Four Americans went to Benghazi in service to their country. What happened afterward became a lesson in what occurs when political messaging becomes more important than plain truth.
Moments in American history matter more for their details than for their slogans. Benghazi is just one of those moments. On the night of September 11, 2012, Ambassador Christopher Stevens was inside the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, when heavily armed terrorists came through the gates.
They carried rifles, grenades, and other weapons. They stormed the compound. They broke into buildings. And when they could not penetrate the secure area of the ambassador’s residence, they set the building on fire.
Amb. Stevens and State Department officer Sean Smith were trapped inside. The smoke became so thick that Diplomatic Security agent Scott Wickland could barely see in front of him. Wickland tried to guide Stevens and Smith toward an emergency exit. He shouted. He crawled through the darkness. He went back into that smoke, trying to find them. Unfortunately, Stevens never made it out. Neither did Sean Smith.
The Justice Department later described how Stevens and Smith were overcome by the thick black smoke created when the attackers deliberately set the residence ablaze.
Think about that for a minute.
An American ambassador was suffocating inside a burning diplomatic facility on the anniversary of September 11.
This wasn’t some bureaucratic failure on a spreadsheet in Washington.
This was real. It was terrifying. And it was deadly.
Later that night, Americans Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were also killed during the attack on the nearby Annex.
Four Americans were gone. Then Washington started talking.
That is where Benghazi became something more than a tragedy.
It became a crisis of credibility.
Five days after the attack, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on national television and told Americans that the administration assessed that what happened in Benghazi had begun “spontaneously” as a reaction to events in Cairo surrounding an anti-Islam video. (This was also false) She said the administration did not then have information leading it to conclude the attack had been preplanned.
There was one enormous problem. The spontaneous argument. Benghazi protest she described did not happen. Let’s not forget weeks later when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was called up to Congress ââWas it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they would go kill some Americans? âWhat difference, at this point, does it make?â at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 23, 2013. I guess this is why she had her secret server in her basement. We will never know what was on the server about Benghazi.
The State Department’s independent Accountability Review Board later concluded explicitly that no protest took place before the attacks. They also found serious security failures, saying systemic leadership and management deficiencies within the State Department resulted in a security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and “grossly inadequate” for the attack that occurred. Also, how incompetent was the Obama State Department they didnât think to increase security at a diplomatic compound on 9-11. In country, they toppled a dictator who was playing ball with the US. Quadafi handed over his WMDs to the Bush Administration.
That should bother every American, regardless of party.
The morning after the attack, Obama spoke from the Rose Garden and said that “no acts of terror” would shake America’s resolve. Later that day in Las Vegas, he again used the phrase “act of terror.”
Those words are part of the record.
So is everything that followed.
The issue was never simply whether Barack Obama uttered the word “terror.” He did.
The issue was why, days after an assault involving armed extremists, burning buildings, and four dead Americans, senior administration officials were still presenting Americans with a story involving a spontaneous demonstration that investigators ultimately determined never occurred.
A later congressional investigation acknowledged that intelligence officials initially believed there may have been a protest, based partly on open-source reporting. The intelligence community subsequently revised that assessment. The same investigation noted that personnel who had actually been in Benghazi reported that they had seen no protest before the assault. Look it up for yourself:: the Obama administration’s not-ready-for-primetime examples are on display here. This was the 2 am phone call.
That distinction matters because words like lie carry weight. Can I prove what was inside Barack Obama’s mind every time he spoke about Benghazi? No. But I can surmise from his actions afterward.
But political accountability is not a courtroom proceeding where citizens must prove a president’s state of mind beyond a reasonable doubt before deciding whether their government misled them.
We can look at what happened We can look at what Americans were told. We can compare the two.
I believe the American people were sold a politically convenient version of Benghazi at a moment when the country was weeks away from a presidential election.
That is why I use the words ” Our President lied, and our Ambassador and three Americans died!
The documented facts are serious enough. The State Department’s own review found systemic failures. Security was inadequate. Four Americans died. A terrorist attack occurred. There was no spontaneous protest outside the Benghazi mission before the attack.
Yet days later, Americans heard senior administration officials describe precisely such a protest.
Somewhere beneath all the hearings, talking points, Sunday shows, campaign politics, and partisan shouting was Christopher Stevens.
A 52-year-old American diplomat.
A man crawling through a smoke-filled building trying to survive.
A security officer repeatedly going back inside, trying to save him.
A group of Libyans eventually finding the ambassador unconscious and carrying him to a hospital.
Doctors trying unsuccessfully to bring him back.
That is the part Washington should never have allowed to disappear beneath political spin.
Because Benghazi was never merely about Republicans versus Democrats.
It was about something much simpler.
When Americans die serving their country, their government owes their families and their fellow citizens the truth.
Not the most convenient explanation.
Not the best television talking point.
Not the version that causes the least political damage seven weeks before an election.
The truth.
Christopher Stevens deserved that.
Sean Smith deserved that.
Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty deserved that.
And the American people deserved it too.
ENDNOTES
1. U.S. Department of State, Accountability Review Board Report on Benghazi
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-S-PURL-gpo32374/pdf/GOVPUB-S-PURL-gpo32374.pdf
2. CBS News, âFace the Nationâ Transcript, Susan Rice, September 16, 2012
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/face-the-nation-transcripts-september-16-2012-libyan-pres-magariaf-amb-rice-and-sen-mccain/
3. White House Archives, President Obama’s Remarks on the Deaths of U.S. Embassy Staff in Libya, September 12, 2012
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/12/remarks-president-deaths-us-embassy-staff-Libya/
4. U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, âBenghazi: The Attacks and the Lessons Learned,â January 23, 2013
https://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/benghazi-the-attacks-and-the-lessons-learned
Carolyn Spencer is a contributing writer for Direct Line News.
Direct Line News is a Maryland-based free-access publication committed to the Republican reform tradition. Â
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