Just One More Inconvenient Truth

Just One More Inconvenient Truth

     Sometimes a series of minor occurrences will "pile up" in the nooks and crannies of my subconscious until the hopper overflows and I think, "What the F**k, why haven't I written about this?"  Today’s “trigger” was a meme posted by a well-intentioned friend commemorating the four US citizens killed by a Libyan terrorist raid on a US consulate annex.  (bolded and underlined because it’s important!)

        While it has been a while since the thinly veiled “blame it on Clinton circus”, the attitude – “Divert attention from our failings by smearing a political opponent and future candidate”, is still disturbing and is eerily prescient of Trump supporters’ mindset in general. It is especially so in my case since most of those who weep (and properly so) for the four civilians killed in that terrorist act (Benghazi), are pathetically ignorant of the fact that the body count of four pales compared to the hundreds killed by terrorists at embassies and other US overseas establishments during previous administrations and with much more concrete (and largely ignored, warning.

       If you still think Benghazi was, in any way, Mrs. Clinton’s fault, then do yourself a huge favor and read the following  objectively, not as an anti-Obama/Clinton fanatic, but as a literate individual.

        There were attacks on several US installations in Lebanon in the Reagan years. Between October, 1983 and September 1984, hundreds of US citizens, military and civilian were killed in four bombing attacks.  After the second, the horrific Beirut Marine Barracks attack, in which 241 died, a House committee was convened, by a Democratically controlled House under Speaker Tip O'Neill. That committee's report was bipartisan (remember when that word had meaning?) and findings of fact blamed no one specifically, much less the Secretary of State or the President.

       The report made specific recommendations aimed at improving Embassy security. In other words, “We should do this or it could happen again.” About 10 months  after the release of this report,   In September of 1984, for the third time in eighteen months, jihadists bombed a U.S. government outpost in Beirut yet again, killing 63, including 17 US citizens.

        President Reagan acknowledged that the new security precautions that had been advocated by Congress hadn’t yet been implemented at the U.S. embassy annex that had been hit. The problem, the President said, was that the repairs hadn’t quite been completed on time. Reagan actually said in a press conference,  “Anyone who’s ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would.” Can we even imagine the reaction to a similar Obama Presidential response to questions about Benghazi, in which just 4 Americans died, vice hundreds?  Draw your own partisan conclusions.

        Of paramount importance here, is the fact that the Benghazi committee was partisan from the get-go. There was no attempt to find fact which didn't fit the desired result. In truth, many such pieces of information were discarded or even worse, military decisions were attributed in several cases to the Secretary of State by implication, a ludicrous leap of illogic.

       The CIA's part in the affair was relegated to the back burner because, from the start, the aim of this committee was to politically hurt the Obama Administration in general and the Secretary of State in particular.  The fact that the CIA had a facility at the compound in Benghazi had been an open secret for weeks, although its central role was not fully acknowledged. I include the following paragraph only for the purpose of pointing out how little actual responsibility the State department had in this instance.

        It turns out the annex (not the "consulate" a fine point omitted by many media outlets) was an outlet for weapons via CIA channels to "good Libyans."

        A Faux News report  alleged that "Several operators at an agency annex had been denied help from their CIA higher-ups (Not the Sec State, who was in no position to provide it anyway), during the fighting", something the CIA strenuously denies, and there had even been indelicate hints of secret components to the Benghazi compound during an open hearing on Capitol Hill. In mid-October of that year,  A U.S. official, speaking under the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, confirmed  that the CIA had an extensive presence in Benghazi, and that the two former Navy SEALs who died in the assault,  were contractors (spelled “‘mercenaries”) working for the agency.  

       According to documents released by the House Oversight Committee, when the Undersecretary of State for Management, Patrick Kennedy, signed an order last December to maintain a presence in the Benghazi compound for another year, his official memo counted 35 “U.S. government personnel,” of whom only eight were State Department. Most of the rest were secretly with the CIA, the official confirmed. The U.S. official noted that at no point in the October congressional hearing did any of the State Department officials testifying use the word “consulate” to describe the Benghazi compound. This was no accident. In fact, the compound served little routine diplomatic purpose, and was under the operational control of the CIA.

          And yet, and yet....... as was later admitted by several House Republicans with consciences, the real committee purpose was to smear the presumptive Democratic candidate in the upcoming presidential elections. The final cost of these 700- day efforts is more than was spent on investigations of Pearl Harbor, The JFK assassination, Watergate and the 9/11 commission - combined! The results were - in a word - zip!

        Finally, by the numbers, the Benghazi select committee alone, labored longer than the committees investigating Watergate, Katrina or Pearl Harbor. Perhaps even more surprising, the Benghazi hearings, first and foremost regarding the tragic deaths of 4 Americans, were convened for some 700 days, or more than half again as long as the 9/11 Commission met to deconstruct (sort of) the deaths of about 3,000 Americans!

        So, yeah, 4 Americans, two of them hired guns, died at Benghazi. That’s tragic and we should remember them. That said, what about the 304 deaths, in Lebanon alone, on Reagan’s watch, which occurred after repeated warnings and recommendations to fix security holes?  Oh, never mind, Ronnie was a White Republican.