Mrs. Clinton, the truth about Benghazi does make a difference

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How will latest Benghazi report impact Hillary Clinton?

Report concludes failures before, during and after attack

President Obama nominated Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State and she was confirmed by the Senate in January 2009. A tenure lasting less than five years would affect the lives of four American families forever.

While traveling the globe during her time in office as Secretary of State, Clinton was vocal in her support for the empowerment of women in countries throughout the world. But were there any major foreign policy initiatives led by Secretary Clinton during her time in office? Unfortunately, no.

Was Secretary Clinton hoping to create a substantial legacy with the establishment of a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya? Without a doubt, success in Benghazi would also help support the 2012 campaign narrative coming from the Obama White House claiming that Al Qaeda was "on the run.”

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With J. Christopher Stevens at the helm, Secretary Clinton’s appointee, a fully operational diplomatic outpost in Benghazi would show that democracy could succeed in post-Qaddafi Libya.

Could this be a version of ‘Peace in the Middle East’ as negotiated by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton? Perhaps she may have even been able to tout this achievement during future campaign rhetoric in 2016.

Secretary Clinton ignored the warnings and object lessons that were present from the 2012 terrorist attacks on the Red Cross, the assassination attempt on the British Ambassador to Libya and the attacks that occurred at the American Diplomatic Outpost in Benghazi, all before September 11, 2012.

Most importantly, she refused the Ambassador’s repeated requests for additional security at the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

When coupled with her inability to answer the proverbial "3 a.m. phone call" during the terrorist attack on the diplomatic outpost, Secretary Clinton’s lack of competency was brought to light. It is amazing how wrong one person can be.

In January 2013, during her testimony on Capitol Hill concerning Benghazi, Secretary of State Clinton famously stated to Senator Ron Johnson, when testifying about the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, and my nephew Sean Smith, “...what difference does it make?”

How wrong can one person be?

I can assure Mrs. Clinton that the contributing and determining circumstances make a huge difference to the families of these four brave Americans and to a substantial percentage of the American public. It made a difference to my nephew Sean Smith as he called his mother, Pat Smith, on September 11, 2012. We can only imagine the fear that Sean was experiencing in his service to his country; expressing his fears, he stated there were “suspicious men taking pictures of the compound where he was staying.”

The January 15, 2014 release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Benghazi confirms what hundreds of hours of research, inquiry, and conversation revealed to me and many other Americans the following:

1. The September 11, 2012 attack could have been prevented.

2. Secretary of State Clinton did not do an appropriate risk assessment for Ambassador Stevens and other outpost personnel.

3. Al Qaeda was directly involved in the detailed planing and execution of the attack.

4. President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both knew it was a terrorist attack on the evening of September 11, 2012.

5. A lie was manufactured and perpetuated as they repeatedly blamed an anti-Islamic video as the impetus of the attack.

I must conclude that the Obama administration has, and will continue to stonewall, lie, and belittle any attempt to establish any real efforts to achieve accountability for the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi.

Consideration of the truth versus a calculated deception is of upmost importance when seeking the office of Presidency of the United States of America. Whether it is was during the Presidential election of 2012 or the upcoming campaign of 2016; deception and apathy, concerning the deaths of four Americans due to a terrorist attack, do not have an expiration date.

With the recent findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee Report of Benghazi, I wonder if House Speaker John Boehner and the Obama administration still find the claims made by the family members of these four murdered Americans to be false. Reacting to a scathing letter sent on January 6 to House Speaker John Boehner, an anonymous aide to senior GOP leadership called our claims “absurd and inaccurate." Really? I will continue to seek the truth and demand full accountability regarding the terrorist attack on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya. IT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE.