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Sept 2012: U.S. Ambassador in Libya and two others killed in attack of consulate

  • Thread starter Thread starter jollyjacktar
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Rather than start new thread, I offer tis article, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/ads-posted-in-new-york-subways-test-limits-of-free-speech/article4568396/
Ads posted in New York subways test limits of free speech

PAUL KORING
WASHINGTON — The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Sep. 25 2012

Pro-Israeli posters that verge on calling Muslims uncivilized savages now adorn New York’s busy Times Square and Grand Central subway stations, in another incendiary test of the limits of free speech following Muslim protests around the world over a U.S.-made film depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a womanizing child abuser.

“In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man,” say the large, boldly lettered wall posters sponsored by a group calling itself the American Freedom Defense Initiative. They add: “Support Israel/Defeat Jihad.”

AFDI describes itself as a human-rights organization but has been dubbed a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks radical organizations.

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority reluctantly complied with a court order to post the advertisements on Monday, after losing a year-long legal battle. The ads are now on the walls in 10 of the city’s nearly 500 subway stations.

“Our hands are tied,” said Aaron Donovan, an MTA spokesman. The ads had initially been rejected under the MTA’s prohibition on messages that “demean people on the basis of their race, sex, religion, national origin or other group classification,” but the court ruled those restrictions violated the First Amendment free-speech guarantees in the U.S. Constitution.

Pamela Geller, a prominent pro-Israeli activist who said she is the executive director of AFDI, stridently defended the message and gave an expansive definition of her use of the word “savage.”

“The endless demonization of the Jewish people in the Palestinian and Arab media is savage,” she said in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail. “The refusal to recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish state is savage. The list is endless.”

Reactions varied among passers-by. “Where is the protection of religion in America?” asked Javerea Khan, 22, a Pakistani-born Muslim. “The word ‘savage’ really bothers the Muslim community,” she said. Mel Moore, a 29-year-old sports agent, told Reuters: “It’s not right, but it’s freedom of speech.”

In her spirited defence of the posters’ message on her blog, AtlasShrugs2000, Ms. Geller said the furor surrounding the ads exposed the violent tendencies of anti-Israeli groups.

She said at least one of her posters had already been defaced, less than a day after it was put up. “Hundreds and hundreds of anti-Israel posters ran all over the country,” she wrote, without explaining further what posters she meant. “Not one was defaced. One anti-jihad poster goes up, and it’s defaced within an hour, while its creator faces defamation, smears and libel.”

The MTA, meanwhile, said it has asked the AFDI for extra supplies of the posters so it can replace those defaced or torn off.

Ms. Geller insisted the ads didn’t attack all Muslims, only those extremists who advocate violence. For Muslims, though, the Arabic word “jihad” means the act of struggling or striving on behalf of God; it’s a holy duty, one that can mean simply striving for self-improvement, that believers cannot reject or ignore. The use of jihad to mean holy or just war – akin to crusade for Christians – is widely regarded as only one element of struggle.

Ms. Geller previously gained notoriety for her campaign against the building of the so-called Ground Zero mosque close to the site of the destroyed World Trade Center. She is “the anti-Muslim movement’s most visible and flamboyant figurehead,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Ms. Geller said the ads cost $6,000 and will remain for one month, and that she plans a similar ad campaign in the Washington, D.C. subway.


There is no doubt that this is provocative, perhaps it is even designed to enrage the Arab street and, concomitantly, endanger Americans living, working and fighting in Muslim lands. But: it is also "fair comment" and, therefore, "free speech" which must be defended.

I wonder hos Ms. Geller feels about this sort of thing?

CANNIBAL.jpg
and this

I sincerely hope she believes that they, too, are "free speech" worthy of protection.
 
Massive fail on the part of the Administration and State Department; the knowledge that these attacks were the work of terrorists and even the knowledge of who did it was available within 24 hr but the incredible charade of blaming a little known YouTube video as the motivator and pulling in the film maker for questioning (rather than sending death's dark angel to visit the perpetrator) continues apace. Any other administration would be raked over the coals repeatedly for such a failure...



U.S. Officials Knew Libya Attacks Were Work of Al Qaeda Affiliates
by Eli Lake Sep 26, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
Sources say intelligence agencies knew within a day that al Qaeda affiliates were behind the attacks in Benghazi, Libya—they even knew where one of the attackers lived. Eli Lake reports.
 
Within 24 hours of the 9-11 anniversary attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi, U.S. intelligence agencies had strong indications al Qaeda–affiliated operatives were behind the attack, and had even pinpointed the location of one of those attackers. Three separate U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said the early information was enough to show that the attack was planned and the work of al Qaeda affiliates operating in Eastern Libya.

'Tariq Ramadan discusses the uprisings in the Middle East.'

Nonetheless, it took until late last week for the White House and the administration to formally acknowledge that the Benghazi assault was a terrorist attack. On Sunday, Obama adviser Robert Gibbs explained the evolving narrative as a function of new information coming in quickly on the attacks. "We learned more information every single day about what happened,” Gibbs said on Fox News. “Nobody wants to get to the bottom of this faster than we do.”

The intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast did so anonymously because they weren’t authorized to speak to the press. They said U.S. intelligence agencies developed leads on four of the participants of the attacks within 24 hours of the fire fight that took place mainly at an annex near the Benghazi consulate. For one of those individuals, the U.S. agencies were able to find his location after his use of social media. “We had two kinds of intelligence on one guy,” this official said. “We believe we had enough to target him.”

Another U.S. intelligence official said, “There was very good information on this in the first 24 hours. These guys have a return address. There are camps of people and a wide variety of things we could do.”

A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to comment for the story. But another U.S. intelligence official said, “I can’t get into specific numbers but soon after the attack we had a pretty good bead on some individuals involved in the attack.”

It’s unclear whether any of these suspected attackers have been targeted or arrested, and intelligence experts caution that these are still early days in a complex investigation.

The question of what the White House knew, and when they knew it, will be of keen interest to members of Congress in the election year. Last Thursday, the Obama administration formally briefed House and Senate members on the attack. Those briefings however failed to satisfy many members, particularly Republicans. “That is the most useless, worthless briefing I have attended in a long time,” Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, was quoted as saying. 

    “There was very good information on this in the first 24 hours. These guys have a return address.”

The Daily Beast reported last week that the U.S. intelligence community was studying an intercept between a Libyan politician and a member of the so-called February 17 militia, Libyans charged with providing security for the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. More intelligence has come in that shows members of Ansar al-Sharia, an al Qaeda–affiliated group operating in and around Benghazi, were attempting to coerce, threaten, cajole, and bribe members of the militia protecting the consulate.
 
Sixteen days after the attack, it has been reported that the administration were aware within 24 hours that it was a terrorist attack. The identities of some of the individuals were known and their location was tracked. Yet even yesterday, the president of the United States, at the UN, was still perpetuating the video sham.

The two SEALS were killed a half mile from the building where the ambassador was killed. The SEALS were in the building that contained intelligence assets. They died protecting whatever that building contained, which was apparently their mission. I think everybody assumed that the SEALS were providing close personal protection for the ambassador. Not their mission.

The administration says the attack is under investigation by the FBI. The FBI is not on the ground yet as it is too dangerous for their personnel. If it is too dangerous for the FBI now, how dangerous was it for the ambassador sixteen days ago? Who was on his close personal protection team? He was killed with one other identified as an information officer.

As previously posted the ambassador was worried about his safety and the strength of al Qaeda. Why didn't he have more action?

Administration announced today that they were pulling out all embassy staff from Libya. Further cover-up?
 
Unfortunately it's hard to believe anything the us government publishes about stuff like this.

 
ObedientiaZelum said:
Unfortunately it's hard to believe anything the us government publishes about stuff like this.


Too true ... about this and anything else in Washington, from either side of the aisle.

I'm not a great believer in the trustworthiness of mainstream media but the Financial Times is better, more thoughtful, less biased, than most of its mainstream or blogosphere counterparts and I often nod my head in agreement. I did again on reading this editorial which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Financial Times:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d0e708de-0716-11e2-92ef-00144feabdc0.html#axzz27woSDLdI
Mujahedin mistake

September 25, 2012

The US government’s decision to take Mujahedin-e-Khalq, the exiled Iranian organisation, off its list of terrorist groups is a vivid example of the influence of money and lobbying in Washington. At worst it highlights the analytical fog that clouds many US policy heavyweights’ view of Iran.

MEK may once have played a serious role in Iranian politics. It helped to topple the shah’s regime in 1979, but soon fell out with the new theocratic regime, which brutally repressed it for attacks on the new government and an attempt on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s life. It collaborated with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq from where it engineered assassinations inside Iran.

Today, however, the organisation hovers between being a nuisance and an irrelevance. Many of its members long frustrated US and Iraqi government efforts to relocate them from their decades-old camp. Tehran accuses it of killing Iranian nuclear scientists on Washington’s bidding. But the most significant fact about MEK is its degeneration into a personality cult around leader Maryam Rajavi.

The astonishing support garnered by this fringe group would be tragicomic were it not so unsettling. The Republican chairs of the House of Representatives’ committees on foreign affairs and on intelligence have called for MEK to be taken off the terrorism list. So have Hugh Shelton, Bill Clinton’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Michael Mukasey and Tom Ridge, attorney-general and homeland security secretary for George W. Bush; Jim Jones, the first national security adviser to Barack Obama; and former heads of the FBI and the CIA.

Fast-track delisting is surely worth the price (even Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress were not taken off the list until 2008). MEK has found the best friends money can buy: most of those who speak out in its favour have taken speaking fees or campaign contributions from MEK-friendly groups.

Some of MEK’s supporters, such as Gen Shelton, seem genuinely to believe that the MEK, with its unquestioned terrorist past, is the key to political change in Tehran. That is not just an insult to the true Iranian opposition that took to the streets in 2009; it also complicates any trust-building over Iran’s nuclear plans. With the idea of violently overturning the regime in Tehran openly discussed in Washington, flashbacks to Mr Bush’s enamourment with Ahmed Chalabi in Iraq are hard to avoid. Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, owes everyone an explanation.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012. You may share using our article tools.


America, official, institutional America, as represented by the politicians, media personalities, lobbyists, denizens of think tanks, academic and other hangers-on in DC, is corrupt. That applies to Democrats, Republicans (of both the RINO and Tea Party variety) and Independents alike.
 
More on the Lybian attack. It's not like they didn't foresee this, just that no one in Washington was listening:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/house-u.s.-embassy-in-libya-asked-for-extra-security-request-denied/article/2509580#.UGsQx67sYtW

House: U.S. Embassy in Libya asked for extra security, request denied

October 2, 2012 | 10:30 am
47Comments

Joel Gehrke
Commentary Writer
The Washington Examiner
@Joelmentum Joel on FB

House investigators warned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to expect a hearing into their finding that that American staff at the U.S. Embassy in Libya had their request for additional security denied by Washington officials.

“Based on information provided to the Committee by individuals with direct knowledge of events in Libya, the attack that claimed the ambassador’s life was the latest in a long line of attacks on Western diplomats and officials in Libya in the months leading up to September 11, 2012,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and subcommittee chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, wrote Clinton today. They dismissed out-of-hand the suggestion that the attack ever could have been regarded as a spontaneous protest gone awry.

“In addition, multiple U.S. federal government officials have confirmed to the Committee that, prior to the September 11 attack, the U.S. mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi,” Issa and Chaffetz added (my emphasis). “The mission in Libya, however, was denied these resources by officials in Washington.”

The committee noted 13 “security threats” in Benghazi, including an attempt to assassinate the British ambassador to Libya.
 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/10/02/bc-bacon-vandalism-mosque.html

The RCMP is investigating the possibility of a hate crime after several piles of bacon were found outside a mosque in Port Coquitlam, B.C.

Police say it's the second such act of vandalism and mischief at the Islamic Society of British Columbia mosque and Islamic Centre in the last 18 months.

Riots to follow.




Has any more word of what US Navy Seals were safe guarding came out? I almost wonder if that was the main objective and perhaps the embassy attack a convenient distraction.
 
ObedientiaZelum said:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/10/02/bc-bacon-vandalism-mosque.html

Riots to follow.

No kidding.
 
>Riots to follow.

Most certainly.  Given the imminent bacon shortage, rage is an entirely appropriate reaction.
 
Who the hell wastes good bacon! That should be a charge itself!
 
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2012/10/05/fbi-investigators-in-and-out-of-libya-in-24-hours.html?ESRC=topstories.RSS

FBI Investigators In and Out of Libya in 12 Hours

Oct 05, 2012

Associated Press - by Eileen Sullivan and Lolita C. Baldor


WASHINGTON -- A team of FBI agents arrived in Benghazi, Libya, to investigate the assault against the U.S. Consulate and left after about 12 hours on the ground as the hunt for those possibly connected to the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans narrowed to one or two people in an extremist group, U.S. officials said Thursday.

Agents arrived in Benghazi before dawn on Thursday and departed after sunset, after 21 days of waiting for access to the crime scene to investigate the Sept. 11 attack.

The agents and several dozen U.S. special operations forces were there for about 12 hours, said a senior Defense Department official who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation. The FBI agents went to "all the relevant locations" in the city, FBI spokeswoman Kathy Wright said. The FBI would not say what, if anything, they found.

More at link.
 
I bet they picked up a lot of good evidence and intel 21 days after it happened.
 
You mean this Samuel L. Jackson:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hDTT1yRNsFE#!

He would cover up for his hero.
 
And it turns out the story we were fed was never true to begin with; there was no "demonstration":

ABC: No Protest Outside Libya Consulate Before Attack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJf6Q_jPrJk&feature=youtu.be

Too bad it took a month to tell the audience what really happened (and before anyone claims ignorance, there were clear indications and reports to the State Department prior to this taking place. Of course this is the same Legacy media which chose to report the attack and death of the ambassador on page A4 of the NYT...)
 
Thucydides said:
And it turns out the story we were fed was never true to begin with; there was no "demonstration":

ABC: No Protest Outside Libya Consulate Before Attack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJf6Q_jPrJk&feature=youtu.be

Too bad it took a month to tell the audience what really happened (and before anyone claims ignorance, there were clear indications and reports to the State Department prior to this taking place. Of course this is the same Legacy media which chose to report the attack and death of the ambassador on page A4 of the NYT...)

That's not exactly breaking news. I remember reading an article shortly after (a day or two) which contained comments from local Libyan security personnel who said that there was no protest at the time of the attacks. It may have been taken or reported as "not in the immediate area" or whatever.
 
I agree with cupper re not exactly breaking news!!!

The story broke and was reported extensively on FOX News before and since AMB Rice went on all the Sunday shows to say it was a movie.

As no one pays the extra freight to watch FOX News, they are misinformed, BS ed to and unaware.
 
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