The libs also have been quick to jump on Governor Romney for issuing a statement critical of the bizarre statement issued by our Embassy in Cairo. The libs note that the Governor issued his statement "before all the facts were in." What hogwash! He issued his statement responding to the Embassy's statement that read:
"The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others."
Remember this idiotic statement was issued and then reaffirmed even AFTER the mob had commenced its attack on the diplomatic compound. It criticized not those attacking the Embassy but unnamed persons "who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others." Secretary Clinton followed up with her own statement which repeated the criticism of those who would criticize a religious faith. It was only after the outrage in the US began to pour in, including the very sharp statement by the Governor, that the Obama White House did what it does best: throw its supporters and servants under the bus. The White House disassociated itself from the Embassy and the State Department statements as though neither Embassies not the Secretary of State have anything to do with the administration. Those statements, by the way, are cleared at many levels in the Department and at the NSC.
We have journalists, as seen at Governor Romney's September 12 press conference, criticizing Romney for criticizing the President's foreign policy, "politics stops at the water's edge." I guess nobody ever criticized George Bush? John Kerry and candidate Obama never said anything critical of the Bush foreign policy? Besides what the Governor was criticizing was the outrageous (that word) philosophy present in the State Department statements.
I suppose that in keeping with the philosophy of not using free speech to insult the religious beliefs of others, we would all have been justified in storming the DNC in Charlotte when the delegates rejected God. Would devote people be justified in burning Bill Maher's house to the ground and murdering his show's staff? Would Christians in the US be justified in burning down Muslim mosques in retaliation for the burning of Coptic churches in Egypt and the mass murder of Christians by Muslims in Nigeria? Just wondering . . .
Was this "work place violence" or was it a "man made disaster?" I'm so confused...
ReplyDeleteSarcasm aside, based on what I know everyone that works for this administration has had it absolutely drummed into them to capitulate to Islam. No ifs, ands or buts, when in doubt apologize.
That sure is what it looks like to me.
One of my younger (probably 24 years old) colleagues is a social media guy who recently became moderately comfortable, if not a little wealthy, when Google bought one of his ideas. A few weeks ago, we were talking about twitter, and he said to me, with the kind of earnestness that only a recent college grad can muster, "Twitter changes everything! It powered the Arab Spring, you know!" I suggested to him that twitter was a tool, and that it played a role in a story where larger forces were at play, but that it was only a tool, and that it -- and liberal Egyptians -- were *not* the driving force behind Arab Spring. I asked him to consider the proposition that the Brotherhood and its allies were more sophisticated users of social media and other tools of agitation and manipulation than are he and his own cohort of experts. He looked at me in the way that only a 20-something who has all the answers can look at an old relic like me.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that whoever was behind the Cairo embassy's tweets and early statements was cut from the same cloth of inexperience and naivete, heretofore shielded by good fortune, as my colleague, and that they really did think that a few, appropriately condescending tweets and posts would be enough to prevent the breaching of the embassy walls.
[parody]
"OMG! Hey, we like you guys! We're on your side! Please like us back! OK? LOL!"
"Wait! You're only joking when you say that you want to kill us because we said, 'OMG!' Right?"
[/parody]
Just remember: twitter changes everything!
Wow. There is a fascinating profile of one of the murdered diplomats at http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/murdered-state-department-official-sean-smith-influential-online-185547152.html.
ReplyDeleteIt seems he was a well-known figure in the online gaming world, and one of his last messages online was, "(12:54:09 PM) vile_rat: assuming we don't die tonight. We saw one of our 'police' that guard the compound taking pictures."
Okay, final comment: I went over to the website for our embassy in Tripoli. They've updated it to include statements by the President and the Secretary of State, but they've left the rest of the content up, as-is.
ReplyDeleteIs it me, or does most of the site have a childish, amateurish tone? The last thing the site does is to convey the sense that it is an official diplomatic site of a great world power.
I'm also struck by some of the specific posts. The very first item on the page after the statements about yesterday's events is this (emphasis mine): "Remarks by Ambassador Chris Stevens at the Reopening of the Consular Section - Aug. 26: Today is a great day for U.S.-Libyan relations. I'm so glad that you were all able to join us here to mark the reopening of our Consular section. Since returning to Libya as Ambassador in May, there's one question I've heard almost every day from Libyans: "When are you going to start issuing visas again?" Now, at last, you have your answer: Tomorrow."
Is it waggish of me to question whether or not the State Department will increase its scrutiny of visa applications after the Benghazi attacks?
What are the ROE covering embassies? IIUC embassies are considered sovereign territory of the embassy's country. Is there anything preventing embassy security from including heavily armed soldiers? This seems like 1979 all over again.
ReplyDeleteDiplomad,
ReplyDeleteMy condolences for the loss in your community, especially if you had known any of them.
I have similar questions as TheOldMan, and I ask them because I know nothing about the diplomatic corps and wish to understand how this tragedy came about.
ReplyDelete1. Do diplomatic staff receive weapons training? or are they totally reliant on the security detail?
2. If so, is there any requirement to maintain proficiency of weapon use.
3. Under what circumstances are staff issued weapons?
4. As per TheOldMan, what are the rules of engagement.
5. A security detail of two marines in this situation is hard to believe-perhaps you could comment, without revealing too much.
6. In the event of abandonment of the embassy, what kind of voice records with the State department would be typical.
I am so disaffected by the Obama regime I cannot trust a word of whatever is being dribbled out, surely in the dire situation the ambassador found himself in he would not just evacuate to the roof unarmed hoping "that something would turn up".
I'll answer some of your questions about embassy security, but with the understanding that I retired 15 years ago and things might have changed. Dip can correct me.
ReplyDeleteThe Department got a very large (seems to me it was a billion dollars, but I might misremember) budget in the mid 80's for security upgrades on facilities. This was in response to a study by retired CIA Director Bobby Inman, so we called it "Inman Money," and it was use to "harden" embassies. I am surprised an Egyptian mob could get on top of the wall of our embassy there -- most walls I've seen are not something you could get on top of or walk on.
Embassy staff do not receive formal weapons training. Security for a diplomatic facility (embassy or consulate) is the responsibility of the host government, who sometimes, in some countries, obviously lets the demonstrators get pretty unruly before stepping in. And sometimes, is just plain ineffective.
Staff are not issued weapons. When I was in the service I took a handgun or two to post and used to go out with the Marines on their monthly "fam firing" sessions. In some post the COM or RSO (Regional Security Officer) frowned on us importing firearms, and most posts required us to declare the weapons before arriving at post and have the RSO's approval. We seldom had permission to "carry" (except for employees of several agencies like DOD and DEA) but many of us did. I once asked the chief of security (French colonel) in an African country if he minded if I "carried." He shrugged and said "you have immunity."
But here's the bottom line: we're very few in number, even in moderate size embassies. There's no way we're gonna stand off a determined mob. And we don't want to; we want the local authorities to protect us.
As for Marine Security Guards at consulates, I don't remember ever seeing any, but that might have changed.
Oh, and those Marines? They're there for the security of the systems, not the people. They're supposed to keep the mobs from getting through the vault door while the commo staff destroys the files and the "code machines". They're not there to get in a shooting war with the hooligans outside the walls. They have tear gas, .38 revolvers, shotguns and sometimes 5.56 mm rifles (usually Ruger rifles, in my experience, not military weapons). The 5.56 rifles are capable of double or triple shot bursts, but there are no fully automatic weapons.
Now the Department can call on DOD resources to beef up embassies in countries undergoing a temporary threat, as is the case in Libya right now. I understand they're getting 50 Marines (probably members of something called a MARG (Marine Amphibious Response Group or something), not MSGs. Even those 50 Marines cannot hold off a determined attack as we had on our embassy in Pakistan 20 or 30 years ago. If the Department is really worried about the safety of personnel they pull them out, not arm them to get into a shooting war.
Those were the rules when I was in the service. Correct me if I have it wrong, Dip. F
I don't. Know DM, thanks to Obama ME Jews and Moslems now have something in common - their hatred for Obama! Quite an accomplishment eh?
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me like the ideal that we should democracize the ME is what is really in the dock here. I don't know how many times we were told that Egypt was the most liberal country in the ME while they were having their relatively bloodless coup. Then look at what the freedom loving Egyptians have done since. At least Egypt is still a state, Libya looks to be breaking up, and it is likely Syria will become a stateless region too.
It is pathetic that the Left and the Media are trying to hammer Romney for his remarks regarding the initial State Dept comment (that the Administration retracted later...indicating Romney was correct), going so far that the Media got caught conspiring on their questions to try and put Romney in the worst light possible...
ReplyDeleteYet say NOTHING about the terrorist who actually commited the murders.
My prayers and condolences to the families and hopes our FSO blogger was not close to anyone killed.
The Israelis had advance indication of embassy attacks. Of course this information was presumably relayed through normal channels, but the purpose of Bibi's meeting with president O was to drive home likelyhood of acute instability in egypt. Bet O wishs he took the meeting now.
ReplyDeleteIt has been reported that our ambassador was separated from the others and his body was discovered 12 hours later, shirt pulled up and pants pulled down. Medical personnel report he died of asphyxiation and “had internal bleeding”. Reports from the region state that he was sodomized. Remember that the video of Kadafi just before his death appeared to show one of his captors sodomizing him with a small branch.
ReplyDeleteAND THIS ADMINISTRATION WILL DO NOTHING! They made a Kabuki gesture of sending two destroyers. What they should have sent was a couple of B-52s to lay down a carpet of 2000 lb bombs on the entire neighborhood while the celebrations were taking place.
Remember in November!
Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteEvents surrounding the death of Ambassador Stevens are pretty unclear at this time, including allegations his body was abused. Not that such behavior is unheard of in Libya (viz. treatment of Qadaffi after his death), just that a lot of horrible (and sometimes conflicting) stories are being circulated. The most believable at this point is that he suffocated in the burning building he was in, along with one other embassy official. There are reports his body was not retrieved for 8-12 hours after that, which would not be hard to believe. All the other stories are pretty speculative at this point.
F
ReplyDeleteAt 8-12 hours, we should have seen more rigor mortis in the photos. Someone retrieved him before that.