| | September 12, 2012 | | LIBYA Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed by an act of senseless violence in Benghazi. Christopher Dickey on what Obama has to do to deal with the fallout. Plus, full coverage. ANTI-ISLAM FILM While the main filmmaker behind an anti-Islam movie attacking the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud goes into hiding amid protests in Egypt, the country’s president, Mohamed Morsi, is demanding that the Egyptian Embassy in Washington take legal action against the team behind the controversial film. According to the official Egyptian state news agency Wednesday, Morsi requested that the embassy take “all legal measures” against the filmmakers, though it’s not clear what that entails. Protesters have been demonstrating against the film outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo since Tuesday. FOREIGN AFFAIRS The responsible thing for a candidate to do when public officials are under threat abroad is to stay silent. But that’s not what Mitt Romney did, writes Andrew Sullivan. LIBYA In a speech at the White House on Wednesday, President Obama condemned the “outrageous and shocking” attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya in the “strongest terms.” The violent attack killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens. But he also stressed that the event “will not break the bonds between the United States and Libya.” Obama insisted there is “no justification” for the attack—a further attempt by the White House to distance itself from remarks by the U.S. Embassy in Egypt that condemned the anti-Muslim film that inspired the attack. Mitt Romney continued to lambast the president for the embassy statement, insisting in a press conference Wednesday that the White House “was wrong” to issue a “disgraceful statement.” KEEPING THE PEACE An elite group of Marines are on the way to Libya on Wednesday to secure U.S. diplomatic facilities in the aftermath of the attack in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. The 50 Marines are members of the Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team, or FAST, a group of rapid-responders whose role it is to react to terrorism threats against U.S. embassies on short notice. Their main role, according to the Associated Press, will be protecting classified national-security documents as well as U.S. citizens and government property in the event of an emergency. | |
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