The Telephone Rang And Rang

Americans who watched TV in 2008 will certainly remember Hillary Clinton’s commercial against Barack Obama when they were both running for the Democratic presidential nomination: A phone was ringing in semi-darkness and no one picked it up, while a voice wondered what would happen if, in the early morning, an emergency anywhere in the world found that there was no one in charge in Washington. Obama, the novice, could not measure up; Hillary, already toughened, would guarantee an adequate response.

Once Obama was elected, he comforted Hillary by appointing her secretary of state. Time went by and in 2012 on the anniversary of 9/11, phones started to ring in the White House, in the Department of State, in the Pentagon, in the CIA. None of them were answered. Rather, they were answered but no one reacted. During his re-election campaign in 2012, Obama emphasized that during his first term he executed Osama bin Laden and was in the process of liquidating the threat of al-Qaida. How on earth was this administration going to admit that the attack on the consulate in Benghazi had been perpetrated by local terrorists from both Ansar al-Sharia and al-Qaida? Impossible, the ticket did not match with the list. The White House and the Department of State then got into an operation of lies that lasted until the elections and is now, eight months later, collapsing.

So the blame was put on a film directed by a clumsy novice filmmaker, an Egyptian living in California; by insulting Muhammad, the film supposedly provoked the anger of Muslims and the subsequent attack on the American facilities in Benghazi that resulted in the death of four Americans including the ambassador, many injuries and the destruction of consular properties. Hilary confidently lied when she put the blame on the poor devil to send him to jail and sent over more guards than would have been needed in Benghazi to avoid the massacre.

Susan Rice, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, lied with great composure on five morning television shows on Sunday, Sept. 16, five days after the attack. The president lied in the United Nations itself, not to mention in other places, only two weeks after the attack. Jay Carney, the press secretary, lied time and time again when stating that an American military response was not feasible given the spontaneous nature of the attack. He lied again when accusing Mitt Romney of politicizing the incident and once again when he said that in the official account of the incident the word “consulate” had been replaced with “diplomatic facilities.” Pentagon officials lied when Congress convened. Victoria Nuland, the spokesperson for the Department of State, lied as well. According to the explosive inquiries of ABC journalist Jonathan Karl, she seems to have been involved on several levels in the changes made to the CIA’s original account of the attacks. Jay Carney, not doing himself a favor, even stated that Benghazi happened long ago. The truth is that it is more current than ever.

Some 100 pages of emails that have recently been published do not help much. They want to maintain the cover-up, even if it is weak, so as not to cast a shadow on what remains of the Obama administration or hamper the administration of which Hilary dreamed. However, every disclosure produces new questions, all of them as dreadful as the telephone in the commercial that kept ringing but was never picked up.