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Friday, October 19, 2012

Who Is Responsible For The Mess In Libya?


How many times have you heard the truism that in modern-day America the cover-up is often as troubling as the crime? That is becoming quite apparent in the case of the death of Chris Stevens, the former U.S. ambassador to Libya.

Stevens and three State Department employees were murdered in the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last month, on September 11th. About an hour before the murders, the ambassador, who usually resides in the U.S. embassy in Tripoli but was visiting local officials and staying at the consulate in Benghazi, had just completed dinner there with a colleague, whom he personally walked to the front gate of the compound. In the next three hours, hundreds of persons assaulted the virtually defenseless compound and set it afire.

Around the same time that these crimes took place in Benghazi, a poorly produced, low-grade 15-minute YouTube clip was going viral on the Internet. The clip shows actors in dubbed voices portraying the prophet Mohammed and others in an unflattering light. The Obama administration seized upon the temporary prevalence of this clip to explain the assault on the consulate. Indeed, the administration sent U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to represent it on five Sunday morning TV talk shows on September 16th, to make the claim that the attack on the consulate was a spontaneous reaction to the YouTube clip, that it could not have been anticipated, and that the perpetrators were ordinary Libyans angry at the freedom moviemakers in America enjoy.

Soon, U.S. intelligence reports were leaked that revealed that the intelligence community knew the attack was not as described by Rice. The intelligence folks on the ground in Libya reported before September 16th that the attack was well organized, utilized military equipment and tactics, and was carried out by local militias with ties to al-Qaida. In response to these leaks, the State Department, for which Rice works, acknowledged that the assault was an organized terrorist attack.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"the perpetrators were ordinary Libyans angry at the freedom moviemakers in America enjoy."

"Ordinary Libyans" are civilized and secular and did not have a problem with Col Qaddafi who managed to keep the Islamists under control. Then the US Know Nothing (who thinks he knows everything) Empty Chair, in an attempt to make himself look important supported "regime change." Now the once peaceful properous country is in turmoil.
He built this mess because he didn't listen to wiser people who warned him repeatedly that these "freedom fighters" were Islamic militants hell bent on making Libya a terrorist stronghold.
Nothing is worse than a know it all except one like the Empty Chair who in reality knows nothing.

Anonymous said...

Bush

Anonymous said...

Everyone who saw fit to be there in the first place.