the people of Benghazi , as he was threatening to do . Obama did not want to join the fight ; he was counseled by Joe Biden and his first - term secretary of defense Robert Gates , among others , to steer clear . But a strong faction within the national - security team — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice , who was then the ambassador to the United Nations , along with Samantha Power , Ben Rhodes , and Antony Blinken , who was then Biden ’s national - security adviser — lobbied hard to protect Benghazi , and prevailed .
I 'm fully aware that its impoverished people have been ground up as empire fodder by everyone from Queen Victoria to Mikhail Gorbachev . All of these things add up to a long , bloody , and tragic history that should have been a caution to American policymakers . All of these things do not add up to a reason for the people of Afghanistan to keep slaughteringlife.die.deathcausedbyviolenteventseach other in the marketplace . We are trying to create and sustain a country among people who are not sure they really want one , and who are extremely sure that they do n't want one that relies on outside support to survive . We 've exchanged the British East India Company for Unocal , and the hatred of the oligarchical meddling by Western business interests has been constant and unchanging .