Louis Klarevas writes: After days of holding back, the White House on Thursday labeled the Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi a “terrorist attack.” The incident, which involved heavy gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), killed four Americans including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens. Highlighting the suspected presence of militia and terrorist elements in Libya, White House spokesperson Jay Carney told the press corps, “It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”

The declaration comes one day after Matthew Olsen, the director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC), told a Senate committee that — despite the absence of “specific intelligence that there was a significant advanced planning or coordination for this attack” — the four Americans “were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy.”

It all sounds like common sense, right?

But there’s just one problem with these statements: All acts of terrorism, by federal statute, require premeditation. If, as Carney acknowledged, there is “no information at this point to suggest that this is a significantly pre-planned attack,” then the plotting criterion has not been met. No premeditation, no terrorism. [Continue reading…]