The Cost of Politics

Not getting into Left Vs Right, Red vs Blue, or any of the other myriad of ways we've divided ourselves up as a country, we should be worried about Right vs Wrong.  You don't have to be GOP or DNC to have a monopoly on the discussion of Right and Wrong, but at the end of the day there is nothing surrounding the Benghazi testimony today that doesn't smack of plain wrong headedness. 

First off let's look at the prelude to the attack on September 11th 2012.  Why Ambassador Stevens was at the lightly defended consulate instead of the more heavily guarded embassy, is still debatable and we can't ask him.  What is not debatable is that the consulate and the embassy were one of only 14 critical risk posts of over 250 State Department posts, and yet despite that the secuirty was actually decreased despite repeated requests of nearly everyone who was there.    What is not debatable is the fact that the DoD could have responded in some fashion, even if they could not have prevented the first attack, they could have supported the CIA annex where Woods and Doherty were killed.  What's not debatable is that the administration, and the former Secretary of State attempted to downplay or shift focus away from the root causes of the attack, and attempted to mitigate the public outcry should a majority of the facts presented come to light. 

So here we are.  It is now May 8th 2013, almost 8 months later, and we're starting to find out some truly disturbing facts.  Namely that there were rescue attempts planned, but they were ordered to stand down by as yet unknown commanders.  We know that the security situation was well documented, and almost frantic e-mails were sent out to ask for heightened security presence.  We know that the Secretary of State herself had at leas some hand in the debacle.  But perhaps the most stunning thing of all is that despite the fact that there were some officers put on administrative leave (see: paid vacation) no one has been held accountable for the attack on September 11th 2012.  None of the terrorists, none of the beuracrats, none of the political apointees.  No one. 

To be honest when listening to the testimony I was stunned.  It was like listening to the idiocy of the Politburo from the Soviet Union.  the cold calculus that seems to have gone into this to avoid political fall out essentially boiled down to "do nothing and hope it resolves itself."  There is no other way to say this: we left our people to die.  It's all rather heartbreaking to a former service member to think that someone, could be left to the howling savages for political expediency, but this is where we are.

The worst part is that in a large part the political calculation actually worked.   Benghazi happened before the presidential election, and had the facts that are known now been known then I'm not sure President Obama would have been reelected.  The sheer scope of the cover up that has gone on since the attack should leave a lot of Americans wondering a lot of really painful questions about their government.  The continued white wash from the White House, and the emphasis that "it happened a long time ago" should have every American asking some serious questions about the man they elected to lead this country. 

But that's not what has happened.  Despite almost half of America thinking that there was a coverup or a flat out lie about what happened in Benghazi, most Americans are diverted by the trial of a woman so obviously guilty of first degree murder that we can't even really defend her.  America has become such an Attention Deficit nation that we have totally missed the horrendous mismanagement of our overseas diplomacy, and the war effort in Afghanistan.  We've totally ignored the continued slide of the economy, and the continued wracking up of a massive debt that would require serious curtailment of mandatory spending to fix.  We've totally ignored the heroes that walk amongst us, and more importantly the ones that are no longer with us.  America has its Idols.  If there is one thing that Benghazi has left me with aside from a further distaste for a media that refuses to cover important events, is the sure knowledge that the government is no longer of the People, because the People are too busy with twitter.