Why Conservatives Are WRONG: The Benghazi Attack Was About The Anti-Muhammad Film

By Walid Shoebat and Ben Barrack
**SHOEBAT EXCLUSIVE**

The Obama administration’s role in making the anti-Muhammad video go viral on the day of the Benghazi attacks; its connection to the filmmaker (a Federal informant at the time); the claim from one of the actresses in the video that the filmmaker confessed to being a Muslim; and the filmmaker’s Muslim fundamentalist partner in crime all suggest that blaming the video for the attacks should be ill-advisable for the administration. Following its logic, the blood of four Americans and an untold number of victims of all protests related to the video are on the hands of the administration itself.

Locations of all protests in response to "Innocence of Muslims" (was Benghazi the only one that wasn't about video?)

Locations of all protests in response to “Innocence of Muslims” (was Benghazi the only one that wasn’t about the video?)

If blaming the video is what they want, we thought it best to oblige in the interest of constructive dialogue and seeking common ground.

Since they want to blame the attacks in Benghazi on a video, let’s join left-wing media sources like the New York Times, NPR, and Media Matters in making the case for them; it’s actually a strong case. Let’s begin with a premise that Susan Rice did NOT lie on those five Sunday talk shows and that neither did Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in the days and weeks that followed; the video was responsible.

Just this week, in an interview with Fox News, Clinton still maintained that the video was a factor. Let’s give her that one. Hillary, you’re right:

When we’re done, if given the choice, Obama administration officials and their media allies would do best not to blame the video.

Protests
It’s widely accepted that protests over the anti-Muhammad video began in Cairo on the afternoon of September 11, 2012 (protests at the same time and place for the release of the Blind Sheikh notwithstanding). The Benghazi Special Mission Compound (SMC) was attacked later that night. The Middle East and North Africa erupted in protests outside U.S. installations. Protesters assembled in front of U.S. Embassies in Yemen, Greece, Sudan, Tunisia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and elsewhere. Multiple deaths and dozens of injuries were reported.

Protesters at U.S. Embassy in Cairo on 9/11/12.

Protesters at U.S. Embassy in Cairo on 9/11/12.

In every one of those instances – save for Benghazi – the video is universally conceded to have been the impetus for the violence and protests.

As Shoebat.com has reported in the past, the same Ansar al-Sharia that aided in the attack at the SMC in Benghazi was also involved in the protests in Tunisia. Did the terrorist group launch an attack in Benghazi and a protest in Tunisia?

Tunisia Protest outside U.S. Embassy (note black flags).

Tunisia Protest outside U.S. Embassy (note black flags).

Two days after the Benghazi attacks, Ansar al-Sharia spokesman Hani Al-Mansour insisted that there were protesters outside the SMC but that they were demonstrating peacefully until fired upon from within the compound. Credibility aside, was this not an admission by Al-Mansour that the video is what brought the demonstrators to the compound? That his group demonstrated at the U.S. Embassy in Tunisia over the video would at least provide a modicum of corroborating evidence.

In English, the name “Ansar al-Sharia” translates to “Supporters of Sharia”. Another group identified as a mouthpiece for Ansar al-Sharia is “Ansar Minbar”, which translates to “Supporters of the platform”.

Ansar Minbar was clearly following the goings-on in Cairo and posted the following message on its facebook page during the protest:

“Egypt urgent. Demonstrators take down the American flag and raise in its place the ‘There is no God but God’ flag. And us, what are we doing in Libya???” [1]

Is this not the Ansar al-Sharia Communications Department exhorting its members to do something in Libya comparable to what was going on in Cairo? Is that not what happened at Benghazi’s U.S. installations just a few short hours later? Should we accept the premise that the video did not play a role at all?

Ansar al-Sharia Protester in Benghazi on 9/14/12.

Ansar al-Sharia Protester in Benghazi on 9/14/12.

One day after the Benghazi attacks, anti-Muhammad video protesters demonstrated in Derna, Libya and then again in Benghazi on September 14th. [2]

Angry Ansar al-Sharia child protests in Benghazi on 9/14/12

Angry Ansar al-Sharia child protests in Benghazi on 9/14/12

One week later, on September 21, 2012, Ansar al-Sharia supporting protesters flooded the streets of Benghazi again, to protest the video:

10,000 Ansar al-Sharia supporters in Benghazi to protest video on 9/21/12

10,000 Ansar al-Sharia supporters in Benghazi to protest video on 9/21/12

Perhaps in a stroke of counter-intuitive brilliance, the Obama administration blamed the video knowing that its opponents and critics would take issue with it.

It’s a self-evident truth that the Obama administration wanted to blame the attacks in Benghazi on the “Innocence of Muslims” video but based on what is known now, Obama might want to distance himself from that narrative as much as possible. There are essentially two opposing narratives when it comes to Benghazi. From the right, the video had absolutely nothing to do with the attack. From the left – as is continually pushed by the likes of the New York Times’ David Kirkpatrick, the video was involved and the Obama administration had “absolutely nothing to do with (the) video” per Hillary Clinton.

February 17 Martyrs Brigade (F17MB)
In addition to the SMC being denied sufficient security, the problem was compounded by the State Department’s reliance on F17MB, as Shoebat.com has reported. Even the Hillary Clinton commissioned Accountability Review Board (ARB) said that “dependence on… (F17MB)… was misplaced” and that there were “troubling indicators of its reliability”, that it had “already begun to flee” at the first sign of an attack. The ARB report concluded that F17MB was “inadequate” and that it “found little evidence… (F17MB)… offered any meaningful defense of SMC”.

The ARB went on to concede that F17MB is…

“…a local umbrella organization of militias dominant in Benghazi (some of which were Islamist)…”

Perhaps the ARB’s most revealing conclusion was that:

“Over the course of its inquiry, the Board also learned of troubling indicators of (F17MB’s) loyalties and its readiness to assist U.S. personnel… (there was) little evidence that the armed (F17MB) guards alerted Americans at the SMC to the attack… little evidence that (F17MB) contributed meaningfully to the defense of the Special Mission compound, or to the evacuation to the airport that took place on the morning of September 12.”

Thanks to a facebook posting by F17MB on the night of the attacks, evidence suggests that F17MB was greatly offended by the video and admitted to standing down when the SMC was attacked. Here is a quote from an F17MB facebook post after the first attack:

“The February 17 Martyrs Brigade denies categorically the occurrence of any confrontation between it and the young men who overran the embassy jealously protecting our noble Prophet and protesting against the insult to him.” [3]

Does that not suggest that the very Brigade charged with protecting Ambassador Christopher Stevens and Sean Smith was angered by the video and allowed others who were angered by the video, to attack the compound?

Here is testimony last year from State Department whistleblowers Gregory Hicks and Eric Nordstrom in which they were asked by Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) about the absurdity of relying on F17MB to protect the compound:

Why Obama Allies continue Blaming the Video
There is far more than enough evidence available [here, here, and here] – certainly enough to constitute strong probable cause – that the Obama administration was complicit in the production and marketing of the anti-Muhammad video. Based on that premise, why would it insist on blaming the video immediately after the attacks as well as in the days, weeks, months, and soon to be years later?

Obama Blaming Video a Stroke of Counterintuitive Brilliance?
If there is one thing Barack Obama is good at, it’s the politics of division. He knows that when he takes an outlandish position, his opponents will always take the opposing side. By having Susan Rice blame the video on five Sunday talk shows, the administration knew the opposing view would constitute red meat for conservatives. For two weeks, culminating with Obama pointing to the video as being responsible while speaking at the United Nations on September 25th, the administration blamed the video. The more they did so, the more opponents insisted the video had nothing to do with it.

Had this been part of the PR strategy – something the Obama administration has mastered – it would have not only constituted a stroke of counterintuitive brilliance but it would throw most people off the trail that leads to the administration’s complicity in the video itself. In essence, by blaming the video, Obama was getting his opponents to deny the video had anything to do with it, which is just what Obama would want, based on his administration’s involvement.

Full Speed Ahead
It’s important to remember that Obama and Hillary are both students of Saul Alinsky. As such, they both understand that central to their ideological mentor’s strategy was to remain on constant offense, to never let up. Alinsky’s philosophy can be found in one word – FIGHT! In fact, if as we suspect, Obama could seek to use the testimony of the newly apprehended Ahmed Abu Khattala to bolster the ‘Benghazi was about a video’ narrative, the administration’s involvement in that video would be quite the bombshell.

Saul Alinsky

Saul Alinsky

As Shoebat.com has concluded, the Obama administration’s involvement in the video was most likely about creating the climate for an assault on first amendment protections. This is certainly why the Muslim world pointed to the video.

As such, it can be reasonably concluded that the video was to be used it to gin up unrest and protests in the Muslim world. Why would Obama and Hillary not think that would include Benghazi, home to a woefully unsecured State Department installation where our top diplomat was staying?

Moreover, Stevens was being guarded by F17MB, a group with beliefs shared by his murderers. Would they not spread the word about his presence there?

Why Stevens was in Benghazi that night has still not been made known but he was certainly put in a vulnerable, unsecured place at precisely the same time protests erupted in response to a video the Obama administration most likely had something to do with in the first place. Obama and Hillary certainly didn’t count on the deaths of four Americans in much the same way administration officials didn’t count on the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in Operation Fast and Furious.

In the Luciferian spirit of Alinsky, Obama and Hillary clearly decided to “FIGHT” and press ahead with their agenda to blame the video, despite the deaths of Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods. Why not? Every time it blamed the video, opponents would object.

As our “Ironclad” Report demonstrates, the President of Egypt at the time of the Benghazi attacks was the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi. Mursi, sounding like a broken record, desperately wanted the release of Omar Abdel-Rahman (the Blind Sheikh) and made multiple pleas for that release (on June 29th and August 2nd)

Mursi continued this demand months after the attacks as well:

The Muslim Brotherhood is not stupid. They knew Stevens was worth more alive than dead, as the recent Bowe Bergdahl swap clearly demonstrates.

Precedent Exists
Those who insist it is beyond credulity to believe that the Obama administration had “absolutely nothing to do with this video” need only look at one other scandal – Operation Fast and Furious. As Shoebat.com explained, Fast and Furious was intended to use the collateral damage of innocent lives gunned down by Mexican drug cartels who used guns the Obama administration’s ATF gave them. The reason was to create the climate for gun control by pointing to supposedly irresponsible U.S. gun store owners who armed the cartels in the interest of making a buck.

In reality, Fast and Furious was an operation designed to do to the second amendment what the anti-Muhammad video was designed to do to the first.

Conclusion
The evidence of Obama administration involvement in the “Innocence of Muslims” video is overwhelming. As such, when conservatives are inclined to disagree with the administration’s assertion that the video was responsible or view the filmmaker as an innocent and sympathetic figure, those conservatives should consider being a bit more counterintuitive and call out Obama.

After all, the video his administration blamed for the Benghazi attack appears to have bloody hands if we take them at their word.

[1] Rosenthal, John, “New Evidence Links Benghazi Attack to Anti-Muslim Movie”, Al-Monitor, July 8, 2013; http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/fr/contents/articles/opinion/2013/07/rice-right-about-benghazi-video.html#

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid

h/t Diana West

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