(Investors.com) Despite real-time video, emails to the White House and
desperate cries for help, our defense secretary says we didn't send rescue
forces to our Benghazi consulate because we didn't know what was going on.

In a statement bordering on the Kafkaesque, Leon Panetta told a news
conference Thursday that four Americans, including our Libyan ambassador
Chris Stevens, were left to die without a rescue attempt by nearby U.S.
military forces because there's "a basic principle here, and the basic
principle is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing
what's going on, without having some real-time information about what's
taking place."

That would seem to sum up the Obama administration's assessment of and story
line about the Middle East - it has no real-time clue about what's going on.
Osama bin Laden is dead, but Islamofascism is very much alive, and to send
an ambassador and his diplomatic mission into harm's way without so much as
a Marine security detachment with bayonets is unconscionable.

Excuse us, Mr. Secretary, but your administration had a drone over the
consulate on Sept. 11, and you and President Obama had a meeting that
included Vice President Joe "Nobody Told Us" Biden in the Oval Office at 5
p.m. Washington time, a little more than an hour after the onset of the
attack. There were at least 50 minutes of real-time video of the attack as
the battle was sent streaming directly to the Situation Room in the White
House.

Real-time emails were also pouring into the Situation Room detailing that 20
armed terrorists were attacking our Benghazi consulate, that Ambassador
Stevens was crouched in a safe room waiting for help as the al-Qaida
terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia was taking credit for the attack. Most
claims of responsibility for a terrorist attack come days after the event.
This was, as they say, in "real-time."

If indeed you had insufficient knowledge concerning the attack itself, you
certainly had knowledge of the threat. Ambassador Stevens had been begging
for even the most basic security, and all his requests for additional
security were denied. And how about this little factoid: the Benghazi
consulate was and is sovereign U.S. territory that you and President Obama
had a responsibility and duty to defend.

According to Fox News, administration cowardice extended to the real-time
denial of an urgent request from the CIA annex for military backup during
the attack on the consulate and subsequent attack several hours later. The
request was denied by U.S. officials, who also told the CIA operators twice
to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team.

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