Spreading American style democracy. At what cost?
Tonight NBC NEWS posted a top headline story sharing the back-story of the life and death of former U.S. Navy SEALs Doherty and Woods. By all accounts, good at there jobs, and all around great guys.
Hillary Clinton couldn’t say enough ‘good things’ about the men.
Lost in the Tuesday night attack on the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi, Libya, the job of both men was to protect the Ambassador and staff from armed attack. They failed to do so.
We can assume that these extremely well trained contract killers were out gunned by their attackers. Two of the best trained, well armed soldiers on the planet; Dead.
Serving multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as contracting protection to several embassy posts, Doherty and Woods were the best guns money could buy.
And that is the point of this very short article: Don’t cry for Doherty and Woods. They were extremely well paid professional, government sanctioned hit men that chose to pursue perhaps the most dangerous profession on the planet; body guards in a war zone; to a targeted U.S. embassy official.
This is an extremely difficult, as well as unfortunate event in the annals of U.S. diplomatic service. The United States is not welcome in Libya. The Arab world continues to demonstrate its collective disdain for a less than passive, ongoing attempt by the U.S. to force democratic ideals on the Arab world. And yet, president Obama and company is very busy building up U.S. military presence in the region.
At what cost?
$Trillions to date, and hundreds of thousands of lives.
This particular event is a very tough public relations bag of worms for the Obama administration.
As the president vows to reduce military spending, a U.S. consulate compound is attacked. Granted, more people are killed on the streets of Los Angeles on any given week night, but this attack is a blatant, high profile one; perpetrated on a diplomatic foreign mission. And that of-course is why it was attacked: To draw attention to the undercurrent of discontent left in the region; following the removal of Gaddafi.
