Commentary: Benghazi

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By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.comJohn-Krull-column-mug-320x400

John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com
John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives want to investigate, yet again, September 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

A Hoosier – Rep. Susan Brooks, R-Indiana – will be among those doing the investigating. She’s supposed to bring “fresh eyes” to the work.

Commentary button in JPG – no shadowDemocrats have howled that the investigation, the eighth to be conducted on the Benghazi attacks, is nothing more than a partisan witch hunt designed to embarrass President Barack Obama and hinder former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s likely 2016 presidential candidacy.

There is justice to the Democrats’ complaint, but it’s also beside the point. They should embrace the opportunity to establish a model for the way attacks on U.S. citizens should be studied.

The truth is that the U.S. government, whether in Republican or Democratic hands, often has behaved shamefully when it comes to investigating deadly attacks on Americans.

Sometimes the efforts to suppress scrutiny are harsh.

When Richard Clarke, former U.S. anti-terrorism czar, argued that George W. Bush and his advisors had paid insufficient attention to national security warnings about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda in the weeks before Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration and its Republican allies in Congress – including many people now demanding a thorough airing of the facts surrounding the Benghazi attack – responded in savage fashion. They accused Clarke of being a partisan. They questioned his patriotism. And they attacked both his honesty and his sanity.

They cared more about protecting “their” president than they did about getting at the truth about an attack that claimed American lives.

Sometimes the efforts to suppress scrutiny are done to gain a political advantage.

When homegrown terrorists turned a rental truck into a bomb in Oklahoma City in 1995 and killed 168 men, women and children, President Bill Clinton saw an opportunity to discredit House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, and Republicans in general by linking the GOP-backed shutdown of the federal government and the bombers’ anti-government ranting. It helped Clinton gain the upper hand in his political battle with Gingrich, but also made it more difficult to find out how many people might have helped the bombers plan the attack. Democrats supported Clinton’s efforts because he helped them gain momentum going into the 1996 presidential election.

They, too, cared more about helping “their” president than they did about getting at the truth about an attack that claimed American lives.

And sometimes the efforts to suppress scrutiny are done just to avoid embarrassment.

In 1983, a suicide bomber driving a truck loaded with explosives attacked barracks housing U.S. service personnel in Beirut. The attack claimed the lives of 241 U.S. Marines, sailors and soldiers. President Ronald Reagan sent the Marines to Lebanon as part of a peacekeeping mission but gave them orders to avoid conflict. After the attack, Reagan proclaimed that he accepted sole responsibility. Critics argued that he did so to avoid a thorough investigation of the attack. Preliminary fact-finding indicated that, among other things, the orders to avoid conflict produced security procedures that were so lax that guards didn’t even carry loaded weapons in a war zone. Republicans at the time rallied around Reagan, who was up for re-election in 1984.

Again, they cared more about supporting “their” president than they did about getting at the truth about an attack that claimed American lives.

Maybe the investigation of the attack on the embassy in Benghazi has partisan motivations. Maybe nothing more can be learned by taking another look at what happened with “fresh eyes.”

But the fact is that American lives were lost. In such cases, we owe a duty to those who died, their loved ones and ourselves to determine what happened and what we might do to avoid such tragedies in the future.

When our fellow citizens get killed, we stop being Republicans and Democrats and we become simply Americans.

Or at least that’s what we should do.

John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits” WFYI 90.1 Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

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14 COMMENTS

  1. John the truth is a bunch of radicals attacked the embassy and 4 Americans died. Congress elected not to spend the money on secondary embassies for security. The true is we cannot protect our embassies if radicals want to take it over.
    The rallying around the president is a little overstated the Republican witch hunt is understated.

  2. There’s a scandal here alright that involves a secretary of state and a person named Rice and it began in 2006.

    Moammar Gaddafi had 198 Americans blown out the sky at 35,000 feet on Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland and had a night club bombed full of American military personal in Germany and his punishment: Pardoned by Dubya and Tony Blair so ExxonMobil and BP could acquire oil contracts in Libya.

    Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice was all smiles while welcoming the “Mad dog of the Middle East,” into her lair in 2006.

    Gaddafi kills 200 Americans and we lose 4 in return.

    Saddam Hussein kills 0 Americans, so Condi as part of the “Axis of Evil,” Dubya, Cheney, Condi makes sure 5,000 Americans are killed in his honor.

    Scandal-up maggots…………….

  3. Is a ambassador life worth more then a military personal, a tourist, news reporter, ect that is on foreign soil. I think not! They “all” represent this nation when outside our border. All lives lost should be processed equally and not cherry picked to meet a agenda.

  4. Here’s a “minor”(sic) focus point for action, how many Americans have died this year in weather related infrastructure preparedness event horizons.
    What’s the “affects” felt in the southwestern United States due to ongoing drought conditionals? Any deaths or grievous injury from that minor little problem? (Sic)
    What’s that costing us right now?
    Krull/and other windbags; Find me some leadership that can develop me an “effective” time travel device so you and I can “effectively” go back and change something that has already happened for “affect” today. I’m all ears…. I’ll will jump behind’em and follow that leadership.

    Learning from ones mistakes is always good, dwelling on it usually just gets you run over again.
    Once that learning is in place “use it” and “prepare for what’s coming” at you.

    [Focus forward.] 😉

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forecasting

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/share/rebuild-america?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=email333-text1&utm_campaign=infrastructure

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/05/14/why-it-so-important-rebuild-americas-roads-and-bridges

    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resilience

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