David D. Kirkpatrick, "Suspect in Libya Attack, in Plain Sight, Scoffs at U.S.": The Benghazi Obamination

The Obama administration is now in a race against time to take revenge prior to election day against those who perpetrated the deadly attack against America's Benghazi consulate. Having systematically distorted the nature of this attack for the better part of a month, Obama needs to show his teeth, but not in a transplendent, pearly white grin.

The problem? No one is afraid of Obama. He spent his first three and a half years in office soothing, appeasing, assauging, and mollifying America's enemies across the globe: Assad in Syria, Ahmadinejad in Iran, Putin in Russia, Chavez in Venezuela, and a host of other tyrants, despots and bullies. Obama thought that he could win them over with his smile, but these people don't respond to kindness. Rather, they perceive kindness as weakness.

Executive action? It shouldn't be too hard. Those responsible for the Benghazi attack are not in hiding. Quite the opposite. As reported by David D. Kirpatrick in a New York Times article entitled "Suspect in Libya Attack, in Plain Sight, Scoffs at U.S." (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/world/africa/suspect-in-benghazi-attack-scoffs-at-us.html?pagewanted=all)

"Witnesses and the authorities have called Ahmed Abu Khattala one of the ringleaders of the Sept. 11 attack on the American diplomatic mission here. But just days after President Obama reasserted his vow to bring those responsible to justice, Mr. Abu Khattala spent two leisurely hours on Thursday evening at a crowded luxury hotel, sipping mango juice on a patio and scoffing at the threats coming from the American and Libyan governments.

Libya’s fledgling national army is a 'national chicken,' Mr. Abu Khattala said, using an Arabic rhyme. Asked who should take responsibility for apprehending the mission’s attackers, he smirked at the idea that the weak Libyan government could possibly do it. And he accused the leaders of the United States of 'playing with the emotions of the American people' and 'using the consulate attack just to gather votes for their elections.'

Mr. Abu Khattala’s defiance — no authority has even questioned him about the attack, he said, and he has no plans to go into hiding — offered insight into the shadowy landscape of the self-formed militias that have come to constitute the only source of social order in Libya since the fall of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi."

Ah, yes, the benefits of leading from behind.

A drone attack from over Libya? The necessary arrangements are not in place. Sorry, but this time assets on the ground, if any are still accessible and not incommunicado following the attack, will need to the job, up-close and dirty.