A sneaky redefinition of what 'Al Qaeda' means doesn't clear up issues around Benghazi scandal.


During her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January 2013, while trying to explain what caused the Benghazi Consulate attack, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton eventually blurted out, "what difference, at this point, does it make?"

Widely panned as a flippant response and brazen attempt to dodge responsibility, perhaps this question should now be addressed to The New York Times for its front page feature of December 28, 2013 entitled "A Deadly Mix in Benghazi" and subsequent aggressive defense via an official New York Times editorial, "The Facts about Benghazi," three days later.

Though the newspaper claims "an exhaustive investigation by The Times goes a long way toward resolving any nagging doubts about what precipitated the attack on the United States mission in Benghazi," the reporting and editorial have more holes than a king size block of Swiss cheese.

For starters, the Times' central thrust was finding "no evidence that Al Qaeda or another international terrorist group had any role in the assault."

Not only does that contradict U.S. intelligence authorities, including sworn testimony before Congress, it also purposely downplays the danger posed to all Americans from a wide variety of radical Islamic terror groups that routinely communicate and coordinate with each other. Many of these groups openly claim to be "affiliates" of Al Qaeda. Some of them almost certainly were among the Al Qaeda affiliates who participated in a rally in Benghazi in June of 2012, three months before the consulate killings. But when it comes to Al Qaeda, the Times defines the term even more narrowly than White House spokesman Jay Carney's reference to "Core Al Qaeda".

They seemingly apply it just to Ayman al-Zawahiri and his immediate circle, and then because there was no evidence that al-Zawahiri himself and his closest lieutenants were in Benghazi, then in their estimation, Al Qaeda was not involved in Benghazi. No harm, no foul.

Yet to quote Ms. Clinton, "what difference does it make?"

Are Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods any less dead because they were killed by anti-Western radical Islamists who may or may not have sworn a bayat, or solemn oath, to Al Qaeda leadership? Is the U.S. Consulate any less destroyed because Al Qaeda's affiliate Ansar al-Sharia, Arabic for Partisans of Islamic Law, was directly involved? Or as the Times claims as the ringleader, "eccentric, malcontent militia leader Abu Ahmed Khattala?"

Second, despite its six full chapters, including a lengthy discussion of the political fallout in Washington, there is curiously no reference to the 12 revisions of interagency talking points in which White House and State Deptartment senior officials watered down the facts so egregiously that the truth was changed by omission. This set Ambassador Susan Rice up for colossal failure, where she, knowingly or unknowingly, deceived the American people on five different Sunday morning talk shows.

Third, there is a glaring omission concerning the number of times U.S. Embassy Tripoli had asked State Dept. leadership in Washington for more robust security due to roughly 200 "Al Qaeda-related" incidents in Libya since Col. Moammar Qaddafi was overthrown.

Fourth, no reference was made to whether or not a rescue mission could have been mounted, or whether or not a stand down order had been given, and if so, by whom, to whom.

Fifth, while there is reference to the June 2012 rally in Benghazi of 200 armed militants, including Ansar al-Sharia, their ties to Al Qaeda in the Maghreb are conveniently left out — as is the fact they urged the killing of U.S. diplomats.

Lastly, how can the Times claim itself as the final authority for "the last word" on Benghazi? After all, instead of interviewing U.S. or allied intelligence authorities, they interviewed the very militants who claim to be involved in the Sept. 11 attack. Might it be possible that the Times was duped by the same people who killed our ambassador?

Perhaps instead of providing a national counter-narrative to what was arguably our worst scandal from the White House in recent decades, the Times has damaged its own credibility, and further damaged the reputations of the ones they were trying to protect.

J.D. Gordon, a retired Navy commander, is a former Pentagon spokesman who served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2005-2009.


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