These Are Not the Droids You Are Looking For (UPDATED)

Via Yahoo and Reuters of all people:  The White House was told within two hours that organized terrorists were attacking the outpost in Benghazi.

The first email, timed at 4:05 p.m. Washington time - or 10:05 p.m. Benghazi time, 20-30 minutes after the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission allegedly began - carried the subject line "U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack" and the notation "SBU", meaning "Sensitive But Unclassified."

The text said the State Department's regional security office had reported that the diplomatic mission in Benghazi was "under attack. Embassy in Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well."

Less than an hour later a second email said that the attack on the compound had ceased and that some kind of "response team", probably Libyan militia, were searching for missing personnel.  The third email came in at 6:07pm Washington time.  This said that a militant group, Ansar al-Sharia, had claimed responsibility for the attack.

As the article explains, initial information can be contradictory.  However, we have a kicker:

By the morning of September 12, the day after the Benghazi attack, Reuters reported that there were indications that members of both Ansar al-Sharia, a militia based in the Benghazi area, and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African affiliate of al Qaeda's faltering central command, may have been involved in organizing the attacks.

So, in other words, when Obama gave his Rose Garden speech, he knew, or should have known, that al Qaeda and related groups were most likely involved and that the famous video that no one has seen had nothing to do with the attack.  Nevertheless, he blamed people "slandering" Islam and the false prophet, Mohammed, for instigating a "protest".

Only a complete dolt would not immediately put together the fact of an attack occurring on the eleventh anniversary of the 2001 attacks as being significant.  Here's what I -- an old hillbilly with no access to intelligence information at all -- said on September 14:

This is a widespread and rapidly spreading, well-orchestrated move to unify Muslims against America and Israel.  What we are witnessing is a coordinated attack by Al-Qaeda elements in Libya, in Sudan, in Yemen, in Tunisia, and in Egypt in collusion with the Muslim Brotherhood.  That this happened on a 9/11 anniversary sends a message across the Muslim world, and it should send a message to us.  It is an act of defiance and intimidation against the United States intended to humiliate us and galvanize a jihad in that region. 

Despite the fact that the nature of the attack was known and had been observed by drones, the Obama Administration continued to call it a protest, blaming a video and the First Amendment for days after four Americans were murdered by Islamic terrorists.  Obama's UN ambassador -- and, by the way, one of his closest advisers, Susan Rice, declared unequivocally on the Sunday shows that these were protests in response to a video.

Obama himself got up in front of the UN General Assembly and talked again about those who "slander the prophet".  I believe that was on September 25th -- two full weeks after the death of Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.  By that point, Obama did say that:  the White House has now deemed the attack on its consulate in Libya a "terrorist attack" and has not ruled out the possibility it was premeditated. Obama now says it "wasn't just a mob action."

Two weeks.  When they knew in two hours.

From that same article, here's the odious Hillary Clinton:

In a preview of Obama's speech, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed Monday for Muslims to show "dignity" as they protest the film denigrating the Prophet Muhammad.

"Dignity does not come from avenging insults," she said in a speech to her husband's Clinton Global Initiative.

See, still at that point, they were trying to keep the focus off the failed policies of sympathizing and supporting groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and encouraging radical elements of Islam.  These freaks can all go to hell.  They'll get a chance to discuss the issue with "the prophet" when they get there. 

These were our people.  We had an obligation to protect them.  Obama failed to take the threat seriously, just as he has failed to acknowledge that the traitorous assassinations of thirteen American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009 was an act of terror.  It seems that the Administration does not like the T-word.

UPDATE:

Check out Jim Hoft's piece on Gateway Pundit.

One AC-130 would have scattered the protesters terrorists like a coyote in a covey of quail.  But we couldn't do that.  It might look bad on the "Arab Spring" narrative.