What’s the big deal about how the administration chose to describe the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya? First of all, a consulate is considered the sovereign territory of the country whose consulate it is. That makes the attack not just a far away act of violence in North Africa. It is as much an attack on the United States as if it occurred in Washington, D.C.
Okay, but everyone knows there’s a lot of unrest in that part of the world. Sometimes a mob gets out of hand and resorts to violence and property destruction. Sometimes people get killed. It’s unfortunate, but passions get so roiled up sometimes that things like that happen. And did you see the movie trailer that criticized the prophet Mohammad? Some Coptic Christian went way over the line with that one. No wonder Muslims gathered together to protest.
Yes, but not even Occupy Wall Street shows up with Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG’s) and mortars. Military experts who are in a position to know described this as a well-planned and well-executed military style attack that killed four Americans and didn’t just damage the consulate, but destroyed it. Yet, for days, the administration’s representatives, notably Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and press secretary Jay Carney insisted that it was the unfortunate result of a spontaneous uprising to protest a video. It certainly wouldn’t have been politically helpful to call it what it was, yet another terrorist attack against the USA on President Obama’s watch.
Describing the attack as a spontaneous response to an offensive video is like calling an artillery barrage “the disposition of unexploded ammunition.”
TheMiddleofSomewhere 