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What Was the Benghazi Cover-Up All About? — Victor Davis Hanson
Why would the Obama administration stonewall requests for documents relating to Benghazi? Why did it go to such lengths to hide the fact of a preplanned terrorist attack? Why, to this day, does it deny that there was a political effort to obscure the true nature of the attack?
We should remember five likely reasons.
1) That GM was alive and bin Laden was dead was a cute fall 2012 Obama campaign slogan—as was the trope that al-Qaeda was on the run due to the president’s sober and judicious approach to the war on terror. The idea that al-Qaeda affiliates assassinated four Americans in Benghazi endangered that narrative and begged a response. The same could not be said of a video-inspired riot. Things, of course, just happen. And how can an administration be expected to go after spontaneous rioters? Without a cover-up alleging a spontaneous riot, the public might have wondered why we never identified and hunted down the culprits and planners—a question that lingers to this day.
2) Blaming the filmmaker offered liberals the chance to affirm that reactionaries and bigots are the source of much of the world’s troubles. Therefore, jailing Mr. Nakoula was loud validation of the Obama Administration’s progressive, multicultural bona fides, and proof that Obama has zero tolerance for such “hate speech.” That narrative became important for practical reasons as well: did the Administration really wish to defend itself from the charge that it had arrested and jailed Nakoula on a trumped up parole violation when his video had nothing to do with violence in Libya? Moreover, by blaming a filmmaker, the administration de facto conceded that some sort of unjustified provocation had occurred, as if reactionary “hate speech” earns retribution that falls on the innocent.
3) Obama had released all sorts of photos of the Situation Room during the bin Laden hit (although bagman Reggie Love claimed that the president was mostly with him playing serial hands of spades). Those pictures proved to be important spike-the-ball material for the 2012 race. But where was he during the antithesis—of they killing us rather we them? Was he monitoring the situation as diligently as he had during the bin Laden raid? To this day, we have no idea where the president was and what he actually said or did—or did not do—during the long, drawn-out attacks.
4) Why was the CIA in Benghazi in such numbers in the first place? Rounding up Ghadafi’s confiscated arsenal and rerouting it to Syria? Scouting out hand-held anti-aircraft missiles and doing what with them next? Why were they doing this— and for whom exactly — and did our enemies know it and respond against it? A campaigning Barack Obama apparently thought he was not the sort of president to have authorized covert CIA gun-running to overthrow even odious governments like Assad’s Syrian regime, especially if it might prompt a messy and lethal pushback from terrorists. Instead, the better campaign narrative (then) and damage control story (today) was that lots of CIA contractors just happened to be around when a riot erupted over a video—end of story, and end of late-campaign worries about revelations of CIA covert operations.
5) Then there are the mysterious and near contemporaneous problems of General David Petraeus. At some future date, when all is sorted out, we will learn exactly when and how the Administration learned of Petraeus’s personal problems, what his role was in the contradictory and then not-so-contradictory interpretations of the White House and CIA talking points, and why exactly his resignation promptly followed the reelection of Barack Obama.
Published in General
Nick, there was stuff going on in Egypt earlier and it was 911. That is beside the point, there were assets, I talked to one. All the lie detectors post Bengahazi are pretty telling as are all the transfers. Someone will talk on the record sooner or later.
Actually, I’ve been advised the “filmmaker” is a dubious individual, so no testimony, but I do think he should be spoken with.
Doc,
This is a simple question I’m sure you can answer. If Delta Force is 5-600 miles away at 5PM and Americans are still alive fighting as the sun rises next morning, how long would the flight time be. Three hours, two hours, one hour?
Regards,
Jim
The answer is infinity because I’m sure White House instructed that no one should respond. If a response was wanted, someone, or some aircraft could have been making noise over the compound within an hour or two.
That is the first crime in Benghazi then. They were very much in range with the proper personnel. Even if Stevens was already dead they didn’t know that. They didn’t let them go because they didn’t want to let them go. Political gain was the deciding factor. That’s criminal.
Regards,
Jim
Bamster!
Choom lingo: “Hey Bamster, pass the kind spleef, bro”.
All the “were assets available to be deployed in time” questions are garbage. It simply does not matter. If you have military assistance within any conceivable range, you deploy them, as fast as you can, to save American lives.
No one could possibly know the situation on the ground well enough to make decisions regarding deployment. That’s why you deploy – to get help there to save lives, even if, in the end, there is not one life left to save.
They didn’t go because of politics. Period. The Bamster’s politics, in case it’s not clear.
Chris Campion, #2 and #3 are where its at.
If it was Hillary’s fat pantsuit sitting in a chair in the annex that night, I think assets would have somehow been mustered.
Have these claims ever been proven wrong? Have those dozens of survivors who were evacuated ever been interviewed?
This is where the Obama administration has its biggest problem. Dozens of people were reportedly evacuated successfully from the compound. They obviously know something. How and/or why they have been sequestered since their rescue would be a worthy line of inquiry in itself. My bet is that they were leaned on heavily to keep quiet, and continue to be so with threats and intimidation. The same goes for the various military men in the know. Leaving men to die doesn’t go down very well with career soldiers. There’s got to be a man of honor somewhere just waiting for the chance to testify. I understand that Trey Gowdy has been appointed by John Boehner to a select committee in charge of the investigation.
He’s from Hawaii, so it’s “bra” not “bro.”
To point #3….it is unreal that we have no idea where the president was during all this. I remember Chris Wallace asking that question over and over again to the administration weasel on his show and never coming close to getting an answer. How embarrassing an answer does it have to be that they won’t even say where the hell he was????
Crap, this issue always makes me irate and is one of the reasons that anyone who voted to reelect this bastard is dead to me. I mean come on…….
The democrat answer to all this is that it’s a small issue and republicans are making people starve. No kidding, that’s their take.
Concretevol, I would be careful placing too much importance in that. The easiest way to lie would have been to say “he was closely monitoring the situation from X location.” That they refuse to say seems more like a way to trap the opposition (with a credible answer eventually being provided). UNLESS, of course there are decent people who know where he was and are willing to talk.
What happened to the talking point on the right that Obama was at a fundraiser that night? Didn’t people know or think that he flew to Vegas that night for a fundraiser? I don’t hear anything about that anymore.
Is it no longer repeated because of the lack of evidence or leaks that he was at a fundraiser?
Even if there is no proof that he was at a fundraiser it should at least be implied by conservatives that is where he was. As the liberals know, you repeat something enough times and it becomes fact.
I’m not sure what the deal is with where he was, but is being at a fundraiser the worst of places to be? Worse than being at the White House and not being involved?
Double post.
We know that the next morning he spoke from the Rose Garden before jumping on Marine One enroute to Andrews to get to that Las Vegas fundy. That’s a fact that is known, and fabricating conspiracies out of nothing is what the left is already accusing us of, to minimize the significance of the event, and it has worked to their advantage for a year and a half – let’s not hand them more ammunition.
By itself, being at a fundraiser isn’t a problem. However, it has been reported that during the attack, Obama was busy in debate prep (what a waste that turned out to be anyway), and then he flew to a fundraiser the next day.
It’s difficult to argue that the administration’s focus was not political when, during the attack and afterward, they were literally preoccupied with campaigning instead of governing.
I didn’t mean to insinuate any kind of conspiracy about the president’s location. My frustration along those lines is you can’t even get a straight answer from the administration about such a basic question. As the initial post reminds us, they damn sure told us where he was during the B.L. raid and backed it up with pictures. The White House said that Obama ordered for everything possible to be done to help those under attack. When pressed on then what was actually done they have no answer……there are no answers for anything, only evasion.
It boggles the mind that Hillary can even show her face in public, let alone think about running for president, after looking those grieving parents in the eye and feeding them a line of crap about a video. Disgusting.
I did not know the timeline. I had vaguely thought he was already in Vegas. I agree with not coming off as kooky and giving ammunition to the left.
Obama told Panetta that he and Clinton should handle it but not to make him look bad. Then he left to get some beauty sleep for his fund raiser. He did not look anything other than refreshed at that presser.
The decision to not send help lies with Clinton Panetta and Obama. Apparently no one is willing to talk though.
The fact is that Obamas main concern when the embassy was under attack was HIS political life.
That’s just it. When something goes well – get a picture of yourself in the situation room looking concerned, even though you spent hours playing cards with one of your security detail while events were unfolding. When something goes wrong – no picture, and head out for fundraiser.
Craven. Cowardly. Apparently Barry made the right calculation, though, because he won.
This may well be the case where the crime is worse than the cover-up.
Perhaps they didn’t have time for a military response because they needed time to put together a response force that reflected modern diversity goals with a few homosexuals thrown in for good measure, then give them hours of sensitivity training so they wouldn’t offend the locals.
What Benghazi proves is that you would have to be nuts to work for this administration or the State Dept or the top brass in the military knowing they don’t give 2 figs about your life, if it means they would take a hit politically.
VDH’s last point about Petraeus is the one question that has not been asked by the media. I have a friend who is a close relative of Paula Broadhurst who believes that that aspect is critical. He expected Paula to write a book about her experience but that has not happened. I hope Trey Gowdy will force Petraeus and everyone else involved to either answer his questions or take the fifth.
Why was the Ambassador in Benghazi on Sept. 11th? He had already said several times that his security was inadequate in Libya. What was the meeting with the Turkish official about? I have so many questions…but Petraeus is the key…go get ’em Trey!
Pardon me while I re-introduce the spector of the dead President George W Bush. The very success of the war on terror is all follow-through that was put into motion by Republican president George Bush, the most vilified president in recent US history. That OBL was only stopped during the BHO presidency only increases the embarrassment of paralysis in the face of a blatant challenge to a sitting US president.
Ergo, there’s no way in heck they’re going to accept the Benghazi attack to be the result of their failed policies. Any story is justifiable to avoid this kind of culpability. The mind-numbed robots of the left will just eat it up. Who cares if some foreigner on parole gets frog marched to prison. That’s just how we have to bend over now to make nice with the people who want us dead.
What do you want to bet the administration will do if some of our own female citizens get kidnapped in Africa and get promptly sold into slavery?