About that ‘Navy map of ships near Benghazi’

The map burst forth at the end of last week and quickly went viral.  It doesn’t show that the U.S. Navy had any assets that were capable of intervening in the Benghazi crisis, but of course it has excited much speculative commentary anyway.

Herewith a brief survey of what it shows.  (Map below.)

1.  No ship that is outside the Mediterranean Sea on this map was a candidate for responding to the Benghazi crisis.  That eliminates almost all the ships displayed.

Ships can’t “beam” from one body of water to another.