(Photos: A Cairo protester waves an Al Qaeda flag atop the U.S. Embassy compound Wall. Also, protesters destroy an American flag pulled down from the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Mohammed Abu Zaid)
Spoke Eric Trager, Washington Institute, re the demonstration in Cairo and the murderous violence in Benghazi. Eric Trager told me that the protesting group at Cairo applied for a demonstration some weeks back. The so-called outrage of the video defaming Islam was announced suddenly on September 11, No one I have spoken to so far has seen the video. Eric Trager does not believe the demonstration would have been possible without the tacit permission of the Egyptian executive, President Mohammed Morsi, and the police. My best information is that Morsi may well use the violence against the US in order to sweep out the last of the generals who resist his authority. The Cairo demonstration continued into the night with planned festivity, including signs in English and the chanting women robed in an abaya (total black space suit). Later, the Benghazi attack showed the makings of an Islamist operation. I received reports of three KIA, including one US diplomat shot dead; reports of fifteen WIA, including two or more US; reports of a missing diplomat who may have been abducted. Nothing confirmed. (Update, four US KIA in Benghazi, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.) (Statement issued by POTUS condemning the violence in Benghazi.) Also, I read reports that the consulate was burned and plundered, that that the US and working personnel tried to evacuate by road and were blocked by the goons. The news of the violence against the US now spreads on Islamist websites around the world. This looks to be the same patterns as the Cartoon Riots of 2005-2006, where the worst violence was in Indonesia and Pakistan. There was a sidebar to the story that the Cairo Embassy was moved to apologize for the supposedly defamatory video by posting on its website (below). This was before the Benghazi trouble. Later, the White House declared the the Cairo Embassy had not consulted with Washington before issuing the apology. Much confusion in the political arena. Mitt Romney issued a statement that condemned the Obama administration for producing an apology to goons. The embarrassment of Cairo and the tragedy of Benghazi both suddenly expose the Obama administration to the charge of incoherence with regard the Arab Spring. And this all happened within the same hours that the feud between POTUS Obama and 
Israel PM Netanyahu over the Iran threat boiled over to the point that the Obama administration was obliged to announce the president and the prime minister had spoken for an hour on the telephone (about Iran and presumably Cairo) in order to repair the misunderstandings of the tattered alliance.
Armed protester shows his weapon before a burning vehicle at the destroyed U.S, Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
