Sequence of Events
1. Gaddafi says he’ll hunt down the terrorists of Benghazi like rats.
2. The United Nations intervenes, led by NATO.
3. Benghazi is saved and Gaddafi is hunted down like a rat.
4. Some fruit-loop makes a stupid YouTube about Mohammed.
5. The Embassy in Cairo realizes trouble is brewing and condemns the fruit-loop’s stupid YouTube about Mohammed.
6. Angry Muslims storm our consulate in Benghazi and kill our Ambassador and three other government employees with a rocket-propelled grenade.
7. Ignoring that 5. came before 6., Mitt Romney issues press release blasting the administration for reacting to the death of our ambassador by sympathizing with the murderers.
So, who is the bigger asshole? Is it Mitt Romney, who actually issued this press release on 9/11, asked for it to be embargoed until midnight, and then flip-flopped on that and let it go out anyway? Or is it the stupid ungrateful bastards in Benghazi who were apparently operating under the logic that it doesn’t matter who pays for the posting of some stupid YouTube as long as someone pays?
I’m going to cut Romney some slack here because he didn’t kill anything but the time-space continuum with his moronic and insensitive press release.
The YouTube video came out in July.
The attackers who organized a rocket attack on the American embassy were not some assholes angry about a video, who just happened to take two months to get their act together and attacked on September 11.
George Bush : Iraqi WMDs :: embassy attackers : Mohammed video.
The people who attacked the embassy were almost certainly not ungrateful Benghazis. I’d be surprised if they turned out to be Libyans. The people we actually supported during that war were represented by the government forces who fought a gun battle against the attackers to try to defend our embassy.
Is this your personal conspiracy theory or did you read it somewhere on the internet?
Because it’s just so craaaaaaaaaaaazy to think that jihadists would cross borders! Or organize violence for September 11! Or seize on current events to dress up their latest attack as something that a larger Muslim public might sympathize with!
Other than the empty propaganda term “conspiracy theory,” do you have any argument?
I didn’t say it was crazy, I just asked if you made it up.
Sorry, I guess I read you wrong there. Plain text is a tough format.
Yes, I made it up.
If I’m an idiot, at least I’m not alone: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/middleeast/us-envoy-to-libya-is-reported-killed.html?_r=1&am
p;hp
The version dubbed into Arabic was only published last week:
NYT
Interesting.
Still, the 9/11 date is highly suggestive, and it’s not as if no one in the international jihadist community speaks English.
That Washington Post story is terrible. They accuse the Libyan government of not being willing to defend our embassy, when Libyans tried to fight off the attackers. They make some weasel-word statement about “local security officials” not putting out a statement, when the Libyan government has been fierce in its condemnation and expressions of sympathy.
I noticed that exact flaw. Were they seriously criticizing local officials in Benghazi and Cairo and ignoring statements from the Libyan and Egyptian governments? That’s incitement.
Let’s not jump to the conclusion that the assholes who attacked the Libyan consulate in Benghazi are ungrateful. A minority of radical Islamists in Libya are not thrilled about the current government, and al Quaeda cannot be happy about the turn of events in the Arab Spring.
I would not jump to the conclusion too fast that an Israeli-American real estate developer, who actually produced the film, is a fruit-loop. Just a guy who knows how to use fruit-loop Terry Jones to either (1) make money through notoriety or (2) carry out a political agenda. Even a state-sponsored political agenda, a possibility some intrepid reporter should investigate.
There are multiple sets of assholes all engaged in inflaming public opinion about the other so as to gain fortune or power.
In terms of the US, it is either a too-clever-by-half marketing scheme gone awry or an attempt to throw the US presidential election to Romney.
Cui bono is overdetermined.
The people who produced this film are just as responsible for the deaths of our ambassador and others, as the mob that attacked. The film is a calculated provocation, intended to incite a violent reaction on the part of Muslims, and anti-Muslim sentiments on the part of non-Muslims. The people involved are just the people you’d expect to be involved, especially Terry Jones whom we already know. They are all belong among the lowest slime on this planet.
The timing is related to US politics, but also a typically bad miscalculation. Romney played his part with enthusiasm and made it even worse.
I never liked Romney, but I did give him credit for a certain amount of intelligence. That amount has been diminishing through the campaign and has now reached zero. The man is an idiot, and as president he would be a real danger to the world.
No slack for Romney from me. For him and Reince Priebus to seize upon this incident as an opportunity to push their little “Obama apologizes for America” meme is beyond excuse, and as sure proof as you can find that the man has absolutely no guiding principles whatsoever. Nothing.
They’ve taken an event that should produce feelings of horror and sympathy for the victims, and national solidarity, and instead used it to further divide the country through more transparent lying that just last week only seemed cynical, as opposed to destructive. There is no pretense left.
That doesn’t absolve the actual murderers of anything, but as noted above, I wonder who those people even are.
Ah, another deadly skirmish in the ongoing war between free speech and fundamentalist religion, which lately has been starring our Islamist friends. On the “free speech” side, today’s installment seems to involve an intentionally inflammatory amateur “film” (intentionally made in the US) which helpfully sends the oh-so-objective message that “Islam is a cancer”, to use the words of the noble Israeli-American “film maker”.
So a battle where there’s no real sympathy for either side. And why exactly is this film only being “distributed” now, on the final leg of the American prez race? Curious indeed.
And because brave Americans abroad have died as a result of this braindead crap, Rmoney’s advisers apparently think this a great opportunity for him to shoot off his yap about our “disgraceful” prez before Willard could possibly have even the slightest understanding of the facts. Very presidential.
All on the same day Bibi selects to open his long awaited campaign to improperly influence the American prez race. Tehran or Romney—what’ll it be? Obama has a bit on his plate today…
These people are not fruit-loops, they are vile and deserve the utmost scorn. They know exactly that what they are doing is incitement. Romney and Priebus included.
There is no excuse for this. It’s downright criminal.
Excellent take downs in the previous diary people.
See if this makes more sense.
4. Some
fruit-loopignorant religious fanatics motivated by their own hatred make astupidprovocative, inflamatory YouTube about Mohammed.US ambassador, consul among 4 killed in militia attack on Benghazi consulate — RT
BBC News – US confirms ambassador killed in Benghazi Libya
US envoy dies in Benghazi consulate attack – Africa – Al Jazeera English
…
6. Angry
Muslimsignorant religious fanatics motivated by their own hatred storm our consulate in Benghazi and kill our Ambassador and three other government employees with a rocket-propelled grenade.BBC News – US confirms ambassador killed in Benghazi Libya
US ambassador, consul among 4 killed in militia attack on Benghazi consulate — RT
US envoy dies in Benghazi consulate attack – Africa – Al Jazeera English
Was Sheldon Adelson one of them?
Dunno, but it wouldn’t surprise me any.
I have not looked at it closely, but from what I read it’s the Jihad Watch crowd of Pipers, Spencer, Geller, Glick and Wilders. Funding the Clash of Civilizations through pro-Israel think tanks … crazed idiots. There was also reference to the Middle-East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
It’s more a difference of degree.
Part of my diary posted last night. The rage in Egypt started on September 5 after filmmaker promoted his film Muhammad on Facebook. Social media has benefited the Arab uprising, the mobs cannot always be controlled. The Pentagon has dispatched two Marine Corps anti-terrorism security teams to Libya, I trust this will not be a repeat of Mogadishu, Somalia?
US Marine Corps performs embassy security everywhere. Likely an investigative and intelligence unit. More likely that the response will be like the killing of Osama bin Laden. Or they will be working with the Libyan government to bring the perpetrators to Libyan justice.
These two words are incompatible. Ask the diversity of milititias throughout Libya and how their detainees are treated. Did I hear tribal justice?
“Political payback” more than “tribal justice”. Don’t over-Orientalize Libyan politics. Too many cross-currents cut over against kinship being the only motive.
Read carefully and comprehend how the violence unfolded. The security brigades stood down and didn’t receive orders to counteract the militia from the Islamist group Ansar Al-Sharia. [Same happened in Cairo, no interference from police]
That is a disgusting slander.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/269494/libyan-guards-killed-in-us-consulate-attack-envoy
The Libyan security forces fought and died to defend that consulate, and withdrew only after being driven off by heavy fire.
The fact that the local Libyan security forces might be corrupt does not mean they were complicit. And the evidence is that the security guards did not stand down either place.
The threat of militia destabilization Libya has been much overblown by a segment of the left, most infatuated by Hugo Chavez.
The conquering of Mali was neither religious nor ideological but a function of mercenaries returning home facing nothing else to do–and then framing a religious justification. That gave permission to extreme sects to destroy the shrines of competing sects. Has little to do with Libya.
Some are as confused as Hillary Clinton. The same mujahideen fighters in Sunni triangle of Iraq, Benghazi Libya and Aleppo Syria. Blowback guaranteed. The US will use drone attacks in Benghazi to avenge the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens.
This appears to dovetail rather sickeningly with the Netanyahu drive to war with Iran. A conspiracy-minded person would start noting all the prominence this “100 Jewish donors” angle is given, and the mutual antagonism flaring up on all sides as the situation spirals away.
Like as not, it’s just extremists on either side of the Arab/Israeli divide exploiting an inflammatory event for their own propaganda.
Extremist Muslims, extremist Jews, extremist Christians all playing a heavy political game. The death of four people who really have been trying to help the situation. Lots of culpability to go around.
Yes, lots of culpability. But as it all spins ’round, the whole mess seems to be drifting conveniently toward a showdown between Israel and Iran. I really don’t want to get sucked down a rabbit hole here, but there are elements of this sudden conflagration that look completely artificial.
“Extremist Muslims, extremist Jews, extremist Christians all playing a heavy political game. The death of four people who really have been trying to help the situation. Lots of culpability to go around.”
I’m pretty sure this comment by TarheelDem is the best analysis I’m going to see all day.
The only way to make it better would be to also acknowledge the deaths of the 10 Libyans who died defending the embassy.
Precisely.
There you have it.
Thank you.
Who is ultimately to blame for this?
How far back do you want to go?
Me?
To the beginning of “The Great Game.”
WW I and and the Anglo-American attempt to control the oil reserves of the Middle East and North Africa.
Now?
Israel is playing a dangerous game. It is putting Obama on his back foot with their ongoing threats to attack Iran. Oppose them and risk losing the election. Support them…even in a lukewarm fashion…and risk losing the next four years in further acceleration of Islamic opposition to U.S. hegemony. Make believe he doesn’t hear them? (Jerusalem Post-US: No time for Obama-Netanyahu meeting) Can’t be done. Not for long he can’t,…they’ll just yell louder…and November is still two months away.
May you be born(e) into interesting times.
AG
Clinton says Libya attack should shock the world
Clinton has been a disservice to US foreign policy on Israel, Palestinian people and lately Syria. Apparently she has not watched her allies the jihadists from Libya, Chechnya, Somalia, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq fighting in Syria to overthrow dictator Assad. A mission impossible, because there is no way the foreign fighters will unite with the Syrian opposition from within.
US certainly has not learned any lessons from the blasphemy laws in most of their friendly nations called “allies”. Same for Egypt, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, etc. Religious tolerance is not listed in their vocabulary.
Proving once again that Islam and free speech are incompatible.
I don’t think so. We forget too easily, when Europe went dark in the 5th Century, Islamic scholars carried the torch of Western Civilization for almost a thousand years.
The problem is not Islam, or Christianity, or Judaism. It’s fundamentalist, absolutist, literalist fanatics of any religion, who consider their chosen interpretation as the only valid interpretation, and violence as the only appropriate response to any disagreement.
Yep. Fundamentalists have more in common with each other than with their supposed co-religionists.
More like angel dust (PCP) these days.
You are right. And they all feed off each other.
How do you think a cheesy movie denigrating Jesus Christ would fare in the US? Oh hell, suggest that maybe we spend too much money buying crap (made in China) for Christmas and some of them go apeshit crazy imagining a war on Christmas.
No, I don’t think we are on any higher ground here.
Been there. Done that.
I don’t think anyone would kill the Ambassador of the country that made it. Say a pole made the movie. So then it’s all right to assassinate the Polish ambassador? It’s not even right to kill the producer! Let me make it perfectly clear. In both your hypothetical example and the real life tasteless YouTube video, THEY HAD A PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE INALIENABLE HUMAN RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH!
Only thugs kill people for saying things that offend them.
What I see from Salman Rushdie to today is that Islam’s answer to everything is to kill. Kill the woman who doesn’t cover her face. Kill the person who teaches a woman to read. Kill the person who says something about Mohammed that you take offense to. Kill Kill Kill
“Our thugs” are more civilized than “their thugs?” Difficult argument to make given that one of ours shot up a Sikh temple in WI because he thought it was a mosque.
While a trailer of a rabid anti-Muslim movie that was immediately identified as having been made in the USA did spark protests and riots, we don’t know that that was what motivated those that killed the four US State Dept employees.
But we’re lucky here — we don’t have to wait for homegrown riots to target and kill those we consider our enemies — we just regularly send in the drones to satisfy our bloodlust.
The difference is, in America nobody would target an embassy. They’d just go after “ethnic types” and take their revenge there. Maybe a nice mosque burning, that sort of thing.
From a fundamentalist terrorist’s perspective, the convenient thing about living in country like America with such a heterogeneous population is that you don’t have to look too hard to find a scapegoat. They’re practically falling from the sky.