by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n In the past \u2014 in Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc. \u2014 the murder of an American ambassador sparked immediate debates over security lapses, but in the Libyan case the media seems to be doing its best not to investigate the circumstances around the murders. And there seems to have been not so much a breach of security, as no security at all. In the past, hostage-taking, sniper shootings, or plane crashes accounted for the deaths of our ambassadors. The notion of an American ambassador trapped nearly alone for hours before succumbing to smoke inhalation, while helpless under sustained armed assault, cries out for explanation.<\/p>\n <\/em>Likewise in the past, often the perpetrators deliberately tried to obfuscate culpability, but in this instance \u2014 also a first, I believe \u2014 the US government tried to deflect attention away from an Islamist plot to a sort of spontaneous general chaos that got out of hand, in which no one quite planned or even deliberately sought to kill Ambassador Stevens \u2014 a scenario that only the killers might appreciate in that it might delay or even prevent retribution coming their way.<\/p>\n Usually, the culpable host nation is anxious over, and sometimes frightened by, angry US demands for accountability on loose security; but, again in this unique case, the Libyan government, such as it is, was way out front of Washington in almost immediately pointing the finger at radical Islamic terrorists. When a revolutionary and chaotic clique can provide more accurate information than the US government \u2014 or worse, seems far more upset about the geopolitical implications of the murder \u2014 we are in deep trouble.<\/p>\n <\/em>Until either the media assumes an investigatory responsibility or the administration offers a candid assessment of what happened, we are still left puzzled over the quite amazing statements offered by Jay Carney, James Clapper, and Susan Rice, and those also of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, which all can only invite speculation: An election-mode administration apparently was deeply invested in the post-convention narrative of Middle East calm \u2014 brought about by the end of bin Laden, the new reset diplomacy of a popular and cool-headed Barack Obama, the dismantling of al Qaeda by Predator-drone assassinations, and a US-shepherded Arab Spring. To the extent that official scenario was endangered by the Libyan murders, the causes were a hate-speech video disseminated by a right-wing, unhinged Florida preacher and a hate-mongering immigrant criminal that evoked \u201cnatural\u201d anger from aggrieved Muslims.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/em>It also seems likely that prior to the killings, the US approach to Libya was one of osmosis with the revolutionary government, in which a new sort of grassroots ambassador was felt to be influential to the degree he did not come across as a symbol of US power and influence, despite the obvious dangers \u2014 and clear warning of the dangers \u2014 that such a non-traditional ambassadorial profile entailed.<\/p>\n <\/em>A final generic observation: When comparing the furor over Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib with the current lack of interest, it almost seems that the media, over the last two administrations, goes ballistic when the US purportedly causes injury to suspected radical Islamists, but becomes comatose when the latter cause injury to us.<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner In the past \u2014 in Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc. \u2014 the murder of an American ambassador sparked immediate debates over security lapses, but in the Libyan case the media seems to be doing its best not to investigate the circumstances around the murders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[159,150],"tags":[161,12,1045,188,186,1048,110],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-6B","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":376,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-wages-of-libya\/","url_meta":{"origin":409,"position":0},"title":"The Wages of Libya","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online We have had ambassadors murdered abroad before, but we have never seen anything quite like the tragic fate of Chris Stevens. Amid all the controversy over Libya, we have lost sight of the human \u2014 and often horrific \u2014 story of Benghazi: a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":384,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-bright-and-shining-libyan-lie\/","url_meta":{"origin":409,"position":1},"title":"A Bright and Shining Libyan Lie","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Almost everything we have been told about\u00a0Libya\u00a0over the last two years is untrue. A free\u00a0Libya\u00a0was supposed to be proof of President Obama's enlightened reset\u00a0Middle East\u00a0policy. When insurgency broke out there,\u00a0the United States\u00a0joined\u00a0France\u00a0and\u00a0Great Britain\u00a0in bombing\u00a0Muammar Gadhafi\u00a0out of power \u2014 and supposedly empowering a democratic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7422,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/benghazi-constructs\/","url_meta":{"origin":409,"position":2},"title":"Benghazi Constructs\u00a0","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Much is still murky, but the Obama team was at the least guilty of negligence and deception.\u00a0 By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online Almost everything the administration has alleged about Benghazi has proven false. Yet also, in Machiavellian fashion, the Obama group successfully peddled useful fictions, effectively deluded\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The World"","block_context":{"text":"The World","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5926,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-benghazi-becoming-a-watergate-or-iran-contra-or-both\/","url_meta":{"origin":409,"position":3},"title":"Is Benghazi Becoming a Watergate, or Iran-Contra, or Both?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Benghazi cannot be dismissed with \u201clong ago\u201d or \u201cwhat difference does it make\u201d exasperation, given it may have the cover-up and civil-liberties aspects of Watergate and the weapon-transfers and foreign-policy implications of Iran-Contra. 1. Can a State Department be credible that on its own\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Benghazi"","block_context":{"text":"Benghazi","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/benghazi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":450,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/thoughts-on-cario-and-benghazi\/","url_meta":{"origin":409,"position":4},"title":"Thoughts on Cario and Benghazi","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner We Seem to Have Learned Nothing from 9\/11 I thought we had learned long ago on 9\/11 that radical Islam hates the West not because of troops in Saudi Arabia, or Danish cartoons or Mr. Rushdie, or even, as Dr. Zawahiri and bin Laden\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6138,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/libyan-intelligence-muslim-brotherhood-morsi-involved-in-u-s-consulate-attack\/","url_meta":{"origin":409,"position":5},"title":"Libyan Intelligence: Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi Involved in U.S. Consulate Attack","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 27, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim RaymondIbrahim.com According to a Libyan intelligence document, the Muslim Brotherhood, including Egyptian President Morsi, were involved in the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, where several Americans, including U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, were killed. On Wednesday, June 26, several Arabic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Muslim Brotherhood"","block_context":{"text":"Muslim Brotherhood","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/muslim-brotherhood\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":410,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions\/410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}