Having been so close to the mater of the Benghazi attack since it happened and deeply researching all the facts pre and post attack, seeing the movie was a personal quest to complete the circle of known circumstances and facts.
There were clearly political objectives by not only the U.S. State Department in cadence with other foreign diplomatic agencies with regard to Libya. This played out on the screen at the beginning of the movie. It is the common conclusion by the majority with interest in the matter of Libya, that the United States was running weapons from Libya to Syrian rebels. I still to this day somewhat dispute that notion, however, the bigger takeaway from the movie is the White House and State Department resolve to wean the U.S. military power from the global landscape and to install misguided diplomatic efforts in its place not only in Libya but several dozen countries across the globe.
For decades, the United States has been the leader in the world, and rightly so to maintain as much equilibrium as possible, often deploying in order, diplomatic efforts, CIA efforts and finally military efforts. Once Barack Obama made the case in the April 2009 famous Cairo speech, the forecast was clear that he was going to even out the power and positions of nations in the world with particular emphasis on securing Muslim based nations as protected and promoted states.
The last real offensive military operation with any kind of ‘win’ was Libya to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power. Since, we have seen the rise of al Qaeda, Khorasan, Islamic State and the Taliban, where rules of engagement have been so feeble the death tolls rise and the refugee numbers are staggering. This demonstrates that when there is a mission, strategy and resolve to an objective, it can be achieved.
13 Hours proved Libya was in complete chaos for quite some time prior to the attack on September 11, 2012. There had been countless terror attempts, growing militant factions and assassination attempts leading up to that fateful day. Was going back in to Libya to complete the task of establishing a real and functional government beyond the scope of attention and resolve by the State Department and the White House?
I would argue, the unspoken objective of Barack Obama is to no longer demonstrate the power of the United States including military might, but rather to have diplomatic achievements that are only gained by allowing the other side to completely prevail as is the case with Iran.
One of the jobs of the Global Response Staff is to protect people and interests by deploying all assets near and far, calculating responses, time, personnel and approvals. Such was not the case in Libya and in countless other countries during that entire week in September. Many locations had protests and attacks on U.S. posts.
The movie demonstrated that movement of U.S. personnel in Libya was by all foreign contractors or borrowed assets. This places the safety and security of people at risk from the start. No lessons were learned or heeded or laws followed from previous historical attacks.
In March of 2015, there was a growing terror condition in Yemen by the Iranian back Houthis. Yemen was a very large CIA operation there to address AQAP, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Moving into April, the United States under John Kerry at the State Department once again failed to respond and upwards of 5000 were at risk, their fate unknown had to fend for themselves. Global Response Staff teams or the military exfil FEST teams or the QRF, Quick Reaction Force were not deployed at the behest of the State Department. Thankfully, India provided the larger portion of the rescue operations.
The military does not leave anyone behind and neither does any human being with a shred of benevolence. The exceptions are Barack, Hillary and John. America and Americans fate is damned by this trio. Of this, there is no dispute.
By the way, leaving Benghazi, a borrowed oil company aircraft was used for the first flight out and a Libyan transport plane was use for the last flight out, carrying 4 dead Americans. Still no Americans as the lights went out in Benghazi.
