The diary “Islamist Supremacists Inflict Heavy Blow on Humanity in Easter Sunday Suicide Bombings” is about the bombings in Sri Lanka by members of the ISIS-inspired National Thowheeth Jama’ath, a small Sri Lankan Islamist organization. The usual Leftist apologia for the political Islamism started appearing in the comments. For some allegedly humanitarian reason, Leftists rail against right-wing terrorism, Hindu terrorism, Buddhist terrorism, Jewish terrorism, but say something about Islamic terrorism and the apologists pop up like dandelions in an organic spring lawn. At a minimum, they don’t want us to call it Islamic terrorism. Because.
So I shouldn’t have been surprised when this comment was flagged as being against site rules:
Remember that the failure to say “Islamic terrorism” by Obama, Clinton and Rice gave us Trump, via Benghazi.
The comment was then hidden as were my subsequent comments explaining this comment. Hence this diary. Of course, I might be flagged for this diary as well; but screw it – if the Leftists on this site can’t deal with reality, they are no better than Trumpists, and I’m wasting my time here.
Some key events in the Benghazi investigations are outlined in the diagram above.
The Obama administration’s primary sin was that it didn’t level with the American people about what had happened in Benghazi.
As a reminder that what the Benghazi attack was a political issue – the “was it terrorism” or “was it a protest” came up in the second Presidential Debate between Romney and Obama in 2012, and Candy Crowley intervened on behalf of Obama, because he had said “"No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation".
The fact is that the story that Susan Rice gave on various TV programs on that fateful September 16, 2012 Sunday, about what had happened in Benghazi – that the attack on the US diplomatic compound was because of protests over a video “The Innocence of Muslims” – was not correct. We, most of us, believe that Rice’s statement was because of unintentional errors. The correct fact is that it was a terrorist attack by the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Sharia.
The fact is that the GOP pounced on this, and proclaimed it to be a deliberate lie. They used it to sink Susan Rice’s chances of becoming the next Secretary of State. The allegation of a cover-up was used to fuel several investigations into Benghazi. The GOP House Committees sub-poenaed documents, but in what the Department of State submitted to them was missing many of Hillary Clinton’s emails. The Department of State didn’t have these emails because Hillary Clinton had her own email server. The Benghazi committee immediately subpoenaed these additional emails; and turned the not-submitted email that Clinton and her lawyers decided were not relevant and later deleted into a potent political weapon against Clinton. It led directly to Comey and his blunder, I probably don’t need to elaborate on it.
Had there not been the initial error, it is not clear to me at least, that the Benghazi investigation would have continued as long as it did or that Clinton’s email server would have ever become an election-deciding issue.
So this is the road that lead from one disaster , Benghazi September 11, 2012, to Trump November 8, 2016. It is a twisty, turny road and there were many possible exits, but somehow chance and malice conspired to bring us to where we are. P
The ironies abound. The statement made in error from a habitually truthful administration was turned into an indication of a cover-up. The current POTUS lies so much that lies have lost any significance. The Republicans had no compunctions in pursuing Clinton, while the Democrats seem to have second, third and fourth thoughts about going after Trump. That the Department of State could not fully comply with a House subpoena because Clinton’s emails were not available to them is shrugged off by Democrats, but they would consider it highly significant if it were Trump. Republicans successfully pushed the idea that Clinton was not trustworthy, a simple theme that inflames to the lizard brain; let’s see what traction Democrats get with legal technicalities on which they are going after Trump; they haven’t developed a simple visceral message.
Of course, the Republicans have their own “Pravda” and “Izvestia” – the Fox network and the network of conservative radio hosts serve up Republican propaganda to a large chunk of the electorate; and the mainstream media is more interested in conflict -- “he said, she said” – and less in the truth.
It is a strange lesson in this time of Trump that this episode teaches us — that the reality-based community has to be totally committed to reality, any deviation is punished; but the severely dishonest seemingly get away with anything.
And I assert again, and ban me if you must:
Remember that the failure to say “Islamic terrorism” by Obama, Clinton and Rice gave us Trump, via Benghazi.