Is it
necessary or appropiate to investigate Benghazi at this point?
if you are a
democrat the answer is no, if you are a republican the answer is yes. However
there are a few questions that as far as I know remain unanswered and that would
be important to know. First of all, even
though Hillary Clinton famously said "what difference does it make?",
it's obvious it does not make any difference to the 4 dead americans at this
point, even though it would make a difference to their families to know all the
facts in the matter. It would also make
a huge difference to other americans that may be in harms way in the future if
we had the answer to these questions.
1) Why were
the requests for increase security that Ambassador Stevens made several months
and weeks before the attack, denied. There could be a good reason why, but we
just don't know. If there was a good reason at the time, looking in retrospect,
then it would be very helpful to review those reasons to see if they need to be
revised so nothing like this happens again, and policies can be put in place to
prevent an outcome like this. I heard that they blamed republican lawmakers
saying that they made budget cuts, and so on, but if you are the executive in
charge, it is your responsability to alocate the funds you have to where it is
needed most. And I think that nobody could argue that the federal government is
short of money at this point, when they are borrowing at low rates all the
money they want.
2) Why was
there still a US consulate in Benghazi when all the other foreign missions had
already left months before. Maybe there was a good reason, but we don't know.
Again, those reasons or policies should be reviewed to ensure no americans are
exposed in the future, or to minimize risks. That's why it would be important
to know.
3) Why was
there no military response or mission to help these americans, when there were
military resourses available within 1 or 2 hours from Benghazi. One could argue
that there could not be deployed in time, and that could be true. But at the
time, how could they tell how long would the attack last?. In fact the attack
lasted many hours, from 12 to 20 hours from what I could gather from the news.
So at hour 2 or 3, how did they know? what if it lasted 48 hours and more
people got killed? Perhaps nothing could have been done and those people would
have died anyway, but we just don't know. If a military response could have
been tried, who gave the order to hold, or who should have given the order to
proceed? Were those people negligent and bear responsability in witholding
help? Wouldn't it be important to know?
4) Were was
Obama during all this time? there was an ongoing attack on a US facility, there
were officials in the situation room in the White House, but nobody knows where
was Obama during that time or what were his instructions. Wouldn't it be
important to know what the head of the military was doing during an attack? He
could have being doing something more important at that time, but we just don't
know, and what could be more important than follow and being in charge of a response
to help US personnel under attack? Is he or Hillary Clinton, or the secretary
of defense, or the military chiefs not accountable when there are dead people
and US facilites attacked?
5) The issue
of the video or not the video is a minor one to me, it is clear that for 2
weeks after the attack, and I remember those days well, and watched the news
frequently, the administration kept blaming the video for the attack, and did
not admit until weeks later that it was an organized terrorist attack. Even in
his UN speech on september 25th, 2 weeks after the attack, Obama kept talking
about the video. It is clear that admitting the truth would compromise the
narrative that he had done a good job fighting terrorism, and admitting it was
a terrorist attack right before the elections would have been a setback
politically, but isn't it wrong to twist the truth to make it fit your
political interests, especially when there are dead people? Could the president
of the US not know that same night that it was a terrorist attack? the Lybian
president went on TV the following day and confirmed it, so could Obama not
know? and if he did not know, why? wouldn't it be important to know how the
facts of an event of this importance were ignored by the president? so that action
could be taken to correct it in the future? Even though Candy Crowley very
handidly had the transcript of Obama's White House speech the day after the
attack during the presidential debate, I listened to that speech, and he only
refered to "terrorism" and
"acts of terrorism" generically, but never refered to Benghazi as a
terrorist attack.
They now say
this is old news, but it is less than 20 months since the attack, and as far as
I know, there are no answers to these questions, and I think it is very
relevant to know what happened, even now, many months after the attack: to
prepare better for a similar situation that may arise in the future and to hold
people accountable if there was any wrongdoing.
