Embassy atacks and deaths

[Master Dan]

I am split on this one first I hated that Romney is using this as a political platform to slam Obama? However our Embassy's are US soveriegn soil and should be defended as such! Given how severe security is anywhere in the Middle East why did we not have better security? We should have had armed personnel killing them like flys as they tried to scale the walls and atack US soveriegn soil and citizens? Egypt and Libya need to have far better security around our Embassy's.

I hope this does not turn out to be a Dove Hawk issue that propells Romney to the lead or if you listen to some they say it will loose him the elction.

We have some good military people on this forum and also other people outside the US I would like to hear thier comments.

The film by and Israeli citizen living in the US was released in July but just recently in both countries the media started playing sections over and over translated to say the prophet Mohamed was a Homosexual and a child molester and all around pervert. You can find it on Yahoo. Great worry now is due to the atacks the film will get much more attention fueling more violence?

Do we want an amature in charge of foreign policy more over did not our military drop the ball on this are they not supposed to tell the President what we need to maintain our Embassy's have they as well as Secret Service and other branches predominately white controlled racists in thier protection of the Black President and of supporting his policies??

 

[WC_lun]

I don't so much have a problem with inexperience in an elected president in foriegn affairs. If the president has a good head for it and surrounded by the right advisors, he'll do okay. Proof of this is Obama. He has increased our image around the world, while at the same time done a lot to kill AQ around the world. I mean who gets a Nobel peace award and then double downs on a war by sending more troops? He has done well with foriegn policy despite being inexperienced at the onset.

What worries me more about Mr Romney is that he has surrounded himself with former Bush people, while at the same time making comments that seem odd for anyone who knows a lick about foriegn policy. It worries me that his advisors would do thier best to recreate Bush foriegn policy and he would willingly go along, not understanding that cowboy diplomacy may have its place, but not at this time in history.

 

[Master Dan]

I don't so much have a problem with inexperience in an elected president in foriegn affairs. If the president has a good head for it and surrounded by the right advisors, he'll do okay. Proof of this is Obama. He has increased our image around the world, while at the same time done a lot to kill AQ around the world. I mean who gets a Nobel peace award and then double downs on a war by sending more troops? He has done well with foriegn policy despite being inexperienced at the onset.

What worries me more about Mr Romney is that he has surrounded himself with former Bush people, while at the same time making comments that seem odd for anyone who knows a lick about foriegn policy. It worries me that his advisors would do thier best to recreate Bush foriegn policy and he would willingly go along, not understanding that cowboy diplomacy may have its place, but not at this time in history.

Great point on the Nobel Peace Prize then kill all the AQ I and others much more knowledgable than me have stated its concerning all the ex Bush people who are advising and being groomed to be part of the Romney cabinent currently and in the future more of the same and he talks like a Hawk. What is being said today is he has a record and personality to not react well or respond to emergencies given constant unappropriate behavior or statements and should not be considered as qualified to be President one example he does not get it is that Obama is President and he is not?

 

[Big Don]

I don't so much have a problem with inexperience in an elected president in foriegn affairs. If the president has a good head for it and surrounded by the right advisors, he'll do okay. Proof of this is Obama. He has increased our image around the world, while at the same time done a lot to kill AQ around the world. I mean who gets a Nobel peace award and then double downs on a war by sending more troops? He has done well with foriegn policy despite being inexperienced at the onset.

What worries me more about Mr Romney is that he has surrounded himself with former Bush people, while at the same time making comments that seem odd for anyone who knows a lick about foriegn policy. It worries me that his advisors would do thier best to recreate Bush foriegn policy and he would willingly go along, not understanding that cowboy diplomacy may have its place, but not at this time in history.

Uh, no. Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize because he won the election. There really isn't anything that can show he deserved it. Look no further than when he won it...
The Obama foreign policy has been fraught with one dipsh*t mistake after another; Hillary with the "Russian Reset Button" Obama giving an iPod of his speeches to the Queen, bowing to foreign heads of state, etc, etc...
Oh, the Bush foreign policy? The part Obama left in place, i.e., Gitmo, hunting down bin Laden, use of drones, etc still works...
What odd comments, specifically? That breaching our embassies and consulate are disgusting? That apologizing for American values is wrong?

 

[granfire]

Uh, no. Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize because he won the election. There really isn't anything that can show he deserved it. Look no further than when he won it...
The Obama foreign policy has been fraught with one dipsh*t mistake after another; Hillary with the "Russian Reset Button" Obama giving an iPod of his speeches to the Queen, bowing to foreign heads of state, etc, etc...
Oh, the Bush foreign policy? The part Obama left in place, i.e., Gitmo, hunting down bin Laden, use of drones, etc still works...
What odd comments, specifically? That breaching our embassies and consulate are disgusting? That apologizing for American values is wrong?

Will you get off the ipod thing already?

I am sure you can come up with a better present for a woman who could be your mother/grandmother and who was at one point in time considered the richest woman on the the planet.
She has everything she will ever need, had it since birth, and everything she 'll never need, from the same point on.

And frankly, I don't think Obama is qualified to pick a Corgi for her.

He did however give the nod to the Bin laden kill, and I am sure it is a bit difficult to close a prison when nobody wants the inmates...

The peace prize, yeah, THAT was a joke.
Giving a woman an inappropriate gift...well, there isn't a man alive who has not done that one, at least once.

 

[WC_lun]

I never stated Mr Obama deserved the Nobel, I was just using it as an illistrative point that he doesn't seem to be carrying out a foriegn policy based upon apology. Way to not catch it though and start using such things as the Gitmoe shut down not being funded by congress or his choice of a gift for the woman who has at least one of everything. Nice salient points.

 

[Master Dan]

I never stated Mr Obama deserved the Nobel, I was just using it as an illistrative point that he doesn't seem to be carrying out a foriegn policy based upon apology. Way to not catch it though and start using such things as the Gitmoe shut down not being funded by congress or his choice of a gift for the woman who has at least one of everything. Nice salient points.

Exactlly and nobody wanted the inmates from Gitmoe however one state had a brand new supermax that really wanted them the city state needed the money not sure why the final cabosh on that? A candidate can make promises but a President has to do things based on reality of the situation and Obama is President Mitty is not

 

[Big Don]

Statement on the Attack in Benghazi


Press StatementHillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State

Washington, DC

September 11, 2012

---

I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi today. As we work to secure our personnel and facilities, we have confirmed that one of our State Department officers was killed. We are heartbroken by this terrible loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who have suffered in this attack.
This evening, I called Libyan President Magariaf to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya. President Magariaf expressed his condemnation and condolences and pledged his government’s full cooperation.
Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.
In light of the events of today, the United States government is working with partner countries around the world to protect our personnel, our missions, and American citizens worldwide.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.

Except Christians,especially Catholics and anyone ever described as a fundamentalist...

 

[Master Dan]

Statement on the Attack in Benghazi


Press StatementHillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State

Washington, DC

September 11, 2012

---

I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi today. As we work to secure our personnel and facilities, we have confirmed that one of our State Department officers was killed. We are heartbroken by this terrible loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who have suffered in this attack.
This evening, I called Libyan President Magariaf to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya. President Magariaf expressed his condemnation and condolences and pledged his government’s full cooperation.
Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.
In light of the events of today, the United States government is working with partner countries around the world to protect our personnel, our missions, and American citizens worldwide.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Except Christians,especially Catholics and anyone ever described as a fundamentalist...

Don I am lost? I wish you would talk more about we should have been better prepared for this where was the CIA warnings of impending violence? Our government is not saying its ok to denigrate the religion of anyone and they are upholdig the Constitution so your comment must mean you are against FREE SPEACH????? BUT I CNT SPEEEELLLL SO NO WRRREEEESSSS

 

[Big Don]

[h=1]

I wish you would talk more about we should have been better prepared for this where was the CIA warnings of impending violence?

No Record of Intel Briefings for Obama Week Before Embassy Attacks
[/h]by Wynton Hall 12 Sep 2012, 8:47 AM PDT
BIGPEACE Excerpt:

[h=2]According to the White House calendar, there is no public record of President Barack Obama attending his daily intelligence briefing--known as the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB)--in the week leading up to the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Cairo and the murder of U.S. Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American members of his staff:[/h] 9/6/2012- http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-09-06
9/7/2012- http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-09-07
9/8/2012- http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-09-08
9/9/2012- http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-09-09

9/10/2012- http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-09-10

END EXCERPT
Gee, maybe if he wasn't too busy campaigning to have a security briefing or meet with world leaders...

 

[Big Don]

For me, skipping a single briefing, this close to the anniversary of September 11th, because he is campaigning, is Fwording disgraceful.

 

[arnisador]

Romney's attack on Obama on the very day of the deaths was reprehensible. Politics stops at the water's edge.

I'm sure someone was monitoring the world situation. It isn't the first time a president has traveled (or campaigned).

 

[Big Don]

Romney's attack on Obama on the very day of the deaths was reprehensible.

Almost as reprehensible as Obama's denying Netanyahu's plea for a meeting so he could go campaigning?

Politics stops at the water's edge.

It doesn't for Obama when he campaigns overseas...

I'm sure someone was monitoring the world situation. It isn't the first time a president has traveled (or campaigned).

Really... Yeah, someone was, but, it is OBAMA's DUTY.

 

[WC_lun]

Don, you haven't a clue as to what the president was told or not told. Do you really think because he isn't in the office that he isn't revieving constant updates that would be deemed important? President Obama once said during a crisis while he was campagning (I don't remember which one) that "America has one President. That man is George Bush and so I will defer to him as the voice of our country at this time." Seems Romney did not have the class to make a similiar statement or the facts to make the statement he did. Oboma looked like a President during this mess. Romney looked like a man with an increasingly desperate campaign and little foriegn policy knowledge.

 

[billc]

As to the embassy defenses on 9/11...

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/12/report-u-s-consulate-in-benghazi-had-no-marine-protection/

The consulate where the American ambassador to Libya was killed on Tuesday is an “interim facility” not protected by the contingent of Marines that safeguards embassies, POLITICO has learned…

A senior administration official Wednesday called the Benghazi consulate “an interim facility,” which the State Department began using “before the fall of Qadhafi.” It was staffed Tuesday by Libyan and State Department security officers. The consulate came under fire from heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at about 10 p.m. local time on Tuesday. By the time the attack ended several hours later, four Americans were dead and three others had been injured.
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.

​

There’s not even a pretense of an excuse made there. Whether it’s S.O.P. to deploy Marines to “interim facilities” or not, this was no ordinary facility. It’s an unfortified building in a volatile Muslim city that’s been targeted by jihadis before — and it’s 9/11. Obama had no qualms about sending Marines to Benghazi today to reinforce the building; there’s no reason to think he couldn’t have sent them sooner. So what’s the excuse? Or is he simply counting on the media not to ask him this question? Because if so, I’ve got to tell you — that seems like a smart bet at this point.

Speaking of our concern-troll press corps, here’s Chris Matthews summing up the narrative du jour by insisting that “The tragedy in Benghazi that cost Ambassador Stevens his life unfortunately has been overshadowed by the desperate reach by Mitt Romney to secure political advantage.” Top American diplomat killed by jihadis on September 11th at a consulate with no Marine protection = page two. Romney hitting Bambi hard on it = page one. I’ll leave you with two thoughts. One: Matthews can play dumb all he wants but Romney’s statement about the administration sympathizing with the attackers in Egypt was a perfectly apt way of describing that filthy press release from the Cairo embassy yesterday afternoon. And no, it’s no excuse that the embassy released that statement before protesters stormed the compound later in the day; they emphatically stood by their statement later in the afternoon. Unless Matthews is suggesting that the president can’t be held responsible for official U.S. embassy declarations (special rules for The One, as usual), I don’t know what his objection is.
Two: Since we’re floating in a sea of pious leftist bilge today about politicizing attacks on the U.S., read this Washington Free Beacon report on candidate Obama referring to a specific attack on U.S. troops in July 2008 to criticize Bush on the war. That pattern doesn’t start with The One, either: Philip Klein pointed earlier on Twitter to this 2004 report noting that “On a day when seven U.S. servicemen were killed in a suicide bombing attack in Iraq, [John] Kerry termed the war in Iraq ‘catastrophic.’” Good, hard campaigning on a seminal foreign-policy issue, or disgraceful politicization of American grief? If you’re a concern-troll journalist, the candidate’s party affiliation will get you 95 percent of the way to an answer.

 

[Tez3]

ROFL at anyone still bothered about the President's gift to the Queen! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/7384170/A-gift-fit-for-the-Queen.html

"When Barack Obama gave the Queen an iPod during his state visit last year, some sneered that it was unoriginal. And what’s more, pointed out the news website, The Drudge Report, 'she already has one.’ But, says Coleman, the critics were missing the point.
The iPod came loaded with photos and video of the Queen’s last state visit to America in 2007 as well as film footage from her visit in 1957 and a variety of classic recordings of American show tunes.
'It was a fantastic metaphor for the President himself,’ says Colmean. 'He obviously values function and practicality. It was thoroughly modern, but also thoughtful.’
George W Bush, on the other hand, gave an 'unremarkable’ porcelain bowl and plates and a silver bookmark.
Of course, the Queen never comments on any of the gifts she receives, although her expression sometimes gives the game away, but the Palace has let it be known that she prefers something 'commemorative’ and nothing 'too expensive.’ "

 

[billc]

Yes, politics stops at the waters edge...when a Democrat is the President...

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/12/Flashback-Kerry-Slams-Bush-004

ohn Kerry as the Democratic nominee in 2004 while

on the campaign trail against George Bush: Later, addressing a crowd at a picnic in Racine, W.Va., Kerry devoted almost his entire 27-minute address to a critique of Bush. On a day when seven U.S. servicemen were killed in a suicide bombing attack in Iraq, Kerry termed the war in Iraq "catastrophic." Still later, he referred to it in a statement as "a quagmire," a word often applied to the U.S. conflict in Vietnam. He also blasted the president's record on job creation, health care, energy independence and education.
The Washington Post goes on to say that Kerry kept this up all throughout his day of campaigning.

 

[WC_lun]

That should be a warning to you then, Bill. Remember Kerry lost?

 

[Bill Mattocks]

We have some good military people on this forum and also other people outside the US I would like to hear thier comments.

billcihak's comment on the US Marines not being present is the only one in this thread that goes to the heart of the matter. When I heard about the attack, my first thought was "Oh no! I wonder how many Marines went down trying to protect the Ambassador and his staff?" Turned out none, because they were not there.

That is not the fault of the Marines, we go where we are told. One of our many missions is to protect US assets abroad, including US Embassies and their staff members. We do our jobs; we pay with our lives if we must.

For someone to have skipped that necessary step is an act of utmost dereliction. If it was done for political reasons, I personally would like to see the person responsible for this lapse to be tried, and if found guilty, executed for Treason. Yes, I feel that strongly about it. We cannot protect US citizens if not sent in to do so in the first place.

I do not hope that others will continue to attack US Embassies abroad (as it appears they are), but if they do, I do hope that our US Marines have ROE that allow them to send the terrorists directly to their respective Valhallas. Do not pass 'go', do not collect 200 dollahs. They scale the fence waving signs and carrying weapons, and we hose them down with sustained .50 caliber heavy machine-gun fire from the rooftop. Let them die as they wish. The penalty for attacking US assets is death. Always. Politicians and other scum who tie the hands of our fine military and prevent them from doing exactly what they are designed to do are beneath my contempt.

 

[WC_lun]

It does seem there is some confusion about marines placement and even that security (marines) were not allowed to carry ammunition. I wholely agree if this was the case, that those responsible are held accountable.

There is one thing about your statement though, those who scaled the walls in Egypt and Yemen were unarmed. No staff members were harmed. Both the Yemen and Egypt governments have a lot of egg on thier face from this incident, which may push them to greater cooperate with American interest for a while. How different would that be if Marines mowed down a bunch of unarmed guys? While within our rights because they were coming into what is essentially US territory, it might have been a purposeful call that unless they were armed not to shoot.