The whitehouse has been anything but up front and transparent on the deaths of 4 Americans. They have stalled, lied, and evaded for too long.
Toward what end? What were they trying to accomplish?
You've said that the administration's response during the attack was inadequate, that militarily assets should have been sent to the scene in the hope that American lives could have been saved. And yes, there are some people with knowledge and experience regarding this issue who make that claim. But there are many more, from what I can see a strong majority, who believe that nothing useful could have been done.
"Pentagon leaders knew of the September 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi an hour after it began, but were unable to mobilize reinforcements based in Europe in time to prevent the death of the U.S. ambassador."
Reuters, Nov 10, 2012
You argue that the administration was concerned that its "Al Qaeda is on the run" campaign slogan would be undermined if that organization became linked to the attack. But as I indicated, within two weeks of Sept 12, WH officials in congressional testimony and Secretary Clinton in a speech at the UN made public statements pointing to exactly that. Intelligence indicated that Libyan terrorists linked to Al Qaeda had participated in and perhaps led the attack. So what coverup are you talking about?
I suppose you'll say "Susan Rice, Sunday morning news shows, talking points edits, document withheld until FOIA request" and argue that we need more subpoenas and more sworn testimony and no five-minute limits on questioning so we can finally dig up and expose all the terrible, cynical things those people did to cover up their incompetence that cost these four brave Americans their lives, and the partisan chicanery that misled voters in the weeks leading up to the election, and the callous indifference they showed to the grieving families as they lied to their faces and pretended to care.
It's all a bucket of hogwash. Yes, security at the facility was such that Stevens should not have been there. But you can easily make the argument that he did a lot of things to make himself a target. He went around Libya the way he felt he had to, showing the flag and working hard to advance our interests and those of the Libyan people. He could have been killed on many occasions — walking down the street, buying a newspaper, or sitting in a restaurant.
Some administration critics have vehemently opposed Obama's foreign policy objectives and efforts in the Middle East, with their description of an "analogy tour" that supposedly set the stage for the Arab Spring that is held to have been so detrimental to our interests. They claim we made a huge error in not offering more support to Mubarak, thereby opening the door to a government heavily influenced if not controlled by Islamic extremists, and displayed weakness toward Iran, abandoning our allies, most notably Israel, leaving them to be threatened by nuclear weapons.
Let me respectfully ask: what would they have said about a Berkeley-educated career Foreign Service officer who started out in the Peace Corps, loved and supported Muslim culture, was sharply criticized when he was posted at our consulate in Jerusalem for his support of the Palestinians, was a great friend of Secretary Clinton, wanted to be our Ambassador to Iran, played an important role in persuading Obama to go after Gaddafi, and put State in a very difficult position because he insisted on continually risking his life by making himself such a public figure, refusing to hide in safe locations under heavy security to be protected from the gangs of murderous thugs who had repeatedly threatened his life … BEFORE he was killed? Just another misguided utopian liberal actively undermining our national security, that's my guess.
I mourn the death of those other three guys as much as anyone, but they wouldn't have gotten as much attention if they'd been killed in some run-of-the-mill, terrorist street slaughter. When an ambassador is assassinated, it's big news. And the Right howls for impeachment. We should ignore partisan hacks that don't give a damn about our foreign service officers unless it serves their narrow political interests.
This is a republic, is it not?
Yes, a constitutional democratic republic.
