Daily Archives: 15 January 2014

Does Nobody in this Administration Care?

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In the days running up to the 9/11/2012 terrorist attack on our Benghazi consulate, we now know the following:

  • no attack aircraft were placed on high alert on Sept 11
  • the closest F-16 fighter planes to any of the trouble spots in North Africa were unarmed and in Aviano, Italy
  • the closest air refuellers were positioned 10 hours away in Great Britain
  • no AC-130 gunships were within a 10-hour flight to Libya
  • the commander’s in-extremis force, which included a unit of 23 special operators who are used at the commander’s discretion, were training in Croatia that day. They did not make it to a staging base in Sigonella, Italy, for another 19 hours after the attack began

Northern Africa had been an active trouble area with civil wars in progress or just dying down for the prior couple of years.  The US had—and has—facilities, assets, personnel, friends, allies, and potential allies in the area for far longer than that.  Yet we chose to take no heads-up action in preparation for a major anti-US anniversary regarding an area of the world likely to…celebrate…that anniversary?  The in-extremis force’s posture could be laid off to bad luck; such units need to train intensively, and they need to do it in realistic arenas.  Maybe their training could have been rescheduled around such an anniversary, though.  Regardless, there is no excuse for the rest of the non-preparation.

Even more troubling, however, are these:

  • Neither [AFRICOM Joint Special Operations Task Force for the Trans Sahara region Commander, Col George] Bristol, nor his chief military officer on the ground in Tripoli that night, LtCol Sean Gibson, was ever interviewed by the State Department’s Accountability Review Board (ARB)
  • DoD did not conduct its own internal after-action review separate from the ARB

Why not?  Isn’t anyone in this administration the least bit interested in finding out, and understanding, what happened and how to anticipate future such occurrences?

Or is it that they won’t ask the questions because they don’t want to hear, or are afraid of, the answers?

Another Judge and Free Speech

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On Friday a Wisconsin judge struck a major blow for free political speech when he quashed subpoenas to conservative groups and ordered the return of property to the targets of a so-called John Doe campaign-finance probe.

Wisconsin John Doe “investigations” are secret, star chamber probes into prosecutorial targets in which even the targets are forbidden to speak publicly.  In this case, the targets were conservative organizations who had supported Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in that state’s recently concluded recall election (which Walker won by a larger margin than his original election).  This secret fishing expedition was being conducted by special prosecutor Francis Schmitz at the behest of Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf.

Wisconsin Judge Gregory A. Peterson tossed most of Schmitz’ subpoenas, generally gutting the Landgraf/Schmitz job action.  Peterson was blunt in his ruling:

[The subpoenas] do not show probable cause that the moving parties committed any violations of the campaign finance laws.

And

There is no evidence of express advocacy [as required under Wisconsin law in order t oshow a violation]…the subpoenas fail to show probable cause that a crime was committed.  …the State is not claiming that any of the independent organizations expressly advocated.

Despite disgruntled Wisconsin Democrats’ best efforts (this is the party, remember, that a couple of years ago ran out of Wisconsin en masse, thereby shutting down the state’s government, when they couldn’t get their way on labor law) to continue their attempts to intimidate those of whom they disapprove and to prevent them from speaking, a judge has intercepted their plans and disrupted them, for a time.