Wow, wow, wow. Former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates just issued a beat-down of epic proportion on Face the Nation. Here's a sample from: http://www.cbsnews.com/...
1. On the charges that the administration did not do enough to prevent the tragedy in Benghazi:
"It's sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces," he said. "The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm's way, and there just wasn't time to do that."
2. Regarding how he would have handled the attack if he was in charge:
"Frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were."
3. Regarding why we didn't send in some ready forces:
"We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, and so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible."
4. What about the dumbest idea of all (my words) of sending in fighter jets to "scare" away the attackers:
"I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi under those circumstances."
5. Regarding sending in a small group of "special forces."
"Send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, would have been very dangerous."
6. Regarding going to war with Syria:
"Why should it be us?" Gates asked.
If anything, he said, we could carefully select elements in Syria who align with American values and interests and "provide them with intelligence, with basic military equipment."
"But I think our direct involvement and particularly our direct military involvement would be a mistake."
I could go on and on but now I guess you see the picture:
Gates confirmed that these right-wing nuts are nuts.