Soon after night fell over Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, the city’s streets flickered with muzzle flashes and explosions.
In a two-part battle, hundreds of militants stormed and set fire to the main United States diplomatic compound before later bombarding the CIA annex down the road. Four Americans died, including the first U.S. ambassador to be murdered in three decades.
The Benghazi tragedy isn’t exactly a success story.
Somebody should tell Hillary Clinton, who led the State Department at the time of the attack. Clinton recently appeared on MSNBC and praised U.S. involvement in Libya, claiming the U.S. “didn’t lose a single person” in the North African country.
That is a false statement.
Clinton’s backers will argue she was referring only to deaths resulting from U.S. support of the Libyan Revolution in 2011. Even in that context, her words still drip with deceit. After all, the Libyan Revolution ignited the rise of the militant groups that participated in the Benghazi assault, such as Ansar al-Sharia.
Clinton shouldn’t even speak glowingly of Libya as a whole. ISIS operates along a strip of the country’s coastline that’s about as wide as Indiana.
Unfortunately, I doubt anything will stop Clinton from proudly pointing at Libya as if it’s some sort of trophy for her successes. This trophy looks more like a powder keg.
Of course, presidential elections tend to suffocate the truth. But this wasn’t the first incident involving Clinton and Benghazi.
The State Department’s claim that it wasn’t sure Benghazi was a planned terrorist attack until more than a week after the fact is about as believable as a 5-year-old’s explanation for how a cookie disappeared from the jar.
In 2012, days after the battle in Benghazi, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice assured America on national television that a spontaneous protest outside the consulate had simply taken a bloody turn.
On the same day, Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif called Rice’s version of the story “unfounded and preposterous.”
The White House and State Department used Rice and others to spread what they had to know was fictitious information.
After receiving the initial cries for help from the besieged consulate, a surveillance drone was sent to Benghazi. It arrived in time to see the tail-end of the struggle at the main compound, plus the entire fight at the CIA annex, which means it watched terrorists rain mortar shells onto the annex’s defenders.
Nobody would mistake mortars, not to mention assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and trucks mounted with heavy machine guns, as being part of what was originally a protest.
Now, amid another election, Clinton is echoing the past by twisting the events in Libya again.
We shouldn’t excuse this systematic deception.
If Clinton had the career she says she had, she wouldn’t need to resort to blatant dishonesty in her campaign.
She may loathe admitting that we lost four Americans in Libya on her watch, but, thanks to her, we’ve also suffered another casualty: the truth.
mitcchri@indiana.edu
@AtlasMitchell
