Clinton And Albright Have More In Common Than Their Genitalia

Despite a lifetime of portraying herself as a radical feminist and using the possible historical precedent of being the first woman President, it comes as some surprise to read that Presidential candidate and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is failing to attract the female millennial vote.

What is equally surprising is that despite have a veritable army of spin doctors, media managers and image consultants at her disposal she chose to wheel out another former Secretary of State and superannuated Bill Clinton appointee, Madeleine Albright to help reverse the trend.

The whole idea that anyone should elect the President of the United States of America on the basis of their gender is ludicrous as well as insulting but it is not only old age and gender that these two ladies have in common.

If, as Madeleine Albright insinuated, 'there's a special place in hell for women who don't vote for Hillary Clinton' then woe betide the Secretaries of State who ignored multiple requests for extra security at diplomatic missions overseas which resulted in the death of Americans and destruction on a monumental scale.

Prior to the 2012 attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi it is alleged by security operatives on the ground that Clinton and her State Department refused multiple requests to beef up security at the mission and it's annex, a decision which cost the lives of four Americans including the Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

This tragedy was identical to an even bigger tragedy in Kenya back in 1998 where, like Benghazi, pleas to beef up security at the American Embassy in Nairobi were repeatedly ignored by Madeleine Albright's State Department. This resulted in the deaths of 213 people including 12 Americans, 32 Foreign Service National employees and a horrific 4,000 injuries.

In both instances the requests for extra security and other related precautions were in response to intelligence reports warning of terrorist attacks but were refused by the State Department.

Reading the official report into the Nairobi tragedy one is struck by the similarity of the attitudes and actions between Clinton's State Department and that of Madeleine Albright's toward local sources on the ground in both instances.

It was revealed that although there were no intelligence reports of threats immediately prior to the bombing there were earlier specific threats against several US diplomatic missions and other targets including the US Embassy in Nairobi. These were discounted because of doubts about sources.

In addition to action taken locally, Ambassador Prudence Bushnell cabled Washington DC drawing their attention to further terrorist threats aimed at the mission emphasizing the embassy's extreme vulnerability to a vehicle bomb. She also requested support for a new chancery. These were refused.

In March 1998 the State Department issued a world wide alert warning of Osama bin Laden's threat against American military and civilian targets. This was not accompanied by any warning or analysis that Embassies in East Africa might be targeted.

In April 1998 Ambassador Bushnell wrote an emotional letter directly to Secretary Albright begging for her personal help to organise a more secure Embassy in the face of mounting terrorist threats plus a warning that she was the subject of an assassination plot. Ignorantly this went unanswered.

This was followed by a letter to Under Secretary Cohen a month later restating her concerns regarding the vulnerability of the Embassy, repeating the need for a new chancery that would meet the current security standards.

These concerns were fobbed off by Ms. Cohen a month later by her reiterating Washington's previous designation of Nairobi as a medium security threat post for political violence and terrorism and due to the general soundness of the building replacing the chancery ranked low on the list of priorities.

Astonishingly Ms. Cohen informed the Ambassador that not only were they not going to replace the chancery, they planned to extend it's useful life and beef up security at some point in the future including a $4.1 million plan to replace the windows.

Ambassador Bushnell wrote Albright again stating that the State Department response was "endangering the lives of embassy personnel".

The rest is history; three months later on August 7 a truck bomb was exploded by terrorists which devastated the building killing hundreds and injuring thousands.

One investigation reported that:

"The State Department has acknowledged that Ms. Bushnell raised questions about security before the bombing. But a close examination of events in the year before the assaults, based on interviews with officials throughout the U.S. government, shows her concerns were more intense, more well-founded, more specific, and more forcefully expressed than has previously been known".

And to add further insult to the victims of the carnage and a demonstration of the incompetence that would be repeated in Benghazi some fourteen years later the same report concluded thus:

"The CIA and the FBI had been amassing increasingly ominous and detailed clues about potential threats in Kenya, officials said. But the State Department bureaucracy still dismissed Ms. Bushnell. She was even seen by some at the State Department as a nuisance who was overly obsessed with security, according to one official".
(See the report here)

Politicians and their associated bureaucrats are quick to use the "lessons have been learned" get-out-of-jail card but as the people have learned to their cost this is nothing more than a meaningless soundbite deliberately used to close down debate and absolve the guilty parties from blame and sanction.

Looking back at the attitude and behavior of Clinton and Albright before and after the terrorist outrages in Nairobi and Benghazi, not to mention the embassy bombing in Dar es Salaam, it is abundantly clear that they are cast from the same mold, they hold the same views and exhibit the same arrogant and dismissive attitude to the tragedies that unfolded on their watch: they are both in charge of everything and responsible for nothing, they dismiss any criticism and ignore the victims and their loved one's.

If there's a special place in hell for anyone, Clinton and Albright will be at the front of the line.