Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense, may close his Washington career with a blemish and a lame excuse on Benghazi.  His answer to the many inquiries?   “A basic principle is you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on.”

Even a busy housewife who has never stepped into a Situation Room, know what’s been going on.  The Obama administration was caught protecting a presidential campaign, instead of the lives of an Ambassador and three other Americans.  While the media continues to participate in “Media Malpractice,” citizen journalists and some credible print reporters ARE revealing the story of the Benghazi tragedy.

Suprisingly, The Washington Post steps up to the plate.  Jennifer Rubin, one of its most thoughtful columnists lists the key questions worried Americans are asking, and officially posed by former Secretary of Defense to Bush 43, Paul Wolfowitz:

Quite apart from what Obama did or didn’t do once the attack was underway, there are still many open questions, as Paul Wolfowitz reels off:

– The failure to do more in advance to respond to the evidence — including pleas

Ambassador Chris Stevens

by Ambassador Stevens himself — to provide better security for US facilities in Benghazi or for the Embassy in Tripoli.

-The persistent misleading comments about the motives of the attackers.

– The low priority given to AFRICOM — which had hardly any forces assigned to it — despite growing evidence since the start of the Arab uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya almost two years ago that the governments in those countries (particularly in Libya) were incapable of providing adequate security.

Gaddafi Overthrown In Libya….No ‘B” Plan.

– The failure, after Qaddafi’s fall, to begin quickly training, equipping, and organizing capable Libyan forces so that the new Libyan government — which is evidently pro-American — could exercise better control over security. (To be fair, we were also slow previously in building up Afghan and Iraqi security forces, but why make the same mistake a third time?)

What WERE They Thinking?

– The strategy of “leading from behind” during the Libyan uprising, which left the training and equipping of the Libyan opposition to governments that do not share our views about which groups should be armed — and even gave priority to Islamist militias over others.

– The current repetition of that same mistake in Syria, creating a situation where Islamist groups appear to be the ones which are best armed.

As he puts it, “The administration has a lot to answer for, even if

Ambassador Chris Stevens’ Pleas For Security Were Not Embraced….

the facts confirm that it did its best, once the attacks began, to protect the personnel who had been endangered by its previous policy failures.”

Interestingly, likely voters don’t like what they have seen. In the latest CBS/New York Times poll likely voters disapprove of Obama’s handling of the Libya attacks by a margin of 51 percent to 38 percent. Among independents disapproval is even higher at 57 percent.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/obamas-libya-stonewalling-isnt-working/2012/10/31/ab946652-235a-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_blog.html

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Filed under: Featured, Highlighted Posts, Inside The KC, Politics by Sonja Eddings Brown, Nov 1, 2012