The Libyan government had already claimed it was a terrorist attack without alluding to “eavesdropping.” The fact that the attack occurred on 9/11 was a dead giveaway to most observers, except those intent on protecting the President and his oft-repeated claim that he had decimated al Qaeda.

Again, five days after the attack, Susan Rice was dispatched to tell the nation that that a spontaneous demonstration over a video led to the attacks: “This is a spontaneous reaction to a video and it’s not dissimilar but perhaps on a slightly larger scale than what we have seen in the past with the [Salman Rushdie's novel] ‘Satanic Verses’, with the [2006 Danish newspaper] cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.”

Rice was also instructed to take the unusual step of appearing on all of the Sunday morning shows that day, and repeat to the American people the “unclassified” talking points as opposed to the accurate “classified” talking points. Apparently you, and the Obama administration, believe it is OK to mislead the American people so as to not reveal our secret “eavesdropping” efforts. [I am sure, btw, that al Qaeda has no idea we listen in on their conversations] How about a simple “no comment” if that was the concern? Whatever happened to the President’s pledge to run the most transparent administration in history? George Orwell would be proud….

My method of getting at the truth: Assemble the facts and see what they say.

Your method: Assemble the facts and delete the ones you don’t like.

You left out of your comment a few other things that Petraeus said. Specifically that two sets of points were assembled by the CIA. The classified set which asserted it was a terrorist attack and an unclassified set the dropped the terrorist claim to avoid revealing that eavesdropping by the intelligence agencies had picked up more specific information on the attack.

We are still waiting for you to support the assertion that Obama ever ‘insisted’ the attack was due to the video, or for that matter even Susan Rice.

Your version of events is beginning to unravel. According to accounts on ‘CNN’ and in ‘Politico,’ General Petraeus told lawmakers that the CIA believed Benghazi to be a terrorist attack from the beginning.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83966.html#ixzz2CP0YSpBM

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/12/petraeus-mistress-may-have-revealed-classified-information-at-denver-speech/

The attack may have been neither about the video or about terrorism but may have been intended for the ‘CIA Annex’ which was reportedly holding militia members. In other words, it may have been a jail break.

I think I see the problem here. See I try to get at the truth by taking stock of the facts I’m aware of and then going out there and trying to accumulate more facts that might be relevant to the issue at hand. Your strategy seems to be to take the facts that are out there and subtract from them until you arrive at a picture that you like.

right, an embassy is not a consulate, so Egypt merits attention and Benghazi does not. OK, got it. It’s more serious when an embassy is breached due to a “video” but no big deal when a consulate is attacked and four Americans, including an Ambassador are killed, due to, what…?

None of which was said by Obama in the speech. As you can see if you bother to read the transcript, the speech dealt more or less with ‘all things Middle East’ which at that time included not only Libya but the riots/protests, the attacks on the Egyptian embassy, as well as the civil war in Syria. If you read the transcript you’ll notice that Obama opened the speech with several paragraphs about Libya and the murdered ambassador, none of which reference the video as a cause. No fair reading of Obama’s speech can be made that slights the killing of the Ambassador.

A CIA drone was flying overhead observing the terrorist attack on the consulate and the six-seven hour battle that ensued. A special ops force was sent to repulse the terrorist attack within a few hours, after repeated pleas for help due to rocket fire and mortar attacks, not due to a “spontaneous demonstration.” It should be noted that special ops forces tend not to respond to “demonstrations.”

Not sure if you are just making these facts up or not but since no one has really argued Libya was just ‘demonstrations’ I think the bigger question is what or whom exactly do you think the above refutes?

Five days later Susan Rice was sent out to all the Sunday morning talk shows and claimed the murder of four Americans was the result of a “spontaenous demonstration” due to a “video.”

Except she didn’t, I posted the transcript and she says repeatedly that information from the field is still coming in and any narrative she gives is tentative on the ongoing investigation. If your purpose is to tell a lie then you tell the lie. In other words the purpose of telling a lie is to make a statement that is false with the intent to get people to believe its true. If you’re saying the statement is all based on preliminary information that is developing then you’re not really lying.

Your timeline also doesn’t add up. I suggest you consult http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_the_U.S._diplomatic_mission_in_Benghazi

The attack on the consulate happened at 9:40 PM local time. In the battle there was a CIA ‘quick reaction’ force located a mile away. The attackers set the consulate on fire and when the reaction force go there they could not locate the Ambassadore in the smoke. The body of Stevens was found at 1 AM by local citizens and taken to the local hospital by them where he was pronounced dead. There was no ‘six hour battle’. At 4 AM another attack happened at the CIA annex which was 1.2 miles away and housed those who had escaped from the consulate attack AND had a group of Libyan forces as well as American forces who had arrived at the Benghazi airport from Tripoli.

No evidence has been presented that a drone observed the attack nor were there special forces in the area. CIA security teams are not special forces

At least one witness did see earlier in the day (remember the attack came at night) a group of about 20 people chanting against the film. It still remains unclear whether there happened to be protests against the film before the attack that had no relationship to it other than being within 24 hours of it, whether the protest was a planned diversion to provide cover for an attack, Or whether the witness was just mistaken and there was no protest at all. Given the numerous protests in multiple cities, it certainly wasn’t implausible to believe it had something to do with it. Even at this point it’s unclear exactly who attacked the consulate. The descriptions given sound less like a terrorist attack and more like a militia attack, the Libyians certainly thought so launching anti-militia protests after the attack and calling for local warlords to disarm their bands.

A CIA drone was flying overhead observing the terrorist attack on the consulate and the six-seven hour battle that ensued. A special ops force was sent to repulse the terrorist attack within a few hours, after repeated pleas for help due to rocket fire and mortar attacks, not due to a “spontaneous demonstration.” It should be noted that special ops forces tend not to respond to “demonstrations.” The CIA has denied that the agency ever told Rice or any member of the administration that this was anything less than a coordinated attack. The members of the National Security Council watched the events as they happened via a drone circling overhead, and knew there was no “spontaneous demonstration” due to a “video.”

Five days later Susan Rice was sent out to all the Sunday morning talk shows and claimed the murder of four Americans was the result of a “spontaenous demonstration” due to a “video.” She was either sent out to lie, or this administration is in as much disarray as Reagan administration was during the Iran Contra Affair.

publius,

First, we know Ambassador Rice was speaking based on information given to her in CIA briefings. Second, except for Benghazi (it now seems) the demonstrations in about twenty cities were sparked by the video.

I am just not getting the conspiracy theories on this one. They are not based on facts but on partisanship.

Even Susan Rice’s comment hardly amounts to ‘insisting’ upon anything when you actually note the full transcript (which you can see at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49051097/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts/t/september-benjamin-netanyahu-susan-rice-keith-ellison-peter-king-bob-woodward-jeffrey-goldberg-andrea-mitchell/#.UKH3BIdZWNA if you wish)

MS. RICE: Well, let us– let me tell you the– the best information we have at present. First of all, there’s an FBI investigation which is ongoing. And we look to that investigation to give us the definitive word as to what transpired. But 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– of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, which were prompted, of course, by the video. What we think then transpired in Benghazi is that opportunistic extremist elements came to the consulate as this was unfolding. They came with heavy weapons which unfortunately are readily available in post revolutionary Libya. And it escalated into a much more violent episode. Obviously, that’s– that’s our best judgment now. We’ll await the results of the investigation. And the president has been very clear–we’ll work with the Libyan authorities to bring those responsible to justice.