I’m going to try to make this as nonpartisan as possible. But when you’re talking about anyone named Clinton, Bush, or Obama, I might have better luck trying to move objects with my mind.
September 11, 2001 was an unquestioned failure of our intelligence services’ ability to predict such a wide-scale attack.
Many would point to it as a failure of George W. Bush due to the CIA memo titled, “Bin Laden determined to attack the American homeland.”
To me, that is pretty much the intelligence equivalent to a memo titled, “Fat people want to eat ice cream.”
But just based off the scale of the attack on 9/11, one has to admit that it was a failure on behalf of this entire nation.
Hillary Clinton and Benghazi
Honestly, I think having the former First Lady and presidential candidate as the Secretary of State during the Benghazi attack distracts the American public from what it really needs to understand.
There simply is no way to separate the partisan politics from what should be a pretty straightforward investigation.
Meanwhile, with the attacks occurring right before the 2012 elections, the partisan situation was only exacerbated.
As a result, each side dug in their heels, with Clinton and Obama’s supporters refuting the very premise of the investigation and conservatives crying treason and calling them murderers.
The truth is probably somewhere in between. But the American public will never find it because of these political realities, and that is a tragedy for the men who died that day.
13 Hours of Failure
As a post-9/11 war veteran, I rarely and almost never watch movies about the September 11, 2001 attacks.
For better or worse, it gets me worked up to a place that is not healthy for my current role in society.
But I will watch the upcoming Michael Bay movie 13 Hours, which chronicles the attack in Benghazi.
It may be for no other reason than to see “Jim” from the sitcom The Office transformed into a hard-core warrior, but primarily I feel like I need to conceptualize exactly what took place in Benghazi without the politics.
The movie is based off the accounts of the men who survived, and while Michael Bay is certain to add his explosive Hollywood interpretation, it should be a pretty realistic account.
Even if you support Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, you should still watch it so you can understand what the men went through that day.
Because just like 9/11, even if you don’t blame Clinton or Obama, you have to concede that this was a tragic failure on behalf of this entire nation.
Someone Failed
Personally, I can buy the idea that neither one was involved in the minute-by-minute command decisions.
I doubt the Secretary of State personally decides security arrangements for one of the thousands of posts across the world, and it makes me cry a little bit when I ponder the notion that our military leaders would call President Obama in the midst of a crisis to ask him what to do.
Surely someone thought to have these protocols in place ahead of time.
Now, you can make a good case that their strategic decisions laid the ground for such a failure, but that they were personally involved in the failure? Perhaps not.
But someone failed, for there is no reason that such a remote outpost in a blatantly dangerous land was as poorly defended as Benghazi.
There is no reason that reactionary forces were not closer and ready to go apart from the fact that someone failed miserably.
So whether you are liberal or conservative, it shouldn’t stop you from seeing this movie.
This was the first time a U.S. ambassador has been killed in service since 1979.
That’s kind of a big deal, and for 13 hours, a handful of men did their best to fight back against overwhelming odds while the entire might of the United States military was useless to them.
That seems wrong, that seemed like a failure, and this nation is right to demand answers.
So yes, you should watch this movie, and if you still want to vote for Hillary Clinton afterward, that’s great. But after you cast your vote, you should be as resolved as ever to discover the truth.
The men who died that day deserve as much.
