Blast walls protect the dining facility inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad.
While the GOP will never successfully pin the “Benghazi Incident” on Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State’s performance on Capitol Hill yesterday did expose flawed leadership in executing the State Department’s primary mission. If one can safely presume the U.S. State Department is the ultimate face of American outreach, it is imperative those leading that outreach fully understand those they’re reaching out to.
When one finds one’s self spending more of one’s time monitoring threats and absorbing tremendous cost to thwart said threats, then its safe to assume one’s efforts probably won’t be appreciated or understood. Since failing to understand the importance of why the “Benghazi Incident” occurred will almost ensure another Benghazi like incident, we were insufficiently impressed with the Secretary’s bristling retorts.
While its true, one could argue an inability or unwillingness to promptly fund foreign service needs contributed to softening global targets, but its precisely then that leadership was charged with making the hard choices. As soon as funding deficiencies made clear the safety of exposed personnel was in jeopardy, someone had to determine what turf could be defended and what could not. But if one does not understand one’s adversary, one will have difficulty assessing when where or how to prepare for that adversary.
By angrily dismissing the most fundamental question of “why” the Americans were targeted in Benghazi, we were misdirected from examining the far more critical issue. The issue of why America was so determined to establish a presence in Libya before conditions were sufficiently cooled, went without an adequate explanation. Considering there are at least twenty more such undermanned and poorly secured outpost flung across the globe, we think what happened in Benghazi could be just the beginning.
Unfortunately, much of the time alloted was devoted to understanding how security for American foreign service personnel could be so lax in such a dangerous circumstance. Less attention was paid to why American assets and valued foreign service workers are being placed in places where understandings have not yet been reached.
As Secretary Clinton defended herself during several heated exchanges, it became painfully apparent, neither she nor those charged with posing the probing questions had a clear idea of who America is really fighting, why America will be forced to keep fighting and where Americans will be called upon to fight next.
If there is anything we fully understand after Secretary Clinton’s riveting testimony before Congressional inquisitors, we understand there is something inherently incongruent about the need to fortify one’s outreach efforts. If you have to reach out through barbed wire, steel gates and heavily armed guards, there’s a strong possibility the people on the other side will remain beyond your reach.
Since so few actually understand the fast moving ever shifting continuously morphing dynamic nature of this Islamic militancy, the likelihood of ongoing global violence will remain very high. North Africa and beyond will prove to be fertile ground for the Islamic extremist’s message as long as the West fails to comprehend and address the root causes of their causes.
Hell, if Americans took the time to do just that, they might just find all this crap is just one big misunderstanding.
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