Sunday, January 17, 2016

"13 Hours" Worth Seeing


I don't often promote movies on this blog, but I highly recommend going to see "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi." The movie is the screen adaptation of the real-life events as recounted in the book bearing the same name describing the attack on the off-the-books diplomatic outpost and CIA mission in Benghazi, Libya in September 2012, which claimed the lives of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, his communications assistance, Sean Smith, and two contacted special force operatives, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

The mainstream media has not been giving this movie the same hype it gave to "American Sniper," the mostly-fictional account of the life of a special forces sniper, Christopher Kyle, a movie I refused to watch because it was nothing but a CIA propaganda movie. The movie's director, Michael Bay, avoided politicizing the movie, which would have been easy enough to do. You won't hear the names of President Barack Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mentioned once during the two-and-half hour movie, although their glaring lack of leadership in this fiasco should loom permanently over their heads

It tells the story through the eyes of the heroic, highly-trained, contracted special operative forces who undertook themselves to save the lives of those at the diplomatic mission after the local CIA chief gave them a stand-down order. This is the most controversial element of the movie. Top military officials and the CIA deny any stand-down order was ever given. I believe the guys on the ground forced to defend the two facilities which officially didn't even exist over the brass in Washington who were obviously more concerned about covering their butts than defending the lives of Americans under attack.

Unfortunately, despite their valiant efforts in risking their own lives the special forces could not save the lives of Ambassador Stevens or Smith, although they were able to successfully rescue several of the State Department personnel based there against great odds. Incredibly, their efforts were hampered by nobody sharing the intelligence a U.S. military drone, which had arrived relatively quickly on the scene, was sending back to the brass in Washington, who apparently were enjoying the make-shift, live snuff film the drone provided to them too much to find the time to dispatch a rescue team to assist the endangered American personnel.

The only back-up the Benghazi team received was provided by a small team led by Glen Doherty, who was based in Tripoli where he was helping the U.S. government recover dangerous weapons that had fallen into the wrong hands somehow during the allied efforts to overthrow Gaddafi. He had to commandeer a private jet to make his way with his small back-up team from Tripoli, only to be held up for hours at the Benghazi airport. His team arrived just in time for the final and most sustained assault on the CIA annex, which claimed his life and his good friend, Tyrone Woods. I think our government fully wanted all of the Americans in Benghazi to perish so they wouldn't live to talk about their highly-secretive mission there, which was not in the least bid noble, unless you believe providing arms to radical Islamists to wreak havoc throughout the Middle East is a noble mission.

It is truly a remarkable story about how this small group of off-the-books contracted military operatives, none of whom should have ever been in the place they found themselves thanks to our country's awful foreign policy, were able to prevail against all odds. The most memorable line of the movie to me was at the end when the second plane arrived to take the remaining special forces and the bodies of the four Americans lost in the battle back to Tripoli. It was a Libyan plane. "And still no Americans," quipped one of the men. I was also reminded of that infamous Hillary Clinton ad from the 2008 presidential campaign--the "It's 3 a.m. and the phone is ringing." Both Hillary's and Barack's phones were ringing before they went to bed in Washington, D.C. on that fateful night of September 11, 2012, but they both chose to sleep in the comfort of their homes rather than lead at that critical moment while hell rained down on their fellow Americans in Benghazi.

12 comments:

Flogger said...

The thoroughly sad part about Benghazi, and all the other Military and Para-Military operations the USA has engaged in since the late 1950's is how callously the Americans who put their lives on the line are treated. Not only are the casualties reprehensible on the US side, but ghastly huge losses have been inflicted upon the people of South-East Asia and the Middle East.
There is the disgusting video of Hillary Clinton smirking and cackling about the death of Ghadaffi - We came, We saw, He died. The McMega-Media has never grilled Hillary on the Libyan over throw of Ghadaffi and the anarchy that exists there now. The simple truth is that the deaths in Benghazi would not have happened if the West had not overthrown Ghadaffi. Ghadaffi was a brute, but was he any worse than the Saudi's.

guy77money said...

Also go see the Big Short. You will think twice about doing the right thing when it comes to taxes and any other way you can rip off the government.Why if bankers, politicians and real estate agents can screw everyone and walk away with piles of cash and no punishment maybe we all should just join the parade. Sad but true!

Anonymous said...

I won't watch it. It will just make me mad, especially since a call to the nearest carrier would have ended the raid as soon as the first squadron arrived and turned the area to a parking lot.

McNamara and Johnson called in a stand-down on the USS Liberty, so why wouldn't Hillary and Obama do the same?

Anonymous said...

Propoganda

Marycatherine Barton said...

Thanks for this recommendation. I will go see it. Clinton and Obama are brutes.

Anonymous said...

Its not doing well at the box office. Poor opening.

Anonymous said...


Saw the movie. Knew it would make me furious because I never had a doubt Marxist Barak Obama and the Always Lying Hypocrite Hillary Rodham Clinton were culpable for the deaths of Americans as they spewed their falsehood about "that video" causing "demonstrations in Benghazi.

I am not at all shocked criminals like Obama and Cliton roam the world scott free. Our government populated by creeps like these lies to us and creates damage the world over. It is not American Ideals from the Founders that are corrupt. It is America's extremist left of center marxist liberal Democrats who are the problem. This movie vividly portrays those facts.

Anonymous said...

I've not seen it yet, but does it show Ambassador Stevens being raped post mortemly, as you stated the day after the event. Gary, as your blog states, his corpse was raped. You seemed to have graphic detail about this, while all the mainstream media (Jews) failed to report on it.

Also, I hope it ends with the events that occured in America that same night with Mitt Romney addressing reports with a smirk on his face.

If the movie is going to represnt the facts, let's see them all.

Gary R. Welsh said...

You have to remember that the book focused on what the special forces witnessed and experienced. They weren't able to locate Ambassador Stevens when they went to the diplomatic mission to rescue him and the others. They don't have any first-hand knowledge of what happened to Ambassador Stevens beyond what they were told about the security staff losing track of him during the attack. The movie stuck to the accounts of the first-hand witnesses.

Pete Boggs said...

Thanks GW- seeing it this weekend.

Anonymous said...

Now we know what Lara Logan was doing during her Benghazi suspension from 60 minutes. Swift boats are a-comin' there's GOP dancin' tonight.

Anonymous said...

You need to get out more. Go see the movie "The Big Short". That will get your blood equally hot. Another recession is just around the corner and Uncle Sam will not bail either corporate America or the unemployed out.

Basically the movie discussing the cause of the recession of 2007 (my opinion 2004-2005 based on data (lending practices) within the housing market).

Basically, the real estate bubble, which the banks bet everything on through mortgage backed securities.

That's what triggered everything, but the true issues go the fundamental flaws with our economy. Here are the flaws:

Deregulation run amok. Call it greed, but you had the banks writing bankruptcy law under Bush (they tried first in 2000, and succeeded in 2005). Bush also stopped any real investigation into predatory lending laws....basically shady practices by the mortgage industry.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

The real problem with deregulation is that the people lost their voice. Monied interests....corporate interests....had too much say. They operate on the short term (profits).

Second, debt. This is the Republican policy in which they run MASSIVE budget deficits in order to bankrupt the country....so that we don't have the money to (as they say) 'waste' it on stuff like health care or education. And it is happening again with Obama and the GOP led house.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_...

Going back to Reagan who set a new record for budget deficits. It's the reason the only President to balance the budget (and set record surpluses) was Democrat Bill Clinton. Clinton also increased discretionary spending slower than anyone since Reagan too. Reagan AND G W Bush both increased spending faster in 2 years....than Clinton did in ALL 8 he was in office. Now Obama has gone bonkers with the debt pushing $19 trillion.