The
following essay is a remake of Michael Goodwin’s Now We Know—President Obama was MIA on Benghazi. Originally posted on FoxNews under the
opinion section, the essay’s sole purpose is to rewrite Mr. Goodwin’s work for
a different audience. The original article blamed President Obama for being a
contributing factor in the terrorist attack on American forces in Libya. The
new audience in this case is a liberal based one. In order to accomplish this I left out some
quotes and shortened a few quotes in the process. In addition, I tried to limit the blame
towards Obama, as a more liberal base would be less critical of him. Reassuring the readers that the situation
could have gone worse helps project the current handling in a more positive
light. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/02/11/now-know-president-obama-was-mia-on-benghazi/
The terrorist attack that occurred in
Benghazi, Libya is without doubt a tragic fiasco. There were insufficient security forces prior
to as well as after the attack. This is an
inexcusable mistake that led to the death of one of our esteemed diplomats as
well as many others. However, some are pointing the finger at
the Obama administration, President Obama specifically. Of course the Obama administration holds some
share of the blame, but this criticism centers more on the actions of Mr. Obama
during as well as after the attacks.
Many critics cite the White House’s explanation of the attack as being
deceitful. The White House informed the
press that there was a protest over an anti-Muslim video placed on the Internet
that was later used by terrorists to launch their attack. Critics are quick to point out the lack of
video evidence of the protest as well as the use of heavy weapons as a sign of
a planned attack, not a spontaneous outburst of violence. If this attack was indeed planned and simply
used these protests as a cover, does this mean the White House was being
deceitful? More than likely not, a more
reasonable assumption would be to assume the White House had lacked all the
facts. So, the question moves from “why
was the White House deceitful” to “why did the White House make a press release
prior to having all the facts?”
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testified
to the Senate that President Obama had followed up with his military team early
during the attack and then proceeded with other tasks. The president’s
only instructions, Panetta said, were, “Do whatever you need to do,” though he
left the details “up to us.” Although brief, Obama was
informed of the situation and delegated control over to Panetta. This distorts the picture that critics have
tried to paint of an uninvolved and unaware president. Still critics are focused on the questions of
where Obama was? When did he learn what? What did he do? The better question should be why did this
happen in the first place? Why wasn’t
there greater security? Obama has become
a scapegoat because there are no current answers.
In eleven hours survivors as well
as fallen countrymen were retrieved and taken out of Libya. Although some will call this a slow response,
we cannot deny that with the lack of information and confusion, the response
could have been worse. We often forget
that a president’s job has many aspects that all require his attention. President Obama is no different. Does the administration have some explaining
to do? Yes. But it is unrealistic to
point the finger at Obama and say, “look what you did!” Or in this case “look
what you didn’t do!”
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