Sen. Susan Collins spent two hours interviewing U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice concerning her comments on five Sunday talk shows following the Benghazi attack in which four Americans were killed (“Collins still ‘troubled’ after meeting with Rice,” Nov 28).

Much is being made of Sen. Collins’ post-interview comments making her efforts out to be politically motivated. Doing so, the key point is missed by these critics. Sen. Collins was not vetting Ambassador Rice to determine her qualifications to be our next secretary of state. Sen. Collins was trying to arrive at an understanding of what happened in that Benghazi attack.

Her interview was not about placing blame, but rather to determine why and how such a tragedy happened following a similar attack on our embassies in Africa in 1998.

These attacks were similar, but it appears that we learned little from the 1998 attacks, and history repeated itself.

If the problem that led to these attacks cannot be identified and addressed, it is a safe assumption that we are setting ourselves up for more of the same.

Susan Rice became a “talking head” for the president. Her talking points were flawed, intentionally misleading the American people to believe something that was not.

This was a terrorist attack and not a spontaneous Islamic riot gone wrong.

The responsibility she assumed in the five talk shows conveying erroneous information speaks to another problem: her integrity.

That is another issue for another day for another reason.

Critics of Sen. Collins are confusing her governing efforts with playing politics in her interview of Susan Rice. She is trying to get to the bottom of what happened on that 9/11 Benghazi attack.

It is about fact finding, getting to the truth so this kind of attack can be avoided in the future, and how it can be managed to avoid future loss of life.

Dana Saucier is a resident of Wallagrass.

 

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