Friday, November 02, 2012

BLEEDING IN BENGHAZI


Ambasssador Chris Stevens
I find this Benghazi tragedy outrageous! It looks like a complete breakdown on many levels, and I’m wondering how long will it take to exact an accurate explanation and assign some blame? When will this president take responsibility & stand accountable?

When Wall Sreet melted down, causing our economy to sputter and die, I waited to hear who was responsible? What particular bank, industry or government program was the primary culprit behind the debacle?

Nothing.

 Weeks went by, then months and years, and we’re still debating - what happened? No one stepped forward to admit to error/stupidity, no government officials did mea culpas for under-estimating impacts or for creating foolish programs that generated unaccountable boondoggles; no banking officials/executives were held to answer for the missing trillions, or their role in the debacle.

All delightfully vague, with no accountability. Nobody lost their job, got demoted or took a paycut. No criminal prosecutions/indictments. Just a bunch of hooey, a passel of pin-striped suits whistling slyly as they carted away our money. Government types up to their necks, like Frank, Dodd et al? They slunk off with their reputations and pensions intact. No blame there, just business as usual.

This episode did to the safety of money/investment what 9/11/01 did to homeland security, domestic tranquility and military capability: destroyed it. Because no one was held accountable!

Recall, we had severe, tragic breakdowns in our systems of home- land security and airport/airplane security. Also the communications interface between civilian controllers > military response.

All failed miserably.

The spin?

Let’s get past this, move on, make sure it never happens again. Let’s come together, mend our wounds, rebuild and look to the future. Oh yes, and focus on why this happened. Let’s work on fixing the problems/misunderstandings that precipitated this horrible event. It’s now eleven years later, and see what’s happened!

In recent memory, these two man-made events did more damage, took more lives and generated more cost than anything short of a full-fledged war. They did lasting, permanent harm to our country and we vowed it would never happen again. Well, we’ve just been smacked pretty good with a new 9/11, and they killed more of our people! What the hell?

This president boasts how he got bin Laden, that al-qaeda and the Taliban are done. They’re not a threat anymore, except they/their brethren just killed our ambassador and three other Americans. It’s been 30yrs since we’ve had anything like this. Now, this kinder, gentler president allows havoc to rain down.

What do we do? Nothing!

 Here we go again, standing around with fingers up, looking for someone to blame. Is the press demanding answers? Is the media enraged? Has congress moved to create a special bipartisan committee to investigate and demand answers?

Meanwhile, in this vacuum of interest and absence of action, the president sends UN Ambassador Rice on talk shows to spout unsupported nonsense about mobs and videos, he has Press Secretary
Carney spin lies nonstop, and allows Secretary(s) Clinton and Pin-etta to remain virtually silent. Aside from a quick briefing in the Rose Garden, which was proved unreliable/fallacious in following days, he says more on The View then he does to the nation!

I guess in his mind this tragedy didn’t warrant full attention and exigency, a priority above all others. No, it was simply another day at the office, a momentary problem that went with the territory, to be explained in a non-hostile venue of minimal intimidation. He actually said, on another show of similar import and pseudo-credibility, the Benghazi incident and resulting American casual- ties was not optimal. You’re correct, Mr. President, not optimal. Perhaps a better choice of non-telepromptered words might be, intolerable! Unacceptable!! But all we get is more rhetoric and campaign mode. No crisis here, just a little nuisance in that pesky Libya place, interrupting our political grandiloquence.

Let’s say it plain. Hillary Clinton is incompetent, in over her head and should be fired. It’s unbelievable she hasn’t submitted her resignation. There should be a complete top-down shake-up at State, ferreting out those responsible for this tragedy. If it traces back to the White House, and a smarmy reluctance to admit there even is a terrorist threat (i.e. workplace violence at Fort Hood?) the American people better wake up and realize there’s a dangerous ideologue running things, someone with his own agenda, taking his own counsel, seeking to fulfill his own fantasies. Our military and intelligence communities must speak out! Career diplomats/professionals in world affairs must sound an alarm!

This mode of behavior holding no one accountable when tragedy strikes is outrageous! Hold this course, it will strike again & again. We’re better than this. We must not become the world’s biggest idiot! When will we realize how media is aiding/abetting this process, as are academia and the entertainment industry? Our republican-style democracy is in the throes of a life-death struggle and the left is winning out!

Time to stand up to this nonsense. Time to reinstate professionalism vocationalism and honor. Time to hold people accountable with appropriate result.

Time to clean house!

Al Shane

al@bmgmtassoc.com




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