re: #55 SanFranciscoZionist

The sane answer: There are two broad possibilities here. One is that the whole attack was pretty much spontaneously sparked by outrage about the video. Another is that something had already been in the works, and the video-related demonstration was either encouraged to provide cover, or simply used as a cover to move in. Which of these doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference in terms of outcome, but it does have implications for intelligence-gathering and future response. There’s a considerable range for overlap and nuance between the two.

Okay. I can understand that— but even so, if there was an attack planned already against US interests, I don’t get why informing the US public of that is at all important. I don’t know the very granular and specific motivations for any other attacks on US embassies or soldiers or what have you, and before this incident motivation was never really talked about.

I don’t get what changes for us, the general public, if it’s one or the other. Obviously, attacks due to spontaneous (whether it’s egged on by firebrands or not) reactions to crap occur, and just as obviously attacks that are planned for a long time occur. Nailing down which one this was seems like a rather pointless exercise for the general public. For those who work in the field, obviously its of importance.

The wingnut answer is that somehow it’s Obama’s fault for picking the wrong door, whichever door he picks WILL be the wrong door, and this ties in to their obsessive belief that somehow no one else really gets how bad the situation with radical Islamists is.

Yeah, I think that’s pretty much it. Hell, it’s entirely possible that the militia was musing about some strike, then the video happened and they saw their opportunity. It’s possible. I just don’t get why the fuck anyone thinks this is important enough to go on and fucking on about.