Some professional politicians and political commentators
have urged that the public discussion over the Benghazi attack be kept
apolitical. They have argued that conservatives and Republicans are attempting
to hijack this tragedy and use it as a political instrument to attack the
President of the United States during an election year. Democrats have come out
in strong opposition against making this into a “political issue”, citing the
deaths as a tragedy, where Americans should come together in support of the
victims. Unfortunately, the cynicism of these comments is for some of us, too
rank to stomach.
First of
all, everything is a political issue. That is the nature of politics. When
there is a failure or tragedy or even success, of any kind, it will undoubtedly
become an issue of public and political discussion. Take the Aurora, Colorado
shootings as an extreme example: a terrible, senseless tragedy with very clear
lines of right and wrong. For the most part the larger, national politicians
kept it that way, but the special interest groups didn’t take long to jump into
the political debate that was implied in the tragedy: gun control. And that is
a discussion that should be had and Aurora should be used as a point of reference
when having that conversation. Is that politicizing the issue? Maybe it is; or
maybe the issue, like most, was already saturated in a preexisting political
debate. So let’s talk politics for a minute, as a country, unfettered from all
this hand wringing and grand standing and moral posturing.
The current
administration failed to heed the reports of its own intelligence apparatus
that the security situation was deteriorating. It failed to respond to the
requests of its State Department personnel on the ground to shore up the
security for the mission in Benghazi. During the attack, which lasted over six
hours, the administration failed to respond across departments and
organizations in an organized and coordinated fashion. It failed to provide any
support to the people on the ground at the time. In the immediate fallout of
the attack, the incident was reported to the American people by the
administration and most medias outlets as “the activities of a mob” run out of
control.[i]
In actuality it had been a coordinated, combined arms attack orchestrated by al
Qaeda affiliates. In the past two months, the FBI has mounted an uninspiring
and largely fruitless investigation into the details of the attack. The various
heads of the President’s administration have seemed to deflect blame to one
another for the security gap. The administration as a whole has been less than
transparent, to say the least, in their reporting of the facts.
Is this President Obama’s Watergate? I don’t think so. But I do think it raises some real concerns
about how we approach the continued threat of militant Islamic organizations.
Is it an effective strategy to be apologetic in the face of these terrorist
attacks? To write off these events as some misplaced violence caused by the “the activity of a deranged
individual ridiculing Mohammed”?[ii]
Probably not. Some Americans still believe that Major Nadal Hassan, the Ft.
Hood shooter, should have been denounced from the start by the administration
as a terrorist. Whether or not you want to call this conflict we are living
through “the global war on terror” is less important than simply recognizing
publicly that there is in fact a war we are still actively fighting. It is
being fought everyday in Washington and London, in Tehran and Wardak, and in
North Africa too. To pretend otherwise is less than honest and is disrespectful
to our personnel out there risking their lives outside the wire.
The biggest problem is the
complacency in all of this on the part of the American people. The Benghazi
attack, and all the fallout and back peddling since, hasn’t even rated for most
as worthy of a political discussion. Four Americans were murdered by al-Qaeda
on September 11th 2012 and most of us just seem happy enough to move
on. Even for conservatives and Republicans it is not an issue of urgency.
Nobody is taking this personally. What would the generation of 1941 think if
they could see us with fresh eyes now? Have we lost a certain respect for our
own service men and women?
I understand the empirical barrier
for most Americans is probably quite great. After all we are only talking about
four Americans, in some far off, largely bush-league nation. I mean, it is a
tragedy, but these things happen, right? Most Americans don’t know what it is
like to write reports and debriefs for months counseling a serious need for
reinforcements just to be told by the bureaucrats to drive on and make do. Most
Americans have no idea what “small arms” fire sounds like when you are caught
in an enemy kill zone. Very few Americans, very few service men even, have ever
watched as mortar rounds impact all around them and the shrapnel explodes into
the flesh of their brothers in arms. It is not an easy experience to convey. It
is even harder, however, to communicate when one’s audience has no interest in
understanding that sort of dread and abandonment. But let me tell you
something: in a situation like that, even a simple “show of force” from a
couple of jets flying close air support for you, can mean the difference
between victory and defeat.
I don’t know what
happened in Benghazi. It will be a few years before the whole story is really
fleshed out. But I can tell you from experience, it smells like
we left those guys out there high and dry, outside the wire. And that is something
we cannot afford to do. We are fundamentally stronger than our enemies in this
new global conflict. But we lose our strength the day we refuse to stand by our
own people. Someone failed our people in Benghazi and that should be something
we as a people take very seriously. We should take it as an affront to our
personal honor as Americans. But maybe we are not the people we used to be.
Maybe America really doesn’t care for its people outside the wire. Maybe
Benghazi just isn’t important enough for a political discussion anymore.
[i]
from the Peter Fenn article in US News, “Mitt Romney's Disgraceful Politicizing
of Libya Tragedy”. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/Peter-Fenn/2012/09/12/mitt-romneys-disgraceful-politicizing-of-libya-tragedy
[ii]
from the Peter Fenn article in US News, “Mitt Romney's Disgraceful Politicizing
of Libya Tragedy”. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/Peter-Fenn/2012/09/12/mitt-romneys-disgraceful-politicizing-of-libya-tragedy
No comments:
Post a Comment