Originally Posted by spence
The Rice comments that caused such a fluppor never "concluded" it was a spontaneous protest...
What she said was:
The beginning of what you quote her as saying was: ". . . based on the information that we have at present, is that, IN FACT, what this began as, it was a spontaneous--not a premeditated--response to what had inspired in Cairo."--emphasis mine. I don't know if a FACT is conclusive to you, but I assume that you would arrive at conclusions with facts. Maybe not. And if you're quibbling about the word "protest" as opposed to her use of the word "response" that she used to describe what "in fact" happened, the "response" was to, as she says, a "protest" in Cairo. I would assume from that, therefore, that the "response" was also a "protest." And it was untrue that the information they had at the time IN FACT corroborated that the attack was a spontaneous response to the video. For sure, they were told by Ham that it was a terrorist attack, not spontaneous, and any conflicting "reports" would have been enough to hold off on a conclusion/theory/conjecture/whatever that IN FACT the attack was "spontaneous--not premeditated."
She goes on, in your quote, to say: "We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to . . . replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo." She had already characterized that "challenge" as a "violent protest" to the video. If that was so, then this elusive "small number of people came to the embassy to" "replicate" violent protest. So it was intended to be, by her own rhetoric, violent. So how and why was it necessary to conclude (oops)--theorize--that this replicated challenge was "hijacked . . . by individual clusters of extremists" with the heavier weapons? What? . . . were the "small number who came to "replicate" the violence in Cairo going to do so without weapons? "And then it evolved from there."?
Which given the NYT article and the recent Senate report (and so much other reporting) seems quite plausible.
It's more plausible, using Occam's razor, that the simpler explanation which would remove more elements in an argument than are necessary, is that those who came to the embassy in the first place was not a small number of regular folks who merely wanted to replicate the violence of Cairo, but were folks who had intentions to do what, in fact, "evolved." And that is what further investigation has concluded to have happened.
What I don't understand is, what prohibits a terror attack's timing from being linked to furor over a video? Isn't it quite possible they've been thinking of an attack for some time and the events around the region -- there was more than just Egypt -- gave them some inspiration? Ham's remarks about no specific intel on the attack would certainly back this thinking.
That is exactly what I have been saying. The fabricated "furor" was inspired by a video DISSEMINATED by jihadists specifically to do so. The video was not a catalyst, it was a tool. It's dissemination and use were not accidental, it was all intentional. It was a "plausible" cover as much as a fictitious instigator for what the jihadists wanted to accomplish. Exactly as you surmise--they were thinking of an attack for some time. And the "events around the region" were also not spontaneous reactions, but were also instigated by jihadist elements (Al Qaeda brand elements).
Also, isn't it quite believable that a bunch of heavily armed, battle hardened veterans of the civil war would be able to assemble rapidly and coordinate an attack with RPG's and accurate small arms fire as Ham describes? Which is why Ham said it was a terrorist attack from the beginning, not a spontaneous protest. Hell, that's exactly what they had been doing against the Libyan army for the past year. Didn't the civil war actually start in Benghazi?
-spence
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