What Media Is Missing In Its Rush To Tie Hillary Clinton To Kidnapped Nigerian Girls

What Media Is Missing In Its Rush To Tie Hillary Clinton To Kidnapped Nigerian Girls

Research May 8, 2014 2:26 PM EDT ››› MICHELLE LEUNG

Following the kidnapping of Nigerian school girls by terrorist group Boko Haram, right-wing media are rushing to smear former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for not designating the group a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), insinuating that the kidnappings might have been prevented had the State Department issued the designation earlier. The baseless attack ignores the facts around FTO designations and foreign affairs.

Nigerian Terrorist Group Boko Haram Abducts More Than 200 Schoolgirls

Reuters: Boko Haram Commits Mass Abduction Of Teenage Schoolgirls. On April 21, Reuters reported that more than 234 young girls had been kidnapped from Chibok school in Nigeria by an extremist group known as Boko Haram. Reuters described the group as an Islamic extremist organization that has "increasingly targeted civilians instead of just security forces." [Reuters, 4/21/14]

NYT: Boko Haram A "Cultlike Nigeran Group" Whose Actions Are Not Even Condoned By Fellow Militants. The New York Times described Boko Haram as a "cultlike Nigerian group" known for "senseless cruelty and capricious violence against civilians": 

Boko Haram, the cultlike Nigerian group that carried out the kidnappings, was rejected long ago by mainstream Muslim scholars and Islamist parties around the world for its seemingly senseless cruelty and capricious violence against civilians. But this week its stunning abduction appeared too much even for fellow militants normally eager to condone terrorist acts against the West and its allies.

[...]

Boko Haram is in many ways an awkward ally for any of them. Its violence is broader and more casual than Al Qaeda or other jihadist groups. Indeed, its reputation for the mass murder of innocent civilians is strikingly inconsistent with a current push by Al Qaeda's leaders to avoid such deaths for fear of alienating potential supporters. That was the subject of the dispute that led to Al Qaeda's recent break with its former affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

What's more, Boko Haram's recruits and targets have always been purely local, not international. And the group is centered on a messianic leader who claims to speak with God and demands that its adherents surrender all their possessions to the group, resembling a cult, like Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, more than it does an orthodox Islamist movement. [The New York Times, 5/8/14]

Right-Wing Media Tie Hillary Clinton To The Terrorist Group's Kidnapping

Fox News: If Hillary Clinton Had Designated Boko Haram A Foreign Terrorist Organization, It Could Have "Saved These Girls Earlier." On the May 8 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends the hosts tried to place blame on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by arguing that Clinton had refused to designate Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), claiming that if she had done so, it "could have saved these girls earlier":

STEVE DOOCY: This is really something. We've with been telling you about this terrorist group called Boko Haram out in Africa, how they've killed an entire village. They have since, in the last couple of weeks, they have kidnapped 300 young girls. They're going to sell them into slavery.

BRIAN KILMEADE: And prior to that, boys.

DOOCY: They burned a bunch of boys. They burned down a village. It's all bad. And now word is, because we did not place them on the terror list, of officially known terrorist groups, it's going to be harder to go after them. And who exactly made sure that they were not placed on the terror list? Hillary Clinton.

[...]

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: And the rights of women and young girls, those are pillars of what she wanted to accomplish in her time at the State department. But right here, what she didn't actually tweet, and perhaps because it was over 140 characters, was the fact that her own State department, as Steve just mentioned, did not place Boko Haram on the list of foreign terrorist organizations which would have forbidden any sort of authority to increase securities to them, increase assistance to Nigerian security forces in that area and perhaps could have saved these girls earlier. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 5/8/14]

NRO: "Excuses Now Being Offered In Explanation Of Clinton's Dereliction Are Specious." National Review Online claimed that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's reasons for not designation Boko Haram an FTO were "specious" and "ridiculous," and labeled Clinton's decision as "appeasing Islamists":

What happened here is obvious, although the commentariat is loath to connect the dots. Boko Haram is an Islamic-supremacist organization. Mrs. Clinton, like the Obama administration more broadly, believes that appeasing Islamists--avoiding actions that might give them offense, slamming Americans who provoke them--promotes peace and stability. [National Review Online, 5/8/14]

Hot Air: "The Responsibility For This Failure Rests Directly With Hillary Clinton." The conservative blog Hot Air placed blame on Hillary Clinton for not designating Boko Haram as an FTO claiming, "it's clear that the responsibility for this failure rests directly with Hillary Clinton, if not the decision itself." Hot Air also brushed aside Clinton's current support of U.S. intervention in the Nigerian kidnappings: "Now Hillary wants to fight Boko Haram with hashtags. Too bad she didn't fight them with real resources when she had the chance." [Hot Air,5/8/14]

As Secretary Of State, Hillary Clinton Was The First To Blacklist Boko Haram Leaders

State Department Under Hillary Clinton Put Top Boko Haram Leaders On Terrorist List. In June 2012, the U.S. State Department under Hillary Clinton identified three leaders of Boko Haram as "foreign terrorists," as Reuters reported at the time, noting that it constituted the "first time [State] has blacklisted members of the Islamist group":

The United States on Thursday named three alleged leaders of the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram as "foreign terrorists," the first time it has blacklisted members of the Islamist group blamed for attacks across Africa's most populous nation.

The State Department identified the three as Abubakar Shekau, calling him the "most visible" leader of the group, and Abubakar Adam Kambar and Khalid al-Barnawi, who it said were tied both to Boko Haram and to al Qaeda's north African wing.

"These designations demonstrate the United States' resolve in diminishing the capacity of Boko Haram to execute violent attacks," it said, saying that Boko Haram or associated militants were responsible for more than 1,000 deaths in the past 18 months. [Reuters,6/21/12]

State Dept. Blacklisted Leaders, Not Boko Haram As A Group, So As Not To Empower The Terrorist Group. Reuters went on to report that the State and Treasury departments listed individuals on the terrorist list, rather than Boko Haram as a group, so as not to "elevate the group's profile":

U.S. officials say the decision to list individual Boko Haram members, rather than apply the more sweeping "Foreign Terrorist Organization" label to the group as a whole as some U.S. lawmakers have demanded, reflected a desire not to elevate the group's profile.

[...]

In January, Lisa Monaco, the Justice Department's top national security official, sent a letter to the State Department arguing the Nigerian group met the criteria for a "foreign terrorist" listing because it either engaged in terrorism that threatens the United States or had a capability or intent to do so.

But a group of academic experts on Africa sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month urging her not to take the step, saying it could backfire by enhancing the group's reputation among potential recruits and other militants. [Reuters, 6/21/12]

Experts: Granting Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) Status Can Embolden Terrorist Groups

International Crisis Group: Classifying Boko Haram As FTO Would "Encourage It To Aggressively Target US Interests In Nigeria." In November 2013, when the State Department first moved towards classifying Boko Haram as an Foreign Terrorist Organization, the BBC noted that "such an escalation will expand the threat of the group, drawing in the deployment of US surveillance drones and introducing a dramatic twist to the conflict in the major oil producer," citing a Nigeria analyst with the International Crisis Group: (emphasis added):

US moves to classify the Islamist group Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organisation may encourage the militants to justify their new status by seeking international terror links in a region that is home to an al-Qaeda franchise.

[...]

Nnamdi Obasi, a Nigeria analyst with the International Crisis Group (ICG) says the move to classify Boko Haram as a foreign terror group will encourage it to aggressively target US interests in Nigeria.

"It could also further radicalise the movement and push it to strengthen international linkages with other Islamist groups," Mr Obasi told the BBC.

[...]

Such support can be easily turned into recruitment of new fighters that can be deployed beyond Nigeria.

[...]

Most jihadists like to be part of a terror group that is stridently opposed to the US - which the terrorists see as an embodiment of Western values that they oppose. [BBC,11/15/13]

Fmr. Asst. Secretary of State For African Affairs: FTO Designation For Boko Haram Would "Raise It's Profile" And "Help In Its Recruitment." In an interview given to the Daily Beast, Fmr. Asst. Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson defended the decision not to label Boko Haram a foreign terrorist group, arguing that the designation "would in fact raise its profile, give it greater publicity, give it greater credibility, help in its recruitment, and also probably drive more assistance in its direction":

In 2012, more than 20 prominent U.S. academics in African studies wrote to Clinton, urging her to not to label Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization. "An FTO designation would internationalize Boko Haram's standing and enhance its status among radical organizations elsewhere," the scholars said.

"There was a concern that putting Boko Haram on the foreign terrorist list would in fact raise its profile, give it greater publicity, give it greater credibility, help in its recruitment, and also probably drive more assistance in its direction," he said.

The U.S. has plenty of ways to assist the Nigerian government with counterterrorism even without designating Boko Haram, Carson said. The problem has long been that the Nigerian government doesn't always want or accept the help the U.S. has offered over the years. [The Daily Beast, 5/7/14] 

CSIS: Designating FTO Status Is Not Always An Appropriate Tool To Combat Terrorism. The Center for Strategic And International Studies (CSIS) pointed out that FTO designation is not always an appropriate tool to "mitigate a given threat." In an October, 2012 study of the FTO status' effect on Pakistani-based Haqqani network, CSIS argued that FTO status actually hampered the United States' ability combat the designated group: 

FTO designation is deliberately left to the discretion of the secretary of state and reflects his or her judgment about the most appropriate way to mitigate a given threat. As a report by the Congressional Research Service explains, "There may be competing priorities in dealing with a group, such as a desire to engage a group in negotiations or to use the FTO naming as leverage for another foreign policy aim." The Taliban's continuing absence from the FTO list, despite also meeting the criteria, is one reflection of these competing priorities.

The key question then is whether designation is the appropriate tool to apply given the priorities in this case. The case for designation relies largely on its expected financial effects on the Haqqanis; on the diplomatic pressure the designation might exert on Pakistan to oppose the network more vigorously; and finally on the perceived need for the United States to use "all available tools" to curtail the group's activities. In reality, however, designation restricts the tools available, and its financial, diplomatic, and military effects on the ground will be at best unhelpful and at worst counterproductive. [Center for Strategic International Studies, 10/4/12]

Nigerian Government Was Opposed To U.S. Designating Boko Haram As A FTO

Nigeria Opposed U.S. Bid To Tag Boko Haram As Terror Group. In May 2012, AllAfrica.com explained why the Nigerian federal government opposed the idea that the U.S. designate Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, citing concerns that the designation would hamper travel and intensify scrutiny of Nigerian citizens and harrassment of Nigerian citizens:

The federal government raised its objection to the plan ahead of last Tuesday's meeting of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Gen. Andrew Owoye Azazi, with top White House and State Department officials in Washington DC.

Nigeria's Ambassador to the US, Prof. Adebowale Adefuye, who confirmed Azazi's meeting with the American officials, said the government was opposed to such a designation because it might subject Nigerian travellers to intensive search and scrutiny around the world, especially in western capitals and cities.

Ambassador Adefuye in his defence of government's action, said he feared the likelihood of Nigerians being opened to all kinds of harassments at international airports once such a designation comes from the U.S., including intensive and intrusive body searches.

The envoy said the government would on its own contain the Boko Haram menace as it did in quelling the militancy in the Niger Delta region of the country. [AllAfrica.com, 5/24/12]

U.S.  Currently Designates Boko Haram An FTO

State Department Announced In November 2013 That Boko Haram Was Designated FTO. In November 2013, the U.S. State Department designated Boko Haram and its "offshoot Ansaru as 'terrorist organizations,' legally enabling Washington to take various steps against the groups, their members and their supporters," CNN reported. [CNN.com, 11/13/13]

Time: U.S. Government Offers $7 Million Bounty For Boko Haram Leader. According to Time "The U.S. government's bounty for Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau stands at $7 million." [Time, 9/30/13]

CNN: Following Group's Designation As An FTO, Boko Haram Ended Peace Talks With Nigerian Government. According to CNN, Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau abandoned talks with the Nigerian government after the U.S. designated it as a foreign terrorist group:

[Boko Haram leader] Shekau is not beyond negotiating with the Nigerian government, despite his apocalyptic rhetoric and frequent denials of President Goodluck Jonathan's legitimacy. According to the International Crisis Group, negotiations in Ivory Coast a year ago were on the verge of producing "an apparent peace agreement that was to begin with a ceasefire." Then Shekau was designated a terrorist by the U.S. State Department and abandoned the talks. [CNN.com, 5/8/14]

Here’s Why Hillary Clinton Resisted Designating Boko Haram As A Terrorist Organization

Here’s Why Hillary Clinton Resisted Designating Boko Haram As A Terrorist Organization

BY HAYES BROWN MAY 8, 2014 AT 1:40 PM UPDATED: MAY 8, 2014 AT 3:08 PM

"Here’s Why Hillary Clinton Resisted Designating Boko Haram As A Terrorist Organization"

 

Share:

    Share on email

Hillary Clinton in 2012, at one of her last events as Secretary of State

CREDIT: AP PHOTO/KEVIN LAMARQUE, POOL

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week tweeted out support for efforts to recover the more than two hundred girls kidnapped almost a month ago, saying “We must stand up to terrorism” and using the now ubiquitous #BringBackOurGirls hashtag. But now conservatives are angrily pointing out that she had refused to list the Nigerian group behind the kidnapping as a terrorist organization during her time at the State Department, threatening to turn the latest push against the group into a political football.

That the State Department under Clinton declined to name Boko Haram to a list of terror groups maintained at Foggy Bottom is true. But in making the point, an explosively titled article from the Daily Beast focuses more on the politics of the issue in light of the new interest in Boko Haram, rather than the actual reasoning behind the State Department’s decision. After drawing attention to Clinton’s tweet, the story continues on to note that what the former first lady “didn’t mention was that her own State Department refused to place Boko Haram on the list of foreign terrorist organizations in 2011, after the group bombed the U.N. headquarters in Abuja,” quoting named and unnamed Republican sources as the crux of its argument.

But there were multiple valid reasons for the State Department to disagree with the Justice Department and other agencies dealing with counterterrorism — such as the FBI and CIA — who urged State to place Boko Haram on the Foreign Terrorists Organization (FTO) list. “Designation is an important tool, it’s not the only tool,” a former State Department official told the Beast. “There are a lot of other things you can do in counterterrorism that doesn’t require a designation.” This includes boosting development aid to undercut the causes of unrest and deploying the FBI to assist in tracking down Boko Haram, both of which the U.S. actually did.

In addition, Clinton didn’t act in a vacuum to determine not to designate Boko Haram back in 2011. Scholars on Twitter who focus on the region, terrorism broadly, and Islamist groups in particular were quick to point out that not only were there few benefits and many possible costs to designation, many of them had argued against listing Boko Haram several years ago. In a letter to the State Department dated May 2012, twenty prominent African studies scholars wrote Clinton to implore her to hold off on placing Boko Haram on the FTO list. Acknowledging the violence Boko Haram had perpetrated, the academics argued that “an FTO designation would internationalize Boko Haram, legitimize abuses by Nigeria’s security services, limit the State Department’s latitude in shaping a long term strategy, and undermine the U.S. Government’s ability to receive effective independent analysis from the region.”

The Nigerian government also wasn’t exactly clamoring for U.S. assistance against Boko Haram back in 2011. At the time, Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad — the actual full name of the group commonly called Boko Haram — was a threat only within Nigeria. Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson described the group in 2012 testimony to the Senate as “not monolithic or homogenous” and “composed of several groups that remain primarily focused on discrediting the Nigerian government.”

“As Boko Haram is focused primarily on local Nigerian issues and actors, they respond principally to political and security developments within Nigeria,” Carson went on to say. In speaking with the Daily Beast, he defended that analysis: “There always has been a reluctance to accept our analysis of what the drivers causing the problems in the North and there is sometimes a rejection of the assistance that is offered to them.” And though the group has become more radicalized as the years have gone on, committing more and more atrocious crimes and latching further onto extremist Islamic ideology, the strategy of seeking to discredit the Nigerian government appears to still be the case even in the recent kidnapping of the three hundred girls kidnapped last month.

The U.S. government also wasn't exactly ignoring the presence of Boko Haram as a source of violence in Nigeria. In June 2012, with Clinton still at the helm at Foggy Bottom, the State Department designated Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau and several others with ties to the organization as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists.” That designation made the individuals’ “property interests subject to U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits U.S. persons from engaging in transactions with or for the benefit of these individuals.” Shekau is now infamous for producing a nearly hour long video in which he took credit for the kidnapping of the schoolgirls in Nigeria.

Conservative media has latched onto the narrative as more evidence that the Hillary Clinton that they've railed against as the cause of the Obama administration’s supposed cover-up of the Benghazi tragedy is the real Hillary. Articles aggregating the Beast’s piece appear at The Blaze, the Daily Caller, and National Review, all in similarly condemnatory terms. And if giving a preview of what’s to come, CNN host and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich tweeted: “Congress should hold hearings on why Clinton State Dept refused to tell truth about radical Islamist Boko Haram in Nigeria.”

The State Department did finally name Boko Haram to the FTO list in 2013, when it became clear that the arguments against designating the group were no longer enough to prevent their addition and under pressure from lawmakers who were preparing to legislatively force the administration to do just that. In doing so, however, State — now under the leadership of John Kerry — took care to implore Nigeria that more needed to be done to combat Boko Haram aside from just military action.

“These designations are an important and appropriate step, but only one tool in what must be a comprehensive approach by the Nigerian government to counter these groups through a combination of law enforcement, political, and development efforts, as well as military engagement, to help root out violent extremism while also addressing the legitimate concerns of the people of northern Nigeria,” the State Department statement read.

UPDATE

Media Matters has even more on the State Department’s decision to not name Boko Haram as a terrorist organization, including Nigerian Ambassador to the U.S. Adebowale Adefuye in 2012 flatly opposing the designation.

After SCOTUS Ruling, Sectarian Prayer Quickly Becomes Christian-Only Prayer

After SCOTUS Ruling, Sectarian Prayer Quickly Becomes Christian-Only Prayer

By: Hrafnkell Haraldssonmore from Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Saturday, May, 10th, 2014, 7:33 am

The blood from the gaping wound inflicted by the Supreme Court on the First Amendment with its Town of Greece v. Galloway ruling, was not even dry yet, when Roanoke County Supervisor Al Bedrosian proposed excluding non-Christian prayer from pre-meeting invocations.

The Roanoke Times reports Bedrosian’s reasoning, if it can be called that:

I think America, pretty much from Founding Fathers on, I think we have to say more or less that we’re a Christian nation with Christian ideology, If we’re a Christian nation, then I would say that we need to move toward our Christian heritage.

Satanists are already lining up to offer prayers to Beelzebub, but according to Bedrosian, “The freedom of religion doesn’t mean that every religion has to be heard.”

Um, yes, it really does. That’s what “freedom” means. Everyone has it. Equally. Period. The First Amendment guarantees it.

Contrary to Bedrosian, contrary to Tony Perkins, religious freedom is owned in equal quantity by every American.

He says, “If we allow everything … where do you draw the line?”

Well, that’s the point. You don’t. There is no line. All religions are equal before the law, the only place where such distinctions matter.

If Bedrosian is free to think that his religious is more equal than others, atheists are equally free to say no religion at all matters, and Satanists that their religion is equal to, or better than, Bedrosian’s.

And of course, Bedrosian is wrong about the whole “Christian nation” thing as well. The Founding Fathers never said, or even implied, such a thing, and Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli is explicit in its denial of the United States as a Christian nation:

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

It was such a small step from allowing government-sponsored prayer to excluding non-Christians, and it is an equally small step from excluding non-Christians to excluding the wrong type of Christians. We have already seen Rick Santorum say that mainline Protestants are not really Christian:

[W]e look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.

It won’t be long, with that sort of thinking in place, before your average ELCA-type Lutheran finds he is not allowed to pray before a town council meeting. If, as Santorum says, mainline Protestants are under the influence of Satan, their prayers will be no more welcome than those of Satanists.

Mainstream Christians need to take notice. Much is made of a supposed “Judeo-Christian” tradition (by Religious Right figures like Rick Santorum), but in suggestions like this, one sees how little the “Judeo” means to conservative Christianity, because not only are Satanic prayers excluded, and Muslim, and Hindu and Pagan – but Jewish.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has sent a letter to the board, advising it that their proposal violates the Supreme Court’s May 5 ruling:

In vowing to discriminate against non-Christians, Supervisor Bedrosian ignores what the Supreme Court actually said in Galloway,” the letter says. “Although upholding the challenged prayer policy, the Court also made clear that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause prohibits legislative bodies from excluding non-Christian prayer givers or otherwise discriminating in selection.

But then they were told, along with everyone else. that allowing sectarian prayer at all violated the First Amendment.

Their attitude then was “so what?” The Supreme Court agreed: so what, indeed?

The First Amendment has already been violated by the Cinco de Mayo Massacre, and the Religious Right would violate it again – and again, to get its way, and there is no guarantee the Supreme Court would not simply wink at them as they do.

It is no secret at all that the Religious Right from its inception has desired to impose a pseudo-Christian theocracy on the American people based on a heretical atrocity they insist is orthodox Christianity, but one which imposes a weaponized Jesus in place of his actual teachings.

This is precisely what the Founding Fathers sought to forbid.

As AU executive director Barry Lynn said, “This is why the decision is so troubling, and I can imagine we will be seeing a lot of ‘Christians only’ talk from local boards.”

They will be spreading like hell-fire.

Photo from columbiafavs.com

After SCOTUS Ruling, Sectarian Prayer Quickly Becomes Christian-Only Prayer was written by Hrafnkell Haraldsson for PoliticusUSA.

© PoliticusUSA, Sat, May 10th, 2014 — All Rights Reserved

Top 10 Reasons GOP Benghazi Witch Hunt Is Just a Campaign Fundraising Ploy

Published on Friday, May 9, 2014 by Informed Comment

Top 10 Reasons GOP Benghazi Witch Hunt Is Just a Campaign Fundraising Ploy

by Juan Cole

Since Obamacare is increasingly a wildly popular success, the GOP is flailing around looking for an issue, any issue to help fundraising for the fall congressional campaigns. In a vote that will live in infamy, the House GOP has decided to create a select committee to investigate the 2012 Benghazi consular attack yet again. They may as well exhume poor Ambassador Chris Stevens’ body and steal the gold from his teeth fillings.

CNN reports:

Since they insist on continuing to purvey the same falsehoods about Benghazi (which I visited a few months before the tragic attack), I continue to post much the same refutation. Some of these points are being revised from an earlier posting.)

1. Republicans keep posturing that their questions about Benghazi are intended to bolster US security. In fact, they are harming it. Republican hearings in the House of Representative have disgracefully revealed the names of Libyans talking to the US consulate, thus endangering their lives and harming US efforts to understand the situation in the country, since who would risk talking to the embassy if they know about Darrell Issa’s big mouth? Moreover, the constant baseless Republican drumbeat about the Benghazi events has caused the State Department to pull dependents from Tunis and Tripoli and keep only a skeleton crew there. These steps have limited US diplomatic activity in two transitional countries of the Arab upheavals of 2011, and so damaged US interests. The real, actual Libya needs US aid and training but all the GOP wants to do is discourage career diplomats from having anything to do with it. This standoffishness on the actual Libya is a US security problem waiting to happen. Sen. John McCain knows better than to behave this way.

2. The GOP figures keep saying that it was obvious that there was no demonstration at the Benghazi consulate against the so-called “film,” the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ that attacked the Prophet Muhammad. But in fact Libyan security officials repeatedly told wire services on September 12 that there was such a demonstration, and that the attack issued from those quarters. An American resident in Benghazi at that time confirmed to me that there were such demonstrations that day. Likewise, Reuters correspondent Hadeel Shalchi, who was on the scene in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, wrote:

The ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and the other Americans were killed after Islamist gunmen attacked the U.S. consulate and a safe house refuge in Benghazi on Tuesday night. The attackers were part of a mob blaming America for a film they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad.

In December ’13 a long NYT article by David Kirkpatrick, based on months of research in Benghazi, which most of the House GOP couldn’t find on a map, confirmed that the militants who gathered in front of the consulate were motivated by anger over the film. Kirkpatrick did challenge the characterization of this gathering as a civil demonstration, saying it was a band of extremists. But my interlocutor in Benghazi did report anti-film demonstrations in Benghazi that day. The secular-minded revolutionary militia that guarded the US consulate for the Libyan government kept the demonstrations far enough away from the consulate gates that they would not have shown up in security videos.

3. What the House should really investigate is who really funded and encouraged the production of that get-up ‘film’ attacking Islam, “The Innocence of Muslims.” It was redubbed after being shot, such that the cast had no idea they were in a bigoted attack film. The makers of the film, including a far right wing American militia figure, sent it determinedly to Egyptian hard line Salafi Muslims until part of it was finally shown on a Salafi television channel. They were clearly trying as hard as they could to provoke attacks on US facilities. Isn’t this a sort of terrorism in itself? Was it a Republican Party black money group hoping to provoke a diplomatic hostage crisis that would damage President Obama’s chances of reelection? Why did GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney keep comparing President Obama to former president Jimmy Carter in spring of 2012? Carter had been bedeviled by the Iran/ US embassy hostage crisis. Had Romney’s speech writers heard from the US Islamophobic network that there was likely to be embassy trouble that summer and that it might make Obama look weak? Why are GOP leaders so determined to deny that the film helped provoke the Benghazi attack? Are they afraid that sooner or later a link between GOP funders and the film will emerge, and they want to hold themselves harmless? Why do Muslim-hating political campaigns break out regularly every two years in the US, pushed by Republican candidates? Will there be another one in summer-fall of 2014?

4. Benghazi, a city of over a million, is not dominated by “al-Qaeda,” contrary to what Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has repeatedly said or implied. The city had successful municipal elections in May, just before I got there. The number one vote-getter was a woman professor of statistics at the university. While political Islam is a force in Benghazi, only some relatively small groups are militant, and it has to compete with nationalist, tribal and regional ideological currents. In Libya’s parliamentary elections of July, 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood did very poorly and nationalists came to power. Women won 20% of the seats! The elected Speaker of Parliament, Muhammad Magarief, called for a secular constitution for Libya and a separation of religion and state.

5. Contrary to repeated assertions that it was obvious that terrorist groups were rampaging around in the city, members of the Benghazi municipal council told then US ambassador Chris Stevens that security in the city was improving in summer, 2012.

In fact, one Senator John McCain said during a visit to Libya February 2012, ““We are very happy to be back here in Libya and to note the enormous progress and changes made in the past few months… We know that many challenges lie ahead… but we are encouraged by what we have seen.” Doesn’t sound to me like McCain was running around like Chicken Little warning that the sky was about to fall on US diplomats there. Want to know who else came along on that trip? Lindsey Graham, who likewise didn’t issue any dire warnings in its aftermath.

6. Contrary to the “Libya-is-riddled-with-al-Qaeda” meme of the GOP politicians, there is a strong civil society and tribal opposition to fundamentalist militias in Benghazi, of which Amb. Chris Stevens was well aware. Tripoli-based journalist Abd-al-Sattar Hatitah explained in the pages of the pan-Arab London daily al-Sharq al-Awsat [Sept. 30, 2012, trans. USG Open Source Center]:

“It appears that the simple rule Benghazi’s people thought of applying was based on other experiences in which the radical Islamists or militants in general managed to grow, prosper, and expand by seeking protection from the tribes, as happened in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen. But the civil movements which became very active [in Benghazi] after the fall of Al-Qadhafi’s regime were the ones that formed alliances this time with the tribes, the notables, wise men councils, and civil society figures against the militants. This is akin to the “Sahwat” in Iraq. The alliance managed to expel the brigades from the town and encouraged the nascent Libyan authorities to tighten their restrictions on all armed manifestations…

He adds that [a meeting by secular notables with the tribes] was also attended by representatives from the army chiefs-of-staff and the Interior Ministry as well as a number of members from the National Congress (parliament). “All civil society organizations also took part with us. Everybody consented to issuing the statement against the presence of the [fundamentalist] brigades and we distributed 3,000 copies. “

After the attack on the US consulate, tens of thousands of people in Benghazi demonstrated against the violence and in favor of the US and Stevens. Then they attempted to sweep the fundamentalist militias from the city.

7. Al-Qaeda is not for the most part even a “thing” in Libya. The only formal al-Qaeda affiliate in the region is al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which is not a Libyan but an Algerian organization. Just calling all Salafi groups “al-Qaeda” is propaganda. They have to swear fealty to Ayman al-Zawahiri (or in the past, Usama Bin Laden) to be al-Qaeda. The main al-Qaeda connection in Benghazi is to Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was killed in northern Pakistan by a US drone strike in June. Some of his close relatives in Benghazi may have been angry about this (depending on how well they liked him), but they are not known to form a formal al-Qaeda cell. There are also young men from Dirna in the Benghazi area, some of whom fought against the US in Iraq. Their numbers are not large and, again, they don’t have al-Zawahiri’s phone number on auto-dial. Sen. McCain was a big supporter of the US intervention in Libya and seems to have been all right with Abdul Hakim Belhadj being his ally, even though in the zeroes Belhadj would have been labeled ‘al-Qaeda.’

8. Ansar al-Sharia (Helpers of Islamic Law) is just an informal grouping of a few hundred hard line fundamentalists in Benghazi, and may be a code word to refer to several small organizations. There are no known operational links between Ansar al-Sharia and al-Qaeda. It is a local thing in Benghazi. This point was confirmed by Kirkpatrick’s NYT report

9. Leaders of Ansar al-Sharia have denied that they directed their organization to attack the US consulate and have condemned the attack.

10. Lindsey Graham and others point to instances of political violence summer 2012 in Benghazi as obvious harbingers of the September 11 consulate attack. But it was a tiny fringe group, the Omar Abdel Rahman Brigades, that claimed responsibility for setting off a small pipe bomb in front of the gate of the US consulate last June. This is what the US statement said last June:

“There was an attack late last night on the United States office in Benghazi,” a US embassy official said, adding that only the gate was damaged and no one was hurt. The diplomat said a homemade bomb had been used in the attack on the office, set up after the 2011 uprising against Muammar Qadhafi and kept open to support the democratic transition “

You’d have to be a real scaredy cat to pack up and leave because of a thing like that, which is what Sen. Graham keeps saying should have been the response. Likewise the same small cell was responsible for attacks on the office of the Red Cross and on a convoy of the British consulate, which injured a consular employ. Security isn’t all that great in Benghazi, though actually I suspect the criminal murder rate is much lower than in any major American city. I walked around freely in Benghazi in early June, 2012, and couldn’t have disguised my being a Westerner if I had wanted to, and nobody looked at me sideways. A pipe bomb and a shooting, neither of them fatal, did not stand out as dire in a city full of armed militias, most of them grateful to the US and Britain for their help in the revolution. You can understand why the Red Cross packed it in after a couple of attacks, but the US government is not the Red Cross.

© 2014 Juan Cole

Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His latest book, Engaging the Muslim World, is just out in a revised paperback edition from Palgrave Macmillan. He is also the author of Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). He has appeared widely on television, radio and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited, or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles. His weblog on the contemporary Middle East is Informed Comment.