Mourning Benghazi and Missing Bush
English: President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama meet in the Oval Office of the White House Monday, November 10, 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Since I woke up to the breaking news yesterday about the Benghazi terrorist attack I’m more fired up than I’ve been since the original 9/11. Actually, that September Tuesday in 2001 doesn’t really count because I wasn’t fired up until the shock wore off a few weeks later. I was more like a zombie after the three planes hit the Towers and the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. My first thought was to get to my children, who were still in school. My second thought was, well, I’m not even sure I had a coherent thought until that night when President Bush spoke to the nation from the Oval Office. As Americans, we needed to know that we were safe. We needed to know that despite the tragedy, we had a leader we could trust. I stood up in my living room and watched George W. Bush tell us that we had been “attacked in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts” and that “thousands of lives were ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.” He spoke of our quiet anger and American resolve, and somehow I stood a little taller. The tears really flowed when President Bush said, “America was targeted for attack because we are the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world, and no one will keep that light from shining.” I’m still brought to tears when I watch that speech eleven years later.
What a difference eleven years make. On September 11, 2012, America was again the target of a terrorist attack. Only this time, it could have and should have been prevented. And this time, we have a president who cannot even bring himself to say the words “terrorist attack.” He doesn’t even believe in our exceptionalism. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some level he believes we deserve to be taken down.
How did we go from American resolve to America bending over? I am beyond disgusted.
The breaking news I’m talking about is that, no thanks to the White House, the State Department or the mainstream media, we now know the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya was well planned and executed. We also now know that the White House knew exactly what happened a mere 20 minutes after the first strike. Emails were obtained by Reutersthat show Washington was privy to events as they unfolded. The article states,
“The first email, timed at 4:05 p.m. Washington time – or 10:05 p.m. Benghazi time, 20-30 minutes after the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission allegedly began – carried the subject line “U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack” and the notation “SBU”, meaning “Sensitive But Unclassified.”
Two hours and two minutes after the first one, a third email stated that terrorist group “Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack.”
Yet, president Obama didn’t bother to address the nation until late the next afternoon, and only then to blame an obscure, irrelevant, hardly been seen YouTube video about the “religion of peace” a/k/a Islam. Not that we should be surprised since he blames everything and everyone for anything that goes wrong. The buck never stopped at his desk. Luckily for him, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been standing behind him for three and a half years catching the buck as it whizzes by his ears. Not that she handled Benghazi-Gate much better, but at least she took responsibility for the fiasco. On his radio show yesterday morning, Glenn Beck reported that not only did the White House know about the attack almost immediately and sent a drone into the area, but that there was also a live video feed of the whole thing being broadcast in the West Wing’s Situation Room. Beck stated,
“An hour after he leaves, the fight begins. We now know that the White House– somebody, the military, somebody, sent a drone. So there was a live video feed of what was going on. They’re watching it in the State Department, they’re watching it at the Pentagon, they’re watching it at Langley, and they’re watching it in the Situation Room. At 5:00 in the afternoon, Leon Panetta has a meeting with the president of the United States. The first email comes at 4:05. So the Secretary of Defense arrives at the White House to have a meeting with the president 55 minutes after the Situation Room and everybody else gets an email saying, ‘Libya, the safe house is under attack.”
Journalist Bing West of the National Review reported on October 21, 2012 that:
“A U.S. ambassador is missing and his diplomatic team is desperately fighting off terrorist attacks. Our commander-in-chief and his national-security team in Washington are listening to the phone calls from the Americans under attack and watching real-time video from a drone circling overhead. Yet the U.S. military sends no aid. Why?”
“Our diplomats fought for seven hours without any aid from outside the country. Four Americans died while the Obama national-security team and our military passively watched and listened.”
Most disturbing of all, Mr. Bing wrote:
“In the past, presidents had taken immediate actions to protect Americans. In 1984, President Reagan had ordered U.S. pilots to force an airliner carrying terrorists to land at Sigonella. Reagan had acted inside a 90-minute window while the aircraft with the terrorists was in the air. The Obama national-security team had several hours in which to move forces from Sigonella to Benghazi.”
“Fighter jets could have been at Benghazi in an hour; the commandos inside three hours. If the attackers were a mob, as intelligence reported, then an F18 in afterburner, roaring like a lion, would unnerve them. This procedure was applied often in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Conversely, if the attackers were terrorists, then the U.S. commandos would eliminate them. But no forces were dispatched from Sigonella.”
As reported several days ago by the Washington Times in Ambassador Stevens warned of Islamic extremism before Benghazi consulate attack, “In a diplomatic cable in June, the U.S. ambassador to Libya cited the rise of “Islamic extremism” and displays of “the Al-Qaeda flag” over buildings outside the city of Benghazi, where he and three other Americans would be killed in a terrorist attack on Sept. 11,” and that a homemade bomb had been launched into the consulate compound on June 25th. What did Obama do? Absolutely nothing! Further documents revealed that Stevens had complained about the lack of security, but “made no reference of any American attempt to investigate the June attack.” Less than three months later, Ambassador Stevens was brutally and savagely sodomized, suffocated and had his body dragged through the streets of Benghazi by terrorists.
And yet, it took Obama two weeks to grudgingly agree that it might have been a terrorist attack. It doesn’t get any more despicable than that.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has thrown herself on her sword by accepting responsibility for the whole enchilada. Author Ed Klein told Glenn Beck yesterday:
“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered additional security for the U.S. mission in Benghazi ahead of the terrorist attack but the orders were never carried out, according to “legal counsel” to Clinton who spoke to best-selling author Ed Klein. Those same sources also say former President Bill Clinton has been “urging” his wife to release official State Department documents that prove she called for additional security at the compound in Libya, which would almost certainly result in President Obama losing the election”
“While Bill Clinton wishes his wife would “exonerate” herself by releasing the documents that show she wasn’t at fault for the tragic security failure in Libya, the Secretary of State refuses to do so because she doesn’t want to be viewed as a traitor to the Democrat party.”
Mr. Klein went on to explain:
“If the claims turn out to be true and Clinton did suggest more security be sent to Benghazi, it is appropriate to ask: why didn’t it happen?”
Klein said Clinton’s request for beefed up security would have to go through CIA special ops and or the Pentagon.
“But none of that would happen with the National Security Advisor to the president of the United States Tom Donnellan going to the president and saying, ‘We want to send reinforcements to Libya because our ambassador is in jeopardy,’” Klein explained.
“Ultimately, he indicated the ultimate authority would have been President Obama.”
We now know how that turned out.
I have no words to describe the utter disgust I am feeling about this heinous crime and the subsequent denial and cover up by the person who is supposed to be our president. Bilious rage is more like it. There is nothing even remotely presidential about him and I cannot wait until the day he vacates our White House. The blood of Christopher Stevens is on Obama’s hands, and there will be no justice until he is forced to answer for his actions. Or, I should say, inaction.
Liberals will argue that Bush went to war and tens of thousands of Americans and a hundred thousand Iraqis were killed. They claim he lied about Iraq having Weapons of Mass Destruction. By comparison, liberals obviously think that the loss of four American lives is no big deal. To that argument I will remind them that Bush was attempting to enforce a UN resolution and that he declared war with Congressional approval and a coalition of nations. Nearly every Democrat voted to go to war and they all believed that Sadaam Hussein had WMDs. As CNN reported on October 11, 2002:
“In a major victory for the White House, the Senate early Friday voted 77-23 to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refuses to give up weapons of mass destruction as required by U.N. resolutions.
Hours earlier, the House approved an identical resolution, 296-133.”
The president praised the congressional action, declaring “America speaks with one voice.”
“The Congress has spoken clearly to the international community and the United Nations Security Council,” Bush said in a statement. “Saddam Hussein and his outlaw regime pose a grave threat to the region, the world and the United States. Inaction is not an option, disarmament is a must.”
I did not vote for George W. Bush the first time. I ended up regretting it. I did vote for him the second time. Unfortunately, I ended up regretting that, too. If he were to run again, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat. As much as I became disappointed in President Bush near the end of his second term, the last four years have made me realize that at least with Bush, we had a REAL PRESIDENT at the head of the table. With “W” at the helm, I felt safe on American soil.
With Obama occupying our White House, I feel like a sitting duck. The next terrorist attack could be as close as Fort Hood, or even (God forbid!) Fort Lauderdale.
Once the shock of 9/11 started wearing off, I thanked God for the man in the White House that I didn’t vote for, but for whom I grew to have immense respect.
The last four years have been a complete nightmare. I’m missing Bush more than ever.
God Bless George W. Bush, and God Bless America.
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