Posted on 10/19/2012 10:32:59 AM PDT by Red Steel
Barack Obama insisted in the presidential debate on Tuesday night that he had called the Benghazi attack an “act of terror” in his Rose Garden address the next day. Fact-checkers called shenanigans on that claim, but McClatchy notes that Obama did call it an “act of terror” the next day at campaign stops in Colorado and Nevada on September 13th. On the same day, the State Department refused to link the Benghazi attack to the YouTube video that media outlets like the New York Times and AFP had. Hillary Clinton called it a terrorist attack that evening.
However, the next day, things began to change, as McClatchy’s Hannah Allam and Jonathan S. Landay report in their in-depth look at how the narrative shifted toward the YouTube video instead of an al-Qaeda attack:
With images of besieged U.S. missions in the Middle East still leading the evening news, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney became the first official to back away from the earlier declaration that the Benghazi assault was a “complex attack” by extremists. Instead, Carney told reporters, authorities “have no information to suggest that it was a preplanned attack.” He added that there was no reason to think that the Benghazi attack wasn’t related to the video, given that the clip had sparked protests in many Muslim cities.
“The unrest that we’ve seen around the region has been in reaction to a video that Muslims, many Muslims, find offensive,” Carney said.
When pressed by reporters who pointed out evidence that the violence in Benghazi was preplanned, Carney said that “news reports” had speculated about the motive. He noted again that “the unrest around the region has been in response to this video.”
Carney then launched into remarks that read like talking points in defense of the U.S. decision to intervene in last year’s uprising against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi: that post-Gadhafi Libya, he said, is “one of the more pro-American countries in the region,” that it’s led by a new government “that has just come out of a revolution,” and that the lack of security capabilities there “is not necessarily reflective of anything except for the remarkable transformation that’s been going on in the region.”
By that Sunday, Sept. 16, the evolution of the narrative was complete when Rice, the U.N. ambassador, showed up on all five major morning talk shows to make the most direct public connection yet between the Benghazi assault and the incendiary video.
While she couched her remarks in caveats – “based on the information we have at present,” for example – Rice clearly intended to make the link before a large American audience.
Why did the story change? State had watched the attack unfold in real time at Foggy Bottom through its security video system, a fact that got revealed at the House Oversight Committee hearings. That’s why State insisted that they had never considered this a “spontaneous demonstration” that “spun out of control,” as Rice insisted on five Sunday talk shows and as Carney tried to claim two days earlier. Similarly, the intel community has leaked on more than one occasion that while the data they had was conflicting, they didn’t conclude it was a demonstration that got out of hand — and several days later, that should have been even more clear.
Allam and Landy hit the nail on the head in their connection of this to Obama’s intervention to decapitate the Qaddafi regime. The rise of radical Islamist terrorist groups in eastern Libya, including al-Qaeda, comes as a direct result of that intervention. The central government in Tripoli has no control now over the Benghazi region. Furthermore, everyone knew before the intervention that AQ and other radicals operated in the eastern part of the country, and a regime decapitation would set those elements free.
The cover story was designed to mislead the American public so that they would not connect those dots. That intervention in Libya, coming with no effort at all to control the outcome on the ground, has made us much less safe, especially in that part of the world.
By the way, as a measure of how little control Tripoli now has over AQ’s new stomping grounds in the east, the New York Times reports that the prime “suspect” in the Benghazi terrorist attack doesn’t even plan to go into hiding. In fact, he’s doing media sessions:
Witnesses and the authorities have called Ahmed Abu Khattala one of the ringleaders of the Sept. 11 attack on the American diplomatic mission here. But just days after President Obama reasserted his vow to bring those responsible to justice, Mr. Abu Khattala spent two leisurely hours on Thursday evening at a crowded luxury hotel, sipping a strawberry frappe on a patio and scoffing at the threats coming from the American and Libyan governments.
Libya’s fledgling national army is a “national chicken,” Mr. Abu Khattala said, using an Arabic rhyme. Asked who should take responsibility for apprehending the mission’s attackers, he smirked at the idea that the weak Libyan government could possibly do it. And he accused the leaders of the United States of “playing with the emotions of the American people” and “using the consulate attack just to gather votes for their elections.”
Mr. Abu Khattala’s defiance — no authority has even questioned him about the attack, he said, and he has no plans to go into hiding — offered insight into the shadowy landscape of the self-formed militias that have come to constitute the only source of social order in Libya since the fall of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
A few, like the militia group Ansar al-Shariah that is linked to Mr. Abu Khattala and that officials in Washington and Tripoli agree was behind the attack, have embraced an extremist ideology hostile to the West and nursed ambitions to extend it over Libya. But also troubling to the United States is the evident tolerance shown by other militias allied with the government, which have so far declined to take any action against suspects in the Benghazi attack.
Obama lies like a persian rug.
He said it was terrorism before he said it wasn’t terrorism.
So we don’t need to know what Obama knew and when did he know it...now he needs to explain WHY?
And the issue is very clear. Help rebels overthrow dictators in the region and HOPE they do not band together with islamic militants. Hope is not a strategy...
Gay baseball owners aren’t Republican.
This must be part of Hillary’s Revenge.
Could be the new "Woodward & Bernstien"?
RUSH IS DETAILING THIS VERY ARTICLE!
Why did the story change?
Because the control between Obama
and the Mullahs and al Qaeda and and Putin go BOTH ways.
And the undocumented pRes_ _ent obeys those to whom he bows.
Why did the story change?
Because the PREWRITTEN SCRIPT was no longer ‘operable’.
Afterward the Obama Administration "disavowed" those tweets.
That was the first time the Administration decided to blame a video then when called on it stepped away but after the murder of 4 in Benghazi, used it again to proclaim "Hate in America" to fault.
An act of terror is NOT an act of terrorism. Big difference. Every time my dad took off his strap terrorized me! He wasn’t a terrorist - just a good dad.
Love the graphics!
me too, thats why I stolez it
I don’t believe their, i.e. the Obama cabal, hope is that so called rebels do not band/bond with militants. I believe the Obama cabal wants to firmly establish a militant government under Sharia control. Little by little on Europe and the USA Sharia law is to be established. As for me I much,much more prefer the risk of Mormon beliefs than the possiobility Sharia law.
I believe this is wrong.
Here, he said these two things on on the 12th.
Here's the first quote:
Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts.
Okay, the word terrorism is not located in this paragraph. What is mentioned is "the denigration of a religious belief". Hmmm, why would you mention this, if you weren't blaming the deaths on a response to some act of denigration, say a particular now famous video, and a spontaneous reaction to it? Why would you say denigration didn't justify something, if you weren't linking the two acts, denigration with senseless acts/brutal violence?
The president is lying. McKlatchy's staff is either lying or they haven't the mental faculties to discern meaning.
Here's the second quote:
As Americans, let us never, ever forget that our freedom is only sustained because there are people who are willing to fight for it, to stand up for it, and in some cases, lay down their lives for it. Our country is only as strong as the character of our people and the service of those both civilian and military who represent us around the globe.
No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.
Here are three important points to take away from this two paragraph quote.
1. Note how he broke into a new concept with the last half of the first paragraph, and the first part of the second. He does mention our foreign diplomats before and after this new concept, but standing on it's own, who he sets up the statement to be about, it does not reference our lost diplomats. This is very crafty here. It absolves him from being held to state this event was an act of terrorism. He uses the word in general terms, but not directly tied to our men who died. Remember that!
2. Note how he says we will not waver in our commitment toward the end. He wants justice done... for terrorism? No, for this terrible act. This is his second chance to call this terrorism. He doesn't.
3. Check out the blue text. I've heard of Justice being achieved, completed, or realized. I don't hear of it being done. A project can be 'done' at any stage of it's progression. You can start a project and quit. It's done. It's over. It won't be completed, but the project is done. You can stop in the middle or just before it is completed. None the less, the project's done. It's over.
This guy probably did mean justice would be achieved, but he didn't say that. He, like the Clintons and their minions, constantly use weasel words. It leaves him/them an open door to walk thorough. "No, if you look carefully, I implied we would try. I never said we'd achieve justice. I simply said Justice would be done."
Ah thanks Bill..., er Hillary..., er Lanny..., er James..., er Barack.
Last but not least folks, please consider this.
Why was the video and spontaneous reaction to it so vital to Obama's attempt to cover his ass? Why was he so reluctant to abandon his attempt to tie this to a video and a spontaneous reaction for two weeks?
HE... Let me repeat that, "HE" knew that the diplomats had been demanding more security. His only way to avoid being tied to their deaths was to affix the deaths of these diplomats to a spontaneous act of violence? Why? Because he couldn't be held to account, if it was something he couldn't have foreseen.
Thankfully, we now know there was an open line to Libya. They knew in real time there was not spontaneous reaction to some video made months before.
When he tied this to spontaneous violence which he knew from the first evening didn't take place, he telegraphed that he alone had refused to send more security to Libya.
Checkmate!
source for statement:
AND I do not think that video had any purpose other than to stir up global Muslim reaction for some global UN probably, response to make it a crime against humanity to speak ill of Islam. And Obama became the prophet to make that happen. Then found it useful to use same video to cover up having been caught with his pants down in Libya, by ignoring, and refusing to plant US signature of security.. inside Libya. It is useful to remember Hillary's initial angry reaction.
He does not want US to know that we have armed AlQaeda to the teeth, so his army of rebels can move on to Syria. The Gorelick wall has been rebuilt to serve liberal politicians. But once the State Department career employees let the ‘cat’ out of the bag, that everybody in WDC and around this world that had the need to know, knew instantly that Benghazi was a terrorist attack the lies could no longer be hidden. I do not believe for a minute this is over. WE have armed Obama’s rebels and they are in this for the long haul.
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