One of the practical political strengths of the Obama Administration is that it is so inept in so many areas that critics often lose focus. What would be major controversies or scandals under a competent President – Obamacare’s array of tax hikes and Medicare cuts, the Keystone pipeline, the death toll of Operation Fast and Furious, the misspending of “stimulus” appropriations, the bungled Iraqi status of forces agreement, the facilitation of illegal campaign contributions, Russia’s expulsion of pro-Western nongovernmental organizations (just one of the bitter fruits of Hillary Clinton’s “reset”), the President’s eleventh hour reneging on last year’s fiscal “grand bargain”, the strongarming of defense contractors to disregard the WARN Act, and so on and so far – grow dim and fuzzy. So it may be with the Benghazi episode. So much was mishandled that one can easily lose track, especially with the assistance of “news media” (“Democratic operatives with bylines”, as Instapundit calls them) that have no interest in investigating very deeply.
“Benghazi” is, in fact, shorthand for five discrete failures, any one of which ought to be fatal to the Administration’s reputation:
First, security at the consulate in Benghazi and its CIA-run “annex” was hopelessly inadequate. That failure was all the more culpable if, as has been alleged, the annex served as a prison for captured terrorists and therefore needed protection from attempts to free them (perhaps one of the objectives of the Benghazi attack).
Second, on the eve of the anniversary of 9/11, American forces in the Mediterranean were, by the Administration’s own account, ill-positioned to act against new attacks or threats. Hence, it took almost a full day for significant military forces to arrive in Benghazi after the assault on the consulate began.
Third, the response to the attack was slow and feeble, despite that ability of officials in Washington to watch events unfold as they happened. Apparently, there were no useful contingency plans, so hours were wasted before any troops were ordered to move. If the President himself did anything but utter platitudes to his subordinates and then go to bed, he has been uncharacteristically reticent about his role.
Given Failure #2, the options on September 11th may have been limited, but that doesn’t excuse the utter lack of energy in responding to the crisis. For instance, mobs in Afghanistan have often been dispersed by having a fighter jet roar over them at low altitude. We have a major air base in Sicily, less than an hour’s flight from Libya. Did no one think to use this tried-and-true tactic? It might not have worked, but doing nothing didn’t work either.
Fourth, once troops did tardily arrive, they didn’t secure the buildings. Reporters were able to wander in days later and pick up classified documents. Terrorists had the same opportunity.
Fifth, the Administration concocted a cover story distancing the attack from terrorism in general and al-Qa’eda in particular, apparently to avoid undermining one of the themes of the President’s reelection campaign.
In addition, there is what ought to be a scandal, namely, the arrest of the man whose YouTube video was initially blamed for the attack. It’s true that Nakoula Basseley Nakoula seems to be an unsavory character who had violated the terms of his probation by posting the video under a pseudonym. (Gee, why wouldn’t a harsh critic of Islam use his real name? Pim Fortuyn could not be reached for comment.) The U.S. government went after the video maker, however, before it knew anything about him, expending the nontrivial effort to track down the man behind the pseudonym. Why, if not to find a way to punish an uncongenial opinion? The father of one of the murdered Americans says that Hillary Clinton told him that the troublemaker would be found and jailed, and he was – no nonsense about the First Amendment.
Overshadowing the Benghazi failures is the larger, more serious failure of the President’s Middle East policy. He has chosen to drift with the swelling current of Islamic extremism. Turkey’s Erdoğan and Egypt’s Morsi win his praise, even as they move toward the establishment of anti-Western dictatorships. Anti-extremists gain only occasional polite words.
All of this bungling should not be reduced to a dispute about whether our ambassador to the United Nations, who was given the assignment of retailing the phony story to the media, was more a knave, a dupe or a fool. If the main consequence of Benghazi is that John Kerry overleaps her to become Secretary of State, that will be worse than a blunder. As Jonathan S. Tobin observes,
The real issue at the State Department is not whether Rice lied about Benghazi. Everyone in the administration lied about it from the topdown. . . .
The administration’s eagerness to portray the terror attack on our diplomats in Benghazi as a spontaneous protest stemmed from an agenda which required that nothing be allowed to disrupt the president’s politically-motivated narrative that bin Laden’s death meant the end of the threat of Islamist terrorism. However, the willingness of this administration to acquiesce to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and even to go on sending billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Morsi regime should not be passed over in the zeal to nail Rice on Benghazi.
Allowing Rice to be rewarded for her deceptions rightly rankles Republicans, but no one should be under the impression that substituting Kerry for her will improve American foreignpolicy. . . . There needs to be accountability for all of the administration’s errors, including the shocking tilt toward the Brotherhood, and not just Benghazi.
There is a real danger that, with help from the incurious media, and possibly from Republicans playing short-term D.C. games, the Benghazi story will go the way of Fast and Furious, just another whimper on the downward road to American impotence.
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