Summaries of the Benghazi incident... is this really Obama's doctrine?

If you get your news from CNN, Jon Stewart, the NY Times, or any other MSM media outlet, you probably don't know much about Benghazi... and, whatever you know, you're probably having a hard time figuring out why some people keep talking about it.

In case you need a bit of catching up, here are two relatively up to date summaries (one more sanitized than the other):

Benghazi: Obama's Actions Amount To A Shameful Dereliction Of Duty

Peter Ferrara, 10/25/2012 @ 9:19AM 

"Enough facts are in the public record about the Benghazi murders of Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and 3 others, including two Marines, that a final judgment can be rendered on President Obama’s handling of the affair.  Obama’s actions, or inactions, amounted to dereliction of duty, and worse."

Benghazi Timeline: The long road from "spontaneous protest" to premeditated terrorist attack

Eugene Kiely, October 26, 2012 at FactCheck.org


We cannot say whether the administration was intentionally misleading the public. We cannot prove intent. ... [But] we do know that Obama and others in the administration were quick to cite the anti-Muslim video as the underlying cause for the attack...[,] they were slow to acknowledge it was a premeditated terrorist attack, and they downplayed reports that it might have been.



Note that even FactCheck.org can't get the lipstick on this pig!

I've already commented on the fact that there were American assets in place that were refused permission to defend Ambassador Stevens and his team.  We still don't know exactly who the feckless coward is that couldn't authorize every available means to defend these Americans... and MSM sure isn't asking.

Now, though, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is digging the Obama team an even bigger hole.  Here's Panetta's summary of why no help was ordered:

"(The) basic principle is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on; without having some real-time information about what’s taking place,” Panetta told Pentagon reporters. “And as a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, Gen. Ham, Gen. Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation." 

I have a feeling that the idea of sitting on our hands while allowing an attack to proceed until we know "what's taking place" would surprise most Marines, Rangers, and Special Forces.  But then, Jonah Goldberg has pretty well covered how utterly ridiculous this statement is...

But let's think about this for a moment... is this really Obama's doctrine?  Let people die while the administration and DOD struggle to get their glasses on straight?  Wait to order up a defense until we've got all the details on any attack?  If Obama's defense establishment was so parallelized by this Benghazi incident, what would they look like during a larger crisis?  No wonder they thought going after bin Laden was some kind of gutsy call!