Mark Helprin on Benghazi

We recently received our Spring 2013 issue of the Claremont Review of Books, and it contains in the "Parthian Shot" column at its end an essay by our friend Mark Helprin, a version of which appeared in the Wall Street Street Journal back in April.

I'll share these two essential paragraphs with you, but I urge you to read it in its entirety.

.... On March 21, 2011, during Operation Odyssey Dawn, an American F-15 went down in Libya. Immediately after the Mayday, the 26th MEU started rescue operations from the USS Kearsarge, and a short time later two of its Harrier fighter jets, two CH 53 helicopters, and two MV 22 Ospreys were at the scene, with more than a hundred Marines. Hundreds more might easily have arrived if required. Forces like this could have shattered the assault in Benghazi in minutes. Adding 10 men to such echelons rich in special forces would have little relevance. Fine in itself, the proposal is an obfuscation. The issue is not the composition of already capable MEUs but rather that one was not available when the attack took place.

From World War II onward, the U.S. Sixth Fleet stabilized the Mediterranean region and protected American interests there with the standard deployment, continued through 2008, of a carrier battle group, three hunter killer submarines, and an amphibious ready group with its MEU or equivalent. But in the first year of the Obama presidency this was reduced to one almost entirely unarmed command ship. No MEU could respond to Benghazi because none was assigned to, or by chance in, the Mediterranean ....

 

Reading around about the Sixth Fleet, I came across this "oldie" in the New York Post. If your heart is not yet on the floor, it will be when you read this: A crisis the 6th Fleet Might've Stopped.

 

I can't quit this without mentioning that Helprin addressed Obama's desire to reduce our nuclear weapons well before last week's Not-So-Big-Speech in Berlin:

Benghazi is a lesson in failings of probity writ small and large. Our policy, relentlessly pursued by the president, is to disarm. As China and Russia invigorate their defense-industrial bases, we diminish ours. We are stripping our nuclear deterrent to and beyond the point where it will encourage proliferation among opportunistic states, endow China with parity, and make a first strike against us feasible.

 

Note: It's well worth subscribing to the CRB (for only $19.95 a year). If you already subscribe, you won't want to miss the article about Mark Helprin: "High Adventure and Sacred Mystery" by Algis Valiunas.  And in the interest of transparency, I should note that Mark wrote the introduction for The Husband's book, Manhattan Lightscape (1990).

 

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

What a signal honor for Thorney! Mark Helprin is both a brilliant novelist and a brilliant thinker -- qualities not always found together in the same writer. Everything of his I've read could have been written only by a true mensh. He undoubtedly recognized -- as a true mensh would -- a kindred spirit in Thorney.