Has any false propaganda theme ever unraveled as thoroughly as the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton theme about the attacks on the U.S. facilities in Benghazi, in September 2012?
We already knew that Hillary had been advised immediately that the attacks were terror attacks, probably connected to an Al Qaeda affiliate in Libya. Obama was told the same. Hillary referred to them as terror attacks in correspondence with senior officials and with daughter Chelsea. Jeff Dunetz has a tremendous post this week in which he lays out the series of facts that make clear that every responsible individual in the U.S. government knew they were terror attacks — while the attacks were still ongoing — and that officials on-scene in Libya were confused afterward by the emerging theme that the attacks came from a spontaneous local reaction to a video.
Now, with the disclosure of yet more new information from State Department documents, we know that the U.S. embassy in Libya pushed back on the “video” theme. The House Benghazi committee released it on Saturday: correspondence from the embassy urging the State Department, in categorical language, not to continue with that theme.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
The House Benghazi Committee released a new email Saturday that a Tripoli embassy official sent to Clinton’s underlings in Washington, D.C., on September 14, 2012, two days before Susan Rice appeared on Sunday talk shows to use the administration’s “video” talking point.
“Colleagues, I mentioned to [redacted] this morning, and want to share with all of you, our view at Embassy Tripoli that we must be cautious in our local messaging with regard to the inflammatory film trailer, adapting it to Libyan conditions,” the official wrote.
Said the embassy official (emphasis added):
Our monitoring of the Libyan media and conversations with Libyans suggest that the films [sic] not as explosive of an issue here as it appears to be in other countries in the region. The overwhelming majority of the FB comments and tweets we’ve received from Libyans since the Ambassador’s death have expressed deep sympathy, sorrow, and regret. They have expressed anger at the attackers, and emphasized that this attack does not represent Libyans or Islam. Relatively few have even mentioned the inflammatory video. So if we post messaging about the video specifically, we may draw unwanted attention to it. …
And it is becoming increasingly clear that the series of events in Benghazi was much more terrorist attack than a protest which escalated into violence…It is our opinion that in our messaging, we want to distinguish, not conflate, the events in other countries with this well-planned attack by militant extremists. I have discussed this with [redacted] and he shares PAS’s view.
Again, this was sent on 14 September, before Susan Rice’s now-infamous circuit of the Sunday talk shows in which she repeatedly blamed the attacks on the Innocence of Muslims video.
One thing this new disclosure does is nail shut the coffin on Hillary’s excuse that there was broad uncertainty and confusion about the attacks, over a period that implicitly several covered days (if the uncertainty and confusion were to explain why she said “terrorism” within minutes of the first attack, but later kept saying “video”). There was clearly no confusion about the motive for the attacks, or what kind of attacks they were. The embassy even urged her office, for good and clear reasons, not to keep pushing the “video” theme.
She and Obama completely own the deliberate falsity of that video theme. Jeff Dunetz’s summary remains a definitive, if depressing one:
There is plenty more evidence, but from the above it is clear that the President was told immediately that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, Hillary Clinton was told immediately that it was a terrorist attack, the CIA insisted it was a terrorist attack. The White House and State Dept. rushed to pick a video to blame, and the one they ended up singling out was their second choice. Heck even the terrorists “said” it was a terrorist attack–on State Department cell phones.
There is no doubt about it, Hillary was caught lying, and now the mainstream media is lying about Hillary’s lies.
