The Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi, Libya terrorist attack left four Americans dead including our ambassador, destroyed our consulate, compromised sensitive information, and made America look weak. This story lingers because it is a barometer on President Barack Obama’s competence.
The Benghazi attack exposed Obama’s foreign policy record as hollow and his government as incompetent. Specifically, he claims to have decimated al Qaeda and liberated Libya for democracy, but the facts leading up to, during and after the Benghazi attack eviscerate those “victories” and reveal a shocking picture of Obama’s poor governance.
There are key questions associated with the Benghazi saga exposing Obama’s performance.
Why wasn’t our Benghazi consulate better secured?
Part of the answer is related to the administration’s denial that Benghazi is a haven for al Qaeda-associated Islamist That view is associated with the administration’s naive belief that just because America helped liberate Libya the threat is diminished and besides, al Qaeda is “decimated.” Further, administration officials ignored calls for help.
The truth is al Qaeda has been active in Benghazi for some time. In fact on Aug. 12, 2012 the Benghazi consulate staff hosted an “emergency meeting” concerning local al Qaeda training camps. And one of the Central Intelligence Agency’s missions in Benghazi was to track Islamist groups like Ansar al-Shariah, the al Qaeda affiliated group that attacked the embassy. In spite of Obama’s campaign declarations that al Qaeda was “decimated,” al Qaeda-linked groups thrive in Libya and were responsible for four of the top five lethal attacks globally in 2011.
Our consulate was not secure enough. Consulate officials warned about the deteriorating security in Benghazi for months prior to the Sept. 11 attack such as a bomb thrown into the consulate in April and another detonated outside the facility in June. There was even an assassination attempt on the British ambassador while he visited Benghazi this summer.
