‘Hillary Blamed Me for Benghazi’
The weird, wild tale of the porn director, the evangelical Christians, and the criminal huckster who made the infamous Prophet Muhammad YouTube film.
Bret Hartman/Reuters, via Newscom
For those who like shock and awe and explosions, this weekend brings the release of director Michael Bay’s Benghazi blockbuster—13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi—about the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Libya that left an ambassador, a foreign service agent, and two CIA officers dead.
This may be Hollywood’s first big film about the bloodshed, but there’s another movie that lies at the center of the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2012. I’m talking about that YouTube short variously called “Innocence of Bin Laden,” “Desert Warrior,” “First Terrorist,” “Innocence of Muslims”—and, in the iteration that was blamed for setting off riots around the globe, “Muhammad Movie Trailer.” The one that portrayed the prophet as a sodomizing, womanizing pedophile. The one that Hillary Clinton was talking about when, according to the father of a Benghazi victim, she promised, “We are going to have the filmmaker arrested who was responsible for the death of [your] son.”
It was quite a claim for a movie directed by a porn veteran, produced by a convicted huckster, led by actors who claim they were duped into the roles, and promoted by a collection of anti-Islamic hatemongers and almost comically crackpot preachers.