This November, Remember the Benghazi Four
As far as cemeteries go, Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in the Point Loma
area of San Diego is likely among the most beautiful and pristine. Its bright
green grass extends to the deep-water San Diego Bay on one side and the vast
Pacific Ocean on the other. Over 100,000 upright, identical marble headstones
lie in meticulous order, marking the final resting places of brave American
veterans from the Mexican-American War of 1846-1847 through the present.
One of these graves belongs to an American hero, Tyrone S. Woods, who should still be alive. Woods, who served the United States for over two decades in the
U.S. Navy Seals, the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service and
ultimately as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) contract agent, was killed in
an attack by Islamic militants in Benghazi, Libya on the evening of September
11, 2012. Three other U.S. officials, U.S. Foreign Service officer Sean Smith,
fellow CIA contract agent Glen Doherty, and U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher
Stevens also were killed.
The story of Benghazi, like many of the Obama administration’s other policy
failures, is tragic and angering for many reasons, but especially because it
was preventable. Prior to the attacks, the Obama administration, including then
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was warned repeatedly that the Benghazi
compound was highly vulnerable to such an attack and in urgent need of
additional security. The requests for additional security never
came. Then, on the evening of September 12, the Obama administration was
asked repeatedly by U.S. officials in Libya for permission to intervene against
the Benghazi terrorists. Like the additional security, that request also was
denied. And then, following the attack, the Obama administration lied to the
American people about the fact that Benghazi was undeniably a terrorist attack
(coming, in fact, on the 11th anniversary of the September 11,
2001 attacks).
On January 15, encouragingly, the true story of Benghazi was unveiled in
brilliant detail in the new film 13 Hours,
directed by Michael Bay (who directed Transformers, Armageddon, Pearl
Harbor and other successful films).
Americans should make a point of seeing this extraordinary film—and for
many reasons. On the most basic level, 13 Hours tells the
story of Benghazi with granular accuracy. On a deeper level, though, it’s
really the story of the heroic instincts of five Americans in Libya who
compassionately and heroically sought to intervene to save their fellow
Americans under siege that day and the Obama administration, which found such
an effort a political inconvenience two months prior to the 2012 presidential
election and refused their requests.
In the days following the attack of Islamic extremists in Benghazi, the Obama
administration misled the American people repeatedly, stating that the Benghazi
attack was unrelated to terrorism when they knew undeniably it was terrorism.
“Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an al-Qaeda-like group,” then
Secretary of State Clinton emailed her daughter Chelsea at 11:12pm the night of
the Benghazi attack. The following day, Clinton told Egyptian Prime Minister
Hesham Qandil that “the attack had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned
attack, not a protest.”
These were the lies of Benghazi. But there also were lies
about the War on Terror more generally, which the Obama administration sought
(for political expediency) to say was being won. It was a theme (and a
lie) central to Obama’s 2012 campaign—and one the administration continues to
tell to this day.
As we’ve learned painfully in the years since Benghazi, al-Qaeda, ISIS
and other terrorist movements around the world have expanded significantly on
the Obama administration’s watch, largely because the administration set
arbitrary, self-imposed deadlines for the removal of American troops in
Afghanistan and Iraq and because it failed (and still fails) to have the
fortitude necessary to confront radical Islamic terrorism decisively, or even
to utter its name.
In recent months, following attacks in Paris and San Bernardino and just
a few weeks ago in Philadelphia, the Obama administration has continued to go to
great lengths to deny the reality that these and other terrorist incidents are
connected, coordinated and conducted in the name of Islam.
The story of 13 Hours tells how they did the same in
Benghazi, ordering American officials to stand down in their effort to save
fellow Americans under siege and then lying about Benghazi’s etiology, seeking
to depict it as some spontaneous outrage against an anti-Islamic film that
never happened. The American people were sold these lies by U.S. Ambassador to
the United Nations Susan Rice, who promptly took to Sunday talk shows to say
Benghazi was not an act of terrorism and ultimately by then U.S. Secretary of
State and current presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who brazenly lied to the families of these four fallen American heroes as their remains were
returned to Andrews Air Force Base three days after the attack.
Politically, the Obama administration ultimately succeeded in permitting
enough doubt to surround Benghazi that it became largely a non-factor in
Obama’s November 6, 2012 reelection. But reality has a way of fighting back,
and the reality of Benghazi is now reaching the American people with one of
this year’s greatest films, communicating with impeccable accuracy the betrayal of the Benghazi four.
