Benghazi: Foreign Policy Hypocrisy At Its Worst

There used to be a saying when it came to foreign policy - "politics stops at the water's edge."  In other words, petty partisan squabbles should be put aside in favor of presenting a united American front on the world stage.  That thinking served us well through WWII, much of the Cold War, and some of the following period.  The "War on Terror" has shattered that proverb, however, and it's no more evident than in the fracas over Benghazi.

I haven't blogged too much about this, because I really thought it would die after the election.  Silly me.  Ever since the GOP's attempt to derail Obama's reelection blew up in the epic fail moment of "Please proceed, Governor" during the second debate, it seemed like continuing to press the issue was a losing strategy.  Eight months later, polls show a majority of Americans still don't care.  But now that the GOP has given up any efforts at "rebranding" and has launched into Democratic Second Term = Every Scandal Worse Than Seven Hitlers Mode, lobbing threats of impeachment with the added bonus of hopefully stopping Hillary Clinton's near-guaranteed 2016 election (should she choose to run), it's time to pay Benghazi a visit.

Not surprisingly, sadly, a new poll found that 39% of Americans who think Benghazi is the biggest scandal in American history can't even find the city on a map.  6% think it's in Cuba.  (Let me stop here to say if you don't know where Benghazi is, you need to STFU about it.)  So let's recount what happened.  Benghazi is the 2nd-largest city in Libya, in North Africa.  It's not the capital - that's Tripoli.  It was the turning point of the 2011 Libyan civil war, when rebels, supported by NATO and the US, overthrew Qaddafi's government.  On September 11, 2012, two separate attacks by Islamic militants on the U.S. consulate (not an embassy - the embassy is in Tripoli) killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.  After the attack, citizens took the streets praising it.  Er, wait:

   

Muslims condemning terrorism???  I thought that never happened!  Anyway, despite the immediate condemnation of the attacks by Obama, Clinton, and others, it immediately became a political attack during the campaign.  Romney couldn't even wait till people knew exactly what had happened before decrying the administration as weak appeasers.  There was speculation that the attack had been triggered by an anti-Muslim video produced in the US; that doesn't appear to be the case, however the militants may have taken advantage of the tense situation.  Republicans condemned Obama for not calling it a terrorist attack, even though he called it an "act of terror" - as if "terrorist attack" is some magical phrase that sets everything right with the world.  There was furor that talking points used by administration officials such as UN Ambassador Susan Rice had been altered (as talking points always are).  Basically, they couldn't stomach the fact that the administration chose to handle the situation in the most volatile region in the world with a bit more nuance than their cowboy neoconservative icons.

Make no mistake - an investigation into what went wrong at Benghazi, leading to the deaths of four Americans, was totally warranted.  But the wrath and conspiracy theories that have resulted from the Right are absurd and grossly hypocritical.  "There was a cover-up!" they scream.  Cover-up of what?  Incredible amounts of information have been shared.  There have been hours of testimony.  There was nothing to hide.  It was a tragedy, but most Americans accept that serving in volatile regions has its risks.  If Obama had really wanted to affect the election, history and precedent suggest that he would've gone into full "rally round the flag" mode and launched some cruise missiles at somebody.

Obama himself has stated that if his administration is perpetrating a cover-up, they're doing a pretty lousy job of it.  This is a staple of conspiracy theory logic-holes from the moon landing to 9/11 - the government is capable of pulling off incredibly complex hoaxes that dupe hundreds of millions of people, and yet do such a bad job of covering it up that a few clever souls who stare at blurry pictures for a few minutes GET IT.

Was embassy security lacking?  Well, guess who voted to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from that budget?  Yup, the same Congressional Republicans who now claim that Benghazi is the WORST SCANDAL EVAR.   That's enough funding for 300 diplomatic security positions - a cut that Clinton warned would be detrimental to national security.  But that doesn't matter because ... because ... BENGHAZI!

And that's just tip of their hypocritical iceberg.  Ever hear of any of these incidents?

January 22, 2002. Calcutta, India. Gunmen associated with Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami attack the U.S. Consulate. Five people are killed.
June 14, 2002. Karachi, Pakistan. Suicide bomber connected with al Qaeda attacks the U.S. Consulate, killing 12 and injuring 51.
October 12, 2002. Denpasar, Indonesia. U.S. diplomatic offices bombed as part of a string of "Bali Bombings." No fatalities.
February 28, 2003. Islamabad, Pakistan. Several gunmen fire upon the U.S. Embassy. Two people are killed.
May 12, 2003. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Armed al Qaeda terrorists storm the diplomatic compound, killing 36 people including nine Americans. The assailants committed suicide by detonating a truck bomb.
July 30, 2004. Tashkent, Uzbekistan. A suicide bomber from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan attacks the U.S. Embassy, killing two people.
December 6, 2004. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda terrorists storm the U.S. Consulate and occupy the perimeter wall. Nine people are killed.
March 2, 2006. Karachi, Pakistan again. Suicide bomber attacks the U.S. Consulate killing four people, including U.S. diplomat David Foy who was directly targeted by the attackers
September 12, 2006. Damascus, Syria. Four armed gunmen shouting "Allahu akbar" storm the U.S. Embassy using grenades, automatic weapons, a car bomb and a truck bomb. Four people are killed, 13 are wounded.
January 12, 2007. Athens, Greece. Members of a Greek terrorist group called the Revolutionary Struggle fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy. No fatalities.
March 18, 2008. Sana'a, Yemen. Members of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Jihad of Yemen fire a mortar at the U.S. Embassy. The shot misses the embassy, but hits nearby school killing two.
July 9, 2008. Istanbul, Turkey. Four armed terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate. Six people are killed.
September 17, 2008. Sana'a, Yemen. Terrorists dressed as military officials attack the U.S. Embassy with an arsenal of weapons including RPGs and detonate two car bombs. Sixteen people are killed, including an American student and her husband.

That's 13 attacks under W's watch, dozens of Americans dead, and not a peep of outrage from any Republicans or Fox News.  Where were the investigations, hearings, and calls for better security?  Note that these all take place outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, where the actual wars were being fought (and the diplomatic Green Zone in Baghdad was a constant target).  Oh no, they said, we can't criticize the commander-in-chief while troops are in harm's way.  Anybody that dares to do that is a weak, sellout un-American appeaser.  But as soon as there's a commander-in-chief they don't like, well, anything that happens is worse than 9/11.  And I'm not exaggerating on that one.

Which brings us to Iraq and Dick Cheney.  The Bush Administration got a complete free pass for what was by all accounts the biggest foreign policy blunder at least since Vietnam.  It killed over 5,000 Americans (including contractors), at least a hundred thousand Iraqi civilians, and wasted trillions of dollars - all while lining the pockets of Cheney's Halliburton friends.  And Cheney dares to conservo-splain to Obama why Benghazi is the worst attack he can recall.  Now, whose administration ignored the warnings before 9/11?  Whose administration lied to the public to justify reckless foreign policy that lead to untold suffering in Iraq and in thousands of American families?  Remember the calls for impeachment or criminal charges when a nonpartisan study found that Cheney and others issued 935 false statements about Iraq to goad us into war?  No?  And they have the cahones to lecture us about foreign policy lapses?  Have you no decency, sirs?

Apparently not.  And that leaves Republicans like Congressman Darrell Issa attempting to make whatever they can out of the Benghazi situation.  What results is such laughable lines as "An act of terror is different than a terrorist attack."  We are actually supposed to take that as serious criticism and evidence that the Benghazi "cover-up" is a Grave Crime.  Congressman, pray tell, what is that difference, exactly?  And, to quote Hillary Clinton, what difference does it make?  And if it's so God-almighty important to call it a terrorist attack, why did George W. Bush call 9/11 an "act of terror" on 9/13/01?  Why does W hate America?  It infuriates me that the "liberal" media lets Issa and others get away with spouting these talking points without calling them on it or asking for real explanations - which only empowers them more.  It's awfully reminiscent of the free ride the Bush neoconservatives often got in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Perhaps the dumbest Issa comment came when he said that Benghazi was horribly botched because you can fly from Washington, DC to Benghazi on a commercial jet in seven hours.  So why couldn't there have been a stronger military response?  Well, besides the fact that it's just not true, the statement displays a brazen ignorance of military capability - though it does seem consistent with the Right's action-hero projection fantasies that also lead them to believe they can overthrow the government with their AR-15s.  Former Defense Secretary (and Bush appointee) Robert Gates basically agreed with the Obama administration's response and derided those with a "cartoonish" view of military capabilities.  I'll take the opinion of a career Air Force, CIA, and DoD civil servant over a Congressman with an obvious political agenda.

In the end, that's what it all comes down to - politics.  Whatever justifiable criticism of the Benghazi response could be made has been lost in a sea of political grandstanding.  And that's too bad.  As fearmongering over the "war on terror" being sabotaged by a possibly secret Muslim President continues, it's become clear that politics no longer stops at the water's edge.