Going to War with the Blind General of Benghazi (An Apology)

Roger L Simon

Okay. I’m an idiot. What was I thinking? I apologize.
Any administration that could have the temerity to send the nauseating serial Benghazi prevaricator Susan Rice, on the anniversary of that event yet, to explain to Congress why our representatives should approve a strike on Syria not only should NOT get the aforesaid approval, they should be forbidden approval for anything more significant than the choice of wallpaper in the White House rest rooms — and even that I’m not so sure.

In earlier columns, I supported an attack on Syria because I abhor Bashar Assad and his (or his minions’) use of chemical weapons and because I have even less regard for his mentors, the Iranian mullahs. I wanted to discourage them both.

Well, naturally. Who wouldn’t?

But in my overweening contempt I overlooked — or more exactly chose to ignore — the obvious. We would be going to war with a blind man as our commander-in-chief. And I don’t mean a physically blind man like the Japanese samurai Zatoichi, whose heroic exploits were magnificent despite his infirmity, if you remember the film series. I mean a morally, psychologically and ideologically blind man incapable of coherent policy, action or even much logical thought on any matter of significance, let alone on such a crucial one with life and death at stake.
Maybe it took the the looming anniversary of the Benghazi tragedy — and the Theater of the Absurd mondo bizarro image of Susan Rice once again acting as a spokesperson — to remind me of that and knock sense into me, but I apologize to my readers. I should have known better.

Yes, I know the cliché goes that you go to war with the army you have, but going to war with a “blind general” at the helm is one step too far. Actually, it’s many steps too far.

And Obama is genuinely blind in the deepest sense because he doesn’t really know who he is or what he stands for. That’s why he vacillates all the time. I realize many on the right feel, with some justification, that Obama is some kind of neo-socialist, anti-colonialist out of Frank Marshall Davis via Saul Alinsky, but I don’t even think he’s that. Or not only that.  If Obama is Trotsky lite, it’s very lite indeed, a kind of uncommitted Trotsky that Stalin wouldn’t have bothered to assassinate. He’s not a particularly successful socialist, judging by his record, or even a particularly good crony capitalist (though a bit better at that).

What he is is confused, one day decrying American exceptionalism, the next day invoking it, a nowhere man, weak and ineffectual, the very worst type of person to lead in wartime, certain not to inspire even for a second.

Worse still, he has proven to us through Benghazi that he has no moral core. He was willing to lie, and have his minions lie continually, to the American people about what happened in that city on September 11, 2012, and he hasn’t even begun to correct the record.

A man without a moral core cannot be trusted for a second to lead in wartime because he is constantly confronted with moral and tactical decisions.
To my shame I ignored this. This is particularly painful to admit, since I wrote many times about the importance of Benghazi, how finding the truth about that horrifying event is necessary not only for the families of the Americans who were murdered, but for the future health of our republic.

The deceptions about Benghazi runs through Barack Obama and, of course, through Hillary Clinton.  I wouldn’t trust either of them to mow my lawn, let alone command the American military.