The moment of responsibility for Hillary Clinton

Her fatal mistakes mirror the disaster at Mogadishu

Sen. Rand Paul
The Washington Times
5/10/2013

…The secretary of state’s responsibility is to protect our diplomats. Mrs. Clinton should have been relieved of her post for denying pleas for additional security. Almost 20 years ago, President Clinton’s secretary of defense was relieved of his post for a similarly bad decision.

In early October 1993, a battle between U.S. forces and Somali militia in Mogadishu left 18 Americans soldiers dead, 80 wounded and two American helicopters shot down. Today, this is remembered as the Battle of Mogadishu or more popularly, “Black Hawk Down,” thanks to a subsequent movie of the same name.

A month earlier in September, then-Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff Colin L. Powell requested soldiers, tanks and armor-plated vehicles to reinforce the mission in Somalia. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin denied these requests. The Associated Press reported the following on Oct. 8, 1993, just days after the Battle of Mogadishu: “Defense Secretary Les Aspin today brushed aside calls for his resignation as ‘the politics of Capitol Hill,’ but conceded that in light of recent casualties, he shouldn’t have rejected a request to send more armor and troops to Somalia last month.”

Two months later, after less than a year of service, Aspin resigned as secretary of defense.

Though Mr. Clinton cited personal reasons for Aspin’s resignation, it was reported widely that he had asked him to step down. Aspin did ultimately accept responsibility for his decisions, saying, “The ultimate responsibility for the safety of our troops is mine. I was aware of the request and could have directed that a deployment order be drawn up. I did not, and I accept responsibility for the consequences.”

By refusing to grant requests for weapons and reinforcement in Somalia in 1993, Aspin made a bad decision, admitted his bad decision, accepted responsibility and eventually left his position as a result of it.

When Ambassador Stevens, Libya’s site-security team commander Lt. Col. Andrew Wood and others made repeated requests for increased security and resources in Benghazi, those requests were ignored. No one denies that these requests crossed Mrs. Clinton’s desk. But virtually everyone involved has denied that they should accept responsibility for the tragedy in Benghazi.

Now there are new allegations, accusations that arguably bear more significance on how this tragedy unfolded. It is imperative that we continue to ask: Who was responsible?…

 

Read the complete op-ed at The Washington Times.

 

Related: Coburn: State omitted something very significant to Senate Intel Committee

…Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on Thursday warned that congressional hearings into Benghazi could create “real trouble” for the State Department and said there was a “glaring omission” in the information provided to lawmakers about the administration’s response to the deadly attack.

“I think the State Department has real trouble,” Coburn said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” and suggested there was another show [sic] waiting to drop…

..Gowdy provided one of the few surprises in the hearing, reading what he described as an email from the day after the attacks in which Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones said she had told the Libyan governor that “the group that conducted the attacks, Ansar al-Sharia, is affiliated with Islamic terrorists.” That raised fresh questions about why top Obama aides emphasized the role of spontaneous demonstrations against the video in public remarks for days afterwards…

 

White House holds Benghazi briefing with reporters — off the record; Update: More whistleblowers coming? Update: “Deep background”

 

 

 

Update:  From The Ulsterman Report:

 

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Update 2: Hillary Clinton Fired From Watergate Committee for Fraud, Ethics Violations

…Jerry Zeifman, who supervised a much younger Hillary Clinton when she worked as a staffer for the Watergate committee:

‘A lifelong Democrat, Mr. Zeifman supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career.’ Why? “Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.’…

…’My own reaction was of regret that, when I terminated her employment on the Nixon impeachment staff, I had not reported her unethical practices to the appropriate bar associations.’…

Read the whole thing. H/T Moonbattery

 

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