NYT On the Beghazi Imbroglio

For John, BLUF:  .  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Late last evening, actually, The New York Times came out with an investigative article that says al Qaeda was not involved in the attack on our US compound in Benghazi, where Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others were murdered over a year ago.♠  However, per the NYT, the video, Innocents of Islam was.♥

Blogger Ann Althouse picked this issue up from a Fox News segment, today, on the issue, where US Congressmen Mike Rogers (R) and the Democrat Adam Schiff (D), both on the House Intellegence Committee, state that the NYT investigative reporters lack information available to the House Committee.  Per Representative Schiff:

I think the intelligence paints a portrait that some came to murder, some people came to destroy property, some merely came to loot, and some came in part motivated by those videos.

Mr Schff further said:

So it is a complex picture. There was some planning, as Mike points out, but it was not extensive. I don't think it's either accurate to characterize this as a long-term preplanned core Al Qaeda operation or something completely unaffiliated.

Regarding some degree of planning, Althouse Commenter "madAsHell" said, at 3:25 PM today:

and some came in part motivated by those videos.

I dunno about you, but I keep an 81mm mortar in the back of my car......cuz, you never know when you will need to provide indirect fire support for light infantry.

For those of you who would quote to me then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “What difference at this point does it make?” I quote TV personality, Mr Bill Slowsky:  "Exactly".  So why did the NYT pick this scab?

Hat tip to the Althouse blog.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  This works if you believe Ansar al-Sharia is NOT part of the al Qaeda franchise system.  If you believe that you then have to believe that Ansar al-Sharia is some penny-ante operation isolated to Eastern Libya, as does Wikipedia..  That is to say modern forms of communication have not come to Salafist Jihadist movements.
♥  The Producer of Innocence of Muslims, Mr Mark Basseley Youssef, who, while clearly guilty of parole violations, was jailed for political reasons, is now out of prison and on probation in Buena Park, California (Home of Knott's Berry Farm).