First, the nation is still highly factionalized, various disparate militia groups holding sway over many areas. The central government, as it is, doesn't have a great deal of control over the nation. The situation is very different in Egypt - there, the new regime inherited the large police and security forces that kept the military in control for decades. They had to know that the attack on the embassy was going to take place, and could have prevented it from happening if they wanted. Whereas, the Libyan central government could potentially have been unaware of the plot to attack the consulate.
Second, the government responses. The Libyan president and prime minister quickly apologized, and forcefully stated opposition to the attack as an act of barbarism against freedom. By comparison, the Egyptian government waited quite a bit, and when they finally announced their response, it was a mealy-mouthed apology that wasn't really an apology, but that actually blamed the US even more. And then Morsi went on to demand that the filmmakers be tried.
I think that is quite telling - these are both leaders of new and shaky governments. They likely wouldn't be making major statements that would arouse hostility from the bulk of the populace. That the Libyan leaders spoke in such a public manner indicates that they felt the bulk of Libyans (at least those supporting the new central government) wouldn't significantly disagree with them. Time will tell how true that is - the appearance of moderately sized marches in Libya voicing discontent with the attack might just be signs of minority groups or of plants, it's too soon to tell. I don't view the anger at the attacks voiced in the Libyan blogosphere as being sign of much - in a nation like Libya, those people active in the internet are going to be of the urban, more secular and international segments of the populace, and not necessarily representative of the general population.
We should demand and receive major concessions, but I'm willing to give the Libyan government a chance before skipping to the "start punitive air strikes" option that some people here are calling for.
Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention - large amounts of additional anti-American protests have cropped out outside the embassy in Egypt following the first assault. In Libya however, a nation lacking effective security forces, the embassy proper (it was a consulate that was attack, not the embassy in Tripoli) has not seen large protests following the attack, even when they have been cropping up in separate nations altogether like Tunisia.
Thanks for pointing out the often-forgotten fact that “Libya” and “Libyans” refer to two different entities. The same is of course true for any other country.
“Libya” refers to the government of the country taking official action. While that government is indeed composed of “Libyans,” not all actions by Libyans are taken by Libya.
On 9/11 almost all the attackers were Saudi, as of course was Osama. It seems pretty clear that powerful men and groups in SA supported the attacks. While some within the SA government were no doubt involved, there is also little doubt that Osama’s supporters are deadly enemies of SA’s government.
Obviously, sometimes the two terms both apply, and sometimes a government hides its own actions by pretending they are just those of some of its citizens.
The more totalitarian and oppressive the government, the more likely this is to be true, as there is correspondingly less room for action by individuals.
In fact, I would contend that blurring these lines was part of what was involved in these attacks. “Americans” made an offensive movie, so the response is to attack “America.”
I disagree with you. Having lived in the Middle East, you know an arab is lying because his lips are moving. The strong libyan response was because they know they will lose funding, nothing less than that. They are animals.
Here is a link to a story which implicates Zawhiri in fomenting this activity. See my comment on this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2930768/posts