The Coward's (dis)Honesty

One person swears he’s told the truth but not holding long his audience exhales, one person swears he’ll right all wrongs and simplify the world and the insane man thinks he’s sane. Ambitious or prideful, when it all goes wrong a coward will have a truth to explain. Doing what hurts least is really the only good that can be done.

Some take on the challenge of justifying the conscience of the means by marking the nobility of the ends. And even then some see a noble thing covered in its corrosive corruption as something to disdain. Some see this clearly as a fall from grace; others see it as a man’s burden; the consequence of true love.

A few years ago an ambassador was slain along with three other people who charged themselves with defending the indefensible, they were all Americans and are the ones that went into harm to save lives and died protecting the diplomatic mission and are heroes for it. They saved the lives of at least thirty people who now have a gag order placed on them by a government that by issuing a stand down order had for all intents and purposes previously left them for dead.

This web isn’t quite entangled yet, for all its intricacy the simple answer is that the poison in this case is sweeter than the fruit. The ambassador was placed there most likely on a cover up mission to reclaim weapons traded originally to the Libyans for the purposes of ousting Ghadafi; part of the leading from behind policy employed months before. That and that it was an under guarded American consulate gives motive for the consulates destruction to be of value to a terror cell.  The American government at the point of the altercation could have made history but opted not to and instead allowed for the continued victimization of America and Americans by issuing a stand down order.

In the interest of fairness no one can confirm or deny the source of the stand down order only that one had been given to not scramble (a) fighter jet(s). In fact the only order was the launching of a scout drone to give the viewer a good perspective on what they thought were thirty four Americans being bombarded and killed.  There are only three places the order could have come from though; AFRICOM General Carter Ham, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and the President. If there was already a negotiation not to use force then only the Secretary of Defense and the President have the ability to still issue the go order. Putting all that complication aside we must remember that the parties noted above had seven and a half hours to put this information together before the first Americans died from a mortar strike.

General Ham isn’t exactly the silent type either; he expressed his opinion about the impact America was having on the Libyan effort to penalize (remove) Ghadaffi. Leading from behind was an overt-covert operation and it is my belief that Stevens was in Benghazi to try to cover up the American foot print, I feel it’s worth noting that it is fairly important politically that no one can say America was giving guns to al-Qaeda. As such Ham made it explicitly clear the US was not giving the rebels weapons… at least not directly. What we actually did was sell the weapons to the Saudis who in turn sold it to the Libyans.   

The cover up of the cover up of the cover up shows how distrustful the American government is of its own constituency as the motivation behind every action during September 11, 2012 was handled militarily incompetently but with political deft.

The solution to all this mayhem would be smaller government. I am in support of having the biggest gun at any shoot out but a leaner more efficient gun doesn’t have to be a big gun, after all we don’t run around with musket rifles anymore do we? Smaller government lends itself to a more cost effective government and the decision making process that led to the selling of weapons at dirt cheap prices to have them eventually end up in our apparently no so close friends hands may not have been as appealing without the near unlimited funds to back it.

There are from my perspective several candidates for surreptitious behavior in this debacle but jail time could only be issued to a few. And possibly even a resignation from office or impeachment could be in order. The way I see it, this is the first time Americans have seen in front of them while the responsible parties are still in office a clandestine, illegal, morally bankrupt, and undignified effort be as exposed as it is, and Americans have the opportunity to react to punish such corrupt, indignant and negligent behavior by those who not only ignored their duties but believed themselves untouchable for it.