I will be listening to hear if the badgering allegations thrown at Sec. Clinton once again include the charge that the Administration and Department of State misled the public by claiming the Benghazi attacks were spurred by the anti-Islam video. Over the past three years I’ve heard Republicans claim the administration knew it was the work of terrorists and that blaming the video was a fraud to hide or misdirect something or other.
Last year, in one of the never ending string of “Benghazi” hearings, my congressman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, said “The military, the CIA, the CIA station chief, the State Department; all of them, the facts at the time, Mr. Chairman, the facts do not point to a video. That only comes from the White House.” My congressman invents stories.
The National Review called blaming the video a ‘fraud’.
Sec. Clinton and Ambassador Rice citing the video in statements and interviews a few days after the attack was used to attack them both by conservative media, senators, and congressmen.
So, why did the Administration and the CIA think the anti-Islam video caused, or at least contributed to the riots and violence?
One of the CIA’s sources for information is referred to as Open Source Intelligence – OSINT. The CIA’s site describes it:
Information does not have to be secret to be valuable. Whether in the blogs we browse, the broadcasts we watch, or the specialized journals we read, there is an endless supply of information that contributes to our understanding of the world. The Intelligence Community generally refers to this information as Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). OSINT plays an essential role in giving the national security community as a whole insight and context at a relatively low cost.
OSINT is drawn from publicly available material, including:
OSINT is drawn from publicly available material, including:
• The Internet
• Traditional mass media (e.g. television, radio, newspapers, magazines)
• Specialized journals, conference proceedings, and think tank studies
• Photos
• Geospatial information (e.g. maps and commercial imagery products)
This is a link to an AlJazeera story published right after the attack.
ALJAZEERA: Angry protests spread over anti-Islam video (14 Sept 2012)
This story is exactly the type of OSINT source the CIA relies upon for quick analyses. It is by an Arab journalist, is contemporaneous, and is reported on-site from the multiple flash points. The first line in the story states, “Angry demonstrations against an anti-Islam film made in the US have spread to several countries across the Middle East and North Africa."