Benghazi
and Beyond
On
the night of September 11, 2012, the eleventh anniversary of the September 11,
2001 terrorist attacks; the U.S consulate in Benghazi, Libya came under siege. Militants stormed the consulate grounds,
blocking off the streets around them, armed with AK-47s and rocket
launchers. Just hours before the attack,
the streets were filled with protestors angry over a film posted on YouTube
that depicted the Prophet Muhammad in an offensive way. Were these two events related? Was there any warning and could this have been
prevented? These questions and others
began to surface as the fog surrounding this attack began to lift. This story not only clearly represents the
change and growth that news stories exhibit as they travel over time and from
source to source, but it also shows how sources themselves use the story to
forward it and evolve it into an image that reflects their beliefs and
designs. In fact, it can be divided into
three main stages, What, Who, and Why.
September
11, 2012, the very same day as the attack, the American public receives its
first accounts of what would be known as the “Battle of Benghazi”. The Agence France Presse at 9:43PM GMT
published an article with the titled, Mob
sets fire to US consulate in Benghazi: witness. The opening line reads, “An armed mob
protesting over a film they said offended Islam, attacked the US consulate in
the Libyan city of Benghazi on Tuesday and set fire to the building, witnesses
reported” (AFP). The details were
scarce, there were no confirmed reports of any injured or killed, and many in
the world had never heard of this offensive film. The AFP’s only desire was to attract an
audience by reporting what they did know and speculating what they did not.
But the AFP did make the claim that whether these two events were
correlated had yet to be confirmed.
Nevertheless, it was not too far of a leap for the public, nor the
media, to make that connection themselves.
After all, “Nearly 3,000 demonstrators gathered at the embassy in
protest over a film deemed offensive to the Prophet Mohammed”(AFP). With such a large uproar and the mention of
another protest, “The attack happened on the same day as a similar group of
hardliners waving black banners attacked the US embassy in Cairo and tore down
the US flag”(AFP), the article does, inadvertently, support this
speculation. This stage of the story’s
development is what I would call What. The story began to take the form of a protest
gone horribly awry: all thanks to the film, Innocence
of Muslims.
The
following day the public woke to unfortunate news. USA Today opened with the headline, Libya: U.S. staffer dies in attack on
consulate. Even on the other side of
the Atlantic, London’s The Daily Telegraph opened with, American dies in Libya protests.
The media still speculated that the film was responsible for the attack,
but the only thing certain was, “An American was shot to death as protesters
burned the U.S Consulate in Benghazi”(USAToday). Still, the attention began to center around
the director, Sam Bacile, of this controversial film. Who was he? What amount of responsibility does he
hold? Headlines, many like The Atlantic
Wire’s Sam Bacile: The Mysterious
Filmmaker Who Set the Muslim World on Fire and ABC New’s Who Is Sam Bacile? Anti-Islam Filmmaker’s
Bio Doesn’t Add Up, began to encompass the majority of media reports. The Washington Post made it clear from the
start where they felt the blame lied, “The
director of a controversial anti-Islam film has gone into hiding, according to
reports, fearing reprisals over a work that has sparked violence in Egypt and
has been linked to events in Libya”.
Interestingly, while the undertone of the media was a unified
condemnation of Basile, they, regardless of political bias, were united in
their depiction and reactions. The
Huffington Post expressed how all other media stations felt:
The attacks on the U.S. embassies in Cairo and
Benghazi that took place last night were deplorable….Yes, the anti-Muslim movie
of the allegedly Israeli-American filmmaker in California that sparked the
riots was repulsive and offensive; but no insult, no matter how grave,
justifies even the murder….(TheHuffingtonPost).
This is extremely surprising; you can
usually find large differences between the many news sources because of their
political biases. However, their
unification may be due to the fact that the topic at hand is so sensitive that
the public would view any arguing negatively.
Ironically,
while the majority of the media seemed to be in agreement, for once, the
rhetoric was completely different in the blogosphere. The revelation that an American had been
killed had set the blogosphere on fire.
Sean Scallon’s posted on an article by Daniel Larison of The American
Conservative that there was no “better example” for the U.S not to get involved
in foreign affairs. Scallon goes, as far
as to say this is our repayment for “their freed from the evil Gaddafi”. I cannot help but find this a base and unjust
accusation: wrongful generalization of an entire people based on the actions of
some. Although I disagree with Scallon, many
echoed his feelings. Fortunately, not everyone was so quick to
criticize the Libyan people. A commenter
on Larison’s article who goes by the name “Reflectionephemeral” responded, “Well, ‘the people’ isn’t an
undifferentiated mass; is this mob truly representative of ‘what Libyans want’,
any more than the Birmingham church bomber showed that Americans didn’t want
desegregation”. These varying views of
who holds blame, the Libyan people or the filmmaker, became a key moment for
the story as a whole. Here we see a new
focus being introduced to the story: it is no longer solely “what happened”,
but “who is accountable”.
As you can guess, this is the start of
the second stage of this story’s development, Who. But what truly is
amazing about this story is the speed at which it develops. Later that same day, September 12, 2012, the
story again begins to change focus. This
time it is the blame, Who, that is
redirected. By the time the Defense
Department’s release new information had surfaced that the casualty count had
been raised to four, among them U.S Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. In the Defense Department’s report they
express remorse for the loss of all American citizens, including the
Ambassador. They provided details of the
events of the attack, those they knew, by time.
However, eyebrows were raised when they stated, “The complex attack will
require a full investigation”. This
seemed to indicate that the attack was more than some fluke. Naturally, the
media and public’s focuses switched and yet again and this story, for the third
time in one day, changed from “who was Sam Bacile” to “what did the government
know”.
Speculations were at full speed and it
didn’t take long till for it to show: CBS Morning News gave a broadcast report
titled Libyan Official on attack: Took
months of planning. Over the
following days it became clear that the attack was not a spontaneous response
from the protests, but a long planned terrorist attack that used the protests
to its advantage. In the week following
the Defense Department’s statement, Fox News created an article, Lawmaker’s ‘suspicious’ administration
‘trying to hide’ Libya attack details, which, as the name indicates, states
that some lawmakers were beginning to suspect that the Obama Administration and
the Intelligence Department were keeping details of the attack from the public
and press. Democrats and Republicans
alike demanded information and explanations.
Fox News led the way in pressing the issue by reporting that
Intelligence officials “knew within 24 hours” that the assault was a terrorist
attack. “The
account sharply conflicted with claims by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
Susan Rice on the Sunday after the attack that the administration believed the
strike was a "spontaneous" event triggered by protests in Egypt over
an anti-Islam film” (FoxNews). I
myself, although not a supporter of Fox, cannot help but agree with them on
this case. The point in fact was that
the government had contradicted itself, and that was rightful cause for
suspicion. In fact, I wasn’t alone: this stark governmental contradiction of
itself was enough to bring most of the media and public back on the basis of
where the blame, Who, lied.
Even famous blogger Andrew Sullivan
voiced his opinion. In a response to
Reason.com’s Nick Gillepsie’s comment, “But even assuming the ‘Innocence’ was
the cause of the attack on the consulate, that doesn’t exonerate American
incompetence in protecting its people there”, he agrees. At the same time, Sullivan makes it a point
that these events are taking place during a presidential debate and this “deft
politicking” shouldn’t be used, though likely to be, to gain a political edge
(Sullivan). This
is a very interesting concept that Sullivan highlights. One must be aware of whether or not the blame
is politically motivated. At the time of
this story’s development, the 2012 presidential campaigns were ongoing. With this in mind, I see this as a key factor
in the finalization of the Who
element.
Drawing
on the concept of the “blame” being politically motivated, we do indeed see a
division in the Who. In fact, this split correlates back to my
original mention of how sources will often forward stories in a way that
reflects their policy. While the public
and media’s consensus remained united in its belief that the government was
responsible for the overall events that occurred in Libya there were differences
in which part, or which individual specifically, of the government held the
most responsibility. Many conservative
new sources began to cite President Obama, and/or his Administration, as
ultimately responsible for the attack on the consulate. In a recent blog post in which I rewrote a
specific article, I had rewritten a conservative based article for a new
audience (they being more liberal), and in doing so I came across and article
that illustrates this. Michael
Goodwin’s, Now we know—President Obama
was MIA on Benghazi, attacks Obama’s handing of the Benghazi attack;
before, during, and after. The majority
though focuses on the his actions throughout the attack, claiming President
Obama was absent from any decision making and gave little attention to the
matter. Michael Goodwin goes on to say,
“His detachment during a terrorist attack was a shameful dereliction of duty.” Personally, I find this article extremely
unfair and obviously bias. It does not
focus on what the government knew before hand, nor does it try to tie that idea
in with what Obama knew prior to the attack, and it does not focus on his
Administration. However, it does
exemplify how sources forward stories to support their own beliefs, this showing
an attempt to reduce support for Obama. This
type of rhetoric encompassed most of the comments from the Rights, but not
all. Many Democrats and even some
Republicans spoke out against this unjust attack.
Former
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke out on Fox News in defense of
President Obama, roughly arguing that in these types of situations things are
foggy and “we don’t have all the pieces”.
Rice reiterates what many defenders of Obama felt, “I think it’s easy to
try and jump to conclusions about what might have happened here” (MSNBC). This
contrasting “Obama is to blame” and “Obama is not to blame” rhetoric is the
final development of Who in this
story. Rice’s comment drew surprise and
criticism, but it seemed to have the necessary effect. Although I’ll be it, maybe not the effect
hoped for. So, this leaves us with the last element, Why. And this Why has only of recently been closed.
Over the following months, members
of the government, from General Panetta to Hilary Clinton, testified in front
of Congress over their knowledge of the threat of the terror attack and their actions
leading up to it. The Why element centers around what the
government knew prior to the attack, and why they did not prepare for it. From the hearings the overall impression
appeared, “All these circumstances has been faithfully briefed to him by United
States Africa Command commander General Carter Ham. So why did he take no action? Because there was no formal request from the
State Department to do so” (TheFoundry).
My opinion reflects that of many, the government without a doubt
“dropped the ball”. It turned out that the
government had been aware of the threat of the attack on the consulate, but had
done nothing to prevent or fortify it.
This is without a doubt and inexcusable failure to protect American
citizens and grounds. To summarize the
outcome, Hilary Clinton took full responsibility for the governmental failure
of preventing the assault and formally resigned as Secretary of State on
February 1, 2013. The Huffington Post
reported:
An independent panel she convened to look into the incident
was scathing in its criticism of the State Department….But it also determined
that there was no guarantee that extra personnel could have prevented the
deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other
Americans. Clinton herself was not blamed, although she has said she accepted
responsibility for the situation (Klapper&Lee).
Although Clinton takes
responsibility for the situation, I find myself in disagreement. She may have been responsible, but certainly
there were others that held responsibility too.
With her term nearing its end, she decided to take the responsibility as
her own. Her decision to accept all the
blame can be viewed as either admirable or foolish. Regardless, this effectively ends the Why aspect and, therefore, the story
itself. At least for now.
This story, like many other news
stories, started off with little to no variation in its reporting amongst its
differing sources. However, as new
information was obtained we saw how the focus began to shift. It was no longer a focus on What had happened as much as Who was to blame. During this transition, we could see
branching in the story’s direction. Some
portrayed the story in the context of what happened and why it was Obama’s
fault, while others portrayed what happened and why it was the government’s
fault. In the end, the story ended with Why.
What and Who were brought back around and solidified as now former Secretary
of State Hilary Clinton accepted responsibility. In the future, historians or
scholars may revisit this story to see if they can find anything overlooked,
but for now this story is laid to rest.
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