US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said this on Face the Nation:
"It began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy sparked by this hateful video."This is not reflective of the CIA memorandum which emphasized the fact that this was a coordinated attack, not a matter of crazed Muslims screeching to the heavens about some slight on the honor of the Prophet Muhammed.
They scrubbed any reference to al-Qaeda or radical Islam and tried to foist off responsibility for the attack on that internet video. Doing so is very consistent with Obama administration policies that seek to bolster radical Islam while pretending that the movement hardly exists or is increasingly irrelevant.
Part of the reason that I find myself attracted to this scandal is because it seems so well reflective of the Obama administration stance on radical Islam, more generally. The rise of radical Islam throughout the Muslim Middle East is an exceedingly serious, exceedingly dangerous, development that Obama and his followers perpetually downplay.
They pretend like it is not important and that we would do better to ignore it. I disagree. I think the rise of radical Islam throughout the Middle East is something that the American public needs to be better aware of and I think that it is a topic that we are in dire need of discussion about.
By scrubbing references to al-Qaeda or radical Islam from the CIA memorandum the Department of State was merely following Obama administration protocol - or perhaps inclinations is a better word - when it comes to this topic.
What the Obama administration has done is to convey to the American people the notion that the problem with political Islam is mainly limited to the "extremist" wing as exemplified by al-Qaeda. In this way they reduce the problem to primarily that one group which they then told us was more or less defeated. The implication of that, of course, is that radical Islam is not something that we need to very much concern ourselves about.
I find it deeply irresponsible, entirely counterproductive, and quite simply not honest.
The problem is not just the rise of radical Islam throughout the Middle East, but the progressive-left disinclination to even face it. One wonders just why this is? Why does the left, and why does the Obama administration, insist upon the ostrich routine on this issue? What I have suggested in the past is that it's basically a hangover from the Bush II administration. Because the Bush administration used the so-called "War on Terror" in a cynical manner for political and electoral reasons, and to move funds in various directions, progressives (like myself) dismissed it as posturing, or worse.
This does not mean, however, that radical Islam is merely some distopian fantasy out of the feverish imaginations of Karl Rove or Dick Cheney.
Sticking one's head in the sand in the hopes that this problem will go away is the very last thing that we should be doing and it is exactly what Obama and his administration is very much encouraging us to do.
I find it foolish and, in fact, it constitutes the primary reason that Chris Stevens and his people are now dead. They were killed by Obama administration stupidity on the question of radical Islam.
In any case, what we might call Islamism Denial is at the heart of the Benghazi scandal because it is at the heart of the Obama administration policies when it comes to this issue.
It's the Big Lie of Benghazi.
