Operation Oil Theft: Month 20, Week 1, Day 6.

Yesterday (11/9/12) protesters gathered outside the US Embassies in Cairo, Egypt and Benghazi, Libya to protest against a film that was allegedly made by an Israeli living in the United States that the protesters deemed to be offensive to the Prophet Mohamed. As Libya is still a divided nation awash with guns and heavy weapons the protest in Benghazi turned particularly violent and resulted in the US Ambassador to Libya - J Christopher Stevens - and three other US citizens being killed.

Believe it or not this has all been a consequence of the para-Olympic closing ceremony and really doesn't help quash the is Rihanna a US spy debate. For reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with Rihanna and everything to do with the USA's massive official Olympic delegation the US had a pretty good idea in advance of what the para-Olympic closing ceremony would contain. They also deemed that certain themes of a ceremony that featured sequences that could have been interpreted as a gay pride parade, lots of talk of the ancient tribes of Britain/Europe which was a major part of Norwegian gunman Anders Behring Breivik's war against Islamic extremism, the revelation that I might have had an Israeli girlfriend, the performance of "Run This Town" by Jay-Z and Rihanna which has been blamed from trouble in more countries that just Britain especially with Rihanna's penchant for ancient Egyptian art and the overall levels of immodest dress and themes of sexuality would be viewed as offensive in Muslim nations. So in order to discuss amongst themselves the level of disapproval the closing ceremony received especially in places like Egypt and Libya the US put together a video that was ever so slightly insulting to the Prophet to use as a metaphor for the para-Olympic closing ceremony. Unfortunately it appears that someone else has got hold of that video and extensively re-edited it to make it much more offensive and then distributed it far and wide on the Internet.

The other thing that the US didn't factor in was the effect the release on the same day as UK Foreign Secretary William Hague was visiting Cairo that Britain's report into the Hillsborough disaster would have on Egyptian society especially amongst the generally secular Ultra football fans who played a key part in the revolution. As a result protesters in Egypt gathered first outside the US Embassy in Cairo in what Britain hoped would remind people of the attack on the UK Embassy in Iran. The idea was to make Iran an issue in the US Presidential election because while Obama's probably taken a tougher line with Iran then many Israelis would have wanted the pressure that's been put on the country is all very quiet and discreet and harder to show on the TV news then say a war so the Republicans are still able to bash Obama for not being tough on Iran.

Due to the Cyrenaica region of eastern Libya traditionally stretched into western Egypt and wants independence Libyans in Benghazi wanted to show their solidarity with the Egyptian protesters by holding their own protest outside their local US Embassy. Once the protest was up and running it was all too easy for one of the many shadowy armed groups that operate in Libya to use the protests as cover to launch rockets at the Embassy building killing the four. This was done to again make Libya an issue at the US Presidential election because it has to go down as Obama's big foreign policy mistake rivalling even Bush's decision to invade Iraq. The attack was also carried out in the hope that it would drive a wedge between the USA and Libya because in starting the Libyan revolution Britain was hoping it would allow them to get their hands on Libya's oil. However through things like the change of personnel in the NTC following Qaddafi's fall and the recent election this is looking less and less likely so Britain was hoping to turn the pressure up on Libya's politicians in the hope that they will fail and get replaced by politicians that are more suited to Britain's aims. This is also why there has been in increase in the number of targeted assassinations of army officers etc since the election.

22:20 on 12/9/12.