should have known,” but threats are continual. Someone, somewhere is always pissed off at the U.S. Just as cortisol in a living body damages that body, keeping units on permanent standby alert “just in case” brings on a feeling similar to that caused by the “little boy who cried wolf.”
The American public isn’t too fond of “fraud, waste and abuse” (to quote ubiquitous signs around the military installations where I spent most of my life). With reason, bloated DoD funding is a favorite target for cutting expenses so having “just in case” troops twiddling their thumbs waiting for something to come of worldwide threats would be sure to be an effective use of taxpayer money.
Troops don’t magically materialize from a place of perpetual readiness to the place that needs defending. It takes time for responders to get from Point A to Point B, to include travel time from where the individuals are to a collection point, travel time from the collection point to an airport, flight time to the area of operations, and travel time from the receiving airport to the target destination. No, they don’t have to deal with the TSA, but it all still takes time.
Four hundred miles straight distance flying time from Sigonella to Benghazi doesn’t include the time for a response team to get from Rota, Spain to Sigonella. Special response teams are wonderful, but they aren’t supermen and they don’t have capes.
We don’t want hair-trigger responses in an international situation. Libya did not attack the embassy and we should be very careful in retaliating against … whom? The city of Benghazi? A mob in the streets? Al Quaeda? A responding unit needs to know against whom they are fighting and figuring out who this is takes time.
Fighter jets “popping a sonic boom” over a city of over 600,000 people (a suggestion I saw from a publication I subscribed to before the Republican party went off the rails) would probably result in damage greater than any assistance and would affect those already under attack. The much-maligned “collateral damage” of previous conflicts would have drawn censure for whoever ordered the strike.
For those advocating a heavily-armed response, haven’t you noticed a problem with invading other countries? Have you really not noticed?

In conclusion, my condolences to the families of the slain Americans. Chris Stevens. Sean Smith. Tyrone Woods. Glen Doherty. I’m so sorry the attackers took your family members from you.