OPINION:
If you are educated enough to read and smart enough to know that two plus two equals four, you know that the Obama administration was less than forthright about the events in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.
Remember that as early as 2009, this administration began to show its reluctance to use the term “war on terrorism” (which it changed to “overseas contingency operations”). Despite the fact that the vast majority of terrorist acts are committed by Islamic extremists, the administration has almost banned from its vocabulary the terms “Islamic extremists” and “jihadist.” Can any among us accept the administration’s classification of the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting as “workplace violence” when the perpetrator was shouting “Allahu akbar” during the commission of the act?
In September 2012, we had a Democratic Party presidential campaign mantra that ’Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive,’ a president who declared al Qaeda seriously impaired and a secretary of state on a worldwide self-love tour, ready to lay in wait for ascendancy to the presidency in 2016.
What could be worse than an al Qaeda-led act of Islamic terrorism killing four Americans in Benghazi? The answer is obviously ’nothing,’ so let’s pretend it didn’t happen. Far better to claim the incident was a spontaneous demonstration gone bad because Muslims were insulted by an American-made, anti-Islam Internet video, apologize for our free-speech rights and our insensitivity to Muslims and move on.
Eight months have passed, and three central questions were asked — and they remain unanswered. Why were requests for more security at the facility ignored? Why were the American people told that the attack was caused by an Internet video, despite agreement by the CIA, the State Department and those on the ground in Libya that a terrorist attack took place? When will the killers of four Americans be brought to justice?
MICHAEL FERREER
Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
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