Bad news below the fold

Carolyn Glick correctly points out that these coordinated attacks against US embassys were not about a movie, nor were they spontaneous acts of rage:

You may be wondering how some movie no one's heard of has caused such a hullabaloo. Well, as it turns out, the film was screened on an Egyptian Salafist television channel. Obviously the Salafists -- many of whom, like Zawahiri were released from prison by Morsi, wanted to stir up anti-US violence on the eve of 9/11. So if the film is responsible for the violence, a finger needs to be pointed to its chief distributor -- Al Qaida's Egyptian friends and members.

She also points out that these attacks were planned, which would have taken time:

The attack in Libya was well planned and executed... The assailants came armed to the teeth, with among other things, RPG 7s. They knew that the US Ambassador was in Benghazi rather than Tripoli. They knew how to track his movements, and were able to strike against him after he and his colleagues left the consulate building and tried to flee in a car. ...

Then there is the attack in Cairo. They were led by Mohammad Zawahiri - Ayman Zawahiri's brother. According the Thomas Josclyn in the Weekly Standard, the US media has been idiotically presenting him as some sort of moderate despite the fact that in an interview with Al Jazeerah he said said, "We in al Qaeda..."

Egypt's US supported Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi recently released Zawahiri from Egyptian prison.

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The usually staid Anchoress also links to this:

 A grim piece in Wired, about the lead-up to the Embassy Attack:

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.

The Anchoress adds glumly:

As we look around the today’s awful headlines, I can’t help but think that Mencken must be spinning in his grave to see statist-sympathies of the modern mainstream press, or marveling as they try to purposely re-write the timeline of a bad day in order to protect their quarterback and distract the public from serious questions about our governmental responses to the most recent crisis in the Middle East.
The press politicizes — because it can no longer help itself — even as it cries “politicizing is bad” to one side but never the other.

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In a related item: Austen Bay suggests Putin was promised that the missile defense shield of Europe would be removed if the President is reelected.

But he snidely points out that it isn't aimed at Russia, and now is not the time to make it weaker:

The U.S. thin-shield, layered system and the proposed NATO/European regional system are not armed and configured to challenge Russia's still potent arsenal of ICBMs. The NRC report notes that the in-place U.S. system is built to intercept a ballistic missile fired by North Korea's nutcase regime. NATO's MD would protect Europe and North America from a missile salvo fired by Iran's nutcase regime.
Boom goes London and boom Paree? That's what truly sensible souls should try to prevent.