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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Thu Sep 20, 2012, 02:05 PM Sep 2012

White House: Benghazi A ‘Terrorist Attack’

Source: TPM

The White House on Thursday characterized the attack on a diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya that left four U.S. officials dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, as a "terrorist attack."

“It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack,” said White House spokesman, Jay Carney, per pool report. “Our embassy was attacked violently and the result was four deaths of American officials. So, again, that’s self evident.”

Read more: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/white-house-benghazi-terrorist-attack

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White House: Benghazi A ‘Terrorist Attack’ (Original Post) DonViejo Sep 2012 OP
So why did Susan Rice get all emphatic about it NOT being planned... SayitAintSo Sep 2012 #1
Because .. svip Sep 2012 #2
Name other unplanned terrorist attacks you know of. aquart Sep 2012 #3
Examples .. svip Sep 2012 #4
McCain's memory is faulty, at best, when he claims the weapons used on the embassy had to come from sad sally Sep 2012 #5
 

SayitAintSo

(2,207 posts)
1. So why did Susan Rice get all emphatic about it NOT being planned...
Thu Sep 20, 2012, 02:18 PM
Sep 2012

Wouldn't it be smarter for a 'diplomat' to be 'diplomatic' and not commit until the facts were in?

I am concerned that she has been touted as Hillary's replacement....I vote for Kerry....

svip

(22 posts)
2. Because ..
Thu Sep 20, 2012, 02:46 PM
Sep 2012

.. it wasn't planned.

Just because it was a terrorist attack doesn't mean it was preplanned. Terrorists saw an opportunity with the protests in Cairo, and used the opportunity to mask another 'protest' in Libya to launch an attack.

This whole, "they had heavy weapons ready" argument is BS, especially when it comes from people like McCain. He, being a military man, is more than aware of how terrorists stockpile these weapons, and how easily they are able to move them.

svip

(22 posts)
4. Examples ..
Thu Sep 20, 2012, 05:07 PM
Sep 2012

.. are attacks on ships in the Gulf of Aden. Nearly all of those attacks of terrorism are cases of opportunity, rather than cases of planned attacks.

We are talking on a level of moving heavy weapons, not on the level of the Mumbai Attacks. Not on the level of 9/11. Not the Madrid train bombings. The level of sophistication and planning needed for those attacks, and what happened in Libya, are night and day.

sad sally

(2,627 posts)
5. McCain's memory is faulty, at best, when he claims the weapons used on the embassy had to come from
Thu Sep 20, 2012, 05:14 PM
Sep 2012

outside the country. The UN tried to find huge caches of missing weapons.

"At newly discovered weapons-storage sites, thousands of shoulder-held surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) are unaccounted for. At one unguarded facility, empty packing crates and documents reveal that 482 sophisticated Russian SA-24 missiles were shipped to Libya in 2004, and now are gone. With a range of 11,000 feet, the SA-24 is Moscow’s modern version of the American “stinger,” which in the 1980s helped the US-backed Afghan mujahideen turn their war against the Soviet Union.

With Libya already facing great uncertainty in the post-Qaddafi era, seepage from unsecured weapons stores could further threaten its nascent revolutionary government by arming a loyalist insurgency – or providing regional rebel groups and Al Qaeda in the Maghreb with a lethal arsenal."

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