US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

[Ghent12]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

I understand, completely. However, I don't dismiss collateral damage easily or casually. Collateral damage is typically taken very seriously by essentially all the actors involved. It is often the observers, such as talking heads, which are the ones that do not take collateral damage seriously.

Believe me, I wish our policies had been different for quite some time. But I am just one vote.

[Raz]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

An ever increasing number of people in the Middle East, now in the millions, think this is exactly what the USA is doing to them. Get it?

+1.

[Raz]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

I understand, completely. However, I don't dismiss collateral damage easily or casually. Collateral damage is typically taken very seriously by essentially all the actors involved. It is often the observers, such as talking heads, which are the ones that do not take collateral damage seriously.

Believe me, I wish our policies had been different for quite some time. But I am just one vote.

If you want to see a change don't "throw away your vote" or money on either of these two RepubliCrat clowns.

Cast it for a Third Party - or write in Ron Paul or Ralph Nader or Dennis Kucinich. And if you like one of their candidates, send them some money.

[radon]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

And although we so casually dismiss "collateral damage", we've killed quite a few innocent people these past years in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen. We're very upset when one of ours is killed; it's headline news. Multiply that among the "barbarians" a few thousand times, without the headlines.

Despite the money and effort used to avoid killing civilians there are always people attempting to draw a parallel between us and those who would deliberately target them.

[Prazak]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

Despite the money and effort used to avoid killing civilians there are always people attempting to draw a parallel between us and those who would deliberately target them.

I'm not drawing moral equivalence between violence intentionally directed at a civilian and violence accidentally directed at a civilian. Just saying when it's your family's wedding that's just been incinerated by drone fire, the effort that went into avoiding that outcome and the lack of intent to produce that outcome is not going to prevent you from hating implacably the power that launched it. And while there's no moral equivalence, there's also far too little anguish about it here in the U.S. We rend our garments at the killing of fetuses and convicted murders; innocent Iraqis and Afghanis, not so much.

[c1ue]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

It seems democracy in Libya has spoken.

GRG55, a question for you:

What do you think of the notion that Saudi Arabia is in some sense abetting the Arab Spring, much as it abet the struggle in Afghanistan against the Soviets, as a way to bleed off the more radical Salafist elements in its own (and nearby neighbors) population?

After all, strictly speaking I don't think the Salafists are necessarily in love with the Saudi regime either.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

I am only familiar with the security protocols in the Persian Gulf. At the USA embassy in the country where I lived the areas outside the embassy building wall itself is under local security. That includes the area outside the compound security wall and the exterior spaces inside the wall of the compound. The interior of the embassy was guarded by US Marines. The use of live ammunition by the Marines has to be given by a higher authority...I understood this to be the Ambassador himself, but I am pretty sure it required consultations with Pentagon and State Dept officials first. I doubt the consular offices have the same high levels of security as the embassies.

What I don't understand in the case of Cairo is why the security wall wasn't equipped with anti-climb provisions. I thought that would be standard practice for any USA embassy with a security wall...

Rules of engagement for US Embassy Marines(as it's the USMC that fulfills that role) would not be in the public domain for obvious reasons. But as you post indicates, one round fired by one Marine is pretty much a guaranteed international incident. So it requires more mature, more experienced, better vetted, and better trained Marines.

They would also likely possess a number of less than lethal options for crowd control, but there's only so many Marines and only so much in the way of tools to deter, but not prevent, being overrun.

There are very good reasons why Marines who serve in the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group are specifically vetted and trained for the job. The legitimate threats they face are quite varied and complex. It's a VERY tough and challenging assignment in some locations.

The Marines have taken casualties over the years serving as Embassy Guards...and they have been taken as well(Iran 79 being an example) or compromised by Soviet era KGB.....and they've had to deal with quite a few incidents not much different from Libya/Egypt over the years.....often involving NEOs(National Evacuation Orders) such as the abandonment of diplomatic missions during crisis and/or evacuation of non-critical dependants.

I've had some limited, short duration, direct involvement in diplomatic mission security and NEO planning, it's a very challenging and complex job.

Regarding the US facilities that were stormed in Libya and Egypt, I'm a bit confused about Egypt as well. Like you, I would have thought the US Embassy there(due to the threat, even with the previous cooperative dictatorship) would have been prioritized to be upgraded to meet the standard achieved with the more recent US Embassy facilities around the world with multiple layers of security and more substantial standoff distances.

As I understand it, the security breach in Libya can be partially explained by it having been a temporary facility as I understand it.

As to Flintlock's point of an AC130 Spectre gunship as an option........with Libya not possessing a functional air force or air defense, it would be a worst case scenario option in a role such as overwatch/presence/surveillance patrol in conducting a NEO and engaging hostile forces, but it would have to truly be worst case scenario as it's violating the sovereignty of another country.

What I'd be most interested in learning is more about the outer cordon security provided by Libyan and Egyptian security forces, as well as the timeframes involved.

Egypt's police/military/intelligence forces would largely be the same at the coalface up to middle management I presume both before/after the Arab Spring...the only big changes would likely be at the senior leadership level I would guess.

Libya hasn't had long to reconstitute it's security forces and I would suspect it as more likely to have accidentally and justifiably dropped the proverbial ball...not so much with Egypt though.

There have been precedents....including the US Embassy in Pakistan burned down in 1979.

[GRG55]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

I happened to be in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain ten years ago when there was an incident at the US Embassy there. In that instance the protesters also managed to scale the outer compound wall and, although they didn't get into the Embassy building itself, they pretty well trashed the compound, including setting fire to most of the automobiles inside the wall, before the security forces got the situation under control. One protester died after being hit in the chest with a rubber bullet.

One of the problems with local security at the perimeter of Embassy compounds is that in almost all instances they are reluctant to to use force against their own countrymen, and they almost certainly won't fire on them. That strikes me as one of the reasons that the outer security seems to collapse so readily in these situations...

[Thailandnotes]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

On Stevens...

On Wednesday night, residents of both Tripoli and Benghazi staged demonstrations to condemn the attack and express their sorrow at the loss of Mr. Stevens. Stationed in Benghazi during the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi, Mr. Stevens, who was fluent in Arabic and French, had become a local hero for his support to the Libyan rebels during their time of greatest need. Benghazi residents circulated photographs online of Mr. Stevens frequenting local restaurants, relishing local dishes, and strolling city streets, apparently without a security detail.

On Wednesday, some friends of Mr. Stevens suggested that his faith in his bond with the people of Benghazi may have blinded him to the dangers there. “Everybody liked him,” said Mr. Baja, who ate breakfast with Mr. Stevens on Tuesday. “He is a good man, a friendly man, he knows lots of the sheiks in town and a lot of the intellectuals have spent some good times with him.”

[touchring]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

An ever increasing number of people in the Middle East, now in the millions, think this is exactly what the USA is doing to them. Get it?

Of course, and now they blame America for letting the Syrians be slaughtered by the Alawites.

[Slimprofits]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

Who else are we trying to placate?

Obama admin. says they have been trying to placate many people in the Middle East.

[don]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

THE ROVING EYE
Brother Obama, where art thou?
Pepe Escobar

MENA (Middle East/North Africa) is on fire. The diffuse rage - even if manifested by a tiny minority - is distinctly anti-American. Protests in Cairo have reached Sanaa in Yemen and even Bangladesh. The administration of US President Barack Obama is perplexed beyond belief. There will be revenge. What's really going on?

It does not matter whether that infamous, crude, made-in-California anti-Islam and anti-Prophet Muhammad flick - actually financed/produced by an Egyptian Christian Copt and American protestants, instead of a non-existent Jewish real-estate developer - was just a pretext that led to the killing of the US ambassador in Benghazi and the protests in Cairo and beyond. Let's try to identify the consequences.

The militia ballet
The strategic target of the Salafi-jihadis who killed the US ambassador in Benghazi was to torpedo the (already shaky) Obama-Muslim Brotherhood alliance.

Imagine if that had happened in Syria - or with a visiting US diplomat to Iran, for example; Pentagon-based revenge already would be in effect. US consulates were never attacked when Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was in power in Libya; it happened under the watch of a "NATO rebel" regime fully sponsored by Washington.

Libya is now militia hell - from neighborhood-watch outfits to mini-armies. They won't disarm. They refuse to be part of government security forces because their logic is tribal. They're fighting one another. No weak central government in car-bomb-infested Tripoli will rein them in.

Another way to put it is that "liberated" Libya is now warlord country. Home of vendettas in the desert and tribal pogroms against other tribes - and even whole towns.

The Salafi-jihadis - with whom Washington, London and Paris were unashamedly in bed during their humanitarian bombing campaign - are based in Cyrenaica, eastern Libya. Some have come from Iraq. Some are shuttling back and forth to and from Syria, aiming to destroy yet one more secular Arab republic.

They include the heavily armed gang that attacked the US consulate - the self-described Imprisoned Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades, which surfaced only four months ago. Three months ago, hundreds of AK-47-equipped Salafi-jihadis held Benghazi hostage demanding sharia law.

The (disintegrated) police and army of "liberated" Libya could not possibly face them down. Local tribes don't care. Salafi-jihadis have been attacking Sufi mosques and tombs; Sufi Islam is infinitely more moderate - and intellectually sophisticated - compared with medieval Wahhabism.

The training camps are near Derna - which has a history of being a top source of al-Qaeda-style jihadis, especially active in occupied Iraq. This does not mean all the Salafi-jihadis are affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM); it's a much more local Libyan affair.

Anyway, by now Derna must be under watch, millimeter by millimeter, by Obama's drones. Hellfire missiles will be raining down over Derna in no time. There will be collateral damage. No one will shed a tear.

As much as Salafi-jihadis are a minority in Libya, they are a highly motivated, trained and weaponized minority. They won't go down quietly. They will react if the Obama administration goes for all-out droning and a Hellfire feast; they will attack the weak central government in Tripoli. Somalization looms.

It's Hellfire time
Egypt is a much tougher, nuanced proposition - because it's the model for the uneasy Washington-Muslim Brotherhood (MB) love affair, with the US betting on moderate Islamists as provisional substitutes of friendly dictators of the Hosni Mubarak kind. A complicating factor is that Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is in direct competition with local Salafis - who got 25% in the congressional elections. So the MB won't be very forceful in denouncing them - even though they are hated by the Salafis.

There's virtually nothing the Obama administration can do to pressure Morsi. He has been extremely cunning - playing the US, the House of Saud and Qatar against one another. Whatever happens, the brief honeymoon between the Obama administration and the MB is destined to sour. The only regional actor to savor this will be Israel - which detested the honeymoon in the first place.

The Obama administration was forced into this dead-end because - foolishly, one might stress - it has been playing the sectarian card, aligning itself with the medieval House of Saud and cunning mini-superpower Qatar, key protector of the MB, but also with all sorts of Salafi-jihadism, especially in Syria. All this to ultimately defeat the self-described "axis of resistance" - Iran-Syria-Hezbollah - whatever it takes. It takes facing repeated instances of blowback all across MENA and beyond.

So what is Obama to do? The cosmically mediocre Mitt Romney accused him of being weak in the face of "terra-rists", but Romney is a foreign-policy pigmy, whose neocon-instilled agenda boils down to treating both Russia and China as enemies and bombing Iran. The Republican Party simply has no clue of what's going on in MENA.

Not that Obama has much to rely on. The old, cozy, dictator-led order has collapsed after Tunisia and Egypt. Washington is being kicked out of Iraq. Obama himself cannot position Egypt as an ally or a threat. What's left is to drone - somebody, anybody - to death. Send the marines. Deploy some warships. Display some military muscle. And hope for the best.

The last thing Obama needs now is to gloat over his success in finishing off al-Qaeda, or to get embroiled in a messy Arab Spring debate. If, as stellar pollster Nate Silver attests, he has an 80% chance of winning re-election, all he has to do is to calculate each and every move to prevent any serious controversy. After November, it's another story. The US may even develop a sound, coherent MENA policy.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NI15Ak01.html

[Thailandnotes]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

new yorker...



Were the attacks on the United States Consulate in Benghazi, which killed the American Ambassador and three other diplomats, motivated by the film that the assailants, and many news networks, claim was their motive? Was it really religious outrage that made a few young men lose their heads and commit murder? Have any of the men who attacked the consulate actually seen the film? I do not know one Libyan who has, despite being in close contact with friends and relatives in Benghazi. And the attack was not preceded by vocal outrage toward the film. Libyan Internet sites and Facebook pages were not suddenly busy with chatter about it.

The film is offensive. It appears that it was made, rather clumsily, with the deliberate intention to offend. And if what happened yesterday was not, as I suspect, motivated by popular outrage, that outrage has now, as it were, caught up with the event. So, some might say, the fact that the attack might have been motivated by different intentions than those stated no longer matters. I don’t think so. It is important to see the incident for what it most likely was.

No specific group claimed responsibility for the attack, which was well orchestrated and involved heavy weapons. It is thought to be the work of the same Salafi, ultra-religious groups who have perpetrated similar assaults in Benghazi. They are religious, authoritarian groups who justify their actions through very selective, corrupt, and ultimately self-serving interpretations of Islam. Under Qaddafi, they kept quiet. In the early days of the revolution some of them claimed that fighting Qaddafi was un-Islamic and conveniently issued a fatwa demanding full obedience to the ruler. This is Libya’s extreme right. And, while much is still uncertain, Tuesday’s attack appears to have been their attempt to escalate a strategy they have employed ever since the Libyan revolution overthrew Colonel Qaddafi’s dictatorship. They see in these days, in which the new Libya and its young institutions are still fragile, an opportunity to grab power. They want to exploit the impatient resentments of young people in particular in order to disrupt progress and the development of democratic institutions.

Even though they appear to be well funded from abroad and capable of ruthless acts of violence against Libyans and foreigners, these groups have so far failed to gain widespread support. In fact, the opposite: their actions have alienated most Libyans.

Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was a popular figure in Libya, and nowhere more than in Benghazi. Friends and relatives there tell me that the city is mournful. There have been spontaneous demonstrations denouncing the attack. Popular Libyan Web sites are full of condemnations of those who carried out the assault. And there was a general air of despondency in the city Wednesday night. The streets were not as crowded and bustling as usual. There is a deep and palpable sense that Benghazi, the proud birthplace of the revolution, has failed to protect a highly regarded guest. There is outrage that Tripoli is yet to send government officials to Benghazi to condemn the attacks, instigate the necessary investigations and visit the Libyan members of the consulate staff who were wounded in the attack. There is anger, too, toward the government’s failure to protect hospitals, courtrooms, and other embassies that have recently suffered similar attacks in Benghazi. The city seems to have been left at the mercy of fanatics. And many fear that it will now become isolated. In fact, several American and European delegates and N.G.O. personnel have cancelled trips they had planned to make to Benghazi.

And these far-right groups that feign religious and moral outrage are being very deliberate in their progress. They have turned a blind eye to what can be argued are conservative Libyans’ more traditional concerns. They have said nothing, for example, about the widespread consumption of drugs and alcohol among Libya’s youth, about the young men who fill Tripoli’s costal cafés late into the night, descending into hopeless states of intoxication before every weekend. This is not an oversight but intentional. Infringing on the freedoms and fun of young people would provoke too much anger and, more crucially, lose the extreme right the support of their main target audience: young men. Like Benito Mussolini’s Milan fascio in nineteen-twenties Italy, Libya’s far right knows that it cannot rule through violence and fear if it does not have the young and strong on its side.

So instead they have focussed on easy targets: architecture, women, and, now, America, or, more abstractly, the West. They demolished landmarks, claiming them to be unreligious; demanded that women be banned from cafés; and now, because of a film almost no one has seen, they have attacked symbols of the American state. But perhaps this latest assault is their most cunning. Not only because it involved the loss of four innocent lives but also because it is trying cynically to capitalize on legitimate grievances.

It is not unusual to see in city squares or outside shops in Benghazi the American flag along with that of France and Turkey and Qatar, countries that, albeit almost never without ulterior motives, helped Libya’s revolution. Yet notwithstanding that sincere gratitude, many Libyans continue to associate America, because of its actions in Iraq and Afghanistan and its defense of Israeli policy, with violent imperial pursuits and double standards.

So far, at least, it appears that the attack on the American consulate has backfired. But that might change. Following a demanding revolution and the exuberances of victory, Libya has entered a phase of fatigue and cynicism. The happiest people seem to be the old and the middle-aged, those whose lives had been most affected by Qaddafi’s repression and who are now basking in vindication. The young, however, who form the majority of the population and who are the intended audience for the far right and its violent acts, are impatient, angry, and resentful. Whether secular or religious, they are pissed off. Theirs is an almost existential grievance toward history. If they are not engaged, if their energies and grievances are not attended to, then the road ahead might prove very difficult indeed. And a Libyan version of Milan fascio might yet take hold.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz26RgFtrkC

[flintlock]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

Last time I checked, humans are humans.

Your comment reminds me of Rumsfeld's quip about the "humanity of smart bombs" as the US military started to rain down explosives on the civilians of Baghdad. Hell of a way to look for "weapons of mass destruction".

If you don't try to understand why they are attacking your Embassies and consulates, you shouldn't be surprised when they once again bring this war back onto American soil. And they will.

I agree. It seems to be taboo in the US to even discuss WHY these things occur. I think its obvious that at least a strong minority of people in these Middle Eastern countries do not like the Western presence there. The so called Muslim radicals could not hope to gain the strength they have without at least some popular support. At times it seems as if the US could care less if they were wanted there or not. No doubt there are factions that do and factions that do not. This will all take some time to sort out and my guess is the scenario will ultimately play out with a smaller Western presence in the Middle East. But there will be a lot of blood shed in the mean time.

[flintlock]

Re: US ambassador to Libya ‘killed’ in rocket attack

How do we know? Just we we send CIA into other countries to get the 'dirty work' done, how do we know it is not the Egytians or Iranians or ???

And as to 'free speech', well, we seem to have our own issues within our own borders nowadays when Occupy protesters get arrested and charged as 'low-level terrorists' and former vets get 'arrested' and locked up in psych wards with no due process.

Just as we see those in the ME as a bunch of backward Koran nutty kooks, they see us as corrupt, god angering infidels. different strokes for different folks. I personally wonder what the US response will be when we 'infidels' get attacked with small drones ourselves, built with off the shelf parts, and piloted by GPS with small but lethal payloads into critical infrastructure.

Yes, it truly is a strange world.



I often wonder exactly WHAT the Obama foreign policy is... Which 'bad guy' is 'our bad guy' thus making him a 'good guy'. There seems to be no overall concept of what to do in the ME from the Obama Admin whatsoever.

The Obama foreign policy seems to be kick the can. No need to rock the boat this close to an election. Politicians in general don't like to pick sides until they can see a clear winner. This situation seems to remain very muddy.