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Date/Time 27 Dec 2014 1:30:48pm
You write: 'the administration's abdication of responsibility in Benghazi'

It is far too early to bring up the Benghazi incident because not enough details have come out.

After the somewhat accidental revelation in Congress that the annexe of the consulate there housed a unit of 'non-consulate' staff, and knowing that such 'non-consulate' personel including contractors operate at arm's length from the administration in Washington - it was somewhat perplexing that Clinton and then Obama accepted some responsibility.

Benghazi is not such a big town, only 650 K so the population would have guessed. The next question is how much consular business would there have been in Benghazi to warrant such costs? What was the Ambassador doing there? Since nobody said, here is my guess: The banking system between the Libyan capital Tripolis and Benghazi might not yet function terribly well, so he was probably delivering operating funds for the consulate and the annexe. The whole incident looks like a robbery to me and the video thing came in handy to be used as a cloak.

The people on the ground there are misguided in many ways, but stupid they are not. It is not too difficult to picture that someone might have said to a local supplier, 'the bill will be paid next week because the courier is due only on ....'

The fact that they did not reveal the names of the other deceased US personnel besides the Ambassador told us immediately to think of Virginia.

It is a sad incident.
You are extremely misguided in my view to reject a secular state. If you allow religious influence to rule into government you end up like Iran where religion determines everything. Only a strict separation of religion and politics will ensure to keep out religious influences that we consider harmful to our well being, not counting the disenchantment by those who do not belong to the ruling religion.