The more we learn about the 9/11/12 murder of Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, the worse it looks for everyone who put him in that position and then spent weeks lying about it.
The indispensible Eli Lake writes at the Daily Beast:
Just two days before the 9/11 anniversary attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, two leaders of the Libyan militias responsible for keeping order in the city threatened to withdraw their men.
The brinksmanship is detailed in a cable approved by Ambassador Chris Stevens and sent on the day he died in the attack, the worst assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission since the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran. The dispatch, which was marked “sensitive” but not “classified,” contained a number of other updates on the chaotic situation on the ground in post-Gaddafi Libya…
The cable, titled “Benghazi Weekly Report – September 11, 2012,” notes the dangerous environment in eastern Libya. It does not, however, make a specific plea to Washington for more personnel or more security upgrades, and concludes that much of the violence in the country consists of Libyans attacking other Libyans, as opposed to specific plots directed at the West. Indeed, it says that in a meeting with Stevens, members of the Benghazi Local Council said security in their city was improving.
At the same time, the cable makes no mention of the anti-Muslim YouTube video or planned protests at the consulate, two key pillars of the Obama administration’s initial narrative on the 9/11 attacks.
Everybody already knows they lied, but this is just more evidence. Read the whole thing.
Did the State Department ignore clear warnings? Sure sounds like it. Jake Tapper:
var obReadMoreDiv = document.getElementById('ob-read-more-selector'); if(typeof window.freestar !== 'undefined'){ var fsDiv = document.createElement('div'); fsDiv.setAttribute("data-freestar-ad", "__336x280"); fsDiv.setAttribute("align", "center"); fsDiv.id = "dailycaller_incontent_3"; var fsScript = document.createElement('script'); fsScript.setAttribute("data-cfasync", "false"); fsScript.setAttribute("type", "text/javascript"); fsScript.innerHTML = "freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: 'dailycaller_incontent_3', slotId: 'dailycaller_incontent_3' })"; fsDiv.appendChild(fsScript); obReadMoreDiv.appendChild(fsDiv); }else{ var aditudeDiv = document.createElement('div'); aditudeDiv.setAttribute("align", "center"); aditudeDiv.id = "dailycaller_incontent_2"; var aditudeScript = document.createElement('script'); aditudeScript.setAttribute("type", "text/javascript"); aditudeScript.innerHTML = "window.tude = window.tude || { cmd: [] };tude.cmd.push(function() {tude.refreshAdsViaDivMappings([{divId: 'dailycaller_incontent_2',baseDivId: 'pb-slot-incontent-4'}]);});"; obReadMoreDiv.appendChild(aditudeScript); obReadMoreDiv.appendChild(aditudeDiv); } “An ill-advised drawdown of security.” Oh, but it was all because of a YouTube video, remember? How was the State Department supposed to know there was a problem, just because everybody was telling them so? For months? Mitt Romney spoke about this today. Here’s an excerpt from his remarks, courtesy of Fox News Insider: “The attacks on America last month should not be seen as random acts. They are expressions of a larger struggle that is playing out across the broader Middle East—a region that is now in the midst of the most profound upheaval in a century. And the fault lines of this struggle can be seen clearly in Benghazi itself. The attack on our Consulate in Benghazi on September 11th, 2012 was likely the work of the same forces that attacked our homeland on September 11th, 2001. This latest assault cannot be blamed on a reprehensible video insulting Islam, despite the Administration’s attempts to convince us of that for so long. No, as the Administration has finally conceded, these attacks were the deliberate work of terrorists who use violence to impose their dark ideology on others, especially women and girls; who are fighting to control much of the Middle East today; and who seek to wage perpetual war on the West.” And the only people telling you anything different are the ones who want to keep lying to you for four more years. Democrats opened up this line of attack in two ways. First, they very overtly brought up the topic repeatedly in Charlotte during the convention, especially on the final night, as John Kerry, Joe Biden, and Obama himself attacked the Republican ticket for their lack of experience on foreign affairs… The incoherent and downright dishonest response to the Benghazi attack, however, opened up a huge opportunity on what had been perceived — by Democrats, at least — as the strongest part of Obama’s foreign-policy track record: the Arab Spring. In fact, the Benghazi attack was an all-around debacle, with the State Department failing to respond to obvious and building threats with better security to the outrageous deceptions staged by the White House to spin the terrorist attack as a movie review riot. The sheer incompetence leaves Romney an opening to underscore the narrative of a chief executive far out of his depth, and leaving America flailing for direction and success at home and abroad. It’s not a tough case to make, at least to anybody who’s been paying attention for the past month. As for anybody who hasn’t, just show them this, courtesy of the Heritage Foundation: “Bumps in the road.” All Romney has to do is convince people he can do better than that. Obama’s inept, dishonest response to the Benghazi attack makes his debate performance look like a stunning success. Hey, look over there! Big Bird!