Today terrorists attacked Attacked airport in Istanbul, Turkey, at last count leaving 28 dead and at least 60 injured:
— At least 28 people have been killed and 60 others wounded in the attack on Istanbul Ataturk Airport in Turkey, Istanbul Gov. Vasip Sahin told Turkey’s state-run news agency TRT. It is unclear if the total includes the bombers. Another report, from semi-official news agency Anadolu, said six of the wounded are in critical condition. A total of 49 ambulances were sent to the site.
— Turkey’s Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag earlier said at least 10 people were killed and 20 others injured. The suicide bombers were also killed. Bozdag said one attacker “first opened fire with a Kalashnikov then detonated himself” at the airport entrance.
— In total three bombs exploded, the governor told TRT.
–One of them was located just outside a terminal on the pavement, while the other was at the security gate at the entrance to the airport, Bozdag told CNN.
— Authorities said no bombs exploded within airport buildings, according to the minister.
— A video posted to Twitter shows a view from a camera inside an airport terminal. A few dozen people are walking around when a bright flash and fireball erupt in the background.
— A Turkish official told CNN that police fired shots at suspects near the international terminal in an effort to neutralize them.
— Videos posted on social media show travelers sitting on the airport floor. A man shouts, “Get down! Get down!” Someone cries as a gunshot rings out.
As I write, the estimated death toll is now 50.
It remains to be seen how the Turkish government will respond but it’s pretty likely they won’t take the Obama route and blame “lone wolf” bad actors. They won’t likely blame their own people as did Obama. I’ll wager big money that they don’t say that the best response to the attack will be love and compassion as did our idiot Attorney General. It’s unlikely that Turkish President Erdogan will fight and thought of linking the attack to ISIS. But one thing from the Benghazi report positively leaps off the page- if we are attacked again while Obama is President, we are totally f**ked.
There was no rescue attempt for those under attack in Benghazi, but it wasn’t for lack of assets. The problem was that those assets were being utterly mismanaged. It’s hard to overestimate the stupidity:
“At the end of the day, no military assets were ever moving toward Benghazi,” she said. “But for the bravery of a few Americans and the unexpected response of Qaddafi’s underground militia … there would have been an even greater loss of life that night.”
The report, more broadly, described a disconnect between the “bureaucratic” response at upper levels and in Washington, and the urgent response on the ground that night.
The report said despite orders from President Obama and then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to deploy, the first military force did not do so until more than 13 hours after the attack started.
The report said one anti-terrorism security team known as the FAST unit sat waiting for three hours in Rota, Spain, as Marines changed “in and out of their uniforms four times,” and even debated whether they should carry personal weapons, according to one witness. All together, the report said, “it would take nearly 18 hours” for that team to move.
In the end, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans — foreign service officer Sean Smith and former Navy Seals Ty Woods and Glen Doherty — were killed in the attacks.
Political correctness trumped the safety and well being of US personnel:
The administration’s policy of no boots on the ground shaped the type of military assistance provided to State Department personnel in Libya. The Executive Secretariats for both the Defense Department and State Department exchanged communications outlining the diplomatic capacity in which the Defense Department SST security team members would serve, which included wearing civilian clothes so as not to offend the Libyans. [pg. 60]
The Obama regime spent two hours debating how to mount a rescue without offending Libya:
Brooks said, “I, and members of the committee are very concerned as to why the secretary and the State Department didn’t follow recommendations that have made — been made by previous ARBs or Accountability Review Boards. First and foremost, the secretary of state, whether it was Secretary Clinton at the time or Secretary Kerry now, is responsible for security of their people. Security should be a top priority. And in fact, in 2010, when Secretary Clinton ordered a review of processes, there was a strong recommendation made that changes should be made about how the State Department handled security. That was rejected by Under Secretary Kennedy, and they went with the status quo, or what they call regular order. So things should have changed before this incident ever happened. And once Ambassador Stevens…went to Libya, he went with no military assistance. He went and requested multiple times, he and other diplomatic security, to have more agents, to have more physical security, and quite frankly, it was rejected by the State Department.”
She added, “[I]t was really unbelievable to us, that in fact the Defense Department, had no assets, moving toward Benghazi at the time that the annex was attacked. So almost eight hours after the initial attack on the mission compound, and after our brave men had moved to the annex, there were still no military assets moving directly to Benghazi. We also learned that there was a White House secure video conference that took place, we did not know that previously. That Secretary Clinton participated in, and other White House officials, although Secretary Panetta did not, the president did not, and they had discussions for over two hours about how to go in without truly offending Libya, how to send people to Tripoli, never to Benghazi. And so there were some significant, I think, deficiencies and mistakes made, and decisions that were made about how to go rescue our people.”
Obama claimed to have made three directives:
I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure we are securing our personnel and that we are doing whatever we need to. Number two, we are going to investigate exactly what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice.
But there is no evidence of it whatsoever.
It makes you shudder to think what could happen in the event of another attack on the US. Obama would spend weeks dithering over the possibility of offending the attackers and their home countries.(Witness obama’s complete lack of reaction to Russia playing chicken with our military) He would probably blame the US and apologize to the attackers. Hillary Clinton would figure out how to profit from the attack, destroy some emails and assert “What difference at this point does it make?”
And Susan Rice would blame a video.
We’d be totally f**ked.
How many more of these attacks have to be endured before obama gets serious? Of course, that presumes he would ever get serious about ISIS.He’s not going to get seerious. I’ve said it before- this mess is being left for the next President. Obama cannot be gone soon enough.
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