Never Forget, Never Forgive.

I remember first reading those words on a memorial patch for the twelve Navy SEAL’s and eight members of the 160^th Special Forces Aviation Regiment that were lost during the Operation Red Wings ambush and the subsequent rescue effort.

They are strong words, solemn ones. They caution us, not only to remember the bravery of those lost, but to never forgive those responsible. Some may not agree with that, but I do.

At one time or another we have all seen a Hollywood movie where the hero is sacrificed for a politically expedient decision or gain. We have all cheered as the hero overcomes overwhelming odds and rises up in defeat against his betrayer.

But what happens when it is real, when the hero dies and politics wins?

It has been exactly forty-five days since the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in the deaths of our Ambassador and three other American’s including two former Navy SEAL’s. With each passing day, the tale becomes almost more unbearable to hear.

Today we are learning that former SEAL, Tyrone Woods, was at the CIA annex when the U.S. consulate came under attack. When they heard the shots fired, at approximately 9:40 p.m., they informed their superiors and requested permission to respond to the consulate and help. At that point they were told to "stand down," a second request was met with the same reply.

Woods, and at least two others, ignored the orders and made their way to the consulate, which at that point was on fire, to assist and returned fire on the attackers. They managed to evacuate those who remained at the consulate including Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight; two hours after the attack had begun.

At that point, they called for military support because they were now taking fire at the CIA annex. The request was denied. The fighting at the annex continued for four hours.

At least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex and had a laser sighted on the target that was firing at them. They repeatedly requested back-up support from an AC-130 Spectre gunship, which could have deployed ordnance on the laser sighted target.

A Special Operations team had been moved to Sigonella, Italy, but was never told to deploy. A second force that specializes in counter terrorism rescues was also at Sigonella. Sigonella is about the same distance to Benghazi as Tripoli is. Both teams could have been onsite in less than two hours.

Pentagon official says there were never any requests to deploy assets from outside the country. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, the former director of the CIA, went so far as to say the following during an interview on October 25th, "But the basic principle here ... is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on." 

Call me crazy, but someone might just want to share the USMC mantra of “Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome.”

In any event, there were two military surveillance drones that had been redirected to Benghazi shortly after the attack on the consulate began. Both could have provided real time footage that could be accessed from any computer that had proper clearance. Surely there was one or two of those handy at the White House, Pentagon, State Department, etc...
 

An American Quick Reaction Force sent from Tripoli had arrived at the Benghazi airport at approximately 2:00 a.m. but was delayed for 45 minutes at the airport because they could not get transportation from the airport to the annex.

February 17th Brigade, a Libyan militia which is friendly to the U.S., showed up at the CIA annex at approximately 3:00 a.m.


Tyrone Woods, and fellow former Navy SEAL Glen Doherty, who was a part of the Global Response Staff, a unit that provides security to CIA case officers and provides counter-surveillance / surveillance protection, were killed when a mortar hit their roof top position around 4:00 a.m. 

The truth is, it was too late for Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith, but Woods and Dohertys deaths were avoidable.

Seriously, the attack lasted seven hours and the best the United States could do was to send one team from Tripoli, that didn’t arrive on scene until nearly five hours later, while Special Forces units were just as close in Sigonella.

This however begs the follow-up question to Secretary Panetta’s statement. Why, if there supposedly wasn’t enough information in the first place, was a smaller, less equipped force sent in, rather than the better equipped Special Forces unit? This is what they are trained for!

I’m sorry, but I don’t believe the story we are being told.

·        The State Department denied requests for additional security prior to the attack.

·        The embassy was previously attacked with explosives, the Red Cross had pulled out, there was an assassination attempt on the British Ambassador which resulted in the British closing their embassy and withdrawing the Ambassador, and our Ambassador had notified State Department that there had been threats to his life, yet the President, Vice President and surrogates all claim they were unaware.

·        A request, made by the Lt. Colonel in charge of the Site Security Team (SST), to remain in country was denied and the security detail was pulled mere weeks before the attack.

·        Requests for support, made by people on the ground during the attack, were either denied or ignored.

·        Drones were overhead providing live feed, and communication was being relayed by those being attacked, yet according to SecDef we didn’t have a clear enough picture to deploy military assets.

·        An email was sent by the State Department advising that a terrorist group had claimed direct responsibility, yet we were told for weeks that it was all about a video.

·        A United States Ambassador, the official representative of the President of the United States, is killed in a terrorist attack and yet the President travels to Las Vegas the next day for a fund raising event where he says “we had a rough day.” Two weeks later in an interview with CBS he would say this, and other incidents in the Middle East, were “bumps in the road.”

·        Why hasn’t the President addressed the American people like he did the night he gave his “Justice has been done” bin Laden speech.

The other day I wrote about Operation Neptune Spear and how I felt the president was grandstanding and taking credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden. Within days of the operation being completed we were being fed copious amounts of information from the administration, which was almost universally decried by the special warfare community for the risk of comprising operational security. If you don’t believe them ask Dr Shakil Afridi. He helped the CIA find Osama bin Laden. His reward, 33 years in a Pakistani prison after he was outted by Leon Panetta.

Yet here we are forty-five days later and it feels like the administration is treating us like tourists watching a shell game.

Maybe one day we will learn what really happened, but you can bet your last dollar that it will not be before the Presidential Election on November 6^th.

But ask yourself this question: If we find out that we were lied to and that, at the very least, two American heroes died in vain, should we ever Forget? can we ever Forgive?