Poll: Was Benghazi a "Spontaneous Attack," or Planned Terrorist Attack?

[WelfareQueen]

I have laughed for two days reading all the convoluted explanations for Benghazi. Most on the left seem to say it was a spontaneous attack based on a video while at the same time saying "it was an act of terror."

Well folks...if it was an act of terror it was by definition a planned and coordinated terror attack. So which is it? Video and spontaneous uprising, or a planned terrorist attack?

It is time to take a stand. Which is it? And btw...an Obama all the above weasel answer does not cut it. Either it was planned and coordinated or it was not. So which is it?

 

[rdean]

According to the NYT, it was both.

 

[Meathead]

According to the NYT, it was both.

Yeah, the New York Times has become a veritable rag. May as well resource NBC or Fox.

 

[WelfareQueen]

According to the NYT, it was both.

It cannot be both. The NY Times also claimed there were no terrorist ties after stating for over a year there were terrorist ties. So which is it?

And rdean...this is a poll. I want your answer...not a rag like the NY Times.

 

[g5000]

I have laughed for two days reading all the convoluted explanations for Benghazi. Most the left seem to say it was a spontaneous attack based on a video while at the same time saying "it was an act of terror."

Well folks...if it was an act of terror it was by definition a planned and coordinated terror attack. So which is it? Video and spontaneous uprising, or a planned terrorist attack?

False dichotomy.

It was a planned attack, and the attack was based in part on the video made by a lying anti-Semite Coptic Christian con man.

It was not an attack by Al Qaeda.

Any more questions?

 

[Sunni Man]

Actually, rdean is correct; it was both.

The video set the protests events into motion.

And the militants seized the moment and attacked. .....

 

[Claudette]

It was planned. It was planned to coincide with 9/11 and thats just what it did.

 

[Meathead]

Actually, rdean is correct; it was both.

The video set the protests events into motion.

And the militants seized the moment and attacked. .....

Yeah, like Arabs are organized enough to form a quick response team.

Israel perhaps, but Arabs FFS?

 

[rightwinger]

It had nothing to do with the 9-11 anniversary

 

[Redfish]

I have laughed for two days reading all the convoluted explanations for Benghazi. Most the left seem to say it was a spontaneous attack based on a video while at the same time saying "it was an act of terror."

Well folks...if it was an act of terror it was by definition a planned and coordinated terror attack. So which is it? Video and spontaneous uprising, or a planned terrorist attack?

False dichotomy.

It was a planned attack, and the attack was based in part on the video made by a lying anti-Semite Coptic Christian con man.

It was not an attack by Al Qaeda.

Any more questions?

provide a direct link between the stupid video and the attack on the embassy.

 

[rightwinger]

Actually, rdean is correct; it was both.

The video set the protests events into motion.

And the militants seized the moment and attacked. .....

Yeah, like Arabs are organized enough to form a quick response team.

Israel perhaps, but Arabs FFS?

How much planning does it take to provoke an angry mob?

 

[g5000]

Here is the New York Times reporter on Meet the Press yesterday: 1: The impact of new Benghazi findings - Video on NBCNews.com

David Gregory plays a clip of Susan Rice from shortly after the attack:

RICE: Putting together the best information that we have available to us today, our current assessment is that what happened in Benghazi was, in fact, initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo. Almost a copycat of the demonstrations in our facilty in cairo which were prompted by the video.

The reporter's response to that clip:

KIRKPATRICK: She made some clear misstatements there. This was not a street protest and it was not a copycat of what happened in Cairo. That was an unarmed street protest. This is a group of armed men who, inspired by a video, deliberately attacked the compound. So what she's doing there through her misstatement is actually setting up a kind of a false dichotomy . Either it was a spontaneous street protest or it was an armed terrorist attack . Neither of those turns out to be exactly the case. It was an armed terrorist attack motivated in large part by the video.

Andrea Mitchell puts in her two cents:

MITCHELL: In Susan Rice's defense, and the State Department's approach as well, in those first few days everybody was trying to cover up, appropriately, they thought, the fact this was a CIA outpost. This was barely a diplomatic mission. It was a cover for an outpost to try to disarm the very militias that ended up attacking.

 

[WelfareQueen]

Actually, rdean is correct; it was both.

The video set the protests events into motion.

And the militants seized the moment and attacked. .....

So they "spontaneously" got mortars and coordinated fire from multiple locations with insiders at the embassy also in on the attack....

And all of this was done impromptu based on an internet video?

 

[Meathead]

Actually, rdean is correct; it was both.

The video set the protests events into motion.

And the militants seized the moment and attacked. .....

Yeah, like Arabs are organized enough to form a quick response team.

Israel perhaps, but Arabs FFS?

How much planning does it take to provoke an angry mob?

For an organized Arab mob probably years. Their own crack troops couldn't have executed the attack in short order.

 

[Bloodrock44]

We keep focusing on the wrong area. It doesn't matter if it was Al Qaeda or not Al Qaeda. It doesn't matter if it was planned or unplanned. What matters is that extra security was requested days before because it was a hot area and the anniversary of 9/11 was coming up. The state department admitted it denied extra security. What matters is who denied it and why. And don't say it would have bankrupted the treasury to send a platoon or even a squad of Marines who would have stopped that attack before it got started and 4 Americans would be alive today. Someone is guilty of dereliction of duty.

 

[g5000]

The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

Reports of the video were just beginning to spread on Sept. 9 when Mr. McFarland, then the officer normally in charge of politics and economics at the United States Embassy in Tripoli, had his meeting with the Benghazi militia leaders. Among them were some of the same men who had greeted Mr. Stevens when he arrived in Benghazi at the start of the revolt, including Mr. Gharabi, 39, a heavyset former Abu Salim inmate who ran a local sandwich truck before becoming the leader of the Rafallah al-Sehati. Another was Wissam bin Hamid, also 39, a slim and slightly hunched mechanic known for his skill with American cars who by then had become the leader of Libya Shield, considered one of the strongest militias in Libya.

In an interview, Mr. Gharabi said that he had known about the building rage in Egypt over the video, but that, “We did not know if it was going to reach us here.”
Mr. McFarland seemed most concerned about the big militia leaders. “'How do the revolutionaries feel about having relationships with Western countries? What is your opinion about the United States?'” the Americans asked, according to Mr. Gharabi. It was “an interrogation,” he said.

“We told them that we hoped that the countries which helped us during the war would now help us in development,” he said. “And America was at the top of the pyramid.”

But Mr. Gharabi and two other Libyan militia leaders present said separately that they tried to warn Mr. McFarland. “We told them, ‘Weapons are everywhere, in every home, and there is no real control,' ” Mr. Bin Hamid of Libya Shield said.

Mr. McFarland struggled to make sense of their contradictory signals. “The message was, ‘Don’t come here because there is no security, but come right away because we need you,' ” Mr. McFarland later told colleagues.

The militia leaders seemed unable to get their stories straight, his colleagues said, and the vague warnings amounted to a reminder of what the diplomats already knew: Post-revolutionary Benghazi was a dangerous place.

The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

Around dusk, the Pan-Arab satellite networks began broadcasting footage of protesters breaching the walls of the American Embassy in Cairo, pulling down the American flag and running up the black banner of militant Islam. Young men around Benghazi began calling one another with the news, several said, and many learned of the video for the first time.

There is no doubt that anger over the video motivated many attackers. A Libyan journalist working for The New York Times was blocked from entering by the sentries outside, and he learned of the film from the fighters who stopped him. Other Libyan witnesses, too, said they received lectures from the attackers about the evil of the film and the virtue of defending the prophet.

 

[WelfareQueen]

Here is the New York Times reporter on Meet the Press yesterday: 1: The impact of new Benghazi findings - Video on NBCNews.com

David Gregory plays a clip of Susan Rice from shortly after the attack:

RICE: Putting together the best information that we have available to us today, our current assessment is that what happened in Benghazi was, in fact, initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo. Almost a copycat of the demonstrations in our facilty in cairo which were prompted by the video.

The reporter's response to that clip:

KIRKPATRICK: She made some clear misstatements there. This was not a street protest and it was not a copycat of what happened in Cairo. That was an unarmed street protest. This is a group of armed men who, inspired by a video, deliberately attacked the compound. So what she's doing there through her misstatement is actually setting up a kind of a false dichotomy . Either it was a spontaneous street protest or it was an armed terrorist attack . Neither of those turns out to be exactly the case. It was an armed terrorist attack motivated in large part by the video.

Andrea Mitchell puts in her two cents:

MITCHELL: In Susan Rice's defense, and the State Department's approach as well, in those first few days everybody was trying to cover up, appropriately, they thought, the fact this was a CIA outpost. This was barely a diplomatic mission. It was a cover for an outpost to try to disarm the very militias that ended up attacking.

So Rice lied about the entire attack at the behest of Obama and his cronies. Okay, I think everyone can agree with that. And the left's new word for lying now is "misstatement," or "misspoke." Sorry...a lie is a lie.

Better not to say anything at all than lie. But lying is all Obama and his people know.

 

[g5000]

We keep focusing on the wrong area. It doesn't matter if it was Al Qaeda or not Al Qaeda. It doesn't matter if it was planned or unplanned. What matters is that extra security was requested days before because it was a hot area and the anniversary of 9/11 was coming up. The state department admitted it denied extra security. What matters is who denied it and why. And don't say it would have bankrupted the treasury to send a platoon or even a squad of Marines who would have stopped that attack before it got started and 4 Americans would be alive today. Someone is guilty of dereliction of duty.

The Ambassador was killed in the first attack, which lasted less than ten minutes.

As there were mobs running wild all over the Middle East over the video at that time, how many other missions were requesting extra protection?

You have no idea, do you.

The Benghazi consulate wasn't even our main diplomatic mission in Libya. The embassy in Tripoli is. The consulate was a CIA outpost, not a real diplomatic one.

Stop exploiting the deaths of Americans for political purposes.

It was a tragedy, and it sucks that Americans died. But there was a lot going on all over the Middle East at the same time. Danger comes with the job, and the Foreign Service knows that.

There were ten attacks on our diplomatic missions on Bush's watch and not one of you rubes know what Bush was doing before, during, or after any one of them. You don't know a single fact about any of them. You don't even know how many Americans were killed. Because you never gave a shit.

This is a political witch hunt, not a seeking of truth. And a mountain of manufactured bullshit, and selective investigation, surrounding it betrays this fact.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I have laughed for two days reading all the convoluted explanations for Benghazi. Most the left seem to say it was a spontaneous attack based on a video while at the same time saying "it was an act of terror."

Well folks...if it was an act of terror it was by definition a planned and coordinated terror attack. So which is it? Video and spontaneous uprising, or a planned terrorist attack?

False dichotomy.

It was a planned attack, and the attack was based in part on the video made by a lying anti-Semite Coptic Christian con man.

It was not an attack by Al Qaeda.

Any more questions?

How's the Kool-aid?

 

[Meathead]

We keep focusing on the wrong area. It doesn't matter if it was Al Qaeda or not Al Qaeda. It doesn't matter if it was planned or unplanned. What matters is that extra security was requested days before because it was a hot area and the anniversary of 9/11 was coming up. The state department admitted it denied extra security. What matters is who denied it and why. And don't say it would have bankrupted the treasury to send a platoon or even a squad of Marines who would have stopped that attack before it got started and 4 Americans would be alive today. Someone is guilty of dereliction of duty.

True to some extent. The catalyst does matter because it shows the extent Obama and Hillary will go to obfuscate and deflect. And remember we're not talking about some Americans like rightwinger and JoeB, but those who had some value.