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Old Benghazi Lighthouse (Zoha Trebelsi/flickr)
In a triumph of GOP propaganda, most Americans now believe that the Benghazi attack was a preplanned, highly coordinated action by Al Qaeda or one of their affiliates, which shows that Al Qaeda is still strong, contrary to Obama’s claims.
Per an article by David Ignatius in yesterday’s WaPo, nothing could be further from the truth. (But he buried that lede in his last paragraph):
“Talking points” prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States. According to the CIA account, “The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.”
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Here’s how the senior official described the jumble of events in Benghazi that day: “The attackers were disorganized; some seemed more interested in looting. Some who claimed to have participated joined the attack as it began or after it was under way. There is no evidence of rehearsals, they never got into the safe room . . . never took any hostages, didn’t bring explosives to blow the safe room door, and didn’t use a car bomb to blow the gates.”
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The official said the only major change he would make now in the CIA’s Sept. 15 talking points would be to drop the word “spontaneous” and substitute “opportunistic.” He explained that there apparently was “some pre-coordination but minimal planning.”
Also per this ThinkProgress posting by Hayes Brown, entitled “Fox Admits Libya Attack May Have Been Caused By Anti-Muslim Video”:
The right-wing is beginning to reverse itself on insisting that a anti-Muslim YouTube video had nothing to do with the attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya. Republicans and Fox News have scorned the Obama administration for weeks for initial statements that the assault in Benghazi, that took the life of Ambassador Chris Stevens, was an outgrowth of a protest sparked by this video.
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ThinkProgress also has an excellent time-line regarding who said what and when in the aftermath of that attack.
UPDATE: The sixth item on that timeline reads:
September 12: The New York Times reports that “[f]ighters involved in the assault…said in interviews during the battle that they were moved to attack the mission by anger over a 14-minute, American-made video that depicted the Prophet Muhammad, Islam’s founder, as a villainous, homosexual and child-molesting buffoon.” The Times continues to stand by its story.
6 Comments
A film produced by commandos, crooks, and wingnuts created an “opportunity” to attack a CIA station? Rigggght. Are you going with the September surprise theory too?
Did the CIA know the locals had “made” their safe house?
What do you suppose gave it away? The new Black SUVs?
Some food for thought, wigwam…! ;-)
‘Coalition of The Fighting’
This has been a major “Intelligence” Failure, but the spies always fail. But the magic words “national security” protect them from accountability.
But what upsets me, is that the National Security Priesthood is destroying the English language. When did “coordination” become “pre-coordination”? Or should that be “retroactive coordination”? It could be Flash Mob Coordination because the Militias have cell phones and computers also.
Then there is “minimal planning” which is not the same as pre-coordination. But, all those CIA spies and mercenary rent-a cops, needed some pre-coordination and plans. These highly paid security officials are still disorganized themselves, with their unconvincing cover stories.
The Charles Manson Clan tried to create worldwide Helter Skelter each revenge killing in a race war leading to the next, until the entire earth was falling or burning dominoes.
The latest attempt was slow getting started. It was planned to start in California with Muslims rioting over with what then was called “The Innocence of Bin Laden”, the fake 100 Jewish donors was supposed to lead to deaths of some California Jews whose relatives were supposed to cry out for vengeance. There was emergency interfaith meetings in California between the Coptic Christian church and local Muslim leaders to prevent local strife. Next the 10 % of Egypt that is Coptic Christian was supposed to be blamed. Where next I don’t know the original plan but part of it was to make Obama look weaker on foreign policy than Romney, and the polls show that some shift of US opinion on each candidate on foreign policy has occurred.
As some Muslims around the world rioted as expected some of them got killed. And some of their relatives cried out for vengeance, but before ordinary Americans got killed. The first four Americans that were killed happened to be part of a per-scheduled attempt to celebrate 9/11 with an attack on Americans, giving the terror attack a double meaning.
Amazingly all four victims were friends of Muslims. There are plenty of ex-Navy Seals who have a beef against Islam. Thus amazingly no Americans were killed in all the riots who had realities willing to join the burning fires of hate by calling for revenge. The Ambassador’s wife set up a peace fund that reminds me of the Daniel Pearl Foundation set up for a news correspondent lured to Pakistan and beheaded twelve years ago.
If it was a misstatement by the Administration, that the attack on the embassy relates, I thank them for it. Without the riots around the world the attack would have been at least slightly different and so might the results.
http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/22-22/14022-ambassador-stevens-is-a-hero-four-heroes-who-ended-a-helter-skelter-chain#comment-235793
Another link supporting my contention on over blaming the movie stopped things from getting worse,
http://my.firedoglake.com/richardkanepa/2012/10/21/ambassador-stevens-is-a-hero-helter-skelter-was-stopped-because-his-relatives-refused-to-hate/