What has Changed One-Year After the US Defeat at Benghazi?

One year ago today our consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attacked and our Ambassador, Chris Stevens, was killed along with three other former members of the US Special Forces who defied orders to stand down and died trying to protect him and his staff. The mainstream media and much of our ruling class has attempted to hide the details and, moreover, the meaning of this event. But much has been begrudgingly divulged.

For example, we now know that it was not a spontaneous attack issued by an unruly mob of Muslims enraged by an obscure internet video but a coordinated attack by an al Qaeda affiliate armed with high-powered sophisticated weaponry.  We also know that Obama, Mrs. Clinton, and various other members of the administration lied repeatedly about the true nature of the attack, and did so just weeks before the presidential election, thereby influencing the outcome of the election.  We now know that, at the outset of the attack, desperate calls were made from Libya to the White House asking for help and that Secretaries Clinton and Panetta met with Obama and briefed him on the attack. We even know that while the fighting raged, Obama never once went down to the situation room to see for himself what was happening.

What we don’t know is what was said by Clinton and Panetta to the Commander in Chief, what were his orders, what did he do for the roughly eight hours that remained of the fighting, who gave the order to “stand down,” and why.  Bound up in the reason why Obama and his team lied about the source and nature of the attack is very likely the same reason why this administration, one year later, has made no attempt kill or capture any of the al Qaeda fighters, some of whom openly hang out in Libyan cafes overlooking the Mediterranean and give TV interviews to al Jazeera.

What are the Wages of Obama’s Foreign Policy Failures and Deceit?

In my book, Lessons from Fallen Civilizations, I develop a list of ten immutable principals that contribute the fall of great empires.  My IMMUTABLE #1 reads,

 

LarryKelley.com - No nation has ever survived once its citizenry ceased to believe its culture worth saving


LarryKelley.com – No nation has ever survived once its citizenry
ceased to believe its culture worth saving

 

Both the independent Greek poleis and the Roman Empire of the West fell because they could no longer muster armies necessary to repel invaders. Now that our president has painted himself into a corner with his rhetorical bravado, with his statement regarding the “red line” that Syria must not cross, and his ridiculous “shot across the bow” comment, Members of Congress have been shocked by how few Americans support military action. A Reuter’s poll had support for his military engagement all the way down to 20%.

One could reasonably argue that Americans have not yet given up on American culture but that they do not want their sons and daughters put in harm’s way under this Commander in Chief.  As Peggy Noonan wrote, “…wrong time, wrong place, wrong plan, wrong man.”

After twelve years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, this president has managed to lose the peace in both countries. Despite thousands of American dead lost for their liberation, Iraqis and Afghans are rapidly becoming our enemies. Given this horrific waste of the lives of our sons and daughters, how can this country continue to ask their younger brothers and sisters to answer the call to arms? How can we ask them to serve under a president who is more concerned with settling scores with his political enemies than consolidating our hard-won gains relative to this nation’s security and national interests?

Coalition forces cross a river during a mission near the village of Siah Choy west of Kandahar in Zhari district May 1, 2008. (REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic)


Coalition forces cross a river during a mission near the village of Siah Choy west of Kandahar in Zhari district May 1, 2008. (REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic)

Obamas Deceit and Failures Have the Region in Flames

Egypt: President George W. Bush once reflected that conducting American foreign policy was like playing chess in three dimensions. In Egypt, seeing their youth flooding into the squares of Cairo, Obama naively thought he could be the proxy president of the so-called Arab Spring. He decided to throw Mubarak overboard, the man to whom the US had for decades paid billions in order to keep the peace with Israel.

Next the Egyptians elected Mohammad Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood hardline Islamist. He promptly destroyed the Egyptian economy and stood by while Brotherhood loyalists burnt down Christian Churches, schools, and homes.  In the space of one year the Egyptian military, with the help of millions of secularist marchers, ousted the first duly elected leader in Egypt’s six-thousand year history.  Good pick, Mr. President. You own it.

Tunisia: Three years after Mohammad Bouazizi set himself on fire putting in motion what many pundits were once calling the Arab Spring, the Tunisians find themselves ruled by a rabid Islamist, Rashid Ghannouchi, head of the Ennahda party, a Muslim Brotherhood front group.  With opposition party leaders being assassinated and the economy in shambles, Tunisians are back out in the streets demanding that the Ennahda thugs go.

Libya: When Gadhafi saw George Bush take down Sadam Hussein’s regime, he turned over his entire nuclear weapons program to the US.  It seems doubtful that Obama or anyone else in his inner circle has considered the fact that when this president blithely backed the overthrow of Gadhafi, he has made it highly unlikely that Assad will give up his chemical weapons. Obama’s treatment of Gadhafi is just one more reminder that Obama’s America can’t be trusted.

Today Libya is a lawless country harboring unknown numbers of al Qaeda affiliates.

A Highly Damaged Commander in Chief

Naval Officer Protesting on Facebook. Photo Source: Facebook.com


Naval Officer Protesting on Facebook. Photo Source: Facebook.com

What has changed over the year since Benghazi is that, due Obama’s insouciance and duplicity, he is losing his ability to be the Commander in Chief.  Photos of  American rank and file military holding signs stating that they refuse to fight on the side of al Qaeda have exploded on social media.  One post alone generated 16,000 shares on Facebook. The rank and file also know Obama let it be known that it was SEAL Team Six which killed bin Laden, putting all the men in the unit and their families in grave and perpetual danger.

Major General Robert Scales, former commandant of the Army War College recently wrote a scathing article for the Washington Post in which he describes the growing discontent among military leaders regarding Obama’s reckless combination of dithering and bravado.

In the Spring of 410 AD, a large army of Goths and Roman deserters surrounded the city of Rome.  The feckless Roman Emperor, Honorius who had escaped to Ravenna, sent a contingent of 4,000 legionnaires to help defend the city.  They never showed up.  The city was sacked for the first time in 800 years and the civilized world was shocked.  The consequences of highly flawed leadership during a time of war are almost always profound.

 

By | 2017-02-28T07:31:07-08:00 September 11th, 2013|News From the Front|5 Comments

About the Author:

Larry Kelley’s life was utterly changed by 9/11. On the day after the attacks, on his way to work, he was struck by the sudden realization that World War III had commenced. Like most Americans he desperately wanted to find out who were these people who attacked us, what could ordinary citizens do to join the battle and how can those plotting to kill us in future attacks be defeated. Mr. Kelley has written scores of columns on the dangers of western complacency.

5 Comments

  1. WillofLa September 22, 2013 at 6:43 pm

    In the first few months after Bill Clinton took office for the first time in 1993, one of the first things he did was remove the ban on Muslins coming into the U.S.. Ten years later we had 9-11 made up of Muslin jihadists who came here afer the ban was lifted, and could not have come here unless the ban had been lifted. Why didn’t George Bush reinstate the ban after we were attack? Why, instead did Bush run as fast as he could to the big mosque in D.C. to tell the mulah’s there that we were not at war with Islam? Really? Islam is at war with us, why aren’t we at war with them?

    I can tell you that with these young people these days being taught multiculturalism in school as young as kindergarden the statement that America would be a pushover is a understatement. there is one thing the jihadists are not taking into concideration and that is there are 40 million arem American’s in this nation and the military would probably help and no telling how many police to to defend this country against this Islamic scum attempt at takeover. We have been very naive in how we are defending our country’s sovereignty from it’s enemies, but ubless we destroy the Liberalism idea that we don’t need guns to be safe we will be a pushover.

  2. WillofLa September 22, 2013 at 6:59 pm

    Liberalism’s religion of nonaggression but at the same time destroy opponents to liberalism by any means necessary makes liberals hipocrits and liar’s when it comes to being “peaceful”. They are not and are the most ruthless and intellectually dishonest followers of this brand of Socialism there are. Liberalism glorifies our enemies and makes up stories about our founding fathers as racists and murderers of Blacks, when the facts are that liberals have mudered millions of the unborn to the point where it has become a multimillion dollar industry with partisipants like Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer. Socialist Democrats spend so much time plotting against TEA Party members and conservatives that they don’t have time to look at what Muslims are doing in this country. CIA and NSA eatimates that there are between 100 and 200 thousand Al Quaeda and Hamas terrorists training right here inside our borders preparing to destroy us and blow up the countryside.

    If you compared the number of IED’s that wrter set off in Iraq and Afghanistan at places of opportunities, the terrorists would never run out of places in America to kill hundreds of thousands of people.

  3. WillofLa September 22, 2013 at 7:11 pm

    I thought the CIA and the NSA were supposed to be these super patrots? Really? Then how can either one of them sit by idlely and let Obama give hundreds of millions of our dollars to the enemy, allow him to give our highest tech weapons to them, invite the Muslim Brotherhood to the White House and do absolutely nothing to put a stop to Obama and his aiding and abetting the enemy?? Patriots? I am calling then cowards right now!!

    CIA, NSA, do you want to prove me wrong? Then stopObama , clean out the jihadists from our country, and restore our nations security. If you don’t I believe you are nothing but the rogue organization many who know more than me say you are. That you are just a bunch of mercenaries going for the highest dollar. Spying on us? Why aren’t you thumbing your nose at the liberals political correctness and bugging every mosque and iman’s house and car there are in this country? But instead we here that you are spying on grandma and her bingo plans for the weekend?

  4. WillofLa September 23, 2013 at 2:14 pm

    There was a big hoopla about why Obama didn’t respond to the pleas of help from the embassy, and why didn’t aobama, Hillery, or Peneta respond regardless of the urgency of those pleas. Here’s the reason. Months before the attack, in around right after Kadafi was killed Obama made a DEAL with the Al Quaeda led Lybian Security Forces to protect our embassy and our personnel there. Now, tie all this together: Obama wouldn’t order military forces into the area to rescue our people, He wouldn’t give Peneta or Hillary permission to launch air support into the area to keep terrorist off our people’s back on the ground until the rescue forces could get there, Obama wouldn’t stay in the situation room to monitor all that to make sure our people got out.

    Obama and his deals with Muslim Brotherhood and their affiliates is the reason why Islamists think that America is a push over when it comes to taking control of this country and that is under our present leadership the Muslim Brotherhood gets all they want from this so called President.

    When reporters managed to ask Obama about the attacks in Benghazi a couple of days after wards, they asked Obama after one of his campaign stops, they asked him where was our forces? He slipped up and let the truth out at that moment and said, “I made a deal with the Lybian Security Forces to pro tect our people.” They then quickly followed up on the first question and asked him, “So why was there an attack, where was the Lybian Security Forces agreement?” And Obama said rather bluntly, “It didn’t happen.”

    That is why our people died is because Obama made a deal with Al Quaeda terrorists to protect our people, and Obama actually believed they wouldn’t let anything happen to them because Obama trusted Muslim terrorists?

  5. WillofLa September 23, 2013 at 2:28 pm

    From that day on was when Obama went on the “It was a video against Muhammed that caused this attack.” bull you-know-what tour. He had to cover up the fact that he trusted the Muslim Brotherhood and they lied to him, and that is what he is covering up the whole mess because he is the reason why our people died that night and according to law he would be arrested right then and there for aiding and abetting the enemy which is treason and he knows it and that is one reason why he won’t let the suirvivors be questioned by Congress. Also I heard that Steven’s was going to blow the whistle on Obama that he was using our embassy to ship guns to Obama’s friends in Syria and Obama couldn’t let that happen so Obama let Al Quaeda kill him so the story wouldn’t get out. Now, that is the height of depotism if I ever heard of it. And according to the Constitution we the people now have the right to order his removal. The military has the authority to go into the oval office and arrest him on the spot, and that would be without any silliness about revolutions. It would be done according to the law and the Constitution.

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