Nairobi vs. Benghazi

This weekend brought us still another Islamist terrorist attack on Western interests—this time in Kenya. All too familiar mass killings of innocents were followed by a siege and hostage situation. The situation has yet to be fully resolved.

These events were perpetrated by al Qaeda and its Islamist affiliate, al Shabbab, both of whom are still capable of doing great damage. The UK Telegraph is reporting that some of the arms that have gone missing in the chaotic aftermath of the overthrow of Libya's Mohamar Kaddafi have found their way into al Shabbab's hands. So much for the 'success' of Barack Obama's lead-from-behind strategy during the ill-conceived Libyan military intervention.

It's also worth noting that with hours of the Nairobi attack, an Israeli special forces team was in the city working with Kenyan military to defeat the Islamists.

It's interesting that the Israelis moved to intercede in a terrorist attack within hours. No one gave a stand down order. Reportedly, they flew 2,300 miles into harms way to help stop the attack.

Now let's compare Israel's response in Nairobi to the US response in last year's Benghazi attack. We don't know much about the US response due to stonewalling by the Obama administration and the state department. US special forces teams were less than 1,000 miles away from Libya, were highly trained and available, but they never moved, although the attack as best we can determine lasted well over eight hours.

We still don't know why that happened. We still haven't had full accounting from the military officers who were involved. We still don't know whether Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton had and role in decision making that led to the deaths of a US ambassador and three other Americans. We still don't know whether rumors of a covert CIA gun running operation are true and what affect that had if it is true. We still don't know whether domestic political considerations (the 2012 Presidential campaign) has any impact on decision-making. We still don't know whether any of the perpetrators will ever be caught and punished. We still haven't seen the results of any FBI investigation. What we do know is that that the administration knowingly and blatantly lied about the cause of the attack, and that the MSM is remarkably uninterested in any of this and as a consequence, the administration's stonewalling has been applied with near perfection.

But one thing is certain. When Israeli interests were at risk, Israeli Prime Minister Bebe Netanyahu acted immediately and forcefully. He demonstrated the decisiveness one would expect from the leader of a Western democracy. Can the same be said for Barack Obama when a similar situation confronted him in September, 2012?

Update:
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In response to the Nairobi attack, John Kerry stuck very close to the Obama Administration narrative when he said:

“[T]oday’s terrorist massacre of so many innocents is a heartbreaking reminder that there exists unspeakable evil in our world which can destroy life in a senseless instant.”

The narrative, of course, demands that one never use the word terrorism and never-ever associate it with Islam.

The Islamist terrorists who attacked the Westgate Mall are reported to have run through the mall demanding that shoppers prove they were Muslim. If they proved to be adherents of Islam, they lived. If they could not prove it sufficiently, they died. Harsh and telling. This is NOT unfocused, senseless "evil" It is something else—a focused, coordinated attempt to dominate through terror, to destroy through fear, and to conquer through barbarity.

It would have been interesting for a member of the media to ask John Kerry exactly what the name of the unspeakable evil was? What was it's motivation, its intent, its context? But that would run counter to the narrative, and that simply wouldn't do ... would it?