Saturday, May 11, 2013

Benghazi Matters

Finally, 8 months after the murder of four Americans in Benghazi and six months after the election, the media is grudgingly becoming interested at least one leg of the Benghazi scandal - whether the administration lied to the nation in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack. The Obama administration succeeded in their number one priority, running out the clock on Benghazi prior to the election, and since has taken the dual positions that this is all a "political witch hunt" and, in the case of Hillary, that their potential misdeeds or stunning incompetence do not "matter." Reason's Nick Gillespie does a very good short response listing the reasons why it matters:

That is a good summary, but in at least one respect, it provides nowhere near enough emphasis. The worst thing our government has done, under Bush and now exponentially more so under Obama, is to obfuscate the dangerous problems with Islam, and in particular, the dogma and tenets of Wahhabi Islam - the most radical, xenophobic, triumphalist and retrograde force in the world today. It is not that al Qaeda or the brothers Tsarnaev and their ilk are following a perversion of Islam, it is that they are true believers in all the dogma of Wahhabi Islam. Obama - and indeed, most on the left, want to pretend that radical Islam is a rare outlier rather than the single most dominant form of Islam today. I've pontificated on this til I am blue in the face, but suffice it to say, until the problem is addressed honestly and openly, it will not go away, far more Americans will die, and Wahhabi Islam will continue to metastasize throughout the world.

Within that rubric, the causes of the attack in Benghazi, as well as the criminal refusal to provide security commensurate to the threat, matter very much indeed. It goes to the heart of the national security issue of our time - the threat to our nation and our lives from radical Islamists. If Benghazi was merely a rogue movie review conducted with violence that could not be predicted, then the administration really cannot be faulted. If, however, Benghazi represents a failure to accurately see and gauge the threat, than the Benghazi attack is the canary in the coal mine - the warning that, over a decade on from 9-11, we are still not on the track. And that is the most important reason Benghazi matters.





3 comments:

Ex-Dissident said...

If Obama, having been educated at a madrasa, really believes that Wahhabi Islam is some rare outlier, then he is one of the dumbest men on this planet. He knows exactly what mainstream Islam represents, he likely heard and understood the condemnation of our dead SEALS at their funeral, and these facts do not bother him one bit. There is your problem. Tsarnaevs did have lots of help and those aiding them are sitting inside our White House.

At this point, I don't know how any American can go into battle for such a treasonous commander.

GW said...

What Obama saw in Indonesia - the Shafi'i school of Sunni Islam prevalent in Indonesia during Obama's time there - was a far more benign form of Islam than the Wahhabism giving rise to Islamic radicalism and that is, indeed, overrunning Indonesia as we speak. Things we learn as children often stick with us, so it is no surprise to me that Obama came into power with a blind spot.

But he simply has ignored reality since. That is because he is a pure ideologue and thus refuses to see any reality that challenges his ideology. Such people make for disastrous leaders, at least the more unchecked power they have.

Moreover, no one is challenging him, and the politicians are taking their cue from him throughout the administration - the highest members of the military included. It is sickening.

What happened at the SEAL funeral was an obscenity.

Ex-Dissident said...

Sorry GW, but you're being too kind to Obama. This is the same man who was best friends with a terrorist that got his start in life by planting bombs filled with nails - Bill Ayers. This is the same Obama who mingled with Khalidi and attended a dinner where Islamist terrorists were praised. This is the same Obama that has been instrumental to helping Muslim brotherhood take over Egypt, Libya, and now working on Syria. Honestly, I don't know what he would be doing differently if he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood himself.