Don's Tuesday Column 7-19

           THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson Red Bluff Daily News   7/19/2016

                  A very big little thing happened

One story broke in June that, in hindsight, held great relevance to our November election: It was the Benghazi report from Congress on the September 2012 attack on the diplomatic post that killed 4 Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. It revealed the stunning news, covered by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, that U.S. Marines were told to put on and take off their Marine uniforms four times due to State Department/Hillary Clinton interference and indecision.

American military were not free to respond to and rescue besieged diplomatic personnel and the skeletal security force because of the primacy of State Dept. control, not a military chain of command. Defensive force was inadequate to the demands and expectations of armed attacks, due to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s refusal to respond to some 600 requests for greater security, even as other nations’ staffs were removed due to evident threats in Benghazi.

I’ve written previously, based on authoritative sources, that American jets were based in Italy and could have scrambled, been refueled, and made it in time, not for the initial attacks but for the later siege on the CIA annex. That’s where some 30 Americans were desperately clinging to hope amid the heroic efforts of security contractors and former SEALs. Flyovers by F-16s have been proven to scatter the kind of armed attackers swarming the outpost.

Here’s talk host Hugh Hewitt describing, on his Tuesday, June 28 show, the report from the House Select Committee: “The Benghazi report is damning to the State Department and Hillary Clinton—damning, damning, damning. The rescue mission never left the ground; it never left the ground because in a video conference with State, back and forth they went, the Marines that were going to be dispatched to the besieged people in Libya had to change in and out of uniform four times because of State Department, read Hillary Clinton, interference…Boy did Hillary Clinton blow this; people died and she has lied, people died and she has lied repeatedly.

“They never left the ground before the attacks were over. It’s not clear if we will ever see the video conference in which Hillary Clinton participated; it’s very clear why she went home. The idea of Marines changing in and out of Marine Corps gear because of State Department orders, read Hillary Clinton orders, four times is damning.

“There’s lots of other stuff but the lead is a video conference never before heard about in which State is meddling (with) the Marines that were supposed to fly to their aid. Remember how it was, that they were beyond help—it was not true, it was a giant lie. There has been a huge cover up of the video conference.”

Congressman Mike Pompeo, member of the House Intelligence Committee and the Select Committee on Benghazi, was interviewed and referred to a separate report that he and Representative Jim Jordan released, saying that they “chose to highlight a number of facts that we believe are most important for the American People to draw their attention to those things that we believe demonstrate beyond a doubt that Secretary Clinton put politics ahead of the Americans in Benghazi.

“On the evening of the attack, in Washington, D.C., the picture was incredibly different than it was in Benghazi, Libya. In Benghazi, Libya, these folks were in a firefight for their lives. In Washington, D.C., on a telephone conference call called a SVTC, Secretary Clinton was on the call for part of the time, but the deputies all across the government were talking about things like whether our soldiers could go into the country in uniform or out of uniform.

“They were seeking permission from the Libyan government, frankly, which didn’t exist, and certainly didn’t protect our guys that night. They were talking about things that were totally superfluous to the primary goal at the time, which was to find the U.S. Ambassador who was then missing, and rescue the 30-plus Americans who were on the ground there.

“They were hypersensitive to looking like there were Americans coming into Libya when this was truly a terrorist haven. Somehow, they had this idea that a big American force in uniform would present some risk that the Libyans would protest, because we were invading their country.

“In fact, the military folks knew that that wasn’t going to help keep our soldiers safe. And there was this debate back and forth about what the appropriate attire was for going to rescue Americans while our embassy was burning and mortars were falling in Benghazi. It is new, it is important, and it is inexplicable.”

The gravity of what you just read will not diminish; neither will the inescapable conclusions and judgments relating to Hillary Clinton as a potential commander-in-chief. She was in the position as the top decider and presided over a catastrophic dereliction of her most basic of responsibilities. She failed miserably to provide for the security needs of her diplomatic personnel that repeatedly pleaded for help as they were clearly in harms way.

She forced them all into a scenario for the purpose of burnishing her resume and credentials with an overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi; she expected it to be a masterful implementation of an arms-for-rebels, we-can-work-with-terrorists-and-not-get-burned achievement. Every mouthpiece she controlled peddled phony narratives—lies, as it were—to salvage her reputation and viability as a presidential candidate. She is in the company of other presidential-grade liars like Richard Nixon and, now that I think about it, Bill Clinton. It’s rare that we get such insight into the inner corruption and manipulation of a candidate before voting.

To be continued.