“Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they’d go kill some Americans,” Clinton said. “What difference – at this point, what difference does it make?”
Enough almost to elicit empathy from me for Mrs. Clinton. But not quite. Even though it really doesn’t much matter if the events at the Benghazi Special Mission Compound were a pre-planned terrorist attack by some Islamist group or a mob gone wild. Except to Republicans in DC and their armies of rightwing haters who desperately want the terrorist narrative that their peabrains can use to discredit the National Security State under Barack Obama and by extension his former SOC Hillary Clinton.
Considering that 39% Of People Who Think Benghazi is America’s Biggest Scandal Can’t Find It On A Map, it’s likely even more of them don’t know much about the events of September 11, 2012. And have forgotten or conveniently overlooked Cairo.
So, let’s take a moment to review.
Protests at the US Cairo Embassy were anticipated on 9/11 as early as August 30 when Muhammed al-Zawahiri called for them in support of getting Abdel Rahman released. However, those that did show up that day were clear that they were protesting what they thought was an American made anti-Muslim movie based on a purported trailer for the movie that had been aired on Egyptian TV and was available on a website.
At 12:18 pm, the US Cairo Embassy issued a statement denouncing the trailer/movie. A couple hours later protesters began gathering at the Embassy and around 4:00 pm some protesters had scaled the embassy wall, taken down the US flag which they proceeded to shred, and hoisted an Islamist flag. Embassy walls were painted with graffiti. From the Yahoo report
The crowd grew throughout the evening with thousands standing outside the embassy. Dozens of riot police lined up along the embassy walls but did not stop protesters as they continued to climb and stand on the wall — though it appeared no more went into the compound.
By midnight, the crowd had dwindled. The U.S. Embassy said on its Twitter account that there will be no visa services on Wednesday because of the protests.
It was a mob scene and more or less ran its course as local security forces mostly refrained from interfering and fired warning shots every so often. Protests and clashes with the police in Cairo continued for the next three days. (Protests in many other locations also broke out in the days after September 11.)
Why is it so incomprehensible to the rabid Republican partisans that the Cairo demonstration, in the country that had inspired the revolt in Libya, would not have been noticed in Libya? That photos and videos wouldn’t have been shared and available in real time to fundamentalist Muslims Libya? That it wouldn’t inspire a few of them stage a protest of their own?
Benghazi isn’t Cairo – there is no US Embassy in Benghazi, not even a consulate, just a Special Mission, the security forces in Benghazi aren’t as professional and developed as those in Cairo, and guns in the hands of citizens seem more prevalent in Benghazi (one of the many consequences of armed revolutions). So, what happened?
Some number of men appeared at the Special Mission Compound (SMC) after 9:42 when a local police security vehicle left and reported that there was no activity on the street. (Note: the Cairo protest was still going on.) Some then either scaled the entry gate or the pedestrian gate had inadvertently been left open. The US TOC observed the compound breach and hit all the alarms including notification to the US Embassy in Tripoli and the “Annex” (CIA mission compound that was a mile away from the SMC). The four US security officials at the SMC performed their duties including moving Amb Stevens and Sean Smith, the information management officer, to a secured portion of Villa C. (The seven local security guards on the compound ran and hid.)
Once inside the compound, the men found a supply of diesel fuel and set the security guards barracks (the building closet to the gate) on fire. They then proceeded to Villa C and torched it. Meanwhile many more men arrived in the street. When the arsonists ran out of fuel and failed to get entry into Villa B and the TOC, they melted back into the crowd in the street.
The smoke in the secured area of Villa C was intense. The DS made the decision that he, Stevens, and Smith had to evacuate. Crawling, he led them to a window egress, but once out discovered that Stevens and Smith hadn’t followed. He returned and attempted to find them but was quickly overcome by the smoke. He exited the building and barely able to breath called for help. The other three DS men made their way to the still burning Villa C in an armored vehicle. With difficulty, they found Smith, who was already dead, but didn’t find Stevens.
All of this transpired over forty-five minutes to an hour. That’s when a seven-member team from the Annex accompanied by a contingent of the February 17 Brigade arrived at Villa C. After further efforts to locate Stevens which were unsuccessful, US personnel along with Smith’s body evacuated to the Annex. Around 11:30 the SMC was abandoned.
Numerous firefights were reported in the sequence of events. There were no reports of injuries from gunshot. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any; only none reported.
Shortly thereafter, what has been called “looters” entered the compound and they discovered Stevens’ body at around 1:00 am and had him taken to a hospital.
Ambassador Stevens was not unfamiliar with Benghazi. He had arrived in Benghazi on April 5, 2011 as the Special Envoy to the Libyan Transitional National Council (TNC). He established the SMC in July, and remained there until November 17, 2011. On May 26, 2012, he returned to Libya as the US Ambassador at the Embassy in Tripoli. It was his decision to arrange the four trip beginning September 10th.
If the intent of the men that stormed the SMC was to “kill Americans,” they didn’t seem well prepared for the task. No bombs or IUDs. Nobody shot. They couldn’t even have known that Stevens and Smith were in Villa C and that they would die of smoke inhalation. Nobody died or was injured from the fire set on the guards barracks.
From Sean Flynn at GQ:
Ten days after the attack on Château Christophe, on what was to have been an American Space, 30,000 Benghazi civilians marched in the streets and drove the Islamist militias from their city. Thousands sent condolences to his family. And on a memorial website, scattered among the stories from old friends and colleagues, there are notes from ordinary Libyans who never even met the man. They say things like:
I feel ashamed that a man like this was killed by a bunch of low life, religious zealot cowards. This is a man that has done so much for Libya.
And: Amb Chris Stevens, all the Libyan people love you and will never forget your views toward us here in Libya.
And: We feel very sorry, please forgive us, we love you chris and your family also all american.
Not the standard response in that region of world when an American is killed by “terrorists.” And maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was a victim of an irrational response to that video that was like a lit fuse to a powder keg. But that part of the story seems to have disappeared.
On your conclusion that the simplistic narrative we are being fed by the Right and the negligent media is flawed.
Sometimes it seems things are too complex to be grasped by the American public through the lens of our media; it is a sorry state of affairs which does not auger well for our continued strength, power and prosperity as a nation and a great power. Why do we do this to ourselves?
I find the narrative being pimped by the right to be anything but simplistic if one hears anything more than TERROR, TERROR, etc. Reading through the accounts, including the ARB and CIA timeline, it felt more like anyone of a dozen implausible action/adventure movies that were released last year. (Except they omitted the steamy sex scenes during a lull in the action. Unless we count whatever Petraeus and Broadwell were doing a few thousand miles away.)
All I’ve done is considered the possibility that there were two events and other than some US participants were at both, they were more separate than has been reported and assumed. A major stumbling block for me wrt to the second one is that too much seems omitted and too much embellished from the official US reports, the timelines aren’t precise and aren’t in sync with each other. For example, who organized the team from Tripoli, when, and for what purpose? There weren’t mobs in the street and chaos as the Tripoli team convoy, including the local security escort vehicles, made its way to the Annex.
It seems to me the first wave of attacks on the Annex is the key; it still seems to me most likely explained by the first rescue mission to the SMC stirring up an attack somehow; perhaps by threatening or injuring someone. The CIA security guys were pretty stirred up; the attackers, on the other hand, some or all of them, may not have known the fate of the ambassador at that time.
If this is the boundary between two distinct events, as you seem to be proposing, it would be worth looking at; it almost seems like the first attack on the Annex occurred following the initial SMC rescue round-trip and the second was triggered by something around the time of the arrival of the team from Tripoli in the wee hours. It makes the delay at the airport highly interesting, for one thing.
Am I thinking along the same lines as you in this regard?
Not quite. First we don’t know that those that torched the SMC buildings even knew that the Ambassador was present or that there was anyone in Villa C. Four were sheltered in Villa B and the TOC building and were unharmed. Second we don’t know who was still present when the team from the Annex arrived and left. Third we don’t know that anyone observed, or anyone interested in, the SMC and Annex vehicles entering the Annex and compromised it’s secrecy.
It’s very curious that while the Annex was at its most vulnerable, the reported attackers did no harm to the US personnel. Unless I missed it, they didn’t report any damage to structures either. If it was attacked between 12:00 and 2:00 as reported, have difficulty with the scenario that the attackers hung around for a few more hours and let the Tripoli team enter the Annex before renewing their fight. If such an attack occurred, it would most properly be considered a second phase of the attack on the SMC.
What I referred to as the second event was the attack after the team from Tripoli arrived. However, if there was a “phase two” and the attackers had waited a few hours before attacking again, then it would be phase three and a single event beginning at the SMC. That’s the official narrative. If correct, then I’m wrong about the attack on the SMC.
But if the ringleaders and a few die-hards “hung around for a few more hours” it would match the timing of reinforcements arriving from Derna having been summoned when a real target, the Annex, was located. Seems to me a mortar barrage is an “eye for an eye” with a Predator missile attack.
Is it confirmed that there were drone missile attacks in Derna?
Above:
Sounds like it. That’s Marcy’s suggestion and it makes perfect sense; also explains the ambivalence of the other Libyan militias in this regard; they probably didn’t like it much either.
Holds together logically if unconfirmed allegations and speculations are included. So too do the ARB and CIA narratives.
Wonder why the “terrorists” left their IEDs and bombs at home that night and the following morning.
As I stated earlier, I heavily discount eyewitness reports — every study has proven again and again that they are poor in a calm and secure setting and worse in high stress situations. Have you seen the “gorilla experiment?”
A hypothetical. If the circumstantial evidence of prior drone attacks on Derna was confirmed it would be interesting.
It’s the culmination of the infotainment dumbing-down process noted as far back as 1985 by Neil Postman. Reading Amusing Ourselves To Death back then was depressing enough; seeing over the ensuing years just how prescient he was has turned depression to despair.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
We are probably all on overload. Marcy’s second piece this week on Benghazi – What Are the Secrets That Will Remain Hidden In Benghazi left my head spinning. I don’t want to consider what JSOC and SOCOM may or may not have been doing in Libya and who they may have enraged. Then there’s the whole mess AP mess and how that ties into Brennan’s drone program. And the IRS brouhaha. And a 2000 page health insurance reform bill and the bank bailouts and foreclosure mess. Too complex. Too many secrets. Isn’t that what takes down empires?
Leads to our domestic and foreign security operations to engage in stings because those are controllable and can be presented as tangible proof that they are “keeping us safe.” We’re good at foiling fake terror plots. Real ones, not so much, but at least they’re rare.
I think she is totally on to something here; that this would be a retaliation for the drone attacks on the other Ansar al-Sharia makes perfect sense; in fact (bet you didn’t notice) the Ignatius time-line quoted elsewhere has this interesting notation:
Darnah and Derna are the same, you see, as studies of the war in the Western Desert alerted me. The same Derna home to “the more shadowy Ansar al-Sharia in Derna (ASD), led by former Guantánamo Bay inmate Abu Sufyan bin Qumu.” I have been reading about them all along, but figured they had no presence in Benghazi. But a bunch of them could have had a field trip there to stir up trouble in retaliation for injury or attempted assassination.
That sounds perfectly credible, frankly, if you plug them in to the role of agitators and leaders of a more amorphous mob, including ranks of the ASB militia absent their leadership. I think she’s got it. It explains the Pashtun clothing, the motivation to attack the Annex, the whole thing. And it is credible ‘blood feud’ stuff.
As far as following the JSOC to the White House, I’m not there yet, but as an explanation of the events it seems very sound. So how come we haven’t taken this bunch out? Guess we left the enemy in possession of the field this time.
A bit too much speculation for my taste. However, we don’t know what operations were housed at the Annex and what they were doing. Nor where the home base of the drone was located. Yet, it’s not an reasonable guess that it had something to do with Ansar al-Sharia given the CIAs quick fingering of them. But that could have been CYA for having blown their cover and abandoning their facility. A lot of expensive improvements and equipment was lost at both locations.
If the group attacked the SMC to get a bead on the Annex, why were they so under-resourced with weapons? Why pull back after the reported initial firing on the Annex? Why risk the possibility of additional local or US personnel showing up?
The attack on the Annex was opportunistic; the damage to the SMC was payback but when the Annex was revealed reinforcements were sent for. You know they were watching them from the time-line:
That’s the Derna branch. The ones the drones were watching the night of the attack.
Not disagreeing that the attack on the Annex was opportunistic because I think it was. But was the opportunity created from the SMC or the airport? If the former, the actors need not have been part of the group that breached the compound gate. They could have been within the crowd the quickly materialized and observed the movements of the vehicles as the evacuated.
Paying off low-level employees at an airport to call in notification of unusual activity isn’t unheard of. A middle-of-night arrival of US security people from Tripoli would have been unusual.
But my hypothesis is that the initial attack itself had a few dedicated ringleaders but was otherwise just a semi-formal mob of Ansaw al-Sharia (ASB) militiamen and hangers-on whom got revved up for the occasion probably on the strength of one of the now discounted provocations; as mentioned earlier and above, and still referenced in many eyewitness accounts.
When these ringleaders saw the additional opportunity of targeting the Annex they sent for help.
Dedicated “ringleaders” from SMC to the Annex is speculation.
But it explains the delay between first and second attacks that there would be a distant source of reinforcements motivated to attack the Annex.
As would a different group that was tipped off by the airport and tracked the convoy to the Annex.
Or jitters and “friendly fire.” Or …
Still my favourite scenario so far.
With both the recent CNN report of three Yemenis and the previous FBI images of “persons of interest” from the attack at the SMC.
Shouldn’t we wait until these individuals are identified before ascribing a nationality to them? (What did the Tsarnaev brothers look like in their FBI pictures? Did anyone come even close to guessing part Chechen?)
It’s interesting that it’s not known how the attackers gained entry to the compound. The ARB concedes that the pedestrian gate could have inadvertently been left unlocked. Say some guys come to stage a little protest and have called their buddies to join them and they discover the unlocked gate. Time to rumble?
I was referring to this trio:
Not clear if it is the same subjects as the FBI images or not.
And those “sources” would have no reason to point fingers away from Libyans and towards “crazy jihadists” from Yemen?
Are leaks. They’re not accidents. And while leaks are not always true, and often misleading, they are not as untrustworthy as denials. The truth will out, eventually, it is just a matter of how and when.
I like to pick it up and shake it sometimes to see what comes out; like this process with your help has really improved my understanding.
And such a pleasure for me to bounce this back and forth with you.
Not optimistic that we’ll see more truth on this story.
The time between the two attacks is probably the time it took to get experienced reinforcements (mortars?) from Derna to Benghazi after they identified the Annex from the rescue mission earlier in the night. Bet that is it, it was basically two different sets of actors.
According to this BBC report, Ansar al-Sharia was headquartered in Benghazi and the Abu Slim Brigade was in Derna.
If you’re correct, it’s difficult to say if they were different actors or reinforcement actors.
Not the Abu Slim Brigade, necessarily, but Ansar al-Sharia of Derna (ASD). Arguably exactly the kind of target the CIA would be after.
Are we to assume that ASD hasn’t been shut down? Or the BBC neglected to mention that group?
They apparently disbanded in the aftermath but somebody tried to kill their leadership in April this year, in Derna, as cited above.
You cited did mention them:
I’ve seen none of this on the MSM (but I did see Angelina Jolie’s breasts reported on three times in one hour alone). Thank you for this diary.
More relevant (to women that can afford the test and reconstruction surgery) than reports on the Prince Harry in the US hanging with prostitutes (aka politicians) instead of “working girls” this time.
True. It was an important story because of the medical aspects, but did I need to see Angelina in a low cut dress three times in an hour? Didn’t mind it,you know, but thought it was overplayed.
My wife thought that we were seeing the prosthetics. If so, I wish they would have said so because they sure looked real to me. That would have been important to women contemplating surgery also.
Boobs sell in this country; that’s why the lamestream press couldn’t report the story without those particular photos of Jolie.
Have to wonder if she chose to go public so soon after her surgeries because someone had learned of it and was going to run to the tabloids. Not that I wouldn’t have expected her to speak of it in public at some point, just not this early.
It couldn’t be hidden. Hollywood is worse than DC for leaks.