I have been a bit disappointed in both parties lately, in regards to the embassy attacks in Benghazi, Libya. The Republicans are looking for every bogeyman in every nook and cranny, in a desperate attempt to paint Barack Obama as a traitorous heathen. Democrats have made every attempt to blow over the attack, and the resulting post mortem that was destined to follow, dismissing any questions of mishandling or impropriety as a partisan witch hunt.
Now, whether you care about the attack or not - don't be surprised that people wouldn't, the decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made Benghazi "just one of many" attacks that have cost Americans their lives, in many people's eyes - there is a serious problem with the attack and the response to it. For starters, security measures had been dialed back at the embassy, despite smaller attacks in previous weeks, including a mortar round blowing a hole in one of the outer walls. Requests for increased security measures were denied, including one by Lt. Colonel Andrew Wood to maintain a special security team in Libya. There was enough danger in the area that other countries, including Britain, closed their embassies, deeming them unsafe - a claim highlighted by the Red Cross finally pulling out for the same reason. So why were we even still there? The embassy attack lasted almost seven hours. Many people don't realize that. They think it was just a hit-and-run, and people were killed. Not so. And in the process of a seven-hour attack, the Americans pleaded for help several times, with no help given. This included soldiers in nearby camps begging to be allowed to go in and assist them, to be told to "Stand down" by their commanders. Even worse, the Navy Seal who was killed thought he WAS getting help, in the form of an air assault. So he went out to the perimeter of the building to point a laser at mortar rounds that the air support could hit. Doing this exposed him - using the laser gave up his position. When the help never came, he was doomed. "Dying in vain" doesn't even do it justice.
After the attack, Washington D.C. was in an uproar. Over the next couple of weeks, the Obama administration spent a great deal of time blaming the attack on a anti-Islam video, called "Innocence of Muslims," produced and directed by a former porn director in California, which did indeed spur some protests in Cairo, Egypt at the same time as the Benghazi attack. Many people will mostly remember Obama, during the presidential debates, say he called it a terrorist attack the very next day, in a speech given in the Rose Garden. In the transcript, he clearly uses the phrase "acts of terror," and two sentences later, says "... our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act." Many have argued that it was a general reference to acts of terror, not specified to Benghazi. It's a very loose, but not entirely wrong argument, although the second phrase does hint at the first. But Obama insists he knew it was a terrorist attack from the beginning, and his Rose Garden comments reflected that fact. So I'm willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, but if he's telling the truth, insisting on that has painted him into an awfully ugly corner, for a number of problems exist:
- If the president knew it was terrorism, why would he send White House Press Secretary Jay Carney out the next day to blame the attack on a video protest that got out of hand? Carney is the President's and White House's face and voice to the nation on a daily basis. And nothing comes out of Carney's mouth that hasn't already been vetted by the WH Director of Communications, especially on such a sensitive subject. So are we really to believe Carney did this on his own?
- Why was U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice chosen to go on talk shows and give interviews over the next couple of weeks to discuss Benghazi when, according to herself, the CIA, the FBI and the White House, she knew nothing about it? They all say she was simply using intelligence info given to her, that she had no knowledge of her own about it. And since her intelligence info was compiled by the State Department, and they say they never concluded that the attack was the result of a demonstration about the video, then how did she have that info in her talking points?
- Furthermore, why were the words "al Qaeda" and "terrorist" removed from the talking points before she gave her first interview? They've given several different answers to this, none of which has a consensus. Hell, they can't even come to a consensus on WHO actually edited them out...
- And if we accept Obama's claim that he knew all along it was terrorism, how does he reconcile giving a speech to the UN and a visit on tv's The View, where he himself blamed the video? Was he lying about what he knew, to avoid looking incompetent? Or was he telling the truth, and decided to just run with the cover up story anyway, hoping to get through the election before having to answer for any of it? This is the issue I actually care the least about, the other issues are far more important. But this is one part that will haunt him for a while, if the witch hunters have any say...
Obviously, everyone involved in this is full of it, and that includes the president. He had an election to win, and the Benghazi attack could not have come at a worse time, especially when his campaign was declaring al Qaeda "decimated," despite well known growth of the terrorist organization in Syria and Yemen, and knowledge that al Qaeda had been making inroads in Libya after Moammar Gadhafi's expulsion and death. Clearly, this all was an attempt to defer dealing with another al Qaeda terrorist attack until after the election. Susan Rice was chosen because she's as far away from Obama's White House as possible, while still being an "official" of the administration. And handing intelligence to a person with no knowledge of anything offers a plausible deniability buffer. This is serious enough to have derailed Obama's re-election, if Mitt Romney hadn't bungled it all up with that ridiculous "Gotcha!" attempt at catching Obama in a lie during the 2nd debate. Romney's people were so ignorant, they didn't even realize that believing Obama's story makes what happened even worse - instead they wanted to trip him up, and ended up looking like fools in the process - and worse, made Obama look sympathetic. They couldn't have gift wrapped it any better. And Obama, to his credit, said nothing - he just encouraged Romney to continue, allowing Mitt to hang himself. Never let it be said that Obama isn't very slick and bright.
Where this leaves us is with Susan Rice, who Obama wants to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. As America's top diplomat, she would have to exhibit a measure of independence and political savvy, that this incident shines a sour image of. And it has many people, some Democrats included, doubting her ability to to the job - especially if she's willing to walk in blind and just push the White House agenda - something she's made abundantly clear she's willing to do. For us citizens, we may never get closure on this event, because Democrats in Congress have been stalling the process as much as possible, to get to the end of the session. By the time the next session starts, they're hoping we'll have let it wade out of our minds, in favor of other things. Let's hope that's not the case. Regardless what anyone believes, this situation has become twisted enough that we at least are owed closure on it, so everyone can move on. I'm tired of watching the president tap dance. He has a job to do, and we need him to do it well, which means this needs to be finished - sooner rather than later.
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