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A Call for Healing

A Call for Healing
Democrats Call for Healing the Country

Jun 15, 2014

Hillary's Record on Benghazi Stinks


What difference, at this point, does it make? As a veteran I'm sure everyone will want to serve under a commander in chief that sleeps through 3 AM phone calls, then lies to cover it up. We really need somebody who judges 5 Diplomatic Protection Service agents to be sufficient for the most dangerous diplomatic post in the world. Someone who is willing to cut a military protection detail to the bone so we can spend more on domestic programs no matter who gets killed. (snark)

Hillary’s book assures us that she bore no accountability for Benghazi because the cables requesting more security for Libya didn’t land on her desk.  She also still maintains that nobody could have known about the attack in advance.  She even expects us to believe that it was a demonstration triggered by an obscure internet video that turned into a riot. I'm sure all of this blather is supposed to excuse Hillary's dereliction of duty, but it doesn't. The Libyan Tripoli Embassy and Benghazi Consulate had to be two of the most hazardous diplomatic posts in the world. The fact that the Libya security detail was cut before the attack shows Hillary Clinton's dereliction of duty. Hillary was in charge, so whether she saw the cables or not, it was her responsibility to make sure her folks were as safe as she could make them. She wants to be commander in chief. Commanders take the responsibility for failure even if they didn't get the memo. The confusion about the attack is also fabricated. There was a live video feed from the Benghazi Consulate to DC that covered the start of the attack. It showed no demonstration and no riot. The Secretary of State should have reviewed the video before sending Susan Rice out to prevaricate. The video lies served Hillary's interests by obscuring her dereliction of duty. A rogue video was not predictable, so Hillary and her boss are blameless. However, the 11th anniversary of 9/11 was predictable. The violent instability of Libya in general and Benghazi in particular was well known. The whole story is a self-serving cover-up. When the 3 AM phone call from Benghazi came in, neither Hillary nor her boss answered the call.

Liberals should try this thought experiment.  It's 2004.  On September 11, Bush's Ambassador to Algeria is killed in a consulate at a port city.  Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice go on national TV and say it was a demonstration against an obscure anti-Muslim video on the web.  Bush says the same thing in a televised speech to the UN a week or two later.  The Bush Administration claims "Mission Accomplished" against Al Qaeda.  Bush has Texas imprison the sponsor of the video on a trumped up charge of parole violation.  Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claims responsibility.  No effort was made to help defend against the attack, despite repeated requests both before and during the attack, which lasts 7 hours.  After Bush wins the election, Colin Powell tells a House committee, "At this point, what difference does it make whether it was a demonstration or some guys out for a stroll who decided to kill some Americans?"  How would liberals view it?  I call it the "Bush did it" test. 
Hillary’s talking points, as advanced in the "mainstream" Pravda Press, say it was not her fault because the Secretary of State controls no security assets. This is not true.  For starters, the Secretary of State directly controls  the Diplomatic Security Service, which has about 2,000 agents.  The Secretary of State can also request military guards for dangerous posts like Libya.  In the months just before the attack, the State Department rejected requests to extend the tours of both soldiers and State Department Protection Service agents in Libya. A 16 man US Army security detail was withdrawn in August, 2012, just before the attack. Both the commander of the army unit, Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, and the embassy’s security chief, Eric Nordstrom, objected but were overruled by the State Department. See the links below.

The Democrats are also arguing that since Congressional Republicans cut the Diplomatic Protection Service’s budgets, the lack of security in Libya is the Republicans’ fault.  However, the State Department cutting the security detail in Libya using the excuse of budget cuts is absurd. There are countries, like France, Germany and the UK, where the security provided by the host government is great. Why not take the cuts there, and keep the agents in possibly the most dangerous US diplomatic post in the world? Is this a case of Washington Monument Syndrome, where the government shuts down the places that hurt the public the most in response to budget cuts? If it is, it went terribly wrong and 4 people died.

To sum up, four Americans died from criminal neglect. Before the attacks, repeated requests for more security people were ignored or denied. Even though it was the 11th anniversary of the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks, there were no military assets on alert. There was no military effort to support our people in Benghazi once the attacks started, not even any fighter jets to provide air support. The attacks lasted about 7 hours. Afterwards, the Prevaricator in Chief refused to comment on what he was doing during the attacks. The immediate explanation of the attacks was a totally false narrative of an internet video causing a demonstration that turned into a riot, an explanation that just happened to benefit our Dear Leader's reelection campaign. Finally, there was an extensive cover-up of the original cover-up. Yup, it was either George Bush or global warming that caused this mess. Either way, any further investigation is racist and sexist. (snark)