On January 23rd, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touched many people politically and emotionally with her response on the Benghazi attack in Libya in late 2012. Students and teachers at AHS voice their opinion about Clinton’s testimony before Congress.
The Benghazi attack in Libya last year was compiled by al-Qaeda affiliates. The attack was on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador of Libya, J. Christopher Stevens. Hillary Clinton starts off the Congress meeting by telling Republican lawmakers to focus more on the Benghazi attack and how to prevent this situation from happening again instead of focusing more on partisan attacks.
Republicans then responded by playing the blame game as they held Clinton responsible for the attack.
History teacher, Stratton Shartel, voiced his opinion on the heated exchanged. “In my opinion, Secretary Clinton did not attack the Republicans at the hearing. Rather, she was attacked by some members of Congress for not fully disclosing what she knew about the attacks after they occurred. I believe that she is frustrated with partisan attacks against her on this issue. As Secretary of State, she took responsibility for the event. However, the reality is she was not aware of every detail that led up to the attacks. Many decisions made before the attacks were made at lower levels of the State Department.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R.) from Kentucky bluntly told Hillary Clinton that he would have fired her on the spot for her poor judgment on the attack.
Many debate whether this was just a shot to exploit Clinton because they are both running candidates for the 2016 Presidential elections or for other reasons.
“I think Rand Paul was grandstanding to satisfy the right-wing. She definitely is/was not unfit. Most agree she did a commendable job as Secretary of State.” Said Shartel.
The Obama administration and White House both stand with Clinton’s statement. Jay Carney, White House Press Secretary, defends Clinton before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by accusing the Republican’s administration for bringing up irrelevant points and should be thinking about the main issue of prevention; which seems to be the on-going divide over the administration.
“I agree that the tragedy should be investigated with the goal of trying to prevent these kinds of attacks from happening again. However, I also believe that Republican critics of Mrs. Clinton are exploiting the tragedy for political gain.”
Sophomore Ariana Daiyan also sides with Clinton and Carney on the issue at hand. “I agree with Clinton because those attacks were at a time of need, a time when Americans should have been banding together and working through the tragedy. Instead, Republicans chose to attack the Obama administration on how they handled the tragedy. It was not a time to attack one another, but rather a time for supporting each other and consoling the friends and family of the officials who had passed.They used that time of mourning for a personal gain.”
As citizens raise points and ideas for the attack, Congress is still butting heads over the situation.
“The Senate should support any investigation to find out the truth and try to prevent future attacks of this sort. Then, let it go and move on to addressing the more urgent challenges that face the country” Shartel said.
