What Went Down In Benghazi And Why It Matters
At Big Peace, former Navy SEAL Team Six's Chuck Pfarrer writes:

It is now known that on the evening of September 11, 2012, Ambassador Christopher Stevens conducted a scheduled meeting with a Turkish diplomat. At approximately 8:30 PM, the ambassador saw his visitor out the gate. There were no protesters in front of the consulate then, nor did any of the survivors of the attack report the presence of demonstrators prior to the initial assault. Videotapes recovered from the compound show, at least partially, what happened.

At 9:40 PM, rocket propelled grenades and automatic weapons tore into the front of the compound. Inside the consulate, American security personnel immediately contacted the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, as well as the State Department Crisis Desk in Washington, informing both locations that they were under attack. Per standing orders, Ambassador Stevens and diplomat Sean Smith were placed in a safe room in the ambassador's residence. Within minutes, an outbuilding housing a Libyan security force was on fire, and the militiamen assigned to protect the compound had melted away into the night.

Incoming RPG and machine gun fire became so heavy that the security officers were forced to retreat and barricade themselves into a command center adjacent to the Ambassador's residence. Now holed up in separate buildings, the Americans were surrounded. The situation would rapidly go from bad to worse. The consulate summoned a U.S. quick reaction force stationed in a security compound across town. Accompanied by sixty Libyan security guards, four American agents set out in an armored SUV to break the siege. Before they could reach the compound, terrorists had forced their way into both of the consulate's residential buildings. Failing to break through the locked grate work that protected Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith, the assaulters splashed diesel fuel and set the building on fire. Smoke and flames rapidly filled the residence.

American and Libyan security personnel were eventually able to fight their way in and establish a shaky perimeter. Crawling on hands and knees, rescuers entered the smoke-clogged building in an attempt to reach Stevens and Smith. The Ambassador's body could not be located. Sean Smith's was discovered and dragged from the flames--but he was unresponsive and succumbed to smoke inhalation on scene. Under increasingly heavy gunfire, the Americans were forced to abandon the effort to recover the remaining bodies.

...In the days following the attack, the White House put forward a story that was incompletely informed, if not disingenuous. That the White House deliberately misstated the circumstances surrounding the death of four American citizens is simply too shameful to consider. The September 11th assault on the Benghazi consulate is the single worst attack on an American diplomatic post since the Tehran embassy siege in 1979. The American people deserve a full and open investigation into the murder of Ambassador Stevens. They deserve also to know about the gallant actions of the brave Americans who tried to meet this terrorist attack with woefully inadequate resources.

It took eleven years, but an Al Qaeda affiliated terror group had finally succeeded in a 9/11 anniversary attack. Benghazi matters -- both for what happened on that terrible night and what happened afterwards.

Here's the guy who reportedly was a ringleader in the attack -- enjoying himself at a luxury hotel, in the presence of journalists. Check out where we're trying to buy democracy from the David D. Kirkpatrick NYT piece:

He also said he opposed democracy as a contradiction with Islamic law, and he called those who supported secular constitutions "apostates," using the terminology Islamist radicals apply to fellow Muslims who are said to disqualify themselves from the faith by collaborating with corrupt governments.

...Mr. Abu Khattala acknowledged that Libya was already a thoroughly Muslim country. There are almost no Libyans of any other religion, alcohol is banned, polygamy is legal and most women wear some form of Islamic head-covering. But all of that still fell short, he said, and he contended that when Libya returned to Islamic law, the justice and prosperity of Islam's golden age would return.