The New York Times deafening thirty-five-day silence
on the developing Benghazi
scandal ended today with its Election-Year
Stakes Overshadow Nuances of Libya Investigation.
The article reveals that the Times knew almost
immediately that the assault was carried out by an organized militant group and
that there was no spontaneous demonstration of sparked by the anti-Muslim
video. According to the Times: a
20-year-old neighbor described the brigade he saw leading the attack. “There
was no protest or anything of that sort.” Libyan guards at the Benghazi compound and
other witnesses told Times journalists as early as Sept. 12 that the
streets outside the mission were quiet in the moments before the attack without
any prior protests.
The attack was planned and carried out by a local militant
group, which may or may not have ties with al Qaeda, but U.S.
intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they
intercepted boastful phone calls after the fact from the attackers to
individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. In June the group
staged a similar attack against the Tunisian Consulate over a different film,
according to the Congressional testimony of the American security chief at the
time.
During the onslaught, most of the attackers made no effort
to hide their faces or identities, and during the assault some acknowledged to
a Libyan journalist working for the Times that they belonged to the
group. The Times reporter interviewed militants who claimed they heard
of the video that day from the Cairo
protests earlier in the day. Other Benghazi
militia leaders said the militant group had boasted back in June that it could
destroy the American Mission. The Times notes, however, that “in the
days after the attack the Obama administration’s surrogates said it grew out of
a peaceful protest against the video.”
The Times remained silent as the Obama administration
peddled the spontaneous mob incited by the video to the media. It knew the
truth but said nothing.
And there are those who deny the existence of media bias.
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