One does not rule a country for over forty years without having a colossal ego, intense personal confidence, and the ability to adjust to situations. Muammar Gaddafi accomplished what few in his oppressive Libyan culture ever could even dream of executing. From his days of sleeping in a mosque during the week and then walking twenty miles home for the weekends as a young child to becoming a force in influencing events throughout the world and being labeled as the: King of Kings, he had overcome numerous assassination attempts, pressure from powerful foreign leaders, and changing world events. He knew power and how to keep it.
In mid-February of 2011 Gaddafi was confronted with major political protests against his iron-fist control of the country. By the end of the month, he had lost control of most of Eastern Libya and the country was in chaos. He must make a dramatic strike in the country's second largest city, Benghazi, in order to survive. This port city with a population of nearly three-quarters of a million residents, had been where the rebellion against him had started and he was determined to: “Get the rats who opposed me.”
He had a clear opening to march his troops into the city and he was not going to take prisoners. It was going to be a bloody mass execution. His troops were within miles of entering the city and started artillery shelling during the morning of March 19, 2011. By 10:30 in the morning it looked like the city would fall. President Barack Obama was given an update of the situation.
President Obama was again sitting in a room gathering information. Various opinions were voiced from those that warned him against getting the United States involved in any way with this conflict to others who suggested putting in ground troops to take down Gaddafi. Make no mistake in evaluating this decision. This was President Obama's determination. Due to repairing relationships with our allies after the United States had lost so much support over the Iraq War, an international military operation had already been created to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973. President Obama ordered this military operation with the code name-Operation Odyssey Dawn- to proceed.
Operations commenced on the same day with a strike by French fighter jets, then U.S. and UK forces conducting strikes from ships and submarines via 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles and air assets bombing Gaddafi forces. The United States initially had complete strategic command of the military intervention and coordinated missions between coalition members. Multiple Gaddafi tanks and armored personnel carriers were destroyed and the United States announced on the next day, March 20, 2011, that the international coalition had stopped the regime's progression on Benghazi. The city and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian lives were spared. President Obama then ordered that the United States turn over control of the operations to NATO.
In short, President Obama took the lead, made a determination that thousands of innocent lives were in jeopardy and ordered military action. Once the city of Benghazi was saved from Gaddafi's planned mass murder, he then had the United States forces step back and allowed the international coalition to take the lead role preventing this from becoming a U.S. dominated military action.
That is the real story of Benghazi. It is a story of a brave man saving an entire city without getting the United States involved as the primary military agent. It was a courageous, risky determination on President Obama's part and it worked. Some might even call his handling of this situation as brilliant.
But as usual, he gets little or no credit for his bravery and determination. The media rarely does its work and instead makes Fox News lies become reality. Nobody knows for certain what events lead to the tragic deaths of four of our gallant diplomats, all trying to make the world a better more peaceful place for all of us. Remember that during the time of the attack, there were protests going on in Egypt and elsewhere over the ridiculous anti-Islamic film. Apparently, some radicals took advantage of the situation and planned an attack. Some say the murders of our diplomats were carried out by those still loyal to Gaddafi. Others claim it was carried out by terrorists determined to get back at the United States. But nobody knows for certain, yet.
Now, we have little men like John McCain and Lindsey Graham out in front of any camera that will point their way exploiting these heroes deaths for their own glory. Graham has to play the tough, anti-Obama guy in order to get re-elected in his state of South Carolina. That's his motivation and who can't see that? McCain is trying to remain relevant and obviously hates President Obama. So what do these two do? They have decided that picking on an intelligent, dedicated young black woman, Susan Rice, is the perfect target. And for what? She had nothing to do with Benghazi. She was given information by the CIA and she went on some Sunday news programs and shared that information.
McCain and Graham are out there representing the rich who got their asses spanked by the common folk in the election despite all of their lies, attempts at voter suppression, and millions. They are only able to do so because the media fall for their hokum. People need to fight this and shame these unblushing two chowderheads.
We, the people, need to fight off this sick media cycle of allowing Fox News lies to become mainstream news stories. I am sick of it. The tragic deaths at our Benghazi embassy were a calamity for all Americans. Their deaths should be honored not used to make cheap political points by cynical supposed leaders like McCain and Graham. This nonsense is the first attempt of many more to come in the Republican's efforts at bringing down a great president, who has been reelected by the people. There are real problems to solve. We don't have time for distrustful, fake distractions voiced by hateful little men.