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Using Benghazi to Study Politicical and Ethical Issues Essay

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On September 11th, 2012, the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attacked. During the attack, around 150 men killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and another diplomat. A few hours later, the CIA annex was attacked and two more were killed. At the start of the attack, news had reached the United States. Later that night and into the morning, Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense at the time, was informed. When the president was informed, however is not known. The question of who was responsible came up quickly. When asked, White House officials, including Hillary Clinton, responded that the attack was spurred on by an anti-Muslim video on YouTube. The owner of the video was taken into custody. However, the truthfulness …show more content…

These pleas were not answered, going against political norm. When the question of who decided to blame the video came up, it was circumvented repeatedly. This brings up the idea of what should be a norm. Ethically, a greater transparency would be preferred to the murky glass the government sometimes gives the public to see them through. However one looks at it, the Benghazi attack illustrates political norms that were not heeded, and the consequences, as of today, have not been fully realized. The second component of political science is the component that consists of empirical data. This is the real information behind a situation. It includes the causes of events and patterns of public action as well as many other aspects of empirical data. We use our observational powers and reason, along with many other tools, to investigate significant problems, including the Benghazi attack. When data is collected, it is used to test hypotheses and help predict what will happen when similar factors meet. In this component we would ask, "Who pushed the video?". A political scientist would look for evidence supporting a hypothesis related to this question. He or she would collect data from people involved in the response to the attack and then present his or her evidence. A more general question that would be represented in this component of political science is the question of why exactly the

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