WALL STREET JOURNAL: The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other American diplomats were killed when suspected Libyan religious extremists stormed the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi late Tuesday, sparking a security crisis across the North African country and raising tensions across the Middle East. Libyan officials spent the night in a manhunt trying to find those responsible for the killings, which occurred when an angry armed mob attacked the diplomatic complex in an apparent protest against an anti-Islamic video created and produced by an American-Israeli real-estate developer. MORE
WIRED: On Tuesday, Sean Smith, a Foreign Service Information Management Officer assigned to the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, typed a message to the director of his online gaming guild: ”Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.” The consulate was under siege, and within hours, a mob would attack, killing Smith along with three others, including the U.S. ambassador. In his professional and personal life, Smith was a husband and father of two, an Air Force veteran, and a 10-year veteran of the Foreign Service who had served in Baghdad, Pretoria, Montreal and The Hague. But when gaming with EVE Online guild Goonswarm, he was a popular figure known as “Vile Rat,” and alternately as “Vilerat” while volunteering as a moderator at the internet community Something Awful. Smith’s death was confirmed on Wednesday morning by the State Department and reported widely in the news media. But the first people to report Smith’s death were his friends. […] According to his friends, Smith had emerged as a key leader for the community, and was known as a senior guild diplomat who helped engineer the destruction of Goonswarm’s chief rival, the Band of Brothers. He let his guildmates design his tattoo. On Wednesday, Gianturco posted an obituary for his friend of more than six years. “He was on jabber when it happened, that’s the most fucked up thing,” Gianturco wrote. “In Baghdad the same kind of thing happened – incoming sirens, he’d vanish, we’d freak out and he’d come back ok after a bit. This time he said ‘FUCK’ and ‘GUNFIRE’ and then disconnected and never returned.” MORE
RELATED: Amazing/horrifying photos of the embassy attack.
NEW YORK TIMES: On the 11th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the assaults were a violent reminder that the changes sweeping the region have hardly dispelled the rage against the United States that still smolders in pockets around the Arab world. The mobs were set off by Egyptian media reports about a 14-minute trailer for the video, called “Innocence of Muslims,” that was released on the Web. The trailer opens with scenes of Egyptian security forces standing idle as Muslims pillage and burn the homes of Egyptian Christians. Then it cuts to cartoonish scenes depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a child of uncertain parentage, a buffoon, a womanizer, a homosexual, a child molester and a greedy, bloodthirsty thug. The trailer was uploaded to YouTube by Sam Bacile, whom The Wall Street Journal Web site identified as a 52-year old Israeli-American real estate developer in California. He told the Web site he had raised $5 million from 100 Jewish donors to make the film. “Islam is a cancer,” Mr. Bacile was quoted as saying. The video gained international attention when a Florida pastor began promoting it along with his own proclamation of Sept. 11 as “International Judge Muhammad Day.” In a statement on Tuesday, the pastor, Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla., called the film “an American production, not designed to attack Muslims but to show the destructive ideology of Islam” and said it “further reveals in a satirical fashion the life of Muhammad.” He said the embassy and consulate attacks illustrated that Muslims “have no tolerance for anything outside of Muhammad” and called Islam “a total deception.” Mr. Jones inspired deadly riots in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011 by first threatening to burn copies of the Koran and then burning one in his church. He also once reportedly hanged President Obama in effigy. MORE
NPR: The bottom line is that we know very little about Sam Bacile, the man who produced the film. But The Wall Street Journal caught up with Bacile before he went into hiding. According to the Journal, Bacile raised “$5 million from 100 Jewish donors” and he produced the film using 60 actors and 45 crew members. Bacile told the Journal that he made the film to expose “Islam as a hateful religion.” “Islam is a cancer,” he told the paper. “The movie is a political movie. It’s not a religious movie.” In another interview, Bacile told the Associated Press that he was a real estate developer and an Israeli Jew, but Israeli authorities told the wire service they have no records of him being a citizen. Our library did not turn up any footprint for Bacile. They turned no property, phone, licenses nor court records. MORE
THE GUARDIAN: He has been widely named as Sam Bacile – with his age varying from 52 to 56 – but conflicting reports suggested that Bacile was a pseudonym for a California-based anti-Muslim zealot who appeared to have intentionally stoked fury in the Arab world. The Associated Press, which interviewed him over the phone from an undisclosed location, described him as “a California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew”. However, the California Association of Realtors told the Guardian he was not a member and appears not to have a real estate licence. He does not appear on the state’s Department of Real Estate’s database. “A lot of things don’t add up here about the claimed identity of the filmmaker,” wrote Sarah Posner, an editor at Religion Dispatches. MORE
PREVIOUSLY: Goober Preacher Burns Koran, Afghans Go Ballistic Storm U.N. Compound And Kill 12 Relief Workers
RELATED: The estranged daughter of a U.S. pastor who has threatened to burn copies of the Koran believes he has gone mad and needs help, she said in a German media interview conducted on Friday. MORE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: A couple of days ago, I wrote here at the Rumble that Mitt Romney was one of the worst national politicians I’d ever seen. I spoke too soon; it’s even worse than I thought. His reaction to the violence in Egypt and 
Libya over a film mocking the religious beliefs of Muslims is truly one of the most brain-dead political acts that I’ve ever witnessed – and it speaks volumes about his personal character and fitness for the nation’s highest office. Let’s start by getting the facts straight. The Romney campaign has reduced itself to arguing with this statement from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, issued yesterdray:
The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.
At the time this statement was released, the U.S. embassy was under siege from protesters and was trying to pacify crowds and prevent violence from occurring. Even if one disagrees with this sentiment, the rationale behind releasing it is not difficult to understand. Still, that didn’t stop the Romney camp from going into full attack mode, unbelievably accusing the Obama Administration of “sympathiz(ing) with those who waged the attacks.” This is basically accusing the White House of siding with those putting Americans in harm’s way. But it’s also incorrect, in that it ignores the fact that this statement was released before violence actually broke out. Finally, it places responsibility for an embassy statement on the Obama Administration – even though the White House had distanced itself from it. One can argue that the buck stops with the President, but quite clearly no one from the White House approved the message. That all of this took place on Sept. 11, a day that is traditionally seen as off-limits to politics, is even more astounding. So put that all together and you have a political assault that is craven, dishonest and shameless all at once. MORE
RELATED: The Video That Started It All
RELATED: You would never know by looking at him, but Tarek is an Emo. His fringe and the long strands of hair that once covered his left eye were removed by the barber three months ago. The 22-year-old now has a standard crew cut, just like all the other men in Iraq. “Long hair is for women,” he says, reflecting the conventional social attitudes in the country. It is now only the small puncture marks in his nose and ears that indicate that Tarek once looked rather different. “They will soon close up, too,” the young man says. Since the Emos in Iraq became targets for the Shiite militias, and may, according to some sources, even have killed up to ninety of them, they have entirely disappeared from the streets of Baghdad. “We can still listen to our music at home and stay in contact via Facebook,” says a frustrated Tarek. “But we have to make sure that no one finds out. If they do, they will kill all of us.” The hunting down of members of this youth subculture began back in mid-February. Orders were apparently issued to the vice squad by the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, directing them to put a stop to this “harmful phenomenon”. Emos, it was said, wore rings in their tongues and noses, and skulls on their T-shirts. They also preached “Satanism” and were gay. MORE