Tag Archives: jihadists

Obama and the Benghazi Debacle

by Daniel Downs

The Obama administration’s poor judgment concerning both the nature of the Benghazi attack and security of our Consulates in Liyba is old news. From President Obama to Susan Rice, Americans were misled into believing the Benghazi attack was a mob action. It was determined earlier in the investigations that security personnel wanted more security personnel to address the increasing threat of Al-Qaida’s presence.

In his second debate, President Obama said he did call the attack on the Benghazi embassy an act of terror. Some commmentators claim he did say it was a terrorist attack, while others claim he did not. Those who deny the Obama’s claim do so because they did read the transcript of his Rose Garden speech on September 12, 2012. The President mentioned terrorist in the context of the attack of September 11, 2001, the sacrifice of American soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that proceeded in response to 9/11, and finally those who died in Benghazi.

In other words, his statement was vague concerning the nature of the Benghazi attack.

If President Obama actually knew or wanted Americans to know the attack was another act of terrorism against America, he would have continued to state that fact while being interviewed by David Letterman on September 18, 2012. However, he blamed the attack on extremists angered by anti-Mohammad video made by an American of questionable character. Obama did use the term terrorist but only in the context of all other attacks against American Consulates around the world that were a result of the film.

In an Foreign Policy article published on October 16, 2012, Christopher Stephen raise questions about the veracity of both a military style terroristattack and spontaneous mob violence. Locals consistenly claim seeing a group of 12 armed men. The gates to the embasssy were not breached, but there were 2 bullet holes in the front gate and 22 in the back gate. There were only two bullet holes anywhere in the compound. The only mortar penetrated the main building above the door. According to Stephens, the 3 embassy personnel who died were shot while escaping the compound and Ambassor Steven’s appears to have died of smoke inhilation as a result of the mortar.

As also noted during the Congressional Committee for Government Oversight and Reform hearings, Stephen’s article confirms the lack of any adequate security that could have prevented an attack.

It must be concluded that the Commander-in-Chief didn’t know the real nature of the attack, he prefers to view Muslim jihadic violence as merely extremism, or he was merely covering up a very embarrasing failure to provide even modest security.