Leadership Finds Its Way To The Top

Just the News posted an article today about Christopher Miller, acting defense secretary to replace the newly fired Mark Esper.

The article reports:

“The dude’s legit,” one long serving member of the special operations community told Just the News. “Everyone loves him.”

Miller, 55, is known among his Special Forces peers for his part in a secret mission in Afghanistan immediately following the 9/11 attacks. He and other Green Berets, many of them riding horses, went deep into Taliban territory to seek and destroy the enemy.

“Thanksgiving Day, 2001 I took the last group over from Fifth Special Forces Group,” Miller said during an October event for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “On the fifth of December we had a friendly fire incident in southern Afghanistan with Hamid Karzai who was there. And I went in to replace the element that had been destroyed.”

The mission, which was immortalized in the 2018 film, “12 Strong,” helped him to understand the human dimension of current operations, Miller said.

“I was in the field,” Miller said. “I was in the street.”

The article also states:

Aside from his fame among his Special Operations brethren, Miller is known within the defense community as an intellectual with direct experience in recent conflict zones.

This is obviously a good choice. Let’s hope Christopher Miller gets to stay in that job for a while.

The Glass Isn’t Even Half Full–It’s Broken

We all have that one friend that we care about but is just hard to be around. If someone handed them a handful of hundred dollar bills, they would complain that they weren’t new bills. If they won the lottery, they would complain about the taxes they would have to pay. You get the picture. This morning President Trump announced that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed by American Special Forces soldiers. Unfortunately we have become so divided as a nation that the Democrats and their media allies could not share in rejoicing at the death of a very evil man.

Townhall posted an article today that illustrates that point.

Before President Donald Trump’s press conference on Sunday confirming the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, former National Intelligence Director James Clapper appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” to discuss what he was hoping to hear the president say.

One of the biggest things Clapper was interested in was seeing “the contributions the intelligence community made” that led to al-Baghdadi’s death. 

He admitted “taking down” al-Baghdadi has “huge symbolic meaning,” especially because he has been a target for quite some time. 

But Clapper warned the move could “galvanize” the Islamic State.

“What is going to be interesting is to the extent to which this negatively affects ISIS or does it galvanize ISIS, the remnants of ISIS, which still survives as an ideology and has franchises in other places besides Syria,” he explained. 

Good grief. There was a time when we assassinated the leaders of Al Qaeda as soon as they became leaders. After a while, no one wanted to lead the organization. We may have to do the same thing again, but in the meantime, a horrible man is no longer a threat to anyone. Thank God we were not this divided during World War II–we would all be speaking German now if we had been.

For Your Consideration

DaTechGuy is a friend of mine. He blogs at DaTechGuy.com. He also has a radio show that I have guest hosted and been a guest on. He does his homework, does his research, and has good connections within the new media. He posted a story today written by a friend of his. The story is wild, but feasible. I submit it for your consideration.

The source story appeared in the Conservative Report Online, and was written by Chip Jones. DaTechGuy picked up the story and added his comments.

Some highlights from the story at the Conservative Report Online:

First, it is reported that an Army Special Forces team was present with an AC-130U Spooky (also known as a Spectre Gunship) on the tarmac at the airport in Tripoli, Libya. The Spooky is a technologically sophisticated, tactical aircraft, operated by the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command.

It operates under the overall Special Operations Command stationed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, which is reportedly in charge of all military special operations units, including: Army Special Forces, Navy SEALS, Rangers and certain Marine units, as well as the USAF AC-130Us, and “stealth Blackhawks,” used in the Bin Laden raid.

…The second, and most troubling aspect of the refusal to issue Cross Border Authority is, who issued the refusal. Rather than the President, the Commander In Chief, making critical decisions, granting or denying the authority to initiate offensive-actions in support of our valiant fighting men, the decision not to take action was made by a person, to whom the people did not elect, nor did the Congress have confirmation power over.

The military-order, not to initiate action, saving our men in Benghazi, was issued by the President’s Advisor, Valerie Jarrett.

DaTechGuy sent me an email today that included the above story. These were his closing comments on the email:

I know the author of this article personally and I hope to speak to him later today but I want to note one final thing.
 
Five years in fact even three years ago if someone was saying something like this I’d have dismissed it out of hand.
 
Not anymore

I have no idea what to think about this story. Does it matter that Valerie Jarrett refused to issue the Cross Border Authority? Would President Obama have done the same thing if he were there? Was she representing the wishes of the President? And finally, how many Americans will be troubled by this news? Does this trouble you?

 

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Where Do We Go From Here?

I am sure that by now much of the testimony from the Benghazi hearings is up on YouTube. If not there, I am sure it is floating around the Internet somewhere.  If you were not able to watch any of the hearings, I strongly recommend finding them on the Internet and spending some time.

The Benghazi hearings told us much of what we already knew–before the attack there were incidents that should have resulted in increased security rather than decreased security, during the attack the help that was needed never arrived, and after the attack almost everything we were told by the Obama Administration was a lie.

So where are we and where do we go from here? We do actually need at least one more hearing. We need to know who ordered the Special Forces that wanted to go to help at Benghazi to stand down. We need to know who changed to talking points for the Sunday news shows for Susan Rice and why. We need to know why Susan Rice was sent out rather than Hillary Clinton (we probably can make some pretty good guesses on that one). We need to know what Chris Stevens was doing at the annex without adequate security on September 11.

Will we ever get answers to any of those questions? Not unless we demand them from our representatives. If we as Americans do not hold our politicians accountable, they will not be accountable. The ball is in our court.

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The Key To Benghazi

There is one very significant piece of information about the attack on Benghazi and what happened during the night of September 11, 2012, that has not yet been revealed–“Who gave the order for the Special Forces that would have come to the rescue of those at the annex in Benghazi to stand down?”

The Blaze posted a story about that command today.

The article reports:

Gregory Hicks, the deputy chief of mission for the U.S. in Libya and the highest ranking official in the country at the time of the Benghazi attacks, testified before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday that Lt. Col. Gibson was “furious” after receiving a stand down order on the night of Sept. 11, 2012.

Hicks quoted Gibson as saying, “This is the first time in my career that a diplomat has more balls than somebody in the military.”

But who exactly is Lt. Col. Gibson, and is he the key to figuring out who specifically gave the stand down order on that fateful night? That’s what a lot of people will likely want to find out in the coming days.

…Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who traveled to Benghazi after the attack to investigate, got emotional during the Wednesday hearing after Hicks explained that Special Forces were prevented from responding to the terror attack as Americans were under siege. The attack claimed the lives of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, State Department official Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

Why were the Special Forces told to stand down? Some spokesmen have stated that they would not have been able to get to Benghazi on time. The battle lasted for more than nine hours, how did they know that they wouldn’t get there on time?

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