You may have heard the word 'Benghazi' a few times are few thousand times in the
past few years
– "Benghazi" –
– "Probes about Benghazi" –
– "Benghazi committee" –
– "You wouldn't have had your Benghazi situation" –
Whether from Fox News and Republicans in Congress who insist it's
a major scandal or some liberals joking about it on Twitter, it all has to do with Republicans'
deeper beliefs about Barack Obama's presidency and with the politics
surrounding Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
But to see how Benghazi fits into all of that you need to know exactly what
happened in Benghazi, in the first place.
On the night of September 11th 2012 a group of Islamist militia members
attacked a US diplomatic outpost in Benghazi Libya. They killed four
Americans including the US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens who was visiting from
Tripoli that week. The city was a centre of the US-backed rebellion that toppled
Muammar Qaddafi the year before, and a number of armed groups had emerged in
the aftermath. It was a dangerous environment. However, the US had no
intelligence suggesting a specific attack was imminent. At 9:42 pm, the
the militiamen easily breached the gates of the compound and set fire to the
building. A subsequent State Department review blamed systemic failures at the
department's senior levels for the mission's poor security. Stevens had
previously requested more security and not gotten it. In the chaos of the attack
US security officers were separated from Stevens and Sean Smith, another
State Department official. The two men died of smoke inhalation later that
night
A team from the nearby CIA annex arrived and engaged militants before taking survivors back
to the extra mile away at 11:15PM. 40 minutes later the attackers laid siege
to the annex as well.
resumed around 5:15 a.m. with two more Americans security agents Tyrone Woods
and Glen Doherty killed by mortars firing on the annex. This later became a
big controversy. Republicans accused Obama of withholding further military
support that might have saved the day. But there were simply no military assets
that could have gotten there in time. Starting around 7 a.m. the Americans were able to
escape the compound and leave the country. The CIA initially blamed the attack on a mob
protesting an anti-Islam movie which had sparked protests elsewhere in the middle
east. Then UN Ambassador Susan Rice made this claim on several Sunday talk shows
RICE: it began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some
RICE:hours earlier in cairo.
That turned out to be mostly wrong. The attackers were members
of Islamist militias we now know; not random mob. Republicans accuse the Obama
administration of campaign with intelligence specifically in races
talking points for the sunday shows to hide the fact there was a terrorist
attack.
WALLACE: Did the Obama administration play down what happened in Libya what
WALLACE: happened in cairo because it would make Obama foreign policy look better?
But later investigation showed that she'd honestly repeated CIA analysis rather
than deliberately lying. Still, amidst the controversy, Rice withdrew herself from
consideration to become the next Secretary of State
There have been eight official investigations into Benghazi mostly involving or led by
congressional Republicans and none has found any real evidence of a cover-up, or
wrongdoing by the administration with the exception of the state department's
internal report blaming its own incompetence for failing to provide
sufficient security. So why are republicans still investigating? Partly out of a
certainty that something was wrong
stemming from deep-seated Republican beliefs that Obama is both week on
terror in corruptly authoritarian, enough to hide the truth. But this is also about
politics. Republicans want to embarrass Obama and damage Hillary Clinton who was
then Secretary of State the time of the attack.
House majority leader Kevin McCarthy admitted as much on national television.
MCCARTHY: Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable right? but we put together
MCCARTHY: a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her numbers today? Her
MCCARTHY: numbers are dropping. Why? Cause she's untrustable.
And its kind of worked. The Clinton
email scandal rose from one of the Benghazi investigations. So you can bet
we'll be hearing about Benghazi well into the presidential election.