Col. West: Benghazi can't be 'the new normal'

By Liz Thatcher and Garth Kant

"We abandoned four Americans who were under attack, and that's not who we are as a people. That's not who we are as a nation," a somber, but determined, Col. Allen West told WND.

"We, as a people, have to stand up, because we can not settle for this and come to believe the new normal is that an ambassador can call up and say 'We're under attack' and have elected officials do nothing about it."

West was in the nation's capital to speak at the Justice for Benghazi Rally on the one-year anniversary of the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, and the twelfth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.

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The former Florida congressman told the crowd President Obama lacked a sense of “moral obligation” about the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and security personnel who “ran to the sound of the guns, while others on that night ran to bed.”

President Obama's representatives have repeatedly refused to divulge what he was doing the night of the attacks.

"Furthermore, we have elected officials who don't want to get to the truth and they continue to promulgate this cover-up with a very complicit media," West told WND.

"As long as we have heartfelt patriots" such as those who gathered at the Justice for Benghazi Rally, "we will get to the bottom of this," he added.

And, he promised, "We will force Congress to have that select committee" on Benghazi, so "we can get the truth."

WND has interviewd Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., a number of times about his call for a select committee to get to the bottom of what happened on Sept. 11, 2012, when a group of heavily armed terrorists attacked the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, for hours with weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

Wolf says the key to getting to the truth in the Benghazi investigation is hearing from the eyewitnesses who were there.

In his exclusive interview with WND, he said the problem is “to date, no one who was on the scene has been called as a witness.”

The attack came in two waves and lasted from 9:40 p.m. until after 6:00 a.m., when Libyan soldiers finally arrived to evacuate the surviving American personnel.

U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, computer specialist Sean Smith, and CIA security contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed.