by: Gen. Jerry Curry
In combat, when a commander discovers that some of his people are in
trouble and about to be killed, he cobbles whatever forces he has
together and launches a military effort to save them. He doesn’t wait
for orders from the White House, the Pentagon or the State Department.
Been there, done that. He doesn’t CYA by claiming that the “situational
awareness” doesn’t provide him with a complete enough picture of what’s
going on to enable him to act.
And he doesn’t study the problem
ad infinitum trying to
learn what all of the ramifications are. Rather, at every level, real
combat commanders immediately go to the sound of the guns, assess the
tactical situation at the point of military contact with the enemy, and
then do whatever it takes to destroy the enemy and rescue his forces.
Everyone knew that the anniversary of 9-11 was coming up, so all of
the US Forces in the middle-east should have been placed on alert. They
should have planned for the worst, rehearsed their plans
ad nauseum, and put their reaction forces on high alert.
The decision of the Obama Administration to deny our Ambassador and
his team and staff’s urgent requests for help during the Benghazi attack
on the US Embassy tells our allies, including Israel, that they too can
expect to be denied American aid and military assistance if they are
facing a life and death crisis.
It is not a question of the availability of military assets and
resources, or whether our intelligence can be relied upon to completely
fill in the blanks of the tactical situation. It is a question of
whether the Administration has the will necessary to effectively use
whatever forces and means are available to defeat the enemy and extract
our people from a dangerous situation.
No matter what we do or how violently we throw our allies and Israel
under the bus in our futile efforts to “normalize” relations with the
Islamic world, we will never succeed. No matter how much we help Islamic
countries or come to their aid in times of grave national crisis, we
and the rest of the non-Islamic world will always be “Infidels” to them.
Many months ago when the United States first became involved with the
so-called “Arab Spring” movement in Egypt, we didn’t have a clue as to
what was really happening there and what political group would finally
end up in control of the nation. But unlike as in Bengazhi, we got
involved anyway and now we know that the extremist Arab Brotherhood is
in charge. All our efforts to bring freedom and democracy to the
middle-east crashed and burned in the streets of Cairo.
At least twice, in Benghazi, our US operators at the embassy were
told to “stand down,” not to help the Ambassador and his team who were
under deadly attack. Those operators knew that standing down was the
wrong order to follow and so they ignored it and, responding to the
Ambassador’s urgent requests for aid, went out and saved American lives,
even though they forfeited their own lives in the process. I assume
President Obama intends to posthumously award them medals for their
heroism?
Through its handling of the Benghazi action the Obama Administration
has made it clear that if you’re serving in a military or diplomatic
post overseas or in an agency like the CIA, and if your life is
threatened or you are at risk of being killed, or if you are about to be
captured and are in need of rescue, you can expect no help from the
Obama Administration. Therefore, our generals should prepare, on their
own, to come to the rescue of the American troops under their command
who are risking their lives for our country.
All we can expect from the Obama Administration are CYA actions and
statements. That’s why in this instance CIA Director David Petraeus
found it necessary to issue a statement saying: “No one at any level in
the CIA told anybody not to help those in need.”
In short, Director Petraeus is saying, “Standing down may be the
policy of this Administration but it’s not my policy nor the policy of
the CIA, at least not as long as I’m Director.
From the heroic actions of the two CIA operatives in Benghazi, who
saved American lives by ignoring orders and acting on their own, it is
obvious that Petraeus should be setting policy and the Administration
should be following his lead.
General Jerry Ralph Curry (Ret.)is a decorated combat veteran, Army
Aviator, Paratrooper, Ranger and retired Army Major General. For nearly
forty years he has served his country both in the military and as a
Presidential political appointee, including for the Carter, Reagan &
Bush 41 administrations.
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