Death And Statistics

Aside from the absurd politicking of BENGHAZI!!!!! the thing that bothers me the most is that there was no similar outrage and ensuing investigation of the deaths of 241 Marines and other personnel in Beirut in 1983.

Our guys were there as part of a multi-national peace keeping force. President Reagan had allowed them to deploy with guns but they were not to be loaded. The rules of engagement dictated that no rounds would be chambered, no magazines attached. Two suicide truck bombs crashed through a barrier of concertina wire and exploded in the Marine barracks. Moments later, at a French barracks, French paratroopers fired at truck bombs attacking their position, stopping one of the two trucks 15 yards from the building, killing the driver. Moments later that truck exploded. It was the largest, single day loss of life for the Marines since Iwo Jima during WWII and for the French (58 killed) since their war in Algeria in 1962. A truly awful day.

So, massive loss of life and unarmed troops. You'd think republicans would raise all sorts of Hell about that.

Not as I recall. And neither did democrats. They sure could have. Who in their right mind sends in unarmed Marines as peacekeepers? They are killers, not peacekeepers. Ask them.

Well, Ronald Reagan did that, that's who. It was a mistake and he was sorry but the nation pretty much pulled together and mourned the dead and moved on in life. There was no: "BEIRUT! BEIRUT!! BEIRUT!!!!" Well, no FOX noise at the time and, of course, with RR in The White House, no republican outrage from them even if there had been such media at the time. CNN hadn't even been invented yet. The dems could have made political hay those dark days but they did not.

Now we have Benghazi and republican outrage. Four died there in two assaults, our ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, Information Officer, Sean Smith and CIA Security Contractors, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

You are welcome to consult Wikipedia for the details. This, is about the sad, contrived outrage of the GOP after this tragedy and their near complete ignorance of the Beirut bombing and a dozen attacks similar to Benghazi, most of which happened under the GW Bush watch.

If you're going to pretend that hostages were released in Iran out of fear of Reagan and that communist walls in Berlin were torn down with but a word from him, you better have a good explanation why there was no republican outrage at unarmed Marines dying in Beirut. I can explain it. Simply, Ronald Reagan was not a black, democratic president.

That's it. And, not to imply that republicans are strictly racist, they are misogynist too. The Benghazi tragedy is a double-edged butter knife of blame as it's intent now is to hamper a presidential run by Hillary Clinton who was Secretary of State at the time.

No political outrage at their guy when 241 Marines die of their incompetence but plenty when four tragically die also probably as a result of their own negligence?  Josef Stalin said: "The death of one man is a tragedy. The deaths of one million is a statistic." Was Beirut just a statistic? At the very best, it is a sham of a shame on a once great political party that is it's own worst enemy and perhaps America's.