Fools and knaves, part 2

A reader has forwarded links to a number of sources strongly suggesting, Susan Rice to the contrary notwithstanding, that the Benghanzi murders constituted a premeditated and organized attack:

http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/09/13/4257683/guard-at-consulate-in-libya-says.html

A Libyan security guard who said he was outside the U.S. Consulate when it was attacked Tuesday night has provided new evidence that the assault that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, was a planned attack by armed Islamists and not the result of anger over an online video that mocks Islam and its founder, Muhammad.

The guard was interviewed Thursday in the hospital where he is being treated for five shrapnel wounds in one leg and two bullet wounds in the other.

He said that the consulate area was quiet — “there wasn’t a single ant outside” — until about 9:35 p.m., when up to 125 armed men descended on the compound from all directions.

He said they struck without warning.

“Wouldn’t you expect if there were protesters outside that the Americans would leave?” the guard said. The guard, who said he had been hired seven months ago by a British company to protect the compound, said the first explosion knocked him to the ground and he was unable to fire his weapon.

Four other contracted guards and three members of Libya’s 17th of February Brigade, a group formed during the first days of the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi and now considered part of Libya’s military, were protecting the perimeter of the compound

The Brigades of the Imprisoned Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, which claimed the June 6, 2012, bombing of the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, released a video of what it says is the attack. In a communiqué posted on jihadist forums on June 11, the group reported that its fighters planted an explosive in the wall of the consulate, the blasting of which injured a number of guards. It added that the attack came in response to the drone strike on al-Qaeda official Abu Yahya al-Libi in North Waziristan, and also in response to American drones flying in Libyan skies.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/15/world/meast/libya-diplomats-warning/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Three days before the deadly assault on the United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating security.

Jamal Mabrouk, a member of the February 17th Brigade, told CNN that he and a battalion commander had a meeting about the economy and security.

He said they told the diplomats that the security situation wasn’t good for international business.

“The situation is frightening, it scares us,” Mabrouk said they told the U.S. officials. He did not say how they responded.

The reader comments:

The above proves without question that:

1. Al Qaeda was targeting the consulate from at least June of this year, and had in fact attacked it once already and UPLOADED a YouTube video about the attack.

2. Three days before the attack, Libyan authorities had warned our staff in Benghazi about the deteriorating security condition in the area.

3. The security on the night of the attack was woefully inadequate, the compound was not sufficiently “hardened” to withstand an assault, and our Ambassador was sent to Benghazi without adequate personal protection.

A Boston Globe story (quoted by the reader following the URL) sheds additional light on the attack:

In addition, Al Qaeda probably KNEW he would be there. Even though the Administration said Ambassador Stevens recently returned from Europe and that his visit to Benghazi was “confidential,” the purpose for his visit was this:

http://articles.boston.com/2012-09-14/metro/33818187_1_thomas-burke-libya-emergency-department

Libya is a country of nearly 6.5 million people, and the availability of emergency medical care can be summed up this way: It is almost nonexistent.

It is for that reason that a leading emergency physician from Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Thomas Burke, chief of the Boston hospital’s Division of Global Health and Human Rights, found himself in Benghazi, Libya, on Tuesday. Burke was preparing to begin a 10-year cooperative effort between Mass. General and Benghazi Medical Center to develop an emergency care infrastructure, when tragedy struck.

Just hours before Burke was scheduled to meet with John Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya, the US consulate was attacked. Stevens and three other Americans were killed, including Glen Doherty, a Winchester native and former Navy SEAL working for a private security company.

Burke’s colleagues had spoken with Stevens just 45 minutes before the attack, and Burke was on the phone with an embassy attaché when the shelling began.

“He yelled, ‘Oh my God, Oh [expletive],’ and then he hung up,” said Burke, who was in a hotel about a mile from the consulate when the attack began. “Then we heard these deep blasts. We didn’t know what was going on. Nobody knew if the whole city was being attacked.

Our reader adds: “In short if Dr. Burke knew Ambassador Stevens was in Benghazi, certainly many local Libyans connected with the hospital knew as well. It sounds like some sort of signing ceremony was to take place on 9-12.” He draws three inferences from the Globe story:

1. That when Burke’s colleague was on the phone 45 minutes earlier, the Ambassador said nothing about a protest

2. When Burke was talking on the phone with the attaché, he also said NOTHING about a protest until the shelling started, and he hung up.

3. Burke’s hotel was less than a mile from the consulate and he could hear the explosions from his spot in the hotel.

He also adds this context stemming from the June attack on the consulate:

Another interesting twist in the Benghazi attack is the Administrations protestations that the attack was the result of a YouTube video, and they were not sure Al Qaeda was behind it.

Back in June, the State Dept took EXACTLY the same position after the consulate was bombed on June 6.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/06/us-libya-attack-us-idUSBRE8550GX20120606

The administration’s talking points, parroted faithfully by Susan Rice on each of the network talk shows this morning, leave a lot to be desired.

THIS JUST IN: “Libyan president: 50 arrests in Consulate assault”:

In an interview for “Face the Nation” Sunday, President Mohamed Magariaf also said that evidence “leaves us with no doubt” that the attack was pre-planned.

“It was planned, definitely, it was planned by foreigners, by people who entered the country a few months ago, and they were planning this criminal act since their arrival,” he told Bob Schieffer.

Susan Rice, however, stayed on message.

AND THIS: Judging by the comments on Jake Tapper’s report on Rice’s This Week appearance, the message might need a little fine tuning.

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