re: It takes Trey Gowdy just three minutes to silence the media

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Didn't that final Turkish visitor with Stephens leave the compound about an hour before the attack...and all was calm out there then?

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There were a lot of early reports that he left about 8:30 PM.

He actually left at 7:40 PM.

Some UK security personnel arrived at 8:10 PM, after the Turkish rep left. They dropped off weapons and vehicles and left the compound at 8:30 PM.

Both the Turkish rep and the U.K. security personnel reported all was quiet and they saw nothing unusual upon leaving the compound.

The attack began at 9:42 PM.

First of all, that article misquotes Bishari. He merely said there was no protest, not that the attacks had nothing to do with the video.

What's important is that Bishari points the finger at Ansar al Sharia, whose attackers according to witnesses and themselves were moved to attack because of the video:

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To those on the ground, the circumstances of the attack are hardly a mystery. Most of the attackers made no effort to hide their faces or identities, and during the assault some acknowledged to a Libyan journalist working for The New York Times that they belonged to the group. And their attack drew a crowd, some of whom cheered them on, some of whom just gawked, and some of whom later looted the compound.

The fighters said at the time that they were moved to act because of the video, which had first gained attention across the region after a protest in Egypt that day...

At a news conference the day after the ambassador and three other Americans were killed, a spokesman for Ansar al-Shariah praised the attack as the proper response to such an insult to Islam. “We are saluting our people for this zeal in protecting their religion, to grant victory to the prophet,” the spokesman said. “The response has to be firm.”

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So your article misquoted Bushari but his didnt?? Hmmmmmmm

Nowhere does Bishari say the attacks had nothing to do with the video. That's just sfgate.com's poorly worded writeup. Bishari blames Ansar Al Sharia, whose participating fighters blamed the video. You lose, and the fact that you deny the obvious is evidence of your extreme prejudice.

Then there's Hadeel Al-Shalchi, who said there definitely was a protest planned around the consulate to mimic what happened in Egypt. He personally talked to the protestors, who even game him details about the first exchange of fire. And he also says witnesses blamed the video..

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The majority of those people said two things. They said, first of all, why did the United States allow something like this movie to happen? Because at the end of the day, almost everybody here believes that it was a reaction to the movie that -

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You lose again.

Now, all your losses aside for a moment.... is it possible that what someone describes as a "spontaneous action" some others might describe as a "protest"?

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"Attack no protest, consulate owner says"
McClatchy Newspapers
Updated 11:37 pm, Wednesday, September 12, 2012

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"Standing outside the fire-gutted compound, Mohammad al-Bishari denied the attack began as a protest against an amateurish U.S.-made video mocking the prophet Muhammad, founder of the Islamic faith."


"Al-Bishari said the attack began with assailants carrying assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and the black flag of Ansar al Sharia - The Partisans of Sharia - moving from two directions against the compound, which is made up of a main building and a number of smaller ones.

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Although it's not mentioned in the particular article you linked, McClatchy's Benghazi reporting was done by Nancy Youssef. She published the following the next day (and it seems to use a lot of the same language).

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BENGHAZI, Libya — A Libyan security guard who said he was at the U.S. consulate here when it was attacked Tuesday night has provided new evidence that the assault on the compound that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, was a planned attack by armed Islamists and not the outgrowth of a protest over an online video that mocks Islam and its founder, the Prophet Muhammad.

The guard, interviewed Thursday in the hospital where he is being treated for five shrapnel wounds in one leg and two bullet wounds in the other, said that the consulate area was quiet – “there wasn’t a single ant outside,” he said – until about 9:35 p.m., when as many as 125 armed men descended on the compound from all directions.
The men lobbed grenades into the compound, wounding the guard and knocking him to the ground, then stormed through the facility’s main gate, shouting “God is great” and moving to one of the many villas that make up the consulate compound. He said there had been no warning that an attack was imminent.

“Wouldn’t you expect if there were protesters outside that the Americans would leave?” the guard said.

The guard, located by searching hospitals for people injured Tuesday night, said he was 27 years old but declined to give his name. He asked that the hospital where he is being treated not be identified for fear that militants would track him down and kill him. He said he was able to escape by telling one of the attackers that he was only a gardener at the compound. The attacker took him to the hospital, the guard said.

Libyan authorities told reporters Thursday that they had made four arrests in connection with the consulate assault, but they cautioned that leaders of the group blamed for the attack, an Islamist organization known as Ansar al Shariah, denied that they had given the order to attack. But the guard’s tale suggested that whoever ordered the assault had been able to call upon a large number of people to carry out what appeared to be an organized attack.

Wanis al Sharif, the deputy interior minister responsible for Libya’s eastern region, which includes Benghazi, told a group of local reporters that in addition to the four people under arrest, authorities were monitoring others for possible involvement in the attack.

“There is a group under our control, and there is another we are monitoring,” Sharif said.
Sharif said that Ansar al Shariah’s leaders had suggested that those carrying the group’s flag during the assault were rogue members acting on their own.

“They called me and told me you have wronged us,” Sharif said. “They told me that there may be individual acts.”

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The attack itself, the guard said, was immediate and bold, initiated by a group of men who approached the compound and lobbed grenades over the wall. Just behind them were scores of men, shooting wildly and yelling “God is great.”
The guard, who said he’d been hired seven months ago by a British company to protect the compound, said the first explosion knocked him to the ground, and he was unable to fire his weapon. Four other contracted guards and three members of

Libya’s 17th of February Brigade, a group formed during the first days of the anti-Gadhafi uprising and now considered part of Libya’s military, were protecting the outside perimeter of the compound.
After storming through the gate, the guard said, the men rushed into one of the compound’s buildings, meeting no resistance. The guard did not say whether that was the building where the ambassador was.

Thirty minutes later, the guard said, he realized he was about to lose consciousness and asked one of the attackers for help, saying he was merely a gardener at the compound. The man agreed to drive him to the hospital. As they were leaving, the guard said he saw the attackers enter a second villa on the compound.

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The guard’s tale is consistent with a version offered Wednesday by the man who had leased the compound to the United States.

Standing outside the fire-gutted compound, Mohammad al Bishari said the attack began with assailants carrying assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and the black flag of Ansar al Shariah moving from two directions against the compound.

The FBI has launched its own investigation into what took place, and two American destroyers, the USS Laboon and the USS McFaul, were expected to take up positions by early next off the coast near Benghazi in what many here interpreted as preparations for a possible retaliatory attack. On Wednesday, President Barack Obama promised justice in the case.

Meanwhile, fallout continued Thursday from anger over an online video that Muslims said denigrated their religion.

In Sanaa, Yemen, demonstrators protesting the video tried to storm the U.S. Embassy, making it past an initial security line but failing to make it to any of the main embassy compound buildings. Demonstrators burned tires and spray-painted “Death of America” on the wall surrounding the compound before they were repulsed by Yemeni security forces firing tear gas and warning shots.

No embassy staff was injured, but four demonstrators were killed and as many as 30 others injured.

Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi quickly condemned the attack and vowed to punish those responsible for it.

Unrest continued as well Thursday in Cairo, where on Tuesday protesters breached the embassy compound’s wall and tore down and burned the American flag. Protests continued Thursday, even though Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, speaking publicly on the attacks for the first time, condemned them.

No one has claimed responsibility for the consulate assault, something that perhaps is unsurprising in this part of Libya, where Stevens was a popular ambassador representing a nation many here believed saved Benghazi from a massacre during the rebellion against toppled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Gadhafi’s tanks were on the edge of the city, preparing to overrun it, when NATO jets began their bombing campaign March 19, 2011.

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Youssef's fixer is Suliman Ali Zway, who is mentioned on the byline.

It appears that Ali Zway got good info on there not being a protest. I believe he also made it to the compound at some point after the first assault. He was able to identify AaS members there and was able to speak to some.

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If by some chance the Republicans regain the White House in 2016, Mr. Gowdy's appointment as Attorney General should be the first order of business.

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I like Gowdy. I don't like either mainstream political party because neither represents their constituents. But Trey Gowdy speaks for the American people IMO.

It's extremely important to note here that "not the outgrowth of a protest over an online video that mocks Islam and its founder" DOES NOT mean that the attacks by Ansar Al Sharia were not in response to the video. It only means that there was no organized protest.

Actual fighters in the attacks blamed the video, according to multiple witnesses and journalists. I've already posted some of those.

And despite all that, there were witnesses who DID say there was a protest.

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And despite all that, there were witnesses who DID say there was a protest.

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Link please. I've read plenty and have not seen any statements of this. Everything I've read says it was quiet.

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Link please. I've read plenty and have not seen any statements of this. Everything I've read says it was quiet.

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HADEEL AL-SHALCHI: There was definitely a protest planned around the consulate to mimic what happened in Egypt.

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