Security? What security?
Ace writes about the deplorable lack of security at the Benghazi consulate. I can’t find a link in Ace’s post, but the information seems to come from this Politico article:
The Benghazi consulate had “lock-and-key” security, not the same level of defenses as a formal embassy, an intelligence source told POLITICO. That means it had no bulletproof glass, reinforced doors or other features common to embassies. The intelligence source contrasted it with the American embassy in Cairo, Egypt ”“ “a permanent facility, which is a lot easier to defend.” The Cairo embassy also was attacked Tuesday.
I called it “deplorable.” Perhaps “criminal” would be a better word.
[ADDENDUM: As for supposed Israeli “Sam Bacile,” producer of the film that supposedly sparked the whole thing, he may not be Israeli, Jewish, or named Sam Bacile.
But I’m sure it’s all the Jews’ fault anyway. Them, and Bush.]
[ADDENDUM II: Could Hillary Clinton actually be naive enough (or dumb enough) to have sincerely asked herself this question on learning of the attacks?:
The secretary of state said she asked herself “how could this happen in a country we helped liberate and in a city we helped to save from destruction.” But she added that the people who attacked the consulate were a “small and savage group.”
It seems like either criminal lack of awareness to the point of delusion, or something else. Perhaps my imagination’s not Byzantine or Machiavellian enough, but I can’t imagine that an incident like this one could possibly serve either Obama or Hillary. So it may be that they’re just that naive and just that stupid.]
Concur with your last sentence.
The secretary of state said she asked herself “how could this happen in a country we helped liberate and in a city we helped to save from destruction.”
Memo to Hillary, Machiavelli was right: Gratitude is the least strongly felt human emotion.
You’d think Clintons would know that.
Seems to me the State Department has responsibility for the safety of its personnel at embassies and consulates. Hillary failed to provide necessary security. She is at fault. She should be held accountable same as Obama.
Working from the middle out…
Could Hillary Clinton actually be naive enough (or dumb enough) to have sincerely asked herself…
yes. The truth about an ideological collective is that the appearance of intelligence and scores has more to do with being socially in tune to the system and realizing you get an A for parroting, and a Z for thinking.
If everyone has the same answers, how can you tell which is smart, and which is not? anyone who would show that they know valid stuff, would be seen by such, according to the doctrines, as a deviate.
ie. the state is what decides what is moral or not, and if so, by definition, to oppose such morality is to be a deviate.
[while most of us default to the more christian tenets that certain acts are amoral, and as such, should not be done, and so, they limit the state, as well as man who employs the state. IF A thinks above, and B things this, and B doesn’t know A thinks that way, what does B think A thinks?]
Hillary was rewarded for her socialist knowledge, not her abilities. From her Wellesley college thesis, to other things, what was being rewarded was not superior ability in the real world.
given this, her answers as to how the world works and its principals are totally informed by ideological means. if the ideological message says, this is because they are poor, or this is because we did X, or that, she believes that, and acts from that.
This is why i said that some of them (not Hillary), are operating on an old version of the playbook. Hillary’s old copy is later than some others. but its still an old copy, with a updated addendum.
I called it “deplorable.” Perhaps “criminal” would be a better word.
I knew in the long run, one way or another we would all end up on the same page, or sort of.
i have well hashed out the whole line of it in the other posts and wont say anything more of that.
here we come to the flip side.
if this all follows protocol, outside would be the local forces protecting the area. inside the middle areas would be some form of MSG protection, with that as normal extending inside to the actual people or other things being defended. and beyond that?
well. given that this building and such was not easily defended, and all that kind of thing. what should have been minimum is a safe room.
if the military or someone doesn’t have a portable one already, then its about time they put a few together.
what makes it criminal is that a safe room, properly constructed before moving everyone in, would have changed the whole of it.
heck… a freaking extra wall to a room with no entry where people can wait has worked in the past. if they are lacking in ideas they can start by reading about the underground railroad and work from their on.
these are big buildings and slapping together a blind room behind a steel bookcase is real doable (with its own air from outside and firewall).
the crowd would overrun the place, cause damage, and eventually tire out and leave. they are not going to measure the walls, and such. big buildings have tons of these hidden areas as part of their structure and what maintenance uses behind the scenes.
THAT’s what makes it criminal
in many ways one can convince people of many things, including how this can just be a mistake (in two places)… however, you cant convince them that the state could not prepare things with some form of minimal contingency that one could purchase in many countries by picking up the phone.
and want to know how bad?
this bad:
Safe Room
http://www.fema.gov/safe-rooms
and THIS bad:
2011 attack on the Israeli Embassy in Egypt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_attack_on_the_Israeli_Embassy_in_Egypt
IF the above is true, then they cant dash off that they never thought of safe rooms, or perhaps installing them in the SAME COUNTRY you just did something similar with in the past year or so…
I can see this is getting a bit long, so the last part i will put in the next post… 🙂
Egyptian protesters burn the U.S. flag during a demonstration outside the U.S. embassy in Cairo, as demonstrators gathered to condemn what they said was a film being produced in the United States that insulted Prophet Mohammad.
We will never be at war with Islam.- President Barak Hussein Obama.
Right. Barak Hussein Obama would rather make war on his own country than Islam.
Liberals seem to have trouble connecting effects with causes. Or even understanding the idea of cause and effect.
In the prior post i should have also highlighted that it was 2 days past one year in the attack on Israels embassy.
Neo: I can’t imagine that an incident like this one could possibly serve either Obama or Hillary. So it may be that they’re just that naive and just that stupid.
Really?
i put this list together for everyone…
its a list of presidents who have served two terms (including FDR who served three)
i wonder if you can spot the trend
– George Washington: 1789, 1792 (war with Native Americans in Ohio)
– Thomas Jefferson: 1800, 1804 (Tripolitan War against the Barbary pirates)
– James Madison: 1808, 1812 (War of 1812, against the British)
– James Monroe: 1816, 1920 (First Seminole War)
– Andrew Jackson: 1828, 1832 (Black Hawk War)
– Abraham Lincoln: 1860, 1864 (Civil War)
– William McKinley: 1896, 1900 (Spanish-American War, Boxer Rebellion)
– Woodrow Wilson: 1912, 1916 (WWI)
– Franklin Roosevelt (WWII)
– Dwight Eisenhower: 1952, 1956 (conclusion of Korean War)
– Richard Nixon: 1968, 1972 (Vietnam War)
– Ronald Reagan: 1980, 1984 (Grenada Invasion)
there are three more, and while they did not have a nice juicy conflict to get people to worry about picking someone new as a bad idea. Two sort of had war, and one as the government website say, became a symbol of one.
Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
The less ideal familiar is favored over the unknown.
– Grover Cleveland: 1884, 1892 (Threatened Britain with war over Venezuela)
– Ulysses Grant: 1868, 1872 (symbol of Union victory during the Civil War)
– Bill Clinton: 1992, 1996 (used missiles but didn’t declare war, Afghanistan, Kosovo)
the problem with a conflict and not an incident is that it takes time to get frothy enough to matter. Its September and we still have to see what will happen as to Iran. then again, with the consulates empty, a border threat with tanks can notch it up a bit with Israel.
Egypt: Some Tanks Leave Sinai Peninsula
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/world/middleeast/egypt-withdraws-some-tanks-from-sinai-peninsula.html
Ultimately, a strong response might quell things and make Obama look good. a weak response will cause things to escalate, and perhaps cause people to go with what they know.
no blame is going to stick, even the safe room, and the 1 year ago event with the other embassy.
however, from what i heard them say on the news, they are taking the position that this is not a large group, its a small group of outliers, etc..
the point here is to paint them as disconnected criminals that everyone will want to “bring to justice” and not part of a greater whole, or some form of manipulation. So there wont even be a reason to justify such a surprise as incompetence.
bet you don’t hear about a lot of the issues given this, and now, Obama can get lots of face time on it giving us updates…
How many remember we have a hostage too?
Al Qaeda Releases New Video of American Hostage
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/al-qaeda-releases-video-american-hostage/story?id=17221075
Al Qaeda has released a new video of American hostage Warren Weinstein delivering a personal message to Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.
In the video, Weinstein, 71, believed to be held in the tribal regions along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, appears healthy and calm, speaking in a soft, controlled manner.
We’re still learning more details about the events leading up to and surrounding the attacks by Islamic radicals on the U.S. consulate in Libya and embassy in Egypt, but the media has already agreed on one thing: Mitt Romney is the political loser.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/how-the-media-turned-obamas-foreign-policy-bungle-into-a-romney-gaffe/article/2507779
In other words, the Commmander in Chief is always re-elected.
Very good theory but doesn’t apply. Obama has a core set of values and one of those is that he will never go to war against Islam. He is not as “pragmatic” as FDR who still was not the “other.” Obama is the other. The Republican Party needs to embrace and tell this truth and not run from. Obama is an “other.” He is not American. He is more Caliphate than American.
I don’t know if many have had this event happen in their life, but many have and can so relate. Ever had someone in your family break ranks. My family has a women who disagrees with all of our judgments. We don’t make too many, but when we do, we expect unity. Predictably, this “other” has had problems. She is bitter, greivance oriented, and not as productive as the rest of us. She’s unhappy and always blaming someone else. She does have a great big heart, lots of talent, but it always seems to turn against her. We’ve pretty much reconciled that she is our ward. We will not abandon her because she is our family.
Reminds me of Obama, only he has been enabled to rip apart our family. He has been enable to enact revenge.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi asked the Egyptian embassy in Washington to take legal action in the United States against makers of a film attacking the Muslim Prophet Mohammad, the official state news agency said on Wednesday.
is he part of this small crowd of people acting out?
Obama has refused a request to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said he was too busy. (appearing on Letterman).
Mike Barnicle has suggested that the Department of Justice consider prosecuting Florida pastor Terry Jones in the death of the American ambassador to Libya and deaths occurring during riots last year in Afghanistan. [ie. he upset them, put him in jail ]
Fellow panelist Donny Deutsch responded by saying he was “thinking the same thing” as Barnicle.
By the way, the media has proved why electing Mitt Romney is no different than electing Sarah Palin.
It’s boots on the street time, I think, people. The Force is ours, not theirs. Make your statements public and make them in their face. We are here, we are near, get used to it.
Yes, I believe they (and many liberals) are just that naive; stupid is debatable. They think if you just explain things to people they’ll convince them to change their minds/behavior. Even long held fundamental religious beliefs…. sure, that’s going to happen.
But, the media in all this is deplorable. You keep thinking they can’t get any lower but somehow they manage.
Artfldgr: when I wrote “an incident like this one” I did NOT mean I couldn’t imagine a crisis benefiting them. I can certainly imagine that, and am well aware that a crisis that they solve, or react strongly to, could benefit them.
I meant that I couldn’t imagine a crisis in which (a) they look weak; (b) the ambassador is killed as a result; and (c) even after that, their response is weak and ineffective, could benefit them.
Looking like Jimmy Carter in 1979 wouldn’t appear to be a benefit. Of course, perhaps the American public has changed so much in the 30+ years since that it would be a benefit. If that’s true, then Obama would almost certainly be re-elected anyway, even without a crisis.
In other words, the Commmander in Chief is always re-elected.
no… no… there are other presidents who served during war too and did not get second terms. Kennedy for one (but he was assassinated, and technically Reagan would have been too – both anti-communists).
the point was that of those that did, they almost all have the common trait. So if you were seeking that condition, you would do better to have that trait, than to be like Clinton.
he is the only one on that list that didn’t have a big conflict to affect choices by it. Grant is not worth discussing given his post war glow. and Grover Cleveland went right to the wire with sending war ships and ready to fire.
To cargo cult people who think conditions create the outcomes, creating the same conditions or similar is how the ‘magic’ works… just as the conditions of a circle and symbols and garbled speech are supposed do make something happen.
have to buy the women’s vote…
have to have thugs at polls
have to have conflict and worry – who likes to change horses in midstream?
have to have the person not be a part of the nation
have to inflate the cash
have to nationalize cars, and X and Y
that’s why it repeats and the list of matches is long. if you want to have the same thing happen again, but do not understand the principals by which they happened, you try to create the same conditions to see if it happens again. no?
the principals to create the condition you have, but not to create what they think the conditions make happen.
“how could this happen in a country we helped liberate and in a city we helped to save from destruction.”
An interesting exercise would be to compare Bush administration rhetoric on challenges in Iraq to Obama administration rhetoric on challenges in Libya (and Arab Spring in general), and the partisan discussions on both.
Eric: I was thinking about that—how the Democrats mocked the Bush administration for thinking they’d be greeted with flowers.
Now the shoe is on the other foot. Plus, although the Bush administration was unprepared for what it found in Iraq, it never asked, “how could they, after all we did for them?” It just tried to adjust.
Add: Given the degree to which the Dems undermined and backstabbed Bush in his foreign affairs, their lack of self-consciousness when criticizing Romney’s rebuke of Obama is astounding.
Years of warning about embassy security preceded Libya attack
Neo: “I was thinking about that–how the Democrats mocked the Bush administration for thinking they’d be greeted with flowers.”
Our troops were greeted in Iraq with flowers by many Iraqis. But they were greeted differently by other Iraqis. For partisanship, the Dems assigned low value to the Iraqis who wanted American help. With the shoe on the other foot, what value will Republicans assign to the Libyans who want our help?
Add: Which is also to ask, after the maddening gross misbehavior by the Dems during the Bush presidency that undermined critical foreign affairs, will Republicans now throw the Dems bad behavior back at them, or will they act responsibly where the Dems failed to do so?
I read that Obama is meeting with the Muslim Bro president of Egypt next week (after snubbing Netanyahu!). First that meeting should be canceled. Second Egyptian embassy in the US should be closed. If Libya has one, it should be closed too (assuming they alerted the attackers to the location of the US ambassador as reported).
The Libyans are trying to blame this on Qaddafi supporters.
Hillary bragged and laughed about killing Qaddafi, who was actually murdered after surrendering.
If the above is true, then it is Hillary who inflamed the murderers of our diplomats and the film had nothing to do with it.
Will the MSM make the connection? Of course not.
Art’, Your rong, frak, made roll rong; whay yous gota bien pent? Spud, Grub?
Make nice face once. Give. Soul?
Hubble telescope technological report (otherwise known as Boetticher):
Solar flare, unprecedented, may cause problems.
Obama retort: All reports of solar flares are Mitt Romney’s attempt to distract from the reality of economic recovery and Obama’s obvious bounce from the Democratic National Convention.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz details the sad attempts by the Romney campaign to wrest the narrative away from the established and respected journalistic sources. If you are experiencing distortions in your electronic receptions, its Romney’s fault and the the sun’s.
All praise to the wheel, the swastika, the power of the sun. Please distract yourselves by substituting x’s for s’s.
Debbit Waxxerxman Xchultz.
Hint: XX stands for SS.
Artfldgr, your premise does not hold up. LBJ in the first instance. He did not bow out because he didn’t like being President. GHW Bush, who had an approval rating in the neighborhood of 90% in 1991 after Kuwait, and lost in 1992.
Of course many of the wars that you cited weren’t even blips on the national horizon. For instance, do you really believe that Reagan won a second term because of the one week, or less, incursion into Grenada? He did survive the debacle in Beirut, which if people really paid attention, would have sunk him.
Nice try, but no cigar.
Holds up generally, but not specifically.
As usual, Caroline Glick is worth reading when it comes to the Middle East.
The 9/11 attacks were not about a movie
…do read the entire Comments section of the post (there were 10 when I last checked). And the suggested link. All worthwhile.
…recommend you add her to your daily read. She’s one of the few voices over there you can pretty much implicitly trust. Both reporting, and analysis. None better.
This photo is what Hillary described today as “helping” one of our poor diplomats through the streets to the hospital. . . .
I say, judge for yourselves.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/9latbkl
Islam delenda est.
Hilary Clinton once described her arrival in Bosnia back in ’96 as occurring amidst sniper fire, when in reality not so much as a bumblebee was flying around. Like her husband, she tends to have a very elastic concept of truthfulness.
In the case of Ambassador Stevens’ death, I wouldn’t trust a word out of her mouth. Whatever she says will be to suit her own political ends.
Occam’s Beard Says:
September 12th, 2012 at 9:07 pm
The secretary of state said she asked herself “how could this happen in a country we helped liberate and in a city we helped to save from destruction.”
Memo to Hillary, Machiavelli was right: Gratitude is the least strongly felt human emotion.
Further, anyone who knows anything about arab culture (or islamic culture, as islam is little but the formalization of desert arab culture with some frills) understands that gratitude is totally meaningless to them. Totally meaningless. It’s not even a weak emotion but a totally meaningless ecxpresion. Their cultures just don’t operate with it, at all. You cannot build up any “good faith” with them. Period. But they can be rented. We have a ton of clear history about this that Westerners ought to be aware of it, already – even if it is totally foreign and nonsensical to us. They are what they are.
Of course, Hillary is too friggin stupid to know anything about any of this. She’s too dumb to even make sure that the State dept. can accurately translate a single word into Russian for an important and public diplomatic entree (if stupid) – Russian, a language that that same State dept. had to monitor and translate for over half a century … accurately. The fact that such a dolt wasn’t tossed out the minute that joke presentation to Lavarov happened (with her even stupidly asking him whether it was correct) said all one needs to know about the competence of Hillary or anyone in this administration.
Hillary Clinton can’t secure a consulate. How could she possibly lead a nation?
Oldflyer, your making me wrong by adding stuff to the point i made that i never made.
IE… all i said was that they had a war condition. i didnt say they liked it, did well politically with it, etc. that somehow, someway, most of them had a war condition, none of them had non conflicted presidencies.
LBJ in the first instance. He did not bow out because he didn’t like being President.
WHERE in my post do i say anything about LBJ?
March 31, 1968 – “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.” – LBJ
His taking over for Kennedy is not considered a ‘term’, and he was able to run for a second term but turned it down. (and if his first term as the assassination, then how could he even turn down a term that after FDR he was not legally able to have?)\
so how am i wrong when he is not on the list, i didn’t mention him, and you conjured the point out of thin air to tell me i am wrong in making it, when there was nothing said bout Johnson (as he did NOT fit the criteria).
do you really believe that Reagan won a second term because of the one week, or less, incursion into Grenada?
IS that the case i am making? i dont think so.
the case i am making is that they all had war conflicts. i did NOT add extra tailings, conclusions, points of cause, and all that.
DID I?
basically YOU conjured all that up to make me wrong. but you cant point to anywhere where i made THAT premise, you made it up.
i said… ALL of them had war conflicts.
that dot at the end. thats a period. it means an end to the concept and point. it does not mean, insert what extra crap and inferences you imagine are right, with certainty and insert them. that is reserved for things like braces [], and brackets {}… and sometimes ().
right?
these presidents did NOT preside over a war in their presidency (or had the special points i made of the three who would be on this list)
John Adams
John Quincy Adams
Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore
Franklin Pierce
Andrew Johnson
James Garfield
Chester Arthur
Theodore Roosevelt
William Taft
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Jimmy Carter
so.,.. care to do a bit of statistical math? are you up to it? can you tell me what percentage of presidents presided over a war?
Obama is the 44th president..
15 did not meet this 34%
technically Grants war was the Battle of the Little Bighorn (1876)
and Grover Cleveland was the Apache Wars against Geronimo (1876-1886)
and Clinton as i mentioned was Kosovo and Persian Gulf War II with Iraq (1999)
if you accept these ‘wars’ for the three
then 100% of two or more term presidents served during a conflict.
what part am i wrong on?
did i say the conflict made their presidencies?
did i say that it was good for them?
no.. all i said was, not one had the condition of any of the others. if you look at all presidents other than two or more, then you get a mix of those who served during a war, and those who had none like above.
however, it gets complicated due to the fact we are talking ELECTED to office, not dropped in thanks to disease, a duel, or assassination.
In an earlier post I posited that I expected three categories of voters this November:
It is my fervent hope and prayer that ranks of the second category swelled in the last two day mostly with additions from the third.
here is another one..
how many presidents were single and unmarried?
0%
how many were atheists, Jews, Muslim, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Gardnerian, etc?
0%
how many presidents had Caucasian ancestry of some sort?
100%
EACH of these points stand alone…
they are not operative points
WHICH IS THE POINT I AM MAKING
cargo cultists do not operate on operagive points, they work on the conditions.
so they think that that condition IS an operative point… while you and i and others if we are sane, see that as more a coincidence.
or as curtis said, generally yes, specifically no
is poverty and crime connected? generally yes, specifically no
Some humans are visually oriented, they will use terms that tend to follow that line. ie. can you see the answer?
others are different… if you study things in business about how to make sales and so on, you learn cues that apply. if your in advertising, you learn LOTS of stuff that can be used to influence things.
and funny funny funny… people ignorant of them tend not to believe it.. or that it works. “advertising doesn’t work on me” they say. but studies have shown it DOES work. and it works even BETTER if its in the background and your not paying attention to it.
a woman is looking at you from an ad, what did they do to her eyes to make you feel like she loves you? expands her pupils like the women of the french court putting belladonna i their eyes.
you see her, she loves you, you want to make her happy, you buy the product. if your a woman, you see her, you see she is in love, you want to be in love like her, so you buy the product.
given that advertising is billion dollar industry and ‘spots’ can cost upwards of a million a second… yeah… they work.
so there are some people who are cargo cult. they tend to be people who didnt learn the principals of how the world works. they cant see that religion offers these lessons and value. they cant see the operative, so they cant see the reason why its bad, and so they have to conjure up the ghost of oppression.
it is incomprehensible that the point of such is a better life and that their are real reasons. like why you generally dont give a 12 year old the keys to the Ferrari and say see you later today (maybe).
but NOT to them…
to them reasons are not principals, they are only points of manipulation… thats the principal…
ergo they always conjure up big Moriarty conspiracies of the opponents dominance. the opponent can be dead o the floor and rotted for two weeks but still, like bush, be responsible… why? because ON THE SURFACE you can make that argument.
generally it fits, specifically it doesn’t.
this is why reason doesnt work and why they cant debate. both require understanding operating principals and being able to apply them. if you are amoral, you have no operating principals. if your ignorant of the world havcing learned it from texts that lied, you lack principals of operation.
you dont know how a business runs..
you see a CEO sitting and thinking and wearing nice clothes and so on, and you think he does nothing but occupy a place.
obama doesnt see that there are principals at work, and so, the system DOES NOT run when he is just sitting in place, lucky lucky him. his going to play golf shows that he is full up on the idea that fat cats sit around and do nothing while the lessers make it all work great for them…
surprise!!!
what you see on the surface generally is not what is going on underneath, and so the CEO IS earning his salary, you just dont know what he is doing (if your most people).
this is why such people end up failing in business and such, and succeed in politics.
politics has the power to, in the local sphere, of suspending reality, as freedom.
can a person live like its holloween every day in a big city? yes… they have the freedom to suspend reality.
can a politician throw money at something to redistribute the wealth in the society the way aristocracy had to? yes, and so they can temporarily suspend reality.
the problems come when you try do maintain it forever, and it becomes reality to you and you operative from it.
whats wrong with candy corn as three squares its Halloween every day!
@davisbr Yes Caroline Glick is always worth reading but I would add that Barry Rubin of Rubin Reports accurately anticipated the Egypt/Muslim Brotherhood problem from the beginning. He is also available as a pjmedia.com columnist. His lat two posts are really excellent:http://bit.ly/QKuPqh and http://bit.ly/QeTwXu
Overall I think the facts are still very fluid and the effect on the US elections still unpredictable. These questions about security and apparent intelligence lapses do not give one much confidence that things have improved all that much 9/11/2001. It’s a mess.
Oh, by the way, collecting connections and claiming they ARE somethign real without the basis… has a name in statistics… “data dredging” 🙂
US Embassy in Yemen attacked:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2202606/Death-America-chant-protestors-storm-U-S-Embassy-Yemen-smashing-windows-pelting-offices-stones.html
And so it continues…
STOP THE PRESSES!! Michelle Obama on the greatest threat to national security — recall who gave the keynote address at the GOP convention. (How will this affect the standing among presidents of Grover Cleveland and William Howard Taft?)
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/09/12/FLOTUS-Obesity-Absolutely-Greatest-Threat-To-National-Security
Lorenz Gude: hey, even I anticipated the Muslim Brotherhood problem from the very beginning.
And I’m not saying that in order to say I’m so brilliant. Point is, it was obvious that that would almost certainly be a problem. This was my very first article on the subject of the Egyptian turmoil.
OT: My LOL line of the day.
(Because I need a break: we had this nailed down early yesterday, and I’m already steamed enough at this point.)
From Jennifer Rubin: But with Obama and the MSM around, [Romney] can rest assured the base will stick with him and crawl over that proverbial glass to dump Obama.
The full quote –
Actually, the whole thing is worth a read. Even though it’s not all “lol”.
Artfldgr: re your comment at 9:49—
You may be skeptical of this report (it’s CNN for starters, plus the details of this incident have been ever-changing and foggy), but it says that Ambassador Stevens and several others were in a safe room in the Benghazi consulate, when they were overcome by smoke from a fire.
One would think an actual functioning safe room might have some protection from this, but at any rate that’s the report.
Artfldgr: actually, Cleveland was single and unmarried when first elected. He was married in office, about two years later.
And James Buchanan remained a bachelor for his entire life.
Several other presidents were widowers for the entire terms of office, but that’s not quite the same.
This whole thing reminds me of our nation’s brutal lesson learned regarding coddling criminals.
And what did we finally learn? How did we resolve the explosion of crime? Mayor Giulilani, following the commonsense idea that criminals in jail don’t commit crime, did just that. And how the illiberals howled while the people enjoyed peace.
We want peace? We need to hang that traitor Hassan in public, clear out Deerborn Michigan, immediately cease all aid to the MB and all countries aiding the MB, stop Muslim immigration, and bomb Iran.
Curtis for President.
a film being produced in the United States that insulted Prophet Mohammad.
Forget the movie. If you want to hear Mohammed insulted, just pour a couple of Scotches into me.
“. . . apparent intelligence lapses do not give one much confidence that things have improved all that much 9/11/2001.”
Lorenz Gude,
I have come to the impression that you are correct; that things haven’t improved much at all since 9/11. That we are allowed the appearance of improvement while the anti-west plans their next attack. Then, assymetrically, they come out of nowhere and we fight the same fight over again because we lack the resolve to take the fight to its logical conclusion.
Like generals fighting the last war, they topple the Twin Towers so we protect our buildings with a Kabuki Homeland Security while a token contingent of Marines guard our foreign embassies in dangerous locations without live ammunition (gee, who could have seen THAT coming).
All the while we have a president who bends over backwards to accomodate fanatical Islamists while deriding religious Americans as people bitterly clinginging to guns and religion and fearing peoiple who aren’t like them.
As neoneocon titled her subsequent post, we exist in a Orwellian world.
A few words in defense of the embassy security in Libya:
First, the news I’ve read says that the place was attacked with RPGs and mortars. Bullet proof glass and reinforced doors won’t keep out an RPG. I doubt there are many embassies designed to hold up to this kind of attack.
Second, the single most important thing about having an embassy in Libya is that it lets us engage the Libyans. If you wait until you’ve built a fortress and signed an agreement to put a battalion of Marines in the country (which could take months if not years) you’re not doing the primary job.
We need to accept that there are certain risks involved in sending Americans into messy parts of the world.
Baltimoron: you are correct that those precautions might not have thwarted this particular attack.
But it doesn’t change the fact that security was remarkably inadequate, and much less than at the embassy in Tripoli. Such vulnerability encourages attacks, and represents hardly any deterrent.
Second, the single most important thing about having an embassy in Libya is that it lets us engage the Libyans.
Which we want to do … why?
We didn’t have an embassy in Libya for decades, and yet the earth continued to spin on its axis. Let the Europeans field this one, since they’re the ones who are worried about Libyan oil, and after all, the EU is now a superpower counterbalancing the American hegemon. Balance away, my fragrant friends!
This is the best article I’ve seen on what happened: Reuters Africa
I have a theory that Al Qaeda wanted some deaths on their side here- for martyrdom and to start the cycle of mourning/protests that are used to gain momentum. They tried to use that tactic for the Green Revolution in Iran, but it failed, despite having worked originally in the 1979 revolution.
They didn’t count on us being so cowardly and appeasing that we wouldn’t fire back.
beverley:
Carthago delenda est= Carthage is destroyed (deleted).
Not islam, not soon either, not until we once again go after the Barbary pirates–and that was in 1803, IIRC. This time we’ll need nukes.
oh…
and just to drive it home given the long back and forth
also from the article (in the newer post)..
http://freebeacon.com/reports-marines-not-permitted-live-ammo/
AND that’s what i wanted to know all along…
my knowledge of the chain of command and protocols stop at the RSO… i did not know how he and the state resolved the choices. and even now, i don’t know how far up the state department the point went. we will probably never know as they wont let the buck rise farther than her (unless she happens to have a memo).
Knowing HOW something operates tells you what is wrong with the picture. There was no way i was going to flop over on fox saying “some places aren’t guarded”, and the lack of updated information on About.com was also not something to flop over on.
As far as the military is concerned, i know that there is a chain of command, a protocol to be followed, and in this case, super dedicated willing to die experienced men to implement it. (and i cant exaggerate that enough).
Notice that removal of ammunition was not enough in the last paragraph. they had to also be told to stand down. or they would affix bayonets, and go hand to hand with the crowd till they got live ammo from one of them, and then continued till they dropped and were carried around like the ambassador. but first and before him.
Period. no doubt. 100% certainty. as confident as you are every day you turn on a light switch and it works.
By the way, this is not the first time a superior woman (their claim, ask sotomayor, and a few others) caused a huge bungle as an ambassador.
And in both cases, its hard to tell if they bungled or were following orders. Either way, they both took the fall in some way.
Anyone remember April Glaspie?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Glaspie
a former American diplomat and senior member of the Foreign Service, best known for her role in the events leading up to the Persian Gulf War of 1991
Every guy i knew that heard what she said knew exactly the blunder she had made. And i was young then. We knew immediately that what was being said the way it was said would be taken as permission.
[there is enough musings to pick from and shop around for one you like. but if you ‘get’ that countries feel each other out, and dont exactly say publicly, slaughter your enemies, and loot the country? why not? dont forget to take some pictures… can we put some observers down, so we can take notes? they are obtuse about it… and her language was about as close to go ahead that you can get without saying go ahead openly]
neo,
If we can agree that it probably wasn’t realistic to defend against an attack that the al-Qaida folks are obviously capable of launching, then the question of how inadequate the defense was strikes me as silly. Its like asking if you’d rather be crushed by a one ton rock or a ten ton rock.
Then, as I said above, you always have trade offs. We’ll know more in the next few weeks, but it may not have been realistic to have better security. In that case you have a choice between a vulnerable embassy or no embassy. which do you pick?
and Occam,
I think people said something similar about Afghanistan in the early 90’s
Baltimoron: it’s certainly silly regarding this attack. But there could have been other, lesser attacks that a security presence might have either repelled or deterred.
It’s not the only possible type of attack that could have occurred.
It is now reported that the other 2 American dead are former Navy SEALs, presumably Stevens’s bodyguards. I wonder if the elite nature of his bodyguards made Stevens overconfident they could get him out of any situation? Thus open to more risks in the performance of his duties, like the legends of military leaders who walk upright among their troops in the middle of battle rather thank hunker down?
Little late responding arfldgr, but my point was that your apparent premise, if there was one, ignored a certain facts that did not fit.
You really do like to smother a thread with verbiage. But, if you have a point to make, then please make it a little clearer for those who apparently do not enjoy your IQ, or whatever.
I thought you were drawing a parallel between Presidents who had a war and achieved a second term. You did mention Reagan and Grenada. That is a rather ridiculous example. I thought it interesting that Reagan’s primary war-like experience was an unmitigated disaster, but he achieved a second term despite that.
You neglected LBJ altogether; which was certainly an example of how a war experience killed any chance of a second term. I wondered why.
Many of the examples you cited involved little more than skirmishes. I just do not think you made any point at all. But, maybe I missed it.
Back to the thread. I think there is a lot yet to be learned about the events in Libya and in Cairo. I also think that we are going to be treated like mushroms by the Administration because nothing will redound to their benefit.
Baltimoron, you have overlooked the example of the ‘green zone’ in Iraq. The embassy would be relatively safe with this type of security arrangement and the American forces to go with it. I think your idea that nothing could be done is dead wrong.
I think that Hillary’s amaze is a product of a political culture which has been willingly seduced into fevered dreams of the beneficence of the Moslem culture and it’s representatives, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Tell me again why John McLame was so miffed at Michelle Bachmann a few weeks ago…
Steve: but Iraq was at that time an occupied country. By us. That’s why we could set up a green zone.
neo, I think the rebels were openly armed and financed by the US. Their campaigns were supported by NATO airstrikes. There was no way Gaddafi would have been deposed without US intervention. As Hilllary notoriously said ‘we came, we saw, he died.’ If we wanted a green zone, we could have had one. The pursuit of regime change in Libya is all on Obama. He did not seek Congressional approval.
neo,
Whenever something like this happens, we have a tendency to look for simple causes that are completely within our control.
Take the claim that people attacked our embassy over some youtube video about Mohammed as an example. The idea was preposterous right from the start. But it caught on because its simple, doesn’t require much knowledge of the middle east, and it lets Americans believe that as long as we don’t do anything to set off those strange foreigners, they won’t do anything to us. Thus, we can have complete control over events without ever stepping outside our houses.
This talk about the security at the Benghazi consulate is in a similar vein. More guards, more barbed wire, a flood light or two and BAM!… no terrorists. What could be simpler than that?
If I had to guess, I’d say the consulate was attacked because the Qaida folks presented a local head man some combination of threats and bribes which were more convincing than whatever combination of threats and bribes the central government or the Americans were offering. Next thing you know, creepy guys with funny accents are running around blowing things up.
Of course, that is a very complex issue. I don’t even know where to start looking for a solution. The Libyan government doesn’t seem to know either, and they live there. However, trying to change the subject to tangential problems won’t solve anything.
Sorry for the long rant.
Another question regarding security is why did the State Department not close the embassies and consulates? From what I have read they were informed about possible attacks on these days. Apparently their decision was simply to ignore the threats.
Another question. Did State hold up approval of a contract with Blackwater to provide security in Libya?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/state-department-denies-holding-up-blackwater-liby
Could Blackwater have made a difference? The final sentence suggests they might have:
Yet for all its clear faults, Blackwater had never lost a “principal”–one of the individuals they were tasked to protect.
I think your still missing the point oldflyer..
and missed it more when i brought up data dredging…
the point is one thats floated around here before. do the poor cause more crime because they are poor, or are they poor because they are the kind that commits crime?
the point your missing has to do with cargo cult.
the traditional idea for cargo cult was in the pacific, where the natives received, accidentally, some dropped shipments from military planes.
they had seen these flying things, and never knew what they were, but one day… some of them dropped lots of stuff. food, clothing, books, mail, weapons, knives, etc… even the parachutes were good.
and so, the inspiration for gilligans island was born, and these natives tried to make a landing strip, and control tower and all the things they have seen that go with the planes.
ie. if you create the conditions things happen spontaneously.
so cocanut headphones replaced real ones, tiki torches replaced lights. etc.
problem was, the planes never landed.
you see. like my example, they thought the conditions make the event.
this is the part your missing. you and i, see principals, and so, in normal logic and causation, the holes you present are holes.
but to a cargo cult mind that things physical conditions repeated create outcomes, not principals, they copy the actions like ceremonies.
so, a principled person would say, even though they all had this association, the association is not always enough. in many cases it seems to, and there is a bit of play from it… but all it is, is an association…
i flip a coin heads 5 times in a row, you and i will know that the next one has nothing to do with the prior… but the cargo cultist thinks they found an exploitable trend…
so.. given the condition, and the fact that over the past 30 years there have been articles about it.. its in the mind of the left that this is a condition that has to be met. like chalk lines and moaning to candlelight evokes magic.
arrangi nv the conditions should make the magic happen again.
see? magic replaces principals, and wrap it up in false complexity, it appears like something else and is ok
so… such people will say, we need to make these conditions to make that happen. why? because they have no idea of principals and they hope if they drop the other earing it will fall and dance ot the same place as the lost one.
so, the cargo cultists, rathe than invent a new path, or by merit acheive it, they copy. like the natives, they would repeat the war just to make the conditions that they think evokes the outcome they are looking for.
you and i know that its not that simple
but they dont..
[edited for length by n-n]
If I had to guess, I’d say the consulate was attacked because the Qaida folks presented a local head man some combination of threats and bribes which were more convincing than whatever combination of threats and bribes the central government or the Americans were offering.
i dont agree..
i think it was attacked because policies wer presented and arguments given as to why its ok to not guard those places, and why its ok not to arm marines, and so on.
once that was in place, then the others would feel very bold in attacking a building with assets and no guards and weapons. eh?
take your whole theory, and change it with one difference. instead of no guards… now add 10 marines, 2 with 30 call machine guns.
now. Would they go over the wall and get cut in half? they never do anywhere else do they?
ok… lets have 2 marines and a sharpshooter.
put a sharpshooter on the roof with cover, and he could plink off the people as they entered with ease (compared to other shots).
a turkey shoot..
but you see… moderately trained zealots tend to fold when the odds are not in their favor. just like the native guards did.
i know that native guards are no good
the military does too
you might clai that clinton does not, so she set the idea and passed it down that its ok to let them guard. but any average male would not do that. he would know that its useless.
a few men with weapons and the orders to shoot and defend would have stopped it.
so that assesment is wrong.
note that the OTher compounds were also almost unprotected too… but the compound in norway isnt.
ie. we fear the norwegians more than islam and civil war
right?