What it means in the coming days and weeks is that Obama may try to get the Libyan military to hunt down and detain those responsible for the attack — if that fails then the SEALs could be called in.

In his book No Easy Day, about the raid on Osama bin Laden, former SEAL Matt Bissonnette talks about getting ready for a combat deployment, meeting at Team 6 HQ in Norfolk, Va. and getting ready to go.

On that day Bissonnette asked a more experienced SEAL what he should bring. The senior SEAL stopped, looked at his new teammate and said: "Dude, what do you think you need to bring for deployment? Load it ... Bring what you think you need."