More Benghazi Memos

For 'case closed' we sure are getting a lot of new information.

Now we find out that at 911pm eastern time on 9/11/12 the administration, without any outside confirmation from intelligence agencies or State officials in theater, blamed the "Innocence of Muslims" video clip for the Benghazi attack.  They even mentioned the video in their condolence letter dated Sept 12 to the family of Sean Smith the next day... 

Another State Department document, this one labeled “sensitive but unclassified” and dated Sept. 12, also refers both to the video and to a group linked to al Qaeda in explaining the cause of the attack. “At least 20 armed extremists, members of Ansar al-Sharia, set fire to the Principal’s office, allegedly retaliating for videos posted on the internet of a film deemed insulting to Islam,” the memo reads, providing an early State Department summary of what happened.

Bizarrely, the White House is using this formerly undisclosed email to make their case that they thought it was the video all along, ie, this proves they didn't invent it.  Well yes, unless it proves they exploited it to deflect from what actually happened.  Nobody thinks the video wasn't at least responsible for some of the Cairo protests, and eventually other cities.  But the Obama folks want it both ways--they want us to believe they blamed the terrorist attack (cue Candy Crowley) on the video.  That way both bases are covered.

But what they don't want people to think is that it was a 'pre-planned' attack with 'foreign fighters', which came from the president of the Libyan Congress on the same day Rice blitzed the Sunday shows with the video explanation. After all, a pre-planned attack with foreign fighters makes it sound less like some hooligans walking around who got ticked off by something in Cairo and grabbed their RPGs and mortars. 

A pre-planned attack with foreign fighters also goes a little close to the whole "free the Blind Shiekh" thing, which was being pursued by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt leading up to the event.  The brother of the leader of AQ was behind the initial Cairo protest, which turned into a riot after a local Salafist leader used the video to rile up the protesters.  One of the terrorist militias in eastern Libya that was fingered in one of the previous attacks on the mission is called the Omar Abdel Rahman Brigades (video here). CNN knows all this--they initially reported it--but have since lost their notes, along with any notes about the Stevens diary. 

A pre-planned attack with foreign fighters also looks a little like retribution for the killing of Core AQ Number Two Abu Yahya al-Liby.  AQ Number One had just urged the faithful to take revenge, announced publicly early on 9/11.  In Cairo the protesters were shouting "Obama, Obama we are all Osama".  They were shouting it at Obama, not Bacile.

So an administration that usually treads carefully when it comes to laying blame for terror acts, preferring to let law enforcement come to conclusions first, was good with blaming an American Coptic Christian filmmaker before the attack was even over despite countervailing evidence and a lack of overall knowledge of the situation.  One can only presume such a reaction was an attempt to get out ahead of the 'pre-planned attack with foreign fighters' reality to redirect blame away from Obama (as the Rhodes instructions tried to do) knowing it was a political vulnerability after what had just been said at the convention. So the Democrats are right in the sense that this IS all about politics--and it still is--all ginned up by the Democrats.