I've been following the Benghazi 'controversy' (who hasn't ?) for a while now. It's pretty hard to escape, what with that Congressional Investigative Committee, and various politicians of the Republican stripe trying to harvest some political hay using a Benghazi scythe.
So: a mob gathers outside one of our isolated consulate buildings, which may or may not have had an actual diplomatic purpose (might have just been a CIA front) and things get violent. Well, things were getting mobish and violent all around our consulates and embassies in that region at the time, after an anti-Islam video was released on the internet, and Muslims all over the world were pissed.
Local American security forces were mobilized, emails and phone lines and cables between there and Washington heated up, more resources were committed and began to saddle up, but before anyone can actually move, it's all over and four Americans were dead, including our Ambassador.
The Middle East is a violent and unpredictable place. Its full of, pardon me, thug regimes propped up by oil money and foreigners, including ourselves. And people in the Middle East have a history of attacking, sometimes successfully, our diplomatic and military presence in the area. In fact, one of the reasons Osama bin Laden was so determined to attack a target in the United States was that he was upset at American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. Troops who, two years after 9/11, were quietly withdrawn by Dubya Bush's minion Rumsfeld.
But, the attack in New York aside, in the past few decades, there have been scores of attacks on embassies, consulates, military barracks and places where Americans congregate. People were killed in these attacks.
Yet, except for 9/11, none of these attacks seem to have generated the attention that Benghazi has.
And I have a hard time understanding why this is so. But I might have an explanation, so follow me past the confused mass of swirling orange disruption...
Read More