The
desultory vice-presidential debate underscored that, even if there were
not a thousand other reasons for denying President Obama a second term,
the Libya scandal alone would be reason enough to remove him. By the time the ineffable Joe Biden took center stage Thursday night,
Obama operatives had already erected a faƧade of mendacity around the
jihadist murder of our ambassador to Libya and three other U.S.
officials. The vice president promptly exploited the debate forum to
trumpet a bald-faced lie: He denied the administrationās
well-established refusal to provide adequate security for the diplomatic
team. Just as outrageously, he insisted that the intelligence
community, not the election-minded White House, was the source of the
specious claim that an obscure, unwatched video about Islamās prophet ā a
video whose top global publicists are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton ā
spontaneously sparked the Benghazi massacre.
Our emissaries in Libya understood that they were profoundly
threatened. They communicated fears for their lives to Washington,
pleading for additional protection. That is established fact. Yet Biden
maintained that it was untrue: āWe werenāt told they wanted more
security again. We did not know they wanted more security again.ā
Shameful: so much so that even Jay Carney, no small-time Libya
propagandist himself, would feel compelled to walk Bidenās denial back
the next morning. But the vice president was far from done. His
assertion that āthe intelligence community told usā that protests over
the video had sparked the murders of our officials was breathtaking,
even by Biden standards.
For a moment, letās pretend that there is no historical context ā
meaning, no Obama-policy context ā in which to place what happened in
Benghazi on September 11. Letās just stick with the freshest
intelligence.
In recent months, Benghazi has been the site of several jihadist
attacks. The International Red Cross offices there were bombed in May by
an al-Qaeda affiliate called the āImprisoned Omar Abdul Rahman
Brigadesā ā named in honor of the āBlind Sheikh,ā whose detention in the
U.S., on a life sentence for terrorism convictions, al-Qaeda has
repeatedly vowed to avenge.
On June 4, four missiles
fired from an unmanned U.S. drone killed 15 people at a jihadist
compound in Pakistan. The most prominent was al-Qaedaās revered Libyan
leader, Hassan Mohammed Qaed, better known by his nom de guerre,
Abu Yahya al-Libi. It was a severe blow to the terror network, and the
intelligence community instantly knew al-Qaeda was determined to avenge
it.
The following day, the Abdul Rahman Brigades detonated an explosive outside the American consulate in Benghazi. According to CNN,
the attack was specifically ātimed to coincide with preparations for
the arrival of a senior U.S. State Department official.ā The Brigades
recorded the attack on video, interspersing scenes of the mayhem with
footage of al-Qaeda leaders and 9/11 carnage. In claiming
responsibility, the jihadists brayed that they were targeting U.S.
diplomats in retaliation for the killing of al-Libi. A week later, the
Brigades shot rockets at the British ambassadorās convoy as it moved
through Benghazi. National Review
