A Movie Hillary and the Democrats Should Fear

President Obama and Secretary Clinton honor the Benghazi attack victims at the Transfer of Remains Ceremony held at Andrews Air Force Base on September 14, 2012.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons/US Department of State

Last Saturday my wife and I went with some friends to see the controversial film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. Its effects on me  were emotionally devastating, as indeed they would be probably for any combat veteran. One can not help but relive one’s experiences in what is seen on the screen. Also, be forewarned if you decide to go see it (which you definitely should). The movie does not gloss over the effects of modern munitions on the human body. Click here for a sanitized trailer.   

Before I went to the movie, I had heard some rumors the Hillary Clinton campaign was greatly afraid of the movie’s effects on the electorate. Although Clinton is not mentioned once in the entire movie, its indictment of her State Department is damning; President Obama is mentioned only once in passing. It has the benefit of the technical advice of three surviving CIA security “contractors”, the secret soldiers of Benghazi: Mark “Oz” Geist, Kris “Tanto” Paranto, and John “Tig” Tiegen.

Two of their number, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Dougherty were killed in the attack on the CIA annex to the State Department consulate, which was about a mile away from the main consulate compound. An earlier attack on the main compound killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith.

Although the actual story of the attack by several hundred Ansar al-Sharia soldiers is gripping, of more immediate interest to me in this post are the controversies swirling around the story. The implications of some of the scenes are totally damning for the Obama administration. At one point we see the camera output of an overhead drone watching the chase by Ansar al-Sharia of a CIA vehicle rushing from the main compound back to the CIA annex. Later, we see the infra-red camera output from the drone as the jihadists mass to attack the annex. Presumably, the drone was being operated by and its output sent to CENTCOM. If this was the case, then why was there not an immediate response to aid the State Department and CIA personnel under attack? At another point we hear a telephone call from an agent at the annex to the embassy in Tripoli saying, “If you do not send us support, Americans are going to die – including the one talking to you right now.” At another point at the beginning of the main compound attacks, we hear the CIA station chief tell the security contractors when queried about sending help, “You are not the first responders. You will wait!”. Later the station chief exclaims to them, “Stand down!”, after which the CIA soldiers ignore him and respond anyway. At yet another point we see U.S. fighter aircraft at a Southern European airfield, waiting to respond.

It should be noted that Ansar al-Sharia has since morphed into an affiliate of ISIS.

The only way Democrats can mitigate the response to their malfeasance would be to attack the veracity of the film’s version of events; that counter-attack had begun in force even before its release. For example, the Benghazi CIA station chief, the ever-so-mysterious “Bob”, has denied ever having hampered the CIA security contractors from responding to the main compound’s pleas for help. He claimed, “There never was a stand-down order. At no time did I ever second-guess that the team would depart.” Yet when every one of the surviving defenders says they heard the order “Stand down!”, I tend to believe them.

The release of 13 Hours will raise anew a small list of concerns that should occupy every American. They include the following:

1. Why was there so little security at the Libyan State Department compounds? Surely, State must have known the dangers from Ansar al-Sharia and other Islamist groups. Was the Obama administration simply disbelieving of the actual danger from Islamists? The administration does have a record of minimizing jihadist threats, as I have noted in the posts A Death Trap of Wishful Thinking and A Failed, “Lead From Behind” Foreign Policy (1).
2. Why did the administration initially characterize the attacks as arising from a demonstration against an obscure video, when they knew from the very beginning it was an Islamist attack?
3. Why did the administration persist for weeks in characterizing the attacks as Muslim demonstrations gone bad?
4. Why was there no immediate military response to aid the State Department and CIA personnel? The Obama administration claims no air assets were close enough to have responded. Yet U.S. air support was available from Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, Italy, which is about two hours away from Benghazi by air. NAS Sigonella is just 480 miles away! During the 13 hours of fighting, there was more than enough time to bring our people in Benghazi help. In addition Fox News reported that a Special Operations team was told to bide their time at Sigonella until it was too late. Why was that allowed to happen? I find it very difficult to believe that the commanders in the Pentagon or anyone else in the chain of command below them would have done anything other than to respond immediately.

The legacy of the Benghazi attacks for the Democratic Party is an increased distrust of the Democrats’ determination to protect the American people from external threats. This distrust has become so prevalent that even in a condition of secular stagnation, terrorism has become a bigger issue than the economy. That is saying one hell of a lot, and Democrats are not going to be able to ignore the public’s fears. The movie 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi will make it even harder to disregard. Go see it!

P.S. Compare Jen Yamato’s analysis in her post The Movie Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Want You to See.

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