The Middle East riots were planned in advance. Imagine that, it had nothing to do with a stupid film

[Zalatix]

All this yapping about restricting freedom of speech in America and how America should surrender its rights to the demands of the world, blah blah blah, all that screaming about punishing the film maker for producing this movie...

And it turns out the movie had nothing to do with the riots at all.


So not only will "Innocence of Muslims" NOT be punished, not only will the First Amendment bashing activists NOT EVER GET WHAT THEY WANT, but now the anti-First Amendment crowd has egg on their face because the riots were going to happen anyway.

How embarrassing!

http://www.news.com.au/world/us-identifies-anti-muslim-filmmaker/story-fndir2ev-1226473817626

THE deadly attack on the US consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi was planned and "meticulously executed," the country's assembly chief said.

"I don't want to talk about what happened in other countries but as for Libya, the operation was meticulously executed," Mohammed al-Megaryef said of the wave of protests across the world over a US-produced film mocking Islam.

"There was planning. It was not a peaceful protest which degenerated into an armed attack or aggression. That's how it was planned," he said.

US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed on Tuesday when suspected Islamic militants fired on the consulate in the eastern Libyan city with rocket-propelled grenades and set it ablaze.

"The attack itself and the manner in which the attack occurred ...confirms that this was planned and programmed to achieve a purpose," Mr Megaryef said.

[CJCRANE]

1. You're conflating two things: the protests and the attack.

The protests in Egypt and elsewhere are about the video.

The attack in Libya was not about the video.

[dipsydoodle]

2. You've changed the headline for your own purpose.

"The Middle East riots" is a general misexpression in this context given that the article is specific - Libya.

I tried to point out some days back the the attack on your consular official coincided with the protest regarding the film. They were separate issues the former more likely being made to coincide with either 9/11 or the death of Al Q's #2.

Riots elsewhere had everything to do with the film.

[dkf]

3. Susan Rice directly contradicts that so I guess that is the US position. It's all due to the movie.

No evidence of pre-meditation. Nada. Zilch.

No terrorism, just a riot that escalated with random people busting out their RPGs.

My skepticism is sky high here.

[CJCRANE]

5. She implied that the protests were used as an opportunistic cover for the attack.

That's different than saying the attack was about the video.

[Zalatix]

6. Care to quote where she contradicts that?

[Fla_Democrat]

7. Ambassador Susan Rice: Libya Attack Not Premeditated

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/ambassador-susan-rice-libya-attack-not-premeditated/


U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi last week was not premeditated, directly contradicting top Libyan officials who say the attack was planned in advance.

“Our current best assessment, 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 transpired in Cairo,” Rice told me this morning on “This Week.”

<clip>

“We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to – or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo,” Rice said. “And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons… And it then evolved from there.”




Clearly they were agents provocateurs, my guess from OPD or NYPD brought in to discredit Occupy Libya.

[Live and Learn]

4. Whatever, the fact that the film is playing into their hands

can't be denied.

I am a firm believer in free speech but not so much in propaganda, which is what I believe this film to be. It is a fine line and everyone should be presumed innocent but if one can be proven to have lied in order to promote death and destruction, should one be held accountable?

If not, why is Manson in prison? If so, why aren't Bush and Cheney in prison?