What Difference Does It Make?

Interesting stuff coming out of Washington since Steve Hayes at the Weekly Standard produced three different versions of "talking points" eventually used by Susan Rice to blame the attack on the Consulate in Benghazi Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stephens and three others on an anti-Muslim video.

Even  ABC news has reported that the talking points underwent 12 revisions.  Jay Carney had claimed only single edit.  We now know that is untrue and that the decision to make the changes came from the State Department.

Scour the internet and even Mother Jones and the Huffington post are now paying attention to the story.

One might ask "What difference does it make?" to a blogger who mainly is concerned with theological issues.  (More)
There are lurking moral and theological issues that this incident raises.  One of the Diplomat's killed was Sean Smith.  His mother was specifically told, in person, by Secretary of State Clinton that her son died because of an anti Muslim Video, when it is clear that Clinton knew otherwise.

So, as everyone is now aware, the administration, apparently including Clinton, Joe Biden, Leon Panetta and President Obama, knew about and willfully hid the facts from not only the country, but from a grieving mother, and in fact blamed someone else for the attack.

The most offensive thing about this is not that politicians have, once again, been caught in a coverup, but that in an age of terrorism, a terrorist attack was blamed not on the terrorists, but on those who might have offended the terrorists.

Since 1979 and the Iran Hostage crisis there have been dozens of attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists.  A few include the Beirut Embassy in 1983, the US Marine Barracks in 1983, Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland in 1988, bombing the US Military headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1995, the USS Cole in 2000 and the World Trade Center attack that killed 3000 in 2001. 

Now add to this the Boston Marathon bombing that some on the left sought to blame on "right wing extremists". 

It is deeply troubling that when 90% of all terrorist attacks are clearly linked to radical jihad, the administration is exceedingly reluctant to use the words "terrorist" or "jihad" to describe such incidents.  The Administration is not at so squeamish about describing conservative Christians as terrorists.  Homeland security recently listed "Single Issue: groups or individuals that obsessively focus on very specific or narrowly-defined causes (e.g., anti-abortion, anti-Catholic, anti-nuclear, anti-Castro)." as parties to be watched. 

But to knowingly and willfully not only hide the fact that this particular attack was carried out by a known terrorist group, then to fabricate an almost absurd story that in effect blamed western "offense" to Muslim sensibilities for the attack is deeply troubling.

It shows a willingness to appease those who have for over three decades repeatedly targeted non-military personnel and civilians while apologizing for supposedly bigoted and irrational "Islamophobia" on the part of those who are often the victims. 

Most of us in the west are sophisticated enough to know that not everyone who is a Muslim is a terrorist.   But there are reasons why westerners are suspicious, and there is nothing "phobic" about looking at the facts.   A significant percentage of the Muslim world does in fact advocate violent Jihad, they have repeatedly demonstrated the willingness to carry it out, and hiding from those facts, for any reason, is dangerous.

But shifting the blame to the cultures the Jihadists target is simply insane.   And lying to the face of a victim's mother is deeply immoral.