I talked to a handful of people about it at work. They were all chicks, but none of them were going to see it. Basically seemed to imply it wasn't happy enough for them, or they simply had no interest.

My girlfriend went with me to see it. I don't think it was something she would have seen on her own, but I think she thought it was well done, was worth seeing, and left with a better understanding of what happened that night. I think she was glad we saw it.

Personally I could go see it again.

I went and watched it last night. I read the book first so I knew what was going to happen and in what order but it still did nothing to prepare me for it. I left the theater aggravated at how they were left out to dry.

       
Just got home.

Excellent movie.

Watched it in a packed theater of all older folks. (It was great)

Guy 2 seats over said loudly at the end..."Thank you Hillary...Thank you 0bama"

Everyone else walked out like we were leaving a funeral, very somber.



You will be pissed.



 

Saw it today. Cool that Lecke from the Pacific was in it. Never been so angry and disgusted over a movie in my life because of how it all went down. All white people and mostly older in the theater. The Dems stayed away from this one.

Never forget those who died, never forget those who killed them.

We saw this tonight and I thought it was very well done, I wish there were more people seeing though.

I live in a small, conservative town. American Sniper, and Lone Survivor sold out on opening weekend for sure. 13 Hours opened here last night, so I stopped by today to get tickets for tomorrow. They said it is doing pretty well, but not selling out. A little surprising...

Went by myself tonight to see it and theater was packed. Came home and three of the guys were on Fox News being interviewed. Time to read the book, get others to see it, and not let this get swept under the rug.

Went and saw this tonight.. Theater was about half full.. Mostly older white couples.. I enjoyed the movie. Wish more ppl would go out and see it..


Never Forget!!  

 

I saw the film and thought it did a excellent job of telling the story. They sure explained the shitty security situation at the diplomatic compound. The DSS was not portrayed as a very prepared group of guys at the Benghazi compound in the movie at all. I mean just sitting around totally unprepared on 9-11 of all days in Libya? To their credit some fought well later in the film however.

The GRS guys had their shit together and seemed to have been the only thing that prevented a whole sale slaughter.  I picked up on the subtle fingerpointing at Obama and Hitlery during the film. The F16's sitting idle and unmanned really pissed me off.

The ultimate FU from Obama was the scene where the Libyian AF C130 arrived to evac the last of the GRS and the deceased Americans. One of them said something like " not an American plane in sight" or something along those lines.

FBHO and HRC!

Great film, see it..........

I saw both this week and enjoyed both movies, you missed out if you left. The two movies aren't really comparable, but if you had to compare, Star Wars was a much better entertainment movie. That's why Star Wars has made over $1 billion internationally and 13 hours hasn't made back its $50 million budget yet. Though I'm sure it will over time.

They were too busy trying to devise a story about a youtube video and islamophobia to send an American plane to recover our own ambassador.

It's sad that we all got to see all the pictures of the WarRoom with BHO and HRC and cronies looking concerned and engaged during the mission to take out Bin Laden. The same people were hoping that the events in Benghazi would resolve quietly without being brought to the attention of the voters who were told by the president that the terrorists were defeated.I have no doubt that the same people were aware of what was happening during the siege of the diplomatic compound. I guess the death of Americans at the hands of terrorists doesn't make for a good campaign. All stops should have been removed to at least attempt to shore up if not rescue the staff at the compound. Oh well, what difference, at this time, does it make?

“This has to be brought out. This has to be made known to the public. That this is going on and that our administration was not only working with the bad guys, working with Al Queda linked militas and jiihadis to overthrow Assad in Syria but that they let our mission go down.

They let our ambassador and others die. In real time, watching it happen, and they didn’t do anything about it.”

- Former CIA officer Clare Lopez

I thought certain individuals on this forum said there was no way for anyone to get to them in time.

I'm glad hollywood cleared it up for you.

One would think it would be a larger point of contention considering a major portion of the the plot is apparently predicated on a lie and all the outrage is apparently unwarranted.

There was a post mentioning aircraft sitting unmanned and cold. Where does the movie suggest those assets were located? I'm genuinely confused.

It's a movie.

Fair enough. Like I said, I haven't seen it but the whole help was just a call away narrative really seems to be accepted as fact.

No.


https://intelligence.house.gov/press-release/fact-sheet-house-intelligence-committee%E2%80%99s-benghazi-report

Help could have gotten there in time.  That timeline, however, was not convenient for the people whose approval was required.  Teams and gunships were assembled and ready to go with more than enough time to get there before the building fell.

The COPs-O for AFRICOM was literally looking at could we send reserve truck companies in EuCom that were therefor training because the forces in Europe had shrunk so much that most of what was left was headquarters

Per the movie, help got there from Tripoli fairly early, but they could not leave the airport (never explained) for hours and then they got lost. They eventually arrived after most of the attacks had concluded, went to the roof and died in the mortar attack. Then after the mortar attack, local help arrived, movie never explained who the local help was.

They were in Italy barely 2 hours away. They sure as hell could have helped at the annex fight.

What, precisely, was in Italy two hours away.

I wish they would have included a brief clip of the senate hearings at the end and "what difference at this point does it make?"

There were and are QRF teams there.  The fact that they fall under a different echelon of command does not change their existence.

At this point, what difference does it make? No one there had the authority to authorize response. They should have just accepted their fate, let everyone sleep, never asked for American support, and died quietly.

Which is stupid because only after the fact can anyone say what "in time" would have been.  What if Patton, or his superiors, had said the there was no way he could get to Bastogne "in time?"  Well, the 101st would have been destroyed and the report would read that there was no way to get them help "in time."  When your people are in a tight spot, you TRY.  

F-16's at Aviano AFB were an hour from NAS Sigonella, Sicily, which was an hour from Benghazi.  When Hillary and Obama "liberated" Libya during the Arab Spring, sorties were flown out of Sigonella.  Immediately upon hearing of an attack, a component chain of command would have directed assets in Aviano to stage to Sigonella.  Except, State and the White House were unavailable (Hillary and Obama went dark after cocktail hour in DC) and lying about what was going on.

What is an F-16 going to do?  Drop bombs blind in the middle of a city?  Do you think they were sitting on the tarmac armed and ready to go fly into another country's territory?  Do you have any idea what goes into putting a strike package over territory you don't own?

BTW, killer, what's the combat radius of an F-16, and how does that compare to the 400+ mile trip from Sig to Benghazi?  Oops.  Now you've got to get tankers up too.

Hindsight is 20/20 -- there should have been something planned.

Combat radius with a standard load is about 500 miles.  Up to 1000 non combat.  Benghazi is about 450 miles from Sigonella.  The first one could have easily made it there and back given there would have been no air to air engagement, returning in ferry mode after a second plane arrived.  Something as simple as a low supersonic pass could have sent a message.  I don't see that a tanker would have been necessary given the ability to refuel in Sigonella.  Even if it were a cold refuel, and given time to ramp up at Aviano, I would thin that we could have had one F16 do a low pass in 4 hours; even 5 or 6 would have helped.  And since no one knew when the attack would actually end, I find it inexcusable that command never even initiated a response.

ETA:  The contractors have said repeatedly that they had the equipment and were prepared to paint targets.

Just a clip of her laughing while being questioned would have said it all.

Saw t yesterday.  Thought it was the best of the three:

13 Hours > American Sniper > Lone Survivor

LOL.

Not with air to ground ordnance hung it's not.

And you're presuming that these mythical fueled and armed aircraft that weren't even at sig had the capability to do anything with someone "painting targets" -- that's not a good assumption.  You don't have any idea what capabilities were available there.

this was already covered earlier in the thread

 

And there was a FAST. However It was not an echelon, it was a different combatant commander


By law combatant commanders could not pass OPCON to another commbantant commander

And at the end when the survivors boarded the Afghan Hercules to be airlifted out;  a clear  comment was made to the effect that not even one single American asset was sent to help them right up to and including the airlift.

The drone continuously flying overhead signified that the powers that be were aware of exactly what was going on in real time and yet, chose to do nothing;  and a quip was made regrading the ambassador's inadequate protection that the State Department was "doing things on the cheap".

Right, so the real issue was not a lack of assets, but the lack of initiative on the people who do have those authorities.  Because the authority to pass OPCON of a QRF does exist.  Just not at the combatant command level.

The SME has spoken.  Just take your crow and ......wait....wut?

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2012/10/27/u-s-had-two-drones-ac-130-gunship-and-targets-painted-in-benghazi-but-obama-didn-t-pull-the-trigger/

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say.html


You would be surprised at how little is actually necessary for an AC-130 to drop.

There is Still Drive-ins left in Texas !!!!!

I wonder what may be on the DVD (or mythical BLU RAY) release?  A Directors cut?  A documentary?  Clips from the hearings?  When will that be released?  October?  

Agreed.

There have been privates with little to no experience having to call in air strikes with their dead/wounded leader's MBITRs.  I'm sure it could have been done without the indifference and / or government bureaucratic ineptitude.  There are nice pretty ways of doing things but in the end all you need is a location of the bad guys and/or good guys.  Everything else is nice but come on...specialized training... a 12 year old watching a drone feed could talk an AC-130 onto the target, with a raging fire and crowds of enemies they'd probably be like "Hey...is it the swarm of dudes shooting RPGs and machineguns into that compound lookin thingy that are the bad guys...yeah?  ok."



Or maybe someone couldn't remember line which line was 1 or 2 on the call for fire so it couldn't happen.  TPS reports not being submitted correctly and all...

 

Good film and timely story.  Thumbs up.  Blackhawk Down was a perfect modern day war movie, 13 hours was close but at least 1 click below BHD from a cinematic standpoint.

Just my opinion about the whole affair concerning HRC, state dept, mil, CIA, etc.; the whole situation was F'd up to begin with.  You had the Diplomatic Compound and the CIA compound far, far away from any US or allied military base for support.  Those two outposts were established in a newly reestablished and unstable country in an unstable part of the world during an unstable time for the Islamic world.  As mentioned in the film both compounds were lightly guarded due to budget cuts.  Someone needed to step up way before hand and say "no way, we can't do it without proper security.  More security or no go."  Not only that but the exterior guards were Libyans who as you saw were extremely unreliable and took off on their first phone call from their brother who was probably ISIS.  Intelligence gathering is dangerous business but more so when you can put up a marque with vegas lights that say, "Weak ass security!  Come on in!"


Here's something that most of you know already, the enemy is not stupid.  They figured out how to bomb us at the Beirut Marine Barracks 1983, they figured out 9/11, they detect critical vulnerabilities and centers of gravity with the best of our side.  You give them an opportunity they will run with it.


Yes, I'm a HRC and BO hater just like the rest of you but there is plenty of blame to pass around on this, starting with who ever authorized those two compounds to be fielded as lightly as they were.  What did they really need?  About an infantry company reinforced at the Diplomatic compound and maybe a platoon minus at the CIA annex.  The first mistake was not having that there in the first place.  What would have saved them upon that first of the 13 hours?  Maybe an infantry company reinforced if you could have beamed them there or parachuted them in.  CAS would have been nice but as others have said unless you have the prior planning with seasoned FACs ahead of time the actual effectiveness is questionable.  Jets buzzing around might have been helpful but at least that would have been something.  


The true story and film do solidify something; that the people low on the totem pole, the intelligence gatherers, the contractors, the military are all expendable to those in charge.  They could give an F less, anybody step forward and accept responsibility for all this?  Americans bled and died in Iraq, AFG and in Libya and all three places are about equally as big as waste of our lives and resources.

Good point!

Got out a couple of hours ago...very well done.

I saw the movie Friday and I thought it was nicely done. However, if people were not really aware of Benghazi prior to the movie, I don't think that they will connect the dots like many here say. They will just chalk it up to, "Damn, that was sucky for those guys."

The action scenes were pretty bad ass and the scenes where you could our guys' tracers lighting up people in the field and in the adjacent buildings were cool as hell in particular. I'm definitely gonna pick up the DVD.

Thank you.  The real question for the chains of command including POTUS is, "Since no one knew how long the defenders could hold out, what relief operations were ordered or initiated that were ultimately terminated or suspended upon the cessation of attacks on US compounds in Benghazi."  

I have never heard that question asked.  I think we would find that the answer would be, "None."  And that would beg the most important question, "WHY NOT."

I assume that this is what an F16 low pass would be like

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/01/sonic_boom_caused_by_navy_testing.html