Benghazi, a Tale of Moral Weakness

Failure to Defend in Benghazi

Though it has been over one year ago that Christopher Stevens, our ambassador to Libya, was captured and killed in Benghazi, the investigations and news stories keep swirling. Americans keep wondering how this could have happened. We have the most powerful military on the planet; yet, we cannot defend our ambassador from a rag-headed, rockets and rocks, mob. They tell us it was an organized mob, which still explains nothing when it gets down to the gritty askance about why we failed to defend our own in Benghazi.

Please understand, I am not effusive about the glories of our foreign policy. It seems we spend vaults full of cash and effort mostly in the wrong directions everywhere we go. As a nation we rarely derive our motivations from Biblical precepts. As good humanists, we attempt to re-create the world scene in our own images, and we do a pretty good job of that. We have a developing policy of continuous warfare to prove it.

State Department a Slumbering Samson

However, I could not help reflecting on the similarities between the story of Samson and our Benghazi (Philistinian?) defeat. Remember, Samson was given a mission by God to defeat the Philistines. It was for that very purpose that he was born and reared as he was. An angel announced his birth. He was made to fight. The strongest warrior on earth had, as his mission, to bring ruin to the pagan Philistines. You would think he could have displayed a bit of moral strength along with that martial pluck and served God and nation as the hero of the day.

Where we actually find Samson, is lying in the arms of his harlot-lover Delilah. Plying him endlessly with her queries about the source of his strength she finally wrests from the strong-man his secret. Arise Samson, the Philistines are upon you! The warning came too late. Samson’s enemies gouged out his eyes and set him to hard labor, thus mocking his nation and his ruined abilities at the same time. Due to his inattention to the most important imperatives, and his moral collapse, his life mission was brought to ruin, or near ruin.

In Benghazi a similar story unfolded. We are the Samson in the situation. No one can defeat our marshaled forces. We have better troops, better equipment, producing the most muscular war machine on the planet. Yet, we could not defend our own man on the ground. He requested increased security in repeated communications. It appears that while he was being surrounded by his enemies our state department slept. Dozing peacefully, our state department, in the arms of our own Delilah, refused to awaken even while the rockets and rocks were finding their marks.

We Must Regain Moral Strength

Our moral sloppiness and inattention, our politics first attitude, and pre-occupation with anything but the Libyan mission allowed our enemies to gouge out our eyes. For that, some accountability should be enforced lest our slackness be interpreted as moral collapse.

For Christian Culture,

Don Schanzenbach  5-26-14

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Suspender Man Explains:™ Benghazi and how “no man left behind” is a biblical idea