On Benghazi and Cairo

Could the deaths of a US ambassador and three others been avoided?

The UK's Independent is reporting that the US State Department had information 48 hours in advance of the attacks on the Embassies in Egypt and Libya, and yet no warnings were given. According to "senior diplomatic sources," Chris Stevens had only been back in Libya a short while and his visit to Benghazi was confidential.

Now there are missing sensitive documents from the consulate, and the more they investigate, the more it looks like these attacks were planned and coordinated.  Patrick Kennedy of the State Department has said as much.

Now you may have heard about a little film called Innocence of Muslims.  Looking at the timelines of events, it's clear the attacks on the embassy in Cairo were planned before word of the "movie" leaked out.  No one had heard of it until the filmmakers put a 14-minute video of the trailer on YouTube dubbed into Arabic last week, and it was seized upon by Sheikh Khaled Abdalla, who hosts a show on the Egyptian TV channel Al-Nas (and he's a fundamentalist).

The "movie" itself, I keep putting in quotes, was allegedly shown one time on one screen in LA to an audience of about ten people.  The 14-minute video was put on YouTube in July to no fanfare. It was only after the Arabic version was put out that its publicity grew and spread.

What was the goal of the movie?  Solely to generate violence by Islamic extremists.

Here's why I say that.

The Wall Street Journal published quotes from the alleged filmmaker Sam Bacile where he claimed Islam is "a cancer" and that his film was funded by "100 Jewish donors." (I haven't seen the actual interview, but I pulled these from the NYTimes quoting from it.)  He also claimed to be an Israeli-born Jewish American.  Turns out Bacile is actually Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year-old Coptic Christian, an Egyptian-American con-man.  Nakoula worked with Steve Klein on the film.  Klein is the founder of Courageous Christians United, which specializes in protesting mosques, LDS temples, and abortion clinics.  The film was also promoted by pastor Terry Jones.  You remember him.  The guy who burned Korans on 9/11 a couple years ago.

The Coptics are the largest Christian sect in Egypt, but they only make up 10% of the population and are often victims of violence from Islamic extremists.  Nakoula knew that getting this out there would set off the extremists.  He made sure to emphasize American and Jewish involvement.

It doesn't appear many people beyond Nakoula and Klein knew the intent of the film when it was being made.  The cast and crew have come out with shock and outrage about the filmmaker's true intentions.  They thought they were making a movie called Desert Warrior about an Egyptian named George from 2000 years ago.  All references to Islam and Muhammad were dubbed in afterwards.

Is the filmmaker solely to blame for Christopher Stevens' death?  No.  He and Klein and Jones knew what they were doing, but the people who actually killed Stevens are to blame, and while arrests can be made, the greater plan of the terrorists in Cairo and Benghazi wasn't so much to protest America but to destabilize their own governments.  Amazing how radical Christian and Muslim fundamentalists are helping achieve each other's goals.

It's important to remember that the people of Libya generally like the United States.  They loved Chris Stevens' role in helping transition from the Qaddafi dictatorship to their new parliamentary government.  Prime Minister Abdurrahim Al-Kib was swift to denounce the killings.  Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi eventually did so as well, but Morsi was a Muslim Brotherhood candidate and has a finer line to walk.  This can help explain why Pres. Barack Obama went so far as to call Morsi's regime "not an ally" but "not an enemy."  He later walked that back, but the statement did nothing to ease tensions in Cairo. (And hey, did you know Morsi got his PhD from USC and that two of his children are US-born citizens?)

So the protests are spreading, with them happening in Sudan, Tunisia and Yemen.  The different extremists groups will continue to attempt destabilization.  The Salafists and the al-Qaeda splinter groups will fan the flames.  This story's nowhere near over.  But here's a final word on it from Time's Ashraf Khalil:

"The image of Egyptians tearing down the American flag instantly damns Morsy’s efforts to project an atmosphere of stability and post-revolution order. In a moment of depressing irony, the news of the embassy incident broke during the closing press conference of a U.S.-sponsored trade delegation in Egypt—with American CEOs hailing Egypt as a prime spot for foreign investment."