Embassy attacks a national tragedy

Our nation mourns the losses of those killed in this week’s attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya. The families of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three of his staff await their loved ones final return.

Traditionally, Americans on both sides of aisle call for unity and support during a national crisis, to put aside differences for a spell while we mourn as a nation. This crisis continues in several Middle East nations.

Radical clerics used a 14-minute “movie” trailer on the Internet — made by what appears to be Christian extremists — devoted to Islamic hate as a catalyst to spark this wave of violence.

Clerics falsely told their followers that the U.S. government was behind the film, and in response, mobs stormed U.S. embassies, burned vehicles, flags and several people have died.

The attack on the embassy in Libya was different. Some in the American and Libyan governments have said it was planned and executed by terrorists bent on exploiting the rage for their own aims. The embassy was attacked with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The firefight lasted hours, the embassy burned to the ground. They killed the U.S. ambassador and three of his staff. Two of them were former U.S. Navy Seals. They gave the last full measure of their lives in service to this country.

While this was unfolding, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney took statements put out by the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and misinterpreted them as some kind of apology to those committing these acts.

In the midst of an ongoing national crisis, Romney tried to turn this into a blistering attack on U.S. foreign policy and put the blame on President Barack Obama. This was before the deaths of the ambassador and his staff were made known.

It was poorly timed and poorly planned move. It was a crass and disgraceful act that stunned and shocked Americans all over, even those in his own party. It was an act of a political opportunist seeking to gain power on the backs of the fallen.

To compound the error, after the announcement of the deaths of the ambassador and the others, Romney actually ratcheted up his rhetoric. During a time of national mourning, this was wrong on many levels.

The Middle East is notorious for reacting to anything that depicts the Islamic faith or its prophet Muhammad in a bad light to a point that defies reason or understanding to us here in the West. The sad irony is that many of these countries were helped out by the U.S. in the struggle to gain their freedom from oppression during the Arab Spring.

The president has condemned the actions of those who did this. He has acted to bring support to the rest of the besieged. The crisis continues from Egypt to North Africa and beyond. It is engulfing the entire Islamic world in the flames of unreasoning rage.

I was taught in the Army that one leads by example. It was drilled into me for years.

If Romney’s claim it was due to poor leadership that caused this. Please think about the example he set when he politicized a national crisis. His were not the actions of someone who wants to lead the most powerful nation in the world.

During an interview for “60 Minutes,” the president said “Romney seems to have the tendency to shoot first and aim later. One of the things I’ve learned about a president is that you can’t do that — that you know it’s important for you to make sure the statement that you make are backed up by the facts, that you’ve thought through the ramifications.”

Later during a campaign event in Colorado he said, “I want people around the world to hear me. To all those who would do us harm: No act of terror will go unpunished. I will not dim the light of the values that we proudly to the rest of the world. No act of violence shakes the resolve of the United States of America.”

That is not an apology. Those are not the words of an apologist. This is leadership in action.

Wasilla resident Daniel D. Grota retired from the U.S. Army after more than 21 years of service.