In the days following the lethal attack on our diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, the Obama administration doggedly clung to its story that the assault, in which a United States Ambassador was killed on U.S. soil, was an unforeseeable and spontaneous eruption of anger, caused by an unflattering video about Mohammed. This story was false, and the State Department knew it was false, yet stuck with it for days, including sending  U.N. ambassador Susan Rice to the Sunday talk shows,  five days after the attack, to reiterate what was by then a transparently deceptive account.  (Many are calling for Ms. Rice’s resignation over this, which I think is wrong; for all we know she was just repeating what she had been told. The State Department and the White House bear the responsibility here.)
Many of us wondered: why would this administration lie so blatantly about this, and continue to do so even as the truth began to be exposed? Obviously Mr. Obama’s  inept Mideast policy is now a political liability, and we shouldn’t be surprised to see as much “spin” as the administration thinks it can get away with  —  but it’s hard to imagine that they really thought they could get away with this.
The purpose of a lie is to hide the truth. What truth was it that the Administration considered so damaging that it was willing to risk lying so publicly for days, even as it became plain to all that its account of events was false?
The House Oversight Committee would like to know, and has sent a letter to the Secretary of State demanding some answers. I’ve excerpted (and highlighted) a key passage below:
Based on information provided to the Committee by individuals with direct knowledge of events in Libya, the attack that claimed the ambassador’s life was the latest in a long line of attacks on Western diplomats and officials in Libya in the months leading up to September 11, 2012. It was clearly never, as Administration officials once insisted, the result of a popular protest. In addition, multiple U.S. federal government officials have confirmed to the Committee that, prior to the September 11 attack, the U.S. mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi. The mission in Libya, however, was denied these resources by officials in Washington.
Obviously, with the election looming, there are a lot of ulterior motives in play. Democrats will pooh-pooh the whole thing as a political stunt (indeed, long-time readers will not be surprised should that happen in our own comment-thread). Nevertheless, there appears to be serious malfeasance here, at the highest levels of government, and you can be sure this story isn’t going to go away.
You can read the letter here.
3 Comments
While I’m not for a second gonna “make nicey for this most recent” – this whole Benghazi thing has been something that should’ve been given more than just cursory hoorahs from a whole buncha people living in the La La Land listed in atlases as Washington DC.
Romney however should thank his lucky stars he didn’t have much to do with it.
The Sinjar Files were the first inkling of what was to come:
http://www.ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/aqs-foreign-fighters-in-iraq.pdf
Then – sometime later, after the first Libyan Gitmo detainees were released into Gaddafi’s care (his prison-system being apparently better at “rehabilitation” than our US system):
http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/lifg-revisions-posing-critical-challenge-to-al-qaida
Next – the first Ms. Rice & Associates:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/261063/libyas-makeover-andrew-c-mccarthy?pg=1
And then “A Few Good Senators”:
http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.FloorStatements&ContentRecord_id=b63b7b6f-a466-ba23-dea8-7bc024f54655
Does any of the preceding offer something of “an excuse” for what occurred most recently? Absofuckling NOT.
If anything – there should have been an MEU split between Tripoli and Benghazi. Maybe one for each.
Great sequence of links there, JK. Thanks for that.
Figured you were one of the few who’d actually read ’em Malcolm. (Even though you’ve been exposed to this particular information before.)
My purpose (mainly) was to provide the foundation for and how the Arab Spring – while it came as “a surprise” to many, wasn’t entirely and actually unforeseeable. Indeed, given the stuff that’s in the Sinjar Files, what (and where) stuff is happening in Libya can be thought of as a natural consequence of what’s happened in the not so recent past.
Romney, to all appearances is not a Neo-Con. Pie-In-The-Sky policies which seem promising policies to “gift democracy” must be seen in context. So too – rat-holes.
Going out on a limb, North Africa’s (and elsewhere’s) “Salafi Problem” doesn’t look to bode so well for nice stuff to be on the near horizon viz Egypt in the near-term. Of course there’re are the twin snake-pits of primarily Syria, to a lesser extent Iraq.
And given where all this “Awakening” is occurring, using the timeframe near-term, is problematic on the merits.