Ron Smith: 'Don't bother me, I've got an election to win'

On 28 October, 2012, I wrote a blog entitled ‘Questions from Benghazi’, in which I commented on the terrorist attack on the US consulate in that city nearly two weeks earlier, which killed four US public servants, including the Ambassador.  On that occasion, I noted the major questions that were being asked at that time, regarding the inadequate security provisions for the Ambassador and the consulate building in which he was staying, and the lack of any military response, during the more than seven hours of the assault. 

In the weeks and months that followed, few answers were supplied (there was a presidential election going on) and fresh questions arose.

Ron Smith: Questions from Benghazi

Events in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on 11 September gave rise to a host of questions which still hang in the air nearly two months later.  They are being held in suspension by the processes of the American presidential election.  The Obama administration is not talking and the American media, by and large, is not asking (and that is reflected in New Zealand media).

On that day, the American ambassador and three others were killed in a well-organised and well-armed attack by al-Qaeda terrorists.  This would not have been a surprise to local staff, or officials in the various diplomatic and security agencies.  The consulate building had been attacked in a smaller way on two occasions before and the Ambassador had asked for more protection.  The nearby British diplomatic post had also been attacked (Britain subsequently closed it and withdrew its ambassador), as had been the local International Committee of the Red Cross facility.  More generally, there was a notable build-up of Islamic activist groups in the region and plenty of unsecured lethal weaponry left over from the Libyan civil war.