Obama’s 9.11?

“Islamic supremacists see themselves in a civilizational war with us. When we submit on a major point, we grow weaker and they grow stronger.”

--Roger Kimbell, “PJ Media” 

It is too early to say conclusively what happened in Cairo and Benghazi on September 11, 2012. But the Obama administration says otherwise, maintaining the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi--an attack that murdered four American officials, including the U.S. Ambassador--were a spontaneous reaction to a U.S.-made anti-Islam video.

For the argument that both attacks were premeditated and coordinated, engineered by al-Qaeda, and deliberately timed to honor the 9.11 destruction of the World Trade Center’s twin towers, we turn to American-born and -educated Israeli Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post deputy managing editor. Glick writes:

• The Islamic ideology of jihad is the predominant ideology in the Muslim world today. The rallying cry of al-Qaeda--the shehada--is the cry of Muslim faith. Jihadist Islam is the predominant form of Islam worshiped in mosques throughout the world. And the ideology of jihad is an ideology of war against the non-Islamic world led by the US. 

• the much mentioned film about Muhammad . . . was apparently released about a year ago. It received little notice until last month when a Salafi television station in Egypt broadcast it. In light of the response, the purpose of the broadcast was self-evident. The broadcasters screened the film to incite anti-American violence. Had they not been interested in attacking the US, they would not have screened the film. [The Salafis] sought a pretext for attacking America. If the film had never been created, they would have found another--equally ridiculous--pretext. 

• And here we come to the nature of the attacks against America that occurred on the 11th anniversary of the September 11 jihadist attacks. A cursory consideration of the events that took place--and are still taking place--makes clear that these were not acts of spontaneous rage about an amateur Internet movie. They were premeditated. 

• In Egypt, the mob attack on the embassy followed the screening of the anti-Islam flick on jihadist television. [The mob] was led by Muhammad al-Zawahiri - the brother of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri. The US's first official response to the assault on its embassy in Cairo came in the form of a Twitter feed from the embassy apologizing to Muslims for the film. 

• The day before the attacks, al-Qaeda released a video of Ayman al-Zawahiri in which he called for his co-religionists to attack the US in retribution for the killing--in June--of his second in command Abu Al Yahya al-Libi by a US drone in Pakistan. Zawahiri specifically asked for the strongest act of retribution to be carried out in Libya. 

• As for the attack in Libya, it apparently came as no surprise to some US officials on the ground. In an online posting the night before he was killed, US Foreign Service information management officer Sean Smith warned of the impending strike. Smith wrote, "Assuming we don't die tonight. We saw one of our 'police' that guard the compound taking pictures." 

• The coordinated, premeditated nature of the attack was self-evident. The assailants were armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. They knew the location of the secret safe house to which the US consular officials fled. They laid ambush to a Marine force sent to rescue the 37 Americans hiding at the safe house. 

We should await more facts before rendering final judgment. But Obama doesn’t wait, because he cannot afford to be labeled the second consecutive president caught napping on 9.11.