One hundred seventy-six years ago, a hostile military force using heavy weapons laid siege to a foreign outpost populated by a small garrison of American soldier-citizens and indigenous civilians. In the months preceding the battle, the garrison’s acting commander, Colonel James Neill made repeated pleas of his government for additional men and supplies, insisting attack was imminent and he could not defend his position against so great an opposing force. His requests were denied. Instead, a token force eventually arrived to evacuate the garrison and destroy cannon and materiele deemed useful to the enemy. While so engaged, the relief force came under attack, an epic and heroic battle ensued; to the last man as legend has it.
Strategically, the battle carried little import to the outcome of the Texas Revolution, or the Mexican-American War that followed a decade later. But as a lightening rod to galvanize a nation, the Alamo knew no peer.
The parallel to events leading to the Consulate attack in Benghazi are noteworthy. Our government was forewarned of looming danger, the likelihood of attack, and yet withheld measures to secure the compound and protect its occupants – before, during, and even after the attack. The State Department’s Regional Security Officer, Eric Nordstrom, in the months preceding the assault, did his job in sounding the alarm that circumstances on the ground, post-Qaddafi, had become unstable; that local militia had become influenced by hostile, anti-American militants. He believed the compound a target. Ambassador Christopher Stevens concurred.
None of this sat well with the State Department and the administration it served. After all, Libya was a foreign policy success story: the US military (led? joined? followed?) a coalition of uncertain, benevolent, western allies; and with the approval of regional, moderate, despotic regimes, forcibly removed a dictator who had threatened reprisals against poorly-armed rebels seeking his ouster. That such a good cause could somehow deteriorate into a lawless environment lacking central governance, and instead empower a militia-state armed beyond reason, was an unsettling election-year narrative. Compounding the intervention’s outcome was the disconcerting realization that America’s sworn enemy, al-Qaeda linked terrorists, had now gained foothold within Libya (something Qaddafi’s regime actively prevented), infiltrated some militia, and/or established a fighting force of their own.
But the administration had assured the American electorate for more than a year that al-Qaeda was on the run; no longer capable of waging war on the US and its allies. They pointed to increased cross-border drone attacks that expanded America’s reach into several sovereign nations where al-Qaeda operatives sought refuge, effectively killing our enemies without extending ground troops into new theaters. Bin-Laden had been killed. America had been kept safe on Obama’s watch; the President deserved both credit and a second term for that. There were no terrorist attacks on America. That was the re-election narrative.
Except there were attacks on America. But Fort Hood was labeled workplace violence, and the Christmas bomber in Detroit and the Times Square bomber in New York were characterized as thwarted. But not really. The underwear bomb on the plane malfunctioned and the car bomb in New York was spotted by a passerby. Either case could have easily gone the other way. Neither Fort Hood, Detroit, nor New York were initially identified by the administration as a terror attack on our soil; the Fort Hood gunman was a “deeply disturbed individual”, and the underwear bomber was a “lone wolf” with no links to terrorist organizations, and the Times Square bomber was an “amateur acting alone”. When you consider that this administration is loathe to label attacks upon America by radical Muslim extremists for what they are, then one can see a history and better understand how a coordinated military assault by enemies believed vanquished, could be classified as a riot. That smugness, that dissembling of information, the ambiguity and the prevarication about all things terror group-related is deeply worrisome. Doubly so since the national media, despite a record of deceit from this administration, challenges so little that emanates from it, and either castigates or ridicules those who dare.
In the months leading up to the September 11th attack, the Consulate withstood two separate bombing attacks, and relayed through channels specific threats and plots directed against Western targets. Nordstrom’s requests for increasing security forces was denied. As was Nordstrom’s request to forestall a planned decrease in US security personnel. Some five weeks before the attack, Lt. Colonel Andrew Wood was ordered (over his objection) to withdraw his site security team leaving five Diplomatic Security agents and the Libyan 17th February Brigade, which at the time of the attack comprised three troops, to defend the compound. In fairness, permission was granted to augment the Libyan forces, although the means to do so remains unclear.
Back in 1836, and without on-the-ground Intel from sit-reps, emails, land-line communications, and video feeds, Sam Houston did at least send Colonel Travis and 30 men to the Alamo to do something constructive. The Obama administration would no doubt point to the demise of Travis’ expedition as demonstrative of exactly why it chose to stand down. But in the aftermath, this administration has yet to give a complete and rational accounting of the attack. The President, speaking from the Rose Garden on September 12th before heading to Las Vegas for a fund raiser, tells us he did indeed reference the attack on the Benghazi Consulate as a terrorist act. The context and ambiguity of his statement that day can be parsed by partisans to support or discredit his claim, but his spokesperson Jay Carney did not convey this message at any time in the days that followed. Carney’s best assessment, based on “what he knew”, was that the attack was a spontaneous mob action in response to a US-made anti-Islamist internet video. The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, seemingly went out of her way on a grand scale to publicly endorse the video-caused-it scenario, based on “everything we now know”, five days after we surely knew differently. The President made no further mention of a terrorist act following the Rose Garden allusion. He did reference the video, still being cited by Carney, six times during his UN speech two weeks after they knew better, but did not label it a terrorist attack against America in front of the world body. A month later, on the Letterman Show, he did acknowledge terrorists leveraged the tumult over the video to stage their attack.
It took more than a month for us to learn that they knew plenty more; and knew at the time they said they didn’t know. We now know there was live-time video feeds of the attack streaming into the White House Situation Room, the State Department, CIA headquarters, and the Pentagon. We now know situation reports were conveyed via email to over 400 recipients throughout the tentacles of government that night detailing a coordinated assault by an organized military force. Yet absent vocal demonstrators and anti-American banners, slogans and flag-burning, this administration chose to label the event a likely mob action that got out of control, perhaps hijacked by armed militants. Based on what, exactly?
In an ill-timed, and at best under-informed statement, Presidential candidate Mitt Romney took umbrage at what he characterized as an apologetic tone by the administration, but presciently cast doubt that a spontaneous mob could pack such firepower. The President’s surrogates immediately assailed Romney’s statement as political opportunism, shamelessly exploiting a national tragedy, and Romney’s camp (sadly) stepped back. Such is the power and predilection of the national media to chase the wrong story.
Eventually, in a magnanimous gesture reminiscent of Janet Reno’s taking responsibility for Waco, Hillary Clinton, on the eve of a hastily-called House Congressional Investigation, stepped forward to take responsibility for the Consulate’s vulnerability and the loss of life. Not, however, for the wrong-headed foreign policy that saw this administration funnel arms to suspect end-users, or the folly to militarily depose a regime that practiced a non-hostile disposition toward US interests in the past decade. All done in the hopes of currying favor in the Mideast and North Africa, and in no small part, to protect Western Europe’s vital oil interests. No, the Secretary of State stated she now knew this to be a terrorist act and had concluded such for some time, even as the administration clung to an alternate reality. When and how and through whom this realization crystallized for her, she did not say.
Once Ms. Clinton laid that marker down, the administration stumbled into line, discounting the internet video and blaming terrorist organizations within the al-Qaeda umbrella. When questions persisted on how they could get it so wrong, reach such unfounded and unsupported conclusions, senior officials pointed to the “fog of war” and the uncertainties of a situation in flux. Vice President Joe Biden told the American people during the vice presidential debate that the administration had simply gotten bad intelligence. No they didn’t. The intelligence they had was gleaned from live video in real time in constant communication with those dying on the ground. His opponent, Paul Ryan, might have pointed out as much. No knock on Ryan; Romney inexplicably failed to take the President to task over Benghazi a week later. To this day Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says that the military lacked sufficient information, and that putting forces at risk was too dangerous. Criticism of that assessment he labels as Monday-morning quarterbacking. CIA Director David Petraeus’s low profile remains a curiosity, weeks after the Vice President laid blame at his Langley doorstep.
Where this “bump in the road” shall lead is difficult to tell. That as new reports emerge that clarify presidential and cabinet-level complicity in a cover-up, or illustrate massive chain-of-command ineptitude, or simply point to more failures of intelligence, will the electorate hold the administration accountable? Will the families of the dead press, and press loud enough, for answers? Will the survivors (surely there had to be some, but who they are and where they are remains unasked) speak out and tell their side? The administration promises those responsible will be held accountable; a sentiment perhaps expressed absent self-reflection. But to date, only the “filmmaker” has been jailed.
And what of the heroes? Of Stevens and Smith, dead at their posts. Of Doherty and Woods, defiant of orders and yet morally compelled to rescue comrades under fire. Dauntlessly they, and their tiny contingent of outgunned (and unknown) American warriors of the highest caliber, repelled the assault – some reports saying in excess of four hours – on the Annex compound. Their living legacy is manifested in the thirty lives they saved that night. Will school children a generation from now know their names, read of their bravery, the way we learned of Crockett and Bowie and Travis?
Is there anyone in this administration that will draw strength from their courage and their sacrifice to stand up and set the record straight, for the good of the nation?
What of the President’s legacy in this? Does he get another “bye” this time?
Where in God’s name is the outrage?
Published November 10, 2012 . The Free-Lance Star, Fredericksburg, VA