Wednesday night, one day after the 9/11 anniversary protests/attacks in Cairo, Egypt and Benghazi, Libya, I wrote about a September 6, 2012 memo issued by the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), part of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security under the U.S. Department of State...
...in retrospect the memo is an embarrassing reminder of how the United States and its overseas embassies were caught flat-footed on Tuesday. The phrasing of the last sentence of the memo ("these concerns are the result of increased media attention to the issue, rather than credible evidence" [emphasis mine]) could have even inspired complacency with its rather glib assessment of the potential threat.
There is now evidence that someone at the State Department drew the same conclusion about the memo, because as of today, it is no longer listed on the OSAC website.
Since then, of course, the Libyan government and other sources have indicated that the State Department was indeed warned of the possibility of 9/11 anniversary attacks.
It is plainly obvious that we have not been getting straight answers from Obama officials about what they knew and when they knew it about the dangers facing our consulate in Benghazi and throughout the region. It may be deception, or they may be so incompetent they still don’t know.
There is credible information that there were warnings of trouble to come, and 9/11 itself should have put a consulate in a dangerous section of Libya on high alert with substantial protection afforded the Ambassador. The story told by Susan Rice and Jay Carney the attack was spontaneous is becoming laughable.
There also is evidence emerging that the Ambassador was left with minimal protection... In essence, the Obama Administration tasked an unarmed British firm with security responsibilities that should have been handled by armed American servicemen, and it was all approved by the Secretary of State. Needless to say, the plan failed and an Ambassador was murdered, along with several others.
The cover-up is underway. It will be up to new media to continue to unpeel the layers of this story, since antique media is asleep at the wheel.
3 comments:
Stevens thought he was safe
09/14/12 - The DiploMad
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[edited, emphasis added] This feckless policy of one-sided engagement and self-abasement, of willingness to dismiss the crazies' public utterances, and the insistence on emphasizing the positive, will only get our citizens murdered here and abroad, our diplomats dragged through the streets, our embassies burned, and our flag used as a door mat. Weakness by us inspires craziness in them.
Ambassador Stevens, whom I knew slightly, thought he was safe with and loved by the people he helped "free" from Qaddafi; he saw himself as a new Lawrence of Arabia, and instead ended up as a new Charles George "Chinese" Gordon of Khartoum.
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Very nice catch, Doug. The security at Benghazi was a scandal on its face. This is something the media should be in a feeding frenzy over. Unfortunately, like so many other outrageous acts by Obama and his staff, the media will only yawn.
From Legal Insurrection, quoting Breitbart:
http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/09/the-emerging-scandal-of-what-happened-in-libya/
ccording to a source close to Breitbart News and high up in the intelligence community, the Obama administration’s policy following Muammar Gaddafi’s death has been to keep a “low profile” during a chaotic time.
For this reason, according to the source, American Marines were not stationed at the U.S. embassy in Tripoli or the American mission in Benghazi, as would typically have been the case. In the spirit of a “low profile,” the administration didn’t even want an American company in charge of private security. Blue Mountain, the British firm the State Department hired, was willing to abide by the “no bullets” Rules of Engagement (ROE), so were a logical fit for the contract. These sub-standard protections for American diplomats were signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the ROE.
In essence, the Obama Administration tasked an unarmed British firm with security responsibilities that should have been handled by armed American servicemen, and it was all approved by the Secretary of State. Needless to say, the plan failed and an Ambassador was murdered, along with several others.
As of now, the State Department has not disclosed the full State Department Rules of Engagement for Libya.
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