Quote:
Originally Posted by Boreas
In the Rose Rarden on Sept. 12th, President Obama called it an act of terror, read the transcript!
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I've read the transcript. Obama referred generically to "acts of terror".
In the same speech, he also said:
"Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths.
We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None."
A generic reference to acts of terrorism, followed be a clear link between the violence on September 11, 2012 and "efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others."
If you want to cling to that generic statement as an indication that Obama identified the Benghazi attack as an act of terrorists, then you choose to cling to a very thin thread. His actions following the Rose Garden speech do nothing to strengthen that thread. For example:
Obama sent out his surrogate Susan Rice to the Sunday talk shows with talking points that clearly linked the violence to the video. (She later blamed her performance on the Sunday talk show circuit on being provided faulty talking points by the intelligence community.) Then the maker of the video was arrested (for parole violations) and remains jailed without bail. The Administration pleaded with Google to take the video off of YouTube. Obama then went to the United Nations and linked the video to the attacks.
I think it would be quite generous to suggest that, at the very least, Obama spoke with a forked tongue on this. Granted that the emails, at that time, didn't necessarily represent an opportunity for a conclusive finding by authorities about the cause of the violence. I'll also grant that member of the intelligence community, State Dept, and others did refer to events in Benghazi as a terrorist attack in the weeks following the attack. However, it certainly begs the question why Obama went to great pains for 2 weeks to blame the motivation for an attack on a US asset in Benghazi (that also just happened to occur on the anniversary of 9/11/2001) on a video when there was much competing evidence against that conclusion.
After the attacks, after the White House received emails that these appear to have been planned terrorist attacks, after individuals in the intelligence community, and even Hillary Clinton, stated that these were acts of terrorism carried out by millitants, here were the president's words to the UN on 9/25/12:
"
We understand why people take offense to this video because millions of our citizens are among them. I know there are some who ask why don't we just ban such a video. The answer is enshrined in our laws. Our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech. (
My note - Interesting that Obama talked about constitutional protections on free speech to the UN, but begged YouTube to take down the video.)
Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs. As president of our country, and commander in chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day, and I will always defend their right to do so.
Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views -- even views that we profoundly disagree with.
We do so not because we support hateful speech, but because our founders understood that without such protections, the capacity of each individual to express their own views and practice their own faith may be threatened."
Later in the same speech:
"There is no speech that justifies mindless violence. There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents. There is no video that justifies an attack on an embassy."
In fact, in that entire speech, the word "terrorist" is used only once. Its a reference to Iran as an example of the religious intolerance that the US does not exemplify, and because of that religious intolerance Iran sponsors terrorist acts.
And by the way, your shouting doesn't change the facts.